by Geof Johnson
“Here is how I see it,” the old man said after a glance at Jamie. “You have several things working in your favor, at least for the time being. I don’t think that those cheap suits or any other agents are looking for sorcerers right now. They are obsessed with terrorists, both the foreign ones and the homegrown kind. Also, human nature is on your side. No one likes to look like a fool, especially bureaucrats. Anyone who picked up information that suggested you were a powerful wizard would probably be a low-level agent, and he or she would pass it up to a superior. That higher-level person would be dubious about the validity of your magic, and reluctant to pursue it for fear of looking like an idiot, because most people don’t believe that magic is real.”
“How do you know stuff like that?”
“I watch TV sometimes. I like documentaries and spy movies.”
“Well, some people believe in magic. I mean, besides our families and friends.”
“Yes, but the believers are usually thought of as dreamers and weirdos, which is fortunate for you.” He nodded. “You have another thing in your favor. You have already established yourself as an amateur magician. There must be a million of those, or more. It’s expected of you to speak of magic occasionally.”
“But Fred and Nova can’t use that excuse. There’s no such thing as an amateur witch.”
“True, but there are many women who openly call themselves witches, though I doubt many of them really are.”
“They aren’t. Fred told me so. Momma Sue would know, because she keeps tabs on real witches.”
“And this fellow, Mr. Cage, is using real witches to help him?”
“Momma Sue and Mrs. Malley think so. Three of them bonded in a triad, which is worse. Momma Sue and Mrs. Malley insist that we try to capture those witches and bring them back alive.”
“I would not want to be one of those women, if they have to face Momma Sue’s wrath.”
“Or Mrs. Malley’s. She seems like such a sweet old lady, but when it comes to some things, she’s just as hard-nosed as Momma Sue,” Jamie said. “Sammi’s a different story, though. She’s having a hard time believing those Romanian witches are bad.”
“That’s because she has a big heart, perhaps the biggest of all.” Uncle Charlie got up slowly from his chair, grabbed a log from a pile nearby, and dropped it onto the fire. Sparks leaped skyward like tiny shooting stars escaping to the heavens, and he sat back down and folded his hands together across his waist. “I think those two CIA agents are working in your favor, also.” The wrinkled corners of his mouth pulled up and his eyes flashed with their own sparks. “I like them. I met them at the bonfire last month and I think they have good hearts, too.”
“How can you know that from just one little chat, especially with Eric? He’s pretty stiff.”
“I can tell about people sometimes.” He nodded again, slowly. “And for you, it helps having someone on the inside of the government who is a friend, and I believe those two agents are. I also like your track teammates. I met them at the bonfire, too, and they are all good folk.” He turned in his chair and faced Jamie. “You have a knack for attracting good people. You need to take advantage of that. Let them help you.”
“But what about the doorways? Somebody might see me making one someday, or figure out that something strange is going on, like when half the track team vanishes from campus every afternoon. You don’t think I’m putting everybody at risk by continuing to do that?”
“Perhaps.” He shrugged. “But you have to make the doorways and do your magic to accomplish the things that you want to do. I don’t see you catching Phillip Cage otherwise, or maintaining the Rivershire School, or making the world a better place.”
“Is that what I’m doing? Making the world a better place? Seems like I’m just making a mess of everything.”
Uncle Charlie only smiled enigmatically toward his daughter’s back porch, as if he were sharing an inside joke with the flowerpots.
He enjoys being cryptic. I bet he drives Annie crazy. “All right. But what about making doorways for the little, frivolous things, like taking the track team to Rivershire to train?”
“Do you think that’s frivolous?”
“It’s not necessary, that’s for sure.”
“Maybe not, but who can say what’s necessary? I think it’s a good thing. You have enlarged your group of loyal friends by doing that, so I wouldn’t stop just yet, if I were you. Not until you feel like you absolutely have to, and your CIA friends will tell you when it comes to that.”
“Well….” Jamie rubbed his jaw with one hand and gazed at the fire again. “It would help if I didn’t have to make a doorway every single time I needed to talk to somebody about the more sensitive stuff. A phone call or a text would be so much easier, but it’s too risky.”
“Maybe you will find a way around that. Talk to your friends and see if they have any suggestions.”
“I don’t see how they could.”
“Don’t underestimate them. You have talented and smart friends. Not just Melanie, but all of them. I think the people who have gravitated toward you have done so for a reason.”
“What, fate?”
“Yes.” He chuckled and the wrinkles around his eyes deepened like folds on an unmade bed. “What does Rollie call it? The Big Cosmic Whatever?”
“That’s one of the names.”
“I like that boy. He’s funny. I like Nova, too. They are a fine match. They will have lovely children.”
“Children? They’ve only been dating for six months.”
“You don’t think they will get married?”
“Uh…I don’t know. I don’t think about that stuff.”
“Really? With a girlfriend as beautiful as Fred? Don’t tell me you’ve never considered marrying her.”
“Um…kinda. A little. What does this have to do with my concerns about the NSA and everything?”
He turned to face Jamie again and said, “Ten years from now, this business with government agencies will be in the past, nearly forgotten, but what about Fred? Will you forget her?”
“No! Of course not. I mean…there’s no way.”
“Good.” Uncle Charlie pulled his knife out of his pocket and flipped it open. “Just making sure that you know what’s really important.” He picked up his stick again and carved a leisurely slice from it.
Chapter 18
Jamie met Fred in front of the Forsyth Building on Monday afternoon. She kissed him quickly and then glanced at the students walking around them before lowering her voice and saying, “I just got a call from Sammi, from your mom’s phone. She said they tried to call you but you didn’t answer.”
“I turned mine off before my last class and forgot to turn it back on. What did she say?”
“She heard something. You know…heard?”
“Yeah, I get it.”
“We need to talk to her right now. She said it’s important. She heard it this morning and had to wait until school was out before she could call us.”
“We have to go now? I’ve got track practice.”
“We can hurry.” Then she put her mouth next to his ear and whispered. “Make a doorway.”
“If we can find a safe place to do it. Where is she?”
“She’s with your mom at your house. My parents aren’t home yet.”
Sammi’s face lit up when she saw Jamie and Fred step through the doorway into his family room in Hendersonville. She was sitting on the couch with a book in her lap, and she called, “They’re here! Mrs. Sikes, Jamie and Fred are here already.” Then she jumped up and rushed to Fred and threw her arms around her.
Jamie heard footsteps coming down the stairs, and then Rachel hurried in from the hall. “Oh, you surprised me,” she said. “I was just changing out of my work clothes. Sammi told me something on the way home from school and I thought you would want to know about it.”
“It was Mr. Cage.” Sammi bobbed her head. “He was talking on the phone again, I think, and he was real
mad.”
“Well,” Jamie said, “what did he say?”
Sammi’s brow drew down sharply. “He said a lot of bad words, so I’ll skip those, but he’s mad because his new helicopter won’t be ready until Thursday. That’s sorta what he said.”
“I guess it’s no surprise that he’s getting another helicopter. He doesn’t need to repair his runway to fly one.”
“Is it still a mess?” Rachel asked.
“That’s what Eric said. It’s still too cold to pour concrete properly.”
“But so what?” Fred said. “How is that important news?”
Jamie massaged his temple with one hand while he considered what it might mean, and then it came to him. “This might be helpful to Eric and Terry. They can tell their boss that Madame Marie predicted Cage would get the helicopter, and if it really happens on Thursday, they might get to stay in Cullowhee longer.”
“What? Who is Madame Marie?” Rachel asked.
“She’s that friend of Nova’s mother who claims she’s a witch. She lives in Sylva, and Eric and Terry have been using her as an excuse to stay in Cullowhee, because it’s close by. But their boss is threatening to pull them out of there because they weren’t getting any new intel from her.”
“Intel?”
“Remember? They were supposed to find a real witch and that’s why they came around here, looking for Fred because they wanted to talk to Rita and Cassandra, but they didn’t know that Fred was—”
Rachel waved a quick hand. “Okay, I remember. This spy stuff is too complicated, if you ask me.”
Jamie stroked his jaw and stared at the floor for a moment. “This news about the helicopter might be just the ticket to keep Eric and Terry close by, but it’s kinda odd, in way. I was just telling Uncle Charlie about it yesterday, and he said he thought something would happen and they would get to stay.”
“That was lucky, wasn’t it?” Rachel said.
“Makes me wonder.”
“Jamie,” Fred said, “we need to tell Eric and Terry as soon as possible. Today, if we can.”
He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got track practice in twenty minutes. I gotta go back to campus and make a doorway for the team.”
“You’re training in Rivershire again?”
“I promised them we would, but I need to hurry. We’ll have to go to Eric and Terry’s later, but man….” He exhaled heavily. “I gotta eat sometime. The dining hall might be closed by the time we get back.”
“I can fix you something,” Rachel said. “A couple of sandwiches, maybe.”
“And some cookies,” Sammi added. “We can make some now. Chocolate chip.” Then she grinned hopefully.
“Sure, that would be nice. Jamie, you can pop in here and pick them up whenever you have a minute.”
“A minute is about all I’ll have.” He kissed his mother on the cheek. “We gotta go. I’ll see you in a while.”
Jamie and Fred went to Eric and Terry’s house later and told them what Sammi had overheard.
Eric scratched his ear with one finger while he listened. “You’re sure it’s Thursday?”
“That’s what Sammi said,” Fred replied. “And she always gets it right, word-for-word.”
“Yeah, I know.” Eric turned to Terry and said, “What do you think about Jamie’s suggestion? Should we tell the boss about the helicopter?”
“I think it’s just what we need right now. We’ll call Mr. Talmadge tonight and tell him that Madame Marie predicted it, and they can check it out on the satellite. If they see a new helicopter at the monastery on Thursday, Madame Marie will look like a genius, and we’ll get to stay here longer.”
“Don’t you think you should talk to Madame Marie about it, first?” Fred said. “In case somebody from the agency double checks?”
“We can go visit her in the morning and get her to do a crystal ball reading or something. We’ll ask her about helicopters and she’ll try to tell us what she thinks we want to hear. That’s what she always does, anyway. Then we’ll call our boss.”
Jamie’s stomach rumbled and he said, “I need to go. I’m starving, and my mom made some sandwiches for me.”
“In Hendersonville?” Terry asked.
“Yeah. I’ll make a doorway to my house and grab the sandwiches, and then hurry back to my dorm and try to get some studying done.” Terry stared at him in disbelief, and he added, “It’s faster than going to the dining hall, and by the time I shower and get dressed, they’d be almost ready to close.”
“That’s over a hundred and thirty miles round trip, just to pick up your dinner.”
“It takes longer to walk to the dining hall.”
Eric shook his head and said, “All right, that’s sounds crazy, but there’s something I want to mention before you go. I’ve been thinking about your friend’s suggestion that we mount a small mission to the monastery, to tweak Mr. Cage’s nose, without telling anyone at the agency about it. I think I have an idea, but I want to discuss it with everyone, since we’re going to need your help.”
“How about Wednesday night?” Fred said. “I have to study tomorrow night for a test.”
“Me too,” Terry said. “A big one.”
“I keep forgetting that you’re still in school. How’s that going?”
“Hard. It would be a lot easier if I weren’t working, too.”
“Not many students are working as secret agents while they’re going to school.”
“It’s my cover, so why not? I’m learning stuff and getting credit hours, but it’s tough.”
“Jamie, I had another idea I want to mention to you,” Eric said. “It’s a way to safely handle your communication issues. You can use a closed phone system.” He smiled with his lips closed. “It’s like a glorified intercom. You can make tiny magic portals, can’t you? Isn’t that how you connect your phones in Rivershire?”
“Yeah, and the Internet in the school’s office. Why?”
“You can get a central unit, which is an electronic switchboard about the size of a small refrigerator, and put it somewhere safe, like your grandfather’s headquarters in Rivershire. Then you give phones to everybody you need to discretely communicate with, and connect them to the switchboard through the mini-portals.”
“Couldn’t somebody tap into it?”
“It doesn’t connect to the main phone system or the Internet. That’s why it’s like an intercom, except that you can hook up as many phones as you want, all with separate numbers. The White House has a system like that, and so does the Pentagon. They are totally secure. You just need to put the mini-portals in a spot where they wouldn’t be noticed, which should be easy if they’re small enough.”
“How would I go about getting a system like that and setting it up?”
“Any IT person can do it. I can, too, but not right now. Not until after we take care of Phillip Cage. In the meantime you’ll have to continue to be careful with your regular phone calls and texts.”
“Which means you’ll have to keep making doorways,” Fred said to Jamie. “Where are you going to find an IT person to maintain it? Will you have to give somebody else the oath and tell them about the magic?”
“Ivan can probably handle it. He’s majoring in computer information systems. I wonder if that’s a coincidence.” Jamie rubbed his mouth thoughtfully while he regarded the two agents. “Eric, when did you get the idea for the phone system and the mission to Romania?”
“Yesterday afternoon, I think. Both of them. Why?”
“Just askin’. The timing is a little suspicious. I was just talking to Uncle Charlie about this stuff yesterday.”
“You don’t think Uncle Charlie had something to do with this, do you?” Fred asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t see how he could. He doesn’t have any magical power, and there’s no spell that could do something like that. At least none that I know of.”
Eric wrinkled his brow. “What are you talking about?”
“Never mind,”
Jamie said. “It’s just idle speculation. We’ll see you Wednesday night.”
* * *
After reviewing the list of scientists Dr. Tindall had given him, Jamie picked one: Dr. Karen Westbrook, anthropologist. She would be another researcher who would study Eddan’s world and the people of Rivershire.
He met her in Dr. Tindall’s office. She was a large woman, especially standing next to the rather petite Dr. Tindall. Not fat, but as tall as Jamie and big-boned, with strong features and a voice to match. Jamie guessed that she was about the same age as Dr. Tindall, early fifties, and it was obvious that the two women were friends.
Jamie brought Rollie with him to administer the magic oath, then Rollie excused himself and left immediately afterward. Dr. Westbrook had the same reaction to the glow and tingle of the supernatural vow as everyone else and was equally wide-eyed when he made a doorway to Rivershire. “Wear your coat,” Jamie said before they stepped through. “It’s cold there today.”
They stood in the field next to the school and Dr. Tindall explained in rapid, excited words, complete with hand gestures, about what she’d been doing in Rivershire over the last month. It didn’t take Dr. Westbrook long to recover from the shock of crossing from one world to another via a magic portal — interplanetary travel made easy, as Rollie called it — and she quickly grasped the significance of the opportunity she’d been given: to be one of the first scientists on another planet. She was especially interested when she found out that the people there had originally come from Earth and that Leora’s family was related to Dr. Tindall.
“My goodness, Nancy.” Dr. Westbrook put one hand flat on her chest. “This is absolutely unbelievable. Family, here? On another world? That’s so….” She sucked in a sharp breath and gave her head a tight shake. “Does anyone in Ireland or Scotland know that they might have relatives here?”
“My girlfriend’s got relatives here, too,” Jamie said, “and her dad’s been buggin’ me to help him set up a family reunion with them and some of their distant cousins from County Cork. But I’d have to give the oath to a bunch more people and make doorways and stuff, and I don’t want to do that. Too risky.”