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They walked back to Trevor’s car in a daze, opening the doors and sliding into their seats in silence, placing the bag of books on the floor at Mattie’s feet. They put their seatbelts on with slow, automatic movements, and Trevor started the car. The radio began playing oldies, and Trevor reached forward and turned it off in an abruptly compulsive movement.
Mattie twisted toward Trevor. “We’re not giving up.”
Trevor looked at her, letting the car idle. “What can we do? Those people had . . . powers. And they were right – we’re in over our heads. If they can’t find her, how can we?”
“We can’t give up on her! Those people wanted to capture her. And I really didn’t like the sound of that last thing he said about killing. I feel like that woman was all that’s keeping him in check. We have to find and help Tillie. They might have some tricks up their sleeves, but we have access to her home, we know her inside and out, and we have, I don’t know, love and shit on our side!”
“Love and shit?”
“You know what I mean! We’ve just confirmed that Tillie is in trouble – I mean, we figured as much, but we knew there was always the possibility that she had just wandered off on an adventure. We know now that she’s being hunted by powerful people, one of whom seems real sketchy, and we have to find her first!”
“Okay, but didn’t you hear what else that guy said? They need to ‘bring her in before she does any more harm.’ Are we fighting the good guys here?”
“I’m sorry, are you trying to imply that my sister is the fucking villain of the piece?” Mattie’s voice spiraled upward. “That she’s, what, some kind of evil sorceress, and those people were the magical equivalent of the FBI?”
“It’s a possibility!”
“No. It’s not. There has to be something we’re not grasping here. My sister is not evil. Plus, there’s no way that asshole Alverez is on the side of the good guys.”
“Who is Alverez, anyway?” asked Trevor.
“My boss from Hamilton High. The guy I quit because of.”
“Ah, yes.” Trevor cocked his head. “Look, I know you guys disagreed on how a school should be run, but that doesn’t make him evil.”
Mattie frowned at him. “No, but the fact that he was a spy for some shadowy organization doesn’t make him look super awesome, now does it? And now I’m wondering what happened to the old principal that opened up the position for him.”
Trevor lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. “All good points. Let’s not argue; let’s just head home and do some research. We have a lot of material here. Maybe we can figure out what they were talking about. Who these Auditors are. What Tillie was ‘dabbling’ in. What harm she can do with it. Okay?”
Mattie scowled, then nodded. “Fine. Let’s go.”
***
Mattie closed her book and set it down next to her, rolling her shoulders. She lifted herself off Trevor’s living room couch with a grunt and stretched upward as tall as she could.
Trevor looked up from his own volume and smiled. “Yoga break?”
“I’ve never done yoga in my life and you know it.”
“Maybe you should start. Tillie and I go every Thursday. Mostly. She’s been skipping lately, actually.” He nodded at the book. “Did you finish it? What did you learn?”
Mattie collapsed back into her seat and picked up the slim tome. “So, it’s called Limits of the Seer, and it talks about what a seer can and cannot do and delves a little bit into the strengths and weaknesses of other so-called mages, which are apparently broken up into spellers and stitchers. Unfortunately, it seems to be assuming that I already know a whole bunch of stuff that I just don’t.”
“Mine too. This one is for spellers, though. Maybe we should compare notes.”
“Is there a book in here about stitchers?”
“Let me see.” Trevor rummaged in the bag at his feet, which contained five more books, all found in Tillie’s condo. “We have The Mage’s World, Lancaster’s Grimoire.... Oh, here we go. A Stitch in Time. That sounds promising. I’ll take that one – Scott said something about me being a stitcher, right?”
“Did he? Okay, gimme The Mage’s World. Sounds like it might give us the basics.”
Trevor handed her the book and she opened it up to the table of contents.
“Bingo! We’ve got a section here called The Types of Mages and it’s broken down into an introduction and chapters called Seers, Spellers, and Stitchers.”
Trevor moved to the couch next to her to read over her shoulder.
“Let’s just read this together, then, and I’ll get to the stitcher book later.”
“Sounds good.” Mattie flipped to the first section and began to read aloud, snuggling closer to Trevor.
“‘Magic, as we know it today, can be broken into three distinct disciplines: the seer, the speller, and the stitcher. Each mage is most suited to hold only one of these titles.
“‘It is very simple to ascertain which title an aspiring mage should seek, as the disciplines are reflected in one’s temperament. It is important to note that, unlike the hereditary powers of witchcraft, any human has within him the potential to practice magic in one of these disciplines.’”
Mattie stopped reading and began to speculate aloud. “So, in theory, we could learn magic. That’s what Scott was saying. You’d be a stitcher. Did he say what I would be?”
Trevor leaned away to look at her, surprise written across his face. “You’re really starting to buy into all of this?”
“I mean, I saw two people appear from nowhere and then disappear back into nowhere. To say nothing of the stuff they did during the fight itself. And there has been weird shit happening all week. So, yeah, I guess I’m entertaining the possibility that magic could be real. You’re not?”
“No, I am,” Trevor admitted. “I was just surprised at you. You were so skeptical earlier today. Wait, what other weird shit are you talking about?”
“I don’t know.” Mattie shrugged. “Dr. Alverez used magic to slam a door, I think, which makes sense, I guess, if he was a spy for the Auditors. At the time I thought he had a remote rigged up or something. And then there was the thing with the bus driver.”
“The bus driver?” Trevor frowned. “Why haven’t you told me this before?”
“I guess I forgot,” said Mattie. She briefly told him about the man trying to exit the bus early and how the driver had stopped him.
“That sounds like stitching, right?” said Trevor. “With the gesture? And the Auditors said Dr. Alverez – do we really not know the guy’s first name?”
“No, he always insisted everyone call him Dr. Alverez.” Mattie rolled her eyes. “Super proud of his doctorate, I guess.”
“Well, they said he was a stitcher. So this bus driver must have been one too,” said Trevor.
“I guess so,” said Mattie. “We need more info.”
“Yeah,” Trevor agreed. “Keep reading.”
Mattie found her place again and Trevor leaned back in as she began to read again. “‘Because magery is temporal in nature, the indicators within one’s personality dwell in the way one interacts with time. Simply put, someone who lives in the past is a stitcher, someone who lives in the moment is a speller, and someone who lives in the future is a seer.
“‘Let us break that down further. You are an aspiring mage. Do you find yourself often reminiscing about events that have already happened? Are the people around you often shocked at your ability to recall details from a past event?’”
“Yes!” exclaimed Trevor.
“‘If so, you are best suited to the life of a stitcher. If, on the other hand, your strengths lie in the present moment – keeping your head in a crisis and making snap decisions – you are most likely better suited to become a speller.’”
“That’s you,” interrupted Trevor. “You’re definitely a speller.”
“I think you’re right,” Mattie agreed. “And we already know that Tillie is a seer, but this confirms it. Listen to this: ‘A seer is someone who always thinks ahead and is prepared for every eventuality.’ Definitely Tillie, right?”
“Yeah,” said Trevor. “So, that guy said that Tillie was ‘dabbling outside her scope,’ right? Do you think it has to do with these disciplines?”
“You mean she’s been trying to be a speller or a stitcher?” Mattie chewed her bottom lip. “This implies that you can’t do that.”
“Maybe,” said Trevor. “Or maybe you’re just not supposed to?”
“That makes sense,” said Mattie, thoughtfully. “So she got ambitious and tried to learn another discipline, but that’s against the rules for some reason. These Auditor people found out and came after her.”
“It’s one theory,” said Trevor. “But wait. If she’s a seer, shouldn’t she have seen that coming?”
“Not necessarily.” Mattie nodded toward the book she had just finished. “According to that, seers can’t see that far into the future. Or actually, they can only see a definite immediate future. If they look further, they get a whole bunch of possible futures.”
“So what you’re saying is that if she started doing this a while ago, she might have looked forward, seen some futures in which she would be fine, and some in which she wouldn’t, and decided to risk it.”
“Right. But I guess she looked into the near future on that Sunday morning and saw that the Auditors might come after her. And then later that day, she looked again, and it was close enough that she knew they would, so she ran.”
“But first she texted Scott. And Scott agreed to watch Max. Do you think Scott knew about her dabbling? Does he know about the Auditors or does he just think that Tillie went on vacation?”
“I don’t know,” Mattie jumped up and began to pace. “What do we know about Scott? Is he a seer too? Or is he one of the others?”
“He can’t be a seer, can he?” Trevor asked, picking up the book and idly flipping through. “He wouldn’t have opened the door for us. He’d have known we would see Max. So what is he?”
“The symbols!” Mattie grabbed The Mage’s World from Trevor, paging through it until she found an illustration of the three symbols depicted on the mailboxes at Tillie’s building – the eye, the lips, and the hand.
Below them was the ringed hourglass symbol from the pendant. She read aloud from the page. “‘These three symbols are commonly used to signify one’s discipline to other mages. The eye symbolizes the seer, for obvious reasons. The lips represent the speller’s spoken spells, while the hand indicates the gestures used by stitchers to manipulate the fabric of the universe.’”
“The fabric of the universe?” Trevor’s eyes grew huge and round. “I can manipulate the fabric of the universe? Like the space/time continuum?”
“Umm, it doesn’t say any more here. Probably in the stitcher section. What kind of symbol did Scott’s mailbox have?”
“It was the lips.”
“Okay, so he’s a speller.”
Trevor smacked his hand against his forehead. “Of course he is! That’s how he pushed us out and locked the door so fast. Remember? It was crazy how quickly he got us out of there, both of us, and I wasn’t even standing that close to him.”
“I didn’t hear him speak a spell, though,” Mattie objected.
“They don’t have to. A skilled speller can just think it. They only have to say it aloud when they’re still learning.”
Mattie shook her head, rubbing her temples. “My brain is starting to hurt. Do you mind if we take a break?”
“Me too. Let’s take the rest of the night off, watch some brainless TV, and get back to it in the morning. I’d say we’ve earned it.”
“Okay, Trevor, you have to promise you won’t tell Tillie this.”
“I will make no such promises without further information.”
“I just really want to watch Ancient Aliens, because I’m totally addicted to it, but I know that Tillie would judge me so much if she knew,” Mattie admitted.
“Are you kidding me? Tillie loves that show! She keeps an extra Netflix account just so you won’t find out. Now you’re telling me you’re into it too?”
Trevor threw back his head and laughed.
***
Mattie got up early the next morning, made a pot of coffee and some toast, and dove back into research. Trevor had been up even earlier and had left a note:
I’ll be working until 5 today – gotta be able to feed my house guest. I’m putting you in charge of learning everything about magic and putting together a lesson on it for me. And also you have to cook dinner. See you later!
Mattie wondered idly how many of Trevor’s co-workers at the grocery store also had advanced degrees in Multi-Cultural Medieval History. Probably a lot, actually.
She shrugged and got to work.
She read all morning, filling several pages of a notebook she’d found sitting on the kitchen table. She learned that the hourglass symbol was something that mages often used to identify each other. She learned that there were whole families of mages who raised their children to be mages, generation after generation. She learned that these families had been dwindling in the past couple of centuries and that most modern mages stumbled upon the practice on their own, often banding together in enclaves like Tillie’s apartment building.
She wondered how Tillie had found magic.
She learned that magic comes from within, that you get tired from using it, just like you do with any other activity. She learned about the three types of mages, and how their strengths could balance each other.
Nowhere did she find any indication that it was possible to learn a new discipline.
She closed the book and glanced at the clock, massaging her right hand, which was sore from all the notetaking. It was 4:45 – she had been reading for eight hours, minus the time she had taken to scrounge in the fridge for leftovers around noon.
Better start on dinner.
Mattie stood and stretched, twisting and bracing herself on a chair, holding herself there, and then twisting the other way. She walked to the refrigerator and rummaged in the crisper drawers, taking stock of the veggies held within. Broccoli, bell peppers, half an onion, snap peas, mushrooms. A stir fry, then. She remembered seeing a package of chicken thighs on a shelf above, and she pulled them out and set them on the counter. Then she grabbed a cutting board and a chef’s knife and got to work.
Half an hour later, Trevor walked in the door, just as Mattie was placing a covered bowl of rice on the table.
“Honey, I’m home!” he called.
“And dinner is on the table!” she responded with a curtsey. “It’s nice having someone around to cook for again. On my own, I find myself just eating junk food half the time.”
“Well, this smells great. I’m starving!” Trevor sat down at the table and dished up some food. “So, what did you find out?”
Mattie told him all about her research as they ate and then continued as they adjourned into the living room with wine glasses. She told him that stitchers opened portals to move objects through them in space and manipulated time to restore objects to a past state. They could even heal people to a limited extent in this way.
She told him about the powers of seers to deliberately look into the future of anyone except another seer. Sometimes they could have random, involuntary visions about other seers. But they were best at seeing their own future.
She explained that spellers could work their magic on anything that existed within their line of sight just by thinking about it in a certain way and using language to help focus their power.
For hours, they discussed the science and mechanics of this brand new world of magic they were discovering. And it was science – it had rules and limitations, systems and processes. It wasn’t just waving a wand and wishes coming true.
Finally, Trevor declared himself brained out. “I need to get some sleep, and I’m sure you’re exhausted too. I don’t have to work tomorrow, so we can hit the books again together in the morning.”
Mattie yawned and agreed. She wandered off to bed, where she fell straight to sleep and dreamed of her sister opening portals.