Unexpected Magic

by Diana Wynne Jones

  Eggs’s huge hand knocked against mine, nudging me awkwardly away. “No, no, Lady. That way you’ll get hurt. It is under stass-spell, see.” For a moment he fumbled doubtfully at the top rim of the glass door, but, when I made a movement to come back and help, his hands suddenly moved, smoothly and surely. The thing clicked. The glass slid open downward, and the smell of meat rolled out into the kitchen.

  So you do know how to do it! I thought. And I knew you did! There was some hint he had given me, I knew, as I reached for the nearest joint, which I could not quite see now.

  “No, no, Lady!” This time Eggs pushed me aside hard. He was really distressed. “Never put hand into stass-spell. It will die on you. You do this.” He took up a long, shiny pair of tongs, which I had not noticed because they were nested into the top of the cupboard, and grasped the nearest joint with them. “This, Lady?”

  “And two more,” I said. “And when did you last eat, Eggs?” He shrugged and looked at me, baffled. “Then get out those two steaks, too,” I said. Eggs seemed quite puzzled, but he fetched out the meat. “Now we must find water for them as well,” I said.

  “But there is juice here in this corner!” Eggs objected. “See.” He went to one of the mysterious fixtures and shortly came back with a sort of cardboard cup swaying in one hand, which he handed me to taste, staring eagerly while I did. “Good?” he asked.

  It was some form of alcohol. “Very good,” I said, “but not for wolves.” It took me half an hour of patient work to persuade Eggs to fetch out a large lightweight bowl and then to manipulate a queer faucet to fill it with water. He could not see the point of it at all. I was precious near to hitting him before long. I was quite glad when he stayed behind in the kitchen to shut the cabinets and finish his cup of “juice.”

  The wolves had advanced down the garden. I could see their pricked ears and their eyes above the veranda boards, but they did not move when I stepped out onto the veranda. I had to make myself move with a calmness and slowness I was far from feeling. Deliberately I dropped each joint, one by one, with a sticky thump onto the strange surface. From the size and the coarse grain of the meat, it seemed to be venison—at least I hoped it was. Then I carefully lowered the bowl to stand at the far end of the veranda, looking all the time through my hair at the wolves. They did not move, but the open jaws of the big wolf, Annie, were dripping.

  The bowl down, I backed away into the living room, where I just had to sit down on the nearest blue block. My knees gave.

  They did not move for long seconds. Then all three disappeared below the veranda, and I thought they must have slunk away. But the two smaller ones reappeared, suddenly, silently, as if they had materialized, at the end of the veranda beside the bowl. Tails trailing, shaking all over, they crept toward it. Both stuck their muzzles in and drank avidly. I could hear their frantic lapping. And when they raised their heads, which they both did shortly, neatly and disdainfully, I realized that one of the joints of meat had gone. The great wolf, Annie, had been and gone.

  Her speed must have reassured Theo and Hugh. Both sniffed the air, then turned and trotted toward the remaining joints. Each nosed a joint. Each picked it up neatly in his jaws. Theo seemed about to jump down into the garden with his. But Hugh, to my astonishment, came straight toward the open window, evidently intending to eat on the carpet as dogs do.

  He never got a chance. Theo dropped his joint and sprang at him with a snarl. There was the heavy squeak of clawed paws. Hugh sprang around, hackles rising the length of his lean, sloping back, and snarled back without dropping his portion. It was, he seemed to be saying, his own business where he went to eat. Theo, crouching, advancing on him with lowered head and white teeth showing, was clearly denying him this right. I braced myself for the fight. But at that moment Annie reappeared, silent as ever, head and great forepaws on the edge of the veranda, and stood there, poised. Theo and Hugh vanished like smoke, running long and low to either side. Both took their food with them, to my relief. Annie dropped out of sight again. Presently there were faint, very faint, sounds of eating from below.

  I went back to the glassy kitchen, where I spent the next few hours getting Eggs to eat, too. He did not seem to regard anything in the kitchen as edible. It took me a good hour to persuade him to open a vegetable cabinet and quite as long to persuade him to show me how to cook the food. If I became insistent, he said, “I don’t not know, Lady,” lost interest, and shuffled off to the windowless room to play with the pretty lights. That alarmed me. Every time I fetched him back, the humming chime from the glass apparatus seemed to drag at me more intensely. I tried pleading. “Eggs, I’m going to cut these yams, but I can’t find a knife somehow.” That worked better. Eggs would come over obligingly and find me a thing like a prong and then wander off to his “juice” again. There were times when I thought we were going to have to eat everything raw.

  But it got done in the end. Eggs showed me how to ignite a terrifying heat source that was totally invisible, and I fried the food on it in a glass skillet. Most of the vegetables were quite strange to me, but at least the steak was recognizable. We were just sitting down on glass stools to eat it at the glass table when a door I had not realized was there slid aside beside me. The garden was beyond. The long snout of Hugh poked through the gap. The pale eyes met mine, and the wet nose quivered wistfully.

  “What do you want?” I said, and I knew I had jerked with fear. It was obvious what Hugh wanted. The garden must have filled with the smell of cooking. But I had not realized that the wolves could get into the kitchen when they pleased. Trying to seem calm, I tossed Hugh some fat I’d trimmed off the steaks. He caught it neatly and, to my intense relief, backed out of the door, which closed behind him.

  I was almost too shaken to eat after that, but Eggs ate his share with obvious pleasure, though he kept glancing at me as if he was afraid I would think he was making a pig of himself. It was both touching and irritating. But the food—and the “juice”—did him good. His face became pinker, and he did not jig so much. I began to risk a few cautious questions. “Eggs, did Petra live in this house or just work here?”

  He looked baffled. “I don’t not know.”

  “But she used the wolves to help her in her work, didn’t she?” It seemed clear to me that they must have been laboratory animals in some way.

  Eggs shifted on his stool. “I don’t not know,” he said unhappily.

  “And did the Master help in the work, too?” I persisted.

  But this was too much for Eggs. He sprang up in agitation, and before I could stop him, he swept everything off the table into a large receptacle near the door. “I can’t say!” I heard him say above the crash of breaking crockery.

  After that he would listen to nothing I said. His one idea was that we must go to the living room. “To sit elegantly, Lady,” he explained. “And I will bring the sweet foods and the juice to enjoy ourselves with there.”

  There seemed no stopping him. He surged out of the kitchen with an armload of peculiar receptacles and a round jug of “juice” balanced between those and his chin, weaving this way and that among the devices in the windowless room. These flared and flickered and the unsupported knife danced in the air as I pursued him. I felt as much as saw the fluted glass structure changing shape again. The sound of it dragged at the very roots of me.

  “Eggs,” I said desperately. “How do I call the Master? Please.”

  “I can’t say,” he said, reeling on into the living room.

  Some enlightenment came to me. Eggs meant exactly what he said. I had noticed that when he said “I don’t not know,” this did not mean that he did not know; it usually seemed to be something he could not explain. Now I saw that when he said “I can’t say,” he meant that he was, for some reason, unable to tell me about the Master. So, I thought, struggling on against the drag of the chiming apparatus, this means I must use a little cunning to get him to tell me.

  In the living room Eggs was laying out dishes of s
weets and little balls of cheese near the center of the large blue sofa-like block. I sat down—at one end of it. Eggs promptly came and sat beside me, grinning and breathing “juice” fumes. I got up and moved to the other end of the sofa. Eggs took the hint. He stayed where he was, sighing, and poured himself another papery cup of his “juice.”

  “Eggs,” I began. Then I noticed that the wolf Hugh was crouched on the veranda facing into the room, with his brindled nose on his paws and his sharp haunches outlined against the sunset roses. Beyond him were the backs of the two others, apparently asleep. Well, wolves always leave at least one of their pack on guard when they sleep. I told myself that Hugh had drawn sentry duty and went back to thinking how I could induce Eggs to tell me how to get hold of this Master. By this time I felt I would go mad unless someone explained this situation to me.

  “Eggs”—I began again—“when I ask you how I fetch the Master, you tell me you can’t say, isn’t that right?” He nodded eagerly, obligingly, and offered me a sweet. I took it. I was doing well so far. “That means that something’s stopping you telling me, doesn’t it?” That lost him. His eyes slid from mine. I looked where his eyes went and found that Hugh had been moving, in the unnoticed silent way a wild creature can. He was now crouched right inside the room. The light feral eyes were fixed on me. Help! I thought. But I had to go on with what I was saying before Eggs’s crazed mind lost it. “So I’m going to take it that when you say, ‘I can’t say,’ you mean ‘Yes,’ Eggs. It’s going to be like a game.”

  Eggs’s face lit up. “I like games, Lady!”

  “Good,” I said. “The game is called Calling-the-Master. Now I know you can’t tell me direct how to call him, but the rule is that you’re allowed to give me hints.”

  That was a mistake. “And what is the hint, Lady?” Eggs asked, in the greatest delight. “Tell me and I will give it.”

  “Oh—I—er—” I said. And I felt something cold gently touch my hand. I looked down to find Hugh standing by my knees. Beyond him Theo was standing up, bristling. “What do you want now?” I said to Hugh. His eyes slid across the plates of sweets, and he sighed, like a dog. “Not sweets,” I said firmly. Hugh understood. He laid his long head on my knee, yearningly.

  This produced a snarl from Theo out on the veranda. It sounded like pure jealousy.

  “You can come in, too, if you want, Theo,” I said hastily. Theo gave no sign of understanding, but when I next looked, he was half across the threshold. He was crouched, not lying. His hackles were up, and his eyes glared at Hugh. Hugh’s eyes moved to see where he was, but he did not raise his chin from my knee.

  All this so unnerved me that I tried to explain what a hint was by telling Eggs a story. I should have known better. “In this story,” I said, absently stroking Hugh’s head as if he were my dog. Theo instantly rose to his feet with the lips of his muzzle drawn back and his ears up. I removed my hand—but quick! “In this story,” I said. Theo lay down again, but now it was me he was glaring at. “A lady was left three boxes by her father, one box gold, one silver, and one lead. In one of the boxes there was a picture of her. Her father’s orders were that the man who guessed which of the three boxes her picture was in could marry her—”

  Eggs bounced up with a triumphant laugh. “I know! It was in the lead box! Lead protects. I can marry her!” He rolled about in delight. “Are you that lady?” he asked eagerly.

  I suppressed a strong need to run about screaming. I was sure that if I did, either Theo or Annie would go for me. I was not sure about Hugh. He seemed to have been a house pet. “Right,” I said. “It was in the lead box, Eggs. This other lady knew that, but the men who wanted to marry her had to guess. All of them guessed wrong, until one day a beautiful man came along whom this other lady wanted to marry. So what did she do?”

  “Told him,” said Eggs.

  “No, she was forbidden to do that,” I said. God give me patience! “Just like you. She had to give the man hints instead. Just like you. Before he came to choose the box, she got people to sing him a song and—remember, it was the lead box—every line in that song rhymed with ‘lead.’ A rhyme is a word that sounds the same,” I added hurriedly, seeing bewilderment cloud Eggs’s face. “You know—‘said’ and ‘bled’ and ‘red’ all rhyme with ‘lead.’ ”

  “Said, bled, red,” Eggs repeated, quite lost.

  “Dead, head,” I said. Hugh’s cold nose nudged my hand again. Wolves are not usually scavengers, unless in dire need, but I thought cheese would not hurt him. I passed him a round to keep him quiet.

  Theo sprang up savagely and came half across the room. At the same instant, Eggs grasped what a rhyme was. “Fed, instead, bed, wed!” he shouted, rolling about with glee. I stared into Theo’s gray-green glare and at his pleated lip showing the fangs beneath it and prayed to heaven. Very slowly and carefully, I rolled a piece of cheese off the sofa toward him. Theo swung away from it and stalked back to the window. “My hint is bedspread, Lady!” Eggs shouted.

  Hugh, meanwhile, calmly took his cheese as deftly and gently as any hunting dog and sprang up onto the sofa beside me, where he stood with his head down, chewing with small bites to make the cheese last. “Now you’ve done it, Hugh!” I said, looking nervously at Theo’s raked-up back and at the sharp outline of Annie beyond him.

  “Thread, head, watershed, bread!” bawled Eggs. I realized he was drunk. His face was flushed, and his eyes glittered. He had been putting back quantities of “juice” ever since he first showed me the kitchen. “Do I get to marry you now, Lady?” he asked soulfully.

  Before I could think what to reply, Hugh moved across like lightning and bit Eggs on his nearest large folded knee. He jumped clear even quicker, as Eggs surged to his feet, and streaked off to join Theo on the veranda. I heard Theo snap at him.

  Eggs took an uncertain step that way, then put his hand to his face. “What is this?” he said. “This room is chasing its tail.” It was clear the “juice” had caught up with him.

  “I think you’re drunk,” I said.

  “Drink,” said Eggs. “I must get a drink from the faucet. I am dying. It is worse than being remade.” And he went blundering and crashing off into the windowless room.

  I jumped up and went after him, sure that he would do untold damage bumping into cauldron or candle. But he wove his way through the medley of displays as only a drunk man can, avoiding each one by a miracle, and reached the kitchen when I was only halfway through the room. The hum of the crystal apparatus held me back. It dragged at my very skin. I had still only reached the cauldron when there was an appalling splintering crash from the kitchen, followed by a hoarse male scream.

  I do not remember how I got to the kitchen. I only remember standing in the doorway, looking at Eggs kneeling in the remains of the glass table. He was clutching at his left arm with his right hand. Blood was pulsing steadily between his long fingers and making a pool on the glass-littered floor. The face he turned to me was so white that he looked as if he were wearing greasepaint. “What will you do, Lady?” he said.

  Do? I thought. I’m a vet. I can’t be expected to deal with humans! “For goodness’ sake, Eggs,” I snapped at him. “Stop this messing about and get me the Master! Now. This instant!”

  I think he said, “And I thought you’d never tell me!” But his voice was so far from human by then it was hard to be sure. His body boiled about on the floor, surging and seething and changing color. In next to a second the thing on the floor was a huge gray wolf, with its back arched and its jaws wide in agony, pumping blood from a severed artery in its left foreleg.

  At least I knew what to do with that. But before I could move, the door to the outside slid open to let in the great head and shoulders of Annie. I backed away. The look in those light, blazing eyes said: “You are not taking my mate like she did.”

  Here the chiming got into my head and proved to be the ringing of the telephone. My bedside clock said 5:55 A.M. I was quite glad to be rid of that dream as I fu
mbled the telephone up in the dark. “Yes?” I said, hoping I sounded as sleepy as I felt.

  The voice was a light, high one, possibly a man’s. “You won’t know me,” it said. “My name is Harrison Ovett, and I’m in charge of an experimental project involving wild animals. We have a bit of an emergency on here. One of the wolves seems to be in quite a bad way. I’m sorry to call you at such an hour, but—”

  “It’s my job,” I said, too sleepy to be more than proud of the professional touch. “Where are you? How do I get to your project?”

  I think he hesitated slightly. “It’s a bit complicated to explain,” he said. “Suppose I come and pick you up? I’ll be outside in twenty minutes.”

  “Right,” I said. And it was not until I put the phone down that I remembered my dream. The name was the same, I swear. I would equally swear to the voice. This is why I have spent the last twenty minutes feverishly dictating this account of my dream. If I get back safely, I’ll erase it. But if I don’t—well, I am not sure what anyone can do if Annie’s torn my throat out, but at least someone will know what became of me. Besides, they say forewarned is forearmed. I have some idea what to expect.

  Enna Hittims

  Anne Smith hated having mumps. She had to miss two school outings. Her face came up so long and purple that both her parents laughed at her when they were at home. And she was left alone rather a lot, because her parents could not afford to leave their jobs.

  The first day was terrible. Anne’s temperature went up and up, and the higher it got, the more hungry she became. By the time her father got off work early and came home, she was starving.

  “But people aren’t supposed to get hungry with a temperature!” Mr. Smith said, grinning at the sight of Anne’s great purple face.