Spellbound

Before it can strike four, I have struck the clock.

It topples to the floor with a crash, and I feel a little guilty watching the cuckoo bird popping out and banging its head against the hardwood.

“Andromeda, what the hell?” Sarai groans from the cot beside me.

“Sorry!” I stumble out of bed, my sheets wrapped around my legs, and pick up the poor alarm clock. The enchanted wooden cuckoo bird pecks at my hands aggressively, and I drop the clock with a yelp, causing another crashing sound.

I hear a loud sigh from Sarai. “Clumsy, clumsy girl.”

“The damn bird pecked me!” I protest.

“Then don’t make it angry,” she mumbles.

I roll my eyes with a smile. “Easier said than done.”

I hold my hand out, little blue flames flickering from my fingertips. They flow out towards the clock.

Although it appears in the form of flames, telekinesis won’t burn you and produces no smoke. It’s the ability to move things with your mind–something all mages are born to do. There used to be other mages with different magic–powers of illusion and conjuring–but after the Erasure, when the magicless turned against the mages, the only ones left are those with telekinesis.

I watch as the stripes of magical fire swirl around the clock, lifting it into the air and securing it back into its place on my wall. The cuckoo bird gives me a look and retreats begrudgingly back into its clockwork home.

“I still don’t see how you do that.” I turn to see Sarai, still laying in bed, is watching me curiously. “I can scream spells till the sun sets, and I still can’t manage that level of control.”

I shrug. “Not like it gives me an advantage. I’m here scrubbing the floors just the same as you are.”

“Yeah,” Sarai says with a sarcastic laugh, “and you get the water bucket to refill itself. Nothin’ special.”

She gets jealous like this sometimes, and I never know what to do. Because she’s right. My mastery of magic isn’t a result of practicing for hours and studying well into the night like she does. It’s just natural. Which isn’t necessarily fair.

“Hey.” I walk around my cot and take a seat at the end of yours. “I know you’ve heard this since forever, and it probably won’t do any good, but don’t give up. You have a strong work ethic. If you keep trying, I’m positive you’ll have this level of control in no time.”

Sarai arches an eyebrow and chuckles. “Okay, enough with the cheese. And you’re sitting on my feet.”

“Oh, sorry!” I stand up quickly, laughing.

“Pity party’s over.” Sarai swings her legs around, standing up. “We’ve got work to do.”

In minutes, we’re dressed in our uniforms and making our way down the many, many flights of stairs that lead up to the servants’ quarters. The house is already bustling, but in the quiet, withdrawn way we’ve been trained to work. With our eyes downcast and our footsteps silent, the help of the Frost House remains invisible.

Some take that literally, blending into the wallpaper and moving about easily undetected. Although I could do the same, I’m not allowed to. Madam Frost wants her younger servants visible at all times, to ensure we can’t “cause mischief.”

Not that her precautions have ever stopped us from doing just that.

Sarai and I are on kitchen duty, scrubbing plates until our hands are sore.

“Who do you think the mysterious diners will be tonight?” I ask Sarai, keeping my voice low to avoid a scolding from Cook.

Sarai is distracted, her eyes trained on a spot over my head. I look to see what she’s watching and snort at the sight of the newest addition to our staff: a chef with stellar curls and a habit of winking at every girl he makes eye contact with.

Sarai is currently that girl.

“Honey, please, don’t insult yourself,” I murmur as she blushes and winks back. “You know you could do better.”

“I also know he looks just as fine with that chef coat off as he does when it’s on,” she shoots back with a smirk.

I scoff. “Sarai!”

“What?” she says playfully, still staring at the guy.

“You’ve been scrubbing the same plate for the past five minutes.” I grab the sink sprayer and spray Sarai with it.

Sarai gasps and bursts out laughing. She smirks, grabs a wooden spoon from the soapy water, and swats me with it.

“Sarai!” I exclaim, smacking at the soap bubbles in my hair.

She shrugs, giving me innocent eyes. “How else are you supposed to get those dirty blonde curls clean?”

I snort. “I’ll spray you again!”

She raises her eyebrows. “Oh, yeah?”

“Just watch me!”

“Ladies.”

I’m already spraying Sarai a second time when the stern voice of Cook catches my attention. I look over my shoulder, throwing off my aim and giving Sarai a jet of water to the face. Spluttering, she shoves my hand away and the sprayer clatters into the sink.

She brandishes her wooden spoon with a wicked glint in her eyes. “Oh, it is on.”

“Um, Sarai.” I gesture to Cook, who is watching us with her arms crossed.

Sarai looks over her shoulder and, at the sight of Cook, both pales and reddens considerably. Sarai clears her throat, drops the spoon into the sink, and turns around to face Chef, who is sighing.

“Sarai,” she says. “Andromeda.” The power of her glare is almost tangible. “We have a party of twelve expecting a five course meal this evening. A very significant, very notable party of twelve. Everything must be prepared at the utmost level of perfection. Clearly, neither of you has proven the ability to cope with such high expectations. It seems even dishwashing duty is far too complex for you two to handle.” She looks between the two of us, her sharp gray eyes steady and disdainful. “I want you to dust the books in the library.”

Neither of us says anything. We glance at each other briefly.

I clear my throat. “Wh-which shelves?”

Cook arches an eyebrow. “All of them.”

My jaw drops a little. The library is, to say the least, huge. Typically, several groups of servants are assigned dusting as a punishment, each with a specific section of shelves to handle. Literature might take an hour, while History was a much more serious undertaking. (Madam Zaria Frost loved her history books.) But, the entire library? I couldn’t even comprehend how long that would take.

“But, Cook, aren’t we serving the food tonight?” Sarai asks.

“Not anymore,” Cook says. “For all our guests will know, you two don’t even exist.”

My face is burning. I feel so stupid. Sarai and I have been excited about these secret, esteemed guests for weeks. And now we’ll never even get to see them.

“Yes, ma’am,” Sarai and I murmur. “Sorry, ma’am.”

Cook’s eyes glint with satisfaction. “Hurry off, then.”

We turn, taking a defeated walk towards the door. We’re about to pass the male chef, who seems to be holding back a chuckle.

“Oh, and girls, before you go,” Cook calls to us. “Wipe up that spot on the floor.”

I look to see she’s gesturing to a very small, hardly visible splotch on the tiles right at the male chef’s feet.

Somehow, Sarai gets even redder. We both retrieve rags from a nearby bucket and kneel on the floor to scrub at the spot.

“Ex-excuse me,” Sarai murmurs to the male chef, who takes a step back.

He smirks down at us as we work. Flames creep from my fingers, causing the sponge to scrub at high speed. After less than a minute, I straighten up and admire the squeaky clean floor.

“Looks pretty good,” the guy says. He then takes a step forward and, upon moving his foot back, reveals a dark shoeprint on the freshly washed tile. “But I think you missed a spot.” He laughs and walks away.

Sarai is staring daggers after him. “Cheeky bastard,” she mutters, along with several other choice words.

Feeling sorry for her (and myself), I bite back my “I told you so” and start wiping up the dirty shoeprint.

Once we’ve finished, Sarai and I get to our feet and head out the door of the kitchen.

“This blows,” Sarai sighs as we head down the hallway towards the library. “And who knew that guy was such an S.O.B.”

“He has a sidepart, Sarai.”

“That doesn’t mean anything!” she protests. “You can’t judge a book by its cover–or a man by his haircut.”

“I dunno,” I say, “I judged that guy pretty well.”

“Shut up,” she says, but she’s smiling a little.

We get to the door of the library. Sarai pushes open the ancient, heavy door, which creaks eerily. I step through the doorway. Sarai closes the door behind us. At the sight of the place, I inhale sharply, causing me to send dust straight down my throat and cough aggressively.

Sarai smacks me on the back and I laugh between coughs.

“Quit it!” I say, gasping for breath.

“Just wanted to make sure you didn’t choke on air.”

I straighten up, gaping at the grandeur of the magnificent library.

“Dayum.” Sarai whistles.

“You can say that again,” I say in a hushed voice.

Shelves and shelves of dark wood stretch out before us, with high golden staircases leading to walkways that wrap around the highest parts of the shelves far above. A great, enchanted tree grows in the center of the library, with the walkways stretching out from it like branches. Armchairs and couches are scattered around the tree, which has a brick fireplace built into the bottom. It seems odd, a fireplace inside of a tree, but the flickering flames are mage-made, created to burn without smoke and warm without destruction. All in all, the place is mysterious and magical, which makes its lack of use almost insulting.

“Did this place get bigger?” I whisper.

“Well, you know how the House is,” Sarai says. “Always shifting.” Once a week, the House, bewitched into an almost-alive state by mages long ago, decides to move things around. Like clockwork, rooms shrink or grow, paintings change places, and staircases spiral. You’d think it would be fascinating, but it grows old when you have to run around the house searching for the bathroom every week.

“Now,” Sarai mutters, “please tell me your ridiculously powerful telekinetic fire can do all this dusting for us.”

I make a face. “I’ll try my best. It’s still going to take hours though, and I don’t know if I can keep up a spell for that long.”

“Well, you’ll have to try your best.” Sarai walks over to a closet tucked into a corner and returns with an armful of feather dusts. “Let’s get dustin’.”

We start with Scientific Discovery, since it’s the smallest section (only five floor-to-ceiling shelves). I take the stairs up to the walkways wrapped around the shelves and start working my magic. Standing in roughly the center of all five shelves, I hold out my hands and ten blue flames streak through the air. The feather dusters take flight, shimmering with little sparks as they begin to vigorously dust the books.

“You know,” Sarai shouts up from where she’s working below me, “I bet all these books are magically preserved and don’t even need dusting anyway.”

“Too bad for us, then,” I shout back.

“Or maybe not,” Sarai replies. “I mean, this whole damn place is always dusty from the House shifting. How’s she going to know if we actually dusted or not?”

“She’ll know!” I insist. “I don’t want to risk it.”

Sarai is silent for a moment. Then, she says, “Hey, Andromeda?”

“Yeah?” I grunt. A bead of sweat drips down my forehead as I concentrate on the ten different feather dusters all speeding around the shelves, stirring up dust in my face. My shoulders are beginning to ache from holding my arms out for so long.

“Could you come down here?”

“Just a sec,” I murmur. I squeeze my eyes shut, my head pounding. Dammit. Magic-induced migraines are the worst. I only get them when I overuse my powers. Never thought feather dusting would lead to my head feeling like it’s splitting open. Not that all the dust going up my nose is helping.

“It’s urgent!” Sarai calls.

Urgent? I relinquish control in an instant and the feather dusters plummet to the floor. I’m flying across the walkway and down the steps, stumbling to a stop where Sarai is standing. She’s next to a plush armchair near the fire with a book in her hands.

“What’s going on?” I gasp. “What’s ‘urgent’?”

“Look at this,” she says, holding up the book. “Madam Frost left a book out.”

I look at the book, then I look at her. “That is what’s so ‘urgent’? A ratty old book?”

Sarai plops down in the armchair and flips the book open. “Hey, I thought you liked reading.”

“I don’t think that book can be read, Sarai, it looks like it’s been through the ocean. Twice.” I sit down in a chair next to her as she struggles to pull apart two pages that are stuck together. “You’re going to rip it.”

“No, I’m not.” She then precedes to accidentally rip the pages. She stares in horror at what she’s done then shoves the book at me. “Take it away from me. I’ve done too much harm.”

I sigh and take the book from her. I’m trying not to be annoyed, but we’ve still got hours of dusting to do, my head’s pounding with a headache, and she really scared me when she said there was something “urgent” happening.

I squint, bringing the book closer to my face, trying to read the tiny, splotchy text.

“Can you read it?” Sarai asks.

I shrug. “No. It looks like some sort of spell runes, but I don’t know what most of it means . . .” I trail off. Because, I do. Somehow, in some impossible way, the symbols before me make sense. I swallow hard. “This is weird.”

“What?” Sarai moves to look over my shoulder. “What’s weird?”

“I can . . . I can understand these.”