The Wizard of Dark Street Read online

  Samuligan had then stepped away from the young lady, gifting her with his best attempt at a gentlemanly smile. In response, the young lady merely whimpered before running away as fast as her feet could carry her.

  In short, Samuligan was an enigma, which was surely due to the fact that he was the only faerie Oona had ever met—indeed, the only faerie any living human had met. And as far as Oona knew, the faerie servant was the only creature of his kind this side of the Glass Gates, which made him all the more curious.

  “Don’t mind Deacon,” Oona told Samuligan. He tipped his hat back on his head, carefully eyeing the flying bird as it circled him. “He’s always suspicious of tall, dark figures,” she said.

  Samuligan’s hand shot out without the slightest hesitation—brilliant, keen. He snatched Deacon out of the air with a snakelike deftness and smiled as the bird twitched in his gangly fingers. “As well he should be,” Samuligan said.

  “Free me this instant,” Deacon squawked.

  Oona watched the two of them, shaking her head. The funny thing was that she had always harbored a sneaking suspicion that it had truly been Samuligan, and not her uncle after all, who had enchanted Deacon with the gift of speech and invested in him such vast quantities of reference materials. Even almost two years ago, when she had received the bird as an eleventh birthday present, Oona had been aware of what a highly impressive magical achievement Deacon was, and though she loved her uncle very much, she didn’t think he was truly capable of such a powerful creation. At least not on his own. Surely Samuligan had had a hand in it. She would never have told Deacon of her suspicions, however. Not with the bird’s presently justifiable mistrust of the faerie servant.

  “Now, Samuligan, that’s not funny,” she chided. “Let Deacon go.”

  Samuligan nodded, but instead of simply releasing the bird, the faerie servant glanced toward Oona’s dressing table and nodded. Simultaneously, he stamped his foot and said: “Switch!”

  Half a second later he no longer held the bird, but instead his fingers were wrapped around the handle of Oona’s hairbrush. Deacon appeared just as suddenly on the spot where the brush had been on the table. His legs wobbled and his head jerked around, as if trying to understand what had just happened.

  “I’ve never seen that trick before,” Oona said, quite impressed, while at the same time feeling a twinge of guilt at having had enjoyed the magic.

  Samuligan ran his thumb over the bristles of the brush. “I just made it up,” he said.

  “I never!” Deacon said. “What utter savagery!”

  Samuligan reached into his pocket and produced a dead mouse. He tossed it upward and Deacon dove for it, snatching it out of the air as deftly as Samuligan had snatched Deacon himself. The faerie rubbed his fingers together. “Savage indeed,” he said.

  Deacon landed on the floor, biting the mouse in two and devouring it with unrestrained vigor.

  “Oh, I wish you hadn’t given him that,” Oona told Samuligan. “I don’t like it when he takes his meals in here.”

  “I apologize,” Samuligan replied. “Now about your hair.”

  He ran the brush across the top of Oona’s head.

  She took in a sharp breath, her eyes falling shut as she rose onto her tiptoes. She could feel it. The charge. The energy. The magic. The shock of it sent her tumbling back into her chair. It was like an old friend, or an enemy. She could not have said which was more accurate. The image of hundreds of sparkling lights swirling around an enormous fig tree filled her vision like a terrible dream. She wanted to cry out, to tell Samuligan to stop … that she had made a mistake … but before she could do so, the image dropped away. The magic withdrew, and that oh-so-familiar feeling of fear and wonderment dissolved away almost completely—almost, but not quite.

  She became acutely aware of the soft carpet under her feet, and the wood beneath the carpet. She looked into Samuligan’s long face. Her midnight-black hair cascaded down her shoulders, full, and straight, and shining as if it had been freshly washed. She ran her fingers through the familiar strands and nodded.

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice trembling.

  “Your uncle awaits you in his study,” Samuligan said before handing her the brush and then striding out of the room, the dark folds of his coat billowing behind him like a curtain of night.

  Deacon peered up at Oona, the bloody remains of the dead mouse now nothing but a thin stain on the carpet. The mouse’s tail hung limp from his dull, black beak like a dead worm.

  “Really, Deacon. Bones and all!” Oona said. “You must learn to control yourself.”

  He flew to her shoulder. She winced as the tail slapped against her newly grown hair and then disappeared down Deacon’s gullet. She stood, and the two of them followed the faerie servant to the bottom floor, where she found her uncle waiting for her in his study, along with the lawyer.

  Imust admit,” said the Wizard. “I did expect somewhat of a larger response from New York.”

  His long beard hung from his face as gray as a winter storm. He leaned forward in his chair, picking up the single résumé on his desk. He frowned, deepening the lines about his eyes. With the hood of his dark purple robe thrown back over his shoulders, the Wizard’s bald head glinted in the ever-burning magical lamplight. A large nose and generous mouth gave him a gentle appearance, while his green eyes seemed somehow older than his sixty years. He studied the résumé. The paper was creased in the middle and charred black around the edges.

  “I warned you,” said the lawyer, Mr. Ravensmith. “Times are not what they once were. There is no more interest in magic these days than there is in cave painting. It has now been over six months since your original post in the New York Times, and if you ask for my counsel, the advertisement was wrongly worded.”

  Oona stood beside her uncle, who sat slumped forward in a high-backed, wooden Wizard’s seat, his elbows resting on the ornately carved desk. The desk—an ancient relic, purportedly carved from the bones of a dragon—gave the appearance of slowly breathing in and out, as if the dragon from which it had been carved were merely sleeping, its breath as faint as a mouse’s footsteps.

  Her uncle’s study was a solitary place, filled with shelves of books. A stone fireplace was set into the corner of the room, in front of which sat a cozy chair and side table. A lone tea saucer floated aimlessly above the table, moving in figure eights, as if in search of its missing cup. It was a testament to the eccentric magic that the Magicians of Old had long ago placed into the house itself. The house was, in many ways, like a living thing, filled with peculiar pockets of energy that manifested in often strange ways. The first lesson that any new apprentice learned was that, should the Glass Gates ever fall, it was the current Wizard’s responsibility to access the magic stored in the walls of Pendulum House in order to protect the World of Man from faerie attack.

  Deacon stood wraithlike upon Oona’s shoulder, and Samuligan had disappeared into the shadows of the grandfather clock near the door. The room smelled of incense, and books, and dust.

  The gentleman seated across from the Wizard wore the finest of modern clothing. His beautifully tailored jacket showed off his broad, well-built figure, and his hair was groomed in the cleanest, most stylishly neat fashion. Mr. Ravensmith’s most striking characteristic, however, was his face. Much like young Adler Iree, the lawyer’s face was covered in tattoos of odd shapes and symbols of varying colors, except that Mr. Ravensmith’s tattoos numbered far more than Adler’s. So plentiful were Ravensmith’s markings that the skin around his cheeks and eyes appeared to be a mask of solid silver and gold, with intricate veins of purple and blue crisscrossing like cracks in weatherworn paint.

  Ravensmith brushed away a nearly invisible bit of dust from the sleeve of his black jacket. “The advertisement should have mentioned a large sum of money. That would have gotten their attention.”

  “Money?” said the Wizard.

  “Or, at the very least,” Mr. Ravensmith went on, “you might hav
e specified the proper method for the applicants to send in their résumés. No doubt, anyone interested in the position tried to use their American postal service instead of properly addressing their letters and then setting them on fire.”

  “Well, if they couldn’t figure that out,” the Wizard said stubbornly, “then they don’t deserve the position. And look here.” He waved the résumé with the blackened edges in front of him. “At least someone from New York figured it out. And as far as money is concerned, I think you are quite wrong, Mr. Ravensmith. If someone is more interested in money than in learning magic for its own sake, then I won’t have them.”

  Mr. Ravensmith raised his thick eyebrows before clearing his throat. “Speaking of money … and with all due respect, it is something I am loath to bring up, but my secretary, Mr. Quick, has informed me that we have yet to receive any payments from you, whatsoever, for services rendered in the past two years.”

  Mr. Ravensmith pulled a thick envelope from his inside pocket and gave it a little shake, as if ringing a bell. “Mr. Quick was so good as to tally up all one hundred and sixteen invoices.”

  The Wizard said nothing, only sat there, elbows pressing in on the slowly breathing desk. Deacon shifted restlessly on Oona’s shoulder.

  “And that, I’m afraid, is just the beginning,” Mr. Ravensmith went on. “While it’s true that you have sold quite a lot of your ever-burning lamps, and that your never-melting ice was a great success in the past, the problem remains that no one ever needs to come back and buy more. The lamps stop working the instant they are removed from Dark Street, and the ice immediately begins to melt the moment it crosses through the Iron Gates, so there is no chance of selling them in New York. Your enchantment store has done nothing but lose money for three years straight. Your house staff has dwindled to one servant because of lack of funds, and those who have left are demanding their severance pay. Your love for throwing frivolous parties has pushed you into considerable debt. The list goes on and on, Alexander.”

  Mr. Ravensmith paused to once again brush some bit of dust from his jacket. The room remained decidedly silent. The lawyer shifted uneasily in his chair before continuing, his voice losing all sense of formality and dropping into exasperation. “Do you know, Alexander, that Miss Colbert, your former cleaning maid, came to me not six months ago complaining of her sudden dismissal from your service? She was threatening to sue. I was forced to take her on as a maid myself, if only to appease her. It is lucky for you that I can always use another cleaning lady, so I hired her on the spot. And to tell the truth, her superior talent for cleaning both my office and my home leaves me completely baffled as to why she was let go in the first place. Perhaps if you gave up these outlandish parties you keep throwing, then you might be able to hire her back.”

  Mr. Ravensmith ran a finger along the arm of his chair, creating a trail in the dust. The tattoos on his face squinched up, and he sat forward in his seat, as if in imminent danger of sullying his jacket.

  Oona frowned. It had been Oona herself who had discovered the maid stealing silver from the Pendulum House kitchen, and Oona believed that her uncle had been extraordinarily lenient by simply relieving the maid of her duties and not reporting the incident to the police.

  Mr. Ravensmith might want to lock up his silverware, Oona thought.

  “I fear, Alexander,” Mr. Ravensmith added in an eerily hushed tone, “that your … creditor … has become somewhat impatient.”

  Oona glanced suspiciously at her uncle, but remained quiet. She had known he was having financial troubles, but to what extent, she was unsure. Her uncle disliked the subject of money, she knew, and had never shared such information with her.

  As if to prove his dislike for the subject, the Wizard ignored Mr. Ravensmith’s envelope, focusing instead on the résumé.

  “Well,” he said after a long moment, “this applicant will have to do. Samuligan, where is he now?”

  Samuligan spoke from the shadows. “As Mr. Ravensmith has instructed, he is in the parlor. With the others.”

  “The others, yes,” the Wizard said, opening a drawer in the desk and removing four more sheets of paper. Similarly burned around the edges, he placed those résumés on top of the first, looking more disappointed than ever. “Four applicants from Dark Street, and one from the World of Man. That is all. There was once a time when … when … Ah, but let’s not dwell upon the past.”

  He turned to Oona, a sadness in his face that she found difficult to look at. He appeared reluctant to speak. “You will need to sign away your rights as my apprentice, Oona. This is very serious now, and if you are certain that this detective business is what you want, I won’t stand in your way. So long as you are careful.”

  Oona nodded, afraid that if she spoke, her voice would betray her mixed feelings.

  The Wizard turned to the grandfather clock. “Samuligan, please accompany Mr. Ravensmith to the parlor.”

  “It shall be done, sir.” The faerie servant stepped from the shadow of the clock, his tall, razor-thin body poised to attention.

  “Mr. Ravensmith,” the Wizard said. “Please have each of the applicants sign the appropriate eligibility contract. Miss Crate will be along in a moment to sign her own relinquishing document as well, but I wish to speak with her alone.”

  Mr. Ravensmith sighed, agitatedly returning the unpaid invoice to his pocket. He stood, brushed the dust from his coattails, and followed Samuligan to the door.

  “I can wait outside, if you wish, sir,” Deacon offered, but after a moment’s consideration the Wizard shook his head, indicating that that would be unnecessary. He waived a hand to Samuligan, who closed the door, leaving the Wizard alone with Deacon and Oona.

  “Lawyers!” said the Wizard. He leaned back in his chair and, in a softer tone, said: “You have backbone, my dear. A spirit I can only admire. It is a spirit that would serve this seat well. The things you could do.” He nodded to no one in particular and added: “I envy you. As an apprentice I, too, had other interests. Other aspirations. I might have gone on to become one of the great badminton players of our time. But that is neither here nor there. I stayed. There were others who were even better suited for the position than I was, but I stayed because it was what was expected of me.”

  Oona felt a dull ache growing in her chest. She bit the inside of her cheek, trying not to let her emotions show. She felt sad for him, this old man who had sacrificed himself for the honored magical position. Dutifully. In a way, she felt she was letting him down, he who had raised her as his own. Educated her. Protected her.

  “I don’t blame you for abandoning your post,” the Wizard continued. “Nor do I blame you for your dislike of magic. How could I? What happened to your mother and sister that day in the park was very sad. Very, very sad, and unfortunate. I loved them deeply as well. We both miss them very much, but you can’t continue to blame yourself, Oona. It was an accident. I am as much responsible for what happened as anyone else. I was responsible for you. For honing your extraordinary powers.”

  He gazed at her as if expecting a reply. But what reply was there to give? She was silent. The dragon-bone desk breathed steadily in the background, and the floating tea saucer over the fireside table continued its endless pattern of crazy eights.

  “I must warn you, Oona,” the Wizard continued, “some people may be able to simply walk away from this position and leave the magic behind. But not you. You are a Natural Magician. The magic is in you. And while you continue to live with me, though I will have a new apprentice, I believe I still have the responsibility of helping you control those powers.”

  The thought was a sobering one. Oona had of course known that leaving her position as apprentice would not rid her of the magic, but only of her obligation to practice it. Still, the idea that she would need to keep it under control for the rest of her life was an unpleasant thought, to say the least.

  She glanced nervously at Deacon, but the bird remained respectfully silent.

 
“The reason I bring these things up now,” the Wizard said, “is because if your disinterest in magic spawns solely from what happened in the park, then I urge you to reconsider giving up the apprenticeship. If, on the other hand, it is something more than that … for instance, your heart calling you in another direction, then I urge you to follow this new direction. Think on that before you sign the papers. That is all I ask.”

  Oona swallowed hard. “I will.” She felt like a little girl again, small, and fragile, and confused.

  “Now please, Oona, leave me alone for a moment. I will meet the applicants only after they have signed the documents. In the meantime, I need to drink.” He cleared his throat, and corrected himself: “I mean think.”

  Oona pushed open the study door, exited the room, and turned back. The Wizard sat drumming his long, wrinkled fingers on the desk, introspective, not looking at her. The door had just begun to close when her uncle abruptly stood and moved to the bookcase behind the desk. He made a sudden motion with his hand. The gesture was quick and precise, but with his back to her, such as it was, Oona was unable to make out what the movement had been. To her surprise, a shelf swung outward in front of the Wizard, revealing a hidden compartment behind the books. The study door had closed almost completely when Oona stopped it with her foot, leaving only a crack through which to see. Inside the hidden compartment she could make out what looked like the curling edges of several flat sheets of paper, on top of which sat a mysterious black ball. A bottle of scotch whiskey and a glass sat beside the papers, and farther back in the compartment, she thought she glimpsed the dark outline of a large book. The Wizard poured a drink, closed the shelf, and returned to the desk.

  Oona let the door fall slowly shut behind her.