Imagineer, p.17
Imagineer, page 17
part #1 of Imagineer Series
We went along the grass to the side, and the Door stood open there, light spilling out like a welcome beacon. A man—excuse me, vampire—waited in the Doorway. He wore a three-piece modern suit, perfectly tidy, with a thin face and a receding hairline. He looked nice, really; like a respectable businessman who had just gotten home from work. Perhaps he had.
“Zoya,” he greeted in a pleasant manner, voice gruff like a smoker’s. “You made good time. My apologies for dragging you out so late. We weren’t aware of how bad the problem had become until an hour ago.”
“You know you were supposed to call me or Hector when repairs on the building started. It always messes things up,” she chided, coming to a stop just at the stoop. “George, this is my apprentice, Reagan Hunt.”
I offered a hand and a smile. “Nice to meet you.”
He took my hand but didn’t shake it, instead bending over it in the gentlemanly way of a bygone era. “A pleasure, Ms. Hunt. I do mean that in every sense. We run your master quite ragged with all of our demands. Ciarán, welcome. Please, come in.”
We came in through the kitchen. It looked like it hadn’t been updated since the 1930s, which made sense, as it had become a museum at that point. The iron cookstove still sat along one wall, the thin, narrow floorboards were polished to a dark shine, the walls painted a light mint green. Golden polished woodwork ran throughout the room, and when we passed through the kitchen and into the next room—what was set up as a formal sitting room—it only became more interesting to look at. Even the china cabinet and the dishes and furniture were all of that era and perfectly well-kept. It was quite stunning, really.
Sitting on the different antique chairs was no doubt the rest of George’s family. The mother and daughters wore modern dresses, yet they looked as if they’d stepped out of the late 1800s. It was something about their carriage, the artful way they wore makeup and pearls and heels even at this time of night. I felt a little grungy in my jeans and tennis shoes in comparison.
“You must be Reagan,” Mrs. Flavel greeted me, coming forward with arms outstretched. She took both my hands in a gentle squeeze, her sharp features lighting up and softening under a smile. “I’m very pleased to meet you. I’m Mary Christina. These are my daughters, Katie and Nellie.”
I returned the smile. “Nice to meet all of you.”
“Ayame-san is around here somewhere,” Mary Christina said to both Zoya and I. “She’s quite upset. The basement area is hers, and it’s been very disrupted with all the work. George did tell you it’s a plumbing issue they’re fixing?”
“Yes, he did,” Zoya answered.
First I’d heard about it, but whatever. “How bad is it?”
“Bad, I’m afraid,” George answered with a sigh. “When the house was built, cast iron or copper was used for pipes. The house has a bit of both. They’ve rusted clean out, and now they’re having to dig up the lines and replace everything, keep it from destroying the whole house with water damage. Right bother, if you ask me. Still, has to be done. It’s just put us in a bind; we can’t approach the left side of the house at all, and that big fir out front? Well, it’s watered because of the underground stream coming in from the back yard. They’ve tripped right into it digging out the line, and they’ve cut off all access. Our Phoebe is fit to be tied.”
I assumed her to be the dryad.
Zoya beckoned me to follow her as she went up the stairs. “Let’s see if we can’t re-route the ward for now, away from the work areas. I know it won’t be convenient, but at least it will be up and intact. They’re not going through the entire house, are they?”
“No, problem seems to be the left side and main floor of the house, mainly,” Mary Christina said as we all trooped upstairs. “Of course, that ties into the basement as well.”
“Can you function if you only have access to the second story, kitchen, and sitting room?”
“Of course. I don’t imagine the repairs will take another two weeks or so. We’re just paranoid about the ward failing, what with how they’re digging into it.”
I understood wards were tied into the structure of a building. By opening walls and floors as they’d done, the wards had been damaged automatically. It was part and parcel of barriers, or so I’d been told, but seeing it in practice made it clear just how much people really needed magicians around on a daily basis to step in and circumvent problems like this one.
For the most part, I just watched and listened as we went around, marking the new boundaries for the temporary ward, then went back outside to settle the ward over the house. Zoya called the zashiki-warashi out of hiding and requested her help in finding another water source for the big evergreen.
Ayame-san was a delicate, petite creature with long dark hair falling straight to her waist and dressed in a perfectly white kimono. She kept a wide sleeve over the bottom half of her mouth as she spoke in a soft voice, but she accurately pinpointed another small stream underground with no trouble. Zoya vanished the dirt over that area so she could see what she was doing, then created glass piping to redirect water to the tree. Without a blink of an eye, she returned the grass exactly as it had been—like she hadn’t disturbed the soil at all.
I would learn how to do that, even if it killed me.
“What lovely, clean water,” a voice sighed from the tree. A figure stepped out, and while clearly female, her body was formed all of bark and wood, the tiny branches and fir of the evergreen making up her hair. She regarded us through peaceful, dark, liquid eyes. “You bless me, Zoya.”
“I bless everyone from your whining,” Zoya corrected, but she grinned as she teased. “Will that hold you for a while? I’ll come back and sort matters properly when the repairs are done.”
“This is fine,” Phoebe sighed, sounding exactly like the wind as it rustled through the trees. “Your apprentice rested a while within the shade of my branches. She said kind things.”
Come to think of it…in legend, the dryads weren’t normally nice. The sardonic way my master regarded the dryad made me think the legend had a healthy dose of truth to it. “I’m glad,” Zoya drawled. “Well. Good night, everyone. Let me know if I need to make any changes to the ward.”
I waved at the family as we retreated to our parked cars along the street. Zoya leaned in to ask in a confidential tone, “And what did you learn tonight?”
“Beware of trees,” I answered fervently.
Snorting a laugh, she patted me on the shoulder and walked off to her car, whistling something as she went.
The problem with creating things was that I didn’t always get it right on the first try. The other problem with creating things was that if I did get it wrong, I had to un-create it and start over. Creating things came to me fairly easily—even if it sometimes took multiple tries before I got it right—but uncreating things?
I’d rather drill a hole in my head.
Nearly two weeks into my training, that was my homework this lovely Thursday evening. Create something and then promptly uncreate it. Well, easier to say erase it, as that was more accurate to what I was doing. I’d decided to start out simple, something with one level, because anything more complicated ended up with gloop. And Zoya laughing, but mostly gloop.
I sat in the library after dinner and started on the final’s paper I needed for my English class. I’d not even done the reading, so I started there.
Let me just say this: Heart of Darkness? Creeeepy. I lived with mythological creatures who would dismember enemies and cheerfully chuck them into a stewpot, and still. Creepy.
My brain started to shut down so I headed into the kitchen with the intent to get some hot chocolate and stir a teaspoon of coffee into it, maybe get some caffeine rocking through my system. I had just put the kettle on the stove when Klaus appeared out of thin air, a visible pout on his face, his bottom lip pushed out in a comical way. On his narrow face and with his very sharp teeth, it looked even more wrong.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“Uh…making myself some hot chocolate-coffee?” Why was I in trouble?
He pointed me sternly toward the island barstool. I meekly sat. Apparently, I had tread on toes by daring to fetch my own snack. Shame on me.
Klaus kept glaring at me from the corner of his eye as he fixed my chocolate-coffee concoction. He even had an apple tart to go with it, because he was a magical being of awesomeness. Sitting them in front of me, he asked with a pointed look at the clock, “Why are you drinking caffeine at 10 p.m.?”
“Time is an illusion. Once you realize that, you can transcend, and live in bliss.” I took a sip from my cup. His expression could be used for the perfect deadpan emoji. More frankly, I admitted, “And I have a ten-page paper due on Monday I haven’t started. Maybe some Imagineer homework as well.”
“Why don’t you get on that?” he suggested snarkily.
I wrinkled my nose at him and took my treat back to the library. Sinking into my favorite armchair, I decided to do the Imagineer homework first. Before my brain really failed me and went kaput. Imagineer magic always demanded more brain power than English papers.
Because my homework was on banishing, I created a thin sheet of white cotton. Simple, easy. Then I steeled myself and carefully imagined it not there, as if I’d never created it in the first place. Instead of a sheet on the polished wood floors, it would be empty flooring instead. “Gone.”
Carefully, I cranked one eyelid open and stared down, because I had a feeling that hadn’t gone according to plan. Almost before I could get one eye open, House started rattling the doors and windows in angry protest. Uh-oh.
“Reagan!” Klaus came barreling around the doorways on quick legs, tone pitched high and worried. “What’s House saying about you destroying the flo—for the love of all the saints.”
Where once lay a nice, white cotton sheet, now rested purple goop. Purple acidic goop, apparently, as it was eating at the varnish of the flooring even as I watched. I winced and sank back guiltily into my chair. “Sorry.”
“Practicing banishing, were you?” Klaus said on a long sigh. “I’ll clean this up. Maybe practice outside from now on?”
Without a leg to stand on, I sighed and capitulated. “Yeah.”
I would get the hang of this. Eventually.
Ever get that feeling you’re being smothered in your sleep?
I woke up in a panic, breat,h a little shaky, to discover something very plastic and yellow right in my face. I literally couldn’t move an inch in any direction, and panic raced through me. What was going on?!
“Reagan?” Nana called to me, sounding amused more than panicked. “Reagan, you in there?”
“Yeah. I, uh, have no idea what this is? Can you move it?”
“No, kiddo, it’s taking up your entire room. It’s a giant blowup duck.”
“It’s WHAT?!” My voice hit screeching cat range.
“Didn’t you create it?”
“Cut me some slack, I did it in my sleep!” I must have, because there was absolutely NO reason why I wanted a giant blowup duck in my room. Or outside my room. Read that as anywhere, okay?
“Reagan,” —Klaus sounded very put out— “We must talk about the ducks.”
I let that roll around in my head a bit. “You mean there’s more than one?”
He sighed gustily. “Yes, there’s more than one, don’t be obtuse.”
“I don’t think she did this intentionally,” Nana said to him in a lower tone. It sounded muffled beyond the duckness. “She wasn’t even sure what this was. Let’s get this thing out of here and free her first.”
“I don’t think poking it is a good idea. Reagan?” Klaus raised his voice again, still sounding cross. “Just banish it.”
“Uhhhh…can I remind you of last night’s attempt at banishing something?”
A flash of purple acidic goo eating through the floor no doubt flashed through his mind. It certainly did mine.
“Oh alright, fine. I’ll find a knife or a pair of scissors or something and we’ll try this the old-fashioned way. Ciarán, what in blue blazes are you doing, you mad pooka?”
“Fear not, fair maiden!” my pooka guardian assured me cheerfully. “I will banish the foul fiend forthwith. En guard, Duck!”
Something ripped audibly through the plastic, followed immediately by a high pitched wheeee as air escaped.
I lay there, still pinned, and I almost didn’t ask, but curiosity got the better of me. “I’m just checking. I mean, I could be wrong, but…did he just stab the duck with a sword?”
“Quite a fine blade, too,” Nana answered, and I swear she was laughing on some internal level.
“I’ve always wanted to do that,” Ciarán confessed to everyone brightly.
Klaus was the epitome of deadpan. “Really. You always wanted to stab a plastic duck with a broadsword.”
Making a sound like a gameshow host with a buzzer, he corrected, “Go to the rescue of the fair maiden. How is it, Reagan? Can you move yet?”
“Not yet.” I wish I could. I didn’t do so well with the ‘trapped’ feeling. “Maybe a bigger hole?”
“Absolutely! En guard again, Duck!”
This was going to take a while.
With the very rough start of the morning, I escaped to one of my favorite new haunts: FairyDust. The café was just down the street from me, under disguise as a closed hair salon available for rent. I left the house with an impending headache, my pooka bodyguard trailing along behind me in human form, still snickering. Of course he could laugh. He didn’t have to clean up the army of plastic ducks I’d somehow conjured in my sleep.
I mean, really. Five hundred ducks? What on earth had I been dreaming about?!
FairyDust bustled with activity as I stepped through the Door, the wind chime sounding above my head in a general announcement of another customer. The fairies who ran the place zipped around with mugs almost as big as they were, seemingly unbothered by the weight, while the patrons sat about in either plushy armchairs or high stools. It looked like a regular coffee shop and yet didn’t. With all the drying herbs, large glass containers bubbling with different brews along the back wall, and the patrons themselves, it could also look more like a witch’s brewery. I waved at a few faces I recognized, then lined up at the counter to place my order.
Someone cued up behind me and gave a chirped greeting. “Why, hello. Are you Reagan Hunt?”
I turned, then blinked, as this was quite possibly the oddest creature I’d laid sight on yet. She was a light, leafy green color, standing upright on bird legs, and with the general body of a bird, but with human hands instead of wings. Her eyes were also birdlike, set just above a narrow beak that looked more nose than beak. I had no idea which race she belonged to and responded politely, “I am.”
“I’m Patricia Beckham,” she answered with a bob of the head. “I’m to be your principle come next school year.”
Intrigued now, I offered a hand. “Nice to meet you.”
She accepted it, her hand barely large enough to shake mine properly, mouth drawing up in a razor-sharp smile that looked borderline alarming. “And you, Ms. Hunt. I understand you are relatively new to the magical world. How are you settling in?”
“Well, all things considered. I’ve more or less been getting a crash course on both magic and all the magical races at the same time. My brain hasn’t overloaded, but it’s bound to at some point.” I made a face and she gave me a genial smile. “Have you been principal long?”
“Only thirty years or so. Not long.”
I would think that very long, but then, they didn’t have the same sense of time as we humans did. “I’m rather looking forward to going to school with you. Ever since I stumbled into your clan, my old school has been…difficult.”
“Yes,” she said sympathetically, a sad trill overlapping with the words. “I imagine so.”
“Order, please,” the fairy behind the register requested brightly. I say register but it looked like a tree with differently colored and shaped leaves all twining around the bar. It made no sense to me, but then, I didn’t work on fairy logic either.
“Chocolate mint latte with a squirt of luck,” I requested. That was the fun thing about FairyDust. You could order more than just a shot of expresso. Need some extra charisma for a job interview? No problem. Have panda eyes? Get a dash of pick-me-up. Having a rotten day, like when five hundred ducks invaded your house, all in rank and file down the hallways? Get some luck.
Ciarán leaned around me to place his order. “Dish of cream with a shot of aether.”
Principal Beckham surprised me by chirping up, “And I’ll have a honey nectar with a dash of sea foam on the top, thank you, dear. Don’t fret, Reagan, my treat. You must come sit and chat with me for a moment. I’ve never had a former Nix student, or an Imagineer to boot, and I want to understand your background and education better. I can better guide your teachers on how to properly teach you in this upcoming year.”
I ducked my head with a shy smile. “Sure. Thank you, I’d like to chat.”
Ciarán leaned in to murmur in my ear, “Delaying tactic to avoid the ducks?”
I rammed an elbow into his ribs and he ducked away from me, snickering. I swear, he was just like what I imagined an older brother to be. Some days he was sweet. Some days I wanted to murder him. Some days it was a toss-up. If he hadn’t already saved me from the duck, I’d lean toward murder.
I followed my new principal to a corner booth that sat near a window. A thick bar-rail ran along the wall, and she comfortably perched on it, tail feathers ruffling as she settled. Ciarán and I took the stools and settled in for what proved to be an enlightening conversation.
The questions she asked told me I was in for a very different education. Tests? Why would they test you on things? Essays? Wasn’t that what a grimoire was for? I was a magician after all; of course I’d have a grimoire. Classrooms were all well and fine, but wouldn’t practical experience be the better teacher?
