Magic Lessons (3 page)

Jay-Tee let her eyes blur. The thing was wearing down Reason’s connection to Jay-Tee and Tom, fading the web of lines that linked her to magic and to the people around her. The usual brilliant green strands that made up the web were hazy, except for a handful of new brown threads. Those were thin but clear, the same brown as the thing had been—the same red-brown as the door to New York.

Jay-Tee pushed her magic against the brown threads, looking for weak spots, trying to break them. She felt Tom do the same. Reason, too, was drawing on her magic, fighting.

Sweat ran down Jay-Tee’s back. Reason’s skin grew hotter under her hand. The thing had made her feverish; her body trying to fight the invader every way it could. Jay-Tee could see the wood-brown lines knitting together and reaching from Reason’s body back into the house, down the stairs—to the door, she was sure, back to New York, back to
him
. Why wouldn’t he leave her alone?

She reached for the fine brown line, held it in her hands, feeling for where it was weakest.
“I see it,” Tom said. “Just there. Its shape isn’t true.” He sent his magic rushing at the weak point, drawing Reason’s and Jay-Tee’s with him.
The line snapped.
Reason screamed.
The Play-Doh thing exploded from her arm through the balcony and across Esmeralda’s room. Jay-Tee scrambled up, running down the stairs after it. She reached the kitchen in time to watch it disappear under the door, back to New York, back to
him
.
The noise and the shaking began again, like rusty metal fingernails dragged along echoing metal pipes. The wood rippled, looking exactly like the thing—same color, same texture, same everything.
Jay-Tee looked around desperately. She had to keep it from coming back. She snatched up a box of matches and emptied it into her hands, pushing a little of her magic into them, then she skidded across the spilled Coke to the door, spreading the matches out along the threshold, careful not to touch the wood.
She hoped the protection would hold.

Reason walked normally, not as if her body had been invaded by some creature. Her nose was screwed up and she was wearing her something-nasty-just-crawled-up-my-nostrils face, but other than that she looked okay.

Jay-Tee, on the other hand, was so exhausted, she’d had to sit on the sticky, Coke-covered floor and lean back against the kitchen cupboards.

“I’m fine,” Reason answered.
Jay-Tee looked at Tom, who shrugged.
“It only hurt while it was inside me.”
Jay-Tee couldn’t believe it. Her shin was still throbbing in

Jay-Tee and Tom cleaned up after Reason, and then they tackled the sticky Coke mess.
“What do you think Jason Blake wants?” Tom asked, wiping down one of the cupboard doors.
Jay-Tee wished Tom would stop saying
his
name. She’d learned fast never to use his name—not
any
of them. Though it didn’t make any sense to her, Jay-Tee knew that saying his name gave him more power. No matter how far away he was—if you said one of his names, if you even
thought
it—he’d know and show up to laugh at you and take more of your magic.
“What do
you
think he wants, Tom?”
“Our magic?”
“You got it.”
“Do you think those matches will hold?” He gestured at the bottom of the door.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s been quiet, though, hasn’t it? When did Esmeralda say she’d be home?”
“Soon.”
Jay-Tee dumped their glasses in the sink. “I’m going upstairs to change. These’ve got Coke all over them.”
She went into Reason’s room and picked out a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. They were pretty ugly—Reason was clueless about clothes—but they’d do. Esmeralda had promised to take her shopping for stuff of her own when there was time.
A week ago Jay-Tee hadn’t even known her father was dead and would never beat her again. It had been weird telling her brother, Danny, why she’d run away. It had been such a big secret for so long. She hadn’t even told Reason. And Danny had believed her, hadn’t doubted for a second. It had been such a relief.
She’d felt guilty, like somehow it was her fault that her dad had gone crazy one day and started beating her. She still had no idea why. He never said anything, just laid into her, silent and furious. Now he was dead, so she’d never know what she’d done wrong. And no sooner had she run away from her dad than she’d wound up trapped by
him
. From the frying pan into the fire.
She’d spent a lot of her first two days in Sydney on the phone to Danny talking about it all and catching up on his life. He’d gotten into Georgetown on a basketball scholarship, like he’d always wanted, though he wasn’t taking it up for another year because of Dad dying—plus, he’d been searching for her. He was playing ball whenever and wherever he could. Same old. He’d given Jay-Tee a majorly sketchy answer when she’d asked about girlfriends, which meant he was messing with more than one. Nothing changed there. Playing ball came first, girls a
long
way after.
Talking to Danny, hanging out with Reason and Tom, being in Sydney such a long, long way from
him
, Jay-Tee had started to believe things would get better.
But here
he
was, up to his usual tricks. Jay-Tee had forgotten that
lucky
was not her middle name, that no matter what happened she had, at best, only a few more years to live. Right now she felt every second of that short time piled on top of her, weighing her down. She was tired, worn thin like an old rag.
He
’d done something to the house. It didn’t feel right anymore. The three of them—Jay-Tee+Reason+Tom—had a distinctive feel together, but it was off kilter now. The thing had upset the balance. Jay-Tee could always feel the dynamic between living things. It was part of how she could tell when someone was lying or not. Or, rather, whether they
believed
they were telling the truth or not.
Since she’d laid out the matches, there hadn’t been any more weird thumping or scraping at the door. Had the thing really disappeared back to New York? Was what she was feeling now just its nasty residue? Like shock waves long after an earthquake has stopped?
The thing had been the exact same brown as the door, complete with wood grains. Maybe it
was
part of the door. Did that mean the door was alive?
She’d seen that happen sometimes with dance floors, especially old ones that had been danced on by thousands and thousands of people over the years. The dance floor absorbed all that crowd magic, began to dance a little itself. Once, in a shoe store in the city, Jay-Tee had taken one step on the old wooden floor and felt it reaching toward her, accommodating itself to the movement of her feet, ready, eager for her to dance. Instantly she’d known it had been a dance floor— people had waltzed, fox-trotted, Charlestoned, jitterbugged, boogied, and twisted across its surface for many, many years. She’d spun, feeling the floor push back, giving her extra spring and lift. She’d grinned. One of the guys who worked there had grinned back, danced toward her. “Isn’t this song great? Just makes you dance.”
He’d lifted her up, twirled her around, and danced her toward all the best shoes. The song changed, but he kept dancing. As they moved together she saw everyone else in the store swaying, dipping, shifting. Jay-Tee had felt the floor throughout her body, flowing in from her feet, through the fingertips of the guy twirling her around. She could have sworn, somehow, that the floor was smiling.
Maybe something similar had happened to the door. Maybe it was angry at all those generations of magic-wielders stretching it across two continents. Was that possible? Maybe it was furious at everyone who had ever stepped through it. And
he
was using the door’s anger against them.
Jay-Tee knew with every part of her body that
he
was behind this. Sending that creepy thing through to terrorize them, trying to figure out a way through the door to steal all their magic—that would be just his speed.

The two of them joined Reason on the front steps, where Jay-Tee still felt her back tingling with fear.
“Esmeralda will know what to do,” Jay-Tee said, trying to convince herself as much as Reason. “She’ll get rid of the smell, make the door even stronger.”
She’ll keep
him
out,
Jay-Tee thought.
A trickle of sweat ran down Jay-Tee’s spine. She’d love to go for a swim—immerse herself in cool water and float and forget that he existed.
Reason grimaced, though it could have been an attempt at a smile.
“Can you still smell it?” Tom asked. Jay-Tee nudged him in the ribs. Tom could be so dense; it was obvious Reason was still shaky and didn’t want to think about what had happened. Reason didn’t feel right to Jay-Tee: she was somehow separate, not connected to her or Tom like she’d been before.
“No,” Reason answered, “but I can still taste it.” She looked yellow.
The front gate opened and they looked up to see Esmeralda, dressed in a fancy gray suit with lots of shiny black buttons, holding a leather briefcase. Her high heels were black and shiny, too. Jay-Tee would boil in that getup on such a scorching day, but Esmeralda didn’t look hot or flustered. Tom said she was forty-five, but Jay-Tee found that hard to believe. She didn’t look old at all.
Jay-Tee grinned and felt herself relax. It was a huge relief to see Reason’s grandmother.
“Hi, Mere,” Tom said. He never called Esmeralda by her full name. Jay-Tee figured he did it to remind them that he knew Esmeralda best. Like anyone cared.
“Are you all right?” Esmeralda asked, closing the front gate behind her. She lowered her voice. “I thought you said the thing went back under the door?”
Tom nodded.
“Maybe we should talk about this inside?”
Reason shook her head. “Can’t. The smell.”
“The smell?”
“Reason could smell it—” Jay-Tee began.
Esmeralda shook her head. “I won’t be a minute.”
She took more like fifteen, returning dressed in jeans and a shirt. She was frowning. “Let’s go next door.”
Jay-Tee wondered why on earth they were going to Tom’s place, but then Esmeralda turned left instead of right, pulling out a key to open the front door to a small brick cottage.
Jay-Tee had barely noticed the place before. There wasn’t a lot
to
notice. It was only one room wide, and its tiny front garden had been bricked over to save the hassle of watering plants. The front window was closed and shuttered, as if whoever lived there was shutting out the world.
Before she stuck the key in the lock, Esmeralda turned to them. “Are you ready for your first magic lesson together?”
“But what about your house? The door? Shouldn’t we be—” Jay-Tee began.
“We’ll be able to do more here. Trust me.” Esmeralda smiled. “So, are you ready for a lesson?”
Jay-Tee nodded and Tom said yes. Reason hesitated, looked straight into her grandmother’s eyes. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll have to see.”
Esmeralda nodded, as if that were good enough, and opened the door.

door, then locking and bolting it behind us.
I smelled only dust and the sweat on Jay-Tee, Tom, and me.
I swallowed. The taste of that thing still lingered in my mouth.
My arm ached where it had pushed its way inside me. I was
warmer than I should be, glowing inside where it had been.
Strangest of all: that thing was familiar—I almost recognised
it. I wondered if that was because my grandfather, Jason Blake,
had sent it.
The house was the perfect place for witchcraft: small,
cramped, dark, and dank. There were only two doors off the
gloomy corridor, which ended in what looked like a kitchen. “These are the three rules of this house,” Esmeralda said,
turning to us. “Never come here unless I am with you. Always
walk in one direction: counterclockwise.”
Widdershins
, I thought.
I never lied,
Sarafina’d said to me. I
should have believed her. This was Esmeralda’s house of
magic. This was where she sacrificed animals and did everything Sarafina had told me about.
I never lied
.

“Use no electricity—not even a battery-operated torch. Use only candlelight.” Esmeralda pulled two candles and matches from her bag. She handed one to Tom and the other to Jay-Tee and then lit them, going from right to left. Widdershins.

“Why?” I asked. “I’ve seen you do magic around electricity.” I thought of her battling Jason Blake in New York City, below streetlights, above electric cables, outside houses bursting with electricity.

“You can use magic anywhere,” Tom answered me, “but if there’s electricity close by, it takes more out of you.” It sounded like he was quoting Esmeralda.

Esmeralda nodded as she unlocked the first door and pulled it open. “I’ve tried to make this house an ideal place for using magic.”

Jay-Tee and I moved forward to see what we could in the candlelight. I was glad she was there, seeing it all for the first time with me. All four walls were covered floor to ceiling: fifteen bookcases crammed to overflowing with 3,635 books. And that was only the books I could see—there were more on the floor, mostly hidden behind a filing cabinet, two chairs, and a desk. If there were windows, they were hidden by the bookcases.

“The library,” Esmeralda said. “Every book, paper, article, letter, parking ticket, everything I have ever found that touches on magic—on real magic—I keep in here. The collection was begun by my great-grandmother. I doubt there’s another as complete anywhere in the world.”

She closed and locked the first door and moved on to the second, where Tom was already waiting. My thoughts remained in that library bursting at the seams with information about magic, real magic, the kind that had made my mother insane and was going to kill me and Jay-Tee in a few short years. Maybe sooner.