Magic, Madness, and Mischief

by Kelly McCullough

  “Safe bet.”

  “So which one?” I didn’t relish the idea of having to open all of them.

  “I’ll find it.” Sparx hopped over to the boxes and began sniffing along their bases. After only a few minutes he reared back and put his front paws on a box in the bottom row. “This one smells like old fire.”

  He was right, as we saw when I cracked the box open.

  “Ash and oak.” Sparx touched the front of the little wooden case. “Of course that’s what they made it out of.”

  Not counting the short legs, the case was about twenty-four inches tall by eighteen wide at the front and sixteen deep, and it reminded me of a puzzle box more than anything, as there were no obvious doors or latches. The only way I could even tell which way was the front was by the shape of the thing, which was wider on one side.

  “Any idea how we get it open?” asked Sparx.

  “I don’t … wait.” On a hunch, I opened my heart the tiniest bit, bringing fire to dance on my fingertips. “I hope this works.”

  As my hands got close to the wood, a pair of charred ideograms appeared about where you would expect handles to go. I touched them with my thumbs, and the whole front of the case split down the middle, opening on invisible hinges to reveal what lay within. The inner compartment was divided into three parts. The helmet of the Vulcan, with its high crest, rested in the top, held in place by velvet-covered rails. Below that was a shallow shelf filled tight with a thick red wool. On the bottom I could see the spine of one polished black leather boot and the toe cap of another.

  Bingo. “Let’s get out of here,” said Sparx.

  I nodded, though the thought of tackling that endless climb while lugging the wooden case made my teeth hurt. But I didn’t have a whole lot of choice if I didn’t want to separate costume from container, and that felt … wrong somehow. So I used my belt to improvise a carrying strap for the thing and followed Sparx to the base of the ladder.

  Thirty rungs.

  Thirty!

  That was the length of the climb up out of the shelter. I remembered the hundred and fifty I’d counted as a partial tally coming down, and I felt my bones go cold within my flesh. And that was my final lesson of the day.

  Darkness lies.

  * * *

  “Oh, the outfit, it’s totally you.” Dave held up his hands like a picture frame.

  “Gosh, thanks.” I tugged at one baggy elbow.

  My great-grandfather’s Vulcan uniform fit me like somebody else’s glove. Somebody with much bigger hands. I might be nearly as tall as he had been, but I was half the man he’d been. At best.

  “Aw, come on,” said Dave. “It’s not bad in a Santa-slash-homeless-dude sort of way.” Even as the words left his mouth, Dave’s face suddenly tightened. “Oh, man, I’m so sorry. That was a really stupid thing to say.”

  I shook my head and put on a smile I couldn’t feel through the ice churning in my gut. “It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not,” said Dave. “I didn’t think about your situation before I spoke and…” He looked down at his feet. “Frankly, it wouldn’t be funny no matter what. Ending up on the street isn’t something to joke about. I should know better, especially considering how easy it is to imagine my dad out there. I mean, I’ve heard teachers make that point more than once, but this brings it home. I’m sorry.” He gave me a quick hug. “Forgive me?”

  “Yeah, we’re cool. And you’re not wrong about how bad this thing fits me.” I glanced at the mirror again.

  It was Thursday the second and Dave had stayed after school to meet me and see the suit. He’d managed to slip away from the capitol after going through the emergency exit to supply me with a distraction and, so far at least, nothing more had come of that.

  “So, now what?” asked Dave.

  “I don’t know. I originally wanted to finish this today, but Sparx thinks we won’t be able to make this work until the last day of the Carnival, when the Vulcans overthrow King Boreas.”

  “Why?” Dave looked over at the fire hare.

  “Belief.”

  “Huh?” Dave was clearly puzzled.

  “The Winter Carnival is an engine for driving belief.” Sparx leaned back and assumed his teacher face. “Belief can be used to amplify magic. You both saw that when Kalvan used silvertongue to amp up the Henry V speech.”

  “You know I don’t remember a word of that,” said Dave.

  Sparx nodded. “Again, because of belief. The Carnival does something similar by getting a whole bunch of people to invest themselves in the myth of Vulcanus Rex and Boreas.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” said Dave.

  “You have more than my word to go on. Remember what the Rusalka said in Her rhyme: He who would break Winter’s power must await his proper hour.”

  That made my nerves twinge. “I really thought we were just going to get the suit and then go after Oscar right away. The only reason I didn’t want to try as soon as we had it yesterday was because confronting the Darkness left me feeling like an old boot.”

  “You’re whining again,” said Sparx. “You need to have patience.”

  “Speaking of which,” said Dave. “My mom won’t have any for me if I don’t get home soon. I wish I could stay, but I can’t. Here.” He held out a twenty-dollar bill.

  “What’s that for?” I asked.

  “You need to get some better food into you than week-old sugar bombs. Go get a burger or three.”

  I felt heat pinch the corners of my eyes. “I can’t take this.” I knew Dave’s family didn’t have much money, and twenty bucks was a lot for him.

  “You’d do it for me.”

  “Dave…”

  “You can pay me back later, after this is all over.”

  I wanted to argue with him and tell him that I didn’t know if I was going to have a later. Instead, I took the money. Partly because he wanted me to have it, but even more because the thought of real food practically had me drooling. I really did need it. And that was scary as hell.

  “Thank you.”

  * * *

  “Huh. Sparx, did you do something to this suit?” I’d tried the Vulcan uniform on again after dinner, and—because it was warm and clean, even if it didn’t fit right—I’d ended up falling asleep in it. Now, waking up on Friday, it was … different.

  “No, why do you ask?”

  “I … Look!” I tugged at the elbow.

  It no longer sagged. In fact, the thing practically fit me. It was still loose in a lot of places, but not like it had been yesterday. Then, I’d felt like a gazelle in an elephant suit, all bags and wrinkles. Now, it was more like one of those outfits your parents buy a little big for you so you can grow into it. It looked less shabby, too—newer somehow, though there were still several neatly sewn patches showing.

  “Aha!” said Sparx.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Belief.”

  “I don’t understand. You said that yesterday about waiting till the end of the Carnival; what’s it got to do with the suit?”

  “I think the suit is telling you I’m right about our timing. If I’m wrong, we’ll know for sure tomorrow, and one day more or less won’t matter. But if I’m right, it could make all the difference in the world.”

  * * *

  “Cool!” Dave picked up one of the red leather gauntlets.

  It shone like polished fire here on this Sunday morning. It also fit like it had been made for me. The whole uniform did. From boots to helmet and all points in between, the outfit could have been tailored specifically for me. Thursday I’d needed to stuff paper towels into the toes of the boots to keep them from slopping around. Friday morning, the boots had fit okay, though they still rubbed me wrong, and a couple of old and carefully patched rips in the pants had vanished in the night.

  Saturday, everything had been tighter and brighter and somehow newer-looking, as if it could see what was coming and was preparing itself in much the same way that I was. But the
fit still wasn’t quite perfect, and Sparx’s insistence on waiting one more day to time the coming confrontation with the final moments of the Carnival and King Boreas’s annual defeat by Vulcanus Rex made a whole lot more sense, even if I hated waiting.

  This morning the transformation was complete, with the baggy old wool of the pants and jacket having become something much tougher and shinier, more like a snowmobile racing suit, and the rough cape transformed into a flowing, jagged-edged marvel that looked as if someone had stitched it from living fire. The helmet had gone from looking like a cheap theatrical prop when I’d first taken it out of the case to something a Roman centurion would have been proud to wear into battle. It had also acquired a pair of snowmobile goggles from somewhere.

  I had always thought of the Vulcans as sort of ridiculous, the red-clad clowns of the Carnival, but when I looked in the mirror now, I didn’t see a clown at all. I saw a figure that would have been right at home in a big-budget superhero movie, a sort of avatar of fire. Perhaps even more surprising was how well the outfit masked the terrified thirteen-year-old inside. If clothes make the person, the transformed Vulcan uniform had created a champion with some real hope of bringing down the Winter King.

  If.

  It is the scariest of words, and no less so for being a short one. If clothes make the person. If the outfit only concealed my weakness. If I was strong enough to face Oscar. If I had chosen a battle I couldn’t win. If I could defeat him and rescue my mother. If I died trying and failed her. If. If. If.

  It was Sunday and Carnival’s end, and I was so terrified I was literally shaking. Dave came over and put a hand on my shoulder—he’d gotten up early and convinced his mother to let him come downtown for the unseating of Boreas so he could be with me.

  “You’ve got this,” he said.

  “Do you really think so?” He didn’t answer me, but the look on his face told me he was very nearly as worried as I was. Sparx didn’t say anything, either, and that was even scarier—I’d never seen the hare looking so subdued.

  I took the gauntlet from Dave and slipped it on. “I guess we’d better get started, huh?”

  “Cue the dramatic music,” said Dave. “Let’s go break some heads.”

  Except this wasn’t a movie, and one of the fundamental problems of being thirteen without anyone to drive you places was getting around. It was more than a mile to my house, and Sunday bus service is limited at best. It took us twenty minutes, and then the house was dark and empty when we got there. The thermostat was set to AWAY, and there was no note to tell me where Oscar and my mother had gone.

  Worse, there was the sense that no one had been there for days, possibly since I’d escaped from the delvers over a week ago. Sparx said the house smelled long vacant. After keying myself up for a fight, the anticlimax left me feeling as cold and dark as the house.

  “So, now what?” asked Dave.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. This wasn’t in the script.”

  Dave grimaced. “Who knew the biggest problem was going to be finding the villain?”

  “Our challenges aren’t always what we expect them to be,” said Sparx.

  “This isn’t about challenges, this is about my mom.” My panic was fading into a sick certainty that I was going to be too late.

  “We’ll find them,” said Sparx, but I didn’t believe him.

  “I guess we try the capitol and hope it’s open for the Carnival.”

  It wasn’t, but Sparx slipped in and scouted things out, likewise finding it empty even of the Darkness. That was two strikes, and the only other place I knew to try was the caves where I had been imprisoned under the Mississippi River bluffs. That felt wrong, but none of us had any better ideas, so once more we started walking.

  The Winter Carnival’s final day was in full swing by then, filling downtown with thousands of revelers. Before we were halfway to the river we’d had a dozen people stop us so they could get their picture taken with a Vulcan. I wanted to scream at them to just let me pass, but I didn’t think having a public meltdown would help anything. Besides, I didn’t know of any law against impersonating a Vulcan, but I didn’t want to find out the hard way that I was wrong.

  The only good thing I could say about the whole thing was that between my uniform and the fire in my heart, I wasn’t freezing on one of the coldest days of the year. Dave, on the other hand … After a while, Sparx moved over to ride on his shoulder and keep him warm. Now that he had his full powers back, he could make himself invisible to all but the most robust sort of magical vision.

  Rather than heading straight south toward the river, we angled west, figuring on crossing the railroad bridge again. That was the plan until we reached the science museum nearly an hour later and I happened to glance out over the frozen river.

  “The ice palace!” What better place to find the Winter King? As soon as it occurred to me I felt his presence, like a frigid wind clawing at my face. “Sparx!”

  The hare nodded at me from Dave’s shoulder. “I know, I can feel him there, too.”

  Dave, who had settled into a subdued silence, brightened now. “Let’s do this.”

  We turned left, heading for the bridge that led to the island and Oscar. The crowds grew thicker as we got closer to the palace and the heart of the celebration, and that meant more stops for pictures. It was maddening. I’d just pasted on my fifth fake smile in as many minutes when a woman asked me why I wasn’t already on the island.

  “Huh?”

  The woman gave me a “duh” look. “The big confrontation between Vulcanus Rex and King Boreas is supposed to start in, like, half an hour. Shouldn’t you be with the rest of the Vulcan Krewe?”

  I realized then exactly what the Rusalka had meant about the proper hour, and I broke into a sort of congested jog, forcing my way through the crowd as best I could, with Dave trailing behind. I had no idea what would happen if I missed my moment, and I didn’t dare find out.

  It took another fifteen minutes to get to the island, a passage that actually got a lot easier when, at Sparx’s suggestion, I started shouting, “Vulcan coming through!” and “Got a hot date with the Winter King!”

  When we arrived on the edge of the crowd around the palace, I could see King Boreas and his court of Winds arranged on a big stage in front of the main gates. Whatever was going on up there, Vulcanus Rex hadn’t arrived yet, and that gave us some breathing time. Rather than push forward to the stage, we angled along the edge of the crowd, eeling our way toward the side of the palace—I had no interest in the Carnival King; I wanted the real one, and I wouldn’t find him on a stage out front. He was somewhere inside; I could feel his presence there like slivers of ice in my bones.

  I more than half expected security to stop us when we reached the outer wall of ice blocks they’d constructed around the palace, but when I approached an arched side gate the woman there just smiled and waved me through. “Sending a few of you around back to come in through the palace? Smart. That’ll look great, but you’d better hurry.”

  Dave started to follow me but she stopped him. “I’m really sorry, but if you don’t have a pass you’ll have to go to the main entrance.”

  I opened my mouth to argue with her, but Dave shook his head. “GO! The sirens are coming and you’re out of time. I’ll catch up.”

  I hadn’t noticed them until he mentioned it, but Dave was right. Vulcanus Rex and his Krewe always rode around the city on a big old antique fire engine, and the siren was unmistakable.

  I didn’t want to leave him, but I didn’t have any choice. “Thanks!” Sparx hopped off Dave’s shoulder and onto mine, as I bolted into the outer bailey of the castle and broke left, heading around the back.

  Another security guard waved me in through the ice gate there—the palace had very sensibly been designed for one-way traffic, with carnival-goers coming in through the main gates out front, touring through the structure, and leaving by the back. The interior was deserted, with everyone out front to watch
the big showdown between Boreas and the Vulcans. That let me speed quickly through to the inner entrance gate, where I slid to a halt.

  Where was Oscar? I’d gone through the whole palace—not a big task since most of the construction was solid ice—but I hadn’t seen any sign of him or my mom, and I was getting desperate. What was going on? Before I could make any sense of it, a huge roar sounded from the crowd out front as the siren wound down to silence. Vulcanus Rex had arrived.

  “Now what?” I demanded of Sparx. “I can feel him, but I can’t find him, and this is the proper hour!”

  “I don’t know.” Sparx shook his head worriedly. “He’s here somewhere. He’s got to be.”

  Where was the Winter King? I whipped my head around madly, hoping for inspiration. And then I had it. Where do you find a king? On his throne, of course. But where was that? I looked up at the massive tower centering the castle. According to the articles I’d read about building it, the inside of the tower was completely inaccessible. Because of the height, the weight of the tower approached the limits of what ice could support, and they hadn’t dared to weaken it by putting any doors or other openings in that core structure.

  So, the frozen heart of the ice palace, which was the center and focus of the city’s celebration of winter, was completely cut off from the outside world. But Oscar had ways of coming and going that most people could only dream of. If he could get into the tower, then what better site for Winter’s Throne? I turned to scan the palace rooms looking for a place where I could access the base of the tower.

  “What is it?” asked Sparx. “Do you know where Oscar is?”

  “Maybe.” I hadn’t quite finished laying out my thinking for him when we found what I was looking for, and I knew I was right. “Look at that!” I pointed.

  “What?” asked Sparx.

  “The walls are clear, and in most of the palace you can see at least partway through them, but all I can see through the tower foundation is darkness.”

  “He’s there.” Sparx nodded. “With his ally.”

  “Yes.” I placed both hands on the ice in front of me and opened the doors of my heart.