Awake | Wattys Winner!

FOURTEEN: strategy

When I was a little girl, I'd always wanted to find a genie in a lantern, perhaps buried beneath the soil in one of our paddocks. I'd spend afternoons digging for treasure, covered in dirt and overjoyed when I found random lumps of rock. I knew what I would wish for, and it was much more than a signed soccer ball from Cristiano Ronaldo like my little brother had suggested. It was the art of using magic, to have the ability to be talented at whatever I wanted to be. That, and to push my curfew back an hour.

I didn't realise that maybe magic had been flooding through my veins already somehow, without the aid of a magical lamp. It wasn't the fairytale magic seen in Disney movies or the kind that could be catalysed with a wand and broomstick. It was a dark magic.

A black magic. Thick, and oily, and smelling of decay, tainting my body and ensuring I was destined for evil.

I set out to find Isaac during psychology.

The chill had been melted away with a bright morning sun, and though the sing-song of the birds in the forest was not enough to shake me of the nightmares from the night just past, they hinted optimism. I couldn't afford to take it.

I figured the safest time to find Isaac would be when I knew Conrad was busy doing God-knows-what with the psychology class. Though I no longer attended after the terrors I'd witnessed, I had no doubt he was still using the time to send off his unknowing assassins.

After sneaking into his building and knocking on his door multiple times, a sleepy looking Isaac opened the door. His chest was bare, as if he'd just rolled out of bed, revealing creamy skin and broad shoulders, and beneath his eyes were heavy bags. I wouldn't be surprised if he tossed and turned in fear all night. I was doing the same.

"He knows," I said in lieu of a greeting, "He knows I stopped them from seeing him. Isobel and Gia. They went to his lecture this morning and I couldn't do anything about it."

His magic was stronger than mine, a child with a magic kit and a professional illusionist.

Isaac looked at me hesitantly, blinking for a moment before his mind seemed to process my words. "Shit. Come in."

He opened the door wide enough for me to slide in. In light, the apartment was a little more lively, sun filtering through the curtains, a contrast to the cold and silent room it had become last night. 

"I know it's not really time for stuff like coffee, but I need a coffee. Want one?"

The fact he was acting so nonchalant had me on guard. "Sure."

He walked over to the kitchen, his sweatpants scuffing against the floor. Along the way, he picked up a shirt that had been flung over the back of a seat and slid it over his head.

"He came to our flat last night," I said. "He threatened to kill them."

Isaac paused, his face contorted in fear. I could tell he was trying to keep it together for me, and I appreciated it. I missed the comfort of being a child, when everything was filtered to make sure you were okay. 

"How did he know?"

"I don't know," I said, running a hand through my hair. The memory of Blackwood's face so close to mine--his touch across my skin--had haunted me all night. "I think it's because he has such a powerful control over them. I just... I don't know how to free them."

"Maybe it's not about taking them away from him," he said after a brief hesitation, fiddling with a large appliance on the counter. Gia was the coffee expert in our apartment, I was barely able to run the machine by myself.

"What do you mean?" I asked. Every moment they were still under his control had me on edge. But, at the same time, removing them from it was almost as terrifying.