Dangerous Magic

30. Sad Wishes

When I was little, my mom and I used to cuddle up to read together before bed. She would let me pick the movie every time, even if we had watched my choice of film a dozen times that week. Dad used to say we brought out the best in each other.

After Cami died, my parents moved us away from upstate New York faster than expected. That made sense now, but when it happened, I didn't understand the urgency to get out of town. We went to Vermont next. Then Maryland.

We were back in New York when Dad disappeared--when I made him disappear.

The day after it happened, Mom stopped reading her books. She still let me pick our movies, but that was because she wasn't watching. She spent hours, days, studying the grass where he last stood.

And when we moved that time, we took very little with us. I used to think she left her voice behind along with all our stuff for all that she talked to me in the months that followed.

It took her another year to agree to teach me how to keep my magic sealed. Once I mastered the seal to keep my magic from exploding out of me, she seemed to relax.

I should have known what that meant. Part of me suspected, but I didn't want to admit that my mother had been afraid of me, not even to myself.

Jackson hadn't been afraid. He knew better than me what I could do and he wasn't afraid.

I wasn't sure where I was headed until I stopped in front of the library doors. Thankful to my subconscious for taking me to my happy place when I needed it the most, I entered on the lookout for anyone who might make me go to a class.

The room was empty as far as I could see. No librarian, no students. I would have been surprised to see anybody at all since it seemed I might be the only student who regularly visited this space.

Still, I found a table on the second floor, along the back wall behind the aisle of rune linguistics books. The library at Beatrice Potts Magischola had an extensive collection of books on the runes of every culture and how to use them. That might be worth studying.

Though the library was empty, the table hadn't been cleared from the last person who'd sat at the far end. I chose the chair across from their discarded notes and the open, forgotten herbology book.

I just wanted a minute to think. Breathing in the smell of old books, I closed my eyes to try and quiet my brain.

But agitation won. I spent the rest of the morning looking for books that might have more information on alternate realities and parallel universes. The only one I found was the same one the work-study student had suggested for me.

It occurred to me that, as a scholarship student, I perhaps should have also had a work-study assignment. I imagined myself working in the library or the front office and grimaced. That would have seriously cut into my research time. I'd never planned to be there long enough to follow through anyway.

A small group of students came into the library during lunch. They spoke in hushed, serious tones, but did not come up to the second level where I hid.

I breathed a relieved sigh when they left and returned to my table in the back. With my head resting on my arms on the table, I dozed. In my dreams, Cami chased me in the forest. She never got closer, and though my legs pumped as I ran, I never went anywhere.

+

The sound of muffled giggles woke me. I groggily rolled my head to one side, assessing my surroundings, and realized I hadn't left the library.

Where would I go?

Sitting up, I stretched my arms over my head and the chair shifted, squeaking a little. The giggles stopped. I caught flashes of two figures dashing out of an aisle a few rows down from me, their frantic footfalls thumping in their rush to not be seen.

Good for them; I was happy to know that the library stacks were used to gossiping and making out. The movies got that right.

Nobody had come to claim the book or the notes in front of me. Feeling nosy--and avoiding my own problems--I picked up the handwritten notes.

It was a list of plants with bullet points underneath each of the many uses the book called out. At the bottom of the page, the student had scribbled a frustrated note to themselves.

I wish I could get this right.

Me too.

I took a pen out of the middle of the book where it had been holding the page and made my own wish.

I wish I could start over.

Looking at our sad wishes, I felt the urge to cry a little. Instead, I crumpled the paper in my hands.

It was time to stop hiding.

On my way out, I waved to the work-study girl, who had arrived for her shift sometime while I'd been napping my cares away.

"Did that book help?" she asked as I approached her desk.

"It did, actually. Thank you for finding it." I smiled at her, finally happy to have one thing work out. "Hey, what's your name anyway?"

"Matilda," she replied after a moment. She looked uncomfortable, like she wasn't used to people taking an interest.

I gave her a small smile. "Thanks again, Matilda."

Matilda went back to her assignment, but I could feel her eyes drift toward me as I passed the desk.

I stopped before the trash can by the door to toss the crumpled notes and wishes. Nobody was coming back for them, and I wouldn't need it where I was going.

The paper ball bounced off of the wall behind the trash with a light whack, and sailed into the can soundlessly.

It was only as I was walking away that I realized the crack in the brick wall hadn't been there before. 

A/N: Only two chapters left!! Thank you for sticking with me this long. This story was an experiment for me, and probably the most fun I've had writing in a long time. If you're enjoying Dangerous Magic, would you leave a comment and let me know?