He smiled at the boy and said, “Good job, Charlie. Looks like you’re getting the hang of it.” He lifted his right leg up and over his own broomstick and stood ready.
The other adult was an older white woman he didn’t recognize. She’d arrived earlier in the day and had been observing the training for most of the time. She gave him a nod and mounted her broomstick too.
“Rose and I,” Sean continued, nodding to the woman, “will go with you as you take your first solo flight. Now remember, you steer by moving the tip of the broom up or down, side to side, with your hands. You only need to move it a little bit to change direction.”
“How do you speed up or slow down?” Charlie asked, coughing slightly. Now that they were about to take off, his mouth had dried up and his hands were shaking.
“Mostly from leaning forward or back. But it’s hard to explain. You’ll figure it out as you do it. Don’t forget to wrap your feet up on the bristles behind you to protect the family jewels,” he added, motioning below his waist with his hands. The girls in the group laughed. The boys’ faces turned green.
Malcolm told the WITs to open up the circle and stand out of the way. Charlie pointed the broom toward the far side of the field.
“Nice and slow, Charlie,” said Rose to his left. Strands of gray hair were loose beneath the hood of her jacket. She had on purple gloves, and smelled like flowers. She gave him another nod.
Charlie lifted his leg up over the broom and grasped the shaft with both hands. It seemed lighter than it had before. Was it hovering? He couldn’t tell. He brought it right up between his legs, bending his knees a little.
“Have you ever surfed before, Charlie?” asked Sean.
Charlie shook his head.
“Oh well,” Sean said, shrugging his shoulders. “Forget that metaphor then.”
Charlie looked out across the field.
‘Is this really going to work?’ he wondered. The idea of flying on a broomstick had seemed fun. But now he wasn’t so sure. He wished another WIT had activated a broom first so Charlie could have watched.
“Just push off gently with your feet and…” Rose said.
Charlie shuffled his feet a few steps, then pushed.
The broom slid forward, causing his boots to drag along the wet grass. He felt the handle dig into his crotch.
“Ow!” he hissed, wincing.
“Feet up and beneath you,” Sean said from his right side. The man had mounted his own broom and was gliding along next to him. Charlie turned his head to try and see where the man put his feet, causing the front of the broom to jerk to the right.
Before he knew what happened, he slipped over the side and flipped upside-down. He held tightly to the handle and managed to wrap his legs around the back near the bristle end, hanging bat-like from the shaft.
Cheers and laughter came from the group of WITs behind him.
He continued to float forward at a snail’s pace, his head only a few inches above the grass.
“I can’t…” he grunted. “I don’t…”
“That’s certainly one way to mount a broom,” giggled Rose, who flew on his other side.
“See if you can climb back on top,” she said.
“We can give you a hand if you can’t,” added Sean. He and Rose were flying at the same slow pace to match his.
Charlie tried not to look at the trees coming slowly toward him, upside-down. Instead he focused on righting himself. He attempted to swing his body upright, but that only forced the broom to shake from end to end, nearly prying it from his fingers. For just a moment he tried to recreate the move he’d done back in Diego’s bedroom when he’d flipped the boy onto his back, but since he had no idea how he’d done it, he dropped the idea. Eventually he pressed his chest to the broom handle and squeezed his legs to the side until he slid back on top, huffing and puffing the entire time. He stayed stretched out along the length of the broom, not quite ready to sit up. He was glad he was wearing kneepads. Somehow it had been his knees and his ankles that had helped to right himself.
“It’s working!” he shouted, voice shaking with laughter and relief. The slight breeze on his face cooled him off.
“Way to go, Charlie,” said Sean. “Now, scoot back with your feet underneath you. You’ll have more stability.”
He slid back until he sat almost completely on the bristled end, and felt much more anchored. He extended his forearms until he sat straight up. His arms shook from effort, but a thrill ran through him.
‘Oh my God! I’m flying!’ he said in his head. It wasn’t what he expected. He thought it would be like riding a bike. But a bike was heavy. When he rode one, he could feel all the bumps in the road as he pedaled along. This was softer. The broom floated up and down on the air currents, and the sensation of having nothing beneath him, of being three or four feet above ground, was pure heaven.
“Kind of fun, isn’t it?” Rose said from his left side.
“Yeah!” he yelled, the word carrying out across the field. They were probably only traveling about three feet an hour, so a quieter tone of voice would have been appropriate, but he was too excited to be able to manage talking normally. He lifted his face and enjoyed the soft droplets of rain sprinkling down on his cheeks and nose.
Rose reached over and put her hand on the tip of his broom.
“Hold on, okay? We’re going to steer clear of those trees.” She guided him to the left.
They were approaching the outer ring of the forest at the far end of the clearing. Together, they turned in a slow arc, eventually flying parallel to the trees.
He was reminded of riding a small pony at the county fair when he was little. The handler had kept her hand on the saddle’s horn as they’d walked about the corral.
“There you go,” said Rose, letting go of his broom.
Charlie heard Sean’s voice above and behind him.
“Charlie, pull up a little on the tip. Give it a try, but don’t lean back too…”
He pulled the broomstick end up toward his chest, which caused him to slide backwards, the shaft burning his palms. The broom shot skyward, going from a snail’s pace to what felt like lightning speed in seconds, nearly yanking his arms from their sockets. His entire body slid off the end of the broom, his hands barely managing to maintain their grip. He was about to crash into the treetops, which were approaching at breakneck speed.
“No!” he screamed.
Sean appeared in front of him, then slid off his own broomstick so that he was hanging from it by one arm.
“Let me!” he yelled to the boy. He grabbed the end of Charlie’s broom with his free hand and pulled up toward the sky.
The two of them climbed at an even steeper angle. Charlie clung tightly to the broomstick, sure that at any moment his fingers would lose their grip, and he would plunge to his death. fall of backwards and plunge to his death. Both he and Sean had to tuck their knees to avoid hitting the treetops with their feet.
Once clear of the trees, Sean let go of Charlie’s broom, letting it level out, and in one swift movement pulled his own broom down and swung up and over it, once again in a mounted position.
“Right as rain,” Rose said as she and Sean lifted Charlie up into a sitting position on his own broom. Somehow she sounded calm even as she shouted to be heard above the wind.
Charlie’s chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath. His palms stung where the broomstick had slid between his hands, and his thighs felt weak and wobbly from their vice-like grip on the shaft. He shook his head, then looked at the witches on either side of him. He was in awe of the grace and casual confidence they possessed as they rode their brooms.
“I have a lot to learn,” he yelled to them.
“Fail and recover,” Rose reminded him, giving Charlie a warm smile.
“Welcome to the friendly skies,” Sean shouted. “The only way to fly.”
Together, the three of them soared higher above the treetops and circled the perimeter of the clearing a
few times. Charlie had just relaxed enough to enjoy the complete rush of flying so high in the air before Rose pointed back to the field.
They descended slowly. Charlie only had a moment to panic, having no idea how to actually land on the ground. Malcolm had barely covered Takeoff 101 in their lessons, let alone landing. Was he supposed to slip off the side of the broomstick, or touch down with it still between his legs?
Before he knew it, the ground slammed into his feet while he was still straddling the stick. Because the broom was activated, it continued flying straight ahead. Not knowing what else to do, he gripped tightly to the handle while it yanked him forward for a good twenty yards, his legs stumbling along in an awkward run on either side of the broom. He could hear shouts coming from the crowd of adults and kids watching him.
“Help!” he cried, unable to comprehend what anyone was yelling at him, let alone how to stop his crazy lurching across the grassy field. Finally he made out one adult shouting, “The Words, Charlie! The Words!”
The Words! He’d completely forgotten.
He opened his mouth, letting the Words find, then move, his lips. The broom stopped pulling him along. He barely caught himself from sliding forward off the end of the handle and landing on his face. He stumbled to a standstill, then collapsed down into the grass and lay on his back, the broom dead weight in his hand. As everyone crowded around him, laughing and clapping, he began to giggle, thinking how he must have looked, running the length of the field and unable to stop.
Several of the younger WITs, filled with excitement, dove on top of him in a pig pile. He laughed harder, until someone accidentally kneed him in the stomach.
“Ouch! You’re killing me!” he grunted. The adults pulled the kids back up on their feet.
He looked up and saw Sean’s face smiling down at him.
“A really good job, Charlie,” the man said. “A fine first solo flight.”
–––—
Hidden behind an illusion of mist and cloud banks, two witches circled above on their brooms, watching the people in the field below and exchanging glances with each other.
“One little, two little, three little witches, fly on broomsticks, soar over ditches…” Tony began singing.
“Shut it. I hate that song!” barked Claudia. “Let’s get back and report in.”
“Someone put on her cranky pants today, didn’t she?”
“Yeah, I guess I did. It’s just that…”
“I know, I know. She isn’t going to be happy about this. Alright then, let’s get back,” Tony said, then looked again at the commotion below. “So mama’s little baby has learned to fly. The plot sickens.”
The two broomsticks became dark streaks as they sped off through the afternoon dusk.
Chapter 55
That night Malcolm made a fire in the big fire pit on the front patio. The rain had let up enough to sit outside, though the adults placed tarps on the still-wet benches surrounding the pit.
After Charlie’s unexpected breakthrough, many of the other kids were able to activate their brooms. With varying levels of success, six of them flew around at varying heights, shadowed by two or three adults each. The thrill of flight was thick among the new witches; even those who couldn’t activate their own brooms were given rides from some of the adults, and the experience of the entire group racing and dipping in the air had broken the frustrated mood from earlier in the day, elevating it to excitement and focus.
As the flying lessons came to an end, and everyone was gathering up the helmets and kneepads, Charlie watched as several of the adults threw their own brooms with great force to the ground. He heard a cracking sound, and saw the sticks shrink to narrow pieces of wood less than twelve inches long.
“Makes it easier to lug it around. Though you gotta be careful not to accidentally sit on it if you forget it’s in your pocket,” said Roberto, who must have seen Charlie staring at the brooms.
The last session of their training, just before dinner, had also been much more successful.
“It usually happens this way,” Malcolm told them after they’d watched Malcolm Paulsboro, whom they called Little M, in deference to their teacher, make words appear on paper like a fast-developing Polaroid image. Nine years old, he was the youngest in the group, and after the sentence “Malcolm is a rad name!” finished materializing on the page, he’d hopped up from his kneeling position in front of the table and started jumping around on one foot in delight. His spontaneous expression of joy and triumph was so infectious that some of the other WITs joined him. Everyone laughed and clapped, and Charlie saw Little M’s mother dab at her eyes with a handkerchief.
“Charlie’s success with the broomstick earlier in the day unclogged you all,” said the teacher, smiling at him. Charlie blushed, not wanting the attention. But he was still so enraptured by the sensation of flying on a broomstick that it was hard to stop smiling.
“It always seems to spur a group of WITs on. Helps them believe they can do it, and also starts to create some competition,” he said, winking at them all.
“Have you ever had a group where no one could do anything?” asked Jenna, much more focused on the lessons now that she was one of the WITs who hadn’t been able to make any of her spells work.
“Yes, it happens. Though what that usually means is kids get it when they go home. I’ve also had groups who make the spells work on the first night. It doesn’t mean anything really. It’s like babies learning to walk. Some take to it faster than others, but they all get it eventually.”
The fire spat and sizzled in the large pit. Adults and kids alike made S’mores, though they were unlike any Charlie had never eaten. There was chocolate with lavender, chocolate with bacon, chocolate with sea salt, and chocolate with chili peppers. There was even a white-chocolate raspberry combination that was a group hit. The marshmallows were soft and gooey, unlike the dusty things he was used to pulling out of plastic bags at his friends’ homes. In place of graham crackers, they grilled halved croissants over the fire. Charlie was sure he’d never tasted anything so delicious.
The mood between the adults and Malcolm had changed. Where it had been tense before, with Malcolm in charge and the grown-ups doing what they were told to do, it was now collegial. At dinner, many of the adults gathered around the kids and chatted with them, and some of them even teased Malcolm about his strict ways.
Rose, the witch who’d flown with Charlie earlier in the day, sat with him at dinner and told him about her first time riding a broom, about her son David who worked in Europe as a witchcraft researcher, and about the Words. Charlie liked her gentle manner and soft voice, so different from some of the louder, cockier adults at Malcolm’s cabin.
“I watched you today out in the field, Charlie,” Rose told him while they finished the last of their meal. “It was interesting. At first I could tell that you were trying out the Words, saying them and hoping that they’d work. But then something changed. Even when Malcolm was telling you that your turn was over. The look on your face told me you understood how the Words worked.”
“I don’t think I understand them.”
“No, you don’t fully. You have a lot to learn about them. But you understood that it’s less about saying the Words, and more about letting them be said. Through you.”
“Yes! That’s what it felt like. I, I didn’t know.”
Rose nodded. “It can be a difficult transition to make. I appreciate that Malcolm didn’t come flat out and tell you young people to ‘let the Words speak through you.’ I think that would be too confusing. It takes trial and error, as well as a certain amount of self-discovery, to understand it.
“Anyway,” she’d continued, “I haven’t been to a new witch training in a long time. It was a delight to see you catch on the way you did. It reminded me of when my son was little, and even of my own discoveries of the craft so long ago. Congratulations on your breakthrough today. It will take you far.”
“Thank you. And thanks for all you
r help with the broomstick today.”
“You’re welcome, Charlie,” she said, and then fell silent as she looked out the window. Charlie joined her gaze, and together they sat quietly together, surrounded by, but not joining in, the raucous chatter of the others. He wondered if this is what some friendships were like: enjoying silence together, rather than having to talk, like so many people tended to do. It was strange to imagine being friends with a much older grownup like Rose, but also pleasant.
After the S’mores were finished, Malcolm stood up.
“We have a treat for you tonight, something even better than this delicious fireside dessert. Rose Patchke, community historian, famed storyteller and one of the few people who can keep me in my place, is here tonight to share her gifts with us.”
Rose stood up as the other adults clapped for her.
“Malcolm, please, you are too kind. As I was telling Charlie earlier,” she said, nodding in his direction, “I haven’t been to a training weekend in a long time. It has done these old bones some good to be among you new witches as you discover your talents and abilities.
“I’ve been asked to tell you a story tonight about a young witch and her exploration of the craft. Please keep in mind the spirit in which it’s being told: as a reminder that with your new abilities comes great responsibility. You can no longer pretend that you are a single human being with merely personal consequences. You are part of a greater community of people who must make hard choices, sometimes on a daily basis, as to how to interact with the greater world.
“There was once a young woman named Catherine, or Cat, for short. She was from a rural town in the southern state of Kentucky, born in nineteen forty three. She had long red hair, a lovely face, and a good head on her shoulders.”
“Is this really about Grace, that red-haired lady who…” asked Little M.
“Malcolm Rudolph Paulsboro!” scolded his mother. “What have I told you about interrupting?”
Little M’s face fell, and he looked down at his lap. “Sorry,” he said.
“That’s alright, Malcolm,” said Rose.
The Boy Who Couldn't Fly Straight (The Broom Closet Stories) Page 30