Shadow Witch (33 page)

He started to outline a portal, and Fred waved one hand. “Wait. Nova, let’s hang out one day this week.”

“I can do it Tuesday, if that’s good for you. Get Melanie to come, too, if she can make it.”

“And me!” Sammi said.

“Of course.”

“But you’ll probably be at the Rivershire School, Sammi,” Fred said.

“Why don’t you hang out at the stone house?” Jamie said. “Then Nova can see it. My dad and I are putting in the refrigerator that afternoon, so Sammi and my mom and Gramma and my aunt can meet us there after school.”

“That’ll be awesome. Really, really awesome” Nova bit her lip and took a long breath through her nose, and seemed to be savoring the moment. “Okay,” she said with a nod, “I’m ready to go home now.”

Chapter 16

Jamie left Rachel and Sammi at the Rivershire School on Monday morning, Sammi proudly carrying her new treasure, a giant-sized box of colored markers that she’d gotten for her birthday. “I’m going to share these with my friends,” she declared.

Then Evelyn went with Jamie to Vessport to see the prospective teacher, Mr. Winston. They stepped through the glowing portal onto a sidewalk in the business district, loud with the sounds of hooves on paving stones, wheels squeaking, people talking and shouting. Shops lined both sides of the road, carriages filled the street, going hurriedly in both directions, and a hint of salt mingled with the other big-town smells — horse manure, damp stone, perspiration.

“Are we near the ocean, Jamie?” Evelyn asked as she took in the bustling surroundings.

He held up one finger and turned slowly in a half circle. Then he stopped and pointed. “There’s a bay over that way, less than a mile. There’s a big river that empties into it, and there’s a lot of shipping traffic in and out of this town. It’s a pretty busy place, or at least it used to be. My memories of it are all Eddan’s, and they’re over twenty years old.”

Evelyn glanced up and down the street and frowned. “How do we find this fellow’s shop?”

“Let’s ask somebody.” He stopped the next pedestrian who came by and got directions, then Jamie and Evelyn walked down the busy sidewalk to the shop with the wooden sign hanging overhead that said
Winston’s Curios
.

“This must be it,” Jamie said and held the door open for Evelyn, then followed her inside. It was noticeably darker and cooler. Shelves were everywhere, crowded with books, strange wooden and metal contraptions, and unusual clocks and devices that Evelyn had never seen before. It smelled stuffy and musty, and Evelyn pinched her nose to stifle a sneeze.

“I may have to buy something while we’re here,” Jamie said as he surveyed the strange collection of merchandise. “I brought some money with me. Do you want anything?”

“I doubt it.” Evelyn narrowed one eye. “This is not my cup of tea.”

“May I help you?” said a man sitting behind the counter near the wall. He stood and clasped his hands behind his back. He was tall and lean, with stooped shoulders and a narrow face. His gray hair was nearly to his shoulders and thinning on top, so that his pale scalp showed through. He wore a shabby dark coat and trousers, and wire-framed glassed were perched on the end of his long nose.

“We’re looking for Mr. Winston,” Jamie said.

The man spread his hands and dipped his head. “You have found him. How may I be of service?”

Evelyn and Jamie stepped to the counter and Jamie extended his hand to the thin man. “I’m Jamie Sikes. You wrote to me at the Rivershire School.”

“Jamie the Sorcerer?” The man shook Jamie’s hand and smiled broadly. “Welcome to my little shop. You certainly got here quickly. I just posted the letter a week ago.”

“We took a short cut.” Jamie introduced Evelyn and she shook Mr. Winston’s hand, too. “I made a doorway,” Jamie said.

Mr. Winston raised his eyebrows. “A magic portal? You can do that? But you are such a young man.”

“Can’t you? In your letter you said that you’re a wizard.”

“Oh.” Mr. Winston frowned. “I could never do anything so complex. My powers are, shall we say, limited.”

“What can you do? Can you fly, or translocate, or anything like that?”

Mr. Winston chuckled. “Not hardly. I can barely levitate a small book, and I can boil a pot of water if I have half a day to do it. It’s faster to heat it on the stove.”He looked closely at Jamie and pursed his lips. “I have heard some wild rumors about you. Is it true that you have the memories and powers of Eddan the Sorcerer?”

Jamie nodded. “He somehow managed to transfer them to me before he died. Did you know Eddan? I don’t recognize you.”

“Eddan and I never met, but we studied from the same master. I apprenticed under Karviss many years after Eddan left him. Karviss always spoke highly of Eddan, he did.” He pushed his glasses up from the end of his nose and eyed Jamie again. “If you truly have Eddan’s memories, then tell me...what did Karviss eat for breakfast?”

“He had two boiled eggs, every single day. He never varied.”

The old man clapped. “Aha! Only a former apprentice of his would know that.”

“Eddan had to make boiled eggs for him every day for years. He chopped a lot of wood and fetched a lot of water, too.”

“Yes, as did I. And occasionally he would try to teach me a spell.”

“That’s how it works with sorcerers’ apprentices.” Jamie nodded again. “How did you manage to get an apprenticeship with Karviss if your magic is so weak?”

“He took me in when I was still young, expecting my power to emerge more fully when I reached manhood, but it never did. By that time, he’d become dependent on me for his everyday chores, and kept me around for convenience. I studied very hard, though, hoping to someday become a master sorcerer, but when it became clear that I was doomed to mediocrity, I left him and struck out on my own.”

“Is that when you became a shopkeeper?” Evelyn asked.

“Oh, no. I have had many other titles since then. I have been a teacher, a sailor, a surveyor, a writer, and a librarian, among other things. I ran the library in Havenshire for many years, until it burned down and they chose not to replace it.”

“You were a teacher and a librarian?” Jamie said. “That could be helpful.”

“But Jamie,” Evelyn said, “we don’t have the money for a library yet.”

“We might soon. I talked to Granddaddy Pete at the party on Saturday, and I think we’re going to go ahead and try his idea for charging tourists to come to Rivershire. If this works out, we’ll have enough money to build a library and other stuff.”

Mr. Winston stared at him blankly and Jamie said, “My grandfather thinks that rich people on Earth will pay a fortune to stay in Rivershire, because it’s on another world.”

Mr. Winston furrowed his brow. “Is there truth to the rumors, then? Is there really another Earth?”

“I know you probably won’t believe it, but the place we’re from is the
original
Earth. This world we’re on now was settled by people from the British Isles who were escaping the witch trials of the early seventeenth century. Sorcerers made doorways for them, thinking they were taking them to the New World, but it was another planet instead.”

“Ahhhh,” Mr. Winston said slowly. “That would explain a lot. I have a very old book that describes and illustrates the moon in detail, and it is nothing like the moon on this world. Some descriptions of a few key constellations don’t seem right, either.”

“You don’t seem as shocked as most people when I tell them that this isn’t Earth.”

“I am not saying that I believe you just yet, but it does answer some perplexing questions.”

“I notice you have a lot of old books here, Mr. Winston,” Evelyn said.

“I collect them. Many of them are quite rare. I consider myself to be a bit of a scholar.”

“So if you were to come to our little school, what would you teach?”

“Anything you like! My specialty is history, particularly ancient history, Greek and Roman. Early European history, too. I can read and write ancient Greek and Hebrew, and I have translated many old manuscripts.” He smiled proudly.

“I’m not sure how much ancient Greek you’d be teaching,” Evelyn said. “Our students are mostly farmers’ and shopkeepers’ children, and many of them barely know the alphabet. We would have to find appropriate textbooks for them, should we hire you.”

“Ah, but history is not always taught through the written word. I consider myself to be a fair storyteller, I do. That is how history comes alive.”

“That’s true,” Jamie said, “but we will be supplying textbooks for all of the subjects we’ll be teaching, anyway. We also have something called a television, which can be an excellent teaching tool. There are many DVD packages available for history.”

Mr. Winston wrinkled his brow again, and Jamie said, “Never mind. You’ll see when you get there, if you come.”

“When could you come, if we decide to give you a try?” Evelyn said. “Keep in mind that it might not work out, so you wouldn’t want to burn any bridges before accepting.”

“I could come right away. I can get my great-niece to mind the shop for me, but it would take me at least four days to make the journey to Rivershire.”

“No it won’t,” Jamie said. “I could make a doorway from the school to this shop, and you could step right through, instantly.”

“Fascinating,” Mr. Winston said and shook his head gently. “I wish I had that kind of power.”

“Is that why Renn never killed you? He murdered just about every other wizard around.”

“I heard that he did, but he must have thought me to be of no consequence. I did meet him, though, right here in this shop. He stopped by one day and purchased a carved staff that had been in my possession for years. He seemed quite pleased with it. I suppose it must’ve had some magical application, but I never could discern its usefulness.”

“A staff?” Jamie’s eyebrows shot up. “Was the top of it carved into a dragon’s head, with two red stones for eyes?”

“Yes. Are you familiar with it?”

“He tried to kill me with it, and he used it to mortally wound Eddan, the last time they fought. It somehow amplified Renn’s power.”

Mr. Winston nodded while he listened, with one finger set aside his long nose. “I heard that he was a book thief, like many younger wizards.”

“That was the easiest and cheapest way for Renn to add to his collection. Like Karviss used to say, magic books are like gold to sorcerers.”

“Yes, he did say that, as I recall.” He pulled his bony finger away from his nose and drew a small circle in the air. “So whatever happened to Renn?”

“I killed him.”

Mr. Winston’s long face stretched into a look of shock, and Jamie continued, “When he came to my house and tried to kill me and my parents. I had to do it, though I’m not proud of it. It was either him or me.”

“We don’t like to talk about it,” Evelyn said quickly. “But we do need to discuss some other things, like your salary, should we decide to hire you.”

“Oh, I shall work for free for the first two weeks.” He scratched the side of his head with one finger. “I shall have to procure accommodations, I suppose. Do you know if the inn is reasonably priced?”

“We don’t expect you to work for free.” Evelyn glanced at Jamie, who seemed content to let her handle the negotiations. She said, “There’s a nice boarding house, and I believe they still have rooms available. We will pay for your room and board, and your starting salary would be one silver per week, the same as our other new teacher, Miss Duffy.” She shook one finger firmly. “
If
we decide to give you a try.”

“Yes, yes.” Then he smiled and nodded. “That would be sufficient.”

She looked at Jamie and nodded toward the door. “We need to talk for a minute.”

They excused themselves and stepped outside onto the sidewalk. Evelyn said, “What do you want to do? Is it going to be a problem that he’s a wizard?”

“He’s weak. I can’t feel much power in him at all. But he seems like he might make a good teacher, and if that doesn’t work out, we could always use him as a librarian.”

“We need help organizing our books right now. I thought about using one of the spare rooms as a temporary library.”

Jamie scratched his chin. “I’ll talk to Granddaddy Pete about getting some shelves for it.”

“While we’re at it, I want to have a phone installed at the school. It would be much more convenient than having to walk over to the clinic every time I need to make a call. I’ll pay for it. You can make a mini portal to my condo, can’t you?”

“Sure, but we can pay for it out of the school’s budget. It would probably be a good idea to put one in, in case you ever have a problem and need to get in touch with me in a hurry.”

“So what are we going to tell Mr. Winston?”

He shrugged again. “I wish we’d brought Nova with us to see if he’s lying about anything.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary. He may be exaggerating, but once we observe him teaching for a few days, we’ll know how competent he is. I say we give him a try.”

“All right. Let’s tell him now.” He opened the door for her and they stepped back inside.

* * *

Rachel stood in the corner by the row of cabinets and watched as Miss Duffy got ready to teach her first class that morning in one of the spare rooms in the back of the building. Though it only had six desks in it, there were only five kids so far that day besides Sammi: Leora, Daisy, Aiven, Blane, and a new student named Declan.

Miss Duffy had brought her wooden easel and an old satchel full of art supplies and showed them a few of her sketches — renderings of farm houses, animals, and a couple of portraits — and was pulling out enough charcoal drawing sticks for the children to use when Sammi got out of her seat and took her new pack of markers to show the young teacher.

“How about these, Miss Duffy?” Sammi opened the white plastic case. “Aren’t they pretty? There are lots of them, more than enough for everybody. Can we use these now? Please?”

Miss Duffy pulled one out, a brilliant pink, and removed the cap. “It is a nice color,” she said, then scribbled on a sheet of white paper from the stack that Rachel had given her. She nodded approvingly. “Quite bright. It would be a good color for flowers.”