Edmund sat with his silk devotions kit on his thigh. He fiddled with the zippers. Matt felt upset radiating from him.
“What if he casts Deirdre out of her body the way he did me?” Lia cried. “Why didn’t I stay with her?”
“Maybe she’ll be able to find her way home if that happens,” Nathan said. “She knows you did it before. Did you discover anything before she disappeared?”
“The magic was clean and left almost no trace,” Lia said, her voice flattened with despair.
“Air had some scents, but it didn’t interpret them one way or the other.” Tasha also sounded subdued.
“Sugar offered Deirdre her heart’s desire,” said Matt.
“Sugar?” Terry said. “Who’s Sugar?”
“The road told me what they tasted like. That guy was sugar-garlic. The other ones, let me see. Chili-pepper-ice, blood-apple, dust-peppermint—that one’s Galen, I think—and, what was it? Swamp-violet.”
“Sugar offered Deirdre her heart’s desire?” Suki said. Like the others, she was pale and upset.
“That’s what he said. ‘Come with me and I’ll give you your heart’s desire.’ He held out his hand, and she took it. She wants magic,” said Matt. It seemed strange to Matt that in all the time the house had known Deirdre, it had never managed to give her this satisfaction. The house hadn’t hesitated to move into Matt’s dreams, offer strange food, suck her into its walls. It didn’t seem to suffer for doing those things. Why had it left Deirdre out, if it was engineering people right and left? Matt could understand Deirdre’s frustration.
Edmund dug into a pocket and pulled out the fishing weight on a string he used to dowse for people. “We have to find her,” he said.
“Wait a minute.” Pink dust sparkled on Terry’s forehead, and she had a streak of frost across one cheek. “I vote we go back to my first plan. Change the house before anything else happens, so they can’t stop us, if that’s what they’re trying to do. Then find Deirdre. Maybe that will destroy their motivation for kidnapping her in the first place.”
“But Terry—what if she’s in terrible pain?” Flames glowed in Lia’s eyes, flickered above her head.
“Why would he try the same thing again? It didn’t exactly work in his favor last time.”
“So what if he does something different, and it’s even worse?”
“I’ll be right back.” Terry dashed out of the room.
“We can at least hold a séance and get Nathan loose of the house so he can travel with us if we find out where to go, and maybe stay safe if we transform the house,” said Edmund. “Is that all right, Nathan?”
“Yes. Please.”
“House?”
“Yes!”
Edmund rolled up his devotions kit and tucked it into his pocket, stowed the fishing weight in another pocket, then moved to the floor and held out his hands. Tasha dropped and took his right hand. Lia took his left. Suki took Tasha’s right hand, and Harry took Lia’s left.
“How does it work?” Matt asked.
“We form a circle. We summon Nathan to its center. Then someone lets go of someone else, and that person has freed Nathan from his bond to the house for a night and a day and is in his power.”
Matt sat on the floor beside Suki and took her hand. Harry’s hand was in reach. “Do we wait for Terry?” Matt asked.
“Yeah,” said Edmund. He almost smiled. “If she shoots this idea down, though, I think we should do it anyway.”
Terry rushed back into the room and set a small red-velvet bag on the floor. “Oh! Right. Let’s do this part, then we can check the crystal ball, see if it’ll show us Deirdre.” She sat between Harry and Matt, gripped their hands.
“Close eyes, everyone, and take deep, slow breaths,” Edmund said, his voice warm, musical, and persuasive. “In for the count of eight. Hold for the count of eight. Out for a count of eight. In …”
Matt listened to the soothing metronome of his voice. Her breathing steadied and synchronized with everyone else’s. She sensed a strange calm descending on them.
“Spirits of east and earth, spirits of south and fire, spirits of west and water, spirits of north and air, spirit of place, spirit of now, spirit of before, spirit of future, hear our request. Please summon the shade of Nathaniel Blacksmith into our circle; release him from his normal bondage; maintain in him all the powers of the spirit and endow him with all the advantages of flesh, and put him into our power, if it is right for us to ask this at this time.”
Terry’s hand in Matt’s squirmed a little. Matt squeezed Terry’s hand.
“I am here,” Nathan said. His voice sounded strange, somehow squashed. Matt opened one eye, then the other. Nathan stood right in front of her, looking more solid than usual. “What is it you wish?”
Suki’s hand slipped from Matt’s. “Hey,” Suki said, holding up her hands and waving them.
Nathan smiled. “Hey.” His voice had gone back to normal. He dropped to his knees in front of Suki and stared into her face, his smile widening into the goofy range.
“Spirit, we thank you for your gifts, we bless you, we release you,” Edmund murmured. Matt felt something draining away.
“You can let go now.” Terry said. “God, what a grip, Matt.”
“Sorry.” Matt let go of Terry’s hand. “You shouldn’t’ve gotten so squirmy right in the middle, though. What was that about?”
“I never heard a séance called like that one. Edmund’s changed a lot.”
Nathan leaned closer and closer to Suki, and finally kissed her. She put her arms around him and kissed him back.
“Hey! Take it upstairs!” Terry said.
Without interrupting the kiss, Nathan held out his hand and flicked his index finger at Terry. A spark leapt from his fingertip to her chest. She jumped. “Hey!”
“Leave ’em alone,” Matt said. “She hasn’t had enough magic to do solid in a while.”
“What are you talking about?”
Oh, yeah, Terry hadn’t known about wild gold magic, or any of its uses or powers. Way too long a story to try to tell now. “Never mind. Is the crystal ball in that bag?” Matt asked.
Terry glared at Matt with narrowed eyes.
“Can I see it?”
Terry scrambled across the floor and grabbed the small bag she had brought. She opened the drawstring mouth and pulled out three pieces of carved teak. Two deft gestures, and the pieces had puzzled together into a three-pronged stand, which she set on the floor. Then she pulled out something wrapped in white silk. She unrolled the silk carefully, revealing a crystal ball of beautiful clarity, She set it gently on top of the stand. “House, could you dim the lights a little?”
The lights obliged.
Matt, Lia, Harry, Tasha, and Edmund came to where Terry sat and gathered around the crystal ball. Terry reached into the velvet bag again and pulled out something small. “Air and clarity, give us vision,” she murmured. “Water of worlds, grant us the dream roads. Fire of friendship, seek the spark in our friend. Earth in the working, ground us true. Show us. Show us. Show us.” She wrote with the small thing in her hand over the surface of the crystal, tracing what looked like letters in an unknown alphabet.
The crystal’s center turned dark for a moment, and everyone leaned closer.
A hand dropped on Matt’s shoulder. She glanced up and saw Nathan, somehow different: older, taller, more solid, his face filled out and grown up. He sat down beside her and leaned forward to look into the crystal ball with everyone else. Suki joined him.
“Show us. Show us. Show us. Please.”
Image of a tiny person, pale face, dark braid, dark sweatshirt and jeans, arms folded over her chest.
“Closer. Closer. Closer. Please.”
The view swooped down on Deirdre, brought her face closer. She looked clear-eyed and unhurt, though unsmiling.
“Is this our true sister? Is she in her right mind?” Terry asked. She traced more symbols over the surface, and the image remained.
/> Deirdre frowned ferociously. Her mouth moved in speech. A glowing hand with unnaturally long fingers moved into the image, touched Deirdre’s mouth. She stopped talking, but she still looked mad.
“Sugar,” Matt said.
“Sugar,” repeated Nathan. His voice had dropped an octave.
“Sugar-garlic, the man who stole Deirdre. That’s his hand.”
“Ah.”
The image faded.
“Well, she doesn’t look like she’s in immediate danger.” Terry traced some more symbols over the crystal ball, murmured thanks to it, and stowed it and its stand back in the bag. She peered up at everyone else. “If you agree that we should now try to transform the house, I think we should move all our stuff out.”
Matt said, “Edmund, did you ask spirit about this?”
“Things didn’t stay quiet long enough.”
“You could ask now. What do you think?”
“I’m going up to pack,” Terry said. She jumped up, hefted the velvet bag. “First I better get all the fixin’s out of the kitchen, though.” She vanished into the dining room.
“Matt,” said Nathan. Matt turned to look at him, confused again because he sounded like a grown-up, and he looked like one too. “This is something you really want?”
“I don’t know a lot about what’s happening,” Matt said, “but I trusted spirit before, even though I don’t understand it, and it helped us find Suki and Deirdre. Before that, it gave Edmund permission to come back here. We wouldn’t be here without it.” She glanced around the circle, at Tasha, who smiled at her, at Lia and Harry, side by side, at Suki, gripping Nathan’s hand. Finally, Matt turned to Edmund.
He looked tense. “It’s something I’ve always done alone, except for the times when Matt was with me,” he said. “I have no desire to persuade anyone else to think this way, but this is how I’ve lived since I left. It got lost in the noise of reunion.” He smiled at them.
“Spirit is your guide,” Nathan said, “still?”
“Yes.”
“No matter what Terry thinks, that was the best summoning I’ve ever had,” Nathan said. “Look. I got to grow up. Nobody gave me that option before. This craft you’ve come to works for me.”
Terry breezed out of the kitchen carrying a gym bag. “Whatever you guys are planning, you better hurry. No guarantee the master will wait between attacks,” she said, and stamped up the stairs.
“Go ahead, Edmund,” Lia said. “What do we do?”
He pulled out his devotions kit, laid it on his thigh. “Breathe,” he said softly. “In for the count of eight. Hold for the count of eight. Out on the count of eight …”
This time Matt kept her eyes open. Edmund’s voice talked them all into breathing together again. Tasha’s eyes were bright. Air, thought Matt. Maybe this is something she understands.
Presently Edmund opened one of the pockets of his kit and took out a pinch of something, then took something out of another pocket, and mixed them on his palm. “Spirit be with us, spirit be in us, spirit surround us, spirit protect us, spirit please help us, spirit please guide us: do we go changeways? Do we grant wishes? Do we seek rescue? Do we do nothing?” He held his open hand up. For a moment nothing happened except the synchronized sounds of breathing. Then the dust rose from Edmund’s palm and danced, spiral, counterspiral, a long thin silvery snake, fluid as fire. The snake rose in a dragon dance, and then suddenly the silver shredded and a brown bird with wide green wings and a long, lyre-shaped tail flew out of the remnants. It rose to the ceiling and dissolved into mist that melted into the plaster.
“Spirit we thank you, spirit we bless you, spirit release you,” Edmund murmured after a moment. Again, Matt had the sense of something completed. People’s breathing speeded up again and everybody looked at everybody else.
“Interpretation?” Nathan said.
“Change the house,” said Matt.
“Let’s go get our stuff.” Edmund rolled his kit shut and tied it with a red silk cord, then rose. Everyone stood. Nathan was almost as tall as Edmund, now, and his shoulders were wider. His clothes had changed: he still wore a white shirt, but instead of short-leg pants, he had on long dark pants with creases down the front of the legs. The suspenders had disappeared, replaced by a slim black belt at the waist of the pants. He looked like a stranger.
“Harry and I don’t have any luggage,” said Lia. “Who wants help?”
“Can you pack Deirdre’s room?” Nathan suggested. “Suki and I can probably handle Suki’s things, though she’s more moved in than anyone else. What are we going to do?” His voice emerged mournful and a little wavery at the end.
Matt realized that, like it or hate it, Nathan was going to lose the place he had been locked to for decades if the change worked, and Suki would lose the home she had just made. Culture shock, uncertain future, wild difference of life just ahead.
If Nathan ever wanted to know, Matt could teach him how to be homeless. She wondered if he would still be able to talk to buildings.
Would he still be around with the house changed?
“We’ll be all right,” Suki said, squeezing his hand. “Come on. I better unplug the laptop before something shocking happens to the electricity again.”
Everyone went upstairs. On the landing, they split up.
Matt’s and Edmund’s packing took almost no time; Matt only took things out of her big garbage bag when she was going to wear them, and put them in the second, smaller bag when they were ready to be washed. Also she had a little bag of toiletries. She threw the smaller bags into the bigger bag, and she was finished.
Edmund actually had a cloth duffel bag, but he hadn’t taken many things out either. He looked around the room. “House?”
“Boy.”
“Do you know how this is going to work? Will everything just disappear?”
“I don’t know,” said the house.
“The furniture is really great.”
“Take it if you like. Or don’t take it.”
Edmund stroked the carved headboard of one of the twin beds, glanced at Matt. She smiled and shrugged. “We’d have to have someplace else to put it,” she said. “Next thing you know, we’d have storage, or an apartment, or something, and then—”
They smiled at each other. Edmund put his bag over his shoulder. Matt followed him out of the room.
The door to Suki’s room stood half open. A strange, low, muffled cry came from inside. Matt and Edmund dropped their bags and rushed in.
The secret panel was open. Suki bent to look into the dark space. “What happened?” she asked.
“I thought I should get my skeleton out,” Nathan said from the darkness. “But when I touched it, it—”
“It what?”
“It jumped into me.”
Suki backed away from the secret passage and straightened. Nathan crawled out, his face and white shirt smudged with dust. He stood and patted his stomach, his chest, his head. “I put my hand on it, and it leapt at me and melted into me. God. It was creepy.”
“How do you feel?” Edmund asked.
“Scared. A little unsettled.” Nathan’s grin made his face look wolfish. “Haven’t felt either of those in ages.” His brows drew together, He pressed his hand to his chest. “I feel odd now, truth to tell.”
“Tell us if we can help you,” said Edmund.
“I will.”
Lia and Harry came in. “What happened?”
“Nothing. Nothing,” said Nathan.
“This is all Deirdre brought.” Harry held up a small soft-sided suitcase.
“Anything we can carry?” Lia asked.
Suki had plenty of things. After she had decided to move to Guthrie, she had called her aunt Caroline and had some of her belongings shipped up. Plus, the bedroom had a lot of furniture in it. “I’m going to go on living in Guthrie for now, if everything works out,” she said, “and I’ll need furniture, and some of the stuff in the kitchen.”
Everyone took somethin
g of Suki’s. In the hall, Matt and Edmund picked up their bags again. When they got downstairs, Terry and Tasha wore already outside, their things beside them.
Everyone went back inside and helped pull furniture and kitchen things out for Suki. Lia snapped her fingers, produced fairy lights, small yellow globes that floated in air and lighted the house front and the pathway. The house had the blackberry bushes draw back, to form a clearing near the house where everyone put the furniture and utensils. They’d have to come back with a pickup or a trailer to get it later, unless …
If the spell-casting didn’t work, the house would probably still be there.
“How’s the perimeter?” Terry asked.
“No signs of disturbance,” the house reported.
“Let’s load the cars and then get to it.”
Tasha helped by having air carry the heaviest things to the cars. The light globes bobbed along beside them, above them, before them. Suki loaded clothes and personal belongings that didn’t fit into her Geo in the back of Edmund’s station wagon. Deirdre’s stuff went into the station wagon too: she must have her car keys with her, because no one could find them in her purse. Matt figured she could probably talk Deirdre’s car open, but nobody wanted to take the time. Terry placed wards on all the cars, and then they went back to the house.
They stood in a line in front of the house and stared up at it. By this time, it was nearly midnight. Light glowed from the living room windows, and stray street light dusted the weathered boards with orange. The fairy lights hovered, then lined up along the porch roof like Christmas lights.
“How are we going to do this?” asked Terry.
“Who’s done the most transformations?” Edmund said.
“Tasha used to, all the time.”
“I’m rusty,” said Tasha. “Terry should direct.”
“What about Harry?” asked Terry.
Harry shook his head. “I’ve practiced some easy things, like water into wine, but nothing big like this. Nothing alive.”
“My element is transformation,” Lia said. “Fire changes everything from one form to another.”
“Do you want to direct?” Terry asked.
Past the Size of Dreaming Page 26
