I knelt beside the hearth, as usual, and brought my palms before me so they were pointing at the blackened logs. I closed my eyes and concentrated hard upon the familiar warm tingling sensation that usually started in my heart. It took me several moments to realise that I was not feeling warm or tingly at all. Quite the opposite in fact; I felt cold and clammy.
Gritting my teeth together and scrunching up my eyes I forced myself to try and expel the fire from my hands. After several minutes I was sweating with effort, though no flames had appeared. Perhaps a different approach might help, I thought to myself.
Trying to calm myself, I focussed on relaxing every muscle in my body one by one. If this technique had to continue, I would be trying to light these fires all day. Once I was quite sure that I was relaxing, and my heart rate was slowing I tried again.
Nothing.
My heart rate picked up as I began to panic. I couldn’t expel the fire from my body. Worse than that, I felt cold and hollow. Where my heart usually pumped the feeling of molten hot liquid throughout my body I now felt nothing. No warmth. No tingling sensation. No heat rising through my pores. No lovely calming feeling.
Stay calm, I ordered myself. It was much easier to think than to do, Perhaps you’re still in shock. Yes, that must be it.
Standing, my legs feeling very wobbly, I decided that I should go and find Jack. He would know what was wrong with me for sure.
I didn’t know where Jack had gone, so first I knocked upon his bedroom door. There was no answer so I tried the kitchens and asked if anyone had seen him. No luck there. I knew Jack wouldn’t be in the stables, as we had just departed from there. Maybe Charles knew where he was, I concluded. I had only ever been to Charles’ office on one other occasion, which was my first visit to the manor. I remembered where to find it though, as I had walked past it many times and gotten used to the vast nature of the manor.
Hoping this was allowed, I knocked timidly upon Charles’ office.
“Yes, come in.” I heard from the other side.
Heaving a sigh of relief I entered the office which looked exactly the same as the last time I had been here.
“Charles, I’m sorry to disturb you.” I said in a small voice.
“Ah, Miss Redding.” Charles peered at me over his spectacles, “I heard you were ill yesterday.”
“Yes, sir. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about actually. I returned to work this morning only to discover, well, my Power seems to have been affected by my uh … bout of illness, sir.” I admitted.
“Your Power has been affected?” Charles said rather shocked.
“It seems so.” My face tinged pink in embarrassment, “I feel a little cold and clammy still, and I’m having trouble expelling any fire. I was looking for Jack to see if he could help me.”
“Ah, yes. Jack has just departed for the Marketplace.” Charles remembered, “He shouldn’t be long. If you are fit enough you should help around the manor with other things until he gets back.”
“Yes, sir.” I nodded in understanding, “Thank you.”
I was relieved that I had been dismissed from my fire duties for the morning, but how long would my Power be on strike? I’d never heard of someone completely losing their Power after having been through a bit of a shocking ordeal. When I was younger my mother had gotten a very bad cold and her Power had been weak during that time, but not once had she ever lost use of it completely. Then again, I thought to myself, I’m not really sick at all, am I?
I decided to spend my time in the stables ‘helping’ Camryn with her various chores. I fed the Pegasi their meat scraps gladly, and had Hawthorne follow me around happily, though I suspected he just wanted more food. I also wanted to station myself here for I could look out of the windows easily and see Jack when he would return.
At last after an hour of pretending to work, Hawthorne gave a yelp to announce the return of Jack. I ran to the window, and indeed saw his dark figure lumbering across the grounds.
I stepped out into the cold to meet him halfway. When I was a few meters away Jack waved and smiled.
“What are you doing out here?” He asked. Jack was carrying a box in his arms, presumably a package for Charles or someone in the manor.
“Is that a package? I thought they were supposed to be delivered to the door?” I pointed to it as we fell in step and began walking together.
“Nah. Packages have to be picked up from the shop itself; they usually deliver letters to the door though.”
“Or window.” I said remembering when R?ven had swooped in to deliver my letter.
“Actually that was really unusual behaviour.” Jack frowned slightly, “I’ve never seen them deliver letters personally like that. I mean … how did she know what room you were in to begin with?”
I frowned too, “I hadn’t thought about that.” I admitted.
“Yeah well, who cares?” Jack muttered. I thought perhaps he was still bitter about R?ven’s lack of interest in him. The thought made me smile.
“I wanted to ask you something.” I began slowly.
“Go for it.”