Jinx (31 page)

S
imon knelt on the staircase up to his tower and touched the thirteenth step from the bottom. He said a word that Jinx didn’t recognize. There was a click and whirr of things unlocking, and the stone lifted upward. He reached into a hollow underneath and pulled out a green glass bottle that Jinx just had time to recognize before Simon stuck it in his pocket.

He’s been walking on my life, Jinx thought angrily, as Simon put his own bottled life under the step and locked it in.

Simon went down to the kitchen. “Right. I need you all to come help me.”

“Are you going to put Jinx’s life back in him?” said Elfwyn.

“The one you’ve got in a bottle,” said Reven.

“Aren’t they clever?” said Dame Glammer. “Goodness, do you keep the little chipmunk’s life in a bottle, Simon? That’s dark magic, that is.”

“It is not,” said Simon. “It’s wizard’s magic.”

“What I said,” said Dame Glammer. “Dark magic. Wizard stuff.”

“I can’t do any magic,” said Reven.

“You’ll do magic if I say you will,” said Simon. “Wash your hands and come on.” He turned and stalked off to the south wing, leaving the door open.

When they got to the workroom, Elfwyn and Reven froze and stared at Jinx’s body. It did look a bit mystical, in the middle of all those chalked symbols.

Dame Glammer entered the room, skirted around the sides, and went to stand by one of the braziers. “Come in, little chickabiddies.”

“Watch where you’re walking!” Simon snapped, as soon as Elfwyn and Reven moved.

“Now, Simon, the chickabiddies won’t want to help if you yell at them,” said Dame Glammer, grinning. She found the whole thing wonderfully amusing, Jinx could tell.

“Right. Stand next to a brazier, chickabiddies.
Don’t step on the symbols
!” Simon was as tense and cranky as Jinx had ever seen him, and Jinx suspected that this was because Simon was really nervous about the spell. Which was not exactly reassuring.

Jinx ducked through the window and flew up over the Urwald again. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be alive again. He was free up here, and he could see sunrises and sunsets forever.

On the other hand, Jinx was the only person who knew about the danger to the Urwald. And if he stayed floating up here, he probably wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

And there were Elfwyn and Reven, who had looked pretty upset about Jinx being, well, dead—and there was Simon.

He drifted through the stone wall into Simon’s workroom.

Simon was handing a torch to Elfwyn. She took it and stepped gingerly over to the brazier Simon indicated. She set it smoking. Meanwhile Simon summoned Reven and, very slightly more politely, Dame Glammer and gave them torches. He took a torch himself and lit the fourth brazier.

“Now you stand in a circle around Jinx—no, not that close! I said a circle, not an isosceles triangle.” Simon walked around, pushing and jostling them into place. “And face inward.”

When he had Elfwyn, Reven, and Dame Glammer arranged to his liking, Simon stepped forward toward Jinx’s body.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Move!”

“You mean us?” said Reven.

“Yes, you, who did you think I meant, Jinx?”

“Well, you might have meant Jinx,” said Elfwyn, as she and the others walked forward toward Jinx’s body.

“Now walk around him! No, no, widdershins!”

“Widdershins means this way, chickabiddies,” said Dame Glammer, giving Reven a little shove. “To reverse the spell.”

“I knew what widdershins meant,” Elfwyn muttered.

Seen from above, the flames streaming behind the torches formed a ring over the four people’s heads. Jinx watched the ring of flame rotate slowly around his body, which almost looked alive with flickers of yellow and orange light rippling across it.

Simon began to chant in a language Jinx didn’t know.

“Are we supposed to chant that stuff too?” said Reven.

“Shut up. No.” Simon went back to chanting.

Smoke drifted upward from the torches and braziers and swirled around Jinx like the lives from the Bonemaster’s bottles. Jinx began to feel confused, as if what was happening below was a dream and not real. The ring of flame and the rhythmic chanting rocked him out of reality, into a place where he wasn’t sure anymore why he was up here on the ceiling instead of down on the floor with the rest of himself.

Simon stopped and knelt. Reven walked into him.

“Kneel down, all of you. Put your hands on him.”

Now there were four people kneeling around Jinx and six hands on him—everyone’s but Simon’s.

Simon looked up at the ceiling, directly at where Jinx was no longer sure if he was really floating. “Jinx, if this works, you’re probably going to feel as if you’ve just fallen off a hundred-foot cliff. Sorry.”

He took the green bottle out of his pocket. He leaned over Jinx, uncorked the bottle, and quickly put it to Jinx’s lips.

Jinx felt himself sliding back toward his body. He didn’t have to go. He had a choice. He could go on floating around the Urwald instead. He stopped for a moment, drifting just above himself, and then made his choice.

The last part of the slide was the hardest. Instinctively, he struggled.

“Don’t move, boy!” Simon’s hands were on Jinx’s shoulders.

And then Jinx didn’t feel even slightly like moving. His whole body was a universe stretching to an endless horizon of pain. There was nothing but pain. As far as Jinx knew he was alone in the room with pain, if there was even a room. Then the pain organized itself into bones fitting themselves back together, muscle reconstituting itself, marrow producing massive amounts of blood to replace what he’d lost—Simon had told him about all these things that bodies contained, but now he could feel his own body containing them for all it was worth.

“Go get him something to drink.” Simon’s voice cut through the pain at last, echoing and repeating itself ringingly on the inside of Jinx’s skull. “Something to drink thing to drink thing to dri dri dri …”

He wanted to get out of this aching body again. It had been a mistake to return.

“You’re all right,” said Simon. “Jinx, you’re all right.” It sounded pleading, not reassuring.

“Yeah,” said Jinx, at last, with great difficulty. He was all right. The pain was gone, just a horrible memory that he decided to do his best to forget.

“There, bring that drink here, put it—no, don’t spill it on him, you fool. Go get him another one.”

“Sorry,” came Elfwyn’s voice. “But would it kill you to say please once in a while?”

“Please. Jinx, don’t move. Just lie still until your bones have finished knitting.”

“Think they’ve finished,” said Jinx.

He was aware of claws pinching and prodding at him, an invasion that infuriated him but that he didn’t have the strength to avoid. “Yes, the little chipmunk is all fixed up,” said Dame Glammer. “See? Bones as good as new.” A hand slipped underneath him. “Even the backbone.”

He couldn’t see her thoughts. He never had been able to. But even with his eyes closed, he could see that Reven was astounded, in a great orange blob of surprise. Elfwyn radiated relief and shimmered bright blue happiness that Jinx was back, just like Simon did.

He could hear Elfwyn crying. Which didn’t go with the feelings she was having at all. People were funny.

“Get out of here and let him rest,” said Simon.

Jinx heard their footsteps on the floor as they left, all but Simon. Slowly Jinx opened his eyes. Simon was looking down at him, but as soon as he saw Jinx’s eyes open, he made a
hmph
sound and stood up and started putting things away. Simon normally never put things away. He waited for Jinx to do it.

Jinx followed Simon with his eyes. Simon certainly didn’t look happy or relieved. His expression seemed to say that Jinx was a nuisance, which showed that the expressions and words people chose weren’t always like what was going on inside their heads. Underneath it all, a warm blue cloud surrounded Simon and reached out and included Jinx, and Jinx realized for the first time that it had always been there.

“But it’s not enough,” said Jinx.

Simon turned around from shaking ashes out the window. “What’s not enough?”

“The blue stuff.”

A ripple of pink worry rustled past but didn’t show up on Simon’s face. “Supposing you let me in on the part of this conversation that is only happening in your head.”

“You didn’t have any right to take my magic away,” said Jinx. “Or my life. Can I have another drink? Please,” he added, hoping to set a good example for Simon.

Simon knelt down and gave him a drink of water.

“Thanks,” said Jinx. “Why didn’t you come before?”

“What, to rescue you? You go off to the one exact place that I specifically told you to stay away from—”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did. I told you to stay away from the Bonemaster. Do you ever listen?”

“Yes. All the time,” said Jinx. He felt tired. “But you were watching me through the Farseeing Window, with that gold bird thing. Why didn’t you come sooner? Were you really watching me?”

Simon looked away. “I was busy.”

“You forgot. You
always
forget about me.”

“Nonsense. I give you room to grow, that’s all.”

“You were too busy fighting with Sophie to remember me,” said Jinx. Oh, right—“Are you feeling better, then?”

“Much better, thanks so much for asking,” said Simon sarcastically. “I watched the first few days you were gone but then, yes, it did slip my mind. I didn’t realize what had happened until Dame Glammer came to visit and merrily told me how she had sent you off to Bonesocket, and that the Bonemaster intended to kill you on August thirty-first—which happened to be the very next day.”

“How did she know that?” said Jinx.

“I suppose the Bonemaster sent her a message.”

“He sends messages to her? You mean she’s in league with him?”

“Dame Glammer’s not in league with anyone but herself.”

“But she—”

“People have their friends,” said Simon shortly.

“How can she be friends with—”

“I did tell you to stay away from her. Now, since you’re all wide awake and chattery, supposing you tell me about your visit with the Bonemaster.”

So Jinx did. It seemed strange that he’d thought he couldn’t trust Simon. But that was life when you were missing your magic. Now that he could see clearly, he knew that he could trust Simon—to be Simon, at any rate. Which was its own problem.

At least he seemed like the old Simon again—the one before the bottle spell.

“He said you’d killed me,” said Jinx when he was finished.

“Did he? Well, he was wrong.”

“You did, though. You put my life in a bottle—”

“And then I gave it back. You have it back now, correct?”

“Yes, but the Bonemaster said—”

“And suddenly the Bonemaster is the arbiter of truth, is he? Not killing you was the whole point. That’s what makes it such a difficult spell.”

“He did the same spell on you that you did on me.”

Simon said nothing.

“He put your life in a bottle.”

“Yes.” The thought that went with this was cold, green, and angry.

“He thought you’d sent me to steal it back,” said Jinx.

“I would never have done that,” said Simon. “However—” There was a long, difficult pause. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Why did he have your life? I mean, he took it to use your lifeforce power, all right, but why did you let him? Did he trick you?”
Like you tricked me?

Simon got up, went to his workbench, and began fiddling around. Jinx heard boxes being opened and jars sliding about. He thought Simon wasn’t going to answer him. Different layers of thoughts and feelings were kicking each other angrily across the surface of Simon’s mind.

“It’s the usual price,” said Simon at last. “The apprentice permits the wizard to use his lifeforce for the length of the apprenticeship.”

“You were his apprentice?” Jinx had not been expecting that.

“Yes. Don’t look at me like that.”

“But why?”

“Because I wanted to learn to be a wizard, of course.” Simon began grinding something in the mortar.

“But—didn’t you realize he was evil?”

“No.” Simon sighed. “That is, yes. At first I didn’t think about it, because I was only interested in finding someone to teach me. And then I didn’t think about it because it wasn’t … convenient.”

“Wasn’t convenient,” Jinx repeated.

“Well, if
you
never in your life find yourself making excuses for things you know are wrong, wonderful,” said Simon. “But in the end, I couldn’t pretend any longer that I didn’t know what he was, and I told him I was quitting. And he claimed that because I hadn’t completed my apprenticeship, he didn’t have to give my life back.”

This all came out of Simon’s mouth freely enough, but his thoughts were struggling with one another—some of the thoughts didn’t want Jinx or
anyone
to know these things, and others were insisting it was for the best that they be spoken. Jinx wondered if this was what made Simon so cranky: having a brain like a dogfight.