Page 42 of Blackwicket

He never talked about his magic. I knew he had it from the way mine responded, like a wave buffeted by the wind. My question quieted him, and he pushed at the new pile of dirt I’d made, patting it.

“Nothing I like,” he said at last. “So, can I help you?”

“No.”

“Aw, why not Ellie?”

I hesitated. Thomas and I had been friends for a year, since his father, Grigori Nightglass, began coming to the house more frequently to do business. I hated Grigori and his greasy smile, but Thomas seemed pleasant, shy, and he’d shown me how to find pill-bugs and race them along the path to the garden.

Even when Grigori briefly stopped harassing us, Thomas continued to show unannounced. Mother never allowed him inside, but let me out to meet him. Fiona had played with us for a while as she was closer to Thomas’ age, but she’d grown bored with our rowdiness, preferring her calmer creative activities to throwing rocksinto the sea, scaling the porch trellis to the roof, and racing up and down the hill from gate to garden until we were flushed and breathless.

Aside from Fiona, Thomas was my only friend. And friends shared secrets with each other.

“You can’t tell anyone, ever…”

“I never would! Cross my heart.”

I believed him.

“It’s not magic.”

I grew shy myself, picking at the leaves of a nearby thistle.

“What do you use then?”

“Curses.” I confessed timidly.

I half expected him to get mad. His father was Principe, in charge of making sure no one was using illegal magic in Nightglass. My mother’s license had been sponsored, but that didn’t include me. I was breaking the law. But he didn’t recoil or laugh, didn’t call me a liar. He looked over his shoulder at the bulk of Blackwicket House hulking behind us.

“Like the ones in your house?” he asked.

“How do you know about those?”

“Can feel ‘em from here.”

I panicked. “If you tell Grigori, I’ll be arrested!”

“I never tell him anything,” he said by way of reassuring me, but that wasn’t enough.

“Just in case, tell me one of your secrets.”

He eyed me, incredulous. “Why?”

“So, I can make sure you never tell mine,” I replied with all the solemnity of someone demanding a blood oath.

“I don’t got any.”

“That’s a lie. Everybody’s got one!”

He smiled his self-conscious smile.

“Yeah, ok. I guess that’s fair.” He spent a moment thinking,and I guessed he was trying to find a worthy trade. “Grigori’s not my dad.”

“Who is?” I asked, the revelation not so shocking. I barely had a dad. Fathers were a mystery to me. I still hadn’t figured out how they worked.

“Dunno,” he said, shrugged like it didn’t matter, but looked so sad. That afternoon, I made the first of several stupid decisions only children can make.

“Ok, I’ll teach you to plant curses.”