16. Believing is Seeing
SIXTEEN
BELIEVING IS SEEING
For centuries, travelers have told tales of spectral cities rising from the desert sands. Mirages, those beguiling optical illusions, can make distant objects appear and disappear in the most bewitching ways.
Is it merely a case of environmental sleight-of-hand? Or does the frequency of such anomalies around a common environmental convergence suggest an even greater truth?
The magical community makes the argument that mirages cannot manifest without the presence of magic. Conversely, the Ordinary community routinely attributes the sudden appearance of magic to mirage.
–EXCERPT FROM THE MUDPUDDLE MANUAL OF NATURAL MAGIC
When Maida came out of the restroom, she almost collided with Will. He was standing by the cluttered community bulletin board in the hallway, tidying up the flyers. His tantrum had passed, but his face was still uncharacteristically serious.
“Can we chat for a minute before you go?” Will asked.
“I’m not moving back to Boston, Will. I’m happy here. I have a life in Laguna.”
“Do you? Really? When was the last time you went out on a date? Or had dinner with friends?” Will turned the knob on a door marked “private” and peeked inside. “Give me five minutes of your time.”
Will being dramatic was par for the course. Will, being unhinged, to use Arthur Hart’s description, was not. She knew she had to hear him out. Something wasn’t right.
Maida glanced back out toward the seating area.
The solicitor was sitting in the booth, looking out the window.
There was still something so achingly familiar about him she couldn’t quite name.
A feeling? A character? An archetype? Something that stuck—like the smell of petrichor.
The word for it was on the tip of her tongue.
But she couldn’t trick herself into recalling.
She had a ridiculous urge to return to the table and sit back down beside him.
Such a shame that Arthur Hart lived in Boston.
She’d probably never lay eyes on him again, and she didn’t want to forget his face.
His face was just so pleasing to look at.
Especially when he smiled. She guessed he didn’t do that nearly enough.
He had too few laugh lines for a man his age.
She’d observed a lot about the solicitor in the short time they’d spent together.
For example, she’d observed that one of his teeth was crooked, but the rest were straight.
He had four gold flecks in one eye, seven in the other.
The left side of his face was slimmer, and the hair on the right side of his head curled more.
He was delightfully asymmetrical. She’d do a sketch from memory as soon as she got home.
“Maida, please?” Will repeated the question a bit more firmly. He acknowledged where she was looking because he added, “Don’t worry about Arthur. He’s not going anywhere without me.”
“Fine,” Maida capitulated. “Five minutes.” She allowed Will to pull her into what appeared to be an empty children’s party room. A hand-painted quote on the wall read “We’re All Mad Here.”
“Have I ever lied to you?” Will asked the moment the door was shut.
“No. You’ve always been an open book. I just don’t think we’re on the same page today.” Maida studied herself in one of the room’s many rippled mirrors. It made her look disconcertingly small.
“You’re not on the same page as me because you’ve been reading the abridged version. You need to know the complete story.” Will ran a hand through his hair, and gave it a frustrated tug.
“Whatever it is, you can tell me, Will. I know you work for my father, but we’re ?friends, right?” She’d never seen him this agitated before, and it worried her.
Will put his hands on her shoulders and gazed into her eyes.
She had never seen him look so intense. Did he mean to kiss her?
Oh, no…She felt her eyelid twitch. Will was like a brother to her.
She didn’t care for him like that. Instinctively, she leaned away as his head lowered toward hers, and kept going.
If he meant to kiss her, he’d missed by a mile. She breathed a sigh of relief. But she wasn’t out of the woods. Will was still holding her by the shoulders and staring down at her chest.
“The house is hiding inside your locket, Mayday, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?” Maida clutched the locket, confused. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it? Show me what’s inside, then.” Will stood up straight again, but dipped his chin down to meet her eyes. Then he glanced back down at the pendant in her hand.
Too flustered to object, Maida pressed the locket’s lever. Nothing happened. She pressed it again. Still nothing. When she pressed it more insistently for a third time, the locket buzzed and zapped her.
“Ouch!” The current stung her hand, and she released the locket. It dropped and bounced against her breastbone. “Sorry. I think it’s stuck. It won’t open,” she apologized.
“That’s okay. I guess it doesn’t feel safe with me yet. But I’m right, aren’t I?” Will gave her shoulders a quick squeeze. “The Mudpuddle is in there?”
“Don’t be silly, Will.”
“Do I look like I’m joking?” He removed his arms from her shoulders and folded them across his chest. “Is there, or is there not a house in that locket?”
“Yes, there is a house,” Maida agreed begrudgingly. “But it’s not an actual house. It’s a fantasy—like something out of a fairy tale.”
“It’s an actual house. It just isn’t an Ordinary house,” Will said. “I saw you drawing the Mudpuddle’s eyebrow windows. Tell me, did the house in that locket wink at you?”
Goosebumps skittered over her skin in waves. How could Will possibly know the house in the locket had winked at her?
“What is going on here, Will?” Maida stared into the glass-green depths of Will’s eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t show you my tattoo sooner but this seems a bit elaborate for a prank, don’t you think?”
“If this was a prank, I’d have to have prescience because you found that locket before you came here.”
He was right. There was no way he could have arranged for the locket to wash up at her feet like it had.
The beach had been empty. If she’d come a second sooner or a moment later than she had, she wouldn’t have found it.
Her mind raced with the possibilities and kept coming back to a place of chaos and confusion.
“You have to come back to Boston with me, Mayday. Please. I’m thinking you’re the only one who can bring the Mudpuddle back to Primrose Court.”
“You said the house I inherited was in Primrose Court,” Maida said. “How can I bring something back, if it’s already there?”
“That’s the whole issue, actually. It was there, until a couple of days ago, when it vanished,” Will whispered, as if revealing a controversial secret.
“It vanished,” Maida repeated. She took a step back, shaking her head vehemently. “That’s impossible, Will. Houses don’t just up and vanish. I’m sure I would have heard something on the news if something like that happened. There would be an international task force to study the phenomenon.”
“Absolutely, if a house disappeared from an Ordinary neighborhood. But, as I told you, Primrose Court is a magical community. It’s hardly the strangest thing to have happened there by non-magical standards.”
Maida rolled her eyes.
“Okay then. So what was your plan to get it back? Were you going to send out a psychic search party? Try to track it with supernatural scent hounds?” Maida attempted to play along for a moment, but her sarcasm was thinly veiled.
Will didn’t seem to notice it.
“Something like that.” He grimaced. “Arthur seemed to think he could summon the house to return once he had the proper authority to do so.” Will waved a hand to dismiss this thought.
“It’s a moot point now that your magic has manifested, and the house has made its way to you!
Isn’t it marvelous?” He bent forward so that he could address the locket directly.
“What a clever little house! What a good, smart, beautiful house!” he cooed.
Maida could have sworn she felt the locket purr in response.
“Maybe you should just take this locket from me.” She felt as crazy as the motto on the wall as she suggested this to Will. “You can give it to Arthur, and he can bring the ‘house,’” she used air quotes here, “back to wherever it belongs.”
She reached behind her neck to undo the clasp, but it wouldn’t open. Fortunately, the chain was quite long. She reached to pull the locket off over her head.
This time, the voltage was even higher. Maida staggered backwards as the chain shocked her, tripping and nearly falling onto a table.
“Bloody briars!” she exclaimed.
“See? It has to be you. It’s already formed an attachment.” Will held a hand to his heart and stared at Maida with a look of wonder. “Do you have any idea how extraordinary this is? How lucky you are?”
She felt anything but lucky. She was tired and confused. All she wanted to do was go back to bed and pull the covers over her head. She could just pretend this entire crazy conversation had never happened.
Maida took a deep breath. “I do think I really need to go home now.”
“Yes!” Will whooped. His face skrinkled up with sheer joy.
“So you’ll come back to Boston with me? I knew it!
I knew you were magical. I’ve felt it all along!
We have so much to talk about. I can’t believe you’ve had to go through charmarche all on your own like this.
When did you first start experiencing your magicality?
” Impossible words and phrases kept coming out of him. She couldn’t keep up.
“No. I’m not coming back to Boston with you.” Maida shoved him away. “I’m going back to my apartment.”
Will’s smile dissolved as his face fell into the most sorrowful expression. He shook his head apologetically. “I’m so sorry, Mayday. I can’t let you go back there. It’s not safe for you here anymore.”
“I told you it’s fine. I changed the locks. They didn’t take anything.” She backed towards the door.
“That’s because whoever it was, they didn’t find what they wanted, Mayday. They wanted you.” Will took her hand. Another chill traveled down Maida’s spine as she remembered her friend Zani saying the same thing.
“Listen, Will, if it makes you feel better, I’ll look up some flights as soon as I get home. I’ll see if I can come for the weekend.”
“No.” Will shook his head again. His voice had a solemn ironclad resolve she hadn’t heard from him before. “You need to come with me. Right now.”
“Come with you where, Will? Are you planning to throw me over your shoulder and drive me straight to the airport?” Maida attempted to call his bluff.
“I actually have something much quicker in mind.” With no warning, Will swooped.
He bent forward, reached an arm around her hips, and threw her over his shoulder.
Will was not a particularly large man. Maida suspected he weighed less than her.
Yet somehow, he’d hoisted her like she was no heavier than a sack of feathers.
“Put me down!” Dangling upside down, Maida kicked her legs and beat her fists on Will’s back. It didn’t seem to faze him. She kicked so hard, one of her boots nearly flew off. Will grabbed it and shoved it back on. “This isn’t funny, Will!” she protested.
“I know. I’m sorry!” Will yelled.
Maida was considering whether to claw Will with her fingernails or punch him in the kidney when she was blindsided by a white light so bright, it was like the roof had just been ripped off.
The room filled with rushing wind. Tissue paper confetti rose up off the tables and swirled around them like they were at the center of a tiny tornado.
“Remember when I said that magic is real?” Will shouted. “This is the part where I show, instead of tell you.”
Maida opened her mouth to scream as Will took a giant step towards and through the wall.
How was that possible? A moment ago, there had been a warped mirror there, but now there was nothing but nothingness.
The sound of her scream came out wrong. It sounded muffled and far away.
So did Will’s voice when he called out to her a moment later.
It sounded like he was shouting to her from the house next door, in the middle of a tornado.
“You should close your eyes. You might pass out if you don’t. But don’t worry, Mayday. I’ve got you. I won’t let you fall.”