The Nature of Things, Part 2

He scowled.

"Wrong answer?"

"No. That's probably the best answer you could have given. I'll see you tonight."

That night, when he got home from his job at the Tutoring Center, he walked around the apartment, closing the windows, lowering the blinds, and turning off all of the lights. He locked the front and back doors, unplugged the phone, and then led me into the living room, where he turned on a single lamp.

"Isn't this a little extreme?"

"I don't know. How important is your life? You know that it might depend on keeping things secret, don't you?"

I shuddered, but didn't answer.

He gestured for me to take a seat, and began pacing around the room, running his hands through his hair. He sighed, and began. "OK. Magic. Magic is a partnership. You can't do it yourself. Basically, when you're doing magic, you're entering into a partnership with the elements of the thing that you're changing. Elements probably isn't the right word. We're not talking Aluminum, or Carbon, or Plutonium. We're not even talking Earth, Wind, and Fire."

"Earth, Wind, and Fire's a band."

"You know what I mean. When you're doing magic, you're forming a partnership with the most basic pieces of the thing that you're trying to change, and for lack of a better word, I'm going to call those pieces elements."

"OK, a partnership. Got it."

"Basically, what you have to do, is you have to picture exactly what you want to happen. And you have to be very exact. In your mind, you have to be able to see it from every angle, and at every point in time during the change. If you're trying to move something, you have to see it beginning to move, you have to see it while it's moving, and you have to see it when it stops. If you can't see it in your mind, it won't happen. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah."

"OK. Once you've got your picture in your mind, then you . . . you, um, you point that picture at the thing that you want to change."

"OK, what? I point the picture in my mind at the thing I want to change?"

"Yeah."

"Is this how they taught you?"

"No."

"So, why don't you teach me how they taught you?"

He sighed. "Where I come from, things are a little bit different. Did anybody teach you how to talk?"

"What do you mean?"

"When you were little, toddling around, and yammering, did your mom sit you down and make you practice glottal stops? Or sibilants?"

"Um, I don't think so."

"See, for me, magic was the same way. Nobody taught me how to do the basic things. I just learned them because everyone else around me was doing them. Later, when I was ready to learn more advanced things, then someone taught me. But it's the same way with talking. I don't know how to teach you magic. I'm trying the best I can."

"Do you think I'll be able to learn it?"

"I know you will. In D'arville, whenever someone says that learning advanced magic 'just feels important,' we say it's a calling. The Universe is speaking to him. She's saying that he will need the magic to fulfill a mission."

"The Universe is a she?"

"Yeah. Look around. If she weren't, she'd be a whole lot less, beautiful, a whole lot less elegant, and a whole lot more predictable." He grinned. "But you'll learn more about that later."