“I wonder if he’s still taking it. The Milk. I mean, I know it was messing me up, but Scott! I’m getting dumber!”
Scott winced. “I’m not sure you are—”
“I think I am. I don’t know. I can’t say anything for sure without doing some tests. But I think one thing’s clear: I’m not going to get any smarter.”
Scott smiled. “I wouldn’t worry—you’re smart enough already.”
But Emily looked at him squarely, soberly. “No. Think about what I’m saying.” She blinked her red eyes. “You don’t realize it maybe, but you’re always discovering new doors and stepping into bigger worlds. Bigger and better worlds, with more doors to open. As long as you keep learning, your world gets bigger. Mine’s just shrinking, now.”
Scott hesitated until he was sure of his answer. “You got a bigger world than I’m ever going to, though. You got that.”
“And I got to visit, and now I have to come back to the basement.”
Scott looked at his hands.
“Help me fall asleep,” said Emily. “Tell me a story.”
“I don’t know any stories.”
“Please.”
“You know who has good stories? Merle. I mean, he was the wizard of King Arthur’s court. Merle!”
Merle poked his head in. “What’s up?”
“Tell me a story,” said Emily. “About the sword in the stone.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” said Scott. “Was that real?”
“Sure,” said Merle. “Sort of.”
“So … nobody but Arthur could pull the sword out? Was it a Fay spell? Or was it really a sign from God that Arthur was rightful king of England or …”
Merle was smirking. “It was magnets.”
They stared.
“Maybe I should begin a little earlier,” said Merle. “I told you about Vortigern, Scott, and the whole tower-and-dragons debacle. That gave me a bit of a reputation as a wise guy. So maybe you know that King Uther Pendragon was Arthur’s father.”
Scott made a sour face. He didn’t like this story. King Uther squabbles with the Duke of Tintagel, and invites the duke to his castle. During the visit, Uther falls madly in love with the duke’s wife, Igraine. The duke and Igraine flee, so later Uther gets Merlin to disguise him as the duke while his forces are fighting the real duke on the battlefield. Igraine thinks Uther is her husband, and they spend a night together, the same night her actual husband is killed in battle. After Igraine learns her husband has been killed, she wonders who that fake duke was, but she keeps the whole thing to herself, and when Uther proposes marriage, she says yes. Months later she gives birth to Arthur and tells her husband that the son belongs to a mystery man who looked like the duke, and Uther says, “Surprise! It was me,” and everyone’s happy. Then they give up Arthur to Merlin, because that was the deal. It was an all-around gross story.
“Calm down,” said Merle. “I know you’ve read the books, but it didn’t turn out like that. Of course, I had read the books too, so when Uther’s man Sir Ulfius comes to me wanting help with his king’s love life, I’ll admit I didn’t know what to do. I think, If I don’t help Uther, then Arthur is never born, and that’s a tragedy. But this is a terrible thing to do to Igraine. So I tell Uther I can help, not knowing what I’m going to do right up until the night itself. And that night King Uther is drinking a lot of wine ’cause he’s nervous, and Sir Ulfius is drinking a lot of wine, and I’m trying to come up with a way to disguise us all and make this work, maybe something with fake mustaches, and finally I panic and put everybody to sleep.”
Scott frowned. “Then what?”
“Then nothing. I rode them back to the castle, and when they woke up the next morning I told them the plan had gone off perfectly.”
“What?”
“I saw the look of doubt on Uther’s face, right, but I explained that people shape-shifted by the spell I used might experience a little memory loss. After that he looked happy, and if Uther was happy, there was no way Ulfius was going to argue. But in the back of my mind I feel a little weird, because I didn’t do my duty. Arthur would never be born. Then nine months later Arthur was born.”
“How?”
“Arthur was the duke’s son. He was always the duke’s son. But Uther says to Igraine, ‘I know how your son was really conceived—on the night your late husband was killed, a man with his likeness came to you.’ And Igraine was like, ‘Uh, no, that never happened,’ but Uther insisted and said, ‘Fear not! For I was that man, ensorcelled to resemble the duke! Ha ha!’
“So Igraine’s probably like, ‘He thinks this is his son? Okay, great! Awesome. He’s an idiot, but whatever.’ Because Igraine was probably expecting Uther would just have the baby killed. Son of your enemy, and you don’t want to look weak, right?”
“And they gave baby Arthur to you?” said Emily softly.
“Yeah. That was the deal the books said I made, so that was the deal I made, and like I said, I think Igraine was just thrilled not to have any of her family members murdered. She married her daughters Elaine and Morgause off to rich guys, and put her youngest, Morgan, in a nunnery, all at Uther’s request.”
“Morgan—that’s Morgan le Fay, the sorceress, right?” asked Scott.
“Yeah. I realize now she must have been a changeling. I mean, not a changeling like you and Polly and your dad, who’re mostly human with a little drop of fairy in you. I mean an Old World fairy, swapped in the cradle, who doesn’t realize she’s not really human—that kind of changeling. Anyway, you wanted to know about the sword in the stone.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“So I take baby Arthur away to this really nice knight I know, Sir Ector, who’s recently had a son of his own. And Sir Ector and his wife raise Arthur, and I sort of help teach the boy things I think he needs to know. And I really grow to love this boy. He’s a great kid. In another age he’d have made a great scientist.
“But during this time King Uther gets sick and dies, and England kind of falls apart a little. Everyone’s vying to be the guy who takes over and rules as the new king, because Uther didn’t leave any heirs. So I do what I’m supposed to, and I tell the Archbishop of Canterbury to demand that all the lords and gentlemen come to London at Christmastime, upon pain of cursing—”
“Upon pain of cursing?” said Scott.
“You like that? I thought that was a nice touch. I have him demand they all come upon pain of cursing and promise that God will show by some miracle who should be rightful king of the realm.”
“But …,” said Emily.
“You see the hitch, right?” Merle smiled.
“Arthur wasn’t the rightful king of England,” Emily mumbled. “He was the duke’s son.”
“So I knew I couldn’t depend on any miracles, and I had to make my own,” said Merle. “I had a big hunk of marble carved, and an anvil stuck in it, and a deep groove cut in the anvil. Took forever. And I had a sword made by an illiterate swordsmith, with words written in gold that said WHOSO PULLETH OUT THIS SWORD OF THIS STONE AND ANVIL, IS RIGHTWISE KING BORN OF ALL ENGLAND. Cost me every penny I had.
“But the genius part,” said Merle, really puffing himself up, “was the magnets made out of fairy gold. I suppose you both know that you can make a magnet with a coil of electric current around a nail or whatever.”
“Yeah, we did that in science class,” said Scott. He felt suddenly weary, wondering if he’d ever get back to doing anything so simple as electrocuting a nail.
“So I managed to scrape together a little bit of fairy gold,” said Merle, “and with that I could make a battery to hide inside the stone and anvil. I had to hide my watch in there too, but then I could use Archie to transmit a signal and turn the battery’s current on and off. Stick the sword in the stone, run the current through the anvil, and suddenly the strongest man in England couldn’t pull it back out. Cut the power, and my tante could do it.”
Emily smiled.
“Maybe you ki
ds know the rest. No one could pull out the sword, so they put together a big jousting tournament so everyone can stick around and keep trying. And Arthur’s foster brother, Kay, forgets his sword back at the inn, so Arthur, being his squire, runs back for it. But the inn is locked, empty, everyone is at the tournament. So Arthur takes the sword out of the stone, easy as anything, and brings it to Kay. ‘How did you come by this?’ everyone wants to know. And he tells them, and they’re all, OMG!”
“Don’t say OMG,” said Scott.
“Hey! I can say slang. I haven’t even been born yet—technically I’m younger than you.”
“Sorry.”
“Anyway, he tells them and they kneel down to him and he’s crowned King of England. That’s the really short version, anyway.”
Scott huffed. “You could have made anyone King of England. You could have made yourself.”
“Yeah, but I don’t like hats.”
Scott looked over to see what Emily thought of all this, only to find she’d fallen asleep. He watched her anxiously, but her breathing was gentle and easy, her face finally untroubled.
Now seemed as good a time as any to ask Merle something that had been bothering him. He felt like everyone had been dancing around it. He leaned close and lowered his voice and said, “Mick told me that the Gloria that separated the worlds … he said it happened right after Arthur and his son battled each other, when they supposedly died. And that’s when you and Arthur traveled to the future, right? So—”
“No.”
“I didn’t even say it yet—”
“You were gonna say that maybe it was us and our time machines that cracked reality in half? Separated the worlds? That maybe I’m responsible?”
Scott squirmed a bit.
“Well, honestly …,” said Merle. “I started wondering about that too, ever since getting mixed up with you bunch. But I’ve checked and rechecked the math. Emily’s checked it, too. There was nothing in my designs that could have caused this to happen. I swear. It’s some kind of crazy coincidence. I’m sure we’ll learn the truth soon enough.”
“Yeah. I’m sure we’ll learn the truth soon enough.”
CHAPTER 20
“I think everybody should have a copy of this,” Emily said to all the others, seated on folding chairs in the dank basement. She passed them a stack of pages she’d made up at a local copy shop. They each unrolled their papers to find maps of Great Britain. “They’re maps of Pretannica, courtesy of the Freemen and their big filing cabinet,” Emily added. “Maps with rifts. That circle around the British Isles is the current edge of the universe, according to the Freemen. Everything beyond that doesn’t exist. Those of you going through the rift should try not to get too close to the edge, or it’s my understanding that you’ll stop existing, too.”
“What’s this world map for down here?” asked Scott.
“That shows the locations of stable or semi-stable rifts in our world that Goodco knows about. Notice all the little dots around New Jersey.”
“Why so many around New Jersey?” said Polly.
“So,” said Emily. “A little primer: rifts open up on Earth all the time. Most of them are unstable, only open for a moment, and nothing goes through them, so nobody notices. They’re attracted to magic, so mostly they pop up in places where there’s a little bit of magical buildup, which pretty much means any city where Goodco’s built a factory. Magic is everywhere in Pretannica, so the openings on the Pretannica side are totally random. Point is that at any time a rift could open up in Pretannica so large that you could lead all the armies of the Fay through it at once, but you could never plan your day around it.”
“But some rifts aren’t unstable,” said Merle.
“Right. They stay open for a few weeks, getting bigger, then smaller again around May Day and November Day. Some are even open all the time. Goodco knows about a lot of these, and as you can see on your maps, they’re exactly where you’d expect—Goodborough, Slough, towns where there’s a Goodco cereal factory. Though there’s still a certain amount of randomness. For example, the great big rift in Antarctica that Scott’s mom characterized, or that one in Iran.”
“There’s a rift in … Chad?” said Erno. “Is that a country? I thought it was just the name of that eighth grader with the missing earlobe.”
“Anyway,” said Emily, “all the stable rifts Goodco knows about are really small, too small for even Mick to get through. Or else they’re big but at the bottom of the ocean.”
Fi was looking at his map. “I was sent through a rift and found myself in the Atlantic Ocean, near this rift you’ve marked here. Yet I was near the surface, not at the bottom.”
“Yeah, it must have been a different one. You’ve said this pixie witch of yours had four stable rifts? Nimue would kill for those. She could start the invasion tomorrow. Well. I think John has a report.”
John stood up and Emily sat down. “As you know, after the British Museum incident, I sent out a press release through Archimedes to all the news outlets, explaining our position. Of course most of the chatter on the internet is that I’m, er … crazy.”
“Crazy talented,” said Polly.
“No, just the regular kind. But serious journalists are devoting a lot of time to analyzing that footage from the museum and trying to prove that there weren’t a fire-breathing finch and a tiny man there, and they can’t. So that’s all to the good. And people are asking questions, and Goodco has had to release an official statement, so I’m going to send out another missive and try to keep the ball rolling.”
“Good,” said Emily. “Well—”
“I have something,” said Erno.
Emily’s shoulders fell. “Is this about the thing from the refrigerator? It’s not a clue.”
“It definitely belonged to Mr. Wilson—”
“I’m not saying it didn’t, but he didn’t write it—it’s just some page from an old handbook.”
It was, specifically, a page torn from the 1921 Young Freeman’s Handbook, and it began midsentence.
* * *
YOUNG FREEMAN’S HANDBOOK 1921
all know that the Sickle and the Spoon was developed from the vesica piscis, an ancient Christian symbol shown in some medieval traditions to be bisected by the sword Caliburn, or Excalibur.
The enterprising young Freeman can draft his own Sickle and Spoon with everyday objects he’ll find around the home or temple. Dr. Octopodes Bray (K. o. t. R.) has invented an ingenious method that requires no compass but may be accomplished with a straight edge and by tracing the circumference of any cup, plate, or pie tin.
Once the circle has been traced, the first and most important step is to determine its center.
* * *
That was all it said. The opposite side was just an etching of Dr. Octopodes Bray, Knight of the Round, probably an otherwise nice man who was born twenty years too early to know how bad he was going to look in a Hitler mustache.
“I know he didn’t write it,” said Erno, “but he must have left it for a reason. We should at least think about it.”
“That can be your job then,” said Emily.
“Fine,” sighed Erno, sitting down.
“Anyone else?”
Scott stood up. “I want to go to Pretannica.”
John turned. “You do? I don’t know how I feel about that—”
“Oh, come on. You can’t really be pulling the fatherly ‘It’s too dangerous’ thing on me at this point, can you?”
“I’ll be happy to have ’im,” said Mick. “He’s good in a scrape. We may need all the help we can get, savin’ the queen.”
“Except I don’t want to go after the queen,” Scott said. “I want to visit the fairies.”
“What?” said Emily.
“What?” said John. Out of the corner of Scott’s eye, he saw Harvey prick up his ears and start frantically scrawling on the back of his map.
“Like a … diplomatic mission,” said Scott. “If they’re all going to
invade, it’s because Nimue’s been feeding them lies all these years. Lies like that the humans are responsible for their world dying. I’ll go visit the High Queen … Titania, right? And plead our case. Maybe I can just prevent the whole invasion and get everybody talking instead.”
“No,” said John. “No way. It’s too dangerous.” And when Scott gave him a look, he added, “Yes, I am pulling that. I am pulling exactly that.”
“Hold on now,” said Mick. “This could actually work. Scott’s part fairy, so he has ev’ry right to request an audience wi’ the queen. An’ if I go with ’im, an’ demand his safety as a member o’ the queen’s court? Then none can harm ’im. Them’s the rules.”
“I’ll go too,” said Polly. “Please? I wanna go.”
John sighed. “I can’t imagine how I’ll explain this to your mother next year if something goes wrong.”
“Yeah.” Merle coughed. “This is the part you’ll be at a loss to explain.”
“Okay,” said Emily. “Scott and Polly and Mick and Finchbriton go to the court of Titania. John and Merle rescue the Queen of England. My current projections show this rift is never going to get big enough for Biggs, so he stays here and takes care of whatever animals come through. I keep studying the rift, Erno studies … that piece of paper. You all get walkie-talkies souped up by Merle with fairy batteries, thanks to that gold coin Mick found. Fi?”
“I will protect Polly.”
“Ooh, better not, mate,” said Mick. “You know I like yeh, but a pixie in the court of the Fay? That’s an insult, that is.”
Fi sighed. “I will go with the men, then.”
“Happy to have you,” said John.
Emily called to the rabbit-man, who was still writing. “And what are you going to do, Harvey?”
“Nuthin’.”
“Right. I guess that’s it, then. Let’s all make ready.”
There was the scuffle and squeak of chairs as class was dismissed.