Academic Magic

by Becky R Jones

  She walked across campus, rehearsing ways to tell George about her Fire magic. He was her mentor and Mark said he was a powerful mage too. Josh and Annmarie mentioned that he suspected she had power. Would he have figured out what kind of power? If she didn’t say anything, could she go on pretending she had nothing to do with magic? Oh, yeah. Like that’s going work. The squirrels freaking talked to you. How is that not magic?

  She detoured the longest way possible around Shelby Hall and cut back across the top of the quad to Harrison Hall. Luckily, George was in his office. She reached the office door just as a student came out. Zoe tapped on the door frame.

  “Hi, George. Do you have a minute?”

  George looked up and waved at a chair. “Of course, Zoe. Come in. And close the door. What brings you across campus?”

  Sitting down next to the desk, Zoe scrutinized George’s face. The worry lines were deeper and he had a small semi-permanent scrunch between his eyes. The added stress of what she was coming to call “The Mystery of Shelby Hall” in her own mind, was very likely showing on her face as well.

  Zoe took a deep breath. “I’m a Fire mage.”

  George didn’t appear surprised. “I knew you had power; I wasn’t sure which Element. How did you figure it out?” Zoe told him the story of her dinner at Mark and David’s house.

  As she finished the story, George smiled.

  “Like I said, I knew you had some power. But it wasn’t clear for some reason. I’m glad you figured it out.”

  Zoe nodded. “Me, too, I think. I’ve been thinking about why I didn’t know or figure it out. I have a couple of ideas, but I want to talk to my mother this weekend before I say anything else.”

  George raised his eyebrows. “Okay, that sounds like a good idea” was all he said.

  “Thanks for understanding. But, there’s something else. I just had a couple of interesting conversations. Josh Selford and Annmarie Johnson told me earlier today that they know a couple of the students who work in Shelby Hall. One of the friends has quit his work study job in there. He told them it was “poisonous.” But the other friend insists that there is nothing wrong, even though, according to Annmarie, she looks like she’s very ill; dark circles under her eyes, pale, not eating well, falling grades, that sort of thing.”

  George frowned. “I was afraid of this. Whoever is responsible for the dark energies, and I’m beginning to think it’s the president, is manipulating staff and students into participating in this nasty mess.” He glanced out the window and then back at Zoe. “You said a couple of interesting conversations. What was the other one?”

  “Josh and Annmarie were in my office and Meredith Cruickshank came by. She said she wanted to talk to me. She went on that whole respect rant again, just like she did in the provost’s office. She told me that Josh and Annmarie are troublemakers and that I shouldn’t trust them. But when I asked her for any details, or anything that I should look out for, she got angry and said that they are not respectful and that should be enough. They’re both very good students in every sense. Why would she go out of her way to bad-mouth them?”

  She stopped. Would George care that Meredith had threatened Sarah? Seeing her hesitation George made a rolling “go on” motion with his hand.

  Zoe thought back to the rest of her conversation with Meredith. “Okay. Well, then it got a littler weirder and now I’m more worried. Meredith asked me if I knew anything about the project that the provost is working on and her explanation was that she thought Sarah Riley had told me something. Now I’m anxious that something is going to happen to Sarah. I asked Meredith what project, but she just said, oh, never mind, it has to do with some committee work and that faculty will find out next semester.”

  George grimaced. “That’s a pretty transparent attempt to dig for information or even set Sarah up to take the fall for leaking information. Why would she say that, besides plugging a supposed leak?” He appeared to get lost in thought.

  As the two of them sat in silence, working over the puzzle Zoe had presented, there was a light knock at the door. George looked up, “Come in!”

  Mark Davis’s head appeared around the door, “Hi George. Oh, hi Zoe.” He walked into the office and gestured behind him. “Kieran is with me. He saw something interesting.” Kieran followed Mark in and closed the door.

  Zoe quirked an eyebrow at the inclusion of Kieran Ross. He was in the anthropology department and had started at Summerfield a year before her. Mark must have a reason for bringing him along. They nodded at each other.

  “Zoe, Kieran is a Water mage. Kieran, Zoe has just figured out that she is a Fire mage,” Mark said by way of renewed introduction and explanation. Both of Zoe’s eyebrows went up. Kieran smiled at her.

  The two men sat down. “I’m glad you’re here, Zoe, a couple of things have happened recently that you need to know about,” Mark added.

  “Zoe was just telling me about a conversation she had with Meredith Cruickshank,” said George, “It appears that we have several new pieces of information and some speculation to share.” Zoe filled Mark and Kieran in on what she had just told George.

  “So, now, we’re trying to figure out what Meredith and Melanie are up to and I’m operating on the assumption that Melanie, at least, is acting on the president’s orders. I also think that there is a move to enthrall students and staff who work in Shelby, specifically, those who are working in the president’s and provost’s office.” George finished his summary, much like Zoe imagined he finished a class lecture, and turned to Mark.

  “What do you have?”

  A memory of seeing George present a research paper at a conference she attended while in grad school floated into Zoe’s mind. His tone and his gestures now were identical to those she witnessed at the conference. She disguised a snort of laughter with a small coughing fit and was rewarded with a puzzled glance from George.

  “Interesting that you mentioned Meredith Cruickshank,” said Kieran. “The other day I saw her with a couple of students, heading into Davis Hall. The students didn’t seem very happy to be with her. In fact, they were obviously nervous. And, they looked tired and ill, like you just described, Zoe. But, until I talked to Mark today, I didn’t really think anything of it.”

  Mark glanced around at the other three.

  “We all saw Meredith’s reaction at the provost’s office hour. I am positive Meredith is in the coven and controlling some of the students. What Kieran saw makes that more likely. She was taking those students somewhere, I’m sure of it. Based on a couple of other stuff I’ve seen things are seriously heating up.”

  Zoe heart started to race. George’s eyes took on a flat, dangerous look.

  “Go on,” he said in a grim tone.

  “This morning, I found a dead crow under the bushes behind Shelby Hall. I was coming in from that back parking lot and there were a couple of crows circling the area between the sidewalk and the building. By the way, that cloud around Shelby has expanded about halfway into the parking lot. That’s why there’s always spaces back there; nobody wants to get near the building. Anyway, I searched the area below where the crows were circling and spotted the dead one on the ground. The two circling didn’t say anything, just left once they saw I had found the dead one.” Mark looked at Zoe.

  “You said that your cats told you about crows and raccoons, right?”

  “Yes,” Zoe said. “They said that crows were mercenary and sometimes worked for witches. They didn’t say how they worked for the witches.”

  George nodded. “Crows are mercenary; they’ll work for witches or mages. They work for witches as aerial spies, and general information gathering usually. But, if one of them was killed while working for President Ammon, then they would have no qualms about letting others know that something was going on.” He turned back to Mark.

  “Was there anything unusual about the dead crow?”

  Mark frowned. “No. It was lying not too far from one of the windows in Shelby. If anybody el
se had found it, they probably would have assumed that it flew into the glass and died from the impact. I think it probably spent too much time in the contaminated air around Shelby. Animals are more sensitive to those things than humans are. Remember, Rowantree said several weeks ago it was getting too painful for the squirrels to pass by Shelby. If this group of crows has been working for President Ammon, they’ve been around that toxic air for a lot longer than anyone else.”

  Kieran raised his eyebrows and George nodded. Zoe looked from one to the other and then back at Mark.

  “Since the crows showed you where the dead one was, does that mean that maybe they’re done working for the president? I mean, one of them died…” she trailed off.

  “Yes, I think you’re right, Zoe,” George answered. He looked at the three of them. “Okay. Thanks, Mark. This gives us a little bit more to go on. The crows won’t want to do anything immediately; they’re very good at protecting themselves from all sides. But I’ll probably find a couple of them on my back deck in a few days, willing to talk. I’ll let you know what I find out when that happens. In the meantime, be careful who you talk to, and watch out for Meredith Cruickshank. We’re still not sure how involved she is in whatever is going on in Shelby Hall. But walking around with sick and nervous-looking students tells me she’s involved on some level.”

  Zoe hesitated. She was new in this world of magic and didn’t want to sound like an idiot. But, “Witches use hair and blood to gain control over people. Make sure you don’t have anything around your office. Burn any hair you find.” They all looked a bit surprised, but then nodded in agreement.

  “Good idea,” Kieran said with approval.

  On the walk back across campus to her own office, Zoe made a mental list of the research she needed to dig out and re-read immediately. She also needed to stop at Target on the way home and pick up a new hairbrush, since she was going to be burning the current one tonight. She gave a short prayer of gratitude that her house had a working fireplace. It was a very new experience, especially for an historian, to discover real world implications emerging from her research. It was also frightening. She still wasn’t fully convinced this wasn’t some sort of long, involved, extremely vivid dream, but acting as if it was real was probably the best, and safest, route to take.

  Once back at home, Zoe opened her front door to be greeted by a frantic Moose and Flash. Tails down, fur standing up, they paced just inside the door. Walking in and closing the door behind her, Zoe turned to look at the cats.

  “Guys…what’s wrong? Has something happened?”

  She dropped her bags and Moose slowed his figure-eight pacing enough to look up at her.

  “We were visited by a couple of crows today. They said that one of them died on your campus last night.” His voice carried more anger than worry.

  “Yes, I know,” Zoe replied. “Mark told me and George today. He found the dead crow.” She moved into the living room and sat down on the sofa.

  Flash climbed into her lap while Moose shoved in next to her. “The crows also said that there’s a fully formed, almost fully functioning coven in the building where the crow died,” Flash said.

  Zoe stared at him. “We assumed that, but it’s good to get confirmation. If that’s the case….” She trailed off as the implications and questions flooded her mind.

  “What would somebody want or need with a coven in Philadelphia? What am I missing?” she asked the cats who had calmed down enough to begin cleaning themselves.

  “You humans have all kinds of reasons for doing things. Isn’t unrivaled power enough of a reason?” Moose was licking the base of his tail.

  “Yeah, but power to do what?” Zoe puzzled over what Morgan Ammon would do with more power.

  “Revenge, ego, lots of things,” said Flash.

  “Yeah, I suppose. But I’ll worry about that in a bit. I need to protect myself first.”

  Zoe got up off the couch and moved to light a fire in the fireplace. She had purchased a small bundle of wood in anticipation of the cool fall evenings that were beginning to arrive. Burning her hairbrush and all hair was not the original intention for autumn fires. It was amazing how priorities could change in a few short weeks. She stared at the fireplace. This was a great chance to practice using her mage power. She surreptitiously glanced back at the sofa. Flash and Moose watched her intently. Great. An audience. Now she’d mess up for sure.

  Guess I just have to go for it.

  Zoe placed some kindling and a couple of the smaller logs in the fireplace. She sat back on her heels and stared at the fireplace envisioning flames between the logs. A small flicker appeared in the kindling. She yelped and almost fell over causing the flame to die. Recovering, she focused on the tiny flame, managed to restart it, and found the threads within it as she had at Mark and David’s house. Slowly Zoe worked the flame until it caught hold of the kindling and became self-sustaining. Drawing a breath, she looked over at the cats in triumph.

  “I did it! I started a fire!”

  “Of course, you did. You’re a Fire mage.” Moose returned to his constant grooming.

  “We were wondering if you’d ever figure it out,” Flash settled down into a crouch staring at the fire. “This is a pretty good fire,” he added stretching out on his side and letting his belly soak up the warmth from Zoe’s first ever Fire mage fire.

  Zoe gazed proudly at her fire for a few minutes and then turned back to the cats.

  “I’m going to burn my hair and my old hairbrush. Do I need to burn all your stray fur too? Would the coven members know about you two?”

  “No, you don’t have to worry about hair with us. Or the squirrels or raccoons for that matter,” said Flash. “It’s only humans who can be controlled by a witch through hair and blood.”

  Glancing back at her fire one more time, Zoe turned to head upstairs, change clothes and collect her hairbrush from the bathroom. She moved towards the stairs and Moose darted in front of her. Overbalancing, she pulled her foot back sharply and just missed kicking him.

  “Moose! Don’t do that!”

  “What about dinner?” he produced a pitiful whine at the end of the question, unfazed by his near miss with her foot.

  “Oh, for…” Zoe scowled at him. Flash came up and gave her a wide-eyed pitiful look as well. “In five minutes. Trust me, you won’t die before I get back downstairs. Geez.” She deliberately turned away and headed up the stairs.

  Chapter Ten

  A few days after burning her hairbrush and all the hair she could find around the house Zoe was once again at school on a day she didn’t have to teach. The general atmosphere of studying and research always helped her concentrate on her work. This time though, Meredith’s voice kept intruding into her close reading of her research notes on the power and abilities of covens. Annoyed at the interruption, she deliberately tuned it out and returned to her work. The sound invaded again. She looked up at her own door. It was open just a crack which probably explained why she could hear Meredith. She got up to close the door fully.

  Standing at the door, Meredith’s voice became clearer. There were pauses in the conversation. She must be the phone

  “I told you, she said she had no idea what I was talking about!” Meredith sounded annoyed and alarmed at the same time. “I didn’t want to push it. I don’t want her to think we know anything about her.”

  Zoe eavesdropped intently and shamelessly, willing the sound to carry into her office. Meredith paused, apparently listening.

  “No, madame. I didn’t say anything about why I asked; just if Sarah had said anything to her. She’s too close to Sarah and faculty who are friends with staff can’t be trusted as far as I’m concerned.” Another pause.

  She was talking about Zoe.

  “Yes, madame. I’ll keep an eye on her. Thank you madame. It won’t happen again, I assure you. Good-bye.” The rattle of the phone being placed back in its cradle brought Zoe back to herself. She quietly closed her door. Her light was on and
could be seen through the frosted interior window, but that wasn’t a problem. A clearly occupied office with a closed door signaled a faculty member who was too busy with their own work to field interruptions from students or worry about what their colleagues were doing. Hopefully Meredith would take the hint and stay away.

  Sitting back down at her desk, Zoe puzzled over the one-sided conversation. Who was Meredith speaking with? Given the respectful, almost fearful tone of voice it had to be either the provost or the president. What had happened that Meredith wasn’t going to let happen again? Was Sarah in trouble?

  There were too many questions and a huge number of red flags. George needed to know about this right now. And, she had to figure out a way to warn Sarah. Calling George was too risky. Meredith was in her office and it was possible, however remote, that she could hear a phone call in Zoe’s office. She couldn’t take that chance.

  Decision made, Zoe stood up, grabbed her coat, and a notebook to make it look like she was going to a meeting. Mention a meeting with your mentor or the department and everybody just made sympathetic noises. She was discovering it was one of the few advantages to being a junior member of the faculty. Well, at least for junior faculty who wanted a reason to escape manipulative senior faculty.

  Stepping out of her office, she risked a glance down the hall. Meredith’s door was closed. The light was on, so she was in there. Funny. How had she heard the conversation? The door must have been open earlier and she simply hadn’t heard it close. Meredith was as quiet as Zoe had been just a few minutes ago. Still thinking about the conversation she’d overheard, Zoe quietly closed the door behind her and tiptoed down the stairs.

  Emerging from Cooper Hall, Zoe was intercepted by Josh and Annmarie who were coming across the quad.

  “Dr. O’Brien! We were just on our way in to talk to you about our project,” Annmarie called.

  The two students radiated stress and worry. “Is this really about the project?” Zoe asked in a low voice when they reached her.