Way of The Wand

While other pupils crowded in the kitchen, trying to follow Jira’s recipe for making a healing potion, Tomi sat alone in the sitting room, blowing through yet another book.

Jira took up the space beside her on the sofa and reached for Tomi’s book. “Alright that’s enough reading already. You need to relax.”

Tomi shrunk as Jira collected the book from her tiny black hands. “But, but Ms Jira, my task is tomorrow.”

“I know,” Jira replied, putting an arm around Tomi, “and you’ve been preparing all month. You deserve a break.”

Tomi opened her mouth to say something but swallowed her words. Jira noticed and commanded her to speak freely.

Tomi lowered her head and tweaking her fingers, voiced out what it was she had in mind.

“The book,” she pointed to the “History of Magic in Edoh” in Jira’s hands, “it says there was a time when everyone in Edoh was a witch. Is that true?”

Jira released a deep breath and stretched her legs and she reclined into the sofa. “It is.”

She flipped through the pages of the old leather-bound book, one of the many books she’d taken from Airad when she left.

“History holds that long ago-nobody knows how long- witchcraft was the only form of magic that existed. They called it, ‘The Way of The Wand.’ Everyone who practised magic did with the help of wands and brooms and other magical media. They saw magic as a language between man and nature, a connection that bound everything in existence. The ancestors spoke, and when they did, the world around them bent to their will. That was magic.

Then, a thousand, thousand years passed, and the first wizards appeared. Well, semi-wizards. They weren’t completely independent of magical tools as the wizards we have today. These two forms of magic co-existed equally. People recognised the differences but didn’t attach any meanings to those differences. But all that changed sometime during the mid-centuries, when wizards finally became completely independent of magical tools. They came up with a new narrative-That they were practitioners of the next stage of magical evolution. With time, their rhetoric won over and wandless magic came to be seen as greater. And that’s how the world we’re in today came to be.”

The story moved Tomi more than she would have guessed. She tried to smile, to show that she appreciated Jira’s recap of such an old tale, but the smile failed to make an appearance. Instead her mind conjured up an image of what Edoh might have looked like during the age when witchcraft and wizardry existed as equals. She had a chance, if she didn’t mess up, to bring a return to those times. She would have to compete tomorrow with that in mind, a fact that added a new layer of importance to the tournament.

Jira guessed what Tomi was thinking and decided she could use a good distraction, something to make Tomi less tense.

Jira fetched the ayoayo she bought at the palace exhibition from her room and dropped it on the small wooden stool in front of Tomi.

She pulled up another stool for herself and sat on it opposite her student. “How about a round of ayoayo instead.”

Jira filled each of the six holes on her side of the board with six small round balls as Tomi did the same.

The game began in earnest, with Jira playing first.

She clutched all the balls on the second hole of her side of the board and distributed one each until it finished in the second hole of Jira’s side of the board.

Tomi emptied the balls in her fourth hole and distributed it till no ball was left in her hand.

Round and round they went, emptying, filing up, and re-emptying the holes on their side of the board until Tomi landed her first snatch.

She’d been calculating in her head and finally dropped her last ball in an empty hole on Jira’s side, meaning she could pack all the balls up until that hole.

“How did you!” Jira couldn’t even complete her statement.

Tomi snatched the balls with a mischievous grin. “Game’s not over yet.”

They continued, and saying Tomi destroyed Jira would have been an understatement.

After Tomi’s fourth straight win, her brother appeared in the sitting room and interrupted their game.

“Your sister is a beast at this game,” Jira said to Timi as he came to stand over them.

“Maybe you’ll have a better chance against her than I did.”

“Actually, I don’t know how to play,” Timi responded. “But I’ve always wanted to learn though.”

Jira got up and invited Timi to take her place. “You guys can start over. I’m sure Tomi can run you through how it’s played.”

Jira watched as Tomi brushed over the rules with Timi, telling him how many balls went in each hole, the direction of distribution and rules of winning.

To Jira’s surprise, Timi managed to win in his fourth round against Tomi.

“I’m getting the hang of this,” Timi said, excited at his victory.

Tomi paid him back for his victory by winning every round after that till their tenth.

“Geez,” Timi complained after Tomi’s straight sixth. “And later you’ll say you love me.”

Tomi and Jira burst into laughter.

Her other students, having finished with the potion shuttled into the sitting room, beckoned by the laughter, and eager to join in the fun.

Jira let each one have a turn.

They played ayoayo till the end of the school day.