The Last Wizard

by Jane M. R.

  I walk the short distance to the train station and hire a coach to take me home.

  As the coach bumbles along, my gaze fixes on the mountain I came out of this morning. My heart aches and I can’t place why; a misplaced feeling to have right now because I’m certain every detail of my “trip to Bristol” is written on my face.

  The coach parks in front of my house and the driver opens my door. “Miss Frondaren.”

  I exit, careful to turn my back so the driver will not see the poor tying job. I’m already having enough trouble figuring out a convincing story to feed Varseena who will inevitably tell my mother. I hope Varseena will think my excessive sweating is from the heat.

  I consider sneaking into my room to avoid questions from my mother about why my dress isn’t tied correctly, but then it would be just as suspicious to sneak into my room prior to gushing about my trip to Bristol.

  “Mother! I’m home!”

  “Brinella?” My mother emerges out of the drawing room, and with a girlish sequel she picks up her skirt and runs toward me, throwing me in an embrace.

  Don’t touch the knots!

  “You smell different,” she says.

  Fear flares through me. The rosemary soap. “Oh. I don’t know how.”

  I’m saved when she disconnects and changes topics. “How was it?”

  Well... I spent a day crawling over a dangerous dam of trees and mud where I discovered a castle and a boy who says he’s a wizard and… “I saw some new things.”

  My mother’s body language is anxious for details so I don’t know how she is able to say, “You’ll have to tell us all about it at dinner,” because it’s so very like her to demand every detail no matter the inconvenience on other people. “Go get washed now. I’m sure the ride back was dreadful.”

  Maybe she can smell the sweat from my travels and my splashing myself in the river briefly. I go to my room… And stand there wondering furiously how to act insolent about my horribly tied dress. Varseena is going to notice. My heart throbs in my throat as I think the worst. Having only a moment to decide, I undress myself – yes, the knot was that bad – and I’m sitting on the vanity occupying my shaking fingers by dipping the towel in the basin of water scented with rose to clean up when Varseena comes in.

  “Brinella! How did you get out of your dress?”

  I clear my throat to smooth down my shaking. “The macramist that tied it in Bristol did a shoddy job. I didn’t realize it until I got in my room. And so I –”

  Varseena screeches and I cover my ears.

  “You mean to say...” Varseena is visibly shaking. My skin prickles with the intensity building in the room, “that you rode all the way home... untied?”

  The portcullis to my castle slams shut. I take in a breath to shout that I’m not a whore, that the first step to keeping my virginity is wanting to keep it and no dress will stop me if I chose to lose it. But all of this clots in my throat. I end up staring at Varseena with the same acrimony she has upon me, instead.

  “Like I said,” I say after a measured minute, the words I really want to say battering at the edge of my caution. “The macramist did a shoddy job –”

  “Did you have the same macramist the entire time?” Varseena looks like she might throw up. The aging women is actually pale. It is then that I understand, and a hot flash of fire erupts across my shoulders in a prickling wave that tingles my fingers.

  “Varseena…” I should be bloody awarded for maintaining my calm. “I am still a virgin.” It makes my stomach curdle just saying it, as if I have to defend myself against false accusations.

  Varseena sits on the chair by the door, fanning herself with her hand. “I should… I should tell your mother.”

  “No, you don’t. I had a really good macramist the whole time. Today there was a different one. I didn’t even know she did a poor job until I felt it loosen as I came into my room. It’s not a big deal.”

  Still fanning herself, Varseena leaves.

  My arms are tingling because I’m breathing so heavy. I don’t move the whole time it takes my mother – fifteen seconds – and Varseena to barge into my room like a raiding party. My mother is crying.

  “Varseena told me,” Janella begins, splashing me with wet words and a miasma of patchouli which somehow heightens my anger.

  “I AM STILL A DAMN BLOODY VIRGIN!” I scream the words. Damn? Damn bloody? But since I can’t rein the words back in, I continue to ride triumphantly forward. “A damn dress does not keep me chaste. If I wanted to lose my virginity, I would cut this hellacious thing off me and hit up every boy and man I could lay my eyes on!”

  “Brinella!”

  “I am not a whore! But all of these accusations make me want to be one! But you know what? If you are just so convinced that your daughter has lost her virginity on a whim, then go ahead and believe it. Tell Jaicom what you think and it will get me out of a marriage I don’t want and I’ll move far away to a place where there aren’t any rules!”

  Janella is sobbing but I am so far beyond caring. I’m still in my chemise. So I put on the first pair of shoes I lay eyes on and leave the room. Walk down the hallway. And outside.

  I fold my arms tightly against me as I turn left at the road which will take me to The Boulder and the doorway to freedom. I’m done with this society. I’m done being a show horse for marriage to a man my parents want me to marry. I’m done with rules. I am…done.

  I’m just about to cut into the trees and up the game trail leading to The Boulder to knock ten times on the mountain when hooves pound up the road behind me. I recognize the white stallion my father rides to work and on instinct I want to run into the trees. But I stop and wait. I have respect for my father, at least.

  He stops the horse next to me and dismounts. Concern pulls his black eyebrows together. “Sweety? Are you okay?”

  I want to cry with anger and frustration, but I suck it all back in hard enough to make me cough. “That depends on if you believe mother’s story or mine.”

  My father exhales slowly, holding his hand to his forehead and looking up at the sky. “Where were you going?”

  “To a place where there are no rules.”

  He presses his lips together and finally looks at me, and I see in his eyes that he knows I’m on the brink of running if just the right trigger is pulled.

  “Well…” he says at long, “I won’t stop you. But I would like to know why you are leaving first and I will attempt to try to convince you to stay. After that, you decide. Agreed?”

  And that is why I love my father. I nod and sit on the grass on the side of the road. He ties the reins to a tree and sits next to me.

  “A place with no rules…” he says. “That does sound great. And there are places like that. People can do whatever they want without restriction. People don’t have to pay taxes. Don’t have to pay for anything, really. They can steal, and damage, and murder… in fact I think they call that Afghanistan.”

  “I get it.”

  He nods. “Let’s hear your story.”

  And I tell him. But it isn’t even about the trip to Bristol I didn’t take. It it about society’s understanding of an untied woman. I tell him how cramped I am with all these rules and just want to be free. I don’t bring up Jaicom to my father like I did my mother. That part feels wrong now that I’ve had time to think about it. And the more I try to convince my father that I’m leaving, the more I’m failing to convince myself.

  “So what would you like to do?” He pushes his hat off his forehead. “Living a life free of society’s obligations does sound intriguing. But how will you make a living for yourself? Do you want to get married? Have children? These are honest questions you should answer before you devote yourself to a decision made on a whim of anger.”

  I curl my knees into my body and bury my head. His clothes rustle as he moves to his feet. “I’m going back to the house, now. I’ll give you a ride, if you want. Dinner is in an hour. Should we make food for you, too?”<
br />
  Do you want to get married? Have children? If I don’t marry, I’ll likely end up a thief like Joseara. Or a child-thieving gypsy like Jesaro. Because society won’t let me provide for myself.

  My body decides for me and I’m standing, accepting my father’s hand to seat me on his horse and we ride home.

  “I don’t like the dress thing, either,” he confides. “However, if you ever fall in a lake, the dress will float.”

  The merest of smiles breaks through my lips.

  “And,” he continues, “you can hide a whole arsenal under there. I think if we ever went to war, the women would be recruited to carry everyone’s guns, unsuspecting to the enemy. They would never know what hit them.”

  I laugh, releasing the rest of the tension clutched inside of me.

  Varseena is tight lipped but silent while I wash myself at my basin. I hear her sniff.

  “Do I smell rosemary in your hair?”

  There is no right answer to this. So I ignore her and continue to mop at my body with water and rose oil.

  “Where did you get rosemary soap from? We don’t use rosemary. Right now you are rose. Did the macramist in Bristol not know this? Do they do things different there?”

  Sometimes I think I have two mothers. “I wanted to try it this morning. I like the smell. They offered a sample at the soap store we visited.”

  Varseena tsks and busy’s her hands with unpacking my bag.

  “Oh!” I look over at her. She is holding the white ivory brush from Zadicayn’s castle. My stomach pinches. “Did you get this in the city?”

  “Yes.” I fidget. “Do you like it?”

  “Oh, it’s… dirty in the creases of the carving. And… is that a pegasus?”

  Put it down. Go away. “I bought it at an… antique store. They had all sorts of trinkets. Like, replicas from the Middle Ages.” I’m sweating, almost negating my towel bath.

  I tense as Varseena rumples her brow at the oddity. Such animals are the subject of fantasy, something meant to stay as words on a page and only in the minds of children not seeking marriage. Such an animal was found in the very book filled with drawings of mythical creatures I have locked in my box.

  “It is beautiful,” she finally agrees, and I release my breath too loudly. She joins me at the vanity. “You have to bring back some trinkets from the city, after all.”

  Varseena drags the soft horse hair bristles down my brown hair, and my thoughts return to Zadicayn.

  I’m tied into my cumbersome evening gown – a sickly yellow which immediately reminds me of the first robe Zadicayn put on.

  Dinner ready, I take a deep breath to steady my performance and fortify my nerves against the lies I will tell, and go down.

  My father seats me. “How was your trip?”

  I smack on a smile. “I went to the cathedral just as you recommended.” I start to sweat because I can’t think of anything else to say. My father has been to Bristol before and he’s going to know if I slip. “It was… so beautiful. Very unlike the parish here.”

  He’s nodding his approval. I try to remember the time I went to Bristol with my parents when I was young and almost drowned in the Froom River, but it doesn’t help.

  “Did you see Grandpa and Grandma Frondaren?”

  “N – no.” I sigh regretfully. “But I saw Corden’s family. Since it was his trip, I didn’t want to bother him with seeing mine.”

  “I agree. Did you eat at Sodsbury?” my mother gushes, trying to pretend our earlier incident didn’t happen. “I get the spotted pudding there every time.”

  “I did!” I say, cutting into my lamb and garlic with unnecessary vigor. “It will be on my list of things to do next time we go back.”

  “We should go, love,” my mother says to my father. “An anniversary for us.”

  “I agree,” he says with a grin. And just as I’m hoping the topic is off me, he asks, “what else did you do?”

  And so I continue to be as vague as possible about the stores I didn’t visit, the people I didn’t met, of the food I never tasted and the places I never saw. I throw in much too many, “I walked along the river,” and I’m certain I repeat that I visited the cathedral. I just pray they never ask about my trip in the future because am bound not to remember what I said after dinner.

  “Madrin has some intrigue with death,” I make up on the spot. “She took me to the graveyard and pointed at a gravestone of a known onanist who died.”

  “Dreadful!” my mother declares. “The doctors are always right.”

  “We don’t need to hear about that, dear,” my father says in an even tone.

  Good. Maybe they will stop asking me questions. “Mother? Wilt thou pass over the marmalade?”

  My mother makes a small sound of amusement and looks directly at me. I haven’t stopped sweating. What did I say?

  “Wilt thou?” she inquires. Oh bloody hell. “For certain, my lady. Wouldst thee prefer the peach or the strawberry?”

  I force out a laugh as if I had meant it as a joke all along. Of course there is no way to guess I picked that up inadvertently from a boy I released out of a vault who was put in there during the Middle Ages. So I’m safe for now.

  “Strawberry.” And because I now have Zadicayn on my mind, “Madrin wants me to stay tomorrow night.”

  “Oh…” my mother begins, and instantly the air in the room crackles as the argument from earlier re-ignites. “Well, dear, they don’t have anyone to tie you into your dress.” She tries to say it casually, to soften the harshness of similar words earlier, and it might have worked except for she says next, “And I’m worried that Madrin has even lost her –”

  My father clears his throat and it is then I realize I’m tensing up my body to do… what? Fight? Flee? “That is not right to assume, dear.” He must realize how fragile the room is to breaking. “Plenty of girls don’t have macramists and it is wrong to say they are no longer chaste because their fathers can’t afford one.” He looks briefly at me in that unfounded way that we can communicate just by a glance. It is by him alone I remain in my seat.

  My mother spends a moment chewing daintily. Is she going to continue pushing it even after my father’s response? “It’s not always the girl’s fault when it happens to her,” she says carefully. “Sometime it’s the man’s.”

  “So Madrin’s father is going to get inside my dress?”

  “I –” my father starts.

  “So I must choose my friends according to their tied status?” My voice is shrilling now but I can’t stop it. “Because of their circumstances where they can’t afford a macramist they have to be marked and avoided? Why the hell do you think –”

  “Brinella! Don’t swear!”

  “You encourage me to have female friends and when I finally take the risk, they aren’t good enough for you.” I’m so angry that my vision is sparkling. Everything my father said earlier is dead, and the fact that I’m not even wanting to go visit Joseara isn’t the issue. “I’m glad to know what my mother thinks of me. She’s so desperate to think me a whore, that I guess I won’t disappoint her anymore. I do want to meet up to her expectations.”

  I leave the room. In my terrible shoes. In my hellacious dress. I walk out of the house for the second time that day, make my escape down the road. This time, no horse catches up to rescue me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  ZADICAYN

  Evening casts a lurid red spread across the sky. I’ve been watching it ever since I came back after seeing Brine off through the Fae Gate, leaning against the short wall of the bridge.

  I haven’t re-entered the castle yet. If I take one more step to my left, that will put me back in the very spot where Gandorlain Whaerin and Dendaryl Garfair grabbed the back of my shirt and hauled me backward after I made for my escape. So if I take that step, the castle will suck me in and drag me into the vault. Close the altar lid over me. Like it did on October thirtieth, fifteen eighteen.

  But I’m starving. I haven’t
eaten since my meal with Brine. Eating is such a weird thing to do anymore. It feels like my body should somehow figure out how to self-sustain itself. Maybe I’ll think up a spell on how to make it happen once I get my amulet back.

  Coming to terms with my unreasonable fears, I take that step to my left. Stuffing my hairy hands in my pockets, I walk back into the castle.

  I’m halfway down to the cellar to hack off some more meat for dinner when a sound echoing through my home startles me.

  “Zadicayn?”

  I pause. There is a sudden pinging in my heart. I must have imagined the voice. She wouldn’t return so soon, despite my prayers that she would never leave.

  “ZADICAYN!”

  I almost trip trying to turn around and run at the same time, collide with the edge of the door all the same.

  I burst into the Grand Hall, out of breath. “Brine!” Somehow looking at her pretty face reminds me how ugly my own is. I count this as a remarkable victory that I don’t maul her with an embrace. I’m more glade than ever that she can’t read my mind.

  Based off the pleasant body enhancing dress, her hair is not so neat, thought I get the impression it was at one point. She doesn’t look merry. I hope it’s not because of me.

  “To what pleasure dost I hath to see thee so promptly?”

  Her flare if indignation sooths immediately and I drink up her smile all too greedily. “Mayest I have dinner with thee?”

  I flare bright red in pleasure that she would tease with speaking like me, but I hide my change of color with, “I shall gather some venison and see ye in the kitchen.”

  I dash out too quickly. I could at least leave the room in a dignified manner! Not like a little boy excited to show his father something he made. I’ve at least stopped crying so much. But suppose I should count the small steps.

  I cut off a misshapen hunk of meat and race to the kitchen, stopping to compose myself before I enter, but how does one look dignified while holding a bloody heap of meat in his hands?