Josh and the Magic Vial (2 page)

“Poorly,” Clarisa quavered. “In truth, our Charlie's condition has gone from bad to worse these last few days. All we can do is pray.”

“Dr. Chadwick has informed me about the strange nature of the illness. May I see the lad?”

The Underwoods looked to Dr. Chadwick. “Yes, of course,” he said, gesturing toward the room.

Charlie's condition had worsened overnight. There was no denying it. His skin had yellowed and tightened around the bone, so that the angular features of his skull stood out. The breath rattled in and out of him, and he muttered incessantly. Not even the Underwoods could make out what he was saying. The most disconcerting thing of all was Charlie's eyes. They stared right through this world into another.

Inspector Puddifant wasted no time. Moving quickly to the side of Charlie's bed, he sat down and watched the boy intently, then did something the Underwoods would not have expected — Puddifant stroked the boy's hair with his large, muscular hand.

The effect on Charlie startled them. He bolted upright and looked about the room. “Who's there?” he challenged.

“Charlie, dear, it's us!” Clarisa cried. “Father and I!”

Charlie continued searching, neither seeing nor hearing them. “Can you help me?” he pleaded. “Can you get me out of here?”

“Out of where, Charlie?” Inspector Puddifant asked.

“I-I don't know,” the boy whispered. “Syde is the name of the place, but I haven't seen much beyond my room. I've been ill.”

“You're in a room?”

“Yes, a small room with nothing in it but a bed. More like a cell than a room, really — a monk's cell, not a jail cell . . . why can't I see you?” he asked suddenly.

“I'm to your left, Charlie. Next to the bed.”

“Why can't I
see
you?” the boy complained. “Are you a ghost?”

“No, Charlie. I'm very real. Your mum and dad are here, too.”

“Mum? Dad?”

“Charlie!” Clarisa cried.

“The room you are seeing is not real,” Puddifant said calmly.

“You are in a room at the Great Ormond Street Hospital. If you look to your right, you'll see the lights of London out the window.”

“The sky is made of stone here,” Charlie said.

“What?”

“Oh, he tries to disguise it with lights and so on. But it's granite. Vortigen's kingdom is nothing but a huge cavern underground. It's bigger than you can imagine, but still a cavern. I don't want to live here.”

“Then get out. It's not real,” Puddifant insisted. “If you can only think of it as an illusion, you'll see through to your own world, Charlie.”

“The walls of his palace are made of green marble, I think. Quite grand, really. It must have taken years to build.”

“It's not real Charlie!”

The boy sank back into his pillow.

“Charlie!” Clarisa shrieked.

But he had slipped beyond reach, sinking back into his coma.

Three hours later Charles Alexander Underwood died. He simply stopped breathing. Clarisa wailed over her son. She cradled his head in her arms and kissed him fiercely. But a lifetime of sorrowing after him would not bring Charlie back, or mend Clarisa's soul.

“My boy. My dear, sweet child,” she sobbed.

Puddifant, hearing the news, wept too. He'd been close to extricating the boy, and blamed himself for not succeeding. “It's not your fault, man! Don't be ridiculous,” he grumbled, but couldn't quite bring himself to believe it. He walked to clear his mind, tramping along under a moonless sky with stars scattered about the blackness like sequins.

T
HE
V
IAL

1

J
osh reclined in the canvas chair and imagined himself far from the tidy rectangle of his parents' back yard. He'd left Mount Pleasant behind, and the 21st Century, landing in the Dark Ages, in the thick of a looming battle on the Plain of Hador. King Carak's army stood at the ready in full battle order, and Josh found himself in the centre ranks. Men stamped, horses neighed and champed at the bit, armour clanked and rattled. A pennant fluttered in the breeze. The army grew impatient: those who were afraid wanted the fray over quickly; those who relished battle couldn't wait to begin.

Gorp the Hurler could always be counted among the latter. He strode out into no man's land and glared at his enemies — a ragtag bunch, orcs mostly, with a few ogres and trolls thrown in to make things interesting. “This will be fun,” he boomed to his companions — Hazard to the left, Prince Boniface to the right. He put down his sling so he could rub his hands in a pantomime of glee. “Conking orcs before breakfast is my idea of the perfect start to a day.”

Hazard, leaning on his shield, shook his head and laughed. “You're crazy, Gorp,” he chuckled. “I suppose that's the only reason anyone puts up with you. Can't you think of
anything
that might be better to wake up to than this grim duty?”

Gorp shook his great, shaggy head.

“Not a breakfast of bacon and eggs, served up on a platter as big as Hazard's shield?” Prince Boniface chimed in.

The Hurler snorted resolutely.

“Not Matilde in a nice, cozy bed?” Hazard put in slyly.

“Oh jeez!” Gorp stuttered.

The others burst out laughing, joined by their comrades up and down the line.

“Don't tell her I said that,” Gorp pleaded. “She'll have my bones in a stew if she finds out I prefer walloping orcs to her gentle company.”

“Now here's a fine warrior!” Hazard shouted loud enough for even the orcs to hear. “He talks big about bashing orcs, but craves refuge from the most beautiful, mild-mannered woman in all Hador.”

“All right,” Gorp grumbled, staring sullenly across the gap of no man's land. “You've had your laugh.”

“Aye, and I pray it's not my last.” Hazard said, suddenly serious. “Now you're in a fighting mood, my burly friend. We will punish these wretched creatures, because they threaten everything we cherish. To prevent their pillage and tyranny I will kill if I must, and die too, if God wills it. But I'll never relish this kind of work.”

“I stand corrected,” Gorp conceded.

“But not any closer to a plate of bacon and eggs, or to your lovely wife Matilde,” Hazard teased. “Come, let us embrace and prepare for war, and if we three survive, we shall tell of this day's deeds around the campfire, when night has covered over our crimes, and the rats and maggots of this neighbourhood are going about
their
business.”

No sooner had they wished each other well, than the clarion sounded, and with a mighty shout King Carak's army surged onto the plain like a wave roiling with swords, and spears, and arrows . . .

“Josh!”

“Huh?”

“Josh! It's me. Millie.”

Reluctantly, he opened first one eye, then the other. King Carak's realm disintegrated and there, sure enough, stood Millie, an impish grin turning up her thin lips, her red, frizzy hair emblazoned from behind by the afternoon sun.

“So this is how you work, is it?” she taunted.

“I-uh was blocking out a scene,” he explained, flustered and angry. “Sometimes you have to let yourself go.”

“Oh,” she said, unimpressed. “It looked like you might have been napping.”

“Well, that too,” he confessed. “But look!”

He held up his sketchbook. He'd drawn several scenes from the Battle of Hador. He hoped to develop an adventure comic strip out of them — maybe a video game someday.

“I see,” Millie said, coolly.

Josh snapped his sketchbook closed and sulked.

“I like your work, Josh,” Millie apologized. “Technically, you're great, but . . . ”

She stopped herself too late.

“But!” he echoed, spitting the word out like a sour grape. “You think I'm wasting my time.”

“I never said that!”

“You don't have to
say it
Mil.”

“Oh, come on, Josh!” she huffed. “I'm not that obvious.”

He smirked, and Millie blushed.

“Okay! Okay!” she groaned, flopping into a deck chair next to his. “So I'd like to see you draw something other than murdering hulks, dragons, and Amazon women with big boobs. Is that such a crime?”

No, he thought. It probably wasn't. But he'd never tell
her
that. Instead, he said, “You'll see. Someday I'm going to have it made. I'll have a plush office down in Yaletown, I'll drive a BMW, and I'll do nothing but daydream and draw all day.”

Millie laughed. “Wow!” she mocked. “You really are a superlative dreamer Josh.”

Only Millie Epp could get away with a comment like that. He had to laugh.

2

C
lack-clack, clack-clack, clackity-clack. Josh swerved round an old lady crossing Broadway, crouched, then ollied over the curb, his board thwacking the pavement like a beaver's tale.

Main dipped into Mount Pleasant just ahead, and that was where he seemed to be going. Any direction that took him away from 169 Tenth Avenue suited Josh just fine. If he hung around home there would be chores — vacuuming, laundry, dishes, mowing . . . yech!

Besides, Millie might drop by for an afternoon visit, and he needed a break. Josh smiled ruefully. She was the most persnickety, persistent, infuriating, wonderful friend a guy could wish for. He wasn't sure why he liked her, but he did. What's more, she seemed to put up with him. So the feeling was mutual.

Clack-clack, clack-clack.

The grade wasn't steep enough to coast, but it was getting steeper and with each push he glided a little farther. Soon gravity would take hold and he'd cruise two blocks, to the intersection where Kingsway angled into Main at Seventh. He'd cut a sharp left there, heading for Quebec Street and away from the rumble and fumes of Main.

A lot of people avoided Main and Broadway; Josh loved the place. The confluence of trolley buses, cars and pedestrians brought in university students, panhandlers, lawyers, secretaries, crooks, punks, drunks . . . you name it. Every sort of human fish swam in the currents and back eddies of Main and Broadway. Sometimes Josh's parents — Frank and Alison a.k.a. the Dempsters — fretted. They wondered if this was the right neighbourhood for a boy to grow up in. They always came to the same conclusion: Main and Broadway was “an education.”

Besides, where else could you find a wood-frame, heritage home, with a view of downtown Vancouver, and within walking distance of any place that mattered? Nowhere. So they stayed.

That didn't mean the Dempsters approved of all the neighbourhood joints Josh might go. Café Java, for instance— that was a place they frowned on. Coffee stunts your growth, they said. It leaches vitamins out of your body. It'll keep you awake at night. It didn't matter that he only occasionally indulged in a latte, that his usual order was a soda and a chocolate chip cookie. They still disapproved. He could hear their final judgment, “Coffee bars aren't meant for kids, Josh. They're for grown ups.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

And if Café Java made his parents cringe, what would they have thought of The Guys and Dolls Billiard Hall, where Josh occasionally occupied a seat at the food concession. He liked watching the players crouch over the felt, and listening to the click of the balls or the thunk of a clean shot into the corner pocket. The Dempsters hadn't even thought to declare The Guys and Dolls off limits, it was so far off the scale of conceivable places Josh might actually go.

Parents worried too much, Josh figured.

Clack-clack, clack-clack.

Now gravity had him. The board accelerated down Main, moving fast enough to ripple his T-shirt and comb his sandy mop of hair out behind him. “Yee-haw!” Josh yodelled. Sometimes the best destination was nowhere, and the best activity was nothing-to-do. Parents had forgotten that . . . if they'd ever known it.

Lil's Magic Emporium and Second Hand was a narrow shop in a squat, brick building on the corner of Seventh and Main. Rumour had it Lil was indeed a witch, whose twisted family tree was rooted in evil. Word was also out that she traded in stolen goods, if she could get away with it. In fact, Lil's had become the headquarters of Conky McDougal and the Street Level Gang, an unsavoury crew, notorious throughout Mount Pleasant as bike thieves and petty thugs. Even Josh knew better than to become a frequent shopper at Lil's.

Besides, her merchandise left something to be desired, unless you could find some earthly use for: sticks of crooked driftwood, advertised as magic wands; fat, dog-eared books with titles like
The Dark Side: Magic Through the Ages
; enchanted stones for laying out mystic circles; strands from a hangman's noose; and so on. Normally Josh would have skated on by without so much as a glance at the dusty artifacts in her display window. But that day, something caught his eye.

Drawings!

He wrenched his skateboard into a wheel chattering stop, almost pitching headlong onto the pavement.

“I didn't know she sold art,” he said.

On closer inspection, he revised his assessment. “Awful!” Josh muttered. In one a winged demon flapped through a bleak underworld. In another the same malignant being sat on a throne, surrounded by hordes of cowering goblins. But the drawings were crude.

“I could do better,” Josh thought.

And if he could do better, why shouldn't Lil sell
his
work instead of the junk she had on display. She would make more money; he would get some exposure, and a share of the sales.

But Lil's? Was that the kind of venue he wanted?

“Well,” Josh answered, “everybody's got to start somewhere. Can't hurt to have a look round.”

That said, he picked up his board, and entered Lil's Magic Emporium. He found himself staring down a narrow canyon, piled high on either side with tottering heaps of junk. Lil's “merchandise” had been tossed onto benches and tables with no semblance of order. Old vacuums had landed next to record players; blankets were draped over lawn mower handles; chairs were occupied by sewing machines. And in all those heaps, Josh didn't see a single item that wasn't broken, tattered, or soiled beyond redemption.