CHAPTER TWO

  The Secret

  II

  “Explain,” Ez snarled, seizing Gramma by the collar of her jacket.

  “I’ll try,” Gramma said cooly, “after supper.” She shook Ez off and trudged back to the cottage, which remained a disaster. Gone were the monstrous insects, but gallons of gore still caked the walls and floorboards, across which shattered tableware and pieces of the ceiling mingled. Gramma planted herself in the center of the mayhem and began to pivot slowly in a circle, waving her cane and muttering. Ez felt it again: the power, the sync. The hornet slime began to slither bit by bit toward the fireplace, where green flames shot up from the sodden embers, licking the underside of the cauldron, which still hung from the pot crane and, by luck, had kept its lid on.

  Ez and Wilburn stood transfixed. When every last trace of the monsters had been burnt away, Gramma turned her attention to the ceiling. She drew a complicated pattern in the air with the tip of her cane, and as she did so, broken planks flew up and patched over the hole. But it was a most unsightly fix. If Ez hadn’t known better, she would have taken it for the work of a severely drunken carpenter.

  Gramma clucked her tongue and shook her head, leaning heavily on her cane as she surveyed the repair. “Well,” she said, “it’ll keep the rain off.” She sounded exhausted. And despite what she’d said earlier, she went and sat down in a chair while Ez and Wilburn did the rest of the work. It took them the better part of an hour to sweep up the smashed dishes, right the table and rehang the door, whose hinges had been badly twisted by whatever force had ripped it from its frame. Ez got the thing to latch again, but it wouldn’t swing smoothly anymore, nor quietly. By the time she’d finished, the fire was back to burning its regular color and the soup was once more vigorously gurgling. In fact, looking around, it was hard to believe the place had ever been attacked by giant insects.

  Gramma refused to say a word about the miracles she had performed, claiming she could not explain properly on an empty stomach. And since none of them could muster up the energy for small talk, they ate silently, except when Gramma said, “Needs salt,” upon first tasting Ez's soup. Coming from her, this was almost a compliment. Ez had to admit the soup had turned out pretty well—better than she could have hoped. In fact, it might've been the best thing she had ever cooked. Everyone scraped their bowls clean. The moment Gramma set her spoon down, Ez snatched up the dishes and returned bearing the tea set.

  “Haven’t you got something stronger?” Gramma asked, wrinkling her nose as Ez poured tea for her.

  “Nothing but cooking sherry,” Ez said.

  Gramma snorted. She glared at her tea, muttered a word, twiddled her fingers—the sync. The pale yellow liquid became dark as blood.

  “There,” Ez said furiously, pointing at the cup. “What you just did. I want to know. You’ve had your supper, now explain.”

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  “I turned the tea to wine,” Gramma said.

  “I see that,” Ez said. “How?”

  “Magic.”

  “But it’s... real.”

  Gramma tapped her nose. “To be precise, magic is only real for some people. And you’re one of them now, because of Wilburn: because he’s a wizard.” Gramma turned to him, “What did you do, boy? Out with it.”

  Wilburn quailed under her stern gaze. “I was flying a little,” he mumbled.

  “Mm-hm,” Gramma said, as if she’d been expecting such an answer. “Let me guess: you flew until you passed out in midair and nearly broke your neck.”

  Wilburn’s jaw dropped. “How did you know?”

  “Because,” Gramma said. Then, quite unexpectedly, she burst into tears. Wilburn and Ez stared in astonishment. Gramma Fark didn’t cry. Not at Jack’s funeral, nor at her husband Loy’s. She was a creature of stone, dry as the Skhohazidak desert. Yet there the tears were, streaming down her face. “Sorry,” Gramma gasped, wiping her nose roughly on a napkin, “but Jack, your father, did the exact same thing when he became a wizard. And he was exactly your age too... Oh, Wilburn!” She whipped off her glasses and clamped a hand over her eyes, her mouth contorting.

  The blood drained from Ez’s face. “You don’t mean,” she said in a choked voice. “You don’t mean Jack was... all along...?” Gramma nodded, sobbing into her palm.

  Ez felt like she was falling through the floor. The notion that Jack would have lied to her for all those years, that he would have kept such a profound secret from her... It was the greatest of betrayals.

  Gramma sniffed violently and shoved her glasses on again before raising her eyes to meet Ez’s. “Sorry,” she repeated, “I know this isn’t what you want to hear.”

  “I want the truth,” Ez said, fighting to keep her voice steady. “If... I mean, if Jack was a wizard… why didn’t he tell me?”

  “Because magic is more than a secret,” Gramma said. “It’s the Secret: unknowable to everyone except magicians and our immediate kin. Most people can’t observe magic or learn of it by any means, no matter how hard you try to enlighten them. Jack tried, Ez. Believe me, he never stopped trying. It’s impossible. Test it sometime, now that you’re in on it. Try explaining magic to an outsider. The words will turn to scrambled egg in your mouth.”

  Relief washed over Ez. If Jack had really had no choice, if he had tried his best to tell her... he was blameless. There was nothing to forgive. The sacred trust that had existed between them remained unbroken. But a new worry nagged at her. That phrase... immediate kin... “Are spouses let in on the Secret?” she asked, staring fixedly into the table’s woodgrain. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gramma give a curt nod.

  “That’s why Jack pushed so hard...” Ez said, “for us to marry. I didn’t think the ceremony mattered.”

  “Ritual magic,” Gramma said quietly. “Unfortunately, love alone won’t cut it, no matter how true it might’ve been...”

  Tears burned in Ez’s eyes. “I’m such a fool,” she said.

  Gramma did not correct her.

  “Can you do gin?” Ez gestured at her cup. Gramma reached over, and when she withdrew her hand, the tea had turned as clear as water. Ez gulped it in one. The gin burned bracingly on its way to her stomach, dampening the ruckus of her emotions.

  Gramma drank deeply from her own cup. Both women understood what subject must be broached next, and neither one wanted to face it. Wilburn, sensing this tension, looked back and forth between them in concern. Finally, Ez drew in a deep breath, and asked, “How did Jack really die?”