Callum arrived to drive Elvie to her classes. They didn’t talk much. Callum had tried to engage before settling on silence when Elvie gave one-word answers to his questions. Instead, He opted for dropping her off and bidding her farewell with minimal fuss. If there was one skill Callum appeared to have mastered in stark contrast to Alistar, it was tact.

Unlike most of her other classes, she took Basic Manipulations without Flynn. He had chosen to focus on water and healing skills, and as Rilla was a second-year student, this specific class was beneath her abilities, although she would have said differently.

Basic Manipulations was a class Elvie enjoyed, although their regularity decreased with the season changing and the wintry weather closing in. The Masters were in no particular rush to run lessons; they scheduled them whenever the weather was favourable enough for students to attend. Weirdly for Elvie, night fell early in this far into the northern hemisphere, which further limited the time available. Altogether, the short, occasional lessons created a casual attitude towards learning that Elvie was not entirely used to.

Her teacher for the class was Master Mhyrre. Elvie wasn’t sure she was old enough to teach, let alone to be a Master in Ash House. With long blonde hair slung across the shoulder of her deep blue robe, fair skin, and piercing grey eyes. Master Mhyrre was considered a generalist on the Island, with a broad knowledge of spells across different spell areas. For any magician, casting from multiple houses demonstrated a rarity of skill and ability; while she couldn’t cast many with great strength, it made her a highly qualified teacher for Basic Manipulations.

Basic Manipulations was taught out of what was, at least to Elvie, a bathroom. Whereas other rooms had desks or counters on wooden floors, Ash Practice Quarters 1B had tiles from floor to ceiling. A motley collection of baths, troughs, and buckets fed by taps, extended from the walls. In reality, it was the perfect place to throw water like a child in a bathtub, with little worry about cleaning up afterwards.

Today their learning focused on water transitions; moving water from place to place – before culminating with some more sophisticated magic on altering its state.

‘Let’s start simple,’ Mhyrre said. ‘I want you to use Verzaelen to gather the water. Focus your mind until it forms into the shape you want. Then, I want you to use Verhuizen to send the water to another tub, or bucket, or whatever else you’re aiming for. No aiming at students!’ Several students giggled.

‘Verzaelen,’ Elvie whispered to the water in an old English bathtub. The liquid responded by gathering itself into a nice sphere, which spiralled around itself as it sat in the bottom of the tub. ‘You’re cute,’ she told the ball of spinning water. ‘But I’d like you to be over there.’ She pointed at a bucket several paces away. ‘Verhuizen.’

The spiralling water lifted free of itself, rising like a transparent hand. Part of it arched across the room to land in the other bucket with a splash. Squeals of dismay filled the room as not every student enjoyed success.

‘Nice work, Elvie,’ Master Mhyrre said beside her. ‘Good control too.’

‘But I wanted the whole ball to move,’ Elvie replied, disappointed.

Mhyrre shook her head. ‘That isn’t the way Ash House works. You can’t break the rules of gravity when controlling water, but you can bend them a little. It stretches off itself, like a snake in the water with its head up, but you’ll never make it hover in the air or anything like that, not unless you can find a way to combine it with a spell to support its weight. Pick another shape and give it a few more tries. You’ll find you can increase the speed the water travels if you focus on that aspect, and you might also want to work on not losing any when it lifts, or lands.’

She moved to watch other students, leaving Elvie disappointed. What good was Ash House, if you could only move water around on the ground, or just off it? It might be easier if you were casting while at sea, but Elvie had no intention of becoming a sailor.

She gathered her water back into a nice sphere when a thought dawned on her. She’d already been shown a spell for how to manipulate air. If she could just focus on something that related to holding – like lifting her young cousin into a hug. Perhaps…

‘Awel araf!’ It was the spell Shrinth had used to control the air during her demonstration in the field.

Her sphere rose into the air, pushed upwards by a gentle breeze stroking it off the ground.

Elvie clapped her hands in delight.

She’d done it. She’d cast a Birch House spell! Wait… she’d cast a Birch House spell?

‘Elvie!’ Mhyrre was back behind her. She lost focus, and the sphere rocketed upwards to slam into a window, where it slapped with a wet thud before trickling down the wall.

‘What was that?’ Mhyrre pounced on her.

‘Ah… You said…’ No, that was not a good direction. ‘Master Mhyrre, you said that I needed a combination spell, and I heard Shrinth cast this one. I just wanted to lift it into the air...’

Mhyrre was flabbergasted, her grey eyes round. ‘So you simply decided to cast a Birch House spell?’

‘I guess so.’ Elvie didn’t know what to say. Impulsivity had always been one of her shortcomings. ‘I mean, I’m sorry I did… I wanted to see what it would do.’

For some reason, the answer satisfied Mhyrre, although a hint of anger entered her voice. ‘This is Basic Manipulations, Elvie. You learn these before you move onwards to the more challenging. So please, stick to the spells at hand, or you won’t be in my class much longer.’

For the rest of the lesson, Elvie followed the script.

It was early afternoon when the bus dropped her back off at Elder House – and without thinking about it, she made her way to the common study to resume their work. Callum was already there, and they picked up where they left off, trying to discover all the finer details of that day through an endless procession of questions.

Yes, the beach was sunny, approximately 30 degrees centigrade, although no, she couldn’t be sure.

Yes, the water had gotten onto the end of her toes.

No, she doubted her parents had seen her go as they weren’t watching at that particular moment.

The questions continued, and to some extent, Elvie did understand why he asked them. Like Callum, she suspected she had done, or said, something, which had caused her to travel to the past. The sequence needed to be understood in order to replicate it effectively.

His final question was one she’d pondered herself: ‘Apart from her parents, was anyone else there?’

She didn’t know. She’d been distracted, and couldn’t recall seeing a person. Was someone standing back amongst the dunes, or was her imagination filling in the blanks after Callum had asked? She understood why he was interested. He was asking whether someone else had sent her back.

By nightfall, she was exhausted, mentally drained as much as anything else. Callum didn’t realise, but every time she dredged up the memory of the day, she also brought with it the images of her mother and father – how happy they were amongst the grass on that beautiful day. It was a mental picture frozen in time.

How she longed to see them again – to touch their faces, hold their hands, have their arms wrapped tight around her. The pain of loss was so sharp, doubled now by her loss of Rilla.

As if sensing her sadness, Elisabeth appeared in the doorway with a knock.

‘I think Elvie could use a break for a while, right Callum? Just because Alistar and yourself are so insistent on burning the wick at both ends… she is only young, and needs good food and rest, as well as time to do things she enjoys.’

Elisabeth virtually dragged Elvie from the room and into the hallway as Callum rushed to assure Elisabeth he would do better. He had his hands raised comically, like he was preparing to defend himself from Elder Houses’s matron.

‘Honestly, Elvie, you’re pushing yourself too hard. Take a break, have some fun... see your friends. Studying is not so important that it needs to come at the expense of your health.’

Two things became obvious to Elvie. Firstly, Alistar and Callum had clearly not yet told her about time travelling. Secondly, Elisabeth knew about Rilla leaving. The second made sense, considering that she oversaw the house. But why had the Elder magicians decided not to tell her Elvie was from the future?

Elisabeth mistook her hesitation as a reason to continue. ‘I did hear about Rilla returning to Ash House – but she wouldn’t tell me why, or talk about you. Putting those two pieces together…’

‘Do I have to talk about it?’

Elisabeth scoffed. ‘Of course not. I’m not going to force you to talk about anything. But if an older lady can offer you some advice: friendships do not heal themselves without communication. You must talk to Rilla, Elvie, if you wish to restore your friendship.’

Elvie nodded.

‘Now then,’ Elisabeth changed the topic. ‘What do you know about art?’