The Magic Half (3 page)

Suddenly, Miri stopped rocking. There, in one of the many corners of the room, something glinted. Miri screwed up her eyes. It flashed like glass or a mirror. Her heart began to thump as she rose from her chair and walked toward the small, shining spot. Maybe, she thought, it’s a tiny window.

But it wasn’t. It was just a piece of glass, taped to the wooden board that separated the wall from the floor. Miri knelt down to get a better look, her dark hair tumbling forward. It was shaped like the glass in a pair of eyeglasses. It was a single lens from a pair of glasses—just the lens—stuck to the paint with a strip of yellowing tape. Carefully, Miri pulled the tape back, and the thin oval of glass fell into her hand. As it touched her skin, one of the stray breezes that wafted through the house grazed her, and a shiver rippled down Miri’s backbone. The surface of the lens was gray with dust. Why would anyone stick a piece of glass onto a wall? she wondered. She blew some of the dust away and then wiped the lens on her dress. There. Now it was clear enough to see through. She winked one eye closed and lifted the glass to the other.

Her eye filled with tears, and the purple walls around her wavered and bubbled. Wow. Whoever owned these glasses had really terrible eyesight, thought Miri. She rubbed the tears from her eye and then held up the glass again. This time the room seemed to bend and collapse in the middle, as though the center of the house were being sucked into a whirlpool, but Miri hardly noticed, because her attention had been caught by something else, something very strange indeed. She could suddenly hear voices. They sounded very close, as though they came from the landing at the bottom of the stairs. And they were not voices that Miri had ever heard before.

“And I’d better not catch you again.” A young woman’s voice was raised in irritation. “Or you’re going to owe me a brand-new lipstick!”

A door opened in the hall. “What’d she do now?” a voice growled. It was a teenage boy’s voice, but low and thick, and Miri felt her heart begin to race. What was happening?

“She’s been messing with my lipstick—again. Ma! Molly’s fooling with my bureau again!” the young woman called out.

“Want me to get her?” the boy asked. He laughed, but his laugh didn’t sound very funny. “I’ll get her for you.” A heavy footstep sounded on the stair.

Miri looked wildly around the room. There was something about the boy’s voice—especially his laugh—that gave her the creeps. Even if this was completely crazy and she was having sunstroke, she knew for sure that she didn’t want the owner of that voice to find her.

The heavy steps came closer, and Miri made a leap into the closet. The long space was filled with unfamiliar items: thick coats and suitcases and boxes that Miri had never laid eyes on before. She didn’t have a moment to do more than wonder at this mystery before she squeezed between a heavy woolen coat and a pointy cardboard box. The bedroom door was shoved open and Miri held her breath.

From somewhere far below came the thin, silvery ringing of a bell.

The boy let out a surprised-sounding grunt, “Hnnh?” Then Miri heard him thundering down the stairs. The young woman, too, seemed to be running away, or at least Miri could hear the clattering of heels on the wooden floor growing fainter and fainter.

Then there was silence. Miri waited.

Long minutes slid by.

Nothing happened.

Finally, with cautious steps, Miri eased out of her hiding place. Slowly, quietly, she tiptoed to the closet door and peeked into her bedroom. Except that it wasn’t her bedroom anymore. The walls still stood, all ten of them, and so did the funny long windows and even the little porthole, but everything else was different. The hateful wallpaper was gone, and in its place was a faded pattern of pink roses on white. The stack of cardboard boxes containing Miri’s books no longer towered in one corner; a scratched dressing table filled the space instead. And where Miri’s bright blue bed had been a few minutes before, a small white bed with a faded pink bedspread stood. There was a limp rag rug on the floor, and at its center rested a battered old doll carriage containing a sleeping white cat. The doll itself, bald and chewed-looking, poked its head out from under the bed.

Miri looked slowly around the room, observing each new item in order to hold off the panic rising within her. What had happened? Where had her room gone? “Have I gone nuts?” she murmured, and the sound of her own voice in this strange place frightened her even more. She looked at the cat, whose unconcerned sleep was slightly comforting, and tried to remember if she had ever seen him before. Could she have walked into a different room by mistake? After all, they had only lived in the house for twelve days—maybe she had taken a wrong turn. But that was completely ridiculous; the house wasn’t so big that it could have rooms she’d never seen before, especially not rooms with ten walls. Yes, the walls were the same, and the windows. It
was
her room, but—somehow—completely changed.

Like a sleepwalker, she went to a window and looked out, hoping to see her mother, brothers, and sisters on the great lawn below. She wouldn’t mind being yelled at, she wouldn’t even mind being chased and knocked down. She just wanted a familiar face. She took one look and drew her breath in sharply. Even without her glasses, she could tell that there was no sign of her mother on the lawn below, nor of her brothers, nor of her sisters. What’s more, the backyard was different, too. The elm tree was shorter and thinner and much less shady, but what made Miri gasp was the barn. There it was, a weathered gray barn with something that looked like a pigpen on one side, and it was standing in exactly the position Miri had so recently discovered behind the blackberry bushes. The bushes themselves were gone now, and when Miri squinted, she saw neat rows of vegetables in their place.

The sound of a screen door crashing into its frame shook Miri from her daze. Quickly, she pulled back from the window. If it wasn’t her house, it was somebody else’s, and maybe that somebody wouldn’t be pleased to find her here.

No sooner had this thought occurred to Miri than the door opened soundlessly and a girl about her own age slipped quickly inside. She closed the door behind her and made a flying leap into the closet. There was a moment of complete silence, during which Miri wondered what on earth she should do, and then a pair of large gray eyes peeked around the edge of the closet door.

“Oh my gosh!” the girl said in a whisper. “You’re here.”

CHAPTER
4

M
IRI’S MOUTH OPENED
, but no words came out. What could she say? The girl was apparently expecting her, which made
Who are you?
sound very rude.

The girl didn’t seem to mind. She was busy staring at Miri. A long minute passed, and then she blurted, “Will you show me your wand? Please?”

“Excuse me?” said Miri.

“Your
wand
,” the girl repeated.

“Um. I don’t have a wand,” said Miri slowly. She wished she did. The girl’s thick-lashed eyes were glowing with admiration and excitement, and Miri didn’t want to disappoint her. “I’m Miri Gill,” she said, to change the subject. “What’s your name?”

“Oh!” The girl looked embarrassed. “Molly. Molly Gardner. I thought you knew.”

Miri felt as though she had fallen into the middle of a play where everyone knew their lines except her. “Why?” she burst out. “How could I know your name when I never saw you before in my whole life?”

The girl grinned at her, a can’t-fool-me grin. “You’re trying to test me. Fairies do that all the time. Grandma May and me called you up, and you’re a fairy, so of course you know my name.”

Miri began to feel dizzy. “I’m
not
a fairy, and nobody called me up. I was just sitting in my room—this room—and then it all switched, and I was here, and I don’t understand any of this . . .” She trailed off.

“You are too a fairy,” Molly said firmly. “Otherwise what are you doing in my room?”

“I don’t
know
what I’m doing in your room. And it’s my room, by the way—at least it was a few minutes ago. It had purple wallpaper.”

Molly glanced quickly around at the faded pink wallpaper and the old iron bed. “It did not,” she retorted. “It’s been like this since my mama was a girl, ’cause it used to be her room.”

“But it’s my room,” said Miri weakly. “Is this 2207 Pickering Lane?”

Now Molly goggled at her. “It’s Pickering Lane, all right, but it’s not twenty-two-whatever-you-said. It’s just the country out here—there’s only three houses on the whole road. We don’t need numbers to tell one from the other.”

Just the country. Only three houses on the lane. A strange notion began to take shape in Miri’s mind. It was impossible, and yet—it happened in books. She shook her head; it was a crazy idea. But there was the barn in the backyard, and the elm, smaller and less leafy. Just the country. She held herself still and listened intently, and in the hot air she heard only the buzz of cicadas and the distracted cackle of afternoon birds. No cars. Let’s look at this logically, she thought, trying to hold back the tide of excitement that flooded her. It’s definitely the same room. But maybe—just maybe—it’s not the same time. “What year is it?” she asked urgently.

Molly smiled at her triumphantly. “You see? You are too a fairy. You don’t even know what year it is because you’re from the shadowed ages of the past.” “Fine. I’m a fairy. What year is it?”

“1935.”

“1935!” Miri sat down abruptly on the limp rag rug. This was crazy. This was completely unexplainable. Things like this don’t happen, she thought. She lifted her head to look once again around the half-familiar room and took a gaspy breath. In books, people who traveled through time always knew immediately what they had done. None of them got sick to their stomachs either.

She felt a small, sweaty hand patting her on the back.

It was Molly. She crouched beside Miri, her brown braids tickling Miri’s shoulder. “Don’t fret,” she whispered. “I won’t let ’em catch you, if that’s what you’re fussing about. Most people don’t even believe in you anymore, so it’s a lot safer than it used to be.”

“That’s good,” said Miri. “I guess.”

Molly nodded encouragingly. “Everything will be all right. You’ll do just fine.”

Miri stared at her. “What will I do just fine?” she asked. “What am I going to do?”

“Why,” said Molly, nodding, “you know. Grandma May summoned you up to save me, or”—Molly blushed—“I sort of summoned you for her, since she doesn’t talk anymore. She talks to me with her eyes, and she told me what to do. I thought I hadn’t done it right, ’cause nothing happened for a while, but I guess I did okay.” She smiled broadly. “I guess I did better than okay.”

Miri looked at Molly’s thin, eager face. Her gray eyes were shining under the thick black lashes, and when she spoke her hands waved, as if they wanted to speak as well. Even her dark braids seemed to leap along with her words. “What am I supposed to be saving you from?” Miri asked.

“Horst,” said Molly simply, and a shadow covered the light in her face for a moment. “Horst for sure. And Aunt Florence. And Sissy, too, but she’s not as bad as the other two. Mostly Horst and Aunt Flo. You’re supposed to get me out of here and take me to a nice family. A nice family who will take care of me.” She smiled in anticipation and her face was once again alight.

“Is Horst that boy I heard?” Miri guessed. He had sounded like someone you’d want to be saved from.

“Yeah. He’s my cousin,” said Molly. The clouded look returned as she thought of him. “Him and Sissy both are.”

“You don’t have a mom or dad?” Miri asked slowly.

“No mama,” Molly said, her eyes fixed on the faded wall before her. “I have a dad, but he’s away on business.”

“Oh,” said Miri.

“He’s been away on business for about six years,” added Molly.

No mom, no dad, a sick grandma, and a bunch of mean cousins. Even with rotten creep brothers and no twin, Miri’s family was better than that. She felt sorry for what she was about to say. “Molly, I’m not a fairy. At least I don’t think I am and I never was before and I don’t have a clue about how to help you. I was just sitting in my room, which is this room about—um—seventy-five years from now. I know that sounds totally crazy, but it’s true!” Molly was looking at her intently, but she didn’t say anything. “I got sent to my room because I hit my brother with a shovel, but that’s a different story—anyway, I was just sitting in my room, when all of a sudden I found this little piece of glass from a pair of eyeglasses, and then I looked through it and—” Miri opened her fist to show Molly the aged glass. It looked more fragile than ever. “And when I looked through it, everything changed.” She stopped, staring at the little lens. “Everything wavered and kind of shivered . . .” Her voice trailed off. How could she describe it?

“And you came here,” finished Molly, looking reverently at the slender piece of glass. “Seventy-five years. You’re from the twenty-first century! Do people ride around in rockets?”

Miri shook her head. “Sometimes. Not very often.”

But Molly wasn’t listening. “You went back in time,” she continued. “It’s strange to think of now as back in time, but I’ll get used to it. The thing of it is—it’s magic!” Her eyes glowed. “Magic happened, to me! And you too, of course.”

“Magic,” said Miri, struck by the wonder of it. Could it be true? She looked at the ten walls of Molly’s room, her room. A little wave of cool air broke into the throbbing afternoon heat, and Miri felt herself understand. Of course there was magic. Nothing else could explain her presence in this strange, familiar room. After all those years of wishing for magic, it had finally happened. To me, she thought to herself. It happened to me. An earthquake of joy shook her. “Oh boy,” she whispered. Magic is real, her mind sang, magic is real—and it happened to
me.
“My heart is jumping all over the place,” she said to Molly.

Molly’s solemn face suddenly burst into a starry smile. “Me too,” she confessed. “I’ve been hoping for this my whole life.”

The two girls grinned at each other. There was such a thing as magic. Other people had laughed at them, but they had been right all along.