by Devon Monk
Okay, that was not what I thought he’d say.
“It’s always colors.”
“And music?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you have to memorize spells and Latin, Mr. Potter?”
“I don’t know. My owl got lost in the mail.”
He chortled. “Nerd. So how does it work?”
“I just…think of what I need to happen and it happens.”
“What about the other two times you used magic?”
“Does it matter?”
He turned and gave me that even, hard gaze. “It matters to me.”
“Is this what I owe you for lying?”
“No.”
I didn’t have to tell him. But he was my best friend. Who else could I share this with?
“A bicyclist was almost hit by a car backing out of a driveway.”
“When?”
“Fifth grade.”
“Where were you?”
“Walking to school. Your dad took you to a dentist appointment that morning. So I walked.”
“Okay. What happened?”
“The guy on the bike didn’t see the car. I think the lady in the car couldn’t see out of the windows. It was raining.”
“And?”
“I wanted the car to stop. I wanted the bike to stop. I knew if I yelled they wouldn’t stop. Wouldn’t hear me.”
I picked at the seam on the arm of the couch. It was a weird plaid color. Mr. Spark loved it. Mrs. Spark had been caught holding lit candles and gas cans too close to it on more than one occasion.
He waited for me to finish.
“I made the engine stop running. I made the bike tires stop spinning.”
“With magic.”
“With magic. It tangled in the tires, sounded like wind chimes caught in a storm. It flooded the engine and poured out of the hood, silver with oil rainbows. When it hit the ground it sounded like slapped cello strings.”
“Did it work?”
“Yeah. They didn’t see me. I ran and hid behind a bunch of garbage cans. I snapped the spells off as quickly as I could.”
And got so sick I passed out for a half hour. Showed up to school late. I didn’t tell him that part.
“Jesus, Ran. You saved his life. That makes two people you’ve saved.”
I shrugged, picked at the stitches. They were strong and unfrayed even though I knew the Sparks had had this couch for years. Mrs. Spark said it was too ugly to die.
“Was the other time saving someone’s life too?”
“Maybe? No. Not really. He stumbled off the trail. I just made sure there was something there to catch his foot, to push him back up from the cliff.”
“Cliff!”
“When we hiked the falls in sophomore year.”
“Who?”
“Brian Setter.”
He was watching me. He narrowed his eyes. “You got sick. I remember that. You barfed all over your hiking boots. I sat with you on the trail for almost an hour until you could move. I thought you had the flu. Or were dehydrated.”
“You gave me your water and let me eat your trail bar.”
“Yeah. And it was one of the heavy ones. In case I shifted.” He shook his head. “I cannot believe I didn’t realize you had just used magic. I know the signs. I’ve lived the signs. Jesus.”
“There was no reason for you to think it was me. And there weren’t any sensitives close enough to notice the magic.”
“Plus Gary Towns shifted and went running into the forest. They couldn’t get him out of the tree. Hilarious.”
I smiled. “That was funny. Didn’t he get suspended for a month?”
“And kicked off the football team.”
“He should have come down out of the tree the first time they asked him. Coach Ricker probably would have let him stay on the team.”
High school sports were mixed. Integrated. But that’s where the tolerance ended. After high school there were no mixed college games. No mixed pro.
“Are those the only times?”
“Yes.” I put my hand over my heart. “You now know all of my secrets.”
“Okay.” He went back to watching the clips from various training camps.
“You going to tell me what I owe you?” I asked after we both sat silently through a report listing the ten best rookie plays of the day. No one from the Avalanche. I wasn’t sure what I thought about that.
It should be me. I should be on the rookie highlight reel.
“Not yet,” Duncan said.
“Dinner’s going to be ready in an hour, boys.” Mr. Spark, I mean, Sean leaned through the living room doorway. “Kit will be home about then. Maybe you could hit the showers?”
“Do we stink?” I lifted an arm, took a sniff.
Sean just raised one eyebrow. “In a word—yes. Clean up, come on out. Random, it’s your turn to set the table.”
Duncan lingered, but I got up and headed toward the bathroom he and I shared.
“Ran?”
“Yeah?”
“You did the right thing with magic. All those times. When it mattered, you did the amazing thing. I’m glad you did it, even if you hated it.”
“Thanks, Donuts.” I gave him back the serious nod he offered me, then turned to the shower.
I needed to wash off the sweat, the bad mood, and the lie. Because Duncan was wrong. I didn’t hate using magic. Even though each time I’d used it I’d been terrified of it, I liked using magic. Liked how it made me feel.
Liked it too much.
Dinner was utterly normal and because of that, fantastic. Not for the first time in my life I crossed my fingers under the table and made a wish that this wouldn’t be the last time I got to sit at this table with these people.
Mr. and Mrs. Spark kept the conversation going. About her job at the hospital, about his at the library. About Duncan and me bumming around today.
And then about Duncan’s prospects.
“You’re trying out where?” I’d heard Sean say it; I just couldn’t believe Duncan hadn’t brought it up.
“Portland’s very own Thunderheads,” Kit said. Her red hair was pulled back in a braid, which made the freckles on her high cheekbones and nose even brighter. She was wearing her after-work comfy outfit: yoga pants and an oversized, colorful T-shirt. “WHHL. Right here in our own backyard. It’s exciting.”
She was proud of him. I could hear it in her voice. I could see the pride in Sean’s eyes too.
The Portland team was part of the long-neglected joke of a league that was finally trying to dig itself up out of blood sport level play. They played by NHL rules and regulations except for one thing: anyone could try out. And that included the marked.
There was always room for thugs and sinners in West Hell.
“I haven’t made the team yet,” Duncan said around a mouthful of garlic toast.
“But you’re going to try out, right?” I asked. “Have you been invited? Why didn’t you tell me? When is it?”
“He was invited to try out,” Sean said. “We sent a video of his work to Coach Clay and got a letter back.”
“Holy shit, Donut! That’s awesome!” I punched him in the shoulder.
“Hell yeah, I’m awesome!” He was smiling so wide, he almost lost his bread.
“Gross,” Kit scolded. “Manners, you heathens.”
“I have tomorrow off.” Sean scooped more salad on his plate and offered to do the same for his wife. “Thought I’d go with Duncan and watch. You should come with me, Random. Give him tips.”
“Like he knows hockey better than me,” Duncan scoffed.
“I think he’s got this,” I said. “He doesn’t need me there.”
“No!” Duncan looked panicked. “I didn’t mean you can’t be there. You’re gonna be there. You have to be there. You’re just not going to tell me what to do.”
“Maybe I have plans for the day.” I watched Duncan squirm. Why was he so nervous?
“Do you have plans?” Sean
asked mildly.
Everyone knew I had nothing planned for…well, for pretty much the rest of my life. I needed to pick up a hobby just so I could say I was busy instead of telling the truth.
I didn’t know if I could just go sit in the stands like a…like a bystander and watch Duncan make the hockey team. I mean, I wanted him to make it and I was happy for him, but hockey was still a big ole magical pain in my life right now.
“No,” I said. “No plans.”
“Well, then,” Sean said like that was settled.
“Fine. Okay. I’ll go with you.”
“You will?” Duncan sounded relieved.
“To see my best friend make the bigs? Duh.”
“Hey. Just because it’s not the NHL.” Duncan scowled.
“I didn’t mean it like that. West Hell is big, Duncan. Especially for guys like you. Like…us.”
The table went quiet. I shoved salad in my face and chewed. Sean cleared his throat. We still weren’t quite used to me admitting my wizardliness.
“Well, then it’s settled. Random will come with us in the morning.”
“Are you going to make it, Mom?” Duncan asked.
“I’ve got shift until 2:00. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Promise.”
“Good. Okay. Good.” Duncan went back to eating, but even from across the table, I could tell how happy he was.
Four
The thing I couldn’t figure out was why I had to put on my skates. But if Duncan had been nervous last night, he was in full-out panic mode this morning.
If not for me and Mr. Spark making sure he ate, hydrated, and put on pants, he would have never made it to the arena on time.
Or clothed.
He wasn’t freaked out enough that his eyes were doing that glowing-wolf thing, but the sweat covering his forehead was soaking through his Volcanoes baseball cap.
And then the weirdness started.
I had to put on my skates. I had to change into my gear.
Duncan refused to get on the ice unless I got on it with him.
“I wasn’t invited,” I said for the millionth time.
I was on the edge of the ice, right before the tryouts I was not going to try out, feeling stupid and conspicuous. “You seriously don’t need me to hold your hand, Dunc. You’re all grown up now.” I wiped fake tears from under my eyes and sniffed. “My little boy.”
He rolled his eyes.
“It doesn’t matter if you were invited or not,” he growled. “This is an open tryout, you dork. Anyone can be on the ice. You’re going to be on the ice. You’re not going to leave me alone on the ice. You can’t, Ran. You’re doing this. If I’m doing this, you’re doing this. You have to.”
“I’m not trying out for the Portland Thunderheads.”
“Yes. You are.” Suddenly Duncan’s nerves and panic were gone, replaced by that steely resolve. The wolf I rarely saw him lose control over slipped through, eyes flashing an eerie green before they went back to their normal hazel. He locked his jaw in that way that meant he was in for the long fight. That he would do anything to win.
I hated that look.
“No, I’m not.”
“You promised.”
“When did I promise that I would try out for the Thunderheads?”
“I said you owed me something for lying and you agreed to give it to me. This is that something.”
“Trying out for West Hell is not something someone does to apologize for a lie!”
“A lie they’ve been living their entire life? Since he and his best friend were in first grade, Random?”
I hated that tone too. It was the one that said he wasn’t above fighting dirty.
“You can’t make this kind of decision for my life.” It wasn’t much of an argument. He’d been making these kinds of decisions for my life since first grade. Well, when it came to hockey. He was the one who had insisted I try it. He had not been wrong about how much I would love it.
But I hadn’t really thought about the WHHL. That had always been Duncan’s dream. My dream was the NHL. This might be a good idea, but I wasn’t ready for it, hadn’t thought it through.
It was happening too fast.
“You have to try out. That’s it. If they offer you a spot?” His eyes went a little hard and he lifted his hands palm up. “You can always turn it down and do that other thing you want to do with your life. Right? Oh, wait. There is no other thing.”
I stood there, anger building like dry kindling in my chest, ready for a flame. He was being an ass. He was also not wrong. I wanted hockey and this was a way, maybe the only way left, to get it.
“Or,” he said, wrapping one hand around the back of my neck and bending down so that our faces were even because he was stupidly tall. “You could impress the hell out of them, prove how good you really are, and be the first damn wizard to win the Broughton Cup and take home a hockey championship.”
The kindling in my chest burst into an inferno of hope.
I wanted that. I wanted to fight hard and work hard and play hard. I wanted to be on a team and play hockey with everything I was.
I wanted to show the world, or at least the NHL, that a wizard wasn’t less, wasn’t flawed. Wasn’t something other than human.
Those emotions hit me like a hard wind. Strong enough I had to breathe heavy to catch my breath.
Magic didn’t push at me. Not often, but right here, with the possibility of hockey almost in my grasp, I could feel it, tempting, sweet, needy. Telling me I could make things happen. Telling me I could make things happen my way.
I was good at hiding magic, even better at denying it. I’d been doing it all my life.
Duncan raised his eyebrows in challenge. “Step up, Houdini. Show them what you got.” He grinned and skated away from me.
My heart beat fast, faster and the rhythm pounded like a chant: hock-ey, hock-ey, hock-ey.
I could play. I could strive and fight and battle and win.
I could do it with Duncan at my side, just like he had always been.
This could be my team. My family.
All I had to do was outskate, and out-play every other person on the ice.
I glanced back at the stands, immediately zeroing in on Sean. Had he known about this? Would he approve?
He smiled and held up a sheet of paper and pen. The tryout forms. He tipped his head in question, for that moment looking so much like his son, I almost laughed.
I’d been set up. Ganged up on by the Sparks. I wouldn’t be surprised if Kit was in on it too. It had probably been her idea to begin with.
They all wanted me to play. They knew how important it was to me.
And family always had each other’s backs.
I nodded.
Sean gave me a thumbs up, then started filling out my paperwork.
I turned and took a full three minutes to watch the other players on the ice, my heart pounding with excitement.
And then I joined the fray.
Five
Coach Clay was light-haired, blue-eyed, and had the kind of sunshine intensity I’d expect from a surfer. Physically, I could see the retired forward in him. Fit, muscled, and tall. He’d played right wing through his college league, his skill ignored by the NHL because he was a Felidae shifter. Snow leopard.
Which meant he’d played in the WHHL when it had been nothing more than a freak league, filling the venues with promises of men turning into wild animals that got into blood-spilling, bone-breaking fights. Literally.
It did happen. Shifters had to fight to control the magic that wanted to shape their bodies. Stress made that control more slippery. So did anger, aggression, violence, competition. High emotion.
Contact sports triggered shifts on an almost regular basis.
Contact sports like hockey.
Ten years ago, the WHHL, and its sister leagues, the SHHL, EHHL, and NHHL, were mocked as staged theatrics instead of an actual sport. Rumors that the coaches and players were on the take and could be bou
ght off to throw games were common. Most events never made it through all three periods, dissolving into fights that closed the venue down.
Allegations that players received money for not only shifting, but also causing life-threatening injuries hit the headlines every week.
Players had become famous for that sort of thing. Teams reveled in their bloody theatrics.
Basically, it had been a shit show.
But that started to change five years ago when a right winger named Clay, and an old defenseman named Beauchamp, somehow got enough money together along with a cake mogul/part-time politician named Franklin, to buy the Portland Thunderheads. The team had been on the brink of folding.
Clay had been thirty-five and Beauchamp had been fifty-five. Neither of them had been rich, but they’d pulled some favors from friends who had money and Franklin had pitched in the rest.
They put a lot of effort into cleaning up the team’s image, requiring community service and charitable involvement from players. They kicked a lot of players off the roster, and only kept those who could not only hold their own physically, but who could also play.
It hadn’t been a smooth transition. The WHHL’s reputation still wasn’t all that stellar. A lot of players hated and resented Coach Clay and Assistant Coach Beauchamp.
But they’d single-handedly turned the Thunderheads into a real team that played hard, old-school hockey by the rules and won despite the fights that still broke out on the ice.
That pretty much shamed the other teams in the league to step it up.
When the word got out that the team’s roster was full of top-notch NHL-level marked hockey players, along with actual retired NHL players, the stands filled steadily. With the growing audience came money and advertising to keep the team going.
It hadn’t taken long for other teams to decide they wanted a piece of that success. Except for a few holdouts, the other teams were following the Boomer’s example: cleaning up, bringing in players with talent, and coaches and trainers who cared more about hockey than the freak show.
Five years of good, hard hockey was slowly pushing the league toward something that almost resembled a respectable competition.
It still wasn’t enough to abolish the reputation from all the previous years, and there were still coaches and players who liked the league the old way, but it was a hell of a start toward something new. Something better.
