Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic: The Thirteenth Rib

by David J. Schwartz

  “I’ll do that,” she said, hoping that her failure to make eye contact would encourage him to leave quickly. She took the volume marked JOURNAL, 1955-57 down and sat facing the door of the cage.

  “Unless you want me to lock you in and let you out later?” Larch grinned and waggled his eyebrows.

  “I’m all set,” Joy said through clenched teeth. “Thanks.” Larch shrugged and finally left her alone.

  Ruiz was not nearly so prolific a diarist as Stag, and Larch was not wrong about her handwriting. Her entries were crabbed and terse and contained many abbreviations. Even more vexing was that many, it seemed, were missing. There were at least a dozen pages torn out, with notations from an early school archivist, “pages 23–26 missing” and so forth. One of those gaps fell in late June, when Hilda was supposed to have had lunch with Arthur Stag.

  Joy looked up and saw one of the library cats sprawled out on the floor outside the cage, yawning. “You and me both, buddy,” she said.

  There were more entries missing, all through 1956, 1957, and 1958, but after that Ruiz must have decided to stop writing about whatever it was she — or someone else — had decided was better kept secret.

  Joy took down journals for the other founders from the same period and found a similar pattern; all entries for New Year’s 1956 had been removed, as well as others between April 1955 and October 1958. She was more certain than ever that she had found the shape of a conspiracy, but its face remained hidden.

  “Dead end.” Joy sighed. She had been reading other people’s journals and letters for hours; her eyes stung and her attention had begun to waver. She left the books on the table and locked the cage behind her.

  “I can’t think straight anymore,” she said to the cat. It had gray stripes and a black circle around one eye. It had stood and retreated to the edge of one of the stacks when she stood, but it was still watching her.

  “I need a walk to clear my head,” she said. On impulse, she turned north into the stacks rather than south. She wondered how far she would have to walk to reach the community college in Hibbing, or Brainerd, or wherever the other branches were linked to the Gooseberry Bluff library. She was still exhausted from the funeral service, and she felt like she hadn’t really processed anything. She felt like she wouldn’t until she finished this job.

  She passed through a gap in the shelving and spotted something out of the corner of her eye on the east wall. It was the faint glow of an aura in a distinctive pattern: violet and yellow separated by a stripe of white. It was there and then gone, like the flare of light behind a closed door. But there wasn’t a door there.

  At least, there wasn’t a door that she could see.

  She crossed to the wall and walked slowly back and forth in front of it. It was featureless brick, with a READ poster featuring an actress from some science fiction show on it. As she stepped past the poster, the glow flared out again, in a straight line from the floor to just above her head. Violet and yellow, separated by white.

  The aura of an inert, nameless demon.

  Joy traced the door and found a knob at waist level. It wasn’t locked; she turned it and opened the door slowly.

  The room inside was naked concrete, just large enough for the two pallets of demon canisters that lay within.

  Joy touched the crystal at her throat. “Benjamin Flood,” she said. But the voice she heard when the connection was made was not Flood’s.

  “Joy,” Martin said. “You’re in danger, Joy. Turn around.”

  Joy spun. There was a big black panther behind her.

  “Oh, Martin,” she said. “Remember when you said that whoever’s responsible for all this is good at blending in?”

  The panther growled.

  “Well, you couldn’t have been more wrong.”

  There were certain substances, supposed to bestow or embody luck, that Zelda had learned early on to avoid. Acorns, whether powdered or roasted, just made her logy. Clovers, four-leafed or not, tended to give her shortness of breath. Bamboo messed with her digestion in mortifying ways (although in the case of the latter, the real problem was that long before she had been cursed, she had been allergic).

  So she tended to stick to certain substances. Clay and mineral rubs, certain common weeds and leaves, rabbit saliva — the usual things. She kept an arsenal of ingredients in her home, with smaller kits in her car and her purse. Testing the applications was tricky — she usually limited her altruism to bird feeders. Unfortunately, once the curse had responded by carpeting her backyard with the bodies of robins and sparrows, felled by something toxic in the seed mix she had purchased. The company issued a shipment recall the next day, but it was a day too late, and Zelda had felt a pang of guilt at the dead birds all across the Midwest. She even felt badly about the cost the seed company had incurred.

  Yesterday, though, she had tried a small batch of seed, and this morning her backyard was crowded with cardinals, magpies, and even a pair of mountain bluebirds. She went out to put out more seed, and the birds circled her like dancers; a golden-crowned sparrow landed on her shoulder and chirped softly at her. She felt like a Disney princess, and immediately after filling up the feeder she got in the car to buy what she needed for another batch.

  Zelda shopped at Marilyn’s, downtown, for her alchemy supplies. Marilyn and her daughters, who mostly ran the place these days, were scrupulous about stocking only free-range bat’s wings and newt’s eyes, and they didn’t carry any components from endangered animals — she wasn’t clear on how rabbit saliva was humanely gathered, and suspected that the image she had of rabbits in saloons and drawing rooms, each with their own spittoon, was unlikely — but if Marilyn’s sold it, Zelda was sure it was safe. It was slightly more expensive but generally of higher quality than the big-box stuff, and so far spending her money there hadn’t added enough karmic weight to the scales for the curse to feel obliged to balance things out.

  Alchemy Depots were popping up all over the place, putting the mom-and-pop component shops out of business and exploiting employees and suppliers both. Of course, Alchemy Depot would probably have had three cases of daisy clay in stock, but Marilyn’s had one, and they could get two more by the middle of the week. Zelda had needed half a case to dilute the rabbit saliva, and that had only made four applications. She couldn’t slather herself in aromatic clay every single night — the expense alone would force her to find a second job.

  But it was working. She was sure of it.

  Which was why, when Hector Ay walked into Marilyn’s as she was on her way out, she paused, took a deep breath, and asked him if he would like to go for a walk.

  “Sure,” he said. He didn’t offer to carry anything, but he followed her to her car and stood slack-jawed while she put the daisy clay in her trunk.

  “You look tired,” she said.

  He made a face. “It’s been a long couple of days,” he said.

  She suggested that they walk down by the river. He still hadn’t said much, and Zelda wondered if she was already too late to fix things.

  “I’m sorry for not returning your calls,” she said as they waited to cross the St. Croix Trail at the corner of Central. The day had been bright so far, but from where they stood she could see a faint haze coming off the broad expanse of the river.

  “It’s fine if you didn’t want to,” he said. “I mean, if you thought we made a mistake.”

  The flat way he said it felt like a knife in her stomach. “You think we made a mistake?” she asked as the light changed and they crossed.

  “It doesn’t matter what I think,” he said. “I don’t want—”

  “That was you, wasn’t it?” she asked sarcastically. “The guy on my couch with the purple briefs?”

  He stuttered something in response, some sort of denial or excuse. “Was it you?” she said, in a voice so sharp that it worried her. She didn’t want to be fighting with Hector, but his sudden seeming disinterest hurt. Even though it was at least partly her fault, the way she h
ad been avoiding him. She felt the sting of frustrated tears welling up.

  “Yes.”

  She was mad at him for no reason. She needed to tell him.

  “I like purple,” he said.

  “I’m cursed,” she said. She reached the corner and stopped to face him, the tears blurring her vision.

  “What does — I mean, I like purple, so what? I like bright colors. It’s not my fault that men in this country dress in an assortment of earth tones. I don’t see why that means you’re cursed—”

  “I don’t mean metaphorically, you dumbass. I mean I have an actual curse, and if I’m nice to people, bad things happen to them.”

  “So you were just being nice to me?”

  “No, you idiot. I like you. I’ve liked you since I met you, but I didn’t dare do anything, because of the curse. But I had this counteragent that I thought was working, and then it wasn’t, but I think I found another one, and — are you still there?”

  “You’re looking right at me,” he said.

  “Oh shit.” She waved a hand in front of her face but saw only a vague shadow. “I think I’ve blinded myself.” Of course the chorus of birds had been too good to be true.

  Of course.

  “Do you need to go to the hospital?” Hector asked. He was looking at her, directly at her, for the first time since he had run into her. He could do this now, because it was safe. She couldn’t see him, so she couldn’t see what he was sure was written on his face, the pleading, the need. He wanted to tell her that she was so beautiful that it hurt him, but he didn’t dare.

  “No, I don’t…I don’t think so.” She ran a hand across her forehead. “It must be the pumice. I really thought I had the proportions figured.”

  “I think I’d better take you home, then.” He took her arm. “Is that OK? Will you let me lead you back across the street?”

  “Yes, thank you.” She started to say something more, but at that moment he heard the shrill cry of a crow and saw Joy Wilkins on the school campus. She wrote out a crude sign on a notebook. MEET ME IN THE LIBRARY, it read.

  So this was it. Wilkins had figured it out; she would tell her bosses, and Hector would lose everything. He had just spoken with an intellectual property lawyer this morning, in preparation for his meeting on Monday. Now perhaps there was no need to meet; they would just arrest him on some sort of a conspiracy charge. A part of Hector wanted them to.

  This was not how things were supposed to have gone for him. He had come to the United States against the wishes of his family, first to continue his studies, then to work; he’d made friends here, but not many, and sometimes he could only think of the list of people who didn’t want him to succeed, and the even longer list of people who didn’t care if he failed.

  The light changed, and he led Zelda across the road.

  “Please say something,” she said. “This is pretty scary, and it’d be nice to hear your voice.”

  He took a second to think. “I don’t know very much about curses,” he said. “You say that this one backfires whenever you try to do something nice?”

  “ ‘May all the good you do turn to bad, may all your help turn to harm.’ ”

  “So the people closest to you are the people most likely to get hurt,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “You would like to go out with me again, but you’re worried that I’m going to get hurt.”

  “Yes.”

  “So really, if you cut me loose, you’re doing something nice for me. You’re doing something good. You’re being selfless. That’s bound to backfire, isn’t it? The way I see it, you have to go out with me or something terrible will happen to me.”

  She laughed. “It doesn’t work like that. You can’t reason with a curse.”

  “Well, you can’t reason with me either. Not about this.”

  “Hector—”

  “Let me say something, OK? Then I will shut up and listen. If you think it was a mistake — if you had too much wine and made a bad decision, if I’m not really your type — I can deal with it; I can respect it. It’s not — I wish it were otherwise, but I will accept it and I will get over it. But if it’s just this curse, I say screw it.”

  “Hector…this curse has killed people.”

  “Here’s my car,” he said, ignoring her. He opened the passenger-side door for her and guided her into the seat. “Watch your hands,” he said before he shut the door. “Are you sure you don’t want me to take you to the hospital?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “I’ll have to drop you at your place. I have to meet someone up at the school.”

  “Please, Hector…I don’t want to be alone. Not like this.”

  “Well. I’m supposed to meet someone in the library. I don’t know how it’s going to go.”

  “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

  “I’m not really sure. Tell you what — if I’m not, let me take you on a date tomorrow.”

  “Let’s not plan on a movie,” she said. “I may still be blind.”

  “Good. That way you can’t complain about my purple underwear.”

  “Did you hear me say that this curse has killed people?”

  “I heard. I don’t care. And I’m skeptical that the curse did the killing, unless you saw someone with a monogrammed shirt that said CURSE stab this person.”

  “It’s not funny.”

  “I’m sorry. When I’m nervous I make jokes.” He tried to think of something more to say, but he was preoccupied with what Wilkins was going to say, and soon he pulled into the college parking lot without breaking the silence.

  “We’re here,” he said. “I’ll help you out.” She didn’t say anything, so he got out of the car and crossed behind to help her out.

  As soon as she was on her feet, she said, “I liked your purple underwear.”

  “I liked you better without yours,” he said. She blushed, and he wondered if he had gone too far. But she took his arm and leaned into him, so she must not be too upset about it.

  Hector led her up to the school, taking inventory of each of the crows and what they were seeing as he went. He tried to reach out to the campus squirrels as well, but he hadn’t yet managed to make much use of them. Their attention spans were too short. It was a concern for him because he needed to diversify in order to get good campus coverage during the winter.

  “Who are you meeting?” she asked as they climbed the stairs toward the library.

  “I don’t think I can say,” he said.

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “Um. Just a second.” There were a half dozen students clustered just outside the library, and one of them was holding a cloth to his arm.

  “What is it?” Zelda asked.

  “Professor Ay!” Margaret May stepped away from the knot of students and approached them. “So, the cats went crazy. One of them slashed this guy’s arm, and we couldn’t find Mr. Larch, and they basically chased us out, and nobody knows what to do.”

  “Have you seen Ms. Wilkins?” Hector asked.

  “The history of magic instructor? I saw her come in a while ago, but I haven’t seen her since.”

  A cold sweat broke out on Hector’s skin. The library was the only part of the school that he had no eyes in — the cats had served as library security since before Hector had worked here, and Fred Larch had seemed to have a special relationship with them. Perhaps too special.

  “I have to go in there,” he said to Zelda. “Will you be all right?”

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, but I think it’s bad. Margaret, can you stay with Professor Akbulut?”

  “Sure.”

  Hector squeezed Zelda’s hand and slipped into the library.

  “Um, I have to go now, Martin. Thanks for the warning.”

  “Take care,” Martin said, and was gone.

  The panther just stood there, sleek and huge, rumbling with menace.

  “Mr. Larch,” she said
. “It’s obviously you. I see auras, you know, and yours is the same whether you’re in the shape of a skeevy librarian or a big cat.”

  Panther-Larch hunched toward the carpet, displaying his teeth.

  “I think I have most of it now,” Joy said. “You get hired on here and use some kind of feline solidarity to circumvent the library’s security. You — or someone you work with, or work for — install a few side doors into the Minnesota state community college inter-library gateway system. Then you use the system to move and store the nameless demons that are being used by the Heartstoppers to animate major demons. You bring them here because the campus itself has some powerful magical resonance; you charge the demons here on the premises, like batteries, for about six weeks before they’re used in the attacks.”

  She hoped that she sounded calmer than she felt. Larch in his feline form was not the size of, say, a tiger, conservation of mass being what it was. But his claws had wicked points and his incisors were as long as her pinkie fingers. He looked as though he were designed for killing, which, aside from the adaptation that enabled him to turn into a skeevy librarian, was more or less true.

  So she stalled. “You’re wondering how I know all that, aren’t you? You’re wondering who I work for, and who else I’ve told. I’ll tell you this: you can kill me if you like, but regardless of what happens to me, you’re done.”

  She was gambling — most of what she was telling him she had only put together in the last half hour, and no one would know where to pick up the investigation if she disappeared into a panther’s stomach. He probably couldn’t read auras, since he’d already given himself away with his own, but he could be a truth-teller like Agent Gray, or even have some cat-vibey-instinct thing that would give her away.

  “Tell you what, Freddie; why don’t you change back so we can chat, and neither of us has to get hurt.”

  Something in his posture and his aura changed, and in that moment Joy knew that the things she knew didn’t concern him much.