Mr. Connor stepped out of the office to make his phone call, and everyone looked at me. “What?” I asked them.
“You are going to have to be very careful,” Richard said.
Tider looked worried. “Don’t worry about me, I’m sure I’ll be fine. They’ll lose interest in me as long as they don’t know I have more than one power.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt. You’re the first person in a long time who took the time to talk to me.”
Richard and Abby looked down as Tider said that. I could tell they were sorry Tider had been treated poorly, but they didn’t know what to do or say about it. As I was about to say something, Mr. Connor walked back in.
“Great news, Sally. Your parents made it onto the plane and have already taken off. They didn’t run into any trouble at all on the way there. Dr. Griffith thinks the Pulhu were unaware of who was in the car and let them go thinking there would be fewer people around the office so they could get to you. Thankfully they didn’t capture your parents or you.”
I smiled, “Good, I was really worried about them. When will they land? I don’t think I will be able to stop worrying until they are in the haven.”
“I’m sure Mrs. Sullivan will be able to let you know tomorrow morning. Now you all need to get to your rooms and get ready for lights out. I have some preparations to make for tomorrow’s class. Sally, I want you to go to your morning classes. No one needs to know you are going into master classes. We should keep pretenses up as long as possible.”
“Ok.”
We all headed for the door. I said goodbye to the guys in the common room, and Abby and I headed toward our rooms.
“Goodnight, Sally,” Abby told me as I opened my door.
“Goodnight, Abby.”
“Knock on my door in the morning, and we’ll walk down to breakfast together.”
Chapter Seven
I didn’t sleep well because of a bad dream, but I couldn’t remember any details. It had something to do with my picture. I looked at the clock and rolled out of bed. I wanted to go down to Mrs. Sullivan’s office before everyone woke up and ask about my parents. Then I would come back to get Abby.
It was a pretty easy walk to her office, and I found myself in the front hall in no time. Her door opened as I went to knock.
“Have you heard anything? Are they safe?” I asked before she had a chance to say anything.
“They made it safely to the haven this morning. They will be safe there until this all dies down.”
“When will that be?”
“It might be a while. We need to take extra steps to protect you. You are turning out to be more powerful than we thought.” She looked at me for a minute, “Are you ok after last night? I heard about the attack on you. You are lucky you have made such good friends already. We would have lost you if not for them.”
“I’m sorry that I’m causing you so much trouble.” I felt terrible that all this was happening because of me.
“Don’t say sorry. This is what we do. We are here to help and protect you. Sadly, some of the elementals have forgotten that and have become selfish. Don’t worry about anything. We need to talk about your classes before everyone wakes up. You are going to have to be very careful.”
“I know. Mr. Connor talked to us last night. He wants me to continue my classes, so it looks like I am still learning at a beginner level.”
“Mr. Connor will be giving you extra instruction after your afternoon classes on Monday and Wednesday, and Mr. Merrem will work with you on Tuesday and Thursday. If you continue your morning classes, you will be expected to participate and get good grades.”
“I understand. I don’t want anyone coming after me again, so if this is what I need to do so they don’t know anything about me, I’ll do it,” I told Mrs. Sullivan.
“Good. Make sure you never leave the school or the grounds. They are all protected.”
“How will I know if I leave the protected area?”
“You won’t be able to tell. Have Tider or Richard show you where the protection lines are, that way you don’t accidentally cross them. And don’t use your magic outside where others can see you.”
“I won’t,” I told her.
“If you need anything else, please let me know,” she handed me a new book bag with a bunch of supplies in it.
“Thank you, Mrs. Sullivan.” I left her office and headed to Abby’s room, thinking about what I had gotten myself into. I woke Abby up and waited for her to get dressed before we headed down to the cafeteria. Tider and Richard met us as we were getting some eggs and bacon.
“I love breakfast,” Tider said happily. I had to agree with him. They had everything you could want for breakfast. I even grabbed a small pastry and some orange juice to go with my bacon and eggs. We found a table to eat at, and I looked around, noticing that most of the seats were still empty.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
“They will be here soon. Most of them don’t get down here for a few more minutes. We are pretty early,” Richard said.
“I went to see Mrs. Sullivan this morning,” I told them. “She said my parents are fine, and we talked about my schedule.”
We fell silent as other kids started to trickle in for breakfast. “Do you guys want to go out to the garden until class starts?” I asked, wanting to be away from prying eyes.
“Sure,” they agreed. I zipped up my jacket before heading out. There was a chill in the air this early in the morning.
“What master class do you have today?” asked Richard.
“I have Mr. Connor today. I need to go back to Mrs. Sullivan’s office, “I said suddenly, “I don’t know where my master class is taught.” I started grabbing my stuff so I could get to her office and still make it to class in time.
“It’s ok, Sally. I will show you where to go,” Richard said.
“Thanks, Richard.”
We headed off to our classes, and Abby showed me where my first-period class was. “Have fun, Sally,” Abby called as she raced away. “I will see you at lunchtime.”
“Bye,” I yelled to her. I walked into my class, and right away, I knew I was going to love this class. Hanging around the room were constellations and creatures that couldn’t possibly be real. One wall was filled with gods and goddesses of ancient times. I couldn’t wait to learn if any of this stuff had some truth to it.
“Come inside, Sally. I have a seat for you right here,” the teacher pointed to the seat closest to her desk. “I’m Mrs. Maisen. I hope you will be able to jump right into the class, but if you struggle with anything, let me know. We can work something out to help you. I have a folder here going over what we have already discussed in this class.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Maisen. I will make sure to look over this and let you know if I don’t understand something.” Mrs. Maisen smiled at me and walked over to the board to greet the rest of the students as they finished coming in.
“Today we will have a lecture about Celtic gods and goddesses. At the end of the lecture, you will each pick a god or goddess and write a page explaining why you believe they either did or didn’t exist.” Mrs. Maisen went on to talk about all the different gods and goddesses and how the Celtic people worshipped them. At one point, she said many of the gods may have come from elementals.
I was enjoying learning something new. I finished my paper as the bell rang and turned it into Mrs. Maisen. I headed down the hall to Mr. Connor’s class, eager to learn more about what I was. Mr. Connor didn’t disappoint me. Class was really good, and I stayed back for a minute after class to ask him for notes from the beginning of the semester.
I headed down the hall to Mrs. Shaw’s class. Once everyone was seated, she started lecturing about how to control your own mind during a fight with another elemental. It was interesting, but I didn’t understand half of what she said. As soon as the bell rang, I walked quickly to the common area to meet up with everyone. Richard was already there, and we headed out to the garden.
“Hi, guys,” Abby called as she walked towards us. Tider was a few steps behind her, and he had a huge grin on his face.
“Hi, Abby. Hi, Tider. What are you so happy about?”
“I finally did it. I have been working on it for a few weeks. It’s the hardest form of water magic I could think of, and I wasn’t sure I would be able to do it.” His joy was infectious. He had us all laughing as he told us about all his failures while trying to make the magic do what he wanted. My favorite was when he was trying to turn the water into individual flying icicles to hit targets but instead turned the water into snowflakes that gently brushed the targets.
It sounded like Tider had a lot of power and was happy about it. I snuck a glance at Richard. He had a smile on his face, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He turned and caught me staring, and his mouth pulled down into a frown before he looked away. I turned back to Tider and laughed with Abby as he continued to talk about all the ways his magic had failed him in the past until he mastered each new thing.
“Why did it take so long to learn? Is all magic that hard?”
“Some magic is easy,” said Tider, “but when you are using a lot of power, it’s much harder and takes a lot of skill and practice to learn.”
I wanted to ask more questions, but the bell rang. I said goodbye to Tider since he had to go to different classes and walked with Abby and Richard.
Mr. Magni gave us another lesson that I already knew, so I doodled and tried to go over everything I had learned about being an elemental. It wasn’t a lot. I said bye to Mr. Magni and grabbed my stuff to head to english. Mrs. Newton gave us another lecture on the book we were supposed to be reading, and we had a vocabulary quiz that I hoped I did ok on.
“Come on, we need to get to your class,” Richard said.
“Bye, Abby. I’ll see you at dinner.” He turned into a hallway I hadn’t seen before, “Where are we going?”
“When you go to your master class, you have to go to different areas. They are strictly off-limits to other students, and each area is surrounded with a dome that no one can see through. That way people can’t watch master classes and then try to do the magic themselves. Imagine what would happen if a beginner tried to do magic like Tider did today. They could kill themselves or other people.”
“That makes sense,” I told him. “Where are the domes?”
“We are going out the back doors. There is a path that leads to them.”
“But I can’t leave the protection of the school.”
“You won’t. They are on protected grounds. You will be safe.”
I let out a breath. I really didn’t want to be attacked again. He led me through the door to go outside, and we walked towards a small hidden path in the trees. It was only a few minutes before we came to a clearing, but I didn’t see anything. “I thought you said there was a dome.”
He laughed, “There is, but you can’t see it.”
“I was picturing more of a tinted glass type of dome, not an invisible one.”
He grinned, “Technically, it’s not invisible. It’s reflective. It reflects the clearing so most people wouldn’t realize this is a training area.”
“What if you walked into it?”
“It’s not likely to happen. If you step off the path, you get a bad feeling, and your brain tells you to get back on the path.”
He took my hand and pulled me into the grass. Immediately I wanted to move back to the path. I felt like if I went any farther something terrible would happen to me. Richard kept a tight grip on my hand and talked quietly.
“Sally, listen to me. It’s a spell. Once you get used to it, you can push it to the back of your mind.”
I didn’t think I could do this. The spell was getting stronger, warning me to back away. I shut my eyes against the terror I was feeling and took deep breaths. I turned my head and could see colors weaving their way into the air from the ground. It looked like a magical barrier. As I watched the colors, my fear receded, and I could think straight again. “What is this?”
“What do you see?”
“I can see the barrier in my mind. It is made of different colors but mostly greens and browns.”
“Can you walk through it now without the spell affecting you?”
“I think so. Let’s try it.”
I walked through the barrier keeping my eyes closed and focusing on the colors. Once we were through, I could see a red-colored dome. I opened my eyes, and the dome disappeared. When I closed them, it came back.
“I can see the dome when I close my eyes,” I told Richard.
“You can?” he questioned. “What color is it?”
“It’s red. It looks beautiful. The red is shimmering across the sky. It sparkles when the light catches it.” I opened my eyes and only saw an open field.
Richard moved forward. “You have to look closely, but there is a path to follow.”
After he pointed it out to me, it was easy to follow. We came to a stop when the path ended. A large boulder was placed on the side of the path. Richard put his hand on it, and a door appeared in front of us. It looked like the door was sitting in the middle of the field when I looked around it, but when I looked into it, I could see a room that looked like a large gym or training facility.
We stepped through the door and closed it. The dome took shape, and I could see how big it was. We could still see everything outside, but it was like looking through slightly tinted windows. There were all sorts of weapons lining one wall of the gym, and different objects were placed throughout the room, I assumed for target practice.
In the center of the room, Mr. Connor was standing next to a table with various objects on it. I followed Richard toward Mr. Connor.
“Hi, Sally. Do you want to stay, Richard?” Mr. Connor asked him as he turned towards the door.
“Sure,” Richard replied and went to stand next to Mr. Connor.
“Today, we will be working with air. I want to get a sense of how strong you are, Sally. The first thing I want you to do is try to lift this ball off the table.”
I looked at the ball and saw it was a kickball. It probably wouldn’t be hard to lift if I had any idea what I was doing. I closed my eyes and imagined the silver stream of wind, lifting the ball into the air. With my eyes closed, I could see the air hovering in front of me, but when I opened them, I saw that I had not only lifted the ball up, but all the objects on the table were in the air. I tried to gently set them down, but instead, they fell to the table. I looked at Mr. Connor and Richard.
“I tried to be gentle,” I told them.
“That’s ok, Sally. From what I can tell, you already have a decent amount of power but very little control. Let’s work on lifting the ball again. This time, try it with your eyes open. Focus on the ball and see it lifting in your head.”
“But then I can’t see the colors of the air. How will I direct it?”
“You don’t need to see the color, you need to picture the ball hovering in midair, and your magic should do the rest.”
I did what Mr. Connor asked and kept my eyes open while I was picturing the ball in the air. Nothing happened. I couldn’t seem to make it work no matter how much I tried. The ball just wouldn’t lift into the air. “I don’t think this is going to work.”
Richard stepped up to me, “Sally, I know you can do this. If you can do it with your eyes closed, you can do it with them open. You have to trust yourself. Remember to think about how the air feels. Think about it being an extension of yourself.”
I thought about how the air felt. I thought of the smell of the flowers that the wind always carried with it, and I thought about the air gently lifting the ball off the table.
I kept my eyes open the whole time, but I thought I saw thin streaks of silver around me. The ball lifted off the table and gently floated up about six inches. Faintly, I could see silver streaks around the ball. I closed my eyes, and the whole ball was encased in silver wind.
“I did it,” I yelled
to Richard, “and I can see the color with my eyes open. Not a lot, just enough to let me know it’s there.”
“Good job,” Mr. Connor said, “now can you put it back on the table.” I didn’t even realize I was still holding it. I turned back to the ball and tried lowering it to the table, but again I was unable to control it, and it bounced off the table.
“We will have to work on that,” Mr. Connor said, “you will have to practice every day to learn to control your magic in the smallest movements. Once you have better control, we will be able to move on to more intricate things. Now, I want to see how long your magic will last before you get tired. Lift the ball into the air again and hold it there while I give you other tasks to do.”
I did as Mr. Connor asked and held the ball in the air. “I want you to try and lift this rock from the other end of the table. Hold them both in the air, and tell me how it makes you feel.” It took a few minutes, but I finally lifted the other rock and held both in the air for a few seconds. I didn’t see any streaks of silver this time though. After a few minutes, I told Mr. Connor that I didn’t feel any difference.
“Try to lift these books too.” I lifted the books, and they immediately started to wobble and shift away from each other.
“Don’t worry about the books moving, Sally. As long as you keep them in the air, that’s all that matters right now. How are you feeling?”
“I’m still feeling perfectly fine. I haven’t noticed a drop in my energy at all.” I couldn’t keep the books in their stack, and I watched as they slowly slid off each other, though they did stay in the air.
“I’m going to give you something much larger to do and see how you feel. Please lift the entire table. If at any time you start to feel tired or dizzy, let it go and tell me,” Mr. Connor said.
This time I closed my eyes, knowing I would need to pay more attention. I allowed the air to lift the table and everything on it. It hovered about two feet from the ground, and everything on it hung suspended six inches from the tabletop. “I’m still feeling fine, Mr. Connor,” I let him know.
Lost Tides: Elemental Seekers Series Page 8