Chapter 8 Melodia

I sat there, replaying that conversation with Anna over and over again in my head until Pickati came and found me. I mean, I guess when I looked at it through her eyes, it made sense. But from where I was, it all sounded ridiculous. More importantly, how the heck was I supposed to fix this?

“Melodia, I think I may have…” he came flying in saying something but paused as soon as he got close to me. He gave me a comforting smile and landed on my shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” I lied as I got to my feet and Pickati floated back into the air in front of me. This was my problem to deal with and the last thing I needed was to drag more people into it.

“Okay then,” he didn’t sound completely won over, but if he was willing to let this drop then I’d take it. He glanced over at something over in the distance as the smile on his face grew. “But as I was trying to tell, you I think I have something to show you.”

He pointed towards a building in the distance and made sure I had the right one before going back into my bag. With not much else to do today, I crossed the bridge and started heading over to it.

“The spell which keeps people away from an area requires me to constantly fly in a circle around the area in question,” he explained as we started getting closer to the building off in the distance, “and since the spell isn’t that difficult, there’s not much for me to do but to observe the area around me. I was doing so when I spotted this place and though it could be useful to us.”

We finally reached the building. Or maybe ruin would have been a better term. Right past the park were a small row of old buildings built right on the riverside. I had no idea what they had been in the past, but right now they were all abandoned. Most of them were closed off with a tall fence wrapped in green cloth. And hanging off the cloth was a big sign reading ‘property for sale’.

The particular building Pickati had brought me to was the one right in the center. It was a little bigger than the others, having what looked like two floors. It was also covered in vines and had tiny plants growing out of the concrete outside.

“I took a look inside and I don’t think anyone’s been in there for a while,” he explained as I nodded along. The homeless tended to stick closer to North Palm. More services there to help them and the tourists were a bit looser with their money then people down here. “I think I can even set some wards to make sure no one else decides to move in.”

Okay that was pretty interesting, but it still left one vital question.

“Why?” Pickati froze in place before looking back down at me.

“Oh, right I forgot to say why this was a big deal in the first place,” he chuckled to himself before looking back at the building. “You haven’t said anything so far about wanting to tell your family about all this, so I felt it was safe to assume you wanted to keep this secret. In which case we need somewhere to practice your magic where we won’t be found.”

Wait, telling my family was an option. Pickati had never said anything, so I had just assumed this whole thing was supposed to stay super-secret. Did I even want to tell them in the first place?

Arturo would probably be cool with it. If there was anyone in the family I could tell and trust to keep my secret, it was him. Mom and Dad were right out. Those two were a team and what one of them knew, the other would find out by the end of the day.

And if Dad found out his little girl was fighting big monsters… Well his first instinct would be to go after them himself. The mental image of my father charging at a doll with his bad leg slowing him down flashed in my head. He stumbled and the doll brought down its claw on him. I shook my head and erased the image before the hit could connect. I didn’t even want to think about it.

No, it was better no one knew what I was doing. Instead of thinking any further on it, I looked at the building with the fence taller than I was. It even had a few sharp metal bits at the top to make it harder to climb.

“How do we get in?” I asked as Pickati flew in close to my face.

“I already have something in mind for that. I’m going to cast a quick spell on you, please don’t move until I tell you to,” he pressed a clawed hand to my forehead and muttered something under his breath. I might have heard a word sounded like ‘reduce’ but I wasn’t able to make out the rest.

All of a sudden I felt my body lighten. I was halfway tempted to see how high I could jump before remembering what Pickati said about not moving.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Okay, I‘ve reduced your gravity to half of what it should be,” he explained as he flew up to the top of the fence, “you’re going to want to carefully kick off the ground and jump over the fence. Don’t kick off too hard, better for you to put too little force then too much.”

I gave him a quick nod before doing as he said. I made a small hop to try to figure out how high that would take me. My eyes widened as I rushed past the ‘for sale’ sign and then came back down. All of that from a single little hop?

I narrowed my eyes at the top of the fence and kicked off for real this time. I went up all the way to the top of the fence, grabbing it in a safe spot before pulling myself over to the other side.

I did a little flip through the air before landing feet first on the other side of the fence. I stood in the center of the abandoned courtyard outside the building as it hit me. I had used magic without being transformed. It hadn’t been my magic, but it had been magic nevertheless.

“Impressive,” Pickati came flying to me while I was still processing things. “In the future, you’ll hopefully be able to get in here on your own and… you’re not listening are you?” I slowly turned to him, only now realizing he was here.

“Pickati, magic,” I told him as I looked down at my legs. It had been all I had been able to say, but this time it felt like it was all I needed to say.

Pickati chuckled, grabbing my attention as I felt my normal weight return. I felt myself blush as I realized how I must have been acting. At least he was nice enough to move past it, instead leading me towards the building’s front door.

We walked indoors and quickly found the main room of the building. It was a huge circular area with stairs at the edges leading up to a second floor. Said second floor was mostly a lone walkway which ran along the edge of the walls, leaving the central area empty. I could stand at the very center of the room and look up from the first floor to the broken skylight above.

We had plenty of open space to practice my magic, as well as light from the skylight to keep us well lit. The only real issues were the lack of light after dark and the amount of glass and dirt scattered everywhere. The first one wouldn’t be a problem since I was pretty sure my parents would notice me sneaking out every night anyway. As for the second, well brooms were a thing for a reason.

I walk around the room a little more, making sure to avoid stepping on any of the glass as well as a couple of puddles… I guess rain water would also be a bit of an issue now that I thought about it. I would have to remember to bring a towel with me if I came after the rain. Either that or find a way to fix the skylight with magic.

“Okay, it’s starting to get a little late, so I think I only have enough time to teach you the basics of imbuing your pure magic with a base concept,” Pickati announced as I stared at him intently. He backed away a little, muttering something about a wagging tail. “But before we start, there’s one last thing to do. Melodia, please stay here for a second.”

I did as he asked and watched as he flew into the center of the room and a circle appeared in the ground under him. I felt a slight pull from it, but it was nothing I couldn’t stop by planting my feet.

As for all of the dust and broken glass in the building, that was a different story. It all rushed towards the center of the room, clumping together into a big ball and leaving the rest of the room mostly spotless. The few exceptions were spots where the path to the center had been blocked by something else.

“Okay, so now we can really start,” he smirked at the ball of dirt and glass in the center of the room. “I’ll get rid of all this stuff some other time.”

“Okay, so the first thing you want to do is try to reach for your magic and turning it into mana. Try thinking back to what you felt when you activated it for the first time,” I nodded my head and closed my eyes as I saw the purple flame in the void. I let its warmth fill me up as a few sparks of the flame flew away to form a new, smaller flame. So this was what having mana coursing through me felt like.

It was still pure magic, like the big flame from before, but smaller and much more manageable. I thought back to the example Pickati used, of a big ‘tank’ being used to fill a small ‘cup’. Having actually felt both, I felt like I had a better example. It was like the difference between a gallon jug and a cup. The bigger one was too heavy to drink from, so you had to pour the liquid into the smaller one.

“It’s done,” I told him as I opened my eyes back up.

“Good, now comes the tricky part,” he started to float away from me. “You’re going to need to create a concept. You need to take a mental image or idea related to gravity and apply it to your mana. If it doesn’t work, you might need to take several ideas or images and fuse them together first. Try it and I’ll be able to tell how you did.”

Okay, how hard could this be? Might as well start with the cliché. Even if it doesn’t work, I won’t feel stupid for skipping it after hours and then finding out it was right. In my head, I imagined a lone apple tree sitting on a field of grass. One of the branches started to bend a little until a big apple at the end snapped off and fell into my ‘hand’. I held it for a second before dropping it and allowing it to hit the floor.

I quickly took the scene and applied it to the mana I had collected and watched as the two fused. The mana turned a slightly darker purple and felt different now, heavier, yet somehow lighter at the same time. Something about it pulled me in, while at the same time pushing me away.

Oh, wow. I think I made the right call by choosing the cliché first.

“Impressive,” I heard Pickati say as I opened my eyes again. “I wasn’t expecting you to get it on your first try.”

“Thank you,” I smiled as I felt the gravity magic flowing through me. “Now what?”

“Well I had assumed this would take up the rest of our time, so I’m not sure. I wanted to fix this place up a bit more before starting you on actual spells. I suppose we could start practicing how to assess your mana and apply your concept with your eyes open in the meantime.”

Oh, I guess I would have to learn to do that if I wanted to cast spells in a real fight. I took a deep breath and almost accidentally closed my eyes as I tried to imagine my magic again.