The Wizard Returns: Book Three of the Wizard Born Series (17 page)

“So,” Fred said, eyes hard as emeralds, “you’re going into a very dangerous situation without me, even though my magic might be able to protect you?”

“I was gonna ask you about that. My dad wants to know if we can borrow your magic pendant.” He pointed at her neck.

“Wha—?” Fred huffed. “You have
some
nerve.”

“Can I take that as a yes?”

Fred didn’t answer. She crossed her arms and gave him the silent treatment the rest of the way to school.

Fred’s anger at Jamie soon turned to worry. Her mother came home from work that day to find Fred in the kitchen, frantically preparing a spell.

“Fred!”
Lisa dropped her purse on the table and stormed over to the stove, where Fred was setting a pot of water on to boil. A mortar and pestle sat beside some open jars of herbs on the counter. “I thought I told you not to do magic around here without my supervision?”

“I’m sorry, Mom,” she said without looking at her, “but I have to make a protective pendant for Jamie.”

“Why?”

“He’s going to Eddan’s world this Saturday and I can’t go with him. Jamie’s mom isn’t supposed to know about it, so please don’t tell her.”

“Eddan’s world? Isn’t that place supposed to be dangerous?”

Fred nodded but couldn’t speak, a lump suddenly forming in her throat. She stared at the stove top and blinked as tears began to well in her eyes.

“Honey?” Lisa put her hand on Fred’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

Fred shook her head and turned to face her mother, then threw her arms around her.

“Oh, honey.” Lisa patted Fred’s back while she squeezed her tightly. “Is it really going to be that bad?”

“Yes,” Fred said pitifully.

“Are Carl and John Paul going with him?”

Fred nodded and sniffed.

Lisa put her hands on Fred’s shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “Jamie will be fine. With Carl and John Paul there, and Jamie’s magic...that’s a lot of firepower. And Jamie will have your pendant.’’ She gave Fred a reassuring smile. “Which spell are you putting in it?”

“The Stupefyin’ Spell. That’s what Rita called it. It’s the same one she put in her pendant.” She wiped her eyes with the back of one hand. “When you twirl it, the people around you get really lost and confused.”

“Are you making counter charms too?”

“Already did.” She gestured toward three cheap woven plastic bracelets sitting on the counter by the stove.

“So Jamie will be safe. Carl and John Paul will bring their guns, and Jamie will have his magic and your pendant. I wouldn’t want to mess with them, if I were a wizard. Would you?”

Fred shrugged and pressed one corner of her mouth tight. “I guess not.”

“What are you using for the pendant?”

Fred grabbed a necklace from the counter, a tarnished brass cross on a thin metal chain. “It’s all I have that’s not too girlie for him.”

“It’ll be perfect, honey. Can I watch you make it?”

“Sure. I’m almost ready.” Fred picked up a white bowl from the counter and dumped the powdered contents into the pot of boiling water.

“Could you make one for me sometime? I think it would be good for protection, don’t you? Better than mace.”

“Okay, but not right this second.” Fred knitted her brow as she lowered the cross into the pot, focusing her power. “Right now I gotta concentrate, so please don’t distract me.” Fred sent her magic into the little pendant, and glittering gossamer threads seemed to flow from Fred’s mind and body into the metal.
Take the power
, she commanded.
All of it
. It began to glow and Fred focused harder.
Take more
.
Be strong!
The medallion flared to brilliance in the water, and Fred heard her mother gasp softly.
Good
. Fred relaxed and sighed, then withdrew the cross from the water.

She held it by the end of the chain and showed it to Lisa. “There. That should be a good one. Can I test it on you?”

Lisa’s frowned. “Is it going to hurt?”

“You won’t feel a thing, and it’ll only take a sec. Please? It’s for Jamie. I have to make sure it works.”

Lisa exhaled heavily and said, “Oh, all right. Should I sit down?”

“No. Just hold still.” Fred picked up one of the counter charm bracelets and slipped it on her wrist, then held the necklace and twirled the cross rapidly. Her mother’s eyes immediately went blank and her lips parted, her face slack. Fred pinched her lightly on the forearm, but she didn’t react. “It works!”

Fred stopped spinning the necklace and Lisa’s eyes came back to life. She shook her head and blinked. “Uh. That was weird.”

“Did you feel anything?”

“Nothing. What did you do to me?”

“I pinched you.” Fred touched her mother’s forearm. “Right there.”

Lisa examined the pink spot and shrugged. “I guess it works, then.”

“Mom?” Fred took a deep breath and locked eyes with her mother. “Tell me Jamie’s going to be okay.”

“He’s going to be okay, especially now that you made that.” She pointed at the pendant. “Can you make one for me now, since you have everything set up?”

“Do you have a necklace I can put the spell in?”

“I know just the thing.”

* * *

Jamie was tired when he went to bed on Friday night, but he was still so anxious that it took him a while to fall asleep. He finally dozed off after a couple of hours and materialized in Fred’s dream living room, sitting beside her on a perfect replica of her couch. His head wasn’t in her lap, though, like it usually was when she created that setting.

“It’s about time,” she said with a deep frown.

“About time for what?”

“About time you fell asleep! I’ve been waiting for hours.”

“You can tell when I fall asleep?”

She crossed her arms and said, “Sometimes.” Then she sniffed. “Most of the time.”

“That’s something new, isn’t it? I guess your power is still evolving.”

She didn’t answer, and she wouldn’t look at him directly, staring straight ahead instead and only offering him sideways glances.

“Fred, what are you mad about?”

It took her a moment to respond. “I’m not mad.” Then she nearly whispered, “I’m scared.”

“Oh, Fred, come here.” He held his arms out and she scooted over to him, pressing firmly against his side and burying her face in his neck. “I’m scared too,” he said. “I’ve hardly slept all week, but I really need to, because I’m going to need my wits about me when we go in the morning.”

“I wish you weren’t going.”

“I’ve got to. Renn’s house is probably full of books about magic, and that’s our best hope of finding a way to get rid of the demon.”

“But...what if...what if you don’t come back? You could get killed there, and I’d never know what happened. I’d spend the rest of my life waiting for you to make a doorway and come back to me. I don’t think I could bear it! I’ll...I’ll —” Her voice caught in her throat.

“I’ll always come back to you, Fred.” He kissed her on the top of her head. “Besides, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. If there’s one world that I’m familiar with besides Earth, it’s Eddan’s world. I actually have more memories of that place than I do of Earth. Almost two hundred years’ worth.”

Fred was silent while she seemed to consider that. “I hadn’t thought of it like that. Is it going to be strange, going back there? I mean, if you have all those memories and stuff? Are you going to want to look up old friends or something? What if you don’t want to come back?”

Jamie laughed. “Well, first of all, Eddan didn’t really have any friends, and if I looked anybody up, I doubt they’d recognize me as Eddan.”

“I guess you do look a little different.” She rubbed one hand on his jaw. “No long gray beard, for one thing.”

“And you know I want to come back, because this is my home. Like they say, home is where the heart is.” They were quiet for a while, until Jamie said, “I don’t think dealing with old memories is going to be much of a problem, though. I’ll be too worried about being attacked by other sorcerers.”

She touched the metal cross that hung around his neck. “Just make sure you twirl this when you walk through the doorway. Don’t wait until there’s a problem.”

“Don’t worry, I’m planning on it. I’m ready to stupefy first and ask questions later.”

Chapter 14

Carl watched as John Paul loaded the last shell into his shotgun and checked the safety. Carl carried his in one hand, barrel pointed down, and both men had their pistols strapped to their waists. John Paul wasn’t grinning. His face was serious and all business. He looked up and said, “I’m ready.”

Rachel was curled up in a tight ball in one corner of the couch, watching wordlessly, hands squeezed together and anguish showing in her eyes. Lisa had told her where Jamie and Carl were going and Rachel wasn’t taking it well.

Carl turned to Jamie, who paced nearby, one thumbnail between his teeth and the other hand on the cross hanging from his neck. “Are you ready?”

Jamie nodded as he took a quick breath. “We need to hurry through the doorway as soon as I make it. The longer it stays open, the easier it will be for another wizard to find us. I’ll go first so that I can use Fred’s pendant. Do you have your counter charms?”

Both men showed him the bracelets on their wrists, and Carl said, “Let’s get this over with.”

“Wait!” Rachel leaped from the couch and threw her arms around Carl, then she hugged Jamie. “Be safe. Please be safe.”

“We will, Mom,” Jamie said as she let him go. “I don’t know how long we’ll be there, so....” He shrugged.

“Rachel?” Carl said. “Maybe you should go shopping or something. You’ll worry yourself sick if you stay here and wait for us.”

“I can’t go anywhere right now. I’m too nervous.”

“Call Lisa, then. Get her to stay with you.” He turned to Jamie. “Let’s go.”

Jamie outlined a doorway, pushed it open and hurried through, one hand twirling the magic cross. Carl and John Paul followed on his heels.

The door winked out behind them, and they found themselves in front of a low stone house with a split shingle roof. There were no other houses nearby. Carl and John Paul surveyed their surroundings with their shotguns poised, while Jamie stared off in the distance, a distracted look on his face.

“Do you feel any magic, Jamie?” Carl asked.

“Unh unh,” he murmured. “I’ll be back in minute.” Then he vanished.

“Huh? What the —”

“Where’d he go, Carl?” John Paul said, eyes wide, mouth open.

“I have no idea. I’ve never seen him do that before. He didn’t make a doorway, he just...disappeared.”

“What do we do now?”

“Wait until he gets back, I guess.” Carl cupped his free hand to his mouth and shouted, “Jamie!” He waited a moment and called again, then turned to John Paul and shrugged.

John Paul looked around with a curious expression and said, “What time do you think is here?”

Carl glanced at the sun, sitting about a third of the way in the sky. “Either nine o’clock or three, depends on whether it’s morning or afternoon. Seems like morning, though. There’s dew on the grass.”

John Paul stepped to a small ornamental tree, covered with delicate white blossoms, and fingered one of the tiny blooms. “What time of year would you say it is?”

“Spring, I guess, judging from that.” Carl turned and looked at the other flowering shrubs and the trees with their new leaves sprouting. “Yeah, it’s spring.”

“Don’t you think that’s a bit of a coincidence? According to my watch, it’s nine-fifteen, Earth time, and it’s about the same here. It’s spring, too. Are you
sure
we’re on another planet?”

“Jamie said so. He said if we came at night, we could really tell, because the moon is different here. It’s bigger, I think, and more colorful. Not solid white.”

Just then, Jamie reappeared in the same spot from where he’d vanished.

“Where did you go?” Carl demanded.

“I went to see my old tower.” He pointed past a row of cedar trees at the far edge of the yard. “It’s that way, past the river, on the other side of the valley. What’s left of my tower, that is. Looks like Renn or somebody destroyed it.”

“
Your
tower?”

“Oh.” Jamie gave a short, nervous chuckle. “I mean, Eddan’s tower.”

“How did you get there? You just disappeared.”

“I translocated. I’ve never done that on Earth...I...I guess I’m too scared to. It’s seems natural here, though.” His sucked in his breath and his eyes widened as he looked at Carl. “Dad?”

“Are you okay?”

“It’s just...I’m getting flooded with all these memories and stuff right now. It’s hard to....” He leaned over and rested his hands on his knees, taking shallow breaths.”

“Should we go back home?”

He held up one hand and shook his head. “Just give me a sec.”

Carl turned when he heard the front door of the house open. Standing there was a tall, sturdy, no-nonsense looking woman in a long, practical dress and a white apron, her iron gray hair bound up in a tight bun on the back of her head. Her expression was stern as she said, “I knew I heard someone out here. May I help you?”

“Oh. Yes.” Carl walked closer to her, and Jamie and John Paul followed. “We’re not sure if we’re at the right place. Is this your house?”

“No, it belongs to Master Renn.”

“Are you his wife?”

“That is a most personal question.” She raised her chin for a moment before continuing, “But no, I am his housekeeper.”

She has a slight burr when she talks, like Renn did
. Carl heard a different voice from inside. “Ma, is everything all right?” Another woman appeared at the older woman’s elbow. She was much younger, wearing a similar-style dress. Her long, light brown hair was tied back, and she was pleasant-looking, in a no-makeup, Shaker woman kind of way.

“Everything is fine,” the older woman said, but the younger one stayed beside her. The older woman turned back to Carl. “Are you looking for someone?”

Jamie leaned close to Carl and said in a low voice, “We’re exposed out here in the yard.”

Carl cleared his throat and faced the woman in the doorway. “We need to talk. May we come in?”