A Tale of Highly Unusual Magic Read online

  “Well, what about Edwina?” she asked.

  “I assume she died, too, eventually,” Mamoo admitted.

  The goat let out a miserable-sounding bleat, snapping Leila out of her thoughts about Edwina and Parker and the book and the moth.

  “Why don’t you leave that goat here with me?” Mamoo suggested. “You can simply tell the family that it ran away. That’s true enough.”

  “Oh—and you won’t eat it?”

  “My dear girl, I’m not a monster.”

  “That’s fine. Abu will just get another goat,” Samir pointed out.

  “Oh.” Leila winced.

  “But you won’t be responsible for that one,” Samir said, reading her expression.

  “Well . . . I will. Kinda.” She flopped onto the couch and put her hands in her hair. “I feel like the Angel of Death. I’m, like, the opposite of Kim, aren’t I?” she said to Mamoo. “That kid in the novel you gave me.”

  Mamoo cocked his head. “How so?”

  “He fits in everywhere,” Leila said. “He can seem Hindu, Muslim, white, Indian, anything. Whereas I never . . . I never know what’s going on. I fit in exactly nowhere.”

  The violin music pulsed through the room while everyone stared at one another in silence.

  “My dear, you are American,” Mamoo said.

  “But that’s not anything,” Leila countered. “My aunt seems to think it’s worse than nothing.” She looked over at Samir, half hoping he would contradict her.

  He didn’t.

  “I think that Kim would say that there are some problems that do not have a good solution.” Mamoo placed a gentle hand on Leila’s shoulder.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” she said. Her voice was quiet and dry, as if it had been ground to fine sand under the weight of her confusion. “It’s not fair.”

  “No,” Mamoo agreed. “It’s not.” His eyes fell on the Dictaphone, where the moth still sat, wings spread, as if it wanted to feel the vibrations of the music.

  Edwina’s music.

  The same notes that Kai had played half a world away.

  THE EXQUISITE CORPSE

  The notes traveled from one side of the world to the other, and Ralph saved every one of them. Sometimes, he reread all of Edwina’s letters in one sitting. Sometimes, he read only his favorite parts. He kept them all in his sweater drawer, in a cigar box wrapped in an intricate pattern of string, so that he would know if anyone disturbed it.

  He tried to keep his letters to Edwina cheerful, and her responses were equally happy.

  My dear Mole,

  Lahore is simply bursting at the seams. Everywhere you turn, the British and locals are building. The streets are thronged with activity such that you can hardly pass. . . .

  My dear Mole,

  The kindest people live here! I have met a dear girl named Alice Kipling who was born in Bombay. Trix—for she insists that I call her by her pet name—has lived most of her life in India, though she is British. Her brother has promised to take us on a tour of their father’s Wonder House. . . .

  My dear Mole,

  Parker and I are planning a concert in our home in a fortnight, and the arrangements for food and drink are straining my nerves. I’ve had hardly any time to practice my violin. . . .

  My dear Mole,

  The school is lovely, and the children are absolute dears. Many of them are children of British army officers, and I fear they are lonely little lads. I try to make them smile with tales of the adventures of Girl and Mole.

  Yesterday, as he had promised, Ruddy took Parker and me to see the Wonder House. He is a journalist and a bit of a serious fellow, a bit choleric looking, but he has a great wit. His sister tells me that he makes up gruesome stories, and writes quite a bit of poetry. I can’t imagine he is much of a poetic soul, but you never can tell, I suppose. On the other hand, his father, Lockwood, is an artist through and through! He has a long, regal white beard and treasures every statue and artifact in the museum as if it were a gift from the gods themselves. I liked him very much.

  There is a mighty cannon that stands in front of the museum, and the children like to sit atop it and ride it as if it were a dragon. As we were walking out, I suggested to Ruddy that he write a poem or story about the children. “For it strikes me that all young boys are the same,” I said. “The young Irish and Englishmen in my classroom would be as likely to sit atop a dragon-cannon as the Hindu and Muslim children there now.”

  Ruddy quite agreed that all young boys are essentially the same in their love of adventure, but did not seem terribly interested. I do not expect that he will ever write anything on the subject. . . .

  My dear Mole,

  The Britishers are leaving Lahore in droves. Everyone lives in fear of the hot weather, and almost all are departing for Simla. Ruddy is quite insistent with Parker that we must get away. Trix and her mother have already left.

  I treasure each and every one of your letters, but I’ll own that I grow more homesick by the day. Perhaps a change of scene will do me some good. . . .

  My dear Mole,

  Ghastly news. My guardian is considering the purchase of a mine and has made plans to journey to India in the coming months. Parker is beside himself with rage. In truth, I feel quite ill at the thought of seeing Melchisedec Jonas again. Now I wish more than ever that I hadn’t left the United States. If only I could come back while he is here!

  You know that I am heir to a large fortune, but I would truly trade that in a heartbeat for the chance to be free of Melchisedec Jonas. Parker and I speak of little else. He feels the same way I do, but is quite happy in India. I, on the other hand, feel the circles here are very small. Perhaps that is because I am a woman, and opportunites here are very few. . . .

  After a few months, the letters ceased to arrive. Ralph worried, but he hoped desperately that Edwina was simply busy seeing to her guardian’s needs.

  Or perhaps she had gone to Simla, where the mail was not as regular.

  Or . . .

  He tried not to think about other possibilities.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Kai

  IT WAS AN UGLY thing, with a fat, furry body and two strange palm-frond antennae.

  “It’s a katydid,” Kai said.

  “No; it’s the moth.” Doodle and Kai were bent close, watching the insect through the side of the glass jar. They had placed the jar at the edge of Kai’s window.

  “Where are its fabulous wings? He’s been that way for hours.”

  “They’re still wet,” Doodle explained. “It takes time for them to unfurl, for the hemolyph to get to their extremities.”

  “Hemo-what?”

  Doodle translated, “Moth blood. It’s not blood, though. It’s yellow.”

  “He’s not moving.”

  “Kai, he’s been locked up in a cocoon for who knows how long,” Doodle pointed out. “He’s tired. Give the bug a break.”

  Kai laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing—just—” She shrugged. “‘Give the bug a break’ sounds like something I would say.”

  A smile flickered over Doodle’s lips as she watched the moth. “Maybe you’re rubbing off on me. Go get your violin. Our Celestial wants some music.”

  Kai scoffed, but she went to the closet and fetched her violin. She tuned it quickly and rosined the bow, then she began to play.

  At first, nothing happened, but Kai played on, letting the music fill the room. After a few moments, the moth began to quiver, its antennae moving slowly, as if probing the air around it. The brilliant blue wings opened and slowly beat the still air in the jar.

  “Look,” Doodle whispered as one wing flickered slightly. Beyond the window, a hush fell over the night as everything paused to listen.

  “I’ve told Mr. Jenkins about your music,” Doodle said as Kai played on. “He wants you to play at the fair.”

  Kai’s bow slipped over the strings, letting out a sour screech.

  �
��So you’ll do it?”

  Kai didn’t reply, but she kept on playing, considering. She wasn’t sure that she was ready to play in public again. On the other hand, she was sorely tempted to make Pettyfer look like a violin fool and a bug fool. She hoped he would crawl into a hole and disappear out of humiliation. Or maybe just burst into flames. But she wasn’t at her best, musically, after taking off so much time.

  Did it matter? She couldn’t decide.

  Slowly, slowly, the moth pulsed its wings under the notes from the violin. Doodle snapped a stream of photos with her iPad. And then she unscrewed the top of the jar.

  The sudden silence was almost shocking as Kai lifted her bow from the strings. “What are you doing?” she asked, tucking the bow under one arm.

  “Setting it free.” The moth didn’t move, though; perhaps it didn’t yet realize what its wings were for. It simply sat on the branch in the jar as if it was perfectly happy there.

  “Wait—what? I thought we were taking it to the Lepidoptery Fair!” Spreading her fingers, Kai closed her hand over the top of the jar.

  Doodle shook her head. “Now that she has wings, she can’t just sit in the jar for two days.”

  “But—we can’t just let Pettyfer win!”

  “We have the pictures,” Doodle said.

  “The real moth is better! And . . and what about the five hundred dollars?”

  Doodle stared as if Kai had just started speaking jibberish. “What about the moth?”

  Kai could feel her face turning red. “Is this because your dad works for the casket company?” Kai demanded. “Are you worried that he’ll get fired if we beat Pettyfer? You can’t let him scare you!”

  “I don’t think it’s right to keep a moth bottled up, Kai.”

  They stared at each other for a moment, and this was when Kai realized that Doodle was actually serious. She really didn’t care about the money. She didn’t care about Pettyfer. She didn’t care about winning. She cared about the moth. A stupid moth. It really was quite stupid; it was still sitting on its leaf in the jar, not even trying to fly away.

  Kai’s hand tightened on the jar. “It’s not wrong to want to win, Doodle,” she said. “It’s only fair. Pettyfer doesn’t deserve it.”

  “I know,” Doodle agreed. “So, if he doesn’t deserve to, he won’t.”

  The moth fluttered. Even Kai could tell that it was thinking about flying.

  Kai felt her skin burn like pavement in the sun, the angry heat she had built up rising, turning to steam, swirling around her. “What about me?” she demanded.

  Doodle blinked at her. “What about you?”

  “Huh?”

  “Why do you care so much?”

  “Because it’s—” Kai shook her head. “Because—” She tried to remember why she cared about winning the Lepidoptery Fair. Well, she wanted to beat Pettyfer. She wanted to show him that she was better than he was! She wanted him to see that he was horrible, she wanted him to feel—

  To feel—

  To feel how I feel, Kai realized, the idea blowing through her like a breeze. To know what it’s like to be not quite good enough.

  The cloud around her finally lifted, disappearing. And just like that, the contest became just a contest again.

  It wasn’t proof that she was better than Pettyfer. It didn’t mean anything.

  Doodle was still watching Kai’s face, waiting. Kai thought about Ralph, and how he believed in magic. . . . There is magic in the world, Kai thought, and she remembered Doodle’s words: Moths are magical. There was no doubt about it—this moth was very magical.

  And magic doesn’t do any good if you keep it all bottled up.

  Kai lifted her fingers from the jar. “You’re right,” she said.

  The sentence fell to the floor like a boulder, and the moth, who felt the vibration but did not understand its meaning, fluttered through the window and into the night.

  There was no doubt about it—this was a big-time small-town event. The friendly old library stood quietly behind a grouping of three large white tents, which shaded several clusters of tables arranged according to subject. People were already milling about, looking at the displays. Kai and Doodle had placed photos of the Celestial Moth—along with illustrations from the diary—on a trifold poster. It stood proudly among the other moth dioramas and reports. In one corner, a long line of children squirmed, watching as a man in a tall striped hat twisted long, colorful balloons into butterflies. At one end of the lawn, the high school a capella group performed a Taylor Swift song. Next to them, a booth was handing out butterfly-shaped cookies and lemonade.

  Someone had made a giant—larger than human-size—monarch butterfly puppet, and two people in black bodystockings sweated and tried hard to appear invisible as they made the butterfly dance near the front sidewalk. Lavinia had set up a table selling Luna Juice to benefit the library. There were even games for small children: they could throw beanbags into large wooden chrysalides or have their picture taken with their face appearing in the cut-out hole at the head of a large wooden butterfly. Sidewalk chalk and photos of butterflies and moths were available for anyone who wanted to make street art. A banner stretched across the tops of the tents: 134th Annual Lepidoptery Fair!

  “This is completely insane.” Kai gaped at the people with the giant butterfly puppet as she took a bite of the cookie. “Wow, that’s good.”

  “Yes, insane but good is pretty much what they’re going for,” Doodle said. “The marching band puts on an amazing show later in the afternoon.”

  Kai accidentally inhaled a cookie crumb and had to take a swig of lemonade to wash it down. She and Doodle were sitting beneath a tree near the a capella group. “What marching band? There’s no marching band,” Kai said.

  Doodle lifted her eyebrows and pursed her lips, a look that said, Just you wait.

  “Doodle!” Holding a stack of cookies in one hand and waving with the other, Carlos, the hipster librarian, loped over to join them. He wore a T-shirt bearing an image of a pineapple and tan corduroy jeans, even though the temperature hovered near one hundred degrees. He held up a glass of Luna Juice. “Have you guys tried this stuff?”

  “That’s my great-aunt who’s selling it,” Kai told him.

  “It’s awesome. Hey—where’s your display?”

  “In the tent on the far left,” Doodle said as Kai pointed lazily in the general direction of their poster.

  “Cool; can’t wait to see it. Hey, Professor Hill!” Now Carlos was waving to someone behind them. When Kai turned, she saw a white-haired man in a wheelchair rolling up the front walk. He smiled, and Kai realized that she had seen this man before—when Pettyfer’s dad was honking at him from behind the wheel of a Lincoln Navigator. “Professor, I’d like you to meet Miriam Martell and Kai—” Carlos shook his head. “I’m sorry; I realized I don’t know your last name.”

  “It’s Grove.”

  “Kai Grove,” Carlos repeated. “And this is Professor Hill. He teaches chemistry at Harlingen College.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” Kai and Doodle stood up to shake his hand, which felt both solemn and a little silly, especially when Doodle explained her nickname. “Are you girls scientists?”

  “Yes,” Doodle said, just as Kai said, “No.”

  “Ah! Healthy dissent.” Professor Hill nodded and his eyes crinkled merrily. “We’ll see what the evidence shows.”

  “They did a cool project on Celestial Moths,” Carlos told him.

  “Did you?” The professor’s shaggy eyebrows lifted in surprise. Indeed, he was very surprised. “How strange. A colleague of mine overseas just wrote to me, mentioning that very moth.”

  “What did he say?” Doodle asked.

  “He had questions about the moth and a local company,” Professor Hill said. His tone was oddly serious, and told Kai and Doodle not to ask more. “Well, pardon me—I’d like to have a look at the displays.”

  “Nice meeting you,” Kai murmured as he wove his way into the
crowd. He was quite graceful with his wheelchair, maneuvering around obstacles and people who seemed mindless of his existence.

  “I want to go look at the other displays, too,” Doodle said, and Kai agreed, “Sure.”

  “I’m gonna go grab more cookies,” Carlos told them.

  “You’ve already got five,” Doodle pointed out.

  “They freeze well.” Carlos winked, shoved his glasses up on his nose, and headed back to the cookie booth as the girls walked toward the tents.

  Kai thought that many of the adult projects seemed borderline professional . . . but boring. The kid ones were more colorful, and tended to have lots of pictures. Most people seemed to favor the butterflies. Though there was a really beautiful display with caterpillars and a live monarch just beginning to hatch from a chrysalis. One person did a very detailed explanation of the life cycle of the postman butterfly, another of the gypsy moth. Doodle nodded and exclaimed over each one, even the ones done by kindergartners. She smiled proudly as they passed their own display.

  “You should grab your violin,” Doodle said. “You’ll be performing soon.”

  “I will?” Kai asked. “I don’t remember actually saying I would do it.”

  “You will,” Doodle told her. “That’s why your violin case is under the table.”

  Kai smiled. “I’m doing it for the moths.” She grabbed the case.

  And then they came to the last table, home of the display that both had been silently seeking and dreading the entire time.

  Well, that sucks, Kai thought as she looked at Pettyfer’s display. It wasn’t much—just a big shoebox with some sticks in it. This is what he thinks is going to win? He’d put it out on a big table, along with several wood-framed mounted moths and butterflies. Looking at them made Kai sick. They were beautiful and amazing—and dead. A wooden sign beside them said, Frames Courtesy of American Casket. It was shiny with the famous American Casket odorless, eternal varnish.

  “Aren’t they nice?” Pettyfer asked, coming up behind her. “Dad had the frames made at the factory.”

  “They’re revolting.”

  Pettyfer grinned. “That’s a nice violin case you’ve got there,” he said. “Did you find it at Goodwill?”