Almost Magic

by Kathleen Bullock

  My father rubbed a finger over his moustache again. “An unfortunate possibility, my dear. So, let’s consider carefully. Supposing, theoretically, my idea of a time rift is true—what actually happened here? What’s on the other side of the rift? Where do these artifacts come from? Locating the source will give us a valuable clue.”

  I kind of wanted to start sniffling right about then. But I listened.

  He opened his notebook. “There are as many theories about time as there are theoreticians.” He laughed. “Some eminent thinkers say that it’s impossible to create a time bridge to the future. The future is too mutable. These scholars believe that the present exists wholly in that immeasurable instant between the past and the future. We might leap back to what has been, but never to the unknowable future.”

  “But Dad,” I interrupted. “Watermelon went to the future. We saw him reappear five days later.”

  “You think that’s what you saw. Let’s consider a second possibility. Look at the items around you. Each is an ancient artifact that ought to be in a museum. It’s obvious—to me anyway—Watermelon must have gone to the past, maybe even to his original time and place. If disappearing wasn’t bad enough, the coming back is even more mysterious. You might ask yourself—and this is important—how did he return without a time machine?”

  Oooh, I hadn’t thought of that! I stared at my half-eaten toast. A queasy feeling grew in the pit of my stomach. I had a strong premonition that I wasn’t going to like the answer to that question. I offered a guess. “Um, magic?”

  Grizzwald laughed. “It’s you, Apple. You attracted him. Just as you’ve attracted all these other objects from the past. Your Attractor power pulled Watermelon back, but left the rift open. Now other objects from that side of time are getting through, attracted by your momentary wants and desires.”

  I groaned. I knew I wasn’t going to like his theory. “What am I supposed to do? Live in a plastic bubble?”

  “For a while.”

  “Come on, Dad. Don’t joke.”

  He leaned across the table and patted my hand. “We’ll pool our mighty Bramblewood brains and find a solution. Meanwhile, we’d save ourselves a lot of heartache, and maybe your cranium, if you could live in a bubble. A steel one!”

  A spoonful of applesauce froze halfway to my mouth. “You’re still kidding, aren’t you?”

  The twinkle in his eye gave him away. “I think so.”

  That night, I tucked Crystaleen, Witch Detective—Book Eight: The Secret in the Cauldron under my pillow and snapped off the light. I watched the golden moon crest the hill outside my window and heard the leaves in the cottonwoods rustle a late summer song. Trickle Creek barely gurgled over its drying rock bed. The house was empty without Mom and Cornelia.

  I stared at the iron canopy my father had conjured to protect me in case the rift opened again. So far, there seemed to be neither rhyme nor reason for where, when, or why it opened, and he wanted me to be safe. Meanwhile, as he searched the archives for the one right spell to close the rift, I was kept a prisoner in my own room.

  “These things will pass in time,” my father had assured me. “Your life will return to normal. The only job for us right now is to find the solution. There’s still something about this event that I don’t understand—another element I think we’re missing. Let’s leave it for the morning.”

  Great, a missing element. I lay in bed, half-mesmerized by the perfect roundness of the moon. If we needed to know what lay on the other side of the rift, why not send Bob Bibbetty into the painting to ask Watermelon? The baby dragon knew where he’d been.

  Some movement caught my eye and I bolted upright in bed.

  My journal, of all things, rose off the desk in slow motion and hovered about five feet from the ground. The little hairs on my arms stood up and bristled, my heart stopped beating, my lungs refused to push my chest in and out. I could only sit, stupefied with shock. Journals weren’t meant to defy gravity like that.

  A pixie would have had the sense to grab it, but at that moment even a pixie was smarter (and quicker) than I. The journal rose and fell several times as if struggling against an unseen Something. Just as I summoned the single ounce of courage it took to lurch for it, poof, the tussle ended and my journal disappeared. Vanished into thin air!

  I screamed with fury. This was the wickedest, most vile thing ever to happen. My most private and personal thoughts were recorded in that book—and it had no lock!

  “Come back!” I hollered, thrashing and throwing my stuffed animal collection at the wall. Then it struck me. My father was looking for a missing element. The disappearance of my journal had just proved that objects could go both ways without a time machine. A bead of anxiety trickled down my spine. That kind of added a new element to Dad’s theory, didn’t it?

  I plucked at my comforter and began to get that woozy, sweaty feeling I had at the party—right before you know what happened. Rubbing my hot temples, I tried to calm down and sort things out. Let’s see—Watermelon disappeared when he crashed into the time machine, leaving a rift in time. Apple the Attractor (me) wished him back. My (stupid) ability began pulling other (useless) objects through the rift, but I couldn’t send them back. Sending back is the opposite of attracting! So that means…

  Something else pulled the journal through the rift!

  “I want my journal back.” I shouted, swishing Wanda at the invisible spot where it had vanished. “It’s mine, it belongs to me alone, and I want it!” Just the thought of a stranger reading it infuriated me. But saying those words so vehemently was not the wisest thing to do, as I would soon realize.

  Reynard Grey had taught me so much—I was quite puffed with confidence (and at the moment, fury). “I’ll magic my journal back.” Nothing to it. Every third-rate witch on planet Earth knew how to perform a simple Return-to-Me spell. And I had certainly evolved into at least a second-rate witch by that time. I could do it!

  Wanda wriggled in dissent, but I held steady. “Search in places far and near, for an object I hold dear—bring the book that went astray—bring my journal back today!”

  My arms dropped to my sides and I pulled my knees under my chin and held my breath. I waited. The only sound was the tick of the clock. Just when I began to fear that I’d failed again, the room took on an aurora-like glow. The air hummed with static energy.

  Maybe? Just maybe—?

  In the midst of the glow, a dark figure materialized. Talk about spine-chilling! You don’t ever want to see a dark figure materialize in your bedroom late at night. The atmosphere grew so hot I gasped for air as I squinted at a Being dressed in old-fashioned robes and a pointed hat.

  What was going on? Wizards who dressed like this were usually headed to costume parties. “If that’s you, Corny,” I said—hoping against hope that it was—“it’s not funny.”

  The apparition stared at me. This was not a blonde teenaged girl, but an old guy with an iron-gray beard and eyes as hard and black as obsidian.

  He cleared his throat and spread his arms. “Allow me to introduce myself—I am Herkimer P. Azelbomb, renowned Alchemist, Sorcerer, and Dragonmaster Supreme from the year 1304 Anno Domini. You called for your journal of childish scribbles?” He tossed the book on my bed. “Have it.”

  “You read my journal?”

  “Of course I did! Despite your atrocious spelling and punctuation, I found it most entertaining. And enlightening. I’m delighted to return it in person.”

  My jaw dropped. Before I could wrap my muddled brain around this phenomenon (the book had only been gone for ten minutes), the Sorcerer Azelbomb snapped his wand and sent a hissing bolt of electrical energy across the room, knocking me back and paralyzing me where I lay.

  Oh, damn.

  As I stiffened, my left eye welled and my right big toe twitched. Those were the only parts of my body still active. Wanda lay unmoving under my fingers; I was unable to command her. I tried to scream for my father. My mouth was open, but no sound came out.


  “I’m terribly sorry to be so impolite, as we’ve only just met,” the man said as my watery one-eyed gaze followed his movements around the room, an exercise that strained my last remaining nerve. He touched things, poked his nose where it had no business, and droned on and on in a nasal monotone.

  “My situation requires complete control, you see. What an interesting world you have here!” His voice held a mixture of admiration and contempt. “Let me tell you a story, fellow Attractor. A fortnight ago, in my own century, I hid twenty-one dragon eggs in safe locations around the world, anticipating the day when they would hatch and provide me with an airborne fleet of fire-breathers. Can you imagine my surprise when one of the dragon hatchlings landed in my castle moat? To have a newborn arrive just then—out of the blue, so to speak—frightened the slippers off my feet. Each precious egg had been imbedded with a Homing Spell, naturally, but I did not expect any to emerge for seven summers, the normal incubation for Dragonius Gigantis.”

  He peered into my closet and tapped a snow globe with his foot. “I was quite disappointed to read in your journal that my dragon eggs took over seven hundred summers to hatch. I never anticipated that eventuality. I should have. Incubation is, after all, a very uncertain process. Much luck is required. My she-dragon is old and her line is weak, as are all the dragons of my age. Fewer and fewer of their offspring live. By incubating the eggs in various climes, I did what I could to preserve the breed for posterity—and of course, for a bit of personal plunder and mayhem.” His smile widened, showing off a set of horsey yellow teeth.

  My heart beat hard and fast. (Thank heavens that still worked.) My eye twitched, and my toe did push-ups.

  Azelbomb twisted a strand of beard around his finger and looked at the little stars my mother had painted on the ceiling. “There is more to this story, little cousin. This ungrateful baby dragon lay despondent in my dungeon for days. He refused to eat or drink or talk. I speak his language, you see. I wanted to examine him, but his fiery breath held me at bay. Then, on the fifth day, before my eyes, he vanished, just as he had appeared. Oh, how I pulled my beard and rent my raiment in frustration! This was a mystery for the ages. I had to know the secret.”

  The wizard’s lecturing gushed like water from a spigot. I rolled my eye and mutely thought a string of curses, hexes, and evil spells. Without luck.

  He blinked. “So, I concentrated very hard, very hard indeed, and drew upon the Darkest of the Dark Magical Arts to aid me. Then I used my Attracting power to trace the path of the dragon and draw the answer back to me.”

  The Sorcerer sat on the edge of my bed and folded his robe over his knees. He patted my foot. “And presto! The answer landed in my lap. Balls of dragon fire! A message from the future. Your heavenly journal told me everything I needed to know about when and where to find my baby dragons.”

  To my dismay, he winked again. “And a few other secrets as well, which I intend to use to my advantage. I understood at once what I needed to do. Given your powers and desires, I had only to hold on tight and wait patiently for you to attract your precious journal—and me—through time to you, as you’d done with the dragon. You are an amazing little witch, I’m sure you know. But no match for an old scoundrel like me.”

  He laughed and kicked up his feet.

  The truth gobsmacked me. I was to blame. I called the Sorcerer to the present when I magicked back my journal. I did that even after my father had warned me not to wish for anything.

  Azelbomb slid Wanda from beneath my petrified fingers and tossed her against the wall. I heard her snap, crack, and sigh a lament. Any hope of a quick fix died.

  “Thanks to you, dear girl, I shall have a platoon of Fire Dragons after all. Not in the time and place I wanted, but still good enough to rule the world. A few matters here and there need attention first, and then I am off to a place called ‘Co-lo-ray-doh.’ From there, I will assemble my adopted progeny and begin my campaign to pillage, plunder, loot, sack, rob, maraud, ransack, and despoil the bounties of this Earth. Without you, my dear, I might have missed the chance to fulfill my dream to live as a despotic, but enormously rich, World Dominator. I hope, when you recover from the distress of the moment, when you see the lay of the land, you’ll come to my side for some fun.”

  Inside my head, I spat at Azelbomb as he disappeared.

  Powerless, I lay abed burning with aggravation, guilt, and despair.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Horrible was not a strong enough word to describe my predicament.

  Alone in the dark, cursed by a Petrifying Spell, with nothing better to do but dwell on events in my mind, I thought about my father. He hadn’t come to rescue me, so I feared the worst. The dreadful Sorcerer must have put a spell on him, too. I thought about my mother surrounded by dragons in “Co-lo-ray-doh” without a warning of the coming menace. My good eye started to water and a tear dribbled down my cheek. The curse I’d brought upon my family (maybe the world) left a desperate feeling inside me.

  Most of all, I thought about how dumb and how totally unsuited to a life of witchcraft I was. No one but I could have fallen into such a trap.

  A peachy dawn colored the sky outside my window; I could see a glimmer of rising sun sparkling through the pane. The house lay under a spell as still and somber as a tomb. Downstairs, our seldom-used telephone rang over and over again. “Help! Help!” I screamed in my mind. “Wanda! Wanda!” I willed her to hear me. Dad’s talent for doing magic without using a wand hadn’t been passed on to me, but I had to keep trying.

  Hours passed. Shadows grew across the walls.

  I heard the crunch of gravel as a car pulled up the drive. The doorbell buzzed. I tried to project my distress to the unknown visitor, but after a few minutes the buzzing stopped. With mixed feelings of despair and relief, I heard the car begin to drive away. Suddenly, the brakes ground to a halt. Footsteps came running back up the drive. My front door slammed open against the wall and the footsteps clomped, clomped, clomped up the stairs.

  Father? Mother? Corny? Who?

  Not him, I begged.

  Doors along the hall opened and slammed. My heart pounded against my ribs like a sledgehammer. From the unfocused corner of my eye, I could just see Wanda’s tip behind the pile of laundry where the sinister Azelbomb had tossed her. Without her, I was helpless.

  Finally, my bedroom door burst open and revealed the most amazing sight. Posey Meadows, pale against the shadows in the hall, stood with mouth agape (meaning—opened wide enough to swallow a bus).

  “What the he…ck!” she murmured. “I knew something was wrong when I saw the front door open and that horrible mess inside.”

  She waited for me to respond. When I didn’t, she hobbled to my side. “What’s wrong, Apple?”

  My good eye twitched furiously.

  “Is this a game? Like charades? I’m awfully good at games.” Posey smiled, then frowned and considered. “No, I don’t think you’re playing. You can’t talk at all, can you? Or move?”

  When I didn’t talk or move, she nodded sagely, staring at my one blinking eye. “Blink once for ‘yes’ and twice for ‘no.’ Something horrible has happened to you. Is it a stroke?”

  I blinked twice for no. “Something worse?”

  Blink. Yes!!!! At that moment I loved Posey more than anything else in the whole world.

  She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Don’t worry, you can trust me. I know your secret—about being a witch.” Her eyes were still huge. And close. “My aunt is Buttercup Meadows. You know, the lady who married Reynard Grey, your previous tutor? I wish I could have told you when we met, but Aunt B swore me to secrecy—she said I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. Ever. You’ll be happy to know they’re doing well in Brazil.”

  Posey straightened, took off her glasses and buffed them on her shirt. “I can put two and two together. I can see that you are under some kind of powerful spell—but that gets us nowhere. We need to communicate.”

  Blink.

&nb
sp; “Good. Let me find a pencil and paper. I’ll write the alphabet and you blink when I touch the letter you want.” She found a notepad on my desk and began to scribble.

  It took forever, but I blinked at the letters for “m-a-g-i-c-w-a-n-d.”

  “Where?”

  L-a-u-n-d-r-y.

  Posey foraged and pulled up a very bent Wanda. “This it?”

  Oh, poor Wanda! Twisted like a pretzel. I blinked a “yes.”

  Posey brought Wanda over and I saw she wasn’t totally broken after all, only bent at each of the segments that made her retractable. Alezbomb had probably never seen a wand like this before. Her twisted shape fooled him!

  Joy! My new (and obviously best) friend slipped her into my stiff, clenched fist.

  Please, Wanda, I pleaded mutely, wake up for me.

  Unresponsive. The old thing must be in shock.

  Please, please—PLEASE! The force of my mental scream rattled my brain.

  Wanda twitched. Joyful jackalopes! My hand tingled. Good sign! I felt actual vibrations moving through my muscles. Slowly, first my fist, then my arm thawed and my elbow cracked when I moved my hand up to touch my stiff face. Criminy! I’d been frozen with an open-mouthed snarl. I must look like a demented ferret. Still one-armed and creaky, I touched Wanda to my throat and felt my vocal cords relaxing. “Testing, testing!” Ah, the relief of being verbal again. “Oh bliss, I’m not dead after all!”

  I swept my wand over myself from head to toe and began the slow process of un-stiffening. My skin tingled as if being pricked by a thousand pins. I eased upright into a sitting position, and my joints cracked as I waited for my circulation to flow more freely.

  “What happened?” asked Posey, who’d been very patient during my recuperating ordeal. “Where is your family?”

  “I don’t know!” I grabbed my friend’s hand. “Thank you. Thank you for rescuing me, but we have to find my father. My father—”

  “Just a second.” Posey went to the window and waved. “My brother Marsh is waiting in the car. He thinks I’m plumb crazy to barge in here uninvited. But I had a bad feeling and made him wait. I want him to know things are okay now.”