by Sarina Dorie
I waved my pink and white striped wand at the hat.
Felix Thatch stood up, blocking the view of people behind him. “That’s my wand,” he said.
No, it was mine. I’d found it. I ignored him. He was not going to ruin my show, the big jerk.
“Sit down,” someone shouted.
I gave him a pointed look. He sat.
“Abracadabra,” I said with a grin. I even got the magic words right this time.
When I tipped the hat over my head, the kids always clapped when no water came out. Today, however, a bucket of ice cold water drenched me. My hair fell in my face in a hot pink curtain and plastered to my skin. I lifted the hat to scoop my hair out of my eyes and even more water gushed out from inside. At least I wasn’t hot anymore. The audience roared with laughter. The Kotex that fell out made them laugh even harder.
I tried to sound like I was supposed to be a bumbling illusionist, and this was a comedy act, which would have helped if I hadn’t looked so confused. I forced a smile. “Huh. The package said it was supposed to be extra absorbent. I guess they lied.”
“Oh! That’s a new one.” The good-looking model who’d flirted with me earlier shouted over the roar of laughter. “Isn’t she great?”
I pulled a child on stage to help me with an optical illusion.
“That isn’t even magic,” Mr. Grumpy District Psychologist said loud enough for me to hear. “This is a waste of our time, Thistledown. I don’t know why you bothered to summon us here.”
Thistledown? Was that the name of the attractive guy with sandy hair?
An old man dressed in gray like Gandalf shook his head and put a finger to his lips.
After a few interactive pieces with the children in the audience I moved on to juggling. It wasn’t magic, but I had thrown it in because I needed to fill a half hour slot of time and this was something I could do well.
I started off with apples. I made a couple mistakes as I warmed up. No biggie. That was always to be expected. I tossed an apple behind my back and turned to catch it, threw one under my leg, and as the finale, caught one in my mouth. All the while, I slipped an occasional mistake in there to make it look like I was only moderately skilled at juggling.
“Wow, this really works up my appetite,” I said, wiping my brow.
I sliced the apple in half with a knife from my bag and took a bite. “Does anyone want the other half? I promise there are no worms.”
A man in a furry costume sweating in the third row raised his hand, and I tossed him half the apple. As it flew in an arc over the crowd, one of the black ravens swooped down and caught it.
“Yay, good job, birdie!” one of the children said.
Some of the audience cheered. I threw up the other half of the apple. None of the birds dove for this half. It hit Felix Thatch on the head, mussing his styled hair.
I waved to him. “Sorry. I guess they didn’t want that piece.”
The children thought this was even funnier. Even the wizard wannabes laughed. From the evil eye Mr. Grumps-a-lot gave me, I suspected he didn’t think it had been an accident.
“Moving on to something a little more exciting… .” I said. “And dangerous.” I removed two more knives from my bag and laid them out on the table. They were all dull except for the first one, and it was only sharp in one place. Of course, the points of the knives were still sharp enough that I’d nicked myself plenty of times in practice.
I wiped my sweaty palms against my striped circus leggings. “Do you think I can do it?” I asked the audience.
“No! Don’t do it!” a small boy dressed as a bumble bee cried.
I threw one knife up in the air, the blade spinning over the handle and twirling before it fell. I caught it and threw it up a couple more times before I yanked my hand back and screamed. It landed on the wooden stage, blade down.
“Oh, wait, it didn’t cut me. I’m fine.” I giggled and shrugged sheepishly, all part of the act. I yanked it out of the boards.
A child standing in the aisle covered her eyes. I added two knives to the toss, still feigning timidity.
“This part coming up is really good,” the model-perfect man said to the old man dressed in gray wizard clothes next to him. Something was a little off about the old man’s hat, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“This isn’t real magic, either. These are parlor tricks. She’s not one of us,” Felix Thatch said loudly.
He hadn’t seemed to think so outside my mom’s house. He continued to complain, stealing my attention so that I almost missed a knife. I would have cut myself if my hand had been a second slower.
I turned on the music from the portable CD player. I tried to block out the rude Witchkin and focus on the blades. I started off with small, tight arcs. As the blades came toward me, I ducked back, pretending I was afraid. I scooted myself farther from the front of the stage, flinching and making faces as though I feared the knives. People laughed. The weight as well as my handholds were different from the apples. I had to practice for a moment before I did anything fancy.
I threw them higher, switched to the cascade technique, which divided up the knives into clusters of two and one as I threw them, and then did an impressive back twirl. I tossed one under the leg as I lifted my foot in the air. The crowd cheered with each flourish I performed. The metal blades caught the sunlight, flickering and flashing, dazzling my audience. They stared in tense silence, anticipating I would drop them. Even Felix Thatch had shut his mouth.
That was good. I had set them up to believe I was a dunce. Anything I did now would impress them.
The flashing light of the knives hypnotized me. I no longer heard the music. I no longer saw the crowd. I was in the zone.
I’d been doing this since I was fourteen, since Derrick had taught me. The two of us used to do way more complicated stuff. Not with knives, but with apples and soda bottles, whatever we could find. Using different-sized objects always made it more difficult. My heart played a sad note as I thought of my old best friend, and my hand faltered.
The blade came down toward my outstretched hand. My fingers were spread wide. The blade shot down like a missile toward my palm. I yanked my hand back, but not fast enough. As the world slowed down, I could see I was going to get stabbed by the pointy end.
There would be blood. In front of all those kids. Craptacular.
The silver of the metal flashed white in the light. In a blink of an eye, the end of the knife changed shape. The color changed to yellow. It rounded and became the curved end of a cylinder. The projectile bounced off my hand—which isn’t to say it didn’t hurt—and fell onto the stage. I tried to catch the other two knifes, but their handles weren’t the right shape. They were all bright yellow cylinders. They thumped onto the wood stage. I stared, perplexed.
The crowd didn’t laugh this time. They all stared too. For a moment, I thought one of them was a banana, but it was too stiff and straight. Plus, one of my palms still smarted where it had been struck. One of the plastic cylinders rolled off the stage and thunked onto the ground.
Please, let those not be what I think they are, I silently prayed.
The old wizard stooped to pick up one of my props from the dirt.
“Huh, mighty interesting,” he said, a slight Texan twang to his voice. His belly hanging over his belt and snowy beard reminded me of Santa.
I stared in horror as he held up a vibrator. At least one of the kids hadn’t picked it up. I flashed an awkward smile. I might have been able to tuck them back into my bag before anyone realized what they were, but one on the stage started to rattle. It wasn’t until later it occurred to ask myself how this had happened.
“Is that a vibrator?” someone squealed.
The mud man in the audience howled with laughter. Even some of the parents with children found it amusing, thank goodness.
I took the vibrator from the old man, scooped up the others and bowed with a triumphant, “I me
ant to do that” grin on my face. The crowd applauded.
The music faded out. I hurriedly packed up my bag and gave my usual spiel about the times I would be performing the next day, and that donations were welcome in the tip jar. Then I threw my smoke bomb on the stage and seemingly disappeared in a mysterious cloud of obscurity a.k.a. out the back door behind the stage curtain.
Backstage in the greenroom, I stripped out of my striped leggings and polka dot dress and changed into my spare clothes, a green cotton dress that my skin would be able to breathe in. The knee-length bloomers I changed into were white muslin, one of my first successful sewing projects. I’d added three pockets, one where I tucked my cell and another with my wallet. I shoved everything else in my duffle bag with the wooden bird, planning on washing my costume later that night. I set the top hat on the bag.
I had no idea how I’d gotten a bucket of ice water out of the hat. The knife toss also had been unexpected. But at this point in my life, the unexpected was the norm. I still felt bad about the bird. As soon as people were gone I would take it out of my bag and examine it again.
I didn’t know if I could fix it, but maybe someone else could.
There had been people in the audience talking to Felix Thatch. Mostly people who had been telling him to shut up. I didn’t know if that meant they were friend or foe. If any of those people out there were Witchkin, they might be able to fix the bird. They might be willing to help me, to train me. I just didn’t know how to tell good witches from bad ones.
I stored my duffle under one of the chairs backstage, intending to watch the audience and scope out the scene. If no one was around, I would collect my tips. I didn’t expect much, maybe enough for dinner, which would be nice since I’d used up my one meal ticket for lunch. If any of the witchy-looking people had stuck around, I would try to figure out if they looked safe before approaching them.
The wooden fence that separated the public from the volunteer area was ten feet tall, extending out in both directions from the wings of the stage. I watched the audience between the boards to the right of the stage, waiting as people shuffled out. A few people left tips in the jar.
Most of the audience members filtered out of the area toward Chela Mela, another stage for musical and theatrical performances, but the group of witches and wizards who had sat in the front rows lingered near the entrance of the Morningwood Odditorium. They spoke in hushed whispers. I walked along the wooden fence around the seating area where I could stay hidden but come closer to them.
“It’s her. Didn’t I tell you?” the handsome man named Thistledown said, pointing to the stage. “Aren’t you glad you came?” He nudged the school psychologist. “See, Thatch, I told you.”
Felix Thatch, snorted. “She’s too young, and her hair isn’t the right color.”
“Duh. She dyed it pink. Probably to hide her natural color,” someone said.
“Yes, because bright pink is such an inconspicuous color. Everyone uses it when they go incognito,” Thatch said in that dry way of his.
My eyes widened. They talking about me, but why? I still couldn’t figure out if they were bad witches. Thatch seemed to be in disagreement with them. I suspected that was promising.
The old man removed his hat and mopped the sweat from his forehead. The comb-over he was trying to hide under his hat reminded me of my late father.
Now that I was closer and not looking down on him, the rim of his hat looked like a Stetson, curving up at the edges, but with a long cone attached. The idea of a cowboy wizard was more than my imagination had ever fathomed.
“You’re right, of course, partner,” the cowboy wizard. “She can’t be Loraline. She’s as dead as a doornail.”
Loraline? That name gave me the heebie-jeebies. It made me think of snakes slithering in cold dark places, dead trees barren of leaves, and poisoned apples. Did they think I was someone else? Someone evil?
“See. Waste of time,” Thatch said. “Let us be gone from this dreadful place.” The corners of his mouth turned down as he eyed the topless women loitering near the entrance of the dusty path.
“I agree,” the crabby vamp said in a stuffy, posh accent that reminded me of Katherine Hepburn. “If I absorb one more harmful electromagnetic field or have to put up with any more human crafted technology, I’m not going to have the strength to go home, let alone get rid of the wrinkles they’re giving me.”
The old man waved a hand at her. “Yes, of course, darlin’. No one needs to stick around who doesn’t want to, but I’d like to speak with the young lady about her … parentage.”
I held my breath.
“Are you saying you think, Lora—ahem—the former headmistress had a child?” Thistledown asked. “By Jove, that must be it! We’ve discovered her long lost child.”
I didn’t know who this Loraline was, or why they thought I was related to her. Did my Mom have a secret identity? I knew she had been trying to keep secrets from me. I wondered what she had done.
Thatch crossed his arms. “She can’t be Professor Loraline’s daughter. This Morty couldn’t even do magic.”
“Not on purpose anyway,” Lady Vamp said.
Thatch sighed in exasperation. “That was me. Any magic you felt was because I changed those knives so they wouldn’t stab her.”
And the buckets of ice water? The crow that I’d killed?—Or maybe I’d only transformed it. Thatch hadn’t arrived until after that one. I glanced toward the backstage area.
“What? You? You performed magic in front of all these Morties?” one of the older witches asked.
Morties sounded like an insult the way she said it.
“You could be arrested for that!” someone said.
Thatch brushed a fleck of straw from his jacket sleeve. “It was a magic show. No one noticed. A knife sticking through her hand would have drawn far more attention.”
“How selfless of you, Thatch. I had no idea you had it in you to perform magic on the behalf of others,” Thistledown said.
I was starting to like Thistledown. Not only was he good looking, but he was cheeky with Felix Thatch. I might be able to approach him and get him to help me.
The old man adjusted his bolo tie, eying Felix Thatch with interest. “I had no idea you had it in you to be so … creative. Tell me, what made you choose those tube things? What were they? They looked like giant bullets.”
Thatch gave a disinterested shrug. “No idea. They simply popped into my mind.”
I was fairly certain I had done that. It was just the weird, sexy kind of phenomenon that followed me wherever I went. I just couldn’t understand why he was claiming it. From everything he was saying, it seemed like he didn’t want anyone else to know about me. Could he be trying to cover for me? To keep my magic secret? He had run into me plenty of times on the job. He knew what I was capable of.
“And the dead bird? Are you saying you used magic to kill an emissary of the Raven Court?” one of the witches asked.
I had killed the bird? I clasped my hands in front of me, wanting to go check on the bird more than ever. I didn’t want to be a bad person and a bad witch.
Thatch inspected a bit of dirt under his fingernails. “It was simply part of her stage show. A trick. Nothing more. No animals were injured in the production of this performance and so on.”
Okay, now he was just pulling this stuff out of his butt. The bird hadn’t been part of my show. Either he was behind that too, and didn’t want to admit it, or … he had ulterior motives for keeping my magic secret. If he wanted to drain me and steal my powers—secretly—that might be why.
The vamp cleared her throat. “If she did kill a living creature, the Raven Court will come to claim her after the sun sets, and then she isn’t our problem anymore, is she?”
“I reckon I’d like to ask that young lady a few questions.” The old cowboy wizard nodded to the ravens in the tree. “Before a flock of harpies decides to do the same. I want her to explai
n her connection with Loraline.”
The old man headed toward the stage. His entourage followed him.
“And if she is Loraline or her daughter, then what?” Thatch called after him. “Will you invite the wickedest witch of all time back to the school for a spot tea? What good will any of this accomplish?”
The old man froze. He tugged on his long beard. “If she’s Witchkin, we’ve got to help her, of course. Before she hurts herself or others.”
Yes! Helpful witches. My mom had been so wrong. She’d been trying to keep me from my powers. These people were going to train me.
“And if she has already hurt someone?” Thatch asked.
The old man shook his head. “Please, it’s time for facts, not conjecture.”
Thatch’s lips curled into a wicked smile.
My lunch curdled in my stomach. All he had to do was tell them about one of my many colossal mess-ups.
He opened his mouth.
“I do so hate to be the practical one,” Miss Vamp said. “But it’s obvious what must be done, isn’t it? We might as well do it sooner, before she has full control of her powers, rather than later. If she’s anything like her mother, we’re going to have to kill her.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Baba Yaga’s Cousin
Kill me? I gasped. So far, I was getting a Wicked Witch of the West vibe more than a Glinda the Good Witch from the vamp witch.
“Indeed!” someone else agreed. “We need to drain her before she harms anyone.”
A few more murmured in agreement. Craptacular! Just when I thought I was going to have witchcraft handed to me on a silver platter, they had to start talking about killing me and taking away my powers. It was hard to say which was worse.
“Whoa! Hold your horses.” The old man readjusted his wizard cowboy hat. “We don’t know she’ll be like Loraline.”
“Yes, we do,” Miss Vamp said.