Wandmaker

by Ed Masessa

  “My trip was the painful equivalent of having four teeth extracted,” he grumbled. “Why people choose to travel like that is beyond comprehension. Crying babies, cramped seats. The only bright spot was that people had their heads buried in electronic gadgets—no mindless chitchat. But there are much better ways to travel. Surely this ‘emergency situation’ isn’t as dire as all that.”

  “We’ll see.” At the bottom of the staircase was another door. “I have a feelin’ yer gonna eat them words.”

  Coralis was about to contradict her—but when he saw the two figures on the other side of the door, he realized Molly had been right.

  “Pass the saltshaker,” he said.

  Though not as extravagant as Coralis’s Kunstkammer at the castle, Molly’s was nonetheless impressive. If one knew where to look, some of the rarest curiosities in the natural world were available from New York City merchants. It was obvious Molly knew where to look. The twenty-by-twenty room was a Wandmaker’s gold mine. Coralis had seen it all before, of course—except for the unusual bundle in the far corner.

  Molly adjusted the blanket that was wrapped around the two sleeping figures. A rodent-sized ball of blue fur uncurled from her slumber and yawned. She blinked rapidly, taking in the sight of not one but two adults gawking down at them—then bit her still-sleeping companion on the arm.

  “Ouch!” The boy rubbed his arm, then his eyes. “Oh!” He scrambled to sit up, suddenly aware that the Wand Master had arrived.

  “We have company,” said the hedgehog.

  “It can speak!” Coralis said as he leaned in for a closer look.

  “And bite,” Molly warned a second before the rodent nipped at him. “She’s not very happy, I’m afraid.”

  The boy sat huddled in silence, his back to the wall. “And what about him?” Coralis asked.

  “His name is Henry and he can hear you,” snapped the hedgehog. “Ask him yourself.”

  “Humpf! Do not test my patience, young lady,” warned Coralis.

  “Or what? You’ll turn me into a toad? You think that could be any worse than a spikeball?”

  “I didn’t mean it,” Henry said, barely audible. “It was an accident.”

  “An accident?” Coralis stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Must have been a very potent one to do this to a young girl.”

  “Someone was dumb enough to give Henry a real wand,” she said.

  Molly stifled a laugh. She seemed to enjoy the hedgehog’s cantankerous attitude. “There is something else you should probably see, Coralis.” She flipped the light switch, which should have shrouded the room in darkness. Instead, the young boy glowed like a twenty-watt bulb.

  “What on Earth?” Coralis leaned closer, and the brightness intensified. He immediately backed off. “Young man, who are you?”

  Henry opened his mouth as if to speak, but the words dried up in his throat. However, the hedgehog seemed to have no such trouble. And her words were as sharp as her teeth. “He’s Henry Leach, and I’m his sister, Brianna, and by the way—”

  “It can’t be … ” This time it was Coralis’s turn to go speechless.

  Brianna’s tiny nose wiggled in irritation at being interrupted. “Well, now that you know who we are, maybe you can tell us who you are,” she demanded.

  “He’s Coralis,” whispered Henry. “The Grand Wand Master.”

  “Coralis … huh … Hey, wait a minute!” exclaimed Brianna. “You’re the one who got us into this mess!”

  “Young lady, I don’t think—”

  “You’re telling me!” Her spiky fur bristled angrily. “The next time you go giving out magic potions, leave my ding-a-ling brother off your list. Some grand wizard you turned out to be.”

  “What?” Coralis exploded.

  “Uh-oh.” Henry yanked the blanket over his head.

  “How dare you call me a wizard, you … you … bilious blue blemish!”

  “Hey! Now you wait a minute!” She waddled up to him and slapped at his boot. “I don’t know what ‘bilious’ means, but I know what a ‘blemish’ is and I-have-never-had-a-zit-in-my-life!” She poked his foot with her paw for emphasis at each word.

  Molly snorted loudly as she tried to contain herself, but then burst out laughing. “Oh, this is precious.” She leaned her back to the wall, laughing till she was short of breath. “The great Coralis—scolded by a hedgehog.”

  With no warning, Coralis bent down and scooped up Brianna. She squirmed in his grip and was about to clamp down on a finger when she saw the deadly scowl on his face and thought better of it. “That’s the first wise decision you’ve made since I met you,” he grumbled. “And you!” he addressed Molly. “Get rid of the buffoon upstairs so we can discuss this matter in comfort … please.”

  When Coralis removed the time-freeze, the patron’s stew promptly spilled in his lap, courtesy of Coralis’s earlier prank with the spoon. Molly was still mopping up the mess when Coralis emerged from the basement, followed by the trembling form of Henry holding his sister.

  “Mmmm. That smells delish!” Brianna’s whiskers twitched happily.

  Coralis growled and led them to a booth.

  “If it’s any consolation,” said Molly, “the boy appears to be a vegetarian.”

  “Humpf,” he grumbled, but appeared pleased by the information, and Henry suspected that Coralis himself was a vegetarian. “Drink this.” He handed a glass of yellow liquid to Henry. “It will help calm your nerves.”

  Henry quickly ran through a list of yellow fluids in his head, trying to determine whether he should obey. Was this a test of some kind that would establish him as an apprentice?

  “Drink it!” Coralis bellowed.

  Henry jumped, then quickly swallowed it in four gulps. The mixture was surprisingly tasty. He licked his lips. The accident had done for Henry’s senses what it did for Brianna’s mouth. All five were elevated. “Lavender, I believe, with a twist of peppermint leaf. Safflower would give it the color.” He glanced nervously at Coralis, hoping he hadn’t messed up.

  A cagey smile crossed the Wand Master’s lips. Henry relaxed.

  “Let me see your wand.” A light sparkled in Coralis’s eyes.

  Henry sensed another test. He reached into a hidden pocket on the inside of his jacket where he kept his wand. The second he touched it, he began to glow even brighter. Henry winced—not from any pain, but because he didn’t know how Coralis would react to seeing how badly he had failed. He quickly put the wand back in his pocket. “I’m afraid I’m not getting along with it too well these days.” He lowered his head.

  “Yes,” said Coralis thoughtfully. “We shall need to tend to that first, won’t we. Why don’t you tell me what happened.” He looked at his watch. “I believe we have time. Start with the day Randall delivered the wand.”

  “Randall?” Henry asked.

  “The falcon,” Coralis clarified.

  “Pretty smart bird,” said Brianna, making Henry smile.

  “Not as smart as he thinks,” said Coralis.

  Molly served a round of herbal tea, Brianna’s in a bowl.

  Henry started his tale several times, each time realizing he had left something important out and starting over. Eventually, he covered all the events from the time his father left to the time his mother left. Toward the end, his voice wavered as the reality of his situation hit home. He and Brianna had been abandoned.

  “And how did you end up here?” asked Coralis. “It’s not exactly a landmark establishment.”

  “Excuse me?” Molly scowled. “It’s a fine refuge for the wayward traveler. But I can see I’m not appreciated. Remind me to change the locks on the door.”

  Brianna giggled. Molly winked at her.

  “After the accident”—Henry looked warily at his sister—“we waited till morning for Mom to return. When she didn’t show, I searched her studio. And that’s when we found the note—plus five hundred dollars. It told us exactly what to do to get here. That was a few days ago. Molly has be
en really nice. She even took us to the Museum of Natural History!” Henry’s spirits temporarily lifted as he recalled the great exhibits—especially the one called Dragons: Separating Fact from Fiction. By the end of the tour he was certain they must still exist in some remote corner of the world.

  “What of the boy’s mother?” Coralis asked Molly. “Did she send word to you that the children were en route? Or did she push them from the nest, hoping they could fly on their own?”

  “Aye, she called.”

  “Mom’s instructions were very clear,” Henry bristled, determined to defend her. “She liked using buses and showed us how to use them when we were little kids … um … littler kids.” He handed a crumpled piece of paper to Coralis. “Bus routes, times, getting on behind an adult so the driver wouldn’t think we were traveling alone. Where to go and how to act in the city.” He pointed to the last line. Always act like you know what you’re doing and no one will question you.

  “Who knew Henry was such a good actor?” Brianna gave him a good-natured nip.

  “It’s all right, Henry. Your mum did what she had to do.” Molly then addressed Coralis. “Do you know her family?”

  “I know of it,” he said.

  “Well, believe me, she would have done this only as a last resort. Her words were cryptic, and it was obvious something had frightened her.” Molly stopped to choose her next words carefully. “There was another presence—her word, not mine. She feared for the children’s safety, so she sent them here and hoped to lead it away from them.”

  Coralis cupped his chin in his hand, deep in thought. The silence droned on. No one wanted to be the first to break it. Even Brianna kept her sassy comments to herself. “This is serious, but I urge you two not to worry about your mother. She has a fine lineage and I’m sure was properly trained to deal with adversity. But as for you … I must say, young man, usually it takes years of apprenticeship to make a mistake of this magnitude. That you were able to accomplish it on your first try says quite a deal about your abilities. Even though you got it all wrong.”

  “It was an accident!” pleaded Henry. “Nothing should have happened!”

  “Then why am I stuck like this, Henry? Undo it, please!” Brianna sobbed a marathon of squeaks and squeals.

  Molly cradled her. “There, there, little lass. Coralis will see to it now.”

  “I’ll see to nothing if I can’t get to the bottom of it!” he boomed. “Henry, stay on course. What else did you bring with you?”

  “Nothing. The books are too big and heavy. I might have carried one, but not all of them. And … ” He wasn’t sure how to continue.

  “Keep going, Henry,” Molly urged.

  “And I was afraid to touch the gold stone. The way it glowed, I thought for sure it would burn me.”

  A sudden realization struck Coralis. The ashen look on his face said it all. “Oh my.” He slumped in his seat.

  “Coralis.” Molly rushed to his side. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Henry, did this nugget of gold pulse? Did it seem to drink the light the way you might drink a glass of water?”

  Henry recalled the event all too vividly. “Yes. That’s exactly how it looked.”

  Coralis’s eyes, fraught with worry and concern, roamed across the dark ceiling. When he finally spoke, it was with the weight of time pressing down on him. “In 1906, a terrible earthquake shook and nearly destroyed the city of San Francisco. The cause of that earthquake was not what you believe. Yes, tectonic plates shifted. But the reason they shifted was due to a great battle that was fought between a brave conclave of Wandbearers led by Henry and Brianna’s great-great-grandfather and an evil Wand Master named Dai She.”

  “The evil snake.” Molly shivered. “I know of the legend.”

  “A legend based in fact.” Coralis nodded. “Dai She’s incredible power should have sent the entire city plummeting into the water, but your great-great-grandfather got lucky. The city was home to a federal mint that housed some of the purest gold on Earth. When the conclave managed to repel Dai She’s energy, the gold attracted that energy.

  “A large mound of it sucked in every remaining wave of bad energy and trapped it. And as the gold tightened its grip, it shrank to the size of a nugget. For years I tried to talk Henry into giving it to me, but he refused. He felt responsible for the devastation and wanted to keep the gold to remind him of his failure. And now, after all these years, it has fallen into the hands of this young man.”

  “But … but … ” Henry furiously rubbed his head. “I don’t have it! I mean, I left it home! I didn’t know what it was. I was scared … ”

  “Calm down, Henry.” Coralis reached to pat his arm. “We need to go to your house anyway to retrieve the books. The nugget is not going anywhere.”

  “Sir.” Molly’s voice trembled slightly. She gently lowered Brainna to the table. “The first time … the gold trapped negative energy. Is it safe to assume that it would only attract more negative energy?”

  “Yes, my dear Molly,” he said. “And therein lies a rather big problem.”

  Henry could hardly stand it any longer. He had made so many mistakes. He suddenly wished he had never laid eyes on the Guidebook. “What did I do?” he moaned.

  “Well, my dear boy, if I am correct, I believe you have succeeded in capturing moonbeams in your aura. And not the pleasant variety, either.”

  “That sounds bad.” Henry slumped forward and buried his head into his arms.

  “Relax, Henry.” Coralis stood and smiled at him. “Our adventure is just beginning.”

  But he kept a final thought to himself: The worst may be yet to come.

  The rain had slackened, but the wind still whipped in crazy circles. Henry thought it was remarkable how it seemed to come from every direction at once.

  Brianna, however, did not appreciate the elements in quite the same way. “I told you to buy a poncho yesterday—but no, don’t bother listening to me. I’m an animal now, Henry. I can sense things like rain coming … ” She continued to chitter away, concealed within Henry’s jacket. At first he worried that anyone who overheard would assume that Henry was talking to himself. From his research about the moon, he knew such people were called lunatics—crazies! Of course, that was before advancements in technology. Now passersby would more likely assume that he had a cell phone or an iPod making noise in his pocket. These days, it was impossible to tell the nuts from the normals.

  Henry tightened his hold on his sister to give her as much shelter as possible. He tried to make it a habit to learn something new every day. On this day, he’d learned something about fabric—specifically the difference between water-resistant and waterproof. An involuntary shiver passed from his damp neck to his shoulders to his chest.

  Brianna felt it. “Don’t you go getting sick, Henry!” After a few precious seconds of silence she mumbled, “Oh man. I sound just like Mom. I’ll shut up now.”

  Coralis walked ahead of them, moving with speed and urgency. Molly, who’d closed up shop for the day, caught up to Henry and huddled a motherly arm around his shoulder. “We’re almost there. But pull your hood closer to your face. You’re glowing like a firefly.”

  They approached a door marked 41½. It was in the center of a row of buildings that had obviously not seen repairs since the day they were built. Several vagrants gathered in a tight group around the rusted gate that barred the entrance. They turned to say something to Coralis but thought better of it and hastily retreated down the block.

  A slight smile pinched at Henry’s lips. He had only just met the Wand Master, but already he could imagine what Coralis might have said, or the look he might have given, to make them leave so quickly.

  The gate opened easily despite the rust, and Coralis led them down a short flight of stairs to a formidable door covered in graffiti. A sudden gust of wind doused them with another bucket of rain. “Bahtzen bizzle! Confounded elements!”

  Brianna giggled, which prompted a glower from
Coralis before he set to work, deactivating a locking mechanism similar to that at the tavern. They all stepped into a pitch-black foyer. “Remove your jacket, young man. It seems your condition will be useful after all.”

  Henry did as he was told, but also thought to retrieve his wand, increasing his skin wattage.

  “Ah! Now you’re thinking!” Coralis said lightheartedly.

  Henry grinned at the compliment.

  They proceeded down a long hallway, where they came upon yet another door. “There are sure enough locked doors around here,” Brianna said, voicing exactly what Henry was thinking. “Hope there’s a treasure chest waiting for us.”

  “Yes, and it contains a muzzle for small animals,” snapped Coralis.

  Brianna fluffed her bristles, which poked through Henry’s shirt.

  “Ouch! Easy, Brianna.”

  “Sorry. He’s such a grump.”

  Henry listened carefully to the verbal code that unlocked the door. It appeared to be the same for each door, and he thought that if he heard it again he might be able to commit it to memory. But there were no more doors, only stairs—again. Henry began to wonder if the entire world of Wandmakers was underground.

  Brianna poked her nose out. “Where are we? It smells like … something rotten.”

  Henry had started to pick up the odor as well—mold, mildew, decay.

  “Mind your manners, young lady,” Coralis scolded. “Have some respect for the dead.”

  “We are in a cemetery,” Molly explained before Coralis could say more.

  “Wait a minute!” Henry stopped at the foot of the stairs. His voice echoed back from several directions. “You mean we’re underground in a cemetery? Like where the bodies are buried?”

  “It’s not like that,” she said. “This is the New York Marble Cemetery. All the people here are interred in underground vaults made of solid white Tuckahoe marble.”

  “Wow,” Brianna said, “even the cemeteries in New York are strange.”