Porter chewed on a bun while he tapped the shed door’s hinges into place with a hammer. In between bites of food, he explained how important it was that the physical door he made here match the one on the other side as perfectly as possible. “Can’t get a good connection between the two if they don’t, and the magical Door won’t form. I have to force it, and that’s an exhausting business.”
Porter was a few inches shorter than Micah, who wasn’t tall for his age, but he never had trouble positioning the enormous gates and double doors the circus used on moving days. And he fitted the hinges of the small shed door so quickly that the coffee was still steaming when he’d finished.
Micah passed it to him.
Porter took a sip and pressed his free hand to the door, just below the knob. He narrowed his eyes and made a shoving motion. His elbow tensed, and he huffed sharply once. The shed door looked exactly the same, but when he flicked the knob open, Peal was there.
Porter eyeballed the sunny yard over his coffee mug. “Not bad,” he said. “A little prosaic, but we all have to come from somewhere.”
“Where did you grow up?” Micah asked.
“Istanbul,” said Porter. “You remember the rule?”
“Jenny and I will be standing in front of this Door at eleven o’clock a.m., Eastern Daylight Time, and not a minute later,” Micah recited.
“Excellent,” Porter said. “And the Man Who Bends Light told you what will happen if you’re not?”
“Ummmm.” It hadn’t come up. Micah had expected a lot of warnings when he found out he’d be traveling to an entirely different country on his own. Things like Be careful crossing the street, and Don’t talk to strangers.
But the Lightbender had grown up somewhen very different—possibly a time when boys Micah’s age were expected to fight wolves with nothing but sharp rocks.
And, come to think of it, the illusionist probably didn’t know much about crossing the street himself. He almost never left, since it was his magic that kept Circus Mirandus hidden.
But Porter was waiting for an answer.
“You’ll leave me there?” Micah guessed.
“Oh, it’ll be much more embarrassing than that.” Porter grinned slyly at him. “If you’re not here on time, we’ll come get you.”
Before Micah could process the idea of a bunch of magicians on a search-and-rescue mission in Peal, Porter gave him a push, and he stumbled through the Door.
* * *
The backyard belonged to the Greeber family, who lived not far from Micah’s old house. The door on their gardening shed was a perfect match to the one in Porter’s warehouse, right down to the scuffed bottom.
Micah couldn’t stick around. He’d ridden the school bus with Florence Greeber for years, and she would wonder why he’d popped up beside her shed when he was supposedly living in Arizona with his great-aunt.
He tried to act natural as he skirted the hedge and set off down the sidewalk. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his shorts and stared down at his sneakers. Maybe if he didn’t look up, he could make it all the way to Jenny’s house without anyone recognizing him.
The plan was for him to spend the morning with Jenny’s family. She would have explained all about the circus by now, but of course her parents would still have a lot of questions about magic. Micah would show them some of his bracelets, and he would tell them anything they wanted to know.
And Jenny would finally get to come back to Circus Mirandus. She’d helped Micah reach the circus in the first place, even though she hadn’t believed it was real. They hadn’t had much time to explore that night, and Micah had been thinking hard about how to make this trip perfect for her. She would love the maze of mists, which nobody had ever solved. Plus, they would need to spend plenty of time in the Inventor’s souvenir tent, so that she could pick out a keepsake to take back home with her. And they would need to see—
Micah jerked to a stop. His face was still pointed down at the sidewalk, and the toes of his shoes were an inch away from a familiar crack in the pavement, one that spiderwebbed almost to the curb.
He hesitated. Part of him wanted to turn around and take another route to Jenny’s house, but instead, he let his eyes trace the crack all the way to the grass. It had grown tall in the past four months.
He took a quick, deep breath and spun to face the house. It was small and yellow. The curtains were drawn, and weeds had started to spring up on the front walk. A red glass hummingbird feeder hung from the eaves, empty.
A plastic sign staked out front drew Micah’s gaze:
FOR SALE BY OWNER
SERIOUS BUYERS ONLY
CALL GERTRUDIS TUTTLE:
520-555-0165
Micah knew he should get off the sidewalk so none of the neighbors would see him, but his body had gone as stiff as a butterfly pinned to a board. He read the sign again and again.
But I don’t want anyone else to live here. Aunt Gertrudis can’t sell it. She can’t.
Only she could. It even made sense. There had been a lot of bills, hadn’t there? After Grandpa Ephraim had gotten sick. Micah remembered them talking about it.
What did Aunt Gertrudis care about the house? There was no record of her height and age written in marker on the bathroom door. She hadn’t spent last summer building a tree house in the backyard with Grandpa Ephraim. And she had never cared enough about Micah to want to save those things for him.
Sometimes, Micah felt sorry for his great-aunt, who had loved the idea of magic when she was younger only to have Victoria ruin it for her. Aunt Gertrudis had been a kid when her older brother, Grandpa Ephraim, married Victoria. The Bird Woman had been like a mother to little Gertrudis until one day she’d tricked her into jumping off a roof. Gertrudis had expected Victoria to fly up and catch her, but she hadn’t. And Aunt Gertrudis had refused to have anything to do with magic ever since.
When Micah had gone to live at Circus Mirandus, his great-aunt hadn’t been too upset. In fact, Micah was pretty sure she’d been relieved.
You’ve got the circus now, Micah told himself. That should be enough for anyone.
But knowing his old house wasn’t that important was a lot easier than feeling like it wasn’t. Before he realized he intended to do something, he was standing in the backyard, looking up into the spreading limbs of a huge oak.
The tree house had never been finished. It had three walls and no roof, and the boards were unpainted. A rope ladder hung over the side, the ends just brushing the overgrown grass. The tree house was the last thing Grandpa Ephraim and Micah had made together before he got sick.
Aunt Gertrudis could sell the house. And she could sell the tree house, too, since Micah couldn’t do anything to stop her. But the rope ladder was a different matter.
He grasped one of the ladder’s rungs and let his hands drift to the edges. Thick knots held each wooden rung in place.
They weren’t the kind of knots you usually saw on a rope ladder. These were complicated—the rope weaving in and out and around, twisting in so many unexpected ways that your eye couldn’t follow the pattern of it. Micah smiled, running his fingers over the knots, remembering the day he and Grandpa Ephraim had tied them together.
The Tuttle knot, they called this one. And only the two of them knew how to unravel it.
Micah looked up.
The ropes were secured around one of the beams that supported the tree house’s floor. He grabbed a rung, intending to climb up, but then a thought occurred to him.
What if he didn’t have to climb at all?
He was already touching the ropes. Did he actually have to touch those knots that connected the ladder to the tree house?
Micah had never tried to untie a knot without touching it directly. If he could, it would be a step forward with his magic. And the rope ladder was special—a last gift, almost, from his grandfath
er. Maybe it would bring him luck.
Micah rubbed his fingertips together for a few seconds, working out the problem in his head, and then he reached for the soft fibers of the ropes again.
Just the top knots. Only the top.
He closed his eyes and concentrated, picturing what he would do if his hands were on the knots. You could touch a certain loop of rope, just so, and the whole knot would loosen up and fall apart.
He thought, Come loose.
His fingers prickled. It was a sparkling sensation, almost warm. Micah imagined he saw a thread of light, connecting his fingertips to the knots at the top of the ladder.
Then he felt it happen. Inside his head. A tiny, tiny snap. And with a sound like a whisper, the knots at the top of the ladder came undone.
Micah looked up just in time to see the ladder slither out of the tree. The wooden rungs clacked against one another as they fell in a heap at his feet. He grinned down. Only the two knots at the top of the ladder had unwound. The others looked just like they had on the day Micah and his grandfather had tied them.
Tuttle knots—still tighter than tight.
PERMANENT TANGLES
Micah had a spring in his step as he made his way down Jenny’s street. The rolled-up tree house ladder wouldn’t fit in his magician’s backpack, so he hugged it to his chest, unbothered by the strange looks he got from passersby.
Finally, after all these months, he’d had a real breakthrough.
If Micah could untie a knot just by touching the rope it was made of, then maybe one day he wouldn’t have to touch ropes or strings at all. Maybe he would be able to tie and untie knots with the power of his mind alone.
Micah didn’t know what it would be useful for, but it was going to look extremely cool.
He found himself searching all around him for opportunities to use his newfound skill. He spotted a woman untangling a knotted garden hose so that she could add water to a plastic kiddie pool, and he had to resist the urge to run over and say something absurd, like, “Allow me, ma’am. I am Micah the Hose Wrangler, magician extraordinaire!”
This isn’t the time for that, he chided himself.
Jenny’s neighborhood seemed like a cheerful, normal place. The houses mostly belonged to young families. Little kids in their swimsuits ran through sprinklers, and several girls Micah’s age rode shiny new bicycles in circles at the end of the cul-de-sac, right in front of Jenny’s house. They ignored Micah as he passed.
He practically skipped up the sun-bleached walk to knock on Jenny’s front door.
Nobody answered.
Frowning, Micah knocked again and glanced at the curtains over the front window. It looked dark inside. He was early, but it had never occurred to him that nobody would be home.
He dropped the rope ladder and his backpack on the stoop and sat down to watch the girls ride their bikes. They were drinking energy drinks and giggling. One of them had a cell phone attached to her handlebars with an impressive amount of tape, and it played a bright pop song on repeat.
Micah had almost memorized the lyrics when Jenny appeared at the far end of the sidewalk. She had obviously been to the library, and she was balancing a tall stack of books in her arms.
He leaped up and jogged toward her. It didn’t matter that Chintzy had been delivering their letters back and forth since the day he’d left Peal; he suddenly had a million new things to say.
The girls on the bikes flew past him, pedaling hard.
Micah stopped, surprised. A couple of the girls were riding right on the street, dodging around a parked mail truck. One of them shouted something to her friends. The pop music blared.
Before he could figure out why they were in such a hurry, the girl in the front of the pack threw her half-empty bottle of energy drink. It spun end over end through the air and landed in a bush just behind Jenny.
For a split second, Micah thought it was an accident. But then the other girls threw their bottles, too.
One bounced off the back of a car. Another landed in the grass. An empty bottle smacked into the tower of books in Jenny’s arms, but there wasn’t enough force behind the throw to knock the books over.
“Hey!” shouted Micah, furious.
Then, the last bottle hit the sidewalk an inch from Jenny’s feet. It was almost completely full, and when it hit, the electric blue drink fountained up, splashing Jenny’s legs, drenching her white knee socks. The bottle pock-pock-pocked down the sidewalk and rolled toward a storm drain.
The girls sped away on their bikes, shrieking with laughter.
Micah rushed to Jenny.
He expected her to set the books down so that she could wipe off her legs. Energy drink was rivuleting down her knees. But she just stood there, completely still. Her eyes were clenched shut, and her jaw was set. Her arms were clamped on the books, which had been belted together with a strap so that they were easier to carry. They were all fantasy novels.
“Those jerks!” Micah said, when he reached her. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Jenny said in a tight voice. “Thank you very m—MICAH!”
Her eyes snapped open, and the books hit the pavement with a thud. She flung her arms around him. “YOU’RE HERE!” she squealed. “I didn’t know they would let you come early!”
Micah returned the hug, his anger fading. It felt so good to see her face-to-face. “I was kind of in a hurry to see my best friend.”
* * *
“You know,” Jenny said a few minutes later, slapping her wet blue socks on top of the washing machine, “where I used to live, the other kids liked that I was smart. And they loved my outfits. Everyone knew Mom designed some of my clothes, and they thought it was great.”
They were in the laundry room, and Jenny was reaching for a bottle of stain remover. “And now my socks smell like fake blueberries,” she said angrily.
Micah thought Jenny’s outfit—a polka-dotted skirt and a shirt with a bow on the collar—looked almost like something a popular kid might wear on a television show. And he was sure that her mom, who owned a sewing shop and made custom formal wear, knew more about fashion than those girls on their bikes. But he also knew that some people would pick on anything that made you stand out, even if it was good. And Jenny had had trouble with bullies ever since she’d moved to Peal last year.
“I think your clothes are awesome. And your mom’s the nicest person ever.” Silvia had let him stay at their house the afternoon Grandpa Ephraim died so that he wouldn’t have to face Aunt Gertrudis right away.
“Thanks, Micah.” Jenny was squirting the stain remover on her socks with a lot more violence than the job required.
Micah tried to think of what his grandfather would have said in a situation like this. “Sometimes people see that you’re doing something special, and that you’re happy, and it reminds them that they’re not. So—”
“So, they try to squash you down and make you feel as tiny as they are,” Jenny said, shoving the stain remover back onto its shelf. “I know.”
She tossed the socks into the machine and bent to collect dirty towels from a basket on the floor. “I wasn’t even supposed to be here right now,” she said. “I was accepted at a science camp. But they only had a couple of scholarships, and I didn’t get one.”
She flung a towel at the washer wildly, and Micah dodged out of the way before it could hit him in the face. Unfortunately, he tripped over the stack of books Jenny had left on the floor. He yelped and crashed into the side of the dryer.
“Oh, holy smokes!” said Jenny, reaching to help him up. “I’m so sorry!”
“That’s okay,” said Micah, picking a clump of lint out of his hair and rubbing a sore elbow. “Do you want me to go after those girls? And the science camp people? I could tangle their hair or something.”
Jenny blinked, and a smile stole across her face. “Permanent
tangles?”
“Absolutely,” said Micah. “Just point me at your enemies. They won’t know what hit them.”
Jenny laughed. “I’ve really missed you. I’m sorry I’m in such a funk. I was just so excited about our day at the circus, and then those girls . . .” She shook her head. “Anyway, who cares about them? Tell me about your breakthrough! You said you had one this morning?”
“I did.” Micah told her about untying the rope ladder’s knots without even touching them. “I mean, I was still touching the ropes, but not the knots themselves. I know that’s not a huge breakthrough, but I think—”
“It’s great!” Jenny exclaimed. “We’ve got to add it to my chart.”
“What chart?”
“Oh, I can’t wait until you see it! I’ve been trying to think of ways to help you study your magic. That’s why I checked out all these fantasy books for you, by the way. And I’m hoping we can categorize different magical skills. We’ll ask everyone at the circus to add information about their powers to the chart, and by the end of the day, maybe we’ll be able to match your magic with a category.”
She beamed at him over an armload of towels. “If you have some idea about what type of magician you are, it might help you figure out what else your knots can do!”
Micah didn’t know what to say. On the one hand, he needed all the help he could get. But on the other, it didn’t seem fair to let Jenny spend her whole day at the circus trying to solve his problems.
“I have a lot of fun stuff planned, though,” he said. “Don’t you want to see all the shows?”
“I want to see absolutely everything,” said Jenny. “But we can interview magicians in between performances. I promise it won’t take long.”
Micah was already rearranging the day in his head, trying to fit in all the best shows and interviews with the magicians. He wondered if Jenny would be willing to wear running shoes.
“We should head over to the Greebers’ house as soon as we can,” he decided. “Maybe Porter will open the Door early. When are your parents getting here?”
The Bootlace Magician Page 8
