Algernon Black

(Chapter 46) What Makes the Wind

"You're having a difficult time because you focus on control," Algernon said, stepping around Lucy to an aged cedar shelf housing some plants. "The last thing the darkness coming through you wants to be is controlled."

Lucy bit the inside of her cheeks and tried to input his instructions. But it was a concept she understood only in principle, not practice.

"The energy you call is looking for the path of least resistance to escape your body and you need to open the pathways for the energy to flow out," Algernon explained. "Not stay so rigid." Lucy stared down at her hands and tried to carve the essence of the lesson into her mind. Algernon noticed her struggle as he started pick up on even the smallest signals of Lucy's worries. "To work with dark magic you have to allow it to wash over you, to completely surrender yourself to it. Just like a river will follow the easiest path given to it, so will the energy in your body." Algernon abandoned his plants to come to her side. "But like a river you can't expect to control its movement, you can only work with redirecting it."

"Like a beaver?" Lucy asked.

"What's a beaver?" Algernon questioned back.

"Are they not a thing here?" Lucy asked, noticing the lack of understanding on Algernon's scrunched face. "They're like dog-sized brown rats with flat tails and big teeth," Lucy explained but Algernon looked lost still. "And they build up little dams in the rivers to control the water flow."

"Why would they do that?"

"I don't know," Lucy replied. "I never thought to ask."

Algernon almost laughed but caught himself. It was easy to let down his guard in the greenhouse and even easier around Lucy. "Well if a beaver helps you to channel dark magic then build away."

Lucy giggled, and by the sound of her laugh, all the muscles in Algernon's body relaxed. It was such an unusual numbing effect her voice had on him, but not at all an unpleasant one.

He brushed aside the feeling before he became too comfortable in it to open the palms of his hands as the dark void of magic accumulated. When seen from afar it looked like the magic was one entity, but up close Lucy could see the energy was constantly circling above his hands, never stopping but being guided into a vague shape.

"I never noticed before," Lucy said, marveling the magic. "How beautiful dark magic is up close." She spoke the words so genuinely it made Algernon blush. He instantly sent away the dark magic and suppressed the lightness that overcame his mind.

"Try it then."

Lucy still felt unsure but breathed in a calming breath, as Algernon's words repeated in her mind in the deep reverberations his voice spoke everything in.

She called upon the dark energy with open palms and closed eyes. It took Algernon a second to notice the magic pooling in her hands as Lucy's delicate features distracted him once they were finally still enough to be admired.

Lucy looked down to witness what she had accomplished and as soon as she did the magic waned to a stop as did her confidence.

"I can feel myself doing it, but when I open my eyes it leaves me," Lucy sighed. "Like a dream, I just woke up from and can't remember what it was about."

Algernon could see Lucy trying to contain her disappointment and failing.

"Close your eyes," he said, breaking the lull in conversation.

Lucy questioned him with a raised brow, and to mask the blush that crept up his neck when she met his eyes so suddenly, in a surlier voice added, "Just do it."

Lucy was less willing too because of his attitude, but complied.

Algernon advanced to the nearest candle and blew it out. Lucy partially opened her eyes as the clarity of the greenhouse faded. The sun had already set and the only light they shared came from a few sparse candles.

"What did I just say?" Algernon said, not even having to turn around to sense her disobedience.

"Sorry," Lucy responded, shutting them tight. Algernon laughed to himself and silently regarded her once more. The sparse light in the room diverted around him but rallied around Lucy as if she was the source of their shine.

"Can you still feel the light, even when you don't see it?" Algernon asked. His voice came from a distance away as he moved further from her to the other candles.

Lucy's focus went to her sense of touch. Magic was a sensation, a motion through the body, and one had to be aware of more than just sight or sound.

"It feels warm," Lucy said, as the glow of the candles still left a trace of their light on her skin. "Comforting."

Algernon examined her once more in the halo encompassing her. He thought she could have been describing herself. He swiftly blew away the thought along with the last candle. They were in complete darkness without even the faintest of the moon's light to cast into sight the greenhouse's interior. Lucy felt the light withdrawing even with her eyes closed, and the shift of everything around her as it went. The plants dropped their leaves, and the windows grew cold as the darkness brought forth more than just what could be seen.

"And can you feel the absence of light now that it's gone?" Algernon asked as steadfast and slowly as he made his way back to her through the blackness overtaking them.

"Yes," Lucy said, and she could. She could feel it all over her body. The way the dark touched and crept into everything in the room, including her.

"Could you find the comfort in that too?" Algernon asked his voice gentle and hushed like he was mimicking the tones of the night. He arrived to stand beside Lucy without a single sound to alert her to him.

Lucy reflected on Algernon's words but mostly she felt for him and all he shared in common with the darkness. His presence blended in with it so well she perceived no difference between the two. It was pleasant with its own type of reassurance, whereas light illuminated all around you, the blessings and the evils, the dark sheathed all.

Lucy drew her attention to her hands where dark magic poured. It was weightless. Neither cold nor hot as the space between her fingers was brushed by soft wisps of the flowing energy.

Algernon saw the magic against the contrast of Lucy's skin. "Open your eyes," he said delicately, in the hopes she would be just as tender in her approach.

Lucy's eyes drifted open to the black of night, and after seconds of adjusting, saw the black clouds gliding over her palms before falling through her fingers to disappear into the darkness.

"I used to think dark magic didn't feel like anything," Lucy said barely disrupting the quiet of the night with her willowy voice. "But it feels like the wind," she added, coming to the conclusion that had evaded her for so long. And now that she realized it, she wondered how she'd ever missed it. "I've always loved the wind."

Algernon stared through the guise of darkness at the girl, where Lucy couldn't see him pondering her. Love the wind?

"How could you love the wind?" Algernon asked, his face crossed in confusion. "It's inconsistent, unpredictable, cold." He studied Lucy and all her complexities, and his voice softened just a bit. "How could you love the wind?" Algernon repeated and even he was surprised that he had asked it, and a little embarrassed by how desperate it sounded.

"I don't know," Lucy replied. She could barely make Algernon out through the darkness but found his eyes that remained the only thing blacker than night. "I never thought there was a reason not to love something just because there were some faults to it."

Algernon met Lucy's gaze and broke it just as soon. Her eyes weren't something he could stand looking at too long, especially when she spoke as she did now, and they lit up so radiantly against the contrast of night.

Algernon relit the candles with his magic, before striding away from Lucy as reluctantly as his plants would have.