Inside the Magic

by Debbie Dadey

  Penny looked up from the book and smiled. “You’re exactly right. It says here in this book that the only thing that frightens harpies away is the sound of a brass instrument.”

  “Well, that would be great if we had a trombone handy,” Luke said, “but I’m fresh out.”

  “But Natalie’s not,” Penny said.

  “What?” Natalie said with a puzzled look on her face. And then in a moment of recognition Natalie smiled, too. She pulled two MP3 players out of her bag and turned the first one on full blast with the mini speakers attached.

  Nothing happened. “Don’t you ever check your batteries?” Luke groaned.

  Natalie gave him a dirty look, plugged the speakers into the other one, and turned it on. Loud music blared.

  “It has to have sounds from brass instruments,” Penny yelled. “Trumpets. Trombones. Tubas.”

  Natalie twirled the dial until trumpets blasted out of the tiny player. The harpy stopped singing and flew away crying, “No! No! Nooooooo!!!!” The kids heard her screeching the whole way.

  “Try the cage now,” Buttercup said. “When the harpy left, her spell may have weakened.”

  “Stand back,” Kirin said. She gave a massive kick to the door with her back legs. The glass shattered and the door clattered to the ground.

  “Hurry,” Penny said, giving Kirin a quick hug. “Let’s get Mr. Leery out of here before the Queen comes.”

  10

  They weren’t fast enough.

  The Queen, astride her red dragon, arrived at the mouth of the cave. The kids froze and stared at the beautiful woman before them. Her long blond hair flowed over a gown of shining white silk, and a sparkling crown of diamonds and emeralds sat atop her head. Even her face glowed with radiance.

  “She’s the prettiest person in the whole world,” Natalie said, taking a step toward her.

  Luke grabbed Natalie and pulled her back. “She’s a boggart. Remember, she can look however she wants. Remember what real boggarts looked like?”

  Penny shivered as she thought back to the boggart spy named Bobby who had infiltrated their school. He had been able to change shapes. At first he looked like a boy. A strange boy, but still a boy. When he’d changed into his boggart form, the kids caught a glimpse of what real boggarts look like. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

  Natalie couldn’t take her eyes off the Queen, while Dracula stared at the red dragon. It was easily five times bigger than Dracula. Luke noticed right away that the red dragon didn’t have wings.

  “Welcome to my kingdom,” the Queen said in a sweet voice that sounded like a finely tuned piano.

  The Keyholders backed up. Buttercup squealed and dove deeper into Natalie’s pocket.

  “I’m not going down without a fight,” Penny said.

  “There’s no need for anyone to fight,” the Queen said, waving her staff. Immediately the music in Natalie’s MP3 player stopped.

  Natalie stared, transfixed by the Queen’s beauty. “No need to fight,” Natalie muttered.

  “Oh yes, there is,” Penny screamed. “You’ve hurt Mr. Leery and Mo. Put them back the way they’re supposed to be.”

  “Um, Penny,” Luke whispered. “Maybe we shouldn’t make her mad.”

  The red dragon lay down so the Queen could step lightly off his back. She glided toward the children.

  “Don’t come any closer,” Penny warned.

  The Queen laughed. “Or what? What can three pitiful children do against the Boggart Queen? What was that stupid Leery thinking? Making infants into Keyholders? It will be so easy to defeat you. Then the world will be mine. The whole world. Now, how about I get rid of this troublesome bookworm first?”

  The Queen aimed her staff at Penny. Luke threw the first thing that he could grab . . . Mr. Leery’s walking stick. It smacked into the Queen’s staff. Her staff exploded in a burst of blue sparks. The red dragon reared up in panic, snorting flames all around the cave.

  Kirin jumped in front of the kids and Mr. Leery, shielding them with her body.

  The Boggart Queen was not so lucky. Her silk gown turned black and sooty. Her beauty was gone, replaced by her true self. The Queen was now an ape-like creature with enormous pointed ears and glowing yellow eyes. She groveled on the floor, pawing at the ashes of her staff. “What have you done?” she cried. “What have you done?”

  Dracula didn’t waste any time. He flew right into the huge dragon’s face and roared. The red dragon was taken by surprise and toppled backward, falling out of the cave and down the cliff.

  The Queen screeched and ran to the mouth of the cave. “My dragon!”

  Luke scrambled to pick up Mr. Leery’s staff. When the Queen turned back around, Kirin was waiting for her. With one toss of her head, Kirin pushed the Queen inside the cage.

  Together, Penny, Luke, and Buttercup shoved the cage until the broken door was blocked by the solid rock of the cave wall.

  The Queen rattled the bars. She jumped up and down. But the cage was too strong. “You can’t run from me!” The Queen shook her fist at them.

  “Oh, yes we can,” Natalie said, no longer hypnotized by the Queen’s beauty. “You’re just a mean ugly boggart!”

  “Hurry,” Buttercup shrieked, “before she breaks the enchanted glass.”

  The kids scrambled down the rocks as quickly as they could into the driving rain. Luke and Penny dragged a limp Mr. Leery between them. Mr. Leery regained consciousness only long enough to whisper, “Well done, Keyholders.”

  Luke panted. “We’ll never be fast enough to escape all the creatures she’ll send after us.”

  Natalie felt like giving up, but she stumbled and grabbed onto Leery’s staff. A misty vision flashed before her eyes and suddenly she knew how to get home, stopping only long enough to save the elves along the way.

  “Kirin, I know you’re not a pack horse, but could you and Dracula help us get back to the border?” Natalie asked. “Please?”

  Kirin looked at Natalie in surprise. Usually Natalie didn’t ask. She told. But this time she’d even said please. Kirin nodded and then she opened her mouth to make a sound, but nothing came out. At least nothing the kids could hear.

  Kirin’s call worked because in seconds a bronze unicorn stood before them. “Flash, at your service.”

  Flash kneeled down and Natalie climbed aboard with Buttercup in her pocket. Penny held Mr. Leery on Kirin and Luke got the surprise of his life when Dracula tossed him on his back. Then they were racing through the forest. Dracula and Luke actually flew, while Flash and Kirin ran as only unicorns can.

  EPILOGUE

  “I may have lost this battle,” the Boggart Queen screeched after them. “But I am not defeated. I AM NOT DEFEATED!”

  Her scream shattered the enchanted glass and made boulders tumble from the cliffs as the Keyholders and their friends fled down the path.

  The Queen’s knuckles pounded the cliff. Her claws dug deep crevices in the rock. Slobber spewed across the cave and splattered the broken cage. Where it landed, the bars sizzled.

  “I will get them,” the Boggart Queen growled. “If it’s the last thing I do. I. Will. Get. THEM!!!”

  Goblins, boggarts, and hob goblins cowered in the trees as their queen threw her tantrum.

  One lone boggart clutching something pink against his chest crept from his hiding place and approached the angry queen. “If it pleases your majesty,” he said.

  “Nothing will please your majesty,” she seethed, “until I have those Keyholders in my clutches. NOTHING!”

  The boggart blinked and took a step back, but then he continued forward, one tentative step at a time. “Perhaps this will help?” he said with a voice full of question and hope.

  The Queen turned her yellow eyes on the boggart. “I know you,” she said.

  The outline of the boggart’s body began to blur and turn hazy as he shape-shifted into what looked like a very strange boy.

  “Ah, yes,” the Queen said. “Bobby was the name we gave you for your last
mission, wasn’t it?”

  The boggart nodded his human-shaped head. “It was an honor to serve my Queen. Now I offer you this,” he said. He tentatively held out the pink object and waited for the Queen to snatch it from his trembling hands. “It’s the humdrum’s notebook,” he told her. “The one they call Natalie.”

  The Queen of Boggarts bent back the cover, not worrying about the jagged crease she created. As she flipped through the pages, the Queen’s look of fury turned into a grin.

  And so it was that the Queen of Boggarts hatched her new plan.

  Turn the page for a sneak peek at

  KEYHOLDERS #4

  THE

  WRONG SIDE

  OF MAGIC

  1

  Snap!

  The troll’s yellow fangs barely missed Luke.

  Whack!

  Luke slammed his basketball into the belly of the troll. The hideously ugly creature stumbled backward toward the bushes and trees behind Luke’s house. It lashed out at Luke, but Penny was too fast. She bent over behind the monster and tripped it.

  Long stringy hair and huge treelike arms flew backward. When the troll hit the ground, the whole backyard shook.

  “Get out of the way,” Luke’s neighbor, Natalie, yelled. She stormed past him with an enormous high-beam flashlight. The light cut through the evening darkness, putting the troll in the spotlight.

  The troll let out a deafening roar, covered its face with its long barklike fingers, and crashed through the trees. “Hurry!” Penny said. “Fix the border.”

  “Links, come quick!” Luke yelled.

  Three creatures bounced into the yard.

  A dazzling white unicorn landed beside Penny, a small green and silver dragon beside Luke, and a rat scrambled onto Natalie’s toe. For a few moments, none of them spoke. All six of them concentrated on the row of bushes and trees.

  A wave of energy vibrated in the air. Immediately, the trees broken by the troll were made whole again. It was as if the troll had never invaded Luke’s backyard. But the kids knew differently, and so did their magical links.

  Natalie quickly switched off the flashlight to keep the magical creatures from being seen by anyone in Luke’s house.

  Penny’s unicorn, Kirin, spoke first, “What’s going on? That’s the third break in the border this week. The border is getting as holey as Mr. Leery’s underwear.”

  Dracula, Luke’s dragon, bounced up and down. “Break. Break. Break.” Luke’s dragon was a dragon of few words, but a lot of energy.

  Luke patted his dragon and said, “Kirin is right. Something strange is going on. Don’t you feel it?”

  Penny shivered. Strange was exactly how she’d felt ever since they’d found out that the old man who lived next to Luke was a mysterious Keyholder who kept the magical world from leaking into the real world. She had known him all her life as Mr. Leery, a nice old man who gave her birthday presents and liked to putter around his yard with his cat Mo.

  But nothing was as it seemed. Mo wasn’t a cat at all: He was really a shape-shifting griffin. He was also a link—an animal from the magical realm that had formed an unbreakable lifelong bond with Mr. Leery. Just like Dracula the dragon was Luke’s link and Kirin was her own.

  Being linked to a unicorn was the best thing that had ever happened to Penny. At first, Natalie had been bummed to have a rat as a link, but now they were great buddies. Although Penny had to admit that having a rat for a link wasn’t nearly as wonderful as a unicorn.

  The whole thing made Penny’s head spin if she thought about it too much, especially the part where Mr. Leery had chosen the three of them to be the new Keyholders.

  “I do feel something strange going on,” Natalie said. “I don’t know what it is but I don’t like it.”

  “Wait just a minute,” Penny said. “How did you know to use that big flashlight on the troll?” Usually Penny was the one who figured out how to deal with the bad creatures that sometimes slipped through the border.

  Natalie giggled. “I used my new phone with its wireless Internet connection.”

  Luke groaned. Natalie had every known gadget available. She was the most spoiled kid he knew.

  “When I saw that troll thing out my window,” Natalie continued, “I typed ‘trolls’ in my phone and it said that they didn’t like bright lights.”

  “Genius!” Natalie’s link said. Buttercup beamed obvious pride.

  “If I’m such a genius, then why haven’t I had my installation ceremony?” Natalie snapped.

  “Not that again.” Luke grabbed his basketball off the ground and walked away from Natalie. She was always complaining about something.

  “Mr. Leery promised as soon as he was feeling better he would officially make you a Keyholder,” Penny said, edging away from Natalie.

  “He’s taking too long,” Natalie complained. “I think he’s just pretending to be sick so we have to do all the border work ourselves.”

  Being a Keyholder wasn’t as glamorous as the kids had thought it would be. Mostly, it meant trying to sense where the border was weak so bad magical creatures from the other side couldn’t sneak through. When that happened, they had to mend the break in the border. They didn’t even want to think about the chaos that would erupt if bad magic was set loose in the real world.

  “You know that’s not true!” Penny said. “Mr. Leery really is sick.”

  Kirin nudged Penny on the shoulder with her horn. “Maybe he picked up some germ when the Boggart Queen trapped him in that rock,” the unicorn said.

  Natalie’s cheeks paled. She didn’t like to think about when the Boggart Queen kidnapped Mr. Leery and used him as bait to trap the three kids. It had only been by chance that the three kids and their links had figured out how to break Mr. Leery free from the spell that kept him sealed inside solid rock.

  “Germs!” Dracula sputtered as he jumped up and down in front of Luke. “Ick! Ick! Ick!”

  Luke reached out and put his hand on Dracula’s head to stop him from bouncing. “Mr. Leery seems to be getting better,” Luke told Natalie. “It won’t be too much longer before he has your installation ceremony.”

  Buttercup put a paw on Natalie’s leg. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll have your ceremony soon.”

  Natalie stomped her foot and sent Buttercup skittering away. “It’s not fair,” she told Luke and Penny. “You’ve had your ceremony. I want mine.”

  “Big deal,” Luke said, bouncing the ball. “You have everything else.” Natalie lived in the biggest house in Morgantown, complete with a home theater and swimming pool.

  “Come on,” Penny said, “let’s finish checking the border so we can go home and work on our science projects.” Although Natalie wasn’t her favorite person, Penny could understand Natalie wanting the ceremony. It had been the most amazing event of Penny’s life. She had received the blessings of fairies, elves, centaurs, and even a genie. It made her smile just to think about the beauty and mystery of it all.

  Natalie turned her back on Penny and Luke. “No. I’m going home now. I’ve had it with stinky trolls and borders.”

  “You can’t,” Penny said. “What if there’s been another breach in the border?”

  Luke threw the basketball and it swished through the net. “Natalie’s right. There’s never been more than one break in the border in a day. I’m sure everything is fine. Let’s just get our homework done. My mom will ground me if I have another late assignment.”

  The three kids were all in the same fifth grade class, and since finding out they were Keyholders, their grades had slipped. After all, it was hard keeping their minds on math and social studies when they were the only kids in Morgantown who knew an evil Boggart Queen was trying to take over the world.

  Penny looked at the thick hedge of trees and bushes. The trees, bushes, vines, and weeds were so thick they made a living wall. She still felt that funny feeling, but maybe she was being silly. After all, Natalie and Luke were much better at being Keyholders. She had troubl
e finding weak spots in the border and they were both becoming experts. And she really did need to work on her science project. She hadn’t even chosen her topic yet.

  “All right,” Penny said with a sigh. “But don’t forget to wear your silver bracelets just in case.”

  Luke rolled his eyes. “Yes, mother,” he teased.

  Mr. Leery had given them each a special silver bracelet to protect them from goblins and boggarts, but Luke thought they were girly. Still, he wore the bracelet tucked under his shirtsleeve—just in case.

  Luke and Penny hugged their links goodbye and watched as they slipped back into the total darkness of Mr. Leery’s yard next door. One of the best parts about being a Keyholder was the lifelong bond they had with their links. One of the hardest parts was being separated from them. But their links needed to stay hidden from everyone, and the only safe place for hiding was in Mr. Leery’s yard. Thanks to the new magic the old wizard had learned for surrounding his yard with a muffling spell, no one on the outside would notice an energetic dragon and a bored unicorn hanging out in the yard at the end of Rim Drive. It was much safer than hiding them under an invisibility web.

  Natalie scooped up her link and went across the street to her house without even a backward glance. Buttercup, the rat, was definitely a lot easier to hide than a unicorn or a dragon.

  Penny and Luke watched Natalie until she had closed the door to her huge house.

  Luke sighed and headed inside his house to search the Internet for a possible science project until he couldn’t keep his eyes open.

  In her room, Penny looked through library book after library book for the perfect science project. Finally, she fell asleep with a book in her lap.

  Natalie, on the other hand, took a relaxing bubble bath, painted her fingernails pink and Buttercup’s claws purple, and fell asleep listening to her MP3 player.