Chatoyant College Book 8: From the Earth

Chapter 3: New to It

Dawn stared down at the piece of wood in her bucket. It had evidently been a branch from a birch tree, judging by the white, papery bark with black spots throughout. She wondered if Professor Lal had just wandered around the woods and picked up fallen branches. She looked for a spot that would be good for starting the fire. She knew she was procrastinating.

She took a deep breath and started to hum. Professor Lal had told them on Monday to experiment with gestures and sounds to focus with, and she'd found that humming helped. The low sound seemed to have a kindred relationship with her magic, which vibrated at the back of her mind, spread out like a pair of wings and glowing white.

At least, that's what it had been like on Monday. Now, she couldn't find it.

She gripped the edges of her desk and told herself not to panic. She knew it was there. She was just looking for it wrong, or something. She tried closing her eyes and mentally looking, but she could see nothing.

She still wasn't giving up. She hummed louder, then started chanting under her breath, nonsense words, as she looked for the magic. Finally, it came to her—vibrating, fluttering weakly, and seeming much smaller than before, but still there at the back of her mind. She frowned, wondering why it seemed so different, but didn't allow herself to become distracted. She focused again on the spot she'd chosen earlier, where several pieces of the papery bark were curled up, thin like kindling.

She hummed, and focused, and tugged at the wings in the back of her mind. On Monday, once she'd found the magic, the fire had caught right away. But today it seemed to take more time. Smoke wafted up from the spot, so she must have been getting somewhere.

Finally, she saw a spark. Excited, she blew gently on it, but it went out. She frowned, wondering why that had happened—she'd set plenty of campfires before, and she knew how hard to blow on a spark to encourage it rather than kill it. She reached into the bucket to touch the wood very carefully, but it was still cool. She glanced up and looked around the room, at everyone else focusing on their firewood (and Corrie staring intensely at a candle), and suddenly realized that she'd let go of the magic.

That was why the fire had gone out. She hadn't intended to let it go, though. She frowned and reached back. Once again she had to look for a while, but this time she found it more confidently, knowing it was different than it had been on Monday. Maybe it just changed all the time. She would have to experiment in between classes, if she could figure out how to do that without actually lighting anything on fire.

Dawn focused again on the spot she'd chosen, and went through the same cycle; smoke, then a spark, but this time she kept at it with her magic, and got more and more sparks until, finally, there was a tiny flame. She let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, and grinned. But then the fire went out again.

"Crap," she said out loud. A moment later, she heard heels clicking on the linoleum floor.

"Is everything all right, Dawn?" Professor Lal asked, standing next to her. "You don't appear to have an out-of-control fire."

"No, not at all... why, does somebody?" She glanced behind her at the rest of the class, but she didn't see many flames.

"They did," said the professor with a smile, "but it's dealt with now. Are you having trouble setting a fire?"

"A little," Dawn admitted. "I got sparks, and a little bit of a flame, but I keep losing my magic. It's like it's slippery today or something."

"You may simply be tired," said Professor Lal. "That can happen, especially when you are new to it."

"Well, that's definitely true. I guess I'm kind of tired. I'll keep trying."

Professor Lal nodded. "That is really all you can do." She continued on to her desk, where she took another piece of wood from one of the bags and returned to the class with it. Dawn turned back to her wood.

This time she managed not to distract herself with her own excitement. She focused until she had smoke, then until she had sparks, then until she had flame, and then until the wood itself was burning, not just the bark. Then she finally allowed herself to relax. This time she was paying attention to the magic in her mind, and it did seem to slip out of her grasp, though she didn't intend to let it. The flames died down, but the wood continued to burn—she'd created a real fire.