The Bootlace Magician

by Cassie Beasley

  “It will be fine,” Micah said for the seventh time.

  Jenny sighed heavily. “You should keep this.” She held the wrapping paper out to him.

  “But you’ve worked so hard—”

  “My parents might confiscate it. And, anyway, the chart was always about helping you figure out your magic.”

  “It helped.” Micah took it from her. “At least I’ve got some new things to try now.”

  “You can keep adding more to it,” Jenny said. “We didn’t talk to everyone. And there are historical magicians to think about. Maybe if you keep asking, you’ll find out that someone knew a knot magician in the past.”

  Micah was sure if anyone at the circus knew about knot magicians, they would have thought to tell him already. But since they were talking about adding people to the chart, he said, “You left the Zoo Mages category blank.”

  “We haven’t met any Zoo Mages.” But Jenny was shifting from foot to foot. She knew who Micah meant.

  He glanced at the Strongmen by the entrance. They were just out of earshot if he talked quietly. “Victoria belongs in that category,” he said. “She can . . . or she could mind control birds.”

  She could also fly, which meant she probably belonged in more than one category. But that was so terribly unfair that Micah didn’t want to bring it up.

  Jenny cut her eyes sideways at him. “I must have forgotten about her.”

  Micah crossed his arms. “Jenny, you even included the magician who made the tents, and that guy’s not alive anymore.” Apparently, the Tentmaker had fallen in love with someone and moved away long ago. “Maybe Victoria’s not either, but that’s not why you left her out. Everyone else does it, too. Nobody ever talks about her in front of me.”

  Jenny bit her lip. “I thought it would hurt your feelings.”

  “I know,” said Micah. “I would hate it if people were always bringing her up. But when she’s never mentioned at all, it’s obvious that everyone’s still thinking about her. About what she did.”

  “Nobody blames you for it,” Jenny said.

  Micah knew that, or he did in his head at least. But it didn’t change the worry he had sometimes, that he had to make up for Victoria Starling’s crimes against the circus.

  “You should tell the Lightbender how you feel,” she said. “Or someone. Just so they know you don’t want them to tiptoe around the subject.”

  “Maybe,” Micah said. It would be an awkward conversation, but at least it would keep people from tripping over his grandmother’s name when they spoke to him.

  Jenny hesitated. “Earlier today, I wanted to bring something up about Victoria, but I didn’t know if it was a good suggestion or a bad one, so I didn’t.”

  “What was it?”

  “The storage tents,” said Jenny. “There are so many of them. I bet her old things are in there somewhere. If you wanted, I’m sure they would let you look through them.”

  Micah stared at her. He couldn’t imagine a single reason why he would want to look through the Bird Woman’s stuff, if anyone at the circus had even bothered to keep it.

  “It was a suggestion. That’s all,” said Jenny. “I would be curious if it were me. I would want closure.”

  Micah shook his head.

  “Okay,” said Jenny. Then she added, “I still don’t think Victoria belongs on my chart.”

  “But—”

  “My chart’s for magicians who matter.” She had a fierce look in her eyes. “And the Bird Woman doesn’t. Not to me.”

  Somehow, Jenny always knew just what to say.

  “Thanks,” said Micah.

  “Thank you.” She looked toward the Strongmen. One of them was drawing a circle on the patch of fabric that would open the menagerie’s entrance. “This was a really good day.”

  The fabric drew open. Outside, it still was raining heavily, but no lightning streaked across the sky, and the wind had died down.

  “Maybe your parents won’t be mad,” Micah said.

  “No, they will. They definitely will.” Jenny reached for his hand. “It was worth it though.”

  She pulled him outside, and together they ran through the storm, heading for Porter’s warehouse.

  * * *

  Dear Micah,

  I’m writing this with my new pen, and I think it’s chosen gray ink because this is bad news.

  I’m grounded. I can’t even walk across the street unless my mom or dad is with me. Middle school starts next week, and I just hope they don’t insist on escorting me to the bus stop.

  I’m not sure they even believe I was with you at the circus. I showed them my pen and my friendship bracelet and explained about everything, but they look at me so strangely any time I mention magic.

  I asked Chintzy to talk to them, so maybe that will do the trick. But would you please explain to her what a veterinarian is? I had to give her a whole jar of peanut butter because she thinks my dad is some kind of mad scientist who experiments on parrots.

  I won’t be coming back to the circus anytime soon, but we can still send letters. Please write as often as you can!

  Your friend,

  Jenny

  PS—It was still worth it.

  Dear Jenny,

  I’m sorry about your parents. I’m writing them an apology note and sending it with Chintzy in case that helps.

  She says your dad wants to pluck her tail feathers and put them under a microscope. But don’t worry, she’s flattered. Apparently, he told her she was unique.

  We’re all sick of the rain. I guess the lightning strike made everyone nervous, because they had a special staff meeting about it. (I wasn’t invited.) And Mr. Head decided to move the circus south ahead of schedule. The last of the tickets will expire today.

  We’re going to be staying near a place called Santa Rosa dos Dourados.

  Rosebud says we’ll start classes after the move. I think I’m pretty lucky that she’s agreed to be my teacher. She likes to travel a lot, and she says we can go on field trips to see Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. She says you can come with us when you’re not grounded anymore.

  I’m still trying to make my tracking device work. Chintzy’s been hiding different versions all over the circus for me. I’m going to call it the locator knot when it’s finished, but so far I can’t locate it at all.

  Your friend,

  Micah

  FEATHERS

  It was funny how time moved once you settled into a routine.

  It felt to Micah like his first few months at Circus Mirandus had lasted forever. He’d met so many new people and learned so many new things that every day had been an adventure. At the same time, the absence of Grandpa Ephraim in his life had pricked him like a thorn over and over again, so that he feared he would never be able to go a whole hour without feeling at least a little of that hurt.

  But the thorn stung him less frequently as time passed. And with Rosebud’s insistence on schooling came a daily schedule for him to grow used to—up early for breakfast in the dining tent, lessons with Rosebud all morning, lunch with Terpsichore and Fish, math and geography with Big Jean. Then free time, supper, bed.

  His new life was wildly different from the one he’d had in Peal, but something about the rhythm of it was similar, and Micah found the days zipping past him like the dotted lines on a highway.

  The circus had left the strange weather behind in the Amazon, and it seemed to Micah that all the adults breathed a collective sigh of relief, though he himself hadn’t realized there was anything to be truly worried about in the first place.

  They spent September and most of October in a cornfield outside Santa Rosa dos Dourados. Then it was on to Colombia, where they stayed in a national park through most of December.

  The new year found them in Argentina, northeast of a city called A
zul, in the middle of a cow pasture that stretched to the horizon. After a couple of days, the cows started wandering right through the circus’s meadow like they owned the place.

  “Why don’t we ever stop in town?” Micah asked Rosebud one day during a field trip. They had spent the morning in Buenos Aires, touring an art museum, and now they were walking down the sidewalk along a busy street. “Wouldn’t it be nice if the circus was right beside a movie theater? Or a public pool!”

  It was summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and Micah would have loved to go swimming. Fish would no doubt share his aquarium, but the Idea had grown again, and Micah figured he needed most of the room for himself.

  “We travel to more heavily populated areas on occasion,” said Rosebud, grabbing the back of his T-shirt before he could step in front of a passing bicycle. “We came to Peal for you, after all. But the Lightbender has more trouble hiding the circus in metropolises. He and Porter usually compromise by choosing places that are near enough to cities for easy Doors and far enough away for easy illusions.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “If you want a pool, duckling, you should talk to Bowler when we get back,” she said. “The Strongmen have one. It’s probably in one of the storage tents.”

  Later that afternoon, Micah did exactly that.

  “The pool!” Bowler shouted. “Now that’s an idea!”

  He’d been standing out in the sun all day, and his forehead was wet with sweat. “I know where it is, too. Packed it away myself!”

  He headed straight for the Staff Only section, apparently willing to leave the Lightbender unguarded if it meant he got to cool down. Micah trotted after him, imagining beach towels and swim trunks.

  But when they reached the storage tent—a dull gray one that looked oddly misshapen and woebegone for Circus Mirandus—Bowler’s cheerful demeanor turned suddenly awkward.

  “Err . . . you’d better just stay out here,” he said, when Micah tried to follow him inside. “This tent’s a bit disorganized. Don’t want you stumbling over things in the mess.”

  “Bowler, I know how to watch my own feet,” Micah said with a grin.

  “No, no,” said Bowler. He patted Micah on the back. “Be a good lad and keep watch over the door.”

  This behavior was sufficiently odd to make Micah suspicious. And while he stood outside, listening to Bowler rummage through the tent, Jenny’s words from months before came back to him.

  If any of the storage tents at Circus Mirandus did hold his grandmother’s belongings, it would surely be this run-down one.

  Part of Micah wanted to run right inside and tell Bowler not to be ridiculous. Micah wasn’t going to fall apart if he saw Victoria’s old suitcases.

  But before he could work himself up to it, Bowler was back, balancing a huge crate over his head with both hands. “Better get some help,” he said cheerfully. “We’ll need extra hands to set up the high dive.”

  It turned out that the circus had not only an above-ground pool but also a tall diving platform. Both were part of an old routine, and that evening, after the Strongmen finished setting the high dive up behind the menagerie, they were overcome with nostalgia. They started a belly-flop contest so enthusiastic it rendered the pool unusable for swimmers who didn’t have superhuman strength.

  A crowd of spectators began to gather, and Micah knew from experience that a competition among the Strongmen was likely to last for hours.

  He abandoned his beach towel and headed back to the storage tent.

  * * *

  Micah wasn’t sure he wanted to find Victoria’s things, but he was sure that he was going to do it. It was like trying not to watch a horror movie playing in another room. You knew looking would give you nightmares, but you still had to peek from time to time.

  Best to get it over with, he decided. Whatever was left of Victoria’s stuff would be moldy and evil, but at least after he’d seen it, he wouldn’t have to wonder about it anymore.

  Inside, the storage tent was dark, and the air smelled stale. Most of Circus Mirandus’s tents would turn on the lights whenever someone entered, but this one must have been broken. Or there was some trick to it Micah didn’t know.

  He trailed his hands along the fabric near the tent flap, drawing patterns with his fingers. And when that didn’t work, he said, “Can I have some light?” out loud.

  The tent itself didn’t respond, but a faint glow came from something on the ground near the far wall. It wasn’t much, but after Micah gave his eyes a minute to adjust, the silvery glimmer was enough. He could just make out the shadowy shapes of the crates and boxes that filled the tent.

  Most of the storage tents were orderly, with everything neatly stacked and organized. But this one was as messy as Bowler had said it was. Micah picked his way through a maze of jumbled crates and tumbled barrels to get to the source of the light.

  When he finally reached it, he froze.

  He had expected to find a magical lamp, like the ones in his bedroom. He’d thought he would have to carry it around the tent for hours, peering into boxes, searching for something as wicked and unpleasant as he imagined Victoria to be.

  But here, before him, were the Bird Woman’s things. And they were beautiful.

  The soft light came from a tent, carefully rolled and tied with ropes. Grandpa Ephraim had always described the Bird Woman’s tent as silver, but that didn’t do it justice. Even wrapped tightly and tucked away in this dim place, the fabric glittered like fallen stars.

  The starlight tent would be huge when it was unfurled. Not quite as big as the menagerie, but close.

  It would have to be, Micah realized. Victoria’s performance had been a flight show. Something like that would require a lot of space.

  The Bird Woman had soared through the air alongside her flock. It must have been wondrous, to see a person flying as easily as the birds themselves did.

  She sang, too, Micah remembered suddenly. She sang to the birds.

  Victoria had mesmerized the birds with her voice. She had called them to her. Charmed them. Taken care of them. And then, when the Lightbender had refused to leave the circus with her to seek fame and fortune elsewhere, she had betrayed them.

  She’d sent the birds crashing into one another, into the audience, into the ground itself. In the end, the Lightbender had used his own magic to put a stop to the carnage. He’d convinced the Bird Woman she could no longer fly.

  Micah reached out to touch the tent fabric, but his hands stopped short.

  What did the tent look like inside? Had Bowler and the other Strongmen had to clean it before they packed it away? Was it still full of feathers?

  Was it stained with blood?

  He drew back and turned instead to the two crates lying beside the rolled tent. Someone had written Victoria Starling on the top in black paint. Micah wondered if they had used the Bird Woman’s real name because they thought she didn’t deserve her magician’s name anymore.

  He lifted the top off the first crate. White feathers greeted him, ghostly in the silver light of the tent.

  He took a deep breath and dug his hand in, exploring the crate. It was all fabric and feathers. Victoria’s costumes. She would have looked angelic.

  Micah opened the second crate and found a jumble of lovely things—pearl-colored shoes, an engraved silver mirror, bejeweled headbands, delicate makeup brushes. He set them aside one by one until he reached the bottom, where he found three heavy, leather-bound books.

  Micah assumed they must be journals because the covers had no writing on them. He opened the first. It was written in a language he thought might be French, and he flipped through it curiously, trying to decipher some of the words.

  Then he turned a page, and a drawing of a dragon, snarling as if it despised the very ink it was made of, glared back at him.

  Micah stared at it.

/>   It was a good drawing. Even in the faint light, he could make out the strong musculature of the dragon’s two legs. He could see the bulbous joints that connected the spiny, bat-like wings to the scaled hide. The fangs curved inward, so that once the jaws locked, the beast’s prey would have no hope of escape.

  And there was something about those slit-pupiled eyes . . .

  Micah could see why dragons were the only creatures unicorns had ever feared.

  What was Victoria doing with a book about them? It made sense for Firesleight to be interested in dragons. She was a fire magician. But—

  Firesleight, thought Micah. I should have realized.

  When he’d questioned her about dragons, she had mentioned loaning her books to someone who’d never returned them. And then she’d changed the subject so quickly. Of course it was Victoria who’d taken them.

  Apparently, she was a thief on top of everything else.

  Micah set the book aside carefully. At least he could return it to Firesleight and put things right.

  He reached for the next book. It seemed older than the first, and it didn’t have much writing in it. Instead, it was full of hand-drawn maps covered in symbols Micah didn’t recognize.

  He held the pages as close to the rolled-up tent as he could, trying to catch the light. On one, he found what looked like a list. It was written in single column, with the symbols he’d seen on the maps arranged in order.

  The list continued onto the next page. And the one after that. Until, in the margins of the book’s final page, in fancy lettering, someone other than the original author had translated the last few items into English:

  To Burn Is a Delight

  I Eat the Horned Ones

  The Sky Belongs to Me

  Admire My Fire

  The Mighty Conflagration

  Micah remembered what Firesleight had said about dragons and draklings having a written language they used to scratch their names into the mud of their burrows. The names she’d mentioned were almost funny, and he’d thought at the time that it would be hard to take a creature who called itself “I Like to Burn Stuff” very seriously.