Circle of Fate

“We only take the finest students available to us,” the Headmaster spoke carefully, folding his fingers delicately on a pile of papers.

“I was in the 99th percentile of test scores,” she said, forcing a smile at the man.

“Yes, well, there’s also the matter of the practical exam-”

“Which I’m sure I can handle-”

“But which you can not afford.”

She fought to keep her smile in place as she gritted her teeth.

“I applied for student aid.”

“Which we will review and get back to you on.”

“But not before I need it to take the practical.”

The Headmaster shrugged. “It’s the way the world works. Your request should have been fulfilled at an earlier date.”

She straightened, her fists tightening around the edge of her worn skirt. No one told me that the practical required an outrageous fee, she thought. “If you would just allow me to take the practical exam, I could pay for it after I get approved-”

“If you get approved.” The Headmaster leaned forward, his lips curled into a smug smile. “We don’t do handouts at my institution. You pay for what you need when it is needed, not a second after. While your scores are exceptional, I can’t bend the rules of the practical just for your sake.”

Her smile was gone now, replaced with a glare that she forced herself to direct at the surface of the desk. All of the hope she had entered with was squashed down to nothing. “So there’s nothing I can do?”

“I’m afraid not. Though, I heard they have great teachers at the public school down the road.”

She nodded, standing up and turning toward the office door without a word. If he had nothing to offer, she had nothing more to say. “Oh, and Miss Peters?”

She inhaled deeply, keeping her hand on the door knob as she faced the older man.

“Do give your mother our kindest regards?”

She froze, her gaze searching his narrowed eyes and the sharp cut of his mouth, looking for any sign that he knew more than he was letting on- but no, he was a stupid, egotistical old man. All he knew was that her mother had managed to get into his precious academy, but their unobtainable expectations forced her out, just as they were meant to do. He was only happy that he had managed to prevent another of her kind from entering his beloved institution.

But she didn’t need his money to accomplish her task, not anymore.

“I’ll be sure to.”

This side of town was quiet at night, contrary to what many would think. Whereas the West side was full of bars and clubs, attracting the kind of trouble that was loud and obvious, the East side was for those that wanted their business done in a more… subtle manner. It was for those like her, rejected and pushed away, forced to hide their gifts in the back alleys where no one would find them. Between the Apothecary with an affinity for explosions and the fortune teller with a fake crystal ball, but very real premonitions, lied the very person she was looking for.

A bell rang out as she opened the door, and the man looked up from behind the counter with raised brows. He was surrounded by shelves filled with knickknacks, bottles, and old-looking books. The room was lit only by a few candles, and she felt as if something was watching her from every dark corner.

“Are you Mr. Steele?” She asked.

“I am. What do you want? You’re a little young to be in a place like this,” he said, shutting the book he had been reading through and directing all of his attention toward her. His eyes gave her the impression that he knew all, even more than the woman on the other side of the wall with a stack of tarot cards. His nails were long and cut into a sharp point, and they curved into each other as he crossed his long, adorned fingers.

“I want to make a deal.”

“Hmm. And what could you possibly want?”

“My name is Anne Peters.” His smile twitched. “You know it?”

“I know your mother.”

She stepped up to the counter, resting her fists on either side of the book he had been reading.

“Then you know why I’m here. I need your help,” she pleaded.

Steele inhaled deeply, his gaze boring into her as if looking for the answer to her plea.

“She wouldn’t like it- you being here.”

“I know. She’s warned me many times. You’re my last hope.”

He sighed, his gaze finally moving away from her. She felt as if she could breathe freely again.

“Do you know what a curse does to someone?” She opened her mouth to respond but he stopped her. “I don’t mean an answer from one of your little textbooks. I mean truly- what does casting a curse cost you, and what does it mean to the victim.”

“It costs everything- it means everything. You know that I know that more than most. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t,” she snapped.

“You don’t!” He snapped back, slamming a fist on the counter and sending a candlestick flying. “You know nothing!”

She pulled her hands back, fisting them in the fabric of her cloak. He took a few deep breaths, his face angled away from her.

“You know her?”

His head just barely nodded.

“She was talented, wasn’t she? One of the best spell casters they had ever seen. But they didn’t want her to attend- no, it would have ruined their image. They couldn’t have a poor girl from the bad side of town in their perfect Academy.” His hands started to shake. “She knew she would need help, she knew what it meant to be there, and she knew what needed to be done.”

“She didn’t.”

“She did. And you helped her get there.”

“And look at her now! I broke the system, I got her into that school, and look how it ended up!” He screamed, so loud she was sure the neighbors could hear it. “I twisted fate, and it corrected the course.”

A silence hung between them so thick that her ears seemed to ring with the pressure.

“No,” she whispered. “You fought back, both of you. They just fought back harder. But I want to correct it. I want to do what is right.”

“I won’t send anyone else there.”

“I don’t care how you do it, but I need to money for the practical. Confuse a banker, transform straw to gold, whatever you have to do.”

“I’m not Rumpelstiltskin,” he snapped.

“I know, I know, but you get what I’m saying? The system is set against people like us, and my mother paid the price for fighting against it. Don’t you want to see them pay, see them suffer? She wanted to be one of them, but I want to destroy them from the inside,” she pleaded, grabbing his hand in both of her own and squeezing. “But I need your help to do it.”

Steele looked between her hands and her expression before he diverted his gaze to the room around them. For a moment, she thought that all her pleading had been for nothing, that she truly had no chance of avenging what happened to her mother, but just as she started to release his hands, he spoke.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

He sighed. “It’ll be hard. And it’ll cost you.”

“But, I don’t have any money. That’s like the whole point-”

“Not money. Something far greater.”

“What? Whatever it is, I’ll pay it.”

Steele’s eyes softened, and she knew that her price would be greater than any sum the Academy would force out of her.

It took months for Anne’s plan to fully take form. Just as she expected, once she received the money from Steele- cloaked in a mysterious box the night after their deal- passing the Practical and starting at the Academy was a breeze. While the Headmaster’s derogatory views toward her seemed to be reflected back from her fellow students, she had to constantly remind herself why she was really there.

For any magical user in the land, the Academy had some of the best schooling you could receive outside of apprenticeships or other private institutions, and she was no exception to the glory that the building seemed to exude. She honed her magic while she could, paying extra attention to lessons and copying down notes and lectures as if her life depended on it. To witches, their magic was their very soul, and without it they were hollow. Being able to work on her craft was a blessing, despite her real reason for entering the walls of the Academy.

Her mother was terrified at first, worried that the same thing would happen to Anne that happened to her, but Anne assured her that it wouldn’t happen, if only to ease her mind.

“You’ve taught me well, mother,” she whispered the night before her departure. “I won’t allow them to hurt me how they hurt you.”

“You are strong, Anne, but some things are not meant to be toppled,” her mother croaked, her thin hands grasping at Anne’s.

“Some things,” she agreed, “but not this. Everything is breakable if you try hard enough.”

“But will you break, yourself?”

Anne only kissed her forehead and tucked her tighter into bed.

A week from the end of fall term, she finally came face to face with her opportunity. She was walking back from the library a few hours past curfew, the streetlights that lined her path dimming slightly as she walked. She noticed immediately, as this was the very thing she had been waiting for. Quiet footsteps trailing just out of sight, the swish of a cloak in the darkest shadows, the whisper of a spell echoing off the walls of an alley.

They were hard to find, Anne could admit. Months of searching and waiting for the perfect moment, for just the right slip up, walking the same path her mother had all those years ago when she let her curiosity get the better of her. Her mother had been slow, too late to react to the curse the group had put on her as she entered their private meeting room. Privately, Anne suspected that if it had not been then, they would have found another way to rid her mother of her power.

The footsteps led her to an old building only a few blocks from campus. She watched from behind a wall as an invisible figure opened a door on the back of building, which had been completely camouflaged into the wall. After waiting a few minutes and hearing no other footsteps, she crept forward and slipped into the tiny passageway. Instantly, she could hear the group’s conversation echoing up the stairs in front of her.

There was no light leading down, but she could see the shadows from candlelight shifting along the wall of the staircase. Anne took her time walking down, being extra careful of creaky steps.

“- right after we get back from break,” a girl was saying. Anne couldn’t see any of their faces, but she could see that the room they were in was covered in old tombs and spellbooks that Anne knew were banned from campus. “I can’t stand to look at her anymore.”

“Agreed, Jess,” another girl laughed, “who does she think she is, forcing her way into the Academy?”

“Well, she passed the tests,” someone said, their voice deeper than the others.

“She probably cheated. There’s no way someone like her was able to actually get past the tests, let alone pay to be here after the fact,” the first girl said.

“Whatever, we already established that we want her gone. The question isn’t if, but how and when?” A new male voice said.

Anne gritted her teeth, holding herself back from stomping down the stairs that very moment.

“I say we wait until next fall, or at least late spring.” There were immediate disagreements. “No, no, listen. The longer we wait, the more comfortable she feels, the more it hurts her.”

“I still say we do it right when we come back. I’ll look through my mom’s spellbooks, she might still have that one they used on her mother.”

“I thought she burned it?”

“Well, yeah, but she might have another copy-”

Anne didn’t hear the rest of what the girl was saying. Her ears started to ring as her heart raced, itching to take care of the entire group in one fell swoop. Why not? It would happen eventually. She only delayed the inevitable by holding back now.

Anne stomped down the stairs, her hands already moving before any of them could process her arrival.

When she left the cellar, making sure to shut the secret door behind her, she felt what little power that remained inside of her drain from her soul. It was bittersweet, knowing that her last extraordinary show of power would be her last, the very curse she sought to revenge for her mother’s sake. Despite what everyone said, magic was not her soul. Her soul was compiled of the love she had for her family, of the justice she desired to seek for not just her mother, but for everyone like them that had been pushed down because of their circumstances. Her soul was not just what she could do, but of what she collected and compiled over so many years. Yet still, the hollowness weighed heavy on her heart.

Anne considered going home first- God knows she wouldn’t be welcome at the Academy without magic- but her legs took her to the East side without much thought.

Steele’s shop was still open, the candlelight glittering out onto the street and making it seem like a much warmer place than it was. When the bell rang out, he was already looking at her.

“It’s done?”

“Yes. Our deal is done.”

He nodded, but he didn’t seem happy. “I’m sorry. About your magic.”

She shrugged, leaning against the wooden chair next to his desk.

“Does it… hurt?”

“No. No, there’s no pain. I just feel empty, I suppose. Like- like someone took my stomach out and now there’s just a massive hole.”

“Pleasant,” he cringed. “Have you seen your mother?”

“No, no, not yet.”

“You came here first?”

“You’re shocked?”

“Well, yes. I imagine you’d want to share the news as soon as possible.”

Anne straightened, ignoring the strange feeling in her chest. “It’s because I want to make a deal.”

“Another one?” Steele asked, her eyebrows knitting together in an instant.

“Yes. I have a name for you, and I need you to find her mother’s name and address.”

“What is it?” He asked warily.

“Jess. She is- was, a student at the Academy. I’m sure finding her records will be easy enough.”

Anne turned and started to exit the shop.

“Wait, what about the price?”

“I’ll pay it. But first, I have to see my mom. Work on finding me that name, okay?”

She left to another clang of the bell, the sound following her as she walked down the darkened street.

Steele stared at the door for a few minutes after Anne’s departure, his heart racing despite him being completely stationary. He twisted his rings around his fingers, looking to the sky with a deep sigh. Reluctantly, he reached under his desk and pulled out three contracts.

The first, Anne’s contract to get her into the Academy.

The second, Anne’s contract to find Jess’ mother.

The third, her mother’s contract to get her into the Academy.

He signed off on Anne’s first contract, marking its completion. He then filled out the second one, leaving the spaces blank for her to sign. He then took a closer look at her mother’s, which promised him her heart and soul as payment for her Academy fee.

“And the circle of fate remains unchanged,” he whispered, setting her mother’s contract aside and filling out Anne’s second contract, the end to the Peter’s debt with him.