This story takes place just after The Wizard's Dilemma. Yes, whirling disease is real, and it is destroying thousands of cutthroat and rainbow trout. There is indeed a hatchery in Kamas, Utah, one that, in fact, releases rainbows (who have breeding troubles anyway) and cutthroat into the wild.
Updates: see below
standard disclaimerI don't own Nita, Kit, any part of the Young Wizards
series (darnit!), and I don't own Winnie-the-Pooh (double darnit.), and I
certainly don't own whirling disease (wouldn't that be interesting), so don't
sue me? I'm broke as it is. I write this out of love for Diane Duane's wonderful
work. *suck up suck up suck up* /standard disclaimer
---------------------------------------------------
Close Wizardry
by McKenzie Duff
---------------------------------------------------
"That's not a spell."
"Sure it is."
Nita Callahan sighed exasperatedly, turning back to her
Biology homework. Her best friend and partner in wizardry, Kit Rodrigez, was
supposed to be merging her ground work with his, creating one basic framework
for the new spell they were writing, one which, when completed, would help stop
whirling disease in brook trout. However, while Nita was trying to memorize the
different types of spores in plants, Kit appeared to be doing something else
entirely, as they sat back to back in the middle of Utah.
She craned her neck to glance into Kit's spiral notebook
again.
"That's not a spell."
"Sure it is."
"No, it's not... it's not even in the Speech." The
Speech was the language that governed the core of wizardry, and the makeup of
everything possible. "In fact," Nita continued, "if I didn't know
better, I'd say that was HTML."
Kit bit his lip. "Well, I actually finished the spell
about ten minutes ago. You looked like you needed to work on that Biology for a
bit, so I just started in on next week's computer homework."
Nita punched him lightly in the arm. "Kit, we could have
been finishing this!" She shut her book and stuffed it into her
claudication, the pocket of timespace where she kept her wizardry equipment and
the occasional heavy schoolbook. "Every moment we wait, more fish die, the
Lone One gains ground, and another fisherman gets very disgruntled."
Kit pulled out the finished framework, putting his homework
into his own claudication and resisting a sigh. But I like spending time with
you when we're not saving the universe. And are brook trout really an endangered
species? Too late he remembered to shield his thoughts from his partner.
Occasionally, thoughts leaked over to where they could overhear each other...
Nita patted Kit's knee absently, looking over his work,
murmuring, "Not yet, but they're getting there."
He smiled, relieved she hadn't overheard his other thought.
"And we'll hang out after some more progress on the
current problem. Ice cream, my treat."
Or not. "I'm sorry, Nita. I didn't mean to whine. I know
how important this wizardry is."
"Yeah," she replied, turning a page. "But so
is our relationship."
His heart leapt a little at that last word.
"Your friendship is really important to me, Kit. I don't
know what I'd do without you."
Kit nodded, rubbing the kinks out of her shoulder in return.
Nita had changed somewhat, and this was only one way she had. After her mother's
diagnoses of cancer, and the wizardry that could only buy her more time, Nita
made sure her family and friends knew just how much they meant to her. She now
refused to take anything for granted, especially a friendship that had seem
rocky times just beforehand.
"Okay, this looks pretty good, Kit. We can probably
substitute some from that spell I used... on Mom..." Those words stuck in
her throat... but her mother was okay now... plenty of people lived full lives
in "remission". She went on, "Versus the pollution spell you used
with S'reee, since these stupid things reproduce."
"Mm... but these guys will be just like the viruses. The
are life, therefore they have a right to be here too, according to
them."
"Parasites are always so difficult," Nita agreed.
"Do they have any other possible habitat? Is there any way to alter where
they spawn those evil spores of theirs?" Nita really didn't know much about
the disease, except that it was bacterial based, and the primary hosts of the
parasites were the tubifex worms, which then were ingested by the secondary
host, the fish, who would then swim erratically, hence the name "whirling
disease". Cutthroat and
rainbow trout seemed to be particularly affected. Or at least, as far as Nita,
Kit, and the scientists at the fish hatcheries could tell.
"Not sure. You know more about this than I," Kit
admitted. It had been Nita who came up with the project in the first place, or
rather, Nita's father, an avid fisherman. Carl and Tom, the two Senior wizards
presiding over Nita and Kit's region, and owners of a small fleet of some very
wordy koi, were more than happy to authorize the assignment.
Nita looked worried. "Well, I'm not sure about the life
cycle of these worms, other than what the diagram on the brochure from the fish
hatchery in Kamas said." She rubbed her forehead. "Do you have a whole
lot of homework?"
"No, I finished this week's, last weekend. I think most
of my teachers are debating giving me the whole year's assignments to stop me
asking for them ahead of time. Why?"
She slapped down the brief annoyance at Kit breezing through
classes she wasn't finding perfectly easy. "Because the 3rd period English
class and the 6th period Biology class just had a bomb of homework dropped on
them. Apparently our teachers don't care about giving us a reasonable amount of
work, because that would mean actual communication with each other to make sure
we didn't have to read three extra books at the same time." Kit, having
always been ahead of his grade, was in completely different classes than she,
and it appeared that his teachers didn't assign as much "busy work" as
Nita's. "So I'm not going to have any time to research this for a
while..."
"No problem," Kit said. "You look like you
could use a break."
Nita slumped to the ground. "You have no idea."
Kit fought the urge to brush back her hair and hold her. He
made sure to shield his thoughts this instance. Plenty of time for that some
other time, Kit, he reminded himself. Besides, it's probably one-sided,
anyway.
Nita narrowed her eyes, but said nothing.
Kit took back his notebook and his wizard's manual, now
displaying Nita's "reproducing-trash buster" spell, and began plugging
sections into the framework of the new spell.
"Hey," Nita interrupted after half an hour.
Kit looked up. Nita was holding something out to him. A box,
covered in Winnie-the-Pooh wrapping paper. "What's this?"
"Happy Birthday," she answered, dragging herself up
to hug him. "You seemed like a Winnie-the-Pooh sort of guy." Huggable,
she thought, and blushed.
Kit ripped the wrapping paper apart, carefully putting the
trash into timespace, and stared blankly at what he found. "Powers,"
he whispered. To the naked eye, he held a hemp necklace, thirty or so beads in
navy blue separated by knots of rope, with a brad snap at the back for easily
putting it on and taking it off. It looked quite like the necklaces many boys
wore at their school, except for the magic inside of it. It was a spell
necklace, much like the charm bracelet Nita wore. She'd spent countless hours
making hers to store spells when her manual wasn't handy, such as during her
battle with her mother's cancer. It must have taken just as long, if not longer,
to create this one.
"You can put spells in the beads, and give them a
symbol, like my charms," she explained. "You just have to plug your
name into the end, there."
Kit understood why Nita hadn't done this already--a wizard's name
defined who they were, right down to their experiences and relationships with
family and friends. A mistake in the name was a mistake in that person--which is
why the task of setting up the name was left to the wizard it defined. He
cautiously muttered his name in the Speech, drawing it out and hooking it onto
the end of the spell necklace. The whole thing flared to life briefly, proof of
its validity.
He held the necklace silently, unable to speak. For her to
have spent so much time and energy on him... what did one say? He put it on,
running his fingers across it, startled by a warm tingling sensation, one that
possibly signified the spell working. "Neets," he started, voice
cracking with emotion. "I..." At a loss for words, he reached out and
grabbed Nita, pulling her into a rough embrace. Thank you... he sent to
her mentally, augmenting it with feelings of warmth and joy.
She smiled and hugged him tightly. "I hoped you would
like it. I didn't know which Matchbox Twenty CD you didn't have, so..."
"Carmela gave it to me this morning: Mad Season. But
this," his voice cracked again, "is the best gift anyone has ever
given me."
"I'll take it back if we don't get more of this spell
done today," Nita mock-threatened.
Kit groaned halfheartedly, and opened his notebook yet again,
touching his new necklace affectionately. "Aye, aye, Cap'n Hook."
-----------------------------------------
That's it for Chapter 1! Hope you like! Please review if you enjoyed it, so I
know whether or not to continue.
- MKD
-------------
8.5.02: Fixed some typos, etc. I've already started on Chapter 2, but I want to
see at least 15 reviews before I post it. So far, we've got ten, and I'm so
excited. Thanks alot to everyone who reviewed! Luv you lots!
8.9.02: Okay, so I didn't quite get everything correct about Whirling
disease. But I wrote this at 3 AM, and my dad was asleep, so I couldn't pick his
brain (which is what I'm doing now). So you might wanna reread the part about
the tubifex (not spindel) worms if you're interested. ^_^V Sorry about that! And
I've finished Chapter 2... I need three more reviews, guys! *begs*