The Young Magician tlt-1

by Michael Foster

  Samuel was now very confused.

  Mr Kelvin smiled. ‘Let me try another example. Of course, you can have a half-crown or a half a bucket of water, but again, these are only our own concepts. Our minds attempt to simplify the world around us so we can better understand it. A half-crown is only called a half-crown for that is what it is worth and, not too long ago, it actually was a crown that was cut in half. Now, we actually have a coin with a half-crown value. Tomorrow, try to think of anything you can find that is not a whole thing, or itself comprised of many, one things.’ Samuel was still lost and the more Mr Kelvin tried explaining, the worse it became. ‘One is the only real number. The others are merely for our convenience.’ Mr Kelvin finally realised he was talking above the boy’s head and changed his tack. ‘I’m sorry. These concepts are for future days. Now, Samuel, I would like you to make me a one. I know it is a simple task for you, but the beginning is always a good place to start. That was actually the point I was trying to make before I so terribly digressed.’

  He handed the quill to Samuel who carefully dipped the end into the inkwell and withdrew it again. A great blob of black fluid hung from its tip.

  Mr Kelvin drew a small rag from his pocket. ‘Now, that is far too much. It will puddle on the parchment and ruin everything.’ He took the quill from Samuel, wiped it, and then handed it back. ‘Try again.’

  Samuel did and this time Mr Kelvin nodded approvingly. Samuel put the nib to the paper and dragged out a line. The nib scratched loudly against the grain of the paper and the line resembled a wobbly twig. Samuel was not happy with it at all. He could do far better with his chalk on the stones.

  ‘That’s fine for a first attempt, Samuel,’ Mr Kelvin lauded, smiling. ‘Only practice is needed. Experience is the greatest teacher. I can instruct you, but only you can learn, and practice, proper practice, is the surest way to learn.’

  Samuel wished Mr Kelvin would talk more simply. The man could not finish with yes or no, but insisted on tacking a whole lecture to the end of every sentence.

  Mr Kelvin stood. ‘I will leave these with you, Samuel.’

  ‘Is that all?’ Samuel asked.

  ‘Probably too much. Practise your ones. Get used to the feel of the pen on the parchment. Fill about three pages for tonight and tomorrow we shall do more.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Kelvin,’ Samuel said. ‘What is this book?’ he asked, holding the small object up. It bore a single stylised word on the cover that Samuel could not recognise.

  ‘It is a lesson book. It says introduction. You may browse through it if you like, but don’t read too much for now or it will only confuse you.’

  Samuel placed it back down. ‘Thank you.’

  Mr Kelvin nodded and turned from the room. Pausing in the doorway, Mr Kelvin stood a moment and looked back at Samuel. He peered in at the boy, as if trying to perceive some tiny detail, just as he had done on that first day. Samuel tried to ignore the man staring in at him and looked down at his paper. When he looked up again, Mr Kelvin was gone, with his boots sounding on the stable floor and then crunching out into the yard towards the main building, softer and softer until they became too distant to hear.

  Samuel was excited to use his new quill. He at once spread the parchment out on the floor and placed some objects on the corners to hold it flat: his shoes, a horseshoe and a couple of stones. He held his lower lip between his teeth as he carefully scratched out a page of ones. He often had to try and blot up a terrible mess or wipe the ink-laden quill. When he was done, he examined his creation. The page seemed scrawled with flattened, skinny slugs. The next page was not nearly so much fun and, by the last, his ones were terrible, as it had become somewhat tiresome. This learning was not as much fun as he expected. With Jessicah, it was always giggles and games.

  Having become bored, Samuel screwed the cap back onto the inkwell and rolled over, facing the roof. He picked up the lesson book and turned to the first page. It seemed aged, for the words were faded and the pages well bent. It bore only a number one and below it was ‘one’ spelt out and below that was a picture of an apple. The second page had number two with ‘two’ written below that and two apples. It continued in that manner with numbers and apples up to twenty apples. By then, the page was filled with apples and Samuel realised how much simpler it was to draw a twenty than to draw all those apples. Samuel was confident up to the twelfth page, for he had practised counting to twelve often, but above that, it took him longer. He tried opening to a page and covering the number before he could recognise it, and then counted all the apples, comparing his answer. It usually took a few times to get the numbers in correct order and he had particular trouble with eighteen and nineteen. Finally, he became tired, blew out his lamp and crawled beneath his covers, with numbers and apples fading from his eyes.

  Samuel saw nothing of Mr Kelvin all the next day until, shortly after dinner, he and Kans came grunting into the stable, struggling with a desk between them. Samuel quickly tidied a spot in his room as they shoved it in though the doorway and over into the corner.

  ‘Thank you, Kans,’ Mr Kelvin puffed, wiping his brow.

  Kans turned and walked out wordlessly, not looking very happy at all.

  ‘Now, you can put your writing things on here and have somewhere proper to work,’ Mr Kelvin explained.

  Samuel did so and by then, Kans had reappeared with a small chair. After pushing it beneath the desk, he again stalked away, grumbling loudly so as to be well heard.

  ‘How did you fare last night?’ Mr Kelvin asked.

  ‘Not too bad, I suppose,’ Samuel answered and unfolded the papers for Mr Kelvin’s nodding inspection.

  ‘You supposed correctly, Samuel. They are not too bad at all. Did you read the book?’

  Samuel nodded. ‘I can manage up to twenty…almost.’

  ‘Show me,’ Mr Kelvin requested.

  Samuel began rattling off numbers one by one until he reached sixteen. After that, he had to think a little bit before the next came to him. He knew he had done it correctly when there was nothing left but twenty to say.

  ‘Twenty!’ he said with glee.

  ‘Very good, Samuel,’ Mr Kelvin said. ‘But what about thirteen?’

  Samuel froze. Had he forgotten thirteen? He must have. He had ignored it in his haste. ‘Oh,’ he said with shame.

  ‘Don’t worry. You did very well. You have nearly mastered counting.’

  ‘Aren’t there a lot more numbers, Mr Kelvin?’

  Mr Kelvin laughed aloud. ‘Of course, but you don’t need to say them all one by one to know them. It’s all very repetitive. After tonight, you will see. I have the next book.’ He patted his pocket. ‘Now, I would like you to write up to twenty for me. Take your time. I will help you.’

  Samuel prepared his quill and then began to write. He was amazed when his very first number, one, was straight and true.

  ‘I couldn’t do it that well last night,’ Samuel noted.

  ‘Practice,’ Mr Kelvin repeated, echoing his words from the night before. ‘Practice is certainly important but, once you become tired, it no longer serves its purpose. Every stroke you made last night would have been better than the last, but the fact that your mind and body were both tiring made them appear even worse. Now that you are no longer tired, you can do it with ease. Now, keep going.’

  Samuel continued writing and was happy to finally reach twenty. Mr Kelvin had to coach him at a few points, but he finally had it right.

  ‘Now, Samuel. You have twenty of these apples on your bed and I give another one. What is twenty and one?’

  Samuel knew that easily. ‘Twenty-one.’

  ‘And one more? What would twenty and two be?’

  ‘Twenty and two is twenty-two?’

  ‘Now, continue.’

  Samuel surprised himself by counting all the way to twenty-nine, but then he baulked.

  ‘Thirty,’ Mr Kelvin instructed. ‘What is thirty and one?’

  ‘Thirty-one?’
r />   ‘Correct. Continue.’

  Samuel went on until, ‘forty?’ he guessed.

  A great smile covered Mr Kelvin’s face. ‘Here I was thinking you needed tutoring when you know all this already. It only has to be coaxed out of you. Do you see the pattern?’

  Samuel nodded. ‘You just push the numbers together and say what they are.’

  ‘That’s very good, but addition is only the very first step in arithmetic. Numbers have endless ways of being combined. Tomorrow, we begin subtraction.’

  ‘Is that all for tonight?’ Samuel asked with disappointment.

  ‘Oh, no,’ Mr Kelvin said, shaking his head. ‘Tonight, I want to see what you can spell. Read this for me.’

  He drew the next book from his pocket and handed it to Samuel. This one had a chart on the first page, showing all the numbers from one up to one hundred: ten rows of ten numbers. The next page had a picture of a ball and ‘ball’ was written beneath it. Mr Kelvin was ecstatic when Samuel flipped each page and read the words out without hesitation. His practice with Jessicah had prepared him for most of the simple words that seemed to be common, but a few were unfamiliar and Mr Kelvin helped him sound them out. The last page had a short story regarding a boy, a ball and a dog. With Mr Kelvin’s assistance, it took only a short time to read from beginning to end and Samuel was ecstatic with himself.

  Lessons continued each evening like that. Sometimes, Mr Kelvin would send Kans to deliver some instructions and a lesson book, as he was busy inside the inn, and Samuel was soon gathering quite a bookshelf upon his desk and regarding the first few in his collection with contempt at their simplicity. He wished his father could see him now and see all that he had learned. How Father would have smiled.

  It was one very sunny afternoon after he had swept out the stables and was gathering up the rubbish that Samuel noticed several loose shingles on the rooftop. He hopped onto the edge of the great big water barrel beside the stable and pulled himself up onto the stable roofing. As he was pushing the shingles back into place, Samuel saw he had a clear view through a window into a large room of the inn. He looked closer, for he noted at once that it was a curious room. There were half-burned candles placed at intervals all over the floor. There was no bed, nor furniture of any description in the room. It was completely empty except for the strange scatterings of candles. Perplexed, Samuel finished his work and wondered what the strange, empty room was used for.

  Late that same night, Samuel awoke. He did not wake with a sudden frightful start, as he did whenever he dreamed of the tall man in his doorway, but rather he had simply opened his eyes as if it was morning. Pins and needles danced madly up and down his arms as if he had been sleeping on them. It was dark, but pale moonlight streamed in through the window. He finally sat up and drank from the pitcher beside his bed, then rubbed at his arms to try dispelling the tickling. Wiping his moist lips, Samuel listened for any noises that may have awoken him. The horses were quiet and from the stable came only those occasional clanks and rattles caused by the soft breeze. He got up and peered from his room down the length of the stable. A long brown nose turned towards him and gave a snort. Looking behind, out through the stable doorway, he could see that the grounds were dark and empty. He checked the stalls one by one to see if there was anything strange, but the horses all seemed quiet and content, so Samuel decided to step outside. The sky was clear and moonlit, with only a few pale wisps of clouds clinging to the starry heights. Samuel yawned, stretching his arms out wide and curling his back, then scratched at his head.

  As he opened his eyes again, something drew his attention towards the inn and he noticed a soft light shining from the small window he had found earlier that day. It seemed strange that someone should be awake so late, for it was surely only an hour or two before dawn. Samuel’s curiosity then had the better of him. He went around to the stable side and hopped on top of the barrel, hitching himself up onto the roof. He clambered carefully along the shingles until he could peer across into the window.

  Someone was inside. He was lighting all the candles one by one. It was Mr Copperpot, Samuel finally realised, as the man glanced around. When all of the candles were lit, he sat in the middle of the room, crossed his legs and waited. Some time had passed, with Samuel still watching on, when Mr Copperpot straightened his legs out before him and bent his head down until his chin met his knees. He proceeded to go through a number of such strange motions, before squatting right in the middle of the room, where he remained still for some time. Soon, he began moving his hands up and down rhythmically and taking great loud, hissing breaths that Samuel could easily hear from his vantage point. It was no wonder that he was woken with all that noise.

  As he did this, Samuel could see the man’s natural shine bloom and intensify and become much more tangible than before. It changed from a vague aura to a distinct fabric of colours made of very many fine and interweaving threads that were ever sliding and rippling. It was the most amazing thing that Samuel had ever seen.

  Finally, Mr Copperpot sat down again, crossed his legs and remained completely still for a good time as his glowing surround returned to its normal complacent state. The man then extinguished the candles one by one and silently left the room. Samuel was intrigued, but now felt strangely overcome with exhaustion. He climbed carefully back down from the roof and returned to his bed.

  Samuel thought about the strange event all the next day. He peered closely at his own hands and wondered why it was that he could only see the glow around other people and not himself. No one ever talked about the glow much and Samuel was beginning to think that most people could not really see it at all; they just talked as if they could.

  ‘Can you see my glow?’ Samuel asked Kans as the man was helping him carry in bags of dry feed. Samuel carried the smaller tins of expensive butter-yeast, from which he had been instructed to put a pinch in each horse’s feed to makes its coat shiny and healthy.

  ‘What nonsense are you talking about, boy?’ Kans asked in his standard intolerant manner.

  Samuel placed the tins he carried upon the stack in the storeroom and decided not to continue the conversation with the man any further. He preferred to talk with Kans as little as possible. The balding man peered sidelong at him for the rest of the morning, but said nothing.

  ‘Does everyone have a light around them?’ Samuel asked of Mr Kelvin as they hovered over pages of sums that evening.

  Mr Kelvin seemed to start, but then took the spectacles from his face and sat back in his chair, looking thoughtful. One of the two narrow arms that held his spectacles in place went absent-mindedly into his mouth and he sucked on it. It was a habit that he had developed since beginning Samuel’s tutoring. After a thoughtful moment, he spoke. ‘That’s an interesting and often discussed question, Samuel. All things are composed of and filled with energy, like the warmth you feel on your skin on a sunny day. That’s one form of energy. There are many others that we have discovered and examined or merely theorised upon. It is too complicated to discuss with you now, but energy is always moving; that’s why we call it energy, I suppose. Are you following me?’ Samuel nodded. He thought he did, just a little bit. ‘Good. Now, energy in one place can often affect energy in another place without actually touching it. It’s all to do with harmony and frequencies, but I’ll tell you about those another day.’ Mr Kelvin withdrew his spectacles and let them dangle loosely from his fingers as he quickly thought to himself. ‘Oh, here.’

  He thrust his hand into one of his deep pockets and rummaged around until he withdrew a fistful of tiny objects. He poked through the lint and tiny pebbles that were amongst the other curious little objects there until he found what he sought and popped it on the desk before Samuel.

  ‘Look closely,’ Mr Kelvin instructed.

  Samuel did, and saw a small, dark stone of squarish proportions. Stuck to it were several tiny black grains. Mr Kelvin used an edge of paper to knock the grains from the stone. As they fell away and struck the d
esk, they immediately sprang back and stuck onto the stone. Samuel was astonished.

  ‘The stone has become magnetised,’ Mr Kelvin informed. ‘The grains are attracted to it because of their metallic properties. Now observe.’

  Mr Kelvin then pulled the grains off with his fingers and dropped them onto a thin piece of paper. He then held the paper up and, with his other hand, held the stone to its underside. As he slid the stone up and down under the paper, the tiny grains raced along, following the trail of the stone.

  ‘See, the energy passes between the two objects without their direct contact. This is influence over distance. The energy that exists in our bodies, although it is very different, can often affect other objects similarly, such as the space closely surrounding us. Each person has a natural sphere of influence that surrounds them. It is merely a side effect of our existence. Like the ripples that surround a pebble dropped into a still pool, so our existence affects our environment.’

  ‘Can you see my energy, Mr Kelvin?’ Samuel asked eagerly.

  ‘Oh, no,’ he laughed, ‘but I’m sure you have some. This particular energy is invisible to the human eye. Some have been said to have the gift of such sight, but they were among myths and legend. Now, enough of such talk. We must finish this division before we completely forget where we are.’ Mr Kelvin began to sort the papers he had disturbed for his demonstration. ‘Now where were we?’ he asked of himself.

  That same night, Samuel again awoke and again climbed up onto the stable roof, feeling sure that the tickling in his bones had some meaning. Sure enough, the room was again lit. Mr Geoffries and Mr Copperpot both were there, sitting with legs crossed, completely still except for the matching, rhythmical motion of their chests. The energy that surrounded each man grew and spun with each deep breath, pulsing out and intermingling with the other’s. Samuel fell asleep watching them, and only awoke sometime later when he nearly rolled off the roof. Samuel looked up, but the room was again empty and dark and the night was cold around him. People did have an energy around them and only then did the realisation sink into him that he alone, perhaps of all the people in the world, could see it. He had some unique ability that no one else would even believe. As Samuel crept back into his bed, his skin was bristling with goosebumps, but the cold of night had nothing to do with them.