The Evil Wizard Smallbone

by Delia Sherman

  The wizard — and he was a wizard, coat or not — had his hands full, holding a protection around himself that shrank moment by moment as his power drained. Teeth clenched with concentration, Nick directed his wind to float the coat above Smallbone and lay it gently on his shoulders.

  The coat dropped on his head, then heaved and flapped as Smallbone struggled to find the sleeves. The coyotes fell on him in a yammering, shouting mass.

  Nick closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears, his mind blank with shock. He couldn’t have failed. He was the hero of this tale. He’d done all the right things. He’d paid his debts and been kind to animals and learned his lessons. He’d put himself in danger, fooled the evil wizard, and called up a magic wind. It should have worked.

  The pack fell silent. It’s over, Nick thought. He suspected he’d be next. He didn’t much care. He opened his eyes, feeling oddly calm.

  A pack of little brown rabbits was scattering across the meadow. Some of them hopped past him, their long soft ears laid back, their round black eyes staring, stinking of fear and musk. And then they were gone, white scuts twinkling as they headed toward the safety of the woods.

  “Well, that’s that.”

  Nick looked up to see Smallbone standing beside him. The old wizard’s beard was bristling, his hat was waggling, his coat was flapping, and his graveyard teeth were prominently displayed.

  “You’re not dead,” Nick said weakly.

  “Takes more than a bunch of mangy coyotes to kill the Evil Wizard Smallbone.” The old man reached into a pocket, pulled out his glasses, and perched them on his beaky nose. “That’s a nasty mess you made of your leg, there, boy.”

  Nick grinned helplessly. “I’m fine.”

  “Ha!” Smallbone’s glasses glittered in the sun. “Better learn some healing magic, Foxkin. Boy like you’ll find plenty of use for it.”

  Hell Cat and Mutt came puffing up, looking pale. “That was some wind you called,” Hell Cat said. “Nearly blew the hair off my head.”

  “You all right?” asked Mutt.

  Smallbone reached down and poked at Nick’s leg. Nick yelled.

  “I ain’t no doctor, but I guess it ain’t broken. Some ripped up, though.” Smallbone directed a glare at Mutt. “I hope you got a car. It’s going to be a long haul home if you don’t.”

  Smallbone Cove in June was very different from Smallbone Cove in January. Shops were open all up and down Commercial Street, from Three Bags Full Knitting to Joshua’s Kites ’N Chimes. Artists set up their easels in the municipal parking lot and painted views of the harbor. Lovers of seafood from all over New England flocked to Eb’s Klam Shak, where Ollie’s fish chowder and corn bread special was getting a real reputation. The weather was hot and clear and bright. Smallbone Cove Mercantile did a brisk business in sunscreen, as well as postcards, coyote and seal plushies, and black T-shirts with EVIL WIZARD BOOKSHOP in Gothic letters below a white-line drawing of Smallbone at his horror-movie best.

  It was Midsummer Day.

  Just before dawn that morning, Lily, Zery, Dinah, and the ancient proprietor of Evil Wizard Books had led a festive procession through the woods. A convenient path, newly cleared and graded, ran just inside the inland boundary, but it was still a long walk — fifteen miles, just about, mostly through the woods along the banks of a bright, chattering stream. The procession made four stops along the way, and everybody — even the grown-ups — sang something that sounded like a children’s jump-rope rhyme. When they got back to the pretty white clapboard church, with its unusual weathervane shaped like a harbor seal, everybody danced.

  When it was all over, the procession broke up to buy Moxie and iced tea and chowder from the stands in the parking lot in front of Eb’s, and jump ropes, reproduction Weathervanes and Lanterns, and other Midsummer Magic merchandise from the shops on Commercial Street.

  Smallbone himself headed for the Smallbone Cove Public Library with Lily, Dinah, Mutt, and Miss Rachel. She had Walked the Bounds, too — or rolled them — in her new electric wheelchair.

  The library had gone through a lot of changes since April. The boxes of books and papers had all been sorted and arranged in drawers and shelves, newly installed on the second floor. The downstairs had been scrubbed and freshly painted, its shelves lined with mysteries and biographies and guides to Maine wildlife. The circulation desk now boasted a computer. A little carved wooden cat perched on the monitor.

  The seal sofa had been repaired and re-covered and placed in the new reading alcove.

  Dinah had made herself responsible for the online catalog and the computerized checkout system. Hell Cat shelved returns, processed late fees, and ran a reading group for little kids on rainy weekend afternoons. Owing to all the sorting and alphabetizing, she was getting pretty good at reading, though her favorite book was Millions of Cats, which hardly had any words in it at all. Miss Rachel supervised, answered questions, and made progress on her history of Smallbone Cove.

  Dinah ran up the wheelchair access ramp (also new) and opened the door. Hell Cat was peering intently at the computer screen. Judging from her expression, she was playing Angry Birds.

  “Getting some work done?” Dinah asked innocently.

  Hell Cat clicked the mouse and spun her chair around. “How’d it go? See any coyotes out there?”

  “Ha, ha,” Mutt said. “Very funny.”

  Miss Rachel backed into her workstation by the window. “The ritual worked fine and dandy. I’m just sorry young Foxkin couldn’t come. He’s worked so hard repairing the Weathervane and all.”

  “Somebody had to mind the store,” Smallbone said. “Lily, them jeezly black undershirts you ordered’re selling like hotcakes.”

  “Of course they are.” Lily’s voice was smug. “And after your performance this morning, you’ll have to reorder. I didn’t know you could dance like that.”

  Smallbone tugged on his beard. “Magic makes you do strange things,” he said gruffly. “Ain’t it time we got on with what we come for? Hell Cat, did Foxkin remember to bring that chest over from Evil Wizard Books?”

  “Last night,” Hell Cat said. “It’s in the back.”

  “Well, haul it out, then. I ain’t got all day.”

  After some discussion about the respective strength of boys and girls, Mutt and Hell Cat went to the kitchen table and came back lugging a wooden sea chest between them. It was very old, with rope handles and a big iron padlock. A painted harbor seal gazed mournfully from the lid.

  Lily gave it a doubtful look.

  “You sure this is right?” she asked. “It doesn’t look big enough.”

  “They fold up smaller than you think,” Smallbone said, handing her an ornate key.

  Dinah was surprised to see her mother’s eyes well with tears as she knelt by the chest, turned the key, removed the lock, and lifted the hasp.

  Everyone leaned forward eagerly.

  A smell rose from the chest — bitter and wild, like a salt marsh at high tide. Lily brushed aside a tangle of dry seaweed and lifted out a seal skin, dappled silver and black.

  “Golly,” said Hell Cat reverently.

  “Are they all there?” Miss Rachel asked.

  Lily laid the pelt on the old librarian’s lap. “We’ll count them together, Miss Rachel. But they seem all right. In fact, they’re wonderful.”

  Dinah hunkered down by the open chest, breathing in the sea smell and looking at the pelts Smallbone had taken from her ancestors, but not quite daring to touch them. They were beautiful and magical, but they were dangerous, too. If she put one on and went out to sea, would she have to be a seal forever? Would she forget about Smallbone Cove, her mother, the library, everything she loved? Would she forget she wanted to go to college or be a scientist?

  Hell Cat had no such qualms. She picked up a skin and rubbed her face over it. “Oh, it’s soft!” She looked at Smallbone. “Can I try it on?”

  “No!” Smallbone and Dinah shouted in unison. Smallbone’s cheeks bunched. �
�You want to tell her why not?”

  Dinah shot him a nervous look. “I can’t — I mean, I don’t know how magic works. Except it’s only logical that putting on a skin that isn’t yours is not right. It leads to bad things like, well, like Fidelou and the Howling Coyotes.”

  “Oh, pooh,” Hell Cat said. “I ain’t like them loser bikers. I’m just curious, is all.”

  “You might recall,” Smallbone said mildly, “what curiosity does to cats. And we got business to do. Lily, you got them papers?”

  Lily got up. “It’s in the library computer. Dinah, will you print it out for me?”

  Everybody watched, mesmerized, as Dinah called up the file and sent it to the printer. As the printer was thinking things over, Miss Rachel said, in a making-conversation tone, “Anybody heard anything from Fidelou town?”

  “It’s still there, far as I know,” Smallbone said. “Though there ain’t much left of it.”

  Lily frowned. “Now I’ll worry every time I hear a motorcycle.”

  “Don’t,” Smallbone said. “I promised to protect Smallbone Cove from all evil and I done that.” As he spoke, a hot metallic tang tinged the air. “If a single coyote tries to pass the Sentries, on two legs or four, the Wall will bar his way, the Stream will rise to drown him, the Wind will blow him into the middle of the next county, and the Lantern will set such a fire under his skin that he’ll be sorry he was born.”

  He stopped and coughed. “Well,” he said in a more ordinary tone, “if that paper’s ready, Dinah, let’s see what else I promised.”

  The new contract between Zachariah Smallbone and the residents of the town of Smallbone Cove was a long document. It had clauses and subclauses and what Dinah’s dad, who had helped to draw it up, called contingencies and Hell Cat called boring parts. What it all boiled down to was that, for the first time since Smallbone had dragged their ancestors out of the sea and given them human form, speech, and the ability to think, the inhabitants of Smallbone Cove could come and go as they wished. The Sentries that kept were-coyotes, stray evil wizards, shoplifters, guns, and drunk drivers out of Smallbone Cove no longer kept the townsfolk in. Dinah could study at the University of Maine or Caltech, if she wanted to. Lily could go to trade shows in Augusta or even Boston. Fishermen who were tired of the Reach could fish off of Portland or even Cape Cod, if they wanted.

  The seals of Smallbone Cove were free.

  “Town Meeting’ll be different,” Dinah said.

  Smallbone sighed. “A lot of things’ll be different. But that’s for another day. Let’s get this jeezly thing signed so I can have my breakfast.”

  Lily and Miss Rachel signed, then the old wizard took the library ballpoint and wrote Zachariah Smallbone on the proper line with a flourish. Dinah signed as a witness for the next generation. Smallbone turned down an invitation to join Lily and Dinah for breakfast at Eb’s, a cup of tea, and Mutt’s offer of a ride home in Lily’s car, and left the library.

  Nobody, not even the most sunburned of the tourists, said hello as he walked down Commercial Street. He was the Evil Wizard Smallbone, and you never knew when he might do something to prove it.

  He marched down the woodland path, whistling under his breath. When he reached the pond, he took off his top hat, banged it shut against his leg, and stuffed it into a pocket. He scratched his head energetically, unbuttoned his coat, and walked on, the skirts of his coat brushing the ferns and moss and small white trilliums growing along the edge of the path.

  When he emerged from the woods, Jeff bounded up to him, his legs muddy and his coat rough with burrs. The black Lab licked his hands and tore off toward the house, ears flapping.

  The parking lot was empty. Smallbone ran up the porch steps and entered, flipping the little wooden CLOSED sign as he shut the door behind him. Evil Wizard Books looked downright cheerful. The piles of books in the windows and on the tables were decorated with carved wooden figures of animals and fishermen and pirates and mermaids. Evil Wizard T-shirts in assorted sizes were piled on the counter between the old brass cash register and a wire rack of scenic postcards.

  In the kitchen, a plump man in an Evil Wizard Books T-shirt was sitting in the rocker, reading a book propped against the furry orange ball that was Tom, asleep on his lap. He had a bald spot and a new and scruffy-looking brown beard. Judging from the state of his clothes, he’d been digging in the garden.

  “How’d it go?” the man asked, not looking up from his book. “Anybody get turned into anything untoward?”

  Nick slipped off the Smallbone coat and draped it over the back of a kitchen chair. “Nope. It went off real well.” He sniffed the air. “Is that sausages I smell?”

  “Ayuh.”

  “Any left? I’m hungry enough to eat a boiled owl.”

  “Look in the oven.”

  Nick had only taken a couple of bites when the shop bell clanged.

  Smallbone turned the page. “Don’t look at me,” he said. “You’re the Evil Wizard today.”

  This book is based on a short story I wrote for Troll’s-Eye View, an anthology of stories told from the point of view of classic fairy-tale villains. I chose to retell “The Wizard Outwitted,” which I read as a child in Fairy Tales from Many Lands, edited by H. Herda and published by Franklin Watts in 1956. It’s a Russian fairy tale, and I’ve never seen it collected anywhere else. So I’d like to begin with a big thank-you to H. Herda (whoever they may have been), and to Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling for inspiring me to think of Nick in the first place. And to my BFF Eleanor Hoagland and her husband, Leigh, for lending me their beautiful house on the Reach to write in, thus giving me the setting for Nick’s story.

  Once inspired, however, a book needs to be written and rewritten — a process that should not be undertaken without the guidance of good and magical friends. I count myself lucky to have had Iris Wilde, Doselle Young, Karen Meisner, Will Alexander, Terri Windling, Theodora Goss, Kat Howard, Lev Grossman, Edith Hope Bishop, Claire Cooney, Carlos Hernandez, Holly Black, Hillary Homezie, Elizabeth Dulemba, Chip Sullivan, and Ruth Sanderson as readers, advisers, and cheerleaders, with special callouts to Stu Segal and Stan Dulemba, who gave me valuable tips on the care of motorcycles; Kay Crabb, who checked out Nick’s psychology; and the Maine trapper, the pig farmer, and the goat farmer at the Blue Hill Fair who patiently answered my rather strange questions about gray foxes, Maine coyotes, pig games, and how goats behave when upset.

  I am also grateful beyond words to Jill Grinberg, who handled the whole mysterious process of submission and negotiation with verve and grace, and to Deb Noyes and Miriam Newman of Candlewick, who gave me and Nick the kind of rigorous and useful editorial attention I’ve always dreamed of.

  Most of all, I thank Ellen Kushner for keeping me supplied with industrial-strength chai and support while I took this book apart and put it back together again multiple times, complaining all the while. I owe you one, dear.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2016 by Delia Sherman

  Cover illustration copyright © 2016 by James Weinberg

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  First electronic edition 2016

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number pending

  Candlewick Press

  99 Dover Street

  Somerville, Massachusetts 02144

  visit us at www.candlewick.com

 

 

 
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