The Ebony Finches: A Transition Magic Thriller

by J. E. Hopkins

  She gazed at the forest that edged the fields on both sides of the road, trying to penetrate the dark undergrowth. The woods were quiet; the sun had chased away the shadowy nightmare from the night before.

  She lifted the basket, settled it on her hip, and resumed her march toward home. She smiled at the breeze that brushed her hair away from her face.

  I’m like poppa. Outside is where I’m happiest.

  A few minutes later, she rounded a bend and came within view of her home, dark and squat as if it was some sort of toadstool that had sprouted from the earth. She left the road and started across the field of wildflowers and grasses in front of the house.

  Why is the door open?

  Anytime Karina forgot and left it open, her mother would scold, “You weren’t raised in a barn, child.”

  Karina put the basket down and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Mama, you outside?”

  Crows answered her call.

  A gust blew it open, that’s all.

  She knew better. The wind was a just a gentle breeze and, besides, if her mother was in the small house, she couldn’t help but notice the door.

  Karina left the basket on the ground, rushed to the steps of the porch, and hurried into the house. “Mama?”

  For a moment there was no response. Then a soft moan.

  She dashed into the bedroom and found her mother lying face down on the floor next to her bed. Her skirts and underwear were piled in a corner. Blood covered the bedclothes and formed a thick, dark puddle under her mother’s naked legs.

  “Mama!”

  Karina burst into tears and ran to mother’s side, stooped, and gently started to turn her over.

  “Noooo. You’re killing me! Leave me alone!”

  Karina froze. “I’m sorry, mama. So sorry.” She ignored the protests and rolled her onto her back.

  Her mother’s face was bloody and bruised, almost unrecognizable. Blood flowed freely from her private parts, matting the hair between her legs, painting her thighs with scarlet. The air reeked with the tang of fresh blood.

  The smell of a butchered pig.

  Karina jerked the pillow from the bed and placed it under her mother’s head, took the blanket and covered her. “I’m going to get a cloth. I’ll be right back.”

  If I’d come home last night, this never would have happened.

  She fled from the bedroom, through the living room and into the kitchen. She was crying so hard that she couldn’t see and collided with the pointed corner of the kitchen table.

  She skidded to a stop, stunned by the pain from the collision and fear for her mother.

  What would papa do?

  The unexpected thought calmed the chaos in her mind. She poured water from a pitcher into a shallow bowl. Her hands shook as if she had palsy and half the water ended up on the floor. She threw several clean cloths over her shoulder, grabbed the bowl and walked back toward the bedroom.

  Karina hesitated at the door, heart pounding. She was afraid to enter, afraid of what she would find.

  Is she dead?

  She sucked in a deep breath.

  What would papa do?

  She let the air slide from her lungs and moved to her mother’s side, kneeling and placing the bowl on the floor.

  Make her comfortable. If the bleeding won’t stop, run for help.

  Karina wet one of the cloths, and cleaned her mother’s face. Her right eye was swollen shut and she had a nasty gash on her left cheek.

  Her mother turned her head toward Karina and whispered, “I’m sorry. A child shouldn’t have to see this.”

  What would papa do?

  Karina stifled the tears that threatened to erupt again. “Shhh. A child takes care of her mama.”

  Removing the blanket, Karina cleaned her mother’s privates, and wiped the blood from her legs. The bleeding had slowed. She took a pair of underwear from the bedroom chest and lined them with a clean folded cloth. Her mother cried out in pain as Karina struggled pull the underwear up over her legs and hips, but Karina persisted until the clothing was in place.

  She put the cover back over her mother’s legs and sat on the floor next to her. “Mama, I don’t think I’m strong enough to lift you into bed. I’ll go get Pan Berndt to help.”

  Her mother shook her head and winced. “Bring me some water and let me rest for a few minutes. Then you can help me get up.”

  Karina stirred the boiling pot of potato soup, trying to keep it from burning. The stove was either too hot or too cold; she couldn’t get it right. She lifted the pot off the cast iron surface and set it on the floor while she waited for the fire in the stove to die down.

  I can steam the cabbage after the soup finishes. Mama makes this look at a lot easier than it is.

  Her mother was asleep and had been all afternoon, since she’d struggled to her feet, leaning on Karina for support, and hobbled her way to the bed.

  Once she was safely in bed, Karina had asked what happened.

  “I was about to put out the lantern and go to bed,” her mother said, “when this German broke through the front door. He demanded food. He was big, a brute of a man, but I didn’t think…” Her voice drifted away and she was quiet for several moments. “I took him into the kitchen and gave him the last of the bread and the left-over mushrooms and potatoes.”

  “Weren’t you scared?”

  “Of course I was,” she snapped. “I tried to get him to talk—his name, where he was from—but he didn’t say anything. He just kept looking at me.” She paused and tears streamed from her eyes. “The sooner we forget this ever happened, the better.”

  Karina nodded. “I’m sorry I didn’t come home last night. If I had been here, maybe—“

  “If you’d been here, you would’ve been raped. Maybe worse. I’m glad you stayed with the Berndts.”

  Her mother scooted lower in the bed, wincing as she moved. “I’ll be fine in a couple of days. Go do your work in the garden and let me rest.” She closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

  Karina had wondered if getting killed was worse than rape, but hadn’t asked the question. She’d wakened her mother twice to give her some water and to change the cloths. The bleeding had stopped by late afternoon.

  She felt the top of the stove and jerked her hand back, sucking on her reddened fingers. She sat down at the table and pulled from her pocket the folded piece of paper than Maria had given her.

  I’ve always felt safe at home. Even after papa died, I had mama to protect me.

  She opened it and studied the words.

  We’re alone and trapped. Anything could happen to us.

  She read the first words of the Transition ritual. "I invoke my birthright to the Power granted by Transition. I beseech this Power to grant my request.”

  My birthright. If these words are true, Transition could take us to a safe place.

  She remembered Alexandr’s warning that she could die if the magic had been done before.

  Why would God allow magic if you could die using it?

  She made a decision.

  I’ll use Transition, right now. When mama wakes up, she’ll be well. We’ll be in Australia and the Berndts will be with us. We’ll all be safe.

  She felt blood rush to her face. Her heart pounded and her breath quickened as it had when she escaped the men from the forest. She went to her pallet, found a pencil and a piece of paper, came back to the table, and spent several minutes working on the words that would complete the ritual.

  My birthright.

  Satisfied, she put the pencil down, left the kitchen and slipped into the bedroom. Her mother’s breathing was deep and slow. She bent, kissed her on the forehead, and returned to the kitchen table.

  She placed the two pieces of paper in front of her and began:

  "I invoke my birthright to the Power granted by Transition. I beseech this Power to grant my request. I honor the requirements of Transition and affirm…"

  An iridescent lavender glow filled the kitchen. The
air was sharply colder.

  The air is the same color as my eyes. But why is it so cold?

  Karina leaned forward, shutting out the world around her, concentrating on the pages.

  "That I make my request with respect and humility…

  "That my heart is pure…"

  The aura deepened. Her fingers grew numb from the cold.

  "That my request is worthy…

  "That no request like mine has been uttered since time began...

  "That this is my own true wish…

  "That I willingly surrender my life if I am found unworthy or my request is found wanting…"

  Ice crystals formed from her breath. Shivering so hard that it was difficult to talk, she moved to the final verse.

  "Hear me: Please heal my mother like she’d never been attacked and take us and the Berndt family to Australia, the same as if we’d arrived by boat."

  Karina felt a flood of warmth an instant before darkness took her and ended her dreams.

  Maria leaped from the cart and ran to the front door of the small farmhouse. “Karina! We came to say good-bye.”

  A moment later Karina’s mother opened the door, leaning on it for support. Her face was bruised, one eye swollen almost closed. It look liked she’d been crying. Maria turned and yelled toward the cart, where her father and mother were just climbing down. “Papa, come quick. Hurry!”

  When they were all gathered inside the front room, Karina’s mother told them a horrible story about her attack.

  “Where’s Karina?” Maria asked. “Why isn’t she here?”

  Karina’s mother began sobbing. “I found this on the table.” She pulled two pieces of paper from her pocket and handed them to Maria’s father. “Next to Karina’s body. I buried her in back, under the ox-eye daisies.”

  2015

  14

  Ticonderoga, New York

  “No one will tell me if Natalie’s better,” Shin said. His Stygian eyes were locked on Stony.

  John and Stony had rushed back to the hospital after learning from Doc PJ that Shin wanted to see them again. PJ had met them at the nurses’ station and explained that Shin had insisted on speaking alone with the two agents. The doctor and Shin’s parents were waiting for John and Stony in the first-floor cafeteria.

  As they entered the hospital room, John glanced at Stony, then back at the pale form in the middle of the bed. The feisty independence Shin had exhibited during their first visit had disappeared.

  “Shin…” Stony said.

  “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

  Stony nodded and sighed. “Yes. She died early this morning.”

  “I’m going to die too, huh.” His husky voice was fading.

  “We don’t know that, Shin,” Stony said. “The doctors—“

  Shin looked at John. “Do you like Spike Lee movies?”

  John was surprised by the sudden change in conversation. “Some of them.”

  “There’s an old one called Inside Man. Has Denzel Washington in it. Denzel says ‘don’t bullshit the bullshitter.’ I liked that.”

  What do I say to that?

  Shin smiled. “You guys shouldn’t try to bullshit me, just like I shouldn’t have tried to bullshit you about using magic.”

  “Let me guess. You used magic and nothing happened.”

  “I used it, but it worked fine. I changed the feathers on my finches from brown to black and I made their eyes red.”

  Not possible.

  “You’re confused,” John said. His voice had a sharp edge, driven by the fear that Shin might not be confused at all.

  Calm down, Benoit. What’re you trying to do, browbeat a sick kid because he told you something you don’t want to hear?

  Stony stepped into the conversation. “Shin, the magic couldn’t have worked. There can’t be anything unique about changing a bird’s color. Since you survived, you must have made a mistake with the ritual.”

  Shin shrugged but remained calm, unfazed by the agents’ disbelief. “The birds are in my room. Go see them. The magic worked great. But…” His voice, wistful, trailed off.

  “But what?” John asked.

  “I used it again last night to save Natalie and me. But she died. And I’m still sick.”

  John’s pulse pounded in his ears and he felt as if the room were spinning around him. He’d been in a magnitude six earthquake once, when he was on a cross-cultural educational mission in Istanbul. Things the mind assumed were immobile—walls, parked cars, roads, the ground—had wobbled, lurched, and undulated like an ocean. He’d never been so disoriented. Until now.

  “Can we slow down a minute?” John asked. “Let’s go back to when you used magic on the birds. Tell me exactly what you did.”

  He glanced at Stony. She casually took a pocket digital recorder from her purse, turned it on, and placed it on the bed next to Shin.

  Shin told them about getting the words for the ritual from TransitionWeb; how he’d put a chair next to the cage and performed the ritual. “It made me really, really tired. After I saw that Rogers and Hammerstein were okay and that the magic worked, I barely made it back to my bed.”

  “Rogers and Hammerstein?” Stony asked.

  Shin smiled. “My birds. They’re not so great at lyrics, but they’re really good with tunes.”

  John knew that the words in TW were accurate. The original decision to put them on the website was reached only after a long battle among the various stakeholders. TW’s core premise was that the truth was the best protection against Transition.

  “Anything unusual happen when you said the words?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I felt like I was under a massive heat lamp. I just kept getting hotter and hotter. And it was like I was in this black fog, so thick that I had trouble seeing. It went away as soon as I finished.”

  What the hell?

  Little information existed on what transpired during the Transition ritual. Most of it came from abhorrent studies in which kids had died, most recently from experiments conducted by the Chinese and earlier by the Nazis on the children of Jews before and during World War II. Without exception, the reports spoke of a lavender aura, accompanied by a freezing cold.

  “Okay,” John said. “Now tell us about last night.”

  “I used my iPad to get the words from TW again. I said them, just like before. It got hot and dark, just like before. At the end, I heard this voice in my head. It said—”

  “Hang on,” John said. “You didn’t hear this voice with the birds?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. What did the voice tell you?”

  “He said healing is forbidden.” Shin closed his eyes. “I’m tired.”

  “Just a couple more questions,” John said. “The voice was male?”

  “Yeah. Sounded like Darth Vader. The old Darth Vader, not the one in the new movies.”

  “Anything else you can think of?”

  “Huh uh,” Shin said. “I’m really tired.” He sighed and closed his eyes. “I’m sorry I lied to you guys.”

  “You told us now, that’s what’s important,” John said. Get some rest. We’ll check on you in the morning.” He stood silently by the bed for a moment. “One last thing, Shin. What’s your middle name?”

  Shin’s voice was distant. “It’s Carlos, after my dad. Why?”

  John took out his creds wallet, extracted his badge, and pinned it to Shin’s pajama top. “You’ve been a great help. By the authority of the Director of the Department of Transition Security, as evidenced by this badge, I’m appointing you, Shin Carlos Gonzales, a special agent for the DTS.”

  Shin opened his eyes, gazed from the badge to John, and smiled. “I know I’m not really an agent, but the badge is cool anyway. Thanks.”

  Stony retrieved her recorder and the two agents slipped from the room. They walked down the hall and entered the elevator.

  “We’ll check the birds,” John said. “But, God help us, I believe him. We’re facing a new form of Transition
that doesn’t require uniqueness.”

  Stony nodded. “Yeah. One that kills kids even if they don’t try magic.”

  John climbed into the passenger seat of the rental car as Stony swung behind the wheel. They’d stopped by the cafeteria and spoken with Shin’s parents, not telling them about their son’s claim that he’d used magic. John had requested permission to see Shin’s room under the guise of conducting a thorough investigation. Carlos Gonzales had agreed, and invited John and Stony to visit on their own since he and his wife planned to stay at the hospital. They wouldn’t need a key; the doors to their home were never locked.

  The mid-day sun had turned the car’s interior into an oven that stank of fried plastic. Stony started the engine and powered down the windows.

  She leaned back against the seat and looked at John. “Karpov at the CDC told you that the Swiss tabloid coined the name T-Plague for the deaths in Geneva. When you told me that, I figured we had a problem with a hysterical piece-of-shit newspaper.”

  John nodded. “Imagine if the rag’s writers knew that kids with T-Plague could do magic at will, for everything, apparently, but curing themselves.”

  Stony looked away, staring through the windshield. “I keep hoping that Shin was confounding nightmares with reality, but a little voice inside me keeps screaming that the sky is falling.”

  “I don’t think he was confused at all. The details about the heat and fog convinced me that we’re dealing with another form of Transition. We’ve got to find the source and stop it.”

  “Shit,” Stony said, “you’re assuming there is a source.” She smacked the steering wheel with an open palm, her voice rough with growing anger. “What if we’re seeing a natural evolution of Transition? Humanity is fucked if all our children die before maturity.”

  John looked out the open passenger window.