Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Myriah’s Secret

       

            “Okay, definitely getting closer.  Keep going, Kirk.”

            “How do you know?  You can’t see what’s going on inside my head.”

            “I can just tell!  Go man, go!” said Aiden doing his best to sound encouraging.

            There they were again, just like they had been about a month ago, standing in the middle of Ridgeway field on the wet morning grass.  Only this time, it was Aiden who was watching and waiting with excitement.

            “Yeah but a fireball is easy.  I don’t even know what to picture with wind because its, you know, uh, invisible…”

            “So then what do you call a tornado?”

            “Oh, sure, no problem… let me just rip up Quincy with my first ever spell.   That’s real likely…”

            Aiden laughed.  “Shut up.  Just picture a really small tornado.  A six inch one or something.  Move it through your mind like you tried to do with the fireball.”

            Kirk screwed up his face in concentration again.  He never really got over the whole looking ridiculous when trying to cast thing. 

            It was quick.  As wind should be, really.  Kirk glowed a faint shade of purple and gray and a tiny cyclone about the size of a watermelon floated from his head and down to the ground.  It stirred up a few leaves and then it evaporated.

            “YES!” they cried in unison.

            Kirk was jumping up and down, his fists raised high in the air.

            Aiden felt just as victorious as Kirk.  After all, they were in this together.  Their hard work had finally paid off, with a little help from Cafaran, of course.

The last month was nothing short of draining, to say the least.  Almost immediately after making his cyclone, Kirk suggested that they take a little break from magic, which Aiden gladly agreed to.  The two planned on taking one week of time off to recharge themselves and relax.  Then they would talk about what to do next because, as exciting as it all was, they had no idea what to do now.  They had been so focused on learning how to do it that they failed to think through what they would do afterward.

            Monday to Thursday was fairly typical.  Lots of homework, boring classes, and of course, being shoved around and made fun of by Matt Kaufee and his cronies.  Kaufee was the school’s quarterback of the football team and he wasn’t exactly pleasant.  His latest hobby was acting big and tough by calling Aiden names and making bizarre imitations of him coming out of the locker room on fire.  He always traveled in a pack, too, which made it even worse.  The team’s running back, Garret Spire, was nearly always at his side.  He never said much, but he was built like a house and was about as smart as one.  Aiden did his best to avoid them whenever he saw them in passing.

            It wasn’t until Friday that anything out of the ordinary happened.

            It was the last thing he had expected, actually.  Just as he was about to walk into the cafeteria with Kirk for lunch, he found himself frozen in place.

            “Um, Aiden...?” called a voice.

            He turned around to find Myriah looking him in the eyes.

            “Um… hi,” she said, half smiling, half laughing.

            Even her voice was pretty.  He couldn’t help but smile back at her.  Maybe it wasn’t how he had pictured it, but this was his chance to talk to her.  True, he would rather have broken the ice, but he was grateful that she came up to him nonetheless.

            “I’ll catch up with you later, Aiden,” said Kirk.  Aiden swore he could see Kirk winking as he turned to walk away.

            As soon as Kirk was out of earshot, Aiden stepped closer to her.  “Hey, um… what’s up?”

            She turned her head to the side a bit, looking slightly pink in the face, and paused for a second.  “Can we go somewhere a little more… private?  Like, outside maybe?”

            “Oh, um… sure.  Yeah, that sounds good.  Lead the way,” he said.

            They weaved in and out of the small stampede of students who were eager to get into the lunch room and rounded the corner to exit the building.  Myriah led Aiden to the edge of the woods on the opposite side of Eight hall, directly in front of Hazzlok’s window, and waited for the bell to ring.  They were alone.

            “I really need to talk to you about something, Aiden,” she said.

            “Sure, anything.”

            “Sorry in advance, but I’m really bad at these kinds of conversations.  It’s just… there’s something special about you.  And I’ve noticed you staring a lot… at me…”

            She started to fidget.  Aiden began to sweat.  He was more nervous than ever.  He wasn’t exactly good at keeping his cool when he talked to girls.  And now it was going to pile on top of him all at once, just like in his dreams.  She was going to confess her feelings for him.

            Maybe they would hug.  Maybe they’d kiss when he told her he felt the same way.  Any second now, he’d have to react.

 And then she blindsided him.

“Who or what are you?  And why are you doing whatever it is that you’re doing to me?”

“I – what?”

“Everyone has been talking about you, Aiden.  Why do you think people purposely avoid you?  Have you even noticed that the only person who ever talks to you now is Kirk?  What happened on that first day of gym?  I know you’re hiding something and I want answers.”

Aiden was completely alarmed.  This was definitely not how he had expected their first conversation to go.

“Myriah, what are you talking about?  I’m not hiding anything and I – “

“Don’t play dumb with me, Aiden!  Nobody walks out of a room covered head to toe in fire and then comes back to school the next day like nothing ever happened.  Everyone thinks you’re some kind of freak, and maybe they’re right…  What’s going on?”

Aiden was starting to get annoyed.  Was this the real side of Myriah?  Cold and brutally honest?

“Whoa, chill out.  I’m not some kind of freak.  And why do you care so much?  It’s not like it affects your everyday life like it does to mine.”

“Of course it does!  I haven’t been the same since!  You did something to me that day and…”  Her voice cracked and her words trailed off.  Her lip started to quiver.

Aiden saw the same weakness in her eyes that he saw during their dodge ball showdown.  That same fear.  But now he wanted answers.

“Hey, calm down, it’s fine.  I swear to you that I haven’t done anything to you.  And maybe this conversation is a little weird, but let’s just talk it out.  Honestly, I’m just as confused as you are right now.  What do you mean by you haven’t been the same?”

She sniffled and took a deep breath.  “I don’t know.  Ever since that day in gym I’ve felt really really strange.”  She was talking very fast now.  “Things happen that I can’t explain and you…you scare me, Aiden.  I feel so weird around you and weak and I don’t know.  And sometimes I think I see you glowing and I’m just going to stop talking now and walk away because you’re looking at me like I’m crazy.”

She turned around and tried to leave, but Aiden was too quick.

“Wait!” he shouted.  He reached out to grab her hand and pull her back to him.

And that’s when it happened again.

He felt his legs give out.  Her hand was like a solid cube of ice, cold enough to burn his skin.  She fell to the ground, too.

He kept his hand locked around hers.  “Is this what you mean?  About feeling weak?”

She nodded.  She was very pale.

“Well, I honestly have no idea why this happens.  But this is definitely what happened that first day of – wait, did you say… you’ve see me glowing?”

            “Yeah, sometimes… it’s weird.  I can barely catch it, but I’ve seen it in class out of the corner of my eye.  It’s almost like – “

            “A pulse of color?  And then it’s gone?”

            “Yes, exactly!  But… how do you know?”

            Aiden’s mind was racing.  He couldn’t believe that this thought had not dawned on him earlier.  He saw Kirk glow for the first time when he cast his first spell last week.  If Aiden saw Myriah glow a few weeks ago in Chemistry, that could only mean…

            “Myriah… I have a feeling that – actually, let me ask you something first.  When you say things happen that you can’t explain… what exactly are you talking about?  Be honest, even if it sounds totally unbelievable.”

            “Okay, um… well… Last week I went out to dinner with my dad and he needed more water, but the waitress didn’t come back for a while.  I picked up his glass and it was full.  He didn’t notice, but it worked on my glass, too.  It just appeared out of nowhere.  One minute the glass was empty, and then I touched it and it was full.  It was like… kind of like…”

            “Like magic?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Did anything else happen?”

            “Not that night… but over the last two weeks I’ve been shaking off injuries like they’re nothing.  I slipped on the wet floor at the pool the other day and twisted my ankle and cut up my leg.  I rubbed my ankle and cleaned my cut, but it was like I didn’t even get hurt in the first place.  The cut closed up almost instantly and my foot felt good enough to walk on.  It’s been… scary.”

 “Wow,” said Aiden.  He was impressed more than anything.  “So let me guess, then… you didn’t want anyone to know about this because they would think you’re a freak, too?  You didn’t want to be talked about or looked at like me?”

“No!  That’s not it!” she cried.  Her eyes fixed on the ground and she turned away.  “Sorry for what I said before… I guess it sounded kind of bad, huh?  I was just scared and confused, honestly.”

“It’s alright, I completely understand.”

“I don’t know.  I was just scared, like I said.  And I didn’t know who to ask or what to say because I was afraid nobody would believe me.  But something made me feel drawn to you.  And since I don’t think your locker room incident was a mere ‘accident,’ I thought I should talk to you about it.”

“Well, I’d say you were right in thinking that you should talk to me.  And you’re right about the locker room ordeal, sort of.  It was an accident, but I made it happen.”

There was a few seconds of silence.  Myriah looked perplexed.

“Maybe it’s easier if I just show you,” said Aiden.

Aiden stood up and offered Myriah his hand, but she didn’t take it.  He moved a few feet into the woods so that he would not be seen.  She followed.  He held out his left hand and conjured a ball of flame.  He rolled it up and down his arm like a baseball and then clapped it together between his hands, putting it out.  He smiled, waiting for her reaction of shock, hoping that he’d impressed her.

“Do it again,” she said quite plainly.

“Oh, um, okay…”

So he did just that.  He created another fireball and let it float in his hand.  Myriah examined it for a second and then held out her hand to hover over the flame.  She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath.  Aiden watched her carefully.

And then she began to glow a faint shade of royal blue.  A small torrent of water was coiling itself around her hand.  Slowly, she lowered it on to the flame.  It hissed and steamed, and it even burned a little, but Aiden didn’t dare pull his arm away.  Their eyes met and their fingers locked.  Aiden saw Myriah wince for a second, but she continued to hold his hand.  Neither of them said anything for a full minute.

“What… is this?” she said.

“This… this is magic, Myriah.  It’s real.  Realer than I had ever expected it to be.  We’re living proof.”

“So we are freaks then.”  She smiled and started laughing.

“I’d rather not think of it that way.”  Now he was laughing, too.

They broke apart and sat down on the damp earth, still giggling.  This conversation certainly explained a lot about Myriah.  Now Aiden knew why she was so mysterious, so quiet.  Now he knew why she was staring back at him all the time.  Now he knew, even if it was just a little bit, why he felt so attracted to her.  But at the same time, she became even more mystifying.  He still had so much that he wanted to learn about her.

“So maybe we’re freaks.  But you have to admit, it’s pretty cool, isn’t it?” said Aiden.

“Yeah, definitely.  Magic… how do you know for sure that’s what it is?”

Aiden considered telling her about his dreams with Cafaran, but decided against it.  For one, they did seem strange.  And two, he wasn’t even sure about those dreams himself.

“Well, what else could it be?  I’ve done a bit of research, and it boils down to either magic or being some sort of god.  I don’t exactly feel godlike… do you?”

“No, definitely not.  And I guess magic makes sense.  It looks and sounds a lot like the things I used to read about in fairy tales and stuff,” she said.

“It’s exciting.  Being able to do this kind of thing.”

“Yeah, but now what?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what do we do now?  Do we tell someone?  Do we keep it to ourselves?  Do we practice it?  Is there more to learn?  Like, what’s the next step?” She was speaking rather quickly again.

“Well, um… actually, I haven’t really thought about that.”

“So, you’ve been able to do this for over a month and a half and you haven’t thought about that yet… what exactly have you been doing?”

Aiden paused for a second.  “Can I trust you to keep a secret?”

“I’d say so, yeah.”

“I’ve been teaching Kirk.  It took a while, and it was super frustrating, but he finally cast his first spell last week.  He needed a lot of coaching.  And it took us a while to figure out his Intagrum… what’s yours?”

“What’s an Intagrum?”

“What do you mean?  You’d have to know, or you wouldn’t be able to do magic on command.”

“That’s the thing… I can’t do it on command.  It’s only happened to me a few times, and only when I’ve really needed it.  I’ve tried and tried.  Can you teach me like you taught Kirk?”

It wasn’t until now that he remembered that she was clueless when it came to magic.  She didn’t have Cafaran visiting her dreams to give her all the answers.  Or a best friend to work out the kinks with.

“Sorry, I forgot that you’re new to all of this.  I’m going to have to explain a few things to you first.  Let’s start at the beginning, going back to the Intagrum.  It’s an object of great value to you that draws out your magic.  For Kirk, it’s his sweatband that he always wears.  It’s like a good luck charm to him.  For me, it’s my grandpa’s ring.  I never take it off.  Do you have something like that?”  He waved his hand and flashed the ring at her.

She held up her left hand and showed Aiden a ring nearly identical to his.  Solid gold, almost like a wedding band, with no jewels.  It was plain but was still very pretty.  “It was my mother’s,” she said.  “She gave it to me when I was younger and she was real sick… said to wear it and she’d always be with me…”

“Oh, um… sorry...” Aiden grimaced.

“I was seven.  But it’s okay, you don’t have to be sorry.  My dad and I are really close.  Anyway, so this is my Intagrum?”

“Probably.  Especially if your spells come out of your left hand.  That would pretty much narrow it down.  Since Kirk’s is his sweatband, his spells come out of his head… it’s pretty funny looking, actually,” he laughed.

She smiled.  “Yeah, I’m left-handed, too.  You’re probably right.”

“Okay, well that was easy.  Let’s see, what’s next… oh, right, teaching you.”  He paused.  “That part might be tricky.  I don’t really know what I could teach you.”

“That little fireball thing you did was pretty cool.  What about that?  Is that what you taught Kirk?”

“Not exactly.  I’ll do my best to explain this without confusing you.  Magic stays confined within the four classical Greek elements: fire, earth, wind, and water.  Each person has some sort of affiliation to one specific element.  For me, it’s fire, obviously enough.  For Kirk, it’s wind… but we didn’t know that at first.  I tried to teach him how to do my fireball and he simply couldn’t do it.  So we tried a different element and it worked.  Do you follow so far?”

She nodded.

“Now, judging by what happened a few minutes ago, I think it’s safe to say that you’re a water mage.  Mage is just another word for wizard or magic user, by the way.  So since you’re not a fire mage, you can’t make a fireball.  Nor could you make a gust of wind like Kirk.  You’re pretty much restricted to just water-related stuff.  Make sense?”

“Yes.  But what about when I healed my cut and my ankle?  What was that?”

“That… I’m not sure.  We’ll get to that later, I guess.  But for now, as far as teaching you, I can’t exactly teach you what to cast, but I can teach you how to cast it.”

“Okay, that sounds good.”

“Right.  Um… so… did you want to, um, like get together this weekend or something and work on it?”  Aiden could feel his face turning red.

“Sure, I’m free after school today if that works for you.”

“Yeah, I’m not doing anything.  Where do you live?  Because there’s this place that Kirk and I have been practicing at that’s really nice.”

“I’m in that development by the grocery store, the newer looking places I guess.  Atlantic Heights.”

“Oh, that’s the next town over from me.  I’m in Quincy.  That’s not exactly a quick walk.  Hmm… what if I – “

He caught something out of the corner of his eye.  A figure with long, dark hair could barely be seen through the glare on Hazzlok’s classroom window.

“Shit, I think Hazzlok just saw us.  We should go inside or he’ll think we’re cutting class and I don’t want to deal with him.  Here, follow me around the front of the building; we’ll go in by Four hall.”

“No, that’s a bad idea.  It’s the fastest way out so that’s probably where he’s coming from.  Let’s cut by the cafeteria and go in through the side door of Seven hall.”

“What?  There’s no door in Seven – “

“Come on!  Just trust me.”  And she took off at a run.  Aiden followed.

They rounded the corner by the cafeteria and sidled along the wall, just in case Hazzlok had decided to come out that way.  They were clear and they quickly made it to the outside of Seven hall.  Surely enough, there was a door.

“Wow, I had no idea this even existed.  And aren’t you new?  How did you know this was here?  This school is huge.”

“I don’t know, I guess I’m just really observant.”  She smiled and wrenched the door open before he could do it for her.  They stepped inside to find another door just a few feet away.  The space was very confined and dark.  Myriah stopped.

“Okay, so what were you saying?” she asked.

“Right.  I’m the next town over so it’s kind of a far walk.  Can you get a ride from your dad?”

“Definitely not.  If I asked him to drive me to a boy’s house he’d probably come after you with a shotgun.  He’s a little over-protective…”

“Sheesh, okay.  I guess me coming to your house would be just as out of the question then.  I would feel bad if you took my bus home, too… because then you’d have to walk home.  My parents would nag me for having a girl over anyway.  Ummm…”

They stood in silence in the small hallway, practically nose to nose.  The whole scene was kind of awkward.  Aiden fumbled with the ring on his finger and Myriah suddenly seemed very interested in the wall.

“Well, what’s wrong with doing it right here?” said Myriah.

“What?  Doing what right where?” He could have sworn he misheard her.

“Magic.  We can do it here, at school, after the buses leave.  We’ll stay after and take the five o’ clock bus home.”

“Oh, haha,” he laughed.  “Yeah, um, I was kind of thinking we could do it somewhere a little more, you know, private?  I get made fun of enough without everybody knowing exactly what I can do.”

“No kidding, Aiden.  I meant we could go where nobody would see us.  I know the perfect spot.”

“Honestly, I don’t know what you could possibly be thinking of.  I know this school pretty well and I don’t really think there is any room that is big enough or concealed enough for us to make fireballs, whirlwinds, and floods.”

“Right, because you know it well enough to know that there was a door here in Seven hall…”

Aiden could hear the faint ping of the bell ringing on the other side of the door.  People would probably be coming in and out of the hallway any second now.

“Okay, real quick,” she said.  “Tell Kirk to stay after with us, and meet me by the auditorium after eighth period.”

“The auditorium?  I mean, I guess… there’s no play practice or anything going on, but someone can easily walk in on us.”

“Come on, you think I’m that dumb?  We won’t be in the auditorium… we’ll be under it.”