Magic Lessons (16 page)

ing them water. She closed them again. She woke to a thudding pain in her head, but when she shifted position there was just more pain. Her throat was dry and raspy. She coughed.

Jay-Tee turned to the voice, to Tom. She half-opened her eyes, sat up, groaned, took it from him. “Thanks,” she said, draining the glass and holding it out for more. Tom poured the water quickly, splashing drops of it onto her hand.

He stacked a monster pile of pillows and cushions behind Jay-Tee. She leaned back into them, relieved that her muscles no longer had to work to hold her up. Everything ached.

“My head hurts,” she told Tom. Talking made her cough. She finished the water and then held out her glass for more. Tom poured it.

Jay-Tee nodded and Tom went away. She drained the glass again. It had no effect on her thirst, on her feeling of dryness. The water vanished before it reached the back of her throat, leaving her mouth as moisture-free as a ten-day-old slice of bread. But the jug of water was on the floor. The thought of getting out of bed to refill her glass was too much.

She closed her eyes, resting the empty water glass on her lap and thinking about what Esmeralda had done to her. JayTee felt terrible, but she didn’t have that floating-away feeling, she didn’t feel like she was dying. Not immediately, anyway. What had Esmeralda said? It hurt trying to think complicated thoughts.

Tom came back with a bottle of aspirin and shook two onto her palm. She swallowed them. Their journey down her parched throat was scratchy and uncomfortable. “Could you close the curtains, Tom? Make it less bright?”

She heard him bustling with them. When the other side of her eyelids got darker, she ventured to half open them again. The searing whiteness had softened, making the room shadowed and spooky. Much better.

Tom came and sat beside her. “More water?”
She held out the glass, drained it, held it out for more until Tom had emptied the jug and gone into the bathroom to fill it again.
“Thirsty,” she said.
“Well, der,” Tom said, smiling at her. He had a nice smile, she decided. White teeth. Very blue eyes. She wondered if they seemed so blue because his skin was so pale.
“You’re so white. You’ve got lots of freckles,” she told him, draining her glass again.
“Yeah, and invisible eyebrows.”
“I can see your eyebrows. They’re goldy-white.”
“Ah, yeah. Do you think you’re brain-damaged, Jay-Tee?” Jay-Tee giggled. “Maybe. My brain sure does hurt.” “Do you know what happened?”
“Esmeralda did something to me. I thought she was stealing my magic, but she didn’t.”
Because I still have magic and I’m alive
. Jay-Tee frowned. What had Esmeralda done? “She put her hands on me, but they hurt. Her fingers put something in me, something sharp and horrible. Worms with teeth.”
Tom poured her more water. She drank it, her mouth finally feeling a little damp. She held the glass out for more.
“I swear you’re going to pee for a month.”
Jay-Tee began to shrug but it hurt. She tried an eye-roll, but that shifted the pain of her headache from the back of her skull to her eyes. She settled for silence.
“Do you know why Esmeralda hurt you?”
Jay-Tee went to shake her head before she remembered the ow-ness of any movement. Instead she said, “I thought she was trying to suck me dry. Take everything. But she didn’t: I’m alive. Why am I alive, Tom?”
“Esmeralda claims she thought she was giving you magic, but she says your body didn’t like it.”
“Huh.” She shook her head a fraction, careful not to shift the headache again. “Didn’t feel like magic.”
“The old man’s magic,” Tom said. “It’s different.
Really
different. Esmeralda’s turned into a superwitch. She unbroke her fingers.”
“She . . . ?”
“She, uh . . . her fingers were broken and she fixed them with magic.”
“She broke her fingers?”
“They broke, but she fixed them.”
“What do you mean?
“I saw her do it. Her fingers unbent, the swelling disappeared, and then they weren’t broken anymore. It was—”
“Freaky?”
“Bloody oath.”
Jay-Tee half smiled. “‘Bloody oath.’ That’s funny. But how did her fingers get broken?” Jay-Tee shifted her head to look at Tom’s face.
He blushed.
“What? What happened?”
Tom looked down. “I lost my temper.”
“You broke them!” Jay-Tee winced, she’d spoken too loud. “You punished her?”
Tom nodded. “It felt good.”
“Mere’s like me, Tom. She’s been bad. Badder than me, because I asked you if it was okay. I didn’t want to be like
him
. She deserved broken fingers.”
Tom looked confused. “Asked what?” Then he blushed again. “Oh, right,” he said. “She
should
have asked.”
“Mere was afraid. She should have trusted you. Trusted that you’d be good. I did.”
“What would you have done if I’d said no?”
“Died,” Jay-Tee said. “Yesterday, with the cutting magic inside me . . . Are you sure it was magic?”
“Esmeralda thinks so.”
“Huh. Anyway, when the cutting got really bad, I thought I was dead. I floated. It was really boring. Being alive is better.”
“Too right it is.”
“I definitely want to make it past fifteen.”
“Yeah, I want you to, too. And Reason, and me.”
“Reason’s sure there’s an answer. Well, she was before she went through the door.”
“Ree told you that?” Tom’s tone was sharp. Jay-Tee wondered what was bothering him.
“No, but when Mere was explaining magic to her, the limitations and everything? She got this look.”
“What look?”
“Reason gets this look when she’s figuring things out, looking for answers. She’s a . . . a solver of problems. I think it’s the math thing. I think she thinks our problem is a math thing. I hope she’s right.”
“Me, too.” Tom was smiling again. He looked warm and sort of glowy. Jay-Tee blinked, wondered if she was seeing right.
“So you’re saying Esmeralda has this new kind of magic? Where did it come from?”
“The old man—”
“The guarding-the-door old man?”
“Yes. Esmeralda has the same little bites on her arms that we had when the golem bit us, same as what Reason had.”
“Huh. It did feel like that. But the golem thing gave me a tiny nip compared to what Esmeralda forced inside me.” Jay-Tee paused. “You know, Reason felt different afterwards. After the golem attacked her. Out of kilter.”
Tom nodded, remembering. “I touched her and she felt wrong. Too smooth, like her arm was made of metal, not flesh.”
“She made way too much light. Her magic was so big she couldn’t control it!”
“You’re right. Reason must have some of the old man’s magic, too.”
Jay-Tee closed her eyes. She could see it. That stuff coming out of the door, trying to suck Esmeralda into it. That stuff had been the same colour as the old man’s golem. Was that what had gone inside her? Jay-Tee’s head hurt. “Where’s Mere?”
“In the kitchen, watching the door.”
“And Reason?”
“Still in New York City. I haven’t talked to her since yesterday morning, though. After . . . after you drank from me I slept. A lot. It’s not long since I woke up.”
“Okay, then,” Jay-Tee said, pleased to be decisive. “Let’s call Reason. We have to tell her about this.”

stopped so abruptly; then it started again, the same fragment of music. I’d heard it before somewhere, but I couldn’t think where. Everything had been dark—now it was lighter.

“Hello,” Danny said, sleep in both syllables. “Oh, hi, Julieta.”
I heard the sound of a voice far away and small, but not any of the words. I opened my eyes, shifted a little closer to where Danny was. He didn’t have a shirt on. Neither did I. I remembered why. I pulled the sheet up higher. I blushed, my cheeks so hot my eyes watered.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Danny asked. “Julieta? How long have you got?”
I was glad I couldn’t hear anything Julieta said. I tried not to listen to what Danny was saying, tried to think of other things, like the old man’s golem inside me, like what Danny and I had done together. If Jay-Tee wasn’t already cranky with me, that piece of news would make her totally ropeable. For a second I wished Sarafina had never gone mad and that we were still on the road, out bush, her and me. No magic, no madness, no imminent death, no evil grandparents, no New York City. And no friends to be cranky with me. We could go back to Jilkminggan like I’d always wanted. The women there could teach me more stories about their mermaid ancestor, the munga-munga.
“Leave Reason out of it—”
Oh, great,
I thought.
“Come on, Julieta. Why didn’t you—”
I eased myself back to the other side of the bed. It was a big bed. I had to stop listening to this. I should get up, shower or something.
“Julieta, you’re my sister. Of course I wanted to know!” Danny looked in my direction, but I wasn’t sure he saw me. “What if I never see you again? I don’t want to lose you all over again!”
Jay-Tee said something that made him laugh, but it was a bitter laugh. “Friends are
not
the same as family, Julieta. We’re Galeanos.” He turned his back to me, lowered his voice. “You know I love you, right? I wish you’d come to me instead of running—”
Danny didn’t say anything for a long time, then he was murmuring that it was okay, that he was sorry. I imagined JayTee crying. I had to stop listening. I threw myself into the Fibonacci series, let myself float away on the wave of each number: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181 . . . A spiral unravelled in my head. It was grey-brown, the room filled with the smell of limes. I was floating in it, drowning in it.
“Reason!”
I blinked, spluttered. Opened my eyes on Danny’s bedroom. New York City. Danny lying by my side.
“Reason!” Danny called out again as if I wasn’t lying there right next to him. He had his hand over the receiver.
“Julieta wants to talk to you,” he said after a moment, handing me his mobile phone.
I took it but didn’t look at Danny directly. “Hi,” I said into the receiver, hoping I didn’t sound like . . . I wasn’t quite sure what it was I didn’t want to sound like. I hoped Jay-Tee wouldn’t yell at me.
“Hah,” Jay-Tee said. “You sound sleepy, too. Isn’t it like four in the afternoon there?” She didn’t remotely sound like she’d just had an intense conversation with her brother.
I looked at my watch. “No, it’s 6:13
PM
. We, ah, we were, um, doing a lot of research and running around yest—today and didn’t sleep much last night and—”
“Sure,” Jay-Tee said. “We’ve been sleepy, too.”
“You do sound kind of funny.”
“My head got banged,” Jay-Tee said, as if it was nothing. “I’m fuzzy.”
“Are you okay?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Just fuzzy.”
“I’m, ah, about telling your brother—”
“It’s okay. I mean, I’m mad at you. You shouldn’t have told him. But you did. So, you know . . . Let’s just say we’re even, okay? I didn’t exactly tell you stuff I should’ve when you first came to New York. You know, with
him
and everything. So we’re even, right?”
“Okay.” I shifted back onto the pillows, holding the sheet to my throat. I was sore. My thigh muscles ached. Danny and I, we hadn’t gone to sleep until long after the sun had come up. My face got even hotter. I decided not to think about it. I closed my eyes. On the backs of my eyelids I saw the curve of muscles across Danny’s stomach and my hand touching them. I wasn’t sure Jay-Tee would still think we were even when she found out.
“We’ve been running around, too,” Jay-Tee continued. “Well, apart from the monster-huge sleeps.”
Danny slipped out from the sheets. I watched his back as he retreated into the bathroom.
“Monster-huge sleeps?” I peered over the edge of the bed and found the clothing I’d been wearing. I held the phone between the side of my head and my shoulder and tried to get the T-shirt on but ended up tangled. I heard the sound of a shower going on.
“Yeah, ah, well—”
“Can you hang on a sec?”
“Sure.”
I put the phone down and got my makeshift PJs on. “Okay. What’s happening?”
“The old man gave Mere his magic.”
“What?”
“He or one of his golems got into Mere just like it got into you. Only it stayed in. It gave her magic and then she gave it to me. But it cut me up, made me really sick—”
“Cut you?”
“Like worms with sharp teeth. She thought it would help me. I’m . . .” Jay-Tee hesitated. “My magic’s worn thin. Mere thought I was dying. I
was
dying,
am
dying—so she thought it would help me. But it didn’t work for me the way it did for her. I got really, really sick. Convulsions and everything. You should see my bruises.”
“You were dying?” But I wasn’t anywhere near finding a way to keep her alive. Jay-Tee couldn’t die so soon.
“Uh-huh. I felt thin, like a piece of saran wrap.”
“Like
what?
” Jay-Tee had almost died? She couldn’t die. Not
yet
.
“Like a piece of glass. As if you could see right through me and I was about to float away. It was . . . it was horrible.”
“It sounds horrible.” How did I feel? Was I lighter than I had been? Hollow? I wished I could turn my gaze on myself, see my own rust.
“Yeah, but I’m okay now. For the moment . . .”
“But . . . how did you get bruised?” I was bruised, too, but my bruises felt almost good. I looked at the closed door to the bathroom, heard the sound of Danny showering, wondered if he was thinking about washing me off his skin. I hoped not. I blushed again.
“The magic Mere put inside me—it made me convulse. It kept pushing deeper and deeper into me, and my body tried to fight it. It didn’t do that to you. We think you’re more powerful now, like Mere.” Jay-Tee’s voice sounded far away, suddenly exhausted.
The phone was muffled, then Tom came on. “Hi, Ree. JayTee has to lie down. That stuff, whatever Esmeralda did to her, it
really
hurt her,” he whispered. Then he asked a question in such a soft voice that the only way I could tell it was a question was by his rising tone at the end.
“What?”
“Hang on a mo.” I heard his hand going over the receiver and sounds in the background that I couldn’t figure out. “Okay, I’m in your room now. When the golem got inside you? We think it gave you magic. Like what happened to Esmeralda.”
“Magic? No, I don’t think so. . . .” I trailed off. I could feel it inside me. Not as sharp as it had been, but prickling at me, deep inside, moving inside the marrow of my bones. “I don’t think he made me powerful.”
“But remember? It bit Jay-Tee and me, but it
burrowed
into you. And when we were having that lesson—your light was so intense, so out-of-control bright.”
“But it came back out again. It didn’t stay. It went back under the door. Remember?”
“That’s because we chucked it out. Me and Jay-Tee and you.”
“No.” It didn’t make sense. A different kind of magic? Wasn’t that like saying there were different kinds of gravity?
“Esmeralda can do bigger magic now. What if you can, too?”
“It didn’t stay in me.” Except that it was inside me now.
“Are you sure, Reason? Esmeralda might not die now. This might change everything. So maybe you won’t have to die, either. Maybe me, too. Jay-Tee almost died.”
“She really almost died?”
“Yes. Her magic ran out. Esmeralda reckons the old man’s doesn’t run out.”
“It has to have limits. Everything has limits.”
The shower in the bathroom shut off. I slid out of Danny’s bed, took a few steps to the door, and was shocked to discover that walking was ouchie. I glanced back at the crumpled bed. What would Sarafina say? I’d had sex for the first time at the same way-too-young age she had, and just as stupidly I hadn’t used any protection. Everything she’d told me about sex diseases—AIDS and gonorrhoea and syphilis and chlamydia (which somehow also affected koalas—I didn’t want to think about that)—and none of it had crossed my mind even once.
“Esmeralda doesn’t think this magic has any limits.”
“But it does. It didn’t work for Jay-Tee.”
“Ree, Esmeralda says using this magic makes her stronger.”
“But how does it work? Where’s the energy coming from? If it doesn’t take energy from her body, where does it come from?” Danny came out of the shower, a towel tied around his waist. He looked at me, half smiled. I smiled back and my cheeks got hot. I nodded and walked out of his room, shutting the door behind me and leaning on it. What was Danny thinking? Was he regretting what had happened?
“Ree? You still there? Why wouldn’t it work?”
“Sorry, Tom. I need to think about all of this.” The living room looked as dark as it had when I’d left my (Jay-Tee’s) room last night, looking for something to eat. Eighteen hours ago. I wondered when time would stop running circles around me, always going either too fast or too slow for me to get a grip on it.
“Esmeralda really is much more powerful. She healed her broken fingers. Right in front of me.”
“She had broken fingers?”
“Yeah, long story. Her healing herself was heaps more impressive than making light, let me tell you. It took
seconds
.”
“I bet.”
“You don’t think you’re supermagic, too?”
“I don’t think so.” I moved away from Danny’s door and into the kitchen, ignoring the soreness of every step. I yawned. “I’m hungry.”
“The light you made during the magic lesson in the cottage. It was so big, Reason. And remember? You said you didn’t feel at all drained.”
I opened the fridge door: there was still no food in it. I wished Danny had as much food in his fridge as beer. If there was magic coursing through me like Tom thought, why didn’t food appear out of thin air?
That
would be useful.
“Do you feel different?”
I did feel different. But not just from what Cansino had done to me.
There was a loud buzzing sound and Danny walked over to the lift, pressed a button there, and spoke to it.
“Does Esmeralda look any different?”
Danny pressed a button to make the lift go. I hoped he’d ordered some food or something. Like Esmeralda phoning up and then, magically, thirty minutes later—pizza at the front door.
“No, not really.”
“So your only evidence for this new kind of magic is Esmeralda healing her fingers?”
Tom started to answer, but I didn’t hear what he said. The lift doors had opened and Jason Blake was stepping into Danny’s apartment.
“Oh, no,” I said, cutting across Tom.
“What? What?”
“My grandfather is here. Jason—” The phone flew out of my hands and halfway across Danny’s flat.