The silence in the house now was deafening. Where once there had been a house full of love and laughter, there was now nothing but loss. Too much loss, too quickly. And the burden Mateo now bore was oppressive.
He lay in his small bed, trying to read the book he was to be tested on the next day. It was boring and it made him sleepy. It was also untrue. He knew, even if the others in his classes blindly believed what they had been taught. But he went along with it, kept his head down. Stating the truth would bring down trouble on him; trouble that he could not afford to have, that his family could not handle. Not now that his father had died, and his siblings had gone missing.
Gone missing, he thought bitterly as the lie echoed through his brain. 'Gone missing' was a euphemism because he could not say what he knew to be true. His family had been taken from him, from his mother. The sorceress Shuriki had destroyed his family slowly since she had come to power. First, his grandfather had left. He had never met him, but had grown up on stories of his rise to power as the royal wizard of Avalor. Then his sisters, they had recklessly joined a resistance movement that had been crushed in one of the many raids against such movements. Shuriki—I can't call such a thief Queen, he thought—had instilled a very strict policy against free speech, free association, the use of magic, and basically everything else that made Avalor what it was. His sisters both had had big hearts and chose to stand against the oppression of the people. They had only made things worse because they had used their gifts—the magic they had inherited from their grandfather, in their efforts. They had disappeared late one night after Shuriki's guards had raided their house.
His brother had been next. He too had played too loosely with the family gifts. And losing his eldest son had put Mateo's father into the grave. He was the only one left, now to care for his mother and grandmother. And it was a heavy burden for a ten year old to bear.
So he kept his head down and ignored the call of magic that pulled at him. He could feel it whisper on nights like this, when he was laying quietly and the house was too still for words. It felt like a current that ran deep at the bottom of a river that otherwise looked perfectly calm. It flowed steadily, at times it raged. He shook his head and tried to return his attention to the book of lies they had given him at school.
He was dozing once more as the gate to the house slammed closed with a bang and the front door creaked open a moment later. The moon was just rising through his window, sending its silvery light across his bed as the voices started downstairs.
"Rafa, think about what you are doing, child?" His grandmother's voice echoed clear and strong despite her age.
"I have, mother. And I want nothing to do with it. Father's legacy is meaningless in this world now. And I will not lose another child to it!" His mother replied, her voice rising in anger. The same argument had haunted him since his father's funeral.
It had always been the unspoken rule. Magic existed, and his family was flush with it. It was hidden from view, but never looked down upon within the family. His mother, Rafa, had chosen to ignore its call throughout her life. More out of fear than anything else, Mateo thought. She was the daughter of Alacazar; she had shared his gift and had passed it to her children, but she had chosen to lock that gift away within herself. His father had been surprisingly accepting of the talent that lay within his wife's bloodline, even as she wished she could vanquish it from herself. His father had never actively encouraged that any of his children learn magic, but he did not discourage them either once they had started. It was this quiet acceptance that had driven his heartbreak and ultimately his death.
Mateo knew that his own power had been sealed away by a wizard who lived outside of the kingdom when he was only an infant, but he could still feel that magic that existed in everything. He just could not connect to it, but it called to him, like a flame called to a moth.
"Mateo has a right to know and a right to learn if he wants, Rafa. You should not take that from him." His grandmother said. She had often told him, even before his brother had 'gone missing', that there was a great destiny that lay before him, that he would do great things. He did not believe her half the time. How could he? He was a scrawny kid who barely had any friends and was not all that good at things boys should be good at. She would scoff at him then, telling him to trust in fate and that he would know what to do when the time came to embrace his destiny. It was a fascinating bedtime story for a little kid, but the more he saw of the world and its darkness, the more he saw it as just a story.
The discussion had devolved into yelling now, as it often had in the three weeks since his father had passed. His mother and grandmother did not seem to be able to have a civil conversation even if their lives depended on it. There was no telling how long they would be at it, so Mateo knew that sleep was unlikely to come easily that night. He slipped out of his bed, letting the dull book of lies land on the floor with a thud. Part of him wanted to burn it for its lack of truth, but if he had learned one thing growing up as the grandson of a royal wizard, it was to always respect books, even if they do not seem worthy of it. He sighed as he picked up the small volume and placed it into his bag. He wished, not for the first time, that his grandfather was here, or that they at least knew what had happened to him. Everyone assumed he had died, but no one knew for certain. Still, there was a small marker in the graveyard for him. After all this time, he might as well be dead. But if he had come home, or had never left, perhaps Shuriki would not have been able to hold on to the kingdom as she had, he thought, and magic would not have been outlawed. And my family would not have fallen apart…
He slipped down the narrow stairs the led to his room quietly, not that he would have been heard over the yelling. The argument was the same as it had been for weeks. His mother wanted to destroy her father's things. There were still a few items scattered around the house that Mateo knew had belonged to his grandfather, but none of them seemed especially magical to him. His grandmother desperately wanted to protect them, to pass them on to him, Alacazar's last remaining heir. His mother would hear nothing of it. Eventually, they would reach a stalemate and would go to bed only to resume the heated discussion the following night.
Mateo sat listening to the arguments wondering what it would be like to tap into the magic source he felt day and night. Would it solve his problems with his classmates? Would it help him impress the other kids at school? Or would it only make things worse? Would he even be able to control it? Could he be even half the wizard his grandfather had been? What would his destiny be like, if his grandmother was indeed correct? What kind of life would he have if his mother eventually got her way? He sighed heavily as he leaned his floppy haired mess of a head against the wall.
Eventually the voices died down and his mother shuffled off to bed. She had been throwing herself into her work since his father had passed. He guessed it was to help her cope with the loss, well losses, a way to help her take her mind off of things. But it had done little for the family except make them all more irritable.
The slow shuffling of steps and glow of a lamp turning the corner made him sit up straight. His grandmother smiled in the orange light as she sat on the step below him.
"You heard that, did you Mateo?"
He only nodded.
"Well, do not worry, mijo. I will not let her destroy your birthright."
He nodded once more. Truthfully, he thought, I'm not sure whose side I would rather take.
"Get to bed." She commanded, patting his bony knee. "Tomorrow is a big day."
"Test day." He murmured. His grandmother scoffed.
"Tests on what? Those lies they teach you at school? Who needs that. I have other plans for the two of us." Her eyes twinkled in the lamp light. "But first you need to get some sleep. I bet one of those books you have to read will put you out in no time." She winked at him, knowingly. He could not help the grin that broke out on his face. He kissed the top of her head through thin gray wisps of hair before he crept back up the narrow stairs to his bedroom. He tried to sleep, to do as she had commanded. He had even finished the chapter he was supposed to be tested on in the morning. But sleep eluded him as he thought about his grandmother's pronouncement.
Tomorrow is a big day she had said. It aroused his curiosity, something he had in abundance, as it echoed through his mind.
