The New Improved Sorceress

by Sara Hanover

  He set me on my feet and began to dust me off, like some valet shedding lint from a suit, but mine were leaves and vines and angry branches that twitched and thrashed even as he brushed off the last of them. Every touch of his felt like a tiny, electric jolt, all the nerves in my body reacting. Did I like it or abhor it? I couldn’t tell, and my confusion rooted me to the ground. He took me by the hand again and walked me away from the trap as it keened and wailed in a high and windy voice before it withered down to nothing but a sooty spot in the field. His grasp was firm, warm, and unsettling.

  “You can’t go on like this.”

  “I know.” I hung my head a moment before looking up to meet the challenge in his eyes. “But I’m not quitting either.”

  “Magic has a price. Do you know what you are paying?”

  “Besides sleepless nights?”

  He shook his head slowly. “Far beyond that, and you need to learn what you might be giving up. Magic exacts a terrible toll.”

  “I don’t intend to lose.”

  “Of course, you cannot. Because, Tessa dear—” And he took the unmovable stone gently from my palm, and beckoned with it across my field of vision. I felt a dizzying loss as he finished with, “This is the way the world ends.”

  I suddenly realized I wasn’t fighting for myself—I was fighting for everyone.

  I jumped to stop him.

  CHAPTER TWO

  LEVELING UP

  AND FELL OUT of bed. Dazed, I lay still for a moment on the floor, wedging my eyes open only to see shooting stars and rainbows bouncing off the walls and ceiling. A brilliant Happy Birthday card hung from my ceiling light, courtesy of my mom, and it twirled about in a riot of color. My bedroom looked like its old self: faded wallpaper, paint chipped here and there on the crown molding, a few glossy posters extolling the virtues of various rock stars, and my bookcase in the corner, which managed to sag to one side without spilling any books. Nothing seemed hurt or damaged, and I prayed that it would be the same with Mom and my friends. Magic has its time and place, but this surely wasn’t supposed to be it. I’m not magic. In fact, I’m fairly certain I’m anti-magic despite my dreams. Witness the hunk of marble buried in the palm of my left hand which is—

  And I took a look.

  Oh, it was still there, but—I let out a scream that only dogs could hear. It seemed to be the source of the weirdness bouncing about my room. All the colors known to the human eye arched out of my palm, punctuated by silvery stars shooting back and forth, equally bright and cheerfully determined to celebrate my twentieth birthday. I sat up and curled my fingers into a tight fist, trying to stifle the display. Nothing. Although I have to say, the optical effects had a feel to them, rather like fizzy bubbles. I promptly sat on my hand. That brought about the illusion that I was passing gas with wondrous images.

  The door to my room flung open first, followed by my one and only bedroom window. For reasons about to become obvious, I sleep in a sports bra, baggy T-shirt and knit shorts, rain or shine. Reason one burst in the door and reason two hovered in the air outside the bedroom window.

  Brian looked aghast at the threshold for a moment, difficult for a young handsome guy who hasn’t a wrinkle on his face to make expressions with, and then he made a scholarly “hmmmm” as the dominant persona in his body took over. His other soul is about eighty and has seen a lot in his lifetime. The professor remarked, “Your birthday, I take it?” Brian is the equivalent of a personality jackpot in one body. His twentyish self rejuvenated as a phoenix wizard soul pairs with the wonderfully curmudgeonly phoenix wizard, Professor Brandard, stuck in transit to wherever. I’m helping him resolve that problem, and my mother is providing a home since his burned down. I haven’t researched it, but friends we share have confided that the home situation is not uncommon among wizards of his type; phoenixes and fires having that fatal attraction, they sometimes have to couch surf. Brian may or may not look as Brandard did in his youth, broad shoulders, red-gold hair, and eyes of blue-green, with sooty eyelashes framing them. He has a dimple to the left of his mouth. The professor had a brushy mustache, so I might have missed the dimple behind it, and the wrinkles of age. Not nearly as many wrinkles, though, as his previous lives have probably earned.

  Reason two, however, doesn’t live in the same house; he’s just floating outside it, a commanding-looking officer of the law, the youngest one in the city’s history and a war hero at that, and my being twenty now makes me only four years younger than he is. I keep hoping he’ll notice that there is no longer an abyss of age between us. He isn’t good-looking in Brian’s way; his nose is strong to match his jawline, a scar gives him an off-center cleft, and his hair is nearly black with satiny curls. Eyes of soft hazel carry a glint of humor in them, no matter what stern expression he may have on his face at any given time. Today, he was smiling and laughing at me. Carter Phillips steadied his flotation with a grip on the outside window frame. “Are you all right? I caught the scream.” He tried to sound worried, but I could tell the bouncing stars and rainbows had chased away his true concern.

  Both of them had the grace not to notice I seemed to be sitting on a fountain of prismatic color. I freed my hand and shook it at them. “This—this—is insane.”

  Brian and Carter traded looks across my bedroom, and both said, “Birthday.”

  “And what would that have to do with it?”

  “Coming of age.”

  “By your standards,” and I pointed at Brian, whose interior selves lined up centuries upon centuries in various lifetimes, “twenty is practically middle-aged. I thought eighteen was the coming of age, anyway, and if I were a dog or cat, I’d be ancient.”

  “Age is relative, you’re right. But for the last century or two, the twenties have been considered coming into one’s prime,” Carter told me calmly.

  “You were in the Marines at age twenty.”

  Carter looked diffident. “And discharged by twenty-two, all washed up.”

  “Pooh.” Although, frankly, Carter was not the type to have pooh said to his face. He had a bearing about him that demanded respect. Being washed up had nothing to do with his discharge. Wounded and hero covered that one.

  The old house’s rain gutter rattled a bit as if something shambled up its side, catching Carter’s attention, just as another man popped his head into my window frame and climbed halfway in, to sit down in a weathered yet still natty old suit, looking just like a chimney sweep. When he opened his mouth, the accent reinforced the impression, along with his ruddy complexion and flint-dark eyes that could snap at you. His bowler caught a bit of the sun’s early rays.

  “Morning, ducks,” said Simon Steptoe. “Twenty, eh? Congratulations are in order,” and he pulled a somewhat wilted bouquet of mixed roses from inside his coat. He twirled a finger about, indicating the fireworks as I took the flowers. “A bit of spectacular. Your doing?”

  “Not exactly. I haven’t the slightest idea how it started or how to stop it.”

  “It’s your maelstrom stone.” He waggled an eyebrow before looking toward Brian and Carter. “Haven’t shown her how to use it yet?”

  “I’ve been a bit busy. Lessons are somewhat ongoing,” muttered the professor, “and the object in question can be quite recalcitrant and difficult—”

  “Hey!” I objected.

  “Not to mention,” Carter added smoothly, “said object seems to have its own rules and goals dependent upon its possessor.”

  “You’d better be talking about the stone.” I folded my arms. This changed the trajectory of the display to the extent that it began bouncing off the floor and ricocheting about with energy. A star fizzled in Brian’s face, and he immediately rubbed at his mouth and nose as if someone had dunked him into soapy water. I pointed about. “This has to stop.”

  Steptoe hugged a kneecap. “But it’s so marvelously entertaining.” Stars and rainbows circled his hat
like a halo and seemed intent on staying there.

  Carter shook his head. “It has to be feeding off her energy, so it’s depleting, and she’s right. It has to stop before she drops. Question is, what started it?”

  “There must be a need, deep in her psyche, that the maelstrom is trying to answer. Have you been depressed lately, my dear?” The professor peered out at me from Brian’s expressive eyes. I looked away. It can be terribly confusing to deal with him/him.

  “Let’s see. I lost my father. Mom and I lost our house. Aunt April rents this aged and practically toppling wreck to us, and I found my dad living in the cellar. I almost didn’t find him because he’s a ghost now, trapped in some twilight zone between realities, and I can’t restore him yet because I don’t know how and the Iron Dwarf who might have had the answers died a few months ago. I liked Morty and now he’s gone, and you’re no closer to finishing your ritual than you were. Not to mention my hand looks like a freaking Roman candle!”

  “I’d say she has issues.” Carter grinned at me.

  “Damn straight.”

  “Language, Tessa,” my mother intoned from the hallway. “Having a pajama party?”

  My mother could qualify as a saint. Not one loud word about three men in my bedroom at an ungodly hour, even though none of us had even known she’d come upstairs to join us. I shook a hand at her. My eyes welled up suddenly. Notwithstanding my night battle, she looked fine. She looked great! My mother tilted her head as she observed the phenomenon. “Oh. That’s interesting.”

  Steptoe patted his pocket. “Not that they might help any, but I did bring a little birthday present for you.” With a flourish, he handed over both the wilted bouquet and a tissue-wrapped package tied in a bit of shiny twine.

  “Cool.” I tore away at the packaging to reveal two pairs of gloves, one in a soft pastel pink and the other coal-dark, both cut from buttery leather. “Wow.” They were not the sort of gloves one wore in cold weather or to drive a sports car or even golf in, but a kind of half glove. One that would neatly cover the stone in my hand and still give me a nice range of movement and touch. I pulled one on, flexing my hand about, impressed.

  “They’re weightlifting gloves, duckie. Thought they might be better than that brace you’ve been using.”

  “And they smell much nicer, too.” My old athletic brace just about announced itself from a block away, despite my attempts to hand wash it now and then. “Thank you, Simon.”

  “I’d like to suggest that you get dressed, Tessa, while the others convene downstairs and I can fix a breakfast. We can discuss birthday plans and how to deal with that.” Mother smiled at me, but the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes looked a little tense. I did, after all, have three men in my bedroom. Being a saint must be terribly difficult.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good idea.” Carter stepped through the window, pushing Steptoe to one side and using his shoulder as a lever. When he straightened, he stood taller than anyone in the room, and I imagined for a moment I could see him shining. Not like one of those sparkly fictional vampires, but with a kind of energy he carried inside.

  I’d seen it once. Knew that it hid inside of him, and despite his all-American looks and manners, he had a touch of the totally foreign that he disguised. He wasn’t a phoenix wizard like Brian, but he did have his own powers, and the sun barely burned hotter. As he passed me, he touched the back of my right hand, a reassurance, and then he was out the door and I could hear his light steps on the stairs.

  Steptoe followed. He whistled as he went, a jaunty-sounding tune, and my mother called after him, “No lyrics!” her cheeks burning red as she left my room. I think she might have recognized the bawdy song.

  That left Brian considering me.

  “How did you turn it on?”

  “No idea.”

  “Trying to work magic in your dreams, possibly?”

  I didn’t want to tell him what had scared me. “I don’t have magic,” I reminded him. “You guys are the ones with all the ability. I can block it once in a while, but so can a brick wall. Plus I know how to use salt.”

  The corner of the professor’s mouth quirked. “That you can. Well, I’m hungry.” He shook his head. “I’ve forgotten what it was like, but I’m almost always hungry.”

  “You’re still a growing boy.” I waved at the doorway. “I’ll be down in a bit. Maybe I can wear a cooking pot on my hand or something.”

  “Hmmm,” he said to himself as he stepped out, lost in his thoughts. I hoped they would be helpful ones.

  I put my new gloves on my dresser and found an old mason jar under the bathroom sink for my roses. It might have been wishful thinking, but they seemed to perk right up the moment I sank the stems into water. Their heavenly fragrance filled the room. I love that perfume and find it disappointing that many perfect looking roses grown today often don’t have a scent at all.

  I showered quickly because I knew everyone downstairs had to be talking about me, and I didn’t like not knowing what they were saying. It’s like being in a room where you don’t know the language, but you’re certain what they’re saying can’t be good and is probably about you. And yes, that is a touch paranoid.

  Sure enough, newly dressed and trailing rainbows and stars behind me like the train of a wedding gown, I entered the kitchen to hear them talking about Hiram.

  “You’re not talking about me?”

  “That would be impolite,” my mother said with a glancing kiss to my brow as she passed me on the way to the stove. “French toast and bacon all right? We thought we’d wait for you.”

  “Oh. Sure. So, what about Hiram?” Hiram was Mortimer Broadstone’s son and heir, a brawny Iron Dwarf in the tradition of the family. He and his crew had helped remodel the cellar portion of this old house after some minor damage—Hiram had fallen through the floor, into the cellar—and we all considered him a good friend.

  “There’s been a power struggle among the clans,” Carter explained. “He may or may not be in the center of it.”

  “That doesn’t sound good. Or even like Hiram.”

  “Not all struggles are made out of our own volition.” Brian stuffed a half slice of French toast into his mouth and mopped up the syrup and butter that didn’t survive the maneuver with another on the tines of his fork, talking like the professor and eating like a starving youngster.

  Carter passed me the plate of bacon. I managed to corral a few slices before passing it on to Steptoe.

  Steptoe cleaned the platter. “Best cook another rasher,” he said.

  “I’m on it.” My mother waved her tongs. “What exactly are we hearing about the Broadstones?”

  Carter leaned an elbow on the breakfast table. Without revealing that he belonged to a Society of wizards and breaking secret protocols, he smoothly remarked, “The official mourning period for Mortimer is over, and there seems to be some jockeying for clan positions. Hiram is a logical, if young, successor. However, there is a matter that his stepmother, Germanigold , is still off-the-grid, and she may be applying pressure or whoever is holding her might. Not to mention other clans, the Sylvans, the Watergates, and the Stonebreakers among others, might be eager to step forward and take a place in the republic.”

  “Do we even know they have a republic?”

  “We do.” Carter put his plate up for seconds on French toast, deftly sliding a portion onto my plate before filling his. He pointed at my plate. “Eat.”

  I wasn’t sure I could, what with dancing prisms and comets bouncing about. They made me a tad dizzy and their fizzles got buzzier and buzzier . . .

  Brian frowned suddenly and leaned forward, slapping a hand onto my forehead. “Concentrate, Tessa! You’re about to pass out.”

  “I . . . am?” I was already sitting; the kitchen did a little swing around me, and I shut my eyes. Instantly, my mom was there, I could feel he
r hands on my shoulders, and the room steadied.

  “Eat.”

  I opened my eyes and shoved down three forkfuls of French toast, one after another, that someone had thoughtfully already buttered and laced with syrup. They tasted great and sweet. By the time I’d cleaned my plate, I felt revived.

  Brian stared at me, frowning. Or trying to, a faint but earnest little line between his eyebrows. “Control it.”

  Steptoe dropped his paper napkin on the floor. He leaned forward to get it, his mouth somewhere near my knee, and whispered, “It should take orders.” He gave me a wink as he straightened. It took a moment for me to remember that he’d borrowed a book out of the professor’s library (the only room to have survived the fire, sort of) and read it. Did he still have the small treatise on the maelstrom stone? That, I couldn’t remember.

  I tightened my jaw and looked down sternly at my hand as I put it on the tabletop. “Stop it.” I used the voice of doom, as most of us refer to parental commands that absolutely, positively Mean It.

  The rainbows and stars sputtered out and then completely disappeared. The stone had grown warm in my hand and stayed that way as I gripped my fingers over it.

  “Well done,” said Brian approvingly as Carter gave me a salute with his fork—not a good idea because he flung a slice of bacon off it, which Steptoe promptly snagged in midair and chomped down with a grin.

  My mother moved back to the stove where the second batch of bacon got laid out on a paper towel to dry a bit, and waved her pancake turner at us. “All done with the French toast?”

  I shot a look at our three guests, squinting my eyes a bit, trying to remind them that we had a budget, and not a big one. They all demurred that another piece of bacon or so and they’d all be happily filled. She smiled in answer. I looked down at that piece of marble occupying my palm, with its ivory base and caramel, brown, obsidian, and gold flecks all swirled into it. It’s a beautiful stone even when it’s raising havoc. In a way, it was a shame to have to hide it with a glove.