Coed Witchery 101 - Chapter 7

It wasn’t quite a dungeon. The stairs descended in a spiral, with oil lamps hanging from the walls every half-spiral or so. As we got to the bottom of the stairs, I got a glimpse of a well-lit chamber ahead. I stepped out of the stairwell, and into a twenty-by-twenty room, lit by oil lamps, which looked like simply an underground classroom. It looked as if someone had taken desks and chairs from upstairs over the course of many, many years, because some of the desks looked ancient, and some looked like they were only a few years old. The mismatched desks were only a small surprise though.
The left wall was entirely taken up by bookshelves filled with books and scrolls and any number of things. Most of the shelves were covered over with cobwebs and the tomes stored on them had obviously not been used in a very long time, except for one set of bookshelves toward the other end of the room which looked well-used and well-cleaned. On the right wall were a few doors, built right into the stone walls, which led to who-knows-where. And at the front of the room was a huge desk covered in all sorts of papers, which I assumed must be Dr. Holden’s desk.
“Upperclassmen, go practice in the lab. I’ll need a volunteer from each discipline, of course, to stay behind. Freshmen, please choose a seat close to the front of the room where you will easily see our demonstrations. This will be your first night of class this year.” About eight people filed out of the room through the middle door set into the wall, and closed it. There were ten other students left in the room, including Vince, Yaseiko and Brenda.
“But professor… I’m not signed up for any night classes,” stammered a cute red-headed girl wearing jeans and a tight tee-shirt that read in small letters If you can read this, you’re staring at my chest.
“Of course you didn’t, child. You’ll understand everything soon enough. Please, sit,” Dr. Holden said, gesturing to the seats.
We took seats close to the front, and I looked around at the other freshmen. There were five of us, each looking as nervous as I felt. Besides the red-head girl, there was one other girl who was plump, with blonde hair and a fascinated smile. She sat at the desk to my right, wearing jeans and a tight-fitting pink polo top. She leaned over and said, excitedly, “Isn’t this amazing? I mean, magic!”
“Umm… yeah… I don’t know what to make of it,” I said warily.
On the other side of the portly blonde was a guy with red hair, wearing jeans and a Dave Matthews shirt. The red-haired girl was sitting on his other side, and now that I saw them next to each other I realized that they must be siblings, if not twins. They both had a hawknose, firey green eyes and identical expressions of confusion on their faces.
Finally, on my left was a short but skinny guy, obviously of Asian descent. He wore a loosely-buttoned dress shirt and slacks, and wide-rimmed black glasses. I almost expected to see a pocket protector in his shirt.
“Good evening, class, I am Dr. Holden. Now that we’re all situated, I’m sure you’re wondering why exactly you’re here,” said Dr. Holden from behind the main desk in the front of the room. The six upperclassmen that had stayed in the room with us were lined up on either side of him, looking passive, except for Brenda, who was smiling at me. I felt myself blush a bit, and struggled to pay attention only to Dr. Holden, and not to her.
“I have been teaching at this institution for about 26 years now. Before me, there was another faculty member who taught this course, and before him a whole line of them. This course has been taught since before the University itself existed, in fact. We call it ‘Magic 101’. Simple, and to the point.”
“Now, the million dollar question. How many of you have had some very strange things happen to you in the past six months or so?” We all raised our hands. “And how many of you can explain these strange events?” All but one of the hands went down. The blonde had hers up. “Yes, Ms. Seletyn.”
“Magic!” she said, obviously just a little too excited about the idea. I caught the red-haired girl roll her eyes where ‘Ms. Seletyn’ couldn’t see.
“That is correct, Ms. Seletyn. Magic. Now, we’re not talking about fairy-tale magic. There are no elves, no fairies, and no unicorns. We’re talking about raw magic, elemental magic. Science will tell you that the world around you is made of particles, of atoms and molecules, and they are absolutely correct. What scientists, for the most part, do not know about is that there are more forces at work in our universe than just Physics and Chemistry and Mathematics. All of these sciences are useful for studying our world, but there are some things that modern science cannot explain.” He made a waving gesture toward the students on either side of himself. “These upperclassmen are about to demonstrate the six elements of magic to you.”
A guy in his early twenties far to Dr. Holden’s left stepped forward. He was short, probably no more than five and a half feet tall. He had black hair cropped short and spiked, with the tips colored bright red. His eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses. His nose was small and pointed, and he wore a grin that showed teeth that looked coffee-stained. He wore a tight red shirt with an image of a dragon on it, black denim pants that were a bit too tight for him, and large black boots.
“Mr. Fargo will now demonstrate the element of heat,” Holden said. The guy then raised a hand, palm-up, in front of himself. He stood there for a few seconds, and just as I thought that nothing was going to happen his fingers started to glow a faint red. The red color got stronger and stronger until suddenly a small flame burst into existence right above his hand. “As you can see, the ability to create fire spontaneously cannot be explained by science as you know it. We have our own brand of science with which we study these phenomena, and hopefully each of you will learn to use and control these magics.”
Fargo closed his palm, cutting off the flame, and stepped back. I could still see the red glow in his hand for a few seconds, but it quickly faded.
“Next, Ms. Ilane will demonstrate the element of cold.” A young woman stepped forward next to Fargo, about a head taller than him. Her blonde hair was pulled up in a long ponytail behind her back, and she had icy blue eyes and a faint hint of a smile on her lips. She was all legs, which she had accented by wearing a short miniskirt reminiscent of a cheerleader’s skirt. Her top was pink and had an artistic-looking, abstract pattern in sky blue sewn onto it.
Ilane picked up a glass of water from the desk in front of her. After a few seconds her hand and the glass both started collecting moisture from the air, sort of how a glass of ice water sweats. A few more seconds went by and abruptly the water in the glass froze solid, as well as the water droplets that had collected on her hand and the outside of the glass. “The polar opposite of heat magic, the element of cold is literally the absence of heat, and using it allows one to slow down the movement of atomic particles in matter,” Holden explained. “As you can see, this allows one to change the state of gases to liquids, liquids to solids, etcetera.”
Ilane stepped back and handed the glass to Fargo, who warmed it just enough to melt some of the ice, then took a swig from it.
“Next up is Ms. Ito,” Holden said, gesturing immediately to his left toward the Asian girl from before, Yaseiko. “She will be demonstrating the element of force.”
Force? I thought. What could that mean? I had a flashback to Physics class in high school, when we learned that force was equal to mass times velocity.
Yaseiko stepped forward. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of little pieces of paper, almost confetti. She dropped the paper flecks into a large jar that was sitting on the desk in front of her, then held her hand over the jar. As we watched, the paper flecks started shifting a bit on the bottom of the jar, then a few of them began to whip around. After about ten seconds she had created a confetti tornado in the large jar.
“Force magic,” Holden began, “is the ability to create motion at the molecular level of matter, as opposed to heat and cold magics which speed up or slow atomic particles. The simplest type of matter to manipulate in this way is air, which is what you see Ms. Ito doing now. As one progresses in the study of force magic, one can learn to move more dense objects in this way… liquids, for example. Some who devote their lives to the study of force magic can learn even to manipulate solids such as metal, to reshape objects with their magical ability.” Yaseiko stepped back and the paper settled back to the bottom of the jar.
“Ms. Romero will now demonstrate what we call ‘nature magic’ for you.” Holden gestured to Brenda, standing to his right.
She stepped forward and placed a small flowerpot with some soil in it onto the table. “Zach, could I have a bit of that water, please?” she was looking back at the fire guy. He passed the half-full glass to her. She reached into her purse and pulled out a little paper packet. When she held it up for us, I could see that it said “Marigolds” on the front, and must’ve been a small packet of seeds. She pushed her finger down into the soil to create a hole, then opened the packet and poured a few seeds into it. After pressing the hole shut, she poured a bit of water into the soil. She then held her right hand over the flowerpot and closed her eyes.
Almost immediately, a small green shoot popped out off the soil, followed by four others. The five little vines grew at an incredible rate, growing around her fingers and upward. After what seemed like only moments, the small plants had grown to the point of having flower buds, which burst forth with beautiful red, yellow, and orange marigolds. “As you can see, using nature magic can allow one to help plants grow rapidly. It also gives one the ability to understand and sometimes even speak with animals, and has a host of other applications that we will eventually get to.”
The stems of the flowers had grown around Brenda’s fingers in such a way that it looked like the flowers were growing directly out of her hand. She carefully extracted herself from them and looked up at me, giving me a stunning smile. She stepped back to her original place in line.
“The next element is difficult to demonstrate visually. This is the element of thought. It is believed that the element of thought is actually just an unknown part of our own minds being unlocked and used by some. It has known many names throughout the years, such as telepathy and clairvoyance. Ms. Rodriguez will be demonstrating thought magic to you by simply placing the image of an object into your minds, then explaining exactly what you saw.”
A young woman of Hispanic heritage stepped forward from between Brenda and Vince. She was around the same height as Yaseiko, with an oval-shaped face and very wavy, dark hair. She wore a simple blue v-neck top and jean shorts.
I suddenly got a strange feeling, like I was being watched, but from every side at once. The image of a speedboat, flying across a choppy sea in bright daylight exploded into my mind. The boat was driven by a Hispanic man in his forties, and pulled behind the boat on skis was Ms. Rodriguez herself, smiling and wearing a two-piece bikini. Her large breasts were practically trying to jump out of the bikini top. “Right now, you should all be seeing me being pulled behind my dad’s speedboat, wearing a red and white striped swimsuit, off the coast of Cozumel,” she said. Her voice was very loud and commanding, with a strong Mexican accent.
The creepy feeling faded along with the image, and it left me feeling a little violated, but none the worse for the wear. “I apologize for the invasion of your minds, but it’s the easiest way to make you understand that it’s real,” Stefanie said. Wait… how do I know that her name is Stefanie? She didn’t say it did she? The whole telepathy thing freaked me out a bit.
“Finally, Mr. Davis is going to demonstrate the most difficult and probably the most abused element, life,” Dr. Holden said. “Life magic is the ability to manipulate the raw energy created by and contained within living organisms.”
Vince stepped forward, holding a shoebox. He opened the lid and pulled a small white mouse from inside. To my shock and slight nausea, he used one hand to snap the mouse’s neck. I saw Brenda flinch, and heard sharp inhales of breath from several of the other freshmen.
“Why did you DO that?” the red-headed twins gasped in unison.
“Don’t worry, students, the mouse will be fine,” Dr. Holden said gently. “Just watch.”
Vince held the clearly dead mouse in his right hand, palm up, showing it to us. With his left hand, he touched one of the flowers that Brenda had just grown. He then closed his eyes and his brow furrowed in concentration. “Mr. Davis is going to transfer the life energy from the plant, back to the mouse, healing its injuries. It will be very taxing for him, as life magic is strong, raw energy which he must channel through himself.”
As I watched, the beautiful flower began to rapidly wither, finally turning completely brown, petals falling off onto the soil beneath. The mouse’s tail twitched, then it jumped up, obviously frightened by its ordeal, and jumped from Vince’s palm down to the desk. Brenda reached down onto the desk, and the mouse ran straight for her, climbing up her arm all the way to her shoulder, where it sat, shivering.
Vince opened his eyes, looking dazed for a second, before he stepped over to the side of the desk and sat heavily down in a chair. His hair was sweaty as if he had just been to the gym, and his hands were shaking a bit. He looked drained and defeated, but I stared at him in awe. He had just brought a creature back from the dead!
“That, students, concludes your introduction to the world of magic,” Dr. Holden said, with an air of finality. “Any questions about the demonstrations?” We all stared at him in shock. “No? Alright then, volunteers, you may go join your classmates in the practice hall. The freshmen and I have a lot to talk about.”