With that dismissal, I stood and left immediately, seething.
‘That is very unfair,’ Hiroko agreed quietly, with a sympathetic expression. We were sitting cross-legged on the floor of the library in the displacement section, and I had just finished recounting the story of my first scrying lesson. Aside from learning that I had a fantastic innate gift for scrying, and aside from scrying for the first time, the class had been a complete disaster. Qasim had been very unsupportive, Xanthe had been nasty, and on top of it all, my head had hurt then and ever since, although it had decreased once again to a dull throb.
‘She wasn’t holding up any fingers – I saw her with her hand by her side, she just couldn’t be bothered,’ I went on passionately, though I kept my voice down, ‘and when Qasim came past I felt her move a little, and then suddenly she’s got her hand behind my head!’ Scowling, I held up my index finger to demonstrate. ‘He thought I just wasn’t disciplined enough. He gave me extra work to do between lessons, to make up for it.’
‘I am surprised by Xanthe’s behaviour,’ Hiroko said with a slight frown, going back to her book and running her finger down the contents page. ‘She has been quite distant to me and does not often to speak to me. However, I did hope that she is nice.’
‘So did I,’ I muttered, glaring at the bookshelf beside me. Perhaps I was overreacting, but as far as I was concerned, there had been no need today for Xanthe to make me look like I’d failed. I dismissed the possibility that I’d misinterpreted the image I’d perceived. I knew I’d scried, just as I knew my name and knew I liked the colour purple. I knew.
I’d not spoken to Xanthe since our scrying class, and had made a point of sitting far away from her at both lunch and dinner. She’d made no attempts to talk to me, either. I wondered, not for the first time, what her problem was.
‘At least Sterling is still pleasant to us,’ Hiroko said, flicking to the page she wanted. ‘Sterling is very talkative and speaks to everybody.’
‘As long as you want to talk about Renatus,’ I added, and we both smirked. Despite my strong Irish accent, and Hiroko’s inconsistent ability to fully express herself in English, we understood one another perfectly and shared the same sense of humour. By this point we’d known each other only a few days but had already really connected.
I ran my fingers along the smooth spines of the books on the nearest shelf. The Physics of Teleportation and its neighbour, Advanced Displacement, were both very old books with peeling gold lettering. The author’s name, Griffon, was flaking steadily away. I was too scared of having the ancient texts fall to pieces in my clumsy hands to dare remove the older books from the shelf, but the romantic in me still drew my fingertips magnetically to them, even if just to admire them.
‘What is this word?’ Hiroko asked me, passing the book over and keeping her finger pressed to the page, indicating the offending word. ‘Foo-row?’
I took a quick glance at the sentence: …causing a slight furrow in the Fabric of space but NOT of time…
‘Furrow,’ I corrected, handing her back her book. ‘Like a crinkle.’
‘Like a fold?’ she asked, and I nodded. ‘Thank you. Have you yet had a lesson in displacement?’
‘Yes, but we only talked about laws and ethics and examples of things that can go wrong,’ I told her. I subconsciously began flicking through one of the less deteriorated books that Hiroko had not yet started on. ‘There was no practical aspect. But that’s fine, because I already know that I’ll be no use at it.’
‘You should not be so quick to doubt yourself if you have not yet tried,’ Hiroko warned me. ‘Qasim has told you, doubt holds you back. You may be blocking much other strength.’
Eventually, as it started to get late, Hiroko and I headed back upstairs to our room. She was telling me about her first attempts at displacement. I was listening, but part of my mind was focussed elsewhere, dreading facing Xanthe. What if the reason she’d been so difficult was because I’d done something wrong? What if she’d told Sterling to act the same?
Upon entering the room behind Hiroko, though, I discovered that I had nothing to worry about. Xanthe was sitting silently on her bed, writing in a diary, and Sterling was, as usual, practically bouncing off the walls, animatedly describing her day to her friend. Xanthe, it seemed, was temporarily deaf and was not taking in a word of it; Sterling either didn’t notice or didn’t care. She turned on Hiroko and me when we entered and jumped onto her bed, beaming.
‘He spoke to me,’ she said as I dislodged Hiroko’s key from the door and handed it back to its owner. I glanced at Sterling. She was wearing her pyjamas and her strawberry blonde hair was secured in two braids.
‘Who?’ Hiroko asked, innocently, though I was pretty sure I already knew the answer. Sterling’s smile widened, and her bright eyes brightened further.
‘Renatus. He spoke to me,’ she explained in near ecstasy. ‘He spoke to me.’
‘Yeah, what did he say?’ I asked, deciding against telling her that Renatus had also spoken to me, and had probably spoken to hundreds, if not thousands, of other people in his life.
‘Well,’ Sterling said, arranging herself so that she was kneeling on her bed, ‘I was having dinner, well, dessert by that point, I guess, and nearly everyone else was already gone. Then I finished my ice cream and left the dining hall, and was coming up here, and was halfway up the stairs when he came down and nearly walked into me!’ She grinned and pressed her hands against the sides of her face in excitement, as if nobody in the world could ever have asked for such a blessing as being walked into by a headmaster. ‘And he sort of righted himself and said, ‘Excuse me’, really softly…Really vaguely. He’s got the most beautiful voice; really, it’s so soft and silky; really low, too. Then he, like, averted his eyes, totally cute, and hurried past me. He looked really intense, like he was thinking a hundred other things…Aristea, Hiroko, don’t laugh at me – he’s just so sexy.’
Dramatically, Sterling threw herself back onto her bed, grinning at the roof. Hiroko and I shared an amused glance. Pathetic.
Xanthe said nothing for the entire night. Sterling made up for it by talking almost non-stop until she fell asleep.
In the morning, I again woke up earlier than the others. My sleep had once again been refreshing and dreamless, and my mind felt clear and alert – perfect to practise tool scrying. I quietly found my candle and a box of matches and let myself into the bathroom. I settled myself cross-legged against the mirror and lit the wick. I had nobody to hold numbers behind my head but that hardly mattered – my objective was to get a clearly scried image of myself and to hold it.
Taking several deep, relaxing breaths, I imagined myself, sitting cross-legged in the bathroom in my pyjamas, my hair unbrushed, my feet bare and a little cold, my hands clasped together over a lit candlestick. Slowly, I opened my eyes and stared deeply into the steady little flame.
My mind was a bad one for wandering, and it did this more times than I bothered to count, but I persevered and held my self-image securely in the forefront of my thoughts. I found my scrying talent after some searching, because for some reason it was not in the same place as it was yesterday. Though it was an effort, I forced the talent to show itself. Again, like yesterday, it responded lethargically, like an underused limb suddenly being asked to lift a heavy piece of luggage.
With a push, I managed to get a little bit of it to work. Something slid into place, and then an image appeared inside the flame – a tiny little Aristea, sitting on the bathroom floor in her pyjamas with bare feet and messy hair.
I felt a rush of excitement, and immediately the image blinked out. My talent stopped exerting itself.
I tried twice more and got the same results – a brief image of myself before my feelings overpowered and drove the image away. It was enough, though; enough for me to know that I could scry.
On Friday afternoon I had my first lesson with Susannah. She was a talented Seer, or so Kendra had gushed
admiringly.
The round-faced American sorceress was waiting for us in the grounds on the crest of a grassy hill, asking students to sit down on the large picnic blanket she had laid out for us. Wrapped in jackets and scarves, we did so.
‘Our work here will be to develop your ability to See, with a capital S,’ she told us. ‘Often confused with the related art of scrying, my preferred art is to do with the divining of the futures. Scrying, as most of you should know, is to do with observing events as they are – usually actual events from the past, or current events as they unfold. Seeing relates more to what could be. It is less precise but, to me at least, much more fulfilling.’
I’d never foreseen anything, not really. Like most witches (like most humans, actually) I had experienced intuition, but a gut feeling and a rush of metaphorical images are very different.
Susannah went around the group, asking everyone to voice their experiences with Seeing. Everyone here had known already that Seeing was not synonymous with scrying, but most had not done much more than dabble in some card reading or rune casting. Just like me. I felt relief.
‘All of you are sitting at about the same level of skill in this area,’ Susannah said when the last person had finished speaking. ‘You’re all aware of Seeing and how it can be used, but none of you here is a natural Seer – that is to say, nobody here identifies with this art in the way that the Level 3 class does. You,’ Susannah smiled directly at Hiroko, ‘are a Displacer. It’s your talent; your interest. Just as yours,’ she looked at one of the boys we’d followed over from the house, ‘is telepathy.’
I opened my mouth to speak, to ask her what I was – most sorcerers knew instinctively what their gift was, but all I seemed to be good at was wards and making messes.
‘Do you know a lot about gifts?’ one of the few other girls in our class asked suddenly, British accent sharp, half-raising her hand as she spoke. I recognised her after a moment as being a student in my energy-transferring class with Jadon. Willa? Willow. Her very shiny, straight black hair was twisted into a bun this afternoon.
‘I can sense a burning question,’ Susannah said with a small smile. ‘You’re a Healer, as I’m sure you already know.’
‘Yes…and I know this has very little to do with the actual topic…but, I’m a Healer, and all of my family are Seers,’ Willow explained hesitantly. ‘All of my dad’s family is. None of them are Healers. And it hasn’t come from my mum’s side, because she’s, well, not a witch.’ Willow lifted her chin suddenly, as though daring anyone to laugh. Nobody did.
It was not my own opinion, but there were some pure-line witches who considered anyone of mortal birth to be second-class. Willow had obviously come across this animosity before; she was not ashamed, but knew there were people out there who thought she should be. I could sense that she would defend her mother’s dignity, and her family’s right to call themselves sorcerers, if she had to.
I thought of Kendra and Sophia and how easily they’d let me know that their father was mortal. Was the pure-line supremacist problem different on different continents? I supposed that witchcraft had deeper roots here than it did in those nations settled by Europeans, and probably deeper prejudices, too.
‘So your mother is mortal?’ Susannah asked, making it clear that this was just another casual subject to her, and not something she would judge her student by. Willow relaxed visibly.
‘No, she’s a sorceress,’ she said, ‘but her parents weren’t. She’s a Seer, too, just like Dad.’
‘Well, Willow, while there’s an abundance of research done of this topic, I cannot tell you conclusively why you are a Healer,’ Susannah said, settling into a more comfortable position. ‘Research shows us that magical power in pure lines is inherited, so if your ancestors were powerful in magic, you will be, too, but there’s no evidence to suggest that talent is exclusively linked to that. In some cases we see families in which every child has a different talent. For example, take my own family. My husband is a Displacer, and our son Dean is a Crafter – that is, he can write and create magic in his mind. A very unusual gift, and not one he got from anyone in our immediate living family.’ She smiled helplessly and shrugged, hands spread wide as she did so. ‘I can only assume that a gift is just that – a gift – and has nothing to do with genetics. We don’t know why it happens. Just as sometimes we come across sorcerers with no witch blood, like your mother, Willow. Magic, I’m afraid, is a complicated science.’
The lesson, following that insightful dialogue, went on to be extremely boring. We copied down laws again and made some half-hearted attempts at Seeing. I’d never been much interested in future sight, and I wondered whether my disinterest would hinder me.
Hiroko and I went for a walk when the lesson ended while the other people went back inside with Susannah.
‘Have you done a lot of future-seeing work?’ I asked as we headed further away from the grand house. I realised that I had asked Hiroko this before or after nearly every class. I knew why, too; I wanted assurance that I wasn’t going to be the dummy in the class during this term.
‘Yes, sometimes, but I am not very good at it,’ Hiroko responded, taking a long stride to avoid a small rabbit hole. She paused, and turned back to it. I stopped as well, waiting for her. ‘Is this for rabbits?’
‘Aye, that is,’ I agreed. ‘We get a lot of hares, too, but they don’t dig burrows.’
‘Are they very cute, like rabbits?’ Hiroko asked, now walking again, although slower, looking around. I fell into step beside her.
‘They’re pests,’ I said. ‘Though sometimes, I suppose, they’re cute. Don’t you have rabbits and hares in Japan?’
‘We do,’ said Hiroko, ‘but not in the city. There are no rabbit burrows in Sapporo.’ She smiled at me. ‘It is very different in Sapporo from here. One day, you must visit me at my house.’
‘Definitely,’ I agreed. ‘And you should visit me, too, and meet my sister – you’d really like her, everyone likes her, and you have a lot in common…’
And I realised suddenly that this was true. Hiroko was responsible, level-headed, caring and sweet. Just like Angela. No wonder I’d latched onto her.
‘When you come to Sapporo, you will meet my father,’ Hiroko continued enthusiastically, ‘and you can see the shops where I go and you can meet my English teacher. She is very nice with me.’
We didn’t really have a destination, but after half an hour or so of aimless wandering and chattering, we found ourselves at the west edge of the hilly lawn. Here, the lush grass blended seamlessly with a sparser type of grass, and tall, gnarled apple trees grew, shading the grass with stark, spindly shadows and, oddly for so early in the season and considering the trees were only just budding with new leaves, dropping little apples everywhere. The spaces between the trees were roughly equal, which told me that this was an orchard, not just a place where a bunch of fruit trees had happened to grow. The ground was littered with the ripe, very early fruit and the rotten shapes of those apples that had fallen in the preceding weeks.
The orchard had the definite feel of something long abandoned, and I somehow knew that no one had been amongst those trees for many years.
‘Why does nobody farm these trees?’ Hiroko wondered aloud, voicing my own thoughts. This was a huge orchard; surely the apples could be used in the meals that were prepared in the mansion? Apple pies, or even just as snacks. I didn’t think I’d seen apples yet on the buffet table.
I suddenly felt that these trees needed somebody to accept the delicious-looking fruit they produced season after season, and reached up and plucked a large red-green apple from a low-hanging branch. While Hiroko silently watched, I took a hesitant bite.
It was probably the sweetest, most flavoursome apple I’d ever tasted, and I told Hiroko as much.
‘We won’t be in trouble, will we?’ she asked, eyeing the fruit. I shook my head confidently.
‘There’s no way anyone will notice a few mi
ssing apples in an orchard this size,’ I assured her.
That said, I picked a second apple for her, and then we continued walking along the orchard’s border, munching away.
We eventually passed a big gap in the apple trees, which on second glance proved to be a wide dirt path leading into the orchard. Even the grass didn’t grow there. I slowed and allowed my gaze to wander down the long, straight pathway. Thirty or so metres into the trees, where the land rolled away out of sight, the path ended at a low, cast-iron gate. Because of the trees either side of the path and the gate, it was difficult to see what lay beyond; however, both Hiroko and I sensed the significance of it. This was a powerful place. The trees lining the path seemed stiller than the others, which all rustled softly in the breeze. No apples had fallen onto the dirt path, but dozens lay rotting either side.
We stood for some time, staring as though entranced by the gate. My head began to ache very slightly. There was something special – and, somehow, frighteningly familiar – about this path that I couldn’t quite identify. Just being this close, I felt invigorated like I’d just had a hit of caffeine, yet also a bit unwell, like I was lactose intolerant and had forgotten to ask for soy. For a wild moment, I felt an urge to follow the path and satisfy my burning curiosity. What lay just beyond that gate? What was so special about this place that made my senses tingle nervously?
I must have made a movement along the path, because Hiroko closed her hand over my wrist.
‘We shouldn’t,’ she whispered, as though afraid of being overheard. ‘It is…not nice. I am thinking of dead things and dark.’
Her words shocked me out of my little trance. She was right. Now that she had verbalised the problem, I could feel exactly what she meant. I felt slightly ill. Where had I felt something like this before?
Together, we turned away. Every step I took in the opposite direction made me feel better. The ill feeling went away. My head cleared. I took another bite of my apple and felt my senses relax. It was not hard to forget the experience as we walked across the sunny, hilly lawn and started talking again.
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