Chapter Fourteen: Magic Lesson

Master Oilreid looked younger then ever when the solemn group entered the library. He wore a tall hat with a wide brim that had small, colored crystals hanging off the outer edge all the way around. He moved carefully in a strange dance while a book on a writing desk clapped a rhythm by slamming shut over and over. Just after they entered the room, the book landed closed on the desk and started shouting what seemed like a rebuke in a language Evie had never heard before. Master Oilreid, who had not noticed them entering, turned to the book and began speaking questioningly, also in the unknown language.

Jayson sat in a corner between two book cases, reading a large book that looked even bigger with the small sprite staring at it. He looked up briefly when they entered, but soon returned to his reading. The little man seemed extremely interested in books considering what Mabel told them. Trina glanced at him and her look could have been called disapproving if not disgusted. Oh yes. Much more went on between them then she noticed before.

Trina’s look passed so quickly Evie was not positive it had even happened. She began that twinkling laugh and then clapping. She exclaimed, “Oh, very good Master Oilreid! Very good!”

The old man blushed; it looked very odd on him. “My instructor does not seem to think so, Trina. I am afraid studying cultural dance might be a waste of my time after all. These old legs, you know” After removing the wide-brimmed hat, which disappeared as soon as it came off his head, he pressed his flat palm down on the still chattering book, silencing it. “Welcome back to the library, girls. I hope you had a wonderful time at the festival last night?” He made it into a question.

Bridget began nodding enthusiastically and Evie stepped forward to talk. She felt a bit embarrassed about what she had to say and she wanted to get it over with quickly. “Master Oilreid, I wanted to…”

He cut her off with an upraised finger, “All in good time. First I have something to say to Bridget.” He turned to her with a smile. “I was wondering if you are ready to begin your training?”

Bridget looked confused and anxious, “What training, Master Oilreid? We have had lessons, you know. Elder Banied taught both Evie and I history, language and arithmetic.”

The old man flashed that sincere and beautiful smile, “I think you have been well instructed, young lady. But I was wondering if you wanted to be trained to use your talents as an aniray?”
Evie thought her sister had just been handed the most wonderful gift she’d ever imagined. Her face lit up and her mouth dropped open. After a moment she managed to stammer, “But I thought that wasn’t possible. You said there weren’t any other aniray.” The two girls exchanged a look. Evie knew they were both wondering about that man she had seen in the forest the night before.

“Now that I have found you, my dear girl,” Master Oilreid touched Bridget’s cheek. “I am absolutely certain there are others. Alas, for now, I am afraid there are no aniray who can show you what you need to know, none here anyway. But aniray are not the only ones who know how to communicate with forest creatures. I have a few friends who live quite near the spritested who I would like you to meet. They are very excited to meet you, I might add.”

Bridget looked as if she tried very hard to keep from clapping her hands like a giddy child. She clenched them together tight, but she had no way to keep her knees from bouncing with excitement. “I would like that very much, sir.”

Trina also smiled in delight. Her sweet, loving disposition always shined when others were happy. Evie thought Trevor and Vincent’s words had upset her as much as they had Bridget. “I would like to take her, Master Oilreid. Would you mind terribly? I understand if you had planned on doing it personally. But it is always so much fun to visit the…”

“Thank you, Trina.” The old man cut the sprite off. “I need to talk to Evie still. You would be doing me a very great favor to take Bridget.” Her wings beat even more quickly with the pride of helping. Obviously she didn’t want to delay or misstep her task, because she turned immediately and started heading toward where they had entered. It was a bookcase once again.

Bridget hesitated and looked toward Evie. She obviously wanted to go, but she seemed unsure if she should leave her sister. Evie hugged her quickly and whispered, “Don’t you forget a bit of what you see. I want a full report.” With a grateful look, Bridget turned and nearly skipped to the door. It was a door, now. Trina saw to that.

Evie stared after them as they left. Her sister’s strange actions perplexed her. Bridget hated going to lessons. She balked at having to learn anything. Evie supposed they just had to find the right subject for study. It excited her that they finally had. Aunt Abby would be very proud when she found out.

Evie took a deep breath and turned to face Master Oilreid. They were alone now, except for Jayson in the corner. He clearly wasn’t interested in them, however, still reading his book. “Master Oilreid, sir, I wanted to ask you if you would teach me to use magic,” she asked, rushing to get it all before he could cut her off again. “Elder Banied acted like there was a pretty good chance I was a…souray.” She hesitated, remembering too late what this man had said about the term being meaningless.

The old man wasn’t smiling, now. He looked at her with a very serious and considering expression on his face. He must have decided she wasn’t going to say anymore, though, because he commented, “Magic is not like mathematics. You don’t learn how to do magic. You learn that you can do magic.” Evie tried hard to think of something clever to say. She wanted this man to think her bright enough that he would want to teach her. Confusion made her head ache. She really had no idea what the difference was.

He saw her confusion because he changed course. Pointing to a book on a high shelf he said, “If I asked you to fetch me that book, how would you do it.”

It seemed like a really dumb question, but she wanted this man’s help so she replied, “I would probably climb the lower shelves until I could reach it. If I had a ladder, I might use that, but there doesn’t seem to be one in this room.” Suddenly the lack seemed odd to her. Some of the shelves stood too high for even Master Oilreid to reach.

“And what if there were not any shelves below the one the book was on?” He waved his hand and the shelves below the one he had pointed to disappeared. The books that they had held vanished too. Empty space replaced them.

Evie furrowed her brow. “I might be able to get it by climbing up one of the bookcases next to it.” An instant later, they disappeared too. She searched the room for another option. The bookcases reached as wide as she stood tall, so there was no chance of climbing on one further away. She needed a better idea. “I suppose I could ask Jayson to fly up there and get it for me.” Jayson glanced up from his seat in the corner and Master Oilreid waved a hand at him. With an absent look on his face, he left the room through the closest bookcase, carrying the book he had been reading with him. Evie watched curiously. He did not make the gesture that turned the walls into doors. Somehow he just flew through the bookcase!

She didn’t have very long to dwell on it, though. Master Oilreid still looked at her and she was running out of answers. What did he want her to say? “Well, I guess I could stack books on top of each other until they reached high enough for me to get to the shelf.” She felt sure the hypothetical stack would fall over if she tried to climb on it, but she desperately wanted to give him the right answer and she couldn’t think of anything else. In the next moment all the books in the room vanished, except for the one he wanted her to fetch.

Desperately, she looked around the room at the empty bookshelves. The only items remaining were the writing desk, without the book that had sat on it when she walked in, and the book she needed to reach. She glanced hopefully at the desk, it didn’t look that heavy. She could probably pull it over to the shelf. But before she could even open her mouth to suggest it, it disappeared too. “You cheated!” she burst out without thinking. She knew she sounded silly. They weren’t playing a game after all and she was asking him for a favor. But he frustrated the sense out of her. When he just continued to look at her with that ever-patient expression, she threw up her hands in exasperation. “I can’t. Okay. I have no way to get that book off the shelf.”

Master Oilreid smiled. She had the sickening feeling that her childish outburst and confession of incapability were what he had been looking for when he asked the question in the first place. She couldn’t sense any triumph in his smile, though. He asked, “Why did you not simply summon the book to come to you?” He held up his hand and the book floated smoothly to his outstretched fingers.

She nearly stomped her foot. She struggled against the strong impulse to act childishly. As her only way of fighting back, she said her next words slowly, as if explaining them to someone very dense. “Because I don’t know how. That is why I came to talk to you. I was hoping you might teach me.”

He pursed his lips with that irritating calm oozing from his face and said, “I see. Let us try this another way, shall we? You have seen people come and go from this room. You know how it is done?”

Evie nodded slowly. She had seen it done. She remembered the movement. Then it occurred to her, “But that’s not magic. Mabel did it and she’s a rrrr…” He did not like those terms. “…a person who’s talents are not magic.” She hoped that description satisfied.

“Very observant!” he might have meant her rephrasing or her noticing Mabel open the door. “You are right. You do not need to be able to wield magic in order to open the doors of this library. It is magic, though. The magic comes from the building itself and the people who created it, not from the one using it. Now, if you are confident you know how to open the door to the next room, please do.” He motioned to one of the book shelves.

Evie took a deep breath. She had seen this done. She stuck her hands out in front of her and imitated the motion the others made. Nothing happened. She tried again, but didn’t have much hope this time. Clearly she was doing it wrong. Perhaps there had been some specific way they held their fingers that she hadn’t noticed. Maybe there were words she needed to say. Now that she thought about it, she may have missed any number of specifics because she really hadn’t watched anyone very closely.

Turning away from the shelf she said in quiet defeat, “I guess I don’t know how to do it after all.”

Master Oilreid chuckled and shook his head. He took a few steps toward her as he said, “No, no. You did it right. You obviously knew exactly how to do it. What you lack is the knowledge that you can do it.” He rested his hand on her shoulder and motioned to two comfortable-looking armchairs that hadn’t been there before. She began moving toward them and he continued. “There is so much in life that we cannot do because we believe we cannot. This is your first real adventure into a magical world. You seem to think that the laws that existed in your village will be the same laws everywhere. You still cannot make yourself believe that they can be bent. It is a difficult thing for young people to learn, especially. We set our own limitations. As long as you believe you can’t do it, you won’t be able to. Tell me Evie, what did you learn last night?”

Evie furrowed her brow. Yesterday had been so full of experiences, everything happening at once. Which one could he be asking about? The first one that came to her mind was Bridget nearly falling to her death. Certainly that made the most important impact on her. Did he know about that? “You mean what I learned in the forest after the festival?” she asked.

In the few seconds that Evie had taken to think, Master Oilreid conjured a simple coffee table between them and picked up a cup of something. He’d moved the liquid halfway to his mouth when she asked her question. Immediately, his eyes swivelled to stare directly into hers. His lips remained frozen in the pucker they had been in to receive his drink, but the cup didn’t move any closer to his mouth. The startled instant passed and he calmly put the drink back on the table. “You were in the forest last night?” he asked, carefully?

Evie related the entire story to the old man, ending with Trevor saving Bridget’s life. She told him that was why she wanted to learn magic.

“You have a good heart, Evie. I think that you will learn quickly if you ever find the necessary self-confidence.” He reverted back to that considering look. “As long as there are children in this forest there will be stories of ghosts. There are not any real ghosts, you know. He stopped and tapped one finger against his lip, in thought. What do you supposed spooked young Vincent?”
The question seemed to be directed inward, as if he was thinking out loud. Evie answered anyway. “There was a man in the forest, sir, an aniray, I think. I know you said there aren’t any others, but I saw a man talking to a bird. I think that is what Vincent saw. The same man I did.” She braced herself for his rebuke. She knew Bridget thought she had been seeing things and this educated, logical man would certainly agree. But Evie felt sure about what she had seen.
“Did you notice what this man looked like?” he sat forward anxiously, with a hand on the edge of each armrest.

“No. It was dark. I only saw a silhouette to tell you the truth. But I am sure it was a man.” She added in a firmer tone. “I’m sure of it.”

He sighed and sat back. “I suppose it was too much to hope for. This is my life’s work, Evie. I want all people to be free and equal. And now it seems like it might collapse, because someone is selling information to the king’s men.”

He looked so thoughtful that Evie felt sure speaking would be an interruption, but she had to know, “Do you think the man in the forest was the spy?”

He eyed her suspiciously before saying, with another sigh, “I do not know, but I have reason to believe that whoever the spy is met with one of his agents last night. I think I would know if there was another aniray among the refugees, but you never can tell. I had not considered that he may have been sending messages with animals.” He seemed to notice the unforgivable mistake of discussing important matters with a twelve-year-old, something adults hated above all else, and sat up, coming back to reality. “Sorry, where were we. Oh. You were going to tell me what you learned last night. I actually meant during your experience as an animal.”

It took her another minute to think about how to answer that question. Not only had she never thought about finding a lesson in the strange experience, her mind brimmed with unasked questions about the spy and Master Oilreid’s precious school. “I dunno, how to run fast when you’re being attacked?”

He smiled and gave a rich laugh, “I think there must be more to it than that. Did anyone explain to you who that face in the fire was…Or, what he was, I suppose?” Evie shook her head. She felt her eyes going involuntarily wide. This would be interesting. She had never even thought to ask.
“He is the spirit of the forest. He is not a sprite nor a human. He simply exists in this forest and looks over everyone in it. He is the genesis of all those ghost stories. They say he knows what people need and that is the reason he shows up in the bonfire at the festival of life every year. He senses what people lack and gives them the opportunity to live life as a creature who does not have that lack. It is all in the hope that we can learn and progress. It helps each person at the festival to overcome his or her weaknesses. So, here is your first magic lesson. Think about your experience last night. I know you are a bright girl. Analyze what you can learn from the animal you became. It will help you develop your talent.”

Just then, a couple of kids came into the room chattering together. Evie stood and glanced toward them, both a few years older than she, a little disappointed. She had hoped this man would help her to learn magic, not hand her a bunch of riddles to puzzle over. What in the world could she possibly learn from getting attacked by a coyote? Then something else occurred to her. She turned back to Master Oilreid and said, “You never asked me what animal I became.”

He smiled and replied, “Nor will I. It has long been a tradition in this forest that your weaknesses are your own. Therefore, your experiences during the festival of life are your own as well. No one will ask you to share them. They belong to you. Some would say it was inappropriate for me to have asked you what you learned. But then…,” he spread his hands, “I have never been very good at keeping to propriety.”