The Real Boy

  Oscar,

  I expect you can read this note.

  Please come see me, as soon as you can.

  Your baker,

  Malcolm

  Oscar rubbed his chest. Malcolm had tried to warn him, tried to tell him not everything was as it seemed. Magic is big and beautiful and terrible. The wizards understood, but no one understands anymore. Oscar could have asked more questions, could have paid more attention. Malcolm had told him, but Oscar hadn’t heard.

  A familiar feeling burned deep in his stomach, like a pestle grinding into his gut. Maybe he would have heard Malcolm if only he knew how to listen.

  Oscar perched the little cat on a shelf below the counter and then opened the shop, peeking his head up the path to check for Callie’s dark head bobbing toward him. It did not, but two villagers came in a few minutes later, and soon Oscar could think of nothing but customers.

  In the first two hours the shop was open, Oscar sold six different protective items. It wasn’t until he sold the seventh—a thick leather chain Caleb had made that you tied on your doorknob to protect the house from hexes, robbers, and bear attacks—that he noticed the pattern.

  “Something else has happened.”

  The buyer was Master Christopher, who owned the marketplace tavern. He raised his eyebrows. “And a good morning to you. To address your comment, no, something has not happened. Several things have happened. You should watch yourself.”

  “What?” Oscar breathed. “Tell me!” He knew enough now to realize he was not supposed to talk like this to customers. But in this particular moment he didn’t feel like figuring out how to say anything other than what he meant.

  “You should watch your tongue, too! Someone’s been prowling the marketplace at night, little hand, attacking our wares. Madame Aphra hung twenty yards of cloth to dry outside last night, and do you know what she woke up to?”

  “Bits?”

  Christopher narrowed his eyes. “Hmmm. Yes. A small pile of bits. Same thing with Madame Alexandra’s leather, the pieces she had just enchanted. And”—he looked around, though he and Oscar were the only ones in the shop—“Madame Catherine says the Most Spectacular Goat is missing.”

  Oscar stepped back. No.

  “Better protect the shop while you can, little hand. Someone is sabotaging the marketplace.”

  Pictures arranged themselves in Oscar’s mind—the sack of Wolf, then the gardens and the glass house, then the cloth and leather in bits. “What if it’s not sabotage?” Oscar asked.

  “What else could it be? A very enormous bear?”

  “The pieces don’t fit,” Oscar said.

  “What an odd thing to say,” Master Christopher said.

  In the early afternoon, a gentleman and a Wolf-age young man from the City came in. They seemed to be father and son, and neither of them looked troubled in the least. Oscar surreptitiously looked over the young lord. He did not seem to be suffering from any illness, unless there was a disease that made someone’s left nostril flare in a perpetual slight sneer.

  Following closely behind them was Master Thomas, the blacksmith, who bobbed his head at Oscar and headed toward the wards. A farmer was in the shop, too, looking at animal repellants. The father and son went over to the gaming shelves and began browsing through decks of cards. Strictly for entertainment, Caleb had labeled them. Magic was illegal in Asteri’s game houses—Caleb had invented a detection system for the house proprietors and then a way to mask the magic on his own goods.

  Soon, a man and a woman from the village came into the shop, heading directly for the counter. “Is Caleb back?” the woman asked.

  “No,” Oscar said flatly, and then crossed his arms.

  The man grunted.

  “Do you know when he intends to return?” the woman said.

  “He didn’t tell me,” Oscar said. And then added, for Callie’s sake, “Is there something I can help you with?”

  The man crossed his arms and straightened up. He was very tall. “Yes,” he said, staring down as if Oscar were something he was contemplating squashing. “When he gets back, you can tell him that someone’s attacking us, and he needs to care more about the village and less about his wealth and fame.”

  “Giles,” the woman muttered, “he’s just a boy.” She turned to Oscar. “I’m Mistress Eliza. My husband and I make jam.” She looked over at Master Thomas, who had stepped closer to the group. “We were in the northwest strip of the woods looking for berries this morning, and the oddest thing happened. We were in front of one of the wizard trees, and suddenly the whole thing . . . faded. Except for the stump.”

  Oscar went cold.

  “What?” the farmer said.

  “We looked around at the other wizard trees,” Eliza continued. “And at first they looked fine, but when you looked directly at them, the same thing happened. And then one disappeared entirely right before our eyes. Again, just the stump was left.”

  “Just the stump,” Mister Giles repeated. “And not a fresh one, either.”

  “This is an assault!” Master Thomas said.

  “The tree had been chopped down,” Mistress Eliza said, eyes wide, voice breathless. “Some time ago. And four other trees seem to be the same. Ghosts.”

  “There’s another magician,” the farmer proclaimed. “That’s who’s attacking us.”

  Master Thomas folded his arms and considered. “That does seem a likely theory,” he said, speaking carefully.

  The older City gentleman called out, “Does that mean his magic is better?”

  Giles turned, glaring. He took a step toward the man and opened his mouth, but just then the gentleman’s son pointed at the counter. At Oscar.

  “Look,” he exclaimed. “The little boy’s crying. Over trees!” He laughed.

  Now Mistress Eliza was glaring at the father and son. Everyone in the room was still as a cat before pouncing.

  “Well, I think it’s time to go,” the gentleman said, putting his hand on his son’s shoulder. “We’ll be taking our business elsewhere.”

  The pair left the shop, slamming the door behind them. Oscar put his hand to his wet cheek.

  “I don’t understand who would do this,” the farmer said. “They must be trying to harm us. Drain the Barrow.”

  And then the villagers were rumbling again, so loudly it seemed the shelves might shake. Oscar just stood there shivering, slowly turning to ice.

  “Do you think it hurt?” Oscar asked, his voice cutting through the noise. “The trees?”

  Everyone turned to look at him.

  So it was not a normal thing to say, it was not a normal thing to think, but Oscar thought it anyway, and he needed someone to answer.

  Giles eyed the farmer and Master Thomas. He gestured to the door, and they all moved toward it. Eliza went back to the counter. “No,” she told Oscar, cushions on her words. “I don’t think they felt a thing.”

  “Just tell Caleb to come by as soon as he can,” Giles called, voice now gentle, “and we’ll tell him everything we saw. . . . Remember, Giles and Eliza, all right?”

  Mistress Eliza put her hand on Oscar’s shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It will be all right.”

  “How?” Oscar asked.

  “What?”

  “How will it be all right?”

  Mistress Eliza blinked. “It just will.”

  She gave Oscar a smile, and the trio walked out the door, leaving Oscar alone.

  He stood in the store for one minute, not able to think, not able to move. Then suddenly he was at the front of the shop locking the door. He was not being loyal; he was not working hard. But it was very difficult to know how to function in the world when every truth turned out to be just an illusion.

  So he slipped out the back door, walked down five buildings, and tucked around to the front of Madame Mariel’s.

  Callie opened the door, her hair tied up on her head, her gray apron on top of her dress. She seemed surprised to see Oscar—to be fair, Oscar wa
s surprised to see himself there.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she said, voice low. “There’s another one.” She motioned him inside.

  At first he thought she meant another tree, but when Callie led him through the front parlor into the back room of Madame Mariel’s, he saw a City boy lying in the small cot. The boy’s face was covered in some kind of scaly rash. Oscar stiffened.

  A lady in a cream-colored dress with a purple-and-gold bird printed on the skirt stood in the corner. The bird was not on fire.

  “This is Oscar,” Callie explained to the lady and the boy. “He can help.” She turned to Oscar. “This is Jasper, and his mother, Lady Foster. Jasper fell ill overnight.”

  Oscar leaned in close to Callie. “I have something to tell you about the wizard trees,” he said.

  Callie started slightly. “All right,” she whispered. “We’ll talk more about that later.” She went over to the stool by Jasper’s bed, motioning him to follow. “Could you come look at Jasper’s rash, please? I’m hoping we can make him more comfortable. I’ve been using some agrimony and yellow dock,” she added, motioning to the mixture at her side.

  Oscar looked over at Jasper. The boy blinked back at him. He looked like he didn’t understand anything, either. And the rash—

  “It’s really scaly!” Oscar said.

  Callie coughed. The boy glanced at her. The rash was really scaly—almost like bark falling off a tree.

  Callie turned her attention back to the boy and began to rub the salve into his right arm. “This is just a couple of herbs,” she said to him, voice like aloe. “It will help your skin. And then we’ll figure out what’s going on. We’ll help you feel better.”

  “But”—Oscar looked at Callie—“we don’t even know if it’s the plague yet! How can—”

  “Oscar!” Callie sprang up and knocked the stool over.

  “The plague?” exclaimed the lady.

  “Don’t worry!” said Oscar.

  Callie’s head snapped toward the lady. “He’s speaking figuratively.”

  Oscar frowned. He was being quite literal.

  The lady took a step backward, shaking her head. “The plague is back?” she breathed. Her face was a mask of fear.

  “We don’t know,” said Oscar. “It only might be back.”

  “Oscar!” said Callie. Her voice was like a falling guillotine.

  Oscar blinked at Callie and took a few steps back. Callie shook her head at him, very slightly. It hit him like a kick.

  Callie turned her attention back to the boy, righted the stool, and sat down. The boy seemed to have grown even paler and was looking at Oscar like Oscar himself had brought the plague.

  “Now,” Callie murmured, “can you tell me how you feel?” Jasper’s eyes grew wide and he shook his head.

  Callie studied him for a moment, then leaned in. “Do you think you can say something?” she asked. “Can you tell me anything?”

  The boy opened his mouth, but nothing came out except a low, inhuman groan. His eyes popped.

  Callie was so totally absorbed in the boy, for her there was nothing else in the room, in the marketplace, in the universe besides him. There wasn’t even an Oscar who had so much whirling around in his head that he could barely stand still and all he wanted to do was tell her about the trees.

  A flash: a reflection in his head, a whisper from the past. A picture of a smaller Callie and her brother, a little-boy version of Callie herself, all eyes and hair, but in some sickly wrong color. Maybe he had a rash, too; maybe he looked like something was missing, too. Illness takes things from you, Callie had said.

  Oscar inhaled. “You need to heal him because you couldn’t heal your brother!”

  Everyone stopped to gape at the words as they hung in the air. Callie suddenly looked as sickly as the boy in Oscar’s imagination. She was blinking rapidly, and her mouth hung open.

  The boy’s mother exploded from the corner. “Who is this boy? Where is Madame Mariel? Where is Master Caleb?”

  Callie’s face went blank. She stood up carefully. “Oscar,” she said, brushing off her apron. “You can go now.”

  Oscar turned and fled. As he left the shop, he heard Callie’s voice carrying from the back room.

  “I’m sorry,” she was saying. “Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

  Oscar ran back to the stop, chased by the invasion of darkness. He headed into the back room and then lost the will to go any farther.

  History told lies; someone was murdering wizards and prowling along the outskirts of the marketplace; Oscar’s whole world was in bits. Sickness was haunting the City, though the wizards had given their lives to ensure otherwise. The magic was failing, and so was Oscar. Everything he said, everything he did, everything he thought and felt, it was all wrong, and he never should have left his pantry.

  If he hadn’t, no one would ever have looked at him the way Callie just did.

  Then, in the darkness, a wisp of light tickled at Oscar. He was in the kitchen of the most powerful magician in a generation. If another magician was doing this, it couldn’t be a coincidence that he or she was only attacking when Caleb was gone.

  Another magician could not be more powerful than Caleb. Whoever it was, Caleb could find him and stop him. Caleb would do it. If he only knew what was happening.

  Maybe Oscar could do nothing else against the ineffable dangers of the world, maybe he was useless and broken and all wrong, but at least he could try to figure out exactly where Caleb was and how to get a message to him. He was Caleb’s hand; he could do that much. And then everything would be better. Caleb could even help the City children—all the parents were asking for him anyway—and then Callie would be glad.

  Caleb would want to know, anyway. He would want to know all these things. He was the magician, the closest thing to a wizard they had.

  So Oscar got up, went down the cellar stairs, then strode right through the main room into the hallway and to Caleb’s workroom.

  This was very much against the rules. This was so against the rules that Caleb had never even had to tell him the rule in the first place. But the world was changing under Oscar’s feet, all the rules were changing—why not this one as well?

  He would want to know. He’ll be glad I told him.

  He entered the room and walked around slowly, turning on every lantern he could. Cat stood in the doorway, thumping his tail. Do not go astray, little mouse.

  The room was several times larger than Oscar’s bedroom and was filled with shelves and cabinets, a worktable and tools, a desk with all kinds of books and notebooks on it. And everywhere, vials and tubes and jars and tools and strange machines and contraptions. It all hit Oscar at once, and he had to take a step back.

  No. There had to be something, some letter or diary that indicated where Caleb might be and how to get in contact with him. Oscar took a deep breath and stepped forward, trying to focus on one thing at time. There were more bookshelves in here, lined with thick, old-looking books with black covers and strange gilt titles in a language Oscar didn’t recognize. Even looking at them made him feel like ten spiders were running up and down his skin.

  Cat thumped his tail again. If you were a kitten, I would drag you out by the scruff.

  Hanging on the wall above the worktable were all kinds of tools. Oscar recognized a few woodworking and engraving ones, but the rest were completely outside his experience. On the table a few more tools were scattered among a pile of wood scraps.

  Underneath the table were two large clay jugs—one labeled Plaguelands Dirt, the other, simply, The Sea. There was a cabinet next to the table, and Oscar opened it up to find a large assortment of weapons. He closed the cabinet. The next one was filled with animal traps. The next with odd-colored potions.

  On one table sat test tubes, vials, and some device made of a mounted cylinder and, beneath it, a glass lens. Above the table were jars of strange fluids, plant clippings, bugs, spiders, hair and fur, and som
e bits of small rodents. There was even one rat cut into perfect halves. Oscar’s eyes fell on a dead sparrow, and he looked away.

  Oscar should not be in here. He should leave.

  But still he stayed.

  On the wall above the writing table was a series of drawings. Figures of people, made of ovals and rectangles and joints, and next to them some small drawings of children’s faces, perfect like dolls.

  He opened up a notebook. Dated entries, Caleb’s handwriting, but not any language Oscar knew. Some sketches and scribbling. Oscar flipped through the entire book and then the next. It was all the same: chaos.

  A small book on Caleb’s desk had a series of diagrams of the human body in it: first a drawing of a naked person, then on the next page it was like the skin had been stripped off and the body was all muscles, then on the next, bones, then organs and a great network of veins.

  Underneath that was a ledger with a few pages of entries. Names, dates, and a number of coins Oscar could not even fathom.

  Some spell work, perhaps. Or all those mysterious imports. The names were familiar somehow—perhaps Caleb had told Oscar something about the ledger, but Oscar was too stupid to remember what.

  The desk drawer was filled with letters—some in Caleb’s hand, but most not. And these were all written in another language, too.

  Nothing was here, no place names, no plan, no carefully thought-out note left for Oscar about where to reach him in case of emergency.

  Oscar looked around the room, feeling panic tugging at him. This had been his last hope of helping. Now all he could do was stand around and let the world fall apart.

  Thump. If you were a kitten, little mouse . . .

  Oscar’s eyes fell on a small shelf in the back of the room, lined with jars. He stepped closer. The jars were filled with some thick liquid and all labeled with names of different animals—goat, pig, horse, deer, bear, ape, along with some Oscar had never heard of. And the last—Oscar picked up the jar and held it to his lantern to look more closely—human. He dropped the jar. It did not break. And that was good, for if it had, he would have been covered in blood.