Chapter 96 - Apple Of Discord

Show them my favourite spell, ha. My favourite spell as of now was the one I used to smack Christina through a wall, but I wasn't angry enough to throw away all my caution and use it now. I almost exploded with power the last and the only time I channelled an aspect from the Earth and I didn't care to repeat the experience without a really good reason to.

But I really wanted to show all the people who looked at me with expectation something good. Something to shut them all up and awe them even more than they expected. Disappointing them wasn't an option at all, though I wanted to know where the hell these expectations came from in the first place. What did Alexandra tell everyone about my study progress? I knew I didn't tell her about my newly found ability to hold aspects in my well, because I planned to ask her today.

Now it would have to wait until I dealt with my current social problem. I looked around the table, searching for convenient items to spell, as well as good ideas of what I could do with them. There wasn't much experience behind my shoulders. I couldn't even separate an aspect into several streams like Alexandra showed me once, though I tried.

Finally, I picked up an apple from the table and closed my eyes. It didn't save me from the stares. They itched on my skin almost like a physical thing, and when I opened my well and saw through it, I felt the air simmer with tension. Not figuratively, but like a physical thing I could pull out of it, an aspect I could channel. A strong emotional trace, in other words.

"An apple? What she will do with it, I wonder?" I heard a quiet whisper past the distraction of the aspects' songs. I couldn't tell whose voice it was. "Do you think she really that good? She only trained for, what, a couple of weeks?"

"I can't think of anything really interesting that could be done with an apple. Will she turn it into an orange?"

They must've thought I was too out of it to hear in the moment, but I wasn't, and I gritted my teeth. I also wondered what I will do with an apple, but at the sound of speech, my attention fell on the other witches, as if I could find the one who spoke. From the world of the aspects, though, they all the same—dark holes in the air. Even their sizes were all similar—not exactly the same, but all small, so small compared with me, even the ones who widened their wells to see me work.

That gave me an idea. At the very least, I could mess with them. It was a pain to focus on the auras in a way to see not too much and not too little, in most cases, but right now my super-sharp aura-vision would help me. I smirked and focused on the apple in front of me.

Red, juicy, sweet, tasty apple, full of life even now. It had seeds within, and those could grow into full-blown apple trees. I looked over its aspects, searching for something small but promising interesting results, until I found it.

The apple had several, as Alexandra called them, informational aspects. Apple, fruit, food, all pretty big though if I squinted (metaphorically) they blended into something that felt more like an apple than anything. But besides them, it had 'red' info-aspect—not red as a colour aspect, which it also had, but separately.

These info-aspects changed following the item, but I wondered what will change if I do it the other way around… and how will all the watching witches perceive it.

I glanced around until I found 'blue' info-aspect on a packet of chips. The next operation required precision and speed, but I had enough practice moving aspects around to do what I wanted without sweating too much. Just a moderate amount of sweat.

A minute later, the red aspect was safely away on some piece of garbage in the plastic packet designated for garbage, while half of the blue aspect now sat in the apple instead of it. Finally, trepidation making some of my anger turn into nervous jitters, I closed my well and opened my eyes.

And was immediately assaulted by everyone's voices, blocked from me earlier by my intense concentration.

"What did she do?"

"She just changed its colours, didn't she? Its blue now."

"Amazing! I have no idea what happened, not at all!"

"How can you be so happy about it?"

"It's not blue! The sky is blue, my jeans are blue, and this is… it's blue, but it doesn't look like blue. It's too saturated for it, isn't it?"

"The aspects didn't change at all. It's I couldn't see what she was doing at all…"

Everyone's confusion was apparent, and it pleased me to hear it. Just what I needed, to throw these people from whatever track they were on. Then I looked at the apple and became just as befuddled by what I saw.

It was the same apple, not different from how it was in any detail, except that it was blue. Except that it WASN'T blue. Not the normal blue, at least. This blue looked exactly like red, but it was totally blue. That I was sure of.

I looked away before the paradox of the blue apple made a wreck out of my brain. The effect felt very much like how JJ described glamour to me, except this wasn't glamour because, first, every witch in the area was affected by it, second, glamour looked absolutely different in aura-vision. Glamour was a cloak of intent JJ donned like, well, a cloak. This apple was just an apple whose aspects stated it was blue, even though it was red.

Alexandra stood up, waving her hands at people. "Please, please, quiet down. Diana, the spell you demonstrated is very… confusing. Can you be so kind and explain to us all what you did here?"