The Bootlace Magician Read online

  So the knot Fish had just eaten wouldn’t dissolve in his stomach.

  He’s so big, Micah thought, worry growing in him. And it’s only a little knot. Why is he so still?

  “Don’t you want to swim in circles some more?” he asked hopefully.

  Fish was frozen in place, his eyes wide and staring.

  Micah tapped gently on the glass. “Fish?” he murmured. “Are you okay?”

  For an agonizing minute, nothing happened.

  Then, Fish’s tail twitched. Once. Twice.

  And he shot out of the water like he’d been fired from a cannon.

  Micah yelled and stumbled back, tripping over his own feet. The impact when he hit the ground knocked the breath from his lungs.

  Fish soared toward the roof of the tent, his scales flashing like silver coins. He hung in the air for an impossibly long time, as if he didn’t feel the need to obey the laws of gravity. But then he plunged . . .

  down,

  down,

  down.

  Micah struggled upright. What if Fish hit the side of the tank? What if he landed in the sawdust? What if—

  SPLASH.

  Fish belly flopped back into the aquarium, and a wave of cold, salty water knocked Micah down again.

  He crawled toward the tank on his hands and knees, sputtering and shaking his wet hair out of his face. Fish was rocketing around, crashing into the walls so hard that Micah was sure he was about to break the glass.

  “Stop! Stop!” he cried, clambering to his feet. “Fish, don’t!”

  But Fish didn’t stop. He bashed into the side of the tank again and again, thrashing his tail wildly.

  The other menagerie animals, curious about the commotion, were climbing out of their habitats. They were scurrying, slithering, and waddling toward the aquarium en masse, and Micah didn’t know if he should order them to stay away for their own safety or ask them for help.

  His heart battered against his ribs, every bit as determined to burst out of its confinement as Fish was. He shooed off a mousebird that was twittering around his head and raised a hand toward Fish, willing him to calm down.

  “It’s okay,” Micah said. “It’ll be okay, Fish. I’m going to get help!”

  IDEAS

  “Mr. Head!” Micah shouted, bursting through the hidden seam into the manager’s office. “It’s Fish! I’m so sorry, I . . .”

  No one was there. Micah spun around, taking in the whole room, half expecting the manager to materialize.

  It was a peculiar office—circular, with no filing cabinets or calendars, no desk filled with tape dispensers and paper clips. Instead, Mr. Head had a hodgepodge of pillowy sofas and stout armchairs. A cavernous fireplace was set into one curved wooden wall, and the floor was made of wood as well, inlaid with a compass rose design. A peculiar white plant vined over the mantelpiece, and a tapestry map of the world hung beside the door, embroidered with dots to represent major cities but with none of the usual lines to demarcate the borders of countries.

  The only other thing in the room was a mattress (bigger than the one Micah slept on and made of the finest red and gold velvet) that belonged to the circus’s guard tiger, Bibi.

  “Bibi!” Micah shouted. “Are you here?”

  He heard a chuffing sound, and he turned to see Bibi appearing out of thin air. She was sprawled across an aggrieved-looking sofa, the cushions squashed nearly flat under her weight. The tip of her white, striped tail brushed the floor.

  Micah hurried toward her. “Where’s Mr. Head?”

  Bibi yawned.

  “Bibi! Fish could break out of his tank any second! We need to get help!”

  Curiosity lit the tiger’s piercing blue eyes. The sofa groaned pitifully as she stood.

  Micah shifted from foot to foot, his wet clothes dripping, while Bibi stretched. It only took a second, but it felt like ages before she plonked onto the floor, her huge paws hitting the polished wood with all the delicacy of sledgehammers.

  She slinked past Micah and out the door.

  “Is Mr. Head in one of the private paddocks?” Micah asked anxiously. He was following so close behind Bibi that her tail kept swishing against his legs. He winced as Fish leaped again and landed with another loud SPLASH.

  He looked around at the walls of the menagerie. He didn’t know where all the hidden seams were, but surely if Mr. Head were close by, then he could hear the commotion.

  Bibi headed directly for Fish’s tank.

  The menagerie creatures still surrounded the aquarium, bleating and barking with enthusiasm. Several of the animals were drenched, but most had backed far enough away to stay out of the splash zone. They all parted respectfully as Bibi approached.

  Maybe Bibi doesn’t need to find Mr. Head, Micah thought. Maybe she can fix this by herself.

  He latched on to this notion. Of course Bibi could do something! She was Mr. Head’s companion and the boss of pretty much every other animal in the menagerie.

  If Bibi stopped Fish quickly, then maybe Micah could clean up the flooded sawdust before the manager returned. He would still have to explain what had happened, but it wouldn’t sound so reckless and irresponsible if he had a chance to put the menagerie back to rights first.

  Bibi stopped walking. She settled onto her haunches and stared at the aquarium. She chuffed once, and Fish quit smashing the glass to look at her. Relief filled Micah for all of a second. Then, Bibi roared at the aquarium in a way that could only be described as encouraging.

  To Micah’s horror, Fish shot out of the water again.

  “Bibi!” he cried. “This is serious!”

  The tiger ignored him. She watched Fish soar toward the ceiling, a delighted gleam in her eyes.

  Betrayed and outraged, Micah pushed his way past her and through the throng of gathered creatures. He ran out of the menagerie into the night, his sodden sneakers squelching on the grass. But as soon as he opened his mouth to shout for help, a magician appeared out of the darkness.

  Even before Micah could make out the messy hair and the large nose, he knew who it was. He would recognize that long leather coat anywhere.

  “Hello, Micah,” his guardian said, stepping into the warm light that poured from the menagerie’s open entrance.

  “Oh,” said Micah. “I . . .”

  He had wanted help. And here help was. But he hadn’t thought it would be the Lightbender. What on earth was the illusionist doing here at this hour?

  “I didn’t mean to—”

  SPLASH.

  Micah winced. The sound of Fish’s watery landing was every bit as loud outside the tent.

  The Lightbender leaned forward, peering over Micah’s head into the menagerie. Micah didn’t have to turn around to know what he was seeing.

  “I fed Fish a knot,” he confessed in a rush. “I mean, I wasn’t trying to feed it to him, only he decided to eat it, and now he’s going to break out of his tank, and I don’t know how to help him, and—”

  “Micah—”

  “I’m so sorry. I understand if you want to give me back to Aunt Gertrudis—”

  “I have no intention—”

  “Only please save Fish first. I don’t want anything bad to happen to him.”

  By the time he finished talking, Micah couldn’t meet the Lightbender’s eyes. He stared down at his feet and waited for the magician to yell at him.

  But when the Lightbender spoke, he sounded as composed as always. “Micah,” he said, “no one will send you back to your great-aunt.”

  Micah looked up. “But Fish—”

  “The Fish has certainly had more alarming things than knots throw into its tank by curious children.”

  “You don’t understand,” said Micah urgently. “It wasn’t just a knot. It was magic. I was trying to explain to him that we could be friends, but wh
at if I’ve poisoned him?”

  What if he dies?

  Micah’s hand went automatically to his bootlace bracelet. He gripped it so tightly that he could feel the two knots he always kept tied in it leaving dents in his skin.

  Even if he wasn’t poisoned, Fish could shatter the walls of the tank. All the water would flood out, and he wouldn’t be able to breathe. Just like Grandpa Ephraim hadn’t been able to breathe at the end.

  But the Lightbender only blinked and tipped his head to the side, as if Micah’s behavior were baffling. “Ah,” he said. His brows lifted in surprise. “You don’t know.”

  In the menagerie, Bibi was roaring again, apparently egging Fish on.

  “What don’t I know?” Micah said.

  “Fish is not a fish.” The Lightbender smiled. “It is something far more special than that.”

  * * *

  “I have ideas all the time,” Micah said a short while later. “They don’t start out as fish.”

  He and the Lightbender were sitting together on top of a pair of wooden barrels beside the funny fox’s habitat. It was far enough out of the way that they wouldn’t get wet, but still close enough to keep an eye on the situation.

  Fish’s last big SPLASH had been several minutes ago, and Micah hoped he was almost tired out.

  “Ideas are the very stuff of creation,” the Lightbender replied. “The purest sort of magic. The world is full of them, and human beings generate more than the universe will ever make use of. But some ideas are so powerful they must come into the world in a different way. Such Ideas are born. And when they are born before the world is ready for them, they must wait.”

  “But are they all born as fish?” Micah asked. He was wringing the hem of his T-shirt between his hands, trying to squeeze out some of the water.

  “No,” said the Lightbender. “This one seems to have developed some unusual ideas of its own.”

  Fish leaped again, and a clamor went up from the watching animals.

  This time, the sight of him soaring through the air didn’t fill Micah with panic. Instead, he found himself looking at Fish with fresh respect, his brain awhirl with everything the Lightbender had told him.

  Fish was pure magic. The very stuff of creation. Micah could almost imagine there was a glow to those silver scales he’d never noticed before, as if some potent source of light was hidden within.

  “He’s here for a reason, then,” he said as Fish landed and a wave crashed over the side of the aquarium. “He’s important.”

  “We are all here for a reason, and we are all important,” the Lightbender said. “But yes. It’s impossible for us to tell exactly what kind of Idea Fish is, but we know it is something the world needs badly. And we believe its Moment will come soon.”

  Soon. Micah felt a pinch of sadness in his chest. “When exactly . . .”

  He struggled to find the right words. Apparently, Fish had to find a particular Someone when the time was right. But was he just going to vanish from his tank one day and appear in some random person’s head?

  Micah hoped not. It would be terrible to come to the menagerie and find him suddenly gone.

  “I do not know for certain.” The Lightbender squinted toward the aquarium as if he were trying to judge Fish’s precise size and weight. “Nor does the manager.”

  “So, it might not be soon. It could be months and months from now. Or years.”

  The Lightbender gave him a funny look.

  “What?”

  “I forget,” said the illusionist, “how time moves for the young. It may indeed be another year before the Moment arrives. Or two. Or three. Which is soon by my own reckoning, but perhaps not by yours.”

  “Well, that’s good,” said Micah. Three more years with Fish around would be great. And maybe it would be five years. Or ten. To someone like the Lightbender, a decade must feel like a blink.

  People who lived at the circus didn’t age normally, thanks to the manager. Mirandus Head wasn’t quite a magician. According to the Lightbender, he wasn’t even quite human. And he gave off a power that caused all living things under his care to flourish.

  A few days after he’d moved in to the Lightbender’s tent, the thought that he might be a child forever had struck Micah. He’d run straight to Rosebud’s wagon to ask the circus’s healer if she had a potion that would turn him into an adult on schedule. But she’d explained that there was no need.

  “The manager’s power always works for our good, duckling. It wouldn’t be good for anyone to be an eternal child.”

  So Micah would grow up. And maybe, he thought suddenly, Fish will wait until then.

  By the time he was a full-grown magician, he would have learned enough to help the Idea do whatever it was meant to do. It would only be right. Fish had been the start of Grandpa Ephraim’s story, and Micah’s, too. They should stick together for as long as possible.

  And what if . . .

  “Could Fish choose a magician as his Someone?” Micah asked.

  The Lightbender stopped brushing tiny specks of sawdust off the sleeves of his coat and looked over at him. “It’s not likely, considering how few magicians there are compared to everyone else.”

  “But it’s not against the rules or anything?”

  “Not that I know of,” said the Lightbender. Then he added, “But I would remind you that there are billions of people in the world, and the chances that Fish is meant for anyone at Circus Mirandus are small.”

  Micah sighed. Of course that was true. And Fish didn’t seem interested in listening to Micah, never mind choosing him to enact some world-changing vision.

  The Lightbender cleared his throat. “It will still be exciting for us when the Moment arrives,” he offered. “The circus plans to help the Idea reach its Someone. If it needs us to. Porter is already hoping that Fish will demand we go to Bora-Bora.”

  Micah snorted a laugh.

  Porter was the magician who made it possible for the circus to travel the world. He could open magical Doors to just about anywhere, and Micah had heard him mention more than once that it was a shame their tour schedule didn’t include more tropical islands.

  “What happens if Fish can’t find his Someone? What if they refuse to help him? Or they just aren’t in the right place at the right time?”

  “It has happened before,” said the Lightbender. “But even if an Idea fails in its mission, it can still bring much good into the world. It will still release its power. If the person who is meant to have the Idea isn’t prepared when the time is right, it will transform itself into a burst of pure inspiration and magic for anyone nearby to use. Some of the greatest scientific discoveries, some of the most profound works of art, have arisen from such missed Moments.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” Micah admitted. “But it’s not going to happen to Fish. He’s going to do exactly what he came into the world to do. He’s going to be great at it.”

  If Grandpa Ephraim’s fish was going to disappear no matter what, then Micah wanted it to be for the best reason possible.

  “I agree,” said the Lightbender, gesturing toward the aquarium, where Fish had calmed down at last.

  He’d gone back to circling his tank at a speed that was only a little faster than usual, and as he passed around the side facing Micah and the Lightbender, he gave the glass a cheerful whack with his tail.

  Micah decided to think of it as the fishy version of a wave hello.

  The menagerie animals, satisfied that the night’s entertainment was over, began to make their way back to their habitats. The Lightbender helped Micah down from his barrel.

  “Come,” he said. “I think it best that we close up the menagerie. The animals have had enough excitement, and we should let the Strongmen deal with the flooding before we allow the crowds back in.”

  “I was going to help clean up!�
�� Micah said quickly. “I don’t want Mr. Head to be mad.”

  “I doubt he will be,” said the Lightbender. “I believe you said you were trying to befriend Fish? That’s hardly a crime.”

  It might not have been a crime, but Micah could tell the Lightbender thought it was odd. He felt his face heat. “I was just—I wanted to try something new with my magic. I’ve been here for months, and I’m still only tying memories into things. I thought trying to do it for an animal would be different.”

  “I see,” said the Lightbender.

  “And I picked Fish because I thought he was lonely.” Micah didn’t see any reason to mention that the knot he’d given Fish was full of his memories of Grandpa Ephraim. Or that he’d wanted to have someone to talk to who knew his grandfather as well as he had. “Only I guess Ideas probably don’t get lonely, do they?”

  “I cannot say for certain.” The Lightbender hesitated, then added, “I believe I promised you that I would speak to the manager about allowing Jenny Mendoza to visit. I apologize for not doing so yet, but I—”

  “It’s fine.” Micah could feel the knot that represented his friendship with Jenny tied into his bootlace bracelet right now. He would love to see her, but he didn’t want his guardian to feel like he had to offer. “We’ve been sending each other so many letters.”

  “Still,” said the Lightbender, “I will speak to him about it.”

  When they got outside, the illusionist showed Micah how to close the flaps over the menagerie’s entryway. He ran two of his fingers in a neat circle over a certain spot, and the scarlet fabric on either side of the entrance drew itself together like a set of curtains, shutting the two of them out. Not even a crack of light showed from inside the tent.

  For a moment, it was so dark that Micah could barely make out the shape of the Lightbender standing beside him. Then, an enormous fireball exploded overhead, painting the night sky in orange light.

  Micah yelped and jumped, his heart racing. Wild cheers came from the midway. For a few seconds, he didn’t know what was going on, but as the fire roiled overhead, he realized it was only the grand finale of Firesleight’s show.