I kept staring at that book on my nightstand, the black one, Beginner’s Guide to Magick. Had my hands really glowed red? Did I imagine that? I kept feeling like I couldn’t leave without the book so I shoved it into my Jansport.

“What did you fall asleep with a candle or something?” Mom kept asking and I kept shrugging and staring out at the rain sprinkled mirror, smeared with streaks of lights.

“There’s no way a fire like that couldn’t happen out of nowhere,” she said.

“Agreed.”

Rain tapped softly at the window panes. We sat in the dim light of the kitchen.

“So how did it happen? There’s something you’re not telling me?”

“My hands glew red and then a fire developed where my hands were,” I told her.

She just sat blinking at me for a few seconds and I thought she would have a witty retort and tell me to stop being smart, but she just kept staring at me with awe.

“Just kidding,” I said. And she looked really relieved.

“Don’t fucking play me like that,” she said, running her manicured hands throughout her stringy curly hair. A bit frizzy and not as luscious as it normally was. I wanted to ask her about Mr. Delacruz but I didn’t know how. So we exchanged looks until I got up to go sleep on the couch.

And she was still staring at me like I grew a horn on my head.

“What?” I said.

“Is there….something you need to tell me? Something important?” she asked.

“Like what?” I asked.

She shrugged.

“Anything else interesting that’s happened to you?” she asked.

And then I was starting to think she knew about Rowdy being out of jail and what was he saying about me and what was he saying about what happened last summer. I couldn’t stop the sick feeling I felt, imagining my head in Clemm’s lap again not much fabric between my cheek and his cock while he softly stroked my hair.

Good girl, he’d said like I was a dog.

My fingers pressed into my palms as I gripped my hands into fists at my side. Every time I thought about him, I felt so disgusted and angry over something he did to me that I could barely remember.

“No,” I said, dismissively. And my mother was in the legal world, she knew people, she could be the only one who could help me to bring Clemm down. It didn’t help though, that she worked for Clemm’s dad, that Clemm’s dad was touching her back last night. Clemm’s dad who was married to a pretty drop dead gorgeous French model who now ran a beauty supply boutique in town.

You could be lovely. The sign said in the door. I saw it every morning as I skated by. I’d never been in there. But I saw, Clemm’s mom flipping the sign over from closed to open as we skated by. We made eye contact and for the first time, her gaze held. These Dawsons when they looked at you it was always as if you were unimportant, it was always as if you were a roach like they called you. But now, it seemed, they were starting to notice me, they were all looking up at me as I passed.

What, did I suddenly grow horns? It was even worse as I passed the courthouse, second home to the Dawsons. Every single one of them stopped to look. What was wrong with me? I checked my nose for boogers. No, I was fine. The second I got to school, I ran to the bathroom, to stare into the mirror see if I had pink eye or something that caused people to stare at me but I looked the same.

Standing in the hall next to my locker, one of the first few times that I was in school before the bell ring, watching the flush of students leak down the hall. There were only some who noticed me, looked up at me like I was a gangly little insect. Others kept to disregarding my existence. Mainly the really rich Dawsons, the well-known ones in town. And on cue, as I was thinking this, the troublesome Trio came down the hall not even trying to be subtle as they stared at me. Nose curled as if they smelled something foul. The bell rang and everyone scattered. I threw myself into chemistry for the first time glad to be there. Laurette stared with no abandon at the side of my face.

“What?!” I growled at her. She didn’t respond, just kept staring.

The teacher started writing equations on the board. I fully absorbed myself into balancing elements. Actually caring to do well when an announcement came over the speaker.

“Will Miss Charlotte Ramsey Lemmings come to the principal’s office?”

And they always said my full name like it was some sort of royal title. At my old school, it was just Charlotte Ramsey or Charlotte Lemmings, they’d pick two of the three names. I was glad to leave, didn’t even bother to pack my things, just picked up my bookbag and books all in one heap and crammed out of the classroom, shoving my back against the door and pushing my way out.

Again with the staring as I went to the office, the receptionists all eying me like I’d done something wrong. There were three other kids waiting so I figured it would be a moment, I almost had my butt on the scratched wooden chair when they called me in. I didn’t even have a chance to get my shit together, and my stuff in my backpack.

Mr. Gregory Riley, the school headmaster, a rather proper old man who had elbow pads on his tweed jackets looking like the perfect example of academia. I’d never encountered him before, just during school assemblies and seeing him walk into his office. I tried to gauge the situation by the look on his face, remembering that I tried to bust open Clemm’s nose open the other day. Did anyone see me?

My palms started to feel sweaty, I shoved my shit all onto the chair next to me.

“So,” Mr. Riley said, looking up at me from beneath his horn-rimmed glasses, “How long have you known you were magick?”