Chapter 4.
It was the weekend. Finally. Time to relax. Until Max arrived at my door.
"Hey, hey, hey!" He practically skipped through my door and let himself fall on my bed. "Guess who bought the world's best movie to watch! Prepare to go back to the future."
What?
"What….are you talking about?" I can tell this is going to be a long day. I'm standing in the doorway to my bathroom staring at Max who is lazily dressed in sweat pants and a black low cut shirt.
"Back to the future! I bought the movie so we can watch the DeLorean skip through time and stuff, you know." Actually I didn't.
"Is this another one of those Quidditch things you wont stop talking about? I mean, I'm not a witch or nothing so…"
"No, no it isn't. And don't slam Quidditch, or I will have to leave." As much as I liked teasing him about his habits of getting attached to movies, I would like the company.
"Right, whatever, since you're the resident fangirl in the place, which is the better Back to the future movie?" I slumped over and sat on the edge of the bed just as he sat up to look at me.
"Now you're talking" he said, adding a wink at the end.
So I'm spending the day watching stupid movies about some science guy with his dog going to the future only to mess it up and some other retro dude going back to the past. Which makes no sense considering this is titled, Back to the Future. But I sit here with Max and it's nice. It's peaceful. Especially with the craziness through school lately. When the movie ends, we head over to the feeders.
"Hey, did you hear about the party Amy is throwing tomorrow night?"
"Yeah, I did, are you going?" Honestly a party is the last thing I want to go to, so if he is going, he is going by himself.
"Nah, I wasn't going to go without you and I know you aren't going" I give a slight laugh at his response. I turn to give him a smile and his eyes brighten when I do. I've missed that little sparkle.
The rest of the weekend was calm. It's nice just to spend time with Max without worrying about schoolwork or assignments or mysterious visions, speaking of which I haven't had any in the last few days. And then I'm back to class. Ancient poetry is one of my blow off classes. Only picked to do minimal work, little did I know how much they would actually made me do. I'm kind of glad there isn't any of Thou art Shaketh spear in this class or I would have just transferred completely. I suppose it's not that bad if you don't count all the writing.
I'm scribbling in my book and I can hear people behind me whispering and giggling, I can't make out what they are saying though. I lean back in my chair, cross my arms and sigh. If only words can write themselves down. My hands hurt from writing a lot, I'm exhausted from magic class. Which was a total dud, might I add. I'm hopeless. I can hardly make bubbles come up in water. Once again I wish schoolwork would just do itself.
Just as I go to go back to my work, I hear whispers around me but they are slightly louder than first ones I heard behind me. I glance over my arm to see if anyone is talking to me but they aren't. There Is a group of 3 people directly across from me, furiously writing down notes, and two people behind them, rehearsing a poem to one another and there's the couple two seats behind me who look like they could fall asleep. The seat behind me is occupied by what other people might perceive as a well working student, writing her poems, and taking notes. The spot in front of me is empty but I can still hear it.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath and try to concentrate abit more on the words. Its hushed words, I don't understand it. Like it's another language. I end up with a headache and try to push the voices away and get back to my work. As I lean forward I notice black ink, slinking across my page. I have to stop myself from running out of the classroom when I realise it's the notes that are on the board in front of me. That I haven't written down yet. But they are here, on my page, now. I glance around again taking in the people but nothing seems amiss. I return to look at me pink binder book and the black ink is still writing. I watch in awe as well as horror at what is happening on my page.
Just then the bell rings and I snap my book shut. The group next to me give me a weird look at my anger towards my book and walk off to the next class. When everyone is out of the room I slowly open the page up. The writing is still there. I replay the last few moments in my head, I was looking around the classroom at my fellow classmates, I go to do my work and here whispers and then bam, my words are writing themselves. Shoving my books into my bag I head off to the next class.
Thankfully Max is with me this time, I rush up to my seat next to him, my breathing ragged as I try to catch my bearings.
"Jesus, what happened to you? You look like you have seen a ghost and run a marathon."
"My notes wrote themselves." I have to tell him, I have to tell someone.
"Yeah, and my food cooked itself" he laughs at his joke and then turns to me and blanches.
"I'm serious Max" I open my book to the page where my notes were written down. There is no difference in handwriting, it looks as though I've done it myself.
"Not sure what I'm meant to be looking at, do you need help with poetry? I mean, I'm all for helping but I'm not that good at…"
"No, Max, shut up. I'm serious. I was in class and I stopped writing for abit, then I hear these voices and them my work is done. I didn't touch a pen or anything it just started writing." I sound insane.
The look on his face is clear he doesn't believe me.
"Yeah, I'm sure you didn't Ve." I glare at him and he sighs and turns to get his things out for class. What is happening to me? First these vision things, then my book writing its own notes, maybe I should admit myself to an asylum. I take a breath and reassure myself nothing happened. I must have completed it before I stopped, and assumed I was seeing things. That's all that happened. I see Max watching me and give him a small smile which he returns and its back to class.
Lunch time comes round and I'm grateful, I skipped breakfast this morning and my stomach sounds like a whale in heat.
"So how was magic practice? Still having trouble?" My stomach grumbles. "What, in the world, was that?" he stares at me. Yes that was my stomach, please leave the whale alone.
"My stomach, I skipped breakfast this morning, haven't had time to go to the feeders and I'm hungry ok, leave me be. And it was horrible, and yes I'm still having trouble."
"Well, uh, first off, you need to feed whatever is growing in yo…" I glare at him "never mind. I can help you with magic if you want? I mean we are both air users so it can't be that hard, I'll ask Ms Carmack if we can do it in the classroom, yeah?"
"That would be great, thank you."
Max pulls through with his offer and now I'm off to Ms Carmacks room.
"You kids will be ok in here? Please try and leave my classroom intact." She is grabbing the last of her things just as I walk in.
"Yeah, we will be good miss, thanks" She gives me a small nod as she walks past.
"Well, let's get this lesson underway shall we" Max rolls up his sleeves like he's about to start a fight.
"Yes sir" I salute and laugh. We go through the simple stuff first, summoning air and moving it, which I can do but it gets easier each time I do it. Then we move onto harder things, like using air to move someone's arm or leg, and adding air to another element like fire. I have trouble with using air to move max's hand but it twitches ever so slightly which I take as a good sign. It's the adding air to fire thing I have trouble with. There is a small flame flickering from a burner on the table opposite me and I stare at it. I'm concentrating so hard, my brain starts to hurt, and then the voices come again, just like little whispers. Without taking my eyes off the flame, I ask max if he can hear anything, to which he shakes his head and tells me to concentrate more. I'm trying but I can't with these dammed voices in my ears.
I don't even know what I'm concentrating on, if it's either the whispers or the flame but words come through and I still don't know what they mean.
"Altius flamma. Altius flamma. Altius flamma. Altius flamma."
They just repeat and repeat and finally I give up. I let out a heavy breath and put my head in my heads and rub my temples. Now I'm going to need aspirin. I hear a small gasp but I don't really react to it until Max says something.
"Ve," He says slowly, "What are you doing?"
"Rubbing my temples Max, what does it look like, you have me concentrating so damn hard it hurts."
"Ve, look." The shock in his voice is the only thing to draw my head up and what I find completely astonishes me. The flame is levitating. It is no longer attached to the burning but floating just above my head. I stand up and walk around it, completely horrified.
"Max, stop it. You have played your joke now stop it"
"I'm not doing anything, I thought you were." The complete disbelief is visible in his voice and his face. "I think I believe you about the writing"