Witches & Werewolves: A Sacred Oath (5 page)

 
What will I say to him? What will he say to me? Maybe he will just ignore me and act like nothing ever happened. That would be for the best. I try to keep my head down, focused on my pale green lunch tray. It holds something that looks sort of like beef, with sides of mashed potatoes, peas, carrots and green beans.

 
I try my best to resist the urge, but every now and then I scan the cafeteria looking for him. I am quite relieved not to see him among the throng of students, but I’m also unnerved. Unlike my old school, where we had an A, B, and C lunch—due to the size of the student body—here, we have a single lunch period for all grade levels. By all rights, Ethan should be somewhere in this cafeteria.

 
With all this anxiety, I have zero appetite and can only manage a few bites. It’s okay, I guess. If things continue on like this, I will never have to worry about my weight.

 
My next class after lunch is chemistry. Upon entering, I’m assigned my seat by Mr. Fischer—a puffy, round man wearing a lab coat and thick black glasses. I take my seat behind a tall lab table and wait for the class to begin. The lab table has a black marble top with a stainless steel sink and fixtures in the middle. A propane spigot to fuel the Bunsen burners juts out from the fixture. Within minutes the tardy bell rings and I notice the seat next to me is still empty. Mr. Fischer scans the rows of desks comparing the attendees to his seating chart, mumbling out names to himself as he goes.
 

“Has anyone seen Mr. Storm?” says Mr. Fischer.
 

 
My heart climbs into my throat. I start to sweat. Am I really going to have to sit next to him the entire semester? At least he’s not here today. Maybe I can go to the office after class and get transferred into another time. I exhale and try to calm down. Just then, the door bursts open and Ethan stumbles in.

“Good of you to join us, Mr. Storm,” says Mr. Fischer. “I’ll assume you got lost looking for my classroom, since this is the first day.”

“Uh, yes, sir,” Ethan says.

“Be aware that any further late arrivals to my class this semester will be rewarded with a unit of detention.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” Ethan says.

“Take a seat.”

Ethan glances to the empty chair beside me and our eyes meet. My heart flutters with a shot of adrenaline, and I dart my eyes down to my textbook. From the corner of my eye I see him stroll toward me as I pretend to read. I shift slightly away as I hear the chair clatter against the floor as he pulls it out, taking a seat.

 
“Open your textbooks to chapter one, Atomic Elements and Properties,” says Mr. Fischer. “Everything in this classroom is made up of a combination of elements. The desks, the chairs, the chalkboard, even you…
 
all made up of elements.” Mr. Fischer holds up a pitch black rock. “Can anyone tell me what you have in common with this lump of coal?”

I can feel Ethan staring at me. I tilt even further away, trying not to be too obvious about it.
 

“We didn’t really get a chance to meet,” he whispers. “I’m Ethan.”

 
My body stiffens. Is he really talking to me? Now?
 

“Mr. Storm, perhaps you would like that detention now?” asks Mr. Fischer.

“No, sir,” Ethan says.

 
“Then you better hope you pass this little oral exam, starting with the question I asked when you were flirting with Ms. James.”

 
I can feel my face turned beet red.

“Coal is primarily made up of carbon, with a few secondary elements such as hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, nitrogen. The human body is 18.5% carbon,” says Ethan.

“Without looking at the periodic table, what is the relative atomic mass of carbon?”

“12.0107,” Ethan says.

“And what are the three states of matter?”

“Actually, there are four states of matter: solid, liquid, gas, and plasma.”

 
Mr. Fischer looks completely perturbed. I think he was certain he was going to get to handout that detention.
 

“Talk in my class again, Mr. Storm…”

Ethan nods.

 
“As Mr. Storm correctly pointed out, matter can transform, shifting properties,” Mr. Fischer says. He looks extremely pained to admit Ethan’s correct knowledge. “At room temperature lead is a solid. If we apply sufficient heat, it will melt and become liquid. If we could subtract three protons from its atomic structure, it would become gold.”

Mr. Fischer drones on for the next twenty minutes about protons, neutrons, and electrons. Then he introduces us to the Bunsen burner, and how to operate it. Giving a room of high school students access to a burner, capable of producing a flame that reaches upwards of 1500°, seems a little insane to me. But then again, high school seems pretty ridiculous to begin with.
 

Surely this is going to end badly at some point in the semester. Mr. Fischer tells us how there is always some kid every year who lets too much gas build up before igniting the burner. This results in a small explosion that typically singes off the student’s eyebrows and bangs. Therefore, it is essential to learn to use the striker properly to spark the flame.
 

Mr. Fischer goes on to admonish us of the dangers. If he sees a student letting the gas build up, without striking the burner in a reasonable amount of time, he’s just going to sit back and let the explosion happen. By his reasoning, once a student singes off their eyebrows, they will never let it happen again. “Some people just have to learn the hard way,” says Mr. Fischer.
 

I don’t know why, but this makes me like Mr. Fischer just a little bit, despite my dread of all things math and science related. The thing I don’t like is that I’m going to have to interact with Ethan as my lab partner. This whole tilt my head to the side, hide my face with my hair routine is not going to work for much longer.

 
Mr. Fischer says that this is going to be a hands-on class. Full of activities and experiments designed to illustrate the principles that we will be studying throughout the semester. Today we are going to witness a state change of matter. Today’s lab will be addressing both physical and chemical change, distinguishing the difference between the two.
 

 
We are instructed to gather up supplies for the experiments from the cabinets in the back of the room. Beakers, graduated cylinders, test tubes, tongs, and an evaporating dish. The first experiment is to form a precipitate by combining two solutions. When I return to the table with the equipment, I find Mr. Fischer has set two containers on each table—NaCl (sodium chloride,) and AgNO3 (silver nitrate).

Ethan’s body grows rigid, every muscle is flexed. He seems thoroughly freaked out. It becomes clear that he’s not going to participate in the lab, and that’s fine by me. I follow the instructions, filling a test tube halfway with water. I mix in the sodium chloride until it dissolves completely. Then I take the pipette from the bottle of liquid silver nitrate, hovering the dropper above the mouth of the test tube. Ethan leans back, keeping his distance. Sweat beads on his forehead.
 

 
I squeeze the dropper unleashing the silver nitrate into the test tube. It instantly solidifies when it hits the saline solution—forming a precipitate of silver chloride.
 

I hold the test tube out to Ethan. “Want to see?”

He recoils.

I shrug and set the test tube in a bracket. But as I reach to replace the pipette into the bottle of silver nitrate, my hand knocks the brown bottle over, spilling the fluid across the desk. It splashes Ethan’s hand.
 

He winces with pain, jerking his hand back, doubling over. He clenches his teeth—his face red, the veins in his forehead popping out. I hear his skin sizzle, and light wisps of smoke rise from his left hand as he clutches it with his other.
 

“ Oh, my God, I’m so sorry.”

His eyes burn into me before he dashes out of the room.

“Mr. Storm, is there a problem?” Mr. Fischer asks, calling after Ethan. But he’s long gone.

I feel like such an idiot, and I whither down in my chair.

“Ms. James, perhaps you can explain Ethan’s dramatic exit?” asks Mr. Fischer.
 

“I’m a klutz and spilled the silver nitrate all over my lab partner.”

 
“Interesting. Can anyone tell me what type of chemical reaction will occur when silver nitrate interacts with human skin?”

 
No one answers. The entire class is staring at me.

“Does silver nitrate burn?” I ask.

 
“No. The silver nitrate mixes with organic compounds within the skin and reduces to silver. Brief exposure doesn’t provide any cause for alarm. But his skin will likely be stained black at the point of contact for the next few months.”
 

CHAPTER 7

AFTER SCHOOL, I march through the parking lot, past the Volvos, Beetles, and the occasional BMW, to the lovely rust bucket. I can’t put this day behind me fast enough.
 

On the way, I catch sight of Ethan and Olivia arguing with a kind of reserved fury. Both of their eyes dart to mine almost instantly, as if sensing my presence. Olivia glares at me, sending shivers down my spine, turning my stomach in knots. I can feel acid tickle the back of my throat, rising up my esophagus with a sour taste. Part of me wants to apologize to Ethan for my clumsy mistake in chemistry. The other part of me wants to run. As fast as I can. A blood pumping, temple pounding, chest heaving, turn your legs to jello, run. If you run hard enough, fast enough, long enough… can you run away from yourself?
 

I think better of approaching the feral duo and finish my dash to old rusty. The engine clatters to a start, and I leave the parking lot behind me in a blur.
 

At the elementary, Noah sits curbside, leaping to his feet when he hears the rumble of the rust bucket’s exhaust. He is the only student left on school grounds, as the elementary is dismissed for the day at 2:45pm. Unfortunately, I get out of class at 3:15pm. If I’m more than thirty minutes late, the school can fine the parent or guardian for missing the pickup window. Thankfully, the elementary is only five minutes away from the high school, and today, no one seems to be a stickler for time. Still, I hate the thought of Noah having to sit alone for thirty five minutes.
 

Noah hops in the car, and I ask about his day—he just shrugs. If I can get this kid to say more than two words by the end of the year, I will consider it a miracle. We spend the rest of the drive in silence, and my mind drifts back to the events of the day. I’m absolutely certain the silver nitrate burned Ethan’s hand, like acid.
 

As I creak the rust bucket up to Jake’s mobile home I realize that my math book is still in my locker. I’ve got to get back to campus before they lock the doors. My math class is before lunch, so I won’t have any time to dash off my homework before class if I don’t do it tonight. I let Noah out, and spin back around, heading to town.

Rain begins to sprinkle on the windshield as I hit the highway. I twist on the wipers, and worn blades smear a slimy mix of dirt, pollen, and drizzle across the glass, obscuring visibility. The road and oncoming cars are blurry shapes. I figure things will clear up as it begins to rain harder, diluting the sludge the wipers have whipped up.
 

By the time I hit the ravine, I can see through the windshield a little better, but these blades have got to get changed out. One leaf is stuck between the blade and the glass, and the incessant scraping is driving me crazy. I thought, surely, it would have fallen off by now, but no. Scrape, scrape, scrape—back and forth, and back and forth. I’m seriously contemplating pulling over just so I can get out and remove it.
 

I round the corner, peering through the murky window, and that’s when I see it. My first thought is that I should have pulled over at the last turn. Everything unfolds with a distorted sense of time. My brain becomes hyper aware, processing information at light speed. But the situation unfolds in super slow motion. Everything becomes more intense—colors are brighter, sounds are more crisp and defined. My senses come alive, and the entire universe comes into focus. Ahead, a logging truck is toppling over as it takes the corner too fast. It's too top heavy. Pine logs, three feet in diameter, spill out onto the highway, wheeling their way across to the drop off. Some hit the guardrail and ricochet back, while others bounce over.
 

My foot stomps the breaks as I veer the rust bucket. I try to find a gap in the rolling stream of logs—but there is no gap to be found. The right front tire hits first, spinning the car until the back right tire slams into another log. The impact launches the car into the air, tumbling side over side. Metal crunches as the roof collapses farther and farther with each flip. The windshield webs with cracks, spewing shattered bits of glass about the interior. My body smashes back and forth against the seatbelt, crushing my ribs with each rotation. It’s like a merry-go-round from hell, turning and tumbling and flipping.