Wizard (Troy Sanders Trilogy Book 1)

11: To Magic or Not to Magic

Victoria's a total nut job! Yeah, I had said it before and I would say it again. She's frigging crazy!

Three days with Vic and I had already gotten into more troubles than I ever thought was possible in a lifetime. I had almost got beaten, tortured, pelted with fruits, decapitated, killed, and even turned into a donkey; all because of her stunts. What was even more surprising was that she was never remotely sorry about any of it, only shooting me that crazy ass smile of hers before she went again and dumped me in another trouble.

She even took it as far as getting on the wrong side of a horse and somehow managed to make the dumb creature believe that it was all my fault- trust me when I say that being chased down by horse with lightning-fast speed was not something out of a comedy movie.

In short, Victoria Elmonton was the real-life definition of what Mr. Foster used to call me: bad influence.

So, I believe you could understand the relief I felt when school activities finally began for real the following week and we all went to our various classes- Ta-ta Victoria! See you never.

As it turned out, in Firewalt, the day’s schedule was usually delivered a night before so you never really knew who your classmates would be till you actually got to the venue. Couldn’t really explain what purpose that served except to create unnecessary suspense- drama, is that it, Firewalt?

Anyway, my first lesson of the day was Identification with a Miss Swan. I hadn't gotten to the class and I could already picture it in one word: boring. But because it was the rule, I went to the class as early as I could, which turned out not to be not so early considering the fact that class was almost filled when I entered.

But that wasn't to be the real problem of the day.

Thing is, there were no seats in the classroom. I mean, how the hell were we supposed to take a lesson without seats?

Standing and gazing around the classroom like someone who just woke up into a nightmare, I actually noticed some things about the room. For starters, it was painted grass green instead of the standard Firewalt brown colour. There was no board- not that I saw the need for that anyway since we were supposed to be learning magic and not science- the walls were filled with paintings of horses, butterflies and different mythical creatures- beautiful but I couldn’t say that I approved of the way they somehow made the classroom like something out of a toddler’s storybook- and, like I said before, no seats.

I was still looking around when I accidentally bumped into someone. It could have being the other way round, I didn’t know, it wasn’t like I was paying attention to begin with.

I turned to look at the person and, to my uttermost surprise, found a kid; and he was looking at me like I was going to devour him at any second. He was really small; presumably about twelve years of age. He had a black hair which he appeared to have trimmed- it stopped right on his ears- and pretty brown eyes that reminded you of cute babies. He was wearing a black shirt, which he clutched at the edge like it was his saving grace, and blue jeans.

“Hi,” I said with an “I’m not gonna hurt you” plastered on my face; at least I hoped it was an “I’m not gonna hurt you”, it would be really bad if it turned out to be some crazy, absolutely awkward other look.

“Hello,” he replied with a loud sigh of relief; something about me really had gotten that kid on the edge before. “I’m really sorry for bumping into you.”

I waved him a “No worries, man” and was about to leave when he suddenly said, “I’m Jacob O’Collughin by the way,” with an offered handshake.

“Nice name,” I replied, returning the handshake.

“For an old man,” he returned with a snort. There was no disguising his distaste for the name- wonder why he didn’t tell his parents about it?

“How about Jake?” I offered then. I mean, I might not be able to change his name but I could at least give him a cool nickname to go with it.

“Jake’s cool,” he replied, now smiling. The kid really had a nice smile; the kind that lit up his face and made him look infinitely younger, if that was possible.

“Well, Jake, I’m Troy-”

“Sanders,” he completed, surprising me again- these people were starting to make being a Sanders sound like being an Obama or a Kardashian or something.

“Yes. How did you know?”

“Everybody knows,” he replied simply, smiling like I was the only one not catching up to a joke about me; I really hoped it wasn’t a joke.

Anyway, I wasn't really in the mood to strike up a conversation about myself, my family, or anything else for that matter so I just turned to walk away. But then, Jake suddenly asked, “Are you really friends with Victoria Elmonton?” Umm, is it just me or is this starting to turn into an episode of “Ask Troy anything you can.”

And Vic and I were anything but friends. “Yeah, we’re friends,” I replied anyway.

“Wow!” he said, looking at me as if I had just told him that there was a baby dragon under my shirt. “Heard she’s real Cray-Cray.”

“It’s the truth,” I replied; a week actually taught me that lesson, remember?

“But I also heard that she hardly ever talked to boys, to anyone for that matter,” he added, “until you, that is.”

Now, that was news to me. Victoria Elmonton, the girl who couldn’t seem to keep away from mingling with me, an actual hermit; that didn’t sound right. I wanted to ask Jake how that was possible but Miss Swan- who actually managed to open the door just as the bell rang for her lesson- entered then.

Miss Swan was a black woman who was a little on the robust side. She wore a black tailored power suit that looked smart on her and hugged her figure; matching the outfit with low heel shoes that made no sound even as she walked to the front of the class.

As soon as she stood in front of everyone, she made some very fast hand gestures and the chairs suddenly appeared. “For security reasons,” she explained; but seriously speaking though, who would be dumb enough to steal a chair from a magic school? And where would they even take it to? The magic black market?

Anyway, Miss Swan began her lesson without any further delay and even though I felt almost bored to death, I tried to get what she was talking about.

“Magic is something that resides in the soul of a wizard,” she began. “It's a great energy that courses through our veins and gives us the ability to do amazing things, some of which you will learn before the end of this semester. Magic is beautiful, but also ugly; helpful, but also punishing; divine, but also devilish. And it is our jobs as your teachers, your guardians, and your mentors, that we instruct you on how to channel the right side of magic and use it for the betterment of the community as a whole.”

She went on to explain that there were three kinds of magic: light, dark and grey; with light and dark being the two major ones. A seasoned wizard was capable of manipulating the energy within them to do magic, using such energy in a manner that was most innate to them as light or dark.

However, pushing one's self beyond their capability could lead to a something called a Soul Strain; a situation where the magic in a wizard was so stressed that it begun to react against the wizard.

“Usually, it’s not deadly, almost like catching the flu or running a battery down," Miss Swan explained. "All you really need to do is rest and recharge. But severe cases can lead to permanent power loss and death.” Her face took on very stern "Hear this, fledglings" expression as she delivered her warning. “Please, students, throughout your stay in Firewalt this year and the years to come, be most careful not to strain your soul.” And as if that moment hadn’t existed, she beamed up a smile and said, “Now, we’re all going to identify with our magics by creating our favorite colour on our palms. Just look into your soul, identify your most powerful emotion, transform it into your favorite colour and project it onto your palm.”

Okay, that wasn't what I had signed up for. What I came to Firewalt to do was control my magic, not project it.

Unfortunately however, I couldn’t very well tell her that- there was the whole Sanders legacy I was just starting to learn about, remember?- so, I tried hard to look at my “most powerful” emotion and transform it into my favorite colour.

Problem was, I didn’t have a favorite colour; I never did- kinda makes the whole “project your favourite colour onto your palm” difficult, doesn’t it?

But remembering Grandpa Blake’s blue light, I attempted to replicate it on my palm. But even before I started to put effort, I knew I was going to fail; I just wasn’t cut out for any of this.

After so many tugging at my ‘soul’, I eventually gave up. It was official, I was a lousy wizard, and it was only a matter of time before everyone knew that too.

Looking around, I realized that almost everyone in the class had already identified their magic; even Jake’s purple light had started to swirl— that kid was a natural, I tell you.

While I waited for my inevitable disgrace to unfold, I decided to distract myself by looking outside the classroom where some year threes were out in the field; learning how to create a fog and turning it into water, it seemed by what I saw.

I searched around with my eyes until I found her; my “nuts” friend, Victoria. She had opted to tie her hair into a ponytail that morning, looking utterly concentrated as she was in the middle of the process of forcing a fog into a bottle; no doubt, planning to force-feed it to me later.

I didn’t know how but she looked like someone who would love gardens. I could just picture her in a garden full of flowers, her hair in a French braid like a princess and a dandelion tucked into one side of it. There would be butterflies flying around her head and everything would be so peaceful, so unlike her.

All of a sudden, I began to hear the screams of “Ohs!” and “Ahs!” coming from the class. Turning to find out what had happened, I got the surprise of my life.

As it turned out, I had somehow unknowingly created a rainbow of some sorts; it had more colours than an actual rainbow. Different colors were coming out my hands and everywhere they touched began to shimmer like magic itself. The pictures hanging on the wall came to life as the colours passed through them. The horses in the pictures galloping through fields, butterflies landing on roses, mythical creatures doing whatever it was they were best known for. It was a truly awesome moment; except that I didn’t know how the hell I was doing it!

The effects lasted as long as my concentration, distraction, whatever the hell that had caused that to happen, lasted. The moment I tried to put real effort into it, the colours disappeared and took the magic with them.

Everyone crowded around me and began to ask me a million questions per second but I couldn’t hear them. My mind was still busy- not to mention, perplexed- trying to process what just happened. I knew I was the one who had made those things happen; of that, there was no doubt. But thing is, I hadn’t been making any kind of progress until... Well, until I saw Victoria and started thinking about her.

Victoria! It suddenly dawned on me; that girl had had some kind of effect on me, and on my magic too. Her effect had been so much that it suddenly took me from “lousy” to “lordly” wizard. If I had thought that Victoria Elmonton was bad for me before, now she was worse; much worse.