Inhibition

Chapter 30

“Class, what is this?” Mrs. Ackley stood at the front of the room, pointing to a picture on the board. The picture had a circle on the front, and then a kind of square shape in the middle. Five sticks were coming off of the square and the circle. It was drawn with a pink marker, and some solid pink triangles were sticking out of the head. There was a swirly mass of purple in the middle.

“A bird?” The class provided.

“A plane?” Cat called out, going with the reference. Also, being the only non-magic person, she was the only one to actually know what a plane was. Something about that pesky magic interfering with what makes a plane stay up meant that not a lot of people at the Academy had ridden in them.

“A mutated fruit fly?”

“No, it’s superman.” At least Mrs. Ackley got Cat’s reference.

“Really?” The class was amazed. Okay, it was mostly Cat.

“Of course not. This is a pig.” She gave a duh face, wondering how the class didn’t get that. She pointed to the purple mass. “And this is its network for magic that runs through the body. You know, if pigs could harness magic. Or have networks for the magic. Actually, only humans have these networks and only certain humans at that. Really, I have no idea why I drew a pig. It isn’t relevant at all.”

Cat was used to non-relevance. If only an elephant had been drawn, then it could have been irr-elephant. Cat laughed at her own joke, drawing stares from those that hadn’t heard it. This would be everyone, since she forgot to say it out loud.

Mrs. Ackley continued to explain about the magical network in the human body.

“Magic is really just energy, and it’s an energy that is found everywhere. That’s why “to do magic” is a misnomer. You aren’t creating it. You are merely using it, hence “magic users”. A strong magic user, as I’ve already explained, is a strong magic conductor. These networks are what the magic is conducted through. The more magic that the network can handle, the stronger the magic user.”

Mrs. Ackley pointed to the purple swirls in her . . . pig.

“Now, this network works like the blood system in the body. It goes one way. Quickest way to hurt someone is to change the direction. If you managed to change the entire direction, it wouldn’t be that bad. There is no pump that regulates the direction; there is only the natural flow. It’s bad only when the flow is temporarily interrupted. Then the magic travels in two directions and rams into each other. This collision can cause the magic to expand rapidly, and go beyond the confines of the network. There is a reason that people without a network cannot use magic, and that when you corrode your network, things don’t go so well. Magic isn’t bad,” She stressed the “bad”, and then specified, “when controlled. But your bodies’ physical makeup can’t handle the onslaught of magic.”

Mrs. Ackley paused for a moment, thinking through what she wanted to say.

“Cat, come here.”

“Really?” Cat muttered under her breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” Cat said with a smile. She got out of her chair and walked up to Mrs. Ackley.

“Now, I’ll use Cat as my example.” She held out her open palm for Cat. “Your hand, please.”

Feeling less than reassured, Cat gave it to her.

There was a pulse of light blue energy.

“Ow!” Cat shook her hand out, trying to disperse the pain. It felt like she’d been stung.