Magic, Madness, and Mischief

by Kelly McCullough

  “Hang on, the Mississippi starts up in Itasca.”

  Sparx briefly put his head in his paws. “It does that, child, but those lands are ruled from here, where the river’s power truly rises. That power is part of why the matter of who wears the Crown is so important.”

  “And who is that?”

  “That, too, is hidden from me. All I can say for certain is that it rests in human hands, as it has for many cycles. Beyond that, it’s a matter of reading the signs, and those are dark and troubling.” Before I could say more, Sparx rose onto his hind legs and held up one paw like a stop sign. “Tread quietly, boy. The shadows in the caves beneath us have awakened, and they are hungry. You haven’t learned to mask your strength yet, and we should not have come this way.”

  I froze. I knew about the caves in the bluff—tunnels really, since they were all human-made. We’d taken a tour of some of the open ones as part of a Free School field trip a few years ago. The tour guides had told us about how the caves had been used over the years, including for storage and mushroom farming, and even speakeasies, which were illegal bars during Prohibition. Most of them had been sealed up years before, but I’d heard from my student mentor, Aleta, that many of them could be gotten into, and some of the older kids used them for parties.

  “Should we turn back?” I asked.

  Sparx shook his head. “I don’t think so. The presence feels stronger behind than ahead. We should move now, but quietly. Follow me, and don’t use any magic.”

  “You know I don’t know how to use magic,” I whispered angrily.

  “Not well, at any rate, though it hasn’t stopped you yet. Just … don’t DO anything, all right? I’d rather not end up on some delver’s dinner plate, if it’s all the same to you.”

  For the next fifteen minutes we moved forward in slow stops and starts, traveling steadily westward along the river. I asked about heading inland or down to the riverside at one point, but Sparx simply shook his head and made hushing motions. Finally, as the bluffs curved away south, we made our way down the slope to the edge of a big swampy area.

  “Now what?” I’d never been so far west along this bank of the river before. Though we’d probably come no more than another half mile, I didn’t know the area at all.

  Sparx pointed to a line of small trees and scrub brush that ran along the sides of a raised causeway. “Railroad. We can use it to cross the swamp, and maybe the great river as well, though I’d hate to have so little between me and Her.”

  I didn’t like the idea of crossing the river on a railroad track, either, but there wasn’t another bridge in sight, and if the things in the caves were anything like the one under the capitol, it was an easy choice in my book. So, we skirted the edge of the little swamp and climbed up onto the railroad siding before heading back toward the river.

  Perhaps halfway across the little swamp we came to a wide place in the causeway where a fire pit held a couple of smoldering log ends left over from the night before. I would simply have passed on by if Sparx hadn’t hopped over to the fire pit. I figured it was the remnant of some teen party, judging by the debris left around the sheltered little clearing in the brush, which included a torn but fashionable girl’s jacket, some beach towels, and a lot of empty Schmitz cans.

  Sparx gently kicked the nearest log. “Still alive. Not hot enough by any light, but it’s been burning for hours. That’ll help. Toss a couple more logs on this fire, would you.”

  I did as the hare asked, though I didn’t know why. “What’s this for?”

  “Insurance. I’ve a bad feeling growing on me like eyes in the darkness, and living fire close at hand is the best ally the likes of you and me can have in a situation like this.” After a few minutes, the fire was burning solidly and Sparx started toward the railway again.

  I didn’t move. “Wait, we’re not just going to abandon an active fire, are we? What if a wind comes up and it gets away?”

  Sparx shrugged. “That’d be all to the good for us, I think.” Then, when he saw that I wasn’t going to budge, he came back. “Fine. I’ll bind it to the pit so there’s no danger of burning down this lovely swamp.”

  Then he said something very fast in the language of fire. Though I still didn’t understand it and Sparx had made no effort to teach me any of the words, I was beginning to feel as though it would start making sense to me at some point soon. When he finished speaking, a little wisp of smoke danced out from the center of the fire before spinning a circle around it and puffing away into nothing. I couldn’t see any obvious difference in the fire, but I knew in my soul that it would not break the bounds of the fire pit—a very strange feeling.

  “Satisfied?” demanded Sparx, and I nodded. “Good! Now, let’s get moving again.”

  We continued along the railway for another hundred yards or so and had almost reached the edge of the swamp when a loud splash off to the right drew my attention. There, sitting on a small muddy hummock, was the biggest muskrat I’d ever seen.

  When we made eye contact it leaned back on its haunches and waved. “Hello, boy.” The voice was low and feminine and a little husky, and it sent a silvery shiver along my spine.

  “Ignore her,” said Sparx.

  But I found that I didn’t want to. “Hello, uh … lady?”

  “She’s no lady, kid.” Sparx stamped the ground impatiently. “We need to be moving along right quick, not dallying with selkies.”

  “What’s a selkie?” I asked.

  “We are.” This voice was higher and clearer, and it rang through me like a bell. “Obviously.” A second muskrat poked her head up through the duckweed. “I’m Sylvia, and this is my sister, Samantha.”

  “Oh, that’s fascinating.” I nodded, finding myself with a strange desire to agree with whatever the creatures said. I didn’t like that, and fought against it. “Uh, this may be a stupid question, but what makes you different from a muskrat?”

  Samantha giggled. “Besides the talking, foolish boy?”

  My cheeks burned at the scorn I heard there and I wanted to melt into a puddle, but I managed a nod instead. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sparx looking up into the sky and shaking his head sadly.

  “Why, this does, of course.” A third selkie had entered the conversation, waddling up onto the causeway to stand a few feet away from me.

  Her voice lay at the midpoint in range between the other two, soft and somehow furry sounding. She shook all over now, like a dog coming out of the water. Only instead of spraying me with swamp muck, she seemed to blur and grow. A moment later she had become a young woman, small and dark of hair and skin, wearing an indecently short dress of brown fur. I flushed even more and turned away, looking toward the river.

  “Ah, Susan, look, Prince Charming is embarrassed, why don’t you give him a—” Sylvia’s voice cut off abruptly as I felt a hot flash across the backs of my knees and calves like a charcoal grill flaring when someone puts in too much lighter fluid.

  “None of that!” Sparx’s voice came out sharp and hot—English, but full of undertones from the language of fire.

  I turned and found that the hare, now burning brightly, had placed himself between the fur-dressed girl and me. She snorted and shrugged before abruptly shrinking back into her muskrat shape. “Good-bye, Prince Charming. Were it not for your silly old rabbit we might—”

  Sparx’s fur flared up and the selkie staggered backward, toward the edge of the ridge. “Have it your way—” And then she said something short and fast in the language of flame.

  The hare cursed fire before answering her in a swishing, fluid tongue that reminded me of waves on the beach. The selkie jumped as if someone had given her a hotfoot, then tumbled down the steep causeway to land in the swamp with a splash. The other two laughed nasty little laughs.

  “Ha, he’s sure got your number, Susie,” said Samantha. “Better let his pet monkey alone.”

  “Shut it,” snapped Susan. “You don’t … oh.” Abruptly, she dove under the water and v
anished.

  “What’s she on about now?” asked Sylvia. But then she turned to look beyond us, made a little chirruping noise, and slid into the water after her compatriot.

  When I looked for the third, I found that she had already gone. I began to get a very bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, one that got much worse when I heard the sound of footsteps crunching along the gravel of the railroad siding between us and the river.

  “Well, well, well, if it isn’t my little friend Kalvan.”

  I looked up to see Josh Reiner coming to a stop a few yards away.

  Oh crap.

  “You’re not enough to send the selkies scurrying for the exits,” said Sparx. “What’s…”

  The water on either side of the place where Josh stood started to roil and hump up as though something enormous was stirring in the deeps.

  Sparx made a little whimpering sound. “That’s not good.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Her, I think.”

  Josh nodded at that, a dreamy smile twisting his lips as he did so. “It is indeed Her.”

  Sparx gave me a sharp kick. “Run!”

  8

  Bad Hare Day

  “I SAID RUN!” Sparx bolted back up the railroad siding in the direction we had come from only a few minutes before.

  I ran after him.

  Behind us I could hear a great sluicing, as though something huge and terrible were pushing its way up out of the swamp.

  “Faster!” yelled Sparx.

  “Stop!” The voice was rich and watery and feminine.

  In response, my feet simply quit running. Unfortunately, the rest of me didn’t. It was like tripping over a log. I managed to get an arm up to protect my face, but I felt as though someone had punched me in the lungs when I landed on my chest in the gravel lining the railway. From the crunching and skittering of the rocks ahead of me, I could tell something similar had happened to Sparx.

  I wanted nothing more than to lie there hugging my ribs until I could breathe again, but I didn’t dare. Instead, I forced myself to roll over and look back along the tracks. A castle had risen from the water behind me. Or perhaps it would be better to say that it had shaped itself from the water. The battlements and towers were formed from living water, all browns and greens like the swamp or the muddy river beyond. A huge catfish swam back and forth within the confines of the nearer gate tower, occasionally disappearing into the depths beyond. It was like one of those enormous walk-through aquariums without all the glass between you and the action—simultaneously breathtaking and terrifying.

  It took me several long seconds to notice the woman standing on the wall above the gate—tall and slender, with green hair and garments the color of Mississippi mud. Her expression was distant and imperial—a frozen smile on an inhumanly beautiful face. Her eyes … Her eyes were drowning eyes. That’s the best I can do, deep and dark, as dangerous as a whirlpool.

  I had never been more scared in my life.

  She spoke again. “Child most mortal, why have you wronged my acolyte?” I saw Josh then, standing in the shadow of the gate, just this side of watery doom.

  “I don’t think—” Josh began, but the Rusalka cut him off with a gesture.

  “You are mine and you have been attacked. These must answer for it.”

  A voice whispered in my ear, “Speak not, fire’s child.” Sparx!

  Since I really hadn’t started breathing again yet, I couldn’t have said anything to her if I’d wanted to, but I was incredibly grateful to have Sparx there giving advice. Sure, he was grumpy and sarcastic, and occasionally downright mean, but in a few short weeks I’d grown to rely on him to help me navigate this new world of magic I’d found myself forced to deal with.

  “In fact, speak not at all. The ground we tread here is fraught and fragile. Step but the tiniest jot in the wrong direction and the river’s Rusalka will devour thee.”

  It was only with the thee that I realized Sparx was speaking to me in the tongue of fire, a much more formal-sounding language than English. Or at least that’s how it seemed in those first moments of understanding it. Unfortunately, thinking about the fact that I was understanding it reminded me I didn’t know the language, and the next few words came through as a smoky sizzle with a side of embers, making no sense to me at all.

  I shook my head and tried not to think about what I was hearing, but only what it meant. That seemed to work, as Sparx cut back in suddenly. Understanding the language of fire felt more like remembering something long forgotten than learning something new.

  Sparx continued, “Get thou to thy feet, boy. Bow deeply, and then start backing up. Slowly. The fire lies less than five yards hence, and it burns hot enow at last.”

  I did as I was told. At the bow, the woman … no, the Rusalka cocked Her head to one side as though She was waiting. One step back. Two. Sparx now stood between me and the deeping castle, his fur flaring bright and hot. He reminded me of nothing so much as an arch-backed cat. I slid my foot another step and froze when the Rusalka raised Her hands as though She were lifting a platter in front of Her. On either side I heard the water begin to gurgle and swirl.

  Sparx said something long and cold in the tongue of water. It sounded angry and scared. A fiery whisper sounded in my ear. “Two steps more and then ready thyself for a turn and a jump.” The flame on the hare’s back humped higher still, rising a full two feet into the air above him.

  Another step. I heard a rushing sound of water sliding down the sand, like a wave receding on an ocean beach. One step more. The waters roared and I saw high green walls rising on either side of the tracks.

  “NOW!” shrieked Sparx. Then he leaped straight up and back, turning in the air—once again reminding me of a terrified cat.

  I caught him out of the air like a football, spinning in the same moment and leaping toward the flames that suddenly raced through the undergrowth toward me—a slender line of crimson and yellow leading back to the fire pit. Green walls toppled toward me. Against all sense and reason, I dove into the fire. The world burned away in a spiral of red and green, like disaster’s own Christmas, and I was certain I would be destroyed.

  Then there came a flash and a snarl that made me think of a burning house falling in on itself, and I closed my eyes. When I opened them again I was … elsewhere. A low stone wall encircled me perhaps a yard away. Around it stood a group of people uniformly wearing office casual and horrified expressions. Several were leaping back from the edge of the wall, and one woman screamed, covering her face as she turned away. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized I was standing in the middle of a bonfire with the flames leaping high around me.

  “Fly, young fool!” yelled Sparx.

  I ran, holding the burning rabbit in my arms as I ducked into a gap left by the woman who had turned away in horror. The men on either side of her leaped back as I passed between them trailing fire.

  “Left, head thou for the brush!” Sparx’s voice came out loud, but hoarse and tired.

  I turned and bolted into a narrow gap between a couple of hoary old lilacs, half expecting them to catch fire as I passed. But the flames I carried on my person were already dying away as I pushed deeper into the scrub. Behind me I could hear a rising chorus of shouts. That only drove me to run faster.

  A few minutes later Sparx spoke—more quietly this time, and in English. “I think we can stop now.”

  I slowed my pace and then slid to a halt, setting the hare down so I could put my hands on my knees and take a series of long, shuddering breaths. “Where are we?”

  “Como Park, the bonfire pits.” Sparx’s voice was weak and thready. “Nearest unbound flame I could find.”

  Once he said it, I thought back and realized I should have recognized the place. I’d played in the pits often enough over the years—I lived less than a mile away, and Como was the biggest park in Saint Paul. “We must be in that little strip of woods to the west, then. Let me see if I can find the trail.”
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  Sparx nodded but didn’t say anything.

  A question occurred to me. “If you could take us through the fire all along, why did you want to try for the railroad bridge?”

  “Because fire’s road is not as easy as it looks,” replied the hare. Then he gently keeled over.

  “Sparx!”

  The hare didn’t reply. He was barely breathing, and his fur had grayed to the color of ash.

  “Sparx?” I bent and touched his shoulder, but there was no answer. He was much colder than usual and I felt a matching cold growing in my stomach as I looked around desperately for something or someone that might help him.

  That’s when I heard the voice of my grandmother Elise. She’d died when I was only five, but her smile and her voice would be with me forever. I remembered her as kind and strong despite an obvious fragility. She always had good advice for me and for my mother, and now I remembered a thing she’d told me that hadn’t ever really made sense until this very moment.

  Someday, child, you will see something go wrong and you will think: Somebody needs to do something about it! Remember then that you are somebody.

  I scooped Sparx up in my arms and ran deeper into the little woods, looking for a place I had seen before but always avoided. I found it only a few moments later—a little rock-lined hollow scooped out in a tiny clearing sheltered by a low limestone ridge. It was a place where the homeless sometimes camped, and they frightened me. But this was more important than my fear.

  Working fast, I set Sparx down in the hollow—he had grown noticeably colder in the time it took me to get there. There was a small pile of sticks and twigs near the hollow—saved for later need by those who camped there—and I made a mental promise to replace it when I could as I piled the wood around and atop the hare. My grandmother’s influence again. She’d had opinions about people who took things without asking or replacing them—her version of “Goldilocks” ended with the thieving girl getting eaten, “and rightfully so.”