Much Ado About Magic

by Mette Ivie Harrison

  “They have to look that way. They have to be believably distraught,” I said, holding tight to her hand so she knew I was with her in this.

  “What would ruin them is you really disappearing,” said Ben to Sarah. “This way, you’ll actually survive to tell the tale. I’m sure they will lecture you for years on end and make you repay it with gifts on every birthday and Christmas and Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. But you’ll be there with them, for all of those. Isn’t that more important than a few days of misery?”

  Sarah bit her lip and more tears came down her face.

  “So what happens when people get disappeared? I mean, what do they leave behind? Bloody clothes? All their money? Clothes? How do people even know that they are gone? They miss an appointment? They make a last, distressed phone call?” I asked.

  “I remember in history class we talked about the disappearances. They always happen in the middle of something else. Like, where people would notice it. At a party or a ballgame or a dinner. Where other people are waiting,” said Ben.

  “So no blood,” I said. “No dramatic messes or phone calls.”

  “School tomorrow would work,” said Ben. It was already dark, and nearly midnight. We wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight, it seemed.

  “Sarah?” I said, looking at her.

  “If I just had a chance to talk to Claudio and Pedro,” she said. “I’m sure I could sort this out.”

  “I’ll see what I can do, after you two have gone into hiding,” said Ben. “And are safe.”

  “But Claudio will feel so guilty,” said Sarah.

  I hoped he did. He deserved to feel guilty.

  “Where are we going to go?” I asked.

  “Leave that to me,” said Ben.

  “You mean, because you’re the guy and I’m supposed to trust you?” I said.

  “No,” said Ben. “Because I love you and there is no one who is more interested in keeping you safe than I am, Bee.”

  “So it’s just selfishness in the end. You don’t care about me so much as you care about yourself and making sure you don’t have to grieve over me and all that,” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Ben. “Completely selfish, that’s me. You know me too well.”

  I said goodbye to Ben at about three a.m. That left three hours for me to sleep until I had to get up to be ready to school. I was just about to fall asleep when my phone rang.

  “Hey, Leanata,” said Margaret.

  I was too sleepy to interrupt her and tell her she had the wrong number.

  “John needs to talk to us. It all has to come down to tomorrow.”

  There was a long pause. “Leanata?” said Margaret.

  I didn’t say anything. Margaret was involved with John? And Leanata was in it, too? Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. I thought she was a friend. I’d even thought of telling her the truth about our disappearance, maybe getting her help.

  I guess it was a good thing I hadn’t.

  Margaret hung up and my cell phone went blank.

  I didn’t sleep much of the remaining three hours until my alarm went off.

  Chapter 18: Ben

  In the morning, I met Bee at school in the commons a little before school started. She told me about the mysterious phone call with Margaret the night before.

  “Leanata? Why would she get into something like this? She’s already a demi-head of her clan.”

  “More power,” was Bee’s simple answer.

  “I guess that’s what John wants, too. But is ruining Pedro really the best way to do it? And you and Sarah, while they’re at it?” I asked.

  “Hmm. That can’t be it,” said Bee. “There has to be more.”

  I stared at her. “You’re brilliant!”

  “I am? I mean, of course I am, but what are you talking about?”

  “You just said it. There has to be more. This isn’t just about taking one demi-head of the Arragon plan down. This is about Pedro or you and Sarah at all.”

  “It isn’t? Leanata has been wanting to make me regret not treating her with the proper respect for a long time.”

  “Right, but that’s just the bonus. She chose you to humiliate, but it’s all just a distraction,” I said. “Don’t you see? The real power isn’t in being a demi-head or even a full head. It’s having spells. And not just the one they are supposed to have in their individual clans.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I mean, what if they had more than one spell? What if they had all five?”

  “But that’s not allowed.”

  “Of course it’s not allowed. That’s why they have to make sure someone else gets blamed for it before they’re found out.”

  “It’s Julius Caesar all over again,” said Bee.

  I nodded. Until the World Council was formed to prevent just a thing from ever happening again, Caesar had had all of the spells and had been nearly unstoppable. He’d nearly destroyed the clans.

  “And if that’s true, Bee, then the one thing that John and Leanata and Margaret cannot allow is for the World Council to put a truth spell on you. Because then they’ll find out you’re innocent and they’ll start looking for the real criminals here,” I said.

  Bee wrapped her arms around her shoulders as if suddenly cold. “Margaret knows she gave too much away last night when she called me,” she said. “Whatever they’re going to do to us, it has to happen soon.”

  “So we have to make sure that we make it happen before they do,” I said.

  Bee looked at me and stomped her foot. “If you think that I’m going to go all damsel in distress on you here, you have another thing coming. I’m not throwing myself on you all weepy and distraught.”

  I let out a little laugh at that. “Good to know,” I said.

  “And I’m not going to start kissing you like I have no tomorrow, either.”

  “Never would have crossed my mind,” I said, though kissing would have been nice.

  “Margaret and Leanata are part of this? But they were no nice to me,” said Sarah. “Margaret helped me figure out what dress to wear to the dance. And Leanata showed me how to use the spell with emphasis on my cheekbones.” She put a hand up along them. They were killer cheekbones, I admit.

  “You know, that’s what I love about you, Sarah. Someone tries to ruin you and you are still thinking about how nice they were to you when they gave you fashion tips,” said Bee.

  “You think I’m stupid,” said Sarah, her chin jutting out.

  “No, I don’t. Just sweet,” Bee said.

  “Well, when Claudio comes, I’m going to tell him exactly what I think of him.”

  “I think you should ignore him completely,” said Bee.

  Sarah shook her head. “And let him off the hook for hurting me? I don’t think so.”

  “Look, Sarah, I think he still loves you deep down, but he’s confused. His loyalties are torn.”

  “And so when it comes down to a choice, he chooses to believe the worst of me? What kind of love is that?” asked Sarah.

  She looked like a little girl whose pigtails had just been cut off by the boy who was supposed to kiss her behind the teacher’s desk.

  “That doesn’t matter now. You can deal with him later,” said Bee.

  “You really do think I’m weak,” said Sarah. “If you think there’s going to be a later for me and Claudio.”

  “But I thought—” I said.

  “You thought all he had to do was say he was sorry and I’d run back to him? That I’m so pathetic I’d forgive him for believing the worst of me? I may be a sophomore, but I am not that desperate,” said Sarah.

  “Fine. Dump him. As publicly as you want. Only do it later,” said Bee. “After this is over.”

  “You can’t dump him,” I said. “You have to give him a chance.”

  “What?” said Bee.

  “Bee, Claudio is my friend. One of my best friends. I have to look out for him in this,” I said.

  Bee s
uddenly became a different person. I swear, I had never seen anything like it before. She grew an inch, and her eyes went hard and dark. The freckles on her skin seemed to deepen and she scared me. It was actually kind of hot, in a weird way. “Now is the time to pick sides, Benedick,” she said.

  I was thinking it wasn’t a good thing she used my full name. “I’ve already picked sides, Bee. I’m on your side. I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “You’re here, but you’re still trying to stand on the fence between us and Claudio and Pedro. You need to leap over the side. Onto our side. No going back,” she said. “Or you can wash your hands of us and go back to them. Your choice entirely.”

  “Come on, you don’t mean that. You don’t want me to walk away.”

  “If you’re not willing to turn your back on your friends, I do,” said Bee.

  I stared at her. “I’m on your side,” I said finally.

  “Are you?”

  I swallowed. “If that’s what I have to do, then yes. I am.”

  “You can turn against your friends?” asked Bee.

  “They’re not my friends. Not if they’re against you.” I should have known it would come to this, but I’d been putting it off. Bee was right. I had to go all the way now. I loved Claudio and Pedro like brothers. We had been through a lot together. But I loved Bee in a completely different way. I could survive if I didn’t have friends. I wouldn’t like it, but I’d manage. But without Bee, there was nothing else.

  It sounds stupid, I know. I had only admitted I was in love with her a few days ago. I had a lot more history with Claudio and Pedro. But I also knew they were wrong about this.

  “You’re sure?” said Bee. “Because if you have any doubt, you’ll only be a weak link waiting to be broken.”

  “There is nothing weak about my feelings for you,” I said. I hated that she doubted me. I was ready to be tested. I thought about those old fairy tales about princes going off on quests to win their lady love. I always thought those were stupid, that love didn’t require something like that. But I guess it did, sometimes.

  “Where are you going to take us, then?” asked Bee.

  I could see she didn’t trust me yet. I was going to have to change that. “It can’t be any place that is linked to us or our families and friends,” I said.

  “Right,” said Bee.

  “I thought about the bomb shelter that the city built back in the 80s, but I think that’s too obvious.”

  “OK.”

  “So, I thought that you and Sarah should hide where they least expect it. Right here. In plain sight of the whole town.”

  Bee looked at me like I’d suggested that she run naked through the streets. “In plain sight seems like a bad idea,” she said.

  “It will be in plain sight, but you won’t look like you.”

  “Huh?” said Bee.

  You made me ugly,” I said. “You can make you and Sarah look ugly, too. Unrecognizably ugly, right?”

  “But it fades,” Sarah pointed out.

  “If you let it fade. You two won’t let that happen. You’ll have to keep checking each other, and using the spell either on yourselves or on the other one. Keep up your disguises.”

  “You think that will work?” said Bee.

  “If you keep it up every moment. Heros don’t like to look ugly all the time. Even the ones in the movies make sure to come out of the ugly spell as often as they can. But you won’t be doing that.”

  “So who are we going to be?” asked Sarah.

  “Clanless girls,” I said. “The kind that no one pays attention to, who are practically invisible.”

  “Come on. They aren’t that invisible,” said Sarah.

  Bee snorted. “You just have never been clanless,” she said. “My parents have told me about what it was like before they were Heros. It was like they didn’t exist as far as any of the people in the clans were concerned. Insignificant. Faceless. Never leaving a mark on the world of the clans.”

  She looked up at me and nodded. “You’re right, you know. That might be enough of a disguise that the World Council would never think to look for us there. After all, the only thing worse than being disappeared as a member of a clan is to be clanless from the first. Although I’m surprised you know anything about the clanless, Ben. You’ve always been in the Paduans, haven’t you?”

  “That doesn’t mean I can’t notice the clanless,” I said.

  “But why would you? No one else in the clans ever does,” said Bee.

  “Maybe because I’ve never been particularly happy in my clan,” I said.

  “I see,” said Bee. She stared at a couple of clanless girls walking, heads tucked into their books, toward lockers on the far side of the school. “We’ll have to stick together,” she said. “I don’t think even the clanless are going to accept us with a snap of the finger. We don’t want to stick out as new, so if we’re always with each other, they’ll think we’re friends.”

  “And no one will question the clanless to ask if they’ve seen anything unusual,” I said. “It would never occur to them. And even if it did, they wouldn’t trust the clanless to inform on the clans.”

  “I don’t know about this,” said Sarah. “You really think being ugly will make us look clanless?”

  “Not noticeably ugly,” I said. “Not ugly like a villain in a movie. Just plain, ordinary, unmagicked ugliness. Dull and boring. Which will actually be harder for you two to achieve with the spell than anything more dramatic.”

  “But to use the beauty spell for something like that seems wrong. Like being naked,” said Sarah.

  Though she did seem to realize that other people went around “naked” like that for years on end. I think she had really never seen the clanless before now. Typical blindness of being born into a clan.

  “I spent months without using my beauty spell,” said Bee. “I don’t think it will be that bad.”

  “So do you know the names of those two girls?” asked Sarah, pointing toward the ones just closing their lockers.

  “Uh, no,” said Bee. She looked a bit embarrassed about it.

  “Karin and Bibi,” I said. “Karin gets good grades. The Messians actually invited her to join the clan, but she refused.”

  “She refused?” said Bee, astonished.

  “Why would she do that?” said Sarah.

  “She has too many friends among the clanless and she didn’t want to give them up.”

  “She wouldn’t have had to give up her friends,” said Sarah.

  “Wouldn’t she?” I said. “Do you know anyone in the clans who is friends with clanless people?”

  No one said anything.

  “Bibi’s parents used to be Florentines, but got kicked out. She hates all the clans now with a passion. She has an unofficial club that meets each week to talk about ending all the clans.”

  “And how do you know all about this?” asked Bee. “Is this about being a Paduan? You didn’t use a truth spell on them or anything, did you?”

  “I didn’t have to,” I said. “I just listen when they’re around. They don’t bother to keep it a secret because they think no one in the clans bothers to listen to them. I do.”

  Bee stared at me in surprise. “I didn’t realize you were so different, Ben,” she said.

  I bowed to her with a flourish. “Just one of the many proofs of my depth of character and understanding,” I said.

  Bee leaned in toward me and I was sure I had earned a kiss. But I didn’t get one.

  “If you two are done making googly eyes at each other,” said Sarah, “maybe we could talk about whether I can actually use the beauty spell for something like this. I’ve never done it before and it’s not like you’re giving me tons of time to practice.”

  “It’s not that hard. I can show you how to do it in a few minutes. You’re quick with the spell, Sarah,” Bee assured Sarah, and they turned away from me toward the second floor of the school.

  “Um, you want to give me a hint what you will
look like after the disappearance?” I asked, the thought occurring to me suddenly that maybe I wouldn’t recognize them, either.

  Bee grinned cheekily. “We’ll surprise you.”

  “Just what I always wanted. And it’s not even my birthday,” I drawled.

  Bee and Sarah went off to the bathroom. I went off to find Claudio and Pedro at our lockers.

  “Hey, Ben,” said Pedro, coming up from behind him. “You look almost as bad as Claudio here.”

  “Yeah. I don’t feel so good, either.” I was going to have to break off with them soon. Bee expected it and I wasn’t going to disappoint her. Even if she didn’t look like herself, she would be watching me.

  “There will be other girls,” said Pedro. “For both of you.”

  I looked at Claudio and could see that he was about as comforted by that thought as I was. “I’m not so sure about that,” I said.

  “Better to have loved and lost and all that,” said Pedro. “You two will bounce back. I know you will.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. I looked at Claudio.

  “I have an idea,” said Pedro. “There are a couple of nice girls in the Florentine clan who have been asking me about you two. I didn’t set you up with them because I figured you didn’t need any help with that. And you don’t, I’m sure. But this would just be to have fun. They’re not as gorgeous as Hero girls would be, but they have great bodies.” He grinned and I wanted to hit him.

  It was good to feel like that. I fed that feeling, getting ready for later.

  “I don’t know,” said Claudio. “I don’t think I’m ready yet.”

  “Have to get back on the horse,” said Pedro. “Come on, you two. How about this weekend? Something to look forward to.”

  “I think we have to get through today first,” I said. “It’s not going to be easy seeing them.”

  “Right. Today is going to be hard on all of us.” His expression went dark.

  “Let’s head down to the commons. Might as well get it over with,” I said grimly.

  “If you two are with me,” said Claudio. “I think I can do it. But seeing Sarah again—I’m going to want to go to her.”

  “We’ll keep you strong, eh?” said Pedro.