Breaking Magic

Chapter Eight: Adam

I decided to take a break from working with Mr. Donovan, so I can focus on getting my grades back up instead and maybe come back to our private lessons with a cleared head.

He doesn't argue, and neither does Ms. Cross, but as a few days turn into a week, and that week stretched into another, I can tell that they are getting impatient. I know that any day now they'll demand that I start the lessons back up, but I have no plans on doing that until they make me.

The way I see it, there's no point.

It's the Monday before Thanksgiving break, and there is a four day weekend ahead of me that I fully plan on enjoying as much as possible before I have to head back to St. Bosco's.

I'm going to El's for the holiday, like I do every year, and I'm looking forward to the familiar familial bickering of her siblings; the endless, rather embarrassing concern for my wellbeing that Mrs. Fuentes rains upon me; and the feast that will be presented on Thursday, the leftovers of which will keep us fed until we return to school.

Mr. Fuentes is the accomplished cook in the family, his parents having been restaurant owners when he was young, and rather than the typical turkey and mashed potatoes, his Thanksgiving spread included handmade tamales and tortillas; tamalitos that was always the perfect amount of sweetness; albondigas soup; cranberry sauce--his only concession to "traditional" Thanksgiving fare--made from whole cranberries and cinnamon; thick slices of roasted pumpkin; and for desert, champurrado, which was a thick cocoa drink made of masa and squares of Mexican hot chocolate.

Mr. Fuentes's recipe for champurrado was always too spicy for me・he insisted on adding extra chili powder for ・kick迫but I sucked down mug after mug every year anyways because I couldn't get enough of the thick, almost pudding-like texture.

The thought of that meal was the only thing getting me through the week.

I had managed to pull up my grade to a solid C in Ms. Perry's class, and English Lit had improved a lot since I started letting El proofread my essays before I turned them in. Meditations and Incantations were still living nightmares of course, but I couldn't deal with that. Magic in Media was still the only class I genuinely enjoyed--Astrology didn't count because it was paired with Astronomy--and I took at least a little solace in the fact I was getting an easy B in that class.

But it was nearly the end of November now, and soon it would be Christmas, and then January was just around the corner. February would lead into March, and the next thing I knew it would be spring, and that meant that April and May would rush by as quickly as they always did. Next thing I knew it would be June, and Ms. Cross would demand that I finally make a choice: too stay, or to go.

The thought makes my stomach clench, and I have to remind myself that it's still only November, that I don't have to decide now.

It's lunch time and I'm sitting at a table across from El, poking a fork listlessly at the pasta salad in front of me.

"Just eat it already, for Circe's sake," El snaps. "Skipping meals isn't going to solve anything, and will probably only make it harder for you to concentrate on either your classes or your magic."

I sigh, and push the bowl away from me. "I'm just not hungry."

"You're always hungry."

"Well, I'm not right now," I say, started to get annoyed.

I know she's right, and that I should eat something, but my stomach hasn't stopped churning since the first day of school and I seem to have completely lost my normally insatiable appetite.

"You look awful," El tells me.

"Thanks," I grunt.

"No, I mean worse than usual. Like, really bad. It's like fifty degrees in here but you're sweating right through your shirt, and you positively reek of magic. Now that I'm thinking about it, I don't think I've seen you actually channel anything through your wand in Meditation in the last few days. When was the last time you tried to cast a spell?"