“Even so, we kids would compare stories. Some of what we told each other was true, and some of it we made up, either to act like know-it-alls, or just to scare each other. I did a fair amount of that story swapping right over there, under the bridge.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, my friend Janey told me once that her mother always knew when she was going to do something bad, so for years, I believed the woman had eyes in the back of her head. Or Mark Ferguson got us all to believe that his dad had single-handedly stopped a band of thieves from stealing diamonds out of a downtown vault.”
She laughed and shook her head, the afternoon light shining on her dark hair.
“It wasn’t until I grew up that I learned those stories had just been, well, stories. Made-up myths. I’m telling you this so you’ll know that I won’t make things up when you have questions, okay? I’ll do my best to be as accurate as possible.
“But,” Beverly said, then stopped. Charlie watched as her brow furrowed and her eyes seemed to grow slightly darker. “There are certain things I can’t tell you. Sometimes it’s because I don’t know the answers. As you’ll soon discover, there are many things out there that we don’t understand. Mysteries. Other times it’ll be because I won’t tell you. Certain things you are just going to have to learn for yourself.”
She looked up at the bridge and paused, as if she were counting the cars passing by overhead. Then she turned her head and continued.
“But feel free to ask anything that you’d like. If I can’t or won’t answer, I’ll try to tell you why not. How does that sound?”
“Good. Yeah, pretty good,” he answered. He already knew that she grew uncomfortable when the topic of his mother came up, about why she’d run away and what had happened before he was born. So he decided to move on to something else.
“So, um, does that mean you will or you won’t tell me about becoming a witch?”
She laughed.
“Nope, I can tell you about that. Or at least enough to satisfy you, I think. We talked yesterday about popping, and echoes, and the craft being in someone’s blood. Well, the craft is definitely in your blood, Charlie. You’ll be popped when you’re ready.”
“When will I be ready?”
“When you reach a certain age. It’s different for everybody, but mostly it coincides with puberty.”
“But aren’t I, I mean, right now…?” He stopped, blushing, caught between his desire to become a witch and the horror that his aunt might decide to talk about the birds and the bees with him.
“Probably. There’s a man named Malcolm who knows about all of that and does the popping. I can’t do it, nor can any of the other witches in our community. We don’t have that ability.”
“Will he be…?”
“I sent him a message about you. He should be back in town in a week or so.”
“Does it hurt?”
“What Malcolm does?” She smiled, then shook her head. “No, it doesn’t hurt. But it’s a bit strange. What happens is, well, it’s sort of like…”
She looked off into the distance, trying to find the words.
“Imagine that all your life you could only see out of one eye. The other one was completely blind. So you couldn’t see everything fully, and you developed habits to compensate. Popping is like finally getting that bad eye fixed. Sure, it’s great, because you get full vision, but it’s also disorienting. You aren’t used to it at first. And all those ways of compensating are habits that don’t die off instantly.
“Or imagine being deaf all your life, and then suddenly you can hear. It’s hard to get used to all that noise, and you don’t know how to block it out right away. It takes time to adjust. Not forever, but a while. Does that make sense?”
Charlie nodded, but only because she expected him too. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like.
“Once Malcolm pops you, there will be lots of us to guide you, to help you adjust. But that’s really only the first step. Just because you get popped doesn’t mean you can do everything right away.
“Let’s go back to the one-eye example. Think of it like learning to paint. Getting popped is like getting your full vision back, but it doesn’t mean you know how to draw shapes, or how to mix colors. Or even how to hold a paintbrush. It just means you have the aptitude for it. You’ll still have to learn a lot.”
She stopped talking. Charlie could hear her words echoed softly back from the far bank of the stream.
“Sometimes, someone’s ability can leak a little during stressful situations. That’s probably what happened to you with that stone pendant down in California. When that man attacked your mother, a part of your ability leaked out.
“Or take Mavis. Most likely something traumatic happened to her when she was young, causing a part of her ability to surface. Or, whatever blocked her eroded away a little over time as she grew older. That can happen too.
“At least that’s what I thought, until you told me what she did to you yesterday. Remember when Rita called it a drain? It’s when you siphon off someone’s potency for a little while. Kind of like draining their blood. The one doing the draining gets a jolt of power, while the one being drained feels weak for a while. Mavis is just a minor scam artist with very little real talent. She shouldn’t have been able to do what she did.”
“Then how did she?” Charlie asked, leaning forward so that his elbows rested on his knees. He felt a chill run up his spine and shuddered, remembering how Mavis had gripped his arm, how nauseous and dizzy he had felt. He ran his hand along his right forearm, right at the place where her fingers had dug into his skin.
“That’s what we don’t know. We keep an eye on echoes like her so that they can’t cause any trouble. If something changed in her, we should have known about it.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Oh, petty stuff, the kind I told you about yesterday in the kitchen. Winning minor state lotteries, horse-racing scams, those kinds of things. Daniel’s going to look into it. Besides his regular detective work, he keeps track of what’s going on in the witching world. He’s good at what he does. If anyone can find out more about her, he can.
“Anyway, you don’t need to worry about this right now. You have your schoolwork cut out for you, and when Malcolm gets back, you’ll have your craft to learn about. It takes a lot of practice, believe me.
“In the meantime, will you wear this?” Beverly reached into her shirt pocket and pulled out a thin silver bracelet. “It’s the main reason I brought you here today.”
“What is it?”
“This will hide your potential from other witches, so they can’t guess about you the way Mavis did. It would also alert me if you were in any kind of trouble.”
“How does it work?”
She winked at him. “It’s a secret. Wait until you’re popped and then we can revisit the question, okay?”
Charlie nodded, then slipped the bracelet onto his wrist. He thought he’d feel something, maybe a slight buzzing, or a tiny vibration to indicate that it was actually working. But it just felt like cool metal on his skin.
“It doesn’t seem like it’s doing anything.”
Beverly laughed. “Don’t worry. It is.”
He liked the way the thin band looked on his wrist, the tiny blond hairs of his arms contrasting with the silver color.
“Well, um, thanks,” he said.
“You got it, Bucko.”
“Why did you have to bring me here to give it me?”
“I didn’t. I just thought a walk sounded nice, and I wanted to show you where I used to hang out.”
He smiled at her. They sat together for a while, enjoying the stream in front of them and the occasional birdsong in the trees overhead.
Then he remembered something, and started jiggling his feet in anticipation.
“Oh, could I, well, do you think that I could…” he started, feeling his shyness descend like a heavy blanket. His foot accidentally kicked Amos, who was lying i
n the dirt in front of them. The dog yelped and stood up.
“Oh, Amos, I’m sorry, boy” he said, as the dog dropped his head beneath Charlie’s hands. He rubbed the dog’s neck, enjoying how his dark fur looked purple in the late afternoon light.
“Don’t worry. Amos is a big dog, and is used to getting bumped. Aren’t you, buddy? Aren’t you?” she said, joining Charlie in giving the dog a good back rub. The dog moaned in pleasure.
“What were you going to ask?” said his aunt after a moment.
“Oh. Do you think I could go to a party tomorrow night?”
There, he’d said it, before he could chicken out.
“A party? Well, sure. Is it at someone’s house?”
“Yeah, it’s some kids at Puget Academy. I got invited by someone, by this guy, Diego, from school. I don’t know the people having the party. But their parents will be there. Diego gave me his number. He said you could call him and his mom to ask about the details.”
“Well, how thoughtful. Sure, why don’t we call when we get back? What a nice thing for you to do, Charlie. You’ll get to know more kids at school,” she said, giving him a smile of encouragement.
Charlie nodded, but didn’t look at his aunt. A part of him wanted to tell her about the brown-skinned boy and how they talked to each other, but he didn’t know what to say, especially since he didn’t know what he thought about it all.
“Before we go back, Charlie, I wanted to show you something else. Something witchy.”
Excitement rose from his belly to his cheeks. Would it be like the candle trick?
“It’s very important that others, people who aren’t witches, don’t find out about this. It would scare them too much. And it’s important for us to protect our identity. But I can tell if we’re alone and the coast is clear.”
She stopped and tilted her head, as if listening to something in the distance. Then, after a few moments, “We’re good.”
His aunt stood up and faced him.
“You know how I said we kids used to swap stories over there, under that bridge?” she said, pointing to the expanse of dirt across the stream from where they sat.
“Yeah?”
“How do you think we got over there without getting wet?”
He shrugged. He hadn’t thought about it.
“Like this,” she said. Turning away from him, she bent her knees and jumped into the air. Instead of coming down in the middle of the shallow stream, her jump extended into a long arc that carried her clear over the stream bed, and another good twenty feet beyond it. Her feet touched down next to the huge base of the bridge, landing her in a crouched position. She looked over her shoulder and smiled at him, then stood up and turned around.
“Whoa! Whooooooa!” Charlie yelled, jumping up and down like a little kid on Christmas morning.
“Don’t tell your uncle I did that, okay? I wouldn’t hear the end of it,” she yelled back at him.
“Whoa!!!! Okay, I won’t. But…whoa!”
Amos barked at Beverly, his leash forcing him to run back and forth in small circles.
“Come on, come on boy, you know you want to swim a bit, come on,” she called to him. “Charlie, undo his leash, will you?”
Charlie unclipped the lead from Amos’s collar while the dog shivered in anticipation. Once set free, he leaped over the side of the embankment and threw himself into the stream, splashing and frothing the water for the short trip across, before lumbering up the far bank and racing across the dirt to where Beverly stood.
“Good boy!” she exclaimed, then shielded herself with her hands in a very un-witch-like gesture as Amos shook water from his fur. “Ugh! I should have known better. He always does that!” She laughed.
After a moment, she looked over at Charlie. “Wanna try it?” she yelled. “The coast is still clear.”
“What, you mean like Amos?”
“No, silly, like me.”
“But I can’t…”
“I know. But I can. All you have to do is jump and leave the rest to me.”
“Oh my God,” he whispered. He stepped to the edge of the bank. Suddenly it seemed much higher, and Beverly appeared very far away.
“Come on, it’s fun!” she shouted.
Fear took root in Charlie’s chest and branched out like a tree. Or maybe it was excitement. He remembered his seventh grade science teacher, Mr. McPheeters, telling them that people’s bodies respond to fear and excitement in much the same way: you start breathing faster, your hands get sweaty, your heart pumps harder…
“Wanna?”
“Um, okay. Okay!” he yelled back. “What do I do again?”
“Just jump. I’ve got you.”
“When?”
“Any time you’re ready.”
“Just jump?”
“Yeah. Just jump.”
Charlie squatted down like his aunt had done. He paused, and in that moment everything grew brighter. A cluster of ferns off to the right of the stream bed glowed green. A single strand of spider web stretching from a fallen tree to a blackberry bush reflected light like a glass rod. Even the air seemed to change, growing thinner and cleaner.
He took a deep breath.
“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod,” he said, blowing the words through his clenched teeth.
And then, he jumped as high as he could.
Instead of feeling the pull of gravity that would have cut his leap short, he felt something akin to invisible hands, or a firm burst of wind, pushing on his hips, his shoulders, the backs of his legs. He thought he might lose his balance and fall into the stream, but instead he soared right over the water. The pushing sensation continued as air blew against his face, just like it did when he rode his bike on a windy day.
His legs, slow to the fact that he was being swept along in a witch’s embrace, pumped hard in mid-air as if to help.
“Unnnhhh!” he grunted, his voice straining to express the shock, the delight, the sheer miracle of such a launch.
And then, before he knew it, he landed with a soft thump, as if he’d just jumped from a low ledge. He wobbled for a moment before catching his balance.
Beverly was looking at him from where she stood four feet away, her eyes wide, a huge smile on her face.
“Whoa. That was like, totally, whoa!” He yelled, unable to find other words to capture the thrill. Before he could stop himself, he threw his arms around his aunt, and together they jumped up and down, laughing and yelling, “Whoa!” not caring in that moment if anyone could hear them, while Amos encircled them in leaps and wiggles, barking and wagging his wet tail, their collective noise rising all the way up to the September sky, like an exhultation, like a prayer.
Chapter 30
That evening, Charlie and Randall drove to Costco to buy Charlie a printer for school. The windshield wipers kept up a steady rhythm against the drizzle as they drove down the long stretch of Admiral Way that would lead to the West Seattle Bridge.
“Your aunt told me that you two talked a lot about the legacy,” Randall said, before looking out Charlie’s passenger-side window at a woman in an SUV trying to merge into their lane. “Come on princess, come on, take your own sweet time. There you go.” He winked at Charlie. “Sorry. Beverly says I have a bad habit of talking to drivers who can’t hear me. She always reminds me that I’m the pilot, not the air traffic controller. Really, I’m just trying to help people.
“Anyway, do you have any questions for your old uncle here? About all of this stuff? I’m certainly not one of them, but I do have an outsider’s perspective, which might help.”
Charlie looked out the window as they drove over the bridge. It was hard to believe that it had only been a week since he and his mother had driven over this same bridge in the opposite direction, as they arrived in West Seattle for the first time. It seemed like months.
“Well,” Charlie dove in, his curiosity winning out over his shyness, “what about getting popped? Do you know about that?”
“A little, yes. I�
�ve never seen it happen. They don’t exactly sell tickets to their events. But I’ve heard people say things about it. What do you want to know?”
“Beverly said it doesn’t hurt, but that it’s weird, like getting to see for the first time, or hearing things after you’ve been deaf.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right. To me it seems like a combination of losing your virginity and having a bar mitzvah all at the same time. The adult community is proud of you, but you’re pretty shocked and surprised by it all.
“Maybe,” he added, flipping on the turn indicator and taking the Fourth Avenue exit, “it’s like all of that and a really weird drug trip too. Uh, I shouldn’t be talking to you about sex and drugs. Maybe I’m supposed to. Don’t do drugs, okay? And as for sex…I’m not ready to talk to you about that.” He smiled.
Charlie’s ears and the back of his neck grew hot. He wanted to learn whatever he could from his non-witch uncle, but knew that if the man talked any more about sex, he might just open up the passenger side door and jump out.
“Awkward silence,” Randall said, and they both laughed.
“Anyway,” he went on, “I’ve seen kids after they’ve been popped. They’re very spacey, like you are after you’ve had surgery and are still goofy from the anesthesia. Have you ever had surgery?”
Charlie shook his head.
“They’re silly for a while, and can’t quite figure regular things out. So they’re watched, and eventually everything goes back to normal. Well, not exactly normal. They’re popped and can learn to do some really amazing stuff. But their minds go back to being mostly like they were before.”
“How long does that part take?”
“The spaced out feeling and coming back to normal? Seems to be anywhere from a few days to a week.”
“No, I mean the popping part. How long does that take?”
“Well,” he said, pondering the question. “Here’s what’s strange, Charlie. The witches aren’t very big on ceremony. You know all those stories about the hocus-pocus and the big cauldrons? All that witch crap from the movies? It’s hogwash. They just seem to sit down and mumble their words, which you can never hear anyway, and then they’re done. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am. You should see some of the ceremonies at a Jewish temple. They can go on forever. But not our witch friends. They’re an efficient people.”
The Boy Who Couldn't Fly Straight (The Broom Closet Stories) Page 16