As We Go Along, Ch. 16

 As soon as Colin had closed the door, I stood and walked to the window. I opened it and looked down. I was on the second story--it would be quite the drop to the ground below. I stepped back and glanced around the room. At the foot of the bed was my backpack. I wondered if the paperclip chain I'd made would support my weight, but I dismissed the idea as stupid. Still, I grabbed my backpack and put it on. If I was really doing this, I had to be prepared to run. Getting lost in a strange world wasn't at the top of my to-do list, but if the others turned on me as Kevayss predicted, there wasn't a better option. Maybe I could hide in the Darkwood.

I returned to the window. I could make a rope out of the bedsheets, but ripping the cloth would be noisy, and who knew if that worked in real life, anyway? Maybe the window wasn't an option. Maybe I would have to turn invisible and walk through the inn. But what if I made noise? What if I bumped into someone?

Think, Madalyn. Hadn't Braydon said something about how Colin had levitated himself? Could I do that? It was worth a shot. I stared at my feet and tried to lift them off the floor with my mind. Move! Move! Move!

I succeeded in untying my shoelaces telekinetically. I sighed, sat down, and retied them. Maybe levitation was different than telekinesis. I stood up and flapped my arms, imagining that scene from Peter Pan where the kids flew around the room. I hoped I wouldn't need pixie dust. For about thirty seconds, I looked like an idiot. I stopped. Did I risk jumping in the air? If Carrington or Colin heard my landing, they might come up to check on me. I guess I could pretend I'd fallen out of bed, but did I really want to lie again?

"They won't hear my landing, because I won't land," I told myself. "I'm going to levitate."

I stood by the bed, just in case I had to fake a fall. Then I closed my eyes, spread out my arms, pretended I was a meditating Jedi, and jumped in the air. I focused every fiber of my being on staying there.

I didn't fall. Opening my eyes, I looked down. I hovered about a foot in the air. Okay. Not enough to maneuver safely out of the window, but it was something. Now how did I move around?

"Up," I whispered. I moved up about an inch. "No, more than that." About a foot.

I practiced flying left, right, forward, backward, and then (very importantly) down. I felt ready to glide out the window.

I hovered over to the windowsill and landed on the edge. I pushed off.

I prayed I didn't fall on my face. I could imagine the headlines--"Mad Madalyn Leaps from Window, Believing She Can Fly." Above a photo of my crumpled body. Thank goodness I wasn't on Earth.

Good news: I didn't fall. Instead, I flew. I did a few in-air somersaults, just for fun. That made me dizzy, though, so I stopped. Hovering in place, twenty feet off the ground, I surveyed the landscape. The inn was behind me, the Darkwood a black smudge on my left, fields of corn on my right, and straight ahead of me a city that could only be Karazmuth. Kevayss hadn't been kidding when she'd said the library was the largest building in the city. I could see the glinting coppery dome from here. Did I dare fly that far? What if my magic somehow ran out? Braydon had said Colin and I were growing in power, but that didn't mean I couldn't get tired.

I'll fly low, just in case, I thought. I dropped low and soared over the cornfields, testing my abilities. I wonder how fast I can go?

Turned out I could go pretty fast. If I had to guess, about thirty miles an hour, which is slow for a car, but superhuman for me. I zoomed over the farmlands, brushing the corn with my fingertips. Now I knew I had some stamina, I sped towards the city.

Once I reached the city limits, I stopped and proceeded on two feet. If Chaeselor was losing its magic, a deranged flying magic-user might spook a few people. Luckily, I could still see the dome of the library from almost everywhere in the city. It was near the center. I took to the streets and headed towards it.

Karazmuth may have been a city, but it was small compared to the cities on Earth. I made good time as I treaded lightly to the library. My clothing, so different from what everyone else wore in this rustic little world, stood out, so I kept to the side streets and the shadows. The city had cobblestone streets and brick or wood buildings with wood-shingled roofs. Some only had thatch. Horses, mules, and carts ruled the streets, and rats scuttled in the alleys. I avoided them, and all of the people. Honestly, the smell bothered me more than the crowd. I wasn't sure what time period Chaeselor was in compared to Earth, but it felt pretty medieval to me. Smelt pretty medieval.

Soon I reached the center of the city, and there stood the library, as large as a capitol building, made of pinky-brown sandstone and gleaming copper. I stared up at the top of the spire and wondered how tall the building was. I shook my head and returned to the task at hand: finding Kevayss's book.