by E. G. Foley
His limbs felt wobbly as he squeezed across the aisle in front of the others, reached the steps, and then walked down the aisle to the field.
“Good luck, Jake!” Dani called.
“Be calm, stay centered,” Aunt Ramona had advised him earlier. Easier said than done.
Isabelle waved her handkerchief in a ladylike show of support, but Jake still felt like he wanted to puke.
Down the bleacher stairs he went in a daze, across the gravel surrounding the Field of Challenge. Then he took his first momentous step over the thick chalk line.
And tripped a bit, of course.
Nervousness made him clumsy as he stepped onto the field. Humiliating! Can’t you even walk right? He paused, remembered to breathe, his heart thumping like the mummers’ drums of May Day. Then he squared his shoulders, steadied himself, and marched on, beginning to feel more normal.
Until he got close enough to the Old Yew to make out, for the first time, the gnarled old-man face in the ancient tree trunk. Good Lord. Jake took one look at it and stopped in his tracks.
He had known the Old Yew was a person, but for some reason, he had not thought about a face. That was how it was with trees, though. Sometimes you could see the faces in them, other times not.
It was most disconcerting, in any case. Especially since the Old Yew was staring right at him, matter-of-factly.
Somehow Jake collected his wits again and pressed on until he reached the spot where he bowed to all the powers-that-be.
Meanwhile, Sir Peter was clearing the Field of Challenge once more with another wave of his wand. Nixella Valentine’s ruined mud-rabbit and the puddle that had spawned it both evaporated.
“Ah, there you are,” Sir Peter greeted him brightly after completing his spell. He laid hold of Jake’s shoulder and spun him about none-too-gently.
Jake gulped as he beheld the sprawling sea of spectators. There must have been a thousand people watching.
“Not yet, Sir Peter, we should like to speak to the boy for a moment,” a deep, scratchy voice said behind him.
“Why, of course, Your Serene Leafiness.” His captor whirled Jake around again.
The row of Elders in their elevated chairs were inspecting him with curiosity, and Sir Peter gave him a slight shove toward the Old Yew.
“Go and pay your respects, boy,” he ordered under his breath.
“Y-yes, sir.”
The towering tree in the center of the Elders’ seats studied Jake with an unblinking stare.
As he moved forward, he kept a respectful distance, mindful not to step on the Old Yew’s toes, as it were; its gnarled roots spread out for some yards around the massive trunk.
“So…Jacob Everton, the Lost Heir of Griffon,” the ancient tree greeted him in a deep, raspy old-man voice, with slightly mulchy breath, while the spring breeze stirred in its branches, from which birds came and went as they pleased.
Jake blinked.
“And now he has been found,” the tree said in a reflective tone. “I hear it is your birthday tomorrow, lad. Born on Beltane, yes? That is a very good omen, you know. ’Tis said a Beltane babe is born lucky. Happy birthday to you, boy.”
Humph, I don’t know about that, Jake thought, but he answered with respect. “Thank you, Your Serene Leafiness. And, er, if you don’t mind,” he added gingerly, “may I pass along a greeting to you from your Norse cousin, Yggdrasil, the Tree of the Universe.”
The Old Yew’s mossy eyebrows shot up. “You met Yggdrasil?”
Jake nodded, rather pleased with himself. He hoped the showoff Maddox was using his extra-powerful Guardian senses to hear this part. He felt rather important.
“We had to help a giant find his way back to Jugenheim a few months ago. Up Yggdrasil was the only way to get there.”
“Indeed,” the Old Yew marveled. “And how is the old Viking oak these days, eh?”
“Happy to say he is thriving, sir, according to the three witches who water him. They, too, send their best.”
“By my buds and branches! You met the three ferocious Norns and lived to tell of it?”
“Why, yes, sir. They served us tea, actually.”
“I say.” Now it was the tree’s turn to look entirely astonished at him.
“Begging your pardon, Your Leafiness,” a furry-faced Elder with whiskers and small, pointy ears spoke up. “We really should try to keep to the schedule. The Griffon heir is not the only candidate today.” He cast Jake a sour look. “And while we’re all very impressed to hear these tales of his exploits—uncorroborated tales, I would remind my colleagues—perhaps the lad believes that chatting up His Leafiness will make the panel show a certain favoritism. Hmm?”
“No, sir!” Jake exclaimed in offended surprise, turning to him. What is that fellow, anyway? Part rodent?
The Elder in question studied Jake through beady eyes, his little pink nose twitching ever so slightly. The Old Yew looked askance at the furry Elder. (Of course, the tree could not turn his head very much to look at people beside him; all he could do was peer at them out of the corners of his eyes.)
“If you have questions for the boy, then by all means, ask them, Lord Badgerton.”
“Very well,” Lord Badgerton said crisply. “We hear that before you were found, you spent a few years as a pickpocket in London, Lord Griffon. Is that correct?”
Jake winced to hear the embarrassing secret of his thieving past announced to the entire magical community. Though his cheeks turned red, he stood stiffly, his chin high. “Yes, sir,” he admitted.
He could hear the murmurs that ran through the audience and the row of Elders.
The Old Yew’s woody face rearranged itself into a frown. “I trust your trainers will make sure to rid you of any worrisome old habits, Jacob. See that they do.”
“Yes, sir.” Everything in him longed to say something in his own defense, but somehow Jake knew it would only come out sounding like an excuse. So he kept his mouth shut and merely nodded.
Sir Peter Quince returned to his side. “Now then, Jacob. Are you ready to begin?”
Jake nodded, though it was really more a command than a question.
The smiling fellow whipped him around roughly once more to face the crowd and then proceeded to conduct a smarmy public interview of him. “Well, well, dear lad. Sounds like you have some big shoes to fill. Two talents!” He pointed at the red and blue sashes entwined around Jake’s waist. “I hear you have inherited both your parents’ abilities. Is this true?”
“Yes, sir. My mother could see ghosts, and my father had telekinesis.”
“And they both were Lightriders,” Sir Peter confided to the crowd through his speaking trumpet. “I am told you have high hopes of following in their footsteps someday?”
Jake blushed. “If I am found worthy, sir.”
“Well, you’re going to need quite a few more birthdays before you’ll be ready for that, I warrant, but I’m sure the panel will keep you in mind,” he said in amusement, and many in the audience chuckled at a mere boy’s dreams of becoming a great hero.
“To be sure,” Sir Peter continued, “two gifts must keep you very busy. When did your powers first begin to show? Do tell. Everyone’s very curious about you, Jake.”
“They are?”
“Charming.” Sir Peter chuckled, and the crowd followed suit, which Jake found a trifle bewildering.
“Well, um, the Kinderveil wore off about a year ago, a few weeks before my twelfth birthday.”
“Did both your gifts emerge at the same time?”
“Yes, sir. I didn’t know what to make of it. I was on my own at the time. Thought I was going mad.”
“No doubt. Then Guardian Stone found you, didn’t he?” he narrated for the benefit of the audience, many of whom were craning their necks to gawk at Jake or watching him through field glasses. “Rescued you, I believe, when your Uncle Waldrick tried to kill you in his wicked conspiracy with that odious sea-witch, Fionnula Coralbroom.”
Th
e mere mention of that name brought a visceral reaction from many of the Elders. It was clear she was still very much hated and feared.
Jake nodded.
“You are lucky to be alive with enemies like that, young man. Fortunately, ladies and gentlemen, Fionnula Coralbroom is well contained in her cell at the bottom of the North Atlantic. Ah, what’s the matter?” the Elder asked Jake, looking askance at him with a smile. “Does she still make you nervous? She would me.”
“No, sir. I just didn’t…realize the world knew about all that.”
“Are you jesting?” he exclaimed. “Your story was front page news in the Clairvoyant for weeks last summer. Oh, yes, my lad, we read all about you. And now, finally, here you are among us, in the flesh. On that note, perhaps we should get started with the ghosts now. What say you?”
He nodded resolutely. “I’m ready.”
“That’s the spirit! Ha—spirit, ghosts, get it?”
The whole crowd groaned at Sir Peter’s bad pun. He sent around a scowl of mock indignation at the bleachers, then beckoned to one of his colleagues before turning back to Jake. “I now leave you in the capable hands of Dame Oriel, one of our top mediums, who will conduct this portion of your Assessment. I cannot do it myself, for alas, I do not share that gift. Best of luck to you, young man.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jake answered in a tight voice.
Dry-mouthed with knowing his Assessment was about to begin, Jake noticed several ghosts materializing here and there on the Field of Challenge.
Sir Peter handed off his speaking trumpet to Dame Oriel as he returned to his chair. She was a trim, older woman with a serious demeanor, her elegant figure draped in the satin teal robe of an Elder psychic. She had piercing gray eyes and short, silvery-pink hair.
Jake promptly learned that Dame Oriel was all business, with none of Sir Peter’s chitchat.
“How do you do, Jacob. I am Lady Oriel,” she said. “Let us begin.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She lifted the speaking trumpet to her lips and explained: “We enlist Merlin Hall’s resident ghosts to assist in our young mediums’ Assessments. This helps us gauge how clearly the candidates are able to see and hear those on the other side of the Veil.” She addressed her next words toward the field. “Any spirits present are now asked to proceed as we previously discussed.”
The crowd looked on, intrigued.
Lady Oriel turned back to Jake. “Your goal is to learn each ghost’s name. In addition, several of them will give you either a message to convey or some small task to carry out. If you repeat the correct words and perform the correct actions, then we’ll know beyond all doubt that your powers are authentic.”
Jake nodded. It sounded simple enough.
“Any questions?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Good luck, then. They’re all yours.” Lady Oriel handed him the speaking trumpet and marched back to her seat.
Heart pounding, Jake turned to face the Field of Challenge. This didn’t seem too difficult. At least dealing with ghosts did not drain him, like using his telekinesis did.
Clutching the speaking trumpet, he walked across the sunny green toward the nearest ghost of the five he saw arrayed around the field. She was a rather familiar sort of ghost—a Gray Lady in medieval garb, as could often be found haunting old castles.
Like all the waiting ghosts, she had generated her own little setting out of the ectoplasm mists that spirits could manipulate, acting out a scene. In her case, she had created a spiral staircase inside a castle tower. Several feet off the ground, she kept gliding up and down the tower stairs.
She stopped and stared at Jake as he warily approached. “Pardon, ma’am. Might I ask your name?”
She gave him a dirty look then ignored him and kept going up and down her misty stairs.
“Please? It’s rather important.”
“Why do you want to know?” she countered.
Confused, Jake turned toward Dame Oriel. “I thought these ghosts were supposed to cooperate.”
“What ghosts?” Dame Oriel answered with a pointed smile.
Jake nodded with understanding, then cast the Gray Lady an imploring look. “Help me out here, please? I’m under enough pressure already.”
“Fine,” the ghost huffed. “What do you want?”
“I need to know your name.”
“I am the Lady Rachel, who was called fair,” she whispered, her spectral voice sounding hoarse with tears.
Staring at her, Jake realized why she had been rude. The Gray Lady seemed distraught. “Um, are you all right?” he ventured.
“Of course I’m not all right. I’m dead, you fool!” she snapped. “Snuffed out before my time, at the height of my beauty—or haven’t you noticed I’m a ghost?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend—”
“Do you really think I’d bother haunting anything if I were sitting on a cloud playing a harp somewhere? Instead, I’m stuck here, going up and down these steps all day long. Am I all right, he asks. What a stupid question. But what else should I expect from a male?”
“I beg your pardon,” Jake uttered, taken aback. He glanced uncertainly at Dame Oriel, but her face gave nothing away, offered no clues about how to proceed.
He looked at the Gray Lady again, recalling Oriel’s instructions about how he was to inquire if the ghosts had a message or a simple task he was to perform, so he could prove he was not just talking to thin air.
Lady Rachel had turned her back on him and was gliding slowly back up her tower stairs once more.
“Um, my lady, do you have any message for me?”
“Only one.” She glanced bitterly over her shoulder. “All men are faithless swine. Chivalry is deeeeaaaaad!” she shouted, leaping out the tower window at the top of the steps.
She disappeared, and her ectoplasm with her.
Jake blinked. “Well, then.”
Turning toward the Elders, he lifted the speaking trumpet to his lips. “Ah, that was Lady Rachel the Fair. Kind of a shrew. I think she had a falling-out with a knight or something.”
“Why do you say that? Did she have a message?” Dame Oriel called.
“Yes, ma’am. She said all men are faithless swine, and chivalry’s dead.”
Dame Oriel nodded at her colleagues, confirming his accuracy. “The boy is correct.”
“Bravo!” Sir Peter started clapping for him in approval, and the crowd followed suit.
Jake headed for the second ghost, surrounded by its cloud of spectral mist, and mused that this all must have looked very strange to the audience.
Some of them were surely psychics and mediums like him, but for most, it must have looked like he was standing in the middle of a field talking to himself, like an escapee from the lunatic asylum—or like Archie muddling his way through an especially hard equation.
Ah, well. His Assessment was too important to bother much about his dignity. Nevertheless, the next ghost rather startled him when he spotted it hopping about in the cloudy scene it had created.
Jake peered into the ectoplasm, searching the wispy ship’s deck for any other figure he was supposed to talk to, but no.
There was only the one.
“Something wrong, Jake?” Sir Peter called amiably from his chair.
Hesitating, Jake lifted the speaking trumpet to his lips. “No, sir, it’s just… Well, um, it’s…a parrot.”
The audience laughed, and Jake jumped as the large, showy, but quite dead bird let out a shrill squawk.
“Je m’apelle Pierre!” It swooped straight at his head.
He ducked instinctively, though he knew a ghost-parrot could hardly peck him. He glanced again at the Elders. “It speaks French. Problem is, I don’t. But I think it might have just told me that its name is Pierre. Maybe it belonged to a French pirate or something?”
“Just report on whatever you hear it saying, Jacob,” Dame Oriel instructed from her seat in the shade.
He nodded and tur
ned to the ghost bird again.
It cocked its head and looked at him from its perch on the ship’s ectoplasm rails.
“Come on, say something,” Jake muttered. “I haven’t got all day.”
The parrot spoke, and when Jake repeated the “message” aloud in French as best he could, he realized it was a foreign swear word by the audience’s mixed gasps and laughter.
“Sorry about that,” he added through the speaking trumpet as his cheeks turned red.
The rascally ghost parrot flapped away and dissolved, along with the deck of its old pirate ship.
Well, that’s that.
Jake took a deep breath and headed for the third ghost near the middle of the field. As he approached, he could already hear the music coming from the ornate theater stage the spirit had created. No orchestra was visible, but the tune seemed familiar—although once again, Jake did not understand the words. This time, they were in Italian.
An opera.
A dark-haired, bearded ghost of rounded proportions was walking about on the stage, rehearsing a song, as he must have so often done in life.
“La dona e mobile,
Qual piuma al vento,
Muta d’accento—e di pensiero…”
As Jake approached, he could see the man’s smile and his dark, expressive eyebrows working up and down as he practiced the playful tune.
“Pardon, sir!” he called. “Sorry to interrupt, but I’m in the middle of my Assessment, so might I ask your name?”
The opera man glanced at him in surprise, then sang his response: “I am Constanzio, the King of the Tenors!”
“Oh, thanks,” Jake started to say, but the King of the Tenors was not done.
“CONNNNNN-stanzio! Zio, zio, zio, zi-OOOOOO! Constanzio eees my naaaaaame!” he finished with a grand Italian flourish.
Jake waited.
Constanzio bowed.
Right. Jake turned to the Elders. “His name is Constanzio,” Jake reported through the speaking trumpet.
“The King of—” the opera star insisted.
“King of the tenors,” Jake dutifully added.
“Ahem!” Constanzio coughed. “Boy, bring me my wine. I must wet these golden pipes.”
