Chatoyant College Book 2: Initiates

Chapter 21: History of Chatoyant College

They were early to their Intro to Magic class, unless it was just that no one had seen the email giving the new room assignment: there was only one person in the classroom already. It was Roe, sitting at a desk in the corner. This was a much smaller room, looking like a classroom instead of an amphitheater, and the desks were set up in a normal square arrangement. Dawn and Corrie quickly made their way over to Roe and sat next to her.

"Hi, guys," she said, giving them a tense smile. "How's it going?"

"Oh, fine," said Dawn. "Did you sleep okay?"

Roe nodded. "No bad dreams or anything. I have no memory of the vision anymore, though. I only remember telling everyone about it." She wrinkled her nose. "I guess I need memory training too!"

"Do you always scream when you get a vision?" Corrie asked.

"No, actually, I don't think that's happened since I was a kid. Usually the visions aren't so frightening!"

Most of the room had filled up with other students while they were talking, and after a few minutes, the professor herself came in. Dawn suppressed a shudder at the sight of her--she wondered how long it would take her to get used to her teacher's appearance. Professor Lal looked like she was making a quick headcount, then frowned, shaking her head. "All right, I know a lot of people dropped the class, but not this many," she said, pitching her voice so the whole room could hear her. "Can someone run up to the old classroom and see if there's anyone there?"

She picked a guy who looked like he hadn't quite grown into his own body still; he was as skinny and lanky as an adolescent. "I would have volunteered if only I'd been wearing more practical shoes," Corrie whispered to Dawn.

"Okay, while they're on their way, I'll start a reading check," said Professor Lal. "Corrie! What was your favorite part of last night's reading?"

"The idea of witches being able to steal men's penises," she said promptly. The whole class laughed, and even the professor grinned, making Dawn suppress another shiver, knowing she was the only one who could see those teeth.

"I can tell you've done the reading. James! What do Johnson and Anderson say is the second most likely reason a person was cited as a witch?"

James gave the right answer too, and she continued asking random questions of random people for a few minutes after the volunteer had returned with the five students who apparently hadn't seen the email about the room change. Dawn noticed that the droopy-eyed girl who'd asked about danger had not returned to the class. Most people answered the questions quickly and correctly, and Professor Lal seemed satisfied.

"Now, I'm sure you're wondering why I had you read all this," she said, standing in front of her desk and leaning against it. "Does anyone have any guesses? Yes, Kira."

A muscular girl near the back of the classroom cleared her throat. "I thought you probably wanted to give us some historical background so we would have a specific grounding point to start."

Professor Lal nodded. "Yes, that's part of it. Anyone else? Roe?"

"Does it have something to do with showing us how magic users have been persecuted in the past, so we know to be careful?"

"Right again. Actually, there's a lot of value you can get out of having read these texts, some of which isn't apparent until later in the class. And you have more readings like this for Friday, so you don't just get the medieval perspective. But this is where we're starting because it's the best known reaction to witchcraft. I believe that's the reason some neopagans use the word 'witch'--they're reclaiming it--but it's also the reason the school doesn't use it, at least not officially. Yes, Dawn?"

She sounded surprised. Dawn was a little surprised at herself; she hadn't planned to interrupt a teacher in the middle of a lecture, but she remembered what she'd read in the student handbook over the summer. "Chatoyant College was founded in 1650. So the witchcraft hysteria was still going, right? It wasn't as big as earlier in the Middle Ages but it was still an issue."

"Very good, Dawn! Yes, that's just what I was about to say. It was a few decades before the famous Salem Witch Trials, but the school was founded, in part, as a sanctuary for those who wished to do magic but not harm others and not be persecuted for it. There were a few other, similar schools founded in Europe around the same time, but as far as I know none are still in existence. Fear of witchcraft is why we're such a small school hidden in the middle of nowhere. With the rise of both rationalism and neopaganism, though, we're able to be a little less secretive. In the past, you would all be here in this class only because you had family, or a family friend who really trusted you, who took magic classes and knew of them. Of course, that's still true for some of you," Dawn thought the professor's eyes flicked toward her, "but most of you probably only found out about it once you started your college search. We've always allowed students who didn't plan to major in magic, but it's only in the last couple of decades that we started to get students who didn't want to study magic at all.

"Don't worry," she continued with a smile, "this is not a history of Chatoyant College course in disguise. Again, I'm just giving you some background; this is information you're not going to find in any textbook. But there are two big reasons the whole world doesn't study and use magic: one, it's not as easy as it sounds, and two, most people still fear it and hate it. Even though we don't hide what we do anymore, it probably isn't a good idea to run around telling everyone you meet you're learning magic. They might think you're crazy, or they might take you seriously, and then you'll be in trouble."