by Elena Paige
Toby couldn’t believe it. This boy was called Thatch. That’s what she had called him. He was a person. And he had found him.
Toby looked at the toffee in his hand, now surprisingly smooth and dry, and stuck it into his back pocket. Thatch pulled him by the arm toward the black wall surrounding the perimeter of the room.
“Wait. You don’t understand. I’m looking for you. You’re Thatch. You’re who I needed to find. My Grandpa. He told me—”
“What are you on about? I know you’re not a magician, and I’ll only say this once. Tell me how you got in.” Thatch looked straight ahead as he dragged Toby along.
“You’re right, I’m not a magician. My grandpa’s been taken, and I was told to find you.”
“By who? Who told you to find me?” said Thatch, curious enough that he stopped short of walking through the wall and back into the foyer.
“Grandpa did.”
“I thought you said someone took him. ”
“Yes, they did. At least I think the panther took him. I can’t be sure. But he’s gone. And it told me to join the line of people wearing top hats, who then disappeared when Mrs. Inkwell did something to me. I think?” Toby listened to himself relaying the morning’s events. His story sounded so ridiculous—he wouldn’t blame this boy for not believing him.
“So when exactly did your grandpa tell you about me?”
“After he was taken.”
“He told you after he was taken? Was that before or after you met the panther?”
Toby realized Thatch didn’t believe him after all. He sighed in frustration.
“He had written your name on the chalkboard. I wasn’t completely sure you were a person. Your name is pretty weird.”
“Not as weird as your accent,” said Thatch.
Just as they were about to walk through the wall, Toby said, “The other person I need to find is Wesa.”
Thatch doubled back. “What did you say? How do you know Wesa?”
“Is that a person too? Please tell me he’s not your twin brother?”
Thatch knitted his eyebrows together. “Wesa is a girl. But how do you know her?”
“I don’t. I told you—”
“Yes, yes, Grandpa left our names on the chalkboard. I really don’t know what to make of you. If you’re not a magician, you’re not allowed to be here. And it’s my job to throw you out. Consider yourself lucky Mr. Kirby didn’t find you first! ”
“Security boy!” The name cut through the air, taking the color out of Thatch’s face. He let go of Toby’s arm and turned to attention.
“Yes, Mr. Kirby?” He gave Toby a sideways glance.
Who was this Mr. Kirby, wondered Toby.
“Where is your father? I have been looking for him everywhere. And what are you doing in the main hall? How many times must I remind you—you’re not allowed in here.”
The man called Mr. Kirby brushed his pristine black suit, then readjusted his purple top hat and bow tie. The glow of the purple crystals on the inside lining of his long cloak were hard to ignore.
He must be someone important, thought Toby. His thin black mustache made him look so old-fashioned.
Mr. Kirby cocked an eyebrow down at Toby. “And who do we have here?”
“This boy isn’t—he’s not meant . . .” Thatch stumbled around the words, clearing his throat and looking down.
“I’m Gerald Caruthers. Glad to make your acquaintance,” said Toby, mimicking Thatch’s British accent. The name had popped out of his mouth unplanned.
“Gerald? I thought I knew all the magician families. I’m not familiar with the Caruthers.” He squinted his eyes at Toby and leaned down to look at him closer.
“We try to keep to ourselves,” said Toby, really overdoing the accent now.
“I was just showing Gerald around. He’s not been to the convention before.”
“Really? Hm. Curious. In any event, Brusknutt, keep out of the main hall. You already know you’re not allowed to be in here. Find your father immediately. Have him report to me at my stall, or you’ll both be fired!”
“Yes, sir.”
Toby started to shake. “Please don’t faint, please don’t faint, please don’t faint,” he chanted, willing himself to stay awake and upright.
“What is wrong with you, boy?” said Mr. Kirby. Thatch was looking at him with equal curiosity.
“Gotta go. Bye.” Toby ran face-first through the black wall as if running away from ghosts, this time pulling Thatch along behind him. Luckily, he hadn’t fainted.
“Run in case they follow us!” said Toby.
The two of them ran down the long corridor, past at least one hundred doors, before they stopped. Puffing and panting, they leaned against door number one hundred and twenty-five.
“How many doors are in this corridor anyway?” said Toby.
“You are seriously weird. Mind telling me what that was all about? I’ll be lucky if I don’t lose my job,” said Thatch, sitting down and leaning against the door, out of breath.
“Long story.”
“Like the panther story, I’m guessing?”
“Well, I had a run-in with three bullies when I got here. Redheads. Identical triplets actually.” Toby imagined how equally silly his second story must sound, except this time, Thatch looked genuinely concerned and interested.
“You had a run-in with the Kirby triplets? They’re Mr. Kirby’s sons, you know, and just as bad as he is, if not worse!”
“They were headed toward us, so I figured we should get out of there before they recognized me. It was so weird, but they knew who I was. I mean, when I met them earlier,” said Toby.
“And who are you exactly? Not Gerald Caruthers, I’m guessing.” Thatch chuckled.
Toby joined in on the laugh. It was nice to have someone to talk to. He filled Thatch in on all the details of the day, from when he first got up that morning until he caught him with the toffee. Including how one of the Kirby triplets had touched his face.
Thatch looked worried. Really worried.
“What don’t I know? And do you know anything about my grandpa disappearing?” said Toby, hoping Thatch was the answer to all his problems.
“I don’t. But I can’t find my dad either, which is strange. Dad and I are the foyer security. It’s our job to patrol the foyer and make sure no one who isn’t meant to be here gets in. I’ve done laps of it several times, and he’s nowhere to be found. Don’t you think it’s strange that your grandpa goes missing, and tells you to find me, and now my dad is missing too?”
“I’m not even a magician, so I don’t know what this has to do with me,” said Toby.
“Neither am I.” Thatch hung his head and looked at the ground. “But I do know who is, and I bet she can help us.”
“Who?”
“Wesa!”
7
The Fire Mage
Thatch led Toby through the crowded convention hall. Toby couldn’t peel his eyes from the ceiling. How did those candles stay up there like that? There had to be fishing line holding them up, but they were moving around to the soft ambient music that filled the hall so elegantly. Whoever controlled them was doing an amazing job.
Suddenly, it was as though the hall had gone from day to night. Where all the candles floating above them had been gold and shimmering, they were now a deep purple color. The stalls surrounding them were all covered in purple tablecloths, and all the magicians standing behind them were dressed in capes with purple stars lining them and shiny purple top hats to match.
“What just happened?” said Toby.
Thatch laughed at Toby’s wonder. “I sometimes take for granted how amazing this whole world is. This is the mage part of the hall. The gold half is the illusionists’ territory. ”
“Did you see that? That magician just made rain clouds appear! And now it’s raining on him. That’s a crazy illusion!”
“Well, the mage side isn’t illusion—that’s the point. On this side of the hall, the magi
cians have real magic. On the illusion side of the hall, the magicians can only perform illusions.”
“You mean illusionists do fake magic? And the stuff mages do is real? Seriously? I’m not convinced. It’s all fake, isn’t it?”
“No magic is fake,” said Thatch, shaking his head and frowning.
“So what’s the point of all this anyway? Who cares about magic?”
Luckily, Thatch didn’t seem to take any offense, but he didn’t answer. He continued his trek through the hall.
Despite his resistance to succumb to the belief that the magic he was seeing all around him was real, Toby felt new air filling his lungs. The magic was breathtaking. Unlike the illusionist side of the convention, where magic tricks were for sale, this half held no wares. Instead, the magicians, both male and female alike, stood at their stalls, performing their magic.
Toby saw floating objects moving through the air from all directions. A magician on stilts was turning them all into gold coins. “Now that’s the sort of magic I would find useful!” Toby clapped his hands in rapture.
He shook his head in disbelief, questioning the magic he saw next. He walked past the table, manned by a magician whose bottom half of her body was separate from her top half. While the top half collected money from onlookers, the bottom half danced. She shook her money bag toward Toby, expecting him to pay for having stopped to watch. He had no gold coins to give, so he threw in his fifty-cent piece instead.
“Hurry, Toby. We need to get to Wesa before her performance,” called Thatch, beckoning frantically from up ahead.
“Coming!” Toby had momentarily forgotten why he was there in the first place: to find Grandpa. He had hardly spent any time looking for him properly or coming up with a plan. Instead, he had been too busy getting lost in this new and foreign world of magic.
He felt a guilty pang of shame that he hadn’t been as focused on finding Grandpa as he should have been. He resolved to not let himself get distracted again.
They squeezed between hungry onlookers, their eyes glued to the stage. Toby noticed the semicircular stage fitted perfectly against the round wall of the building. It was purple to match this half of the pavilion, and best of all, it floated at least a meter off the ground.
His stomach felt giddy with the possibility that magic might indeed be real. But then he decided there must be some sort of invisible wood holding the stage. Standing directly in front of the stage now, Toby could smell the excitement of the crowd as they waited for the next act. He looked around and saw a mixture of gold and purple hats flashing back at him. It was clear both mages and illusionists loved to watch magic performances.
“This is the mage stage. There is a new performer every thirty minutes. Wesa is due to go on at exactly eleven. We just made it,” puffed Thatch, looking nervously around.
Toby was about to ask Thatch what they would do once they found Wesa, but the crowd started clapping wildly as a shy girl stepped onto the stage. She was visibly trembling. Even her long black hair was shaking. Tears filled her eyes, and she didn’t look old enough to be a real performing magician. Could kids perform magic shows in this world?
Silence now echoed from the walls as though the rest of the convention had faded away. The girl flicked her wrist. Fire burst forward from her hands.
“Whoa!” yelled Toby through the silence. People stared at him and frowned, bidding him to be quiet. This was clearly not as unusual to them as it was to him.
“Is that Wesa?”
Thatch nodded.
Wesa walked toward a large basin filled with water. She picked up a container filled with yellow liquid and poured it into the water. With flames once again streaming from her fingertips, she held them toward the water. But instead of something exciting happening, the flames extinguished themselves.
Wesa looked around, seeming more frightened than ever. She started to cry. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”
“Loser!”
“Hopeless!”
“You suck!”
Toby looked over to see who was taunting Wesa in her moment of failure. It was the Kirby triplets! He nudged Thatch and pointed their way.
“Follow me!” Thatch ran through the crowd toward them. They were directly next to the stage exit that led to the viewing area. Wesa, now completely distraught, was running from the stage toward them.
Sticking close to Thatch, Toby saw the triplets all take their silken gloves off and reach their hands out. They’re doing that creepy touching thing again , he thought.
As Wesa ran straight for them, oblivious, Toby realized what Thatch was up to. He watched as Thatch threw himself into the triplets, knocking all three of them to the ground. Toby wanted to help, but he felt that familiar sick feeling in his stomach, which accompanied the urge to faint. He had never taken on a bully. He was no good at this stuff. Besides, Thatch was doing a fine job.
Wesa, unaware of what was happening, came to an abrupt stop as she stepped off the stage. “Thatch?”
“Run, Wesa! Don’t let the Kirbys touch you!” yelled Thatch.
One of the triplets punched Thatch in the stomach. Toby couldn’t tell which of the three it was—they all looked exactly the same.
As one of the triplets stood up and leaned toward Wesa, only inches away from touching her, Toby knew he had to do something. He pulled the giant toffee from his pocket and aimed at the boy’s orange head. He closed his eyes and wished for luck as he threw it as hard as he could. Bull’s-eye! It had hit the Kirby boy right in the face.
Wesa pulled away in the other direction, spurting fire from her hands at the Kirby triplets. It was the perfect diversion. People started screaming, and one lady with a giant canary-yellow bag started hitting the triplets repeatedly over the head.
“Follow me,” said Wesa.
She ran through the crowd with uncanny speed and precision. Her long purple dress trailed behind her as she pushed past Toby and Thatch, snuck past the triplets, who were still getting pummeled, and led the way to safety.
As they rounded the corner of the purple curtain, which hung in midair to form a private room, they collapsed on one of the many purple floor pillows laying about. Thatch and Toby laughed together as Thatch recalled Toby throwing his toffee at one of the Kirby brothers.
“I will miss that toffee though. It lasts forever, you know,” he said.
“Why didn’t you help me knock them over in the first place?” said Thatch.
“I get nervous around bullies like them.”
“They are as bad as it gets, too, those three,” said Thatch.
Wesa sat in the corner, crying softly.
Thatch gently approached her. “What happened at your performance today, Wesa?”
She sobbed into her purple tissue.
Was everything purple in here or what? Toby was in awe that there were even purple Chinese lanterns hanging from midair, of course. Other than the curtain, floor cushions, and lanterns, there were only two big suitcases (both purple) and clothes strewn everywhere.
Toby crawled across the small space toward Wesa. He decided he should introduce himself, given he was making himself at home. “I’m Toby. Please don’t cry.”
Wesa continued to sob into her tissue.
“At least we saved you from those horrid triplets. Now can someone please explain why they’re obsessed with touching everyone? They’re so creepy.”
Wesa suddenly stopped crying. “What? Is that what they were doing?” She wiped the makeup from her face, smudging it everywhere.
“Wesa, listen, something really strange is happening today. I’m pretty sure my dad is missing, and Toby’s grandfather is gone too. Toby got a message to find us. As in you and me,” said Thatch.
“Your father’s missing? So is my mother!” Wesa stood up and held her chest as if it might cave in. “That’s why I did my performance on my own. Which I failed—again!”
Thatch patted her gently on the back. “But you were planning to fail again, anyway, weren’t
you?”
She cried louder now, pushing out the words. “Well, yes, of course, I planned to fail, but I didn’t even do it on purpose today!”
“Keep your voice down. Someone will freak out if they hear you crying so loud,” said Toby. He was starting to panic, thinking the Kirbys may have followed them.
“The curtain is soundproof,” wailed Wesa.
“Of course it is,” said Toby, lifting the bottom of the curtain and popping his head back into the main pavilion. It was noisy and bustling with even more people. He stretched his face in disbelief as he spotted a magician open his mouth while animal-shaped bubbles emerged. He put his head back inside and marveled at the silence inside the tent. Only the sound of Wesa crying could be heard.
“Whoa, there’s a magician blowing animal bubbles out there. This place is seriously amazing. And it’s so quiet in here!” said Toby.
“Don’t mind him. He snuck into the convention,” said Thatch .
Wesa stopped crying for a moment and looked from Thatch to Toby.
“So you’re sure your mother’s missing?” said Toby as he circled the room on hands and knees as if he were a dog.
“Yes. Definitely. My mother would never miss a performance,” said Wesa, taking big gulps of air as she tried to calm herself.
“She’s normally part of the performance,” explained Thatch.
“Does she do fire illusions too? Can you teach me how to do that?” said Toby, remembering the fire pouring from Wesa’s hands.
“It’s not an illusion. Remember? Purple hat, real magic. Gold hat, illusion magic. Hey, where did you get your hat from anyway?” said Thatch with envy in his eyes.
“It was in my bedroom this morning, flat as a pancake when I found it.” Toby pulled the hat off his head and enjoyed the suction sound it made.
“They’re all like that,” said Wesa beginning to recover. “It means it’s a new hat. Once it’s opened, it can’t be closed. Thatch, please tell me what you know about my mother?”
“Dad and I arrived together through doorway one hundred and thirty-five, and then Dad headed off to find Elouise. She had to seal the doors once everyone was in. That’s the last I saw of him.”