Chapter 10

Learning, or at least trying

In the months since I’d settled in at Aron's Academy I’d discovered that even the most wondrous things can become just a normal aspect of one's life. Apart from the worries of SPYTE I’d found myself comfortable and serene with everything so far. I think that comfort invited fate to throw a rock at me.  

In the back of the main building of the academy a handful of students and myself gathered around a metal trash can that had been thoroughly cleaned and disinfected. The metal glowed red with heat enchantment, the whole alleyway was full with the smell of pastry dough. Kem was the son of the local baker and smuggled a frankly absurd amount of it, combined with seasoned meat from the butcher, shredded cheese from the local monger and contribution from other students we made piles of puffy saucy meat pockets, some of the other students called it a Handwhich, some called it a..something-zone? When I got older I’d find the name was just a pizza pocket.  

The perfect alternative to the bland and boring cafeteria food the academy was serving that morning. 

Calamity and I had been… oddly distant from one another in the couple days since… the kiss. I worried something was wrong. 

But I had a day of class ahead of me before I could really talk to her, I had a feeling everything would work out for me, at least on that day.

 

1

 

I kept my notes as best as I could, listening intently to the sounds of Professor Hebden carrying through his presentation. 

“Your ability to cast spells to their fullest potential relies on the integrity of the soul, and the integrity of the body.” He went on a bit, “theories regarding the Merlin Circuit are based in one's various biological systems. You’ll learn more in advanced courses but to simplify it as best I can: think of it like the plumbing in a building. The pipes carry water from one spot to another… remove a section of pipe and the water won’t go as far as it used to, or depending on where the section is removed it might damage the entire building.” 

My scratchy handwriting hastily put down the words: ‘Merlin Circuit. Like plumbing‘. Then realizing I wrote hastily “why Hazel gets aches after casting magic.’

The statement about magic made me wonder just how likely helping me was harming her. I pushed the thought away before it could cause worry, she wouldn’t be helping me if it could harm her…I thought. I hoped.  

 

2

 

I kept my hand as steady as I could. Professor Rhinestrom moved in a slow manner, a way that could be mistaken for levitation were his feet not peeking past the hem of his robe. His fingers quietly plucked at a small four stringed guitar. 

His voice droned slowly, patiently.“Clear the mind. Move your arm. Not your wrist.” 

The entry-level sigils class was primarily about repetition. The music he played on that little instrument was intended to help keep us calm and moving at a steady pace.. 

The current month’s project was an illumination glyph: a symbol one would inscribe into a physical object to use in substitute of an open flame. It won't generate heat, but in a pinch will help keep one from wandering around in utter darkness. 

The sigils demand precision, slow, calm. 

It is… hard. I grew up on a farm where we always moved. Hands grabbing and arms carrying, hoisting up heavy objects and pulling up roots. Slow is… not what I know. 

Somehow the fine-tipped brush held between my thumb and fingers never held still. There was always a little too much motion in my fingers. 

The music did nothing for me. 

 

3

 

The halls were oddly quiet as I made my way to Familiars & Fauna class. Golems had been the subject in the past few days, it conveniently overlapped with sigils  and runes. Golems weren’t “naturally occurring” but the teacher emphasized that more often than not they would outlive the person that made them, making them potentially dangerous megafauna if left unchecked. 

My eyes darted up and down between the hall ahead of me and my notebook, rereading the bits I’d written from the last class day. 

My class notes were quickly forgotten when I felt the fuzzy sensation of being grabbed by magic, then the crushing impact of being spun and pushed into the wall on my back with a resounding thud against the smooth wooden wall behind me, feeling the hair tie holding my pony tail suddenly give away and shoot off somewhere past my periphery. 

The thud was loud, I’d later realize that hallways was mostly supply rooms that kept holiday decor, among other non-class related goods. I’d take that hallway cause it was a fast way to the next class, but it would seem I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed the low traffic. 

“So let me see if I get this straight.” Past the dizziness of the impact, Briar suddenly came into harsh focus as two of her friends on either side of me a glow in my periphery as I felt ethereal fingers lift me up against the wall with gravity spells, twitching like centipedes. 

“You think you can just be friends with someone who doesn’t deserve it and not deal with the consequences.” Her fingers prodded my chest aggressively. “But on top of that, you manage to beat me to being the first one to enter The Memorial Tournament?”

I coughed a moment, feeling spittle caught in my throat. “S-sorry?”

“The tournament. Two months! You know… you signed up for it. Remember?”

Tried to move my arm to grab something but the gravity spell kept me pinned in. Right… the tournament. “Must have bumped my head.” 

I have no idea where that retort came frombut…

“Shut up,” Briar snapped, “you speak when spoken to, trash heap.” One of the other two girls shoved me sideways along the wall before the spell jerked back into position like releasing a rubber band. 

I grit my teeth. They must have been waiting for me, this sure felt like the kind of ambush that had to be planned.

“You’ve been one hell of a headache ever since we first met” her voice dripped with venom. 

“Not like I had a choice.” that begot yet another shove. 

Briar then smiled in a way that stirred up long buried memories of my childhood, twisting into a visage almost resembling the demon's face from when I was a child. “Oh, no need to be so clueless…boy” 

My blood ran ice-cold. 

Something in Briar’s face continued to twist, muscles tensing in a way that looked like she was keeping as much composure as she could, a cruel light in those purple eyes of hers, dancing with mirth as she watched me squirm in the grip of those magic hands. 

Seeming to read my thoughts she carried on “Oh you must have thought I was stupid, didn’t you?” her voice was filled with venom as she explained. “Some doofus shows up, punches me in the face while I’m having a little bit of fun. Gets saved by Little-Miss-Catty, and then just vanishes from sight. Then the first day of the new semester Calamity shows up with a new girl latched onto her like a parasitic growth.”

“I mean, ontologically”   somehow I find my voice while I grit through my teeth “I dont think I’m the one being a parasite exactly.” 

“Bup-bup-bup. I don’t care. It didn’t take much for me to recognize you were the little creep who punched me that day. So, this is the way it’s gonna go: you’re gonna stop being friends with Calamity, drop out of the tournament,  and go about your life blissfully on your own… or I proceed to make your life as much a living hell as possible, mainly by making sure everyone knows this...” she flicks the charm on my necklace. “Isn’t just a casual little fashion statement.” 

The shadow moved with a slick fluidity, speaking before I could make recognition of the shape “Well, that would be unfortunate for you Ms. Van Winkle. Given that would be in violation of school guidelines and would result in, at minimum, immediate school expulsion.” The voice of Ms. Everheart made everyone freeze. It was the first time I think I’d ever seen Briar show a hint of fear. “And given your family’s legacy status, I’m sure your parents would have a lot ot say if that happened, wouldn’t they?” 

The magic let go as I slid to the floor. My assailants now looking at the teacher. All of us equalized in the face of authority. 

“Ms. Everheart. Hi. we were just…” 

“No talking, Ms. Van Winkle. Go to your next class. Expect a summons from me before the end of the day. You may attempt to talk your way out of this in a few hours.” 

The silence hung between the four of us and the teacher before they walked off in as hurried a manner they could. 

“Have a good day won't you Roxanne?” Ms. Everheart proceeded to walk off “give Hazel my best as well” 

I sat there alone in the hallway trying to get my bearings from all the whiplash.

“Ontological? Where the heck did I pick up that 20 wink word.” 

4

 

I didn’t go to Familiars & Fauna. 

I didn’t attend alchemy class either. 

It all crept up on me in stages. 

Neutrality. I went to the bathroom. Washed my hands. 

Then suddenly it hit me. The echo of the word “Boy.” The word full of hate, scratching in my mind like the thorn of an ember-snap plant. 

She knew… which led me to wondering who else might have caught on.

My eyes lingered as I walked the hall, looking into classrooms from afar and wondering…who saw me like Briar did? 

I felt like there were eyes everywhere, my skin crawling with a self consciousness I thought I’d shaken in the time since coming here.

 

Was I really a girl? 

 

Something caught in my head. NO. No, I'm doing everything I can, she just… Briar just got lucky and made a good guess. She doesn’t know anything. 

A roaring bushfire in my brain kept licking at my nerves. 

Without thinking I found myself storming out of the main academy building, pulling out my staff and walking with a burning anger that kept my feet moving. I found myself back in the deep part of town where all the businesses were . I didn't’ want to be on the streets so I stabbed the bottom of my staff directly into the ground. 

The gravity magic lightly tingled as I found myself catapulted into the air, landing with a soft thud of my shoes on the space. 

The ever familiar building top. The deli where…

Where Calamity and I had our moment. 

I kicked a discarded glass bottle and watched it slide across the roof and hit a stone chimney. 

My hand held out my staff, picturing the cord of magic in my head as a bright green energy snatched up the bottle. I yanked it back and grabbed it with my free hand, then threw it hard at the wall…wanting the sound of the glass to do something. Anything that would stop Briar’s voice from ringing in my ear. 

All I heard was the clink of it hitting the chimney. The glass seeming too thick to break. 

My shoulder screamed from the exertion. 

The burning in my head wasn’t gone.  I ran to grab the bottle off the ground and chucked it hard up into the air, away from the building as I watched it arc and disappear somewhere below.

I just let out a loud scream, my voice going up into the air, birds dispersing from the surrounding buildings. 

Dropping down into a crouching position, the staff supported me as best it could. As I sat there. Alone. 

The tears hit me as I felt my shoulder shake. “Damn it!..damn it! Damn it why did she have to do that!?”  my face  soaked as a hard sob wracked my body, finally making me drop to my knees from exhaustion

“What am I doing?”  I sputtered, the tears continuing to pour out hot from my eyes, everything blurring wet. 

I didn’t get any reply apart from my own childish breakdown as the fear and helplessness hit me again. What was wrong with me?! 

All I wanted was a day I could just go to class and not think about any of the weird issues I was having and then Briar had to butt in and ruin EVERYTHING. 

 

In my head I was in the restroom of that store outside the train station again. 

 

This is a mistake. 

 

This is a mistake. 

 

This is a mistake 

 

This is-

 

I snap back to reality when I see a  Moth land on the top of my staff.  Big, fluffy with whisps of purple coloration in it’s wings, striking emerald colored eyes that matched the peridot stone in my staff.

“I…” my sadness twisted around into frustration at the moth as an impulsive desire to just be left alone grabbed me as I shook my staff to shoo the moth. It whirled around in the air before recovering and flapping away. I felt my throat burn with a growl of anger at the thing all of a moment. 

I followed it with my eyes. Watching it go off in the direction of…

Exactly where I think I needed to go. 

 

***

My parents were more worshipful than I was growing up. I think thats normal? A kid isn’t bothered in the business of Gods and the hope that they’llgive the boons of good harvest and luck for the coming seasons ahead. 

I still don’t know if I would have called myself the worshipful sort. I don’t think Ellah especially cared though. At least, she never stated to be bothered by it. 

I found myselfin the quiet presence the altar.  In some invisible way, it felt safe to be here. I wasn’t sure if I’d say I was visiting the altar regularly but it was often something I did after a rather emotionally frustrating day at school.  

And after today, I really needed this.

I’d stored my staff back in the pouch on my side, and had propped myself up against the monument. I didn’t want to be seen despite it not seeming like anyone was in the temple but the door had still been open. I think that was normal. I know the one thing that never quite went away was the very strong quiet that was…as if I wasn’t ever properly alone while around Ellah. 

Which I suppose is normal when in the grounds of a god. 

“Change is supposed to be tough, isn’t it?” My question felt… hollow?  

I let out an unsteady sigh. “Why can’t it have been easy?” Another quiet question as I wiped my face. I’d cleaned it as best I could at the washbasin at the entrance to the temple… but the lingering sense of shame seemed resistant to the cool water.

I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d done the right thing at the moment. In the couple months since I’d started my whole journey, I’d felt more like myself than ever before. But somehow, one person was able to bring it all toppling down and make me feel like I was lost in an avalanche?...land slide?...sinking in- I couldn’t even figure out a good metaphor for just how out of it I’d become.  

I think mom would have called Briar ‘someone who nitpicks another’s harvest while her’s goes to rot.’

Something like that. I missed them… mom and dad. They’d never get why I did this, but I still loved them. Maybe one day I’d go back and show them what their daughter had become. 

I sighed and took a step backward from the statue. Ellah’s otherworldly beauty was still something that stunned me a little. The more I visited, the more little details I noticed in the statue. At first, I thought the sleeves of her robe were meant to shift into elaborate wings. I now came to see the elaborate feathering as part of the ‘flesh’ of this avatar. I suspect I’d never know if that was a proper aspect of her, or a liberty taken by the sculptor. Something I’d also missed in my first visit was a long and thin tail that curled around the hem of her robe. 

Through the little bits of scripture I had read about Ellah at the school library, I’d found she was often depicted as never maintaining a single form between one encounter to another. I couldn’t help but ponder what that meant to have a static monument dedicated to her. Though perhaps she was in some sort of midway point between forms? 

“Well, hey-hey... If it isn’t the skunk herself.” I involuntarily twitched at the rasp of a familiar voice. Somehow I’d never heard the steps of Lentock approaching. Dressed in long sleeves, leather gloves, and large, red lensed glasses, he looked different in the much more sterile lighting of the temple, yet still like he belonged wherever he pleased. 

“Oh… uh… sorry I got lost in my thoughts.” I wiped my eyes one last time, feeling like I hadn’t got all the wet out of it.

“I getcha, trust me, I’ve done that a few times.” He strode past me to drop something into an offering bowl in front of the statue, when he stepped back I caught sight of a small collection of bead-like candies. “I come to pay my respects, and in kind continue to be blessed with change ever given.” A prayer. Simple and direct. 

He turned to me. “So… what’ up?” 

“Uh…” Where should I even start?

“If I remember right from Calamity… you’d supposedly be in class right now.”

“I…” had been caught, “decided today wasn’t working.”

“I get the feeling the crying is related.” 

I thought my face had started to cool down, but his comment flustered me all over again. I guess my eyes were still gross enough to tell. 

“Not judging… come on!” He motioned for me to follow. “I got another offering at another altar to give, then I’ll get us some lunch. If you're hungry anyhow.”

We passed through in silence. I observed a few more Gods who held dominion over so many aspects of existence: war, combat, festivity, fighting (there’s a difference..somehow). Lentock dropped an offering of metal chainlinks for the god of Family and Community; Crah,  an entity depicted as covered in spider webs. I remembered something similar hanging over the entry to Lilith’s home and wondered if they were the same.  

Once we left, Lentock brought me to a noodle restaurant. Guiding us around small groups of vacating guests, the waiter sat us down in a booth within the low lit restaurant where we were eventually presented with two big bowls carrying noodles, meat and egg, with some sort of spicy sauce on the side. 

“So what's eating you?” 

The question came as I was slurping down a large forkful of fried egg and noodles, the feeling of a long overdue lunch making the nerves in my… well, my everywhere finally calm down enough to let me answer. ”Well There’s this girl who threatened to out me at the academy.” 

“Oughta beat her ass,” he said matter of factly. 

Had he found me earlier I would have whole-heartedly agreed, sadly the time had well and truly passed by now. “I… can’t. She’s one of the legacy students with a lot of… stuff.”  

“Lemme guess… Little Van Winkle?” He asked just before he took a sip off a red drink that was full of small floating chunks of fruit. 

“How’d you know?” 

The glass landed with a soft thunk. “Calamity’s already told me about this weird little creature who keeps insisting on intersecting with her. Got a feeling you're caught in the crossfire?” 

“You’re really good at this.” 

“Wasn’t that long ago I was in your spot.” He paused as he fed on the broth and noodles. “Plus being a pain in the ass runs in the family, Her dad was a right egotist who couldn’t stop pranking people.” 

“How did you handle that?” 

“Eventually I just punched him in the nose.” The answer came with a grin that showed off the slick fangs in his mouth. 

I paused to fully consider his appearance, noting all the smooth features of his face. “You don’t look that old.” 

“Vampire,” he said before tilting up his bowl, pouring the broth into his pursed lips. “Well… half. I age slower as I get older. I’ve never really sat down to figure the arithmetic of it all though… but back to the point. Little Van Winkle is like her parents. They don’t take kindly to being less than the center of the whole world, but when you knock em down a peg they’ll go looking for something else to mess with.” 

The idea floated around in my head. “If that's the case, why does she still try to mess with Calamity?” 

He took a second to look into his empty bowl. “That, my dear Roxanne, is not my story to tell.” He sat the bowl down on the table. “But, I will say this much; show Briar you aren’t gonna take shit from her, and she’ll fall in line. Trust me.” 

After that, lunch went by in relative silence before we parted ways. Lentock handed over a business card on his way out. The piece of cardboard had a weird effect where if I looked at it from a certain angle the illustrations and the address switched between two places. He explained that if he couldn’t be found at his house or the “community hideaway,” he’d be at apothecarium station house. 

I said my thanks. And made my way home. 

Classes would… wait for another day, I thought. 

At least I had my tutoring with Hazel. 

***

Outside the front of her cottage, Hazel had set up a series of rudimentary training dummies from sticks, padding, and metal flatware armor. It wasn’t a matter of breaking them or knocking them down with kinetic magic, or gravity spells, or what have you. It was a matter of technique, being able to find the right postures and motions while casting. 

“Just like this.” She adjusted my arm with her good hand, using the prosthetic as a way to keep my arm straight, allowing my forearm to rest on the wooden palm.

“Focus on the magic, imagine the circuit, breathe…” Her calm voice kept me grounded. “And…let it out.” 

I squeezed the staff and felt the little hairs on my arm bristle with the flow of the arcane before a bolt of green energy sparked and erupted toward one of the dummies, knocking its bucket helmet across the floor.

“Good! One more time.” She slowly let go, stepping back and away.

I inhaled deeply. Hazel wasn’t an academy professor… but she made it feel less stressful to learn than they did.

I kept my stance and focused, the bolt shot through quicker this time. Offensive magic was easy. Kinda. 

“I think tomorrow I’m gonna have to teach you some spells that require some greater focus. You might need a shield or two.”

“Yeah.” I nodded and breathed, staring at the sky for a second. 

“You seem distracted, What's up?” 

I sighed. “I’m just… maybe feeling slower than I should be? Like I see you and others every now and again and like… some of them are just way way ahead of me?”

Hazel gave me a pat on the shoulder. “Hey, that’s normal. Trust me… should have seen me in my first year at the academy. I was a mess.” 

“I just feel like some of this is stuff I should have down already.” 

“I know learning the basics is tedious, but you gotta know the rules exactly the way they are, that way you can break them in ways that won’t backfire. And that’s gonna be for a bit. You’ve only been doing magic for a little over a month..” 

“I guess.”

“Is that the only thing bugging you?”

I measured out my thoughts, Briar was the worst part of the day and I’d truly, and completely, felt done with thinking about Briar having a bucket of bad hanging over me. But I also knew there was no way I was gonna be able to shrug the question awa-I remembered the one thing that had been worrying me, at least a little.  “…how do you know when you like someone?” 

“Ah… a boy?”

I blushed before answering, “Girl.” 

“Aha. I mean… the answer I would give regardless is… just spend time with them and see what happens. emotions are funny, but this is the sort of business that has a way of sorting itself out.” 

I pressed the gemstone of the staff against the side of my head as I reflected on that. “Would a kiss be a good way of knowing?” 

“Oh… you sure got something happening then if you’ve shared a kiss already.” Hazel had a bit of a grin. “But…let me tell you this much: you’re still a kid… or well a young adult, anyway. You got a whole life ahead of you. Let it happen as it happens and I think you’re gonna be happy with it.” 

“Happy as it happens…” I repeated that back. “I’ll try that.” 

The rest of the evening was uneventful, and I thank Ellah for that. Let the change come.