Page 72 of A Winding Wave of Magic
“Ghosts exist,” Jonathan said as if he were simply acknowledging the fact of the tree we had just passed. “One would be obvious to any sorcerer who cared to look.” One side of his mouth tilted up when he watched mine drop. “Yes, sorcerers can See things too. In our own way.”
“I thought you could only manipulate physical elements. How would you be able to sense a ghost?”
We continued walking side by side as the trail opened up a bit. Jonathan was silent, and when his shoulder brushed mine, I caught whispers of his thoughts. He wasn’t sure exactly how to describe what he knew; he had never been asked to explain how his power worked before.
“Well, how do you See?” he asked finally.
I scratched my chin with a gloved finger. “It’s different for other seers. They usually describe it like perfume. Memories are like a fog that settles, or maybe a mirage, but only when they seek them out. Thoughts can take all sorts of forms—people think with all their senses. For me, it feels more like water that flows through everyone and everything people have come intocontact with. Their thoughts and emotions and memories are the water, and bodies and places where important things happen are the vessels. And then I touch them, it’s like we both turn porous. Everything flows through.” I tipped my head. “Or maybe I’m the water, and I flow through them. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.”
“That explains why you enjoy surfing.”
I smiled. “Perhaps you should try it sometime.”
I felt, rather than saw him shudder behind me. “Freezing temperatures with carnivorous fish. I’ll pass.”
“Sharks aren’t fish.”
“They swim in the ocean and have fins and gills. The difference is nominal.”
I swatted another branch out of my way but allowed it to snap back behind me in response. Jonathan caught it neatly like nothing had happened. We continued to walk in silence, and I grew more and more irritated by the fact that he had successfully gotten more information out of me without offering any of his own. Again.
I stopped and turned to face him. “What do you mean by that?”
“That sharks are unequivocally fish-like?”
I rolled my eyes. “No. What did you mean by ‘that explains why you enjoy surfing’?”
Jonathan cocked his head and examined me for a moment. “I thought it was because of where your people are from—the coast, Ireland—but now I See that it’s the water that runs through you. Sensing the world—the real world—the way you do, it’s no wonder you feel most at home surrounded by ocean. It’s your kin.”
As he spoke, the mist turned into a drizzle. He reached out slowly with one hand to wipe off the drops of water gathering on my cheek, letting them fall from his fingers one by one tothe ground. Glimmers of his curiosity seeped through my skin. Curiosity and something else I couldn’t quite name, but felt glowing inside me too, warm and beckoning.
“Yes, I See it now.” His eyes shone, iridescent even in the muted light. “Your energies are the same, you and the water.”
We stared at each other, green eyes into blue, until the rain faded back into the forest. I broke the trance first, turning to walk up the trail while he stayed behind, the firm press of his eyes pushing between my shoulder blades.
“It’s obviously not the same energy I See,” I called behind me. “You still haven’t answered my question. What do you See?”
His boots squelched in the mud as he jogged to catch up. “Did you ever take chemistry?”
“Once, a long time ago. Electrons and periodic tables are about all I remember.” I glanced back to find him smiling. “It’s been a while since ninth grade.”
“Do you remember balancing equations? Where you have to move elements around until there is an equal amount of them on each side?”
I nodded, vaguely remembering something like that. Not that I could have explained it in any shape or form.
“The important thing to get from that is that at their heart, all elements—all things, beings, etcetera—are fundamentally made of the same thing. Atoms, electrons, protons, neutrons, quarks, particles, sub-particles. All the same at their core: energy.”
I nodded, though he could only see the back of my camouflage raincoat hood.
“You ask what I can See,” he continued. “That’s what I See. It’s as if I can open up a part of my brain and See certain types of energy, just as you can See the energy of thoughts and feelings and past. I See how the physical world is composed, the way it’s structured. And, if I know the right words, I can communicate with it too. That’s all a spell does, you know. Asks some kindof energy to do any number of things…reveal itself, hide or disperse, rearrange to appear as something else, even bond with another to become a whole new form.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “If it’s all true, how could I have the same energy as water? Wouldn’t everyone? I’m a human being. Weallhave a lot of water running through us. Eighty percent, right?”
“Energy is a lot more complex than just the elements. Much more fluid. More dynamic, if you can believe it.”
“I wish I could See it,” I said. “I’d like to See what you See.”
“Would you?”
