Chapter Two

I sat before the mirror at the big vanity that dominated my room, scanning the posters that plastered every inch of available space. With few exceptions, they were all of a single theme: unicorns. Ever since I was small, I had been collecting images and figurines as a hobby that bordered on obsession. I didn’t go looking for them. They seemed to find me, and when they did, I had to pick them up and add them to the herd. I had a few wizards, too. I didn’t mean to, but when you hunt unicorns, wizards are never far behind.

My gaze swung back to the mirror and I wondered what was wrong. I studied my face for a hint of what was broken but could find nothing. I looked at the small picture on my desk, the one of my mother and father before I was born. She was stunning, as always, but her eyes were unnaturally dark. A twinge of unease coiled in my stomach as I looked again at my reflection, then back at her. The photograph began to smolder, beginning with my mother’s eyes, bubbling and twisting as the heat increased. I pushed back from the desk but froze when I looked in the mirror. It was no longer me looking back but a shadow wearing my shape. As I stared, petrified, the shadow shifted into something large and menacing, no longer human. Jaws opened and far back in its throat, a molten light rose, the mirror bulging outward, stretching like fabric…

"Abigail?"

I opened my eyes and there was sunlight. It poured in from a single window at the side of the room, bathing the computer desk and warming the rumpled covers I lay beneath. Standing at the foot of the bed was a boy. Not my desk, not my bed, definitely not my boy.

I popped upward and back, knocking my head against the wall behind the bed and someone--though surely not me--may have cried, "EEP!" The boy, probably older than me by four or five years, retreated to the computer desk.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't mean to startle you." He was smiling when he said it, and I had to wonder, if you didn't mean to startle someone, why would you appear in the middle of their room in the first place? Of course, this wasn't exactly my room, was it?

The boy--the young man--had a somewhat handsome face that wouldn’t be remarkable except for his ridiculously clear skin and a striking pair of eyes; royal blue like the glaze of pottery fresh out of the kiln in art class. I still didn't know who he was, or where I was, and possessed only one phrase in my vocabulary strong enough to elucidate my confusion.

"What the crap!" I complained, rubbing the back of my skull.

"Sorry," he said with a quiet laugh that I noted was really quite pleasant. “When you came in with Milton last night, you were so tired that I didn't have a chance to introduce myself. I'm Timothy." He had extremely white teeth and prominent canines. Milton?

Several uncomfortable seconds passed before images begin to free themselves from the cotton fluff that was my newly awakened mind-- my dad in the hospital, the surprise of seeing an Uncle I hardly knew who had asked me to stay with him for the summer while my dad was sick. I had accepted, but that wasn’t like me, was it? I didn't need an uncle materializing out of nowhere (or Nevada, same deal) to give me a place to stay. I have a place and that is with my dad. But you did accept, said the fuzz of my mind, because you were tired and there was nothing you could do, and the house was so empty without your dad there, and you were afraid of being alone . Those thoughts hurt, because they might have been true, even if I couldn’t remember things as sharply as I usually did. We had driven cross-country in a rambling old pickup, stopping only for gas. There had been a gorgeous saffron flower on the dashboard, a flower that looked…like music sounded. It had helped me sleep.

It seems I was silent a long time.

“Abigail,” said the young man quietly. “Do you remember?” He sounded concerned.

"Yeah," I said. "I guess I do." I shook my head. "So, Timothy, right? Who are you, exactly? Are we cousins or something?" I had never heard of Milton having a son, but then, I had never heard much about him other than the fact of his living on a ranch in Nevada.

Timothy's eyes crinkled. "Cousins? No. You could say I work for Milton, but that doesn't encompass it well. I am his apprentice."

"Ranchers have apprentices?" I drew my legs up, folding them so I sat a less awkwardly on the bed. I didn't think that was the correct terminology--assistant manager, maybe?

"No, ranchers don’t," he said with absolute stoicism, “but sorcerers do."

I ventured a laugh, but this time he would not smile. "You mean you’re magicians?" Even as I asked, I could feel my heart rate increase. The way he said it, I knew what he meant had nothing to do with stages or tricks or misdirection: S orcerers.

"Listen." He leaned forward in his seat, his hands coming together between his legs. "There isn't really a way to ease you into this, like Milton wants. With the way the house is, it would really be impossible for you not to notice how… It's not even safe." He seemed to have tangled himself, and he sighed. "Just watch, okay?"

I didn't respond. My pulse was pounding in my ears. They’re wizards; he's telling me that they are wizards. Another part of me thought, that’s crazy. You're crazy. There is no way that this is the beginning of a fantasy novel. Shut up, the first voice retorted, just go with it.

"A sorcerer," Timothy said, "is a person who shapes the world according to his will instead of shaping his will according to the world." He was looking at his hands, so naturally I looked at them, too.

And they opened.

There was a floating spark, a brilliant mote of dust, between his palms. It grew, expanded, and was streaked--now with yellow, now with red. There was the spread of wings and the vibrant plume of a tail; then a beak and eyes like haughty, boastful stars. It grew--a chick, a falcon, an eagle—getting larger still, rising out of his hands and toward the ceiling. Its wingtips were now vast, blazing expanses. Its feathers were like slivers of gems; ruby and topaz and all of them shining with the lambency of flame. Too large to be an eagle, too large to be any living bird, its beak parted and there was a cry.

I had never heard anything clearer or sweeter, and then it was gone. I had seen a Phoenix.

Timothy looked tired but satisfied, and not a little proud. There was a pause, and eventually I remembered how my mouth worked.

"Was that real?" I whispered. I don't know why it had to be a whisper. That just seemed the thing to do. Timothy was smiling again, and I couldn't help but think that I liked his smile. There was a charisma about him, that whatever he did, you would want to do it, too. I found myself wanting to smile with him, or at him, I'm not sure which. I was ready to believe anything he told me after that, though there weren't many places you could go in the absurd declarations department from "I am a sorcerer. Magic is real. Here, check this out," unless he was about to tell me that I was one, too.

He wasn't.

"Not a true Phoenix," he said, "but a true image. That was its face, and that was its voice. I've never met it though, not the real one. There is only one," he added sadly.

"I would like to," I said. My heart wasn't pounding anymore. I felt nerveless and comfortable, as if the cry of the Phoenix that was never really there had rung all the anxieties out and made me at home in the world.

"Me, too," said the sorcerer’s apprentice, and there really didn’t seem to be anywhere to go from there. For me, it was too big.

"Breakfast?" he suggested. Though I wasn't averse to the idea, I needed to be alone for a minute.

"I think I'd like to take a shower first, if that's all right."

"Absolutely." Timothy stood, flashing a sudden grin like a streetlight going on at sunset. "There is a bathroom right down the hall. Actually, it's the only room up here other than yours. Take as long as you need, and yell for me when you're finished." He halted halfway out of the room, hand on the knob. "Really, do call for me before you come downstairs. Do not try to come down on your own. The house is…Well, you'll find out."

On that disconcerting note, he was gone .

There was a little dresser by the bed, not much compared to the vanity in my room at home, but it did the job of keeping and containing just as well. It had my clothes in it, I was surprised to find, because I didn't remember packing or unpacking. I must have, or how would they have gotten here? I felt a vague sense of unease, of not rightness about this lapse, coupled as it was with the oddness of my coming here so suddenly and under such circumstances. Then I remembered the orange-gold flower, like a talisman discovered in the temple of my thoughts, and all the disquiet evaporated.

What am I worrying about?

I picked out a few clothes and headed down the hall. If nothing else, I really did need a shower. It wasn’t much of a hall, maybe ten steps to cross, broken only by an enclosed staircase that turned off at a landing below. I passed by it with a glance and went into the bathroom.

The shower provided an opportunity to think, or to absorb. I was waiting for a shock, a bang; some kind of mental breakdown as a result of abruptly realizing that the world did not work the way people believed it did. Magic was real, and I felt like that should have warranted a more visceral reaction than it had won from me so far. The explosion could be just around the corner… but no, nothing. Maybe I didn't believe it yet, all the way.

After all, what had I seen--an illusion and a pretty sound--both already fading in significance? Was that enough to make me believe that my uncle, the estranged rancher, was a wizard incognito? I was a sap. At any moment, Ashton Kutcher was going to burst out of the closet waving his arms and exclaiming I'd been ‘Punk’d’, or whatever reality TV equivalent was popular these days. I refuse to keep track. I would be embarrassed, try to get my face blurred out of the YouTube debut, and it would be over.

Except in my marrow, in my heart of hearts, in my something very deep and important, I did believe. More than that, I knew that I had seen magic. Timothy’s spell--or whatever it had been--had spoken to a part of my soul that was waiting to be called. Anyway, I have read enough books to know that this is not the sort of opportunity you can pass up, even if you try.

Soon I was refreshed and clean, and there was a sense of anticipation in my belly, a sort of light effervescence that said over and over ‘magic is real, magic is real.’ I could hardly think of anything else. When I was drying off and noticed that I couldn't see myself in the mirror, it barely dampened my spirits. I wasn't a vampire (unlike Bella Swan I am not totally ignorant about popular fantasy culture) and this was just some trick of the house like Timothy had been obliquely warning me about. It was weird though, to stare into that empty space. I should have been in the mirror, and it put me on my guard.

The doorknob was burnished and brassy, but I couldn’t see myself in that either. Was it only me or did no one have a reflection in this house? I stood at the top of the stairs and considered ignoring Timothy's warning about going down by myself. If I was going to live here for a while, I couldn't be led by the hand every time I needed to go to the kitchen. Then one of my many inner voices whispered ‘caution, caution,’ and I called out his name.

"Timothy!" Just this once.

He materialized quickly, coming around the corner of the landing about ten seconds after I yelled for him, which was good, because I would have felt foolish doing it again.

"Thank you for waiting," he said. "Come on down."

The first landing led to a second, and on this one was a white door; white everything--the hinges and the knob both could have been ivory. It sat so close to its frame that it was almost seamless. I could have mistaken it for decoration, like a grown-up version of an ornamental drawer, except that Timothy stopped at it.

"This Door should not be opened without supervision," he said in such a tone that I honestly couldn't say whether it was serious or mock serious, but it was surely one of the two. "You can't control where it opens to, and that may kill you." Was he joking?

"Moving on." Down another flight of stairs we went, and through a very uninspiring dining room into a disappointing kitchen. Not that there was anything wrong with them. They were neat and modern and normal. There was a black glass table and high stools and a French door fridge. It was really pretty, just not what comes to mind when I think ‘sorcerer's domain.’ I was beginning to wonder if the whole ‘don't come downstairs alone' thing had been a gag. The journey had been less than harrowing. Then I had a slight jolt when I couldn't see myself in the glass tabletop, not even an outline. I decided to hold off judgment. This would take some getting used to.

Timothy was pouring water from a container in the fridge. Once the glasses were on the table, he set about gathering ingredients for omelets.

"Well," he said, “we do have some ground rules, at least until you're settled. Don't go through the Door on the landing is probably the most important, and you should keep wandering in general to a minimum until the house has had a chance to accustom itself to you. It will play tricks if it doesn't think of you as family. I'll introduce you to the staff after we eat, but you shouldn't interact with them unless they are in your way. They're harmless, but still, don't."

My head quirked to one side, almost as if of its own accord. "Are you serious?"

"Terribly," he said. Then there was sizzling.

I took a sip from my glass and coughed. Not water. It was saccharine and silky and made me immediately lightheaded. "What is this?"

He shot me a glance over his shoulder and returned to chopping ingredients. "Soma. It's good for you."

I had a bit more. I was thirsty, and I felt mildly…floaty. "Is this alcoholic?"

Timothy snorted over the eggs. "No, and is that really the question at the top of your list?"

I flushed. The nature of the sorcerers’ breakfast drink of choice probably shouldn't have been top priority. My next thought brought a twinge of guilt, because I hadn't been thinking of it all morning. Though admittedly, there had been distractions.

"What's wrong with my dad? Can you find out?"

Timothy murmured something I couldn't quite catch.

"Do you know?" I repeated.

"Milton is researching it,” Timothy said with a shrug. “He cares about his brother, even if they've never been close. We might bring him here soon, to take care of him."

That wasn't what I wanted to hear. I would rather it had been, ‘Yes, we’ve got just the charm for that. He'll be awake and arriving in under an hour or your money back.' But even magic, presumably, has its limits. The doctors hadn’t been able to help. It would have been a little too convenient if my suddenly sorcerous uncle carried the mysterious-illness-cure up his sleeve. Still, it was reassuring to think that they would bring him here. I wouldn't have to worry so much about being away if he was away with me.

I spent a minute or two musing; magic…magic…magic. It was the single impossible concept my mind kept orbiting around. The sorcerer’s apprentice seemed content to let me think. "Timothy," I asked at length, "why can't I see myself in the mirror?"

"To keep us safe." He winked as a somewhat fancifully arrayed plate of omelets clacked onto the table in front of me, and commenced eating.

I wasn't sure how I should take that. I already felt a bit odd around Timothy. He seemed so much more comfortable and in control than I did. I sensed that he knew a great deal about me, even though I knew nothing about him. He smiled a lot, and I did like his smile. There was nothing forced or fake about it. He seemed genuinely pleased, though it was like he was smiling at the things I didn't know. I had trouble sorting between my impulse to be happy with him and my instinct to reserve judgement.

When we had eaten, he insisted that I ‘meet the staff’ so that they wouldn't ‘frighten me later.’ With that morally uplifting mission statement as a guide, we went outside.

Nevada hit me like a hair dryer, a crisping blast of hot and dry. It was midmorning and the sun had had ample time to preheat the valley like an avenging oven. We remained under the shade of the patio, small blessing that it was, and after I blinked enough to restore moisture to my eyes, I got a good view of the landscape. Sunburnt earth and crippled creosote with patches of tough grass, the ground rolled down and then up from the front of the house. There were mountains in every direction, craggy and defiantly green.

There was a fence and a sparse selection of cattle to our left. I also saw one large horse that looked so tragically noble in its loneliness that it could have been a trained pose. A gravel road led out to a barracks-like building, where more road vanished behind a jut of earth. Some of ‘the staff' were moving around the grounds, too distant for me to see clearly, but they looked normal enough. Then Timothy called them with a wordless sound.

His voice was neither quiet nor loud, but it sounded like a gong. It was a massy concretion too large for my ears, indigestible. Human shapes came blurring across the valley, faster than any human could run.

"They are perfectly safe," Timothy assured me, and then they were there, nine in a line, essentially identical in jeans and white t-shirts. Their skin was like smooth clay, but it flexed and shifted like true flesh with bone and sinew beneath. Their eyes were like Timothy's, but glassy and doll-like. These had no life.

"Golems," he said easily. "They run the ranch while Milton and I keep to our business. Think of them like machines, only more advanced than the lumpen can yet fashion."

One of them was staring at me. It was slightly different than the others. One of its eyes was white, as if with cataracts. The intensity of its glare made me shiver. The others looked at nothing.

Timothy noticed the source of my discomfort. "That's odd. “He made a swift gesture with one hand. The thing, the golem, strode obediently toward us, and I began to back away in response.

Timothy stopped me with a gentle pressure on my elbow. "It's all right," he said. "They could not hurt you even if they had a reason, not while I am here."

His tone was sympathetic and I felt an electric tingle when Timothy's fingers brushed my skin. It couldn't have cost him much to say it, but I was immensely grateful, and his eyes were exactly my favorite tint of blue. I relaxed. The golems were too human and inhuman at once. They triggered an almost instinctual sense of malignancy just by their appearance. This one in particular sent adrenaline hurtling down my arteries, even though it had given over its stare.

Timothy went to the golem and opened its chest.

There was actually something reassuring in that, to see the golem had insides of glass and pulsing lights. I have seen enough movies about robots and androids that this wasn't nearly as creepy or shocking as it was just being a clay man.

Timothy seemed to make a few small adjustments, closed its chest like it was Optimus Prime, and lowered its shirt so the white line, like a horrendous scar on its otherwise too smooth skin, disappeared. He sent it back to the line.

"They do not speak," he said, "and they only listen to the Lesser Tongues and Commands. So as I said, you should not try to interact with them."

“I won't have a problem with that.” I was staying as far away from these things as I could. If they were robots--magic robots--then I didn't like magic robots. I was watching One-Eye for any sudden moves. Something about these things screamed heebie-jeebies.

"Abigail?"

"What?" I startled.

Timothy was looking at me oddly, as if he couldn't quite make out what he was seeing. I felt exposed, the way he looked at me, and my pulse quickened.

"How do you feel about all of this? I understand if you do not want to see anything more today, if you need some time. This sort of awakening strikes everyone differently, but you have made so few exclamations that I’m starting to worry that I have put you in a state of shock. Please, tell me what you’re thinking."

His voice was musical in its clarity. I liked it almost as much as his eyes.

I shrugged. “I'm okay," I said. “It's all so…just…I don't know."

"You will get used to that," he said. And the sorcerer’s apprentice smiled.

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