by Rain Oxford
Don’t they have shutoff valves? The thought occurred to me that it was way too much water, which distracted me from my ire. With my emerging calm, the water ceased attacking. Professor Hans was the first person to make it through the door. He took one look at us and glared.
“Who is responsible for this?” Of course, all five of my attackers pointed to me. “Mr. Sanders, I trust you have an explanation for this.”
I sighed because I knew there was nothing I could say to get out of this mess. “I didn’t read the ‘out of order’ sign.”
Of course, I got detention.
* * *
“So, I got nothing on Susan Walker,” Darwin said, sitting next to me.
It was still early for dinner, but I wanted to eat and get out to the lake before my detention. I figured my punishment would involve cleaning chalkboards or something and tried not to let it irritate me. I was too old for detention.
“Nobody wants to talk about anything but you. From what I’ve gathered, there was an epic battle in the C-Five bathroom between you and Jackson’s gang. Jackson, of course, says he kicked your butt, but no one believes it. Everyone knows the man is a jerk anyway.”
“No one is talking about Susan?”
“Well, no. They’re talking about a vampire attack and that you already fried one vampire. Some of the students are afraid it’s a pandemic while others are gearing up to go vampire hunting. The only thing everyone agrees on is that they don’t want the school closed down.”
I was starting to agree on that as well.
* * *
At seven, I managed to talk one of the cooks into giving me three cucumbers, which I took out to the lake. Not sure if I should skin it or chop it up, I hesitated. After a few minutes, a familiar head popped up a good six feet from the shore. I tossed him one of the cucumbers and he snatched it from the air, then disappeared into the depths. When I found a decent sized rock, I sat and waited for him to tell me what favor I owed him.
I had given him all three cucumbers by the time I sensed his mind trying to reach mine. Once I connected with a creature’s mind, they quickly learned how to initiate communication with me. I accepted his thoughts. There was a taste… and a smell. It was sweet, though not pleasant. As soon as I locked onto it, I saw images. It was too dark to see at first, but the images slowly sharpened until I could tell I was looking upwards from the murky lake water. A small, bloated, body floated at the top of the water. A kappa body.
“Your water is being poisoned and you want me to stop it?”
An affirmative thought.
Damn. Murder is becoming more popular than football around here.
* * *
I didn’t have a jar so I used the ziplock bag that I had carried the cucumbers in to collect a sample of the water. I figured that having an idea of what the poison was would narrow down the list of suspects, so I went on the hunt for the squirrelly chemist I rescued from the glass ball.
God, my life has gotten weird these last few weeks.
As if summoned by my desire to find him, I walked right into his lab, which was not nearly as far into the building as it was before.
Yes, the rooms change.
The man was pouring liquids into a beaker… without touching them. Small bottles levitated around the room, placing themselves on the shelves or pouring into larger jars, beakers, or test tubes. Bunsen burners were not used here; instead, there were small cauldrons with fires burning on nothing. The wizard himself was flipping through a book… which he also wasn’t touching. His hands were busy holding the biggest, ugliest, mangiest cat I had ever seen in my life.
The cat-like bag of fur and claws was gray… sort of… and had one light blue eye, one gold eye. A scar ran down its nose and it was missing clumps of his dingy gray hair. In fact, it looked like the cat’s fur was gray from age. I would not try to communicate with that rat trap; I didn’t want the rabid beast anywhere near my mind. It probably had mad cow disease.
“Come on in, Devon. What have you brought for me?” he asked, not looking at me. He had cut his hair and shaved, so he looked a lot more like a scientist and less like a survivor of a plane crash who had to live alone on a deserted island for ten years.
I held out the bag regretfully because it felt like I was using him. A small glass jar flew to me, so I poured the water out of the bag and into the jar. “I was down by the lake. A… source… informed me that the lake was being poisoned.”
“Yes, the kappa… poor little guys. I will find your poison.” He took a long looked around the room. “Still missing,” he said ambiguously.
“What’s missing?” I asked.
He finally turned to me. “Don’t you have detention right now?”
I looked at my watch and cursed. Right before I could duck out the door, I realized I was being ridiculously rude. “What is your name?” I asked.
“Andrew Martin. Most people call me Doc, or weirdo, or don’t-touch-that.”
“Thank you for helping me with this, Dr. Martin.”
He shrugged and started turning away. “You helped me. No other student here is even powerful enough to have broken the curse.”
I froze on my way out the door and turned to him. “What? That wasn’t magic. I just picked up the glass---” I found myself unable to say another word as he leveled his steady gaze on me.
“You underestimate your power, Devon Sanders. Only a wizard could have even seen the syrus. Only a powerful wizard could have touched it. Good night, Devon.” With that, he dismissed me by turning away. Shaken, I headed to the Magic in Everyday Life classroom in a daze.
How could I be a wizard? My parents were human. I never showed signs of magic… That wasn’t true. My instincts were too intuitive, too accurate. I could talk with animals the way no one could have understood. Sometimes when I was mad, like when Regina was having one of her screaming fits over not having enough money for her gambling, drinking, or smoking addictions, something would explode. When I was happy, people always found themselves with good luck when they were around me.
And then, there was the scene in the bathroom.
I arrived at the classroom, not even thinking twice about the fact that the door was open. There was no light, which I thought was odd right before my instincts fired up. Something was wrong. I wasn’t in danger, but something was definitely wrong. I pulled my lighter out of my pocket, flicked it on, and held it out to see. Unable to make out much, I headed towards the front of the room to open the window curtains.
Nearly in reach of the thick drapes, I tripped and barely managed to catch myself on the edge of the desk. I dropped my lighter.
Instead of immediately getting on my knees to find the lighter, I first tried to feel it with my shoe. Of course, that was useless, so I knelt carefully and searched cautiously with my hands. My right hand landed in something cold and sticky, which made me groan. Someone must have spilled soda or something. I finally realized my lighter was right between my knees, so I picked it up and flicked it with my left hand. The metal wheel was hot and it was awkward using my left hand, but I accomplished it.
The breath froze in my lungs.
It wasn’t soda all over my hand.
I looked farther into the dark room at what I had tripped over. Professor Hans was lying dead on the floor, his eyes open and frozen in horror and two distinct punctures in his throat.
Chapter 5
I wasn’t in shock over the body; I had seen enough of them to know that some people on this world were really sick. It wasn’t the death or the blood but the resemblance to the scene that replayed in my head almost every night. I could almost hear the sirens blaring.
And that damn wolf.
I realized with a start that a huge black wolf stood right in front of me, staring at me. Mrs. Ashcraft, Remington, and Hunt were in the room and the body of Professor Hans was covered with a sheet. Remington and Mrs. Ashcraft were arguing. It was a power struggle between the deputy principal and the headmaster’s daughter.
“You can’t expel him without proof,” Remington said.
“He was found with the body and is clearly in a state of shock over what he did. He must have been humiliated when Professor Hans gave him detention and just snapped.”
“He wasn’t found with the body; he found my father and told him about the body.”
I did? I didn’t remember leaving the room. Then again, I didn’t remember sitting in a chair. Mrs. Ashcraft was trying to expel me, which was definitely a step up from how I thought she was going to try to get me out of her way. It was then that I realized I didn’t want out. If what Dr. Martin said was true, then I was a wizard. I had to know how. I wanted to know what that meant for me.
When the wolf advanced on me, I froze, for my instincts stopped me from trying to communicate with him. He pressed his muzzle against my throat and sniffed deeply, causing me to shudder. Images of Seda invaded my mind, her thick, coarse black fur matted and sticky with blood. Before I could try to push him away, the wolf backed off and shifted into Alpha Flagstone.
“He is innocent,” he said, glaring at me as if he didn’t like that deduction.
“This is obviously a vampire attack,” Remington said, handing him a robe to cover himself with. “Somehow, they must have gotten past the defenses. We should take this to the council.”
They got past the defenses because someone let them in.
“If the council hears of this, they will call a war on the vampires. Nobody knows for sure that the wizards will win,” Mrs. Ashcraft argued.
“Rebecca is right,” Hunt said. His tone was slow and steady, full of authority and kindness. “We ultimately want peace between all, which includes vampires.”
Whether I was a wizard or not, this paranormal community was part of my world. And vampires would never be invited in.
* * *
I started meeting Astrid outside every night, as soon as the sun was gone. She said she had a skin condition and couldn’t be out in the sunlight. We would usually go to the woods and play with Seda, but sometimes we would explore the city.
Astrid once took me to a building that was abandoned and unlocked. We made it our clubhouse and played in it three or four nights a week. Each night, we climbed to the roof and sat on the ledge for hours, watching the city and the people. It was like we were gods peering down on them; we were above it all.
My mother loved me, but she was strict and preferred to work than to come home. My father was great when he wasn’t drinking… but the only time he wasn’t drinking was when he was at work. Astrid listened to me. I would talk for hours about what life was like, at least through the eyes of a ten-year-old.
I had to write a short story in class once, so I shared it with Astrid. It was about Astrid and me being taken to another world like Peter Pan, except it was an amazing world of wizards and dragons. It ended with us growing up and getting married. I was shy about the last part, but Astrid just smiled and corrected some of my spelling. When my teacher at school asked me who Astrid was, I told her Astrid was made up, because I wanted to keep my friend for myself.
After that, Astrid wrote a story for me. It started out with a baby watching a man and woman being torn to bits. The baby’s crib broke as the woman was thrown against it and the baby was found later by cops, sitting in a pool of blood, but not crying. The baby then grew to be Astrid and she met a boy her own age, who would never make fun of her for being too quiet or demand to see her during the day. In her story, they also went to another world with magic, but it was a world where there was no sun, so she and the boy could play whenever they wanted to.
Only later, when I was lying in bed, did I finally realize the man and woman in her story were her parents.
One day, I couldn’t go more than a few minutes without thinking of Astrid. I was actually an hour early to meet her outside, but she arrived a minute after the sun set, as always. She smiled when she saw me. “Happy birthday,” she said.
“How did you know?” Even my parents had forgotten.
“You were thinking about it today.”
I frowned. “You know what I was thinking?” She nodded and I knew I wasn’t going to get any kind of explanation. Astrid was weird in that way, just like me. Whereas I once hated my peculiarity, it was something special we had in common. It no longer needed an explanation, as if the connection and friendship would be gone if we asked questions.
We went to play with Seda that night. The pup was getting big and always wanted to roughhouse. Whenever I tried to pet her, she tried to chew on my fingers. Astrid told me she wasn’t a dog and I had to be dominant with her. Astrid always had better control over the wolf.
It was confusing to me when I watched my friend teach the wolf to hunt. They would disappear into the woods and come back covered in blood. Sometimes, Seda would stare at me until I met her eyes and then I would see the blood and guts of her tearing into her prey… from her own eyes. I could feel her enjoyment in the kill and her desire for the taste of blood.
I started devising a plan to get rid of Seda.
* * *
I kept my head down for the rest of the week and was careful not to be late for a single class. My priority was to determine if I was in fact a wizard. Unfortunately, I was in classes which didn’t require the use of magic.
I thought that my potions class merely called for mixing ingredients, but that wasn’t so. I had to put my intention behind the concoction. After nearly two weeks of learning about the ingredients, the first thing we made was a sleeping potion, which Professor Langril tested in a beaker with several drops of red liquid. If the potion turned purple, it was good. If it turned any other color, it was bad.
Mine turned green.
Over the weekend, I spent every minute memorizing the correspondences of water. The investigation was pushed aside. At about three in the morning on Monday, I woke with the feeling of being watched. I opened my eyes to see Dr. Martin’s cat sitting beside my head on my pillow.
I jerked away, but was careful not to fall out of bed again. Instead, I hit my head on the ceiling when I sat up. The cat glared at me. Given the choice between defending my bed from the mangy beast or retreat, I climbed down the ladder like the bed was on fire.
The cat stood, stretched… and vanished.
After a moment, I noticed an envelope on my desk with my name on it. I opened it to find a letter and a check inside. I forced myself to address the letter first:
Dear Devon Sanders,
Congratulations on discovering your skills as a wizard. I would assume that you are wondering if it is real, and how it is possible. I assure you that it is. The book you will find on your desk was written by one of the most power wizards ever to exist, and can help you in your studies.
Remember; knowledge is power. That being the case, books are among the greatest weapons on Earth. Arm yourself.
Best Wishes,
V. K. Knight
The check was a reminder that I had work to do. “What book?” I asked aloud as I set down the letter… and did a double take… because there was now a book on the table where there wasn’t one before. I mean, I know there wasn’t one there a moment before. No way. I restrained myself from making strange sounds. Forcibly.
It was not the type of book one could easily overlook, as it was a huge, ancient, leather bound thing. There was no title on the cover. I picked it up and opened it at random, about a third of the way through.
The pages appeared to be made of very thin, tough parchment, and were filled with a main body of writing and odd drawings, surrounded with margins crowded with notes, all in a spidery script. There were mathematical formulas and descriptions of bizarre apparatuses of unknown usage. And it all looked so old.
As I attempted to read bits and pieces from the book, I found myself becoming rather lightheaded and dizzy, but I didn’t want to stop. The book went far deeper than anything I would learn at the school and most of it was too far beyond me. This was the scientific and mathematical side of
magic, which was absolutely foreign to me at first. The strange part was, the more I read, the more I seemed to understand.
“Devon.” A hand waved in front of my face, snapping me back into reality. I looked up from the book to see both Henry and Darwin giving me worried stares. “You’re going to be late for class,” Darwin said.
I looked at the clock with shock; I had been reading for nearly five hours. Then I glanced back at the book. I didn’t remember anything I had read.
* * *
In potions, we had to pair up and redo the sleeping potions, since none of us had managed it on our own. I was shocked when Becky instantly claimed me as her partner, especially after I set her on fire. She was a fairly quiet woman who never volunteered anything she didn’t have to. Her straw-colored hair was always braided. Her eyes, a mix of dark brown and green, were magnified by big, round glasses. After telling Professor Langril that I had agreed to be her partner, she stood beside me without another word.
We worked well together; she gathered the ingredients while I prepared the equipment, then I helped her chase down the scream-worm when it somehow got into Mack’s jacket. I had no idea how the worm got loose, since the damn thing wasn’t required in this potion.
In the cauldron, we combined a hundred milliliters of hundred-proof vodka with fifty grams each of dried passionflower, valerian root, chamomile, and skullcap. Then we tied a smoky quartz to a stick and placed it on the cauldron.
“Sorry… I know the others can do more magic than me,” Becky whispered.
I did notice that other two teams hung their crystals suspended in midair with magic. I patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. You just concentrate on putting your intention in it while I light it.”
As I said it, I patted my pocket and realized I had forgotten my lighter. I sighed. There was no use in complaining or cursing my idiocy. Instead, I crouched beside the cauldron and focused. I imagined fire; the color, the flicker, the light, the smell of wood burning, and the heat. I imagined heat from my memories flowing through my body out and into the sticks and hay until it became so hot it caught on fire.
