A Wizard Abroad

Right then, Biddy herself came out of the hay barn, in the act of shrugging into a waterproof jacket. She looked up at the sky, pausing for a moment; then headed towards the truck. 'Uh oh,' Kit said, looking up too, with a panicked expression. And a second later, the lightning came down.

That was only the first thing that happened. As Kit said 'uh oh', Nita had felt the potential building in the air become suddenly unbearable, not just a prickling but a pain all over her. It was a matter of a second, even with her brains as tired as they were from spelling, to put a shield spell up around herself and Kit. She saw Biddy look up; she saw the lightning lance down at the truck. The breath went right out of Nita in horror, for there was no way, no way, she could extend her shield so far. . Biddy lifted her hand abruptly and the lightning simply went elsewhere. It didn't strike anything else, it didn't miss; it just stopped. And went away. There was not even a thunderclap. And Biddy stood there, looking up at the sky, and glanced around, as if looking to see whether anyone had been watching. Then she smiled very slightly, and got into the truck. 'Now what was that?' Kit whispered.

Nita pulled him behind the nearby smoking shed, out of sight of the truck as it turned, heading for the drive. He barely noticed; he was watching the truck. 'Whois that?' he said. 'I told you, that's the lady who puts the horseshoes on. Biddy.' 'She's a wizard!'

'She's not. She can't be,' Nita said. It just didn't feel right. 'That wasn't a wizardry. Wizards can hide. But the magic feels like magic, whatever.'

Kit shook his head. 'Then how do you explain that? She swatted a lightning bolt away like a bug. And her truck, or that forge in her truck anyway, isalive. That I can feel.' 'I don't know,' Nita said. 'Things are getting weird around here.'

'Getting'!' Kit started to laugh, then sobered and looked thoughtful. 'Are you going to tell your aunt about this?'

'I don't know,' Nita said. 'I think. I think I want to talk to Biddy first.'

'Makes sense,' Kit said. 'Then what?'

'Check with the Seniors. They seem to be running this show.'

'OK,' Kit said. 'You're on.'

They talked until nearly midnight. The last thin Kit said was, 'You been meeting a lot of people around here? Kids, I mean?' 'Some. They're OK.' 'Are they nice to you?'

Nita thought of Ronan, and immediately flushed hot. How was she supposed to explain this to Kit Explain what? some part of her mind demanded. Heaven only knows what he thinks about you: if anything, he probably thinks you're too young for him. 'They're fine,' she said after a moment.

'They're not geeky, the ones I've met.'

'Some of the kids back home,' Kit said, 'They're saying that I had got you in trouble.'

She burst out laughing. 'No wonder you jumped in there when Aunt Annie questioned you. Kit, who cares what they think? Idiots.' She punched him 'Go on home, it's your dinnertime.'

'Oh, blast, I forgot!' He got up hurriedly an started riffling through his manual.

'Don't forget the overlays!' Nita said. 'You leave them out of your calculations, you'll wind up in th middle of the Atlantic.'

'So? We have friends there.' He found the page he was looking for. 'Kuuut!' Nita said, annoyed, until he looked 1 her. 'Just be careful.'

He nodded, and started reading the transposition spell under his breath. At the very end of it, on th last word, he looked back up at her. 'Don't be late tomorrow,' Nita said quietly.

He nodded, and grinned, and the air slammed int the space where he had been. Nita went to bed.

6. Baile atha Cliath / Dublin

The next morning, when Nita came into the kitchen, Aunt Annie was sitting at the kitchen table with a cordless phone and a cup of tea, going through the Yellow Pages. She looked up and said, 'Want to go into town?'

'Bray?'

'No, Dublin. .'

The phone rang again. It had been doing that all morning: Nita had been able to hear it even out in the caravan. Aunt Annie sighed and picked it up. Nita went off to get herself a cup of tea. After a while Aunt Annie hung up and looked over at Nita. 'We'll be meeting at a pub in town tonight,' she said, starting to dial another number. 'This should be fun for you; you haven't been in a pub yet.'

Nita blinked at that. 'Am I allowed?'

'Oh, yes, it's not like bars in the States.' She started dialing another number. 'You can't drink, of course, but you can bein a pub all right, as long as you're over a certain age and it's earlyish.' Aunt Annie chuckled, then, and said to the phone, 'Doris? Anne. Johnny says tonight at nine, in the Long Hall. Will you call Shaun and Mairead? Right. Yes, we are. Right. Bye.' 'How are we going in?' Nita said. 'Driving?' 'No, we'll take the train in,' Aunt Annie said.

'Doris will give us a ride back, we're more or less on her way. Have your breakfast and we'll go. We can slouch around and do tourist things.' Aunt Annie smiled at her. 'I think I owe you that much, after the other night.'

Nita grinned back and went to get her jacket.

It turned out that she didn't need it. It was another hot day, up in the eighties now. They drove into Greystones to catch the shuttle train to Bray the line was only electrified that far out, as yetand stood on the platform, looking out towards Greystones' south beach. Dogs ran and barked, and there were even a few people in the water — which astonished Nita, since it was some of the coldest water she had ever tried to swim in and bounced out of with her teeth chattering. Most of the people were out in the sun on the sand, turning very pink.

Nita looked towards the big orange-and-black diesel train that was pulling in.

'Take one of the right-hand seats,' Aunt Annie said. 'You'll get a better view of the water as we go in.'

Nita did. The train pulled out, and Nita looked out at the north beach as they passed it; more sun- bathers, someone riding a horse at the gallop.

'Aunt Annie,' she said, 'you know something. Why didn't I see your name when I went through the manual and looked in the wizards' directory?'

'Confidentiality,' her aunt said. 'I wasn't 'out' to you yet. The manual senses such things.' She looked at Nita thoughtfully. 'I suppose I really should have anticipated it,' she said. 'My kids came out nonwizardly, after all. But anyway, I was looking at the manual this morning. You've been busy.'

'You gotthat in one,' Nita said.

Aunt Annie smiled. 'Not unusual. Things quieten down, though, after you get to be my age. I remember when I got mine: I had about three years when I hardly had a moment to myself. Then things got calm when I went off to college.' 'Did you have a partner?'

The train went abruptly darkish, lit only by the feeble ceiling lights, as it passed into the tunnel bored through Bray Head. 'I did for a while,' she said. 'But she and I parted company eventually. It happens,' she said, at Nita's shocked look. 'You grow apart. or one partner finds something more important than the magic. or you start disagreeing about how to work.' Nita shook her head, upset. She couldn't imagine not agreeing with Kit on a plan or course of action within a matter of seconds; and indeed, there had been times when if they hadn't been able to agree that fast, they would have been dead. 'Do you still talk?' she said. 'Oh, yes, pretty often. We're friendly enough.'

The train burst out into the light again, revealing the beach on the other side of Bray Head, and the iron- railed promenade with its hotels and arcade, and the new half-built aquarium. 'Don't worry,' said Aunt Annie. 'I think maybe you and your partner have been through enough trouble together that you'll be working together for a long while.'

They pulled into Bray station and changed to the sleek little bright-green Dublin Area Rapid Transit train waiting at the next platform over. About half an hour later, the train slid into Tara Street station. Nita and her aunt