“Including you, once, as I recall.”
“Hey, don’t get cute.”
Kit was then immediately mortified by the tone he’d taken with his Senior wizard, a genuinely nice man who had a lot to do in both his jobs and really didn’t need to be sassed. But Tom just burst out laughing. “Okay, I deserved that. Are you asking me how they do it?”
“Yeah.”
“Then it’s my reluctant duty to tell you that I’m not sure. Wizards’ pets tend to get strange. You know that.”
“But do they always?”
“Well, except for our macaw—who was strange to start with and who then turned out to be one of the Powers That Be in a bird suit—yes, mostly they do.”
“Are there any theories about why?”
“Loads. The most popular one is that wizards bend the shape of certain aspects of space-time awry around them, so that we’re sort of the local equivalent of gravity lenses… and creatures associated with us for long periods tend to acquire some wizardly qualities themselves. Is this helping you?”
There was a lot of barking going on in the background. “I think so.”
“Good, because as you can probably hear, the non-weird part of our local canines’ lifestyle has kicked in with a vengeance, and they say they want their dinners. But they can wait a few minutes. As far as wizards’ dogs are concerned, the development of ‘finding’ behaviors seems to be relatively common. It may be an outgrowth of the retrieving or herding behaviors that some dogs have had bred into them. Does Ponch have any Labrador in him?”
“Uh, there might be some in there.” This had been a topic of idle discussion around Kit’s house for a long time, his father mostly referring to Ponch, when the subject came up, as “the Grab Bag.” “But he’s mostly Border collie. Some German shepherd, too.”
“Sounds about right.”
“But Tom—” Kit was wondering how to phrase this. “That the dogs might be able to find things, that I can understand. But how can they find places? Because Ponch has started finding them.”
There was quite a long pause. “That could be interesting,” Tom said. “Has he taken you to any of these places?”
“Just once. Just now.”
“Are you all right?”
“Now I am. I think,” Kit said, starting to shake again.
“You sure?”
“Yeah,” Kit said. “It’s all right. It was just… a nothing place. No sound, no light or movement But Ponch got in there, and he knew how to get out again. He got me out, in fact, because I couldn’t do much of anything.”
“That’s interesting,” Tom said. “Would you consider going there again?”
“Not right now!” Kit said. “But later on, yeah. I want to find out where that was! And how it happened.”
“Well, pack animals do prefer to work in groups. From Ponch’s point of view, you two probably constitute a small pack, and maybe that’s why he’s able to share his new talent with you. But until now, to the best of my knowledge, no wizard’s found out exactly where the dogs go to get the things they bring back, because no one’s been able to go along. If you really want to follow up on this—”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Then be careful. You should treat this as an unstable worldgating; you may not be able to get back the same way you left. Better check the manual for a tracing-and-homing spell to keep in place. And make sure you take enough air along. Even though Ponch seems unaffected after short jaunts, there’s no guaranteeing that the two of you will stay that way if you linger.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“One other thing. I’d confine the wizardry to just the two of you.”
Kit was silent for a moment. Then he said, “You’re saying that I should leave Nita out of this…”
Tom paused, too. “Well, it’s possible that the only one who’s going to be safe with Ponch as you start investigating this will be you. The semisymbiotic relationship might be what got you out of your bad situation last time. You don’t want to endanger anyone else until you’re sure what’s going on.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“But there’s something else,” Tom said. “I just had a look at the manual. Nita’s assignment status has changed. It says, ‘independent assignment, indeterminate period, subject confidential.’ You know what that’s about?”
“I have an idea,” Kit said, though he was uncertain.
“It sounds like she’s chasing down something of her own,” Tom said. “Usually when there’s a formal status change like that, it’s unwise to interrupt the other person unless you need their help on something critical to an ongoing project.”
“Uh, yeah,” Kit said. Now, how much does he know? “We just wound up a project, so nothing’s going on.” He felt guilty at the way he’d put that—but there were lots of things that “we” could mean.
“Okay. I saw the precis on that last one, though. Nice work; we’ll see how it holds up. But as regards Ponch, let me know when you find something out. The manual will want an annotation from you on the subject, though it’ll ‘trap’ the raw data as you go. And if you find anything in Ponch’s behavior that has to do with more-normal worldgating, tell the gating team in New York—though the fact that a dog’s involved is probably going to make them laugh, if it doesn’t actually ruffle their fur.”
“So to speak. Okay, Tom. Thanks!”
“Right. Best to Nita.” And Tom hung up, to the sound of more impatient barking.
Ow, Kit thought. The last few words made him hurt inside.
But he took a moment to get over it, then got up and went back into the kitchen to return the phone and see about some spaghetti.
4: Friday Night
After dinner Kit went upstairs to his bedroom, pausing by the door to Carmela’s room, at the sound of a faint hissing noise coming from inside. He knocked on the door.
“Come in!” his sister shouted.
Slightly surprised, Kit stuck his head in the door. His sister was lying on her bed, on her stomach, and the source of the hissing was the earphones she was wearing. On the screen, it looked as if a young boy in a down vest and baseball cap was being electrocuted by a long-tailed yellow teddy bear. “Oh,” Kit said, now understanding why Carmela had shouted.
“What?” His sister pulled one of the earphones out.
“Nothing,” Kit said. “I heard something going ‘sssssssss’ in here. Thought maybe it was your brains escaping.”
His sister rolled her eyes.
“Isn’t that stuff a little below your age group?” Kit said.
Carmela rolled her eyes and ostentatiously put the earphone back in. “Not when you’re using it to learn Japanese. Now go away.”
Kit grinned and (mostly for his own amusement) closed her door and did as he’d been told. Carmela was no more of a nuisance to Kit than she had to be at her age. She had even taken his wizardry pretty calmly, for an otherwise excitable fifteen-year-old, when Kit had told the family about it. After the shock wore off, “I always knew you were weird!” had been Carmela’s main response. Still, Kit kept an eye on her, and always put his manual away where she wouldn’t find it; the thought of her turning into an older version of Dairine terrified him. Still, wizardry finds its way. If it’s gonna happen, there’s no way I can stop it.
His older sister, Helena, seemed safe from this fate, being too old for even very late-onset wizardry. She had just left for her first year of college at Amherst, apparently relieved to get out of what she described as “a genuine madhouse.” Kit loved her dearly but was also slightly (and guiltily) relieved to be seeing less of her, for she was the only member of the family who seemed to be trying to pretend that Kit’s wizardry had never really happened. Maybe she’ll sort it out over the next year or so.
Meantime, I’ve got other problems….
He pushed his door open and looked around at his room. It was a welter of bookshelves; the usual messy bed; a worktable, where he made models; the desk, where the monitor and keyboard for his pitifu
lly ancient desktop computer sat; and some rock posters, including one from a hilariously overcostumed and overmade-up metal group — a present from Helena when she cleared out her room: “a souvenir,” she’d said, “of a journey into the hopelessly retro.”
Kit tossed his jacket onto the bed and plopped down into the desk chair, where he put out his hand and whistled for his manual. It dropped into his hand from the little pouch of otherspace where he kept it. Kit pushed the PC’s keyboard to one side and opened the manual.
First he turned to the back page, the messaging area. There was nothing there, but he’d known there wouldn’t be; he hadn’t felt the “fizz” of notification when he picked up the manual. Then Kit paged backward to the active wizards’ listing for the New York area. Yes, there it was, between CAILLEBERT, ARMINA, and CALLANIN, EOIN:
CALLAHAN, Juanita L.
243 E. Clinton Avenue
Hempstead, NY 11575
(516) 555-6786
power rating: 6.08 +/-.5
status: conditional active independent assignment / research: subject classification withheld
period: indeterminate
Apparently the Powers had something planned for her … or were maybe just cutting her some slack. Sounds like she can use it, too, Kit thought, feeling brief irritation again at the memory of the afternoon. Well, okay.
He paused and then flipped back to a spot a few pages after Nita’s listing, running his finger down one column. There it was: RODRIGUEZ, CHRISTOPHER R. Address, phone number, power rating, status, last assignment, blah, blah, blah…. But there was something else after his listing.
Notes: adjunct talent in training
Kit sat back. Now what the heck does that mean?
He heard thumping on the stairs down the hall and glanced up in time to see Ponch hit his door, push it open, and wander in, waving his tail. The dog turned around a few times in the middle of the floor, then lay down with a thump.
Kit looked at him thoughtfully. Ponch banged his tail on the floor a few times, then yawned.
“You tired, big guy?” Kit said, and then yawned as well. “Guess I am, too.”
“It’s like chasing squirrels when I do what we did,” Ponch said. “I want to sleep afterward.”
“I understand that, all right,” Kit said. “Got a little while to talk?”
“Okay.”
“Good boy. Ponch, just where exactly were we?”
“I don’t know.”
“But that wasn’t the first time you did that, was it?”
“Uh…” Ponch looked as if he thought he was about to confess to something that would get him in trouble.
“It’s okay,” Kit said, “I’m not mad. How long have you been doing that?”
“You went away,” Ponch said. “I went looking for you.”
Kit sighed. When Nita had been in Ireland over the summer, he’d “beamed over” there several times to help her out. Once or twice he’d been there long enough to come down with a mild case of gatelag, and he remembered Ponch’s ecstatic and relieved greetings when he came back. “So … when? End of July, beginning of August?”
“I guess. Right after you went the first time.”
“Okay. But where did you go? Since you didn’t find me.”
“I tried, I really tried!” Ponch whimpered. “I missed you. You were gone too much.”
“It’s okay; I’m not mad that you didn’t find me! It was just an observation.”
“Oh.” Ponch licked his nose in relief.
“So where did you go?”
“It was dark.”
“You’re right there,” Kit said. “The same place we were together?”
“We weren’t there together all the time,” Ponch said. “You’re not there until you do something.”
Kit wasn’t terribly clear what Ponch meant. He was tempted to push for more information, but Ponch yawned at him again. “Can we go there another time?”
“Sure.” Ponch put his head down on his paws. “Whenever you want. Can I go to sleep now?”
“Yeah, go ahead,” Kit said. “I wish I could.”
Shortly, Ponch had rolled over on his side and was emitting the tiny little snore that always sounded so funny coming from such a big dog. Kit stood up, yawning again. He couldn’t put off the reaction to the evening’s wizardry much longer, but first he wanted to look into a couple of things. Fortunately, tomorrow was Saturday, and he could sleep late. Kit sat down again, opened the manual once more, and soon found the section he wanted. Tracking and location protocols… isodimensional… exodimensional…
Kit found a pen and a pad and started making notes.
***
The mall was crowded that evening, but not so much so that Nita and her mother had any trouble getting their shopping done. The clothes came first, for Nita’s mother was concerned that Nita didn’t have anything decent to wear to school; and privately Nita agreed with her. At the first shop they went into, though, some differences emerged between their definitions of decent.
Nita’s mom walked among the racks, shaking her head and trying to avoid looking at the two tops and three skirts Nita was carrying. “They’re all so expensive,” her mother said under her breath. “And they’re not terribly well made, either. Such a rip-off…”
Nita knew this wasn’t the problem. She trailed along behind, not saying anything. As she finished looking at the racks, her mother stopped and looked at Nita. “Honey, tell me the truth. Are the other girls really wearing stuff like this?” From the nearest rack, she picked up a black skirt identical to one of the ones Nita was carrying, holding it up with a critical expression.
“Stuff exactly like this, Mom. Some of them are shorter. This one’s a little conservative.”Because I chickened out on the really short one.
“And the principal hasn’t been sending people home for wearing skirts this short? Really?”
“Really.”
“You wouldn’t be bending the truth in the service of fashion, here?”
Nita had to laugh at that. “If I was gonna lie to you about anything, Mom, don’t you think I would have done it when it was about much bigger stuff? Great white sharks? Saving the world?” And she grinned.
“I begin to wonder,” her mom said, putting the skirt back on the rack, “exactly how much you aren’t telling me that I ought to know about”
“Tons of things,” Nita said. “Where should I start? Did I tell you about the dinosaurs in Central Park?”
Her mother looked over her shoulder with one of those expressions that suggested she wasn’t sure whether Nita was joking. But the expression shaded into one that meant her mom had realized this wasn’t a joke and she didn’t like the idea. “Is this something recent?”
“Uh, kind of. Except we made it so it never happened, and maybe recent isn’t the right word.”
Nita’s mother frowned, perplexed. Nita ignored this; the translation of what she’d said was bothering her. “Potentially recent?” Nita said, to see how the substitution sounded. Unfortunately English lacked the right kind of verb tenses to describe a problem that could be easily expressed in the Speech. “No, it can’t happen anymore, I don’t think. At least, not that time, it can’t. Formerly recent?”
“Stop now,” Nita’s mother said, “before this takes you, me, and the dinosaurs many places that none of us wants to go. Let’s get back to the skirt.” She picked it up again. “Honey, your poor old mom tries hard not to live entirely in the last century, but this thing’s hardly more than a wide belt.”
“Mom, remember when you trusted me about the shark?”
“Yeeees…” her mother said, sounding dubious.
“So trust me about the skirt!”
Her mother gave her a cockeyed look. “It’s not the sharks I’m worried about,” she said. “It’s the wolves.”
“Mom, I promise you, none of the ‘wolves’ are going to touch me. I just want to look normal.If I can’t be normal, let me at least simulate the effect!”
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Her mother looked at her with mild surprise. “You’re not having problems at school, are you?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“The homework—”
“It’s no big deal. There’s more than there used to be, and it’s different, but so far I’m not overloaded.”
“You are having problems, though.”
“Mom—” Nita sighed. “Nobody beats me up anymore, if that’s what you’re worried about. They can’t. But a lot of the kids still think I’m some kind of nerd princess.” She grimaced. Once Nita had thought that when she got into junior high, reading would be seen as normal behavior for someone her age. She was still waiting for this idea to occur to some of her classmates. “It’s nothing wizardry’ll cure. Just believe me when I tell you that dressing enough in style to blend in a little would be a help. I know I didn’t care much about clothes in grade school, but now it’s more of an issue. As for the length, if you’re worried that moral rot will set in, I’ll promise to let you know if I see any early warning signs.”
Her mother smiled slightly. “Okay,” she said, put back the skirt she’d been holding, and reached out to take the one Nita was carrying. “Moral rot hasn’t been much of a problem with you. So this is an experiment. But if I hear anything from your principal, I’m going to make you wear flour sacks down to your ankles until you graduate. You and the dinosaurs better make a note.”
“Noted and logged, Mom,” Nita said. “Thanks.” She went off to put the other two skirts back where she’d found them. This one’s a start. She’ll soften up in a couple of weeks, and we can come back for the other ones.
They went to the cash register and paid for the skirt. Then Nita’s mom drove them to the supermarket, and as they tooled up and down the aisles with the cart, Nita began to feel normal, almost against her will. But then, while standing there with a bottle of mouthwash in her hand and working out if it was a better bargain than other bottles nearby, Nita’s mother suddenly turned to her and said, “What kind of dinosaurs?”
Boy, Nita thought, maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t mention the giant squid!
***
When Nita and her mom got home, Nita and Dairine helped put away the groceries (and Nita helped her mom keep Dairine out of them); so it was half an hour before she could get up to her room and fish out her manual. As she picked it up, she felt a faint fizz about the covers, a silent notification that there was a message waiting for her. Hurriedly she flipped it open to the back page. At the top of the page was Kit’s name and his manual reference. In the middle of the page were the words: If you need some time by yourself, feel free.