“Math homework!” He groaned. “Right. I need to finish that!” Start it, more like. He pulled out his math folder. Maybe he could get a few problems done before homeroom was over.
“Would it help to look over what I’ve done?” Ellen extended her math folder.
“That’s okay. I guess I’d better figure it out on my own. But, thanks.”
“Okay.” She returned the folder to her book bag and rested her arms on the back of her chair. She’d been out in the sun; the skin on her arms had turned pale gold, and a few freckles had surfaced on her shoulders. “So you weren’t working on math, then. You have a part-time job or something?”
“No.” Jack shook his head. “I’ve had some other things I’ve been working on. Special projects,” he added, when Ellen frowned. She was an honors student, so she was in most of his classes. All of his classes, he realized suddenly.
“I’ve been watching you in soccer practice,” she said, the words coming out in a rush. “I mean, watching the team. You’re pretty good, especially at midfield. But don’t let them put you in at fullback, is my advice.”
Jack rummaged for a mechanical pencil and a halfway intelligent response. “Thanks. You seem to know a lot about soccer.”
“I used to play forward and goalie at my old school,” Ellen replied. “But I couldn’t go out this year. By the time I moved here, tryouts were already over.” Girls’ soccer was a fall sport at Trinity.
“Well, maybe you can try again in the fall.” Brilliant. Bet she never thought of that.
Jack pulled out his math assignment sheet. He hesitated, tapping the pencil against the page. “Listen, would you want to stay through practice tonight and go to Corcoran’s afterward?”
She bit her lip, then smiled. “That’d be great. Only ... do you mind if Will comes along?”
“Will?” Jack hadn’t realized Ellen and Will even knew each other.
“Well, I was talking to Coach Slansky, and offered to help with the soccer team, and he said Will was planning to do some drills with the JV team, and so we were going to get together after practice and talk about it.” She shrugged. “We could probably do it another time, but ...”
“No, that’s okay. We’ll all go.” A threesome wasn’t exactly what Jack had in mind, but if Will and Ellen already had plans, then . . .
At practice, Jack was less than impressive. He was over-conscious of Ellen’s presence and fearful of unleashing some kind of magical display. “You feeling okay, Jack?” Fitch asked, during one of the breaks. “You look like you’re kind of stiff or something.”
“I think maybe I pulled a muscle at practice yesterday,” Jack said. “It’ll work itself out.” It was a relief when practice was over.
He looked for Ellen, wondering if she’d noticed how badly he’d played. In fact, she was standing by the concession stand talking to Will, absently juggling a soccer ball with her feet. She obviously knew what she was doing.
They took a corner booth at Corcoran’s, ordering sandwiches and milk shakes. Fitch was sitting by the front window with Alison, his on-again, off-again Goth girlfriend from St. Catherine’s, the Catholic high school. She broke up with him whenever Mars was in retrograde. Something like that.
Ellen and Will launched into a discussion of soccer strategy and players and possible dates and places for drills. Ellen kept trying to draw Jack into the conversation, but he contented himself with watching her.
When she talked to Jack one on one, she seemed awkward and self-conscious, as if she were navigating by unfamiliar stars. But now that the topic was soccer, she lit up with enthusiasm, sketching out ideas on a piece of notebook paper, teasing Will about his size and athletic prowess.
“Has he always been this big?” she asked Jack, nodding at Will. “I mean, he doesn’t exactly have the body for soccer.”
Jack squinted at Will appraisingly. “I guess he was a little smaller in preschool. But he’s good at any sport. He’d be named captain, or his dad would be coach, and pick me for his team.” He grinned. “And then, of course, we’d win.”
Ellen was scanning the menu again. “Let’s get ice cream,” she said.
Will stood and picked up his check. “I’ve gotta go. My mom’ll have supper on the table.” He nodded at Ellen. “We’ll try for Tuesdays, then, unless it conflicts with Mr. Hastings’s schedule. See you, Jack.”
Ellen looked from the menu to Jack inquiringly.
“I’ve got no plans,” Jack said, grinning, knowing Becka would be late. “When do you have to be home?”
She shrugged, smiling back. More at ease than he’d seen her before.
Their ice cream came, along with Corcoran’s trademark caddy of sundae toppings. Ellen poured on hot fudge and caramel sauce, nuts, and whipped cream. Jack did the same.
Someone slid into the seat next to Jack. “Hi, Jackson.” It was Leesha Middleton in a fuzzy white sweater and tight pink jeans.
Jack moved over reluctantly, trying to put space between them. “What do you want, Leesha?”
Leesha looked around, surveying her audience. “I wondered if you wanted to hang out later.”
“I’m kind of busy.”
“You’re not going to be busy all night, are you?” She smiled at Ellen patronizingly and put her hand on Jack’s thigh.
He looked down at it, back up at her. “Lobeck have the flu or what?”
“You should talk. No offense, but I don’t think you want people to see you with your rebound, here. Talk about pathetic.”
Ellen rose to her feet. Jack thought for a moment she was going to storm out. Instead, she picked up the pitcher of hot fudge and poured the contents onto Leesha Middleton’s pink jeans and white fuzzy sweater.
“Oops.” Ellen sat down again and went back to eating her ice cream.
Leesha screamed, a sound that could have been heard in Canada. Every eye in Corcoran’s was on her. She slid out of the booth and swiped ineffectively at her jeans with a paper napkin. Then plucked at her ruined sweater with her thumb and forefinger. “You ...you ... I can’t believe you did that!”
Ellen licked whipped cream from the back of her spoon and looked back at Leesha calmly.
Leesha was tiny, but she appeared to expand, like an amphibian taking on air, then she drew herself up and retrieved her pink leather purse from the bench next to Jack. It was smeared with fudge, too. “You’ll pay for that, I promise you,” she said to Ellen in a voice that raised gooseflesh on the back of Jack’s neck. Then she turned and walked out of the restaurant.
For a moment, Corcoran’s was totally silent.
Ellen looked across the table at Jack’s sundae. “Are you going to finish that?”
Chapter Seven
Beginner Warrioring
The next day was Wednesday, the day of Jack’s first warrior training session. That in itself made him apprehensive. Plus, news of the events in Corcoran’s had spread like wildfire. Ellen was Fitch’s new hero. Will couldn’t believe he’d missed it by mere minutes. Lobeck careened about the campus, taking out freshmen and other small objects. Leesha looked positively combustible. But Ellen herself was out sick.
After practice that afternoon, Jack was helping collect the balls for Coach Slansky, when he noticed Hastings on the sidelines. He was dressed to play, in a windbreaker, soccer shorts, and athletic shoes. Jack gathered up his water bottle and gym bag and was headed in his direction, when someone touched his arm. It was Ellen.
He blinked at her. “I thought you were sick.” She did look rather pale.
“Well . . . ah . . . I’m better, I guess,” she said, as if the question had taken her completely by surprise. “Look, could we go somewhere and talk?”
Jack looked across the field to where Hastings stood waiting, then back at Ellen. “I’m sorry, I can’t right now. I’m supposed to work out with Mr. Hastings.”
“With Hastings?” She looked from Jack to the wizard and back. “I didn’t know you were working with him.”
“This??
?ll be the first time.” He shrugged apologetically. “Listen, I could stop by later if you want. I don’t know how late I would be, but . . .”
She shook her head. “No, that’s all right. I . . . I just had some questions about the homework I missed. I can get it from the hotline.” She turned and walked away quickly, shoulders hunched, as if against bad weather.
He watched her cross the soccer field toward the parking lot, then walked on to where the wizard was waiting for him, having no doubt watched the entire performance.
“Who was that?” Hastings asked, nodding toward Ellen’s retreating back.
“Ellen Stephenson. She’s in my homeroom,” Jack said stupidly, still wondering what had just happened.
Hastings frowned, looking after her. Then he turned his attention to Jack. “Are you ready to go? Your mom okay with this?”
Jack nodded. His mother would not be home from the office until late anyway.
Hastings directed Jack to a black Volvo with New York plates in the parking lot. Jack threw his gym bag in the back and climbed into the shotgun position. The interior was pristine. Not a sports sticker or scrap of paper, no fast-food debris in the backseat. Not one clue to chip away at the mystery of the man. Hastings pulled out of the lot and headed back into town.
“Are you from New York originally?” Jack asked politely.
“I’ve moved around a lot,” he replied. “Most recently I’ve been in New York.”
“Have you always been a teacher?”
“Teaching has been one of my roles, though not in what you might call traditional settings.”
“How do you know my aunt?”
They were stopped at a light, and Hastings turned and frankly studied him for a moment, as if judging how much Jack already knew. “Linda and I are old friends,” he said.
“And you came to Trinity to take Mr. Brumfield’s job?” Jack persisted. He was finding it hard to reconcile workaday jobs with the role of wizard. He thought of the wizard in the graveyard, and couldn’t imagine him working as an accountant, say, during the week.
“I came to Trinity to teach you, Jack,” Hastings said. “My work at the high school provides access and a convenient cover. That’s all.”
Jack stared at him. This deadly-looking man had come all the way to Ohio from New York to teach beginner warrioring? “But why would you do that?” he demanded, before he realized how rude it sounded.
To his surprise, Hastings colored a little, as if he were embarrassed. “If you must know, I suppose it was because I couldn’t say no,” he replied, staring straight ahead.
“Oh.” Had Linda bewitched him? That seemed unlikely. Jack decided it was time to move to safer ground. “Where are we going?”
“I’ve joined a health club. I’ve arranged for some private court time.”
The fitness club was in a complex of office buildings close to the interchange. Jack could see people running around a track through a wall of glass windows on the second floor.
The reception area was crowded with people coming in to exercise after work. Hastings keyed in a code on a keypad on the counter. They walked past a large gymnasium, into a back hallway lined with racquetball courts, aerobics studios, and workout rooms. Hastings produced a key and opened one of the doors.
It looked like a racquetball court with a highly polished wood floor, but it had one mirrored wall. Jack dropped his gym bag by the door.
“What’s this room used for?” he asked.
Hastings smiled. “Fencing. Appropriate for us, wouldn’t you say?”
Jack shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I’m not at all sure what kind of material we’re going to be covering.” He knew he sounded irritable, and he didn’t care. All of this intrigue was beginning to get on his nerves.
“You warriors are impulsive people,” Hastings replied with just a bit of an edge to his voice. “You’re going to have to learn patience, among other things. We’re going to take care of your control problem today.” He shed the windbreaker to reveal a T-shirt underneath. Hastings had appeared tall and angular when Jack had seen him at school. He was surprised to find that the assistant principal was layered in muscle, despite his lean build.
“I understand you’ve had no schooling whatsoever.” It was not really a question.
“Right. No schooling.” Jack removed his sweatshirt, revealing the vest underneath. Hastings gestured impatiently, and Jack shed the vest, also, leaving his T-shirt.
The wizard walked around him, studying him from all angles. “How long since you’ve taken the Weirsbane?”
“What?”
“The preparation Dr. Longbranch gave you.”
“Oh. A week, maybe.”
Hastings grunted. “Have you used your powers in the past?”
“Well ...” Jack hesitated. “Whenever it’s happened, it’s been . . . accidental.”
Hastings nodded. “When you were angry? Out of control?”
Jack thought of the episode in the graveyard. It was hard to say how much magic had been involved there. “Well, angry or scared, I guess,” he admitted.
Hastings drew a small object from his shorts pocket and held it up for Jack to see. It appeared to be a top, finely enameled and decorated with an intricate pattern of symbols and pictographs. Hastings set it on the bench before the mirror. “Set that spinning,” he ordered, standing aside, hands on hips. Apparently Jack was to do it from where he stood.
“What’s that got to do with—”
Hastings’s breath hissed out in frustration. “Look, our time together is limited, and you are getting a rather late start as it is. Just do it.”
Jack regarded the top doubtfully. “Right,” he mumbled. He tried to focus all of his attention on the target, tensing up and gritting his teeth with no particular strategy. “Move!” he whispered to himself. The top sat stubbornly motionless. Jack shrugged. “It’s not working.”
“Try to relax. Don’t hold your breath. Picture the top spinning.”
Jack tried again, acutely aware of his teacher’s scrutiny. The top didn’t move.
“Let’s try this.” Hastings unzipped his bag and pulled from it two lightweight foils, corked at the ends. He handed one to Jack. “Just do your best to keep my point away from you.” With no further instruction, he poked Jack, hard, beneath the rib cage.
Jack brought his point up and tried to parry the blows that now came thick and fast. Again and again, Hastings hit home—shoulder, chest, back, stomach—effortlessly. Despite his best efforts, Jack could not seem to protect himself or land a blow. Gradually, Hastings drove him backward until he was defending himself from a corner.
Jack grew more and more annoyed. This man was supposed to be a teacher, wasn’t he? He knew he needed training, so why humiliate him? He took another hard poke in his rib cage, and something in Jack uncoiled itself. It was as if hot energy had been collecting unnoticed in his arms and fingertips. His sword arm came up, and flames erupted from the end of his blade. Hastings’s foil clattered to the floor.
Instantly Hastings’s other hand came up, flinging an arc of what looked like powdered gold. It hung, glittering, in the air. “Now look!” Hastings commanded. He caught Jack’s elbow and turned him until he was facing the mirror.
Jack was at the center of a radiant star described in glitter, his body surrounded by a shimmering outline.
“Now shut it down,” Hastings said.
Keeping his attention focused on the image in the mirror, Jack began to draw inward, as if he were inhaling a dream. Slowly the star dissolved before his eyes until only traces of glitter caught the light, and then went out.
“That’s the process we want.” The wizard looked amused. “Now you have to learn to access the energy without the provocation. And control it when you are provoked. Use your sword arm, if it’s helpful. You must perceive the flow of energy in order to manage it. It’s like steam building in a boiler. You need to release it before it explodes.” He nodded again at the top on the bench. “
Try again. Now you know what it feels like. Locate the energy. It won’t take much. Then direct it through your fingertips.”
Jack closed his eyes and sketched a small picture of the top in the vacancy before his eyes. He painted in the colors, the mysterious lettering on the side. Then he set it spinning in his mind, faster and faster, until the colors bled together into an exotic blur. He felt a tingle in his hands, like blood returning, energy bleeding from his fingers.
When he opened his eyes, the top was spinning prettily about a foot above the bench.
“Now stop it,” his teacher directed.
Without closing his eyes this time, Jack drew back, allowing the top to settle gently onto the scarred wooden surface of the bench. It spun silently for a moment and then coasted to a stop. Hastings flung up his fistful of gold again. There was a soft brilliance about Jack this time, less distinctive than before. Jack consciously re-sheathed his weapons, and the image dissipated as before.
There followed several similar exercises, where Jack raised magical energy, then dispersed it. Finally, they spent some time working with the foil, beginning with classic fencing moves, then adding the element of magic. Jack learned to hold on to the power, then channel it into the blade and send flames spinning from its tip at will. This raised a question: he remembered the way he had felt in the graveyard, the marriage of flesh and metal, recalled his successful attack on the wizard, and wondered how much he had contributed to it.
“I have a sword. The Shadowslayer, it’s called. What I’m wondering is, how much magic is in me, and how much is in the sword?”
At first it seemed there would be no answer to his question. Hastings frowned and passed the two foils to Jack without comment, indicating that he should return them to the bag. He also handed over the top and a soft suede pouch.
“The top’s a wizard’s toy,” Hastings said. “You can use it to practice control at home. There’s more of the shimmer powder in the bag.” Jack put both items into his gym bag. “Self-awareness is the first step. Practice is the key. Soon you will manage your power intuitively, and that more than anything will keep you safe. Then we’ll move on to other things.”