“Eek,” Elizabeth squealed in high-pitched surprise. I had pushed the girl and her golden locks to the floor after she’d attempted to bully around a boy in our class and me. I knew she hadn’t expected me to fight back, because, as I had quickly found out in the first few hours of school, no one had done so before. I watched her face turn red as Elizabeth noticed everyone staring at her mishap. Her storm-colored eyes quickly glanced away in submission. It was my first day of first grade at a new school, and the day I had decided I wouldn’t be bullied. Not long after that I got sent to the guidance counselor, and my mom and dad scolded me, but that didn’t change my mind. The next day at school the issue had been resolved, and the boy asked me to be his friend.

Today, things are a little different from back then. Now, that boy, Li Qiang, is my best and my only real friend. I hardly see my father, and my mother is distant. Elizabeth has hidden her bullying a little more, enough to convince the adults anyways. In fact, Li and I were hanging out with Elizabeth at her house. I know, strange right, but all of our moms are friends, so Li and I end up spending more time with Elizabeth then we want.
We were all swimming together under the not so watchful eyes of our parents, but I wasn’t worried about her. I turned my gaze to see Li surface from under the water, and I followed suit.
“Not fair,” Li play whined, “You always beat me.”
“Maybe if you talked more you’d have a leg to stand on,” I retorted.
“If I were as chatty as you, you wouldn’t have a chance,” he replied.
“True,” I agreed. I knew Li was right because between how active he was I was still a little surprised I could hold my breath longer than him.
“Hey,” I heard Elizabeth shout, interrupting our conversation, “If you two are done with your little breathing contest, we should race.”
I shot back slightly annoyed, “I don’t really want to,” and Li mumbled in agreement.  However, this wasn’t enough for her because she then returned my response with,
“Sure, I think you’re just afraid I’m gonna beat ya.” I knew she was going to pull something like this, but it still boiled my blood. I tried to stay calm, but then she added, “ And of course, Li, I expected this from Dorothy, but not you. Come on.” I saw red, she was so annoying, and I decided she deserved another lesson.
“Fine,” I finally barked back. Elizabeth was going to lose, and lose badly if I had anything to say about it. I was tired of her trying to push me, and everyone else, around. Li protested mildly, I knew he thought I was just encouraging her behavior, we’d talked about it before, but I decided I wouldn’t worry about it for now. Elizabeth and I lined up against the wall and looked up to see our parents chatting happily. I wondered for a moment how Elizabeth’s mom could be so nice,  while Elizabeth was such a bully. Then Elizabeth shouted, “GO.”
Everything seemed to speed up, I remember pushing off the wall before all of a sudden I was at the other side. Maybe it was the adrenalin, but it felt like the water was propelling me. I didn’t stop though, I positioned myself to push off the wall when it happened again. I finished and looked at Elizabeth, only to see that she was only just ending her first trip. My brain felt fuzzy, I didn’t understand how I could’ve beaten her by this much. All of a sudden my eyelids were having a harder time staying open, and my body felt heavy. I looked around to see if someone else saw what happened. I caught my mom looking at me oddly before she jerked her head away. I then spotted Li’s confused expression. I decided to get out of the pool and beckoned him to follow. As we were leaving, I saw the dejected look Elizabeth was trying to mask, and I felt delighted. I fought back a smile, but I was very aware I wasn’t doing a great job, that was a little on purpose though.

Li and I settled down on some towels opposite our parents across the pool. I caught my mom repeatedly glance at me, and I felt my hairs raise. My mom looked like something was wrong. It seemed we both shook it, however, because she appeared content again after a while. Li and I discussed what had happened and I quickly realized he was just as clueless as me. I laid down in the warm sun and had an even harder time keeping my eyes open. I could faintly hear people talking as I decided that it would be okay to rest my eyes.

I awoke to Li gently nudging me and a splitting headache. As I opened my eyes, I winced. I put my hand to my head as I looked around, the first thing I noticed was that the sun was much closer to the horizon. “I must have been out for a while,” I thought as I heard Ms. Qiang mumble to Li something about it being time to go. I turned my gaze upward to see my mom hovering over me.
   I got to my feet but almost tripped as blood rushed to my head. Li caught me, and we all walked to my mom’s car, as we’d carpooled together. Our parents took their seats in the front as we sat in the back. The car had a dark interior that was warm after the summer heat, though not hot as the sun had started to set. It was a relatively nice car, though it was getting old as we’d had it since 1st grade. We all buckled our seatbelts. As the old vehicle moved forward, I closed my eyes again and laid my head on Li’s shoulder. He tensed a little before relaxing and putting his head on mine. I felt his black hair interlaced with mine, and I drifted off to sleep in a happy daze until we got to his house. Li and his mom left, and as my mom and I got home, I went to sleep.

Li and I met up many more times that summer, we checked out even more books. After testing my powers and reading, we eventually came to the conclusion that I was magic. It was hard for me to except, but even harder for Li. He never believed in the supernatural and was adamantly against its existence. This shattered his view of the world, but eventually, he got used to it. Over that summer we realized multiple things about my magic. First, I don’t get a headache if I say something when I use my magic, second, I was better at manipulating water and ice more than anything else, third, the more I used my magic, the more fatigued I felt until I couldn’t use magic anymore, and finally, I was terrible compared to famous witches and wizards. That last point was incredibly frustrating, seeing as I'm used to being the best in all my classes. However, I kept at magic, hiding it from my mom as I went.

Several years passed as Li, and I tested out my magic, my mom checked in on me more, almost seeming suspicious of us. However, I have to admit I have no idea what she was thinking. Today Li and I would meet up after school, but before that, the teacher told us something startling.
“Before we get started class, one of our students has recently gone missing,” she spoke in a sort of hushed tone over the class’s whispering. It looked and sounded as if she’d been crying only moments before. Ms. Leviathan was in her 30’s and by the way she was acting I began me to think her son had been the one to go missing. Sure enough, as she swept her ginger hair out of her face and met the class’s gaze with her tear touched sapphire eyes; she confirmed my suspicions by holding up a picture of a boy with a striking resemblance to her with the word “MISSING” printed neatly beneath it, along with the name Connor Leviathan printed above.

The day progressed normally other than hushed whispers that seemed to come with every class. Everyone had their own theories as to what had happened to Connor. One girl had told me he was probably taken by some old pervert. Another told me he was snatched up by some creature of the night. However, one thing I heard that had piqued my interest was that a boy in my class had seen him not too far from their house. Connor was a good boy, and his disappearance deserved an answer. So after school Li and I decided to stop by and ask the boy who’d seen him some questions.

When we got there, I politely asked his mom if he was there. She said, “Yes,” and let us both in after me mentioning we all had a project together. She directed us to his room and left to do some sewing or something. As we entered, the boy, whose name was Evan, seemed almost startled as he set his phone down. He messed with his medium length blond hair and directed his brown-eyed gaze towards me. I glanced around his room, he had a desk right next to the door with what appeared to be a snack and a bottle of water; he sat on his bed on the other side of the medium-sized room, which looked out of a window onto the street.
“ W-Why are you here?” Evan asked confusedly addressing me. I showed my teeth in a fake, but polite, smile.
“Well, I heard that you’d seen Connor the night he disappeared, and I wanted to know more,” I responded to his question with a sweet, innocent tone. As I did so, I closed the door behind me and locked it before Evan could see Li. He seemed to relax as I played with my midnight hair and glanced at him.
“Oh,” he spoke regaining his confidence, “well, that information will cost you something.” My smile faltered for a second before I spoke,
“Well, what will it cost?” He leaned up and kissed me. I stood until he was done, shocked.
“That’s what it’ll cost,” he told me with a satisfied smirk. I fought back the urge to punch that smile off his face and fixed my green-amber eyes on him as he started to recall the night Connor disappeared. “ I saw something run across the road from my window and when I looked outside the little ginger was there. I called out to him, but he just stared back at me like a deer caught in headlights. I noticed he had blood around his collar and that his clothes were a little beaten up before he ran off towards the bridge near that creepy old house in the woods.” I walked towards the door; now having a lead to follow.
“Hey, before I go, one last thing,” I spoke with disguised anger. Evan perked up a little, and as he walked over, I picked up the bottle of water I’d spotted earlier, mumbled some nonsense and willed some of the water to go into his nose as I threw the rest on to him. While, I hadn’t used magic in front of anyone else, but Li, I figured that this would go relatively unnoticed. I quickly spun around, unlocked the door, and opened it. I walked out as Li followed and started to smirk as Evan sputtered, drenched and in pain behind me.

Li and I regrouped at his house, and I relayed what had happened while snacking on some apple slices. He seemed almost upset with me as I moved through the story. I tried to brush off the sinking feeling that I’d done something wrong as I got him caught up.
“So what are we doing next?” Li asked seeming a little out of it.
“We go find him!” I responded with full confidence as I stood up. Li seemed a little uncertain, but he stood up as well. I tied my hair up, put my jacket on, and left with Li not far behind.

As we made our way to bridge and through the woods, I began to feel as if something was watching me. I looked to Li, and at seeing his uneasy expression, I figured he was feeling the same way. We walked a little farther picking up our pace as we went. We were about 20 or so feet in front of the bridge and its pond when a hulking figure stumbled its way out of the brush. How it had managed to stay so quiet before, I don’t know, but now that it was in front of us I felt like I’d made a colossal mistake. I geared up to hit him; drawing in my power. I yelled some made up words and hit the monster with a force of my will. Then all of a sudden I was in the air and I couldn’t move. It took me a second to realize it, but the monster had picked me up. I had missed him.
“Stop!” I heard someone shout from the water. All of a sudden the golem just stopped and set me down. I could see Li had been attempting to get me free and, from the pond, I could see some kind of sea creature. Which I soon discovered was the one who had spoken. “ I’m sorry about all this,” the creature spoke sincerely with a voice I recognized as Connor’s. I tried to walk towards him, but I was so tired. Li ushered me away, and before I knew it, I was too tired to stand.

I awoke in my bed with my mother at my side. At least I had thought it was my bed. As I began to awaken more thoroughly, I realized I wasn’t even in my room. I started to get up, and as I did, my mom spoke.
“Hurry up sweetie, they’re waiting for you in the other room,” she said this to me in a kind, concerned tone of voice. So, I did as she spoke. And what I saw was not what I’d expected in the slightest.
I made my way into the next room to find thousands of cloaked figures in stands before me. They erupted in hushed whispers before an older man stood up and they all hushed.
“We have come to our final decision Miss Lefay,” the old man spoke in a clear, confident elderly voice. “You are to become an apprentice to Wizard Margaret Carpenter. This is to go into effect immediately. You are to report to her quarters immediately. Meeting adjourned.” I walked to the room where my mom resided as people rose from their seats and made their way out of the building.

Later that day I found out that Li had gone through a similar meeting and had been allowed to remember what had happened. My mom would take me each week to my magic practice and each time I learned a little more about my mom. Apparently, she is a witch as well, and the whole reason her and dad separated was that she refused to tell him. I began to gain more control over my abilities as time went on. Li started to tell me when I was doing something wrong, or he didn’t agree with and became less of a pushover overall. Today, in fact, we’re meeting after school because Li has something he wants to tell me. I have a feeling this will be interesting.