Chapter 5: Magic is Like Water
After searching her body and putting his Glamor neckless back on he knows its time to get rid of the body.
Magic, I realized, is meant to be naturally occurring. It hates to be caged or controlled. It isn't math. It isn't science. It's an art, a craft that yields to those who truly believe it will work. Rules exist, sure, but those rules are just suggestions to someone who understands the flow.
I whispered to the empty room, "Magic is like water."
I closed my eyes and focused, beginning to manipulate the internal energies humming in my chest. I didn't reach for a spell book. I didn't try to remember any of the human "finger-tutting" spells. I reached for a memory.
Atreus remembered his father's stories about how fairies were hatched from an egg. The conditions had to be perfect for them to hatch. He described it with such vividness: the misty air, the smell of fertile soil, and the overwhelming presence of mushrooms. My last memories of Fillory and his description were all I needed. The mental image was crystal clear.
Now, I just had to execute.
Pulling on the energy that has been building, I feel it right behind my ribs. With every heartbeat the energy seems to grow and spread through my body. It's a hot, buzzing hum, like a million angry bees trapped under my skin. It makes my teeth ache and my vision swim behind my closed eyelids. This isn't like the quick, sharp bursts I used to get. This is a deep, fundamental shift.
I guide that energy as I focus on the mental image in my head. I'm not just thinking about a mushroom. I'm thinking about a whole ecosystem. A place where life consumes death, where everything returns to the earth to feed something new.
I can feel the energy start to leak out into the area around me, a thick, invisible pressure that feels heavy on my skin. I keep my eye closed, careful not to get distracted. I need to hold this image, perfect and clear, or everything will go wrong.
I remember the smells of Fillory. How it felt after a fresh rain. The rich, earthy scent that came along with it, the fertility and richness of the soil. I have never actually seen the fairies' home with my own eyes, not this Atreus, but I have heard many stories. I try my best to bring the image in my head into a reality, to make the magic taste it, feel it.
I think about how the earth doesn't care of our worries or our concerns. It doesn't care about Deloris Umbridge or pink suits or the bloody mess. It only cares about returning us into the soil to bring forth new life. That's the core of it. The natural cycle.
The air in the room became thick and heavy. It felt like standing in a greenhouse in a mid-summer day, the kind of hot, wet air that makes your lungs feel heavy. Then I finally heard the first movements of my magic. A soft, wet cracking sound coming from the floor, like hundreds of tiny, brittle bones breaking.
I could not help myself. I opened my eyes to look.
It was gross and amazing at the same time. These tiny white roots, like little pieces of string, started shooting out from the concrete. They didn't just grow; they exploded from the cracks, moving with a hunger I could almost feel. They wrapped around Deloris's pink suit like they were alive, like they were starving. Everywhere they touched, the fabric just started to rot away, not dissolving, but literally decaying. That ugly pink color faded into a muddy brown in seconds, then black, then it just frayed into dust.
The smell was the next big change. The heavy metallic scent of blood was replaced by the overwhelming smell of rain on a forest floor and fresh dirt. It was sweet and fertile and thick, making my head swim.
I stood there and watched as this happened. Her body seemed like it was shrinking, but the reality was it was being decomposed on a level I could not comprehend. Her skin began turning a dull grey color, like old stone. Small, white-capped mushrooms began growing around and even on top of her shifting form, bursting through her clothes, through what was left of her skin. Green moss snaked its way up her rotting leg and the surrounding concrete of the room.
I can feel my energies running low and yet the magic kept leaving me. It was like a hose that someone had turned on full blast, and I was the tank it was draining from. No amount of concern could stop what was already in motion. My muscles started to cramp, and my vision began to tunnel at the edges.
The pool of blood didn't just sit there anymore pooling. It started to bubble and churn, turning into thick, black soil right before my eyes. It was like watching a time lapse video of a forest growing, but sped up by a thousand years. Within a minute, the mess was gone.
Where the Toad faced women laid was now a mound of rich, dark dirt and a lush green carpet of moss and glowing mushrooms, all a reminder of my true home. Fillory.
The magic continued on. Small ferns began growing, unfurling their delicate fronds from the newly formed soil. The air continued to moisten before actual raindrops began falling from the ceiling. Small clouds formed above, swirling with mist, but it stopped as quickly as it started. The energy that gave life to this spell was beginning to run dry.
Fog began seeping from the ground, creating an environment straight from a fairy tale. The hole where the door was letting the fogginess seep out into the apartment stairwell, a white, eerie mist that felt impossibly cold against my face.
A sharp pain spiked in my head, right behind my eyebrow. I felt like I had just stayed up for three days straight, fighting a war. My legs got heavy and my heart started racing, a frantic drum against my ribs.
I reached up to wipe my nose and my hand came away red. Blood was leaking out of my right nostril, a warm, thick stream. It was a reminder that magic isn't free if you abuse it. It always wants a little piece of you, even if the magic is your own.
I took a shaky breath and looked around. The basement didn't look like a murder scene anymore. It looked like a hidden garden that had been there for a century. The Toad was gone. She was just fertilizer now.
I wiped my nose on my sleeve and turned toward the stairs. I was exhausted, but I was free. Making my way up the metal steps of the Apartment basement, I push open the door and walk through the lobby. It was time to see what was next.