Patricia Wrede - Thirteenth Child

“There are more of them now,” Wash said. “It’s a puzzlement what they eat, since the grubs and the striped beetles have cleared out everything in most of the places I’ve found them. But the mirror bugs don’t do any damage, and they aren’t around for long, that I’ve seen, so I haven’t paid them much mind. I’d like to take time to study them, but with things as they are…” He shrugged.

Professor Jeffries frowned. “We need more observers,” he said. “Permanent ones, not just occasional expeditions like McNeil’s. We could have had a year’s warning about these grubs, at least, if there’d been someone out beyond the settlements.”

That started Papa and Mr. Harrison and Professor Jeffries arguing over whether such a thing was even possible. It wasn’t like there were a lot of folks who’d ever gone west of the far frontier and made it back. Wash just sat back with a small smile and sipped at his coffee.

It didn’t take me too long to get tired of listening to the argument, and I could see that the menfolk would go on ‘til the fire burned out and never mind the washing up. So I slipped away, filled the tin wash bucket from the well, and set it by the fire to heat. Nobody noticed except Wash and William. Wash gave me an approving nod, and William got up and followed me back to the well. He offered to haul the second bucket of water up for me, which I was pleased to accept, but I could see he had more on his mind than being gentlemanly. So I didn’t grab the bucket and head back to the fire straight off. I waited, but he just stood there frowning.

Finally I tired of waiting. “What is it?” I asked.

William sighed and shoved his eyeglasses up on his nose. “What was that about, this afternoon?”

“What was what about?” I said.

“That thing you did. First you started leaking magic all over, and then you sucked it all in and sat on it so hard that I wouldn’t have been able to tell you were even there if I hadn’t actually looked with my eyes instead of my magic sensing. What was going on?”

“I don’t—”

“Don’t you go telling me you don’t know,” William interrupted. “For it’s plain as day you do know.”

“I don’t know all of it,” I said, wrapping both arms around myself hard. “I just—remember how much trouble I used to have casting spells in our regular classes?”

William’s eyebrows drew together, but he nodded.

“Well, it got worse after you left. The spells didn’t just fizzle out; they exploded. And then other people started having trouble casting spells when I was around. It’s my fault, I know it. So when Papa and Lan had trouble this afternoon—”

“I see.”

“I shouldn’t have come,” I said. “I should have known better.”

“Why do you always do this?” William burst out. I stared at him, which only seemed to make him madder. “Why do you always blame yourself for everything that goes wrong?”

“I—” I’m a thirteenth child. The words stuck in my throat. I didn’t think anymore that William would believe I was evil because of it, not really—but what if I was wrong? And I was sure he’d be disappointed and furious that I hadn’t told him before.

William kept right on, like he didn’t expect me to come out with an answer. “Have you talked to anyone about this…notion that you’re somehow affecting other people’s magic?”

“N-not exactly,” I said. “When I started having trouble at school, Papa said it wasn’t surprising. He said that with twins, when one has lots of power, sometimes the other doesn’t have much. And since Lan—”

William snorted. “Lan’s a double-seventh son. He has plenty of magic without soaking up extra from you, and besides, you’re the elder twin. If anyone was going to walk off with an extra share of magic, it should have been you.”

“But—”

“But, nothing,” William said flatly. “You have plenty of magic. If you didn’t, how could you be interfering with anyone else’s spells? If that’s what you are doing, which I doubt.” He shoved his glasses up again and sighed. “You’re going to fuss about this for the rest of the trip, aren’t you? And nothing I say will make any difference.”

William frowned into the bucket for at least a minute, while I tried to think of something to say. I didn’t rightly see how I could promise not to worry, though I felt a lot better than I had before William started yelling at me.

“I know,” he said. “We’ll experiment. I’ll cast some spells, and you can try to muck with them, and we’ll see what happens.”

“I have to do the washing up first,” I said. “And besides, I haven’t ever tried to—to muck with someone else’s spells on purpose. It just happens when I’m close by. And what if I do something to the protective spells on the wagonrest?”

“You can sit close by while I work spells, then,” William said. “The protective spells…that’s a good point.” His eyes narrowed, and then he smiled. “Mr. Morris cast the spells on the wagonrest; we’ll get him to help. He knows Aphrikan magic, so he can watch what you’re doing, and he’ll be the first to notice if anything starts affecting his spells. I’ll ask him while you’re washing up, all right?”

“All right,” I said reluctantly. “But if you want him to help, you’d better remember to call him Wash.”

When William and I got back to the fire, Papa and Professor Jeffries and Mr. Harrison were still arguing. I collected the tin plates we’d eaten from. As I dumped them in the wash pan, three tin cups landed on top. I looked up to find Lan standing over me with a worn-looking dishcloth in one hand. “That’s everything, for now,” he said, gesturing at the cups. “Papa and the others are still using theirs. Wash or dry?”

“I’ll wash,” I said.

We worked in silence for a minute or two. Then Lan said a little too casually, “What were you and William talking about for so long?”

I looked at him, startled. It hadn’t seemed long to me. “The way the spells worked on the way here,” I said. I took a deep breath. “Lan, when you cast the protective spell this afternoon, did you notice anything odd?”

“Odd?” Lan paused in his dish wiping. “Odd how?”

“Like—like the spell starting to fizzle,” I said. “Or—or being hard to cast.”

“No,” he said. “Well, not to begin with. It got harder to keep the spell going after a while, but that’s just because I haven’t had much practice keeping spells going for so long. It’s more work than I thought.”

“You’re west of the Great Barrier Spell now,” Wash’s voice said from behind us, and we both jumped. “Even in the settled places, things are different here, and they get more so the farther on you go.”

“Why?” Lan asked.

Wash shrugged easily. “It’s how things are. You spend much time out here, you’ll see for yourself.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Lan said crossly. “The Great Barrier Spell is just a big magic wall. It doesn’t change anything on either side.”

“Magic itself doesn’t make sense, if you think on it,” Wash said. “Why should burning two sprigs of rosemary and chanting some words make a silver mirror reflect what someone looked like ten or twenty years earlier? Why should spinning a gold disk on a chain keep the wildlife off for hours or days? What works, works, but there’s not much rhyme or reason back of it that I’ve ever seen.”

“There most certainly is!” Lan said. “They’ve known all about it since the Renaissance. Cantel’s Theory of Reciprocity—”

“Ah, yes, the foundation of Avrupan magic,” Wash said. “One of the foundations, anyway. But there are other points of view.”