Tides of magic, p.12
Tides of Magic, page 12
“I hope they sort something out...”
“Honestly,” Melissa said. “I mean, so do I, but I’m also feeling oddly relaxed about the outcome. It feels like things are just going to fall into place one way or another, you know? And if takes me an extra year, well I think there are some new things I can learn. Things that seemed so important just a little while ago just aren’t that much. So much stuff out there that I didn’t even know I didn’t know.”
“I’ve been thinking of going back to uni too?” Charley said, hesitantly.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I’ve been thinking. If this ADHD really is why I’ve been finding things so hard – and I think it is, I really do – then there are things I can do about it. I might be able to get through uni. Be more organised. Hold down a proper job. Just remember to brush my hair more consistently. I could be everything I’d always dreamed about being.”
“Were those your dreams, though?” Melissa asked gently, and Charley began to cry, horrified at herself, hot tears that somehow wouldn’t stop coming.
“I just wanted to not be terrible.” Charley felt Melissa’s arm around her shoulders, let herself be pulled in close.
“You’ve never been terrible. I promise you. And if you really want to study, or have a career in mind that needs a degree, then of course, and I’ll try to do more to support you. But I don’t think that’s the best place for you.”
Charley dried her eyes. “Why not?” she asked, trying to sound as normal as possible.
“You know I used to read heaps of books as a kid?” Charley nodded. Melissa had been an advanced reader. She’d heard about that from an early age. “Well I read lots of books about children going through magic portals, and I used to think about what would happen if one opened when we were playing or on our way back home from the pool, and do you know what I always felt?”
Charley shook her head, feeling something bitter rising in the back of her throat. She let Melissa continue.
“I felt jealous of you. Because I knew you were the one with the courage to go through, the one who would have the adventures. That deep down I was too boring and too scared for that.”
“You’re not boring!” Charley exclaimed, indignantly.
“Maybe not boring exactly. But I tread well-worn paths. I’m not upset about it, it’s just who I am. But you... you’re extraordinary. It’s not because you do or don’t have ADD, and it’s probably not even because you have magic. It’s your personality. You’re curious. You talk to people even when it scares you. You can do things that no one would have thought possible. Don’t pass up this opportunity. It’s your chance to be who you really are. Not a lot of people get a chance like that handed to them.”
“Mum and Dad are going to think I’ve finally failed them for good,” Charley replied.
“Let them.”
Charley realised her sister’s voice was forceful and seething with barely contained rage. She felt suddenly cold, and, if she could be excused the pun, rather all at sea. “I’m sorry, I know you have a good relationship and I’m glad, but...”
“No.” Melissa’s response was firm. Charley blinked in confusion.
“No, you don’t have a good relationship?”
“Well no, I don’t. But I mean, if people treat you like crap, don’t feel you have to be okay with it just to keep them happy. You understand? It’s ultimately your life. I know this sounds clichéd, but. It’s honestly true.”
Charley found what she was hearing difficult to comprehend. “I failed them at every turn. But they worshipped you???” she said, trying not to sound as surprised as she felt. “You were exactly the child they wanted, their golden child. You did everything right.”
Melissa looked pained, and Charley’s instinct was to apologise, even though she didn’t know what she might have said wrong, to try desperately to make it all stop, but before she could decide how to proceed, Melissa took a deep breath and resumed talking.
“Okay, let me tell you a story. It’s not a nice story but you’re ready for it. So, when I was 15 or 16, a couple of years at least until uni, I was struggling with... well with a lot of things really, and the school wanted me to drop some of the extras, for my own well-being as much as anything else. They worked out what I needed to get into first-year health science and what I could drop, and it was going to make things so much easier on me and let me take a breather while still meeting all my goals. The school presented this to my parents. And they said no. And at this point I was in a really bad way, not eating properly, self-harming, trying desperately to get control of everything. And they just... didn’t care about what was best for me. They cared about me fulfilling a role for them. I got through, but it was the worst year of my life, and honestly, it could have killed me. So I know it was worse for you. I know you bore the brunt of it and they were cruel to you in a way Rupert and I didn’t experience. But if you think they were happy with me as I was... that wasn’t the case.”
Charley looked at her sister, feeling like there was a whole rush of information, whole years of experiences she’d had, now queuing to be re-evaluated, flooding her. “Why...”
Melissa shrugged. “Because they liked having images of children more than they actually liked having real people as children? Because they’d gloated to all their friends about me being in all these programmes and they couldn’t take it back? That was their concern. Not my well-being, not in the slightest. But once they find out that I’m not okay with it, that I’m not going to be married and give them grandchildren, that I’m not this picture of normative success, well, let’s just say the love you’ve seen them display to me isn’t unconditional.”
“You’re... not going to marry? Like just not going to marry marry or you’re not going to be with anyone?”
“You know I’ve never really dated, right? And definitely never been in a relationship?”
“I thought you were just busy with study.”
“I thought that too. I didn’t really have any other explanation for myself. And then when I worked it out I kept pretending, because it was easier than being dismissed or told I was just being childish or making things up. But the truth is that I’ve never been interested. I’ve never got it. At first, I thought I was just a late developer, but then I heard words like asexual and aromantic and realised they applied to me. But it was easier to pretend I was focused on study – which wasn’t untrue – than to try to explain that.”
“So all that looking at magazines together when we were teens... oh shit, did I put pressure on you to fake that?”
“You didn’t. I was faking to myself, but it was fun sometimes too. I can find people pretty. The way I can find nice curtain fabric pretty. But whatever it is that pings in most people, that attraction, it just doesn’t happen for me. I honestly don’t know what it would be like if it did, but I don’t feel like I’m missing out.”
“You know, they didn’t totally freak out when they found out I was bi. They weren’t happy, but they didn’t, like, disown me or anything. But maybe they just always expected me to be weird.”
“I’m sorry, it sounds horrible to say, but yeah. For me, it would be the whole golden-child façade crumbling, and they’d be desperately trying to build it back up. There’d be sobbing and late-night phone calls, and the only way I’d be able to cope would be to cut them off, and then that would have financial implications. It’s cowardly, I know, and very selfish, but being able to start out without a big student loan hanging over me is worth it. Probably. But once that’s over there’s going to be some distance between us, and either they start making some changes or I stretch that distance even further. It’s not about punishing them, it’s about living my own life and not being sucked into all the drama every time.”
Melissa would be okay, though. Maybe not everything was how it had seemed with her, but she was strategic, in control of things. And she wanted to be family for Charley, and both of them could dispense with their parents and anyone who took their side and still have each other. Melissa had a plan, and it was time for Charley to make hers.
But it was not a plan, returning to Inver Aora. One day she just did it, everything seeming to come together so easily and naturally. She took food with her this time, a full suitcase of clothes, her consoles; packed up the car, and drove. The nausea, the disorientation, the general malaise of it all hit later this time, not until she could actually see the sea and taste the salt in the air, but it was still strong. She didn’t even need to drive as far as Thalassa’s house; the woman was standing by the road, with the wind incoming from the sea blowing out her hair dramatically. Charley pulled over and got out – it wasn’t a good place to park, but she knew by now just how little traffic came through here. Thalassa handed her a metal flask, one of the ones where the lid doubled as a cup.
Charley knew before she opened it that it would be the weird tea. It had never actually reached appetising levels, but it no longer repulsed her – instead she just ignored the smell and taste. Even after a few sips, she was starting to feel better.
“Someone who hates the sea having sea magic. What an irony,” Charley said, her eyes fixed on the horizon. Summer had returned. Inver Aora was busier now – children were exploring the rocks for pools and crabs, tourists were walking the beach. Charley didn’t mind a bit of busyness. In fact, it made the place feel more attractive, knowing that at least for a few months every year it wouldn’t be quite so isolated, that there’d be new people to talk to.
“It’s not a coincidence. It’s not being able to focus your magic, the whole overwhelming power of the thing that you don’t have the mental resources to conceptualise. It doesn’t matter. It’s still clear to me that you have a similar sort of magic to what I have, just buried. I suspect it’s... it’s not even the ADD that’s obscuring it, so much as the amount of effort and pressure you’re putting yourself under to try to compensate for it. You’re exhausted, poor child.”
Charley wanted to burst into tears then and there. She was exhausted, she always had been, and it felt like no one else had even noticed. She held her composure, though. Dramatic displays of emotion really weren’t Thalassa’s thing.
“I don’t know how to use it, though,” she said.
“That’s okay. You went to Dr Pedrick, as I suggested?”
Charley nodded. “Yep, and I’m going to be paying him off for the rest of my life. Closest thing anyone my age is going to get to a mortgage. But… you were right. ADHD inattentive type. He prescribed me some meds, and recommended some books.”
“And it’s helping?”
“Yes…” Charley replied cautiously. “I mean, it’s not a miracle. And the pills have some side effects, and sometimes things get worse when they wear off. But… wow. I’ve realised I was dealing with so much more than other people. No wonder I found it hard.”
“Indeed.”
“I… uh, thank you for telling me. I don’t know yet how it affects the sea thing. I didn’t… I mean the doctor knows about magic, right, but I still didn’t want to bring it up.”
“He does, but you made the right decision. That’s not part of his job. We’ll figure out if ADHD or something else has been overwhelming you. Once that’s dealt with, some of it will come naturally. Most of mine I figured out through trial and error, but you don’t have that long, and in any case, your generation is too impatient. So. Do you want to stay in Inver Aora and learn to use your power?”
“I...” Charley began.
“It will be intense. You can have the studio. It doesn’t have electricity, but it does have a bathroom, and we can try running a cable or something. It’s going to be hard work. You’ll get a cut when people pay cash. But there’s not much to spend your money on here, is there?”
“Do I get the seven years of my life back?”
“Ha! No, I’m afraid not, but you might learn enough to take a different seven years from somewhere else. But I do have something for you. It will help you focus your power as you learn to grow it.”
The pendant was a soft, muted blue – it might have been sea glass, or it might have been something else entirely, well-worn and rounded by the sea. Charley put it on, awkwardly adjusting it around her hoodie until it sat comfortably. Charley could feel the power but it wasn’t overwhelming – it was warm and nurturing. She turned, and the water in front of her was filled with possibility. Charley looked out to sea.
Writing may be more solitary than other practices, but no book is made alone. Thanks to everyone on the Slacks and at the Pub, and to the Saturday half-price-mimosas folk, for support, direction, vent-space, and more. Thank you to the Witchy Fiction crew for setting me on this path. Thank you to Jacqueline Sweet for once again making me a great cover. And particular thanks to Emma, Jackie, and Kelly for their work in helping me make this book the best I could make it.
If you enjoyed Tides of Magic, keep an eye out for the second book in the series, Tides of Change, out later in 2023.
Andi R. Christopher writes queer urban fantasy (where urban is sometimes a small town, but always somewhere mysterious things happen) set mostly in Aotearoa New Zealand. They're a fan of weird sea creatures, strange plants, and hidden magic. Andi also writes other kinds of science fiction and fantasy (still sometimes with weird sea creatures) as Andi C. Buchanan.
Andi R. Christopher, Tides of Magic
