Ex Magica, page 7
But now Alex had lost her Dikaió, and the city leaders would feel more than spited by Mallory’s rebellious spirit. What she and Alex had done made the Piper incident seem mild, and Mallory could completely understand why Alex would be hesitant to face off with the city leaders. However, this was also a problem far outside their ability to address, and they needed the experience of adults to help them. “What should we do then, Alex? Run? Hide? Where would we go that they wouldn’t find us? The city’s just not that big.”
Alex was trembling and tears were threatening again. “I don’t know, Mallory. I don’t know. I don’t like not knowing what to do next. Maybe we should go back and look at the book again—we could see if there’s a way to undo what I did?”
“Well, maybe there is? But we should let the leaders look and see. We’re in over our heads!”
“Oh, no! When you say that, it always gets worse.”
Mallory chose to ignore the insult and said, “I’m not sure it can get worse, Alex. C’mon. We’re getting soaked standing here arguing about it. Let’s go face the music . . . together.”
Alex shook her head, “It can get worse, Mallory. According to the laws of the city, if we did harm to another citizen even accidently, we could be . . ..” She hesitated to finish the sentence, but Mallory had been training as a city leader her whole life as well. She knew very well that harming another citizen in any way could lead to the ultimate punishment, death.
Mallory threw up her hands. “That’s all the more reason to go in and get control over the situation before someone gets hurt. Don’t you think?”
Alex looked uncertain, but then she nodded. The two girls began to move forward again.
The Matriarch’s house was well lit, and despite the trouble looming inside, Mallory felt an incredible sense of peace when she got into her own yard. The familiar old house was always a place of refuge, and at times inside its walls when no one else was around to remind her, she forgot that she lacked the basic abilities of magic that the rest of the city enjoyed. Surrounded by the walls of her youth, she could escape into her imagination where her grandmother’s prophecies were true, and she was the most powerful Matriarch the city had ever known, and she was able to save the city from danger using the old magic that she had learned in books.
Tonight, there was not going to be any escape from reality, and Mallory knew as they trudged slowly up the brick stairs to the front door that she and Alex would be in the biggest trouble of their lives. Mallory turned to her friend when they reached the front door: “Okay, whatever happens after this point, we stay friends, right?”
Alex started crying and nearly toppled Mallory backwards down the stairs in an embrace. They stood there for a long while, and then Alex sighed deeply and said, “I’m ready.” She called out, “Dikaió open.”
Nothing happened, and Alex’s shoulders drooped.
Mallory smiled soothingly, “Here, let me.” She reached up and touched the door. Recognizing her as an occupant of the house, the door unlatched and swung open.
When Mallory opened the door, she expected to find her mother’s dinner party in full swing, with adults talking loudly about politics and gossip. They would be eating daintily, picking at the selections of food, so that their mouth would be ready to engage in a question or call for explanation. In the city’s high society, it would be considered rude to have one’s mouth full when asked a question, and the adults seemed to take great delight in trying to catch the other adults with a full mouth by asking them questions mid-bite. It was also considered impolite to address a question to an heir to a Dikaió when the master was at the table, so those lucky few heirs that got dragged along on these sorts of get-togethers would be stuffing their faces or sitting sullenly, waiting for the masters to finish, so they could escape the doldrum social engagement. However, that expectation was not what Mallory and Alex found on the other side of the door to the Matriarch’s house.
Instead, they found the dinner party’s guests standing on the table swinging knives and throwing the Matriarch’s fine china at a pack of kitchen sprites that were busily whirring around the table, trying desperately to collect the silverware and china from the guests’ hands. Mallory’s mother and the other city leaders were calling over the din, “Stop! I command you to stop!” But the sprites kept on moving as if the most powerful leaders of the city were just as ordinary as Mallory had always been. Then, while trying desperately to hold on to her fork with a kitchen sprite pulling at it, the tall lanky wife of the Dikaió Smith Guild lost her balance and fell from the table with a grand tinkling of jewelry on top of the sprite. The woman rolled off the sprite onto her back. She reached up, clutched her chest, and groaned. Then she pulled her hand away and stared at it with confusion.
Whether it was the cutlery or the precious stones and sharp pins of her jewelry, the woman was bleeding. She sat there, blinking at the red stain on her hand, and her husband looked down at her, gaping with sweat dripping from the corners of his mustache. The sprite she landed on picked itself up and promptly grabbed the fork from her hand, which made the woman shriek in fright. The whole dinner party turned and saw the sprite holding a bloody fork, hovering over the injured woman.
Mallory looked at Caleb, who was staring at the bleeding woman in shock. She felt a twinge of some emotion that she could not quite name: guilt, fear, shame? It felt like a crushing tightness in her chest and made her want to cry, especially when Caleb’s expression of shock morphed into rage. He looked to his father, who also looked angry, and in unison the pair grabbed the silver candelabras from the table and leapt in twin arcs of destruction upon the sprite as it wheeled away to continue its kitchen duties. Metal crashed down on the silvery sprite in heavy blows as the two warriors meted out vengeance. The sprite wheeled back from the onslaught and tried to circumvent the pair of attackers into the kitchen, but the two men blocked its path with strike after strike.
The rest of the dinner party stood motionless on top of the table watching the Governor and his son pound on the kitchen sprite. Even Mallory and Alex stood transfixed in the doorway watching the mêlée transpire. But despite the combined strength of the two men, the sprite seemed relatively indifferent to their strikes, its shiny silver surface not registering so much as a scratch. It just kept trying to make its way past its adversaries so that it could continue its duties in cleaning up the party. Eventually, the two men slumped in exhaustion, and whatever spell had overcome the room was broken.
Mallory looked at the table and found that the other sprites had taken advantage of the distraction and cleared away every trace of the dinner party, except the guests standing on the table. Mallory’s mother looked down at the injured woman on her floor and jumped down to attend to her wounds, which were gory but seemed to be superficial. The other guests began to cautiously disembark from the perch, and it was at that point that the Smith Guild leader saw Mallory.
“You! You did this. I’m not sure how, but you did it.” His arms and jaw were tense as he glared at her across the room.
Every eye in the room turned to Mallory. The Smith Guild leader turned to Alex’s father and yelled, “Chief Magistrate Nelson, I demand that you summon the magistrates and take this girl into custody!” Mallory was used to this sort of attention, but her thoughts were immediately directed with worry toward her friend. She reached back to take Alex’s hand and found empty air. Her head whipped back, and Mallory found that she was standing in the doorway alone.
Alex had disappeared.
5
The rest of the dinner guests began to dismount from the table, and they formed a small mob, moving intently toward Mallory. There was something different about the way they were looking at her this time—their eyes reminded Mallory of Alex’s when she was standing on her kitchen counter, twitching slightly. Fear, panic, anxiety, negativity oozed from the group, and Mallory felt real fear for her safety. She tensed her muscles, preparing to flee back out the door.
The Matriarch suddenly pushed her way to the front of the crowd and turned to address them. She was covered with blood from the woman still lying on the ground moaning, so the crowd stood back from her, visibly aghast. She wiped her bloody hands on a napkin while she spoke: “Now, everyone stop! Let’s find out what’s going on before we do something that cannot be undone.” For Mallory, having the Matriarch for a mother was like watching two different people living inside one person. One kissed her knee when she skinned it as a child; the other commanded the citizens into action and demanded respect, but it was not always easy to know who Mallory was dealing with in the moment. With the crowd aroused against her, Mallory was happy that these two roles her mother inhabited could coexist at times.
The crowd halted before the Matriarch’s rebuke, and Mallory’s fear dissipated a little when her mother turned to her and asked, “Mallory, what is going on? Did you do something tonight? Something that might have caused the Dikaió not to work the way it ought?”
Mallory fidgeted at the sight of her mother looking like a butcher just come from the slaughterhouse. Her hands were now clean, and Mallory watched her mother reach up and pin a few stray hairs, which had broken loose and curled, back into place. Her mother’s ability to know when even one of those brown locks strayed always perplexed Mallory. Could she feel them break free from her control? Her mother looked intently at Mallory with her piercing blue eyes, waiting for an answer. Mallory provided her standard answer with more confidence than she felt, “Well, I didn’t do anything per se. Alex was the one who—”
Her mother did not blink. They had had this conversation countless times over the years. “But you know what happened?”
“I don’t know . . . maybe . . .”
The leader of the Smith Guild yelled from behind the Matriarch, “I knew it. That girl has been a bane to the city from the day that old witch of a Matriarch cursed her.”
Mallory’s mother moved like a viper strike. In an instant, she was standing over the fat little man, glaring with powerful intent, “Watch your tongue, Jules. That is my family you’re speaking of with so much carelessness.” He shrunk away from her but looked ready to answer back until she added, “We have no idea what the state of the Dikaió is. Your words might very well still cause irreparable damage.”
The Governor stepped up then and added, “Quite right, Sarai! Until we investigate and figure out exactly what has happened, we must continue to live as if nothing has changed. But if this girl has done something to the Dikaió, we need to figure it out tonight. The city is vulnerable without the Dikaió.”
The Administrator spoke then, “And we must also consider justice and assess damages that have occurred. We’ll have to see if anyone has been hurt, and who is at fault.”
The Matriarch acquiesced, “Of course, we have much to investigate and discuss, but becoming a mob is hardly going to accomplish any of those things, will it? Neither will justice be served by rushing to administer punishments before the facts have been investigated; don’t you agree that could also do harm, James?”
The old Administrator smoothed the collar of his uniform and said, “Of course, Sarai. You sound so much like your mother when you’re acting the mother hen. You know very well the city’s court is fair.”
“Thank you, James.” The Matriarch waved away his comment about her mother. It was no secret the Administrator and Mallory’s grandmother had been political rivals ever since the old woman gave Mallory the wrong christening. Her mother did not give him an opportunity to respond either way. “I suggest we convene the Council.”
The head of the Smith Guild muttered, “I don’t see what the Council has to do with it—the girl admitted she’s behind it.” He turned to the Administrator, “We demand justice!”
The Administrator looked down at the man, “You heard the Matriarch. We don’t even know what has happened. How can justice be served without the facts? Should the facts reveal the heir of the Matriarchy is at fault, then we shall have justice.”
Other voices began to chime in from the group, offering suggestions and demanding solutions.
Mallory was edging backward toward the door while they argued amongst themselves. Then she felt a strong arm wrap around her shoulders; she startled and turned to see her father pulling her into an embrace. She briefly saw the stretched lines of worry she had chiseled into his face with her adventures over the years, but he still smiled his infectious smile only dads seem to manage in difficult situations—the sort of look that dads seem to get even in the midst of the most pernicious danger; like if they were dangling over a pit of spears waiting to impale them, they would offer some silly pun like, “Why is grass dangerous? Because it’s full of blades.” There were no silly jokes tonight though, and Mallory’s father just smiled gently and hugged her knowingly. When she was close, he whispered in her ear, “Oh, my girl. My girl.”
Mallory just cried. What else could she do?
The din of the crowd was becoming feverish, and finally the Governor shouted, “Enough! We will convene the Council and investigate before any decisions will be made. This conversation is over.” He turned to Alex’s father and said, “Daniel, Mallory said Alex was involved in this. We’ll need her here for the investigation. You and Charisse go home and round her up.” The Chief Magistrate nodded and took his wife’s arm heading out the door. The crowd mulled around a bit in silence after the Chief Magistrate left, but then those not on the Council noticed the Governor’s stern glare and began to collect their belongings to leave.
The Matriarch turned away from the chaos of the dinner guests’ exit to her husband and daughter; she seemed surprised by the scene of fatherly tenderness, and for a moment the Matriarch retreated before the mother. Her face contorted in concern, but she shook her head and stammered, “Mallory, you’re a mess. Why don’t you go change out of those clothes, and then we’ll talk about what happened?”
Mallory looked up at her father with a bid for help and saw in his helpless expression there was nothing he could do. She did not wait to be asked twice and raced past her mother, the assembly, and up the stairs, taking them two at a time lest anyone below should change their mind and call her back. She got to her room and shut the door as quickly as she could. She leaned back up against the door. It was ice cold. It clung to her, freezing her skin at every point of contact, and only then did she realize how truly soaked the storm had left her. She looked down and saw a puddle of water spreading on the polished wooden planks below her feet. She wondered if her father was now as soaked as she was? He had not even seemed to notice that she was a sodden mess when he embraced her, nor seemed to care once he had her in his arms. Her heart swelled first with love then guilt and regret. What they had done would hurt her father. It would hurt her mother as well. Maybe the whole city. They had never considered there might be consequences for anyone other than themselves.
She pried herself free from the door and began to pull off her inundated clothing. The wet clothes had a mind of their own though, and they were determined to stay on her. She fought and struggled, releasing one side of clinging cloth from her body only to have the other side suck up against her skin again. Eventually she zigged and zagged and tugged each article of clothing off, dropping them into the puddle on the floor. She dressed quickly, and even the dry clothes rebelled somewhat against the dampness of her skin, but once she powered past the friction, she panted from cold and exertion.
The warm coziness of dry clothes seemed to sap every ounce of energy from her body, and she collapsed onto her bed in exhaustion. Laying there staring at the ceiling, her eyelids were lead anchors pulling a fishing line below the waves of the comforter she was sinking into. The gravity of comfort and exhaustion pulled her down further and further. Her arms and legs were dead weights, and her breathing was becoming more and more even as she lay there. The ceiling lights, barely seen through slits in her eyelids, were surrounded by fading rainbows, spiraling around them like moths flying too close to their flames. What was happening was more important than sleep, but she thought if she just closed her eyes, rested for a moment, she would be better prepared to face her mother’s interrogation. So, Mallory curled into a fetal position, and sleep embraced her as fully as her father’s arm had earlier. In her unconscious escape, she felt safe. And she enjoyed that feeling because exhaustion kept dreams at bay for a time. But as rest alleviated the exhaustion, there was a stirring of a quiescent fancy in her slumber: nothing substantial like images or actions, just a sensation of a conflicting urgent peace. Soon a voice emanated from the sensation. It was unintelligible at first, but as she strained her dormant self to hear, she could make out a familiar word:
“Mallory!”
Someone far away was calling her name now.
“Mallory!”
The tinny voice sounded like it was coming from deep in a tunnel, but it was drawing nearer.
“Mallory!”
She recognized it now. It was her mother, and she was coming closer, but it was so dark, Mallory could not find her, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to.
“Mallory!”
The ground shifted, and Mallory felt a twinge of fear. Her eyes blinked open to find her mother standing over her, tugging on her pillow. Mallory recoiled and tried to scoot away. Her mother looked at her with a tenderness that Mallory had not seen since she was a small child, sat down on the bed beside her, and stroked her hair, looking thoughtfully into Mallory’s eyes. She began to hum a wordless hymn, and Mallory felt the fear subside. She snuggled up into her mother’s lap and let herself be petted. After a while, Mallory began to think she must have been having a nightmare about Alex and the Dikaió, and she had called out, and her mother was there to calm her down. “I’ll be okay, Mom. Good night.” She slowly began to drift back to sleep, but then her mother stopped stroking her hair.
