That was a good idea too. Team Annabeth and Sandy were on a roll.
I directed my helpful granny to land on my hand and tried to pull in the magic. Nothing happened. I could see the power in the bag but I couldn’t feel it.
I had her dump the contents of the vacuum cleaner on my hand. Then I could feel the magic but I couldn’t absorb it. It just swirled away and joined the fog.
Granny vacuumed another full bag again but this time I cupped my hands around her as she dumped the bag.
The magic felt dense, thick, but again I couldn’t absorb it.
For the next attempt we emptied the bag into my mouth and I swallowed it. I thought it might be working but after a couple swallows, I let out a huge burp and it all came back up again. It was kind of nasty tasting too. Burping magic gas is not a fun experience.
This was frustrating.
I kept Annabeth posted about what was going on and I could tell she was getting discouraged too. She left her spot on the floor in front of me and had a conversation with Sandy.
I kept on trying different ways to absorb the power but nothing worked. I could feel the concentration of magic but I couldn’t connect to it.
Annabeth was back. “We have an idea but it’s risky. We think the solution to this problem is for you to make your first charm. When you create one it becomes an extension of your magic. Charms, by their nature, are designed to absorb and release magic. We’re hoping that it can collect the magic from your little granny and then you can pull the magic from the charm. We are in untested territory here. We use neutral magic to power our charms and we don’t pull that back in. Sandy read something that made her think this was how they did it back in the old days, before they had charging circles. If it worked back then, it should still work for you now.”
I haven’t had a lot of experience with charms, only what I had seen this morning, but the idea sounded good. The hard core of magic I’d sensed in Sandy’s talisman was very similar to the way the magic looked coming out of the vacuum cleaner. Maybe this would work.
“So what’s the risk?” I said.
“Well, there are two risks really,” Annabeth said. “The first is you need to make a charm that is a pure power source, like a battery. In theory it should be much simpler than making a full charm but neither of us has tried it before.
“The second, and much greater risk, is it takes power to make a charm. You are already running low on magic so if you attempt this and fail you are going to be in a much worse situation than you are now.”
“So, what happens if I don’t do this?” I asked.
“Sandy will take down the circle and the power in the air will flow away. You’re low on magic and your body still needs a lot of healing,” Annabeth replied. “Instead of being able to heal and regain your power like normal, it may take a long time for you to recover.”
“How long?” I asked.
“Well, we aren’t sure.” She looked away and bit her lip. “You haven’t moved much at all and based on the way you’re acting we think you are running really low. Our best guess is a couple years.”
Years? Did she say years!?
“I’m guessing if this charm thing doesn’t work it will take even longer than that,” I said.
Annabeth just nodded.
So, in poker terms, either I fold my hand and cut my losses or go all in. The gambler in me loved to go all in. There’s a thrill in pushing all your chips to the center and daring your opponent to match. It takes a good hand to do that, though, and there has to be a good chance of success in case your opponent goes for a showdown. I usually review the odds, read my opponent, and then decide.
In this case I was betting against myself. Did I have what it took to make a charm for the first time? If I did, would it work? If I didn’t do it, was I ok with the years it would take to recover?
There were too many unknowns.
Annabeth scooted over and Sandy came into view. It occurred to me that I these two were having to sit on the floor to be in my field of view. I wasn’t even moving my head. That said a lot about my condition. It also wasn’t fair to them. I made an effort to focus and include both of them.
“Jason, I know this is scary right now,” Sandy said. “We are here for you and will support whatever you decide. Years of recovery sounds like a lot right now, but you are going to live a long time. A few years now compared to your whole life really isn’t that much. You can stay in the House and we will protect you until you get your power back. You can choose to stop now and eventually everything will be fine.
“On the other hand, making the type of charm you need should be pretty simple. It just takes power, and that is the gamble. I don’t know if you have enough power to make it. If not then you will have expended more power and be in worse shape. If you can make the charm then I feel pretty confident you’ll have what you need to start collecting your power again.”
So, basically I would be an invalid and a shut-in unless I got my power back. Sandy was making it all sound nice, but the reality was a long, long recovery time. I hated lying around. I’d go crazy. Not only would it take a lot of recovery time, but it would take a long time before I could defend myself. Sandy said most supernaturals died in battle. That sounded pretty brutal to me. I’d already gotten the crap beat out of me once, and I wasn’t anxious to have that happen again. With my powers, with training, I would be able to defend myself. I’d be safe, or at least safer.
On the other hand, if I tried to make the charm and it didn’t work, I’d be in even worse shape.
“It sounds like there is risk and reward with either decision,” I said. “I’m so new to all this, what would you do?”
“I would try it,” Sandy said without hesitation. “Of course, I’m more of the warrior type. I’m ok with taking risks. Losing that much time to recover would drive me crazy. I’d have to risk it. Even if it didn’t work at least I’d know I tried everything.” She looked at Annabeth.
“And I wouldn’t do it,” Annabeth said. “I would take my recovery time and learn all about magic. I’d practice with small amounts of power, and as it grew, so would my skill. When I fully recovered, my skill would match my power and I’d be in good shape. If you keep going now you run the risk of draining yourself completely and taking a long time to recover. That is too much risk for me.”
Well that didn’t help me much. One aye and one nay. So much for consensus.
Maybe there one more person to ask, a little person. I looked up at my gray-haired vacuum cleaner wielding granny.
My little creation just looked confused for a moment and then froze with a blank look. She stayed like that, unmoving, for a long time. I was afraid I’d overstepped her abilities and she might not recover. I had just given up on getting a reply when she relaxed and animated again.
Well that was certainly interesting. I wasn’t looking forward to whatever this thing was heading my way. It sounded like a nasty piece of work.
I fo
cused on the girls again. They were giving me a strange look. They couldn’t hear my conversation with the little granny so it must have looked odd from their perspective.
“At the end of the day this is your decision, Jason,” Sandy said. “What do you want to do?”
That was the big question. What did I want to do?
“Let’s try making the charm,” I said. “I can’t stand the thought of taking that long to recover. I’ve already spent most of my life working with a small amount of magic. I’m ready to learn how to do more.”
“You’re sure?” Annabeth asked.
“Let’s do this,” I said. “I even have the base to begin with.” I held up the penny.
“That’s a good choice,” Sandy said. “You’re already familiar with manipulating it. What year is the penny?”
“1992,” I said. “It’s not shiny or anything, but it just feels right.”
“Well, good,” Sandy said. “Having the right feel is important. Although the penny looks like copper, it’s mostly zinc. Zinc is a good conductor of magic and stores it well. Both are properties we need right now.”
“So, what do I need to do?” I asked.
“The type of charm you’re going to make is really simple. It’s going to become a small bit of storage for your magic. Sort of like a battery. You don’t need to worry about runes or discharge patterns or call triggers or anything like that. It’s a power source only, and making a power source is really simple. You just fill it with your magic until it wakes up.”
“It wakes up?” I said. “What does that mean?”
“Right now the penny is just a penny,” Sandy explained. “It’s got a tiny trace of power in it. Everything does. But it doesn’t have anywhere near enough to be infused with magic. I don’t know any better way of saying this, but when something is filled with magic it sort of wakes up. Really powerful objects even have their own personality and a limited amount of awareness. You don’t need anything approaching that level of power. You just need enough to fill the penny until you feel a connection to it.”
“How will I know when it’s awake?” I asked.
“You’ll feel it,” Sandy said. She settled into teacher mode. “It will stop being a just an object and start being a part of you. Think of it like wearing a watch. When you first put on a watch it feels heavy and different. You’re not used to it. After you’ve worn the watch for a long time it feels familiar. You’re used to the weight and you don’t even notice it as you move your arm around. It becomes so familiar that if you leave home without it your arm feels bare. The watch is now a part of you. Making a charm is like that, only more so. You could hide my charm bracelet anywhere in the room and I could tell you exactly where it was and what all the charms do. They are that personal to me.”
This whole process sounds a lot like what I do when I create one of my little people. I visualize what I need and then fill them with magic. This seems to be the same type of thing except I’m starting with a real object.
“That sounds fascinating,” I said. “So how do I begin?”
“Which hand do you usually use to float the penny?” she asked. I held up my right hand. “Put the penny in that hand and then close your other hand over it.” I did that. The penny was now sandwiched between both my palms.
“Can you feel the penny with both hands?” Sandy asked. I nodded. “Ok. Now what I want you to do is let magic out of both palms and force it into the penny. The magic is going to try and roll around the object and escape out the sides but you aren’t going to let it. You don’t have any magic to spare so you need to make sure all of it is going in. Start off with just a trickle, until you’re sure you are doing it right, then slowly turn up the power. Once the penny is saturated with power, you’ll feel it change. When that happens, you can stop and we’ll start practicing moving power from you to the charm and back again.”
I was nervous. I was taking the chance and trying something very new for me. Sandy thought it was simple, but this was my first time and the stakes were big.
Annabeth gave me a big smile. “You can do this, Jason. I know you’re nervous and that’s Ok. You’d be crazy not to be nervous. You’ve used a trickle of magic all your life and that is all you need to succeed. Just go slowly and carefully and you’ll find it’s easier than you think. You got this!”
That little pep talk was just what I needed. Little Miss Sunshine was sending lots of support and positive thoughts my way. I’m sure if the circle walls were down, I’d be getting a big hug right now.
With a gentle trickle of magic, I started.
The power swirled around the coin and then tried to leak out, just like Sandy said it would.
I clasped my hands together firmly, trying not to leave any sort of crack for it to escape.
The pressure gradually built up as the magic had nowhere to go. It still wasn’t going into the penny, though, and that was a problem.
I was afraid to really turn up the pressure in case the magic started leaking out. I didn’t have any extra to spare.
It occurred to me that maybe I should be working smarter and not harder. I was following Sandy’s directions and trying to do this by brute force, but I had a whole level of sight she didn’t have access to. Actually, looking at what was happening up close might provide me a whole new course of action.
My sight was already on, I’d been using it earlier to look at all the emerald and sapphire colors swirling in the air, so I honed in on the penny to see what was going on.
I usually look at the object as a whole, but this time I needed to see inside the coin. It took me several tries. My mind was still thinking of it as one piece, but when I thought of it as a bunch of molecules, my awareness slipped inside.
I could easily see what Sandy was talking about as far as it being made of two metals. Most of the coin was made of zinc, with a very thin coat of copper over the top of that. What surprised me was the layer of something else on top of the copper. It wasn’t a metal or grime or anything like that, it was a layer of color. My magic was green and blue. This layer was a mish mash of colors mixed together with all the beauty gone from it. It was like a box of crayons has melted together and ended up a dirty brown.
The layer was thin but dense, and that was what was keeping my magic from getting in. If I had to guess, the layer was the little bits of power it had picked up from everyone that handled the penny. It had been around since 1992 and who knows how many people had touched it.
What I needed was a way to clean off, or get through, the dirty layer. My current pressure was pushing on it evenly and all that was doing was compressing it. The layer was thinner but just as strong.
My analytical side spoke up. Well then, old chap, why don’t you apply pressure unevenly. That would seem the logical thing to do.
I’m freakin brilliant sometimes.
I formed power like a nail, creating the sharpest microscopic point possible, and drove it through the muddy colors.
They parted like hot wax, and my nail of power passed right through the penny and out the layer on the other side.
I’d done it! I now had a column of power lancing through the center of the coin. It only took a moment to expand the column and push the muddy layer off. Without something to anchor it, the mix of colors flared up in my magic and burned away.
The penny was now mine.
The only thing left to do was stuff it full of magic. The penny absorbed power like a sponge, and as it filled up, it began to sparkle. It seemed so shiny and new, like it was being re-minted all over again and given a new life.
The coin also began to give off a tone, like a bell, and vibrate slightly.
The two metals had a different feel too. I could almost taste them. The copper had a bitter undertone but the zinc had a nice salty touch. Next time I got some fries maybe I’d sprinkle some zinc on them. Just kidding, I told my analytical side before it started giving me health warnings.
The penny absorbed everything I’d started wit
h and everything I was giving it now. It glowed a bit, but it didn’t seem to be full of magic by any means and it certainly wasn’t what I would consider awake.
I cautiously turned up the power but the coin was thirsty and easily drank in the extra flow.
It was certainly glowing now. Zinc gave off a pretty white-blue color and the copper was, of course, copper colored. I could see the magic packing in there and it was starting to get dense. It didn’t seem as dense as the core of Sandy’s charm so I still had a ways to go yet.
The girls were banging on the circle wall but I didn’t want to lose my focus. I wasn’t sure how much power this was going to take, so I put my output on what I thought was a medium flow and just let it go.
Time passed and the magic in the penny got denser and denser. It also began to get harder to maintain the flow.
The penny wasn’t just glowing any more, it was shining. It was a full beacon of light and power. It matched the level of what I remembered from Sandy’s charm and then surpassed it.
The penny still wasn’t awake.
It became too much effort to flow out magic at the current pace, so I cut back. I felt like I had to be close to waking this thing up. How much more could it take?
Moments turned into minutes. Every minute began to feel like an hour. I was well beyond the easy flow of magic. Now it was torture. Wringing myself out to deposit every drop of magic I could find.
It was like I had fully exhaled, and then held my breath. My body was screaming for magic. My temples throbbed and sweat poured out of me. I panted for air and still I hung on.
This was a do or die moment. I had to win this. Failure was not an option.
The magic no longer flowed. I could only gather it and push it out in little spurts.
The penny glowed like a small sun, and still it didn’t wake up.
I started seeing spots in the air. I wondered if I was going to pass out, and then I realized it was the darkness forming.
Like the specter of death, it formed fast and started to close in. It could feel its icy breath on me, hear its maniacal laughter. It started to pounce on me and the circle walls flared to life.
Misfit Mage Page 7
