Emily and the Spellstone

by Michael Rubens

  “Did you hear someone screaming?” said Gorgo.

  “I don’t think so,” she said.

  “Maybe you should stop whatever it is you’re doing?”

  Emily shrugged again. Whatever the apth did, it didn’t seem to do it very well. She touched the icon and willed the program to shut down.

  Abruptly released by his avian escort, Mr. Petersen plummeted to the ground and landed roughly on top of his compost pile.

  “Okay,” said Emily, doing some more swiping. “What’s next? Hey, look at this!” she said, delighted to have found something she recognized.

  “What is it?” asked Gorgo.

  “I think it’s a book. A really famous one.”

  She tapped on the apth. Part of her mind was still on Mr. Petersen—​he sure gave her suspicious looks whenever she walked past.

  At that moment Mr. Petersen was staggering into his house. He wasn’t quite sure what had happened, but it seemed to have involved a lot of birds. Maybe, he thought, maybe I just fell and bumped my head. Because it didn’t seem likely that he had actually been picked up and flown in several circuits around his house. I must have bumped my head, he thought. Especially because I’m now hallucinating that there’s a very furry werewolf sitting at a potter’s wheel in my living room, crafting a mug.

  Back in her bedroom, Emily couldn’t figure out what had happened after she’d touched the second apth. As far as she could tell, nothing. “Well, that didn’t seem to work either,” she said. Anyway, she now realized that her previous excitement had been misplaced—​she had misread the name of the second apth. The runes had spelled hairy POTTER, not what she had initially thought. She shut that apth down too.

  In Mr. Petersen’s living room, the hairy pottery-making werewolf suddenly disappeared in a puff of blue smoke.

  Emily looked for something else. Ah, here’s one, she thought. Another game.

  “‘Crushed by Candy,’” she read out loud.

  “I wouldn’t,” said Gorgo.

  “Shh.”

  Mr. Petersen, in his dazed state, decided that perhaps he should go out for a walk around the block. That would do it. For some reason, though, he first picked up the mug that was lying on the carpet and examined it. The ceramic piece had remained behind when the werewolf and potter’s wheel had suddenly vanished. Mr. Petersen carefully placed the mug on the fireplace mantel. It was a nice mug.

  I’m sure there’s a rational explanation for all of this, he thought. Then he stepped out his front door, just in time to see his car get buried under several tons of brightly colored candy.

  Emily heard the crash and went to her window. She could see Mr. Petersen standing in his driveway. She could also see what he was gaping at.

  “Uh-oh,” she said.

  Angela Rodriguez, standing a few doors down from Mr. Petersen’s house, took out her notebook and added some notes to what she had labeled “The Emily Edelman File.”

  —​Mr. Petersen surrounded by dense cloud of birds, lifted into air, flown around house. Birds then leave, she wrote.

  —​Approximately five minutes later, Mr. Petersen comes out front door. Just then giant pile of candy appears from nowhere and covers his car.

  —​Swarm of birds returns. Each bird takes piece of candy and flies away until there is no more candy. Mr. Petersen now holding head and looking at car, which has been crushed nearly flat by the candy.

  Angela then watched the three Edelman children emerge from their house to observe Mr. Petersen. She wrote down in her notebook that Emily appeared particularly agitated.

  You might think that Angela herself might be disturbed or frightened by the scene. Then again, she’d already overheard and witnessed some pretty unusual things earlier in the day, when she’d been hiding in the library during Emily’s discussion with Ms. Hallgren. There was a nook at the back of the library where it was easy to conceal yourself, which she had done when Ms. Hallgren was shooing everyone out. Then Angela had silently crept out and found a spot behind one of the shelves where she could peer wide-eyed through a gap in the books at the unfolding scene and excitedly scribble down her impressions.

  When Gorgo made his appearance, she’d had to clap a hand over her mouth to muffle a whimper of fear and surprise. But her reaction was very different when Ms. Hallgren led Emily over to the bookcase of magical tomes. In fact, what Angela wrote in her notebook at that point was

  I KNEW IT.

  Then she wrote

  RESOLVED: MUST SPEAK WITH EMILY.

  Quite a crowd was gathered to watch the tow truck hoist Mr. Petersen’s car up onto the flatbed in preparation for transporting the ruined vehicle away. Even Hilary came outside, if only to take pictures and post them online.

  Emily didn’t watch. She went back inside, up the stairs, into her room, and into her closet. Then she closed the door and sat on the floor and hugged her knees to her chest.

  “How’s the practice session going?” asked Gorgo from inside the Stone.

  “Not so good,” said Emily.

  She wasn’t sure how long she would have stayed in there if the doorbell hadn’t rung. She ignored the first ring, and the second. And the third and fourth. When it became an insistent chiming, she finally went downstairs. Hilary was out back, texting. Dougie was in the basement, probably breaking things. The doorbell rang again. Emily jerked open the front door.

  “We need to talk,” said Angela Rodriguez.

  Emily shut the door in her face.

  The doorbell rang again, then rang several times more.

  Emily opened the door a crack.

  “What do you want?” she said.

  “I was in the library,” said Angela. “I heard every-thing.”

  Emily slammed the door again and leaned against it, panting.

  The doorbell rang again, then again.

  “Emily,” said Angela, crouching down to speak through the mail slot, “I think I can help you.”

  There was a pause. Then the door opened again, ever so slightly. Emily peeked through the one-inch aperture.

  “Help me how?”

  “I’ve read the user’s manual.”

  Chapter

  Ten

  “I don’t think I have any special powers or anything like that,” said Angela. “I just like to read.”

  She and Emily and Gorgo were seated on the floor in Emily’s room, eating from a bowl of tortilla chips and sipping on juice boxes (Hilary, watching Emily go upstairs with Angela, had said, “Why do you need three juice boxes?” “Just because,” said Emily). After a single whispered “wow” and a headshake after Gorgo had emerged in the bedroom, Angela seemed to have adjusted to his threatening appearance. Something about Angela, thought Emily, made her think of the term unflappable.

  Angela took a sip of her juice now and said, “I spend a lot of time in the library. After a while I started noticing this dark wooden shelf that I’d never seen before. So I started reading those books too, all these weird books about magic and enchantments. I thought it was some sort of joke, until today.”

  “And you read that whole gigantic user’s manual?” asked Emily.

  “No, it didn’t transform like that for me. It stayed small, just a few pages long. Like one of those quick guides that tell you about the important parts. I read that.”

  “So you know what all these things are?” said Emily, holding up the Stone to show Angela the apths.

  “Wait—​to me it just looks like a stone,” said Angela. “I can’t see what you see. But is there a moon in the upper right-hand corner?”

  “Yes. But it’s just a sliver now. And everything seems dimmer or something.”

  “Well, have you been charging the Stone?”

  “Charging it? How do I do that?”

  “You have to leave it in the moonlight. And that little moon is like the battery indicator. From what I read, the Stone is like a phone—​the more apths you use, the more power they take, and some take more power than others.”
<
br />   “What else?”

  “Hold on.”

  Angela pulled out her memo pad and examined her notes.

  “You know about m-post?”

  “M-post?”

  “Magic post. You know, electronic mail is e-mail, magic post is—​”

  “Got it.”

  “Lemme see. There’s a mapping function that tells you how to travel to different spots in the multiverse, and something about a type of money that lets you pay for new apths, or upgrades, or whatever,” said Angela. “It’s called . . .” She referenced her notes. “TwitCoin. Have you heard of that?” she said to Gorgo.

  “TwitCoin?” said Gorgo. “It’s Twexellian Interrealm Tender. It’s the most widely accepted currency across the multiverse.”

  Emily was frowning.

  “What?” said Angela.

  “This all helps, but I still don’t know how to really use the Stone and all the apths.”

  “Here’s the thing,” said Angela, indicating her notes again. “From what I read, it’s all about intention. The guide kept talking about that, how the Stone has what it called ‘inner voice recognition.’ It knows what you want. If you concentrate, it will show you the apth you need. But the apth is just part of a spell—​you have to focus your intention to direct the apth to work the way you want it to. I think the intention thing is pretty important. It kept saying how the Stonemaster has to stay focused on the goal.”

  “That’s what happened to poor Mr. Petersen!” said Emily. “I was thinking of him when I was playing with those apths, and all that stuff happened! That was all my fault! You see? I’m not a Stonemaster.”

  “You’ve got to stop saying that,” said Gorgo. “A little more practice and you’re going to be a stone Stonemaster of that Stone, Master.” He finished his juice with a gurgly slurp and then popped the whole box into his mouth.

  There was a sudden pounding on the door, followed by laughter and running footsteps. Emily didn’t bother to get up. It was the fourth time it had happened. She was used to this game.

  “Ugh. I can’t stand my little brother. Or my older sister.”

  “Really? I think you’re lucky,” said Angela. “At least it’s not just you.”

  Emily realized that she didn’t know anything about Angela—​all this time, they had been talking about the Stone and nothing else.

  “You don’t have any brothers or sisters?”

  “Nope. It’s just me and my parents.”

  So they sat for another hour, talking about regular things: school, their families, other kids, what books and songs and activities they liked. Gorgo mostly stayed silent, content to eat the rest of the chips, the bag, and finally the bowl.

  Chatting as if everything were normal, Emily felt for the first time as though she could breathe a little easier. As if she wasn’t so alone.

  “I guess I should get going,” said Angela finally, standing up. Emily joined her.

  “You should get going too,” said Emily to Gorgo, pointing to the Stone.

  “What? Can’t I just go out for a walk sometime, do a little evil?”

  “No. Get back in there.”

  “Fine, fine.” He stood, towering over both of them, then reached out a hand to Angela. “Nice to meet you. I hope we can still be friends after I eat this one,” he said, jerking a thumb at Emily.

  “Uh . . .” said Angela.

  “I’m kidding. I’ll probably eat you, too.”

  Then he folded himself up and into the Stone.

  Emily and Angela stood there awkwardly for a moment.

  “Well, thanks for coming over,” said Emily. “And for all the information.”

  “Sure.”

  They walked together downstairs and to the front door.

  “Well,” said Emily.

  “Yeah. See you tomorrow, I guess.”

  “Yeah.”

  Angela walked down the front steps and started to cross the lawn.

  “Hey,” said Emily. Angela stopped and turned. “Thanks.”

  Angela smiled. “You’re welcome,” she said, then waved and turned again. Then stopped once more and turned back. “Emily?”

  “Yes?”

  “Be careful.”

  That night Emily carefully placed the Stone onto her windowsill and got into bed.

  She couldn’t sleep. How, she wondered, had she ever worried about anything before she found the Stone?

  “Abrakadonkulous,” she whispered quietly.

  “Hey, kid,” Gorgo said when he had unfolded.

  “I can’t sleep,” said Emily.

  “What’s up?”

  “Do you think those people, those Venomuck people or whatever, do you think they’ll try something else?”

  “Yep. No doubt.”

  Emily was quiet a moment.

  “Gorgo,” she said, “I’m scared.”

  “Yeah, I don’t blame you,” said Gorgo. He saw her expression. “Sorry. Look, go to sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

  He sat down cross-legged, back against the wall.

  “Really?” she said.

  “Yup. I mean, I am your servant.” He reached out to her bookshelf and pulled off a book. “Ooh, I love this series.”

  “You’re not going to set it on fire, are you?”

  “No—​I’ll be very careful.”

  Emily didn’t know how he could read in the dark, but he seemed to be able to. She listened to him turning the pages, occasionally chuckling to himself, and she fell asleep.

  When she woke up in the morning, he was still sitting against the wall.

  “Morning,” he said.

  “Morning,” she said.

  There was a small pile of books around him. There was also a pile of something else.

  “Gorgo?” said Emily. “What are those . . . things?”

  They looked like massive spider legs, each three feet long, each ending in vicious pincers. They looked like they were made of metal.

  “Oh, these?” said Gorgo. “Your friends sent another nasty visitor last night.”

  “What! What was it?”

  Gorgo shook his head. “You don’t want to know,” he said. “It was, however, delicious.” He gestured to the remaining legs. “I’ll have the rest for breakfast.”

  “Gorgo?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  “Just doing as ordered, miss.”

  “The razor spider failed,” said Maligno Sr.

  “What?” said Acrimina.

  “It failed. I told you it would,” said Maligno.

  BRRRRRRZZZZZZ! There was a loud and unpleasant grinding noise.

  “Where is it now?” said Acrimina.

  “Where? Somewhere in the digestive system of that demonic creature, I imagine.”

  BRRRRRRRRRZZZZ!

  They were on the back patio, sitting on recently ordered lawn furniture fashioned from spines and rib cages. The sun was barely visible through the sulfurous yellow dinge of the clouds overhead. The children were playing in the backyard, which featured a skull-shaped decorative pond and terrifying lawn ornaments and was contained by thick stone walls at least twenty feet high.

  “We must bring the girl here, Maligno,” said Acrimina.

  “Yes, but how?”

  “I have a—”

  BRRRZZZZZZ!

  “Children, please!” said Acrimina. “Turn off that toy! You can play with it later.”

  “Awww!” they said. Maligno Jr. switched off the My Li’l Woodchipper, into which he and Maligna had been gleefully feeding a series of fluffy stuffed animals.

  “And even if we bring her here, how will we defeat her and get the Stone? The creature will protect her,” said Maligno Sr.

  “He will until he won’t,” said Acrimina.

  “Ah,” said Maligno.

  “Exactly,” said Acrimina. “We don’t need to defeat her. All we need to do is free him. Razor spiders aren’t the only things he’ll eat.”

  They smiled at each other.


  “So how do we get her here?” Maligno asked.

  “I have a plan.”

  “I knew you would, my love.”

  Chapter

  Eleven

  When Emily got to school the next day, her locker had several stickers on it, the kind you put on your chest that say HELLO, MY NAME IS ___________.

  Instead of a name were words like LOSER and WEIRDO and FREAK, all in different styles of handwriting. Emily scratched at the stickers with her nails, but they were stuck tenaciously to the smooth metal of the locker, and she could get off only one thin strip at a time, leaving behind a rough layer of paper and adhesive. As the day went on, she realized that she shouldn’t even bother, because every hour there were more and more nasty stickers slapped on by anonymous hands.

  At lunch Angela came over with her tray and sat down and Emily nearly hugged her.

  “Just ignore them,” said Angela.

  “That’s what parents always say,” said Emily.

  “Yeah.”

  “You think it works?”

  “Not really, no.”

  By the end of the day the surface of the locker door was nearly invisible: WEIRDO FREAK LOSER IDIOT UGGO LOSER LOSER LOSER, the insults literally piled one atop the other.

  Angela helped her peel off a few of the more obscene ones. “Just let the janitor deal with the rest,” she said.

  “Do you want to come over today?” said Emily.

  “Sure, yeah. I have chess club for an hour, but I can walk over after that.”

  “Great.”

  “Ma, I think I got one,” said Maligno Jr., coming in the back door. He was holding a mushroom in his hand, a mushroom so toxic that if you were to pick it up in your hand, you’d be dead right . . . about . . . now.

  Acrimina took the mushroom from her son and examined it closely, sniffing it. “It’s certainly the right shape,” she said, and held it up next to his ear while he giggled, because the mushroom did indeed resemble a disembodied (or dis-em-headed) ear. Then she brought it to her mouth and nibbled it experimentally. “Yes, this will do. Well done. Go be mean to your sister now.”

  “Yes, Ma!” He ran off. As Acrimina climbed the winding, crumbling stairway up to the high tower, she could hear the sounds of her children fighting each other with spiked clubs, and she smiled with warm pride.