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Skylar’s AR display reminded her that their time allowance was slipping away. Mrs. Mendez needed to make a decision soon, but she was busy researching options on her own palmtop computer. She was obviously still angry. She was muttering under her breath and jabbing the screen with her stony fingers. She was close to breaking the tiny computer.
Skylar glanced nervously at the receptionist desk, framed with mini-cameras keeping track of their engagement.
Skylar felt a tug on her hand, and turned around. She found the little boy, Luis, petting the synthetic fur of her magical masque in Skylar’s hand. It looked like the face of a brown bear from the forehead to cheekbones, including a protruding black nose. Skylar bent down and offered it to him, “Have you not seen one of these before?”
Luis kept looking at the bear masque, “Yeah, but yours is fuzzy. It reminds me of my stuffy, Buttons. He’s a bear too. The other masques I’ve seen had shapes, colors, or pictures on them.”
Skylar gave a weak smile. “I have some of those too,” she said. “I wear this one when I work because of kids like you.”
“It lets you do magic, right?”
Skylar nodded.
“How?”
Skylar rocked back a little at the rudimentary question that she now had to break down into something he could understand.
Skylar blew out a cloud of frost before starting to explain. “There are lots of theories about that, and the experts are still trying to figure out the whole thing. But I’ll tell you my favorite way to look at it, okay?” Luis nodded immediately, his eyes still shining from the tears from a minute ago.
“Imagine you’re in a huge room, filled with people. They’re all talking at once, so it’s really noisy, right? That’s the wild magic outside the walls, constant uncontrolled potential. Anything could happen, such as the river suddenly catching on fire. The walls reduce the volume of the noise, but everyone is still talking.” Skylar used her slender blue hands to make little mouths chatter at each other.
“Now, Shards, they use crystals to tune out the noise and amplify a particular sound. When that sound becomes loud and clear, it causes the effect the Shard wants. They have to be very fast and precise to pull this off. Lots of folks can learn to do this, which is why most of the magical things you find in stores were made by them. On the other hand, Whispers don’t try to be louder than anyone else, they blend in with the noise, listening to certain voices. Their magic only affects them, but that makes them less of a risk to everyone else.”
Luis looked down at the mention of the dangers of practicing magic in the city. He looked like he was about to cry again.
Artwork by Saquizeta.
Skylar changed the topic, “Masques, like me, we tell stories. These stories make the other voices stop talking and listen, and that focus makes the magic happen. These stories don’t have to be old, but they have old truths in them. These iconic truths are easiest to understand as characters in a story that share certain aspects. I follow the Path of the Guardian, so I tell stories about protecting people, making people feel better when they’re hurt, and keeping their homes safe. Wearing the masque makes us a symbol of characters and themes, which goes beyond language and into something deeper. Does that make sense?”
“I think so,” Luis said. He touched his collar with one little hand. A thin chain was tucked underneath his shirt, some kind of religious symbol just out of sight. People often confused the two, Skylar thought, they didn’t realize religions are a popular subset of the stories that could be used. It’s the elements of the story that give it iconic power. The actions done, the results achieved, the lessons learned. A story about a saint healing the sick works just as well as a wise woman or kind doctor doing the same.
“Does that mean you can help my dad?” he said with hope in his voice.