The Mage and the Magpie Read Online Free Page A

gently.
    Suddenly, it was as if a loud gong rang out over their heads. The sound shook the ground and toppled a nearby cart. The witch who sold it to her yelled at them angrily and waved her fist in the air. Archibald was startled, unsure of how to react, but the Magemother gave a triumphant laugh, tucked the bell under her cloak and ran. She wanted to make a quick escape, he realized, before anyone recognized her and realized that she was the source of the tumult.
    Later that day, when they had walked far from the market and were all alone on the road, she handed him the bell and instructed him to ring it when she had passed over the hill. He waited until he couldn’t see her anymore, then gave it a gentle ring. This time he noticed that the bell in his hand was silent, while the gong sounded out loudly from the other side of the hill. A second later, the Magemother appeared at his side, as if out of thin air.
    “It is my bell, Archibald,” she explained, smiling at the surprise on his face. “That is why it is worth so high a price. No matter how far from me you are, ring it, and I will hear. If I can, I will come. It lets me cross even great distances in no time at all, if there is real need.”
    There had never been a real need for him to ring it. Not in all the long years since that time. Not until now.
    He held it up so that moonlight glinted off the bell’s shiny silver surface. He paused, then rang it once.
    Silence.
    He sighed, tucked it into his vest pocket. He didn’t know what he had been expecting. As he left her rooms, he felt no closer to finding her than when he had entered.
    He entertained one small hope: maybe, somewhere, she had heard it. Maybe she knew that he was looking for her now. He didn’t truly believe it, but he was too polite, too wise to dismiss hopeful feelings in a time of need, no matter how foolish they may be.

Chapter Five
    In which Brinley scolds a bird and teaches frogs to do gymnastics
    E very year when school let out for summer break in Colorado and the other children began to spend all of their time with their friends, Brinley worked on her special talent: being invisible.
    She usually disappeared before her father left for work. She went, invisible of course, all over town and into the hills. She had secret places that she loved. Huts she had built in trees where you could see a long way off, a perfect spot by a little waterfall where you could hear the sound of water bouncing off the turning pages of a book. This last one was one of her favorite little discoveries. One day, lying beside the pool at the foot of the waterfall, she heard the sound of the waterfall change as she turned the pages of her book. Magic, she thought at first. Then she realized that it was just the sound changing as it bounced off the face of the turning page, just like how the sound of a siren changes as it drives past. Privately, she pretended that it really was magic. Life was more fun that way. With no company but her imagination, she whiled away the long, carefree summer hours in the wilderness.
    She would wake early in the morning, when most people were still dreaming, and walk across the river bridge to watch the bullfrogs stretching their long legs. She taught them some gymnastics every morning. A cartwheel and a back hand spring, a somersault and a heel stretch. Her imaginary bullfrogs followed, flipped, and bowed and were so appreciative that she didn’t mind that the “real” bullfrogs just sat there, burping at her with bored looks on their faces. After the bullfrogs, she would walk into town and look in all the shop windows before anybody got there; she liked seeing things when they were empty and quiet. It was easier to stay invisible that way.She wasn’t truly invisible‌—‌not yet‌—‌but she might as well have been for the way she disappeared every day from the sight of normal people.
    On this particular morning she woke especially early to the smell of a freshly watered