Cliff had never flown in a plane before, but the frightrail had to have been ten times better.
He sat in a recess in the car, which was spacious enough that even with a bag full of his new Ilvermorny equipment hugged close to him there was enough room left over for his Dad to have fit comfortably beside him. Something plush, purple and velvety blanketed the interior from top to bottom, and a neon purple light underneath it lit the car up wherever Cliff touched so that right now, his entire seat in the recess was brightening things.
Twisting backward in his seat, he watched green forests and industrial complexes and highways full of hamster-sized cars race by. Once, he saw a pair of wizards side by side floating past on a magic carpet and wished he could've gotten a second glance.
Then the views became more familiar. He saw the beige campus of Wolfing come and go underneath him, the sparkling lights of the National Harbor against the darkening sky not too long after, and finally the lone road that led up to 2 Silverspiers Manor. Cliff's heart did a skip - his Dad was home! Far below, his Dad was in the front courtyard sitting in one of their dining room barstools and, Cliff saw with a pang of guilt, the mess of glass and wood from last night was nowhere to be seen. He wished his Dad would look up, but when he did just that, his Dad gave no indication that anything particularly interesting, like a giant Halloween decoration soaring around, was happening half a mile above his head.
Cliff expected the frightrail to begin descending, but instead it careened downward, the world outside tilting but Cliff staying completely upright without so much as a jostle. His dad disappeared behind the railings of the rooftop gardens, and almost immediately after, the frightrail paused.
Cliff gathered up his things, noticing that a circular hole had opened up in the side of the recess he was sitting in. He tried pressing it, but it was solid, so he returned to checking his things. Once he'd made sure he had all of it, he got up. Before, part of the car just peeled away to let him out, and when that didn't just happen a second time, he tried taking the feather off of the flap of his hat.
It was several minutes after his signal had no effect that Cliff started to worry. He began to imagine someone nearby stumbling under a light post, balancing a feather on their nose, and him zooming over, captive, to meet them and being forced to choose between another long walk home or being able to get to the Mooredwalk next week. Of course, he knew which he was going to pick, no matter what.
"Hello?" He called out, trying to keep himself calm. "This is Two Silverspiers Manor. You can let me out now!"
A shudder went through the frightrail car. He could have sworn the sky moved a little outside, and then the floor beneath his feet slipped sideways. The compartment behind him dangled open, and the rooftop pool rushed toward him.
His vision popped and then his world became blue and distorted. His eyes stung, Cliff flailed, weightless, trying to remember his orietation when he'd fallen in. He kicked wildly in every direction, at one point smacking something solid with his heel that was immediately pushed away.
Pain tore through his hand - he'd jammed it against concrete. The bottom of the pool! Cliff placed his feet against it and pushed off hard in the other direction.
Suddenly, ice cold air was stinging him, and he gulped down as much as it could. Cliff slapped the surface of the water, trying to retain his balance, until he felt his tiptoes scrape the concrete again. Staying still, he bobbled only for a moment, taking longer, more calming breaths. Blinking the chlorine from his eyes, he saw he was halfway to the five foot marker.
It took a combination of paddling and waddling to get enough traction to walk into the shallower end. He heaved himself out of the pool and squelched into a sitting position.
He noticed then that the frightrail car, still with a section detached, hadn't left. It flicked upward to close itself back up and gave another shake that Cliff couldn't help but feel was a little laugh, and then its stony gray line sprouted from the side, allowing it to snake away along it.
When he dropped his gaze back to the pool, he saw several of his books floating lazily along the surface and groaned.
It took his Dad over an hour to retrieve everything from the pool, if only because night had fallen by the time Cliff had gotten his attention in the courtyard and he'd made his way up the stairs to the roof.
While his Dad dove, Cliff brought the barstool back up to the condo, pausing in front of the now-nearly-flat inkberry bush to leave his last open baggie of melted coconut bar and the tuna snack he'd bought inside it.
Back in the bookshop Cliff had seen a lot of incredibly weird books that dripped, cried, drooled leaked and sweat without being any worse for wear. But lucky him, the four he purchased, that could only be called "used" if you were being exceptionally generous, seemed to be as non-magical as all the ones he'd encountered before today.
"And that's when you started shouting for me," his Dad said, opening the dryer door so Cliff could pull the books out and place them with the dried robes. "MACUSA and goblins and magic... almost makes the heart attack I nearly suffered when your calls suddenly stopped hours after the building closed worth it."
"Sorry," Cliff muttered. It had completely slipped his mind to keep his Dad updated after he got there.
"But bringing you in right off the street and giving you a nice little guided tour? This Ivy person is my hero. Hopefully I get to thank her one day."
The version of the story he told his Dad featured about ten times as much Ivy and a hundred percent less near-memory erasure than the actual events contained. If he could help it, it would be a long, long time before his Dad was anywhere near magic.
But in the meantime, he couldn't wait to get to Ilvermorny and start learning. To celebrate, his Dad had ordered Cliff's favorite pizza and told him they were going to spend the entire week in the leadup to August 25th together.
That promise alone was enough to take a lot of the fun out of the night for Cliff, so much so that he skipped reading his new textbooks and went right to bed. The complete surprise he felt when his Dad was indeed up and waiting for him the next morning, wearing his pajamas instead of his work uniform, was almost enough to beat the feeling of finding out magic was real and he could do it.
During the days, they rode public transport all over DC, his Dad showing Cliff the museums and monuments they'd lived so close to all their lives but had never been able to visit (because of how often he worked, but the last thing Cliff was going to do was bring that up). In the evenings and nights, Cliff pored over the stiff and misshapen, but still thankfully legible, pages of his books.
His least favorite was probably Foodchain Fantastica. The thought of having to study things that would breathe fire, spit poison or paraylzed with a glance was interesting until he started reading the rest of the entries with ways to reduce burn severity, antivenoms and soft landing pad brand recommendations for when they were doing it at him. When he flipped from the fauna to the flora, it was a lot less fun when all the plants were varying shades of green and blue and red with minute identifying differences. Once, he pointed out one that reminded him of the inkberries outside to his Dad, who said, for what had to be the twentieth time, "Those are barberries, Cliff." Then he rubbed his chin. "Or at least they were. Now it's just barberry juice."
Thumbing through Wizardry in Brief turned out to be as fun as mimicking the movement diagrams in Chadwick's Charms. The book was massive for a reason - Cliff flipped and skimmed and didn't get to anything mentioning Ilvermorny until almost a third of the way in. Even with what little he was paying attention to, it was clear magic had quite a history, including a bunch of wars as recently as the nineties. When he took a break from that and imagined himself actually making something float or softening a rock into rubber like the famous people in the past did, made him feel like a conductor, but the effect was a little unfulfilling without a wand.
A wand.
That, more than anything, was what Cliff was looking forward to. He wished he'd asked Ivy about hers. She probably would have let him try out a few spells, get him a leg up on anyone else like him who didn't find out they were magic until now. Other kids. There was a whole country of kids out there who grew up knowing about magic. Who grew up with parents that understood and could fully share in the excitement of Ilvermorny with them. A parent who was magical...
Sometimes, especially when Cliff had A Plurality of Potions open (which was often), his mind would wander there, and he'd shake the thought and point out another interesting tidbit to his father while they worked in the kitchen. But that was only because, more than any other book, Cliff had his nose to the pages of Potions. He'd go through and try to find something he could do without a wand, and when that didn't bear fruit, he'd find the ones that only needed an incantation and no movements.
Once he did, he'd point it out to his Dad, who would drop whatever he was doing and they'd head into the kitchen. They had to have destroyed all the other pots Cliff didn't manage to ruin for Bette's sake, and even though time after time, when Cliff would try to intone the incantation as mystically as he could and nothing happened, his Dad would laugh and offer up another try.
The only other thing that could rival the time spent on Potions was his time making coconut bars. When he checked the bush the day after coming back from MACUSA, the tuna snack was there, but the baggie had been licked clean. After the second time they ran out, Cliff woke up and found an entire row of nothing but coconut milk in the fridge. That first baggie he'd left out on the day he went to MACUSA was empty when he went to check it the next day, the same with the plate the next day, abut not the one after that. Cliff tried bringing out a previous batch, and those did go.
"I helped make the uneaten ones," His Dad had concluded as he ate around the leaves and dirt on a few of the bars Cliff had brought back in. "I think, whatever's eating them only likes your food."
When a small part of him hoped that was true, the fact that his Dad was the one who suggested that made him think of the picture sitting in his jacket pocket, and it was too much effort to keep smiling at him.
Eventually, the morning of August 25th arrived, and Cliff didn't know whether he'd slept the night before. He felt like he had plenty of energy, but it also seemed like it had arrived all too soon.
His stomach fluttered as he and his Dad walked down Carrusset Boulevard. It had been almost an hour since they started looking for a malfunctioning streetlight and they hadn't come across one that so much as flickered. His Dad was turning the feather, which was now mostly that brittle pale coloration and only had a little richness at its stem left.
They had trekked for two hours with no luck when they finally found a light pole with a dangerous looking, car-shaped bend near its base. The streetlights had all gone off by now, so when Cliff stood under it with the feather stuck in his hair, because he was only wearing a shirt, shorts and sneakers, he could finally relax when the stony gray line wound its way into the road just ahead of him and the pumpkin-shaped Frightrail car soon followed.
"The Mooredwalk," Cliff said. One section split off at the top and fell to the ground. His Dad let out a low whistle. Instead of purple, as Cliff had described to him a week ago, this the interior was a brilliant blue and wine-ish color, exactly like the his robes but much more vibrant. "The Ilvermorny colors." Cliff couldn't help but grin.
He made his way up and turned around to beckon his Dad aboard as well when he caught a glimpse of an orange dot far up the road.
"Is that it?" His Dad asked, when he turned to follow Cliff's gaze.
"It's got to be!" Cliff leapt off the frightrail. "Hold it there!" He said, flailing wildly when the gangway began lifting up. His Dad, tall enough not to need any assistance walking in, planted one foot on the double-color floor of the car while keeping the other on the asphalt in the street. A car passed by in the other lane, and slowed, but didn't stop. Cliff wondered if he'd seen this sight before the party if he'd have thought it was just a weird car or something.
But he returned his attention to the orange dot, which seemed to have receded into a pinprick at his approach. He pulled a ziploc of coconut bars from his bag, took one out, snapped a third of it off and placed it in the road, backing up slowly.
It must have been another hour, with the August sunlight taking on a decidedly yellower hue, before the black kitten finally realized he wasn't going to leave and came stalking out of a stack of carboard boxes set on the corner for recycling.
As it got closer, Cliff's stomach sank further and further to the ground. The kitten never took its eye off him, even as it began to eat, because where it's right eye had been one week ago was now a ruined mess of matted fur.
"What happened to it?" His Dad asked.
"I... I don't know," Cliff said after a second. The kitten arched its back and bared its teeth, and Cliff wondered if it was actually following the conversation. It was living on the steet, so, realistically, anything could have happened. Right? It eventually returned to eating. As he watched, Cliff regretted spending so much time on the books and not reading up anything about cat behavior, but then again Cliff was surprised he even saw it again. The cat looked a little healthier than it did before, and he was sure he knew the reason why. Cliff set his bag with the open ziploc in front of him and backed away a few feet.
"Mraow..." The cat's hiss was impatient when it licked up the last molecules of food from the concrete.
"I can help. I'm going off to learn magic. If you come with me, I can fix up your eye. Just be my familiar, please, and I'll feed you whatever you want."
It wasn't until that last statement that the kitten began skulking toward him. He saw its nose wiggle a few times at first, growing much more active as it got near the bag. For a few heartbeats, it considered Cliff, its eye glinting with an odd intelligence.
It pounced into the bag, immediately dragging a coconut bar out with its paw, and only swiped at Cliff once, when his hand got too close as he was picking it up. It still never broke its line of sight on him, but made no move to escape when Cliff began making his way back to the frightrail.
"Oh..." His Dad sighed sympathetically when he got a good look at the damage to the kitten's face.
"We can ask about healing when he get there," Cliff said, remembering how his injury got taken care of, even though he still had bandaids up and down his arm for the cuts. "At MACUSA, I saw that you can heal pretty easily with magic. They'll have this patched up before classes start, for sure..."
"So, about that."
Cliff slowly met his Dad's gaze. "Just because you're a No-maj doesn't mean you can't come."
His Dad blinked. "What's a No-maj?"
"A person with no magic. You, all the kids at Wolfing and their parents. You can't do magic, so you're No-majes." Cliff explained as quickly as he could. "But what do mean, 'So, about that?'"
His Dad scratched his head, but didn't answer. He didn't have to.
Cliff sulked onto the frightrail and said nothing else to his Dad as it closed, leaving him in a show of blue light emanating from his seat. His thoughts rolled with every mean thing he could think about his Dad. Across from him, he saw the scenery change at breakneck pace, but none of it had any open space in his mind to stick to.
"Ow!" He drew his back from the opening over his bag and the kitten hopped out, fairly unbothered. It dropped out of the recess he sat in, trotted to one on the far side, its steps lighting up blue and cranberry all the while, and popped up onto the plush cushioning opposite him. It nestled into a corner as far away from Cliff as it could manage, nearly turning into a silhouette against the red light. Peering into his bag, he could see that it had gorged itself completely on the coconut bars, there wasn't even a smear left
Watching it, he couldn't find it in himself to be angry at his Dad. He'd done much worse so much more recently. Him, with his bandaged arm, and the cat with its eye, they made a weird pair.
"I'm so, so sorry...uh... well, I can't keep calling you 'cat' can I?" The cat-no, now that he could get a good long look at it, it was definitely a kitten. it was too young, "Is it okay if I name you?" The kitten didn't reply, but Cliff wanted to believe understanding sparkled in its eye. "How about Haukea? It means snow, and I've always liked that name. Not really fit for a black cat, but... I think it's gender neutral, too. Come to think, are you-" The cat mewled it a way that felt unimpressed to Cliff. "No, then. Okay. Maybe... Charlie?" The cat gave a sharp hiss. "Yeah, okay. Plus I think it's already taken. Oh! I know! Beryl!"
The kitten just looked at him soundlessly, then slumped its head into its folded frontpaws, which seemed close enough to a Fine, whatever for him.
Above Beryl, beyond the window was solid gray. Cliff had no idea where they were. He checked over his shoulder and saw a slate of darker gray. He was just starting to move his head when he felt his weight shift, and bright light hit his eyes.
He was weightless. Under his feet, he saw his bag, robes, books and Beryl all spinning in mid air, coming at him. Pain exploded in his back, knocking all the wind out of his lungs. Wizardy in Brief smashed him in the stomach. Cliff's quills and inkwells and everything else rained down around him and Beryl raked his face as she gracefully bounced off his head.
It was all he could do to lay completely still and catch his breath. Cliff's face burned in half a dozen places where he'd been clawed, and got worse when he tried to open his eyes. The ground beneath him was hard and... and smooth? And cool to the touch. He dug his fingers in and it parted- stones. He'd dropped out of the air an top of tons and tons of stones.
"You should tip your frightrail." A voice that was way too close said.
Alarmed, Cliff opened his eyes, wincing when the pain sent a sting all through his face. A boy who couldn't have been any older than him was crouched over him, trying not to laugh.
"Do what?"
"Tip your frightrail. Unless you actually wanted to be tipped yourself."
"It's a rail car!" Cliff said quickly, embarrassment burning his face. This boy had seen him flounder in the air and crash down. "How is anyone supposed to know you need to tip it?"
The boy's expression softened in a way that made Cliff wish he'd done anything other than make himself look like an idiot right before school. He was pudgy and had thin, friendly-looking eyes, pale skin and short, dark hair. "You genuinely didn't know?"
"I only just found out I'm a wizard," Cliff rasped, trying to catch his breath.
"That's a yes, then." The boy chuckled. "You know, Wiggenweld would-" He suddenly scrambled to his feet, eyes locked on a point somewhere above Cliff's shoulder.
Pain surged when Cliff attempted to sit up, so he settled for flopping onto his stomach. Beryl was sitting back and staring, just out of reach. Cliff felt a lot lighter seeing she hadn't bolted the moment the opportunity presented itself.
"So you do agree to be my familiar after all," Cliff said.
Beryl turned her head away from him, but otherwise didn't move.
"That's your familiar?" The boy asked.
Cliff saw he was looking from him to Beryl very rapidly. "I know she's a black cat, but you're not superstitious, are you?"
The boy took a step back. "That's so gauche."
"C-c'mon," Cliff said, sensing that wasn't a good thing. "I know how it looks, I know. She had an... an accident but-" Beryl chose that moment to hiss, but the boy looked like Cliff had just confessed to a murder. So he added quickly, "She's fine. Or at least, she will be. Look, could you help me up?"
He reached out for him. The boy stared at Cliff's outstretched hand, did a slow shake of his head and backed away, before turning and taking off at a run.
As he did, Cliff could see others. More people staring at him who'd watched the entire scene go down. In that moment, if he'd known a spell for burying himself alive he'd have cast it without a second thought. As it happens, he was forced to take a painstakingly long time getting to his feet while his back and lungs protested, then gather up his things, by himself, while passersby gawked.
He tried to focus on anything but the people around him. He was on a beach made up of black pebbles. A few more feet out and his back would have been soaked by the still gray waters bordering the beach. On the far end, through a bit of wispy fog, he was pretty sure he saw buildings and maybe even some cars. Once he'd thrown everything back inside again, he offered the cauldron opening to Beryl. He still wasn't one hundred percent on whether or not she'd run if he tried to just walk around with her at his side. It took a few minutes' pleading, but she did eventually amble over and spring into the cauldron, turning and nestling into the robes he made sure to put on top.
A roar went up directly behind him, and Cliff spun around. Two hundred feet away, a sloping grey plank led up onto a boardwalk that was lined with dozens of store. The largest, a giant gleaming blue building set dead in the center, said Wandsmart. Cliff's heart did a leap. The acceptance letter said he'd get his wand at Ilvermorny, but maybe being near one was alright? Or even holding one?
One or two storefronts down, so that they spilled over into the front of it, was a throng of people-or witches and wizards, he figured. They were congregating fast, with more approaching by the moment. Cliff was incredibly thankful, as any eyes still lingering on him, including the two adults that the kid who'd ran away from him had joined, were also turning to investigate the tumult. His best bet was moving as fast as he could from that spot toward the only other point of interest - the stores.
At first he wanted to find out more about what was going on with the crowd, but his eyes kept going back to Wandsmart. He'd begun clambering up to the main strip when a family caught glimpse of him and hurried their toddler along. With his arm covered in bandaids, his face a nightmare of red scars and being one of the only people not wearing robes of some kind, He stood out. Sorely.
What was it Tatiana and Taz has said? Wiggen-something? If he could find that, he could at least not have to walk around looking like he'd lost several fights. He'd recovered most of his Dragots and sprinks in the fall, at least. Suddenly, the prospect of being close to that many people was incredibly unappealing.
The next problem was that none of the stores he passed seemed to carry anything like medicine. The very first store, Grotto's, was the size of two portapotties put together and smelled half as pleasant. It had dingy windows he couldn't see through and a warm, sticky air clung to it when Cliff walked past as quickly as he could. The next, Rain's Rares, seemed to be a regular storefront, until the three-legged and very toothy animal in the logo started coming down the side of the building toward him.
He rushed past the next pair of stores, but between the weight of his bag and the pounding sensation in is his back, he slowed to a speedwalk before flopping into a seat. This store wasn't up against the boardwalk itself, but further back to accommodate a patio with white, round tables. It was like a life-sized ginger bread house that had "Dolce Sweet's" written in frilly pink cursive across the arching entryway. He only got to take a few breaths before the young clerk wearing pink "Dolce Sweet's" robes came up to him, smiling.
"What'll you have?" She asked.
Cliff considered it, but if this potion was supposed to be able to heal injuries, he might need all his money for that. "Oh, sorry. I'm just resting."
"Paying customers only," she said, her face instantly icing over. "Get splinched."
Bewildered, but clearly understanding that meant to get moving, he hauled himself to his feet and kept moving. After checking the Robiary (which sold robes, of which he had all he needed) and Calliope's Long Odds & Bitter Ends (full of many fuming and burbling cauldrons, flitting bugs, glassy eyes and a shopkeeping witch uninterested in a lost new student) and skipping completely over the AQA Store, which only seemed to be stocked with broomsticks, he saw the next building and stopped.
It was a broad purple storefront. A group of teenage witches went chattering past. To a chorus of conspiratorial "Ooohs" one jabbed her wand and put out the bronze torch next to the front door. What other few passersby there were seemed to give this store, more than the one with the attack logo, eau du toilet or the Employee of the Month, a wide berth. Above the entrance, written prominently in dark purple, was "Bonaplenty Wandsmithery."
The little owl in the door was turned to Open, and it actually flapped a wing in a Come on in! motion when Cliff approached. Two hundred feet down, the commotion had grown to now fully encompass the front of Wandsmart, so there was no way he was getting in there. He was still looking for that potion... but it was so close...
Cliff pushed into the door and stepped inside. Only the light beaming in from the door lit up the place. Directly to his left, Cliff could still make out the cubbyholes full of what looked like half-size shoeboxes. He got close to one and reached out to touch it when the Open owl behind him hooted suddenly, causing Cliff to start.
"Oh," came a surprised woman's voice. "Hello."
"I wasn't stealing!" He said automatically.
With the single point of purplish-black light that illuminated her, he could see a woman at the back of the store. She was a shorter, bigger woman with coily red hair and dark skin. She seemed to be waiting for something, and Cliff certainly wasn't about to move with her pointing the dark light of her wand at him. "I-I was just going to look."
The lady turned her head toward a barely-visible gap in the back, and Cliff thought he heard whispering.
"That is true," the woman said. "The lights are off and the sign says closed." But she didn't sound worried. As the silence stretched on and on, the woman seemd to become more and more amused by Cliff.
"Th-The owl says open, though." Cliff said. As if to back him up, the Open/Close sign sounded off with another hoot.
"Cal," she said, chuckling. "Had to be him. Oh, but Miss Nettie will think it was us, won't she. Do me a favor sweetie and set that sign to 'closed' please." He did as he was asked, and then reached for the door handle. "Wait, hold on a moment."
"No, don't!" A new, steely voice said.
"Oh, don't look at me like that!" She chuckled
The woman he could see came close enough that he could see the purple of her robes and the roll of her eyes in the daylight. Extinguishing her wand, she took in the condition Cliff was in, and her mouth made an 'O' of silent surprise. She moved directly into the light and watched Cliff watch her for an uncomfortable amount of time.
When he couldn't take the silence any longer, Cliff spoke up. "I can go. You can search my stuff and I can go, I really didn't take anything."
The woman roared a laugh, but for some reason Cliff felt like she was laughing with him and not at him. He even cracked a smile back. Still in the far back of the store, the steely voice gave a loud noise of disapproval.
"So you got incredibly lucky once-"
"Twice." The woman in front of Cliff corrected.
"Fine. Twice." Now Cliff could see a tall silhouette at the back of the store, staying purposefully out of the light. "You got off scot free twice in one day. That doesn't mean press your-what are you doing?"
Having peered into the bag and seen Beryl, the woman had pulled out her wand and before the lady in the back had finished speaking, she'd waved it and produced a pointed hat dotted with petals and sunshine from nowhere. She pulled it low over her eyes and drew up the collar of her robes around the bottom of her face.
"Can't you tell? Doing my due diligence for the future. And after scaring the poor thing I owe him a bit of fun before his first year at Ilvermorny starts. Ta!"
She took Cliff by the shoulder and steered him toward the door. With one more longing look at the wall of wands, Cliff was ushered out of Bonaplenty Wandsmithery. Given the option to stick with a witch who hadn't pointed her wand at him and one who had, the choice seemed easy.
"Um, Miss...?"
"Effie," she said as more people hurried past them to get to the growing activity further down the Mooredwalk.
"Miss Effie-"
"Oh, just Effie, honey."
"Oh. Uh, Effie, what's 'gauche' mean? A boy called me that earlier and when I told him I wasn't a No-maj he laughed at me. Is it a spell?"
Even with her eyes shaded, he could tell she was giving him a puzzled look. "'Is it a spell?' I'm not sure where to even start with that. Didn't someone from Ilvermorny come by to explain your letter to you?"
Cliff nodded. "Two of them."
"Two of them? And while they were both out shopping with you neither told you anything?"
"I-they didn't-it was just me and my Dad. And my Mom. My family took me to MACUSA." Cliff said. It felt alien to say aloud, but the idea warmed him.
Effie, however, looked like he jumped up and slapped her across the face. "You went to MACUSA and still know almost nothing? This might be a lot more interesting than I bargained for. Let's find your parents, I want to hear everything."
"They... they..." Cliff was spared from having to come up with a lie when Effie suddenly led them into a store that smelled of breakfast. Moments later, a large crowd stampeded by but Effie was too preoccupied peering into Cliff's cauldron to notice. Cliff hoped she wouldn't comment on Beryl, but didn't want to spark any more of her curiosity about him with questions.
"You know, I used to think this place was awful," Effie said as she twirled a hash brown on her fork. "But a week of eating the Ashenhome's food is more than anyone could endure. Compared to that, I could eat here forever."
They only been seated five or six minutes when the mean-looking man who ran the place brought their order. She'd gotten them a full round of bacon, eggs, french toast, skillet potatoes and Cliff's new favorite some kind of glittery orange drink that he gratefully gulped down. He had been too nervous about just getting to the Mooredwalk to eat anything before he and his Dad left, but now his hunger was catching up to him.
At her insistence, Cliff recounted his adventures to get there as they ate.
"And then... he fell over backwards. Knocked his seat over and everything," Cliff said after gulping down his third glass of this drink. It was on bit thicker side and carbonated, chilling him pleasantly as it went down. "What is this stuff, again?"
"Pumpkinade. You're telling me he fell again?" She asked, eyes wide under the brim of her hat. Cliff nodded. He wasn't proud of punching Taz and had left that out of this version of events regarding the first time he fell on his rear. "Were you doing anything out of the ordinary?" She asked.
"That entire conversation was out of the ordinary. This whole thing is out of the ordinary," Cliff said.
Effie again did that laugh that made Cliff feel like he'd told a joke to an entire room and it was the funniest thing they'd ever heard. She wiped a tear from her eye. "Yeah, I suppose that would be the case for you."
"And then the clerk of the MACUSA gift shop let me-us in," he was saying a few minutes later.
"Ivy let you all in?"
"You know her?" Cliff asked, pausing in the middle of a forkful of egg.
"Not personally," she said. "But I do visit that gift shop every time I'm in, practically. It's just, I've never heard of MACUSA not having a securitywitch or wizard on duty."
"O-Oh, well, yeah. Lucky us." And Cliff very quickly tore off some bacon to stuff in his mouth. Once he was done, he told her about getting his books from there. He hesitated, but ultimately, spurred on by her warm gaze, and more than a little hopeful he might make her laugh again, admitted in a very small voice that his robes and gloves were from the Lost and Found.
The look on Effie's face didn't change. Instead, she waved her wand over one of the few unoccupied spaces on the table, and a pristine copy of The Spell is Caste: Dissecting the Darke Arts came into being. Cliff goggled at it.
"It just so happens I have a copy of this I don't need. And I can't let Ivy bogard all the good will, can I?" Apparently not content to stop there, she twirled her wand above Cliff's head and then wafted it over his MACUSA bag.
"What'd you do?" He asked.
"And ruin the surprise? Oh, Cliff, Cliff, Cliff," she said, shaking her head and grinning with him, which he enthusiastically returned.
Full, and feeling a lot more comfortable, Cliff continued right up until he walked through the door to the Wandsmithery. "It really did say 'Open', you know."
"Oh, I believe you." Effie said, checking her pocket watch and making a face at it. "Do you know what store your parents might be at?" She asked.
"What's that?" Cliff asked, having saved his question for exactly that moment.
She placed a handful of bronze 1/2 Dragots and a bunch of sprinks on the table and when the owner came by to collect, he left a bead bracelet the same color as the stones on the beach. "Donation," he gruffed.
"Donation," Effie gruffed as soon as he was out of earshot, and she slipped it over Cliff's wrist. "An expensive one too, wow," she said after a moment's inspection. She motioned for Cliff to follow her in getting to their feet. "There isn't much time left so we'll step while we spell."
Cliff turned to start heading towards the entrance, wondering why a clerk would donate to her, but instead she ushered him toward a back door. They came out behind "Drakonracks," and on either side stretched the backs of the stores, the pattern broken by a hot pink storeside a dozen spots to their right and larger bright blue one far down to their left, which Effie began heading towards.
"Where are we going?" Cliff asked.
"Wandsmart. I hate going there but it's the only place we can get Wiggenweld for your cuts and Transfigurations of Today in the same place, as well as the rest of the potions equipment you're missing."
"I don't know if I have enough money for all that," Cliff said, using his thickest book, Wizardry in Brief, as a barrier between his arm and Beryl's claws so he could dig around and count his coins.
"Consider this a Back to School present," Effie said, pulling him close with one arm.
Immediately he wished he'd thought to bring a camera. He didn't know what Effie did for a living but he knew he would regret not getting a picture with her if he didn't. Well, Ivy knew Effie and he knew where to find Ivy... so he could eventually make it happen.
"Thank you." was all he could think to say.
"'Gauche' isn't any spell I've ever heard of, but I remember being your age and beside myself with anticipation for casting my first spell."The wistful way she said that made Cliff wonder what exactly had happened, but they had to do a quick turn once they'd reached the side of the Wandsmart.
A little man with dark wisps off hair hanging off his head was outside tidying up trash. Cliff stopped short when he saw it was wearing a barrel like the black and white cartoon characters from his Dad's time did.
"House elf," Effie called.
The house elf reacted as if he'd been shocked and swiveled to face them, the bags under his eyes so deep they rode on top of his cheeks.
"The mistress would like to be aware that we're currently running a Buy-One-Get-One sale on all witch balls. With only a forty sprink upcharge for ones guaranteed to ward off the evil eye as well as evil spirits - commemorative showglobe included." It's drawl was rote and robotic, and Cliff got the distinct impression it said that many times an hour every day.
"What is your name, house elf?" Effie asked.
"The mistress would like to be aware that it is Mank."
"Mank, your assistance is needed in Bonaplenty Wandsmithery. A witch named Vesta who very much needs help with evil eyes."
Mank tried to bow, but Cliff didn't know if it was successful or not because when it was clear there was a danger of the wide head-hole being pointed at them he looked away. There was a Crack! and when he turned back, Mank was gone.
"He needs clothes," Cliff said.
Effie, who had produced her wand from her sleeve, let out another laugh when she was mid-movement with it. "First-years. You all are nothing if not incredibly consistent. Alohomora!" There was a click and the padlock on the back swung open. Effie turned to him. "Stay close and try not to stand out too much."
Wiggenweld, Cliff decided, tasted like a peppery grass slush. Given the choice, he much preferred Pumpkinade. The strange, cool sensation hit him like a blast of chilly air, tingling up and down his arms. He pulled off the animal bandaids one by one, dumping them into a space of his bag not occupied by his new scales, vials or book. One landed on Beryl's tail and she puffed it in staunch protest. After apologizing to her, he admired the new, unbroken brown skin underneath each and every bandage.
Wandsmart had been easier to navigate than the wandsmithery. All the lights were on for starters, and it was almost as empty, just a few other kids who looked school-aged grabbing last minute things with their parents.
He smiled at the thought and looked up to Effie. They were winding their way through the crowd, who, after almost an hour of activity, was started to disperse. Some of them looked disappointed. A lot looked to be on the verge of rage. Effie kept her head down the entire time and didn't lift it up until they were in front of a row of cereal-box sized, locked cabinets - Perfect for any Potions student's dorm! according to the plaque in front of them.
"I think I'll be the judge of that," Effie said, producing her wand. "Or rather, you will."
She offered it to Cliff, who took a few moments to realize what was happening. "You're gonna teach me magic?"
Effie winked. "Juuust enough to get in trouble with. Remember, the most important thing is motion and intent. Do that, and you can do anything."
Cliff, remembering everything Tatiana and Taz did last night, took it gingerly in both hands. "Motion and intent. And I can make floors move, or quills and loveseats appear, or even that light like you did?"
"That last one's a special favorite of mine, and yes to all three."
She directed Cliff to the first cabinet. Trying and failing to keep his nerves in check, Cliff got one, two, three shaky taps onto its lock in before a sound like a camera shutter went off. A bright light filled their aisle, and Effie slipped her wand out of Cliff's grip and back into hers.
"What happened? Did I do that? Did I do magic?" Cliff asked.
But Effie was leading him, gently but urgently, past another Mank-sized employee, who called after them, "Missus! Missus! You're forgetting the missus' commemorative showglobe! Free of charge with the missus' purchases!"
She didn't allow them to slow down until they'd made their way down a wooden slope that took them from the Moorewalk onto the beach. Cliff's disappointment at realizing he hadn't actually worked any magic subsided when he took in the sight.
"Sorry Cliff," Effie said, her voice sounding heavy. "But if I'd let the lesson go any longer we might have missed this."
Immediately, he forgave her, the two exchanging grins.
Many, many more families were now milling around compared to when Cliff had fallen out of the air earlier. Once, he thought he saw the boy he'd scared off but was incredibly relieved to find it was just someone's incredibly short father. It was mostly older-looking kids they passed. Effie and a lot of the families who had kids his age seemed to be trying to get as close to the water as the possible. More than once he saw a frightrail come to a stop close to the ground, detach a segment and wait patiently for a family to exit.
They must have tipped, Cliff thought.
"Oop!"
Something solid shoved into Cliff from behind and he flew sprawling onto the glassy shore. More than Beryl's shriek of protest to being thrown from his bag for the second time that day or the ache in his arms from having tried to catch himself, he became incredibly aware of the silence that replaced the lively conversation in a circle all around them.
Cliff scrambled, embarrassed, to his feet. Effie was hurriedly scooping her hat off the ground and tugging it back over her head while an apologetic man and a shrewd-looking woman were attempting to help her to her feet.
"There's too many people here to not be watching where you're going, honey," the man was saying as he offered Effie an arm, his eyebrows knit at the woman helping him. Then, to Cliff, he added, "Sorry about that, young man."
"Yes, completely my fault," the woman said, so much more focused on trying to get a good angle on Effie's face than helping that she was tugging at at the hood of her robes rather than taking her arm.
"Oh it's no trouble," Effie said, accepting the man's arm with an spirited grin on her face and smoothing out her robes. "Not much one can do when walking backwards. Today's always one of the most exciting of the year, after all, no telling what might happen. I take it you're here to see someone off, Mrs...?"
"Pryor. And yes, my daughter's a student, around here somewhere with her friends." She waved vaguely in off to the side. "But I was just telling my husband I don't care if Tituba herself rose from the dead and sang her praises, Waitrose is still our best bet come October, especially in light of all of Echols' scandals and that terrible attempt on her life."
"You were very animated, my love," Mr. Pryor, Cliff assumed, said. He gave an apologetic wave to an especially nosy family.
Now, Cliff noticed, the conversation around them was returning, in whispers and murmurs rather than rackets of laughter and greeting. No one was bothering to pay him any attention though, all of their eyes were scanning Effie's hat, angling to get better looks at her.
"I must have lost track of myself. Again, so sorry about that," Mrs. Pryor said, studying what she could see of Effie's face very closely."Don't you agree? We don't need someone dragging us all down with her. After all, you've got your own to look after, right?"
Effie tapped her chin with a small "Hm," of honest contemplation. "I'd prefer a leader who wasn't concerned with playing it safe, myself," Effie said. She swept a protective arm around Cliff's shoulders and brought him close. "But I absolutely do look after my own. Are you alright, Cliff?"
He wanted to say yes, but his voice failed him. Cliff just nodded. She returned a warm smile and with a wave of her wand gathered the last of Cliff's fallen school supplies into his bag and picked it up.
"My dear," Mr. Pryor was blushing deeply and trying to lead his wife away. "People are staring."
"How about we get closer?" Effie said, and before Mrs. Pryor could speak again, Effie was leading him closer to the shoreline.
Cliff was sadder than he wanted to admit when she let him go once they were only feet away from the glistening gray wakes. Not helped at all by the fact that there were far fewer parents this close up.
Upshore, a big group of robed kids came together, laughing and whooping at being reunited and showing each other books and broomsticks. They were hollering so loudly that a group of nearby adults had to shush them. Cliff's mind raced with what they could be talking about, and he wished could join them, but he knew if he went over he'd have nothing to say.
"You can go over, you know. It won't hurt my feelings," Effie said.
"How?" Cliff said quietly. The last thing he wanted to do was leave Effie's side, and at the same time he desperately wanted to go over. "All I could talk about was that murder Mrs. Pryor mentioned."
She laughed. "She reads far too much of the Talk of the Times." Effie crouched down, tipping the wide, circular brim of her hat up so Cliff could see directly into her eyes. "The moment you get your hands on a wand, dash out a spell. I remember being a first-year like it was yesterday. Anyone who could was the coolest."
"But I couldn't earlier. Is that spell you did hard?"
"Alohomora?" She opened her mouth to continue, but for the first time since he'd met her, she clearly didn't know what to say next. But that only lasted a moment. "Not at all. But forget what I said earlier. The most important thing to casting spells is believing in yourself no matter what, Cliff. Do that, and you'll be a pro long before Winter-look!"
Cliff snapped his attention to follow her wandpoint. A dark spot had appeared in the sky, and he wondered if it was a mega-sized Frightrail. All around him other shouts and murmurs were going up, and looking around, he could see almost everyone fixated on the same spot. His eyes dragged over the familiar form of the boy from earlier and, in an effort to not ruin his experience, returned to looking up in the sky.
The spot had grown gigantic in just those few moments. In fact, it seemed to now be casting a shadow directly over where Cliff was standing! He took a step back, and Effie's bracing arm prevented him from going backward.
He threw a panicked look at her and saw her own overjoyed grin in response. And it wasn't just him; several screams had started going up from the groups closest to the waters, already completely encompassed by the massive shadow coming directly at them. Someone started crying. The sky itself became blotted out. Cliff threw his hands above his head.
BOOOOOM!
A wall of water smashed into Cliff, so hard thought he'd broken his own nose when his arms hit his face. Gallons of increasingly heavy waves of freezing lakewater crashed over him. He sputtered and gasped trying to catch a single breath. The pressure would have crushed him flat against the rocks if it wasn't crushing him flat against Effie's arm instead. He couldn't see, he could only hear the roar of the waves in his ears, and the smell of salt as it made its way up his nose and burned as badly as his lungs did.
The sound of waves died away, replaced by screams, and then by uproarious laughter. Cliff choked down air and shivered in his now drenched clothes, when a thought cut through his outrage.
"Beryl!" He checked around his legs, panicked, trying to find his cauldron. Nothing. The water would have swept it away. It might have dashed her against the rocks of the beach, or swept her out to sea, or-
"Looking for her?" Effie asked. Still hiccuping with laughs, she held his cauldron up to him. Even before he took it in both his hands, he could tell it was bone dry. Beryl blinked curiously at him.
"H-How...?"
"I Deafened the cauldron and kept it under my Umbrella Charm," she answered. And it was true. Straggling droplets of water were sliding off the air a few feet above her skyward wand. All around, there were others as well, almost all older students and parents who were still laughing and taking in the reactions of the kids who seemed to be Cliff's age, more easily identified by them being soaked to the bone.
"JUST as invigorating as I remember!" Said a wonkily-smiling wizard to the side of them. Contrary to almost every other group, he and his son had both been hosed down, and his son was returning his Dad's wonky smile.
He looked over to the boy who'd run away from him. He and his parents were all huddled underneath an Umbrella Charm... and his disappointment was obvious even from where Cliff stood. A small part of him deep down gave a leap of satisfaction.
"Right there," Effie said, pointing to a spot a fifty yards down where a gangway wide enough to drive a tank on was now resting against the beach. AIR ILVERMORNY was written in ten-foot-tall golden letters across the marble-gray hull of the cruise liner now sitting in the lake. Students were waving goodbye to their parents and massing towards it. "I was standing right there with my parents when I got splashed. I'll never forget it.
"Now that it's over... it may have been fun." Cliff wasn't sure he would describe it as memorable, but the more he looked around and saw other disappointed kids his age, the gladder he became that he'd gotten the full experience.
She gave Cliff a little push towards the onramp. Cliff turned to face her. She gave him a small, slightly sad wave.
He stepped back toward her and threw his arms around her waist. After a moment, he felt her arms around him and give him a secure embrace. Cliff stepped back, and suddenly felt embarrassed.
"Sorry," he said. He had met this woman less than an hour ago. He didn't wait for a reply as he bolted off towards to join everyone else.
Blocked by the taller students in front of him, he almost tripped over the tiny man who headed him off halfway up the gangway. When Cliff tried to move past as others were, it stepped in his path, and, as more students streamed by, only his path.
He looked like Mank, the house elf, but had a full head of hair and, much more importantly, clothes, along with a quiver full of very real-looking arrows on its back.
"First year." It wasn't a question. Cliff nodded, and it held out its hand palm out, like it was going to push him. "Your Gordian Knot?"
Cliff fished it out of his pocket and made a mental note to the wipe the FREE off the back later. He held it face-out to the little elf, who did a waving motion. Satisfied, it moved on.
Now, he noticed, other kids holding up their Knots as well. Whenever one of the tiny men would come near them, they'd flash them and the checkers would go after someone else. Many of the older kids simply let them hang in their hands at their sides as they chatted idly upon entry and the little men would let them past.
"First-year." Cliff looked up, expecting the tiny man to still be requesting something of him, but instead, to his left, he was blocking another drenched boarder. She was a darkskinned girl clutching a dripping bag of Dolce's Sweets in one hand a a frilly thermos in another. Through the sag of her waterlogged cloud of hair, Cliff could tell she was scowling at him as if it were his fault she's been stopped in her tracks.
Before he could say anything, his cauldron banged against something, then his shoulder. Now past the tiny men, others in the crowd were sweeping him along in the scurry of students. It wasn't long before he was at the top of the gangway, crossing under a giant Ilvermorny crest.
The press of people forced Cliff against a gold railing, and beyond it, he could only gape. The Air Ilvermorny was twice as big on the inside as it should have been, with three levels of glass-doored cabin compartments all facing an open central area large enough to fit ten school buses end-to-end inside of. Some students hopped the rails, crossing the dark gray floor of the central area to reach their friends who were waving them to a chosen compartment. A few students were flying around on broomsticks around the upper level and other students were shouting at them. More tiny men were stopping anyone bringing on large luggage and with a snap of their fingers, vanishing them from sight.
The rush of onboarders had slowed to a trickle. Cliff walked the length of the first level, where most of the other sopping wet first-years seemed to have already found compartments and were chattering away excitedly. A few, he saw, weren't completely at capacity, but when he thought about just opening the door to one and entering, the thought of him having nothing to add to an in-progress conversation kept him moving along in the hopes of finding an emptier one.
It was on his second pass, after he'd seen that the gangway was now closed, that an older student coming out of a compartment spotted him and smiled.
"All that lakewater pooling at your feet - you're a first-year, eh? Still haven't found a place to sit?" He asked. He was a tall white guy wearing robes, but also had a fancy-looking shoulder cape on that Cliff hadn't seen anyone else wear. He extended a hand. "Luccio Toutsoir - Thunderbird House Student Coven."
"Cliff Noa. I don't know what any of that means," he said, shaking his hand.
"Ah, to be a first-year again." Luccio's smile got a little smaller and Cliff wished he'd thought to say something else. Luccio threw a few looks around and said, "Can't have you all out here... William gets his hems in such a bunch if students are in the corridors on liftoff... There! Plenty of space here. You have room for a few more?"
He'd drawn back the door for one of the compartments and, without waiting for a response from whoever was inside, was now smiling expectantly at Cliff. When he hesitated, Luccio lifted the cauldron and duffel bag out of his hand, ignoring Beryl's yelp of protest, and headed inside, giving Cliff no choice but to follow.
Only one person was inside. Seated on the far side was a white girl with elaborately-done hair and expensive-looking robes who eyed them with curiosity. The porthole she was leaning against was three times the size a tire and Cliff could see families and friends the students had left behind on the beach beyond it, waving at hundreds of different points along the Air Ilvermorny's hull.
Cliff imaged his Dad and Mom standing among them also seeing him off. He wished he had someone to wave to... and then he saw a flower-adorned hat waving through the air, and its owner looking directly at him.
"Is that...?" The white girl half-stood, almost blocking Cliff from seeing.
But when he angled around her, his eyes met Effie's and she gave an obvious swell of joy and shook both hands at him in farewell. He looked around the cabin, not quite sure it was him she was gesturing to. Luccio was reaching up into the luggage racks and Beryl was darting around, avoiding his hand. He returned to Effie. She was still waving, even more vigorously now.
BOMMMMMM
It sounded like the horn of the ship. And no sooner did Cliff have the thought did he see the beach begin to recede. More and more people seemed to be taking notice of Effie, stopping their own farewells to more closely observe her, some even wandering closer. But Cliff wasn't focused on them, he kept waving until she was a dot far below.
"Are we in the clouds?" Cliff asked.
"Obviously." Cliff turned. The white girl was rolling her eyes, but once she caught him looking at her, quickly added, "I just meant, they don't call it the Air Ilvermorny for nothing."
"But isn't this a cruise ship?"
She scoffed in a way that once again made Cliff wish he hadn't asked.
"Come on now, there's no need for that," Luccio said, taking a seat beside Cliff.
"Aren't covenors supposed to be in their own compartment?" The girl asked. She had pulled out a magazine-or at least, Cliff thought it was a magazine, since the witch on the front was moving-and was thumbing through it as she spoke.
"Yeah, but, actually carrying out our assigned duties comes before hearing those duties rehashed. Speaking of-" Luccio slid the door open and leaned out, gearing up to shout, but only whipped his head in confusion before gazing at something on the floor just outside their compartment. "Huh, coulda' sworn... but the corridor's clear. At least now I won't have to hear Williams' mouth. Someone dropped their showglobe, though."
He slid the door back, now holding a W-adorned blue cube in his fingers.
He abandoned the newspaper, the Talk of the Times, on the seat between him and Cliff while he rolled it around.
"Good to see at one of you isn't bone-dry!" Luccio said, looking up from the cube. "My gen loved that first Air Ilvermorny arrival. You only get one first go-round, y'know."
The white girl across from Cliff, annoyed, drew herself up.
"Aren't you a Thunderbird? I'd think you'd be more interested in bigger spectacles."
Luccio laughed. "I am, which is why I loved it! ! You gotta take all of life's joys where you can get 'em. Or at least so my aunt says."
Cliff's curiosity wrestled with his enjoyment at just being part of the conversation for once, but ultimately he couldn't help himself. "Sorry, you said something like that earlier, that you were in the 'Thunderbird Student Coven'. What's Thunderbird?"
"Are your parents No-majes?" The girl was looking directly at Cliff, and he nodded. "Figures, No-majes don't know much. Ilvermorny has four Houses. They're a British thing, and kind of like... your home away from home," she added at the look on Cliff's face. "Thunderbird-"
"The BEST one. Only the real adventurous get chosen," Luccio said, puffing his chest out so the design on his cape shined in the sunlight.
"Chosen?" Cliff asked, suddenly worried if he would somehow end up Houseless.
Luccio only winked.
"-Then there's Pukwudgie. Which is the House for healers." But she rolled her eyes. "No offense, but no thanks to that. And then it's Horned Serpent, which is for scholars." Cliff thought he might have imagined it, but it sounded like Luccio sighed a little wistfully. "And finally Wampus, which is for warriors."
"Being a Thunderbird sounds cool," Cliff said.
"If you want to be in Thunderbird so bad, I doubt you, of all people, would be impressed by a little lake water," she said.
Cliff blinked at her. "Why wouldn't I be? I mean, yeah, it was intense but-"
"Not that! That lady you were waving at, or do you expect us to believe you have no idea who she was?"
"What about her? You know her?" Cliff asked. Effie knew Ivy and it seemed this girl knew Effie. The wizarding world seemed like a smaller and smaller place, an idea that gave Cliff a jab of hope.
"'What about her? Yeah, what about Fie Echols is so interesting?"
At that name, Luccio, who had been focused on the cube, suddenly switched focus to them, looking like he'd just seen a fifty dollar bill fall right in front of him.
"You know Fie Echols!" Luccio said.
"The murder victim? How could I-"
"'Murder victim?'" The white girl checked Cliff over as if he needed a medical examination. "She's obviously not dead, and she definitely seemed to know you. I saw how she lit up when she finally spied you."
"But, I really-" he was still piecing together that Effie was Fie Echols, but he couldn't complete the thought out loud. Everyone's eyes were on him. An impulse sprang from his chest to his lips. "Well... yeah. I know her. She's a good friend."
"I can't believe it!" Luccio was practically bouncing in his seat, something Cliff had never seen anyone his age act like, and especially not because of anything he'd said. "I've been pestering my aunt for months to get me an in with her-"
"Cecily Silvias," the white girl said, offering him her hand palm down and limp. "MY family are huge supporters of hers. A personal friend of Fie Echols can overlook a little first-impression rudeness, I'm sure?"
"Uh, of course," Cliff said, shaking it. "You know... she taught me a little magic."
"She let you use her wand?" Cecily asked, wide-eyed. Now Cliff really wished he'd had a camera. Swap her robes for fashion look and Cecily would have fit right in at Wolfton, and now she was looking at him the way everyone looked at Bette.
"Yeah." Cliff said, rising from his seat. "She did."
"What are you doing?" Cecily asked Luccio, who was holding the cube out to Cliff.
"You'll see, trust me. Now, Cliff, I believe this is yours?"
Cliff took the cube. Inside it was a clear sphere with two swirls of smoke, one purple and one amber. He'd never seen it before, and had no idea why Luccio thought it was his. But he couldn't take his eyes off how the wisps danced, so he wasn't in any hurry to correct him.
"Well?" Cecily snapped. "Are you going to look at it or not?"
Cliff's ears went hot, and somewhere behind his bellybutton was a flutter of nervousness, Cecily looked much less impressed with him that she had been ten seconds ago. "I-what? I am looking at it."
"Ahh, right, you're one of the ones who's just now learning all this. Man, I can't remember the last time I even thought about a showglobe," Luccio said. He made a ring with his fingers and put them to his eye. "Look at it like a telescope. I can't believe Fie didn't explain that you."
Now hoping to just get this over this so he can go back to impressing Cecily, Cliff peered into the showglobe.
The wisps became tiny figures. He had to angle it to catch the light of the porthole, but one was a bigger dark-skinned woman with red hair, handing her wand to a tinier brown-skinned figure. The smaller one took the wand and faced the cabinets. Clear as day, you could see how shaky the tinier figure's hand was, and after only a few tries, they speed off to the edge, exploding back into smoke.
On rewatch, paying closer attention, there was no mistaking the pushpin-sized versions of him and Effie, practicing in the Wandsmart.
"See!" Cliff said, holding it out to Cecily, trying to keep his hand still. "Me and Effie, just like I told you."
"'Effie,'" Cecily repeated, taking the showglobe. "You and I are going to have to talk about getting me on a first name-"
"Whoa!"
"Hey!"
She'd had it to her eye for seconds. Dropping the showglobe, Cecily recoiled in her seat and jabbed an accusatory finger at Cliff.
"You're.. you're SINISTER!"