Going Your Own Way, but with Magic

Chapter 7

The magic is going well. Really well. Yes, yes, I know. Pride will be my downfall, etc. But it is. I have a routine now, so fine-tuned it feels almost like a life. Unsustainable, but it'll do for now. Wake up, run, eat, and then to the field for magic practice. Run through every spell I know and then work on new ones. I can shove objects around, although I have absolutely no fine control. This has resulted in some amazing bruises. You feel the air and then you make the air be in a different place and then you shove. I have named it, creatively, 'shove'. I am getting excellent at fire. I can make a globe of warm, orange light and a campfire in a perfect cube and I can singe a perfect circle into a tree. Water still hates me. I get a lot of downpours, sometimes ten minutes after I've done the spell. When I want a tidal wave I get a pathetic misting of water. I haven't tried many spells on people. For both ethical concerns and looking like a total asshole concerns. I'm not really strong enough for ethical concerns. I can, however, project a very weak nothing-to-see-here (draw the power around you like a blanket and then throw it outwards). It's not going to stop a murder investigation (although I haven't tested this), but it ups people's general weirdness tolerance. When I do it right. It makes people look through me. I love it. I've spent my whole life searching for invisibility, and now I've found it. That spell is 'or'. And Daphne helps. Daphne helps a shocking amount, for a very lazy (and soon to be fat with the amount I feed her) mouse. In the spells, there's a second consciousness and a second power. The power of a mouse, but anything is good. I am ignoring the fact that pretty soon I will have to leave. I'm running out of money. But for now I am almost happy and I don't want to ruin it by thinking. At least I'll leave with some traces of this place. A sleepy mouse and a curtain ring. Good enough.

I've been spending a lot more time with Mr Bates. He's living his dreams of being magic vicariously through me. That was cruel. And unnecessary. I'm not good with kind people. Even if he is, it's win-win. He gets his dreams of being magic, I get my dreams of a family. Everyone's a winner. Either way, he loves watching me do spells no matter how much mess they make. He is constantly trying to give me food, with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. I have far too much pride to ever accept it. Again, I know. But I can't bring myself to take anything apart from treats for Daphne. She shouldn't have to suffer for me being a total idiot. One day I will take someone's kindness without seeing strings attached. I'll stop seeing favours as debts to be paid, hanging over my head. But today is not that day.

"Do you need a place to stay?" I'm pretending to browse books when he asks this. Okay, so he's a serial killer. No biggie, all I need to do is get out of here. His eyes are as kind as ever, but that's probably a cover. The only thing is, I do.
"Please don't murder me." He laughs. It doesn't sound like an evil laugh.
"Above the shop, there's a tiny room I'm using for storage. It doesn't get much light and it's covered in dust, but it'd be yours." I hear about a thousand people screaming at me to not be so stupid. And also to run. Something roots me to the ground.
"You realise you're asking a teenage girl on her own to stay over with you?" He nods, like he's considered it.
"You're right. And clever. But I don't live here. I can only be locked from the inside, and there's one key." It's ornate, rusted but pretty. I ignore the screams and pocket it. In case of emergency. "You don't have to. But if you're ever in trouble...you've can come here." He shoves his hands into his pockets in an attempt to look nonchalant.
"Why are you so kind to me?" I decide to ask him straight. I don't understand, and I want to. "Like, I get that you're a good person, but this is way beyond that. You barely know me." Something clouds his face, but he keeps smiling.
"Would you mind an old man reminiscing for a while?" It's a strange question, but I'm not going to be ruder than I have been already. He takes a photo from a drawer. It's old. He caresses it softly, reverently.

It's a younger him, with a pretty woman. His hair used to be black. The woman is pale and ginger and has the kind of smile I always imagined my mum having. Sitting in between them is a child, who looks about seven years old. And my eyes widen because she looks exactly like me. Same eyes, same facial expression, even the same way of sitting. He launches into the story without waiting for me to prompt him.
"Mary and Tris. My wife and my daughter." His eyes are clouded over, and I bite down on my lip. I can guess where this is going. "House fire. A few years after the photo. I was out, celebrating a recent promotion. Sometimes I wish I wasn't." He trails of. Oh god. I cannot deal with this. It shouldn't be me here. It should be someone wise and kind with the exact right words to offer. I can't imagine. I can't. I tap my fingers erratically on the counter, and stare at their faces. Their smiling faces, with love for each other and all the time in the world. I have to say something, something to make it okay.
"Hey, dead families club!" My voice is sickeningly upbeat and my smile is wide. Oh god. I did not mean to say that. Definitely not that. I think I mean to say anything but that. Well, I fucked up and I'm about to get kicked out. Deep breaths, make your peace with it. You fucking idiot. Dead families club, Jesus Christ. What possessed me?
"I have heard...many responses to me telling that story. Yours is by far the worst." I laugh, the sound forced and out of place.
"Oh my god, I am so sorry. I am so sorry. I am so sorry. I didn't mean...I meant to say...something else. Oh my god. I am so sorry." He smiles a bit, but the beginnings of tears are still gathering in his eyes. I am forgiven, apparently. Completely undeserved, but I'm not complaining.
"You see the resemblance, don't you?"
"I do. I...if I knew her, I think I would have liked her." The words feel wrong in my mouth. It's a worthless platitude, but it's the best I can offer. And who knows? Maybe I would've. "I didn't know. Obviously. I thought this was just as close as you can get to magic."
"Decent guess. That is a factor." He puts the photo back in the drawer, giving a last wistful look, and then we sit in oddly comfortable silence. It's as close as I've gotten to peace in a long while.

Eventually, I visit the room. I'm going to have no place to stay fairly soon, so I'll take my chances with a serial killer. The door is heavy and creaks loudly. It's half the size of a shoebox, there are boxes piled up to the ceiling and the dust is so thick Daphne jumps out my pocket in disgust. But it's mine. I have the key. This room is mine.
"This room is mine," I say out loud, my voice projecting louder than I meant it to. It still doesn't feel right. Mine. What a strange word. Okay, I've been poetic enough. Time for cleaning, which is a thousand times easier than thinking.

I try a couple of times to cast shove (a cleaning spell would really come in handy here), but I think it multiplies the dust. When I come dangerously close to smashing the window, I give up. I tie my hair back with a bandanna and pretend I'm in the fun parts of the 50s. After a lot of elbow grease, it starts to resemble a room.

There's an iron bedframe straight from an orphanage in the 1800s and a tiny table. There's a pale blue vase with yellow flowers that haven't been changed in decades. One of them crumbles to dust between my fingers. The window is small and high and looking out mostly onto bins, but behind it there's a faint view of the hills and a strip of cornflower blue sky. Daphne deigns to come back in, and settles down on the windowsill.
"This is my room." My room. A place for me. Somewhere safe. That's mine. Somewhere at least semi-permanent. It is everything I want, and it terrifies me.

I still have to say goodbye to Lizzie. I'm not quite that unfeeling. She has been kind to me, and I can't disappear on her. I don't like that. The knowledge that I can always disappear has been my security blanket for a long time. Now I can't. She greets me with a smile that splits her face in two and I let her hug me.
"I'm um...going to be leaving today. I've found a place to stay." I've stopped pretending I'm on holiday. She knows, and I don't want to insult her intelligence.
"That's good. Really good."
"Where are you going, after this?"
"Home. This is the last place on my list. Obviously. She's going home, to people who love her. The jealousy is so strong it's a struggle to keep smiling. I know it's pointless and I know she doesn't deserve it. But being able to go home.
"I'll miss you." This is a stupid time to get emotional.
"You do realise the internet exists, right?" My laugh is almost hysterical. God, I was being stupid. The internet exists.
"Are you saying you want my phone number?" There, that's good. Now I look less like an idiot.
"In a roundabout sort of way, yeah." I pick at my nailbeds and try to look relaxed.
"It'll be better if you write down yours for me. I won't keep this phone forever. I promise I'm not an international drug lord." She laughs quietly, and writes down her number on a post-it. On one of the scented post-its she has been carrying around. I fold it and put it in my bag.
"I hope things work out for you. And if it doesn't, you can call me." Of course she knows what to say. And I think she means it.
"Bye. Um...same here." Great speech, Max, very articulate. At least I said goodbye, properly. I didn't disappear.

In the weird attic room, I've developed a kind of life. A life that isn't all about survival. I practice in the mornings, help in the bookshop in the afternoons, run most evenings. I babysit and do odd jobs. I learn to boil water and make pretty coloured lights. Party tricks. Things that are unnecessary but fun. My water spells are getting better. The trick is not forcing it. I text Lizzie sometimes, who is always brimming with excitement at something. She sends lots of pictures of equally happy looking people. Daphne is going to have to go on a diet soon with all the treats she's getting. It's a life, a life that isn't precariously balanced. I have people who care about me and a place to stay and less fear of burning everything down and a grumpy pet mouse. It feels okay.