Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Epilogue
The great white wolf ran through the woods. Snow weighed on his back and shoulders, cold and heavy and wet, but he did not notice. He was on the hunt and he was hungry, though not as hungry as the pack that ran behind him, panting clouds of hot breath into the cold, damp air.
The pack was a coyote pack, and it smelled of rotten meat and motor oil. These are not natural smells for a coyote pack, and a wolf is not a natural leader for coyotes. There was, in fact, very little natural about this pack, except its hunger. It was a hard winter and game of all kinds was scarce.
A sea wind whipped the snow into the white wolf’s eyes and brought a new and curious scent to his super-sensitive nose. He stopped and sniffed thoughtfully. A boy. Young, human, full of rage and terror, and, yes, raw magic as well. Making for the enemy’s territory. As was he. Curious.
With a furious howl, the wolf wizard Fidelou leaped forward, outpacing even the wind with his long strides. The scent grew stronger — the quarry was near. Ahead lay the Stream that marked the boundary of his enemy’s land, the Stream that no magic could cross. The wolf wizard howled again, with triumph this time. He would give the boy a choice — to join the pack or feed it. He didn’t care which.
But when Fidelou reached the Stream, all he saw was a clumsy trail in the snow leading to the pine tree he had felled last autumn in an attempt to bridge the enchanted water.
The wolf stood on the frozen bank and raised his nose to search the air again. He smelled salt and goats, chickens and cows and sheep and fish. And — wonder of wonders — the boy, moving straight for the enemy’s lair. While his pack muttered and whined around him, Fidelou shook the snow from his shoulders and thought. If this was so, his enemy’s last defenses must be weakening. Fire and Air had faded long ago, prey to Fidelou’s attacks and their own inherent instability. Water and Earth, however, had stood firm. Until now.
And if they fell, he, Fidelou, would confront his enemy at last, and their battle would be spoken of as long as stories were told.
But first, the boundary must be tested. Fidelou turned away from the Stream, lowered his great head, and bared his long teeth, growling. The pack instantly groveled at his feet, bellies sunk in the clinging snow. Fidelou looked them over. A mangy bunch of curs, each more useless than the last — except perhaps his lieutenant, Hiram, and the she-coyote, Audrey. He would not risk them. That one cowering at the back, though — Doc, the so-called mechanic — was a fumble-fingered fool, unable to repair anything more complicated than a motorized bicycle. He would do.
Fidelou fixed the lean coyote’s amber eyes with his own fiery gaze and growled. Whining pitifully, his head drooping almost to the ground, the unhappy coyote slunk forward and onto the ice. The wolf wizard watched as he padded cautiously to the middle of the Stream, taking care not to step on any of the rocks breaking the frozen surface. Except for the panting of the coyotes and the occasional eager whine, the woods were still. And then, CRACK! The ice broke open under the coyote’s feet, plunging his hindquarters into the black water beneath.
The pack howled as their packmate scrabbled at the broken ice, searching desperately for something to hold on to. The current pulled him down, and with a final yelp, he disappeared under the ice.
Then the earth trembled beneath the coyotes’ feet, and stones flew from the far side of the stream and rained down on them. Yipping and yammering, the pack turned and fled inland.
But the white wolf remained on the bank, balanced on the heaving earth, the stones bouncing off his thick pelt. He lifted his nose to the invisible moon and howled, a long shivering note of rage and defiance, then turned and followed his pack.
Nick Reynaud didn’t know where he was. He’d left the last town a while back, and now all he knew was that he was somewhere near the coast. No lights or houses or gas stations, only trees, black against the cloudy sky, with the road glimmering faintly between them. Night was falling, along with the temperature. He was cold and hungry, and not far from being scared.
As far as he could tell, it had been two days since he’d stood on the highway with his thumb out, waiting for a truck to pick him up and take him as far away from Beaton, Maine, as the road would go. It had taken a while, and the driver who eventually stopped was pretty suspicious. But it had worked out all right in the end.
Nick smiled. He’d fooled that guy but good. Getting him to believe Nick was going home instead of running away had been easy. Persuading him to drop Nick outside Bath had taken some fast talking, but Nick was good at fast talking. Sometimes he’d even been able to talk Uncle Gabe into beating up on his cousin Jerry instead of him. But not nearly often enough. Which was why Nick was running away. Again.
The first time had been three years ago, right after his mom died. He was only nine at the time, it was winter, and he didn’t have a plan or food or anything, so it was probably just as well that the police had picked him up before he got too far. The second time, he’d been almost eleven and much better prepared. He took off after school with a bag of chips and a hot dog and twenty bucks he’d earned doing odd jobs for Mrs. Perkins next door. When his cousin Jerry caught up with him at the bus station, Nick had been buying a ticket to Bangor. After that, Uncle Gabe made Jerry walk Nick to and from school every day.
Jerry was sixteen, and as far as Nick could tell, his greatest ambition in life was to beat up every man in Beaton by the time he turned twenty. He liked to practice on Nick.
Nick had put a lot of time and thought into planning his next escape, and he thought he’d done a pretty good job. He’d boosted a map and a flashlight, extra batteries, some trail mix, and a bottle of Coke from a gas station. He’d stuffed his emergency kit and some clean clothes into Jerry’s old backpack and hid it under his bed, ready to grab when he saw a chance to make a clean getaway.
Things hadn’t worked out according to plan.
The week before Christmas, Nick had gotten into another fight at school, and the principal had called Uncle Gabe to come pick him up. After getting yelled at by his boss for leaving work early and lectured by the principal about Nick’s bad attitude, Uncle Gabe was ready for a few beers. When they got home, he gave Nick a couple of licks on account and locked him down cellar, promising him the rest of his larruping later.
Nick decided he wouldn’t be around later.
He crept up the cellar stairs and listened at the door. A deafening hubbub of revving, screeching, and crashing told him Uncle Gabe was watching the stock-car races, turned up high. Nick figured he could probably blow the house up right now, and the old so-and-so wouldn’t notice until he was halfway to the moon. With a last wistful thought for the backpack upstairs under his bed, he smashed a crowbar through the nearest window, scrambled out into the scrubby backyar
d, and made tracks.
As he trudged through the snow, Nick couldn’t help thinking about the flashlight and the trail mix he’d had to leave behind. It could have been worse. He had his jacket and boots, and the suspicious truck driver had stood him a hot dog and a Coke. But his boots were old and his jacket was thin and the hot dog had been a long time ago. He felt like he’d been walking forever. His belly was as empty as a hole in the ground, his feet were like concrete blocks, and he was shivering like a wet dog. He wanted to rest, but everybody knew sitting down in the snow was dangerous, and he hadn’t run away from Uncle Gabe’s belt so he could freeze to death. He put his head down and pressed on.
After a while, he saw a double-wide trailer set up on cinder blocks a little ways back from the road. There was a light shining through the curtains. He was saved.
He banged on the metal door. It opened a crack, releasing a puff of warm, cigarette-scented air.
“Sorry to bother you,” Nick said. “I’m lost. If you’ll give me a hot meal and a warm place to sleep, I’ll do anything you need done. I can fix things . . .”
The door slammed shut.
Nick yelled one of Uncle Gabe’s favorite words and gave the trailer door a farewell kick. His feet were so cold, he couldn’t even feel it.
He hit the road again.
It began to snow. Fat, heavy, wet flakes clung to Nick’s hair, clogged his boots, and slid icy fingers down between his neck and his jacket collar. The wind picked up, needling his already stinging cheeks. He balled his fists in his pockets, bent his head, and forced his legs to keep going.
White swirled around him until he was walking blind, surrounded by snow and cold and the insistent whine of the wind. Time passed, unmeasurable, and still he walked, his nose dripping and his eyes streaming with frosty tears. He couldn’t feel his fingers or his toes. For a while, he thought he felt a heaving under his feet, as if the ground were bearing him forward on a snowy wave. Must have been his imagination.
Some time later, the snow let up. Behind the clouds, the moon was high. He could just see a snowy road stretched out in front of him, with trees growing thick on each side. He was so tired, he could hardly stagger. There was some reason he shouldn’t stop and rest, but he couldn’t quite remember what it was.
Then the howling started.
It was far off at first, spooky, like the sound track of a horror movie, sliding up the scale and holding, long and hollow, before breaking off and starting again. Nick picked up his pace a little.
A rabbit galloped past him and dove into the underbrush. A deer leaped across the road, wheeled, wide-eyed, and took off in another direction.
The howling sounded again, louder and much closer.
Nick broke into a stumbling run. The road narrowed, curved, morphed into a path through the woods. The howling was still behind him and the going increasingly rough and clogged with undergrowth. Doggedly, he floundered on.
The path ended at a frozen stream.
It wasn’t a friendly-looking stream. Rocks stuck out of it like gravestones, and the snowy ice between them looked jagged and sharp. He couldn’t cross here. He clambered along the bank until he saw a pine tree lying across the stream. It wasn’t exactly easy to walk on, but he managed it, clinging to the brittle snowy branches with numb hands. At the far end, his foot caught in a tangle of roots and he fell facedown in the snow. He was too tired to move.
But when the howling swelled, closer than ever, Nick was on his feet and running through the woods. It took him a minute to realize that he was running on a path, and another to see that the path was straight and dry and padded with pine needles. There was a light ahead of him, glowing through the branches like a yellow moon. It promised shelter and food and warmth, and Nick followed.
The path ended. Nick leaned against a pine, panting cloudily and staring across a good-sized clearing at the house the light came from. It was almost too big to be real, with roofs that blocked out half the sky. It had dozens of windows and a forest of chimneys. A deep wraparound porch ended in an octagonal tower with a pointy roof and round windows from which light poured like honey over the mounded snow. He’d never seen anything remotely like it, not even on TV. A house like that could only belong to rich people. And while he didn’t know any rich people personally, they probably would hate some random stray banging on their door even more than the trailer person had. They’d take one look at his uncombed black hair and his broken tooth and his ratacious jacket and call the police, who’d probably send him back to Uncle Gabe, who might not actually kill him but would absolutely make him wish he was dead.
Which was exactly what he would be if he stayed out here in the cold with the wolves.
The howling behind him rose to a furious crescendo, and Nick launched himself into a shambling run that carried him across the clearing and up onto the front porch. Half sobbing, he pounded on the big oak door. It flew open with a tooth-wrenching shriek of hinges. A narrow beam of yellow light blinded him, and a bony hand grabbed his arm.
“Let go!” Nick gasped.
The light pulled back, and a pair of rimless round glasses floated into view. Nick blinked. A beard like an extra-large dust bunny came into focus under the glasses.
The beard opened. “What do you think you’re doing,” said a gruff, creaky voice, “banging on the door this time of night?”
“I’m lost,” Nick said. “And there are wolves after me!”
“A likely story.” The old man gave Nick a shake. “Can you read?”
“Read? Are you nuts? Why?”
“Answer the question.”
As a general rule, Nick was against answering questions truthfully. In his experience, any truth you gave away was likely to be used against you. “No,” he said sullenly. “I got a condition or something — the letters don’t make sense. Can I come in before I freeze to death?”
The old man set the light on a nearby surface and rummaged one handed in the pockets of his long coat, muttering “Durn house,” and “Jeezly mess,” and “This better be good.” Finally, he pulled out a small white rectangle and thrust it under Nick’s nose. “What does this say?”
Nick squinted at it. “It’s a white card with black writing.”
The card disappeared. “Can’t be too careful. Don’t need some jeezly boy reading things that don’t concern him.”
As he pulled Nick inside, the door swung shut with a solid thunk. Two large black dogs stalked out of the gloom and snuffled busily at Nick’s knees. Nick stiffened. He wasn’t used to dogs.
The old man released his arm. “That’s Mutt and Jeff,” he said. “They don’t bite.” He chuckled. “Not hard, anyways.”
Nick didn’t believe a word the old man said. Because Nick could read perfectly well, and this is what he’d read on the card the old man had shown him:
A little while later, Nick was sitting in a kitchen. His feet were in a bowl of warm water, his shoulders were draped in a striped Hudson’s Bay blanket, and his hands were wrapped around a mug of hot milk. The kitchen was tidy and oddly cozy, with red-checked curtains over the windows, an old-fashioned iron stove in one corner, and a stone fireplace with a rocking chair beside it. There was an orange cat in the rocker and a second cat, black, curled up on a braided rug. A picture calendar with the days crossed off in blue pencil hung over the sink.
The old man whose card said he was an evil wizard was hunched over the stove, frying sausages in a cast-iron pan with his long black coat skirt flapping around his boot tops. He was also wearing a hat like a bashed-in stovepipe. He hadn’t taken either of them off, though the kitchen was perfectly warm.
Nick didn’t believe in wizards, evil or otherwise. Not in the real world, and certainly not in Maine. Even when he was a little kid, Nick had known that fairies and wishes and heroes who overcame dragons and evil wizards were all just make-believe and daydreaming. However, if there was such a thing as an evil wizard, Nick thought he’d have a coat just like Zachariah Smallbone’s. He might ev
en have two black dogs, although they probably wouldn’t sit with their tongues hanging out, begging for bites of sausage. They probably wouldn’t be called Mutt and Jeff, either.
Nick wasn’t sure about the cats.
Smallbone plunked a plate of sausages and baked beans on the table, and Nick attacked them with the eagerness of a boy who hadn’t seen food for a while. As he scraped up the last bite, the dogs heaved twin sighs of disappointment and curled up on the rug. The black cat leaped onto the rocker, hustled the orange tiger out of its nest, tucked its paws under its chest, and closed its pale-blue eyes.
Smallbone forked another sausage onto Nick’s plate. “What’s your name, boy?”
Despite the sausages and the cozy kitchen, Nick didn’t even consider telling him the truth. Wizards might be made-up, but evil was real. “Jerry Reynaud.”
Smallbone’s beard bobbed thoughtfully. “Hmph. You don’t look like a Jerry. You don’t feel like a Jerry. You don’t smell like a Jerry or act like a Jerry or sound like a Jerry. I’ll call you Foxkin. Where you from, Foxkin?”
Nick took a deep pull of milk, then launched into the story he’d invented to explain what he was doing wandering through the woods on a snowy evening.
He was proud of that story. It was artistic and, he thought, convincing. It involved a bike and an errand to an imaginary cousin living down the road and the snow and the front wheel frame breaking and Nick’s taking a wrong turn and getting lost. While Nick talked, Smallbone tipped the black cat out of the rocking chair, sat down, and lit a long white pipe.
“Very good,” he said when Nick was done. “Very good indeed. You’re an inspired liar, Foxkin. You don’t embroider unnecessarily, you give just the right details, and you know when to stop.”
Nick put on his best innocent look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Fox by name, fox by nature.” Smallbone stared at him through curls of foul-smelling smoke. “You can’t fool me, you know. So you’d better not try. Now,” he went on, “it just so happens that I could use an apprentice. You’re scrawny as a plucked chicken and numb as a haddock, but you’re here, so you’ll have to do. It’ll be the usual arrangement: room and board and whatever I feel like teaching you in return for seeing to the animals, cooking, keeping the place clean, and generally doing as you’re told.”
The Evil Wizard Smallbone Page 1
