Graduation

Graduation



“Well done, Ruby!” said Mr. Fizzlecog.  “Now focus!  Feel the timeline of the object and follow it with your mind.”

Ruby Quickspring leaned forward a little over the desk, her face so flushed with concentration that it was almost as red as her hair.  In front of her, hovering just below eye-level, a single green apple floated in the air.  The trace of a shimmer flickered about the fruit, and it appeared to be shrinking by the second.

“That’s it,” said Mr. Fizzlecog gently, standing a few feet away, “just a little further, careful now, control, control...”

The apple diminished until it was little bigger than an egg, a walnut, a grape...

“Now stop!”

No more than a flower bud.

“Ruby!”

The little gnomish girl blinked and looked around, as with a soft ‘pop’ the tiny apple vanished.

“Oops!” she said breathlessly.  “I’m sorry!  I did it again didn’t I?!  I can’t believe it...”

Ruby hung her head dejectedly, and Mr. Fizzlecog stepped forward to lay a comforting hand on her shoulder.  She looked up gratefully into his kindly brown eyes.  He was young for a teacher, and handsome too, all the girls said so.  Ruby knew she was his favourite though.  She blushed at the notion.

“You’re not concentrating,” he said in a tone of voice that lacked admonishment.  “You should feel a little tug on the timeline as you come to its end, like when you unravel a loose thread on your jumper and it catches just before coming away completely.  You know?”

“I know,” she whined, “I’m sorry, I guess I’m just not very good at this.”

“Nonsense,” said the teacher firmly.  “You’re my best student, Ruby.  This is incredibly advanced magic for your age.  That you can do any of this at all makes you very special.”

Ruby blushed again.

“You think I’m special?”

“You know I do,” he said softly.

“And I’m your best student?”

Mr. Fizzlecog smiled.

“Stop fishing for compliments, Quickspring, and let’s try this again.” he said, reaching into a basket on his desk and retrieving another apple.  “And you’d better get it right this time because this is my last apple.”  He placed it in front of her.  “Look, it’s ruby red too.  For luck.”

Ruby giggled, and then her thoughts began to wander as she stared at the shiny fruit in front of her.

“How can this be your last one?” she asked, bemused.  “Can’t you just conjure some more?”

“Not for this,” replied the teacher, shaking his head.  “Conjured objects have no history, no timelines.  They can’t be manipulated the same way.”

Ruby thought for a moment.

“Sir,” she began again, tentatively, “people have timelines, right?”

“We do,” he replied warily, seemingly knowing what was coming.

“So you could make somebody younger?  Or older?” she asked.

“I don’t imagine it would be a very pleasant experience for the subject,” said Mr. Fizzlecog, “but yes, it’s possible.”

“What about people who... aren’t here anymore.  If you could find their timelines, couldn’t you bring them back to...”

Her voice tailed off as she caught the knowing look on her teacher’s face.  Too knowing.  He knew why she was asking.

“It doesn’t work like that, Ruby,” he said quietly.  Ruby looked down at the gleaming red apple and sighed.  “Come on,” said Mr. Fizzlecog gently, “one more try.”

Ruby gathered herself and focused on the fruit, which levitated up off the desk.  The air around it flickered and distorted for a brief moment, and then it began to shrink smaller and smaller.  The teacher wanted to warn her again, but he bit his tongue this time as the little red object dwindled to the size of a pinhead... and then stopped.  His young student shook with the effort of the task as slowly, gradually, the apple began to grow again, bobbing and revolving lazily in the air until it was back to its original size.  As it descended gracefully onto Ruby’s desk, he clapped his hands together with pleasure.

“Bravo, Ruby!  Wonderful!  Well done!”

She sat back in her chair, exhausted and breathless and beaming with pride.  Mr. Fizzlecog picked up the apple and turned it over in his hands.  It was perfect.  Ruby watched him, imagining that she were the apple, and she shivered involuntarily.

“Well,” he began, “I really don’t know what to say.  That was--”

A knock at the classroom door interrupted him, and Ruby looked around to see another gnomish girl standing there, smiling brightly and flicking her glossy brown hair over her shoulder.  Ugh, thought Ruby.  Bexi.  She’d never liked Bexi.

“Um, that’ll do it for today then Ruby,” said the teacher.  He set the apple back down on the desk and Ruby picked it up without thinking as she got to her feet.  “And well done again,” he whispered in her ear, “you’re going to be some mage.”

Ruby flushed, and grinned, before swinging her bag up over her shoulder and heading for the door with a skip in her step.  Bexi Cracklebolt eyed her haughtily as she passed, but Ruby didn’t care.  She was special.  Mr. Fizzlecog said so.

She had barely gone twenty paces, lost in a very pleasant little daydream, when she realized she had taken the ruby red apple with her.  Mr. Fizzlecog’s last apple.  How stupid of her!  Surely he would need it to teach the rest of the day’s classes.  She span around and ran back, and was about to burst back into the classroom when she heard something that made her freeze dead in her tracks.  The door was open a few inches, and Mr. Fizzlecog’s soft voice floated out to meet her.

“Why don’t we try something a little different today Bexi,” he said, “since you’re my best student and all.”

“I am?” she asked coyly.

“Of course,” replied the teacher.  “You’re very special.”

Ruby’s chest contracted, wringing her pounding heart like a sponge.  With a trembling hand, she pushed the door open and stepped inside to find Mr. Fizzlecog and Bexi Cracklebolt standing in front of the teacher’s desk.  His hand was on her shoulder, and he was giving her the same affectionate look that Ruby knew so well.

It took them a moment to realize that Ruby was there, because she didn’t speak.  Anger was boiling up inside of her, anger that under normal circumstances she would have been able to control, but the lesson had taken so much out of her that there was nothing now she could do to stop it.

“Ruby!  How long have you been there?”

Mr. Fizzlecog half-turned towards her in surprise and his hand slid from Bexi’s shoulder.  There was a trace of guilt in his voice, and it was perhaps guilt that caught him off guard, because he didn’t notice the ripple of energy in the air around them until it was too late.  He tried to call out to Ruby, his eyes wide with panic, the terrified girl next to him frozen to the spot, but Ruby couldn’t hear it.

Then Ruby screamed.  A high, horrifying scream that lasted several long seconds.  Had her eyes been open, she might have caught a glimpse of two small, scared children clinging to each other for dear life in front of the teacher’s desk.  But by the time Ruby looked again they had both vanished.  Regressed from existence.

The ruby red apple slipped from her fingers and bounced with a thud on the ground, as Ruby Quickspring wandered, in a daze, from the empty classroom.



(Part 2: The Stolen Heart  >>)

Eeep, that was a chilling story. But one of the finer reads I've had in awhile. Not only do gnomes not come up often enough in stories, but this was really creative and well written, and actually made me interested in this lass' life. I hope you'll be sharing more stories in the future.

I will. And thanks, that's quite a compliment from someone who writes as well as you do.

<3 Awesome!

“You’re not concentrating,” he said in a tone of voice that lacked admonishment. “You should feel a little tug on the timeline as you come to its end, like when you unravel a loose thread on your jumper and it catches just before coming away completely. You know?”

Loved it, nice methaphors.

Your story was such a pleasure to read!!! I really, really enjoyed of and you have such a nice and well put together writing style. It was really refreshing to read too because it's not often we get to read stories about gnomes! !!! Keep writing, I'm looking forward to more