Aubrey Arthur and the End of All Magic

By Russ Anderson, Jr and Michael Fogg

The last magician in the world is no magician at all.

For centuries, creatures of the nights, demigods, and mortal magicians have existed side-by-side with the ‘normal’ world, practicing their arts in secret. But when a mysterious catastrophe erases most of the magic from the world and kills most of the magic users, twelve year-old Aubrey Arthur—heir to a magical legacy stretching back through recorded history—finds herself orphaned in a mundane world that doesn’t even realize what it’s lost.

With only an unreliable golem and a basement full of inert magical artifacts to help her, Aubrey uses what little magic she has left to pick up the pieces of her life. But she soon learns she isn’t the only magic user who survived the catastrophe. A fairy breaks into her house, a horde of zombies attack her after school... and all of that is just the beginning. When someone she thought was dead arrives on her doorstep, she realizes that hidden somewhere in her house is a source of magic—maybe the last remaining source of magic in the world.

And Aubrey Arthur, a sixth grader with very little in the way of magical training, is the only one left who can keep it safe from the monsters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Russ Anderson, Jr
• Release date: Dec 26, 2017

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

The old school bus rumbled down the road, past a wall of cypress trees, while inside the grade school children laughed and gabbled, excited at the prospect of their daily release from their duties to the Louisiana public school system. Aubrey Arthur was an island of stillness in their midst, the noise of the bus and her fellow students washing across her without making much of an impression. She sat alone on her bench seat, slumped low and pressed against the window, her arms crossed over her chest. She was eleven years old, and scrawny, with olive skin and a mop of thick black hair cut short, though not boyishly so. She wore a bright red T-shirt and blue jeans with one torn knee, and a pair of black high-top sneakers a size too big. Her denim jacket lay rolled up in the seat next to her.

Sometimes, like now, Aubrey played a little game with herself, where she tried to get through the entire school day without speaking a word to anyone, just to see if she could do it. Usually she could, and it never made her day any more or less difficult. This fueled her convictions about the inadequacy of people in general, and the people she was forced to consort with—her teachers, her classmates, the lunch ladies, the bus driver—in particular. On that Tuesday afternoon in November, Aubrey was wondering if a yawn counted as ‘talking’. This was important, because she had yawned in math class, and if it did count, it ruined her speechless day.

She was still mulling over whether she could be held accountable for the involuntary stuff, when a loud voice sounded in the seat behind her.

It’s mine! the voice shouted. Give it back!

She turned and peeked over the back of the bench seat—and narrowly avoided a boy’s shoe as it sailed through the air past her head. It was big and red and (this was noticeable even in the tiny glimpse she got of it as it sailed by) in tatters. An older boy in the seat in front of her caught it and inspected it, a look of disgust on his big, dumb face.

I think I saw these hanging off some phone lines, the guy with the big, dumb face said. His name was Calvin Walsh. At thirteen, he was the oldest kid on the bus, and he was big for his age on top of that. All of which made Calvin like a giant amongst the garden gnomes. And in the grand tradition of bigger kids, he spent his days taking any frustrations or feelings of inadequacy he may have been dealing with out on smaller kids.

The owner of the shoe slumped in the seat behind Aubrey, on the verge of tears, his expression hovering somewhere between fury and despair. Aubrey recognized him. Where Calvin was over-large, this kid was under-large. Not only short, but skinny. He was African-American. Aubrey reached for his name, but the kid in the seat beside him—a cackling, buck-toothed acolyte of Calvin’s named Trevor Figueroa—provided it before she had to spend too much effort trying to remember.

That true, Martin? Trevor asked, leaning in close to the smaller kid. Did ya get them off a telephone wire?

Martin Gardner—right. Quiet kid. Probably second only to Aubrey in his ability to keep to himself. But Martin had a couple of disadvantages Aubrey didn’t have; the foremost being that his family was visibly poor. Aubrey was currently suffering through shoes a size too big, but Martin’s entire wardrobe had obviously been handed down from bigger siblings or cousins, or picked up for free at church giveaways, with little regard for whether or not they matched or how they had been treated by their previous owners. It wasn’t like any other family in Culver County was rolling in money, but the Gardners wore their destitution on their (clearly worn) sleeves.

Give it back, Martin said, his voice surprisingly level and firm. His eyes, though, were already wet.

Tell me where you got it first. Calvin pinched the shoe daintily between thumb and forefinger, as if it were coated in swamp mud. The sole peeled away from the rest of the shoe, and someone had used a Sharpie to write, and subsequently scratch out, the name Jeff on the canvas side.

You didn’t actually spend money on these, did you? Calvin pressed. No, wait… I forgot who I was talking to.

Aubrey leaned into the aisle and looked toward the front of the bus, hoping to see Miss Oliver, the bus attendant, moving toward the back to intervene. No sign of her though. She may have been asleep in her seat up at the front, for all Aubrey knew. Useless, just like everybody else.

Martin sprang up and made a grab over the top of the seat for his shoe, but Calvin held it easily out of his reach. In the seat next to Martin, Trevor laughed.

Give me my shoe, Martin said, his voice trembling now.

Lighten up, Marty! Trevor crowed. We’re just having some fun!

Martin turned and shoved him. It didn’t do much, partly because Martin Gardner didn’t know how to fight, and partly because Trevor probably outweighed him by close to twenty pounds. It did erase the carnival barker grin from Trevor’s face, though. He surged forward, putting a hand in Martin’s chest and slamming him down onto the seat.

Just answer the question, Calvin said from the seat in front of Aubrey.

Even if Martin had been of a mind to speak, Trevor’s hand on his chest would have prevented him from doing so. He scrabbled at the bigger boy, but Trevor had longer arms, and he couldn’t reach him. Trevor shifted his weight, and put his knee in Martin’s chest too. The kids in the surrounding benches scented blood, and either leaned forward to watch or leaned away and hoped they wouldn’t be next.

Aubrey, right in the middle of it all, slouched in her seat and pinched the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger. She had been so close to a no-talking day…

With everyone else’s attention focused on the fight, she extended her index fingers and twirled them around each other four times, mouthing words to herself as she did so. Then she put her thumbs and index fingers together, like she was signing okay with both hands, touched her thumbs together, and pulled them apart sharply.

With that done, she stood up.

Calvin had been leaning all the way over the back of his seat to get a better look at Trevor manhandling poor Martin. He straightened in surprise as Aubrey rose abruptly into his personal space. Before he could recover, she snatched Martin’s shoe out of his hand and tossed it back over her own seat, where, by happy accident, it bounced off the back of Trevor’s head before landing in its owner’s lap.

Trevor rolled off of Martin, clutching the back of his head. Ow! What’re you doing, Cal?

It wasn’t me, Calvin insisted. Then, glaring at Aubrey, he said, Why don’t you mind your own business, kid?

Aubrey rolled her eyes at him. On her other side, Martin scrambled to get his shoe back on while Trevor rubbed the back of his head and watched Calvin, waiting to follow his lead.

What’s your problem? Calvin demanded, and he seemed genuinely outraged by what she’d done, as if Aubrey had walked into his living room and, for no reason, turned off the TV in the middle of his favorite show. Aubrey had no intention of engaging him any further, but when she moved to sit back down, he grabbed her T-shirt and hauled her back to her feet. His finger snagged on the chain of a necklace she was wearing and pulled it up out of her shirt collar, revealing a frog-shaped pendant. Aubrey had to lean toward Calvin to keep him from breaking the chain.

Hey! he barked. I’m talking to—

Before he could finish, Aubrey grabbed a handful of his sandy blonde hair and pulled hard. He yelped, and for the second and a half during which he was too surprised to retaliate, Aubrey held her free hand below the bench and snapped her fingers.

Calvin’s jeans whipped down to his knees, and the hem of his shirt sprang up to his shoulders, like invisible hands had yanked them apart. He wore leopard-print briefs underneath, and after a moment of stunned silence, the rear of the bus erupted into gales of laughter. Calvin let go of her, scrambling to get his pants back up. He lost his balance and fell against the window, cracking his head against the metal frame. There was blood—which Aubrey barely noticed, because she was busy tucking the pendant and chain back into her T-shirt.

Trevor leaned over the back of Aubrey’s seat, obviously undecided on whether to join the other kids in their laughter or to try to help his captain. Martin, who had his shoe back on by this time, made the question moot for him by springing up beside him and punching the bigger kid in the ear.

Which was when Miss Oliver finally showed up, bustling desperately down the aisle, like a prison guard too late to stop the jailbreak. Aubrey put her hands up to show her innocence, but Miss Oliver only gave her and Calvin a cursory glance as she hurried past. Trevor lay in the aisle, one hand over his ear while blood trickled out between his fingers.

What in God’s name is going on here? Miss Oliver demanded, glaring at the other three as she hauled Trevor to his feet.

A chorus of explanations went up all around her, from everyone except the four people who had been directly involved. Calvin was still struggling to get his pants up, and Martin, having had his moment of cathartic violence, shrank back into his seat, refusing to look any of them in the eye.

Since she didn’t get immediate satisfaction from any of the three boys, Miss Oliver’s glare fell, finally, on Aubrey.

Aubrey sighed, and for the first time that day, opened her mouth to speak.

CHAPTER TWO

The bus trundled away, rocking on its springs as it moved back toward the center of its lane. Through the cloud of dust and diesel exhaust it left behind, Aubrey saw kids staring at her through the back window. She also saw that Calvin and Trevor weren’t among the gawkers.

Beside her, Martin Gardner rubbed the knuckles of his punching hand and stared off into the distance with a worried expression that suggested there was a storm coming, and he was the only one who could see it. "My mom is going to kill me!" he moaned.

All four of them were in trouble, and all four of them would be explaining themselves to the principal tomorrow. But Martin had punched Trevor in the side of the head, and, worse, Miss Oliver had seen him do it. When Martin tried to explain how Trevor had stolen his shoe, and pinned him down in the seat so hard he couldn’t breathe, Miss Oliver had angrily told him to save it. She could only act on what she’d seen, and what she’d seen was Martin popping another kid in the ear hard enough to make him bleed.

Miss Oliver wasn’t the most vigilant bus attendant, but she suffered no shenanigans once she noticed them. Martin was kicked off at the next stop, which also happened to be Aubrey’s.

Aubrey, still grumpy from being made to talk to people, probably wasn’t as sympathetic as she should have been. How far away do you live? she asked testily.

Two miles, Martin said, staring down the road after the bus. Give or take.

Can you call for a ride? Aubrey asked.

No phone, he said, patting his empty pockets. Hey, thanks for sticking up for me.

Don’t mention it, she said.

I mean it, he pressed.

I do too, she insisted.

They fell silent. He looked at her with big, puppy dog eyes, obviously waiting for her to offer to help him, but too shy to ask for it. Aubrey knew she should have, but getting in a bully’s face was a much different proposition from offering to let this kid use her phone. There were reasons Aubrey didn’t have friends, and most of them were at the house at the end of the long driveway.

Okay, he said. Well, I’d better get going…

He turned and started down the narrow two-lane road, casting forlorn glances back at her every couple of steps. Aubrey watched him go, fighting a silent battle within herself, until finally she broke. She couldn’t just abandon him beside the road, any more than she could have sat and watched when they stole his shoe on the bus.

Wait, she called. Wait, come back.

He did, moving quickly in case she changed her mind.

My aunt’s not home, so she can’t drive you, she said, but you can use the phone. Is there somebody you can call?

He nodded enthusiastically. My sister, he said. She can come get me.

Fine, Aubrey said. You can call her… but then you have to come back out here to the road to wait. Okay?

Sure, Martin said.

It’s just that I’m not supposed to have anybody in the house when my aunt’s not here, and I don’t want her to come home and bust me.

Whatever you say, Martin assured her.

She looked at him in silence a moment longer, as if to head off any glimmer of misunderstanding she might see on his face, then she turned and started down the gravel driveway. Come on then.

The house wasn’t visible from the road, concealed behind a wall of cypress and magnolia trees, and further screened by sheets of Spanish moss that cascaded from nearly every branch. Martin fell a couple of steps behind Aubrey as they followed the gravel driveway into the trees and down into a little gully. At the bottom, the ground to either side of their path was saturated, almost swampy, and Martin heard what must have been thousands of frogs chirping from the trees and the grass and the mud. The sound didn’t let up much as the driveway began to climb again.

I’m Martin, he said, when he realized the walk would take a lot longer than he’d thought. Martin Gardner.

I know who you are, Aubrey said.

And you’re… Audrey, right?

She stopped and looked back at him. No, she said, I’m Aubrey. Aubrey Arthur.

Nice to meet you, Aubrey, Martin said, extending his hand.

Aubrey considered it for a moment, then took it, gave it one firm pump, and released it before turning back up the driveway. Martin followed.

Just as he started to seriously consider whether he would have been better off walking home, they emerged from the trees and found themselves standing in front of the Arthur house.

Holy cow, Martin breathed, trying to take it all in.

It was an old plantation house, not quite falling apart, but obviously suffering from recent neglect. It may have been powder blue once, but the Louisiana sun had bleached it gray, and the eight pillars lined up along the front needed some fresh whitewash. It stood two stories tall, but four dormers set into the sloped roof on the front side of the house suggested there might be a third, smaller floor up there too. Two chimneys rose from the roof, one on either side of the building, and a hexagonal tower sprouted from the center, adding even more height to the structure. The tower was flat on top and framed in stone, and its walls were dingy glass.

"It’s a mansion! Martin said. He looked at Aubrey out of the corner of his eye. You’re rich!"

Aubrey shook her head. It’s not as nice as it looks.

If you say so, Martin said, scoffing.

He looked around and reconsidered. He had reacted to the size of the place, but looking at it again, there were other signs that the Arthurs were perhaps not as well off as their square footage suggested. The front lawn was vast, but it looked like it hadn’t been mowed in a couple of weeks. Flower beds dotted the front of the house and the center of the circular driveway, but all those beds contained was old mulch.

Come on, Aubrey said, motioning him toward the house.

A bench swing that looked like it hadn’t been used in a while hung on the front porch. The door was massive—or he thought it was until he got close enough to see it was actually two doors, connecting to form a single arch. Aubrey inserted her key into one of these doors and pushed it open.

The entry hall on the inside was as grand as Martin had expected, rising through the second story of the big house. Ten paces inside the front door, a wide staircase led up to the long second story landing. Like the lawn out front, it wasn’t a wreck, but it also hadn’t been cleaned recently. Tall windows at the back of the entry hall let in a shower of light that revealed colonies of floating dust motes.

Wait here, Aubrey said. She tossed her jacket over the baluster at the bottom of the great stairs and disappeared through a doorway on the left side of the entry hall.

Martin stood quietly for a handful of seconds, trying not to move too much because he sensed Aubrey preferred it that way. The hall was bare of furnishings, except for a couple of decorative tables and flower pots just as bereft of actual flowers as the flowerbeds outside. A few framed canvases hung from the walls of the entry hall, nearly all of them impressionist blobs of color and mixed media… except for one—a large print of a family photograph. Despite his earlier decision to stay still, Martin approached it.

A middle-aged blonde man, dressed in a blue suit, stood next to a strikingly beautiful, raven-haired woman of similar age. Six girls were arrayed in front of and beside them. They all had the older woman’s dark hair and eyes, and ranged in age from their early twenties down to nine or ten. The youngest of these was Aubrey—though this Aubrey was a couple of years younger than the version that was currently, by the sound of it, tearing the kitchen apart. They all looked very happy, but seeing them like that, bordered by a frame that obviously hadn’t been wiped down in months, gave Martin a queasy feeling deep down in his stomach.

This was not the house of a family of eight, or even half that. It didn’t feel… alive enough. And if these people weren’t here, where were they? Aubrey had mentioned an aunt. Was the beautiful older woman her aunt then? And what about the rest of them?

Before Martin’s mind could wander very far down that dark road, Aubrey reappeared holding a cordless phone in one hand, and snapping the battery cover back onto it with the other. Good news, she said, fiddling with the thing as she approached. We had a spare battery, and there’s a dial tone, so the landline is still…

She trailed off as she saw where Martin was standing. Her eyes narrowed and her jaw set.

This is a nice picture, he said quickly. Is that your—?

She marched up to him and slapped the phone into his palm. Call your sister, she said. You can’t be here when my aunt gets home.

Martin did as instructed, pointedly moving away from the framed portrait as he did so. Claudia, his sister, was home, but was not thrilled with the idea of coming to pick him up on her afternoon off. She started to interrogate him about what had happened on the bus, but Martin stopped her.

I’ll explain when you get here, he said.

If you’re getting into fights, I should just let you walk, Claudia said with a sniff.

Martin could feel Aubrey’s glare on the back of his head like a physical weight. Yeah, and then you can explain that to mom, he said.

Claudia made a sound somewhere between a growl and a sigh. I’ll be there in ten minutes, she said, and hung up.

Martin handed the phone back. Thanks, he said, edging toward the door. I mean… thanks for everything. I guess I’ll… see you tomorrow.

Uh huh, Aubrey said.

Martin started to say thanks again, but realized that would be stupid. He gave her a clumsy nod instead, turned, and fled through the door. He hurried across the lawn, partly to escape the uncomfortable silence in Aubrey Arthur’s house, and partly because he would need most of the ten minutes before Claudia arrived to traverse the Arthur driveway.

When he was gone, Aubrey pushed the door shut and stood for a moment with her hand on it. She deliberately looked at the floor, and not at the picture of the family on the wall.

After a while, she straightened and went back into the kitchen. It was as big as the rest of the house would suggest, but its grandeur was somewhat diminished by the used dishes and cutlery covering the neglected acres of counter space, and the small mountain of stuffed garbage bags filling one corner of the room. Aubrey was pretty sure the kitchen garbage can still existed somewhere beneath that mountain, but she couldn’t prove it.

She hung up the phone and walked over to one of the counters, kicking over a stepstool while she inspected her fingernails. She salvaged three sandy blonde strands of hair, left under her nails after her scuffle with Calvin. Pinching them delicately between two fingers, she climbed onto the stepstool and fished around in the cupboard beside the sink until she found a small glass bottle full of dried oregano. She dumped the oregano in the sink, on top of