Awakening (Birth of Magic #1)

by P. T. Dilloway

  While the secretary scurried off to get the cavalry, Celia and I returned to our seats. She couldn’t resist flashing a smile at me. “That was damned good, kid. You could be in pictures.”

  “Every girl knows how to cry to get what she wants,” I said.

  “Maybe, but you even had me convinced.”

  “Thanks.”

  The secretary came back with the dean of admissions, an older man with glasses. I resumed crying, hoping my young face looked thoroughly pathetic. The gag worked; the old man took me by the arm and led me to his office. He even offered me his handkerchief. “You mustn’t cry, young lady. This has all been a terrible misunderstanding, I’m sure.”

  A half hour later I was a student of Cuthbert College. I gave the old man a false address out in the sticks, one with no telephone number. I made up a high school and junior college record while continuing to sniffle every now and then so it wouldn’t seem as if my heartbreak had vanished in a second. By the time he checked the lies I fed him, I’d be long gone. Celia might get in a bit of a jam, but she could easily say I’d led her on too.

  I found her waiting in the same chair. Her face lit up when I produced a freshly-typed schedule. She gave me a hug, the first time another woman other than Alexis had hugged me in over a century. I’d forgotten how good that could feel.

  “Come on, let’s get some lunch,” she said.

  We waited until we were outside to start giggling like a couple of much younger schoolgirls. “Did you see her face when you started bawling?” Celia said. “I thought she was going to faint dead away.”

  “I just picked up where you left off,” I said. “You’re a pretty good actress too.”

  “I’ve had a little training. A couple of awful high school plays.” She chattered on about the plays and her co-stars while we crossed the campus to the cafeteria. Along the way I waited for the necklace to react more strongly, but there was still nothing.

  We took sandwiches and iced tea to a corner table of the cafeteria. Some of the life drained out of Celia’s face, giving it more the look of a mask. “What’s your story? You in some kind of trouble?”

  “No, of course not,” I said. I knew I had to be careful here. Celia was nobody’s fool; she’d get wise if I tried to run some cockamamie story past her. “I really did want to go here. I had the paperwork filled out and everything. Then our crop turned to dust and so did the money to send me to school.”

  “So you thought you’d just come here anyway?”

  “I didn’t want to go back to the farm. Not after I’d been in the city. It’s so—magical.”

  Celia nodded at this. “I know what you mean. This place gets a hold of you and doesn’t let go.”

  “You aren’t going to rat me out, are you?”

  “If I were going to do that, I could have done it back at the office.” She reached across the table to pat my hand as tenderly as the secretary had earlier. “You’re a good kid. I got a nose for this stuff. You stick with me and I’ll make sure we find you someplace to stay and that you get three squares a day.”

  “Thank you so much. I don’t think I can ever repay you for this.”

  “Hey, what kind of heel would I be if I let them turn you out onto the street?” With that settled, Celia turned the conversation to campus goings-on. I listened closely, trying to pick up any clues as to what might have caused the disturbance Alexis felt.

  At the same time, I couldn’t help relaxing a bit. Sitting at the table with Celia brought back fond memories of the time before the Revolution in France. Back then Andre, Rachel, and I had sat in the back of pubs, talking about the paradise that would take hold once the monarchy was dethroned. I’d almost forgotten the simple joy of conversation with someone other than my sister. It made me feel young again in a way not even the potion could manage.

  A bell rang out on the campus. Celia looked up at a clock and then pushed away from the table. “We’d better get on the move. Ethan should be getting out of class right about now.”

  “Ethan?”

  “My fiancé.”

  “Oh. Congratulations.”

  “Thanks.” She put an arm around my shoulders. “Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

  “I don’t want to be a bother.”

  “Hey, I said I wasn’t going to turn you out onto the street, right? Follow me.” I let Celia push me forward, towards the door. I knew I should try to shake Celia so I could continue my search, but I didn’t want to. Maybe it was the warmth of her sudden friendship. Or maybe it was one of Alexis’s feelings. In any case, I followed Celia over to the science building—into the center of the storm.

  ***

  On the way up the stairs to the third floor, Celia filled me in on how she met her husband-to-be. It was a love story that would have been more appropriate starring Charlie Chaplin than Rudy Valentino. The short version was that Celia had been walking down the hall to her Geology 101 class when a boy ran headlong into her. He took the worst of the damage, suffering a nasty bump on the head from where he’d run into Celia’s books. She took him to the cafeteria, where she fetched a bag of ice to put on his head.

  While nursing Ethan’s boo-boo, Celia began talking to him. Like a lot of kids his age, Ethan had high hopes for changing the world. In his case he thought science was the way to go. “Look at what we’ve done already,” he said with a dopey grin on his face, “we’ve conquered the sky itself. It won’t be much longer until we put men on the moon!”

  “He was so adorable,” Celia told me as we reached the top of the stairs to the third floor. “He was like a puppy, so sweet and innocent and needing someone to take care of him.”

  “And you’ve been together ever since?”

  “That’s right.”

  I nodded along as Celia continued to talk about her and Ethan. My attention turned to the necklace around my neck, which had finally gone from its lazy swinging to a rapid spinning, like a top. Something up here was creating the disturbance Alexis had felt. Maybe another book like the one those Nazis had at the castle or maybe something even worse.

  Whatever Celia was talking about, she stopped in mid-sentence. I looked up and saw why. At the end of the hall was a gawky blond kid, his face beet red. From the way he was talking to the other man, I knew it was anger, not embarrassment. The other man I pegged right away as a copper. He had the look about him from the top of his fedora to the soles of his shined shoes. Though from the state of these, I figured he must be a G-man; someone making more than the average cop’s salary.

  “Ethan, what’s going on here?” Celia asked.

  The two men turned to us. The G-man’s eyes narrowed a bit. Any other time I would have stared him down, but this time I looked down demurely at my feet like a good girl. The G-man let the blond kid, Ethan, answer. “It’s nothing, honey. Just a little misunderstanding.”

  The G-man tipped his cap to us. “Afternoon, ladies. Mr. Fraser.” There was menace in his tone warning us that he wasn’t going to be gotten rid of that lightly.

  While the G-man’s steps clicked down the hall, Celia threw herself in Ethan’s arms. He stroked her hair, saying, “It’s fine, baby. No one got hurt.”

  “Who was that man?”

  “No one important.”

  “Ethan—”

  “Who’s your friend?” he asked.

  The way Celia’s eyes narrowed indicated she wasn’t going to let this die so lightly either. But she answered, “This is Sue Johnson. She’s a transfer student. I was showing her around.”

  “That’s swell,” he said. He reached out to shake my hand. His hand was surprisingly hard, the hand of someone who worked for a living. It didn’t fit with the almost delicateness of the rest of him. “Good to know you, Sue.”

  “You too.”

  “Did you guys eat yet? I am starved.”

  “We just ate, but I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee.”

  Celia stayed close to Ethan as we went downstairs, as if she were Ethan’s bodyguard, trying
to protect him from the G-man. I trailed behind them, Ethan asking me over his shoulder how I liked Cuthbert so far. “It’s nice,” I said. “The people are really friendly.”

  “It’s a great place,” he said. While he continued, I looked back towards the third floor. The necklace had gone back to its pendulum motion; I took it off to tuck into a pocket now that I knew where the disturbance was. I just didn’t know what it was yet. I would have liked to go look, but I couldn’t leave with Celia and Ethan right in front of me. I’d have to get a peek at it later.

  We sat at the same table in the cafeteria as earlier. Celia insisted on buying me a coffee and piece of pecan pie. “I told you I’m not going to let you starve,” she said.

  I let her take the lead on explaining my cover story to Ethan. He was just as taken with it as his fiancée, saying, “That’s terrible. But aren’t your parents going to be sore at you for not coming back home?”

  “They’ll understand. Maybe not right away, but eventually.”

  Celia pressed close to Ethan, putting an arm around his shoulder. “I thought she could stay with us until she can sort things out.”

  The way he smiled and his eyes twinkled, I didn’t see any sign of annoyance at this request. “Sure. We got plenty of room. I spend most of my time at the lab anyway.”

  Celia gave him a phony punch to the shoulder. “Not tonight you don’t, mister.”

  “What’s tonight?” I asked.

  “It’s the Homecoming game and dance,” Celia said. “We missed it last year because Ethan was so busy in the lab. I told him already I’m not going to miss my last one here.”

  “I know,” Ethan said, sounding like a scolded child.

  “Hey, you should come too,” Celia said. “It’d be a great chance for you to see the rest of the student body.”

  “That’s OK, I’m not—”

  “It’ll be fun.” Celia turned to Ethan. “Didn’t Judy just split up with Harold?”

  “Yes,” Ethan said, his voice as wary as I felt.

  “The two of you could go together. Harry’s a swell guy. I’m sure you’ll get along like peas in a pod.”

  I doubted that. Moreover, being stuck with a date would make it a lot harder for me to slip away to see what was in that lab. Still, I couldn’t turn Celia down, not after what she’d done for me so far. “Gee, my first day here and I’ve already got a date. Is this going to be a fancy dress dance? I didn’t really bring any fancy clothes with me.”

  “That’s no problem. You look about my size. I can fix you up with something.”

  “Great.” Having played my last card, I saw no choice but to go on this date and hope to find an opening. If not, I could always use a little magic on him when no one was looking.

  Chapter 5

  Ethan and Celia had an apartment about two blocks down from the school. It was tiny compared to the house Alexis and I shared and smaller than even the stable on our estate in France, but I’d lived in much worse places. During my eventful second adolescence I’d spent most of a summer in a cave, eating bugs and drinking rainwater as I learned to control my magic again. Compared to that, the apartment was Shangri-La.

  There were two bedrooms: the one with the vanity and flower print comforter was obviously Celia’s while the one with the unmade bed and clothes scattered everywhere had to be Ethan’s. “Sorry about the mess,” Ethan said, scurrying ahead of me to gather up the dirty clothes. “I haven’t had much chance to clean lately.”

  “He doesn’t want me to go in there either. I might screw up his filing system.”

  Though Celia said this good-naturedly, the words had just a bit of bite to them, meaning they had probably argued about this before. With company over, though, they tried to keep the disagreement light. “It’s fine,” I said. “I’m used to sharing a bedroom with three sisters. Sometimes I went out to the barn to sleep in the hay loft.”

  I was laying it on thick, but they didn’t seem to notice. Celia took my arm, pulling me gently out of the room, leaving Ethan to tidy up. We went into her bedroom, where she opened the closet door. Inside I saw a row of dresses, ranging from sundresses to formal gowns. She pulled out a lavender dress and then held it up to my body. “That should be about your size. Do you like the color?”

  “It’s wonderful,” I said, though I never had much fondness for purple. I hadn’t had much fondness for anything associated with royalty since Henry died. Still, I knew a peasant like Sue Johnson wouldn’t turn up her nose at a fancy dress even if it were orange with green polka dots.

  Celia stepped out of the room so that I could try the dress on. As I did this, I also did a little snooping around the room. The necklace had gone completely silent, but I hoped there might be some clues about what Ethan was working on. I didn’t see anything on the vanity or in Celia’s drawers except the typical items for a girl her age.

  She was standing at the door when I opened it; I hoped she hadn’t heard me nosing around. “You look gorgeous,” she said. She shoved me over to in front of the vanity so I could see myself. I didn’t look too bad, though the dress didn’t fit as well as the ones Alexis made for me. If I could vanish home, she could probably alter it in time for the dance.

  This gave me an idea of how to get rid of my date for the evening. I waited until after I’d changed back out of the dress to ask Celia if they had a phone. “There’s one down in the lobby you can use. Why?”

  “I thought I should call home and tell them I’m OK.”

  “They have a phone on the farm?”

  “No, but my uncle has one in his general store. I’ll call him and then he can drive over and give them the message.”

  “Sounds like a swell idea to me,” Ethan said as he emerged from his room with an armload of clothes.

  “You want me to come with you?”

  “I’d rather do this by myself. If you don’t mind.”

  “No, of course not. I’ve got a few things to take care of anyway.”

  “See you in a few minutes,” I said. I went down the hall to the stairway just in case Celia decided to try following me. When I was sure she wasn’t going to, I went down to the nearest landing.

  There was no one there so I could vanish myself to my bedroom back home. Alexis wasn’t waiting for me, but it took only ten seconds for her to call out, “I’m down here, dear.”

  She was in the parlor, working on a powder blue dress, a dress formal enough for a homecoming dance. Had one of her feelings told her that she would need it or was she just updating her wardrobe for her more slender frame? I sat down on the chair opposite her and sighed. It felt good to have a moment to relax and not worry about cover stories or finding mysterious disturbances.

  Alexis let me have a full minute before she put down her sewing. “What did you find out?”

  “Nothing much—yet. But I think I know where to find some answers.” I gave her an abbreviated version of what had happened at the college with Celia and Ethan. Then I explained my moving in with them and the homecoming dance tonight.

  “You’ve been young for a day and you’ve already got a date to a ball,” Alexis said. I explained the plan I’d thought up at the apartment, the role I wanted her to play. She took all of it in and then nodded. “That doesn’t sound too difficult. At least so long as this dance isn’t too close to this science building.”

  “It’s on the other side of campus, so it should be fine.”

  “Let’s hope so.” Alexis held up the dress. “Do you think he’ll like this?”

  “I think he’d like you in a burlap sack.”

  ***

  Cuthbert wasn’t a very big college, so it didn’t have much of a football team. I had never watched American football before except a few snippets on newsreels. The game was too soft for me, but then I came from a time when the top sports were jousting, bear baiting, and bullfighting—blood sports. The fact that Cuthbert was down by twenty points at the end of the first quarter didn’t help either.

  I sat next to Ha
rry Ward, a nervous boy with thinning brown hair and round spectacles perched on his nose. His suit fit him poorly, as though he’d borrowed it from a much larger boy. He had said about four words to me since Ethan, Celia, and I stopped at his house before coming to the game.

  I had never gone on a date with a stranger before. The two people I had “dated” I had known for years: Henry and I had been childhood friends and Marco knew me for years as his wife’s baby sister. From Harry’s nervousness, I doubted he had been on many dates with strangers either.

  While Harry and I were aloof, Ethan and Celia were the picture of a loving couple. They pressed close to each other, periodically whispering in each other’s ears. They giggled at their own little jokes and during slow moments of the game—of which there were many—they nuzzled each other. I tried not to pay much attention to them, not wanting to think of the last time I’d spent time like that with Henry and Marco.

  Cuthbert’s team recovered enough from their slow start to only lose the game by forty points. Most of the fans in the stands didn’t care, too drunk or too anxious to get over to the gymnasium for the dance to boo the dismal effort. Harry took my hand in his clammy one to help me down the stairs. While Ethan and Celia remained pressed together as though part of a single organism, Harry and I walked inches apart, staring down at our feet shyly.

  He finally mustered the courage to say, “You look really pretty tonight.”

  “Thank you. You look handsome in that suit.”

  “Thanks. It was my dad’s. He died in the war.” With that the dam of conversation broke open. Harry told me about his childhood on the east side of the city, where his mother worked as a cleaning woman to provide for him and his three older brothers. His brothers all got jobs by the time they were eight, but they had collectively decided Harry would be destined for bigger things. His mother and brothers scrimped and saved to send him to Cuthbert. Between that and scholarships, he managed to get by. “I’m in pre-med right now. I hope someday to be a surgeon.” Given his clammy hands and nervousness, I didn’t envy whoever he wound up cutting open.