The Magic Factory

Oliver pondered this for a moment. The thought of a Hitler who’d done things even worse than what he knew of was quite terrifying.

Then a new thought struck him.

“It’s an endless task, isn’t it?” he asked. “With all these timelines all happening at once. It’s like a game of chess. We move and they countermove. They change history and we try to change it back. When does it ever end?”

Professor Amethyst looked at him earnestly. “It doesn’t end, Oliver. And that’s why it is so hard to be a Seer. So challenging. It is a huge responsibility, one that you will have to bear for the rest of your days. You must work hard here and hone your skills. You have the potential to become one of the absolute strongest, greatest, most powerful Seers that ever lived. You must train, and concentrate, and never give up. Whatever you do, resist the dark side, because its lures are strong.” He glanced away, troubled, as though there was something on his mind that he wasn’t telling Oliver. “The fate of the world will soon rest upon your shoulders.”

Oliver swallowed hard. There was no doubt in his mind now that some difficult, terrifying mission awaited him, one that Professor Amethyst had seen played out before, but one that, when the time came, Oliver would have to face on his own.

“We’re getting sidetracked,” the headmaster said. “The test. Shall we begin?”

After what he’d just heard, Oliver didn’t feel as though he was in the best frame of mind for a test. But he nodded. It was time to find out what he really was.

The headmaster waved his hand in front of his face. Suddenly, a white orb materialized, floating just in front of his nose. It emitted a soft, warm glow.

“Whoa,” Oliver murmured in appreciation.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” the headmaster said. “We call this a pearl.”

Oliver looked at him curiously. “A pearl?”

Professor Amethyst moved his hands so that the pearl danced and swayed in time to his movements. “She’s a brand new world. A parallel dimension. Formed by a diversion in the fabric of the universe. Not yet complete. An infant.”

“Whoa,” Oliver repeated again.

“She’s extremely fragile,” the headmaster continued, the light from the baby dimension reflected in his pupils. “So much potential. So many possibilities.”

Suddenly, Professor Amethyst threw the orb upward. Unlike the ball in switchit that traveled in a normal trajectory, the orb just kept going, flying off quickly.

“NO!” Oliver cried instinctively, reaching for it.

“Butterfingers,” the headmaster said. “You’d best catch her before she smashes. I’d hate for all that potential to be destroyed.”

Oliver caught on quickly. This was the test. Whatever he did to save the infant world would in some way reveal his specialism.

He leapt upward, surprised to find that gravity had loosened its hold on him. Using his arms to propel himself, he was able to swim through the air. Professor Amethyst sat watching from the couch, shrinking into the distance as Oliver swam on.

He could just make out the light of the pearl in the distance. But around him everything grew quiet. The silence was almost tangible. And soon it was joined by an almost suffocating darkness.

Oliver felt his heartbeat begin to quicken. The light of the orb was growing fainter as it disappeared into the vacuum that had suddenly opened around him. He was moving too slowly to reach it. No matter how hard he pumped his arms and legs, he couldn’t get enough speed up to gain on it. But there was a yearning feeling in his chest, like a calling. It was overwhelmingly strong, a force compelling him to save the infant world.

There was only one thing for it. He would have to summon his powers.

Oliver gave himself one more propulsion forward with his arms. As he soared upward he took a deep breath to steady himself and closed his eyes.

At first it was too difficult for Oliver to slip into the strange half-awake, half-asleep state within which he could summon his powers. But then, as though calling to him from somewhere far away, he felt the call of the pearl. Felt, not heard, for it was like a deep yearning feeling that took hold of every fiber of his being.

All at once, as if suddenly switching to the correct frequency, Oliver’s mind clicked into gear. He felt his powers ebbing inside of his mind, growing and swelling. He visualized the orb—delicate, lost, and in danger—and fixed the image in his mind.

He opened his eyes, his focus hazy, barely there, barely in reality, but with the pearl still fixed within the center of his vision. Slowly, he held his hands up, palms cupped, and gently raised them to cradle the pearl. But he couldn’t feel her. The orb was just a mirage.

So Oliver pushed out with his mind, willing the orb, wherever she was, to disband her atoms and rearrange them in this place, in the safety of his hands. He pushed and pushed, demanding the new reality take place, the one that existed in his mind. His forehead began to bead with sweat. But he wouldn’t give up. Until the little orb was safe in his hands he would not rest. He felt a duty to bring it to safety, to care for it.

Suddenly, a feather-like sensation made his fingers tingle. It was coming from the orb. It was working! He was making it real, literally plucking it out of space, atom by atom, and rebuilding it within his gently cupped hands.

He felt the weight of the pearl increase. The light it emitted grew stronger, brighter, hotter. She began to feel heavy in his hands, then all at once she was too heavy and the muscles in his arms began to strain. But still he held on and willed the orb to submit to him. It grew hotter still, until it felt like he was holding a lightbulb. Oliver’s whole body began to tremble from the effort. He gritted his teeth. Pain raced through his hands, searing his skin.

Then suddenly everything stopped.

Oliver blinked. He was back on the couch, sitting opposite Professor Amethyst. The orb was gone.

Panting, disorientated, Oliver looked down at his hands. They weren’t blistered at all. There was no sign he’d ever held the searingly hot pearl.

“Where did she go?” he said with anguish, looking at the headmaster. “The pearl! I lost her.”

Professor Amethyst leaned back. One eyebrow slowly rose up his forehead. “The pearl…?”

Oliver felt dazed from the abrupt change, from the sudden absence of the tiny world he’d felt so drawn to protect.

“I lost her,” Oliver stammered. He felt a heaviness on his chest. “Does that mean I’ve failed?”

“You cannot fail the test, Oliver.” The headmaster smiled. “The test is to see in what way the sixth dimension affects you. You report your visualizations back to me and I evaluate your experience. Tell me more about this pearl.”

Oliver blinked. “Wait. Visualizations? You mean to say none of that was real?”

The headmaster nodded.

Oliver sat back with a huge exhalation. He tried to collect his thoughts, to accept that there was no lost infant world floating out there in danger. He couldn’t quite believe that none of what he’d just been through had really happened. It had felt so real. And that pull inside of him to protect the baby universe wasn’t something he’d ever felt before in his life. How could he have just thought it up out of thin air?

“The pearl…” the headmaster pressed. “I’m intrigued to know more about it.”

Oliver came back to his senses. “It looked a bit like the little balls of light that were floating around when I first came in. Only more spectacular. You told me it was a pearl. An infant world, or dimension. And I had to protect it.”

The headmaster’s expression was unreadable. He seemed to be grappling with his thoughts. Then he stood. “Come with me.”

Oliver stood and followed him across the room. As they walked, the facade of the study that Professor Amethyst had created around them began to melt away until Oliver was walking across a black marble floor in a vast, dark room. From far in the distance, he saw a small glow. Immediately, he felt a tugging sensation deep in his gut.

“That’s her,” he exclaimed. “The pearl!”

His desire to be near her grew even stronger with each footstep.

“Very interesting,” the headmaster muttered.

They drew up to a plinth upon which, floating in midair, was the pearl from Oliver’s visualization. Seeing her again caused a wave of emotion to race through him. He reached for her instinctively.

Suddenly, the headmaster batted his hands away. “Don’t touch!” he said sternly. “This is the Orb of Kandra. It powers the entire School for Seers. It’s our life force. The most precious item in the whole universe.”

Oliver stared at it, mesmerized. It was exactly the same as the pearl in his vision. But how? How had he conjured this item in his mind when he’d never before seen it in his life?

“I don’t understand,” Oliver told the headmaster. “What does it all mean? What am I?”

“Visualizing this is a very good sign, Oliver,” Professor Amethyst told him. “It means you are deeply connected to the universe. It means your specialism is indisputably atomic. You are the one we’ve been waiting for.”

Oliver was stunned. He’d all but given up hope that he may be the powerful atomic Seer everyone had been waiting for. The news left him with a mix of emotions. Excitement but also apprehension and a little bit of fear. It was a big piece of news to get his head around. The weight of expectation pressed down heavily on his shoulders.

“But tell me more,” the headmaster prompted. “What happened next in your vision?”

“You threw the pearl and I had to try to save it,” Oliver said. “I floated through space but couldn’t get to it fast enough. So I used my powers. I visualized it appearing in my hands.”

“And it did?”

Oliver nodded. “Yes. At first.”

“What do you mean at first?”

“It burned me,” Oliver replied. “It got so hot it made my skin hurt.”

Professor Amethyst stared at him with rapt attention. “What did you do with it?”

“I held on,” Oliver told him. “Then suddenly, it was all over and I was back here.”

A small smiled played across the headmaster’s lips. “Well, well, well. What an intriguing outcome.”

“What does it mean?” Oliver asked.

“A bromine Seer would not get burned. But a cobalt Seer would not hold on.” His grin widened. “Which means you, my boy, are neither cobalt nor bromine. You are both.”

Oliver’s jaw slackened. Of all the outcomes he’d been imagining, that was not one of them.

“Both?” he questioned. “How can I be both?”

“It’s very rare,” the professor explained. “Exceptionally rare. Come to think of it, the combination of atomic powers and a mixed type, well, I don’t think we’ve ever had anything of the sort at the School for Seers. You’re one of a kind, Oliver! One of a kind!”

The headmaster seemed thrilled by the news. But Oliver, on the other hand, was not. He’d spent his entire life being the other, being different, being bullied. Coming here had made him feel like he truly belonged somewhere for the first time. But he didn’t belong at all. Because once again, Oliver was the odd one out.

He swallowed the lump in his throat. “May I leave now, Professor?” he asked.

“Of course. I’ll expect you’ll want to run along and tell your friends the good news.”

Oliver shook his head. “Actually, I think I’d like to keep this between the two of us. No teachers or students, just us. For a little while at least. Until I’ve had a chance to process it. Is that okay?”

Professor Amethyst gave him a curious expression. “If that’s what you desire, Oliver, then who am I to argue?” He let out a celebratory guffaw and began to float away, muttering to himself as he did. “I wonder if Mistress Obsidian’s ever had an atomic-mixed Seer.”

Oliver watched him disappear into the darkness. Far from feeling celebratory about the news like the headmaster clearly was, he felt a strange, foreboding feeling deep within his gut. Whatever he was, and whatever he was to become, the journey wasn’t going to be smooth.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Oliver rode the superfast elevator down to the ground floor, his encounter in the sixth dimension repeating over and over in his mind. What he’d visualized during his test had been intense. He couldn’t get the Orb of Kandra out of his mind. It was awe-inspiring.

When the doors pinged open, Oliver was surprised to see Ralph, Hazel, Walter, and Simon standing beside the huge kapok tree. They all hurried toward him, as though they’d been waiting for him.

“So?” Hazel said, fixing her gray eyes on him.

“What happened?” Ralph pressed.

Oliver knew they wanted to know about the results of his test, but he didn’t feel like sharing them. Telling his friends that he had the most powerful specialism of all could cause resentment. Telling them that his Seer type had been mixed was just downright scary.

“Come on, Oliver,” Walter cajoled. “Please tell us.”

“Nothing happened,” Oliver replied evasively. “Professor Amethyst said I’d be punished later and…”

“Not about the fight with Edmund!” Hazel interrupted. “The test! You were called to his office for the test, weren’t you?”

Oliver squirmed. He really didn’t want to reveal what he’d learned about himself in the sixth dimension, and he didn’t want to talk about the Orb of Kandra. Seeing it had felt special and deeply personal to him, not something to share with anyone.

Simon chuckled and clapped a hand on Oliver’s shoulder. “Let’s leave him be. Whatever happened in the test, Oliver has a right to his privacy.”

“Thanks,” Oliver said, grateful for the ally.

The rest of them sighed, clearly disappointed that he wasn’t going to divulge anything.

Just then, Oliver felt his timetable vibrating. In the exact same moment, all his friends must have had the same feeling, because everyone’s hand darted to their own pocket.

“Dinner time,” Hazel said, checking her own device. “Maybe once you’ve eaten you’ll be more in the mood to tell us what happened.” She gave him a cheeky smile.

“Hazel,” Ralph said in his teacherly, warning voice. “Simon’s right. Oliver doesn’t have to tell us if he doesn’t want to.”

Oliver pulled his timetable out from his large overall pocket. But it was not telling him to go to the F court like the rest of his friends. Instead, it was flashing up a large P.

“What does P mean?” he said, looking up.

Walter’s eyes widened. Hazel bit her lip.

“What?” Oliver demanded. “What is it?”

“P is for punishment,” Ralph explained. He clapped a hand on Oliver’s shoulder. “I guess Professor Amethyst wasn’t going to let you off that fight with Edmund for long.”

Oliver gulped. He had no idea what a punishment at the School for Seers would look like, and he didn’t really want to find out.

“We’d better go,” Ralph said. He sounded a little sorry for Oliver. He gave his shoulder a gentle, affectionate punch.

Oliver watched as Simon, Ralph, Hazel, and Walter bustled off together to the F door.

Now alone, Oliver looked down at his timetable. The coordinates seemed to be leading him toward the sleeping atrium. He drew up outside the door and was surprised when the gray Z turned white to indicate he was allowed through. He opened the door into the airlock.

There, set up in the room, was a small table. Upon it sat a cheese sandwich and a glass of milk.

Oliver laughed. This was his punishment? A tiny meal and early to bed? His years in the Blue household had prepared him for the worst. This, he could handle. In fact, considering how many dinners he’d had confiscated by his parents due to bad behavior, a cheese sandwich was luxury.

Oliver sat at the desk and ate slowly. His mind sifted through everything he’d gone through that day—turning his hands to steel; learning that his specialism was atomic; his unusual mixed Seer type; Esther’s beautiful green eyes; Edmund’s horrible sneer. And above all, the Orb of Kandra. It had been quite the day.

When his sandwich was finished, he headed to the lockers to collect his sleepsuit. He was actually grateful for the downtime, for the moment of quiet to catch his breath, to change slowly and in peace. The School for Seers was so frantic that he’d really needed this moment to clear his mind, away from the distractions of everyone else.

The airlock light indicated he could now enter the sleeping dorm. He went inside and saw that none of the pods were occupied. Ichiro wasn’t even here.

Oliver went up to one of the pods and got inside. He attached his electrodes and heart monitor and closed the lid down. As he lay looking up at the frosted glass, all he could see was the Orb of Kandra. It had enchanted him. Called to him. He didn’t understand why or what it meant, but he felt that something in him had changed in its presence.

He yawned deeply. The day had exhausted him. He hit the button to invite slumber. It couldn’t come soon enough.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Oliver sat in Doctor Ziblatt’s lecture theater the next morning, the Orb of Kandra on his mind.

As the students continued with their studies, looking through portals into the next dimension, Oliver just could not focus.

Oliver brought his attention to the black splotch in front of him. Each student had their own card today and were working on projecting their minds into the next dimension. Many of them had achieved their goal—Hazel, for example, who was squealing with awe at a grassy field—but many others were still confronted with frustrated failure.

Suddenly, there was a loud clapping sound coming from the other side of the hall. Everyone turned their attention to the noise. It was Edmund. He was standing up, looking triumphant.

“I just looked into yesterday!” he cried.

Immediately, the sound of hubbub from whispering, excited students filled the lecture theater. No one had been able to look into the past or future yet, and Edmund’s accomplishment was incredible.

All eyes were on Edmund as he raced down to the front of the hall to show off his amazing talent in the holograph machine.

Just then, Esther turned from the bench in front of them. She fixed her pretty green eyes on Oliver. Oliver gulped hard.

“Edmund’s such a show-off,” she said, rolling her eyes. “How are you getting on?”

Oliver’s throat seemed to constrict. His palms grew sweaty.

“No luck yet,” he managed to stammer. “You?”

She shrugged. “I could do it with the goggles but not without them.”

Oliver suddenly remembered the ridiculous-looking glasses he was wearing. He tore them off, embarrassed.

“So are you settling in now?” Esther asked sweetly. “Know your way around?”

Tongue-tied, Oliver just nodded. “The school’s very big though. I’ve only seen a fraction of it.”

“Have you been to the garden yet?” Esther asked. “I love it there. It’s my favorite place to go.”

“I haven’t been there yet,” Oliver admitted. Then suddenly he blurted, “Maybe you could show me?”

Esther paused. Her lips twitched into a smile. “Yes. I’d like that,” she replied. “After class?”

Oliver nodded, then Esther turned back to face the front.

Hazel leaned over to Oliver.

“Did you just ask Esther out on a date?” she asked, eyebrows raised in disbelief.

“Yes,” Oliver squeaked. “I think I did.” Then, with a sudden surge of realization, he added, his voice trembling, “And she said yes!”

Hazel dissolved into fits of giggles. “Nice one, Romeo.”

Ralph looked impressed. “I don’t think Esther’s ever agreed to date anyone,” he said, slapping Oliver on the back. “Now, just make sure you don’t screw it up.”

*

“Ready?”

Oliver looked up from his card into the eyes of Esther. Class had finished.

“Oh, uh, yes,” he stammered, feeling suddenly shy. He packed up his things and stood, catching his friends out of the corner of his eye winking and throwing thumbs up.

Oliver and Esther left the lecture hall and headed across the main atrium to one of the doors that Oliver had not yet had the opportunity to enter, the one marked with a G. When he opened it, he was surprised to see that it looked in every single way like the outside, though he knew it couldn’t be. Everything in the school was underground, the gardens included, but it really looked like he was walking out into open ground. It even smelled of fresh vegetation and there was a gentle breeze. The air was warm, like a spring morning.

They walked slowly together through the grass, and reached a hedgerow filled with bright pink roses. Beside it was a faded brick path, which they followed together.

“Wow, it’s nice here,” Oliver commented.

“It’s a great place to meditate,” Esther told him. “For those of us who struggle to relax into our powers.”

“You struggle?” he asked her. “Why?”

Esther looked uncomfortable, like she didn’t really want to discuss it. “My specialism is sonar,” she said. “It means I’m quite limited.”

“Everyone says that’s the worst one,” Oliver commented, recalling the rankings his friends had told him.

Immediately, Oliver regretted his words. Esther looked crushed.

“Not that I think that,” he said hurriedly, trying to backtrack. “I mean, other people say magnetism is the worst so I guess it’s a matter of perspective.”

Esther gave a little grunt in response. Oliver felt awful. This was going terribly!

They walked in awkward silence. Esther kicked at some stray pebbles on the path. Oliver racked his brains, desperate for something to say that may save the disastrous date.

“So when are you from?” he asked.

“1977,” she said. “New Jersey. You?”

“New Jersey!” Oliver exclaimed. “Me too! Only about forty years after you.”

“Neat,” she said. “So in your timeline, I’m like fifty years old. Creepy.”

Oliver couldn’t tell whether he’d saved the conversation or not. Esther was hard to read. And making her think about herself as an older woman might not have been the best idea. He tried to think of more things to ask her, but Esther spoke up instead.

“So are you Italian?” she asked. “My family are. Were, I should say.”

Oliver heard the hint of melancholy in her voice. It was evident to him that something had happened to Esther’s family. He didn’t want to press it, though.

“Me? No,” he replied, chuckling as he pointed at his sandy blond hair. “My family moves around a lot. We’d only been in New Jersey about a week before I came here. And I don’t really know my ancestry. It’s not really talked about at home. Not much is.”

Now melancholy had seeped into his voice. Families were clearly a touchy subject for the both of them.

Oliver wanted to steer the conversation to something safe. Pets? No, that would be a bit boring. Favorite switchit players? Not something he had a lot of insight into.

But before Oliver had the chance to utter any of his questions, something in the distance caught his eye.

“Hey, look,” he said. “What’s that?”

Esther squinted up at the sky where Oliver was pointing. A dark mass was moving on the horizon, undulating like some kind of strange cloud. It soon became apparent that it was made up of winged creatures, moving like a flock of birds.

“They look like bats to me,” Esther said.

“Have you ever seen bats in the garden before?” Oliver asked.

Esther looked confused as she shook her head.

All at once, the cloud of bats changed their trajectory. Now they were heading right for Oliver and Esther, and they were racing at an alarming speed.

“They’re coming this way,” Oliver stammered, starting to feel wary of the strange sight.

Just then, Oliver saw a flash in the eyes of the bats. It was a peculiar kind of shimmery blue. He remembered instantly Professor Amethyst’s words, about the strange blue color in the eyes of their enemies. Could they be rogue Seers disguised as bats in order to infiltrate the school?

“Rogues!” Oliver shouted.

Esther reached out and grabbed Oliver’s hand, clutching it tightly in hers. She looked petrified.

“We have to stop them getting any further into the school,” Esther said.

“Your sonar shield!” Oliver said, remembering the pulse Esther had used in switchit practice.

A look of determination suddenly came over Esther’s face. She changed her stance so that she was rooted to the ground, then pushed her powers outward. Suddenly, it was as if a shield had been placed around them, like a protective glass cloak.

The bats pelted the protective shield, screeching, flapping their horrible black wings. But they failed to penetrate the protective barrier, slamming instead against it.

Esther pushed the protective shield outward. It ebbed out like ripples on water, driving the bats backward.

Oliver’s mouth gaped open. Esther used her powers with such beautiful precision it made his heart hammer.

“You’re amazing,” Oliver stammered.

“Thanks,” Esther said through gritted teeth. “But I can’t hold this forever. We need to warn the others. There’s a panic button.”

The strain was evident on her face. Oliver leapt to attention.

“Where’s the button?” Oliver asked.

With her full concentration on the shield, Esther called over her shoulder, “There, in the trees!”

Oliver turned and hurried for the large oak. When he reached it, he searched the bark, frantically trying to find anything that resembled a button. He noticed a raised knot in the bark, too perfectly spherical to be natural. Whispering a silent prayer beneath his breath, Oliver slammed his palm against the knot. Immediately, a shrill wailing sound pierced the air.

In just a matter of seconds, the once tranquil gardens were swarmed with teachers and security staff. Oliver saw Doctor Ziblatt amongst them, and Coach Finkle. There were also many guards, the Seers who dedicated themselves to defending the school.

Professor Amethyst emerged from the crowd. “Esther. Oliver. Get back. Leave this to us.”

Esther didn’t need telling twice. She let her shield down and slumped forward with exhaustion. Oliver caught her in his arms.

“Esther!” he exclaimed, alarmed.

“She’ll be okay,” Professor Amethyst assured Oliver. “She’s just drained herself by using up all her powers. Just get her to safety.”

Oliver nodded with determination. He slung Esther’s arm around his shoulder and heaved her up to standing. She had just enough strength left to support her weight, but she leaned heavily against him as they hurried through the grass and along the path.

When they reached the open door to the gardens, Oliver saw yet more guards holding back crowds of students craning their necks to see what was going on.

Oliver took a quick glance over his shoulder. Immediately, he wished he had not. An epic battle was taking place in the once beautiful gardens. The bats were transforming into humans. Their eyes flashed blue.

Then the guards reached inside and bundled Oliver and Esther out of the garden, blocking their view. But Oliver had seen enough to know that this was what Professor Amethyst had warned him of. Their enemies. Rogue Seers. Somehow, they had penetrated the School for Seers. They were under attack.