Wizard Blood, Vampire Magic

Wizard

                I jerked awake as I heard knocking at my door and grunted, rubbing at my mouth.  I knew I had been drooling and pulled a face, hating the feel of saliva on my chin.  I stretched as I got up, temporarily forgetting the tragedy from earlier.  Though I was quickly reminded as a man in a suit looked me up and down, a large folder in his hand and a frown on his face.

                “Christine Crown?”

                “Yeah, can I help you?”

                “I’m Edward Dillings.  I have with me your father’s will and would like to discuss some things with you.”  He waited until I moved aside to let him in, then strolled in and looked around, a slight twitch of his eyebrow the only indication of what he thought of the house.  I closed the door and sat in the chair once more, watching him curiously.

                “Why didn’t you call?”

                “It appears your phone has been disconnected.”  He sat on the couch, opening the folder and taking out a bunch of papers.  “Your father has left the house to fund your schooling and expenses, but he wants it sold.  He said he doesn’t think it’s good for his daughter to cling to his memory or his house, so we will be cleaning it and putting it up for sale as soon as possible.”

                I stared at him quietly, not sure what to make of what he was saying.  The only thing I could say was “oh”.  In the back of my mind I could hear a little voice saying “He doesn’t mean we as in us, he means we as in you.  You’re doing all the work, Christine, so get ready”.

                “Also, he expressed his wishes for you to stay with your mother until you were of legal age.  He also wished…”  The man talked for a while, but by then I had kind of zoned out.  In fact, it felt like the next couple of weeks were full of me zoning out and doing things on auto-pilot.  I cleaned my room and packed everything I needed, donated almost all of the books I had back to the library, second hand stores, and other places, and then proceeded with organizing the rest of the house and telling people what to do with furniture and things that didn’t matter.  By the time I was done my father’s funeral had happened, with plenty of police officers attending who liked the old man, his will had been officially read, and my mother had been contacted.  She told me to call when I was ready to go see her, which would probably be soon.

                On my last night in the house, I sat with a lamp on next to me.  The floor was hard under my butt, but I didn’t mind.  I took out the stick of wood and examined it fondly, smiling.  It looked silly in my hand now, but it was mine and fit in the pockets of all my pants.  I held it up and muttered a few things, moving the wand in a slow circle about my head.  I was taking down a couple of spells I had put up and giving a blessing for the people who were going to move in next, hoping that they were nice and could take care of the place.  A fine mist seemed to spread from the tip of the wand and reach every corner possible before it faded away into nothingness.  I sighed, leaning back on my hands.  I couldn’t think about how long it had been since I first enacted those spells, but for me, being a wizard was the coolest secret ever.

                I hadn’t known I was a wizard for a year or two, or maybe I had been ignoring the siren call of the magic in my pocket.  I kept the wand with me and things seemed to improve for me.  My luck got better, I found things came easier to me, and once I was sure I had seen a fairy.  My dreams had been more interesting the first time I accidentally cast a spell, as if a lock had been opened and the wand decided it was time to clue me in on a couple things.

                The first thing it did was tell me I was a wizard.  Dream-me said girls couldn’t be wizards and the wand laughed, saying of course girls could be wizards.  The way it was explained was magic was created at the dawn of time and sent to a host that was most like it.  There was good magic, bad magic, neutral magic, plant magic…  Every type of magic found a host in the form the host would be most able to use.  My wand had been held by both male and female wizards, but it was made with the power of wizards.  Some people got the powers of witches, which mostly involved herbs and ceremonies.  Warlocks tended to fall in the darker side of magic and there were a few bad magic users out there.  For a month or so the wand would visit me in my dreams and taught me about the wizarding world.  From what I could figure it was mostly a secret, as no one knew who else was a magic user unless they cast a spell.  There was a council who kept track of all the magical folks, and after I cast my first spell I had been placed on a list to be seen.  The only thing was, after that accident, I rarely used my magic again unless I had a real need.  Which in the modern world I didn’t, apart from a protection spell on the house and a few sessions of hit the tiny target on my ceiling with a fire spark.  But it was never enough to garner attention from this magical Council or go to school, so I forgot about them.

                Every now and then my wand, which was named Irjland apparently, would talk to me in my dreams and take the form of an old man with goat legs and curling ram horns.  He dressed in white and sipped tea a lot, which made me laugh, but he said this was perfectly natural of his species.  He’d teach me spells sometimes, answer questions, or just tell stories of the old days.  One day he told me about the necklace I had worn ever since I was eight, the key I never took off.  He said, while eating a peach, “That key is very powerful and will change your destiny.  It began to shift the moment you put it on, and you are going to be forced down that path whether you like it or not.”  I didn’t like that dream as much, but I put it at the back of my mind.

                I yawned, stretching my arms up.  The lamp was kind of sad looking in the empty house, but it was the last thing there.  My father’s brother said he would deal with the selling of the house so I could go see my mother.  It wasn’t encouraging, but it wasn’t bad either.  I had a backpack and a trunk, not needing anything else for the trip.  Soon I’d get to go see my mother, and honestly… I didn’t know how to feel.  She sent gifts every year, but in the past seven years or so, I hadn’t seen her once.

                I turned off the lamp and sighed, curling up next to my luggage and hugging myself.  Tomorrow, I’d go to the Academy.  But tonight I’d still be the wizard in Anthony Crown’s house.