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The Secret Magic: 2: The Uncontrollable

Subdued

***

            "How are you feeling?"

            Jade's eyes jumped up as she took a bite from her sandwich.  Papa stood there with a smile on his face.  She nodded and swallowed the bread and cheese in her mouth.

            "Good." He sighed.  "I know it's been a little…different lately."

            She looked back down at her sandwich.  'Different' didn't begin to describe how thing's had been, if the screaming shouts from victims families for justice was anything to go by.  The fact that none of the children that used to play with her wouldn't come within ten feet of her now was starting to get old.  Of coarse, she wondered if they would've acted different if their parents hadn't ordered them to stay away from her, warning them she was dangerous.  She could enter a room and empty it now, as if just her mere presence in a room shouted 'DANGER, DANGER'.  The events in the courtyard this morning had been proof enough of that.  She'd walked into it, intending to head for one of the gardens, she had been feeling depressed lately, and all the children stopped dead in their tracts.  She had smiled at them, trying to reassure them that she wasn't, in fact, dangerous, but they had all slinked away.  All except Amena.

            She had looked around her at all the scattering children and sighed.  Walking up to Jade, she shrugged and put an arm around her shoulders.  "It takes getting used to, I guess."

            "Ya," sighed Jade, looking down dejectedly.

            "Hey, I got an idea, ya wanna…." She turned her head at the sound of her name being called.

            "Amena Cassidy!"  Her mother, leaned out a window in a wooden building against the castle walls where her father worked in the workshop downstairs and they lived up top.

            "Ya, ma?"

            "You didn't clean your room, young lady!"

            "Aww, Ma.  Can't I…"

            "No! Now!"

            Amena sighed and looked back down at Jade.  "I guess I gotta go."

            Jade nodded, trying to smile. "Ya, I guess you do."  And Amena had hopped away towards her house, leaving Jade to continue her walk to the gardens.

            "Listen," Numair's words interrupted her train of thought.  Jade looked back up at him.  "I need you to be back here at two o'clock sharp, all right.  There's someone I want you to meet.  That gives you an hour after you eat to go play."

            She nodded again.  He smiled at her then, leaned over and kissed the top of her head.  "Can I go to the west gardens?" she blurted.

            "Again?" he asked with raised eyebrows.  "Didn't you go there this morning?"

            "Yes, can I go again?"

            Numair looked at her with thinking eyes.  As if he were trying to figure her out.  "Yes, of coarse you can go to the gardens again.  Be careful though."

            "I will." She answered with a nod attacked.

***

            She sat against a magnolia tree, her knees pulled up against her chest.  Running her fingers through the glass blades, she idily wondered when this bad dream was going to end, because no body had ever been afraid of her, and she didn't like that they were now.  Papa and Mama weren't, at least, and she was grateful for at least that, because Gods knew, she deserved punishment for what she had done.  They didn't talk to much about it around her.  Only what they though they should, about the magic involved.  Sometimes she wished they would just come out and say it, she had killed people. Men, Women, children…even animals.  She had asked Amena to find out for her, and she had reluctantly agreed.  12.  Twelve people dead.  She cringed whenever she thought about it, wanted to rip it from her mind with claws she didn't have.  She rested her chin against her knees.  The last two weeks had been different.

            The King didn't seem mad at her.  In fact, he seemed to be smiling at her more and the queen, though she didn't see her as much because the queen was busy with ambassadors during this season had been nicer.  Onua, well it seemed Onua was just as determined as her Papa was to figure out what it was Jade had.  And Mama…Mama was the same as ever, thank the Gods…because she couldn't handle Mama being different.  She rested her forehead against her knees and sighed.  Moving her head slightly to the side, she stared at flowers growing there.  Curiously, she ran a finger down one of the petals of a daisy.  Nothing happened.  She sighed again.  "You know you shouldn't be allowed out of you room, murderer."
            Jade's head snapped up.  Molena stood in front of her, so she quickly put her head back down to her knees, intent on ignoring her.

            "Did you hear me?  I need to go."

            "Why?" Jade said as she looked up once again.

            "Because I want to pick some flowers and I don't want to get strangled by tree vines while I'm at it.  So go."

            Jade sat where she was and glared at the older girl.  "No.  I was here first.  If you don't want to be around me, than you go."

            Molena stomped up to Jade with hands on her hips.  Reaching down she dragged Jade up and pushed her.  "I said go, or I'll tell my parents you tried to kill me with poison ivy, and then you'll be put away in a dungeon with all the other killers.  Who knows, maybe they'll even hang you."

            Jade stumbled back towards the garden archway, fear ripping through her.  "They won't do that to me," she states with trepidation and uncertainty.

            "No?" Molena asked with raised eyebrows and a laugh.  "Look outside the palace wall, JADE.  There are at least 50 people who would love to see you hanged for killing their families.  How long do you think you parents can protect you from them? I wouldn't bet too heavily on it."

            Jade swallowed hard as she looked at the Palace outer walls.  She looked back to Molena with trembling lips.  The older girl looked absolutely ecstatic that Jade was about to cry.  'I won't cry' she ordered herself.  Crying at been the cause of everything so far it seemed.  'I'll never cry again'.  And she stomped past Molena out of the gardens, hands clenched in silent fury.

            Molena smiled a tiny grin and turned around with a wistful sigh, going about her picking.  She turned to a patch of daisies next to a magnolia and started to pick them.  "Oomph!" She felt herself get shoved forward into the flowery patch.  She struggled up, only to have to tear her dress out of the daisy vines.  She cursed silently at a whole in her dress as she looked around for the source of her shove.  No one.  Angrily, she stomped out to go change; it wouldn't do to walk around with a muddy and torn dress.

            As she left the daisies shifted back into their rightful positions, covering up the dent Molena had made with her body, repairing any damage with quick work.  A squirrel gathering nuts on the ground looked up from its current treat as he heard gentle snickering from a normally silent creature.  Oddly looking at the Magnolia tree that was shifting back to its original state, pulling its branches back in.  The tiny squirrel shook its head to its self, wondering why trees were so vengeful.  'That wasn't very nice' thought the squirrel.  'I don't remember ever hearing of trees that pushed humans down before.'  It shoved the rest of the nutshell aside and climbed up the tree, back up to its burrow.

***

            Jade closed the heavy wooden door behind her with both hands and then walked up to water basin.  Cleaning her hands like she had been taught, her eyes shifted to her father's study when she heard conversation muffled through it.  The door opened just then and Papa, Mama and another woman, slightly younger, stepped through, speaking to each other.

            "There you are sweet," called Papa.  "Come here a moment."  Jade looked at her father with unsure eyes.  Slowly walking up to the three adults, she swallowed with shifting eyes.  Finally meeting the women's eyes, Jade couldn't help but stare.  The woman was so pale, she put the Queen to shame.  She had golden blonde hair and piercing ice blue eyes with pink lips and highly arched eyebrows.  She wore a blue lace dress, oddly enough.  It wasn't a very elegant dress.  But it certainly wasn't what women wore on every day occasions here at the castle either.  She was very pretty.  Then the woman smiled at her.  'No,' thought Jade…'She's beautiful.'

            "Jade," said her mother.  "This is Atune of Masson.  She's going to be your teacher."

            Jade's eyes jumped from her mother to the woman, confused.

            "Lady Masson has come all the way from Scanra to be your tutor, Jade.  She's going to be living here with us and she…"

            "I thought I was going to school with the other children," she said suddenly.

            "Jade," said the woman.  "You should not interrupt people when they are speaking."  Jade's eyes widened slightly; she hadn't expected that.

            "It's alright," Numair said to the woman with understanding eyes.  He looked back at her then and she could tell he was trying to be gentle.  "Jade…We were thinking of putting you in school for a while…but…your mother and I think it much more appropriate for you to have a private tutor."

            "But I want to go to school," Jade stated.  She noticed he mother smiling sadly.

            "Jade," started the woman.  "I know it's different than what you expected, but your parents only want what's best for you."

            Jade stared at the woman for a moment, evaluating her.  "And you're wants best for me," she stated.

            Daine's eyes got large.  "Jade Salmalin."

            "No, no," said the woman.  "It's alright Miss Daine." She smiled at Daine and then turned mirthful eyes towards Jade once again.  "Yes, Jade.  I am what is best for you."

            "Jade," said her father.  "Why don't you go wait in your room?  We'll be there shortly.  Jade stared at the woman a little longer, trying to figure her out, unsuccessfully.  Giving up, she sulked towards her room.

            "I'm really sorry, Lady Masson.  She's not usually so…"

            The woman laughed and held up a hand.  "It's quite alright.  I very much enjoyed that.  I'm completely excited now.  You have an extremely smart little girl.  It's very rare for a five-year-old to use sarcasm so effectively.  I can tell this is going to be a good start."

            "She's been…slightly off lately.  The market place has upset her," stated Numair.  "She's been treated differently by most people; I think she's started to feel the pinch.  I just wanted to make sure…before we go any further, that you don't have any qualms about being her tutor, knowing what we know, or rather, what we don't know, about her magic."

            "It is strange.  I'll give you that.  Do you know how she might have developed such magic?"

            "We think," started Daine.  "that it happened when I was pregnant with her.  That's when we learned that there was this kind of…plant magic…it must have gotten into my body while I was pregnant with her.  When…the plant magic healed me…but we're not sure how it works or what to do."

            "Hmm." The woman thought for a moment.  "Well, certainly, I have no problem with teaching Jade.  She's very bright, as I said before.  And I don't think she's dangerous, if that's what you're asking."

            "Well then," stated Numair.  "Come back into the study and we'll discuss your wages."