Patricia Wrede - Thirteenth Child

I gave Wash a startled look. He sounded just like Miss Ochiba. Except he also sounded like he was needling Lan on purpose, and Miss Ochiba never would have done that.

Lan seemed startled, too. Then his eyes narrowed and he said, “You mean Aphrikan and Hijero–Cathayan magic? You could be right. I’m afraid I haven’t studied either in any depth yet, so I couldn’t say.” He sounded rather stiff.

Wash chuckled. “There’s a good start,” he said. “Now, as long as you keep an eye on what’s really in front of you, instead of what you expect to be in front of you or wish was in front of you, you’ll do.” He glanced across the fire, to where Mr. Harrison, Papa, and Professor Jeffries were still talking. Then he turned to me. “Speaking of keeping an eye out, Mr. Graham tells me you’d like to do some experimenting, Miss Rothmer.”

That got Lan’s attention right enough, and next thing I knew, the four of us were over on the far side of the wagonrest, with William and Lan taking turns at spell exercises while Wash and I looked on. Or rather, while I watched them and Wash studied me. It didn’t take long for William and Lan to make a contest out of what they were doing, picking more and more elaborate spells to show off with.

I was tense to begin with, but neither of them seemed to be having any trouble with their spell casting, so after a while I started to relax. After the first couple of spells, most of the things they did were new to me—things they’d learned off at school in the East. Every so often, one of them would come up with a spell the other hadn’t learned, and they’d have to stop and talk about it.

Somewhere in the middle, Papa, Professor Jeffries, and Mr. Harrison came over and joined us. By then it was full dark, and Lan and William had started in on fireworks spells. I half expected Papa to correct Lan point by point when his starbursts came out lopsided, but he just smiled and said it was a good thing for Lan to get some practice. Then William talked Papa and the professor into doing some spells, and in the end all four of them did Washington crossing the Delaware, just as if it was the Fourth of July. William did the flag, and even remembered that it should only have thirteen stars. Professor Jeffries did the boat and the river, with chunks of ice floating everywhere. Papa did George Washington and his men rowing, and Lan did Robert Carradine casting the light spell ahead of the boat for everyone to follow and floating the cannon alongside. Then Papa said that was enough for one night, especially after the day we’d had, and everyone went off to bed.

I glanced over at Wash, who was nearly invisible in the dark. He didn’t move or say anything, so I went off to my tent. I thought nothing had happened, but early the next morning Wash came around while I was making coffee and handed me a whorl of wood about the size of a robin’s egg. A hole had been drilled into one side for a long leather cord. The wood itself had been smoothed on the surface, and polished to a silky shine between the twists and turns where it curled around itself. I could feel magic in it, but I couldn’t tell what the magic was supposed to do. I looked up at Wash.

“You asked for my help last night, Miss Rothmer,” he said. “That’s about the best help I can give you, time being.”

“Thank you kindly,” I said. “But I could do with an explanation along with it.”

“Near as I can see, you’ve been storing up magic like a squirrel storing nuts for winter,” Wash told me. “But you’ve also been most carefully not using any of it, so it’s been building up awhile. The more you store up, the harder it is to keep from overflowing, and when it starts overflowing without any control, well, it can get in the way of most other types of magic nearby. That—” he nodded at the polished wood piece “—will help drain off some of that extra power you’ve been hoarding, the way a lightning rod earths lightning to make no harm.”

I closed my fingers tight around the wood. “Thank you,” I said with a lot more warmth than I had put into the first one.

Wash’s eyes narrowed. “It’s a temporary measure,” he warned. “You’ll be needing to do some work on your own if you want to straighten things out permanent-like.”

I nodded, only half hearing him. As long as it kept me from causing problems with the spells Papa and Lan cast, temporary help was good enough for me. I made a loop with the cord and slipped it over my head, so that the wooden charm hung lightly against my chest.

And for the first time in a long time, I had a faint, shaky feeling of hope.

OUR SECOND DAY OF TRAVEL WASN’T MUCH DIFFERENT FROM THE first, for me. I sat with Papa and Mr. Harrison mostly in silence while we drove the wagon across the bare dirt that ought to have been meadows and hay fields and woods. Every so often, Papa or Mr. Harrison would remark on something, but they never got much of a talk going even when I did my best to keep up my part. Everyone else was on horseback, and from what little I overheard, they were having plenty of interesting conversation. I decided right then that no matter what Mama said about being a lady, I wasn’t ever getting stuck sitting in a wagon again if all the interesting people were going to be riding.

What with the lack of talking, I spent most of the ride fingering the wooden charm Wash had given me. I was glad that someone else had seen my problem, and gladder still to have something to fix it, but on the whole, if I’d had my druthers, I’d rather that William had been right about it being all in my head.

The little wooden pendant was warm and comforting under my fingers. Wash had said something about it draining off the excess magic. I decided that if I could figure out how the spell worked, maybe I could drain off more than just extra magic. Maybe I could get rid of all of it. I thought about asking Wash to show me the spell he’d used, but I had a pretty good idea that he’d ask questions, and he wouldn’t like my answers.

That gave me pause. If I was that sure that Wash would think my idea was a bad one, I figured I should think about it a lot more before I actually did anything. Maybe I should just join the Rationalists, since they didn’t use magic at all. I put the pendant away, but all the rest of the ride I kept touching it, just to make sure it was still there.

We stopped that night at another wagonrest, a few hours short of the Oak River settlement. Lan and William were full of all the interesting stories Wash had been telling, which only made me crosser than ever. After dinner, Mr. Harrison started talking about what steps we should take when we got to the settlement the next day. He wanted to dive right in poking around for the old settlement spells, and he didn’t take it kindly when Professor Jeffries told him that the Rationalists would likely throw us straight out again if we did any such thing.

Finally even Papa got exasperated, and said that if Mr. Harrison went on like that, we might just as well have brought Professor Graham along after all, begging William’s pardon, for Mr. Harrison was like as not going to upset the Rationalists every bit as much as Professor Graham would have done, just for different reasons. William sort of choked, trying not to laugh. Lan did laugh, though he apologized very nicely. Mr. Harrison scowled, but before he could start up again, Wash spoke up.

“There’s times when too much hurrying makes for more delay,” he said. “I’m thinking this is one of them. It’s true we need to know how the Oak River settlement is keeping clear of those beetles, and we need to know soon—they’ll be coming out any day now, if they follow the same timing as last year. But I’ve stopped by Oak River a time or two on my way back to Mill City, just for curiosity’s sake, and Professor Jeffries isn’t far off in his guesses.”