“I’m so good at glamours.” Tricia giggled. “I have one on now.”
Alice stared at her, not seeing any threads of magic running across her clothes or skin.
“Where? Oh, is that rude of me to ask?”
“I don’t care.” Tricia tugged at the front of her tank top and slipped her hand in, pulling at something on her chest. When she drew her hand back it trailed a silver thread behind it. Alice stared in astonishment. “Your…..you...”
“It makes me look like I have more cleavage.”
“Wow.” Alice was hard pressed to think of a more shallow use for magic, and Azura’s expression said the same, though she didn’t look as shocked.
“They’re super easy to do.” Tricia clearly didn’t pick up on their expressions.
“So we would use magic to make dresses look Victorian?” Alice guessed.
“Exactly.” Azura nodded. “We can put a glamour on a normal dress and it will look to everyone else like you have a completely different dress on.”
“What will it look like to me?” Alice said curiously.
“If you look in a mirror you can see what everyone else sees.”
“That must be strange.”
“It is at first, but a good glamour can come in very handy occasionally.”
Alice remembered the wizard at the bar who had turned himself more attractive and frowned.
“We can practice them in the next few weeks till you have it perfect,” Azura said. “It does take a bit of concentration to maintain at first, until you really have the hang of it.”
Alice shrugged. She seemed to be able to get most things right away; she was beginning to believe what Azura had said when they’d first met about her being a natural at magic. Glamours seemed simple enough.
The shop did a steady business. Alice found they sold more potions and elixirs than usual, apparently due to the increase in young women coming in. Tuesday morning it was just her and Azura working, as Gabriel and Shakra had gone to the park to stretch their legs and get some fresh air, and Azura suggested she start learning to cast a glamour. Alice agreed enthusiastically, picturing herself changing in different ways. It would be so cool to have green eyes. She couldn’t help but think about Shira, the Banshee woman she had met when she had first inherited the shop. The woman was the complete opposite of her - messy blonde curls that tumbled from her shoulders, fine alabaster skin and large green eyes. She was so beautiful. I wouldn’t mind looking like her.
Azura smiled knowingly. “Most Witches have loads of fun playing around with it, and others, like our new friend Tricia, use it all the time to enhance something, or sometimes, cover something up.
“You mean pimples and stuff?”
“Not usually anything so small. It takes some effort to hold a glamour, even if it’s just a small one. It’s easier to just wear cover up for minor skin flaws. Maybe if you had a terrible birth defect, or a missing limb or something, then you might think it worth the effort.”
“Or to give yourself more cleavage,” Alice said wryly.
Azura shrugged. “Personally, I would use a good push up bra.”
“Seems like a silly thing to use magic on for any extended period of time. It’s one thing to experiment and have fun with it, but holding it all the time?”
“I agree, however, she seems to have no trouble holding the glamour. Perhaps to Tricia it’s as natural as breathing, and it’s not a big deal.”
“She also walks in six inch heels, I would never bother with that either.”
Azura laughed. “True.”
“Okay, so how do I do this?”
Alice watched as Azura reached up to the ceiling, closing her hand around a light blue thread.
“You can use any thread that’s mouldable for you, a thread that will turn the other threads into the right type of spell. When you reach out for it, it should feel receptive and versatile, like it’s on the brink of changing to something else. Take that and find your second thread - this time you need a deception, a false thread if you will. You’ll recognize it because it feels a little slippery, a little sly. Your third thread is your end goal, your big picture. Let’s say I feel like changing the color of my eyes. I’d like electric blue eyes. This last one is difficult because it’s not like the usual intentions you project. You would like blue eyes, so how do you project that?”
“Picture blue eyes?”
“That will help, but you also need to speak that in your mind and will it to be so.”
“That’s a little vague.” Alice hesitated. “Sorry, I didn’t mean your teaching…”
“It’s okay. I know it’s hard to explain and it’s hard to learn at first too. The best way is simply to try.” Azura opened her fist and let the blue thread drift away.
“First feel out the changing thread.”
“Alright, I’ll try.” Alice bit her lip and reached up with her senses, trying to find the thread that felt like it would change for her. She looked for the blue one that Azura had let drift back up to mingle with the others. She’d lost sight of it. Nothing felt right at first, and she searched through the threads with growing frustration. She felt the potential of force, lightening, bursts of darkness and light, intense heat and cold, storm clouds and blizzards, alien languages, hidden abilities, untouchable knowledge and power…
Something sparkled through her entire body, a gentle tickle on all her nerves, a warm and pleasant sensation that made her shiver as she touched the threads. It was wonderful, and she opened herself up to it further, stretching up. The feeling got stronger, and the trickle turned slowly into a torrent. Something was wrong.
Alice gasped as the sensation rushed over her like a geyser, battering down her defences, charging each nerve in her body until every inch of her skin tingled and the hairs on the back of her neck stood at attention. It felt like she was floundering, fighting the rip tide of an overwhelming power that threatened to carry her away. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. A moment more of this and she would be gone, lost forever.
“Alice?” There was a tone in Azura’s voice, one she’d never heard before - fear.
Alice wrenched open her eyes. She hadn’t even known she’d shut them. Her heart gave a giant buck in her chest and leapt up into her throat. Every thread in the room had been sucked straight towards her. They were all standing on end, pointed down at her like the barrels of multiple neon guns. Even the patterns woven into the walls and ceiling posts had unravelled themselves and were standing rigidly at attention. They glowed and pulsed in time with her galloping heart, awaiting her command.
Vast amounts of magic at her fingertips…
It was then that Alice saw exactly what she was capable of…if she so desired.
Alice screamed. She closed her eyes, but the images continued to pass before her. She crouched down as if to protect herself from a beating, her elbows on the desk, her shaking hands shielding her face.
“No, no, no!”
“Alice!” Azura was there, taking her wrists, trying to pull her hands away from her face. “It’s okay. Alice, look at me.”
“Not me!” It was all she could say. “Not me, it won’t be me. It won’t be!”
“Alice, please calm down!”
She couldn’t calm down. What she had seen was too horrible. Her breathing was coming fast and short. Alice had only hyperventilated once before, when she and Jason had gotten lost hiking and it had started to get dark. She had been so silly, thinking she was going to die. She wished she was back in those woods now, scared of bears and cougars and invisible sounds in the trees. There were worse things.
“Alice, you must calm down!” Azura’s voice was ragged and afraid. It startled her enough that she looked up.
The threads were no longer pointing straight down - now it was the opposite, now they were smushed against the roof, as if trying to get as far away from her as possible, like a puppy that runs up to play and cowers back upon being hit. Except the magic was no puppy. No, it was a big, slavering, razor toothed animal, a hound of the Baskervilles lurking in wait.
“Whatever you’re doing,” Azura said, her voice low and intense. “You have to stop it. Right now.”
“I...can’t...” Alice gasped out. Her entire body was shaking, her muscles tensing and releasing, tensing and releasing. It hurt. Her head hung down, and all she could see was her hair as she gasped and shook. , Her head was spinning; the papers on the desk blurred in and out, the writing becoming impossible to read. Smears appeared on the pages as tears fell from her eyes. Somewhere in the distance a bell rang, and for one absurd moment she remembered a saying from an old movie her family used to watch when she was little. Every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings. There were no angels back then. No Erinyes, no Harpies, no Witches, no magic. No danger.
Breathing. In and out, fiercely, stinging her lungs, parching her throat. It was getting worse. Someone else was there; she heard faint, panicked voices. Shakra and Gabriel were back.
“Alice, you need to let the magic settle. Everything needs to go back where it was. Try to relax, child.” Shakra’s voice was calm in her head, but Alice could hardly understand what she was saying. Panic closed her throat. Her eyes squeezed shut and still the tears came. She could hear them hit the paper over the harsh sound of her breathing. She clenched her fists, fingernails biting into her palms painfully as she tried to stop the shaking. Something jerked her out of her panic, a spot on her left wrist was burning and the sudden pain made her look over in confusion. The charm bracelet’s anchor was resting on top of her wrist, glowing hotly.
“Ouch!” Alice shook her wrist. “Ow!” Instantly, the silver charm began to cool.
“The magic is back,” Azura whispered, and Alice looked up.
The threads were back to their regular position. The patterns throughout the walls and shelves had returned to normal.
“You’ve just experienced aftershock,” Azura said grimly.
Alice sagged against the desk, exhausted. Her entire body felt drained.
“Aftershock?”
“From using too much magic at once.”
“But I didn’t use it,” Alice said weakly.
“You were touching it all without knowing it.” Azura frowned. “You don’t have to use it to get aftershock, just touch it. I’m so sorry, Alice. It appears I am remiss in my training of you.”
“You had no idea the child was capable of touching that much,” Shakra argued. “Neither you nor I can do that. Why would we think she could?”
“I knew there was potential,” Azura said grimly.
“Not like this.”
“Perhaps not.”
“What does all this mean?” Gabriel looked agitated. “Will she be okay?”
Alice could feel the beginnings of a throbbing headache as Azura tried to explain it to her.
“Do you remember me telling you about people that touch all the magic at once?? You just did that but on a smaller level. You simply touched all the magic in the shop at once - call it a magical overdose, if you like.”
“What would have happened if I hadn’t let it go?”
“I’m not sure; some people have gone crazy from touching too much magic. It doesn’t happen enough for me to know. Stories tell of the odd very strong Sorceress or Mage who is able to touch that much and actually control it, but I’ve never seen someone do it in my lifetime.”
Alice groaned. “All I know is that I felt what all the magic could do, all at once, and then it showed me the horrible things I could do if I used it.”
“You opened yourself up to the magic, Alice. It simply showed you what you could do, had you used all of it.”
“Why would I do any of that?” Alice cried, “Why would I do horrible things if I had all that magic? I would never do what it showed me.”
“What did it show?”
Alice blanched, and Gabriel grabbed her hand. “You don’t have to talk about it if you can’t,” he said firmly.
“It’s fine. They should hear it. Maybe I’ll turn out to be a horrible Sorceress and this is what I’ll end up doing.” Alice pulled her hand away and scowled. “I saw famine and floods, I saw explosions and storms, people dying as I tortured them. I saw myself as the most powerful woman on earth, raining blood down on everything. I killed everyone who stood in my way. I just flicked my hand at them and they died, like swatting flies. And they died horribly, screaming and gurgling blood from their mouths.” She buried her face in her hands.
“How were you feeling when you were trying to find the threads for the glamour?” Shakra asked.
“What? I don’t know. Frustrated. Mad, I guess. I couldn’t find the thread I wanted.”
“You were angry that you weren’t getting what you wanted. The threads picked up on that and showed you what they thought you wanted to see.”
‘Oh no…” Alice cringed. “The magic thinks I’m a horrible person?”
“Alice, you have full control over who you are as a person and what you do. Even if you did wield that much magic, you would be in control of yourself and nobody - no person, no creature, no magic - can make you do something you would not do. The magic simply reflected your bad temper back at you, and since it was such an extreme amount, it reflected an extreme reaction.”
“That’s all?” Alice sobbed. “It’s not a prophesy or something?”
“Certainty not,” Azura said firmly.
She sighed, trying to pull herself together. She dragged her sleeve across her cheek, wiping away tears. I completely fell apart in front of Gabriel. How embarrassing.
“Sit down,” the Elf ordered. “I’m getting you some tea.”
“I don’t understand why people think tea cures everything,” Alice complained, but she sat herself down in the desk chair.
“You’ll have to be careful not to open yourself up like that again, unless you need to use a large amount of magic.” Azura tapped her chin. “…And it’s unlikely you’ll ever need that much. There are some complicated patterns of spells out there but you aren’t familiar with them. Hopefully you’ll never need them.”
Alice didn’t answer. It had felt like she didn’t need to be familiar with complicated spells. When she had touched the magic she had seen horrible things, but the magic itself felt…comfortable. She could have reached out and grasped whatever she wanted, do whatever she wanted. She could have reached up and woven any pattern she could picture in her head with confidence, and done any number of things with it.
Horrible things.
She pressed her lips together firmly, trying not to picture the images again and a thought occurred to her - what if she got the visions again the next time she touched the threads?
“I think the way you were doing it before is safer,” Azura was saying. “Try to picture what you want and call the thread to you, instead of looking for it. That way there’s no chance of opening yourself up to too much magic at one time.”
Alice nodded in silent agreement. She wouldn’t be doing any more magic for a while. She looked up as Gabriel re-entered the room with a steaming mug in his hand.
“Peppermint,” he said. “Calms the nerves.”
“Does it?”
“Calms the stomach.” He shrugged. “Might as well calm the nerves.”
She couldn’t help smiling at him.
“Thanks.” Even just wrapping her hands around the warm mug was comforting. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you all like that.”
“Don’t apologize,” Shakra said. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Alice shivered. “I don’t ever want to see visions like that again. That was horrible, seeing myself like that. I was a monster.”
“Don’t dwell on it,” Azura said. “It does no good.”
“Every living being has the potential to become something - be it a monster or an angel of mercy.”
“This is all getting a little deep for me,” Gabriel said gruffly. “I don’t understand magic, I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“I am now, thanks.”
Alice had trouble sleeping that night. She tossed about restlessly in her blankets like a ship lost in a storm, trouble brewing in her mind.
What if I become what I saw? What if it was really a prophecy? Azura said it wasn’t, but Shakra said neither of them can touch that much magic. How can they know? Maybe they’re wrong. She thought about the one thing in her vision that she hadn’t shared with the others. She had seen herself crush Alexie’s empire to dust beneath her heel. She had torched his minions and his mansion, the fire bursting forth from her bare hands, reducing everything to ash. He had begged for his life at her feet. That particular image had been a little alluring.
To think, a few hours earlier she had thought so smugly to herself that she was a natural at magic. Maybe being a natural wasn’t a good thing.
What am I becoming?