Magic's Child

by Justine Larbalestier

  Esmeralda nodded. “Your hair…”

  “What about her hair?” Jay-Tee asked.

  I brought my hand to the top of my head. I couldn’t feel anything there, just my scalp.

  “What?” Jay-Tee repeated.

  “You can see magic in a way I’ve never heard of before,” Esmeralda said. “Don’t you think the vomiting could be part of those changes?”

  “Like the glowing?” Jay-Tee asked. “Hey, she isn’t glowing anymore.”

  Esmeralda stared at Jay-Tee and then at me.

  I looked down at my hands: they were glowing. Like Esmeralda had said. I was bald too, but Jay-Tee just couldn’t see it, because all her magic was gone. I waited for Esmeralda to tell her.

  “Since Raul Cansino gave you his magic,” she said to me, “you’ve changed. You’re becoming more like him.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t think he ate. I don’t think he needed food.”

  Jay-Tee made a face. “Or if he did eat, it wasn’t food.”

  I sat down. My body so changed it didn’t need food? I loved food. What would it be like never eating again?

  But would I even miss it if I were like Cansino all the time? Seeing magic and numbers everywhere? The world he lived in was so beautiful. And if I found Sarafina in time, she could join me there.

  But could my baby grow without food? Without nutrients? What would my baby be?

  Esmeralda was staring at me, an expression I couldn’t identify on her face.

  “What…?” I began.

  “He gave you everything. That’s what Alexander meant when he said that Raul chose you.”

  “Well, duh,” Jay-Tee said. “He gave you a baby too.”

  Esmeralda coughed. “What Raul gave you is very different from the magic he gave me and Alexander. You’re changing so fast.”

  “Yes,” I said, not looking at her.

  “Alexander said this new magic wouldn’t last. But yours will, won’t it?”

  “I don’t know. But I don’t think my grandfather was lying.”

  “How long?” she asked, leaning towards me. Too close. “How long do I have?”

  I shifted away. “I don’t know. You look bright, strong. Jason Blake, Alexander, whatever my grandfather’s name is—he does too. I think it doesn’t last compared to what Raul’s done to me. He lived centuries. I think what you have now is a normal life. Thirty or forty more years.”

  “That’s great!” Jay-Tee said. “You’re already forty-five. Another thirty years means you get to live practically forever.”

  Esmeralda smiled, but I didn’t think she was amused. The look she cast at me was so greedy I almost flinched. My grandmother was like a child who’d just tried chocolate for the first time and now, more than anything, wanted more. Lots more. I didn’t want to be in the same room with her, the same world with her. I had to find Sarafina and get away from Jason Blake and Esmeralda.

  “If there is a door directly from Auckland to New York City, I want to find it before Jason Blake gets there.”

  “How do you propose to do that?” Esmeralda asked.

  “I told you—I can see them.”

  “Are there lots of them?” Jay-Tee asked. “How will you know which one is Jason Blake’s?”

  “I’ll see him come through it.” I shook my head. “Look, you can stay here and talk as much as you like. I’m going to New York.”

  I closed my eyes and the world became points of magic light, mathematical patterns swirling around me. Jay-Tee disappeared; Esmeralda shone brightly. I looked closely and found her pattern. I’d half been expecting Fibonaccis but found instead primes. That made sense—Esmeralda being only divisible by herself and one. They wound their way through her: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97, on and on.

  I could still hear Esmeralda and Jay-Tee talking, but if I didn’t focus on them, their words broke apart and became unrelated sounds. I stood up, the thickness giving way around me slowly, like jelly, only softer, more buoyant. As if gravity had halved. The door pulled at me, drew me with its magic lights that were the sixteenth Fibonacci. I slid through.

  12

  Everything Changes

  “Whoa,” Jay-Tee said, blinking rapidly. “Where did Ree go? She was just here.”

  “She went through the door,” Esmeralda said, grabbing her winter coat from the back of the door.

  “The door? Then how come I didn’t see it? Was I daydreaming?”

  “I’m going after her. You know how to dial my mobile when I’m in New York?”

  Jay-Tee shook her head. Esmeralda wrote the numbers down and handed them to her. “I want you to call me if anything happens. Anything at all. Let me know when Tom turns up. If Kalder—”

  “The social worker,” Jay-Tee said. “Weren’t you supposed to call the social worker? I think it was important. You know? Taking-Reason-away important.”

  “Shit,” Esmeralda said. “I’ll have to call her from New York.”

  “Have you got her number?”

  “She left voice mail.” Esmeralda pulled on her coat and opened the back door. “Call me, okay?”

  Jay-Tee nodded, peering over Mere’s shoulders, eager for her first glimpse of New York in days, but all she saw was the backyard. The back porch, the big old tree, light stained green by the dense leaves, a flock of those stupid red, blue, and green birds that never ever shut up.

  “Wait,” she said, but Esmeralda was already gone and the door closed.

  Why hadn’t she seen New York City?

  Jay-Tee felt good, better than she had in ages. No dizziness, no fading away, no floating. She felt solid, grounded. Reason must have given her a lot of magic. More than Tom had.

  They’d both saved her life now. That must mean they were all going to be best friends forever, even though Tom’s forever wasn’t very long, and hers was even shorter. They didn’t have enough magic to keep saving her over and over again.

  This time, she swore, this time she really would be careful. She wouldn’t waste the little magic she had left. It was better to go crazy than to die.

  Had she felt like this after Tom gave her his magic? She’d felt better, yes, but this much better?

  How had Reason managed to find so much magic to give her? She couldn’t have given her the sharp, cutting Cansino magic, because then Jay-Tee’d be on the floor writhing in agony, or probably dead. Had she given Jay-Tee regular magic? But how much of that did she have left? Not much. She’d been as stupid with it as Jay-Tee had been with her own.

  So where did this new magic come from? Could Reason pull it out of the air? Was that another one of her brand-new superpowers?

  Wherever the magic had come from, Jay-Tee was going to be very, very careful with it. She owed Tom and Reason that much for saving her life. It would suck if they’d given away their magic for nothing.

  Especially Reason. What if this Cansino magic wasn’t stable? What if it disappeared? Then she’d have nothing left. She would die. All because she’d saved Jay-Tee.

  Why hadn’t Jay-Tee seen New York City?

  She got up, went to the fridge, and poured herself a glass of white wine, filling the glass near to the brim. Now that Mere wasn’t here to say no, she could drink as much as she liked.

  It had been really annoying watching Mere sipping wine while she questioned Jay-Tee over and over about stuff she mostly didn’t have answers to. The whole time, Jay-Tee’d been wishing she could have some wine too. For all his evilness, at least he didn’t care whether she drank or not. Jay-Tee took a big sip now in a stuff-you-Esmeralda-Cansino way.

  It wasn’t like Mere was her grandmother. Besides, Jay-Tee already had to stop doing magic, which meant no real running or dancing. What else was left for her? How else was she going to relax? Surely having some wine didn’t matter.

  Even if she did manage to stop using magic (and she really, really, really was going to do her damnedest), even so, how long did she have le
ft? Weren’t there little inadvertent uses of magic? When she ran just a little too fast? When she weaved her way through a crowd? Like at the airport. All of that added up. Sometimes when she was asleep and dreaming she would use magic. How could she control her dreams?

  And even if Jay-Tee did manage to never use the tiniest trace of magic ever, ever again, then what kind of a life was she going to have off her rocker?

  She had another sip of the wine, because, well, she needed it.

  Jay-Tee wished she’d been able to go through the door with Reason and Mere, then lose them and move in with Danny. Her brother’d let her drink. At least, she thought he might. She missed him. But going through the door meant magic.

  But the door had opened and she hadn’t seen New York, she hadn’t seen the East Village, Seventh Street; she’d seen a Sydney backyard. Was that a sign of how little magic she had left? Too little to even see through the door. Had trying to see through to New York cost her? When she’d peeked through the keyhole it had been blurry. That must have been because she had so little. Now she couldn’t see it at all, not even blurred.

  Jay-Tee took another gulp of wine, feeling it turn acid on the back of her throat. She coughed. Put the glass down, got herself water, gulped that down. Stupid Esmeralda with her crappy wine.

  When her throat calmed, she drank some more, and then more, until the glass was empty. Jay-Tee found the idea of being drunk appealing. She didn’t like the direction of her thoughts. Better to be silly and raucous, anything that would lead her away from thinking what she didn’t want to think.

  The door had opened and she’d seen that big-ass tree, stupid chirruping birds, the part of the garage door not obscured by the big-ass tree. Everything green and summery and light and Sydney. Not wintry New York. Not the dirty, comfortable, beloved East Village.

  Did it mean she was going to die soon? Who’d rescue her this time? She’d lived her life so recklessly it was pathetic to discover that, after all, she didn’t want to die young.

  She wanted to live.

  The wine was starting to uncurl inside her, to smooth things out, make them seem better than they were. She opened the fridge, looking for more. Found three bottles, unopened, lying on their sides at the bottom of the fridge. One of them was champagne. Easier to open than normal wine, but it seemed kind of pathetic to drink bubbles on your own.

  She pulled out one of the other ones. It had a cheap-looking label: MOSS WOOD ESTATE SEMILLON. It was probably as crappy as the other one, but she didn’t care. She found a corkscrew and opened it.

  She poured herself another mighty glass, picking out bits of cork with a finger. The sour taste made her grimace. Oh well, she told herself. It’ll get me where I want to go.

  The house hadn’t shaken when Reason and Esmeralda went to New York, she realized. Normally the door opening and shutting sent a shudder through the house. She hadn’t felt it. She hadn’t heard it. What did that mean?

  It meant, she decided, that she should have more wine.

  The door opened. Tom stepped through, head swathed in hat and scarf, so that all Jay-Tee could see was his red nose and eyes.

  “Tom!”

  He grinned, started to take off his gloves, turned to shut the door behind him.

  “Don’t shut it!” Jay-Tee yelled, jumping up.

  “What?”

  She grabbed the door, pushed it wide open. The backyard. Green leaves, brown bark, fallen brown leaves and twigs on the wooden porch. The last of the day’s sunlight. Long shadows.

  She stepped through. One step to the porch, wood under her feet. Not New York.

  Jay-Tee heard Tom shout something from inside the house. He sounded scared.

  She went down the rest of the steps to the backyard. Tom’s house over that fence, past the red spiky bushes. Mere’s magic cottage on the other side, its dark brick wall right up to the fence. It seemed to glower.

  This was not New York City. She wasn’t cold; she was hot.

  She sat down on the steps.

  “Jay-Tee?” Tom called. “Are you there?”

  She turned to where his head was sticking out the kitchen window.

  “Bugger, you just disappeared! Scared me to buggery.” He climbed through the window, dropped onto the porch, where he wobbled. He’d taken off his coat, hat, and gloves, but he was still dressed too warmly. A scarf hung loose around his neck. “What’s going on? Are you all right?”

  Jay-Tee returned to staring at her hands. She was thinking about Reason’s. They hadn’t been glowing. She’d said so, and Mere had looked at her weird.

  No. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t.

  Tom sat down next to her, a little unsteady. “You don’t look okay.”

  She turned to him before he could say anything else. She leaned forward and kissed him. Lips against lips.

  He pulled away, startled. “Jay-Tee? Are you sure you’re—”

  “I’m fine. You’re fine. I like you.”

  “I like you too. Kisses are lovely,” he said, tripping over the word kisses. She understood. It was a tricky word. “But you seem so—”

  “Fine,” she said, and kissed him again.

  “Fine?” he asked, and kissed her back. She opened her mouth: they kissed properly this time. She ran her tongue over his teeth. His tongue found hers. She reached her hands up to his cheeks, careful to avoid where Jason Blake had cut him. Smooth, soft, still chilled from the—She pushed that thought away. Felt his hands on her waist. Moved hers into his thick white-blond hair.

  All the sensations, their bodies so close, so intertwined, all of it was making Jay-Tee tingle. A buzz spread through her; something in the pit of her stomach flipped, but it was a good flip. She let out a little sigh. Tom’s hands moved on her waist and the sensation shivered through her body, all the way to her toes. It felt like magic.

  It wasn’t magic.

  No. She wasn’t going there.

  She pulled her mouth from Tom’s, touched his bottom lip with her fingers. Her face was so close she could see the little freckles on his lips. Pale brown on pale pink. She kissed each one. She could feel him breathing. “Pretty,” she said.

  “Jay-Tee,” he said. “What’s—”

  She kissed him again, properly, with more passion, more oomph. He responded. He liked it, she could tell.

  She pulled his hand from where it lay on top of her T-shirt and slid it underneath so she could feel his skin on her skin, just above her hip bone. His fingers were still cool but warming fast. His hands circled her waist. She shivered.

  The phone rang. Sharp and loud, cracking open the heavy hot air.

  Briiiiiing. Briiiiiiing.

  “Phone,” Tom said. She felt the word against her lips. Their mouths were still close.

  It could be Reason or Esmeralda, Jay-Tee thought. It could be important. I should get it.

  She untangled herself from Tom, stood up unsteadily, pushed back her hair, wiped her mouth. Put her hand on the door handle. It opened easily. Because it wasn’t…She wasn’t—

  Briiiiiing. Briiiiiiing.

  She stepped through. From Sydney back porch to Sydney kitchen. Whoosh! Magic. Not. She giggled. Wobbled to the phone and picked it up.

  “Hello,” she said, imitating Tom. “Esmeralda Cansino’s residence.”

  “Hello, Jay-Tee,” said a voice that chilled her. “I was hoping it would be you.”

  Jay-Tee’s brain stalled. It was him. He scared her and she hated him. She didn’t want to talk to him. She didn’t even like to think about him. But it was his voice on the phone. He’d hurt her. He’d hurt Reason. Stolen from them. He would do it again if he could. He was a bad, bad man.

  “I have a message for you to deliver to Esmeralda…”

  She wasn’t listening. Thoughts were multiplying in her head. He’d hurt her by taking her magic. But she didn’t—she forced herself to follow it through—she didn’t have any magic. Not anymore.

  Reason had taken it, or switched it off, or done some
thing that had left her alive but as magic-free as big a dead spot, as her brother, Danny. She had no magic anymore, which meant that—

  “Who is it?” Tom whispered. He must have clambered in through the window.

  She shook her head.

  “Jay-Tee? What’s going on?”

  What did it mean? It meant that he couldn’t do anything to her. Nothing. She didn’t have to be scared of him. She didn’t have to think about him. He wasn’t part of her world anymore. She was free.

  “Did you get all of that, Jay-Tee?” he asked.

  Jay-Tee giggled. “Nope. Not a word. I wasn’t listening to you, Alexander, or Jason Blake, or Stephen Collins, or David Johnson, or whatever boring-ass white-bread name you’re calling yourself this week. You can go shit in a bottle and eat it for all I care.” Jay-Tee almost started laughing. She’d called him by name. All of his names!

  “You can’t do anything to me, not anymore. I’m not afraid of you. You can’t touch me. You can’t take my magic, ’cause I haven’t got any! Go sit on that and rotate! Asshole!”

  With a flourish she hung up the phone and fell into Tom’s arms, which should have been all romantic and sexy and stuff, but she was wobbly and so was he, and they fell.

  It hit her again: she had no magic, but she was alive. Everything had changed. Her whole life.

  She had a life. She kissed Tom’s confused and anxious face. His cheeks and then his mouth, which was when another thought hit her:

  Jason Blake’s—See? She could think his name, she could say it aloud if she wanted to—Jason Blake’s message had been important. It had been for Esmeralda and Reason. It was about Reason’s mother, Sarafina, who he was holding hostage, because he did still have power: he could hurt Jay-Tee’s friends.

  “Oops,” she said.

  She wasn’t magic anymore. She burst into tears.

  13

  Hot and Bothered

  “Oops?” Tom asked. He sat up, wishing his head was clearer. “What’s going on, Jay-Tee? What did Jason Blake want? How can you not have any magic? You’re alive!” Unless she’d gone mad already. Which was why she thought her magic was gone and spat the dummy at Jason Blake. And had kissed Tom? Well, no, he didn’t want to think that was madness-induced.