Cass was up front listening to two other students before his own try out. The other girl had a decent voice and was an easy acceptance for Sister Regina. The boy decided to offer a rap rendition, proving he could speak in rhyme. Much to Cass’s surprise, Sister Regina deemed this a worthy effort also. Failing a choir audition apparently required a lot of dedication, even if your voice resembled an under-lubricated door hinge. Cass decided to press on. His song selection was Amazing Grace, precisely because it was easy to mess up.
When the nun called his name Cass paused long enough to swallow some water from the bottle he’d obtained from the table at the back of the room, bracing himself for the acidic tang. It had the strong acidic bite of white vinegar. He coughed and gagged for a minute before recovering enough to breath. Sister Regina and Rodger both came to his aid.
“Are you alright Cassandra? Did you inhale some water?” asked Sister Regina.
“I think *cough* I just took*cough* too much at once. I’m *cough* fine.” he croaked.
Sister Regina gave him a doubtful look. “Do you still want to sing?”
Cass nodded enthusiastically in counterpoint to Rodger’s head shake. He stumbled up to the microphone and waited for the piano music to start. He then proceeded to murder, dismember and bury Amazing Grace where no one would ever find it again.
“I’m sorry dear, but that won’t do. Your voice needs a little training first. Perhaps, if you practice, you can join next year.”
Rodger fell in behind Cass as he left the room. “You should have postponed this until another day, or at least taken a few more minutes to recover from choking.”
Wordlessly, Cass handed him the water bottle. It had Cassandra’s name attached with a small sticky note. The other two auditioning students had bottles also. As Rodger lifted the “water” to his lips, he smelled the vinegar.
“You were sabotaged.”
Cass just nodded. He had little voice left after the combined assault of acid and singing on his vocal chords. He was also trying to maintain an attitude of defeat in case the tricksters were watching.
At the main entrance they encountered Peter Goodkin and the Twins. Peter gave them a crooked smile. “I hear you auditioned for choir Ms. Forest. How did it go?”
Rodger looked down at the bottle and started putting pieces together. Cass just worked up the energy for whispered speech. “They rejected me Peter and I’m devastated. There goes my lifelong dream of singing religious music in a church in which I am not a member.” He shook his head sadly, but then could not resist returning Peter’s smile. “It seems I was wrong about you Peter. You served my purposes after all.”
Rodger escorted Cass out of the building leaving Peter and the Meeks brothers pondering the girl’s reaction.
“I never know what she’s talking about.” said Tom, turning to his fearless leader. Peter’s expression had shifted from smug satisfaction to stunned confusion. Then it began inching toward anger so the Twins took a step back.
“She wasn’t even fazed.” Peter muttered to himself. “How do you punish someone who likes being humiliated?”
##
Cass stopped by Joan’s house after school. Mrs. Richards was home, so Cass made small talk for a few minutes before going upstairs, politely turning down a glass of iced tea.
Joan listened distractedly to Cass’s story about choir tryout, but it was clear she had something else on her mind. Cass stopped rambling. “Are you alright Joan? Do you hurt today? I can come back another time?”
“It’s nothing. I just didn’t sleep well last night.”
Cass nodded sympathetically. “It can’t be easy sleeping with a cast.”
Joan gave Cass a long, level stare before deciding to proceed. “I had a strange dream last night and you were in it. At least, I think you were.”
“It should be easy to identify me. Just listen for the rodent squeak.” Cass laughed at his own wit, but hesitated when Joan failed to react. “Dreams can be confusing though. Was this a nightmare?”
“It fell firmly in the disturbing category. It started with me running through the snow. I felt the wet and the cold. Mostly I felt the fear.” She swallowed hard. “There was a man on horseback chasing me down. He wore a red uniform with a round brimmed hat. He looked like… “ Joan briefly groped for the right title. “A Mountie, I guess. He also looked like you.”
“Wasn’t he male?” I felt Cass’s pulse quicken.
“Yeah, with pale blond hair and crystal blue eyes. He caught up to me when I fell in the snow. He claimed to know you. He claimed to be you.”
Joan paused, monitoring Cass’s reaction, but he remained silent. His eyes were wide, but his mouth stayed shut.
“This Mountie started laughing at me lying in the snow. He said I was a tool; a means to an end. I was only an information source and soon he wouldn’t need me. I protested that I didn’t know him. That’s when he claimed to be you. He said he didn’t need friends, especially dour, unfriendly friends.”
There was a long silence between them before Cass asked what happened next.
“You… that is, he… pulled out a bow from somewhere and tried to shoot me. That woke me up.”
“It was just a dream Joan.”
The injured girl broke eye contact, looking down at the signature on her cast. “Sometimes dreams tell you what you’re really feeling. You dream the stuff you can’t say.”
Cass rose from his chair and walked over to Joan’s side. “You don’t think I’m using you, do you?”
Still refusing to look up, Joan said “When we first met, you told me you wanted me to teach you how to be tougher. You wanted to learn how to survive in suburban New York. You were looking for information more than friendship.”
The remark hit home. “At first, maybe. But things have changed. I like you. I want to hang out with you.”
Joan nodded. “People have liked me before, for a little while. Then they decided I wasn’t what they thought, or I wasn’t changing enough to suit their needs. Nobody stays my friend Cass.”
The turmoil of Cass’s mind almost caused me to break contact. Guilt, frustration and fear were all competing for attention. Perspiration dampened his bangs and tears fogged his vision. His normal discomfort about the human secretions was overridden by his need to keep his connection to the wounded girl in front of him.
“I have a confession to make.” he said, and Joan finally looked up at him. “Back where I used to live I was kind of selfish. I defined my relationships by how much I got out of them. I’m not good at reading people. I often can’t tell how others are feeling, so I learned not to care. But, I need that to change.”
“So are you using me, or not?”
“I wanted you to teach me how to be guarded, but instead you’re teaching me about myself. When you got hurt, I was so worried.” He paused, trying to control his sobs. “Please don’t push me away. Tell me what I have to do.”
Joan reached up and took Cass’s hand between a thumb and forefinger. “Don’t run. My natural tendency is to push people away. I clam up or I get snarky. So far you’ve been putting up with that, but the dream reminded me that people don’t put up with it for long. If you stick around maybe I’ll figure out this trust thing.”
“And you’ll put up with my being unusual?”
“I need you to be unusual. Usually, people leave.”
“Are we good then?”
“One more thing. I’m glad you told me about being selfish and wanting to get beyond it. We need to be open with each other. Don’t let me get away with being secretive and I won’t let you.”
Cass hugged Joan, knowing he wanted to be truthful with this human, but his biggest secret would always get in the way.
##
The Forest family went out to a vegetarian restaurant on Wednesday evening. James was reviewing it for his blog but his postings hadn’t garnered much following yet so the proprietors had no idea who he was. The service was still good, as the place wasn’
t crowded.
“I have to admit there’s some pretty decent food available around here considering our diet. I still can’t figure out why these people choke down meat though.”
Maggie took a sip of domestic beer and began a sociology lecture about humans exploiting various resources, including the domestication of livestock. This deprived them of the visceral presence of the hunt that bound predator and prey in a cycle of existence. Slaughtering of domestic stock became impersonal so that the majority of humans consumed meat without ever getting blood on their hands. Those Alfarans who chose to eat meat at least bothered to hunt it down. Mercifully, Cass and James shut her down as the artichoke dip came to the table. Her lecture was making me a bit queasy.
Between the appetizer and main course, Cass steeled himself to address Jamil. “Speaker… ”, he said in his most respectful tone. “I would really rather not spend fifty moons at odds with you. Can we come to some type of truce?” Cass used the sad eyes and pouty lips of his newly acquired features, but they had little impact on Jamil.
“Cass. I’m still angry with you. You disgraced our Clan and forced Maggie and I into suburban hell with you. Still, she tells me that you are making some progress and there is hope this whole enterprise will bear fruit. I’m prepared to forgive you. But you’ll need to reach the point where you feel the need to apologize, and you’d better make it believable.”
Cass sat up straight in the chair and looked wide-eyed upon the older Alfaran. After a sip of water, he said “Wow Jamil. That sounded downright fatherly.”
Jamil covered a smile. “I’m Clan Speaker and I say what needs saying. However, I try to say it in a way the listeners can accept. I want to see you restored to full membership in Alfaran society and will do all I can to hasten that goal, even if it means memorizing the rules of hockey.”
“I appreciate that Jamil and I won’t let you down. I’ll admit that I started out seeking to sabotage this exile, but I’m beginning to see the point of the Elders’ punishment. Now, about my getting a driver’s license… ”
“When acorns sprout pine trees.”
##
Later that evening Maggie looked over Cass’s shoulder reading along on the laptop monitor as her pretend daughter typed away. Cass reached the end of a sentence, sat back and glared at her.
“Must you do that?”
“I’m taking an interest in your school work. Why do they have you writing about weddings?”
“It’s for religion class. It’s about the wedding at Cana, a scene from Christ’s life. We’re supposed to reflect on his relationship with his mother. The whole class is about using the life of Christ as an example for how humans should live. In this story, Christ decides to perform his first public miracle because it will make his mother happy.”
“What a good son. Perhaps this assignment will improve our relationship.”
“Doubtful. I’m not capable of any public miracles and you’d stop me if I tried. Is there any Unitarian excuse I can use to get out of this assignment?”
Magolyn shrugged. “I believe Unitarians doubt the Trinity, considering Jesus Christ to be a very powerful prophet or a divine avatar below the level of God. His life would still be considered a good example.”
Cass returned to typing. “Humans are very diverse in their opinions about their God.”
“I’m afraid I have no insight, and neither do you. Alfarans are beings of spirit and we are part of our deity, The Great Mother. Humans, unlike us, have souls that allow them access to the Realms Beyond. We have no experience of those Realms.”
Cass pondered that for a bit before commenting. “But, I’m human now. Shouldn’t I have a soul?”
“Of course not. What a silly idea.”
“What, I get body hair and a period, but no soul? That hardly seems fair.”
Magolyn was not amused. “The Elders are very powerful magicians Cass, but they are not that powerful. Elemental magic does not access the Realms Beyond.”
“What about Shadow Stone?”
“Bite your tongue!”
I shared Maggie’s reaction. Cass had opened an uncomfortable topic. There is an ancient Alfaran legend proposing the existence of Primal Elements in the Realms Beyond. Primal Earth is the Shadow Stone. Air is the Endless Vortex and Water is the Womb of Storms. Fire is the Ebony Flame. Seeking these Primal Elements is dangerous and stupid. Now that you know, let us never speak of it again.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Esmeralda knew she did not have enough human money to pay for the imported incense, but she had something better to offer Lucas. She felt sure the trade was more than fair and, in fact, the poor man nearly died of a heart attack when she offered him Freiderick Uthmann’s Investigations of Transmography in exchange for twelve ounces of Tibetan juniper. The original Transmography was compiled by Uthmann, an obscure Hermetic magician, in the early 1700’s. The notes were inherited by his son and bound into a handful of print editions in 1720. Few of the originals survived, but reasonably good English translations existed and Esmeralda’s copy was one of those.
Hermetic magic relies heavily on ritual casting and Uthmann uncovered a number of new spells centering on alterations of shape and form. Some have speculated that he somehow got his hands on the corpse of a true shape shifting creature, like a lycanthrope or berserker. Uthmann claimed he received these new working from a “higher being” with whom he consulted. The Council of Elders strongly suspected that adviser was an Alfaran, but the traitor’s identity remained unknown. Providing magical secrets to Mortals was forbidden by the Elders. Esmeralda’s little transaction would garner severe sanction, if word ever got back to the Council. In addition, her copy was a gift from her mentor, who would be even less pleased to see Transmography in the hands of a human.
Lucas, realizing how few copies of the text existed, was overjoyed to own one. He expressed undying gratitude and offered to reimburse her extra money, but she merely suggested she might need other paraphernalia at a future date. She preferred leaving him in her debt. Lucas had potential, both as a conjurer and a puppet. Should all else fail, she could enlist the young man in her efforts to foil Cass. Of course, given Cass’s proclivities and his current outward appearance, Esme was concerned that her pawn might be captured by her sneaky opponent.
First, she had a divination to perform. She needed her supplies and couldn’t lift them in hawk form, so she used a taxi instead. There are few quiet places on the Long Island Expressway at any time of day or night. She selected the Wertheim Wildlife Refuge; instructing the driver accordingly. The chilly wind discouraged all but the most dedicated bird watchers and hikers. Here she could find respite from the noise of this Realm and connect with the powers that gave Alfarans life.
Settling on a spot where she could see open sky framed by early autumn color speckling the trees, she filled a small brass censor with incense. She needed to insure her flame was completely contained or she would draw the attention of vigilant rangers patrolling the park. She also set her crystal sphere on a silver base to keep it from rolling away. Once the juniper began smoldering, she deeply inhaled the vapors while starting a focusing chant.
Seeing someone else’s vision while using a divinatory tool like a crystal ball is very unreliable, so I focused on Esme’s recall of her experience after the fact. She spent several minutes achieving deep trance while focused solely on the fissures and imperfections of the scrying stone. The pictures she recalled afterward were varied. She saw Cass face down on a bed muffling sobs in a pillow. Another vision showed him head down and sulking while Jamil and Magolyn confronted him. Esme also saw Joan and Cass upset and running from a tall, faceless figure darting from shadow to shadow on the streets at night. All of these visions gave her hope of Cass’s downfall. She did not recognize Joan, of course, for Wigout’s descriptions of Cass’s friends were vague and Esmeralda cared little about the lives of the Mortals surrounding her prey.
But she also saw Cass speaking confidently before a classr
oom of students; talking excitedly with a group of friends in a coffee shop and receiving a rolled piece of paper from a smiling nun while wearing a long, shapeless robe.
Most disheartening to her was the image of a male Caswel speaking with Elder Kaviss, the two men shaking hands at the end of their conversation. Esme feared that somehow Caswel would see his punishment through unscathed.
“No!” she breathed out, still caught in reverie. This vision of the future had Caswel Esmar victorious after his tribulations in the Realm of Mortals. That was not an ending she could accept. For the moment, she did not know what to do about it.
She needed to act through others, avoiding any hint of personal involvement that could taint her reputation. She thought of calling a Jinni. They were creatures of air and responsive to her magic, but Djinn were notorious liars and she’d had her fill of unreliable allies. Wigout had been trouble enough.
She found a ranger and asked, in her sweetest manner, how she might find transportation home. He gave her a ride to the nearest train station.
##
Lucas, for his part, was working the phone. The amazing find delivered into his hands was three centuries old. Though in remarkable condition, he was not willing to risk paging through it without advice from an archivist. He needed to research the best way to preserve it. Eventually, it would provide him with a nest egg for retirement or further study. The British Museum owned one copy and he knew the New York Library would snatch up this one if he offered it. First, he needed to take notes on the contents. His dream of becoming a true wizard was within reach and the opportunity couldn’t be wasted. He blessed this young woman for being so intent on her divination that she’d part with this treasure.
The book seemed safe from damage in Lucas’ hands, but my real concern was that he might try to use its contents. Several very powerful spells were detailed in Transmography and the young man was obviously a novice in the arcane arts. I wished there was some way to relieve him of it.
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