Lost Talent - Chapter 3: Mina Seshadri and the Forbidden Biro
The summer holiday had passed by in a blur. Mina's mum spent most of the time fussing over her, as the idea of sending her eleven-year-old daughter to a strange boarding school sunk in. Every time that Mina tried to tell them that she would be learning magic, their eyes glazed over, just like the Magister said they would.
Mina had been indulging her anxiety in other ways, like checking out every book in the library that might be relevant. All she found was a mix of card tricks, new age spirituality and fortune telling. Her big brother called those ‘woo woo crystal nonsense’ when he caught her reading them. Her enthusiasm for the adventure seemed to convince her parents they were doing the right thing, despite the oddness that surrounded Oakward Academy for the Talented. What really worried them is that they weren’t allowed drop her off themselves.
The Sunday before term started Magister Alana D'vere, Oakward’s recruiter, arrived with a black taxi to pick her up. Even if her parents had tried to make the journey, they wouldn't be able to find the school, so Mina had to say goodbye to her family on the doorstep. Her mum and baby brother Sammi cried. Her dad welled up too, which was a bit more surprising.
Ravi gave her an uncharacteristic hug and whispered: “I thought I was going to be the first one to leave.” He was only three years older than her but already dreamt of being the next big tech millionaire. “Don't get into any trouble where your big brother can't look out for you.”
She managed to hold back her tears until the taxi left. Sandwiched between her two massive suitcases, she had a little cry. Alana, tall, smart, and enchanting, gave her a handkerchief to dry her eyes. When Mina handed it back, the clean white cotton had turned into a snotty rag.
Alana tutted. “Well, now. That won't do...” she closed her eyes briefly and flicked it in the air. With a flash it returned to its pristine state. She handed it back to Mina, whose tears has been banished by wonder. “Why don't you keep hold of that? A reminder of what's ahead of you.” It helped. This was an adventure that would make any of the kids at her old school jealous. Surely, she wouldn't be an outcast in a school full of wizards?
Mages, she corrected herself. One of the leaflets had gone over the correct terms. Mages, not Wizards. They didn't cast spells from spell-books with wands, they channelled evocations from grimoires using foci. Mina had stayed up last night reciting that sentence over and over until she had eventually fallen asleep. At least she had the rest of the taxi ride to pull herself together.
After about twenty minutes, they arrived in a street full of posh houses with big gardens just south of the city centre. “Here we are,” Alana said, “Stivichall demesne.” Mina was confused. “Well, you didn't think we would be driving all the way to the school, did you?”
The taxi pulled up alongside a high brick wall, broken only by a solid gate of back iron. Above the threshold was a long branch of wood, held in place with thick metal loops. Something about it pushed against her mind. They exited the taxi onto the pavement and Alana gave the driver a generous tip. After he drove away, Alana brushed imperceptible dust off her long black leather coat. She picked up one of Mina’s suitcases and headed for the gate. Mina followed, struggling slightly with the other case, as she made her first inelegant steps into a magical world.
Behind the gate there was an immaculately kept lawn. It had a border of rich earth covered with late blooming flowers, flourishing in the September sun. It was just like ‘The Secret Garden.’ On the grass, there were several clusters of Kids in flowing black robes with suitcases and bundles of books tied with string. Their parents, radiating pride, stood close by; ready to see their children off to school. That stung Mina’s heart in a way that she didn’t have time to process. The families were waiting patiently for their turn to enter a gazebo of red stone bricks in the centre of the garden.
As they approached, Alana whispered to her. “From this point on, it’s Magister D'vere, understand?”
Mina nodded. She realised they were going to travel by magic. The gazebo had six sides, three of them open to the air and the others filled in and covered with maps and notices. She didn't have time to read them as they moved swiftly inside; the other groups deferring to Magister D'Vere. Set against one of the walls of the gazebo was an arch of clean white stone. It was wide enough for two people to walk through, and about eight feet tall. Every inch of it was covered with runes and symbols. She was heartened to recognise a few of them from books she had read.
Magister D'vere reached inside her coat and brought out a two-foot length of polished wood with a tapering end. She raised it before the arch and concentrated for a second. Mina felt a buzz in the back of her brain. It wasn’t a sound or a displacement of air, but a feeling, an itch on the inside of her skull. It was something that she couldn't entirely quantify. She braced herself for something spectacular to happen, but nothing did at first.
The Magister stood in the manner of someone waiting for a bus. “It's going to be very busy today,” she explained, “and we're a little late.” A couple of minutes later there was an answering pulse from the arch, which made her escort straighten up. “Quick quick now. Time to go to school.”
The air inside the arch seemed to melt away, revealing a similar gazebo beyond it. Through the portal, she could see a group of pupils being ushered out onto a lush field of grass by some-one in old-fashioned teaching robes, complete with a mortar board. The teacher beckoned furiously for them to move through the portal.
Mina had thought this would be a momentous occasion, her first real experience of doing something magical, but the Magister hustled her through too quickly to take it in. She didn't really feel anything, except the change in the atmosphere from the scent of flowers to the freshly cut grass of a sports field.
On the other side of the portal, they emerged from the gazebo onto a large lawn that was crowded with other pupils greeting each other like old friends. Beyond that was the cluster of buildings that would be her school for the next seven years. The grounds were dominated by a gigantic oak tree in the centre, larger than any she had ever seen before.
Magister D'vere made a beeline to an older girl in a smart blouse, knee length skirt and long black robe. Sewn on the breast of the robe was the school badge: a large tree surrounded a magic circle that barely contained it. A ribbon ran across the bottom with the motto ‘Magia Est Potentia.’ There would be one of these waiting for her in her dorm, the final piece of her school uniform.
“Magister.” The girl bobbed her head with nervous deference before looking to Mina. “First year?”
Magister D’vere let her frustration show a little. “Yes, we were running late. You know how it is with these untalented families...”
The girl smiled and nodded. Mina's stomach turned over at that statement, but she was too shy to say anything. “Welcome to Oakward!” The girl said to her. “We've got to get you over to the dorm quickly. Just dump your bags, then we'll have to run to catch the orientation before it starts.”
Mina looked up to Alana. “Will I see you around?”
She patted Mina's shoulder. “No, I am afraid I have other duties, but you never know… study hard in your classes, become a powerful mage, and maybe you'll be a magister too one day,” she winked.
Mina had no idea what that really meant, but she had no time to think about it before her escort hurried her into the chaos of arrival day.
They moved quickly and caught the tour for new students. It started with the most important building on the campus: Tyburn Hall. It was originally the mansion of a rich Elizabethan mage named Johannes Tyburn.
“During his life, he had seen that the political tide in England was going to turn against the ways of magic.” Their Tour Guide – another older student– explained. “He spent the rest of his years weaving a complex enchantment into a tree that he grew from an acorn: ‘Tyburn’s Veil Ward.’ It was meant to protect his family home and demesne only, but as puritans, witch hunters and civil war prayed on the arcane population, the grounds became a sanctuary for those who found themselves displaced from their homes.
“As the tree grew, so did the strength and size of the enchantment. Johannes’s son discovered that he could cut wood from the tree and preserve the enchantment that it held. That wood could be enchanted to amplify the effects of the Veil and spread it further. That was the moment that arcane society was born. Hundreds of years later The Veil now covers the entirety of the United Kingdom. Seeds from the tree have been traded to the some of the other arcane societies around the world, so that they can hide themselves in similar ways. The descendants of Johannes Tyburn live in the house to this day, and the current Lord Tyburn is the headmaster of the school.”
Some of the ground floor of Tyburn house had been converted into a small museum which they got to walk through briefly. Inside, the exhibits had evocative names like ‘Massingham's Ether Key’ and ‘Dee's Almanac of Modern Magic, 1st Edition.’
The other buildings had been added to the estate through the years, growing around the great tree like branches of brick and stone. The chaotic approach to architecture over the centuries had left the campus a hodgepodge of buildings in many different styles. Buildings had been improved, altered, and repurposed dozens of times as the philosophy of magical education changed. There was a great hall where food was served and three large dormitories forming a square behind it. Mina would be sharing a room with five other girls.
Mina’s head spun with information. There were alchemy labs, enchantment workshops, and classrooms filled with old-fashioned desks that hinged upwards with a compartment underneath. They had the library of Mina's dreams, wide and open, with at least three floors of books, sliding ladders, big tables and old leather sofas for comfort. If the flow of the group hadn't pulled her away, she probably would have never left. She wanted to charge in and pull books of the shelves with wild abandon.
After the tour came the timetable. Latin, calligraphy and grammar, crafts, cryptozoology, magical history, illumination, applied symbology. Magical theory with Magister Alabastus caught her eye. It was late Monday morning, the first lesson after the headmaster’s welcome assembly.
She also noticed that she had an extra class that none of her dorm mates had; remedial evocation, three days a week after her other classes had finished. She mentioned it to one of the other girls, who only responded with a superior smile. She had only been here a couple of hours and already she was set apart from the others. They all seemed to know each other anyway, and Mina was too shy to try to fit in. Everything was overwhelming and after a heavy dinner of traditional English cooking, she was exhausted. She sat in her bed reading the orientation handbook, as the other girls chattered and shrieked with excitement until lights out.
* * * *
Magister Alabastus was a thin pencil of a man. Stiff and uncompromising. Everyone knew within seconds that this would not be a class to mess around in. He must have felt that they had been welcomed to the school more than enough already and wasn't going to waste his time with it. He started teaching almost as soon as they had perched their bums on their seats.
“Parchment out everyone! I will be taking in your notes at the end of the class to ensure that you have understood correctly.” He didn’t give them a moment to prepare before he started his lesson. “As your first, and most important class at Oakward, we will be learning the basic principles of magical theory. You will not be undertaking any practical magic for the next two weeks…” Mina didn’t know if she was relieved or disappointed at that. “…so that we can ensure that you all have enough of a grasp on things not to blow up the school before half term.” He stalked around the classroom as he spoke, only stopping when his shadow fell across Mina's desk. “Young lady, what is that in your hand?”
Mina looked up suddenly, feeling like she had shrunk to an inch high. She glanced down in panic. “A pen?”
There was a nervous titter from elsewhere in the class. They were swiftly silenced by their teacher’s irritated glance. The magister must have mistaken her response for insolence, and he reached down and snatched it out of her hand. “And where did you get it?” He dangled the plastic ball point in front of her, like it wasn’t one of the most common items in the world.
“My mum gave it to me.” The embarrassment of even admitting to having a parent on your first day of school was bad enough, let alone the fact that she had committed some gross magical faux pas on behalf of her daughter.
“Ah. Well now,” a note of sympathy crept into his stern voice, and he moved to the desk at the head of the classroom. “This would do well enough in an untalented school. But you are in Oakward now my dear. Here, we write using the proper tools.” His softened tone gave Mina a brief respite, which made her panic all the greater when Alabastus returned with a feather, a small knife, and a pot of ink. “I’m sure that you received all of this in your kit when you arrived, but first days can be so busy, after all.”
She gazed in dismay at the three items in front of her; each of them familiar in concept but made alien in context.
Heedless of her distress, Alabastus had already gone back to teaching. “Class, who can list the four primary branches of magic?”
Hands shot up either side of her. A boy with short dark hair on the other side of the classroom was picked to answer. “Evocation, Enchantment, Alchemy and… Transmutation.”
“Very good.” Alabastus twirled his stave and began to exposit on each of them. Furious scratching filled the room as everyone around her began to write. “Evocation is channelling magical power into energy or force…”
With trepidation Mina dipped the tip of her feather into the pot, but it only seemed to hold the tiniest drop of ink.
“Transmutation is using that energy to change physical matter.”
She dipped the feather in the pot for longer but then it ended up dripping ink all over the page before she could write anything. Perhaps she needed to use the knife to cut it in some way?
“Alchemy is the process of using sympathetic reagents to brew consumable liquids with magical properties.”
As she was left-handed, she found she had to hold her arm far above her parchment to make sure that she didn't smudge what she had written with the flappy sleeves of her school robe.
“Enchantment is the process of making magical items with permanent or repeatable effects.”
Mina gave up on the messy scrawl on her first page. On the second, she found that splotches of ink had bled through onto it. She was desperate to focus on Alabastus' words, but the only lesson she learned that afternoon was one of frustration. She wasn’t sure what the magister thought he was achieving by tutting every time he walked past her, but he was certainly succeeding at making her hate him – and herself.
At the end of the lesson, as he collected in their work, he looked straight into her eyes and said “sloppy work.” It was loud enough for the whole class to hear. There was a gentle snap behind her in that moment, but it was quickly lost in the mocking laughter that seemed to fill the room.
It was a miracle that Mina managed to find her way back to the dorms so easily. The bed she had only spent one night in already felt like a safer place than anywhere with her classmates. She had sworn to her mum that she wouldn't become a moody teenager, but she found that throwing herself on top of her covers and crying her eyes out came very naturally. That was a contrast to writing with a sharpened bloody feather.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” She wasn't sure if she was talking about calligraphy, her teacher or herself, but it helped a little to get it out of her system. She was sure that the ink on her fingers was probably staining her face and her pillows. At this moment in time, she really didn't care. She cried herself out and lay in distress. It was only after her stomach growled that she realised that she was missing lunch. She knew that wasn't smart. The longer she was away, the worse it would be to show up again. She took a deep breath and tried to collect herself.
“Have you finished crying now?”
Mina let out a cry of shock and turned around to see a short girl with thick glasses, hair the colour of copper wiring and more freckles than she could count. She was standing a couple feet from the end of Mina’s bed, holding two thin wooden boxes, each tied with a bright red ribbon. Evidently, she was waiting for an answer.
“Yes... I think so...” was all that Mina could muster.
The strange girl thrust one of the boxes directly into Mina's hands. “Here.”
Left speechless by the girl’s sudden appearance, and by what was seemingly a present, Mina could think of nothing else to do but open it. She gently moved the ribbon off the box, undid the clasp and slowly hinged it open. There was a quill inside, lying in a case of red velour. This was nothing like the crude thing Alabastus had given her. For one, it had a shaped metal nib and only held a feather for decoration. The feather itself was pure white, with purple stripe a third of the way up. Mina was no expert in birds, but it looked just strange enough to have a mystical origin.
“You'll still have to practice, but it's better than cutting your own feathers down. Only masochists do that… and apparently sadists too.” The girl’s worlds came out in a rush “There is a pot of ink in there as well. There are sheets of parchment in the library for practice. We can go after dinner this evening and I can show you.”
“Why would you...” Mina stammered, finding at least a few of her words again.
“Oh, I broke my quill. Stupid really.” That snap, Mina thought. The girl looked down, nervously gripping the other box. “I needed to get another one from the shop. I figured you'd need a good one too.”
Mina wanted to cry again but swallowed it down. She shifted on the bed to make room and patted the space next to her. “Thank you. That's really thoughtful. My name's Mina.”
The girl sat down. “I know. From the register.”
It took Mina a moment. “And what's your name?”
“Oh! Heidi! Heidi Prendergast.” she extended a very formal handshake, which she withdrew from very quickly.
Mina was somewhat baffled, but after this morning, she'd take confusing and friendly over arcane and hostile. “A pleasure.”
Heidi seemed to be blushing a little under the cover of her hair, which formed an almost perfect screen for her face whenever she looked down. “Can I ask you something?” she said quietly. Mina nodded, intrigued. “Can I have one of your pens?”
“Of course…Of course! After all.” Mina reached into her suitcase and produced a rattling box with ‘100’ on the side in large friendly numbers. “I’ve got quite a few spare…” she gave them a shake for emphasis. Mina smiled first; Heidi wasn’t far behind.
* * * *
Heidi took Mina to grab some lunch, which they took outside to eat. Mina was still self-conscious that people would stare at her after the incident in class, so they sat on the edge of the sports field watching some of the older kids knock around a cricket ball. Heidi explained that it was the sport of choice in arcane society. Mina wondered if all those empty stands at cricket matches were actually full of mages that had made themselves invisible.
Mina wanted to understand what she had done wrong this morning. “I'm guessing that it’s not just biros that are forbidden?” She asked.
‘Proscribed.” Heidi corrected.
“Right, proscribed.” Mina was sure that those words meant the same thing. Heidi seemed to be very particular about word choice. “But why?”
“The proscription against untalented technology goes back to the Industrial Revolution.” Heidi became a lot more confident when she was explaining something. “The Magisterium was concerned that technology would turn people away from magic. So, they proscribed anything invented after 1860 or so. Did they really not mention this in orientation?”
Mina looked down at her lunch and picked up her packet of crisps. “What about this?”
“Exactly my point!” Heidi hadn’t made a point, but Mina let her continue anyway “It’s inconsistent! No one in arcane society can be bothered to produce food, or anything other than the poshest clothes, so that all gets a pass.”
“Who gets to decide what’s allowed?” Mina asked.
Heidi responded with a shrug. “In the end, whichever magister is standing in front of you.”
Mina was still confused. “The teachers?”
“The school is just part of Magisterium – a powerful part. The Magisterium is basically the government for arcane society.”
It seemed like magical history class had started early, but she found she trusted her strange new friend more than she did her teachers. She had read a bunch of fantasy novels over the summer – she figured they had as much a chance of being useful as anything else. The better ones had been clear about one thing: magic had some kind of price. Here it wasn't her soul, or some kind of magical destiny, it was no computers, mobile phones or TV. Was it worth the price? Of course it was. Of course it was.
