Page 2

“I knew it,” my father said again, giving me that disgusted look, which I have never forgotten.“He’d rather play with dolls than throw a baseball with me.And he’s always in the kitchen, baking cookies with you instead of going outside and digging in the dirt like other boys his age.I knew he was a damn fag?—“

“Harold James Connor don’t youdaresay that ugly, hateful word in my house!”My mother’s voice was low but so filled with rage and warning it had the intensity of a shout.

My father glared at her.

“I’ll say what I want!It’s true and you know it!”

“I don’t care!”my mother shouted back “Andyoushouldn’t either!”

My father’s face was so red by this time he looked like a pickled beet.He shot a murderous look at my mother and then he turned that same, ugly look on me.

Now lest you think my parents fought all the time, theydidn’t.I grew up in a very quiet, functional household with lots of positive reinforcement.Granted, most of that positivity was from my mom, but my dad wasn’t cruel or abusive when it came to me—just quiet and somewhat withdrawn.This was the first time I had ever seen him look so disgusted and angry and all those negative emotions were directed atme—at whatIhad done.

I burst into tears.

“Now just look what you’ve done!”My mother rushed to comfort me, taking me in her arms and holding me close.“It’s all right, Avery,” she whispered in my ear.“Your magic is beautiful and you are wonderful and smart and talented and I love you!”Itoldyou she believed in positive reinforcement.

But all the positive reinforcement in the world couldn’t make up for my dad’s angry words and the way he had looked at me.I remembered thinking—for the first time—that something waswrongwith me and I couldn’t stop crying.

My father left—storming out of the house in an uncharacteristic rage that was all the more frightening because it was so unusual for him.He didn’t come back for dinner either—also unusual because my mom is a pretty good cook.(She taught me everything she knows, which really comes in handy at Nocturne Academy, where the food can be somewhat lacking at times.)

After my dad left, I still kept crying.My mother eventually gave me some kid’s Benadryl to calm me down and put me to bed early.I wasthatupset.I remember her rocking me in her lap while I asked her over and over again what I did wrong and if daddy hated me now.

My poor mom—it must have broken her heart.And I know for a fact, it nearly broke her marriage.For a long time after that, my dad was distant and silent.He started working away from home a lot more and I saw him less and less at dinnertime.

To give him at least some credit, though, he never shouted at me again—he wasn’t really a shouting kind of guy.I think it was just the shock of seeing how my magic had manifested that made him upset enough to crack his WASPy exterior.After that one incident, he was mostly distant and cool with me—and also with my mom.

So yeah—things were tense in my house after my magic came out in the open.That’s because my dad was right in thinking that it was a precursor to another kind of coming out.

And why am I telling you all this?Maybe so you’ll understand how the magical world sees someone like me.And you’llalsounderstand that what was happening to me in gym class wasn’t at all unusual…

2

AVERY

“Higher, Connor!Faster!Come on—move your pansy ass!”Coach Vasquez shouted at me as I climbed the thick, knotted rope hanging from the beam of the gym’s roof.

The gym isn’t often used here at Nocturne Academy.Coach Vasquez believes in fresh air, so she usually makes us go out to the huge field behind the ancient castle that houses the school and run laps or throw a football around or whatever is passing for physical education at any given moment.But there was no place out in the field to hang a climbing rope, so for once we were being spared the merciless Florida sun, heat, and humidity.

But at the moment, I would have traded the heat and humidity in a heartbeat to get away from the damn rope.

Not that I’m bad at climbing—I actually have very decent upper body strength.I decided pretty early that I wasn’t going to let myself be stereotyped as a weak, girly-man.(This probably had more to do with what my dad thought of me than any outside idea of what I ought to be, but whatever—at least it had a positive effect.So I guess, thanks Dad?)

Anyway, I have an exercise routine I do every morning—pushups, sit-ups, weights and cardio.I’m a morning person anyway, and I find that getting up for a run before anyone else in the Norm Dorm, where I live with my Coven mates, clears my head and gets me ready for the day.

So I’m not weak, as I said, and I was climbing the rope at least as well as anyone else in class had climbed it—better than some.But Coach Vasquez was a Drake and Drakes donotlike people like me.(Which is to say, they’reincrediblyhomophobic.)

“Faster!You climb like a girl!”she snapped, as I went up, hand-over-hand, putting my morning weight-training routine to good use.Her comment brought trollish laughter from the rest of the class—most of whom were also Drakes who were on the football team.Which basically meant I got to take gym with the biggest, meanest homophobes in the whole school—lucky me.

I ignored her—which was my usual response to slurs.I suppose I could have reported her—I’m not the first student she’s been abusive towards.But I found out pretty early in life that you have to pick your battles.If I went to the Headmistress and complained, she would bring my parents into it.

My mom would fight for me, of course.She was a tiny little thing, barely five feet tall without her oh-so-fashionable heels—but she would have faced down a fire breathing dragon if she thought I was in any kind of danger.

But then my dad would have gotten involved and they would have had a big argument about how I needed to fight my own battles.(This was my dad’s usual line whenever anyone picked on me for being “girly,” which means I learned to stand up for myself at a pretty young age because he absolutelyrefusedto stand up for me in any way.He seemed to think that I had somehowchosento be gay and so I could deal with the consequences of said choice.)

Anyway, if theybothgot involved, it might provoke another of their rare but intense fights—which always seemed to be about me.And that would weaken their marriage even more.They might even get a divorce and that would break my mom’s heart!And since I love my mom more than anyone in the world, well…you see how it is.

So yeah, I decided to ignore the slur and just keep climbing.