A Hidden Magic (6 page)

They could hear the witch singing, "La-la-la-la-de-dah," inside.

Norman kicked at a stone, which bounced off the invisible wall and almost hit him. "How could I be so stupid?" he demanded.

Jennifer thought it was one of those trick questions that doesn't really have a right answer, so she didn't try to give one, but said instead, "That was mean and sneaky and underhanded," which seemed like something no one could argue with.

Norman made a low, growling sound in
the back of his throat. "And I should have expected it." He looked around for something to throw, then remembered the bottle he had put down in order to examine the wall. "Well, at least we still have this."

"Do you think it's the right bottle?"

He gave his beard a good hard tug. "Well, there's one sure way to find out."

J
ENNIFER PICKED UP THE BOTTLE.

She had never seen a jinni's bottle before and hadn't really known what to expect, but she was surprised anyway. Underneath a heavy coating of sticky dust, it appeared to be an ordinary glass container.

She blew off some of the dust but couldn't see through the thick brown glass. She looked over to Norman and took a deep breath. Then she pulled out the cork and, when nothing happened, peered inside. It seemed to be
empty. She tried shaking it, then held it up to her ear. Still nothing.

Again she turned to Norman. He had his arms folded across his chest and was looking at her with raised eyebrows.

Jennifer rubbed the bottle.

Suddenly it grew warm in her hands and a whiff of smoke materialized. Jennifer dropped the bottle as the whiff turned to a pink putt; then the puff thickened into a red cloud. The cloud started to laugh. Before Jennifer had time to think, "That's odd!" a full-size jinni dressed in red and gold was standing before her.

He was very tall and stood with his hands on his wide hips, laughing heartily in a manner more jolly than frightening. He wore gold chains and armbands and earrings that jingled whenever he moved. His eyes were green, and—although Jennifer and Norman didn't know it—they were the exact color of the sea
In
the house he had left long ago. And like the sea at noon, they sparkled brightly.

"Oh!" Jennifer exclaimed, as he made a sweeping bow to her. She wasn't sure what the proper greeting for a jinni was, so she just silently curtsied and looked him over carefully.

The jinni turned to Norman and bowed again. "I am the jinni of the bottle," he said. (No accent, Jennifer noted.) "I understand you are my new master."

"The two of us," Norman corrected.

"Ah, a partnership! Are you aware that there are rules?"

"Yes, but we don't know what they are."

"Ah!" the jinni said again. "Actually, there are only two. First, you get one wish."

Jennifer nodded eagerly and the jinni smiled encouragingly.

"And the second rule simply defines the limitations on what that wish can be."

"Sounds fair," Norman grudgingly agreed. "How many limitations are there?"

"Nine hundred and eighty-three," the jinni
answered, gesturing and pulling a leather-bound book from the air.

Jennifer's eyes grew large.

"I'll just go over the main points," the jinni assured them. "I can be summoned back any number of times for clarification."

"What have we gotten ourselves into?" Norman sighed.

The jinni smiled reassuringly and put on a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. Then he tapped one of his jeweled fingers on the first page. "Now, I said you get one wish, and that means one. You can't wish for more wishes; you can't wish for another jinni; you can't wish for magic power."

Norman nodded, and the jinni skipped ahead at least a hundred pages.

"You can't wish to destroy any magic object belonging to someone else, and you can't break a spell somebody else has cast."

Norman exhaled loudly and glanced at Jennifer.

The jinni looked over his glasses in time to see their expressions. "Ah," he said thoughtfully.

He ran his finger down several pages before stopping again. "You're not allowed to tamper with the nature of the world. That includes going back to yesterday or extending today, changing the order of the seasons, turning the moon to green cheese, that sort of thing.

"Further, I'm not allowed to harm anyone for you, and I can't force people to do something they don't want to do."

The jinni turned some more pages. "Your wish can't be too general, like for 'happiness' or 'peace.' You have to ask for something specific. 'A bottomless pot of gold' is very popular," he suggested hopefully, and looked up to see what reaction this got.

When it didn't get any, he flipped through the last pages with a gentle tinkling of armbands and chains. "Almost through. Ah, yes. I
MO
can't advise you directly or give you any information or insights."

The jinni closed the book and folded it into the air in front of him. "Any questions?"

Norman raised his eyebrows. "What good are you?"

"Ah, well," the jinni said noncommittally, removing his glasses and putting them away with his book.

"You said you can't break someone else's spell," Jennifer said. "But Norman looks old because of his
own
spell. Can you make him young again?"

"Assuredly."

Norman held up his hand. "Maybe later," he told Jennifer, "if we don't need him for something more important."

Jennifer thought being stuck looking like someone's great-grandfather was pretty important, but Norman had already turned back to the jinni. "Is there a time limit to this wish?"

"You may take as long as you need to make up your minds."

"And afterward," Jennifer asked, "what about you?"

"Your decision entirely. Most often I am, ahm—how can I put this delicately?—traded for something of value."

This reminded them of Norman's lost ring and didn't really answer her question. "But how long do you have to remain in the bottle?" she asked.

"Ah!" the jinni said. "You mean, "When is a jinni not a jinni?'"

She nodded.

For a second it seemed as if he didn't plan to answer, but he was only remembering a happy life hastily traded long ago for an endless one. And once again his mind saw the little house by the boundless sea. "Never, I'm afraid," he answered. "There can't be a magic bottle without a jinni."

He shrugged away an angry memory. "Worse things could have happened." He made a vague gesture and his bracelets clinked softly. "Are you ready to make your wish?"

"No," Norman decided. "We'll save it for when we really need it."

The jinni bowed and was gone, leaving only a pinkish haze that settled to the ground with the faintest jingling.

"Oh, my," Jennifer said.

"Indeed," Norman agreed.

I
F JENNIFER HAD FOUND
Norman's first plan to be a bit vague and shaky (and to be perfectly honest, she did), that was nothing compared to what she thought of his next plan.

To get the jinni from the Old Witch and just see what happened from there was haphazard enough, but she couldn't believe she had heard correctly when he told her his new idea.

"Excuse me, but I think there's something wrong with my ears," Jennifer said, tapping
one of them. "I thought you said, 'We're going to try to find Malveenya herself.'"

"Forget your ears," Norman said. "There's nothing else we can do."

Obviously methodical planning was not one of Norman's strong points. But in this case he was right—they faced the choice of forgetting about Alexander or of confronting Malveenya. And when she thought back to Alexander's arrogant, selfish ways, Jennifer had to admit to herself that the idea of letting sleeping princes lie was very appealing.

But she knew she couldn't do that, and she realized she couldn't come up with any plan better than Norman's, so she had to agree.

"Should we get some help from my father's army?" Jennifer asked. She was afraid to think how worried the old king would be by now, and drew a mental picture of him sending out the troops to look for her. Unfortunately, the kingdom had been at peace for so long that there was no full-time army, only the reserves
MS who met for parades and grand openings and such.

Jennifer recalled the last time she had seen them in action. "Parade, march!" the sergeant at arms had called so loudly that a boy who normally worked on his father's farm dropped his rusty shield, which tripped the part-time basket weaver carrying King Frederick's standard, which bopped the head of the stable hand in front of him who wasn't wearing his helmet because he was busy trying to fix its leather chin strap. The stable hand immediately gave a terrific yell, which caused two-thirds of the army to drop shields and swords and jump into the bushes. The men remaining weren't necessarily the bravest, but they were wearing ill-fitted helmets that pressed against their ears and prevented them from hearing anything. So they stood milling about saying, "Whazzat? What happened?" Her father's army would hardly—Jennifer admitted to herself—be a decided advantage.

"We could go back and get them to help us," Norman was saying, "but this is probably a situation where we need quickness and cleverness rather than brute force."

The army certainly didn't have brute force, and considering the alternative qualities Norman had named, Jennifer decided to forget the subject entirely. "What exactly are we going to do?" she asked.

"I thought we'd just find Malveenya and see what happens from there."

Jennifer didn't mention that this was what she'd been afraid he would say, but asked instead how they'd find Malveenya.

He explained that her main home was in a place called the Valley of Darkness and Despair. Norman knew the general direction, but warned that the forest road sometimes seemed to have a mind of its own—which was something Jennifer had begun to suspect the day before.

"Right, then," she said, with what she hoped was a determined and ready-for-anything expression, "we're off."

So, with Jennifer carrying the magic bottle in one of the huge pockets in her gown, the two of them set out hand in hand to find the most powerful evil creature in the forest.

The forest road ended.

One minute it was twisting and turning in its usual infuriating way; the next it was abruptly gone. The bricks led to a thick wall of trees, then stopped. There wasn't the faintest indication of a dirt path or a chipmunk trail or even a spider track (although Jennifer had to take Norman's word for this last one). Dead end. Nothing. Nowhere to go.

"What now?" Jennifer asked.

The sorcerer, who had been even quieter and more withdrawn than usual for the last hour, didn't answer immediately. He studied the angle of the sun and tried to see how far the thick growth of trees that faced them stretched on either side.

"If my bearings are correct," he finally said, "this is it."

"The Valley of Darkness and Despair?"

Norman nodded.

"Where do we get in?" Jennifer's voice was faint because she still wasn't exactly sure she wanted to get in at all.

Norman tugged on his beard a bit. "My first guess would be right here. I know it doesn't look very likely, but I think it doesn't look any more likely anywhere else."

Jennifer remembered what Norman had said about the road having a mind of its own. "It seems to have led us here," she said. "Doesn't it?"

"Yes," he said. With that, he pushed aside a branch and stepped through the row of trees that marked the edge of the Valley of Darkness and Despair.

A
REGULAR PATH
never reappeared, but the position of the bushes, trees, and undergrowth didn't allow them to make any decisions about which way to go. In a sense this was an advantage, since the trees blocked out the sun and they quickly lost all feeling of north, south, east, and west. The only directions they could be sure of were up and down. And it was soon obvious that wherever they were going, it was gradually, but unchangingly, downhill.

Jennifer was just beginning to wonder if there was no more to life than lifting one foot after the other over thick tree roots and squeezing between the clinging branches of tall, scrubby-looking bushes when, suddenly, she realized that the trees up ahead had a different light to them.

Norman had noticed, too, but there was no need to say anything, for this seemed to be where the forest was leading them.

A second later Jennifer saw that the new light was coming from a clearing.

She reached into her pocket to touch the magic bottle and quietly followed Norman out of the shadow of the trees.

Before them was a thatched-roof house that took up most of the clearing.

As soon as her mind registered this, Jennifer corrected herself. Something was out of scale; the perspective was all wrong. She closed her eyes, counted to five, and looked again.

The house was not right there before them; it was still some distance away. And the clearing was enormous; it just looked small because the house took up so much of it.

The chimney reached as high as the trees, and the windows were almost as tall and wide as Norman's whole cottage. Each post of the white fence around the house was made from a hefty tree trunk pounded into the ground. There was a cobblestone walk starting where they stood and going to the front door, but it was much wider than the main road in Jennifer's village and it ended in a step that was almost as tall as she was.