“How many people are mages? You guys make it seem like it’s common. Am I like the only person in Philadelphia who didn’t know mages existed? Never mind the whole talking animal thing. Oh, and the cats told me racoons and crows as well?” Zoe struggled to bring some order to her questions and thoughts, but it all just kept coming out in a jumble. Her brain was racing to gather all the information it could find as fast as it possibly could. This situation did not lend itself to coherence.
David responded first. “No, you’re not the only person in Philly who didn’t know about magic and mages; there are not a lot of people who are. Like I said, we don’t really announce anything, so unless you run into somebody, you may not know.” He looked at Mark. “You’re the researcher. Didn’t you try to figure out a percentage at one point?”
Mark nodded. “Yeah, but it’s hard to do; mages tend not to advertise themselves except in extraordinary circumstances. We can feel other’s ability, but that is usually between mages of the same Element. Although, I know George Wardmaster can tell if somebody else is a mage no matter what their Element is. I know if somebody is a mage, but not necessarily what their Element is. David and I figured out about each other because we could each tell the other one had power.” He smiled at David. “I think that just added to the already-existing mutual attraction.”
Zoe digested that. This was all sounding like one of her fairy tales books. “So, is your relationship, an Air and an Earth mage together, rare? I mean is it usually one mage, one non-mage or two Air mages? Something like that? And, did you ever figure out how many mages there are or might be?”
“No, not really,” David replied. “Mages tend to find each other one way or another. For example, I remember Mark coming home after his first or second week at Summerfield and telling me about George Wardmaster. I thought there were Earth mages on campus, but I didn’t know who. Remember how I said we can feel activity with our own Element? Well, I could feel Earth magic working on campus so I knew there was at least one, but I hadn’t been on campus at that point. Mark caught a glimpse of George’s office décor and figured it out.”
David cut pieces of cheesecake and topped them with raspberry sauce and fresh raspberries. Everybody grabbed a plate and fork and wandered out to the dining room and sat down. Once again silence reigned as the first few bites were devoured. Mark finally paused long enough to continue the story.
“Yeah, George. Once I saw his office, I dropped by during his office hours to introduce myself and let him know what I am. Like I just said, George can tell who’s a mage so, he’d already known. He was just being polite and letting me introduce myself. But I hadn’t felt anything. Which is why I figure he’s a lot more powerful than he lets on.” He paused and looked over at David. “You know, now that I think about it, it was probably John Gardner you felt. He spends a lot of time on the plants all around campus.”
He paused again. “Speaking of hiding power…I forgot to tell you earlier. Simon is a Fire mage. George told us the other day. Apparently, he hides his power very well too,” Mark’s face took on a thoughtful expression.
David’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? How many years have you been there, and you didn’t feel anything and he didn’t say anything?”
Mark nodded. “I know. But then, you’ve met Simon. As George said, he’s unique.”
David nodded in turn. “You can say that again. It’s as if he walked out of a novel.” Zoe snorted.
Sorting through how mages identified each other and their reaction to power reminded Zoe of different kind of power (or maybe it was linked) she had seen on display earlier in the week.
“Did I tell you what happened before you and George got to the provost’s office the other day?” she asked Mark.
“No, you didn’t. What happened?” Mark looked curious.
As Zoe told them both about Meredith’s comments regarding Sarah and respect from the staff for faculty, her anger at the condescending attitude shown by Meredith and the provost towards staff and students returned in full force. This time she didn’t try to hide it. She described the conversation, becoming angrier with each statement. The fire in the living room fireplace jumped and a logged popped loudly, adding emphasis to her final comment. David and Mark shared a startled glance. Zoe, caught up in her story and her righteous anger, didn’t notice.
Mark got up from the table and moved into the living room where the fire continued to jump and pop.
“Zoe, can you come here a minute,” he said standing in front of the fireplace and glancing between the fire and Zoe.
Grumbling at being interrupted in the middle of what was shaping up to be a great diatribe, Zoe got up and followed him into the living room. David trailed after her, a slight smile on his face.
“What?” she said.
“Concentrate on the fire. Can you see anything different about it?” asked Mark.
“I’m not being deliberately mysterious,” he added quickly when she frowned at him. “I’m genuinely asking if you can see anything different about it.”
Zoe shrugged, and stared at the fire. Threads appeared between the individual flames, seemingly holding the fire together. Her eyes went wide. Fires didn’t have threads. Did they? What the hell? I need glasses.
She hesitated. “Well, there are like…threads…or something…like…connecting the flames…it looks like,” her annoyance with Mark had vanished.
Mark nodded. “Okay, concentrate on those and see if you can make them move side to side or in any direction. Well, not out of the fireplace, please.”
Zoe concentrated on the flames and the threads became clearer. She willed them to the right and the flames danced right. Shocked, she jumped back from the fireplace and the fire returned to normal. She gaped at Mark.
“Try it again,” he urged.
She drew a deep breath and stepped back to the fire. The threads reappeared almost immediately. She envisioned them bouncing up and down and the flames burned low and then leaped to the top of the fireplace. She willed them left and right and each time the flames responded.
Zoe stopped playing with the fire and turned to stare at Mark and David. They shared a glance and David nodded. Mark looked at Zoe.
“I think you’re a Fire mage, Zo.”
“What? How the hell did THAT happen??”
Mark smiled at her shock. “I knew you had power. So did George, by the way. Remember, there’s an energy, sort of, that mages give off. Yours is not that strong, but it’s there. It just wasn’t clear what power and, of course you didn’t know about it, so that was puzzling.”
“I didn’t know about it because I’m a perfectly ordinary, non-magical person is why!” Zoe stared at the two men in disbelief.
David laughed. “I’m afraid you’ll need to leave ‘non-magical’ out of your self-description from now on. Welcome to the club!” He gave her a big hug.
Zoe returned the hug automatically. She was shocked. What had just happened? She, Dr. Zoe O’Brien, Ph.D. in medieval history was a Fire mage? What. The. Hell. Magic exists! And, I can do it! Now what?! Why did I never know before?
Chapter Nine
Monday morning, hoping to get back to her routine and avoid thinking about manipulating fire, Zoe headed into campus earlier than usual determined to bury her head in her work. Marching up the stairs to her office, she found Josh and Annmarie sitting in the second-floor lounge. Sighing internally, she scrapped her ambitious work plan.
“Hi, professor! Can we talk with you?” Annmarie chirped.
“Sure, come on in,” Zoe replied. She and the two students walked into her office; Josh turned around and closed the door behind them. Zoe raised an eyebrow, and gestured for the students to take a seat.
“Annmarie and I have been talking a lot about everything and we decided we needed to tell you…” Josh hesitated, sliding into one of the guest chairs.
“Tell me what?” Zoe prompted.
“Well, we were talking with Dr. Wardmaster and he said we shou
ld talk with you.” Josh paused again, and Zoe immediately grasped what was coming next. She unceremoniously dropped her bags and fell into her chair.
“Let me guess, one or both of you are mages.”
“Yes,” they said together, nodding.
“Which Element?”
“I’m a Water mage,” said Annmarie.
“And, I’m an Air mage,” said Josh.
“Well, thanks for trusting me and telling me.” She hesitated. “In the spirit of sharing information, I should tell you, that over the weekend, I discovered that I’m a Fire mage.” She gave a shortened version of the events at Mark’s house. The students accepted the news in stride.
“Dr. Wardmaster sort of hinted that he thought that you had some power,” said Annmarie. “I wonder why you didn’t know earlier?”
Zoe gave an exaggerated shrug. “Who knows? I’m still just trying to get used to the idea that magic even exists, never mind discovering I’m a mage and figuring out why I didn’t know about it before. It’s almost too much to take right now…” She hesitated. She didn’t really want to get into a tell-all with students. “But you didn’t just come here to tell me that, did you? What’s up?”
Josh shook his head. “I was talking to my friend Brian Murphy who works, or used to, in Shelby Hall. He quit the other day. He said too many people are getting sick and he feels like the place is poisonous. That was the word he used.”
“But that’s not the only thing,” said Annmarie. “I was talking to somebody else who works over there, my friend Lauren Routledge, and she said that there’s nothing wrong. But she looks like she’s been pulling back to back all-nighters; big, dark circles under her eyes, her eyes are bloodshot, and I think she’s starting to fail a couple of classes and she’s always been an “A” student.”
Damn. Students who worked in Shelby getting ill and failing classes meant the faculty mages needed to move faster and discover just what was going on in Shelby and how to shut it down. She stared at the students without seeing them. Josh stared over her head and out the window overlooking the quad. Suddenly, he flinched and let out a startled yelp.
“What?” Annmarie jumped in alarm.
“Dr. Cruickshank is coming across the quad in this direction,” Josh answered, looking intently out of the window behind Zoe’s head. Zoe spun around in her chair. Shit. He was right. Meredith was striding down the path towards Cooper Hall.
She thought quickly. If Meredith walked past Zoe’s closed door and heard voices inside, she’d almost certainly interrupt. Even with the door open, she’d interrupt, but at least she couldn’t imply that Zoe and the students were harboring secrets. There was a lot of work involved in avoiding and appeasing nosy, vindictive colleagues.
“Open the door,” she said to Annmarie. “We’re discussing class work.”
Annmarie opened the door and the three of them sat holding their collective breath. Soon enough, the familiar clack of heels hitting the laminate floor sounded from the first floor and came up the stairs. Zoe looked at the two students.
“Work with me here,” she said in a low voice. They nodded.
“Okay, are you guys feeling better about this project now?” she said in a normal tone of voice. “Is there anything else you want to go over?”
“No, thanks,” said Annmarie. “I think I know where we’re going with this. Thanks for your help. If it’s “Okay, we’ll come back in a couple of days with what we’ve done and see if we’re heading in the right direction.”
“That’s a good idea,” Zoe answered. True to form, Meredith poked her head around the door frame.
“Oh, hello, Zoe. I thought I heard your voice.” She glanced at the two students without acknowledging them.
“When you have a minute can you come over to my office?” Meredith gave Zoe a small smile and left without waiting for an answer.
Exchanging a look with Josh and Annmarie, Zoe continued the charade. “Okay, guys. Keep working and check back with me in a couple of days. I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”
“Okay, thanks. Bye!” Josh said. He and Annmarie walked out of the office.
After the students left, Zoe took a deep breath and willed herself not to jump up and head immediately for Meredith’s office.
Screw her. I’m not going to let her see that she gets to me.
Discovering she was a Fire mage gave Zoe an unexpected boost to her self-confidence. She finished her internal pep talk and then moseyed down the hall to Meredith’s office.
“Hey, there. What’s up?” she asked stopping in the doorway.
“Those two students who were just in your office,” Meredith said without preamble, “they are grade-grubbers and I’m fairly certain that they take short-cuts on course work.”
“What exactly do you mean?” asked Zoe, her recently acquired paranoia about Meredith’s connection with the provost and president surfacing.
“Look, I know that you think they’re good students and good people, but you’re still relatively new to being a faculty member. I’m telling you, they’re not all they appear to be,” Meredith stated emphatically.
Meredith’s comments about Josh and Annmarie were short on actual evidence, but long on insinuation. Zoe quickly quelled a burst of anger and forced herself to keep her expression neutral. Not knowing exactly how much power she had, she didn’t want to inadvertently start a fire in Meredith’s office. That would just create a nasty mess for housekeeping.
Did Meredith suspect that the two students were mages? Was she working to undermine their reputations for some other reason? Determined to dig out all possible information, Zoe pushed for something more specific.
“Well, I’ve never had any problem with them. But you’ve been teaching longer than me. Can you give me any details or anything that I should look out for?” If she feigned thoughtful acceptance of Meredith’s concerns, perhaps she could get more information out of her.
“For one thing, they don’t show proper respect to their professors. Haven’t you noticed that? They are far too casual with you. You need to put a stop to that right away!” Meredith was becoming angry. Zoe was taken aback at the vehemence of the statement. Meredith was really stuck on respect ‘due’ to faculty members. What the hell was her problem?
“Okay, I’ll keep that in mind,” she said hastily.
Meredith glared at her and then down at her desk, apparently collecting herself. “I’m sorry,” she said with no real feeling in her tone. “It’s just that disrespect from students and staff is one of the things that really bugs me. We worked hard for these degrees. They owe us respect.” She drew a deep breath and gave Zoe a strained smile that went no further than her mouth. “That distracted me. I had something else I wanted to ask you about.”
“Um…okay. What’s that?”
“Well, I know you are friendly with Sarah Riley,” Meredith’s tone suggested Zoe was friendly with a known axe-murderer. “How much has she told you about the project the provost is working on?”
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about. What project?” Zoe was determined to protect Sarah from whatever accusation Meredith was about to level.
Meredith’s eyebrows leapt up her forehead and Zoe pressed her advantage.
“If you know about this project, can you tell me anything? Is it the same one John Gardner was asking about at Melanie’s office hour the other day? Is it something that will affect faculty?” Zoe forced a laugh. If she made it sound like tenure worries had blocked out her focus on any other issues or activities on campus perhaps Meredith would dismiss Sarah, and by extension Zoe, as a possible concern.
Meredith appeared to accept Zoe’s response. “Never mind. No, it’s nothing to do with anything faculty related or tenure processes. It’s just another admin thing from the president. Melanie shared some frustrations in a committee we’re on together which is the only reason I know anything about it.”
The benign explanation did not match the intensity of the question. Finding Mark a
nd George was now the highest priority for Zoe. Whatever was going on in Shelby was getting worse. They had to figure out what the president was doing. She worried about Sarah as well. If Meredith somehow found out that she and Sarah knew each other well enough to meet for beers over the weekend, that would be a problem.
“Okay. Well, I gotta run. I want to get some work done before the day’s rounds of meetings begin,” she forced herself to smile at Meredith. “See you later.”
Meredith smiled that strained smile again and nodded. Zoe quickly backed out of the office doorway and walked rapidly back to her own office.
Back in her own office, Zoe forced herself to calm down and think rationally. She really should try to get some work done, both for appearances sake and to make actual progress on the grading and class prep demanding her attention. Once she dug out from under that pile, then she would freak out over Meredith’s comments. Zoe had made such a big deal over needing to reduce the piles of grading and make some progress on her research project, that Meredith would probably feel compelled to investigate if Zoe left now. She sighed and buckled down to work.
A couple of hours later, having made a decent sized dent in the piles of work, Zoe figured it would be safe to head across campus and find George. Stepping into the hallway, she risked a glance down towards Meredith’s office and noticed the door was slightly open, meaning she was likely in her office working. She crept down the stairs, , feeling slightly ridiculous as she did so, and out of the building. Meredith’s interrogation (that was the best description) coming on the heels of her discovery of her own power made her excessively wary and possibly a bit paranoid.
“Talking squirrels and cats and Fire magic…hella semester,” she muttered to herself slipping out of the building.
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