Wandmaker

by Ed Masessa

He wasn’t sure exactly what to do, but he hoped that once he got started, something like a Wandmaker’s instinct might guide him. He placed the books side by side and was immediately rewarded for doing so when he saw that the symbols on the cover of each were remarkably similar. Up until that moment, he’d assumed the images on the cover of the guidebook were decorative pictures that looked cool but didn’t mean anything.

  BOOM! Thunder rattled the windowpane. The first drops of rain spattered against the roof in wind-driven gusts.

  Even the towel over the window could not block the brightness of the next shaft of lightning. Thunder immediately followed, with a crack so loud it made his ears ring. Suddenly Henry felt very alone … and very foolish. This couldn’t be the safest place to weather a storm.

  He gathered enough courage to peek out the window and was greeted by a lightning strike that split the top of the tall oak tree in the neighbor’s yard. He screamed and stumbled away from the window, falling entirely too close to the edge. In a panic, he swiped his arms across the floor, sending his neatly organized valuables to every corner of the loft.

  Another blast hit too close. Then another! Henry curled into a ball and huddled on the floor. He felt a prickly sensation on his neck and knew exactly what it meant: He was in trouble.

  Henry screamed. He was at the mercy of giant bolts of electricity. And he was certain that he was about to die.

  Then, as suddenly as it started, it stopped. The sharp, crackling bolts receded into the distance, rolling onward to another town, another victim. When Henry was absolutely certain he was safe, he opened his eyes and was greeted with darkness. He felt his way toward the droplight.

  “Ouch!” He nicked his finger on a thin piece of broken glass. One of the bolts had zapped the power box and exploded the light bulb. The thunder had been so loud that he didn’t even hear it happen.

  “Henry!”

  Oh no! His mom must have checked his room, and now she was looking for him—probably with Brianna in tow. He couldn’t let them find him in the loft. It was his private place, and he was determined to keep it that way.

  As quickly as he’d ever moved in his life, Henry pulled the greasy towel from the window. The cloud cover had thinned, brightening the sky to a dull gray—just enough to see by. He began gathering up everything within sight and dropping his possessions into the armoire. He would come back when it was safe to take inventory.

  In the far corner, he found the old book. He must have really been scared to knock it so far away. The book was open, and one of the rocks from Coralis’s package was lying on top. He’d had some trouble identifying this particular rock, but eventually found it in one of his reference books. It was called ulexite.

  At first it had looked like a plain piece of quartz in the shape of a rectangular block. When he’d accidentally dropped it onto a comic book he was reading, the words on the page were somehow projected onto the upper surface of the rock. It was like being able to read the book in 3-D! At the time, he thought it was pretty cool, but otherwise useless.

  What he saw now, however, gave him a chill. All the books he had taken from his father’s office were written in a language Henry had never seen and couldn’t read. But as Henry moved the rock across the page, the words on the rock’s upper surface appeared in English. The rock was some sort of translation device!

  “Henry!” His mother’s voice was closer. He had to hurry.

  He swept up the remaining items, whipped off his robe, shoved everything into the armoire, and slid down the pole just as she appeared at the side door. “Oh, hi, Mom,” he babbled nervously.

  “Henry, why didn’t you answer me?” She hugged him tightly. “Weren’t you scared? Look at you, you’re shaking.”

  Henry realized it was true—he was shaking. But not for the reasons his mother assumed.

  If the ulexite let him read those ancient books, what secrets might he uncover next?

  Who needs sports! Henry thought angrily as he stomped up the steps of the rear porch, making each plank pay the price for the humiliation he had just been through.

  Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!

  While he hated his baseball cleats, he liked the way the tough plastic soles made rock-solid contact. It felt doubly good to slam the screen door shut behind him.

  It was even more satisfying to slam his bedroom door. He kicked off the first shoe, which hit the footlocker near his bed. The second shoe was fastened tighter, but rather than take the time to untie it, he yanked and strained at it until it finally popped off, flew across the room, and splashed into the tadpole tank on the nightstand.

  All he wanted was to get back to his cache in the garage loft. Instead, he’d wasted the entire morning on baseball, and he knew better than to think he’d sneak past Brianna in the middle of the day.

  “Henry?” his mother called up. “Henry, would you like a glass of fresh mint tea?”

  Tea? Why would he want tea? Would it change him into a newt so he’d never have to play baseball again? Why did his parents insist on torturing him by having him play baseball? His ability to drop a fly ball was legendary, and he didn’t even have a batting average—he struck out every single time he came to the plate!

  The doorknob turned. He had hesitated too long.

  A small hand extended through a crack, holding a glass of iced tea like a peace offering. It was followed by the doe-eyed face of Brianna. “Henry?” She said it so, so softly—softer even than a whisper.

  “Go away, Brianna!” She had gone to the game and witnessed his public embarrassment.

  “I like your uniform, Henry.” There was a humming sound behind the words. He rolled onto his bed and faced the wall, willing himself to remain angry.

  “Mommy says have some tea.” Her voice fluttered like the musical warbling of a songbird.

  He rolled partially back, enough to squint at her through the corner of his eye. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Why are you talking like that?”

  “Like what?” Except for her hand and part of her face, she remained out of sight. “Mommy says to tell you, ‘Don’t shoot the messenger.’ ” Her voice remained soft yet amazingly clear, and so calm. An image of his worn and tattered security blanket from his toddler years materialized in his mind. He visualized it wrapped securely around the glass of tea.

  He struggled to remain angry. “Tell her I don’t want any.” But it came out in a whisper. He slid off the bed, but instead of turning her away, he took the tea from her tiny, steady hand and was mildly surprised that the glass was cold and hard—not warm and soft like the blanket he had imagined.

  “Thank you.” His anger was gone, dissolved like sugar in his tea.

  “You’re welcome.” She slipped away, silently closing the door behind her.

  Henry examined the glass, his face a mix of confused curiosity.

  His mind buzzed. What just happened?

  The next week slugged along like a plow through mud. Every time Henry tried to retrieve his books and wands from the garage, either his mother or Brianna was there to run interference.

  Henry, can you please do this? Henry, please play with your sister? Henry, we’re going to the mall now.

  The suspense was driving him crazy! He flipped through the remaining three books in the footlocker, which made him even more crazy, knowing he would actually be able to read them if he could get his hands on the ulexite. He kicked himself, not for the first time, for not thinking to take the stone with him.

  He paced around the room for hours. He would stare at the tadpole tank, imagining his submerged baseball cleat had become an artificial coral reef (even if it was a freshwater tank). He tried to hide from Brianna with no success. It was as if he had a big bag of birdseed strapped to his back that dropped a trail of sunflower seeds—and Brianna was the lucky bird.

  Finally, he caught a break on Saturday. Brianna had caught a cold and was taking a midmorning nap, while his mother used the time to paint in her basement studio. The moment had arrived.


  Padding out the door in stocking feet, he sprinted to the garage, set a personal speed record for climbing the pole, and used the crate to lower his entire cache from the loft to the ground. He found it more difficult to sneak back to his room, his load of books weighing him down, but he made it. He flopped breathlessly onto his bed, smiled, and gave himself a high five.

  Mission accomplished! Now he could get to work.

  “Henry,” Brianna whimpered from the hallway. “My head hurts.”

  “Go get Mom. She’s in the basement.”

  “She won’t answer me,” she whined.

  “Go knock harder. She probably has her earphones on.” She’s probably just ignoring you, hoping you’ll leave her in peace, he thought. I wish I had that choice.

  He heard her sit outside his door. When the sniffling started, he gave in. He knew from experience that when Mom got into painting mode, the rest of the world faded away. The books would have to wait—again.

  He helped her up. Her hands were warm and clammy. Henry could see she really wasn’t feeling well and led her to the kitchen. He offered her several choices of canned soup, which she turned down with dramatic looks that ranged from disgust to horror. But he eventually found something they could both sink their teeth into.

  They were into their second round of peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches when Mom emerged from the basement. Finally, thought Henry.

  “Oh! Is it lunchtime already?” She hummed to the tune on her iPod, made herself a turkey sandwich, gave Brianna two aspirins, gave Henry a pat on the head, and disappeared back into the basement. When he heard the click of the lock from her studio door, he knew he was doomed. And as he buried his head in his hands, he saw Brianna smile.

  The combination of nap, medicine, and food had revived her. Henry was stuck at least until dinner.

  They played hand after hand of Go Fish. Every now and then he’d purposely slip and say “Go away,” but she didn’t rise to the bait. They sat together and watched an old black-and-white version of Frankenstein. Fortunately, Brianna fell asleep on the sofa before the scary parts came on. It would be his fault if she woke up in the middle of the night from a nightmare about dead monsters coming to life. Henry was fascinated by the movie—especially the scenes in the “la-bor-a-tory” with all the mad scientist equipment.

  Not for the first time, he found himself wondering how much of what was in a movie was actually real. Is it really possible to bring something to life with lightning? After he’d witnessed the destructive power of lightning in the garage loft a few nights earlier, he found it hard to believe. But what if it was possible …

  “Henry. Henry, get up.” He opened his eyes, startled to see Brianna shaking him. “You fell asleep,” she said, pushing him off the remote and switching to cartoons.

  “Henry, when is Daddy coming home?” she asked. Her eyes were glued to the caped dog and his sidekick hamster on the television.

  “What?” Still groggy, he looked at the screen to see if she was repeating lines from the show.

  “When is Daddy coming home?” This time she faced him.

  He had been wondering the same thing for days. It wasn’t unlike his father to go away on business, but he had been gone for several weeks. The last time Henry had spoken to him was in his room the night Henry tried to make Brianna disappear. He couldn’t recall their conversation, but for some reason, he was disturbed by the thought of it. He was sure it had to do with his wand.

  “Henry!” Brianna snapped.

  “I don’t know, okay? Probably soon.” She crossed her arms and scowled, unsatisfied. “Why don’t you go get your crayons and we’ll make a picture for him.”

  “Can we use your colored pencils?” She smiled mischievously. His colored pencils were forbidden to anyone under the age of nine (next year he’d change it to ten). But for reasons he couldn’t explain, he found himself giving in to her more and more frequently these days.

  “Okay, but you need to follow some rules … ”

  “No breaking!” she shouted.

  “That’s a good rule. What else?”

  “Only use one at a time!”

  “And … ?”

  “Put them right back in the box—right in the same spot!” She squealed happily and ran up the stairs. Halfway up she stopped and turned to him. “Can I use your pencil sharpener?”

  “No.” Some things, like his Iron Man pencil sharpener, were strictly off-limits.

  Brianna bounded up the stairs, not willing to push her luck any further. Henry smiled. She wasn’t such a bad sister. He just wished she wasn’t around so much.

  His mother didn’t emerge until almost six. “Oh, is it dinnertime already?” she said absently. “Guess we’ll order pizza.” This time she stayed out of the studio long enough to tuck Brianna in for the night.

  She got as far as the doorway to the basement when Henry finally worked up the nerve to ask Brianna’s question. “Mom?” Perhaps it was only his imagination, but her shoulders and back seemed to stiffen. “I was … that is, Brianna was asking about Dad.”

  “What about him, honey?” She smiled, but it looked strained.

  “Well.” Henry rubbed his head, realizing he probably should have thought it through before asking. “He’s been gone a long time. Is he okay?”

  “What an odd question!”

  Henry blinked in surprise. The way she’d answered was … weird. Like fake happiness with a dash of nervousness.

  “Oh, Henry. Everything’s fine.” She playfully rubbed his hair. “I really appreciate how you watched Brianna today. Why don’t you go enjoy some free time and tuck yourself in when you’re ready.” A quick kiss to the top of his head and she was gone, but not before one last nervous glance over her shoulder.

  It took a minute before Henry realized his luck had changed. He could finally get down to business!

  Just as he’d suspected, the four symbols on the cover of the guidebook matched a symbol on each of the other four books. The ulexite didn’t work on the symbols, but he was able to find one of the symbols repeated on the inside, next to a foreign word that the ulexite could translate.

  “Yes!” He clamped his hands over his mouth as soon as the word escaped. His eyes blazed with triumph. The symbol meant fire! Knowing where to look now, he quickly solved the key to the remaining three.

  Earth.

  Air.

  Water.

  Now if he only knew what they were for.

  The hours stretched well past his usual bedtime, but Henry wasn’t the least bit tired. When he heard his mother humming her way up the stairs to go to bed, he quickly turned off the light and scuttled beneath the covers. A short time later, he was back at it.

  So many of the words in the ulexite were unfamiliar to him, it was as if the stone were translating the words from one foreign language to another. The more he tried to read, the more confused he became. In a spiral-bound X-Men notebook he copied the words as they appeared on the ulexite. In many instances, the words were jumbled out of order and a sentence would read the way Yoda in Star Wars speaks—backward and twisted.

  He left plenty of room in the margins to write short definitions of words he didn’t know. There were so many, though, that he started writing the definitions in parentheses following the word. He was becoming frustrated. He had thought reading the books would be easy once he had the stone. But at this rate it would take years to read them all!

  Henry lay down on the bed, exhausted. That was when he heard it. A single squeak.

  He knew that squeak. It was the rear screen door. And it was just loud enough in the midnight silence of the sleeping household to get his attention.

  Someone was coming into the house. He could hear footsteps. He turned off his flashlight and crept toward the door, giving himself two inches of an opening to look and listen.

  The footsteps moved past the staircase. They walked to his father’s office and stopped. There was a nearly silent click as the office door closed.


  Henry rubbed his head, thinking desperately about what to do. He could use his baseball bat as a weapon, but he realized how hopeless that would be—he’d never hit anything with that bat. His eyes fell upon the black wand Coralis had sent to him, lying in a perfect patch of moonlight on the bed. It was a sign—he hoped. He would take the wand as protection and sneak up on the intruder while remaining undetected—he hoped.

  If it was anyone other than his father, he would wake his mother and call the police.

  By the time he got downstairs, fear had sucked all the moisture from his mouth and beads of sweat glistened at his hairline. He paused to gather his wits and plan his next move.

  Am I nuts? he thought. I don’t have a next move!

  One of the beads started its descent, rolling past his right ear.

  Blam!

  Heavy objects were being slammed inside the office. He flattened against a wall. Another bead of sweat rolled past his left ear.

  Blam!

  Why would a thief be making so much noise?

  Henry edged closer. The light spilling through a crack under the doorway hit his bare toes, and the noise abruptly stopped. He quickly stepped out of the light and held his breath. His pulse pounded a steady beat in his eardrums. He heard a tap-tap-tap at the office window. Whoever was in there opened the window, then sat heavily in his father’s chair. The pounding in his ears grew louder.

  The thief began to talk. Henry pressed his ear to the door. He was so relieved to recognize the voice that his aching lungs whooshed with relief.

  The door swung open with lightning speed. A large shadow loomed in the doorway—it was his father. “Henry.” His eyes bored into his son for a full ten seconds before he went back to his desk, leaving the door open.

  Henry peered cautiously into the office. His father was alone with his back to the open window. Henry glanced quickly to the top shelf, and when he looked back, his father’s narrowed eyes had zeroed in on him. “Good evening, son.”

  Henry wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but his father’s voice sounded calm. Normal. They could have been having a conversation at the dinner table.