Whispered Magics (15 page)

A shriek from the house made her turn suddenly. In the big
window they saw only Courtney, standing at the refreshment table, eating. More
shrieks and laughter echoed down. “Mad-dy! Mad-dy!”

“Feel free to come back down after the ritual is over,” the
old lady said, and Cynthia realized it was time to go to the party.

Reluctantly she walked back up to the house. Inside, Cynthia
found the girls all circling around Madeleine, their chatter and giggles
punctuated with shrieks of admiration. Madeleine stood still, looking blank—she
was clearly used to being the center of attention whenever she reappeared in
their lives. She was still as skinny and plain as ever, and her hair was still
long. Cynthia envied that hair. She wanted long hair, but her mother made her
cut hers in styles like the other girls wore.

Wallace oohed and ahhed loudest over Madeleine’s clothes and
hair, though her smile looked fake and her giggles were the high, sharp kind
that hurt your ears after a while. Above her grin, her eyes flicked back and
forth between the other girls, and Cynthia realized that Wallace was annoyed at
not being the center of attention at her own party, but of course on Monday
every time Wallace opened her mouth her words would begin “Maddy says—”
Especially if Madeleine wasn’t there. Taylor would be furious, because
Madeleine hadn’t come to her last party even though she’d definitely been in
California.

Finally the maid appeared in the doorway, and Wallace
shrieked, “We have to go in the dining room now! Come on, let’s get it over
with!” She gave a loud, fake sigh—followed by louder giggles than anyone
else’s.

Madeleine turned with the rest. “I’m hungry. Is this a lunch
thing, Wallace?”

Wallace tossed her blond hair. “Just sandwich stuff, but I can
get you anything you want. Oh no!” she shrieked, stopping with dramatic
suddenness and staring at the potato chip bowl. “Who oinked all the chips?”

The mound of potato chips was slightly dented on one side, but
Courtney Nabor cringed as if she really had eaten them all. Ashleigh glared at
her, hands on her hips, followed by Niles and Emma. Then Courtney and Wallace
and her friends snaked looks at Madeleine to see how she reacted.

Madeleine walked right past as if Wallace hadn’t spoken, and
piled chips onto a plate.

“Sit here, Maddy!” Wallace pulled out the chair next to her
seat. Ashleigh tried to look unconcerned as she quickly moved her Coke.

But Madeleine had already taken a seat in the middle of the
table. She bit into a sandwich and didn’t seem to notice as the other girls
quickly reorganized themselves so that Wallace and Ashleigh were sitting on
either side of Madeleine. Emma and Niles pushed past Cynthia and Courtney so
they could sit across from Madeleine, and the rest took chairs at either side
of them.

You can change a place, but you can’t change your place,
Cynthia thought as she sat in Wallace’s old seat. Courtney went to the other
end, tossing her hair and giggling obediently at everything Wallace said.

The maid came back in with more food, and spoke in a low voice
to Madeleine, who looked up and smiled. Cynthia realized it was the first smile
she’d seen from Madeleine—that Madeleine had spoken to the others with exactly
the same sort of blank expression that Cynthia knew she wore herself.

Now Madeleine spoke in rapid French with the maid, who smiled
back. The other girls watched in silence; though they all took French at
school, nobody could speak it like that.

The maid went away, and Wallace and Ashleigh started
chattering about Paris and Europe, and the talk slowly made its way to school
gossip as the girls vied for Madeleine’s attention, while Madeleine sat there
and chomped steadily through her plate of food.

The maid brought her a crock of soup, and once again there was
silence but Madeleine just said “Merci,” and so the party went on.

After the cake, when they got up to go into the conservatory
for the presents, Madeleine said, “Oh, Wallace, I didn’t bring anything—we just
got home yesterday. I’ll have something on Monday.”

“Oooh, I can hardly wait,” Wallace gushed. “When we were
upstairs, Tori was just saying, ‘Oh Cody, you’re so lucky, Maddy always brings
the coolest things.’ Cynthia realized she wanted Madeleine to call her ‘Cody’.
“I know I’ll love it!”

Cynthia’s insides cramped with hot anger. She glared at
Madeleine there eating her soup, imagining how Madeleine would tell some
servant on the way home that she needed a present for Monday, and the servant
would take care of it—maybe even deliver it. She thought about the weeks her
mother had spent in trying to find what was just right, and then the hassle of
finding something she could afford, and getting it wrapped right, and all along
Cynthia knew that whatever it was, Wallace would hate it. And whatever the
Devereux servants got would be hugged and cooed over and shown to Books like a
trophy.

Cynthia felt a surge of hatred for Madeleine. She’s plain and
skinny and brown, just like me, Cynthia thought. She even wears glasses during
Math and Reading. Just because she’s rich, everybody thinks she’s perfect.

Cynthia moved, trying to get away from her anger. She picked a
seat by the window, as far from the other girls as she could. She couldn’t
quite see the pond, but it was comforting to know it was there, and strange to
think about the fairies being a secret even from Wallace, who lived right with
them.

“Excuse me,” Madeleine said from the middle of the group.
“Bathroom call.”

Wallace and the rest giggled—of course—and as soon as
Madeleine was out of the room, Wallace said, “I’ll just get started. We’ll save
the cool ones for when Maddy gets back.”

Cynthia’s present was the first one she picked up. Usually it
was one of the last. Cynthia stayed where she was, and listened to the rustle
of paper and the voices of the girls. Crows, that’s what they sounded like. The
giggles were more like machine guns, little machine guns that shot invisible
needles instead of bullets. Wallace croaked in her phoniest voice, “Oh, thank
you so very much, Cynthia. How very nice.”

Cynthia stayed by the window. She didn’t even know what the
present was, and didn’t want to. Not seeing it somehow made it less real, less
a part of her, and Wallace’s invisible needles dissolved in the air before they
reached her. The other girls looked at her, then looked away again, as Wallace
picked up Courtney Nabor’s gift.

I’m free, Cynthia realized. They’ll never notice me again.

She slid off her seat and walked to the door as the machine
guns tittered away at the grinning Courtney. Outside, the air smelled sweet and
fresh, and Cynthia ran happily down toward the bridge—and then stopped when she
saw a scrawny figure crouching on the flat rock next to the pond.

Madeleine looked up at Cynthia. She pointed at the pond and
said, “Come here, and tell me what you see.”

Cynthia didn’t move for a long breath. Two breaths. Why? she
thought, angrier than she’d ever been in all the years she’d had to sit alone
at that school and pretend not to notice the insults she didn’t deserve, while
the lucky ones like Madeleine got all the admiration they didn’t deserve. Why
did Madeleine have to see the fairies, too? Why couldn’t Cynthia have one
thing, just one, that the rich girl couldn’t?

Maybe I can take it away from her, Cynthia thought, and
stalked forward. Her teeth felt cold—she realized she was grinning, a big fake
grin just like Ashleigh and Wallace and all the others. “See what?” she said,
and her head jiggled as giggles machine-gunned out. As if she had practiced all
her life. “Oh! You mean the holograms. It’s a garden fashion. Didn’t you know?
So easy, when you know people in the industry. You didn’t think those were
real?” Her voice sounded just like Wallace’s, and the lie came out as if she’d
practiced it, except her stomach hurt.

Madeleine’s mouth went round.

Cynthia giggled louder, gasping giggles that made her shake
all over. “It’s fake! Totally fake! Fake, fake, fake!”

Madeleine’s eyes narrowed like she’d been slapped—like she
really felt those invisible needles. Hunching over, she stared down at the
pond, her skinny body so still she had to be holding her breath.

Were the fairies gone? Cynthia wondered then if her lie might
make them disappear forever—either that or she wouldn’t see them, as a kind of
punishment. She ran to the bridge and scanned the water, breathing fast.

The fairies were still there, swimming in their mesmerizing
circles. Cynthia’s stomach unclenched slowly as she watched tiny fairy children
playing some kind of game under the rose petals still floating over gently
rippling surface. Then she looked up, and saw Madeleine watching her. Cynthia
stared back. The giggles had dried up, and so had the lies.

She couldn’t think of anything to say, except, “They’re
waiting for you at the party.”

One of Madeleine’s bony shoulders rose sharply in a shrug. “No
projectors.”

“What?” Cynthia’s brain felt like a rock.

Madeleine’s brown eyes were blank as marbles. “No projectors.
You can’t have holograms—or movies, or anything else—without a projector. There
isn’t one here.”

Cynthia felt heat rush up into her face, and her armpits
prickled.

“You really see them, too,” Madeleine said slowly. “Nobody
else does—I made sure of that last time Wallace had me over. Why did you lie
about them being real?”

Cynthia looked down at Madeleine’s face. Those waiting brown
eyes, her skinny chin, the freckles on her nose, her plain brown hair in the
single long ponytail down her back. Madeleine never giggled, never lied. She
didn’t have to.

“Because you’re rich,” Cynthia said. “You already have
everything in the world. I—I didn’t want you to have this, too.” Her face felt
hotter than ever, but her stomach didn’t feel as nasty as it had when she told
the lies. “Anyway, Wallace’s grandmother sees them, too.” Cynthia looked around
quickly, hoping Mrs. Oslossen hadn’t heard her lying. The bobbing sunhat was
down at the other end of the garden. “Her grandfather saw them. Built the house
for them.”

Madeleine let her breath out in a long sigh. “One of my
governesses saw ghosts,” she said. “I never did. I told my father—a big
mistake—and he sent her away. I wanted so much to bring her here.”

Cynthia wasn’t sure how to answer. She just stared at
Madeleine, who stared back, her face still blank, her thin arms still wrapped
around her bony knees. Cynthia realized the time was past for Madeleine to run
shrieking back to the party, to tell the girls about Cynthia’s lie and get them
all to laugh—and she realized that Madeleine was talking to her like a normal
person, just like she had talked to the maid, and to Wallace and the others.

“I’m sorry I lied,” Cynthia said.

Pink spots glowed in Madeleine’s flat cheeks. “They’re
creeps.” She pointed up at the house. When Cynthia nodded, she said, “They’re
just as creepy to each other.” She got up and brushed her skirt off. “I wish I
knew whether they don’t see the fairies because they can’t, or because they
won’t.”

Cynthia said, “Wallace’s grandmother and her sister wanted to
travel around the world and see if there were any more places like this.”

“There have to be,” Madeleine said.

Which meant that Madeleine, the world traveler, hadn’t found
any. But maybe she wasn’t allowed to look, Cynthia thought.

“No.” Madeleine stepped up onto the bridge beside Cynthia.
“There are. We just have to find them.”

Cynthia heard herself saying to the grandmother, I want there
to be lots and lots of them. She wondered if Madeleine, too, had read every
book she could find about fairies, and had made up stories about them in her
mind. She wondered if she believed in magic, if she looked for it even when she
didn’t believe in it—like pretending Christmas lights are colored snowflakes
when you take off your glasses.

They stood there side by side and looked down at the graceful
sprites in their unending water dance. It was getting hard to see them, for the
westering sun was making a mirror of the water’s surface.

Cynthia stared down at the cool dark silhouette of the bridge,
and on it two identical girl outlines. Cynthia thought about her mother sitting
by the phone, still in her nice dress, the borrowed car still outside, waiting
in hopes Cynthia would be invited to someone’s grand house for something
besides one of the birthday parties.

“Want to come over to my place?” she said.

Fay said it like it didn’t matter, as she fell into step
beside us, her round shoulders hunched into her old purple coat.

“What?” I yelled.

“What?” Melissa yelled.

Fay shoved her lank blond hair behind her neck and nodded,
with still no sign of a smile on her face. “Yup. Probably won’t last long, but
it’s fun.”

“How did that happen?” I asked.

“Saw a triple shooting star, so I did this ritual I read
about.”

Melissa was silent.

I hurried into speech. “What’s he said?”

Fay shrugged, the worn seams of her coat straining, as she
sidled a glance at Missy. “Dog stuff.”

Melissa still said nothing.

We’d just crossed to the school parking lot when the
principal’s voice ripped out at us. “Reed!”

Melissa flinched and I jumped, but Fay just hunched tighter,
looking kind of like a rock on legs.

“Faith Reed, come here!” Mr. Conley was standing on the steps
just outside the gym building, watching the students come to school.

Mr. Conley glared at us until we were right in front of him.
“Reed, has your mother seen that memo?”

“Yes, Mr. Conley,” Fay said in the thin, flat voice she always
used with adults.

“Well, where is she?” he roared.

“She’s in the hospital, Mr. Conley,” Fay said.

“What?”

“Foot problem, Mr. Conley. Waitresses get it. She’ll be out
soon.”