Chapter twelve

When Audrey woke the next morning, bundled in an unfamiliar quilt and surrounded by new smells, she panicked. She bolted upright and found herself cradled in a gigantic nest of blankets and furs next to a darkened firepit and wondering where she was. Then her eyes spotted the walls of shelves with their many lifetimes of treasures and oddities, and she remembered: Emandi's cavern. The memory of saying goodbye to Welkin swam back to her as if it had been a dream.

"I'll be back for you as soon as possible," Welkin had assured her, standing with their back to the vast night sky that stretched out beyond the cave's mouth. Their smile looked forced, but Audrey didn't hold it against them. She knew they were conflicted enough about leaving her behind atop that mountain with no one but an ancient beast for company — she didn't want to make them feel worse. "Until then, keep practicing and, please, stay safe."

They had embraced one more time before Welkin stepped out into the night. Audrey watched in open-mouthed awe as their physical form collapsed into a burning ball of shimmering light that erupted skyward into a pillar so bright that she had to shield her eyes from it. When she looked up, the world was dark again and Welkin was gone.

Audrey had spent the night comfortably nestled in Emandi's bed. She vaguely remembered the great cat joining her at some point as she started to doze off, coiling around her like a dragon guarding its treasure. She drifted to sleep, surrounded in the downy softness of Emandi's fur, lulled by the deep rhythmic purring that rattled inside of them. Now the nest was empty, and as Audrey peered around the room, she realized that the rest of the cavern was too. She was alone.

Her eyes dropped to the lonely firepit. Now, she figured, was as good a time as any to start making good on Welkin's request.

"Shit, it's cold out here," she mumbled, sliding out of the cozy nest and onto one of the many rugs that were laid out over the stone floor. Wearing her quilt like a cape, she got to work setting up a structure of kindling among the previous night's ashes. When she finished, she raised her palms above the wood, closed her eyes, and tried to capture the magic just like Welkin taught her.

Nothing happened.

It was hard to say how long Audrey sat there, willing the fire to light, when she heard the padding of footsteps enter the cave.

"What's happening here?" Emandi asked.

Audrey opened her eyes with a groan. "Welkin was trying to help me control my powers, but I still can't figure it out."

"Ah." Emandi slinked across the cavern and sat down beside her, their tail sweeping lightly across the ground. "Is that what I interrupted yesterday?"

"Yeah," Audrey said. "It's so frustrating. How come I'm only magical when I don't want to be?"

"A conundrum. Tell me about these times you were magical without trying."

Audrey tugged the quilt cape tighter around her shoulders as if it might offer some protection against the self-consciousness she felt. She couldn't tell if Emandi was genuinely interested or just humoring her, but she thought back on the handful of experiences she'd had so far and tried to sum them up without having to go into any embarrassing details. "It usually happens when I'm upset or angry. Mostly angry, I guess. I don't even realize it's happening until it's too late and suddenly something's exploding or catching fire."

Rather than laughing, Emandi nodded with a thoughtful hum that rumbled deep in their throat. "Of course. Adolescent rage. That makes sense."

"First of all, my rage was justified," Audrey said, puffing up indignantly. "Second, what about it makes sense?"

"Did the Star explain how your power works? About how all the world is made up of energies, and that your Starborn blood gives you the ability to manipulate them?" Emandi waited until Audrey nodded before continuing. "Well, some energies are easier to recognize than others, such as the energies that get stirred up by strong emotions. These are the energies that even the most mundane creatures can sense, like when you can feel that you're being watched, or when the mood of another affects your own simply by being in the same room with them. Your teenage tantrums are the low-hanging fruit of energy, as it were."

Audrey took a deep breath and tried her best not to be offended. "Okay, but how do I use those energies?"

"It sounds like you already do."

"You know what I mean."

At this, Emandi smiled one of their mischievous grins. "My darling, I think you're getting ahead of yourself. How can I explain this..." They thought for a moment, then their eyes widened with some kind of private revelation. With a whoosh of their tail, Emandi sprang up and bounded across the room to one of their shelves. Carefully, they pulled down an old record player and set it on the table before sliding a paper record sleeve out from their collection. With surprisingly nimble paws for a creature of their size, Emandi placed the vinyl disc on the turntable and gently set the needle into a groove. As the record spun, the opening notes of a song filled the cavern. It began with the simple rhythmic pounding of a single bass drum. Soon the thumping was joined by stringed instruments, their sounds deep and warm, followed by the spritely twittering of woodwinds. The song vibrated around the stone walls as Audrey listened, wondering what she was meant to glean from this unexpected musical interlude.

"Now, imagine that you are part of this orchestra," Emandi said, waving their great paws in the air like a conductor as they spoke. "You are the musician playing the bass drum. It's steady — accessible and easy to recognize. Try it."

It took a second for Audrey to realize that Emandi was serious. Glancing around, she picked up an unused stick of kindling and knocked it off the rug in time with the beat of the song. Emandi beamed at her, delighted.

"Yes, excellent! It's easy, right? A toddler could do it."

Audrey shrugged to hide how foolish she felt. "I'm sure the person drumming in this song would be thrilled by that comparison, but go on."

Emandi did. "Now I want you to listen and tell me when you hear the violins play C#."

Confused, Audrey stopped hammering at the floor. "I can't."

"And why not?"

"Because I don't know how. I don't know which note is which."

This didn't seem to surprise Emandi, who nodded enthusiastically. They lifted the needle off the record and turned back to Audrey with a flourish. "But you could if you tried, correct? If you studied music, you would be able to recognize notes the way you understand the words we're speaking now."

"Sure, I guess." Audrey was exasperated. She waved her drum stick overhead, flailing. "But what does any of this have to do with my abilities?"

Emandi padded back to her, looking rather pleased with themself. "That bass drum is the energy of your emotional outbursts — accessible, easy. But it's just one type of energy in the symphony of this world. If you want to learn how to control your gift without having to rely on volatile outbursts, then you first need to understand what you're working with. You need to pay attention and study energy the way you would learn to read music; to recognize not just the beat or melody, but each individual note. Learning to play an instrument is easier when you know how to read the music."

Audrey gazed down at the stick in her hand. It looked different to her now — as if Emandi's belabored metaphor had somehow imbued it with magic of its own. Or perhaps, if she was following the concept correctly, the magic had always been there. "Okay, but where do I start?"

"I suppose you should start with what you know," Emandi replied. "The next time you're upset, take a moment to explore how you're feeling. See if you can capture that low-hanging fruit before it falls. Or before it explodes, as the case may be."

As Audrey mulled the idea over, Emandi dropped to all fours and stretched their body long. Their mouth opened in a wide yawn that exposed the jagged mountain range of their teeth. "Alright. I'm off to hunt. I'm not used to having another mouth to feed."

"Can I come with you?" Audrey asked, already scrambling to her feet.

Emandi's brow lifted. "Can you keep up with me?"

Audrey could tell a trick question when she heard one, so she flopped back into the nest with a disgruntled huff.

"I'll be back eventually," Emandi said as they strutted toward the exit, their tail swishing against the floor as they moved. "I trust you can figure out how to entertain yourself until I return." They didn't wait for Audrey's response. When she lifted her head to deliver a sarcastic retort, they were already gone.

At first Audrey busied herself by rooting through the contents of every shelf she could reach. She flipped through brittle pages of books in languages she didn't recognize and stared into the sepia-toned faces of people in framed photographs, wondering about the story behind each. But there was a feeling nagging at the back of her mind — the same feeling she got whenever she made excuses to avoid starting her homework even though she knew she'd end up scrambling to finish it before class the next day. She was procrastinating; putting off the only thing she really needed to do.

"This isn't homework," she muttered to herself as she pulled on her boots, "this is the rest of my life. It's time to get my shit together."

She wandered outside, blinking against the overwhelming brightness of the day. To her surprise, the mountain shelf outside of the cave was carpeted by a beautiful meadow of thick grass and wildflowers that swayed in the breeze. The mountain curved around the space in a crescent wall of stone that blocked most of the harsh winds that battered the peak. It was private and serene: the perfect place for her to study. Audrey found a spot to sit in the sunshine. The lush grass reached nearly to her shoulders, and the wind rustled and whistled as it raced through the forest of slender blades. She softened her gaze and let her mind go quiet, certain that the finer notes of the world's symphony would reveal themselves to her if she could just be patient.

But after a couple of hours, Audrey begrudgingly realized that perhaps Emandi was right. Maybe she was getting ahead of herself, because she hadn't felt a thing.

Frustration bubbled up inside of her like an overboiled pot, scalding her pounding heart. At this rate it was going to take the rest of her life to figure out how to control her abilities. She gritted her teeth and balled her hands into bitter fists that she pounded against the tops of her thighs. It hurt.

But it was the flash of pain that made her realize what was happening.

She was upset.

Now was her chance.

Closing her eyes, Audrey did as Emandi said. She focused on what her frustration felt like: the fire that ate away at her heart, the mounting pressure that built up like a gathering storm behind her eyes. She didn't feed it or even try to calm herself down: she simply acknowledged the sensations as if they were happening to someone else. Was this the energy Emandi was talking about? And if it was, what was she supposed to do with it now?

Under her scrutiny, the pressure and heat inside of Audrey throbbed uncomfortably. She needed to give it somewhere to go — to open a release valve of some kind. Focusing hard, she willed the sensations to move away from her head and chest, and to her surprise, they obeyed. She directed the energy down her arms and let it pool in her palms until it felt like her hands were on fire. Peeking out between her lashes, Audrey lifted her hands and unfurled her fists. Twin sparks flared to life in the air above her hands, hot and bright. And then, just as quickly as they'd appeared, they fizzled out into nothing.

Audrey let out an elated shriek that echoed off the stone walls protecting the meadow before getting snatched away by the wind. She stared down at her hands, marveling at them proudly. It wasn't much—probably not even enough to start a proper fire—but it was something.

Suddenly, she found herself laughing. It was a joyful, unrelenting peel that rose from somewhere deep inside of her. Dizzy with relief, Audrey fell back into the grass and laughed until tears streamed from the corners of her eyes. As she stared up into the brilliant blue sky and its rolling clouds, Audrey smiled.

She wondered if Welkin could see her now.

She hoped that they were proud.