Magic Lessons (8 page)

The driver kept glancing back in the mirror at me in my pyjamas, which weren’t entirely hidden by Danny’s coat. The last time I’d been in New York City—four days ago—I hadn’t known where I was. I hadn’t known I was on the other side of the world, in the United States of America. I hadn’t known anyone or anything.

I was still cold. The chattering of my teeth had entered my brain. I kept thinking about the old man, wondering how he’d pulled me through the door without breaking me. I ached, but I was all in one piece. Had he rearranged the molecules of the wood to fit me through? Or had he rearranged mine? Why had he pulled me through and then let me go? Why had he sent his golem thing through the door to bite us? Did he know Jason Blake?

Danny’s building looked brand-new. Everything was clean and shining. The front door was massive and made of glass. “Where are we?” I asked.
“The West Village.”
“West of the East Village,” I said.
“Uh, yeah.” Danny looked at me oddly as he pulled out

his key to open the front door. It buzzed open as he put it in the lock. “Bastard,” he muttered. “Naz. The doorman. He loves doing that.” He held the door as I went through. There was another set of double doors, which also buzzed open.

We were in a large foyer. One wall was sheathed in a waterfall, which flowed onto a pond full of really big goldfish. Behind a big desk a bloke sat grinning at Danny. “Gotcha again.”

“Who’s your new girl?” Naz asked. “Don’t you have enough women already?”
“Whatever. This is a friend of my kid sister. Reason, meet Naz.”
I moved forward and offered him my hand. “Hi, Naz.”
“Raisin? Weird name.” He shook my hand.
“No, Reason.”
“Reason? That’s still plenty weird.”
“You get used to it,” Danny said.
“So how come you got no shoes? What’s with the PJs—”
“Long story,” Danny said. “Reason’s going to be staying with me for a while.”
“She is, huh?” Naz raised an eyebrow.
Danny glared at him and I wondered why.
Naz coughed. “Sure, man. Let me know if you need anything, Reason.”
“Ta,” I said.
Naz looked at me blankly.
“Thank you.”
He nodded, and Danny led me towards the lift. When the doors opened, he had to put his key in a slot to make it go. He pressed the top button and smiled. “I’ve got views.”
“Great.”
The lift doors opened onto an enormous high-ceilinged room with loads of windows. I remembered Danny telling JayTee that their dad had left them lots of money. Looking at this flat, I could believe it. I was pretty sure they hadn’t grown up rich, though. I wondered what their father had done to suddenly get rich. How much magic had it taken? Was that what had killed him?
“You like?” Danny asked.
“Wow.” There were so many windows. It was huge.
“So, what are you doing here?”
“Well . . .” I started, but my voice faded. What
had
happened? “The door . . .”
“Come and sit down.” He led me to the kitchen in the corner of the huge room. One wall was cupboards and bench space; the other had a stove and more bench space and a big stainless-steel thing hanging down from the ceiling. Set a little out from both kitchen walls was a solid table with cupboards underneath it, surrounded by six stools. Danny held one out for me. It was taller than Esmeralda’s were, with a soft, cushiony top, and rungs to rest my feet on.
“You want something to eat? I got leftover spaghetti bolognaise.”
“Spag bol, great. I love it.”
“Spag bol? That’s hilarious.” He pulled open the fridge door. There wasn’t much food in it, just tomato sauce, other jars of stuff I didn’t recognise, and two plastic containers—but mostly there were bottles of beer. He grabbed the plastic containers and piled two bowls with their contents, spag and red sauce, and popped them in the microwave.
“What happened exactly?” Danny’s phone rang again. Or rather
sang
again, the same snatch of song it had played in the taxi. He fished it out, looked at it closely, pressed a button, then popped it back into his pocket. “It’ll go to voicemail. Was it that other guy? The one who was—”
“No, it wasn’t Jason Blake.”
“Really? Your grandmother seemed to think it was. Hey, you didn’t run away again, did you?”
I shook my head, tried not to be distracted by my ammonite, which was still relaying the movement of his blood and heart to me.
“Your grandmother hasn’t done anything bad to you, has she? Like that other guy? Jay-Tee said not, but your grandmother was standing right there.”
I shook my head again. Not
yet
she hadn’t. Except for the black and purple feathers. I wasn’t convinced they were to protect me. To leech my magic away while I slept?
“She’s not
drinking
you?”
“No. Not Jay-Tee, either.”
“Then what happened?”
“There’s this old man—”
“I thought you said it wasn’t that Blake guy?”
“It’s a different man.” I shook my head, trying to clear it. “The door was vibrating—well, not vibrating . . .”
“Which door? The one that when you open it you’re in Sydney? If you’re magic, anyway.”
“Yes.” Danny had been standing beside me when Esmeralda opened the door. We’d all stepped through, back to Sydney. He’d stayed in New York, not knowing where we’d gone.
“The door doesn’t normally vibrate?”
“No.” My feet were tingling. I bent down and rubbed them.
“Are they okay? Can you feel your toes?”
“Yes. I think they’re okay. Just cold.”
The bell of the microwave sounded. Danny pulled out the bowls and handed one to me. “Careful, it’s hot.”
It was. I put it down on the table quickly, forking some of it into my mouth without making contact with the bowl. The spaghetti wasn’t hot at all. Lukewarm on the outside and almost cold in the middle, and the sauce was too salty. I ate it, anyway. I was starving.
“So the door was vibrating?” Danny asked as we bolted the food down.
“Well, that’s too little a word really—it looked like it was about to explode. And then it kind of reached for me, and I got sucked through it. Right through the wood. From Sydney to New York.” I paused to take a big breath. “On the other side—I mean, on
this
side—there was an old man standing there. He made me go blind. Just for a second, but it was horrible.”
“You got sucked
through
a door. An unopened door?”
It sounded strange when Danny said it like that:
You got sucked through a door
. How could anyone be sucked through wood? I’d already forgotten how the rest of the world worked, the world that was free of magic. I hadn’t thought much about how it would seem to someone who was normal, who wasn’t doomed. A week ago I hadn’t believed in magic, either.
Less
than a week.
“He
blinded
you?”
“Yes. Made me deaf, too, and I couldn’t smell. No senses at all. It was
really
scary. And then he was laughing at me, telling me to go away.” Well, he hadn’t
said
anything, but it had been clear what he wanted.
“Couldn’t you magic him back? Turn him into a toad?”
“It doesn’t work like that. Anyway, he’s got more magic than me.”
“Can’t your grandmother do something? Blast him?”
“She’s still on the other side of the door.”
“You should call her.”
“Yeah. But can I shower first? Before my toes fall off?” “Of course.”
He led me into a bedroom. I didn’t think it was his. The walls—the ones that didn’t have windows—were covered in posters of people in tight clothes. Singers or actors, I guessed. “Are those Jay-Tee’s?”
“Yup. This is her room. Don’t tell her, though. I want it to be a surprise. It’s filled with all her old stuff.”
He slid one of the posters away, revealing a wardrobe stuffed full of clothes, toys, battered board games, and boxes piled on boxes. So many things.
“Wow, Jay-Tee sure has a lot of stuff.”
“Yeah, I didn’t know what to keep and what to toss. Figured I’d let Jay-Tee decide.”
“I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.”
“You can have this room for as long as you need to. The bathroom’s in there.”
“Thanks.” It was as big as my bathroom in Esmeralda’s house, only it had a window—an escape route, not that I thought I’d need one.
Danny pointed out where the towels were and shut the door behind him. I opened it again. “Uh, Danny? Do you think I could borrow some of her clothes? It’d be nice not to have to put these pyjamas back on.”
“Oh, sure.”
Danny started rifling through the wardrobe and picked out a red T-shirt and a pair of blue tracky-dacks with double white stripes down the sides. “These should fit. They were always big on Julieta.” He handed them to me, and though our skin didn’t touch, I caught the faintest warmth radiating from him, a faint whiff of something I’d never smelled before—something vital and alive.

through the door and rescue Reason, but Esmeralda was dead against it. Especially now that they knew she was safe with JayTee’s brother. Tom, however, had his own thoughts about how “safe” she was with Danny.

A loud, shrill ring startled Tom into dropping the pad where he and Jay-Tee’d been taking turns describing what the door did: every stop; every start; the various gentle ripples that trembled across its surface, sometimes lengthways, sometimes across, occasionally swirling like a whirlpool. Mere wanted them to see if they could spot a pattern. So far, none of their scribbled notes looked very useful.

The phone rang again.
Reason
, Tom thought. Jay-Tee must have thought it, too: they both lunged for the receiver at the same time.

Jay-Tee was quickest, but Tom was closer.
“Hello?” he said, a little breathless. “Mere’s residence.” Jay-Tee repeated, “Mere’s residence,” sarcastically. He

It
was
Reason. Tom felt his cheeks get hot. “Reason! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“How? Jason Blake didn’t—”
“He wasn’t there. It wasn’t him on the other side.”
“It wasn’t?” Tom asked. “You’re sure? Maybe he was somewhere else spying or something.”
“Maybe, but I didn’t see him, Tom. Is Esmeralda there?”
“She’s next door. Researching, trying to find something that will help.”
“So she doesn’t know what’s going on, then?”
Tom hated to hear Mere being criticised, but it was true— she didn’t know what was happening. “Not exactly, but she’ll find something. I’m pretty sure she has lots of ideas.”
Jay-Tee scooted her stool closer, crowding him. “Ask her if—”
“Shhh!”
“What?” Reason asked. She sounded tinny, like she was speaking from inside a metal box on the other end of the world, which she was, sort of—the other side of the world, anyway. Or the other side of the door. It still made Tom’s head spin. In less than a second, Reason had gone from summer to winter, Southern Hemisphere to Northern, moonlight to daylight, Sydney to New York City. When she was really what? Sixteen? Fifteen? Fourteen hours and thousands of kilometres away.
“Nothing, Ree. Jay-Tee’s being a pain.” Jay-Tee made a face and scooched her stool closer, practically putting her ear on the receiver. Tom inched away, which left him with the kitchen table jammed into his ribs. Unfortunately, the phone was an oldfashioned one with a cord and everything. “Are you really fine?”
“Yes. Bit shaken but fine. I’m in New York.”
“Yeah, we know, Danny rang. So what happened, Ree? You disappeared into the door. We both saw it. You’re really sure it wasn’t Jason Blake?” He pressed the phone to his ear as if that would somehow bring Reason closer. Jay-Tee’s cheek was practically against his; he could hear her breathing, straining to listen. The rippling of the door stopped. He nudged Jay-Tee and she wrote it down.
The farthest Tom or Jay-Tee had been from the door since Mere’d issued her instructions and gone to her library was to the bathroom, just off the kitchen. Tom was completely jack of staring at the door and taking notes, and Jay-Tee had been getting narkier and snarlier as each minute passed.
“No,” Reason said, “I didn’t see Blake.” She paused. Tom could hear her breathing, but in a different rhythm to Jay-Tee. She told him about an old man who wasn’t human. Tom didn’t understand.
“Old? How can he be old?” It didn’t make any sense. “
And
do magic?” Then it hit Tom. “Do you think he’s been drinking from other magic-users? Stealing their magic?”
“Could be.”
Could stealing magic keep you alive for centuries? Wouldn’t Mere have mentioned that? Maybe the old man was completely insane? Tom looked at the door. So did Jay-Tee. It was still.
“He’s definitely magic
and
old,” Reason’s voice said down the telephone wire. “I don’t know how he got that way. He didn’t try to take my magic. I don’t know why, ’cause he’s
really
powerful.”
“We gathered that from this end.” Reason had disappeared into the door so fast. Tom’d imagined her captured by Jason Blake or broken into pieces or, worse, trapped inside the door. For a second, Tom could taste wood in his mouth, feel the splinters sticking into all parts of his body like pins and needles, only vicious and bloody. Like the biting golem thing.
“How do you
know
he’s old?” Jay-Tee said loudly, so loud Tom’s ear hurt. He glared at her and held the receiver tighter. It slipped in his now-sweaty hand.
“I just know,” Reason said, far away. “Is that you, Jay-Tee?”
“Yeah!” Jay-Tee yelled, hurting Tom’s ear some more. “So how do you know?”
“Well . . .”
“Come on, Reason,” said Jay-Tee. “How do you know?”
“I can see it.”
“See what?” Jay-Tee said, sounding annoyed.
“Hey,” Tom said. “Steady, Jay-Tee. You don’t want to lose your temper.”
Jay-Tee flushed. “I wasn’t going to lo—”
“So, Ree?” Tom asked, more gently. “How do you mean?”
Tom could hear Reason take a deep breath. “Well,” she said, “when I look at people, really look at them, I can see down into their cells. I can see the magic in them.”
“Wow,” Tom said. “Like when I see the true shapes of things. I can sort of see if a person’s magic, too. Doesn’t always work, though. I wasn’t a hundred-percent sure about you.”
“Then how come you couldn’t see it in Danny?” Jay-Tee asked. She didn’t sound like she was losing it anymore, back to her narky self. “Remember? You had to ask me whether he was magic or not.”
“I didn’t know how to do it then. I do now. When I look at Danny, there’s no magic. But the old man has magic all the way through. It’s like the magic ate most of the human bits of him.”
Tom tried to take this in. Either the old man stole magic from everyone he could or . . . “He must be really, really crazy, then.”
“No.”
“What? You can see whether they’re nutters, too?”
“Yeah, I can, Tom. He’s not crazy.”
“Wow.” He imagined Reason seeing the madness inside her mother. He wondered what it looked like, if his own mother’s insanity looked any different. He was pretty sure it wasn’t something he wanted to look at.
“If Esmeralda gets any ideas about what I should do . . .”
“She will. She’ll call you when she gets back. Shouldn’t be long.”
“Is the door still being all weird?”
Both Tom and Jay-Tee glanced at it.
That would be a yes
. “It’s stopped right now, but there’s been continued weirdness. Some of the feathers burst into flames.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Yeah, I know. They didn’t burn anything else, but. Just left a pile of ashes. I added some of the chicken bones. But it hasn’t been noisy or violent since then. Now it just ripples. It’s quite pretty, actually.” Beside him Jay-Tee mimicked the way he said “quite” under her breath.
“Huh.” Reason’s voice sounded even smaller for a second.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Tired.” She paused. “And fuzzy. You know, jet lag.”
“
Door
lag.”
Reason laughed. “That’s right.”
“I wanted to go after you, but Mere said—”
“It’s too dangerous? It is, Tom, really dangerous. You don’t want to touch the door while it’s like that. That old man is scary. When I tried to magic him—”
“You what?” Fear shot through Tom. That would require a
lot
of magic. “Tell me you didn’t—”
“No, no, I didn’t. Honest, Tom. The old man didn’t let me. He’s really powerful.”
The door started up again, lengthways ripples that started swirling, turning into figures of eight. Jay-Tee was noting it down.
Tom’s scalp tightened. It was as if the old man knew what they’d been saying. Tom could picture him, grinning, showing a mouth full of rotten green teeth. He took a deep breath and changed the subject by asking, “So, uh, what’s Danny’s place like?” Straight away the door slipped back into slower, gentler patterns. Was the old man listening?
Jay-Tee grabbed the phone. Tom’s hands were so sweaty it slipped right out. “You’ve been on for ages.” She turned to the phone. “Hey, Reason. Tom was being a hog. Sorry about before. Being cranky? It’s kind of nervous-making being stuck here watching the stupid door, you know?”
Reason responded, but Tom made no attempt to hear. He stood up, stretched, rubbed his ear. Outside the world was getting lighter. The sun coming up. He looked at the clock on the stove—almost six-thirty. It had been around 4
AM
when Reason had been sucked through into New York City. He was knackered.
“Uh-huh,” Jay-Tee said. “You’re lucky being on the other side. How’s Danny? What’s his place like?”
Reason said something and Jay-Tee giggled.
Suddenly, Tom had a clear image of Danny sitting at the back of that restaurant in New York where they’d found Reason again. A really good-looking guy who’d been radiating eau de Reason. Tom felt wobbly. He hadn’t yet had the nerve to ask Reason about Danny, ask her if anything had happened between them. He didn’t want to think about that. He shook his head, trying to kill the thought, and instead thought of worse things, like Reason not living much longer.
Tom grabbed a glass of water, gulped it down, poured another. The day was heating up. He wished Mere would get back; he was going to go mad if he had to stay here watching the door much longer.
He tapped Jay-Tee on the shoulder. “Hang on, Reason,” Jay-Tee said. “Just a second. What, Tom?”
“I just need to say one thing to Reason.”
Jay-Tee looked like she was going to say something mean, but then she simply handed him the receiver.
“Hey, Reason.”
“Hey, Tom.”
“Listen, will you do me a favour?”
“What?”
“Will you try not to use any magic? I mean, not unless you really, really have to.”
Reason didn’t say anything.
“Will you promise?”
“I’ll promise to try, Tom, but I might have to. That thing . . .”
“I know, but try really, really hard, okay?”
“Sure, Tom. I promise.”
“Good. ’Bye, Reason.”
“’Bye, Tom.” He handed the receiver to Jay-Tee, who nodded at him.
The first thing she said to the phone was, “You’re going to promise me the same thing, right, Reason?”