“Never!” he screamed before I got all the words out. I lost my place and had to start the spell again.
“I told you,” the gremhahn yelled, his eyes still locked past us to Mother. “You will never see your son again.”
He drew his fists tight in front of his chest, then thrust his arms up and out, his hands flying open, crying that word again—“Never!”
Mother screamed and threw her hands over her eyes.
“Oh dear God. Help me,” Mother said, stumbling to where we stood. “I can’t see. I’m blind.”
Diana threw her arms around her, as if in protection, but it was too late.
Panic and rage burned through me. We were too late. Too late to break Mother’s curse. Too late to save Jimmy. The words of the binding spell flew from my mind as if I’d never known them.
The goblin fixed his harsh gaze on me.
“Pathetic,” he said.
I was pathetic, never thinking the goblin might still be keeping watch on me. Nothing like making a big point of being here, especially with Diana arriving just as I was shooing away the seagulls. Which one had flown off to give the gremhahn the news? The goblin wasn’t stupid. He likely knew that Jimmy’s year was coming to a close, and here were Diana and I on the shore. How smart did he have to be to divine that we’d come for him? Mother’s blindness was every bit as much my doing as the goblin’s.
“Stop it, Cassie,” Diana said, her voice as hard and cold as glacial ice. “Focus.”
I dug my nails into my palms, and then knew my spells again. I didn’t know what to cast first. The spell to protect myself wouldn’t extend to the others. Even if Diana cast her own protection, it would leave Mother exposed.
“Stupid girl,” the goblin said to me. “Did you think the pitiful magic you learned from the finder woman could stop me? A finder of lost things, but no talent beyond that most simple magic. How could she teach you anything to hurt me? I have lived a thousand years, faced magic stronger than you can even dream of, and still I stand here before you. You know nothing, Mage. And for your arrogance, you will suffer.”
My throat went dry. My knees threatened to buckle. And somehow, I laughed.
“I’ve already bested you once, Gremhahn,” I said. “You know I can do it again.”
It was the goblin’s turn to laugh. “Tell yourself that, but you know the lie of it. You know that without your seal friends you would have drowned. Where are those seals now? I don’t see them.”
I swallowed hard. The gremhahn was right; he would have won had the seal not saved me. But his gloating might be turned to my advantage if I could enchant him while he was too busy being proud of himself to stop me.
As he opened his mouth to say more, I cast a quick, two-word freezing spell, stopping him before his words escaped. For a long moment only the gentle sound of the ocean broke the silence.
“What’s happening?” Mother said.
Diana said, “Cassie froze him.”
Mother turned her head in the direction she’d last heard my voice. “Good for you, Cassie. Now, we must end the curse on you and then get Jimmy back.”
“And the curse on you,” I said, my voice breaking. If we did the curse-breaking spell, would Mother’s sight return? The only way to know was to try it. I couldn’t bear to think it might not work.
“If I unfreeze him,” I said, “are we ready?”
We’d practiced this spell repeatedly together. I’d practiced it alone as well, and thought Mother and Diana likely had, too. Both women nodded. Diana was already holding Mother’s hand. I moved to Mother’s other side and took her free hand.
“On the count of three,” I said. “One.”
We had to be fast.
“Two.”
We couldn’t give the goblin time to throw out a counter spell.
“Three.”
I freed the goblin from his frozen state and began the chant. A moment later, Diana joined with her part—different words that she said around mine, so that the chant began to sound like a song. When Mother joined with her part, we became a chorus, sometimes saying the same words but mostly not. Sometimes I was silent while Diana or Mother took a solo, but usually all three of us had a part. A sense of competence and rightness flowed through me—like being three different instruments in an orchestra, each playing individual melodies that melded into a single, much grander whole.
I kept my eyes on the sea goblin. His fingers were stuffed into his ears like a child. He’d tried that trick before. He wouldn’t fool me a second time. We three raised our voices high.
The starfish at my throat warmed, grew hot. Energy poured through me. I was the flame and the fire, burning with the magnificent heat of magic. Nothing could stop the power we three had harnessed. Nothing would save the gremhahn. Nothing would—
Mother squeezed my hand. I couldn’t take a moment to glance at her, but didn’t need to. She trusted me, believed in me. I raised my voice louder still. We together were the song, but I alone was the arrow that would pierce the goblin’s black heart so that no other child would be torn from its family, no other parents would suffer the pain of having their child disappear in the night.
I turned Mother’s hand loose. She and Diana continued chanting behind me, the trio turning to a duet as I strode toward the sea goblin. I didn’t reach up to feel in my hair for the stars the goblin had put there—a way to know if his curse on me was broken. I no longer cared. Destroying the goblin was all that mattered.
I cast another cloaking spell as I walked so the goblin couldn’t see me coming. It had to work in my favor. I didn’t know a spell to destroy the gremhahn, had no idea what I’d do when I reached him, but I was the arrow launched by Diana’s bow—I’d strike true.
Except—
Behind the gremhahn on the shore, another sea goblin appeared, emerging in the waves, wearing Dr. Gremhahn’s face and clothing, and carrying his small black bag. My heart shuddered. Pax had said there was only one. How could another come from the ocean?
Not just one, but two, and three, and then four—emerging from the waves, walking through the surf as if they walked on dry land, waves breaking around them but having no effect.
And behind them, more Dr. Gremhahns emerged—a squadron of goblins approaching the surf line, heading toward me.
Panic sped my thoughts. Where had these goblins come from? How would I—or could I—deal with so many at once?
Mother and Diana continued their chanting behind me, with no change in tone or rhythm. For a moment I was grateful Mother couldn’t see this army of goblins and be frightened by them. But Diana seemed blind to them as well. If she saw them, surely Diana would call out to me, give some advice, change the chant to help me with this new threat, cast some spell herself.
Nothing.
I was on my own.
Think, Cassie. Think. I didn’t even know how to disarm and destroy one goblin—how was I going to manage dozens?
Something new appeared in the surf—a large harbor seal. The seal had its head out of the water and was looking straight at me. Looking at me and barking, as if trying to tell me something. Seals had helped me before, but there was only one gremhahn then. How could one seal stop more goblins than I could count?
The seal swam toward the last of the multiple Dr. Gremhahns—the only one still in the deeper surf. The seal dove under the water. The gremhahn suddenly jerked and disappeared beneath the waves.
One down, I thought. Dozens to go.
The seal broke through the water and rose into the air, leaping in a way I didn’t know seals could, more like a dolphin or a whale, breaching out of the sea. And held in its mouth was the goblin, writhing. The seal threw the goblin high into the air. The gremhahn’s arms and legs flailed. His doctor’s bag fell and sank into the ocean.
Just as the goblin reached the apex of the throw, it burst into a geyser of black sparks that rose up and then fell onto the water and vanished. Unconsciously, I reached up and felt the stars in my hair. The
y were still there, as hard and solid as ever.
But . . . but, I realized, that shower of stars meant something. Most likely that the extra Dr. Gremhahns weren’t real. The one, real goblin was still under my enchantment. How could he cast a spell to make me see goblins that weren’t really there?
If his magic was stronger than mine . . .
Was the seal part of the trick, not really there, either—an illusion to make me believe I had an ally in hopes I’d relax my guard? If the seal were real, how could it drag down and then toss up an illusion? Were both illusions? What if my stars weren’t real, either? Had we broken the gremhahn’s curse on me, but he’d fooled me into believing the stars were still there? Was Mother truly blind or only enchanted?
I thought all of this in less than a breath. I had to make a choice—believe the other gremhahns were real and try to deal with them all at once, or one or two at a time, whatever I could manage—or believe there was only one. I chose to believe in one, even as the other goblins flowed onto the shore and rushed toward me like a swollen river, their mouths twisted into sneers, their eyes not Pacific blue like Dr. Gremhahn’s, but as hard and black as obsidian blades.
Not real, I told myself, and turned my attention to what I hoped was the only real sea goblin. Something had to be done with him. Something fine and permanent. But what?
Please God, I muttered, or gods and goddesses, forces of light, whatever’s out there—help me now.
Gibberish burst into my mind and words leaked out from between my lips, words I’d never heard before but felt had to be said. The words—a sentence really—were like a round, the first and last word the same, so that ending was also beginning again. On and on I repeated the stanza, the words circling around and around as I strode toward the one, true gremhahn, my voice growing louder the closer I came to him. I realized with a start that I did know some of the words—the dissolving spell to end the gremhahn’s obsession with Mother and me was woven in with the gibberish.
The goblin was hopping from foot to foot, as though the sand had burst into flames beneath his feet. He’d hunched into himself, his hands clamped over his ears, while his many twins calmly shambled up the sand toward me.
What if I was reading that all wrong? What if that cramped posture was how he cast his spells? What did I know about the gremhahn? Nothing. Believing he acted and reacted like we did would was foolish.
The seal was still in the surf, watching.
You can help me, too, if you like, I thought toward the seal, while I kept on with the gibberish spell, still wondering what to do with the damn goblin.
The seal barked, then turned to look out to sea. My heart seemed to freeze mid-beat. A wave already as high as a two-story house was building and rushing toward the shore.
Tsunami.
I needed to warn the people on the beach, tell them to run. Except the water at the shore wasn’t receding. Was the growing wall of water real or another illusion? I had no way of knowing as I watched the wave build higher and higher—twenty, twenty-five, thirty feet high, flinging itself toward the beach.
The many Dr. Gremhahns still advanced toward me with odd, shambling steps.
The giant wave grew higher and higher, rising up toward a bruise-colored sky and racing for the shore.
The seal lazily turned on its side and raised a flipper in the air. Surely ocean animals would know if danger approached.
More gibberish words slammed into my head. I stared at the wild water and recited the new words over and over. The roar of the towering wave howled in my ears. Flecks of foam and drops of water fell on my skin. I kept chanting even as the wall of water crashed over me. All the people up and down the beach would drown and it was my fault for not warning them. I was going to die. My Mother. Diana. But the sea goblin—the ocean was his home. He’d do just fine.
The wave poured over me, the cold, gritty water nearly knocking me off my feet. I knew the inevitable moment when the water would begin to subside would come, sucking me and everyone on the sand into the sea. But I kept chanting. I’d cast whatever spell the gibberish words worked until my last breath.
The wave was still spilling over me when I felt it also begin to recede—a massive pull against my back. I braced my feet and hoped to finish the spell before the wave dragged me into the ocean to my death.
Water pounded my back and sluiced around my sides, but it didn’t drag me. When the giant wave had receded, I stood on the beach, dry as old bones. Mother and Diana stood where I’d left them, no longer holding hands, no longer chanting, as still as stones.
Something was gone though, taken by the wave—the goblin’s twins.
The gremhahn was still there. The one true goblin. He stood, hands on hips, a sneer on his face.
I touched my hair and felt a star. I’d wanted to break the curses on Mother and me. I’d wanted to make sure the goblin couldn’t steal any more children. I’d failed on both scores—and Mother was blind. It would have been better if we’d never tried at all.
I raised my hand and started the protection spell, begging one more moment before he came for me, time enough to think, to know what to do next when I was all out of spells.
The starfish at my throat wriggled and squirmed against my skin as though fighting to free itself from the silver chain that held it. It grew warm and then hot, almost too hot to bear against my skin.
The gremhahn’s sneer turned to a smile. He started to speak.
I smelled the acrid stench of burning flesh. My flesh, searing beneath the silver starfish.
The gremhahn’s smile fell away. His hands flew up in front of his chest. A spell, I thought. He’s preparing to enchant me and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
The heat at my throat was unbearable, I reached up to tear the starfish away from my throat. Before I could, a pulse of visible energy, silver and shimmering, flying straight as a ruler, burst from the starfish and struck the gremhahn in the middle of his chest.
The power of it shook me to my core. My knees trembled. I struggled to stay on my feet.
The goblin burst into flames. I could see him through the fire, screaming, his flesh melting like wax. The starfish sent out a beam of blue light that struck through the fire to the goblin. Sparks flew out of the fire, sparks as black as a starless sky, rising into the air as though from a campfire, spreading over the beach. Sparks that grew bigger and bigger and then—
Winked out.
Eighteen
Hermosa Beach, California
July 10, 1924
Diana led Mother to where I stood. Mother slipped her arm over my shoulder and gave me a quick squeeze. I tried to smile, but couldn’t quite manage it. My body and mind were exhausted. Every nerve felt singed. Even if I had forced a smile, Mother couldn’t see it. There was no time to rest, not with one more task before me. I drew in a deep breath, straightened my spine and cast the calling spell for Jimmy.
The last word had barely left my lips when a harbor seal pup appeared just off shore and made its way toward the beach. My heart beat wildly. A year of waiting, searching, hoping, giving up and then hoping again, seeing and losing him that day on the beach—and here he was again. I quickly expanded the cloaking spell to include him, too. The pup barked. Mother started to run to him, but Diana held her back. I started the spell—pronouncing each word carefully, clearly—to free Jimmy from his seal form. Mother joined in, and then Diana—three needed to end a transferred curse.
The seal watched us and slowly blinked its dark brown eyes.
I huffed out a breath and looked to the sky. What had we done wrong?
I started the spell a second time, and again Mother and Diana joined in.
Again only a seal stood with us on the beach.
My jaw clenched. Determination flowed through my veins. I clutched the now cool silver starfish in my hand, closed my eyes, and started the spell a third time, my voice ringing loud above Diana’s and Mother’s.
Diana gasped, then laughed lightly. I o
pened my eyes, half afraid to look.
Jimmy stood on the beach.
Not my four-year-old brother, but Jimmy at his right age, five. He was naked without his seal skin, and he looked around, with fear and confusion clear on his face.
“He’s back, Mother,” I said. “Jimmy’s back.”
She let out a grateful sob and reached out blindly for her son, but he was too far away for her to touch.
Diana nudged me as she ran past, heading for Jimmy.
My brother didn’t know her, but he seemed to slowly be recognizing Mother and me. He let Diana take his hand and lead him to us. Mother sank to her knees and wrapped her arms around her son.
*
Jimmy had hardly spoken since he’d been restored to his human form. His body stayed as tense as a wire about to snap. All through the ride home, sitting on Mother’s lap in the back seat, he’d been silent, his eyes wide, his head on a swivel as if trying to see everything at once.
His first smile crossed his lips as we pulled up to the house. We’d decided to go to Mother’s rather than the beach house, even though it was closer, thinking Jimmy might feel safer and more comfortable in the place where he’d spent most of his life and away from the place from which the gremhahn had snatched him. When we walked into the house, Jimmy’s little shoulders, which had ridden up around his ears on the ride, relaxed to a normal position. His small smile in the car opened to a wide grin.
“Are you hungry, Sweetie?” Mother asked him, feeling her way down the hall with her free hand as she led him inside.
He shook his head. “Tired,” he said, and now his shoulders slumped and he fisted his eyes.
He was still wearing the towel we’d wrapped him in at the beach, and I realized there was nothing here in his new size except old clothes of mine. I found a pair of shorts that we pinned to fit his waist and one of Father’s undershirts that hung down practically to his knees, and put him to bed.
The Girl with Stars in her Hair Page 17