Worldweavers: Spellspam

by Alma Alexander

  “Not remedial, silly,” Tess said. “Where?”

  “They’re sending us to Sebastian de los Reyes. The professor,” Terry said. “God. Do you think Isabella will be there?”

  “Was she the one who applied to be Uncle Kevin’s intern last year? The one whose résumé you saw and drooled all over her photo?” Tess said. But Terry didn’t laugh, and Tess gave her brother a beady look. “I don’t believe it,” she said. “You’ve never even seen her in the flesh, Terry. All you know about her is that she’s a brain, and she’s hot.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Terry said, snapping his head back as if Tess had struck him.

  “Oh, yes, you are soft on her!” Tess crowed gleefully. “She won’t give you the time of day, you know—you might be a prodigy, but she’s a sophomore at Amford and gorgeous and probably can’t even remember being fifteen.”

  Terry stuffed his hands into his pockets, his eyes sliding away from his sister’s. “I wonder if they’ll let me take along the palmtop link to the Academy N…,” he began, and then halted, as Ben drew breath to interrupt. He looked around with deliberately exaggerated care, and then said loftily, “Well, we can’t talk about it here. I’d better talk to Humphrey about it later. In the meantime, I have some thinking to do.”

  “Whatever the original idea was, sending you there will prove to be a total waste of time if Isabella is in residence,” Tess said.

  Terry gathered up what shreds of dignity remained and sauntered off, head held high, trying to look very casual—but his sister stared after him with an expression that eloquently conveyed that she, at least, was not fooled.

  “Smitten,” Tess said as Terry rounded the corner of the building out of earshot.

  “Sophomore at Amford, eh?” Thea said thoughtfully.

  “She’s blond, aristocratic, and by all accounts she was a child prodigy at whatever she put her hand on,” Tess said. “Don’t know much more than that.”

  “I have brothers who will,” Thea said. “I knew I’d find an actual use for Anthony someday.”

  “You’d do better to pump your father for information on the professor,” Tess said, suddenly serious. “I’ve never met him, but by reputation he’s a crotchety, moody old medieval Spanish grandee transplanted into a modern world, and he isn’t supposed to like it here much.”

  Thea shrugged. “Then being under Mr. Siffer’s thumb all these months will have been good training.”

  The worst of the epidemic was over. Over the next few weeks, one or two pieces of spellspam popped up like poisonous mushrooms, but people were being careful and Terry’s filters seemed to be holding the spellspam at bay—at least in the protected environment of the Academy.

  The rest of the school year flew by with startling speed, and then the summer break was upon them.

  “You will write and tell us what’s going on, won’t you?” Magpie said as they were all saying their good-byes.

  “E-mail?” Thea said with a grin.

  “That would be just fine. I have the spellspam dreamcatcher with me,” Magpie said, “but I have no e-mail access at home, and I don’t think you’ll want this floating around the rec center computers…so that settles that.”

  “I have the filter,” Ben said, clearing his throat. “You can e-mail me.”

  He was sounding very awkward, even for Ben, and Thea gave him a startled look. “Okay, if you like, I’ll try—but I’m not the greatest correspondent.”

  “Well, I just wanted to say…,” he began and then stopped. “Have a good summer. Hope they don’t keep you too busy….”

  “See you in the fall,” Thea said.

  Ben just smiled, raised a hand in a half-wave, let it drop, and turned away.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Thea muttered, staring after his departing back.

  “He only wanted to ask you to the Harvest Ball, when we get back in September, that’s all,” Magpie said.

  “Well, why didn’t he?”

  Magpie shook her head. “Figure it out, doofus. I think he’s jealous, actually—there you’ll be, cooped up all summer in some exotic household with Terry—even if Terry is interested in someone else altogether—but there you two will be. Please do write, by the way. Promise?”

  She was curious, naturally, as was everybody.

  By the time Thea got home, her brothers all knew about her summer internship. They all thought that her spending the summer with Amford’s most famous academic in his own private retreat in San Francisco was, in their terms, awesome. Frankie was openly jealous, and sulked for three days before the curiosity overwhelmed him and he joined the others as they questioned Thea as to the details of the trip. Anthony was the only brother who wasn’t home, and that frustrated Thea’s own original intention to pump him for information on the fabulous Isabella, but at the mention of Isabella de los Reyes’s name, her second-oldest brother, Ben, himself a student at Amford, merely laughed.

  “Anthony would not have told you a thing about her. He rarely boasts about his failures,” Ben said.

  “Did he try dating her?”

  “She turned up her nose at him,” Ben said. “She turns up her nose at pretty much everyone. The last I heard she was seen out on the town with a member of European royalty. Anthony’s pedigree just wasn’t up to scratch.”

  Thea snorted. “I didn’t think I would like her,” she said.

  But the best news came when Aunt Zoë bounced into Thea’s room a couple of days before she was due to depart.

  “Could you use company?” Zoë said.

  “Huh? Right now?”

  “I have some vacation coming,” Zoë said. “I thought I’d spend it in San Francisco. You and I could go down together, and then I’d be doing the tourist thing—for a week or so at least. When you have some free time, I could take you and your friend Terry out to see the Golden Gate Bridge, or into Napa, maybe…. What do you say?”

  No words were necessary, as Thea wrapped herself around her aunt in a tight hug.

  “That’s settled, then, I take it?” Zoë said, amused. “I’ll go and make arrangements. Go pack!”

  They flew down to San Francisco from Seattle, and then Zoë rented a tiny hatchback at the airport and handed Thea a map.

  “Presidio Terrace,” she said. “The swanky part of town, by all accounts. You’re the navigator.”

  Swanky was an understatement.

  “Can’t I just stay at a hotel with you and come up here if I need to see him?” Thea asked as they swept onto the tree-lined entrance of the Presidio Terrace estate. “What do I call him, anyway? Professor de los Reyes is such a mouthful.”

  “I think ‘sir’ would do,” Zoë murmured. “As for the rest…Thea, the idea was that you spend some time with the man. Terry will be around, too. It isn’t like you’d be entirely alone—”

  She swung the car into a wide, brick-paved circular drive outside a white-washed house of palatial size, with a huge carved double door that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a medieval castle, and windows adorned by elaborate wrought-iron grilles in the manner of an old Spanish hacienda. On the island in the middle of the drive, a fountain played quietly over smooth stones.

  Zoë pulled up in front of the three stone steps that led to the carved door, and turned to her niece. “Well, I’ll get you checked in and then I’m off,” she said. “You have my cell number. Just call if you need me, anytime.”

  “Thanks for coming with me, Aunt Zoë,” Thea said. “I wish you could stay here….”

  “That would defeat the object of the exercise,” Zoë said. “Now go on, ring the doorbell. I’ll get the luggage out.”

  Thea got out of the car and dragged her feet up the stairs; finding no doorbell, she picked up the enormous brass knocker and brought it down hard on the door.

  2.

  BEFORE ZOË HAD A chance to wrestle Thea’s two suitcases out of the trunk, the door swung soundlessly open to reveal a middle-aged woman with her hair swept back into a loose chignon
and wearing a tidy ensemble of blouse and knee-length skirt.

  “You must be Galathea Winthrop,” the woman said, glancing at Thea, and then at Zoë, who slammed the trunk lid shut.

  “I’m Zoë,” she said. “I’m Thea’s aunt. I’ll be staying down in the city for a week or so while she’s…studying here, and I’ll probably be in and out, taking her for an occasional lunch or something. Are you Señora de los Reyes?” Zoë spoke Spanish, and she gave the name the correct lilt and pronunciation, but the woman she was addressing responded with a tight little smile that implied a grievous error of some kind.

  “I am Madeline Emmett…the housekeeper,” she said primly. “Your room is ready, Miss Winthrop; your colleague hasn’t arrived yet, but we expect him by dinner. The professor will see both of you then.” She grabbed the smaller suitcase and started back up the steps again, turning to glance at Zoë. “You can make an appointment to see the professor himself, concerning any outings,” she said. “He is unable to see you now, but perhaps if you telephone this evening…?”

  “Aunt Zoë…?” Thea said, balancing her backpack and hefting the second suitcase with both hands.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be back tomorrow,” Zoë said, reaching out with one hand to brush Thea’s cheek.

  “If you will follow me, Miss Winthrop…”

  The housekeeper waited at the foot of a wide spiral staircase that curved around a central well ending in a high cupola ringed by windows. “This way,” she said as Thea hesitated, looking around at the opulence of it all.

  Thea brought her gaze back to the staircase. “Yes, thank you.”

  She was conducted to a room nearly four times the size of her own bedroom at home, with a canopied white bed against the far wall and a pair of French doors opening onto a tiny balcony with a wrought-iron balustrade. The doors were open, and a breeze stirred the filmy white drapes that framed them; beyond, Thea could see the city spread out below her.

  “Wow,” she said, dropping her suitcase by the door.

  “The professor had this house built when he was first married. Every corner of it is special,” Madeline said. “I’ve cleared the closet for you,” she added, opening the closet doors for emphasis, “and there’s a chest of drawers over there for your use. There’s a laundry chute in the closet floor, and the bathroom is across the hall. For the duration of your stay, those facilities have been set aside for you and your colleague to share. He will have the room next door. I will leave you to settle in; dinner is at six.”

  She walked precisely through the spot where Thea could have sworn she had dropped her suitcase and left, closing the door behind her. Thea registered briefly, with a degree of surprise, that the suitcase in question was now tidily stowed on a luggage rack across the room—but her attention was not on the things she had brought with her. She stared at the open doors, transfixed by the view; there was something about the light outside that made her hands ache to bury themselves into it and weave a pattern that was rich and strange—twisted strands that encompassed breadth of space and light, and old magic, and power.

  But first she wanted a computer, that step between worlds; she scrabbled in the smaller suitcase, which contained a laptop. Thea’s parents had not been happy about letting her out of the house with her own computer, but she had pointed out that the things she could do with that computer were the main reason that she was being sent to Professor de los Reyes, and the Nexus might not be the best tool with which she could demonstrate those abilities to the professor. Her brother Ben had finally suggested that she borrow his laptop for the few weeks, and Paul and Ysabeau had agreed—though not without misgivings.

  She had barely managed to pull the zipper all the way open before the suitcase appeared to take on a bizarre life of its own. Thea jumped back with a startled yelp as the closet doors sprang wide open and the contents of her suitcase began to unfold, piece by piece, levitating out of the suitcase and draping around hangers in the closet or tucking themselves tidily away onto the shelf beside the hanging rail. The underwear Thea had packed folded itself up neatly and then hovered expectantly in place just above the suitcase as though waiting for a place to be made for it. Thea glanced over to the chest of drawers, then crossed the room and carefully pulled the top drawer partway open. It immediately slid all the way out and the underwear settled into one corner.

  Thea yanked on the zipper of the second suitcase, the bigger one, and watched, astonished and entertained, as that, too, emptied itself with swiftness and precision. A vanity bag, hairbrush, a handful of clips and barrettes, and Thea’s favorite rose-perfumed shower gel were deposited in a tidy pile on top of the chest of drawers. Less than five minutes later both suitcases were empty, the smaller one nesting inside the larger one, the outer zipper of the larger suitcase zipping itself neatly closed. Thea’s laptop and an assortment of things the unpacking spell didn’t quite know what to do with were left sitting on the bed, awaiting manual disposition.

  “Wow,” Thea said again. “This is quite a place.”

  She thought better of messing with the computer for the time being, and decided to explore instead. Hoping she wouldn’t accidentally blunder into the professor’s study, she opened the door to her room just a crack and peered up and down the corridor outside. It was empty. She scooped up her vanity bag and crossed the hall to where a door, left ajar, indicated the presence of the bathroom Madeline had said she was to share with Terry; she wondered whether the unpacking spell was in force there, too. She switched on the light, taking stock of the large room with its glassed-in shower and a double-sink built-in vanity, and placed the bag of her odds and ends beside one of the sinks, still closed. Before she had a chance to step back properly, the bag had been opened and its contents distributed—toothbrush and toothpaste in a rose-pink ceramic cup, lip gloss and deodorant in the mirrored cabinet above the sink together with her barrettes and elastic ponytail bands, hairbrush neatly on the counter beside the sink. Even the lint inside the bag was meticulously shaken out over the sink, and then the faucet came on briefly to sluice it all away.

  “This will be quite a month,” Thea muttered.

  She left the bathroom to its ablutions and went to the spiral staircase that wound up toward another floor and swept down to the entrance hall where she had come in. Thinking that the other floor, in someone else’s house, would be better left alone, Thea made her way down the stairs into the hallway, feeling rather like an old-time movie star making a grand entrance.

  The hallway was full of light, spilling down from the skylight dome. It was paved in cool pale tiles, and large tubs of some plant with huge pink flowers flanked the curved ends of the stairs. Thea stood in the midst of the hall, peering at half-open doors. Through one, she could see wooden paneling, a glimpse of a fireplace with a huge portrait of a woman in an old-fashioned dress hanging above it, books piled artfully on a side table. Through another door, a set of heavy, high-backed carved wooden chairs surrounded a massive table. A third room looked more promising—a wash of sunlight spilling over a burgundy rug on a warm hardwood floor, and a chocolate-brown sofa peering out from underneath a chenille throw that matched the rug on the floor. On a side table along the wall there was a vase filled with tall blue flowers.

  Thea stuck her head around the door to peer in. The room appeared to be a sitting room, with a double set of French doors opening out onto a patio framed by rough-plastered brick walls half-covered with vine and a creeper with large, trumpet-shaped bright red flowers. A wrought-iron table and four matching chairs were set out on the brick paving, and beyond them a stretch of perfect lawn covered a gentle slope that led the eye straight out into yet another spectacular view of the city. The lawn was bordered by flowering shrubs, trees, and a flower bed riotous with color.

  The French doors were unlocked, and Thea stepped out onto the patio, feeling the sun-warmed bricks beneath her sandaled feet. She thought about her own backyard, a patch of grass surrounded by natural cedar woods and a row of old rho
dodendrons, and couldn’t help shaking her head, thinking of how much time and energy this garden’s upkeep must take.

  “Would you like me to show you around?”

  An unfamiliar female voice made Thea spin around. She saw a slender girl with golden-blond hair held back from her face by a pair of combs; she wore a white T-shirt, jeans, and casual open-toed woven leather slides, yet she still managed to give out an air of being a queen about to hold court.

  “You must be Galathea,” the girl added, inclining her head slightly by way of introduction. “I am Isabella de los Reyes.”

  Thea suddenly thought of Terry caught in that regal gaze, and fought a wild urge to giggle out loud—and then suddenly flushed.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to impose,” she said. “I just got here, and since the room took care of the unpacking and my friend—the other student who’s supposed to come here over the summer—isn’t here yet, and the housekeeper said dinner isn’t until six, and I…”

  “As I said, would you like me to show you around?” Isabella said, smiling. “This house…can be a bit disconcerting to people who are new to it. I see you’ve been admiring the gardens.”

  “They’re beautiful,” Thea said sincerely. “You must have an army of gardeners.”

  “Not a one,” Isabella said. “You know the Lawnsmooth spell?”

  “The one that lets the grass grow only so high so the lawn never needs mowing? Sure. Our own lawn at home is just a postage-stamp-sized square compared to that, but my dad has the spell in place.”

  “No self-respecting mage is seen mowing his own lawn,” Isabella said. “But my father created that spell, and holds the license to it. Even if he weren’t wealthy before, he would be from the money that brings in. That and the Housetidy.”

  “You mean what hefted my suitcase from the floor to the rack?” Thea asked.

  “Indeed. You don’t drop things around this house and expect to find them where you left them. If you kick your shoes off at the door, you’ll find them in your closet the next time you look. If you drop a half-finished novel on the table and forget about it for five minutes, it’ll be back on the shelf. Sometimes with a bookmark in it…if the spell is working particularly well. The laundry chutes from every room collect dirty stuff and then it’ll be delivered back to your closet the next day, washed and ironed.”