The sky appeared, to her, so very dull and grey. With her wand presented, she shut her eyes, winced them closed tightly, her thoughts, whatever they might be, didn’t, by any means, come carelessly. Carefully, she wound the wand around and around, circling the dull sky, until brightness abounded. From the tip of the wooden device she expelled a cloud of softened material, a bubble, if you will, of her good intent and will. Now the skies were a beautiful light blue, with the night tapestries of stars laid out, a confusing juxtaposed view to behold, yet still, it was wondrous to be seen. Of her handiwork she knew, that before her training, she’d never have had the opportunity to perform this, and her mind and eyes would be ailing, at observing the plainness that was there to have been seen, although now that she was more skilled, she was able to alter certain things in the reality that she lived in.
Satisfied with her handiwork, she mentally prepared the stars, in differential arrangements, newer representations, that had more meaning to her. But the stars refused to move, so obstinately they wouldn’t, couldn’t, nothing at all to do, they wouldn’t be rearranged by a mere witch-in-training, they knew that their own organisations were perfect in themselves, and their constellations were worth saving.
Still, Carmella, witch-in-training, attempted to mold the stars with her mind. She didn’t realise that what she was doing was sacrilegious, these stars and their formations had been there since the dawn of time. Whether the Big Bang or God, they were placed here, by someone or something, for a reason, and to alter them really proved a certain sense of worldly treason. It was one thing to alter the colour and shade and hue of the skies, but an entirely different matter when one meddles with something that should not be altered, nor compromised. Carmella pointed her wand at the stars, in particular now, Gemini, and shrieked her most potent magical word, “Kamenlatra!!!” It was meant to be the ultimate spell to be cast, when others didn’t cause anything, not even a movement in stagnant dust motes. The world shuddered for a moment, a warping sound, take that as you will, and then Gemini was reversed and rearranged, Carmella grinned deeply still!
“Just wait
until Sharon hears about this!” she giggled to herself. She understood that what
she had done was entirely amazing, yet incredibly remiss. One of the first
rules of being an Earth Witch was not to harm Mother Earth, yet here she was, celebrating
her alteration of the Earth’s precious arrangement, the precocious twins of
Gemini were now no longer at large. The world now seemed unbalanced, as though
there were no childish laughs to be had, a breaking of the link between child-like
wonder and still a sense of growing maturity, the atmosphere around now felt
hollow, less than whole. It was an aching sensation in the pit of the stomach
of everyone, a paining, a longing, and they didn’t understand this was so
because someone had thoughtlessly rearranged something, two beings that had
been perfect, just so. The world was now akimbo.
Carmella
skipped to school that day. She’d had a wonderful night retraining the rest of
the Zodiac to be different where they hung in the sky and where they laid. Their
new, brighter repositioning caused brightness in her eyes, a clear sense of
delight, why, she was now the Master, she had the ability to alter the source
of the stars’ dying light. She would arrive in a few minutes to Route Sixteen,
where her training school, Sharon’s Witchity School For Clever Girls was situated
out of the way.
“Miss Sharon,
Miss Sharon!” Carmella called to her, even before she’d reached the door. “Did
you see what I’ve done? Have a look then look some more!” Miss Sharon swept
into the room with her cape flourishing as she moved. Her beady little bespectacled
eyes narrowed, as she sniffed out a sense of recklessness and stupidity within
the room. Looking for the source of these, she could only lay her eyes upon her
student Carmella, who was never, at all, stupid nor reckless, never had she
been known to be these things.
“What are
you speaking of, dear child?” she implored the excited being. Barely able to
stand still, Carmella’s heart and sense of pride were abounding. “Look tonight,
at the stars, at what I have done! I altered the constellations, each and every
one.” Proudly, with her chest thrown forth, she grinned widely, she couldn’t
help it, of course. What a silly little being that Carmella was being, didn’t she
realise that what she had done would disrupt the lives of every single living
being? For the stars told their stories, their ways and movements within the
world, affecting how we operated, sharing secrets of life that were able to be
unfurled. They spoke of courage, of lightness, of brightness and wisdom, beauty
in the beholders, and now they were warped, strangely made versions of them.
“There is
no reason to wait tonight to view the stars,” her teacher replied, and with a whoosh
of her wand, she altered from day to night, and suddenly, feeling faint, she
realised that this child was essentially at large. She’d be wanted by the Witch
police for this, how could she think that this was the correct thing to do, of
common sense, its target had sorely missed, Miss Sharon felt a wash of murky
feeling, a deep, insidious blue. She pointed her wand at the stars to rectify
the process but there was nothing, no change, because, Carmella had
accidentally locked, with her magic skills, a secret code to never be entered,
because even she did not know what it was. She’d scrambled the directions to
rearrange and essentially added a coding that wouldn’t be remembered, unless
one were startled enough or amazed.
“Right,”
Miss Sharon said after getting over feeling horrified. “We must do something
about this, before others will have the chance to notice this.” But Carmella
didn’t understand what they could do, even her grand teacher Miss Sharon could
not alter the method made to never be undone by their hands. Her teacher knew
what she had to do, and she pulled out a large roll of blank paper, with markers,
fine liners, Posca pens, and coloured pencils, too.
“Let’s get to work,” she said firmly, very seriously. Miss Sharon quickly switched the sky from night back to day, to allow them time to alter the mistakes that Carmella that previous night had made.
And so they drew the night sky from heart, tracing and plotting out the patterns, dotting the now darkened paper skies with flicks of brightness, correct, no longer ill wandering stars. They depicted the upper world as best as they knew, bold and lovely, it was something wondrous to view. Carmella grew more and more excited as time went on, for their creation was taking shape, and she realised now that her errors of the night could be undone. She shouldn’t feel bad anymore, because they were going to somehow rectify her process. And once completed, they laid the depiction of the sky up high, it was something perfect in itself to witness. With a certain technique to her movements, sharp, swift, yet with gracefulness to it, Miss Sharon weaved their sky to the altered one behind. With a quick, emboldened cutting of the stitches, she felt perfection in this replication as they knew it, others wouldn’t realise the duplication because Miss Sharon had made theirs a reality as the world would soon know it.
When night
time befell, the whole world was in amazement and awe. They couldn’t understand
how this had happened, how much brighter their nightscape world above had become,
had it been by divine hands or simply the work of the stars? And when it came
to whether Carmella had to face up to her star altering deeds to the Witch police,
I’ll tell you this, she was incredibly lucky to have Miss Sharon as her
teacher, because with the authorities she smoothed over her student’s behaviour
with ease. She was a silver tongue as well, very skilled indeed.
© 2019 Alice Well Art, Lauren M. Hancock also known as Alice Well. All rights reserved.
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