Lewis marveled at how dusty the shop floor was after only one day. He had swept before the general shop closed the night before and already the floor was filthy again. Only a few people had passed through the store this early, but they had brought with them dirt and small rocks. The miners often had mud and other detritus on their boots that they tracked throughout the town. Lewis sighed as he swept the pile out the door. If he was fretting over how dirty people’s boots were, he really did have a boring life.
He had lost count of the number of times he’d swept this floor, but the fact he was counting at all was embarrassing. Nothing interesting ever happened in the town of Whisperstream, deep within the pale birch forest of Betula. Maybe interesting things happened in the mine, but the town itself went through its days half asleep. Or maybe it was just Lewis who went through his days half asleep. The small bell over the shop door rang, jarring him from his thoughts. He dropped the broom, which slammed against the wooden table next to him before clattering to the floor.
The man who had just entered the shop raised a brow at him before continuing to the counter at the back. The shopkeeper, an older woman, was glaring at Lewis. Mildred was always glaring at him. Lewis picked up his broom and resumed sweeping. He didn’t doubt his face was bright red. Somehow, no matter how many times he got distracted, the shopkeeper didn’t fire him. Maybe because he hadn’t broken anything like at the glassblowers. The smith had fired Lewis on the first day, saying he didn’t want to have to look at him every day. Lewis was still puzzling that one over, but only because he had little else to think about.
The day wore on with its customary lack of anything of note. Lewis swept for the last time before the shop closed for the night and set out into the town. He went to the usual stall for the usual mystery meat that was roasting on a spit just behind the stall. He took his usual route home after he ate, thinking his usual thoughts. Should he leave Whisperstream? He again pushed the thought away. How would things be any better somewhere else? He couldn’t find anything he was good at, or competent enough at to keep his job. Or maybe he was just bored out of his mind.
“Sorry…” He muttered as he bumped into a woman.
She smiled. “Deep in your thoughts?” Her black hair went down to just past her shoulders. Her clothes were made of fine cloth, which was an odd sight in the mining village. “Could you direct me to the inn?”
“Of course.” Lewis was glad for the distraction. “Right this way.” He led her back the way he came, toward the center of town, and pointed to the building straight past the well. “Right over there. We only have the one inn.”
“Thank you.” She stared at him for a moment, her expression unreadable.
The silence dragged on. Lewis tried to think of a way to politely extract himself from this weirdness. Why was she staring at him?
“You look like someone I know,” she said. “Do you know Stewart of Palegrove?”
Now Lewis wanted even more to end this conversation.
“He’s my father,” Lewis said, forcing a smile.
The woman nodded slowly, looking at him thoughtfully. “Did you inherit his magic?”
“No,” Lewis said, feeling as though the smile had frozen in place. “I don’t have magic.”
That wasn’t entirely true. According to the test, he had magic, but since they had never figured out what kind of magic it was and his father had shut him out…
The woman’s shoulders drooped. “That is surprising. Well, I best be going. It was nice meeting you.” She turned and headed for the inn.
Lewis sighed yet again. He did that a lot lately. The woman must be a mage or must work for the court of Betula to know his father. He turned away from the inn and continued on his way toward home, trying to put thoughts of his father out of his mind. He hadn’t heard from the man in years. Being High Mage, he was probably very busy. Still, he did wonder what would bring such a finely dressed woman, who was in a position to know the High Mage, all the way to Whisperstream. Maybe it was court business, or maybe she was a mage who was there to complete a request, to carry out some task only a mage could do.
At his small house, half hidden among the pale trees, he washed and went straight to bed. But he lay awake, staring at the shadows of the birch branches dancing across the ceiling in the breeze. Maybe it was time to leave Whisperstream, but where would he go? What would he do? He turned onto his side and closed his eyes. The woman’s words resurfaced in his mind.
“Did you inherit his magic?”
Lewis closed his eyes tighter. If he had inherited his father’s magic, if he hadn’t been a disappointment to him, where would he be now? Would he have been trained at Birch Hall? He burrowed deeper under his thin blanket. It didn’t matter. Whatever his magic was, it wasn’t what his father wanted it to be. Even if Lewis discovered what it was on his own, it wasn’t as though he wanted to go to Birch Hall to learn. That was where his father would be.
These thoughts chased him into a restless sleep. He awoke when the sun had barely begun to rise and set out into town early. Sometimes Mildred opened the shop early. Sure enough, she was unlocking the door when he got there. Most of the town rose early, since the miners went off to work at dawn. Lewis wordlessly took up the broom and started sweeping, even though the only dirt on the floor so far was from him and Mildred. He froze when he noticed her standing nearby watching him, her eyes narrowed, how they always were when she was looking at him. Was this it? Was she going to fire him?
“You’re wasting your potential,” Mildred said suddenly.
“I’m not sure I have any,” Lewis said.
Mildred’s scowl deepened. “You keep telling yourself that and you really won’t. Is this what you want from your life? To move from job to job because no one will keep you, because you show us less than half of what you’re capable of?”
Lewis could only stare back at her. No one had ever said he had potential before. Was he giving less than half his effort?
“I can see you don’t want to be here,” Mildred said. “How old are you? Seventeen?”
“Nineteen,” Lewis said.
She raised a brow. “You best get on with it then. Also, you’re running out places to work in this town. Ask yourself, what do you want to do? Who do you want to be?” She turned and went to the counter at the other end of the small shop, taking her place on the rickety stool behind it.
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Lewis stood there staring at his broom. He had no idea how to answer those questions. He was still mulling this over, or trying to, when the bell over the door rang. He looked at the door, but this time it wasn’t anyone who lived in Whisperstream. The man wore dark blue robes, tied at the waist with a black cloth. The robes had a deep hood, but it wasn’t up. His long black hair was tied back, but some had come loose. He appeared to be in his late thirties. The man came closer, frowning at Lewis with dark gray eyes.
“Can I help you?” Lewis asked. The man looked familiar, and those were the robes of a mage.
“Lewis?” The man smiled, but he looked worried. “You’ve certainly grown since I last saw you.”
Lewis hesitated. He had only met one mage other than his father. “Curtis?”
The man nodded. “I haven’t seen you in about ten years.” He looked at Mildred, who was still perched on her stool. “Can I borrow him for a moment?”
Mildred shrugged. “Borrow him forever if you’d like.”
Curtis frowned a little.
Lewis put the broom back in its cupboard and followed Curtis, his father’s best friend, outside. Curtis led him among the birch trees until the town was barely in sight. He kept fidgeting with the black cloth around his waist and with the long sleeves of his robes.
“Is something wrong?” Lewis asked. “Are you here because of a request?”
“If only that were all...” Curtis took a deep breath. “Your father has vanished. He left behind a letter recommending you as the next High Mage.”
For the second time that morning, Lewis was left speechless.
“I have no training and don’t even know what kind of magic I have,” Lewis said when his brain started working again. “Why would he do that? And where did he go? And why are you here unless...” He felt suddenly queasy.
Curtis’s bushy brows furrowed, making the dark circles under his eyes look even worse. “There was a second letter, which was sent to Queen Abigail. The Queen of Betula has followed Stewart’s recommendation. You have been named High Mage.”
Lewis couldn’t help but moan. “This has to be a mistake.”
“I agree,” Curtis said. “Though I think it’s far more sinister than a mere mistake.”
“Sinister?” Lewis asked, the word coming out quiet.
Curtis glanced at the town. “We shouldn’t talk more here. You need to come with me to Birch Hall.”
Lewis ran a shaking hand through his hair, pulling some of the short, light brown strands loose from the tie. “I’m not a mage.”
“You are,” Curtis said with surprising calm. “Come with me to the hall and we can talk more. Tell no one in town about this, and when we reach the hall, tell no one you don’t know what magic you have. It’s for the safety of us both and of Birch Hall.”
Lewis’s heart beat faster. “You don’t think my father wrote that letter.” It wasn’t a question.
Curtis paled. “We must go. We must leave now.”
How many times had he bemoaned how boring his life was? This wasn’t the kind of interesting he had hoped for. Many years ago, he would have been overjoyed at the idea of going to Birch Hall, of even just seeing the place where his father worked. He had long since gotten over that. How could he have been named High Mage?
“There will be time for brooding later,” Curtis said. “We have to go now.”
Lewis nodded slowly. “I need to tell Mildred I’m leaving and gather a few things from my house.”
“I’ll go with you,” Curtis said, glancing at the town again.
Did he have some idea of who had written the letter if it wasn’t Stewart? Or was he nervous because he had no idea who the enemy was? Lewis forced himself to move. This was happening. He was going to have to leave Whisperstream and go to Birch Hall, and hopefully they would sort this out there. Back at the general store, Mildred smiled when she told him he was leaving with Curtis.
“Good luck,” she said.
Lewis doubted luck was going to be enough to deal with this. Curtis followed him to his house, where Lewis packed up what little clothes he had in a small bag. He didn’t have any other belongings. When he told the landlord he was leaving, the man looked relieved, but said nothing. Lewis and Curtis set out from Whisperstream, heading straight into the forest, not even following the dirt path that led to Palegrove.
“We’re going straight to Birch Hall,” Curtis said. “There aren’t any roads that lead there.”
“How far away is it?” Lewis asked.
“We should be there late tonight,” Curtis said. “I don’t know if we’re being watched, so we’ll wait to talk until we’re there.” He frowned again. “There are things you need to know. Stewart wouldn’t have wanted you to find out like this, but there seems to be no other choice.”
“I haven’t spoken to him in years,” Lewis said. He hesitated to say more, in case they actually were being watched.
Curtis smiled, but it was clearly fake. “Only because you were such a good student. There was nothing more he could teach you.”
Lewis didn’t look around at the trees. Were they really being watched? If his father hadn’t written that letter, then who had? And why? Neither he nor Curtis said anything more. It was late at night when Birch Hall came into sight among the trees. The moonlight made the trees look even paler, like ghostly fingers reaching up from the ground. The hall was made of pale stone, a sprawling building with a tower at the center. Lewis stopped and stared up at the hall.
“Home at last,” Curtis said, some of the impressive tension going out of his shoulders. “We’ll talk in the tower. That is the High Mage’s quarters.”
The entry hall was silent, with only a few candles in sconces to light the vast space. Lewis followed Curtis up the stairs and down the deserted halls. Everyone else was likely in bed. They went up a spiral staircase to the top of the tower. The round room had a dark brown rug on the floor, a large desk at the center, overflowing bookshelves on most of the walls, and a single window that looked out at the front of Birch Hall. A single chair sat across from the desk. A dark doorway led into a bedroom.
“This was where my father lived when he was at the hall?” Lewis asked.
Curtis was staring at the desk with a lost look. “It is,” he said quietly. He moved suddenly, lighting a candelabra in a corner. “Sit. There are many things we need to discuss.”
Lewis sat in the chair facing the desk, but Curtis sighed.
“The queen has named you High Mage,” Curtis said. “It is imperative we don’t give people reason to question it until we know what’s going on. Until we know who planned this and why.” He nodded to the chair behind the desk. “That is where you sit. You had best get used to it.”
