The Savior of The Mages

Chapter 1

Lilacs. 

It’s rare to find them in the city, but when you pass by a small, sweet-smelling bush it can lift a mood faster than successfully playing Chopin's “Étude Opium 25, Number 6” without breaking your fingers. Of course, being able to play “Étude Opium 25, Number 6” at all was a feat in itself. 

    Calli bent down to smell the flowers, not noticing the rain puddle that had collected underneath the pot. Suddenly, with a plop, her music theory textbook landed into the water, the pages turning grey and soft.

“Shoot!” She muttered, squatting and quickly picking up the soggy book. Looks like our hair dryer will be out of commission tonight. She looked around briefly, yanked her backpack off, and set it down beside her. Calli shoved the dry books into her bag, placing the wet one beside the puddle, it didn’t matter if the book got a little wet now. She zipped up her bag, slung it over her shoulder and grabbed her theory book. 

Picking up the pace seemed to improve her mood, and put a much-needed spring in her step. Hanging close to the buildings ensured that she stayed out of the way of other pedestrians. Businessmen in expensive coats over a nice suit, heading home from a long day of work. College students in sweats and low-rise jeans heading out to waste away the evening. The occasional homeless person trying to weave their way into your path, telling their own, different sob story, yet showing the same broken smile. Calli stared ahead at a homeless man sitting on the corner and the people passing by. 

Then, one of the suit-clad men stopped at the homeless man’s feet and kicked over the cup sitting next to him. Calli’s heart leapt up into her throat. She watched as crumpled dollar bills blew out of the cup onto the rain-soaked sidewalk.

“Get a job you waste of space! Stop taking up our sidewalks-” Calli stopped listening as she briskly walked to the corner where the man argued. The businessman, upon her approaching, glanced in her direction, now noticing the attention he was receiving. As quickly as he had stopped to harass the man, he had left. 

Placing her textbook on the ground, she bent over on the ground to collect the bills that had been scattered across the sidewalk. Returning the crumpled, now slightly damp bills back into the cup, she reached into her own bag and pulled out a dry five dollar bill. 

“I’m sorry,” she quietly apologized, placing her own bill into his cup. Now that she was closer, she could tell he was quite elderly, in his late sixties or early seventies. He had a scruffy grey beard that seemed to never have been shaved and was balding underneath his navy beanie. He looked her straight in the eyes, one bright blue eye, one brown.

“Bless you, young lady,” he wheezed. Calli could feel her face heating up, as her hands began to sweat. Nodding, she stood up and briskly turned the corner. 

Her heart pounded with the beat of her footsteps hitting the ground. She had always hated confrontation of any sort, good or bad. 

Her lungs began to hurt as she realized that her breathing rate was hard to maintain, a combination of her fast walking pace and the moment of confrontation. Stepping off to the side, beneath the roof of a nearby building to catch her breath, she leaned over, grasping her thighs with her hands. Her hands. There was nothing in them. Her theory textbook was no longer within her general area; her book sat at the feet of the poor, homeless man.

I have to go back. I have to go back and talk to that man again. I need the book, I can’t just leave it back there. All of the thoughts streaming through her head were stopped in an instant, as she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Miss, you forgot this.” Calli froze up,s then softened. She knew that voice. She turned her head to meet one blue, and one brown eye. 

Heterochromia. She had once been obsessed with the term in second grade after learning that her next door neighbor had had the condition. Some of the kids in her class found it creepy, having two different-colored eyes. She found it mystifying. How lucky could one person be so lucky as to have two eye colors?