Magic Lessons

by Justine Larbalestier

  “But in order to use only the tiniest amounts,” Esmeralda continued, “you have to understand it.

  “The three of you see magic differently. Yet you have to remember that all magic is the same. It’s a system of energy that magic-wielders have the ability to control. No matter what metaphor you use for understanding it—”

  “What’s a metaphor?” Jay-Tee asked.

  “A figure of speech. Like saying someone has a heart of stone.”

  I didn’t think much of her example. My grandfather’s stone heart definitely wasn’t a figure of speech.

  “Every magic-wielder understands how their magic works in terms of some metaphor. For Reason and me, magic is made of mathematical patterns. Tom understands it as something made up of shapes, of materials, like the clothes he makes.”

  “You,” Esmeralda said, smiling at Jay-Tee, “think of magic in terms of the connections between people—a web, you said. But no matter how we think about what we do—what metaphors we use—we all do the same thing: we manipulate energy.”

  “If it’s just a metaphor,” Jay-Tee said, “why can’t I smell what Reason smelled?”

  “There’s no such thing as just a metaphor. The way you understand magic shapes how you work your magic. Your understanding of it, the metaphor you use, is what your magic is. Metaphors make reality.”

  How could that be true? Metaphors couldn’t make the world; they could only help us understand the world, and sometimes they got in the way. I thought of all the examples Sarafina had taught me, everything I’d read about the history of science. People used to think about the world as if it were a map or a table: flat, something you could fall off the edges of. Their flat earth existed at the centre of the universe with the sun rotating around it, heaven floating above and hell below. The metaphor did not make reality; it stopped people from seeing reality. When Copernicus said the world was spinning on its axis and orbiting the sun, the people of his day were horrified. They couldn’t see beyond the edges of their metaphor.

  “But how…” Jay-Tee trailed off. “Where do these metaphors come from? I mean, why do I see magic the way I do and Tom the way he does? My father never taught me to look for a web. Are we born that way?”

  “I don’t know.”

  There was a lot she didn’t know. Esmeralda caught the expression on my face. “Why does gravity work the way it does, Reason?”

  She had me. “I don’t know. Nobody does.”

  “How did life begin?”

  I opened my mouth and then shut it again.

  “There’s a lot I don’t know about magic or how it works. Most of what I’ll tell you are theories. I happen to think they’re good theories, but I can’t be certain.

  “These objects in your hands,” Esmeralda continued, “have all been used to shift magical energy for at least a century. Some of them date back to when the Cansinos first came here, some, like that phallus, considerably longer.”

  Jay-Tee caught my eye with a grin, but neither of us laughed.

  “The energy rubs off, is absorbed by these stones, pieces of wood and bone. Because they are already imbued with magic, using them lessens the amount of energy you displace from yourself.”

  “So that you can live longer,” Jay-Tee said.

  Esmeralda nodded.

  “So why not use the whole box?” I asked.

  “Because it doesn’t work,” Tom answered. “It’s like thinking that if one pill helps your headache, why not take twenty. The medicine bites back. Two is usually the limit, and even then they don’t always work better than one.”

  “Have you ever tried to work with more than one object?” Esmeralda asked Jay-Tee.

  She shook her head.

  “Have you ever made light?”

  Jay-Tee nodded.

  “Use the tooth and your bracelet to make light. Use only the smallest amount of magic. A smaller amount than you’ve ever used before.”

  “Now?”

  Esmeralda nodded. Tom sat watching. The expression on his face said he’d done this before.

  Suddenly Jay-Tee’s face was brighter: I hadn’t actually seen her do anything, but it was as if a spotlight were pointed at her.

  “Enough,” Esmeralda said, and the light went away. “How was that?”

  “Easier,” Jay-Tee said. “Much.” She looked at the large tooth in her hand. “Can I keep this?”

  “Of course. It’s yours now.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Your turn, Reason.”

  I looked down at the brooch in my hand. “What do I do?”

  “Concentrate on the shape of light,” Tom said. “Draw it towards you.”

  Jay-Tee snickered, like she thought Tom was being a wanker. “Just think about light.”

  I did. The brooch in my hand grew warmer. My body did, too, as if something were burning inside me. The whole room flooded with light.

  “Stop!” Esmeralda yelled.

  I stopped. The three of them were staring at me.

  “Bloody hell,” Tom said.

  “Damn,” Jay-Tee said at the same time. They both rubbed their eyes.

  “That was way too much,” Jay-Tee said. “Do you not want to live to the end of the week?”

  “Really? I don’t feel drained or anything.”

  “Have you ever known you were using magic before, Reason?” Esmeralda asked.

  I shook my head.

  “What about trying to kill him?” Jay-Tee asked.

  “I didn’t try to kill Jason Blake—I lost my temper. The magic just swelled up. It was in control of me, not the other way around.” I hadn’t been thinking of magic at all. It had been the same with Josh Davidson.

  When we’d rescued Esmeralda from her strange fight with Jason Blake, that had been magic, too. But until last week—the strangest week of my life—all my magic had been accidental. I itched to know more—much, much more. I had to get into Esmeralda’s library and read every single thing in it—even the parking tickets.

  “You only want a little bit of light,” Tom said. “Not the full power of the sun.”

  “But it didn’t feel like anything—”

  “It didn’t? What about when you worked magic against your grandfather?”

  Kind of Esmeralda not to say, When you tried to kill your grandfather. I breathed deeply. “It felt good. But afterwards I was completely rooted.” I shrugged. “Didn’t get tired making the light just now. Don’t feel anything.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Well, the brooch got a little bit warm.”

  The three of them were still staring at me as if I were some kind of mutant. I wished they’d stop it.

  “Look! I’ve never done magic on purpose before. I’ve never known what I was doing before.”

  Jay-Tee snorted. “You don’t exactly know what you’re doing now. You lit the room brighter than a thousand watts.”

  “What use is light against that bitey golem thing, anyway?” I asked.

  “Probably none,” Esmeralda said. “But I wanted to have some sense of what you can do. Now I know you need to learn control. Against the golem we’ll lay more protections, not light.” She opened the top of the cardboard box. It was full of feathers. Black, purple, dark blue, and green feathers. They looked like the ones that had been under my pillow.

  “Jay-Tee, how do you make a protection?”

  “I push a tiny bit of magic into the feathers or bones or whatever, and then, as quick as I can, I put them close to what I want protected. The magic wears off eventually.”

  “How do you ‘push’ magic?” I asked.

  “Exactly the same way we conjured light.”

  “You just think about it?”

  “Yes. But think softly, Reason,” Esmeralda said. “Think about the gentleness of a feather. Think little thoughts.”

  “Not thoughts of nuclear warheads,” Jay-Tee said under her breath.

  Esmeralda stood up. “Ready to go back over?”

  We emerged out of the d
ark, cool house into the intense dazzle of the bright day—even the bitumen surface of the street seemed to sparkle. I watched carefully as Esmeralda locked the door: three locks, three keys, all of which turned widdershins.

  None of us said anything, following Esmeralda like obedient little chicks. Tom carried the box of feathers. I held the brooch, still warm in my fingers.

  6

  Feathers and Chunder

  Tom could tell that Reason wasn’t keen on going back in the house. It wasn’t hard: her face’d gone a really weird colour. He lowered his sunglasses. Almost green.

  “You can smell it already?” Tom asked. “It hasn’t gone away?”

  Standing outside Esmeralda’s house, the late afternoon sun lanced down at them like hot angry spears. Coming out of the cold lesson house was always a shock on a hot day like this. Tom had to squint through his sunglasses; he could feel the sweat gathering under his armpits, on his forehead and upper lip, in the middle of his back.

  Mere was examining the front door, not using magic. Even though she was wearing an old pair of jeans and a plain black shirt, she looked well groomed, neat, hair pulled back in a ponytail, in place of the formal chignon she’d had it in when she got back from work. Her make-up understated, but just so. Mere was not a bright-red-lipstick kind of woman. Tom tried to reconcile her appearance with the bomb-just-gone-off look of her room. He failed.

  Reason nodded, then shook her head. “Psychosomatic,” she said, looking a little less green. “Just knowing that I might smell it again…” She trailed off, shrugging.

  “Must be bad,” Tom said, just to say something. It was a pretty der-brain statement.

  “Yeah.”

  Mere stood up, opened the door. He and Reason followed her through, then Jay-Tee.

  “I don’t smell it,” Reason said. She took several more steps forward and then gagged, her face turning a deeper shade of green. “Okay, yes, now I smell it. The kitchen—”

  “Okay, let’s do it. Quickly!”

  Tom ran down the hall. The thing was at the bottom of the back door, trying to squeeze past Jay-Tee’s matches.

  “Drop the box, Tom,” Mere said.

  Tom placed the box of feathers on the floor and knocked the battered lid aside, still staring at the thing by the door. It was glowing.

  Mere squatted beside the box, thrust her hand in. “Come on,” she said. “All three of you.”

  Tom grabbed the jade button in his pocket and slipped his other hand into the feathers. Jay-Tee and Reason joined him. Like him, they were transfixed by the bright yellow thing trying to push its way back into the house. He wondered how it had broken their skin. It was all smooth edges, no signs of teeth.

  “Now,” Mere said. Tom closed his eyes, pushing circles of magic into the feathers. His hand tingled pleasantly as the magic built. Doing magic always felt right. Well, except that once, in New York City with Mere.

  “Stop.” Mere snatched up the box and then tipped the feathers onto the thing. The golem slipped back under the door before the falling feathers touched it. Mere, Reason, and Jay-Tee pushed the feathers towards the sliver of a gap between the bottom of the door and the floor.

  Reason let out a yelp and stumbled away from the door. Mere shoved more feathers into the gap. “Did it touch you?”

  “A little,” Reason said, but she looked green.

  They stepped back, staring at the back door. The feathers stuck firmly, as if held by glue. There were no gaps. The protection was working. “It’s gone.” Mere turned to Reason. “Are you—”

  Reason moved her head slightly in what could have been a nod and then dashed to the dunny.

  Tom grabbed a clean glass and held it under the tap. The water ran hot from the pipes baking in the sun. He pulled the glass aside and let the water run over his hand until it cooled.

  A deafening thud came from the back door.

  “It’s him!” Jay-Tee screamed.

  Tom spun around, water from the glass splashing out across the kitchen. The door was pulsating, liquid ripples running across its surface, making a sound like metal on wood that set his teeth out of alignment. Then the noise switched back to dull thudding as the door bowed into the kitchen. Something large and round was pushing from the other side.

  Mere and Jay-Tee just stood there staring at it.

  “Shouldn’t we—” he began.

  “What is it?” Reason yelled over the thudding, closing the toilet door behind her. She took the glass from Tom; their hands touched briefly and Tom gasped, jerking his fingers away.

  “What?” Reason asked. No one else had heard him. She wiped her mouth, gulped down the remaining water. “Why’d you do that?”

  “Nothing. Static or something.” It wasn’t nothing. Reason had felt wrong. For an instant her skin’d been like burnished metal—too smooth, too cool, not skinlike at all.

  “He’s angry!” Jay-Tee yelled. Her cheeks were flushed. “He sure isn’t happy with our little feathers.”

  Tom looked down. Despite the convulsions of the door, the feathers hadn’t shifted a millimetre.

  “We made that weird-ass thing go away and he’s pissed,” Jay-Tee continued, still shouting. “We win. See?”

  She was right. The door was still rippling, but more gently, and the noise had almost stopped. Tom felt like a giant hand had been gripping his head and squeezing and now, at last, was letting go.

  “What can you smell now, Reason?” Mere asked.

  Reason was leaning back on one of the kitchen stools. She did not look good. “Nothing weird. The smell’s gone.”

  “Stopped by the feathers?” Jay-Tee asked.

  “Stopped by the feathers,” Mere agreed. She looked tired.

  He sat down next to Mere, opened his mouth to ask how they were going to find out what the thing had been.

  “Are you hungry?” Mere asked. Tom closed his mouth. He was starving. Magic always made him ravenous.

  “Yes,” Jay-Tee said tiredly. Reason nodded.

  “How about pizza?” Mere suggested.

  “Sure,” Jay-Tee said. “Hey, you going to order beetroot pizza, Reason?”

  “Eww,” Tom said. “No one has beetroot on a pizza. That’s disgusting.”

  Jay-Tee laughed. Reason didn’t say a word.

  7

  Old Magic

  I ate the pizza without tasting it. I was trying to make sense of what I had learned when the thing had touched me again. In that nanosecond of contact when the barest tips of my index and middle fingers had made contact with it…I had learned what it was. Why it had felt so familiar.

  My fingers still felt strange, pins and needles that pulled my nerve endings the wrong way. What I had learned instantly from that moment of contact was at the front of all my senses:

  The thing was a Cansino.

  I recognised the core of its pattern. The same core as Mere’s and Sarafina’s and Jason Blake’s, too. We were all related.

  That thing that had crawled inside me, that had left traces of itself along my veins, my muscles—it was family.

  But it wasn’t human. I didn’t know what it was exactly, but it was not a person. How could it not be human and yet related to me? But even more shocking was its age. It was much, much older than any of us.

  The thing was a Cansino, reeking of magic rather than insanity, but it was old. Truly old. How was that possible? I had to get back into the library, to all those records gathered by generations of Cansinos.

  “Are you all right, Reason?” Mere asked, staring at me. She was holding a glass of red wine in her right hand. Jay-Tee was drinking water. (I wondered how she felt about that.)

  I nodded, making myself meet her eyes and smile. “I’m fine.” I had to make sense of this before I could tell anyone. Especially Esmeralda.

  “You don’t look it.” She took a sip of her wine, and for a second her teeth were stained purple.

  “I’m fine, honest. The pizza’s great.” I took another bite to demonstrate my enthu
siasm. “I was thinking about that thing,” I said in between chews. “That horrible smell. What does smell have to do with mathematics? Why do I smell magic?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Tom looked disappointed by Esmeralda’s answer, but I wasn’t surprised. There was a lot she didn’t know. The whole point of coming here, of living under her roof, was to learn about magic. But so far she had no answers to any of the big questions.

  “It’s like physics, Reason, or biology, or any scientific discipline you care to name. There are lots of theories, some of them, like evolution, very useful, but there’s a great deal we don’t know. We have no idea how many species there are in the world. New bacteria, parasites, jellyfish are found all the time. But there are no teams of scientists anywhere in the world researching magic.

  “Most magic-wielders don’t even know about it. Most of their lives, they don’t know what they are, and by the time they figure it out—if they do—they’re dying or they’ve gone mad.

  “There aren’t many people like me, born into a family that knows. My mother taught me everything she could. I’ve learned from her and from our library and from my own research, but there’s so much more I don’t know. And I don’t have much time left.”

  I nodded, wishing I could get into her library myself, do my own research. None of us had much time. Except Tom. If he continued to follow Mere’s rules, he could live at least twenty more years. Twenty years of small, constrained magics. How would he feel when he was thirty-five and we were long dead? I had to stop that from happening. Esmeralda had accepted that was the way magic was and lived her life accordingly. Well, I wasn’t going to do that. I wouldn’t accept it.

  “What do you do, Esmeralda?” Jay-Tee asked. “For a living, I mean.” It wasn’t the question I was expecting her to ask.

  “I’m an actuary.”

  “A what?”

  “I calculate risks and premiums for an insurance company.”

  “Math?”

  Esmeralda nodded. “Of a sort. Statistics.”

  “Huh,” Jay-Tee said, turning back to the pizza. Tom glanced at her, looking puzzled.