The Girl Without Magic

by Megan O'Russell

  Then without warning he walked out of the circle of white trees to a large, barren tree three feet to the left. Maggie hadn’t noticed the barren tree before. It was so dark and ordinary next to the clearly magical trees Bertrand had just been examining. Bertrand smiled as he stepped toward the tree, and with a bright flash of green light, he disappeared.

  Maggie yelped and leapt back, falling onto the ground. Something cut into her palm, but she didn’t bother looking at it as she sprang to her feet and ran toward the tree.

  Bertrand was gone. There was no trace of him. It was like the tree had swallowed him whole. With trembling fingers, Maggie reached for the tree. She half-expected it to grow teeth and eat her with a tongue of green light, but nothing happened. She ran her fingers along the bark. The rough surface felt warmer than it should have in the shade of the forest. But there was no nob, or instructions. Nothing to say how to follow Bertrand.

  Maggie went to the center of the white trees, following what Bertrand had done. Searching the trees with her fingers, muttering curses the whole way. If the trees wanted a spell, she didn’t have one to give. She stood in the center of the trees and looked up through the branches. But there was no hidden password or spell written in their leaves.

  Maggie jammed her fingers through her hair, willing her brain to come up with a solution.

  But there was nothing. She didn’t know how to find a way out of the Siren’s Realm, let alone what to do once she did. The best thing she could hope for was for Bertrand to make it back alive and then maybe she could convince him to take her the next time he left the Siren’s Realm.

  Maggie’s heart sank. She hadn’t even really wanted to go, but now knowing she couldn’t….

  “Nope,” Maggie said to the empty woods. “I’m going. I am going to figure this thing out, and I am going.”

  She strode over to the barren tree. There was something there she hadn’t seen before. A dark crack, barely big enough to be noticed. Yet the closer she got the wider it seemed. Almost large enough for her to slide through.

  Maggie reached her hand out toward the darkness inside the tree, wondering if she would find only shadows or something living inside. But the instant her fingers grazed the darkness, the world disappeared in a bright flash of green, and she was falling.

  old crushed her lungs, pushing out her last precious bit of air. Whether she was falling or the world around her was moving, she didn’t know.

  Death. This can’t be death. It wasn’t before.

  Maggie’s brain felt as though it might burst from lack of air.

  But maybe she had done it wrong. She hadn’t found a way through one of the stitches that led to a faraway world, and now she would just be trapped in the darkness forever.

  She opened her mouth to try and ask for a light, but in the void, speaking was impossible.

  Dying in battle would have been better.

  Just when Maggie had decided that this was in fact the end, bright light shone around her, and she was plunged into cold darkness.

  But it wasn’t like before. This darkness had texture. Flowing around her. Maggie opened her mouth to try to breathe, but water flooded her lungs, burning worse than the nothing had.

  Spots danced in front of her eyes. Up, she needed to find the way up. But the world had gotten twisted around, and she didn’t know which way might lead out of the water.

  Forcing herself to relax, a gentle wave pushed her up the tiniest bit. Fighting with all the strength she had left in her limbs, Maggie kicked up toward the surface.

  Bright light and warmth greeted her as she reached the open air, coughing and retching the water from her lungs. Her arms ached as she fought to keep her head above the water, gasping for breath as her head spun. It took nearly a minute for the world around her to begin making sense.

  She was in a lake of some sort. Vast though the water was, she could see land on all sides.

  The water wasn’t freezing. That was good. It was cool and still, almost comfortable to be in.

  The shore was covered in trees so thick it looked like a jungle. Faint rustling and hooting sounded from deep within the shadows. High stone cliffs cut through the water, some reaching around to corners and disappearing, some rising like tree-topped spires isolated in the lake.

  Luckily, the shore nearest her sat low at the edge of the water with trees filling in before the cliffs in the distance.

  Taking one last deep breath, Maggie swam toward the shore. Something brushed up against her leg, but she didn’t dare stop to see what it was. If something wanted to eat her, there wasn’t a thing she could do about it anyway. The shore was farther away than it had seemed, and by the time Maggie pulled herself belly first onto land, she was gasping for breath again.

  Horrible thirst burned in her throat, but she didn’t dare drink the lake water.

  “This,” Maggie panted, still face down on the ground, “is bullshit.”

  “On the contrary, Miss Trent,” Bertrand’s voice came from above, “I think you’ve done quite well.”

  Maggie rolled onto her back and stared up at Bertrand Wayland. He wasn’t drenched or puffing; he didn’t look like he had just fallen through the rabbit hole of doom into some unknown world with creatures shaking the branches twenty feet away. Bertrand Wayland was bone dry, perfectly clean, and smiling.

  Maggie lay on the ground, glaring up at him.

  Bertrand didn’t seem to notice. “I did think when it took you so long in getting here you might have changed your mind and decided not to follow me, which, of course, would have been quite understandable given the nature of our adventure. And you did make it out of the water remarkably calmly. I was prepared to go in after you, but I supposed you must have lived your whole life near the water since you seem so attached to the Endless Sea now.”

  “What the hell,” Maggie growled, pushing herself shakily to her feet, “makes you think you know anything about me?”

  “Well, Miss Trent―” Bertrand grinned “―I know you well enough to know you would be following me today. Well, yesterday for me. I have been here since last night.”

  “What?” Maggie asked, ringing the water out of her hair. “I was only ten minutes behind you.”

  “But that is the rub in leaving the Siren’s Realm,” Bertrand said. “I have never known if the Siren doesn’t understand time as we do or if she simply doesn’t care to bother with it. But time inside and outside of the Siren’s Realm never do seem to line up.”

  Maggie’s mind raced, trying to think of how long she had been in the Siren’s Realm. “So ten minutes in the Siren’s Realm means a day outside?” She had been in the Siren’s Realm for months. The battle at Graylock would be long over by now. Everyone she knew could already be dead.

  “Oh no.” Bertrand shook his head. “Nothing nearly so simple. Sometimes it will be only a few moments’ difference. I was gone from the Siren’s Realm for nearly a year once. I came back, and it was only just after lunch. There is no way I have ever seen to calculate how much time has passed within the realm when I’m without. It is never less on the outside. Sometimes much more. It is the way of the Siren, and we poor mortals must accept it is her will. I did truly hope I wouldn’t have to spend a month waiting for you to come after me, though.”

  “What made you think I would come after you?” Maggie asked, taking off her boots and dumping the water out of them.

  “I made sure you knew the lure of what I was adventuring toward and even visited your home so you would know to follow me,” Bertrand said so calmly Maggie wanted to punch him in the face.

  “You wanted me to come!” Maggie screeched, sending something in the woods scurrying for cover. “You’re the one who told me it was too dangerous! You’re the one who said I should make do in the Siren’s Realm!”

  “I gave you very practical advice,” Bertrand said. “I only hoped you wouldn’t follow it. Now put on your shoes, and let us move along. Adventure is waiting somewhere in this forest, and I intend to fin
d it.”

  “What do you mean?” Maggie hopped after Bertrand, jamming on her shoes. “You hope to find adventure?”

  “Well, we cannot simply wait by the shore and expect something worth seeing to find us.” Bertrand didn’t turn to face Maggie as he spoke. He plowed into the jungle, not even checking to see if Maggie would follow.

  “You don’t know what’s here?” Maggie asked, pushing her way through the brush to follow Bertrand.

  “No.”

  “Then how did you know we’d land in water?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “But what if we had fallen onto rocks?”

  “It would have hurt significantly more.”

  “I’ve just followed a madman into a world neither of us knows anything about,” Maggie muttered.

  “And you don’t know the way home, so keep up!” Bertrand shouted back from forty feet ahead. The trees had become so thick she could barely see him.

  Branches and brambles tore at Maggie’s clothes, ripping the thin fabric and scratching her skin. The air inside the trees was thick and humid. Within minutes Maggie was puffing and covered in sweat.

  Bertrand led them in a straight line, but toward what, Maggie couldn’t tell. She wanted to lay down on the ground and rest, but the shaking of the tiny leaves near her feet made her sure bugs of some sort waited for her down there.

  Soon Bertrand began leading them steeply uphill. Maggie scrambled after him. He was moving more slowly now. Maggie was ruefully grateful he had stopped climbing so quickly. Her breath came in shallow gasps, and her head pounded from heat and exertion.

  She tried to take her mind away from her pain by examining the trees they passed. They were thick and tall with leaves that sprouted high over her head. They were definitely different from the trees she had been around growing up. But there was nothing otherworldly or innately magical-looking about them.

  The leaves overhead were large, thick, and a deep green. Maggie gazed longingly at them, wondering if there might be clean rainwater nestled in their crevices she could drink.

  With a hoot and a squeak, a thing launched itself from one tree to another, soaring high in the sky right above Maggie’s head. Maggie squealed and dropped to the ground, covering her head for protection.

  “What?” Bertrand asked, sounding mildly curious. “Is something wrong, Miss Trent?”

  “There are animals up there,” Maggie said, keeping one arm over her head as she pointed to where the beast disappeared. “It jumped through the trees.”

  “Oh good!” Bertrand beamed. “Always good to know that living things are about. It means something has managed to survive. Now come along, Miss Trent, we have a ways to go before night catches us.”

  He turned to keep climbing. The way in front of them was steeper than the hill they had already climbed. She would have to use her arms to pull herself up.

  “No,” Maggie growled. “I am not going any farther.”

  “Really?” Bertrand’s brow furrowed. “You run so frequently through the Siren’s Realm, I didn’t think you would have a problem with our climb.”

  “It’s not boiling hot in the Siren’s Realm,” Maggie spat. “There’s water in the Siren’s Realm. I’m not going any farther until you tell me where the hell we’re going.”

  “Ah.” Bertrand nodded, pulling a thin, silver bracelet off his wrist. “It is a bit hotter here than the comfortable climate the Siren so lovingly provides. I can understand how you would become thirsty.” He pinched one side of the loop between the fingers of both hands. The silver of the loop grew as he pulled his hands apart, forming a silver tube. When the tube was about seven inches long, he stopped pulling, set it open-side down on his right palm, and tapped it with his left finger. With a sympathetic smile, he held out the silver thing to Maggie.

  Pushing herself laboriously to her feet, Maggie examined the smooth silver sides. “A cup?” she asked, looking inside at the solid, silver bottom.

  “A very fine cup.” Bertrand nodded. “It cost a dear amount of magic to get something of this nature from the Siren that I could slip through the stitches with. But it has proven invaluable.” He handed the empty cup to Maggie.

  “Do you have any water?” she asked, her throat suddenly dryer than it had been before, now that water was so nearly within her grasp.

  “You did say you were a witch, didn’t you?” Bertrand asked, bemused. “I assume you know how to create water?”

  Rolling her eyes at Bertrand’s smug smile, Maggie said, “Parunda.” The tingle of magic flew through her body, and the cup was filled with fresh, clean water. But she was filled with magic as well. Filling the cup hadn’t drained her of anything. Maggie smiled down at the cup. “I can use my magic here. And I won’t lose all of it?”

  She looked hopefully at Bertrand as she took a long drink of the cool water in the cup. Reveling in the chill as it flowed down past her lungs, making it easier to breathe in the heavy air.

  “Yes and no.” Bertrand frowned. “Now come along. We have a long way yet to go.”

  “But you haven’t said where we’re going,” Maggie said, starting to follow. “Parunda,” she said, filling the cup again.

  “I don’t know where we’re going,” Bertrand said, choosing a path that would allow Maggie to walk beside him, “but the best way to find adventure is to find the people of this strange world. And to find the people, we must see the landscape.”

  “So we get up high and see what there is to see,” Maggie finished for him.

  “Correct, Miss Trent.” Bertrand smiled as though he was glad she had caught on. He began climbing the boulders that led up the side of the mountain. “Keep up!”

  Maggie took another long drink of water before pressing lightly on the rim of the cup and hiding her smile as it collapsed back into a bracelet. “Neat,” she whispered before starting up the rocks.

  The water had helped. Her head was no longer pounding so badly she couldn’t see straight. But she was still drenched in sweat, and in a few minutes her arms ached in protest at the constant work of pulling herself uphill.

  With a burst of rustling branches another one of the things flew through the trees overhead. It was close enough that she could see a little more of it this time. It looked rather like a monkey.

  Another tree rustled, and Maggie searched the treetops. She felt her fingers slip from the rock she was clinging to and teetered for a moment before falling backward.

  She clenched her eyes against the fall. A sharp pain shot through her shoulder. With a cry, she fell sideways, rolling off the next boulder. Jamming her fingers into a crack in the stone, she caught herself, and with a horrible jerk on her shoulder, broke her fall.

  “Oww, oww,” Maggie groaned, pulling herself to sit on the rock. She flexed her fingers and wiggled her toes to make sure nothing was broken.

  “Are you all right, Miss Trent?” Bertrand jumped down to where she sat, looking genuinely concerned.

  “I’m great,” Maggie said through clenched teeth. She raised her arm, and pain shot from her shoulder.

  “What made you fall?”

  “I saw a monkey.” Maggie rolled her eyes at her own stupidity.

  “I have seen a few little furry things flying through the trees.” Bertrand nodded, kneeling down to look at Maggie’s shoulder. “But you really should be more careful.” He took Maggie’s arm and began twisting it around.

  “What the―Gah!” Maggie yelped as her shoulder popped back into the socket.

  “We’ll have to climb a bit more slowly now, as you’ll need to be kind to that arm, Miss Trent.”

  “Be kind to my arm?” Spots danced in front of Maggie’s eyes from the pain.

  “It will take a while to heal,” Bertrand said, already ten feet above her on the rocks.

  “Why can’t I just use magic to heal it?” Maggie growled as she climbed painfully to her feet. “In fact, why don’t we use a little magic and get ourselves up this mountain in half the time?”

&n
bsp; “It won’t work,” Bertrand said in such a matter of fact tone Maggie had to take a deep breath before she dared to speak again.

  “Why won’t it work? I made water in the cup.” She jiggled the silver bracelet on her wrist at him. “We have magic here. Wasn’t that the point of coming?”

  “My dear Miss Trent, I think you are a bit new at this to be deciding the point of anything.” Bertrand smiled sympathetically. “And water is one of the constants. So you can easily form a cup of water.”

  “Constant whats?” Maggie moved to run her hands through her hair and instantly regretted it as a dull ache throbbed in her shoulder.

  “In every world, there are three things that remain constant.” Bertrand beckoned for Maggie to keep climbing.

  Grudgingly and painfully, she did.

  “In every world I have visited that is, which is not to say these rules will always apply. I would never assume myself to be that grand.”

  “Really?” Maggie said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “You, not grand?”

  “I said not that grand, Miss Trent,” Bertrand corrected, apparently unaffected by her sarcasm. “There are three constants. Water, shelter, and fire. Which means to say that the spells I know for each from my time in our former world―”

  “You mean Earth?”

  Bertrand pressed on. “Those spells that I am familiar with from my early training work wherever I go. Parunda will consolidate water into a glass; primurgo will create a shield, which becomes your shelter; and inexuro will light an acceptable fire. Everything you need to survive.”

  “But food, you need food to survive, but there’s never a spell for that,” Maggie said, now climbing right next to Bertrand despite the pain in her arm.

  “But it is helpful to be able to cook whatever you can find,” Bertrand said. “Inexuro creates a reasonable flame you can cook over.”

  “But you’re on your own to figure out what’s edible? Awesome.”

  “It is as you say, Miss Trent, awesome.” Bertrand grinned. “Or as I prefer to call it: adventure.”