The Awakening of Ren Crown

by Anne Zoelle

  “Oh, thanks.”

  She clapped her hands together. “I have so many things for you,” she gushed. “When I arrived tonight, I didn't know I would get the chance to influence the life and goals of a new student! Do you have any questions, anything at all?”

  She looked expectant. I took a chance. “What do you do if you are...blocked?”

  “Your magic?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh my goodness, how horrible. Horrible! But don't you worry, dear.” She reached over and patted my hand. A green bracelet sat atop her black cuff. “I have just the thing.”

  I thought of the strangled flowers in our living room and the murky paint dripping from my walls. “Will it help with control too?”

  “Oh, now you have to go to the meditation class tonight. And learn everything. This is perfect timing, the universe seeking to guide you! To rearrange your chakra, your chi, your twining vines! It is a must for anyone wanting to connect with their magic on a deeper level. Mandatory.”

  She gave me the address of a building she said was near the cafeteria, and thirty minutes later I was toddling out of the center loaded down with documents Delia had pushed into my hands. She had repeatedly grabbed any brochure that I took off the shelf, saying that I needed the “good stuff.” I had managed to sneak in a few of the brochures, though, darting around to do so while she was unearthing the next thing in the back. I wondered if I could figure out her hours so that I could return when she wasn't working.

  Will was normal. Well, there was that mad scientist vibe, but he was mostly normal. I really hoped he was the standard and that all mages weren't as strange as Olivia and Delia. Or as diabolical as Marsgrove and Verisetti. Maybe playing with the forces of nature made one peculiar or unconscionable.

  The map Delia had given me was dead handy, though. I watched it bounce around and decided to try the Blarjack portal to get me up near the cafeteria. Magical meditation to get my magic unblocked sounded sensible, and if it was a session, I could hide unnoticed in the back. I needed to start somewhere. I tucked the map and my papers into my bag and stepped toward the portal.

  Chapter Ten: Culture Shock

  Meet someone who gives me a sweet map? Check.

  Enter roped off patch of greenery based on sweet map? Check.

  Find out said patch sucks me through the ground and ejects me into a deep swamp—which turns me green? Check.

  Realize “Blarjack” is a seaweed-dripping swamp monster? Check.

  Swim at Olympic pace then throw myself over the swamp bank? Roll down subsequent hill? Check and check.

  Hatch scary little Blarjack babies from my toenails in three days? No check. Yet.

  A little sign next to the pond said “Blarjack—Danger Level Two.”

  I was really, really hoping that almost getting eaten by Swamp Thing was the worst thing that could happen in a Blarjack pool, because I was dripping swamp snot, and the goo that was still on me was moving.

  I wiped feverishly at my face, arms, chest, and legs, breathing shallowly through my nose. My bag was water resistant only, but there was no way I could open it now to check the damage. I desperately wanted to check the sketches under my shirt, but likewise didn't want to infect them, in case they had made it through unscathed. My current camisole was made of wicking fabric, so it was possible they had survived. I tried to laugh. It wasn't emerging right.

  A boy on a unicycle peddled by, cackling madly, billowing sleeves straight from the Old Testament outstretched as he tried to keep upright. He glanced at me, then pulled his arms up. All of the goo and green swept from me up into the air in two arcs, as if he were parting the Red Sea, then, with a downward thrust of his arms, crashed to the ground around me. A little Blarjack goo hopped its way back onto my shirt and I vigorously shook it off. I could have sworn I heard a tiny, “Noooooo!” as it fell to the ground.

  “Thank you!” I yelled after Magical Moses as he peddled by.

  He lifted a hand in a backwards wave, then promptly zapped some poor sap walking down a flight of stairs further down the path with a slim bolt of lightning. The boy tumbled to the ground.

  The cackling continued as the unicycle zipped left and disappeared from view. A girl with a red tablet raced after the unicycle. The fallen boy brushed himself off, muttering expletives, and continued on his way.

  I blinked. Ok. Glad I had gotten the helping hand, instead of the hindering one.

  I quickly rose and moved away from the Blarjack goo, which was trying to recollect. I stepped onto a flagstone path between buildings that led to what looked like the pinnacle of the mountain. I...needed to learn how to shield myself against magic. Marsgrove's shields obviously sucked like everything else about him. But meditation class experienced a big, fat mental slash on the list, as well as any other suggestion uttered by Delia.

  Emerging from between the buildings, I was immediately assaulted by yells and screams. A thick group of mages running toward me abruptly parted, like a school of fish slicing in two directions to escape a predator. A rhinoceros charged through the middle. A rhinoceros...on a mountain?

  I pressed my hand against my forehead. Maybe...maybe I had hit my head? Maybe Blarjack water caused hallucinations?

  A few fleeing mages tripped their fellows, before darting into the spaces between the buildings to the right and left of my position. The unlucky people went sprawling and were immediately trampled. Five feet from impaling a doomed mage, the rhinoceros disintegrated into what looked like...Skittles. A million little rainbow hued rocks hit the flagstone path around the doomed mage with a clatter.

  People were yelling, but I decided to...walk away. I stopped at a low stone pillar to check my sanity, and more importantly, my backpack. Damp, but not ruined. I touched my stomach and heard paper crinkle. Relieved, I did the same with my back. I'd have to check them thoroughly later, but I felt a little better.

  I dug out the travel map—the real one—from my bag. The flattened top of the mountain, which formed Top Circle, was behind me. Located along its perimeter on the map were the cafeteria, the Administration Building, the Student Union, and several classroom buildings. Here, as with Dormitory Circle, the architecture had a great deal of Roman and Greek influence, but there were also two modern glass buildings, two of the Collegiate Gothic variety, three Neo-Georgians, and other forms intermixed, some decidedly odd—most notably, a large Gypsy tent, a colonial log cabin, and a geodesic dome.

  The map indicated the long classically columned building where students were exiting in droves was the cafeteria. It took up the entire northern side of Top Circle.

  Hundreds of flags were mounted on the buildings surrounding Top Circle, flying in every direction, defying physical wind conditions. Movement swirled around the flag poles and my breath caught.

  Dragons the size of eagles soared into the air—lithe, graceful, blue, green, and red forms undulating on the winds, which seemed to be swirling in all directions. Other animals flew in the airstreams as well—familiar looking birds along with creatures straight out of the imagination of Hieronymus Bosch. Jets of fire and blue wind flared upward from the edges of the immense circle of grass in front of me. The winged creatures ducked and dodged and caught the jet streams and twirled up, up, up, into the clouds.

  “I like them,” Christian said warmly.

  “Fly free, free, free!” emerged high and tinny directly on its heels.

  “Dragon Wednesdays are the best project the weather and tech mages have ever done together, frankly,” one student said to another as they walked by me.

  “We'll see if you still think that the day one of the big guys decides to come play.”

  A small dragon caught a flare of blue and shot upward. He executed a smooth backflip over a cloud, opened his jaws and roared. Blue flame pierced through an adjacent cloud, bursting it out in the middle, sucking around the edges, and flaring like a nuclear mushroom, then rained white and blue sparkles on the grass.

  I looked at the immense exp
anse of grass and the people lounging and playing on it, unconcerned or tickled by the unnatural shower. They looked like normal college students, except for the jets of color that they too played with and released. One girl spun a ball of red into the shape of a cat with her hand. It bounded across the grass, then dissipated into the air in a projection of fire and light. Her skirt turned the color of the firecat, projected flames licking down from it.

  I hunched against the pillar, feeling completely exposed—a mouse in the middle of a swarm of hawks. At the far end of the grass circle were a bunch of guys playing a rugby-esque sport, propelling a ball by magic. Colors formed a comet tail as the ball was passed or kicked. A guy raced down the field toward me with one arm outstretched overhead, and made a fantastic one-handed catch, hauling the ball to his chest. He turned, backing up a few steps as he taunted the guys down the field. Christian would have immediately recruited him.

  My feet started toward him. I stopped abruptly, troubled, as a group walked between us. The tug to walk to him was almost overpowering. Disturbing. He turned suddenly, brows creasing as he searched the groups of people streaming out of the cafeteria and onto the walk, and I forgot how to breathe as he suddenly seemed to zoom into view and my eyes met ultramarine blue for a moment.

  Another large group of girls walked between us, breaking the unnatural zoom and eye contact. The view of him was imprinted in my mind, though. He was dark, athletic, and wind-blown, sporting the echo of the smirking smile he had worn upon making the catch—the kind that appeared only on the faces of guys who were totally convinced of their own skill.

  I took another step, then cursed and stopped. I pushed against the overwhelming urge to walk to him.

  His smirk slipped fully into a frown, he turned, and threw the ball. A loooong way. He had to have used magic, but I couldn't see any tendrils as I had with the others. He ran back into the thick of the pack and a number of the guys rallied around him.

  I couldn't see the color of his eyes anymore, but that shade had been haunting me for weeks.

  I tried to concentrate on the other players and to still my traitorous feet as I shakily walked past, hugging the edge of the path, and trying to think of other things over the sound of the blood pounding in my ears. Christian would assuredly want to try this sport after I got him ba—

  A boy screamed, holding his throat, then leaned forward and projectile vomited blood all over the field. Spells flew, and players took hits hard enough to cause someone to wake up three days later, drooling. I skirted the steps and picked up my pace, but couldn't prevent a last look at Alexander Dare, who was standing with his arms crossed at the edge of the pile-up, looking down at the bodies and blood in amusement.

  I felt curiously blank. I wondered if this was what people meant when they mentioned culture shock.

  ~*~

  I took the long way back to the dorm, eschewing magical travel, walking down the circular levels. By the fourth circle I was sweating profusely and willing my feet to move faster, like the lady in the Administration Building had. Nothing happened. I concentrated harder. Rose petals peeling, rose petals peeling. Nothing. I sucked at being a mage. Rose petals! Rose petals!

  A hole opened up in the middle of the air with a loud boom and my shoe exploded from my foot. The shoe sailed right through, a perfect goal, then the hole closed with another boom.

  I had just blown my shoe from existence.

  As people strode nonchalantly by, I stood motionless, contemplating nihilism, then began to hobble back to Dormitory Circle with one bedraggled left shoe and three holes in the sock on my shoeless right, ignoring everything around me. I tried to make myself feel better by imagining my shoe balancing on top of an electrical line somewhere in First Layer Kalamazoo.

  Limping over the stone walk leading down to the fifth circle steps, I tried not to make eye contact with anyone. As I stopped to dislodge pebbles from my sock, my eyes traveled past a storefront sign that read “Magi Mart.”

  Olivia had all of those foodstuffs labeled with the name. My stomach rumbled.

  I shuffled inside hoping they didn't have a “no shirt, no shoes, no service” policy, otherwise I was going to have to argue the merits of one shoe and one sock.

  The store was tiny. She had gotten all that stuff here? I could see a box of Cheerio-looking cereal on the shelf. Safe. Weird, though, that there was only one. In fact, there was exactly one of every product on the shelves. I reached up to get the nice, safe box of non-Cheeri—

  “Ow!” I rubbed my arm where I had been zapped.

  “Don't touch the displays,” a bored, half-dead voice said. Likely to match the bored, half-dead guy at the counter up front.

  Great. So I was supposed to magic the box or something? I'd probably blow the store off the face of the mountain. I carefully considered my hunger needs versus the guilt of mass destruction. It was close, and hunger was starting to edge ahead.

  A dead sigh emerged from behind the counter. “Press the button and the product will appear in your basket.”

  I looked around for a basket.

  Nothing.

  I switched my thinking around, looking for a basket that wasn't really a basket. Just like my desk was really a super-transformer.

  My eye caught on a stack of cards on a ledge near the window. The cards were printed with the image of a wicker basket. I picked one up and examined it. It glowed briefly, then returned to its brown hue. I looked back at the display and carefully pressed the button under the cereal. A frisson of energy went through me and down my fingertips into the card. I looked at the card to see my previously empty basket had a rectangular yellow box placed neatly inside. I stared at it. The image zoomed up to hologram above the card in all its bright yellow glory. My fingers promptly released the card, and it dropped to the floor.

  I looked around and hurriedly picked up the card. Damn magic-startle-reflex.

  I started populating all sorts of things—way more than I actually needed for the night, but it was fascinating to feel and then watch the items appear. And...I had no idea how to remove one—pushing the button again simply populated my basket with one more of the item—so I ended up with a basket so overcrowded that I imagined my card was starting to bend.

  I took my card up to the register. “So, uh, how do I get the items out?”

  Dead sigh. God, up close, the guy even looked like a zombie. “Place it in the slot in your room's delivery box then tell it to appear.”

  “Ok. Thanks.” That made me a little nervous. My eye caught a display of a pen and pencil and my pulse jumped. The pencil was labeled “Layer 2 Pencil.” “Is that a magic pencil?”

  The guy stared at me. “Yes. Munits or credit?”

  I quickly populated the card with three pencils and three pens. “Munits?”

  Dead sigh. “Magic units. That will be twenty-five even.”

  From my pocket, I withdrew a few soggy bills from Marsgrove's roll.

  Dead guy looked at me as if I were both gross and an idiot, then gingerly handed a bill back. I kind of wanted to ask him if he or his family could give me any tips on raising the dead, but kept my lips shut and put the card in my pocket and took my change.

  I didn't know if the card or delivery box included refrigeration, so I hurried back to the dorm, quickly picked the lock, thankful Olivia was still gone. I stuck the card in, excited, and throwing my hands out like Magical Moses, I told my groceries to appear.

  And appear they did—exploding into a hodge-podge of mush, mash, goo and pulp all over the ceiling, walls, and floor.

  Immediately, a little self-cleaning device in my desk whirled out and got to business. I heard the trash can next to my desk flush.

  I rounded up the food products that had survived and quickly ate a completely normal tasting burrito. After crumpling up the paper and wiping my hands, I sighed, then fished out some cleaning products from the bathroom and got to work on the surfaces that hadn’t been cleaned. Magic kind of sucked.

  Knock
, knock, knock.

  I put down the spray bottle and carefully pulled the door open an inch.

  A good-looking, uniformed guy with smooth, dark skin and closely-cropped hair stood on the other side. He had a royal-blue tablet similar to Will's violet one.

  “Florence Crown?” He had a nice deep voice and a trustworthy vibe, but he knew my name.

  “No, thanks. I'm full-up on candy and magazines.” I started to close the door, but his foot wedged between it and the jamb.

  He pointed his tablet at me through the space, and his deep voice took on an edge. “You are making this worse on yourself, Miss Crown. You just performed a Level One Offense. You either open this door fully or my tablet will vaporize you.”

  I opened it quickly. I had seen both Will's and Marsgrove's tablets do some freaky things.

  He pulled the tablet back and clicked a few things on the screen. “Just kidding about the vaporization. Squad joke. But blowing up groceries is prohibited, as the delivery mechanism can react in a volatile way, so I'll have to punish you with impunity.”

  My heart leaped into my throat.

  He smiled. “I'm just kidding. This is a first offense, and let's keep it that way. Be a good citizen, Miss Crown, or else. Do you run?”

  I couldn't tell if he was completely serious or having me on. He stood between me and partial freedom, so I decided to treat him as serious. “Yes?”

  “Great. Were you headed anywhere soon?”

  “The library?” That seemed a safe destination—populated and normal.

  “Good. Run to one of the libraries and run back.” His tablet dinged. He smiled. I tried to smile back, mentally tightening the straps on my pack. I had just been tagged. How long did I have before Marsgrove found me now? The boy gave me an encouraging look. “You say, 'I will run to a library and back, by my magic I so do vow.'”

  I repeated the phrase, plotting out my next move. Something wrapped around me, squeezing briefly just like in the administration building and when I'd first entered the dorm room. Magic testing and settling.