Magic Ain't a Game

by P. D. Workman

  “Then how were you planning to put them back?”

  She shrugged and didn’t tell him.

  “You could just do this.” Julian made a tossing motion, and the cookie tin floated up out of his hands and inserted itself into its allotted place.

  He expected astonishment out of Reg. A dropped jaw and wide-eyed disbelief. But she just looked at him, her eyes wary. “How did you do that?”

  Julian raised his brows. “Can’t you do that?”

  She didn’t answer. Julian gazed at her, wondering if maybe this wasn’t a surprise to her because she could do the same thing. He hadn’t caught her doing any magic, but he had his suspicions.

  Reg jumped down from the counter and took a bite of her cookie. Julian snatched it out of her hand and shoved the whole thing into his mouth. He would have laughed at her if he weren’t afraid that he would choke. The look on her face was priceless. She had worked hard to get that one cookie and had intended to get every ounce of enjoyment out of it. He had taken a whole handful of cookies with no work and then stolen hers too.

  Reg tried to grab one of the cookies in Julian’s other hand, but she was too short and couldn’t reach them when he held them higher. “Come and get it, Reg,” he teased, after swallowing his mouthful. “Come on, reach… reach… you can get it!”

  He lowered it slightly so that her fingers just brushed his hand, but she couldn’t get the height necessary.

  “Give me one! One of them was mine.”

  “Well, you should have guarded it better.”

  “Julian! Give it!”

  He continued to shake his head. Reg kicked his shins.

  “Ow!” Julian kicked back, aiming higher, retaliating not with a kick to her shins but burying the toe of his shoe in the middle of her stomach.

  Reg went down and writhed on the floor, gagging and choking, trying to get her breath back again. Julian waited, making sure that she was really hurt and she wasn’t just going to jump back up the instant he let down his guard. He smiled at her and took a bite out of another cookie.

  “Oh, these are so good. I’m going to eat them all and then tell Missus that you ate them. I’ll tell her that’s why you have a stomachache.”

  Reg sniffled and gasped. She rubbed at her eyes with her fists but didn’t let him see any tears. Julian just watched her and ate more cookies.

  Eventually, Reg pushed herself up and leaned back against the cupboards, putting her hands over her face so that he couldn’t see her expression. He assumed she was still trying to stop the tears. She knew that if she cried in front of him she would never hear the end of it.

  There was a loud pop and the kitchen light went out. It made Julian jump. He looked up at the bulb to confirm that it had burned out, laughing at himself for being scared by a light burning out.

  Reg didn’t move. Her breathing was slowing, steadier. Maybe next time, she would remember not to fight back against him. He was bigger and stronger. He wasn’t going to let anyone beat on him. Never.

  There was another pop, this one louder, and the bulb over the kitchen table shattered, raining glass down on the tabletop. Julian looked at it in surprise. He’d never seen that happen before.

  “Weird.”

  “If you hurt me, bad things will happen to you,” Reg warned in a raspy voice.

  Julian forced a laugh. He was a little concerned about the light bulbs suddenly burning out. There was obviously something wrong with the house’s electrical wiring. Could that be dangerous to them? Maybe he should go out of the house. At least for a while, until they were sure that no more lights were going to blow up. But one thing that he wasn’t worried about was that bad things would happen to him if he hurt Reg. She was showing her teeth, but that’s all it was—a wild animal’s attempt to appear threatening before turning tail and running away.

  “You’re the one who had better look out,” he returned.

  Reg lowered her hands from her face. Her expression was not tearful, but angry. And Julian would have been mad too, if someone had treated him that way. But that was the whole point. He wasn’t going to let anyone hurt him. He was going to be the one who did all of the hurting.

  Whoever and whenever he could.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Reg didn’t immediately dive into another memory. Many scenes had played out similarly, Julian bullying her, getting her in trouble with Mrs. Newburg, stealing from her, and using her as a pawn. Sometimes light bulbs broke. Sometimes something else happened. Once there was a fire, but it was contained in the kitchen and Julian was quick to put it out.

  But all the time, Julian stayed in control; he was on top.

  Whenever they were alone, Julian was on the lookout for ways to bully and harass Reg.

  The Newburgs hadn’t been the most awful foster parents. Certainly, she’d had worse—those who were more abusive or negligent. But after the way Reg’s own mother had been, how could Reg expect someone who wasn’t her own blood to treat her any better? The Newburgs had done their best to get her into therapy that would make a difference in her behavior. Mrs. Newburg was always reading up on the latest advancements in parenting and in behavior modification. Ways to reclaim wayward and rebellious children or to force them to make better choices. It had been a confusing time for Reg as they hopped from one therapy to another, chasing after the elusive pill, meditation method, or discipline technique that would make a difference and keep Reg under control.

  Julian had therapy too, of course, but he was better at appearing to be compliant and only disobeying or showing his true colors when they were out of the room. Reg and the other foster children quickly learned to avoid being left alone in the same room with him for even just a few minutes.

  Julian was supposed to be at football practice that afternoon. But Julian hated football. He was a skinny kid, not very well-coordinated, known to be a nerd. No one wanted him on the team and Julian himself had no intention of putting himself in a position where he could be injured on the field. So he wrote himself a note and was dropped from the team.

  The Newburgs had no idea he was no longer participating. Usually, he stayed at the school until practice was over so that they wouldn’t catch on. But that day, Julian knew the Newburgs weren’t going to be home after school. The kids were supposed to get their own suppers and work on their homework independently until evening, when Mr. and Mrs. Newburg would be back.

  The two middle kids were in the house. They were not working on their homework as they were supposed to be, but they stayed quiet and out of the way, playing electronic games or doing other things they were not supposed to.

  Mrs. Newburg’s newest attempt at reforming her foster children was water therapy. There was an aboveground pool in the back. Not a big one, but not a little kid wading pool, either. Big enough to kick around in and to do a bit of swimming. Reg loved the water, and whenever it was warm enough, she was out there, playing, floating, and swimming. The others had quickly gotten bored of the pool, but she hadn’t, and the Newburgs held out hope that it was working and would prove Reg’s salvation. Reg’s behavior had been better. She was more focused. Her grades were gradually improving, slowly but surely. Maybe she would become an Olympic swimmer and her story would be told on TV as an inspiration to other foster children and parents everywhere as to what could be done if they put their minds to it.

  Julian went out to the yard and watched her. She didn’t see him and wasn’t expecting him to be home. Reg swam around the pool, pretended to dive to the bottom—it was only about three feet deep—and, as always, talked nonstop to her invisible friends.

  Then suddenly, she stopped. She said “What?” and turned around quickly, spotting Julian before he had a chance to duck back.

  Reg knelt on the bottom so the water came up to her shoulders. She frowned at him suspiciously. “What are you doing here?”

  “I live here.”

  “I mean out here. Why are you watching me?”

  “Maybe I came out to swim. It
’s not just your pool, you know.”

  Her eyes flicked over him. “You’re not wearing your swimsuit.”

  “I could skinny dip.”

  Reg’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “Gross!”

  Julian grinned and pretended he was going to take his clothes off. Reg backed up, her eyes alert, but she had a pretty good idea that he was only teasing. He didn’t like swimming like she did. The water was too cold for him. He enjoyed lazing around in the water on hot days, and other than that, eschewed the pool.

  “Who are you talking to out here?” he demanded.

  Reg’s eyes slid away from him. “No one.”

  “I heard you talking. Who are you talking to?”

  “There’s no one else out here.” She looked back at his face. “You don’t see anyone else, do you?”

  She said it in a way that suggested he might be able to see someone else there, but she was pretty sure he couldn’t.

  “You think I can’t see them?” Julian challenged.

  Reg’s eyes darted around. Julian got a disquieting feeling that she was looking around inside his head. He shook it, trying to get rid of the feeling. Of course she couldn’t get inside his head. He kept his thoughts safely hidden from everyone. He didn’t tell his friends or his parents the thoughts and fears he harbored. He didn’t tell his therapists. He kept them all carefully wrapped up where no one could see them.

  “You think you’re so special,” Julian growled at Reg. Why did she get special treatment? Why did she get a swimming pool when he didn’t get anything? They catered to Reg’s interests, and Julian got football, which he hated. “You think you can have whatever you want. They don’t like you any better than the rest of us.”

  “I never said that,” Reg said, frown lines appearing between her brows. “I just like swimming.”

  “So they got you a swimming pool. You think they like you like a biological kid? Because they don’t. They just think you’re more messed up than the rest of us.”

  Reg didn’t seem as shocked and hurt by this as he had expected. She shrugged and went from kneeling to sitting so that her head disappeared under the surface of the water. He felt her shutting him out, telegraphing to him that she didn’t care about Julian or his opinion. She could spend all afternoon in the pool and not have a single thought about him or what he wanted. Under the surface of the water, she was in a whole different world, one she didn’t have to share with him.

  Rage blossomed in Julian’s memory, startling Reg and nearly throwing him out of his head. Everything was just red rage and darkness. In the memory, eleven-year-old Reg sat serenely under the water and didn’t have a clue what was coming.

  Chapter Forty

  Julian dropped his schoolbag, stripped off his shirt, and kicked off his shoes. He wasn’t wearing any socks, so he stood there in just his pants, the cool air tickling his skin but not doing anything to cool the blinding rage Reg had triggered by disrespecting him. He strode over to the swimming pool and waited for Reg to pop her head out for a breath.

  She stayed under for a long time; then, looking up through the water, she saw him there. She bobbed back up to the surface.

  “What?”

  “You’re stupid! No one likes you! You know at school they all talk about you behind your back? Talk about how weird you are? And Mrs. Newburg wants to get rid of you. She keeps telling your social worker that they need to find a new family for you, because she doesn’t want to keep you.”

  Reg shrugged, resignation in her eyes. Like she already knew all of that and it came as no surprise to her. Julian knew how much it hurt to be rejected by his peers and his foster families, however much he hated them. He expected her to be angrier about it.

  But Reg had been in the system almost her whole life. She knew that she was always going to leave the family she was with, either to be transferred to another family or facility, or when she aged out and was on her own. She didn’t have a forever family and she didn’t expect to. She lived in the moment, swimming when there was a pool.

  Reg knew that was just Julian’s lens. He didn’t know about ghosts that always dragged her into the past or visions of the future. Reg did try to live in the moment and be happy with what she had, but she wasn’t nearly as successful at it as he perceived.

  Julian reached out and grabbed a handful of Reg’s red hair, darkened by the water. He yanked her toward him and she cried out. Julian was happy he hurt her. Glad to hear her protest. He hated to be ignored.

  Reg tried to pull free, but pulling her hair out of his hand was impossible and just hurt her more.

  Reg’s scalp burned with pain, her memory merging with Julian’s, everything suddenly becoming another layer deeper and richer.

  “Let go!” She knew there was no point in screaming. There were no adults home to hear her. She wouldn’t even have cared if Mrs. Newburg knocked their heads together for fighting; at least Reg would get away from Julian. But Mrs. Newburg wasn’t there to put a stop to it. There was no one to give her a hand unless Uncle Harrison showed up, and he was unpredictable. She never knew when he would come and when he wouldn’t.

  “You know what you are?” Julian demanded. “You are a spoiled brat.”

  He plunged her head into the water. Reg didn’t even have time to take a deep breath of air before going under the surface. She struggled to escape his hold and to get above the surface again. He held her there while she fought back, desperate to break his hold, her scalp on fire and not sure how long she could hold her breath and keep from sucking water into her lungs.

  After what seemed like forever, Julian pulled her head back up so that Reg could hurriedly gasp for one breath, and then he pushed her under again.

  Was he going to drown her? Was it just a game for him and he would laugh at her when he eventually let her go?

  His rage didn’t allow him to think clearly, or Julian would not have held her under the water for so long. He would hold his own breath to gauge how long he could keep her under before he had to let her back up to take a breath. But he was too angry. Julian just held her under the water, relishing her struggle, feeling the power of holding her life in his hands. It was his to do what he wanted to with. He could hold her there longer, until she was pulling in the water and went limp under his fingers, or he could let her snatch just one more breath of air, enough to tantalize her into thinking he was going to let her live.

  Julian jumped at a bang like a gunshot, but didn’t release her. Looking around, he realized that the buzzing motor of the filter had stopped. A thin stream of acrid smoke streamed out the top.

  He pulled Reg back up out of the water to look at her face and to see if she were crying. She struggled to free herself, flopping around and clawing at his arms. But he was tough. He had put up with a lot of abuse; he could certainly handle a little girl having a temper tantrum because she wasn’t getting what she wanted.

  Reg was getting more and more desperate. Every time he pushed her under the water, he seemed to hold her under for longer. She knew that if he kept it up, she would never survive to see Mr. and Mrs. Newburg come home. She put all of her strength into breaking free from him.

  He shifted his grip on her hair, and Reg snapped her head around and sank her teeth into his arm. Initially, he hit her under the water and tried to shake her free, thinking it wouldn’t take any effort. Reg clamped down her jaw and ground her teeth, digging into the flesh of his arm as deeply as she could.

  Julian was shocked by her attack. He tried to wrench away, pulling his arm back out of the water, but Reg stayed attached to him like an animal—a viper or a pit bull with its jaws locked in a death grip.

  “Let go!” Julian shouted, hitting her in the face with his other hand. “Stop it! Let go of me!” His voice was breaking, a fact that made him even more furious. A little girl! He wasn’t going to be hurt by a little girl!

  But he was. Her teeth caused searing pain. He wanted to pull her away with the other hand, but was afraid that all of his flesh
would come off with her, like pulling the meat off of chicken bones.

  “Stop it! Stop it! Let go!”

  Reg felt something she had never felt before. A kind of power and desire rose up in her. She tasted his blood, and instead of being the awful, metallic taste that she got when she was hit in the face or the nose and ended up with a mouthful of blood, it was sweet and warm like an elixir.

  She tried to pull him over the edge and into the pool with her. Julian was already off-balance and she nearly succeeded. But he reared back, trying to pull away from her, his feet gripping the dry ground and giving him more purchase than she had in the slippery pool.

  Come for a swim.

  Reg wanted to say the words out loud, but she couldn’t open her mouth and risk losing her grip on him. She projected them into his brain instead, hoping that he was aware enough to hear them and to understand what she wanted.

  Come swim with me. Come into the lovely warm water.

  He tried to hold on to the edge of the pool. Reg pulled, gripping him with her teeth, trying to inch him into the water where she could control him.

  He tried using his gifts, those powers that she couldn’t understand. Reg felt his power trying to push her back, to force her down under the surface of the water. If he could keep her there long enough, she would drown, and then her jaws would loosen and he would be able to get free. He worried about the bruise and the bite mark that she would leave behind. How was he going to explain that to anyone? Could he get away with saying that Reg had attacked him for no reason? Or for something trivial like trying to get the TV remote from him so that she could watch her favorite show instead of his?

  Julian knew he was stronger than she was. Physically he was stronger. Adding his magic on top of that should have meant that he could overwhelm her without any problem. He shouldn’t have been having so much trouble controlling an eleven-year-old. But he could feel her power battling his. He felt a triumphant rush that he had finally forced her to use her magic, proving to him that he had been right all along about her abilities. He had proven she had magical gifts.