Magic Required

by Obert Skye

  He grabbed the bird as tightly as he could and pulled. Pushing up as he pulled out, he began to feel a little give. With a hard tug, the hook popped loose and flew across the room. It landed on a green leather chair next to the window.

  Bennett stepped over and picked it up. He studied the beak and hefted the thing in his hands.

  “Whatever you are, you’re unusual,” he whispered. “Ugly, but unusual.”

  Clark’s eyes and beak flashed open, prompting Bennett to scream and toss the bird onto the bed.

  “Ugly and unusual?” Clark said with disgust.

  “What the—?” Bennett backed up toward the door.

  “I’d say something about you and your curly hair and eye windows, but I have too much class.”

  The condiment-covered bird stood up on the bed and flapped his wings.

  “Who am I kidding?”

  Clark said a few unkind things and then flew past Bennett and into the hall. The bird zipped up and down the hallway looking for a way out. All the room doors and elevator doors were closed.

  Bennett was now in the hall shouting things to Mary. As Clark raced back toward him, the curly haired boy ran for the stairs. Throwing open the door, Bennett ran down the stairs, taking them four at a time. Unfortunately for him, Clark had been able to slip into the stairwell before the door had closed. He followed Bennett down, nipping at the back of his wavy hair, and giving him a few more of his opinions.

  “Nest head,” Clark squawked. “You run like a human!”

  On the first floor, Bennett charged out of the stairwell with Clark right behind him. The bird instantly gave up on the boy and shot through the lobby and out the open front doors.

  Clark was free, but he had no idea where his group had gone.

  “Damp,” he chirped.

  The bird searched the parking lot for any sign of Ozzy or Sigi or Rin. But there was nothing but parked cars and black asphalt. And even though he couldn’t smell, the number of trees in the area made him certain that the air smelled like pine.

  Circling the parking lot twice, he flew through some active sprinklers to wash off and then flitted down and stood on top of a trash receptacle near the front door. Through the glass he could see Bennett in the lobby trying to explain to his boss what had happened.

  “Unusual and ugly,” the bird said with a sniff. “Some people have no taste.” Clark spread his wings and saw bits of dried ketchup and muck still clinging to him. “Maybe he has a point.”

  Clark looked out across the parking lot.

  “Now,” he said. “If I were a wizard and a daughter and an orphan, where would I go?”

  The bird adjusted his dirty tail feathers, spread his messy wings, and flew north.

  Ozzy sat alone in a small dark space not much bigger than the hidden basement room he had fallen into at the Cloaked House. Ty had dropped him off and left him sitting alone. He was still strapped to the chair and wondering what was coming next. His hands had been untied from the chair and then bound back together at the wrists. They were resting in his lap, but he was able to lift them and stretch just a bit. A metal chair with a low back and high seat was sitting empty four feet in front of him.

  Lifting his head, he twisted to see more of the room. There was nothing there, just blank space with a bright light hanging up above him.

  Ozzy stared at the light.

  A door opened to his left and someone entered the room. Ozzy tried to see who it was, but the light he had been gazing at was now making it hard for his eyes to focus.

  “Hello, Ozzy,” the voice said.

  The wizard-in-training was struck dumb.

  “It’s so nice to finally see you again. Your hair’s gotten longer. I know a good barber back in New York. I’ll set you up next time you’re there.”

  Ozzy’s eyes adjusted as Ray Dench took a seat on the chair in front of him. The red-headed man was wearing a brown dress shirt with a brown tie. He had on slacks pressed to perfection, if your idea of perfection was well-pressed slacks. Ray’s hair had not gotten longer; it was neatly trimmed, and his skin looked shiny, as if he had been recently shellacked.

  The junior wizard tried to hook into Ray’s brain, but he couldn’t.

  “How’d you get us here?” Ozzy asked.

  “It wasn’t a problem,” Ray said.

  “Did we take a plane?”

  Ray laughed. “Where do you think you are?”

  “New York?”

  “You are only a few blocks from the hotel we just snatched you from.”

  “I thought you couldn’t leave New York.”

  “I am capable of anything!” Ray barked. He then quickly cooled. “I don’t like getting out of my routine, but I will make the sacrifice on rare occasions,” Ray said. “And this is one of those occasions.”

  The way Ray spoke made it sound like his being there was a prize Ozzy had won.

  “Do you know what you possess?” Ray continued.

  Ozzy didn’t answer.

  “You know, I’m not sure you truly understand just what is going on.”

  “I know enough to not trust you,” Ozzy said.

  “Good,” Ray replied, “it’s wise to be skeptical. But if you think I’m the enemy, you have it all wrong. I knew your parents. I know what they hoped to do. I was the one who helped them achieve their dream.”

  “Their dream of you kidnapping them and having me left for dead?”

  “That’s an unfortunate bit of history,” Ray said with a sniff. “But when all of this is said and done, you will see how even that played a part in us changing the world.”

  Ozzy bristled at the way Ray said us.

  “You’ve tried to kill us more than once,” the boy reminded him.

  Ray’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “Is that how you see it? I apologize. I only want to finish what your parents began. My desire has been to bring you to me, not to kill anyone. The serum you have coursing through your veins is the key to great peace. Great peace. People keep making mistake after mistake, and our planet and way of life are paying the price for it. This isn’t about me wanting to control everyone—this is about me wanting to give everyone the lives they want.”

  Ozzy stared confidently at Ray. “You can say it however you want, but I know you’re wrong. And I will never help you.”

  “Oh,” Ray said waving casually with his left hand, “I don’t need you to help me. I don’t know where you got that idea. I can take what I want from you without much effort. But I’m a dreamer, and it would be so much better if you went willingly. You know what this serum can do. You were the great experiment that we didn’t know about.” Ray sighed like a father who had just lost a child. “Had we known they had pumped you so full of the serum, we would have taken you from the woods, not your parents. But they fled New York and . . . well, you know the story from there.”

  Ozzy was quiet.

  “Now, I know the path to this point has been filled with hardship and sorrow, but the future can be just the opposite. I’m sorry, truly sorry, for any pain I have caused. I loved your parents. But I promise you that with your cooperation I can make the future something spectacular.”

  “What about my friends?”

  Ray smiled. “The wizard? The girl? Oh, they’re of no importance to me. Your cooperation will give them the possibility of living a long and peaceful life.”

  “A life where they don’t make their own choices,” Ozzy said.

  “That’s not true,” Ray insisted. “There will still be plenty of choices for them to make. We’ll just guide them and the rest of humanity with the hard ones.”

  “You can’t win,” the boy said bravely. “You don’t know what Rin is capable of.”

  Ray tried not to laugh, and the attempt made his already hard-to-look-at face harder to look at.

  “I do know what
Rin is capable of,” Ray said, pronouncing the wizard’s name like a bad taste. “And I know what he’s not capable of.”

  Ray shifted in his seat and pulled something out from behind his back. It was a small yellow pamphlet, a single piece of shiny paper folded into three sections.

  “Do you honestly believe that man is a wizard?” Ray asked Ozzy in a fake but fatherly tone.

  Ozzy kept quiet.

  “I didn’t want to do this, but I think it’s time that we all start acting like grownups.”

  “I’m a junior in high school,” Ozzy protested. “I’m not a grownup.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do?” Ozzy asked. “Are grownups the kind of people who destroy lives like you do? Because if that’s the case, I hope I never grow up.”

  “Cute,” Ray said condescendingly. “No, grownups are the kind of people who have to make big decisions. Decisions that are hard sometimes. Grownups are also the kind of people with problems. Some problems are fixed by a dentist or an accountant. Some problems require more help than that.”

  Ray handed Ozzy the pamphlet. He held onto it with his bound hands.

  The wizard-in-training reluctantly glanced at the front. The folded yellow pamphlet was an advertisement for the Healing Winds Mental Institution in Olympia, Washington. The picture on the front was of a tall brick building surrounded by trees. There was a line beneath the picture that read:

  Life can be beautiful again.

  It was difficult, but Ozzy unfolded the pamphlet and read the words inside. His bound hands shook as he held it. A feeling of something ominous and growing began filling his body from his bare feet up. Healing Winds had been established more than a hundred years before. It was a place for those who could no longer handle life. It wasn’t a resort that famous people went to when they needed a rest. It wasn’t an addiction center for those whose lives were ruined by addiction. It was a mental hospital for those who had lost it.

  “What is this?” Ozzy asked quietly.

  “I think you know,” Ray said just as softly. “It’s where your friend once lived. It is a place for people who are unstable. You see, Ozzy, the man you think is a wizard is nothing but a confused and unstable individual. He should be locked up, not worshiped.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Ozzy said. “This proves nothing.”

  “You might want to look at the pictures closer.”

  Ozzy studied the few pictures on the brochure. There was one showing the beautiful grounds where the patients could walk around. There was one showing the rooms they would be kept in. There was a photo showing a doctor talking to a group of patients.

  Ozzy stared at the photo.

  “You see it, don’t you?” Ray said.

  Most of the patients in the photo were strangers to Ozzy, but there was one in the back of the picture that stood out. He had only a mustache and no beard, and he was missing his hat and robe, but it was clearly a much younger Rin.

  Ozzy’s insides burst—he felt like he had while watching his parents being taken away. The wizard he knew was no wizard at all.

  “I don’t get it,” Ozzy said, his breathing beginning to grow labored.

  “I have the records,” Ray said, his voice getting stronger. “It wasn’t easy. But I found all of Brian Mortley’s information and medical history at Healing Winds. He checked in for the first time many years ago because he was sick. He spent a year there before he was able to leave. They call his condition bipolar, but there are a few doctors there who didn’t agree. Some listed him as psychotic. He has checked back in several times over the years. His last visit was about nine months ago. He stayed for three weeks.”

  Ozzy looked like he might throw up.

  “He is not a wizard,” Ray said. “He is a fraud and potentially dangerous.”

  The boy said nothing.

  “I’m sorry it had to be me to tell you,” Ray said. “But that lunatic has almost derailed one of the most important discoveries in human history. The discipline serum can solve the very problems your friend is suffering from.”

  Ozzy’s head rested on his chest as he struggled not to cry. Breathing hurt, thanks to the tight ropes binding him to the chair. He wanted to bust out and run unhindered to the ocean. His mind buzzed with the things Patti had told him, the words Sheriff Wills had said, the reality that didn’t include wizards, and the pamphlet he now held in his hands. He thought back to the magnet Rin had quoted:

  Believe nothing unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

  Ozzy had questioned the possibility of Rin being real many times. He knew he didn’t fit in reality; he knew he was unusual; he knew he defied all common sense.

  “I’ve given you a lot to think about,” Ray said. “Just remember, I want to help. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

  The boy said nothing—things were already much harder than they should ever have been.

  The door opened and a man in a stylish green suit walked in, pushing a small metal cart.

  “It’s time to give up your secrets,” Ray said happily. “This is the beginning of a new world.”

  The man in the nice suit lifted a syringe off the cart and walked closer to Ozzy.

  The boy said nothing.

  Rin and Sigi sat impatiently and uncomfortably on the chairs they were tied to. Ozzy had been picked up and taken out long ago. Since then not a single ogre had returned to check on them.

  “If I ever hold anyone captive,” Rin said with disgust, “I’m going to make sure they still get something to eat and drink.”

  “I hope Ozzy’s okay,” was Sigi’s reply.

  “Do you think they fed him?”

  “I mean, I hope he’s not hurt.”

  “Right.”

  Sigi looked at her dad. His hat was on the ground and he was tied up tightly. Folds of his robe pushed through the strands of rope and made him look as if his body were made up of a stack of yellow fabric.

  “Dad. Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.”

  “You’re a wizard, right?”

  Rin laughed like it was a joke. “Oh, you’re serious. Yes, I’m a wizard. I thought we’d gotten past that point.”

  “Me too,” Sigi said. “I mean, I understand that you’re not a wizard in the traditional sense, like Dumbledore or Gandalf.”

  “Sure,” Rin agreed. “Those two are made up.”

  Sigi blew a piece of curly hair from her eyes. “Okay, what I mean is you don’t go around shooting spells out of your wand and cursing people.”

  “I apologize again for my language while we were driving. Sometimes people perceive my offensive driving as a personal offense. When, in reality—”

  “Dad,” Sigi said, bringing him back to the conversation at hand, “not that kind of cursing. You don’t stand in front of a cauldron or ride a broom.”

  “You shouldn’t stereotype wizards,” Rin said sternly. “I thought I taught you better than that. I know several wizards who refuse to use cauldrons due to the trouble of having to wash them out. Do you know how hard it is to get rid of the ring of residue mugwort leaves behind?”

  Sigi was as flustered with her father as she was with being tied up.

  “Forget about cauldrons,” she said. “My point is that you’re a wizard.”

  Rin smiled. “I’m glad this conversation had a happy ending.”

  “It didn’t,” Sigi insisted. “It’s not over yet. My point is you’re a wizard, so why don’t you wizard our way out of this?”

  Rin looked around the room, acting as if he hadn’t noticed they were in any kind of a bind.

  “We’re tied up?” Sigi reminded him. “Clark’s still stuck in the back of a hotel door, and Ozzy is missing! Can’t you act like a wizard?”

  “Check,” Rin said.

/>   “What could you possibly be checking off?”

  The wizard smiled.

  “Really? You have nothing to say?”

  “Sometimes the wisest person in the room is the one who does nothing.”

  “Ahh,” Sigi hollered. “I wish you were Dumbledore.”

  “He’s not real.”

  “Well, I’m having a hard time thinking you are either.”

  Rin smiled. “I like when you doubt,” he said kindly. “It’s typically the precursor to magical things.”

  Sigi said a few unmagical things to her father as she continued to work at the ropes binding her.

  Ty drove quickly down the street toward the Marriott. He cursed himself as he traveled. His hands gripped the wheel tightly as he swerved around a car going too slow for his personal taste. Ty was angry at himself, but happy about what he now knew. The room where Rin and Sigi were tied up was not only round, it was wired. Microphones had been hidden in the room so Ty and his men could listen in to what their prisoners were saying. They hadn’t gotten much information; in fact, the conversation was hard to listen to due to some of the things the wizard said. But it had been a line that Sigi had thrown out that had changed everything.

  “Clark’s still stuck in the back of a hotel door.”

  Ty cursed himself again. Had he done a more thorough job of checking the hotel room, the bird Ray wanted so desperately would already be in their possession. Now, as he raced through the streets, he was filled with anxiety. The metal nuisance could have gotten loose or maybe been taken away.

  It wasn’t easy working for Ray. The job was even harder when you didn’t properly finish the tasks that you had been assigned. Ty was supposed to have captured Ozzy at WetLand. He had failed. Ray had gotten him out on bail so that he had another shot at making things right. He couldn’t let the bird get away.

  Traffic in front of him came to a stop at a red light.

  Ty would have swerved around the cars and driven through, but the crosswalk was filled with half a dozen old men riding recumbent bicycles. Their low-to-the-ground bikes all had flags sticking up on the back to let people know they were there. The old men were shouting at vehicles and ringing bells on their handlebars to alert the cars of their existence.