by Mur Lafferty
“I know! That’s what makes it amazing!” he said.
“Look, I just want to make my own notes,” she said. “You can keep working from the messy journal if you have to.”
“I’ve figured out lots of stuff,” he said, hunching over the journal as if she were going to take it away from him. “Why can’t we just go on through?”
“We need to test some things before we just run through,” she said. “Transcribing the notes won’t hurt the journal in any way, Max.”
Later that night, Max paced the length of the cabin’s basement, glaring at Alison as she wrote another “failed experiment” down in her blank book.
“You can stop looking at me like that,” she said patiently. “It’s not my fault the experiment failed.”
On the brewing stand in front of them, the failed remains of a recipe continued to release tendrils of smoke into the air, despite the bucket of water Max had thrown at it. Alison had tried the recipe to make a potion of swiftness and it had failed so spectacularly that the bottle they’d used melted, leaving a twisted and ruined memory of glass on the workbench.
“Maybe you did something wrong,” he said.
“Maybe you shouldn’t put fermented spider eyes in beneficial potions,” she said.
She had painstakingly arrived at a recipe list—the ones that worked (both potions of healing and regeneration included, thank goodness) and the ones that didn’t: candied mushrooms, a potion that claimed to turn everything you touched green for one hour, and a potion that was supposed to let a human grow feathers. Luckily, that was the one that exploded before Max had a chance to drink it. Alison had a feeling it wouldn’t have gone so well.
She checked in the furnace; the gold was almost done smelting.
“I’m getting worried,” Alison said. “If the Enchanter couldn’t make some of these basic recipes work, then why do you think their portal to the Nether was a success? Why do you think they even went through?”
“Because we saw it!” he said, pointing at the wall, beyond which was the waiting portal. “Because who would make a portal and not go through?”
“We saw a bunch of obsidian arranged in the design of a portal. We have no idea if it worked, or if anyone even needs rescuing.”
“I’m still going to try these recipes, whether you’re with me or not,” he said stubbornly. “What about this one? You make me a pair of boots, and I will try to fly with them.”
She looked over his shoulder. He was pointing to a recipe with several annotations and crossed-out words, but essentially the enchantment was supposed to make the wearer light and able to jump far.
“That seems a dangerous one to try,” she said doubtfully.
“No, no, it’ll be fine. What about those boots?” he asked, pointing to the wall where Alison had been neatly lining up her equipment so that he could test enchantments on them. At the end was a simple pair of leather boots.
She sighed. This was what they were here for, like it or not. “Sure, give it a try.”
He jumped up, grabbed the boots, and ran to the enchanting table and the bookcase next to it. He pulled a book off the shelf at random and flipped through it, frowning. “This is so much more boring than the journal,” he complained.
“Probably more precise, though,” she said.
Max rummaged around one of the chests with the magical supplies in it, and set to work, returning to the journal for instructions instead of the enchanting books readily available. He squinted to read some of the crossed-out words.
“Don’t you think those words are crossed out for a reason?” she asked, but he shushed her.
She shrugged and retrieved the golden helmet, which shone with such beauty she could do little but stare at it. For the first time she was confident that if they went to the Nether, she might survive it.
A bright flash lit up the other side of the room. “Done!” Max shouted. He waved the boots above his head.
Nothing had exploded. Alison frowned. They hadn’t had a lot of wins thus far, but to be fair, this one seemed somewhat promising.
“All right,” she said slowly.
“Let’s try them out!” Max said, and bounded up the stairs as if he were already wearing them.
When she caught up with him outside, he had climbed halfway up a hill near the cabin. “Don’t you think you should try them on flat ground?” she asked, looking down the hill bathed in moonlight.
“Nah,” he said, his shoes already off. He tossed them down the hill and pulled the boots on. “Tingly!”
“All right, so you should take a practice jump first—” Alison said, but Max was gone.
He took a leap off the top of the hill with a loud whoop and sailed outward. And for one shining moment Alison thought he might have actually, successfully enchanted something. And then he flipped to where his feet were up and he dangled by the boots, and then he dropped like a stone. His triumphant noises turned to grunts of pain as he pinwheeled down the hill, head over heels, the boots holding his feet high in the air so he could never get his bearings.
“Now will you stop testing things at the tops of hills?” she called. He didn’t respond, so she ran down after him.
They were lucky that they remembered how to brew simple health potions, and had made several before trying any of the experiments, for just this situation. Max coughed and opened his eyes after Alison poured the potion down his throat. “Did it work?”
“You knocked yourself out, you tell me,” she said, making him drink more. He pushed her hands away and took the bottle himself, downing the rest of the potion with a painful grimace.
“Maybe I should stop taking your advice,” he said.
“It’s my fault?” she asked, incredulous. “Maybe you should stop doing enchanting and alchemy with fermented spider eyes! What is your Enchanter’s obsession with spider eyes? I’ve been praying you run out of them soon because then you might stop making things with them, but I checked, you have like a year’s supply of those things!”
“They’re useful,” he said, rubbing the back of his head.
“For what? Name one good thing you’ve made with those!” Alison yelled. “It’s like your Enchanter found a sale on spider eyes and decided to stock up, and put them in any and all potions!”
He winced as her voice gained volume. “Please don’t yell,” he moaned, feeling a bump on his forehead that had yet to go away with the effect of the potion.
“We are nowhere near ready to go through a nether portal, Max. We’ll get killed!”
“Alison, I can’t do it without you,” he said. “Just let me try a few things.”
“Max, I don’t want to die. I don’t want you to die. You can’t tell me that we won’t straight-up land in the middle of a huge mob if we go through that thing. My grandma always told me not to jump anywhere if you don’t know where you’re going to land. Besides, your Enchanter will probably want to use spider eyes somewhere in the activation.”
“No, he doesn’t use spider eyes to activate it,” Max said. “He was pretty sure they would reinforce an enchanted door, though.”
Alison paused. “Wait. How do you know it’s a ‘he’? I thought you didn’t know anything about this person?”
Max drained another potion, probably more slowly than he needed to. “I thought I saw a reference in the journal to being a grandfather or uncle or something,” he said, clearing his throat.
Alison had read the journal thoroughly. “I didn’t see that.”
“It was in one of the crossed-out parts,” he said, not looking at her. He sighed. “Look, if I can prove the Enchanter’s enchantments are legit, will you consider it?”
“That’s a really big ‘if,’ Max,” she said. “That’s like an ‘if’ that’s seventeen blocks high.”
“I can build that,” he said, thinking.
&n
bsp; “Whatever. It’s getting late. We need to go home,” she said, and he nodded. He stood up and immediately fell on his face as his feet rose and tipped him over again. He’d forgotten the botched flying boots.
“Throw those away,” Alison said impatiently.
He bent at the waist and pried his foot out of one of the boots. It righted itself and hovered in the air with an important manner about it, as if it were waiting on another human to trick. Now Max hung by one foot in midair, twitching and trying to get to the other boot.
Alison watched him, trying to hold back laughter. “You really think we can make a portal to the Nether, rescue the Enchanter, and make it back alive? We can’t even rescue the mayor from a bathroom, the way we’re going.”
“Help me!” he said, his midair struggles making him turn in circles.
She crossed her arms with a grin. “Maybe.”
* * *
—
They snuck back in, repaired the wall, and went to bed. At least, Alison did. Exhaustion took her into a dreamless sleep immediately. A few hours later she woke up, as usual, with Max’s mom cracking open the door between their rooms and calling her name softly. She grunted and sat up. She wouldn’t trade her late-night excursions to the secret crafting cabin for anything, but she had to admit that too many hours awake was catching up with her. She groaned and rubbed her face, blinking a few times. She focused on the foot of her bed, where something gleamed steadily at her.
It was the golden helmet she’d made last night, but it was gleaming in a different, definitely magical way. She looked around, but if Max had snuck in he had covered his tracks very well. She checked to make sure Max’s mom had closed the door behind her, picked up the helmet, and inspected it. Like Max had said about the enchanted boots, the helmet made her hands tingle slightly as she turned it over and over.
There was no way she would try it on. But clearly Max had gone back to the cabin. She was torn between being irritated that he’d gone without her, concerned that he’d enchanted alone without a backup, and touched that he had made a present for her.
She’d have to ask him at breakfast what the enchantment was supposed to do, if she could find a way to get rid of Max’s mom.
Luckily, his mother was distracted this morning by a new project in town Max’s dad needed her help on. “I’m trusting you kids alone today,” she warned. “I need to get to work on a new wing of the Silver Mansion.”
“Isn’t that just what that merchant Mr. Jordan calls his house?” Max asked, frowning.
“Yes,” his mom said with a sigh.
“Can we give our house a name? Like ‘Flying Fortress’ or something?” he asked.
“It doesn’t fly. And it’s not a fortress,” Alison pointed out.
“And Mr. Jordan’s house isn’t made of silver,” Max retorted. “He’s just trying to be fancy.”
“And he can afford to be,” Max’s mom reminded him. “He pays us the maximum we charge to make him a house he can be proud to give a ridiculous name to.”
“Someday I’ll be rich enough to give stupid names to things,” Max announced.
“I just want you to live long enough to make it to ‘someday,’ ” his mom said.
Max rolled his eyes. “I haven’t almost died in weeks, Mom.”
Alison thought about bringing up last night, but he had only bumped his head badly, and besides, if his mom knew about the cabin they might never leave their rooms again. His mom might dig a hole, throw them in, cover them up with dirt, and tell them not to come out until adulthood.
His mom left with a reminder not to leave the house, which Alison and Max promptly did once she was past the clearing.
“Okay, come clean, what did you do to this?” Alison asked, holding the gleaming helmet in her hands. “And why did you go back without me?”
“I wanted to prove to you that the journal is more useful than you think,” he said. “I enchanted it so you can see into the future.”
Alison frowned, skeptical. “That’s impossible. This is one of the failed enchantments, isn’t it?”
Max ignored the question. “Go ahead, try it on,” he challenged.
She shook her head. “I saw what your boots did to you. And you could have thrown in a spider eye and cursed this for all I know.” She thrust it at him. “You do it.”
He frowned in mock pain, overplaying his hurt feelings. “Fine. Don’t trust me.” He took the helmet and carefully placed it over his head. It rested on his forehead and protected about three-quarters of his head, leaving only a small space for his face. Alison held her breath and waited for him to, well, do anything that would indicate the helmet was cursed or otherwise poorly enchanted.
“I see you’re very delighted with this gift I’ve given you!” he said. He lifted the helmet off and grinned at her. “It’s totally fine, Ali.”
“Fine,” she mumbled. “Give it here.”
The helmet fit her perfectly, and she took another moment to be proud of her craftsmanship. She would be satisfied to sit in the Enchanter’s cabin for the next year, crafting and never touching the enchanting table. She waited a moment, but no insights into the future occurred to her. “I’m not getting anything,” she said.
“Really?” he asked. “That’s weird. I was so sure.”
“Maybe it only works once?” Alison said, unable to deny her disappointment. But if it had worked, and Max had seen her delighted, then why would she be disappointed now?
She lifted it off. “It’s a dud. At least you didn’t give it any bad effects,” she said.
“The enchantment worked,” he said, looking hurt. “I know it. I’m just not sure what the effect is.”
She had been too harsh, she realized immediately. “Max, look, I believe that you enchanted it.” She stared at him until he looked up and met her eyes. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Nah, don’t lie to me. Don’t waste my time.” He turned from her and started to trudge toward the cabin.
She grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him around. “Max. If you enchanted it, and it didn’t blow up or obviously fail, then it probably worked. We just have to figure out what you did.”
“You just said it was a dud,” he said.
“What do I know? I don’t know enchanting! You do. Do you believe that you succeeded in putting some kind of enchantment on it? Honestly?”
He paused, the angry look leaching from his face. “Yes,” he admitted.
“Then we’ll figure it out. Together. Okay?”
He nodded once. “Okay. Thanks.”
She put the helmet back on her head, but still didn’t feel anything different except a slight tingle. As they headed back to the cabin, she realized that she’d been telling the truth. She did trust him to learn enchanting. He was brash and reckless, but he wasn’t stupid.
BOOM, SURELY
Max’s mom knew something was up.
The sting of the helmet failure passed quickly as Max read more about enchanting from the journal. At home, Max happily made breakfast every morning now, usually getting up before his mom so he could get practice with cooking—to better try the recipes in the book. Alison had shown him how to use the improved furnace and equipment, and his growing brewing and alchemical skills were making his meals actually edible.
His mom was certainly grateful for the help, but he was pretty sure it was written in the Mom Handbook that no mother will simply accept a sudden bout of helpfulness from a kid; something had to be up.
“What has gotten into you?” she asked, eyeing her breakfast muttonchops suspiciously. “Have you drugged me?”
“Mom!” he protested. “Can’t a kid do something nice for his mother?”
“No,” she said. “It’s really unheard of.”
“I think what he means is we’ve caused you enough trouble in the past f
ew weeks,” Alison said, biting into her own breakfast. “We figured we’d do something nice.” She swallowed. “See? No poison.”
Good save, he thought. Not to mention we don’t want you to notice right away how good the tools around the house have gotten.
Alison had insisted on continuing to improve the tools in the house. She said it was partly for practice, partly because she felt bad deceiving his mom when she’d been so generous. She would offer to cut wood for the furnace so Max could cook dinner; then she’d go out with the old iron axe and come back in with a bunch of wood and a shiny new iron axe. His mom never noticed.
The day he had tried to enchant Alison’s helmet, his outlook on the world drastically changed. Max had snuck into the woods after he’d heard Alison was asleep. When she’d lost her temper about the spider eyes, he realized she might be on to something, no matter how much that annoyed him. He thought that maybe the spider eyes could be included in the recipes by the Enchanter for the specific reason that people wouldn’t follow his recipes. If Max could figure out what kind of ingredient—if any—the spider eyes replaced, then the recipes might work. Once he got that down, and he found the Enchanter’s stash of lapis lazuli, from there it would be easy.
Alison had said she would consider going through the portal. Max was getting more confident with his skills, and if she trusted him, then she might help him. He knew the Enchanter was in the Nether, and he was sure that the Enchanter needed help. He may not be able to convince Alison of this, but he knew she wouldn’t let him go through alone.
His mom had slowly reduced the terms of their grounding, and he and Alison were actually able to get some real work done during the day now, provided they got their chores finished. They didn’t burrow into the hill, chop down any more trees, or accidentally open up holes into any neighbors’ farms, so they were almost above suspicion. So long as they followed the rules of getting home by sundown and avoiding any injuries or burns while crafting, they were in the clear.
When they finished sanitizing the pumpkin patch of skeletal remains, they cooled the last of the lava with buckets of water, making loads of cobblestone that then had to be excavated.
