by Cecilia Tan
“Mr. Wadsworth, may I ask you a personal question?” Mistress Finch folded her hands in front of her.
“Um, sure, please.”
“Are you, by any chance, an orphan?”
He blinked. “Yes, I am, actually.”
“But is Wadsworth your family name?”
How did she know these things? "Yes, yes, it is.”
She paused. “Helena, did you find anything?”
The receptionist sighed. “Nothing, Ms. Finch.”
Okay, and why do the women call her Ms. Finch, but the dean call her Mistress Finch? He knew university society was supposedly different from everywhere else, but he’d never heard of that. Which one should he use? "Um, find what?”
“A record of your birth,” Ms. Finch answered. “Well, you are a mystery but hardly the first one, Mr. Wadsworth. I'll spell it out and see if it makes sense to you. The building you’re standing in right now is not a part of Harvard. Well, it is, but it isn’t. There’s a secret university inside Harvard, known as Veritas.”
Kyle blinked. “But isn’t that what’s on the signs outside? Harvard's motto...”
“The two institutions have an intertwined history,” she went on. “Harvard is for the elite scholars, the future leaders of the world. Veritas is for, well, those with more arcane talents.”
“Arcane?”
“Magical.”
“Magical?” Kyle could still hear the bell ringing in his head. “You mean like wizards?”
The student snorted behind her hand. “We prefer the term 'magic users.' 'Wizards' is so patriarchal and un-PC.”
Kyle shook his head, but although everything was as weird as some dream, it still seemed to be real. "So, sorry to be skeptical, but...you’re saying I’m magical?”
“You wouldn’t have even been able to see this building if you weren’t at least a little Sighted,” Ms. Finch said, "and you certainly wouldn’t have been able to sign the matriculation register if you didn’t have the power in your blood.”
He checked his finger reflexively, but the bleeding had stopped and he couldn’t even see where the pen had pricked him. “Um, the Dean didn’t seem as convinced.”
“Yes, well, that was another test. He has the power of Voice. If you’d been a non-magical person, you’d have simply turned and walked out as soon as he told you to.” Ms. Finch sighed. “We’re already two weeks into the semester, you haven’t registered for any classes, and we need to find you a place to live.”
Kyle looked back and forth between them. “You mean, start now? I, um, I’m supposed to, um...” Supposed to go back to a house where they didn’t want him, a school where he didn’t fit in, and count the days until he could leave. Maybe this was exactly the chance he had been waiting for. Hadn’t he felt like this weekend was going to be the first step into a new life? Maybe it was a bigger step than he’d thought. His skepticism shredded in the face of what felt like a real chance to change his life in a drastic way. “I mean, I’d love to start now.”
“You had better. If you were completely unaware of the magical world until now, you have a lot of catching up to do. Helena, could you call up Admissions and see if you can get his file? It’s hardly the first time we've had a mix-up between our office and theirs. Mr. Wadsworth, please make an appointment to see me, let’s see, tomorrow at four o'clock. My office is on the second floor here in Peyntree Hall, and we can figure out your schedule then, after I check with the professors on what kind of openings we have.” She paused and tapped her finger against her lips while she thought.
“I can take him over to Camella House,” the student offered then. “We've got that foldout couch in our suite. And actually, come to think of it, Alex doesn’t have a roommate and he’s in a double.”
Ms. Finch debated for a moment. “Just for a few days, that sounds fine. He can draw cards later. Yes, Miss Torralva, I’d appreciate it if you could give Mr. Wadsworth here a bit of orientation.”
“No problem, Ms. Finch.” She stuck out her hand to shake Kyle’s as Ms. Finch left the room. “I’m Jess Torralva. I’m a sophomore. You hungry? We could grab some pizza out in the Square, or do you have a suitcase somewhere that we ought to move up to the dorm?”
“Oh, um, yeah, it’s at the bed and breakfast I stayed in last night.” He followed her out the heavy doors and back down the stone steps. “So...'magic users' eat pizza?”
“Oh yeah. With newt’s eyes and toadstools, though,” she said, completely deadpan for a moment. Then she burst out laughing. “My Goddess, the look on your face!”
He grinned. “Anchovy and mushroom okay? Yeah? Okay, I'll buy.” This day was getting better and better. First he thought he was going to go to Harvard. Then he found out he was somehow magical. And now he was going to have lunch with a pretty girl who seemed really nice and down to earth and didn’t treat him like he was some kind of pond scum. Yes, a whole new world seemed to be opening up before his eyes.
THEY MADE THEIR WAY back to the suite where Jess lived in Camella House, another red brick building not that different from the others all around Harvard, Kyle noticed, though perhaps a bit smaller than some. It was three stories tall, with about fifty students in residence. The suite was a central room on the third floor with two beat-up couches, a coffee table, and a large TV screen. There were doors to what Kyle took to be several bedrooms. Down the hall was a very small kitchen. Students had decorated their doors in various ways; some had notepads or white boards for people to leave messages, and it all looked, well, completely normal.
He and Jess had bought two pizzas and brought them back to the suite to eat. As they walked in, a shaggy-headed student was closing his door. “Ho, Jess, is that for sharing?”
“Yes, Alex, it is,” she said as she put the boxes down on the coffee table.
“Did you hear the bell ringing? Any clue what that’s about?” Alex said as he eagerly tossed himself into an armchair, whatever errand he had been on forgotten. “I’ve never heard it ring so many times in a row,” Alex added.
Jess didn’t say anything about the bell that had tolled when Kyle had signed the ledger. “Alex, this is Kyle. As of today, I guess, he’s a freshman.” She sat down on the couch and opened the box on top. Steam rose from the pizza and Kyle’s stomach growled as he sat down next to her.
“Yeah, hi, Kyle Wadsworth,” he said, holding out his hand for Alex to shake, and they both reached for a slice. “Um...”
Jess grinned. “He thought he was going to Harvard.”
Alex's eyebrows went up at that. “A foundling? When did they figure out you belonged here?”
Kyle stopped with the slice partway to his mouth. “Um, just today. I walked into the Veritas admissions office by mistake.”
Alex looked back at Jess. “The bell was ringing for him?”
Jess nodded, nibbling carefully at the tip of her slice of pizza.
“The bell rang like...fourteen times.”
“Is that bad?” Kyle asked, unable to contain his anxiety any longer. “I signed my name in this book and...”
Alex waved him off. “No, it’s not bad. Just...unusual. When it rings, it means you’ve been accepted. It only rang twice for me. Although for Jess here, I think it rang six or seven?”
Jess shrugged, as if it was of no consequence.
Kyle forced himself to take a bite before getting sucked deeper into the conversation. “What’s a foundling?”
Alex drew a long string of cheese from his slice with his mouth as two more students came in and Jess waved them over. When he’d snapped it off and devoured it, he went on. “Foundlings are usually magical children who get raised by non-magical families. Oftentimes they've got no clue about the kid. It’s pretty common, actually. History's full of them. It’s a problem, because fertility among magic users isn’t great to begin with...” He shrugged. “I guessed foundling and not prodigy because of your name. There were some magical Wadsworths a couple generations back.”
Kyle had managed to wol
f down the rest of the piece while Alex was talking. “Prodigy?”
Alex investigated the second box and grunted with approval at finding the black olives. “Prodigy. Like Lindy here.”
A girl with chestnut brown hair, suddenly sitting cross-legged at the end of the table and had a bite of pizza in her mouth so she couldn’t answer, waved with her free hand.
“Lindy's from a non-magical family, and far as anyone knows she’s the natural daughter of her mother and father, but she’s got the Sight, among other talents.” Alex turned to Jess. “Did you get anything to drink?”
“There’s soda in the fridge,” Jess said, nudging him in the direction of the small refrigerator in one corner of the room. “Anyway, Kyle, it doesn’t matter how you got your magic. Just what you do with it.”
Kyle got the feeling Jess was arguing a point she’d had to make many times before, and he wondered if she was a prodigy, too, and if there was some kind of stigma attached to that.
Lindy wiped her hands on her jeans. “Nice to meet you, I’m Lindy Carmichael. And this is Jeanie,” she said, indicating the Asian-looking girl standing behind her. “And that’s Randall, going into his room there.”
A heavyset student in a polo shirt waved over his shoulder as he went into his room and put his books down. When he emerged, Kyle was surprised to see he was black, but with his hair bleached completely blond. “Hello. Randall.” His hand was large and warm as he shook Kyle’s. “And no, it’s not my natural color. You can blame Alex for this.”
Alex chuckled. “Yeah, horrible spellcasting accident.”
“Really?” Kyle’s eyes widened.
Randall snorted and took a seat, and a slice of pizza. “No. But let us just say that hydrogen peroxide and ethanol do not mix.”
“That’s Randall's way of saying don’t get drunk if you have a bottle of hair bleach,” Alex said with a sly shrug. “It seemed like a good idea at the time...”
“You could dye it back, you know,” Jess pointed out.
Randall answered with a shrug of his own. “Why pretend it didn’t happen? It will grow out, anyway. We’re here to learn, right? Let’s call it a learning experience and move on.”
Kyle couldn’t quite place Randall's accent. Something Caribbean, he guessed, but he wasn’t sure. It wasn’t like Rastafarian, and he didn’t really have much experience with people from that part of the world.
They ate for a while after that, the various suitemates catching up with each other, but eventually the topic came back around to Kyle and the bell.
“So, wait,” Lindy said. “You had no idea at all? Just walked in?”
“And got trampled by Dean Bell,” Jess added. “Fortunately Madeleine was there to rescue him.”
“Mwahaha,” Alex laughed maniacally. “And a good thing, too, or Master Bell might have made a snack out of you.”
Kyle laughed too, but blinking in confusion, still not sure where the jokes ended and real things started.
“Pffft. Dean Bell's bark is worse than his bite,” Jeanie said, prompting more laughs from the others.
“So what house is he going to be in?” Randall asked.
“Ours, obviously,” Alex said, now drinking from an open can of cola, his bare feet up on his chair.
“Well, temporarily,” Jess said. “I told Madeleine he could crash here until she figures out where he’s going. She said he would have to pull cards later.”
“Cards?” Kyle said, feeling like most of what he’d said in the past hour had been one-word questions.
“Cards! There’s an idea.” Alex climbed out of his chair, going directly over the arm toward the door to his room, and then coming back with a pack of cards. “Has anyone ever done a Tarot reading for you?”
“An old lady read my palm once, on the boardwalk in Santa Cruz...”
Alex waved him quiet. “No, no. I mean with Tarot cards.”
Jess moved the pizza boxes aside and Alex spread his deck out on the low table, face up. Kyle peered at the pictures, which were more colorful and varied than typical playing cards, and yet still resembled them somewhat. Alex gathered them back up and shuffled the deck.
The others all watched, a sense of anticipation filling the room. “This isn’t going to hurt or anything, is it?” Kyle asked.
“The truth always hurts,” Jeanie quipped, and they all laughed, but it wasn’t a cruel laugh.
Alex held out the deck. “Cut the cards, then pull one out.”
“Okay.” Kyle took the pack, cut it in the middle and set it down on the table, pulling the top card and looking at it. “Am I supposed to show it to you?”
Alex grinned. “Yes, you’re supposed to show it to me. What do you think this is, a magic trick? Oh, duh.” More laughter. “Go on.”
Kyle slapped it down on the table like a blackjack dealer and Jess and Lindy gasped.
“The Ace of Swords,” Alex said solemnly. Kyle waited for him to break into a grin, but his face remained serious.
Kyle finally turned to Jess. “What’s that mean?”
Lindy made a scornful noise. “It doesn’t mean anything. Alex isn’t a soothsayer and probably neither are you. But the swords are the suit of Gladius House. Here in Camella, we’re the cups. The Ace does usually refer to someone on the start of a journey...”
Jeanie snorted. “No wonder you only got a B on that exam. The Ace of Swords, without any other context, usually means The Hero. Think Prince Charming with his sword drawn, going off to slay a dragon.”
Randall made a skeptical noise. “It can also signify the beginning of a great intellectual journey, though. The blade is Occam's Razor, and the light you see shining in the card is the light of reason.”
Alex rubbed his hands together gleefully. “Draw two more cards, Kyle. Let’s have one that’s past and one that’s future.”
Kyle nodded, but hesitated with his hand over the deck. “Should I cut again? Or shuffle again?”
“You should do whatever you feel is right,” Jess said seriously.
Her dark, dark eyes seemed to be telling him everything would be all right if he just went with the flow. Kyle let out a breath. “Okay.”
He turned up two more cards. An appreciative murmur went around the table. “Your past, three of pentacles. Your future, three of cups.”
“Cups, that’s you guys, right?” The card showed three young women, dancing and drinking, looking very happy and festive.
Alex grinned. “Could be. The three of cups tends to mean good luck. Everything's going to work out. There'll be abundance and plenty.”
“Three is the magic number?” Kyle tried.
Alex nodded. “You catch on quick. The three of coins here means hard work. You worked hard to get here.”
Randall pointed to the cards. “It’s usually meant as a pinnacle of craft, though. Given that you don’t know anything at all about magic, yes, I guess Alex is right. You worked hard to get to Harvard, I guess.”
Alex tapped the deck of cards. “And now for a prediction on what will happen to you...tonight.” Kyle could practically hear a drum roll in the background. Alex tapped the deck again. “Go on, pull one more, Kyle.”
Kyle put his hand on the top card, then turned it over slowly. The card showed two people, naked, in a close embrace. A very close embrace.
“The Lovers,” Alex said, solemn again, then gave a sly look to Jess. “Perhaps you won’t be sleeping on the couch after all...?”
Jess was blushing a deep red, but wasn’t making any protestations. Kyle’s eyes were probably as big as saucers. “Um, I, Jess...”
Jeanie got to her feet and made a disgusted sound. “Really, Alex, sleight of hand? Why don’t you show him the other card you have up your sleeve?”
Kyle looked back and forth between them. “That was a trick?”
Jeanie wrinkled her nose. “He’s also got the Three of Swords. Go on, show him.”
Alex sheepishly pulled the card from his sleeve, handing it to Kyle. It showed a red he
art, pierced through by three swords. “It means heartbreak, obviously,” Alex said.
Jess got to her feet. “Come on, Kyle. Let me show you the library and some of the other campus buildings. We'll leave the card tricks to the jokers.”
Kyle followed her, wondering what exactly had just happened.
JESS WAS THE PERFECT hostess for the next few hours: polite, friendly, but a little distant as she took him around the campus, showing him some facilities shared between the magical students and the normal ones, like the bookstore and the swimming pool; and the ones for magical students only, like Mormallor Hall, where the Alchemy labs were, and the Sassamon Ritual Arts building, which housed many magical artifacts, museum-style, and had a large underground chamber that reminded Kyle of a cathedral, except it was perfectly round and the colorful stained glass 'windows' were illuminated from behind by some light source that was not the sun.
As they made the rounds, Kyle learned a little more about Jess herself. She was a sophomore, and she hadn’t declared her major yet, but she was thinking about Healing Arts, even though most people thought Esoteric Arts was more her style. He gathered that there were various departments, just like in a normal university, including Alchemy, Soothsaying, and Ritual Arts.
She also filled him in on the need for secrecy, and the history of Veritas, which went "underground" in 1692 because of the Salem Witch Trials. Technically, to the "real world,” they were Harvard students, and if Kyle went on to a normal life as something like a banker or whatever, he’d be considered a Harvard alumnus. “But who would become a banker or something boring if they could do something magical?” Kyle had asked, which had made her laugh and admit that not many did.
They were having a look through the Elwyn Library collection of magical texts when Kyle lost her for a few moments. The labyrinthine shelves were packed with fascinating books with names like Battle of Wills: When the Geas Becomes a Curse and Man is a Flightless Bird: Keys to Levitation. At one point he turned to whisper to her, and found she was not behind him as he’d thought.
