Chapter Text
Meet this fucker.
Since the name ‘Jen’ is taken because I’m Jen, let’s call her Jen Two - JT for short.
In a perfect world, I would call her Baby Jen (which is what I call her IRL) but since I want to use her initials, I won’t be that cruel. JT has enough to deal with.
JT recently returned to her midwestern hometown after five years living on the west coast. Upon completing her undergrad at a famously rigorous learning for learning’s sake-kind of school, she failed to find employment. Six ego-crushing months of rejection later, she called it. Mired in defeat and haunted by her apparent ability to take a 17-hour depression nap, she packed her shit, got in her car, and drove home.
These days, she is - by choice - perpetually-just-slightly-overbooked. The busier she stays, the less time she has to ruminate on her Purpose in Life. At a vintage shop downtown, JT is a “small business intern” (“unpaid person who hangs out, rings up the occasional sequined sweater, and gets to meet the cool owner’s cool friends”). JT also works part-time at a painfully hip, scandal-prone clothing company. For fun, she organizes quasi-legal parties out of a moldy warehouse and when she can’t sleep, she wanders around town sticking magnetized googly eyes to street signs. She calls this Operation Neighborhood Watch.
JT thinks she’s a happy person but people call her snarky. To be fair, at the moment her attitude on life leans bleak and her current mental state is a sliding scale with smug, counter-cultural superiority on one end and full-on existential panic on the other.
JT is doing her best.
See, JT really wants to improve the world. She wants to bring people joy and leave things better than she found them, she just can’t seem to land on the best way for her to do that.
Maybe through art?
Or events?
Maybe through nonprofits?
Or psychology?
Shit, fuck, should she have stayed in school?
Oh, business school!
But like, for small businesses!
What’s the buzzword, entrepreneurship?
Oh wait, no, that’s not gonna work. Schools called “business schools” don’t teach the own-your-own-vintage-shop flavor of business.
Maybe the fashion industry?
Mmm, that might be an issue.
JT is not the most self-aware but she suspects she lacks the fortitude to survive long in that world.
Merchandising could work okay, though.
Like, window design, in-store displays, being the person in charge of the way shops are organized?
The other day, her coworker told her there’s a school for that with campuses in LA and San Francisco. If she applied and got in, she’d be able to get back to the west coast. Since arriving home, she has told a lot of people, “yeah, I’m just here for now, I don’t plan to stay.”
JT receives her Brackroot invitation letter on a Sunday night.
She’s just returned from work - inventory, the weekly, corporate-dictated dance in which every employee is required to assure that one of every item in every size and every color is available on the sales floor, in the correct order, hanging one inch apart.
(It sucks. You can roll your eyes here - JT does.)
Like most twentysomethings, JT usually ignores her mail because who the fuck mails things? Honestly, she’s gone weeks without checking it before. Yesterday morning, however, her downstairs neighbor left a little box of chocolates in her mailbox as a thank you for keeping an eye on their apartment while they were traveling.
This means hell yeah, free snacks.
This also means that tonight, JT notices one, lone letter.
That grimy, hundred year-old copper cubby her landlord calls a “mailbox” was empty earlier, she’s sure of it.
Wedding invitation paper, she muses, examining the envelope.
It feels buzzy, like static electricity in her hand, but she writes that off to low blood sugar from four nonstop hours of counting. Who on earth is getting married, anyway? Marriage is an outdated social institution that reinforces bullshit norms around women being property.
Nice paper, though.
It is. Really, really nice paper - that thick, fancy stuff. No stamp, no return address. Didn’t she read that’s illegal? To put non-mail in mailboxes? Those chocolates were a federal crime and so is this letter. She sets her bag on her couch and rifles through it until she finds her cigarettes.
Yes, JT knows smoking is terrible for her but she started in college and dammit, she likes it. Despite the enthusiastic anti-drug messaging she received as a child, smoking does, in fact, make her feel cooler. Also, she’s neurotic and frequently stressed so smoking gives her an easy way to bond with others and a universally accepted reason to take breaks. It also feels good. Because it’s drugs. Duh. She reasons that the way she does it is slightly less bad for her since she buys the brand that boasts its all natural, untreated tobacco.
Her lease said she’s not supposed to smoke in here but this apartment is shitty and sitting out on the porch when it’s cold sucks, so a week after she moved in, she made herself a rule that goes:
It’s only okay if you sit right next to the window and empty your ashtray regularly.
(The “way she does it” is absolutely not “less bad” for her. She also does not empty her ashtray regularly.)
The envelope has begun to move in JT’s hand. Once, she found a little fern in a botanical garden whose leaves snapped shut immediately on human contact. Shame Plant - or Shy Plant? Sensitive Plant? She doesn’t fully remember, but fuck if this envelope isn’t doing the opposite. Its sealed flap gracefully folds open and within, an equally regal-looking letter slowly slides up and out. She actually has to pluck it from the air as it unfurls, shimmering lightly and suspended in place until she sets down her cigarette to grasp it. The paper feels charged - definitely the static she felt before, a soft field of power she can sense through her fingertips, and the letter reads thusly:
To our future student:
It is with great pleasure that I'm writing to inform you of your acceptance into the halls of Brackroot Academy.
This is likely the first time you've heard of our noble Academy, and that is not by mistake. Brackroot Academy is a long-established school for adults showing a natural aptitude for the arcane and the unseen. We do not choose students based on applications or standardized tests. Instead, we rely on an ancient gem attuned to the esoteric properties of what laymen might call magic. The stone's origins are unknown, but it reveals students from all across the world who possess a connection to the supernatural. Recently, it showed us your image.
Should you accept this invitation, you'll have a month to tie up any loose ends. Our Academy is a four-year commitment, offering summer and winter breaks. You'll receive a full scholarship that includes room and board, healthcare, and meals, as well as a small allowance for personal expenses to improve your quality of life. You're also entitled to one small-to-medium domestic pet.
While here, you'll refine your sixth sense, gaining access to spells, rituals, enchantments, portals, and many other aspects you likely thought only possible in fantasy fiction.
Should you wish to hear more, simply open a journal that calls to you and write, "The path to Brackroot calls to me." If you do that, I'll invite you on a tour so that you can see the grounds and ask questions about what's expected of you.
The only requirement is that you keep Brackroot Academy a secret. We can help you establish a cover story along with more complicated paperwork.
We so hope to hear from you.
May the clouds part at your whim,
Dr. Emerzon Elvas (any pronouns)
Headmaster, Brackroot Academy
Sitting Chair, Foundation for the Recondite Arcane
JT takes this information in stride. Well, semi in-stride. She is freaking out a little. She is also chain smoking - properly, even, lighting her current cigarette off the cherry of her last.
It’s fine.
It’s not fine.
No, it’s fine.
She considers, for a moment, the announcements section from her college’s quarterly alumni magazine: John, class of ‘82, breeds plastic-eating bacteria that will remedy the Pacific Trash Island. Layla, class of ‘94, invents a new programming language. August, class of ‘01, receives several prestigious awards for their musical based on feminism in turn-of-the-century Russia.
The world is a mysterious place, she tells herself, filled with beauty and wonder.
And magic, apparently, because an ancient gem found her.
Hold on.
Still smoking, JT abandons the window.
(For those keeping score at home, our girl is now zero for two in regards to her rule.)
She holds her cigarette in her teeth as she rummages through her desk, looking for her sketchbook. Lately, she’s been documenting her dreams.
The first time it appeared, it was sitting at the foot of her bed: a hairless cat with soft light pouring out of the sockets where its eyes should have been. Surrounding its nude body was a translucent field of gravity-defying, waving tentacles that undulated like a sea anemone in the ocean. In lieu of a collar, a glowing gem nearly the size of JT’s palm appeared to be embedded directly into the pale, wrinkly flesh of its chest. Whew, gross. But kind of pretty? At the time, she believed she was awake - she tried to reach for it, to call out to it - and it wasn’t until she woke up for real that she realized the cat was nothing more than that night’s surreal, unconscious brain fart.
…until it appeared again a week later, during a dream in which she was at work. While sorting frustratingly unorganizable hangers, JT noticed one of the dressing rooms emitting a glow beneath the door and when she unlocked it, there sat the anemone cat. Its light-eyes stared at her for a moment before it casually strolled away. Hey, wait! She followed it all the way through back stock and out the emergency exit, where it disappeared into a stand of trees because instead of the parking lot behind the building, she was now perched on a rocky hill overlooking a forest. In the distance, she could just make out a theatrically ornate-looking castle.
Most recently - a couple days ago, in fact - the cat made another appearance. She dreamed she was sitting on the porch of her old college apartment. The sun was setting and as darkness replaced the pink wash of dusk, millions of multicolored fireflies lit the trees. JT watched individual sparkling branches waving slowly, twisting around one another as they reached for the sky, and her dream-brain thought, apical meristems make things grow upward.
(She checked upon waking and she had, in fact, correctly remembered this fact from Bio 101.)
The cat occupied the seat beside her, its light-eyes turned to the sky, its tentacles undulating in the same rhythmic current as the swaying trees. Hey, what’s your deal? The cat said nothing as it gazed at her, only blinked and rose to its feet. It hopped off the chair, yawning and stretching, its chest gem glowing brightly and its anemone field rippling around its arched back, before it turned to slink through the open sliding door.
As she watched it go, JT realized her apartment had been replaced by a long stone hallway lit by torches. The cat was not there, the hall stood empty, but JT suddenly felt observed, as if the space knew she was there and regarded her with quiet curiosity.
Back in her apartment, JT puts out her cigarette and taps her anemone cat drawings absentmindedly with her fingertips.
That fuckin cat’s a part of this, she thinks.
She turns to a fresh page in her sketchbook, and with a black sharpie, writes at the top
The path to Brackroot calls to me
In the days that follow, Brackroot becomes a trending topic in JT’s life.
JT’s manager gets the news first - she’s been accepted into a residency: Brackroot Collective, an arts and community organizing incubator offering a four-year program to prepare students to change the world. He congratulates her and tells her if she’s in back town on breaks, she’s welcome to pick up shifts… well, if the store’s still around. He lets slip their numbers aren’t looking great and corporate has thoughts.
The owner of the vintage shop visits Brackroot Collective’s website with her. It’s thorough and modern, all bold color and san serif fonts, and JT marvels at the power of magic. That’s what all this is. Dr. Elvas did say that’s what would happen - a magically-generated excuse tailored to her, personally, all details crafted to achieve maximum believability. Supporting the Next Generation of Innovators and Changemakers says the tagline. When JT touches the links - Our Story, Our Program, Notable Alumni - she feels a buzz of arcane power through her boss’ touch screen, a sensation she’s come to recognize as the signature of spellwork. She idly wonders what Brackroot’s real slogan is, if mages care about shit like phrases that inspire donations or a logo that makes a good sticker.
Her parents are thrilled. We knew you’d find your way. They’re even more thrilled they don’t have to help pay for anything. Her friends buy it easily, too - in the modern world there are so many programs, so many things to try out for, so many organizations to apply with, that hearing about one more seems natural. Fuck yeah. Have fun. Stir shit up, they tell her. The person she’s seeing even Facetimes her from the road. They’re touring - performing - and the two of them haven’t been exclusive since she was still in school, but they just wanted to let her know they’re really gonna miss seeing her next time they’re in town. I can’t believe it’s full room and board, what a fucking score. Remember to use your powers for good, not evil, they tease.
The evening she’s due to leave, JT sits on her porch, smoking and watching passerbys walk their dogs. That look dogs give their humans makes her misty, the check-in glance after being given a command like ‘wait’ or ‘leave it’ that says oh god I love you so much, did I do it right? JT wants a dog very, very badly, but has never allowed herself to go to the shelter. God forbid something needs to rely on her for sustenance and attention, two things she barely remembers to give herself. Maybe she’ll get a dog at Brackroot, if she can. A magical dog. Do those exist? At this point, anything is possible.
Behind her, the apartment stands bare, no persons or objects in the way of the mysterious dark-water leak that occasionally seeps out of her dining room ceiling. Her houseplants have gone to live with her downstairs neighbor. The rest of her belongings have all been re-sold on Craigslist. Save her mint green coffeemaker (which she is bringing), everything she owned was secondhand. Catch-and-release, she figures, returned to a common, shared pool of Shitty Household Items for Twentysomethings. Clothing and one box of stuff, that’s all she’s taking with her. Her laptop (though she’s unclear if it will be useful for magical homework). Her chrome stapler. Her sketchbook and a bunch of her favorite pens and pencils. A really round rock. A candid group photo from the first party she planned after she got into town, metallic confetti raining onto a bunch of sweaty, triumphant weirdos high-fiving on a foggy, makeshift stage as the DJ joyfully fist pumps.
She taps her empty pack of cigarettes with her right index finger, slides two fingers across the top of the lid, left to right, and closes her hands around the cardboard case until she feels it become full once more. It’s the only magic she can do at the moment but it feels exquisite every time. Sometimes if she concentrates, an extra cigarette ends up in there. It’s an enchantment, a welcome gift, bestowed to her at the conclusion of her campus tour. In truth, Dr. Elvas finds the students’ vices a chore and it’s easier to give the smokers a never-ending supply of magically-enhanced tobacco than deal with them constantly needing to travel into the Plain world to find a gas station.
Well, these things taste real enough. They feel real. But they’re not, apparently. They light with a tap to the tip. Even the butts dematerialize after a few minutes. JT wonders if this qualifies as her having quit. Look at that! Already, magic has improved her life. Idly, she wonders if there are other magical drugs. God, what are those gonna be like? Is she supposed to pay for them with cash or freaky magical shit, like black salt or jar of pickled shrew’s feet?
Night has fallen, and JT silently salutes a family of raccoons eating dry cat food off the porch of the house across the street. On account of this generosity, many neighbors aren’t fans of the retired professor whose wifi is named TheCatLadyThatLivesNextDoor. There’s a fat ginger boy named Bubba waiting patiently on the steps for his turn at the dish. JT thinks the other cat is nearby. The anemone cat. For some reason, she didn’t mention it to Dr. Elvas. Honestly, there should have been no better time to bring up a glowing bejeweled Sphinx than while touring the institution it led you to. She hasn’t seen it in her waking hours. Not yet, anyway. JT doesn’t even know if it exists outside of her dreams, but the closer she’s gotten to her departure date, the more she feels like it’s near.
Departure, arrival.
It’s not like I can just fly into a magical academy, she joked during her orientation, though according to Dr. Elvas, some students do just that (via contracted magical jet or helicopter, not brooms, which are a hurtful stereotype). Some students do use enchanted doorways. Or the arcane bus system, which is a real thing. Others, like her, simply drive.
In fact, Dr. Elvas has given her precise directions: tonight, at 9pm sharp, she’s to get into her car and start driving west. On the digital board over the interstate, where weather warnings and admonishments to wear a seatbelt usually reside, there will be a Brackroot logo and a welcome message only she can see. She’ll then encounter a series of signs, invisible to all but her, counting down the distance to a mysterious, largely unmarked off-ramp, where she’ll exit the interstate and disappear.
Here we go, she thinks as she pulls away from her building.
She can do this.
One late night senior year of her undergrad, in the fine German tradition of creating a thing by jamming words together, JT and her roommate coined the term terrorjoy. Terrorjoy is the panic one feels at the precipice of a new experience, the psychological push and pull of the weight of one’s fear against the soul-sure knowledge that one is moving in the right direction.
Yes.
Despite her nerves, it feels right knowing magic is real.
OKAY THAT WAS THE FUCKIN INTRO. YES, ALL THAT.
TIME TO PLAY
LET’S GOOO 😎
