The Magic Half

by Annie Barrows

  Miri hadn’t thought about it. They were doomed. She could practically feel Horst’s meaty hands on her neck. She wished she didn’t have such a good imagination. “A sheet?” she suggested in a weak voice.

  Molly pursed her lips critically. “A sheet seems too babyish. Also not scary enough. We’ve got to freeze his blood.”

  Miri’s stomach was beginning to hurt a lot.

  Molly tugged on one braid, surveying her room. “Ooh, I’ve got an idea. Flo put her mangy old fur coat in my closet.” She started giggling. “We could cut it up, and you’d look like an animal.”

  “You think he’d fall for it?” Miri said doubtfully.

  “Horst? He thinks Flash Gordon is real,” said Molly. “He’ll fall for it.”

  “I’m scared,” blurted Miri.

  “Scared of what?”

  “What if he kills us both?” said Miri in a small voice. “What if that’s the new ending?”

  Molly sat back on her heels, her gray eyes on Miri’s. “We have to do it, don’t we? Otherwise, he could wreck everything, right?” Miri nodded. “Okay, then. When you have to do something hard, you may as well run toward it.”

  “So it will be over fast?”

  “Yeah, but also because it takes your mind off how scared you are.”

  She was right, Miri knew. “Okay.” Miri swallowed. “Let’s see that coat.”

  Flo’s coat hung down to Miri’s ankles, and its black fur fell off in clumps when she put it on. Molly gleefully destroyed what was left of it, cutting off the collar and hacking the arms and bottom into long strips. When she was done, it hung in lumpy shreds around Miri’s arms and legs. Molly buttoned it up with the buttons inside, so it didn’t look like a coat. Miri stared at herself in the mirror on the dresser. Great, she thought. I look like a big, sick dog. Horst might think I have rabies, but he’s not going to think I’m a zombie. The whole idea was seeming stupider and stupider. Maybe they should just take the chance and go home. She looked down at Molly, who was busily yanking fur off her sleeves.

  Molly glanced up and saw Miri’s face. “He’ll fall for it,” she said firmly.

  • • •

  Horst heaved himself onto his bed with a groan. He picked up the comic book that lay on his bedside table and inspected the bright cover. Tarzan, with his hand cupped to his mouth, dangled from a vine in front of a herd of elephants. Horst sucked in his stomach. “Ah-ahh-ahh-ah-AH!” he yodeled softly. He let his stomach sag back into pudding. He wished he had a soda pop. Sighing, he opened the comic book and began to read, his lips moving over each word. “Dawlish strained against the ropes that held him, cursing his luck . . .”

  • • •

  “How do I work it?” Molly asked, frowning at the CD player.

  Miri knelt beside her. “See, just press this button, right here—” She pressed, and Deathbag’s howls and screams came, very quietly, from the speaker.

  Molly was fascinated. “What’s that? Why are they screaming like that?”

  “It’s music. Robbie and Ray think it’s supercool.” Miri rolled her eyes.

  “What do you mean, cool?”

  “Cool means—um—good, popular.” Molly nodded, but Miri wasn’t sure she got it. “You’ll understand when you’re there. But look, here’s the volume. When I get to the bottom of the ladder, turn it all the way up. It’s got to be loud.”

  Molly stared at the volume dial. “Cool.”

  • • •

  Outside, the afternoon heat was thick and soft, and inside, Horst’s room was dim and quiet. Dim and quiet. The comic book fell forward onto Horst’s face. Naptime, he thought sleepily. He spread the comic over his stomach and closed his eyes. Ahh. Nothing like a good nap on a summer afternoon. He cleared his nose in one great, sucking sniff and swallowed noisily.

  Ahh.

  • • •

  “I think we’re ready,” Molly was saying. “Put on the gloves.”

  Miri’s throat was too dry to reply, but she yanked the gloves over her sweaty hands. She had always hated being in school plays. Even when she had only two lines, she felt like she was going to throw up. And, she reminded herself, nobody killed you at the end of a school play, no matter how crummy you were. Miserably, Miri turned to the mirror and pulled the mask over her head. She regarded the face in the glass. It wouldn’t scare a fly. The whole thing was going to be a disaster.

  Molly looked up, and her face turned white. “Sweet Jesus!” she whispered.

  • • •

  Horst drifted into his favorite daydream—the lighted match was almost touching Miss Fletcher’s house; she was begging him to pull it away—and he felt himself sinking to sleep.

  Ahh.

  • • •

  “Now!” whispered Molly.

  Miri put a trembling hand on the attic door and pulled.

  • • •

  Creak.

  Horst’s eyelids snapped open.

  Creak.

  It was the attic door.

  No it ain’t, he told himself. Just the runt over there in her room.

  Creak.

  It was the attic door. Something’s coming out, he thought before he could stop himself. Horst’s mouth went a little dry. He’d always hated that attic right up above him. Always. When he was a kid, he’d lie awake, hearing things. Probably just a rat, he thought, trying to ignore the fact that rats can’t open doors.

  There was a slight pause, and then soft pads told him that whatever-it-was was coming down the ladder.

  Horst lay stiffly on his bed, breathing out in little gasps. Maybe he was just imagining it. Sure—that’s all it was. It wasn’t Gran. Naw. She couldn’t. Could she? He didn’t believe those stories. Might be true, a voice said inside him. Molly’s her favorite. She’d be mad about Molly going to a home. Bunch of baloney. Horst tried to snort, but it came out thin and squeaky.

  The soft pads stopped, and there came a silence that went on for a long time.

  See? Ain’t nothing there, Horst told himself. Making a gigantic effort, he sat up and looked across the dim room toward the closet door. Ain’t nothing there. But the thought came anyway: Gran’s sent something. Gran knows what I done and she’s mad.

  The quiet seemed to breathe in and out like an animal. Horst chewed his lips. Probably, I’m dreaming. Yeah, that’s it.

  Just the same, he couldn’t take his eyes from the closet door. And for some reason he was sweating. He felt a little dribble down his cheek.

  The closet doorknob began to turn slowly, and Horst watched. He couldn’t blink his eyes. He couldn’t move. He was frozen to the bed. A sound came out of him: “Uhh.”

  All at once, the quiet was shattered by an agonizing scream. Horst almost screamed himself— something was being torn to pieces—something alive! He could hear it! The scream rose and rose, until he thought his head would split in two, and now came a beating, a pounding—grenades! Horst shielded his head with his arms, crying with pain. Now the closet door flew open—Christ Almighty!— it was a monster, a dead man, a half-eaten thing. “Hunh-uhhh,” gibbered Horst, shaking his head, trying to clear his eyes. This couldn’t be. The dead man wasn’t dead, even though his face had been carved in two and his eyeball hung like a gob of white jelly over his cheek. Yellow worms vomited from his mouth, blood glistened wet on his face, and Horst could see the gray brains seeping out of his shattered skull, and yet he was walking, walking toward Horst. It was an animal, a black animal, it was the devil, it was the living dead, it was death itself! It kept walking slowly toward him—putting out its long furry arms—and now the screams were mixed with crashes. It was destroying the house, it was a storm of anger, it was smashing and pounding, it was God, and he was about to be punished for the things he had done.

  “Hunhhh!” screamed Horst. He was shaking so hard he couldn’t stand, but he rolled up against the head of the bed. “Hunh-a-hunha,” he grunted, spit and sweat flying as he trembled.

  The dead thing kept coming toward him, its fur
red flesh hanging in shreds off its corpse, and the screams went on forever—

  A narrow black claw jutted out and pointed toward his heart. It knew! It knew him! It was going to kill him—it was going to punish him—it was going to touch him!

  Horst rolled off the bed and fell to the floor. Too terrified to stand, he scrambled for the door on all fours. “Na, na, na, na! Mama! Mama! Hunh-uh!” he blubbered, great strings of spit and tears dripping from his face. He looked back once and saw that the dead thing was following him, mouth hungry despite the yellow worms, the white eyeball bobbling against the decayed flesh—it was following him!

  The black claw quivered closer, and he cringed away, his legs jerking helplessly against the floor. “Na, na, na . . .”

  A thin, dry squeal broke from the beast: “Get out. Don’t come back.” A yellow maggot dropped out of its mouth and landed on Horst’s arm.

  With a scream, Horst scuttled through the door, slamming it in the dead face. Then he ran for his life.

  CHAPTER

  15

  MIRI SAT DOWN on the floor and shook. Above her, the screams of Deathbag came to a sudden stop, and the silence seemed amazingly loud. Molly scrabbled down the ladder, burst out of the closet, and ran to the window. “Look at him go!” she cried. “He ain’t stopping! I wish I could see better. He’s kicking up a pile of dust. He ain’t moved that fast since Pickett’s bull got loose!” She turned to Miri, her eyes shining with laughter. “Tell me how he looked, tell me—” She stopped as Miri pulled the rubber head off. “Are you all right?”

  “Whoo,” Miri exhaled. “That was scary.”

  Molly knelt beside her. “How do you mean?”

  “I’ve never done anything like that before,” Miri said. She was still shaking. “He was like my nightmares—he was drooling and grunting and sweating. I guess he was really scared. I must have really scared him.” It felt weird to do that to someone. It felt weird to be more powerful than Horst.

  Molly nodded. “Yeah,” she said thoughtfully. “But Horst is a bully. Bullies are always the biggest cowards.”

  That was true. Miri thought about Horst’s low, mean laugh when he said, “And she caught it, too,” and she felt her first stab of gladness. “Maybe he’ll be better from now on. Maybe I reformed him.”

  Molly shook her head. “I think you’d have to hit him over the head with a tire iron to reform him. He’s been meaner than a rattlesnake ever since he was born.”

  “I scared him pretty bad,” said Miri. She was feeling better and better. They had done it. “He kept saying ‘Hunh-ha!’ ” she giggled.

  “Hunh-ha!” said Molly in a deep voice. “Maybe you froze his brain, and he’ll only say ‘Hunh-ha!’ for the rest of his life, like Tarzan. Ain’t you hot in that coat?”

  Miri looked down at the lumpy black fur. “Boiling. What should we do with it?”

  Molly giggled. “Leave it on the bed for Flo to find.”

  “Wow, she’s going to come home, and you’re going to be gone and Horst’s going to be gone,” said Miri as she unbuttoned the coat. “Her whole life is changed.”

  “Sure is.” Molly nodded. “I wonder, though.” She paused. “Sometimes I think Flo don’t know how to care about anything much, except money. I never saw her cry, not even when her husband died. My uncle Lon.” Molly’s voice faded away. Then she glanced toward the window. “It’s getting late.”

  Miri sat up, alarmed. “We’ve got to get going,” she said. “We have two more things to do. We have to get one lens out to the barn”—she patted her pocket— “and the other up on your wall. You’ve still got the first one, right?” she asked anxiously. “The one I came by?”

  “I got it,” Molly said. “I was keeping it for a souvenir of you. It’s on my shelf.”

  “Go up and get it, okay? I feel like we need to have everything together,” said Miri. Molly jumped to her feet and climbed up the attic ladder, returning a moment later with the thin oval of glass in her outstretched palm.

  Miri looked at the plain little glass. “I still wonder who put it there the first time.”

  “If you think about it too long, you’re going to go crazy, and then I’ll never get to your time,” said Molly practically.

  “Right,” agreed Miri. “Let’s go.”

  “Barn first?”

  “Barn first.”

  • • •

  “So long, you dumb old cow,” Molly called. She swung the barn door closed, and the two girls padded across the dusty, silent yard for the last time. As they approached the old house, Molly said, “I want to say good-bye to Grandma.”

  “Okay.” Together, they tiptoed up the front stairs and into the hallway. “Why are we tiptoeing?” asked Miri.

  “I don’t know,” said Molly. But they still tiptoed. The whole world seemed hushed and waiting. Even the burning afternoon sun seemed to have stopped in the sky. The birds weren’t fussing, and the cicadas held their breath. What were they all waiting for? Miri brushed her hand against the satiny wood that lined the stairs. She would do that again more than seventy years from now. She shivered.

  The two girls slipped around the newel post and down the little passage to Grandma May’s cool, still room.

  The old woman was propped up against a mountain of pillows, her long white hair billowing down around her, her gnarled fingers clasped together. Her eyes sparkled as she caught sight of the two girls, and her thin lips broke into a wide smile. She nodded, and Miri felt the sensation of a light, fresh breeze around her.

  “Grandma,” began Molly, but her voice cracked and she flew to the bed to wrap her arms around the thin figure. “I have to leave,” she whispered.

  Grandma May nodded as though she already knew this.

  “We—that’s Miri, right there—we scared Horst off. You don’t have to worry about him anymore. But I’m going to go with Miri, Grandma. She’s going to take me home. That’s right, isn’t it, Grandma?” Molly looked deep into the brilliant blue eyes. “It’s magic, isn’t it?”

  Grandma May nodded.

  Without intending to, Miri began speaking. “I don’t know what’s going to happen when we get home. I’m afraid that my parents won’t understand. Or they’ll think I’m crazy. Or Molly won’t be happy and it will be my fault. . . .” She looked guiltily at Molly. She hadn’t meant to say that. What made her start talking?

  The old woman lifted her head up from the pillows and looked at Miri with eyes full of love. She wove her fingers among Molly’s and smiled. “Magic is just a way of setting things right,” she said, in a voice that was as light and lilting as a bird’s.

  “You can talk?” whispered Molly in astonishment.

  Grandma May smiled and turned her brilliant eyes to Miri. “You mustn’t be afraid. Either of you.”

  “Magic is just a way of setting things right,” repeated Miri. That sounded hopeful. She didn’t really know what it meant, but it made her feel better. She sat down on the edge of the white coverlet.

  “Did you know that all this would happen?” asked Molly.

  Grandma May shook her head. “There was never only one way it could have happened. You did better than I dared to hope. Both of you.”

  Miri and Molly exchanged proud glances.

  “Did you know who Miri was—before?” Molly was still curious.

  May gave her a sly look. “For me, there is no before.” She turned her head toward Miri. “Your idea about time being a hallway with different doors is a good one. You were a door that did not appear in the hallway that Molly found herself in. That was an error. Molly’s time was supposed to be the same as yours.”

  “What do you mean, Grandma?” asked Molly, grasping her bony hands.

  May sighed. “A slip in time. An error of vision. A mistake that required”—she smiled sideways at Miri—“corrective lenses.”

  “The glasses,” breathed Miri. “You did it!”

  “No. You did it.” May’s giggle was like a child’s.

  Miri su
ddenly felt lighter than air.

  But now the old woman glanced anxiously at the shadows of the trees outside her window. “You haven’t finished yet,” she said. “You have to replace the first glass.”

  “We know,” Molly assured her. “That’s what we’re going to do next.”

  “We’d better do it quick,” Miri said nervously. The whole house lay between them and Molly’s room.

  Molly nodded, but she made no move to leave the bed. “Grandma.” Her voice was full of tears.

  “Shh,” whispered May, cradling Molly’s cheek in her worn hand. “Do you think a little thing like time can separate us? Time means nothing in this house.”

  Molly looked into her grandmother’s eyes. “Will I see you again?”

  May smiled. “That depends on your glasses.” Her voice was getting weaker. “Go. Go on.”

  Molly caught up her grandmother’s hand and kissed it. “Bye.”

  Grandma May’s eyes were closed, but she smiled.

  The two girls rose to leave. As they closed the door behind them, a thin stream of ice-cold air blew through the keyhole.

  • • •

  They were already starting to sweat as they climbed the stairs. “I’ll never see her again,” said Molly, her eyes clouded.

  Under her bare feet, Miri felt the smooth curves worn in the wood. Time, even seventy or eighty years of it, was nothing to this house. She was beginning to think of the house as a living creature, a being that wanted their happiness. “You never know,” she said. “Seems like almost anything can happen in a place like this.”

  Molly brightened a little. “I reckon you’re right about that. It’s a funny house.” They reached the landing. “Say, I guess we got to go through the attic again, ’cause the key to my room is still in Horst’s pocket—”

  “Well, if it isn’t the jailbird,” said a sour voice. “Picked the lock, I suppose?” Sissy stood in the doorway of her room, her irritable mouth pursed. She plucked off her gloves, finger by finger, and slapped them together. “I must say, I’m in no mood to wrestle you back into your room. I thought Horst was watching you.”

  Molly cleared her throat. “Horst,” she began, but no further words came.