| |
Sight
That night Eliza felt conflicted. She had achieved her goal of getting Professor Kent to help her with her wand work but found herself thinking about the mystery of her life for the first time since she started classes. She had been so busy proving herself that she had quite forgotten to wonder who had altered the course of her life—and why? The one thought that kept coming back to her was that her mother must be involved. Kent said it was far more likely to have magical abilities if one’s parents were magical. Who else could have known Eliza would be a witch, if not her mother? Eliza had not had time yesterday to read the runes, but she had dreamed of her mother when she tossed and turned last night.
Now, huddled with Pal in the cold courtyard, Eliza realized the meaning of Professor Claeg’s words. Your mother says hi. This could only mean one thing; her biological mother was dead. Eliza ought to go up to her room immediately and pull out the runes to decipher her origin. She was not so sure she was ready to know. She left the courtyard, extinguishing her little fire by closing her fist, and made her way to her dorm room. Eliza stared at the ceiling for hours, knowing she should be studying but unable to think of anything except the confirmation that her birth mother was dead. She closed her eyes. When she opened them, the sun was rising and she had to prepare for another day.
*
After Transposition, Eliza’s only class on a Friday, she had the whole weekend to enjoy. She sat in the Grand Room with Faye and Mashu for lunch. She knew she must not linger there too long today. She wanted to consult the runes and learn why she had been prevented from getting a magical education sooner. Nevertheless, Eliza enjoyed the company of her bizarre friends and indulged in the opportunity to learn more about the magical world.
Faye and Mashu provided a window into the society that she had not been allowed to join until now. She learned not to listen to a word of what Mashu said. He always preferred to make a joke over saying anything true. He had once told Eliza a great tale about how Kentree had been founded when the Witch Queen of the North slayed a dragon. The dragon’s huge ribcage had been used as trusses to build the original school building. Then the Boulder People of the East (his ancestors, apparently) rolled in and easily shattered the building as the old bones had grown brittle.
“That’s when Kentree bought this old church compound,” said Mashu, “they had the necromances conjure up such terrible spirits that the Mundunces who worshipped here ran away, tail between their legs! They sold the building and all the surrounding lands for pennies!”
Enraptured with the fantastic story, Eliza started a barrage of questions, “How big are dragons? Are there still dragons left? Where are the descendants of the Witch Queen now? Why would anyone build a church on an island in the middle of nowhere?”
Faye had let out a tinkling laugh, “Really Eliza, you shouldn’t be so gullible! There is no royalty in the magical world, and I promise nothing from that story you just heard is true.”
Faye was a real wealth of knowledge. She knew more about magical creatures than Eliza was sure even the teacher of Cooperation with Beings knew. Faye told Eliza about all the different creatures that lived in the little forest in the school gardens, what their nests looked like, which ones could perform magic and which ones were only considered magical because Mundunces could not see them. She also had a gift with air elements and entertained them with shimmering images made of tiny sparkling stars that she could conjure. Other students would turn to look, fascinated, at the marvelous illusions Faye created. She said she was making the veil between worlds transparent so that what they were seeing were not scenes from her imagination, but windows into other universes.
After lunch, Pal and Eliza made their way upstairs to their dorm room to retrieve the set of runes which was still in the small, velvet-lined trunk. Sitting on her bedroom rug, Eliza poured out the runes in front of them.
“You’ll be assisting me with this, I assume,” Eliza told Pal. “You know I’m too biased to properly do my own readings.”
“Of course,” replied Pal. “I wouldn’t trust you to solve a mystery of this importance without me!”
Eliza spread the runes around in front of her. She asked her first question;
Who hid me from the magical world?
In answer, three runes pulsed energy into her palm and she turned them over. They were Othel, Ing, and Beorc.
“I wasn’t expecting it to be this obvious who cast the spell,” said Pal. Eliza could not disagree, even all the bias in the world could not confuse the meaning of these runes.
Eliza cried, “My mother! It had to be, but it’s crazy. Why deprive me of a magical life?” she wondered.
“Maybe she didn’t like magic,” suggested Pal. “We should ask the runes.”
Eliza flipped the three runes over again so that their symbols were hidden. She started a new reading, shuffling the stones in a clockwise fashion again and asked:
Why would my mother hide me from the magical world?”
This time it was much more difficult to choose the runes. In the end, she picked five from the spread and laid them before her and the cat. They were Thorn, Is, Tir, Eolh, and Rad in reversed position.
The meaning, again, was clear; conflict, inadvisable battle, protection, and travel. Her mother had been trying to protect her from the dangers of her past. Of a past that took place in a land far away. Eliza had been hidden both magically and geographically. But why?
What happened to my mother, after she left me?
It was something she had long considered asking but never dared to. She gave the same advice to anyone who asked her to do a rune reading: do not ask any questions to which you do not want the answer. After predicting the miscarriage of a long-awaited pregnancy, Eliza found she much preferred everyday questions—which college would accept you? Should you invest in this new company? Is it a good idea to plan a trip to Panama in December? None of these questions tended to destroy people’s hopes and dreams.
One rune called her strongly. Two others followed. Her mother was captured. Imprisoned. Now dead. She had received justice, according to the runes. She had been punished accordingly for her crimes. Eliza closed her eyes and felt through the runes to get in touch directly with the goddess who guided her. Understanding came to her. Her mother would have had to die nine deaths to receive equal punishment for what she had done. Her mother had even killed children.