Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic: The Thirteenth Rib

by David J. Schwartz

  “Me neither.”

  “I’ll ask around.”

  “So…I’m staying?”

  “I told you, I can give you a week. If you develop any significant leads, we’ll pass them along. But by Monday you’ll be folded into the Heartstopper task force.”

  Joy gritted her teeth. There was too much going on here for her to wrap it up in a week, but Flood clearly wasn’t interested in hearing that from her.

  “Are we done, sir?”

  “I had to portal into Minneapolis and drive out here for this. You’re coming in for a full debrief.”

  “Sir, I have to attend a dinner party tonight. In fact I’m late already.”

  “A dinner party?” Flood sounded outraged.

  “A faculty dinner party. It’s relevant, I assure you.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. Get out, then. You’ll come in tomorrow; we’ll contact you about the portal. And answer your goddamned crystal next time, Agent.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get out.”

  Joy didn’t have many dresses, but she threw on a knee-length orchid number with capped sleeves for the party. It was too warm for nylons, or for much makeup either; she put on mascara and a bit of plum lipstick and ran out the door.

  The address Philip Fitzgerald had given her was close, just three blocks west, and she decided to walk. She was wearing sandals, not heels, and while Gooseberry Bluff was not so well lit as, say, Washington, DC, Joy did not feel unsafe. She wondered about her still-unseen security detail, but she didn’t bother looking around. The bureau’s protection details were as good as the Secret Service but far less visible. She told herself that the fact that her detail had lost her on the way back from Wales was a fluke and there was no reason to worry.

  She continued telling herself this for three blocks.

  The street Joy’s rental was on was mostly 1940s bungalows, interspersed with newer construction of various types; the next block over was occupied by an elementary school, and the block after that was more ranch-style housing. On the whole it was a nice neighborhood, the houses well kept, the lawns cut short, middle-class vehicles in the driveways. Middle class in this area meant shiny pickup trucks more than Volvos and Toyotas, but in many ways Gooseberry Bluff was like any prosperous small town she had been in.

  The third block over brought a reminder of how it was different. Through a gap in the trees to the north shone the lights of the US penitentiary that stood a few miles away, at the northwest corner of the town. Formerly part of the Minnesota state prison system, it had been purchased by the United States in the 1970s, when magical crime had reached its peak, and it held some of the most infamous — and dangerous — magicians alive.

  Joy paused for a moment to look at the high, barbed-wire-topped walls of the facility, its security towers and searchlights, and the half mile of earth and concrete that surrounded it before continuing on to the address Fitzgerald had given her.

  Her destination turned out to be a three-story apartment building called the McMonigal Arms, according to the old stone sign out front. The sign stood opposite a green bench. Beyond these the building was flanked by a rose bed on one side and a flowering crab apple tree on the other.

  A smallish man wearing a bow tie and a green smoking jacket met her at the door to the building. His hair was thinning and red almost to the point of matching his aura, which was orange. She recognized the aura as that of one of the visitors she had had in her class that evening.

  “Ms. Wilkins,” he said as he shook her hand. “My name is Yves Deschamp, your host for the evening. Please come in; everyone is eager to meet you.”

  “It’s a pleasure, Mr. Deschamp.”

  “Please. The pleasure is mine.” He led her up three steps to the level of the first-floor apartments, holding her hand up as if she were some sort of dignitary. He walked with a cane, but quickly and with grace.

  He paused at the door to the left-side apartment. “Now,” he said, “I’m sure Philip has done his best to impress upon you the deadly seriousness of our little group, and the others will spend the evening scrutinizing you and trying to determine whether or not you’re serious enough to be a part of it. I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you not to worry about them. We need new blood, as you’ll see in a moment, and from all I’ve learned of you I think you’ll fit the bill nicely. So for my sake, at least, try to relax and enjoy yourself tonight.”

  “I will.” Joy couldn’t bear to tell this charming man that his little speech had made her more anxious than before.

  Yves swept the heavy wooden door open on a narrow but gorgeous little parlor with built-in shelves at the corners, bas-relief carved into the window frame, and plants hanging from tension poles at either side of the window. A dining table that looked about as old as the building, and as carefully maintained, was set with crystalware and china with an elaborate gold-and-turquoise pattern around the rim. There were nine places set at the table.

  “Is that her?” Joy recognized Philip Fitzgerald’s voice, and a moment later he appeared around the corner, followed by Ken Song and four others — the rest of the delegation that had shown up in class.

  Philip quickly introduced the others: Simone Deschamp (Yves’s sister, not his wife, she hastened to explain), Bebe Stapleford, Cyril Lanfair, and Abel Bouchard. Bouchard, an imposing man in a blue suit and a string tie, said something to her about being “the token Native American of the group,” even though there was nothing about him that struck Joy as distinctively Native American.

  Ken Song gave her a tight smile and shook her hand. “Agent Wilkins,” he said. “Good evening.”

  “Hello, Professor. Suddenly I don’t feel very undercover.”

  “There are no secrets here,” said Philip. “Come, let’s sit. Would you care for some wine, or some of this delicious — what did you say was in it, Bebe?”

  “It’s a black cherry iced tea. You’ve had it before, Philip.”

  “The iced tea sounds delicious, thank you,” said Joy. Before she knew what was happening, they had guided her to a seat beside Yves Deschamp, who sat at the head of the table. The others filed into the kitchen or the sitting room and then returned bearing platters and tureens and pitchers and bottles of white wine. It had the feel of a practiced routine, a family tradition. Joy was having trouble seeing this group as a potential group of kidnappers or smugglers. They quickly took their seats, leaving the place at the other end of the table empty. Abel Bouchard sat to Joy’s right.

  The menu, once it was crowded onto the small table, consisted of gazpacho with grilled shrimp skewers, grilled bell peppers, corn bread, pork medallions with a berry sauce, and grilled portobello mushrooms for the vegetarians. Joy noticed that Yves and Simone both served themselves the mushrooms, although Abel and Philip took both.

  “I’m a little confused,” Joy said. “Who actually lives here?”

  “This is my humble abode,” said Yves. “I own the building, actually. Simone lives across the hall, and Cyril and Bebe each have one of the apartments upstairs.”

  “I have a little place just west of town,” said Abel. “I’m not quite the social butterfly that my colleagues are.”

  “If I wanted social, I’d move into the Bayview,” said Bebe, and there was general laughter.

  “Bayview Senior Living,” Abel told Joy. “It’s that high-rise down by the river. The place is a war zone.”

  “Literally,” said Bebe, but did not elaborate.

  “We were discussing,” said Philip, “the nature of this Larch fellow. You say he may have spent the majority of his life living as a panther. Ken had the very interesting thought that perhaps he was born a panther.”

  “That is interesting,” said Joy. “I hadn’t thought of that. What makes you think that might be the case, Professor Song?”

  Ken Song shrugged. Joy noticed that he was drinking water, not wine, and that he wasn’t eating much. “The odd fashion sense. His…courtship behavior, I suppose. He acted like
someone who had never been properly socialized, and if he was really a cat that might explain it.”

  “My cats are wonderfully behaved,” said Cyril Lanfair, whose aura was a contradictory mess of bright gold splotched with muddy blues and greens. Joy read him as highly magico-spiritually attuned, but with a tendency toward jealousy and paranoia.

  “Shut up about your cats, Cyril,” said Bebe. “I frankly don’t care whether Larch grew up as a cat or a couch, I want to know how it is you managed to let him on campus, Philip.”

  “Dear Bebe,” said Yves, “we decided some time ago to focus our energies on monitoring the activity on campus, not scrutinizing each and every individual who comes near. I myself was on the hiring committee when Larch applied. He was eccentric, but I’ve not known a librarian who was not that in some respect.”

  “We are all emeriti of the school,” Abel told Joy in a not-quite-whisper. “I still work in admissions — retirement doesn’t really suit me. The others rotate serving on the hiring committee. And of course there are other ways that we all keep our hands in.”

  “So the purpose of this society is to…what? I don’t really understand.”

  “That’s because we haven’t told you yet,” said Bebe. Her aura was a deep, rich red, darkening almost to black in spots. “At least, I hope you’ve kept some things close to the chest, Philip.”

  Philip smiled. “They like to yell at me because they forget that just because I’m the president at the school does not mean I’m in charge here. We are a democracy, aren’t we?”

  “More of an oligarchy, really,” said Ken.

  “I was so sorry about Martin,” said Simone suddenly. Her eyes shone as she spoke. “He and I…I knew him a long time ago. I trusted him. I can’t help but feel that we…” Her voice broke, and she put her hand to her mouth. Cyril and Ken, who sat to either side of her, tried to comfort her, but she excused herself with a whisper and left the room.

  “I’ll go,” Ken said after a moment, and followed her.

  Joy swallowed a bite of pork — it was delicious — and washed it down with a sip of tea. “Am I to understand that Martin knew about this group?”

  “Not the group,” said Yves. “Just that Simone was here, and a friend of Philip’s, and that we were concerned that not everyone at the FBMA could be trusted. I understand that there was rather a power struggle over who was going to supervise the case. It’s lucky for us that Martin prevailed. I believe that one reason you were chosen to come here was that you were new and considered…uncorrupted, for want of a better term.”

  Bebe made an exasperated noise. “Is she, though? What do we know about her? She’s attractive, so of course you all want to trust her. And I understand Simone’s reasons.” This last was said in a low and not disrespectful tone. “But I would rather we had waited.”

  “We’ve been waiting for, what, fifteen years? Isn’t that the last time we brought new blood into this group?” Abel’s voice was not loud, but there was emotion behind it. “Joy, we are the second generation of this society, and I fear that our insistence upon secrecy has weakened us. We are facing a crisis and the eight of us have become entrenched in our ways. We have the same arguments every week. Every day, sometimes. We cannot agree on how to move forward.”

  As if on cue, Bebe and Cyril both started talking at once, Abel arguing back while Yves begged for calm. Across the table from Joy, Philip shoveled roasted red pepper into his mouth. He saw her watching him and winked.

  “Who’s the eighth?” she asked, and suddenly there was silence.

  “I’m sorry?” said Yves.

  “I think you all heard me,” said Joy. “I noticed that there were nine places set, but I thought perhaps the additional one was for absent or departed friends. But there are seven of you here, and I distinctly heard Abel refer to the eight of you.”

  “Idiot,” Bebe said to Abel.

  “I love you too, dear,” he said.

  “We have an eighth member, but she’s not able to attend meetings directly,” said Yves.

  “Is she ill?”

  “No.”

  Joy’s reading wasn’t like truth-telling, but it could tell her when someone was being evasive, and judging by the watery pulses flowing through every aura in the room, this was something nobody wanted to talk about.

  “If you want me to trust you, let alone help you, you need to be honest with me,” she said.

  “Yes, well. I suppose that’s true,” said Yves. “I propose that we tell her. Shall we vote?”

  “I second it,” said Abel.

  “Aye,” said Philip around a mouthful of pork.

  “Aye,” said both Ken and Simone as they returned to the table.

  “Nay,” said Bebe and Cyril, sounding resigned.

  “Our eighth member is Veronica Dada,” said Yves. “I assume you’ve heard of her.”

  Joy had. Veronica Dada was the sort of polarizing figure that seemed to come most often out of the turmoil of the sixties and early seventies — an activist to some, a terrorist to others; a murderer or a political prisoner. She was currently a resident of the women’s wing of the federal prison just to the north.

  “I don’t understand,” said Joy. Her head was spinning. Dada was serving a life sentence, at least in theory; Joy had read about her most recent parole hearing. She’d been convicted of the deaths — by magical means — of two Ohio police officers and one plainclothes FBMA agent. She had vocal allies who claimed that she’d been framed. There were always people who said things like that, but because Dada was a prominent figure in the anti–Vietnam War movement, her allies were a little louder than some. Which was odd, in some ways, because Dada’s history as an activist had been largely characterized by her very public departures from the groups she had been involved with. She left the Students for a Democratic Society because of their clumsiness with issues of race; she broke with the Black Panthers because of their disinterest in confronting misogyny within their organization; she publicly repudiated the Anti-Sorcery League when they altered their charter to condemn all magic and not just magic used by governments to shut down dissent.

  Joy hadn’t even been born when Dada had gone to jail, but she had heard her parents talk about her. They had both read her book, and when she heard her father talk about politics — which was not often — she was one of the names on a list of people he recited who had been done wrong by the US government. Her mother spoke of such things less often, but she was even more passionate about the way women of color like Dada, Angela Davis, and Assata Shakur were treated. Joy was always mindful of those things, but it was her brother who had really taken them to heart.

  “She’s innocent, for one thing,” said Abel.

  “How can you know that?” Joy asked. “She was capable of it.” Dada had gone to college on a dueling scholarship — she was as dangerous a magician as anyone alive.

  “We actually have proof,” said Ken Song.

  “Then why is she still in prison?”

  “Because she feels safer there, at least while the person who is responsible for framing her is still at large.”

  “Who—” Joy started.

  “I feel like we’re off track, here,” said Simone. “There’s a reason that we brought someone like Veronica into the group. You need to understand what we’re fighting.”

  “This is…” Joy put her elbows on the table, her head in her hands. To hell with table manners. She’d gone through all the work of deciding that the FBMA was the right side to be on; she’d talked through her misgivings with Martin, she’d worked through them with her mother and sister. That wasn’t to say that she wasn’t conflicted at times by things that the agency did, but she had convinced herself that it wasn’t the same organization it had been forty years ago, that ultimately its aims were simple: to protect honest people from the worst of magical criminals. This conversation was stirring it all up again.

  “You fucking people,” she said, but in a whisper so low that she could barely hear
herself. “Fine. Tell me the rest.”

  “Where do we start?” said Cyril.

  “At the beginning,” said Bebe Stapleford. She sipped from her wineglass, drinking in the impatient attention of everyone at the table before she began. “The cosmos persists in a state of equilibrium, more or less. Order rose out of chaos; out of the violence of creation, planets formed, and life arose. Whatever you believe, in the beginning there was nothing; emptiness; entropy. Possibility without volition. In many cultures the creation is symbolized by the victory of a culture hero over a monster symbolizing chaos. Saint George and the dragon; Marduk and Tiamat. In these stories, chaos is the enemy of life, and order is the nurturer. Without order, without physical and social laws, we could not exist.”

  “Right, OK, so you’re on the side of law and order. How do you explain the fact that you’re working with Veronica Dada?”

  “Because we’re not on the side of law and order,” said Yves, with an apologetic grimace.

  “We’re on the side of chaos.”

  Episode 6

  CHAPTER 7

  * * *

  THE EMISSARY

  They moved into Yves Deschamp’s sitting room, which was composed of two walls of books, one wall of windows, and the open arch to the dining room. Crowded in front of the bookshelves were four antique loveseats, matching not at all except for their claw-footed legs.

  Joy sat next to Simone Deschamp. Bebe had brought out some clear crystal dishes heaped with berries and cream. It was delicious — Joy had tasted it — but she was too tense to eat any more. Philip sat next to Ken, shoveling his dessert into his mouth as if he were in a competition.

  “Order makes life possible,” said Bebe, “but chaos didn’t go away, of course. We can’t account for chance or coincidence, for what we perceive as luck. In myths, chaos takes on the face of the trickster: Raven, Hermes, Ananse. The trickster disrupts the orderly lives even of the gods, stealing their cattle, their fire, even their fruits of immortality. When the gods try to bring stasis to the universe, to keep things from changing, the trickster is the element of chance that destroys their plans. When Frigg tries to cheat death for the sake of her son Balder, Loki confounds her and guides the hand of destiny.”