“Unlike music and athletics, magic is finite; there’s an end to it, and at the same time it takes from you as much as you take from it. Magic sucks you dry. The more you make and the stronger it is, the shorter your life. You saw our family’s monument, Reason.”
She looked at me, but I was too exhausted to speak or even nod. “Many of us don’t make it much past twenty-five. For us, living to the age of forty is extraordinary. I am forty-five, Reason; every day I live, I am grateful. If I make it to fifty, it will be a miracle.”
“Why aren’t we exhausted?” Jay-Tee cut in. “I mean, except for Reason. That was a big-ass magic fight between you and him. How come we’re not all dropping right now?”
“Good question,” Esmeralda said. “Because neither he nor I will ever use more magic than we have to. The battle was pitched low. It takes time, but eventually you know who’s stronger, who’s won. The three of you tipped the balance but lost almost no magic doing it. How do you feel?”
“Not too bad,” Tom answered. “Not nearly as bad as when we did that magic together looking for Ree.”
“Tired, but not magic-gone tired,” Jay-Tee said. Those last words described exactly how I felt: magic-gone exhausted. Much worse than when he’d taken that small amount from me at the champagne restaurant. I wanted to sleep forever and ever. I had to force my eyes to stay open, my brain to function.
“Then why does Ree look so bad?” Tom asked.
“She tried to kill someone with magic,” Jay-Tee said. “She’s lucky she’s still alive.”
Tom opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.
“Your grandfather?” Esmeralda asked.
Jay-Tee nodded for me.
I didn’t want to talk about what had happened. Not yet. “So if you don’t want to die, why use your magic at all?” I asked instead, but I knew what the answer would be before the words were out of my mouth.
“Like your mother? Like Tom’s mother? If you’re born with the talent for magic and don’t use it, you go insane.”
I knew it. Sarafina had taught me small magics, tricks like casting out with the Fib spiral, but nothing new for years now. She had stopped using hers, and now she was insane, doped to the eyeballs out at Kalder Park. I longed to see her again, but I was scared of it too. Not using magic had turned her into someone I didn’t recognise.
I wished I was asleep already. I didn’t want to hear any more. I’d killed a boy, tried to kill Jason Blake. How much longer was I going to live? How long did Jay-Tee have, conjuring money out of nothing every day?
“That’s why Blake drank from you both. Drinking from someone who agrees to it requires little magic. You don’t go mad because you’re using a tiny amount of your own to make it work, and you live longer because you’ve gained more. None of us wants to die. Most of us don’t want to go mad.”
She took another sip of her tea and regarded the three of us looking back at her. “That’s why I can’t promise I won’t try to drink from you.” She looked at me, her brown eyes just like my mother’s. “That’s part of why Sarafina ran. I never lied to her. I told her how it might be. After all, my own mother tried to take it from me.
“Sarafina couldn’t bear the idea of any of it. That’s why she raised you as she did. She wanted magic not to exist, for there to be no possibility of me preying on her or her ever preying on you.”
Tom gasped, but Jay-Tee’s expression didn’t change.
“I don’t want to die either,” Esmeralda continued. “I loathe your grandfather for what he’s become, but I understand it. I’ll do everything I can to arm the three of you against him or anyone like him. But I may be teaching you to protect yourselves against me. You have to remember that.”
Tom shook his head, but Jay-Tee and I believed her. My head was a jumble of questions, but I couldn’t work my mouth, keep my eyes open.
Esmeralda looked at me and smiled; I couldn’t read what was in her eyes.
The first thing I saw when I woke was Jay-Tee sitting cross-legged at the end of my bed. Tom was on the desk chair. They were both looking at me, grinning. For a groggy half second I thought Jay-Tee was Sarafina.
I almost started asking her the questions I was burning with. I was so angry with my mother, yet I missed her. Once I saw her again, told her I knew about magic now, would she regret the name she had given me?
“Forty-two hours,” Tom said, clapping. “You beat my record.”
“She beat anyone’s record. No one can sleep that long unless they’re in a coma. Better give her food.”
Tom picked up a plate full of pastries from the desk and brought it to me. “Cinnamon rolls. You ready to risk eating the wicked witch’s food this time?”
I grinned, not because I was convinced she wasn’t a wicked witch—I wasn’t sure I’d ever be convinced of that—but because I loved cinnamon rolls, and whether she was wicked or not, I was going to eat them. I sat up, took a huge bite, tasting sugar and cinnamon and butter. Heaven.
And then a metal taste, tobacco smell. The same as Esmeralda and Jason Blake, only it was Tom and Jay-Tee. I could see their patterns. I could see the magic in them. Just like Esmeralda, only Tom’s was fresher, cleaner. Jay-Tee tasted of rust.
“What?” Jay-Tee asked.
“Nothing.” I closed my eyes and Jay-Tee was just Jay-Tee, no strange smells or tastes. “What day is it?” I asked.
“Sunday morning,” Tom said. Jay-Tee and he laughed.
“But it was Thursday when we left. . . .” I trailed off, trying to figure it out. Sunday a week ago I’d arrived here from Dubbo. Just one week. My head felt fuzzy.
“Uh-huh,” Jay-Tee said, giggling. “We left New York on Thursday, but when we came through the door it was Friday morning in Sydney, but you slept all day Friday and all day Saturday and now it’s Sunday morning. Simple, Math-Girl.
“I’m in the room next door,” Jay-Tee continued. “It’s just as big as this one. Got my own bathroom too—it’s huge—and we share the balcony.”
I had never seen Jay-Tee like this. She was bubbling. “It’s summer,” she continued. “Look at me!” Jay-Tee was wearing a tank top and shorts. Her feet were bare. The balcony doors were open, the white curtains moved in the breeze. Light streamed in so bright it made me blink. Even when the sun had come out in New York City, it hadn’t been near as intense as it was here.
“Tom’s been showing me around the neighbourhood, that is, when he wasn’t busy. . . .” Tom shot her a look and Jay-Tee changed tack. “There are bats at night and these weird-coloured birds during the day. And everyone talks wrong like you do—”
“It’s a footpath, not a sidewalk,” Tom cut in. I felt a sudden twinge of jealousy—while I’d lain sleeping, they’d become friends. They didn’t need me so much anymore.
“And it’s warm and the sun’s out. Oh!” she said, suddenly remembering something. “You have to tell me Danny’s phone number. Mere says the door’s off-limits for now. I couldn’t remember it and he must be going crazy after what happened. Mere says I can call whenever I want.”
I reeled off the number of Fib (33) automatically. Danny! I had to call him too. I had to explain. I ate more of the roll, igniting my hunger further, finished it, grabbed another. “What are you going to tell him?”
“The truth,” Jay-Tee said. “He’s seen enough growing up with my parents for it to make sense. I don’t think he’ll be that shocked. Especially after we disappeared like that. Say the number again?” I did and she repeated it.
“So have you both started witch school?” I asked, growing even more jealous.
They shook their heads. “That doesn’t start until you’re awake and ready.”
Jay-Tee looked at me, smiling. “Mere’s not anything like him. I’m not saying I trust her a hundred percent or, you know, even fifty, but she’s been straight about everything so far. If she turns on us, well, there’s three of us. Combined, we can definitely take her.”
Tom looked uncomfortable but nodded.
“It’ll be okay, Reason.”
I finished the last roll, licked my fingers, then got out of bed, managing not to stumble, though my legs were weak. “I’m going to shower. Will there be lots of breakfast waiting for me in the kitchen?”
“Heaps,” Tom said. “Tons,” Jay-Tee said at the same time.
“See you down there, then.”
They left and I looked around the room. Fresh flowers: wattle and waratahs with sprigs of eucalyptus in the vase where there’d been lavender a few days ago. No scary smells there.
Over the back of the chair where Tom had been sitting hung something green that I didn’t recognise. I picked it up. Pants with lots and lots of pockets. The fabric was amazing; it felt both delicate and strong. Tom had said he was going to make pants like these for me. While I’d slept, he’d done it. I hugged them, feeling warm and happy, then put them on. They fit perfectly, almost as if the fabric shaped itself around me.
Other than the pants and the flowers, the room was as I had left it. Light and airy. Beautiful. The blue-and-white robe was draped over the end of the bed, the matching slippers on the floor nearby.
Even my backpack was where I’d left it, sleeping bag still tied in place. I opened it, looked through my escape supplies: Gregory’s, water bottles, dried fruit and nuts, all of it still there. I unzipped the front pocket, reached in for Esmeralda’s letters. I was ready to read them now. I wondered if they would say the same things she had told us over the kitchen table. That she might try to steal our magic from us.
The letters weren’t there.
I felt a chill over my entire body. So what had she said then that she didn’t what me to know now?
I could grab my pack, run out the front door this very minute. I knew exactly how to get out of this room, how to get to Central, to the interstate buses, how to escape, quick and easy. Except that I couldn’t. What about Jay-Tee and Tom?
I understood for the first time why Sarafina had been adamant about not making friends. I could feel Tom and Jay-Tee downstairs, imagine what they were thinking. Friends tied me down. I wasn’t just looking out for myself and Sarafina now; I had to look out for them as well. Would I ever be able to escape with so many people in tow?
Not that it would make much difference, given that I didn’t have long to live. How much magic had I expended? How many years did you lose for killing someone? For trying to kill someone else? Forty? Fifty? Sixty years? Was I rusted too?
I was afraid. Like Esmeralda, like Jason Blake, I didn’t want to die. Would I end up taking magic from someone else so that I could live longer? I’d used magic to kill. Surely that would eat up decades? Esmeralda had made it to forty-five and she’d killed a cat. But with a knife, I realised, not magic. I felt dizzy thinking about it and sat down on the bed, waiting for my head to clear.
What a ridiculous choice: magic and early death or madness. I refused to accept that that was how things were, that there was no third or fourth or fifth choice.
There had to be another way, something no one had thought of: a pattern invisible to most people’s eyes, but not to mine. Could the others see what I could? Jay-Tee didn’t know Blake was my grandfather. She couldn’t see it the way I could. I was good at patterns, at numbers, and they were intricately tied up with magic. With my magic.
There had to be a way to use the one to unlock the other. If I could do that, then we’d all be able to use magic and not die stupidly young. I’d save me and Jay-Tee and Tom from early deaths. Stop Jason Blake and Esmeralda from drinking anyone dry. I’d be able to bring Sarafina back from her slowed-down lonely world.
I lifted up the pillow and hugged it to my chest.
Underneath there were five black and purple feathers.
Glossary
ambo: a paramedic (from ambulance)
arse: ass
bickie: short for biscuit, the Australian word for cookie
biscuit: cookie
bloke: guy, man
boong: racist term for an Australian Aboriginal person
bottlebrush: a tree or shrub with spikes of brightly coloured flowers
Bronze Medallion: system of lifesaving certificates. Almost every school in Australia teaches its students how to swim and how to rescue people if they get into trouble in the water.
bugger: damn. The thing you say when you stub your toe and don’t want to be too rude.
bunyip: creature of Aboriginal legend, haunts swamps and billabongs (waterholes that only exist during the rainy season)
cardie: short for cardigan
chips: like french fries, only better
chop, not much: not very good; to not be much chop at something means you’re crap at it
chunder: vomit
croc: short for crocodile
dag: a dag is someone lacking in social graces, someone who is eccentric and doesn’t fit in. The closest U.S. approximation is nerd, but a dag doesn’t necessarily know a thing about computers or mathematics or science.
dob in or dob on: to tell on. For example: “I’ll dob you in if you eat all those cakes.”
dodgy: sketchy
doona: comforter
dunny: toilet
echidna: a spiny anteater
Emoh Ruo: Our Home spelled backward, a common Australian name for your house
esky: cooler, the thing you keep things cold in if you’re going on a picnic
flat out like a lizard drinking: busy, in a hurry
footie: In New South Wales and Queensland means Rugby League (Rugby Union is known as Rugby); in the rest of the country usually means AFL (Australian Football League, popularly known as Aussie Rules).
get on: be friendly with. For example, “Those two don’t get on” means that they aren’t friends.
Gregory’s: a brand of street directory common in New South Wales (the most populous state in Australia, of which Sydney is the capital)
grouse: Excellent, wonderful, although it can also be a verb meaning to complain, as in, “I wish you’d stop grousing about everything.”
gypsy cab: an unlicensed cab
hessian: burlap
H. S. C.: Higher School Certificate, the final set of exams in high school in most parts of Australia
Iced VoVos: a brand of sweet bickie
jumper: sweater
’ken hell: an expression of annoyance
knackered: very tired, exhausted
lend, having a: making fun of, mocking
lift: elevator
loo: toilet
lolly: candy. The plural is lollies. Although “losing your lolly” means losing your temper.
mad: In Australia it means crazy; in the United States, angry.
mum: mom
Pop Rocks: a hard American candy (lolly) made with carbon dioxide bubbles. As it melts in your mouth, it feels like it’s exploding. Very strange stuff.
poxy: unpleasant, crappy or annoying
pram: stroller
recce: from the military term reconnaissance, meaning to look around, check out thoroughly
ropeable: angry, as in “fit to be tied”
rubber: in Australia means eraser; in the United States, condom
sambo: sandwich
skink: a small lizard with a long body
sloppy joe: a cotton, fleece-lined sweater
sossi: sausage
sticky beak: a person who always sticks his or her nose into other people’s business
stinger: poisonous jellyfish
stoush: fight, brawl, rumble
ta: thank you
Tim Tam: a chocolate-filled, chocolate-covered bickie
Uluru: a huge rock formation in central Australia, formerly known as Ayer’s Rock
Violet Crumble: a brand of candy bar made of honeycomb coated with chocolate
wanker: poseur
washer: washcloth
watarah: a shrub or small tree with brilliant red-coloured flowers
wattle: a large shrub or tree with white or yellow flower clusters
willi-willi: dust devil
witchetty grubs: delicious, fat, white, wood-boring grubs
Acknowledgments
An ocean of thanks to Scott Westerfeld, my first sounding board, audience, reader, editor, and critic.
Thanks also to Eloise Flood and Liesa Abrams, editors extraordinaire, for all your hard work and for continuing to push me that little bit extra. And to Andy Ball, Chris Grassi (love those snowflakes), Polly Watson and Margaret Wright.
Thank you, Pamela Freeman, Jan Larbalestier, Jeannie Messer, Sally O’Brien, Kim Selling, Ron Serdiuk, and Wendy Waring for reading and commenting on the manuscript in early drafts.
Ann Bayly for her scientific expertise (all errors are, of course, mine).
Silvia Maria Palacios and Luz Barrón for making everything run like clockwork while I wrote the first draft in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. And to Kate Crawford and Bo Daley for letting me use their home in Annandale (Sydney) for the penultimate round of rewrites.
Thanks also to Hopscotch (Sydney), Fifi’s (Sydney), Counter (New York City), La Palapa (New York City), and La Brasserie (San Miguel de Allende) for the food that sustained me while writing this book. If you don’t eat, you die.
Lastly to John Bern, Niki Bern, Jan Larbalestier, and Scott Westerfeld: without your support, love, and, erm, prompting, I’d never write a word.
Here’s a sneak peek at
Magic Lessons
the second volume in Justine Larbalestier’s
Magic or Madness trilogy
1
Reason Cansino
Once, when I was really little, we passed a road sign peppered with bullet holes. It was pretty much the same as any of the other road signs we passed out bush, but this one I read out loud in my squeaky toddler voice: “Darwin, 350. Two times 175. Five times seventy. Seven times fifty. Ten times thirtyfive.”
My mother, Sarafina, clapped. “Unbelievable!”
“How old is the kid?” asked the truck driver who was giving us a lift to the Jilkminggan road. He glanced down at me suspiciously.
Magic or Madness Page 21
