by Hannah Wick
“Are you serious?” she protested. “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”
“Yes, I do. This would be the perfect opportunity to apologise for your insensitivity yesterday.”
“But I did nothing wrong! I’m not going to apologise for speaking the truth.”
I sighed. “It’s not about that. Whether you were right or not isn’t the issue. You were too harsh.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she grumbled. “Maybe I could have been nicer about it.”
“You’re a good person,” I said with a satisfied smile.
“Yeah, I’m a freaking saint.”
As we finally made it to the table, I stood beside Devron, gesturing towards the empty seats. “Can we join you? There’s nowhere else to sit.”
He nodded and moved his bag off from the table to make room. I elbowed Cassandra and she sighed but took the hint.
“Uh, Devron…” she started, her voice barely audible. “I’m really–”
“–Stop. I’m sorry about yesterday. I was wrong.”
“Wait, what? You were?”
He nodded. “Yes. I was just tired and scared. But I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”
“You’re forgiven,” Cassandra smiled. “I could have been nicer about it. I’m sorry, too.”
I blinked. That had gone better than I’d expected. At least it was out of the way now. Maria walked in, striding to the front of the hall.
“Take your seats please,” she said, “and continue with your work from last week's lesson.”
I flipped through my notebook and stopped on the page from last week. We were discussing potions and their uses. Mine was focused on healing. I’d illustrated my page with a small vial of pink potion liquid on the corner of the paper. Well, okay, it was less of an ‘illustration’, and more of a doodle. Fine. I got bored and stopped paying attention. But that was behind me now. I was a reformed character.
“What potion were you working on last week?” Cassandra asked, leaning towards Devron, scoping out his notebook.
“A growth potion, to regenerate skin cells,” he said, though he covered the page with his arm.
“Do you not want us to see it?” I said, raising an eyebrow.
“Not yet. I can show you both later, when I have made sense out of my ideas. You won’t understand them.”
“Regrowing skin. What’s so hard about that?” Cassandra asked.
“I don’t know if it will work yet. It’s just brainstorming notes.”
She shrugged, turning the pages of her own book. “I was working on a passion potion,” she said, grinning. “For couples who are losing interest in each other. Instead of having their passion sizzle out, they can boost it and go back to feeling how they used to.”
We collected our ingredients and set them out on the table. I had already added the essence of the plants that I needed for my potion, and now I just had to add the final touches. I held my breath, holding a small tube of dandelion essence above the vial.
Carefully, I added three drops to the potion. Drop. Drop. Drop. I held my breath. The potion began to turn orange, then brown. I groaned. It didn’t look right at all. I dragged my hand down my face and then watched as the others tried their potions.
Cassandra’s potion turned red and then hot pink, and she cheered as soon as it changed colour. She gestured to it, beaming, only for her celebration to be short lived as the potion turned black.
“Damn,” she muttered. “I thought I had it that time.”
Devron frowned, inspecting her ingredients. “You added too much dragon’s blood,” he said, pointing to the board. “Try putting in three drops instead of four.”
He turned back to his own potion. His brew changed colour to a green. He stirred it with a glass rod, then added a drop of his own blood into the vile. It began to bubble, and smoke rose from the top of the potion. Slowly the colour shifted to a pale blue. He gave a satisfied nod, and jotted something down in his notepad.
After a while, Maria called a halt and asked for everyone’s attention. I moved my potion away from the heat, and set my pen down. I hadn’t been making much progress, anyway.
“How did you all do?” she asked, though I suspected that she knew – she'd been milling around the tables, watching everyone working.
“I think mine went a bit wrong,” I said – because confession was good for the soul, right? “It’s, uh… well, it smells like it might kill someone, not heal them.”
She leaned forward, peering at it. “Try a few drops of rose essence, and a drop of sage essence. Not a bad start, though.”
“What about you, Frederick?” Maria asked, turning to a guy on the other side of the room.
“I’m not there yet, but I think I’m getting close.”
“And what is the potion for?”
“It’s for plants, to help them grow.”
“What made you think of plant growth?” she asked.
The boy shrugged his broad shoulders. “Not all soil is suitable for plant life. So, the potion would give the plants a better chance of growing.”
“What about you, Danny? What’s your potion?” Maria asked.
Danny looked up from his table.
“My potion is for healing. It helps to mend broken bones.”
“Very nice. How is it looking?” she asked.
He shrugged. “It’s a work in progress. So far, the potion keeps curdling.”
Devron laughed, leaning back in his chair. “You need a phoenix feather.”
“Oh? Thanks. I’ll add it to my notes,” he beamed.
Maria turned to Devron, her tone softening. “What about you? What inspired you to do your potion?”
“My potion is for cell regeneration. I’m hoping that it would help to treat cancer. You cut out the cancerous part, and then be given the potion afterwards, to help the new cells grow. It’s going to save millions of people one day.”
The students all gasped.
“Nice one,” I said.
He nodded, though he didn’t seem interested in being congratulated for his work.
“I’m not there yet. It’s gonna take a while.”
A loud bang exploded in the right side on the room. Someone screamed. I snapped my head round and saw Sally staring in shock down at her vial. Her hair was singed and her face was covered with a pink coloured dust.
“What happened Sally?” the lecturer scowled, placing her hands on her hips.
“I… I think I added too much… of something,” she muttered. “Sorry.”
“Please, be more careful. And put your tools down when we’re discussing theory.”
I frowned, wondering what just happened. Cassandra shrugged, not looking particularly interested in the incident. “At least she isn’t giving us a hard time for a change.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“Right, time to try again. Remember to adjust your ingredients, and don’t put in estimates. Watch the measurements properly. Too much, you’ll have the same results as Sally. Let it be a lesson.”
Devron picked up a vial and started adding drops to his potion, counting them out. I left him to it, and turned to Cassandra.
“Have you finished your assignment for Divination that Rick set for us last week?”
“Prophecy and Premonitions? Yeah. Why?”
“It’s killing me. I can’t see much difference between the two.”
“That’s easy,” she laughed. “Prophecy is about things that don’t affect you personally. Big picture stuff, like the end of the world, natural disasters and plagues. Premonitions are more about the finer details. Flashes of something that would be happening closer to home. Car crashes, phone calls, someone coming to the door unannounced – but you know what’s happening before it happens.”
“I see.”
I thought for a moment. Maybe it wasn’t so different after all.
“Prophecy also comes with a skull-crushing headache, and prophets don’t live for very long.”
&nbs
p; “What do you mean, they don’t live for very long?”
“You didn’t know? Well–”
“–Do you mind?” Devron growled. “I’m trying to concentrate.”
“Sorry,” I muttered.
He sighed, turning to me with tight lips. “They don’t live for very long, because the headaches are fatal.”
“How?”
He shrugged. “The pain causes their brains to shut down. You don’t need to worry about that though. A prophet hasn’t been born in three hundred years.”
Well, that was a relief. I decided a change of subject was in order. Devron didn’t need to be thinking about death right now, not while his mum was still sick.
“What are you doing, now?” I asked, leaning over his shoulder.
“I’m adding the lavender oil. It’s supposed to have healing abilities.”
That seemed logical enough. I grabbed a vial with a shrug and tipped some into my own elixir.
Cassandra’s eyes widened, staring at the label on the side of the tube. “No Kiera, that’s the wrong–”
The potion bubbled, rising to the top of the glass, turning into a thick foam. She grabbed my shirt and yanked me away from the table. Devron yelped, snatching his potion up from the table, watching as the foam burned into the wooden surface. I swallowed hard, staring at the hole it had left.
“Oops.”
Across the room, Sally screamed, dropping her own vial to the floor. It steamed and fizzed, before becoming a thick, sticky substance. She cleared her throat. “Maria, I… I’m not feeling very well. Can I be excused to the medical ward?”
Maria sighed, rubbing her temples with frustration. “Yes, I think that would be a good idea. In fact,” she glanced over my way, “I think we’ll finish a few minutes early today. Clean up your benches and you can take an early dinner.”
It took about ten minutes to get cleared away, and then we headed for the communal gardens – I needed some air after that brutal lesson – and our route took us past the medical wing. As we drew level, I heard voices through the open door, and gestured Cassandra to hold on a moment. Okay, so there was a certain argument that whatever the healers were saying was none of my business. But I wasn’t going to let a little thing like that stop me satisfying my curiosity. Cassandra rolled her eyes but leaned against the wall and waited.
“It must be some kind of bug going around,” a healer said. I risked a quick glance through the door as the other healer mumbled in agreement and approached a bed. I squinted, trying to make out who it was, then pulled back, stifling a gasp.
“It’s Sally,” I mouthed to Cassandra, who only shrugged and picked at her nails.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” the healer was saying. “It’s sapping the energy from them. Even their auras are weak. And it’s spreading. I have five students like this now.”
“Keep them warm, plenty of liquids and food. And check their temperatures. We need to contain this until we know what it is.”
I frowned. Even the healers didn’t know what it was. Nothing good, that was for sure.
I turned to Cassandra, who wasn’t looking quite so relaxed anymore. Arching a brow, she peered inside the medical ward. “They’re gone. We need to have a better look. Do you remember how to see people’s auras?”
I nodded. “Yes. Let’s do it.”
We crept into the room and hovered by the door. It was easier to see the aura of one person, but attempting five at once? That was a tall order. But we didn’t have much choice. The healers could be back at any moment.
I relaxed my mind and looked around at the students, putting my eyes slightly out of focus. At first, I saw nothing but five blurry people lying in blurry beds, but then, right as my eyes started burning with the need to blink, I saw an array of colours. I swept my gaze over each of them. The colours were all pale and muted, and so thin it didn’t surprise me that I’d struggled to see them.
“They’re not kidding about their auras being weak. With this much rest, they should be radiating. Something isn’t right... no wonder the healers are worried.”
Cassandra nodded.
“They’re not going to get better without help. Do you think your healing potion will be perfected soon?”
I shook my head. “I’m getting close, but I don’t think it’d be enough. They need something to boost their energy, and fight whatever’s doing this to them.” I chewed my lip, rolling the problem around in my mind. What would give them that kind of boost?”
“Crap,” Cassandra hissed. “Time to go.”
I turned around and almost walked straight into a healer.
“What are you doing in here?” she demanded.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “We just wanted to check on our friends. Their auras are so faint...”
The healer nodded. “Try not to worry. They just need rest. If they haven’t been looking after themselves properly, they’ll get burnt out. That’s what has probably happened here. They’ll be right as rain soon enough.”
“Is there anything that can boost their energy levels?” Cassandra asked.
“Yes, we’re working on it. Rest will have them all right. Now, stop your worrying and get back to your lessons. I’ve got enough to worry about without you two under my feet.”
“Thanks.”
I turned and headed for the door, and neither of us said anything until we were halfway down the hall.
“I knew something wasn’t right,” I said. “And now there are others. We have to do something to help them.”
“I agree, but what?”
“I need to work out what can be used to replenish their strength, stamina, and their energy levels, and make that potion.”
“Library?”
“Library.”
It was time to do some research. We turned left instead of right at the end of the corridor, and made for one of my favourite rooms at the academy. The library was crammed floor to ceiling with row upon row of orderly shelves, colour-coded and with not a single book out of place. I roamed the aisles, running my fingers along the spines and plucking books from the shelves as I went, then slotting them back into place when they turned out to be a disappointment. A flash of movement caught my eye, and I paused, cocking my head. A figure was hunched over some books in the far corner. The figure looked up briefly, and waved. I smiled, waving back, glad to see a familiar face. It was Danny. He pushed his glasses up and rose from the table, approaching me as he walked past the walls filled with paperbacks.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, sounding surprised, which I tried not to take personally. I studied. Sometimes.
“Research,” I said, with some reluctance. “Some people have fallen ill. I thought I would try to help.”
“Would you like me to give you a hand? Or an extra pair of eyes?”
I sighed with relief. “Please. It’s an onerous task.”
Cassandra passed him a book with a smile, and grabbed another off the shelf. I carried on checking my aisle until I came across a promising looking tome, and plucked it from the shelf. I flipped it open and scrolled through the contents, only to find it wasn’t even close to what we needed. I huffed, and dumped it to one side. “I didn’t want to know what weeds were common, but at least we’re on the right track,” I muttered.
Three shelves later, I stopped at the bottom row. The spine of the book that had caught my eye was almost unreadable with faded words in places, and some pages were dog-eared. What sort of person would dog-ear a page and then send it back to the library like that?
“Monsters,” I muttered, straightening out the pages. As I studied each folded page, I started to see a pattern. Something they all had in common. Healing and recovering strength – though not in the same manner I had needed. They were more for old age, and even some to help sleep. Maybe the healers had looked to do with those sleeping students in the medical ward? But something in my gut told me it was something else. But it didn’t help me. I put the book on the shelf and cont
inued my search.
I got halfway along the row before a thought struck me. I rushed back up towards the shelf with the dog-eared book and grabbed it, then doubled back and grabbed the book with the common weeds, too. I dumped them in front of Cassandra on a nearby table.
“I can use some of these weeds for potion,” I said. “I knew that already, but I dismissed it.”
“So would I. What’s your point?”
“My point is, why would they use the weeds for potion? What good could weed possibly do, other than make the garden allotments messy?”
“I’m still waiting for you to tell me,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Look, they have stuff in the plants that can replenish energy.”
“Yeah, but who would want to drink weeds?” Cassandra objected, frowning.
I giggled. “I don’t think anyone would, unless they didn’t know what went into it.”
“So then, tell me what you are thinking of putting into their tea?” Danny asked thoughtfully, picking up another book. “Assuming that you’re going to test the sleeping students with it.”
“I’m thinking about using dandelion roots, and its leaves, and a plant called buckwheat. Problem is, I’m not sure where to get the buckwheat from. I don’t remember seeing it in the allotment earlier...”
“Well then, let’s go find some,” Cassandra said, closing her book. “If they're as common as the dandelions, we’ll have them feeling better by lunch tomorrow.”
I thanked Danny and set about putting the books we didn’t need back on their shelves. Unlike whoever dog-eared this book, we weren’t monsters. We were just about to head out when an announcement came through the intercom, summoning Danny to the office. He paled.
“I’ll see you later,” he said, and hurried out.
I sighed as he went, wishing I could do something – anything – to help. But I knew his problems were way beyond my first-year skills. There was someone I could help, though, so we headed out onto the grounds and gathered the plants we needed.
Later that afternoon, we returned to the medical ward with a flask full of my new, improved healing potion. I walked through the doorway and froze, frowning as I looked around the almost deserted room.
