The first-year class met in the library for their weekly private study period. It was supposed to be a quiet time, but their form tutor Mr Fletcher had left the group unattended to cover for Mrs Reid, who was away sick. So it was left to Mrs Wartridge, the school librarian, to watch over the first-years.

Mrs Wartridge’s bird-like face peered out periodically from behind a stack of reference books. Her eyes squinted over the rim of her little glasses that balanced so low on her nose it was a wonder they were any use to her at all. Her perpetually tanned and wrinkled face scrunched even deeper as she pursed her lips together into a little circle, hissing out her shushes and grumbles of annoyance.

She seemed thoroughly out of place in the shiny and modern library. Considering the plethora of high-tech computer screens, the electronic information points, and the self-serve checkout station, many of the students had wondered why a librarian was necessary at all. Though if it weren’t for Mrs Wartridge’s continual shushing and scoffing at them, they’d probably have been lost in mindless chitchat within seconds of sitting down, so perhaps her most important library duty was that of peace-keeper.

Private study was a double period in which the students were supposed to take advantage of resources to help with any independent projects or homework assignments, and, as Mr Fletcher loved to describe it, “consolidate” their learning.

Naturally, Maggie relished the opportunity to make notes upon notes upon notes, and dominated the pages of her textbooks with legions of post-its. But Jessa and Flynn had a more relaxing take on private study time. They had their books open and occasionally looked down at them to read a few sentences, but easily became engrossed in conversation again.

Annora and Tonia also proved to be something of a distraction at the table. Annora was particularly taken by Maggie’s sticky notes. “What does that one say?” “Can I borrow a purple one?” “What’s that diagram for? Can you draw one for me?” The questions poured, and Maggie was too kind to turn her down.

Tonia was a more subtle preoccupation.

Across the library, a sudden burst of obnoxious laughter erupted from Cecily Graves’ table. Gray Townsend was using brightly coloured stickers to pull his face into contorted shapes for the entertainment of his table-mates, Eli, Cecily, and her cronies Amelia Waters and Devi Kapoor. Jessa noticed that the stickers were decorated in red, white and blue, and the words “VOTE GRAVES” were printed on them in big block letters. Cecily handed out strips of the stickers to her friends.

“So anyway!” Cecily’s commanding voice cut through their laughter, calming down the hysterics and bringing the attention back to herself. “My dad just asks that you take home the information packet and have your parents look it over. His contact info is all on there. Daddy’s incredibly committed to traditional values,” she droned away at their disingenuously interested faces.

“I think my parents will be interested, they’re always going on about that sort of thing,” Amelia spluttered in her overly posh drawl.

“Perfect,” Cecily responded, businesslike. “Daddy will be pleased. He just wants your parents to review his policies. And then, if they agree with him, to spread the word to their friends and business associates.”

“Her father’s in politics now?” said Jessa.

“Oh yes, you haven’t heard? It’s been going on for a while,” Annora replied in a hushed voice. “My parents are quite outraged about the whole thing.” Her naturally bulgy eyes honed in on them. “Mr Graves is running for the Parapsych Independence Party!”

“Is that a real party?” Jessa asked. “All I’ve heard about the PIP is that they’re just a group of people with offensive beliefs about laterals. They’ve never actually been in government have they?”

“They’ve never won an election, if that’s what you mean,” said Flynn. “I think they’re mostly ridiculed in politics.”

“Mostly, yes. Or at least, they used to be,” Annora replied. “But Jameson Graves wants to be nominated as the leader of the PIP, and he’s trying to revamp the party to make it more modern and approachable. My parents said it’s dangerous.”

“I don’t understand, though,” said Tonia. “Isn’t the whole point of a political party that they want to get as many votes as possible? Laterals would never vote for the PIP. The government is a mixture of parapsychs and laterals, right? So what are the PIP trying to do?”

“My mother said that they’re trying to be less extreme and more like the conservative party, but just for parapsychs.”

“That is extreme, though, isn’t it?” Jessa said, a little too loudly. Flynn hushed for Jessa to keep her voice down.

“I know,” Annora nodded. “But supposedly, it’s different this time because he already has some rich and powerful people backing him.”

“Ugh,” Jessa groaned quietly, glancing over at Cecily, who had clearly moved on from the subject of politics but still managed to hold her place at the forefront of Jessa’s irritation. “What do you think, Mags?”

“I think you should all stop with the silly gossip and do some work.”

Jessa wondered if ‘silly gossip’—curiously pronounced as though it were all one word—was a phrase that Maggie had picked up somewhere or if she had inadvertently chosen it as one of her own catchphrases. Whenever Jessa started getting tangled in a teenage grapevine reverie, Maggie was quick to cut her down with a swift scolding for engaging in silly gossip. You could always count on Maggie Turner to be quite the chatterbox at lunchtime or outside of school, but as soon as she was in a classroom and there was any potential threat of getting told off, she couldn’t possibly let herself get caught up in idle sillygossip.

Before long, the class drew to an end, and Mr Fletcher burst in through the door and dismissed the students a few minutes early, thanking them for being so cooperative in his absence. Mrs Wartridge uttered a “humph!” of defiance and shook her hairsprayed head. As far as Mrs Wartridge was concerned, there was no bigger mischief than talking in the library.

#

“Now that we’ve done our open-mind practice, we are ready to introduce a new element! Today, students, we begin to investigate the fine art of pyrokinesis.”

“Yessss!” some of the students hissed with glee. Gray made fists and punched the air in celebration.

Ms Alzamora brought down the chatter volume with her gentle hums and shushes and light touches to tensed shoulders. She pulled small candles from a wicker basket tucked under her arm and made a point of personally delivering a fresh white candle into the open palms of each student.

“Open textbooks to your circles, please.”

They all flipped to the inside of the back cover.

“Place your candle inside the circle. Now, draw your visual focus to the candle wick, but keep your concentration on my voice,” the teacher settled into her other-worldly drone. “Place your forearms on the table so your hands frame your candle. Hold your gaze. I will bring myself to each of you to light the flame. As your flame is born, take a smooth breath in, sit up straight and allow the feeling of inner peace and focus to flow up your spine and into your mindspace.”

The students held their sight over the candle flames. Some of them crumpled their faces in concentration, while others simply stared, eyes wide and unblinking.

“Let your gaze travel down the wick to protect your eyes from the light, but keep your focus on the flame atop. Feel the motion of the flame as it moves. If you have the impulse to do so, lift your hands to either side of the flame and shield it from any flow of air that might impede the energy coming from you.”

Ms Alzamora tip-toed around the room on her bare feet, holding her hands above the head of each student. A few of them broke their own focus to watch her curiously, lingering above each student mouthing words nobody could understand.

“When you’re ready,” she eventually spoke aloud, “envision the flame moving to one side, then summon your mind to push the energy out through your hand and into the flame.”

Jessa consciously deepened her breathing and mentally visualised the energy filtering through her body, down her right arm and out through her fingertips. The candle flame bowed slightly to the left. She felt a pang of excitement jolt through her body, which completely stole her focus away from the flame, so she took a break and looked sideways to see how her friends were getting on. Maggie’s flame was wobbling ever-so-slightly but wasn’t quite leaning, while Flynn was easily holding his flame almost on its side. Flynn deliberately broke his concentration to look up at Jessa with a wide grin. But his smile quickly turned to something else, and he nodded toward the other side of the room.

Jessa followed his line of sight and turned her head to discover that it was Cecily Graves who had become the subject of his gaze. Jessa’s mouth involuntarily fell open. She prodded Maggie, urging her to look up, as other students did to their neighbours and the nudge spread around the room. Even Ms Alzamora was dumbfounded.

Cecily’s torso hunched toward her candle, undulating back and forth. Her hands were up from the table, with her fingers together in a tent-like formation directly above and around the flame. But her flame wasn’t leaning to the side—it was growing upwards.

She rocked forward and back, pulsating her hands outward from the fingertips, stimulating the flame. It reached up at least three times the height of everyone else’s flames, which had all lost the attention of their owners and just flickered silently to themselves.

Ms Alzamora shook her head to snap herself out of the daze and put an end to the spectacle with a few loud claps in quick succession. The whole class jumped as the sound brought them all back to a normal state of mind. Cecily flung her head up and her flame shrank back to its former self.

“Well well!” Ms Alzamora stammered. “It seems we have a very passionate pyrokin in our midst! Let’s all give Cecily a round of applause for a remarkable display of… of… concentration!” she had trouble even getting the words out.

The class clapped, with the loudest applause coming from Amelia Waters and Devi Kapoor, while Eli emitted a generous “yeah!” and Gray hollered a loud whoop. But Cecily took the praise with a suspicious modesty, eliciting nothing but an arrogant sideways smile.

While the rest of the class began roaring with chatter about what they’d just witnessed, Cecily Graves remained in stillness and silence, deliberately locking eyes with Jessa from across the room. Cecily looked at her, steady and severe. The conceited smile fell away, leaving her face cold and cruel. Her lips parted to reveal the subtlest flash of teeth. And just for a second, Jessa felt a sensation in her empty hands. The undeniable sensation of burning.