Chapter 7

He’s gone before you can tell him that your shoes are in the lounge. There’s a certain relief in knowing that they’ll be on your feet. You leave the kitchen and turn to close the thick door behind you. As you do, you see something under the table, something t’’rhat should be near the chair by the fireplace.

“Bloody shoes,” you mutter, and return to pick them up. How they got into the kitchen you do not kow, but you’re sure that they were left in the lounge.

Confused, you go back to the lounge where Mr Morgan is sitting in his armchair. You take the one by the fireplace, where your shoes are no longer near.

“It doesn’t make sense,” you say to him.

“Of course it doesn’t. Wizards belong in stories not reality. If it made any sense you’d be far too ignorant to be a wizard.”

You’re putting your shoes on and you stop. You feel that by now nothing should surprise you any more, but after the day nothing surprised you more than this.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re a wizard Ayeston, and before you go saying that you’re not have a think about it. How did your shoes get into the kitchen?”

You took them in, you just don’t recall it. That’s what you wish you could say to him, but you know that if you did you’d be lying.

“How?”

“Put your shoes on first.”

You do as he says then settle back.

“There are,” he says, “two types of wizards. Those are born with it, and those that make it. Anyone can, with a lot of learning, be a wizard. But they’ll never be as powerful as those that have it inside them from the beginning.”

With the stories you were told as a child about wizards, there was the stories about what happened to those that were found out after the forceful extinction. You’re scared about what he’ll say.

“There’s a limit to what you can do if you’ve made yourself a wizard, but there is a much finer limit to the others. Wizardry is instinct to them, sometimes magic will just happen, even if they don’t realise it.”

You know what he’s hinting at, and even though you’re desperately trying to not accept it, to find something in his words where you can jump up and shout that can’t be me, you’re beginning to doubt there will be anything.

“There is usually one thing that this wizard is especially good at. They may be good at creating fire, or making things fly, or” he pauses, and there’s so much excitement in his eyes that you wonder how you ever saw pain. “making things appear in different places.”

“But I didn’t do anything.”

“Were you worried about Magalouf seeing your shoes?”

“Of course, if he saw them he’d know I was here.” You remember the stress you had felt when you realised where the shoes were.

“If you want something enough, magic will work its course for you. Remember how the ring was in your shoes, you must have been worried about someone finding it.”

Of course you had been worried, Magalouf had been set on you because of it.

“You are a wizard Ayeston.”

“What’s your special little thing then?”

“Ah.” He gets up and goes to the edge of the room.

“Hilda,” he shouts up the stairs. “Your services are no longer required.”

There’s a clatter and you watch the stairs as the young servant comes down.

“Well you’re just a good one ain’t ya.” She storms back up with malice on her face.

“She was hired by Lady Evelyn. To keep the affairs in order,” he says rather tartly.

She returns with a bag slung over her shoulder.
“Already packed?” You ask her.

She gives a cold stare in your direction, a colder one to the man standing with his arm to the open door and walks out.

Mr Morgan smiles.

“I’m glad to have a reason to see her go.”

He returns back to his chair and leans back contentedly.

“Things are finally changing,” he says.

You hear in his voice that he means it in a good way, but you can’t stop the sinking feeling in your stomach that you wish had no reason to be there.

“So tell me,” you say to distract yourself. “You never told me your power.”

This narrator has an issue, they do not know what power to give this man. The girl was dismissed just to buy more time, plus she left the water on to boil. But now, what shall happen, what shall be the power given to them? It must be something that will just so happen to come in extraordinary use later on, but they find it so hard to know what will happen later on. They’ve even slept on it and do not know what to do. But something must be had, unless an anomaly occurs for the sake of ease, but that is just a complex which is not worth, or wanted, just to be able to avoid this. He must have something.