The Real Boy

by Anne Ursu

  Oscar walked up and put his hand on the trunk. The gentle warmth pressed into his palm, a reassurance. Despite all the things churning inside him, the touch of the tree eased him a little, as surely as a cat’s purr. As it always had.

  “Is this the right thing to do?” Oscar whispered, running his hand along the trunk. “Is this what you want?”

  No answer, just the same steady warmth. It was the same as it had always been, Oscar realized. Though this tree was drooping and thinning, though the magic had been used and abused, though its colleagues had fallen for no good purpose, though it was so tired, this feeling of some steady, generous vitality in all the wizard trees had never lessened. It was the essence of the tree, the truth at its core.

  He’d always thought of this feeling as the presence of magic. But no other magic-laced thing had ever felt like the wizard-tree wood. It was the tactile translation of the ineffable warmth and peace Oscar felt in his chest when he was with the wizard trees, when the cats were with him, when Callie was there—and so he named the feeling love.

  He nodded at Callie, and they both put their jugs down. Callie poured some seawater into the plaguelands dirt and began to mix it around with a stick. A poultice. Then Oscar scooped some of the mud up with his hands and began rubbing it into the exposed bark gently. Just a little, so it would work its way through the tree very slowly. He wanted to murmur things, but he could think of nothing to say.

  Callie massaged the mud into the visible roots, and then poured the excess water around the tree. Whatever magic-destroying thing was in the plaguelands would be in the tree soon. The soil would suck it up, and it would travel through the circulatory system, from root to root. And slowly the magic would dissipate, like a pile of dust in the wind.

  It had all been such a beautiful lie. Such a warm blanket. The enchanted island. The storied history. The magic, always good, always acting in service of the people, always protecting them. The Aletheians, always so noble and worthy. The shining people, free of disease and want, so blessed they could have anything they desired—beauty, luck, health, wealth. Anything, even children made of wood.

  It was a beautiful lie that they had all been telling themselves—that you could have magic without monsters.

  “People are going to be very upset,” Callie said.

  Yes. They were going to be very upset.

  They stood back and looked at the tree. The whole bottom of the trunk was covered in mud, but the tree had already begun to drink it in.

  In a blink Oscar’s throat swelled; his eyes filled with tears. Callie grabbed his hand and held it. They stood together, eyes fixed on the great tree, and together, they took notice. They carried the wizards’ secrets, and they would remember.

  After a while, Callie squeezed Oscar’s hand. “Let’s go home now,” she said.

  He gave the tree one more glance, and then turned and followed her. They walked in silence all the way home. But even as they approached the marketplace he could still feel the warm humming of the tree in his hands. Like he had taken it with him.

  There were people in the marketplace again. Half the shops were closed, but villagers and merchants were milling around. Some were replacing the windows at the jeweler’s. Madame Sabine and another villager were putting a wall back on the shoemaker’s. Everywhere people were cleaning, rebuilding, putting the marketplace back together.

  And some nonhuman noise from across the marketplace: a bleating. And a joyful chattering. In front of her shop Madame Catherine was bent over, rubbing the flanks of one very dirty, bedraggled Most Spectacular Goat.

  Oscar swallowed. The tears came and did not stop. Callie wrapped her hand around his arm. He took in Madame Catherine and her goat, then closed his eyes and kept the image—something to hold on to.

  The next morning, Oscar and Callie went up to the City to deliver remedies to the families they’d already visited, plus a few whose families had heard about what they were doing and had sent messages to Callie over the last few days about their own children.

  Callie had been studying the ledger and was trying to figure out how to approach the families that hadn’t sent her a message yet. Oscar would leave it to her. She was good at people.

  “What about the duke?” Oscar asked as they walked up the hill. “And Ronald-who-can’t-remember?”

  Callie grimaced. “I know,” she said. “It’s funny with Ronald—with everyone else, we can fix what’s broken, at least immediately. And we can probably fix the system that holds on to memories, so he can remember from now on, but whatever childhood Caleb implanted in his head might be just . . . gone.” She stopped and regarded Oscar for a moment. “But, does it matter? It’s not real. People don’t remember much from when they’re really young, but everything that happened is still a part of you. The facts of the memories don’t matter, except what comes from the living of them.”

  Oscar nodded slowly, kicking up dirt as he walked. His only clear memory of the Home was riding away from it, but the shadows were part of him, all the same. The children didn’t have any pasts, at least real ones. All they had that really belonged to them would be the lives they made now. If they were allowed to make them.

  The guards with the absurd hats were waiting for them when they got to the City, and Callie showed them her stack of letters. As they passed through the gates, Oscar rolled his eyes. “What will they do with themselves without magic?” he muttered.

  Callie let out a dark laugh. “I don’t know,” she said. “Work, maybe? Anyway, we got along just fine in the Eastern Villages without magic.”

  Oscar looked at the ground and took a deep breath. “Do . . . you think you’ll go back there?”

  Callie’s lips tightened. “It’s not my home anymore,” she said. “It never really was.”

  “Are you going to . . . stay?”

  “Oscar, my parents sold me. Madame Mariel abandoned my brother. And then she abandoned the Barrow. I am not going to abandon these children. They need us.”

  Us, Oscar repeated to himself. The apprentice and the hand.

  “Who else will know how to help them?” Callie went on. “I . . . I can be a healer. We helped those kids; we figured it out. You just have to pay attention to the people.”

  Oscar nodded. He understood. People were Callie’s plants.

  “And,” Callie said, “there are herbs that work without magic. I used them back home. Maybe not as potent, but people use them all around the world. Aren’t some of the herb books in Caleb’s library from the continent?”

  “Yes,” Oscar said. “A lot of them.”

  “And so,” she went on, “I will need a garden.”

  She glanced at Oscar and then looked pointedly at him. And then stopped and stared.

  “I will need a garden,” she repeated.

  “What? Me?”

  “Yes. You know how to grow herbs. People will still need them even when . . .”

  She didn’t need to finish. Even when the magic’s gone. “But what about Caleb’s shop?”

  “Oscar, it’s not Caleb’s shop anymore. It’s your shop. The whole marketplace is going to change. But people always need medicine. You could grow herbs and sell remedies. In my town we had an apothecary.”

  Apothecary. It was a funny word, like a flightless bird. Oscar looked at the ground. “I’m not really made for people.”

  Callie exhaled. “You’re not made at all, Oscar. Don’t you see? After everything that’s happened this week? You get to do the making.”

  He did understand. Sort of.

  “And I can help you. And you help me. We have a deal.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t have to yet. We can just worry about today.”

  “Yes,” Oscar said. “I’d just like to worry about today.”

  This was not entirely true. He wanted to think about tomorrow, and a tomorrow after that, too, one where every day was certain, where he could see the perfect structure to it, where he could count the steps one
by one—not live with this white fuzzy emptiness that was in his head. He’d always had surety, so much so that it never would have occurred to him to want it. He hadn’t known things could be any other way.

  There were so many things it had never occurred to him that he could want. It was very human, to want things.

  “We’ll figure it out,” Callie said. “Now, come on.”

  They went to the Coopers’ house first to check on Hugo and Sophie.

  It was Lady Cooper who met them in the parlor, full of happy words for Callie and Oscar. Lord Cooper hung back in the shadows, still looking at them like he wanted their approval.

  Sophie, Lady Cooper said, had gotten up and walked around that morning, and Hugo had sat up in bed. It was a miracle, really.

  “They’ll stay healthy now,” Lady Cooper added. “Right?”

  She smiled, but something else flashed across her face. Oscar had seen it in enough people now to understand: Lady Cooper was frightened.

  Maybe Callie had been right. Maybe just as the Barrow had held on to the magic, the City had held on to the grief of the plague, and so grief coursed through all the City people’s veins. Maybe they were really afraid of the fuzzy blankness, just like Oscar was.

  Oscar glanced at Callie. She nodded slightly.

  “We don’t know,” Oscar said, straightening. “They’re made of wizard-tree wood and spells. We can’t possibly know what’s going to happen.”

  “Nothing like them has ever existed before,” Callie said. “There are no books. We can only do the best we can.”

  The lady’s face contorted. “But . . . what are we supposed to do?”

  The words popped into Oscar’s head: You live with it.

  The children would have to.

  They went to Sophie’s room first. Oscar stood in the shadows while Callie sat next to the curly-haired girl on the bed. Sophie was more girl than ghost now. She was sitting up, and her big eyes widened when she saw Callie.

  Callie smiled down at the girl. “May I touch your side?” she asked.

  The girl nodded.

  As Oscar watched, Callie put her hand gently on Sophie’s rib cage. The girl did not flinch.

  “May I see?” Callie asked.

  The girl did not protest as Callie lifted up the white shift. Oscar saw a flash of olive skin and what looked like the memory of a bruise.

  “It looks much better,” Callie said. “Do you feel all right?”

  Sophie nodded again.

  Callie frowned. “Can you talk?” she asked.

  Nod.

  “She never did say much,” said Lady Cooper from the back of the room. “It’s just the way she is.”

  Oscar’s mouth twitched. No wonder he liked her.

  “I’m just going to put my fingers on your wrist,” Callie was telling Sophie. “I can feel your heart there; did you know that?” As Callie leaned into the girl, Oscar could see the concentration in her shoulders. She stayed like that for a long time. “It sounds much stronger,” she murmured to Sophie. “But I think we can get it even stronger still.” Then she leaned back and looked at Lady Cooper. “I’d like to give her one more dose of tea. Is that all right?”

  “Of course,” Lady Cooper said. “Anything.”

  Callie stood up. “Let’s check on Hugo, and then I’ll come back. Is that all right with you, Miss Sophie?”

  The girl nodded.

  Lady Cooper led Callie out of the room, but Oscar found himself lingering. The girl had caught him in her eyes again. So he walked up to the bed.

  He didn’t say anything; he just smiled a little at her. He hoped the smile said all the things he couldn’t find words for, like I hope you feel better and I am trying to get someone to help you and I’m sorry. Though what he was sorry for, he was not quite sure.

  The girl took him in with her eyes. They only seemed to grow wider, and suddenly Oscar saw the nightmare flickering there again. Her hand went to his arm, and she pulled him down toward her.

  “Monster?” she whispered.

  Oscar shook his head. “No. Not anymore.”

  The girl exhaled and sank into the bed. But the nightmares still lingered.

  “It’s all right,” Oscar said. “It’s—”

  It’s what? He couldn’t guarantee another monster wouldn’t come and he couldn’t guarantee the spells that bound her wouldn’t start failing again and he couldn’t guarantee there would be no more nightmares. He couldn’t even tell her what the nightmares might be made of.

  So he reached into his pocket and pulled out the small wooden cat. The girl’s eyes widened, and some sparkle replaced the dark things there.

  The figure hummed warmly in his hand. He ran one finger down the cat’s back and then squeezed it a little so he could take the feeling with him. Then he placed the cat gently in Sophie’s hand.

  For me? Sophie’s eyes said.

  “For you. She’ll keep you—well, she can’t keep you safe. But she will keep you company. And she’s nice to have when things aren’t safe. You just squeeze her in your hand—yes, like that.”

  The girl looked up at Oscar. Thank you.

  You’re welcome.

  “Her name is Block,” Oscar added. In case that wasn’t obvious.

  He gave her a small little smile. And she bit her lip and then smiled softly back. And though the spells that writhed within her skin and blood and bones were uncertain and unknowable, Oscar and Callie would do everything they could to give her the life she was supposed to have. A human life. With red shoes and swishing skirts and all the fuzzy blank things ahead.

  She was made of wood, but she was a real girl now.

  About the Author

  Anne Ursu is the author of Breadcrumbs, which Kirkus Reviews called a “transforming testament to the power of friendship” in a starred review, and was acclaimed as one of the best books of 2011 by the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Amazon.com, and the Chicago Public Library. It was also on the IndieBound Next List and was an NPR Backseat Book Club featured selection. She was also the recipient of the 2013 McKnight Fellowship Award in Children’s Literature. Anne teaches at Hamline University’s MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults. She lives in Minneapolis with her son and three cats—monster fighters, all. You can visit her online at www.anneursu.com.

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  Credits

  Cover art © 2013 by Erin McGuire

  Lettering by Sarah Hoy

  Copyright

  Walden Pond Press is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

  The Real Boy

  Text copyright © 2013 by Anne Ursu

  Illustrations copyright © 2013 by Erin McGuire

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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  ISBN 978-0-06-201507-5 (trade bdg.)

  EPUB Edition JULY 2013 ISBN 9780062049254

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