(x) Irregular Magic

chapter 5 - sorry, Mattie, but the world isn't fair

Mattie loved magic.

Growing up, she had watched her siblings with awe, wishing she could someday do the things they could do, attend the lessons where they learned how to use magic. When Tara was born, Mattie remembered her parents slowly going mad because their newborn kept disappearing. There were many afternoons when Mattie had sat with Inness as he did his homework, content just to watch him complete his Magical Theory assignments.

One of her earliest memories were of asking her father why she couldn't use magic. And the intense frustration that followed that conversation had followed her all her life. There was no real reason for it. Usually, the ability to use magic was passed down genetically. With parents who were mages, and their parents before them who were mages, it was odd that she alone was unable to use it. Once, she had asked her dad, on a whim, if she had been adopted. Mattie never forgot the sadness in his eyes. It was odd that she was a nonmagical, but not abnormal.

Of course not, Matthia.

But for all the discomforts in her life, Mattie had never really considered magic to be a bad thing. It was a tool, and just like anything else, it could be used for malice. To dismiss magic like some nonmagicals did because of what it could do was just stupid. If she wanted to, she could easily take a knife and kill someone with it. That didn't make the knife evil. Mattie encountered magic so often in her life it was hard to imagine what it would be like without it.

Stickerspells, soap spells, her tablet, anti-theft, anti-stain, anti-rot, painkiller patches, indoor weather-clouds, Mattie could think of a hundred other things made possible through magic. Magic was useful, inherently good. Mattie had never thought magic itself was wicked.

There was a first time for everything, it seemed.

"The only way we can honor Heather is by fighting back!" Mattie yelled into the packed theater. The resolution of the memory-prism was so good that she could actually see the beads of sweat on her face.

A shiver ran through her spine.

It couldn't be.

But it was right there in front of her.

Horror washed over Mattie, like she'd been doused in ice-cold water.

"That isn't me," she stammered.

"Oh, it isn't?"

Mattie bit into her lip so hard she tasted coppery blood on her tongue. "W-well, it is, but that's not what I said."

"Forgive me if I find that hard to believe, Ms. Andersen."

"This is tampered with," she shot back. Mattie licked dry lips. "I never said these words."

"Oh, this was tampered with, alright," said the inquisitor. Her thin, snakelike eyes were narrowed in suspicion and dislike.

"Y-yeah." But the look on the inquisitor's face was too unfriendly for that to be the end of it. Mattie couldn't help but feel there was something more.

"This is the original recording." The inquisitor prodded the small tetrahedral shaped memory-prism with a steel wand. "An anonymous person dropped this off at the Department of Safety three weeks ago, the day after your 'speech' at the old Haxaway theater in neo-Tarajen. Here's what was on it when we first found it." She re-winded the prism so it played a different file.

Mattie recognized herself onstage, exactly like it had been in the other file. It was a bizarre experience, watching herself from this angle.

"The only way we can honor Heather is by living on!"