The Magickers (28 page)

“Ah.” Jason looked the units over. He used computers at school, but they didn't particularly fascinate him, although he did vaguely wonder, like Jon, what they were doing here at camp. Finally, fidgeting, he tugged at Trent, not wanting to be late to calisthenics. That would mean extra push-ups and hiking, and he had other things on his mind.

Lucas Jefferson met them with a big grin on his face and long iron rods with an end bent for a short handle. Trent and Jason fell in at the back. Ting turned around and waved at them, drawing Jennifer's attention who also turned and waved. They did a quick roll call, and then Jefferson tapped on a camp table, rattling a stack of clipboards.

“All right, ladies and gents, you are mine for the rest of the morning. I want you to listen up, because Mistress Eleanora is going to cover the book learning and lore of much of what it is we're going to be doing today. This morning, we are going to do the grunt work.” He flashed a wide, ivory smile.

Stefan grunted, on cue. He lumbered up to a table and sat down heavily, arms crossed. Rich thumped him on the back of the head, a playful hit which Stefan scarcely seemed to register.

“As soon as I'm done explaining a bit, I'm going to have you break into pairs. What we are going to do today is mapping. It's not fun. It's hot. And it's boring. But it's essential because it has to do with where a Magicker gets his Magick from.”

“Ooooh,” breathed Danno softly. Henry took his glasses off and cleaned them solemnly.

“Magick is sunk into the earth itself. It can lie there, deep and dormant, as though lost under a great ocean. Or it can surface, like a pretty shell we can easily pick up off the sand. It is everywhere . . . and nowhere. It is a power that comes from the land and its elements, and although it is everywhere, it tends to run in deep streams and patterns. We call them ley lines. Know where your ley lines and power nodes are and you can . . . if it's your Talent . . . do quite a bit of Magick. You're going to hear more about this from Miss Eleanora later. Now, you're going to help me find the ley lines.” Lucas hefted a fistful of metal rods. They looked like straight rods, with a handle or grip bent at the ends at right angles. Very simple. A long letter L in metal. “Anyone ever seen one of these before?”

Danno put his hand up. “I have.”

“What's it called? What did you use it for?” Jefferson smiled broadly at Danno.

“My grandfather calls 'em witching sticks. He used peeled wood branches with a fork to hold. Those are metal, though, and called dowsing rods. They're used to find water. He digs wells where they tell him.”

“Ever use one? Or just watch him?”

Danno looked uncomfortable. “I used 'em.”

“Did they work?”

After a long moment, Danno ducked his head in a nod.

“Excellent! Because they can work, and do. I know contractors and builders, who even use them to find power lines, sometimes building studs.”

Jason blinked. He'd seen a pair of those rods in the Dozer's big tool boxes. He knew they'd looked vaguely familiar!

Lucas separated a rod out and held it in front of him. “Now, with power lines, cables, and such, there are better tools. But for dowsing ley lines,” he winked, “we have to do it the old-fashioned way. We use them in pairs.” He pulled another rod free from a stack. One in each hand, he held them side by side, the short ends disappearing into his large hands. He held them easily in front of him, pointing straight out. “You hold them parallel, like this. You squeeze 'em kind of easy so they can't swing around as you walk, but you hold 'em gentle like. We'll be walking in rows, side by side, step by step. If the rods feel like swinging apart, you let 'em. Or the points dipping down. When they stop moving, you stop! You freeze, right there. Your partner, the one with the clipboard, is going to mark the spot, best as he can, on the topography maps we have printed out. The reason the rods move is they are sensitive to fields of energy we can't find easily otherwise. We'll be spread out, but you'll be able to see campers on your left and right. If your fellow campers are stopped as well, you wait till their rods are in position again and they're ready to walk again, before you move out. Any questions?”

Hands shot up and voices peppered the air, but Trent stepped to the stack of clipboards and grabbed one up. He pointed at Jason. “You're dowsing. I'm mapping.”

Lucas patiently answered a number of questions before he said firmly, “Get your gear, and follow me, and we'll have a try at it. Then I think you'll understand it a bit better.”

They hiked to the edge of the campground where wilderness pressed heavily and the fencing, if any, seemed broken down. Jason touched his charm bag against his neck uneasily, feeling chilled although the summer sun burned down hotly on them all. Jason held his metal rods, one in each hand as he'd been told. He stepped forward and felt nothing, absolutely nothing, with Trent trotting along behind him, humming and drumming his pencil against the clipboard until Jason wanted to yell. With each step dust puffed up from drying grass and pine needles. Suddenly, the rods in his hands slowly began to swing apart. He slowed, then stopped as they moved all the way to each side, his jaw dropped in astonishment.

Jefferson jogged up. He held a single rod in his hand and it swung wildly as he drew even with Trent and Jason. “Well, well. Looks like you've found a strong one. Let's see if the others can catch the stream.”

Pleased, Jason stood very still. The sun beat down on his head. He could see Henry and Jonnard, of all people, mapping, off to the right. Way to the left, past several groups, Jennifer and Ting worked. Soon, all halted. It was an uneven wavering line of campers. Trent shaded his eyes, then began to sketch, quickly, on a second piece of paper.

“What are you doing?”

“Well. We've got our spot here.” Trent tapped the pencil on the map he had. “And the whole line here.” He flipped the first sheet up and tapped the second page. “Otherwise, someone's got to go through and coordinate everyone's spot, see?”

Jason didn't quite, but he nodded as if he had. Jefferson bellowed, from somewhere over a small hillock to Jason's left, “Move out!”

Jason righted his dowsing rods and began to stride forward again, slowly. They'd gone maybe the distance of the schoolyard at home, when his rods began to swing in his hands again. He stopped as they suddenly flung open to each side, making a wide vee, and quivered.

There was a shout or two next to him, and Trent once again began sketching quickly, his face furrowed in concentration.

As the morning wore on, the momentary excitement of having the rods actually move seemingly on their own wore off. Jefferson had the area laid out in grids and once they worked one direction, they came back and worked the other at right angles. When they finally turned in their clipboards and rods, he was hot, dusty, sweaty, and scratched. Jefferson thumped him on the shoulder. “No guts, no glory,” he said, grinning.

Stefan looked as if he'd fallen headfirst into a hedge as the pair of them trudged up to turn in their gear. The heavy boy shuffled about as Rich piled his metal rods into Jefferson's stack.

“What happened?” Trent stared in fascination.

“Nothing.” Stefan grunted and shrugged away. Rich, though, snickered. “Fell into a brier patch,” he said.

“Didn't see it?” Jason thought that even Stefan must be smart enough to avoid a brier patch, if he knew it was there.

Stefan grumbled and scrubbed at his nose, where a long angry scratch ran across it. “Long story.” He lumbered off, Rich in his wake.

Trent whispered in his ear, “Ever try to figure out what it is that makes those two Magickers?”

Jason nodded thoughtfully. At the cabin, he packed his fetish away as he got towels and trunks and they went to swimming class gratefully, letting the cooling waters of Lake Wannameecha wash away the dirt and grit and the heat of the sun. The promised lecture from Eleanora, however, did not materialize as that class was canceled and instead, Dr. Patel led them all in yoga and breathing exercises, which was okay, but had Jason wondering.

Where was the glory in being a Magicker? When was he going to see something wondrous done? What good was it if they couldn't even find Bailey?

 

After dinner, they sat at the fire ring. Jennifer was reading notes in her notebook by the last of the sun, her face hidden by a curtain of long blonde hair, her legs tucked under her. Trent lay flat on his back, watching the last of the daylight catching the clouds drifting overhead. Henry sat miserably, having failed at dowsing. Jonnard was off somewhere and Danno had kitchen duty. Ting sat on the log, needle in hand, expertly sewing back on a pocket that had been ripped free earlier.

And Jason leaned against Trent's knees, angry and unhappy that Bailey was still gone. She had depended on
him,
and he'd failed her so far. All the clues meant nothing to him. She had vanished into thin air just like that cookie he'd tried to hand her. . . .

“Do you think we'll have Bailey back by the Fourth of July? We need her for the big game. Not to mention her mother will be frantic with no letters and no calls. How do you tell someone her daughter is a Ghost?”

Ting shivered. “At least I know it's a friendly Ghost.”

“We could cover, I guess,” said Trent thoughtfully. “But not for long.”

“We shouldn't have to cover,” said Jason firmly.

“There must be a way to find her.”

Ting pulled on her needle and thread quickly, and a small smile crossed her face. “There!” she said in satisfaction, and held her shorts up. “A stitch in time saves nine!”

Jason's head snapped around. “What was that?”

“Sewing,” said Ting. She waved her needle and thread about. “Mending? You do know that things can be repaired?”

“No . . . no . . . what was that you said? I only half heard you.”

“A stitch in time saves nine?” Ting looked at him through curious almond-shaped eyes.

“That's it! That's it!” Jason leaped to his feet and did a war dance around the fire ring, scattering chipmunks and sending blue jays winging off, and drawing stares all around. “A stitch in time saves mine,” she'd whispered in his ear. It could only have been Bailey twisting that saying about. In time! “That's why they can't find her! Bailey's isn't some
where.
She's some
when!
”

19

J
ENNIFER flung her hair over her shoulder and peered at Jason. “Whatever are you talking about?”

Jason stopped dancing, slightly out of breath. “I know where Bailey is. She's right here. Only, she's out of time somehow, offtrack. Out of sync.”

Ting put away her sewing things neatly, mulling over what he'd suggested, before saying, “I think he's right. He has to be. Too many things have happened.”

Jennifer clipped her pen to her notebook. She stood. “What are we going to do about it?”

He stopped still. “I've no idea,” he answered slowly. “I have to tell the Magickers, of course.”

Jennifer snorted. “We are all concerned, but I think that's the wisest course.”

“We're also on probation,” Trent said. He dug the toe of his sneaker into the dirt around the fire ring.

“We don't even have a plan. Yet,” Jason answered.

The sun lowered behind the mountains, dusk settling in, and the clouds Trent had been watching turned a fiery pink and gold in the sky. Its heat lingered behind, though, blanketing the whole camp, and another swim sounded great, but no one was allowed in the lake after late afternoon. That did not mean no one went swimming . . . they had all heard of swimming trips sneaked in, but Jason did not feel like venturing out tonight. Other campers filtered in, and whatever plans were being thought of, were quickly put aside.

Eleanora joined them. “Nice evening,” she said quietly. She carried her dulcimer. “No bonfire tonight.”

Sighs of protest greeted her, and she smiled faintly. “All is not lost. FireAnn and her staff have been cranking at ice cream, and I hear they're serving sundaes in the mess hall.”

“Ice cream!” Henry Squibb jumped to his feet and trotted off without another word.

Cool, creamy ice cream sounded too good to miss for any reason, but Jason hung back till they were all alone. Eleanora smiled at him. Trent stayed in the background, almost close enough to overhear, but too far away to participate in the chat. “Not screaming for ice cream, Jason?”

“Oh, it sounds good, but . . . I think I know about Bailey.”

Eleanora had let her hand fall upon the dulcimer, and its strings chimed very faintly. “Tell me,” she said, after she stilled it.

“She's out of sync.”

“Out of sync? Synchronization?” Eleanora watched his face.

“Exactly. She's out of time with us. Either a step or two ahead or behind. I don't know for sure which way and I don't think she knows either, other than she's almost but not quite here.”

“And you figured this out for yourself?”

“Not exactly. She managed to tell me something. I only heard part of it, and it didn't make sense. Bailey gets things twisted around sometimes.”

Eleanora laughed softly. “I have heard a saying or two she's put into knots.”

Jason grinned. “This one was ‘a stitch in time saves mine.' I only heard half of it and just realized a few minutes ago what she was saying, and what she meant.”

“That does have a ring of truth about it.” Eleanora sat down on a tree stump, gathering her skirts about her. “That would explain what we've done wrong trying to track her. Even why she dropped her crystal.”