Funny Tragic Crazy Magic (Tragic Magic Book 1) (13 page)

Ashford
Zabriskie’s house bordered the edge of a national forest. It was a small house
on a huge plot of land right on the side of a two-lane road. Across the street
was a huge expanse of snow in an open field, and all around the house there
were gigantic snow-covered trees, which seemed like the opposite of how I would
do it. If it were me, I’d put the house in the field and the trees across the
street, but no one had the good sense to ask my opinion when choosing where
Joe’s dad would live. You couldn’t even see the house from the road because of
all the trees. You had to go past it and then circle back or park three houses
down (like we did) and then walk back up to it.

There
was a bright yellow car parked in a dirt driveway. The car seemed incongruous
with the house; the house looked more like a trailer, while the car looked fast
and new. I don’t know much about cars, but it drew Joe’s attention, that was
for sure, as we walked up to the front door.

We
stood there on the front porch for a while and then, realizing Joe didn’t have
it in him, I knocked. Joe looked away from the door.

When
it opened, I was struck by how young this guy looked. He couldn’t be old enough
to be Joe’s dad. He looked at Joe and I, appraising our clothes, our hands
clasped together, everything about us.

“What
can I do for you?” he asked impatiently wringing his hands in a towel. His arms
were covered in colorful tattoos that looked more like…

“
Invisibility
?
Another
protection
, and what is that, is that
silence
?” I asked.

“You
a Rune?” he asked.

“What
are you hiding from?” I asked.

“Yup,”
he said, chuckling to himself, “definitely a Rune.” He smiled, and all of a
sudden, I could see Joe in him, in his smile, in his build. “How’s it going, I’m
Ash…”

“Zabriskie.
Yeah, we know. I’m Larissa, and this is Joe.”

“Penrod,”
Joe said, suddenly turning to face his father. “You knew my mom.”

We
could watch the recognition as it registered in his eyes. He went from looking
shocked, to confused, to abnormally happy within the length of a heartbeat. He
swore, and then laughed, and then looked at Joe, and then whispered another
swear word.

“Wait,
how old are you?” he asked.

“Seventeen,”
Joe said.

They
both looked at each other for a bit in silence.

“Come
on in,” he said with an awkward smile. “It seems we have a lot to talk about.”

We
walked together into the room, although I think I pulled Joe into it more or
less. The house seemed bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside. The
furnishings inside weren’t new or nice really, but they were well maintained.
Everything had this varnish of age. The brown leather on the couch was worn so
thin it felt soft as butter. On the side of the couch was a metal porch chair
with three layers of paint showing. The coffee table was made out of an old
barn door with a piece of glass covering it, and gigantic antique movie posters
hung in expensive looking frames along all the walls. It all fit together: a
balanced mishmash of stuff.

Ash
went into his kitchen. There weren’t any upper cabinets, but long lines of
shelves with colorful plates and pots stacked neatly on top. He pulled a couple
soda cans from a vintage yellow fridge probably made in the fifties. He tossed
the sodas to us. He wouldn’t look at us for a minute, and Joe wouldn’t look at
him, so I started.

“So
Joe here is an Instinct,” I said.

Ash
glanced at Joe and then quickly looked away. Joe didn’t look up from the
expensive zebra print rug that lay over motley carpet.

“Anyway,
the Grandfathers don’t know about him,” I continued. ”So, we were hoping you
could get them a message that he exists. We think the Grandmothers are trying
to hide him from them.”

“Why
don’t you both take a seat?” Ash went and sat in the lawn chair, I pulled Joe
until we were sitting down on the comfortable leather couch. “So what’s your
talent, Joe?” he asked.

Joe
didn’t say anything.

I
spoke, because I had to, before it became even more uncomfortable. “He can walk
through walls.”

“Ah
open
,” Ash said, “that’s a cool one. I bet you are good with computers,
right? Have an easy time seeing a clear path, reading patterns, that kind of
thing.”

Joe
looked up, “Yeah.”

“The
pattern thing... that’s part of his talent?” I asked.

“Just
the beginning part of it, my friend Omani from South Africa, is an open
Instinct, and he can do some amazing things with it. He’s…” Ash looked down at
his hands. “I’m sorry. I really am. I can’t say any more with a girl here.”

It
was like dinner with my dad all over again, I bit my tongue so I wouldn’t say
anything.

“There
aren’t any girls here,” Joe said.

I
hit him. Joe looked over at me as if I was an idiot. Oh, that’s right…

“Only
us chickens.” I said, turning back to Ash.

“Muppets.
Good one.” Ash said smiling. He looked over at Joe, and he was smiling too.
Only when their eyes met, they both looked away.

“Yeah,
we know, it’s awkward,” I said. “Get over it.”

They
both looked over at me, but I fought back a blush and kept going, “I’m sorry. I
don’t mean to be rude. We just have a lot of questions.”

“Well,
I guess if you know Muppets movies well enough to quote from, then you can’t be
that bad.” He smiled, and I felt a lot more comfortable. “Alright, gentlemen,
proceed,” he said, taking a long draw out of a bottle. It was beer, which is
strange. Runes don’t usually drink or have tattoos. Or live in trailers.

Joe
didn’t say anything, so again it was up to me. “How dangerous are the
Grandmothers?”

They
both looked at me, and I wondered if what I said was dangerous to Joe. “I
mean…The stories my mom used to tell me, are they true?”

“Depends
on what side you are on. I doubt they would hurt a girl.” Ash settled in his
chair and looked down at the bottle. “They are dangerous enough. When they have
to, a Grandmother can kill a person in less than a second. I saw it back in my
early twenties, this horrible woman with brown hair drew a rune on the
underside of my friend Jacob’s neck, and he…” Ash opened up his closed hands
like his hands exploded. “And he just exploded.”

Fury
filled Ash’s eyes, yet still he smiled. A hard smile filled his entire face.

“Did
he do something… did he deserve it?” I asked.

“Of
course,” Ash said, looking away. He didn’t elaborate on what his friend had
done. His words felt flat. “The Grandmothers are dangerous enough, but they
aren’t invincible. A well placed bullet and an absence of a healer, and a
Grandmother can die, same as anyone.”

“Of
course it’s not as elegant or as guaranteed of a kill as a killing rune. Those
runes are like a nuke, compared to a pocketknife. So yes, Grandmothers are
dangerous. They aren’t monsters. They follow the law. That’s why they were
given the
killing
runes in the first place.”

“What
law? We don’t know what you are talking about.” I asked.

“You
obviously lack some training…”

“And
whose fault is that?” Joe mumbled.

Ash
continued as if he didn’t hear Joe. “In the 1770’s, Runes and Instincts were in
the middle of the ‘second great worldwide conflict.’ Witches and Mages alike
were using the
killing
runes, and it was like hell on earth. That was
when the Grandmothers and Grandfathers formed. They were just alliances,
really. The strongest Witches and Mages of their era killed every Witch or Mage
who wouldn’t surrender the
killing
runes and allow their memories wiped
of it.” His voice sounded bitter, yet still he smiled as he spoke. “Finally
only eight people in the entire world knew of them. The Grandmothers and
Grandfathers. It went on like that for a while, and then the Grandmothers were
given sole use of the runes after the Grandfathers misused them in the 1930’s.”

Joe
looked at me; there was that glint of joy in his eyes that he only gets when he
learns something he’s hungered for.

Ash
continued, “The idea was that since women are less inclined toward war, they
would keep the peace. And there has been that. But now there is a growing
sentiment that the Grandmothers have too much power…”

Ash
stopped talking and looked at me warily.

“Don’t
worry,” I said, “I’m not exactly a big fan of the Grandmothers; you’re not
offending me.”

“I
wasn’t worried about offending you, girlie,” he said with Joe’s smile. “I just
want to make sure you won’t go running to the Grandmothers, and get me killed.”

I
held out my hand, he took it reluctantly, and I wrapped our hands in the
binding
rune. “I promise that not one word of what you say will get to the
Grandmothers.”

Ash
leaned back in his chair and looked at me as if he was deciding if I should be
trusted or destroyed. Joe retook my hand.

Ash
looked at his son warily for a second. Then I could see as he took the features
of Joe’s face in, he smiled again. There was no question how happy he was to be
a dad.

Joe
looked away first.

“So…”
Ash said, and then he cleared his throat. “Earlier this year, the Grandfathers
decided to, um…take those Grandmothers down a notch. They didn’t have the
killing
runes anymore, but they found an Instinct whose talent was death. Poor kid.
When he was ten, a dog was chasing him… Anyway, the Grandfathers tried using
him as a tool to show the Grandmothers they didn’t have the monopoly on killing
with magic. They were going to have him kill a bird or something, no big deal,
just enough to gain back a measure of pride the Grandfathers had given up.
Somehow, things went wrong, things got loud, and there was pushing, and
fighting… Michael, that’s the kid, ended up killing the first position Rune
Grandmother, her husband and their only kid, this five year-old innocent girl
who tagged along for the ride.”

I
sat back in my seat. Joe looked over at me.

“I
think it broke our whole world’s heart,” Ash said. “This was almost a year ago,
and since then, the awkward semi-friendly rivalry has turned deadly. Most Mages
went into hiding, like I am, keeping low to the ground until this all blows
over. But every day, I hear more names gone missing.”

“Did
you…” I had to start over because my voice went weak, “Do you know what that
Grandmother’s name was?”

“Yeah,
Alvarez,” he said. “Javier was a good friend of mine; his wife… umm her first
name…was”

“Theresa.”
I said without any emotion. Joe squeezed my hand. I barely noticed.

“That’s
right.” Ash looked at me with suspicion.

My
mom was a Grandmother. My parents didn’t die in a car accident. The lie stung,
mostly because I had believed it. An Instinct, a tool of the Grandfathers,
killed my mother, and my father and my little sister. These same Grandfathers
were the ones I’d put all my trust in to protect Joe. I… I didn’t know what to
do.

“It’s
not all black and white, is it?” I asked. “It’s not good and evil,” I laughed
once without any emotion. “It’s not that easy.”

“Only
a child thinks it is,” Ash said with a smile.

“She
wasn’t an only child,” I said.

“What,
who are you talking about?”

“The
five year-old innocent,” I said. “Phoebe. She’s my little sister.”

That
shut the man up. I had so many emotions boiling through my head, that I just
grabbed onto my anger like it was a floatation device keeping me above the
swirling miasma that threatened to pull me under into a dark despair that would
never let me go.

I
didn’t know who I could trust now. I feared the Grandmothers, hated them for
what they did to me: turning me into a spy on my best friend. And now I found
out my mother was one of them. My mother was a Grandmother. Giara was second in
power, which meant my mother was the strongest Rune Witch in the entire world.
Why didn’t she tell me? Was it because I didn’t ask? Oh, she could have taught
me everything. And…

No
wonder they took my mother’s notebook. It had the
killing
runes in it.
If I had that notebook, if I had all those runes, I would have access to the
strongest collection of runes in Witch history.

If
I took it, I would be… I’d be a Grandmother. If I took that notebook, it would
be my responsibility to kill my best friend.

I
put my head in my hands and looked down at the ground. What guy in his right
mind bought a zebra print rug?

I
didn’t say anything for a while, and the silence became awkward.

Joe
started on Ash, “Did you know?”

“What,”
Ash asked, “that your girlfriend here is the daughter of a Grandmother? No, or
else I would never let you in.”

“She’s
not my girlfriend.”

Even
tossed as I was within an avalanche of emotion, that offhand comment had the
power to hurt me.

“Did
you know I existed?” Joe continued. “Did you know my mom was pregnant?”

Ash
ran his fingers through his hair. “Dude,” he started and then corrected
himself, “Joe. I loved your mom. I think there are people in this world who can
only find love once, and I’m one of them. Maggie was everything to me, I… I
would have never have given her up if it wasn’t my only option.”

“Why?”

“It’s
complicated.”

“Screw
that,” Joe said.

Ash
sighed. He glanced at me as again he was weighing whether he could trust me. I
faced the ground again. Finally he spoke. “I don’t know what life was like for
you, growing up like you did. I bet everything I own that Maggie is a great
mother. I didn’t grow up with a great mother, or a great father. Back when I
was your age, I didn’t tell my family that I was dating a normal. I tried to
keep things quiet. I didn’t mean to fall in love with Maggie, but I did, and
when I knew I could never let her go… when things got too big for me to keep a
secret, I made a mistake. I brought her to meet my family. I thought… It didn’t
matter what I thought… it was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. No one was good
enough for my family, but a normal… I think my dad took it as an insult to our
family name, and he lost it. My dad almost killed her, and my mom looked the
other way, as she always did when my dad came after me. I… tried to fight back,
but you don’t know my dad… He would have killed her. If we ran he would have
hunted us down, and he would have killed her.

“So
I did what I could to make him stop hitting her,” he continued. “I promised him
I’d leave her alone. I gave my word. My dad healed her. I wiped her memories of
everything related to magic, and I walked away. I don’t know what she
remembered. When you wipe away memories, you can’t wipe away the underlying
feelings, so she must have known something horrible happened to her, but then
not known what it was that actually happened. And it was my fault. I should
have known better than to bring her anywhere near…”

“She
must have been pregnant with you when my dad beat her,” he said. His voice cold
and empty, his fury sharp like a knife.

“After
that, I was done with them. I left my parent’s house without graduating High
School. I got a job in South America, Chile of all places, in a coal mine,
running so far down into the darkness, I thought nothing would catch me. But my
guilt, my memories… they found me. I tried to come back, just to see how she
was. But every time I got close, my family stopped me… So I kept running.
Changing jobs. Changing countries.” He laughed once without any emotion.
“Changing my name. I met my friend, Jacob, when I was twenty-one, and we did
things I’m not proud of, trying to cover my guilt with more guilt. Then the
Grandmothers--your mom, Larissa--killed Jacob and were going to kill me, but
Robert, one of the Grandfathers, caught up in time and argued on my behalf. He…
gave me direction. A purpose.”

Ash
took a long drink of his beer and then put the empty bottle down on the floor.
“I didn’t know if Maggie was even alive. I didn’t know… if she hated me, or if
she even remembered I ever loved her, remembered I ever existed. I absolutely
did not know she was… pregnant.” He looked up at Joe. “But I can’t tell you how
happy it makes me that she was. That I had left something of myself with her.”
Ash smiled. “That means my family wasn’t following her as close as I thought,
not if they didn’t know about you. How is she, how is she doing?”

Joe
looked up, his head shaking subtly again and again. He stood without looking
his father in the eye, and then pulling me behind him with the hand he was
still holding, he walked out of Ashford Zabriskie’s trailer of a house without
looking back.

We
drove back through Greenville and parked behind an old building in a crumbling
parking lot. We sat there in the parking lot for more than an hour, both of us
crying and pretending we weren’t. It was difficult, this change in perception,
difficult for both of us. We grieved for what could have been, for the lost
opportunities, for being lied to and believing the lie. I grieved with fear
that the Grandmothers could kill Joe in a second. All of it. It was quite a lot
to take in.

“What
a fun road trip,” I said as Joe started the car.

We
didn’t speak much for the first hour. Joe blasted his music, and I didn’t mind
it. I didn’t really want to think either. For the last few hours, we filled up
on gas, looked out the window, and talked about remarkably rube things. Both of
us were avoiding any mention of our new information as we ate fast food we
picked up along the way.

Behold
the healing power of a McDonald’s french-fry.

When
we got home, Ash’s bright yellow sports car was parked in Joe’s driveway. We
went to my house in silence instead, and watched infomercials about fancy
knives. When it got late, I went with Joe back to his house and the yellow
sports car wasn’t in the driveway anymore.

Inside
Ms. P. was whistling, and a bouquet of pink and blue daisies arranged in a
glass vase sat on the kitchen counter. Joe walked past his mother and the
flowers without looking at either one. He stopped for a second, turned to give
her a quick hug, and then slammed his bedroom door behind him.

Ms.
P. turned and watched his path as if she had something she wanted to tell him.
But then smiling, her cheeks pink with a blush, she turned to face me still
standing by the front door, my fingers brushing against the doorknob.

“Did
you two have a good day?” she asked.

I
didn’t know how to answer her.