by Jason Letts
“Well, that was my whole lesson, so just give me a minute to think of something else.”
The students began talking to each other again, only this time Mira thought it was a fair bet they were talking about her. After some time, Fortst looked over at the pile of teaching materials in the corner. He pulled out a large map and hung it on the wall over the blackboard. The weight of the map caused one of the wallboards to crack. It dangled at a slight angle.
“Ok, would the pearl of wisdom in the back of the room please tell me where Martyr’s Fjord is on this map?”
Mira leaned forward, struggling to see. “I don’t know,” she said.
“Perhaps that was too difficult,” Fortst smirked. “Where is the border that our warriors are defending from the heathen, bloodthirsty, marauding Sunfighters at this very moment?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, feeling defeated. Some of the students had turned around to look at her, and Fortst cast a quizzical glance.
“Just one more question: where are we?”
Mira looked one more time at the map, made up of landmasses she had never seen, and then lowered her head. No one in the classroom made a peep.
“That’s why you need to know your surroundings,” Fortst trumpeted to the class. “You never know when that information could be used against you or save your life.”
***
The morning slowly passed. Fortst was obviously grasping at straws, making up his lesson as he went along and taking plenty of generous breaks. This may not have been such a bad plan though, considering the distractions his students faced with the upcoming contest. When the time finally came for them to begin their test, they leapt out of their chairs, almost ready to do battle on the spot.
Fortst lead his troop along another path deeper into the forest. They came to a clearing that had a very distinctly and suspiciously perfect rectangular shape. Waiting along the edge in a line, the students watched the instructor stride out to the center of the short grass.
“Let’s begin the Tournament Trial to decide the class leader and all their rights and privileges. As you know, your rank is the proof of your accomplishments in this academy, and people everywhere are gonna judge you accordingly. You’d better use all means available to you, but remember that you’ll have me to deal with if you get too rough and rowdy.”
He strode around the field, inspecting the various parts of the setup while he spoke.
“These two metal posts on opposite sides of the field are goals. This ball will start exactly half the distance between them. Contestants start in their goal and try to return the ball to that goal to win. Simple enough?”
Fortst took a moment to wistfully admire the students who stood before him and mumbled something about the importance of this occasion in their lives. How precious is youth, he said, and he inquired about what the day’s results would set in motion.
“Ok, last year’s rank will work as a seeding system. That means the good students will go against the bad students. Vern, you’re up first and your opponent is Mira, since she doesn’t have a rank. Take your places and let’s get started!”
The students scattered, taking up spots in the nooks and branches of the trees. Fortst found a good vantage point along the sideline. As they walked to their starting points, Vern and Mira glanced at each other.
“No place to hide now. I hope you’ve got something good to show us,” Vern said.
Mira’s heart raced in her chest. She couldn’t have said anything if she wanted to. Placing her front foot just behind the line, she looked up to see the gangly boy across the field and the white ball sitting on the grass between them. She focused on her game plan and looked over for the signal to start. Vern too adopted a ready position.
All of the students looked on as Fortst raised one arm high into the air. Letting it fall while whistling, the match began. Both competitors immediately sprinted toward the center. A few steps in, Mira let out a shrill and harrowing scream, causing Vern to look about in a frantic and confused manner. After a moment when nothing happened, he raised his hand and a strange sensation came over Mira.
Pushing her legs as hard as she could, Mira suddenly felt like the Earth no longer pulled her down. Instead, her body began to fall forward and for a second she floated above the ground. Once her body had been completely swept into horizontal motion, Vern lowered his hand and let Mira’s body drop to the ground. She fell flat on her face.
She looked up just in time to see Vern scoop up the ball and jog it back to his goal. The reality of what happened made her wince. In vain, Mira closed her eyes to block it out, but the sound of the cheering and hollering students snuck into her head. She grabbed at the grass and tore it out. She wanted to scream into the dirt, but instead she got up and started running away. Within moments she had left them behind completely.
***
Vern had a smile on his face as he rejoined the other students. He threw the ball out near the center of the field for the next match, and sat down assuming a relaxed and comfortable posture, as though he were at the beach.
“You idiot! Why didn’t you just attract the ball?” Aoi shouted, snapping him out of his effervescent arrogance. But Vern complacently lounged on the forest floor, paying little attention to the other students’ matches or to the people around him. He rolled through his next match as easily as he did his first, quickly returning to his spot by the tree while it was still warm. He nodded off for a minute, justifying the snooze in his mind with the belief that it exuded confidence if he appeared relaxed. Aoi once again had the pleasure of stomping on his leisure.
“Get off your butt! You’ve gotta go against Roselyn now,” she laughed. A sour and disappointed frown immediately formed on Vern’s face. This wouldn’t be fun at all. Getting up and walking onto the field felt more like removing a splinter than an exciting competition.
He gazed at the flower with the blonde curls standing at the other end of the field. Roselyn had the same relaxed appearance, mixed with just a hint of timidity.
She called out to him after she noticed his spiteful glance. “I’m sorry for what I’m going to do to you. I promise I’ll make it better after,” she said.
Vern tried to numb himself to what was coming. It put a bad taste in his mouth and he cringed. “Yeah, just do what you gotta do.”
He posed with one foot forward, ready for action, while Roselyn stood flat-footed with her hands together. Fortst dropped his arm to signal the start of the match.
As soon as Vern took off, Roselyn opened her mouth and began to sing three rising notes. Vern reached for the ball, which left the ground and rapidly began moving in his direction. But he struggled to bring his hands up to catch the ball. He just didn’t have the energy to do it.
Roselyn’s three notes, hanging and swooning in the air, repeated over and over again. Holding the ball, all he had to do was turn and toss it into his goal, but that seemed so hard. It lay just a few feet away.
An overwhelming sadness swept over him. He didn’t care about the competition anymore. It just didn’t matter now. He held the ball loosely in his hands, but he couldn’t think about anything except the big empty world and his purposeless life. This miserable feeling made him wonder if this were all a terrible waste of time. He should just quit.
“Give me the ball,” Roselyn said. She appeared a foot away from Vern, and reached out to take the ball. From the break in her singing, Vern felt his intractable apathy give way to the slightest emotion, the mildest impulse. Mustering himself in the most minimal way, he dropped his arm back and let the ball roll out onto the ground behind him.
He felt worthless and regretful, and he began apologizing to Roselyn. She watched the ball roll behind him and stop just inside his goal. Shifting her attention back to Vern, she again sang her notes. The life returned to his face and soon he felt normal again, like nothing had happened.
“Congratulations,” she said, showing no emotion over the result. She quietly walked off the field. Ex
pelling a sigh of relief and resuming his smug behavior, Vern relished that he had made it to the finals and his goal of retaining his class leadership was within reach. A tinge of nerves tightened his chest and he made fists with his hands.
Fixing his eyes on the other semifinalists, he watched a match between Aoi and a boy named Will, who had short, light-brown hair and a boyish face. The two fought and fought, and Vern hoped and hoped, but his hopes were dashed when Aoi stuffed the ball into her own goal. It became obvious at the end that she had been toying with him. Egging himself on, he stalked out onto the field, ready for the match he knew would come all along.
Roselyn leaned against a tree along the sideline with her best friend, Mary, a flighty girl and something of a scatterbrain. Mary couldn’t take her eyes off of Vern, and Roselyn put her hand to her mouth and chuckled when she noticed it. “And I thought you told me everything. Figures you would leave out the juiciest detail of all.”
“You’re crazy! Don’t be jumping to conclusions just because I happen to like looking at his face.” Mary protested, blushing and returning her eyes to the field.
“It all comes down to this,” Fortst said, striking a thoughtful pose. “No surprises yet.”
Vern worked through his strategy over and over in his mind. He cast his eyes around at all of his watchful classmates before returning them on the ground to focus. He needed to get this over quickly. The longer the match lasted, the more likely he would lose. He took his place on the end line of his own goal and caught the eyes of his opponent.
“I’m so nervous!” Aoi said with malicious glee. Vern gulped and they both took a ready position. Fortst threw down his arm and the competitors began sprinting forward to the center.
Extending his hand, Vern pulled the ball toward him. From its state of rest, it suddenly jumped into Vern’s hands. He turned to throw the ball into his own goal, but before he could release it Aoi’s hands were already on him. She stripped the ball from him with a lightning quick motion, extended her leg behind Vern’s, and tripped him over it. His back hit the ground with a thud, and his feet extended into the air.
Aoi, with a smile on her face, turned to sprint back to her goal. Her legs dug into the ground and each step launched her forward. She crossed the center of the field and soon her goal stood within reach. But she felt herself slow down drastically, and for a moment she was motionless, like when something is thrown into the air and it hangs for a second before falling.
She moved backward, tumbling in the air without touching the ground. Vern, with his hand reaching out, got back on his feet. Aoi roared as she fell, completely out of control of her body and picking up speed. Vern cradled his head with his other arm before Aoi collided into his shoulder, knocking him back. Vern, Aoi, and the ball shot backward several feet, landing inside of Vern’s goal. All of the students ran out onto the field and crowded around them, cheering.
“Well done! Well done, both of you!” Fortst yelled. “A razor-thin victory.” After Aoi scrambled off of him, Vern could clearly see the joy on everyone’s faces. A feeling of triumph came to him, and he felt his cheeks glow, basking in their excitement.
“No one can stop us!” he hollered.
The group of students, each of them elated or distraught after the result, relished or reviled the hike back to the schoolhouse. Vern led the group, as he’d become accustomed to, and in his mind he could see straight through to a string of glorious victories over the course of the year. When he heard the others behind him talking about the new girl and her abrupt exit, he felt it was his duty to weigh in on the subject.
“You can’t blame her for losing or even feeling bad about it. She did have some tough competition,” he boasted.
“But she just ran away! You saw it yourself. Seems a little weird to me,” said Will.“I don’t really get where she came from,” Roselyn said with her best friend Mary on her shoulder. “How come I’ve never seen her around before? It’s like she just appeared out of thin air,” she said before continuing her conversation in private with Mary.
“And disappeared into it just as quickly,” Will added to Roselyn, becoming disappointed when he realized she wasn’t listening yet having no choice but to finish his thought. “I bet we never see her again.”
“I hope she comes back,” muttered a large but shy, shaggy-haired boy named Chucky. It didn’t take long for someone to speak up and make him regret speaking at all.
“You could take a lesson from her, Mucky Chucky,” Vern snapped at him, turning to push him further behind them. Chucky settled in quietly with some of the other sulkers.
“Why is she so shy about her power though?” Will said, speaking up again. “It’s not that big a deal.”
“We’ll find out eventually,” Vern said. “It’s not something you can hide.”
“You better hope not,” Will laughed. “Who knows what her scream did? Maybe you’ll wake up tomorrow with your hair fallen out, or next week pudding will start flowing from your ears.”
Running his hand through his stylish hair, Vern suddenly felt his heart skip a beat. What did she do to him? He forced a quick chuckle and then looked forward to sink his head into his shoulders to hide a nervous cringe.
***
Jeana was ironing clothes and Kevin washed vegetables when they heard the front door slam. Both looked up to see Mira, out of breath and distraught, march up to her room. They commented that it was strange she didn’t offer them even the simplest greeting, and it didn’t take them long to figure out what the cause must have been.
Closing the doors and drawing the blinds, Mira created an insulated space in which to act out her frustrations. Seething, weeping, and feeling the scorn of injustice, she couldn’t believe that she was so different from everyone else around her.
She looked at herself in the mirror, tears running down her face. She remembered the motion that Vern made with his hands, and she looked at her own. It was so simple, just like reaching for a glass of water, and it had completely taken possession of her. Her own hands appeared so weak and useless. There must be something inside of them that she could trigger somehow.
Extending her hand in the same way, she looked for some sign of an effect. She tried it with tense muscles and relaxed muscles, quickly and slowly. She extended her other hand, tried a flat palm, and pointed with her fingers. Every successive failure reminded her of her weakness and compounded her misery.
She flailed about without purpose, hoping and praying for anything to happen. The mirror could fly off the wall and shatter against her skin, and she wouldn’t care. If the house burned down or the world disappeared, that would be fine too. She jerked her arms in all directions, spun around, and strained her eyes, rejecting in her head the truth that she was different.
Mira convulsed in hysterical agony, finally holding her sobbing head in her arms and slinking down on to her knees. Tears streamed from her puffy, red eyes. Her mind was incapable of coherent thought. Drifting onto her side, she felt the bare wood floor against her fingertips and her face.
She struggled in such a frenzy for so long until the last bit of strength keeping her awake finally gave out.
***
While she agonized over her problems, Jeana and Kevin listened to stomping feet and shaking ceiling boards. Every sound struck a sour note in their minds, painfully aware that she meant to keep her meltdown a secret. It distracted them from their activities, and they wished that every rattle would be the last.
“Shouldn’t we do something?” Jeana asked, unable to take anymore.
“Not if we want to help her,” Kevin responded. “If she doesn’t feel hurt, if she doesn’t feel all of the cuts and scratches in the center of her heart, then she will have no reason to change.”
“It still seems cruel to let her suffer like this,” Jeana said. “Why not just help her get through this, make her feel better, and then the pain will be gone.”
“I wish it could be that easy. If she had fallen and scraped her knee, I�
�d be the first to distract her from it. But this problem won’t disappear tomorrow or the next day. She needs to learn she can never escape from it, and this is just the beginning of her learning.”
He looked at his fretting wife and tried to change the subject. “Do you remember your senior year tournament trial?”
“Oh, of course. I made it through the first few rounds and finished in the top third. As long as I could get my hands on them I was fine. You should have seen these kids running away from me. But as soon as I came up against someone with an external gift I was finished.”
“I competed on the very same field Mira did today. It was tough, but I—”
“Finished first,” Jeana said, cutting him off. “Let me save you the trouble of bragging since I actually remember the last time we talked about this. You played with your opponents, trapping them, disorienting them, and fooling them into giving you the victory.”
“If you remember the last time we talked about this, why did you bother to repeat your story?”
“I’m not going to pass up a good opportunity to talk about myself,” Jeana smiled.
Chapter 6: The Toughest Medicine to Swallow
Although the bad taste in her mouth from the first day at the academy remained, Mira refused to give up so easily. While she acted shy before by accident, she returned resolved to spend the day in complete silence.
Taking her wobbly seat in the back, Mira avoided eye contact with any of the other students. She kept her head down when Fortst arrived, and even closed her eyes when he read the results of the previous day’s tournament. Mira’s name came at the very bottom, but she didn’t hear the sounds of any mocking students, mercifully.
During Fortst’s lecture, she squelched any temptation to answer questions, even when it meant no one would answer and Fortst would supply laughably inaccurate information. She stood behind the rest of the class at all times when they went out in the afternoon for field lessons, quickly slipping away before anyone else once class had ended.