The Spell-Bound Scholar

by Christopher Stasheff

  'Those?" Orma followed the pointing finger. "Cloth. Finny. Many different kinds and colors of cloth."

  "All that cloth?" Finny stared; it was ever so much prettier than the brown and gray homespun the big children wove at home.

  "And look! The cabinetmaker!" Orma pointed and Finny looked, but it wasn't anywhere nearly as exciting—only an old man scraping curls from some sticks with a strange sort of double-handled knife, though she had to admit the chairs and tables about him were much prettier than the ones Papa made.

  "Nyah-nyah! Little foundlings!"

  Finny turned to stare at the four richly dressed boys who were thumbing their noses at the girls. Orma stood her straightest and turned Finny's head frontward. "Don't look, Finny. Don't pay them any attention at all!"

  "Didn't have a father." two of the boys chanted in derisive singsong. "Never knew your mother!"

  "If I knew theirs, they'd be in trouble quickly," Orma assured her.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Finny saw Rhea and Agnes marching with their eyes stiffly ahead.

  "Walk away," two more boys taunted, " 'cause your mommy couldn't stay!"

  It was strange, the menace Finny felt from the boys, and the thoughts they were emitting weren't nice at all, almost like a bad smell. There were pictures with them, ugly, naked pictures that made her shiver.

  Orma noticed. "Close your mind," she muttered.

  Finny thought about apples. It was very hard, with those

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  horrible thoughts coming out of the boys, but she managed to think only of apples—and maybe a pear or two.

  "That's right, don't bother with us," one of the boys called, "just like your mommy didn't bother with you."

  Finny felt her face growing hot even though she didn't know why. She glanced up and saw that Orma's and Agnes's faces were red.

  "Hey, love child, how about a kiss for me?" one of the boys taunted.

  "All right!" Orma cried, and turned toward the boys. "Come on, Agnes!"

  Finny stared in surprise as the girls ran at the boys, their lips puckered grotesquely, arms reaching out. The boys made noises of disgust, but their minds leaked fright as they turned and ran.

  Finny crowed with delight and clapped her hands.

  Orma and Agnes came back red-faced but smiling. "It's a good thing they were young," Orma said, taking Finny's hand again. "Don't ever try that with big boys."

  "Why not?" Finny asked.

  "Because they might kiss back."

  "Ugh!" The thought of kissing somebody with a mind like that made Finny feel sick. She decided never to try it.

  "So there you are!"

  She looked up and saw Papa and the boys coming toward them, grinning.

  "We sold the pigs for a very good price," Papa said, "and made even more on the grain! Come along! Candy for everyone!"

  The candy was sweet and the whole family was laughing and joking as the big people drank from cups that foamed while they watched the acrobats performing in the town square. After the acrobats came a puppet show, then a minstrel who sang funny songs that made them all laugh. They had so much fun that Finny almost forgot about the nasty boys.

  Almost. But in the wagon on the way home, a tired little Finny sat in Dory's lap and rested her head on her big sister's shoulder. She didn't know how to feel. Town was a wonder-

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  ful place, the candy had been a rare treat, and everything had been so exciting—but there were the horrible names the town children had called them. "Dory," she asked, "why do they hate us?"

  "Because we're not like them, dear," Dory said. "It's us against them, and they know it."

  "Maybe they'd like us if we lived in town."

  "No," Dory said, "because our real mothers left us on Mama's doorstep. They were too poor to keep us, you see. Then they married rich men in the village and kept the rest of their children. That's why those children jeer at us—it makes them feel better than us."

  "It's so hard not to give them tummyaches or headaches!"

  "Yes, but you didn't, and I'm proud of you. If you had, the whole village would have come marching out to our farm and tried to hurt us all."

  That thought made Finny feel ashamed. "Dory—is there something wrong with being mind readers?"

  Dory gave a sharp gasp, then tightened her arms protectively around her little foster sister. "Of course not, darling. Mind readers are special. The others call us 'witches,' but we aren't that at all. We don't really work magic, we just have special gifts—and we certainly don't have anything to do with the Devil!"

  " 'Course not," Finny said. "Papa says the Devil is just another prince, and princes always hurt people."

  "The Prince of Lies, yes. No, we'd never have anything to do with that. The village people wouldn't believe us, though. Their jealousy is so sharp that it would make them hate us if they knew we were mind readers—hate us so much that they would call us witches and burn us at the stake!"

  "Burn us!" Finny sat bolt upright, horrified.

  "But they won't, because we won't let them know," Dory said. "Will we, Finny?"

  The little girl shook her head, eyes round.

  "So all in all, it's better that they call us foundlings and feel that they're better than us, isn't it?"

  Finny made an "O" with her lips as she understood.

  Dory smiled. "That's right, dear. That's why we just ignore

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  them when they call us names and don't try to hurt them— because there are more unpleasant names they could call us. There are worse things than being a bastard."

  "Such as a villager," Jason said, and the boys laughed.

  Finny didn't laugh, but she snuggled up against Dory again. All in all, she decided, the farm was much nicer than the rest of the world.

  Forever after, though, she looked at the villagers, and the rest of the nonpsi world, as strange and threatening, even though she knew she was better than they were—though deep in her heart, she would also know that she wasn't even as good as they were. After all, she was a foundling.

  There were many trips to town after that; they went four times a year, and the biggest girls took turns staying home with the babies and the toddlers. The town children were always mean to them. The girls would come out wearing their prettiest dresses right where Finny and her foster sisters couldn't help see, and talk about how horrible it must be to be poor. The boys just called them names.

  That changed when Finny turned twelve and her body began to change, though.

  CHAPTER

  -19-

  By the time she was fourteen, Finny had begun to take her turn disciplining and teaching the younger children. She had also developed some very pronounced curves and a face that made the town boys whistle when they saw her, but there was still something threatening about them. When they called for kisses, she didn't go chasing them anymore. Instead, she and the other girls scolded them, refusing to be treated with disrespect, but the attention gave her a glow and made her feel special. More than that, it made her feel powerful in a strange way. When that feeling came upon her, the boys stared, then began to talk to her in admiration, and her foster sisters began to be envious—but when the boys crowded close to try to fondle, the girls drove them away with slaps, the power of which was increased by telekinesis.

  At home, she would catch her foster brothers watching her with open admiration now and then, though most of the time they only talked with her as they always had—after all, she was only Finny and they'd known her all her life. But there was a new note of respect in their tones now, something notably absent from the town boys' voices, and it kindled that warm, powerful feeling again.

  Finister found that remembering that feeling and letting it build made her foster brothers vie with one another to help her with her chores.

  "That bucket must be too heavy for you, Finny!"

  4 'Oh, no, Jason. I can manage it easily."

  "
Nonsense. Here, I'll carry it. Aren't Mama's flowers beautiful this year?"

  Then there would be a nice, close conversation that made her feel even more special. Finally she decided to try the

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  effect of that feeling on her foster father. She waited until they were alone in the keeping room at the end of one cold winter day. Papa sat down by the fire and she said, "Here, Papa, let me pull your boots off!" She bent to tug at his boot, then smiled up at him, letting the special feeling grow.

  'That's good of you, Finny," he said, then looked at her a second time, staring. "Why, Finny!" he exclaimed, "you're a projective empath!"

  "A what?" Finny asked, confused, and the special feeling went away.

  "Mama!" Papa leaped to his feet and went to the kitchen door. "Mama, come here! Our little girl is growing into a projective empath!"

  "Really?" Mama came bustling out, wiping her hands on her apron. "You must mean Finny! We've known for a long time that she's good at making people think she doesn't look like her real self. You mean she can project emotions, too?"

  "Project them and raise them in another person!" Papa turned to her. "Show Mama what you just did, Finny!"

  Finny wasn't at all sure she wanted Mama to know how she had charmed Papa—but the older woman was looking at her with such hope that it made her remember the few times Mama had been delighted when she'd been particularly deft with telekinesis and, hoping to receive that kind of approval again, she tried to remember the feeling the boys raised in her. She managed to recall it and let it grow—and grow, and grow.

  Orly came in with a load of firewood in his arms. He turned toward the fireplace and saw Finny. The wood clattered on the floor as his jaw dropped.

  "Yes, I see." Mama beamed, lit by a glow of her own. "How wonderful, Finny! But I think that's enough now." She looked up at Papa and said, "I think our little girl will go far."

  "Even to high places," Papa agreed, one arm around Mama's shoulders. "Congratulations, Finny! An ability like that is rare, very rare indeed!"

  "Unfair, too," Orly grumbled as he bent to pick up the wood.

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  "Oh here, let me help you!" Finny cried, all contrition. She knelt to pick up the logs, but Orly's breath hissed in and she straightened, staring. "I—I'm sorry, Orly."

  "Don't be," the teenager said. "It's been a horrible day, but you just made it a good one."

  His eyes were warm with admiration, but also with amusement. Finny smiled and helped him finish with the wood.

  When they were alone later that night, though, Mama had some very earnest words for her.

  "It's a gift with which you must be very careful, Finny. If you make a boy fall in love with you, he could become very angry when you spurn him—and very badly hurt inside. You could do a great deal of damage."

  Puzzled, Finny asked, "You mean I shouldn't use that gift?"

  "If you can project one emotion, you can project them all," Mama said slowly, "and raising pity or sympathy in somebody, or a sense of responsibility, can do a lot of good. If you fall in love with a boy, of course, you're going to want to try to make him fall in love with you—but strong though they may seem, boys aren't made of steel, you know."

  Finny looked doubtful. "You don't mean I could use that gift to hurt a boy, do you? I mean, do real damage."

  "You certainly could," Mama said, "and you must be careful not to, unless your commander orders it when you're grown up. If you play with boys' hearts carelessly, you could wreck homes, turn men into thieves, make them kill one another—all sorts of horrible things."

  Finny swelled inside with the feeling of power that gave her, even as her heart shrank from the thought of the guilt she would feel if she used her gift in such a way. "I'll be careful, Mama. I promise."

  She was, trying very hard not to let the special feeling leak out—though she couldn't keep it from rising whenever one of her foster brothers let slip a glance of admiration. She reminded herself that, when a boy smiled at her that way or whistled or came over to talk, it wasn't her face or figure that had attracted him but the warmth of the emotions that she had let slip out. She knew she was a cheat and a fake, but

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  she couldn't see any way to be anything else. She was born to be a deceiver and would have to live with that nature for the rest of her life.

  In town, Finister discovered a new and thoroughly acceptable use for her gift. When five of the girls went shopping and a gang of town boys gathered to heckle them, she let her special feeling grow and projected it. Then the boys began to sweet-talk her and she paid attention first to one, then to another, until she had them arguing over who would have the pleasure of escorting her back to Papa's wagon. Then she projected anger into them as she led her sisters away a step at a time, watching as the boys began to shove one another and shout insults. They forgot the girls as they began to fight in earnest, and Finny and her sisters made their escape. As soon as they were out of sight, they began to laugh at the boys' foolishness—but Orma didn't laugh and began to eye Finny with envy. That bothered her.

  In fact, her emotional growing pains were becoming strong enough that the schoolroom was something of a refuge. There Mama and Papa took turns teaching the more advanced subjects, such as physics, psychology, economics, and history— not just the history of old Earth but also of the whole Terran Sphere. They learned about SPITE, the Society for the Prevention of Integration of Telepathic Entities, the selfless and virtuous organization that spanned all the colonized planets and all of civilized time to try to save the people from tyranny—especially the tyranny of VETO, the Vigilant Exterminators of Telepathic Organisms, the totalitarian organization that tried to enslave all common people and make them labor at jobs that dulled the spirit until they became virtual robots, all in the name of the State. The inefficient and equivocating democratic governments weren't much better, according to Mama and Papa—they spent so much time vacillating and never making a decision that they left the people victims of Big Business, which was as willing to grind the workers into robots as VETO was, but also poisoned the people with the products it made them buy. Worst of all

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  was the DDT, a democratic government that was trying to subvert the government of Gramarye.

  All the children became very angry at the villainous VETO but even more at the sneaky DDT. Mama and Papa told them that if they became really skilled in their use of ESP, they would be allowed to join SPITE when they grew up and become Home Agents. Then they could help rid Gramarye of both VETO and the DDT. Finny began to realize that she could use her special gift to set the men in both organizations fighting each other the way the town boys had. Men were so easy to manipulate, after all.

  Now that they were old enough, Mama took the big girls aside and told them how they had probably come to be born—not by parents who wanted them but didn't have money enough to keep them, but by women who had let men seduce them with their lies and charms, get them pregnant, then abandon them. Those women may have wanted to keep their children, but having no husbands, they would have been hard-pressed to make enough money to live. Worse, once they were no longer virgins, few men would be willing to marry them, not without dowries, and they might have to become prostitutes. It was quite possible that several of the children could be half brothers or half sisters, the unwitting by-blows of their mothers' pathetic attempts to make a living—though most of the money they earned would have been taken by their pimps.

  Now Finny began to feel the hot, burning anger that would be with her the rest of her life, the urge for revenge upon the man who had seduced her unknown mother or forced her into prostitution. Since she didn't know who the man was, she would spend long years trying to revenge herself on any man who came by.

  Except for Orly, but he came later—at least, as something other than a brother.

  Mama and Papa knew which of their foster children were more tenderhearte
d than the others and knew that Finny was among them, so they didn't let her see a chicken beheaded until she was twelve. Even then, they told her to brace herself, described what she would see, and told her to erect her full

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  mental shield so that she would not feel the fowl's death pangs. They did tell her that it would be quick, and it was— but in her case, twelve was still too early; she was naturally a very sensitive and affectionate child, and it gave her nightmares. The next year, they let her start seeing sheep butchered, and at fourteen, pigs. It was horrifying and sent her into fits of tears, but Mama told her gently, "It's the way of the world, Finny. If we want to have chicken for dinner, we have to kill the chicken first—and if we want bacon and pork chops and pigskin to sell, we have to slaughter the pig and clean it. You'll learn to cope with it, dear. We all do, sooner or later."

  Finny tried, she tried very hard, though she couldn't stand to eat meat for months after each encounter. As the years went by, though, she managed to repress her horror and become herself a hardened butcher. Papa congratulated her when she beheaded her first chicken, and Mama herself made much of her. They both showered her with approval again when she butchered her first pig, then her first sheep—but when they were alone, Mama gathered Finny's head onto her breast and let the teenager weep. "I know it's hard, Finny, but the world is hard. It's a cruel place, and the only way to live in it is to become capable of cruelty yourself, and to harden your heart to others' pain."

  That was hard for a telepathic girl, very hard, but Finny learned how to make her mental shields more dense and managed it.

  The older girls started telling her about menstruation well before her courses began, so it was no shock to her, and she had a passage party just as the older girls had had. Afterward, though, Mama took her aside to make sure she understood how women became pregnant and to warn her against men who wanted to use her. Then her older sisters taught her how, even if a man did manage to seduce her, she could use telekinesis to keep from becoming pregnant. Finny listened intently and rehearsed as much of it as she could without a boy on whom to practice. She wasn't apt to remain a virgin forever, after all, though from everything she was hearing and from what she saw in the barnyard, she wasn't terribly interested in sex. Mama had made it quite clear that, since they