Hello!
The following is a novella, the first work in a series I hope to publish over the next few years. It was originally written as a prompt on the Transformation Archive Mailing List to write a story about a summer ‘transformation’ camp, in which youngsters are TF’ed into animals or… something
Regretfully, cutting and pasting this work here has stripped out the italics (and certain other less-important formatting), and italics are particularly important for this work as the protagonist has a sort of “inner dialogue” going in his mind at times. I don’t know how to replace them or I would. Given this foreknowledge I think it’ll read okay as-is-- there’s not all that much of it.
If I sell this work to the planned market, a professional editor is gonna look for typos and such-- that’s not the sort of criticism I’m looking for. Rather, I hope to learn what this work’s basic weaknesses are, and how to make them better if possible. There are specific aspects of this story, in fact, that worry me–that’s why it’s been posted here. But I’m deliberately not bringing them up, becasue I don’t want to bring attention to them ahead of time and thus magnify the potential issue out of proportion.
I’m also forced to post it in pieces, since it’s too large for one post.
Thanks in advance for any and all comments!
Phil
1
Johnstown Station wasn’t anything special, I decided as the train slowly ground to halt before the brand-new building’s platform. Nor had I really expected it to be, despite all the fanfare over the recent flood. There might still be plenty of debris about, but predictably enough everything had been cleaned up here, where travelers like me might actually get to see something interesting for once. Though, I had to admit, the Rocky Mountains had been pretty nifty. And so had the big terminal in Chicago, in a different and somewhat scarier sort of way. Other than that, the stations all looked alike, the cheap seats all rubbed me raw in the same places, and the whole trip was mostly a blur, all the weary way back to Seattle.
“This is your stop, son,” the elderly conductor reminded me with a smile, and I returned the expression dutifully as the engine whistled its greeting to Johnstown. Everyone seemed terribly worried that I was traveling alone while still so young, but that was mostly because they didn’t know me very well. Sister Magdalene hadn’t been concerned at all; she’d just handed me two dollars and fifty cents for food and other expenses—heaven only knew where she’d found it!—and two slices of my favorite blueberry pie wrapped up in paper.
“You’ll be fine,” she reassured me, patting my head and making me blush like she usually did. I was sort of her favorite, and we both knew it. “Just send me a postcard when you arrive—I’m sure the Sorcerer’s Guild can spare you one—and let me know that you’re safe.” Then she cupped my face into her hands and raised it up so that I had to look into her eyes. “All right?”
“All right,” I agreed. The truth was, I’d never left the City of Seattle before in my entire life, and the very idea of such a long journey was enough to give me nightmares. But I’d never let Sister Magdalene know it. And sure enough, she’d proven right, as always. Here I was safe and sound at my last stop, all the way across the country in Pennsylvania. All I had to do was find the other kids scheduled for Transformation Testing and sit quietly with them until the coach arrived from Devard Castle to take us up into the hills. This was something a resourceful boy of fourteen ought to be able to handle, I reassured myself as I picked up my father’s old Gladstone bag and carried it briskly inside the station house. Once an urgent personal need was taken care of, that was…
“You’re a big damn pussy!” a boy’s voice cried out from around the corner where I expected to find the lavatory.
“A pussy!” another younger voice repeated, laughing so hard that I thought he might actually strangle himself.
“I’m not going to fight you,” an equally young voice replied in dead-calm tones. “It wouldn’t prove anything.”
“Leave him alone!” a female added. “He hasn’t done anything to you!”
“Meow!” the first boy taunted. “Meow, meow, meow!”
“I told you…” the calm voice replied.
And that was quite enough. Something always happens deep inside of me when one kid taunts another—Sister Magdelene says it’s wrong, and that I need to pray for control and forgiveness. But, somehow, I can’t ever make the effort sound sincere. Probably because it’s not. “Who’s a pussy?” I demanded, rounding the corner suitcase in hand…
…and then my jaw dropped, for standing in front me was a kid my own age, wearing a black bodysuit, cat-ears, and even a tail, for heaven’s sake! I couldn’t help but stare a moment.
“See?” the laughing hyena asked. “Ain’t it the cutest thing you ever laid your peepers on?”
My jaw worked, then I turned to the younger child. “Beat it,” I ordered.
“Whose going to make him?” the other boy demanded.
“Me,” I replied evenly, putting down my Gladstone and carefully removing the tattered, many-times-mended jacket which was the finest garment I owned.
“Right!” the bigger kid answered, grinning at his accomplice. He was maybe a head taller than me, and almost as burly as I was. “This is going to be—“
But he never finished the sentence. Where he expected fisticuffs, I hit him low with my shoulder, a deep snarl in my throat, driving him backwards so hard that when he finally hit the railing he tumbled over the top and fell to the ground perhaps six feet below. Fortunately there were rose bushes planted there, to break his fall. “Ow!” he cried out. “No fair!”
I looked down and shrugged. “Sorry about that. I suppose I got carried away. It happens sometimes.” I tilted my head to one side. “Care to climb back up and try again?”
“I think you broke my damn arm!”
I shrugged. “Maybe when you’re all healed up, in that case.” Then I turned to the smaller boy, who didn’t think the situation was so funny anymore. All I had to was cock an eyebrow, and he was off like the wind.
“Wow!” the cat-boy observed, his eyes wide. Then he applauded, silently because of his black skin-tight fitting gloves. “That was great!”
“Crude,” the girl agreed. “But effective.” Her eyebrows rose. “You aren’t perhaps waiting for a coach, are you? To Devard Castle.”
“I might be,” I allowed.
“Good,” she replied, as if the matter were settled. “You can sit with us, then. Obviously, there’s a severe shortage of gentlemen hereabouts.”
2
“…Mom’s been dressing me like this since before I can remember,” Midnight explained eagerly. He talked fast, Midnight did, once you got him going. Though he was unusually quiet and shy until then. I reckoned this was probably because the other kids where he grew up probably wouldn’t have much to do with him. “I’m obviously cat-marked,” he explained. “So I’ve always known I’ll end up becoming a familiar.”
I nodded slowly, not really wanting to stop chewing and swallowing long enough to speak. Cynthia had bought me a nice hot bowl of stew, once she figured out that I hadn’t eaten in a couple days. I never did understand how it was that she could tell. Sister Magdalene apparently hadn’t taken a trip by rail in a very long time; my two dollars and fifty cents had run out in Chicago.
Midnight—it was his real, honest-to-goodness legal name, apparently—smiled. “I might as well dress like this, as thoroughly Marked as I am. It helps me get used to the idea, like. And other folks don’t think it’s so strange, once they see the alternative.”
“Show him!” Cynthia urged. Then she looked at me. “You won’t believe it!”
Midnight frowned, then nodded and lowered his hood. For just a second his ash-blonde hair blew freely in the wind…
…and then transformed itself into short black fur, topped with a pair of vague black ears that hurt a little to look at.
“Wow!” I declared, so surprised that for a few seconds I forgot that I was hungry. “That’s…”
“Disturbing, apparently,” Midnight finished for me, looking a bit glum. “So long as I wear some kind of ear-hat, they meld in so you can’t see them.” He reached down and fingered his long, black tail. “This works the same way. Except I can actually feel it.”
I shook my head; maybe the getup actually made sense after all. “Being Changed might almost be a relief, for you.”
He nodded eagerly. “I can’t wait! I’m so tired of being stared at when I play with my yarn-ball! Mom’s all excited, too. She says that when I come back home to visit, I’ll have the best pet bed in the world waiting for me! Right out of the Monkey-Ward catalog.”
I nodded again, trying not to let my face show how I really felt. My own Mark hadn’t shown up until a few months before, and it was a pale, pathetic thing compared to Midnight’s. Father Branson spent hour after hour saying Hail Mary’s with me to make it go away. But as Sister Magdelene predicted, nothing worked. She was going to get into a lot of trouble, I knew, if Father Branson ever found out she’d helped me accept the Sorcerer’s invitation for a tryout.
“I’m going to be a snake, I think,” Cynthia declared, showing me her palms. This was where most Marks manifested themselves. Sure enough, you could see where the lines formed a girl’s head sort of blurrily sitting atop a long neck that was bent too sharply and in too many places to be human. She shook her head. “I don’t like snakes. But if I am one, I hope I’m venomous. Because if so, there won’t be anything to decide. The Guild won’t accept dangerous familiars, because sometimes the spells make us go out of our heads.” She turned away. “And Dad’s convinced we’re going to be rich. If I say ‘no’ when the answer could’ve been ‘yes’, he’ll hate me for the rest of his life.”
I nodded slowly. People who could become familiars were rare creatures indeed, even rarer than those able to practice magic directly. For that reason they were paid a millionaire’s wages and allowed to do pretty much whatever they chose when not needed in person for a spell—which worked out to be better than ninety-nine percent of the time. Familiars therefore often traveled the world, collected art… anything that struck their fancy, so long as they could do it with a full-animal body. I scowled—it was going to be a tough decision for me as well. If the option even presented itself, that was.
“What’s your mark, David?” Midnight asked eventually.
I sighed as my hands involuntarily clenched themselves into fists. Then I forced them to relax. I had nothing to be ashamed of, I reminded myself. Not here at least, in front of a snake and a cat. “No one seems to know,” I answered, holding a hand out to each of my new friends—they were mirror-imaged.
“Interesting!” Cynthia declared, looking at the vaguely paw-pad shaped darkened areas in my flesh. The animal-toes lined up perfectly with my finger-bones, but the print was too blurry to reveal anything further.
“Maybe you’re a cat, too!” Midnight offered.
“Maybe,” I answered, drawing my hands back. I’d been so ashamed when the Marks first emerged that for weeks I kept them hidden away, until finally I skinned my hand stealing third and Sister Magdalene couldn’t help but see as she dressed the wound. Then Father Branson had made a big deal over it, and the other kids had all wanted to see, and… Suddenly I was blushing bright, bright red.
“It’s all right,” Cynthia offered, smiling. “Most Marked people can’t be sure of what they are.” She nodded towards Midnight. “Unlike our kittenish friend here.”
“Being a cat is great!” the young man in black replied. He leaned back in his seat in a grace-filled feline motion. Even his shoes, I noted, were tight-fitting black slippers, well-worn enough that I suspected they were all he ever put on his feet. “I sure hope you’re one too!”
“It’d be nice,” I agreed, looking down at my Gladstone. It seemed pitifully small, next Midnight’s ornate travel-trunk and Cynthia’s even more extensive baggage-train. Yet it contained everything I owned. People who had inner animals almost always shared many of the characteristics of that animal, I knew—this was basic magical theory, so well-known that the sorcerers didn’t even try to hush it up.
So what was I, if not a churchmouse?
3
I grew sleepy after eating, and it was nice to have friends around to watch my luggage while I gave into the urge and snored away. Especially it was nice after the long, miserable trip I’d just taken. So it didn’t seem like any time at all had passed before Midnight elbowed me in the ribs. “David!” Cynthia added, shaking my shoulder. “The coach is coming!”
It hadn’t felt like I’d been out long, no. But now the sun hung low in the western sky, and the approaching coach’s shadow was long and distorted. And what a coach it was! A magnificent thing, all brass and blue lacquer, with a luxurious tan seat for the coachman. I squinted… My heavens, was he wearing a wizard’s robe?
“This is Ted Andrews,” Midnight continued after I finished rubbing my eyes and stretching cramped muscles. Why the railroads couldn’t design better benches to sleep on, I hadn’t a clue. “He’s a—“
“Sparrow,” I finished for him, extending my hand to shake that of the dimunitive boy standing before me. “You just have to be a sparrow, looking like that. I’m David, by the way. David Speiss.”
The tiny boy laughed and blinked his black, beady eyes. “I think I’m a sparrow,” he agreed. “Or maybe even a hummingbird. But wouldn’t it be funny if I turned out to be a Great Dane or something like that instead?”
I grinned back, and a rich-looking girl in an expensive pink dress stepped forward. “I’m Carmen,” she explained in a snooty upper-class accent, though her words were kind. She offered her hand delicately. “If I understand correctly, I’m already in your debt. For protecting Midnight; he’s an old friend, you see.”
I’d never had a girl offer me her hand before, especially not a hand wrapped up in a genuine white China-silk glove. For just a moment I felt like turning and running just as fast as I could back to Seattle; my dad had worked for railroads until he got killed, while it looked as if Carmen’s father owned railroads. But, somehow, I couldn’t just ignore her—she didn’t deserve to be treated that way, snooty accent or no. So, I carefully removed my straw hat and bowed, then raised her hand and brushed it delicately with my lips. “Charmed,” I heard myself murmur, as if I dealt with this sort of thing every day.
“I’m sure,” Carmen replied politely, pulling her hand back and blushing a little herself now.
Then Cynthia interrupted. “We’d better hurry up and get our stuff,” she observed. “The coach is almost here, and they say wizards don’t care to kept waiting.”
4
“Frederick Jones?” the sorceress who’d ridden out from Devard Castle to pick us up called for perhaps the dozenth time. She wore apprentice green, and had told us to call her ‘Guardian’. Magic-users, of course, couldn’t afford to give out their real names. “Frederick?” Her tone was growing increasingly worried.
“Where’s he from?” Cynthia asked. “I can check to see if the train’s arrived.”
“Port St. Louis, Mississippi,” the young sorceress replied, her scowl intensifying. She was only a couple years older than I was. “And it has indeed arrived; I’ve already checked. But where’s Frederick?” She shook her head. “This rule about prospective familiars being required to travel without supervision is so stupid…”
“It’s meant to help ensure that we’re mature enough to make our own decisions,” Carmen pointed out. Then she smiled. “Besides, it was sort of fun not having Na-na along.”
Guardian’s scowl deepened, but she said nothing. Then I had a brainwave. “You said he’s from Mississippi?”
Guardian nodded. “That’s right.”
“Let me check something,” I replied. “Don’t leave without me!” And then I was off like a rocket to another part of the station. The one where all the colored people sat. “Frederick Jones!” I called out, sticking my head in the door. “Are you here?”
“That’s him,” an elderly woman answered, pointing with her thumb. Sure enough, he was a boy just about my own age, dressed in rags even more disreputable than my own. But he didn’t even raise his eyes.
“Are you going to Devard Castle?” I demanded. “If so, you’d better hurry. The coach is here, and everyone’s waiting.”
Finally, the boy looked up at me. “They won’ lemme outta here,” he explained. “They say we niggers ain’t allowed out on the platform.”
Being from Seattle, I didn’t know much about negroes. But I did know something about sorcerers, so I felt that I was on pretty solid ground. “You come with me,” I declared, walking over and picking up a blanket-wrapped bundle that looked like it might belong to Frederick. “And if anyone tries to stop us, I’ll deal with it.”
His eyes narrowed, then he shook his head doubtfully. But when I turned and began walking, he followed. Sure enough, we weren’t ten paces out the door when a big red-faced man in a conductor’s uniform pointed his finger at Freddie. “Hey, boy!” he began. “I’ve already warned you once that—“
“We’re with her!” I interrupted, pointing innocently at Guardian. Who, as it happened, stood out rather well among the crowd in her outlandish clothing, despite the fact that her back was turned. “On our way to Devard Castle!”
The man’s face hardened, then he worked his jaw twice before speaking. “They’re evaluating a darkie?” he finally asked. “For a familiar?”
“Maybe,” I replied, shrugging. Then I nodded towards the green-robed figure. “Want to ask her about it?”
His jaw worked again angrily, then he looked away. Wizards were notoriously jealous of their privacy, and equally famous for their barbed tongues. “Go ahead,” he said at last. “He’s still just a child, after all. But be quick about it!”
Guardian was relieved indeed to see Frederick—“I’m sorry; I had no idea that you were a negro,” she explained to him. Then she gave me an extra-pretty smile by way of thanks, and we all loaded up for the long ride to Devard, up in the mountains.
The last thing that I thought I wanted to do was take a long coach ride so soon after spending nearly a week aboard trains, but this trip wasn’t half so bad as I imagined it’d be. Partly that was because of who I was with—kids like Midnight and little birdlike Timmy were nothing if not interesting to be around, while both Carmen and Cynthia were surprisingly pleasant company as well, for girls. Only Frederick sat silent and immobile, tucked into his own little corner. Plus, Guardian left the little talk-through window behind her open, so that she was able to join in the conversation from time to time and even sometimes laugh along with us. But what was truly spectacular was the scenery! The greatest, most deadly flood anyone had ever known had roared down this valley not eleven years before, and the damage was still plain to see everywhere. As we made our slow, painful progress up what was clearly still a temporary road, our chatter first slowed and then died out altogether at the sheer scale of what we were experiencing. There were massive gullies scoured out of the earth, decaying hundred-foot trees lay lined up like soldiers fallen in their ranks, and the broken remains of a thousand buildings was stirred liberally through it all. Once we even saw a toppled, crumpled locomotive far from any discernible tracks and not yet salvaged for scrap. Finally, just at sunset, the trail came to a little high point that overlooked the worst of the damage, and Guardian pulled up next to a flower-bedecked cross. “Get out, children,” she gently ordered, setting the coach’s brake. “This is the site of your first lesson.”
“Eleven years ago,” she began, “one of the greatest tragedies in the history of America happened here.” Her face fell. “And we sorcerers failed to prevent it, despite the fact that the dam which failed was located less than ten miles from one of our largest castles.”
There was another long silence, which I took advantage of to read the inscription on the cross. “To the memory of over two thousand dead,” it said. “Taken by the raging waters.”
“There are never enough sorcerers to go around,” Guardian continued. “Not by half. And scrying is difficult, time-consuming work.” She shook her head. “But still, you’d think that we’d have found the Pit developing beneath the dam, so nearby.”
I nodded slowly. There were still a lot of hard feelings over that, no matter how much other good the wizards had done humanity.
“This is why sorcery is so important,” Guardian continued, gesturing out over the debris-clogged valley. “And why we’re about to ask you children to make such sacrifices.” She bowed her head. “For all our squabbling and shortcomings, none of us wizards ever want to see anything like this happen again.”
5
It was almost ten at night before we arrived at Devard, tired and perhaps a bit frightened. Our route—there was no other-- had taken us within three hundred yards of the open Pit that’d triggered the Johnstown Flood, and the Sorcerer’s Guild was still studying the problem of how best to permanently seal it. In the meantime it remained a gaping window into the Underworld, full of the stuff of nightmares. No less than three sorcerers stood guard over it at all times; there was no danger of anything escaping. But the gaping black maw of the thing was terrible enough in its own right; Guardian suggested that we not look, but of course we all did anyway.
So it was a muted, tired group of children who came staggering in out of the night once we finally arrived at Devard’s main hall. I helped carry some of Cynthia’s luggage, and Freddie wordlessly shouldered two of Carmen’s trunks besides his own bedroll; clearly, he was much stronger than he looked. “This is the last load,” Guardian said as an elderly senior wizard wrapped in the highest-ranking gray greeted her.
“Twenty-seven in all,” he replied, shaking his head sadly. “Fewer every year, it seems, even as the population as a whole rises. Are there truly not so many candidates, or are the parents less forthcoming? There’s no way to know, I suppose.” He sighed, then forced a smile and raised his voice for attention. “Welcome to Devard Castle!” he greeted us latecomers.” Then he gestured toward the two rows of benches, where the rest of the kids were sitting and looking us over. “You may call me Shaper, though of course that’s not my true name.” He smiled again. “And I’ll be learning all of yours just as soon as I possibly can.” He looked at Midnight and smiled. “Those I don’t already know, at least. But for tonight, we’ll move as quickly as possible because I know you newcomers must be exhausted after your long journeys.” He smiled as we took our seats; I ended up in back, squeezed between Timmy and Freddie. “We wizards don’t often openly speak of magical truths,” he began once we were settled in. “Yet the significance of the seventh New Moon of the year is widely known to all. Can anyone tell me why?”
“Because that’s the only time a kid can be shapeshifted into animal form,” a young voice replied.
“And then only in their fourteenth year,” another added.
“Correct!” Shaper replied, his smile widening. “And I don’t need to tell you what you all share in common.”
A low rumble passed through the benches; no, he clearly did not need to tell us. “So, you also therefore must know the significance of the next full moon of the year?”
“That’s the only time you can change us back,” Midnight replied, his voice sober. “Ever.”
This time there was no rumble of conversation. “So,” Shaper continued, looking around and meeting all of our eyes one by one. “We have one week to prepare, and to determine whether or not you should be Changed. Then a fortnight for us to evaluate the Change, and for you to make what will surely be the single most important decision of your entire lives.” He sighed. “It’s not nearly enough time. In fact, it’s an affront to humanity that you’re required to make such a choice at all while still far too young. But this is how the universe works, and so far despite much hard work there’s nothing we sorcerers can do about it.” He scowled for perhaps a tenth of a second, then with a deliberate effort forced the usual smile back onto his face. “So… We’ve done all we can do here to set up the best program possible for you youngsters. Some school-type work is required, sure enough. And you’re going to be talked to and interviewed so many times over the next few days that I’m quite certain you’ll soon be sick and tired of it. But there’ll be time for fun as well, especially if you do in fact undergo the Change.” He smiled again, this time genuinely. “Think of this as one of those newfangled summer camps,” he urged. “Or a Transformation Camp, if you prefer. And, try to relax as much as you possibly can. We really, truly want you to reach the best decision possible, the one that’s right for you. And how can you know what’s right unless your minds are free and at ease?”
6
The next morning we were served one of the richest, most wonderful breakfasts I’d ever known—bottomless bowls of scrambled eggs, wonderful-smelling bacon and sausage, and best of all blueberry muffins! We all dug in like starving skeletons—Sister Magdalene says there’s no creature on earth with an appetite like that of a fourteen-year-old—and started to get to know each other a little bit better. All of us except poor Frederick, that is. Almost the very first thing, he poured a thick coating of molasses all over his food and three of the other boys pointed and elbowed each other and giggled uncontrollably. So quite deliberately I met their eyes and, while staring them down poured a like amount of molasses over my own meal. They didn’t say much of anything after that. But sadly neither did Frederick, who looked across at me a few times, then immediately turned his attention elsewhere whenever I noticed. The molasses was pretty darned good on the bacon and sausage, I decided, though the eggs weren’t any better for the addition. But the stuff was absolutely heavenly on blueberry muffins, so I chalked the whole thing up as a culinary success. Molasses and blueberry muffins—a match made in heaven!
After breakfast we were given a few minutes to clean up and just sort of lounge about—I spent the time with the boys I’d met at the railroad station, since the girls were all off doing whatever it is that females spend so much time fussing over wash-basins with. Frederick, Midnight, Timmy and myself were room-mates now, which was very nice in my book as all were neat and polite, while two out of three were also a lot of fun to be around. Freddie wasn’t in any way objectionable-- he didn’t smell bad, no matter what people said, nor could I look him in the eyes and imagine that he was naturally lazy or a thief. Sure, he was a little on the quiet side. But who wouldn’t be, given his situation? An hour didn’t pass, it seemed, but that someone found a way to pick on him or patronize him or do something else to make him feel small inside. Even the wizards, who seemed to be making some kind of special effort on his behalf, were part of the problem. “You three new boys will be staying together in Room Two-Oh-Nine,” Guardian had explained last night, as the big meeting broke up. Then she smiled at Frederick. “And you’ll stay with Cassie, our cook. She’s set up a nice little cot for you by the big stove.”
“Wait a minute,” I demanded. “Aren’t the other boys staying four to a room?”
Guardian blinked, as Freddie slowly picked up his blanket roll. “Well, yes! But…”
Midnight looked up at me, left eyebrow elegantly raised. Then he nodded. “Dave’s right,” he agreed. “We’re all familiar candidates here. Soon to become animals, even.” He crossed his arms, and so help me for a moment his eyes went green and slit-pupiled. “He’s not a bit blacker than I am, now is he?”
Then Timmy looked down at his shoes. “If I become a crow,” he pointed out, “I’ll be black too. No one’ll know the difference.”
“It don’t make no nohow to me, Missus,” Frederick interjected, looking down at his shoes. “The kitchen is jes fine. I’m only glad to be here at all.”
Guardian looked first at me, then at Timmy, and finally at Midnight. “Well,” she said finally, crossing her own arms. “Let me do some checking.” And sure enough a few minutes later she was back with new room assignments. “Freddie will get Bed Four,” she directed. “Though of course if he’d be more comfortable bunking in the kitchen with someone of his own race, he may do so.”
For a long moment the young negro looked terrified at being called upon to make such a momentous decision. Then he pressed his lips together. “I’ll stay wit’ de boys,” he finally answered in a near whisper. Then he looked up at us for just a second before lowering his eyes back to the floor. “Thank ya, sirs” he muttered.
And so, we’d become four.
7
The sorcerer who’d asked us to call him Shaper had promised us good old fashioned classwork, and he kept his word in full measure. We’d hardly picked out our seats in the big schoolroom when Guardian began passing out workbooks. “This is required,” she explained sternly. “Yes, we want you to relax and have a good time while you’re here. But we’re also not going to let your young brains turn into mush.”
A rusty-haired boy with extra-long arms and legs raised an oversized hand. “Why should we study?” he asked when called on. “If we’re going to be familiars, I mean? All we’re going to do is sit around and get paid. Or so people say.”
Guardian smiled. “That’s a fair question, Peter. And a good one as well. So I’ll take a little time answering it.” She walked up to the chalk board—it was black as a moonless night sky, and didn’t have a single crack; Sister Magdelene would’ve killed for it—and began writing as she spoke. “First,” she pointed out. “What you’ll be studying about is what a familiar does, and what it means to be one. That’s stuff you’ll need to know to make a good decision.” She smiled back at Peter, who nodded by way of conceding the point.
“But there’s more—a lot more. Yes, familiars end up with a lot of time on their hands. And that’s a good thing in the minds of we spellcasters, because when that’s the case it means nothing’s gone wrong. Sometimes, however…” She sighed. “I can’t talk a lot about this, but things do go wrong. And when they do, it’s a lucky wizard indeed who has an intelligent, able familiar at their side, ready to help dig them out of the mess they’ve suddenly found themself in.” Her smile faded. “We’re getting a little ahead of ourselves here— this part usually doesn’t get covered until the afternoon. But… You’re entitled to know that you’re not just being judged by what species you’ll become or how suitable your new form is for magical use. The nature of your character is also highly important—basic honesty and the like. Your intellectual abilities are a key factor too, as is, insofar as we can judge it, your level of personal courage.”
Her words were followed by a long, thoughtful silence. Then she smiled. “Don’t get me wrong—we’re not going to set impossible goals for you. We need familiars, after all, and there’s no hiding the shortage. You won’t have to memorize a hundred pages of spells in a month, like I did to get into the sorcerer’s academy.”
“And a good thing that is!” Midnight interjected. Then everyone laughed, including Guardian.
“Seriously now, children. Open your workbooks and begin with Part One. We’ll spend an hour on it, then take a little recess. Anyone who needs help, just raise your hand and someone will come to assist you.”
I didn’t raise my hand, of course; workbooks were my meat and potatoes. Dad had died when I was almost eight, and I’d been sent to the orphanage immediately after. They’d tried to put me with the second-graders, but I tore through the classes so quickly that by my tenth birthday I was just starting on the sixth. One of the reasons Sister Magdalene liked me so much, or so I supposed, was that I saved her a lot of work by teaching the math and science classes. I had plenty of time to do this because by now I was already all done with high school and so didn’t attend classes myself anymore. Sister Magdalene just let me read whatever I wanted to whenever I had spare time, and so long as I kept some of the titles hidden away from Father Branson both of us were plenty happy with the arrangement. When I turned sixteen I’d have to find my own way in the world, of course; there wasn’t much chance of an orphan like me going to college. In fact, I really should’ve been out on my own working a paying job already, and everyone knew it. But I was a good enough teacher that the always-broke parish didn’t have to hire another professional, so I’d been given a reprieve.
Therefore, the sixth-or-so grade level workbook that I’d been handed wasn’t much of an intellectual challenge, all the more so since most of the books I’d read recently were, naturally enough, about the whole ‘familiar’ situation. Some of them had condemned the whole concept as evil, more had praised sorcery as the highest expression of the American Way, while remarkably few had taken a more balanced approach, dealing with both the plusses and minuses in turn. None of them, however, had employed such simple phrasing as the three paragraphs we were expected to read before answering the equally inane questions. “A familiar who transformed into a spitting cobra would be rejected because _____________” the first question wanted to know, and it went downhill from there. I was done with the hour’s work in perhaps ten minutes, and after finishing I entertained myself by staring out at the beautiful summer day that was developing outside.
Or at least I started out staring at the summer day; in a matter of minutes I became aware that the four or five sorcerers endlessly circling the room, ostensibly to help us, were taking sidelong glances at me and subtly pointing out my apparent inattention to each other. This rather irritated me; after all, I was done with the assigned work, fair and square. And… Darn it! I was a teacher these days, not a student! Still, I managed to swallow my pride and stare down at the little book for perhaps another ten minutes before I grew so bored that I redipped my fountain pen and completed Part Two, without even being told. And then Part Three, and Part Four… In fact, I was well into Part Five before Guardian rang a little bell, and dismissed us all to go out and play.
“Yay!” I cried, as eager to stretch my legs as all the rest—Timmy had brought a baseball and a spare glove, and had promised me a game of catch. But I didn’t get ten feet before one of the watchers—a young man wearing a green robe—laid his hand on my shoulder and stopped me cold. “Your name is David, isn’t it?” he asked from behind a smile that I recognized right off as phoney.
“It is,” I agreed.
His fake smile widened. “I’m Proctor,” he explained. “And Shaper would like to see you immediately for your first interview.”
8
I knew something had gone badly wrong before I ever stepped into Shaper’s office; one time back when I was little I hit a baseball through Father Branson’s favorite stained-glass window. He knew it was an accident, so I didn’t get much of a whipping. But still… Everything had the same feel about it that I was experiencing now; the adults who wouldn’t meet my eyes, the long wait in an uncomfortable chair, the way I’d been pulled away from all my friends…
It was maybe half an hour before Shaper opened his door and gestured me in. I’d never been in a wizard’s office before, of course—almost no one had. It didn’t look all that weird, except for the old man’s tattered gray robe, the green sparkly flame that emerged from nowhere on his windowsill, and the way the letters and symbols on his grimoires got all blurry whenever I tried to look at them. “Sit down, young man,” he said with a smile, gesturing towards a plain wicker chair not any different than his own. “Make yourself comfortable.”
I really, truly wanted to do as I was told. But that particular order, making myself comfortable, was impossible to follow. So I improvised by faking a sunny smile instead. Then Shaper smiled back, and somehow I knew that he’d seen right through me. So I let my own expression fade and concentrated on not trembling instead.
“David,” he began eventually, picking up a thick file with my name on it from his desk. “You’ve come a long way to be with us.”
I nodded, but said nothing.
He opened the folder, muttering to himself. “Your moth—I mean Sister Magdelene, your guardian, thinks the world of you.” He paused again, reading some more, until his eyebrows rose. “She says that academically you’re quite exceptional.”
“I… I’ve finished high school, sir,” I replied, trying not to stutter. “I t-t-t-teach m-m-m…”
“Math and science,” the old man finished for me, nodding in approval. Then he lowered the folder and looked over the top of it at me. “I’ve taken on many an apprentice sorcerer based on less.”
I gulped, but said nothing.
“Yet, you’re Marked,” he replied with a sigh. “Which means it’s overwhelmingly unlikely that you’ll ever be able to cast a true spell on your own.” He shook his head. “That’s because being of crossed species is almost always distantly related to lycanthropy. That’s why your Changes are dictated by the Moon, just like theirs.”
I nodded and said nothing; even my most advanced books had said nothing of that!
“It’s no secret, but not often spoken of regardless. All you have to do is look closely at your friend Midnight, and you’ll understand a little better how the two phenomenons are intertwined.” He leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms. “Do you like Midnight?”
I nodded, and this time my smile was genuine. “He’s one of the neatest new friends I’ve ever made!” I sort of gushed.
Shaper’s eyes narrowed. “What makes him so neat?” he demanded.
I tilted my head to one side. “He’s different,” I explained, though it should‘ve been obvious to anyone. “In all sorts of wonderful ways.”
Shaper’s scowl deepened. “Most people don’t like things that’re different,” he replied. “They want to be around other people who are pretty much just like themselves.”
I shrugged. “I can’t answer for anyone else, sir. But… If they didn’t like Midnight, I can’t say that I’d likely think much of them.”
Shaper nodded slowly, then pulled a handwritten note from my folder. “This is a letter,” he explained. “One that I just received a few minutes ago—in fact, it’s why I kept you waiting so long.” His smile returned, though only briefly. “Originally you were brought here because you were accused of not being attentive enough to your workbook. But I think that little issue, at least, has been settled satisfactorily. In the future, you and anyone else finishing early will be permitted to leave the room.”
I nodded, feeling at least a little relieved.
“However… This letter is an altogether more serious matter.” He held it up in front of me. “It’s from a Mrs. Algood, of Johnstown. And it accuses you of breaking her son’s arm in a fight. Which you started.”
Suddenly my face hardened. “He was picking on Midnight!” I countered angrily. “And on Alicia too, sort of.”
“Picking on them,” Shaper agreed, looking deep into my eyes. “But not beating on them.”
There was a long, long silence while I stared once more out the window. “Why did you do it?” Shaper asked gently. “Tell me the truth now; nothing else will do. Was it because you wanted to impress the others?”
“No!” I answered, though my throat was closing up and I wanted to cry worse than I ever had since I was twelve. “I didn’t even know who they were yet! Midnight was just another kid who wore weird clothes.”
“Did this Algood boy laugh at you?” the old man asked, his eyes hard and intense.
“Not hardly! He wanted me to help him make fun of Midnight.” I shifted in my chair. “Sir… I really wasn’t sure about wanting to become a familiar, not at least until I got to know Midnight and some of the others and saw how wonderful it all could be. But now, I want it worse than—“
“Did it make you feel big and strong,” he interrupted remorselessly.
My heart sank. So my dream had ended before it’d ever really begun; I’d be on my way back to Seattle soon, more than likely destined to become a simple lumberman or sailor or fisherman… “No! I mean… He was no challenge. So beating him up couldn’t possibly make me feel better. And I stopped right away, once he wasn’t teasing anyone anymore.”
“Hmm,” Shaper mused thoughtfully. Then he paged through my file some more. “You have standard paw-Marks,” he noted. “The most common, least-revealing Marks of all.” He smiled gently. “May I look at them?”
Why not? I didn’t answer aloud. Instead I tried to control the sniffling and extended my hands, as ordered. If I had to remain human, I vowed, at least I’d do so as a man and not a sniveling little boy. Shaper examined my Marks carefully, then after warning me that it might hurt a little rubbed them hard with his thumb. “Ah!” he said eventually, smiling. “I still have the touch.”
“What?” I asked. “Can you tell what I am?”
“No,” he answered. “Not exactly. But… Look and tell me what you see.”
I pulled my hands back and examined them as carefully as I could with eyes that were still tear-blurred. Sure enough, two new and darker spots had revealed themselves, one on each palm. A matched pair of stylized arrowheads.
“Well!” Shaper declared. “That certainly helps clear things up in terms of your little scuffle, at least.” He smiled. “I had a hunch, and it turned out right after all.”
“What hunch?” I asked. “Please sir? What can you tell me?”
“You’re part Indian, aren’t you?” he asked. “You’re certainly a little dark-skinned to have a German last name.”
“Dad said so once,” I answered. “On his side. But he told me not to tell anyone, because… Well, people don’t like it.”
Shaper nodded smugly. “Your Sister Magdelene warned in her note to us that you could get a little carried away about certain things. Especially about people getting bullied.” His eyes grew distant. “And your actions regarding the colored boy—they fit in too, now that I think about it.” He smiled again. “Where exactly is your father from?”
“Alaska. He was born there.”
For just a moment Shaper’s smile slipped, then he recovered. “Well…” he explained. “Certain tribes in the Pacific Northwest—and that includes Alaska— were capable of performing primitive magical rituals. Like everyone else, they had superstitions about why some of them were Marked while most weren’t. But instead of things being like they were in Europe, where the Marked were burned alive, the Indians made people like you their holy men and tribal leaders.”
I nodded, still not quite understanding.
“They also noticed that Marks run in families. So, purely out of self-interest, they performed birth-rituals on all the offspring of certain bloodlines. To make them more responsive to the needs of the tribe, you see. Focus them on group welfare instead of, say, conquest. And incline them to use their native powers to protect the weak and innocent, should they be lucky enough to develop any. Like, say, those that Midnight has.”
I blinked. Had Dad actually… I mean, he’d also told me we were of a special Indian bloodline, but… And, Midnight had powers?
“Ha!” Shaper declared, slapping his knee in glee. “I’m certainly glad we worked this out; I’d have hated to lose you, son. Especially that way. But if you’ve been bespelled all your life as a Protector, who are we to fault you for acting in accord with your nature? It’s natural enough for you to still be a little lacking in restraint at fourteen, under the circumstances. For my two cents worth those Alaskan Indians in particular cast some damned fine spells; my guess is we couldn’t put a finer Guidance on your spirit if we tried. Besides… I’m why Frederick is here, see? And don’t think I haven’t taken full notice of everything you’ve done for him as well. All of which I now understand is perfectly, admirably in character for you.” Working very slowly, he folded up Mrs. Algood’s note and tore it into small pieces. “We’ll reimburse her son’s medical expenses, of course. And if complications set in we’ll even bespell the bone. But…” He made the last rip with relish, then a gesture sent the remains floating off to be devoured by the green flame. “Don’t get me wrong, son. There’s still a lot that can go wrong for you, and this old Indian spell may prove as much a hindrance as a help. I need to do more research. But, for what it’s worth you’ve just passed the ‘character’ tests cold. And the intellectual ones too, of course.” He smiled, stood and extended his hand. “There’s just one last thing,” he added as, still a bit bewildered, I completed the handshake. “Midnight is a very, very valuable commodity. You didn’t need to trouble yourself. We wouldn’t have let that ignorant little mundane touch a hair on his head. And you can take that to the bank. So next time you might want to consider being a bit more patient.”
9
Guardian came by to pick me up once Shaper was done with me, and I reckon she noticed right off that I’d been crying a little. She didn’t seem very happy about that, so instead of sending me immediately back to class she told me to take the rest of the morning off and rest in my room alone. I could rejoin the other candidates after lunch. Usually I wouldn’t have wanted things that way; I’d have washed my face, combed my hair, and just bulled right on through the rest of the day like nothing had ever happened. But Guardian looked so hurt that, just this once, I nodded and took things easy. That seemed to please her; which made me happy too. I liked her a lot.
So instead of sitting at a desk and pretending to work, I laid in my bunk and pretended to rest. Which made me smile a little; with most people the older they grew the less pretend-games they played. But in my case, it seemed like every year I was doing more of it. First I’d pretended to be a high-school graduate at fourteen, then I’d pretended to be a teacher, and now here I was not only pretending to be part-animal of some kind, but the product of some kind of lost Indian ritual that’d forever shaped who I was and what I might be…
I sighed and rolled over, for once wishing that Father Branson were around. I wanted to ask him some questions. Free will, I knew, was a mighty important thing once you started talking about the rights and wrong of life. A lot of the books I’d read recently had spared a chapter or two for Aquinas and his uncaused cause, so I thought I had at least a pretty fair handle on the subject. But… I’d just been told, to my plain, naked face, that I was who I was at least in part not because of choices I’d made but because of a spell that’d been cast so long ago I couldn’t even remember it. If this were true—and in my gut I knew that it was, because it explained so many things about me— then, well… How could I be held accountable for my choices on Judgment Day? Was God gonna just shrug and say “You never really had a choice, David, and that’s a valid excuse. Next!” And if I couldn’t be held accountable for my actions, then who could?
I sighed and shifted position again on my soft, comfortable mattress. It was a lot better than the one I had at home, which had springs sticking out of it so that I had to twist myself up just right if I wanted to get any rest. Most of the books on sorcery were all twisted and convoluted too, usually because they wanted to push one side of the issue or the other. Modern structured sorcery was only discovered in 1695, and hadn’t been of any practical use to anyone except a few half-mad eggheads until almost 1800. That was only about a hundred years ago, and while that felt like a mighty long time to me the books seemed to agree that in terms of figuring out What It All Means a century wasn’t much at all. So the books were filled with questions, not answers, no matter which side of the issue they argued. What were the ultimate truths? No one knew. Just, as I’d long since begun to suspect, Father Branson didn’t really know. Even though he honestly thought that he did.
And here I was, getting ready to wrap myself up into this great big whirlpool of unknownables, and not even as my own master at that! Because familiars, everyone knew, were ultimately property, every bit as much as Frederick’s mother and father—or at most his grandparents—had been property. The spells wouldn’t work otherwise—when the time came, I wouldn’t even have any choice as to who owned me. Though, I reminded myself, that was again because the spells couldn’t operate if I were allowed any say in the matter, not out of mean-spiritedness on the part of the Guild. Part of the magic, apparently, was the willing acceptance of true enslavement; anything that altered this fundamental truth ruined everything. That wasn’t to say that the Guild didn’t do everything they could to ease the situation, and make the chains ride as lightly as possible. The sorcerers disciplined each other, for example, in the treatment of their familiars. They were careful to frame requests, never give orders, and familiars had the right to appeal their mistreatment to the highest Board of the Guild, where their cases were by both statute and tradition to be afforded the highest priority of all. And woe, woe, woe betide the Master who ordered his servant not to appeal, and then was later found out!
Could abject property, I wondered, have a soul? Father Branson didn’t think so, and had assured me so repeatedly. Not all the gold and flashy magic in the world, he’d assured me, was worth the loss of one’s soul. But Sister Magdalene disagreed, which she was allowed to do because the Pope had remained stone-silent on the entire subject of sorcery. Why, no one knew. Though some of my books hinted at dark satanic conspiracies…
I sighed and changed positions again, finally growing a little sleepy. I’d been cursed all my life with an over-active mind; some nights growing up I’d hardly slept at all, trying to come to grips with this or that aspect of the universe. It must be nice, I decided, to be like most kids—and even most adults!—and not have this nagging drive to ask questions, questions, and ever more questions that could never have answers. It’d be wonderful to grow up like Midnight, long-sure of who and what he was meant to be and surrounded by a loving, supportive family that was dedicated to making it easier on him. Dad had loved me, I knew beyond doubt; he hadn’t made a lot of money, but spent too much of what little he had sending me to the Parish School because it was the best around. He’d died in a train accident, trying to pull a young lady whose name I didn’t even know out of the way of an oncoming train. She’d somehow fallen off the platform at the station. Dad hadn’t died right away, or so they’d told me, and his last words on this earth were that he loved me…
Suddenly I was crying again, though I wasn’t quite sure why. Which would’ve annoyed me to no end if the overwhelming sadness I was feeling hadn’t been strong enough to drive out the minor passions—after all, I was supposed to be here to recover from tears, not make more of them! But still, there they were. And suddenly I knew why—I was crying because Dad had died doing exactly as I’d have done under the same circumstances, as I’d have been compelled to do, driven by a spell that’d been placed on me before I was even old enough to know what it was all about. And, of course, which my father had probably been shaped by as well. My fists balled, and I shook with rage. Who were these people? I demanded. Who were they, to take my father away and reshape my soul without so much as a by-your-leave, to distort the lives of others for the benefit their own? I pounded the mattress over and over and over; why couldn’t they have just left me alone?
But who might I have become then, I wondered, left to my own devices? Perhaps that pathetic Algood kid who’d given Midnight so much grief? Or maybe his even more pitiful sidekick?
By then the tears and rage both had burned themselves out, and I was just another teen-aged boy trying to nap on a tear-dampened pillow. Powers, a little voice whispered inside of me. It was a voice I knew well; my subconscious, I suspected, the part of me that often was three steps ahead of the rest in solving problems because it never quit analyzing things no matter what. I’d learned long ago to listen very, very carefully when it spoke. Midnight has Powers, and so do some of the others. The sorcerers all know his name, and wealthy Carmen called him an old friend. Perhaps they were tested together? What else would such a rich girl be doing here, if she didn’t have Powers more valuable than gold? What would she have to gain?
I blinked in the semi-darkness. And, she always wore those silk gloves…
Powers! my intellect observed again. That’s the key to it all. Remember the books—that’s all they speak of. Abnormal skills and abilities; it’s these the sorcerers crave. But they understand less than they know.
I nodded. So far, it all made sense. Even the greatest wizards were like a bunch on monkeys playing with fire, so far as the big picture was concerned. If any of them knew anything really important about the universe, they weren’t talking.
They’re almost as ignorant as you are, in the greater scheme of things, the voice whispered again. And too blind to read between the lines. For what are your own exceptional talents, if not Powers as well?
10
The rest of the day went a lot easier than the first part. I didn’t get called back to Shaper’s office, there weren’t any more workbooks to fill out, and the little voice in my head that was so much smarter and grown-up than I really ought to be at fourteen didn’t speak to me again. The other kids didn’t think twice about my having been called away all morning, since a few of the others were pulled away for interviews as well, and Midnight in particular seemed pleased at the new marks on my palms. “I don’t know have the faintest idea of what they mean,” he admitted as he released my hands. “But it makes me happy to know that someone with a decent, fair heart has them. So, they’re probably good things.” I wouldn’t have read much into that, coming from anyone else. But, Midnight being Midnight, well… He had Powers, and that put a whole new light on the matter. For a long time afterwards I ran his words over and over again through my mind, as if they were a cryptic riddle and he an ancient oracle. Then I shrugged and decided that my feline friend was too nice a guy to play word-games with me about something so important. He’d probably meant exactly what he said, and there wasn’t anything more or less to it. So, I decided it wasn’t worth worrying about anymore.
My heavens! If I became a familiar, was I going to spend the rest of my life seeking double meanings every time a non-mundane sneezed?
I was really glad that Guardian didn’t make me spend the whole day back in my room, because our afternoon session was a whole lot better than the morning one had been. While we ate our lunches—wonderful ham sandwiches, chilled potato salad, chocolate chip cookies and leftover blueberry muffins, hurrah!-- Guardian explained that the afternoon was going to be devoted to spending time with some animals. “You’re a little old for this sort of thing,” she admitted. “But we’d appreciate it if, just for today, you sort of pretended that you weren’t. We’re going to take you to a little pen with all sorts of creatures in it. Harmless animals, like goats and cows and bunny-rabbits, all very tame. All want is for you to spend a little time there and play with them. There’ll even be treats you can feed them, if you like.”
As always, Guardian was as good as her word. We rode out across a little meadow to a little barn and fenced-in pasture that looked as if it’d set up for no other purpose than for our evaluations. There were numerous little benches inside, for example, and a little pond, and even a swing dangling from a just-perfect tree limb.
“This is so lame,” Timmy the sparrow whispered as we rode up on a big flatbed wagon pulled by same pair of huge horses that’d brought us up from Johnstown the night before.
“I don’t know,” Midnight replied with a shrug. “I like to swing.”
They let us all inside, then closed the gates before the animals got out. I couldn’t know what other sorts of kids came and went through Devard Castle every year, but they certainly underestimated our little group. First they let out the bunnies, I suppose because rabbits are about the least-scary kind of animals there are. And they weren’t even wild bunnies; these were big fluffy tame ones, eager to have their ears stroked and eat the delicacies stored in little jars for us to give them. Soon Timmy was sitting on the ground with a bunny in his lap, and so were Cynthia and a half dozen others. But Frederick must’ve gotten a tastier jar of treats than I did, or else he had a special knack or something, because he was laughing and smiling and half-mobbed with more than a dozen of the things nuzzling his face at once.
“At least he’s happy,” I murmured, nodding at the young negro as I tried unsuccessfully for perhaps the twentieth time to persuade a rabbit to accept a bit of carrot from me.
“Maybe he keeps bunnies at home or something,” Midnight answered glumly. His carrots, seemingly, were as unpopular as mine.
For most of the kids, however, the misery was short-lived. As time passed more and more different kinds of animals were released, none of them dangerous and all quite tame. Soon we were surrounded by scratching chickens, ducks and geese paddled about the little pond, and puppies of a breed I’d never seen before capered and yapped and dashed about underfoot. There were kittens to play with too, or at least there would’ve been if Midnight hadn’t hogged them all, and even a few colorful lizards that Guardian said were called geckoes; they were sent express-freight up from Florida every year, she claimed, just so we could play with them. A few of Guardian’s helpers also carried baby zoo animals among us, so that we could stroke their soft fur and feed them from a bottle, if they did that sort of thing and happened to be hungry. Within a couple hours we didn’t have to pretend we were little anymore—the animals were wonderful, and most of the poor city kids like me hadn’t ever seen anything like the baby mountain lion or the leashed fox or the white-spotted deer-fawn or even the garter snake. None of them seemed to particularly care for me, though, no matter how hard I tried.
“I’m doing my best!” I explained to Guardian, who was having almost as much fun as we were with the fawn. “But it’s like they’re all afraid of me.”
Her smile widened. “All we ask is that you try.” Then her brow wrinkled. “You’ve never been around animals at all, growing up?”
“Nope,” I replied, shaking my head. “Mrs. Dyson—she was in charge of cleaning up the church-- had a dog. But he hated me, even though he liked everyone else.”
Her brow-wrinkles grew deeper. “Really?”
I nodded. “Uh-huh! And Sister Magdelene tried to set me up raising chickens once, so I could make a little egg money. But they never would lay, until we finally sold them.” I frowned. “After that they did fine. I never did figure out what I was doing wrong.”
She scowled and hugged the fawn closer to her—it was trembling, and trying to hide its head. “I see,” she replied. “Well, let me finish making the rounds with this poor little thing. Why don’t you go sit on the big bench by the gate and wait there?”
Gloomily I did as I was told; there were already two other boys there, plus Carmen in her finery. I sat down next to her, but she didn’t say anything either. Though if I looked real close, I thought I could make out a smug expression on her face.
“I don’t get it,” one of the other boys finally complained, after we’d sat around and watched the others having fun. He was very big and fat. “They all hated me. Even the cute little babies.”
“Me too,” a second added. It made for a strange contrast indeed; where the first was so heavy, this boy looked lean, stringy, and tough.
“Yeah,” I agreed with a sigh, looking down, while Carmen merely smiled prettily. My guess was that she knew something, but wasn’t talking.
“It’s because you’re all predators,” a super-deep voice said from behind us.
“We might just have a coyote here, if I’m any judge,” a second, equally-deep voice agreed.
I turned around, but no one was there except the horses, which someone had turned loose to graze. “I…” I sputtered. “But…”
“Ha!” the first deep voice repeated, as the larger of the two horses bobbed his head up and down. “Gotcha!”
“You’re…” the fat kit sputtered—his name might’ve been Pat, but I couldn’t remember for sure. “You’re…”
“Familiars,” the smaller animal agreed, though in this case small was certainly a relative term. I’d never seen such monsters! He bobbed his head vaguely in the direction of the other kids. “And so are some of the animals your friends are playing with. Be quiet and don’t spoil their surprises; fooling people can be a lot of fun!”
My mouth worked a couple times before I could actually spit any actual words out. “That’s so unfair!” I finally protested.
“Heh!” the smaller horse replied, bobbing his head mirthfully. Then his smile—there wasn’t any other word for the expression, though of course it wasn’t quite—faded. “Usually we work with the would-be equines. But this year there aren’t any, so we’ve been assigned to you instead.”
“But why aren’t—“ the boy who really did look rather like a coyote, now that I thought about it, began to say. Then his voice broke off cold.
“Exactly,” the larger horse answered, hanging his head. “Most predators are dangerous creatures. So, they aren’t selected.”
“But,“ the fat boy protested, rising to his feet. “I want—“
“What you want doesn’t matter,” the smaller horse interrupted. “Neither in this regard nor many, many others, if by chance you are accepted.” Then, with surprising gentleness he nuzzled the upset child. “There’s still a chance. Lots of predators aren’t so dangerous.” He smiled again and looked at the lean boy. “Coyotes, for example. They take large dogs, or at least most of them. So I can’t see why they wouldn’t accept you as well.” He looked away, not easy for a horse. “Though of course it’s not my decision.”
“Right,” the lean boy replied, looking unconvinced but still a good bit happier than he’d been.
The larger horse looked at me, opened his mouth as if he were about to say something, then changed his mind. Instead, he smiled again. “I’m Bob. And my harness-mate here is Eric. When we’re not pulling plows or wagons to stay in shape, we spend most of our time down at a special stable near the Castle entrance. And, like we said, we’ve been assigned to you. To answer all your questions about being familiars, and what it’s really like. You’re welcome anytime; we’re here to help you in any way we can.”
“We both like being familiars,” Eric added. “In fact, I consider it the luckiest thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Me too,” Bob agreed. He smiled again. “So, any questions?”
The fat boy scowled, then pointed over at the big tree in the middle of the fenced pasture. “Aren’t those monkeys?” he asked.
Bob smiled extra hard, while Eric bobbed his head up and down. “Yep,” the latter agreed.
Now I was curious too. “But… You can only become a kind of animal that lives near where you were born! So why…”
“Ha!” Bon laughed in a single explosive syllable. “That’s easy!”
“You can figure it out yourself, if you try,” Eric added.
I scowled. “Someone wasn’t born in America?”
“Got it in one!” Bob agreed, wuffling happily. “You should’ve seen the wizards scrambling!”
“At least he was easy to peg, species-wise,” Eric agreed. “The kid looks more like a monkey than a boy to begin with.”
I remembered meeting a red-headed kid, with extra-long arms and legs at breakfast. I’d only seen pictures, but… “An Orang-u-tang?”
“Smart boy!” Bob praised me. Then he and Eric both laughed. “He’s from Toronto. Sometimes the limey kids come here for evaluation, you see, because Aberdeen is so far away. We have a reciprocal arrangement with them; our order and the English one respect each other and get along pretty well.”
“His father’s in the Royal Engineers, so it’s not really that strange that he was born in Borneo.” Eric shook his head again in pure merriment. “They hadta find a couple of the rarest, most exotic critters on the planet and get them shipped here on short notice. And baby ones at that, so they wouldn’t be dangerous. You should’ve seen the Apprentices scramble! What a hoot!”
11
The rest of the week before the Full Moon almost flew by—so much stuff happened so quickly that the days practically blended together. There was more classwork, in which we learned what our role in spellcasting was to be. Which was mostly sit around and be bored, just as everyone already knew. Sometimes we’d accompany the Masters or even the lesser sorcerers during journeys to the ‘Magical Realms’, whatever those were. Such trips, we were informed, could be dangerous and were strictly voluntary. But mostly, our job was merely to exist and thereby serve as amplifiers of magical power for those who held our leashes.
On the next day, two very unexpected things happened. One of them was that Frederick actually spoke to me on his own initiative, without being addressed first. “Mr. David, suh?” he asked me when we were in our bedroom alone together. “D’ya have a minute?”
I beamed with pleasure, even though he still wouldn’t raise his eyes. “Of course!” I answered. “For you I have all day!” It was almost true; we were back to workbooks, and I was far, far ahead of the crowd.
“Well, suh…” he began. Then he licked his lips and tried again. “Miz Guardian said I should speak to you, suh.”
I nodded patiently. We’d work on the ‘Mr. David’ and ‘sir’ eventually, but right then just didn’t seem to be the proper time. “About what?”
There was another long silence. “It’s ’bout my reading, suh. I’m not doing so good with it.”
It took some awkward questioning, but gradually I came to understand that Frederick was something approaching illiterate. “I see,” I replied eventually.
A single tear ran down his cheek. “I ain’t had much schoolin, see? I’s got to work in the fields. And I… I…” He held out his workbook, the first one that he should already be done with, in shame. There wasn’t a mark in it.
I sighed and thought about it for a minute. “There’s no way on earth I can teach you to read in a week. Less than that now, really.”
Frederick’s head fell even further, though I hadn’t thought it possible. “I know,” he whispered. “It’s just that…”
He didn’t have to finish. Four empty seats had appeared our breakfast table that morning. I didn’t know any of their usual occupants particularly well, but didn’t particularly need for anyone to draw me a map, either. “Miz Guardian said that you’d be the best one to help me out of everyone here, even including the adults. She said that if you did, she’d excuse you from some of your other assignments.”
I nodded. “Well, they certainly must know that I can’t teach you to read that quickly, so they must have something else in mind. Like, maybe if I read this stuff to you, and then wrote your answers down for you?”
“That’d work!” Freddie replied, smiling like I’d never seen him do before. The dark flesh of his face made his teeth seem extra-white. It was pretty neat-looking, so far as I was concerned. “I can listen real good!”
I smiled back. “I’m sure you can.” There was nothing wrong with Freddie’s mind that I could see. He was like some of the orphan kids we got from ‘way up in the mountains, was all, kids who hadn’t ever been in a classroom. Except that he’d also been beaten down to nothing, of course. Which of the two was by far the greater crime. “I’ll check with Guardian and make sure that’s what she has in mind. If so, I’ll get back with you about setting up a tutoring schedule.”
“You bet, Mr. David suh!” He smiled again, just as dazzlingly as before, and went running off to join the others. It was the happiest I’d ever seen him, except when he was with the bunnies.
That same afternoon, a stranger showed up at the Castle. He wore an ornate black robe, very different from any I’d seen before, and had a big scar running down one cheek. The man was obviously a foreigner, though I wasn’t sure just how I knew. He arrived just before lunch, and I ran into him in the hallway after meeting with Guardian about Freddie’s tutoring. She’d just approved my plan and I’m afraid I wasn’t thinking about what I was doing. Instead, my mind was on working out enough times and places for my new student and I to sit down together before the Big Day to allow him to catch up. Even worse, I was sort of jogging because I was late. Or maybe even a little more than just jogging. The results were predictable Bam! I rounded the last corner and smashed full into his chest, knocking me clean off of my feet and causing the stranger to stagger back as if he’d received a mighty blow. “Mein Gott!” he declared, “Was ist dieses?”
I didn’t understand most of the words, though the ‘Gott’ part penetrated. “I’m so terribly sorry!” I gushed, climbing to my feet and almost tripping over them again in my eagerness to apologize. “Please, forgive me!”
The stranger’s face went hard for an instant, then he turned to Shaper and laughed. That was the first time I’d noticed Shaper was there, really, and I didn’t at all care for the frown that was spreading across his face. What a stupid way to get myself in trouble!
“Ach!” the stranger said finally, making a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Boys will be boys, I suppose.” Though it sounded more like “Boyz vill be boyz”. He smiled and extended his hand. “I’m Baron Attache.”
I nodded and accepted his hand, my eyes widening. He was a wizard, of course, so ‘attaché’ must’ve been his current job rather than his real name. But he was a Baron as well? I’d never met a Baron, before! “David Speiss,” I replied, smiling as best I knew how. “And I really am powerful sorry.”
“P-pow… “ the Baron stuttered, looking confused. He looked at Shaper, who smiled.
“It’s an idiom,” he explained. Then he reached out and patted my head. “It means that he’s most regretful, sir.”
“Ach!” the Baron repeated, nodding. Then his eyes narrowed a little. “Speiss… That’s a good German name. Sprichst du Deutsch?”
I shook my head. “No, sir. I’m sorry.”
“Too bad,” the Baron answered, his face falling a little. He turned back to Shaper. “You Americans pay so little attention to matters of blood. Where in my homeland, these are the most important affairs of all.”
Shaper smiled. “Here we judge the person. Not who his parents were.” The wizard laid his hand on my shoulder. “David here, for example, is in many ways a most exceptional young man. When he’s not running in the hallways, that is. But we don’t assume it’s because he’s German. For us, that has nothing to do with it.”
“That’s why your nation doesn’t have a nobility worthy of the name,” the foreigner replied. “Where your finest bloodlines can be concentrated and placed in positions of leadership. Though there’s always hope.”
Shaper shrugged, then looked back at me. “You go ahead and eat now, son. I’m sure you’re plenty hungry. And, just so you know, I approve of your working with Frederick. In fact, I’m most grateful to you for the help.”
I nodded and smiled again, then turned to Baron Attache. “I’m very sorry I ran into you, sir” I repeated.
He replied with an odd little bow. “Es war nichts,” he answered.
Then I was on my way in to sit down next to Freddie and eat with my friends, glad to part company with the strange man. Would he have been half so nice, I wondered, if he’d known that by his way of measuring things I was at least as much a savage aboriginal as I was a German?
12
“He gave me the willies,” Timmy said as he delicately picked at his meal. Today it was ham sandwiches again, which none of us minded because they were so good, and great big bowls of salad. Frederick was tearing into the greens like a starving man, while I was pleased to see four blueberry muffins strategically placed near my right elbow. Midnight had some sort of tinned fish on his plate, which smelled pretty heavenly to me as well. Clearly someone was paying attention to our eating preferences, and trying their best to cater to them.
“I didn’t like him much either,” Midnight agreed. You could see in his eyes how much he appreciated the fish, though he made a show of eating disdainfully regardless. Sometimes it was hard to tell how much was an act and how much was the genuine feline in him showing through. “There’s just something about him.”
“He’s a bad, bad man,” Carmen pronounced in a tone that brooked no argument. And that’s all there was to it; when Carmen spoke in that manner, the rest of us already knew better than to disagree. Not because she became rude or unpleasant or impolite—Carmen was never any of these things. Rather, it was because she was invariably proven correct. I gulped and decided not to mention my own encounter with the Baron; he’d just been introduced to the rest of the candidates, so it was natural that he was the subject of discussion. Apparently he’d come to learn about how familiar candidates were evaluated in the United States. So instead of joining in, I put the time to more profitable use by forcing down an extra muffin.
The next few days weren’t nearly as interesting as our first ones were. We didn’t get to go play with the animals again. Mostly we spent our time on schoolwork, which took forever for Frederick and I to slog through together. While he and I spent hour after hour sweating over his books, the rest of the kids met more familiars, some of whom I’d very much have liked to have gotten to know. There was an anteater who’d been born in South America, for example, who everyone said was an especially nice lady. She explained that, while she liked being a familiar very much indeed, she now regretted her choice because it left her unable to have kids of her own. Or even to get married; there weren’t any other anteater familiars around anywhere at the present time, it seemed. I’d have missed all of this working with Freddie, except that Cynthia spent about an hour bending my ear on the subject. It seemed to have touched her deeply. “Not just no kids, but forever a snake!” she whispered to me late one night after sneaking out of her room to come talk to me. “I don’t know… I mean…”
I pressed my lips together and sighed. Back in the little pen when we’d played with the animal, Cynthia hadn’t been much of a hit with the lizards. Though perhaps that was natural—a lot of snakes ate lizards, didn’t they? And, of course, I had no idea of how she’d done with the garter snake. Yet something felt very wrong about Cynthia being a serpent, no matter how her Marks looked.
“Daddy’s been sending telegrams every day,” she continued with a sigh. “Have you any idea what that costs? And he’s looking for a house in Florida where it’s always warm.” She rolled her eyes. “A big house. That’s all he ever thinks about-- money, money, money and what he can buy with it. Ever since my Mark appeared.” She scowled. “He hasn’t been back to the department store in weeks. I’m afraid he’s already quit his job.”
I closed my eyes and sighed. “I’m sorry,” I said at last.
She shook her head. “Don’t be. I’m sorry for you, in fact.”
I blinked. “Why?”
“Everyone knows you’re going to be weeded out,” she answered, lowering her eyes. “That’s why you’re allowed to miss so much of the program to work with Frederick—you’ll never be a familiar anyway.” She shook her head. “It’s so unfair! Out of all of us…”
I blinked, rather caught off guard. This was all news to me. Had everyone assumed someone else told me?
“I mean… Everyone knows that Freddie is a special case. He deserves to be given a chance, no matter what. Because of… Well, it’s too wretched to talk about. And he’s such a sweet boy! But…” She shook her head again. “They shouldn’t use you like this. It just isn’t fair. They should’ve sent you home the moment they knew you were going to become a powerful predator. It’s just plain cruel, is what it is!”
I spent a long moment looking off into the darkness. “Well,” I said at last, after exploring several possibilities and finding that the puzzle pieces did indeed fit together best Cynthia’s way. “I guess… If I can help Frederick, it’s worth it.”
“Oh, David!” Cynthia sighed. “You’re so sweet, and so strong, and so… Noble. That’s just exactly the right word. Noble.” Then, just maybe, her lips brushed my cheek in the darkness. After which there came a flutter of skirts, then a rapidly-fading series of quick, feminine footsteps. And she was gone.
13
Saturday, June the twenty-seventh, should’ve been an easy day for us all. That night the full moon would rise, we youngsters would be subjected to spells that’d encourage along our natural tendencies towards hooves or paws or scales or whatever, and we’d spend the next two weeks getting used to a whole new way of life and deciding if it really was for us or not. Because this was the Big Day, in theory at least we were excused from all classwork and held to no timetable; indeed, we were encouraged to sleep late. Or most of us were, at least; Freddie and I began the day at the crack of dawn, far behind in our studies but grimly determined to catch up with the rest. The stuff in the workbooks was important, especially to someone like Freddie who was encountering many of the facts for the first time. He needed to understand every last chapter in order to make a good decision. “You mean they’re gonna own me, suh?” he interrupted at one point. “Like, like…”
“Like a slave,” I agreed, meeting his eyes and nodding sadly. “It can’t work any other way—that’s the price you pay for all the money and such.” I sighed. “Which really won’t even be yours, technically. They say that in practical terms it doesn’t make any difference. But obviously at some level it does.”
My student’s eyes went big and round. “Well… I mean…”
“You don’t have to do this,” I reminded him. “No one’s going to make you. You’re still free, Freddie. And you can stay that way, if you prefer.”
His jaw worked, and tears filled his eyes. “But Pa! He works so hard…”
Then suddenly his face screwed up and I was hugging his head to my chest. “I know, Freddie,” I whispered as his tears soaked into my best shirt. “I know. And God knows I’d spare you this, if only I could.”
I finished up with my student about two o’clock, then went to see Guardian and tell her that I thought he needed even more support than I was able to give him. “Do you people understand what you’re asking of him?” I whispered, looking down at her desktop. “I mean, have you really thought this through?”
She sighed and folded her hands. “Of course we have. And we wish that things could be easier for the poor child. But… Have you considered matters from our point of view yet?”
I shook my head, still not looking up. “No.”
“Well…” She leaned back in her chair. “The way we treat negroes in this nation is a crime. Do you agree?”
I nodded slowly. No one who’d ever spent much time with Freddie, and who also had anything resembling a heart, could ever think otherwise.
“Good,” she agreed. “But things are as they are; even we wizards can’t simply wave a magic wand and make all the hate and stupidity vanish, abra-cadabra! What we can do, however, is try to lead the way by introducing negroes into our ranks at all levels.” She sighed. “Again, though, things are as they are and not as we might wish for them to be. Sure, there’s a handful of negro intellectuals out there, as smart as anyone and full of fire to prove the point. But, sadly, none of them have yet tested positive for magical ability. And among the uneducated, superstitious masses of all races, things like Marks and magical tendencies are cause for terror. Not celebration.” She sighed. “We’ve been trying for several years now to find a young negro both willing and able to become a wizard. Trying very energetically in fact; the Guild is uniquely placed in American society to do as it damn well pleases and ignore the cries of outrage. But so far there just haven’t been any. And Frederick is our very first familiar candidate.”
I scowled. “You can’t ask him to become a slave,” I declared finally, after thinking about it for a few minutes. “You just can’t!”
Guardian tilted her head to one side. “Are you saying,” she asked softly, “that a negro shouldn’t have the same opportunities as a white man? Just because he’s a negro?”
I sat silent for a few minutes, my fists clenching and unclenching. “You could fail him,” I pointed out eventually. “On academic grounds. It’d be justified and everyone knows it. Even him.”
“Would everyone believe it?” she asked, her eyes distant. Then she sighed again and shook her head. “I doubt it, myself. The Baron has already complained long and loud in public places about a ‘schwartz’ being considered at all. In fact, I rather suspect that Freddie is why he’s here. He seems to feel that having a ‘racial inferior’ in the program is a slur on everyone related to magic everywhere.” She pressed her lips together. “It’s hard on Freddie, yes. And if he says ‘no’ we’ll all understand. But it’s always extra-hard on those who go first— someone has to suffer for the sins of our fathers, innocent or no.“ She shook her head. “In this very special case, we can teach him to read later. His character’s good, and his Marks are valid. The rest simply must be up to him.”
I nodded and got up to leave. “I guess I didn’t think it all the way through,” I admitted.
“You’re too closely involved to see the big picture,” she countered. “That’s all. Once someone’s cried in your lap, it’s not easy to be dispassionate.”
I blushed a very dark red. “I… I didn’t…“
“It’s me that should be sorry,” she answered, blushing a little. “I came upstairs to check on how you two were doing. And, well…” She shook her head. “At any rate, your misgivings do you credit. In my book, at least.”
I nodded slowly, then turned to leave. “Thank you, Guardian. For everything.”
“No,” she answered. “It’s I that have to thank you. How we’d have handled this situation without your help, I can’t imagine.” She sighed and shook her head. “They say that in magic there are no coincidences, that the more wildly improbable an event seems, the more likely it is to have a deeper meaning. For a boy like you with your special talents to be here just when we needed you…” She shook her head again. “I’m glad I’ve had the opportunity to offer my thanks.”
I nodded again, then closed my eyes. “You’re thanking me now,” I said slowly, “because there won’t be a later. They’re not going to Change me tonight. Are they?”
There was a long, long silence. “They weren’t planning to,” she admitted. “But… Would you like for them to? Even though you know you’ll never be accepted?”
I thought about Midnight, and nodded slowly. “It’s the only chance I’ll ever have.”
Another long, silent time passed. “Well,” Guardian finally said. “Everyone here knows that we owe you. And, just so you know, our gratitude is going to take a fairly substantial form regardless. You’ve earned it and more. You’re right, however, when you say that this is your one and only chance to explore that side of yourself.” I heard her rise to her feet. “I make no promises, mind you. Because you’re asking for more than you probably realize. But I’ll go see if I can’t cash in some old chips and get Shaper to do me a personal favor.” She stepped placed one hand on my shoulder, then bent over and kissed me gently on the back of the neck. “Frederick’s not the only deserving kid around here, after all.”
14
I was sort of surprised at the how the rest of June Twenty-Seventh went, but I guess I shouldn’t have been. At first I couldn’t find any of the others, not even hanging around Bob and Eric’s stable. The two were so open and friendly that we kids went there a lot to ask questions, even those kids of other species who were assigned to other mentors. They seemed surprised to see me; I guess I was supposed to be gone already. “Try the courtyard, kid,” Eric advised me between huge gulps of fodder. “That’s where they always end up on the last day, unless it’s raining.”
“And…” Bob added tossing his head, “It’s been good to know you! You’re something special, whether you’re part of the program or not. I only wish you could’ve spent more time hanging out with us.”
Bob and Eric were very canny characters indeed, so I took their advice. And sure enough the first thing I saw when I rounded the corner was…
…Midnight, in his usual cat getup, attempting to play baseball.
It was a pathetic sight, in a way. He was up at bat, with Kimball the orang-u-tang kid pitching. And he couldn’t hit the ball to save his life. “Strike six!” little Timmy cried out from behind the plate as the feline took yet another futile swing. Then he tossed the ball back to the pitcher. “Don’t throw it quite so hard next time, Kim! Maybe that’ll do it!”
I shook my head, puzzled for a moment. Then understanding finally flowed in and my sort of melted my heart. Midnight had probably never had a chance to play baseball before, I suddenly understood. The other kids wouldn’t let him. So he was taking full advantage of his very last opportunity. Ever.
And for the first time, I understood what it really meant to become a familiar.
I sort of tiptoed past the boys without them noticing me; it didn’t seem right to intrude, somehow, even though I knew that they would’ve welcomed me into the game. The girls weren’t far away, dressed in their best finery and listening to a gramophone that just had to be Carmen’s; only she could afford such a precious toy. It was playing something lively and scratchy and beautiful, and I listened with a sort of silly half-smile on my face as the clockwork spun. I’d heard gramophones play before—twice, in fact, at church. And their music was indeed something very special. But what made me smile was the sight of Carmen and Cynthia paired off and dancing with each other on the beautifully trimmed lawn, as the third remaining girl in our class sat under the gazebo and patiently awaited her turn. Cynthia was a good enough dancer; no moss was growing on her. But Carmen! My jaw dropped as she twirled and dipped as if taught in the finest of schools, which was of course very likely the case. When the song ended and all that remained of the melody was a loud crackling sound the girls faced each other, curtsied…
…and then laughed and laughed, about what I had no idea whatsoever. Until they turned to me as one and Carmen said, “Come on out of the trees, David. We know you’re there.”
I did so, blushing furiously. “I wasn’t spying!” I assured them. “I just didn’t want to interrupt!”
“Of course not,” Cynthia replied giggling. “You’re much too sweet to spy.”
“Indeed!” Carmen agreed in her haughty, too elegant accent. Then the other girl nodded too.
By now it was obvious that what the girls were doing was every bit as important for them as Midnight’s single lifetime at-bat was to him. “Really,” I repeated. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“Then pay toll,” Cynthia suggested.
“Right!” the small, plain girl who was to become a cowbird agreed. Her name was Suzy, I suddenly remembered. “Wonderful idea!”
“You first!” Carmen agreed, gently pushing me towards her.
“I—“ I sputtered. “But—“ They weren’t having any of it, however. Not on their very last dancing-day ever.
“Can you waltz?” Carmen demanded, looking me up and down as if I were a piece of meat.
I nodded. “Sister Magdalene made me learn.”
“Wonderful!” she gushed, picking out a record and winding up the machine.
It wasn’t so bad, really. Suzy was an even worse dancer than I was, but her smile was radiant and she was warm and soft in my arms. Cynthia was less of a problem; I actually sorta liked her, you see, though I hadn’t ever gotten around to saying so and probably wouldn’t have for a couple-three years in the natural order of things. But Carmen!
Dancing with Carmen was enough to take a man’s breath away.
It wasn’t just that her dress was made of finer materials or that she wore expensive cosmetics or that she smelled of jasmine and honey, though all of these of course helped. Rather, there was just something about how she moved, how the music flowed through her and thus became something physical and part of her beauty. It all came effortlessly to her; that was part of the charm. She spoke freely with me the whole time we stood arm in arm, perhaps even more freely than she might’ve otherwise.
“I’m so glad you happened by, David,” she whispered in my ear. “Because I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”
Unlike Carmen, I wasn’t a good enough dancer to make an easy and effortless reply without breaking my concentration. “Yes?” I answered, simply because it was the shortest answer I could make.
She nodded. “I just wanted to tell you that you shouldn’t take it amiss if you’re not chosen.” There was a long pause. “Teddy didn’t, you see.”
I nodded slightly, trying to concentrate. Onetwothree, onetwothree… “Teddy who?” I asked.
“Why… Teddy Roosevelt, of course!” she replied, almost missing a step in shock at my not recognizing the name.
“Oh,” I answered, feeling very small.
“He told me so himself,” she explained. “After Father spoke to him about my situation. In a private room, because no one else was to know.”
I blinked. Carmen had been in a private room with Teddy Roosevelt? “Wow!” I whispered.
“He was only in the Cabinet back then, I think,” she explained. “Or something like that. Not nearly so important a man as he is now. But… They turned him down, David. Him! The hero of San Juan Hill! And he was an owl, not a dangerous species at all. So, if they don’t take you…”
“Right,” I agreed. “Thank you!”
“You’re most welcome,” she answered. “In any event, I rather think you’ll live a long, important life of your own. You don’t have to become involved with magic to be a good person, or even an important one. Teddy’s proof of that.” She shuddered and looked down. “I hope they turn me down too,” she said softly.
“Why?” I asked.
“Well,” she replied as the music began to wind down. “Let’s just say that you’ll find me a much less desirable dance partner, come midnight or so.” She shook her head. “I wouldn’t even be here, but… It’s a matter of duty, you see. Both of my grandfathers and one uncle died in the Civil War. Being turned down after giving my best is the only honorable way out.”
“They were men,” I pointed out. “Only men must do their duty.”
Suddenly Carmen’s eyes were cold and remote. “Women can love their country every bit as much as men do, Mr. Speiss. Or more importantly, to humanity as a whole. As someday I hope you’ll come to understand.” Then, as if on cue, the music stopped and Carmen was curtseying deeply in front of me. Reflexively I bowed as well. When I straightened back up Carmen was smiling again, with a happy sparkle in her eyes. “You will understand someday,” she said, as much to herself as to me. “You have the capacity, if any man does.” Her smiled widened. “Thank you for the dance, Mr. Speiss. Your toll is paid in full. You may go play ball now, if you like.”
15
By then a little ball practice would’ve been nice, because once I didn’t have dancing on my mind any longer I got all nervous and excited over maybe actually getting Changed after all. I’d sort of given up on the idea after Cynthia had warned me that I probably didn’t have a chance. But now… Unfortunately, however, the dinner bell rang to call us in before I could even put my glove on. “Did Midnight get his hit?” I demanded of Timmy as we jogged towards the kitchen door together.
He smiled. “A double! And the fielder didn’t hafta bobble it very much to make it one, neither!”
I smiled and patted the soon-to-be small bird on the shoulder, delicately so as not to harm him. “That was really nice. Of all of you.”
He blushed. “Well… What else were we gonna do, on his last day?”
I nodded and smiled again. Maybe I had the best of both worlds after all? To be Changed temporarily, that was, and know I’d be returned on the twelfth of July. To experience what it was like for a time, and then be given back my body, my personal freedom, and my soul. Or at least that was how things might go if I was lucky, I reminded myself. If not, I could find myself on a slow train back to Seattle at a moment’s notice.
As we’d been warned, dinner wasn’t much. We might get sick during the Change if we had food on our stomachs, so all we were allowed was lemonade, a few tiny hard candies, and all the water we cared to drink. Then, one by one and two by two, they began leading us off to be transformed into what otherwise would have eternally been our ghostly, not-quite-real alternate forms. They took Midnight first, which was no surprise, and Kimball. “See you in a couple days, when we can talk again!” Kimball declared, waving to everyone. His tone was brave, even though the shiny track of a single tear down his cheek betrayed the frightened boy beneath the false front. Midnight smiled and waved as well, then looked directly at me. “Everything’s going to turn out all right for you, David. More than all right, even. For both of us together and for everyone. So don’t worry— I’m quite certain about it.” Then he meowed, the first time I’d ever heard him do such a thing, and was gone.
“What did he mean by that?” Guardian demanded.
“Just what it sounded like, I suppose,” I replied with raised eyebrows. “How should I know?” Then I noticed that every wizard and apprentice in the room was either staring at me or whispering in each other’s ear, and blushed.
“They’re going to Change you for sure now, I bet!” she answered, smiling. “Now that he’s said that, I mean.” I grinned back. Had Midnight done it on purpose just to get me Changed, I wondered? Or had he genuinely experienced some kind of prophetic insight? Only he could know for sure, which was the beauty of the thing. I actually chuckled a little, it seemed so funny. Who would really be in charge in his case, master or slave? Either way, I was grateful to him.
Next they came for Suzy and Carmen. The latter was busy in the women’s facilities, however, so there was a bit of a delay. We’d all been singing camp songs together to help ease the strain, but all of us broke out in laughter when we say that her mouth was stuffed full and that she was chewing furiously. “Carmen!” Guardian chastised her. “How could you?”
“Wouldn’t you do exactly the same thing?” she asked after she swallowed, meeting her counselor’s eyes dead on without flinching an iota. “Under the circumstances, I mean?”
Guardian scowled, but said nothing. Then they led the girls off, and there were only a handful of us left. Cynthia, left without anyone to sit next to, sort of eased up beside me and squeezed my upper arm, tightly enough to cause pain. But I said nothing until they called her, then offered her a reassuring smile as she looked back one last time with frightened eyes.
In the end, I was the last of all to be called. But called I was, though whether it was due to Midnight’s intercession or something else, I’d never know. “David,” Shaper himself called from the hallway. “It’s time. Baron Attache is waiting for you.”
