The Wizard's Map (4 page)

And thinking about the shadows, Jennifer felt suddenly cold.

“No,” Jennifer told her. “We won't go.”

“No,” Peter confirmed.

And when Molly went whining to Gran, Gran was firm about her staying downstairs as well. “Not enough light. Tomorrow is soon enough.” And since it was Gran's house, Molly had to be content with that.

The twins looked at one another, nodding, relief clearly written on both their faces, though they hadn't said anything out loud.

***

Later that evening Peter brought the mystery up again, as they were brushing their teeth.

“Do you think Da did it?” he asked. He was reluctant to let the thing go.

“Did what?” Jennifer asked, though she knew what he meant.

“Did Da finish the Patience game? And if so, why?”

Jennifer was almost sure that before coming downstairs Peter had finished the game himself and had forgotten. Or at least she had convinced herself of that. Any other explanation was too scary to contemplate. Especially remembering the look that had been exchanged by Gran and Da over Peter's head when he'd come stumbling into the kitchen.

She knew it had to be that Peter had forgotten, because he was not a practical joker. In fact, he hated being teased and, consequently, never teased anyone else.

Still, Jennifer thought suddenly, Peter had already seemed different in Scotland. Maybe there would be more changes.

“I don't think so,” she said in a voice that was hesitant and slow. “You tell me.” Her voice held an accusation, and Peter, being her twin, understood at once that she thought he'd done it himself.

Jennifer started brushing her back teeth vigorously, in case Peter was ready to confess. That way she wouldn't have to look right at him. But she saw him in the mirror shaking his head, his dark eyes furious that she'd thought—even for a moment—that he might have been the one playing the trick.

***

Twenty minutes later Jennifer lay in her bed—a Scottish double, which meant it was slightly larger than a single but not nearly as wide as an American double bed—and listened to Molly's soft breathing across the room.
How wonderful to be a four-year-old,
she thought,
and not have to worry about anything. Like card games that finish themselves and woods that are too big for their surroundings and locked garden cottages. To be four years old and have all mysteries solved with a healthy helping of pudding.

Jennifer felt miserable. She was worried about Peter being changed by Scotland partly because she knew that she herself was already different. She had a secret that she'd kept for the entire day, and she'd never kept a secret from Peter before. When you're a twin, a secret is something you
share.

Under her pillow was the little metal key that she'd found in a beaded purse that went with the black dress in the first trunk. A tiny tag affixed to the key with a ratty piece of string read
SUMMER HOOSE.
She hadn't told Peter about the key, and she hadn't told him about the woods and the little white cottage, either, which she suspected was that very “Summer Hoose.” She turned over and buried her head in her pillow and thought she would cry. She was
that
miserable with her secret.

Instead she fell instantly to sleep.

***

In the morning, though Jennifer thought she had gotten up really early—the clock said 7:00—Mom and Pop were already dressed and downstairs watching the news on television with Gran and Da.

When Jennifer walked into the room, they were all whey-faced and staring at the set. The room positively resonated with pain.

“What's wrong?” Jennifer asked, fearing a major war or an airplane crash or whatever else it was that made grown-ups unhappy.

“Gordon McIlreavy's cornfields are full of crop circles,” said Da. “A line of seven of them showed up overnight.”

“Lucky the child didn't find an eraser,” Gran said, “or the whole of the countryside might have gone missing. That blasted Michael Scot.”

Jernnifer sat down between her parents and tried to make sense of the news. It seemed that a local farmer had gone to check on his growing corn—wheat, she reminded herself—and there, to his surprise, on the south part of his field had been seven large, awkward circles all in a row, mashing down his crop.

A helicopter had taken a bird's-eye view of the fields and it flashed onto the TV screen. The crop circles looked exactly like Molly's drawings on the map.

The TV announcer discussed with an English parapsychologist the many suggestions brought forth for the origin of crop circles, including thought waves, alien invasions, and hoaxes. Neither of them mentioned a wizard's map.

“But that can't be,” Jennifer said as Gran drew the map from her apron pocket and smoothed it out on the coffee table.

They hunched over it, checking back with the television to match up the two patterns.

“It can't be,” Peter, in his pajamas, echoed from the doorway.

But it was.

Even the line radiating from the last circle—where Jennifer had grabbed up the map from Molly, causing her pen to slip off the page—was indelibly etched in the com.

They all looked at one another, stunned, except for Gran, who stared down at the map, her lips pursed thoughtfully.

“What's for breakfast?” Molly squeezed in past Peter, totally oblivious to the terror that had struck in the TV room. “I'm hungry.”

Gran refolded the map carefully and shoved it back down into the deep safety of her pocket. “Porridge,” she said, standing up and going into the kitchen.

“What's that?” asked Molly.

“Oatmeal,” Mom answered. “Best thing for all of us.”

Pop laughed, but it was a hollow sound. “The Scottish cure-all,” he said.

Nobody laughed with him. Instead they marched like zombies into the kitchen after Gran.

There was an awful silence while Gran served up the porridge, accompanied by great mugs of dark tea for the grown-ups and glasses of milk for the children.

Jennifer didn't so much eat her porridge as stir it around and around with her spoon. The porridge was clumpy and the cream sat on top, refusing to be dissolved.

Across the table, Peter did the same.

Only Molly ate with any gusto, and when she'd finished, she announced, “I'm going up to the
actic
now.”

“No!” they all chorused, not even bothering to correct her pronunciation.

“We're going for a walk into town,” Mom said. “To the castle.”

“But I want to bring the baby to the castle,” Molly whined.

“She means the doll baby she found,” Peter explained.

“They don't allow babies in the castle,” Jennifer said quickly. As an excuse, it sounded pretty feeble, but it seemed to satisfy Molly.

“I will stay here,” said Gran. “And make preparations.”

No one asked her what the prep:irations were for.

***

In fact they squeezed into the rental car and drove into town by way of McIlreavy's farm, which was really the long way around. The main road quickly thinned down to a one-lane bit of blacktop lined with great hedgerows growing so thick and high, they could not see what was on the other side.

Then suddenly the hedgerows gave way to high stone walls, and the high stone walls to low ones topped by barbed wire. And beyond the wire Jennifer could see waving wheat.

From the ground it was difficult to discern any patterns at all, much less the familiar circles that had been so clear from the; helicopter's view.

“How will we know where the crop circles are?” Jennifer asked, but she knew at once when, up ahead, she saw that the lane was crowded with parked cars.

Pop pulled up as close to the wall as possible, and Da hopped out, going over to the policeman who was directing traffic on the narrow road. They chatted for what seemed like forever before Da came back, his face a conflict of misery and relief.

No one in the car had said a word all that time. Not even Molly.

Da climbed back in and slammed the door.

“The police think it's boys have done the circles. They've found bootprints.”

“Ah,” Mom said. “But you don't look totally convinced.”

“Hoofprints, too,” Da said dismally.

“Michael Scot,” Peter whispered to Jennifer so quietly she had to read his lips, “had a devil of a horse.”

Jennifer started to shake as if she had a fever, till Molly, sitting next to her, cried out.

“Jen is hitting me, Jen is hitting me!”

Jennifer hadn't been hitting her at all; but, as she shook, her trembling arms had pushed against Molly, who was perched in the car seat.

“Let's get to that castle!” Mom said in an over-bright voice that betrayed that she was more disturbed than she dared to say. “It's going to be a fine castle day.”

***

In fact it was not a good castle day at all. It was a bank holiday, and the castle was closed until noon. So Pop parked the car in a lot, and they walked around the town for a bit while Da explained some of its history in a distracted voice.

The town had had, Jennifer thought, an awful lot of martyrs in it. She didn't say that out loud, but Peter did.

“Blood and burnings,” he whispered to her. “Burnings and blood. What a place,”

Molly tired quickly of all that history, but by then it was eleven o'clock and time., according to Da, for “elevenses,” which meant tea and biscuits.

“Milk and cookies,” Mom explained.

So instead of waiting for the castle to open, they all agreed to go home. Pop drove: rather more carefully than he had in the rain, and they arrived at Abbot's Close soon enough and safe. Tumbling from the car, Mom managed to distract Molly into the garden, but Jennifer, Peter, and their father followed Da right into the kitchen.

Gran was where they had left her at the table, the map clutched in her right hand. She was not moving but staring ahead, as if in some sort of a sitting-up coma. On the kitchen table in front of her was the Patience game, but not in any of the patterns Jennifer and Peter had played.

Across the table from Gran sat a black-eyed man with a shock of black hair that fell across his forehead like a bandage. Jennifer thought at once that he had to be an actor in a play because he was so incredibly handsome, with high cheekbones and a hawk nose. He was wearing actor's clothing, too: an odd cloak that looked at first as if it were black but shimmered strangely where the kitchen light hit it, a little like sunlight on a dark pond; a black velvet doublet; green hose; and the oddest shoes. Jennifer thought the entire outfit must be incredibly uncomfortable, but the man looked entirely at ease.

“And where's your de'il of a horse?” asked Da.

“Wherever the de'il puts him,” said Michael Scot. “Yer mistress has been waiting for the lot of ye to come home. And with much patience.” He smiled. It was a slow, slippery smile, without any warmth to it.

“Gran!” Molly came running in suddenly from the garden, bursting through the kitchen door and passing right in front of the stranger as if she didn't see him. Mom was right behind her.

“Can I go to the actic now?” Molly called out.

Michael Scot stood. “Ah, the one whose hand on the map called me forth. A hundred years is a long, cold wait.” He stood and reached over, putting his own hand on top of Molly's glossy curls, saying, “I shall tak ye to the
actic
myself, child.” With the other hand he drew his cloak around Molly, obscuring her.

There was a sudden great shaking, as if the ground were heaving itself in a troubling quake, then an immense swirl of wind. And in an instant, they were both gone.

For a long moment nobody moved, and then Mom screamed, an awful sound that seemed to split the air, propelling them all into action.

Da scattered the cards in front of Gran with a single sweep of his hand. The minute the pattern was broken, Gran shook herself thoroughly, like a dog coming out of a bath. Meanwhile Pop had flung his arms around Mom and she'd stopped screaming.

In the middle of this whirlwind of action, Jennifer and Peter traded oblique looks, but not a single word.

When everything had quieted down at last, Gran spoke. “I suppose you need to ken what this is all about.”

“I need,” Pop said in the low, slow voice that Jennifer knew meant trouble, “to know where my daughter is. And fast.”

“Alas—that I dinna ken,” said Gran, shaking her head. “Except that she is with Michael Scot.”

“Who is seven hundred years old!' Peter's voice held all the scorn a thirteen-year-old could muster. “This is pure bull.” He stalked out of the room, but then stood at the door because—Jennifer knew—he couldn't bear not to hear the rest.

“What does he want with her?” Mom asked the question Jennifer didn't dare to voice. “With Molly?”

“What do wizards ever want?” said Da. “Power and more power. And a long life to wield it.”

“But Molly can't give him that,” Mom wailed.

From the doorway Peter moaned , “Blood,” he said.

...
and burnings.
Jennifer remembered the rest and shuddered.

“He wants the map,” said Gran. “There is much of his power invested in it.”

“Then why didn't he just take it?” Mom said. “Why did he have to take my little girl?”

“For a trade,” said Da.

“You canna just take an object of power,” Gran explained.

“It must be given.” Jennifer said the words before she knew that she knew them.

Da nodded. “And I said she has the magic, Gwenfhar.”

“Aye. But can she wield it?” Gran asked.

Jennifer gasped. “I don't have—” but Mom's scream cut right across whatever else she was going to say.

“
Just give him the map!
” Mom hadn't meant to scream the words, but they came out that way all the same. “Just give him the damned map.” She began to sob silently.