I left the office early and headed in the opposite direction from the plaza, looping around so I could approach another way. I didn’t want to risk being seen leaving that magical building they’d tried to expose. That would pretty much kill my cover. When I arrived a few minutes early, Abigail and the woman from the bridal sale were already there. “So, you’ve seen the light,” Abigail said by way of greeting as I approached.
“More like I’m curious about the light,” I replied. “I’m not entirely convinced.”
The bridal sale woman waved the wand of the magic detector over me and reported, “She’s still registering the same way.”
“Do you know what this means?” Abigail asked.
“I have no idea,” I replied with a shrug. “I kind of think it means you’re hitting a button on your gizmo to make it look like a serious result.”
The woman tested herself and showed that the readout was in the dead center. “This is normal,” she said. She tried it again with me, and the needle went all the way to the left. “This is you. It’s the same with Abigail.” She demonstrated on her leader.
“Yes, but what does that mean?” I asked.
“It means you’re untouched by magic, and that’s something of a miracle in this city, which is heavily contaminated by magic,” Abigail said. “Living here and remaining pure means you’re special. But there are other effects. What do you see over there?” She pointed to the MSI headquarters.
I weighed my response. It would really blow their theory if I pretended not to see it, but I wasn’t sure what they’d do. I also knew I couldn’t sustain that kind of charade if I didn’t know what other people saw, so I’d probably be caught. Besides, my job was to infiltrate them, and that would probably go better if they thought I had whatever ability their leader had. “There’s an office building that looks like it could be a castle,” I said. “It’s been there as long as I can remember.”
They looked at each other and nodded. “You need to come with us.” Abigail waved and a battered silver sedan pulled up to the curb.
“Whoa, I don’t think so,” I said, shaking my head. “You said we’d meet here, in public. You didn’t say anything about going with you. We can talk here, but I’m not going anywhere.” I crossed my arms over my chest to indicate my firm stance.
“You must come with us,” Abigail insisted.
“Okay, then, I’m out,” I said, turning and heading toward the subway. I hoped they’d back down and agree to talk here. Otherwise, if they called my bluff and let me go, I’d lose this avenue of investigation. What I didn’t expect was to have my arms grabbed on either side. “Hey!” I protested, struggling.
“We’re not going to hurt you, but you need to come,” the bridal sale lady said.
She and Abigail hustled me between them toward the waiting car. I could probably have put up a fight and escaped, and I suspected there was at least one gargoyle lurking behind something nearby who would have helped. Screaming might even have helped, though in this city you never knew. But I wanted to know what they had to say, so I had to go against every instinct and let them drag me to that car and shove me into the backseat, with me putting up enough of a token protest to not look suspicious. Abigail took the seat next to me, with the bridal sale woman in front. A man I didn’t recognize was driving. If something horrible happened, I knew I’d never hear the end of it from Owen. Though I guess if something truly horrible happened, I’d never know what he had to say because I wouldn’t be there to hear it. That was a cheery thought.
“So, what do y’all do when you’re not having demonstrations?” I asked as the car inched its way uptown. “I mean, are you trying to get policies changed, raise awareness, or what?”
“We want people to see the truth,” Abigail said. “People must remove the blinders that keep them oblivious to the true threat. You and I can see the world for what it is, no matter what they try to hide from us, but we must show the others how to see the truth.”
“And what is the truth?” I asked.
“The truth is that magic exists and is being hidden from us.”
I tried go back to the way I’d felt when I’d first learned about magic. So much had happened since then, it was hard to remember what it had been like to learn for the first time. I thought I recalled some skepticism on my part, in spite of the rather vivid demonstrations I’d been given. I would have been far less likely to believe under these circumstances. “Seriously?” I asked. “There’s magic? You mean like Harry Potter, Gandalf, and all that? You’ve got to be kidding. If that’s what this is about, let me out of this car, right now.”
“You saw the building.”
“Yeah. It was just a building. It kind of looks like a castle, but they used to have fun with architecture, and gothic-style stuff was big in the Victorian era. What’s the big deal?”
The bridal sale woman turned to face us. “The rest of us don’t see that building. The buildings next to it look larger and fill that spot.”
“And that’s proof that magic exists?”
“There is more,” Abigail said, but she didn’t elaborate.
If I’d been some random person off the street, this would have been far from convincing—well, the part about magic being real. I’d have been thoroughly convinced that I was dealing with some serious nutjobs. “Okay, this is getting too weird for me,” I said, tugging on the door handle. We were caught in gridlock, so it wasn’t as though I’d have to hurl myself out of a speeding car to escape. I just needed to step outside and walk briskly. The door didn’t open. They must have had the child safety locks engaged. “Hey, what’s up with this? Let me out.”
“As I said, we mean you no harm,” Abigail said. “But you must come with us.”
“This is kidnapping. Help! Someone!” I wasn’t quite as vehement as I would have been if I’d been truly serious, since I didn’t really want to escape. But I was uncomfortable enough that I was probably pretty convincing.
Abigail caught my wrist in an iron grip. “You’ll stay in the car and hear us out,” she said through clenched teeth. “Once you have heard all, it will be up to you to decide what to do.” She glared at me for a moment longer before releasing me.
I folded my arms across my chest and sat back, leaning against the seat. I almost expected them to throw a bag over my head so I wouldn’t know where they were taking me, but they made no move to do anything like that. I wondered what kind of clubhouse an anti-magic cult would have. Probably nothing nearly as interesting as a pro-magic cult.
I was rather disappointed when the car finally stopped in front of the same church where the other group had met. Did this church market to crackpot groups as a meeting location, or what? The driver kept the car running while the bridal sale lady hopped out and opened the back door for Abigail and me. She reached in and caught my wrist to pull me out of the car, and Abigail took my other arm as soon as she was out. The car took off, and they hustled me into the building and down the stairs into the basement.
We didn’t head for the larger hall where the other group had met, but rather to one of the small Sunday school classrooms, where folding chairs were arranged in a rough circle around the perimeter of the room. About half the chairs were occupied. I forced myself not to react when I saw the guy I’d thought of as the “puppy” who’d been pretending (I was sure) to investigate that bus incident. I wondered if they’d ever tested their magic detector on him.
We took seats—Abigail keeping me next to her—and sat in silence as a few more people trickled in. When it seemed the gang was all there, there were ten people. “We’re glad to have a newcomer with us tonight,” Abigail began. “Kathleen is pure of magic, like me. She can see and speak the truth.”
“Welcome, Kathleen,” the rest of the group intoned.
“We gather to share information on magic we’ve seen,” Abigail explained. “The rest of the city hasn’t noticed, or refuses to see. We’re amassing information so that one day we can prove to everyone w
hat’s really happening. We’ll be at the forefront of revealing the truth and exposing the evil.”
“It’s evil magic?” I asked. “You’re sure about that?”
“Absolutely. The very nature of magic is evil, drawing upon dark forces, and it’s used for the good of the magic users, which is often to the detriment of everyone else. It happens to everyone, every day.” She turned from me to address the group. “Now, how have we been harmed by magic since we last met?”
People in the group glanced uncomfortably at one another until one man across the circle from me spoke up. “A crooked shopkeeper used magic to force me to buy liquor I didn’t want,” he said. I thought that sounded like a weak excuse. While I knew influence spells existed, and I’d even seen them in use, it was more likely that he’d overridden his own judgment and bought alcohol that he really did want and was blaming it on someone else.
A woman to my right timidly raised her hand. “I got the last packet of the good chips at the deli at lunch yesterday, and they disappeared right from my hand.” That sounded a little more plausible. There might or might not have been a nonmagical explanation. But it wasn’t exactly the sort of thing to make anyone worried about wizards taking over the world.
The rest of the complaints were along those lines, either someone blaming magic for making them do something they probably really wanted to do or someone feeling victimized by petty injustices. In this setting, with typical Sunday school posters on the walls—maps of Biblical lands, that creepy portrait of a blond Jesus—it reminded me of people who would go on and on in church groups asking for prayers for their neighbor’s cousin’s friend’s hangnail, just because they wanted to be heard. It made me wonder where these people came from. Did they feel lost and invisible in this city, and being in the know about magic and having magical experiences to relate gave them something they could speak out about?
Finally, the complaint time ended, and I snapped myself back to paying attention. Abigail got up and went to the man “forced” to buy liquor. She put her hand on top of his head, closed her eyes, and said, “Ah, I sense the taint of magic on you.” I forced myself to keep a straight face when all I really wanted to do was smirk. I’d never thought to try to sense magic on someone who’d been under a spell, but I seriously doubted that this guy had been whammied, unless it was for some other reason.
She went around the room, resting her hands on each person, but not saying anything, then she gestured for me to join her. “Let’s see if you can feel the magic.”
I started with the woman to my right. I was wearing the necklace Owen gave me that magnified the sense of magic, and I hoped it would help in this case. Much to my surprise, I did detect a slight sense of magic around her. “It’s kind of tingly,” I said.
Abigail nodded. “Good. Now go on.”
I worked my way around the room the way she had done, calling out when I sensed magic. I must have been on track—or else she had no clue what she was talking about and was just agreeing with me—until I got to that first guy. “He’s been nowhere near magic,” I said, shaking my head.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “You must not be sensing accurately.”
“He feels different than the others.”
The man squirmed in his seat, and he couldn’t meet my eyes, even when I stared at him.
“You are new at this,” Abigail said dismissively.
“That’s probably it,” I said with a shrug.
I moved on to the guy I thought of as “puppy,” and I was fairly certain there would be enough magic around him to make my hair stand on end. Much to my surprise, he was no different from anyone else. There must have been a difference between someone who used magic and someone who had magic used on him. He looked up at me, the picture of innocence, and it was enough to make me doubt my suspicions about him. Maybe I’d been wrong about seeing him at the magical nightclub. He did look like the kind of generic young white guy you saw all over the city. Or maybe he was like Marcia and Gemma, in on the secret and at the club with a magical friend.
He showed no sign of recognizing me, even though he’d spoken to me on the bus. True, I’d worn my hair a different way that day, had put on more makeup, and I’d worn a hat, but I’d have hoped there would have been at least a flicker of recognition. Either he was very good at hiding his feelings and wasn’t letting anything show in this group, or I’d been so nondescript that I hadn’t even registered on him.
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
“Good,” Abigail said approvingly. “You only missed one.”
“I’m still not sure what this has to do with magic,” I said. “It’s just kind of like a vibe.”
“You’ll see a demonstration soon enough,” she promised.
The door to the room burst open, and a man I recognized as our driver came in, dragging a woman who looked vaguely familiar. I recognized her from work, but I didn’t know her name. When she glanced at me, I kept my face stony, hoping she wouldn’t bust me. “A witch!” the driver cried out. “I caught her changing the streetlight.”
This was getting serious if they were dragging people in for investigations. I thought we’d moved past this sort of thing centuries ago. The bridal sale lady waved the wand over the suspected witch, and the needle went all the way to the right. “Aha! A witch!” Abigail said. “What do you have to say for yourself, witch?”
I figured that whatever role I was playing, I couldn’t just stand by and let this happen. “Whoa, what are you people doing?” I demanded.
“You saw what the device said. And you’ve felt magic, yourself,” Abigail said.
“I don’t know what I felt, and I’m still not convinced by your gadget.” I turned to the driver. “What, exactly, did you see?”
“She waved her hand at the walk signal, and it changed.”
“Oh, come on!” I said. “Who hasn’t done that kind of thing when you’re impatient with waiting? I know I do it all the time—‘When I count to five, the signal will change. When I wave my hand, the signal will change.’ That doesn’t mean you made the signal change. Was it seriously out of sequence?”
“Well …” he said, dragging the word out and not meeting my eyes.
“You want to see proof of magic?” Abigail said. “We’ll show you magic.” She turned to the woman. “Show us some magic,” she demanded.
“I don’t know what you people are talking about,” the woman said. “You’re all crazy.”
Although she was lying, I thought she was right about the crazy part. Is it gaslighting if the people you’re lying to about what they see are already crazy in a different way? I didn’t think that telling them the truth was likely to help them or change anything about the way they saw the world. It would only make them more dangerous.
If the puppy guy was who I thought he was, I’d learned what I needed to know about this group, and I’d had enough of them. I doubted burning a bridge here would kill my investigation. I stepped forward and said to the driver, “Was she hurting anyone, even if she did maybe change the signal? Not that I’m saying she did.” I looked around at the rest of the room. “If there is magic, all any of you have described is petty little stuff. Don’t you think if there really was magic, it would be a lot bigger and more important? If there were wizards, wouldn’t they be doing more than stealing potato chips?”
A couple of people nodded thoughtfully. “But …” the driver began. “But it’s not fair,” he finally said.
“So it wouldn’t have also benefited the other people around her who also wanted to cross if she’d really changed that light?”
“It’s not fair to the other people who can’t do it,” he argued.
“And it’s not fair that some people can sing and my voice makes dogs howl,” I shot back.
While we argued, the “witch” took advantage of her captor’s distraction to extricate herself from his grasp. It took him long enough to react that she had a chance to get out the door and be well down the hallway before he
thought to go after her. I hoped she’d used her powers to hide herself or to get completely away. It could get ugly if we had to send magical people to rescue her from this bunch.
To cover her escape and keep the rest of the group from forming into a mob to go after her, I stood in the doorway, put my hands on my hips, and said, “If this is what you’re all about, I don’t want any part of it,” I said. “What is this, Salem? You’re acting medieval. If magic is real, I think it would be kind of cool, not something to be afraid of or to blame my problems on.”
The woman whose chips had allegedly been stolen stood up. “I’m with her. I’ll admit, I feel cheated that I never got my Hogwarts letter. If there’s magic, then maybe it’s something wonderful. I may not have magic, but that doesn’t mean I have to act like a Muggle.”
Abigail opened her mouth to protest, but another person in the group stood up. “Dragging in someone suspected of witchcraft was a step too far for me,” he said. “I’m out.”
More of the group took courage from their example and joined us. Soon, it was just Abigail, the bridal show lady, the guy who claimed to have been forced to buy liquor, and the puppy guy against all the rest of us. The ones who’d stood all looked to me, as though for guidance. I didn’t know what to do with them—start a new movement, the people who believe in magic but think it’s kind of okay?
For the moment, the best I could do was walk out. If they followed me, that was up to them. They did follow. When we were on the sidewalk outside the church, they clustered around me. “What do we do now?” one of them asked.
“Live your life?” I suggested.
“I mean, about magic,” she said.
“What do you think you can do about it? If it exists.”
They all looked at each other. “We can expose it,” one of the men said.
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