CHAPTER 4: THE GREEN LIGHT

The next day, Lafayette found himself sitting across from Brewer. Instead of the spacious classroom, this meeting took place in Brewer’s cramped office. He had gotten to school earlier than any other student due to his mother being a teacher, but he was pulled away from her by his eccentric teacher and ushered into a study barely bigger than a walk-in closet.

Bookshelves lined every wall in the room, imposing a sense of banality on those who resided inside. The shelves were filled with an array of books, each designed in the same brown shade, and Brewer’s wooden desk was plastered with journals and novels as broad as the ones he kept in his classroom.

After taking a long sip, Brewer set his coffee mug on one of the books scattered on his table. The mug’s handle faced the chair where he was seated, his head hanging high like a crane after rising from its plumage.

Brewer’s finger circled the lip of the mug as his dark, umber eyes focused on the boy before him. The sharpness of his gaze stabbed through Lafayette.

“You tossed a girl off the theater balcony yesterday,” he said matter-of-factly, so bluntly that it left no room for Lafayette to object.

Lafayette shifted in his seat, gulping as he tugged on his collar. The audacity required for Tom—or Daisy—to report a fight they had instigated was profound.

“I, uh... She was held up by the hook! I knew she wouldn’t die!” That was all he could defend himself with. In truth, there was no justification for his actions.

Brewer’s cloak swished around as he stood up and turned to the bookshelves.

"Listen, kid. I don’t care anymore. If I had caught you in the moment, I probably would have done something, but it’s pointless to bother with it now. Just don't go around attempting murder, or else I’ll have to start banning you from things...or something. Now, get lost.”

Lafayette sat there, his mouth agape. He hadn’t expected to get out of trouble so easily. He looked at Brewer again, mulling over his own incredulity.

“I told you to get lost, you know? If you didn’t hear."

Lafayette nodded, rose to his feet, and left the small room with a relieved sigh.

“That could have been bad.”

***

Rachel felt better in the morning. The dream she had last night lingered in her mind, slipping away as she tried to recall it.

There was a green light. It rested far away from her, on the other side of a mysterious lake—somewhere she couldn’t reach. Sometimes it wrinkled; sometimes it waned; and as it danced and twinkled on the edge, its allure awed her.

But none of that mattered once Rachel woke up. The depth of her attempt to recollect the abstract memories was such that she failed to notice Jack walking into her room.

“So much for being excited about seeing your best friend,” Jack said, laying a hand on Rachel’s shoulder, breaking her from the trance.

Rachel’s head spun around, and she leaped to him, embracing his body.

“Jack!”

“Welcome back to the world of the living, El.”

The two made their way downstairs and began their path toward school. The sound of metal being hammered reverberated throughout the house like it always did.

“Sorry for earlier... I was just thinking about something,” Rachel said.

“Hm? About what?” Jack asked.

Rachel paused as she considered what to respond with.

“Nothing. It’s dumb anyway.”

“No, it’s not, not if it distracts you that much.”

"Yeah, it is.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yeah, it is!”

“No, it’s not!”

Rachel pinched the bridge of her nose, tired of the repetitive bickering.

"If you have a strong desire to know, simply express your curiosity!"

“Fine, I am! I’m curious! Just tell me what the hell it was!”

Rachel’s hand moved to pinch Jack’s cheek.

“Okay, but only if you promise to pay attention.”

“I promise.”

With a satisfied smile, she let go of him.

“I had a dream about this green light. It was dancing—not like literally dancing. It was like a light. You know what lights do? Like blinking and moving and stuff, but it felt really important at the moment... Okay, nevermind. Yeah, it’s dumb,” Rachel said, trailing off.

“Some dreams are just weird. Maybe that one had meaning. If it did, you’ll probably find out in due time. No use worrying about it now.” Jack delivered his input with a shrug.

“I guess you’re right.”

Rachel sighed as they reached the familiar gates of the school and stumbled inside.

***

As Jack and Rachel made their way to class, their steps were more decisive and less hesitant—but not enough to disregard reliance on the map. They quietly took their seats in the same spot as yesterday, next to their new friends.

Before they could exchange their greetings, Brewer called attention to the front of the class. The swift start of class was unlike the dilatory pace of the previous day, when a great deal of time was wasted.

“Alright, lesson one: magic. Yesterday you got a sneak peek of what the school is like, but today we’ll jump right into learning how to harness magic.” He yawned, taking a sip of his coffee. "Although I should probably inform you all of something important. Later, during lunch, a counselor will come around to write down your second elective choice. Everyone’s third elective is horseback riding because, as you’ve noticed, we don’t have a standing army of any kind. So whenever we have issues, we send you lot to do it.”

Brewer grabbed a piece of chalk from the ledge of his blackboard and pointed it at the girl who had been complaining the previous day.

“...And if you have anything against it, drop out. I’m paid more than anyone else in this town, and that’s still not enough to care.”

The girl nodded in understanding. It was apparent early on they wouldn’t have much power in this class.

Brewer propped himself on his desk.

“Last time you used magic, it was a fluke, a reflex under a high-stress situation. I believe some of you know how to perform basic magic output to some level, but we will start off by learning how to push out magic in an effective and economical way to later be refined into spells.”

Brewer drew a deep breath, outstretching his hand as he closed his eyes.

“I want you to close your eyes and let your mind be blank. Feel your spirit—your mana— coursing through you. For every person, it will be different, but you should all feel a trigger. As the trigger brushes upon your soul wherever it is formed, I need you to grasp it tightly, letting the coursing mana in your body push into the trigger and release,” he said, letting one of his fingers poke out of his clenched fist.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

The chalk piece he held exploded.

With a boom and crack, the powdery cylinder zipped across the room, hitting the ornate wall on the opposite side and cracking the thick wood before it disintegrated into dust. White powder marked the resulting dent.

Brewer had launched the object so fast that a sonic boom was formed, straining the ears of every student in the vicinity.

“What the heck?!” Rachel covered her ears, ignorant to the fact she was yelling.

"Language,” said Brewer, waiting until the childrens’ mutual tinnitus abated. “Now, try yourself."

Rachel released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She blanked her mind, her eyes squeezing shut and her mouth quivering as she approached the task with force.

Air parts her lips, and she inhaled a deep breath of oxygen. Despite her spiked heart rate, Rachel managed to stabilize her breathing.

Her breaths slowed as a wave of ease washed over her, and eventually she was struck with clarity. The solution was clear.

Mana lapped her veins. For a moment, she embraced the feeling—familiarizing herself with magic—until she saw it again. The green light.

The light blinked at her. She was certain her eyes were shut, yet she saw it clearly. It swayed side to side, enchanting its single onlooker. Rachel couldn’t help but admire the spectacle.

Her spirit followed her desires to reach out for the light, and it somehow latched on. As she felt the green light upon her, she understood: this was her trigger.

As Rachel held on tight, her body and soul clicked in place. Her body was set into motion, her mana seeping into her hand and sending a shiver up her spine.

It was cold—so cold that the gases she exhaled froze. With the release of her breath, the imaginary gears in her head turned. Everything was where it needed to be.

Branches sprouted from the mana and permeated Rachel’s arm, crawling around her skin. They traveled down her veins and wrapped around her wrist, blooming into beautiful, red roses once they reached her fingers.

Sometime during the process, Rachel had opened her eyes.

She raised the affected arm, her eyes narrowing at the branches inextricably enclosing it.

“This again? Both spells I’ve done turned out to just be sprouting plants! This is so…so…ugh! How am I ever going to defend myself if all I can do is give people flowers?!” Rachel slumped down on her chair and furrowed her eyebrows.

“Maybe you should consider switching out your perfume for a rose scent.” Jack, whose concentration had been disrupted, approached Rachel, and their eccentric teacher appeared from behind.

Brewer picked the rose off the branch and looked it over.

“You know, Ms. Red, that isn’t a bad sign. Creating more complex forms of life, such as flowers, usually takes much practice to accomplish, yet you have an affinity for it. To stop it, you must learn to not refine your magic to the highest degree you can while releasing it, or you could simply look on the bright side and use your talent to become a healer. You’d be able to regrow people’s organs fairly easily. Battles aren’t strictly about harming your opponent. Keeping yourself and those you care about away from death matters, as well.”

Rachel sighed, letting her arm touch her forehead.

"Okayyyy," she said, puffing her cheeks.

Brewer walked closer, laying a hand on her desk. He waved his other hand to dispel the branches that bound her arm.

“Either way, you were the first to activate your trigger. Congrats, kid.” He turned, walked to his table, picked up his seemingly always full and hot cup of coffee, and sipped it. Instead of sitting on his desk, Brewer plopped down on his actual chair, his posture relaxed and lazy.

Rachel found some comfort in his words. Even if her spell wasn’t the best, she was the first to be able to muster one at all.

“Keep trying, everyone. You lot still got, like,” he said, peering down at his wrist and realizing he hadn’t worn a watch in over ten years before looking up at the clock, “negative 20 minutes.”

The second member of the class to grasp Brewer’s lesson was Lafayette. He released a burst of fire vicious enough to exacerbate Rachel’s dissatisfaction with her own spell.

***

Once the class ended, the students left for lunch. Today, sushi with a glass of Grass Sheep berry juice was being served. The drink, colloquially known as Spring Berries due to the season they grew in, had a delicate sweetness to it.

After obtaining their lunch, Jack, Rachel, Lafayette, and Kana bee-lined toward their designated lunch table.

“Did you see my spell? It was so fucking cool, dude. I’m ready to torch whatever the hell they want to toss at us!” Lafayette’s exuberance was evident as soon as they sat down. He crossed his legs and picked up his chopsticks.

“Yeah, compared to the short-lived bubble of water I conjured, I gotta admit, that was cool,” said Kana, worried about inadvertently inflating Lafayette’s ego.

Meanwhile, the state of the other pair was less buoyant.

“El... You really shouldn’t be beating yourself over this.” said Jack, who hadn’t been able to muster any spells, placing a hand on Rachel’s shoulder to comfort her.

Rachel knew her spell was an exceptional feat; she knew she was doing excellent—yet, it felt selfish. Unlike her peers, Rachel had manifested her magic abnormally well. Most students had failed or paled in comparison to her despite putting in the same amount of effort—including Jack, whose unwarranted attempts at helping made her feel worse.

“El, I’ll be real. Brewer said the flowers are caused by control. You’re suffering from success, girl. It’s easier to go backward than forward,” said Lafayette. The way he used the chopsticks was so sloppy that Kana grabbed his hand.

“Don’t hold it like that. Here.” She slid his fingers into the correct formation. “You’re supposed to form a claw with your fingers, like this.”

She pulled away with a blank expression. “What am I saying? You’re a dumbass. You won’t remember that. Next time, just think of it like gripping a pen or pencil."

“Uh, right.” Lafayette reached for the sushi. Unable to control his chopsticks correctly, he resorted to tossing the fish into his mouth.

“What are you guys going to pick for electives?” said Rachel.

“We should all pick something we can all do together!” Lafayette’s advice elicited the nods of the others.

A woman with bright pink hair and a clipboard sauntered over to their table.

She had a fervent smile stuck on her face—the kind one couldn’t ascertain the genuineness of.

“Hey, you kids are a nice-looking group! So, how about you tell me what classes you want? Ooh ooh, before you ask the options, here’s a list I compiled!” The woman handed them a piece of paper with bullet points, each followed by a different elective the school offered.

The group skimmed through them. Most of the earlier choices were the magically assigned electives, which they could pick regardless, and, apart from physical education, none of them were talents they sought to pursue.

“None of the magic correspondence classes.” said Lafayette before he returned to reading. “Hey, what about this one? Journalism sounds fun!”

They all looked down to where he was pointing.

“Seems interesting,” whispered Rachel.

“I really don’t care. Do whatever,” said Jack.

“Eh, good enough.” Kana shrugged.

“Great! Then it’s settled. We’ll all take journalism,” said Lafayette with a large grin.

“Got it! Your first class for that class will be tomorrow. Your homeroom teacher should tell you where it is—or give you an updated map." The pink haired counselor scribbled it down on her clipboard and moved to the next table.

***

Their second elective class was much like the previous one, a little deeper into the introductory content, but nothing remarkable yet. The same could be said for their secondary rendezvous with Brewer on the school day; what was different was their new class: horseback riding.

Brewer walked his students out to the stables behind the school, looking more tired than usual as they burst through the doors and rushed toward the horses.

“Careful with the horses... If you lot die, it will get the horse put down, and I’ll probably have legal trouble, but what do teenagers care about?” he said, walking out to the center of the field as they wandered out to see each horse.

The stables were needlessly humongous, but they were designed with the same degree of exquisite woodworking present in the rest of the school. There were roughly five hundred students total, so one horse could be allocated to each.

The students in the 23rd advanced class quickly spread out in search of a horse that matched their interests, too eager to wait for instructions.

“Right, so there’s enough horses for every student to get one. Thank me later. But anyway, go find one that doesn’t have a tag at the door with a name,” he said, a mug in his hand.

The first pick of the group was Kana; she saw a horse with a coat dark as night, fully black from head to toe. “I want that one.”

Brewer groaned, seeing he’d have to do something so early. He grabbed the tag sheet from his coat pocket and wrote, "Moonshine-____.”

“Alright kid, so, uh, just write your name on the line and slap it onto the door of his stall. His name is Moonshine, by the way,” he said, handing her the tag and a pen.

Kana grabbed them both, sticking the tag onto the door and smoothing out any air pockets before writing “Kana” with a heart symbol on the tag. “Moonshine is a dumb name."

Brewer looked at Rachel. She was petting the mane of a white horse. He proactively pulled and wrote out the tag that said, “Coconut-____.”

“Aww, aren’t you cute? Look at you, yeah! Such a cutie patootie!” Rachel cooed, bringing her palm to the horse's face as it leaned closer, seeming fond of the attention.

“Here, that’s Coconut. Write your name on the line and put it on her stall door,” Brewer said, giving Rachel the tag.

The next to choose was Jack.

Jack had picked an old, stocky, unbothered horse by the name of Melvin, who hadn’t even looked at him until he heard the smacking of a tag onto the stall doors.

Lafayette got the last pick. Since the beginning of class, he had been locked into a staring contest with a rowdy mare. The mare had a brown coat and was covered in scars. It had been the latest horse added to the stables and disapproved of most who came close.

"Well, I don’t have much of a choice anymore, do I?” asked Lafayette, looking at the tagged doors and then up at Brewer, who had made his way to him.

“No, I suppose you don’t. Write your name here.” Brewer handed Lafayette the final tag. “Zany-____,” it read.

Lafayette adhered. Thus, all horses in the stable were claimed.

“Alright, that’s enough for today. You lot will get to actually horse ride next class or something. Dismissed,” Brewer said, waving his hand as he walked back into the school. A symphony of displeasure resounded from the students.