Shadow Witch

by Geof Johnson

  A large, flat cardboard box, now empty, was propped against the nearby wall, and another, smaller box sat beside it.

  Sammi held Rachel’s hand and they watched as Jamie plugged a wire into the back of the flat-screen television that sat atop a rolling, metal cart, just like the one Rachel had in her classroom at her regular school. On the second shelf was a black DVD player.

  “Are you going to be ready soon?” Rachel asked Jamie. “We need to get there before any of the other kids do. They might think we’re not coming today and turn around and go home.”

  “Almost,” he said without looking up. “I figured it was easier to put this together here and just roll it through a magic doorway right into the school.” He finished his task, turned to her and grinned. “This is going to be so cool. Those kids will love this.”

  “Don’t you think it’s little bit too much for them right now? They’re still getting used to the ceiling fans and the electric lights.”

  “Oh, no, Mrs. Sikes,” Sammi said. “They saw the TV on Thursday when we came here. They’ll be okay with it, I promise.”

  Jamie touched a box that sat on the second shelf. “I think this DVD collection will be perfect for them. It’s the history of most of the major inventions, like the telephone and light bulb and stuff.”

  “Can we watch cartoons on it?” Sammi asked.

  “No,” Rachel said with a frown. “Besides, there’s no cable access there.”

  “Well, can’t we watch a movie during a free period or something? We did at my old school sometimes. They let one of us bring in one from home, like Lion King. We watched that twice.”

  “We’ll see.” Rachel glanced at her watch and turned back to Jamie. “Any day now.”

  “Just a sec.”

  Sammi tugged on Rachel’s hand and looked up at her. “Isn’t Mrs. Wallace coming?”

  “She has a dental appointment this morning.”

  “Where’s Mrs. Moore?”

  “Aunt Connie only comes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She won’t come every day until school starts officially in September, so it’s just you and me, kid. And whoever else shows up from Rivershire today.”

  “Will I go to that school in the fall?”

  “I hope not. If Lisa and Larry can be your foster parents, you’ll go to the school where I work, but I won’t be your teacher. You’ll be in second grade, and I only teach kindergarten.”

  “Oh.” Sammi’s expression turned thoughtful. “Will I still be able to see my friends from Rivershire?”

  “We’ll see.”

  Jamie gave a satisfied nod and faced them. “I’m done. Let’s go.” He formed a glowing portal and opened it, then waited for Rachel and Sammi to go through before he followed them, pushing the TV cart into the main room of the school on Eddan’s world.

  “I’ll turn on the lights!” Sammi raced to the wall and flipped the switch, and the fluorescent fixtures overhead flickered on and the ceiling fans began to turn. Rachel went to unlock the front door, and when she returned, Jamie had stretched an extension cord to the socket on the wall and turned on the television.

  “Let’s watch something!” Sammi said, clapping her hands softly. “Can we? At least until the other kids get here.”

  Rachel shook her head. “Let’s test it and turn it off, please. You can draw or read until everybody arrives.”

  Jamie slipped a DVD into the player and pressed a button on the remote, and the big television flared to life with an image of the menu screen — the invention of the printing press, the steam engine, the telegraph, the cotton gin.

  “That’s enough,” Rachel said.

  Jamie pressed the remote. “I want to watch a little of the first one to see what it’s like.”

  Rachel sighed as the DVD began to play and Sammi stood in front of it, mesmerized by a scene of an actor dressed as Johannes Gutenberg pulling on the wooden handle of an early printing press. Rachel turned when she heard the front door open. “I think somebody’s here, Sammi.”

  Sammi also turned, and her face lit up when she saw Leora walk in with her mother. Leora wore her new blue backpack, too, and held her mother’s hand. Leora’s mother stopped at the far side of the room and gaped at the television. “What...what is that? Is that sorcery?”

  “No, it’s a television, Ma!” Leora pulled her mother closer. “We saw one at Master Jamie’s house. Remember? I told you about it, I did.”

  “Hello,” Jamie said to the stunned-looking woman. “You must be Mrs. Hale. I’m Jamie.”

  She blinked and turned to face him. “Master Jamie, the sorcerer.”

  “Please call me Jamie. I’m nobody’s master.”

  She pointed wordlessly at the television, which showed Gutenberg lifting a piece of freshly printed paper from his press and inspecting it closely.

  “It’s not magic, I assure you,” Jamie said. “It’s technology.” Jamie pulled another DVD from the box and showed it to her. “This little disk has all of these images encoded on it, and a laser in this black box —”

  “Jamie,” Rachel said, “simpler, please.”

  “Uh...this show comes from this disk which that big doohickey can display.”

  Mrs. Hale still looked confused, and Sammi said, “You can watch movies on it, too. Mrs. Sikes said we might get to watch one sometime.”

  “What is a movie?” Leora asked.

  “It’s like a play,” Jamie said, “that you can watch on here.” He patted the side of the television.

  “It’s better than a play,” Sammi said. “Plays are boring if you’re a kid. Movies are great! You should see The Wizard of Oz. Fred has that one at her house.” She looked up at Rachel. “Can we watch that sometime?”

  Rachel took a deep breath while she considered it. “Maybe Friday afternoon.”

  “Yes!” Sammi clapped. “Mrs. Hale, you should come watch, too. Maybe if you finish selling all your vegetables at the market in time.”

  Mrs. Hale turned to Rachel. “Could I?”

  “I don’t see any harm in it.”

  “Oh! I almost forgot. My party!” Sammi quickly slipped her backpack from her shoulders. She reached inside, pulled out a white envelope and handed it to Leora. “It’s an invitation to my birthday party this Saturday. I made it myself. You don’t have to get me a present or anything. Can you come?” She looked at Mrs. Hale. “Can she? Pretty please?”

  “A party?” Mrs. Hale’s eyebrows drew together.

  “We’re having a party for her and Rollie at our house in Hendersonville,” Rachel said. “We’re inviting all of Sammi’s friends from this school.”

  “Where is Hendersonville?”

  “That is where we went on Thursday, Ma,” Leora said. “It is a most wonderful place, it is. May we go?” She squeezed her mother’s hand and gazed at her imploringly.

  Mrs. Hale looked at Rachel and Jamie. “On the other world?”

  “I’ll make a doorway for everybody,” Jamie said. “I thought we could meet in front of the school on Saturday morning, since many of you are passing by here anyway, on your way to the market.” Jamie shrugged. “Mrs. Tully and Aiven will probably come. You know them, don’t you?”

  “Yes. I....” she glanced down at her eager daughter before turning back to Jamie. “I do not know what to say.”

  “Please, Ma?” Leora said and tugged on her mother’s hand again.

  “I would have to go with you,” she said with a firm nod. “But I cannot, because I have to mind our wagon at the market.”

  “Get one of my brothers to do it,” Leora said. “Ian can. He’s done it before.”

  “Oh....” She pressed her lips tightly together for a moment. “I will have to talk to your father, first.”

  Leora’s face brightened. “He will say yes. I know he will, if the party is at Master Jamie’s house.”

  “It’s just Jamie, not Master Jamie,” Jamie said with a shake of his head. “And it’s really my parent’s house. My house is the one by the river here and —�
�� He shook his head again. “Never mind. Just come if you can. I promise it will be a lot of fun.”

  Mrs. Hale said she would consider it and turned to leave, while the two girls talked excitedly. Jamie turned the television off and rolled it to the far wall, and Rachel followed.

  Rachel glanced over her shoulder to make sure Sammi wasn’t listening and said in a low voice, “Jamie, what time are you going to Social Services today?”

  “I have to meet the Callahans there at one o’clock. They have an appointment with the social worker then.”

  She took a long, slow breath. “I sure hope this works out.”

  “Me, too, Mom. I’m kinda nervous.”

  “What are you going to do if the social worker says no? What if she insists that Lisa and Larry take the full ten-week course?”

  “I don’t know, but we can’t let that happen. We’ll get her to take the oath and tell her everything, I guess. Maybe she’ll be more understanding once she knows the whole story.”

  “But what if she still won’t change her mind? Do you think Fred will use a compulsion spell on her?”

  Jamie winced. “She might. Or Fred might have to use a forget spell, so it’ll be like the whole thing never happened. Fred won’t like doing it, because...I don’t know...it seems wrong, and I know she’ll feel that way, too. But she cares about Sammi and she doesn’t want anything bad to happen to her.”

  “We all care about her, Jamie.” Rachel gave Jamie a firm look. “Just do whatever is best. I know you will.”

  * * *

  Jamie drove straight from the veterinary clinic to the meeting with the social worker without changing out of his blue scrubs. He pulled into the parking lot of the Henderson County Social Services at one minute after 1:00, leaped from his car and hurried to the entrance of the new-looking, two-story building.

  Hope I’m not toolate, he thought as he opened the glass front door and went inside. The lobby was empty except for the Callahans, who were waiting for him. Fred stood and gave him a quick hug when he joined them.

  Jamie knew them well enough to see that Fred’s parents were nervous, but Fred seemed more determined than anxious. “Are you ready?” she asked Jamie.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be. Did you bring a Bible?” She opened her purse and showed him the small white one inside. He lowered his voice to a near-whisper and said, “Remember, let’s not tell this social worker about Sammi or the magic unless we have to.”

  “I’m pretty sure it’ll come to that,” Larry whispered back. “We wouldn’t have asked you to come, otherwise. This lady we’re going to meet with is pretty stubborn.”

  “She’s probably just following the rules,” Jamie said. “I bet she doesn’t want to rock the boat for us.”

  “We’re gonna rock her boat if we tell her what’s really going on.”

  The woman behind the reception desk called from across the lobby, “Mr. and Mrs. Callahan? Miss Francesco is ready for you in the conference room, last door on the right.”

  They walked down the hall together and found a short, slightly overweight woman waiting for them in the doorway at the end. She had long black hair held back in a plastic clip, a round face, and a wide bandage on one forearm. “Nice to see you again,” she said politely, shaking Larry and Lisa’s hands as they stepped inside. Jamie and Fred introduced themselves and Miss Francesco said, “I remember you.” She wagged her finger at Fred. “Your face was all over the news back in December. You were the girl who got kidnapped.”

  “And I’m her boyfriend,” Jamie added and surveyed the room. It was plain, with white walls and a couple of plastic plants set in pots on low shelves. The center was dominated by a long table, surrounded by eight chairs.

  Miss Francesco knitted her brow. “Why are you two here?”

  “To lend moral support,” Fred said.

  She gestured at the chairs. “Have a seat.” Then she hung a small plastic sign on the door that said In Use before closing it.

  Larry and Lisa sat on one side of the table while Jamie and Fred sat on the other. The social worker took her place at the end, folded her hands together in front of her and leaned forward. “So,” she said, “are you still interested in becoming a foster family?”

  “Yes,” Larry said, “but we need to talk about that.” He took a short breath and glanced at Jamie and Fred before turning back to Miss Francesco. “You’ve got to waive the requirement that we take the ten-week course.”

  “Mr. Callahan,” she said with a tight shake of her head, “it’s one of the conditions of getting certified. You have to have the thirty hours of instruction before you can become a foster parent. I didn’t make that rule. Everybody has to do it. You have to pass the background checks and home inspections, too.”

  “We don’t mind the thirty hours,” Lisa said, “it’s the ten weeks that’s the problem. Couldn’t we do it quicker, like in two weeks?”

  Miss Francesco shook her head again. “The classes are three nights a week for one hour each night, spread over ten weeks. That’s the way they are scheduled.”

  “Who teaches them?”

  “We take turns, on a rotating schedule. I just finished my turn last week.”

  “But wouldn’t it be possible to do three hours a night, five nights a week, for two weeks? The number of total hours would be the same.”

  Jamie could tell by the tightening in the woman’s mouth that she didn’t want to do it. She started to take a breath, but Jamie spoke before she could. “We have a very good reason for wanting to do it this way,” he said. “It’s really important.”

  Miss Francesco crossed her arms and tilted her head slightly to one side. “Why?”

  Jamie swallowed hard and glanced at Fred’s parents before saying, “They need to be foster parents right away.”

  Miss Francesco raised her eyebrows, “Again, why?”

  “Because it’s just important, that’s why!” Larry said, his face turning red and his nose flaring.

  Miss Francesco leaned back in her chair and rested her hands on the armrests. “Mr. and Mrs. Callahan, I know you’re a nice family. I’m sure you’ll make good foster parents, but what you’re asking is unusual, and frankly, you need to look at it from my point of view.”

  She crossed her legs and held up one finger. “I’ve got eighteen cases right now, eighteen, and only supposed to have twelve, tops. This morning I had to pull a fourteen-year-old girl out of her foster home because her foster parents couldn’t handle her anymore. She’s run away twice, and she just failed eighth grade. She got pregnant a couple of months ago, but her boyfriend beat her up and she miscarried.”

  Miss Francesco closed her eyes and sighed. “I just dropped her off at the hospital before this meeting, because she’s still got blurry vision and headaches, so I didn’t have time for lunch.” She touched the bandage on her right forearm. “She bit me when we were in my car. Fourteen years old and she still bites.” She shook her head once and squeezed her lips together. “I’ve gained twenty pounds since I took this job because I never have time to cook, and I end up eating fast food every night. I work ten hours a day about six days a week, and I can’t even remember when I last had a date.”

  She pointed a finger at Larry and Lisa. “And you want me to bend the rules, possibly risk losing my job, to accommodate you? Without giving me a good reason?”

  Lisa looked across the table at Jamie. “Should we tell her?”

  Jamie turned to Fred and saw that she already had her Bible out of her purse and was setting it on the table in front of her.

  “Tell me what?” Miss Francesco said.

  “We can’t tell you until you swear an oath,” Jamie said.

  “What for?”

  “Because we can’t have you telling anybody else what we’re going to tell you,” Fred said. “It’s a simple thing, really, but I need to know if you go to church, or at least believe in God, or something all-powerful.”

  “I’m Catholic, but I haven’t been to mass l
ately. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I believe the strength of your conviction affects the strength of the oath,” Jamie said. “I really can’t tell you more until you do it. But you need to trust us when we say this is really important. A little girl’s life could be at stake here.”

  Miss Francesco opened her mouth and lowered her eyebrows, and then glanced at the Bible on the table. “Uh...you have to promise me this isn’t going to be weird.”

  “Actually,” Larry said, “it’s so amazing that you’ll hardly believe it. I mean, really amazing. It’s worth it.”

  “And after you do it,” Fred said, “I can do something about that bite on your arm.”

  The woman looked each of them in the eye, then she nodded and said, “All right, but this better be worth it.”

  She leaned over the table and put her hand on the Bible, and Jamie and Fred did, too. Fred gave her the slip of paper with the oath on it, and Miss Francesco read it aloud as the magic took hold. Her reaction to the glow and tingle was the same as Nova’s, minus the cursing.

  “Pretty cool, huh?” Larry said to the awestruck woman when they finished. “That was real, honest-to-goodness magic.”

  “No.” Miss Francesco stared at her hand as if were about to catch on fire.

  “It’s the real deal. Show her something, Jamie.”

  Jamie pointed his finger at the empty chair at the other end of the table, gestured upward, and it rose slowly to the ceiling. He twirled his finger and it spun, then began to fly around the room in a lazy circle.

  Miss Francesco stifled a scream with a hand over her mouth, her eyes so wide that they looked like golf balls.

  “Don’t scare her, Jamie,” Lisa said.

  Jamie eased the chair back to the floor and Fred opened her purse and pulled out a small jar full of greenish-yellow jelly. “Let me see your arm,” Fred said to the startled woman.

  “Huh?” Miss Francesco blinked. “Uh...why?”

  “I’m going to heal it.”