Seventeen Stones

by Vanessa Wells

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mia was chatting with Ella as they walked into Creation when Martin stalked past, smirking. Ella gave him a cold, ‘I’m not impressed’ glance, and turned back to Mia to finish her sentence. Martin sat down in Mia’s accustomed seat. Mia moved across the room and Ella followed and they sat next to the Stubbs boy. He wasn’t Mia’s favorite person: he was just so boring. But he was friendly enough and Martin couldn’t stand him. That made it well worth it to sit through his ponderous hello.

  Professor Fain called the class to order and hopped on his desk. “Here’s one of the more paradoxical points in Creation: I can create an apple; just as red, just as sweet, and just as juicy as any apple that ever grew on a limb of a tree.” He whisked his wand around and created a single apple. He reached into a drawer in his desk and pulled out a second apple and a sharp silver knife. He cut the fruit in half as he continued. “Perfect in every way, except…” The created apple was pure white inside, without a hint of a core or a seed. A boy in the back of class exclaimed “That’s even better!”

  Professor Fain turned his hawk-like glare to the speaker. “Do you think so?” His voice was quiet and deep. “And what would happen, if for instance, a famine struck the City as it did two and a half centuries ago? What would happen to you and your family if you had no choice but to create your food?”

  Mia was the first to understand. “The wanded would literally starve themselves to death trying to feed the others.” A cynical smile quirked the professor’s lips.

  “It’s doubtful they were trying to feed the entire City. They were probably just trying to save themselves and their families. But yes, many wanded people died during the famine, mostly from over-exertion. That was before Harold Ottworthy devised the system that we use to measure the amount of energy, or calories, that a specific magical act requires.” He pointed at the multicolored chart on the wall.

  “Creating an apple, for instance, uses more calories than eating the apple provides. A multiplying charm has a ratio of three to one: basically you can multiply an apple three times before you get into calorie deficiency.” He took a large bite of the created apple and swallowed before he continued. “If you want the exact mathematical formula you’ll have to take the advanced Theory class with Professor Patrick.” He put down the apple and hopped off the desk. “Back to the subject we are covering today…Who can tell me why the created apple has no seeds?”

  The lone hand willing to attempt an answer to the question was attached to Mia. “I expect that creating a seed would take enough energy to kill the wand wielder. A full-grown apple tree might be easier to grow…”

  Professor Fain interrupted with the excited energy of a true enthusiast. “Excellent point! Martin, Mia, if you don’t mind, come up to the front. We’ll do a little experiment!” He pulled out his wand and summoned two clay pots, a small bag of dirt, and took the apple seeds out of the fruit on his desk. “I want one of you to try to create a seed and the other to try to grow a mature apple tree.” Martin sneered at her and indicated that he would try to create the seed, leaving Mia with the task of growing the tree. She rolled her eyes. Martin pulled out his wand and pretended to consider the task. After being told it was basically impossible, Mia knew he wouldn’t put forth any real effort.

  She turned her attention to her own task, quietly examining the seed with her magic. It was unblemished, whole, and ready to produce a plant if placed in the right environment. She tested it and found the focus within herself. She’d never tried to aid growth to this extent before. A moment later a small plant was spurting out of the pot. She poured energy into the plant as she summoned water, more soil, and reflected light from outside. When the tree was six inches tall she summoned another pot from the greenhouses. The tree wasn’t using as much water as she’d expected, but it was growing very quickly. She’d repotted it twice when she felt her knees give out. Her mind was hazy, but she was determined to complete the assignment. She felt hands on her wand, trying to take it away, but she held on. Everything went dark around the edges of her vision.

  ***

  The next thing Mia knew, she was nestled in a soft feather bed, with a down comforter, staring out a window into what could only be early morning light. Only the first rays of sunshine have that pale lemon quality. For a moment she couldn’t remember why she would be getting up so early. Emma didn’t normally rise at dawn…

  Upon turning her head she realized that she must be in one of the private rooms in the infirmary. Vivian was sitting up in a hideous olive green chair beside the bed, fast asleep. Mia hadn’t quite worked out why she would be in the infirmary when Vivian gave a little jerk and her eyes opened.

  “You’re awake!” She was grinning like a fool. Mia smiled at her and agreed “So are you.” Vivian blushed slightly. “Some nurse I make! It’s a good thing I’m going to marry an incredibly rich man. I certainly wouldn’t make much of a healer! How’s your head?” Mia answered truthfully “Pounding.” Vivian fumbled around for a second and managed to extract a small cobalt bottle from the bedside table. “Drink this while I get Mrs. Bennett.” Mia glanced at the bottle. It was tiny, it couldn’t hold much more than a teaspoon of whatever was in it. “What happened? The last thing I remember was the apple tree sort of taking on a life of its own.”

  Vivian plopped down into the ugly chair. “You can say that again. You scared us half to death. Apparently you were doing some sort of experiment in Creation for Professor Fain. Something went wrong and the apple tree started growing so quickly that it erupted out of the class. Ella said that Professor Fain used some of the most amazing wand work she’d ever seen to remove the tree and get you to the infirmary. Then he and Professor Cavendish had a shouting match outside the office and Mrs. Bennett threw them both out.”

  Mia realized that she must have overextended her magical power again. Vivian continued. “We volunteered to sit up with you, just in case.” Mia threw a grateful look at her dorm-mate. “Anyway, I was in class when they had the shouting match so I don’t have all the details, yet. Mrs. Bennett was really worried, but you looked better once she injected about fifteen meals into you. Which reminds me…you really need to drink the potion. She said you’d feel better once you took it.”

  Mia glanced again at the bottle. “What is it?” Mrs. Bennett appeared in the doorway. “It’s vitalis. We use it for wand wielders who don’t have the sense that little green tomatoes have. Sometimes it keeps the fools from dying or losing their powers…sometimes they still die.”

  Mrs. Bennett was standing in a well-washed (formally fluffy) pink robe, and matching slippers. Her hair was up in soft pink rollers. There were new lines on her face, and her expression was sour. “Did the fall addle your wits child? Drink!” Mia responded to the imperious note of command in the healer’s voice and uncorked the bottle. The potion tasted like summer would if you put it in liquid form. It tasted like sunshine, honeysuckle and all sorts of green things and somehow like cold spring water. The sensation was entirely too sharp to linger over, and Mia was sipping a glass of water within seconds. Mrs. Bennett looked down at her patient and nodded. She summoned a breakfast of fruit and pastry. “If it stays down you can go to class today. If not, I’ll give you something to help you sleep.”

  Half an hour later Mia was back at her dorm. After a quick bath she felt well enough to go downstairs. The others were happy to see her. She thanked them for sitting with her the night before, but they seemed content to sip tea and smile sleepily at her while she ate her omelet, pancakes, eggs, donuts, grapefruit, bagel, and oatmeal. She was on her second omelet when Sarah shook her hard.

  “Mia!” She shook her again. Mia batted her friend’s hand away; it was interfering with her chewing.

  Headmistress Villanova, Professor Cavendish, Mrs. Bennett, and Professor Fain arrived at some point while she was eating. She caught snatches of conversation between bites. “Are you sure that you severed the connection to the tree completely?” “She’s alive isn’
t she?” “Well then, what’s wrong?” “She’s doing something magical, expending way too many calories, but I can’t tell what she’s doing!” Mrs. Bennett gave her another vial of vitalis in between cups of tea. Her mind worked a little better after that.

  Lizzy and Beth were arguing with the Headmistress. Beth’s chin was out. Vivian was sitting close to Mia, physically resisting Mrs. Bennett’s hands which seemed to be trying to guide her away.

  “What’s going on?”

  Mrs. Bennett rushed over to Mia and began checking her eyes with a little mirror. “Headmistress; the vitalis is working.” Headmistress Villanova rushed over, shadowed by Lizzy and Beth.

  “Mia, can you hear me?” She nodded, a bit confused. “Good. Professor Cavendish is here. He’s going to check some things out, but we had to get you stabilized first. I want you to let us know if you feel dizzy or anything.” She swished her wand and plates filled the table in front of Mia. She realized that she was still ravenous, and began stuffing bacon into her mouth. She’d never tasted anything so good…

  Professor Cavendish looked her in the eye at some point and said “Mia, I’m going to check your magical aura and see if I can figure out what’s happening to you. Do you understand?” She nodded and looked mournfully at her now empty plate. “I’m still hungry.” The professor sighed and summoned another pile of food: more bacon, toast, strawberries in whipped cream, and a pitcher of milk. “You can eat while I check.” A few minutes later she gasped and put down the toast she’d been voraciously stuffing into her mouth. She felt a little sick.

  The Professor wiped his brow. “That was a bit of…something. Take a look out the window.” There had been a wide grassy area in front of the dorm. It had been nothing but walkways an hour before, but now a full grown apple tree stood in the middle of it. Moreover, the earth around it showed signs of recent upheaval. “It was coming here, pulling itself along with its roots the way a piranha plant does.” The branches of the tree were merrily swaying, totally oblivious to the fact that there wasn’t even a whisper of a breeze. “I don’t know what she did originally, but I can tell you what happened with the tree today. It was acting as if Mia was its root system, pulling magic and energy out of her to grow instead of using its roots and light. She’s lucky the darn thing was inactive overnight, otherwise she’d be dead. I don’t think it will ever be a normal tree, not after that much magic was involved in its growth, but I’ll need to run some tests to determine exactly what it will be able to do.”

  Mrs. Bennett totally ignored Professor Cavendish and started checking Mia with various objects from her bag. “You’re staying in the infirmary until we make sure this won’t happen again.” She snapped in a tone that boded ill for anyone who contested her assessment.

  Professor Cavendish nodded. “I think that would be best. I’ve explained to the tree that it’s supposed to use its roots to get water and leaves to get sunlight. It seemed to like the arrangement. I have a shield around it and another around Mia, just in case. There shouldn’t be any reason to fuss, but she might need to sleep.” Mrs. Bennett harrumphed and scooted Mia out of the dorm.

  As soon as Mia was able to get up, Professor Cavendish hauled her out to see the apple tree. “Do you realize that this is the first spontaneous mutation from mundane to magical that we have ever been able to track from the first generation? In the wild if we notice the new magical traits in a plant by the third or fourth generation we’re lucky. Of course, we have records of the plants that have been magically manipulated by wand wielders, but those changes were the result of long study and exact amounts of magic. We knew what they were going to do before we added the spells. This is so exciting!”

  Mia couldn’t quite share his enthusiasm.

  The tree wasn’t a real danger: it did occasionally wrap its roots around the ankles of innocent passersby and trip them. Sometimes when it did something of the sort, it shook its branches in what was obviously a tree laugh.

  It generally behaved if Professor Cavendish or Mia were nearby. Professor Cavendish was already very fond of the tree. “Now, now, none of that!” His tone was that of an indulgent uncle. The tree’s root stopped inching toward the leg of a passing student and returned to the ground. The boy gulped and hurried along, eager to get out of reach of the roots.

  A few high-ranking parents complained about the behavior, but the headmistress stood firm. The tree was staying; those who didn’t like it could find another route to class. Professor Cavendish complained that the apple tree was better behaved than a lot of his first year students. “At least the tree has never slipped a behemoth into the orchards or let pixies into the greenhouses.” He was still looking for the person who had endangered his fruit trees earlier in the year.

  The Professor had placed a powerful magical barrier between the tree and anyone else. The ripe red fruit hanging from its branches might have overcome some people’s common sense, and he didn’t want that on his head. “Fruit from a magical apple tree? We’ll have to test it of course, but it could do anything, anything at all….it could give the person who took a bite immeasurable wisdom, or turn them into a yak. There’s no way to tell unless someone wants to volunteer.” No one wanted to volunteer so the Professor had to use a battery of tests instead.

  The Professor had a small but complete lab set up in the back of greenhouse two. “This powder will ignite if the substance it comes in contact with causes size changes. That normally only happens with mushrooms, but one can never be too careful. We’ll put another slice in this mixture” he muttered as he swirled a bright red potion in a glass beaker “if it turns blue we’ll know that the apples have transformative properties.” He hurried to another table where he turned an open flame on high under a strange looking glass tube. His frenzied battery of tests, random scribbles on a small note pad, and constant muttering continued until there were experiments on every surface. “That’s all we can do for now…no wait.” He motioned her outside and summoned a battered bird cage from some dusty corner.

  In the stone courtyard in front of the greenhouses, he pointed his wand at a particularly fine looking pigeon. “Domina Avain”. The bird hopped into the cage. He willingly gobbled the slices of apple the professor fed him. “Good enough. I’ll have the results of the test by next class…you and I will discuss it then. I think you deserve that much, since you were the one who nearly died.”

  Mia was certain that the polite thing to do in this instance was thank the professor, though she didn’t feel much like thanking anyone. She was of two minds regarding the tree. It had nearly killed her, it was an unknown magical organism, and it had demonstrated a slightly cruel sense of humor by tripping the students. On the other hand, it was a plant who demonstrated a sense of humor. That was so amazing that it almost negated the rest. One moment she was certain that she would never let anyone harm it, no matter how dangerous it turned out to be. The next second she was contemplating taking an ax to it herself.

  Professor Cavendish couldn’t hide his excitement when Mia walked into Botany again. He quickly assigned the rest of the class to re-potting seedlings, and half-dragged Mia into the lab. The pigeon was sleeping in the cage; his green head nestled under a wing. The sudden light woke him. Mia automatically apologized.

  “Oh that’s alright.” said the pigeon. Mia looked up at him and looked back to the professor. “Wow. How’d he do that?” The Professor shrugged. “I’m not sure. Normally I wouldn’t think a bird’s beak would make human sounds, but parrots do…but I’m no expert on animals, you’d need Professor Stoats for that. I’m glad you could hear him. I was worried at first that I’d developed animal speech, and I’m far too old to be developing new powers.” That was the truth. Normally a person’s full array of talents showed up in one form or another by thirteen, though there were a few exceptions. Some people developed new talents as late as eighteen.

  Professor Cavendish continued. “It seems to work for about six hours on the pigeon. I’ve fed him six or seven slices ov
er the past few days. I haven’t noticed any untoward side effects…” The bird bristled its neck feathers indignantly. “Well jolly good for you! No untoward side effects indeed. Do you know what I was just thinking about? Tomorrow, that’s what! No self -respecting pigeon thinks about tomorrow. Honestly! And that’s not the worst of it either. You’ve stuffed all this human nonsense into my head…you see that sign over there? It says Warning: Dangerous Potions! How in the sky would I know that? Oh, and worst of all, I know I’ve been in here for four days. That nest-wrecker Short-Wing is probably preening over my mate!”

  Mia asked “Who is Short-Wing?” The bird made a sound much like a disdainful snort. “He’s the dark green male with the purple markings that likes to roost in the statue of Horatio Humphries near the theater building. I really do have other things to do Professor, besides sit around eating my own weight in apples!” Professor Cavendish smiled a bit. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with us for a bit.” He opened his beak and the Professor held up a finger. “Another word and I’ll being Fluffy, my wife’s cat to visit you.” The bird squeaked and tried to unsuccessfully hide behind its water dish.