A Wizard Alone

The school shrink had warned her about that. Mr. Millman, fortunately, had turned out to be very different from what Nita had expected, or dreaded, when she’d been sent to see him after her mom had died. The other kids at school tended to speak of “the shrink” in whispers that were half scorn, half fear. Having to go see him, in many of their minds, still meant one of three things: that you needed an IQ test — probably to prove that you needed to be put in a slower track than the one you were in; that you were crazy, or about to become so; or that you were some kind of closet boozer or druggie, or had some other kind of weird thing going on that was likely to make you a danger to yourself or others.

Nita had been surprised that the crueler mouths around school hadn’t immediately started to spread one or another of these rumors about her. But it hadn’t happened, apparently because her mother was well known and liked in town by a lot of people, and this attitude had spread down to at least some of their kids. It seemed that those kids at school who knew her at all thought that though Nita was a geek, it was a shame about her mother, and counseling after her mom died so young wouldn’t count as a black mark against her.

So nice of them, Nita had thought when she first heard about this. But she had to admit to a certain amount of relief that mockery wasn’t going to be added to the whispers of pity that she’d already had more than enough of. Not that she wasn’t used to half the kids she knew making fun of her as an irredeemable nerdette. But having to deal with a new level of jeering, as well as the pain, was something she could do without right now.

She still had no energy to speak of. Sleep never came easily anymore, and she kept waking up too early. But once she was awake, she didn’t really want to do anything. If Nita had had her way, she’d have stayed home from school half the time. But she didn’t have her way, especially since Dairine was already in trouble with the principal at her school for all the time she’d been losing — so much so that their dad had to go see the principal about it this afternoon. Nita was completely unwilling to add to his problems, so she made sure she got to school on time — but she found it hard to care about anything that happened there.

Or anywhere else

, she thought. Even though she was up before dawn half the time, the predawn sky, even with the new comet passing through, didn’t attract her as it used to. Nita leaned on the sill of the window by her desk, looking out at the bare branches of the tree out in the middle of the backyard. She could see the slow words its branches inscribed against the brightening sky in the wind, but she couldn’t bring herself to care much what they said. She felt as if there was some kind of thick skin between her and the world, muffling the way she knew she ought to feel about things… and she didn’t know what to do to get rid of it. What really frightened Nita were the times when she clearly perceived that separation from the world as something unnatural for her, and still didn’t care if the remoteness never got better — the times she was content to just sit and stare out at the world, and watch it go by.

She found herself doing that right now, staring vaguely at the clutter on her desk — pens and pencils, school notebooks, sticky pads, overdue library books, a few CDs belonging to the downstairs computer. And her manual, closed, sitting there looking like just one more of the library books. Overdue, she thought, glancing past it at the other books. That’s not like me, either. I’m so obsessive about getting them back on time, usually…I should take them back after school today.

But taking them back just seemed like too much trouble. It could wait another day, or two, or three, for the little fine it would cost her. Maybe I’ll feel more like it over the weekend.

Nita let out a long breath as she looked at her manual. It wasn’t as if it was alive in any way, as if it had anything with which to look at her…

…but it was looking at her, and she wasn’t sure what to make of its expression.

She flipped it idly open to the back section, where the status listings were. Turning a few pages brought her to Kit’s listing, which she scanned with brief, weary interest. Then she paged along to her own.

CALLAHAN, Juanita L.

243 E. Clinton Avenue

Hempstead, NY 11575

(516) 555-6786 power rating: 6.76 +/-.5 assignment status: optional Nita stared at that for a long moment, never having seen anything like it on her listing before.

“Optional”?

Since when am I “optional”?!

She sat there looking at the listing for a few seconds longer. Jeez, she thought, that sounded more like Dairine than me

…

It was still a strange listing. And the longer she looked at it, the less she liked it.

But that brought her to her next order of business for the morning. Reluctantly, Nita got up and went across the hall to Dairine’s room. “Dari…” she said, knocking on the door and knowing what was going to come next.

“Ngggg, said a voice from inside.

“Get up.”

“In a minute.”

“Don’t make me laugh, Dari. Say it in the Speech.”

Nita grimaced. Dairine was twisty and shifty in all kinds of ways, but even now, even angry and upset with life as she was, she would not dare say anything in the Speech that wasn’t true.

“Dairiiiiiiiiine…”

A pause. “Must you be so disgustingly responsible at this hour of the morning?”

“Yes,” Nita said, unimpressed by either the volume or the sentiment. “Get up, Dairine. I have things to do besides deal with you all morning.”

“Then go do them, and give them my regards.”

“Not a chance. Get up.”

“No.”

And so it went for another fifteen minutes or so. Nita’s temper started fraying. I might have seen the daybreak

, she thought, but I’m still going to be late for Millman, thanks to Dairine. Again.

I’ve had about enough of this!

Nita held out her hand for her manual, which obligingly picked itself up off her desk and came cruising along into the hall. She plucked it out of the air and began paging through it. Okay, today’s the day

, she thought. Today I actually use that spell instead of just thinking about it. But I have to add something fast

Nita spent a moment wondering under which category she would find the addition she was contemplating for the wizardry she had in mind. Well, it’s a teleport, but now it’s complex rather than strictly inanimate

… “Dairine,” Nita said. “This is just another cheap attempt not to go to school.”

“It’s not an attempt.”

“Uh-huh.” We’ll see about that. Okay, here we go. The shape of the wizardry’s a little weird now, but if I constrain the feeder end of the spell like this — and this— Yeah. Quick and dirty, but it’ll do the job

. “You really ought to think about the consequences of your actions,” Nita said, “especially insofar as they affect what Dad’s gonna have to say to you when school calls him at work to find out where you are.”

“Nita, that’s my problem, not yours, so why don’t you just butt out for a change instead of trying to run everybody’s life. You’re no replacement for Mom, no matter what you may think you’re doing, and—”

A tirade

, Nita thought, already halfway through the spell. Good. She paused just long enough to admit to herself that the remark about their mom did, indeed, really hurt, and then went on with the spell. Dairine was meanwhile still in full flow. “… when you come to your senses again, some time in the next century, you may discover that— OWl”