The Plastic Magician (A Paper Magician Novel)

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  “There he is! Thank you so much.” She took her suitcase from Bennet. “I would’ve slept in that station if not for you.”

  Bennet smiled. “I’m sure you’d have been fine. Good night, Alvie.”

  Alvie watched the Folding apprentice go. Rejuvenated, she grabbed her bags and hurried over to the man whose sign bore her name. “That’s me!” she called. “I’m Alvie! I’m terribly sorry. I got lost and—”

  “Thank goodness,” the chauffeur said, lowering his sign as his eyes rolled back in relief. “I thought I had missed you and would be out of the job. Here we are.” He scooped up both of Alvie’s suitcases, casting a quick, confused look at her slacks. “The buggy’s right this way, miss.”

  “The what?”

  “The automobile.”

  “Oh. Thank you.”

  The chauffeur marched with quick strides that Alvie was more than happy to match, eager to put the mess of trains behind her and see her new home for the first time. The chauffeur wasn’t a man of many words, but he was efficient, tying up her luggage at the back of a rather nice windowless automobile. He even opened the door for her. Night swallowed up the whole of London, but after a short ride, the darkness was cut back by the brilliance of magic.

  The place was nothing like what Alvie had thought it would be.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE WHOLE ESTATE WAS lit with enchanted Gaffer’s glass—bobbles of enchanted glass shining in muted colors of blue, pink, and orange. A good thing, for if Alvie had beheld the estate in the full light of the sun, she might have fainted.

  Magicians were wealthy individuals, and Mg. Marion Praff was well esteemed in his field.

  But this?

  “It’s a palace,” she muttered as the automobile pulled up the drive. Gabled and conical roofing, bricked and tiled walls, and so many windows . . . She began counting those windows, her mind spinning with the growing number. Goodness, it had to be at least one window per twenty-five square feet of wall! And she thought she could see enchantments on some of them—perhaps to color the sunlight coming in, or to magnify the view.

  The chauffeur snorted. “Hardly. But it is bloody giant.” He parked the automobile but left the engine running, then came around to open Alvie’s door. She stepped out, marveling.

  “C’mon now,” the driver said as he grabbed her suitcases. “There’ll be plenty of time for that.”

  She nodded and followed him, only to notice the elaborate tiled path under her feet. Not ceramic tile. The glint of each square piece was metallic, and they shifted before her eyes, swirling in a dance of copper, silver, and gold. They stilled a few feet before the chauffeur stepped on them, and held their positions as Alvie crossed. Glancing over her shoulder, she noticed the tiles shifting once more about five feet behind her. Like a river of metal that iced over at the approach of footsteps.

  It stole her breath away. There were magicians in Columbus, but she’d never seen such a display. It must have cost a fortune.

  Gaffer lights hung around every door and window, glimmering an ever-changing pattern of blue, pink, and orange, like the capital grounds at Christmastime. There was a running fountain in the middle of a circular brick drive made for carriages. It was built of stone, but Alvie could make out a plastic form over its tiers. Polymaking! Did the plastic push the water up without pumps? Did it keep it cool, hot? Did it change the pattern in which it rose and fell? There were so many possibilities, and it made Alvie itch that she couldn’t immediately decipher how the material had been used. Perhaps if she got closer . . . How much study would it take to be able to make such forms?

  The chauffeur cleared his throat, and Alvie turned back to him, finally noticing the row of servants standing outside the door, all looking straight ahead at nothing in particular. It took another moment for Alvie to realize they’d lined up for her.

  Coming out from the front door was a regal-looking man in a green uniform with a stiff collar and modest coattails. A Polymaker’s uniform. Alvie knew from his biography that he was thirty-nine years old, but he looked younger. He was six feet tall, perhaps six one, and had short dark hair neatly parted to skirt his forehead, a straight nose, and eyebrows that pointed at the top. Clean shaven as of that morning, judging by the stubble coming in on his lip and jaw.

  Alvie realized she was staring at Mg. Marion Praff, and subsequently kicked herself in the ankle.

  “Welcome! Miss Brechenmacher, is it?”

  He even said her name correctly. Alvie glanced at the pristine-looking woman beside him. His wife? She looked to be in her late thirties. “Uh, y-yes, sir. I-It’s an honor.”

  Mg. Praff smiled and extended his hand. He had a firm grip. Alvie tried to return it, but her limbs were suddenly overcooked noodles.

  The woman beside him said, “We were concerned something might have happened to you, dear.”

  “Oh!” Alvie pulled her hand back and twisted it in the other. “I’m so sorry. I was perfectly on time. That is, I followed the schedule exactly and made all of the mirrors and the boats and the train, but I got off at the wrong station. I wasn’t paying attention to the engineer, and a man told me where to get off, but he was mistaken, and I was too dumb in the head to figure it out until—”

  Mg. Praff laughed. “Quite all right. Miss Brechenmacher, this is my wife, Charlotte.”

  Mrs. Praff offered a small curtsy, not a hand. Was Alvie supposed to curtsy back? She attempted to.

  “You’ve had a long journey.” Mg. Praff motioned to one of the men standing in the stiff line outside the door—a footman, Alvie guessed. Without direction, he took the luggage from the chauffeur, who then departed back the way he had come. Alvie realized she hadn’t asked his name. “You must be hungry. We’ve already dined, but we had something set aside for you.”

  “Oh, uh, thank you. So much. Um.” She swallowed. “I’ve read all about you, Magician Praff. I really am honored to be under your, uh, tutelage.”

  She did not sound nearly as elegant as she had when practicing this speech in her mirror before leaving Ohio. In fact, she couldn’t remember the next line.

  He smiled. “The honor is all mine.” He offered his elbow. Alvie hesitated, then took it, which must have been the right thing, for Mg. Praff glided over to the row of servants and introduced them one by one: the housekeeper, the butler, another footman, two maids. When the butler, Mr. Hemsley, looked down at her slacks, his brow knit together so tightly the two lines of hair became one. Perhaps slacks weren’t the height of women’s fashion in London, either.

  “We’ve three children,” Mg. Praff continued as he led his wife and Alvie into the house through the, uh, vestibule, Alvie thought it was called. A large, unblemished mirror hung on the right wall, and the walls were painted forest green with gold trim. “Lucas is studying abroad in Tokyo, of all places, and Maximus is at university. Our youngest, Martha, is recently married and has moved to the country. She’s just a couple years your junior.”

  Eighteen and already married. Not that it was uncommon; it was just that Alvie had only been on one “date” her entire life, to a dance after graduating from secondary school, and she’d never so much as kissed a man, let alone been proposed to. She had the nagging feeling she and the Polymaker’s daughter were very different vegetables.

  As opposed to peas in a pod. That was the analogy to which she was referring. For herself . . .

  Mg. Praff gave her a personal tour, his wife departing after the housekeeper whispered something to her. Being alone with Mg. Praff made Alvie more nervous, but as they walked from room to room—to room to room to room—Alvie gained a little more confidence, though she was still awed by the vastness of the house. Some ceilings had murals of cherubs or gardens painted on them; others had mantels decorated with elaborate wreaths of paper art, which Alvie thought funny, being near a fire and all. Perhaps a Pyre had enchanted the flames not to burn paper?

  There were sofas galore and more chairs than windows, and each room had different carpeting and
colored walls and fancy carvings on pillars and in corners. Alvie was sure the latter style had a specific architectural name, but—curse her studies—she couldn’t fathom what it might be, and thus she didn’t remark on it.

  “Down there is the observatory, and this is the servants’ hall, so you needn’t trouble yourself with this area, at least,” Mg. Praff told her.

  “Are there many? Servants?” Was that a strange question to ask?

  “Just enough to cover the needs of the estate. You met the main staff outside.” Mg. Praff turned her around toward the stairs. “Briar Hall once belonged to a viscount, but the economy was not kind to him. And so it’s in my family’s name, though we have no formal title.”

  “Magician?”

  “No title with the aristocracy,” he amended.

  They crested the stairs and took a turn. One of the maids from outside—Emma?—waited by the door to a room. A very tall door. When Alvie and Mg. Praff approached, she opened the door and stood inside.

  “This is the green room, one of our guest chambers,” Mg. Praff explained. “I thought it an appropriate choice for you.” He gestured to his green uniform.

  Alvie stepped in and ogled. It was a large room, with a very high ceiling—she couldn’t fathom the purpose of such a high ceiling. Etched vines traced its periphery. A large bowl-shaped light hung from the center, its glass stained to look like leaves. The large bed, pressed up against the far wall, had a canopy with pale-green curtains and blankets bearing a golden sheen. There was a nightstand to the left of it and a bench at the foot of it. Atop the nightstand sat a bright Pyre-glass lamp—the brightest sort of magicked lamp, the kind that burned with magic-fueled flame on the inside and glowed with Gaffer’s glass on the outside. This one emitted a golden-white light. Above the bed’s headboard hung a bronze-framed painting of a forest littered with poppies. All the bedroom walls were painted the palest green, and darker green curtains covered what Alvie presumed to be a large window, and she itched to see the view. By the window was a strange piece of furniture she’d never seen before, which looked to be half-bed and half-sofa . . . for lounging when one didn’t wish to muss the bedcover? A smooth cherrywood desk sat just near the door. Alvie supposed the mirror atop it made it double as a vanity. And then there was a random tuffetlike thing in the space between the furniture. Alvie wasn’t entirely sure what to do with that.

  “It’s lovely,” she said, and that was the truth, for the room was grander than anything in her own home, as well as the dorm she had stayed in at the Jefferson School, and she had thought its furnishings fine. She looked down, admiring the complex floral patterns on the dark-green carpet.

  “Brandon brought up your things,” Emma said, and Alvie recalled Brandon was the name of the footman who had taken her suitcases. “With your permission, I can hang up your clothes.”

  She gestured to a closet nearby that Alvie hadn’t seen. Goodness, it was its own room. A closet one could walk into! How unnecessarily fancy.

  “Um, yes, thank you.”

  Mg. Praff gestured toward the door. “As I said, there’s a meal waiting you, but if you’re weary, we can ring to have it brought up here.” He pointed to a cord on the wall near the bed. Did that go into the servants’ quarters? Alvie would feel guilty ever ringing that, but the enormity of the house and her recent adventure across the Atlantic was beginning to clog her brain, so she nodded, and Emma hurried over and rang the bell.

  “If I may ask,” the Polymaker said, “have you ever considered getting enchanted lenses?”

  Alvie looked at him. It took her a second to realize he meant her glasses. “They are enchanted, sir.” A Gaffer’s spell etched into the corner of each lens let the glass morph on its own if her prescription ever changed and helped make them thinner as well.

  He blinked in surprise. “Do you mind?” He held out a hand.

  “Um . . .” Shifting on her feet, Alvie grasped her glasses and pulled them off. The room turned into a blur of green. Mg. Praff blended into it surprisingly well.

  “Goodness, they are.” She gathered he was looking at the Gaffer etchings on the side of the giant lenses. “Do you mind if I fiddle with these? Just for a moment.”

  Alvie could barely tell if Mg. Praff was looking at her, but she didn’t want to deny her mentor whatever plan he had, not when she had arrived so late to his house, and he had given her such a nice room. She nodded, and her tutor—master?—left the room, taking her ability to see with him. Someone else arrived, for Emma instructed the newcomer to bring in Alvie’s dinner. Alvie’s stomach gurgled in anticipation, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten in some time.

  “Do you want the slacks hung with the skirts?” Emma asked.

  “Um . . . whatever you think is best. I usually keep them in drawers.” She reached for the chair-blur at the desk, pulled it out, and sat, closing her eyes to turn off the disorientation of unaided sight.

  Emma continued to work silently, and Alvie wondered if she was supposed to talk to her or ignore her or what. She’d never had servants before, and half the time she couldn’t tell where the maid went, except for the sounds of footsteps and shuffling. Eventually another black-and-white blur arrived, or perhaps returned—there was no way of knowing for certain if this was the same servant from before—and set a tray on the desk in front of her. Alvie squinted, trying to determine what was being served. She punctured something with her fork and popped it into her mouth. Chicken. Very delicious chicken.

  “All done,” Emma announced when Alvie was three bites into her meal. “Do you need anything else? Help undressing?”

  Alvie choked on her food. Swallowed. “Um, no. Thank you.”

  The Emma-blur bobbed and left. Alvie picked her way through some sort of savory pudding and what she thought were cinnamon pears.

  A knock sounded at the door.

  “Yes? Come in.”

  A green blur entered, and Mg. Praff said, “Here we are. I think I calculated it right.” He held his hands out, and Alvie awkwardly grabbed his fingers before she found her glasses. She slipped them on, and the world became blissfully crisp once more.

  She noticed a distinct lightness to her frames.

  She touched the arms of the glasses and then pulled the glasses off. Put them back on. “I’m sorry, what did you do? I can’t tell without the things on.”

  He smiled. “Plastic lenses.”

  Alvie gaped. Tapped her nail on the lens. It was almost glasslike. “Plastic lenses? We don’t have those in the States!”

  “They’re relatively new, presented at the Discovery Convention last year. They’re much lighter than glass but, at this point in time, also much more expensive. You’ll find very few optometrists willing to sell them.”

  Alvie moved her head back and forth, savoring the lack of pain the spectacles caused her ears. “These are wonderful! Thank you.”

  He set a small cloth bundle on the desk. “These are your old lenses. I’m pleased you like the new ones. I haven’t had many people to experiment on.”

  Alvie straightened. Stood. “Speaking of experiments, sir. Magician Praff. Am I to do the bonding tonight?” It felt like loose ribbons danced in her belly. Alvie hadn’t actually bonded to plastic yet, which meant she could do nothing magical with it, though she was familiar with it thanks to her Basic Material Mechanics and History of Materials classes at Jefferson. After she bonded, she would never have the opportunity to cast spells with any other material. A bonding was for life.

  “I promise to bond you in the morning. And show you the polymery.”

  Alvie clasped her hands together. “You have your own polymery?” How large would the lab be in an estate this extravagant? Her skin buzzed with excitement.

  “Of course! And you will be welcome to use it. Starting tomorrow. We’ll conduct your first lesson as well, if you’re up for it.”

  “I will be, sir. I’d be up for it right now.”

  He smiled. “I do not doubt you. I admit I’m eager to begi
n—you seem much more enthusiastic than my last apprentice. He was a bit of a dullard.”

  Alvie didn’t know what to say, so she merely nodded.

  “I can send someone for the tray, if you’re finished.”

  Alvie eyed her food, which she could now see. It looked like a child had picked through it. “Not yet. I can, uh, ring the bell?”

  Mg. Praff nodded. “Until morning, then. Good night.”

  Alvie smiled, and Mg. Praff departed, closing the door behind him.

  Alvie awoke to a face full of blanket and a sweet voice saying her name.

  “Miss Alvie?”

  She startled awake, blinking sunlight and blurry room from her vision, wiping her forearm across her mouth in case she had drooled. It took her a few seconds to realize where she was. Somewhat oriented, she fumbled for her nightstand and grabbed her glasses.

  Emma stood at the foot of the bed. “So sorry to disturb you, but Mrs. Praff thought it best to check on you.”

  “Oh.” She looked at the brightness of the window. Emma must have parted the curtains. “Oh.” She searched for a clock and found none. “What time is it?”

  “A quarter after nine.”

  Alvie slipped her hands beneath her new plastic lenses and rubbed her eyes. Sleeping in on her first day as an apprentice! She shuffled to the edge of the bed and slid off the mattress, but her foot caught in the sheet, and she tumbled onto the floor.

  Emma grasped her shoulders and helped her up.

  “Are you quite all right?” The maid released her and took a step back.

  Alvie blew a mass of brown hair away from her face and straightened her glasses. “Oh. Yes. Um.”

  Apparently it was answer enough, for Emma turned back for the closet. “What would you like to wear today?”