A Tale of Highly Unusual Magic Read online

  It was time to take some action. She couldn’t let this book be in charge.

  Leila pulled open the drawer in her bedside table and selected a blue pen. Ralph met Miss Pickle the very next day, she wrote. She looked at the words for a few moments. After a while, they didn’t seem to mean anything at all.

  Finally, she snapped the book closed. Then she opened it again.

  Nothing new had been added. Her sentence was still the last.

  Thoughts swirled around her, thick as smoke, a strange mix of relief and disappointment, anger and surprise. Now, when she wanted the book to write something, it had nothing to say!

  Maybe I stopped it, she thought. When I tried to force it to do what I wanted, maybe I knocked the whole thing off course!

  She felt a bit proud of herself. Hah, she thought. I finally shut you up.

  But, of course, she hadn’t.

  Everyone in the Awan family spoke English, but they did not speak it all the time. In fact, sometimes they would slip into Urdu without realizing they had. Once, her uncle even turned to her and said, “Isn’t that right, Leila?” after everyone had been speaking in Urdu for almost twenty minutes.

  “Right,” Leila had said, but Samir caught her eye. He was laughing.

  Leila didn’t mind, though, when they lapsed into Urdu. It seemed more comfortable for them, and so it made her more comfortable. She liked sitting on the couch, surrounded by the Awan family as they chatted and argued and drank cup after cup of tea. Often, neighbors would come over, but after the first introductions, nobody paid much attention to Leila, which was fine with her. She had dreamed of coming to Pakistan and being a glamorous American, but instead, every time she was introduced, conversations seemed to center around how sad it was that Pakistanis sometimes lost their culture once they went to the States. Tonight, everyone was gathered in “the lounge,” which was what Leila thought of as “the family room,” to watch the latest installment of Pakistan Idol, which was both weirdly familiar and unfamiliar. The show’s host spoke in Urdlish—an eighty-twenty Urdu-English blend—with a speech pattern that sounded like he had been taking lessons from Ryan Seacrest, which maybe he had. Rabeea had explained that the hosts were very famous Pakistani pop artists.

  The show was down to seven contestants, and the night’s theme was classic Bollywood songs. As Leila had gathered from her uncle’s repeated explanations, “This is a classic. A classic from the 1982 movie . . .” Leila thought most of the songs were pretty awful, but she also hated all of her own parents’ music, so maybe it was a generational thing.

  Chirragh appeared in the doorway. He glanced at Wali, who slipped out of the room before anyone (with the exception of Leila) noticed. The small boy reappeared and crept over to Leila. “Someone has come here for you!” Wali whispered, wriggling with excitement.

  “Not for me,” Leila whispered back.

  “Yes! It is!”

  “How can there be someone for me?” Leila asked, but Wali was already shoving her toward the front door.

  Chirragh stood at the entrance. He was smiling, which was how Leila knew that something horrible must have happened. When he saw Leila, Chirragh swung the door wider, revealing the goat boy.

  The goat boy grinned when he saw her and said something in Punjabi.

  Oh my gosh, Leila thought. The goat boy is madly in love with me!

  This was a natural thought for someone who had read sixty-seven Dear Sisters novels. Of course he was madly in love with her! What else could it possibly be? Leila did not know how to proceed. How does one inform a goatherd that one is not interested in romance? Neither Elizabeth nor Jennifer Dear had ever encountered this problem.

  The boy looked at her expectantly. In her mind, adoringly. He said something else, then looked at Wali.

  “He wants the money,” Wali translated.

  “What?” Leila was confused. “What money?”

  “For the goat,” Wali explained.

  That was when Leila registered that the goat boy had brought his white goat, which let out a loud bleat-squawk. Chirragh gestured toward the side of the house, as if he wanted the goat to go there.

  “Why would I give him money for the goat?” Leila asked.

  Wali began to look worried. “Because you bought it,” he explained. “You gave him five hundred rupees and promised the rest when he delivered the goat.”

  There was a long silence while Leila replayed the scene in her mind. She had given the boy five hundred rupees for a photo. Which was a rip-off. Wait a minute . . .

  The goatherd said something sharp.

  “He wants to know if the goat doesn’t please you,” Wali translated.

  “No, it—it’s a nice goat. Nice.” Leila gave the thumbs-up sign, and then realized that this was the thumb that got her into all of the trouble in the first place. She yanked it back up her sleeve.

  The goatherd’s face clouded with anger, and he began to yell, which made Leila feel as if she were shrinking. Leila wished someone would close the door. She didn’t want her uncle or aunt to hear this. She glanced at Chirragh, who looked disgusted. She turned to Wali, who seemed about to cry beneath the goatherd’s shouts. “He’s saying that you’re tricking him—trying to get the price down!”

  “How much does he want?” Leila asked.

  Wali looked miserable. “Two thousand rupees. Expensive—because of Eid.”

  That’s two hundred dollars, Leila calculated. Two hundred! Two hundred? That was a ton of money, but she had it. She could just give the goatherd the money, and then he would stop yelling. But then, what would she do with the goat? Customs probably wouldn’t let her bring it to the United States, and her parents would have a fit, anyway . . .

  “I’m sorry, Leila! I thought you wanted a goat,” Wali wailed.

  “Why would I want a goat?” she asked. She wasn’t being mean. She was honestly curious.

  “I thought—I thought you meant it as an Eid present. For my family,” Wali explained.

  Oh. Oh! An Eid present? Right! He mentioned that Eid is coming up! Eid is a celebration at the end of the thirty days of Ramadan. But Ramadan is on a lunar calendar, and the date changes—it can fall at any time of the year. Leila hadn’t noticed anyone fasting. Then again, the Awans weren’t particularly religious. True, they had gone to Jumu’ah prayers last Friday, but did not seem to pray five times a day. So maybe they didn’t fast, either. Leila’s father certainly never did, and this was his brother’s family.

  So—the goat could be an Eid present. It wasn’t a horrible idea. “But would your family want a goat?” She looked at the goat. It was about the size of a golden retriever. Maybe it would make a good pet.

  “Of course!” Wali looked shocked at the idea that someone might not want a goat. “It’s very traditional.”

  An image of her cat, Steve, as a kitten on Christmas morning popped into her mind. “Your parents won’t be mad? Are you sure they want a goat?”

  “They’d have to buy one themselves, if you don’t get it.”

  “But they haven’t picked one out?”

  “Not yet.”

  Relief poured through her veins. This was brilliant. Brilliant! Her mom wanted her to get the Awan family a gift, the Awans wanted a goat, and she had accidentally bought a goat!

  It was almost like fate. Leila thought about the fakir’s blessing outside the ice-cream store. He said something about miracles—maybe this was one! Thanks, magic fakir! Leila thought. “Okay! Okay, I’ll go get the money.” She hurried upstairs and pulled a stack of rupees from her suitcase. Then she handed it over to the goatherd, who was still sulking, under the impression that Leila had tried to swindle him at the last minute.

  Please don’t blame him. It had happened before.

  Chirragh took the goat’s rope and led it around the side of the house. The red henna flower on the goat’s flank was the last thing to disappear behind the wall.

  Leila placed a hand on Wali’s shoulder. “Happy Eid,” she said. “Eid
Mubarak.”

  “Thank you!” Wali said, scampering into the house.

  A Good Deed Doer, Leila thought as she practically floated up the staircase, that’s what I am. A buyer of pets. Mother Christmas. This is going to make an awesome blog post!

  She had learned something new about her culture. Honestly, her mother was right about something: her father barely ever mentioned Pakistan, or his culture. He never told her anything. This incident made her feel terribly sophisticated. And it was all because of Wali and that stupid goat.

  Leila felt so good that she didn’t even bother checking to see if anything new had been written in The Exquisite Corpse. She didn’t think about the line she had added about Miss Pickle, or spend a single brain cell on the book at all.

  But that doesn’t mean that the book stopped thinking about her.

  THE EXQUISITE CORPSE

  Ralph met Miss Pickle the very next day.

  Ralph’s crutches chafed beneath his arms as he struggled to make his way out onto the lawn. The doctor had told him that he was lucky.

  “A clean break near the top of the fibula, but not at the knee. You can put weight on it fairly soon.” The doctor had a young face and hair that was rapidly disappearing. His pale blue eyes seemed genuinely happy to give Ralph this news. “I’ve put you in a gypsum dressing—the best thing for this sort of fracture—we can take it off in about four to six weeks.”

  Four to six weeks did not sound “soon” to Ralph. “Will I have to stay here for that long?”

  “Oh, no. Your plaster should be set in another twenty-four hours. After that, we’ll have to keep you for observation. I’m concerned about the contusion you received on the head. You can probably go home in about ten days.”

  It had only been twenty hours since that conversation, but Ralph was tired of waiting. He backed himself against a rear door and pushed and struggled through the opening, barely managing to pull his fat plaster leg through before the heavy wood slammed shut. Outside, the sky slowly purpled as the sun sank behind jagged treetops bordering the wide green lawn. A bush rustled as a small brown rabbit loped, in no particular hurry, beneath the leaves as the sky above her changed as slowly as vapor rising from a lake. Sweet notes from a violin shimmered in the air like heat, pulling Ralph forward.

  A girl with dark hair played her bow across the strings at the edge of the wood. Her eyes were closed as Ralph crutched his way toward her. When he reached her, he cleared his throat, so that she would know someone was close. She gave no sign that she heard until she was finished playing. Then her eyes—stormy ocean eyes—opened slowly, taking a moment to focus on his face.

  “I know you,” Ralph said.

  “No, you don’t,” the girl replied.

  “Yes—you’re Melchisedec Jonas’s daughter.”

  The girl turned her eyes to the dark woods. “He’s not my father. He’s my guardian.” The word seemed to make her skin crawl. “I’m Edwina Pickle.”

  “I’m Ralph Flabbergast. Your guardian bought my parents’ company.”

  “Yes . . . Flabbergast’s Famous Kraut.” She plucked a few strings. “I’ve heard all about what a horrible investment it was.”

  “You can’t make that sauerkraut in a factory,” Ralph said, his neck burning hot. “Small batches only.”

  “Don’t worry. He’s still rich. Besides, I don’t mind seeing him furious.”

  Her eyes twinkled, like silver fish in a dark wave, and Ralph laughed as he studied her face. “We met once, remember? I showed you a magic trick.”

  “Yes . . . ,” she said slowly. “Yes, I think I do remember.”

  “Why are you here? Are you sick?”

  “It’s my lungs,” Edwina replied. “They’ve always been weak. I’ve told Uncle Melchisedec that the air in the factory doesn’t suit me, but he insists that I work there. The doctors are hopeful that fresh air will cure me.”

  Ralph did not know what to say. She did seem pale, but more from sadness than sickness. Her gaze returned to the woods, and Ralph saw something flutter there. It was pale blue and glowed like the moon. “Do you see that?”

  “Celestial Moths,” Edwina said. “They love the crepuscular light.”

  Ralph repeated the word: “Crepuscular?”

  “The gloaming,” Edwina explained. “The sunset. They also love the red flowers that grow at the edge of the woods.” She smiled slowly at him. “Perhaps I can show you a magic trick,” she said.

  “There aren’t many I don’t know.”

  “Hm.” She lifted the bow back to the strings and began to play a strange new tune. Her dark hair captured the warm light of the sunset as the moth made its crooked way toward them, hovering near the violin. It settled on the scroll, and seemed content to rest there. A smile curved at the corners of Edwina’s lips as she played.

  “You can make them come to you?” Ralph studied the fat, furry insect. Antennae fanned, fernlike, at either side of its head, quivering above its vibrant blue body. On each wing was a spot, like an eye with a yellow iris, over a curlicue question mark.

  “They like the music,” Edwina replied. She stopped. The moth sat there for another moment, and then fluttered away.

  “That really is magic.” Ralph gazed at her in wonder. “Real magic, not the kind I do.” He did not say that it was the kind he had been looking for his entire life, but he thought it.

  Edwina seemed to understand completely. “Yes,” she replied. “I know.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Kai

  KAI STOOD IN FRONT of the closed door, unsure how to proceed. She had pressed the doorbell, but the way it dangled treacherously from a wire made her suspect that it wasn’t working. She had knocked, but perhaps not loudly enough. And she didn’t want to bang on the door, in case the doorbell was working and Doodle had heard the knocks, and maybe just hadn’t had time to answer the door yet.

  There are a great many details that go into planning even the smallest thing, as Kai’s mother had taught her.

  She had just decided to try knocking again, when she heard something—a rustling, scraping sound. It was coming from the side of the house.

  Kai walked down the two concrete steps (one corner had fallen from the top step and lay, like a shark’s tooth, beneath the unevenly hung mailbox). Waist-high cornflowers, awkward on their leafy stems, clustered thickly against the edge of the house. Clumps of tall red-crowned bee balm punctuated a few clouds of black-eyed Susans. The grass was high and patchy, and the flowers seemed to have the run of the yard. They were wild, untamed things, planted without a plan. The result was colorful anarchy, a beautiful disaster.

  When Kai rounded the corner, she found Doodle digging up a section of dirt beneath a bedroom window.

  “What’s up?” Kai asked.

  Doodle looked up, her eyes taking a moment to focus on Kai, as if they had been looking down into the hole at the bottom of her shovel, seeing a new world down there. (They had.) “Hey. Just digging.”

  “What’s that?” Kai nodded at a flower that lay on its side in an exhausted heap near Doodle’s feet. The tiny flowers formed a purple cone, such a deep color that they looked like velvet.

  “Butterfly bush,” Doodle replied, waving at a tall shrub farther along the vinyl siding. “We’ve got a white one.”

  “That isn’t white,” Kai said. The bush was only partially white. More orange.

  Doodle just lifted her eyebrows and walked over to the six-foot-tall bush. She gave it a shake, and the orange flowers lifted up, fluttering into a cloud and then dispersing. The bush was left with white blooms.

  Kai cried out a single, incomprehensible syllable at the sight of all of those butterflies.

  Doodle hushed her. “My dad’s asleep in there,” she said, motioning to the window.

  “That’s your dad’s bedroom?” Kai asked.

  “Yeah. He likes butterflies, too. I thought I’d plant this for him.”

  A harsh, rasping cough rattled the window, and Doodle froze. She wat
ched the window with large eyes as the coughing went on for twenty-three seconds. Finally, it stopped. When it had been silent for more than a minute, her eyes lost their frightened look. “He’s sick a lot,” she said finally, not looking at Kai. “Sometimes, it gets really bad. Then he can’t work. And when he can’t work, he doesn’t get paid.”

  “What does he do?” Kai asked.

  Doodle nudged the dirt with the edge of her sneaker. “He makes coffins.”

  “Oh, right,” Kai said, and Doodle looked at her sharply. “Lavinia mentioned it.” Kai wanted to ask questions, but she sensed that Doodle didn’t want to talk about it. Maybe that’s why Doodle holds back, Kai thought, because some things are too hard. Kai decided to change the subject. “And is that little purple flower bush going to get as big as the white one?”

  Doodle nodded. “They grow fast. So—what’ve you got?”

  Kai looked down at the book in her hands. She had momentarily forgotten what had brought her across the street.

  It was The Exquisite Corpse. She had tumbled out of bed and onto the floor, jolted out of a dream of music with the notes still lingering in the air. Her eyes snapped open to face the spine of the book. When she opened it, she read that Ralph had followed the music, too, and had met Miss Pickle. And then, there was another sentence. “There are those who long to know magic’s secrets.”

  Somehow, Kai had felt that this was meant for her.

  “Are you the kind of person who believes in . . . weird stuff?”

  Doodle thought it over. “Like aliens?”

  “No. More like magic.”

  Doodle sat down on the grass. Then she lay on her back, looking up at the sky. To Kai, it seemed as if a long time passed. The clouds twisted into new shapes, and Doodle stared up at them. At last, she sat up. “Everything is magic,” she said. “The sky, the stars, the whole world. It’s miraculous, when you think about it.”