“That shall yet be seen,” Ed said from behind them.
The Moon was high when Nita and Kit came out of the water close to the jetty and went looking for their clothes. Kit spent a while gazing longingly up at the silver-golden disc, while Nita dressed. “We’re really gonna get killed now, aren’t we?” he said, so quietly that Nita could hardly hear him.
“Yeah, I’d say so.” Nita sat down on the sand and stared out at the waves while Kit went hunting for his bathing suit and windbreaker.
“Whaddaya think they’ll do?” Kit said.
Nita shook her head. “I have no idea.”
Kit came up beside her, adjusting his windbreaker. “You think they’re gonna send me home?”
“They might,” she said.
They toiled up the last dune before home and looked down toward the little rough road that ran past the house. All the upstairs lights were on. The downstairs ones were dark; evidently Dairine had been sent to bed.
“Neets—” Kit said. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m sworn, Kit. I’m in the Song. I have to be there.”
“You mean you’re going to—”
“Don’t,” she said, in genuine pain. She didn’t want him to say it, to think it, any more than she wanted to think it herself. And to tell the absolute truth, she wasn’t sure of what she was going to do about the Song yet.
“They don’t need me for the Song,” Kit said.
“Doesn’t look that way.”
“Yeah.” He was quiet a moment. “Look—if somehow I can get you off the hook, get your folks to think this is all my fault somehow, so you can still go out...”
“No,” Nita said, scandalized. “Anyway, they’d never buy it. I promised my mom I’d be back on time last time—and blew it. Then I snuck out today. They know it’s me as much as you. I’ve just got to face the music.”
“With what?” Kit said.
“I don’t know.” The thought of treating her parents as enemies made her feel as if the bottom had fallen out of the Universe.
The one good thing, she thought, is that by tomorrow, tonight will be over.
I hope.
“C’mon,” she said.
***
The house was deadly still when they stepped in, and the screen door closing behind them seemed loud enough to be heard for miles around. The kitchen was dark; light flowed into it from the living room, the subdued illumination of a couple of table lamps. There was no sound of TV, even though Nita knew her dad’s passion for late movies; no music, despite her mom’s fondness for classics and symphonic rock at any hour of day or night.
Nita’s mouth felt dry as beach sand. She stopped where she was, tried to swallow, looked at Kit. He looked back, punched her lightly in the arm, then pushed past her and walked into the living room.
For the rest of her life, Nita thought, she would remember the way that room looked and felt when she walked in. The living room needed a new paint job, its rug was threadbare in places, and the walls were hung with bargain-basement seascapes, wide-eyed children of almost terminal cuteness, and, in one corner, something her dad called the Piece of Resistance—a garish matador done in day-glow paint on black velvet.
Her mother and father were sitting side by side on the Coca-Cola-colored couch, their backs straight. They looked up as Nita and Kit came through the door, and Nita saw her mother’s face tight with fear and her father’s closed like a door. They’d been reading magazines; they put them aside, and the usually friendly room suddenly looked dingy as a prison, and the matador hurt Nita’s eyes.
“Sit down,” her father said. His voice, quiet, calm, sounded too much like Ed’s. She managed to hold onto her composure as she headed for Dairine’s favorite chair and sat down quickly.
“Pretty slick,” said her father. “My daughter appears to have a great future in breaking and entering. Or breaking and departing.”
Nita opened her mouth and shut it again. She could have dealt with a good scolding… but this chilly sarcasm terrified her. And there was no way out of it.
“Well?” her father said. “You’d better start coming up with some answers, young lady. You too,” he said to Kit, his eyes flashing; and at the sight of the anger, Nita felt a wash of relief. That look was normal. “Because what you two say is going to determine whether we send you straight home tomorrow morning, Kit—and whether we let you and Nita see any more of each other.”
Kit looked her father straight in the eye and said nothing.
Sperm whales! Nita thought, and it was nearly a curse. But then she took the thought back as she realized that Kit was waiting for her to say something first, to give him a lead. Great! Now all I have to do is do something!
What do I do?
“Kit,” her father said, “I warn you, I’m in no mood for the whole cover-up-for-each-other business right now. You were entrusted to my care and I want answers. Your parents are going to hear about this in any case—what you say, or don’t say, is going to determine what I tell them. So be advised.”
“I understand,” Kit said. Then he glanced at Nita. “Neets?”
Nita shook her head ever so slightly, amazed as always by that frightened bravery that would wait for her to make a move, then back her utterly. It had nothing to do with the whalesark. Kit, Nita thought, practically trembling with the force of what she felt, you’re incredible! But I don’t have your guts—and I have to do something!
Her mother and father were looking at her, waiting.
Oh, Lord, Nita thought then, and bowed her head and put one hand over her face, for she suddenly knew what to do.
She looked up. “Mom,” she said—and then had to start over, for the word came out in a kind of strangled squeak. “Mom, you remember when we were talking the other day? And you said you wanted to know why we were staying out so much, because you thought something besides ‘nothing’ was going on?”
Her mother nodded, frozen-faced.
“Uh, well, there was,” Nita said.
And then she stopped, not sure where to go from there. Two months of wizardry, spells wrought and strange places visited and wonders seen—how to explain it all to nonwizards? Especially when they might not be able to see wizardry done right under their eyes—and in the past hadn’t? Never mind that, Nita told herself desperately. If you think too much, you’ll get cold feet. Just talk.
Her mother was wearing a ready-to-hear-the-worst expression that it took Nita a moment to parse: and then she simply became cranky for a moment. “Oh, come on, I told you, not that,” Nita said, downright cross that her mother was still thinking along those idiotic lines. “But this is going to take a while.”
Her mother’s expression didn’t change: her dad’s might as well have been cast in concrete. Nita swallowed hard. “You remember in the spring,” she said, “that day Kit and I went into the city—and that night, the Sun went out?”
Her parents stared at her, still angry, and now slightly perplexed too.
“Well,” Nita said, “we had something to do with that.”
Truthsong
And Nita began to tell them. By the time she saw from their faces just how crazy the story must be sounding, it was already much too late for her to stop.
She told them the story from the beginning—the day she’d had her hand snagged by an innocent-looking library book full of instructions for wizardry—to the end of her first great trial, and Kit’s, that terrible night when the forces of darkness got loose in Manhattan and would have turned first the city and then the world into a place bound in eternal night and cold, except for what she and Kit did. She told them about Advisory and Senior wizards, though she didn’t mention Tom and Carl by name; about places past the world where there was nothing but night, and about the place past life where there was nothing but day.
Not once did her parents say a word.
Mostly Kit kept quiet, except when Nita’s memory about something specific failed; then he spoke up and filled in the gap, and she went on again.
The look on her father’s face was approaching anger again, and her mother was well into complete consternation, by the time Nita started telling them about the dolphin who nudged her in the back, the whale she and Kit found on the beach, and the story the whale had told them. She told them a little—very little, fearing for her own composure—about the Song of the Twelve and what she was going to be doing in it.
And then, not knowing what else to say, she stopped.
Her mother and father looked at each other.
Our daughter, the look said, is going to have to be hospitalized. She’s sick.
Nita’s mother finally turned to her. Her dad had bowed his head toward the end of the story, and except for that glance at her mother seemed unable to do anything but sit with his hands clasped tightly together. But her mother’s face was stricken.
“Nita,” she said, very gently—but her voice was shaking like the tightly clasped hands of the man beside her, “you don’t have to make up stories like this to keep us from being angry with you.”
Nita’s mouth fell open. “Mom,” she said, “are you trying to say you don’t believe me?”
“Nita,” her father said. His eyes were haunted, and his attempt to keep his voice sounding normal was failing miserably. “Give us a break. How are we supposed to believe a crazy story like this? Maybe you’ve got Kit believing it...” He broke off, as if wanting to find a way to explain all this, something reasonable, and failing utterly.
Nita glanced over at Kit for the first time in a while and gulped. His annoyed look brought the sperm-whale battlecry scraping through her memories again.
“I’ll tell you how you’re supposed to believe it,” Kit said.
Nita’s mother and father looked at him.
Kit was suddenly sitting a little taller in the chair. And taller still, though he didn’t move a muscle. And taller—until Nita could see that Kit’s seat and the seat of the chair no longer had much to do with each other. He was hovering about two feet in the air.
“Like this,” Kit said.
Holding her breath, Nita looked from Kit to her parents.
They stared at Kit, their faces absolutely unmoved, as if waiting for something. Kit glanced over at Nita, shrugged, and kept floating up until he was sitting six feet or so above the floor. “Well?” he said.
They didn’t move a muscle.
“Harry—” Nita’s mother said, then, after what seemed forever.
He didn’t say a thing.
“Harry,” her mother said, “I hate to admit it, but I think all this, the last couple of days… is getting to me...”
Nita’s father simply kept looking at the chair.
Then, ever so slowly, he leaned his head back and looked up at Kit.
“Hypnosis,” Nita’s father said.
“Oh, what complete crap!” Kit said. “When did I hypnotize you?”
Nita’s father didn’t say anything.
“I haven’t said a thing,” Kit said. “If I hypnotized you without lights or words or anything, that’s a pretty good trick, isn’t it? You two better talk to each other and see if you’re seeing the same thing. If you aren’t, maybe I did hypnotize you. But if you are—”
Nita’s mother and father looked away from Kit with some effort. “Betty...” said Nita’s father.
Neither of them said anything further for a few seconds.
“Harry,” her mother said at last, “if I told you that I saw… saw Kit...” She stopped and swallowed. Then she started again, and the same feeling that had shaken Nita earlier about Kit took hold of her and shook her about her mother. Evidently bravery came in odd forms, and out of unexpected places. “If I told you that I saw Kit not sitting in the chair any more,” her mother said, all at once and in a rush. Then her voice gave out on her.
“Above it,” her dad said. And that was all he could manage.
They stared at each other.
“You got it,” Kit said.
Nita’s dad broke away from looking at her mother and glared at Nita instead. “Hypnosis,” her father said. “There’s no other explanation.”
“Yes, there is!” Nita hollered at him, waving her arms in frustration, “but you don’t want to admit it!”
“Nita,” her mother said.
“Sorry,” Nita said. “Look, Kit… this isn’t going to do it. We need something more impressive.” She got up. “Come on,” she said. “Outside. It’s my turn.”
Nita yanked the front door open and ran outside, up the dune and down its far side toward the beach. There was a long pause before she heard the sound of footsteps following her down the wooden stairs. Shock, she thought, feeling both pity and amusement. If only there was some easier way! But there wasn’t. Nita ade it down to the beach, picked the spot she wanted, then stood and waited for them to arrive.
First her mother, then her father, came clambering up the dune and slid down its far side, to stand on the beach and stare up and down it, looking for her. Then Kit appeared beside them in a small clap of air that startled her mother so badly she jumped. Her father stared.
“Sorry,” Kit said, “I should have warned you.” He was still sitting cross-legged in the air, and Nita noticed that he didn’t sound very sorry..
“Oh, Lord,” said Nita’s father at the sight of Kit, and then turned resolutely away. “All right. Where’s Nita?”
“Over here, Daddy,” Nita called from where she was standing on the water, just past the line of the breakers.
He stared at Nita. So did Nita’s mother, who slowly went to stand beside her husband. Her voice was shaking as she said, “Harry, it could be that my eyes are just going...”
“Mom,” Nita shouted, “give me a break; you both went to the eye doctor last month and you were fine!” She bounced up and down on the water several times, then took a few long strides to the west, turned, and came back. “Admit it! You see me walking on water! Well, surprise: I am walking on water! Get it! It’s like I told you: I’m a wizard!”
“Nita,” her father said, “uh, walking on water is, uh—”
“I know,” she said. “You wouldn’t want to overdo it. It’s murder on your calves.”
Nita trotted back in to shore, taking a last hop onto the curl of a flattening breaker and letting it push her up onto the beach and strand her there, a few feet in front of them.
Kit uncrossed his legs, got his feet back on the ground, and came to stand beside her. “So what else would you like to see?” he said.
Her parents looked at each other, then down at the two of them. “Look, Kit, Nita,” her father said unhappily, “it’s not a question of what we’d like to see. At this point I’m sure you two could get us to ‘see’ anything you wanted to… heaven knows how. But that’s not the point. This can’t be—none of this is real!”
“Wanna bet?” Kit said softly. “Neets, this is gonna call for drastic measures.”
“I think you’re right. Well, let’s see what the manual says about this. Book, please,” she said, thinking the six words of a spell she knew by heart and putting her hand out. Another small clap of air, about as noisy as someone clapping hands, and her wizard’s manual dropped into her hand. Her mother goggled. Nita opened the manual and began browsing through it. “Let’s see...”
“You two just stop making things pop in and out for a moment, and listen to me,” Nita’s mother said all of a sudden. “Nita, I want to know where this power came from! You two haven’t made a pact with, with—”
Nita thought of her last encounter with the Lone Power. She looked at Kit. They both burst out laughing simultaneously. “Oh, Mom!” Nita said. “If there’s one thing you’ve got to know—it’s that Kit and I are the last people that One wants anything to do with.”
Her mother looked nonplussed. “Well, that’s—never mind, you’ll tell me about that some other time. But, honey, why, why—?”
“You mean, ‘Why are there wizards?’ Or ‘Why are we wizards?’ ” Nita said. “Or do you really mean ‘What?
??s in it for us?’ ”
“Yes,” her mother said, sounding lost.
Nita and Kit looked at each other, and Kit shook his head. “It’s going to take forever to explain this,” he said. “And we’re short on time.”
He was right about that. “Only one thing we can do, I guess,” Nita said, musing.
“Show them?”
Nita looked at Kit, and for the first time in what seemed days, a smile began to grow. “Remember that place we went a week and a half ago?” she said. “The one with the great view?”
“I’ll get my book,” he said, grinning back, “and the string.”
“Don’t forget the chip!” Nita said, but Kit had already vanished like a blown-out candle, and Nita was talking to empty air. She turned to her mother and father. “He went to get some supplies,” she said. “For some wizardries you need raw materials… they’re kind of a short cut for doing it with just words.”
“Fine, honey,” her mother said, “but does he have to keep appearing and disappearing like that?”
“Believe me, it’s faster than walking,” Nita said. “And we haven’t got all night. He and I are going to have to be out early again tomorrow morning—”
“Nita!” said her father.
All of a sudden Nita felt so sorry for him. She went to her dad and put her arms around him. “Please, Daddy,” she said, “let it be for a little while, okay? We told you why. But you have to feel this first. It won’t make sense unless you do. In fact, it may never make sense. Just trust me!”
Kit popped back out of nothing, making Nita’s mother jump again. “Sorry, Mrs. Callahan,” he said. “It’s fun, that’s all. It’s a ‘beam-me-up-Scotty’ spell. So’s this one we’re going to do. Just a little more involved.” He dropped the necessary supplies on the sand—a small coil of cord, an old silicon chip salvaged from a broken pocket calculator, a gray stone. Then he started going through his own manual.
Nita looked down at the stone Kit had brought. “Good idea,” she said. “Shorthand, huh?”
“It knows where it came from. Saves a little work. Which is good, because we’ve got two more sets of variables this time. Get the figures for me?”