Magic's Child
by
Justine Larbalestier
Magic's Child
RAZORBILL
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Young Readers Group
345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Copyright 2007 © Justine Larbalestier
All rights reserved
ISBN: 1-4295-9072-6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
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Praise for the first two books in Justine Larbalestier's Magic or Madness trilogy
Magic or Madness
—
Booklist
, starred review
—
School Library Journal,
starred review
"Justine Larbalestier writes books that stay in your hands like they were coated with Krazy Glue, until you've turned the very last page."
— Green Man Review
2006 ALA Best Book for Young Adults
2005 Best Book of the Year,
School Library Journal
2005 Best Book of the Year, TAYSHAS
2005
Locus
Recommended Reading
Magic Lessons
"This fast-paced tale delivers plenty of surprises, shadings and shocks."
—
The Washington Post
"[Readers will] race through this second one and wait anxiously for the…end of the trilogy."
—
Kirkus Reviews
"
Magic Lessons
does what only the best sequels do: it takes what we thought we knew and turns that on its head."
— Holly Black, best-selling author of
Tithe, Valiant
, and
The Spiderwick Chronicles
The Magic or Madness trilogy
by Justine Larbalestier
Magic or Madness
Magic Lessons
Magic's Child
In memory of Jenna Felice (1976–2001)
and
Marie Wilkinson (1952–2003).
One from New York, the other from Sydney.
I miss them.
Note to Readers
Like the first two books in this trilogy,
Magic's Child
contains both Australian and American spelling, vocabulary, and grammar. Chapters from the viewpoint of the Australians, Reason and Tom, are written in Australian English, and those from Jay-Tee's point of view are written American style. (I was tempted to switch that in this, the final book, so that Jay-Tee talked Aussie and Tom and Reason Yankee, but my editors didn't think that was as funny as I did. Sigh.) To help you out, there's a glossary at the back of the book, which is almost a hundred-per-cent true. Enjoy!
1
Reason Cansino
My name is Reason Cansino.
I'm fifteen years old, pregnant, and magic.
I could fly if I wanted. Or turn lead into gold. Or my enemies into frogs. Or anything, really.
I think.
No one knows the extent of my magic. Least of all me.
* * *
When I was little, magic was the sensation of water sliding past my skin as I dove into the Roper River and burst back through the surface with a crayfish in my hands. I had no idea how it had gotten there.
Magic.
Sarafina stood on the bank and applauded. "Yes! Yes!" And I felt dizzy and proud.
Or the taste of that crayfish later, cooked in coals, sweet and clean and fresh as dawn, its juices dribbling down our chins.
Magic was long, steady rain after years of drought.
My first taste of ice cream.
Stories of ancestors told around the fire.
Fibonaccis cascading through my body, opening up in a spiral dance into infinity. A spiral I could trace on my ammonite, unwinding from the tiniest point and stretching out into forever.
* * *
Before I came to Esmeralda's house, I hadn't known magic was real. Now I know that a magic person can get from Sydney to New York City by stepping through a door, can make light just by thinking about it, or money appear out of thin air, or clothes that are almost alive.
I know the cost of that magic too. Use too much and you die. Use too little and you go insane. That's the choice: magic or madness. Which will it be?
My mother, Sarafina, chose madness.
My grandmother, Esmeralda, chose magic.
So did my grandfather, Jason Blake, and my friends Tom and Jay-Tee.
Each of them with a finite amount of magic, winding down their lives every time they used it.
Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
Magic-wielders don't live long. Use a little, no more or less than once a week, and you can make it to forty; use a lot, recklessly, and never see your twenties.
That was me and Jay-Tee: reckless with our magic. Me, because I didn't know; Jay-Tee, because she didn't care.
Tom was sparing and careful, because my grandmother taught him how, and because he had tasted madness like an unripe lemon. Better to live short and sane, he decided, than long and mad, like his mother, like mine.
And, of course, you can always cheat. Find someone with magic who doesn't know the rules, ask them for some of theirs. (They needn't understand the question, just so long as they say yes.) Trick them, drink them, live longer. Take a little (or a lot) of their life; add it to yours.
Just like my grandparents did. That's why my mother chose madness.
If you're magic, you can't trust other magic people. They want to drink you dry, steal all your magic, so that you die in seconds and they live forever. Or to fifty even.
Magic is a disease.
2
Bruises
Even though my belly was
full of bacon, eggs, fried onions, and mushrooms, I still reached for my fourth rambutan. I pushed my thumbnail into the thick, hairy, reddish skin, slit it open, and peeled off the jacket, revealing the translucent fruit beneath. I bit in, let the sweet juice explode in my mouth. Doing something as normal as eating kept me from panicking.
Jay-Tee pushed her plate away. She'd eaten the bacon but not her eggs. "What?" she asked.
"Nothing." I blinked. I didn't turn my head away quick enough to avoid seeing how faint her magic was. How close she was to dying.
It was less than twenty-four hours since my should've-been-dead ancestor, Raul Emilio Jesús Cansino, changed me. Every time I closed my eyes— every time I blinked— I saw magic. Light of varying intensity dotting the darkness. Each time my eyes closed, the magic world of light had gotten bigger, stretched further.
I was afraid it wasn't going to go away. I was afraid of what it meant. I hadn't been able to sleep last night and didn't know if I'd ever be able to sleep again.
Most of all, I hated barely seeing Jay-Tee. Tom's light was strong and clear; Esmeralda's was dazzling, but Jay-Tee's was a smudge, fainter than the Milky Way.
"Really nothing?" Tom asked, peering at me. "You don't look like it's nothing." He took another bite of his chocolate muffin. Tom didn't like fruit.
"Yeah," Jay-Tee said. "You look weird. Why do you keep staring like that?"
I was trying not to blink. My record so far was three minutes. Any more than that and my eyes burned and watered until my lids shut. And there were the magic lights again, waiting for me.
"Reason? You're doing it again." Jay-Tee got up and walked towards the back door. She leaned against it, looking back at me.
"Sorry," I said. "You're not thinking of going through the door, are you?"
Jay-Tee snorted. "No, of course not. Esmeralda made it very clear that it's out of bounds. Besides, I don't know where the key is."
"Well, even if you did know, you can't go through. It would use up too much magic. You don't have enough."
"You're saying I can't even— "
The doorbell rang. Jay-Tee pushed off from the door. "I'll get it," she said, heading down the hall, "but you have to tell us what's going on."
"Yeah," Tom said. "You can't hold out on us when something this big is happening to you. It sucks for us too, you know." The front door groaned open. "Probably just Mormons or something."
I closed my eyes and Tom became nothing but shining magic as bright as the door that led to New York City. I could recognise his magic now, feel the Tomness of it. He had years of it left. Jay-Tee had more like minutes. I wondered how much I had. Did this new magic run out the same way the old did? Jason Blake seemed to think so, at least about the Cansino magic he and Esmeralda had. I was something different. Raul Emilio Jesús Cansino had chosen me. I wished I could see inside myself the way I could see them.
"What?" Tom asked. "What's
up
, Reason?"
"Nothing.
Really
. What are Mormons?" I asked. From the front hall I could hear Jay-Tee talking to someone, but not what they were saying.
"No way," Tom said. "No way do you not know what Mormons are!"
I hadn't the foggiest. I let Tom go on about how I didn't know anything, even though he should be used to it by now. I reached for another rambutan, wishing Jay-Tee's brother were here. He wouldn't muck me about; he'd just tell me what a Mormon was. I wondered if Danny would still like me with my eyes all red and watery and my belly pregnant with our child. How was I going to tell him about that?
"You really never heard of Mormons?"
"Nope."
"Reason!" Jay-Tee yelled from the front of the house. "It's for you!"
I put the fruit down, wiped my mouth, and headed out of the kitchen and along the hall. In the doorway stood a woman dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, with shortish, feathery hair, and a backpack slung over one shoulder. She was smiling— or rather, beaming— at me.
When I blinked there was only darkness where she was standing.
"
You
must be Reason, then. I thought Jay-Tee was, but that's been cleared up. Not that you look alike. Well, except for the bruises. Were you two in a fight?"
Jay-Tee touched her cheek and I touched my eye at the same time. Jay-Tee's bruise was all garish purples, reds, and blues, a souvenir of Esmeralda's attempt to give her Raul Cansino's magic. She wasn't a Cansino; it hadn't taken.
"Two different fights, looks like. Your bruise is older, isn't it?" she asked, looking closely at my face. I'd almost forgotten about it, days old and faded into pale yellows and browns. I'd gotten it shifting the heavy box buried in the cellar. It had smashed into my face as I prised it free. Inside I'd found the dried-up corpse of Le Roi, my mother's cat.
The woman stuck out her hand.
I shook it, wondering who on earth she was. She caught my expression and laughed.
