Denial

by R. M. Walker

  “I didn’t realise I had three Lilys in this class,” he said good-naturedly, grinning at the twins. “I’ve been informed that you had a seizure the first day you started here. I know I have you—”his gaze flicked to either twin“—for history, but I wanted to say that if you feel unwell at any time during registration or history to let me know. If you need somewhere quiet through lunch, the door will be open. How do you feel after Saturday?”

  “I feel fine, thank you.”

  “Okay, well you know where to go if you need it. Off you go.” He smiled at her, indicating the door with a tilt of his head. Jake gave up all pretence and grabbed her hand as Josh pushed her to the door.

  She looked back at Drew. “I appreciate your concern, sir.”

  “It’s Drew, not sir,” he reminded her. “Off you go, before they drag you by your hair.”

  Josh started to turn in anger, but she grabbed a handful of his jacket and tugged him with her while pushing Jake through the door.

  “Calm down!” she hissed. “You’re going to get into trouble.”

  “You are not going in there at lunchtime!” Jake insisted as she grabbed both of their hands, her bag over her shoulder. “If you feel unwell, we’ll take you to the nurse, not to his room! Fucking inappropriate.”

  “He didn’t say unwell. He said if I needed quiet,” she pointed out, pulling them to keep walking.

  “That’s semantics,” Josh muttered.

  “And we weren’t dragging you by your hair!” Jake thundered.

  “I know,” she said placatingly. “Please let it go. He was just being a concerned teacher.”

  “What was with the hesitation?” Josh demanded as they rounded the corner to the maths department.

  “What hesitation?” she asked.

  “I know I have you, waits a fucking beat, for history.” Jake did a passable imitation of him.

  She raised her eyebrows in disbelief. “I don’t think we could have been in the same classroom,” she said. “I didn’t hear it like that.”

  “Well, we did,” Josh muttered. They tagged on the end of the students going into the room.

  She let go of their hands as she went through the door with them behind her.

  “Can we drop it?” she asked. “I don’t need it, I really don’t. If I feel he’s overstepping, I won’t take it lying down.”

  “Wrong fucking word choice,” Jake grumbled as they followed her up the steps. She rolled her eyes but kept silent.

  Mr O’Connor came in, banging the door shut behind him. There was no more time for anything to be said, but she noticed that Josh sent a quick text. She wondered if it was to Nate and Matt about Drew. They meant well, but she was worried they were going to get into trouble.

  ~*~*~*~

  Her first history lesson that week, Matt got her to sit in his seat beside the window with him on her other side, a protective and pointless move. Drew never singled her out and paid little attention to Matt. He was professional with them, exactly as she’d expected him to be. She enjoyed his lessons, finding him easy to listen to and enthusiastic about his subject.

  The rest of the week passed quietly—no seizures, no inappropriate attention from Drew. It was exactly as she hoped it would be: normal. The boys were relaxing more, and while they were still vocal about not trusting him, they weren’t causing problems.

  She spent every night reading the books Drew had lent her. A lot were about medieval England in general. Some were solely about the witch hunts in Britain. She found a reproduction of the pamphlet that Nate had told her about, complete with pictures. One book, fashioned more like a journal than a published book, drew her more than any of the others. There was no title on the cover and nothing inside the first pages to say who had written it. There were detailed descriptions of plants and flowers and indications of which ones could be used to heal and harm. Every page showed a drawing of the plants and descriptions written in old English on how the different parts could be used. When she ran her fingers over the pages, she could feel the indentations where the writer pressed into the heavy paper. This wasn’t a published book but an actual book that had been used, although that seemed ridiculous. If it had been written even as late as 1465, that would make it well over five hundred years old, and no book could survive that long in such a good condition. And if it was that old, it would be behind glass in some museum somewhere, not stacked up in the house of a history professor. It was a book she’d kept going back to; the recipes and spells had entranced her. She’d be sorry to give it back to him.

  On Thursday evening, she stacked all the books and carried them down to the living room where her mother was curled in the chair by the fire, reading.

  “I’m nipping across the road to return some books I borrowed.” She put the books on the stairs to slide into her jacket.

  “What?” Her mother looked up, taking off her reading glasses to look at her properly. “Books? Who lent you books?”

  “My history teacher lives across the road. He lent me them last weekend,” she said, zipping up the jacket. She freed her hair from the collar and picked up the books.

  “Okay. I didn’t know he lived there,” she said.

  “He’s a stand in,” Lily replied. “My usual teacher had a car accident.”

  “Oh, that’s a shame. Okay, I’m going up for a bath. Don’t be too long. Lock the door on your way out.” She stood up, and taking her book, she headed to the stairs.

  “Don’t drop it into the water this time.” Lily chuckled. Her mother had ruined several books by dropping them into the bath, but it didn’t stop her from doing it.

  “I won’t,” she called down and laughed. Lily went out, locking the door behind her.

  The boys wouldn’t be happy if they knew she was actively going to see him. But she couldn’t return them at school. There were too many to carry in her bag, and she didn’t want the boys to see what they were about. She’d mention it tomorrow that she’d returned them. They already knew she had them; they’d been there when he gave them to her. They couldn’t expect her to keep them.

  Drew opened the door, a flustered look on his face that turned into a smile when he saw her. “Lily! Come on in, I just... damn thing won’t...” He turned and hurried back into the living room, leaving the front door wide open. She hugged the books to her chest, unsure what to do. She couldn’t just walk in. She called his name, but heard no reply.

  “I’m dropping your books off. I’ll put them on the floor here, okay?” She hesitated, but there was still no reply. She stepped inside and bent to set them down. A loud crash came from the back of the house, and he shouted out in pain. Without thinking twice, she dashed through the living room and into the kitchen, still clutching the books. Drew stood by the side, one hand tucked into a tea towel. His washing machine was pulled into the middle of the room with the top taken off. A screwdriver lay on the floor with splashes of blood around it.

  “You’re hurt!” She set the books on the table. “Is it bad?”

  “No, just hurts.” He brought his hand forward. There was a slice through the fleshy part of his palm, bleeding badly.

  “That needs sorting. Where’s your first aid kit?” she asked.

  “Under the sink.” He sighed. “I should have been more careful. Damn thing hasn’t worked since I got here. Thought I could research it on the internet and fix it myself.”

  “Can’t you get your landlady to get it fixed?” she asked, drawing out the kit then washing her hands.

  “She’s nearly ninety. I didn’t want to bother her,” he replied. “Part of me wanted to prove that I can do handy things. I should have called in a plumber.” He laid his hand on the table. The blood dripped onto the cloth. “You’re not squeamish,” he stated, watching her cross to the kettle.

  “No, not really. Do you have a bowl I can use?” When she looked back, she saw him poking at the cut with his finger. “Don’t! You’ll get it infected if you poke at it.�
��

  “Yes, nurse,” he said, with a grin. “Cupboard above the kettle.”

  She fetched the bowl, filled it with water from the kettle, which was still warm, and went back to the table. She took some cotton wool out and started to carefully clean his hand.

  “You’ve done this a lot,” he observed. “Do you hurt yourself often when you have a seizure?”

  He watched her clean the cut.

  “I’ve never hurt myself badly, but I have a few scars,” she admitted. She hadn’t told anyone before, not even Nate when he’d asked.

  “I can imagine,” he said. “You don’t want pity, and I get that, but it’s a shame you’ve led this life.”

  “It’s one of those things. Nothing to be done about it.” She frowned when she realised that there was something she could do about it. She could learn to box the visions and that would eliminate her seizures. She was partly excited and terrified to get started with Jonas.

  “What medication are you on?” he asked, wincing when she applied an antibiotic cream to the wound.

  “Sorry. I take tablets, one a day in the morning.”

  “And they help?”

  “They do. Until moving here, I hadn’t had a fit for six months. But we moved twice over the summer, and I think that caused a flare up.” She wondered if that was still true or if it was because she’d met the boys and their magic had prompted it.

  “What do you take? Clonazepam?”

  “I tried that one; it didn’t work. I think I’ve tried them all. I don’t know the name of the one I take now. Mum gets them from somewhere in London. Do you know someone who has epilepsy?”

  “A couple of the students at Oxford. I’ve seen a few seizures as well. Yours was slightly different.”

  She peeked up at him quickly, but he remained looking at his hand.

  “Oh?” She kept her voice as casual as she could.

  “I hung about long enough to make sure they would care for you properly. You recovered remarkably quickly. You weren’t clonic for very long either.”

  “It was mild,” she said and concentrated on applying the paper stitches to the cut.

  “Did you enjoy them?”

  “What?” She looked up, uncertain what he was referring to. His eyes were on the books she’d brought back.

  “Oh! Yes, I did. Once I started reading, I couldn’t put them down.” She took a bandage from the box and started to wind it around his palm. An unusual ring that she’d not noticed before graced his third finger. It was an Ouroboros—a snake with ruby eyes, twisted into a figure of eight, the tail in its open mouth as if it were eating itself. Four compass points were engraved in the spaces.

  “I have some more that you are welcome to borrow. Some are after the trials ended and some are before.”

  “Yes, please. I’d like that. There was one book in there, like a journal?” She tied off the end of the bandage, got up to put everything away and wash her hands again.

  “Oh, you mean this one.” When she turned back, he had the journal in front of him, and a pair of gold framed reading glasses on. “This has been in my family for centuries.”

  “It’s fascinating,” she said. “It’s in excellent condition for being so old.”

  “It is.” He smiled at her. “Part of the reason why I didn’t discount witchcraft when you asked me was because I’m from a long line of druids. Drew means ‘descendant of the druids’ in Irish. I didn’t tell you that then, in case you laughed it all off and thought I was mad.” He turned the book to face her. The page was open to a concoction that supposedly brought someone’s true love to them. “If you’re interested, I’m afraid I have to tell you that some of these spells don’t work and never have, including this one. My ancestors used plants to heal. Most of the remedies will work today, but spells like this one? They were income for them, quick and easy money.”

  “If they didn’t work, surely people wouldn’t go back to them.”

  “The other spells did. Gippy stomach? Potion mix of cardamom, psyllium seeds, and whatever; job done. Love potion not working on someone? Maybe he’s not your true love, or maybe you don’t believe strongly enough for it to work. The blame would have been pointed back to the buyer and away from the seller.”

  “Clever.”

  “Very.” He sat back, inspecting his bandaged palm. “Of course, true magic doesn’t require potions or spells. It just is.”

  “What?” Her fingers traced over the edge of the journal.

  “Magic. It’s all around us, just not balancing on a broom.” He smiled at her, sat forwards, and started to turn the pages of the book towards the back. “Magic has boundaries, like anything, but it’s not contained in a potion. If a witch wants to create fire, they do. Signs, sigils, they help to focus the mind, but the real power is already there.”

  That didn’t mesh with what Jonas had told her. She chose her next words carefully.

  “I can see why witchcraft and magic were needed back then,” she said slowly, her eyes on the page of symbols he had stopped at. She shivered; they looked as if they’d been drawn in blood. She hadn’t noticed before. “People didn’t know why the sun went down or why the earth appeared to die each winter. We have science and medicine for answers—they’ve replaced magic surely.”

  “Replaced it? What do you mean?”

  “We don’t need it anymore. Won’t nature let it go to sleep?”

  “Magic is all around you. Nature is magic. If magic sleeps, this planet will die.”

  She met his eyes. “Are there still people in this world who are magic? Are there still witches?”

  “Yes.” He held her gaze. His eyes were intense, no hint of humour. “Why wouldn’t there be? If they existed a hundred years ago, six hundred years ago, why wouldn’t they exist now?”

  “There’s less of them though, not as many.”

  He frowned. “No, there are just as many as there have always been. Why would you think there were less?”

  “Because magic isn’t needed,” she said. This wasn’t what she’d expected him to say. “Science tells us why these things happen.”

  “Science tells us why these things happen, but they don’t tell us how they happen. A scientist can tell you that if you plant an acorn, come the spring you’ll have an oak. He can tell you all the procedures that acorn goes through, but he can’t explain the spark of life that makes it happen.” He grinned at her.

  “Magic,” she whispered.

  “It’s an intrinsic part of life. Magic will never leave this world. We would cease to exist if it did.”

  It was in sharp contradiction to what Jonas had told her. She put her elbows on the table and placed a palm over her eyes. She didn’t know who to believe. Jonas was magic, fae; surely he would know more than a historian who had only researched it. Unless...

  She looked up at him, her eyes searching his face for the truth. “Are you magic?”

  His grin widened, and he chuckled. “Lily, we’re all magic. We’re all amazing.”

  “You said you were descended from druids. Can you make fire with magic?” she asked.

  He snorted and placed his hand on the book, his face intense as he watched her. “Listen to me, Lily. Most people have no awareness of magic; they live their whole lives, and while it touches them, they are never aware of it. Then there are other people who are aware of it and will even try and access it. They’ll go to séances, have their palms read by gypsies, read their stars, and for the most part, it works. Some will go further—try and touch magic, try to control it with sigils, spells, incantations, and sometimes it works. And then there are people whose bloodline is strong with magic. They’re witches, fairies, merrows, kelpies, or whatever. They just are. They don’t need to try and connect with it; it runs through every inch of their veins.”

  “If that’s true, why don’t we see more of it?” she asked. “If there were as many witches as there were hundreds of years ago, why don’t w
e know about it?”

  “Because society hasn’t changed,” he said. “Witches were hanged because people feared them. And the ones who weren’t scared of them would control them. That will never change. Nowadays, instead of being hanged, they’d be locked up in labs and experimented on. There’s no difference in number. They just hide what they are from the rest of society.”

  “How do you know all of this?” she asked.

  He took his glasses off, regarded her silently for a few seconds, and then he sat back. “Take the book. Read it. You can find most of those plants around here. Have a go at making some of the healing potions.”

  He was refusing to answer, but she needed him to confirm or deny it. If he was a historian and nothing more, she could write it off as incomplete research on something he could only guess at. It would mean that whatever Jonas told her, she could believe, because he was a fairy. He was magic.

  “You haven’t answered my questions.”

  He leant on his forearms on the table. “Tell me, have you ever seen anything that could be called magic before?”

  She swallowed and shook her head in denial. No matter what he told her, or showed her, she would not betray her boys. She didn’t doubt them. She doubted Jonas.

  “You have,” he contradicted her. He drew a coin from his trouser pocket and held it up. He closed his fingers, shook his hand, and when he opened it, the coin was gone. He reached out and seemingly plucked the coin from behind her ear.

  She laughed despite herself. “That’s not magic, it’s sleight of hand.”

  “Is it?” He tilted his head, put the coin on the table, covered it with his palm, then lifted his hand. The coin was no longer there.

  “It’s up your sleeve.”

  “Is it?” he asked again. “I think it’s behind your ear, tucked into your hair. I can see it,” he said, but made no move towards her.

  She lifted her fingers to her hair and found the coin where he said it was. “What are you?” she asked, putting the coin on the table, her eyes not leaving his.