49344. day 23 Will break 50 tomrrow. :) could tonight, but tired.

Back in bed Sara quickly go under the covers then looked around. They had left her book bag with in reach and there was the food. It was the food she reached for first, and opened it to find a mix of meat and vegetables, only a few of which she recognized, and they were ones that would counter in part the drugs affects on her body. She wondered if the others were the recommend ones that they couldn’t get. Well it smelled delightful and was warm. She took a few bites. Then remembered Lena, feeling guilty for not thinking earlier she checked to make sure the light hadn’t woken her. The light was angled so it didn’t reach that bed, and Lena wasn’t moving, so she hoped that meant she hadn’t woken. Still it was lighter in the room. But, well she wasn’t moving so that must mean it wasn’t disturbing her. This sharing a room makes everything harder.

She finished the food and reached for the bag. She wouldn’t go back to sleep until she read a bit. It made no since, but that is the way it worked. She reached for her bag and started looking though it. She had better read the book Jack had given her, if only to figure out why he wanted her to read about the cost a mage pays. What was he after? He knew she had no business with a book like this. She shouldn’t look at it, but yet. She wanted to know. She couldn’t believe he gave it to her for no reason. Well in for a penny in for a pound, and she had let him touch her knowing he was trying to heal her. Let him see why he couldn’t, therefore she had walked of the path, without a blessing on her to wash the taint away. What more could it hurt to read?

Taking a breath, and casting a glance at the other bed, the form still not moving, she broke the big rule and opened the book to read about the other. To see if there were answers there. But as she read she just got more confused. If it was evil, then why was there a cost not to use it, as well as a cost to using it. For the book said that the person capable of touching the magic would have to pay no matter what. It started of with the cost to using it, but they were not what she had been taught.

‘Using the ability, and that was the word the book used which made her think it wasn’t by a mage, caused sterility and a stop to ageing. Lengthening of life could not be determined as there had not yet been enough time. Most seemed to have a longer life span then was common before the world changed, and it was hard to say how mages were affected as there were few who were adults at the change that lived though it. None of the mages had, not even those in the early years of adulthood with the ability had lived. The writer said the reason was not sure, but he thought they might have burned there selves trying to understand. Young mages were prone to grasp to much and harm them selves, even when under guidance. That was the other price or chance. Each spell, each grasp of the energy could kill. If the mage took in to much they would burn there minds and die, painfully. The only way to know what was to much was to take it, for there was no way to be sure of the strength of a band. Moving them was safer than taking and using, but moving was of limited use.’ Sara looked up from the book, trying to understand what it was saying. Moving or taking? But how was that a deferent thing? Guess that was why there are schools that taught mages. That the mage died, painfully she knew, it was the darkness. Or so she had been taught, but this said not all suffered that fate. It was confusing. She took a cookie of the plate and went back to reading. ‘Using the magic left the person weaker, hungry and affected how the body temperature. The mage was either left feeling it was warm or cooler, the bigger the spell the more the affect was felt.’ That must be what the elders used to tell when a spell was done, they were looking for a reaction that didn’t fit the season.

It could also be why her father was no longer talking to his brother in Einsten. He had been visiting and a big summer rain storm swept though. It was bad enough she had taken a double full strength dose of the medicine. That meant the chills were bad lasted longer. She was still shivering a bit when she was at the breakfast table and they had sent her to the front room. Anna had put her on the couch with a blanket, though it was far to warm to need one. Shortly after that her father had sent one of the boys for one of the leaders, and her uncle would not let the kids near her afterwards. Leavening as soon as he could. Her father said he was not welcome and had not spoken of or to him since. She had always wondered. But tell now had not thought it was do to her.

She turned the page to the section about the cost of not using the ability. ‘As bad as the cost of using it is, the fact that you are giving up a family and risking death, being thought made, or living for ever in a young seeming body, that pales by far. The cost of ignoring it is, in this writer’s opinion far harsher. Even in this time when families and young are so desperately needed. For the ones who deny it, we know die young, in the servants or maybe eights. But that is a blessing for before they die they go mad. Mental illnesses are ware in this changed world. But this group will all developed one.

In the old world it was not unusual for the older people to suffer from something labeled dementia. That is a way of saying they forgot who they where, where they are. They were better at remembering things that happened in there childhood than what happened yester day. It virtually disappeared when magic returned. There are reports of the so afflicted remembering everything, before the shock wave took them from the world. Of course that, like anything from those first days, is unsure. But the fact is at this time the oldest of the living in this town of two hundred, one of whom is eighty, show no signs of this illness that used to affect one in every three people. But among those who refuse all magic use dementia is known, and a survey of the suffers shows they had the ability, but refused to acknowledge it. The signs tend to start in this group in the late forties but only gets server five years before death, which is at an age that others are still able to work without strain. Still this is the least of the madness seen in this group.

Far more coming are visions of monsters and the hearing of voices. The things they would have had using the gifts, but not in the way. For it is not things that are there the are being plagued by, but things there minds are making. The old world had names and treatments for things similar Those methods were tried, as the records below will show, with some when we still had the means to. It did nothing. It is not known if a healer could do anything for no one was willing to accepted a healers touch. But it is unlikely. Most in this set end up harming there selves and sometimes others, either because they felt compiled to or in an effort to stop hearing, seeing, things. These will not live much past the age of fifty, if they reach that long. Do to the treat the pose. As it is common to have children well in to the forties there deaths leave behind young with out a mother or father. Some times those young are to badly traumatized to function.’ Sara didn’t read the cases studies. She did not need to know more. There was a home for such people in Newtown, she had just thought every town had such.

She flip past them to see if there was more, there were two pages after the case studies. The first was titled ways to know if you were a mage, the second exercises for the new mage yet to enter school. Sara set the book on her lap and took the last cookie off the plate. She was not sure she could read those pages. She was now fairly certain it was that she was to see. That Jack had thought she was a mage. She put the book backing her bag and shut off the light. She was not ready.

But sleep didn’t come. Instead she was forced to admit that she didn’t need to read the list. She heard the wind. She had known for years what it meant. That was why she refused to admit it to her self. But it was true. However there was another cost she would have to pay. She would have to give up her family. But she could keep them and not go insane. Die young, yes. But there was a way to stay sane. It was what Grandmother had taught her in the kitchen. Now that she thought back to those years, looking with new eyes at the lessons that were to be kept between the two of them. She saw it, saw what she had been unable to admit. However could she truly be happy that way? Could she fit in, in a place where women were measured by the children they raised? The, small magic didn’t cause that clearly. Her grandmother had eight.

The disease that took the year from her had lasting effects. She was one of the lucky ones, most had physical deformities in the end. She was one of the few of her age to get it, and no cases had been seen since the twenty that year. No one knows how the disease was pasted around, and why some could be healed and others couldn’t. There was nothing about the toxic poising cases that could be predicted. No one knew how it came to affect some people and not others. For a case as bad as hers had been she was lucky. She came out of it with just the ability to have children gone and muscle aches during rain storms. A small toll the doctors said. Given how sick she had been, the fever alone should have damaged her brain, then there were the seizers that would end, and the times her hart stopped. To come though with just some minor damages to her body, things that were mostly invisible, it was a blessing. So they told her parents when it was discovered she could never carry a child. She was lucky, few who had been so sick could function in normal ways. Most had some obvious changes.

Only her grandparents knew that she also came out of it seeing the magic. About the time she started coming out of the illness Anna’s parents were lost. That meant the folks were seeing to her and her siblings, helping them adjust. So Sara’s grandparents had the care of her. Grandfather never said anything, but she most have told him about the lights as well. Perhaps that was why he was so sure she should leave the church, her home. Grandmother had told her they were a secret, something people didn’t speak of. If her father heard her he would be upset. So by the time she was well enough, and the house settled enough, to go home she had stopped talking about them. Maybe that is what she should tell them if it was found out, or if she left and they asked her why. That the illness she was forbidding to speak of had made her a mage. She finely drifted off into a troubled sleep filled with dreams in which she stayed and others in which she left. Neither were happy.

It was latter than normal when Sara woke again, so she was unsurprised when she came out of the bathroom to find Lena getting out of bed. “Looks like I got out of there just in time. I hope my light didn’t disturber your sleep last night. It didn’t appear to shined over there.” Lena did not so much as look her way. Sara shrugged. “Well the bathroom is all yours.” She put her clothes into her laundry bag, then headed down stairs.

When she got to the dining room she was meet with a smile. “Good morning, your table is waiting.”

Sara smiled at him. “Used to me at this point or is this another reservation?”

He said. “A bit of both, I usually know the guest well enough to know what table they want by the third visit. But food has been ordered for you all ready.”

Sara smiled back. “I thought as much. that is what happens when a healer gets worried about you. Even when there is no cause for the worry. I bet you will be glad to get rid of us all after this week is done. Can’t be easy having all these kids running wild.”

He laughed. “Actually this week is far better than some of the business conventions that come though town. You kids have been fun to have around. Enjoy your breakfast, and watch out for that healer. When they decide something needs fixing they can be imposable to stop.”

He left and Sara opened her back, checking that the book was fully hidden in the inside pocket, glad yet again that Grandma had put the hidden pocket in the back, though the things it usually held were less risky. Supposedly the bags would not be searched, but it was best to be safe. She should check the suitcases lining as well. It might have a place to hid one the oversized book on magical beings she wanted to buy. She saw the flyers on the schools and pulled them out to look. As she expected they both had a mage program, and it was list first. They did have weather programs as well. One of them included a bit on the satellite program they were starting. That is what she was reading when the food came. The waitress said. “I am not sure about this order. Oh you will like it, but it said very clearly no tea. Will you be all right with that?”

Sara said. “I am sure there is a good reason for the no tea. I will manage. I am fairly certain that it is a healer who is making these food orders for me, and changing them any would just make it worse.”

She said. “Why would a healer be calling in food orders for you?”

Sara said. “Well I kind of joined a conversation and got his attention, and there fore he happened to see me take some pain medicine for the aches the rain storm gave me. He didn’t care for it, and given the way he and his friends were pushing food at me I think he might also be convinced I don’t eat.”

The waitress said. “You are a bit to thin, but having see the other girls I understand a bit better why. They don’t eat enough to keep a bird going and yet complain it is to much. Enjoy your meal, and yes if it is a healer changing the order would just make it worse. He might decide he needed to eat with you. That is not fun. Enjoy your meal, and good luck. The last day tends to be the hardest as well as the longest.” She left and Sara turned to the food, there was a lot of it, and nothing she was sure she knew what was.