The Ginger Cat

by Lucia Ashta

I smiled as Mordecai went on about Carlton’s smooth disappearing magic. I grinned when Carlton displayed true joy at his appreciation.

  “No, no. That’s not how I do it,” Carlton said to Mordecai. “It’s not so much a spell as a feeling. I try to say the spell the same way each time, but I know I speak different words every time. My memory isn’t nearly as good as yours.” He skipped the apology he would have used just a day before. “I repeat the words of the spell, but I mostly focus on how I’ll feel disappearing.”

  “Do you think you could do it without using a spell at all then?” Mordecai’s interest had remained high through this entire discussion.

  Carlton deliberated, taking his eyes from his rapt audience for the first time. “Perhaps. I’ve not tried it before. I’ve always done it as I was taught, or as close to it as I could manage.” The man had lived a world of constraint and rules since birth. “I suppose I could try it without a spell.”

  There it was: the seed of freedom, which translated to greater power in the magical world. There could be no gain without risk. It was that way with all of life, and one way in which magic was no different.

  Yet then, “What if I can’t do it properly though? What if I get lost and can’t reappear?”

  Mordecai had already begun to shake his head, but Carlton continued. “What if I’m stuck in limbo forever?”

  Is limbo where I’d floundered about when the other magicians were experiencing smooth movement?

  “My boy, trust yourself. You can do this.”

  Carlton looked down at those same charcoal trousers that had become my salvation minutes before.

  “You can do more than you think and more than you were led to believe. Why don’t we try it together?”

  “Shall we do it again?” This time, Mordecai spoke to Marcelo.

  “All right. But Clara should sit this one out.”

  I let loose a bark of laughter in a moment when reminding myself I was a lady of the nobility seemed absurd. “I will not.”

  Mordecai’s eyes widened. In all his centuries of life, he’d probably never heard a woman speak to a man like that. Even though I spoke with gentle kindness, there was no disguising my empowerment.

  I was finished being a meek woman. It had never served me well. I doubted that it would serve our mission any better.

  “I’m ready to try it again too.” I scooted to the edge of the settee, readying myself to stand.

  A low whistle rang behind me. “Better you than me, Milady. I’ve had quite enough of all that twisting and swirling to last me the rest of the day.”

  So Sir Lancelot had experienced some of the disorientation that I had as well! He’d just been uncharacteristically silent about it.

  “I’ll just sit here, keeping watch upon the ascent of the mountain, until you all return.”

  I stood and walked toward Marcelo. This time, I took his hand.

  “I’m ready.”

  Carlton arched one dignified eyebrow at me, locked eyes with Marcelo, and then said, “Very well. Here we go again.” He coughed a needless cough, nerves running through him. He wasn’t yet the free magician I was enthusiastically becoming.

  When he clutched his eyes shut, I was one step ahead of him. Once I started moving from here to there, I couldn’t be certain which of us was making me disappear anymore.

  I could do it myself now. I could appear any place I wanted, with the inherent dangers that some options might bring.

  This time, I didn’t spin dangerously, fighting feelings that were out of my control. This time, I was in control. Actually, it wasn’t control that I had. I might never truly achieve what most people thought of as control. What I did have was faith: in myself, in magic, in my companions, and in a future with peace for us all.

  I warped through space on my way to the other side of the castle. Carlton was conservative in his exploration, but the next time I did this disappearing by myself, I wouldn’t be. Caution was not the qualifying characteristic of my developing magic or my personality.

  I was finding myself. And I was thrilled at all that I was finding. None of it was anything that I could have possibly anticipated. I wouldn’t have wanted to know any of it, not even how any of it would turn out. Where would the fun in that be?

  Looking back, I wouldn’t even want to change knowing what we would confront when we faced Count Washur. It might have sent me reeling into fear, and I don’t believe it would have changed anything at all.

  It’s possible that everything was already planned out. The outcome might have been set in motion long before any of us realized it. The far-reaching implications of the conflict that not one of us sought out, would still change all of our lives in a way that was as irreversible as Albacus’ death. We could change things once we became as powerful as we’d become, but there were some prices that were too steep to pay to be worth it. Darkness was a dangerous thing to mess with, no matter how powerful we may become.

  I hurled through space knowing at the center of the five elements that I could replicate Carlton’s magic without any knowledge of a spell. I had reached the point where I didn’t need spells, nor did I need boundaries.

  I didn’t yet realize it, but everything I needed was already contained within me.

  I raced ahead of Marcelo, pulling his hand to hurry with me through the blurred moments that transported us from one space to another. He responded, and we traveled together as future husband and wife, our edges blurring us out of time as well as space.

  We beat Carlton, just by a second, to the servants’ quarters that the butler knew so well. It was an easy place for him to lead us to; he remembered how the quarters felt and looked by carved memory.

  Marcelo and I, and then Carlton and Mordecai, burst into the kitchen, startling the cook. Mrs. Bumrose wasn’t a witch herself. But one couldn’t live in a castle that belonged to magicians without coming to a quiet acceptance that things weren’t always what they seemed, even when the questions were best left unasked.

  Mrs. Bumrose let loose a small shriek as she took two steps back from the group of magicians that crowded around a stove that was constantly topped by bubbling pots. She backed into a pot that splashed boiling water onto the iron stovetop, but she wasn’t hurt.

  “Not to worry, Mrs. Bumrose,” Carlton said with uncharacteristic charisma. “We’ll soon be out of your way.”

  And in the next instant, we all were.

  One lesson mastered, only a few thousand more to go.

  I was making progress.

  Chapter 4

  After several days, we’d settled into a comfortable pattern. I woke in my chambers shortly after the sun rose and rang for Anna. She dressed me and I joined Marcelo and Mordecai in the dining room to break our fast. While Mordecai retired to the parlor to do whatever he did, Marcelo and I walked atop the wall that enclosed the castle.

  The castle wall was crenelated. It delineated the entire perimeter of the Bundry estate. Although atop a steep mountain, the estate was vast. This rocky patch of land, as violent for the sea that crashed against its base as for the memories it housed, was already Marcelo’s. Some day, this would also become my home. I hoped we’d live long enough to make it our own.

  While walking the wall Marcelo would hold my hand, making my heart flutter for a breath, and I wondered if I’d ever get used to it. Would love feel new every morning once we were married? I had no way of knowing. I hadn’t met anyone truly in love—at least I didn’t think so. Father and Mother didn’t love each other; they didn’t love us either. Perhaps they weren’t capable of it.

  Even though the stone wall climbed higher than the already-tall castle, the sound of the crashing waves floated up to me, calling to me. Every morning, I asked Marcelo if I could play with the water and attempt to create water on my own.

  His answer had become a predictable part of our routine.

  We’d walk the castle rampart until we completed the loop twice. Then Marcelo would guide me down to the rooftop encircled by the
parapet from where I twice flew. Down the open-air staircase, then the small angular one. Finally, down the large, elegant spiraling one, where Marcelo always let go of my hand.

  We’d find Mordecai in the parlor, innocently sitting where we’d left him, yet with a sheepish grin that reminded me more of wolf than lamb. Sir Lancelot would fly to my shoulder, and we’d go back up the steps to the room Marcelo had chosen as our makeshift study. As far as I knew, Marcelo still hadn’t entered his father’s study. Maybe he thought if he opened the door to it, darkness would escape, seeping into every crevice of the castle as infectiously as the Black Death.

  Our study was a small library, and I felt right at home, comforted by the smells of old paper and parchment. That’s when the fun really started. It was always the conservative spells at first. But I was patient. I needed to learn the spells anyway, even though a part of me realized that I might have fully bypassed the need for them. Besides, it was just a matter of time until Mordecai became too bored with our practice and yearned for something that would challenge him. Since little did anymore, inevitably we ended up exploring magic that was dangerous or rare, or better yet, a combination of both.

  We’d break for lunch and then resume the same practice afterward: conservative magic until the child within Mordecai wouldn’t bear it any longer. Early evening was the breath of fresh air I waited for since our morning walk. Before dinner was when the really advanced magic happened. At times I was spectator, others participant, and still others teacher. Amid perfected spells and even botched ones, our brotherhood grew closer.

  Dinnertime was the enthusiastic recounting of the day’s magic that could only thrill the truly devoted or the obsessed. We were definitely devoted, and we all bordered on being obsessed. Can you blame us? Once you learn that you can do one thing you never imagined possible, it’s difficult to stop your mind from wondering how far you can take it.

  At nighttime, we read in the parlor by candlelight. Old and new books of magic piled up on the side tables, obscuring polished cherry and oak. Some nights, I fell asleep next to the fire, a book folded on my lap, abandoned in deference to my dreaming.

  I figured many more days just like this would pass before Marcelo would let me attempt the magic that scared him. It was my own unique style of magic, and it frightened him because no one there had ever seen it before.

  Yet this morning, as we swung around the starting point on the gray stone crenelated rampart, he surprised me. As usual, I asked, “Can I attempt to create the element of water today?”

  I already had my usual crestfallen look in place, anticipating his everyday answer. Until I heard his voice work through my preconceptions, proving them a mistake as was often the way with preconceptions.

  Rarely had a yes sounded so sweet.

  Chapter 5

  I swung around to face Marcelo, though I didn’t let go of his hand. “Do you really mean it?”

  His smile was wide and as bright as the new morning sun. “Yes. I think it’s time. And so does Mordecai. We’ve been discussing it, and we agree.”

  I arched my eyebrows. “You discuss me?”

  “Of course we do.”

  It was a fresh reminder that I was still only a young woman of twenty (though in the body of a seventeen-year-old) who’d been sheltered most of her life. The naïveté I didn’t notice in the looking glass probably followed me around like a juvenile perfume. “I see.” I let Marcelo’s hand drop and turned to look down at the crashing sea below.

  A second later, Marcelo’s hand followed me to land on the small of my back. I could barely feel it beneath all the garments required of a woman of my station.

  “You aren’t upset, are you darling? Surely you realized Mordecai and I’d speak of you. Not only are you our pupil, but you know how much rests on your developing abilities.”

  I was silent for a moment. The sea pounded below us, betraying the long drop that would crush any human body against stone that weathered time more valiantly than any of the nearly immortal wizards. “No. No. Of course I’m not upset.”

  Already, I was beginning to forget what Marcelo had said. The sea spoke to me louder than he did.

  “Clara.”

  The waves crashed with incredible power. The water sprayed so high up the wall that it almost reached us, along with the deafening sound.

  “Clara.”

  It was a roar of power that only water can produce.

  “Clara.”

  “Hm. Yes. What?”

  “You can’t begin connecting to the water yet. Mordecai would never forgive us if we didn’t call him to witness what happens.”

  The sound was mesmerizing. It replaced thought.

  “Clara, wait, all right? I’ll be right back. I need to get Mordecai. I’ll hurry.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “You’ll wait, right? Clara?”

  I barely heard him.

  “Maybe you’d better come with me.”

  But once the connection formed, there was no easy stopping it. Some things were meant to be set in motion. Some things shouldn’t be interrupted.

  I didn’t even feel Marcelo’s imploring hand on my back again. Nor did I hear his footsteps as they raced across the stone walkway of the rampart.

  I was looking for the other four elements amid the water. I knew the elements were inseparable, even the fifth one that only I had seen. There was always at least the hint of the others in one. Unlike the description from my first book of magic at Lake Creston, The Magyke of the Elementes, I knew now that the elements were not fully distinct. They intertwined to form the spark of life, and there was no separating one thread from the other. They remained tied, even when they weren’t visible and when the hold was slight.

  They were there. All five elements. The five-petal knot within my heart thrummed its agreement. Yes. Yes. Yes. I learned how to pay closer attention to the source of all magic with every passing day.

  I didn’t mean to, yet I closed my eyes. There was a part of me that meant to wait for Marcelo to return with Mordecai.

  But the part of me that couldn’t sing to anyone else’s tune had grown stronger every day.

  The waves crashed louder. They sang the tune that harmonized with mine, and it climbed up the walls, carved centuries ago from hardened stone.

  The tune searched for me, and it found me so easily. After all, I was there, searching for it too. I’d been searching for it all my life.

  I raised my arms to my side and turned to face the water far below more fully.

  Marcelo and Mordecai wouldn’t make it in time.

  Chapter 6

  Mordecai and Marcelo slammed open the door to the staircase with such hurry that it banged against the wall, straining hinges that were centuries old.

  I didn’t hear it. I didn’t hear their calls either, and I think they knew that. They only tried once. Then they silently came to my side, Mordecai suppressing the labored breathing of an old man.

  In the short time since Marcelo left my side, much had changed. Yet the change didn’t surprise either man. They’d witnessed it before, as they’d also seen how the elements respond to me.

  The waves crashed with great cracking violence. Each time, the wave threw itself higher up against the wall. The stone barely felt it, but the sound was enough to remind a human body of its frailty.

  Marcelo and Mordecai reached my side with small, cautious steps, even though they knew the water was far beneath them. They understood that they were safe. Probably.

  The water was there with me, unsurprised to discover me reaching out to it, as if it had known it would happen like this all along.

  Neither magician dared touch me. What I was doing was dangerous enough as it was. Interruption of a spell—or intuitive magic as seemed mostly to be the case with me—could prove fatal to the magician performing the magic and to anyone else connected to the enchantment. Even the verbose Sir Lancelot knew to keep silent. He collected himself and smoothed the feathers that had ruffled u
ngentlemanly in Marcelo’s determined climb.

  Mordecai was the first that dared to look down. The sea sloped upward toward our position on the rampart like I’d never seen before.

  With each crash of the waves, the level of the water rose higher. As each wave broke, the ensuing sound filled the silence that surrounded us.

  Mordecai, more cautious now than just moments before, didn’t dare utter a sound, but instead turned toward Marcelo on the other side of me, with his eyes and eyebrows arched impossibly high. It was the universal sign for alarm.

  Marcelo took the two steps that delivered him to the edge. He took a short breath and then looked down.

  He looked at me. Then he looked toward Mordecai. His teacher shook his head. No, they shouldn’t interrupt me. Even if the rooftop flooded, they had to let me be.

  Marcelo nudged his head toward the water while holding Mordecai’s gaze. Are you certain?

  The force of an entire sea seemed to pound against a castle wall designed to ward off any approaching enemy. This wasn’t an enemy, yet it was infinitely more powerful than any the mountaintop of Bundry had ever seen.

  Mordecai shook his head again and broke the gaze he shared with his pupil to stare at the rising water. It was an incredible sight.

  The waves crashed and rose to mighty heights before plummeting several stories in a single second, and then rolling down and back across the sloping surface of the water. The sound was deafening now.

  There was a part of me that identified the similarity between the roar of water, and fire unleashed. In Marcelo’s study within one of the towers of the castle at Irele, I’d created fire, and it had roared with the same deafening potency that overtook us now.

  I loved it. I was fully enveloped in the movement of the water, in its life, in its essence, and the tune of the crashing waves fed my entrancement.

  With the next wave, or at most the one after that, we’d surely be swept away. Then I remembered:

  I was supposed to be creating the water element, not interacting with it.