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The button sits on the palm of my hand. Such a small thing. It’s hardly big enough to see the grain of the wood. It doesn’t have a stain or anything that would make it seem extraordinary. If this is magic, then what else is magic? My desk? A magic desk sounds ridiculous. Is a magic button any less silly? 

But what if?

It’s not as though anyone is watching, so what do I have to lose? One of the words she taught me must be the right one, otherwise she would have told it to me a new one.

The only reason why I remember the words is because I like the sound of them. When I was little, before Mallee was born, when Feld was just a baby, Anen used to come visit. She’d stay for a few days or even a week. My mother was busy with Wren and Feld, of course, so Anen would take me out for walks. I was already partly fluent in Gallium because my mother thought that I should know it, so it made sense to me that my grandmother should have a language too.

We used to play a game. She would say a word, and I then I would act it out. She never wanted to play it when my mother was around. Now I understand why. She wasn’t teaching me her home language; she was teaching me words of power.

That they are words of power, from some language not spoken in the Archipelago--or at least not spoken here for a very long time--I have no doubt of any more. I don’t know a lot about languages from worlds that are more than one portal away, but I do know that Anen’s words feel different. And after what happened last night, I have no doubt that that there is power in them.

There was one word that was hard to act out, but I remember tapping my finger to my head and then trying to look like I had just remembered something. Maybe it would work to identify what magic she had put into it.

I close my eyes and try to concentrate. “Cofio,” I whisper.

Something like a spark flashes in my hand. I jump, drop the button on the floor. My palm shows no mark, which is good. I must be on the right path, though. I would never have believed that wood could conduct magic. Gingerly, I touch it to my tongue. I don’t feel anything. It must have an incredibly low charge. What did I do last night that worked so well? I can remember it clearly, not as a story, but as a series of images and sensations. I have to find that same set of emotions. I try again. “Cofio.”

Suddenly, I’m aware of my fingertip touching the top of the button. My eyes are closed, but I can see it, larger. The colors are muted, the same blues and grays that you would see if you were looking at it in semi-darkness. I can feel it farther away, but I can see it closer. The surface of the button is smooth, with the edge sticking up like a low wall. I can see the nearest two holes, even though my finger is covering them. Not that I can see through my fingertip, but I can see both things at once.

Then i see something, like a thin curl of smoke and a flash, like lighting in the clouds far away. And then I can see the other things in quick succession. Fire buring a tree. A black silouhette with a raised sword; and then, in a tent, a man lying still, the dark, wet blood reflecting the light of a lumilamp.

When it is over, the memory of the smell of smoke lingers. I open my eyes and see everything as it should be, but my head is still ringing with the sounds and images that should be all around me but have disappeared. My hand is shaking. My fingers curl around the button, and I sag to my bed, first sitting, then sinking to curl up on it, knees pulled in, arms wrapped around myself.

How did she know? How could Anen have seen that, have put all of that into such a small object. Not even a crystal. It's wood. A tiny piece of wood. How could she have pulled all of that from my head?

It's possible that she has some way of scrying that could do it, but as I think back, I suspect that I know where she got it from. When she handed me the coat, the magic flicker that I felt, that must have been it. Somehow, she pulled the memory from me that quickly. I felt the magic, but I didn't feel what it was doing.

But what was the point? She might have been trying to show me what there was to teach me, some irrefutable evidence that greenwoman magic is powerful. I believe her; I just don't know what to think about it.

All this time, so much work that I've been putting into studying and learning. Does it mean nothing? My Exam was my entire life. Now, even if I got a perfect score on it, what good would it do me if one old lady can take even my memories with only one touch? What else is there that I don't know?

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Continue on to Chapter 3