…or, Bowman’s First Theory



Friday, Astera 11th, 222

I have a theory.

It goes like this: nothing is real, except after the fact.

When I first came to Magisterius University, I didn’t feel like a college student. I felt like a high schooler who’d been sent there by mistake.

During my senior year in high school, I’d felt like a junior who was faking it. The same thing happened when I got out of junior high, and when I got into senior high. At every stage of my life, I felt like I was faking it, like I’d gotten there too early and I was the only one who noticed.

I’m pretty sure the world is full of twenty-four and twenty-five-year-olds who think of themselves as college kids and not adults, too.

It’s only after you get done with one stage in life that you can look back and go “That really happened. I was really there. I really made it.”

It becomes real in hindsight, in retrospect. During the time it actually happens, it isn’t.

Viewed in that light, it made a kind of sense that I spent my first free moment as an allegedly adult college student on the outside looking in.

I’ll explain.

My dorm, Pelinor Hall, was attached to a hub with two other dorms. The tour guide during orientation had called it “the nexus.” It was basically a wide hallway, sloping downhill from the big glass back doors at the north end to the front doors at the south, with Harlowe Hall on the west and Burlew and Pelinor on the east.

I was at the back entrance, smoking a cigarette and watching the latecomers straggle in through the front, carrying luggage or dragging furniture. I’d been craving a cigarette for hours, but I couldn’t smoke in the carriage and once we got here Dad had wanted to get everything moved in as fast as possible, and then it had been all hugs and tears from Mom. Hugs, tears, and pictures.

My parents were gone now. I was alone, and free to enjoy the smoky goodness while I watched the people scurrying along. The jeweled axe I’d owned my whole life but never been allowed to carry was hanging by my side.

It was lighter than I was used to, which was weird. I kept thinking it wasn’t there.

I was now a college student at one of the best public universities in the Imperium—top in enchantment, anyway, and pretty good all around—and I was free. There were classes on Monday, but the whole weekend was ahead of me.

I only wished I could have gotten there sooner and had the day to enjoy, too.

The cigarette was about done. I dumped it in the tray on top of the trashcan and headed inside.

There was a girl—a little bit cute in a mousy, unwashed kind of way—looking around the nexus in confusion.

I wondered what she’d looked like if she hadn’t just spent a day or longer traveling, possibly on a crowded cross-country coach. I bet she cleaned up nice. She hadn’t bothered with makeup for the trip, which was probably a good choice. I’d seen a lot of streaked and smudged faces since I’d arrived.

I thought about stepping up and offering to help her. I was new, but I at least knew which dorm was which. I could offer to help her with her luggage, too. She only had one small bag, a backpack, and a suitcase with her, so the heavy stuff had to still be outside.

I made up my mind to do that, but before I got there, a tall, red-headed, freckle-faced guy stepped up and asked her where she was heading.

“Harlowe,” she said.

The answer took me by surprise. She was in Harlowe? Maybe I was remembering orientation wrong.

But, probably not, since Freckle-Face looked like she’d just opened her mouth and burped stinky onion breath in his face or something.

He pointed to the doors, and she gave him a very grudging “Thanks.”

As she trudged away looking down at the floor, he shook his head. His nostrils were kind of flexing, and it really did look like he’d smelled something nasty and was trying to get rid of it. I laughed.

“What the fuck are you staring at, new meat?” he asked.

“I… uh… didn’t know there were humans in Harlowe,” I said.

“There aren’t,” he said.

“What was she, then?”

“Something that looks human but isn’t,” he said. “They’re always the worst kind. Especially the crossbreeds. I mean, can you imagine one of them wanting to breed with one of us?”

“With you?” I asked. “No.”

I turned away and headed back to my own dorm before he figured out what I’d meant.

Though I’ve always thought of myself as human, prejudice against crossbreeds can be bit of a sore spot for me, since technically I’m one myself.

No sense being all coy or mysterious about it — my great-grandfather was an elf. Still is, actually. He looks younger than my grandpa, who looks about the same age as my mom. I’ll probably live past a hundred, even a hundred and twenty if I’m careful.

My ears are a little on the narrow side at the top, but you wouldn’t notice if it wasn’t pointed out. My hair’s blond, but it looks human-blond, not elven-blond. I’m kind of fair-skinned, but I don’t burn in the sun.

I don’t tan, either, but you take what you can get.

When I got up to the third floor, I saw Marlot in front of my door with a marker. She’s short and kind of heavy. Okay, that’s being nice. She’s really heavy. She doesn’t look bad, though. She isn’t gross.

She was wearing a dark green sweater with some kind of shiny yarn, and a blue and black crocheted cap over her curly auburn hair. She liked to joke about being half-gnome, but as far as I knew she’d be in Freckle-Face’s “us” category. I knew her from high school. We’d picked Pelinor because it’s a mixed dorm, and we could both be on the same floor.

“Mar, what are you doing?” I asked her.

“Just fixing your sign,” she replied.

Our R.A.s had put up yellow and orange construction paper leaves with our names on them. Only, where they’d written “James Bowman” on mine, she’d crossed out the “James” and written “Jamie.”

“What if I want to be James for a change?” I asked.

“Too late,” she said. She started drawing a little face in the corner, with whiskers and triangular ears. “You were Jamie when I met you and so Jamie you shall remain, henceforth and forevermore. It is decreed.”

“By who?”

“By me,” she said.

“Oh, well, I can’t argue with that.”

“Nope,” she said. She wrote the words “Arf! Arf!” next to the cat face.

“That cat is barking.”

“He’s bilingual,” she said, “and should be applauded for his dedication to multiculturalism.” She snapped the cap back on her marker. “There. Now it’s official.”

“What’s official?” I asked.

“You’ve arrived,” she said. “Your name—your real name—is on the door.”

“Is that why I didn’t feel like I was really here before?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” Marlot said. “Want to go check out the welcome festival?”

“Sure.”