Bad Magic

by Pseudonymous Bosch

  Clay held his pounding head in his hands, trying to organize his wildly careening thoughts. The librarian—he sounded just like Uncle Ben. And here was The Tempest again, too?

  Clay’s reflections were interrupted by murmuring from the bunk below. He looked over the edge of his bunk to see Jonah, apparently still asleep, sitting up in bed, talking to himself.

  “My spirits… in a dream… bound up…”

  Clay listened, marveling. He could only make out some of the words, but he was pretty sure he recognized them. They weren’t taken directly from Price’s journal, but they might as well have been.

  Clay reached down and gave Jonah a shake. “That was a line from The Tempest,” Clay whispered. “Did you know I was reading about The Tempest right now? Is that why—?”

  His eyes still closed, Jonah mumbled something to the effect of, “Huh? What the heck are you talking about?” Then he fell back, snoring, onto his pillow.

  Even more unsettled, Clay went back to reading:

  It was when I finally returned THE TEMPEST to the library that I found the red leather book that had been hidden behind it. The very book that you, Dear Reader, are holding now.

  Inside, the book was blank—strange, seeing as it was so old. It would be my journal, I decided.

  But that night, when I opened it again, I had a surprise. The book was full of writing! Had some secret chemical acted on the ink? Was the writing revealed by the light of the moon? I couldn’t figure it out.

  On the title page it said,

  THE BOOK OF PROSPERO

  HEREIN LIES THE LOST KNOWLEDGE OF THE MAGES OF THE PAST.

  At first, I couldn’t make heads or tails of what was written inside. It seemed to be a scientific textbook, or a book of recipes, or a book of poems, I couldn’t tell which.

  But I was a stubborn boy, and I liked a challenge. After studying the book for several sleepless nights, I determined that the science wasn’t science but alchemy, the science of the occult. Likewise, the recipes weren’t recipes so much as potions. And the poems weren’t poems so much as spells.

  It was, in sum, a book of magic, a grimoire, like Prospero’s book in THE TEMPEST.

  Who had written it? As far as I could tell, a magician from the eighteenth or nineteenth century. He called himself Prospero to disguise his identity.

  I had no way of knowing it then, but his book would bring me great wealth. And great grief—

  Clay looked up in frustration.

  The memoir ended there, when it had seemingly only just begun. As if something had prevented the author from writing more.

  Or, Clay thought bitterly, as if he had decided to torture his “Dear Reader.”

  That Dear Reader being Clay.

  He had no idea what to think. On one level, Price’s memoir was about Price. On another level, it was about Clay. As if it had been written yesterday.

  But why would someone fake a journal to make it resemble Clay’s life?

  Unless the journal was genuine and it was Clay’s life that was being made to resemble the journal? That idea was even more difficult to fathom.

  And then there was Jonah reciting Shakespeare in his sleep. How did he fit in?

  It was the kind of puzzle that his brother would have loved. Clay tried to think of what Max-Ernest would do. What was that Sherlock Holmes quote he always talked about? Something like, When you have eliminated the possible, the impossible must be true.*

  Clay scrutinized the handwriting in the journal, trying to ascertain whether it was new or old. The writing looked authentic, but he knew there were people who could fake that sort of thing.

  Like Price, Clay was stubborn and liked a challenge. And yet he had to admit there was no way he was going to figure this one out tonight. It had been a long day, and his head hurt. He stowed the journal under his pillow, closed his eyes, and tried—tried—to sleep.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY

  TWICE STOLEN

  Clay woke very early, with that anxious feeling you have when you don’t remember ever falling asleep. Sitting up in his bunk, he gazed at the clouds of vog that were drifting by his cabin.

  Sleep had done nothing to illuminate the mystery of Price’s memoir.

  Who had left it on his pillow? he wondered again. Was this unknown person trying to help him, or was he trying to make Clay feel even crazier?

  Clay leaned over his bunk.

  “Jonah!” he whispered. “Tell me the truth—were you really sleeping last night?”

  “Huh? What? I’m still sleeping now.”

  “What about the line from The Tempest?”

  “The line from what?” asked Jonah, sitting up.

  “You were reciting Shakespeare in your sleep. Or your pretend sleep.”

  Jonah scratched his head. “Shakespeare? I think you have me confused with Caliban.” He pointed at the tater-bot, which was sitting motionless next to Pablo’s bed. No longer made up as a ghost girl, the tater-bot had a new potato head and a painted-on mustache that looked suspiciously like Buzz’s.

  “Oh, come on. I read Price’s journal,” said Clay. “About the kids at the reform school. And the boys that just happen to be exactly like you guys. Including the sleepwalker. It’s like they might as well have just named him Jonah.”

  “Dude, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Jonah grumpily. “Or why you had to wake me up.”

  “I’m telling you, it’s all in the journal!”

  “What journal? Show me—”

  Clay hesitated for a moment, then thought, why not? There was nothing to lose. Maybe the sight of the journal would get Jonah to fess up and tell him what the heck was happening. On the other hand, maybe Jonah was telling the truth, and he was an unwitting participant in whatever it was that was taking place. In that case, the journal was about to open Jonah’s eyes.

  “Okay, I’ll show you,” said Clay.

  But when he reached under his pillow for the journal, he couldn’t find anything; the journal was gone!

  “What are you guys going on about?” asked their counselor, climbing out of his bunk. “What time is it?”

  “I dunno… early,” said Clay, frantically feeling around his sleeping bag.

  One thing was certain: He had to find the journal and return it to the library as soon as possible. The last thing he needed was for Uncle Ben to come roaring through camp, accusing him of robbery.

  When Clay realized the journal had been stolen out from under him, a certain person came instantly to mind—a certain thief-type person—but he didn’t see her until well after breakfast.

  Clay was in the barnyard, feeding the llamas, when Leira walked by in her newsboy cap and suspenders. He dropped a bale of hay to the ground, tossed a carrot top to Como, and ran up to the edge of the split-wood rail that kept the llamas from running away—most of the time.

  “Yo, Leira!” he called out. “Come here a sec!”

  She ran up. “Well, did you get in? Did you see the ghost girl?” she whispered excitedly.

  He nodded.

  Her eyes widened. “You did?”

  “That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about, though,” he said in a low voice.

  “Wait. But how—”

  “Never mind right now,” said Clay. “Do you have it?”

  “Do I have what?”

  “The journal. Where is it?”

  “What journal?” she asked.

  “The red leather journal that was under my pillow. Don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about.” Clay stared at her.

  “Why would I have your journal?”

  “I don’t know. Why do you steal my wallet all the time? Why did you steal my backpack and my llama?” Clay stared at her some more.

  Leira squirmed under his gaze. “That’s different.”

  “It is?” Clay’s big eyes bored into her. His staring powers were in full effect.

  “Yes. Totally,” said Leira. “And stop staring at me!”

>   “Well, tell me this: What do you know about what was written in the journal?”

  “Why would I know anything about it?”

  “I don’t know. Everybody knows everything at this camp.”

  “Boy, are you paranoid,” Leira scoffed.

  “You would be, too, if you were me!”

  As quickly as he could, Clay told her about the library and about finding the journal on his pillow.

  “Okay, I agree, that sounds… bizarre,” said Leira. “But what are you saying? You really think somebody forged an old journal about you, then locked it in a forbidden library?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And then somebody stole the journal from the library to give to you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And then after all that, somebody else stole it from your bed?”

  “Uh-huh. Unless it was the same person, which seems…”

  “Doubtful? Yeah, it does,” said Leira. “Why would anybody do any of this?”

  “I don’t know,” Clay admitted. “To mess with me?”

  “To mess with you, right,” said Leira, unconvinced. “You know what I think?”

  “What? That I’m crazy?” said Clay.

  Leira grinned. “That it takes a thief to catch a thief.”

  “Meaning?”

  “That you need my help, duh.”

  Leira took off her cap and bowed. “Leira, master thief, at your service.”

  Clay did a double take. “Whoa, wait a second. Have you always had red hair?”

  “No, I dyed it today,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Yes, I’ve always had red hair.”

  How could he not have noticed that she had hair the exact same color as Mira’s? Clay thought back and realized he’d never seen Leira without a hat.

  It wasn’t just the hair, though. Despite their polar-opposite styles, he saw for the first time that Leira and Mira looked remarkably similar.

  “Has anybody ever told you that you look like her?” he asked.

  “Who?”

  “The ghost girl.”

  “Really?” Leira laughed. “Maybe I am her and I just don’t know it.”

  Clay blanched. “That’s just what she said!”

  “Oh, come on, I was just joking,” said Leira. “This whole thing has really freaked you out, huh?”

  She turned to the llama, who’d stepped up to them, obviously wanting another carrot top. “You better talk some sense into this guy, Como,” she said. “He’s going loco.”

  While Clay stood there, trying to sort out his thoughts, the llama nipped the remaining carrot top from his hand.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-ONE

  FIRE CABIN

  Over the next few days, Clay kept expecting Uncle Ben to show up at any moment, demanding Clay return the journal, but he never did. Either the custodian hadn’t noticed the theft or, more likely, he was biding his time, waiting for the right moment to strike.

  Meanwhile, Leira was excited to try solving a crime for once rather than perpetrating one. She insisted on meeting daily with Clay to discuss the Case of the Missing Journal, as she called it. There were all kinds of questions to consider. Who wrote the journal? Who would want Clay to read it, and who wouldn’t? But of course the most urgent was, who took the journal from Clay’s bunk?

  At Leira’s suggestion, they wrote lists of everyone at camp, starting with the boys in Clay’s cabin, and weighed each person’s potential as a suspect. For example,

  PABLO

  PRO—HAS GUTS, HAD OPPORTUNITY TO TAKE JOURNAL

  CON—NO MOTIVE

  or,

  KWAN

  PRO—MISCHIEF-MAKER, HAD OPPORTUNITY

  CON—TOO LOUD? NOT STEALTHY?

  The only person they approached directly was Jonah. They figured Clay had already spoken to him about the journal, so there was little to lose, but they swore him to secrecy anyway. Jonah claimed innocence; he knew nothing about the journal, he said, nor did he have any idea who’d taken it. But Clay was never wholly convinced. Not that he suspected that Jonah had done anything truly terrible. It was just that there was something fishy about Jonah’s nocturnal Shakespearean rambling, not to mention the night when he led Clay outside to see the bathroom shack on fire.

  Although they considered all possibilities, Clay and Leira agreed that by far the most likely culprit was Flint. He had already shown a willingness to torture Clay, as well as a fierce interest in the ghost girl, Mira. If anybody had the journal squirreled away, he did. Naturally, there was no question of asking him; they would just have to steal it back.

  They took turns staking out Flint’s trailer cabin, Fire Truck, watching for a safe time to enter. Each of them had to feign running for the bathroom more than once. Frustratingly, their camp schedules didn’t allow for extended stakeout periods, and days passed without there being a good opportunity for a break-in.

  Late one afternoon, Leira entered Clay’s cabin just as Circle was ending.

  “You have to come with me—now!” she whispered, and dragged Clay outside without explanation.

  Finally, Flint’s cabin was empty.

  “Okay, you go in,” said Clay when they reached the door. “I’ll knock twice if somebody’s coming.”

  “No, you go in; I’ll stand guard,” said Leira.

  “But you’re the expert thief!” Clay protested.

  “Yeah, but you’re the boy, and it’s a boys’ cabin!”

  “Older boys’ cabin,” said Clay. “And it’s a trailer.”

  “Same difference,” said Leira. “Besides, if I get caught taking anything, I’m dead. My parents will kill me.”

  “Doesn’t stop you from taking my wallet every five minutes,” Clay pointed out.

  “Only because I know you won’t tell. Please—”

  “Fine, I’ll do it,” said Clay, not wanting to lose any more precious time.

  “Make it fast,” said Leira. “Dinner starts in five minutes, and if we’re not there, somebody will definitely notice.”

  On the inside, Flint’s cabin, Fire Truck, was a mess. Clay figured this was because the older boys’ counselor, Eli, who also happened to be the camp director—he of the mysterious moving teepee—was never around to make them clean it up.

  Clay thought he could tell which bed was Flint’s. It was the choicest one, the one next to the window, apart from the others. Sticking out from underneath was a shiny red metal trunk covered with stickers. It looked like something that might have once belonged on a real fire truck, not just a fire-truck-red trailer.

  Clay felt under Flint’s pillow, but the journal wasn’t there. He lifted up the mattress, but the journal wasn’t under the mattress, either.

  He had no choice but to look in the trunk. If he didn’t find the missing journal, at least he might clear up the mystery of how Flint did his pyro-maniacal magic tricks.

  The trunk was heavy and screeched loudly when he pulled it out.

  “What was that?” Leira asked from outside.

  “Nothing.”

  “Well, don’t do it again. I could hear you all the way out here!”

  The trunk wasn’t locked—maybe because it contained no magic supplies, only dirty laundry. Feeling a little guilty—and more than a little disgusted—Clay rifled through the trunk. At the bottom, he thought he felt what he was looking for. But what he pulled out was not a red leather journal; it was a bright blue paperback. The one Clay saw Flint reading on top of Egg Rock.

  Clay could see the title now. Of all things, Flint was reading The Tempest!

  Why did everything keep coming back to that play? It was like The Tempest was the answer to some cosmic riddle, but he didn’t know what that cosmic riddle was.

  Clay flipped through the paperback. It looked like Flint had read it more than once. Clay noticed that he had written Mira! next to a line belonging to Miranda, the magician’s daughter.

  “Leira? What are you doing here?”

  It was Flint. Right outside the doo
r. Clay replaced the book as quickly as he could.

  “Nothing…” said Leira. “I just, uh, had a question for you.”

  “Yeah, what? I’m in a hurry,” said Flint.

  Clay managed to close the trunk without making any noise, but he was terrified to slide it back under Flint’s bed; it would almost certainly screech again. Should he run or hide, he wondered.

  “Um, is dinner tonight outside or inside?” asked Leira.

  “Outside. You waited just to ask me that?”

  “Uh—uh…” Leira stammered. “I just thought you’d know.”

  “That’s the lamest excuse for talking to somebody I’ve ever heard.” Flint laughed, as cocky and rude as ever.

  “As if I’d ever want to talk to you!” Leira spit out. Clay could imagine how furious she must have looked. He was almost amused.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll get over it,” said Flint. “When little girls have crushes on older boys, it doesn’t mean anything.”

  Yeah, kinda like you having a crush on a ghost, Clay thought.

  “You’re disgusting!” said Leira.

  “Whatever you say,” said Flint. “Now can you maybe let me in?”

  “Wait. I have another question,” said Leira, stalling. “Um, what time is dinner?”

  Just then, somebody rang the gong. And rang it again. And again. Three times.

  “Sounds like dinner is now,” said Flint. “Lates.”

  Clay took advantage of the ringing gong to push Flint’s trunk into place. Then he scrambled up onto Flint’s bed and shimmied out the open window, more certain than ever that Flint was guilty—but of what, Clay didn’t know.

  Contrary to Flint’s assertion, dinner that night was not outside; it was inside Big Yurt.