Amber felt astonished to learn she and her folk had such a foul reputation among voles. There was a tense, embarrassing silence, and old Vervane looked as if he might bite her, when suddenly a handsome young vole darted from the shadows and addressed Ben. “Wait a minute. So you’re the one, aren’t you?”
“The one?”
“The boy who lives in the house next to Domino? You’re the boy who saved me last summer. Domino had me in her claws when you threw a pinecone and drove her away.”
Ben gulped. He seemed to have forgotten about that. “Yeah, that was me,” he said proudly.
“Thank you,” the vole said, eyes shining with gratitude. “My name is Bushmaster. I’m forever in your debt.”
Bushmaster turned to the younger voles and, in a voice choked with emotion, said, “These are my friends. Get them some food. They must be hungry.”
The young voles went scampering through the burrow as Bushmaster led Ben and Amber to a cozy corner.
But Amber felt somehow betrayed. Why had Ben saved a strange vole but hadn’t saved her? It didn’t make any sense. She suspected that it wasn’t that he liked her or hated her, it was just that she was beneath his notice. Perhaps the life of a mouse or a vole didn’t mean much to him.
Soon the young voles reappeared carrying in their mouths loads of pine nuts, bits of blackberry jerky, dried flowers of jasmine, clover, and buttercup, and pieces of grass and mushrooms. They set the food on a dry leaf in front of Ben and Amber until they had a large pile heaped before them.
Ben pawed through the food, and Amber did too. For Amber, it was strange and exotic stuff after a lifetime of eating mouse pellets. Ben declared, “This is almost as good as the trail mix my mom buys at 7-11.”
The voles all laughed.
Amber ignored the bulbs of alfalfa root but found that she liked the honeyed taste of clover and jasmine, along with the pine nuts and dried berries.
Soon she was full.
“A story,” a young one called. “Tell us a story, Grandpa! Or better yet, sing us a song!”
Old Vervane stammered with embarrassment. “No, no. Not in front of our guests. Besides you’ve heard all of my stories and songs.” He peered pointedly at Ben. “Perhaps you have a story or a song—something human?”
Ben thought a moment and smiled. “I know a song,” he said. “A song about mice.” He began singing softly. Amber recognized the tune from the pet shop, for Feeder had often hummed it when she brought the mouse pellets. But this was the first time that she understood the words. Ben sang:
Three blind mice, three blind mice.
See how they run, see how they run.
They all ran after the farmer’s wife,
She cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever see such a sight in your life
As three blind mice? Three blind mice.
Amber felt shocked to the bone. It was a dismal tune about an agrarian’s spouse who assaulted visually impaired rodents and performed acts of mayhem upon their tails!
As he sang, the voles began shivering, backing away in terror. But Ben never noticed. Instead, he sang lightly, as if it were a joke. The song was a cruel reminder that Ben wasn’t really a mouse at all.
“Is that what humans do to mice?” she demanded when the song was done. Ben looked away guiltily. “I mean . . . back in the pet shop, I . . . we thought that you humans embraced mice. We thought you took us home, fed us, and loved us. We thought that we meant something to you!”
The voles watched in silent shock.
“We don’t chop off their tails. Honest!” Ben said. His whiskers twitched nervously.
Quick as the thought flashed through her mind, Amber remembered her mother and old Barley Beard and all of the rest of the pet shop mice that the humans had embraced. Where had they gone?
Amber began to shake from more than the frigid night air. She demanded, “Ben, what do you humans do with mice?”
Ben ducked, looked away. “I don’t know.”
“What happened to my mother, my family, my friends?” Amber pressed. She wanted to know, regardless of how much it hurt, so she wished that Ben would tell her the truth.
Ben began to shake and struggle and gasp for breath. He tried to turn away, but Amber’s spell forced the words out of him. In a strangled voice he confessed, “I don’t know for sure. But when I bought you, you were cheap. I thought it was just because you weren’t as pretty as the spotted mice . . . But there was a sign on your cage, a sign that said ‘Feeder Mice.’ And now I know. You were raised to be food for snakes and lizards.”
Amber let out a cry. Not just for her mother and family, but for all mice through all time that had been raised as feeder mice and born to the cage.
“All of them?” Amber said. “All of them are eaten? You humans don’t love any of us? You never take us home?”
Ben said, “Mostly, we kill mice,” Ben admitted. “We put out traps for them or poison.” Then by way of apology, he added, “But sometimes we keep mice as pets.”
“Just the colored mice,” Amber realized. “The expensive ones in the fancy cages, the ones that get to play on exercise wheels and eat the tastiest foods.”
Ben didn’t deny it.
“I wanted to keep you,” Ben said. “I wanted you for a friend.” There was a long silence, during which Amber couldn’t speak. A friend? How could they be friends?
Tears flowed freely from her eyes.
Her life as a free mouse had just begun, but she felt as if it were the end of the world.
“I have to go back,” Amber said. “I have to go back to the pet shop and free them.” She didn’t know where to go. The world was such a strange and dangerous place.
Ben looked at her for a long time, shaking. “It’s a long way to the pet shop, and the trip would be dangerous for a mouse.”
“You had better come with me,” Amber said. “If you don’t, I’ll . . . I’ll turn you into a . . . a—”
“What? A slug?” Ben asked, as if nothing that she did to him could hurt him any more than she already had.
“No, I’ll turn your whole family into mice.” Deep inside, she felt a dark power rising.
Ben backed away in terror.
“All right,” he said after a moment. “I’ll take you to the pet shop and help you free the mice. But afterward, I want something from you in return. I want you to free me. You have to turn me back into a human.”
Amber smiled. She was getting what she wanted—even if she did have to take it by force.
I really would make an excellent evil wizardess, she thought.
Chapter 6
NIGHTWING
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Nightwing dipped toward the source, circling.
His enormous ears picked up human voices in an upper chamber.
IN THE CHILL AIR, Nightwing scrabbled across the sky. The stars rode through the heavens above, while dark forests seethed below. He could still sense Amber’s spell. After-fires from it could be seen in the west, a glowing column of magical purple flame. As he flew, he sang:
Hear the tolling of the bells—
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monopoly compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
“Quiet,” Darwin screamed. “Not that poem again!” He buried his head deep in the flesh of Nightwing’s armpit and tried to shut the sound out by wrapping all eight legs over his ears. “Do any poem but that one. My head is ringing. I can’t take it anymore.” He went from pleading to a more dangerous tone. “One more verse, and I swear by my mother’s proboscis, I’ll sever your jugular!”
“You palavering parasite,” Nightwing said. “You can no more appreciate the genius of poetry than a sow can appreciate a Van Gogh. Edgar Allen Poe was the g
reatest human poet of all time. Compared with him, Dante Alighieri spouted drivel, and Shakespeare’s verses are but the scribblings of a hack.”
Nightwing fluttered toward a house, squeaking in his loudest voice,
And the people—ah, the people—
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
Darwin gouged his proboscis into Nightwing’s side and threatened, “I smell a gizzard!”
“Look,” Nightwing shouted. “The source of the spells, spells, spells! Keeping time, time, time, in a sort of runic rhyme!”
He wheeled gleefully above a house in a dark neighborhood at the edge of a town. The streetlight below glowed forlornly, and only a few cars crawled upon the road. But the light from magic spells sputtered below with an eerie purple gleam, pulsing on and off like a candle that gutters from lack of air as it suffocates.
Nightwing dropped low, searching for any animals that had a magical aura. A pair of cats hunted behind the house, but they were nothing special. In front of the house, a police car was parked, its lights flashing blue and white.
The residue of the magical spell was centered within the house.
Nightwing dipped toward the source, circling. His enormous ears picked up human voices in an upper chamber. “We came up here and found his clothes draped across the floor,” Ben’s dad said. “But Ben was just . . . gone.”
“It’s like he popped,” his mom added. “Like he was a big balloon, and he just popped, and all of his clothes dropped to the floor.”
The police officer said in a bored tone, “Well, if he’d popped, his skin would be here too. I think he just ran off.”
“But,” his mom asked, “where would he go without his clothes?”
“Skinny-dipping?” the cop suggested.
Nightwing dived toward the roof. He was an instant from death when he cast a tiny spell. As he hit the wooden shingles, the roof shattered.
He found himself in a room where bright lights blinded him. He dropped to the floor.
With a thought, he dimmed the lights to a softer hue. The humans stood gaping at him, looking back and forth between him and the hole in the roof.
“A bat,” Ben’s mother screamed frantically. “Shoot it!”
The police officer stood in shock, staring at Nightwing as Ben’s mom grabbed for his gun. She fumbled with the holster strap for half a second until the officer realized what she was doing and tried to knock her hand away.
Nightwing glared at the humans. He was a wise bat, capable of understanding human speech, for he had spent long decades in its study. So in a loud voice, a voice of hissing and thunder that shook the ceiling and made paint flake from the walls, he commanded, “Leave us—unless you want me to stuff you into the microwave and pop you like corn!”
Ben’s mom screamed, babbling, “It talked to us. That bat talked to us.” Her husband staggered back as if he’d been slapped.
“Vampire,” the cop muttered, trembling in fear. He drew his revolver and tried to steady his hand to take aim.
With a thought, Nightwing magically knocked the gun from his hand. It went bouncing on the floor and discharged. The bullet slammed into a Pooh bear, and fluff exploded all through the room. Nightwing smiled evilly at the bear and cast a small spell. Blood began gushing from its wound, and it cried in a horrified voice, “Help! He’ll kill us all!”
The humans stood staring in shock, so Nightwing growled, “If you don’t get out of here, I’ll see to it that you spend an eternity in charge of stacking the folding chairs for my master’s weekly rallies—in H-e-double-toothpicks!”
The humans fled, stumbling over and clawing each other in their hurry. The cop shoved the others aside and went out first, tripping and tumbling downstairs, then Ben’s mom and dad rushed through the door.
Nightwing sent a thought that slammed the door tight. Suddenly, roots grew out of the wooden door panels and burrowed deep into the walls, fusing the walls and doors together.
“That ought to hold them for awhile,” Darwin said.
The magical glow came from the lizard’s terrarium. Nightwing turned his attention to Imhotep. The Nile monitor stood regally in his cage, just beneath his sun lamp, eyeing Nightwing stalwartly.
He’ll pay for his pride, Nightwing thought, studying the lizard’s fine skin.
But he took a soft tone with the lizard. “A powerful wizard cast a spell here not more than an hour ago. Tell me about it.”
Imhotep had no choice in the matter. He told about Ben and Amber. And when the lizard finished, Nightwing drew close to the lizard’s cage and whispered, “You have a cruel heart, lizard. I think it should never beat again.”
Imhotep looked fearfully at the bat, then gasped, and sank to the floor of the cage, dead from a heart attack.
Now that Nightwing was sure that the lizard would never speak again, he flew up through the hole in the roof.
“So a mouse who has never cast a spell performed a transmogrification on a human,” he mused. “That’s a spell that most sorcerers wouldn’t dare attempt after a lifetime of study . . . This girl has talent.”
“She sounds dangerous,” Darwin said. “What are you going to do about her?”
That question weighed heavily on Nightwing’s mind as he circled the house. By now, the police officer was in his car, frantically calling for backup in order to handle the vampire. As soon as he noticed Nightwing, he ran to his trunk and pulled out a shotgun. Nightwing was tempted to teach the mortal a lesson, but he didn’t want the man’s dying screams to alert Amber and Ben.
Darwin urged, “As you’ve often said, only the strongest can be permitted to survive.”
Nightwing shot back, “And you’re the one who is always saying, ‘Just because you want to take over the world, you don’t have to be so mean about it.’”
“I was just hoping . . .” Darwin began.
“What?”
“For a little bloodshed.”
Nightwing snickered. “In good time.” He was a powerful sorcerer, the greatest in the west. But he had been hiding now for decades, since the Great War, slowly regrowing his power. He didn’t dare let this young wizardess stay alive, lest she interfere with his plans.
So he winged back up into the top of the big pine behind the house. He could feel Amber’s power. He didn’t know what rock she was hiding under, but he knew that she was near.
He took a position in one of the lower boughs.
“What are we doing here?” Darwin asked.
Nightwing cast a magic spell to boost his sensitive hearing and perked up his ears. He had to move them back and forth a bit in order to avoid picking up radio signals from the local radio station. “Quiet,” Nightwing said, scrunching forward. “I hear mice . . .”
* * *
Back in the burrow, Ben’s confession had had a chilling effect on the voles. For a bit, they seemed distant and quiet, and Ben sulked in embarrassment at being forced to admit what humans did to mice.
Indeed, the voles all fell silent until young Bushmaster shouted, “Hey, let’s have some fun.” He began to sing:
When your fur gets all dirty,
Let it be your cue—
Don’t stink up your burrow;
Go run through the dew!
When the morning grass is wet,
You can sure have fun
Scrubbing off your belly
If you do it on the run!
Go and leave your odor—
Don’t let it follow you!
Find yourself a meadow
And run through the dew!
The song was obviously a favorite with the younger voles, who capered about, hopping madly as if forging through the grass in order to bathe in the morning dew.
From then on, the voles seemed to almost forget Ben. All night long they told stories and sang and danced around Amber’s light. It was a joyous celebration, unlike anything that Ben had ever witnessed. The voles played games, chasing each other’s tails, and when they
tired, they feasted again, and the whole party started over.
Ben had a merry time but soon began feeling drowsy. Lest he fall asleep without his nightly prayer, he found a quiet corner and prayed softly but fervently, “Thank You for all of my blessings.” He had to stop to think of things that he was thankful for. “Thank You for this burrow, with its roots and warm leaves. Thank You for the . . . the trail mix of . . . ugh . . . dried fungi, even if it did smell questionable and have lots of vole spit on it.”
Now that he felt he had expressed appropriate thanks, he felt free to beg. Sniffling, he pleaded, “Please, please, I really hate being a mouse. If this was supposed to teach me something—like you shouldn’t feed your friends to lizards—then I’ve learned my lesson. So will You please, please turn me back?”
He sat for a moment hoping that God would answer, but nothing happened. No burning bush, no angel. Not even a strong hunch as to what to do.
What if I can never turn back into a human? Ben wondered. Would it be so bad to live here, in the backyard, under a pine tree with some friendly voles? He’d still be close to his mom and dad, he imagined, and that might make him feel sort of safe when he went to sleep—even though he wouldn’t have his football helmet on or a baseball bat hidden with him under the covers.
But now Ben could hear the voles whispering to Amber, holding a council. Vervane and Bushmaster warned of nearby dangers. There were local cats and dogs, which Ben had known about, but there were other predators too—like a crotchety old opossum, crows, an owl, a pair of grey foxes that came down from the hills in winter, a mink that sometimes wandered from the mill pond, pine snakes that slithered into burrows and ate whole families, and even a tarantula that hid under Ben’s own house.
If Ben had known of all these carnivores, he’d have been afraid to cross his own backyard.
I’ve got to find a weapon in the morning, Ben thought.
With that, he lay with his eyes closed, as if asleep, lulled by tales of narrow escape that Vervane spun with the expertness of an orb spider.
* * *
Of Mice and Magic Page 5