Great. He didn't know how to be a warrior, and now Nick Snowbeard was going to teach him to be a wizard, too.
“But right now you'd better finish up your homework,” Nick added.
Wizardry and calculus. Jack sighed, stood, and picked up the book and his homework. “I can do the math in study hall,” he said. “I'll look this over. Thanks, Nick.”
Later, in his room, Jack switched on the reading light over his bed. It was already getting late. He pulled the heavy volume onto his lap and flipped to the first page—heavy stock embossed with the stylized figure of a bear.
Jackson Downey Swift
A Wizard Heir
A Warrior mayde
Under Founding of the Guilds, he read:
The Guilds were founded by five cousins who wandered into an enchanted valley in the North of England. There dwelt an immense dragon. The dragon slept atop a mountain made of precious jewels. The wanderers, upon discovering the treasure, and being unaware of the dragon, began chipping pieces from it to carry away with them. The dragon awakened with a roar, demanding to know who dared steal his treasure. To save themselves, the cousins swallowed the stones they'd stolen. They were magical stones that conferred on them amazing powers, but also made them slaves to the dragon and tied them to the high valley known as Raven's Ghyll.
The cousins served the dragon for seven long years. At night, they conspired together, even though the dragon slept with one eye open. The wizard wrote a covenant of
mutual protection that they all signed in blood. The soothsayer warned them that they must not kill the dragon, but only put it to sleep, or they would lose the powers they had acquired from the magical stones. The enchanter sang to the dragon, distracting it while the sorcerer brewed a powerful sleeping potion. To the warrior fell the task of pouring it in the dragon's ear.
The plan worked perfectly. It wasn't until the cousins were celebrating their victory over their erstwhile master that the wizard revealed that the covenant they had signed made wizards masters over the other guilds. If the covenant were broken, the dragon would wake and exact terrible vengeance on all of them.
Thus were founded the Five Guilds.
Jack felt as though he'd wandered into a fairy tale. He opened to the middle of the book and read the following verse:
In heighe midsummer Gareth came forth in faire array
For werre, with horse and horsemen, all verray,
His lust for battle was his fortune and his bane,
For a thousand spears rode out against the Weirlind
His haire shown brilliant as the dying sun
His cause was lost before he'd e'er begun
Forever bound to do a wizard's will
His sweet blood would water Raven's Ghyll.
Well. That was clear enough.
In the back of the book was a compendium of charms, recipes, and incantations. He settled back to read. It was after two A.M. when he finally turned off the light, his head filled with the spark and mystery of his ancestry. And when he slept, a warrior with red-gold hair charged through his dreams.
The next morning in homeroom, Jack was more lethargic than usual. He felt as if he had been up and fighting all night. He drowsed, waiting for morning announcements. High school is incompatible with a secret life, he thought as he shook himself awake for the third or fourth time.
He looked up to see Ellen Stephenson twisted around in her seat watching him. His stomach did a kind of complicated gymnastic backflip, and he sat up straighter, trying to look alive, if not alert.
“You look beat,” she said.
She, in fact, looked great in a white tank top and jeans.
“Were you up late last night working on that math homework?”
“Math homework!” He groaned. “Right. I need to finish that!” Start it, more like. He pulled out his math folder. Maybe he could get a few problems done before homeroom was over.
“Would it help to look over what I've done?” Ellen extended her math folder.
“That's okay. I guess I'd better figure it out on my own. But, thanks.”
“Okay.” She returned the folder to her book bag and rested her arms on the back of her chair. She'd been out in the sun; the skin on her arms had turned pale gold, and a few freckles had surfaced on her shoulders. “So you weren't working on math, then. You have a part-time job or something?”
“No.” Jack shook his head. ”I've had some other things I've been working on. Special projects," he added, when Ellen frowned. She was an honors student, so she was in most of his classes. All of his classes, he realized suddenly.
“I've been watching you in soccer practice,” she said, the words coming out in a rush. “I mean, watching the team. You're pretty good, especially at midfield. But don't let them put you in at fullback, is my advice.”
Jack rummaged for a mechanical pencil and a halfway intelligent response. “Thanks. You seem to know a lot about soccer.”
“I used to play forward and goalie at my old school,” Ellen replied. “But I couldn't go out this year. By the time I moved here, tryouts were already over.” Girls' soccer was a fall sport at Trinity.
“Well, maybe you can try again in the fall.” Brilliant. Bet she never thought of that.
Jack pulled out his math assignment sheet. He hesitated, tapping the pencil against the page. “Listen, would you want to stay through practice tonight and go to Corcoran's afterward?”
She bit her lip, then smiled. “That'd be great. Only … do you mind if Will comes along?”
“Will?” Jack hadn't realized Ellen and Will even knew each other.
“Well, I was talking to Coach Slansky, and offered to help with the soccer team, and he said Will was planning to do some drills with the JV team, and so we were going to get together after practice and talk about it.” She shrugged. “We could probably do it another time, but…”
“No, that's okay. We'll all go.” A threesome wasn't exactly what Jack had in mind, but if Will and Ellen already had plans, then …
At practice, Jack was less than impressive. He was over-conscious of Ellen's presence and fearful of unleashing some kind of magical display. “You feeling okay, Jack?” Fitch asked, during one of the breaks. “You look like you're kind of stiff or something.”
“I think maybe I pulled a muscle at practice yesterday,” Jack said. “It'll work itself out.” It was a relief when practice was over.
He looked for Ellen, wondering if she'd noticed how badly he'd played. In fact, she was standing by the concession stand talking to Will, absently juggling a soccer ball with her feet. She obviously knew what she was doing.
They took a corner booth at Corcoran's, ordering sandwiches and milk shakes. Fitch was sitting by the front window with Alison, his on-again, off-again Goth girlfriend from St. Catherine's, the Catholic high school. She broke up with him whenever Mars was in retrograde. Something like that.
Ellen and Will launched into a discussion of soccer strategy and players and possible dates and places for drills. Ellen kept trying to draw Jack into the conversation, but he contented himself with watching her.
When she talked to Jack one on one, she seemed awkward and self-conscious, as if she were navigating by unfamiliar stars. But now that the topic was soccer, she lit up with enthusiasm, sketching out ideas on a piece of notebook paper, teasing Will about his size and athletic prowess.
“Has he always been this big?” she asked Jack, nodding at Will. “I mean, he doesn't exactly have the body for soccer.”
Jack squinted at Will appraisingly. “I guess he was a little smaller in preschool. But he's good at any sport. He'd be named captain, or his dad would be coach, and pick me for his team.” He grinned. “And then, of course, we'd win.”
Ellen was scanning the menu again. “Let's get ice cream,” she said.
Will stood and picked up his check. “I've gotta go. My mom'll have supper on the table.” He nodded at Ellen. “We'll try for Tuesdays, then, unless it conflicts with Mr. Hastings's schedule. See you, Jack.”
Ellen looked from the menu to Jack inquiringly.
“I've got no plans,” Jack said, grinning, knowing Becka would be late. “When do you have to be home?”
She shrugged, smiling back. More at ease than he'd seen her before.
Their ice cream came, along with Corcoran's trademark caddy of sundae toppings. Ellen poured on hot fudge and caramel sauce, nuts, and whipped cream. Jack did the same.
Someone slid into the seat next to Jack. “Hi, Jackson.” It was Leesha Middleton in a fuzzy white sweater and tight pink jeans.
Jack moved over reluctantly, trying to put space between them. “What do you want, Leesha?”
Leesha looked around, surveying her audience. “I wondered if you wanted to hang out later.”
“I'm kind of busy.”
“You're not going to be busy all night, are you?” She smiled at Ellen patronizingly and put her hand on Jack's thigh.
He looked down at it, back up at her. “Lobeck have the flu or what?”
“You should talk. No offense, but I don't think you want people to see you with your rebound, here. Talk about pathetic.”
Ellen rose to her feet. Jack thought for a moment she was going to storm out. Instead, she picked up the pitcher of hot fudge and poured the contents onto Leesha Middleton's pink jeans and white fuzzy sweater.
“Oops.” Ellen sat down again and went back to eating her ice cream.
Leesha screamed, a sound that could have been heard in Canada. Every eye in Corcoran's was on her. She slid out of the booth and swiped ineffectively at her jeans with a paper napkin. Then plucked at her ruined sweater with her thumb and forefinger. “You … you … I can't believe you did that!”
Ellen licked whipped cream from the back of her spoon and looked back at Leesha calmly.
Leesha was tiny, but she appeared to expand, like an amphibian taking on air, then she drew herself up and retrieved her pink leather purse from the bench next to Jack. It was smeared with fudge, too. “You'll pay for that, I promise you,” she said to Ellen in a voice that raised gooseflesh on the back of Jack's neck. Then she turned and walked out of the restaurant.