Read The Lingering Grace for Free Online

Wikipedia-bashing …
    Alice couldn’t focus. She looked down at her hands, which were resting on her desk, and realized that she was tracing circle after circle in her left palm. Her heart started to pound as the events of last night replayed in her mind. Desperate for a distraction, she started mouthing the spell. It couldn’t hurt; without the water, nothing would happen.
     
    Out of rippling blue,
    Rippling blue—white—gold
    Into yellow.
    Into red.
    Into air …
     
    She wasn’t even sure how she remembered the words. Unlike the poems she had memorized for class, she wasn’t consciously thinking the words—her lips simply remembered how to move. Each word had its own taste: spicy and ever so slightly sweet. She swallowed hard, shutting her mouth tightly, but the scent of the words tickled the back of her throat, and she started to cough.
    “Cough drop?” mouthed Hailey, a sometimes obnoxious but usually well-meaning girl who sat to her left. Alice shook her head and Hailey shrugged, brushing her tight black curls off her shoulders.
    As Alice reached for her water bottle, a bead of sweat trickled down her forehead.
    Hailey picked up her textbook and started to fan herself with the cover.
    “Mr. Segal,” she interrupted, “can you turn on the AC? It’s boiling.”
    “It feels fine up here, Hailey,” Mr. Segal said.
    “I’m dying. Is anyone else dying?” She looked around.
    Mr. Segal gave in. “I’ll turn it down a little, but I don’t want it to get too cold.”
    Several students protested. Someone in the back muttered something about menopause and a few people sniggered. Alice gulped down the entire contents of her water bottle; her face felt like it might melt off. What was happening? How could something be happening when she didn’t even have the ingredients for the spell? The words alone couldn’t be that powerful … could they? She realized with a jolt that Mr. Segal was staring at her.
    “Are you okay, Alice?” he asked, talking over the laughter and angry mutterings.
    “Yeah,” she gasped out, nearly spewing a mouthful of water all over her desk. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
    He frowned and quietly turned down the thermostat a few degrees before he moved back to the front of the classroom.
    But she wasn’t fine, and as he started talking again, it was all she could do to repress the growing surge of panic. The tickling, searing heat in her mouth was unaffected by the water. In fact, it was growing stronger with every anxious, shallow breath she took. She didn’t know what it was, didn’t even have a name for it, and the fact that she had no idea what would happen if this went on much longer only contributed to the fear. She pushed herself to the edge of her chair, preparing to bolt out of the room.
    That’s when she felt the hand on her shoulder.
    “It’s ok,” a voice whispered in her ear; the girl’s cool breath tickled her skin. “Take ten deep breaths. One … two … ”
    The grip on her shoulder steadied her and she breathed in and out—feeling her lungs, feeling the air. The minute she began to calm herself, the sensation faded, then disappeared completely. She was left shivering but in control. Her face was dripping sweat.
    Without another word, the girl let go and for the rest of the class Alice focused on simply breathing in and out. Her heart took at least fifteen minutes to stop racing. She wasn’t sure what had just happened. Had she channeled magic just by speaking the words? The spell hadn’t worked as intended. So why had it worked at all?
    More than that, she was afraid to ask how the girl knew something was wrong—and how she knew what to do.
    Eventually, class ended and Alice reached for her backpack. Half of the students were already out of their seats and heading for the door as Mr. Segal called out, “I’ll have your day-to-day life reflected in literature essays back to you by the end of the week. Don’t forget to get started on the Industrial Age reading