lesson, Morrigan was sure of it.
How had she paid so little attention? She’d already seen him! Probably dozens of times by now, as a boy and perhaps a teenager. She’d skipped merrily across his history without even noticing he was there.
Morrigan took out a notebook and meticulously copied down details of ghostly hours where she was sure Squall would be. Once she’d filled half a dozen pages, Morrigan tucked it away in a hidden pocket of her rucksack.
She was going on a Squall hunt.
LʘCATIʘN
PARTICIPANTS & EVENTS
DATE & TIME
School of Wundrous Arts, Sub-Nine of Proudfoot House, Williams
Decima Kokoro, ʘwain Binks, Elodie Bauer
An advanced lesson in the Wundrous Art of Weaving, given by Kokoro to Binks and Bauer
Age of Endings, Ninth Friday, Spring of Twelve
12:15–12:53
The next day, Morrigan skipped lunch to stay on Sub-Nine and visit the first hour on her secret list. She wasn’t disappointed.
The sprawling, spidering chambers of Sub-Nine echoed inside the ghostly hour with shrieks of laughter and great, crashing waves of water as Decima Kokoro Weaved a river like a ribbon, in and out of the many archways of the School of Wundrous Arts.
It was extraordinary and beautiful and terrifying. Morrigan felt a tightening in her chest as she remembered the waves in the Tricksy Lane endlessly crashing over her. But she pushed it deep down somewhere, focusing instead on the teenage boy running through the halls after Decima, laughing with his friends as they followed in her wake, trying (and it must be said, mostly failing) to imitate what she was doing.
This Ezra Squall was of senior scholar age – perhaps seventeen or so – and beginning to resemble the striking young man he would later become. The ash-brown hair was a little unrulier than it was in the picture Dame Chanda showed her the Christmas before last, and there was no scar through his eyebrow yet. But the angular features, the smooth pale skin … it was all familiar, yet somehow off. Seventeen-year-old Squall was carefree and boisterous, delighting both in the company of his friends and the insanity of seeing a river run through his school.
Beyond the physical resemblance, Morrigan barely recognised him.
LʘCATIʘN
PARTICIPANTS & EVENTS
DATE & TIME
Wundrous Society Campus, far-west corner of the Whinging Woods, underneath the oldest tree
Rastaban Tarazed, ʘwain Binks, Elodie Bauer
A beginner’s lesson in the Wundrous Art of Weaving
Age of Endings, Tenth Monday, Spring of Eight
07:30–08:22
The oldest tree in the far-west corner of the Whinging Woods was predictably grumpy when Morrigan came stomping around in the undergrowth the following Monday morning.
‘Oh, don’t mind me,’ it grumbled as she tripped over its outspread roots, looking for a tiny sliver of light hanging in the air. The gnarly old wood-grain face in its trunk curled into a sneer. ‘Don’t let my ancient roots bother you, they’re only anchored deep in the ground in this fixed position. I’ll just hop out of your way in a sprightly fashion, shall I? Hoppity hop hop.’
‘Sorry, I’m just looking for – never mind! Found it.’
Morrigan widened the gap and slipped through time to a lesson that had taken place four years earlier than Decima’s subterranean river.
Squall was there again, and he was her own age, and he was making funny faces at Elodie while Rastaban held an outstretched hand to the tree and talked very earnestly about communing with nature in order to understand and unravel its threads.
‘Ezra, stop that,’ hissed Owain, closing his eyes and pressing his palm against the tree trunk. ‘Some of us are trying to listen to the trees.’
Morrigan was briefly distracted wondering why they needed to use the Wundrous Arts just to talk to a tree in the Whinging Woods; in her experience they were always quite eager to broadcast their complaints. But on closer inspection of the old oak she noticed there was no gnarly face in its trunk, nor in fact on any of the surrounding trees. In this ghostly hour, the Whinging Woods weren’t the Whinging Woods. Not as she knew them. How curious.
‘Some of us are trying to listen to the trees,’ Ezra mouthed dramatically at Elodie behind Owain’s back, and they both dissolved into giggles.
Morrigan walked right up to Ezra, frowning as she leaned in close to examine his bright, merry face. For a brief alarming moment, his eyes locked with hers, as if he knew she was there. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Then his gaze slid away as if it had never happened.
LʘCATIʘN
PARTICIPANTS & EVENTS
DATE & TIME
School of Wundrous