Patricia Wrede - Thirteenth Child

THE NEXT DAY, PROFESSOR JEFFRIES TOOK BRANT, WASH, AND William out to look for more pupae and beetles. Lan stayed with Papa to help redo the detection spell, instead of Professor Jeffries. It didn’t take as long to set up the second time, and it didn’t have any more results than it had the first time. There just weren’t any old settlement spells left for it to detect, Papa said.

Of course, Mr. Harrison didn’t believe it. He said the college must have made a mistake when they designed the spell. Papa told him that in that case, he was welcome to redesign it himself, and arrange for his own people to do the testing. They were going at it hammer and tongs when the professor’s group came back with their bucket of pupae. They’d ridden out to the edges of the Oak River settlement’s allotment this time, and they’d found a lot more pupae and beetles than they had the day before.

Professor Jeffries was extremely pleased with their results. He was even more pleased when Papa told him they couldn’t find any traces of old settlement spells at all, which irritated Mr. Harrison even more. “If there aren’t any spells, what’s keeping those damned grubs away from this settlement?” Mr. Harrison shouted at last.

Rennie looked up, frowning. “Mr. Harrison,” she said coldly. “I don’t care what position you hold; this is my home, and I’ll thank you not to use language like that where my children can hear!”

Mr. Harrison choked, but he must have known he was in the wrong because he apologized right off. When he turned back to Professor Jeffries, he didn’t look so angry and he wasn’t shouting. “Well?” he asked. “What’s keeping the grubs away?”

“Nothing.” Professor Jeffries gave Mr. Harrison one of the smuggest smiles I’d ever seen.

Mr. Harrison scowled uncertainly. Wash grinned. Papa’s eyes narrowed, and then he smiled, too.

“Of course,” he said, nodding at Professor Jeffries. “The beetles are attracted by magic. Oak River uses no magic, and is surrounded by settlements that use a normal number of active spells. As soon as the beetles emerge, they head toward the other settlements, and that’s where most of them lay their eggs for next year’s crop of grubs.”

“Exactly,” Professor Jeffries said. “I’m still not clear where the mirror bugs fit, but that’s what we’re here to look into.” He rubbed his hands.

When Mr. Harrison realized no one was listening to him, he went off in a huff. Papa, Professor Jeffries, Wash, and the boys spent the rest of the day experimenting with the pupae. By evening, they’d established that the pupae and beetles would transform into mirror bugs for any magician, just as Professor Jeffries had thought, and they were working on finding out how strongly the bugs were attracted to magic, from how far away. Papa, William, Lan, and Professor Jeffries were standing in a circle casting spells of different strengths, and Wash and Brant were in the middle with the mirror bugs and the few beetles that were left, counting how many moved in which direction.

All of a sudden, all the bugs and beetles stopped moving. Then the mirror bugs all leaned back on their rear legs and pivoted around, like they were looking for something. One after another, they took off, heading southwest. The beetles headed southwest, too, but they could only crawl. None of them got very far, though; even the flying mirror bugs had barely cleared the edge of the circle before they all dropped back to the ground and walked in little circles for a few seconds. After a minute, they all resumed crawling back toward Papa and the boys.

“Now what’s this about?” Professor Jeffries muttered.

They collected the bugs and beetles and put them back in the buckets for the night, then talked it over all through dinner. Nobody had any real idea what had made the bugs behave that way, though Lan suggested it might have something to do with sunset coming on.

The next morning over breakfast, Papa decided to go bug-hunting with Professor Jeffries and the boys, since there was no point in doing any more spell detecting at the settlement. I was getting more than a mite tired of helping Rennie all the time, though she wasn’t as bossy as I remembered. I wasn’t sure whether the difference was in her or me. Pinning my hair up and letting my hems down hadn’t made so much difference at home, but everyone there had had plenty of time to watch me growing, so it wasn’t so startling a change. Still, however much Rennie had mellowed, I couldn’t muster much enthusiasm for another day of housework and childings with no breaks.

So I told Rennie I was going to see everyone off and started down to the settlement gate with them, half hoping to persuade Papa to let me come along. We were hardly halfway there when we heard the ruckus at the gate. We could see four or five men yelling at each other, but we couldn’t make out the reason for the argument until we were right on top of them. Seems there was a new arrival who hadn’t stopped to dismiss his traveling spells, and the Rationalists were well and truly peeved about it. Some of the things the new man was yelling made it pretty clear that he didn’t think much of the Rationalists and their ways, settlement rules or no.

As soon as he saw Papa and Professor Jeffries, the newcomer quit yelling at the gatekeeper and started yelling at us. It took a few minutes to get him settled down enough to make sense. It seemed that the settlement magician two allotments over had been trying something new, and now all the settlement spells had failed. They’d heard that Papa and Professor Jeffries were visiting at Oak River, so they’d sent this fellow to ask if they’d come help put the spells back up.

Of course, Papa and the professor agreed. Papa decided to take Lan along, so he could observe the spell casting. He offered to take William, too, but William said his studies weren’t advanced enough yet for him to get much out of watching, and he’d rather stay behind with Wash and me. Papa consulted with the messenger and told us not to worry if they weren’t back for lunch, and they set off.

We had to explain it all to Mr. Harrison and Mr. Lewis, who came along too late to get in on the planning. Neither of them was too happy. Mr. Harrison just seemed to have a grump on about everything Papa and Professor Jeffries did, and Mr. Lewis was cross about having to put up with Mr. Harrison some more. I was a sight more sympathetic toward Mr. Lewis; after all, he hadn’t really known what he was getting into when he offered to put Mr. Harrison up while we were in Oak River.

Wash, William, and I walked slowly back to Brant and Rennie’s, and on the way I asked Wash about the charm he’d given me. Before he could answer, William jumped in, wanting to know all sorts of things about it, just as if he was one of my older brothers.

“Wash gave it to me,” I said. “After that night at the wagonrest when you and Lan had that illusion-casting contest.”

“It wasn’t a contest,” William objected. Then he frowned and looked at Wash. “You mean there really was something to all Eff’s fussing about making other people’s spells go wrong?”

“You might say that,” Wash replied. “I confess to having a certain curiosity over the whys and wherefores of it, but Miss Rothmer seemed disinclined to account for it.”

They both looked at me. I sighed. I still didn’t want to explain, but I felt like I owed them an answer, even if neither of them had actually asked a question yet. “It’s…it’s because I’m thirteenth-born,” I said, looking down at the toes of my walking boots so I wouldn’t have to see their faces.

There was a long silence. Then, in tones of complete outrage, William said, “ That’s what you’ve been worried about all this time?”