The Conjure Book

by A. A. Attanasio

  Alfred rushed forward to greet her, a big smile on his freckled face. “Hey, Jane! I’m back from the dead! A day late! I missed Halloween!”

  Dizzy joy spun through Jane, unlocking her knees, and Ethan caught her under her arms.

  Alfred giggled to be swooned over, and Sheryl, who stood behind him, punched him in the arm. Together, they escorted Jane into the living room, which Alfred’s relatives packed. So overjoyed at his sudden recovery, they wouldn’t leave him alone. He had insisted on coming to Bosky Glen as soon as he had snapped awake shortly after midnight, full of energy and refreshed from his long sleep. His family had restrained him until morning.

  “I just had to see you, Jane,” he said, his brilliant eyes absorbing every detail of her spiky hair, sooty bruise-shadows and torn costume. “Wow, you’ve really got your freak on!”

  “Don’t pull that thread, Alfred.” Sheryl pressed close behind her red-haired friend. “She’s been through a lot while you’ve been snoozing.”

  “Hey, I’m here to celebrate you, Jane,” he said in one intake of breath, ready to tell her all about his horrible nightmare in the underworld where the green-eyed beast had gnawed on him with teeth of electric fire. A quiet look in her tired brown eyes stopped him. “You’re already with me, aren’t you?”

  “If love was algebra,” Jane said so softly only he could hear, “then, we’ve got an inequality problem. But you and Sheryl — you two are a whole lot more proportional. Get it?”

  Alfred executed a slow, searching turn of his head, touching with his astonished and freckled face each of the many relatives that thronged the living room. He appeared to be trying to fathom who among his kin would believe the mad and explosive truth Jane had set ticking in his brain. Obviously, no one promised to be strong enough, because when he faced Jane again he merely blinked his eyes and said in a hush, “We have to talk.”

  “Later,” Jane promised and hugged him as if trying to squeeze the light out of his bones. When she stepped back, tears of relief burned her cheeks. Jeoffry had died not only to save her but also Alfred.

  Alfred, flattered by her tears, stood speechless. Worried that the inexplicable coma could recur, his family whisked him away for more tests now that they had fulfilled his first waking wish. As he exited, promising to draw Jane a comic book about the evil fox, Sheryl stared knowingly at Jane and departed with a conspiratorial wink.

  Jane didn’t care what Sheryl suspected. With no reason to hold the secret close anymore, Jane was glad that she had a friend with whom she could share everything eventually and still hope to be believed.

  Before retiring to her room to get some rest, Jane sought out Mrs. Babcock, to apologize for Lester’s singed fur. And she wanted to find out why the usually hospitable landlady hadn’t been circulating among Alfred’s relatives and handing out her chewy cranberry cookies.

  She found the old woman sitting on the steps of the gazebo, relishing the warmth of the morning sun. Jane figured that the enduring influence of the elixir that the old woman had breathed off Lester’s fur continued undiminished. The landlady looked prodigiously happy and rocked gently to some lighthearted internal tune. Beside her on the step perched a dirty, antiquated tin can the size of a shoebox. Crusted with rust and clotted with soil, it appeared to have been untouched by light of day for centuries.

  “Look inside!” Mrs. Babcock exhaled a laugh when Jane sat next to her. “I found it by the scorched foundation stones of the house. It was protruding from a deep hole some animal had dug during the night.”

  Jane pried open the crumbly lid. A swatch of decayed leather lay on top, black and serrated along the edges and no more substantial than a decomposed leaf. Barely visible upon its decayed surface, a crudely drawn acorn and an oak leaf enclosed archaic letters that spelled:

  Bosky Glen — 1692

  “That’s the emblem of my ancestor, Elias Swaine, a ship’s captain in the Asia trade.” Her gray eyes shone like reflections of summer clouds. “Go ahead. Look beneath.”

  Delicately, Jane lifted a corner of the stiff leather and gasped. The interior of the can bedazzled her with a million rays of sunlight broken into the tiniest icy rainbows. “Are these real diamonds?”

  “Oh, yes. Mined in Borneo, then cut in Jakarta by the finest Dutch jewelers of the 17th century.” Mrs. Babcock set her shoulders proudly. “I read all about them in Elias Swaine’s journals when I was a girl. He earned them over a lifetime, trading cinnamon from the Moluccas, cloves from the Celebes, and pepper from Halmahera. But he hid them from the Puritans who burned the house, and for over three hundred years no one knew where they were — until now.”

  Hard bits of diamond fire lit Jane’s face, and her heart thrashed like a bird beating to be free. “This changes everything for you, doesn’t it?”

  “And for you as well, dear.” Mrs. Babcock’s owlish face smiled warmly. “I showed these stones to your father, and he estimates they’re worth between two and three million dollars! Bosky Glen is saved, Jane! You and your father will always have a home in Wessex.” The old woman’s smile tightened. “There is one very strange mystery, however.” She reached into the antique can and removed her ancestor’s acorn and oak leaf emblem. “How ever did this get in here?”

  Under the corner of the leather scrap, where Jane had not looked, she found a wedge of crustless white bread smeared with mulch and watercress.

  Between Worlds

  Jane floated up to her room, airy with happiness for Alfred and Mrs. Babcock. Her sadness for Jeoffry had congealed to sleepiness, and she cherished the possibility that she would meet her heroic familiar in her dreams.

  She closed the door, and as she neared her bed, she heard a muffled sound that turned her about with a leap: “Mmm-mmft! Nng-uhn!”

  Her teddy bear Chubs rocked back and forth on the bookshelf, and its small, furry snout puckered in and out, struggling to breathe.

  Jane whooped with joy and hurried to open her bedroom door.

  Lester romped in, scrabbled onto the bookshelf, where he swatted the squirmy teddy bear with both front paws.

  “Ah, yes!” The Manx dropped the teddy bear to the floor — and Jane’s familiar drew a deep, satisfied breath. “Jeoffry is once more on the premises!”

  Jane swept the cat into her arms and capered jubilantly around the room. “You’re alive!”

  “Alive-oh!” Jeoffry confirmed. “And oh-oh-oh! You’re making me dizzy.”

  “Brave, courageous Jeoffry!” Jane released the familiar onto her bed. “I thought you were electrocuted.”

  “Trick E received all the voltage.” Jeoffry quivered at the memory. “Lester and I are none the worse for wear. And you — well, what else is there to say but ‘congratulations!’”

  “You’re the one to be congratulated, Jeoffry.” Jane sat next to him on the bed and rubbed his furry head. “You killed Trick E and freed Alfred.”

  “An achievement of exemplary teamwork,” the familiar conceded, turning his head to be scratched between the ears. “And the look of surprise on that fox’s face was worth laughing a hearty one — which I should have done had I not been immediately disembodied by the shock. But you, young witch, you, in the thick of your plight, with your very survival in question, you possessed the presence of mind and the largeness of heart to work a conjure spell for the benefit of the venerable Babcock. The result is, Jane, you have proven yourself a benevolent witch, after all.”

  “I have?” Jane bit her lower lip with uncertainty. “I kind of lost it there, on the tower. You know, I — well, I wasn’t exactly kind or benevolent. In fact, I was downright wicked, wasn’t I?”

  “Distinctly, miss.” Jeoffry rolled languidly to his side, positioning himself for a belly rub. “But befriending me never required you to become a saint. Though for a while there, when you were zealously tossing spells about like bead necklaces at Mardi Gras, enchanting the household and — for Goddess’ sake! — your entire school, I did fear you might veer into black magic as did your m
entor Hyssop J. in her time. Blessedly, all worked out for the best.”

  “It did?”

  “How can you doubt it? You kept our secret exquisitely close. You used magic for the good of others. And you certainly befriended me, a familiar of high repute.”

  “But it was you who befriended me, Jeoffry,” Jane insisted. “If you hadn’t saved me from Trick E, he would have killed me.”

  “Wasn’t I simply marvelous?” Jeoffry’s eyes squinted with satisfaction. “My cowardly performance completely fooled that gullible fox and left him unguarded and vulnerable when my true ferocity revealed itself.” The Manx stretched and then rolled to all fours. “Do you yet surmise what ample harvest we shall reap for the good deeds we’ve sown?”

  Jane’s face brightened. “The Twilight with a capital T?”

  “Catnip meadows shall unroll beneath my gamboling paws!” Jeoffry twirled happily on the bed and raised an expectant and whisker-twitchy face to Jane. “But first, Jane, first our grimoire must be restored to its original place. That’s the key to the Twilight for me and the Admirer of Toads — and that’s the final act of friendship I shall require of you. So, young witch, do you think you can manage to nip out to the old hole in the knoll pronto and set us free? If I have to wait any longer I’m sure to explode!”

  “I’ll be sad to see you go, Jeoffry.” She regarded him unhappily. “You and Hyssop Joan have changed my life forever.”

  “Jane, please. Don’t get all boo-hoo with me.” Jeoffry swiped a dismissive paw at her. “You know felines are not a sentimental lot. Just be on your way, quickly now, and I shall meet you down the hole in the knoll soonest! Ta!”

  Jeoffry lay down — and Lester got up mewling. The sleepy cat walked a slow confounded circle around the bed before curling into a catnap on the counterpane.

  “Wait!” Jane exclaimed, a bubble of excitement expanding in her chest. “What about my mother? Am I really going to see her again?”

  Lester chewed at an itch on his flank.

  Whatever weariness Jane had been feeling disappeared entirely. She grabbed her backpack of caving gear and ran from the room so quickly she didn’t even bother to remove her torn costume. Down the spiral stairs she sped and out the front door before anyone saw her.

  While fiercely pedaling, she strove to anticipate what she would say to her mother, but she drew a blank. She found it difficult enough to believe that all had turned out well. Could all this be some hopeless wish fulfillment her dreaming brain had fabricated in a frozen stupor atop the switching tower? Several times, just to make sure she was awake, she bit her cheek till it hurt.

  She arrived at the hole in the knoll panting with exertion. Without waiting to catch her breath, she tied her fluorescent yellow rope to the spruce at the base of the knoll. She replaced her bike helmet with her mining hard hat.

  Not bothering to put on kneepads, climbing boots or even her sit-harness, she wriggled into the dark hole. Halfway down the chimney flue, she observed a pink radiance below. She sniffed for fire, sensed no smoke and continued lowering herself.

  Dropping into the fireplace, she crouched, peered in — and sank to her knees, amazed. The interior of the cottage appeared untouched by decay, intact as it had stood on an autumn day in 1626.

  A wood table lay cluttered with clay jars, a beveled looking-glass, melted candlesticks and an alchemist’s array of porringers, carboys, gallipots and stained-glass bottles. From the rafters hung chains of garlic bulbs, garlands of dried flowers, and sheaves of herbs. And on stools, windowsills, propped against table legs, and clustered in corners, apple-face dolls watched, poppets of supernal beauty, chubby-cheeked as cherubim, with plaited corn flax hair and hempen dresses.

  Most amazing of all, red sunlight ran through the crude windows! The ruddy glow in the thick panes lensed into watery reflections on the plaster walls and filled the antique chamber with a soft rosy brilliance.

  A rattle at the narrow door drew Jane’s attention to a rope handle and a jiggling timber latch. The door swung wide. Against the crimson face of the sun, shadows of a woman and a cat approached.

  The cat entered first, a thin, sable creature. It bounded onto a three-legged stool and stared with yellow eyes at Jane. The woman closed the door, and Jane drew a sharp breath through her teeth. She recognized this woman with brown eyes and hair the color of a cello.

  “Am I thus so strange that thy eye harbors no recognition of me, faithful Jane?” The woman opened her arms. “‘Tis I — Joan!”

  Jane crawled out of the hearth onto the slate floor and stood up. “You’re beautiful again!”

  “Ha!” the black cat chortled. “And I am Sir Walter Raleigh!”

  “Shush, Jeoffry.” The youthful Hyssop Joan picked up the cat and stroked his pelt. “Beauty ‘twas a virtue of my youth.”

  “No need to feed her ego, Jane.” Jeoffry squirmed free of Hyssop Joan and crossed the table, wending among the witch’s paraphernalia. “Vanity is moot for her now that she’s on the road to higher things. You do have the conjure book with you?”

  “Right here.” Jane reached under her costume and took the grimoire from her pocket. “I guess this means I won’t be conjuring any new spells. Not that I want to. That book got me into enough trouble.”

  “For thee the time of conjuring is done.” Hyssop Joan stepped around the table and took Jane’s hand in an icy grip. “The magic thou must work henceforth is not bestowed by grimoire or found in pages of a conjure book but in thine own heart. Love well thy days of merriment and of sorrow, Jane. A life of love is the greatest magic, for it makes of mirth a gift and of sadness wisdom.”

  “Spoken with honeyed tongue, dearest Weaver of Spells!” Jeoffry flowed to the table’s edge. “And now, at last, to the rapture at hand.”

  “Wait a minute. This is all happening too fast.” Jane gawked about at the witch’s sunny cottage. “Where exactly are we? I mean, we’re underground, right? So, where’s this sunlight coming from?”

  “Young witch, thou art far removed from the visible degree of things created.” Hyssop Joan squeezed Jane’s hand warmheartedly. “We meet here in the silent peace between worlds.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Jeoffry and I exist as spirits, darling Jane.” The witch led her across the room to an iron footlocker beside a small bed. “How should thee, child of flesh and blood, the invisible comprehend? Know this, Jane — thou art walking between worlds with spirits.”

  “Leave it to charming Joan to set your brain all-a-twitter with archaic blather about invisible mysteries. There’s just so much mystical anchovy paste a soul can stomach, you know.” Jeoffry lunged from the table onto the footlocker and stood there, a yellow-eyed shadow, whisking his tail impatiently. “Jane, you’ve proven yourself brave, resourceful, and — most importantly — kind. And now, if you will open this box and insert the grimoire, we shall bid you a very fond adieu.”

  “I’m going to miss you, Jeoffry.” She rubbed the cat’s head, and he purred affectionately. “And you, too, Hyssop Joan.”

  Jeoffry dropped to the slate floor, and Jane lifted the heavy iron lid of the footlocker. Joan winked and tossed the grimoire into the iron box. When Jane lowered the lid, the cottage door creaked open, flooding the room with sunset radiance.

  Jeoffry charged across the threshold and remained briefly tethered to the room by his lilac shadow, a shade that stretched longer and thinner as he dwindled away into the embers of an undying twilight.

  Joan paused briefly in the doorway. Eclipsing the red sun, she turned, and her silhouette blocked enough glare to reveal cloud plateaus, silver and purple, above meadows of wild flowers and chestnut avenues. The witch lifted a hand in salute, then closed the door.

  Introduction to Something Stranger:

  The Single Song of All

  The moment the door shut, the floor under Jane’s feet shook. Thunder pushed from deep in the earth. A sucking sound made her look down, and she watched water seep through the seams of
the slate floor. In moments, she sloshed ankle-deep in a quickly rising flood.

  She thought of grabbing one of the apple-face dolls as a keepsake, but before she could act, the ground swelled, nearly toppling her. A geyser of brown water erupted beneath the table with such force that the tabletop split asunder and smashed the witch’s pots and jars against the rafters.

  Jane thrashed through the swirling flood rising past her thighs and had to duck her head under the churning water to enter the fireplace. Her hands groped blindly for the rope as the torrent gushed up the flue and an undercurrent seized her ankles. Bracing herself against the sides of the chimney, she defied the undertow and grabbed at the loosening rocks. She felt the rope brush across her face, seized it in both hands, and hauled herself upward.

  The deluge shoved her faster through the narrow chute, and she burst into open air with a spluttering shout. Holding tightly onto the rope, she scrambled down the knoll even as the earth sank under her. At the spruce that anchored the rope, she swung around the tree just as the ground sucked away into a gurgling sinkhole.

  She let the rope go and ran till a root tripped her. When she looked back, a small, placid pond shimmered where the knoll had been. Its quiet, dark water reflected surrounding trees, the azure sky and a freight of cumulus clouds, all calm and unruffled, as though this pool had existed since time unrecorded.

  Jane’s bicycle and backpack sat on the ferny banks of the pond. She went to them timidly, not sure that the sinkhole had yet fulfilled its destiny. The earth squished under her weight, and she swiftly walked the bike away with the backpack resting on the seat. At a distance she reckoned safe, she stopped and removed from her pack a change of clothes she carried with her caving gear — black denims and a long-sleeved corduroy shirt.

  She stripped her wet garments and changed quickly in the chill air. Her whole body shivered, even her scalp, not from cold but fright.