The Scarlet Crane: Transition Magic Book One (The Transition Magic Series 1)

by J. E. Hopkins

  “Here, while you wait.” She gave Anya a piece of warm bread and pointed with a floured hand to a chair tucked next to the stove. “You can sit over there.”

  Anya rushed to the seat, raised the black bread to her nose and inhaled. The heady aroma of yeast made her mouth water. She bit down and tore a bite free. “Best ever,” she mumbled through a full mouth.

  Other kids drifted in and out for bread treats. Anya stayed and chatted with the babushkas while they cooked. When everything was ready, they transferred the food to the adjoining dining hall and let Anya bang a large iron triangle that hung from the wall.

  Two rows of tables and benches filled the center of the room. The shelter’s rules were drawn on one ivory wall in bright blue letters. The food, pitchers of water and milk, stacks of compartmented trays, and piles of thin metal forks sat on tables along one wall.

  A line of chattering people formed at the food stations and wound around the perimeter of the room. Tetya Masha and the other women stood next to the pans, helping when needed, cautioning that only one portion should be taken.

  Anya held back, searching for her mother. Finally she saw her, moving slowly, her hair a greasy bird’s nest. Her mother looked at the line, grimaced, and took a seat at the empty end of a table. Anya worked through the line, explaining that she was taking food for the two of them. She sat opposite her mom, who grabbed the tray, pulled it to herself and bent to the food, never looking up, shoveling it all into her mouth.

  Embarrassed, Anya looked away and saw tetya Masha watching her from across the room. She beckoned. Anya scuttled over to the friendly old lady who whispered, “Go again. This bread is fresher anyway.”

  Her mother had finished by the time she returned. Food and spittle spattered the table. Anya began eating and discovered that the food tasted even better than it smelled, and she’d never smelled anything so wonderful.

  Her mother glared at her. “I hate this place. How they look down on us. We’re leaving.”

  Anya stopped, swallowed, and returned her mother’s anger. “I don’t care what you do, mama, I’m staying.” She resumed her breakfast.

  “You ungrateful little bitch!” her mom shouted. “I warned you that I’d force you to come with me, even if I have to get you thrown out.” She stumbled up from the bench, turned, and encountered a frowning Pastor Chuikov.

  Anya realized that all conversations had ceased; she felt as if all eyes were on her, waiting to see what would happen next. An itchy heat spread from her neck to the top of her head.

  The pastor nodded at her mother, his frown deepening into a grimace. “Leaving is an excellent idea. Do so immediately.”

  “Go to hell,” Anya’s mother screamed. “I’ll leave, don’t worry about that.” She turned toward Anya. “Get up, we’re—”

  Chuikov gazed at Anya. “Do you wish to remain with us?”

  Anya nodded, holding her breath. “More than anything.”

  “Good.” The pastor turned to face her mother. “My wife will have your coat and a bundle of food for you at the door.”

  Her mother stood speechless for several seconds before storming from the room. There was a brief pause, then a string of curses from the direction of the entry. A moment later the door slammed, causing the shades of the dining room likes to rattle like a chime in a soft breeze.

  Within two breaths the disruption was forgotten and the swell of excited conversations filled the air.

  Anya finished eating—too hungry not to, in spite of her churning stomach—and helped the other kids clean up. She wandered into the day room, where she found a group of kids sitting on the floor facing each other. Three pairs of lavender eyes looked up at her.

  She asked, “Can I join?” They scooted around and made room for her.

  The girl on Anya’s left smiled. “I’m Nonna. Here by myself. Did Pastor Chuikov talk with you about Transition yet? We’re comparing stories.” She had curly blond hair, cut short and framing her face, as if she’d been to a salon. And boobs, like she was done with puberty, not just starting.

  “I’m Anya. I’m here with my mother. Or I was. You met her at breakfast.” An understanding laugh swept the circle.

  Nonna shrugged, “Some don’t have mothers. Some wish they didn’t.”

  Anya nodded. “Haven’t had the talk with the pastor yet. Supposed to be this morning.”

  “It’s not much of a talk,” the boy sitting opposite Anya said. He spoke with a quiet voice and a slight lisp. “I’m Vlad, also here by myself. It’s just the usual shit—Transition starts sometime near puberty, lasts a lunar month. Magic’s impossible because it has to be unique, blah blah. He talks a lot about how you’ll die if you try it.” A web of blue veins was visible under Vlad’s translucent skin. He had thin rosy lips, an overbite, and chopped black hair over his eyes.

  Cute street vampire.

  The girl on Anya’s right spoke up. “I’m Irina, here with my mom too. None of us believe that part. About dying. I mean we all know kids who’ve died, but who knows why? Maybe they just didn’t do it right or something else killed them.” Irina had a narrow oval face with a long skinny nose, long arms and hands more bone than flesh, thin legs folded under her like an insect. Her voice was a scratchy whine.

  Anya whispered, “Did he tell anyone the words you need to use to make magic work?”

  “Nyet.” Vlad matched her whisper. He wasn’t exactly frowning, but it looked like his pale face would crack if he smiled. “Why? You wanna do magic?”

  Anya nodded.

  Vlad said, “No one here knows the words. I asked the other kids in Transition plus a couple who’ve finished it already.”

  “Besides, no one here would have the balls to try magic even if they did know the words,” Nonna said. “If you’re serious, I think I can help. There’s this guy who has his own place near here with a computer and the Internet. Wanna go see him?”

  “Da,” Anya said.

  * * *

  Anya had her talk with Pastor Chuikov. He surprised her with an offer to let her stay in the shelter until she was out of Transition and told her the other kids in Transition could stay also. She didn’t know what to say in the face of his compassion. Her eyes filled and she choked a thank you.

  She left the shelter after mid-day. The others had gone first, one at a time, to avoid attracting attention. The wind slid around the buildings and down the street, stealing the warmth from a bright sun. Anya pulled up her coat’s collar and shivered her way to the north side of the church.

  She caught up with the group and gave them the news. “The pastor said we could all stay at the shelter until we finish Transition.”

  “Great!” Vlad said. “I’ve got three weeks to go and I’ll take all the time in the shelter I can get.” Irina and Nonna agreed they’d stay also.

  Irina asked Anya, “Does this change your mind?”

  “Nyet,” Anya said. “I want off the streets forever, not just for a week.” She turned to Nonna, “Who’s your friend we’re going to see?”

  “Oleg. He sells drugs for the mafiya,” Nonna said. “He’s an old guy, about twenty-five. He worked his way up from the streets. He’s got this great apartment about forty-five minutes from here. Sometimes I deliver drugs for him, sometimes I blow him and his friends. He pays good. He can find the Transition words on his computer.”

  “What makes you think he’ll be there?” Vlad asked.

  “He’s always there during the day,” Nonna said. “At night he goes clubbing, but he’ll be there now.” She shrugged. “Why, you got something better to do?”

  A thirty-minute march brought them to the doors of a tall glass apartment building that occupied half a city block. A burgundy awning over the locked entrance flapped in the freezing wind. Anya and her new friends peered through the doors into a lobby with a high ceiling, a pair of brass elevator doors, and a jungle of plants scattered about in brass pots.

  “See? Oleg is an important guy,” Nonna said. She pressed her nose
against the door. “Those plants are real. This place is unbelievable.” She punched a four digit code into an intercom panel beside the doors.

  A half minute later, an out of breath voice answered. “What?”

  “It’s Nonna. Let me in.”

  “Okay, But give it a couple of minutes before you come up,” Oleg said. He buzzed them into the lobby.

  Irina walked from plant to plant, feeling the smooth surfaces of the leaves. “These aren’t real. They’re plastic.”

  Nonna huffed over to a plant, lifted the moss from around the base, pressed her fingers into the soil beneath, and jammed them under Irina’s nose. “Plastic plants in dirt?”

  Irina scowled, her face crimson. “They have to use something to hold them up. Why not dirt? It’s cheap.”

  Vlad bent over, bit a piece out of a leaf, and held it out on the tip of his tongue for inspection. He spit it on the floor. “They taste real. Kind of like cabbage.”

  Their laughter echoed from the plaster walls.

  “Let’s go,” Nonna said. She led them onto the elevator and pressed for the fifteenth floor. “When we get to Oleg’s floor you wait down the hall while I go tell him why we’re here.”

  “I’m scared,” Anya blurted as the elevator climbed into the heart of the building. She hated herself for admitting it, but Irina and Vlad looked like they agreed. “Drug dealers are lunatics.”

  “Oleg’s okay. He’ll either do this or he won’t. No hassle either way,” Nonna said.

  Anya jumped at the loud ding announcing their arrival. They slinked into a darkened hallway lit by red sconces above each apartment door.

  “Wait here.” Nonna strutted along the dense burgundy carpet to the end of the building, where she twisted a doorbell. The door opened and a woman left the apartment as Nonna slipped inside. The woman wobbled toward the elevator on gold stiletto heels, hips swaying under a long fur coat, gold bangles bangling, and gold purse swinging. Anya and the others stifled laughter. The woman ignored them, sashayed into the elevator, and disappeared.

  Nonna was back in five minutes. “Come on, he’ll help, but he’s in a hurry. He’s getting on the Internet now.”

  “Will he want to be paid?” Anya asked. “I’m not going to blow him.” She’d never done a blow job, but didn’t want to sound inexperienced in front of the others.

  “No need,” Nonna said. “Apparently Goldi left him a little tired.” They all laughed.

  They hustled down the hall and into the apartment. A short entry opened into a room with a wall of windows, a sofa, one chair, and a dining room table. Boxes of electronics were stacked on every surface, leaving narrow pathways. Stale cooked onions and cheap perfume floated on stifling air.

  “In here,” Oleg called from a room to their left.

  He was surfing porn. A pistol lay on top of the printer to the right of the computer. Rock music blared; posters for the band Lumen were tacked to the white walls. Nonna gave him their names. Oleg didn’t bother looking at them.

  He’s a bear, Anya thought. Big belly, barefoot, bare chested, and so hairy that you can’t see his skin.

  Oleg said, “There’s a web site called Transition Web that’s run by kids. It has what you’re looking for. You have to say certain words in the right order for magic to work. I made you a copy.” He passed the printout to Nonna without looking back. “Now beat it, I’ve got stuff to do.”

  They scrambled back into the hall and to the elevator. As they dropped to the lobby, Nonna handed the paper to Anya who glanced at it and passed it around. “I guess it’ll work if I just read it,” she said.

  Once back on the street the others huddled around Anya, all of them jumping up and down to stay warm.

  “Well,” Vlad said. “You going to do it?”

  “Yeah,” Anya said.

  “Don’t you want to tell your mom first?” Irina asked. “I’d want to tell my mom.” She wiped her dripping nose on her sleeve.

  “Why? The only thing my mom cares about is pimping me. Besides, she’s bailed already. I just need to find a private place where I won’t be interrupted.”

  Irina pressed. “Do you even know what you’re going to use magic for?”

  “Of course I do. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time,” Anya said. She turned and paced down the sidewalk, looking for a break between the buildings. “Let’s find an alley so I can get this over with.”

  “I got a better idea,” Vlad said. “I live in an abandoned building down past the shelter. You can use it— no one’ll be there during the day.” He hesitated. “Can we watch?”

  Anya folded the paper and stuffed it in her pocket. “Cool, that’ll work. And I don’t care if you watch.”

  * * *

  They reached Vlad’s place by late afternoon. The narrow three story building stood alone, surrounded by piles of debris and trash.

  They were tired, cold, and hungry. “You sure you don’t want to just go back to the shelter, get warm, and have dinner?” Irina asked. “You can do this later.”

  Anya ignored her.

  They followed Vlad to the back of the building and squirmed through a broken basement window, feeling their way in the dark, climbing down a pile of shipping crates to the floor.

  A crash slammed through the inky space like a gunshot. “Shit!” Nonna hissed. “I ran into a crate.”

  “Stand still! Let your eyes adjust,” Vlad warned. The gloom lifted enough to reveal a wooden staircase along one wall. “I’m on the third floor. No one likes it there because the wind always howls, but that means I’m safe. Stay close to the wall. Some of the stairs are rotten.”

  The boards creaked and snapped as they climbed to the second floor and turned to push through piles of trash to get to the stairs that led to the top floor.

  “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU KIDS DOING HERE? GET THE HELL OUT! NOW!” A screaming goblin rose from the pile of stinking clothes and lurched at Anya, waving a splintered piece of wood topped with a couple of rusty nails.

  Vlad jumped between Anya and the old man. “Lev, it’s me! I live here, remember?” The stinking specter froze and stared at them with a toothless smile. “Here for some fun, eh? Get on with you.” He melted back into his pile of trash.

  They scrambled to the third floor, hearts racing.

  Vlad’s nest was in a corner. Three cardboard boxes had been cut and laid together to form a long tube open at one end. A single thin blanket lay on the floor of the tube. Pieces of wood from broken shipping crates were piled near the open end of the box, next to a charred spot on the floor. The wind whined through the twisted wire of the broken windows.

  “You want me to make a fire?” Vlad asked.

  “Nah,” Anya said. She pulled the piece of paper from her coat and shuffled to the opposite corner. The others hung back. She looked at them. “You can come closer.”

  The three scrambled to join her. “Hope you get what you want Anya,” Vlad said.

  “Yeah,” from Irina and Nonna.

  Anya stared at the paper.

  I finally get to do this and I’m scared shitless. I’m not even sure I can talk.

  She cleared her throat and began, surprised that her voice sounded strong and confident.

  “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…

  “That I make my request with respect and humility…”

  Suddenly she felt a deeper cold than she’d ever felt before.

  Is this part of the magic?

  “That my heart is pure…”

  Cool!

  A lavender cloud had surrounded her, growing brighter with each phrase.

  “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…”

  She closed
her eyes.

  “Hear me: Take me and my mother from the streets. Give us food, shelter, and happiness. Give us normal lives…

  “So thus I beseech.”

  Awareness slipped from Anya as death slithered in. Immediate, stygian, without mercy.

  * * *

  The three collected their dinner from tetya Masha and huddled alone at the end of the dining table.

  “I wish we could have taken her somewhere better,” Irina whispered, tears dripping from her cheeks onto her plate.

  Vlad shook his head. “We did the best we could. It took us forever to just get her out of the building.”

  Nonna looked at Vlad. “You shouldn’t have taken her coat.”

  Vlad shrugged and went back for more bread.

  * * *

  It wasn’t as if she’d forgotten who she’d been. Not at all. But the fears that had plagued her no longer mattered. Now she was among others like herself who had tried magic and failed. She could sense their presence and she shared their sense of wonder.

  After an age, the swirling lavender mist that surrounded her faded, pushed aside by a golden light, like a glorious sunrise. A voice filled her mind and all memories of Anya Terasova began to slip away.

  IT IS TIME.

  Transition’s voice, like gravel ground between stones.

  DO NOT FEAR.

  The power of the voice cleansed and comforted.

  YOU SOUGHT TRANSITION’S POWER FOR SURVIVAL, NOT AVARICE.

  The sunrise that embraced her transformed into the dark of a warm summer evening, laced with iridescent lavender threads.

  SO YOU SHALL BEGIN AGAIN.

  Her serenity was destroyed by chaos.

  IN A LIFE THAT WILL NEED NO MAGIC.

  Unfathomable noise battered her senses. Pressure threatened to crush her small body. She was drowning.

  REBORN.

  Hanoi

  The Socialist Republic of Vietnam

  Stony and John left D.C. at nine the next morning and arrived at the Hanoi Noi Bai airport at midnight the following day. Being good, loyal civil servants, they’d flown coach with two long layovers. Twenty-eight hours total, eleven time zones.

  As they trudged from the plane Stony grumbled, “Sleep on a plane doesn’t count as sleep. Why the fuck couldn’t this source live in Miami? They have bad guys in Miami. But noooo, we have to go around the frickin’ world.”