The Girl Without Magic

by Megan O'Russell

  “Is that the dark place?” Maggie whispered almost as though she were in a church.

  “It is.” Tammond held his paddle in the water, slowing them as the tip of their small boat entered the darkness.

  Maggie only had time for a quick glance behind before the shadow swallowed all the light she could see.

  “Tammond,” Maggie whispered, grateful to hear her voice could penetrate the veil of blackness. “Tammond?”

  “Yes,” Tammond said. He was paddling again. The sound of his oar dipping into the water and the boat’s movement forward were steady and sure.

  “How can you see where we’re going?” Maggie asked. “Or better yet the way out?”

  “I can’t see anything,” Tammond said, and Maggie could hear the smile in his voice. “I can feel it. I can feel the magic in the walls that surround us, and I can feel the magic of those waiting for us up ahead.”

  “So you’re just going to leave the kids in the pitch black for a few days while we have a little war outside?” Maggie asked, imagining how frightened little Mina must be. “Doesn’t that seem a bit cruel?”

  “Is hiding them more cruel than what Jax would do to them?” Tammond asked, then without waiting for an answer continued. “And there will be light for them; it’s just in front of us. Close your eyes, Maggie. Try and feel where we’re going.”

  With a sigh, Maggie closed her eyes against the darkness. The only thing she felt was the desire to not be moving toward something she couldn’t see. She dug deeper, trying to remember what it had felt like just a while ago in the water. Magic inside her, surrounding her.

  Tammond dug his paddle into the water, turning the boat.

  “No,” Maggie said, discovering the words as she said them. “You were right before. The kids are straight ahead.”

  “See, it’s not so hard to see in here after all.”

  Maggie opened her eyes to find a tiny spot of light hovering ahead. As small and dim as a candle, flickering feebly in the distance. As they moved forward, the light grew larger and brighter much more quickly than seemed possible. In less than a minute the boat bumped into the edge of a rocky shore where the children sat waiting.

  The people who had delivered the children were already getting back into their boats. An older woman stood with two teens not much younger than Maggie at the edge of the water, saying goodbye to the rowers, ready to take charge of the children.

  The rowers glanced at Maggie and Tammond as they arrived before continuing to climb wordlessly into their boats.

  “Maggie!” Mina burst out of the pack of children and ran toward Maggie as soon as her feet were on the rocky shore. “Maggie, have they sent you to be safe, too? I will take care of you here. I don’t know my way around yet, but I can figure it out very quickly so you should stay near me.”

  “She can’t,” Tammond said, lifting Mina under the arms and carrying her back to the group. “Maggie has to go deep into the darkness, and you can’t follow her there.”

  “But why does she get to go and not me?” Mina’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “I have been studying magic in the Fireside much, much longer than she has.”

  “Because,” Maggie said, “I have to learn how to fight. That’s my job. Your job is to stay safe here so you can grow up to be much stronger and braver than I’ll ever hope to be.”

  “You think I’m brave?” Mina asked, her eyes wide.

  “Very brave.” Maggie ruffled the little girl’s hair. “Now you wish me luck being brave, because Tammond and I haven’t got much time.”

  Mina threw her pudgy arms around Maggie’s middle. “You’ll be brave. I know you will be.”

  “Thanks, Mina.”

  Tammond took Maggie’s hand and led her through the children, away from the water and toward the wall beyond. There were three openings in the cave wall. One was tall and wide with light showing in the distance. Another was narrow and pitch black. The third was jagged and had the air of being a place a person should not go. But in that tunnel there was a bit of light as well. Not shining to light the way, but glowing a pale blue that seemed to be more a part of the tunnel than an outside force trying to make it hospitable.

  “Which way?” Maggie asked, hoping for the well-lit tunnel and knowing that wouldn’t be Tammond’s answer.

  Without saying anything at all, Tammond led Maggie through the jagged entrance into the blue tunnel. Before they had walked ten feet, the voices of the children vanished.

  “Creepy.” Maggie muttered.

  The light in the tunnel came from the walls themselves. A faint sheen that glimmered on the black surface of the stone, shifting every moment as though millions of tiny little lights were moving about lives of their own.

  “How does it work?” Maggie asked, touching the walls. The instant her finger grazed the stone, the lights around it shone brighter and moved more quickly. Maggie trailed her fingers along the wall, laughing as the lights moved faster and faster.

  “I don’t know how it works,” Tammond said, drawing Maggie away from the wall and guiding her farther down the tunnel. “I don’t know if anyone does.”

  “So it’s just magic then?” Maggie grinned. “Little lights that live in stone.”

  “Exactly,” Tammond turned, smiling at her. He leaned down, brushing his lips against hers.

  Maggie stood on her toes, lacing her fingers though his hair to pull him in closer. His fingers found the small of her back, and tingles raced up her spine. Her lips parted, and he deepened their kiss, holding Maggie so close she wasn’t sure she would ever remember how to let go.

  “Maggie,” Tammond whispered, tipping Maggie’s chin up so he could look into her eyes. “Maggie, I don’t want to lose you.”

  “Then don’t.” Maggie leaned in to kiss him again, but Tammond pressed his fingers to her lips.

  “Maggie, traveling through the darkness is frightening and painful―”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “―you might hate me on the other side.”

  “No, I won’t.” Maggie took Tammond’s face in her hands, reveling in the faint roughness of the stubble on his chin. “It’s going to be terrible, but I’ll just have to do it.”

  “Not if you stay here with the children,” Tammond said. “You could help guard them, and you wouldn’t have to―”

  “I’m never going to sit in the background while other people fight.” Maggie took Tammond’s hand and led him down the tunnel, walking more quickly and confidently than he had. “I’m not going to say that it isn’t nice to have someone who wants to keep me out of harm’s way. It is nice, really nice actually. But it’s not going to work. And I hope you can get used to that.”

  Maggie turned to Tammond, blushing in the dim blue light.

  He ran his fingers though her hair. “You can’t care for a bird and ask it not to fly.” He pressed his lips gently to her forehead. “But please fly carefully, little bird.”

  “I’ll try,” Maggie said. Her heart racing, she turned and walked down the tunnel, knowing if Tammond started kissing her again she would forget what they were there to do.

  Soon the tunnel sloped downward. Maggie expected the lights to fade, but the deeper they went, the brighter and more vibrant the lights became. Ten minutes passed, then twenty. The tunnel twisted and turned but always moved downward.

  “How much longer?” Maggie asked finally. It would be dark outside already. They couldn’t afford to waste more of their precious night.

  “When you’re ready, we’ll be there,” Tammond said.

  “Ready for what?” Maggie asked, sweat dripping down her back. “I’m definitely ready to get to where we’re going. And if there’s going to be lots of pain, I’d just as soon start now.”

  “Then we should be there soon.”

  Maggie wiped the sweat from her forehead, wishing the tunnel could at least have the courtesy to be cool. The farther they walked, the hotter it became.

  “You know, if we don’t get there soon, we�
�re going to boil to death.” No sooner were the words out of her mouth than the lights in the distance began to change.

  The dim, shimmering glow was replaced by something vibrant that coated everything Maggie could see. The lights danced through the air, flashing as though their movements had purpose and meaning. Maggie ran forward, wanting to see the lights, to understand what they were saying. Tammond’s footsteps pounded behind her, but he didn’t call after her to slow down.

  A cavern large enough to fit half the village and three stories high waited at the end of the tunnel. Lights danced across the surface of the rocks, speeding through the darkness like shooting stars. What Maggie had thought were lights moving through the open air were really bright shadows of the lights on the walls cast onto the haze that filled the air. Thick steam that smelled like fresh summer fields, hot chocolate, and home baked bread.

  Maggie gazed around the cavern, trying to find where the steam was coming from. It was pouring in from every direction, seeming to emanate from the walls themselves.

  “Where is the mist coming from?” Maggie turned to Tammond, swaying as her head spun in the heat. Sweat dripped into her eyes, blurring her vision.

  “I think it comes from the same place as the light.”

  Maggie wiped the sweat from her eyes with her shirt, blinking and focusing on Tammond’s face, trying to steady herself. He was staring at her with concern on his face. His perfectly dry face, without a trace of sweat on it.

  “You aren’t hot?” Maggie asked. Her words wavered as she fought to pull in breath.

  “No,” Tammond said, “I can’t feel the heat. The steam feels like cool mist to me. Its scent and heat are only for you.”

  “So―” Maggie panted.

  Tammond leapt forward and caught her around the middle as her knees buckled.

  “So I’m just supposed to sweat the magic out of me? Well, it shouldn’t take very long.” The lights danced more quickly now, swimming through the stone overhead like a hundred shooting stars. “A meteor shower just for me. Too bad it’s so hot. I don’t like hot. I just want the…the stars.”

  “Let go, Maggie,” Tammond’s voice sounded far away as his face faded into the darkness. “Follow where the stars are leading you.”

  “No,” Maggie said. A cold hand clasped around her heart as she understood. “No, I don’t want to go. Don’t make me go! Tammond!”

  “Tammond?” The man next to her on the patchwork blanket turned to her, smiling. “Who’s Tammond, sweetheart?”

  “Daddy,” Maggie breathed, reaching toward him with her pudgy child’s arms. “Daddy!” She threw her arms around his neck, burying her nose in the collar of his flannel shirt.

  “It’s okay, Maggie,” her father cooed. “You’re okay. I’m here.”

  Maggie stood and wiped the tears from her eyes with the lacy sleeve of her nightgown. A shooting star flew by and then another. “The shooting stars, Daddy. We came out here to watch the shooting stars?”

  “Of course we did, sweetheart.” Her father rumpled her hair.

  “Daddy, I had the worst nightmare,” Maggie hiccupped, a fresh wave of tears streaming down her face. “I was grown up, and you and Mommy were dead. And I had lived someplace awful, and I never got to be with you.”

  “Maggie darling.” Her father took her by the shoulders, looking at his little girl with sympathetic eyes. “That wasn’t a dream, sweetheart, and this isn’t one either.”

  “What?” Maggie asked. The lace on her nightgown faded into nothing. “No, this has to be real. Daddy, I want this to be real. I want to see Mommy!” But before she could beg for her mother, the little girl Maggie had disappeared. Maggie herself was sitting on the blanket next to her father. Her clothes torn from the jungle. Her boots wet from the lake.

  “I’m not going to see Mom, am I?” Maggie asked, her voice low, not meeting her father’s eyes for fear of more tears coming.

  “You will,” her father said. “But not how you want to.”

  “Is this the pain they were talking about?” Maggie said, squeezing the sides of her head as though she could push her thoughts into an order where any of this made sense. “I get to see you for a minute and then lose you again? Because that’s really low.”

  “No darling.” Her father shook his head slowly. “There is real pain to come. This is just an unfortunate side effect of what has to happen. You have to learn to fight. You have to learn now. And the best way the darkness knows how to do that is through fear. Fight when you’re afraid, and the magic will learn how to come pouring out of you.”

  “What am I supposed to be afraid of?” Maggie asked, looking around. They were in a field that was bordered by forest. The normal sounds of nighttime drifted through the trees. An owl hooted faintly, the tall grass rustled in the breeze. “Daddy, there’s nothing here to fight.”

  A scream sounded from the corner of the field. Pitched high in terror, it was a voice Maggie would know even if she hadn’t heard it for a thousand years.

  “Mom.” Maggie sprang to her feet. “Mommy!”

  Maggie was sprinting toward the scream in an instant.

  “Fight, Maggie.” Her father’s voice trailed after her. But his footsteps didn’t join hers. Maggie glanced behind. The blanket was gone. Her father had disappeared into the night.

  “Daddy!” Maggie hesitated for a moment, wanting to run back and find her father. But another scream echoed, and she ran again toward her mother.

  The house was there. Just where it should have been: at the very edge of the field next to the trees. People were outside the house. People Maggie had never seen before.

  And her mother was there, kneeling in the grass, defending something Maggie couldn’t see as the attackers drew closer.

  “Terraminis!” Maggie shouted the spell, expecting the ground around the feet of the strangers to crumble, but nothing happened. Her mother was screaming spells, shooting balls of fire and shards of lightning at the dark figures.

  “Fulguratus!” Maggie said, screaming as her spell rebounded, shooting pain up through her arm and into her chest. Streaking into her lungs so she couldn’t breathe. “Mommy.” Her lips formed the words, but she had no air to scream as the strangers moved in.

  Her pulse quickened, her heart pounding against her chest as her mind raced for an answer. Rolling onto her stomach, she dug her fingers into the grass, letting the anger and fear within her flow into the soil.

  The ground shook, and one of the attackers fell over. Gasping for breath, Maggie staggered to her feet.

  Her mother had seen her. Their eyes met for a moment.

  “Maggie, help!” her mother screamed. “Help us!”

  Us. Her mother was hunched over something in the grass. A body. Her father. Dead. The men had killed him first. Maggie had known that. The other clan had murdered her father and then killed her mother as she tried to protect her husband’s body.

  “No!” Maggie screamed, running full tilt toward the men. “Mommy, no! Run!”

  Reaching deep down for the last bit of magic she could find, Maggie willed the energy into her hands, shaping it into magic strong enough to make the bad men go away. But she didn’t know how. Didn’t know what to make the magic do to stop them.

  One of the strangers held his hands high. A spell crackled in his palm, just like the one Maggie was trying to create. But his magic came quickly, and before she could scream, the spell hit her mother.

  Eyes wide and terrified, Elle Trent fell to the ground, dead.

  “Mommy!” Maggie screamed, letting the spell that had formed in her hands spill out into the night, burning everything in its wake.

  ire burned through Maggie. She was not immune to her own magic. But with the pain came darkness. Her mother’s and father’s faces disappeared.

  “No.” Maggie felt herself saying the word before the world around her had reformed. “No!”

  But she wasn’t at the old farmhouse anymore. Her parents were not there for her to save.
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br />   She stood in a hall with gray concrete walls. The Academy. Screams echoed down the halls, and she knew before she moved what she would find.

  Blood smeared on the walls and floor. Panic. Death.

  Her feet carried her forward before she made the decision to move. A boy, Mark had been his name, lay dead on the floor. His stomach ripped open by claws.

  Maggie took a shuddering breath. She couldn’t save him. She wouldn’t be able to save any of them. She could only sit and wait. Wait for the screaming to stop, for it all to be over. She knew how this ended. Blood in the night. Students―her friends―dead. The Academy destroyed.

  “Help!” a voice called in the distance. She didn’t even recognize who it was. But they were crying desperately. Maggie raised her hands to cover her ears.

  “Someone please!”

  Maggie ran forward, feeling the magic in the air and letting it flow into her. Fighting was better than waiting. Better to let the monsters hurt you than to listen to them hurt someone else.

  She rounded the corner and found the beasts there. A little girl not more than ten. Vera, no, Ellen―that he been her name. She was pinned up against the wall. A black beast smiled as he drew closer to her, stepping over the bodies of the dead. The monster was only a man, really. A man whose skin had turned into black, shining armor and who had given up his hands for sharp talons that reached for Ellen’s throat.

  “Stop!” Maggie shouted. The word tore from her throat, bringing magic with it. The air pulsed with her breath, knocking the monster from his feet.

  Maggie breathed the magic onto her hand, warming it, filling it with strength she had never known. She ran forward and grabbed the head of the monster, pushing it into the stone ground until, with a dull crack, the thing stopped moving.

  “We have to go,” Maggie said, shaking.

  Ellen ignored the gore on Maggie’s hand as she grabbed it, letting Maggie lead her down the hall.

  “We need to get you to the cafeteria,” Maggie said. “Everyone will be there.”

  “I want to stay with you,” Ellen said, her voice shaking. “Please don’t let more of the monsters come.”