The street was brightly lit, but not with neon signs and electric streetlights like Alexandra was used to. Instead, she saw lanterns hanging from posts, and storefronts illuminated by glass jars that seemed to contain bottled fire of various colors. The street was quite busy, filled with men and women wearing costumes Alexandra would normally have associated with Halloween. She saw long, flowing robes in flamboyant colors, she saw staid black and white dresses and tunics, she saw wide-brimmed hats and bonnets large and small, plain and colorful, she saw leather and buckskin outfits, and she saw one fellow dressed like a medieval knight in jingling chain armor, carrying a sword. Almost everyone on the street was a grown-up; she saw a couple of women carrying babies and a few teenagers, but hardly anyone her own age. She did, however, catch a glimpse of some grumpy-looking humanoids with long ears and beak-like noses, and following after some of the humans, even smaller creatures who would barely come up to Alexandra's waist, skinny, with oversized heads and bulbous eyes, dressed in little more than scraps of clothing.
Ms. Grimm let Alexandra stand there staring for a while, then put a hand on her shoulder.
“Ice cream, yes?”
Alexandra was much less interested in ice cream than she was in the fantastic scene before her, but she let Ms. Grimm steer her towards a bright white and pink building across the street. The sign out front said Goody Pruett's Witch-Made Pies, Cakes, and Other Confections.
“We're at the very edge of the Goblin Market,” Ms. Grimm said. “You'll have an opportunity to come back here, someday, but I just wanted to give you a little glimpse of the world alongside the one in which you have been living. And we still have some things to talk about.”
Alexandra and Ms. Grimm entered Goody Pruett's, and for the first time she saw other children. There was a girl who looked a little younger than her, sitting on a chair licking something chocolatey off her fingers. Unlike her parents, the girl was dressed in what Alexandra would consider normal-looking clothes, other than her enormous fluffy pink slippers. There was a boy Alexandra's age dressed in long dark robes, standing next to a man in very similar robes. They were looking over a case full of pies. The boy glanced at Alexandra curiously, then looked at Ms. Grimm and gulped. The man saw Ms. Grimm and said, “Dean Grimm! What a pleasure to see you here!” His son didn't look nearly as pleased.
“Hello, Alastair,” Ms. Grimm said pleasantly. “It looks as if Angus has just been fitted for his new school robes.”
“Aye, he's been growin' like a weed this past summer,” the older gentleman said. He had a long bushy black beard and was wearing a stovepipe hat. He reminded Alexandra strongly of Abraham Lincoln. “We thought we'd pick up some humility pie before headin' back to the homestead.”
“How nice.” Ms. Grimm gave an artificially warm smile, and looked at the boy. “Let's hope there's no need for humility when the new semester begins, Angus. I'll be expecting to see you on the Dean's List again.”
“Yes ma'am,” Angus gulped.
“This is Alexandra Quick. She's a brand new student. She'll be starting sixth grade.”
“Pleased to meet you, Alexandra,” said Angus's father somberly, holding out his hand for Alexandra to shake. She did so, and then Angus followed suit. “Hello,” he said. “Angus MacAvoy. I'll be in the seventh grade.” His expression was frankly curious as he looked Alexandra up and down from head to toe, taking in her “Muggle” clothing, but in Ms. Grimm's presence, he seemed too cowed to do more than introduce himself. Then the woman behind the counter handed Alastair MacAvoy a piebox. He gave her a handful of coins, took the box, and with a tip of his hat to Ms. Grimm, he and his son departed the shop.
Alexandra stared at the pastries behind the glass. There was a dazzling array of sugary treats, and some of them looked familiar, but others had very peculiar names. Besides Witch Apple and Huckleberry Pie, there was Humility Pie and Consolation Pie and a Schadenfreude Pie with a thick, gooey filling that looked as black as tar. Above these was a Blackbird Pie that actually moved and hopped on the shelf as if something inside were trying to get out.
“It doesn't really have blackbirds in it, does it?” Alexandra asked, making a face. Ms. Grimm only smiled and moved on, forcing Alexandra to follow, past small hard-looking Rock Cakes and a large sparkling Jubilation Cake, then a case full of Wizard Chocolates in red, yellow, blue, and green varieties in addition to the more familiar-looking brown and white. An “imports” case held Chocolate Frogs, Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, and something called “Wizard Wheezes.”
They finally got to the ice cream counter, and to Alexandra's disappointment, there was only a single tub of what looked like vanilla, though the sign above it said “Goody Pruett's Now Proudly Serves Wyland West's Famous 99-Flavored Ice Cream!”
“Two scoops, please,” said Ms. Grimm to the young man behind the counter, who had bright red hair and a scraggly beard and a “Goody Pruett's” smock covered with sticky stains of all colors.
“How many flavors?” he asked, as he picked up the scoop.
“Oh, let's have all ninety-nine,” she said, and the server nodded. He clicked the scoop lever a few times and then dished two scoops into a pair of sugar cones, and handed them across the counter. Ms. Grimm took one and handed one to Alexandra.
“That'll be twelve Pidges,” he said. Alexandra watched as Ms. Grimm handed another gold coin to him, and received a handful of smaller coins in change. Then she looked at the ordinary-looking scoop of ice cream in front of her nose, and cautiously stuck out her tongue to lick it.
Instead of vanilla, it tasted like spearmint. Surprised, she licked again, and this time her mouth filled with the flavor of... paper?
She looked up at Ms. Grimm, who was watching Alexandra's reaction with that bemused smile of hers.
“You'll get a different flavor every time you taste it,” she said. She licked her own ice cream, and her eyebrow twitched ever so slightly. “Hmm. Aged cheddar.”
There was an empty booth behind them, and Ms. Grimm indicated that Alexandra should sit down, so the two of them sat across the table from each other. Alexandra continued sampling her ice cream, tasting in succession grape, chocolate, asparagus, lemon, dishsoap, marshmallow, and baked beans.
She started to ask Ms. Grimm a question, then noticed the picture of a plump woman in glasses hanging on the wall, which said “Store Manager: Dee Finkleburg.” Ms. Finkleburg smiled cheerfully at Alexandra; not just in a static way, but actually smiling. Alexandra could see her cheeks move and her eyes follow the customers walking past. That made Alexandra think of her locket again.
“All these wonders you are seeing are just a small glimpse into the wizarding world,” Ms. Grimm was saying. “You'll be immersed in it soon enough.”
“And that's why you brought me to Chicago for ice cream?” Alexandra licked her ice cream cone again. Pistachio.
Ms. Grimm smiled, catlike. “That, and to talk, away from your parents. Do you recall I mentioned that we have laws you're going to have to follow?”
Alexandra eyed Ms. Grimm a little warily and licked cinnamon-flavored ice cream off her lips, and nodded.
“One of the most important is the International Confederation of Warlocks' Statute of Secrecy. Can you guess what that means?”
“That we're not supposed to do magic in front of... Muggles?” Alexandra said slowly.
“Precisely.” Ms. Grimm nodded. “Not just in front of them, but in any way that risks exposing the existence of magic to them.” She gave Alexandra a stern look.
“As I've told you, we tracked you down once we became aware of you through the Registrar's Scroll. It is standard practice to put a Trace on all wizards who reside in Muggle communities, to monitor their magical activities. Particularly in the case of underaged wizards and witches. Irresponsible magic use can cause enormous problems for the Bureau of Magic Obfuscation.”
Alexandra wasn't sure what “obfuscation” meant, but she had a bad feeling about the direction of the conversation. She felt herself starting to slide lower in her booth, as Ms. Grimm leaned towards her.
“What that means,” Ms. Grimm continued, “is that we are aware of every spell you cast. Whenever you use magic while away from Charmbridge, we will know about it.”
“I didn't know about your... International Warlocks' Secrecy Confederation, or Bureau of Obfu-something!” Alexandra protested.
“Of course you didn't,” Ms. Grimm said smoothly. “But you do now. So to make it very clear, you are not allowed to use magic outside of school or the supervision of an adult wizard. You've been very lucky so far as it is, casting spells without a wand, untrained. But there will be no more transforming cookies into worms or using magic to open locks. Until you've earned your Magical Diploma, when you live among Muggles, you will have to live as a Muggle. Do you understand?”
Alexandra stared at her. Having just been shown the magical world of witches and wizards, she was now being told she had to pretend it didn't exist, except when she was in school? It seemed so unfair!
“What about if I'm in danger? What if I need to save someone's life?”
“Ah, yes.” Ms. Grimm licked at her ice cream cone. “Why were you throwing fireballs about, three nights ago?”
Alexandra stared again. “You knew about that?”
“We knew you did it, but not why. Since I was coming to enroll you anyway, it was decided to wait until now to question you, but an Obfuscation Officer was sent to Larkin Mills to investigate any potential breaches of magical secrecy.”
“What does an Obfuscation Officer do?”
“Mostly cleans up messes made by the reckless use of magic around Muggles,” Ms. Grimm replied, giving Alexandra another narrow look. “In extreme cases, they can even erase the memories of Muggles who've seen too much. Now, about those fireballs?”
Alexandra was surprised, annoyed, and a little relieved all at once. So she told Ms. Grimm how it all started, when she thought she'd seen a naiad in Old Larkin Pond, about the redcaps who had assaulted her that night, and then, about the creature who really lived in the pond and how she and Brian and Bonnie had escaped from it. By the time she was finished, Ms. Grimm had finished her ice cream cone, and Alexandra was down to her last dandelion-flavored bite.
“That is a remarkable story on many levels,” Ms. Grimm said. “To produce fireballs like that, spontaneously, with such an unsuitable wand substitute, indicates you have a rare talent. Of course you must have been panicked and desperate, which often brings out unprecedented bursts of magical energy, but still... And redcaps, and a kappa, in Larkin Mills? Fascinating indeed.”
“What's a kappa?”
“The creature in the pond. From your description, it sounds like a kappa, which is very strange as they are not normally found outside of Asia.”
“Do they really drown people and eat them?”
“Oh yes. They're very dangerous to Muggles. That you defeated it without using magic is really quite remarkable. Of course risking your life and that of your friends for a bracelet...” She shook her head. “Whatever could make that bracelet so important?”
Alexandra shrugged, sliding her wrist below the table, out of sight. “Dunno,” she mumbled. “I just wanted it back. It's not like I knew there was a kappa in the pond.”
“Hmm.” Ms. Grimm didn't seem to be in the habit of pressing for answers, yet Alexandra often had the sense the woman knew when she was hiding something.
“Is the Obfuscation Officer going to erase Brian and Bonnie's memories?” Alexandra asked, pronouncing “obfuscation” very carefully.
Ms. Grimm raised an eyebrow. “Do you think he should?”
Alexandra had ended her story with their escape from the kappa. She had not told Ms. Grimm about their conversation afterwards, or about how Brian had turned his back on her and walked away. And suddenly, a part of Alexandra wished very much that she could simply erase what had happened.
Except it wasn't just the kappa that Brian had seen. Alexandra had been doing magic for years, and Brian knew all about it. Would they have to erase everything he knew about her? Would they have to erase his memories of Alexandra entirely? Would they still be friends at all? She looked down at her lap.
“I don't think he'll tell his parents,” she said quietly. “He'll... he'll probably talk Bonnie into telling them she just fell in the pond.”
“He knows about you, doesn't he?”
Alexandra looked up, annoyed at Ms. Grimm's ability to parse out what Alexandra left unsaid. “He won't tell. We're best friends.” “We were best friends,” she thought.
Ms. Grimm wiped her fingers carefully with a handkerchief.
“In recent years, the Bureau of Magic Obfuscation has become more cautious about Obliviating memories. They tend to do so only as a last resort. Children are rarely considered a serious threat to magical secrecy, even when they do witness actual magical phenomena. If Brian did tell his parents everything, it's not likely they'd believe him, is it?”
“No,” Alexandra said. But they'd certainly believe that he'd be better off staying away from her.
“I think your friends are safe from Obliviation. But mark what I said, Alexandra. You cannot continue to use magic at home. We will know about it if you do.”
“Can I talk to Brian about being a witch?” she asked, in a low voice. “Can I tell him where I'm going? Do I have to keep this secret from everyone? What about my parents?”
Ms. Grimm studied her a moment, and for the first time, Alexandra thought she looked genuinely sympathetic – just a little.
“Despite the Statute,” she said at last, “it's really not practical to maintain perfect secrecy. There are many wizards and witches who, like you, have Muggle friends and relatives. It's discouraged to tell them too much, but it's tolerated, so long as they don't threaten to reveal us to the rest of the Muggle world. But consider, Alexandra – what good will it do either of you for you to tell Brian about a world he can never be a part of? And inevitably, you will no longer be part of his world either. We segregate ourselves from Muggles for their own good as much as for ours.”
Alexandra was silent for a long while after that. “And my parents?” she asked at last.
Ms. Grimm smiled. “Your mother will always be your mother. And Mr. Green... well, he will always be your stepfather, I suppose. As you get older, you may see fit to tell them more, or not. But I think right now, they're better off enjoying blissful ignorance. Don't you?”
Ο Ο Ο Ο Ο Ο Ο Ο Ο Ο
Alexandra didn't say much on the ride home, and Ms. Grimm didn't push her. Alexandra was actually getting quite sleepy. In fact, she nodded off several times in the car.
As they reentered Larkin Mills, Ms. Grimm said, “Now, I want you to stay completely away from that pond. The Department of Magical Wildlife will be sending someone from Pest Control to deal with the kappa, and they'll probably try to track down those redcaps as well.”
Alexandra nodded, suppressing a yawn.
“The day after tomorrow, the academy will send a bus to bring you back to Chicago, this time for an all-day shopping trip at the Goblin Market. You're going to need robes, books, a wand, a familiar, magical equipment, all things you can't buy in Muggle stores. Your scholarship provides you with a budget to be spent on necessary school supplies, and there are a few students like you who don't have the opportunity to shop for magical supplies on their own.”
Despite her weariness and her thoughts about Brian and having to stop using magic, Alexandra was rather excited at the idea of going back to Chicago. A wand? A familiar? Her parents had never let her have a pet.
“Are you going to take us shopping?” she asked, a little dubiously.
Ms. Grimm smiled tightly. “I'm afraid not. I don't normally escort students around personally. This trip was... special. In any case, I'm going to be very busy getting ready for the new school year. There will be an older student volunteer and a Charmbridge staff member to chaperone you. I already explained to your parents about the need for this shopping trip – in less magical terms, of course – and they've agreed.”
They pulled up in front of Alexandra's house. “It has been a pleasure to meet you, Alexandra. As I said, you show a great deal of potential, so I look forward to seeing you at Charmbridge.” She gave Alexandra a stern look. “But remember –“
“I know,” Alexandra sighed. “No magic.”
Her parents were both still up when Alexandra entered the house, and she was a little surprised when she saw the time. It was past her bedtime, but not as late as she'd thought it was.
“So, did you and Ms. Grimm have a good time?” her mother asked. “That was a long trip for ice cream.”
Alexandra studied her mother, wondering if she suspected anything, or if she was at all curious about this mysterious school and the scholarship that came out of the blue, or if the Confundus Charm Ms. Grimm had told her about simply made anything seem sensible and not worth questioning.
“Yeah. She's... interesting.”
“Well, good.” Her mother looked down at a puzzle she was doing in a little book of crosswords. “You'd better go to bed, then.”
Alexandra nodded, and trudged upstairs. She lay awake in bed for long time, with ninety-nine unexpected flavors of ice cream still dancing on her tongue, and even more thoughts dancing in her head. If her father had been a wizard, was that why his mother had left him? Couldn't he have used magic to make her stay? Would she ever be able to ask her mother about him? And what had Brian and Bonnie told their parents?
Eventually, she did fall asleep, but she had dreams about the man in the locket, and the kappa in the pond reaching out of the water to drag her under, and eventually the two of them became switched so the kappa was hissing at her from a photograph and the dark-haired man was trying to pull her underwater.
Ο Ο Ο Ο Ο Ο Ο Ο Ο Ο
The next morning, Alexandra woke up later than usual for a summer day, but after washing her face she still got down to the kitchen before her mother had left for work. Archie was already gone.
“Am I still grounded?” she asked. She knew she probably shouldn't. The outburst and disciplinary excesses that yesterday's trip to the pond should have provoked had apparently been staved off by Ms. Grimm's Confundus Charm, but Alexandra feared that might have only been a postponement. On the other hand, she'd never been reluctant to push her luck.
“Of course you are,” her mother replied, but at least she didn't sound furious. “Other than going to get supplies for this trip tomorrow, you're not to leave the house until school starts. You can spend the rest of your summer vacation thinking about rules and boundaries, which I'm sure there will be plenty of at Charmbridge Academy.”
“Okay,” Alexandra said, a little sulkily, though she made a funny expression when her mother again kissed her on the forehead before going out the door.
“I will be calling during the day and you'd better be home!” her mother said.
Alexandra decided to actually behave herself that day. Naturally, before the day was over, she would have broken every rule she'd just been told not to.
It started with the locket. More determined than before to see the magical, moving picture, she spent almost an hour try to squeeze, pry, twist, unscrew, pop, or even break it open. (She didn't really want to break it open, but when she banged it on the tabletop in frustration, she didn't care at the moment whether it did break.)
Defeated, at least using mundane means, Alexandra began pacing the house while swinging the locket from her fingers or twirling it by its chain. Ms. Grimm had said no magic. But surely the “trace” she had been talking about couldn't detect every little thing Alexandra might do, even when it probably wouldn't even work? And besides, she reasoned to herself, she was home alone, there was no possibility her parents or any other “Muggles” might see her, and it wasn't as if she were going to throw fireballs or turn the kitchen table into a goat.
But just to be safe, she went upstairs into her room, locked her door, made sure the window was also locked and the blinds shut, and then for good measure, turned off the light. Now only a little light seeped into her room through the edges of the door and window. She held the locket in both hands, and rocked back and forth for a few minutes before chanting in a whisper:
“You can stay shut, but don't you hide,
Show me the picture I know's inside.”
And as it had the first time she tried opening it with a rhyme, the locket clicked and unlocked.
The man in the picture was in the same pose he had been in before. And when she stared at him, he again winked at her, while maintaining his smug expression.
Alexandra didn't say anything at first. She just studied his face. It was hard to make out much in the darkness, so she moved over to the window and cracked the blinds open a bit so that sunlight fell on his face. He squinted and frowned, and held up a hand to shade his eyes.
Did he look at all like her? His hair was dark like hers, but he appeared to have dark gray eyes. His skin wasn't as pale, but there was something about his nose and the way it turned up just a little that reminded her of her own nose. His chin was covered by his beard, so she couldn't compare, and he had much bushier eyebrows. His cheeks were softly rounded, a little like hers. Alexandra could see a resemblance if she tried really hard, but it would be just as easy to conclude that any resemblance was superficial at best.
“Why can't you just tell me who you are?” she demanded. “If you're a magical photograph, can't you talk? Don't you even care if I'm your daughter?”
But he didn't seem to care, or even hear her question.
Perhaps someone else did, though, as there came a sudden tapping on her window that made Alexandra jump. She stared at the blinds covering it, and then the tapping came again, erratic and insistent. Whatever could be outside her second-floor window?
Without thinking, she snapped the locket shut, and then cautiously peeked out from behind the blinds, to find herself staring at an owl.
This surprised her so much she abandoned caution, and pulled the cord to raise the blinds. The owl was a fairly small one, sitting on the outside windowsill. It blinked once at her, and then leaned forward to tap again on the window with its beak, a little more insistently this time.
Alexandra was too surprised to do anything other than stare. This seemed to annoy the owl. It half-spread its wings and made an irritable hooting sound, and rotated its head back and forth to glare at her, then tapped against the window again, harder.
“Okay, okay,” she said. She fumbled at the latch and pulled the window up, then had to detach the screen while the owl hopped impatiently. Once she did so, it flapped into her room and landed on the bedpost nearest her and held out a leg. Alexandra could now see that there was a piece of paper tied to it.
“Is this how wizards send messages?” she asked. “Why don't they just use the telephone?”
The owl hooted at her, and wiggled its leg insistently.
Carefully (because the owl looked annoyed now, and it had a rather menacing beak), Alexandra undid the knot that held the paper to the owl's leg, and pulled it free. It was a little slip of parchment, and when she unrolled it it read:
Dear Miss Quick,
It has come to our attention that at 11:14 a.m. this morning, you cast an Unlocking Charm in your home at 207 Sweetmaple Avenue. As you have already been informed, the use of magic in Muggle communities is a violation of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, and is strictly forbidden to underaged witches.
Consistent with our usual policy for handling first-time juvenile offenders, you are required only to take notice of and heed this written warning. However, this offense has been entered into your Permanent Record. Any further violations may result in more severe disciplinary action being taken.
Very truly yours,
Alcina Kennedy
Central Territory Trace Office
Alexandra was a bit disheartened by the fact that the Trace Office had known exactly what she'd done so quickly. The thought of such infallible surveillance being on her at all times was frightening. What if they started watching for other kinds of misbehavior, not just unauthorized use of magic?
The owl hooted again, as if to add its own disapproval, hopped back onto the windowsill, and took off.
Alexandra sat down on her bed, chin in her hands, and stared at the locket that was now sealed shut again.
“This sucks,” she said.
In reply, there was another flurry of wings on her windowsill. She looked up, and into the beady yellow eyes of a bird of prey. It sat on the same spot where the owl had just departed, actually flung a bright red envelope that had been clutched in its talons at her, issued a screech that sounded almost like a sneer, and then launched itself away from the window.
Alexandra stared at the red envelope. It had fallen on her bedsheets, and was now beginning to smoke. She picked it up carefully between two fingers, afraid it might set her bed on fire, and tore open the flap over her wastebasket. Nothing came out, but suddenly Ms. Grimm's voice filled the room (and indeed the entire house).
“MISS QUICK! WHEN I TELL YOU NOT TO DO SOMETHING, I MEAN FOR YOU NOT TO DO IT! IMAGINE MY EMBARRASSMENT UPON BEING INFORMED BY THE TRACE OFFICE THAT THE STUDENT I VISITED TO WELCOME TO MY SCHOOL THE NIGHT BEFORE HAS JUST VIOLATED THE VERY FIRST RULE I TOLD HER NOT TO BREAK! LET ME VERY CLEAR, YOUNG LADY: RULES ARE MEANT TO BE FOLLOWED AT CHARMBRIDGE, AND IF YOU WISH TO ACTUALLY ATTEND CHARMBRIDGE, YOU WILL LEARN TO FOLLOW THEM! LET THIS BE THE LAST TIME YOUR NAME IS BROUGHT TO MY ATTENTION IN THIS MANNER, OR EMBARRASSMENT WILL BE THE LEAST OF YOUR WORRIES!”
By the time Ms. Grimm's speech had concluded, Alexandra was squeezed against the wall behind her bed with her knees curled up to her chest and her hands over her ears. As the last vibrations from Grimm's tongue-lashing faded, she looked cautiously out her window, almost expecting to see neighbors looking out their windows, or perhaps hear car alarms that had been set off.
“Well how secret was that?” she retorted angrily, but the red envelope that had produced the howling denunciation had burst into flames and was now crumbling into ashes.
She guessed that Ms. Grimm must have had some way of knowing that Alexandra was alone in the house, and that no one outside the house would hear her “message.” But the irony of such noisy magic being used to scold her for one quiet little charm that no one else could possibly have noticed had her simmering with indignation.
For most of the rest of the day, she was bored and a little jumpy; when the phone rang with her mother's first call of the day, she started and looked at the windows. She felt trapped, confined to her house and watched at all times by invisible spying wizard-eyes. Her initial exhilaration at discovering the world of magic and wizardry was replaced by frustration at having to pretend it didn't exist. And she wasn't sure how much she was looking forward to attending Charmbridge Academy now; she already had one black mark against her, and she'd be completely under Dean Grimm's authority.
Late in the afternoon, she was sitting in the living room, watching out the window. Some kids were playing kickball in the street, including Brian and Bonnie. Alexandra wanted very much to be outside with them. She was a pretty good kickball player, so she was usually chosen early for teams, even though the other neighborhood children weren't eager to play with her otherwise. She watched Brian, who was also a fair player (but she was better, she thought to herself), and Bonnie, who was terrible but tried hard.
When the game ended, as the late afternoon shadows stretched across Sweetmaple Avenue, Alexandra dashed to her front door and opened it, stepping out onto the porch. Brian glanced in her direction, but he and Bonnie walked down the street in the direction of their own house.
“Brian!” Alexandra called after him.
He didn't answer, so with a look over her shoulder to make sure her mother's car or Archie's wasn't coming around the corner, she ran across her front lawn, right to the edge of it (she was still on her own property so she wasn't technically violating her grounding, she thought, ignoring for the moment that her mother had clearly said she wasn't to leave the house) and yelled again: “Brian!”
He paused for a moment, and seemed to be struggling with some decision, then he said something to Bonnie and gave her a gentle nudge. Bonnie looked up at him and then over her shoulder at Alexandra. She looked worried and sad and (this was the part that struck Alexandra and gave her a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach) a little frightened. Brian pushed her again, and she reluctantly went on ahead. Brian turned to look at her, but he was standing on the sidewalk two houses down and made no move to come closer, so Alexandra made an exasperated sound and stepped onto the sidewalk. No owl swooped down to deliver a note from the Central Territory Grounding Office, so she continued down the street until she was face-to-face with Brian.
“Aren't you still grounded?” he asked.
“Well, yeah,” she said, and looked over her shoulder again, but her parents still weren't returning home yet.
“Right. Why would that matter?” Brian didn't raise his voice or look angry, but his tone made her feel like she was being scolded yet again. She looked at him narrowly and said, “What's that supposed to mean?”
He shrugged. “Just that you don't care much what anyone tells you.”
She glared at him. This wasn't going at all like she'd hoped. Brian had always been more cautious than her, and definitely more respectful of his parents, but he'd never criticized Alexandra openly for her devil-may-care attitude before. In fact, while she hadn't ever consciously thought about it, she had always been comfortable in her assumption that he rather liked the way she flaunted rules and did whatever she pleased. And to some degree, she had been correct. But something had changed, and she could sense it.
“Are you still mad at me about last night? Look, I'm really sorry. I really didn't think anything dangerous would happen. It's not like I wanted to scare Bonnie.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said. He was looking away from her.
“I promise I'll never talk you into anything again without telling you everything, okay?”
His eyes flickered back to her, but he didn't say anything. She decided to press forward. Surely her news would be exciting enough to get him to stop dwelling on their mishap at the pond.
“You'll never believe what happened when I got home!” she said, and she actually lowered her voice, as she took his elbow and walked with him, not towards his house, but back in the direction of her own house, where it would be easier for her to dash around the side and in through the back door if she saw one of her parents coming.
She hadn't been intending to tell Brian everything, but Grimm hadn't exactly said she couldn't, only implied that she shouldn't, and as she began to talk about Ms. Grimm and the Charmbridge scholarship, Brian simply listened. He didn't look disbelieving, but neither did he seem thrilled or curious, so Alexandra kept talking, wanting her friend to share in her excitement, and she ignored the grave look that shadowed his face more deeply the more she went on. She told him about their magically-accelerated trip to Chicago and back, the trollbooth and the Automagicka, Goody Pruett's and the ninety-nine-flavored ice cream, and how she was going to go back tomorrow to buy a wand and a familiar and spellbooks and all sorts of other things, and how she was going to become a full-fledged witch. She did leave out the part about using magic to open her locket again today, and her subsequent visits by an owl and a hawk.
When she was finished, Brian stared off into the distance. For the first time since she'd started speaking, Alexandra faltered. “So, isn't that... kind of neat?” she asked. “I mean... I really am a witch! I'm really doing magic... and my father... he was probably a wizard...” Her voice trailed off.
“Neat?” Brian repeated. He looked at her. “So your parents know about all this? Your mom and Archie are cool with you being a... witch?”
She frowned. “Well, not exactly,” she admitted. “Ms. Grimm said that they probably shouldn't be told all the details. I mean, they're grown-ups, they might get a little funny about magic and stuff.”
“But it's okay for you to tell me? Ms. Grimm doesn't mind you telling all your friends about this 'wizard-world'?”
Alexandra opened her mouth, but Brian's reaction left her momentarily confused.
“Well... she said it's best not to tell M– non-wizards, except a few, you know, close friends, family, people who won't tell others.”
Brian was looking at her again. Alexandra hadn't mentioned the Bureau of Magic Obfuscation, and she wondered if he was wondering the same things she had, about what wizards did about Muggles who found out about them.
“Brian, don't look at me like that. I'm telling you because you're my friend! I know you won't tell your parents. You shouldn't tell Bonnie either –”
“Of course I won't tell Bonnie or my parents!” he yelled at her, so suddenly she took a step backwards. “Are you crazy?”
She just looked at him. He shook his head. “Trolls, secret highways, magic ice cream, wands and, and familiars and –” He shook his head again, and stared at her, and there was both anger and fear in his eyes, and something else, as if he were looking at a strange magical creature shaped like Alexandra but which might be dangerous.
“When we were kids,” he said quietly but very seriously, as if the age of eleven made them no longer kids, “magic was neat. You doing weird things, that was neat. 'Cause it was just little stuff and we were too young to know better.”
Alexandra was truly flustered now. “What? I don't understand what you're saying.”
“Magic isn't supposed to be real!” he shouted. “Redcaps and kappas and trolls, those things aren't supposed to be real! Wizards and witches, they're make-believe! They're Halloween costumes!”
“No, they're not,” Alexandra said. “They're real.”
“They're real for you, Alex,” Brian said, slowly and deliberately. “Not for me.” He shook his head, and backed away from her.
She stared at him, confused. “Brian, you're being stupid. You can't just say something isn't real because you say so. I'm not making this up.”
“Yeah, I know you aren't.”
He turned and walked away from her, then after a few steps, broke into a run. He ran all the way back to his house, and Alexandra watched him go, her thoughts too much in disarray for her to make sense of what had just happened. That hot, hard lump was back in her throat. She stood there for several minutes after Brian had disappeared inside, and only stirred from her spot when she heard a car coming around the corner. Instinctively, she knew it was Archie, and she ran back inside, barely entering the house before she heard him slam the door of his truck.