Who: Zipporah Bakst and Arabella Ward What: Magic lessons and revelations When: 18th February, 1889 Where: Bakst residence Rating: G
Arabella had never been to the Bakst residence before, and she took it in with wide eyes, seeing a life entirely different from her own. She and Zipporah were both independent in their own ways, but Zipporah had even more freedom, acting without income or home provided by a father. It made her both proud of her friend and disappointed in herself, that she hadn’t achieved this level of success--and slightly ashamed, at the thought that she lived in considerably more comfort because of it.
She turned her gaze back to Zipporah. “Is this still a good time?” Zipporah had offered to teach her some magic; true, real magic, and Arabella had so many questions she hardly knew where to begin asking them.
“For you?” Zipporah replied, smiling, pleased at seeing her friend, “For you there is always time. I can think of nothing better.” She took Arabella by the hand. “Come in, come in, I’ll make us some tea, and we shall see where the afternoon takes us, shall we?”
She couldn’t help but think of Arabella while Biddie was making her bleak predictions about Bertie, and the dangers of letting a magical knack -- even a small one -- go unaddressed. So far, Arabella’s knack seemed to be so slight as to be hardly noticeable -- and only ever appeared to occur when she was not paying it any mind. Zipporah figured putting a bit more intentionality into things was a good first step to take as any, although her own training had been such a part of her existence, it was hard to know where to even begin.
She laughed a little at Arabella’s expression. “You seem full of news,” she added, as they made their way over to the two leather chairs in the sitting room. “Has there been a development with your Alukah friend?”
"No, but there has been a development," Arabella admitted. "I haven't spoken with my librarian about it yet; I wanted to hear what you thought first. There was a man who spoke to me in such a way that I would have thought him mad, only a short while ago. But now, having heard of your wolf people and Alukah, I wonder if he is not so mad after all, and if there is more to the world than meets the eye."
She settled into one of the chairs and folded her hands in her lap. "He spoke of werewolves, and vampires, and dragons, Zipporah, he spoke as though dragons were real. He said there were myths people believed to be legends, but that they were all true." Arabella searched Zipporah's expression for clues to understanding. "Do you think he's right? Or is he mad, after all?
"When you spoke of the wolf people," Arabella explained slowly, "I thought you mean a native tribe of some kind, a wild people who kept to themselves. But that isn't it at all," Arabella asked, her eyes wide and fixed intently on Zipporah. "Is it?"
“It is not, no,” Zipporah replied, reaching for Arabella’s hand and holding it in both of hers. “He is right,” she added, carefully. “My wolf man, he turns at the full moon, and I have fed a hurt Alukah human blood for to heal her, and more. Far more. Our village was very isolated, when I was growing up, and while my bubbe, she was friendly with one of the forest folk, and my auntie treated a wolf woman once, I did not know the half of it until we came here, and thought as you did, that it was stories. But it is not.”
She bit her lip. “I think we are more likely to stumble into their world, because we have magics in our bloods, but it is a secret one, and they guard its secrets carefully. He must have assumed you already knew.” Squeezing Arabella’s hand, she looked over at her, a small smile on her face. “In a world where you know there is magics, the rest of it does not seem quite so beyond possibility, does it?”
"I have seen what you can do," Arabella agreed. "And I have seen my librarian's teeth. But dragons." And wolf people, who changed at the full moon. An Alukah who had taken Zipporah's blood to heal herself. Arabella filed each note away for later study.
She raised her eyes, wide and wondering, to Zipporah's face. "Who are the forest folk?"
“They are… hm,” Zipporah replied. “They can differ, depending. Some are small and silly, and make mischief, and tend for to appear during times of the year when the veil is thin and magic is high. They can be cruel, and playful, and no end of trouble, but they will leave you be for a bowl of wine and bread. And others are ancient, and wise, and endlessly powerful, and walk among us. They can be playful too,” Zipporah added, remembering Una’s whims, and Mac’s laughter. “I have met many creatures, some who are very, very old, but the forest folk, they are the oldest of them all.”
She leaned forward. “And there are mermaids,” she added, biting her lip. “And demons, who feed on the sex.” She flushed a little. “They are not so bad as all that,” she added. “Some are quite friendly, and they do not feed from you if you do not wish it.”
Arabella's mouth dropped open, and she, who was not often shocked by anything, said, "Zipporah," in a scandalized whisper. Her mind filled in several horrifying images, and then she caught herself, eyes narrowed.
"You are joking with me," Arabella said, certain of it, though she didn't mind. Zipporah had a good sense of humour, and Arabella enjoyed her good moods. She believed that some of what Zipporah had said must be true...apart from that last. "The forest folk and the mermaids, though, they are real?"
Zipporah laughed. “I am not joking,” she said, shaking her head. “My hand to God. I am friends with one. He is very pretty, and very much a gentleman, and his daughter, she is nice too, and so beautiful she would make your eyes hurt. And I have met a dragon, he had to duck for to enter the house, and looked quite fearsome. And yes. The Mer and the Forest folk are quite real. As real as I am. I know of one who was here when London was only a few small buildings by a river.” She grinned, and shook her head. “They all do their best for to try to live their lives among us, and some are better at it than others, but it is all quite fantastical at times.”
Her grin grew wider. “It would be no end of scandalous,” she said, “but I could take you to a public house where some of them gather. There are other women there,” she added, “respectable women. I have gone there a few times.”
Arabella began to shake her head automatically, and then caught herself. She couldn't go to a public house to meet demons...could she? It would be scandalous, but then Arabella already was, in her own way. And with Zipporah, she felt as if there was nothing she could not do.
"Not tonight," she temporized, because there were other things to address first, before she felt herself ready for that leap. Coming to terms with herself would come before coming to terms with a whole world outside of the one she knew. Arabella's eyes were keen with interest as she said, "Let's do some magic."
“Yes,” Zipporah replied back, nodding her head, pleased at the fact that Arabella could possibly want to go at a future time, the picture of her sitting solemnly on a stool at the Lionhart while Mac tried his best to charm her a delightful mental picture. “Let us.”
She got up to get a candlestick, one of the good candles, and set it on the low table before them, lighting it with a match.
“I have been thinking about your magic,” Zipporah said, thoughtfully. “It seems for to come when you are not paying it mind, and when you wish to solve a problem. Yes? I thought we might have you work on your concentration, so you may focus your energies with more intent.”
She pulled a small box out of her pocket, and opened it, the small black pearl inside resting on cotton, and set it on the table by the candle.
“Perhaps we could start by breathing?” She asked, looking over at Arabella. “It is one of the first things I learned for to do, to focus my energies, and channel them. And I pray,” she added, “but you might have a chant, a mantra that would work for you better, something soothing, that you know quite well. A catechism, perhaps? Or a list?”
Arabella considered this, and then nodded tentatively. "I know Mendeleev’s periodic table of elements backward and forward," she replied. "Will that do? It is not a prayer, but it is a focus, for me. I find it soothing to recall."
She gazed at the pearl, and the candle, and settled herself with her shoulders back and hands in her lap. "It seems very sensible," she told Zipporah approvingly, "locating the sense of magic before attempting to use it."
Zipporah smiled back warmly, and nodded. “This part, it is slow, and requires time, and it may not seem as though much is happening, but to know your own body, to know of your energies, it is important.” She tipped her head. “And the list of elements, that is very much like you, I think. So it will work very well.”
She settled back into her own chair. “First,” she said, “we must become aware of the air passing through our lungs and throat as we inhale, and then the air as it passes out through our noses as we exhale. The sensation of the air, the feel of it against our tongues and nostrils, the movement of our lungs, to pay it mind.” She looked over at Arabella. “Closing your eyes helps, and if you start to think of other things, that is fine, you have drifted, just go back to the breath.”
Arabella wondered whether breathing evenly and chanting the table were to happen at the same time, but she decided to try breathing first, certain Zipporah would tell her if it was time to speak. She thought of counting, but that was not what she had been tasked to do, so she focused on her breath alone. She felt the air move, imagined its path through her organs, her ribs expanding and constricting. She closed her eyes and tasted the air, imagined she could smell the candle wax as it warmed, thought of the pearl on the table, formed around a singular speck of matter. She thought of the layers of nacre surrounding the heart of the pearl, and then caught herself wandering and pulled her thoughts back to her breath. It was winter; the air was cold. Arabella liked the cold. She preferred when the air bit into her lungs when she breathed it; when she exhaled a cloud of mist into the air. She liked the taste of cold air, liked to imagine it could stay cold within her, and emerge as frost, sparkling crystals on the air.
Arabella breathed, and the air in her lungs felt pleasantly cold, like snow in winter.
It took effort for Zipporah to not slip into her own state of inner calm, and keep her focus on the task at hand -- she’d been sitting and breathing and thinking about her breathing since she could sit still enough without wriggling for ten straight minutes, and it was a force of habit by now. She kept her own breathing steady, to help the whoosh of noise be a constant, and reflected on how her grandmother used to describe her energies, back when she was small, and trying very hard not to wriggle. The memory of her grandmother’s voice was a pleasant one, as was the memory of sitting on a rug in the middle of their floor, and her auntie’s hanging herbs and the candle and the light fragrance of the tea brewing was enough of a sense-memory to bring her back there easily.
After a few minutes, she stirred a little, and pulled her shawl a little closer -- the room seemed a little chilly, and she could see Arabella’s breath in the air when she opened her eyes.
“Now, turn your eye inward,” she said. “Imagine your energy, your life force, as a glowing ball at your center, your core. I picture mine right at my heart, my bubbe’s was in her stomach, my auntie’s is in her womb, my mother’s was in her tongue, Archie’s is in his feet. Wherever you are rooted, and anchored. Focus on that power, the place where your energy gathers, your home. Chanting may help for to focus, or looking at the heart of the flame of the candle.”
Arabella paused, and considered. Her heart seemed unlikely. Her tongue and stomach, as well. Her mind? Was it her choice, where her magic was, or where she pictured it; or was it beyond her control, and her responsibility only to locate it? She tried to picture a glowing ball, and found herself trying to determine which metal it would be. Molten gold? Mercury? Of course it was none of those, she reminded herself; it was magic. But magic without a form, with only the attributes assigned to it, was difficult for her to imagine. Arabella preferred the tangible.
She was not focused. Concentrating on her breath, Arabella began to recite the elements. As she did, she considered each one. Hydrogen. Could magic be a gas? Did it have weight, mass, density? It must, surely. Lithium. Silvery-white, soft. Did silver glow?
Arabella realized that her meditation had become a study of the elements, and changed her approach. Instead of the elements themselves, she mentally recited Menedeleev's properties. The elements, if arranged according to their atomic mass, exhibit an apparent periodicity of properties. Elements which are similar as regards to their chemical properties have atomic weights which are either of nearly the same value or which increase regularly.
As she repeated the statements, she found her breathing even again, and her mind clear. She did not, however, feel any particular kindling of magic. Arabella opened her eyes to focus on the candle flame, but she could not find a similar light within her.
"It is different," she noted after long minutes of silence, "to find something, than to to imagine you possess it."
Zipporah paused, and bit her lip. “Here,” she said, “perhaps it might be easier for to feel mine. Come,” she said, standing and stretching her legs a little, “I think sitting on the floor might be easier, and you might put your hand here,” she said, sitting on the floor cross-legged and touching her hand to her chest. “And once you see what mine is like, you might be better able to find yours, to know what to look for.” She’d remembered touching her mother’s tongue when she was first learning of her own powers, and feeling an almost electrical shock at the power gathered there, the taste of copper in her own mouth, her heart surging and aching with it. “Perhaps it shall work over the clothes. We shall have to see.”
Arabella concentrated all her attention on Zipporah's heartbeat, which she could not feel through layers of clothing, but could imagine. To her surprise, after a long moment, she did not have to imagine.
"Oh," she said, marveling. "It's a seed."
So it seemed to her, anyway, and as she focused on that sense of something greater, she became aware of it in more than only Zipporah's chest. It was in Arabella's fingertips, where she touched Arabella's dress.
It was in her hands.
Arabella drew her hands back toward her, and turned them to gaze at her palms. "Did you do that?" It was always possible that Zipporah's magic had leaked onto her, rather than it being Arabella's own. That, in fact, seemed more likely. She could feel the seed there, though, as she had in Zipporah, and the shoots and branches that spread from there through to her fingertips. A seedling. A growing thing. But not growing; in stasis, as if hibernating safely under her skin for the winter.
Zipporah laughed, soft and warm, pleased as she reached out to touch Arabella’s fingertips with her own. “There it is,” she said, her mouth filled with a familiar tingle, and other things too -- she tasted liver, her tongue feeling as if it had touched a chilly bit of metal. “That is yours. No wonder you changed the pearl by touch.” She looked over at Arabella, grinning. “I think of my heartbeat,” she said, “when I need for to center. Perhaps…” she touched her ring fingers to her thumbs. “Perhaps this would help -- for to make a circle while you focus. Or this,” she amended, switching to the first finger and thumb. “Heart or head,” she added. “I am heart, but the head might be more for you.”
"I am not very good at matters of the heart," Arabella agreed, grateful for the alternative, which suited her much better. She made rings as Zipporah demonstrated, forefinger to thumb, and considered them. Then she considered Zipporah, who was all heart, and an earlier statement.
"Archie?" she asked, her eyebrows raising.
Zipporah flushed a little. “Captain Curtis,” she said. “The gentleman who escorted me to the Masquerade ball. He is a fellow witch, and wished for to train with me, to learn more about his capabilities. He is an airship captain, and his… his cousin is a very powerful witch, but a different sort than he is, and my magic works better with his.”
The memory of the serious look on Archie’s face before he leaned down to kiss her, so careful, so determined, not quite a kiss of passion, but one of promise, made her turn a little more pink. “He is a good sort,” she added, “although is cousin, I do not get on with very well.”
Arabella watched Zipporah's face, intrigued by the expression and colour that flooded over it. "Is he courting you?"
She hoped the question would not touch on a nerve, as Captain Curtis' station was far enough above Zipporah's that it made it possible he was only hoping for a mistress. The fact that he had escorted her to a ball, and respected her as a witch and his teacher, however, spoke otherwise. "His cousin--Mrs Linden? She invited me to their masquerade. I still don't know why." Her curiosity piqued, Arabella asked, "Have you ridden on his airship?"
“I am teaching him, and he is a friend,” Zipporah replied, “...and if he intends for to do so, he has not said. I rode on one once,” she added, “it was quite terrifying, to float in the sky like that, like it was nothing, but it did not feel as if we would fall, so that helped. I would ride in one again.” She frowned a little. “...It is complicated,” she said, after a pause, “because I do love my wolf man, and I am happy with him, for now, only I know it is not something that will last. We are too different, he and I.”
She shrugged. “And Mrs Linden, I would be careful she not show too much interest in you. If she does, you will let me know? She tends to be… she is drawn to people who can be of use, and does not always use them well.”
Zipporah laughed, and poked at Arabella. “You are distracting me,” she said, grinning. “You have found where your magics live. Would you like for to focus more on it, now that you know what it feels like?”
Arabella's expression stretched into a smile in turn, and she nodded. "I'm sorry," she said, as that was what one was meant to say. "I'm ready. What should I do now?"
“Finger to thumb,” Zipporah intoned, with a sparkle in her eye, “turned inward, pointed back towards you, and chant as you focus on your energies. Get to know the shape of it, how it tastes, how it feels, so you may channel it. I think it helps, for to have it in your fingertips. You can focus with gesture, that way.”
Arabella turned her hands back as she'd been instructed, and began to recite Mendeleev's properties silently, until she decided that this was a better use of the elements themselves, and made her way through the list, her voice a low, even murmur of sound. "Hydrogen, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen..."
She was not certain what Zipporah meant by 'taste' and 'feel', but she did her best to study the phenomenon, the awareness of that seed within her. She followed the sprouting tendrils that stretched into her fingertips, attempting to focus them as she did. ...flourine, sodium, magnesium... Gesture, Zipporah had said. Perhaps the seedling could unfurl outside herself, to create the evidence of magic. ...aluminum, silicon, phosphorus...
Or perhaps not. Arabella frowned as she became aware of a subtle pressure, intangible until she pressed against it, fitting over her hands like a glove. Her recitation faltered, and she flexed her fingers, absorbing the strange feeling. Perhaps that was normal. Perhaps magic could not break the boundaries of her own body, in such a way.
Even if it did feel restrictive, rather than comforting.
Zipporah saw the wrinkle of frustration appear in Arabella’s normally smooth forehead, and she bit her lip. “Your magics,” she said, gently, “they have only appeared before when you were not concentrating, yes? Bending them to your will, making them conscious acts, this will take time. It will most likely be slow, and frustrating. But for now, for the moment, just sitting with it rather than trying to do anything with it is of value. You are getting for to know yourself better. Taking action can wait.”
Arabella nodded her understanding of this wisdom, and drew in a new, cold breath. Zipporah was right; all learning took time, and patience, and she had to master the basics before she could move on.