Magic or Madness

by Justine Larbalestier

  “That’s right. This is the only tombstone that tells so little about how they’re related. Weird, huh?”

  Reason was looking intently at the inscription for Esmeralda Milagros Luz Cansino—born in 1823—a strange expression on her face.

  “What?” Tom asked.

  “She died so young.”

  Tom glanced at the dates, working it out. “Eighteen. They died a lot younger in the olden days. You don’t know much about your family, do you?” Why was she surprised? Of course they died young. Tom was disappointed. Maybe he’d been wrong about Reason.

  She shook her head. “Not really. Just what Sarafina told me: everything she knows about my dad, which is not much, and about growing up with Esmeralda. She didn’t talk about family history.”

  “Huh.”

  Reason moved to the next name. “This one was only twenty, and this one twenty-one, fourteen, five—ha!—look at this: Gone before her time. What about the rest of them? Were they all on time? Next one, nineteen, then twenty, twenty-five.” She glanced at each set of dates for a split second before announcing the age. As fast as Esmeralda would’ve done it. She had to be magic too.

  “Wow, Ree,” Tom said. “You’re really good at maths!”

  Reason looked at him as if he was a bit slow. “That’s not maths, that’s just arithmetic.”

  “Whatever. I’ve never seen anyone add so fast. You definitely are Mere’s granddaughter.”

  “Actually, it’s mostly subtraction.” She moved to the next side. “Twelve, sixteen, twenty-seven, twenty again. Tom, look, they all died young.”

  “Not all.” He pointed to John Matthew Douglas O’Shaughnessy. “Sixty-five,” he said, after way more than a split second.

  “He’s a man,” Reason said. “You look, all the men live a decent amount. Except for the first, Raul.” She pointed. “Him you can’t tell. See? Died in 1823.”

  Tom looked. Raul Cansino’s year of birth was a question mark. “But all the women.” Mere had said it ran strong in her family.

  “Not all,” Reason said. She’d come to the last name, Esmeralda’s mother. “Here’s one: Milagros Luz Cansino, forty-eight. She was practically an old lady.” Reason was staring at the plainly etched name. “But neither of her sisters made it past twenty. This tomb is so well kept,” she said, turning to look at Tom. “Most of the other ones are overgrown and broken, hard to read. I haven’t seen any others so recent either. I thought the cemetery wasn’t being used anymore.”

  “It isn’t. Except for your family.” Tom looked at Milagros Cansino’s dates.

  “Is that my great-grandmother?”

  Tom nodded. He was feeling stupid for not having figured out Esmeralda’s age based on her mother’s dates. Though Mere could have been a late baby.

  “So she lived to be forty-eight. Esmeralda is forty-five. Sarafina thirty. That’s three who’ve made it to thirty. What happened to the others? Do you know, Tom?”

  Tom shook his head, trying to look innocent. He knew, though he could hardly say so after Mere’s request. It had to do with magic. He wasn’t from a long line like Reason. As far as he knew, his mother was the first, and she didn’t understand what she was. It scared her. Tom had only been rescued by Esmeralda a year ago—there was still a lot he didn’t know. But he did know that magic was dangerous, that it could, and usually did, kill you. Those with magic almost never lived long lives. If Reason was magic and didn’t know that, Mere should tell her as soon as she could.

  There was loud crack of thunder. They both jumped. Fat raindrops started to fall; within seconds they were both drenched.

  10

  In the Asylum

  My mother, Sarafina, was mad and my grandmother, Esmeralda, was evil. I wondered what that made me. Mad evil? Evil mad? Was that why the women in my family rarely made it past thirty?

  I didn’t feel evil or mad; I wanted to have a long, normal life.

  The next morning, as soon as I was sure Esmeralda was gone, I went to see Sarafina. There’d been another letter under the door when I woke up. I couldn’t bring myself to do more than glance at my name in her handwriting. I added it to the first two.

  The walk to where they were keeping her, Kalder Park, took less than half as long as Tom had said. He probably didn’t walk very often or very far. City folk.

  It would’ve been even quicker if there hadn’t been so many cars and trucks. Some of the roads were impossible to cross anywhere but at a pedestrian crossing, and the lights took forever to change.

  When I was close, I stopped at a café and bought breakfast. Eggs and bacon and chips. Twelve dollars, it cost. I wondered if the eggs were made of gold or something. They didn’t taste any different to normal eggs.

  Across the road a sign had KALDER PARK written on it in big letters. I’d expected grey, looming buildings with bars on the windows and no greenery in sight. Instead there were hardly any buildings visible. It really was a park.

  I finished my breakfast and crossed the road, walking among the trees and buildings trying to find the entrance. The park was next to a bay; as I walked, I watched the glitter of sunlight on the water and sailboats zigzagging across. If my mother weren’t locked up here, I would never have guessed this was a hospital for the mentally ill.

  In fact, one-half of the park was an art school. The buildings had the name of the school on them in big letters. Instead of loonies shambling about, students dressed in black sketched the bay with intense expressions or lay back in the grass with their mates, laughing and smoking cigarettes. They didn’t seem too bothered about drifting over onto hospital grounds. Not that it was easy to tell where the one ended and the other began.

  Some of the buildings were run-down looking, but the ivycovered sandstone walls weren’t depressing. The place was well worn, not neglected. And anyway, judging from the outside, the art school was in worse repair than the hospital.

  I finally found reception in a small redbrick cottage. Inside, nothing remained of the home it had once been. The internal walls had been knocked down and now it was a waiting room, with chairs up against the walls, a wooden box full of kids’ toys, a table overflowing with pamphlets, and a large curved white desk. The woman sitting behind it looked up from a computer screen and smiled as I walked in. There was no one else in the room.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “I’d like to see my mother.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Um, no,” I said, feeling stupid. I should’ve asked Tom to describe the place and how it worked.

  “Have you visited her here before?”

  I shook my head.

  “Didn’t think so. Visiting hours don’t start for another half hour.”

  “At eleven?”

  She nodded. “Has your mother been here long?”

  I shook my head again. Apparently they weren’t used to fifteen-year-old girls just showing up and asking to see their mum.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Sarafina Cansino.”

  “Why don’t you take a seat and we’ll see what we can do?”

  I sat down. There was no one else waiting. I picked up one of the pamphlets: “Understanding Mental Illness” in large red letters above a picture of a woman holding her head and grimacing. As if being crazy was like having a headache. I put it down and stared out the window, seeing nothing.

  It was Tuesday. I’d arrived at Esmeralda’s on Sunday afternoon. I’d last seen my mother on Saturday. Only three days ago. How could that be? Everything had happened so quickly that I’d lost any sense of time. It seemed like ages since my coming to Sydney, but also like yesterday. My life before could have been a dream. Or I could be in the dream right now.

  My stomach was in knots. As badly as I wanted to see Sarafina, I was also afraid. The last time had been in the Dubbo hospital. They’d pumped Sarafina’s stomach, bandaged her wrists and throat.

  I’d sat by her bed all night and into the morning, dozing in a chair. She
’d mostly been unconscious and when she did come around for a few seconds, her eyes were unfocussed and watery. She didn’t recognise me.

  A policewoman and a social worker came and asked me if I was right to talk to them. I said I was, though I hadn’t slept and my head felt strange and I was worried I’d start crying if I told them what’d happened.

  They bought me breakfast and were kind, but I still cried when I answered their questions. When I went back to Sarafina’s room, she was conscious.

  She started screaming as soon as I walked in. She was strapped to the bed. As I walked closer, she only got louder. There were no words, just a raw, violent, piercing noise. It went straight through my head.

  “Sarafina,” I said, trying to sound soothing.

  Sarafina screamed louder, words this time. “Get out! Get out! Get out! Get out! Get out!”

  She strained forward, fighting to break the straps. Like she wanted to leap at me. Tear me to pieces. Her eyes were blood hot. They looked like they were going to pop right out of her head. Sarafina was wild and terrifying. She hardly even looked human.

  “Get out! Get out! Get out! Get out! Get out!”

  Nurses had come running, a doctor. They’d injected Sarafina with something. Another nurse led me away, promising that I’d be able to see my mother again, later, when she’d calmed down. But I’d been flown to Sydney and my grandmother’s house instead.

  Sarafina had been mad before. But not like that. She had never, ever turned on me.

  Sarafina talked to people who weren’t there. She insisted we walk in straight lines, for days at a time. Sometimes she got confused, wasn’t sure where or who she was. Then I would lead her back to the hotel room or caravan or campsite—wherever it was we were staying—and explain where we were and why and give Sarafina a mathematical or logic problem to solve. She always could. Solving the problem would bring her back.

  Her episodes never lasted long, and until Dubbo she’d never been scary mad. I wasn’t sure I could cope with my mother screaming at me again. Not like that.

  Like she’d wanted to kill me.

  “Reason Cansino?” asked a nurse.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you hungry, love?”

  I nodded, surprised by the question. The eggs and bacon had gone nowhere. I was still starving.

  The nurse handed me a plate of Iced VoVos and shortbread. Not my favourites, but I was that hungry, I probably would have eaten frogs or brains or snails. The almonds I’d stolen from Tom’s yesterday hadn’t lasted long.

  “Your mum’ll be ready soon. She was asleep.”

  I tried to imagine Sarafina asleep this late in the day.

  “Do you want to wait outside and eat your biscuits? It’s closer to the visitors’ room.” The nurse pointed to a bench nearby. “Won’t be long.”

  I sat on the bench, which overlooked the bay, munching on my bickies. A group of joggers ran by near the waterline. They were sweating so hard I could see drops of water flying off them. It was so hot. I thought they were completely mad. What was the point of running in circles, with no destination in mind? Especially on such a scorching day.

  I had so many questions for Sarafina. Why was the house so different from how she had described it? Light and clean and beautiful. Did my mother know what the infinity key opened? Why hadn’t she told me about our family? Did she know why all those women had died so young?

  I pulled the ammonite out of my pocket, stared at it. Was it still lucky? I’d lost it countless times, but I’d always been able to find it again, even the time it fell out of my pocket and into the Roper River. I’d waded in, found it in the mud almost straightaway, like it was calling to me, then waded out again. Then Sarafina had pulled me into her arms and away from the riverbank as quick as she could. Two large crocs had been only metres away.

  “She’s ready, love,” said the same nurse. “She wanted to wash and comb her hair before she saw you. Make herself nice, you know?”

  I nodded and followed her. My stomach unknotted a little. Combed hair sounded like a good sign.

  The nurse led me into the visitors’ room, large and light, with lots of windows, which only highlighted its drabness. The lounge furniture was all brown, but each brown was faded to a different shade, none of it matched. The floor was covered in checked brown, beige and white linoleum, almost worn through in places. Seven people sat on the different couches and chairs, some wore robes, others pyjamas, all were clearly patients.

  The nurse led me to a woman in a white terry-towelling robe, sitting in an overlarge chair on the verge of swallowing her. It took me a moment to realise that she was my mother. She was so still. She could have been carved out of wood or stone by one of the art students. She sat staring out the window. She didn’t even seem to blink. Sarafina had never been a still person.

  “Sarafina,” I said. My mother did not turn to look at me.

  Her hair did look newly combed, but it had a centre part. Sarafina always parted her hair on the left. Her hair was much shorter too. An uneven bob, just past her ears, instead of the shoulder-length cut I was used to. There was grey in it.

  “Sarafina,” I said again. I wondered if I should take her hand. It looked very small and thin. It was hard to tell through the bulky robe, but Sarafina looked thinner all over. Except her face, which was kind of puffy, bloated.

  “Reason,” she said. Her voice was flat, toneless.

  I waited for Sarafina to say more. She didn’t. I still hadn’t seen her blink.

  “Sarafina?”

  “You look well,” she said.

  “Thank you,” I said, though she hadn’t looked at me and couldn’t know how I looked. She looked terrible.

  “Are you working for your grandmother now?” Sarafina asked in the same toneless voice.

  “Am I? No. I mean, I . . . I haven’t spoken to her.” Well hardly spoken to her, I amended silently. “I haven’t eaten any of her food. I know how to escape and I’ve gotten some supplies. And I—”

  “That’s good.” Sarafina didn’t sound pleased or displeased. There was no emotion in her voice.

  I felt my eyes filling with tears. I clenched my hands. I wasn’t going to cry. “You’ve got a bag,” I began, “with three black marbles, two white marbles, and one red. You draw the first marble out, and—”

  “You don’t want to work for her.”

  “For Esmeralda?”

  “Yes, Esmeralda. You don’t want to work for her.”

  “No, of course not. I don’t want to work for anyone.”

  “No,” Sarafina said. “That’s wise. Don’t work for anyone. They’ll only steal from you. You have to keep what’s yours.”

  “Keep what’s mine?”

  Sarafina nodded. It was the first movement she’d made, but her eyes were still fixed on something outside the window, the sparkling water, maybe? I wasn’t sure Sarafina was looking at anything. Her voice was completely flat. “But don’t use it. Never use what you have.”

  “Use what, Sarafina?”

  “Best you dig her up. Start with that.”

  “What?” I said, not quite managing to keep the frustration out of my voice. She was making no sense.

  “You’ll find her in the southeast corner. The cellar.”

  “Find who?”

  “You’ll have to shift the stones. It’s not deep. Not difficult either. Just use your hands.”

  “You want me to—”

  “It’s not too bad,” Sarafina said, as if she hadn’t heard me.

  “Being insane. It’s not too bad at all. There are worse things. It’s pretty here.” Then she was quiet again, her face completely closed. She didn’t respond to anything more I said.

  A nurse came and led Sarafina back to her room. I watched as she moved away slowly, not shuffling, just slow, as though she existed in a different, slower-paced world. Sarafina had never been a slow person.

  The kind nurse asked me if I was okay.

  I managed a nod. I didn’t w
ant to cry. I hadn’t asked Sarafina any of my questions and had completely forgotten about the pin number for the bank card. I wondered if I’d ever be able to talk with her properly again.

  “It’s hard to see someone you love like that,” the nurse said. I nodded again.

  “She’s been doing quite well here. She’s stopped trying to harm herself and she hasn’t had any screaming fits. She’s improved.”

  “She sounded so . . .” I paused. I wasn’t sure what word I wanted. “Empty? She didn’t sound like herself.”

  “Your mum is on a lot of medication. It takes time for the doctors to get the balance right so that she can be your mother again without wanting to harm herself.”

  “She never used to want to do that. We were happy.” It sounded lame, even to me.

  The nurse squeezed my hand, which only made me want to cry more.

  “It will get better. It’s good that you came to visit her. It will remind your mum of how things used to be.”

  I nodded, standing up. “I’ll come visit again.”

  There was no question about it. I was going to rescue Sarafina. We would escape together. The hospital wasn’t going to make her well, filling her with drugs that made her slow and strange. Sarafina just needed to find her old self. She would never be able to do that drugged to the gills.

  I hadn’t planned to run away with Sarafina because I had been thinking about the screaming, terrifying Sarafina. I had to concentrate on remembering the fun Sarafina, the one who had been my mother, my best friend.

  I had imagined myself running away, just as my mother had run when she was even younger than me. Alone. Sarafina had escaped Esmeralda and made her own way in the world, even when she’d had a small baby to look after. I wanted to be as brave and resourceful as that.

  I would be. And I would have someone to look after too: my mother.

  11

  Going Underground

  As soon as I got back to the house, I went down into the cellar, hoping to make sense of the only understandable thing Sarafina had said. The cool down there was a relief. I’d still have ages alone in the house, even if Esmeralda came home early from work. I had no idea when she’d gotten in last night. I’d fallen into a deep sleep thinking about all my dead relatives with their short, short lives.