The Sphere (The Magi Series #2) (14 page)

“I mean, who’s to say that what one person thinks is good is
actually the absolute good?” Elijah asked.  “I’m supposed to be looking for the
good in the world, right?  So what if I get it wrong?  Doesn’t
everyone
think that they’re good?”

“You’re not supposed to be asking questions I can’t answer
yet,” Mrs. Roddick said with a slight smirk on her face.

Elijah fiddled with his hands.  Surprisingly, Mrs. Roddick’s
response made him feel significantly better.  Even though she gave no insight
or any inspiring message, just knowing that his confusion was not his and his
alone made him feel better.

“I guess deep down I know what I did was wrong,” Elijah
continued, feeling more open and honest.  “I just couldn’t help thinking about
those things.”

“Did you know that I wasn’t always a Magi?” Mrs. Roddick
stated, seemingly out of nowhere.

“No,” Elijah said, suddenly thinking that the woman he sat
across from was, in that instant, the most mysterious person in the world.

“Until you came along, I thought that my situation was a
one-of-a-kind decision by the council,” she continued.  “I have never talked
about my past with anyone in Savenridge except my husband.  Only a few of the
elder council know, and even most of them weren’t part of the council then.  I
was only a little girl when I came here.  About ten or eleven.”

Elijah listened with interest.

“I lived with my mother and two other sisters,” she continued. 
“I was the eldest, along with my twin sister, Jesse.  We lived in a very poor
area of a small town in the common world.  Our father left when Jesse and I
were just small children and our youngest sister, Bethany, was just an infant. 
Jesse ran away just after our ninth birthday, leaving me to take care of Bethany
on my own.  She counted on me to provide her with pretty much everything.”

As Mrs. Roddick talked, Elijah noticed her eyes begin to
fog, and soon, they collected enough moisture that she had to dab them a few
times with her sleeve.  But she talked without wavering or any hint of break in
her voice.

“What about your mom?” Elijah asked.

Mrs. Roddick shook her head.  “My mother was a horrible
person.  I hated her.  If she came home at all, it was just to go to sleep, and
if she was awake, she was too intoxicated to take care of us.  So that left
me.  I saw her do things that were so terrible—things I can’t even repeat
because I’m so embarrassed to say I come from her.  Bethany and I spent every
minute of our lives scared to be in her presence.  It’s a horrible way to spend
ten years of your life, and I was not about to let my sister spend ten years of
her life the way I did.  I began wishing I had left with Jesse.  Cold,
stone-hearted Jesse, who probably would have committed murder to get away from
our mother.

“Then, one day, I had had enough.  I saw an opportunity to
get away from our mother, and I took it.  Late one night, I was walking with my
sister through our tiny town just to be away from our house.  I have no idea
whether or not our mother was home—probably not—but one thing was for sure, she
was not at the diner where I took Bethany.  We had made a friendly acquaintance
with the diner’s owner, named Gary.  Gary would leave the back door unlocked so
Bethany and I could come in whenever we wanted.  He would feed us often.  Even
in the middle of the night if he was around.  But this one night, we thought we
were all alone until we heard arguing in the kitchen.  Then—and to this day, it
still haunts me—there was a horrible scream and a thud of a body hitting the
floor.”

Mrs. Roddick had moved from looking foggy to a complete
hypnotic state.

“For minutes, I stood still, hearing no sound but knowing
what I would find if I walked into the kitchen.  As scared as I was to leave my
sister for just a moment to look in the kitchen, it was nothing compared to the
fear I lived with every day at home.  I slowly opened the door and saw our
friend, Gary, doubled up on the floor in a pool of his own blood.”

Mrs. Roddick covered her mouth with both her hands for a
moment and then quickly gathered herself to resume her story.

“I knew he was dead.  It was the most horrific sight I had
ever seen, and yet, I had the strength to steal the opportunity.  I carefully
took one of the kitchen knives from the rack on the counter.  I smeared it with
the blood on the floor, careful not to leave any fingerprints on the handle,
and then I grabbed Bethany and ran for home.  Then, I did the second-most
shameful act I have ever done in my life.  I carefully placed it half-wrapped
in a towel in my mother’s closet and called the police.  I pretended I just
found it and wanted to know if my mother was okay, but I knew exactly what I
was doing.  She was arrested that day, and we were taken away from her.  Of
course, when they investigated more, they figured out she hadn’t done it, but I
had enough time to run away with my sister, just like Jesse had done.”

Mrs. Roddick paused.  She looked over at Elijah for the
first time during her narration.  Elijah couldn’t help feeling conflicted. 
Clearly there was a message to her story.  “Are you saying that what you did
was good or bad?” he asked.  He honestly wasn’t sure.

“Elijah, I told you that story to answer your question the
only way I know how,” she said.  “At the time, I did what I knew was best for
me and my sister.  Was it wrong?  I believe so.  Was it best for me?  Yes.  Did
that make what happened ultimately bad?  I wish I knew the answer.  And maybe
it’s best that I don’t.  It’s probably a good thing that I struggle with it.”

Elijah suddenly felt like his dilemma for reading the book
and lying about it was petty compared to Mrs. Roddick’s struggle.

“So what happened to Bethany?” Elijah asked.

Miranda took a long, slow breath.  Controlled.  “I think
I’ve relived enough painful memories for one night,” she said.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Elijah stated.  “I didn’t mean—”

“I know you didn’t,” Mrs. Roddick interrupted.  “You’re
sweet to apologize.”

Mrs. Roddick sat up and left the room leaving Elijah to
ponder what he’d heard.  Even hours after he had time to think her story over
many times, Elijah wasn’t sure if her act was courageous or despicable.  He
tried to imagine himself in her position, living in a constant state of feeling
unsafe with his own mother.  What could make someone get to the point of framing
their own family for murder?  Clearly, Mrs. Roddick’s past was not as carefree
as he imagined.  In fact, he had never even thought about her past.  He
wondered about the other adults in his life.  They all had pasts too, but he
just took for granted that they were always who they appeared to be.  Maybe
Uncle Stan had a deep dark secret tormenting him for years like Mrs. Roddick. 
Maybe Master Roddick also had past demons he struggled with still.  Elijah felt
like a fool for making those assumptions.

The more Elijah thought about Mrs. Roddick’s story, the more
he thought back to the previous year when he made a promise to look for good as
a Magi-in-Training.  At the time, he knew it wouldn’t be easy, but he just
assumed that the temptation of using the elements for power would be the
hardest part.  He never thought the idea of finding “good” would be that
difficult.  Was the ultimate good just a matter of perspective, or was it
something more concrete?  Was there even an absolute answer?

The final two days of summer went by both quickly and
slowly.  Elijah didn’t do much of anything, and yet, the days seemed to fly by
unnoticed.  He spent a lot of time wandering into the forest behind the Roddick
house daydreaming.  He tried not to let Hannah Maybury become part of his
daydreams, but she seemed to have a way of showing up.  Most of the time, he
didn’t object.

Soon, it was time to leave for the fall term.  Tirzah and
Lizzy spent the morning of the first day in September frolicking around the
loft upstairs prompting Mrs. Roddick to threaten to come up there more than
once with all the bumping and banging the two were making.  Mrs. Roddick was on
edge anyway with the day trip to the barracks.  Elijah offered to just leave on
his own so she didn’t have to trouble herself, but she insisted.

“Don’t think just because you’ve trained for one year that
that gives you permission to be all grown up,” she said.

Elijah didn’t fight it.  He learned that when Miranda
Roddick made up her mind to do something, she was going to do it.

Elijah carried Lizzy on his shoulders during most of the
journey to the training barracks.  He even practiced a few of his physical training
exercises on the way with her still straddling his shoulders.  He knew
eventually he would be doing exercises much worse than this on a regular basis,
so he needed the practice.

They followed the river west to the stone bridge that took
them toward the mountain with the enormous oval building tucked inside.  Elijah
had seen this building every day since he arrived at Savenridge, but something
about the pulse and activity he knew was inside made his heart pump a lot
faster.  Soon, he would be back in his room, signing up for study sessions,
working with his friends on assignments, training his body to be even more
lethal than he felt (and compared to the way he felt the first time he stepped
foot into the arena, he was a regular assassin).

“Elijah,” Mrs. Roddick said as they approached the front
doors to the barracks.

“Yes?”

She took a deep breath and handed him a picture of the
Roddick family, painted in oil.  Elijah looked at it for a moment.  The two
girls were as lively as ever, even as still paintings.  They beamed in the
painting, their eyes and smiles lighting up the scene.  Mrs. Roddick stood
beautifully and sank into her husband who was a good head and shoulders taller
than her.  Master Roddick’s face was kind and gentle, the way Elijah remembered
him before the morning at his campsite.  It was perfect.  “I thought maybe
other kids would have pictures of their family, and you should have one too,”
Mrs. Roddick said.  “Which reminds me, we need to get a new one with you in it
when Glen gets back.”

Elijah hugged Mrs. Roddick.

“Well,” she said, dusting off his clothes and straightening
his brown uniform.  “You be careful this term, you hear?”

“I will,” said Elijah.

“You see anything suspicious, you better not pull another
stunt like last year.”

“I won’t,” said Elijah, hoping he could keep his promise.

“I’ll look forward to your visits.”  She took a quick breath
and patted him on the shoulder.

“G’bye, Elijah!” said Lizzy.  She clung onto his leg and
pressed her cheek into his thigh.  “Don’t let the Maliphists be mean to you.”

Tirzah rolled her eyes.  “He’s not training with Maliphists,
stupid!”

“Tirzah!” said Mrs. Roddick, giving a stern look only a
mother could make.

“I’m just correcting her, Mother!” said Tirzah.  Tirzah
hugged Elijah too, and the three Roddick women left Elijah at the front doors
just as the sun began to set.  Elijah stayed and watched them until they
disappeared over the bridge by the Savenridge River.

Chapter
7:

PRELIMINARY ORIENTATION

The first floor of the training barracks looked like an ant
farm.  Dozens of kids in their first year of training, also called
Preliminaries, scattered around the room, looking for a supervisor or an adult
for direction.  There was a line to get their schedules, being handed out by
Master Ismai, Elijah’s mental training teacher from last year.  There was a
long line for room keys given out after they had gotten their schedules.  Then,
there was a line for their training gear.  Master Zempke, Elijah’s physical
training teacher, and one other teacher Elijah recognized but didn’t know by
name, were looking over schedules, taking measurements of students, and handing
out uniforms.

Amidst the chaos, Elijah saw the familiar bald head of Mr. Button
bobbing up and down from line to line.  Mr. Button was the supervisor of the
training barracks.  He was not qualified to be a teacher, thus the students
didn’t call him a master, and he was quite scatterbrained, but Elijah thought
Mr. Button was very skilled at his job.  Last year, when the barracks became
the target of Maliphist kidnappings, Mr. Button somehow managed to keep the
barracks and the community as calm as anyone could under the circumstances.

Mr. Button tended to look frazzled often, as he did now. 
His eyes were wide and alert.  He constantly scratched the side of his face and
rubbed his bald head like a lamp with a genie inside.  When he noticed Elijah
standing alone and looking amused at the younger students, Mr. Button walked
over and took off his spectacles to clean them.

“Hello, Elijah,” he said.  “I forgot you’d be here today. 
Go ahead and sign in so we know you’re here—officially anyway—and then you can
get your stuff up to your room.  Won’t be for another couple of hours before we
start orientation, and mostly it’s just goin’ over stuff you already know like
a tour and rules and stuff, eh?  You got your schedule and gear?”

“Yes, sir,” Elijah responded, lifting his bag high enough so
Mr. Button could see.  “All in here.”

“Good.  Go sign in with Master Lopez by the pit.  He’ll get
you a key to a temporary room, and then you can get settled.  I’ll make an
all-call when we’re ready to start.”

Elijah walked through the swarm of younger students, bumping
and excusing himself each step of the way.  When he approached the long table
with sign-in sheets, he did a double take as he looked at what used to be the
fire pit right in the center of the room.

During the year, especially in the cold winter months,
students loved to sit around an enormous oval pit, extending almost the entire
way across the room, to do homework, play a board game from the game room, or
just converse as the hot coals sizzled and popped by their feet.  Elijah had
never seen it without fire or at least glowing coals, but at the moment, it was
only a deep cavity in the center of the room.  It made the entire room feel
like an abandoned house for sale.