Mr. Graidy rolled his eyes, then clapped his hands and muttered something. With a cinnamony smell, the lights came up.
I had never been this far inside the Guild before. They try to maintain an air of mystery about the place so the only people who really know it are the mages, a couple of repairmen, and the ladies who come to set up for bake sales. The sudden light revealed a large welcoming hall done in cream and beige with several potted plants and a dark floor polished like a mirror. Along one side was a row of cushioned benches under a series of portraits of serious gray-haired men and women with matching sour expressions, as if they’d all been sucking on lemons.
Mr. Graidy glared at me and pointed to the benches. “Sit,” he commanded. I didn’t, I couldn’t (something was wrong), but Mr. Graidy immediately turned away and ordered the apprentice, “Please go to the reception area and get this girl’s parents.”
I heard Mom coming down the hall well before she charged through the door, questions pouring out of her. “What’s wrong? Are you okay? You didn’t blow up anything, did you? What happened? Are you hurt? You don’t look hurt. What happened?” she snapped at the mages. Two jumped back and the one I had crashed into burst into tears.
Dad, on the other hand, strolled in with a cup of lemonade and a sugar cookie.
Mr. Graidy cleared his throat again. “No one was hurt.” He paused for a moment. “Mr. Hale, Mrs. Hale. I fear I have some unfortunate tidings. It pains me to have to tell this to anyone, let alone to a distinguished couple such as yourselves, whom I have always regarded as pillars of our fine commun—”
“Get to the point,” Mom exploded.
“She’s an ord.”
“Beg your pardon?” Dad asked. Only Dad could sound totally relaxed and totally serious at the same time, while eating a cookie.
“She didn’t even make it past the first stage,” said Mr. Graidy. “She has nothing. She is nothing. She’s an ord.”
CHAPTER
2
Ord. Oh no, he did not just say that. He did not. It wasn’t real.
“Come here, Ab—chil—you, come here.” Mr. Graidy reached out to take my arm, then stopped and just waved me toward the barrier.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, willing it to work this time, please work, please. I wasn’t kidding around. My parents were watching.
I stepped through. Nothing.
I turned back, needing to see my parents’ faces, yet not wanting to at all. They were holding hands, looking … I couldn’t tell. I wanted to scream or cry or smash something. It felt like rug burn in my chest.
Then Mom said, “Oh, my baby,” and stepped forward, arms out. I rushed to her, and she caught me in a hug right at the barrier. When she passed through the arch, it sparked and popped, and the air in the room rumbled against the walls like fireworks.
Mom brought me back to Dad. My parents looked at each other, sharing the Secret Parent Look, where they kind of do this telepathic thing, even though they’re not. Dad swallowed the last of his lemonade and shrugged. “Okay, now what?”
“You will have to get rid of her,” Mr. Graidy said, and not nicely.
“That’s ridiculous,” Dad said.
“I can’t even believe I’m hearing this,” Mom said, her arms still tight around me. “Are you seriously saying, Martin, that we should ‘get rid of’ our daughter?”
“There’s no use getting defensive, Mrs. Hale,” Mr. Graidy said. “It is the plain truth. There are few options available to the families of ords. It is a shame there are so few, but it’s not as if it can be changed.” At this point he offered Mom and Dad some “literature” on the subject, reassuring them that he had several more brochures, still sealed in the boxes. It seems that, until me, there hadn’t been a need to unpack them.
Mom stepped forward, face flushed, blue crackles of magic snapping around her. Dad put a hand on her shoulder and she took a hard breath, in and out.
Mr. Graidy nodded sympathetically and sent the apprentice off to get a few pamphlets. “I want you to know,” he continued, “I sympathize with the frustration you must be feeling. The tragedy of realizing that one of your own is …” He sighed. “This must be very hard. I understand that many families experience difficulty in deciding what to do. I believe a few occasionally decide to keep their … their …”
“Children,” Mom cut in.
“Their children, yes. Traveling families, that sort of thing, who don’t have to live with … normal society. But in most cases, in situations like yours, well, you cannot be carried away by sentiment and emotion at such a time as this. You must consider what is best for the child, as well as what is best for you,” Mr. Graidy said, his words smooth and professional.
“And what, exactly, would be best for us?” Dad asked. His voice was smooth too. Smooth and very quiet.
“Surely you must see, Mr. Hale,” Mr. Graidy said, his face a mixture of suspicion and disbelief, “that this touches not only your family, but each and every person associated with you. The town is affected by this. The entire town—”
“Stop. Now.”
“Mr. Hale—”
“I’m not going to give you another chance,” Dad replied, and his tone was so hard and cold and final that Mr. Graidy stopped.
The apprentice reappeared with a few glossy pamphlets in his hand. Our fingers brushed as he passed me the bundle. His face got all tight, and he snatched his hand back and started rubbing it on his robes. He was still at it when we left.
The doors opened to the right, where my family milled around, cheerful and noisy. I passed through the door, the sun bright through the windows, and somehow I kept walking, though I didn’t want to. As if my body took off on its own without even asking me first. Heat crept up my neck, and I was still walking toward everyone, half hoping that I would keep going straight out of the building, down the street, and out of the county. I wanted to cry, but with the heat and pressure it was hard enough to breathe.
Gil noticed something was wrong first. “What’s the matter, freckles? Did you get a three? A two?”
“I-I …”
“What is it? Did you turn Graidy into a frog? They don’t penalize you for that, you know.”
“I didn’t do anything.” I pushed the words out of my swollen throat. “I can’t—I’m an ord, Gil.”
Gil grinned. He looked like Mom when he did that, but like a guy version of Mom. “No, you’re not.”
But then he saw Mom and Dad. And then he looked frightened and very young. I kept thinking if he looked at me the way the mages did, if he looked at me like that, I would run screaming out of the building.
But he didn’t. He smiled at me, and he looked like normal, everyday Gil. “Okay, you’re an ord.” He tugged on my hair, and I had to smile too. “We’re still going to party, right?”
CHAPTER
3
Ords.
You only ever hear about them as kids. You only ever hear about them, in that whisper-down-the-lane way. Your aunt’s neighbor’s kid’s best friend turned up ord. Just last week, the waitress at the coffee shop served a couple who had an ord with them. Everybody knows somebody who knows somebody else who met the family of an ord; the family of a kid who can’t do magic.
And you only ever hear them talk about the family. Always with those sad faces, always talking about how strong they are, dealing with it, how thankfully, everybody else in their family is normal. You never hear anybody talk about the kid, unless it’s to say they seemed so normal, you’d never have expected it.
Because there’s only one thing you can do with an ord. Get rid of it.
Right before we left, Alexa rushed up next to me and grabbed my hand. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have that worried look in her eyes like Mom and Dad did. I clung to her, and winced as the doors opened and the sunlight poured in.
I could see the news travel through the crowd. Saw it in their faces, the way everyone’s expressions changed as they heard. I could hear the whi
spers following us, hissing through the market. And the worst part was how they all stopped talking after they heard. I don’t know if you have ever heard a whole street of people go completely silent before, but it’s creepy.
To be fair, some of them tried to act normal. But no one would look me in the eye, and instead tried to sneak sharp little stares when my head was turned. I could feel them like pinpricks on my skin. If I looked back, they’d quickly glance away. Olivia—eyes bright, blinking rapidly—glared down the gawkers.
No one said a word. I think that was the worst part; they were all so quiet, like it was a funeral.
There was a party planned. Friends and neighbors had been invited and expected, especially the throng of boys who flocked around Olivia. In the end it was only family—bad news travels fast, I guess. I told myself I didn’t care that none of my classmates, none of my friends, showed up. And I didn’t care that Aunt Vicky went white-faced when she heard and excused herself early. Nobody liked her anyway and she gave the worst presents at Twelfth Night. (Though Mom did catch her before she could wink away and told her, “If you leave now, don’t ever come back.” Aunt Vicky left.)
But I did care when Alexa took Olivia—who couldn’t stop blinking, who had a hand over her mouth—by the elbow and led her around the side of the house. She did it casually, like we weren’t supposed to notice. As if we couldn’t hear how upset Olivia got the second she was out of sight. Gil tried to turn me around, tell me a joke, but I shrugged him off and went after them.
Alexa, her fingers still digging into Olivia’s elbow, spat out fierce little whispers. “Pull yourself together, you don’t want her to see—”
And Olivia scrubbed at her eyes, covered her face with her hands, even as she kept shaking her head. “She can’t … she won’t …” Her voice broke and she stopped.
Alexa’s expression went so hard and angry I took a step back. “Yes. She will. She’ll do everything, just differently. And this isn’t help—”
They both looked up then, as if they sensed me watching. Before anybody could say anything, Mom and Dad came over. Mom took one look at the situation and wrapped Olivia up in a hug. Olivia buried her face in Mom’s shoulder as Mom stroked her hair.
Dad put his hand on my shoulder. When I didn’t move he turned me around and guided me back to the party.
“Shouldn’t we discuss this?” I asked. Mom and Dad were big on discussing stuff, though half the time that meant sitting down and listening to them tell you how it was going to be. Right at that moment, I would have been okay with that. It would have been easier if I knew what was going to happen.
“Discuss later,” Dad said. “Party now.”
When Mom and my sisters came back, red-eyed but calm, they took me inside and ushered me up to my room. Olivia and Alexa peeled me out of the Judging dress, and Mom sat me down and unpinned my hair. With the noise of the party filtering up to us, Mom ran her fingers through the braids and brushed out my hair until it hung free and heavy down my back, and I felt like myself again.
I started to take off the amethyst necklace, but Alexa stopped me. “It doesn’t count,” I told her as she refastened it around my neck. “I wasn’t even Judged.” But Alexa shook her head, then steered me out of the room and back down to the party.
The afternoon passed in a blur. There was no moon that night. When it turned dark the lights that Mom and Dad had strung in the garden twinkled to life. Coffee and fruit came out—pears drizzled with honey, and poached oranges. Steaming mint tea swirled into our teacups. Gil picked another argument, this time with Olivia, and we all pretended to ignore Dad sneaking over to pick through the presents and set aside things to return later. I figured it was the usual stuff: dolls I wouldn’t be able to make move, a charm bracelet that would end up empty, a My First Potion kit that guaranteed Hours of Enchanting Fun!
But that’s not what I remember the most about that night. What I remember is the music, twisting up into the night like ribbons. I remember pears so soft I cut them up with a spoon, the juice and honey dribbling down my chin as I scooped them into my mouth. The way the garden lights made everything look soft and secret. And I remember Dad carrying me inside after the party ended, my head against his shoulder, sleepy, full, and safe.
I woke up the next morning alone. Which was … strange. There’s always someone there to wake me and get everything going. To charm the blankets on the bed smooth, summon clothes out of the dresser. For a second I remembered—I was twelve now, I’d been Judged, I could …
Then I really remembered. Ord.
It was weird; I felt exactly the same today as I did yesterday. Shouldn’t you feel different after you find out that you’re, you know, totally useless? I guess not. You’re born an ord, I knew that. So I’d always been useless. I just didn’t know it until yesterday.
I was wondering how long I’d have to wait for someone to come get me when I noticed there was something off about the room. It felt the same, but it looked and sounded different. My furniture looked strange, like it was just wood and knobs, pillows and cushions and blankets, and nothing else. I got up and pulled my sheets straight. They lay where I left them. I tiptoed to my dresser and pulled open the drawers. Underwear, socks, and shirts sat in neatly folded piles. In my wardrobe, dresses hung still and silent. This was more than just weird. This was on purpose. Someone must have come in while I slept and drained the room dry.
I got dressed quickly, and rushed to the door. It opened when I turned the handle but stayed that way, open and lifeless. I took the stairs two at a time and hurried toward the low, serious murmur of voices in the kitchen. There was Olivia’s sharp “… trade her away like a plate …” And Dad said something about “no way, not ever,” and then Gil, louder, “Graidy has lost his mind if he thinks …”
The conversation stopped as I skidded in and everyone turned to look at me. Gil was up at the counter (it was his turn to make breakfast), cracking eggs in the air. They sizzled as they fell, and landed, fried and tasty, on the serving plate. Everyone else was clustered around the kitchen table with coffee mugs. (Except for Jeremy, because he and I are still too young for coffee. Mom and Dad won’t let us touch the stuff until we’re eighteen, which is fine by me because Gil snuck some to me once and it is nasty.)
It was strange to see them all there. Gil spent most of his days at the kitchen table with a notebook jotting down ideas for his books, but Mom and Olivia should have been at our family’s bakery at this hour, well into the morning rush, and Dad always liked to knock off a few hours at his loom before we called him in to breakfast.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Mom came over and gave me a kiss. “Good morning, baby. How’d you sleep?”
“Awful. What’s going on? What did Mr. Graidy do now?”
There was a pause. Gil hurriedly cast a bowl down from one of the shelves and snapped his fingers; cinnamon buns clamored up like popcorn popping. (I must have seen them make breakfast a thousand times. It was so normal. How could I not do something so normal?) Jeremy took a hasty, choking gulp of his juice. And Olivia raked her eyes up and down the table, her mouth half-open. I wasn’t sure anyone was going to answer, when Alexa did. “The mages at the Guild offered to buy you.”
My stomach twisted into a hot, heavy pit. Every kid knew what happened to ords whose families didn’t want them—and most families didn’t. After what Mom and Dad said to Mr. Graidy, I didn’t think … I knew they wouldn’t—probably—but for a moment I wondered if this was what the kitchen table was going to look like from now on. Without me. “How much did they offer?” I asked.
“We’re not going to sell you,” Dad assured me.
“I want to know what the going rate for an ord is.”
“A lot,” Alexa told me, lifting her arms as place settings blossomed along the table in front of everyone.
“Actually, their offer was pitiful,” Gil added cheerfully. “Way below market price. We could get three or four times that for you on
the black market, easy.”
“That is hardly appropriate,” Jeremy snipped. He gets snippy a lot, but this morning his voice had a little something extra. His glasses didn’t exactly hide the dark circles under his eyes, and his face was so pale it made all his freckles stand out.
“So, what if someone offers market price?” I asked.
There was an outburst of noise and protests, and Jeremy announced I wasn’t being logical, of course they wouldn’t sell me, because it was illegal, for heaven’s sake. Alexa gave him a look that said you’re not helping, and Gil smacked him on the back of the head, and Olivia said, yes, that was the only reason they weren’t going to sell me.
Mom sat calmly on a faded wooden kitchen chair like a queen on her throne and waited until everything died down. When it did, she pointed to the space in front of her. I scrambled over. She took my hands. “Abby, look at me.” I looked at her. Her warm brown eyes were serious and steely. “We are not going to sell you to anyone.”
“Then what are you going to do with me?” My voice cracked.
“Oh, my baby,” Mom murmured, and she hugged me close and rocked me as if I were still a little girl. Dad pulled a chair over and tucked me on his lap, and he told me not to worry because he and Mom would always, always take care of me.
It was Alexa who finally answered my question. “You’re going to school.”
“I thought I wasn’t allowed to go to school,” I said, leaning into Dad.
“I don’t mean normal school.” She rolled her eyes and tilted her head at me. “Abby, what is my job?”
“I don’t know, you never say anything about it.”
“I do too.”
Olivia shook her head as Gil set out the food. “No, you don’t.”
“You always give us that line about how you’re under contract and you can’t give away any details, like you’re a secret agent or something,” Gil said, taking a seat. “I mean, we know you work for the king, which is really cool, right? And also something with education? That’s all you have ever said.”
Ordinary Magic Page 2
