The Real Boy (14 page)

Oscar looked at the floor.
No.

“Oscar,” Malcolm said, taking a deep breath, “I was going to come talk to you today. I am leaving.”

“Leaving? Where?”

“To the Eastern Villages. This is not my home anymore. I have been planning this for a long time. And if magicians are attacking their own, it is time to go. Your news today only confirms what I had planned.”

“When are you going?”

“Today.”

“Oh.”

Malcolm leaned forward and took Oscar’s hands. The touch was like fire on his skin. His eyes looked into Oscar’s, and Oscar could not look away, though he felt himself burning. “I think you should come with me.”

“What?”

“You can be the baker’s apprentice.”

Something rose in Oscar’s chest, like a flower blossoming all at once. It grew until it filled him and threatened to spill over everywhere. The words Malcolm spoke touched a longing so deep Oscar hadn’t even known it was there.

His eyes fell on his plate. There was only a carcass of the roll left; the rest was in bits. He grasped the flower, clutched it close, so close he would never forget the feel of it.

And then he let it go.

It was a life for someone, but not for him.

“I can’t leave.”

Malcolm sat back, releasing Oscar’s hands. “I intend to bring my cats. And there will be room for more. There is no magic to dislike them there. And,” he added, “we could bring Miss Callie. Villages always need healers, and she is quite naturally gifted.”

“She says she isn’t.”

“A good healer is gifted in ways other than magic, Oscar.”

“I can’t leave,” Oscar said.

“Why not?”

“Because.” Because this was everything he knew. Because he lived in the cellar, in the pantry, in his small bedroom. Because there was the library, the hallways. Because his feet knew how to walk on these paths, his lungs how to breathe this air. Because he knew all the trees. Because he was loyal and hardworking. Because this was what he was made for. And what would happen to a boy made of wood if the magic that bound him failed? What would happen to him out of the arms of the forest, away from magic, with nothing around him but emptiness?

No wonder he was so bound to the forest. No wonder being away from it pulled on his skin.

“I have to stay.”

“Well,” Malcolm said, “I hope you will change your mind.”

Oscar did not speak. His eyes filled, spilled over.

Malcolm put his hand on Oscar’s shoulder. “I will leave you instructions for how to contact me, and anytime you want to come, anytime you need me, you just send word, and I will come get you. This is my word to you. Do you understand?”

And he took Oscar by the hands and looked him in the eye. And Oscar took a deep breath, and then met his gaze. There was a whole sky in there. But this one Oscar wanted to fall into.

It was a life for someone, but not for him.

When he got back to the shop, all the lights were on and the front door was open. Oscar’s heart skipped and his head filled with possibilities—Callie, some robber, some angry City lord, some magician determined to ruin the Barrow.

But when he walked in, he found it was worse than all of that.

“Master Caleb,” he said.

The magician was standing at the shop counter, filling the whole room with his presence. He was bent over studying a letter he had clutched in his hand, and the air around him was crackling. At the sound of Oscar’s voice he popped up, and his eyes flared.

Caleb strode in front of the counter and threw his arms to the side. “Why was the shop closed?” he asked, voice bigger than the room could hold. “It’s Thursday, one of our busiest days. What if the duke found out? What could the emergency possibly have been? It must have been
dire
.”

Oscar shrunk. “I—I’m sorry.”

“What?” Caleb spat, taking another step. He was as big as a giant. “Do you think the money to run this place makes itself? Do you think the duke will lessen his fees just because you didn’t feel like working the shop? Do you think that just because I’m a magician, the rules don’t apply?” He grabbed the money box from the counter and held it up. “Is this really all the money for the
week
?”

Oscar had heard Caleb yell before, had seen him angry before, but all that anger had always seemed to be spinning tightly around the magician, always held by his gravity. Now it was flying through the air, completely uncontrolled.

“What is wrong with you? What is wrong with everyone? Can’t anyone solve a problem for himself? Do I have to do everything?”

Oscar stepped backward. “I—I’m sorry, I—”

He what? Tuesday he’d gone to the City to discover the plague had probably returned. Tuesday night he’d been busy learning that the whole mythology of the Barrow was a lie. Wednesday he’d spent fielding angry questions about Caleb’s location. Wednesday night he’d discovered he was a creation of wood scraps and dark magic. And today he had gone to visit the only magician the Barrow had left because he was so desperate for someone to help him make sense of everything—except that that magician had given it all up for bread.

Callie had taught him to apologize. But no, he was not sorry.

He straightened as tall as he could. Which was not very tall, but it still felt right.

“Master Caleb?”

Caleb had moved back behind the counter and was pointedly counting out money from the money box. He glanced up.

“You cut down the wizard trees.”

Caleb’s gaze did not waver, but the room shuddered. He lowered the money box slowly onto the counter, straightened, and folded his arms. “Did I, now?” he said. His words sounded oddly like a caress.

Oscar felt his lip twitching. “You did,” he said. “You cut down the wizard trees. At least five. And you”—he couldn’t bring himself to say it—“left the stumps. Your illusion spell faltered—”

Caleb slammed his hand on the counter. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. You did! They’re wizards and you killed them.”

“There is no such thing as wizards,” Caleb said. “Not anymore.”

“They’re the trees!”

“They left us,” Caleb said.

“They sacrificed themselves! To save the City!”

“And then what?” he said, throwing his arms out. “They left us with all this magic and no one left who knew how to use it. If the first sorcerer had not found a way, it all would have dwindled and died. And then where would we be?”

“I—” Oscar started. He had no idea how to answer. How could you answer a question about something that had never happened?

“The wizards left us,” Caleb said, articulating each word like some terrible spell. “They left the magic to die. And then there would be no protection for anyone—against disease, misfortune, hunger, want, vulnerability.” He banged the side of his hand against the counter with each word. “How is that protecting Aletheia? How?”

Oscar’s face went hot. “That doesn’t mean you can cut them down.”

Caleb was in front of the counter now, walking slowly toward him. “Who says I have, Oscar?
You?
My dull little hand? Have you told anyone your theory? Do you think people will believe you?”

“No,” Oscar said.

Master Caleb was in front of him now, staring him down. “It is up to me to shepherd the magic, serve the City, make the Barrow thrive. Me! The wizards left us; I have to work with what we have.” Caleb’s chest heaved. “I should turn you out for your disrespect, little hand. But instead—”

He lifted his hand high and—
crack
—slapped Oscar on the cheek. Oscar’s palm flew up to his face like a startled bird. His cheek roared, and it felt like a bottle had shattered inside his head.

Caleb drew up. “I will find a new apprentice to replace Wolf,” he said, voice steady. “You will go back to the cellar where you belong; I see being upstairs gives you grand delusions. And if you ever speak of this, to anyone, I will turn you out and leave you in the plaguelands. All you have to give is your loyalty, do you understand? That is your only worth.”

Oscar held his cheek and tried to blink his brain back into place. Caleb was right: his loyalty was all he had to give. He began to make his way to the basement, below ground where he belonged. But when he got to the doorway he stopped and turned. “Master Caleb?”

“What?” Caleb snapped.

“I want to know why,” he said. “Not about cutting down the trees, but . . .”

That was it. He couldn’t say it. It was his one chance, and he could not commit the truth to words.

But Caleb did not ask him what he was talking about. He folded his arms and appraised Oscar. “There was a need,” he said. “That is all.”

Oscar nodded slowly. At least it was the truth. He walked into the back room, and down the stairs into the dark cellar. His pantry awaited him.

This was what he’d wanted. Even though his cheek stung and he could still feel Caleb’s fury lashing at him, he should have felt relieved. He had his four walls and ceiling back, his small little days, his mortar and pestle and his beginnings, middles, and ends. There would be no more shop, no more customers, no more journeys to the City, no more world shifting under his feet. He had it all back, everything in its place. He should feel relieved, happy.

He should. He should.

Oscar sat in the pantry for hours. He should work, but he did not. There was so much in his head, so many places to get lost. Oscar wandered and wandered and could not find his way out. Some cat or another sat next to him; another slept noisily in a corner. He put his hand on the cat and got lost some more.

Nighttime. Caleb came down the stairs and walked by the pantry without stopping. Oscar was not working, but Caleb did not check. Somehow, this was even worse.

He wondered, dimly, if Caleb might notice anything amiss in his workroom. But what would Caleb do, slap him?

After a long time, Oscar went upstairs to do his nightly chores. This was what he’d been made for.

After feeding the cats, he found himself wandering into the shop. It was very dark. He straightened the shelves where the protective spells were, trying to make them look less picked over. In his head he ran through what he would need to make—just as he would every night for the rest of his life. But the gardens had been torn up, the glass house destroyed. Eventually, Oscar was going to run out of things in his pantry. And Caleb would have to tell the customers,
I am sorry; I have no more; would you like some bits?

And Oscar laughed a little to himself.

And that was when the front wall crashed in.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Dirt

I
t was like the entire front of the shop exploded—like someone had loaded a giant cannon with stone and wood and glass and shot it into the room. Bits of door and wall and window flew toward Oscar like they themselves were attacking. He crouched down, covering his head by instinct. His whole body took over, never giving his mind time to consider that there might be something worse coming.

There was. Oscar sensed it before he saw it, something dark and hulking and altogether wrong. Dull thuds, like a stone mallet hitting the ground, and some suffocated groaning. And chaos all around, like Oscar was inside a jar of water that someone was shaking violently.

His eyes popped open.

In the rubble and dust that had once been the front of the shop, a creature hulked and crashed about. Not a creature, a monster. Not made of sky but of earth. A giant, as tall as the shop, and person-shaped, with thick arms and legs and a sphere for a head, but mostly it was an enormous lumbering
thing
made of dense, wet black soil, with bits of moss and patches of grass and fungi and sticks and decomposing plants mixed in. Every time the creature moved, its surface rippled, as if the soil of its body was shifting and churning. Wet black clumps dripped off its arms as it swung them around.

It swiped across a shelf of charms, pushing as many as it could into the center of its face. And then it did the same with a shelf of tinctures: the creature ate them, glass and all. The floor filled with the remnants—broken bits of charms, shattered glass, oils spilling everywhere.

It brought down everything on the east wall of the shop, devouring everything it could—jewels and potions and salves and herb packets and spell kits and decoctions and teas and so many small enchantments. And then it froze, arm raised in mid-swing, and turned its blob of a head slowly toward Oscar.

It had no face, but Oscar could tell it was studying him all the same. It tilted its head back and forth and then let out a strange muffled roar. A maw opened in the front of its head, gaping and endless, like if you fell into it you would drown in the earth. If you made it that far, that is—the thing had teeth made of sharp rocks, with little patches of moss caught between them.

Then another beast appeared in the doorway to the back room, a hissing thing with a demon face, spikes of fur standing straight up along its spine, and a tail like a puffy club.

Cat.

The monster took a lumbering step back.

Then Crow appeared next to Cat, growling like an earthquake. And Cat sprang at the creature.

“No!” Oscar exclaimed, bursting to his feet.

The creature groaned and swatted the cat away. Cat landed in the corner with a thump but sprang up again. Now Bear was next to Crow, and the two cats prowled slowly forward.

Oscar jumped up and put his hand on whatever was on the shelf behind him—a smooth glass vial with some red liquid in it. He was by the love potions; they would have to do. He hurled one at the creature, and glass exploded on its chest. The monster slammed its hand into the spot where the potion had hit and then stuck its hand in its mouth and sucked the liquid off.

Cat sprang again, leaping, claws first, onto the monster’s back. It swiped, and chunks of soil fell to the floor. Crow went for its leg with her mouth, batting soil away with her paws. The monster wriggled and writhed at the cats’ touch. Bear made for the other leg. The monster kicked at Bear, but she sprang out of the way. Oscar hurled another potion at the creature, and another. He screamed as he threw the glass jars, he screamed terrible things, and the whole shop was glass and fur and soil and hissing and shrieking and lurching and little bits of magic scattered everywhere.

The monster kicked Crow away and swept Cat off it again and took a step toward Oscar, and Oscar was running out of love potions. And then—

“HEY!”

A voice exploded above the chaos. Oscar’s head whipped toward it. Caleb was in the doorway, filling it as he’d never filled it before, his whole face like fire. Map and Pebble hissed at his side.

“GET OUT OF HERE, BEAST!”

Caleb shouted again and took a step forward, raising his arm out over his shoulder and swinging a glowing battle flail on a chain. Oscar could not move, could barely see or hear. The creature roared, and the roar was deathly, urgent, tragic—and even though the thing could kill him very very badly, somehow that roar still shattered Oscar’s heart. The creature took a big lumbering step toward Caleb, then another one.

“Oscar,” Caleb bellowed. “Go!”

Oscar looked from Caleb to the front door of the shop, which was now clear.

“Oscar, run! NOW! Now, my boy!”

But he could not. He could not run. He could not move, though the monster was stepping toward his master, though his master kept yelling at him to go. The monster lurched. The flail circled. The cats mustered their forces. The air was tar-thick with dirt and noise and motion and sweat and spilled herbs and rot, so thick Oscar was trapped in it.

But Caleb was here now. Caleb was here and the battle flail was swinging and the cats were remounting their attack and Oscar was in the corner and the monster was in front of Caleb now, reaching for him. With a flick of his arm Caleb swung the flail at the creature’s torso. Soil sprayed the air, and the thing howled again.

The monster grabbed at the glowing ball. Caleb flicked it away and then struck again. Another burst of dirt, another terrible hollow howl, and the monster took another swipe at the chain, hitting it with its paw. Now the ball swung around the creature’s paw, chain right behind it. Immediately, the monster clutched the ball to its chest, pulling Caleb forward. Caleb yelled, then yanked the flail back. A clump of dirt fell to the floor.

The monster roared and lunged toward the flail again. It grabbed at the weapon with its pawless arm, and with a mighty swing of its other arm swatted at the thing holding the weapon. Caleb.

The arm hit Caleb directly on the side of his head and kept going, like it had hit nothing at all. Caleb’s head snapped backward, far, too far; some unearthly sound cracked in the air, and the magician crumpled to the floor.

Quiet. Stillness. Absolute.

Then, a flash of gray hurtling through the air. The screech of one cat, the howl of another. And another sound—something high and desperate coming from Oscar.

Caleb lay on the floor, and then the monster was over him so Oscar could see only its hulking black form. Crow was on the thing’s back, soil flew everywhere, and the creature started up and began grabbing for the cat.

Caleb still lay there.

“Master?” Oscar screamed. And then suddenly he could move, he could do nothing but move, he was running forward—toward the monster, toward the flail, toward his magician and master. The monster was over Caleb again, clutching for the battle flail. Crow went sailing through the air. Without a thought, Oscar threw himself at the beast, as if he were a cat, as if he had any power at all against such a thing. He beat his fists against the thing’s back.
Get up, Caleb. Get up.

A roar shattered the earth. Suddenly Oscar was in the air; his eyes and face and lungs were full of dirt; the earth was crushing him, taking his breath and body. Another roar, and suddenly Oscar was flying backward.

BAM.
His whole body slammed against the path outside the shop. His head hit the stone, everything in him thwacked, and sickly shocks traveled up his back. Oscar screamed. For a moment he heard nothing and saw nothing but some soundless explosion in front of his eyes, like the sun was bursting open.

The monster had thrown him out of the shop. Swatted him away like a gnat. Caleb was still in there, maybe still on the floor; maybe he hadn’t even gotten up yet; maybe he was hurt and needed help.

Help. He could get help. Though aftershocks of pain rumbled through his body, though his head roared and his stomach turned, Oscar pushed himself up and made for the nearest shop.

It was nighttime in the marketplace, and anyone who had a home would have gone there already. But Oscar screamed and banged on the doors, his need spilling over everywhere, and by some force of luck or magic people answered. In moments a small group stood in front of Master Thomas’s place: the blacksmith himself; Madame Aphra, the weaver; Madame Olivia, the bookmaker; and Madame Catherine—once the proud owner of a Most Spectacular Goat.

The blacksmith disappeared into his shop and came back with two swords and two axes and distributed them among the adults, then gave Oscar a small knife. “For protection,” he said. “You go hide in my shop now, all right?”

The magic smiths went off into the night and Oscar waited three beats and crept after them. He was so scared he could die from the fear, if the pain in his body did not kill him first, but still he followed them—knife out in front of him. As if that knife would do any good against the monstrous thing.

Just pretend,
Callie would say.

His ears were roaring and his body trembling and everything inside him aching and reverberating; still, he expected to hear something echoing from the shop into the night—yelling and crashing—he expected to see some battle spilling out past the wreckage. But everything was silent and still. Though he wanted more than anything to go hide under a counter at the blacksmith’s, Oscar crept forward.

And then he was outside the shop, peering in. And there was no chaos at all, no swinging swords, no swiping hands, no shattering stock, no glowing iron star. There were just four magic smiths, standing together with their backs to him, weapons at their side, still.

Oscar burst in and slipped around the edge of the group.

The shop was completely ravaged. It looked like an angry giant had taken a hammer to it. What had once been carefully stocked shelves were now fragments on the floor. Even the counter was smashed. There was nothing on the walls but broken pieces of things, and the floor was a chaos of wood and glass and stone and powder and liquid and soil—clumps of soil, large and small, everywhere.

And in the middle of it all lay Caleb, eyes open, body broken—just the way Oscar had left him.

Hands falling on Oscar’s shoulders. Pulling him back. The other adults moving in front of Caleb’s body like a wall. Madame Catherine, voice firm: “Come outside with me.”

“No,” Oscar said, shaking himself loose. “I want to see.”

And he stood there taking in the body of Master Caleb, once the greatest magician in the Barrow. He took a slow step forward and got down on his knees in front of the body of his master, his creator.

This was not Caleb. It was a thing, with all the Caleb-ness gone from it. Death takes the person and leaves his shell behind, like a hollowed-out tree.

Oscar owed this man everything, even his birth. And tonight he owed him his life. Master Caleb was his father, or the closest to it Oscar would ever have, and now he was gone. Oscar did not know what he was supposed to be feeling right now, what all the adults behind him would be expecting him to feel. He did not even know what he was, in fact, feeling. Except, whatever it was, it was a lot. Too much. More than bodies could hold.

“Oscar,” said Madame Catherine, who was suddenly next to him, “do you want to come back with me?”

Oscar shook his head. “Do you have somewhere to go?” Madame Aphra asked.

Oscar nodded.

“We’ll come back tomorrow and clean up. Would that be all right?”

Nod.

“And maybe you can tell us what happened. Would that be all right?”

Nod.

“Would you like us to take Master Caleb now?”

Nod.

And soon the adults had wrapped up the shell of Master Caleb and taken him away, and then there was no more Caleb in Caleb’s shop.

A mewing: a filthy, bedraggled Bear stumbled in from the back room. Her formerly white puffy fur was caked in dirt, and clumps of soil hung off her stomach and sides. Her front legs and her muzzle were entirely black.

“Oh!” Oscar exclaimed, standing up. “Bear! Are you hurt? Where is everyone?”

He looked around. Three sets of paw prints led out the front room of the store. But there should have been five. Bear was standing next to the pile of rubble where the counter had been, squawking. Oscar darted over and started moving the rubble aside to reveal Cat pinned at the bottom, as dirty as Bear.

The animal looked up at Oscar in a daze. Two of his legs were bent in very bad ways. Broken.

Oscar choked out a noise. “Oh, Cat, I’ll—”

But Cat yowled and looked pointedly at the back corner of the room. Crow was lying there, curled in a ball on her side, her flank covered in glass and splinters of wood and bits of blood. She was shivering. As Oscar went to her, she blinked up at him and whimpered.

“I’m going to make you feel better,” he whispered, trying to cover the breaking in his voice. “Wait here. I’ll be back.” He darted downstairs and grabbed a few things from the pantry, and soon he presented the cat with a mixture of milk and valerian root in a bowl. “This is for the pain,” he said, dipping his finger in and letting her lick it off. He did the same for Cat. Then Oscar crouched next to Crow and picked the glass and splinters out of her, one by one. “You’re very brave,” he told her. “You are a remarkable cat.” He washed the soil and blood off her, moving in firm, sure strokes across her flank, and then wrapped her in bandages laced with witch hazel and chamomile.