His mother carefully put down her wool ball and put her head on his forehead. “Put out your fingers.”
Quint did as his mother said, with the wool skein still hanging from his hands.
“I’m not quite sure how this works,” Quint’s mother said, furrowing her brow. “I wish your father was here.” She concentrated on Quint’s fingers.
“Try pushing power out of your fingertips as if you were going to touch me from across the room.”
His mother gasped, and she backed up, sitting in her chair. “Look!”
Quint had his eyes on his mother, but when he looked at his fingertips, he gasped. Little sparkly lines came out of each fingertip. Each one seemed to be a different color. “Magic?”
His mother sighed. “If I’d say anything, you are much stronger than your father.”
“He only knows a couple of strings,” Quint said. “I don’t know how to use these,” he waved his fingers through the big loop of wool.
“You can start by willing those energy tendrils to stop.” Quint’s mother shivered. “I don’t have any magic, nor do any of your siblings. All your father can do is shock you with a string and light a candle. Neither of us can teach you very much.”
Quint practiced turning the tendrils on and off while he helped his mother. He thought he didn’t have much to say but had to ask. “Will having magic change my life?”
“Has it changed your father’s?” she asked her son, shaking her head. “In a village like ours, magic is a curiosity. I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”
That seemed to seal the conversation until Quint’s father returned from his merchant work.
Just after dark, Quint heard the wagon clattering into the yard. He ran out to greet his father and was glad to see the wagon was emptied. His father had a successful trip. Zeppo Tirolo always returned in a great mood when he sold out.
“Put the wagon away. My rear end is sore from all the driving today,” Zeppo said as he climbed off the wagon and left Quint alone with the wagon and their horse.
Putting the wagon away was more than driving it across the yard to the big workshop. When Quint was younger, he was always excited to drive the wagon by himself and have one of his brothers brush the horse, but those days were long gone. Now, it was a chore, but his father wasn’t getting any younger, and Quint needed to lighten the load around the house.
Quint faced two serious faces at the kitchen table when he entered the cottage.
“Sit. We can talk while I finish dinner,” Zeppo said. Quint’s father took another big spoon of the stew and didn’t speak again until he swallowed and sipped his watered wine. “Tell me how you felt when you got your magic?”
Quint explained how he felt. The expanded feeling was still with him, but he was getting used to it.
“Show me,” Zeppo said. His expression hadn’t lightened since Quint walked in.
Quint put out his fingers, and in the darkness of the cottage, the light emitting from his fingers was even brighter. Zeppo shook his head.
“Your talent is going to complicate your life,” Zeppo said. He put out the gnarled fingers of his hands and showed tendrils that were faint compared to Quint’s.
“We will see the hedge wizard tomorrow,” Zeppo said, sighing. “I’ve been putting off bringing your brother Rezzo into the business, but it’s time you learned other things. People with your strength don’t cut down trees for a living.”
“People with my strength?”
Zeppo sighed again. “I had hoped I could give you the woodcutting warrant, but…”
Quint didn’t like how his father didn’t finish the sentence.
Pogi, the hedge wizard of Quint’s village, finished wrapping a young girl’s sprained wrist. Hedge wizards generally earned more money healing than selling their magic, Zeppo said as they walked across the village to the wizard’s hut.
Quint asked the girl if she was all right, and she nodded. They had often played together with other village children. Quint felt he was too old to play now that he had taken up the wheelwright trade.
They sat in Pogi’s examination room. Quint didn’t jump on the table like he would if he was injured.
Pogi looked at Zeppo. “What is this all about?” the hedge wizard asked.
Zeppo nodded to Quint, who lit up the room with the tendrils of magic coming from his fingers.
“Do you know how to do anything with those?” Pogi asked Quint.
“How would he learn anything?” Zeppo asked. “I know two strings, and I also know enough that I can’t safely do more.”
Pogi nodded. “He needs instruction, then?”
Quint sat there as if he were an object, not a person, and that was precisely how he was being treated. He took a deep breath.
“What are my options?” Quint asked. “I only know you do something with your fingers to create a string, and the string does all the work.”
“It doesn’t quite work that way, but the general idea is right,” Pogi said. “As part of my duties in the village, I train newly discovered magicians. Those who learn more easily have options after we’ve done some training.”
Pogi looked at Zeppo. “Can I have him for an hour if I don’t get a patient running through the door?”
“He knows the way home,” Zeppo said, standing up. He looked down at his son. “Learn well. I think you might be one of those who learn easily, son. The world will open to you if you do. Pogi can tell you about it.”
Zeppo sighed and hugged his son before walking out the door.
