The Wizards on Walnut Street

by Sam Swicegood

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “The teller seemed to know something, and if Dad’s records are sealed then that usually means something important, right? I mean…I’m looking for any leads at all, and I’m so desperate to just find something.”

  Apollo nodded, his eyes following a handsome young man in a suit crossing from the bank building past us. “The problem is that you don’t know what kind of stuff your dad was into. If dragons are involved, it’s probably big enough that Employee-who-started-on-Monday might not want to stick their cute little nose into it.”

  I shrugged. “That’s fair. Maybe I’m pushing too hard. I need to stop being so impulsive. Also, don’t call me cute, please.” I watched Apollo’s attention span shift again. “Are you alright? You’re like…literally everywhere else today.”

  Apollo snapped back to attention. “Sorry. I’m just…” He took a deep sigh. “I haven’t…fed…recently. The coffee shop helps stave off the hunger, but a man’s gotta eat.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Ah. Right.” I contemplated it for a moment. “How often do you have to…?”

  “Every couple weeks at the least. But I’m picky, I guess…I try to avoid people I might run into again later. It gets all kinds of awkward.”

  Holding back an amused snort, I gave him a sympathetic gaze. “Poor Apollo. Constantly combating his worst enemy of all: awkwardness.”

  “Alright, alright, enough of that.” He took a steadying breath and focused back on our conversation. “So, what do you know so far? Your dad worked for 50 Thousand for, oh, ten years or so.”

  “At 50 Thousand.”

  “Right. Also, he had a debt record and it’s sealed. Some goblins know about it. What else?”

  I shook my head. “That’s literally it. I lived with the man for most of my life and I never knew about any of this. I seriously just thought my dad worked for a bank.” Frustrated, I dug my fork into my Caesar salad, which hadn’t really seemed that appetizing to begin with and so had gone mostly untouched.

  “From what I know, he was a well-respected guy, but I don’t know much more than that. But you got his condo, right? There’s no papers or anything…no notes or pictures anywhere at his house?”

  “50 Thousand confiscated pretty much everything including the furniture. They were scouring pretty hard.” I put the lid back on my salad and bagged it again. “I’m wondering if he might have hidden something that they missed, but I can’t imagine that a team of wizards would be able to miss much.”

  Apollo stroked his dark goatee. “You never know…and if you wanted to misbehave slightly…”

  I raised an eyebrow. Was he suggesting what I thought he was suggesting? “What about awkwardness?”

  He cleared his throat. “No, no, not that kind of misbehave! No, no,” He adjusted his shoulders as if he was pushing dirty thoughts away. “I have a few books that might be useful, and I have a few tricks up my sleeve as well. If you felt like doing some…I dunno, divining or scrying or something. We could give it a try. It’s an old house, right? Those are usually really resonant for scrying spells. They’re not hard to set up either.”

  I felt some of the color drain from my face. “Me? Casting a spell? I don’t know. I’ve been a co-op for, like, a week. I haven’t been allowed to even see any of the Standard Casting Manuals the wizards use, let alone actually do any magic myself.”

  “Sure, sure…” He raised his eyebrows and lidded his own lunch. “But once you get your Permit, then any spell book you get your hands on is fair game, in theory. Call it…independent research.”

  “Right.” I felt my phone buzz and I checked it. “Huh. I just got an invite to a meeting with someone called a…‘Silencer’. What’s that?”

  Apollo’s eyes went wide. “Oh. You’re meeting your silencer today. Well…you have fun with that.” He got up to leave.

  I grabbed his hand. “What’s a silencer? Don’t do that, you’ll freak me out even more.”

  He sat back down. “Sorry, sorry…I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just…ok. Let me explain. Everybody who’s in on the Secret gets assigned a watcher. See, they don’t want wizards and goblins and werewolves going rogue and causing problems in society—”

  “—werewolves?!”

  “—yes, now listen. Imagine having your own guardian angel. Except that instead of protecting you, they’re protecting the world from you. Silencers keep The Secret…well…secret. They’ll follow you around and keep you from doing anything stupid.”

  A long silence hung in the air. “You’re saying I…I’m meeting someone who’s going to be watching me forever?”

  Apollo nodded grimly. “Pretty much. Sometimes, if someone’s done something great or immensely beneficial for the Societies at large, a Dragon can call off their Silencer and declare them ‘Pro Veritate’. It’s a pretty big honor.”

  I looked around. “Do you have one?”

  “Yeah. But I’ve had mine since the day I was born, and I don’t see him very much. They tend to stay invisible unless they want to be seen.” He looked at his phone to check the time. “But you’ll be fine. Just be polite.”

  ~

  After leaving Fountain square I felt a distinct sense of dread looming over my head as I headed back toward Walnut Street, trying to contain the growing ball of tension welling up in my stomach. At this rate I was going to end the week with a stomach ulcer. What kind of creature would fit the bill for the enforcers of all magic-kind? At the same time, Killian seemed to be relatively normal and I’d had similar concerns, so it reasoned that I shouldn’t need to worry now. Not to mention the fact that if this was the first time I’d heard about the Silencers at all, it probably wasn’t quite as intimidating as it seemed. Maybe mine would stay invisible all the time. I could only hope…my mind kept envisioning a large, slimy creature watching me in the bathroom or while I slept.

  When I arrived at the location specified in the email, I found a lot of the new hires already there in a waiting room situated outside of several meeting rooms. I spotted Jake and Carma in a corner and headed over. “Hey guys, how’s your week been treating you?”

  “Andy!” Carma leapt up and threw her arms around me. “Been wondering how you were. Everything’s been fine over here what with Jake and I in the same department, but we were wondering what happened to you, especially after Elmer.” Jake nodded solemnly.

  “Wait,” I said, taking a seat, “What happened to Elmer?” I almost forgot about the phone-addicted young kid from my first day.

  Jake looked down at the floor and Carma glances surreptitiously around before leaning in to whisper. “I heard that he tried to steal something really valuable and got caught. And we haven’t seen him since.”

  I swallowed another lump in my throat. “And Devin?”

  “Got promoted already,” Jake spat. “Some kind of fast-lane for potential Wizard Partners. Must be nice to have friends in high places.”

  The wait for these one-on-one silencer meetings was excruciating. As each name was called, the room became emptier, and the people coming back from their meetings all looked quite flustered or terrified. At least three didn’t come back at all.

  Jake was called before me, and when he returned, his stone-faced demeanor was faltering a bit. He was sweating, and his eyes were watery. Carma badgered him with questions but he dismissed her with a wave before saying simply, “Be truthful…that’s all they want.” He then headed out the door toward the elevators.

  We continued to wait.

  “LaFayette.” Lisa called my name. Carma gave me an encouraging smile and two heavily-jeweled thumbs-up as I picked up my phone and headed back toward one of the offices. Lisa ushered me inside and closed me inside.

  The room was empty of furniture except for a white table with chairs on either side. There wasn’t any decor of any kind—including the muted-tone paintings that adorned the rest of 50 Thousand. It seemed almost clinical, and it was hard to tell if the chill in the room was from the room itself or emanat
ing from the ice-cold glare of the creature on the other side of the desk.

  Its light blue eyes seemed to pierce me as they gazed down the creature’s long snout. Its ears twitched and the scraggled fur trembled slightly. It was a very strange sight, as the form of the creature seemed to be an old and sickly black dog with many scars and matted fur, but I could almost sense that it was more massive and unquestionably powerful than it appeared.

  “Sit,” The dog said, and I obeyed.

  The dog looked down at an open folder in front of it and nosed through the paperwork. “Just checkin’ a few things here, Andy. Jus’ sit tight, and we’ll get started.” It spoke with a tired, west London gruffness but it didn’t seem angry. I was almost relieved; I had the distinct feeling that I didn’t want this…thing…mad at me. “How’s yer week been so far, eh? Not too rough?”

  I trembled. “N-not too rough, I guess. No.”

  He didn’t seem at all fazed by my nervousness as he continued to ruffle through paperwork. “Get inta any trouble yet?”

  I blinked. What exactly constituted trouble? I considered a cordial and vague “Not really,” but Jake’s admonition about being truthful rang softly in the back of my mind. The dog looked up and I could feel it eyes piercing my skin, and my heart started to race; not wanting to have a panic attack I did my best to steady myself with a few breaths. I probably looked very silly in my attempts to not hyperventilate, but the mangy dog didn’t give any indication that it minded the extra moments of reflection. “I don’t know if it’s trouble, but a goblin bit me on the ear earlier today.”

  It nodded. “Eh, we’ll get into that. First let’s make ourselves acquainted, eh?” It dropped from the chair and trotted around the desk to sit on its haunches in front of me. With a twisted grin it offered me its paw. “I am the Moddey Dhoo.” I took the paw in my hand and shook it lightly, the pads of the dog’s foot leaving a tingling sensation on my fingers as it returned to its chair behind the desk.

  “Ya been told how this Silencer stuff works, right?”

  I nodded slowly. “You prevent me from spreading The Secret and from killing people, violating laws…. something like that, right?”

  “More or less. There’s only one big law that my kind care about, ya see. That’s the one ya already know: The Silence. Sorcera calls in the Non-Disclosure. If ya start blabbing on to someone who’s not in on the Secret, then that’s where I step in. So don’t do that and you and I ain’t got problems.”

  I thought back to my phone call with Hank. “Did you disable my phone?”

  “Yep.”

  “So that was your voice.”

  “Yep.”

  “And at the interview. That was you.”

  “Yep yep. And I’ll turn yer phone back on, now that we’ve had this chat, but ya need to realize that ya can’t go doing that anymore. Clear?”

  “That’s all fine,” I replied, “but what happens if I make a mistake?”

  “Mistakes happen. Do it at work you might get written up or somethin’. Do it outside of work, and you and I have a talk.”

  I nodded again.

  “Now on the other thing,” He added as he closed the folder with his nose, “Is this stuff ya been doin’. This investigatin’.” My heart dropped into my stomach with the realization that the Moddey Dhoo had probably seen my failed attempt to wrestle information about my Dad from the goblin teller’s desk. Had he seen the goblin on the roof attack me too? “I know why yer doin’ it,” he continued, “and I’m not saying not to do it. I’m jus’ saying that ya gotta be more careful who yer talkin’ to about it. I know of yer Dad and I know he worked in some pretty messy business. Probably ‘ad more enemies than friends, ya see. So if yer doing something and yer pokin’ yer nose into what happened to him, make sure ya know who yer talkin’ to and make sure ya have a plan of escape. Got it?”

  A long moment hung in the air between us as I took in this bit of information. I sat there, my eyes gazing down at my shoes, while I waited for the Moddey Dhoo to say or do something else, anything else, that could move our interview along and get me out of this room. I felt my cheeks starting to burn and I realized how utterly foolish I must have appeared simply by my actions in the last few hours.

  It finally spoke up. “Why are ya working here, kid? Ya don’ seem like yer here to make a livin’ or even get involved in this Secret business. I know ya spent yer whole life not knowin’ and most of the time folks like that don’t jump into working at a place like this. It’s raised a few eyebrows ‘round here, fer sure, and if there’s anybody should know what yer reasoning is, it’s gonna be me.”

  I looked up slowly, composing my thoughts and calming my breaths. “I came here to find out what happened to dad. I mean, magic and stuff? It’s cool. It’s overwhelming. But it’s secondary to that, okay? I just want to know. It’s not right and I want to know. I don’t really have anything to lose.”

  It narrowed its eyes. “You’d think that, not knowin’ what ya don’t know. Fer certain, you’ve got a lot to lose, in fact…Not everybody’s capable of being part of The Secret. Don’ have the mind fer it, or the patience, or the willpower…in fact, I’d say that it’s a safe bet that mos’ people are just your usual mundane. So you’ve got a whole world in front of ya that you have chance to grab by the tail and make somethin’ with. Ya gonna do it? If not, better let folks know now.” It hunched backward in the chair. “Say ya do find out what happened to yer dad. What then, eh? You gonna stick around or you gonna bugger off? That’s not a choice you can put off. You gotta make that decision now. An’ it’s a big one.”

  I tried to reply but I couldn’t formulate my exact words. It occurred to me that everything I had seen so far—the wizardry, the magic creatures, and even the Moddey Dhoo, had been distinctly brushed off in my pursuit of information. I had just accepted it, apathetically, without even considering the surreality of my surroundings or the possibilities of them. It was very clear that I had started off this adventure on the wrong foot, and even now, on reflection, it felt like I was stumbling. I had been over-impulsive and avoided looking at the big picture—a chance to leave behind a mild, mundane existence in lieu of something more. Even if that ‘more’ was a cubicle farm. It would be a magical cubicle farm. And if I wasn’t careful then I would probably end up losing my job and with it any chance of continuing my search.

  These thoughts continuing to bounce around, the Moddey Dhoo seemed to understand that a bit of reorganization was going inside my head. “I’m not normally one to give ya some advice, now, kid,” it said in a mildly gruff tone that certainly indicated impatience, “But you need to focus right now. People fight for jobs like yours day in and day out, and ya might not even realize it, but ya didn’t get this job by accident. An’ after that, you’ve got a stack of handbooks and pamphlets at your desk stuffed in a drawer like ya don’t even care. But if ya do,” it said, leaning across the table menacingly, which caused me to cower backwards in my chair, “If ya really do care than ya need to sit down and ya need to read ‘em and give yerself some foundation. Otherwise yer not gonna be as strong when the storm hits. Ya understand?”

  I did, or at least I thought I did, and I nodded my assent. The Moddey Dhoo gestured to the door dismissively. “Good. Now keep outta trouble and take this weekend to catch up on what ya should have been doing in the first place. Now git.” The last word was barked through gritted teeth that left no doubt that I needed to vacate the room immediately.

  I got up and hurried from the room, breezing past the others in the waiting room and not allowing myself to relax until I was safely back in my little cubicle. I put my head in my hands and sat there for a few minutes that seemed to pass unfathomably slowly. It wasn’t an accident I was here…people who were raised knowing the Secret were probably far more qualified than I was to be sitting in this chair and yet here I was, risking it all…without a safety net.

  I opened the drawer and looked down at the pamphlets I had so casually discarded. They stare
d up and me like orphaned children, and I gently picked them up to put them in my bag. I had reading to do. I had a foundation to build.

  Dead End

  I couldn’t think of what I was going to say first. My mind kept racing with worry and possibility, a tumult of words and actions spinning around in my head and barely dented with the sound of the little digital doorbell as I stepped out of the sunlight and into the dim coffee shop.

  I didn’t spot him at first, half-leaned over a corner table with some kind of iced drink on the table next to him. The ice had long melted, leaving the sweet concoction strangely separated: clear on top and cloudy on bottom. He, meanwhile, sat as if frozen to the seat, his eyes lazily staring at the coffee-themed painting on the wall. Some modern take on espresso-themed art, with curly words and fancy swirls.

  I took a long moment to catch my own breath. All day I’d been dreading this moment. The hunt had been long to find him, and yet here he was, as plain as day. A lifetime of work seemed to be all for nothing. I felt like he should be running, and I should be chasing. And yet, here, in this cinnamon-scented air, the chase seemed to be entirely at an end.

  Then again, I reminded myself, there’s no reason for him to run anymore.

  I headed for the bar first. “What can I do for ya?” The attractive black barista asked me, and I clearly stated my order while glancing periodically to make sure the corner table was still occupied. He didn’t move. It was strange; as I turned my back he might have fled out the door—but something deep in my stomach gave me the distinct feeling that he knew I was here before I even walked in. If he had wanted to run, he’d have done it by now. Besides, it didn’t hurt to leave the guy on edge for a few extra minutes while I paid for my cinnamon latte and a small pack of cookies. A drop of guilt hit my stomach momentarily, as though by postponing the inevitable I was causing him undue distress. Wasn’t I, though? He knew why I was here. Perhaps I’d let him savor his last few moments before declaring victory. I tried not to let my smug feelings make their way onto my face as I turned and made my way to his corner table. The chair squeaked lightly as I pulled it out of position and, setting my coffee down on the stained hardwood, took a seat.