I got up when the sky was still dark, and made a cup of tea. I sat by my window long enough for the sky to gradually lighten. I let a ray of sunshine warm my face. An unusual kind of nervousness washed over me. I slowly made my way through a toasted bread roll with tomato and avocado. There was a kind of sadness for my old life as I resolved, once more, to never again use my magic. I would never be known for my magic, for I was no longer a practitioner of the dark arts.

I put my new notebook and pencil in my bag, and began my life as a student by walking to the university. I passed the park at the end of my street, and zig zagged my way to Dunkel University, Building M, Level 1. There was a gathering of about ten students outside Room 01. I stood amongst them, but nobody noticed me. They were all either buried in a book or in their own conversations. Within a few minutes, Mr Hatter appeared and opened the door to let us in. Everyone seemed to have their preferred seat, so I sat inconspicuously at the end of the back row next to a girl with long thick curly blonde hair. She looked up at me with a welcoming smile.

“Hi, are you just starting with us?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m new here. New in Dunkel. I’m Arcadia. What’s your name?”

“Clarrie,” she smiled, and offered me a cocoa biscuit from her bag.

“Thank you,” I said, and took a bite, its intense aroma enveloping me in its warm embrace. I instantly felt my body soften. “This is really good. Did you make it?”

“Yes, I love to make food that makes people feel good.”

So she was a healer. I wondered what she was doing here in a mathematics class.

Mr Hatter stood up.

“We have a new student joining us today. Arcadia Guzmata, can you stand up so we can all see you?”

I awkwardly stood up and smiled. “Hello everyone,” I said.

Everyone introduced themselves. I felt out of place. I sat down and had another bite of Clarrie’s cocoa biscuit. It wrapped me in its warm hug and I leant back in my chair to listen to Mr Hatter.

Mr Hatter’s words swirled around my head. It was all about methods and record keeping. My eyes glazed over, but from what I understood, in class we learnt how to present our research, and out of class hours was when we did our own investigative research and work in our fields. These classes were important, because what we learnt in class would help our work gain success. The university was a container for research, innovation, and design. We could be researching, innovating, and designing anything we liked, but it was the university that helped us make it successful. As long as our work was succeeding in its purpose, we could keep studying at the university, maintain our small wage, and raise the standards of humanity. It all sounded very much like apprenticing, but with high standards of methodology and documentation that made my breath shallow and my head spin. This was no place for a magician. But I was not a magician any more. I needed to stop identifying with the dark arts, and begin to embrace the light arts. As I took a big breath and a sigh, I found myself doodling in my brand new notebook. I thought I should have been writing something important. Something I would need to know so that my research here wouldn’t go to waste. I found myself drawing boxes and lines and other geometric icons that connected to one another. It looked like nonsense, but my body wanted to draw, and something within me understood that this would be my best chance of taking in the words that were being said at the front of the classroom.

It took me a while to realise it, but I was drawing the geometry of Mr Hatter’s methods. In the lines that connected and intersected on the page, I could understand that there was a set of standards required to legitimise our findings. Mr Hatter was drawing from his decades of research, teaching, and practical application, and condensing this knowledge into points of criteria and guidelines. These points and guidelines were presented in a way that was far too intellectual for me, but as my body processed the frequencies of the words, it could formulate it into abstract conceptual feelings, which were embedded in this geometry that had found its way into my new notebook.

My heart skipped a beat as I realised I was onto something. All I needed to do was follow the formula for research and presentation, and I would be able to convert this information to the masses. The practical application for this visual frequency transmission would be limitless.

I felt waves of gratitude spread throughout my body as I finally understood something, and realised, that perhaps I was not out of my depth after all. Perhaps I really could be a successful mathematician. Perhaps I really would be a master of the light arts. I looked for signs to see if my own frequency was being felt in the room. A couple of people shifted into more upright postures. Clarrie sighed and smiled. Mr Hatter looked directly at me for a moment as he spoke. This was it. I knew my area of interest was perhaps a little too broad for a dissertation and public use, but it was a start, and I could narrow it down as I gathered more knowledge of it.

The class went on as it turned into a workshop, where students presented some of their ideas, and Mr Hatter critiqued their methodologies, research, and presentation. This turned out to be very useful. We could all learn from this, and apply it to our own work. It was very interesting to see what my other classmates were researching. Topics ranged from engineering design for new structures, to DNA mutation prediction. From the man-made to the natural. From the macro to the micro aspects of the cosmos and humanity. Although in this first class there was more technical language than I had ever heard in my whole life, it was fascinating enough for me to start to believe that maybe, with a lot of study, I could belong here.

Class finished at lunch time so we could take a break and use the afternoon for our own research. The thought of predictable routine comforted me. As the class finished, I looked down at my notebook. Lines, points, stars, arrows, spheres, and other shapes I did not recognise filled the first two pages. My body understood it by looking at it, but I did not yet have the words to explain it. I decided to spend the afternoon following the lead of my diagrams, and see where it would take me. I put my notebook in my bag, and looked up to see Clarrie waiting for me.

“I’m having lunch in one of the cafes here before going to the library. Want to come?”

“That would be great,” I smiled, and reminded myself that starting a new life was not only about redefining who I was as a person. It was also about redefining how I socialised.