Alessia's Values

It began with rumours. There was a new magi in town. Cagliostro was small, barely a town. Locals were predominantly Italian diaspora from long lost Origin. There were others here and there from dozens of other communities which had chosen the world of Cauldron after people who practiced magic were fought extermination by the enormous Human Empire.

From a population that once numbered in billions their numbers had been cut down to millions as they banded together for protection. Trying to put aside old prejudices had been hard but necessary for the survival of magi people.

Refugees from discrimination continued to trickle in from other worlds decades after the magi collective had signed peace treaties with the Human Empire. One such refugee had come to town with little more but the rags on his back and a barbed tongue.

Abdul Al-Darada was a rake of man, but not quite a man. A few years older than Alessia she guessed. When he smiled it reminded Alessia of her womanizing boyfriend Teo. Though his eyes were milky she could see sadness in them and the lines on his teenaged face.

Though he was clearly blind, Abdul’s head turned to face Alessia directly as she gawked at him. He nodded to her with a wide smile. As he nodded, he pressed his right hand to his heart. Not sure if or how he could see her she nodded and waved.

The difference between the state of their attire could not have contrasted more. Alessia’s all black school uniform was pristine as the day it was bought. Everything Abdul wore looked too small. It was torn where the material had worn through. The shirt on his back had stains which looked ominously like blood.

            “Come on,” said Alessia’s boyfriend, Teo, “we need to get to class.” He pulled her away without saying a word about Abdul. Though she looked back the blind man had done nothing but sit by a tree in the middle of the cobbled street. His faded clothes were the dullest part of the brightly painted street. Even the cobbles glistened with vivid black and white after the rain.

Whilst learning magic at school Alessia and her friends gossiped about the newcomer. From the smile and the nod alone, she had felt the warmth of the adolescent. Teo wasn’t so sure. He cited the long history of eugenics amongst not just the magi but the Human Empire as well. The majority of human diaspora had been edited to remove weaknesses.

Eugenics was rarely talked about in magi culture. It was a quiet presence in their lives. Cells were scanned in early pregnancy for many things the parents might find undesirable. Little more thought was given to it. Though she had thought of it a handful of times before Alessia had to wonder if her mother and father had been offered a termination while she little more than a fertilised egg.

Alessia had experienced a handful of seizures, confirming her epilepsy. Though people had been kind she had wondered how much that had to do with the wealth of her mother’s family and her father’s status as the head of the local Militia el Magi.

Teo, who had brought flowers to her while she lay in hospital after her first seizure, baulked at the comparison. There was no similarity between her condition, easily treated with medicine and Abdul’s blindness which they had all heard was not the result of an accident.

Though she found her boyfriend’s words regrettable their friend Marco went further still. Marco was a child of two Militia el Magi who served to protect the magi community with her father. His family liked to remind everyone that they had heroically fought for the survival of their people against overwhelming forces of imperial soldiers and machines.

When Marco called Abdul bad stock, as if all magi were nothing but breeding material to be judged on merit in some other war, her irritation began to turn to anger. Human life had more value than the children it might spawn. Alessia said so, putting Marco’s nose out of joint and silencing Teo for the rest of the school day.

Usually Alessia, Teo, Marco and his girlfriend Serena would wander the town together after school, practicing magic getting up to mischief, if not both. That day instead Marco and Serena sped from school without a word to their friends. Marco gave his best friend Teo a brief nod before walking away.

Teo did not try to defend the words of his friend. He wouldn’t condemn Marco’s hatred either. As Alessia talked he walked with her, hand in hand, silent. He was never so stoic.

            “Do you agree with Marco?” she asked, trying to pry an opinion from him.

            “Not entirely,” said Teo diplomatically. No, that wasn’t good enough.

            “So, you only think people with handicaps are lesser beings a little bit?” she asked him. He turned to look at her. His brown eyes stared into hers. He let go of her hand.

            “Do you want an argument?” Teo glared at her.

            “I want to know where you stand,” Alessia said, thinking of the kind smile on Abdul’s face and the words Marco had used to diminish his humanity. Words which could so easily have been use against her.

            “I’m standing right here, with you,” Teo growled. His fists were clenched.

            “But you will not condemn him for his words or speak in defence of Abdul. Marco casts aspersions on someone he knows nothing about, has barely met. He says the same things about Abdul that the imperials say about us. That mindset is the root of every form of discrimination,” Alessia told him.

            “Goodnight Alessia,” said Teo before walking away.

She watched him go. Does he agree with Marco and he’s angry at me? Does he agree with me but doesn’t want to admit it? Alessia watched him moved from the lamplight to a shadow and back into another patch of light before he turned down a shadowy corner out of sight. Rubbing her temples, she realised she had a headache from her anger. Teo was stubborn but she’d never thought of him as hateful.

Taking a detour to the street where she had seen Abdul earlier, she found it empty. Shaking her head, she went home. The orange house, newly painted, was boxed in by one of pale blue and another of blood red. The once dead vine on the trellis was flowering.

Alessia went straight to bed after dinner. Anger kept her awake as she thought about Abdul and the things Marco had said about the blind man.

The next morning on the way to school she met Teo. He brought grapes from the family vineyard as a peace offering. Some of them had already been eaten but she smiled and picked one from the bunch as he gave her an awkward smile. He looked guilty. Even when she told him he was forgiven the look stuck.

            “What is it?” she asked him, chewing another grape as she talked.

            “I saw something on the way here. You’re not going to like it.”

            “What?” she asked, from the way he stared at the ground Alessia knew it would be quicker for him to show her. When she asked, he said they would have to be quick to make it in time for school.

Halfway back to Teo’s house, on a quiet street, there was an empty house. Unlike the others it was wooden. Most were painted brick. Weeds grew from between the planks of the walls, roof tiles were missing. The house was older than the magi settlement of Cauldron. It belonged to whoever had left when the refugees of genocide colonised the world.

On the flaking remains of white paint were hateful words in red paint.

We don’t want you here milk eye. Go back to where you came from.

Alessia took a deep breath as she read the words again. She looked at Teo who was staring at his shoes.

            “Did you do this?” she asked, almost shouting. She pointed to the red scrawl which didn’t look like his writing.

            “Of course not. I heard that he’d been given the house, since no one else lives there.”

            “Good,” said Alessia testily.

            “Not everyone thinks so.”

            “Do you know who did this?” she asked.

Teo shrugged. His face was turning red. He wouldn’t look at her. He kept kicking his feet against the cobbles and sighing.

            “Tell me Teo. Please,” she asked him. He winced as if she’d hit him.

            “It looks like Marco’s handwriting to me. I’m not sure, but it looks like it.”

He didn’t have to say another word. Alessia’s jaw clenched. She took in the red words again as Teo grabbed her hand and told her they were going to be late for school. They raced past the colourful buildings of Cagliostro until the wooden castle of their school loomed high and mighty.

Without time to confront Marco until lunch, Alessia kept the graffiti in mind as she studied electrokinesis, calligraphy and mathematics with a surly Teo by her side.

            “Was it you?” Alessia shouted at Marco as she approached him. He had been laughing with some other boys in their class in line for their midday meal. Marco’s eyes rolled as she asked the question.

            “Was what me?” he asked, smirking. Next to him the other boys laughed under their breath but turned away when they caught the look in Alessia’s eyes.

            “The writing on that poor man’s wall. The red paint telling him he wasn’t welcome here. Was that you?” She prodded her finger into his chest as she asked again. Keenly feeling Teo’s absence at her side, she drilled a stare into Marco’s face.

            “No. Not me,” said the smirking boy. Alessia wanted to slap the smile off his face. She grabbed his hand; the palms were clean but there was a faded pink smudge on his wrist almost hidden by his black sleeves.

            “It was you,” she shouted. A crowd was gathering around them all. Serena was pushing through them all to stand by Marco’s side.

            “So, what if it was?” shrugged the vandal. His smile was fearful, but he had friends by his side and in a moment Serena’s hand was in his. “He doesn’t belong here. People like that are the reason magi were driven back to Cauldron and Faia in the first place. If it wasn’t for the weakness, we tolerated we would have fought off the empire instead of being driven to near extinction.”

Alessia couldn’t believe so many people were nodding at Marco’s words. Every magi had banded together on two worlds that were their own. To discard someone for the way they were born was insane. She said so. Despite her passion hardly any of the children in the lunch hall spoke up in her support.

Marco’s smile grew as he saw the balance of power in the room shift in his favour. Turning away from Alessia he began to preach to the choir about the seeds of weakness that would leave them weak when the empire inevitably returned to finish the job of exterminating them. He reminded her of Eadwulf Voigt, the demagogue imperialist who had stirred the imperial public into a frenzied fear of magi that ended in genocide.

Hot tears of anger welled in Alessia’s eyes. She didn’t want to give Marco the satisfaction of seeing her cry. Pushing her way through the crowd she made her way outside to the courtyard where they practiced manipulating plants with magic at the instruction of the Horned God, Cernunnos.

For the rest of the day Marco talked with his fans, while Serena looked at him as if he was made of chocolate. Alessia kept her head down until it was time to go.

On the way home she received an alert on her phone. She watched the 3D projection of Marco’s lunchtime speech with the sound of cheering in the background. Teo was nowhere to be found, so she kept walking without him.

Swearing to herself she meandered past the house where Abdul was staying, the writing was still there and somehow just as shocking as it had been the first time. On the steps and smiling as if he was indifferent, the blind man waved to her.

            “Do you know what they’ve written on your wall?” Alessia asked.

            “I was told,” he said, still smiling.

            “Doesn’t it anger you?” she asked.

            “From what I hear, the house needs a few more coats of paint anyway. Maybe they can come back and finish the job.” She frowned as he laughed beneath his breath. He was a very odd man.

            “We have spare paint at my house, only orange but I could bring it here if you like?” she asked, he nodded. His smile was that of contentment.

            “Thank you. I’m Abdul Al-Darada by the way.” He held out his hand, though she was too far away. She ran to take the hand and shake it.

            “I’m Alessia Alighieri. I’ll get you that paint.”

Alessia was as good as her word, running home to get the orange paint and brushes then struggling back to the old house with the tin in one hand and the brushes in another. By the time she got there she saw a small crowd of teenage boys staring at the blind man on the steps. Marco was at the front of the crowd and though he hid at the back she saw Teo’s black cap over other heads.

Ignoring them all Alessia told Abdul they should start painting right away. With their backs to the mob, they worked away until they could no longer reach the flaking paint above them. The crowd tired of their vigil and began to melt away into the bright buildings of Cagliostro.

Teo remained. Shaking his head, he asked Alessia if she needed any help. She was shocked at the offer, still angry with him for standing by Marco. Unwilling to turn down the help she told Teo to paint the high places that his longer arms could reach. Without looking at Abdul he did as he was asked, stretching up onto his tiptoes to paint higher, though it wasn’t high enough.

Abdul said there was a ladder in the house if someone could help him with it. Alessia let Teo keep working with the orange paint and followed the immigrant into the ramshackle wooden shed of a house.

The inside was little better than the outside. No electricity, she had to use illumination magic to see at all. Abdul moved quickly with his hands on the wall. He seemed to have already memorised the layout of the house.

Rotten floorboards crunched under her feet. Alessia turned left into a kitchen hung with rusty pots and dusty cups. The cups at least looked like they would be serviceable after a good scrub. Through a back door they found themselves in a cupboard.

The ladder was disgusting, aluminium so light and not rusted but crusty with dust and mud and mould from years of neglect. Negotiating the thing around corners and outside was a pain in the neck to begin with.

Alessia held the bottom of the ladder as Teo climbed to paint. Looking with disgust at dirt on his hand from the ladder Two gave a groan before going to work. Alessia watched the blind man, who was looking up at Teo.

            “You can see us, can’t you?” she asked him. He winked.

            “You noticed?” his voice was jovial, aged beyond his years but playful.

            “How can you see through those eyes?”

            “I don’t. I see magic. I can see people because of their souls. It works better on magi than regular people. I can see traces of magic as well; it wears off after a while but it’s useful.” He smiled up at Teo, who had stopped painting to look at him.

            “So, you’re not really blind,” said Teo angrily. It wasn’t as if Abdul had lied to him.

            “I am, I just have a workaround when it comes to people.” Teo shook his head and went back to painting.

An hour or so later all the paint was gone. The red letters were showing faintly through the single coat of orange, but it looked much better. Teo kissed Alessia’s cheek before she could object then said goodnight and walked away. Abdul thanked her and said it was time she went home.

At home Alessia showed her mother the video of Marco at school. Adelina agreed that Marco sounded like Eadwulf Voigt at his worst. Giving her daughter a sly grin Adelina suggested Alessia cut video of the two together to make the point.

It turned out that Adelina had a flair for editing, picking perfect moments of comparison between Marco’s lunch hall preaching and a rally held by Voigt at the beginning of his meteoric rise to power. Together they found turns of phrase that belittled or denied the humanity of their chosen minority. The video ended with the rapturous applause of the imperial crowds and the school children blurring together before it faded to black.

Naturally everyone at school saw it, including their parents. Some of those parents had enough sense to see the similarities between Marco’s rabble rousing and that the imperial crowds who had called for the extermination of the magi.

Marco didn’t have his crowd with him when Alessia arrived at school the next morning. He and Serena were alone, others gossiping around the pair as if the crowd had been powerless to resist the lure of his hatred. Instead of admitting his mistake he had doubled down.

Marco hit Alessia in the nose with a solid punch. Teo was about to jump to her air when she kicked her attacker in the shin then delivered her own punch that sent blood gushing from his nose.