I spent my entire first week working for Lady Beth doing some of the most mundane of jobs, aside from helping her rehea.r.s.e for her show. Picking up dry cleaning, delivering packages, and taking notes. That's how my summer was being spent. I might as well have gotten an actual job, at least then I might have been paid. I stuck through it despite my boredom and irritation. If not for myself, then I guess I did it so BJ could have someone to turn to who was going through the same process. Sure I wanted the cure, but jumping through hoops to get it was not my style. It wasn't until week two that we got into actual magic.

It was a Tuesday. Rather than meeting in Beth's usual office backstage, we gathered in a room on the second floor across from the entrance to the theater's upper-level seating. It was a larger room but felt like a sort of storage area because of all the random props and junk lying around.

"Before a spell is sold, it goes through a process. The first step is the creation of a new spell. Then that spell must be tested to a.s.sure its effects are consistent. At the end of the cycle, we do what is called a binding," Beth said as we stood in the dimly lit room, and I tried to understand the change in scenery.

"A binding?" I asked.

"A binding is when you take a spell and force it to work under a simpler set of words. Doing this means you won't have to perform an entire ritual or read a page of incantation to perform a spell each time you use it. You'll simply need the words or phrases you've bound it to. The general public only uses bound spells. Most people can't begin to comprehend a full spell, so we sell them what's essentially a short cut or shorthand version simple enough a baby could recite it," she added.

She walked away from me to collect something from a table across the room. That gave me a moment to take in the sights. There were posters of Matt and Beth on the walls. I deduced that most of the props I saw probably belonged to them from back in their days of working directly together. Beth looked so young in person, about as young as those posters made her look, which was suspicious when you considered how old she must have been. Beth spent 15 years working as an a.s.sistant to Matt. It was admirable seeing her at a point in her life and career that allowed her to have her own a.s.sistant. That being said, she could have done better than me, a person who didn't have an interest in being there in the first place.

"Today, you'll create a new spell," she said.

"So no dry cleaning," I joked.

"Depends on how quickly you catch on."

"What do I have to do?" I asked as she walked back to me.

"Before we start, I have a gift for you," she said, handing me a small box.

It was odd receiving a gift from someone I didn't feel I had a personal relations.h.i.+p with. The way Beth treated me was, at times, annoying, but I always thought she was a professional just doing her job. A gift felt like more than a gift.

"Every magician needs protective gear to a.s.sure we don't hurt ourselves. My dress acts as my protective gear, Matt has his top hat, I thought these would look nice on you," she added.

I opened the small silk box. On the inside was a pair of fingerless black leather gloves. They looked expensive.

"They won't stop magic cast by another person, and they won't stop the magic that you purposely cast on yourself, but they will keep you from blowing up," she said.

"Thanks," I said as I put on the gloves.

They seemed to be a perfect fit. I'm sure they resized to fit my hands exactly. The leather felt natural like I'd always known it to be part of my hands.

"Today, you'll be required to perform a new spell capable of fulfilling a single task," Beth said as she took a step away from me.

I didn't think anything about the small motion.

"What kind of task?" I asked.

"It's very simple," she said with a grin before continuing to say, "get out of this room."

"What?" I asked, confused until she disappeared.

"You're s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g with me, right?" I spoke to myself, believing she could still hear my voice.

I walked over to the door and found that it couldn't be opened regardless of my standing on the side with access to the lock. I beat on the door for a moment, annoyed more than anything.

I was wondering why she decided to meet in a different room than usual. Had I been stuck in her office, the first thing I might have looked for would have been the cure.

All I had were the things in my backpack to a.s.sist my escape. Unfortunately, I lacked a sledgehammer or ax, but I had my notebook. With notes on how to go about crafting spells, I seemed to have two choices. Wait to be let out, or use magic.

Every spell needed four things in order to work.

1.An old source of power to be called on to fuel the spell.

2.An activation word to direct a spell toward a specific effect, which was basically any adjective that made sense.

3.The actual command, which was typically the hardest and longest part of a spell spanning anywhere from 10 words to 5 pages of strictly thought out semantics.

4. And finally, for a spell to actually be used, it had to be written on enchanted paper. Without holding onto the written form of a spell, saying it aloud would do nothing.

I was hesitant. I helped BJ with her original spells all the time, but the last spell I wrote on my own made me a rabbit. After almost an hour of waiting to be released, I realized I had to free myself or be trapped, for G.o.d only knew how long. I could hear through the walls. Beth was starting rehearsal for her show without me. On the one hand, I was glad to miss out on playing a.s.sistant, but on the other, it meant she wasn't about to save me. With no books to help me either, I had to work that much harder.

I needed something old to be the source of power in my spell. A few things came to mind like the high school or my dad's car, but I settled on the Dead Woods. It was definitely old enough. Activation words were easy enough to come up with. Simple words like ignite, run, freeze, or blow usually worked, and the more dynamic the word, the stronger the effect. The hard part was the command.

In the end, I came up with "Dead Wood, ignite, burn solid wood." Enchanted paper was relatively cheap, but at the time, I only had a few sheets in my bag. If my spell didn't work, I'd have to try another. You couldn't reuse enchanted paper for more than one spell, so with only four sheets available, I lacked the luxury of making too many mistakes. Most original spells had page long command sections, so I didn't feel confident about the command in my first spell being shorter than five words. I figured the best approach was to keep things simple and avoid overthinking the problem. Either way, I had to start somewhere and try something. After reciting the words, I was hoping for the door to burn down. At best, my first attempt was successful in making the room hotter. It felt like a fireplace was on full blast, but I was still trapped.

I tried a different spell, "Dead Woods, blow, destroy walls of barrier." My intention was for a strong wind to knock down the walls. What I got were strong winds that levitated my body off the floor. Admittedly, it was cool. I made a flying spell, but then I couldn't figure out how to come back down. I had to wait for the wind to die, at which point I fell from the ceiling and did a face plant on the dusty wood floor.

I f.u.c.king hated semantics, and as such, magic hated me. Nonetheless, I only had two attempts left. My third try was a dud. Putting words together on enchanted paper didn't guarantee something would happen. Regardless of whether or not it worked, I wasted another sheet of paper which left me with one chance left.

Clearly, my "keep it simple" approach wasn't working. If I wanted a spell to actually free myself, I'd need to craft something more specific and detailed. I spent a few hours writing out the most carefully worded full-page command I could think of. I put the effort in, but I was doubtful as to what all I'd get out.

I said the words with my eyes closed too afraid to look at the results until I heard a sound that begged me to watch. The wood floor began to crumble, and as I stood at its center, I felt my weight becoming too much for it to bare. I held my breath, trying to keep light on my feet. Like sand, the wood panels fell away, and I, along with a room full of props, fell just the same. I fell from the second floor down into the first-floor seats of the main theater. It wasn't the worst fall I'd ever taken, but the sound I made when the seats finally broke my fall was memorable enough. Standing up, I noticed Beth looking my way utterly speechless.

She ran off the stage to help me. It was a nice gesture considering she wasn't aware of how mangled and abused my body was used to being. After checking me out and looking me over for injuries, we sat in a pair of seats. She demanded I get off my feet. I don't think she believed I was alright.

"No one has ever freed themselves in less than a day," she said.

"So, this is something you do often?" I asked as she continued to look me over.

Annoying or not, I didn't mind her handsy approach to inspecting my injuries.

" It's a cla.s.sic test given to every new magician," she added.

"So you had to do this," I questioned.

"Of course."

"And you took longer than a day," I pressed somewhat

Out of curiosity.

"A day and a half," she said proudly before continuing, "I had the best score in Daybreak's history, second only to Matt, who freed himself in exactly 26 hours."

"What if it took more than a day? What if I needed a bathroom?" I argued.

"The test ends after five days. You would have survived, but to come out after only 8 hours," she said.

She was speechless again, but I wasn't feeling anything but hunger and a need for sleep. Waking up at 6 in the morning to be at the theater by 8, then being tested for hours had me drained.

"Was that all for today?" I asked as I stood up.

She stayed seated still in disbelief, if not shock.

"We have a rehearsal," she said.

"I just broke some kind of record, don't I at least deserve a night off or?" I debated.

"Now is not the time to retire. You've undergone a tremendous feat."

"And now I'd like to eat and sleep," I said with my hands in my pockets as if ready to go.

She didn't want me to leave, but I spent an entire day locked in a box, so I might have left regardless.

"You can take the night, but tomorrow I'll test you more vigorously. If today proves anything, it's that you are far beyond your peers, and it's time I treat you so."

"Sure thing," I shrugged before taking my leave.

BJ wasn't outside waiting for me like usual. If she was going through the same test I did, there was a chance it would have been a while before I'd see her again. BJ wasn't accustomed to b.u.mps and bruises like me. Seeing how I had no clue where she was, I tried to rea.s.sure myself of her safety. I told myself they wouldn't let anything bad happen to a bunch of high school kids, but I fell through a ceiling. I felt terrible when I finally started walking home knowing I was leaving her behind.

It was dark outside, but the summer wind held a warmth that kept me awake on my walk. By the time I made it home, Dad was already inside sitting at his usual spot in the living room. I broke curfew, but he knew I was at the interns.h.i.+p. As I walked in, I saw him turn his head slightly at the sound of my locking the front door.

"How was it," he asked from his seat while I walked further into the house.

"I broke some sort of record test thing today," I said with little enthusiasm as I made my way into the kitchen.

Mom was right; we didn't know how to make anything new. Dad cooked the same burgers and fries as usual, but I didn't mind.

"That's great. We should celebrate," he said, getting up from his seat to meet me in the kitchen just in time to see my standing over the counter stuffing my face.

"It's not that big a deal," I said between mouth fulls until he made me sit at the table and eat like a human with a plate and less ketchup.

"It's not everyday records are broken, especially in this town," he said with a more enthusiastic tone than I could muster as he took a seat beside me.

He was wearing his overalls from the garage, and his drive through uniform under it. He must have had a long day. Usually, Dad's schedule allowed him to do one job or the other rather than both every day. There was a time when being a mechanic was enough to get by. Magic and magicians didn't become popular, much less common, until the time I was born. In some ways, magic evolved the same way technology did. Computers weren't always around, and it took even longer for cell phones to blow up. Magic was the same way. Before it got popular, cars were necessary for everyday life, but then people learned to fly. Who needs a car when you can teleport or run 60 miles per hour? Naturally, the need for mechanics went down, not enough to put the profession out of business, but low enough that my dad needed a second job working in fast food.

"Thanks, dad, but I think I'm alright," I said.

I didn't see anything special in the day that I had, but even if I did, I didn't want to work my dad any harder. It's funny how he probably did a world's worth of more work than me that day, but somehow he's the one who wanted to celebrate. He had it in him too.

By the time I made it to my bedroom, it was nearing 1 in the morning. I kicked off my pants, tossed my t-s.h.i.+rt across the room, and flopped into bed. I was tired, and I could feel my need for sleep.

But I couldn't keep my eyes shut long enough to drift off.

I had this odd sensation. Laying with my face to my pillow, I felt a grin; maybe even a smile creep up onto my face. I think I might have been proud of myself. I thought it was stupid feeling pride in something I swore I hated so much. Regardless, knowing I did something better than the people who were supposed to be teaching me made me feel something. I guess the significance of what I'd done finally sank in. I wasn't used to that feeling. It was quiet for a while, as I tried to contain my growing emotion.

I couldn't sleep.

I tried to, but I couldn't. I was used to ending my days on off notes. It was something unfamiliar to find myself in bed with feelings that negated my pessimistic views. It was even stranger to find myself feeling anything worth staying awake for. But I couldn't sleep.

I got up from bed to poke my head out of my bedroom doorway.

"Ok, maybe a little celebration," I yelled across the house at my dad, who was still watching TV in the living room.