Old Magic(24)

She holds the crystal up to my face. I’m not exactly sure what I’m supposed to be looking for and don’t see anything unusual. All the same, it might be my agitated senses, but I find it impossible to drag my eyes away. It seems to loom closer, grow larger even, but this perhaps is an illusion. I’m concentrating hard now. Vivid, shifting colours, like fancy silk scarves, move inside it for a minute, then nothing. I start wondering, is that it? And I’m glad in a way that nothing too amazing or outlandish happened. I mean, shifting colours of reds, oranges and blues. A good trick, sure. I wonder how she did it. As I’m about to ask something else happens, drawing my focus right into the centre of the ball. Something is moving inside and it’s more than colours. There are shapes. Odd grey shapes that shift and change. I adjust my glasses. Everything has a slight blur without them. I use them for reading mostly. Now I see people. Three of them. The first I make out is a man, his face filled with pain; then a woman with brown hair and mousy eyes, weary-looking; the last a child, about eight or nine, with hair like mine. It takes a full minute before it hits me. I’m looking at a miniature visual image of my parents, and little brother, Casey.

It blows me out. For more than one reason. As far as I know Kate has never seen my family. How would she know what they looked like? My chest struggles for air; this is all too unreal. I physically pull back, and lift off my glasses.

Kate gently slips the globe under her bed. ‘What did you see?’

I stare at her, words stuck dry in my throat.

‘What did you see, Jarrod?’ she repeats insistently.

‘Don’t you know?’

‘I only saw the colours,’ she shocks me further by saying. ‘But you saw more.’

‘My family.’

‘Oh,’ she groans softly as if this explains everything. I wish she’d tell me. ‘Now I understand completely.’

Her comment makes me want to scream. ‘So what do you mean by that?’

‘I suggested to the crystal it reveal to you your most worrying thoughts.’

I feel my mouth sag open as I suck in a couple of good breaths. What happened just now? Did I really see my family in that glass ball? Did Kate somehow manipulate my thoughts to think that I saw them? She says she’s good at sensing moods and that sort of thing. I guess she is gifted in some ways. There are people who can sense things sometimes even before they happen. That’s not unusual. So what if Kate is capable of a little ESP? A little thought projection? Maybe she really was in my head the other day. I can handle that. With this thought in mind I calm a little. ‘Very interesting.’

‘That’s all?’ Disbelief.

I shrug my shoulders. ‘What did you expect?’

She shakes her head and drops it into her hands. Her words are muffled. ‘I thought that you would believe in the world of magic. That by showing you it exists, you would believe you have the gift.’

I scoff really loudly. Her eyes peek out from her hands. ‘It was a great exhibition, Kate. I’m really impressed. Believe me, you blew my mind. But how is a little thought projection going to make me believe I can do magic? We’re talking about me here. You know, the idea alone is absurd. Don’t you pay attention at school? I do something stupid every day. I’m clumsy, OK? I’m a nobody. I don’t belong anywhere.’

Her hands fly into the air. ‘Jarrod, you’re so wrong about yourself, it makes me cringe.’

‘I’m sorry I do that to you.’

‘You idiot.’ She strikes my knee with her knuckles. I grab her hand to stop her from doing it again. I don’t let go straight away. ‘I mean,’ she begins, and I swear her voice has become a little unsteady, ‘you say you don’t belong anywhere, yet you told me how your father has traced your ancestors back almost a thousand years. Now that’s really something.’

I think about this. She’s right, of course. It makes me feel better, like maybe I do belong. At least this conversation feels safer. I like where it’s going. I decide to try and keep it there, leave the supernatural stuff behind. ‘I could bring Dad’s book around tomorrow, if you like.’

Her eyes light up with excitement. ‘Could you? That’d be great.’

It’s a timeless moment. I lace my fingers through hers and feel my pulse accelerate like crazy. ‘I want to thank you for getting me out of that cafe tonight, and for saving my life.’

‘I don’t think that old chandelier would have killed you, but that’s OK all the same.’

‘I, ah, really should go. Mum’ll be worried by now.’