Emily and the Spellstone

by Michael Rubens

  “So you’re not going to eat me?”

  “No! I mean, yes! I mean, I’d like to, I fully intend to, but . . . I have to help you!”

  Emily did a few more moments of staring.

  “You have to help me?”

  “Yes! I’m . . .” Here the creature appeared to undergo some sort of internal struggle, as if he—​or it—​was trying to prevent himself—​or itself—​from saying something vitally important that he—​or it, you get the point—​didn’t want to say.

  “I’m . . . I’m . . . I’m bound to your service and have to obey you!” he blurted. “Argh! Ahhh!” he said, and slammed his giant palm into his gigantic forehead several times. “Why”—​slam—​“did I have”—​slam slam—​“to tell her that?” Slam slam slam.

  Emily unsteadily got to her feet, her back pressed against the wall. “Who are you?” she said, because of the several hundred questions she had, that seemed like a good place to start.

  The demon drew himself up to his full height.

  “I am Baelmadeus Gorgostopheles Lacrimagnimum Turpisatos Metuotimo Dolorosum Tenebris Morsitarus.”

  To Emily it sounded like one long, many-syllabled word.

  “Baelma—?” she started.

  “Just call me Gorgo. That’s what my friends call me.”

  “You have friends?”

  He considered this for a moment. “Nnnno.”

  “Are you a . . . demon?”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Easy on the pejoratives, okay?”

  “The what-atives?”

  “The unpleasant names!”

  “You’re not a demon?”

  “Would you please? I’d prefer if you’d just think of me as a nearly immortal creature of evil intent with powers that you can’t even imagine. Who can bench-press a lot.”

  He flexed. Emily believed him.

  “And you have to obey me?” said Emily.

  “Yes! Until such time as I’m freed by some trick or power, at which point I will consume you! But until then I have to serve you.”

  “How?”

  “What do you mean, how? However. Do you have enemy armies that need smiting? Castle walls destroyed and the habitations put to flame? A mountain moved?”

  “Um . . . can you do math?”

  “Wha?”

  “How about wishes? Can you grant wishes?”

  “Do I look like a genie to you?”

  “How would I know?”

  “What are you talking about?” said Gorgo. “How can someone so ignorant be a Stonemaster?”

  The stone. The stone! She’d forgotten all about it. It was lying face-up on the floor, still glowing.

  “What is that?” she said, pointing to it.

  Gorgo seemed stunned. “You don’t know? It’s a Stone.”

  He said it in such a way that the capital letter was obvious.

  “A stone?”

  “No, a Stone. It’s one of the most powerful objects in the multiverse. It’s a device, shall we say, for the working of the greatest thaumaturgies. That is,” he added, looking at Emily sideways, “in the correct hands.”

  “Thauma-whaties?”

  “Hoo boy. Like I said, in the correct hands.”

  There was a knocking on the door.

  “Emily?” It was Mr. Petersen, his voice faint because of the acoustic insulation. “Emily, are you in there?”

  “Another person!” said Gorgo. “I’m going to eat him, too!”

  “No!” said Emily. “No eating anyone!”

  “What?!”

  “Just a minute, Mr. Petersen!” she said.

  “I can’t eat anyone?”

  “No! That’s an order!” she said, although she did think briefly about Kristy.

  “Is everything okay?” said Mr. Petersen.

  “All good! I’m just changing!”

  “You’re almost on!”

  “Okay!”

  “Why do I smell smoke?” said Mr. Petersen. “Can I come in?”

  “Hold on!” she called in the direction of the door. “Quick!” she said to Gorgo. “Hide!”

  “Okay! How’s this?”

  He was now crouching down behind a music stand, which didn’t do much to hide him because (a) even crouching down he was taller than Emily, and (b) it was a music stand and couldn’t have hidden a three-year-old.

  “That’s not working at all.”

  “Okay, ​can I hide behind you?”

  Emily blinked at him. “You have to get back in the stone,” she said.

  “I told you, it’s a Stone.”

  “Whatever! Get in there!”

  “I just got out!”

  “But you can go back in, can’t you?”

  “Yes, but it’s not the same as before. I won’t fit the same way!”

  “Emily, I’m opening the door!” said Mr. Petersen.

  “Too bad!” she said to Gorgo. “Get in there right now!”

  Gorgo sighed, rolled his eyes, and muttered something to himself. Then, just as the rehearsal door was opening, Gorgo suddenly folded himself in half backwards, and then that half folded again, and so on, a rapid bit of occult origami, until he had become a small package that hopped itself up and into the Stone as if it were jumping into a pool. And just like that, Gorgo was gone.

  Emily darted to the Stone, snatched it up off the floor, and held the glowing side against her stomach just as Mr. Petersen entered the room.

  “Emily, are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine!”

  “I thought I heard screaming in here.”

  “It’s just part of my act. I was practicing.”

  “I see. Have you been lighting something on fire? It smells like smoke in here.”

  “Does it?”

  “Your act doesn’t have any fire in it, right?”

  “No, nothing.”

  A muffled voice said, “Ugh, this is so uncomfortable.”

  “What?” said Mr. Petersen.

  “Nothing!”

  “Well, hurry up and get out there—​you’ve got about thirty seconds until Kristy is done. By the way—​she’s amazing.”

  “Great.”

  As Mr. Petersen escorted her firmly across the backstage area, Emily said, “Mr. Petersen, I really don’t think I can go out there.”

  “Nonsense,” he said. “You’ll be fine. It’s just stage fright.”

  “No, Mr. Petersen, you don’t understand,” she said, but he was already steering her toward the wings.

  “Get out there!”

  The audience saw Emily make her entrance—​or, more accurately, have her entrance made for her—​as she came stumbling onstage from the wings as if she had been given a very encouraging push.

  “Oh, look, there she is!” said Mrs. Edelman excitedly.

  “Oh, look, there she goes,” said Mr. Edelman.

  And indeed, Emily was trying to return to the wings. Now Mr. Petersen’s hands were visible, gesturing vigorously to her to stay out there. Emily turned to the audience with a dazed expression that said, Oh my goodness, those headlights are coming right at me. The audience chuckled, but it was a nervous chuckle, as if they wanted to believe that this was part of the act but weren’t sure.

  Dougie whispered loudly, “What is she doing? Is this supposed to be funny?” neatly summing up the question in everyone’s mind.

  From the Stone, Emily heard Gorgo say, “What’s going on?”

  “Be quiet!” she said, a bit too loud, and the chuckling from the audience stopped.

  “Oh. Em. Gee. She’s totally tanking,” said her sister. “This is so embarrassing.”

  “Shh!” said their mother.

  Emily looked out at the audience. They stared back in total silence. Her mother waved at her. Her brother was wide-eyed with fascination. Her sister was slouched down, a hand covering her face.

  “I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but I just discovered that this rock I found on the beach is a magic Stone and there was a demon who isn�
�t a demon but is like a demon trapped inside and he says he plans to eat me but for now he’s my servant and this all happened a minute ago and so I’m feeling just a little delicate and confused so if you’ll excuse me I think I’ll just go lie down in a dark room for a few days.”

  Is what she wanted to say, and very nearly did. But didn’t. Instead she stood there saying nothing.

  “Oh, boy,” sighed her father. Her sister sank down even farther in her seat.

  From the Stone came a few grunts and mutters, the sound someone trapped in a box might make as he shifted around, trying to find a more comfortable position. Emily hoped the people in the front row couldn’t hear it.

  She looked to her right. Mr. Petersen was still in the wings, nodding manically at her, his eyes wide. “Start! Start!” he mouthed. She looked the other way. There was Kristy Meyer, smirking at her.

  Well, forget that, thought Emily.

  “L-ladies and gentlemen,” she said, her voice quiet and shaky. She cleared her throat and tried again, more forcefuly this time. “Ladies and gentlemen!”

  At that moment she heard the loud and unmistakable sound of a belch.

  The audience heard it too. They burst into laughter. Kristy Meyer was practically doubled over.

  “Pardon me,” said Gorgo politely.

  But Emily barely had time to register the apology or the laughter. Her attention was focused on the tiny ball of flame—​like a little sun—​that had come floating lazily out of the Stone as if expelled by the burp. It landed on the velvet bag in her other hand.

  Which ignited and instantly became a mass of flame. Emily shrieked and hurled it away . . . right at the base of the stage curtains. And that’s when things got really bad.

  Chapter

  Four

  Let us step away from the proceedings for a moment. It’s important.

  Let us leave the school, and the Edelman household, and Earth, and even this universe, and travel to a dreadful, dark, dreary place.

  In fact, to Dreadful Place, the cul-de-sac on the narrow, jagged peak that rose high above the intersection of Dark and Dreary (and overlooked Desolation Park, where the swing sets were known to be carnivorous).

  On Dreadful Place stood—​or squatted, really, in a sullen, threatening manner—​a single dwelling, if you could call it that. The structure looked as though someone had found a particularly evil-minded architect and said, “I want you to combine the most sinister characteristics of a mansion with the baleful qualities of a fortified castle keep.”

  It was the sort of place that had at least one deep, deep dungeon where unspeakable acts were carried out, and a laboratory at the top of a high, high tower (only accessible via a mossy, crumbling spiral stone stairway) for equally unspeakable experiments. The sort of place where the decorative vegetation along the front pathway could kill you, or worse. The sort of place that was very definitely haunted, but where the ghosts were more afraid of the living inhabitants than vice versa.

  And with good reason, because this home belonged to the Venomüch family.

  Here’s how you pronounce that unusual name: Start by saying the word “venomous.” But when you get to the final syllable, imagine that you’ve just realized you have a spider in your mouth, so that the last part comes out as “uuuch.”

  And just as their uuuchy family name began with a V, so too do many of the words you might use to describe them: Vile. Villainous. Vain. Vicious. Vengeful. Vindictive. Venal, which is a fancy way of saying greedy. Vituperative, which is an even fancier way of saying bitter and nasty. And yes, violent, when it suited their wants and needs, and it usually did.

  At this moment, Archduke Maligno Venomüch the Thirteenth, proud patriarch of the Venomüch household, had a very specific want and need.

  “I WANT and NEED that STONE!” he said, slamming a fist down onto the polished black marble tabletop, inadvertently squashing a roachlike bug the size of a mouse that had been trying to steal his dinner roll.

  “Children!” snapped Archduchess Acrimina Deleteria Venomüch, Maligno’s wife. “That’s disgraceful!” The children, cursing under their breath, ceased jousting with their forks to skewer the flattened remains of the bug. Their mother immediately stabbed the bug herself and popped it into her mouth.

  “Maaaaaaa!” said Maligna, their daughter.

  “That’s not fair,” said Maligno the Fourteenth, their son. They were twins. Emily might say they were about her own age. That is, after she’d stopped screaming.

  “SILENCE!” bellowed their father, bringing his fist down again. The children looked hopefully to see if there might be another squashed bug.

  If Emily had indeed been observing the family, she would have seen four . . . well, let’s not call them people. Let’s call them individuals. They were seated around the black marble table, which was a repurposed gravestone. The table was at the center of a shadowy room lined with dark wood and lit with sconces and candles. Crowding the walls were innumerable swords and other deadly weapons, as well as trophy plaques with heads of snarling grotesque beasts.

  The Venomüches were dressed appropriately for the room. Emily would think of their clothes as old-fashioned formalwear from a time when people used muskets and fought duels and attended elaborate balls—​although you certainly wouldn’t want to attend any balls the Venomüch clan had been invited to. The clothes were all black. There were lots of ruffles and whatnot. Maligno the elder had a severe black beard and mustache. Acrimina was extremely beautiful without being the least bit attractive, the sort of beauty that you immediately knew hid an equally ugly soul.

  The children were exactly the sort of offspring you would expect from such a couple.

  Every member of the family had red eyes and very pointy teeth.

  Looking at any of them, a person might think Vampire. But an actual vampire looking at them would think, Help! Get me out of here!

  That’s how scary the Venomüch family was.

  “I want that Stone!” repeated Maligno Sr. “It has resurfaced. Someone has it. I can feel it! It’s out there somewhere!”

  “Yes, dear,” said Acrimina absently. She was paging through an upscale housewares catalog featuring terrifying furniture and talking mirrors and assorted spooky chandeliers and the like.

  “Dad,” said Maligno Jr., “what’s the big deal about that stupid Stone?”

  “Yeah, Dad,” said Maligna. “Who cares?”

  From somewhere in the room came a growling noise.

  “My darlings,” said Maligno Sr., “I CARE!”

  He smashed his fist on the gravestone table again. A crack appeared. Acrimina, without looking up, calmly dog-eared a page in the catalog featuring gravestone tabletops. There was another growl.

  “But why?” said Maligna.

  “Yeah, why?” echoed Maligno Jr.

  “‘Why?’” said Maligno Sr., his eyes flashing. “You know, for nearly limitless power to help us impose our will on the multiverse, work more evil, advance our family’s perverse goals, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”

  “Oh, right, got it,” said the children.

  “And once the Stone is in our possession, we will be unstoppable! HA HA HA!”

  The archduke didn’t actually laugh. He didn’t know how. That’s how evil he was. He simply said, “Ha ha ha.” The children, however, were able to laugh and did so, a sound like nails on a chalkboard, if the nails belonged to a yowling cat.

  Once more the growl. The archduke’s eyes flicked toward one of the mounted heads on the wall.

  “I think that one’s still alive, Dad,” said Maligno Jr.

  Acrimina, turning a page, said, “The Stone sounds lovely, dear. Very important.”

  “Yes, my love,” said Maligno Sr.

  “You should probably find a way to get it, don’t you think?” said Acrimina.

  “Yes, my love,” repeated Maligno Sr. “But if the Stone has resurfaced, it must be in the possession of a Stonemaster.”

  “A Stonemas
ter,” said Acrimina. “Yes, I suppose so.”

  The growl was continuing at a low, querulous pitch.

  Without looking up from her catalog, Archduchess Acrimina Deleteria Venomüch flicked her wrist, sending her fountain pen streaking through the air so fast it was almost invisible. There was a sharp yelp. The growling ceased.

  “I’m sure we can find some way to deal with the Stonemaster,” said Acrimina.

  At that moment—​as much as you can say “at that moment,” because time moves differently for different dimensions—​the Stonemaster was riding in a minivan with her family, trying not to cry.

  “Great job,” said Hilary.

  “Shut up,” muttered Emily.

  “It was awesome!” said Dougie.

  “Shut up,” said Hilary.

  “You shut up!”

  “All of you shut up!” said their dad from the front seat.

  They were all soaking wet. They were not the only family in that condition. There were currently many cars filled with soaking-wet children and parents on their way home from the school. That’s what happens when an automatic sprinkler system goes off in an auditorium.

  It had been total chaos. After Emily shrieked and threw the burning bag, the flames jumped to the curtains and spread rapidly upward. The audience went from midlaugh to shouts of “Fire! FIRE!” as people screamed and rose out of their seats. Mr. Petersen had both hands clapped to the sides of his head. Emily was staring wide-eyed at the flames, repeating, “Oh, no. Oh, no.” Then suddenly it was a tropical downpour as the sprinkler system came alive. Emily couldn’t believe that so much water could come down so quickly.

  Afterward, more chaos. Emily remembered the scene in snippets: The fire department arriving. Mr. Petersen saying, “I told you not to use fire!” Emily protesting that she hadn’t. Emily’s parents interrogating her in front of Mr. Petersen and the fire marshal, fingers pointing to the charred remains of the bag and the semi-melted cell phone inside.

  “There are no matches or other incendiary device,” said the fire marshal. “My guess is that the battery in that old cell phone somehow had a charge in it and shorted out, causing the fire. I’ve seen it happen before.”

  There was one other thing: In the midst of it all, Emily realized that the Stone was still glowing in her hand—​but no one else seemed to notice. She was the only one who could see it. And she wished she couldn’t. And as she thought that, the glow disappeared and the Stone was just a stone again.“I can’t believe this,” said Hilary now from the back seat. “My new friends are already texting about it!”