Funny Tragic Crazy Magic (Tragic Magic Book 1) (16 page)

“At
the center of every rune is a letter.” I said. “That’s probably the easiest way
to think about it.”

I
sat at my kitchen table Joe standing and staring at my blue and white curtains.

“Although
what language the letter is in, we don’t know.” Joe said.

Okay.
“What else have we learned…?”

“Working
runes…” Joe said.

“Oh
yeah, working runes don’t close all the way, and statue runes have no beginning
or end.”

Joe
moved to my cupboards still empty from our road trip.

“Don’t
you have any food?” he asked.

“Haven’t
had a chance to go to the store yet, what with being kidnapped and all,” I
said. Joe half smiled at me, but I wasn’t trying to make a joke. “Order some
pizza if you’re so hungry.”

Joe
took the phone and walked into my front room. Then he turned and walked out of
it just as quickly. I guess he didn’t want to go near the scene of the awkward
incident, a.k.a. one of the best moments of my life.

Giara
had given me a gazillion pointers on
transformation
runes, and I had
only used them like beauty utensils instead of as tools. That giant step up the
wall in the parking lot had taught me that they had more use than I’d ever
imagined.

Joe
wandered up the stairs. While he was gone from my view, I started
experimenting, trying to make myself look like him but with a better haircut.

He
came back down my stairs with one of my dad’s books in his hands. Without
looking at me, he sat down in the chair next to me.

“We
got twenty minutes,” he said. “Just don’t say anything to me about food.”

“Alright,”
I said in his voice.

He
turned and looked at himself in my bright pink sweatpants, startled backward,
and fell out of his chair.

Oh
gosh. I’m laughing now as I remember it.

I
laughed and then drew
clean
on my arm. All my runes left.

I
was still laughing as he picked himself up. “That’s amazing, Riz. Except you
didn’t get my hair right.”

“I
guess I’m still practicing,” I said biting my lip so I wouldn’t say anything
bad about his Mohawk.

“Who
else can you do?” he asked, the book lying on the floor forgotten.

“Let’s
see,” I said.

For
the next few minutes, I changed to about twelve other people. Meg was by far
the easiest, and one of the lunch ladies was the most difficult. It seems the
better you know someone, the easier it is to make a successful copy, which
makes sense.

When
the doorbell rang, I was transformed into Giara, trying to see if I could do a
transformation
while transformed. The runelight wasn’t in my color code, but in Giara’s pale
green.

“Holy
cannoli,” I said. “Do you know what that means?”

“The
bell means the pizza is here,” Joe said, standing in front of one of my
cupboards. He pulled a few dollars of my food money from my turtle shell mug on
the second shelf.

“Well
duh,” I said.

Joe
opened the door and then paid the delivery guy, hopefully giving him a better
tip than he usually did.

When
he closed the door and turned toward me I continued, “No, that means Giara was
probably the one who drew the rune on the side of the SUV that killed Fake
Erica.”

Not
my mom. I know it shouldn’t make me feel better to know my mom wasn’t alive,
but it did. It felt good to know once and for all what life was, even if that
meant knowing once and for all that life sucked.

Joe
put the pizza down on the table and we ate it without grabbing plates. The
greasy cheese hot from an oven was comforting to me.

“So
do you still want to get your mom’s notebook?” Joe asked as he grabbed his
second piece.

That
was the question, wasn’t it? “I don’t know.”

“That’s
fair,” he said.

I
sighed, “I mean… I do. I want to read my mom’s handwriting again. I want to
have my abuela’s answers, my bisabuela‘s questions. All of it. I want to read
it. I want to own it. But I don’t… I don’t want to be a Grandmother. I don’t
want to have to hurt you.”

“But
if you were a Grandmother, then wouldn’t you be in charge?” he said. “I mean…
maybe you could protect me, protect all Instincts like me, that if they weren’t
hurting anyone, they could live in peace.”

I
smiled at him. “You really can find the clear path, can’t you?”

“And
you’re freakishly strong, Riz.” Joe said, “That
stay
rune…” He shook his
head, “From the look on those Mages’ faces, I don’t think that should have been
possible. How did you do it? How did you throw a rune?”

“I
don’t know. I was mad, and I wanted to keep them still. I just did it. You
know, by instinct.”

“So
it’s okay for a Rune to be an Instinct, but not the other way around.”

“You
got it.” I said, after licking some sauce off my index finger.

“You
were born strong, Larissa,” he said. “Your parents knew it; that’s probably why
they hid you from the Grandfathers. With your birthright, with your mother’s
notebook, you might just be the strongest Grandmother there ever was.”

“But
I don’t want to be a Grandmother,” I said. “I don’t want that job. I don’t want
to have to kill, or be responsible for… the whole world really. I don’t… I can
barely take care of myself.”

“Well,
then maybe we should steal the notebook, so there will be no one strong enough
to make you be a Grandmother.”

I
laughed. I liked the sound of that. “I’ll think about it Joe. I’m not ready to
go yet; I don’t know enough yet.”

“You’ve
been telling me you had this big plan since almost the first week we met...”
Joe said. A line of pizza sauce puddled at the edge of his mouth, “but do you
even know where the notebook is?”

There
was the crux of the problem. Wait. “I think I might,” I said.

If
my mom really was a Grandmother, then… It would be kept in the Grandmothers’
Study. It would have to be there. The fellowship owned this gigantic house in
Paris, France, halfway across the world. My Mom showed me the Study when I was
accepted into the Fellowship years ago. It was kind of like a museum of the
history of the Grandmothers. If my mom’s notebook was anywhere, I’d bet it was
there.

“Where?”
Joe asked. The sauce was still there... still pointing toward Joe’s lips.

“You
got something...” I said, wiping my own finger at the corner of my mouth. He
looked at my mouth, and his Instinct magic felt warm as it brushed against my
lips. My curtains danced in the breeze of heat coming from my furnace vents.

“You
know, I’m not ready to go yet,” I said.

“Ready
to go where, though?”

I
couldn’t think clearly, I wanted to kiss him so bad.

“It
doesn’t matter,” I said, looking away. “I’m not even close to ready yet.”

Neither
one of us looked at each other for a couple of seconds.

“Does
your mom know you’re here?” I asked.

“I
don’t know, and I don’t care,” he said.

 I
read once that how a guy treats his mother is a good indication of how he would
treat his future… not that that had any bearing on our situation.

Just
in case… “Joe. You’ve got to call your mom.”

“No,
my mom’s… busy,” he said.

“With
what?”

“She
is… um,” Joe looked at me. As he sighed, I could see the stress in his eyes. “On
a date,” Joe said bitterly.

“With
Ash?” I asked.

“Yup.”

So
yes, we may have decided to crash Ms. P.’s date, but don’t think we were bad
people. I mean you can if you want. I’m not gonna try to force your opinion of
us. And who’s to say what makes a person good, or bad. Really, I think people
just make their choices given the information that they have.

Given
the information that we had, that Ash knocked me unconscious and then stood and
watched as a lunatic… we don’t need to get into that again, do we? Let’s just
say we had reason not to trust him with a harmless rube that we both loved and
leave it at that.

Anyway,
I used the
find
rune to find Ms. P. I tried first to find Ash, but he
must have been wearing a rune to counterbalance that.

They
were ice-skating at the Plymouth Ice Rink. This seemed odd. I know they were
young when they had Joe and all, but these people were parents. Okay… They were
old, and the ice rink was for teenagers. And going ice-skating for a date was
so cheesy and cliché that even the teenagers I know avoided that place.

It
was the kind of place I used to go with my family. I think my fifth birthday
party was held there. Looking at the ancient linoleum outside the rink, and the
paint peeling from the side of the bleachers, I don’t think they had done any
renovations to the place since before I was five.

Inside
the rink, a mess of rubes were going around in dizzyingly pointless circles. I
saw them first, near the center of the rink, Ms. P.’s blue pea coat standing
out like a lantern through my
find
rune hidden underneath a knitted cap.
Ms. P. and Ash were skating around the rink, giggling, holding hands. Ms. P.’s
cheeks were flushed. She kept glancing at Ash as if she wanted to make sure he
was there. For a moment, they became just Maggie and Ash, that love story I had
fallen for while reading Ms. P.’s journals. It seemed like a happy ending was
on its way for them. Despite my misgivings for Ash (no… despite my anger and
mistrust of that dirty Mage) that didn’t mean their love for each other wasn’t
real, that underneath the politics, they weren’t just two people in love.

Then
I saw it. There was a rune drawn on the back of Ms. P.’s neck. Joe was at the
counter renting us some ancient communal skates. I stood near the entrance of
the rink, my forehead against the Plexiglas, as I used the extra vision the
find
rune loaned me and drew the rune on Ms. P.’s neck onto a page in my notebook.

One
hundred and thirty eight. I now had one hundred and thirty eight runes. Only I
had no idea what this one did, I just knew the person who cast it couldn’t be
trusted.

Joe
came back with the skates. I showed him the notebook.

“Ash
drew this rune on the back of your mom’s neck,” I said.

Joe
swore and then started to walk into the rink, his tennis shoes still on his
feet.

I
held him back by his coat.

“Stop,”
I said. “Wait.”

I
walked to a bench, and Joe followed me. As he put on his skates, I looked
around and then drew a
transformation
rune on his forearm. It took a few
false starts, but eventually Ryan smiled back at me. If only when the real Ryan
smiled at me, I could feel even a fraction of the feelings that overcame me
then.

The
guy at the booth looked over at us. I smiled at him, and he shook his head as
if he was denying what he saw. Whoops.

I
bent down and put my foot into the… yuck, into the well-used skate. Then, with
Joe sitting as a shield, I started to do the rune to
transform
myself.
On a bitter whim, I
transformed
myself into Erica Fisher and then pulled
my coat sleeve over the rune.

Joe
was watching his mom and Ash, his mouth moving in silent arguments and his
fingers twitching, shaping the rune in the air.

I
used Erica Fisher’s hand and held his fingers closed. I guess he wasn’t as
afraid of Erica as he was with me because as soon as I transformed, it was like
Joe relaxed.

Grrr...
Oh well, I thought. We skated out into the center of the rink, our hands
clasped tight together. Joe wasn’t good at skating; I think this might have
been the first time for him. He kept slipping, and I would try to catch him,
giggling with Erica’s obnoxious high-pitched laugh. We skated (or really, I
skated while pulling Joe behind me) until we were right behind Ms. P. and Ash.

They
seemed to be having a much better time than we were. Their arms were touching,
and the heat between them was palpable. They seemed… giddy. Smiling like they
were, they looked so young.

“How’s
your family?” Ms. P. asked.

“The
same.” Ash said.

“I’m
so sorry.” Ms. P. said, reaching for Ash’s hand. “I had hoped by now things had
gotten better.”

Ash
looked at their hands clasped together, pulled her hand up to his lips, and
held it there for a while. Ms. P. stared at him, her face looked completely
bewildered.

“Being
with you… I feel like I can breathe finally.” Ash said quietly. “I feel like my
life from the day I left you to this day was a dream, that it wasn’t real, like
I wasn’t that person, and this now, this is who I am.”

Wow.
Great line, loser. You get that from a movie?

Ms.
P. fell for it. She smiled and looked away. “I know what you mean,” she said,
and then she turned and looked up at him.

I
could see the kiss coming before Joe did, but when he finally caught on, he
shouted “No!” Joe slipped on the ice, his head hitting with a generous whack.

Water
from the ice seeped into my jeans as I knelt down next to him.

“Are
you okay,” I asked in a whisper.

Ms.
P. joined us. When she got close enough, I brushed my fingers and the runelight
fell from behind her coat collar. Whatever rune Ash drew was gone now.

“Mr.
Wecker,” Ms. P. said, “are you alright?”

Joe
put his hand to his head. Ryan’s voice came out his mouth, “I must have
slipped.”

I
helped him up, and then he brushed the frost off his coat and jeans.

“My
son has a coat just like that,” Ms. P. said.

“Uh…”
Joe said, looking at me for assistance. “Yeah, it’s his, I borrowed it.”

Ms.
P. turned back to Ash, but Ash was staring at the both of us as if he knew
something wasn’t right.

“I’m
hungry, let’s go get some food.” I said in Erica’s voice. We skated out of the
rink, and when we got to the hole in the wall that lead to non-slippery safety,
I glanced behind us. Ash still watched us.

Walking
on the blades across the aged carpet, I followed behind Joe. While he undid the
laces to his skates, he was muttering about the unfairness of it all. He was
fiercely protective of his mom. I wasn’t paying much attention to Joe; I was
watching Ash and Joe’s mom as they restarted their slow circle, their hands
clasped tight together. Ash glanced back at me; I ducked, did the rune for
open
on the skates and pulled my feet through. Joe watched me and then with a slight
blush, he pulled his skates off without finishing untying them.

After
Joe returned our skates and I retrieved my bag from a locker, we met up again
near the front entrance. I reached for Joe’s hand, and he didn’t pull away.

“I
meant it, are you alright?” I asked.

Ryan’s
eyes looked back at me, but Joe’s pain shined from behind them. “I’ll live,” he
said after a moment.

A
bunch of twelve-year-old boys pushed past us. Joe held my hand firmly and then
pulled me closer to him so that the swarm of prepubescent boys wouldn’t
separate us. When they passed, I looked up at Joe. Ryan’s face looked down at
me, and we both smiled and then turned toward the front entrance.

Meg
stood there looking at us, a bouquet of blue and orange balloons in her hands.
I smiled at her, and she glanced at our hands, and then ran past us with a look
on her face that I knew meant she was about to start crying.

Ryan’s
face looked after her. Ryan, the first boy who seemed to like Meg, was holding
hands with Erica Fisher.

I
just broke my best friend’s heart. I glanced at Joe, and a ripple of runelight
started sliding over his face. The rune was ending. The more working runes you
do at one time, the less time they hold. I pushed him, looking back in the rink
where Ash was looking on at both of us.

We
got to the parking lot. After a quick look back in Meg’s direction, I turned
and walked to my car. I never went back. I never apologized or set things
straight between us. All I had to do was go in there and tell her it was just
Joe and me. She knew I was a Witch, so she knew I was capable of doing things
like this.

But
Joe needed me. I chose Joe over Meg yet again. I guess I assumed I would have
the chance to call her later and explain. I assumed I would have the chance to
make things better.

I
didn’t. I didn’t know it at the time, but that was the last day of my normal
life.

And
it was just getting started.