by Elon Vidal
“What if the lights are on and I can rely on my daggers?”
She was hit on the back of the head by the foam again. Dang it! That was uncalled for. She could think of other places he could shove that foam.
“Focus!”
“Sorry. Let’s try again.”
This time she gave it her all. She took a slow deep breath as she realized none of what she was doing was helping. She had to ground herself. She recalled her conversation earlier with Damon and how she had expressed a love of plants. They blended harmoniously with their environment. She too had to become one with her surroundings. She tuned out everything else except Ezekiel’s footsteps. She could even hear him breathe, and she turned around slowly as she tried to find him. It was like meditation, only this time she was not trying to clear her head of the setting. The more she relaxed and focused on the footsteps, the louder the sound became. The next step he took she was sure that she had him. She smirked.
“Got you,” she said, just before throwing a dagger in his direction.
“Excellent aim!” Ezekiel exclaimed, sounding pleasantly surprised.
“If it were excellent, I would have hurt you.”
“Child, I helped write the manual on weapons training. You could not hurt me even if you were not blindfolded.”
“Ok old man, let’s try again.”
They did the exercise until she didn’t have to try anymore. It’s hard when you start doing something for the first time and have no frame of reference. Someone else can speak and they seem empty words. There is a moment when one clicks. That instant, that experience, resonates differently and carries a whole new meaning. But it’s hard to describe to someone who doesn’t know. Yet there is a moment of transition, between not knowing and knowing. That sets the stage to then refine.
It’s like learning to play an instrument. It seems easy when you see someone else do it, but without the dexterity in the fingers and the acoustic sensibility to play the it so it sounds like you imagine it in your mind, it can be frustrating. However, with practice comes perfection, and she was now in tune with her senses. The more she did it, the easier it became. Footsteps, breathing, dagger accuracy. Over and over, more precise at every turn.
When she finally removed the blindfold, she was pretty proud of herself. The row of high windows allowed sunlight to bathe in and color this otherwise somber room. This place could do with a couple orchid paintings across the beige walls, she thought.
“Now let us try that with magic,” Ezekiel said, taking out a coin. “Hold out your hand.”
“You are going to teach me a trick?”
“Human magicians use science and gadgets to do magic. I will teach you to use your entire being.”
He placed the coin in the center of her palm and tapped it twice. “Do you feel that?”
Dawn nodded and he did it again.
“Do you feel that?”
She blinked in surprise. “No.”
“Because the coin is gone.”
“What are you saying? The coin is still right there.”
“But I believe that it is gone. In my mind, it is fact and therefore it is reality,” Ezekiel said. “What we call magic is an interpretation how we can convert light energy into what we want. It is what differentiates us from humans, who live in only one plane of reality. So, we do things as if they already are in existence, and the light within us reveals what we think as fact.”
Dawn blinked in confusion. “What?” The coin was clearly there. This man was doing some positive affirmation gimmick to bend what her own eyes clearly saw as false.
Ezekiel sighed and took her hand with the coin again. “Light allows us to see what is there, correct?”
She nodded and he tapped on the coin. “There is a coin there; that is what you believe, and it is fact according to you and this place of existence. Correct?”
Dawn nodded again and he tapped on the coin a second time, only this time she did not feel it.
“According to a second plane of reality, there is no coin there and that is what I believe. So, the light shows you the fact that there is no coin. It is all in the mind.”
There was another plane within our own reality. She didn’t fully know how to reach it, but she could understand there to be were more dimensions packed what was apparent. “I wish they had explained it like this when I started school,” she said with a laugh.
“Now focus. Use your magic to make that coin disappear.”
“You are just going to throw me into the deep end?”
“This is how I would teach a five-year-old who had never used magic before.”
Dawn concentrated on the coin. She repeated to herself that the coin wasn’t there. Bend the light, she continued to remind herself, as if with a mantra. But she couldn’t shake off that sensation she felt of the coin’s weight and features pressing on her palm. She couldn’t shrug the notion that it hadn’t evaporated into thin air. After ten minutes, still nothing had happened. She looked up at Ezekiel with sagged shoulders.
“You said it yourself that you couldn’t sense any magic in me.”
“Indeed. Perhaps you don’t have magic. Or, perhaps, it is magic that we simply do not understand yet. It is power, nonetheless. Power you can use to make that coin disappear.”
He was right and she did relate to that sensation. She had felt that power a few times before. When the light energy first emerged at school, when she faced Fisher and the wraiths at the crypt. Even if it was something she couldn’t control, she knew it was there. She sensed how it felt. It’s that click that transitions between not knowing and knowing that only comes from experience. Words are empty sound if they don’t carry meaning. Feel it, she reminded herself.
Dawn sighed but closed her eyes, trying to imagine the coin gone from her palm. ‘There is no coin in my hand. There is no coin in my hand. There is no coin in my hand.’ She repeated the chant in her head and visualized an empty palm. She felt her hands getting warmer and warmer, until Ezekiel clapped and made her open one eye, which she did in hesitation.
Her entire face beamed with joy when she saw that the coin was gone, and she did a little dance. She’d done it! She could summon her power! Yay Dawn! Ezekiel was unamused though, and he extended his clenched fist to reveal a coin in his hand.
“Did you just…did you take that from me?” she asked in anger.
“You were taking too long.”
“Oh, my gods!”
Dawn wanted to stomp her foot in anger, but it was no use throwing a tantrum in Ezekiel’s presence.
“Let us try again, this time with some motivation.”
She wondered what he was talking about when he raised his hand and conjured a metal staff.
“You can turn that coin into whatever weapon you want,” was his only instruction before he charged.
Dawn jumped out of the way as Ezekiel swung the metal rod. The weapon made a loud clank as it scratched the floor instead. The old man was out of his mind! She clenched her fist with the coin and used her forearms to deflect the staff from hitting her torso. It was light metal, but it still hurt, and she hissed in pain.
“Ezekiel!” she tried to protest, but the man was on his mission.
She moved away from him backwards as he swung the rod in her face. She managed to duck and swing to a side. He went at her again just as she was landing, and she lost balance but still managed to use that inertia to flip over his staff further to a side. He continued to charge until she was backed into a corner. This lunatic was going to knock her out. Foam was one thing, but his jabs were now aimed with force directly at her. This was meant to be training, not full combat.
She wanted to scream at him to cut it out, but in her anger, she felt determined to prove him wrong. So, one minute she was imagining herself attacking Ezekiel with a metal rod and the next second she was holding one of her own.
“Amazing!” Ezekiel exclaimed, then drew back.
Dawn narrowed her eyes at him. “Was that necessa
ry?”
He gestured to her weapon. “Apparently.”
He waved his hand and made it disappear, leaving the coin in her hand once more. “Now let us try again. This time be in control of your emotions. Your magic is too dependent on you feeling scared, or angry. Clear your mind and believe in it, take a leap of faith.”
This time when he attacked her, she was more prepared. Calm enough to follow his instructions she tried to recall that lack of hesitation that she felt when threatened. It just was, there was no question in her mind. When backed against the wall she was able to conjure the elements. She tapped into that and yielded the same result as the last time. It was actually fun, and she was having a good time conjuring weapons out of a simple coin.
They finished training and Ezekiel gave her a real smile, somehow making her feel prouder of that than anything else she had done today. And as Damon took her back home, she realized how much the grandfather resembled his grandson. They both refused to accept any limitations she imposed on herself. She had gone from not having powers to having them and realized that she was gaining something that had been taken away from her friend. She missed the one person she wanted to share all of this with.
Elijah.
NINETEEN
Dawn settled into bed and took out her phone to call Elijah. He wasn’t answering the first time around and she felt a bit frustrated. She had had an amazing experience and wanted to share it with him. Why couldn’t she just let him know immediately the moment she wanted to? She then tried a second time and Elijah still didn’t pick up. Now she kind of doubted herself.
Thoughts began to creep in about how she might not have been the best friend to him. He had lost his power. Who was she to now rub on his face that she now did? The poor guy must be feeling unfulfilled and estranged. She could relate. Had it not been for the training with Ezekiel, a coin to her would have just been a coin, no matter how long she would stare at it.
When he hadn’t answered by the third call, she sighed and gave up. Maybe he was busy, she tried to convince herself, but she knew better than that. Not only was Elijah never without his phone, but she also had a feeling that he wasn’t in the mood to talk to her. Almost getting someone killed will do that to a person, she thought. But she hadn’t forced Elijah to come with them to the crypt and she had been worried about his safety from the first second to the last.
Maybe that was the problem?
She had been treating him like a fragile child lately instead of the warrior that he actually was. From the pity kiss to being overprotective of him in a way that she had never appreciated from anyone when she didn’t have magic. And now she suddenly had magic and he didn’t, all that had to be too much for him to take in.
“I’m the worst friend ever,” she said to herself before taking a pillow and covering her face with it.
She needed to make this right and soon. That was the first thing she would do tomorrow before her training. Go to Elijah’s and reconcile over a dry cereal like they did when they had been kids. That was her last thought as she drifted off.
Dawn woke up in a car, to the sound of voice. Her first instinct was to panic. She looked around for the handle, but she couldn’t find any. Then she again heard those voices outside and started banging on the windows. The people kept talking, not bothered in the least by her loud banging.
“Let me out!” she screamed, and then one of her hands went through the glass. She didn’t break it, her hand just pierced right through it as if it was an optical effect.
Dawn stopped and quickly drew it back, looking at her hand before examining the window again. She was still wearing the Mikey Mouse night shirt she had worn to bed. She looked at her hand again.
Am I dreaming? she thought, calming down a little. More like dream walking, this felt too real to be just a dream.
“Oh, come on, I can just pop in and say hi,” a familiar voice said before chuckling.
Dawn froze, she would recognize that voice anywhere. What was going on, and how had this happened? There had been no spell and no Council member guiding her this time, she had just somehow ended up in a dream. And Fisher’s of all the people.
“Daaaaad!” a girl whined, and Dawn looked through the window to see what was going on.
The moment she did that, she found herself standing outside the car beside the girl on the driveway of a what appeared to be a suburban home. The neighborhood around had a few scattered houses along a gentle slope and the air felt warm and welcoming. Cicadas chirped in the surrounding trees. But no one even blinked to acknowledge her sudden presence. And why would they, she wasn’t actually there.
"Dad, cut it out," the girl said, looking annoyed with her father's attempt at being funny.
"Honey, leave her be. You know it's uncool to have your parents drop you off at a dance," the woman said.
She was beautiful, with long curly auburn hair that almost reached her waist. Fisher looked at her like she hung the moon and stars. This was a stark contrast to how Dawn had experienced him so far. He was just a skinny guy in slacks and a sweater. If she was dreaming, was this even real? That slime, she thought, even here, in this tender moment, she became wary and tightened her fists. But she had a nagging feeling. What if this dream walking was a real memory? Had this actually happened or was this a figment of some distorted imagination?
"Not when the dad is me," he said, then went to the driver's side of the vehicle.
"Remind me to pick up some vegetables from the farmer's market. Rick has these beautiful peppers; he really outdid himself this year."
"You know he just uses magic to grow those right?" Fisher said.
"He uses it well. I'd like to see you try your hand at gardening," his wife said with a laugh.
Fisher scoffed as he got into the car, his wife following suit. "I'm not Fae."
Just like mom, Dawn thought. She too was a Fae. What was this lovely lady doing with this monster? Dawn herself was still grappling with what she was seeing. She hadn’t seen Fisher so natural. Could she even believe what she was seeing? She couldn’t avoid feeling somewhat repelled by him, that he would suddenly acknowledge she was there and launch right at her.
His wife held out her hand and made a flower appear on her open palm. "You say it like it's a bad thing."
"You should know better," Fisher said, then leaned across to give her a kiss. "I married one."
"Ew guys, I'm here. Remember?"
The two separated with a laugh, both turning to look at their horrified daughter. When they did, Dawn was standing right beside her and it felt strange to have them look in her general direction even though this was only a dream and she wasn’t actually there. As soon as they stepped into the car, she found herself sitting in the back seat with Fisher's daughter. It felt real though. She looked just like her mother but had her father's hair.
"It's your father's fault," Fisher's wife said.
"Both of you are just as bad as the other. Can we just go now?"
Fisher chuckled and started the engine. Dawn sensed this dream was more than that. It was a nagging feeling inside of her she couldn’t shrug off. Why here, why now? She recalled her recurring dreams of the Pixie in the castle. She had dream-walked into them. The light energy within her had been connected. Was she here now by chance or did her being here, witnessing Fisher presage events that were about to unfold?
She intuitively sensed that this might have been a moment of change. Was she meant to be alert, or perhaps prevent something from happening? Or was she looking too far beyond a random dream she’d wake up from? Might this be how Maggie felt with anyone who could not see her? She wanted to scream at Fisher, tell him not to leave the house.
His wife started channel surfing on the radio while their daughter played with her phone. Dawn kept her eyes on the road, wanting to stay alert. She was on edge, in anticipation of not knowing exactly what or when it would happen.
"So about Hawaii, have you decided what you are going to do?"
"The company wants me to stay there for a few weeks while we finish up the project. I won't be allowed to travel back and forth," Fisher replied.
"It must be an important project if they are being so secretive," his wife said, then glanced back at their daughter.
The girl was in her own world and her mother smiled as she looked back at her husband. "I wish I could come with you, make a vacation out of it."
Fisher stopped at the red light and looked at his wife. "We can always go back any other time when I'm not working." What a pleasant conversation this was. She felt odd being so close to Fisher and seeing him interact like a normal family man. How on earth had this man become what he was now?
Dawn shivered as something passed in the air. An eerie sensation ran a chill down her back and gave her goosebumps. She lifted her head and glimpsed a light streak from the corner of her eye. She turned in its direction and instantly realized this moment was about to change everything. This is where everything changed for Fisher.
As she looked to the side an oncoming truck came right at them. She screamed but Fisher never heard her. He never saw it coming. And they never stood a chance.
Dawn was thrown out of the car. An overwhelming metallic screech took over. She screamed and felt violently jolted, yet she didn’t hit the doors or the car windows. In less than an instant she found herself standing by the sidewalk, observing the car being torn and crushed under the weight of the truck whose driver smashed against the window. The horrific clang and drag against the asphalt took over the night sky until it gave way to an enveloping, deafening silence.
She couldn’t believe her eyes to watch Fisher desperately try to get his wife and daughter out of the car, only to notice the two spirits standing hand in hand, looking at him sadly. It was already too late, and Fisher didn't know. Or perhaps he did, but just needed to try. She watched as he used magic, right there where anyone could see. Light flowed from his hands until it turned red. He tried and tried and tried, until there was nothing left. The spirits hung their heads and turned to go, leaving a distraught Fisher behind.