How to Talk to a Goddess and Other Lessons in Real Magic

by Emily Croy Barker

  She started asking people if they’d seen Farmer Dahmer, and most of them looked at her as though she also might be cracked. Then a girl playing the recorder under a tree scratched her pierced nose thoughtfully and said she believed she’d seen him not too long ago, going into the main library.

  Right, Nora thought, I should have known. What was I telling Adam last night?

  She found him on the eighth floor of the library’s east tower—in the sociology stacks, of all places. Through a gap in the shelved books, she glimpsed the red shirt, and then she heard him muttering to himself. He was sitting at one of the tables in an open space near the bathrooms, hunched over a fan of papers, just as she had seen him on other occasions. Many different kinds of paper, she saw as she approached: graph paper, sheets torn from a spiral notebook, standard-issue white copy paper, the backs of colored handbills from campus bulletin boards. All were covered with closely spaced lines of tiny handwriting that went up and down the page like a thicket of saplings.

  Quietly Nora took up a position at the side of the table, to Farmer Dahmer’s right, and craned her head to look more closely at what he had written on the sheet of paper nearest her. His handwriting was even more difficult to read than Aruendiel’s. Some notes about the weather. A word that she recognized, after a moment, as a phonetic rendering of air conditioner. It was the rough draft of a cooling spell.

  Farmer Dahmer finally noticed Nora. The mumbling stopped. He looked up at her with an air of being both affronted and apprehensive.

  Nora glanced around quickly to make sure there was no one else within earshot. Only one of the nearby carrels was occupied, and the student inside was bent over his phone, his thumbs busy.

  “Excuse me,” Nora said to Farmer Dahmer in Ors, “but you had something to tell me, and I wanted to make sure I understood. That’s why I came to see you here.

  “My name is Nora. I think I have the honor of addressing the magician Micher Samle, is that right?”

  Chapter 4

  Nora took a sip from the glass of Fanta and glanced around again, taking in her surroundings. She hadn’t been sure what to expect when Farmer Dahmer—Micher Samle—invited her back to his house. Not this clean, bland space in one of the newer apartment complexes near campus.

  “Aruendiel said that you used to live in a cave,” she said.

  “I’m not as young as I used to be,” he said.

  Nora had been giving him news from the other world, telling him about her months there. He sat upright on the couch beside her, rocking slightly, showing very little reaction except that he blinked more rapidly whenever she first mentioned a name that was familiar to him: Aruendiel, Hirizjahkinis, Dorneng, Ilissa, Nansis Abora. She fought off the faint worry that she was boring him. He might simply be uncomfortable. Micher Samle did not strike her as someone who had many visitors. He was sipping his Fanta from an empty peanut butter jar because he had courteously allotted his one drinking glass to Nora.

  “Dorneng never had any sense about women,” was the only comment he made, after Nora recounted how his former apprentice had joined forces with Ilissa.

  After she had finished, there was a silence. Micher Samle finally broke it. “And you remember nothing about the other wishes?” he said reproachfully.

  “That’s the only one I remember making—that my life were different. It certainly came true. The other two, I have no idea.

  “You could have told me that you had granted me three wishes,” she added. “Then I might have remembered them.”

  “I thought it was very clear.”

  “Well, how would I know that you were the mouse that I saved? Not that I would have believed it. Or believed in three wishes, either. Still, it would have been nice to have some warning. Do you know how dangerous that is, granting someone wishes without telling them? Especially in this world, where people don’t expect it?” She didn’t want to be too hard on him, but he had to understand the risks here.

  “Probably you used the other two wishes on trivial things—wished for something good to eat, for example,” Micher Samle said, as though he had not been paying attention to her. Behind the dry scrub of his beard, he looked disappointed.

  “Sorry,” Nora said. “But again, if I had known—”

  “Now, if you’d wished to live forever, or to be rich, that might have been more interesting.” He shook his head solemnly. “Well, I’m afraid my wish spell isn’t what it should be. You asked for a different life, and it simply sent you to my own world. No inspiration there. Millions of other possibilities. The spell failed to consider them.”

  “Oh, it could have been a lot worse,” Nora said hastily. “At least the spell didn’t change my life by giving me a heroin habit or a degenerative disease or making me enroll in business school. Overall, I think things worked out all right.”

  Without answering, Micher Samle stared at the peanut butter jar that he held in his lap, scraping absently at the label with a dirty fingernail. Nora sipped her own drink again, inhaling the scent of orange soda as an antidote to Micher Samle’s unwashed staleness. The fug that clung to him was all the more noticeable in this pristine apartment. But then he came from a world where most people rarely bathed or changed their clothes. Had she smelled that bad when she came back? Micher Samle used to live in a cave, she reminded herself.

  She changed the subject: “This other thing, what you warned me about. You’re saying that when I came back from your home world, the door didn’t close properly?”

  With difficulty, Micher Samle pulled himself away from what was evidently a more interesting line of thought. “That’s right.”

  “And it’s stuck to me, more or less.” He nodded mechanically, so she went on: “So there’s a rip in the universe that’s basically been following me around ever since I got back.”

  “Yes, yes. It’s not extremely large.”

  “And it leads back to your world?”

  “No, that’s not quite right. It leads out of this world.”

  “And where does it go?”

  “Well, it might lead to my world,” he allowed. “It’s hard to say. The two worlds could have drifted apart, you understand, since you passed from that one to this one.”

  “And if it doesn’t lead to your world?”

  “It would go to the place between worlds.”

  “What is that?”

  “No place. In fact,” Micher Samle corrected himself, “I should not even call it a place. There is nothing there.”

  Nora remembered that moment of crossing the void, of feeling completely alone except for her panic. “And so what do I do about this gap, this hole? Can you close it?”

  “Oh, no, I don’t think so. If the fissure has been accompanying you all this time, then I think clearly it is under your influence. It is yours to resolve. Yes, that would be best.” He gave a succession of rapid nods, closing his eyes as he did so.

  “But how do I close it? Especially since”—she dropped her voice slightly—“I can’t really do magic in this world.”

  He pursed his lips. “That should not matter. The fissure will respond to you. You will see.” The explanation for closing the gap was long and technical. Micher Samle swayed back and forth as he outlined what had to be done, and his voice dropped to a mumble again. Unlike Aruendiel, who always grew more animated on the subject of magic, Micher Samle seemed to withdraw into himself when speaking of it.

  Nevertheless, Nora got a general idea of what was required. It was her pot-mending spell writ large, only here what she had to anneal was the stuff of the world, the rich fabric of ordinary reality. “All right,” she said finally. “I think I understand.”

  “Good, very good.” Micher Samle took a long swig of Fanta, as though he needed the refreshment badly.

  “But just to be clear,” Nora said, her voice rising nervously, “you say it’s also possible that someone
could go through the door and reach your world?” She flashed Micher Samle a smile that attempted to look casual, but this was the question she had been burning to ask ever since recognizing him the night before: was there a way back?

  “Possible, yes.”

  “Can you tell for sure?”

  Micher Samle seemed surprised by the request, but he stood up and began to walk around the room, circling the couch, his eyes searching out a few places in the empty air that only he seemed to know about. Finally he stopped and squinted at Nora.

  “The connection still exists.”

  “Really. All right.” She nodded, taking in the information, trying to think carefully.

  She could go back. It was possible. The stories that she’d told Ramona and Adam and herself would be real again. She would see the sky of another world overhead, its sun and moon and weather, not so unlike their equivalents here but different all the same. Because she, Nora, would be different there. She would be a magician again, knowing the life of the world around her in a way that she could not here, even though it was home. And she could pick up the thread of the conversation that her heart had been having with Aruendiel’s and find out where it led.

  And where would it lead? She thought she knew, but there was only one way to be sure. Only one. Nora felt her pulse race so fast that she knew her mind was already made up. “I want to go through,” she said. “Back to your world.”

  “You want to go back?” Micher Samle was dubious, a little flustered. “I should say, it’s not a strong connection. Not at all. It would be much safer, much, much safer, to close up the fissure, not try to pass through it.”

  “But I could pass through it?”

  “Probably.” He chewed his lip. “Once, maybe. I don’t know if you could come back the same way.”

  There was always a catch. Nora paused, and then—as Micher Samle’s brow wrinkled further—she decided she could not afford to let him see any signs of indecision. And he might be wrong.

  “Well, I want to try. You’ll help me, right?” She smiled as winningly as she could. “Just help me through, and then I’ll stop bothering you.”

  Micher Samle blinked rapidly, and at first she thought he was going to say no. But evidently the prospect of having her disappear and being left to his own thoughts was too enticing. “Yes, all right,” he said.

  They had only a few preparations to make. Micher Samle showed her exactly where the hole began. Once she felt the gap, it was impossible to mistake: the air itself seemed flimsy and rough, as though space were unraveling under her fingertips. Then she remembered the rope that Aruendiel had given her last time. At her urging, Micher Samle transformed a candy bar wrapper into a length of nylon cord.

  While he was doing that, Nora rummaged in her bag for her phone, recalling something that her sister Leigh had said once. There was a text from Adam, sent an hour ago. She glanced distractedly at the first few words on the small, bright screen—“Hey Nora would you like to meet”—and then deleted the message without reading more.

  She texted her youngest sister instead, choosing her words carefully: “Ramona, there’s a door. I think I can go back. You know where.”

  Almost instantly, her phone quivered. Saturday-morning soccer practice must be over. “You mean THERE?” Another electronic shudder. “2 see Aroondeel???”

  “Yes.”

  A line of smiling faces and hearts. “How long will u b gone?”

  Now her fingers were trembling slightly as she typed: “I don!r knoe.” The autocorrect kicked in.

  “Can I come with u?”

  “No,” Nora texted back immediately. “It’s risky,” she added. “I don’t know if/when I can get back here.” Then: “Maybe I won’t go.”

  “Go!!!!! Now!”

  Nora laughed aloud. Micher Samle glanced up, looking worried again. “It’s all right,” she said.

  “I cant believe u would even think that,” Ramona texted furiously. “Just go y would u want to stay in this boring world. Besides u will b magician and—”

  “But I will miss you so much.” Nora hit send.

  “—u will find magic to come back and also bring me to other world. Promise ok?? I cant wait 2 go.” Then: “R u going?? GO.”

  After a moment, Nora wrote, “OK. I love you. Tell Dad and my mom I’ll be OK.”

  Once you find the right path, her mother had said, follow it. Even if this probably wasn’t exactly what she’d meant.

  “I love u 2!” Ramona wrote back at once, and Nora changed her mind about leaving again, until the next text: “Do lots of magic! U r coolest sister ever.” Nora laughed again, her breath catching in her throat. The white words in their fat blue bubbles onscreen blurred slightly as she read them over again.

  “Love love love. I will find way back, promise.”

  “GO!”

  “Miss?” Micher Samle asked.

  She shivered. “I’m ready.”

  It occurred to Nora, as she was tying the cord around her waist, that Micher Samle might be blamed for her disappearance. Witnesses would come forward to say that she had been asking about Farmer Dahmer shortly before she vanished. She must have been seen walking across campus with him, perhaps even going into his apartment. But when she mentioned this, with some trepidation, to Micher Samle, he shook his head and gave a shy smile.

  “No one will remember anything.”

  “And you? You don’t want to go back?” Nora asked. The company of an experienced magician would not be a bad thing in a journey from world to world.

  “Oh, no,” Micher Samle said. “Why would I want to do that?”

  “Well, it’s your home.” Awkwardly, she added: “You must feel a little out of place here.” She felt it would be impolite to point out that he was generally considered a vagrant and a madman. Did he know about the Farmer Dahmer nickname?

  “Oh, no, I’m very comfortable here. This world has excellent libraries, better than in my world.”

  “You don’t miss your friends in the other world—other magicians?”

  “Well, you have given me recent news of some of my friends, which is all that I really desire. You will give them a good account of me, I hope?”

  “Oh, yes. I’m sure they’ll be very interested.”

  “Good. I suppose that I will return someday,” he said. “But there are things in this world that I would miss.” His eyes went to the flat-screen TV opposite the couch.

  Nora turned to look at it, too. Should she take some books, so she’d have something to read this time? No, she decided swiftly, with a glance at Micher Samle, there was no time for a lightning trip to the campus bookstore. If she was going to do this, she had to do it now, before the hole to Aruendiel’s world closed or she lost her nerve or Micher Samle decided that he’d had enough interruptions for one day.

  “I’m ready,” she announced.

  “All right.” Micher Samle rocked back and forth. “You know what to do, then?”

  Move with purpose, Aruendiel had scolded the last time. She could still hear the raw emotion in his voice, more than one might have expected even from a magician with a short temper instructing a hesitant pupil in a piece of strong, risky magic. She wanted to hear his voice again, for real, saying anything at all. “Yes. I have to go forward with strong intent,” Nora said. “Concentrate on my destination.”

  It would not be hard. She had had enough of dithering and uncertainty.

  “Yes, yes, you must move fast, decisively. Strange the connection has lasted this long. It’s not very trustworthy. I don’t know if—” Micher Samle chewed his lip. “Well, you will probably be all right. But,” he added, “you don’t want to be stuck in the middle of nothing. Very unpleasant.”

  Nora frowned. “You’ll pull me back if I can’t get through, right?”

  “Oh, yes, yes,” Micher Samle said, with a f
aint air of surprise, as though he had forgotten about the rope.

  “Actually—let’s just tie the rope to something solid.” Nora took the other end from him, glanced around for something to fasten it to, and finally settled on the kitchen doorknob. She wrapped the rope around the handle three times and knotted it as tightly as she could, then walked back to the middle of the room. She picked up her bag from the couch and slung it over her shoulder.

  Fingers outstretched, she felt for the edge of the hole in the air. “Here goes,” she said. And went.

  Micher Samle was right, there was nothing on the other side of the hole. Perhaps not even Nora herself. She could not see her hands in front of her. There was no sensation in them, either. Nothing to tell her that she even had hands.

  She could have been traveling a thousand miles an hour, or she could have been motionless—she could not tell for sure. It was not dark, exactly. Darkness—shadows, midnight, the great vacuum of outer space—is the absence of light. Here was neither light nor its opposite.

  How long had she been here? Her mind’s inner clock seemed to be leaking time. It was hard to keep her thoughts in order. But surely she should have been in the other world by now. The place where she wanted to be.

  She wasn’t, though. She was here. She was nowhere.

  Something had gone terribly wrong, Nora thought without much interest.

  Chapter 5

  Aruendiel left Luklren’s castle as soon as he could, which was not as soon as he wanted to.

  Even after the peace treaty was finally signed—the Faitoren took an unconscionable time to approve it, quarreling among themselves and demanding various ridiculous amendments—there was still the last ceremonial banquet to get through. The other negotiators on the king’s side agreed that Aruendiel should share the first cup of peace with the Faitoren, since he’d been known as their most implacable enemy for so many years. Otherwise, they hinted, the Faitoren would not consider the treaty truly binding.