Shadow Witch

by Geof Johnson

  “Seems like you thought of everything,” Sammi said.

  “Not hardly.” Mrs. Wallace picked up another clipboard and showed it to Sammi. “I have a list a mile long of things we forgot. My sister and I have to order more stuff all the time. We need to get a phone installed here right away.” She looked around the room at the disarray and sighed deeply. “But at least it’s only June. Hopefully we’ll get it together before school officially starts.”

  “When is that?”

  “The first Monday in September.”

  They all turned when they heard the knock on the front door.

  “Must be somebody else coming to stare at the ceiling fans,” Aiven said.

  Mrs. Wallace left to answer it while Sammi and Aiven waited. Mrs. Wallace returned a couple of minutes later with a woman and a young girl, who looked to be about Sammi’s age. She wore a long, old-fashioned dress like her mother and held her mother’s hand tightly, a wary look in her eyes, while her mother stared at the ceiling fans with a look of unabashed amazement.

  “Aiven, Sammi,” Mrs. Wallace said, “this is Mrs. Hale and her daughter, Leora, who may be attending school here.”

  Mrs. Hale didn’t respond immediately, gaping at the fans and overhead lights instead. “So it’s true,” she said softly and turned to Mrs. Wallace. “It is magic.”

  “No.” Mrs. Wallace smiled gently. “I don’t have any magic at all. Now my grandson, Jamie, he’s the wizard in the family.”

  “Jamie the Sorcerer? He is a most powerful wizard, he is. I saw him at the Founders’ Festival.”

  “So,” Mrs. Wallace looked at the girl, who was trying to hide behind her mother’s legs. “You think you might like to come to our school? How old are you?”

  The girl wouldn’t answer, so her mother said, “She turned seven last month.”

  “You’re the same age as Sammi.” Mrs. Wallace gestured at Sammi and her smile broadened.

  “Will Sammi be coming to school here, also?” Mrs. Hale asked.

  “No, she lives on Earth. We’re not sure where she’ll be going to school just yet.”

  “Earth? But....” Mrs. Hale wrinkled her brow. “This is Earth.”

  “No it’s not,” Aiven said. “I’ve been to the real Earth. It’s really, really different. They have cars and airplanes and television and everything! The planes fly through the air like this.” He held his arms out and made a roaring sound. “I saw them when Mr. Sikes took me to the airport in Hendersonville.”

  Mrs. Hale stared at him blankly and Mrs. Wallace said, “Don’t worry about it right now, Mrs. Hale. We’re just glad you came to see us today. Can you stay for a while?”

  “I’m on my way to the market. I have a wagonload of melons and strawberries to sell. We were passing by, so we decided to some in and see what the excitement is all about. This school has all of my neighbors’ tongues a’ flapping.”

  “Maybe Leora could stay with us for a little bit and we can bring her to you at the market when we go to lunch. I’m sure Aiven and Sammi could use the company this morning.”

  “I don’t need the company,” Aiven said quickly, but when Mrs. Wallace gave him a stern look, he cleared his throat. “Sammi might, though, because she’s a girl, and...Leora’s a girl, and....” His eyes became desperate as he looked at Mrs. Wallace and groped for words.

  The corners of Mrs. Wallace’s mouth pulled up slightly and she turned back to Leora. “We could use the help getting the school ready. We have lots of boxes to sort through.”

  Leora still seemed unsure, her eyebrows drawn down, and still maintaining a fierce grip on her mother’s hand. Sammi ran to the counter and grabbed her new backpack, then hurried back and showed it to Leora. “Look what you get if you come to school here! It’s free, and it’s got all kinds of neat pockets, and even a little tag where you can write your name.” She began unzipping compartments and undoing flaps while Leora stared. Leora reached out a tentative hand and touched it, then looked at Mrs. Wallace.

  Mrs. Wallace nodded. “That’s not all you’ll get, but we can’t give anybody anything until we get it all sorted. Won’t you please stay and help for just a little while?” She turned back to the girl’s mother. “Unless you feel uncomfortable leaving her here.”

  “You are Jamie the Sorcerer’s grandmother, and my neighbors speak highly of you and your sister. I will leave it up to Leora.” Mrs. Hale patted her daughter gently on the shoulder. “What do you think, honey bear?”

  Leora eyed the backpack, still in Sammi’s hands, then she looked at Sammi, who was smiling eagerly at her. Finally she looked up at her mother and nodded.

  Sammi squealed and took Leora’s hand. “You can be my friend, and we can play and everything!”

  “She can be Aiven’s friend, too,” Mrs. Wallace said. “Right, Aiven?”

  He answered with a frown, and Mrs. Wallace chuckled and turned back to Mrs. Hale. “So, it’s settled. We’ll keep her for a couple of hours and bring her to you at the market. That will give her enough time to decide if she likes it here or not.”

  “I am sure she will enjoy it.” Mrs. Hale gazed about, at the ceiling fans spinning overhead, at the bright fluorescent lights, and the countless boxes of books and supplies. “Is it really free? The school?”

  “Yes. Everything is paid for. She’ll have to bring her own lunch, though.”

  “But why is Jamie the Sorcerer doing this? Is he really from another world?”

  “Yes, he’s really from another world. Sammi and I both are, and my sister, too, who will be here tomorrow. Jamie is doing this because he wants all the children here to have the same opportunities that the rich kids have.”

  “And he doesn’t like to be called Jamie the Sorcerer or Master Jamie,” Aiven said. “He just wants to be called Jamie.”

  “Does he really have the soul of Eddan the Sorcerer?” Mrs. Hale asked.

  “Only his memories and power,” Evelyn said. “Jamie has his own soul, I assure you. I ought to know, I helped raise him.”

  “And she helped raise Fred the Witch, and Rollie, too,” Aiven added.

  “The dark-skinned boy who was so funny at the Founders’ Festival?” Mrs. Hale asked.

  “He has magic, too,” Aiven said.

  Mrs. Hale shook her head while she took it all in, and Mrs. Wallace took her gently by the elbow and said, “I know you need to get your melons to the market, so let me show you the rest of the school before you go.”

  “Show her the restrooms!” Aiven nodded eagerly.

  “Of course.” Mrs. Wallace led the young mother to the back hall.

  Leora watched them go for a moment, and finally seemed to get the courage to speak. “Do you know Fred the Witch, too?” she said to Sammi. “My neighbor bought a love potion from her.”

  “I’m staying with Fred at her house.”

  “Where are your parents?”

  “They died. I’m an orphan.”

  “I’m an orphan, too,” Aiven said, as if it were something to be proud of, a member of a select club.

  “But he lives here, with Mrs. Tully. I live in Hendersonville now. That’s on Earth.”

  “But this is Earth.”

  “I’m telling you it’s not,” Aiven said firmly. “Jamie made a doorway and showed me. The real Earth is so different you wouldn’t believe it.”

  “Maybe Jamie will show you sometime,” Sammi said. “We could go to his house and play on his playset. It’s got swings and a slide and lots of stuff.”

  “And a clubhouse, too,” Aiven said. “His father built it. He helped build this school. He can build anything.”

  Sammi took a deep breath and regarded the new girl closely for the first time. She had freckles on her nose and cheeks, and her straight hair was pale red, almost blonde, and tied back with a green ribbon. Her eyes were the lightest blue and seemed serious. Her long dress completely covered her legs, and she had on brown ankle-high lace-up leather boots, scuffed and worn. Leora pointed at Sammi’s shoes and
said, “What do you call those?”

  “They’re sneakers. Watch!” Sammi stamped both feet and the lights on the sides flashed wildly.

  “Oh,” Leora whispered, barely a breath.

  “Aren’t they great?” Sammi danced in a tight circle and her shoes continued their dazzling show while Leora watched, transfixed. “Mrs. Wallace bought them for me because my old ones were falling apart. She bought me these clothes, too.” She gestured at her lemon yellow T-shirt and red shorts.

  Leora looked down at her dress and frowned. “My ma makes all of my clothes. We can’t afford to buy them at the shop.”

  “Well...it’s a very nice dress,” Sammi said with an appreciative nod. “How many do you have?”

  “Two. My other one I can only wear for special things, like birthdays, or the Founders’ Festival, but Ma is sewing another for me so that I’ll have enough for school.”

  Only two dresses? “Uh... I don’t even have one. I only brought one outfit with me when I ran away, and it was old and crummy, and that’s why Mrs. Wallace bought me some clothes.”

  “You ran away?” Aiven said. “Why?”

  “Because....” Sammi sucked in her breath and held it for a moment. “Because my foster father is a bad man, and he hurt me, so I ran away to Fred’s house.”

  Aiven held the wrench and screwdriver loosely by his side as he looked at the two girls. “I didn’t run away. My uncle left me behind. He made me get off his horse at Jamie’s stone house and...and he rode away. I slept under the bushes that night in the rain.” His eyes became sad for a second, but then they brightened and he said, “But that doesn’t matter now, because Mrs. Tully lets me stay with her and I get my own room with a nice bed, and she’s the best cook in town, she is.” He nodded firmly. “And she wants me to go to school here, and this is going to be the best school, too. Those rich kids in the big houses are going to be jealous.” He pronounced the last word with fierce emphasis.

  Leora eyed Sammi’s clothes and wrinkled her brow. “You dress so strangely.”

  Sammi glanced down at her shirt and shorts and frowned. “What’s strange about it? All the kids dress like this where I’m from.”

  “No one wears a proper dress?”

  “Mrs. Wallace does, sometimes,” Aiven said. “She told me so. But she wears short pants, too, most of the time. She said it’s too hot for anything else right now.”

  “Mrs. Gundy,” Sammi said, “she was my foster mother. She bought me a dress from the thrift store once, but it was too small, so I didn’t have to wear it. It was gross.”

  Leora wrinkled her brow again. “Gross?”

  “It was yucky.” Sammi could tell that Leora still didn’t understand.

  “It means she didn’t like it,” Aiven said. “I learned those words from Jamie and Fred and Rollie.”

  “Did your foster mother hurt you, too?” Leora asked.

  “No. She was pretty nice, I guess.” She held her breath again and hoped that Leora wouldn’t ask any more about her foster parents. She was relieved when Mrs. Wallace and Mrs. Hale returned.

  The two women headed for the front door and Mrs. Wallace said, “Okay, kids, I’m going to buy some strawberries from Mrs. Hale before she leaves, and then we’re going to get back to work.”

  Evelyn locked the front door of the school when they left for lunch and said, “No, Aiven, we don’t need to take the carriage. It’s only a short walk to the market.” She put the key back into her pocket and nodded for the kids to follow her. “Besides, there are four of us. It would be crowded on that little bench seat.”

  “I could ride Sugar while you and Sammi and Leora sit in the carriage.”

  “Give it up, Aiven,” Sammi said smugly. “Walking is good for you, anyway.” Sammi took Leora’s hand as they strolled across the grounds toward the road, and they swung their linked arms back and forth in wide arcs. Sammi glanced about the property and pursed her lips. “Where’s the playground, Mrs. Wallace?”

  Evelyn gestured with one hand and said, “You’re looking at it. That big field next to the building.”

  “But there aren’t any swings or anything. There’s only that picnic table under the tree.”

  “The swings and other stuff will just have to wait. Rachel thinks we should build a gym, too, eventually, or at least a building the kids can run around in when the weather’s bad. I heard you get snow here sometimes in mid-winter.”

  “Who’s Rachel?” Leora asked.

  “She’s my daughter. Jamie’s mother.”

  Her little freckled face grew thoughtful. “I never thought he had a mother.”

  “Of course he does, silly,” Aiven said, walking several paces ahead of them. “Why wouldn’t he?”

  “It is hard to imagine a powerful sorcerer with a family. I thought they lived by themselves and studied magic books late into the night.”

  “Eddan did.” Aiven stooped to inspect something in the dirt, then stood and hurried on when they caught up to him. “Jamie told me that Eddan spent all his time in a stone tower and studied magic. But Jamie doesn’t want me to do that. He thinks I should go to school and learn about science and math and things like he did, because it shall make me a better wizard in the long run.”

  “It’ll make you a better person all the way around, Aiven,” Mrs. Wallace added. “Besides, you may grow up to become something besides a wizard.”

  “I am going to be a wizard,” he said firmly. “But I have to go to school first. Mrs. Tully said so.”

  “And how about you, Leora? Why do you want to go to school?”

  She didn’t answer immediately. She glanced at the ground and said, “My ma wants me to go. My pa doesn’t really want me to because he says it is a waste of time. He thinks I should be learning to cook and sew so that I can find a good husband, and there is nothing I can do with an education.”

  “You could get a job,” Sammi said.

  “There are not any for girls, except for being a wife. That’s what my pa says.”

  Aiven turned and frowned. “That’s not true! Brinna has her very own shop. That’s her job.”

  “There aren’t a lot of career opportunities here for women,” Mrs. Wallace said. “But there didn’t used to be where I’m from, either. When my mother was growing up, there were really only three, besides being a housewife. You could be a nurse or a teacher, or you could be a maid, which didn’t pay very well. Now, women can have just about any career they want, from being a lawyer to a soldier. But,” — she held up one finger — “it helps to have an education. It all starts with that.”

  “But why go to the trouble if there aren’t any jobs for girls?” Leora said.

  “Because the situation may change here, like it did for my mother back home. Jamie feels that it will. In fact, he wants to be part of the process. He thinks he can nudge things in the right direction and speed things along.” She pointed with her thumb back toward the school building. “And that’s going to help.”

  By this time they were passing through the city gates, and Sammi said, “I want to go to school and be a teacher like Mrs. Sikes.”

  “Good for you.” Evelyn turned to Leora. “If you could be anything in the world, what would that be?”

  She looked at Evelyn and shrugged. Evelyn sighed and shook her head. “Okay, you kids need to stick close to me while we’re here. Let’s go see Brinna first, then we can take Leora to her mother.”

  Evelyn led then through the small town, and Sammi’s eyes were wide the whole way, while Leora and Aiven seemed indifferent.

  “So, what do you think, Sammi?” Mrs. Wallace said as they walked down the bustling main block at the heart of Rivershire. Shops, packed closely together, lined both sides of the street, and people were everywhere, on foot, on horseback, and riding in carriages, some of them grand four-wheel coaches with teams of matching black horses.

  “It’s bigger than Bicksby.” Sammi nodded to Leora. “That’s where I’m from, and it’s only got a few little stor
es and a gas station, and they use the gas station for the post office, too.” She frowned and wrinkled her nose. “There’s only one traffic light, and no McDonalds or anything.”

  “There are no traffic lights here,” Mrs. Wallace said. “And no fast food restaurants at all.” She stopped them in front of a shop. “That’s one of the things I like about it.” She opened the door and gestured for them to step inside. “This is it.”

  “This is Brinna’s shop,” Aiven said as he passed her.

  Leora followed him. “I know. I’ve been here before.”

  Sammi went last with Evelyn, whose eyes were immediately drawn to something circling overhead. “A ceiling fan! And a light.”

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” Brinna stepped from behind the long display counter that ran along one side of the store. She was a trim young woman, with light brown hair and a pretty, pleasant face. “John Paul bought it for me.”

  “There’s an advantage to having a boyfriend who lives on Earth.” Evelyn chuckled and nodded approvingly. “It adds a lot to this place. It’s so much brighter now.”

  “He could only afford to get one, because it requires solar panels, too. But it is enough, I think. People are coming in just to see it.” Brinna glanced up at the fan, then she seemed to notice Evelyn’s charges. “Hello, Aiven.” She smiled brightly at them. “This is a surprise, Leora. You haven’t been in here for a while.”

  Leora answered with barely a nod. She and Sammi were busy inspecting the contents of the shop — the wooden toys, the clothing and hats, the cooking utensils, and more. Mrs. Wallace said, “Leora’s visiting the school today, so I brought her with us to get some lunch.”

  “I don’t believe I know the other girl,” Brinna said.

  “That’s Sammi. We brought her with us from Hendersonville. She’s staying with Fred for a few days.”

  “Is she a friend of the family?”

  “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you in a minute.” Evelyn turned to the kids and said, “Why don’t you guys look around for a few minutes while I talk to Brinna? If you’re good, I’ll buy each of you some candy when we leave.”

  “Candy?” they said at once. Then they rushed to the case where the sweets were displayed, an angled shelf loaded with clear jars full of bright confections.