The Practitioners Book 1 Chapter 2

Hi people/person! Yesterday I posted chapter 1 to a little thing I like to call The Practitioners. In the future I will almost definitely not be posting with this much frequency, it's just I wrote a few chapters before I got the blog. You seemed to like it, and you gave me feedback, and both of those things make me very happy indeed. For this chapter, however, I ask a favor: there is something overall about it I don't like, I just can't pinpoint what it is, so please tell me what you do not like, and hopefully that will assist me in solving my problem. Thank you for any and all feedback! Without further ado: Chapter 2.

2 

A Queen From The Stars  

Jane Abraham had always been a simple person. Well, that was a lie. She had once been a simple person, it was safe to say, but that had gone away a long while ago. But Jane still liked simplicity. Simplicity was…simple. Jane’s life was complex and confusing, and she didn’t fancy it.  

Jane didn’t come back until a few hours after the meeting with the governor. Shortly after Cassiopeia had made an appearance, Avery had strolled in. While Jane didn’t particularly like Avery, Jane had to respect that. Most people in this place seemed to have forgotten how to relax, and because of this strolling had become a lost art form. So Avery had strolled in, rather unpleased to see Cassiopeia, the conversation had concluded, and they had all gone about their businesses. Governor Allen had been the first to go. He had claimed to be very busy, as is the way of Governors, and briskly exited the room, drones at his heels. That is what the Base members had so disrespectfully dubbed their security guards. True, it wasn’t an entirely inaccurate phrase, but it was still disrespectful. Jane had always preferred to call them security. Avery had gone off with Ash, surely to experience some heartfelt farewell. They had always been close, in a way that Jane and Avery had never achieved. Then Will and Cassiopeia had gone to the Base’s cafeteria to have a late dinner. About halfway through the meal is when Cassiopeia had been replaced by Jane. It had been in the middle of a sentence, actually, and Will had seemed amusingly annoyed at the lack of closure. That had made Jane smile. Will often made Jane smile.  

Jane had always had a little crush on Will ever since he arrived at the Base. A lot of the girls in their training level found him desirable, sure, but Jane promptly approached and befriended him. For anyone else, their feelings would have been blatant to Will, but not for Jane. Jane was enigmatic, according to Will. Cassiopeia made it so. That was one of the few benefits Jane reaped from her existence. Though make no mistake, the cons vastly outweighed the pros.  

Cassiopeia was six years and three days younger than Jane, even though technically they shared the memory set of those years after Jane was born that Cassiopeia hadn’t existed yet. No one understood the connection between the two girls. The two girls themselves were not excluded from this. The basics were simple enough; they shared a body and every few hours they would take turns with said body. It was Jane’s body though. She was there first. While one was away, the other wasn’t a small voice in their shared mind. They had very separate minds, and, quite bizarrely didn’t have a telepathic connection. Their minds took turn with the brain that is in their body. Jane’s body. The brain and mind were very different things. The brain was merely a mind’s vessel, and a mind’s connection to the body. This was common knowledge among the magical community, but few understood this as deeply as Jane or Cassiopeia. They didn’t know what happened to their minds when the other’s controlled the brain. Many psychs had tried to track this or figure it out. They all failed. Jane and Cassiopeia frustrated psychs.  

Cassiopeia had first emerged on the third evening after Jane’s sixth birthday. Not that she had been Jane back then of course. Jane and her mother, the original Jane, had been lying on a hill covered with luscious grass. At least in Jane’s memories the grass had been luscious. Time and circumstance wielded the ability to warp memories well. At the time, Jane’s mother had had a baby in her belly. The sky was freshly wounded with shining and beautiful stars, and Jane’s mother had been showing Jane the constellations. Her mother had liked constellations. Stories from the heavens, she called them. Stories decoded by man. She had gone through Gemini the twins, Orion the hunter, Cancer the crab, and Auriga the charioteer. Order was for people trying to control the story; Jane’s mother had told her when Jane had questioned her skipping around the sky. Next her mother had started to tell the tale of a vain queen called Cassiopeia, who had chopped the head from the body of the mother of Pegasus, the flying horse. That was when Cassiopeia had made her first appearance in Jane’s body. She had come fully equipped with Jane’s memory set. Somehow, though, she wasn’t Jane. The memories weren’t her own. She was a person just birthed from heaven probably doesn’t know what. She was only there for a few moments, that first time. This new being only took Jane’s body long enough to hear her mother, or at least the mother of this body she was wearing, say, “Cassiopeia is the queen…” and fade out as quickly as she had faded in. While she couldn’t actually remember, she thought that she had recited, “Cassiopeia,” in that adorable and annoying voice of a young child as she drifted away. She had certainly tried.  

Jane’s mother had then gone on to speak highly of some gaseous and far away man of stars dubbed Perseus the hero.  

Cassiopeia’s visits had become more frequent. Only after ten years, however, had she managed to stay for multiple hours at one time. Well managed might not be the best word for it. Not even she, the girl of mysterious extra power and new abilities, could control something that seemed to be a result of reason becoming bored and deeming her a fun toy to play with.  

Will sat across from Jane as if listening to words that weren’t flowing. The look of resisting letting his irritation and frustration show on his face was amusing. Jane felt her shoulders sag slightly. “Hello Jane.”  

“Hello to you too. I have to say, a lot of things about Cassiopeia are dreadful, but at least enough mercy was placed upon us to let us keep the same preference in food,” Jane said with a sad smile as she looked at her mostly devoured meal of chicken and beans. A lot of protein was served at the Base. It served very practically to build muscles of the employees and keep everyone an optimum energy level. Will offered a half hearted chuckle.  

“And who or what is it that grants you mercy?” As he said it, Will leaned back casually in his chair and raised a curious eyebrow ever so slightly.  

“Are you ever going to accept the fact that I honestly don’t know? Why don’t you ask Cassiopeia? Even though she doesn’t know anything either, she is more likely to than me.”  

“You don’t think I do? And is there any order to what you guys know and remember about each other? It seems pretty random.”  

“Order is for people trying to control the story.”  

“And don’t you want to?”  

All Jane could do to respond to this was sigh. No matter how much he tried to figure this out, he couldn’t understand. There was absolutely no control to this. She can’t will herself to stay longer once Cassiopeia started to emerge; not even a few moments. And it’s not that she hadn’t tried-she had more times than one can count. But accepting the way things are and quitting are very different. Jane and Cassiopeia were utterly helpless in this situation. It is for the better that Jane had moved on and just let that fact be. She had learned to focus on existing properly while she was here. She is drawn out of her thoughts by Will asking, “You say that a lot, you know. About order being for people trying to control their own story. Is that a quote by someone, or do you just like repetition?”  

Jane hesitated a moment, then replied, “My mother used to tell me that as a child.”  

“Oh.” The silence that followed was not a comfortable one. Will wasn’t comfortable discussing Jane’s mother, who had died when Jane was only seven.  

Jane quickly filled the silence. “So…America, huh?”  

“Yeah, we’re going to a town in upstate New York.”  

“Have you ever been there?”  

“No, when I lived over there I stuck to the south.” Will had grown up in Louisiana, on a farm actually. He also had half a set of parents for a time. His Pa died when he was about eleven. His mom had relatives in Scotland, so she packed her and Will and took the next flight back to her hometown. Will hated everything about the place. He was made for Louisiana. When he was twelve he had decided to run away, and got to Britain. His mother’s hometown was very close to the border. A psych that worked for the Base found him, an orphan-ignorant-runaway combination that fit the bill. Years of farm work had made him strong. He had been training at the Base for only six years before he became a member. Almost record time. The record itself was held by none other than Governor Allen.  

“So what exactly is it that we’re going to be doing on this mission? Going to high school, playing nice? That’s it?”  

“Well we also track down the ignorants and act as body guards. Allen says that we’re just there for a valid threat of undercover agents, but I don’t believe that. Something’s going to happen, we are going to have to actually defend the defenseless. I can just tell.”  

Jane looked oddly at Will, thinking the worst. “You didn’t-“  

“No, Jane. I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I respect the rules as they are in place. I have no reason not to, they got me off the streets, didn’t they?”  

Jane shook her head mockingly at Will. “Now come on, you would’ve figured something out. You were a smart kid, don’t you remember?” Will feigned offence.  

“Of course I do, I just like a self esteem boost as much as the next guy-call me a sucker. And what is the nonsense with the past tense? If I remember correctly, which I usually do, I continue to be smart.”  

“I agree, but what is in the past tense is the child part.”  

“I disagree; I am a child at heart.”  

“Well at this point so long as it’s beating fine your heart doesn’t matter unless you’re a healer. Face it Will, we’re adults now. We’re even going to be eighteen in a few months.”  

“Don’t remind me.” Will shivered melodramatically.  

“Come on, don’t be that way. We’ve got a lot of years left. We’ll get to watch the world go by. We can fix our mistakes-we’ll have time. It’s almost not fair.”  

Will’s expression was unreadable at this point, his joking manner completely gone, like a ghost that dissipated into the air, but threatened to come back at any moment. Well, Jane thought it could be any moment. “Look, I know I don’t have the most honed intuition of all the psychs, but something’s nagging at me. This isn’t as simple as some crooks turned killers. This is the start of something. Dominoes are being set up. Who really knows if we will be ones to fall or not? This is more than Allen’s letting on.” He paused, and Jane just looked at his face, which was angled downwards, the shadows striking his face at such an angle he looked attractively ominous. As soon as he looked up, though, there was a sadness being birthed in his eyes, a sadness that had never taken refuge in this particular haven before. His voice caught on his next words. “Jane, I don’t know, and I can’t know. I want to know. We may walk out of this unscathed. I may be wrong. But this could be something awful. I wish I knew.”  

Will’s head shook back and forth a few times. “Sorry Jane, I don’t know what that was, it’s probably nothing.”  

His face went back to its usual strong and hardened expression. Will picked up his empty tray and stood up. He turned around but then paused. “See you tomorrow. Get some sleep. Tomorrow I return to America, and you better be awake.” A smile peeks through his profile. All of the England in his voice is chased away by a stampede. Probably made up of the animals from home, Jane reasoned. “Y’all gunna love it.”  

With that he walks away, and Jane can’t quite decide between being happy and excited or just plain scared.