A Boy Without Magic

by Guy Antibes

  MAGIC MISSING

  BOOK ONE

  By

  Guy Antibes

  Table of Contents

  Map of the Northern Part of the Country of Toraltia

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Magic Missing Character List

  Excerpt from An Apprentice Without Magic

  Copyright Page

  Author’s Note

  A Bit About Guy

  Books by Guy Antibes

  Copyright ©2018 Guy Antibes. All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the permission of the author. This is a second edition of A Boy Without Magic.

  ~

  This is a work of fiction. There are no real locations used in the book; the people, settings, and specific places are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblances to actual persons, locations, or places are purely coincidental.

  Published by CasiePress LLC in Salt Lake City, UT, June 2018.

  www.casiepress.com

  Cover Design: www.ebooklaunch.com

  Book Design: Kenneth Cassell

  ~

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ~

  The first book in a new series is always approached with a little bit of dread. The characters are new, the world is new, and the series premise is being presented for the first time. My last three series have been about young men who have prodigious amounts of magic in the worlds where they live. A Boy Without Magic shakes this formula up. Our hero has no extra powers other than his inability to see magical substance that everyone else can. Can he turn that disability into an advantage? Let us hope, since Sam Smith is going to be with us during our journey through my latest series, Magic Missing.

  The trepidation mentioned above came true. I received some feedback and realized that I needed to change the beginning from five to fourteen years old. I also filled in part of the back and had a new cover made that was more appropriate for the book. So what you are reading is a second edition of A Boy Without Magic

  As usual my small team of editors, artists, and readers have done a great job of keeping my writing readable. Thank you Judy, Bev, and Ken. And my thanks to the people at EbookLaunch for the quick turnaround on a new cover for the second edition.

  — Guy Antibes

  THE NORTHERN PART OF THE COUNTRY OF TORALTIA

  ~

  CHAPTER ONE

  ~

  S AM LOOKED FORWARD TO BEING FOURTEEN, BUT NOT starting the first day of his last year in school. He walked up to the school and started through the gate, but he tripped on something he couldn’t see and fell on his face, muddying up his clothes. As he rose assessing the damage, he heard Wally Scrivener and Gob Carter laughing behind the bushes on either side of the gate.

  “Freak!” Wally said so loudly that the whole schoolyard heard. “You don’t belong here. Why don’t you run along home and have your mommy clean you up.”

  The pair of them laughed along with others in the schoolyard. Wally began to reel something in. Sam could detect the rope used to trip him only by the tracks it left slithering through the mud. He sighed. Since he couldn’t see pollen, the magical substance everyone else could, Sam was often the butt of his enemies’ jokes and cruel tricks.

  Sam sat at his desk after cleaning himself up as best as he could feeling miserable, but he could barely hold back a smile when Miss Featherstone walked into his seventh and final year of school. “I am so glad that we are together again,” she said. “I’ve been told that I will be teaching you from now until you finish school in the fall. I hope we can all learn a lot. You are all fourteen-years-old, or close to it, and have all grown so much in the last six years when I taught you for your first year. I am thrilled to watch you grow physically and academically in this last one.”

  Sam looked around from his perennial perch in the back of the class. Some of the students looked excited, and others rolled their eyes. He had liked Miss Featherstone when she taught him before. Her return showed him that he could endure the isolation that his disability had created and still learn more than the rest of the students. Every single student in front of him could perform magic.

  In all of Meriopa, Sam’s world, he was the only one that couldn’t manipulate pollen, the stuff everyone else used every day to make their lives better. His life changed forever when lightning struck him at age five. That single flash burned away his ability to magically work pollen. Things hadn’t changed in nine years, at all, except Miss Featherstone seemed to treat him as just another child and that help him endure his last year in school.

  They all studied the same things, but Sam could remember most of what the rest quickly forgot. But when schoolteachers began to teach about pollen and the ways it enhanced everyone’s life, Sam felt shut out, isolated. A boy without magic was a terrible tragedy and everyone treated him differently because of it, even if he was the smartest kid in his class.

  They started the day with language, just like her class when he was in his first year. Everyone could read now, so he wondered how she would challenge the class. Sam was a bit disappointed that Miss Featherstone didn’t bring up anything new for his language class. He passed the teacher on his way out to recess.

  “Sammy, could you stay for a few minutes?”

  “I go by Sam, now, Miss Featherstone.”

  She smiled at him. “Somehow I think that suits you better, Sam.” She emphasized his name when she finished her sentence, but her smile was the same. “How have you been doing since your first year?”

  “I have learned a lot, except less in the pollen magic class,” he said. “That has been hard when the rest of the class practices manipulation, and I just sit and do my homework. I learn more about pollen than the others, though.”

  Her eyes crinkled with a smile. They hadn’t crinkled so much six years ago. “Keep learning about pollen. For you, it serves as a defense. This year we learn about pollen wards. You need to pay attention. There are those—”

  “Wally and Gob,” Sam said.

  She nodded. “There are those who will try using wards they will learn this year to punish others.”

  “And I am one of the ‘others,’ I know. My mother prohibited my brothers from tormenting me using pollen. Since I can’t see wards plastered anywhere, it would be unfair of them, but they have found other ways, especially Mark. Today, Wally and Gob got me.” He held out his arms to show his soiled clothing.

  “Mark is your oldest brother?”

  Sam shook his head. “Second in line. He’s h
ad it in for me ever since I could remember. I just stay away from him. My oldest brother isn’t so bad.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” She took a deep breath. “You tell me if they continue to torment you.”

  Sam nodded, as if he would tell her anything. He had tried that in his second year when a less-sympathetic teacher told Sam to toughen up. Even the schoolmaster wouldn’t help since Wally and Gob’s parents were too high up in Cherryton society. The two boys had been his enemies from the very start. He even told his father once, who wasn’t any more helpful than any of the others. Sam just had to learn to cope, and he learned that lesson as well as all the others he mastered.

  With all his knowledge, he still felt that he approached the world with both hands tied behind his back. That had happened often enough on the Cherryton School’s playground. Pollen rope was just as strong as regular rope when it was first made, but Sam found that as he got older, he could rub the pollen and soften it enough to break the bonds, given enough time. He had an aversion to pollen, and pollen had an aversion to him.

  Miss Featherstone was pleasant enough as a teacher. She told the class that they would start wards next week, and Sam pressed his lips together. Life would be interesting for the next year. At least she had a sympathetic ear.

  School let out for the day. Sam had a list of four books he would need for his seventh year. He ran home to his mother, who did the ordering. His father refused to participate in his schooling and since Sam couldn’t even see pollen, he had to rent schoolbooks made out of paper. His father made him earn the money to pay for them.

  “Here is this year’s list,” Sam said as he handed her the list of four books.

  “I’ll get a letter written to the library in Baskin tonight. You’d better be off to run your errands.”

  Sam nodded and hurried to Gob Carter’s father, who ran the business that made most of the deliveries in Cherryton. It irked Sam that running and fetching paid best when doing it for the fathers of the two boys that made his life the most miserable.

  “My father isn’t in,” Gob said. “You should start at the post office.”

  Sam ran to see Mr. Scrivener. “Do you have anything for me this afternoon?”

  Wally’s father looked at Sam as if he had seen him for the first time. “Why would I have anything for you? Wally said you weren’t going to run errands anymore.”

  “That isn’t true,” Sam said. “I’m still willing and able to help you.”

  “Are you calling my son a liar?” the man said.

  “No. I am sure it is a misunderstanding.”

  “No misunderstanding. You are getting too old for a delivery boy. Soon you’ll be asking for more money, and then we will have to discharge you.”

  How could Mr. Scrivener think such a thing? “I won’t ask for any more money,” Sam said.

  A carriage rolled up outside the postal office. A man carrying worn leather tubes containing messages and letters rushed in. “These need to go out immediately.” He handed them to Sam.

  “The boy no longer works for me,” Mr. Scrivener said. He turned to a doorway leading to the back. “Wally? I have something for you to do.”

  Sam watched in shock while Mr. Scrivener pressed a ten-penny piece into Wally’s hand. That was as much as Sam made delivering for both Mr. Carter and Mr. Scrivener in a week.

  Wally sneered at Sam as he walked past him, purposefully bumping into him. “Out of my way, unemployed dolt,” Wally said.

  Mr. Scrivener turned his back on Sam. The postal deliveryman looked apologetic, but that wouldn’t get Sam’s job back. He returned to Carter’s delivery service, his other part-time job. Gob’s father ignored Sam until he finally said, “You are no longer employed by us. Find another job. I hear The Unsure Peddler is looking for a boy to muck out the stables. You’d have to provide your own shovel. Gob says you can’t do that, can you? Out,” the man said.

  Sam walked back home kicking a loose cobble down the street towards his house, wondering what had just happened. He entered and sat morosely at the kitchen table, watching his mother write the letter to the Baskin Lending Library about his books.

  “You can cancel the order,” Sam said.

  “What?” Tessa said to her son.

  “I was let go by both Gob and Wally’s fathers.”

  “Oh,” Tessa sat back. “I think I know why.”

  Sam raised his eyebrows. “You do?”

  She nodded. “When a boy turns fourteen, it is time to begin to start looking for apprenticeships. Before, it doesn’t matter. The fathers will likely apprentice their sons, and that means Gob and Wally won’t want you around to make things awkward.”

  “How would they be awkward?” Sam asked.

  “You will show them up, of course. Sam Smith is the smartest soon-to-be fourteen-year-old in town. It’s just about common knowledge. No one wants you around as competition. You might not find another job in Cherryton.”

  “Father won’t hire me? I thought I could always help at the forge.”

  “Tru is nearly done with his apprenticeship, and Mark started his a few years ago.” His mother sighed and shook her head. “There isn’t any room for you.”

  “I’ll ask Father,” Sam said, and he left for the forge to talk to Rolph himself.

  Mark and Tru were helping their father bend an iron ring around a wheel. Sam looked at the stack of wheels in the smithy yard. Wagon and carriage wheel rims were the mainstay of the smithy. His father said that horseshoes were once made out of iron until some person discovered how to make dense pollen horseshoes. Only cavalry used iron shoes nowadays, Rolph said. Pollen horseshoes didn’t last as long, but they were much cheaper than metal versions.

  “Father?” Sam said as his father paused to sit with a mug of ale before returning to his job.

  His father looked at Sam out of the corner of his eye. “What do you want?”

  “I lost my fetch-and-carry jobs from both Mr. Carter and Mr. Scrivener. Mother thinks it’s because they want to pave the way for their sons to take over as apprentices.” Sam raised his eyebrows as he ended his sentence, desiring his father to give him some hope.

  “And so?” his father asked.

  “I was wondering if you had some odd jobs I can do around the smithy.”

  Rolph shook his head. “Even if I let you work with Mark and Tru, the money comes out of the same pocket. The goal of your working outside is to bring in money that I don’t have to make. Do you understand that?”

  “So, I might be working at an inn’s stable, mucking out the stalls. Can I have a shovel to do that? The other boys make their own out of pollen.”

  “I can do that,” his father said. “I have a broken shovel I can mend that will work. I have an old pitchfork, as well.”

  Sam sighed and nodded. “I’ll see if I can get a job doing that.”

  He left the smithy and spent the remainder of the afternoon poking around for more work. After rejection at every establishment, Sam entered the worst inn in town. He knew women worked there making men happy in a way that was very objectionable to his parents, but Sam needed a way to pay for his books.

  He stood in line. People were delivering things, and he had to wait his turn. He finally made it to the front. “I’m looking for work,” Sam said to the big man who sat scribbling on paper at the front desk.

  The man looked at Sam and laughed. “Our clientele wouldn’t want your services, lad,” he said with a smirk on his face.

  “I was thinking of your stableyard.”

  “Sorry, that job is taken.”

  “Didn’t you used to deliver messages from the postal office?” a veiled woman said from behind, carrying pollen-boxes filled with bread As always, Sam could see through pollen.

  “I’m not needed anymore. Wally is going to take my place before he takes up his apprenticeship.”

  She smiled at Sam. “You’re the boy without magic, aren’t you?”

  Sam nodded. He hated to be identified with his h
andicap.

  “I need a delivery boy, if you’re interested. I don’t know what you earn, but maybe we could work something out. Wait for a bit, and we can talk about it while we walk back to my bakery.”

  Sam sat on the edge of the wooden sidewalk outside the inn, or brothel, which was what adults called it. The woman walked out and beckoned to him. He knew her as a Cherryton baker’s wife, but she wore a veil, so he couldn’t say he recognized her. Sam couldn’t see pollen. He could smell it if burned and could feel it, after a fashion, but he couldn’t see it. Married women in Cherryton wore veils made out of pollen. He could see right through them. In the summer people might wear clothes made out of pollen cloth. Sam could see through those, but he had learned to ignore such things in his nine years of not seeing the magical material.

  He rose and walked with her across the cobbled street. The inn wasn’t on the main street, but the bakery was, and on the other side of town. They would have to walk for fifteen minutes to get there.

  “My husband is too busy to deliver all the way here, so he leaves it up to me. We’ve talked about making one of our two children an apprentice, but neither our daughter or son are old enough.”

  “I have one year of schooling left,” Sam said.

  “And we have two years before our oldest is ready to deliver,” she said. “I can’t promise you an apprenticeship, but let’s see how you do. I wouldn’t want to see you working at The Golden Plume.”

  The woman asked Sam to talk about his disability. She seemed as nice as Miss Featherstone, not looking at him as if he were a monster of some kind. “As long as you can deliver without dawdling, that’s all we care about.”

  Sam walked into the bakery, one of three in the town. He passed the case displaying cookies and pastries. The smell from bins of bread made his mouth water. The woman introduced Sam to her husband and told him about Sam’s big shortcoming.

  “I don’t see it affecting your helping around. If there aren’t deliveries, you can help mind the baking. We don’t use pollen much in our business, except for decorations my wife creates,” the baker said.