“We didn’t stop to take a count,” Wash said. “And we did spot checks on a three-foot square; among us, we probably covered about a quarter acre.”
“Well, let’s count them, then.” The professor took the bucket from Wash, opened the cover, and spilled the contents out onto the table. Rennie made a noise of protest. Professor Jeffries looked up with a puzzled expression that changed to sheepish when he saw Rennie frowning at her dinner table. “Beg pardon, Mrs. Wilson. We’ll clean up in a jiffy as soon as we’ve counted these.”
Rennie sniffed, and for once I didn’t blame her one bit. Bugs all over the dining table, and nearly time for dinner! If Professor Jeffries had been family, I’d have given him a good scolding right then, and never mind the company.
Professor Jeffries didn’t notice Rennie’s sniff or my expression. He was frowning down at the little pile of pupa cases. Something bright was moving slowly among them. “Mr. Morris, why did you bring two mirror bugs along with these others?” the professor asked.
“I didn’t.” Wash gave Lan and William a stern look. Lan looked indignant; William just shook his head.
“Then how did they get in here?” The professor stirred the pupae with his forefinger. Even from several feet away, I could see several dull green beetles crawling among them, along with the two—no, three—mirror bugs. “Look, there’s another one.”
“What are those things?” Brant asked, leaning forward with interest. “I’ve never seen one before.”
Lan scowled. “I did
There was a small popping noise, and the long green beetle Lan was pointing at turned into a mirror bug. Lan stopped talking and gaped at it. So did everyone else. Then there were more popping noises. Four of the pupae that were closest to Lan’s finger broke wide open, and a mirror bug crawled out of each one. The change kept spreading, the way popcorn goes when it starts popping—first one kernel, then two, then four or five, then everything all at once. In another minute, there was nothing left on the table except mirror bugs and empty pupa cases.
“Well, that explains why you couldn’t find anything but empty cases,” Professor Jeffries said after a long silence.
“But why did they change?” William said.
“Obviously, it’s the magic of a double-seventh son,” Mr. Harrison said, sounding as if he was talking to a room full of idiots.
Lan looked disgusted. “Don’t be ridic—I mean, I don’t think that’s possible, Mr. Harrison. I wasn’t casting any spells.”
“No,” Wash said slowly, “but still, there may be something to the idea.”
“May be?” Mr. Harrison said indignantly. “Of course there is! You all saw it yourselves.”
“But what did we see, exactly?” Papa murmured. He was looking at the mirror bugs with an intense expression. “Jeffries, have you seen anything like this before?”
“Not in a natural insect,” Professor Jeffries said immediately. “But these have clearly been misclassified. This creature appears to have a five-stage life cycle, rather than the four stages that are usual with insects. The interesting thing is that the mirror-bug stage is the only obviously magical one, and that it could develop from the wingless-beetle stage as well as directly from the pupae. That is not—”
All at once, half the mirror bugs stopped crawling around the table and took off. Most of them flew straight at Lan, who yelled and batted at them. The others zoomed around the room, sparkling whenever the light hit them and banging into things.
“Get those bugs out of my house!” Rennie yelled. She reached for the fly swatter, but Papa stopped her.
“We’ll take care of it, Rennie,” he said. He looked up and muttered a shoo-fly spell, the one he used at home to clear the flies out of a room after someone left the door open.
But instead of flying out the door, all of the mirror bugs—including the ones on the table and the ones that had been buzzing around Lan—zeroed straight in on Papa. He looked quite startled, but he didn’t bat them away the way Lan had. He let them light on his coat and then walked slowly toward the door, just as if he’d planned it that way. The mirror bugs clung to his shoulders and arms without trying to fly off, and a minute later, he had them all outside.
Rennie gave a sigh of relief and picked up a cleaning rag to wipe down the table. Wash got there first; he scooped all the empty pupae back into the bucket, picked up the bucket lid, and headed out the door after Papa. After a second, everyone but Rennie followed.
Outside, Wash was picking mirror bugs off of Papa’s shoulders and slipping them into the covered pail. “Hold on a minute,” Professor Jeffries said. “I want to test something.”
He held out his hand, and Wash passed over the bucket. Professor Jeffries frowned for a minute, then took a nickel from his pocket. He flipped the nickel into the air and called out the spell for keeping something moving. The nickel hung in the air, spinning faster and faster. All the rest of the mirror bugs launched themselves from Papa’s shoulders at the nickel and latched onto it, forming a glittering ball the size of a baby’s fist. There was a rattle from the bucket as the bugs inside hit the lid, trying to get out. Professor Jeffries slid the lid back without ever taking his eyes off the spinning ball of mirror bugs, and the bugs from the bucket whizzed up to join the others.
The ball spun slower and slower, sending silvery flashes of light in all directions. After a few seconds, it started to sink toward the ground. Professor Jeffries held up the bucket and gasped the closing word of the spell. The ball of mirror bugs dropped into the bucket with a soft rustle. The professor slid the lid into place and sat down on the steps with a plop, like all the energy had gone out of him.
“What sort of nonsense was that?” Mr. Harrison demanded.
“So they’re attracted to magic, even after they’ve changed,” Papa said to Professor Jeffries, completely ignoring Mr. Harrison.
“And they absorb it,” Professor Jeffries said. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. “They were sucking up power faster than I could feed it into that spell, though fortunately not by much. Which no doubt explains their attraction to you, young man,” he added, nodding at Lan.
“But I wasn’t casting any spells,” Lan objected.
“Neither was anyone else,” William pointed out. “As soon as someone did, all the mirror bugs went for the spell. But before that—”
“Lan was the strongest source of magic in the area,” Papa said. He frowned slightly. “The question is, does the change from beetle to mirror bug occur based on the strength of the magic available, or on the amount?”
“We’ll have to find some more pupae to test,” Professor Jeffries said. “But I’ll wager it’s the amount of magic available that’s the critical factor, and strength just speeds up the transformation.”
“It’s too late to find any more tonight, I’m afraid,” Brant said.
Mr. Harrison broke in to huff about wasting time on mirror bugs when it was the grubs that were the problem, which irritated everyone and led to another argument that kept on right through to dinner.
I went back to helping Rennie with the housework, but even having three childings to look after didn’t stop me turning over everything in my mind. And the more it turned, the more worried I got.
The pupae and beetles absorbed magic and popped into mirror bugs. The mirror bugs absorbed even more magic, enough to make Professor Jeffries tired after just a few minutes. There hadn’t been very many mirror bugs to begin with, but the longer there were lots of beetles around the normal settlements, absorbing magic from their spells, the more mirror bugs there would be. And all of them would be soaking up magic from the settlement spells.
What would happen when there were so many mirror bugs that the settlement magicians couldn’t keep their protective spells up anymore?
CHAPTER 28
THE NEXT DAY, PROFESSOR JEFFRIES TOOK BRANT, WASH, AND William out to look for more pupae and beetles. Lan stayed with Papa to help redo the detection spell, instead of Professor Jeffries. It didn’t take as long to set up the second time, and it didn’t have any more results than it had the first time. There just weren’t any old
