The Society of Thirteen

by Gareth P. Jones

  ‘What?’ said Tom, batting it away.

  Once again the magpie flew round and round in circles.

  ‘You want me to draw it bigger?’ guessed Tom.

  The magpie nodded.

  Tom drew the shape again. When it was complete the magpie tapped the middle of the shape on the book. Tom understood that he was supposed to stand in the centre of the shape. With the stick still in his hand, Tom stepped inside, placing both feet within the smaller of the two circles.

  He felt a strange sensation. At first it was as though he was being swallowed up by the ground. Then it was more like the ground was raising him up. The three shapes, which had barely been visible on the cold, hard ground, grew distinct. Tom felt the beauty of their symmetry. He saw shapes in everything he looked at. They were there in the grey sky divided by the leafless branches of the tree. He saw them in the blades of grass and the bark of the tree. Colours deepened. Browns and greens spread up from the soil and stained his feet, creeping up his body. His own hands aged in front of his eyes. His heartbeat quickened. Tom felt power and strength like he had never felt before. Then, whatever had him in its grip released him and he collapsed to the ground.

  ‘At last,’ said a voice. ‘I thought I was going to have to spend all day hopping about, tapping this withered old beak like a demented bird.’

  Tom lifted his head and looked at the mangy magpie.

  ‘You can talk?’ he said.

  ‘The point is not that I can talk but that you are finally able to listen,’ said the magpie.

  Yes, thought Tom. This was most definitely madness.

  Chapter 21

  Mavis

  Following Mr G. Hayman off the train, Sir Tyrrell found his mind wandering back to his constituency meeting and the troubling lady who had been so vocal in her support of votes for women. There was no question that the world was changing. Sir Tyrrell was by no means against progress but the future represented by these modern women troubled him deeply. This fine old country needed fine old men like him to uphold the values that had ensured its greatness for so many centuries, but it sometimes seemed to him that he was part of a dying breed in politics. There were too many young men with new ideas, when what the world really required was stability.

  ‘This had better be worth our while. I’m missing an important parliamentary debate for this,’ he grumbled, as they walked through the quiet Kent village.

  ‘There is never any guarantee that these research trips will be fruitful,’ said Mr G. Hayman. ‘But I have interviewed Mavis before and she has much to say.’

  Sir Tyrrell grunted but made no further comment. Mr G. Hayman led them to a cottage with wild green vines growing over its walls, as though the earth itself was rising up and slowly devouring it.

  To Sir Tyrrell’s eyes the old woman who answered the door looked like the epitome of what a witch should look like. Had she lived a hundred years ago, she would undoubtedly have found herself on the wrong side of a pitchfork and an angry mob. The crooked nose and hairy warts were straight out of an illustrated version of Macbeth that Sir Tyrrell had owned as a child, and yet her eyes twinkled kindly as she welcomed them into her home.

  ‘Hello, Mavis,’ said Mr G. Hayman. ‘I came to see you on a previous occasion. My name is –’

  ‘Georgina,’ interrupted the old woman. ‘Yes, I remember you. Come in, my dear. You have a friend this time.’

  ‘This is Sir –’ began Mr G. Hayman.

  ‘Augustus will do,’ interrupted Sir Tyrrell hastily.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Mavis, leading them into a cosy but dimly lit room. Sir Tyrrell took Mr G. Hayman’s lead in accepting a cup of tea, although he had his doubts about the cleanliness of the cup in which it was served.

  ‘So what would you like to know about?’ asked Mavis.

  ‘The Book of Thirteen,’ said Mr G. Hayman. ‘You told me about it last time I visited.’

  ‘Ah yes, Olwyn Broe’s book.’

  ‘What do you know about it?’ asked Mr G. Hayman.

  ‘It was Olwyn’s spell book, so they say.’

  ‘A spell book with no words?’ said Sir Tyrrell.

  The old woman peered at him with renewed interest. ‘Why do you say it has no words?’ she asked. ‘The Book of Thirteen has not been seen for centuries.’

  Unsure how to respond, Sir Tyrrell said nothing.

  ‘When was it written?’ asked Mr G. Hayman.

  ‘It was written in the time before Conjury vanished from the world, many centuries ago.’

  ‘Conjury?’ said Sir Tyrrell.

  ‘Magic, to you and me,’ said Mavis. ‘They say that Olwyn knew that Conjury was vanishing and so she wrote down all of her spells.’

  ‘For what reason?’ asked Mr G. Hayman.

  Mavis nodded. ‘Yes, that’s the question, isn’t it? Why? What was it for? Who was it for?’

  ‘And the answers to those questions?’ said Sir Tyrrell, impatiently.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ said Mavis.

  ‘Then what is the point of all these riddles?’ demanded Sir Tyrrell.

  ‘Sometimes riddles are all we have to remember the past,’ said Mavis.

  ‘But what happened to the Conjurors? Why did Conjury disappear?’ asked Sir Tyrrell.

  Mavis sipped her tea. ‘While Olwyn was writing her book, there was another force tearing through the land, destroying the Conjurors.’

  ‘You speak of witch-hunters,’ said Sir Tyrrell.

  ‘They took their share, it’s true, but they alone could not have wiped out the Conjurors. No, it was one of their own who sealed their fate. A Conjuror by the name of Mondriat, who wanted to make himself more powerful, set about stealing Conjury and obliterating his own kind, one by one.’

  ‘Did he also kill Olwyn?’ asked Mr G. Hayman.

  ‘No,’ said Mavis. ‘There was something between them. When he was done, they were the last two remaining, but even Conjurors cannot cheat the reaper and their deaths brought the end of Conjury. Perhaps Olwyn wrote the book so there was something to remember them by, but it has not been seen since her death.’

  ‘So why thirteen?’ asked Mr G. Hayman. ‘What does it mean?’

  Mavis put her teacup down. ‘It is said only a thirteen-year-old can become a Conjuror.’

  ‘A child?’ barked Sir Tyrrell.

  The old woman nodded. ‘Only a thirteen-year-old has the strength to endure the process of drawing in the lifeblood, while possessing a mind still open to the infinite possibilities of Conjury.’

  ‘Are you saying that any thirteen-year-old can perform magic?’ said Sir Tyrrell.

  ‘No, not any,’ said Mavis. ‘Conjurors are children of the Earthsoul. Therefore they must be alone in the world.’

  ‘Orphaned?’ said Mr G. Hayman.

  ‘That’s it.’ She nodded.

  ‘There are enough thirteen-year-old orphans in the world,’ said Sir Tyrrell. ‘Why are none of them Conjurors any more?’

  ‘Because the old ways have been forgotten,’ replied Mavis. ‘One must know how to perform the Creation Spell to become Infected.’

  Sir Tyrrell looked at Mr G. Hayman. He had interviewed his fair share of experts and was as adept as any at picking out the frauds and the deluded. Mavis struck him as neither. Right or wrong, he was in no doubt that she believed every word.

  Chapter 22

  Cards

  Esther stared out at the river. She was worried. Tom should have been back at the warehouse by now. Even if something had gone wrong and he had failed to snatch the book, he should have come back. Esther was staring so intently into the darkness that she nearly jumped out of her skin when a quiet meow from the window signalled the arrival of a black cat. She wondered whether it could possibly be the same one she had seen outside Mr Symmonds’ house.

  ‘Hello puss,’ she said.

  The cat stepped down onto the mattress. Esther stroked its back, while her mind ran through every possible reason for Tom’s absence. Non
e of them was reassuring but one in particular scared her more than the others. Although Esther was only a couple of months older than Tom, she had looked out for him since his first day at the orphanage. It had been her idea to leave and make a life of their own on the streets. If Esther acted as a mother to him then it stood to reason that a time would come when he outgrew her and left her to make his own life, just as they had both outgrown the orphanage.

  The creak of a floorboard snapped her out of her thoughts. Someone was inside the building, and it wasn’t Tom. He always came in around the outside of the building. This intruder was coming through the inside, jumping up onto the upper floor.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Esther pushed the cat off her lap and picked up the piece of wood with nails in one end that she kept by the side of her bed.

  ‘I’m not surprised you don’t get many guests if you give them all such a welcome.’ Harry Clay stepped into the room.

  ‘Why are you here?’ demanded Esther.

  ‘I wanted to congratulate you on an excellent performance today at the bakery. Some of the best misdirection work I’ve ever witnessed.’

  ‘I didn’t see you there,’ replied Esther.

  ‘No more than your mark saw you dressed up as a baker’s boy,’ said Clay. ‘There’s a lot of not being seen today, but it’s what people like you and me are good at, isn’t it? That’s why I had to leave Ringmore out of this one. He’s a smart fellow, but he sticks out like a sore thumb.’

  ‘A sore thumb in a top hat,’ said Esther.

  ‘Exactly. However, I’m not hiding now and we can see each other clearly.’ He held out his open palms.

  ‘I don’t know what you want.’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ said Clay. ‘The same thing you wanted when you did your whole flour-throwing act. I want the book, Esther.’

  ‘I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Let’s drop all the lies now, shall we?’ said Clay.

  ‘I haven’t got it.’

  ‘Of course not. When you failed to make a straight snatch in the shop you used the flour and planted the purse so your target would ditch it. I’m guessing it was Tom’s job to get it if that happened. You were the distraction. Tom was picking up the book, wasn’t he? So what shall we do while we wait for him to arrive?’ He pulled out a pack of cards. ‘You play?’

  ‘You can’t just break into people’s homes and expect them to play cards with you.’

  Mr Clay laughed. It was rich, warm, genuine laughter and it made Esther feel sick to the soles of her feet.

  Chapter 23

  Vanishing

  Shortly after Tom and Esther ran away from the orphanage they had met an old woman by the name of Mrs Drew who lived in Whitechapel. She was kind to them, even if she did engage in long conversations with her bottle of gin, which she called my lovely. She offered them a place to stay for the night, but late that night she crept into their room, holding her gin bottle in one hand and a bread knife in the other. It was lucky Tom had been unable to sleep. As they ran from that house, they heard her calling after them, ‘It’s not me. I do only that which my lovely bids me do.’ The orphans had laughed about it afterwards, but Tom had wondered since then how easy it was to lose a sense of what was real and what was not. A talking bird, he feared, would have seemed perfectly normal to mad old Mrs Drew.

  ‘You’re a talking magpie.’ It was all Tom could think to say.

  The magpie sighed and looked exasperated. Tom had never seen a magpie do either of these things before. ‘The fact that I can talk should tell you that I am not a magpie at all.’

  ‘You look like a magpie.’

  ‘Of course I look like a magpie,’ snapped the bird. ‘But was I born a magpie? No, I was not. My name is Mondriat and I was born in Venice, Italy, a long time ago.’

  ‘You don’t sound Italian.’

  ‘And you’d be the expert on what an Italian-born Conjuror confined to the body of a magpie should sound like, would you?’ retorted the magpie.

  ‘A Conjuror?’ whispered Tom.

  ‘A Conjuror,’ said the magpie. ‘It is what you are. You have been Infected by the lifeblood, the source of energy that flows from the heart of the earth. Can’t you feel it flowing through your veins just as it flows through the rivers of the world? The world looks different now, does it not?’

  It was true. Every detail was sharper. The rustle of the trees, the movement of the clouds, the sound of earthworms squirming beneath the soil, all of it was so vivid. The world moved so slowly. Or was it him that was moving quickly? Tom took a deep breath and tasted every particle of air. He felt strong. Powerful.

  ‘There is much you need to learn,’ said the magpie. ‘Much I will tell you. All you need to know now is that you have performed the Creation Spell. The circle encompasses the triangle which holds the circle. These shapes are the basis of all Conjury. Your staff formed the shapes and so you drew the lifeblood into your veins.’

  ‘My staff?’ said Tom, looking at the stick he was holding.

  ‘Trees draw straight from the Earthsoul, as does everything that grows from the earth. Any branch may be used but you will find a special affinity for this, your creation staff. In your right hand, your staff must form the spells on the ground, channelling, harnessing, Conjuring that energy while your left turns it into wondrous, beautiful things.’

  ‘Don’t I need to say magic words or something?’

  ‘Ridiculous boy,’ snorted Mondriat. ‘Try shouting at the waves or asking the sun not to set. No, words will not help you.’

  ‘Can you do all these things?’

  Mondriat shook his head. ‘It takes a human form to draw out the required energy. I am able to overcome these weak animal spirits and squeeze my own into their bodies but a human is a more complex machine. My Conjuring days are behind me but now you have performed the spell I can act as your familiar and together we can bring Conjury back to the world.’ Mondriat fluttered up to a high branch. ‘Talking of which … ’

  Tom turned to see Hardy and the others walking fast towards them.

  ‘What do I do?’ he asked.

  ‘Best to avoid complex spells until you find a mirror.’ Mondriat flapped back to the ground, nudged the book open with his beak and flicked through. ‘But you could try this one.’

  ‘Try what one?’ said Tom.

  ‘Make this spell with your staff,’ explained Mondriat, sounding extremely exasperated.

  Tom picked up the book and looked at a picture of two circles inside a larger one with three lines connecting them together. He drew the shape on the ground.

  ‘Now step inside and imagine yourself invisible as the air,’ said Mondriat. ‘Use the power of the Earthsoul to fuel your imagination.’

  Hardy was getting nearer.

  ‘That’s it,’ continued the magpie. ‘Use your other hand to draw the energy around you.’

  ‘It was up here he tripped me,’ Worms was saying.

  ‘I think I see someone,’ said Brewer.

  ‘Clear your mind. Anything within the realms of your imagination is possible,’ said Mondriat.

  Hardy appeared around the side of a tree and stopped in front of Tom.

  Tom stared back at him. He could see the fury in Hardy’s eyes. He wondered why he had decided to listen to the magpie. He should have run. He was about to say something when he realised that Hardy wasn’t looking at him. Even though he was standing inches away from his face, Hardy was staring straight through him. He turned to Worms. ‘Well, he’s not here now.’

  ‘What’s so special about that book anyway?’ asked Stump.

  ‘That is a very good question,’ replied Hardy. ‘I think we’d better go and find out, and luckily I know just where to look.’

  Chapter 24

  Tricked

  Esther remembered how one of the punters on Albert Dock had suggested that Clay had telepathic powers, but she had seen too much trickery and deception on London’s streets not to recognise that
he was an expert trickster, even when he was putting his skills to grander use. She did not believe for one moment that Clay possessed actual magical powers, but there was something unnerving about his manner as he sat on Tom’s mattress, his knowing eyes watching her.

  ‘How do you escape from all them chains then?’ she asked.

  ‘I go to great lengths to avoid anyone learning how,’ he replied. ‘As we say in our industry, reveal the how and lose the wow.’

  ‘You mean that if your audience saw all them trick knots and weak chain links they wouldn’t be so keen to throw their hard-earned cash at you?’

  Clay smiled. ‘You’re an intelligent girl. In a few years’ time you come find me and I’ll see if I can’t fix you up as a magician’s assistant.’

  ‘Is that what you are then? A magician?’ Esther stroked the black cat, curled up on her lap and softly purring.

  ‘Escapology, mind-reading, spirit-talking, sawing ladies in half,’ said Clay. ‘It’s all trickery, and we tricksters like to call ourselves magicians because, as you rightly point out, it makes it easier to get people to part with their hard-earned money.’

  ‘It’s not real magic though, is it?’ said Esther.

  Clay’s gaze seemed to intensify as he leant forward to scrutinise Esther. In his hand he shuffled the pack of cards. He opened them into a fan and offered them to her. ‘Take one,’ he said.

  Esther chose her card carefully, ensuring not to pick one from the side he offered her. She looked at the card. It was the queen of spades.

  ‘Do you think I know your card yet?’ he asked.

  ‘Not unless it’s a trick pack.’

  He turned the pack over to prove that it was not. He flipped it back over, straightened them and told her to push her card into the pack.

  ‘What about now?’ he asked. ‘Do you think I snuck a peak then?’