Heard you had a nice night : )  Wish I’d been there. Still need to meet your sibs one day! Are you thinking of visiting Magogram when they come? We could arrange something later in the week.

-A morning message from Capi to Raz.

The wonderchamber was, of course, closed for the night. Naturally, Raz knew that. She was a regular and probably the most frequent patron after the employee. But excitement does funny stuff to your brain. So, at two in the night, Raz was panting before the shut community center doors.

Just to be sure the resonance wouldn’t go away, she placed the phone down behind her and closed her eyes. Still there! 

Alright. It’s one fourteen. Less than six hours and I can register. Raz sat to wait, humming with excitement. 

Ten minutes later, she was freezing her ass off, shivering in her jacket, and struggling with a massive sleep-headache behind the eyes. Raz found herself questioning her intelligence. The resonance wouldn’t go away. Not overnight anyway. Tomorrow would still exist and sitting the night here would just earn her a cold.

The initial resonance giddiness wore off during the long trudge back home as the coastal autumn night laughed at her clothes. She arrived at the front door as a shivering sleepwalking zombie and spent several minutes fumbling with the key.

The house was dark. Joram was probably asleep. Raz slipped inside and embraced the heater. The fuzzy carpet after the entryway looked mighty tempting, but, with great willpower, Raz resisted its seductions. 

She tiptoed inside, pausing by Maroque’s room to peek in. Nobody was in.

“Hey, Maroque. Guess what?” Raz whispered through a grin. “I resonated! I’ll become a wizard after all.”

She imagined him to be pleased. Perhaps even a little proud.

Raz nodded, gave him a little bye-bye wave, and found her way to bed. Except, despite the comfort and warmth and eye-throbbing tiredness, she still stared at the dark ceiling at four in the morning. Every now and then, Raz closed her eyes and found the phone still there in the darkness.

“A wizard. I’m gonna be a wizard after all.”

She jolted awake to the sounds of knocking despite feeling like she’d never fallen asleep. Her body was clammy and her eyes ached like a pair of angry eggs trying to hatch.

“Breakfast is served and your lunchbox is prepared, if you would like to bring one along to school today.”

Raz replied by groaning.

Then, with a skipped heartbeat, she remembered the resonance. Raz closed her eyes and steadied her breath, confirming that she still felt the phone. She exhaled. Her heart calmed. Yesterday’s excitement kicked back in full again, leaving her in a weird fugue state of extreme weariness, fatigue, and spine-tingling joy.

“Oh witchtits.” Raz struggled out of bed and found her clothes.

“Something amiss?” asked Joram, waiting behind her door.

Her fingers were shaking? Raz chuckled. “Nnnyes. Everything, but it’s all good.”

“Very… good? I take it that is an improvement from yesterday.”

Half-clothed, Raz realized she hadn’t even tried any resonance cantrips yet! “O my god, I can’t.” She took deep breaths, rubbing her forehead. “Fuu… okay. Let’s logic this. Plan out the day. Visit wonderchamber, register, practice, breakfast, school?” Did she have lectures today? Raz had no clue. Her brain drew only blanks and nonsensical joy.

“Razandra?”

“I need the strongest tea we have.”

“Very well.” Joram’s steps retreated from the door.

Raz opened it and stumbled out, blinking forcefully to try to shed the dryness from her eyes. “And hey, I resonated last night.”

Joram took two steps before coming to a halt. He spun on his heels, eyes wide. “You resonated. Oh…” A smile of relief melted his feature, chased by a sudden burst of emotion. Joram blinked rapidly, turning away to dab his eyes with a handkerchief. “Oh, what a blessed day. Oh. Maroque!” He rushed to Maroque’s room, shouting, “Maroque, Razandra resonated!”

“He knows.”

“Razandra resonated! Oh, all is well in the world.” Joram continued to clean his face, composed himself a bit and stepped to offer a hand. “Congratulations are in order. May I inquire what aspects you’ve resonated with?”

Raz gave him a small smile. Maybe it was the weariness, but she stepped in to give him a small hug instead of a handshake. Joram stiffened for a moment. Then relaxed against, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“Actually, I’m not sure yet,” she said.

He stepped away. “What was the foci?”

Raz showed Joram his old phone. “This old piece of crap.”

He stared at it, stunned.

Raz wiggled the phone from side to side, grinning. “Yes. Behold Razandra, the most basic witch of all. An Earth girl who resonates with an Un damned phone.”

“I am merely amazed that that would accrue enough weight to become a foci. Why, I never understood how important it was to you.”

“Alright, no need to twist the knife.”

“Not my intention at all.” Joram faced her with a genuine expression. “I am truly amazed. Congratulations.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just joking. I’m…” She looked at the phone. “Still sorta digesting it.”

He nodded, patting her shoulder. “Take your time. Come, I will prepare tea to snap you back into the realm of the living. Once you’ve woken up properly, we can take a trip to get your resonance registered.”

“No. I’ve got school.”

Joram looked at her weirdly. “Why? Call them and take your resonance leave.”

“Oh. Right.”

The tongue-wrinklingly stiff purple tea eventually jostled awake enough of Raz’s braincells to stop her from zooming through the day on drunken autopilot. She called school resonance counselor, who told her to send a picture of her resonance registration to receive her three day resonance absence. Not a huge win, considering that would amount to four hours of classes, but she’d take it.

The counselor also scheduled her into the resonance classes. He parted with the words, “I suggest attending them, until you sign up for a course elsewhere or enter an academy. You don’t have to. But the good ones will include resonance tests and you won’t want to be that fresh awakened who can barely tap into the sight when you get there, let me tell you that. The number of students I’ve got who come running back every year all teary eyed!”

Raz thanked him for his advice, though she wasn’t sure if she would attend. Not because she didn’t want to practice. Nu-uh. Just the opposite.

Despite Joram’s offer, Raz decided to head to the wonderchamber alone. He said he understood and promised to welcome her back with a celebratory feast. She wasn’t sure if she’d insisted hard enough to make him not do it, but Raz hoped so. She wasn’t sure when she’d be back. 

The tram ride to the wonderchamber she spent by fidgeting and wading through her favorited resonance tutorials. She’d so much time on step one – resonance – that she had only vague second-hand impressions of what came next. Unfortunately, speed watching the first three minutes of multiple related tutorials on two times speed taught her that the next step was something ‘balance’ related, but not much else. 

She let the small crowd of students carry her out at the community center. The wonderchamber was occupied, so she had to wait a little.

Raz considered sending sibs and friends a message, but a picture would be a much better way to break the news. So, she waited and continued searching for good tutorials. As it happened, NeWiz had an older video on the subject of ‘Balance’ from before he started doing his scam courses.

“Tends to be the first thing every awakened struggles with,” said a much younger and lower production value boy with faintest resemblance to the put-together Indian born man. “See, you can think of the aspect like a very narrow and pointy chair, and resonator as a yogi trying to sit on it. It takes some practice, but once you get the hang of it, you can sit on it forever.”

“Except, and here’s the thing, once you’ve found that balance, it can be hard to switch seats. My master calls this ‘engraving’. It is a natural process, where an awakened existence aligns with the resonant aspect and claims it as theirs. This is why my master stresses the importance of the first aspect.”

Young NeWiz leaned into the camera, raising a finger a little bit outside the screen. “This is important, so listen. First aspect must be something you want to build your selfhood around. It is the core of your wizardness. It is your greatest strength and greatest weakness. It is your pillar…”

The wonderchamber door opened. An older gentleman wearing castleworker’s overalls with big arms strolled out. He nodded to the clerk and paid.

“Thank you for your vigil, young man.”

The clerk lifted three fingers in a bare minimum greeting and kept staring at cute advloggers.

The castleworker met Razandra in the hallway and retrieved his hard hat. He gave her a polite smile. “Good day, young miss.”

“Good morning.” Raz started to take her shoes off.

“Searching for peace or awakening?”

The question took her by surprise. “Uh. Awakening.”

“Then, I wish you luck and wisdom.”

“Actually, I already awakened. Just here for registration.”

A grin split his face. “Castleyard’s own daughter. At such an age! Congratulations then. May your sight see deep and your heart stay wide.”

“Yeah. Thanks?”

He tipped his hard hat at her and took off. 

Raz tipped her own non-existent hat and approached the counter with a confident smile. Years she had suffered here. Burned away. Wasted. Countless hundred visits she had ended in disappointment, meekly admitting that she’d resonated with no foci again. Well not today! Today she channeled her inner Allie and took a dominant leaning posture on the clerks counter. 

He raised an eyebrow at her.

Raz smiled, head slowly nodding. “One registration please. Brought my own foci.”

“Foci please.” The clerk let out a weary sigh and started typing.

Raz’s attitude faltered, but she presented her phone and payment. Did he not see how smug she was being? Did he not remember her? What was going on?

He took a picture of the phone and typed stuff, then made the flippant hand-raise that Raz recognized as ‘You may now go use the wondechamber’.

She picked up her phone, casting him one miffed glance on the way. Some people were just born sour.

She didn’t let it bother her and skipped past the changing room and straight into the wonderchamber. Familiar jingles welcomed her with that esoteric wonderchamber ambiance. Earthy scents of old things engulfed her. Thousands of curios she had cursed at and begged to resonate with her gleamed at her like proud parents (in her imagination anyway).