The Zero Blessing

by Christopher Nuttall

  I’ve always been fascinated by how societies change, for better or worse, when new ideas and concepts are introduced ... or lost. What would happen, I asked myself, if magic was effectively as universal as music? There would still be great magicians, as there are great musicians, but there wouldn't be such a tight barrier between the magical world and the muggles. Most people would know - and use - a few simple spells, even if they don’t understand how they work. What sort of world would this create?

  And what would happen if someone couldn't use magic at all?

  Cat was an odd character to write, for many reasons. She’s four years younger than Emily was, when she started her adventures. She combines the knowledge of her family with a painful teenage insecurity, something made worse by the grim awareness that she’s powerless, that she’s effectively a squib. The limits to her knowledge - like most young teens, she has no idea of the limits of her knowledge - actually weaken her. She thinks that magic is the be-all and end-all of life and spends most of her time trying to study it, to grasp it for herself, but she doesn't have the perspective to realise that there is a life outside of magic or the experience to realise that magic doesn't quite work right around her.

  And, despite her disability (and it is a disability), Cat manages to keep going.

  It probably will surprise a few of my readers to know that I went to boarding school - and I hated it. ‘Boarding School Syndrome’ is a real thing. And yet, it is difficult to explain this to adults. Most of the people I know didn't live away from their homes until they turned eighteen, when they were (slightly) more mature. They went to university or joined the military or something along those lines.

  For children, it’s a different story. Going to boarding school is like going to prison, only with worse food. (The scandal about lobster takeaways in UK prisons broke while I was at school.) There is simply no way to get away from your fellow inmates - sorry, pupils. You are forced to be with them 24/5. (We got to go home on the weekends.) There is no escape, ever. The teachers do as little as possible, leaving the weaker boys at the mercy of the strong.

  Some students do well in such an environment. Those who are strong either gain friends easily or, at the very least, are relatively safe. Others do not. People like me are isolated, bullied and sometimes driven to suicide.

  Cat, in many ways, has it far worse - she’s seemingly powerless, a weakling trapped in a world of superpowered kids.

  And yet, she keeps going. I find that admirable.

  I hope you enjoyed this book. If you did, please leave a review. And if you want a sequel, please let me know.

  Christopher Nuttall

  Edinburgh, 2017

  If you enjoyed The Zero Blessing, you might like ...

  INSTRUMENT OF PEACE

  by Rebecca Hall

  Raised in the world-leading Academy of magic rather than by his absentee parents, Mitch has come to see it as his home. He’s spent more time with his friends than his family and the opinion of his maths teacher matters far more than that of his parents.

  His peaceful world is shattered when a devastating earthquake strikes and almost claims his little brother’s life. This earthquake is no natural phenomenon, it’s a result of the ongoing war between Heaven and Hell. To protect the Academy, one of the teachers makes an ill-advised contract with a fallen angel, unwittingly bringing The Twisted Curse down on staff and students alike.

  Term One

  New Girl

  Mitch gaped at the new girl. It had been two years since a student last transferred into the Academy and Nikola had at least had the decency to come from the Munich Academy of Magic; Hayley had come from Auckland Girls’ Grammar. Who cared if she was a genius at maths? Mitch and his team would have won the interschool competitions if it weren’t for her. Not that that mattered at the world’s premier school of magic.

  Mitch knew most of the school, he knew many of his year mates better than he knew his own family, he’d certainly spent more time with them, and all of them had been enrolled since birth. Many of them came from families that had attended the Academy for generations; Mitch himself was eleventh generation. All of them were gifted magicians. Hayley was just a gifted wet blanket; Mitch didn’t recall ever seeing her with any friends.

  How long? he scribbled in the margins of his book, tilting it so that his best friend, Bates, could read.

  One week max, Bates wrote back, his tidy hand highlighting just how messy Mitch’s was. Mitch looked at where Hayley stood awkwardly at the front of the classroom. The inter-school competitions were largely pointless, their teachers had some bullshit reason about learning to interact with non-magicians but the accelerated curriculum taught at the Academy meant that they outstripped their opponents by miles. They were rarely willing to make friends after that. Mitch was willing to concede that Hayley was indeed a genius at maths but she’d never be able to catch up in everything else. It was only a matter of time before their teachers realised that and sent her to study at another of the magic schools. He thought the closest was in South Africa.

  Hayley turned away from Mr McCalis, flipping long black hair over her shoulder. Mitch had overheard some of her classmates calling her Angel Girl. With that curling black hair and darkly tanned skin she didn’t look much like the traditional image of an angel but what little he’d seen of her suggested that she was cold, remote and flawless.

  She looks nervous. Bates wrote.

  She should be. Mitch scrawled back. It wasn’t just academics she’d be behind in, even Mitch’s baby brother would be better at magic than she was. They’d grind her into the dust by the end of the day, the first magic class of the term was always dangerous and for once Mitch was looking forward to it.

  “Why don’t you introduce yourself Miss Lake,” Mr McCalis said, signing off on the last of the paperwork she’d given him, “and then we can get started.”

  “Hi,” she plastered a smile across her face, “my name is Hayley. Doctor Dalman offered me a place at your school last year and I’m excited to be here.” She almost sounded sincere. At least she wasn’t saying ‘it’s nice to meet you, let’s all be friends’. Nikola had been here for two years and he hadn’t made any with the possible exception of the infirmary staff. Mitch had never met anyone so sickly.

  “Thank you Miss Lake,” Mr McCalis said, “please take a seat.” He walked around the classroom distributing worksheets and there was a collective groan as they recognised the questions from last year’s exam, the hard ones that had been at the end, though Mitch noted that he’d changed the numbers in case anyone had thought to memorise the answers. “I’m not going to let you lollygag around just because it’s the first day of a new year,” Mr McCalis said. Anything you don’t finish now you can complete as homework.” There was another groan; they’d had better things to do over the summer break than revise maths. Mitch had spent most of the holidays at the beach with his new surfboard. A glance at the front of the room showed Hayley already hard at work, no doubt the final questions would trip her up.

  “Earth to Mitch,” Bates said, prodding his arm when he failed to respond, “not all of us are maths geniuses you know.”

  “Genii,” Mitch retorted. He set his work out clearly, even though he could do it in his head, so that Bates could see what he was doing. Mitch glanced around the room, running a hand though sandy blond hair; everyone else was still working or having whispered conversations that were probably not about whatever question they were on. Hayley had finished and was standing by Mr McCalis’ desk as he marked her work. Mitch scowled and began the final set of problems, his work bordering on illegibility.

  “It’s not a competition Mitch,” Bates said, “slow down, I can’t follow what you’re doing.” Mitch kept working; of course it was a competition, he’d been first in maths for years and he wasn’t going to let Hayley take that away from him. He scribbled out the final answer and handed his work to Mr McCalis.

  “I should make you rewrite this,” Mr McCalis said.
Mitch stared at the desk where Hayley’s work was neatly laid out, every question correct. “But you may go,” Mr McCalis said, ticking the final answer, “Miss Lake could use a tour of the school.”

  Mitch scowled, that wasn’t what he’d had in mind. He glanced at where Hayley was seated, did his best to ignore the sniggers around him and waited impatiently while she put away her book, a year nine text on magical theory.

  “Where are we going first?” Hayley asked once they’d stepped outside.

  Mitch shrugged and ran through his friends’ timetables in his head. Perhaps he did have to show her around but he didn’t have to be seen doing it.

  “The zoo,” he finally decided. It would be empty at this time of year. Theory always came before practice and the animals were brought into the habitats as they were needed for Cryptozoology instead of being kept at the Academy. It was probably a logistical nightmare. The gardens and greenhouse for Cryptobotany were next, again empty.

  “Do you want to see the lake next?” Mitch asked, shoving his hands into his pockets.

  “I can see it just fine from here,” she said fiddling with something hidden under her sleeve. Mitch sighed and led the way towards the Alchemy workshops. Hayley didn’t seem to be impressed by the view of Mount Ruapehu or Lake Moawhango or even the old buildings. Mitch had been told that they were amongst the oldest in the country and the then-principal had ensured that the army base would be built nearby. Nothing discouraged the curious like live weapons testing.

  “You know we’re not allowed jewellery right?” Mitch said. She was still fiddling with whatever it was in her sleeve and the brief flash of gold almost blinded him. He’d never been sure why jewellery was forbidden, one of the first things they learnt was that anyone who needed magical nick-knacks and toys would never be more than a second rate hack.

  “You mean this?” She pulled out a long golden feather tipped with a white eye.

  “What is that?” Mitch asked, “some kind of mutant peacock feather?” He’d never heard of gold peacocks before and he was reasonably sure that real animals didn’t have ‘shiny’ versions like Pokémon did. Hayley shrugged.

  They passed the Alchemy workshops and Mitch turned them towards the mundane classrooms, pointing out the blocks where their lessons on Teratology, Ancient Languages and Xenobiology would be held.

  “Did you have to do languages at your school?” Mitch asked.

  “They insisted, I spent the last two years learning French.”

  “They give us a new one every year,” Mitch said. He probably half remembered more French than she did. Their teachers were very big on the linguistic underpinnings allowing him to pick up the sentence structure of most languages easily even if he was lousy at the vocabulary.

  “So do you remember me, Angel Girl?” he asked. The library was next and while Mitch supposed he could explain the shelving system used for the magical texts he didn’t really want to go indoors.

  “Surfer boy was it? Or skater boy? After a while all of the sore losers start to blend together.” Mitch scowled, after a summer spent surfing he could hardly complain about that one, he certainly looked the part, but he wouldn’t be caught dead on a skateboard with his jeans hanging around his knees. He would never understand normal kids.

  “I guess I deserved that, Hayley,” he said realising that she might actually be fun to torment. Nikola had ignored their efforts to tease them and it had quickly become boring.

  “It’s Mitchell isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” Technically it was Bartholomew but he would go by that when Hell froze over and his classmates would laugh themselves sick if he started to go by his middle name, Harry. They’d provided him with a complete set of the Harry Potter books when they discovered it and followed it up with the Dresden Files a few years later. And as for the family tradition of naming your first son after your father? It would be a cold day in Hell before he named any child of his Archibald.

  “What do you want Mitchell?” she asked, “You’re not showing me around out of the kindness of your heart.” She slipped the feather back up her sleeve, twisting it around her arm. Mitch would have suspected magnets if it had been sturdy enough to support them.

  “I’m just trying to be friendly since it’s your first day and all,” Mitch said, forcing himself to meet her pale blue eyes. He thought they’d been a shade darker before but it was probably just a trick of the light.

  “Friendly?”

  “I never said I was good at it,” Mitch mumbled, “but surely we can manage a friendly conversation.”

  “I’d settle for intelligent,” Hayley replied.

  “Yeah, sure, I can do that,” Mitch said, realising as he did so that he sounded like a complete idiot. Hayley’s tiny smile said that she agreed. “Err...” how did one go about talking to people they didn’t know. He’d spent the last ten years with the same 32 people – 33 now, he corrected himself, and his year was one of the larger ones. He found it easier to talk to them than he did his own family; with the exception of Nikola of course, he’d prefer another awkward family dinner to that.

  “It’s a nice day,” he managed. Dear god, did he really just say that? Maybe he should just give up on intelligent conversation. Hayley certainly didn’t seem inclined to help him.

  “It was.” How was he supposed to respond to that? Point out the perfectly clear blue sky or the fact that Ruapehu had stopped spewing smoke into the air. Or possibly just take the not so subtle hint that he should get lost. The bell would be ringing for second period soon and they’d seen everything interesting.

  “The Academy is very exclusive you know,” he said, “some of the others aren’t going to be happy about you getting in.” Why the Hell was he warning her? He was one of them and he’d just committed social suicide. Well, maybe not, it seemed unlikely that Hayley would ever be close enough to their classmates to tell them about it.

  Hayley shrugged, “I’m used to it. Anything else?”

  “Umm,” he racked his brain, trying to remember what else normal kids did that was different here. “No cellphones,” he said at last, “magic interferes with wireless.” TV and radio had never really caught on in the magical world and even DVD remotes were completely useless. God help them all the day someone invented wireless electricity.

  “Internet?”

  “Only in the library,” Mitch said with a shrug. He’d never had much use for it.

  “I’ve got Alchemy next,” Hayley said a second before the bell rang. It sounded like a cross between a fire alarm and a dentist’s drill and Mitch was certain that it was higher pitched than last year.

  “That way,” he pointed and happily set off in the opposite direction until he remembered that his next class was Xenobiology. He’d always hated biology, he doubted its magical cousin would be any better.

  #

  Mitch didn’t see Hayley again until lunch time, surprising given the size of their classes. She was sitting alone in a corner of the dining hall, the rest of the students having made it clear that she wasn’t welcome. No one talked to her. He was beginning to think that Bates’ estimate of a week was overly generous, the teachers would see that she wasn’t fitting in and send her somewhere else. Mitch snorted; if they were going to do that they would have sent Nikola away years ago. Mitch couldn’t see him anywhere, he was probably sick again, neatly ruining any chance of Hayley making a friend.

  “Do you want in?” Mindy asked as he slid into his place between her and Bates. They glared at him but shuffled aside, no one wanted to spend lunch watching them make out and this was the only reliable way of stopping them.

  “In?”

  “How long before the new girl calls it quits?”

  “Most of the good ones are already taken,” Bates said, “but there are still a few slots left.”

  Hah, it hadn’t occurred to him that Hayley might leave. He wondered if they would let her. There were plenty of magic users out there who never attended school but most of them were losers
with no real power and questionable ancestry. Hayley never would have been admitted if she lacked raw power.

  Mitch scanned the list of names and dates and whistled softly to himself; Bates had half the Academy listed here. Adnan already had a red mark by his name, he had lost when Angel Girl stuck around after second period. No one expected her to last till the end of February.

  He glanced up at where she was sitting, eating with one hand and leafing through a book with another. It must have been a damn good book, most visitors gawked at the ancient oak beams supporting the ceiling or the stained glass windows before feigning nonchalance. Maybe she just didn’t appreciate the architecture.

  “Put me down for the end of the term,” Mitch said, he was pretty sure she could stick it out a month and once she did they wouldn’t want to transfer her until the Easter break. He’d already seen enough to suspect that she’d hold out until graduation but he could just imagine what Bates would say to that.