Magic

by Audrey Niffenegger

  Could you go to the media with a story about a mother who was a witch and had special powers but wouldn’t use them for the betterment of her children? Devising what he’d say and quietly rehearsing the interviews he’d give to the press occupied his mind so he could tolerate the rest of the walk back to the apartment.

  Where Margaret was not.

  Felix knew she wasn’t there before Mom opened the door. Something about the energy. He didn’t like noticing energy. He also knew Margaret was in danger. He didn’t know how he knew that. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he was just imagining the worst, and that would not make it happen. He wasn’t the witch of the family.

  Just as he dropped the bags onto the already-full couch, the handle of the health-food bag broke. It wasn’t his job to chase after the bottles that rolled across the floor. Mom talked to them as she gathered them up. She didn’t seem worried about Margaret. She seemed kind of excited or something. He didn’t have time right now to try to figure her out.

  On Margaret’s bed in the corner, her lunch bag was open on top of homework papers. So she’d been home after school. She hadn’t been doing her homework, though. Toys were out of the trash bag she kept them in. Crayons and colored pencils were scattered around, and papers with drawings on them of her stuffed animals and dolls with legs going this way and that, kicking at the big empty spaces on the page.

  “She didn’t eat her sandwich.” Mom was digging through the bag.

  He took the neatly-wrapped sandwich away from her. “Mom, she never eats her sandwich. And nobody will trade with her. She throws it away at school or on the way home. Maybe today she was – distracted.” Maybe she was kidnapped. Maybe she was–

  “Why not?”

  He unwrapped it, took it apart, spread the halves like a biology lab dissection. “Look at this – broccoli, grapefruit slices, and what’s this paste made out of – honey and hummus? And I used to think this was bean sprouts, but it’s that weed from the backyard, right? Gray bread, like chunks of paper mache. Who eats like this, Mom?” He thought about keeping it for evidence.

  “It’s full of essential nutrients! What has she been eating, then?”

  “I give her money. From little jobs I get. And sometimes I just take it from your purse.”

  “Stealing is bad karma.” She was looking at the floor.

  “Like you never steal. And starving your kid – I bet that’s bad juju too.” He’d heard that word in an old Tarzan movie on TV and had just been waiting to use it on her. “She’s gone, Mom. We’ve gotta go find her.”

  She didn’t try to pretend Margaret might be at a friend’s. Margaret didn’t have any friends, because she didn’t want anybody coming here. Felix had been the same way, so by now he didn’t know how to make friends. Once Margaret was back safe, he might just point that out to Mom.

  Mom said suddenly, “You look around the room, think about where she might have wandered to. You’re smart, you’ll figure it out before I can. I’m going out to get a tattoo.”

  Felix stared at her. “Mom. Margaret’s gone missing.”

  “And we’ll find her.”

  When she rolled up her left sleeve Felix realized it had been years since he’d seen her bare arms. It was covered by a series of mostly geometric tattoos, some maybe professional, a lot of them obviously amateur – it wouldn’t surprise him if she’d done it herself with a sewing needle dipped in plant-based ink. Gross.

  “Look.” He didn’t want to, but he looked. There was a tattoo of a sailing ship. “Look,” and there was a fairy with a wand. “I’ve been tattooing pieces of your and your sister’s lives, your passions, your dreams, maybe a lot of things you aren’t even aware of, onto my body since before you were born. It’s my map to my children. Once I add her disappearance, I’ll know right where she is.”

  He found himself focusing on her tattoos, or they focused on him. They were changing, developing, growing longer and thicker, joining and crossing over to display twisted passages and dance-like movements.

  He jerked his gaze away. “Aren’t there some practical things, more normal things we should be doing? Like walking down the street, searching the park, knocking on doors? Maybe even calling the police?”

  “No need for that. Don’t you understand that the authorities poison us against the natural magic of the world? But go ahead and do that ‘normal’ stuff. Watch and listen. Pay attention to your feelings and let them guide you. I have great faith in you, Felix.” She hurried out.

  For the next few minutes he searched the room. He picked things up gently and put them back where he thought they’d been. Tearing things apart would’ve just made him more scared, and Margaret would be furious when she came home. Books facedown to hold her place didn’t tell him anything. None of her zillion unicorn and castle and enchantress and Harry Potter posters had anything to say to him, either. Real magic was a sham – hard to access, hard to control, crazy and arbitrary and unfair. It promised everything but never gave you what you really needed.

  In her lunch bag he found a slip of paper. Mom used to leave notes in his lunch, too – stupid advice like YOU CAN DO IT! and REACH FOR THE STARS! This note had a silly fairy sticker on it that said Tinkerbell, plus a lot of weird designs, circles mostly, with various spokes in them, and scribbles connecting them. If he glanced at them a certain way the circles turned and the scribbles danced. Right beside Tinkerbell, under the glow of her tiny wand, was GO FIND THE MAGIC! in Mom’s one-of-a-kind handwriting.

  Tinkerbell told him what it meant, which was a clue to how upset and out of it he was. Mom had sent Margaret away on some impossible quest.

  One of his sister’s drawings crinkled under his hand, tingling his skin. He pulled the drawing up against the light and watched as the lines of the furiously dancing doll vibrated.

  Felix had no idea what he was doing. Like his mother always said, he let himself be led. With various pencils, pens, crayons, he extended the lines on the paper so that they wrapped, cocooned, buried the dancing doll in a hard shimmering tunnel. Then the spiral spread off the paper to contour the folds of sheets, comforter, pillow, until he dropped everything, hands shaking, and stood back.

  Vaguely he recognized the park by that shelter they’d stayed in for a few weeks last year, elaborate slide system with a tower where kids waited their turn. On the wall of the playground was a mural he couldn’t see in the drawing, wizards and fairies, gnomes in fur coats like rats escaping a sewer, that had always creeped him out when he’d taken Margaret there. So had all the old guys hanging around like wizards who’d lost their powers, or who’d just hallucinated them, now convinced all the tasty magic was there in the bodies of the playing kids. Margaret had always wanted to say hi, and Felix hadn’t let her. The lines didn’t show anything but the dancing of the kids and a space of no-dancing, no-motion, watching.

  The deep-shadowed tangle behind the playground hid the entrance to a secret cavern, or something more everyday. The sewer. He’d yelled at Margaret to keep away.

  When Felix got into the park it felt like dusk although he didn’t think it was that late, hoped Margaret hadn’t been left alone that long, didn’t stop to check the time on his phone. Homeless guys were sitting on the wall. There was the mural, more faded and dirtier than he remembered, layered in a graffiti of filthy, hysterical requests. The opening of the sewer pipe was huge, protective mesh broken into fringe. It quivered like it was singing.

  Margaret was in there. Looking for a magic place. Because she was a kid, and magic could be anywhere her mother said it was.

  Felix dropped onto hands and knees and, without allowing himself to think about it, started into the pipe. Then the darkness detached into a ragged bulk of shadow backing out. The man grunted, hit his head and swore. The seat of his pants was muddy. He had Margaret. Her pale face popped up on one side and then disappeared.

  Felix’s first impulse was to block the exit, trap the guy inside the pipe and call the police. He fumbled for his phone. Then he thought
he might have a better shot at saving his sister if he moved out of the way. The guy kept coming, dragging Margaret, his fist swallowing her hand. Felix grabbed at the guy’s shirt and was about to throw himself at him when Margaret yelled, “No! Felix! He’s my friend!”

  The big, red-faced, dirty guy was all the way out, and he reached back into the pipe with both hands and pulled Margaret out. She hugged him before she hugged Felix. The homeless guy growled, “You better tell somebody, dude.”

  Into Felix’s neck Margaret said, “I’m scared, Felix.”

  “Of him? What’d he–”

  He felt her shake her head. “Of Mom. She makes me do stuff. She doesn’t take care of us. My friend says it’s not right, kids shouldn’t be treated like that.”

  “Felix, you found her!” Mom went to hug Margaret but Margaret turned away. “I knew you could do it – I’ve always had faith in you.” To the homeless guy she said, “Thanks, Woody,” and kissed his cheek.

  “You sent her out here, right?” Felix didn’t care who heard. “A test for me.”

  Mom looked at Margaret and lowered her voice. “She loves magic but she didn’t inherit my abilities. You did.”

  “I want it!” Margaret wailed. People were looking at them. Woody patted her head, told Felix again to tell somebody, and shambled off to find saner company. Felix finally found his phone.

  “You have great talent, son. And if you didn’t find her, I was your back-up.” She was actually proud of herself.

  She’d think he hated her, but he didn’t. He just didn’t have anything more to say to her. He waved his hands once, twice, and the lines danced around them. He didn’t know if Mom couldn’t see them, but she definitely couldn’t see him or Margaret. He called 911.

  CAD CODDEU

  LIZ WILLIAMS

  Liz Williams is somewhat familiar with magic, running, as she does, a witchcraft shop with her partner Trevor Jones in that most magically evocative of places, Glastonbury. I first encountered Liz as a science fiction reader, with her brilliant novel Empire of Bones (2002) and have since also enjoyed her terrific short stories. Liz seemed like a natural choice for this anthology and the tale that follows is steeped in ancient magic and myth.

  THE STORM BROUGHT the warriors, and perhaps the girl as well. I know that it was not I who conjured her, and at first I did not understand how they had drawn her forth. I first saw her as she ran through the groves of birch, a swift doe, and though she was not in her human form, I knew her for one of the Changing.

  The warriors followed her as far as the lake, but then she lost them. I, floundering behind, did not see where she went: perhaps into tree or water, or dissolving into mist. Hidden among the briars, I watched as the warriors splashed along the lakeshore: big men, with armour the colour of oak bark and hair like a fox’s coat. They searched around for a little while, but then gave up and stumped back the way they had come. When they turned, and I could see their faces, my suspicions were confirmed. They were wood-warriors, with rough features carved in the middle of rougher heads, and soon their movements grew slower and they became a pair of oak stumps. They would not, I knew, stir again until morning, and it was now twilight, with the air heavy after the rain.

  The Changing stepped out from a swarm of gnats at the lakeshore. She had left the doe’s shape behind and was human now, more or less. Her hair streamed down her back, dappled silver and fawn. Her face was small and pointed, a little pinched, and I could see a prickling beneath her skin as her form congealed. Her eyes were as yellow as a wolf’s: pale and cold like piss in winter. There was something familiar about her, but I did not know why. I did not think she could see me, but then she turned and looked straight at my hiding place.

  “You,” she called. She had a clear voice, and that was familiar too. “Come out from there.”

  I both wanted to do so, and feared it, but she gave me no choice. She lured me out with the strength of her gaze. I stumbled forward, my legs turned to dead-wood weight. I saw a crease between her brows.

  “Don’t you know me?” she said.

  “No. Yes. I don’t know.”

  Her frown deepened. “Do you know who you are?”

  “I am a man,” I said. “Not much of one, it’s true.”

  “Don’t you even know your own name?”

  “No.” But I knew what I was: landless and mad. Sometimes I remembered a little of who I used to be, but more often not. I recalled a woman with a fawn in her lap, a castle wall, a bitch with a litter of pups lying in summer sunlight, but it was all snatches and fragments like the ruins of a song. I didn’t know whether it was my past, or someone else’s. I used to be someone’s kin, perhaps, but now I was little more than hair and bones and the skins of others, a reed through which the wind whistled. But I knew the Changing, and that they were other.

  “And you are one of them,” I whispered. She gave me a gracious smile, the reward of royalty.

  “Of course.”

  “And the warriors?”

  Her lips twisted. “They say they are my brothers, and thus can do what they wish with me. But they’re no kin of mine. They are wood-made, where I am living. They are not my brothers.” She gave me a strange look.

  “Who made them?” I asked.

  “An oak-lord, one of Mac Derga’s men. Skilled, I suppose, if you admire that sort of thing.” She spat. “Ash-born, split from the wood. Not born of anything female.” Her form shivered in a sudden wind and I thought she would go. There was no reason for her to be talking to me, after all.

  “And yourself?” I said.

  “I am of the deer.” She was proud of that, I could tell. Beast-born, then. A small voice from the tatters of my memory told me that there weren’t many of them, and those that there were came out of bloodshed and war: the havoc of magic men. But I did not want to tell her that, and risk her anger. Besides, mad though I was, she was still the most beautiful thing I had seen for a long, long while. It struck me as an odd thing, then, that I knew so much about the Changing, and so little about myself.

  “Well,” she said next. “I must go now.”

  “What of the wood-warriors?”

  She laughed. “What of them? They will be back, no doubt. But they will never catch me.” The surface of her skin boiled and bubbled. Next moment, there was nothing more than a cloud of gnats, skimming across the surface of the lake.

  I DID NOT expect to see her again. The Changing may be a part of nature, but their creation means that they can never stay long apart from the world of men, and that is not my world any more. My world is the woods, the lakeshore, the caverns beneath the earth, and sometimes it is none of these, but the world in-between, the dragonfly world of the dead. It was in that world that I saw her for the second time.

  My madness is tied to the wheel of the stars and the moon. When the moon goes dark, and is eaten by the great beast, then my madness reaches its peak. I was scuttling through trees and bones when I saw her. The lake had turned to blood. I felt that something vast had been slain and there was a squealing inside my head. She stepped out of shadow and moths to place a hand on my brow. Her skin felt cool and prickling, like the skin of a toad. She said, “You are running mad.”

  I said, or thought I did, “What does that matter to you?”

  “Hush. You are disturbing things. You should not be here. This is the wild, not the home of men.”

  “It is my home.” But the pressure of her hand increased until all I could see was the castle wall, yellow with lichen, and the bitch yawning in the sun. My mother was standing before me. I fell to my knees.

  “The trees are coming,” my mother said with a fearful glance, and was gone into a haze of black air.

  IN THE MORNING, just as the dawn’s light touched the lake, I woke. There was no sign of the Changing. My head felt cold and clear, water-still. I stumbled to my feet and looked around for her, seeking her in the gnats and the flickering trout among the cress, but she was nowhere to be seen, or not showing herself. I felt
filthy and old. I stripped the skins from myself and washed, for the first time in months. When I came out again from the lake, I felt as though I had been peeled down to the pith.

  She was standing on the shore, not bothering to hold her form too greatly. Her face was the muzzle of a doe. She said, “They’re coming.”

  “Who?” I asked. Had she been a human woman, I would have been ashamed of my nakedness, but despite her beauty it was like standing naked before a beast.

  “The wood-warriors.” Her lip curled. “I need your help.” It was not clear whether it was the warriors she despised, or myself.

  “What kind of help?” I asked.

  “You know the caves, don’t you? They have Mac Derga’s oak-man with them; he can force my form.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Force me to take one shape and one shape only. If he does that,” she shifted from foot to gleaming foot, “it will be easy for them to capture me.”

  “Why do they want you so badly?” But I already knew the answer to that.

  She shrugged. “Beauty. I think they plan to give me to one of Mac Derga’s men, perhaps Mac Derga himself. For no more than a night, most likely. He is betrothed already, to a chieftain’s daughter.”

  “Then come with me,” I said, snatching up the skins. I felt filled with purpose, for the first time in months. She said nothing more, but followed me through the bramble and briar, which seemed to shrink away from her skin.

  Sometimes, the caves were not where I expected them to be. The woods seemed to change with the moon, just as the sea does, or perhaps it was only my madness. I found them with some difficulty, but the Changing betrayed no impatience or surprise. Perhaps the woods really did alter and shift. And the mouth of the cave seemed more overgrown than I remembered it. I stepped through into clammy cold. The Changing followed me and as she did so, she gave a long breathy sigh.