Way of The Wand

“Hell must have broken loose for you to have come here.”

Jira turned and faced Chidi, lighting up at the sound of his voice. He had his arms wide open for an embrace and Jira hugged him as tightly as she could, squeezing out every rawness in her bones.

Kalinda had allowed them to meet on the beach of the Airad sea, away from the hungry eyes of both staff and students.

“What’s wrong Jira?” He asked, his voice soft and warm as he took a lock of her braids in his fingers.

Jira recoiled and pulled away from him, looking down to her feet as if suddenly overcome with shame.

“I’m the worst teacher there ever was.”

She turned around to face the sprawling sea, showing her back to him. “I put Tomi in harm’s way and she got hurt. Her parents…they pulled her and her brother from my school, and now I’m left without a champion for the tournament.”

Her voice sounded pained, a pitch or two away from crying.

Chidi folded his arms. “I see,” he said, and placed a finger on his chin in thought. “You lost your champion, and now you yourself are lost. You don’t know where to go from here. You believe you’ve hit the proverbial brick wall.”

“No, not a brick wall, worse. I’ve hit a mountain, a huge, unmoveable, unsurmountable mountain.”

“I disagree,” Chidi said, moving around her. “What you’ve hit is a stumbling block, a tiny, minute stumbling block.”

“Chidi,” Jira said, her voice sounding exasperated, “you’re not taking this seriously. I’m going to lose. We—witches—are going to lose. Gods, Leonaria was right. Kano was right. Everyone who warned me this was a foolish idea was right. I—”

“Okay, okay,” Chidi interjected. “Easy.”

He grabbed her chin and made her look into his face. “You know what, sit down.”

The dark patch of skin on Jira’s forehead creased. “On the ground?”

“No, on the water,” Chidi teased, “Of course I need to you to sit on the ground.”

Jira scowled at him but obeyed all the same.

Chidi moved a finger around in the air. “I get it Jira. You’re under a lot of pressure. But this, this isn’t you. You’re not one to listen when people tell you you’re doomed to fail. You always find a way. Remember when you were about to leave Airad and everyone said you wouldn’t go through with it? Well, they were wrong then, and they are even more wrong now. Yes, Tomi’s parents might have pulled her out of school, but I’m sure there’s a way to get her back. What about Arron, have you tried asking him for help?”

Jira rolled her eyes the mention of Arron’s name. “He and I aren’t working together anymore.”

Chidi’s head jerked back. “What happened?”

“He tried to have me kidnapped, thinking if he appeared to pay a ransom for my release, I would fall in love with him.”

Chidi cocked his head to one side, wide-eyed. “That’s just…” He couldn’t find the words to complete his sentence.

“I know,” Jira responded, her voice hardening. “I went to his house after that and I—”

“Turned him into a pig?”

Jira chuckled. “Close, but not quite. Let’s just say he won’t be bothering me anymore.”

Chidi plopped down on the beach, sinking into the coarse sand beside Jira. “Okay, so no Arron, but there’s still got to be a way to get Tomi and her brother back.”

Jira shrugged. “Even if I somehow managed to get Tomi back, without Arron and the wizards he hires to spar against Tomi, how am I supposed to train her? Daila has effectively banned you from leaving Airad, so you can’t help. And I just…there’s no one else I can turn to for help.”

Jira was silent for a while, then said, “Maybe Kano’s right. I should just call the whole thing off.”

She would, but that kind of action would be such a huge let down to Edoh witches that Jira imagined she would never be able to leave her house again.

She expected Chidi would try to dissuade her from the idea, and right on track, he pulled at a tuff of his afro-wig and said, “Too late for that now, you can’t just quit after two amazing performances.”

He was right. But if she couldn’t quit, and if she couldn’t present her champion at the final task, then what was she supposed to do?

Her worry showed in the bulging veins around her clenched jaws. No answers, no way out, no path forward.

Chidi sighed. The situation was in deed dire, but he saw no reason to despair. “You could try talking to your mother, tell her you want to change your champion for the final task.”

Jira hissed and rolled her eyes. “There’s no way she’s going to agree to that. Not after her little stunt with the coin-toss in the last task. The whole the gods have chosen the champions gimmick. She can’t let that go now.”

If she went to Kalinda this late into the tournament to make a change to the arrangements, Kalinda wouldn’t agree and would rather have Jira concede. Like Chidi said, the witches had put up two surprisingly amazing performances, and Kalinda wouldn’t want to risk a third. Jira conceding was the best outcome her mother could hope for.

Chidi lowered his head and stared at his feet. “You’re screwed.”

“Thanks for pointing out the obvious.”

Silence reigned again, punctured at intervals by the noise of the crashing waves. Then, as if weary of the silence, Chidi pushed for their conversation to continue.

“There is one option you haven’t considered.”

“Yeah, what’s that?” Jira asked, raising her head to him.

“Confronting Tomi’s parents.”

The suggestion knocked the breath out of Jira. “You want me to confront the parents of a pupil put into my care that I let get injured.”

“Not just confront them,” Chidi said, “but convince them to give you Jira back.”

She looked like him like he’d lost his mind. And he just might have. Did Chidi not realize she’d forfeited her duty of keeping her students away from harm when she let Tomi get hurt? If she was Tomi’s Mum, Jira wouldn’t want to see herself ever again.

“Yeah, I know it’s not going to be easy,” he admitted, “but you’ve got to at least try.” He gazed into her eyes for effect.

Jira dug her nails into her palm. The thought of facing Tomi’s parents stressed her out. Yet, she couldn’t deny Chidi had a point.

Going over to the Afolabi home to own up to her faults and talking it out with Tomi’s parents would be the right thing to do.

Deep down, she’d known that from the start, she just needed someone to push her.

“Okay,” Jira said, getting up. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

She held out her to help Chidi to his feet, then, leaned in to kiss him.

Jira let his touch steal away her anxieties and lost herself in his lips. And when an eternity had passed, she opened her eyes, renewed with vigour and ready to face Tomi’s parents.

“Does that mean we’re back together?” Chidi asked when he finally managed to blink away the stars he saw.

She pulled him by the collar of his black uniform and kissed him again.

“That answer your question?”

Chidi blushed. At this point he could hardly stand.

“I must go now,” Jira told him. “Time to make things right.”

Chidi nodded. “You’ve got this.”