The Night of the Solstice (24 page)

“But—but—can humans do sorcery?” asked Charles.

“You've already done some yourself, if you recall,” said Morgana. “Although, of course, the amulet spell was just child's play—literally. I made it that way. But to answer your question, I don't see why not. The Council wouldn't like it, but then the Council isn't here. And desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“You'll be able to do
magic
,” said Claudia to Janie admiringly.

“Oh, well.” Janie tried to look matter-of-fact and humble, failed dismally, and grinned again. “Of course, I've got to learn the basics first,” she added
briskly. “Latin and German and Old English for reading Morgana's books. Botany and organic chemistry. Metamorphic petrology …”

Charles was horrified. “You
want
to do this?”

“Oh, yes! I've wanted it all my life, without even knowing what it was. Charles, you have no grasp of the tremendous potential involved here, the infinite possibilities, the challenge—”

But Charles had gone back to trying to pry the lid off his box of Kryptonite with his thumbnail.

“Anyway,” said Janie, turning to Claudia, “I can do one thing for you right now, if you like. Morgana and I have been discussing it, and we think it's a pity that you and the vixen can't talk while you're outside this house. So we're going to whip up a spell—a really old spell, and a hard one, too—that will allow you to understand her anywhere.”

“I'll be able to talk to animals?” Claudia began to stutter in her excitement. “Like—like Doctor Dolittle? You mean I'll be able to t-t-t-talk—”

“
Not
to animals,” said Morgana forcefully, pausing by the cellar door. “To the
vixen.
And only to the vixen.
We can't have you wandering about holding conversations with every stray mongrel you meet. It's a waste of time and energy and you never know what it might lead to. Do you understand?
Not
to animals. Now, come along, Janie.”

Claudia blushed and ducked her head. She hadn't meant to seem greedy. It was enough to be allowed to talk to the vixen, she knew that.

But as the little sorceress and her familiar descended the steps, Janie stopped in the doorway. She turned. Slowly, deliberately, she winked one purple eye at Claudia, and smiled.

“Somehow the idea of Janie and magic together makes me very nervous,” said Charles when the doorway was empty.

“She'll be supervised,” said Alys vaguely, thinking of her horse. “Morgana won't let her do anything too awful.”

“Yeah, but just imagine it. Newts crawling out of the woodwork on junior talent night. Bliss Bascomb getting mange. Hey!” He cheered up suddenly. “Maybe she could hex my geometry teacher.”

“Or keep the weather decent for at-home games. Hmmm …”

Musing, they drifted to the back door.

“Coming, Claude? We're going home to find some rope.”

“I have to stay for the spell,” said Claudia, surprised.

“All right.”

They went outside. Even in midwinter the California sun was warm and bright, and a little breeze blew across the orange grove, stirring their hair.

Alys gazed down dreamily at Villa Park. “All this,” she announced to Charles, “is still here because of us.”

“Yeah,” said Charles cynically, “but nobody knows it.”

“Mom and Dad know. Or anyway they know we did something. And,” she added, struck by a sudden thought, “I'm sure they know in the Wildworld.”

The more she thought about this the more certain she became. The serpent, her own serpent, had undoubtedly told the story to the Weerul Council, and presently word would get around. Perhaps someone would write a song or story about it.

Yes, or an epic poem in heroic couplets. The tale of Alys the Valiant who, heedless of the danger, had single-handedly led a small band of untried warriors against a master sorcerer. Alys the Stalwart, friend of marsh dwellers and Feathered Serpents, conquerer of Quislais, fearless traverser of the mirrors. And why should the story end there? Someday, perhaps, there would be further tales of Alys the Intrepid and her white steed Winter, champions of justice and defenders of the oppressed. Tales of Alys the Undaunted, the gallant, brave, and resolute …

“Hey, Alys,” said Charles, “do you think Morgana would let me trade in my Kryptonite for a dirt bike?”

Alys the Heroically Valiant, Conquerer of Thousands, disappeared and all that was left was Alys the Sensible, everybody's big sister and confidante. She sighed and then smiled at Charles.

“I don't see why not,” she said. “Anyway, it couldn't hurt to ask.”

“I saw an ad for one in the paper the other day, a Kawasaki KX80. Water-cooled motor, front disc
brakes, KYB leading axle front air forks, six-speed transmission …”

“Sounds wonderful,” said Alys, thinking of her horse.

“Or maybe a Honda XR500 … only you need a driver's license for one of those. Hey! Maybe Morgana could get me a driver's license… .”

They walked on down the hill.

Inside the house a fly buzzed lazily in the sunshine. Claudia opened a window to let it out. The kitchen was drowsy and warm and still, as if keeping its own secrets.

She sat down to wait for the vixen.

 

THE MAGIC CONTINUES
IN

L.J. SM
Ä°
TH'S

Claudia Hodges-Bradley twisted a strand of mouse brown hair around her fingers and frowned mightily, trying to concentrate on Mrs. Anderson's review of this week's spelling words. There would be a test this afternoon, and Mrs. Anderson's tests always gave Claudia stomach cramps. She knew she needed to pay attention … but she would rather just listen to the birds.

Not that birds, in general, had a great deal to say for themselves. They could sit happily for hours shrieking, “I'm a bluejay! I'm a bluejay! This is
my
tree! This is
my
tree!” So it wasn't that they were very interesting, just much more interesting than school or Mrs. Anderson.

At a steely glance from that lady Claudia jumped guiltily and stopped twisting her hair. Mrs. Anderson
disapproved of hair twisting, pencil chewing, and nail biting, all of which Claudia seemed to be doing more of this year than ever before. Claudia was a square, serious child, whose blue eyes always looked a little anxious in class pictures. This year they usually seemed to look that way in the mirror, too.

Since she couldn't twist her hair, she put a hand to her chest to feel the comforting bump of the charm beneath her shirt. It was so familiar she could see it with her fingers: the broad crescent of silver from which hung three stones: sardonyx, black opal, and bloodstone, each inscribed with spidery writing in the language of the Wildworld. Claudia couldn't read any of the symbols on the stones, but she understood very well what the charm did. It enabled her to talk to animals.

Perhaps
communicate
was a better word than
talk
. Animal language depended as much on body movement—the tilt of a head, the flip of a wing, the quirk of a tail—as it did on mere sounds. Except when the message was meant to be heard and understood over long distances, like the killdeer outside daring anyone to come close to
her
nest… .

Claudia sucked in her breath sharply. The killdeer had been saying something quite different for several minutes now, and Claudia had just realized what it was. Automatically, she started to raise her hand to tell Mrs. Anderson, then hastily snatched the hand down again. The teacher would think she had gone crazy. Better just to wait it out. After all, there was nothing Mrs. Anderson could do about it. And maybe—Claudia brightened considerably—they wouldn't get to the spelling test this afternoon.

And then her breath stopped, and her heart underneath the silver charm began to pound violently. Because it was the last week of April and the spring canned-food drive was almost over, and Mrs. Anderson's class was winning. And the tower they had made with their 246 (as of this morning) cans of food rose high in all its symmetrical splendor against the wall on one side of the room.

Claudia could just see it out of the corner of her eye without turning her head. Remmy Garcia was sitting a foot or so away from it. Claudia liked Remmy. He kept white rats at home. She didn't much like
Beth Ann, who sat behind him, but as her sister Alys would say, that was beside the point.

“Claudia!”

Claudia started. She had twisted around in her seat to look at the cans; now she turned her agonized gaze back on Mrs. Anderson.

“Claudia, if you want to stare at your little friend, recess is the time to do it—except that you just lost five minutes of your recess. Do you understand?”

Claudia scarcely heard the titters of the class. She had to do something to stop what was going to happen, but she had not the first idea what. Even Alys, who was a junior in high school and could fix almost anything, couldn't fix something like this. But still, she felt a strong compulsion to tell Alys… . No. Not Alys.
Janie.

Janie might be able to help. Janie did all sorts of strange things these days. Most of them were of no use whatsoever, but some were. Feverishly, Claudia began rummaging in her desk for pencil and paper. She would write a letter to Janie.

“Claudia! Claudia Hodges-Bradley!” Claudia
dropped the pencil. Mrs. Anderson was staring as though she couldn't believe her eyes.

“Claudia, if you would just learn to pay attention, school wouldn't be so difficult for you. Now you've lost
ten
minutes of recess.”

As the teacher turned back to the blackboard Claudia stealthily picked up the pencil again. She would have to be very careful; if she lost the last five minutes of recess, she would have no way of sending the letter. She wrote with her eyes glued to Mrs. Anderson's back, only snatching a peek at the paper now and then. Writing was hard work for Claudia under any circumstances, and spelling a hopeless task even when she wasn't rattled. Letters seemed to have a life of their own, jumping in and out of words and turning themselves upside down. When the note was finished she surveyed it doubtfully. She felt almost certain
towwer
was misspelled. But Janie was very smart, she told herself comfortingly. Janie would understand.

The recess bell rang. Claudia sat for ten minutes under the forbidding eye of Mrs. Anderson, trying not to twist her hair.

Dismissed at last, she burst out onto the blacktop already scanning the perimeter of the playground. There were lots of dogs in Villa Park and usually one or two could be seen gamboling on the other side of the chain-link fence. Yes—there! But it was so far away, on the other side of the big kids' playground.

Claudia, a third grader, was not allowed on that playground. She didn't know what they did to you if they caught you there—possibly suspended you as they had suspended Tony Stowers for hitting another little boy over the head with a bag of marbles. Probably sent you to the principal. She cast a glance at the teacher on yard duty, saw he was looking the other way, and began to slink.

She felt horribly exposed, the only child on an endless field of forbidden grass, and when she reached the fence she hunkered down, making herself as small as possible. She whistled. The dog, a sort of setter-spaniel mix with something vaguely Airedale about the ears, stopped scratching itself and looked surprised. It recovered quickly and trotted over, wagging its whole body and uttering short, sharp barks in an attempt to
tell her how eager it was to do whatever she wanted it to do, how proud it was to have been chosen to do it, how valiantly it would try to accomplish the task, how—

“Be quiet,” said Claudia, desperately. The dog groveled. “I need you to help me. You know who I am?”

The setter rolled eyes like chocolate drops expressively. Everyone knew Claudia.

“All right, well, I've got a sister—not my biggest sister, Alys, but the other one, Janie. She goes to the junior high school—the place across the street with lots of kids. You know that place?”

The setter knew it perfectly. Pizza in the cafeteria trash cans, rats under the Quonset huts, and gophers in the field. A wonderful place.

“Well, I need you to go there and find Janie and give her this note. Janie is—” Claudia stopped, overwhelmed by the task of trying to describe Janie in terms the setter would understand.

The dog raised its head off its paws and barked once, wriggling in delight. It knew Janie, too. Threw away half her lunch and smelled like magic. Nothing easier than to find her.

“Oh, thank you!” said Claudia, pushing her hand through a diamond of the chain-link to touch its wet nose. Then she carefully folded the note and poked it through.

“Now, go! Please hurry.” As the dog trotted away, letter in its teeth, tail high, pride in its commission showing in every line of its body, the bell rang again. Recess was over.

And Claudia was an ocean of grass away from her rightful place. Her only hope was to hug the older kids' classrooms and get back to her room through the middle of the school.

There was, she discovered at once, a fatal flaw in this plan. Barring the way between the intermediate and the primary wings of the school was a chain-link gate. It was not locked, but Claudia knew she would never have the courage to touch it, much less open it. Besides, there was a teacher on the other side—her year-before-last-year's teacher, Mr. Pigeon.

Mr. Pigeon had been a nice teacher. He had never made her name sound like “Clod-ia” or told her her writing looked like chicken tracks or her attitude was
terrible. His class motto had been “All for one and one for all.” Claudia sniffled as she turned to go the other way.

Mr. Pigeon heard. He turned around, surprised.

“Claudia, what—?” But instead of finishing the question he looked hard at her face. Then he put a finger to his lips and opened the gate, beckoning her through.