The Eye of Elicion: The Kinowenn Chronicles Vol 1 (9 page)

When class was over, she made her way to Healing, again without using her map. She was getting better at this. Bree decided the class should learn one of the easiest methods of healing or soothing injuries. Tea. They started by identifying leaves of different herbs. Bree informed them of how ground up each part of the plant needed to be to make tea. Bree listed which plants had poisonous leaves, but useful roots, and the reverse. Eventually they would be making their own tea.

“Professor?” asked Chloe. “I know this is a useful skill, but what if the world you go to doesn’t have mint?”

“Excellent question, Chloe. The cures to most ailments and injuries can be found in nature. Interestingly enough this is a similarity between all worlds. Every world may not have mint as you know it, but they will have an herbal substitute that oddly enough will smell like mint. You will know many of these plants by smell because it is often the smell that helps with the healing. Once you choose your world, you will learn the plants specific to it. Also, if your world does not have something that you feel is necessary, we allow you to take seeds to start your own herb gardens.”

Lucy thought that was a good question to ask. She had been wondering that herself. They were assigned to look up the uses of Trifolium repens or clover and Origanum vulgare or Marjoram, and of course they should be able to explain the differences between Mentha spicata, Mentha pulegium, Mentha piperita, and Mentha aquatica, otherwise known as Spearmint, Pennyroyal, Peppermint, and Watermint.

Then, it was time for lunch. Lucy enjoyed finding out how other people’s days had gone. Maya had managed to stay on her horse after another day of jumps. Gavin had had a wonderful morning sparring with Tannin. He enjoyed a challenge. Justin sat there munching through a large portion of unidentifiable meat and no less than three ears of corn. It occurred to Lucy that she didn’t know what classes he was taking. Just as she was about to ask how his morning went, it was time to go to their next classes.

Lucy almost ran to her Intro to Magic class. She was terribly excited to find out what they were going to learn next. There was one question she did want to ask though. She waited until the rest of the class arrived, then raised her hand.

“Professor?”

“Yes?”

“I was wondering, do wizards use wands?”

“No, or they shouldn’t anyway,” said Maryn. “There are many reasons for this. A wand in and of itself has no power. If a wizard uses it to assist with spells that wizard imparts some of his or her own power into it. It then becomes a crutch of sorts. The wizard is less strong without it, and if the wand would break the wizard would become weaker still as all the magic the wizard poured into it would be released into the ethos. Wizards who carry staffs have to be careful not to pour magic into those staffs and remember it is a physical weapon, not a magical one. There are things of power, mostly jewelry, that can be used to supplement magic such as rings, necklaces, and bracelets, but these too have their own idiosyncrasies. You will learn more about them in an advanced class, or you are free to do research in the library.”

“I was wondering that too,” whispered Darren beside her.

“Today, most of you will still be working on flipping your matchboxes. I will walk around and offer assistance. By the end of today I expect everyone to be able to flip their matchbox using one of the three methods. Those who have mastered flipping might want to work on changing colors. The instructions on how to do that are on page twelve. You may begin.”

Lucy flipped her book open to the correct page using her mind.

“Show off,” muttered Darren, but he was smiling.

Lucy began to read the section on changing colors, and Darren began to work on flipping his matchbox. There was a different word for each color you wanted to change an object into. Similarly, there was a different hand motion for each color. Lucy was beginning to feel that using anything other than her mind was going to mean a lot of memorization, but some people worked better that way she reminded herself. These classes were not just for her but also for people with diverse gifts and learning methods. She decided to start with her mind and work her way through the other methods.

She stared at her matchbox and thought ‘green’ as hard as she could.Sure enough her matchbox turned green. ‘Blue’ she thought next and it was blue. This was easy. She decided to try combing the two spells they had been working on. She flipped the matchbox and turned it red. Flipped it again and turned it yellow. Now she tried flipping with her hand and turning colors with her mind and that worked too. She tried more obscure colors and her matchbox was maroon, terra cotta, buttercup, and pumpkin.

Suddenly instead of a matchbox in front of her, there was a pumpkin.

“Oops,” she said, looking guiltily at the pumpkin hoping no one would notice.

“How in the world did you manage that?” asked Darren with surprise. He had finally managed to flip his matchbox successfully in repetition.

“I would not mind a brief explanation as well,” added Maryn. She did not look angry and Lucy was relieved by that, but she looked extremely curious, which made Lucy nervous.

“I was flipping and changing colors on each flip,” she began in a small voice.

“Yes, I was watching you from a distance. You were doing remarkably well. Go on,” said Maryn.

“Well, I was trying to think up more obscure colors than your basic red, blue, green, and so on. Pumpkin can be a color too,” Lucy said in a pleading voice.

Maryn laughed, “I’m not angry at you. I just wondered what you were doing. Besides, changing objects to other objects isn’t for a few more weeks yet. I see you are doing well, but I don’t want you jumping ahead. Turn it back into a matchbox, and work on using your voice. You’ve been very quiet all class. I know it is easiest for you to use your mind, but this is a class for learning. Work on what is difficult for you.” She motioned to Darren to flip his matchbox. He did.

“Keep practicing this one, but you can work on color as well if you choose.”

Darren looked over at Lucy to find that her pumpkin was blue.

“That doesn’t look like a matchbox.”

“I know, but I figured since I had the pumpkin in front of me anyways I might as well see what it looked like blue.”

“Can you make it purple?” he asked with a smile.

“Sure,” and the pumpkin was purple.

“Lucy, matchbox please,” came Maryn’s voice from across the room.

Lucy looked at her purple pumpkin and concentrated as hard as she could and it was a matchbox again. She looked back at her book and started to use verbal and hand motions to change colors. It was harder, but it was good to work different parts of her brain.

Darren was doing better. He had managed to make it red and flip it with his hand at the same time. He did better with non-mental spells. Lucy had an idea.

“Let’s try synchronized flipping color changing,” she suggested.

Darren looked at her and then nodded, “That sounds like fun. Shall we rainbow it?”

“Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple?”

“Yes, no pumpkins,” he joked.

“Ok, let’s start slow and we can speed up if necessary. Ready one, two three.”

They both flipped the matchbox with their hand and chanted the word for red. Flipped again and turned it orange. After going through once slowly, they went through again faster, then faster, and faster until they were trying to go faster than they could pronounce the words and they broke out laughing. Maryn raised an eyebrow at them from across the room, and they sobered up quickly.

“For Friday, please reread today’s assignment. Especially the part about making objects float. I feel the need to request that you please not try spells for the first time on your own. Odd things could happen like Lucy’s pumpkin, and I don’t want anyone accidentally getting hurt or hurting someone else. Please wait until we do the spells in class, and I request that you practice them outside of class. I also want you to find a partner and try to do what Lucy and Darren just did. The slower part, that is; you don’t have to get silly about it.” Lucy and Darren grinned. “Most wizards are solitary, but it is useful to know how to work with someone else. There can be a lot of power in chanting.”

As they left class, Darren walked next to her. “Shall we practice together?”

“I’d love to. After dinner?”

“See you then.”

They walked to Introduction to Magical Creatures, which they had on Wednesdays instead of Potions. On Fridays that period was free. Mainly the point of those classes was to be an introduction. Not as much time was needed for them until the student chose to take more.

The Magical Creatures classroom was like being in the oddest outdoor zoo Lucy had ever been in. Each cage held an animal or group of animals, but each cage also held a different weather pattern. A warm desert was next to the North Pole. They met Nerek, a soft-spoken man with light brown hair, brown eyes, and glasses that made him look slightly owlish. A squirrel-like animal with an abnormally long tail was perched on his shoulder, the tail wrapped around his neck like a scarf. Nerek explained about the class.

“What we do here is take care of Magical Creatures and in fact, any creature that does not have a home. If a species is about to become extinct on a planet we confiscate a few breeding pairs. We bring them here and then release them into worlds with similar climates or vegetation. It is not right to lose a species. That could create great upheaval and a disruption of balance, which would bring the downfall and destruction of all.”

Nerek said this all very matter-of-factly, which Lucy found quite disturbing. The end of the world due to the loss of a species bothered her very much. She would like to know more about the background for that theory, and if anything had gone extinct forever, and what the consequences were. Lucy stopped her mind from wandering and refocused on what Nerek was saying.

“In case you are interested, the dodo is flourishing on the land of Bott. Also, if a wizard finds an injured animal that is either beyond his or her skill to heal or is on an important mission and simply does not have the time to spare, the wizard sends it here. It gives the animals a chance to heal and our students a chance to learn about them. To see some animals, we will have to take field trips. It is difficult and dangerous to keep dragons here, but we will learn more about dragons later.”

There was a mixture of relieved and disappointed faces among the class members.

“Today we are simply going to walk through the zoo as you would call it. From now on I would prefer the ‘creature infirmary’, if you would. You can look at all the creatures. Eventually we will discuss them one by one, but it is hard to do that if you are all looking around wondering what is in the next cage,” he smiled. “I find it best to take care of basic distractions first and then try to teach.”

The class walked through the creature infirmary exclaiming over this and that. Lucy was amazed, and could not wait to learn about all these creatures. She was curious about the adorable kitten that was hiccupping fireballs. She was disappointed when class was over and glad she would have an opportunity to return with Justin. She wondered if he was free on Saturday or Sunday.

Dinner was an entertaining event as always. Many of her classmates from Intro to Magic had discovered that the same spell used to change their matchboxes into other colors could be used on other things as well. Lucy noticed that Chloe had green hair. In honor of how much fun the new students were having, the older ones joined in trying to outdo each other at the same time. Some students had purple hair with orange tips; others had bright red eyes or one yellow one and one green one. One girl had a lavender top lip and blue lower one.

“Rather like being in a nightmare of clowns, don’t you think?” asked Justin dryly.

They had beaten the other two to the table and were staring at their classmates in amused shock. Lucy agreed that it was kind of disturbing, but it was all meant in fun so she had to applaud their efforts at the same time.

“I’m sure they will be back to normal by tomorrow,” said Lucy.

“Most of them will be. Some will recognize the opportunity of never needing to buy hair dye again and change their hair on a daily basis. Some students end up looking completely different from when they came in. You’ll see as time goes on.”

“Why do people do it?”

“I suppose it gives them a chance to cover up insecurities. Some people only change little things, like they’ll show up one day with a smaller nose. Other people, probably the ones teased most about their appearance growing up, end up looking completely different. I’m not sure that they are any happier or that they are finally satisfied with their appearance. I think it points to a deeper sense of insecurity,” Justin shrugged.

“Do you look any different?” asked Lucy curiously.

“No,” replied Justin. He noticed that Lucy’s hair was its normal reddish brown. “Don’t tell me you had problems changing things into colors?” he asked in a teasing tone. He was sure she had excelled at that as well.

“Actually, I did have one problem,” she said thoughtfully, and Justin looked at her with interest. “It turns out that some names for colors are objects as well,” she said with mock surprise as she turned his fork into a pumpkin.

Justin dropped his former fork and stared at the pumpkin. Then they both began to laugh.

“Cute, but it is hard to eat with a pumpkin,” he said.

Justin could have easily changed the pumpkin back himself, but he wanted to see if Lucy could do it, and give her practice with a spell that was at least a month ahead of where she was at, if not more. Not to mention, they usually started changing similar things to other things. Like a fork into a spoon. Not that similarity made a difference, just as size, or weight did not either, but many students found it easier to work their way up. He was pleased to see that Lucy did not seem hampered by these pesky mental barriers that many students ran into. It was just as easy to levitate a feather as a person, but many students didn’t see it that way.