The Magic People Series

Chapter 1

I wasn’t with Jed when he found it. I’m glad I wasn’t there, because I probably would have told him it was garbage, to just throw it away in a trashcan on our way home. I’ve never been a very curious person, and I don’t like extra stuff lying around. So a little glass bottle, yeah, I probably would have told him to toss it.

I’m glad I wasn’t there. Well, mostly I’m glad.

Jed and Charlie were riding their bikes at an abandoned house site down the road. The builder had started construction by digging a huge hole for the foundation, but he hadn’t been back for months. Mr. Wilson said it was probably because they were waiting for permits or something, but I had the feeling they weren’t coming back to finish the house. Either way, the big mounds of dirt they’d dug up made for great bike riding if you like the idea of careening down a red-clay hill and sliding to a stop inches before you dropped into a giant pit full of rainwater. I did not like this idea, but Jed and Charlie had spent almost every afternoon that spring over there. While his mom was away on business, Charlie had come to live with the Wilsons again, resuming his place as Jed’s older brother like they hadn’t been apart for a few months.

Each day after school, they came in, ate four men’s worth of snacks, and then peddled over to the pit. Jed usually grunted a “hello” to me, his oldest friend, in passing, and Charlie always gave a polite nod of his head. But they didn’t have time for a woman in her sixties, not just then, not even though I’d been Jed’s best friend since he was born. As his imaginary and then not-so-imaginary friend, I’d grown to accept, if not love, that my role in his life would be different with each passing year. He didn’t need me to keep him company during thunderstorms anymore, but he still liked having me around. I could tell because he always winked at me and smiled. It’s amazing what a little wink and a grin can do for a woman’s heart.

Whenever Jed and Charlie came home for dinner, Mrs. Wilson always had a basin of water and clean towels at the side door of the farmhouse, and she made them wash up and strip down to their boxers before walking across her clean floors. The boys grumbled the whole time, but they did it, sprinting through the house in their underwear while their mom and I averted our eyes. Then, we all ate dinner before the boys did their homework. We were a family, a hodgepodge one that wasn’t entirely biological or legally connected, but a family nonetheless.

Most days, I was content to spend my time reading books, watching TV, and hanging out with our friends who lived on the farm now—Alonso and Lakeemba and especially Sharon. I loved her no-holds-barred attitude and wished I had more of that. Maybe then I wouldn’t miss Jed so much. I appreciated that he didn’t need me, sure, but I still missed him. In fact, I missed when I was imaginary—when only Jed could see me—and when he trusted me with everything.

Mostly, though, I was content with the quiet life. I’d tried to get a job, or I’d started to try to get a job, but Mrs. Wilson had pointed out that I didn’t really have the right documentation—like a birth certificate or social security number—that would make that possible, so I worked hard to earn my keep by helping out around the house and farm. I’d even learned to fold a fitted sheet so that it didn’t look like a balled-up pile of fabric. The Wilsons had made it clear: I didn’t have to do work, but it made me feel better to not just be a burden.

Still, I missed carrying my weight by being Jed’s confidant. I missed talking with him. My favorite days were still when he went to bed, and he let me sit beside him, rubbing his back until he fell asleep. Sometimes, when he was feeling particularly calm, he’d tell me about his day.

The day he found the bottle was one of those days. He’d been especially quiet since coming back from the pit that evening, and I’d kept an eye on him as he did his algebra homework. He was particularly frustrated that night. Algebra was always hard for Jed. The rules just didn’t click with him, and he hated it. But he kept going, determined to figure it out, every night. That night, though, he kept breaking the tips off his pencil and swearing under his breath. High school had given him a whole new vocabulary, and sometimes I had to look up the words he used when he was upset. The imaginary friend operating system hadn’t come equipped with swear words.

Finally, he threw down his pencil and stormed off to his room. Charlie looked at me and shrugged. Mrs. Wilson started to follow him, putting down her cross-stitch and standing up, but when she saw me, she nodded. We’d come to an understanding, Jed’s parents and I. Sometimes, having a grandma-age formerly-imaginary friend was helpful, and tonight, I got to help.

I followed Jed to his room and knocked at the door. “Go away,” he said.

“If you really want me to, I will,” I answered, “but if you want to tell me what’s going on, I’m here.” I waited a minute, and when he didn’t answer, I slid down the wall and sat beside the door. “I’ll just wait then.”

I could hear Jed’s bed creaking as he shifted around, and then, one of his desk drawers opened. Those sounds I would recognize anywhere; I’d heard them so often over the past fifteen years.

Finally, I knocked again, very quietly, “Jed, can I come in?”

He made a sound that I decided to interpret as a grunt of permission and went in. He was sitting on his bed, long legs hanging over the side to the floor, and he had a small brown bottle in his hands. The bottle looked like one of those old medicine bottles you see at antique shops and flea markets. It was made of glass, and the top was covered in wax, like someone had dripped an old, red candle over the cork.

I sat down and let my legs sway off the bed next to him. “What’s that?”

He looked up at me like he was surprised I was this close and then turned his gaze back to the bottle. “I found it today, over by the pit.”

“Oh. Maybe someone tossed it there. I pick up a lot of trash on my walks. People are ridiculous with their litter.”

He shook his head. “It’s not litter . . . or not litter from now.”

I felt the skin on the back of my neck tingle. “What do you mean?” I looked more closely at the bottle and could see what looked like scratches all over it.

“It’s old, and it’s carrying something inside it. I can see it.”

That tingly feeling got stronger. Jed had always been able to see things people couldn’t, so if he was seeing something now, then something was there. “What do you see?” I kept my voice quiet, casual. Too much interest on my part and he’d clam up.

“These are words.” He laid his pointer finger on some of the scratches. “I can’t read them, but I almost can. They’re a warning, I think.”

I let out a long sigh. “If they’re a warning, maybe you’d better put it back, Jed.” We’ve had enough danger in the past two years to fill a lifetime, and I wasn’t keen to find more.

He looked at me then, his eyes sad. “You know I can’t, Mavis.”

My heart ached. He looked so tired, and at fifteen, a boy should be tired because he’s worried about the person he likes or a test, not because he needed to help save people, again. “Jed, maybe LaKeemba and Alonso and them can take it. Maybe they can handle it.” We had friends, magical friends, who would help. And since they lived right here, having moved in the hayfield in a cluster of yurts after one of our adventures a couple years back, it wouldn’t even be hard to ask for their help. I clenched my jaw in the hopes that he’d let me take it to LaKeemba and be done with it.

His eyes turned back to the bottle. “You know I can’t just give this over, Mavis. That’s not how it works.”

I sighed. I did know. Gifts like Jed’s—gifts like mine—came with responsibility. Our friends, the magic people, had taught us both that, and while gifts were wonderful in stories, in life, they were often quite heavy. This tiny brown bottle felt heavy. So heavy already.

“Okay. But tonight, let’s put it away. Keep it close by but separate. We can’t figure it out tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll go see LaKeemba.”

Jed nodded, and when I put out my hand, he set the bottle in it.

I stood and placed the bottle on the top of his dresser, next to approximately one million pairs of socks that had not made the trip one inch down to his drawer.

“Right after breakfast, Mavis, okay?”

Tomorrow was a school day, but both Jed and I knew his parents would let him stay home for this. They were good like that. They understood what Jed could do, and they made space for it. If anything, that was the most beautiful part of all these adventures, watching them come to understand and to accept. It wasn’t always like that in families. Charlie’s family of origin was evidence of that.

The next morning, Jed carried the bottle with him to breakfast and set it on the table. As Mrs. Wilson slid scrambled eggs and orange slices onto Jed’s plate, he explained about finding the bottle and needing to talk to LaKeemba. “It’s not just an old bottle, Mom.”

Charlie was not one to miss an adventure, so he added, “See those markings. They mean something, don’t you think?”

Mr. Wilson came in from feeding the chickens then and sat down. “What means something?” he asked before taking a long sip of his coffee.

“They look like words, or sentences, or something. They’re not just random scratches from being buried or whatever,” Jed added.

The bottle was small, shorter than my pointer finger, and thin. It looked like it could only hold one dose of something. I picked it up and turned it around and around, studying the markings. “They do look intentional,” I said and passed it over to Mrs. Wilson as she took her seat.

As the bottle made its way around the table, we all ate, slowly and quietly, like we were waiting. Maybe we were. The past couple years’ adventures had taught us all about patience, about when to hurry and when to pause.

Finally, the bottle passed back to Jed, and he said, “So can I stay home and go out to the see LaKeemba today?”

“Me, too?” Charlie added. He had never taken to school after traveling into our time, even though he did well. It just wasn’t what he thought he’d be doing when he was eighteen. At his first home, he would have already been helping his father run the plantation. Now, he was in a classroom doing science experiments and giving reports on the years he lived through as though they’d happened long ago, which they had, but not for him. So any chance he got to stay at his new home on the Wilsons’ farm, he took.

Mr. and Mrs. Wilson looked at each other, and I knew then that they’d decided. The boys would be staying home today, and I felt a thrill of excitement and trepidation pass up my spine. I liked when they were home.

A new adventure—I was eager and terrified, so pretty normal for our escapades.

“We’ll all go over and see her after breakfast,” Mr. Wilson said. He tried to look stern and serious, but I could see the smile at the corner of his mouth. He was ready for a new adventure. I hoped we all were.