Wizard for Hire Page 16

  “I can’t speak to that. I was boxed up for a while, you know.”

  “Somewhere there has to be somebody or some clue to let me know what happened, doesn’t there?”

  “I hope you find it, because this rollercoaster of emotion is killing me.”

  “You’re right. Let’s not think about any of this for a couple of days. I mean . . . if Rin’s as good a wizard as he claims to be, he can solve the case and then find us. I don’t want to think about it anymore. In fact, let’s go to the ocean tomorrow.”

  “Yes,” Clark chirped. “You can build a real sandcastle, not like the one I tried to make.”

  “And maybe Sigi will be there.”

  “Now I’m pumped,” Clark said. “The sand between my talons is just what I need.”

  The dimming of day made Ozzy sleepy and Clark a bit lethargic. Ozzy lowered his head and Clark hopped from his hair to his shoulder. As Ozzy was looking down, he noticed something he had never seen before.

  “What’s that?”

  Ozzy stopped. He fell to his knees to better examine the ground. Clark jumped from his shoulder and did some investigating of his own.

  “It’s a dirt bike track.” Ozzy said. “Someone was riding a motorcycle around here.”

  “Look,” Clark said. “There’s another.”

  To the right Ozzy saw a second tire track.

  “And another,” Clark announced. “I don’t understand. Where would any motorcycles be going out here? There’s nothing but our . . .”

  The small bird squawked loudly as Ozzy jumped up off his knees and ran in the direction of his hidden home. Clark sprang forward and shot through the trees like a dart.

  Jumping over moss and leaves, he quickly ran to the cloaked house. From twenty feet away he knew something bad had happened. From ten feet away he knew it was worse than he thought.

  There were deep motorcycle tracks crisscrossing the dark soil in front of the house. The door had been kicked in and was hanging from the frame by a single hinge. Clark frantically flitted around the open door like an anxious hummingbird.

  “Do you think anyone’s still here?” he twerped.

  “I’m not sure,” Ozzy said. “The motorcycles aren’t here. You fly in first.”

  Clark flew through the open door. Ten seconds later he was back out.

  “I don’t see anyone, but it’s not pretty in there.”

  Ozzy stepped intrepidly through the front door.

  The cloaked house had been discovered—and abused. All at once two things were clear: one, Ozzy’s life was never going to be the simple existence it had been; and two, the beach tomorrow was out.

  Whoever had broken into Ozzy’s home had done so with little regard for what was inside. Boxes were tipped and torn. The couch and a couple of chairs had muddy footprints on them from someone using them as stepstools to reach higher and destroy more. All of the cassette tapes were on the floor, smashed and unspooled. Two of the kitchen cabinet doors had been ripped off and it looked like what few dishes Ozzy had were shattered on the floor. The map he had carefully drawn with Clark’s help was destroyed.

  The basement was just as bad—tools were missing and boxes had been smashed.

  “Who would do this?” Clark asked, sounding as mournful as a metallic raven could. “I don’t understand. What does this accomplish?”

  They went upstairs to his attic room. His mattress had been flipped over and the tape recorder and tablet were gone.

  Clark squawked again, an unearthly and sad noise Ozzy had never heard him make before.

  Ozzy sat down on his overturned mattress and put his head in his hands. He could do without the tablet—it was the tapes and recorder that hurt the most.

  “I’m so sorry,” Clark tweeted softly. “Maybe whoever did this is still out there. We could track them down.”

  Ozzy looked up. His grey eyes were filled with static.

  “Whoever it was is gone now.” Ozzy was angry. “We didn’t hear any motors as we hiked in. It probably happened when we were in Portland last night.”

  “Me and my need to get away,” Clark lamented. “Who could have done this?”

  Ozzy was smart—according to the calendar he was fourteen, but if you factored in the experiences he’d had, he was advanced in age. He knew in his soul that whatever had happened to the cloaked house was somehow tied to him trying to find his parents.

  “We need Rin,” Ozzy admitted. “Do you think you can find him?”

  Clark looked around. “As long as they didn’t take my book light.”

  The bird flew down the stairs and was back up in a minute with the book light in his talons. He dropped it in Ozzy’s hands.

  “Where was this?”

  “I may or may not have hidden it in the basement rafters. I guess I’m overly possessive. Flip it on.”

  Ozzy turned it on and a strong small light shone out.

  “Perfect. Clip it to me and I’ll go.”

  Ozzy clipped the light to Clark’s rear and bent the small light to shine directly at the silver strip on his back.

  “You know where he is?”

  “He said he’d be at Bites, probably pigging out on that oinking egg thing.”

  Clark jumped to the window sill and looked out at the now-dark sky.

  “Be careful,” Ozzy said. “And if you have to stop for the night, make sure it’s somewhere the rising sun will still hit you.”

  “I will.”

  “And don’t mess with the trash can.”

  Clark looked at Ozzy and blinked his small eyes. “I’m a little insulted you even said that.”

  “Fine, I’m sorry. But still don’t. Just find Rin, tell him what happened, and get back here. If he gives you any grief, tell him I’m paying for his time.”

  Clark saluted with his right wing and jumped out the round window. Ozzy watched the speck of light fly off and then come right back.

  “What?” Ozzy asked urgently.

  “Did that look cool?”

  “What?”

  “That salute, and then me just flying off?”

  Ozzy was frustrated.

  “It was okay. Go!”

  Clark took to the sky and this time Ozzy watched the light fly off into the distance and not come back.

  “Well, I’m not sleeping in here,” he said to himself.

  Ozzy collected some blankets and found his sleeping bag and pillow. He took them outside and went behind the house to the stream. He crossed a flat board that functioned as a bridge and made a place to sleep next to the black rock wall. His breathing was heavy and his heart was in shock. He wanted daylight to hurry so that he could better assess what had been damaged and taken.

  His brain played through every possible scenario of who might have done this horrible deed. He had a few ideas, but he couldn’t shake the thought that on the day he discovered he had a half-uncle, his house had been ransacked.

  “There has to be a connection,” he whispered to himself. “Timsby must have known more than he admitted.”

  Ozzy had read enough books to know that lawyers were often seedy.

  “I shouldn’t have trusted him.”

  The air was cool and every noise he heard caused Ozzy to get up and investigate. Once it was a fox looking for food in the dark. Once it was a squirrel running through the stream. And another time it was a fat owl who perched in a bent tree directly above the black wall. It hooted and fidgeted until Ozzy finally climbed up the tree and scared it off.

  Ozzy got back into his sleeping bag. He scanned the sky, hoping that any moment a small pinpoint of light would return.

  Rin sat in a booth at Bites eating pancakes and sausage. The place was filled with locals and tourists eating, and drinking the kind of drinks that made people talk loud and get rowdy. As he took a huge bite of pancake
, someone walked up to the table.

  “Hello, Brian.”

  Rin looked up to see Sheriff Wills, a tall man with a thin mustache wearing a green uniform that was two sizes too small.

  “It’s Rin, and have a seat.” The wizard motioned to the empty booth bench across the table. “Please. Conversation is so much better at eye level.”

  The sheriff sat down and the buttons on his shirt screamed.

  “I thought you’d be here. Do you mind if I ask you a couple more questions?”

  “Not at all,” Rin said with a full mouth.

  “Tell me again where you met that boy?”

  “He called about my ad in the ORVG. We met here.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He was having trouble with homework. His parents were giving him grief and he wanted to know if I could help with the research.”

  “Is that how wizards spend their time?”

  “Wizards help wherever they can.”

  “Someone said you went to Portland last night.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Why?”

  “Ann lives there—you know that—and my mom. But I didn’t stop in to see Mom, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell her I was there.”

  “Just went to see Ann?”

  “A wizard doesn’t ‘just do’ anything. Every journey we take has a purpose and . . . man, these pancakes are good. You want to try one?”

  “No thanks, I’m not a breakfast person. Especially at night.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “Listen, Rin, I don’t want to give you any grief. I’m just worried that you’re getting yourself in trouble. Maybe you’re a little unstable at the moment.”

  “That’s a compliment in Quarfelt.”

  “See, that’s what I mean. Are you still claiming that you don’t know where this Ozzy Toffy boy lives?”

  “I don’t. I’ve never been to or seen his house. Where does he live?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “Has there been some kind of trouble?”

  “Not necessarily. He was going to school for the last couple of weeks and now he’s not.”

  “Certainly the school has more information about him than I do.”

  “Not a thing.”

  “Maybe you should be investigating that. How does a young man go to school without anyone knowing a thing about him? I just placed an ad in the ORVG like I always do and he answered. We met here and I drove him to Doyle’s place. And since you and Doyle are friends, I’m sure you know what happened there.”

  “Yeah, you were asking about a couple who moved in years ago.”

  “Well, the boy was asking. He was researching a paper for school.”

  “A school he no longer goes to.”

  “That does seem weird. How’s this—I’ll give you a wizard’s promise. If I see him again, I’ll do everything within my legal power to get him to come talk to you.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “I’d prefer you say, ‘More than fair.’ That way the glass is at least half-full.”

  Sheriff Wills stood up and shook his head.

  “You used to be so normal, Brian—I mean Labyrinth. Now the whole town laughs at you.”

  “I can’t help it if people don’t understand. It’s not my worry to make life a place where there’s no opportunity for others to grow and be challenged.”

  “You know, that Toffy boy also showed up at the police station a while back. He met with Officer Greg. Said he was looking for his aunt and uncle, but took off as soon as we started to question him.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” Rin insisted.

  “I believe you were at the station at that same time.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Rin said. “I was reporting those kids at Walmart.”

  “So it was just a coincidence that you pulled into the police station as the boy ran off?”

  “An interesting detail, and nothing else.”

  “You know, any normal person would want to help us.”

  “So would a normal wizard, but this is your journey, not mine.”

  “Weird, Brian, just weird. Maybe I should take you down to the station and keep you there for a while. I think that might . . .”

  At that moment the front door to Bites opened and a woman screamed. Sheriff Wills spun around to see what was happening. A black bird had zipped in from outside and was shooting up into the rafters. More women screamed . . . and a few men. The bird dived down and through the bar area, avoiding a waiter who was trying to swat it with a rag and a woman who attempted to hit it with her purse.

  The bird swooped back up and shot right through one of the hanging light bulbs. The bulb popped and shattered.

  Now more men than women were screaming.

  Sheriff Wills ran from Rin’s booth and tried to act as if he knew what to do.

  “Everybody stay calm! It’s just a bird.”

  Clark aimed at another naked bulb and shot through it. The bulb made a louder popping noise than the last one. He swooped over Rin and winked.

  The bird hit another bulb and then another. As the light bulbs exploded the restaurant began to grow darker.

  “Shoot it!” someone yelled.

  “No shooting!” Sheriff Wills yelled. “Everyone calm—”

  Clark took out four more bulbs, one after the other.

  Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

  The vast majority of the restaurant’s patrons were running for the door. Rin continued to eat his pancakes as fast as he could, shoveling the food into his mouth and covering the plate so no broken glass got in his food.

  Pop! Pop! Pop!

  Sheriff Wills ducked under a table directly to Rin’s right.

  “Some wizard you are! Why don’t you do something?”

  Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

  Rin looked at Clark as he swooped overhead. He pushed back his plate, slid out of the booth, and stood up. Then while looking upward he shouted,

  “Fandel-cease-perdabra!”

  The wizard clapped loudly as he recited the spell. Clark dropped from the sky and Rin caught him. Sheriff Wills saw the whole thing and couldn’t keep his jaw from dropping.

  Carrying the bird, Rin ran from the restaurant, everyone looking on in awe. Two customers opened the doors and Rin moved out of the restaurant to where the rest of the patrons were gathered. Once outside, and with a crowd of onlookers looking on, he opened his hands and held the bird up.

  “Rindis-mindis-move!”

  Clark lifted out of his hands and took off into the dark sky. Rin just stood there looking like an important statue.

  To say that everyone was impressed was an understatement of epic proportions. It was only a wild bird that had broken a bunch of lights, but the gathering clapped as if Rin had stopped the apocalypse. Rin put his hands on his hips.

  “Don’t clap for me, clap for the fact that tonight has been more textured and unusual than expected. If there is one thing that I have learned it’s that the expectations of men are often . . .”

  The crowd of people had been impressed, but they weren’t in the mood for a speech. They began to disperse. Rin stopped talking and tried to go back inside to pay his bill, but the owner told everyone to leave until they could get things cleaned up. He also informed them that their food was on the house.

  “Well, then, my work here is done,” Rin declared.

  Rin walked off into the dark and disappeared into the trees at the edge of the parking lot for effect. As soon as the coast was clear, he circled back and snuck to his car. He crouched at the door and opened it. Clark peeked out from under the car, holding his book light in his left talon.

  “Get in,” Rin whispered.

  The bird hopped into the car and up onto the dashboard.
Rin pulled out of the parking lot without anyone noticing it was him. Once they were on the road, Rin looked over at Clark.

  “That was remarkable!” he said, not trying to hide his exuberance in the least. “They were eating it up.”

  “You’re welcome,” Clark said.

  “It couldn’t have been better if we planned it.”

  “Probably not.”

  “Still, we should plan something else like that sometime.”

  “I’m up for it.”

  “Just incredible. That’ll show Wills. Sometimes it takes the innocence of a bird to let the people see the wisdom of a wizard. I had a feeling tonight would go over well. The clouds were very expressive today.” Rin laughed and then inhaled followed by a “Whooo.”

  “Why are you back in town, anyway?” Rin asked. “Visiting that trash can?”

  “That’s right, I have news,” Clark said, slapping his small forehead with the tip of his left wing. “The cloaked house—it was ransacked.”

  “What?”

  “When we got there this evening there were motor­cycle tracks leading up to it and everything inside was torn apart. The worst part is that some things were taken.”

  “Where’s Ozzy?!”

  “He’s fine, but he’s back at the house. He wanted me to get you.”

  Rin did a sharp U-turn as Clark held onto the dash with his talons. The car shot down Main Street in the direction of Mule Pole Highway. Rin pressed on the gas and the car sped up.

  “Do you know who did it?” Rin hollered.

  “No.”

  “This is exactly the kind of thing we wizards hate.”

  The small car raced down the long road, away from town and toward the cloaked house.

  Ozzy rolled over in his sleeping bag and felt something poking at his nose. Irritating. He brushed it away, but the poking intensified.

  “Wake up,” Clark chirped. “I’m back, and I brought the wizard.”

  Ozzy sat up and tried to get his bearings. He saw his bird standing near the stream, the book light clipped to his tail and shining in his eyes.

  “You brought Rin?” Ozzy groggily. “Where is he?”

  “He was a little behind me. I couldn’t find you inside so I did a quick fly around. You’ve always liked this spot.”