The Magickers (8 page)

They piled out, as Bailey would say later, like rats off a stinking ship. The redhead punched his friend in the shoulder and said, “Hey, Stef. This is a dump.”

“You're a dump, Rich.” Stefan thumbed his nose. He stretched his chunky body. “At least we're finally someplace.” He ran his hand through his spiky brown hair. “Maybe we can pan for gold or something.” He snickered.

He ignored the small crowd of campers and adults standing outside what appeared to be a large barn, the buildings old and weathered. “Although I gotta admit it doesn't look like much.”

Gavan swept his hat off as he helped Eleanora down the bus steps. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Ravenwyng. Dinner will be ready in a bit. After dinner, we will be meeting in the Lake Wannameecha Gathering Hall to go over cabin assignments, and tomorrow we'll start our first full day of camp! Gather up your things and put them in the Hall for now. In the meantime . . . toilets are in that building there. One side is for the ladies, one for the gents. Ladies' cottages are around the curve of the lake. Most, if not all, will be explained on the morrow!”

Eleanora dusted herself off before heading away to the distant building, moving with a graceful, gliding step, her shoes hidden by the sweeping hem of her long skirt.

“Platforms,” muttered Bailey.

“Hmmm?”

“Platform shoes,” she added. “She walks funny, huh?”

“Oh.” Jason nodded.

Bailey rubbed her nose. “Sounds like a good idea!” She dashed off after Eleanora and caught up with her, headed to the restrooms.

Jason reached for his stuff and Bailey's, nearly locking elbows with someone—again. As he pulled loose, the other grabbed his arm. The boy looked up, revealing a thin face, darkly intense blue eyes and curly hair that fell over one eyebrow. He smiled, and it lit up his dark eyes.

“Heya,” the other said. “I'm Trent.”

“Jason.”

“Glad you guys finally got here. We've been holding dinner.” Trent gave a lopsided grin.

“You look like you can't afford to miss a meal.”

“Got that right!” He hefted Bailey's bag over his shoulder with a grunt. “This yours?”

“Nah. My friend Bailey's. She went to the bathroom.”

“Figures. Girls pack a ton. I had to throw out half the stuff my mom used to put in . . . when she was alive to pack.” Trent strode with him toward the Gathering Hall. He looked down at Jason's leg, noticing the limp, then back up. “Broken leg, huh?”

“Sprain. Almost healed.”

“Neat splits. Those plastic?”

“Sorta. You pump air into 'em. They're lighter, softer.”

“Cool. Kinda geeky looking, but all right.”

Jason looked up at the Hall door as they passed through. Someone had nailed a piece of wood, shaped rather like a lopsided and sideways figure eight, to it and painted it blue.

Trent tapped the object. “That's Lake Wannameecha.”

“Seen it?”

“Not yet. So you came in with the big kahuna, huh?” Without waiting for Jason to nod, he added, “I drove in with Crowfeather. He's way cool, this Native American guide. Knows all sorts of stuff about wild-life.” He dropped his voice. “Camp's not quite what they expected, seems. They just bought it. Bathroom's in good shape, though.”

“What's wrong with it?”

“Supposed to have been remodeled and updated. Only about half the work was done, I guess.”

Inside, electric lights burned, but low and weak, with a wavery yellow light. Trent dropped his bundles near a neat stack. “This's my stuff. Just park your stuff here, too.”

Henry came chugging in, struggling with his things. Rich and Stefan were on his heels. Stefan smirked and said, “Let me help you with that, Squibb.”

He reached out and tugged on the strap holding the bloated sleeping bag together. With a sharp yank, it came undone, exploding like a giant air bag. It all but swallowed Henry from sight. Suddenly blinded, Henry tripped and fell, skidding across the Hall's floor. He came to a stop looking somewhat like a sausage stuffed into a fluffy brown roll. The two boys strolled off, shoulders shaking with laughter.

Henry sighed and rolled out of his sleeping bag. Trent leaned over and gave him a hand up. He looked thoughtfully at the massively fluffy sleeping gear.

“Big . . . ummm . . . bag,” he said.

“Down. Best kind, but once those feathers get air in 'em and get all poofed up . . .” Henry sighed again, and pushed his glasses back into place on the bridge of his nose. He leaned over and began to squeeze his bag down to size. Jason got on his knees and helped him gather the straps.

“Next time, pick on somebody your own size,” Trent said to Stefan's back.

The two turned slowly. The square kid looked across the end of the Hall at Henry Squibb. “He is my size.”

Trent grinned. “I meant intellect.” He let out a hearty laugh before grabbing one strap and helping Henry and Jason pull the bag tight. “What is this thing, anyway? An air bag for a humvee?”

The three of them couldn't help smirking, Henry's round face going red in both humor and embarrassment. “My mom . . .” he sputtered finally.

“My mom,” Trent said, “would have put a pillow on a skateboard, if she could have figured out a way. And I think she taught my dad how.” He wrinkled his face up ruefully.

Henry fell over laughing. Bailey trotted up, watched them all silently for a moment, and then joined them. Jason pointed at her. “Trent, this is Bailey, Bailey, this's Trent.”

She nodded even as she looked about the cavernous and well-worn Hall. “Thank goodness the bathrooms are modern.”

“See the lake from there?”

“Wannameecha? Oh, yes. Looks nice. There's racks of canoes and kayaks stacked behind the mess hall.”

“Speaking of mess hall!” Trent took a deep breath and beamed. “Smells like dinner!”

Jason could smell a savory scent as well.

“Wait'll you meet the cook. FireAnn. She has this big cloud of red hair and this cool Irish accent. We all had to go pound on pots and pans in the mess hall. She's got a crew coming in, but they're late.”

“Why pounding?”

“We had to chase the raccoons outta the kitchen.” Trent grinned again, merriment flashing in his dark blue eyes. “She was yelling at them that the slowest one out would be pot pie tomorrow!”

Jason laughed.

FireAnn did indeed have fiery red hair, held back by a dark blue bandanna that seemed as if it might burst open. She stood at the back of the mess hall while they sat and ate, and her green eyes flashed with satisfaction as the campers scarfed up every bite and a few came back for seconds.

“Tonight's free night,” Trent said, as he wiped up the last of his gravy.

“How so?”

“Tomorrow they assign kitchen duty, toilet duty, camp duty. And they'll have us scheduled for classes till the cows come home.” Trent's thin face considered him. “Never been to camp, huh?”

“First time.”

“For every action there is a reaction and chore,” Bailey said. She dropped her fork with a clink.

“Something like that,” Trent agreed. He glanced at Jason. “She always like this?”

“Sometimes,” Jason said. “Only more so.”

By the time they left the mess hall, darkness had fallen once again. Little moon stayed out, a thin shivery sliver in the sky. The sound of music carried to them, and they set out in search of it. The smell of woodsmoke filled their nostrils, and a thin, gray funnel could be seen wafting up to the night sky. The melody grew brisker and brisker until they nearly ran to catch up to it.

The three found themselves in a clearing. Gavan Rainwater stood, surrounded by the orange sparks coming off an immense bonfire, fiddling away, a short black cape hanging from his shoulders, his body in motion as he danced and strode to the music he bowed. With his dark hair curling about his face, and the fiddle alive in his hands, he looked rather like a Gypsy.

Other campers and the counselors began to gather. Eleanora came in last, silently, and took a seat on a stump, looking up at Gavan as he reeled off the last of the air, and stood for a moment, inhaling deeply, becoming still. He bowed solemnly. “Time to meet some remarkable teachers.”

He pointed with his bow. “Tomaz Crowfeather.”

A short, thin man stood, his face weathered, his eyes dark, his hair parted in the middle and pulled back into a twist anchored by a shining feather. He wore a vest over a faded denim shirt and jeans that looked as if they had indeed been beaten into worn softness by rocks. Beaten silver disks set off by turquoise nuggets in his braided leather belt and bracelet flashed in the firelight. He gave a half bow of acknowledgment.

“Anita Patel.” The shadows yielded a slight, graceful woman who wore a sari and pants, and as she turned and waved at all of them, tiny bells on one anklet pealed.

“I will show you how to breathe and move,” she said softly, but everyone seemed to hear her. A crimson dot accented her forehead between dark brows.

“Adam Sousa!” Gavan pivoted on one heel and pointed his bow at an intense young man sitting on a log at the fire ring's far end. Sousa jumped up. His long, slender fingers tapped a rhythm on the silver cornet hanging from his belt as he flashed a grin. “Mathematics and Music,” Gavan said and bowed to Sousa.

Trent and Bailey and Jason all looked at one another. “Do you think . . . ?”

They shrugged. “But I bet he plays Reveille in the morning.”

“Eleanora Andarielle. Literature and Mythology.”

Eleanora raised her hand and waved.

“Elliott Hightower and Lucas Jefferson, Sports and Crafts.”

Across the bonfire from them, Jason could do little more than spot the two men by their gestures.

“Cook FireAnn! An enchantress with herbs and food.” FireAnn danced into the gleaming bonfire light, her hair freed, and did a turn of an Irish jig around Gavan before bowing and dropping back into the shadows.

They all cheered FireAnn.

“Plus, we have one or two guest lecturers who may drop in from time to time! Now, I am done talking. Sit. We have marshmallows to roast and names to exchange and bedtime coming all too quickly.”

So they sat, and Tomaz Crowfeather passed out green sticks he'd whittled for roasting spits and FireAnn passed out marshmallows and they sang camp songs and cheered until the flames grew smaller . . . and smaller . . . and smaller.

 

In the Gathering Hall, the campers assembled at their gear, faces weary, voices now quiet. Bedtime seemed a good idea. “I want to sit on something soft,” Henry declared. He tugged his bag over toward the seating area.

Henry Squibb tugged and tugged, seemingly unable to get the bag open now. Jonnard went over and the two wrestled with it for a moment before it suddenly burst open, flattening both of them. While Henry turned red and apologized a thousand times to Jonnard, Jason looked his gear over.

Trent frowned. He leaned over to Jason. “Some one's been in my stuff.”

“What? How can you tell?”

“Special knot my dad taught me. It's tied different.”

“Anything missing?”

“I can't tell yet.”

Jason looked at his things. He opened his duffel. Things that he knew had been packed first now lay on top, as though someone had neatly turned his bag inside out. He looked up, saw Trent watching him in the dim light. He nodded.

Gavan and Eleanora came to the front of the Hall, and the tired campers fell silent, watching.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “It's late and we're all ready to turn in. But in what cabin, in what bed? What companions shall share your adventures with you in the coming weeks?” Gavan shook his head and tapped his cane on the floor. “Too difficult a problem for a mere mortal to solve. So we have called upon the Wishing Well, and a ritual older than any of us here! You'll be led out, and given words to speak. Remember them! Repeat them precisely! Your very future depends on it!”

He pointed his cane at Jonnard and then Stefan. “Crowfeather, Sousa, take your first victims!”

“Eleanora and Anita, take those two hostage!” He pointed at Ting and Bailey. Bailey went with a giggle, but Ting's eyes were very big as they were led out the door.

Gavan rapped on the floor. “Hightower, Jefferson—those two!” And the wolfhead cane pointed at Trent and Jason.

Outside, the lights seemed very thin against the darkness of the evening. The others shuffled through the grass and dirt to an old structure he had not noticed before. It seemed to be a genuine stone wishing well, complete with a great wooden crossbeam that had a bucket hanging from it. The roof was littered with pine needles. He could hear whispering voices ahead of him, but nothing clearly. Bailey suddenly bounced in excitement and started to bolt back to the Gathering Hall. She slid to a stop beside Jason.

“Kittencurl! I'm at Kittencurl Cottage!” Almost before she had stopped, she was off again.

Trent shook his head. “Better her than me,” he muttered.

Jason laughed.

Hightower curled his strong coach's hand about Jason's arm. He bent down. “Now listen to what I say very carefully when you get to the well's edge. You'll be repeating after me.”

“Mmmm . . . okay.” Jason felt a little foolish. Ting passed them without a word, but her mouth curved in a secret smile.

The stone-walled well looked very old. A small sign, firmly fastened to its roofing said
Water Not Potable.
Trent hissed in his ear, “Means you can't actually drink from it.”