Page 39 of Gifted & Talented

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Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, Arthur was arguing with Philippa.

“Arthur, be reasonable. I’m not the host for your holy sperm,” Philippa continued on, after pointing out that a glass of wine was not such a sin, “and by the way, it’s still my body. I’m not just some vessel destined to incubate a future possession of yours. Or do you think you should have a right to control everything I do, ad nauseum?”

“That’s not what I’m saying, that’s not what I’m saying at all,” said Arthur, seeing only flashes of things, colors behind his eyes, mainly red but occasionally white. Had Meredith been there, she might have pointed out by virtue of her A? in university rhetoric that the device Philippa had just employed is called a “straw man logical fallacy,” which is when a person distorts the original point (in this case: Why are you drinking wine if you’re having a baby, which you are definitely having, correct?) to make it easy to refute. But Meredith wasn’t there, and Arthur was finding it difficult to blink, and then there was a little burst of light from his periphery, and he thought Oh fuck no, not again .

And then when he woke up, he was on the floor and Philippa was bending over him.

“Oh, Arthur,” she sighed when he opened his eyes, speaking before he could fully break the rigor mortis. “Dying just to manipulate a woman is highly frowned upon, just so you know. Very gaslight-y behavior.”

Then she straightened, gave him an admonishing look, and sauntered out of the room.

Arthur closed his eyes and opened them. He thought about magic, the way it seemed to be ruining his life, more so with every passing minute. And hadn’t it always been an inconvenience? Why, then, had he ever wanted to do it? Why had he even learned?

Because of me, of course. Because I had loved it; because it was taught to me by my grandmothers, who had loved me. Because when I taught it to Meredith and Arthur, he’d felt something like love, too. Like the joy a person could feel making art, or preparing for their loved ones an elaborate, painstaking meal.

“Meredith’s scope of interest leans too pragmatic,” I once told Arthur, probably fifteen years earlier, in what Arthur had then felt was a disapproving, semi-bored tone. “I want to have a little fun with it.”

“I like fun,” was what Teenage Arthur told me then, although he would have told me almost anything at the time.

Guiltily, Adult Arthur thought now of the way he could make the lights dance if he wanted, the surge of electricity he could conjure in his fingers—the things he occasionally did just to do them, like loving just because it felt nice to love. He thought of the times he and I used to sit shoulder to shoulder researching obscure spells on the internet, looking up anything that seemed even remotely like it could work.

He thought, as he had been doing almost obsessively lately, of me.

He reached for his phone as soon as motion returned to his fingers, returning to his messages.

Specifically, to mine.