All the Birds in the Sky

“Well, not the Tree exactly. But the power the Tree represents. I know you’ve waited a long time to fulfill your purpose as a witch. You’ve been more than patient. So I have been tasked with informing you that your wait is almost over. The secrets will soon be yours.”

Patricia couldn’t breathe. Her hands were gripping her chair arms. She felt hot around her face and yet freezing in her extremities. Her blood was all going to her head, as if it were preparing to separate from her body. Her feet kicked each other.

“What?” she said at last. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Umm…” She was on the verge of babbling, but reined it in. This was important witch business. “Um. Who are you?” She would not have disbelieved, necessarily, if he’d claimed to be Merlin or something.

“I’m your school guidance counselor.” Mr. Rose smiled with one lip. “I’m just passing along a message, that’s all. This is the only time you and I will ever discuss this matter.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“You will be receiving instructions soon. In the meantime, there is one task you must perform.”

“Umm…” Stop saying umm, Patricia told herself. “Umm, is it like a test? Or an assignment? Do I have to prove myself worthy?”

“You have already proved everything you needed to prove. No, this is merely a task. But an unpleasant one. There is a boy at this school who will grow up to be a great enemy of nature, and a persecutor of the magical community. You already know him. His name is Laurence Armstead. He may have asked to see a demonstration of magic recently. He may even have asked you to show him the Tree. Is this so?”

“Umm … yeah.” This conversation was like falling off the edge of the world, plummeting all the way around the globe, and then falling off the edge a second time. Patricia’s stomach was upside down.

“So you already know. I hate to say this, and remember I’m just the messenger. I regard all human life as precious and irreplaceable. But Laurence Armstead must die. And you must be the one to kill him. Nobody else can do it. As soon as you complete this task, you can begin your training.”

Patricia couldn’t remember what she said after that — it probably had a lot of “umm” in it. She didn’t say she would kill Laurence, and she didn’t say she wouldn’t. She may have thanked Mr. Rose for the message. She wasn’t sure. She was in an upright coma for the rest of the day. Even Roberta hanging from the banister upside down and staring at her after dinner barely registered. Roberta’s dark brown hair hung straight down and her eyebrows twitched, but she said nothing as Patricia walked past.

Patricia found herself in Roberta’s room an hour later, right before lights-out. “Bert,” she said, using her old nickname. “Could you kill a person? If you absolutely had to?”

Roberta was painting her toenails candy-apple green, in her white cotton PJs. “Wow, Trish. Morbid much?” She laughed. “For your information, the answer is yes and no. Yes, I would be willing, if I felt it was necessary and whatever. But I probably couldn’t go through with it. I would be too much of a wuss to look at someone and take them out. Even if I was sure it was the right thing.”

“Umm, okay. Thanks.”

“But Trish,” Roberta called after Patricia as she turned to go to her own room, across the hallway. “If you do ever take someone out, I get to watch. I want to see you do it.”

“Umm, okay.”

Laurence was back at school the next day, in a good mood for a change, swinging his arms in the wet hallways like he owned the place. He was back to not talking to Patricia, but he smiled at her without looking right at her. She could so easily end him, just push him in front of one of the senior citizen tour buses the school used as transportation. It would look like an accident. Patricia found herself studying his twitchy head and slender wrists, trying to imagine if it could be true: Was he going to become an enemy of magic? He was already hostile to it, that was for sure. Maybe the grown-up Laurence would be some kind of monster, for all she knew, persecuting her kind. Maybe this was part of what witches did — regretfully, sorrowfully — snuffing out people who would threaten the balance of nature?

She watched him in the cafeteria. Punishing his food. She watched him running wind sprints up and down the hill behind the school, shivering in his track uniform. She tried to imagine him launching a vendetta. Persecuting her friends, if she ever actually had friends. She couldn’t make herself believe it, and she couldn’t do it unless she did. She could imagine killing him, that was shockingly easy — one shove, into the big wheels — but she couldn’t imagine him deserving it.

Whenever she tried to talk to Mr. Rose, he was either busy or absent. She finally caught up with him in the hallway near the teacher lounge and tried to mention the Tree. He looked at her as if she was speaking gibberish. One brow raised.

At home, she asked CH@NG3M3, “Will Laurence become an enemy of magic?”