10. What Big Eyes You've Got
Giovanni walked alongside Agatha, without speaking, thinking that perhaps he should try to borrow Circe's night-light and try to stay up all night in order to finish the ungodly amount of homework he had just been given. But he forgot all about it when he noticed that Agatha had taken him to the hallway that seemed to lead nowhere and had no doors in it. They walked all the way to the end of the hallway and then she pressed on the wood paneling of the end wall, making a hidden door open. She started walking down the staircase there.
"Where're we going?"
"Oh, Professor Benoni's classroom is in the basement. Thought you knew…"
The single rise of steps ended in another door that opened into a single hallway with one single wrought-iron door at its end. Agatha put her hand on the door, and it opened silently into a brightly illuminated room.
"Professor Benoni, here's the boy." Giovanni couldn't tell why, but Agatha sounded a bit uncomfortable.
"Ah, thank you, thank you! Please, Giovanni, please come in!" A slight man, barely taller than Giovanni, apparently in his early twenties, stepped up to him and pumped his hand precisely three times. "Nice to meet you. See you later, miss Agatha!" But Agatha had already closed the door.
Giovanni's first impression of Benoni is that he looked forever surprised. But he just had a high forehead and wide-set, bright eyes, that made him look as if he were just about to laugh at something.
"Well, well, well, the famous Wingrove scion, here to grace us with the promise of greatness… Ah, but your aunt's untimely demise was a stroke of the worst luck, I daresay! Well, hopefully we can keep a better eye on you!" Benoni seemed sincere enough, but Giovanni felt mocked all the same.
"Well, then, here we are: Theory of Magick! Wonderful. And we have here today three of the more promising young ones, together for a special class. You know each other already, I'm sure!" Benoni gestured grandiosely, and Giovanni was able to finally take his eyes off the thin man and see that Circe and Garret were sitting on the floor. This room was as austere as the Practicals room, with just a blackboard, a three-legged stool and cushions on the floor for the students. But Giovanni felt disconcerted to see that there was just a small window high up in the corner of the ceiling with the wall, but the room seemed lighted brightly. There were no lamps in evidence, and there seemed to be no source for so much light. Shrugging it off, Giovanni went to sit down by Circe.
"Very well, then, introductions all around: Circe Kostya here, she's the long lost scion of the Alecto family, recently re-introduced to her great-granny, Adelaide!" Everything Benoni said sounded enthusiastic and mocking.
"Wow," Giovanni nudged Circe, "you didn't tell me you were related to the Furies."
"Yes, well, my family didn't know we were related to them until the beginning of the year, when I started doing Magick without meaning to…" Circe seemed a bit uncomfortable and proud at the same time.
"Yes, yes, a very interesting story!," Benoni interrupted happily, "how the great Adelaide lost track of her only daughter and she ended up living in Russia, and then her children moved back to America and had this precious little girl here. Yes, interesting!"
"Yah, thrilled…" Garret mumbled, anything but.
"Ah, young master Garret Feldman, you do honor your long lineage justly renowned, as our good mister Wozniak attests in his reports of your comportment in Practicals!" When Benoni said this, Garret puffed up like a miniature peacock.
"And I can do lots of other stuff, too! And not only basic stuff, either!" Garret looked immediately sorry to have confessed this.
"Of course, of course!" Benoni soothed, "it's understandable that Feldman Senior felt the need to take a hand in the early education of his proud progeny, of course!"
"Well, I can't do squat, so I don't know what's this all about, alright?"
"Ah, succinctly put, Giovanni. Well, to business, then. Let me tell you why we are meeting exclusively today. I have information that pertains only to you because of your special circumstances, and would be of no use to the rest of your classmates, so I will ask for your discretion, yes?" Garret nodded fervently, Circe a bit less certain. But Giovanni just narrowed his eyes and stared at Benoni. He didn't like being singled out, and he was suspicious of secrecy without knowing the reason behind it.
"Very well, these past six weeks we've been studying the reasoning behind the Acts of Magick. We've learned…" Benoni interrupted himself to hand Giovanni a hard-backed book. "Please go ahead and read to chapter three, inclusive, and you will be caught up with the class. It is rather dense and convoluted, so don't worry too much if you can't make much sense of it. Many experts cannot make much sense of it, either!"
Giovanni looked down at the book in his hands. "Of the Will," said the title. He leafed through a few pages, and only saw sentence after sentence written in very small letters. Argh!, he thought, as if I needed extra homework…
"As I was saying, we've learned in class some history, and some general ideas as to how and why Magick has existed as long as there have been human beings. With these thoughts in mind, answer me this: Yesterday you practiced the Act of Joining. Wouldn't it had been easier to use glue?"
Garret and Circe looked confused for a moment, but Giovanni only smiled, and asked in return, "Woulda been easier, but it wouldn't have been magic, right?"
"Na-ah!! It would too have been Magick!" Circe contradicted him, with her eyes full of wonder.
"Yes, because it would have been an expression of your Will, to join the two pieces together." Garret also seemed excited to think of it in this manner.
"O-kaaaay… So, everything humans do, because they do it out of reasoning with their brain, everything is magic?" Giovanni sounded as if he wanted really bad for it to be true.
"Ah! Well done: we've come to the crux of it! No!!" Benoni still sounded mocking. "No, humans do not do everything out of reasoning! Mostly, everything is directed by the genetic material in your cells: Even your behaviour can be traced back to the way chemicals in your bodies are put together!!" And he smiled. "Now, let's go back to the example with the glue. Yes: if you glue something to put it back together, you are doing an Act of Joining. It is Magick. But!!" Benoni put up a finger and let the suspense build for a couple of seconds. "But, where does the Magick reside? Where is the Magick in that Act?"
"In he who has the Will to Act…" Circe and Garret parroted the line learned in that very same classroom.
"No!" Giovanni had the manic look in his eyes of someone who has caught a momentary glimpse of the machinery behind the curtain. "No! The Magick," Giovanni said the word for the first time with the proper spelling in his mind, and it sounded completely different to him, and everyone else. "The Magick resides in whoever invented the glue!"
"What?" Circe and Garret said, and then whipped their head around from Giovanni to Benoni.
"Yes! Well done!" Benoni spoke at the same time they had. "You did very well with very few clues to go on! Congratulations! Yes! He is right: The Magick started with whoever thought of inventing glue, and we all benefit from it. Did you not use the same circle yesterday, time after time? Yes? Of course you did. So the glue is some sort of circle, and the Magick in it is active for whoever uses the glue for the same Act."
Benoni paused for a few seconds, looking avidly into the three young faces there, each one wrestling with the concepts at the moment. A momentary flicker of the light seemed to fill his face with harsh angles, and his eyes seemed to glisten with the sheen of cold marble. Giovanni caught a glimpse of the change for a fraction of a second, and the cold and clamy hand of dread clutched his heart for a heartbeat or two. But the impression only lasted for a small moment of time, and then was gone, and Benoni still stood there, smiling benignly at the three children.
"Wait a moment…" Giovanni had again the manic look on his face. "So, if the genes control most of your behavior, then Magick is… a genetic trait! You could breed Magick into people! You could make everyone magical!!" Giovanni had stood up, so excited he was by his discovery.
"Alas, if it were that easy…" Benoni sighed theatrically. "Unfortunately, even modern Science cannot isolate a single gene or group of genes that predispose people to be magical."
"They are looking for it??" Said Garret and Circe together.
"Well, no… not exactly!" And Benoni suddenly looked smug. "But they are looking for the combination of genes that give rise to consciousness…" Benoni said off-handedly, as if it didn't matter. "But let's stop here for today. I've given you plenty of material to think about. We'll meet again in one week's time, and you will be prepared to speak of these matters. Read the chapters I've indicated, and search the Internet for information on the subjects we've spoken about today. Until then, I bid you adieu!"
And just then, the door banged open and Agatha, Johannsen and Wozniak tumbled inside.
"You three, out! Go with mister Wozniak. Now!!" The three kids got up hurriedly and exited the room, afraid to see Agatha so angry. But she kept her gaze fixed on Benoni, and it was immediately apparent that her beef was with him. "What the hell were you doing in here?" Agatha demanded.
Benoni just shrugged. And then smiled, the way sharks seem to smile at times.
Giovanni walked alongside Agatha, without speaking, thinking that perhaps he should try to borrow Circe's night-light and try to stay up all night in order to finish the ungodly amount of homework he had just been given. But he forgot all about it when he noticed that Agatha had taken him to the hallway that seemed to lead nowhere and had no doors in it. They walked all the way to the end of the hallway and then she pressed on the wood paneling of the end wall, making a hidden door open. She started walking down the staircase there.
"Where're we going?"
"Oh, Professor Benoni's classroom is in the basement. Thought you knew…"
The single rise of steps ended in another door that opened into a single hallway with one single wrought-iron door at its end. Agatha put her hand on the door, and it opened silently into a brightly illuminated room.
"Professor Benoni, here's the boy." Giovanni couldn't tell why, but Agatha sounded a bit uncomfortable.
"Ah, thank you, thank you! Please, Giovanni, please come in!" A slight man, barely taller than Giovanni, apparently in his early twenties, stepped up to him and pumped his hand precisely three times. "Nice to meet you. See you later, miss Agatha!" But Agatha had already closed the door.
Giovanni's first impression of Benoni is that he looked forever surprised. But he just had a high forehead and wide-set, bright eyes, that made him look as if he were just about to laugh at something.
"Well, well, well, the famous Wingrove scion, here to grace us with the promise of greatness… Ah, but your aunt's untimely demise was a stroke of the worst luck, I daresay! Well, hopefully we can keep a better eye on you!" Benoni seemed sincere enough, but Giovanni felt mocked all the same.
"Well, then, here we are: Theory of Magick! Wonderful. And we have here today three of the more promising young ones, together for a special class. You know each other already, I'm sure!" Benoni gestured grandiosely, and Giovanni was able to finally take his eyes off the thin man and see that Circe and Garret were sitting on the floor. This room was as austere as the Practicals room, with just a blackboard, a three-legged stool and cushions on the floor for the students. But Giovanni felt disconcerted to see that there was just a small window high up in the corner of the ceiling with the wall, but the room seemed lighted brightly. There were no lamps in evidence, and there seemed to be no source for so much light. Shrugging it off, Giovanni went to sit down by Circe.
"Very well, then, introductions all around: Circe Kostya here, she's the long lost scion of the Alecto family, recently re-introduced to her great-granny, Adelaide!" Everything Benoni said sounded enthusiastic and mocking.
"Wow," Giovanni nudged Circe, "you didn't tell me you were related to the Furies."
"Yes, well, my family didn't know we were related to them until the beginning of the year, when I started doing Magick without meaning to…" Circe seemed a bit uncomfortable and proud at the same time.
"Yes, yes, a very interesting story!," Benoni interrupted happily, "how the great Adelaide lost track of her only daughter and she ended up living in Russia, and then her children moved back to America and had this precious little girl here. Yes, interesting!"
"Yah, thrilled…" Garret mumbled, anything but.
"Ah, young master Garret Feldman, you do honor your long lineage justly renowned, as our good mister Wozniak attests in his reports of your comportment in Practicals!" When Benoni said this, Garret puffed up like a miniature peacock.
"And I can do lots of other stuff, too! And not only basic stuff, either!" Garret looked immediately sorry to have confessed this.
"Of course, of course!" Benoni soothed, "it's understandable that Feldman Senior felt the need to take a hand in the early education of his proud progeny, of course!"
"Well, I can't do squat, so I don't know what's this all about, alright?"
"Ah, succinctly put, Giovanni. Well, to business, then. Let me tell you why we are meeting exclusively today. I have information that pertains only to you because of your special circumstances, and would be of no use to the rest of your classmates, so I will ask for your discretion, yes?" Garret nodded fervently, Circe a bit less certain. But Giovanni just narrowed his eyes and stared at Benoni. He didn't like being singled out, and he was suspicious of secrecy without knowing the reason behind it.
"Very well, these past six weeks we've been studying the reasoning behind the Acts of Magick. We've learned…" Benoni interrupted himself to hand Giovanni a hard-backed book. "Please go ahead and read to chapter three, inclusive, and you will be caught up with the class. It is rather dense and convoluted, so don't worry too much if you can't make much sense of it. Many experts cannot make much sense of it, either!"
Giovanni looked down at the book in his hands. "Of the Will," said the title. He leafed through a few pages, and only saw sentence after sentence written in very small letters. Argh!, he thought, as if I needed extra homework…
"As I was saying, we've learned in class some history, and some general ideas as to how and why Magick has existed as long as there have been human beings. With these thoughts in mind, answer me this: Yesterday you practiced the Act of Joining. Wouldn't it had been easier to use glue?"
Garret and Circe looked confused for a moment, but Giovanni only smiled, and asked in return, "Woulda been easier, but it wouldn't have been magic, right?"
"Na-ah!! It would too have been Magick!" Circe contradicted him, with her eyes full of wonder.
"Yes, because it would have been an expression of your Will, to join the two pieces together." Garret also seemed excited to think of it in this manner.
"O-kaaaay… So, everything humans do, because they do it out of reasoning with their brain, everything is magic?" Giovanni sounded as if he wanted really bad for it to be true.
"Ah! Well done: we've come to the crux of it! No!!" Benoni still sounded mocking. "No, humans do not do everything out of reasoning! Mostly, everything is directed by the genetic material in your cells: Even your behaviour can be traced back to the way chemicals in your bodies are put together!!" And he smiled. "Now, let's go back to the example with the glue. Yes: if you glue something to put it back together, you are doing an Act of Joining. It is Magick. But!!" Benoni put up a finger and let the suspense build for a couple of seconds. "But, where does the Magick reside? Where is the Magick in that Act?"
"In he who has the Will to Act…" Circe and Garret parroted the line learned in that very same classroom.
"No!" Giovanni had the manic look in his eyes of someone who has caught a momentary glimpse of the machinery behind the curtain. "No! The Magick," Giovanni said the word for the first time with the proper spelling in his mind, and it sounded completely different to him, and everyone else. "The Magick resides in whoever invented the glue!"
"What?" Circe and Garret said, and then whipped their head around from Giovanni to Benoni.
"Yes! Well done!" Benoni spoke at the same time they had. "You did very well with very few clues to go on! Congratulations! Yes! He is right: The Magick started with whoever thought of inventing glue, and we all benefit from it. Did you not use the same circle yesterday, time after time? Yes? Of course you did. So the glue is some sort of circle, and the Magick in it is active for whoever uses the glue for the same Act."
Benoni paused for a few seconds, looking avidly into the three young faces there, each one wrestling with the concepts at the moment. A momentary flicker of the light seemed to fill his face with harsh angles, and his eyes seemed to glisten with the sheen of cold marble. Giovanni caught a glimpse of the change for a fraction of a second, and the cold and clamy hand of dread clutched his heart for a heartbeat or two. But the impression only lasted for a small moment of time, and then was gone, and Benoni still stood there, smiling benignly at the three children.
"Wait a moment…" Giovanni had again the manic look on his face. "So, if the genes control most of your behavior, then Magick is… a genetic trait! You could breed Magick into people! You could make everyone magical!!" Giovanni had stood up, so excited he was by his discovery.
"Alas, if it were that easy…" Benoni sighed theatrically. "Unfortunately, even modern Science cannot isolate a single gene or group of genes that predispose people to be magical."
"They are looking for it??" Said Garret and Circe together.
"Well, no… not exactly!" And Benoni suddenly looked smug. "But they are looking for the combination of genes that give rise to consciousness…" Benoni said off-handedly, as if it didn't matter. "But let's stop here for today. I've given you plenty of material to think about. We'll meet again in one week's time, and you will be prepared to speak of these matters. Read the chapters I've indicated, and search the Internet for information on the subjects we've spoken about today. Until then, I bid you adieu!"
And just then, the door banged open and Agatha, Johannsen and Wozniak tumbled inside.
"You three, out! Go with mister Wozniak. Now!!" The three kids got up hurriedly and exited the room, afraid to see Agatha so angry. But she kept her gaze fixed on Benoni, and it was immediately apparent that her beef was with him. "What the hell were you doing in here?" Agatha demanded.
Benoni just shrugged. And then smiled, the way sharks seem to smile at times.
To Be Continued…
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