The Ebony Finches: A Transition Magic Thriller

by J. E. Hopkins

  “You know why they call me General?”

  Because you are a general pain in the ass?

  “I guess because you’re named after the confederate loser,” Tommy said.

  A cutting look of anger flickered on Robert Lee’s face, then disappeared. Tommy didn’t think his mother had noticed.

  “We’ll talk about losers later, when we have more time,” Robert Lee said. “And, speaking of names, we need to change yours. Tommy is a pussy kid’s name. From now on, you’re GT.” He shifted his scrutiny to Tommy’s mother. “Good time to start making a man out of the boy, what do you say, Claire?”

  GT’s mother dropped her gaze to the asphalt. “Whatever you think, Robert Lee.”

  She is afraid of him, no matter what she says.

  Robert Lee opened the car door and climbed into the back seat of the hatchback. “Let’s get on the road. I stayed up all night celebrating my release and need some sleep. We’ll catch up later.”

  He fell asleep before they’d gone five miles and stayed that way for the next four hours.

  Neither GT nor his mom had said anything since they left the prison, but he couldn’t wait any longer. “Mom, I need to pee.” He kept his voice low. The last thing he wanted to do was wake up Asshole.

  She smiled. “Me too. We’ll stop at the next McDonald’s.”

  The slow Texas drawl from the back seat made GT jump. “Good, that makes three of us. I’ve been dreaming of a Big Mac for months.”

  GT tapped his foot on the passenger side floorboard as his mother pulled under the carport next to their rented house in Pecos. The large McDonald’s Coke he’d gotten three hours earlier was making the need for the bathroom impossible to ignore.

  He was even more eager to get out of the car and away from Asshole.

  They’d been two hours away from home when the ex-con sat up in the back seat and started interrogating GT about his friends and school. GT had given the shortest answers he thought he could get away with.

  Then Asshole’s questions had gotten weird. He wanted to know what GT thought about all the wetbacks living in Texas and why the government helped them take jobs from real Americans. And wouldn’t GT want to join a group that was going to do something about that injustice? When GT didn’t answer, Robert Lee went on a rant about the need to replace the government with men who understood American values. By the time he finished, he was leaning over the back seat, panting like a mad dog and blanketing GT in a fog of bad breath.

  His mom never said anything.

  The rant stopped as quickly as it started. Robert Lee curled up on the back seat and stayed put for the rest of the trip.

  His mother switched off the ignition and the twenty-plus-year-old hatchback dieseled, backfired, and died. She looked at GT. “Sorry, baby, but can you let me go to the bathroom first? I’m about to wet my pants.”

  “He’s not a baby, Claire.”

  Asshole was awake.

  “Son, let your mama use the bathroom. If you can’t wait, go out back and piss on a cactus.”

  GT swung open the passenger door and jumped out, hopping from one foot to the other. “Hurry mom, I gotta go bad.” He didn’t bother pulling the front seat forward to make it easier for Robert Lee to get out of the car.

  His mother climbed from behind the wheel and ran to the front door. “I’ll be quick, baby.” She fumbled with her keys, unlocked the door, and disappeared inside.

  Asshole slammed the driver’s seat forward and struggled until he extricated himself from the hatchback. He turned, the setting sun at his back, looking to GT like a white-haired demon with a blinding orange halo. He glared over the cracked blue paint of the car’s roof. “Do like I told you, go out back and piss. Baby.”

  GT’s face purpled with rage. “You don’t tell me what to do. I’m not your son! I don’t even know you. Why don’t you just leave us alone?”

  Before GT could figure out what was happening, the demon stormed around the car and punched him in the stomach, hard enough to knock the wind out of him and drop him to the cracked concrete pad. A warm flood streamed down his legs.

  “You little pussy. What’s the matter, you afraid to piss outside?” Robert Lee noticed the spreading stain on GT’s jeans and hooted in derision. “Aw, Christ on a stick. I guess you’re okay pissing outside after all.” He shook his head. “You’re a stinking, miserable little girl.”

  GT sat up, sucked air into his lungs and snarled, “Fuck you.”

  Asshole stared down at him for a moment, then smiled. “Maybe you do have some pluck after all.” He reached down to help GT get to his feet.

  GT ignored the offered hand, scrambled to his feet, and backed away.

  “You do what I say, no questions asked.” Robert Lee’s voice was so low that GT could barely hear him. “If you don’t or if you tell your mother anything about what just happened, I’ll beat you to within an inch of your life. You got that?”

  GT was watching The Big Bang Theory on TV, eating a Salisbury steak frozen dinner, when Asshole opened the door and strode into the living room. Three days had passed since their confrontation in the carport.

  He was talking on a cell phone. “Yeah, I got it. I’ll take care of it right now.” He flipped the phone closed, stuck it in his pocket, and looked at GT

  “I need to use your computer for a few minutes.”

  When did he get a phone?

  GT sighed.

  I can just bet who’s paying for it.

  Since his mother was stuck on night shifts at Bush’s Diner, GT had been afraid he’d be alone in the house with the bastard every evening. Fortunately, Asshole left the house each day around six and didn’t come back until GT was in bed. This was the first night he’d come home early.

  “What do you need my computer for?” GT asked.

  From the hot anger on Asshole’s face, GT feared that he was about to get punched again.

  A smirk replaced the anger. “You really want to know? Watch me and learn. It’s time for you to start seeing the real world.”

  GT got up, took the plastic tray from his dinner to the kitchen trash bin and went to his bedroom, Asshole following close behind.

  “Your damn bedroom is about the same size as my cell at Telford.”

  “It’s big enough.” A rumpled twin bed was shoved into a corner opposite the door and a card table sat under a small window to the right of the bed. An old Dell laptop was open on the scarred table.

  GT started to sit down, but Robert Lee brushed him aside. “Stand behind me.”

  GT shuffled behind the chair and watched as Asshole launched the web browser and typed in the address for Gmail. “Where did you learn to use a computer? They have them in prison?”

  “Yeah. They used them for training, so we’d know the basics when we got out. But they didn’t connect to the outside world, so they weren’t worth shit.”

  Robert Lee brought up Internet Explorer and navigated to the Gmail page. GT’s email popped onto the screen.

  GT’s heart rate doubled. “Shit, I don’t want you in my email.”

  “Don’t get your panties in a wad. I’ve got my own.”

  “When did you get a Gmail account?”

  “Full of questions, aren’t you?”

  Asshole logged out of GT’s account and logged back in using his own credentials. He started creating a new email message. It was addressed to potusdirect!435Vch@securedwh.gov.

  “Who is potusdirect?”

  “The president.”

  “How do you know that? It’s gotta be private.”

  “We have someone inside the White House who got the president’s private email address.”

  “We?”

  “GT, I’m not just some ex-con piece of shit, like you think I am. I’m the leader of an organization that will do anything to save our country. There are thousands of us, at all levels of the government.”

  “Bullshit. I bet you just googled for it. It’s probably bogus.” GT stepped back from the cha
ir, expecting to get a swat in the face. When nothing happened, he returned to looking over Asshole’s shoulder, curious at what the man was going to do.

  “Why are you writing the president?”

  “Shut the fuck up and watch.”

  The message was short:

  To: The President of The United States

  By 2030 there won’t be enough white, child-bearing females left in the United States to sustain a population. The time to take back our country has come, starting at the top. You are a dead man walking.

  Robert Lee hit the send button and chortled. “I’ve been waiting to do that for a long time.”

  “Are you crazy?” GT asked. “You used my computer to threaten the president!”

  “Relax. Some very smart people showed me how to do this. The email can’t be traced.”

  “Why’d you use my computer? Why not use one in a coffee shop or—”

  “You’re not paying attention. The message can’t be traced. Yours was as good as any other; it was convenient. Quit your whining.”

  Jesus. He’s an asshole and stupid. All I have to do is turn him in and he’s gone.

  Robert Lee got up from the chair, turned, and leaned down into GT’s face. “Pay close attention to what I’m about to say, you little prick.” His ice-blue eyes seemed to glow in the dim light of the bedroom. “You’re my son. That makes you one of us now. Don’t even think of crossing me. You think I’m a badass? If you ever breathe a word of this, my people will hunt you down, cut your balls off, and skin you alive.”

  GT jolted awake to the sound of Muddy Waters “I Got My MoJo Working” on his iPod. He’d only been asleep for a couple of hours. It had been impossible to shut his mind down after watching Robert Lee send the threatening email to the president.

  I have to decide what to do. I can’t just pretend nothing happened. But Asshole wasn’t kidding. His guys really will come after me.

  His iPod was timed to go off at six. That gave him a half-hour to get ready for school and get out the door. On auto pilot, he grabbed jeans, clean boxers, and a T-shirt, then stumbled down the hall to get a shower. After toweling dry, he wiped the steam off the medicine-cabinet mirror to comb his hair. He jerked back at his reflection, at first thinking that some stranger was standing behind him. His heart pounded as he leaned forward, blinked, and looked again. The colored part of his eyes were as black as midnight on a country road.

  1946

  13

  Near Prague, Czechoslovakia

  Gold lantern light danced behind the curtained windows of the Berndt farmhouse. Karina stomped on the steps of the porch to announce her arrival, walked to the door, and knocked. Maria’s house was huge, with separate bedrooms for her and her parents, plus another room they used for just for eating. Bare feet slapped across a wood floor and the curtain in the window next to the door fluttered.

  Maria opened the door, her wet blonde hair hanging in loose curls to the shoulders of a nightshirt that almost touched the floor. “Karina!” She hesitated. “You okay? Something wrong?”

  “I’m fine. Why?”

  “It’s after dark, you’re breathing like you ran all the way here, and you’re as white as snow. Why would I think something’s wrong?”

  Karina lowered her voice to a whisper. “Tell you later. Don’t want to worry your mom and dad.” She spotted Maria’s father walking toward the door and resumed a normal tone. “I’ve got news from the ministry.”

  “Good, good,” Pan Brendt said. “Come in, get warm, tell us.”

  He settled Karina into a chair in the front room, next to the fireplace and its glowing bed of coals. Maria sat on the sofa on the other side of the room, between her mother and father.

  “This letter came today.”

  Pan Berndt got up, walked over and took the paper from Karina’s outstretched hand, and returned to the sofa. His face grew red as his eyes moved down the page. “So. They’ve refused us.”

  He passed the letter to Maria’s mother, who read it with Maria looking over her shoulder.

  Karina nodded, fighting the return of her earlier tears.

  Maria looked up. “But isn’t this also good news? We can’t emigrate. Doesn’t that mean we’re allowed to stay in Czechoslovakia?”

  Her father shook his head. “No, Maria. The letter only concerns itself with our little band’s request for papers to leave for Australia. The ministry’s earlier order for everyone with German heritage to leave the country is still in force. We must go.”

  “But—”

  Maria’s mother and father exchanged glances. “Your mama and I have discussed what we would do if we were refused. I can trade the farm for a cart and horse. We’ll leave for Leipzig the day after tomorrow. I have cousins who live there and I’ll ask them to take us in until we can get settled.”

  Maria started sobbing. “But maybe you’re wrong. Maybe this letter means we can stay. Why don’t we at least wait until someone comes to make us go?”

  “Stop whining, Maria,” her mother said. “It gets more dangerous for us with each new day and if we wait much longer, the communists may force us into an internment camp. Your father knows best.”

  Pani Berndt looked from her daughter to Karina. “Will you stay the night? That will give you some time to say good-bye and it would comfort Maria.”

  Karina thought about her mother’s insistence that she return home as soon as she delivered the letter.

  I never promised and, besides, this could be the last time I see Maria.

  She remembered the men who’d been lurking in the woods and shivered.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’d like that.”

  “Then off you go, the two of you,” Pani Berndt said. “I’ll make a nice breakfast at first light and get you on your way with a full belly.”

  Karina and Maria took a lantern into Maria’s bedroom, where Maria made up another pallet on the floor, next to her own.

  They squatted on the pallets, hugged, and cried together for several minutes without speaking.

  Maria pulled back and wiped her face. “What didn’t you want poppa to hear?”

  Karina told her about her pursuit by the two ogres and her narrow escape. Maria giggled when Karina got to the part about mistaking a branch for a man’s hand.

  “I’ll miss you,” Maria said. “I’ll never have another friend like you.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I have something for you. You gotta swear on your father’s grave that you won’t tell anyone about it.”

  The mention of her father startled Karina. She and Maria used all kinds of different promises to keep secrets. Karina’s most solemn promise was on her father’s grave. She’d only done it once before, when Maria had told her about kissing a boy.

  “What is it?” Karina asked.

  “Swear first.”

  “Huh-uh. Not until you tell me what it is.”

  Maria got up and walked across her bedroom, stooped, pulled up a floorboard in the corner, and retrieved a folded piece of paper. She came back and sat down on her pallet. “It’s the words to the Transition ritual. The words that let you do magic.”

  “How did you get them? Are they real?” Karina reached for the paper, but Maria jerked it out of reach.

  “Swear first.”

  “I swear on my father’s grave that I’ll never tell anyone where I got this.” She crossed her heart. “Hope to die.”

  “You remember Alexandr?”

  “Of course.” Alexandr was the boy Maria had kissed.

  Maria handed the paper to Karina. “He gave it to me.”

  Karina unfolded the half-page and studied the verses written on it. “How does Alexandr know the ritual?”

  “He’s studying to be a priest. His teacher gave it to him.”

  Karina giggled. “He wants to be a priest who kisses girls? Who’s his teacher?”

  “He never told me. He belongs to an underground church.”

  The Nazis hated religion, especially Cath
olicism. The communists were worse. Ever since the Russians started taking power, people of faith had started concealing their religious services.

  “So these words are true?”

  Maria shrugged. “How would I know? Alexandr told me that priests are taught the words as part of their training.”

  “Yeah.” Karina had heard rumors that the church had always known the secrets of Transition.

  Maybe it’s true.

  “Anyway, I memorized them, so you might as well have this.”

  “I don’t know what to say. Thank you.”

  “There’s one other thing Alexandr told me. It’s really, really important.”

  Karina raised her right eyebrow in a silent question. Sometimes Maria would drag out a story so that it would take forever for her to tell it. This was starting to feel like one of those times.

  “Whatever you use the magic for, it can’t be for something that some other kid has already done. Ever. Because if it is, you’ll die.”

  Karina snorted. “Die?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “Hovadina—baloney,” Karina said. “I don’t believe it.”

  “He swore that’s what the priest told him.”

  “Maybe.”

  Maria shrugged. “How much time do you have left in your Transition?”

  Karina was studying the page, mesmerized by the words. She looked up. “About a week.”

  “You wanna try them tonight? I’d love to know if they work.”

  Karina’s pulse accelerated. It was tempting.

  What if Alexandr was right about dying?

  “I’m not sure I ever want to try them.”

  Maria looked disappointed, but changed the conversation to what she was going to take with her to Germany.

  Karina listened to her friend ramble on, but her attention had shifted. Her mind started gnawing at an idea and wouldn’t let go.

  Could I use magic to get papers for us to go to Australia?

  Karina set the basket on the ground and bent to touch her toes, stretching her tight back. The early morning sun felt great. Maria’s parents had given her the potatoes and cabbages that wouldn’t fit in the small wagon they would be taking to Germany. Mama would be happy for the extra food, but it was a sad reminder that Maria would soon leave forever.