The Misadventures of the Magician's Dog (19 page)

“Yay!” Izzy cheered. Celia smiled, too, but she had a calculating gleam in her eyes: Peter could tell she was already assessing how they could put his magic to use. Aside from the relief that he might not end up a rock, Peter himself felt mostly a profound disquiet. To be a magician like Merlin? Nothing about that seemed right.

He didn't want to think about it, so he looked down at the rock again instead. “None of this changes the fact
that the magician is more powerful than I am. I could barely turn him into a rock. If I tried to make him into the boy he used to be, he might end up human, but still evil.”

“So we just need you to be more powerful,” said The Dog.

“ ‘Just'?”

“I don't understand,” Celia interrupted. “Why do we want to figure out how to change the magician back? He wanted to steal our souls, and he tried to kill Henry. Why should we risk ourselves trying to help him?”

“He wasn't always evil,” said The Dog. “He used to be a wonderful kid. That's the person I want back.”

“That's what you keep saying,” said Celia, her chin jutting out. “But he must've been at least a little bit evil before, or he would've learned to do magic through love, like Peter. He's a rock, and he's not going to hurt anyone else. Let's leave him like that.”

“If that's what you want,” said The Dog. But he looked at Peter as he said it.

“No!” Peter said in a loud voice, surprising himself.

“But why, Peter?” Celia asked.

“Because . . .” Peter tried to think of the answer to this question. “Because he's not perfect. But people aren't perfect. They're just . . . they're people.” He looked at The Dog, and he could tell that The Dog understood what he was saying, even though Peter wasn't getting the words right. “It doesn't mean he deserves to be a rock.”

“He used to throw the Frisbee for me for hours,” said The Dog. “I would watch for him when he came home from school. He would walk in the door and give me a
treat, before he did anything else. At night I slept at the foot of his bed, and he didn't care if I snored.”

“We have to change him back,” said Peter. The depth of his certainty surprised him. “And we have to do it tonight.”

“I wish you could use his power,” said Izzy, “the way you did when you were touching the rock.”

“I don't think that will work,” said Peter. “He's too strong for me to control.”

The Dog's ears suddenly perked up. “But I think I know whose power you can use.”

“Absolutely not,” said Peter flatly, looking at Celia and Izzy. “It would be dangerous. You could get hurt.”

The Dog's idea, once he explained it, was simple enough, and Celia and Izzy wanted to help. But Peter was not going to put his sisters at risk. Not again.

“Remember when Henry jumped on the magician?” Izzy asked Peter. “He didn't have to. But he did, even though he's scared of magic and loud noises and especially the magician. It was because he knew it was the right thing to do, wasn't it, Henry?”

On Izzy's shoulder, Henry bobbed his tiny brown head up and down. Now that he was really a mouse again, he seemed a lot less, well, mouse-ish. He hadn't run for a dark closet yet, and unlike before, he seemed perfectly willing to answer questions.

“Helping the magician is the right thing to do,” said Izzy. “And Celia and I want to do it.”

“Besides that, you're not the boss, Peter,” Celia added. “You may be the oldest, and the magician, but I've been
telling you all along that you can't do everything alone. You need us, and you know it.”

She was right, Peter thought. He did need them, and they were in their own ways as much a part of this as he was. Reluctantly, he nodded at The Dog.

In preparation, The Dog wished the picture of the magician from the magician's house, then handed it to Peter, Celia, and Izzy to study. “The physical details aren't important,” warned The Dog. “You've seen him already. What I want you to remember is how happy he looks. He hasn't smiled like that in almost a year.”

Peter stared down at the boy's face, trying to memorize the ways in which it was different from the magician's.
His grin
, he thought.
The light in his eyes. The mischievous way he looked at the camera
. After a moment or two, Celia and Izzy said they were ready, and Peter put the picture aside. Without speaking, the three children and The Dog formed a circle, holding hands and paws, with the rock in the middle.

Peter took a deep breath. The last two times he'd fought with the magician, he'd barely survived. But this time, he told himself, he wouldn't be alone. Everyone had magic, The Dog had reminded the children; it was just that most people's brains weren't capable of using it. But just as Peter had used the magician's magic when he was touching the rock, The Dog believed that perhaps Peter could borrow his sisters' and The Dog's magic for a little while. If they all thought the same thing, Peter's power might be greater than the magician's.

Peter checked once more the back corners of his mind: Angry Peter truly was gone. He was, he thought,
the luckiest boy who had ever lived. He let that feeling of luck and love fill him.

The Dog had insisted that the four of them stand exactly so, but it wasn't until the magic started gathering in Peter's head that he understood why. From the first time he had done magic, Peter had sensed that power vibrated over objects and in and out of people. What he didn't realize was that even when he was thinking magic, that power was still traveling through him, only a portion of it stopping in his brain long enough for him to use it. But in the circle he, his sisters, and The Dog had formed, magic came in but didn't go out; the circle trapped it, whipping it around and around like water in a whirlpool. Peter let the swirling power build as long as he could bear it, until his hands were shaking against his sisters'.

Then he looked down at the rock. No, it wasn't a rock, he reminded himself. It was Daniel, a boy.

Daniel, Daniel, Daniel
, he thought.

The rock stayed a rock for longer than seemed possible, even as Peter focused all his power on it. Then, shaking, it began to stretch, growing bigger and bigger until it was taller than Peter. But it was still a rock.
Daniel
, Peter thought, but he couldn't make the boy appear, no matter how hard he concentrated.

His vision blurring, Peter blinked. When his eyes reopened, the rock had become the magician, snarling with anger. Peter's stomach clenched in fear, and the magician could tell: grinning, he raised his arm, just as he had when he had tried to remove Peter's will. Peter's magic wavered. Celia squeezed his hand, though hers
was trembling, too. On the other side, Izzy's fingers were firm and warm in Peter's own.

And Peter refocused his mind and thought back once more to the laughter in the eyes of the boy in the photograph. “You aren't real,” he said to the furious magician whose face was so close to his own. “Daniel is real.”

Just like that, the magician was gone. Though the boy who replaced him looked the same, he wasn't; he was someone else entirely.

Peter let go of his sisters' hands.

Bewildered, Daniel stared around the room. At first, he seemed confused, as if he didn't know where he was or what had happened. Then he began to remember. Peter could see it on his face—the way his eyes grew wide and fearful, his lips parted, and tears began to slide down his cheeks.

“I didn't mean to!” he wailed. “I'm so sorry. So sorry about everything!”

It was awful to watch. Peter opened his mouth, hoping to say something that might comfort the crying boy, but he couldn't think of any words. Izzy's hands flew to her lips, and even Celia looked horrified by Daniel's pain.

Without saying a word, The Dog trotted to Daniel's side, then butted his head against Daniel's legs. “Oh,” said Daniel, and he dropped to his knees on the rug, burying his face in The Dog's fur.

And then Daniel was gone.

“Where did he go?” asked Peter.

Alone in the middle of the floor, The Dog sighed. “I sent him home.”

“He was so sad,” said Izzy. “Will he be all right?”

“I think so,” said The Dog. “I took his memory away. I felt bad doing it, but it seemed like the only choice. In just a moment, he's going to walk into his parents' bedroom, and they'll be overjoyed to see him. And neither he nor they will ever be able to figure out where he's been these past months. It's not perfect, but it's the best we can do.”

In all Peter's planning to change the magician back to his former self, he had never thought to wonder what would happen to him after that. Now he imagined what it must be like for the magician, standing by his parents' bed and not remembering any of the terrible things he'd done. Not remembering the power he'd had, the way the magic had tasted on his tongue, the way it had felt to wish and know that what you wanted would come true . . .

“Magic can do that?” Peter asked. “I thought you said magic couldn't change who someone was.”

The Dog swiveled his ears reflectively. “Magic won't change who a person is fundamentally. But forgetting: that's a relatively minor thing. Just a shift in the surface, not a rebuilding of someone's core.”

For a moment, they all stood there, staring at the spot on the floor where the rock had been. “So we did it,” said Izzy. “We saved the magician, just like The Dog wanted!” She patted The Dog's head; he thumped his tail.

“What's next?” asked Celia.

The Dog looked around. “I guess the next thing is to clean up this room. And then go to bed. See what tomorrow brings.”

Celia grinned. “We're going to have some awesome adventures, aren't we?”

“I want to be a bird again!” said Izzy. “Peter, can we do that tomorrow?”

“No,” said Celia. “The first thing we ought to do is visit Dad. If Peter can't bring him here, we could go there, couldn't we? There must be some way. Maybe The Dog could turn into a dragon again and we could ride on his back.”

“Could we do that, Dog?” said Izzy. “It sounds like fun!”

The Dog cocked his head. “It's a long way. Too long to fly, I think, even for a dragon. But maybe—”

“No,” said Peter.

Three sets of eyes turned to stare at him. “What do you mean, no?” asked Celia.

“I mean, I don't want to do any more magic. Not for anything.”

“But, Peter,” said Izzy, “I know I made you promise, but that was when magic was making you horrible.”

“Think of how much fun we could have,” said Celia.

“No,” said Peter again, his voice weaker this time. He couldn't think how to explain what he felt to his sisters. All he knew was that this planning, this daydreaming, felt utterly wrong to him.

“But, Peter—” said Celia.

The Dog interrupted. “Peter, can you tell us what it is you want?”

There it was, the same question The Dog had asked him on the golf course. “I want . . .” For a moment, Peter got stuck, trying to put words to what he felt. The Dog thought he might end up like Merlin, but that wasn't what Peter wanted. He closed his eyes and what he saw
was himself, sitting at the kitchen table with his mother and sisters, arguing about dinosaurs and green beans. “I want to be myself again. The kid who didn't know how to do magic.”

“Like the magician,” said The Dog.

“Yes,” said Peter, finally recognizing the emotion he'd been feeling when he thought about the magician. It was envy. “Like the magician.”

Celia stared at Peter as though he had gone crazy. Izzy, on the other hand, turned to The Dog. “Can you do that?” she asked.

The Dog looked thoughtful. “It would be more complicated than it was for the magician. It wouldn't make sense for all three of you—and your mother!—to forget the last three days entirely. But it seems possible that we could alter your memories to make it as if this had never happened. If that's really what you want, Peter.”

At The Dog's words, Peter hesitated. Did he really want to make it as though this had never happened? He thought again about the kid at the dinner table three days earlier: how powerless that boy had felt. How angry he had been. He was, Peter realized, a different person now, and he liked the ways in which he had changed. Still, he didn't want to be a magician. He knew it as surely as he knew his own name. “Okay,” he said resolutely.

Izzy's hand flew to her shoulder, where Henry lay nestled in her hair. “Does everything have to go back to the way it was? Every single thing?”

The Dog gave a quiet snort of doggy laughter. “Maybe we can find a way for someone to keep her pet mouse, if that's what she wants.”

“Yes, please,” said Izzy.

Celia opened her mouth as if she might object. Peter braced himself for a storm of recriminations. But Celia surprised him. “Are you sure?”