The Golden Thread

by Suzy McKee Charnas

  I headed automatically for the park, my own personal landscape, my home ground. This wasn’t just a case of exiled royalty anymore. This was magic, and my heart was pounding.

  When Bosanka caught up to me, I exploded. “What did you turn that poor woman into?”

  “Was a leaf-taker,” Bosanka said shortly. “You could see for yourself.”

  “Are those things dangerous?”

  “No danger when the Keeper of the Wild is with you,” she said coolly. But I remembered that she hadn’t turned her back on the transformed clerk.

  While I had the nerve, I asked her straight out, “Bosanka, why did you do that?”

  “So you stop talk about ‘Bosnia,’” Bosanka said irritably. “I am not from there. The school knows only a story, a smoke. You know a little what I am now, and I know you. So comes time to stop playing little schoolgirl and do what I want.”

  My heart pumped ice water. “Which is what?”

  “Use power to find my people for me,” she said.

  If this was reality, it wasn’t any reality of mine.

  I said, “What power? You’re the one with the power! Honestly, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Whatever you think I am, you’ve got the wrong person, okay? I’m an American teenager, ignorant and klutzy, barely literate and backward in every way, and I’m absolutely not the one you want.”

  She said, “You tell me no?”

  “Yes. No. I mean, I can’t do whatever it is you mean by that, ‘find your people,’ ” I gabbled, imagining myself suddenly sprouting a coat of yellow fur and a muzzle and the rest of it, with a corner of foggy forest to go with me, right here on a Manhattan sidewalk.

  Family talent or no family talent, I was not the class of wizard that Bosanka was looking for, that was for sure. Next to her, I was no class at all, which I needed very badly to explain to her.

  But she had her own ideas about this. “What I need, you can do,” she said positively.

  “I’d love to help,” I said, “really. That’s why I signed up to host a foreign guest. But what you’re talking about—whatever you’re talking about, Bosanka—I can tell you right now, it’s way out of my league, you know? Beyond me. I’d only mess you up, and you’d end up sorry you ever asked. Look, I failed a French test last week, do you call that power?”

  I hadn’t actually failed, but it had been close.

  “Oh, not you alone,” she said, frowning. “But with your friends, there is enough.”

  “Enough what?” I said, glancing around. “What friends?”

  “Enough power,” she said. “Among all the ones with you, New Year’s.”

  With me? New Year’s? Taken completely by surprise, I said, “You mean at Lennie’s party?”

  “Comet Committee,” she said, nodding once. “What else? Bring them tomorrow after class, in the science room.”

  She walked away.

  If I had any doubts left about the reality of what had happened back in the jeans store, they were put to rest at that moment.

  Stuck on one side of the Denim Delight shopping bag she carried was a fat, wet, purple leaf.

  5

  Silver Wishes

  THEY WOULDN’T LET ME SEE GRAN. The nurses said they had her on a different floor for tests, and I would have to come back later. I couldn’t even sit with her and talk to myself in hopes that she would open her eyes and answer me. I took a bus home, feeling wrecked, with so much to talk about and nobody to talk about it with.

  Now I knew what had crashed into us all the night of the Comet Committee. Our pouncing wildcat from psychic space had been Bosanka Lonatz, and now she was here. And she had homed in on me.

  Horrible possibilities kept flickering through my mind like trailers for bad movies: what if Gran’s “tests” did something to her and she got worse—ultimately worse—and what if once Gran died, the family talent was gone from all of us? What if I was going to be left facing Bosanka with nothing that I knew enough about to use for our defense?

  A little more of that kind of thinking, and I would go insane. Gran would be ashamed of me if she could hear my quivering thoughts.

  Didn’t she and Paavo teach me, didn’t they show me, that you don’t just sit around shaking and moaning. You get up, put one foot in front of the other, and do whatever you can. Even if the chances are good that you can’t actually do it at all, or that you can do it, but not walk away alive.

  The bus lurched and a large person standing over me lurched, too, and demolished my left foot. So much for walking.

  Besides, put one foot in front of the other and do what?

  For starters, I had to relay Bosanka’s demand to the members of the Comet Committee and make them believe it. Not easy, since I wasn’t at all sure what she wanted beyond a meeting of the group.

  And how in the world was I going to tell them about what had happened in the jeans store? I trudged home from the bus stop, with pauses for the errands on Mom’s list, thinking about how Lennie and the others (especially Peter and Tamsin) were going to react to that one.

  Should I even talk to them at all? I was the witch’s grandchild, the one Bosanka had zeroed in on. Obviously it was my family talent that had made the Comet Committee into something more than just a party that night on Lennie’s roof.

  My family talent had drawn her, like lightning to a steel barn. I shuddered when I remembered that moment of impact, now that I had an idea of what—of who the intruder was. Without me, I was sure, none of this would be happening. But how could I convince them of that?

  I mean, they might believe strange things about Bosanka. But to reveal that I, Val, had a personal history with magic would really be asking for it. I couldn’t help wondering if because of that history I should be handling Bosanka on my own. But how? I didn’t have a clue. I desperately needed to talk it out with somebody.

  What about Barb? She had specifically asked me to include her in the next magical adventure that came my way. Only this present magic was about Bosanka, and Barb wasn’t talking to me because she thought Bosanka was a racist.

  To tell the truth, Barb and I had been having some problems anyway. “The Great Witch-Girl,” she called me sometimes. She thought I was arrogant. Well, I didn’t need any of that now. I was shaky enough as it was.

  I could phone Joel, who at least would know what I was talking about. But he had walked out on the Comet Committee, and we had parted afterward on such a sour note! I had no business missing him, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t missing me at all.

  Besides, he had troubles of his own—his hands, his whole future in music. It wouldn’t be doing him a favor to complicate his life by dragging Bosanka into it.

  Mom was home, reading Manley’s latest enormous spy thriller and scribbling comments in the margins. She was also crying, on and off. I saw a box of tissues on the table next to the stack of manuscript pages, and a big paper shopping bag on the floor with lots of used tissues in it.

  I didn’t need to ask what was bothering her, of course. We were both pretty susceptible to tears since Gran’s stroke.

  She blew her nose hard and made pulling-yourself-together sounds (throat clearings, sniffs, and so on) while I fussed around with the mail on the hall table, giving her time to come out of it.

  “Val? Have you been at the hospital?” she said.

  I said I had.

  “You’re a sweet kid, you know that?” she said. “For a ghastly teenager, that is. I’ll go over tomorrow, it’s my turn.”

  We did that, taking turns. It didn’t require a lot of scheduling or discussion. When you live alone with your mom, important things can run pretty smoothly if you’re both halfway reasonable people, which we were.

  This does not mean that we never argued, fought, or generally hated each other. I was sweet-and-sour Val, depending on my moods, which lately even I could see seemed to change from one moment to the next. And Mom had her own attacks of the crazies.

  I had done a neat essay about this in creative w
riting class the term before and had gotten an A on it, so I couldn’t really complain. I figured that I was storing up material for best-sellers I would write later on. Mom had said once, “Wait until you’re a writer yourself, you can write all about us and embarrass the hell out of your father.” We both had a good time playing around with that idea. But sometimes I wondered nervously what she really expected from me and my writing, and did I want to be tied up in that?

  We would probably never have to cross that bridge now. Leaf-takers, something told me, do not write books.

  Mom said, “Stick a couple of frozen dinners in the oven, will you, Val? All the pots are in the sink, and I’ve got to finish reading this before I talk to Manley.”

  After dinner, I lay on my bed with my earphones on listening to Balinese gamelan music that Lennie had lent me, instead of making my usual evening phone call to Barb. After a while Mom looked in on me and insisted that I get into my bed instead of lying on it. She had a theory that visiting Gran sapped my energy (which it did), and that if I didn’t get more rest I would get sick myself.

  I knew I could not afford that now.

  Mom also laid a shopping list on me for tomorrow afternoon, when she had to be in her office to take calls on a book auction she was running for one of her authors. I was too feeble and confused to point out the inconsistency of worrying about my rest on the one hand and loading me with chores on the other.

  Mom in love was not always Mom at her best. At the moment, Mom was definitely in love with Manley the author. Maybe that was what kept her from noticing that I was more or less expiring from exhaustion and extreme fear no matter how much sleep-time I did or did not get.

  I crawled under the bedspread and forced myself through three chapters of my history text until my head felt like a boiled cauliflower. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from experience, it’s that when magical stuff gets into high gear, there are no time-outs. It also felt like a vote for my personal future to make an effort to avoid falling totally behind in my assignments. My future as a human being, that is, rather than whatever weird animal Bosanka might turn me into.

  It was a long evening, without a call to Barb. When I couldn’t stand struggling with any more history questions, I sewed up a hole in the sleeve of my Sir George Williams University sweatshirt that Mom had brought home for me from a publishing convention in Montreal. Then I went into the kitchen and washed dishes.

  Mom and I had this ongoing wrangle about getting a dishwashing machine, and how it was wasteful of energy and water for only two people living together, but on the other hand it would lighten the chore load on both of us, mainly me.

  That night I was happy to stand over the sink and let my mind wander while I soaped and scrubbed and rinsed.

  It wasn’t Barb or Joel or even Mom I needed, really. It was Paavo Latvela.

  Paavo the wizard was growing dim in my memory, which made me feel sad and scared and disconnected from myself, too. Certainly from the self that had joined with Paavo, Joel, and Gran to fight a monster. That monster-fighter had been one heck of a terrific Valentine Marsh. I missed her.

  Now I was older, and more scared.

  Mom stuck her head into the kitchen and said, “Doing the dishes? Sweetie, I appreciate the impulse, but it’s late. That stuff can wait til tomorrow. It’s not going anywhere unless the roaches run away with it all.”

  I thought of roach-burglars skittering away with clanking pillowcases full of swag slung over their beetley shoulders and I started to laugh, and next thing I knew I was bawling. I hated getting all soppy so suddenly, like a baby, but I didn’t have as much emotional control these days even when I wasn’t scared to pieces.

  Mom came and patted my shoulder. “Okay, let’s start again,” she said. “Just tell me, first thing, are you, personally, physically all right?”

  “Sure.” I snuffled.

  She pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and steered me into it, and then she sat down across from me with her elbows on the table, waiting. I would have to tell her something. My mom has no tolerance at all for the family talent, but she’s good at waiting.

  “I don’t know if you want to hear this,” I said.

  “Whatever’s got you this upset, I’d better hear it,” she said. “I’ll try not to blow up. Oh—my God, Val, it’s not anything like what happened to that Stowers girl, is it? Because if it is, I probably will blow up.”

  It took me a second to realize she meant Beth Stowers from eleventh grade who had gotten pregnant and been sent off to stay with some relatives in Ohio. Mom had this look of comical dismay. She knew me better than to really suspect me of anything so incredibly dumb. It was just on her mind because of course the parents must all be talking about Beth, too.

  I said almost gaily, “Heck, Mom, it’s nothing like that!”

  “Better tell me what it is, then,” she said.

  It was all so homey and regular and comfy. I blurted out, “Mom, you must remember something from growing up with Gran. I need to talk to somebody who knows something. I need some magic.”

  Mom’s face went grim. “Oh, no, Val—not again! All right, come on, out with it—I want the whole story!”

  So then I had to tell her all about Bosanka. Well, almost all. I left out the leaf-taker, in the spirit of self-preservation.

  Mom jumped up and attacked the dirty dishes herself, flinging angry words at me over her shoulder. “I kept hoping,” she said fiercely, “that it was over, finally, after the last time. Jesus. Give me a break!”

  “You shouldn’t have asked if you don’t want to know,” I said. It had been a mistake to say anything, of course; that hadn’t changed. Would I ever learn?

  “Of course I want to know!” said Mom. Bam went the pots and pans. “Thank God this time I’m not going to be kept in the dark until it’s all over and the damage is done. Your grandmother should be ashamed of herself, luring you into danger again!”

  “Gran?” I was outraged. “She has nothing to do with it! She’s in intensive care, for cripe’s sake!”

  “These things only happen to you because of her,” Mom insisted, slamming down a handful of silverware into the drainer. “None of your friends have—these incidents erupting into their lives, do they? You don’t see Lennie Anderson getting mixed up with magical strangers all over the place! This stuff finds you because you’re receptive, Valli. You attract it.”

  What could I say? My head echoed with the impact of Bosanka’s attention crashing into our New Year’s comet, attracted by my family gift.

  “It’s all because of Gran,” Mom added. “She’s dazzled you.”

  “I’m not dazzled,” I objected.

  “Yes, you are!” Mom said. “Everybody’s always been dazzled by her, everybody but me! Her and her ‘gift’!” She calmed down and tried reasonableness again. “Tell me, Valli, what good does it do Gran to be so ‘special?’ She’s in the hospital and she may never come out again. So what’s the point?”

  “I don’t know,” I said miserably.

  “Do you know I had actually managed to forget the family curse?” she went on, “until you brought it all back again last spring, with the statue and the monster and that street person with the fiddle you were careering all around the city with like some homeless urchin? Even then, at first I wasn’t sure. It was like remembering a dream. Or a nightmare that comes back over and over, turning everything upside down!”

  I said, “Magic doesn’t go away just because it scares you. It’s in our blood, Mom. And Paavo Latvela wasn’t some street bum, either. How would you know, anyway? You never even met him.” I shoved my chair back and stood up. “I’m going to my room. I don’t want to have this stupid argument again.”

  “Stay there,” she said through her teeth. “We’re not arguing, we’re having a discussion.”

  She turned around and stood trying to stare me into submission while she had me sitting down so I was shorter than she was for a change. “Valentine, you are a babe in the woods.
You have no idea of what you’re up against, do you? This—this girl, wherever she’s from, is making demands you can’t begin to understand, let alone meet. Whatever your Gran is, you are no sorcerer!”

  “I wish I were,” I mourned.

  “Well, you’re not. What will this person do when she realizes you can’t do what she wants? You think you’re invulnerable? Valentine, this is not a jolly adventure, it is a perilous situation!”

  As if I didn’t know, after this afternoon! But one word about the leaf-taker and I would have total mom-hysteria on my hands, and my own hysteria was all I could handle, thanks. I said, “I’m okay, Mom.”

  Mom dried her hands as if she were wringing the dish towel’s neck. “I don’t have a chance, do I? I’ve never had a chance. You’re caught up in the romance of this ‘magic.’ And even if you survive again, somehow, every time this happens it makes you more of a misfit, a—a weirdo! Is that what you want?”

  Not that again.

  I said, “You’re always saying I should have the courage to do my own thing regardless of what other kids do. Or does that only go for my clothes and my hair, and not smoking and things, but not for something as basic as the family talent?”

  “A lawyer,” Mom said, “as well as a fearless magician.” She hurled dry pots into the oven where we store them.

  But all her protective fury was useless, pathetic even. I knew it, even if she didn’t.

  I started to blubber again. “I’m scared out of my wits, if you want to know. I didn’t ask for this, but I’m stuck with it, and you won’t even try to help me! Well, I don’t need your help!”

  “Nevertheless, you’re going to get it,” Mom said. “This Bosanka is a student in your school, right? I don’t have to be a witch to handle that, just a grown-up—your mother, in fact, and a member in good standing of the Thomas Jefferson Parents’ Association. I’m calling Mr. Rudd first thing in the morning. I’m going to get you out of the clutches of this crazy girl and have her investigated.”

  That was all I needed! What if Bosanka turned my mom into one of those leaf-taker things?