Chapter 7, part 1 – Eye and hand
Merle showed up as promised after supper on Saturday night, and their canoe-flight to the city was uneventful. When the canoe began to descend, Merle paused from pitching Daydark powder around them, sent a series of shoulder taps from Meg to Penny to Cait, then pointed downwards, while holding one finger to his lips. Diamond-dazzling lights traced the spans of bridge after bridge below them; the motion of car headlights twinkled among the steady warm glow of streetlights, as they appeared and disappeared behind towering buildings full of lights of their own. So many buildings! Cait felt dizzy trying to count how many people must live in all these towers. Odd shadows loomed on the flat tops of some of the buildings, round peaked shapes. Cait wondered what these were for. They reminded her of silos, but in a city? Then Merle was back to tossing Daydark around them – safety was more important than sightseeing.
The canoe veered to the right towards one of those skyscrapers and descended some more; they were now landing on a roof, in the shadow of one of those silo-like things, where two softly-glowing tents awaited them. Tents in February? Cait shivered. They were going to freeze in there! Car-horn honks, sirens, and loud music floated up from below. How would they ever sleep? Three robed-up wizards in Eagles caps now piled out of one tent, whooping and high-fiving Merle while excitedly chattering about the game.
As Meg, Penny, and Cait stepped out of the canoe, a smiling witch emerged from the other tent and approached them. "You don't know how glad I am to have somebody to talk to other than my doofus brother and his buddies over there!" She grimaced to the boys. "Let me show off your quarters – lots better from the inside than out!" Sure enough, the tent was both roomier and warmer than Cait had feared, and as the door-flap fell shut behind them, the traffic sounds vanished as well. How did they do all that? Cait wondered if by her seventh year at SWI, she too would know how to run all the spells that must be keeping this tent warm and quiet, but was too tired to ask about any of it now.
All too soon, Penny was poking her awake, and the smell of toast, coffee, and fried eggs filled the tent. Well-fed, and with Plain-Sight glamours hiding their robes, the girls strode after Merle and friends down an unbelievably crowded sidewalk, following them into a dingy alleyway between two tall brick office buildings. Here, the crowds were even worse, and at Merle's lead, the three girls let the crowd push them over towards the right-hand wall. There, an updraft very much like the astronomy dome's upchute whisked them upward with no warning, and deposited them right into the middle of a rooftop stadium. Glowing numbers hovered over seating sections, and people lost no time in finding their seats and settling in. In the center of the stadium, a pink haze hovered above a field full of the same plushy plant that filled their own courtyard at SWI.
Cait shivered with delight as she sat in the middle of a noisy crowd in the midst of a very noisy city, debating in Sign with Meg about whether pretzels or hot chestnuts were better for cold days. Broomriding vendors hovered overhead, towing displays of all kinds of food and drink. Cait had never tasted roasted chestnuts before, but she now proclaimed them to be, "Best! The best!" with her hand sweeping thumbs-up from her chin, while Penny rolled her eyes and counted out coins for the snowbane-spiked hot chocolate that was being wanded her way. Blurs of motion surrounded them: people settling into seats; the sweeps of food descending to customers, and money ascending in return; broad swoops of people flying overhead. So much fun to not be shouting above the honking horns and loud engines of the city! Why hadn't she met signing people long ago?
As Cait picked up her hands to ask Penny what she'd just bought, the gaze of a skinny-faced man two seats over caught her attention – he was following their conversation. She put her hands down, and Penny turned her head to see what Cait was looking at. The man ducked his head a little and signed, "Sorry – you two – think I'm rude – myself Deaf." Then he was signing a "J" on his bicep – that was his namesign -- and introducing his family, then pointing out other members of the Deaf magical community who he knew in the audience.
Sure enough, as soon as he began pointing out other Deaf people, flurries of signing seemed to be all over the stadium and Cait began to wonder how she could possibly have missed the motion of all those conversing hands. Exhilaration filled her. So many people who signed, and were magical! Even though she couldn't understand most of the signing, it fillled her with happiness just to watch it. Oops, should she be staring at their conversations? Eavesdroppng on spoken conversation had never really been an option for her, and she had no idea how much eavesdropping would be tolerated among signers. She brought her attention back to the skinny-faced man. Then a blur of bright red drew her attention as a witch wearing a Gallaudet sweatshirt and pointy hat pushed her way to a seat two rows below Cait. Gallaudet – the picture from the WFDA newsletter sprang before her mind's eye. What kind of team had been in that picture? Might this woman know?
Turning to Skinny Face, Cait signed, "Her – you know?" pointing to the woman in the red shirt.
He looked, shrugged, and asked Cait, "You want – you-two – chat?" and asked someone in the row below to get Red-Shirt's attention before Cait could tell him, "That's OK, don't bother."
Red Shirt turned around, exchanged a few signs with Skinny Face, then gave her attention to Cait. "Student – you?" she asked.
Cait could barely sit still for excitement. Two rows away, and here she was having a conversation; easily, no trumpetvine, no guessing! She signed to Red Shirt, "People – magical – go school – Gallaudet?"
Red Shirt's eyes lit up in a smile very much like Corwin's as her fist nodded, "Yup!" Then she took off her tall hat, fished around inside it, and wanded a pitch-black card with gold letters up to Cait. Or it looked as if she did the spell – but did she have a wand? Cait wasn't sure if she'd seen one. But as soon as she saw the card all other thoughts vanished. It read: Jessica Stern, Signspell mentor, Belfry Bats.
Belfry Bats! Hadn't she seen that name before? A blur of motion in Cait's peripheral vision – Red Shirt, um, Jessica, was motioning Cait to turn the card over. As she did so, new letters appeared: "For full information about Belfry Bats' support of mainstreamed witches and wizards, send a crow to Ole Jim, Gallaudet University."
Cait grinned and nodded her fist in return. "Yes – yes!"
Then Meg was poking Cait – time for the game to begin. Cait put that card safely in her sleeve pocket and watched the Eagles swoop into the playing space. As the game proceeded, Cait remembered that most of the Eagles had stopped at Hedge level. Did they have any idea there was such a thing as the Belfry Bats? But then a spectacular volley drove all school thoughts out of her head. She and Meg tried to count how long the players kept the ball aloft before the Eagles captured their point. Twelve volleys? Fourteen?
And many such moments later, but all too soon, Merle was rounding them up and they were canoe-flying their way back to Massachusetts.
As soon as she was back at SWI, Cait wrote a note to the Belfry Bats, and then raced to the Partridge-Hall roof to find a bird to carry it to DC. A crow was soon carrying it into the night sky, black on black. She couldn't wait to find out what exactly the Belfry Bats did and how they did it. But at least she wasn't completely alone among all the hearing people at SWI anymore! Inside that note was not only the request for Belfry-Bat assistance, but also a suggestion. Why don't the Belfry Bats follow the Eagles' games, and ask the Eagles if they can drop Belfry-Bat cards into the stadiums? Cait would dearly have loved to know about the Bats last November.
With the new semester came changes in some of their classwork.
The weather had turned unseasonably mild, and Ms. Broadleaf had sent the Greenwitchery class to the corner garden to find the first greening sprouts of Snowbane, which was sturdier than horseradish and hotter than habanero peppers. It was so hot that little circles of melted snow puddled around each of the sprouts. "Collect no more than one seedling apiece, and wear gloves!" were Broadleaf's exact instructions.
They were finally allowed to perform their first transformations in Spellwork, turning eggshells into seashells, and back.
And their broomwork class now included night flying.
The first class was bad enough – Cait couldn't stay on at all, despite Greengage's addition of extra stabilization charms onto her broom. When the next night's class went no better, Cait fumed as she sat on the ground watching the other students zip back and forth overhead; she was formally excused from night-flying until Greengage figured something out.
She was still grumpy about it the next morning as Meg consoled her over breakfast the next morning. "Look on the bright side. Maybe they'll let you have a canoe early!"
A white blur caught her eye. A dove? Fluttering above her plate, the dove dropped a red box into Cait's lap and sailed out of Great Hall again. Grumpiness vanished as Cait opened the box. Fudge! "Chocolate pecan from The Peppermill," read the writing on the box. But who outside of Cait's family knew that she didn't eat walnuts? A slip of airy rice paper lay nestled between the pieces of fudge; on it was a series of three red-inked hearts and the sentence, "To the best daylight-flyer in the class of 2014. A."
Penny and Meg both whooped and signed "sweetheart" at her as Cait's face grew hot. She remembered that it was Feb 14th today. Duh.
She looked around Great Hall – yup, there were more bird couriers winging around than usual. To her surprise, a small hawk of a kind she didn't recognize coasted through the hall, leaving a flat, oval package at Cait's place as it perched on the back of a nearby chair. In the return address was inked, "Belfry Bats, Ole Jim, DC". As she picked it up, Cait's fingers sank into thick padding.
At that same moment, familiar twin shapes flew past a nearby window and up to the cupola. An instant later, the bell rang for class. With a sigh of relief, Cait remembered that it was Thursday – they didn't have to run off to morning classes.
As the room cleared out, Cait untied the twine around the package and removed the layers of paper and padding. An oval piece of glass in a dull-bronze frame lay inside; some sort of mirror? But it was far too dark to be a mirror, and why would the Bats send her a mirror, or a picture frame, or whatever this was? A book was with it as well, but she couldn't read it – its script was none of the ones on Corwin's walls.
A note fluttered from the book's pages.
"Dear Caitlin Leo:
Thank you for your excellent suggestion concerning Belfry-Bat outreach! We will definitely contact the Eagles with this suggestion. Please set this mirror up in a convenient spot in your dorm room – on your desk would be ideal – and be in front of it this Sunday at 3pm. Barring conflict, this will be our regular lesson time. With power of eye and hand,
Jessica Stern."
All three girls gazed at the smooth, dark surface of the mirror.
"My mom has one of these," ventured Penny, "but I've hardly ever seen her use it. It was really for Gramma since Mom would rather just send a crow to people."
"But what IS it?" asked Cait.
"It's to talk with, long distance, face to face," said Meg, touching the frame delicately with one finger. "I've heard of one, but have never seen one before. They're really pricey and it takes a lot of spellwork to set it up right. Can we be there on Sunday when it does whatever it does?"
"Sure," said Cait. "That's what friends do, right?"
Then conversation turned to the snow-rabbit observations that were due the next day in Zoomorphia. Nobody had liked the idea of having to watch white rabbits against white snow, and the whole class had been near mutiny when the assignment was announced. As Penny and Meg complained about the homework, Meg smirked as she polished off the last of her pumpkin muffin.
"How come you're not complaining about the homework? Did you cheat?" accused Cait.
Meg broke into the guffaws she'd been containing. "It was easy! All I had to do was Mindcast, and there's the bunnies. I wondered if you two would ever figure it out. C'mon, let's go observe some rabbits."
Sunday afternoon, Cait sat at her desk, fidgeting nervously as she checked for the tenth time that the mirror was securely propped up before her. Penny had pulled over her own desk chair and sat on it backwards, chin resting on the chairback, while Meg perched on the corner of Cait's bed. Nini napped on Cait's pillow, oblivious to their excitement. Cait had put her clock near the mirror so that she wouldn't have to take her eyes off the mirror to watch the time. As the minute hand slid onto "twelve", a swirl of motion began within the mirror's surface, black on black, a gentle shifting, until Jessica's face became visible, white on gray on back, and then colors filtered in slowly along with details of both face and background. This time she wasn't wearing a hat, and her dark, wavy shoulder-length hair was tied back in a ponytail.
Jessica waved a cheery hello at Cait, but then peered around with a questioning look, and signed, "All three-of-you – deaf?"
Cait answered, "My friends – Meg – there – Penny – there. Hearing – hearing. Curious – this mirror."
Jessica leaned back, chewing her lip and frowning slightly.
"My good-friends," signed Cait, stressing their close friendship by tightening the handshapes of the sign for "friendship" close to each other, making her index-finger knuckles ache. "Two-of-them learn sign," she added.
Jessica now shrugged and leaned forward again. She waved at a board beside her which read, "Lesson One;" it contained some of the mysterious writing Cait had seen in her new book.
"The book?" queried Jessica, looking about as if trying to see Cait's room. Cait grabbed the new book from her desk shelf as Jessica nodded. A wand was now in Jessica's hand, and she pointed out a quill which lay on a table before her. The board displayed the word "boh-ee" and a squiggle of the new script. Jessica did a gesture which looked like the ASL sign "to come here," but with handshapes which Cait had never seen before. The quill flew smoothly from tabletop to Jessica's hand. Jessica then demonstrated that unfamiliar handshape to Cait, and showed how to read the squiggly writing which indicated exactly what the handshape was, and which motion to use with it.
Three signspells later, Penny remembered a paper she needed to rewrite and pushed her chair back to her own desk. A moment later, Meg decided to go practice her Zoomorphia homework.
Cait, still fascinated with this new spellcasting method, didn't at all mind waving them off. This was way better than the Visual-Kinetic method! No clunky pause in between writing the word and sending the energy. Here, the sign and the energy looked like they were all one piece as Jessica's hand formed the spells.
Cait couldn't wait to try it out for herself. Finally, after showing Cait a fifth spell, Jessica swept an "L" handshape off her chest and in Cait's direction. "Your turn." Then she added, "Number one," and gestured at the board with its list of five signs.
Looking around her desk, Cait picked up a cat toy which Nini had batted onto her notebook, and placed it before her. Making the new handshape, she performed the signspell, and the toy flew right into her hand. This was great! It felt as easy and fluid as using the ASL signs itself. This was what she had been wanting to do all along. And there wasn't even any danger of repeating the "I hate Amanda" broom-tumble. Talk about having her cake and eating it too!
Jessica grinned at the obvious delight on Cait's face and pointed to the next sign on the list. The rest of the hour flew by all too quickly, and the color began to fade from the mirror as Jessica hastily signed, "See you – next week!"
And the mirror now showed only the reflection of Penny's back as she rewrote her Mindcasting essay.
After five minutes of copying the new signspells into her notebook, Cait wondered if she was supposed to use these new spells in Spellwork or if she'd be stuck with the Visual Kinetic ones. Gazing at the blank glass before her, she spoke, "Hey Penny, how does your mom work this thing?" then turned to face Penny.
Penny turned from her paper, frowning as she thought. "There's a spell to catch the other person's attention, but I don't know what it is."
Dang. Gotta send a crow. Or go ask Corwin. Nah, I'll send a crow to Ole Jim, Cait decided.
But Corwin beat her to the punch. "I'm so glad to hear about you and the Belfry Bat outreach!" she beamed as Cait stepped into the Spellwork five minutes early the next day. "If you're ready, why don't you show us the Belfry Bats' version of the "boh-ee" spell? I'm sure it's quite different from the Visual-Kinetic one."
At Cait's look of surprise, she added, "Farsight mirrors don't get sent around to just anybody, let alone to students! Ms. Stern was thoughtful enough to inform the administration well in advance that she had plans to send you one. And I for one heartily approve. So, let's see your new spell!"
As Cait demonstrated, the rest of the class arrived and settled into their desks. Corwin nodded at Cait to take her seat, and announced, "Let's play, everyone! The ice-water-ice spell on page 97, please!"
Despite the ease of the spellwork, something felt wrong in the classroom that day. People were whispering behind their hands, and Cait could see quick looks being tossed her way. Oh no, was this going to be "weirdo Carrie" all over again? Or did she have a big, giant D on her forehead now? But there were no teases and no taunts, and the rest of the day's classes were completely uneventful.
Over the next several Spellwork classes, Cait began to get the best grades she had ever received of any class, public-school or magical. But the glares – yes, they were glares, not just glances – continued, and she could still see gossip going on behind people's hands. Over broomsprints, Meg reported that they were all calling her "teacher's pet" and talking about some "unfair advantage."
And she could barely study in her own room anymore – people were constantly stopping by to have a look at "the Farsight mirror everybody's talking about."
At first it was fun to show off the mirror to Meg's roommate, and the Big Sister she forgot she had, and to Andrea, and to her other classmates.
But by the time the Magenta Trio stopped by to see it for themselves, Cait was feeling uneasy. Why did Amanda look so disapproving like that? And Claire looked like she was up to something.
Cait figured that the mirror probably had a few protection charms on it already, but decided to add a couple of spells from the back of her spellbook just to be on the safe side. Then she put on a spot hex for good measure. Wrapping the mirror in her extra winter scarf, Cait slid it in among her textbooks. Nobody could accuse her of being a show-off now.
But the following Sunday, when Cait sat at her desk ready for her next lesson with Jessica and reached for the mirror, there was nothing inside the neatly-folded scarf. Panic gripped her gut; she sat for a moment in shock. Did she move it somewhere else and forget?
"Penny," she asked, pulse jumping at her throat, "Did you borrow the Farsight mirror to talk to your mom or something?" She didn't think that Penny would mess with it, but thought she'd better ask.
Penny shook her head. "I wouldn't even know if you can use a mirror set up for someone else," she answered with a worried tone.
Anger began to rumble inside Cait. She resisted the urge to pitch a fit and start throwing things. Think, think. Who would take the mirror? Somebody jealous? Somebody greedy? Somebody who thought that scholarship girls shouldn't own such high-end things?
The Magenta Trio certainly didn't need to steal anything from anybody – they had enough money to buy whatever they wanted.
Maybe it was somebody who was trying to impress the Magenta Trio – somebody who couldn't afford such things. Meg's roommate – she was always hanging around the Trio. Cait tore out the room with Penny following, and raced to Meg and Violet's room. The door was open, and they looked up in surprise as Cait burst in and scanned the room – no sign of the mirror, no sign of spots on anyone.
"What are you doing?" burst out Meg.
"I can't find my Farsight mirror, and I need it now!" shouted Cait.
"Well I didn't take it!" blurted out Violet.
The room fell silent as all eyes turned on her. "Why would you?" asked Meg.
"Well, that's why I wanted to go see yours," Violet addressed Cait. "It impresses people, they think you're rich if you know about Farsight mirrors. But I didn't touch yours!"
Cait nodded – there were no sign of spots on Violet, and she knew that her spot hex worked. When she'd put the spell on her fresh-cut quills to find out why they kept disappearing last semester, she woke the following morning to find a pink-spotted cat and a half-chewed feather at the end of her bed.
So who did this?
Elsbeth had no reason to. Amanda? She hated being in the same school with "no-talent plebs", but would she actually take the mirror? After all, there was that Daydark stunt. But she only got that way with sports, she didn't seem to care about classwork so much.
Claire – Claire was always mouthing off in Spellwork, and she thought she deserved better grades. Maybe Claire was jealous of Cait's good Spellwork grades – jealous enough to do something about it!
"Where's Claire's room?" Cait demanded. Violet looked like she wanted to disappear.
"Across the hall, four doors to the right," she whimpered as the three girls barreled out the room.
As soon as Claire's door opened, Meg burst into guffaws and Penny into snorts. Spots!
Claire's face was covered with them, bright pink and obviously hexed, as she sat with a surprised look at her desk, wand still in hand from the door-opening spell.
Cait stormed up to Claire and grabbed for the mirror ostentatiously propped up in the middle of Claire's desk. But Claire moved with equal speed, turning and keeping a firm grip on the mirror's frame.
"I'm bringing this back to you, promise!" Claire pleaded. "I needed to learn how it works, see, it's already beginning to work for me!" Sure enough, swirls were gently winding their way within the surface of the darkened glass.
"It's not working because of you, it's working because somebody is trying to contact me right now," growled Cait. "Haven't you wondered why you have those spots?"
"Spots?" puzzled Claire, looking at the mirror over her dresser, and shrieking at the sight of her face. As she let go of the mirror in surprise, Cait gasped and rescued it with a quick signed "boh-ee" spell. It arced upward just in time to keep from smashing on the wooden floor, and headed toward Cait. Before it was in Cait's hands, however, Claire grabbed one edge of it again, and a tug of war ensued, Cait's spell against Claire's grip. Within the glass, Jessica's confused face was now visible, craning her neck in an attempt to find out what on earth was going on.
Then the screen went blank.
"Must have broken," huffed Claire as she let go and the mirror smacked into Cait's chest with the full force of her spell.
Cait clasped her arms about it protectively as she asked Claire, "Why? I'm not going to remove that hex until you tell me why. You're rich. You can probably bribe yourself a set of good grades. Stealing this mirror so I can't study would be really stupid."
Claire stomped to her door and closed it, facing Meg, Cait, and Penny defiantly.
"That's not why. That's not even close. And if you breathe a word of the truth to anybody, you're dead." Claire glared at them from the doorway and squared her shoulders. "And I'd rather not pretend that this is chickenpox." A loud snort erupted from Penny, which Cait ignored.
"The truth," answered Cait. "Hex to be removed after I hear it." Claire continued to glare, and then nodded slightly.
Meg did a Mindcast in Claire's direction and nodded. "Go."
"I don't have the money to bribe anybody for anything," said Claire in a low voice.
"Excuuuse me?" giggled Penny. "with clothes like that?" She pointed at Claire's spotless winter-white cashmere and silk robes.
Claire's chin rose proudly as she silently strode to her wardrobe and flung the door open. "My own sewing, all of it." The cabinet glowed with all sorts of sumptuous fabrics in brilliant colors, cut and pieced into a stunning variety of robes for school, and tops for Plain-Sight wear with jeans. "It's fashion-fabric remnants. And lots of reading of the fashion magazines people leave behind in Mom's shop. And knowing how to sew since I was six. It's a lot more fun to make your own things and pretend they're designer than it is to be stuck sewing them for somebody else. And robes are way easier to make than dresses. And when I'm done with school, I'm never going to be stuck with some old seamstress job, magical or not. And you're not going to mess with that." Again the glare. "People think I bought all these" -- she tossed a head-nod at her wardrobe – "in fancy places like New York and Paris. So I let 'em. And people who wear clothes like this" – she flapped her voluminous sleeves in emphasis – "also know how to use things like that." Claire pointed at the Farsight mirror which Cait still clutched to her chest.
"So pretend that you have one, it broke, and come ask me in person, instead of just taking mine," retorted Cait. "Ask me, for once. And don't ever touch my stuff without asking, or I'll make that hex on your face permanent. This is the sign for 'spots' and I'm not afraid to use it." The bluff worked; Claire flinched. Cait didn't actually know what would happen if she did the spell in ASL, but couldn't help thinking of Amanda and the "hate you" sign. She continued, "And tell Amanda to not do any more Daydark stunts or any other kind of cheating during our races."
"Agree," replied Claire. "Promise." Her voice was flat, but steady.
There was a shimmering downward sweep of Cait's wand, and the spots faded from Claire's face. Cait, Meg, and Penny all turned to leave. As Penny reached for the doorknob, Claire's plaintive voice sounded from behind them; Cait turned and raised an eyebrow. Claire repeated her question, "Can't I borrow it sometime? Just to practice?
Cait paused. "Maybe. If you behave. Remember – spots!" Forming the sign in ASL, she swept out of the room with her friends.