Spark
“Gah!” Ian exclaimed, stepping back from the until-recently-dead sparrow that was now hopping inside of the small circle that the children had drawn on the floor mere moments before.
“It’s… it’s moving!” Brian gasped.
Viera only stared, eyes fixed on the bird, mouth agape.
The little sparrow hopped towards the edge of the circle and then bounced back to the middle, as if it had smashed into an invisible window.
“That...that wasn’t supposed to happen! We weren’t doing necromancy! Why is it moving?” Ian shouted, swiveling his head back to the other two.
“So… so we accidentally brought something back to life?” Viera managed to choke out.
“We weren’t supposed to! What was dead stays dead, that’s Witchcraft 101! At least that’s what Nan says. I was only trying to give the poor thing a peaceful rest, a couple of sparks, and turn the body to ash.”
“Umm, looks like we did the opposite of that.” Brian said. “Is your nan going to be mad?”
In the commotion, they hadn’t noticed an elderly woman with whisper white hair had already entered the room, dressed in her usual combination of blue-jean overalls, paint-stained t-shirt, and a neat kerchief atop her head. Despite her advanced age, she loomed tall over the gathered children, who slowly turned to face her – terror written on their innocent faces.
“I don’t know, Brian, do you think Nan is going to be upset?” she asked, face impassive.
Brian gulped.
The sparrow-zombie happily tested the walls of its prison once more.
Nan suddenly broke into a wide smile.
“Of course I’m not mad, you’ve pulled off a spell it takes most apprentices until their early twenties to cast successfully! Oh what little prodigies I’ve got on my hands. Let’s have a look at your handiwork.”
Nan bent down to look at the little sparrow, grinning widely. The children, followed her gaze.
“But… Nan… I thought the dead were to stay dead?” Ian said softly.
“Of course sweetie; once a creature is dead it cannot return from beyond the veil, except when being reincarnated.”
“Then what is that?”
The little sparrow looked back to Ian and bounced off the bounding circle once more.
“What were you thinking when you cast the spell?” Nan asked, gently, curling one finger towards the sparrow as if tickling it from a distance.
“Um, well, I thought about how sad I was that it had died so soon and how it’d be nice if it’d had more time.”
The the other kids nodded and said “me too” in unison.
Nan smiled wider. “So you believed that it could have more time, and so it did, in a sense.”
The kids looked confused.
“You see, children, a sprite has taken over the little sparrow’s body. They react to belief. It’s how all magic works. We want something to happen, we believe it can happen, and thus do we will it into existence. It doesn’t work for everything, of course, but it works for enough.”
Nan smudged the edge of the circle and held out her palm. The sparrow-sprite jumped into it and bounced happily. She brought the thing close to her face and whispered something that Ian couldn’t quite make out, and the sparrow collapsed. Lifeless once more.
“We must be careful what we allow ourselves to wish for, though. Not every force we can command is as friendly as that little one was.”
Nan cupped her free hand over the sparrow’s body, said a few words and uncovered it. Where the body had been was now a shower of sparks, popping off of her hand like a sparkler. After a few moments the light show had stopped, and she gently dusted the ash into the circle the children had made.
“Now then, why don’t you tidy that up and we can begin your next lesson over tea, hmm?”