Hawthorn Academy: Year One

by D. R. Perry

  "It looks good on you. Almost as good as when you get competitive on the court."

  I didn't know what to say to that, so I turned away. My face heated up. Alex was mostly a mystery to me, but the one defining feature of our interactions was flattery. Big time. I was out of my depth and wondering whether he knew that.

  "Aliyah Morgenstern, what a surprise."

  "Zeke?" I blinked. The last person I’d expected to see manning the DJ booth was a vampire CNA straight out of the infirmary.

  "The very same." He gave me a half-bow, which was weird coming from a guy wearing scrubs. "How may I help you?"

  "If it's not too much bother, I'd like to request a song. I've heard that's not the way things are done here, but there's something I'd like to try dancing to."

  "It's been decades since anyone's made a request, but it's not unheard of." Zeke nodded. "However, there's a rule here we both must follow regarding the music."

  "Let me guess: I have to select something in three-quarter time."

  "Correct." He nodded. "Although six-eight is also acceptable."

  "Could you please play Somebody to Love by Queen, then?" I wanted to hear this so badly I clasped my hands in front of my chest.

  "But of course." He put on a glove to tap the screen in front of him. Vampire fingers didn’t register on touch screens, and apparently, his rig was digital. "I'll need to set it up, so you'll hear it two songs after this one that's currently playing."

  "Thank you so much."

  "You're quite welcome." He gave us the sort of wave most often seen on parade floats. "Have a lovely evening."

  I turned, heading toward the punch bowl. First, I glanced around, making sure Charity Fairbanks wasn't watching. The last thing I wanted was for her to try to get revenge for the stunt Hal had pulled on Parents’ Night. But she was nowhere to be seen.

  "Let me get that for you. You've got to fix your shoe. Right?"

  "Oh, yeah." I'd almost forgotten about the quick save. Of course, it came back to haunt me since Alex paid more attention to things than he appeared to. I took a seat nearby, turn my back, and took my shoe off. I went through the motions of pretending to knock something out of it.

  You wouldn't have had to lie if your uncle had pulled his gambit off. That pathetic Fairbanks girl wouldn't dare look at you sideways. You'd be related to royalty for real.

  I slipped my shoe back on and stomped it on the floor a couple of times, not because it didn't fit. It was pure defiance of the evil inside voice since I couldn't just come out and say what I was thinking where people could hear. I didn't care one bit about what it said anyway, except the part about lying. Did the voice come from all the deceit I’d practiced? I leaned back in the chair, trying to recall the first time I’d heard it, but came up with nothing.

  I didn't like lying, but unfortunately, it had become part and parcel of my social landscape here at Hawthorn Academy. And at home. No one in my family had any idea I was an extramagus. How did I go from being a girl who loved the truth to somebody living a lie?

  "Here's your punch." Alex sat beside me, handing over a cup. "Drink up before your song comes on."

  "Thanks." I leaned back in the chair and took a sip.

  The beverage wasn't what I expected. It was tangier than any other juice I'd had before, but maybe that was just the punch flavor at Hawthorn. I wouldn't know from experience since I’d left the welcome ceremony early, and the punch had ended up on Charity's head at Parents’ Night.

  Go on and laugh. I know you want to.

  I listened to the music instead of the voice. Alex had a point. We had maybe half a song left before my request played. I didn't hold my nose, but it was a near thing. I needed to chug this punch or risk missing my dance. I held the cup to my lips and tilted, guzzling it down.

  "Whoa, go easy there." Alex glanced at something behind me. His eyes were little wider than usual.

  "Too late." I shrugged and handed him the empty cup.

  "Okay." He’d gotten stiff and awkward all of a sudden, something I never expected to see on him.

  Even on a regular day, Alex was the opposite of a stuffed shirt. He had a rolling gait and a near-constant ease of existence about him in class and at Gym. Practically low-strung. So, I couldn't help but wonder what was going on with him.

  Something moved out of the corner my eyes. I turned my head to see Elanor and Noah standing in the doorway from the hall that led to the bathrooms. She held him by the arm as he struggled to pull away. I hoped they weren’t fighting since she was his best friend, and he'd been extra moody this semester. He needed her. Finally, she shook her head, speaking words that calmed him somehow.

  When Alex returned from disposing of the cups, he immediately took my hand, leading me to the dance floor again. This time he went the long way around, putting distance between Noah and Elanor and us like he was trying to avoid them.

  I was about to open my mouth, ask him what was up. He still looked awfully stiff. My vague and frustrating argument with Dylan sprang back to my mind, and I realized the other person who could answer questions about Noah’s and Elanor's beef with Alex was the boy himself. But it was too late. I heard the clink of a piano as the song began.

  We stepped onto the parquet along with several other couples and even some folks by themselves or in larger groups. Apparently, I had made a popular choice, or maybe it was just that the song felt more upbeat than the others Zeke had played this evening.

  As we danced, the floor got more crowded. It seemed like everyone, even the faculty, joined in. I spotted Professor DeBeer dancing with Coach Chen—not a pair I'd have predicted, but it looked like they had fun. Even Professor Luciano was out there with us, doing something that reminded me for all the world of videos Noah had showed me on the internet of a now-shuttered Goth club down in Boston.

  By the time the bridge played, the part where the incomparable Freddie Mercury sang about how he was going crazy, I felt practically weightless. If it weren't for all the other people on the dance floor, I'd have felt like I was flying. Ember soared overhead, swooping and dipping in the air along with the music, which enhanced that sense. It was dizzying, almost maddening.

  Perhaps you are, in fact, mad. Already. That would be a record, even for an extramagus.

  "No." Oops.

  "What?" Alex blinked, but his feet didn't miss a step.

  "Nothing." All of a sudden, I wanted to get away from him. In my mind's eye, I pushed him away to run off the dance floor and up the stairs toward the sanctuary of my room, but I couldn't. There were too many people there. Familiars, too.

  "You can tell me." He spun us, letting centrifugal force pull us closer together.

  "I can't." The entire situation, this proximity of our bodies, was untenable.

  At least that's true. But you ought to tell him. He might even like it.

  "Stop! Stop already. I can't take this anymore!"

  I didn't scream, but it was certainly loud to Alex, whose ear was next to my cheek. At that point, I didn't think things could get any worse. Glancing up, I saw Dylan staring at me. Grace, too. And Logan looked away from Hailey, furrowing his brow at me. So, I wasn't exactly quiet either.

  Oh, dear, it looks as though I've gone and made a mess. Or rather, you have.

  I looked down, expecting to see the floor on fire or something extremely horrific like that. It wasn’t quite so bad but still qualified as terrible because my hands glowed. With solar energy.

  Not noticeably yet, partly because of the strobing lights but also Alex swinging me out with both of my hands in his. It was about to get worse fast, and if I didn't get out of there soon, the entire school would know my secret.

  "Hold on, Aliyah. You can snap out of this. Come on." He gripped my hands, and I felt energy between us. Not just my solar magic but his poison.

  I wasn’t sure what he expected to accomplish. Solar and poison weren't opposites but not reactive either. So, mingling his energy with mine didn't seem like it’d do much g
ood, but I was wrong.

  I felt lightheaded all of a sudden; my feet got stumbly and my breath shallow. I found myself leaning on Alex instead of dancing with him, like the song was a power ballad instead of pleading gospel. I still wanted out of there. I'd have run, but it was all I could do to keep my balance.

  I had less control, less agency, here with Alex. I was worse than vulnerable, and even though I’d seen it in movies, it just felt wrong. He diminished me somehow.

  The glow started fading from my hands, but the heat remained. Now I wouldn’t reveal my secret as an extramagus, but I did have to worry about setting the dance floor on fire. The poison had gone beyond sapping me of strength to conjure solar. It had lost me control of my fire.

  "Sorry." Alex's jaw dropped. I'd never seen him this emotional before. "I overdid it."

  "It's not your fault. I am what I am." I whimpered, ashamed of the new disaster. "Can’t I go a semester without setting stuff on fire?"

  "At least you didn't let the sunshine in."

  I couldn't move my head without feeling dizzier, so I rolled my eyes to look up at him.

  "I figured it out." He gazed down into my eyes. "I think you're incredible."

  "You won't feel incredible when you catch fire. I should go." I tried to walk away, but I stumbled.

  "Don't." He caught me. He hadn't looked away from my eyes the entire time.

  "Why not?" I'd almost have preferred falling on my face at that point. At least I'd have made the effort to leave.

  "I can fix this, but it's gonna cost you."

  "Anything." All I could think about were my friends and classmates who would get hurt if I couldn't hold back my fire.

  "Okay, then." Alex Onassis tipped my chin up, then bent over me, placing his lips on mine.

  It was my first kiss, which was disappointing. Like I said, I'd only been interested in one guy so far, and it was not Alex.

  As far as kisses went it was fairly tame, at least compared to what I saw on TV and Noah's descriptions. The main purpose in those instances was getting romantic, after all.

  What Alex did was all about banishing his element. I suppose I had that going for me, at least. I can honestly say my first kiss was truly magical, even if not in a fairytale way.

  Some of the fog in my mind and weakness in my limbs eased. Not all of it, but enough of my faculties returned that I could hold back the fire on my own. But that wasn’t the best way to explain it.

  Firsts are important because they shake you out of complacency and make you question the way things are. When the shield of the way things have always been slips, you see truth. Because that kiss wasn't romantic, its effect was entirely unexpected.

  It gave me a major epiphany about my whole magical situation.

  Every time something was unjust or someone got hurt, my fire turned up to eleven. In the cafeteria, I couldn’t abide Charity abusing Faith and bullying Noah.

  Every time I tried to hide myself, I let the sunshine in. That night on the stairs between Bubbe's office and home, I’d had to conceal that obnoxiously persistent solar magic from my whole family.

  Which is exactly why you ought to realize your entire situation is untenable.

  "I'm a ticking time bomb."

  "You just need an outlet." He patted my back. "Some way to use what you're hiding, where only the people who know can see. Otherwise, it'll only get harder."

  "How could you possibly know anything about this?"

  "I'm not like you, but my cousin is."

  "Oh." I sighed, shaking my head. "All the same, I think it's probably for the best if I leave this dance early."

  "Would you like some company?"

  "I don't think so. I'm sorry."

  "I'm not."

  Alex escorted me to the stairs, then waved as I ascended. While nowhere near as triumphant as my exit from Parents’ Night with the rest of my friends, at least this social outing wasn't a total failure. I’d managed to escape with everybody unscathed. Well, almost everybody. Because the last thing I saw as I stepped off the top of the moving staircase was Noah shaking his finger angrily at Alex. I couldn't imagine why, but I was exhausted and not going back down there.

  It was time for a bath and sleep. The last thing I wanted to do in a state like that was to forget self-care. When you're an extramagus, the worst-case scenario is usually total disaster.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Alex was right; I needed to use my solar magic to understand it better, so I practiced in small ways, starting the day after the dance. After that, I could contain it a little more reliably. I still ran the risk of accidentally using it at the wrong time, but it was a more conscious kind of mistake, like grabbing grapefruit juice when you wanted orange.

  How did I practice something this secret?

  I'd taken to turning the lights on and off with my solar magic in the privacy of my own room. I had done it in the bathroom once before too, but Kitty walked in shortly after. That was the end of that.

  So far, I hadn't busted out with it in Lab or anything, and as long as I ran laps before all of our Bishop's Row practices, I didn't seem to have a problem in Gym or practice. All the same, it was on my mind all day, every day.

  Mundane teenagers worried about acne, bad hair days, and not knowing any of the answers to what's on a pop quiz. I got all that and more, and to top it off, Noah was breathing down my neck. Apparently, he had a problem with Alex and me.

  I ended up sort of going out with Alex Onassis. By default, maybe. At the beginning of the year, I couldn't even have told you his last name, and here I was, engaging in an understated sort of couplehood with the last person I expected. Mostly it was no big deal. We walked together in the halls, sat together at lunch. While he didn't have dinner in the lounge with us because of Kitty's Truncheons and Flagons campaign, he visited our booth at the end of breakfast.

  We’d held hands maybe twice since the dance, briefly and awkwardly. And we hadn't kissed since then either, which was a relief for me. Kissing was scary, which meant I wasn’t ready for more. If that bothered Alex, he didn't show it. The whole thing felt like still needing training wheels on a bike.

  Maybe I was being too harsh about it. My parents were my relationship benchmark, and they had serious big love energy. The same was true for Faith and Hal. It'd be unfair to expect something that epic for myself because clearly nobody else had anything like that going on. Not even Grace and Dylan.

  Those two spent a good amount of time together, but their familiars practically ignored each other, which hinted at some sort of tension. And I hadn't seen them show any affection since the night I’d walked in on whatever it was they were doing after winter break. They seemed more connected on the Bishop's Row court than at any other time, but that made sense since they shared athleticism.

  Their new vibe reminded me of how I was with Logan, which was to say, they partnered in Lab, laughed together over Professor Luciano's far-fetched mnemonic study suggestions, and clowned around. Dylan seemed comfortable with it. Grace didn't. She blasted him with longing stares almost every time his back was turned.

  I wanted to talk to my roommate and ask if she was okay. Every time I did, she avoided the subject of Dylan altogether. If I mentioned his name, she made sure the rest of our conversation was all about the tournament, or a quiz, or something cute that Lune did. It wasn’t healthy for her to be silent about what bothered her, so I confronted her in the café one Saturday morning.

  "Look, Grace. I wanted to sit down and touch base." I reached across the table and grabbed her hand. "You're my friend, and I care. How are you doing?"

  "Oh." She blinked, her hand tensing under mine. I couldn't imagine why. "No, I'm hanging in there. I've been talking to the headmaster. He's a licensed counselor."

  "Okay." I nodded, my exhale heavier than usual but not enough to qualify as a sigh. I'd gotten sickeningly good at hiding things. "That's good, then. Do you need anything?"

  "Well, spring break is coming up in a week." G
race stared at the table. "And I'm not going to my aunt's."

  Sometimes, the people who needed help most couldn’t take that extra step and ask for it, so I offered.

  "Do you want to hang around with me in town? I can ask my mom if you can stay over for some of the break. And Passover is next week. Do you want to come to Seder? There's a full dinner but served with only matzo, no bread. It's traditional but fun."

  "That'd be awesome, Aliyah. Thank you."

  She asked about the holiday, and I explained that Passover was about remembering times of oppression and celebrating liberation from them. She asked if there was anything she could bring and I gave her the standard answer: an item that symbolized liberation for her. Our conversation continued on, mostly about class.

  Once again, she avoided the subject of Dylan, who I happen to know was also staying for break. He’d mentioned it before. He’d also told me that over winter break, he and Grace had spent most of their time on campus together. Grace apparently wanted to avoid him this time.

  Maybe it was just being shut up here in the school. The spring weather was much nicer than the frigid temperatures we had at the end of December and beginning of January, and there was more going on in town to boot.

  I guess the whole confrontation/intervention thing was going around like the plague because that same afternoon, Noah knocked on my door. I let him in even though it was an enormous surprise for him approach me in the middle of a weekend day. Either Charity was in New York, or he didn't care what she thought anymore. I hoped it was the latter.

  No such luck.

  "You have to stop seeing Alex." Noah crossed his arms, leaning against the door he’d just closed behind him.

  "You don't tell me what to do." I snorted. "You've barely spoken to me all year at school over practically nothing, and now you're trying to dictate my dating life?"

  "You don't understand, Aliyah." He closed his eyes.

  "Then explain it to me because you coming in here and saying something like that is super rude." And it was, even if I was mostly indifferent about my so-called boyfriend anyway.