Thirteenth Child

by Patricia C. Wrede

  “Nothing.” Professor Jeffries gave Mr. Harrison one of the smuggest smiles I’d ever seen.

  Mr. Harrison scowled uncertainly. Wash grinned. Papa’s eyes narrowed, and then he smiled, too.

  “Of course,” he said, nodding at Professor Jeffries. “The beetles are attracted by magic. Oak River uses no magic, and is surrounded by settlements that use a normal number of active spells. As soon as the beetles emerge, they head toward the other settlements, and that’s where most of them lay their eggs for next year’s crop of grubs.”

  “Exactly,” Professor Jeffries said. “I’m still not clear where the mirror bugs fit, but that’s what we’re here to look into.” He rubbed his hands.

  When Mr. Harrison realized no one was listening to him, he went off in a huff. Papa, Professor Jeffries, Wash, and the boys spent the rest of the day experimenting with the pupae. By evening, they’d established that the pupae and beetles would transform into mirror bugs for any magician, just as Professor Jeffries had thought, and they were working on finding out how strongly the bugs were attracted to magic, from how far away. Papa, William, Lan, and Professor Jeffries were standing in a circle casting spells of different strengths, and Wash and Brant were in the middle with the mirror bugs and the few beetles that were left, counting how many moved in which direction.

  All of a sudden, all the bugs and beetles stopped moving. Then the mirror bugs all leaned back on their rear legs and pivoted around, like they were looking for something. One after another, they took off, heading southwest. The beetles headed southwest, too, but they could only crawl. None of them got very far, though; even the flying mirror bugs had barely cleared the edge of the circle before they all dropped back to the ground and walked in little circles for a few seconds. After a minute, they all resumed crawling back toward Papa and the boys.

  “Now what’s this about?” Professor Jeffries muttered.

  They collected the bugs and beetles and put them back in the buckets for the night, then talked it over all through dinner. Nobody had any real idea what had made the bugs behave that way, though Lan suggested it might have something to do with sunset coming on.

  The next morning over breakfast, Papa decided to go bug-hunting with Professor Jeffries and the boys, since there was no point in doing any more spell detecting at the settlement. I was getting more than a mite tired of helping Rennie all the time, though she wasn’t as bossy as I remembered. I wasn’t sure whether the difference was in her or me. Pinning my hair up and letting my hems down hadn’t made so much difference at home, but everyone there had had plenty of time to watch me growing, so it wasn’t so startling a change. Still, however much Rennie had mellowed, I couldn’t muster much enthusiasm for another day of housework and childings with no breaks.

  So I told Rennie I was going to see everyone off and started down to the settlement gate with them, half hoping to persuade Papa to let me come along. We were hardly halfway there when we heard the ruckus at the gate. We could see four or five men yelling at each other, but we couldn’t make out the reason for the argument until we were right on top of them. Seems there was a new arrival who hadn’t stopped to dismiss his traveling spells, and the Rationalists were well and truly peeved about it. Some of the things the new man was yelling made it pretty clear that he didn’t think much of the Rationalists and their ways, settlement rules or no.

  As soon as he saw Papa and Professor Jeffries, the newcomer quit yelling at the gatekeeper and started yelling at us. It took a few minutes to get him settled down enough to make sense. It seemed that the settlement magician two allotments over had been trying something new, and now all the settlement spells had failed. They’d heard that Papa and Professor Jeffries were visiting at Oak River, so they’d sent this fellow to ask if they’d come help put the spells back up.

  Of course, Papa and the professor agreed. Papa decided to take Lan along, so he could observe the spell casting. He offered to take William, too, but William said his studies weren’t advanced enough yet for him to get much out of watching, and he’d rather stay behind with Wash and me. Papa consulted with the messenger and told us not to worry if they weren’t back for lunch, and they set off.

  We had to explain it all to Mr. Harrison and Mr. Lewis, who came along too late to get in on the planning. Neither of them was too happy. Mr. Harrison just seemed to have a grump on about everything Papa and Professor Jeffries did, and Mr. Lewis was cross about having to put up with Mr. Harrison some more. I was a sight more sympathetic toward Mr. Lewis; after all, he hadn’t really known what he was getting into when he offered to put Mr. Harrison up while we were in Oak River.

  Wash, William, and I walked slowly back to Brant and Rennie’s, and on the way I asked Wash about the charm he’d given me. Before he could answer, William jumped in, wanting to know all sorts of things about it, just as if he was one of my older brothers.

  “Wash gave it to me,” I said. “After that night at the wagonrest when you and Lan had that illusion-casting contest.”

  “It wasn’t a contest,” William objected. Then he frowned and looked at Wash. “You mean there really was something to all Eff’s fussing about making other people’s spells go wrong?”

  “You might say that,” Wash replied. “I confess to having a certain curiosity over the whys and wherefores of it, but Miss Rothmer seemed disinclined to account for it.”

  They both looked at me. I sighed. I still didn’t want to explain, but I felt like I owed them an answer, even if neither of them had actually asked a question yet. “It’s…it’s because I’m thirteenth-born,” I said, looking down at the toes of my walking boots so I wouldn’t have to see their faces.

  There was a long silence. Then, in tones of complete outrage, William said, “That’s what you’ve been worried about all this time?”

  “Mostly,” I said without looking up.

  “That’s—that’s—” He sounded exasperated, and I was pretty sure that only politeness was keeping him from saying “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” And I didn’t think politeness would hold him back much longer.

  “It’s not stupid,” I said before he actually got the words out. “It’s—there was—I almost—” I stopped and took a deep breath, and before William could start in again or I could lose my courage, I told both of them the whole thing, all about Uncle Earn and the policeman and moving West and Diane’s wedding and Papa’s tests and the concentration technique Miss Ochiba taught me and the troubles I’d had with magic in the upper school. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,” I said, mainly meaning William. “I just…I just couldn’t.”

  “If you say so.” This time, William sounded hurt.

  “Fear’s a powerful thing,” Wash said in his slow, deep drawl. “Habit is even worse, for most folks. I must say, Miss Rothmer, I’m pleased and proud to be your acquaintance.”

  That got my eyes up from my boot tips, right enough. I stared at Wash. William was staring, too, but not like he was surprised. Wash tipped his hat at me and went on, “There’s just one thing more I’d like to know, if you don’t mind. Have you ever considered your situation from any other point of view?”

  I didn’t see right off what he meant, but William did. “Besides Avrupan?” he said.

  Wash nodded. I looked down again. “Miss Ochiba told me once that being thirteenth-born doesn’t mean the same thing in Aphrikan or Hijero–Cathayan magic. But she didn’t say the Avrupans were wrong about it, either. And anyway, I’m not Aphrikan or Hijero–Cathayan.”

  “Honestly, Eff, if that isn’t just like you!” William said. “Where you were born doesn’t make any difference to whether the theory works or not!”

  “That’s not as true as you seem to think,” Wash said. “But Miss Rothmer isn’t any more Avrupan than she is Aphrikan or Hijero–Cathayan.” He grinned at my startlement. “You’re Columbian, Miss Rothmer, bred and borne. As is Mr. Graham here, and your talented brother, and even myself, though some might prefer it otherwise.” />
  “I—” My mouth felt dry, and I had to swallow twice before I could get any words out. “I never thought of that before. But what difference does it make, really?”

  “Nobody really knows yet,” Wash said. He tilted his hat back and looked down the street, to where the protective palisade blocked the westward view, and his eyes had a faraway look to them. “We’re still inventing ourselves. But we’re not starting from just one kind of magic, no matter what the folks back East may think. Columbian magic is a mixture and always has been—Avrupan and Aphrikan and Hijero–Cathayan and some traditions that haven’t ever grown large enough to make a theory or a style of magic, plus a few bits folks have just made up for themselves at need, all thrown together.”

  “That sounds messy,” I said without thinking.

  Wash laughed. “So it is, oftentimes.” He looked down at me, and his expression turned serious. “You’re still inventing yourself, too, Miss Rothmer. You’ve been working your hardest to invent yourself right out of being a magician, and it’s plain to me that if you keep on, you’ll succeed in the end. You’d likely have succeeded already, if your heart had really been in it.”

  “But my heart is in it!” I objected.

  “No, it isn’t,” William said. “Wash is right. You don’t want to stop being a magician. You just want to make sure that you don’t ever use your magic to blow up that uncle of yours, or anybody else, even if they deserve it.”

  “It’s the same thing!”

  “Oh?” William shoved his glasses up on his nose and glared at me. “So if you stop your magic completely, and then one day you grab a shotgun and use that to blow up your uncle or somebody, that’d be just fine with you?”

  “No!” I could see where William was going, and I could see he was right, and it upset me almost as much as nearly blowing up Uncle Earn had. I’d known in my heart since my first day in Oak River that I didn’t want to live without magic; I just hadn’t admitted it straight out to myself. Because if I was going to go ahead and be a magician, even just an ordinary everyday magician, how was I going to keep my magic from doing something horrible one day?

  William made an angry noise, and I realized I’d said more of that out loud than I’d meant to. Wash just nodded and said, “It’s a puzzlement, Miss Rothmer, and not one you’re alone in having.”

  “I—what? What do you mean?”

  “You seem to think your magic is a separate thing from you yourself,” Wash said. “Something you can pick up or leave alone, like that shotgun Mr. Graham mentioned a minute ago. But magic is as much a part of you as your voice. What you do with it is your own decision. And you’re not the only magician with a terrible temper, you know.”

  “You’re not even the only magician in your own family with a temper,” William muttered, and I knew he was thinking of the time when he was nine and Lan hoisted him in the air.

  We’d gotten back to Rennie’s house by then, despite walking slower and slower, and Rennie came out wanting to know why Wash and William had come back instead of going off with Papa and the professor to hunt bugs. So I never got to say anything back to Wash and William about tempers and magic, but I worried at the notion all morning long while I helped Rennie with the weekly washing.

  Lan had a temper, sure enough. I’d never gotten round to asking him how he’d felt about magicking William that time, but I could see that it hadn’t slowed him down even a little when it came to being a magician. Thinking on it, the whole reason I’d started yelling back at Uncle Earn was because I could see that Lan was about ready to lose his temper. I’d forgotten that. And Lan hadn’t ever seemed too concerned about misusing his magic by accident, even though he was a double-seventh son and crammed to the rafters with power.

  But Lan had been getting special training since before he was old enough to cast spells. And Wash had said something about habit being more powerful than fear. I frowned down at the wash water. Maybe I’d been going about this all the wrong way. I decided to talk to Lan when he got back, and maybe to Papa when we got home to Mill City. I’d have liked to start trying things out right then, but the middle of a Rationalist settlement didn’t seem like the best place to suddenly start experimenting with my magic.

  Papa and Lan didn’t make it back for lunch, and they still weren’t back by mid-afternoon when Mr. Harrison came to see what they were doing. Mr. Harrison grumped and fussed at Wash about it, until Wash offered to take him over to the other settlement to check on things. That didn’t sit too well with Mr. Harrison; he wasn’t much inclined to do things himself, if he could get other folks to take care of them, and he was especially unwilling to do any more dangerous traveling, even though we hadn’t had any trouble with the wildlife the whole trip.

  Mr. Harrison was just winding up one of his rants when there was a loud rattling noise from the corner. “What’s that?” he demanded.

  “It’s the pail with Papa’s mirror bugs,” I said slowly. I frowned uneasily at it, waiting for the rattling to stop. It didn’t.

  Mr. Harrison sniffed and turned back to continue his one-sided argument with Wash. The pail kept rattling, and I kept staring at it. After a minute, I started to feel floaty as well as uneasy. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I walked to the corner and picked up the pail. “William, Wash, could you come outside for a minute, please?” I said.

  I didn’t wait for them to answer. I walked out the door and around back, to the cleared-off circle where Papa and Professor Jeffries had been doing their magic tests. I felt light-headed and cut off from everything, as if there was a wall of glass between me and the whole rest of the world. Right in the middle of the circle, I stopped. I glanced back to make sure Wash and William had caught up, and then I held the bucket out and took the lid off.

  All the mirror bugs in the bucket took off in a glittering streak of silver, heading in the same direction. “Wash,” I said in a voice that sounded very far away, “what direction was that settlement Papa and Lan were going to?”

  “Southwest,” Wash said.

  We all stared after the twinkling line of mirror bugs, flying as hard and fast as they could toward the southwest.

  “Something has happened to Papa and Lan,” I said with certainty. “I have to go find them.” I set the bucket down and started for the settlement gate.

  CHAPTER 29

  GOING AFTER PAPA AND LAN WASN’T QUITE THAT SIMPLE, OF COURSE, but it turned out to be a lot easier than it could have been. Mostly, this was because Wash and William both believed me right off. Rennie and Mr. Harrison argued, though as soon as she realized that Mr. Harrison didn’t want me to go, Rennie stopped arguing and just glared at everybody. It would have been funny if I’d had an inclination to be amused right then. Mr. Harrison just couldn’t get on anybody’s right side.

  I just kept walking toward the gate, while Mr. Harrison said there was no point in jumping to conclusions because of a few bugs. It was getting late, he told us, and there’d be time to send a messenger in the morning. We collected quite an audience as we went up the street, on account of Mr. Harrison not bothering to keep his voice down. Finally, just as we got to the corral, Mr. Harrison yelled, “You aren’t going anywhere, any of you! I forbid it.”

  I stopped and looked at him.

  “In the absence of Professor Rothmer, I am in charge of this expedition,” Mr. Harrison said in a slightly more normal tone. “And I will not allow—”

  “Mr. Harrison.” I kept my tone as polite as I could manage, which I fear wasn’t too much because Mr. Harrison’s eyes went wide and he stopped in mid-sentence. “Papa told you before that this was a family trip. You aren’t my family by a good long ways.”

  “That was a ruse to get into this place, and you know it!” Mr. Harrison said. A lot of the Rationalists who’d gathered murmured angrily and glowered at him, but he didn’t seem to notice. “This expedition is vital to the protection of the settlements, and I won’t allow your whims to jeopardize it.”

  “Whims?” Willi
am said. “Eff’s the least whimsical girl I know. And she’s Lan’s twin sister, in case you’ve forgotten. Of course she’d know if anything happened to him.”

  There wasn’t any “of course” about it; I’d never before gotten a sliver of a notion when anything was wrong with Lan. But Mr. Harrison wasn’t to know that, and he’d surely heard the stories about twins who could do such things. Besides, something was pulling at me, sure enough, and it wasn’t any whim of mine. I kept my mouth shut and let Mr. Harrison sputter.

  After a minute, Mr. Harrison glared at William and me and said, “Even if something is wrong, you can’t do anything to help. It’s better to take these things slowly—to find out what the problem is, if there is one. Then I can go back and send out the right people to handle it.”

  I looked at him, getting madder by the minute. Ever since he first found out Lan was a double-seventh son, he’d been trying to get at him, or at Papa, but now that they were both in danger, he wasn’t in any hurry to help. Ever since…I remembered Mama threatening to haul Lan and me back East. All the anger settled down, and I smiled, knowing just what to say.

  “That’s as may be, Mr. Harrison,” I told him. “But I’m not an employee of the college, nor of the Settlement Office, nor of anyone else in Mill City, and you’ve no authority over me. Papa hired the cart horses that brought us here. One of them will do for me to ride, and if I can’t borrow a saddle from Brant, I can manage bareback. There’s nothing you can say that will keep me in Oak River, and I can’t see you laying hands on me to stop me.”

  “Just let him try,” William muttered.

  “So I’m going,” I finished. “And that’s my last word, and I’m wasting no more time on you.”

  As I started turning toward the corral, Mr. Harrison said, “You can’t go off to this other settlement without a magician to do the protection spells for you!”

  “Why not?” I said. “The Rationalists do it all the time.”