Entry #17

Shadow and Light
by Rita L. Smith


Shadow and light played across the wall effectively freaking out Miranda. She grabbed Walter’s arm, “Make it stop! I promise I won’t do that again.”

“Miranda, you conjured it. Now you need to concentrate and let it go.”

“I can’t! I don’t know how!”

“Miranda, you have been studying this for a year now. You can stop it. Just concentrate.”

As Miranda squinted her eyes and wrinkled her brow, Walter guffawed.”

“What?” Miranda asked.

“You looked silly scrunching up your face.”

“I was concentrating.”

“On wrinkling your skin before you turn twenty?”

“Ooh, just shut up. Okay? Or make that stop.”

“Concentrate without the funny faces.”

“That is how I concentrate.”

“It’s not. Act like you’re studying the problem and then just release the spell.”

“Okay, but don’t laugh at me.”

“I won’t even look at you, I promise.”

Miranda thought about the spell and the counter spell. She worked through both problems in her mind. She gasped as clarity hit her. Miranda’s hands danced in a series of complicated gestures that were the exact reverse of the ones she’d used to create the illusion in the first place. When she completed them, she said, “Extinguere!”

“Bravo, Miranda, bravo.”

Miranda blushed. “I should have been able to do that sooner, but I forgot to reverse my hands before.”

“We all make mistakes. Shall we try again, this time without your hands?” Walter asked calmly as the lesson continued.