The Magic Half (2 page)

Out in the leafy backyard, Miri turned in time to see a naked doll sail out the back door and land with a thud in a pile of dust. Instantly, shrill screams erupted from Nell and Nora, together with aggravated yells from Robbie and Ray. Miri giggled. Her brothers were finally babysitting their little sisters, and she was glad to see that they were being driven out of their minds. Served them right. Robbie and Ray had a genius for disappearing when they were supposed to watch Nell and Nora.

Feeling free, Miri turned and wandered down the faint dirt path that led through the lawn to an enormous overgrown tangle of blackberry bushes. The new house was much larger than their tidy home in the city, but it was more disorganized, too, with rooms popping out on the sides and a saggy porch in the back. Its gray paint was peeling, but the roof was edged with lacy carved wood, heavy vines cloaked the front porch in green shadows, and there were stained glass windows that sent jeweled light shimmering through the hallway at sunset. Her mother called it “decayed grandeur,” but Miri thought it was old-fashioned beautiful.

The garden was the same way—big, old, and shabby. When Miri first saw it, she had supposed that the circular lawn, with its shady elm and white gazebo, was the whole backyard.

“Nope,” her father had said. “The nice part stops at the lawn, but it’s all ours, past those ugly bushes and back through the woods to the creek. Used to be a farm, I guess. I think that overgrown part next to the driveway was an apple orchard.”

Now Miri picked her way through the stickery berry coils, looking for a sign of the barn that her mother had mentioned that morning. Stopping in the humming sunshine, she popped a blackberry into her mouth and it exploded in hot, sweet juice. If she lived in the woods, she would live on berries, nuts, and roots, which she would collect in a little basket she’d weave herself from reeds. Miri picked up a few walnut shells that lay in the dust at her feet. They would be her little cups. She would fill them with berry juice and flower nectar. Then, on the night of the full moon, she’d be awakened by dozens of tiny blue fairies with swishing silver wings. Each would take a dainty sip of the drink and pat their mouths with their gossamer hankies. In a thin, silvery voice, the Queen Fairy would call out, “You, Miriam, have given us hospitality, and in return we will make you one of us this night.” Together with the fairies, Miri would flutter through the dark woods, talking to the night birds.

“Whatsamatter, Miri? You get stung by a bee?” yelled Ray from the back porch. Miri turned to find four pairs of eyes gazing at her as she fluttered back and forth across the grass, inside her fairy world.

“Stop watching me, you guys! Leave me alone!” Miri ran around the blackberry bushes to find a secluded spot where she could pretend in peace.

But even in the shade of the dusty bushes, Miri was embarrassed. Fairies. At her age. Last year her teacher, Mrs. Lorne, had written on her report card, “Miri has a dazzling imaginative capacity.” That sounded nice, but most of the other fifth-grade girls had stopped pretending. They would act out movies or maybe books, but they thought magic was for babies. Mostly, they just walked together, talking and giggling. Except for Lili. Lili would pretend anything Miri wanted. She had even changed her name from Lillian to Lili to be more like Miri. The only problem with Lili was she didn’t do any of the pretending herself. She just waited for Miri to tell her what to do. Still, Miri admitted to herself, it would feel good to see Lili right this minute.

Miri sighed. Her glasses slipped down her sweaty nose, and she pushed them up to look out at the empty expanse of grass and weeds that stretched before her to the woods. Of course, it wasn’t really empty. There were clumps of rocks and bushes, even a few stray stacks of wood. Miri got to her feet, planning to cross through the weeds and head for the stream that wandered through the trees behind. She climbed across a row of rocks and a few mounds of dirt to reach the cool shade of the trees. Then she stopped.

Wait.

A row of rocks. Why would rocks be in a row? She turned to investigate. The rocks were not really rocks, but lumps of gray brick in a broken line. Miri peered around at the surrounding area. Yes—over there was a pile of collapsed wood. And there was another straight line of bricks. Out from under the blowzy blackberry bush, another stack of rotting boards jutted forward, and an old metal wheel leaned against an uneven bit of fence. An ancient bucket filled with hard, dry dirt sat next to a scrubby bush. This was it, she thought excitedly—the barn! Now she could see its outline. It was definitely the ruins of an old building, and the only old building it could be was the barn her mother had mentioned that morning. Miri found a sturdy branch, and, starting from the broken gray bricks, she drew a long line out to the pile of collapsed boards. There was one wall. Carefully, she traced three more walls by walking from fragment to fragment. There, she thought, looking at her work with satisfaction, that’s the barn. The hidden barn. A hidden barn would be a perfect place to bury stolen jewels. I bet this is the place. The blackberry coils rustled in a sudden breath of air, cooling the sweat on her face. Miri nodded. This is definitely the place. I bet I could dig it up before the boys! I’ll beat them to it. She pictured a little treasure chest glittering with coins and jewels. Rings were her favorites. Opal rings. She turned and raced back to the house to find a shovel.

Miri bounced through the screen door and began scrabbling through the boxes that littered the back porch. She found her mother’s gardening gloves, and the shovel was probably nearby—

“Whatcha doing, Miri?” It was Ray, standing in the kitchen doorway. Miri jumped—she had forgotten about her brothers and sisters.

“Nothing,” she answered. It was a dumb thing to say. Anybody could see that she was doing
something.
But she wanted to keep her discovery a secret. She wanted to find the treasure on her own and bring it back to show them. She had a vision of her brothers, exchanging impressed looks while she unclasped an ancient wooden chest. She would be modest about it. And kind. But she wasn’t going to tell them what she was doing yet. They would only laugh. And why shouldn’t I have a secret? she thought. Ray and Robbie won’t let me hunt with them, so why should I tell them about my barn?

Ray didn’t ask again. He just stood there and watched her, slitty-eyed. After a minute, Miri turned back to the pile of gardening stuff. There it was, the green shovel. Just exactly what she needed. Ray was still staring at her, she knew. She tried to think of something she could be doing with a shovel that wouldn’t interest a twelve-year-old boy—digging for worms? No, he’d love that. Planting flowers? No, he’d know she didn’t have seeds. Oh, it was too hard! Eager to find her treasure, Miri decided to make a run for it.

She tried an old trick. “Oh no!” she exclaimed, looking over Ray’s shoulder with a horrified expression.

“What?” he said quickly, turning around.

As fast as a cat, Miri hurled herself out the screen door, jumped over the stairs, and raced madly across the grass.

She should have known it wouldn’t work. After all, Ray and Robbie were going to be track stars next year. With a whoop, Ray leaped out the back door and chased her. Robbie, who had no idea what it was all about, joined in because he was bored and it looked like fun. Ray grabbed Miri’s arm and began to pull on it, but she kicked him and broke away. “Go away! Leave me alone!” she yelled and ran wildly toward the blackberry bushes.

“Get her!” Ray croaked to Robbie, who stuck out one leg and tripped her.

Miri went sprawling, and as she did, she heard the distinctive crunch of her glasses cracking. “Oh no! You broke my glasses!” she shouted, picking herself up from the grass. “You broke my glasses, you big creeps!” Tears of rage sprang into her eyes, and she tried again to run from her tormentors.

But they didn’t stop. To them, it was a game. And if it was a game, they had to win it. “Head her off!” yowled Ray. He made a headfirst dive and succeeded in grabbing her around the stomach. Robbie cheered him on.

“You jerk! I hate you!” screamed Miri. She pulled her arm free, and, in an explosion of fury, brought her shovel down with a clunk on Ray’s head. There was a short silence, and he dropped to the ground. Instantly, shrill squeals burst from the back porch, where Nell and Nora had been a happy audience to the brawl, and Robbie jumped to his feet and ran to his brother’s side.

“Mom! Mom!” he yelled, catching hold of Ray’s shirt and trying to drag him toward the house. “C’mere! Miri killed Ray!”

A new wave of screams poured from the porch, and Miri, sobbing now with fear, saw her mother moving in a blur of speed from the back door toward Ray.

“Raymond!” her mother said in a low, urgent voice.

“Mmm,” he replied in a whisper. “I’m okay I think.”

“Don’t sit up yet,” she said, patting him. “Where does it hurt?”

“My
head,
” he said, wincing.

“Miri clocked him with the shovel, Mom! I couldn’t believe it! She just slammed him right on the head—” Robbie babbled.

Her mother turned toward Miri, her face terrible. “Did you hit your brother with a shovel?”

Miri tried to explain, “They were grabbing me, Mom! They broke my glasses, and they wouldn’t leave me alone, and they followed me, and then Ray knocked me over and—”

“Miriam Gill, did you hit your brother on the head with a shovel?” Her mother’s voice was tight and furious.

“Yes,” said Miri, looking at the grass. “But he—”

“You could have killed him, Miri! How would you have felt then?” Her mother’s face was white. Miri had never seen her so angry. “Hitting is absolutely not acceptable in this family!” Miri tried again to explain, but her mother interrupted. “I don’t want to hear a word! Not a word! Get up to your room this minute! This
minute!
” She spit the word.

“But—”

“Your room!” Her mother pointed a jabbing finger toward the house.

There was a silence, and Miri felt the stares of Ray and Robbie, Nell and Nora against her skin. She stuffed her broken glasses into the pocket of her dress and walked stiffly across the grass. When she opened the back door, Nell and Nora drew in their breath, as though they were shocked to find themselves in the company of such a bad person. Miri turned around and looked at Ray, who was sitting up on the grass with Robbie at his side. A mocking grin flickered across his face, and he stuck his tongue out at her. “He’s just faking it!” Miri yelled.

Ray resumed his pathetic expression just as his mother swirled around. “Your
room!
” she shouted to Miri with another jab of her finger.

CHAPTER
3

I
NSIDE, THE HOUSE
was shadowy and quiet. Miri brushed her fingertips along the smooth, dark wood of the hallway and felt a little comforted. Her face was hot with anger and running, and her eyes were swollen from tears; she wished she could find a little door in the wall and disappear. Slowly, she climbed the small staircase that led to her room. Her room. She stopped on the threshold and peered at the walls. It didn’t look any better without glasses.

When her parents decided to move from their house in Stanton far away into the valley, they had made a big deal about Miri finally getting her own room, instead of sharing with Nell and Nora. And, though Miri had been worried about leaving her friends and the house she had lived in all her life, she thought that having her own room would make up for a lot.

It didn’t. Separated from the rest of the upper story by a steep, narrow staircase that was more like a ladder, her room had clearly been part of the attic at one time. Rather than being a rectangle or a square, the walls—and there were a lot of them—formed a peculiar shape. “It’s not exactly an octagon, is it?” said her mother doubtfully, as they stood looking at the room for the first time.

Her father counted silently. “It’s a decagon,” he announced after a moment. “Ten sides. That’s pretty cool.”

There were two thin windows on one side of the room, and then one more, a tiny, round, porthole-like window set high on the east side.

“It’s like a skylight that slid,” said Ray.

It wasn’t exactly what Miri had been imagining, but she could have been excited about the strange shape and the weird windows if it hadn’t been for the wallpaper. “Now don’t worry about the wallpaper,” her mother said brightly. “We’ll get that taken care of in no time!” No time wasn’t soon enough. The wallpaper was dark purple striped with vines of orange leaves. It was the ugliest wallpaper Miri had ever seen. And the closet was strange, too. It was almost as big as the room itself and had a long, low seat built into one wall.

“Who’d want to sit down inside a closet?” muttered Miri, sitting down.

Robbie pushed his way into the closet and leaned close to her ear. “It’s a coffin,” he whispered in a ghostly voice. “Prepare to die.”

“Get out of here,” said Miri, giggling.

But at night when she lay in bed, she wondered.

• • •

Now, as Miri stood in the doorway, the small room felt like a jail cell. Or maybe an oven. It was sweltering. She thought of Ray’s flickering smile and slammed the door behind her. What a liar he was! “Too bad I didn’t hurt him for real,” she mumbled, stomping toward her old rocking chair, “as long as I’m in trouble anyway.” She thumped down in her chair and began rocking wildly back and forth while she tried to guess what her punishment would be. It would be something pretty bad, she knew, because her mother hated it when they hit each other. Probably she’d be grounded. Big deal. There was no place to go anyway. Her mom would likely realize this. Maybe she’d have to go to bed early for a week. Or a month. Or maybe she’d have to stay in her room all day. She’d broil. She’d suffocate, and then they’d all feel really bad. Sweat trickled down Miri’s neck, and she looked around at the purple walls in disgust. They were all liars, everyone in her family. Wasn’t the wallpaper supposed to be gone by now? “We’ll paint it any color you like, sweetie,” her mother had said. But it had been twelve days, and she was still stuck with the grossest wallpaper in the world. Without her glasses, she couldn’t see the orange vines clearly, but there was a sort of a stripy orange tinge to the walls. Orange and purple wallpaper—who would be crazy enough to choose orange and purple wallpaper? Some old lady. Her mother had said that the house had belonged to an old, old lady who had lived there a long time. I bet she just picked this wallpaper on purpose to make the room uglier, thought Miri. I bet she put the wallpaper up right before she moved out, just to be mean. She knew this wasn’t true—the wallpaper was old and faded—but it made her feel better.