The Real Boy

by Anne Ursu

  And then, empty pages.

  All the way to the end.

  Oscar flipped back, and then ahead again. That could not be all. There were more words somewhere; somewhere in another volume . . . It could not end like this.

  With a swallow, Oscar closed the book and leaned back against the wall. The image of Galen’s entry stayed in his head, though he could not quite make sense of the words. It was not the world as he knew it.

  But the world as he knew it was changing under his feet. And there was nothing he could do but light all the lanterns in the house and try to believe it made any difference at all.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Shining City

  On Monday, Oscar did what he could to make things right, though everything was different, everything was wrong, and all day his heart thumped and his breath thinned and his head skittered and buzzed and his insides felt like they were being pulled in entirely wrong directions.

  In the morning he woke up, got dressed, laid food out for the cats, and got water. He swept the shop and dusted the shelves, in case any dirt had accumulated overnight, and then surveyed the store and set to work restocking whatever needed restocking. This was a good plan, a good routine—it was not his normal one, but it would do.

  Eventually Callie came by the shop to check on Oscar. She told him she had gone to see the blacksmith about the glass house yesterday—for if your guardian has taken off to find his fortune on the continent, the man who makes the weapons is the next best choice.

  And the blacksmith told her that it sounded terrible. And that the weather could do all kinds of nasty things to a garden. He said the glass house had never really been viable anyway—why else would Caleb have kept it hidden from everyone? He said you could never talk any sense into Caleb, who had dreams bigger than his magic. He said that even if there were some disturbance in the forest, nothing could touch them in the Barrow village. It was the safest place on earth.

  “Except the City,” Oscar interjected when Callie told him this part.

  Callie scoffed. “So they all seem to think.”

  “Well, it’s true!” Oscar said. “The City is the way it is because of the magic!”

  Callie folded her arms and stared levelly at Oscar. Oscar inhaled. Callie might not have had magic, but she knew how to immobilize someone with her eyes. “Then why aren’t we all like that?” she asked. “Why isn’t the whole Barrow rich and . . . sparkly?”

  “Because . . . because the City is special.”

  “Why?” Callie asked. “Because the shining people own the whole island? Because there’s magic around it? Did the magic make it? Did the City spring up fully formed from the ground, complete with excessive topiary and people who think they are better than everyone else?”

  Oscar’s eyes widened. “No! I mean . . . I don’t know. It just is.”

  “Well, that’s what they want us to believe.”

  “No, it’s—” He stopped. Callie seemed to have crackles shooting from her everywhere. “Why are you angry at me?”

  Callie’s eyes popped for a second, and then she leaned backward. Her whole body rearranged itself, and the crackles fizzled out. “I’m sorry, Oscar,” she said. “I’m not angry at you. I’m just . . . It’s this place. I don’t understand it. Everyone is so busy patting themselves on the back for having magic that no one does anything!”

  “Master Caleb will come back! He’ll do something.”

  Callie let out an exhale. “I hope so,” she said. She had that tone in her voice, the one people had when their words didn’t mean what they usually meant.

  “He will!”

  “Oscar.” Callie looked at him carefully. “His own apprentice was killed, and he left. To bring magical goods to the continent. For money.”

  Oscar blinked. “He didn’t know. He thought it was an accident. When he finds out, he’ll help. You’ll see.”

  Callie opened her mouth and then closed it quickly. She tilted her head, causing a curl to tumble out of her braid. “We should open the shop,” she said. “I can help for a while. I don’t have appointments until the afternoon.”

  “Good,” Oscar said. The entire conversation had left him out of breath and slightly dazed; customers might wreck him.

  Callie stayed for two hours while Oscar sat back and tapped his foot on the floor and watched carefully. He concentrated on what Callie said to people and kept a map of the essential phrases in his mind. And when she left, he repeated them exactly.

  How may I help you?

  Caleb’s not here; is there something I can assist you with?

  You will find it over there.

  Why don’t we try some ?

  Perhaps you might try this instead.

  He used them whenever possible, though they didn’t always fit in the places he put them. The only problem was that people tended to keep talking. He needed a better map.

  At night before he went into his room he did the same thing he’d done in the morning, but in reverse, filling his mind with each task so no other thoughts could push their way in. Back in his room he read more of the wizard book until sleep grew strong enough to overcome his will. And then he slept, and dreamed, and clutched at the little wooden cat and at the assurance that the next day everything would be the same as it had been today.

  That next morning, as he was dusting the shelves just in case any dirt had accumulated overnight, Callie came knocking at the door. Early. He opened it to find her standing there rod straight with her hands on her hips.

  “Um,” Oscar said, suddenly breathless. “Good morning?”

  “Oscar,” she said, her voice as firm as cherry bark, “I need your help.”

  “Oh!” Oscar said. “Good! Come in! Do you need me to make something, or—”

  “No. I need you to come with me.”

  “With you? Outside with you? Where?”

  “To see patients.”

  Oscar cocked his head. “Patients that are people?”

  “Yes.” She crossed her arms and glared at him. “People patients.”

  “I can’t,” Oscar said, immobilized. “I can’t do that.” Why was she asking? It was obvious he could not do that. He could not talk to people at all, much less patient people. Much less in front of Callie.

  “Yes, you can,” Callie said, her gaze unwavering. “Oscar, we had a deal. I am collecting right now.” She tapped her foot.

  Oscar grimaced. Callie stared. He opened his mouth to protest, and her eyebrows flew up.

  “All right?” Oscar said.

  “Good,” said Callie. “We’re going up to the City. Some of the—”

  Oscar started. “What? The City? I can’t go up there!”

  Callie set her jaw. “Yes, you can. You can walk. I’ve seen you. Don’t worry about the shop; you’re on City business. Besides, you already agreed.” She tapped her boot loudly against the floor and glared at Oscar. “That’s better,” she said, though he had not moved. “Let’s go.”

  Before he could think, he’d locked the shop and was following her through the marketplace. The vendors had just starting setting up their stalls. Callie walked ahead, to the edge of the marketplace, past the courtyard where the City people parked their carriages and the stables where Madame Elodie worked to calm their spooked horses. Two brick paths led away from the marketplace—one much wider than the other. Oscar stepped on that one, but Callie whispered, “That’s for City carriages and riders. We walk.”

  She gestured toward the narrower one and they walked ahead, through the small slip of forest that lay between the marketplace and the hill.

  The western boundary of the forest was the farthest west Oscar had ever been, the western edge of his entire world. When they got there, Oscar glanced at Callie. Her face registered nothing momentous—and so Oscar took a deep breath and stepped away from the cover of the Barrow into the sunshine.

  Whenever he’d stepped out of the eastern side and gone into the gardens—back before they had been destroyed by s
ome mysterious marauding horror—he’d always known just where he was going. The garden had had boundaries, too, and though the emptiness had loomed overhead, he’d still had the forest right behind him, the familiar soil underneath his feet, and been able to count out his world, plant by plant.

  Now there was just brick, a hill, the unadulterated sun, and the unfathomable sky. The air around him felt hollow, suddenly. And so did Oscar; there was no magic here.

  Callie glanced at him. “Are you all right?”

  Oscar sucked in his lips. “Mmm-hmmm.”

  They kept walking farther into the magicless void, following the path as it sloped up the hill through a meadow with grass as high as Oscar’s thigh, dotted with small blue flowers. (Bluebottle. Good for wounds and eyes.) They couldn’t see anything ahead but the path going upward.

  “Can you tell me what’s going to happen?” Oscar asked.

  “I’m sorry, Oscar,” Callie said with an exhale. “I should have explained. When I left yesterday I went up to the City and saw two children. They’re really sick.”

  “City children are sick? Actually sick?” His mind flashed to Ronald, the duchess’s son—though not being able to remember wasn’t a sickness, really.

  “Actually sick,” Callie said. “And there were messengers at my door this morning with notes about two more. . . .” Her eyes grew big. “I don’t know what to do!”

  Oscar’s cheek twitched. Of course she knew what to do. “I thought you didn’t like City people.”

  “I don’t,” Callie said, glancing at him. “But I’m the healer’s apprentice. And these are little kids; it’s not their fault what their parents are like. Anyway, they’re hurting. I don’t understand what’s happening.” She turned her head, dark eyes wide. “They need a healer, Oscar. And all they have is me.”

  “But . . . that’s good!” Oscar said. “Of course you can do it. I think Madame Mariel knew you had magic, and it just hasn’t appeared yet. She’s a magic smith; they know things about people. Magic things. And it wouldn’t make any sense for her to take you otherwise. Especially from the Eastern Villages!”

  “It’s not . . . it’s not like that.” Callie grabbed her hair and began to tuck it into a bun. “It’s a long story.”

  “Oh, well,” Oscar said, “if it’s too long, you can finish later.”

  Callie stopped for a moment. “All right,” she said. “I’ll tell you. You might as well know.” She exhaled and started walking again. “I was the apprentice to the village healer there, from the time I was little. I was pretty young, but it kept me out of my parents’ way. I had—well, have—a brother. Nico. He’s five years younger than me. My parents were so happy when he was born—they’d been afraid they were going to have another girl, like me. But . . . he got sick when he was four. And he got worse and worse, always getting fevers, always sick. And I tried my best, but—” She looked off for a moment, and then continued. “I was the healer’s apprentice. I should have been able to help. And our healer couldn’t do anything. My parents had so little money—the Asterians make everyone pay so much rent—but they saved everything up and secretly sent for the legendary magical healer from the Barrow.”

  “Madame Mariel.”

  “Yes. They had to send her half their coins just to cover her journey over the plaguelands and the river.”

  “Half?” Other magic smiths sometimes asked Caleb for use of the shield he’d invented to bring magical goods across the plaguelands. He always let them use it. For a fee.

  “And,” Callie went on, “she said Nico had something wrong with his body that let all that sickness in in the first place. Like we’re all supposed to have these walls that keep sickness out, but he didn’t. She could fix it . . . but it would cost them more than we had. And so . . .”

  “So, what? What did they do?”

  Callie opened up her hands widely. “They gave her me. I was the price. They gave her a free apprentice, and she agreed to cure my brother.”

  “But . . . but she fixed him,” Oscar said quickly. “So it’s all right. He’s better now.”

  Callie gave a small shrug. “She has to keep fixing him. That’s one of the reasons she goes to the east every year, to treat him. As long as I stay with her, of course.”

  “But then you must be gifted!” A note of pleading touched his voice.

  Callie glanced at him. “Madame Mariel is quite fond of telling me how untalented I am. She says my job is to assist her, and that’s all. I am supposed to keep quiet and boil water.”

  “But the apprentices . . . they’re supposed to be able to replace the magic smiths.”

  “I don’t think Madame Mariel wants anyone to replace her. I think that’s the point.”

  “But—the duke must have certified you.”

  “Yes,” Callie said. “He did.” She cast him a look, then hurried on. “So that’s where she is now. It just never has taken so long. Maybe she did go to the continent as well, like Mistress Penelope said.” Her face tightened. “After we talked to her, I sent a message to the healer I used to apprentice with asking if Madame Mariel had arrived and if everything was all right with Nico. I’m not supposed to contact my family, but I don’t think that’s against the rules.” Callie blinked and began to walk more quickly.

  “We should hurry,” she said, as if she’d said nothing else at all. “We’ll go see the sick children, tell them we’re going to consult with Madame Mariel, and then we’ll try to figure something out. I want to help them.” She turned her head to Oscar, and there was that look again, like she was stepping through the forest and wasn’t sure the world would still be there. “Thank you for coming,” she said. “I appreciate it. I was afraid you wouldn’t.”

  Oscar didn’t know what to say. How could Callie think there was anything he wouldn’t do for her?

  “We’re almost there.” She gestured toward the path, which had started to curve. Ahead, Oscar could see the other path leading upward. White walls peered out above the crest of the hill.

  “What’s it like?” Oscar said, after a moment. “The City?”

  Callie thought for a moment. “Very shiny,” she said finally.

  And then they had come around the bend and joined the carriage path, and there ahead of them rose the towering stone walls of the Shining City.

  “Oh,” Oscar said.

  “I know,” Callie said.

  People could make walls very high if they set their minds to it. These walls seemed as tall as a grove of wizard trees, and no less unearthly. They were made of thick bricks of some white stone Oscar had never seen before. He didn’t know how there could be that much stone in all of Aletheia. Great red flags emblazoned with golden birds fluttered on top of the walls. An intricate and decidedly pointy iron gate awaited them at the end of the suddenly very wide path. And the path was lined with hedges that had been sculpted so they looked like great birds, one after another, standing sentry—because apparently plants could be carved just like small pieces of wood.

  It was something how the path curved around the hill just so someone’s first view of the City would be the grandest possible one.

  “Let’s go,” Callie whispered.

  Oscar sucked in his breath and stepped forward.

  When he’d first seen the flags, Oscar had thought the strange birds pictured on them were perched upon oddly colorful nests, but as they got closer Oscar realized that that wasn’t it at all.

  “Why are the birds on fire?” he whispered to Callie, pointing up.

  Callie glanced up. “They’re phoenixes. They do that.”

  Two guards stood perfectly erect at either end of the iron gates, holding matching spears. They were dressed like birds themselves, in bright red uniforms lined with gold roping (a specialty of the Barrow’s own Master Joseph) and adorned with glinting gold buttons. On top of their heads sat enormous fuzzy hatlike objects, shaped like upside-down haystacks about half an Oscar high, lined with red, yellow, and gold feathers. The hats seemed to sugge
st flames, if flames were made of feathers and looked ridiculous.

  Oscar glanced up at Callie. She was not laughing.

  So he would not, either.

  Callie approached the guards and bowed deeply. “I’m the healer’s apprentice, and this is the magician’s hand,” she said, flashing her pin and motioning to Oscar. She bobbed her head at him slightly, and he understood he was supposed to bow, too, so he jerked himself stiffly forward. “We were invited.” She handed one of them a thick piece of paper. The guard squinted at it, then turned it around and examined it from different angles. Then he held it up to the sunlight and squinted some more.

  Callie’s eyes slid over to Oscar and then rolled ever so slightly back. He understood now: This was what she did when people were ridiculous.

  “Everything seems in order,” the guard finally said. “I trust you’ll be leaving before nightfall.”

  Oscar glanced at Callie. He trusted that, too.

  “Certainly,” Callie said.

  And so the guards opened the big gates, walking in perfect synchronization, legs kicking up strangely as they took their giant steps. It seemed like a lot of work to open a door. Oscar tried to roll his eyes back, ever so slightly. But Callie wasn’t looking.

  They entered into a large courtyard made of a dizzying pattern of yellow and white stone bricks. Each brick was a square, each four bricks formed another, and then sixteen another—you could spend your whole life counting how many squares were in the courtyard. Or at least you could if you were Oscar. He looked up quickly.

  A four-tiered fountain stood proudly in the middle of the courtyard, with streams of water spilling exuberantly down, because in the City apparently even water was a decoration.

  A three-story, horseshoe-shaped building framed the courtyard. Oscar hadn’t known buildings could bend like that. The white stone of the building was the same as they had in the Barrow, but it looked so much cleaner and brighter up here against the bright blue sky—and much more sparkly, due to the gold trim that edged everything. Each story was lined with huge person-sized windows, and every one had a window box bursting with bright, rich pops of enormous flowers, more beautiful than Oscar had ever seen.