A Tale of Highly Unusual Magic (11 page)

She played on and on until, finally, she became aware of a third strand on the braid of sound. A breeze lifted the white curtains until they fell back, like a sigh. Stopping, Kai turned to Doodle. “Did you hear that?”

“What?”

“It—it was like something was playing along. Matching my song.” Kai played a few more notes, but nothing happened. “It's gone.” She listened a moment longer. Nothing. She shook her head and swiped a finger across Doodle's tablet, to the next page of music. When her eye landed at the bottom of the page, she murmured, “Oh, my . . .”

Her voice evaporated—she had no breath to speak with.

Doodle looked at her sharply. “What is it?”

Glancing up at her friend, she touched the signature on the screen.

“What does that say?” Doodle craned her neck to see. “Edward?”

“Edwina,”
Kai told her. “Edwina Pickle.”

Their eyes locked. Neither knew what to say, for they both realized at the same moment that there could be only one Edwina Pickle—the one who wrote a diary of moths and music must be the same as the one in the magical book.

“I'm scared,” Kai said after a moment. “What does it mean?”

“I don't know.”

“Should I—?” She glanced at the violin.

“I don't know,” Doodle replied.

I won't play the rest,
Kai thought.
I won't.
But—almost against her will—her violin nestled under her jaw and her bow traveled to the strings.

She played.

She played the sounds up to the stars, out into space, to heaven or wherever someone like Edwina might be, and she didn't stop until she heard Doodle gasp.

“What?” Kai cried. Her eyes snapped open; she had not even realized they were closed. “What is it?”

With trembling finger, Doodle pointed at the peanut butter jar on her side table.

“Oh, wow,” Kai said as the cocoon—
jumped
.

Something inside it was alive.

“Are you ready?” Ralph asked, holding up the folded piece of paper. He lay in his hospital bed, his leg raised, and Edwina sat perched on a chair beside him. She smiled, and Ralph let his eyes linger on the crinkles at the corners of her dark eyes.

“Do you want to read it out loud, or should I?” Edwina asked.

“You do it.” Ralph handed her the paper.

Edwina unfolded it inch by inch, slowly revealing the alternating handwriting—hers, then his, then hers, then his again. Rain tapped and spattered against the tall windows, trapping them indoors. But Edwina had suggested a game of Exquisite Corpse, and so she and Ralph had passed a pleasant afternoon together, coming up with tale after tale. Each would write part of a story, and then fold it over so that only the last sentence showed. The other would then come up with the next part, and fold it again.

Edwina read aloud:

“Once upon a time there was a girl who lived in a hole. A horrible man had put her there, with no way to get out. It was a very deep and dark hole, and the girl was very lonely there.

“One day, the girl received a visitor. It was a mole. ‘Hello!' said the mole. ‘I am sure we will be good friends!'

“The mole lived underground, of course, but he didn't mind it. Sometimes, the mole tried to imagine what the sky was like. He had heard of it from an earthworm, but the worm's description didn't make much sense. Something about being quite the opposite of the hole: bright, and wide, but those words meant nothing to him, so he asked the girl.

“The girl puzzled over the words. Bright? Wide? What could they mean? She had lived underground so long that she had forgotten. One day, she decided to see if she could find a way out of her hole. She had to see the sky again.

“And so she asked the mole what to do. Naturally, the mole told her that she must dig!

“And so the girl did! She was a marvelous digger. As she went deeper and deeper underground, everything became darker and darker.

“‘This must be bright,' she thought. ‘This must be wide.' Then she saw something in the darkness—she pulled it out. It was a giant diamond. ‘Ugh, worthless,' she said to herself. ‘What use have I for a rock?' Just then, who should appear but her dear friend, the mole.

“‘What are you doing?' he asked.

“‘Digging toward the sky,' she said.

“‘Have you found it yet?'

“‘Yes, I believe so.'

“‘Ah, how wonderful,' said the mole. ‘I do love to be out in the bright, wide world.'

“And so they lived happily ever after, together, in the darkness underground.”

Edwina smiled softly, and folded the paper carefully, crease by crease.

“I do love a happy ending,” Ralph said.

“Yes.” She looked up at him. “It's a wonderful story. Like a fugue, almost. Different strands that come together.”

“Or like a magic trick.”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

Edwina looked out the window at the gray sky as
Ralph settled himself against his pillows. The heavy, weeping clouds made the long ward dim, but Ralph felt like the mole—happy in his darkness, uncaring of the wide world, and not at all lonely.

He was in love, and he knew it.

L
EILA WAS IN THE
yard in front of the Awans' house, thinking about what a lousy pet a goat seemed to make. True, the family had thanked her profusely and seemed really happy about it. But whenever Leila went out to the backyard to pet the silly thing, it would bang its head against her leg. It was pretty annoying. Leila had come out to the front to get away from her, leaving her tied up near a bunch of pretty red flowers that matched the design on her haunch.

The thick metal gate clanged open and a black car pulled into the driveway beside the small front lawn. The entire property was ringed by a high white wall, and topped with jagged broken glass. All of the large houses in the city were mostly hidden behind walls, with only
their tops showing. It was one of the major disappointments of Leila's visit. At home, she loved walking around her neighborhood and looking at houses. Sometimes, she would even catch a glimpse of a room, or a family beyond the window. But here, nobody in her family seemed to go for walks anywhere, and there wasn't much to look at but walls, anyway. Each house in this area was its very own fortress.

The gate squealed closed and the black car was still for a moment before a back door opened and a tall man in a bowler hat stepped out. He stood, taking in Leila, who sat on a white wicker chair near a mango tree. She wasn't sure whether or not she should get up, so she was halfway out of the chair when Mamoo announced, “Samir told me about the book.”

Leila fell out of the chair. It was a very inelegant fall—she tried to reverse her attempt to get up, then clutched at the armrest as her rear end missed the chair. Instead, she plopped onto her bottom and pulled the chair over onto its side next to her.

Mamoo made no move to help. It was impossible for Leila to tell whether he was surprised by her reaction.
Personally, I can tell you that Mamoo had lived long enough to know better than to be surprised by anything.

“I'm fine,” Leila told him, scrambling to her feet and patting the dead grass and dirt from the back of her shirt.

“Yes, I see that.” Mamoo helped her set the chair back upright. That was when she noticed that he was holding a thick, clothbound book in one hand.

“What's that?” Leila asked.

“The book,” Mamoo replied, holding it up. He really did not think much of Leila's intelligence. “For you. Samir said that you were interested.” The book was a dull red.
Kim
was stamped on the cover, and below that,
Rudyard Kipling
.

What is this?
Leila wondered, at the same moment that she was flooded with relief that Mamoo had not been talking about
The Exquisite Corpse
. She had, in fact, left her air-conditioned room to escape from the book in the first place. Even when she placed it beneath her folded jeans and closed her bottom drawer, she felt that she could still hear it buzzing, like an insect. She knew it was there. She was always waiting for it to sneak up on her.

The night before, she had conducted another
experiment. She wrote the first sentence of her favorite Dear Sisters novel in the book. “Elizabeth Dear frowned at her reflection in the mirror, wondering who would mistake such a typical American girl—with her smooth cornsilk hair and sea-blue eyes—for a countess.” Then she closed the book and waited. This morning, when she turned to the page where she had written the sentence, she found that it had disappeared.

The book had erased Elizabeth Dear! Leila suspected that
The Exquisite Corpse
was annoyed with her.

“Today we will go to see the gun.” Mamoo pursed his lips, managing to point to the book in her hand with his silver mustache.

What? What?
This sentence took a long time to worm its way through Leila's brain. Synapses went to work, connecting thoughts, until finally something lit up. “Kim's gun?” Leila said.

“Yes. And a trip to the Lahore Museum,” Mamoo said. “Where is Samir?” He barked something in Urdu to his driver, who jogged into the house. A few moments later, he reappeared. Samir trailed behind. “Hello, Mamoo!” he called cheerfully. “Are you ready?” he asked Leila.

“Are we going now?” Leila asked.

“Yes, we decided last night, remember?” Samir asked. “Ami has to visit a cousin in the hospital and Rabeea is going with her, so today's a good day to see the gun.” This plan
had
been discussed at length by the family the evening before. But, naturally, this discussion had taken place in Urdu. Leila had nodded and smiled whenever anyone looked over at her, and this was the result.

“Oh,” Leila said. “Okay.” She was happy to be going anywhere. She still hadn't even come close to getting her camel ride. When she suggested it, she was told her uncle was working, and her aunt was swept up in the daily tide of funerals and weddings and births and endless visits to sick cousins in the hospital that seemed to form the pattern of daily life in Lahore. The museum must have been settled on instead.

The driver hurried to open the doors to the car. Mamoo sat in front, and Leila and Samir sat in the backseat. Mamoo's driver was much more careful than Asif, but once they were off the quieter streets and onto the main thoroughfares, Leila still experienced the car trip as if she were inside a video game. Obstacles seemed to
materialize in front of them at random and unexpected intervals—potholes, pedestrians, donkey carts, motorized rickshaws, once even a camel—and the driver's primary job was not to drive, but simply to avoid these things.

“There it is!” Samir announced, pointing to the middle of the road.

There, on a median, stood an enormous concrete block. Atop the block was a long, black cannon.

“Oh.” This was not at all what Leila had pictured. She had thought Kim's gun was a revolver, or perhaps a shotgun. She certainly never expected to see it in the middle of the street.

“‘Who hold Zam-Zammah, that “fire-breathing dragon”, hold the Punjab, for the great green-bronze piece is always first of the conqueror's loot,'” Mamoo recited. Leila guessed that this was some quotation from the book in her hand.

“Would you like to get a closer look?” Samir asked as the driver guided the car to the curb.

Traffic darted past on either side of the median at the center of the street. “Not really,” Leila told him. “I can see it from here.”

“Nonsense,” Mamoo announced, shoving open his door. The driver got out and stopped traffic. Horns beeped indignantly at him. Well, Leila didn't have much choice at that point.

“Sorry! Sorry!” she called at the honking cars and motorized rickshaws as she hurried after Samir to the center of the street. The moment she passed, they tore away down the street.

The median was long, and crowded with bowls of birdseed and large shallow clay pots of water. A throng of pigeons waddled back and forth, pecking casually. “What's all this about?” Leila asked.

“It's a
sadaqa
,” Samir explained. “Feeding the birds is considered a . . .” He searched for the word. “. . . blessing? A good thing.”

When they got closer to the cannon, Leila saw that it was on an island of sorts, and protected by a gate. “I guess they don't want anyone playing on it.”

“That's how the book opens,” Mamoo said thoughtfully. “Kim sitting on the cannon, refusing to give his friends a turn. All small boys are the same, I suppose.”

Across the street, a beautiful brick building looked out
over old trees. At its four corners were minarets. “That's pretty,” Leila said.

“That's the museum,” Samir replied. “It's a landmark.”

Leila turned again to the cannon. The wheels were massive and towered over her from their place on the pedestal. “It's made of iron and brass,” Mamoo told her. “The people of the city gave their kitchen tools to make it.”

“It seems so strange that there are flowers on it,” Leila noted. There was writing, too.

Mamoo looked at her evenly. “Even flowers can be deadly.”

“The writing is Persian,” Samir put in. “The gun is called Zamzama, Taker of Strongholds.”

“What's the book about?” Leila asked. “
Kim
. I haven't read it yet.”

Mamoo's glance lingered on the cannon. “It's about a boy who goes on a search for a magical river with a Buddhist holy man.”

“He becomes a British spy,” Samir added.

Well, that spy part sounds good, at least
, Leila thought. It sounded like the kind of thing that would happen to the Dears.

“Kipling's father was the curator of the Lahore Museum,” Mamoo said. “Did you know that?”

Leila shook her head. “No.”

Traffic sped past. Overhead, the telephone wires were lined with birds. Pigeons swarmed around their feet. The sky was full of smoke. And here was this massive cannon, this relic from another age, something from a story. Leila wished that she could think of something profound to say. The moment seemed to require something, but she did not know what to give it.

“I guess I've seen enough,” she said at last.

Leila wasn't really a “museum girl,” and the Lahore Museum didn't appeal to her at first. It had a bunch of stuff in glass cases. The usual things: weapons, jewelry, pottery. There were some rugs laid out on a platform. She was more interested in the uniformed guards, who carried scary-looking guns. They were mildly terrifying. Leila had noticed that there were guards everywhere in the city—even the ice-cream shop where she had taken Wali had a guard outside the door, now that she thought about it.

But Samir was interested in everything, and seemed to know a lot about the artifacts. He and Mamoo got into an animated argument over the possible uses of a Persian bowl.

They stopped before a radiant gold Buddha behind a red rope. Samir stood looking at it for a long time.

“My mom's kind of into Buddhism,” Leila said. “I didn't know there were Buddhists in Pakistan.” She was surprised by the collection of Buddha statues—a Buddha on a lotus, a Buddha in paradise, even a fasting Buddha that was all skin and bones.

“There were,” Mamoo said. “There used to be everything in Pakistan. We are lucky these are still here. For now.”

“What do you mean?” Leila asked. “Why wouldn't they be here?”

“Several years ago, the Taliban blew up the Buddhas of Bamiyan. I'm sure they would like to destroy these, as well.”

“Those were Afghan Taliban, not Pakistani,” Samir argued.

“They are all the same,” Mamoo replied. “The Buddhas
were irreplaceable. I would have loved to see them.”

They moved on. Leila felt a little differently about the armed guards now. She was glad they were there to protect the art. After another hour of trekking through the museum, Leila's brain felt tired. Samir wanted to take Leila to Lahore Fort, but Mamoo suggested that they return home for lunch. “We will see the fort another day.”

“But Badshahi Mosque?” Samir said. “And the tomb of Muhammad Iqbal?”

“What do you say, Leila?” Mamoo asked.

“I really want to see the mosque. But . . . that sounds like a lot. And I'm kinda hungry.”

“I understand,” Samir said darkly. His arched eyebrow was higher than ever. Leila could tell that he was disappointed, and she felt guilty.

But she was starving. And half brain-dead from heat and museum artifacts.

When they pulled into the driveway of the Awan house, Asif ran toward the car waving his arms. Samir put down the window, and Asif looked at Leila, then spoke rapidly in Urdu.

“What is it?” Leila asked as Samir sprang from the car.

Mamoo leaned around the front seat. “Apparently, there is a sick goat.”

“Oh, no!” Leila shoved open the car door, accidentally knocking into the kneecaps of Mamoo's driver, who had come to open it for her. “Sorry! I'm so sorry!”

The driver put up a hand in a manner that said both, “I'm fine,” and “Please don't come any closer to me,” so Leila hurried after Samir. She found him in the backyard, bent over the goat. The white beast lay on its side, shaking. It had been vomiting.

“What happened?” Leila wailed.

“You bought a sick goat,” Samir snapped.

Leila felt betrayed by this accusation. “He was fine yesterday!”

Chirragh came through the back door with a bowl of milky water and a rag. Mamoo appeared and they exchanged a few words. Mamoo pointed to a bush with red flowers, and Chirragh nodded.

The goat gave a shuddering gasp and retched. Chirragh sat down beside her and dipped the rag into the milky water. Then he grabbed the goat's head and began to drip the liquid into its mouth.

“What's he doing?” Leila cried.

“It seems that the goat has eaten Scarlet Catsbane,” Mamoo explained. “Chirragh knows a remedy.”

Leila looked over at the red flowers. A blue-and-black butterfly was perched on a bloom, wings pulsing slowly, as if in meditation, or prayer. “Will it be okay?” Leila asked.