Irina Syromyatnikova - My Path to Magic

But what were they doing wrong? The intuition of a practicing magician, a rather strong one, prompted Mrs. Hemul to think that the answer was closer than they imagined, and the dark stranger was a part of it. He had fumbled with the children for half an hour already, and from a distance it looked like he even enjoyed the kids’ continuous chatter. It was not normal! Neither a harsh word nor an aggressive gesture from him. Indifferent like a cat.

Petros, wanting attention, clutched with his dirty hand the sleeve of the dark’s light jacket. Now the dark would show his true nature… No, he leaned over, listening, and seriously replied. Appealing to both boys, he united them in conversation, and then left kids to talk to each other. A skilful trick! Gesticulating vigorously, Petros dropped the ball. Oh my God! The glass ball bounced harmlessly along the walk—protective magic in action. What foresight… She became uneasy by such mastery of the situation by the dark.

Mrs. Hemul decided: “You are wrong, Mr. Fox!” Noticing the change in her mood, the assistant principal slightly stiffened.

“I think Mr. Tangor’s visit is our best luck this year. Perhaps he is our last chance to improve the situation in the school. We’ve tried everything—except asking the dark for help. If you have a different opinion, please keep it to yourself or appeal directly to the Board of Trustees. While I am the director here, Mr. Tangor will be free to visit the school and communicate with any of our pupils.”

“Petros does not need the intervention of a rude, selfish…”

“Petros seriously lags behind in his development, even if we account for the initiation of his Source. Don’t you agree that it is disturbing when the period of primary fragmentation of consciousness is delayed to ten years! Luciano is the only one with whom Petros communicates regularly, and his brother is the first adult in the presence of whom he doesn’t hide in a shell, like a frightened snail. I advise you to appreciate it.”

Her relations with the assistant principal were spoiled; Mrs. Hemul realized that by how resentfully the man had twitched his chin. People think that hierarchical concerns are the prerogative of the Dark, but the white mages are cut from the same cloth, and sometimes the whites’ blood boils too. Mr. Fox thought of her as an irresponsible greenhorn. Whatever; perhaps, later he would understand her motives, although at his age… doubtful.

My trip had a chance to become a real resort vacation. I got up at dawn, did some exercises, had lunch, came back to take a nap in the room, and by 10 a.m. went to school to entertain my little white. What could attract an adult dark mage to the white youngsters’ company? One thing: with no effort on my part, they literally hung on my every word, and it was like a balm for my wounded pride. Deceased Uncle Gordon was right when he said that my lust for power was enormous.

Well, of course I thought about our conversation with Lieutenant Rudolph; however, I hoped he did not expect that one dark mage would solve all his problems. In my opinion, it would be much more productive to gather people to scour the neighborhood and the town; perhaps the missing just fell in some pit. Yeah, all nine people… My attempts to sort out the situation looked more like catching a black cat in a dark room. A totally counter-productive activity.

However, I was not afraid of the maniac—my Lyuchik was clearly not to his taste. But all these suicides…

For nearly a week, every day at 10 a.m. sharp, I came to the gates of the school and stayed put there until 5:30 p.m., even had lunch in the local cafeteria. We did nothing serious: played, walked, jump-roped (why am I even mentioning it?!), and talked. The flip side of the thin spiritual organization of the white was incredible tediousness—they could linger on every emotional experience for weeks, and not in a corner, quietly, but with everyone whom they could draw into conversation. Joe once explained to me that they needed to chatter over and rationalize any strong emotion, either positive or negative; otherwise it would put pressure on the nerves and drive them into the coffin. Lyuchik chattered without stopping, and I habitually nodded and thought about totally unrelated things.

For example, I thought about universal splendor. I ought to have gotten accustomed to the local beauty and returned to the dark mage’s normal cynical and pragmatic mood long ago, but blessed idleness persistently entangled my soul. It was unnatural, like the pleasure from smoking marijuana, a forbidden joy that sooner or later you would have to pay for. When a dark magician experiences discomfort, the rest of the world should stock its amulets.

In a flash of brilliance, I realized I should ask Lyuchik’s opinion about this place.

“You, yourself, do you like it here?”

My younger brother did not babble enthusiastically; instead, he seriously pondered my question (which already said a lot to me), then suddenly replied: “No.”

“No?”

“It’s boring here. And I don’t feel like doing anything.”

That was an answer worthy of a Krauhard’s resident! He was bored and wanted to leave, despite all sorts of eye candy. I appreciated it.

“Then perhaps you’ll go with me to Redstone? We’ll live together; there are also schools for the white in there.”

“What about the others? How about Petros?”

Hmm, Petros. My brother had managed to make a friend, whom, in the beginning, I took for an idiot: the boy a year older than Lyuchik continuously smiled, all the while shifting his beady little eyes and every now and then jumping up and down on the spot. Did he have some sort of tick? The dark mages, if they needed company, choose somebody on equal footing, but the white pick up all sorts of rubbish; it would be simpler to keep a pet for the company. The first time I met him, I could not resist the temptation to laugh at the boy—I reached out and began clapping him on the top of his head, like bouncing a ball. He stopped and somehow shrank. I ought to cheer him up.

“Exercising? Good for you! It’s very good for your health. I was also ordered by the coach to jump-rope, but I don’t know how.”

“Really?” Lyuchik asked suspiciously.

“True!” I replied with some pride.

Not everything I say should be understood literally, but the coach did give me that advice. But who was pulling my tongue? On the same day they found somewhere a long piece of twine and began mocking me, talking in two voices, each on his own subject. I could not say now that I did not care about the coach’s advice—that would have ruined my image. In between we played their favorite game. Guess which one? Me being their horse! And the school had six real ponies at that! By the end of the week I realized that the white kids were not so harmless after all.

Frankly speaking, only the presence of these splinters didn’t allow me to dive into the blissful moronity, because you cannot sleep on a hedgehog. For some reason, probably due to the complete change in my life rhythm, meditation formulas quickly lost their strength, and I was poised for action.

I needed to distract the kids with something else, or they would totally exhaust me.

The problem was that there were no other sources of strong impressions nearby; the white do not create problems for each other. The boarding school reminded me of a dollhouse in which handsome doll-teachers talked about loftiness with younger dolls, but the kids wanted to run and fool around; it’s in human nature to play at that age. And here I was, a typical genius: we should go camping, on foot, preferably with an overnight stay. Thus, children would be busy walking, and I could pretend I was thinking about the work, at least occasionally. What remained was to get permission from the local bosses.