Felisa tried to focus. She stared intensely at the thin glass on her desk, tried to send something, anything, through her eyes so that it would break. She imagined every single glass particle colliding so that some force would appear. 

There was no response.

It was the last class of the day, and all she needed to do was finishing this simple-looking task. Then, she could go back home. 

She was excited to see what Eda had learned today. Eda was learning to speak just like a baby and the words she said sounded so funny and after she could speak good enough, she would finally tell them about life in the stars and…

Felisa shook her head and pinched herself. She had to focus on the glass. Felisa could’ve broken it by simply making it fall from the desk if only she were allowed to do anything externally. Like with a tap on the desk, she could’ve multiplied the effect of the force, then bam! Or forming a simple motion in the air would be enough. 

But the instructor specifically said not to make an impact on anything other than the glass itself. After that, he explained nothing! What kind of a shitty teacher would expect something he never even taught them? He wasn’t very well-liked by many of the students anyway.

How did the other kids do it? Did they heat the glass? But that would at most melt it, not break it. She shut her eyes and “commanded” the glass to break, just like Rehan said many times. But, of course, a good-for-nothing Felisa could never make it work.

Opening her eyes, she leaned in and rested her chin on her desk. She could see her faint reflection on the glass, really warped looking like a yellow parrot. Then she saw her instructor’s distorted figure. He now looked funny walking between the desks arrogantly like that. The sound of his steps filled Felisa’s mind.

Damn, thought Felisa, pinching herself harder this time. She just couldn’t seem to keep her mind on anything! She could feel her knees shaking in frustration. Her vision of the glass blurred, she started to hear her chair hitting the floor rapidly. The sound annoyed her, she tried to stop it, tried to stay still. Then she realized she was not the one to shake the chair.

The ground under her feet was.

“STOP, everyone!”

With the sudden shout from her instructor, Felisa jumped on her seat. She quickly came to her senses; the ground obviously was not shaking along with anything else. Felisa must’ve been daydreaming.

She caught his eyes on hers, looking speculative instead of his typical frowning. He kept looking at her as he spoke. “Class dismissed.”

This was weird, but she didn’t want to think about it. Felisa could still feel his gaze on her back as she quickly left. 

“Fez! We’re heading to the library-” said her friends around the school gate.

“Nah, I’m busy.” Felisa was super interested in going back home these days.

“But you’re ditching us again!”

“Aww, sorry,” Felisa sent them an air kiss as she headed towards home. “I’ll talk to you later, love you!”

She saw her brother after walking for a while. He was going back from work and didn’t seem to notice her. He wouldn’t even expect that Felisa's class ended early. She held back her evil laugh and tried to be as quiet as possible as she slowly got closer and closer. 

Just when she reached him, Rehan turned around. What Felisa saw was the most disgustingly ugliest expression on his face. 

“UGH!” Felisa pretended to puke.

He flipped his imaginary long hair. “Are you amazed by my new face?”

“You look like a potato covered in goat shit.”

“Woah, Fez, thanks for the UNIQUE compliment.”

“Always.”

Unfortunately, Felisa’s elder dear brother had an unstable mental age. Sometimes he behaved like an annoying kid, and other times he was like a middle-aged parent. 

They were both walking faster than usual. Almost as if they were racing to see the alien in their house. 

Well, there were too many things Felisa was curious about. Everything about the girl was a mystery! Aside from her foreign look and language, Eda’s powers were also out of the world. She never seemed to do anything special, but Felisa had secretly tried to use the energy on her, around her and nothing happened. It was like Felisa's directed energy just vanished. She then wanted to ask her about it, but the most complicated question Eda could understand so far was ‘can you pass the salt’.

Her father and brother were working with her for a week. Her father was an experienced teacher and Rehan helped him draw story-like learning materials. Eda, on the other hand, was the ideal student. She kept a notebook to take notes all the time and was always attentive to everything she was told. 

When they got back, it was Eda who opened the door for them. Her blue hair was tied back, Her nose and cheeks were red, her eyes were teary. She sniffed. 

“Hey.” her voice cracking made Felisa anxious. It was the first time she saw her cry, and Felisa didn’t know what to do.

“What happened! Why are you crying?” asked her brother. He also seemed very worried. 

Eda sniffed again and shook her hands open to indicate no? Or to tell them not to worry? Felisa wasn’t sure until she saw Eda going back to the kitchen and keep chopping some onions. 

“She’s so cute and helpful,” said her mother across the kitchen, “unlike a certain someone!”

Felisa sighed at her mother’s complaint. Then, she innocently smiled and washed her hands while Rehan got Eda a tissue. 

“No, I can do it.” said Eda when Felisa took over. 

Felisa pointed to her eyes and moved her hands as if she was washing her face. “You wash your face now, it’s almost finished.” Her father had told them to talk to her with a lot of gestures.

“But, I help you?” Her pronunciation was just as strange as her. And Felisa found that amusing. 

“You already helped a lot, dear.” answered her mother.

“Come on, show me your homework for today.”

Felisa finished with chopping as her brother took Eda away. Having her around was like babysitting a little sister Felisa never had. Which was funny since Eda looked at least five years older. She was likely around Rehan's age.

So, Eda was easy to look after too. She didn’t pick her food or caused any ruckus. Except for the time she slept outside, she adapted quickly. Too quickly for a human indeed. It kind of concerned Felisa that Eda did not express her emotions much. She smiled sometimes, laughed rarely, never cried except for the onions before, did not get angry or express her pain much.

But a few times, Felisa caught her staring far away with a sad smile on. Perhaps she missed her people terribly. Poor Eda, everything must’ve been so foreign to her, hard on her.

After dinner and cleaning up everything, Felisa was deep in thoughts about her unfinished assignment. She just took out an old glass like she was given in the school and stared at it. So many ways she tried, but none worked in the way she wanted.

Felisa thought about asking the others. But her father was a mid-school teacher while her mother was an unlicensed healer. Her brother… Well, Rehan had the potential skills, but he was never interested in advanced sorcery. He had thought of it as too bothersome that he hadn't taken advanced classes. Her brother was such a lazy bum. 

So, Felisa decided to ask the only potential sorcerer available, the mysterious Eda, who probably fell from stars just like in her favorite book series. The only problem would be communication. 

But lucky for Felisa, Eda was clever.

So when Felisa showed her the glass and asked her to break it, Eda’s answer was to fetch Rehan, the illustrator. 

Rehan sketched a simple glass, a broken one next to it, and showed the movement with arrows. Eda looked at the drawings for a moment. 

“You want me to break the glass?”

“Break it.” said Felisa slowly, allowing her to hear clearly. 

“This?” Eda took the glass and swung her arm as if she was throwing it to the ground. 

“No! No, you can’t hit, crush or drop it. Brother, can you?”

“You ask for too much.” complained Rehan as he tried to draw the themes with storylines. Eda seemed confused, looking at the glass and the drawings and their faces with her eyebrows crossed.

“Not understand.” said Eda, shaking her head.

“Ugh, how can I explain..” Felisa took the glass, “Look, no throwing,” she showed throwing with her other arm, “no hitting,” she hit the air above the glass, “no dropping,” she dropped it and caught it with her other hand. 

Eda kept staring for a moment, then smiled in an almost sarcastic way. “What do you think I am? A magician?”

“It may be beyond her abilities, Fez.” Rehan was hitting the pencil to the table, keeping a rhythm. It distracted Felisa.

“But she is powerful! I’m fucking sure she can!” 

"Don’t teach your filthy words to our dear Eda here.”

Felisa didn’t respond. She could not take her eyes and ears off the pencil. Realizing that, she shook her head and tried to focus again on Eda. Seeing Eda too was tapping the table with her fingers in the same rhythm, Felisa found her mind wandering off again. 

Eda stood up suddenly. “I might... have an idea.”

She took the glass and moved her other hand to tell them to follow her. She was almost going outside the house bare feet, but Rehan stopped her, giving her the slippers. He behaved like a mom sometimes.

Outside, Eda made them stay a little away. Felisa felt her heart beating fast. It was finally the moment she saw what the alien was capable of.

Eda first flicked the glass a few times, listened to it ringing carefully. Then smiled mumbling “It looks old enough, this might actually work.” Then she did something weird.

She started screaming.

Not like screaming with all the air inside her lungs but it was more like singing. She slowly screamed louder but at the same pitch. Her eyes closed tightly.

She was absolutely not doing what Felisa expected her to do. Was this some kind of a work ritual? Did she use internal energy and released it through her voice? But it didn’t make sense…

“Clink!”

Rehan gasped.

Felisa cursed in awe.

Eda started laughing with tears. “Never thought I’d use this stupid skill from youtube again!”

Felise did not understand what she said, what she did, and how she did it. But she knew one thing for sure, to be an outstanding sorcerer, Felisa was definitely going to make this weird girl take Felisa as her student. 

"Careful, your hands will bleed." Rehan carefully took the shattered glass away. 

Felisa held Eda's hands tightly. "You'll teach me, right?"

Eda just smiled. 

Felisa took that as a yes.