An Odd Sort of Magic

Chapter Five

Jayan was already pretty sure that Jasmine was the leader. She had that aura of authority about her. So she only had one more pressing question, “What about Catrina? Is she in the Underground?”

“Oh,” Arianna’s pale face darkened and furrowed, “Catrina’s on Ms. Shelling’s team. She always hated her power, so it wasn’t hard for Ms. Shelling to convince her to join her cause. I’m sorry.”

She looked so apologetic that Jayan couldn’t help but be sorry that she’d brought up the subject, and was glad when Kiya called, “dinner everyone! Come on, we don’t want to be late. There’s a new student, so after dinner we should all be prepared. Convincing him would help put us ahead.”

Jayan followed the members of the Underground out of the attic and down to the dining hall. Jayan’s heart skipped a beat when she saw Ms. Shelling smiling warmly at the head of the table. Unlike when Jayan had come, she didn’t name all the students, but she did introduce the new one.

“This is Victor,” Ms. Shelling announced audibly, “he’ll be joining us.”

The students didn’t seem to care. Jayan could tell a few, specifically those nearest Ms. Shelling, looked cold and harsh, evidently the ones she’d swayed to her side. Catrina could be seen among them, and Vanessa was right next to Ms. Shelling. After dinner, the students all filed away from the table dutifully, and wandered to their after-dinner free-time activities. Jayan was swept up in the crowd, but managed to catch up with Drew. She caught a glimpse of Victor through the groups of people. He was being led away by Kiya.

"Um," Jayan mumbled to Drew as they walked back to the attic, "if Vanessa'a cursed, can't Ms. Shelling force her to tell her about the Underground?"

"Well, she could," Drew whispered back, "but Ms. Shelling doesn't suspect a thing. Vanessa's good at what she does. It's really impressive, actually."

"One more thing," Jayan said, "why are you called the Underground if you operate in the attic?"

Drew laughed, "Kiya came up with our name. She reads too many spy books if you ask me."

Jayan laughed with him. It felt good, being able to laugh. It seemed like there was very little to be happy about.

When the throng of students reached the attic, most of them began preparing for bed. Sections of the attic were cut off by curtains, and each section housed a couple members. Drew pointed to one section, "you'll be sleeping there, with Arianna. No one else will be her roomate, so to speak, because of how much she talks."

Jayan nodded, "Thanks, Drew." He turned, and started to walk away, when Kiya entered the room. Everyone stoped what they were doing, and turned to look at the Underground's leader.

"We have made a small sucess!" Kiya said. She wasn't speaking loudly, but her voice had the sort of tone that carried across a room, "We have a new member tonight." She stepped aside, revealing the new student called Victor. He smiled shyly at the room full of staring kids. Kiya tuned toward him and spoke quietly, then pointed to one of the small 'rooms'.

Everyone lost interest, seeing that Kiya was done speaking. As Victor went off to his section, Kiya approached Jayan. "

Even from across the room, Jayan had been able to tell Kiya was a natural leader. The orange-haired girl was kind of hard to miss, not because of her hair, but because of her presence. She seemed to fill the room, even though she was on the slim side. You could see her confidence in every move she made.

"I have something you need to look over," Kiya told her, pulling out a packet, "this is a magic list of everyone in the Underground. Whenever someone new joins, their name appears on the list. It includes their power and a picture too. You need to know everyone who is on our side. No one else in the acadamy so far can change thier own, or anyone else's, appearance, so you know who ever matches the picture is really that person."

"This is a lot of names," Jayan muttered, looking at the wad of papers.

"Compared to the total in the acadamy, it's not that many," Kiya sighed, "we do our best, but it's hard. We're fighting a force so powerful-"

"I thought Ms. Shelling couldn't do anything besides cooking and color magic," Jayan interupted.

"That is all she can do," Kiya said, "but she's also very pursuasive. She controls and comands many magic casters who can do a lot more than she can herself. And people listen to her because she's right. We are misfits. The magic world doesn't like impuritys like us, so we're cast aside. You have no idea how hard it is to put a positive spin on that." Kiya straightened up, "but I must be boring you. Look over at least a couple pages of that list before you go to sleep, okay? And I must warn you, the kid in the room next to this one has hands that glow in the dark." She smiled, and then left.

Jayan sat down on her bed and looked at the list. She was so busy reading it, she didn't notice when Arianna walked in. For once, the perky girl was being quiet. When Jayan finally looked up, Arianna gave a little half wave from the other bed.

After about an hour of trying to memorize the first two pages, Jayan gave up and tried to focus on falling asleep. This proved futile. There was too much going on in her head. The names and pictures and powers kept running through her head. There must have been over a hundred kids in the Underground, but that wouldn’t be enough.

“Are you still awake, Jayan?” a sleepy voice mumbled, “You really shouldn’t be up this late.”

“Go back to sleep, Arianna,” Jayan smiled, “I’m sure I’ll fall asleep soon.”

Arianna rolled over and closed her eyes. Jayan was shocked at how easy it was for Arianna to block everything out.  Of course, Arianna had been involved a lot longer than Jayan had.

It seemed forever before she managed to fall asleep. And it felt like only a few seconds before she was awake again, blinking in the light from the windows. Arianna was already up.

“Come on,” she grinned, “we need to get down to breakfast. I’d hate you to spend your first day as a member on an empty stomach.”