Covenent

I leaned forward against my desk trying to appear interested in the day’s lesson while trying to remember exactly where I had left all my ingredients the night before. I half recalled shoving the box with the spare herbs under my desk with the ledger covering it but couldn’t remember if all the tools had been cleaned and put away. I sighed in frustration looking back up at the board. It was just too much to expect full attention in a class like this, especially during the night. The teacher wrote the next equation on the board and I replayed the snippets of conversation I had picked up in an attempt to figure out if we were still on the same section. Copying down the notes I glanced at the teacher briefly wishing my mind would focus on one thing instead of mixing them. It was a futile attempt and I knew it. There was no way Intermediate Algebra would be able to rank higher in importance when I had my first initiation task to complete tonight.

“I was worried for a moment you would leave off the negative sign once again class.” The teacher drawled in his Romanian accent, the change in tone to include a hint of amusement causing me to glance back up at him.

He turned back to the board in exaggeration as he sprawled more equations across it. His black hair sashayed behind him, brushing the tops of his shoulders as he glanced rapidly between the board and the students. His impatience grew the longer the silence remained and he called out the next step in his clipped tone. For someone over 200 years old you would think that he would have more patience. But that defied logic right?

As if hearing my thoughts he turned to face the class again, his eyes narrowing on me for a second before he asked the class what we were supposed to do next.

“Find the lowest common denominator and multiply all the parts of the equation by it.” I replied calmly while my heart played a staccato in my ear.

A brief smirk flashed on his face and he turned back to the board to do as I had answered. I breathed a sigh of relief before glancing back out the window.  It felt as if time had slowed, which had my sister been present, I might have believed.

I picked my pen back up to write down the next set of notes, my mind already wandering back to mentally reciting the steps for the potion.

1.          Set flame on low allowing metal of pot to heat slowly.
2.          Add five grams of crushed anise seed and…

The sound of paper crinkling caused me to look back at the class. My classmates were all diligently working on something, each of them leaning intently over their desk crushing all hope of glimpsing the problem we were working.