Wandmaker

by Ed Masessa

  “Hi, Dad.”

  “A little past your bedtime, isn’t it?”

  “Way past, sir.”

  His father smiled. “So it is.”

  Henry relaxed a little, enabling him to take in details: the crumpled suit, necktie off-center, smudged white shirt, dirty hands and nails. That was unusual. Henry was accustomed to seeing his father leave for work looking like a department store mannequin, and come home looking just as tidy.

  “Who were you taking to?”

  “I was reading out loud. It helps me concentrate.”

  “Oh.” Henry didn’t see any open books. “Are you reading for work?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  Henry took another step toward the desk. For a second, the wand from Coralis seemed to tremble in his pajama pocket. His eyes widened, startled, before he decided it was probably just his imagination.

  His father didn’t notice. He appeared distant and preoccupied as he rifled through the desk’s open drawers.

  “You haven’t been in here while I’ve been away?” he asked distractedly. “Have you?”

  Henry’s mouth went dry. “N-no,” he said. He wasn’t sure why he lied, but he had the sudden sense that his father wouldn’t be pleased with the truth. He groped for something else to say—a safe topic that had nothing to do with wands or strange books.

  “I’ve been playing baseball.”

  What? Where did that come from? Of all the things he did not want to discuss, this was possibly the worst.

  “Your mother told me all about it. I heard it went well.”

  “Ha!” He didn’t mean to laugh out loud, but it made his father smile, and there was warmth in it. “She must have been watching a different game.”

  “Guess it runs in the family. I wasn’t much cut out for sports at your age either. I think I was referred to as a late bloomer. I had a great rock collection, though.”

  Henry perked up. His own rock collection was very much a work in progress.

  “Want to see one of my most prized specimens?”

  “Yeah, I do!” He crossed the room, approaching the desk. What had he been thinking? Was he really afraid of his own father? On the outside, he smiled. On the inside, he laughed himself silly for being cursed with an out-of-control imagination.

  “Ow!” From out of nowhere a pain erupted in Henry’s leg. The wand in his pocket was zapping his thigh with jolts of current.

  He lurched forward, reaching out to his father for help.

  The smiling, concerned parent of moments earlier flickered like a bad piece of film, replaced briefly by a scowling face he hardly recognized. He recoiled from Henry’s outstretched arm with a hiss.

  The pain had become a hot iron branding his side. Henry watched his father back away slowly from the desk. He no longer looked angry. Instead, he had the detached look of a scientist observing an experiment gone awry.

  Henry could not take the pain any longer. With all the effort he could muster, he heaved away from the desk and landed flat on his behind, gasping for breath. He grabbed frantically at his shirt, hoping there wasn’t a bloody, gaping wound.

  There was nothing. Not a mark. Not a welt. Not even a slight discoloration.

  The Coralis wand! He needed to put some distance between himself and the wand. He got as far as taking it out of his pocket.

  “Where did you get that?” his father hissed, and lunged toward him like a cobra.

  “Henry!” His mother’s voice hit the room with a life-force of its own.

  Young and old Henry snapped their heads toward her. “Mom!” young Henry cried with relief.

  “Lois.”

  Henry’s eyes widened. He had never heard his father address his mother with such contempt.

  “Henry, get up to your room,” she ordered. “Now.”

  He didn’t have to be told twice. He scampered around the corner and flew up the stairs. Behind him, a door slammed and angry voices rose. Henry flung himself on the bed, covering his head with his pillow.

  Eventually, the voices receded. Hours later Henry finally fell asleep, but his dreams were not pleasant.

  On the way down the stairs the following morning, Henry began to wonder what the world’s record for longest yawn might be. He seriously thought he’d topped it—he even had to rub his jaw to pop it back into place.

  In the kitchen, his mother was busily cleaning the stove top. The slick black surface usually took no more effort than a quick wipe with a damp sponge, but today she attacked it like she was determined to rub a hole through it. He wondered what she might have cooked that left such a mess behind.

  A box of cereal on the table had enough left for one last bowl, as did the carton of milk. She continued to scrub. He crunched on cereal with his mouth open—a serious no-no—loud enough to get her attention. But it didn’t work. She scrubbed even harder.

  Something was wrong. “Mom?”

  “Oh!” She dropped the sponge and nearly knocked over a can of scouring powder. “Henry. Good morning, honey. Did you sleep well?” She wiped a fine mist of sweat from her forehead and tucked a loose strand of hair behind an ear.

  Henry rested the spoon in the bowl. She can’t be serious! “Mom, where’s Dad?”

  Her arms tensed and her voice strained to control emotion. “Why, he’s away on business, silly. You know that.”

  “No, he’s not! I saw him last night in his office. You were there!” Henry was surprised at the anger he projected.

  Before she could answer, Brianna bounded into the room. “Hi, Henry! Hi, Mommy!” She ran into their mother with a tackling hug.

  “Brianna, where’s Dad?” Henry demanded.

  “How should I know?” With a carefree bounce she started out of the kitchen.

  “Wait a minute!” he barked sharply, and blocked her path. “Mom, what’s going on?”

  “Let me go, Henry.” Brianna pouted.

  “Henry, what’s gotten into you? Leave your sister alone.” His mother stepped toward him, almost threatening, but Henry refused to move.

  “No. I saw Dad last night, and so did you. We were in his office! You yelled … ”

  His mother’s finger snapped up, stopping Henry midrant. She squatted next to Brianna. “Honey, why don’t you run outside and play. Mommy will be right there.”

  “Okay.” Brianna looked like a frightened kitten as she bolted out the back door.

  Henry turned on his mother, his frustration building. “I know you saw him because I was there with you!”

  “Watch your tone with me, young man,” she scolded. “And don’t go frightening your sister.”

  “But—”

  “No buts,” she interrupted. “Your father stopped home to get something he forgot. Now I suggest you forget you ever saw him. We don’t want to upset your sister.”

  “Mom, something’s not right,” Henry pleaded.

  His mother’s features softened. “You shouldn’t worry. For all intents and purposes, your father was not here last night.”

  There was something about the way she said it. As if there was a hidden or double meaning.

  And while he didn’t really understand, he knew she was telling him the honest truth.

  Henry stood outside his father’s office, a nervous hand hovering over the doorknob. He cracked the door open. Despite what his mother had said, he would not have been surprised to see his father sitting behind the desk. He inched it open wider, Spidey-Sense on full alert.

  Not only was the office empty, but it looked as if it hadn’t been occupied in weeks. The window was closed, the desk was clear of papers, the chairs were in their usual spots. And yet …

  He reached down to pick up a feather from the floor.

  Henry had a new hideaway—a secluded, makeshift cave behind the garage that he made from a well-used picnic table, a stained painter’s drop cloth, and a variety of scrap wood and logs that were drying out to be used in the fireplace. The cave was easier to get to than the loft, and he’d
designed it to look like a scrap heap of random materials so as not to draw attention to it. The average eight-year-old girl would never suspect it was anything more than a pile of discarded remnants from household projects.

  He brought the feather from the office, along with his very best Audubon spotter’s guide. The detail in the book did not identify individual feathers, but he thought he might possibly get close by matching the colors of birds with those of the feather. Black and gray, maybe a little yellow?

  He slammed the book shut in a huff. It seemed that almost every bird had black and gray feathers. And besides, what good would it do to identify a feather? How would that help solve the mystery of his father’s sudden appearance, and even more sudden disappearance?

  He was reminded of the feather from the falcon. He scurried into the garage and up the pole to the loft, where he took the feather from the armoire. Back in his cave, he studied the feather carefully. Having seen the bird up close, he had more to go on, and he found what he was looking for in the section about falcons. Mostly because of the unique tail feathers and coloring, he identified it as an aplomado falcon. The pictures that featured its beautiful light-orange belly and head were stunning, but he appreciated them even more for having seen one in the flesh (or was that feather?).

  Could the two feathers be from the same bird?

  Neither of them was very long—so not from the wing or tail. While the colors were similar, the markings were definitely different. But how different? Placing a small rock over each of them to keep them from blowing away, he zipped up the pole again, retrieving a magnifying glass. It was a gift from his father—large, heavy, and powerful—that had been given to him on his seventh birthday.

  He tied back a section of the drop cloth, creating a tent flap to allow in more light. The feather from the office definitely contained a slight shade of yellow. Other than that, there was nothing different about it magnified than he had observed before.

  The falcon feather, however, was so unusual he got chills. Each tiny filament bristled with life. They moved in a harmonious wave, as if this single feather were capable of flight all on its own! The movement was not visible to the naked eye, but when the feather was magnified, the effect was remarkable.

  In his excitement, he bumped the other feather, nudging it closer to the falcon’s. The reaction was that of a stray cat meeting a mean dog. Tiny pinpricks of light danced along the outer edges of the falcon feather as it recoiled in an effort to push away from the other feather. Henry tried a small test. The closer he brought them together, the more severe the reaction—like two positive magnetic fields repelling each other with invisible force.

  “It has to be magic!” Henry whispered in awe.

  “What’s magic?” Henry flinched as Brianna managed to sneak up on him yet again.

  “Brianna,” he warned. “Stay out of here. I want to be alone, okay?”

  She ducked beneath the flap and stepped inside. “What’s magic?” she repeated.

  He was about to yell at her to get lost when he noticed something peculiar about her. She had not made a move toward him. Instead, she stood to the side—stiff and straight, and … confused? This wasn’t the typical meddling, interfering, annoying little-sister behavior. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  She thought about that briefly and shrugged.

  He decided he would need to pay closer attention to his sister. In the meantime, he offered to show her the feathers, but without the magnifying glass. Just because he was being nice didn’t mean he trusted her.

  It turned out she didn’t need it.

  “That one’s from the pretty bird,” she stated, pointing to the falcon’s feather.

  How could she know that? “What about this one?” he blurted out before he could stop himself.

  “That one is bad.” Her face puckered as if she got a whiff of curdled milk.

  Henry nodded. He had a hunch she was right. “Brianna, if I show you my bird book, can you tell me which bird the bad one came from?”

  It was like he pushed a magic button. Her face lit up with a smile and her eyes sparkled with the surprise of a long-awaited birthday present. The transformation caught Henry off guard. “Um … wait a minute … ”

  But it was too late. She scooted next to him and flipped through pages, pausing occasionally with comments like “Oh! Look at how blue this one is!” and “Henry, look! It’s a pirate bird!” and “Can I buy one of these at the pet store?” This clearly wasn’t going the way he’d expected. He must have been crazy to think she could help.

  “OH!” She stopped abruptly, her trembling finger pointing to a page. “This one scares me.”

  She was pointing to a vulture.

  Henry took the book from her and laid the bad feather on the page. The colors matched well and the shape was right. “That’s the one, Henry. That’s the bad bird.” Her sparkle had gone, replaced by concern. “You should throw it away, Henry,” she told him in a way that wasn’t so much a suggestion as it was a command.

  “I’m not throwing it away.” It was a clue to the mystery surrounding his father’s odd behavior.

  “You have to.” She stood, her hands clenched at her sides. “You have to throw it away, Henry.” Her voice rose and her back stiffened. “Throw it away or I’m telling Mom!”

  “Calm down,” Henry pleaded as he recalled his mother’s words: Don’t upset your sister. “Here, look. I’m putting it away.” He tucked the feather into the book at the vulture page. “I’ll throw it away later, okay?”

  Brianna’s eyes opened wide. Her body trembled. “You’re lying!” she shouted. “You don’t understand!”

  Henry reached for her to calm her down, but she quickly sidestepped his grasp, then angrily flung the tent flap closed as she ran away yelling, “Mommy!”

  He flopped back down, panicky and confused. What was it about that feather that had set her off like a firecracker? He reflexively reached for his wand with one hand while pounding his forehead with the other. The wand grew noticeably warmer as Henry’s grip tightened around it and he became more agitated. Brianna’s voice carried as far as the entrance flap, the cloth barrier acting as a muffler, changing her words into garbled noise. What was she telling Mom?

  The air inside the cave became a slurry, thickened with heat. He tensed up and gripped the wand even tighter. Had he not been so concerned about getting caught, he would have noticed the clear veins of the wand beginning to glow.

  Voices approached the cave entrance. A small wisp of smoke curled off the tip of his wand, adding a tinge of sulfur like a snuffed-out match. When Brianna’s small hand appeared and grabbed the entrance flap, he snapped. His impulse to lash out radiated through his body, ran down his arm, and flared into the wand.

  A blast of heat, a spark of light, and a surge of power hit simultaneously. With a reflex born of panic, he rammed the wand into the soft sandy soil just as Brianna opened the flap. With an audible POP, a pair of moles sprang from the ground, flew a foot in the air, and landed in an unconscious heap of fur.

  Even if he hadn’t been stunned with awe, he wouldn’t have been able to move quick enough to hide the moles.

  Brianna yanked back the flap, flooding the cave with sunlight. It was like opening an oven door. Heat vapor formed a gust of wind that blew out of the opening. Brianna and their mother recoiled, shielding their faces with their arms for protection, and the cave was again plunged into darkness.

  “Henry!” His mother’s scream was a lethal combination of fear for her son’s safety and anger that he was apparently playing with fire.

  Startled back into action, Henry quickly reached for the moles, still unsure of what had happened. But just as he was about to touch them, they twitched back to life.

  Again the flap opened, blinding Henry and the light-averse rodents, who staggered backward until they accidentally fell into their own hole.

  If Henry thought the sunlight was bright, it paled in comparison to the anger that flashed from his mot
her’s eyes. “Henry Leach the Eighth, what are you doing in here?”

  He rubbed his head, searching for something intelligent to say. He looked at Brianna, who was staring slack-jawed at the hole. “I … um … was … ”

  But Brianna recovered faster.

  “Tell Henry he has to share his bird book with me,” she whined.

  What? Wait … she wasn’t ratting him out about the feather. Whether she meant to or not, she had given him an escape route. He reluctantly handed her the book.

  “All you had to do was ask,” he said sweetly. He turned to his mother for approval. Her face was scrunched into the strangest expression. She sniffed the air as if trying to identify an odor. She stopped abruptly. Her eyes glazed over and her face froze with an icy glare. She studied Henry as if seeing him for the first time.

  “Everything is moving too fast. Please be careful, Henry,” she said softly. “And always keep your sister by your side.” And she walked away.

  He continued to watch as she walked toward the house, as confused as he’d ever been in his life. Her shoulders were slumped forward and she slowly wrapped her arms across her chest as if warding off a sudden chill despite the summer heat. The screen door squeaked, and she was gone.

  “Henry.” He jumped. The happy Brianna from seconds ago was now possessed by her evil twin. “I’m flushing it down the toilet.” She stomped out of the cave, composed herself, switched back to the happy twin, and skipped merrily away.

  “This family just got a whole lot weirder,” Henry said to himself. He reached tentatively for the wand and yanked it out of the ground.

  A slight shiver ran down his back when he put the wand into his pocket. He shook it off with a shrug. Then he unpinned the flap, closed off the cave, and followed the path to the house.

  In the darkness, the hole in the ground silently sealed shut.

  The sign stared back at Henry through the library window. He had arrived on his bicycle just as Mrs. Verrity was taping it to the front door. “Just a minute, Henry,” she said, her voice muffled by the glass. “Is it straight?”