Today we follow the story of Ravi who, no matter how many times he tries, just can't seem to pass the test to join Avalon Academy. What could he be missing?
Avalon Academy of the Arcane is a Magical Slice-of-Life short story series that follows the daily lives of various students and staff at a magic school housed on the wandering island of Avalon.
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“Remember, Ravi, try to think of the most important thing to you, and put it in that sphere,” Headmaster Ferrus said through his great salt and pepper beard.
Ravi took the sphere in both hands, nodding silently as he tried to calm his mind. Doubt lingered as he took a deep breath. He shook his head, trying to clear it away as if it were a fly in his face. Yet, just like a fly, it whizzed and buzzed about his mind, clawing away at him. He had to focus, but he was going to fail. He needed to pass the test, but he wouldn’t. He didn’t know if he could take the embarrassment of failing again, but he would have to. He just wanted to join his friends who had already passed, but he wouldn’t.
Aggravated, Ravi growled, almost throwing the delicate glass sphere on the ground. He looked up to the Headmaster, who raised an eyebrow in curiosity. Then he looked back to the sphere. He’d fail just like he had every time before. He’d fail, and he’d have to tell Edgar, Nessa, and Francios that he failed again. He failed again. Failed again. Failure.
“I’m sorry, Ravi, but you have failed the test.” The Headmaster said, with his hands held out to take the sphere.
Ravi bowed his head in shame. “Yes, Headmaster.” He handed the sphere over.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get it. Sometimes it just takes time.” the bearded man said as he placed the sphere in a fine wooden box.
“It’s been two years, Headmaster. I just… I don’t deserve to be here.” Ravi said, looking away.
“Nonsense,” Headmaster Ferrus started, “I’ve seen more than a few that have taken much longer, and went on to be fantastic students. Just focus on your lessons. Remember the breathing techniques we worked on before?”
“In through your nose, out through your mouth,” he recited with a sigh.
The Headmaster smirked. “That’s it, Ravi. Just keep practicing, and we’ll try again next week, alright?”
Ravi just nodded, and walked away. A long line of hopefuls stood behind him, waiting for their turn. Some would probably pass today. Others would be stuck, just like he was.
He opened the door to the Cave of Founding, or The Cave, as the offices of the headmasters at the Academy was called for short. He’d read in The Voyage Beyond that it was the cave where the First Voyagers first made contact with the Three Goddesses. For Ravi it had been nothing but a cave of disappointment. Every Friday for the last two years, he had come to test with the sphere. Every Friday he had failed. Three months after he came to Avalon, Francios had been the first of his friends he had made who passed, and joined the Stellarians. He was already a 2nd Year Cadet. Then Edgar passed, joining the Arcanists. He was still in the First Order, but Ravi had heard that it took a long time for Arcanists to rank up. Last year, on New Year's Day, Nessa joined the Elementalists. She had just earned the rank of Apprentice last week.
They were not alone. All of Ravi’s friends had ended up passing: Mesha, Diego, Victor, Chris. Even seven-year-old Kayla Wainwright, half his age, had passed the test in her first month of training. Then there was Ravi Das, the kid who couldn’t pass. The Chronicles of the Sphere told that Franco Via had the record for the longest time to pass the test: ten years. Franco had been five when he started. At the pace Ravi was going, he was likely to break that record.
He hadn’t paid attention to where he was going, just walking where his feet would take him, but the sharp scent of coffee caught Ravi’s nose, making him look around. He was on Da Vinci Street, where several student laboratories and workshops were. Ravi had watched Nessa forge her fulcrum at the blacksmith workshop at the other end of the street. He’d hoped the important moment would have given him some… insight? Inspiration? Instead, seeing her triumph just made him feel worse. The world was leaving him behind, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Shaking his head, he sighed, and turned to leave when he saw a middle aged woman with amber skin and charcoal-colored hair that was tied back with a red ribbon. She was placing a sidewalk sign that held a blackboard with something written on it in white chalk, but Ravi didn’t get a chance to read it before he saw the woman turn her head toward him and smile.
“Looks like you could use a good cup of coffee,” she said in an accent he recognized, but couldn’t quite put his finger on.
Ravi smiled back nervously. “Oh, uh…”
She waved towards the door. “That’s not a no! Come on, then, I’ve got a Lemurian Peaberry blend that’ll really get you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the rest of the day.”
Ravi looked to where she had gestured and found a brown brick building with a large glass window that had the word “Tachibanaya” painted across it. A simple coffee cup silhouette was painted just beneath.
“I should probably…” he started.
“Better to mope with some good coffee than without, I always say.” The woman beamed.
“I’m not moping,” Ravi growled.
The woman laughed and winked. “Sounds exactly like what someone who is moping would say!”
Baffled, Ravi cocked his head to the side, unable to think of another protest. He sighed, and shrugged, “I guess… I could use a cup.”
“Just like I thought!” She opened the full glass front door, and swept her free hand towards the threshold with a dramatic gesture. “Come on in, then.”
Ravi did so, and as he stepped through the door, the scent of coffee he had picked up on before returned, joined by freshly baked bread, tea, and a symphony of other smells that filled his nose. He felt his apprehension melt somewhat. The shop had a warm and inviting atmosphere, with cozy furniture, and what must have been a thousand books and other artifacts in dark wooden bookshelves all around the walls of the space.
He looked at some of the titles of the closest books: Theory of Forms by Korian, Phoenix Current by Suzaku Mikami, Fallen by the Sword by Anders Wayne, and Whispers of the Three by Lyanna Gawain. The last was familiar to him, as he had read it a few months ago, hoping Master Lyanna’s research into the Three Goddesses would help him better understand the Test. It hadn’t. The others were totally new to him. As someone who spent more time in libraries and book shops than he did nearly anywhere else, finding a book he hadn’t even heard about more than piqued his interest.
On the other side of the room was a dark granite bar where the woman stood, pouring a gooseneck kettle of steaming hot water over a kind of upside-down glass bell device. As he drew closer, Ravi noticed that there were coffee grounds and a filter in the top end of the bell, where she was pouring the water.
“Have to keep the water at exactly 204.33° Fahrenheit to bring out the best from Lemurian Peaberry. Even a fraction higher, you scorch the delicate bouquet. Any lower, and the full flavor will remain hidden,” the woman said, her eyes alight with wonder as she poured. A thick brown foam bloomed from the fine grounds as the water churned the coffee to life. Underneath, abyssal black liquid dripped from the filter to the bottom, a kind of reservoir for the brewed coffee, he supposed.
“I didn’t know there was a coffee shop on this street.” Ravi said as he came to sit at the bar on a surprisingly comfortable stool.
The woman smirked. “We get that a lot.”
She brought the kettle down to rest on the counter, and let the water percolate from the top of the glass bell to the bottom. Her lips seemed to be silently counting as she set an empty white mug in front of him. Then he saw her mouth “Zero,” and she waved a hand over the mug as the last drip from the filter fell.
The woman’s hand moved away, and the mug was full of obsidian-black liquid. Astonished, Ravi looked back to the bell, and the gathered coffee at the bottom was gone. “You can do magic?”
“Is there anyone who cannot?” She said. Her skilled hands set about cleaning the bell, tossing the spent grounds and filter into an unseen bin, and rinsing the bell out.
“Well… right, dumb question…” Ravi grumbled.
She laughed heartily at that. “Oh, dear, a question is not dumb. Questions, in the right hands, are the tools of those who seek to be less dumb.”
Ravi blinked, unsure if he should take it as a compliment or an insult. It didn’t really matter either way. He decided he needed to try the coffee, and brought the mug up to his lips. A surge of bittersweet chocolate notes thundered into his taste buds, followed by a cold splash of citrus that seemed to come out of nowhere. Then, a riot of floral and spice notes danced about his mouth, almost overwhelming him, before giving way to a warm honey finish. He was taken aback for a moment, staring at the coffee in the mug as if it was some unknown creature.
The woman laughed again, covering her mouth. “I was waiting for that face. Gets people every time.”
“I’ve…” Words, what were the words? “never tasted anything like that.” Ravi was sure his expression was that of utter shock.
“Nor will you likely ever anywhere else. I have a very… discrete supplier,” she said with a smirk.
Ravi just shook his head. “Where does this even come from?”
“Oh, worlds away, darling. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” She said.
He nodded, and took another sip. The sensation was enough to give him goosebumps.
“I realize I’ve been a bit rude in not introducing myself. My name is Keiko Tachibana, and this is my shop!” Keiko said with just about the biggest smile on her face that he thought he’d ever seen on someone.
He held out his right hand. “Ravi Das.”
She took his hand and shook it. “So, you are a student, yes?”
“No. Well—” he scratched his head. “I’ve been trying to pass the test, and I can’t do it.”
“Can’t, or just haven’t yet?” Keiko said, a shadow of a smile creeping up her lips.
“Can’t. I’ve been trying. Every time I try I just fail.” Ravi lowered his head. “It has been two years. I might as well—”
“Just give up?” she suggested. Keiko’s expression was unreadable.
He met her dark brown eyes for a moment, sighed, and looked down again. “I’m just… tired of failing.”
Keiko snickered, and started working on something where he couldn’t see. “Have you ever tried to make bread?”
“What?” Ravi asked, confused as he looked back to her.
“You know, bread. Have you ever tried making it?”
“Well…no… why do you ask?” Ravi asked. He was unsure why she had so abruptly changed the subject.
“Today is your lucky day!” she said as she put a large metal bowl, and some kind of machine on the bar. Then next to these she placed a burlap sack.
Puzzled, Ravi looked at the items, then back to Keiko. “But ho—”
“Just humor me for a bit. You’ll get some lovely bread out of it. Besides, wasn’t I right about the coffee?” she interrupted.
Ravi rolled his eyes. She had been right about the coffee. But him making bread? He’d never really understood cooking. Everything he ever made just ended up tasting like mud, or nothing at all. But, once again, he couldn’t really think of an excuse to refuse.
And so, he stood up, and walked around the end of the bar, over to where she stood. She had an irritatingly large smile as he did so.
“Now, the first secret to making fantastic bread is to start with whole wheat berries, and mill them yourself.” She opened the sack, and Ravi saw hundreds of little nuts, or seedlike pods. They didn’t look much like berries to him. Picking up the sack, she poured some into the open bin at the top of the machine he had seen before, and placed a lid on top. With the flip of a switch, the machine whirred, and in a matter of minutes, she opened a bin at the bottom of the machine, and there was a pile of soft white flour.
Ravi blinked in surprise. “I guess I never knew that those were what made flour…”
“Everything must come from somewhere, young man.” She poured the flour into a bowl, along with a few other ingredients. One of them looked like honey, followed by salt and water, with a few others he couldn’t identify. “Those wheat berries came from dozens, hundreds of wheat plants, which themselves came from a seed, the ground, water, and the sun. Those all came from other places as well, even something as seemingly perennial as the sun.”
He watched her mix the ingredients until they combined into a somewhat sticky dough. She turned it out on the counter, having scattered more flour on the surface before she did. Then she started working it with her hands, pushing and pulling the dough in a specific pattern. Keiko looked to him from the corner of her eye. “You know, some will say just to have a machine mix the dough till it is ready, others say just mix it with your hands.”
“Which is the right way?” Ravi asked, mesmerized seeing her skilled hands at work. There was an indescribable art and flow to her movements. Sure it was just mixing the ingredients together, but there was a kind of… ceremony to how she worked.
Keiko smirked. “You see, that’s the thing, you kind of have to figure out the right way yourself. Sure, there may be a textbook answer, but baking is as much an art as it is a science. You can try and learn it through a book, but nothing beats actually trying it, and feeling what is right yourself.”
She then turned to Ravi and said, “Alright, I want you to try kneading the dough like you saw me do it.”
“Wait, what?!”
“Trust me, just give it a try.” Keiko said with that unreadable expression on her face again.
Ravi hesitated, reached for the dough, then stopped himself again “B-but what if I mess it up?”
“Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. But you certainly will if you do nothing.” She tilted her head to the side. “So, you might as well try, right?”
With that, Ravi reached out and put his hands on the still somewhat sticky dough. He thought back to what she had done. It looked like she had cupped her hands, and rolled the dough. He tried to imitate the movement, inelegant as a bird learning to fly compared to her mastery. She even gestured the technique with her hands in the air to help.
It was awkward, at first. He’d never really done anything like it. But eventually, he had it moving somewhat like she had. It was a cheap imitation, but she nodded encouragingly, so he must have been doing something right. A few moments later, the texture of the dough changed. What before had felt like a loose, sticky blob of mush started to feel somewhat like a ball of clay.
“Very well done, young man.” Keiko said, making Ravi turn to look at her smiling face. The approving look in her eyes made him blush in embarrassment.
They put the dough ball back in the bowl and covered it with a moist towel. She explained it was to “bulk” the dough, something he had never heard before. Keiko showed him some of the books and artifacts that the shelves held while they waited. There were so many books he had never even heard of before! Ravi found himself making a mental list of ones he wanted to read later.
After about an hour, they did what she called “shaping.” This consisted of him rolling the dough, which had grown almost twice the size it was before they set it aside, and into a kind of log-like shape. Keiko had him place it in a rectangular pan. Then she said that it needed to “proof”. Whatever that meant.
Another customer came in at that point. Keiko beamed with a smile brighter than the sun itself, and welcomed her inside. It was a girl in an unfamiliar blue, green, and white uniform with red hair, who stumbled, almost falling flat on her face before she caught herself, as she sprinted up to the counter. Ravi couldn’t see anything that she could have possibly tripped on in the smooth dark wood plank flooring.
“Mrs. Tachibana, you won’t believe what I got on my Statistics exam! 94!” the girl said excitedly, “I don’t know how I could have done it without your help.”
Keiko laughed, and waved in the air dismissively, “Oh, nonsense, Kora. Sometimes people just need to see things from a different perspective. You earned that score, sweetheart.”
The girl, apparently named Kora grinned. “Alright, we’ll settle this tonight after my last class. For now, I need to get to Brit Lit. See yah!” she said before bolting to the door, and exiting nearly as quickly as she came.
Keiko laughed again, shaking her head. “That girl. So much energy. You wouldn’t have guessed she had it in her when she first stumbled in that door. Well, over the sign out front, rather.”
Ravi sat with his cup of coffee and thought for a while as Keiko went about other business around the shop. He really didn’t know what she was doing. A bit later, they checked on the dough, and she said it was ready to bake. She made a few cuts into the top with a razor blade, brushed on something over the top of the dough, and then they put it in the oven, and it was time to wait.
Keiko suggested a book for him to read as the bread baked, a novella called Letting Go, by Suzaku Miami. It was an author he was unfamiliar with. The book was a kind of philosophical narrative about an unnamed man whose anxiety over his own mortality had paralyzed him. His fear became so overwhelming that he started to develop powers that let him see a day into the future to see if he would die. But, this power only drove him deeper into anxiety. Even knowing he wouldn’t die the next day, he was consumed by the mistakes and choices he was fated to make. He lost his job, his home, even his girlfriend. Eventually, he saw his meeting with Death the next day. Strangely, the man felt a kind of peace. His anxiety at the possibility of this event had unraveled with the knowledge that he would soon meet his end.
He began looking back with regret at all the time he wasted worrying about his death, and was ashamed. When Death came to him, it asked if he could do something differently, what would it be? To which he replied “I’d have lived each day without the fear of what is to come, and what cannot be stopped”
To this, Death smiled, and said, “Then take this lesson, and move forward without fear.” He left without the man, and the man went on to reclaim the life his fear had taken from him.
Ravi sat, lost in thought about the story as he took his last sip of the amazing coffee. And then he heard, “Well, then, how would you like to try some of the bread you worked on?” It was Keiko holding out a steaming slice of crusty bread.
He eagerly accepted it. He hadn’t realized it until that moment, but he had grown quite hungry as the scent of the baking bread had filled the shop. Keiko had even put a thick pat of quickly melting butter on the spongey, impressively warm piece of bread. Ravi took a bite, and couldn’t believe how good the taste was. It was as if he had never really had bread before.
He noticed that she was watching him. “What? Do I have a weird look on my face?”
“Not more so than usual,” Keiko replied with a smirk.
“It’s good, like really good.”
“Of course it is, you helped to make it.” Keiko said. She went behind the counter again, and started working on something, but he couldn’t see what it was.
Ravi stared at the older woman for a while, watching her work. He hadn’t noticed before, but there were faith traces of grey in her thick black hair. “Why did you have me help you? Why bread?”
“Would you have preferred I had you clean a toilet? I thought the bread would at least taste better.” Keiko said, meeting his eyes with a mischievous grin.
He shook his head in disbelief. “I’ll never get a straight answer out of you, will I?”
Keiko laughed, probably too hard at something he didn’t really think was funny to begin with. “What use are straight answers when the one who asks the question has already made up their mind?”
“Why would someone ask a question if th—” Ravi started, then something clicked into place in his head. “This… this is about the test? It is, isn’t it?”
Keiko leaned against the counter. “It is hard to be open and show an earnest part of yourself when you are determined not to.”
“I’m not d—” Ravi choked the thought off, and took a moment to really think about what she was saying.
“Does it make sense now?” Keiko asked.
Ravi nodded his head slowly. “It isn’t a test about what I can do. It is a test about who I am.”
Keiko grinned. “Bingo.” And she went back to whatever she was doing.
“So… the only reason I have been failing is because… I have closed myself off? I put up barriers around myself because I was so afraid of failing.” Ravi said quietly to himself. “Just like…”
“Someone you read about?” she finished, her grin only growing.
Ravi stared at the woman, bewildered. “Who are you?”
She laughed, and replied with, unbelievably, and ever bigger grin on her face, “Keiko Tachibana, mother, wife, coffee shop owner, baker, fantastic chess player, part-time paranormal investigator, and occasional life advice giver.”
“I’m… really happy I met you” Ravi found himself saying. He really meant it too. As strange as the entire encounter had been, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had made a critically important friend.
“Same here, young man. Now, I think there’s somewhere you need to be, isn’t there?”
Ravi pulled out his pocket watch and was surprised to see it was almost lunchtime. No wonder he had grown so hungry. He had promised Nessa that he’d meet her today “You’re rig—wait, how did you know that?”
Keiko giggled and handed him something wrapped in a soft white towel. “I have my ways.”
“What’s this?” Ravi said, taking the thing, and looking it over.
“I told you you’d get some delicious bread. Why not show her what you made?” Keiko said with that unreadable expression again.
“But… I did part of this, most of this was your work.” Ravi said.
Keiko shrugged and giggled again. “We all have to start somewhere. Now get out of here”
“Wait, what do I owe you?”
With, perhaps, the warmest smile Ravi had ever seen, Keiko replied. “Just don’t be a stranger, and we’ll call it even today.”
Ravi was about to protest, but, if there was one thing he had learned in the past few hours, it was that there was no arguing with this woman. So, he just said “Deal. I’ll be back tomorrow!” and made his way out of the shop.
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