Apprentice needed, p.23
Apprentice Needed, page 23
Jon swore.
He was most angry at himself. To get tricked by a couple of kids and a loon was an embarrassing blow to his devious pride.
Jon swore again.
He threw the car into drive and pushed on the gas. His bumper hit the van and he accelerated even more. The van moved a couple of inches, honking its horn to let him know that what he was doing was extremely unacceptable stuck-in-traffic behavior.
He jammed the gears into reverse and flew backward into the sedan. The airbag in the red car went off as Jon gave his vehicle gas and pushed the red car back a foot or so. There was more honking from a number of cars as he put his into drive again and rammed the van with force.
He backed up into the red car again and turned hard to the right.
His inconsiderate driving had created just enough room for him to weave around the van and race up the shoulder toward the man with the yellow hat. The roadworker waved his hand and lifted his sign in a frantic gesture. If he thought his sign would stop Jon, he was dead wrong. Which is why he jumped off the shoulder and into the bushes in an effort to not be dead dead.
Jon scraped up against two of the vehicles in front of him as he flew up the shoulder. Passing the first car in line, he swerved back onto the road and raced with purpose in the direction that Ozzy had just gone. The road was absent of any other cars, leaving Jon free to floor it. He took four turns faster than the signs suggested he should. Screeching around another corner, he could see something in the distance. Up ahead on the side of the road was Ozzy with his wizard and Sigi.
Jon’s eyes burned with anger as he tried to push the gas down even harder. He focused on Ozzy and saw him jump off the road into the trees with the others. What he didn’t see was the black bird who had just flown up under his car.
Using the knowledge he had recently acquired from YouTube videos and books, Clark grabbed onto an engine mount and then twisted up on top of the engine and began biting at wires and hoses. He wasn’t impressed with the engine of Jon’s car. He also wasn’t sure where the fuel line was on an early 2000s beige Corolla, so he just kept biting and tearing.
He missed the fuel line but did a bang-up job of cutting the brakes and three of the four spark plug wires. The already-underpowered engine began sputtering, firing on only one cylinder.
Inside the car, Jon realized that now might be a good time to stomp on the brakes and slow down. Unfortunately, the brakes were no longer working. He tried to turn, but the steering wheel was locked. The beige Corolla kept flying straight toward where Ozzy and the others had entered the trees.
Jon screamed as the car launched off the side of the road into the forest.
Running frightened down the tree-packed slope, Ozzy and the others could hear trees cracking and screaming as momentum, inertia, and gravity hurled the beige car down toward them. They scrambled madly out of the way in hopes of not being hit.
Trees snapped and flew forward, barely missing Sigi and the wizard. The car hit a tree big enough to stand its ground, and the front of the vehicle compacted like a tin can, leaving it wedged between a least a dozen smaller trees.
Ozzy and the others were only a few feet away from where it had come to a stop.
“That was too close,” Sigi said, shaking and on the verge of tears.
Through the cracked windows, they could see Jon in the front seat. The air bag had gone off and he was angrily trying to get out of his seatbelt. But his restraint was jammed and he was stuck tightly in place.
“You’ll pay for this!” Jon yelled.
“You should quit while you’re ahead,” Rin said.
Clark crawled out from under the bottom of the car near Sigi.
“I accidently cut the brakes,” Clark explained. “And the steering. And some sparky wires.”
Rin smiled. “I’m glad we’re friends and not enemies.”
Up above them all, where the car had flown off the road, they saw people looking down at Jon’s vehicle.
“Are you okay?” a man yelled.
“That’s our cue,” Rin whispered.
They turned from the car and ran away from any attention, farther down the tree-covered slope. The ground was so steep that their descent was more of a controlled fall than a run. They bounced and spun between trees, letting gravity move them. Rin led the way, Ozzy right behind him, and Sigi in the back, Clark zooming all around them.
“Keep going!” the bird yelled, sounding like an uncaring coach.
After what felt like just shy of forever, they slowed their pace to a lumbering jog and tried to catch their breath. Rin snagged his robe on a low-hanging branch for the tenth time, causing him to almost lose his footing. He pulled his robe free from the branch and it flew back, hitting Clark squarely in the beak. The bird flew backward a few feet and then zipped forward, nipping the wizard on the fingers that were holding his staff.
“That’s my conjuring hand,” Rin complained.
“How would I know?” the bird squawked back. “I’ve never seen you conjure. And what would it kill you to change shape every once and a while?”
“Who said I don’t?”
“If you do, it’s probably into something lame like a broom.”
“Hey,” Rin said defensively as he ran, “have you ever tried to sweep an entire castle without one?”
The wizard continued to move through some tight trees, Ozzy and Sigi right behind him.
“Can you tell us where this shortcut is?” Ozzy asked.
“No.”
“Is that because you don’t know?” Sigi said.
There was a long pause as they all stepped carefully through a wide patch of scrub brush and tall bushes.
“I know,” Rin finally answered, “and it’s not far.”
Clark wanted to change the subject. “Do you think that bland guy will stop following us now?”
“He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy that just lets things go,” Ozzy observed. “Even if he’s been taken down by a bird.”
Rin’s robe got caught again and he jerked back and fell to the ground. His hat came off and his staff smacked him on the head. Ozzy and Sigi stopped to help him up.
“Thanks. Trees have always been an ally,” he said, confused. “It seems now as if they’re conspiring to take me down.”
Clark chastised the wizard. “I don’t think you’re wearing the best running-through-the-woods-frantically clothes.”
They all took a moment to stand still and further catch their breath. The trees around them were an avocado green, filled with birds complaining about them traipsing through their private and secluded woods. The air smelled like pine, and sweat, and uncertainty.
“Would you please knock it off!” Clark yelled at the birds.
They didn’t listen.
“Well, I tried,” Clark said. “I’m not Ozzy’s parents. I mean, it’s not like I have the ability to control the minds of other birds.”
Everyone stared at him as he sat perched on a branch.
“What?” he asked. “Too soon?”
“Come on,” Rin said beginning to run again. “It’s not much farther.”
Ozzy lost his footing and took a turn tumbling onto his back before Rin stopped him.
“Do we really have to be running?” Sigi asked. “I don’t think anyone’s following us.”
“We’re not running to escape something,” her father said. “We’re running because time is perishable. Come on.”
Everything began to close in as the tops of the trees prevented more and more light from reaching them.
The slope ended abruptly, and then they were standing in a stone-filled ravine. A small trickle of water ran through the stones and gave the quiet forest a background gurgle.
Ozzy was used to all the forest running, but for the rest, it was taking a toll. Rin tried in vain to appear in control and wizardly as he hacked up a lung.
“Where are we?” Ozzy asked.
“Lost,” Clark suggested.
“Not lost.” Rin coughed. “This way.”
The wizard walked west down the rocky ravine. Ozzy and Sigi followed, stepping carefully along the trickling stream of water and wet stones. Overhead, long branches blocked most of the sky from view.
“Here.” Rin turned and walked directly into a wall of bushes that were growing on the stone wall of the ravine. The growth parted and swallowed the wizard whole.
“What the shrub?” Clark chirped.
Ozzy pushed into the bushes, following Rin. Sigi clung to the back of his shirt with Clark in her hair. Everything was dark for a few moments before Rin turned on his phone’s flashlight.
In awe, Ozzy looked around.
Sigi did the same as her father moved his phone to light up more of the space.
“It’s a little dark for my taste,” Clark complained.
The space they were standing in was a large cave, filled with a cool dampness. It had a high ceiling and a dirt floor peppered with small stones. To the left they could see the mouths of three dark tunnels. To the right was a big rectangular space with a thin pool of water on the far side.
“What is this place?” Clark flew up and hovered in front of the phone’s flashlight. “Is this where you live?”
“No,” Rin insisted.
“How’d you know it was here?” Sigi asked.
“Let’s just say some heavy things happened here years ago.”
“What things?” Ozzy asked, wishing he were in bed, or lying down.
“I don’t know,” the wizard said, sounding curious himself. “But I’m sure something did. Follow me.”
Rin walked over to where the thin pool of water was and sat down on a flat rock near the water’s edge. Ozzy and Sigi picked their own rocks and took a seat.
“What now?” Sigi said. “Are those tunnels the shortcut?”
“I’ve always thought caves were the perfect place to talk,” the wizard said without answering his daughter. “In Quarfelt, we hold most of our important conversations in caves.”
“Dad,” Sigi said, “could we not talk about Quarfelt now? We’re in trouble, and I don’t believe speeches about Quarfelt are going to help. You think it does, but all the magic things you claim to show us are just things that can be written off as luck.”
“You’re encouraged to doubt,” Rin said kindly. “Just don’t let the questioning end before the right answer arrives. And you’re always welcome to just borrow some of my and Ozzy’s understanding until the time comes that it makes sense to you.”
“Don’t borrow mine,” Ozzy said softly. “I think I feel the same way as Sigi.”
Rin looked wounded.
“Sorry, I’ve read and re-read all the books I can about wizards, and they still seem more fictional than factual. Nobody else buys into them as something real.”
“Are we going with what everyone else knows?”
“No,” Ozzy insisted, his stomach twisting in knots, “but one of my teachers at school said that wizards are just a lazy writing device.”
“I do like to relax.”
“And why do you refuse to ever cast a real spell?” Ozzy asked. “Or work the kind of magic that we need?”
“I—”
“You’re about to say something that makes more sense on a plaque than in reality.” Ozzy’s head hurt and his words weren’t what he wanted them to be.
“Reality is not something I aspire to please,” Rin reminded them.
“Obviously,” Ozzy said.
Clark moved from the glow of the flashlight over to Ozzy’s right knee. “Listen, I find him infuriating as well, but he did make that car fly on and off that train.”
“Did he? Or was it just bad driving?”
“I get it,” Rin said. “You’re nervous about becoming an apprentice. You’ve passed three tests and now, as the fourth one looms, you’re getting cold feet, or as we say in Quarfelt, ice nubbins.”
“You don’t get it,” Ozzy insisted. “I’m saying that I can’t be your apprentice because I can’t accept that everything you say is true.”
“Don’t discredit the impossible because you don’t believe me,” Rin said seriously. “Magic happens despite what we do or don’t believe. There is good—and there is evil. In life, some good wins and some evil is victorious. What you or I believe doesn’t change that—it just changes us.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel good?” Ozzy argued.
“No,” Rin replied.
Ozzy stood up and walked away from Rin and Sigi and back toward the three tunnels. After only two steps away, the darkness swallowed him. Sigi got up, but Rin motioned for her to stay seated.
“He needs to be alone.” Rin closed his eyes. When he opened them ten seconds later, he looked serious and like someone who was about to tell a scary story. “Sometimes walking into the dark helps a person to see how valuable the light is.”
“Dad, this isn’t a game.”
“I agree with you.”
“And you should know that Ozzy’s not saying anything that I haven’t thought in ways that are even stronger. Magic took you away from me and Mom.”
“That’s not true,” the wizard insisted. “Your mother and I didn’t see eye to eye on too many things to make it work.”
“Yeah. Things like this wizard stuff.” Sigi was upset. Even in the cool cave her face burned. “I’ve had no dad for most of the last ten years. Except for when you showed up to embarrass me. Do you know how horrible it is to have your father show up on career day to tell your class he’s a wizard?”
“You’re strong enough to put up with anyone who doesn’t understand.”
“Don’t,” Sigi insisted. “One of the best times of my life was the time in New Mexico. I was scared, confused, and overwhelmed, but what you did for Ozzy made me proud to be your daughter. Now I can’t help but think you just love using rideshare apps and hiding in caves. I’m one of those people you just mentioned. One who doesn’t understand.”
Rin moved over to a stone right next to Sigi. His phone was still glowing, but the dark hid both their eyes and their expressions.
“I can’t force you to believe what I’m saying is true,” he said softly. “I can only say that I’m sorry you feel the way you do. And even though those last two lines rhymed, I mean them as sincerely as the driest poem you’ve ever read.”
“You’re still sticking with Quarfelt being real?” she asked.
There was a long silence before Sigi spoke again.
“If you’re nodding, I can’t see it.”
“I was nodding,” Rin told her. “Quarfelt is real whether you want to believe it or not. I would be a poor excuse for a wizard if I lied about its existence.”
“I’ve never heard anyone else mention it,” she argued.
“Do you know other wizards?”
“No, but it seems like something like that would come up when people talk about myths, or legends, or aliens, or Bigfoot, or conspiracy theories about nuts.”
The words were meant to sting, but Rin didn’t sound stung.
“Yeah,” he said, “I do think Quarfelt could have a better marketing and advertising campaign. The banner that hangs off the capital castle reads ‘Quarfelt: Quar-feel the Magic.’ Not a great slogan.”
“Is telling me that supposed to help me believe?” Sigi groaned. “People think you’re crazy, Dad.”
“Well, I suppose we’re all crazy in some way,” Rin admitted. “If I was an accountant, or a salesman, they might still feel the same. As a wizard, I make it easy for them to point and laugh. But people don’t point and laugh at you, Sigourney.”
Sigi softened at the sound of her father using her full first name.
“They might pity you because of what I am,” her dad continued, “but there will come a time when they will realize just how much this world needs a wizard.”
“I don’t see that ever happening.”
Rin stood up. “Do you know what I call this cave?”
“No. Up until a few minutes ago I didn’t know it even existed.”
“I call it the Multiple-Choice Cave.”
“Why?”
“Because of the three tunnels that lead off this room. They all lead to three very different spots. One of them is safe, one is dangerous, and one . . .”
“One is dangerous?” Sigi said standing up.
“Yes, yes,” Rin said defensively, “but the other one leads—”
“Ozzy!” Sigi called out. “Oz!”
There was no answer other than the echo of her own voice.
“Ozzy!” she tried again.
“He might be exploring the tunnels.”
“What if he went down the dangerous one?”
Sigi yanked her father’s phone out of his hands and ran toward the tunnels, yelling, “Ozzy! Clark!”
Rin came running up behind her.
“Which one’s the safe tunnel?” she asked, shining the light at the three entrances.
“It’s multiple choice,” Rin said excitedly. “You have to choose. That’s why I named it—”
“Dad! Ozzy could be in trouble, and there’s no light in those tunnels to charge Clark. So stop with the multiple choice and tell me which tunnel to take.”
“Well, it’s cheating, but that’s the safe one.” Rin pointed to the middle tunnel. “Wait. It might be that one. No—we should take the middle one. Ozzy makes pretty good choices and I’m sure the middle one is the one he took.”
Sigi looked at the battery life on her father’s phone.
“Your phone’s down to 19 percent.”
“Some see the battery as 81 percent empty,” the wizard told her. “I see it as 19 percent full.”
“Unbelievable. I don’t understand you. Mom said that when I was little, you used to worry about everything. Now you act like nothing is wrong even when everything’s falling apart.”
“I wasn’t a wizard back then,” Rin told her. “Now, should we stand here and worry? Or run into the dark?”
