by Ed Masessa
As he moved the bundled guidebook to make room for his new tomes, he had a sudden thought. He’d recently learned about a page in the beginning of every book that contains all kinds of information about the book’s publication. Mrs. Verrity, the local librarian, called it a copyright page. Maybe Coralis’s address was on that page in the guidebook!
Henry searched the book in vain. There was no copyright page, no information about who printed the book, nothing about the author. He wondered where his father had even purchased it. It was altogether unlike anything he’d ever found at the library: old and cracked, with handwritten advice scrawled in the margins.
“Henry!” Brianna called up to him from the backyard.
He looked out the window, ready to yell at her to leave him alone. Unfortunately, he could tell by looking what had happened.
Brianna held a sneaker by the shoelace at arm’s length, pinching her nose with her other hand. “I stepped in poop, Henry,” she whined. “Come clean it off.”
It was a request he could not refuse. He had begged for a pet cat and had finally gotten his wish. (Actually, he had begged for an owl, but an emphatic no from both parents slammed that door closed rather quickly.) They had picked out a three-year-old cat from the animal shelter. The man from the shelter had not lied when he said the cat was housebroken. What he didn’t say was that it hated to use a litter box, preferring instead to use the great outdoors. The whole backyard was its litter box, and it was Henry’s responsibility to keep the yard clean.
“I’ll be right down. Just don’t try to wipe it off!” All she ever succeeded in doing was grinding it into all the tiny crevices that formed a flower shape on the sole of her shoe, making it that much more difficult to clean.
He quickly rewrapped the blanket around the guidebook and tucked it back into the chest, then closed and locked it before running outside to help his sister.
After the cleanup, as Henry hurried past his father’s office on the way to wash his hands, he saw a sudden movement from the corner of his eye. He immediately reversed course and caught a brief glimpse of tail feathers leaving through the open window. He dashed into the room, arriving at the window just in time to see a large bird zoom around the corner of the house and out of sight. It had been much bigger than a blue jay, with gray, orange, and white markings.
He turned back to the desk to reach for the letter …
The letter! It was gone!
He rubbed his hand along the stubble of his crew cut, a subconscious habit that flared up whenever he became confused or flustered.
He was sure he had weighed it down. Quickly, he searched the room—over, under, and around the few pieces of furniture—believing a stiff breeze must have dislodged it.
Nothing. The letter had vanished.
Again Henry rubbed his head. Could the bird have taken it?
No, that was his imagination getting the better of him again. It had to be here somewhere …
“Henry!” He jumped as Brianna managed to sneak up on him. “I did it again.” She held a soiled sneaker up, pinching her nose from the stench.
“Come on, Brianna! I just cleaned the whole yard!”
“You missed one,” she said with her devilish grin. “And I found it.”
Some time later, at a remote castle in the forests of Romania, a woman was shouting at a bear.
“Sophia!” Gretchen yelled sharply.
The large brown bear pulled her nose out of the compost heap too quickly, spraying bits of rotted vegetables into a nearby flower patch. Caught in the act, she pleaded with a series of grunts to be allowed to finish her midday snack.
“Bah!” Gretchen scolded. “You get too fat. Soon you will need a bigger cave to sleep.”
Sophia snorted a reply that was just as insulting (if only Gretchen spoke bear!) before slinking away. She struggled fitfully to squeeze through the hole in the wall.
“Ha! You see? It is not the hole getting smaller. It is your bottom getting wider!” Gretchen laughed.
Sophia popped out the far side, then stood tall on her hind legs and roared—at either the hole or the woman on the other side of it—before ambling off into the surrounding forest.
“Ach, what am I to do with that animal?” Gretchen softly muttered a few curses in her native German before tending to the mess Sophia had left behind.
Gretchen’s garden occupied a relatively small area of the expansive courtyard. Castle Coralis had been built thousands of years ago during an age of enlightenment. Though it was originally conceived as a center for learning, its outer structures had undergone significant change over the millennia, as men waged battle with increasingly sophisticated weaponry.
These days the fortress looked very much like a medieval castle without the moat. It was simple in design—basically a large rectangular courtyard enclosed by thick, twenty-foot-high stone walls. There were no turrets or spires. No ornate, grand battlements. The intent was to make it blend into the forest, and it succeeded. Unless you knew it was there, you wouldn’t know it was there.
But like all good castles, this one had more than its share of secrets.
Atop the eastern wall, high above the courtyard, Coralis observed the woman and bear and allowed a rare brief smile to crease his timeworn face. “Worse than two old crones,” he muttered to himself.
Gretchen squinted toward the sunrise, where the outline of Coralis made a striking image, nested in rays of sunshine. “Guten Morgen, Coralis. Will you be joining me for breakfast?” Her voice rose slightly, betraying a sense of hope. It had been too long since he had joined her for any meal, choosing instead to become more and more reclusive.
With a dismissive wave and a frown she couldn’t see against the sunlight, the old man turned and passed from sight.
“Ja, same old story.” Gretchen sighed. “What’s a girl to do for company around here? Perhaps I should invite Sophia back for seconds.” She shook her head sadly before heading toward the garden to begin the day’s work.
As she sang and hummed songs from her childhood, her back bent low over the late-spring crops, Coralis returned to peer over the edge. From his hidden observation post, he watched his ever-faithful servant. Servant? Well … not really. She was the closest thing he’d had to a friend for over a century—since he had chosen the reclusive life of a hermit.
Her long, graying hair was pulled back and gathered at her neck. She’d accented her white blouse with a pink-and-aqua scarf. She reached into one of the many pockets of her loose-fitting tan cargo pants and pulled out a folded tissue containing a small stash of seeds.
He admired how skillfully she worked the soil, tending herbs and vegetables with a delicate touch. Not for the first time, he wondered how someone could work for hours in a garden and finish as fresh and clean as the minute she started.
Coralis breathed in the fragrant morning air, long and deep, then exhaled slowly, emptying his lungs. He closed his eyes and envisioned the castle as it was so long ago: vibrant with life and activity, a center for learning and philosophical debates. Wand Masters in animated discussions about the best ways of upholding their vows of protecting the Earth. It was when those healthy discussions turned poisonous that life within their ecosystem began to crumble. To this day, he could not identify with any certainty what caused the great rift within their ranks, but as they slowly drifted apart, only Coralis was left to maintain the sanctity of the castle. And it did not take long for his self-imposed solitude to turn him into a curmudgeon.
Gretchen had put up with him so far, but he feared even she had limits.
The shrieking cry of an aplomado falcon overhead abruptly interrupted his reverie. Despite his advanced age, Coralis’s keen eyes were as sharp as the bird’s. Immediately, he focused on the white envelope streaked with brown smudges that the bird grasped firmly in its talons.
The falcon’s shadow passed directly over Gretchen. Try as she might to ignore it, her eyes, too, were drawn to it. A slight shiver raised bumps on her arms despi
te the heat. She rubbed them away, leaving careless smudges of dirt on her spotless blouse. Suddenly the day did not seem so promising.
This was no ordinary bird.
This was not to be an ordinary day.
The bird had a name: Randall. And when Randall stopped in for a visit, nothing good could come of it.
Randall circled teasingly, trying to provoke an annoyed outburst from the old man below. But Coralis was in no mood to play into Randall’s cajoling.
Sensing the old man’s foul mood, Randall released a small bundle hidden behind the envelope. The fresh carcass of a mangled rodent dropped with a splat at Coralis’s feet with pinpoint accuracy.
“Get down here, you foul feathered fiend!”
Randall shrieked in triumph and dove quickly before Coralis’s irritation could turn to anger. With amazing speed, he deposited the envelope and retrieved his meal in one fluid motion, gliding out of reach before Coralis’s futile lunge could catch him.
“Keep it up, Randall, and I’ll turn those feathers into scales!”
Coralis examined the envelope without touching it. Bloodstains had caused the brown smudges, some of which were not entirely dry. He glared at the rapidly shrinking dot of the falcon as he sped away. A pigeon would make a better mail carrier, but pigeons are unstable and messy—totally paranoid, dim-witted, and completely lacking in social skills and bathroom etiquette. As for owls—he grimaced at the thought. Never again would he use the conniving, untrustworthy beasts. People often mistook the impassive look on their faces as a look of wisdom. The truth was quite the opposite. No good ever came from entrusting an owl with secrets.
Finally, and with great reluctance, he picked up the envelope. A child’s scrawl haphazardly addressed the letter to:
His frown deepened. Ridges of concern creased his forehead like waves on a stormy sea. He felt an energy pulse from within the envelope—familiar, yet not.
There was no return address, not even a stamp. And Randall had disappeared, not that he would have offered any intelligent answers. Perhaps someday, when he got tired of eating raw rodent gizzards, he would come back to the castle for good. But until that day, Coralis was content to let him suffer. If there was one thing that was not in short supply, it was time.
He pierced the envelope with a sharp fingernail and cautiously opened it, removing the single sheet of paper within. Then he stared for some time at the penciled note, seeing it but not actually believing it.
“Why, that impudent little … ” His face reddened and his hands shook as anger boiled to the surface.
His wand won’t work! “Of course it won’t work, you impatient toad!” he shouted to the skies.
“What’s that?” Gretchen had been watching from the garden, shielding her eyes from the blinding sun. In all her time at the castle, she had witnessed only one other letter being delivered. Several years ago, the largest raven she had ever seen brought news of the death of another Wand Master. It was an unfortunate accident. As the Grand Wand Master, Coralis was responsible for monitoring the ranks of the Wandmakers’ Guild and for making sure it flourished. As their numbers continued to dwindle, he’d had no choice but to write The Wandmaker’s Guidebook in hopes of finding worthy recruits.
“Bahtzen bizzle!” He swore and shook the letter, ranting in angry circles before disappearing from sight. He was still yelling as he emerged from the castle, walking swiftly toward her. “Look at this!”
“Please try to calm yourself.” She spoke in a reassuring voice, flexing her vocal cords so that a soft hum fluttered in the background. The technique was known among inner Wandmaker circles simply as “Voice,” and Gretchen was one of the best with it. When applied correctly, Voice could stop a charging water buffalo in its tracks—as well as soothe a raging Wand Master.
The effect on Coralis was immediate. He stopped flapping his arms and waving the letter. He even blushed slightly as he composed himself and took a deep breath.
“Why don’t I make you up some hawthorn-berry tea, and you can tell me what is so important,” she suggested.
Coralis no longer fought the effects of Voice, as he had at one time. Gretchen suspected it was because he understood the damage that high blood pressure could cause. “Yes, that sounds wonderful,” he said. “My aging heart could use a little help. Let us go to my Kunstkammer.”
Gretchen tried unsuccessfully to mask her surprise. Coralis’s Kunstkammer was his private workroom, where he spent the majority of his days. Even after all these years, she had never been allowed inside.
After a brief detour to the kitchen, she entered the Kunstkammer: a spacious, dimly lit room that was cluttered from floor to ceiling. Curiosity cabinets were filled to capacity with specimen jars, vials of colorful liquids, and taxidermy of some of the strangest creatures she had ever seen. A peculiar large rodent with a particularly nasty set of fangs stared at her with glassy eyes. It might have been long dead, but it still looked hungry.
Coralis leaned forward in his buffalo-leather armchair. The chair groaned—well, actually, it moaned. He took a cup of tea from her serving tray and visibly relaxed as he took a sip. “Mmm … just a touch of yarrow and mint. Excellent!”
Gretchen located a stool that looked harmless enough and dragged it from his workbench back to where Coralis sat, deep in thought. “You seem troubled,” she said, dusting off the seat and sneezing in the process. “You really should allow me to give this room a thorough cleaning.” As she sat, the wood seemed to soften and expand, making it very comfortable.
“Nonsense. A little dust never hurt anyone.” He placed the teacup on a side table and saw the young boy’s crumpled letter, and he scowled.
“I don’t understand why the scribbles of a young boy would aggravate you so. You must have realized this kind of thing would happen when you printed the guidebook—after all, the instructions are not very clear.”
“They’re not meant to be clear!” he snapped, and smacked his hand against the leather, causing the chair to buck, four cloven hooves lifting off the ground. Gretchen jumped in surprise, but Coralis was unfazed. “It’s why it’s called a guidebook and not a manual!”
Despite his gruff tone, his eyes sparkled like stars in the night sky. “It’s all that bahtzen-bizzle wizard claptrap! Don’t writers understand how much harm is caused by spreading misinformation? And yet when I try to explain it to them, they twist it around, dress it up, and add concoctions of their own imaginings. All they have done is make a murky mess. Filled young minds with visions of fancy spells and trickery. But there are no shortcuts when it comes to true wand-bearing, and no sleight of hand when it comes to the natural world.”
Coralis pushed himself up from the comfort of his chair, which promptly snorted in relief. “Oh, hush up, you old cow, or I won’t rub you down later.”
The chair sighed an apology. After all, there was nothing that the old buffalo chair looked forward to more than her weekly massage.
Coralis turned around just in time. “Willoughby! Get down!”
Gretchen spun around and ducked as a sneaky vine with teeth took a swipe at her, grazing her left ear. Another of his former apprentice’s experiments gone awry. Not wanting to appear flustered, she leaped up and stepped over to the buffalo chair, which promptly fluffed at her, sending up a rather noxious plume.
“Still want to clean up in here?” Coralis smirked.
“It would appear the room can fend for itself.” She looked around cautiously before choosing to lean against the weathered wooden workbench. A jar of very large orange-red Kinabalu leeches from Borneo squirmed at her approach, but the lid appeared to be tightly secured. The occupants of the jar reminded her why she was there. “What of this young Leach boy? The name is familiar, I think.”
Coralis frowned as he paced back and forth, stopping to stare at the ceiling—or something beyond. “Yes. Henry Leach.” He slowly ambled to the far wall, where a bundle of wooden poles with curious markings stuck out from an old clay urn. They rattled
upon his approach. “Now then, settle down.” His voice was tender, as if he were addressing a pet dog.
He selected a bluish-black pole with narrow white crossbands that immediately went limp and wrapped itself around Coralis’s right arm. It was a snake, Gretchen saw now. Stroking its head and whispering in soft tones, Coralis returned to his chair.
“Gretchen, I’d like you to meet Sallie.” The serpent flicked its tongue in her direction.
“Nice to meet you, too,” she said, squirming slightly under Sallie’s reptilian gaze. Gretchen had a very easy way with animals, but was always leery of reptiles. It was her experience that they had a tendency toward unpredictability. “Is Sallie a … former apprentice?”
“No, she was the last person who attempted to clean this room.” Coralis allowed a rare chuckle at Gretchen’s stricken reaction. “Not really. In truth, Sallie has always been just as she is—a beautiful yet very deadly krait. I found her in my sleeping bag while camping in northern India—just before she found me. Isn’t that right, my dear?”
The snake looked up at Coralis and appeared to smile. He continued to stroke the narrow head, much as one would a cat or a dog. For its part, the snake truly seemed to enjoy it, but rarely took its eyes off Gretchen.
“What is it about reptiles that is so unnerving?” she asked rhetorically. “And what of the Leach boy?” If she didn’t know better, she’d say he was avoiding the subject.
“Humpf,” Coralis growled. His frown returned. “Do you recall ever reading about a rather vicious earthquake that took place in San Francisco at the beginning of the twentieth century?”
“Ja. As I recall, it destroyed the entire city,” she answered, wondering what the connection might be.
Coralis lapsed into silence while gloom gathered around him like a thundercloud. When he finally spoke, his dire tone sent a shiver down Gretchen’s spine.