by Geof Johnson
On the bus ride home from school one day the following week, Fred and Rollie sat together. Jamie sat alone, staring out the window.
“He’s been like that all day,” Rollie said. “I’m worried about him.”
Fred pursed her lips. “We’ve got to get him to talk about it.”
They got off the bus and Rollie said, “Come on, Dude. Spill it.”
“Spill what?” Jamie said.
“Something’s bothering you,” Fred said. “And we’re not going to leave you alone ’till you tell us.”
Jamie stopped and regarded his friends. “We’ll have to go in the clubhouse. Nobody else can hear.”
When they were settled around the table in the clubhouse, Rollie said, “So what’s eating you?”
Jamie leaned back, ran both hands through his blond hair and took a deep breath. “I had this dream again last night. It’s a bad one, one I’ve had several times, only this time, it seemed real, like I was living it.” He stared at the table for a moment. “I’m in a stone house or tower somewhere, and a couple of older men knock on my door. They want my help, they say. They want me to save their town from the plague. They don’t call it that, but that’s what it is.” He took another deep breath.
After a long pause, he continued, “People are dying, they say, half the town. Children’s bodies are stacked in the street like cordwood.” He rubbed his hand over his eyes. “Man, I can’t get that image out of my mind.” When he pulled his hand away, his eyes were glistening. “Think about it: children are dying, and do you know what I said? No. Sorry. Can’t be bothered. Need to go watch crabs hatch. Crabs! Freakin’ crabs. I told them to clean up their town, and the rats would go away.”
“Would that have helped?” Fred asked.
“Eventually, but people would’ve kept dying for a while.” His voice started to quiver. “I knew I could’ve run the rats out with a thought. A measly little thought. But I couldn’t be bothered.” His voice shook so that he could barely talk. “I had to go watch the crabs.” Jamie put his face in his hands.
Rollie patted him on the back. “Dude, that wasn’t you. That was some ol’ geezer wizard from another planet.”
“The words came out of my mouth,” Jamie said, his voice cracking.
Fred put her arms around Jamie. “It wasn’t you because you would never do that. You’re probably the nicest person I know. You would’ve helped them, I know. You help everybody.”
Jamie didn’t answer.
“We have to do the chant,” Rollie said.
Jamie spoke through his hands, “Don’t feel like it.”
“Don’t care. Do it anyway.” Rollie grabbed Jamie’s hand and put it flat on the table, putting his on top. Fred put her hand on last. “Ready? We’re the Crew, we can’t be…come on, Jamie, say it.”
“Say it, or we’re gonna tickle you.” Fred poked him.
“Okay,” Jamie said.
We’re the Crew,
We can’t be beat,
Everybody smell our feet.
“Better?” Fred asked.
“Yeah,” Jamie said honestly. “Yeah, I am.”
* * *
Jamie fell asleep almost immediately that night. He looked down and saw the end of a long gray beard and the dark robe. I’m dreaming. I’m the old sorcerer again. He stood next to a stone tower on a low hill. In one hand he carried a heavy cloth bag that smelled strongly of rotting seafood — saber crabs, he remembered. To dissect.
He put his hand on the door latch but paused when he heard the wailing voices from the valley below. He dropped the bag on the doorstep and walked past the trees to get a better view. A line of people dressed in black snaked from the edge of town to the cemetery beyond. Several men carried long wooden boxes on their shoulders, and women with veils over their faces cried and moaned. Someone with a wooden flute led the group, playing a plaintive melody as they plodded along the path.
It’s a funeral procession. Probably victims of the plague. He stood and watched the mourners, counting the coffins as they passed. Twelve. That’s so many. He didn’t move until the last of them entered the gates of the cemetery on the next hill. Then he turned back to his tower and the bag of saber crabs.
Jamie woke to his dark room and played the dream over in his mind. That was a memory, I’m sure, but not a good one. The old man watched the whole procession. I wonder if he did that because he felt bad about it. Jamie exhaled slowly between tightened lips. It was partly his fault, those deaths. Twelve people.
He did feel bad. I know it. He had to.
* * *
Despite his talks with his friends, Jamie still felt conflicted about his identity, suffering many sleepless nights worrying about it. Was he Jamie Sikes or a self-centered old wizard? Or both? It was getting harder and harder to tell. And what was the old man’s name? Edward? Edmund?
Identity issues weren’t the only thing keeping him awake at night. School was harder than ever. Though he found eighth grade science and math to be a breeze, English was blowing him away with homework, so by the time Thanksgiving break rolled around, Jamie was ready for some down time.
Thanksgiving dinner that year was even more crowded and interesting than usual because Gina brought her fiancé, Corey, for the day. Jamie liked him.
After dinner was over, Jamie and his father were watching TV in the family room when Corey came in and sat beside Jamie on the couch.
“I don’t know a single person they’re talking about,” Corey said.
“Are they gossiping about Greensboro people?” Carl asked.
“I guess.”
“They do that all the time,” Jamie said. “I call it a yak-a-thon.”
“Is that why your Granddaddy Pete left?” Corey asked.
“Yeah,” Carl said. “He’s the smart one. We can’t leave because we live here.”
Jamie held up the remote. “And there’s nothin’ on TV, either.”
“Got any video games?” Corey said.
“Downstairs in the basement, but Gramma gets mad if I play when we have company.”
“Yeah, Gina told me about your Gramma.”
Carl waved a dismissive hand. “Y’all go on downstairs and play. I’ll take the blame.”
“Really?” Jamie said.
“Yeah. Gotta be nice to our guest, right?” He winked at Corey.
“Cool!” Jamie stood and led Corey to the basement stairs.
As they were walking down, Corey said, “Gina talks about you a lot.”
“I like Gina,” he said. “She’s my best cousin.”
“She talks about Fred a lot, too. I gotta meet her sometime.”
“No you don’t.”
“I don’t know… might have to. She e-mails Gina all the time, but Fred mostly wants to talk about you, so I hear.”
Jamie’s felt his face grow warm. “Trust me, you don’t want to meet her. She’s a pain.”
“I used to feel the same way about girls when I was your age.”
“So when do they stop being a pain?”
“Oh, they don’t.”
* * *
Gina and Corey got married in Asheville on the first Saturday in May. On the ride home, Jamie and Fred sat in the back of his mother’s van. Fred was furious with Jamie.
“I didn’t know you wanted to catch it,” Jamie said.
“Yes you did! I told you I wanted to catch the bouquet.”
“Keep your voice down.” He glanced at his mother, who was driving and talking to Fred’s mother beside her.
“They can’t hear us,” Fred said. “I told you when we got there. I said I—would—love—to—catch—the—bouquet.” She punctuated each word with a hard finger poke on Jamie’s thigh.
“Well, you didn’t tell me I was supposed to help.”
“Well, duh, Sherlock. I shouldn’t have to.”
“Oh, so I’m supposed to read your mind, somehow, and know that I should use my magic to divert the bridal bouquet miraculously into your hands.”
“And nobody’s gonna notice that it breaks the laws of physics in mid-flight, changes directions and goes directly to you?”
Fred didn’t answer.
“Honestly, Fred, you’re getting as bad as Rollie. You want me to bend the rules of the oath if it helps you.”
“You’re supposed to help people.”
“If I had helped you, I would’ve hurt the person who was supposed to get that bouquet.”
They rode in silence for a moment. Jamie said tersely, “If we’re gonna start using my magic to help ourselves, bad things can happen. I know.” He tapped his head. “I’ve got the memories to prove it. I think that’s wrong, and we need to think long and hard about doing that.”
Fred looked at him sideways. “You’ve been spending too much time with your grandmother.”
Chapter 39
The first morning of summer vacation, Jamie’s mother dropped him off at his older cousin’s veterinary clinic to start his first job. It was one of the most exciting days of his life. It was also one of the saddest, because that was the day his grandmother moved into her condo.
When he got home late that afternoon, she was gone.
* * *
“I’m home.” Carl stepped into the kitchen from the door to the garage.
“Carl, your gun!” Rachel said from the kitchen counter where she was making dinner.
“Oh, forgot.” He stepped back into the garage and returned moments later without his weapon. “Where was I? Oh yeah. I’m home.” He kissed Rachel. “Did Jamie have a good first day at work?”
“Yes, I think so,”
“Where is he?”
“He’s in Mom’s old room.”
“What’s he doing in there?”
“Sitting.”
“How long has he been in there?”
“Since we got home.”
“Oh.” Carl frowned. “That’s not good.”
“No, it’s not.” Rachel leaned back against the kitchen counter and crossed her arms. “Mom thought he’d take it better if she moved out today, because he’d be so excited about work and all, but as soon as we got home….” She exhaled heavily.
“You know, I’ve heard of a mama’s boy, but is there such a thing as a grandmama’s boy?”
“They’re really close, Jamie and Mom. And if you think about it, he’s had three parents since he was born. Now one of them has moved out, and I think he feels abandoned.” She bit her lip. “I think I’d better call her.”
* * *
The next day, Jamie waited out front of the vet clinic for his mother to pick him up after work. His grandmother drove into the parking lot and rolled down the window. “Hey, stranger. Want to go to Mike’s on Main Street for a hot dog?”
Jamie opened the passenger door and slid into the seat. “Sure, I guess, but won’t that spoil my dinner?”
“You’re a teenager. You’re supposed to be able to eat all day long.” As she pulled out of the parking lot she said, “I hope you don’t mind, but I talked your mother into letting me pick you up from work from now on. Is that okay?”
“Sure, Gramma.”
She grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “I missed you last night. Did you miss me?”
“Ummm, a little.” He raised his other hand and held his thumb and forefinger a hair width apart. “About that much.”
They laughed together.
Chapter 40
Since Fred’s family had the biggest television, the kids spent many summer evenings in her basement.
Fred clicked the mute button on the remote. “Do you really think it was like that?”
Jamie, who sat with her and Rollie on the couch, said, “Yeah, I’ve looked up the Salem witch trials on the Internet, and it was a lot like that movie, except that they hung them.”
“But do you think that people would try to burn you at the stake or hang you?”
Rollie answered for him, “Nah, they’d probably just shoot him.” He poked Jamie. “What would be worse is that if word got around that you were a real wizard, you’d have a thousand people camped on your front lawn wanting to get their weird diseases cured and stuff.”
“Like those two old men from your dream,” Fred said. “Maybe the old sorcerer didn’t help them with the plague because if he did, nobody would ever leave him alone.”
Jamie scowled. “He still should’ve helped them.”
Rollie sat up on the edge of the couch. “Or what would be even worse is if the government found out. They’d want to use you as a secret weapon or something.”
“You’ve been watching too many movies,” Jamie said.
“No, if they knew you could blast planes and missiles and stuff with energy bolts, they’d lock you away and keep you a secret. Then it would be like a movie.”
“Yeah,” Fred said. “You’d have to go on the run and go into hiding, like in a cave or something.”
“That’s not far off the mark,” Jamie said. “Some of my last memories of the old man are of him hiding in a cave.”
“See? Maybe that’s what happened to him. Word got out about his magic, and he had to hide.”
“We absolutely cannot let anybody find out about you, no way,” Rollie said. “You could end up hiding out in a cave, all lonely. You could end up just like the old sorcerer.”
“I’m not going to end up like him,” Jamie said, shaking his head. “I’m not.”
Fred rubbed Jamie’s back. “Nobody’s going to find out.”
Rollie nodded. “You’ll just be ordinary ol’ Jamie Sikes: good guy, lousy basketball player.”
* * *
That night, Jamie woke and sat up in bed. “Doorways,” he said. He threw off the covers, turned and put both feet on the floor. That’s how the old man got here.
And Jamie remembered how to make them now.
He switched on his bedside lamp, stood in the center of his room and rubbed his chin. Hesitantly at first, he held his hand out, then, as if repeating a motion he’d done hundreds of times, he outlined the glowing shape of a door in mid-air. He stepped back and regarded his effort, shrugged, and gently pushed on the door, which swung open, revealing a darkness beyond.
“Whoa,” he said slowly.
He reached into his bedside table and found an old flashlight that he used for late-night reading, but the batteries were dead. Another spell popped into his head. “Light.” He snapped his fingers. A glowing orb appeared in his hand. He gestured and it floated above his head. When he stepped through the doorway, the orb followed him like his own personal sun.
It was a cave. The dirt floor felt cold to his bare feet and the air smelled musty. It looked vaguely familiar, but it was obvious that no one had been there for years. In one corner was a blackened pile — books, he remembered — and another pile nearby appeared to be rotting clothing. There was a rough wooden table, covered with junk, and a bench, collapsed on one end with a broken leg.
On the far wall was a cracked mirror in which Jamie could see his reflection, looking boyish in his pajamas with his little sun overhead. The old man looked in that mirror before he left. What was his name? He could almost see the old sorcerer’s face — the man and the boy superimposed in the same mirror.
Jamie shook his head. “Creepy.” He stepped back through into his bedroom, the door winking out behind him.
* * *
Renn awoke face-down on a book. Something had tugged at his subconscious, something magical.
Magic! Familiar magic. It can’t be. He stood unsteadily in the darkness and stumbled to the door of his room.
My staff. But as he pulled the door open, he banged his bare toe. Cursing under his breath, he hopped into the next room to the case that held Rovann. He sent a jet of flame from his finger to light the two candles beside him and fumbled the latches open on the case. He hurriedly pulled out the dragon’s head staff and started to stamp it on the floor, but stopped when he noticed his bare feet.
My boots. Where are t
hey? He searched the room quietly so as not to wake Mother, found his leather boots, and clumsily slipped them on. Every little task seemed to take too long. Finally, fully dressed, he stood, stamped his staff on the floor and vanished.
He reappeared in the cave, and though it had been nearly fifteen years, he recognized it instantly. He snapped his fingers and a glowing ball appeared above his head.
“He was here,” he said. He held the staff before him and a red glow emanated from the eyes. “I can feel it.” He slowly panned the room. “There!” He held the staff still. The old wizard’s telltale after-magic hung in the air, sparkling brightly in the glow from the dragon’s head. “He was here. We just missed him.”
He felt a surge of anger, but it faded quickly when he realized, He lives. He shook the staff above his head and shouted giddily, “He lives!” Through gritted teeth he said, “Now I will find him and watch him suffer and die.”
* * *
Jamie met Rollie in the back yard. Rollie said, “Why did you want to wait ’till your mom left?”
“Gotta show you something cool,” Jamie said, “but she can’t see.” He led Rollie back into the trees and looked around carefully. “Okay. Watch this.” He held his hands out, and a yellowish-green shimmer appeared in the air before him, like a large curved piece of colored glass. “Now throw something at me.”
“Like what?”
“Anything.”
Rollie picked up a pine cone and tossed it at Jamie, but it bounced off the shimmer and fell to the ground. “Cool. What is it?”
“It’s a shield. Throw a rock this time, hard as you can.”
Rollie looked dubious.
“No, really. It won’t get through.”
Rollie picked up a small stone and hurled it at his friend, but it bounced off harmlessly.
Jamie lowered his hands, and the shield vanished. “I’m pretty sure it can stop a bullet.”
“I’m not shootin’ a gun at you.”
“No, that’s okay. The rock was good enough.” He held his hands out again and the shield reappeared, but vanished when he dropped his arms. “It’s one of the old man’s tricks. I think he used it in fights with other sorcerers.”
“Fights? Did he win?”