Calypso High
Episode 6: Scrying
"Has everyone purchased a crystal ball?" the Wizarding teacher asked. (Mari had finally remembered his name: Mr. Wideski.) Without waiting for an answer, he said, "Good. Now-- what is it, Miss DeSka?"
Marianna DeSka had put her hand in the air. She wasn't waving it frantically. In fact, it wasn't really up, it was more like tentatively hovering near her head. She hated these parts of classes. "My parents wouldn't let me get one."
"Well, why not?"
"They said, and I quote, 'If you can't tell us what class you need $300 for, you can't have the money'." Mari shrugged. "I was just following instructions not to tell my parents about the details of the class."
"The details, DeSka, not the fact that you have the class and need materials for it." The teacher rolled his eyes and started digging in his closet for a spare school-issue crystal ball.
"We're poor," Mari said, quite loudly. She was sick of this pretentious school and its assumptions that everyone in Layla:) was rich. "They wouldn't have bought me a crystal ball anyway. Not even a second-hand, low-end one. I had to argue for a computer, a simple tech-piece, and after two years we still don't have Internet access."
Her classmates stared. The teacher waited patiently, for once, for her to finish.
"Um, that's all I can think of right now. You may now return to your regularly scheduled lecture."
The teacher set the spare crystal ball on Mari's desk. "Remember to sign that out at the end of class," he said, watching her carefully.
They'd learned about putting up mental blocks two weeks ago, and Mari had taken to that like a nerd to Calculus. She now had the strongest mental blocks in the school, with the exception of a couple of teachers. Nobody, not even Wideski, could get into her head. It felt good!
"Now, open to page 517 in your books, top of the page, where it says, 'Scrying formulas'. It will take you a few hours this weekend to work out these formulas, and then youÕll need to attune your balls according to the results. Your goal-- write this down-- is to see no more than thirty years into the future. Most of you will be close to fifty years old at that point. Make sure before you begin that the recording button is pressed down so I can review your results later..."
***
Tuesday afternoon...
"Now we'll go around the room," Mr. Wideski said, "and reveal what we found while scrying."
The first person to go was Dava. "I saw a nightclub. Marianna was tending bar. I also saw Marianna, a small girl, a lion and a winged unicorn standing in an alley."
"That's it?" Wideski asked.
"Yeah, the ball fritzed after that much. I think I shouldnÕt have bought second-hand."
"Okay. Mr. Osric?"
"I saw Marianna standing over a dead body on a sidewalk. At night."
"Miss DeSka," Wideski said, wheeling on Mari, "did you project anything into the other students' balls?"
Mari almost died laughing in her head, but managed to keep a straight face as she replied, honestly, "Nope. Why would I want someone to see me standing over a dead body? There are better places I could have projected myself into." /Like, not Layla:)/, she thought.
"Hm. Who's next?"
As the class shared their scrying experiences, one thing remained constant: Marianna.
Jens Herrkauf said, "I saw myself onstage at a nightclub, singing barbershop with a couple other guys."
"Miss DeSka wasn't there?" Wideski asked.
"Uh... yeah. She was standing by the stage."
Wideski, by this time, was looking very concerned. "And what did you see, Miss DeSka?"
"Um, I saw a girl, a bit older than me, sitting in a cave talking to a glowing green crystal that was floating in front of her," Mari said, feeling very... wrong. She'd thought the vision was odd when she'd done it last night, but now, it seemed worse than odd.
"Uh-huh. And Mr. Perkins?"
"Clouds," Dan said. "Dark clouds. I even asked my parents to help, and they couldn't figure out what was wrong."
Wideski frowned. "Leave your balls here, all of you, for review. We've never had results like this before. It needs to be checked out by the Scrying Department." Wideski hesitated, not a normal thing for him, then said, "You're all dismissed for the rest of the period. You have my permission to go to the cafeteria or the courtyard. Be quiet in the halls."
The class poured out of the room, thrilled to be getting about half the period off. A few of the students were laughing, finally able to release the stress of hearing the word "balls" about a million times that class.
Dan caught up with Mari in the stairwell. "Hey, looks like you're going to be pretty important in the future."
"Yahoo," Mari said, twirling a finger in the air unenthusiastically. "It also looks like I'm stuck in Layla:) for the rest of my life."
"Oh, it's not so bad. It's a place unto itself. Lots better than the other places I've lived."
"Whatever. You want to buy me a slushie?" Mari said, veering into the cafeteria through the back doors.
"Uh... what did you just say?"
"Wow, you're just too smart for me. Okay, I'll buy my own. Pi–a colada," she said to the cafeteria lady. "And a pretzel with salt."
"Mari, Mari, Mari! Buy me food!" Mari heard from across the cafeteria.
"Miss DeSka, keep your voice down!" the study hall teacher shouted.
Daniela skidded up to Mari and Dan. "Food?"
"Didn't Mom pack you a lunch?" Mari said. "Add a Bahama Mama to that."
"And a bag of Fritos," Dani added.
"You owe me," Mari said as the cafeteria lady added to her order.
"Yep," Daniela said, scurrying off with her slushie and Fritos.
"Sometimes I wish these things were real pi–a coladas," Mari muttered to Dan.
"Blue raspberry," he said. "But Mari, can't alcohol hurt your ability to keep up those mental blocks?"
"Ooh yah. Forgot that. Need those blocks!" Mari said, picking up her slushie and pretzel. "Say, let's go out to the courtyard, most of the kids will be out there and I need to ask some of them about the details of their scries."
"'Scries'?"
"Whatever."
***
Two days later...
"In the near future, the world will revolve around Miss DeSka," Wideski said sorrowfully.
"Heh?" Mari said, confused. "Everyone knows the world revolves around my sister Daniela."
"As for Miss DeSka's attempt at scrying, her sub-par math skills--"
"My what?!"
"-- caused her to see 300 years into the future instead of thirty or fewer, and the implications of that have not yet been determined. We're pretty sure she also managed to tap into an alternate dimension, since you aren't supposed to be able to see past your own lifetime."
At this, Dan frowned.
"ThatÕs right, Mr. Perkins. The reason you couldn't see anything is that within 30 years, you will be dead. I can only presume that your parents didn't tell you because they could not believe it themselves."
The class gasped. Dan, already pale, began shaking.
"That is it! I can't stand you people anymore! Your elitist, know-it-all..." Mari continued her tirade, rising from her seat.
The crystal balls around the room fizzled and cracked, sending rainbow puffs of smoke into the room. Sparks flew, lightning streaks crackled around her, but Mari was oblivious as she rose three feet in the air.
Mr. Wideski cowered behind his desk, avoiding shards from the popping crystal balls. Students screamed, and a couple girls ran into the hall.
"-- And I hope you all end up crushed by the weight of your self-absorbed bureaucracy!" And Mari dropped to the ground, unconcsious.
The smoke cleared, and shaken students started brushing crystal shards off of their clothing. The teacher opened a window, using a simple fanning spell to clear the rest of the smoke out of the room. Then someone noticed Mari wasnÕt the only unconscious student.
Wideski shook Dan, tried various smelling salts and anti-coma spells, all to no avail.
Dan had died of fright.
His already badly disturbed nervous system (between the teacherÕs demeanor and the results of his scrying attempt) had simply shut down when Mari exploded.
***
"And so, in the final balance of your talents and crimes, we have decided to award you, Marianna DeSka, a Sorceressship Second-Class, with severe restrictions." The Wizard handed Mari a scroll.
Numbly, she left the room. Daniela, who had been waiting outside, followed her as she walked out into the windy spring day, for once having the sense not to pepper her sister with questions.
Mari stood quietly in the schoolyard, staring out at the football field and the forest beyond. Sorceress Second-Class. With restrictions.
A single tear rolled down her cheek, as the wild wind whipped her hair into spiderwebs across her face. Her hand dropped to her side, fingers uncurling and allowing the wind to snatch the scroll away.
From now on, nothing mattered. She knew the future. It would come no matter what she did. So she would do nothing.
***
Later that evening, Daniela locked away the scroll her sister had dropped. She hadn't read it, but she had the feeling it might come in handy in a few years. Dani rarely played hunches, but this one fairly screamed at her. She hoped it was right.
***