Jiwa

Chapter Six

I coughed again, and Devi drowsily sent me another pitiful look. She had been listening to me coughing all night. It had been two weeks since the announcement, and I hadn't left my dorm since. My Captains quarantined me and visited me every other day, and each day, they left perplexed since the sickness had not yet abated.

I was the first case the school had seen, but not the world. In the rest of the world, people were dropping like flies, and so far, no kind of magic had been able to cure it. Art-based, the kind we used, did nothing, neither did elemental-based, spirit-based, star-based, or brain-based. What's worse, doctors' had started to worry that the illness affected our jiwa directly, but I had been trying to avoid thinking about that.

Devi and Kelly had been doing anything they could to keep me happy and sane. In the past two weeks, I had done more paint-by-numbers and memorized more songs than I had in my whole life. Sadly, they couldn't help me to keep my Potter side alive, especially because my own magic was only working on things I could see in front of me - I could no longer create art with the images from my mind. Although the crafts had been fun, I was becoming restless. Much as I loved my roommates, they had been the only other two people I had seen in two weeks, aside from the house captains. I feared I was going stir-crazy.

I sat up. Being alone with my brain for so long had made me nauseous. Devi tried to tell me to stop as I dragged myself out of bed. Something about how it was two in the morning. I ignored her. Once I had fully flopped out of bed, I made some effort to pull on a jumper and failed. Kelly walked in, after her late-night class, and frowned at me.

"Oh, my gourd! Get back in bed!" she said to me, shaking her hands in the direction of the bed. I shook my head and made some attempt to argue for myself, but my rasping excuse concluded with me in a hacking fit. Kelly sighed as she and Devi hauled me back into bed. Kelly shook her head again and went to the washroom, while Devi picked up a textbook and curled into bed to study.

"Devi, why do you never attend your classes?" I rasped a few minutes later. "You've just been here taking care of me for two weeks. How do they allow you to do that?" I heard her set her book down as she tried to answer my question.

"Well, I'm in Performing Arts, and the Performing Wing is on the other side of the school. I really didn't like walking all across the campus anyways, but, uh..." She sighed and I could practically see her rubbing her eyes, puffs of tiredness surrounding her.

"Well, in truth, I wanna stay here because I think I have to protect you."

She must have sensed my confusion, so she sighed, and sat up to explain.

"I was admitted into the school via the Carnival a few years ago. You know, when the school hosts a Carnival every year, and they have a talent show to see if any First-Year-aged kids are talented enough to go to school here? Well, I went when I was 13. But before I went to the Talent Show Tent, I went to the Fortune-Telling Tent, being run by a couple of 5th-years. When I sat down, the girl there was telling me the usual generic fortunes, when suddenly, her crystal ball began to glow and buzz. Her eyes flew wide open and filled with a ghostly light. She lifted a finger to my face and thoroughly freaked me out:

'In three years' time, when plague sweeps the land, it shall be caught by a fair maidens' hand. So beware, one with the voice of gold. You shall help her with the grave matters which unfold.'

And then, she just shook her head and said, 'You know what? I think I need to go lay down...' she did not seem to have any memory of the event. But I went to the talent show and used my supposed golden voice. They admitted me into APA a week later. I met you a year later. And two years later, here we are, plague is sweeping the land, and it has been caught by you, who I would classify as a fair maiden. I am supposed to help you through these grave matters. Apparently."

I shook with excitement and fear at her telling me this. Could the fortune teller be correct? Had this terrible sickness been predicted? Did they know if there was a cure? And...did she really think I was a fair maiden?

"Sometimes, I lay awake at night, wondering if it was a coincidence. But I don't think this is a coincidence. I do believe that clairvoyance, ESP, all of it can be true. I believe something has sent me here, so that I can help YOU, Fiona." I shook my head in wonder, and almost asked her another question. But I didn't when I heard her even breathing, telling me that she had fallen asleep.