Mind Games

by Christine Amsden

  It was also my choice to go home.

  For the third time that evening, I slammed my foot on the brake and turned around, this time not stopping until I pulled the car into the driveway of our quaint little rental on the opposite edge of town from Matthew Blair.

  Nicolas and Madison were there when I arrived, seated closely together on the lime green sofa. Nicolas had his arm around Madison while they watched something on TV. They still looked off to me as a couple, although seeing them together reminded me sharply of Madison’s pregnancy scare. I closed my eyes for a moment and pushed the thought away.

  “Hi, you two.”

  “I saved you some dinner,” Madison said. “In case you were hungry.”

  “Thanks.”

  I started to head into the kitchen when Nicolas spoke up. “I have a favor to ask of you.”

  “Oh?”

  “Mom told me that you made a powerful sleeping potion last week. Apparently, she tried some of it and said it was very good.”

  “Did she?” She hadn’t said anything to me about trying the potion. “Well, I suppose I did all the grunt work, anyway. Mom put the magic in.”

  “All the grunt work is important. If you aren’t focused, the magic won’t be able to bind your will to the potion.”

  “Did you have a point?”

  “My point is, I was hoping you could brew a potion for me.”

  It was the last thing I would have expected him to ask, and I felt too stunned by the request to answer.

  “I can’t do it myself because the first step requires eight hours of focused intent, and the Eagles have been keeping me too busy. They won’t let me skip a good night’s sleep, either. So I asked Mom, who said she would do it if you didn’t want to.”

  “Me?” I wasn’t quite sure I understood why I would be a better choice. Not only did I not have the magical talent, meaning I would need help at some point during the process, but I had a full-time job.

  “Of course, I’d split it with you when you were done.”

  “Oh.” Suddenly, I understood the draw. It wasn’t exactly everything I had ever wanted from magic, but still, it had possibilities. “What does the potion do?”

  In answer, Nicolas handed me a small leather-bound volume entitled Fire Magic. He had a bookmark set about halfway through, and when I flipped to that page, I found a potion for fire resistance.

  “This is how I ran into the Robertses’ house the other night without getting burned,” Nicolas said. “You take this potion and it’ll make you fire retardant for an hour. Only catch… doesn’t do a thing for your clothes.”

  “So why didn’t you run out of their house naked last week?” I asked.

  “I weave flame retardant spells into all of my clothes. I give them a recharge every laundry day, but it’s the potion that kept me alive. I always like to have some on hand.”

  I studied the recipe. It looked complicated, though only the first eight hours required intense dedication. After that, it simply needed to stew for a day. I thought I could handle that, plus I had all but one of the ingredients.

  “Where do you get salamander blood?” I asked.

  He reached into his pocket and handed me a vial. “I get it from Mom and Dad. They get it from a magical supply company on the Internet. I’ll e-mail you the link.”

  “Thanks.” I took the vial of orangish blood and placed it carefully in my pocket.

  “You need that for a few of the potions in here, but it’s tricky stuff. Don’t shake it up or jostle it too much.”

  “I remember,” I said.

  “So you’ll really do it?” Nicolas asked. “I told Mom you wouldn’t.”

  “A lot’s changed in the last few days,” I said. “I guess Mom understands me better than I thought.” Not only did I want to do it, but suddenly the idea gave me a thrill. I couldn’t wait to get started.

  “Give me a call when you need me to do the last step,” Nicolas said.

  “I will. Are you going to be able to check out the house tonight?”

  “I’ll try. I can’t promise anything. Not all magic is traceable.”

  “I understand.”

  He started to walk away, but I put an arm out to stop him before he did. I shouldn’t have said anything, but despite having discovered hidden talents, Madison still feared magic, and was still fragile. I didn’t want to see her hurt, especially not by my brother. I couldn’t bear to have a wedge put between either relationship.

  “Nicolas,” I began, “I know things with you and Madison are getting serious.”

  He shrugged. “Not really. We’re just having fun.”

  “You are?” That wasn’t the response I had expected. I couldn’t see Madison or Nicolas engaging in fun or casual sex.

  “Yeah. Don’t worry about it so much. I’m not coercing her. I think she needed someone to help her loosen up and have fun.”

  “And what do you get out of it?” I asked.

  He stared at the floor. “She’s a good listener. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind it being more serious but… Look, if you want to get started on that tonight, you’d better get going.”

  “Okay.” I watched him return to the living room and to Madison, sliding in easily beside her and putting his arm back around her.

  None of your business, I told myself fiercely. Then I turned my attention to the book. I got started on the potion right away. That turned out to be a good decision, because the next day, all hell broke loose.

  23

  I THINK WE’D ALL BEEN LULLED INTO a false sense of security since the protesters had ceased their picket. Besides, Matthew’s entire family had been on top of the problem, so how could a crowd of determined angry people fight that?

  The call came into the station around eleven thirty. Wesley and I were en route to Scott Lee’s house when the call went out for every available unit to head to Eagle Rock Elementary School and a riot in progress.

  Since I wasn’t there to see the riot begin, I had to piece the story together from the children’s stories, especially from my sister, Elena, and her new friend, Barry Eagle.

  * * *

  The students at Eagle Rock Elementary ate lunch in two shifts, the first consisting of the even numbered grades plus kindergarten, the second consisting of the odd numbered grades. After they ate, the students went outside for a half hour of recess which was, in theory, supervised by teachers. Back in my own grade school days, quite a bit went on under the teachers’ noses. Apparently, little had changed.

  Elena, my dear, sweet sister who spent more time talking to the dead than the living, spent her recesses attempting not to be noticed. It was safer that way. In kindergarten through third grade, she had spent most of recess sitting on the concrete steps leading from the school to the playground, but her fourth grade teacher had tried to make a project out of a girl she only saw as painfully shy.

  So Elena had been trying, for a little over a week, to find a new spot that was visible to neither student nor teacher. She hadn’t found a good place, but on that Tuesday at recess, she found a large rock near the cafeteria windows at the perfect angle to keep her from being spied by the lunch crowd or those frolicking on the playground.

  Amanda Roberts, Pastor Roberts’s nine-year-old daughter, saw her go. They had the same teacher that year. So far, Amanda had done a better job than usual of turning the class against the witch in their midst, probably because Elena didn’t know how to stand up for herself.

  It’s not clear what Amanda and the three other girls who confronted Elena on the rock said to her that day. I can take a few educated guesses but it’s not the kind of thing I like to think about, especially when it involves my most emotionally vulnerable sister. It is clear that the attack went beyond words. They attacked Elena with slaps, pinches, and, right before she lost control, one of them yanked her hair so hard that they tore out a large clump of her beautiful auburn tresses.

  At that point one of the teachers on recess duty, Bethany Atkins, noticed the fight an
d tried to break it up. But she arrived too late. She managed to pull Amanda Roberts away from Elena, but not before the magic within Elena snapped.

  My sister might not know how to defend herself under normal circumstances, but at some point instinct takes over, even for young, untrained sorcerers. She screamed. The sound carried with it unformed, unfocused magical energy. She didn’t send the energy into the world to do anything, as is the norm, and so it did quite random things, most of them echoes of the child’s own fear.

  Amanda’s friends stood at ground zero. They began to see and hear things that weren’t there, terrors borne out of their own imaginations. They staggered away, in the direction of the playground. All except Amanda, who shouted at them to come back.

  “It’s the witch doing it,” Amanda said. “You can fight if you’re strong.”

  But if her friends heard, they didn’t acknowledge it. Only Ms. Atkins remained, though her face had gone ghostly white and her eyes bulged.

  Around the playground, some trees and bushes died while others flowered as if it were the heart of spring as opposed to the end of summer. The playground equipment began to buckle and break. Children ran scattering in all directions, headed away from the perilous landscape.

  Elena turned her head away from the destruction, but all this did was to send the final burst of uncontrolled magic hurtling into the wall of the cafeteria, tearing it down in a cascade of falling glass and debris.

  For a few seconds, everything went still. Most of the students and teachers had no idea what had happened, though a few shouted, “Earthquake!”

  Amanda broke the silence, shouting loudly enough to be heard by students in the cafeteria and the playground, “Elena Scot is attacking the school! We have to defend it!”

  Elena shook her head wildly. Ms. Atkins, sensing danger, tried to forestall the impending doom by dragging Amanda away, but she had already done her damage.

  Most of Eagle Rock’s three hundred elementary school students responded to Amanda’s pronouncement by running away. But jealousy and hatred, now bolstered by tremendous fear of the undeniable destructive power of Elena’s magic unleashed, prompted a few to turn and fight. They didn’t seek out Elena initially, but turned on known or suspected practitioners like Barry Eagle, Jenna Lee, Tom Hewitt, Nathan McClellan, and my six-year-old brother, Adam Scot. Just to name a few.

  Active gifts may come as naturally as breathing, but manipulating magical energy in a useful way is another matter entirely. It takes years of dedicated study to master useful spells and ways to focus raw magic, often culminating in a standard three-year apprenticeship. The oldest of these magical children, ten-year-old Barry Eagle, wouldn’t have even learned how to put up a defensible shield.

  This was bad for two reasons: First, because the accused witches, outnumbered by about three to one, didn’t have a good way to defend themselves. Second, because like Elena, they could accidentally defend themselves if pushed too far.

  Adam’s gift for charisma did him no good in the midst of the frightened mob. A first grader, he had been in the cafeteria when the wall exploded, and when he realized that he couldn’t keep these people from hurting him by asking nicely, he ran for it. He dashed through the newly formed hole in the school, stumbling over debris, looking for Elena.

  Out on the playground, second graders Nathan McClellan and Tom Hewitt fared a little better. Nathan, who lived with his Uncle Cormack since his father’s death, had a protective amulet that created a shield. It protected him from both magical and physical attacks. He and his best friend, Tom, stood close, huddled within the protective confines, while students looked for inventive ways to break it down.

  Fourth graders Bruce Jenkins and Brenna Lee weren’t doing quite as well. Bruce’s magic was minimal and his gift of farsight, while useful in certain situations, didn’t help him much in a physical melee with half a dozen attackers. Brenna Lee, like her sister, Jenna, and their cousin, Scott, ranked much higher on the magical spectrum. She also had the gift of invisibility, which under other circumstances would have proved extremely useful. Unfortunately, a group surrounded her before she could muster up the courage to set aside every rule of secrecy that had been drummed into her head: No magic at school. No exceptions.

  Back in the cafeteria, Barry Eagle had decided to go ahead and set aside the no magic at school rule. He phased out, meaning he could walk through solid matter. This meant no one could land a punch on him, but it didn’t do much for his fellow sorcerers.

  Jenna Lee’s gift for creating auditory hallucinations was having a much better offensive effect. At least until a few students recognized the source of the hallucinations. Amidst loud war cries, they bashed her head into a table until Jenna went still – unconscious.

  Barry, the only child able to move freely through the melee, began looking for a way to help the others retreat or defend themselves. That’s when he ran into tiny first grader Danielle Hastings, hiding behind the lunch counter with several of the cooks and serving ladies.

  “This will be over in five minutes,” Danielle told him. “But Jenna Lee and Elena Scot won’t live that long if you don’t help them.”

  Barry didn’t pause to question the veracity of Danielle’s prediction. Danielle, a cousin to Evan Blackwood, was the youngest in a long line of seers, even if the talent had skipped over her father.

  Barry raced across the cafeteria, phasing through the food counter, tables, chairs, and children until he got to Jenna. Her attackers had not let up, despite her loss of consciousness.

  Barry phased right into the middle of the fight, frightening the attackers into breaking off. It didn’t last long, but Barry was able to grab hold of the unconscious Jenna and phase out with her, something he had been trying to do for years but had never managed to make work until that moment. This time was different, though. This time he’d known he could, because Danielle Hastings had as good as told him that he could save Jenna. That confidence had given him the boost he needed to make it work.

  Jenna became as insubstantial as he, and while she was a heavy load, Barry was a burly boy. He flung her over his shoulder and ran out into the yard to find Elena.

  It didn’t take him long. Elena cowered behind her rock, surrounded by Amanda Roberts and at least eight others. Ms. Atkins had been unable to physically drag the girl away and had resorted to screaming herself hoarse in an attempt to talk the mob down. No one paid her any attention.

  Adam had a split lip and a black eye. But he stood over his sister, his tiny little fists in the air, bravely trying to defend her.

  Barry ran right into the middle of it, phasing in beside Adam, whose magic was about to explode just as Elena’s had. He set down his load behind the rock and grabbed Elena’s shaking form, slapping her across the face to get her attention. “If you don’t want to join your dead friends on the other side, you’d better link up with me right now.”

  Elena, who had never been spoken to like that before, obeyed the commanding tone without question. She had only ever linked with Mom and Dad before, but she and Barry managed to join hands and link up with minimal effort. Elena told me later that they had very similar quiet places, but wouldn’t go into detail about her private refuge.

  Then Barry grabbed Adam’s hand, even though he knew the six-year-old wouldn’t know how to link yet. Behind them, Jenna moaned, stiffening Barry’s resolve.

  “Look,” Amanda jeered. “The witch has a boyfriend.”

  Barry ignored them. “Channel your magic to me,” he ordered Elena.

  She did. Barry was just learning how to shield against magical attacks, but had no idea how to shield against physical attacks. So he used the combined force of their magic in the only way he knew – he pushed. He ended up pushing with more strength than expected, because, it turned out, Adam had worked out the basics of linking. It wasn’t enough to join him fully to the bond, but he contributed unexpected power to the combined effort.

  The eight attackers went flying backwards, causi
ng numerous breaks and sprains. Only Amanda still seemed to be standing.

  Barry, very clever for his age, worked out the reason right away. “You hypocrite. You’re immune to magical attacks.”

  “Jesus protects me,” Amanda replied.

  “Does he also show you the future?” Elena asked.

  Amanda scowled. “You said you wouldn’t tell.”

  Elena touched a tender spot on her head. “Guess that blow to the head made me forget.”

  Barry gave her a hard, approving slap on the back. “Hey, look, it’s your backbone.”

  But Elena went utterly silent, and didn’t speak again until long after it was all over.

  * * *

  Wesley and I arrived to a scene of utter chaos. Three other deputies and the sheriff were already on the scene, trying to work out how to separate the combatants. Most of the teaching staff had rounded up the non-hostile students and taken them a safe distance away from the school, but almost none had tried to stop the fight. I only spotted two teachers on the playground, one trying to get between Brenna Lee and her attackers, the other trying to defend a group which included Elena and Adam.

  A couple dozen students remained on the playground, all of them fighting or trying to flee. The other deputies had begun removing some of the children from the fray, one at a time, but this was clearly an inefficient approach.

  I found the sheriff, who stood apart from the chaos, looking more lost than I had ever seen him before. The look on his face frightened me nearly as much as the hostility of the children, and I suddenly found myself harboring a new appreciation for Lord of the Flies, which my tenth grade English teacher had forced us all to read.

  “We’re going to have to use tasers,” the sheriff said. “Unless you’ve got a better idea?”

  I turned to look for my partner, but I didn’t see him. Wesley must have headed straight into the commotion.

  “I can call for reinforcements, but we can’t wait for them to arrive.” I struggled to think of any sorcerer who might be within five minutes of the school, but initially drew a blank. The high school was only a block away, but while a few of the teachers had gifts, nothing they could do would help the situation here.