What Really Happened in Peru

Magnus cradled the charango in his arms as if it were an easily offended baby.

“It’s a beautiful and very unique instrument! The sound box is made from an armadillo. Well, a dried armadillo shell.”

“That explains the sound you’re making,” said Ragnor. “Like a lost, hungry armadillo.”

“You are just jealous,” Magnus remarked calmly. “Because you do not have the soul of a true artiste like myself.”

“Oh, I am positively green with envy,”

Ragnor snapped.

“Come now, Ragnor. That’s not fair,” said Magnus. “You know I love it when you make jokes about your complexion.”

Magnus refused to be affected by

Ragnor’s cruel judgments. He regarded his fellow warlock with a lofty stare of superb indifference, raised his charango, and began to play again his defiant, beautiful tune.

They both heard the staccato thump of frantically running feet from within the house, the swish of skirts, and then

Catarina came rushing out into the courtyard. Her white hair was falling loose about her shoulders, and her face was the picture of alarm.

“Magnus, Ragnor, I heard a cat making a most unearthly noise,” she exclaimed.

“From the sound of it, the poor creature must be direly sick. You have to help me find it!”

Ragnor immediately collapsed with hysterical laughter on his windowsill.

Magnus stared at Catarina for a moment, until he saw her lips twitch.

“You are conspiring against me and my art,” he declared. “You are a pack of conspirators.”

He began to play again. Catarina stopped him by putting a hand on his arm.

“No, but seriously, Magnus,” she said.

“That noise is appalling.”

Magnus sighed. “Every warlock’s a critic.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I have already explained myself to

Ragnor. I wish to become proficient with a musical instrument. I have decided to devote myself to the art of the charanguista, and I wish to hear no more petty objections.”

“If we are all making lists of things we wish to hear no more . . . ,” Ragnor murmured.

Catarina, however, was smiling.

“I see,” she said.

“Madam, you do not see.”

“I do. I see it all most clearly,”

Catarina assured him. “What is her name?”

“I resent your implication,” Magnus said. “There is no woman in the case. I am married to my music!”

“Oh, all right,” Catarina said. “What’s his name, then?”

His name was Imasu Morales, and he was gorgeous.

The three warlocks were staying near the harbor, along the shoreline of Lake

Titicaca, but Magnus liked to see and be part of life in a way that Ragnor and

Catarina, familiar with quiet and solitude from childhood on account of their unusual complexions, did not quite understand. He went walking about the city and up into the mountains, having small adventures. On a few occasions that Ragnor and Catarina kept hurtfully and unnecessarily reminding him of, he had been escorted home by the police, even though that incident with the

Bolivian smugglers had been a complete misunderstanding.

Magnus had not been involved in any dealings with smugglers that night, though.

He had simply been walking through the

Plaza

Republicana, skirting around artfully sculpted bushes and artfully sculpted sculptures. The city below shone like stars arranged in neat rows, as if someone were growing a harvest of light.

It was a beautiful night to meet a beautiful boy.

The music had caught Magnus’s ear first, and then the laughter. Magnus had turned to look and saw sparkling dark eyes and rumpled hair, and the play of the musician’s fingers. Magnus had a list of favored traits in a partner—black hair, blue eyes, honest—but in this case what drew him in was an individual response to life. Something he hadn’t seen before, and which made him want to see more.

He moved closer, and managed to catch

Imasu’s eye. Once both were caught, the game could begin, and Magnus began it by asking if Imasu taught music. He wanted to spend more time with Imasu, but he wanted to learn as well—to see if he could be absorbed in the same way, create the same sounds.

Even after a few lessons, Magnus could tell that the sounds he made with the charango were slightly different from the sounds Imasu made. Possibly more than slightly. Ragnor and Catarina both begged him to give the instrument up. Random strangers on the street begged him to give the instrument up. Even cats ran from him.

But: “You have real potential as a musician,” Imasu said, his voice serious and his eyes laughing.

Magnus made it his policy to listen to people who were kind, encouraging, and extremely handsome.

So he kept at it with the charango, despite the fact that he was forbidden to play it in the house. He was also discouraged from playing it in public places by a crying child, a man with papers talking about city ordinances, and a small riot.

As a last resort he went up to the mountains and played there. Magnus was sure that the llama stampede he witnessed was a coincidence. The llamas could not be judging him.

Besides, the charango was definitely starting to sound better. He was either getting the hang of it or succumbing to auditory hallucinations. Magnus chose to believe it was the former.

“I think I really turned a corner,” he told Imasu earnestly one day. “In the mountains. A metaphorical, musical corner, that is. There really should be more roads up there.”

“That’s wonderful,” Imasu said, eyes shining. “I can’t wait to hear it.”

They were in Imasu’s house, as Magnus was not allowed to play anywhere else in

Puno. Imasu’s mother and sister were both sadly prone to migraines, so many of

Magnus’s lessons were on musical theory, but today Magnus and Imasu were in the house alone.

“When can we expect your mother and sister back?”

Magnus asked, very casually.

“In a few weeks,” Imasu replied. “They went to visit my aunt. Um. They didn’t flee

—I mean, leave the house—for any particular reason.”

“Such charming ladies,”

Magnus remarked. “So sad they’re both so sickly.”

Imasu blinked.

“Their headaches?” Magnus reminded him.

“Oh,” Imasu said. “Oh, right.” There was a pause, then Imasu clapped his hands together. “You were about to play something for me!”

Magnus beamed at him. “Prepare,” he intoned, “to be astounded.”

He lifted the instrument up in his arms.

They had come to understand each other, he felt, his charango and he. He could make music flow from the air or the river or the curtains if he so chose, but this was different, human and strangely touching.

The stumble and screech of the strings were coming together, Magnus thought, to form a melody. The music was almost there, in his hands.

When Magnus looked at Imasu, he saw

Imasu had dropped his head into his hands.