Bonus Chapter: Sean's Second Sunday Soul

Writing Prompt: While sitting in class you absentmindedly doodle something in your notebook that looks like a rune. Suddenly your book begins to glow. Your teacher looks at you, sighs, and says “Looks like we have another one,” then turns and begins drawing mysterious symbols on the board. (Source: @writing-prompt-s blog on Tumblr)

Sean Hughes felt his face grow hot. The other students turned to him, and I wish I could say they were confused and concerned. No, not one of them recognized the symbol glowing from Sean’s book, but they didn’t care about the symbol. None of them understood what their teacher meant by ‘another one’ either, but that was also not their main concern. All they cared about was seeing Sissy Sean squirm.

“I--I’m sorry.” Sean said, not sure if he was apologizing to the teacher, his class, or himself.

“Nothing to be sorry about,” the teacher said, “Pay attention, class. This may happen to all of you once your Sigil Magic develops. This is why carrying your wand on you is important, otherwise these things just start flying off anywhere. It’s my tenth one this week alone.”

In all that time, the teacher had been scribbling smaller, more familiar symbols around the one that Sean drew. At the end of their sentence, they reached the end of their inscription. They placed the chalk down, stepped back from the board, and placed their hands in the casting position; one palm forward, the other against its back.

“Neutralize!” The teacher cried.

And that’s when shit went left. That’s when something would happen which would mark the day when Sean’s classmates went from calling him Sissy Sean to Sadistic Sean. Sean would find himself sitting in the principal’s office, being ordered to explain what the symbol was and why Sean cast it. Sean would only scream, “I don’t know” in between tears he and the principal thought he was way too old to shed. Parents would be called, accusations would be made, someone would mention the cops, and Sean would wind up driving home with his parents as they argued about keeping Sean in a Merlin Academy school.

When the teacher screamed “Neutralize,” the symbol didn’t neutralize. It started to glow a vibrant, golden color that drowned out all other light in the room. Our friend Sean found himself glowing, too. But it didn’t feel like the last time he glowed--standing together with his friends in New Orleans and discovering the legacy he’d once thought lost to him—this glow felt different. Sean got the feeling that something bad was about to happen. Unfortunately, he was right.

The symbol exploded.

It wasn’t a typical explosion. There was no scent of gunpowder or some other, weird, chemical concoction. There were no flames or smoke. But there was a ‘boom’. No, wait, that’s not right. Let me try again: there was a BOOM! There was the sound of a furious god striking a gargantuan mallet against a giant drum. There were streaks of electricity cracking through the air, echoing the BOOM! that had just erupted. There was a shockwave of light so concentrated and compact that it overturned desks, sent papers flying, and knocked the teacher on their whole-ass ass! Not their partial ass, their whole-ass ass. And the teacher wasn’t the only one on their whole-ass ass.

Every child in the room wound up on the floor. Their ears were ringing, their brains were cloudy, and their hair stood up on end. None of them knew what happened, and none of them cared for a real answer. All anyone cared about was the fact that Sissy Sean, who by the end of the week would be Sadistic Sean, was standing by his desk, completely unharmed. And he was still glowing like a goddamn anime character.

****

“That was Sunday Soul, right?” Tim later asked.

Sean blinked. He’d been sitting alone in the park, trying not to draw attention to himself. It was three days later, he was still suspended from school, and his name was still all over the M-Net. He thought going to a Sublunar park instead of one for Magykals would give him a chance to get away from it all--away from the cops’ questions, away from his parents’ angrier questions, and away from all the hate e-mails he was getting. The last thing he needed was Tim-With-The-Perfect-Chin walking up out of nowhere.

Sean, who was an absolute master at spitting game, looked up at Tim-With-The-Perfect-Chin and said, “You-huh-what?”

Tim sat down on the bench beside him, his mouth spread in an excited smile, “Sunday Soul. That thing you did in class when you were glowing. That’s a Negro Spirit technique, right? My godfather showed his to me once.”

That surprised Sean, and he felt guilty for being surprised. Sure, it was a bit surprising to hear that a Chinese-American boy had a Black godfather, but who was Sean to be so presumptuous? Just as many people would be surprised that a little Black boy could speak Gaeilge.

Sean shrugged, “I don’t know. I--I didn’t think I was a Negro Spiritual.”

“Really?” Tim asked, legitimately surprised. “My godfather said that all Black people are Negro Spirituals, and that’s why there’s no real word for Sublunars in your community, because magic was never really restricted like--”

“I wasn’t raised in the Negro Spiritual community,” Sean replied, his voice a bit sharper than he’d intended.

Tim instantly stopped talking, afraid that he’d somehow offended Sean.

Sean took a deep breath and clarified, once more, something he didn’t love explaining to people, “My dad’s a Negro Spiritual. His whole family was in the Laveau Academy--one of our great, great something grandmothers was in the first class. But when he turned 18 and graduated, he went to a Merlin Academy college to study Dream Magic.”

Sean wasn’t sure why he was explaining this to Tim-With-The-Perfect-Chin of all people. Perhaps it was because he felt guilty about snapping at him. Perhaps it was because he wanted to get all this out to someone, and Tim seemed like the nicest person to talk about it with. Perhaps, even, it was because of Tim’s oh-so perfect chin. (Between you and me, I’m inclined to think that was the real reason.)

“My dad never uses Negro Spiritual magic, cuz his specialty wasn’t offered at the Laveau school. All the magic he actually uses is…American, ya know? A little bit of European Traditional, some New Age, basically stuff from everywhere. And since my mom’s from Ireland, it’s not like she could teach me the Negro Spirit.”

“Oh,” Tim said. It was the same reaction Sean was used to hearing, so it didn’t bother him much. What really bothered him was what often came later.

“Oh, so your dad hates his own people.”

“Oh, so your parents do real magic.”

“Oh, it’s so great that your parents got you into a MAMA school instead. You know how those kids at the Laveau Academy are.”

“Oh, so you’re not a Negro Spiritual?”

Sean had heard it all. And more importantly, he’d gotten sick of it all.

“I don’t know how I did it, it’s only happened to me once before,” Sean said.

Tim raised a curious eyebrow, but was careful not to say anything.

“It was over the summer. I was visiting my uncle who teaches at the Laveau Academy...it’s a long story.”

Tim nodded, seeing that Sean didn’t want to talk about it too much.

“Well,” Tim said, “whatever you did in class was cool. You looked like Sentry.”

Sean gasped, and brought a hand to his mouth to try to hide it.

“No, really you did! I remember when I looked up and saw you just glowing, I thought I was looking at a mini-Robert Reynolds.”

Sean didn’t respond, and when Tim saw that his mouth still hung agape, he grimaced. Why did he have to go full-nerd?

“Sorry, Sean. You see, Sentry is--”

“You read Marvel!” Sean cried, a huge grin across his face.

****

“And then we just spent the rest of the day talking about comics!” Sean nearly screamed into the phone.

On the other end of the line, Earl rolled his eyes, wondering if this was what he had to look forward to when he started dating. He didn’t see what the big deal was, he and his cousin talked about superheroes all the time.

“Glad you had fun, bruh.” Earl said, and he legitimately meant it. Sure, Sean was annoying, but hearing Sean be annoying was better than Sean quietly sitting around, too awkward and depressed to say anything to anyone. This was the first time Sean had actually called him or anyone else since summer ended, so Earl was just happy to know that Sean was happy.

Sean began rambling about Tim-With-The-Perfect-Chin again, but Earl cleared his throat to cut him off.

“I was able to track down that symbol you drew. You were wrong, it’s not Egyptian.”

Hearing that made Sean’s rambling stop in its tracks. He scratched his head in confusion and replied, “But this summer when I did Sunday Soul with you all, my wand shot out the Eye of Horus.”

Earl nodded. Then, he remembered that Sean was hundreds of miles away and couldn’t actually see him, so he said, “Yeah, you made Egyptian and Adinkra symbols then. But it’s not like the Negro Spirit’s just those two cultures. You probably only made the Eye cuz I was there with you, and my whole vibe is Egypt.”

Sean nodded. It made enough sense, but it still wasn’t the answer he wanted.

“So what was the symbol, and why did I draw it? And why did it...react like that?”

“Well, it’s called the Oshe.”

“The what?”

“Oh-Shay!” Earl screamed into the receiver. His mom yelled at him for yelling in her house, and he quickly apologized to her before he continued, “It’s an axe with two heads.”

“What language is it?” Sean asked.

Earl clarified, “There isn’t one. I mean, the word’s Yoruba but it’s not part of a writing system. I’ve never even really seen one drawn before, I’ve only seen them on people’s altars. The Oshe is a symbol for the Orisha, Shango.”

Shango? Orisha? This was all sounding Negro Spiritual. And not even the type of Negro Spiritual Sean was used to, it sounded African specifically. Sean’s uncle was a bible-thumping Southern Christian, the most African thing about his magic was the Jalapa Root he used for remedies, and Sean only vaguely knew about the Orisha from looking at Negro Spirit memes on the M-Net.

“Why is a Yoruba deity making me blow up my classroom?” Sean sighed. He rubbed his temples in frustration, an expression that he knew he was far too young to do. The way he saw it, he’d aged five years over that summer, then another three after blowing up his class—he was an adult now and old enough to have stress migraines.

“I don’t know! Maybe he noticed you drawing the symbol and just assumed you wanted the classroom blown up. Maybe he got pissed that your teacher was trying to neutralize him. Better question is, why were you drawing an Oshe Shango in your notebook?”

“I wasn’t!” Sean protested.

“Then what were you trying to draw?” Earl pushed.

Sean quickly found that he couldn’t answer that question, either.

In his own home in the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans, Earl leaned back in his chair and smiled. He could feel Sean’s embarrassment through the Spirit.

“Come on,” he pushed. “Answer the question. What were you trying to draw?”

“I wasn’t trying to draw anything. I was just wiggling my pencil, and the shape just kinda came out of that.”

Earl nodded his head confidently, “I knew it! This explains everything!”

“How does this explain anything?” Sean challenged, his voice rising and growing higher.

Earl laughed, “Dude. Calm down. Think about it. First your Sunday Soul activated along with the rest of ours. Then, while in Sunday Soul, your wand starts making Egyptian and Adinkra symbols that you’ve hardly even seen before. And then, the symbol of Shango’s dance wand just appears in your notebook and triggers another Sunday Soul transformation? Why do you think that is, Sean?”

“I don’t know! That’s why I called you, so you could tell--”

And just like that, Sean stopped. He thought again about what Earl said and a realization came to mind. But he wanted to be sure the realization was right, so he went over Earl’s words again, only to find the same conclusion at the end of the trail. Again and again, Sean retraced his steps, checked his math, and proofread his reasoning. The same answer came up every time.

Sean sighed, “You’re fraking ELEVEN! How the hell are you so smart?”

Though Sean couldn’t see it, he could almost feel Earl’s smug smile as he replied, “The Spirit is with me, my nigga.”

****

On Sean’s first day back at school, the principal personally escorted him through the halls. He was saying something, but Sean didn’t care, and so he didn’t listen. He scanned the hallways of the Merlin and Morganne Academy of Magical Arts, looking for one just one face in particular. Failing to spot the face, Sean looked for the chin.

Sean darted away from the principal when he spotted Tim, who was sitting alone on a bench in front of his homeroom class. Sean’s heart pounded with every slap of his shoes against the linoleum tiles; he felt like he waited too long to see him again. When Sean finally skidded to a halt in front of the boy, Tim smiled and put down the Avengers comic he’d been reading.

“They really let you out, huh?” Tim joked.

“Remember how you asked me if I was a Negro Spiritual?” Sean said, ignoring Tim’s joke. He could already hear the hoofbeats of an angry principal closing in on him from a distance.

Tim raised a cautious eyebrow and replied, “Yeah? Sorry, was that rude of me to ask?”

Sean shook his head, “I am a Negro Spiritual! And I did use Sunday Soul!”

And then, just as suddenly as Sean had approached Tim, he ran away from him (and the principal) again. He’d said what he wanted to say to the boy, and heard more than what he cared to hear from his principal. Other students stared at him and teachers chastised him as he continued to run away, but Sean didn’t pay mind to any of them.

Sean didn’t care to think about why his dad never taught him any Negro Spiritual magic growing up. He didn’t think about how his school never had any classes on the subject, despite having so many Black students that studied there. He didn’t care about people saying that the Negro Spirit wasn’t real. And he damn sure wasn’t concerned about people that said he didn’t have the Spirit just because his mom was Irish.

Sean was alone running through the halls. But he didn’t feel alone anymore. He ran, ever forward, unsure of where he was going or what he’d do when he got there. But he ran all the same, trusting every muscle of his body, and every spark of his soul.