Witchcraft

Part 1

I drew in a deep breath. The smell of sage and smoke filled the air and my lungs. Dawns hands grew cold in mine as she muttered the incantation. I opened one eye as she groaned in dread and dropped my hands.
"What did you do wrong now?" I uncrossed my legs and stretched out my back. Dawn ran one hand through her long raven black hair and traced her fingers down the old spell book.
"Phoebe if you keep interrupting my thinking we'll never get the spell right." I rolled my eyes. This happened every single time. I stood and started to snuff out the candles that surrounded the salt circle.
"Dawn this was cute when we were little but now it's just getting old. It's not even fun anymore." Dawn didn't even look up as she continued flipping through the old spell book. She refused to believe that the stories both of our grandparents had told us weren't true. I sat back down across from her and played with a string hanging off of the bottom leg of my jeans. She rubbed her arm and squinted over her glasses.
"We must be missing something. We have to be." She adjusted the oversized reading glasses and fumbled with the hem of her skirt.
"Dawn please can we just take a break from the trying to do whatever you're trying to do. She shrugged and shooed me away with a dismissive hand.
Here's the deal. Dawn and I are from a diverging blood line. This means we technically have the same great, great, great, great grandmother but that is our only connection. Now this great, great, great, great grandmother was from Salem and family legend says that she was a witch persecuted in the witch trials. Before she died she supposedly broke up the bloodline to make sure that her family magic continued to live on. Family myth also says that to this day the first born daughters of her bloodline are to be born with the gift of magic. Dawn is like my third cousin twice removed and she very much believes in this whole witchcraft thing. We are both first born daughters so she thinks that with practice we can adapt our nonexistent magical skills. I think it's bullshit but that doesn't stop her from dragging me into every spell and ritual she attempts.
I got up from the inner ring of the salt circle and exited the smokey garage. I swung my school bag over my shoulder and skipped away from the house. I stopped at the white picket fence and waited. After 2 minutes of not one sound, a very flustered Dawn ran out of the house with school papers and backpack in hand. I scoffed at her frantic state.
"Happens every time." I smirked and she shoved me over to the other side of the sidewalk while trying to get her school papers into the bag without getting them crumbled and failing miserably.
We headed the rest of the way to school with the raven haired witch believer at my side. Dawn rambled on about magical herbs and ancient spells the entire mile to the old brick building.
The cheery tone and expression left her face and were replaced by a groan as we finally arrived at the big building with a long staircase up to its doors. She rolled her eyes and we made our way up to the school entrance that was guarded by the infamous and terrifying football team. They were the equivalent of Cerberus at the gates of hell.
The quarterback pushed by us and knocked my bag out of my arms. The rest of the team squeezed through the gap their quarterback had created between us and glared us into submission.
"Hey Alex do you mind!?" I dipped to the ground to pick up my books as Dawn attempted to stand up for us. Small town gossip was cruel and after many incidents involving attempted witchcraft, Dawn and I were the girls that were picked on and shamed for our "stupidity" and "childish ways."
This exact situation happened very often so I had gotten used to it yet Dawn glared at the boys in white on blue letterman jackets. Alex Donnell, the football captain and main jerk, bent down close to Dawn and met her glare.
"Nope I don't mind." Then something else seemed to catch his eye. He shouldered past Dawn towards a boy with a charcoal colored beanie and a black hoodie. His snow white hair poked out from under the grey beanie and allowed his jade green eyes to glow against his pale skin and otherwise monochrome presence. I had never seen him before but he was undeniably gorgeous.
Alex ran up to the new kid, throwing an arm around his neck and over his shoulder. With his other hand he tore the beanie off of the boys head and made a break for it. The newbie would be ruthlessly picked on for the next month or so.
Next I noticed Annie Faster, head cheerleader and main bitch of the squad, eyeing him. She leaned over to whisper something into her friends ears. They all giggled and not so casually walked by the new kid in a giggling and waving parade. Funny, he didn't seem like her type. Yet she's popular at this school for playing with feelings and hearts. Maybe that's what she was planning.
The cheerleading squad stood out in their white and blue cheerleading uniforms even as they joined the crowd of students packing into the schools front doors.
I cast my focus back to the new boy and met with the undeniable fact that that he was staring at me. He looked like he was sizing me up exactly like I had just sized him up. He made his way up the school stairs not the least bit bothered about the whereabouts of his beanie, the idiots who stole said beanie, or the cheerleaders that every other guy at this school would have died to be waved at by.
My eyes widened and I started to blush as he walked by and winked. I tucked my shoulder length auburn hair behind one ear and kept my eyes on him until he entered the brick building and disappeared in the flood of students. I turned back to Dawn who was grinning like a fool. I frowned as she starting to bat her eyes and balanced her head on her clasped hands.
        "You like him." She sang the remark and then skipped up the steps without a moments hesitation. I grabbed my bag and followed her into the chaotic school building.
The bell shrieked telling students to "GET THE HELL TO CLASS!" Dawn and I only then parted and headed to our separate home rooms. The school board had learned that us being in the same class was a bad idea when we were merely pesky 9th graders only 2 years before now. I was into the whole "we might be witches" thing back then and long story short we set a textbook on fire during the teachers morning lecture. We haven't been in the same class ever since.
        I slid into my seat and fixed my gaze outside the window. The second thing that the textbook incident brought us was the fact that no one really liked Dawn and I. Glancing at the empty seat next to me reminded me of this. No one ever sat there. Alex and two of his goons entered the room in excitement created just to annoy the rest of the class.
        "Hey Phoebe!!" He rushed over to the empty desk and sat next to me. He leaned in to me and whispered.
        "Mind if I sit here?" He raised an eyebrow and smirked waiting to see if I would stand up for myself this time. He grabbed and twisted one of my auburn curls. A sudden wave of defiance hit me. I snatched the curl away from him and pushed my chair away from his taunting group of jocks.
        "Aren't idiots supposed to sit in the back of the class?" I cocked my head and plastered a fake smile on my face. A chorus of the class joining in on humiliating Alex sang words like, "burn" or just a simple yet long, "oooh." He muttered a string of profanities and shoved his sidekicks to the only empty seats in the very back of the class.
        "Told you I was right." The entire class burst out in hysterical laughter while the momentarily defeated jocks took their seats in the back of the class.
        The room fell into silence as the science classroom door clicked closed. It was the new kid. His beanie had been returned to him by some grace of god and was pulled down over his hair. He surveyed the room with intense disapproval. He glanced at every face and scoured the room for an empty seat. Just then Annie pulled the cheerleader sitting next to her up by the collar of her letterman jacket and shoved her towards another empty seat.
        "There's a seat over here." She waved her manicured hand, batted her ice blue eyes, and flashed him the smile that melted every guys heart.
        However to her intense displeasure and shock he didn't take a second look at Annie and her short skirted friends but instead kept his gaze on me as he slid into the empty seat at my desk. I scooted my chair as close to the cold, white painted plaster wall as I could.
        The boy kept his eyes on me and I couldn't help but blush as he rested his head on the table, his head tilted up towards me. He spent most of the class like this. In fact he spent every spare moment of the day like this. Just staring at me like he was trying to make a decision. The last bell shrieked telling  students to, "GET THE HELL OUT OF CLASS!"
I gathered my belongings and tripped out of the classroom doors once the initial flood of students thinned. I never payed attention to where I was going but usually everyone just flowed around me. However this time, I crashed into the new kid. He seemed initially annoyed but once he saw it was me his annoyance subsided and he instead adopted a very serious look.
        "Ok seriously what is it with you!?" He tilted his head and snatched my wrist. He pulled me through the crowd and out the back doors of the school leading into the gym.
"What the hell is wrong with you!?" I muttered the question as he kept staring down at me. He kept his hand clasped on my wrist even as his gate slowed. We stood in the center of the empty gym.
"I know who you are and what you are. Seeming how you don't sense that we're the same, I know more about you than you do." His hand tightened around my wrist as I tried to pull away from him.
"What the hell?"