The Origin's of Magic

The Reality of Magic

It was real. That much she was sure. But, as to how and what it meant. She didn’t have a clue.

Emily sat on the ledge of her window looking onto the rainy skies beyond. A flash of lighting didn’t give her the fright it should’ve. She had seen worse. So much worse. A image tried to surface in her mind but she shook it away. 

‘No!’ She practically begged her own mind. She focussed on the rain lashed windows, watching the patterns the droplets traced down the pane of glass.

She was being driven mad by both waking and sleeping nightmares of what she’d seen. What she had felt and heard and smelt.

‘Em,’ her father’s voice from the other side of her closed door, ‘we’re leaving in five.’

She groaned.

She heard him chuckle at her response.

He couldn’t possibly know how much she loathed school. How much it loathed her, as if her very presence was a crime.

At least it took her mind off what had happened.

She took a deep breath before she rose, and made her way to the door. It was the best distraction she had…

***

She was sitting in Geography when it happened. When her eyes and mind drifted for just a second. A moment was all it took.

She was in the land of darkness. She was alone. A dark army advanced upon her. A wicked queen sent a wave of shadows screaming towards her. She raised a silver crested shield but the force of the impact knocked her to her knees. She was driven to the ground as the queen’s sword smashed into the metal crumpling her arm. She dropped the shield and rolled backwards into a crouch. 

‘You’re no match for me,’ the queen chided looking down on her with an impish grin.

She glared at the deity who had caused her so much grief and lifted her sword. The blade burst into white flames, the queen’s eyes widened dancing with a bluish-orange reflection. 

‘It’s… not… possible…’

The sword swung cleaving a trail of blazing flames in its wake, the queen lifted her ice-like blade, but the fiery connection obliterated it. The queen summoned more magic, the powers danced on her fingertips. Her recent surprise was replaced with a calm vengeance; she had defeated the likes of mages before. 

She threw the vicious power at the young girl who dared to oppose her, the demonic current surrounded her in a black halo, but, suddenly the colour shifted, changing to a shade of white gold. The girl opened her eyes and — the image shifted, and she was watching it happen again. Unable to stop it, her eyes glued to it, the taste of it was like bile that coated her mouth. He lifted the gold —

’Emily, Emily, Emily, are you with us?’ Emily blinked as she surfaced from her reverie. She had fallen into her own her mind, daydreaming… and, then what she had seen that day had taken over. 

She almost started crying, but, she couldn’t. Not here. Not in front of them.

It was only the anger at what it had ruined that kept the tears from leaking; day-dreaming; it was her escape, until…  this. She shook her head, sighing softly. Ever since her experience the daydreaming had changed. She was used to falling out of this reality and into her own. But, now it was bombarded, tarnished and infected by… she cast the thought aside.

It was a pity she had fallen into her imaginative state during Mrs. Steclan’s Geography exam. The strict old brute had it in for her. 

‘Ah, welcome back girlie,’ her raspy voice sounded like chalk screeching across a blackboard. 

It wasn’t the first time she had been distracted, lost in another world. She was such a fan of fantasy stories that she often lived in an alternate dimension. It was definitely more exciting than Geography. The rest of the class laughed, even Mrs Steclan joined them. She was used to it. In most of her classes she would zone out, falling out of her reality and smashing headlong into another world. Often, she would be dragged out by some teacher picking on her for the classes amusement. 

If they only knew.

‘How long was she out for?’ Britney A.K.A the dark queen of her daydreams asked. ‘I had ten minutes.’

‘Almost,’ Tim answered. 

‘It was seven,’ Kim said.

‘That’s me then!’ Mrs. Steclan whooped to the class’s amusement.

‘We could’ve warned her,’ Davis said. Emily whipped her head hopefully towards the blue-eyed boy.

‘That’s just because you put your money on three,’ Britney tittered. 

She turned away before they caught her staring. Not, that it would matter, they spoke about her like she wasn’t there anyway.

It had been like this ever since she had arrived. As the only girl who had joined from a different junior school she was cast out. The cliques had already been formed and she didn’t fit in. She was caught up in books of mysteries and magic, not boys and clothes, so she was labelled an outsider, as different…

Imagine if any of them could see inside my mind, she thought to herself. They’d have a whole new perspective of me and different wouldn’t begin to cover it. Especially, with… 

The laughter eventually died down and she did her best to refrain from re-entering a realm of witches, wizards, kings and queens. She told herself it was for them, but, her mind knew the truth. She was afraid of her own dark thoughts. Afraid of the very thing she had once loved.

Magic! 

It felt like years before the bell finally screeched in the background calling on the end of exams. The end of the term. As she rushed towards freedom, she caught the glances of her peers, the gossiping had begun. The stares, pointing and giggling. 

‘What a weirdo,’ one of them hissed in her direction.

‘I know, right, she’s always doing that.’

She bustled out the door before they could come over and confront her and burst into the cold chill of the open air. Sniffing frosty freedom she made a beeline for the bus that would take her home. When she finally found a seat and settled into a foam worn chair, she exhaled deeply. She tried to distract herself, but, it wasn’t long before her world titled and the memory obscured her vision once again…

It was freezing. She felt it despite the heater in the bus, the memory of it seeped into her bones. She was back there. Where it had happened…

A cold autumn wind whipped around her as the doors to the museum swung open, the freezing Cape Town wind fluttered into the interior making her shiver. She was frustrated. A weekend visit to a museum wasn’t a highlight for a fifteen-year-old girl. 

She was bored beyond all imaginative thought, while her parents roamed the antique aisles, slowly examining each piece as through it were a priceless artefact.

‘Not touching anything are you Emily?’ Her mother snuck up behind her, she was a tall, imposing woman, with long auburn hair, brown eyes and an olive toned complexion. 

Soft features, but at that moment they were scrounged up in an unappealing contrast. 

‘No mom I'm just standing here being bored,’ she sniped back.

 Emily, if anything, was inclined to think she was more like her dad, she had his grey cloudy eyes, her mom would say it was like watching a storm brew, but on summer days they transformed into a crystal-clear blue. Her long light brown hair brought her tanned skin into a stunning contrast and like him she was tall. Too tall, she thought. Her long limbs always felt gangly and awkward. She smirked as she watched her father trying to portray an air of serious interest but looking quite amusing as he acknowledged the artefacts with a sardonic awe. Her mom cantered back to him, and started explaining something about the piece he was examining. She watched him nod with a glazed expression obviously more concerned with what was happening in the most recent sports match he might be missing. Phil and Beverly Vase were a peculiar pair, but one that worked. She decided to put on a smile and let her parents enjoy their day. 

She walked down the aisle, trying to get far enough away from the doors that kept opening and dousing her with an icy spray of air, but as she stepped forward a gentleman’s bulk caught her, dislodging her brittle frame. Off balance, she grabbed onto the only object in reach; a sceptre, to stop herself from sprawling face first on the floor in front of a room full of people. The sceptre was a thin golden walking-stick-like object. As her skin touched the cold metal her eyes snapped shut. And —

‘Ms Vase,’ the Kindly bus driver was looming over her, ‘we’re here.’

She blinked up at him.

She heard laughter. No doubt this would be gossip.

She got up quickly. ‘Thank you.’ She said to the bus driver, who looked worried.

‘Emily —

But, she didn’t wait for him to finish, she jumped off the bus and sprinted through the rain into the safety of her home.