Siggy, the princess, Wulfgang, and Joy O’Keefe turned out to be naturals at this, too. They could throw the target, a sewing dummy on wheels, all the way across the room to bang against the far wall. Quite a few of the other children could not budge it at all. Seth Peregrine, for instance, was an excellent bass-guitar player, but did not seem to be able to get the hang of the magic. Rachel’s abilities, again, were in between. With a toot on her flute, she could push the dummy back a good six inches. She was pleased with her success, but, compared to her friends, it was humbling.
Siggy, who had never played an instrument, chose a trumpet from among the classroom loaners. Immediately, he learned to produce truly horrible sounds. This pleased him to no end. The princess, on the other hand, could coax beautiful music from her clarinet. She could also play the harp, the violin and the cello. Nor was she the only student who was musically brilliant.
Rachel looked at her flute dubiously. It was a lovely silver instrument that had belonged to her grandmother. It had an exquisite sound, if played by someone who knew how. Rachel knew, in theory. She could read sheet music, and she had been taking singing lessons since the age of eight. The lessons had paid off in that she could sing beautifully—she used to sing for her father when he came home from work.
However, unlike schoolwork, which came to her easily, Rachel did not like playing the flute. Her parents had expected her to practice for an hour every day in preparation for coming to Roanoke and taking up residence in Dare Hall. The Griffin Family was known for great enchanters. Peter, Laurel, and Sandra played very well, as did their parents. Only Rachel had not practiced. She preferred to ride her pony or, later, her broom.
The truth was, Rachel had not wanted to live in Dare Hall. Her secret wish was to live in Dee Hall and study gnosis, the Sorcerous Art of knowledge and augury. She had kept a framed picture of the handsome granite building—with its double staircase, its domed towers, and the many statues of famous sorcerers around the edges of its roof—under her bed. When no one was in her wing of the house, she took it out and gazed at it longingly.
She had not told anyone. Her family would have been outraged if they had known of her desire to break with family tradition, especially because tradition was ordinarily more important to Rachel than to her siblings. But she had concocted a plan. She had heard stories about the seven-sided room, where new students went to choose the object that determined which of the seven dormitories they would be assigned to. Picking an instrument would put her in Dare. Picking a book would put her in Dee. She had resolved to defy family tradition and choose an ancient tome.
Only she had never been given a chance. Upon arriving, the proctors had packed her off to Dare with the rest of her family without even letting her visit the seven-sided room.
She felt robbed.
• • •
After Music class, Rachel had a free period before True History. She slipped away and up the stairs to the higher floors of Roanoke Hall. Much as she liked Siggy and Nastasia, she was not used to spending so much time around other people. She felt overwhelmed.
There was another reason she wanted to be alone. Rachel knew she was not the best athlete, but she was a superb broom rider. When she finally was old enough to be allowed to have a broom, she put her whole mind into learning to fly. She worked, and worked, and worked. Due to her perseverance, she could do things on a broom that much better athletes could not.
An example was the foot of the servants’ staircase. The first time she had taken that corner, she slammed into the grandfather clock—breaking both the clock and her front teeth. A visit to the dentimancer and the clockmaker later, she did it again, though this time it was her arm that she broke. Her parents had not been pleased.
Nowadays, Rachel noted with pride, she could round the turn at the servants’ staircase at full speed, without harm to teeth, clock, or arm. Her perseverance had paid off.
As she had watched her classmates blast the practice dummy across the room in Music class, it occurred to her that maybe perseverance could serve her with sorcery as well. She could not beat the students who had such massive natural talent. If she picked a few spells, however, and worked at them, over and over and over, perhaps she could become as good with them as she was with her broom.
But she did not want to do this in front of her new friends, both of whom took to the schoolwork so naturally. The very idea embarrassed her. She wanted to practice privately, so no one else knew what an effort it cost her.
Poking around the top floor of Roanoke Hall, she found a corridor between two turrets with little evidence of use. The air smelled dusty. The outside sounds were muted. A suit of armor stood beside a high round window. Across from it, someone had left a wooden doorstop lying on a small table.
Raising her flute, she blew the note that created a blast of wind. Sure enough, after two tries, a rush of silver sparkles swept the doorstop from the table. Rachel’s lips parted in delight. Miss Cyrene’s spell had smelled like fresh air. Hers smelled more like vanilla, which was still an improvement over the dusty hall.
Making the correct hand gestures, she tried to lift it back to the table using the cantrip for up. The triangle of wood wobbled left and right, floating slowly toward the table. Her whole body tingled. Twice she lost concentration, dropped it, and had to start over again. Eventually, the doorstop was back on the table. Then, she did it again.
Toot.
“Ti.”
Toot.
“Ti.”
Over and over, she repeated these two steps, until her limbs shook, and her lips grew sore. Picking up her flute, blowing on it, and putting it down to perform the cantrip became tedious. Rachel tried a trick her mother used. Instead of playing the blast of wind on her flute, she whistled it. Silver sparkles flew out of her mouth, tickling her lips. This made her laugh, ruining her spell.
She tried again and again and again. Each time, the sensation of magic rushing through her made her giddy. With no instrument to draw the power into its proper channels, it gathered in her mouth. Her lips twitched uncontrollably. No matter how many times she tried, she could not produce the proper sounds.
How did her mother do it?
Rachel’s eyes widened. Taking a deep breath, she employed her mother’s dissembling techniques, the trick she used to mask her emotions. Whistling, she kept her face still despite the internal rush of excitement. The dancing glints lifted the doorstop from the table and swept it down the hallway.
Rachel allowed herself a single whoop of delight. Then she returned to practicing, switching between the up cantrip and whistling. Around the fifteenth time, a pleasant masculine voice with an English accent caused her to jump.
“Try tiathelu.”
An older boy stood behind her—a very cute older boy. He had brown hair that was drawn back into a short ponytail and a slightly rangy look that made Rachel wonder if he was an outcast hiding from persecutors. She could not imagine what else a boy would be doing up here. He looked about her brother’s age. If so, he was short for seventeen, much shorter than Peter, though he was significantly taller than Rachel.
With an inward sigh, she noted that not only was her hair disheveled, but she was covered with dust.
“Rachel Griffin.” She extended her hand cheerfully. “Who are you?”
“Gaius Valiant.” He shook her hand. He spoke with a casual laid-back drawl, as if he were a spectator observing the drama of life and what he saw amused him.
“Tiathelu, you say?”
“Ti athe lu. ‘Up, place, go.’” He formed the hand gestures as he spoke. “It’s a more advanced cantrip, works more smoothly.”
“Tiathelu.” Rachel reproduced the hand gestures from memory, exactly the way Gaius had just done them. They were the same gestures Mr. Tuck had performed for the cantrip he used to fly the book around the room and frighten Miss O’Keefe.
The doorstop rose into the air and followed her extended two fingers back to the table as quickly as she could mov
e her hand. Rachel grinned with delight.
“Very good!” He sounded impressed. “You picked that up fast.”
She tried it two times in rapid succession. It worked perfectly. She laughed with joy.
“Thank you!”
“No problem.”
“That will make it much easier!”
“I like the whistling. I’ve never seen anyone do enchantment that way before.” He leaned casually against the wall, his arms crossed. “You’re the daughter of Ambrose Griffin, right? The head of the Shadow Agency?”
Rachel nodded, very glad she could keep her face impassive. She could not, however, keep goose bumps from running along both her arms. Shadow Agency? Was that the name of the clandestine department of the Wisecraft for which her father worked? It was a department so secret that Rachel had not even known its name. Who was this boy?
Only then did she notice the fulgurator’s wand hanging at his side, a length of teak and brass tipped with a sapphire. A shiver went through her. He was a thaumaturgy student from Drake Hall. Thaumaturges used the lightning-wielding wands to hold the magical charges they wrangled from the supernatural entities they summoned. As Salome had pointed out, each fulgurator wand required a very expensive gem.
Rachel looked him over carefully. His robes were neat but worn, even patched in places. The children who lived in Drake Hall were said to be either rich or conniving. He was certainly not rich. According to her sister Laurel, the less fortunate in Drake Hall were worse than the well-to-do ones—manipulative, unscrupulous folk who got what they wanted by trickery.
She suddenly wished he would go away.
Rachel banished this thought as unworthy of her. He had been very helpful. She should not judge him based merely on reputation. Still, she could not help feeling nervous.
“Nice to meet you,” he said, straightening.
“You, too.” She smiled sincerely. “Thank you again.”
He gave her a little bow and strode away. Rachel stared after him curiously. Then, she went back to work, knocking the doorstop off the table and lifting it up, over and over and over.
Chapter Eight:
The Rise of the Metaplutonians
True History consisted of the study of historical events as they had really happened, before the Parliament of the Wise tampered with them to befuddle the Unwary. Mr. Archimedes Gideon was the ideal tutor for this subject. He himself had been an obscurer and had made changes to mundane records. He understood what the Parliament of the Wise wished to hide and how this practice was accomplished.
Mr. Gideon wore a goldenrod turtleneck under the black and gold robes of a scholar. Rachel thought he was rather good-looking, though there was gray at his temples. His skin was the color of chocolate, and he sported a mustache. He spoke in a voice tinged with wry amusement. Leaning back in his armchair, his feet on the table, he gave a brief overview of syllabus for the first month of classes.
When he finished, Brunhilda Winters, a cheerleader from California with blond sun-streaks in her honey-colored hair and long limbs tanned from hours of playing volleyball at the beach, asked, “Can you give an example?”
Mr. Gideon rocked his chair backward, thinking. “Certainly. Mundane history reports that the English founded a colony on the island of Roanoke in North Carolina. When they returned later, the colonists had vanished. True History reveals this colony consisted of sorcerers evading persecution. They used their magic to uproot their new home. When the next ship arrived from England, the floating island of Roanoke had vanished.
“Virginia Dare, the first English child born in America, grew up to be a powerful Enchantress. She founded a school on Roanoke. For more than three centuries, the island floated around the oceans of the world, visiting many nations, picking up additional teachers—which is why Roanoke is the only school where all seven of the Sorcerous Arts are taught. Roanoke continued to float until the early twentieth century, when it ran aground against Pollepel Island in the Hudson River. It remains here today.
“Or, for another example, the Unwary know that during World War II, Hitler committed genocide against the Gypsy race—all thirteen tribes, including the tribe of Judah, the tribe of Reuben, the Romani tribe, etc.—declaring the Gypsies to be the cause of Germany’s ills and forcing them into concentration camps—in the travesty against humanity we call the Holocaust. The Wise know that his fear of the powerful Gypsy sorcerers, such as Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein, contributed to his paranoia.”
“Einstein was a sorcerer?” Brunhilda asked incredulously.
“Of course,” Mr. Gideon replied smoothly. “You don’t think the mundane scientists would have been able to invent the nuclear bomb without the help of Gypsy sorcery, do you?”
Siggy put up his hand. “Sir? How do we know?”
Professor Gideon looked at him coolly. Evidently he had heard of the famous boy, but he had not taken a liking to him. “How do we know what, Mr. Smith? It has been found, by many repeated experiments, that articulating a complete idea is an aid to communication. Assuming that is your purpose?”
Siggy was undaunted. “How do we know this is true history?”
Professor Gideon’s cool look hardened into coldness. “Some of what you will learn is based on the records of the Wise. For more recent history, some of your elders are old enough to recollect the events. We do keep track of what we have changed, young man.”
“But the Unhairy have records and eyewitnesses too, right?” asked Sigfried. “We meddle with them, so they don’t know the truth, and can’t know it. Well…? How do we know someone is not doing that to us? People who stand to the Wise as the Wise stand to the Unscary? The Wiser-Than-Us? The Unfairy don’t know about us. What do we not know?”
Rachel’s eyebrows quirked. He could not be getting Unwary wrong so many different ways by mistake. He must be doing it on purpose.
The professor snorted. “In your case, Mr. Smith, a very great deal.” He waited for the snickering to die down, a small smile on his lips. “But it might be better to learn what the real history is, before we engage in denigrating it. The first semester will cover the antiquities, from the earliest roots of civilization in Egypt and China and Atlantis, keeping in mind that our records of those days are more complete and stretch back considerably farther than what mundane archeologists have unearthed. Now, who can tell me at what point in prehistory the Wise diverge from the Unwary?”
“With the discovery that it actually rained if a shaman descended from immortals performed the rain dances?” asked Zoë Forrest, the world-weary-looking girl with a New Zealand accent, black lipstick, and dark green hair. She wore it short, except for one long lock in front, into which she had braided a feather.
Zoë sat sideways, slumped against one chair with her legs resting on a second one. A funny-looking marsupial sat on her shoulder, eyeing everyone suspiciously. It had a nose like a squirrel only longer, a thick tail, and white spots all over its orangey fur. Rachel searched the encyclopedias in her memory and discovered it was a tiger quoll from Tasmania.
“Very good, Miss Forrest. That is, in fact, one of the divergence points.”
Astrid raised her hand shyly. “Please, sir, before we go on. That word you used in your overview…monotheism? What does it mean? I’ve never heard that word.”
Very seldom did Rachel come upon a new word. She, too, had never heard this one. She checked her memory. It was not in any of the three dictionaries she had memorized—two dictionaries of the Wise, and a mundane one.
Was monotheism another mystery word, like friar and steeple?
Mr. Gideon examined a roster of names. “Ah, Miss…Hollywell, right?”
Astrid ducked her head, embarrassed, and nodded.
“You grew up in the mundane world, did you not?” he continued, “The world of computers and cars. Had you heard of magic? Of the Wise?”
“N-no, sir. I had no idea that sorcerers or dragons or anything of that kind was real. I guess you would call me…Unwary.” As
trid frowned and asked shyly, “What exactly is the definition of Unwary?”
“Someone who does not know about the World of the Wise. About magic and sorcery,” replied Mr. Gideon. “Usually, the Unwary are mundane. In other words, they cannot use magic. A few, such as yourself, were merely unaware of the existence of magic.”
“A normal person, then.” Astrid nodded. “I was Unwary.”
Mr. Gideon’s eyes danced with amusement. “That implies that we of the Wise are not normal, but I will let that slide. But, back to the topic at hand, you had heard of the gods?”
“Well, of course, I’ve heard of them,” Astrid said slowly. “And my family gave offerings at temples occasionally, the way everyone does. On big national holidays, such as Walpurgisnacht, Mid-Summer’s Eve, and Yule, of course. But I thought the gods were symbolic—that Apollo was a personification of creativity and reason. That Isis represented fertility. That sort of thing. I didn’t know they were real.”
Rachel listened to this with great interest. She had often wondered how the Unwary saw the gods. She knew that they had temples and religious orders. Their hospitals were run by nuns and monks of Asclepius, just like those of the Wise, for instance. But they did not perform animal sacrifices or expect the gods to actually show up. Of course, the gods had been very quiet for the last several centuries. It had been a couple hundred years since the last verified visitation by one of the gods.
“How did you come to learn about us?” Mr. Gideon asked. “About magic?”
“I am interested in s-science,” Astrid stuttered. Rachel felt so sorry for the shy girl who was being put on the spot. “I applied for a summer internship at Ouroboros Industries. They gave me an aptitude test. Apparently, I tested well for learning sorcery.”
The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin (Books of Unexpected Enlightenment Book 1) Page 8