Whispered Magics (17 page)

I didn’t tell him I wasn’t there to see Fay. Glad the envelope
was in my notebook pressed tight against my chest, I just nodded and went by.
The guys were all silent, but I could feel their stares like radiation burns on
my back.

Sagging steps led into the open door of the trailer. The first
thing that met me was noise from a loud television set. The front door stood
wide open, but it did nothing for the thick air inside, which smelled of
cigarettes, beer, cooking oil, and hair spray. I stood uncertainly in the
doorway, peering into the gloom.

In a corner the TV blared, completely ignored by two huge
women, one with bright yellow hair, the other with even brighter red hair. They
sat by the kitchen counter, the redhead fixing the blonde’s hair. Heaped-up
ashtrays, dirty dishes, and empty beer cans lay everywhere.

The blonde woman raised a beer to her lips, then saw me.
Squinting, she said, “You lookin’ for someone, sugar?”

“Are you Mrs. Reed?” I asked.

“Depends on what you want,” she shot back, and both women let
loose with loud shrieks of laughter.

“Mr. Conley sent me with this,” I said, trying to keep my
voice even, as I pulled out the paper. My forehead panged with the beginnings
of a headache, and I wondered if Mr. Conley had meant for me to go through this
nightmare in order to end a friendship that was likely already finished anyway.

Mrs. Reed held out her hand for the letter. Her nails were an
inch long. Ripping open the envelope with one of those crimson nails, she said,
“Who are you?”

I didn’t want to tell her my name, so I blurted out the next
thing that came to me: “I’m in Fay’s class.”

As soon as it was out, I regretted it.

She put her head back, expelling a huge cloud of smoke.
“Faith!” she screeched. Then she squinted at the letter and dropped it onto an
ashtray on the floor. “Matt again,” she said, and laughed.

Then Fay appeared from a back hallway. When she saw me she
hunched up, like someone had smacked her.

“I’ll be going,” I said quickly. “You’re busy—”

“Stay awhile.” The red-haired woman poked my shoulder,
propelling me toward Fay. “Get the kid to talk a little. Ain’t natural, sittin’
all the time with a book like that.”

Fay looked from them to me, then said, “Come on.”

The hallways reminded me of an old train: narrow, airless,
dark. Trying to find some kind of easy way out, I said, “Are all those your
brothers and sisters out there?”

I didn’t even know how many of them there were. Too late, I
realized the question might seem an insult.

“Sure. Rest are cousins,” she said, using her flat voice.
“That’s my Aunt Leah out front.”

“Does everybody have Bible names?” I thought that question, at
least, would be safe to ask. But she didn’t answer right away, just pushed
aside a hanging beach towel in a doorway and gestured me inside.

It was a tiny room with four futons on the floor. Most of the
room was an even worse mess than the living room, except for one corner. There,
three plastic boxes stuffed with neatly folded clothes stood next to a tidily
made-up futon. On the top of the crates sat an old, cracked radio, propping up
a row of library books.

Fay’s radio, I realized. Her bed, her clothes. Her books.

She turned around and faced me, her arms crossed. “Grandma
named us,” she said, still flat as poured cement. “Ma not being married, Gran
paid for the hospital, so long’s she could name us. Had us all baptized, too.
Anything else you want to know?”

Her anger made mine come rushing back. If her magic was so
real, then why was she living in this disgusting dump? The tiniest spell could
at least empty an ashtray. “Is that the radio where you listened to Middle
Earth?” I asked, pointing.

Fay’s cheeks showed dull red, but just as her mouth opened, a
set of clicking claws ticked right up behind me, and I got thumped in the back
by a stout dog with a shaggy tan coat.

He slobbered onto my hand, which I snatched away and wiped on
my coat. I asked, “And is this the dog that talks?”

The dog bounded past me to Fay, jumping up with his paws on
her chest. She grabbed his paws and held him, though the dog must have weighed
at least as much as she did. Looking him right in the muzzle, she said: “C’mon,
Aslan, tell her hello.”

I felt as if someone had doused me with ice water.

The dog dropped down, panting, his tongue lolling out, and
thumped his tail. Fay glanced up at me once, then bent close to him. “Please.
Say something.”

She’s crazy, I thought, backing up a step. She’s a crazy girl
living with a lot of horrible crazy people, and I never knew it.

A sudden gulping sob stopped me in my retreat. Fay buried her
face in the dog’s dirty ruff. “Talk,” she cried into his fur. “Talk. Please,
Aslan. Please.” And she cried, not noisily like a baby, but the terrible
soundless sobs of a person who has lost everything, her whole body shaking.

I stood there, my anger gone. Now what do I do?

I looked at Fay, who crouched on her futon, still holding the
dog. He sat patiently under her tight grip, his tail stirring as he looked up
at me.

I looked at the dog, then around at the room again. This is
Fay’s reality, I thought. No wonder she believes in magic. What else could
rescue her? A great wave of pity swept through me, piling up behind my teeth
and tongue, but I didn’t say anything, because I knew, as surely as I knew she
had never come to our birthday parties, had never asked to share our lunches,
that Fay would hate pity.

I dropped onto my knees at the other end of the futon and held
out a hand to the dog. Maybe I couldn’t say anything, but could I show her how
sorry I was?

Her head was still buried in the dog’s fur. I looked past her,
wondering what I could do or say next. My eyes lit on that radio, and I
remembered all those Middle Earth reports. How much Missy and I had loved to
hear those stories. Heck, how believable they had been—true to the characters,
as if J.R.R. Tolkien himself had made them up.

This isn’t her reality, I thought. She’s made a reality all
for herself, filled with magical happenings and interesting people and faraway
places. And in its own way, it’s just as real as Missy’s dream to dance with
the New York Ballet.

My pity was gone. In its place were admiration and envy. The
radio, the dog, even the trailer—I remembered once in the fourth grade, she
told us her house could fly. Trailers moved, and with a little imagination,
maybe they could fly. She’d taken bits of her horrible life and made it fun.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I believe you, Fay. I believe
you.”

She lifted her head, just a bit. Her red eyes were more
suspicious than anything else.

I threw my arms wide. “You’re right,” I said. “I’ve been
thinking, and you’re totally, absolutely right—magic can be found if a person
looks hard enough. I’m sorry I was so blind.”

She gave a long sniff and sat up, knuckling her eyes. “Wh-what
made you change your mind?” Her breathing was still ragged.

“There’s magic here,” I said. “I can feel it.”

She gave another sob, but it was the relief kind, the
storm-is-over kind. The dog thrust his muzzle under my hand, then sniffed at my
coat pocket, where the ham sandwich from lunch had sat all afternoon,
forgotten. I pulled it out, unwrapped it, and gave it to him. Fay and I watched
him gulp the sandwich in two bites, then look from one of us to the other,
hoping for more.

I patted the dog’s head absently, smiling at Fay. At last, she
smiled back.

“Food!” the dog barked. “More food! Food!”

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Whispered Magics

Tales by Sherwood Smith

Sherwood Smith

Book View Café Edition August 9, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-61138-289-1
Copyright © 2013 Sherwood Smith

Cover illustration by Mega11, www.dreamstime.com

Cover design by Amy Sterling Casil

Production team: Deborah J. Ross, Amy Sterling Casil, Vonda N. McIntyre

First published:

“Mom and Dad at the Home Front,”
Realms of Fantasy Magazine
, August 2000.

“The Glass Slipper” originally published as “Visions,”
Bruce Coville’s Book of Magic
, BPVP, March 1996.

“The Princess, the Page, and the Master Cook’s Son,”
Heroes in Training,
August 2007

“Curing the Bozos,”
Bruce
Coville’s Book of Aliens
, BPVP, February 1994.

“Illumination,”
Nightmare’s
Dozen
, ed. Michael Stearns, Harcourt Brace, Fall 1996

“Finding the Way,”
Bruce
Coville’s Alien Visitors
, Scholastic, October 1999

“The Love that Dolls Talk,”
Book View Café
, February 2, 2010

“And Now Abideth These Three,”
Realms of Fantasy Magazine
, 1998.

“Faith,”
A
Wizard's Dozen
, ed. Michael Stearns, HBJ, Fall 1993.

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As a child,
Sherwood Smith
was always on the watch for magic: no fog bank went unexplored, no wooden closet unchecked for a false back, no possible magical token left on the ground or in the gutter. In these nine stories, the impossible becomes possible, magic is real, aliens come visiting. How would our lives change?

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Book View Café
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New York Times
and
USA Today
bestsellers, Nebula, Hugo, and Philip K. Dick Award winners, World Fantasy and Rita Award nominees, and winners and nominees of many other publishing awards.

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