Chapter Six
ELLIOT LOOKED down at his watch once again. It was Wednesday and this was only his second university lecture of the week but, as interesting as it was, his mind kept returning to the experience of sharing magic with Farlden yesterday. He had hoped to speak to Farlden about it this morning but the Nean had already left the halls of residence when Elliot went to his room. Elliot tapped his pen against his knee as he imagined the luxury of finally talking to someone who understood what it felt like to experience magic and who might understand it better than Elliot did. He desperately wanted to combine their abilities again, too, as what they had shared yesterday had felt amazing.
“All right,” Nina Henderson, the lecturer, said as she walked across the stage in front of him, getting his attention and making him realise, with a sense of panic, that he’d missed everything she had been saying for the last ten minutes, “I want you to get into groups of four. I’ll assign each group a different nineteenth century author and, for the next hour, I want you to discuss their contribution to English literature and make a short presentation of your conclusions at the end.”
Elliot glanced round. He didn’t know anyone here but, since it was the first lecture of the course, he assumed almost everyone would be strangers. No one was sitting next to him, so he leaned towards the thin-faced boy one seat over. “Do you want to work together?”
“I thought you only spoke to Neans,” the teenager sneered and turned his back on Elliot.
So much for him. Shrugging off the comment, Elliot turned to the people to the left of him on the same row, only to be told curtly that they had already got into a group. With an uneasy feeling in his stomach, he tried the kids behind him.
“No one wants to mix with a Nean fancier,” a dark-haired girl told him. If you’re on their side, you can’t be on ours.”
He listened to this with shock. At school, even though no one had understood his magic, he had always got along well with everyone. He was one of the attractive kids, someone who bought other children expensive presents and held lavish parties and he was smart with it and didn’t look down on anyone, so everyone had wanted to be his friend. At least his friendship with Barve and his sort-of non-enmity with Farlden hadn’t put off everyone, he thought, clinging with gratitude to the thought of Callie, who had so much in common with him and got along fine with the brothers. This wasn’t the way he had wanted things to be at Uni, souring an experience he had looked forward to, but there was no way he was giving up his friends just to appease these morons.
Miss Henderson – Nina, he reminded himself, having discovered students called their lecturers by their first names – approached him. “Is there a problem?”
“There don’t seem to be any groups left,” he said, trying not to sound embarrassed.
“Not for you,” a boy nearby commented but he looked away when the lecturer frowned at him.
Nina raised her voice as she said to the roomful of students, “Who has less than four people in their group?”
Several kids sitting together near the back of the class put up their hands and the lecturer made a gesture shooing him towards them. He got up, acutely aware of the hostility in the gazes of those watching him, and headed to the group, sitting down with them. He introduced himself and a girl with black lipstick and a nose ring along with a number of piercings in her ears said, “What was that fuss about?”
“Some of the other students refused to work with me,” Elliot said, looking her in the eye. “They didn’t like the fact that I have Nean friends.”
“Huh.” She cocked her head, studying him. “You’re more interesting than you look.”
It wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement but it seemed to be the best he’d get today. The lecturer came over and told them the author they would be discussing was Robert Louis Stevenson, then left them to get on with it. Elliot made up his mind at once that theirs would be the best presentation of the group, partly because he liked to excel, but mainly to show everyone else that refusing to have anything to do with him would make them lose out on the top marks.
If anyone else wanted him to pick sides then it would be their loss.
* * *
Callie joined them in the canteen at lunchtime and, wanting to know more about her, Elliot asked a bit about her family. She told him about her parents’ jobs, her mother a solicitor and her father a shop manager, and then he asked, “Do you have any siblings or are you an only child?”
Her sharp intake of breath could barely be heard over the noise in the canteen, but the way she froze and her entire body stiffened made him realise he’d somehow upset her. “I’m alone. I had a sister... She died.”
“I’m so sorry.” It was Barve who spoke, Elliot too uncomfortable over his blunder to know what to say.
“Were you close?” Farlden asked and Elliot held his breath, afraid she would get up and leave.
“Yes.” She stared at her food, although she made no move to eat anything. “We argued sometimes over little things but I really loved her. I miss her every day.”
“I’m sorry.” Elliot repeated Barve’s words, feeling stupid but needing to say something. Hearing her speak made him regret the distance between him and his brother, Jasper. They had always been at odds but Elliot couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to lose him. The only death he had experienced in his family had been when his grandfather had died four years previously and, although he had not known him well, the death had affected him. It was difficult thinking about the fact that everyone died and taking in what that actually meant: that you could lose anyone you loved at any time.
“If you ever want to talk about it, we’re here,” Barve said to Callie, once again the only one of them who seemed able to say the right thing.
“I’m okay but thanks.” She managed a tense smile and then changed the subject, asking Elliot, “Have you begun your English essay?”
“Not yet.” He grabbed hold of the topic eagerly, something he hopefully couldn’t offend anyone over. “I’ll start it at the weekend. The lecturers must expect it to be much more in-depth than the kinds of papers we wrote for school if they’ve given us an entire month to write it.” The idea of doing it wrong had been preying on his mind.
“There was a leaflet in the library about essay writing,” Callie said, sounding more like her usual self, the unnervingly stilted quality having left her voice. She dug around in her backpack for the information, reading out the main points to them and showing him how the bibliography was supposed to be laid out.
“I’ll have to grab one,” he said.
“I think I have a spare.” She found one in her bag and handed it over to him. He smiled at her and then caught Barve and Farlden’s bemused expressions.
“Yes, I’m a geek,” he said calmly, used to this fact not matching people’s expectations of him.
“No, it’s good,” Barve said.
“It’s pretty funny,” Farlden disagreed. “I mean, why bother? Can’t your parents get you any job you want whether you do well or not?”
“What would be the satisfaction of gaining anything I hadn’t achieved myself?”
“Huh.” Farlden was looking at him as if Elliot had somehow impressed him.
Elliot looked down at his food and tried to ignore the glow of pleasure in his chest. He opened his mouth to mention the subject of their magic to Farlden but a nearby commotion made them all look round.
“That’s it!” a girl shrieked at the table next to theirs, loud enough to make him jump. She had long blonde hair and a wide face that was probably beautiful when it wasn’t all scrunched up in anger. Elliot thought he had seen her before, either here or in one of his classes. She jumped to her feet, tipping over her chair. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you but I can’t take it anymore.”
“Eva, don’t say that,” the boy she had shouted at begged. He stood up and reached out a hand to touch her, which she shook off. “I love you.”
“Just leave me alone.” She hurried out of the room and the boy stood helplessly as he watched her go. He had dark hair and eyes, the kind of striking, brooding looks that a lot of people fell for, but his expression wasn’t the confident one of a popular kid. He looked lost and unsure of himself. He abruptly seemed to notice that half the people in the room were staring at him and, ignoring a comment from another boy at his table, self-consciously grabbed his bag and left the canteen.
“I wonder what that was about,” Elliot said.
“It was like having our own real-life soap opera,” Callie said, making the others smile.
Farlden picked up his backpack and food tray. “Bye,” he said and walked off. Elliot watched with consternation as he put the tray onto the racks provided and left the canteen, the hope of convincing him to talk about magic vanishing.
“Where’s he going?”
“To work on an art project,” Barve said and then Callie asked the Nean about his hobbies. As they chatted, Elliot decided to approach Farlden this evening: perhaps Farlden would speak more openly in private about what he knew about magic and about them combining their own magics again. It would make sense for him to be as eager as Elliot to have someone who had experienced magic to explore the subject with, but Farlden was never predictable.
Four hours later, Elliot’s fears proved more than justified.
“No, I don’t want to do it again.”
“What do you mean?” They were standing in Farlden’s room, which was as ugly as Elliot’s and had hardly anything personal in it, only a book and an art pad lying around and a few clothes tossed untidily over a chair to make it look as if anyone lived here.
“I don’t want to share our magic again,” Farlden repeated. “It’s too risky.”
“What’s risky about it?” Elliot asked, the desire to shake him back and stronger than ever. “The magic exists to be explored and it’s not harmful in any way. Barve is fine.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what the hell did you mean?”
“I said no, okay? Just accept it.”
“I can’t.” Elliot ran his hands through his hair, trying to understand what was happening. He walked to the window which, like his, looked out over the courtyard at the back of the building. A couple of people were sitting outside on plastic chairs, the halls of residence now full to the brim with students. The noise of chattering voices and music had still been loud when Elliot fell asleep last night.
He turned round again, taking in the fact that Farlden’s brown eyes and wide lips looked deceptively gentle when he wasn’t glaring. Why would he change his mind about the magic? “Are you just doing this to wind me up?”
“Yes,” Farlden snapped, looking him over in a critical way. “Everything’s about you.”
“Then tell me why.”
Farlden gave a nasty laugh. “This must be the first time in your life that anyone’s ever denied you something that you wanted. Annoying, isn’t it?”
That didn’t begin to describe the strength of the feeling building up inside him. He’d never wanted anything before as much as this and it sounded as if Farlden was just refusing to provoke him. “Listen to me.” He latched onto the idea that perhaps Farlden was just scared of the unknown. “This is a part of who we are. We have to learn more about it.”
“No.”
“That’s it?” He grabbed Farlden by the front of his T-shirt and the Nean went still, expression turning blank. Neans were pacifists: if Elliot hit him, he wouldn’t fight back. Elliot let go of him and backed away. He had never punched anyone in his life and was unnerved by the desire to do so now. He was usually a calm person. He said quietly, “It sounds to me as if you’re just a coward.”
Farlden’s fists clenched and it looked as if he could have caused an explosion with the heat of his rage.
Bitterly satisfied to have at least got a reaction, Elliot turned and walked out.
With nothing better to do, he returned to his bedroom, unlocking the door with shaking hands. Once inside he wanted to smash things or curl up on the floor and whimper.
His magic was part of who he was, but it had never been more than a disappointment before. The images it gave him were too haphazard and unclear to do any good, but yesterday had been different. He had always felt that the magic had a purpose, without knowing what it could be, and he was sure he and Farlden could have discovered it together.
Why had the Nean backed off? He paced up and down the tiny patch of open floor in his overflowing room. What had scared Farlden or had he actually been willing to deprive himself of the knowledge to annoy Elliot? It didn’t make sense.
He grabbed his jacket, wallet and keys and, after locking the door behind him, strode to the open front door of the halls. There were students about, chatting and getting to know each other, but he ignored them, pushing past. He normally liked to be surrounded by people – friends at least – but he needed to be alone right now.
He marched over to his car, got in and kept driving for about an hour, eventually stopping in the middle of nowhere and resuming the pacing he’d begun in his new bedroom.
He’d been so close to something amazing and it had been snatched away from him for no reason. Farlden was the most unreasonable, obnoxious person he had ever met.