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It’s hard to tell if the air is cold in the hallway where Eliot stands, or if it’s just the result of the icy look he receives as the door slams in his face.
On the ground beside his feet, an old, worn duffel sits, filled with everything he owns. His entire life crammed into a bag that would be accepted as overhead luggage on a domestic flight. At least he figures it would be allowed. In his twenty-two years, Eliot has never been on an airplane.
He thumbs the trench coat that was hastily draped over his arms with a sympathetic look as he was pushed outside the apartment. The black wool is bristly to the touch, thick and tightly woven. He turns it over in his hands to find the inside lined with rich vermillion satin. It’s more beautiful than anything he’s ever owned, and probably worth more than everything combined. Eliot quickly opens it up and slips it on—he’s not going to wait for its previous owner to change their mind about giving it to him.
Resigned to his fate, Eliot grabs his duffel, throws it over his shoulder and makes his way down the two flights of stairs to the foyer. Popping the collar of the coat to protect his neck from the October evening chill, Eliot wanders out to the street.
A pull-out couch in Manhattan’s Lower East Side isn’t exactly his ideal living situation anyway. At least that’s what he tells himself as he mentally lists his available options for a place to crash. It’s a painfully short list. Truthfully, his Introduction to Art History TA from freshman year was his last resort—he now has nowhere left to go.
Finding the nearest bar seems like the best option. Picking up has never been an issue for him, and a one night stand isn’t the worst idea for finding a place to stay. After a few months couchsurfing, he’s relatively familiar with the city. There’s a small dive bar he likes well enough, not too far away and they’re unlikely to ask too many questions about him carrying his worldly possessions inside.
Coming upon the bar, Eliot breathes slowly and compartmentalizes every little insecurity so that they’re so small they might as well not even exist. It won’t last forever, but at least long enough to make through to the morning. With his false confidence, Eliot saunters up to a closed door with stained glass panels and cracking green paint. His mind is already distracted, thinking about the espresso martini he’s going to order. It’s not his favorite drink, but the caffeine is sorely needed to ensure he has the energy to find somewhere to stay. Licking his lips, Eliot pushes the handle and steps into the escaping warmth of the bar’s central heating.
Only on the other side of the threshold, it’s not the darkened bar he expects. Instead, his eyes are forced to adjust to the abundance of stark fluorescent lighting in a clinically sterile hallway. Up ahead, Eliot sees a sign that merely says ‘To Exam’ in a sans serif font that he quite likes, though the words are a little on the nose. Back when he was in college, he avoided exams wherever he could, and his mentality hasn’t changed in the few months since his miraculous graduation; thankfully even D's get degrees. Yet, in the strange place that isn’t the bar, it almost feels as if the sign is drawing him forward against his will.
Looking around, he sees a vast expanse of grass outside the wall of windows to his right. A small figure walks alone through the middle. Eliot starts to wonder why the place is so empty when he notices that he’s now at the end of the hallway. His hands press against an ash veneer door, or maybe it is birch—not that it matters. Before he knows what he’s doing, Eliot is standing in a reasonably sized exam room and being ushered to an empty desk.
Without a second thought, Eliot removes his new coat, folds it gently and takes his seat.A few minutes of nothing pass, and he uses the time to gather his bearings. A few dozen people, all roughly the same age as he is and looking just as confused, file into the room, filling up the remaining seats. It’s almost the strangest thing that has ever happened to him. Almost. He keeps the most unusual event of his short life buried deeper than even his greatest insecurities. Whatever is happening, he doesn’t need to think about long-forgotten misdeeds.
He isn’t paying attention as a man at the front of the room speaks, and he hardly notices a workbook appear before him, but he feels a sharp elbow nudge his side, returning him to reality. Opening the book, he watches as the gibberish letters move across the page to form words that actually make sense to him at first glance—an unusual occurrence considering his mild dyslexia. He turns to the person next to him, the one that nudged him, and finds a woman with long brown hair and tanned, golden brown skin, wearing far too little clothing for the season. Head down, almost on the desk, she writes frantically in her workbook. Slightly perturbed by her studious ferocity, Eliot returns to his own exam and slowly makes his way through the questions.
The time runs out, and Eliot has only finished about two-thirds of the questions, which, frankly is better than his average during college. And if his previous results are anything to go by he’s going to pass. One hundred percent accuracy on seventy percent of the questions is just as good as seventy percent accuracy on one hundred percent of the questions. He grabs his bag, throws the coat over his left arm and joins the line of other bewildered people waiting to hand in their papers. The woman who sat beside him brushes past, heading straight to the front. Those standing ahead of him murmur their annoyance at her cutting, but they don’t do anything about it. The line continues to crawl forward at an agonizing pace. It only takes Eliot a few beats before he works up the audacity to copy his deskmate.
“Take the door to your left, Mr. Waugh,” one of the examiners says as he drops his workbook into an old wooden box. Following the instructions, Eliot finds his way into what looks like a waiting room—only there are no other doors than the one he just came through. A wooden bench lines the wall before him, while a half dozen people sit scattered along it. No one is close to anyone else; they’re all strangers in an unknown location. Unsure of how long he needs to wait, or what he’s even waiting for, Eliot remains standing rather than make a decision about who to sit next to.
“Over here, line cutter,” the woman from earlier calls out to him, patting the space beside her and offering him a welcoming smile. There is something about their interactions so far that tells him she won’t take no for an answer, so he sits down beside her and offers his hand.
“Eliot Waugh,” he says, voice cracking at the most inopportune time. He hasn’t spoken for at least an hour, which feels like a lifetime, and it’s the sole reason for the minor embarrassment.
“Margo Hanson,” she replies, taking his hand. The only hint that she notices the unflattering noise is the subtle upturn of her lips. Eliot suspects she’s used to men losing their cool around her, and he’s not about to make things awkward by explaining that it’s not the case. “Where did they abduct you from?” she asks, barely waiting for an answer. “Me.” Margo points to herself. “I’m at Hermosa, waiting for an Uber because I’m already late for brunch and even though I don’t want to see the bitches I was supposed to meet up with, I make it a point never to bail on bottomless mimosas. Anyway, the Uber finally arrives, I open the door and end up here,” Margo finally takes a breath, and Eliot sees his chance to cut in. “Honestly though,” she says before he can even open his mouth. “Except for the mimosas, I’d take an exam over brunch with them any day.”
Perplexed by the intensity with which she recounted her story—how is it possible for them to be in the same place if she had been going to brunch while it was early evening for him? Eliot stares at her while he contemplates time zones, and just how honest he’s going to be with this complete stranger.
“And you? Eliot? You there?”
“Oh, I was going into a bar,” he says, playing his confusion as casually as he can.
“With an overnight bag?” she asks, pointing at his duffel.
“Overnight,” Eliot sighs. “Yeah.” He’s almost ready to fall back into the poor, queer, Midwest farm escapee routine he spent four years at college scrubbing from his personality when a new door opens up, and a hidden voice calls her name.
Margo stands and sweeps her hair behind her shoulder in the most delicate power move that Eliot has ever seen. “See you on the other side,” Margo says, flashing him a Cheshire grin before she slips inside the separate room. Behind her, the door closes and disappears into the wall.
So far Eliot’s been open-minded about the unusual occurrences that have been following him since being kicked out by an only slightly-justified jealous girlfriend. In general, he’s a pretty open-minded person, but it’s all starting to pile up and it makes him think of something he hasn’t thought about in years. Flashes of yellow and so much red blur his vision. The taste of chocolate and something metallic infiltrates his imagination. He tries to swallow it down, but there is a painful lump in his throat that won’t go away.
“Eliot Waugh.” He hears his name, clearing his mind just enough to see that the doorway is back. It’s his turn for the next stage of whatever this is.
“Please, take a seat.” A man with grey hair that looks to have aged him prematurely instructs from behind a small desk as Eliot enters the room. Still weary from the buried memory struggling its way to the surface, he does as he’s told. “You’ve just been given an examination of your magical aptitude,” the man says. He rolls up his sleeves, and it’s not quite menacing, but it does give Eliot a sense that he not going to enjoy what comes next. “Unfortunately, you failed the written portion of the exam.”
“What the actual fuck?” Eliot says before he can filter himself.
“Give me your hands,” the man says, gesturing for Eliot to rest his hands on the desk, palms up as if getting a reading.
“You can’t just say that magic exists and ask to grab my hands.” Eliot crosses his hands over his chest and juts out his chin in defiance.
“Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be, Mr. Waugh,” the man says. His fingers twist in intricate movements that send Eliot’s heart racing. He can’t tell if it’s anger or fear, but it brings up a feeling from deep in his stomach that he has long suppressed. “I’m just going to take your memory, and you’ll wake up at home tomorrow morning as if this never happened.”
The feeling in his stomach grows, filling his body with a nauseating warmth. “Thanks for reminding me I don’t have a home,” he says through gritted teeth. The metallic taste from earlier is back in his mouth, while the tell-tale pressure of a nosebleed builds between his eyes, forcing them closed. Eliot pinches the bridge of his nose to help relieve the pain, but it’s no use. He leans forward in his seat, the slow trickle of blood sliding down his upper lip. With the back of his left hand, Eliot swipes below his nose, temporarily cleaning it. He peers out from under his eyelids to see the man hanging from the roof. The chair he’d been sitting on is upside down—stuck to the ceiling by some invisible force.
“Well done!” Eliot hears a new, deeper voice from behind him. Footsteps on wooden floorboards come closer to where he sits, and a large hand clasps his shoulder. “You can relax now, Eliot.” The voice is calm and reassuring, causing him to release the tension in his mind and body. As soon as he breathes, the chair on the ceiling drops to the ground, bringing the first man down with it in a crash of wood and bone.
Eliot immediately knows what he did. He’s done it before. Aged fourteen and in the same kind of hopeless situation, he brought a school bus crashing into the biggest bully in town with a single thought.
“Welcome to Brakebills, son,” the man with his hand on Eliot’s shoulder says. “You’re home.”
Nose still bleeding they exchange a few sentences, but Eliot isn’t paying any attention. Almost ten years of buried guilt comes to the surface, there’s no denying it anymore. But at the same time, he feels a weight has lifted. As if the trite words of a man he now knows as Dean Fogg could perhaps be true.
Eventually, he’s sent outside, where he finds Margo, shivering in her lace camisole and denim cutoffs. Teeth chattering, her lips are blue, and her previous poise lacks its potency. Eliot removes his new coat and drapes it over her shoulders. She tries to deny his generosity, but he refuses to let her; Eliot bonds quickly and she’s the only one who's shown any personality since he stepped into the exam room.
“Thanks,” she begrudgingly accepts. “Apparently everyone who called me an ice-queen back in high school wasn’t just a jealous fucktard,” she says letting out a small laugh. Reaching into her handbag, Margo pulls out a pack of makeup removing wipes and shoves it into his hands with her frozen fingers. “Your nose is still bleeding a little.”
He cleans himself up, the scent of cucumber and mint replacing the acrid drying blood.
“Seeing as you missed out on going to a bar,” Margo says, taking the pack from him. “And I should be at least four mimosas down by now, let’s go find something to drink.”
“We’re supposed to wait for room assignments,” Eliot says. It dawns on him that for the first time since he left college he doesn’t need to bargain for a place to stay—though it’s not exactly something he’s willing to share with his new friend.
“They’re Magicians,” Margo says, taking him by the arm. “It’s not like they won’t be able to work out where we are.”
Eliot can’t argue with that.