A Fistful Of Sky

Amazon.comThe LaZelle family of southern California has a secret: they can do magic. Real magic. As a teenager, a LaZelle undergoes the Transition--a severe illness that will either kill him or leave him with magical powers. If he's lucky, he gains a talent like shape-changing or wish-granting. If he's unlucky, he never experiences Transition. If he's especially unlucky, he undergoes Transition late, which increases his chances of dying. And if he survives, he will bear the burden of a dark, dangerous magic: the ability to cast only curses. And curse he must, for when a LaZelle doesn't use his magic, it kills him.
In Nina Kiriki Hoffman's A Fistful of Sky , Gypsum LaZelle is unique among her brothers and sisters: she has not undergone Transition. She resigns herself to a mundane, magic-bereft existence as a college student. Then one weekend, when her family leaves her home alone, she becomes gravely ill... --Cynthia Ward Book DescriptionGypsum LaZelle is the middle child in a gifted family of witches and warlocks. But unlike her siblings, she has no gift to call her own. Until she wakes from a fever--and discovers that she possesses a strange and frightening power.