Chatoyant College Book 4: The Flicker

Chapter 8: Relaxing

"Well, I guess it was the magic," Rico said. "Wasn't it the same for you?"

"In a way, I guess," said Dawn. "I remember my aunt showing me some magic as a kid. She didn't use it all that much, though. Mostly, I think, it was that she really liked it here and she wanted at least one of her nieces and nephews to come here."

"Yeah, I remember you saying that your aunt knew magic," Rico said. He shifted a little so he was sitting diagonally on the bench, half-facing Dawn. "That must have been really cool. I've never seen anyone using magic."

"What about the witch you said lived on your street?"

Rico shook his head. "I never actually saw her doing magic. I saw the results of it, and heard a lot of stories, but she didn't let anyone see what she was doing unless they were the ones having magic done on them. Actually, she did a healing spell on me when I was really little, but I don't remember any of it."

"Interesting." Dawn picked up Rico's left hand--his right was on the back of the bench--in both of her own and stroked his fingers absent-mindedly. She had long fingers, but his hands were still much bigger than hers. "And it never occurred to you to disbelieve in magic? I mean, I've always believed in it, but I know most people don't, and even some of my cousins claim not to believe in it now, despite having seen Aunt Pru just as much as I did."

"Nope. I grew up hearing stories of my astonishing recovery--I had a really nasty bout of pneumonia as a child--and every couple of years I'd see something the witch actually did. Like there was this girl in middle school with really, really horrible acne. She saved her allowance up, went to the witch over the weekend, and on Monday her skin was totally clear." He grinned. "That was a really quick one, but it wasn't the only one."

"Huh." Dawn nodded. "After all that, I can see why you would never doubt it."

"I've managed to convince a few other people, too," he added.

"What do you mean?"

"Some people in my magic class were grumbling about not learning magic yet. They said Professor Rook was just trying to trick us by saying we would learn magic in the second half of the semester--I assume Professor Lal said the same thing to you?" Dawn nodded, and Rico continued. "They wanted some evidence that magic was real, and were upset that they'd come to this school to take magic classes without any."

"Didn't Professor Rook do any magic in the first class?"

"No, not that I noticed. Did Professor Lal?"

"Yeah, she slammed all the doors in the classroom without being near any of them. Probably not hard to do, but it was pretty cool."

Rico laughed. "I wish I'd seen that. Anyway, I told the guys in my magic class about the witch. They seemed impressed."

"I can imagine." Dawn leaned against Rico's side. He was very comfortable to lean against, and warm, too; not that it was cold out, but today was a little cooler than it had been the last couple of weeks. It was September, after all. "It's kind of weird... maybe not weird, but interesting, how many people come here without necessarily believing in magic. Professor Lal said that it used to be only very few people came to Chatoyant College, and they all knew about it already from family or something, kind of like me."

"Used to be?" He put his arm around her shoulders, hugging her close. "It's still a really tiny college."

"I guess it was even tinier before."

"But why are you surprised? Most people in the world don't believe in magic."

"I guess it seems like you shouldn't even come to this school if you don't believe in magic."

"That makes sense." He shrugged--she couldn't see it, but she could feel his shoulders moving. "I'm not going to stop them, though."

"No," she agreed. She took a deep breath, noticing the faint smells of greenery and water. "This is a really peaceful place. I don't think there's anything living here besides some birds and squirrels. Thanks for taking me here."

"No faeries?" he asked.

"Not that I can see."

"Good." He kissed the side of her head. "I am surprised that no one else is here in the park, though."

"Why would they be?"

"Well, there must be people living in the town, right? Why did they make this nice park if they weren't going to take advantage of it? It's a very nice Saturday afternoon."

"I guess so." Dawn looked around as much as she could without sitting up. "Maybe they all came in the morning. Or maybe they're so freaked out by seeing strangers in their park that they're keeping out of our way."

"I can't complain about that."