Spiral Path (Night Calls Series Book 3) (31 page)

“
Yes,
ma’am,” I said.

“
The
salt and pepper?” Margaret asked, and then she and Mrs. Gardener went ahead
into the kitchen.

“
And
how was your first day?” came Cousin Esme’s voice behind me.

I tried not to leap into the air, but I suspected she knew I
was startled. Facing her, I said: “Good. I kept order in my classroom, and no
one was rude.”

“
They
are only rude the first day if they sense weakness,” my cousin said, smiling
faintly. “There are those on the staff who love gossip. Word of your adventure
with a hag got out. Right now I imagine that those most likely to cause trouble
know that they are only a few demerits away from being sent down. So they would
not intentionally provoke you.”

“
Sent
down where?”

Cousin Esme’s smile grew broader. “It means sent back home
for the rest of the term. It is a severe punishment, but not as severe as
expulsion, when a student is asked to leave and cannot return.”

“
Where
does kitchen duty stand on the scale?” I decided to ask.

“
About
two-thirds of the way to being sent down,” she replied. “So anyone already on
the kitchen list will be unlikely to push you this week. Serving kitchen duty
wipes out that punishment, so next week, they will have a clean slate!” My
cousin paused, and then gestured for me to walk with her. We headed toward the
kitchen door. “Alfreda, I must explain something to you,” she started quietly,
and then raised her voice: “Mrs. Gardener, I am taking Miss Sorensson to my
office!”

In moments we were safely tucked into Cousin Esme’s sitting
room. The fire burned cheerfully, and a pot of tea waited on her tea tray, as
well as a dome over a platter, promising some breakfast.

Mmmm. Perhaps even
scones?

“
I
did not want to warn you up front, because I wanted to know what your natural
instincts for teaching were,” she began, indicating with a lift of her hand
that I should pour the tea. “I have placed the most difficult of the youngest
students into your herbal class.”

I paused in mid-pour, looking up at her.

“
They
are not a gang of rogues, so do not worry,” she went on, lifting the silver
dome to expose a pile of warm scones. “If anything, most of them prefer their
solitude. But they have problems working within a group. Sometimes it is
temper, sometimes it is awkwardness, and other times it is problems stemming
from their situations at home. They need patience and a non-threatening class
where they can begin to excel. I think that class can be your class. The
introductory classes are taught with both boys and girls attending. The
advanced classes are segregated by sex, to encourage students’ attention on
learning and not upon each other.”

I handed her a cup, having noticed that my cousin also took
her tea without cream or sugar.

“
How
can I know how to discipline them? No one has explained the system of awards
and penalties to me,” I said slowly, waiting for her to take her first scone.

“
The
system is simple. One, five and ten are the numbers, and you are giving merits
or demerits. The most common award or punishment is one, and many students
never receive either. They may not excel in a manner that gains extra praise,
but they also are not punished for infractions. Five is for when the professor
or senior boy or girl is extremely displeased, and ten is vast pleasure or
displeasure. I suggest you only give out ones because it is safer,” she added,
her tone serious. “No one can accuse you of favoritism or dislike if you award
and penalize in ones. Turn in your sheet of awards or demerits to me in the
evening.”

“
I
haven’t even met Miss Crowley yet, and she’s already very displeased with me,”
I admitted, taking a roll. It smelled like a cream scone!

“
I
heard,” my cousin said, her voice amused. She sipped her tea. “It involved
fire, so I am inclined to let the statement stand. But as it is my school, you
will not get sent down this week for things you do not know.

“
I
pointed this out to Miss Crowley, and she agreed that, owing to her own severe
cold, and the fact that we have no student instruction book, it was unfair of
her to presume disobedience. In fact,” Cousin Esme went on, smiling, “I have
suggested that she consider making a small book for new students to read, so
that all the rules shall be known. That type of project pleases her. She
will
come to explain the floor rules to
you, however, and may ask you to review her book, once it exists, to see if the
instructions are clear.”

“
I
would be happy to help her with that project. Although at this rate I will not
be sleeping enough hours the next few months. I thought a farm was a busy
place, but a school swirls like the butter in a churn,” I told her.

“Yes, it is a very busy place, is it not? The most important
thing is your ritual and Latin training, of course. But the other classes will
be useful to you, and your teaching this class will be very useful to me. I
appreciate your willingness to take up the challenge.” She placed some clotted
cream on her scone, and then continued: “I might have one more small project
for you, later this month.”

I gave Cousin Esme my best “interested but not too forward”
look.

She was not looking at me. The smile changed slightly . . . it
held both thoughtfulness and calculation. Her gaze was on her scone. “Let us
see how the weekend progresses.”

Of course.

Even punishment was a kind of test.

o0o

“In conclusion, the major purpose of ritual in the life of
a practitioner is safety. As you rise in the ranks of spell casters, the
intricacy of the spells you learn will increase. The number of safeguards will
also increase in number, and to omit any of the precautions is to court
disaster. You have no doubt heard stories of what happens to practitioners when
a step in a spell is overlooked.” Professor Tonneman paused a moment, his gaze
moving toward the large window in our small classroom. “Believe them. Few of
them are an exaggeration.”

The room was cozy, and quite similar to Professor Shipley’s
class layout. Here I sat among my herbal students, all eight of them, as well
as one more person, Miss Wolfsson, the plump blonde girl I had met in the
dining room my first morning. Miss Wolfsson and Mr. Riley were the ones closest
in age to me. All the others were around Daniel William’s age, ten years or so.

It was our first class together, and I caught myself
wondering what tests the others had endured. Our instruction was going to be
closely watched; when we had “laboratory” upstairs in the dome, Professor
Tonneman would have the assistance of Mr. St. John, an older student. I
recognized St. John when he smiled. His dark hair and blue eyes framed
pleasant, forgettable features, but when he smiled, he held your attention. It
was like the approval of the world was offered to you.

I knew St. John only as one of the boys who watched Margaret
when she was unaware of his presence. I recognized him as someone who was
always in the hallway when we were traveling to our classes.

“Always” was too often for coincidence.

Margaret also snuck glances back at him. She didn’t look
back at any of the other young men.

“
When
considering the elements, which basic control would you think should be
mastered first?” he asked the group at large as he paced before the desks.

Silence. Then several hands crept up into the air, arms
straightening. “Mr. Riley?”

“
Lighting
a flame,” he said briefly.

“
You
suggest that fire is the most useful,” the professor continued. “How would you
teach that in its simplest form?”

Well, most everyone stared back at him. Weren’t we there for
exactly that reason, to learn the rituals?

Finally I raised my hand. He stopped pacing and nodded at
me.

“
Lighting
a candle?” I asked.

“
You
are not certain?” was Tonneman’s reply.

“
Well,
you would need to keep the fire confined, limited to a specific fuel,” I
replied. “So a candle makes sense. Also, it can be small and quite portable.
You could tuck it into a tool kit.”

“
As
thieves are prone to do,” Professor Tonneman went on. “Would you choose fire
for your first ritual spell, Miss Sorensson?”

“
No.”
I waited to see if he would ask others his next question, but he kept looking
at me, so I added: “I would want to learn how to pull water from the air.”

“
Indeed.
Why water before fire?”

“
Because
there are lots of ways to keep yourself warm in an emergency, but only liquids
can slake your thirst. Water can be just as much a weapon, if needed, when used
well. And you never want to be caught short of water when creating a ritual
circle. Knowing how to pull water from the air might save you a lot of trouble and
even pain.” Remembering that hag, I suppressed a shudder. I’d had enough water
that time. I never wanted to run a risk of being without it.

“
Pain?”
Mr. Riley leaned forward on his desk, frowning at me. “Embarrassment, perhaps,
but pain? That seems an exaggeration.“

“
You
find her example fanciful, Mr. Riley?” the professor asked.

“
It
seems like a description from a Gothic novel,” Riley said abruptly, leaning
back in his chair.

What was a Gothic novel? Was it a story that had Gothic
cathedrals in it?

“
Miss
Sorensson,” Professor Tonneman said, beginning to pace again. “When you suggest
pain as a result of a ritual, are you speaking of adding a drop of blood to
your water before drawing your circle?”

“
No,
sir. I was thinking that if you were under attack while drawing a circle, you
might have to cut a vein to get enough blood to finish the ritual.”

Mr. Riley snorted, and I nearly glared at him. But Professor
Tonneman had stopped pacing again and was looking at me, so I resisted the
temptation.

“
Have
you ever had to cut yourself to finish a ritual?” he asked me.

“
Not
yet. But I’ve had to re-open a cut each time I filled a cup with snow to get
enough water to finish a circle. It was not pleasant. Learning how to pull
water might keep me from ever having to slash myself.”

“
Indeed,”
Tonneman said. “You are constantly resourceful, Miss Sorensson. I think we will
start with water, and progress from there into fire. Just to prevent you from
opening any veins.”

He wasn’t quite making fun of me, and I got my wish.

Good enough.

And I now knew that Mr. Riley was going to require detailed
explanations in herb class.

Forewarned is forearmed.

o0o

“
Visualization
and limitation, visualization and limitation,” I muttered to myself as I made
my way down the back hall to the door near the kitchen. The afternoon ritual
laboratory class was going to be outside, to help the students get a feel for
the procedure. The first step was grounding, and apparently most of the
youngsters didn’t have grounding down pat. I no longer had trouble grounding,
even when upstairs in a building. The tile pipes for the necessaries at
Windward made a straight line to the ground, which helped me find rock in a
hurry. So I was going to jump straight to drawing water.

Now if I could only make the water spell work. “See what you
want to happen, then narrow your vision to only that reality,” I muttered,
ignoring a footman, one of those well-dressed, good-looking fellows who worked
under Kymric. The dark-haired young man kept his gaze straight ahead as he
paused to let me walk past him.

With small spells, the ritual is the grounding and focusing
through a wand. That provides both the limitation and protection a circle can
give you. I remembered my aunt’s traveling wards that we made one morning.
Could I set up a circle that protected me from basic dangers? And carry it like
piece of jewelry, or a parasol?

Sometimes you couldn’t be safe. But I seemed to run into all
sorts of odd dangers, so I wanted to take every precaution I could. Then I
would never have to reproach myself for being careless with my life or safety.

Cold air hit me like a down pillow as I left the house,
large flakes of snow settling on my shoulders. My language classes had gone by
in a blur. When I went back to change clothes for ritual, I put on my oldest
dress and my boots, with my brother’s trousers on underneath. This way I was
warm and my feet would stay dry no matter what happened while we practiced.

I was going to need to designate another dress as “old
enough for herbs and for burning things.” Maybe my old grey dress . . . .

My fellow ritual students were only a few feet down the
path, already passing their wands over wooden goblets and murmuring aloud.
There were several ways to do this spell, apparently, and most of what I heard
suggested that the class was approaching the problem by using their wands and
the cups as links to themselves.

Several struggled with the grounding part, since nothing was
happening. I heard someone muttering “
influo
,”
flow in, and then I heard Mr. Smith demand: “
Flue
!”

It was so broad a command that I inhaled sharply, wondering
if the blood in his veins would begin racing. But no, apparently he had a
handle on the visualization part, because water spurted out of his wand like
the flow of a downspout. The glittering, icy fluid swooped into the cup and
back out again, spraying Mr. Smith and the snow bank around him with a film of
water that immediately turned to ice.