The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic

her brain. His real life was unfolding without her knowledge. She could only guess at its course.

She should have asked Aruendiel to teach her that observation spell, so that she could check in from time to time. But she couldn’t work magic anymore, she reminded herself.

A small gray feather blew past her one day, as she was helping her father spade his tomato patch. She dropped the hoe and grabbed for it, but the wind took it out of her reach. As it disappeared behind a neighbor’s satellite dish, her father asked what she was staring at.

Sometimes she wondered—just out of curiosity—about the magician friend of Aruendiel’s who was supposed to be in this world. Micher Something. Micher Samle. But all she knew about Micher Samle was that he liked to transform himself into a mouse, and had once lived in a cave. Not much to go on, even if she felt like scouring the rodent-infested underground caverns of the world.

It was a trade-off, Nora decided sternly. She had her life back. Her family. The comforts of twenty-first- century American civilization. And English literature. Now she could lose herself in a novel again—any novel, not just Pride and Prejudice—and in a way, that was when she felt most at home. That first week, she went through one or two books a day, using her sister’s library card. There was no particular logic to her choices, except that—Nora saw as soon as she considered it—they were generally realist novels, rooted in the observation of the here and now, nothing fantastical about them. She had no taste for anything but the most pragmatic of genres. When she finished a novel, she started another one right away.

She was close to the end of Augie March one afternoon when her sister Ramona, seeing how few pages remained, helpfully said that she could borrow any of the Harry Potters from Ramona’s own bookshelf.

“No, thanks,” Nora said absently. Lifting her hand to turn the page, she squeezed her sister’s sock-clad foot. They were reading companionably at opposite ends of the leather couch in the den, Nora leaning against one arm, Ramona sprawled against the other.

“Why not?”

“It’s a kids’ book. I feel like reading something more serious, for grown-ups.”

“Lots of grown-ups read Harry Potter. It’s all about magic, you know.”

“I’m aware of that.” The books probably got all the magic wrong, Nora thought.

“So why aren’t you interested?”

“I’m just not. Shh, I’m reading.” Then—because it was still fresh and gratifying even to be able to be interrupted by her little sister—Nora looked up and asked: “What are you reading?”

Ramona turned the book over so that Nora could see the cover. “Ms. Kessenides at school said it was funny.”

Pride and Prejudice. Nora sat still. “What do you think?” she asked after a moment.

“It’s not laugh-out-loud funny, but it’s funny,” Ramona judged. “It’s also kind of dumb.”

“Dumb”—not a word Nora usually associated with Jane Austen. “What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s so obvious that he’s in love with her. And she doesn’t even realize it until he actually asks her to marry him.”

Nora cocked her head, pleased that Ramona was reading critically, not sure that she was reading carefully enough. “But he’s so rude to her. And she doesn’t get to hear Darcy say she has fine eyes, remember.”

“When Noah Hurst poured his Coke into Janine Perez’s locker, everyone knew that he liked her.”

“Oh,” Nora said. Sixth grade at Woodrow Wilson Middle School might be better preparation for reading Jane Austen than one might think.

“And Elizabeth’s supposed to be smart!” Ramona said in a tone of grievance.

Nora took the book from Ramona and flipped through it. A much newer, sturdier copy than the frail paperback she’d left behind in the other world. Chapter 34, that was as far as she’d gotten with her Ors translation. She kept turning pages.

How despicably have I acted, Elizabeth Bennet cried—I, who have prided myself on my discernment! Elizabeth has just read Darcy’s letter, and realized how thoroughly she has misread Wickham and Darcy. Her bad judgment about Wickham will cause mischief; her mistake about Darcy is potentially more costly, and only she will know why. Mentally, Nora put the sentence into Ors, then imagined Aruendiel reading it from her wax tablet. She was not sure she had used the right word to translate “discernment.” Aruendiel would know. Suddenly she felt fiercely, shatteringly homesick for him. He was out of reach forever, for all the remaining minutes and days and years of her life. Oh, gods, she thought, what did I do? How could I not see how much—? Till this moment I never knew myself.

Ramona said: “What happened to that magician, Arundill?”

Hearing his name was a fierce electric thrill. Nora tried to look unmoved. “Aruendiel,” she corrected Ramona, keeping her voice low. “He’s fine.” She hoped.

“Why didn’t you tell them about him, about the other world?”

“They wouldn’t believe me.”

“They didn’t believe me. But I’m just a kid. I bet they’d believe you.”

“You told them about the night you saw me?” Nora had been wondering about this. Ramona had said nothing to Nora about a spectral visit from her and a tall, dark magician. Nora presumed she must have forgotten all about it.

Ramona nodded. “At first, when I told them, they got all excited. And then when I said it was magic—how you were visiting from another world—they got mad and said I was lying. I told them about the spell he put on Friday to make her talk, but I’m the only one who can understand her. They think she’s just meowing.

“’Course, Friday doesn’t really say anything worth listening to,” Ramona added. “She just gripes about her cat food and says rude things about us.”

“I’ve heard her.” The day before, Nora had barely caught herself from responding, right in front of Kathy, when the cat made an acid comment about the size of Nora’s feet.

“Really? That’s good. I was starting to think, you know, that maybe my brain was making all this stuff up.”

“No, it’s real,” Nora said reluctantly. Should she be saying these things to Ramona, who was already so prone to fantasizing? Was believing in alternate realities going to help her in sixth grade and the rest of her life? “It did happen, but you shouldn’t think about it too much,” she said stoutly. “Because we have our lives to live right here, in this world, and we don’t need magic.”

“Why not? You can still do magic, right? Arundill was teaching you, you said.”

“I haven’t even tried since I got back,” Nora lied.

“What?”

“There’s no reason to.” Ramona looked incredulous, so Nora went on: “In that other world, they need magic because they don’t have anything else. There’s no science, no medicine. You wouldn’t believe how much better things are here, really.” To her own ears, Nora did not sound as convincing as she hoped.

“But that’s so stupid! Aren’t you going to go back?”

“Of course not.”

“I can’t believe you, Nora! You are so retarded.”

“Don’t say ‘retarded.’” Kathy was strict on this point—no insults that slighted the disabled.

“Why not?” Ramona’s voice rose on strong wings of outrage. “You were learning magic—from a magician —in a castle, and you decided to come back here to be a Muggle. That’s the textbook definition of retarded. You know how lucky you were?”

“Not so loud,” Nora hissed. Leigh was upstairs; Kathy would be home any minute. “I had to make a choice, Ramona. I chose you guys. I missed you. Everyone thought I was dead. When I was here that night, I saw how upset you were. Dad was drunk because of me. And now he’s not drinking. So, yeah, I made the right choice.”

“Oh, Dad getting drunk, that stopped months ago,” Ramona said matter-of-factly. “Mom blew up over Christmas and he goes to AA now. They think I don’t know.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good,” Nora said, taken aback. “But I had to come back so that everyone would stop worrying.”