Magic University Book One: The Siren and the Sword

by Cecilia Tan

  “If you want to match, you could always go as The Joker or something,” Kyle suggested as they began to look through a book of costumes on the counter.

  “Ha, ha, very funny,” Alex said.

  “Is something wrong?” Kyle had never heard Alex quite so moody.

  “Oh just, you know, no one believes I take anything seriously, so, of course, The Joker.” He flipped the pages disinterestedly.

  “That isn’t what I meant at all.” Kyle frowned. “But you do give the impression that you don’t take anything seriously, you know.”

  “I know.” Alex fell silent, closing the book and moving to a rack to browse through some outfits.

  Kyle tagged along. He had already gotten his costume—a cheap-ass drugstore model, but it would do. The mask was the important thing, he figured.

  He’d also tried writing a poem for Jess. He imagined they would get hot and thirsty from dancing, and they would take a break, walking away from the noise and energy of the dance floor into somewhere cool and quiet and shadowed, and then he would recite his poem, words that would finally make clear to her how he truly felt. Her dream would come true, and so would his. Happily ever after.

  Except that every poem he’d tried to write this week had been utter drivel.

  Maybe I should just find one of Longfellow’s...? But reciting the work of another, even a vaunted ancestor, wasn’t the same. Inspiration will come. It will.

  He tried again with Alex. “There are plenty of other heroes or villains to choose from, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “The Riddler? Mr. Freeze? Spiderman?”

  “I don’t want a costume that hides my face and hair.”

  “Okay, Superman? Um, Wonder Woman?”

  Alex let out a laugh. “Cross-dressing is a time-honored tradition for this holiday, after all...and let me tell you, I look great in fishnet stockings.”

  “Ugh, I’m not sure I needed that image in my head.”

  Alex pulled out something on a hanger. “Hmm. Maybe I could pull off a pirate. Not the fancy kind like Captain Morgan or something, but more...yeah. I could put a hoop in my ear and borrow a parrot.” Kyle followed Alex up to the second floor, where Alex proceeded to spend the next hour hunting out the perfect shirt, breeches, headscarf, sash belt, and so on from the racks and rack and racks of clothing on display there. Even better, when he was done, he paid under $20 for his acquisitions. Kyle was amazed.

  “Finding a bargain...finding just about anything, is one of my aptitudes,” Alex explained when they were on their way down the stairs. When they reached the street, Kyle turned to the right back toward the train, but Alex said, “You hungry? My aptitude says there’s something delicious this direction.” He pointed the opposite way.

  “Um, sure.”

  They walked further up the street, where it turned residential, trees lining the curbs in front of wooden houses built in Victorian times.

  “So are you being serious?” Kyle pressed, as they turned down a side street. “About finding things?”

  Alex shrugged. “Yeah. It’s a tricky one, though. Doesn’t always work, just like how soothsaying is on and off for most people.”

  “If your aptitude is on and off,” Kyle said, “then how do you figure out what you’re doing is magic?”

  “Well, if you’re making something levitate, or things appear out of thin air, it probably doesn’t take more than once or twice for you to be convinced. But subtler things...you know how they say third time’s the charm? If you do something three times, it really starts to seem for real, doesn’t it?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Kyle said, a little glumly.

  “Buck up, Ace, you’ll figure it out.” Alex punched him lightly on the arm. “Let’s talk about something more cheerful. Like…how you and Jess are doing.”

  Kyle’s laugh was wry. “We’re doing well.”

  “But? I can hear a ‘but’ there.”

  It was Kyle’s turn to shrug. “But I don’t think she takes me seriously. I mean, not as seriously as I take her. She’s great, she’s wonderful to me. The time we spend together is amazing.” He blushed a little but knew Alex already was privy to what their sex life was like. “We never fight, and every time I see her I just get more and more into her.”

  “That’s how she was with me when we dated for like two months last year. Really fun to be around, seemed to like me plenty, but…”

  “But what?”

  “But I got out before I got sucked in any deeper, because I knew I wasn’t ‘the one’ for her.”

  “The one?”

  “Don’t you get the feeling you’re just a...an appetizer, while she’s waiting for the main course?”

  Huh. Maybe Alex had the aptitude for picking the right words. “Yeah, that’s exactly how I feel. I...I kind of hope things change at the ball, though.”

  “Oh?” Now Alex was looking at him as they walked, curiosity at full burn.

  “Well, yeah. Okay, here’s why. She told me she had a dream she’s going to meet her true love at a costume party. I feel like, well, this is falling right into my lap. How can I not grab the chance?”

  “Hmm. Well, Fate is like that sometimes.” Alex pushed open the front door on a restaurant that looked like a house. Inside, there was a counter to order food from, and a few small tables scattered around. A radio was playing some kind of Spanish music. One portion of the menu seemed to be regular submarine sandwiches, but all the rest, as Alex explained it, pointing to the lists of dishes posted above the counter, was Puerto Rican food.

  “Is that like Mexican food?” Kyle asked.

  “No. Not really. How hungry are you? I’ll order. Go snag a table.”

  Kyle took a seat near the door, while Alex talked for a while with the man behind the counter, then came and sat down. What came next was a steady stream of food served up on Styrofoam plates. Thin seared steak with rice and beans and fried bananas. A bowl of goat stew. Some kind of little doughy meat pies.

  And somehow, again, the bill came to under $20.

  When they were nearly back at the train, stomachs completely full and the prospect of a mid-afternoon nap looming, Kyle asked, “So that was really the price, right? You didn’t put the whammy on them or something?”

  Alex’s voice was scathing. “The. Whammy.”

  “You know what I mean!”

  Alex laughed, relenting. “You mean, did I use the Jedi Mind Trick to get them to undercharge us?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No. No, I didn’t. They’re both just dirt-cheap places.” He started down the stairs to the train platform.

  “So that’s just one of those things that only happens in fairy tales?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You mean you really could do something like that?”

  “Kyle, Kyle, Kyle, you’re going to have to learn to speak more precisely. It’s exactly that kind of sloppy jumping to conclusions that leads mundanes into trouble in all the stories, isn’t it?” Alex chuckled to himself. “It’s too bad the train is automated now. I don’t have the touch with machines that I do with people. I could always talk my way on when there were human attendants. Oh, shit, here it comes...”

  He jumped down the last two steps and went through the gate while Kyle was still fumbling to get his wallet out of his pocket. He pressed it against the reader pad and the gate swung open to let him through as well.

  He looked up at Alex, who was standing at the yellow line, waiting for the train’s doors to open. Had he really gotten his transit card out? Kyle had been busy with his own, so maybe he had and Kyle had missed it.

  Alex gave him a sly half smile and stepped into the car.

  * * * *

  The night before the ball, Kyle was getting desperate. Poem after poem turned out to be junk. Jess had even been the one who told him love potions didn’t work, but that love poems did. Had she been sort of asking him to try it? He tore up a whole page of flower and fruit metaphors.
Finally he decided that he needed a break and he made his way down to the Gladius dining hall, where around ten o’clock each night, they would put out snacks for those staying up late to study.

  He was nearly knocked down in the doorway by someone trying to leave the room in great haste, someone with silk-straight black hair and glasses. He just barely dodged Michael Candlin, Frost’s boyfriend, as he escaped.

  Kyle stepped cautiously into the room to see Frost on his feet at one end of a table, as if he’d just stood, and Master Brandish making herself a cup of tea at the hot drinks stand. A few students sat against the back wall.

  Kyle made his way to the snack display, where chocolate chip cookies—some of them laced with M&Ms—were laid out, still slightly warm. He put three into a napkin, took a small carton of milk, and made as if to leave.

  “Wadsworth.”

  Kyle stopped in front of the table where Frost had seated himself again. “Frost.” He had a feeling the House Master was watching them, but didn’t dare turn to look.

  “Found an aptitude yet?” Frost arched one jet black eyebrow.

  “Figured out what you’re wearing to the ball yet?” Kyle shot back, a weak rejoinder but mostly he just wanted to be out of this conversation as quickly as possible.

  Frost snorted. “There are much better things to do on All Hallow’s Eve than dance around in a stupid costume,” he said. “Especially if you’re trying to tap into your as-yet-unreached well of power.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Isn’t that girlfriend of yours a Ritual Arts major? Ask her. She’ll no doubt have some suggestions.”

  Jess was actually angling towards Healing Arts and hadn’t declared yet, but Kyle didn’t say that. I can’t whine to Jess any more about being a late bloomer. Right now I don’t want her focused on my faults and deficiencies. “Well, and how are you going to be spending the holiday?”

  “Why don’t you meet me on the roof of William James Hall at ten o’clock and find out?” Frost’s blue eyes glittered.

  “I’ve already got a date, thanks,” Kyle shot back.

  “Oh ho. Well. Bring her.” Frost got to his feet and picked up his tray. He passed very close to Kyle as he went to dump out his trash. Kyle could have sworn that when they met, they were the same height, but now he couldn’t see the top of Frost’s head. It did seem Frost liked to act bigger than those around him; maybe he wore platform shoes?

  Frost left the room. Kyle could still hear the clinking of Master Brandish’s teaspoon in her mug and knew she had been watching the entire scene.

  Kyle hurried out as well before anything else could go wrong.

  * * * *

  On Halloween morning, he received a letter from Great-Aunt Agatha.

  Dearest Kyle, it began, which he couldn’t help but hear in an ironic tone. Very little was dear to Agatha other than her very old, half-blind tomcat Mr. Whiskers, and her attic full of old furniture and junk.

  I hope you are doing well at Harvard. I still do not know what to tell the neighbors about your sudden departure as your explanation about the professor in immediate need of a fellowship student assistant is still very plainly hogwash to me, young man, and so I am loath to repeat it. I have been instead acting as if they are the ones who are confused. “What? You knew Kyle was accepted to Harvard, didn’t you? Oh yes, didn’t you realize it was this year he was going?” That of course works with many, but there are those who would think I have gone out of my mind except for the fact that you are very definitely Not In Evidence. Therefore I must either be telling the truth or I’ve hidden your body somewhere. I resent greatly that you have put me in this position, and I would at least appreciate something from you that I can show them that a normal college freshman would send to his family. I am enclosing twenty dollars in case that should help.

  “Jeez, Agatha, I can tell you really miss me, too,” he said sarcastically. What did the neighbors think? First Jove, then Kyle? He doubted the neighbors even noticed. He nearly crumpled up the letter, but instead took the twenty dollars down to the Coop and bought a shirt that said “Harvard” in large letters across the top, centered over the shield-like logo reading VE-RI-TAS. He then spent an hour trying to take pictures of himself on the steps of Widener Library with his cell phone camera and mostly failing until he saw Yoshi coming out of the library.

  “Yosh! Can you help me?”

  “What up, dog?” Yoshi always sounded to Kyle like nearly everything he said was a question. Something about his accent and the way his eyebrows went up and made his eyes seem very wide and inquisitive. Yoshi seemed to aspire to the “cool” of a pop star, his clothes often looking like something straight from a music video, but his face never managed the pouty disdain or artful smolder that would match.

  “I’m trying to take a picture of myself to print out and send to my great aunt to prove I’m really at Harvard.” Kyle handed him the phone with the camera set to go.

  Yoshi examined the camera. “You need megapixels! Use mine?” He pulled a phone out of his jacket pocket.

  “Okay, but hurry.” Kyle rubbed his bare arms. It was a bit chilly to be standing out there without a jacket.

  Yoshi backed down several steps, then Kyle heard the sound effect of a camera shutter and was surprised to even see a flash.

  Yoshi hurried back up to show him the results on a screen much larger and clearer than the one on Kyle’s crappy phone. “You look awesome? Very cool. Very fly, my man. E-mail?”

  “Um, sure. Yeah, that works.”

  Kyle pulled his jacket back on and thanked Yoshi for the help, then headed off to one of the places on campus he could get the file and print it. He wondered if perhaps he could return the shirt now and get the money back—trying to stretch his unspent book stipend to last to the end of the semester was already going to be a challenge, but in the end he decided he liked the shirt. An hour later he had printed the photo nicely, and mailed it in a nice envelope with a brief letter which said nothing of consequence.

  He was sure Agatha would take one look at it, then probably never take it out of the envelope again. Her mantel was covered with photos of other family members, and she even had one of Jove, but in all the time Kyle had lived with her, she’d never put up one of him.

  Whatever. Agatha was in the past. In the present, he still had a poem to write.

  * * * *

  Putting on his costume alone in his room, Kyle wondered if maybe he should have gone over to Camella House and gotten dressed with the rest of them. Then maybe he wouldn’t be turning back and forth in front of the mirror wondering whether the entire thing looked remarkably stupid.

  The weather was too cold to just wear the costume as it was, so he’d put a shirt on under it, but then it looked too bulky, so he had taken it off again. The tights for his legs were so thin, it felt like the breeze was blowing right up his ass crack, honestly. It was a little better with the cape and cowl on, though. Maybe it would be all right. It would be kind of dark in the dance hall anyway, and he decided he had just better stop worrying about it. He was committed to this course of action.

  He was meeting Jess in the front of Lowell House, one of the non-magical residential houses. The Lowell dining hall was large enough to host a dance for a few hundred people, something none of the magical houses could boast. Kyle wondered if it could be a problem, having a bunch of magical revelers in a building where so many mundanes lived, but then they shared classroom buildings every day and no one seemed to blink.

  The sun had set, but it didn’t seem too cold just yet.

  Lindy and Jeanie came up to him, holding hands. Kyle attempted not to blink or look shocked—had he known they were a couple? Or was it part of their costuming for the night? Lindy was wearing a black wig and was dressed like belly dancer, while Jeanie looked...sort of like a geisha, maybe?

  “Wow, Kyle, impressive package,” Jeanie said, then reddened, her hand over her mouth, while Lindy laughed.

  “Yeah, nice tig
hts,” she added.

  “Um, you guys are...”

  Jeanie uncovered her mouth. “You really have no idea, do you?”

  “I’m Jasmine, she’s Mulan. We convinced Marjory to come as Cinderella, have you seen her? And Marigold is going to be Snow White, and Kate... I can’t remember who Kate was going to be.” Lindy tapped her finger against her pursed lips.

  “Ariel?” Jeanie guessed. “What other Disney princesses are there?”

  “Oh, right. I think she decided on Pocahontas, though. And Monica was going to do Ariel since she doesn’t like dancing that much.”

  Monica was Jess’s roommate, whom Kyle almost never saw since Jess always planned his visits to coincide with her absence. He nodded like he’d known all along what their common theme was—somehow Disney princesses wouldn’t have probably been high on his list. Then again, what other common theme could he come up with that could accommodate so many girls? He wondered if Jess felt left out. “I haven’t seen Marjory yet, but I’ve only been standing here for a few minutes. Did you guys see Jess?”

  “She was already gone when we left, I think?” Lindy said, looking around. “She might have come here with her costume to change into it here. I think that’s what Marjory was planning to do. Maybe they’re together.”

  Marjory was the resident tutor on the Camella House third floor. Kyle had met her a few times in passing. She was a grad student in Esoteric Studies, but he didn’t know her well. Jess talked about her some because Marjory was someone she had spoken with a lot regarding which major to pick.

  “Oh. My. God.” Lindy’s eyes were wide, looking at someone over Kyle’s shoulder.

  Kyle turned quickly, his cape swirling, and caught sight of a woman in black stiletto boots and a skintight black suit, carrying a bullwhip. She had a panther-like slink to her walk, hips rolling, and a black mask around her eyes, and...