Jinx's Magic Read online

  Although he rather suspected he couldn’t.

  The smell of charcoal smoke from the forge filled the clearing. The Wanderers set up camp while their leader, Quenild, went to the largest house to confer with the inhabitants.

  Jinx was helping to feed the donkeys when Quenild came back, looking grave.

  “They don’t want us here,” she said.

  “What do you mean they don’t want us?” said Tolliver. “How are they going to sell their stuff without us to carry it?”

  The other Wanderers, meanwhile, were looking at Jinx.

  Jinx got the message. “Do you mean they don’t want me?”

  “We’re leaving,” said Quenild.

  “Hold on,” said Jinx. “Why don’t they want me here?”

  “Some sort of rumors going around about you,” said Quenild. “Flashes of lightning, turning men into stones—a bunch of nonsense. Pack up.”

  “No, I’ll go,” said Jinx. “I mean, they don’t mind you staying here if I leave, do they?”

  “Simon has always been hospitable to us,” said Quenild.

  Jinx could see she wanted to be talked into staying. “Well, um, you have been too. Hospitable.” They’d saved his life, actually, but he was embarrassed to say that in front of Tolliver. “But I need to go anyway. I have to get home.”

  Jinx could see the little blue cloud of relief. The Wanderers needed the Blacksmiths’ Clearing. It was an important stop on their route.

  “At least take some food with you,” said Quenild. “And a blanket.”

  Over the next few days Jinx learned that the people in the Blacksmiths’ Clearing were not alone in their opinion. How many people he was supposed to have killed and just how he’d done it varied from clearing to clearing, but the result was the same—slammed, barred doors and orders shouted through the cracks to go away and leave them alone.

  Fortunately the Wanderers had been generous, and it wasn’t till the third day that Jinx started to run out of food. It also began to snow heavily that day. Jinx was close to Witch Seymour’s house, so he went there.

  Magicians took hospitality very seriously, and they didn’t spook as easily as clearing people did. Witch Seymour answered the door with Whitlock the goat at his heels.

  “Ah, Simon’s apprentice. Alone, I see. And not yet twenty feet tall nor breathing fire, all rumor to the contrary. Do come in.”

  Jinx stomped snow off his boots. The fire was crackling and the little cottage smelled pleasantly of soup and baked potatoes.

  “Come thaw out by the fire. What’s become of your companions? Have you killed and eaten them?”

  “Of course not.” Jinx knew the witch was joking, but after being kicked out of five clearings Jinx was losing his sense of humor. “They stayed in Keyland.”

  “And you decided to rampage back through the Urwald, burning houses and devouring children as you went? Brew?”

  “Yes please,” said Jinx. “To the brew, I mean.”

  The witch put some leaves into a cup, poured a ladleful of boiling water over them, and set it in front of Jinx.

  Jinx breathed in a smell of late-October rain. “Is that what they’re saying on the Witchline?”

  “The Witchline isn’t quite that gullible.” Witch Seymour sat down in a chair by the fire, and Whitlock curled up at his feet. “But one does hear things here and there. What did you do?”

  Jinx took a sip of the brew and burned his tongue. “I went to Keyland with Reven. And then Elfwyn decided to stay there with him.”

  “And then?”

  Jinx shrugged and didn’t meet the witch’s penetrating gaze. He’d wanted someone to talk to about what had happened. Witch Seymour wasn’t the right sort of someone at all. Probably the only things you should tell Witch Seymour were things that you wanted repeated down the Witchline from one edge of the Urwald to the other.

  He blew on the top of his cup and watched the leaves float around in a circle, widdershins.

  On the other hand, maybe Witch Seymour could help him understand what had happened back at the treecutting.

  “What’s the difference between witches’ magic and wizards’ magic?” said Jinx.

  “Oho, he won’t answer questions, but he expects to have them answered, Whitlock,” said the witch, leaning down to scratch the goat’s horn buds. “Wizards are arrogant, one hears.”

  Jinx folded his arms, annoyed. “Well, but I mean, most witches are women, right? And most wizards are men. So what makes you a witch and not a wizard? It’s got to be the kind of magic you do, right?”

  “It’s got to be,” said Witch Seymour. “Soup?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “We’re magicians, you and I,” said Witch Seymour, handing Jinx a bowl of soup. “And magicians stay out of other magicians’ business. That’s how we keep the peace.”

  “What peace?” said Jinx. “That’s how you—”

  “We.”

  “—we, then, let the Bonemaster do whatever he wants. And that’s how we let those Keylanders cut down trees!”

  “Keylanders?”

  Jinx suddenly realized that there was something he wanted repeated down the Witchline. “There are people cutting trees. Haven’t you heard rumors about that?”

  “No,” said the witch. “Do tell.”

  Jinx told, leaving out only the part about turning Siegfried into a tree.

  “So one gathers they’re cutting quite a few trees.”

  “Miles of them,” said Jinx.

  “And you weren’t able to stop them.”

  “Of course not.” It was only as Jinx said this that he realized that there hadn’t been any treecutting since he’d turned Siegfried into a tree. The Urwald hadn’t mentioned any pain at all.

  The lumberjacks had run away, and left their axes. But surely they had come back for them later? Or found new ones?

  “And this boy who thinks he’s Prince Raymond, he’s in favor of cutting trees?”

  “Utterly,” said Jinx. “He wants to turn the trees into money. I think he wants to reward people who help him become king by giving them money from the trees.”

  “More likely he intends to give them the land the trees grow on.”

  Jinx looked at the witch to see if he was joking again. “How can you give someone land?”

  “I assure you it’s very much the custom in Keyland for people to own land. No doubt young Reven intends to assign large swaths of the Urwald to his most loyal followers.”

  It took a moment for the full horror of what the witch was saying to sink in. “Like, not just the clearings?”

  “Not just the clearings.”

  “Everything?”

  “Exactly so.”

  “And then they would cut down all the trees and turn them into money.”

  “And burn out the stumps and farm the land, one imagines.”

  “We have to stop them!” said Jinx.

  “That certainly seems desirable,” said the witch, rubbing Whitlock’s left ear. “But how does one stop them, eh?”

  “One doesn’t,” said Jinx. “All of us stop them.”

  “Oh, you think so?”

  “How many of us are there?”

  “What a question,” said Witch Seymour. “One doesn’t even know how many clearings there are. And then, of course, how many wizards.”

  “What about witches?” said Jinx.

  “One hundred and three, not counting dabblers and dilettantes. One hundred and three really dedicated to the business. No, I’m sorry—” The witch frowned, and counted on his fingers. “One hundred and two. Dame Wygglof died last summer—old age.”

  It occurred to Jinx that probably only magicians died of old age in the Urwald. Simon’s father was the oldest nonmagician Jinx had ever met.

  “What if—” Jinx had been thinking about this. “What if we were a country, like Keyland is? Then we could tell people not to cut our trees down, right?”

  “It wouldn’t work,” said Witch Seymour. “Would i
t, Whitlock? You can’t make a nation of the Urwald. Urwalders are individualists.”

  “Maybe the magicians are,” said Jinx. “But I think the clearing people are mostly just poor.”

  “They’re still individualists,” said Witch Seymour.

  “What’s that mean, anyway? Isn’t everyone?”

  “Not like Urwalders. Urwalders won’t take orders,” said Witch Seymour. “Urwalders do not believe in kings. Do they, Whitlock?”

  “Is that how you make a country?” said Jinx. “By declaring somebody king?”

  “Oh yes,” said Witch Seymour.

  But Jinx could see that actually the witch didn’t know, any more than Jinx did.

  “Well, we have to do something,” said Jinx. “We all have to get together and do something.”

  “Most of us, you’ll find, won’t even speak to each other,” said Witch Seymour.

  Jinx wouldn’t ordinarily have gone to Cold Oats Clearing, but it was going to be another cold night and he was running out of food. And he figured Egon would take him in, since Egon thought Jinx was his grandson.

  The path up to the clearing was still obliterated by fallen trees. Jinx climbed over them one by one. Eventually he left the path and picked his way around the tree corpses as best he could, trusting the Urwald to remind him of where the clearing was.

  It was odd no one had cleared the trees from the path.

  He couldn’t smell smoke. You’d think people would have fires going.

  He could see daylight through the trees now. The clearing was ahead. There was no sound and still no smell of woodsmoke.

  But there was something else, an acrid, sour smell that reminded him of when his hut back in Gooseberry Clearing had burned down when he was little.

  Then he came out into the clearing and saw.

  11

  The Bones of Cold Oats Clearing

  Cold Oats Clearing lay in ruins. Some of the houses had been blasted apart. Others had been burned. Things were scattered around that would have been collected if there’d been anyone to collect them—blankets, dishes, a lone pink sock.

  Jinx stood for a moment, listening. Silence, except for the raucous cry of a raven.

  Cautiously, Jinx moved toward the nearest ruin.

  He saw a confusion of footprints in the snow. A big, booted set came toward the house. A smaller set, widely spaced, as if someone had been running, led toward the forest.

  Jinx followed the booted footprints from one ruin to another. The houses looked worse than they had after the storm—roofs gone, walls charred and broken. The burnt smell was everywhere. From some of the houses, people had run into the forest. From most, they had not.

  Here and there, small, frozen drops of something purple stained the snow. Jinx felt power coming from the drops. A magician had been here.

  He came to the house that had belonged to Egon, Simon’s father. No footprints had escaped from it to the forest. There were just those big bootprints—coming to the house and going away—and a small splash of potion and—oh. This.

  Two long, cold bones were stuck diagonally into the snow, crisscross.

  Just then Jinx heard something crunching toward him through the snow.

  He seized one of the bones as a weapon, ducked behind a broken wall, and waited.

  The crunching came closer.

  “It’s no good hiding. I can see your footprints.”

  Oh, right. Drat. He should have done a concealment spell. Anyway, it was only Simon.

  Simon in a mood. Red-green—grief, maybe, even though he’d said he hated these people, and orange anger around the edges. Simon’s anger was almost always orange.

  “Some of them got away,” said Jinx.

  Simon grabbed Jinx by the front of his coat and threw him against the wall. Jinx was completely unprepared for that. However, he did what he could and kicked Simon in the kneecap. Simon yelped a swear word and grabbed his knee. Jinx slithered away and ran out of the ruins and back to the edge of the woods. If he was going to fight a crazed Simon, Jinx needed to be close to his power source.

  “You ought to calm down,” said Jinx, when Simon came toward him again.

  “Shut up, you murdering little—”

  “What, you think I killed them?” Jinx was astonished. “It was the Bonemaster!”

  “And how do you know that, eh? You were with him!”

  “Are you insane? What, you think I’m in league with the Bonemaster or something? This is me, Jinx!”

  This was the weirdest thing that had ever happened to Jinx. It was as if the sky had turned green and rain fell up instead of down. Simon was attacking him.

  If this really was Simon.

  “Who are you?” Jinx demanded.

  “You know who I am.”

  Jinx was really terrified. This looked like Simon, and it sounded like Simon, and it had jagged orange anger like Simon, but it had to be some kind of shape-shifter. Or the Bonemaster. Or—

  Whatever it was, and it sure looked like Simon, it drew back its hand preparatory to casting a spell. Panicking, Jinx pulled on the Urwald’s power as hard as he could and struck out at the thing that was attacking him.

  There was a deep green flash and a loud bang, and everything went black. Jinx fell to his knees.

  He stayed there for a moment, stunned. He wasn’t sure if the Simon-thing’s spell had hit him. He wasn’t sure what he’d done. Melted snow soaked through the knees of his trousers. He got to his feet and looked all around. No ash seedling. But Simon, or whoever it was, was gone.

  And Jinx was suddenly sure it really had been Simon. Because the thoughts had looked like Simon’s, and a shapeshifter wouldn’t have known to copy Simon’s thoughts, would it. Nobody could see that stuff except Jinx.

  The footprints from Simon’s boots stopped eight feet from where Jinx was standing. Just stopped.

  The horror of it was somewhere out at the edge of Jinx’s consciousness, trying to get his attention. He walked all around the place where the footprints ended. What had he done?

  “Up here, if you’re wondering.”

  Jinx looked up. He saw nothing but sky.

  “Over here.”

  Jinx wondered if Simon was floating over the Urwald, as Jinx had done after he’d gotten smashed falling off the cliff. Then he saw a tiny scrap of purple high in the boughs of a pine tree.

  “Are you going to get me down from here, or what?”

  “Um, did I put you up there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. Good.”

  “Good?!”

  “I mean, good I didn’t turn you into a tree.”

  “Get me down from here now.”

  “Oh. Right.” Jinx thought. “How do I do that?”

  “How do you—how should I know how you flippin’ do it? Undo whatever you just did!”

  Jinx felt for the Urwald’s power and let it flow up through his feet. He felt immensely powerful. He had no idea what he’d done to put Simon up in the tree. He tried hard to reach Simon with the power and levitate him as he’d done the nixies.

  Nothing happened.

  “It’s no good,” Jinx said. “It doesn’t work because I don’t feel how I did when I put you up there.”

  “And how’s that?” Simon demanded.

  Jinx didn’t really want to admit it, but—“Scared.”

  “Think about what I’ll do to you if you don’t get me down, and you’ll be plenty scared.”

  “It doesn’t work, because I know you won’t really do it.”

  “Want to bet?”

  “Can’t you just climb down?”

  “Look at these branches. You tell me.”

  “Wait.” Jinx had an idea. “Stay right there!”

  He ran back to the ruins of Egon’s house and found a plank from the smashed kitchen table—the table where he and Elfwyn and Reven had eaten stew. He brought it back and laid it in the snow near the foot of the tree.

  “Now, hold on, I’m going to levitate this,” h
e said.

  He drew on the Urwald’s power again and raised the plank up, and up and up. He kept his eyes on it, since it was much harder to do magic out of sight, and he tried hard not to blink.

  “Now, get on it,” said Jinx.

  “Get on it? Are you crazy? You think I trust your levitation skills?”

  “You shouldn’t say stuff like that, it undermines my confidence,” said Jinx.

  Simon said some more cusswords.

  “If you won’t trust me, you’re just going to be stuck up there,” said Jinx. “Look, you can levitate it too, okay? We both will.”

  “I know I can’t levitate my own weight at this height,” said Simon.

  “You can’t if you think you can’t,” said Jinx. Without meaning to, he blinked, and the plank dropped several feet. He levitated it again.

  “That was certainly confidence inspiring,” said Simon.

  “I blinked.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you blink as long as you keep concentrating,” said Simon. “Concentrate harder.”

  Jinx tried to. “You’d better get on pretty soon or I won’t be able to concentrate anymore.”

  Simon reached out, grabbed the plank, and, keeping a tight grip on the pine branch with one hand, sat on the plank. It stayed floating right where it was.

  “Right.” Simon let go of the branch, keeping his hand ready to grab it again. “Let’s go down.”

  Jinx concentrated. The plank rose higher. Simon swore.

  “Down, idiot! Not up!”

  “I don’t know how to do down! And don’t call me an idiot.”

  “How can you not know down? Down is part of the flippin’ spell.”

  “I just drop stuff,” said Jinx. “I don’t know how to start out with down.”

  “Down is just the reverse of up. Here.”

  Jinx felt a little lurch as Simon took control of the spell. Simon wasn’t using the Urwald’s power, exactly, but he was using Jinx’s spell. It became Simon’s spell.

  Jinx felt his way into Simon’s spell—he realized suddenly that this was the way he should learn magic, by looking around the inside of a spell, not by trying to understand Simon’s explanations. Jinx could see now how “down” worked. He took the spell away from Simon.