\nCrossing the barbed wire had been fun. Without a wand Dad could manage just a hint of cantrips, the barest spark of magic. But he had decades of experience in coaxing sorcery from his fingertips, and coated Kade\u2019s hands with a gauzy glow. The rusty wires felt gentle under his palms.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cPresto,\u201d Dad said, on the other side. And not with the half-twist of his lip, like usual. He was sweating and paused with his hands on his knees, but he had done real magic.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYeah,\u201d Kade said, to show he was deeply impressed. \u201cAlright.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHeyyyyy presto,\u201d Dad said, wriggling his fingers. \u201cWith a wand\u2014\u201d he stopped himself. Kade had heard hundreds of \u201cwith a wand\u201d stories, until even Dad had called a halt. With a wand Dad would\u2019ve tossed the entire fencing into the upper atmosphere. With a wand they would\u2019ve turned into water and sluiced through the metal. With a wand Kade would\u2019ve been a wizard.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe bombed-out ruins of Snall Academy were not far.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cOof,\u201d Dad said. He stopped short again.\n<\/p>\n
\nJust in the past year the government had stopped blocking the display on Google Earth. From overhead it was rubble with a hint of craters. Dad had spent long hours printing available aerials at the library \u2013 not the local library, a distant drive. Just in case the government was still looking. Kade had been put in charge of watching the printer, snatching the prints and keeping them close.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe entire air force couldn\u2019t do anything,\u201d Dad said, walking again. \u201cTurned their engines into rocks. Or put a small but tasteful bureau right in the path of the turbine. All sorts of options.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYeah, Dad,\u201d Kade had heard this, from the backseat, on many drives. But this was actually it, the husk, formerly an edifice in towering pewter stone. Famous for its pennants, flags, banners, each alive with residents.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cArtillery, though. Artillery\u2026 Yeah. Those damn howitzers.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nAlthough from the pictures the area seemed flattened and empty there were still plenty of stones. There was the remnant footprint of a building, including some blackened rocks. And a pillar in chalky marble by a wide open space. It was a surprise to Dad, who went right over to it.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cA memorial!\u201d he said, surprised. \u201cTo all their dead! They actually put something up!\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nIt had no acknowledgement of conflict and was simply inscribed with names. Many, many names, in a small font.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cDang, Dad,\u201d Kade said, uncertain. \u201cLot of carving.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cOh, we didn\u2019t go down easy,\u201d Dad said. He seemed uncertain, himself, about how to feel. \u201cEven after the shells broke through we zipped over there on brooms and lit a brigade on\u2014 anyway. Join me in a piss?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cUh,\u201d Kade went to the other side of the pillar. \u201cYeah.\u201d He could just see Dad\u2019s knees, peeking out, from the sides of the monument. Kade decided not to unzip. He didn\u2019t need to go. Dad had insisted he went before they left, and it was not a far drive. He just listened to the tinkle.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cAlright?\u201d Dad said, when he went back around.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cDidn\u2019t have much,\u201d Kade said. \u201cBut I tried.\u201d Dad ruffled his hair. He hadn\u2019t washed his hands or anything.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI wonder if\u2026\u201d Dad put his hands on the stone, puffed out his cheeks. Another brief glow from underneath his fingertips. With a wand \u2013 even Kade did it, to himself, in his head \u2013 with a wand the monument could be driven deepwards down into the earth itself. Atomized into sand. Dad mouthed the words. A flash, and then the scent of burnt hairs. \u201cThere.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nA trickle of black lines networked from name to name, adding lines and curlicues and accents to the alphabetical rows. Francisco became Eramcisco. \u201cDo you want to try?\u201d Dad said.\n<\/p>\n
\nKade shook his head. In the old days he was guaranteed the words, wand, the candle, the rook. The books of lineage were gone but counted Merlin as just another entry, although a lengthy one. He\u2019d been taught the words. The candle and the rook were symbolic. There were no more wands.\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n\u201cMe and Cyrus lived\u2026 must\u2019ve been here. A hundred feet up. Maybe more. Heck, maybe less, it was all criss-crossed with charms and half of everything was on the ceiling\u2026\u201d Dad rambled on, crater to crater. Not quite craters \u2013 the shells had plowed in and exploded. It looked like god had scraped the ground with both hands.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cDad, you didn\u2019t have a church or anything, right?\u201d Kade ventured. This was a dangerous question. Chapels and the holy were Mom\u2019s province. During Dad weekends he often pried into religiosity: Kade didn\u2019t really believe any of it, right? No, Dad.\n<\/p>\n
\nDad was in a complicated mood. Ordinarily Kade could read the weather from Friday night arrival: stormy, overcompensating, wistful. \u201cWe\u2019re probably standing in the chapel,\u201d Dad said. They\u2019d made their way almost to dead center. Here the furrows had turned into dunes. The stone itself had slagged, melting into the dirt, a stew of rock and clay. \u201cWe held it for a full day against the shells. They must\u2019ve carted away the metal, it was piled high and red hot.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhat kind of chapel?\u201d Kade said. He was genuinely curious. Dad mixed lip-tight secrecy with slops of exceeding honesty. Kade knew all about Carolya, Dad\u2019s first girlfriend, her hair a luminous green-gold and her eyes drifting with starlight. He had a fair sense of the destructive power at Dad\u2019s fingertips, properly equipped. But nothing about ancestors\u2013 he refused, even when drunk, to give up the names of Kade\u2019s grandparents.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cNot Christian. Oh no,\u201d Dad tried to chuckle. \u201cThe statue survived, it must have. I bet its in a warehouse somewhere. I\u2019d love to see what they do on crescent moons. I bet they keep engraving new names on that monument.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nHe bent down, first to signal that the conversation was over, and then with real excitement. Kade watched him dust off what looked like the bottom of a black urn. Dad held it aloft. Now the smile was sincere. \u201cA cambryion egg!\u201d he exclaimed.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nThey shared ice-gray eyes, and Kade had resented it. They were weird eyes. Every teacher, every year, found a way to inquire about his genetics. The expectation was that he would be fey, withdrawn, spooky. It never fit his baseball photos: a boy, awkward smile, polyester outfit, and shiny steel eyes.\n<\/p>\n
\nAt age nine Dad had made the big reveal. He threw a blanket over the both of them and took Kade\u2019s hand. He did the glow. \u201cDo you know what you are?\u201d he had said. The words was underneath his left hand, tantalizing, the cover full of unfamiliar letters.\n<\/p>\n
\nDad had known he\u2019d say \u201cwizard\u201d and was ready to scowl at it. He\u2019d turned his hand upright and formed a quarter-sized rose in his palm. \u201cNot a WIZARD,\u201d he\u2019d rasped. The effort would leave him bedridden for three days. \u201cYou\u2019re a MAGUS.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nThe young magus eyed the cracked shard of egg. Dad had brought a backpack, and stowed the obsidian-black rind in it. \u201cWhat\u2019s it do?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cMade people. Imprints. We\u2019d capture a soldier \u2013 the higher the rank the better \u2013 show it to the newborn. Then off it went. We had a cambryion colonel for weeks, sending men off to melt.\u201d The egg tore into the bottom of the Jansport backpack. \u201cI bet there\u2019s one or two still in the ranks. We had a whole menagerie, Kade, an entire zoo in the ranks. The army had to bring in steel plates. Otherwise our wyrms would dig up into the barracks.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nHe tried to match Dad\u2019s smile.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cKade, let me tell you, until they got the artillery going, it was practically our exams. Shooting little bullets at us. At us! Slugs of lead! All because\u2014\u201d he stopped. Dad\u2019s eyes glanced up. They matched the clouds. He shoved his hands in his windbreaker and kicked at the ground. \u201cLet\u2019s keep looking. It\u2019s not like in the movies. It\u2019s the size of a piece of chalk.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nHe\u2019d learned the words. Dad even complimented his pronunciation. They slipped out of his tongue, generally sibilant, and seemed to echo on the wrong corners. It was as close as Kade got. He didn\u2019t have a wand.\n<\/p>\n
\nDad was resigned to it from the start\u2014he never got frustrated that Kade couldn\u2019t raise a spark from a single fingernail. \u201cIt\u2019s like learning to drive without a car,\u201d he\u2019d told Kade, trading a pip of light between his thumbs. \u201cBut if you had one\u2026 you\u2019d do some things.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nFly. Transmutation, telepathy, alteration, conjuration. Kade let his fingernails grow very long for a 12 year old boy. None of it worked. \u201cI don\u2019t even know what they\u2019re made of,\u201d Dad had said. \u201cClosely guarded secret. I was never in that inner circle. Pearl white, with a gem inset. Looks like a topaz.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nHe\u2019d never once told anyone the big secret. In part because Dad had made clear that they were fugitives. The government had milled good men to kill everyone in a school. But also: what was there to tell? That he knew a fake language? Tell one of his friends: come on over, my Dad has glow fingers. It tuckers him out for days.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHere, Kade, over here!\u201d Dad waved his hat. They\u2019d separated, from the chapel footprint. Wandered alone. Kade had tried to imagine himself there: Lynx House, masked and hooded, hair shaved down to the roots.\n<\/p>\n
\nA chunk of rubble had settled on top of itself. Dad pulled it up, heaving, and a seam appeared. Further Dad-son effort pulled it free. There was a crack leading down into darkness. Dad stuck his hand in, thought again, and pulled out a mundane flashlight. \u201cLooks like the kitchen cellars,\u201d he reported, voice thick.\n<\/p>\n
\nScent worked its way up through the new chimney. A rot that Kade had never experienced before. Flowers mixed with dead dog. Dad was already huffing his stomach in to drop down. His hands were shaking. They were artificially aged, parchment skin and slender bones, from the effort of channeling magic. \u201cDrop in after me, okay?\u201d he said, polo collar still just visible in the hatch.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cOkay, Dad,\u201d Kade said. \u201cYeah. How far is it?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWell\u2013 I\u2019ll tell you. Can you smell it?\u201d He only had his eyebrows visible, now, and used them to signal excitement. \u201cThat\u2019s goblin. I haven\u2019t tasted goblin in nineteen years.\u201d He dropped in. Kade listened for a thud. There was no sound at all.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cDad?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cSorry\u2013 yeah! Drop in! I landed in\u2013 just drop in! I\u2019ll catch you!\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nDad did not catch him. He caught half of Kade\u2019s leg, spun him around, and then made a frantic grab for the back of his hoodie. To Kade this came across as falling, flipping, and then having his face drawn across something wet and old. It took them half a minute to get unsorted. The smell took the chance to climb into his nose. It was twenty years of death stink, and Dad didn\u2019t help by shining the flashlight right in his eyes.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cOh\u2013 you\u2019ve got \u2013 here,\u201d Dad rubbed Kade\u2019s forehead clean, the tip of his nose. Whatever it was, it was green.\n<\/p>\n
\nThey\u2019d landed in dead goblin. The creatures themselves had settled and gone indistinct, but they\u2019d left behind juices and effluvia. Dad was beside himself excited. He stamped his New Balances down for emphasis.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cGoblins, Kade! This is it, this is the real stuff. There\u2019s so much I wanted to show you. Whenever it\u2019s just my hands flaring I think \u2013 this is nothing, this is nothing at all, I\u2019ve seen dragons disembowel a Vulcan B.2, I\u2019ve seen the sun itself shit fire on normie troops, and it\u2019s just these soggy memories\u2026\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nThe flashlight darted around. There were dozens of patches of stink. They\u2019d landed in the largest one. \u201cThey must\u2019ve all been huddled here \u2013 I think we broke through a cocoon of mummies, you know, that kind of thing. I bet these guys served me breakfast.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cBreakfast?\u201d Kade said. He found a dry patch of ground and breathed in through his nose. The smell was terrible. They\u2019d landed in a half-buried hall. There were hammocks strewn about in a corner of the room.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cOh, yeah, they did all the cooking, cleaning, that kind of thing. Servants. We had an entire menagerie for the menial stuff.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cSo they were\u2026 servants?\u201d Kade said. His voice hinted at: slaves?\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThey were little green guys, Kade,\u201d Dad said. He sounded amused. \u201cThey belonged to the school. Man, we used to play this game if we saw one. They were supposed to be basically invisible, you know. If you caught one like, doing his laundry rounds, we made him dance. That was the only way to tell them apart, they each had a different dance.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nKade walked around the room, avoiding patches of green. They\u2019d been trapped in there, then. This, this made it real. Smell, it smelled like something. Magic had never smelled like anything. It was just a glow.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cDad, the war. How did it start?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nHe\u2019d asked the question before. Always it had been deferred. Sometimes with a half-knowing smile, more often with a curt shake of the head.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThey had to kill us,\u201d Dad said. \u201cThe moment they learned about us. I don\u2019t blame them for it. We were intolerable. Every one of us was an unexploded hydrogen bomb. All of us. I was a kid, I was your age, and you know how many\u2014 \u201che broke off. The flashlight went limp in his hand. \u201cWe should check for a wand. They\u2019re supposed to be tailored to the individual but\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYeah, I know Dad. I\u2019ve been looking,\u201d Kade said. Around the lumps of fetid skin were personal items: clothes, papers, bags, socks. \u201cHow are we going to get out? Shoulders?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nThey pulled a table over underneath the gap, put a chair on top of that, and got out. The sun was dark and down in the sky.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe should go,\u201d Dad said, reluctant. \u201cI don\u2019t know, Kade. I could show you all this, if I had a wand. I could put all of it from my head to yours. Not the war, I wouldn\u2019t even do the war. The Night of the Red Mon, the Sifting\u2026 and I was just one of the kids. Lecturer Metz just spoke inside all of our heads, he had his lips sewn shut. And the Headmaster\u2026 Cyrus caught just a glimpse of him and his eyelids burst into flames.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cDad\u2026\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI bet Carolya is still out there. Hell, I bet a lot of us are. Not everyone lost their wand. There\u2019s probably Academies all over, underground and well-hidden, and if I just hadn\u2019t\u2013 lost my damn WAND\u2026\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cDad I see lights down by the lake.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nThat was a lie. If Dad had his wand it would\u2019ve glowed a foul green all over him. It would\u2019ve stunk of mistruth.\n<\/p>\n
\nInstead Dad peered off into the distance and misinterpreted a glint of fading sunlight off the water. \u201cI guess we better get going,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nTheir hotel room was three hours away. It had been a very quiet ride.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe hotel was normal. Kade ran his hand along the wallpaper, the bedspread. He washed his hands, and left his shoes out on the porch. The scent of goblin had followed them, but just faintly, and not at all once his Vans were outside and in a tied-up grocery bag.\n<\/p>\n
\nWhen Dad went outside, to smoke a cigarette, Kade went into the bathroom. He hesitated, decided not to lock the door. Dad would never come inside with a half-burned cigarette. He made a point of getting close to the filter. Out of his pocket Kade pulled out a white cylinder of his own, much like a piece of chalk. There was an inset hunk of red ruby in it. He\u2019d pocketed it inside the goblin mausoleum. Dad\u2019s flashlight had caught it, but just for a second, light passing through.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe wand floated in the toilet when he dropped it in. But when he flushed it went down no problem at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Crossing the barbed wire had been fun. Without a wand Dad could manage just a hint of cantrips, the barest spark of magic. But he had decades of experience in coaxing sorcery from his fingertips, and coated Kade\u2019s hands with a gauzy glow. The rusty wires felt gentle under his palms. \u201cPresto,\u201d Dad said, on …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107886,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,14,20100],"tags":[20101],"class_list":["post-140140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-publications","category-tcl-45-autumn-2022","tag-the-colored-lens-45-autumn-2022","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/107886"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=140140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140141,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140140\/revisions\/140141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=140140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=140140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=140140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}