She scooted, around the corner into the dining room, around the second corner into the living room, and straight into her little sister, bumping loose the topmost textbook in the small pile she was carrying, and scattering half her armload of pink plastic curlers. Nita bent to help pick things up again. Her sister, bent down beside her, gave Nita just one look and then said under her breath, “Virella again?”
Nita sighed and just nodded. Dairine was eleven years old, redheaded like their mom, gray-eyed like Nita, and precocious; she was taking tenth-grade English courses and breezing through them, and Nita was teaching her some algebra on the side. Dairine had her father’s square-boned build and her mother’s grace, and a perpetual, cocky grin. As far as Nita was concerned Dairine was a great sister, even if she was a little too smart for her own good.
“Yeah,” Nita said. “Look out, I’ve gotta go lie down.”
“Want me to beat up Virella for you?”
“Be my guest,” Nita said. She went on through the house, back to her room. Bumping the door open, she fumbled for the light switch and flipped it on. The familiar maps and pictures looked down at her—the National Geographic map of the Moon and some enlarged Voyager photos of Jupiter and Saturn and their moons.
Nita eased herself down onto the bottom bunk bed, groaning softly—the deep bruises were starting to bother her now. Oh jeez, she thought, what made me say that? If Dari does beat Joanne up, I’ll never hear the end of it. Dairine had once been small and fragile and even more subject to being beaten up than Nita—mostly because she’d never learned to curb her mouth either—so Nita’s parents had sent her to jujitsu lessons at the same time they sent Nita. On Dari, though, the lessons took. About a month and a half after Dairine’s lessons started, one or two overconfident kids had gone after her and had been thoroughly and painfully surprised. These days Dairine was more than confident enough—and protective enough—to willingly take on Joanne and throw her clear over the horizon. Nita covered her eyes at the thought, wincing. The news would be all over school in seconds. Nita Callahan’s little sister beat up the girl who beat Nita up: wait’ll you see the video! And the trouble wouldn’t stop there…
Her door opened slightly, and Dari stuck her head in. “Of course,” she said, “if you’d rather do it yourself, I’ll let her off this time.”
“Yeah,” Nita said, “thanks.”
Dairine made a face. “Here,” she said, and pitched Nita’s jacket onto the end of the bed, and then right after it chucked the book at her. Nita managed to field it while holding the icepack in place with her other hand. “Left it in the kitchen,” Dairine said. “Gonna be a magician, huh? Make yourself vanish when they chase you?”
“Yeah, right. Go curl your hair.”
When she was gone, Nita sat back against the headboard of the bed, staring at the book. But why not? If this was—if it’s real, who knows what kinds of spells you could do? Maybe I could turn Joanne into a turkey. Like she’s not one already. She laughed under her breath, though it hurt. Or maybe there’s a spell for getting lost pens back.
…Though the book made it sound awfully serious, as if the wizardry were for big things. Maybe it’s not right to do spells for little stuff like this? And anyway, you can’t do the spells until you’ve taken the Oath, and once you’ve taken it, that’s supposed to be forever.
Oh, come on, it’s a joke! What harm can there be in saying the words if it’s a joke? And if it’s not, then…
Then I’ll be a wizard.
Her father knocked on her door, then walked in with a plate loaded with dinner and a glass of cola. Nita grinned up at him, not too widely, for moving her face was hurting worse all the time. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Here,” he said after Nita took the plate and the glass, and handed her a couple of aspirin. “Your mother says to take these.”
“Thanks.” Nita took them with the Coke.
Her dad sat down on the end of the bed. “Nita,” he said, “this scene is getting a little too familiar, don’t you think?”
“Huh?”
He looked somewhat lost for words. “Once or twice, sure, this kind of thing can be expected to happen while you’re going through school. Personality conflicts. I had a few when I was your age. But it’s been getting to be a couple times a week, lately. You want me to speak to Joe Virella? Ask him to have a word with Joanne?”
“No!”
Nita’s father stared at his hands for a moment. “Then what am I supposed to do? We can’t let this keep happening. Pretty soon I’ll have no choice but to take it up with the school—”
“No, please don’t! It won’t help.”
“Nita. Something has to change. Why does this keep happening? You had the lessons! Why don’t you hit them back?”
“I used to! You think it made any difference? Joanne just got more kids to help.” Her father gave her a stern look: Nita flushed. “Daddy, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. But fighting back just gets them fixated on you. It doesn’t help.”
“It might help keep you from getting mangled every week, if you didn’t give up so fast!” her father said. The anger in her voice surprised her. “We can’t take them on for you, Nita! Don’t you think I wish I could? I hate to admit it, but I’d enjoy seeing somebody give that obnoxious rich kid a taste of her own medicine…”
So would I, Nita thought. That’s the problem. She swallowed, feeling guilty over how much she wanted to get back at Joanne somehow. “Dad, this isn’t some personality conflict. That maybe could get fixed. But Joanne and her crowd just don’t like me, and it’s partly because I don’t care if they do! I’m not interested in the stuff they like, and I don’t want to be. Which makes me a target, because in their own heads, they’re a big deal. Anybody who doesn’t agree with that makes them mad every time they see them. That’s all it is.” She sighed. “Some day they’ll find somebody they like even less and get bored with me…”
Her father shook his head sadly. “Some day? I’m tired of seeing you hurt right now.” He looked at her again. “Sweetheart, I don’t know… if you could just, I don’t know, pretend to be a little more like them…” Then he trailed off, running one hand through his silver hair. “What am I saying?” he muttered. “Look. We’re going to have to stop this, one way or another. We’ll sit down and make a plan when you’re feeling better. But for the moment, if you do think of anything I can do to help, you’ll tell me?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Let’s think about tomorrow. Will you be up to raking up the backyard a little? I want to go over the lawn around the rowan tree with the aerator, maybe put down some seed.”
“Sure, Dad. I’ll be okay by then.”
“My girl.” He got up. “You finish that up and then get some rest.” He got up and headed out the door, forgetting to close it behind himself as usual.
Nita ate her supper slowly, for chewing made her jaw ache, and she found she had to work to think about something besides Joanne or the book that now lay there on the bed beside her. The Moon’s at first quarter tonight. A good night for the telescope—the shadows in the craters will really show up. Or there’s that new comet. Might have a little more tail than it did last week…
It was completely useless. The book lay there on her bed and stared at her, daring her to do something childish, something silly, something absolutely ridiculous.
Nita put aside her empty plate, picked up the book, and stared back at it.
“All right,” she said under her breath. “All right.”
She opened the book at random. And on the page to which she opened, there was the Wizard’s Oath.
It was not decorated in any way. It stood there, a plain block of type all by itself in the middle of the page, looking serious and important. Nita read the Oath to herself first, to make sure of the words. Then, hurriedly, before she could start to feel silly, she read it out loud.
“‘In Life’s name, and for Life’s sake,’“ she read, “‘I say that I will use the Art
for nothing but the service of that Life. I will guard growth and ease pain. I will fight to preserve what grows and lives well in its own way; and I will change no object or creature unless its growth and life, or that of the system of which it is part, are threatened. To these ends, in the practice of my Art, I will put aside fear for courage, and death for life, when it is right to do so—till Universe’s end.’“
The words seemed to echo slightly, as if the room were larger than it really was. And as she finished reading the Oath, Nita suddenly realized something. Without her glasses, everything else in her room was a little fuzzy—but not the words she’d been reading, the words in the book.
With the realization, a chill went down her back. Nita sat very still, wondering what the ordeal would be like, wondering what would happen now. Only the wind spoke softly in the leaves of the trees outside the bedroom window; nothing else seemed to stir anywhere. Nita sat there, and slowly the tension began to drain out of her as she realized that she hadn’t been hit by lightning, nor had anything strange started happening to her. Now she felt silly—and suddenly tired, too. The effects of her beating were catching up with her.
Nita took another look at the Oath. The page was as fuzzy to look at now as any page should have been without her glasses to help. She shook her head at her own gullibility, then shoved the book under her pillow, lay back against the headboard and closed her hurting eyes. So much for the joke, Nita thought. She’d have a nap, and then when it was dark later she’d get up and take the telescope out back. But right now… right now…
After a while, night wasn’t night anymore; that was what brought Nita to the window, much later. She leaned on the sill and gazed out in calm wonder at her back yard, which didn’t look the same as usual. A blaze of undying morning lay over everything, bushes and trees cast light instead of shadow, and she could see the wind. Standing in the ivy under her window, she turned her eyes up to the silver-glowing sky to get used to the brilliance. How about that, she said. The back yard’s here, too. …Next to her, the lesser brilliance that gazed up at that same sky shrugged slightly. Of course, it said. This is Timeheart, after all. Yes, Nita said anxiously as they passed across the yard and out into the bright shadow of the steel and crystal towers, but did I do right? Her companion shrugged again. Go find out, it said, and glanced up again. Nita wasn’t sure she wanted to follow the glance. Once she had looked up and seen— I dreamed you were gone, she said suddenly. The magic stayed, but you went away. She hurt inside, enough to cry, but her companion flickered with laughter. No one ever goes away forever, it said. Especially not here. Nita looked up, then, into the bright morning and the brighter shadows. The day went on and on and would not end, the sky blazed now like molten silver….
The Sun on her face woke Nita up. Someone, her mother probably, had come in late last night to cover her up and take the dishes away. She turned over slowly, stiff but not in too much pain, and felt the hardness under her pillow. Nita sat up and pulled the book out, felt around for her glasses on the bedside table, and then remembered they weren’t there. The book fell open in her hand at the listing for the wizards in the New York metropolitan area, which Nita had glanced at the afternoon before. Now she squinted down to read the first column of names, and her breath caught…not just because once again she found she didn’t need to squint, but at the sight of what she read there on the page.
CALLAHAN, Juanita L.
243 E. Clinton Ave.
Hempstead, NY 11575
(516) 555-6786
(novice, pre-rating)
Her mouth fell open. She shut it. I’m going to be a wizard! she thought.
Nita got up and got dressed in a hurry.
Preliminary Exercises
She did her chores that morning and got out of the house with the book as fast as she could, heading for one of her secret places in the woods. If weird things start happening, she thought, no one’ll see them there. I can’t believe it, this is so great, I’m going to get that pen back! And then… Even though she had no idea what “then” looked like, Nita couldn’t bring herself to care.
Behind the high school around the corner from Nita’s house was a large tract of undeveloped woodland, the usual Long Island combination of scrub oak, white pine, and sassafras. Nita detoured around the school, pausing to scramble over a couple of chain-link fences. There was a path on the other side; after a few minutes she turned off it to pick her way carefully through low underbrush and among fallen logs and tree stumps. Then came a solid wall of clumped sassafras and twining wild blackberry bushes. It looked totally impassable, and the blackberries threatened Nita with their thorns, but she turned sideways and pushed through the wall of greenery undaunted.
She emerged into a glade walled all around with blackberry and gooseberry and pine, sheltered by the overhanging branches of several trees. One, a large crabapple, stood near the edge of the glade, and there was a flattish half-buried boulder at the base of its trunk. Here she could be sure no one was watching.
Nita sat down on the rock with a sigh, put her back up against the tree, and spent a few moments getting comfortable—then opened the book and started to read.
*
She found herself not merely reading, after a while, but studying: cramming the facts into her head with that particular mental stomp she used when she knew she was going to have to learn something by heart. The things the book was telling her now were not vague and abstract, as the initial discussion of theory had been, but straightforward as the repair manual for a new car, and nearly as complex. There were tables and lists of needed resources for working spells. There were formulas and equations and rules. There was a syllabary and pronunciation guide for the 418 symbols used in the wizardly Speech to describe relationships and effects that other human languages had no specific words for.
The information went on and on—the book was printed small, and there seemed no end to the things Nita was going to have to know about. She read about the hierarchy of practicing wizards—her book listed only those practicing in the U.S. and Canada, though wizards were working everywhere in the world—and she scanned down the listing for the New York area, noticing the presence of Advisory wizards, Area Supervisors, Senior wizards. She read through a list of the “otherworlds” closest to her own, alternate earths where the capital of the United States was named Huictilopochtli or Lafayette City or Hrafnkell or New Washington, and where the people still called themselves Americans, though they didn’t at all match Nita’s ideas about the word.
She learned the Horseman’s Word, which gets the attention of any member of the genus Equus, even the zebras; and the two forms of the Mason’s Word, which give stone the appearance of life for short periods. One chapter told her about the magical creatures living in cities, whose presence even the nonwizardly people suspect sometimes—creatures like the steam-breathing fireworms, packratty little lizards that creep through cracks in building walls to steal treasures and trash for their lair-hoards under the streets. Nita thought about all the steam she had seen coming up from manhole covers in Manhattan and smiled, for now she knew what was causing it.
She read on, finding out how to bridle the Nightmare and learning what questions to ask the Transcendent Pig, should she meet him. She read about the Trees’ Battle—who fought in it, who won it, and why. She read about the forty basic classes of spells and their subclasses. She read about Timeheart, the eternal realm where the places and things people remember affectionately are preserved as they remember them, forever.
In the middle of the description of things preserved in their fullest beauty forever, and still growing, Nita found herself feeling a faint tingle of unease. She was also getting tired. She dropped the book in her lap with an annoyed sigh, for there was just too much to absorb at one sitting, and she had no clear idea of where to begin. “Crap,” she said under her breath. “I thought I’d be able to make Joanne vanish by tomorrow morning.”
Nita picked the manual up again and leafed throu
gh it to the section labeled “Preliminary Exercises.”
The first one was set in a small block of type in the middle of an otherwise empty page.
To change something, you must first describe it. To describe something, you must first see it. Hold still in one place for as long as it takes to see something.
Nita felt puzzled and slightly annoyed. This didn’t sound much like magic. But obediently she put the book down, settled herself more comfortably against the tree, folded her arms, and sighed. It’s almost too warm to think about anything serious…. What should I look at? That rock over there? Naah, it’s kind of dull-looking. That weed … look how its leaves go up around the stem in a spiral. Fibonacci series… Nita leaned her head back, stared up through the crabapple tree’s branches. Damn Joanne. Where’d she have hidden my pen? I wonder, could I sneak into her house somehow, after dark? Maybe there’s a spell for that. Maybe I could do it tonight…. Wish it didn’t take so long to get dark this time of year. Nita looked at the sky where it showed between the leaves, a hot blue mosaic of light with here and there the fire-flicker of sun showing through, shifting with the shift of leaves in the wind. There are patterns, kind of. The wind never goes through the same way twice. And there are patterns in the branches, but they’re never quite the same either. And look at the changes in the brightness. The sky is the same but the leaves cover sometimes more and sometimes less … the patterns … the patterns, they … they…
They won’t let you have a moment’s rest! the crabapple tree said.
Nita jumped, scraping her back against the trunk as she sat up straight. She’d heard the tree quite plainly in some way that had nothing to do with spoken words. It was light patterns she’d heard, and wind movements: leafrustle and fireflicker.