Micah nodded.
“Good,” said the Lightbender. “I myself once made the mistake of thinking . . .”
The illusionist fell abruptly silent.
“What is it?” said Micah.
The Lightbender stood, tilting his head as if he were listening to something. All over the dining tent, other magicians were doing the same thing.
“Is something wrong?”
“I have to go,” said the Lightbender, distracted.
An emergency meeting must have been called, Micah realized. He wondered if Mr. Head had some way of contacting everyone that Micah didn’t know about. His guardian could use his illusions to spread the manager’s messages over the circus, but how did the manager get in touch with the Lightbender in the first place?
“Can I come, too?” Micah had been invited once before, after all.
But the Lightbender was already striding away. As he neared the exit, Rosebud grabbed him by the sleeve of his coat. She leaned down to whisper something in his ear, and the Lightbender nodded shortly. For a split second, he looked back over his shoulder at Micah.
The expression on his face was unreadable. He turned and left with Rosebud.
The magicians who’d stayed behind in the dining tent were muttering to one another now, looking worried. They must have heard the silent announcement, too. A few of them glanced in Micah’s direction before quickly looking away again, and Micah’s throat tightened.
Something was wrong, he realized.
And it was something to do with him.
* * *
For a moment, Micah sat frozen, trying to imagine what could be so wrong that the Lightbender would leave without explaining anything. The illusionist had been trying to be forthcoming with information ever since their talk in the Lost and Found. He was the one who’d made sure Micah was invited to the last meeting, and he had promised to keep Micah filled in.
Which meant that whatever this was, it was worse than Victoria hunting down Aunt Gertrudis. Worse than dragons.
Micah couldn’t stand not knowing. He left his food on the table and headed for the menagerie.
Terpsichore was delighted to have company until she realized all Micah wanted to do was press his ear to the wall of her paddock. It was hard to tell, with magical spaces, but he was fairly sure the manager’s office was on the other side of this wall.
But he couldn’t hear anything except for the paddock’s classical music and Terp’s annoyed foot stomping and fluting.
“Shhh,” said Micah. “You know I’ll play with you later. I’m trying to concentrate.”
The fabric was soft against his face. It didn’t seem like it should be able to block out sound so thoroughly. He got down on his hands and knees and ran his fingers along the edge of the fabric, where it met the ground. It was tight—much too tight for him to lift up.
“Warn me if someone’s about to come in, okay?” Micah said to the unicorn. “You’ll be my lookout.”
Terpsichore stared at him.
“Well, don’t step on me at least.”
Micah planted his fingers into the grass right at the edge of the fabric and started to dig. It wasn’t easy. The ground was hard, and his fingernails felt like they were trying to come off. But after a couple of minutes, he’d dug a hole the size of his fist under the tent wall.
Terp thought this was some sort of new game. She pranced off to the center of the paddock and started gouging her horn into the grass with enthusiasm.
Micah shook his head and lay down on his stomach. He scooted as close as he could to the wall of the tent and pressed his ear to the new gap he’d made between fabric and ground. At first, he thought it hadn’t worked. Then, beneath the sound of the music, he heard voices.
They sounded odd and farther away than they should have, like they were echoing from across a canyon instead of the next room over. But maybe that was the magic of the tent itself interfering.
Micah closed his eyes and concentrated. He could pick out the Lightbender’s voice. And Rosebud’s. They were speaking urgently in a language he didn’t know.
He listened anyway, hoping someone would slip into English. Or say his name. But the first word he recognized didn’t come for several long minutes.
“ . . . Victoria . . .” someone said.
Then someone else—Micah thought it might have been Geoffrey—said another familiar name.
“Peal.”
Micah’s breath caught. What about Peal? Was Jenny all right? He wanted to leap up and burst into the meeting to demand answers. He wanted—
“It’s my turn!” a voice squawked right in Micah’s ear.
He shrieked and scrambled to his feet, heart racing, but it was only Chintzy. The big red parrot stood in the grass beside him, and before Micah could ask what on earth she was doing in Terp’s paddock, she waddled forward and stuffed her whole head under the tent wall.
“Chintzy!” Micah protested, dropping back onto the ground. “I’m trying to listen.”
“Hush,” she said. “They’re probably talking about me.”
“No, they’re not,” Micah hissed, reaching to pull her out of the way.
She screeched ferociously. “Not my tail!”
“Dig your own hole!”
“You don’t even speak Latin!” Chintzy squawked.
Micah froze with his arms stretched out to grab her. “Do you?”
“I’m not some second-rate chicken!” she said. “I’m a professional.”
“Chintzy, that’s great!”
“I know.”
“Can you translate?” he asked eagerly.
“Don’t touch my tail feathers.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Micah. “That was wrong of me.”
He did his best to cram his head in beside Chintzy, but she was too big. “Mmm . . .” she was saying. “Of course she did! That rotten egg!”
“What is it?” Micah whispered. “What are they talking about?”
“Victoria’s on a bird-killing rampage,” she reported. “She crashed a flock of pigeons into the windows.”
“What windows?”
“Pigeons are rude, you know. Almost as bad as ducks.”
“Chintzy, I swear . . .”
“The windows in Peal,” said Chintzy. “Victoria’s mind controlling all the birds in Peal!”
“Is Jenny all right?” Micah breathed. “Are her parents?”
“Don’t worry,” said Chintzy. “Victoria can’t make people crash into windows. Oh . . . oh, dear.”
It took all of Micah’s self-control not to scream at the parrot. He managed to pry the conversation out of her bit by bit, and every new scrap of information made him feel more nauseated.
The events in Peal had made international news. No magical birds had been spotted, at least none that the news channels were reporting, but every normal bird for miles around had been involved in the chaos. They’d smashed themselves into shop windows all over town. A flock of crows had attacked children on the playground at Micah’s old elementary school, and there had been accidents on the freeway when panicked birds crashed into windshields.
“This can’t be happening,” Micah breathed. “It can’t.”
Victoria would never have even thought about Peal if not for him.
What if Jenny was hurt? What if her dad had been driving when the attacks happened? What if her mom’s shop was destroyed?
Jenny had asked to keep the emergency bracelet, and Micah had told her no. He’d told her he’d make her another one. Why hadn’t he done it right away?
“Is anyone . . . Are people . . .” Micah didn’t want to say the word dead. What if that made it real?
The parrot had fallen silent.
“Chintzy?”
She didn’t answer. Micah realized her feathers were quiveri
ng. “Chintzy, please,” he whispered. “I have to know.”
“She’s bad,” Chintzy said quietly.
“Have they mentioned Jenny’s family?”
“Porter can’t reach them through the mail slot. They’re not at home yet. He’s going to keep trying.”
That made sense, Micah told himself. Because of the time difference. It was still the middle of the day in Peal. Jenny’s mom was probably at work. Her dad would be at work or school. And Jenny would be in class, wouldn’t she?
She couldn’t have been outside like the elementary school students, because they didn’t let you have recess in middle school. She was fine. They were all fine.
“They’re safe,” he said. “They’re safe. They’re safe.”
If he repeated it over and over again, it would start to sound true.
Chintzy pulled her head out from under the wall. “I want to go back to my perch.”
“Is the meeting over?”
Chintzy’s feathers puffed. “I don’t want to translate anymore.”
“But—”
“I want my perch.”
“Okay,” said Micah. “That’s okay. I’ll keep listening, and I’ll tell you if I learn anything.”
Chintzy waddled toward the door. Micah sat up and watched her go. She was a large bird, but she looked so small suddenly. So easy to hurt.
And even though Micah knew it didn’t make sense, even though he knew Victoria was busy terrorizing an entirely different continent, he suddenly thought it would be his fault if anything happened to Chintzy on her way back to the Lightbender’s tent.
He jumped to his feet. “Wait!” he called. “Chintzy, wait. I’ll come with you.”
As he left, Terpsichore tootled proudly and gestured to the enormous hole she’d dug in the middle of the paddock. Micah tried to give her a smile. He patted the unicorn’s neck good-bye and scooped Chintzy up.
She didn’t even make a joke about how she could fly faster without his plain old human legs slowing her down. Micah held her close to his chest and she buried her beak in his shirt.
“Jenny’s nice,” she said as Micah left the menagerie. “She made me a plate with my name on it.”
It’s going to be okay, Micah tried to say. Jenny will have treats waiting for you on that plate the next time you see her.
But his throat had closed up, and he couldn’t find enough breath to get the words out.
FIGHTING THE DARKNESS
When the Lightbender returned to the tent, he didn’t seem surprised to find Micah waiting for him in the stands. He came to sit beside him, looking as tired as he ever had.
“You are aware of the attack on Peal.”
It wasn’t a question. Geoffrey must have told him Micah knew.
Micah was stuffed so full of worry and hurt there was no room left to feel ashamed of himself for spying. He set aside the new pair of emergency bracelets he’d been trying to tie. “Is Jenny . . . did someone get in touch with her family?”
“Just a few minutes ago,” said the Lightbender. “They are all well. The Sisterhood detected a flock of birds building near Peal right before the attack. One large enough to show up on Doppler radar. They called Jenny’s family to warn them.”
Micah let out the breath he’d been holding.
“Victoria never targeted Jenny specifically,” the Lightbender added. “The windows of her mother’s shop were broken, but so were many others in the area.”
“What about . . .”
He didn’t know where to start. What about Florence Greeber and her family? What about the kids at the elementary school? What about all of them, every single person in Peal? Were they okay?
“Micah, I know how you must feel about this. Victoria—”
“She’s a monster,” Micah interrupted. His own voice sounded strange to him, quiet and sharp as a knife in the dark. His hands curled into fists without his permission. “I wish she was gone. Why can’t she just be gone?”
“Micah—”
“It’s not fair.” He grabbed his bootlace and squeezed it hard. “It’s not. Everyone else is gone. Grandpa Ephraim and my parents and all sorts of wonderful people. But she’s still here.”
He shouldn’t be saying these things, part of him warned. The Lightbender was the kind of person who caught spiders in coffee cups so that he wouldn’t have to squish them. He would never understand.
But a truth had built up inside of Micah until it was so big he couldn’t hold it back anymore. “I want her to be dead.”
Micah felt more ugly and hateful than he ever had in his life. And feelings like that didn’t belong in a place like Circus Mirandus. He knew it down to the soles of his shoes. He rubbed at his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt and clenched his jaw, waiting for his guardian to recoil from him.
The Lightbender placed a hand on his shoulder. “You seem to expect me to react with horror,” he said in a measured voice. “I assure you, I am not so easily horrified.”
“I shouldn’t want her to be dead,” Micah said. “It’s not right.”
The Lightbender sighed. “It’s not. But I can hardly hold the sentiment against you when I feel much the same way.”
Micah blinked at him.
The Lightbender squeezed his shoulder, then allowed his hand to drop. “You underestimate my anger, Micah, or perhaps you overestimate my compassion. I thank you for that, but you are not the only person to imagine how much simpler our lives would be, how much safer the world would be, without Victoria Starling in it.”
Micah swallowed hard. “Is anyone else in Peal hurt?”
“A great many people had minor injuries. A few are wounded more severely. No one has died.”
Yet. The word hung unspoken in the air.
“Why would she do it?” Micah asked. “Does she want us to know where she is?”
“I am afraid that is exactly what she wants.” A grim look crossed the Lightbender’s face, and the whole room seemed to dim.
“We thought Victoria would continue to search for us. We thought it might take her years. But apparently, she hasn’t the patience for that course of action. She seems to hope that by attacking innocents, she might flush us out of hiding.” His mouth twisted with distaste. “No doubt she chose Peal in a fit of spite when she found out we had taken you in. She is sending a message.”
“You mean she wants us to come to her, instead of the other way around.”
“Yes. It would be convenient for her if we abandoned reason and raced to Peal.”
“Aren’t we going to?” Of course we will, Micah thought. Someone had to keep Victoria from attacking again.
“No,” the Lightbender said.
“They need us!” Micah protested. “They’re not magicians. How are they going to protect themselves?”
“We will send a handful of magicians to help, and the Sisterhood will bring all their resources to bear, in addition to the few Strongwomen you have already met.”
“But—”
“I know how you feel,” the Lightbender said, meeting his eyes. “I do. But Peal will be well protected by morning. And if Victoria is foolish enough to stay, she will be found.”
Micah shook his head. It wasn’t enough. He wanted to check on Jenny and her family in person. He wanted to be there to help his former classmates and neighbors however he could.
“The Sisterhood is far more accustomed to dealing with trouble of this nature than we are,” the Lightbender said. “And it is best to let them do it. Many of the magicians here at Circus Mirandus can fight, however—”
“Then why won’t we?!”
“Micah,” said the Lightbender, “there is always a violent battle taking place somewhere in the world. If we devoted ourselves to engaging in each one, we would be a society of warriors, and there would be no circus at all.”
Micah tried to understand, but it was a hard thing to wrap his mind around—the idea that a battle might be taking place in his old hometown and every capable magician wouldn’t rush to defend the people who lived there.
The Lightbender seemed to know what he was thinking.
“Some fight the darkness head-on,” he said. “Others try to create so much light that it cannot take hold in the first place. We need both sorts of people in this world.”
“Why can’t we get rid of the darkness forever so that things like this don’t happen anywhere?”
“We are trying,” said the Lightbender. “So many of us have tried for so long. I have to believe one day we will be victorious.”
A GREAT MANY SEAGULLS
Micah spent most of the next day in Terpsichore’s paddock.
He had caught a glimpse of the overlay there once before, during the lightning strike, and he hoped the peaceful music and the presence of the unicorn would bring him luck again. He tied knot after knot, reaching out with his mind.
If I could just find that golden place, he thought, I could fix all of this. I could stop her.
He would snap that writhing mass of connections he’d seen, and Victoria’s birds would be free.
The Lightbender had said it might be decades before he could do something like that. He’d said Micah would have to practice and learn more about himself and his power. But surely, if you really needed to do something and you tried your best, you would find a way.
Only Micah did need to find the overlay. And he was trying his best. And hours later, all he’d gotten for his trouble was sore fingers and hundreds of useless knots.
Decades of practice, he thought dismally, rubbing his aching hands into the cool grass. I don’t have that long.
He packed away his supplies and went to see Fish.
* * *
A couple of curious girls were admiring the aquarium, but they left when they saw Micah’s gloomy expression.
He stepped up to the glass. When Fish swam around to see him, Micah met one of his big, silvery eyes and whispered, “Listen, I know the chances are one in a few billion, but if I am your Someone, I could really use some help right now. Things are pretty dark, and I think you’re a kind of light. So if you can do anything . . .”
The Bootlace Magician Page 21