Magic Makes You Strange (The Brontosaurus Pluto Society Book 1)

by Noah K Mullette-Gillman

  “You don’t even have thumbs!” Romana said, more bluntly than she intended.

  “No, M’am, I don’t. I have lion paws. They’re good if my back needs a good itching, but I can’t hold a pencil or any of that stuff. I used to have a tail too, but I cut that off. Regret that…”

  “You can compare tattoos when we’re on Earth,” Septimus spoke up. “We have to hurry.”

  Edward turned back to Mr. Grell. “I have this skin on my back. It’s smooth and blue, reminiscent of a dolphin?”

  “You been using magic for a long time?”

  “No.”

  “You been casting a lot of spells?”

  “I don’t know how to answer that…”

  “I guess the answer is yes. You’d better cut back or you’re gonna do some serious warping, son.”

  Edward imagined himself losing his arms and growing fins instead. It was a terrifying thought.

  As they walked on, he reached back and ran his fingers over the changed skin. It didn’t have pores. It reminded him of the time when Jenny had poured wax on his fingers. To show her how strong he was, he didn’t cry out or complain. He just smiled until the wax hardened. Then he touched his fingers against his face and hers.

  If he woke up the next morning and he was back home in London, Jenny would laugh. She’d laugh at the devils and the aliens, and the man with a lion’s paws. She’d laugh at the bunny rabbits, and his collection of statues in a basement in Massachusetts. She’d laugh, and probably tears would burst out of her eyes from the ridiculousness of the tale.

  How would he start the story? Would he tell her all about the crystal he fished out of Walls’s brain? About the way it found itself inside his head – and then the story about Zeus that kept repeating over and over again? Would he tell her that only then he started remembering that he had been followed by the aliens all throughout his childhood? Would he tell her that they’d even been there, sometimes when she thought the two of them were alone?

  Maybe he’d just tell her that he walked around on the planet Venus with a devil in his pocket. Maybe that would be enough.

  He found himself almost laughing as he imagined her reaction. He felt a smile creep across his face. But then he saw Romana walking ahead of him. She was very beautiful. He liked her. That didn’t make him happy.

  He didn’t want to like someone else. He didn’t want to find a way to be happy no matter what ridiculousness life threw at him. He wanted his Jenny. He wanted to be alone with her, just her, and to hold her.

  They walked through the ancient building and, after a short time more, Septimus told them they had arrived.

  “Just ahead, there’s a hidden right turn between the two passages. You won’t see it until you’re right upon it. The spaceship is in there. I can’t promise that there’s room for four though.”

  “You’d better hope there is,” Romana frowned, “I’d rather bring the old man with us than a devil.”

  “You judge me too quickly by my race, young girl. I have an angel in my soul few men could ever hope to -”

  Romana sighed, “Oh brother!”

  There was a long dark red oval in the middle of the next room. It didn’t look at all like a spaceship. It was smooth, seamless, and covered in long fins. There were at least three dozen of the protrusions and they didn’t look like they actually served any practical function. They were just someone’s gaudy sense of decoration. Romana ran her hands over it. It felt like very solid and heavy glass.

  “Is this it?” She asked the devil.

  “She’s a classic. Once upon a time, we used to ride these all over the galaxy. You know, Pluto’s a small world. We’d been to other stars before we ever came into contact with those silver monsters. Sometimes, we even took humans with us when we went exploring.”

  “Enough,” Edward said, annoyed. “Does it work?”

  “It will work. But just so you know, they’ll never forgive you if you do this. This is meant to be the final escape if the Plutonians ever come back. This was meant for our Queen. You’re about to make a lot of enemies. But, you know, it will be worth it.”

  Edward put Septimus on the ground. “Open it.”

  The devil held up his tiny little pitchfork. When it touched the oval, a cockpit opened. The devil hadn’t lied. It was a very small space inside. It had obviously been intended for one person, not three or more.

  Septimus told Edward to get in first to work the controls. Septimus would instruct him how to pilot the craft. Edward got in first, lying on his stomach. Septimus climbed spritely over him and situated himself near the front, so he could see out of the window. From the outside, there was no window, but there was a big one visible from inside. Romana helped Mr. Grell to fit on top of Edward, and to the right, and then had a lot of trouble squeezing herself into the space which remained. They all felt like they were going to be crushed as the door closed behind them.

  Edward and Septimus started the engine. The spaceship lifted right up into the air. With some difficulty, Edward steered it back out the passage they had come in. He drove it over an outlook and down into the dome’s main chamber, out into the desert, and then up into the yellow sky.

  No one tried to stop them. No one chased them. Hell let them go.

  15

  A few hours passed, or was it twenty years? They traveled through the darkness of space, and the enormity of the heavens. It was painful for them to spend that time crunched against each other, but they soldiered through. Romana rested her hands on Edward’s shoulders. At one point, Mr. Grell started gently crying. Romana, Septimus, and Edward politely pretended not to notice.

  When they saw Earth, it came upon them all of a sudden. The spaceship turned a few degrees and they saw that their homeworld was actually quite nearby. She was blue and green and perfectly round. They could see clouds. They could see oceans. They recognized the countries. Edward could see the Alps, and the sight overwhelmed him.

  All he said was, “Home…”

  Romana patted him on the shoulder, encouragingly.

  He took them down.

  As they entered the atmosphere, the clouds and the wind and the fire of entry made it difficult to see anything. Edward took the ship straight towards England. Even when he lost visibility, he remembered where it was and he aimed the ship straight towards the Thames.

  It was raining as they entered the sky. Septimus showed Edward how to make the ship invisible.

  They picked a building and set themselves down on the roof. The back opened up and they awkwardly stumbled out into the rain. None of them minded terribly getting wet. They were all just so glad to get back on Earth.

  Romana and Mr. Grell started dancing. He sang an old gospel song that none of the rest of them knew. It had a strange, but beautiful melody. As he sang, the cold rain soaked them. It all felt wonderful. They were home!

  Of course, Romana and Mr. Grell were both surprised to discover where they were on Earth. Neither of them had ever been to England before.

  “We still need to get back to America,” Romana complained.

  “I don’t even know what year it is,” Edward wiped the water from the back of his neck while he spoke. “I left my home in 1936. I think it’s time I get to see where my parents are buried.”

  The first priority was eating. Edward told them that he had money, and that they shouldn’t worry about it. As they walked through town, no one except Septimus noticed that he lifted two wallets in order to be sure he could pay for the meal. In fact, he managed seventy two pounds between the two. Dever hadn’t taught him that trick. He’d been well practiced in it before his apprenticeship began. That was how he begun his training in sleight of hand.

  They got Mr. Grell a coat from a second-hand shop before going into a pub. Edward and Mr. Grell ordered beers. Romana just wanted a Coke. Edward ordered fish ‘n chips for himself and his two friends. Septimus sat under the table on the fourth chair. Edward broke off a piece of the fish and a bottle-cap full of beer and passed
them to him.

  “It’s not the nineteen seventies anymore,” Edward announced.

  “What do you mean?” Romana asked.

  “Look around you. It’s at least a decade or two later. If we find a newsagent, we’ll get the exact year. I wasn’t joking before. I really did leave here in 1936.”

  “You’re older than me!” Mr. Grell said, with disbelief.

  “What is your first name?” Romana asked. “We can’t just call you Mr. Grell.”

  “You can and you will. No one’s called me anything but that since I was fifteen years old. My first name is family business and you ain’t family.”

  “Oookay…”

  “Why would the year have changed?” Romana asked.

  “I believe it has something to do with traveling near the speed of light. A red fellow explained it the first time.”

  “That isn’t how relativity works.” Romana shook her head. “If we just traveled forward through time while making that short trip, it wouldn’t be because of our speed. Something else is going on.”

  “Are you saying that the spaceship is a time machine?” Edward asked in between mouthfuls.

  “More likely, you don’t know what you’re doing when you fly them,” Mr. Grell grumbled.

  “What business were you in in New Jersey, Mr. Grell?” Edward asked.

  Septimus pulled on Edward’s jacket, indicating that he wanted more beer. Edward poured another capful for their devil.

  “I worked in a factory for a little while. Once I got into killing devils I mostly lived off the booty.”

  “The booty?” Edward didn’t understand.

  “I kill a man, I ain’t above taking what used to be his. I didn’t kill anyone for their money, but I didn’t waste it. Understand me, I killed devils! I’ll take theirs and see some good come of it.”

  It didn’t occur to any of the three how rude their conversation was to the Venusian under the table.

  “How did you start fighting them?” Romana asked.

  “The people who trained me had a long history. How about you two? Were you really a stage magician?”

  “I was an apprentice.” Edward smiled proudly.

  “I never had a job,” Romana answered. “My grandfather took care of me. That’s where I learned my magic too.”

  When they were done with lunch, Edward handed each of his two human friends half of the money he had left. They arranged to meet up again in four hours to decide what to do next. He knew he could always get more when he wanted it.

  They expected that that was the last they would see of Septimus. The little red mouse of a man could disappear in the big city. They worried a little at releasing a devil in England, but that had been the deal and he had provided the spaceship.

  Edward walked straight to the building his parents had used to live in. On the way, he found a newspaper sitting in a metal trash bin. It was 2007. Seven decades had passed in the last week. He had been born ninety years before. He threw the paper away again, laughing out loud.

  The building his parents had lived in was gone. There was a skyscraper instead. The shape was different, but it reminded him of the dome on Venus.

  He didn’t know where they would be buried, but he knew where his father’s parents were. He hailed a taxi and got a ride to where the cemetery used to be. It still existed.

  He spent an hour wandering around. He found his grandparents and his mother. He never did find his father. Edward stood over her grave. It was old. The letters on her tombstone were almost rubbed away. The stone was thin. He gave her the flowers from someone else’s grave.

  In the distance, Edward saw a glint of light. He blinked and looked again. A silver man was standing there in the distance, watching him. The story started in his head again: Zeus wanted a divorce. He wished his wife Hera away and went looking for a new love…

  Edward blinked again. He didn’t see the alien anymore. Had there really been one? His sense of reality felt so elastic at that point. He was so tired. He didn’t trust his senses.

  He turned to walk back down the hill and find another taxi. A man was standing there. He had a long face, grey hair, a clean suit, shiny shoes, and wide cold eyes. Edward understood that the man was a Plutonian.

  “Have you heard? The scientific community announced that Pluto isn’t a planet anymore. They want to define it away. This is how much they fear death, change, depth. Everything dies without the influence of the ninth God.”

  “Ninth God?” Edward asked.

  “Worlds are Gods.”

  “Why do you keep following me?”

  “Did you write the story down?” The man who was really an alien ignored Edward’s question.

  “Not yet.”

  “But you will?”

  “I will.”

  “Did you believe Venus?”

  “The Devils? I think they know how to lie. They mix the truth in so that it feels right.”

  The man who was an alien nodded.

  “I never knew Dever’s spell,” Edward hoped he would be believed.

  “That is correct. That was a long time ago.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “The magician was not a good man. You shouldn’t emulate him.”

  “What happened to him?” Edward repeated.

  “We took him to Death’s homeworld.”

  “Does that mean he’s dead?” Edward asked, worried.

  “You would not recognize him. You would not want to. You are Nevil Dever more than he is now.”

  “I don’t understand anything you say.”

  “You will spend a lifetime trying.”

  Edward looked away for a moment, when he looked back, there wasn’t anyone there. As he walked down the hill, he made up his mind that he had imagined the entire conversation. The magic was driving him insane.

  * ** *** ** *

  Romana and Mr. Grell went for a walk along the river.

  “You said that you used to fight the devils?” Romana asked.

  “There have always been warriors who stood up to them. There are different secret groups, and each group will have a few spells that they all share. We spent about half our time chasing the devils down, and half our time hiding from them. They caught us. I think all the others died in the fight. Can’t say for sure. They’re in Heaven now.”

  “I guess my family was a little like that. We didn’t call ourselves ‘warriors’ or anything. We were just us. We were just trying to live our lives and they kept coming after us.”

  They walked on a bit. Romana noticed that the Thames was decorated with images of Poseidon. That seemed a very strange thing to see out in public like that. “Is that meant to be the God of the ocean?”

  Mr. Grell took a closer look. “I hope not. It might be. I’ll choose to believe that its s’posed to be just be God. There are a lot of lies in this world, and a lot of people working to steer us all the wrong way. But I knew God would send help. I always believed God would get me out of Hell, and then you came.”

  “You know, I’m sorry, I don’t want to be rude. I know you needed to have something to believe in to get through all of that – but how can you believe in the Bible after everything we’ve seen?”

  Mr. Grell laughed. “Well, if seeing devils in Hell doesn’t convince you, I can’t imagine what would! That’s it. That’s proof.”

  “No, it isn’t. That wasn’t a lake of fire. That wasn’t anything like any passage in the Bible I’ve ever read. And where in the Bible does it talk about magic words that we have to imagine to cast spells? Or peoples’ bodies changing if they cast too many spells? You have lion arms!”

  Romana immediately regretted being so rude. She shouldn’t have brought up his deformed arms.

  “God gave me these arms,” Mr. Grell said sheepishly. Her comment had hurt him.

  At that moment, Romana remembered the crucifix hanging from her neck. She lifted it up and looked at it. Could there be spells which started with a cross instead of an inverted
pyramid or a dinosaur?

  “Look at you.” Mr. Grell pointed at her. “You talk like an atheist, but you wear your faith like a badge.”

  Romana frowned. “I think I believed a lot more before I went there. When the devils were just chasing me it was easier to…well, Septimus. I don’t trust him, but I don’t think he’s evil. I don’t think he’s any fallen angel. He’s just a guy.”

  “You think so?” Mr. Grell asked, staring into her eyes, as if nudging her into changing her mind.

  “What do you think about the aliens?” Romana changed the subject slightly.

  “What aliens?”

  “Edward says he’s seen them. He says they -”

  Mr. Grell interrupted, “Those are just the devils. They obfuscate, you see…”

  Romana thought for a moment before she spoke again. “I used to think that. I think we need to learn a lot more. Whatever the truth is, we’re all just stumbling around in the dark. What we really need is a Merlin. You know, some wise old magician who -”

  Mr. Grell smiled and held his arms out wide. “Why sweetie-pie, I’m right here. I’m your wise old man!”

  Romana laughed. “No, but really. In the Bible, it says that Adam and Eve were the first people on Earth?”

  “That’s what it says.”

  “And they had two sons, Cain and Abel.”

  “Right.”

  “Cain killed Abel and then moved to the city. Right? There are four people on Earth. One of them kills one of the others, and then he moves to the city and gets married? Come on…”

  “Just because we don’t understand, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

  “You know what? I understand perfectly well that it’s impossible. Let’s ignore archeology and fossils and the brontosaurus. I still know beyond any doubt that if there are only four people in the world, one of them dies, then another one can’t move away to the city and get married. I’m not confused.”