“Don’t see why you’re defending him,” said Jesse. “He’s the one who chose to go off on his own. Apparently with these - girls.”
“Yes,” said Tom. “And usually, I’d be talking to him about the guy code and how us bros have to stick together. But after how you’ve been a jerk to him for the past few days, who can blame him?”
“You think that’s the reason?” demanded Jesse. “He’s been all buddy-buddy with that one since before we even left Knoxville.” He gestured toward Clara, who was sitting opposite Rosemary.
“Excuse me,” said Clara. “We’re right here.”
“Oh sorry,” said Tom. “I’m trying to deal with a — delicate situation here.”
“What delicate situation?” she asked.
“Jesse here,” explained Tom, “is a bit sore from a recent development.”
“What development?” asked Clara.
“Simon thinks it’s his job to worry about how I pronounce ‘producite amicos’,” blurted Jesse, angrily.
“And can’t you think of any reason why he’d do that?” asked Tom.
Jesse sat there, stubbornly refusing to say anything at all. After a moment, he finally put his fork and knife down and said, slowly, “He - didn’t - want me - to mess up - my summoning chip.”
* * *
The rest of the meal went by in relative peace. From that point on, Jesse’s attitude toward Rosemary changed. He wasn’t friendly with her in the way that he had been before the incident in class a few days before — but he no longer avoided her, or fell back on hurtful remarks when he wasn’t able to do that. Still, he remained awkward around her, always seeming embarrassed — and spoke to her a lot less than he once had.
Rosemary saw Amy a few more times throughout the rest of the day, and even saw Lacy once or twice — but she wasn’t able to get either of them alone. The next day, Sunday, however, it was Amy who found Rosemary as she was sitting in the Common Room reading ‘The Amazing World of Enchantment’ early in the afternoon.
“So,” said Amy, “everyone’s saying you got something really amazing for your wand’s core.”
“I did,” said Rosemary, as she closed her book. “A harpy’s feather. But there’s more.”
“I can’t tell you here,” she said, gesturing with her eyes at how full of people the room was, as she put her book back in her satchel.
“Would you like to go somewhere else and talk about it?” asked Amy.
“Yes,” answered Rosemary.
Amy didn’t take her to the upstairs floor with the large windows as Rosemary was expecting. “Too busy this time on Sunday,” she explained. Instead, she took her to the basement room underneath Hamilton Tower where she had previously taken her for the practice of somamorphy. Once they were there, Rosemary explained to Amy everything about the previous day’s events — and how they led not only to her having a harpy feather, but to Clara, Lilith, and Samantha now knowing her secret.
“Well,” said Amy, “it seems like that went well. It looks like your friends are supportive. I’m glad.”
“I am too,” said Rosemary.
“And it’s okay if you don’t tell the teachers everything about how you ended up with a harpy feather of all things,” said Amy, “but you need to tell them about what’s happening to the trees.”
“But then they’ll know where we were,” said Rosemary, “and they’ll want to know why we went that far out.”
“I totally understand,” said Amy, “but if there’s something going on in these parts that’s bad enough to have a harpy that upset, it’s probably something that the school needs to know about.”
“Can’t you tell?” asked Rosemary.
“If I’m the one who tells them,” explained Amy, “that’ll raise a lot more questions than if you and your friends tell.”
Right then, an envelope landed on Rosemary’s desk. It wasn’t a parchment envelope, but a regular envelope made of office paper — the kind of envelope one could buy in any office-supply store in the mundie world. On it, was written the name, “Simon”. After opening it, Rosemary pulled out and unfolded a sheet of notebook paper on which was written the following:
Dear Simon,
We know that it will be a good few days till you are able to respond to this letter, but we decided to go ahead now and let you know that we are thinking of you. Dr. Fletcher gave us a bottle that he says is called a “liquid spell” and told us that if we address a letter to you, it will only take one drop from that bottle to send it to you.
We have been told that you went on your field trip to get a core for your wand, and you got a feather from a harpy, and that the teacher can’t remember anyone having gotten that. It all goes to show that you are special and will do special things. You are an amazing son, and we are proud of you.
Love,
Mom & Dad
Simon folded the letter and put it back in its envelope.
“It’s from my parents,” he said. “I wonder how they’ll react when they find out who I am.”
“Well,” said Amy, “there’s plenty of time to figure that out.”
* * *
The next morning at Introduction to Enchantment class it was finally time for Professor Hathaway’s homeroom class to put together their wands. After taking attendance, the Professor led the class from the usual classroom to a workshop three stories below, just above the Adventure Room. This workshop was significantly larger than the classroom — with several workbenches affording each student not just a tiny desk, but a somewhat larger working area.
As soon as they got to the workshop, she pointed to a row of ten locker ports. “Go get your collection bags and wand construction kits,” she said, “and find yourselves each a spot at one of the benches.”
Lilith and Samantha sat next to each other near the end of one of the benches. Rosemary found a seat across from them.
“Hi, Rosemary,” said Samantha.
“Hello,” responded Rosemary, with a smile. “There’s something I need to talk to you two about.”
“What?” asked Samantha.
“We need to tell Professor Brown about the drained trees,” explained Rosemary.
“That’s probably a good idea,” said Lilith.
“Not the part about my — you know — but everything else,” said Rosemary.
“Everything else about what?” asked Tom, taking a seat to Rosemary’s left.
“On Saturday, when we went to get our wand cores,” explained Lilith, “we came across these really messed up trees — and we had a run-in with a harpy who thought we were the ones draining them of their essence.”
“A harpy?” asked Tom. “Didn’t a harpy end up giving Simon here its feather?”
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“It did,” answered Lilith, “after everything was cleared up.”
“So, have you told Professor Hathaway about this?” asked Tom.
“We were just talking about telling Professor Brown,” explained Lilith.
“Tell Professor Brown about what?” asked someone else. Rosemary looked up, and saw Mika Suzuki, standing over the seat to his right.
“These messed-up trees we found in the forest,” explained Lilith.
“Sit down, Mika,” said Samantha, gesturing to the empty seat before Mika, to Rosemary’s right.
“Okay class,” called Professor Hathaway just as soon as Mika was seated, interrupting the conversation. “If you’ve all found your seats, please open your wand construction kit.”
Rosemary opened hers and was immediately taken aback by its contents. In it were over a dozen parts, tools, and other items.
“Now you will see a lot of things in your box,” explained the Professor, “but don’t worry. I’m gonna walk you through it step by step.
“You will see a number of little bottles in your kit. These contain liquid spells. You’re going to need them for two reasons. For one thing, you won’t have a wand to cast spells with yourself until after you’re done building your wand. Second of all, some of the spells are rather complex and are way beyond a first-year’s skill level. Now, you will be using your own magic while putting your wands together — just not for spell casting.”
She began explaining, step-by-step, the process of wand construction. Occasionally, she took a break from explaining the process to explain the purpose of one part of the wand or another. For starters, there was the blade — which, despite its name, wasn’t really flat and didn’t really have any edges. Rather, it was a hollow wooden tube, open on one end but not the other, into which the most active components of the wand would go. Then there was one of those components, the nomenclator — a small cylinder that would sit inside the blade just behind the core. The nomenclator was responsible for mapping the various incantations to their respective spells. There was also the hilt — which not only provided a convenient way of holding the wand, but also held the contents of the blade in place so that they wouldn’t simply slide out.
“If you forget any of this, you don’t have to worry,” she said, holding up her copy of a booklet with the words ‘Assembly Guide’ on it in bold letters. “It’s all written in the instructions,” she explained, “which you also should have in your kits. And I’ll be around to help you if you need it. And as soon as you’re done, just wait, and I’ll get to what you do next.”
As soon as Professor Hathaway finished, Rosemary unfolded the workspace cover sheet that was provided in the kit and began the process of putting together her wand. She placed the harpy’s feather on a long tray called the injector tray and dripped on it the contents of the tiny bottle labeled ‘#1’. The feather shrunk in size — though a bit less, lengthwise than in the other dimensions, making it seem to elongate slightly as it shrunk. As it did so, it settled in a crevice in the injector tray. She used the #2 bottle to inject the core from the injector tray into the wand’s blade. The #3 and #4 bottles prepared the nomenclator and slid it into the blade, just behind the core.
“Very good, Simon,” she heard Professor Hathaway say, as she walked past.
“Thanks,” said Rosemary, uncomfortable with being called again by a name that was quickly beginning to feel dead to her, but happy to have the teacher’s assurance that she was putting the wand together correctly.
After opening the #5 tincture bottle, Rosemary then held the blade of the wand, tip downward and slid the hilt onto the open end. She then tilted the wand to a forty-five degree angle, still pointing down, and dabbed the contents of the #5 bottle on the hilt. As Professor Hathaway had warned her it would, the hilt glowed bright blue for a moment — but when it was all over, it was fused to the blade.
As soon as she was sure the process had completed — going so far as to give it thirty seconds rather than the mere ten that Professor Hathaway had directed — Rosemary placed the wand on the table. Only a few steps remained before the wand would be complete.
She dabbed the contents of the #6 bottle on the blade, and then quickly took the wand by the handle and pointed it upward. Professor Hathaway had said that she would have thirty seconds from when the liquid spell was applied to do this, but Rosemary didn’t want to take any chances. After about thirty seconds, she could feel the wand changing shape. What moments ago had been a plain dowel of sassafras wood with an equally plain sassafras handle now morphed into an elaborate piece of art with a lovely butterfly motif on the hilt, and elegant grooves spiraling from the base of the blade to the tip.
Only one step remained till the wand was complete. It needed to be connected to the nomenclatural network so that the nomenclator would know how to map any incantation she might use to its respective spell. She laid the wand on the table and dabbed on the blade the contents of the #7 bottle. For a minute, blue pulses of light traveled from the tip of the wand to the butterfly pommel at the base of the hilt. As soon as the pulses stopped, she picked up the wand, lifted it, and smiled.
“Can you show me your wand?” asked Samantha.
“Here,” said Rosemary, placing the wand on the table so that everything, from the tip to the pommel, was visible.
“That’s beautiful,” said Samantha. “Here’s mine.” She placed her maple-wood wand on the table. Rosemary could see that the handle resembled the head of a dragon, and that the blade was decorated in a motif of flames coming out of the dragon’s mouth.
“Awesome!” exclaimed Rosemary.
“Check mine out,” said Lilith, placing her pinewood wand on the table. The hilt was shaped as though it were formed from the wings of a bat — and the relief image of a snake wound its way up the blade.
Tom had a wand of cherry wood. On each side of the handle was carved the relief image of a broomstick, and a horse’s head protruded from the back as a pommel. Its blade, which tapered slightly inward, culminating in a hemisphere at the tip, was covered with wavy lines that ran in parallel from the base to the tip. Mika’s wand was made of black walnut. Its pommel was shaped like the head of a wolf, and its blade featured nothing but straight lines, equally spaced around it, leading from the hilt to the tip.
Jesse sat to Tom’s left, and Ricky sat across from him. Rosemary didn’t get as good a view of either of their wands — because they were a bit too far away, and because right then Professor Hathaway again called for the class’s attention.
“So it looks like you’ve all got your wands built,” she said. “As you may have noticed, close to when you finished, it went from being plain to being ornate. The design on it should be in some way a reflection of who you are inside. Anyway — we can now start with our wearables. Can anyone tell me why wearables are important?” Rosemary raised her hand, but several of her classmates did as well.
“You, Jesse,” said the Professor, pointing to Jesse.
“To carry your wand around,” he said. “Especially around mundies without them seeing anything weird.”
“Yes,” she answered. “And?”
“It’s safer?” he responded, a bit less confidently.
“Exactly!” affirmed Professor Hathaway. “In most situations, for the majority of witches and wizards, a wearable is both the most inconspicuous and the most secure way to carry a wand. Now, there are exceptions to this, but we won’t be getting into that today. We all will be fashioning wearables. Specifically, each of you will be making either a bracelet or a ring — whichever you prefer.”
She showed everyone a prop of a strip that was in everyone’s boxes that they could unfold to make longer. “What you will do,” she explained, “is unfold the strip, dab the contents of the #8 bottle on it — and wait till it turns from white to yellow. Then, you will wrap it around your wrist if you want a bracelet — the wrist of whichever hand you write with. Or if you want a ring, you can wrap it around your finger. Wrap it as many times as it will go. Once you’ve done that, all that’s left is to dab the contents of the #9 tincture bottle onto it — and watch your wearable take shape. Any questions?”
Rosemary raised her hand.
“Simon?” the teacher asked, pointing to Rosemary.
“Do we have to use the liquid spells?” asked Rosemary, “or can we cast the spells with our wands?”
“That’s a good question,” answered the Professor. “Using your wand to cast the spell directly is not advisable for this purpose. Even though you will be using a liquid spell, the process will draw upon your own magic to direct the form that your wearables take. You could in theory make yourselves the liquid spells to do it and then use those liquid spells to make your wearables — except that none of you is ready to start brewing your own liquid spells, and besides, a single-use bottle of the liquid spell you need is already included in your kit. That answer your question?”
“Yes,” Rosemary said.
Nobody had any more questions, so Professor Hathaway gave the go-ahead for the class to begin on the wearables. After dabbing on her strip the contents of the #8 bottle and waiting for the color to change, Rosemary pulled back the right sleeve of her robe and wrapped the strip around her right wrist before applying the contents of the #9 bottle. She watched as the strip morphed into an extremely delicate silver cuff bracelet with a white diamond. This diamond sat at the very center of the bracelet, only forcing the band to thicken very slightly at that spot to accommodate it.
“Can I see yours, Rosemary?” asked Samantha.
“Sure,” answered Rosemary, raising her wrist and pulling back her sleeve.
“Beautiful!” said Samantha.
“Excuse me,” said Mika. “Did you just call him Rosemary?”
Samantha paused for a moment. “It’s an — inside thing,” she said, looking squarely at Mika.
“You see,” said Lilith, “he really likes the herb — Rosemary — so we started calling him that.”
“I see,” nodded Mika, but a confused look still lingered on her face.
Rosemary was about to ask to see Samantha’s wearable, but Professor Hathaway again called for the class’s attention. “Now that you have your wearables,” she said, “it’s time to learn how to store your wands in them. If you’ve seen some of the older kids get their wands out or put them back, you might just see a quick gesture of their hands and not see where the wand comes from or goes to. Doing it that fast comes after lots of practice. You don’t have to push it. It’ll happen on its own within a few years. For now, just do what I say in a slow and calm pace.”
Professor Hathaway then explained in detail how to place a wand inside of a wearable and how to retrieve it. At her instruction, Rosemary held her wand in her right hand and then transferred it to her left. She placed the tip of the wand against the diamond on her bracelet and held it there until the diamond turned into a small, dark, swirling portal into which she could simply insert the wand. When she had done so, the bracelet looked just as it had before, only the diamond had turned from white to red. After that, she withdrew the wand from the diamond, also as the Professor had instructed, and then transferred it from her left hand to her right hand.
For the rest of the class, Professor Hathaway had the students practice over and over storing the wand and retrieving it. For homework, she told the students to keep practicing until they were confident in their ability to do so whenever they needed to. Rosemary left the class already planning in her head where she might go to cast the somamorphic spell to assume the form she intended to remain in permanently — however, there was something she had to do first.