Aurora Cotton - Lessons in Magic (fiction)

Aurora sighed. She was lying down on her bed in her aunt's garage. There wasn't much extra space, as the garage was quite small and her aunt was keeping her car in the garage.

"You should be thankful that I'm doing my best to take care of you", Aurora's aunt had said when she had complained about sleeping in the garage for the first time, years ago.
"I had made no promise to my brother about taking care of you, but as he died with your mother, I'm still doing my best. Not because I have to, but because I'm kind enough to do it!"

Kindness. Aurora could describe her aunt in many different ways, but she wouldn't call her kind. She did her best to keep Aurora alive and fed, but she wasn't treating her as a part of the family. Aunt Viola, her husband George and their daughter Pearl lived in the house, Aurora lived in the garage. The house was big enough and had extra rooms, but Aurora still had to live in the garage. Aurora was allowed to use the bathroom and the kitchen unless Viola had guests over. Then Aurora had to be quiet and sit in the garage. And she did.

Nobody else than Viola and her family knew she lived there. Or at least they all thought nobody knew.

She spent most of the days alone, as she didn't get along with Pearl. Viola seemed to resent Aurora, and even though George seemed like a decent man, he kept his distance. Left entirely alone as both of her parents died, she didn't even have a photo of her parents. She had a necklace she had got from her mother, and she used it as a keepsake.

"Why did you have to die?"

This night, as every night before, she spent alone in tears.

---

The next day as Aurora was in the kitchen as George just entered the kitchen carrying the day's mail.
"This is for you Viola.. this is for me. Me again.. and Aurora?"
George didn't have time to hand it towards Aurora when Viola already grabbed it from him.
"No, this doesn't say Aurora. This was just sent to the wrong address."

With a few quick steps, she was at the stove and she threw the letter in.

Aurora was furious.
"What? Why did you do that to my letter?"
"Are you stupid? Mother said that it wasn't to you", Pearl commented and sneered at Aurora.
"If it was sent to the wrong address, why burn it and not return it to the sender? You are terrible at lying and you destroyed my letter!"

Aurora ignored Pearl, her comment and sneering completely, so Pearl stood up from her chair and walked in front of Aurora. Pearl was angry, just like Aurora was.
"Mother said it wasn't your letter, you hear me? You should be grateful my mother lets you live with us, you stupid ugly orphan."

Suddenly the knife, which had been laying on the table next to Pearl, flew up from the table towards Pearl. She was so surprised by the sudden flying knife that she didn't dodge the knife. The knife, even if it wasn't extremely sharp, cut a bad looking wound in the forehead of Pearl.
"Oh my god, what did you do?", Viola screamed.

Just as Pearl was shocked, Aurora was shocked too. She had no idea of what had happened, and as far as she knew, she didn't do anything. She had wanted to cut Pearl's stupid face, but she hadn't done anything. As she stood there silently, she hadn't even realized that Viola, George and, Pearl had all ran to the car and left to take Pearl to the hospital. There wasn't a lot of blood, so Aurora realized it couldn't be anything serious.

---

Aurora returned to the bed in the garage. Viola and George were still with Pearl in the hospital, even though Pearl wasn't seriously injured. If Pearl was hurt seriously in any way, it was her pride that was damaged.
"And she deserved a dent in her pride."

Surprisingly, another letter addressed to Aurora, arrived. This time someone pushed it in from the garage window. The envelope was fancy but seemed extremely old. No address was visible on the envelope, as nothing else than Aurora's name was written on it.

"Aurora Cotton"
Carefully and with shaking hands, Aurora opened the envelope and found a letter inside. Without any hesitation, she took out the letter and started to read.

Dear Aurora Cotton,

We have been informed that you have been gifted with the talent of magic. As the caretakers of the magic world, we would wish to invite you to join us in our School of Witchcraft. We have made arrangements for your arrival and we would ask you to collect all your personal belongings and leave the house. We have arranged a caretaker to pick you up and to see that you'll be taken care of.
Best regards,

Laura Myerscough

"Magic?", Aurora thought. "It truly was magic?"

No matter what it was, she had no time to waste. Lucky for her, she didn't own almost anything. She managed to collect all her personal belongings, her diary, hairbrush and necklace from her mother, in less than ten seconds. Everything collected in her bag, she ran out of the house and saw a man with an old motorcycle outside of the house. The man had a black, curly beard and he was wearing a long brown jacket and a fancy top hat.

The man nodded at Aurora and then waved his hand at the back of his motorbike.

"Hop on, magic girl", he said with his a dark, pleasant voice.

Aurora didn't hesitate and walked to the bike and sat on the back. As the man started the bike, Aurora suddenly heard a scream.

"NO! AURORA, DON'T! PLEASE, LET HER GO, SHE DOESN'T DESERVE THIS!"
The man didn't stop and as Aurora turned to see who screamed, she saw her aunt Viola, screaming with tears in her eyes. She looked both terrified and furious. Aurora didn't have to see anything else, as the bike rose up in the air and flew away.

As they were flying over the town and towards the countryside, Aurora held her arms strongly around the man's body. The strong wind in her face made it impossible for her to speak, but she watched the houses, trees and, gardens moving under them. Faster than she even realized it, they had flown far from the city into the wilderness.

---

"As this might take a while, I could explain something about the magic in this world", the man said with his calm voice.

"As you realized, magic is real. There are a few hundred wizards in this world still alive, but we're trying to stay hidden. Luckily we can use magic to hide."

"Magic, whatever you'd like to call it, witchcraft, wizardry or sorcery, can be taught. With very few unique people, they learn magic naturally. That's how magic was originally found by mankind, but in the worst case, it can be extremely dangerous. That's why we, the caretakers, exist. For some reason, it seems to be hereditary. Your aunt knew this could, as you've had some magicians in your family too. That's why she tried to keep you hidden from us."

The man took a glance down and started to lower his bike back towards the ground. Aurora had avoided looking down, but now she took a peek and saw a small open patch in the middle of a forest.

"That's what we call The Skull Glade. A bit ominous name, but it's a peaceful and beautiful place. Mostly peaceful and that's why we're stopping there for a while."

The bike landed very softly, as the Skull Glade was both open and flat. Aurora stepped down from the bike and stretched both her legs and her back. She had no sense of time and didn't know how long they had already traveled. She walked around the glade, looking at the plants and flowers on the ground. There were very many flowers with bright colors in the glade. Between the flowers, she could see white rocks on the ground almost everywhere. She bent down to take a closer look at a flower but instead saw something interesting in the rocks.

She picked up one of the smooth rocks of the ground and realized that it wasn't a rock. It was a bone.

The man had appeared behind her.
"As I said, this is called The Skull Glade. I'm glad the flowers are covering most of the bones and skulls, as I prefer flowers to the skulls."

Surprised by the revelation, Aurora threw the bone back to the ground.
"What is this place and why did we come here? Did you want to show me this?"
As the bone thrown by Aurora landed back between the flowers, the man kneels. He lifted a skull from the ground.

"As I said, magic can be extremely dangerous. It's a constant threat if a natural spellcaster isn't taught anything about magic. Even if someone is taught magic, they still might be dangerous. Magic can be taught, but we can't force anyone to use magic in a specific way. We can't force anyone to choose between good and evil. It always ends up with people dying."

"Are you saying that all these people died because of magic? Is this entire field filled with bones?"

The man didn't answer her question, but walked a few steps and threw the skull from his hand.

"You want to hear what's the most terrifying thing? Anyone can be taught. Anyone. The naturals learn by themselves, just like some people learn how to read by themselves. But if taught, anyone can be a wizard. But as you see, everyone isn't taught any magic. It's too dangerous", the man sighed. He had a blank expression as he paused, as he seemed to be spacing out for a few seconds. Memories from the past.

"So everyone could be a magician? It would be a dream come true for so many people. We could change the world! It wouldn't need to be for evil, but we could do good. So much good! It wouldn't need to end this way."

"The worst disasters in the history of mankind have been because of magic. Well not because of magic, but because of the people using it. People are greedy, selfish and violent. If we taught everyone magic, it would be like giving everyone a nuclear warhead. It would bring only destruction and despair."

"It sounds terrible. Can magic truly be so powerful?"

"It can. And it is."

The man reached his hand to Aurora and took a soft grip of her hand.

"That's why we're making sure that nobody learns magic. Nobody."

Her smile vanished.
"But the magic school..."

"It doesn't exist. That's just something we say to get you follow us. It works every time. I'm sorry."

Aurora didn't feel any pain, but she saw how her hand, the one the man was holding to, started to disintegrate. First, the flesh from her fingers disappeared and she couldn't do anything else than watch as all the flesh in her hand and arm disappeared as ash.

Aurora lifted up her head and stared in the eyes of the man. His eyes were completely blank from any emotion. No joy, no sorrow, no hate.

It took no longer than a second, and she was gone. She was nothing more than a pile of white bones in the glade.

---

_{All images from Pixabay.}