Chapter #12Weird Interviews with Weird People by: Seuzz   There follows one of the most unpleasant interviews you've ever suffered.
Oh, it's not that the questions are hard. After a few easy ones about your personal history—where you come from, where you live, what classes you're taking and who your friends are—Joe (with a few assists from Frank) starts asking you the same sort of questions they asked you yesterday. Where did you find that book? What did you think when you found it? Why were you so shy of doing anything with it? After that, they ask you more general questions about fantasy and magic. Do you like fantasy books? Do you daydream about being in one? How scared would you be if a vampire knocked on your door?
They don't seem very impressed with your answers, most of which run along the lines of, I wanted to stay out of trouble and I'd probably shit myself.
But it's not the questions nor is it even the embarrassing answers that make the interview so nasty.
It's the weirdly compulsive way that your answers come popping out of you.
You'd felt something like it before, when you first walked into their house: an upwelling in your chest and throat, like words were trying to vomit out of you. But it's worse now, for the words come flying out whether you'd want them to or not, and they are sharp and jagged with dismaying truths. So it's not only embarrassing to hear yourself confess that of course you've imagined yourself as the hero in a sword-and-sorcery epic—"Hasn't everyone?" you pant afterward—and that you'd scream like a little girl if a vampire went for your throat. But it's mortifying that you can't stop yourself from these confessions.
You're glad the interview isn't longer than it is, and when Joe concludes with a shrug you almost faint with exhaustion. The two housemates give each other a very long and thoughtful stare before Frank turns to take a glass out of a cabinet. "You want him, you can babysit him," he tells Joe.
Joe smiles faintly at you, and there's no missing the satire in his eye. "You still wanna help us?" he asks.
That feeling of compulsion is gone, but you're too weak to resist the pull of honesty. Still, it surprises you when you gasp out the same word that opened the interview: "Yes."
Joe's eyes warm, and he slaps you on the shoulder. "Then come into the living room. You got some questions for me now, I'll bet."
* * * * *
He perches at one end of a saggy, smelly sofa with his legs crossed under him while you slump at the other end. He doesn't wait for you to start asking questions, though, but plunges directly into a short biography.
"So I'm Joe and he's Frank," he starts, nodding his chin at the wall on the other side of which is his housemate. "We're brothers. Adopted brothers. As in our dad adopted each of us. His name's 'Brennan', but we registered at Eastman as the 'Durras' brothers."
"You go to Eastman?"
"For the time being. We came out to Saratoga Falls a few weeks ago to look for that book we took off you, and went undercover by registering at Eastman. Tch. Missed it by that much. We might be pulling up stakes though. Dad has to get back to us about that."
"How old are you?"
"Eighteen. Frank'll be nineteen in a few months." His eyes crinkle. "Now you're wondering how we got all this experience at stuff like this."
"Like what?" you prompt him.
"Oh, don't turn shy on me all of a sudden, Prescott!" he howls. "Ask it! You wanna know how we know all about magic and magic books and magic spells. Also, vampires and ettins and ghosts and wogglybogs, about elves and kelpies and trolls, about the guys who write books like the one you picked up, or craft rings and wands and broaches and crap like that." He leans in on you. "You already told us you wanna know about all that, so don't get embarrassed now!"
You redden under this onslaught. "Okay, so tell me how you know all about, uh, magic and elves and ghosts and—"
"Vampires? Oh yeah. They're real, by the way," he says. "Real nasty, too. The whole sexy, twinkly thing?" He makes a face. "Total fantasy. They're rats is what they are. Two-legged rats, closer to zombies than anything else. They stink of mud and blood and garbage, and they're fish-belly white all over." He shudders. "That's one of the things that makes them so dangerous. You're so grossed by them that you almost forget to protect yourself when they lunge at you.
"Oh, but how do we know about this stuff?" He drums his knees.
"'Cos we grew up learning about it and dealing with it. It's kind of a family business. Well, not literally 'family', even though our dad is the head of the company. Except, like I said, he's not our biological dad. And it's not a company, either. It's, uh, well it's a secret society." He cocks his head. "Goes back thousands of years. It's been our job— I don't mean mine and Frank's job," he interrupts himself. "Like I told you, we're only eighteen, not thousands of years old, so when I say it's 'our job'—"
"He gets it, Joe!" Frank yells from the next room. "For fuck's sake!"
Joe swings around and flings too rigid middle fingers at the wall separating him from his brother. "Anyway," he grumbles as he turns around again, "we've been training for it most of our lives, so this thing we did with you and that book?" He shrugs. "Just the latest job."
"And, uh—?"
"Spit it out."
You take a deep breath. "That stuff like, uh, your brother was doing to me yesterday—?"
"You mean like this?" Joe snaps his fingers. A little tongue of flame appears on the tip of his thumb.
It takes you a moment to realize that there's no match, no piece of paper, no nothing there that would be supporting it. Your eyes widen.
Joe turns his head and feigns an elaborate sneeze. The flame winks out. "Yeah," he drawls. "Frank got your attention with his stuff, didn't he?"
"So you guys can do magic?"
"Well, sure! I can do sleight of hand!" Joe puts his fingers to your ear, then shows you the quarter he "pulled" from it. "But what Frank showed you yesterday, what I showed you now, that's not 'magic', not the way you mean it. That's just our prodigies."
"Your ... ?"
"Prodigies. Like, you've heard of Mozart, right?" He frowns. "Please tell me you've heard of Wolfgang Amade Mozart."
"I thought it was 'Amadeus'," you blurt out.
Joe laughs. "You have heard of him! But he called himself 'Amade' when he called himself by his middle name at all. The whole 'Amadeus' thing—" He breaks off to glare at the wall separating him from Frank. "But Mozart was a prodigy, right? Playing the clavier when he was three, composing music when he was five. But that's not magic, is it?"
"I guess not," you admit.
"Same here." He flicks his fingers, and that flame appears. "There was nothing magic about Mozart. He only did what anyone else could do. Only he was prodigiously good at it where most people just aren't very good at all."
You feel your eyebrows going up. "So you're saying that I could—?"
Joe hoots. "Sure! Try it! Go on." He grins, and his voice softens. "Try it."
Your mouth goes very dry. You look down at your fingers. They to feel very dry. Dry like sticks.
Like sticks that could burst into flame if you rubbed them real hard?
You look back up at Joe. His grin widens.
You've never started a fire just by snapping your fingers before, so if something is going to happen, it's going to be because he does it, right? If he could set his own fingers on fire, he could probably set you on fire.
"Don't tell me you're scared, Prescott."
You give him a dirty look, and snap your fingers.
Nothing happens. "Maybe you didn't want it badly enough," Joe says.
You snap your fingers again. "Concentrate," Joe says.
You snap them again. "Is that the best you can do?" Joe cries.
"I don't think I can do it!" you exclaim.
Then you catch your breath. "Is that why I can't do it?" you ask. "Do I have to believe in it really hard?"
"It sometimes helps." Joe stretches and gets to his feet. "But I wouldn't knock myself out if I were you. Wanna soda?" He pads to the kitchen, but stops in the doorway. "Don't tell yourself you can't do it, Prescott. Just accept that you're so bad at it you'll never pull it off. Anyone can write a fugue, but you think you could write one for me this afternoon?"
"What's a fugue?"
"There you are." With a grin, he vanishes around the corner.
* * * * *
So I'm Mozart, is what he said when he was back with sodas for you and he both. And you're not even Salieri. But he told you not to feel bad. Frank couldn't do his little trick with the flame, or any of his other tricks which, he bragged, were much more impressive. And Frank could do a lot of things that he couldn't. But that doesn't make us magic or mutants, he insisted. It just makes us like Mozart. Really rare.
As for why he was showing you all this: It was because you had asked, and because you said you wanted to help out, and for that reason you had to know about the kind of people they were and what they could do. "And we don't mind getting help from good people, as long as they know how to keep quiet about it," he says. "Even Mozart needed help playing piano concertos, and we're not too proud to turn away volunteers." He hangs a friendly arm around your neck. "Of course," he adds, "we'll have to talk to our dad about you joining."
"Except you can't leave town, can you, Prescott?" says Frank, who has joined you in the living room. You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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