The Magic Half (7 page)

Miri turned toward her house, which stood quiet and welcoming in the night. Despite its extra rooms and staircases, it looked solid, as though it would always be there. Lightning bugs gleamed briefly in the darkness and then disappeared in the warm stream of light that flowed from the kitchen window. Miri could see a blurry figure moving around the room. It was her mother. She felt a sudden, sharp ache— happy to be home, sorry that Molly wasn’t—and walked swiftly up the porch stairs to the kitchen door. Before she could begin to worry about explaining where she had been or what had happened, her mother looked up from the counter where she was working and opened her arms.

CHAPTER
8

W
HEN SHE FINALLY REALIZED
what her mother was saying, Miri almost laughed.

“. . . an imagination is a wonderful thing, Miri, and I don’t want you to think that I don’t appreciate yours. You’ve got a beautiful, rich world in that brain of yours.” Her mother stroked Miri’s forehead softly. “But baby, you’ve got to understand that you don’t live in that imaginary world. You live in the real one, and it’s much more complicated and, well—dangerous—than I’d like it to be.” She looked at Miri searchingly, and for one wild moment Miri thought her mother was telling her that it was all a dream, that Molly and her world were just made up.

“But Mom! You weren’t there! You can’t know—”

“I do know, sweetie,” her mother broke in soothingly. “You were very angry—and we need to talk about that, too—but honey, running away is not a solution. I know you read about it in books and it sounds exciting, but in the real world, it’s a bad idea. That’s why children have parents to take care of them—because the world is a crazy place.”

“Running away?” said Miri blankly.

Her mother squeezed her shoulders and said, “I know you didn’t mean to scare me. Your father said I should call the police, but I felt sure you’d be back in a few hours, and I didn’t want to get the police involved.”

That was when Miri almost laughed. Her mother thought she had run away. The idea was hilarious. She
had
been on the verge of running away—from Flo and Horst. But actually, all she had wanted the whole time was to run home, bringing Molly with her. She was about to tell her mom the whole story. In fact, she opened her mouth to say, Don’t worry, I didn’t run away. But she quickly shut it again.

How could she explain? Miri knew with certainty that her mother would never believe in Molly, in time traveling, in any of it. She would think Miri was bonkers and take her to a psychiatrist, who would also think she was bonkers. After a while, Miri herself might come to believe she was bonkers. And that would be the end of magic. Miri remembered the wonderful warm feeling of learning that magic was real and that it had happened to her and Molly. That was hers. If she kept the magic a secret, that feeling would be hers forever, even if it never happened again.

So she adjusted her face and tried to look pitiful. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to worry you. It was just so unfair that I got blamed for hitting Ray when he started it all. And he broke my glasses, too.” She sniffed in a pathetic way.

Her mother hugged her again. “I know,” she murmured. “I know. Let’s talk about it.”

• • •

They talked for nearly an hour, and then her mother called her father, and Miri had to talk to him, too. He told her that he understood why she had hit Ray, but that controlling her temper was an important life skill and . . . After a while, Miri stopped listening. They were being very nice, especially considering how hard she had whacked her brother on the head, but she couldn’t wait to escape to her bedroom.

When she finally entered her room, Miri glanced immediately toward the dark corner where she had found the glass lens that afternoon. Of course, she knew it couldn’t be there, because it was somewhere in Molly’s world, maybe in her pocket or something, but she had a hope that somehow the magic would let it reappear. Instead, the wood board was smooth and empty, holding nothing. The disappointment was like a weight dropping on her. Why couldn’t you just let it
be
there? she demanded and instantly apologized. She had read enough stories to know that magic punished the ungrateful. “Thank you,” she said out loud, stretching her face into a wide, fake smile. Sheesh, she thought after a moment, maybe I
am
bonkers. No, she knew she wasn’t. And besides, she missed Molly. Who misses an imaginary person?

Miri slipped into her closet and flicked on the light. Her own clothes hung unevenly on their hangers, looking out of place. Miri knelt on the untidy pile of shoes on the floor and pulled up the lid of the long, low bench. Yes—it rose with a resentful squeal. I am such a dork, thought Miri. I never even checked it before. She peered inside. Maybe she would find a clue, something that belonged to Molly, something that would prove that Molly was real and that Miri had really met her that afternoon.

At first glance, it, too, was a bust. There were a few frayed, no-color ribbons at one end. There was a glass jar containing the remains of several spiders. There was a single brown shoe with a hole in the toe. There was bunch of cloth violets that probably didn’t look very good even when they were new. And there was a stack of magazines. The secret flap that led to the attic had been nailed shut from the other side. Miri saw little nail points jutting through the wood. She thumped her fist against the boards, but they didn’t budge. Miri was about to close the bench when it occurred to her that the magazines might be interesting. She pulled the pile out and began to leaf through them. They were all from the thirties and forties:
Life, Saturday Evening Post, Motion
Picture,
and
Ladies’ Home Journal.
At any other time, Miri would have liked looking at the pictures, but now she tossed them to the floor impatiently.

A thin paper notebook with a blue cover slid out from the pages of a
Saturday Evening Post
. Miri opened it, her hands trembling with excitement. “Molly Gardner” was written in flowing cursive in the right-hand corner of the first page. Wow, her handwriting is a lot nicer than mine, thought Miri. Below, where the lines began, a date was tidily noted: September 4, 1934. “Fifth grade began. Miss Dilys Fanning. Cow out. Nothing.” Immediately below on the next line was “September 5, 1934. Reading good. Laundry. Nothing.” On the next line, “September 6, 1934. Multiplication tables. Made blackberry muffins. Nothing.” Miri frowned as her eyes ran down the page. What was “Nothing”? And why bother to write at all if you weren’t going to say any more than that? She flipped a page: “Nothing . . . Nothing . . . Nothing . . .” It was at the end of every entry. She flipped another page, and another, until she came to the last entry: “July 22, 1935. Miri came.” The rest of that page and all the following pages were blank.

The notebook fell from Miri’s hands, and she stared wide-eyed at the white wall before her. It
had
all happened. The magic was real. She had gone back in time that afternoon and met an eleven-year-old girl named Molly. The last tiny doubt disappeared from her mind like a popping soap bubble, and a question arose to fill the newly cleared space: Why? Why had it happened? And why had the magic chosen her?

Miri was pretty sure that it was not because she was good. Cinderella, for example, now
she
was good: singing while she cleaned the house, happily sewing for her nasty stepsisters. And that’s why her fairy godmother had given her the coach, the dress, the prince. Miri had always found Cinderella annoying, but she was definitely better than Miri. Miri complained if she had to clean even her own room. And look at this afternoon—she had almost killed Ray with a shovel. No, the magic hadn’t chosen her because she was good.

Despite what Molly had said, Miri was also positive she wasn’t a fairy. Or a witch. She had never once talked to an animal. Or flown. She would have noticed.

There was only one other reason that she could think of. She had been chosen—or called up, like Molly said—because she was supposed to do something helpful. She was supposed to solve a problem. Miri rubbed her finger across the smooth blue cover of Molly’s notebook. Molly had a problem, all right, and its name was Horst. Aunt Flo was a meanie, but there was something about Horst—Miri saw his thick, angry face turning toward her in the barn, and shook herself like a dog shaking off water. Yuck. She couldn’t stand to think of Molly being in the same house with him. She flipped through the notebook until she reached the last entry. “Miri came,” she read. But that wasn’t good enough. “I’ve got to get her out of there,” she muttered. Miri took a long, slow breath. All right, then. If she was supposed to save Molly, she’d be happy to do it.

But how?

Miri dropped her head into her hands and began to think.

• • •

About an hour later, Miri was sitting at her desk with Molly’s notebook opened before her. At the top of a blank page, she wrote “Possibilities. 1. Best: I figure out how to go back to 1935 and return with Molly.” Miri tapped her pen against her teeth and looked at what she had written. The best seemed to require a lot of luck.
How
was she going to go back to 1935? Not to mention returning—with Molly— to her own time? The magic did not seem inclined to whisk them back and forth just because they wanted it to.

Think logically, she told herself sternly. What do you already know about the magic? She smiled; when Miri or Robbie or Ray asked their father for help with their homework, he always began by saying, “What do you already know?” about frogs, or Cherokee Indians, or Egyptian mummies, or whatever they were working on. What did she already know? Not a thing. She looked through an eyeglass lens and ended up in 1935. She looked through another one and ended up at home. Miri sighed and wrote “Glasses.”

Wait, though. She also knew that it was her own glasses that had brought her home. How could her own glasses be magic? They were just her glasses, glasses that she had worn every day for the last six months, not like the mysterious lens taped to her wall, the one that had taken her to Molly. What had she thought when she looked through it?
Whoever owned
this must have really bad eyesight.
But that wasn’t true, because Molly had said that the lens was exactly like hers, and her eyes hadn’t seemed so bad.

No. That’s not what Molly had said. She had said that the lens
was
hers.

Miri let out a grunt of surprise, and then pressed her hand to her forehead as though she could squeeze the memory out. Molly had been lying on the bed, with the old glass lens over her eye like a monocle. “It’s mine,” she had said.

So there it was. The glasses that took her there were Molly’s. The glasses that brought her home were hers. Molly’s glasses let her look into Molly’s world. Miri’s would let Molly come into hers. Of course. That’s why nothing had happened when they looked through the little glass in Molly’s attic— they were already there. Each lens was a one-way ticket to the other time, a tiny glass time machine. Her regular old glasses had turned into a time machine. It couldn’t last, Miri reasoned. That would be too much to ask. The glasses would be magic only long enough to bring Molly home. Only long enough for Miri to do what she was supposed to do. Molly’s glasses would take her to 1935. Her glasses would bring them home. Okay.

The next step was simple. All she had to do was find a pair of Molly’s glasses.

The next step was impossible. How was she going to find a pair of Molly’s glasses?

“I’ll look everywhere,” she promised in a whisper. But what good would that do? People didn’t just leave glasses lying around for eighty years. But maybe she could find the pair that Molly had lost. Maybe Molly had shoved them to the back of some drawer or closet by mistake, and they were lying there, waiting. After all, she reminded herself, lost stuff has to be
somewhere.
“I’ll find them,” she said firmly, but inside she was doubtful. Maybe, she thought hopefully, any pair from 1935 would do. Maybe I can just buy some antique glasses and get back there.

Miri yawned hugely and squinted at her clock. To her surprise, it said 1:43.Wow. This was the latest she had ever stayed up. What a day. She turned the page over and wrote “Things to Do” at the top. “1. Look for Molly’s glasses. 2. Buy 1935 glasses.” Miri yawned again. “3. Get new glasses for me.” The unbroken lens was the one that had lifted her out of the barn; she didn’t think that they’d work now that both sides were smashed. And besides, she couldn’t see. She read her list, trying to ignore the voice that was whispering,
What if you can’t find Molly’s glasses?
What if you can’t get back? What if you had your chance
and blew it?
“Shut up!” Miri said aloud. She stood up and stretched. Her bed was smooth and comfortable looking, and Miri threw herself facedown on the familiar yellow quilt and closed her eyes. Ahh. She was so tired. Without opening her eyes she reached up to turn out the lamp. Sleep. Sleep.

But sleep did not come. There was a worry prodding her mind, and it was like trying to walk with a blister on her heel.
Go away,
she said to her mind. But the worry kept poking and rubbing and nudging. It wouldn’t let her alone. After a long time, Miri got up and went to her desk.

She snapped on the light and grimly turned the page over again, back to “Possibilities.” She picked up her pen and wrote, “2. Bad: Molly runs away before I can get back.” She thought for a moment and wrote, “3. Worst: I never get back at all.” She hesitated for a moment and returned to bed. But there was something even worse than that, so bad that she didn’t want to write it down. She couldn’t stop herself from imagining it, though. 4. Horst lumbering to his feet, his face purple with fury, his bellow rising to a scream as he thunders up to the loft.
“You’re going to be sorry
now, runt! You’re going to wish you was never born!”
Horst kicking savagely at the hay, hoping to connect with bone and finding nothing. Horst raging that his victim had escaped yet again, his heavy boots grinding the old wooden ladder rungs, his breath coming in grunts as he runs into the house, rushes up the narrow staircase, and throws his meaty shoulder against the door until it shivers open. Molly, startled, sitting up in bed, her face white and scared. And Horst smiling—