The world globe sat for a century in a glass cabinet of curiosities in the library of a sorcerer who was selfishly proud of its acquisition. He went to see the Wainwright witches about stealing their power, and on that same night, this rusty, dusty spherical trinket which caught the corner of his eye came home with him to serve as a trophy of his successful conquest. He had no use for it after that day, but the Wainwrights had not forgotten its existence.
Solaine pulled into a long driveway, her breath filling the air as she rolled down her window to verify the barely visible numbers nailed to a post. There was an iron gate ahead of her, already opened according to plan. She pulled up to a mansion of charcoal stone and black trim. It was unremarkable architecturally except for its enormous size, a hallmark of misplaced ego and other male deficiencies in her opinion.
She exited her car, a minor feat with her tight dress and pushed up bosom, whispered a few words, and looked down to see a flat tire as cold rain started to fall. She walked up to two rounded wood doors, painted black with no windows, and knocked vigorously. A tiny old man with an ample belly, stooped back, and long, pointy mustache answered. Solaine could hear him shuffling and breathing heavy even through the solid doors.
“Good evening. We were not expecting guests tonight. And if you would not mind, could you explain how you made it through the gatesssss?” He spit through his mustache, barely audible until the last bit about the gates.
“I’m just one guest, less a guest, and more a stranded victim of car troubles on this cold, rainy night.” Solaine pointed to her flat tire. “Could I come in and warm up a bit as I call for a tow? The gatessss were open by the way.”
The troll of man started to shake his head to the negative when Solaine whispered two more words, and he swung his sausage arm behind him, cracking old joints in the process, to usher her into the entry of the ostentatious brick box.
“I will go get Mr. Vrane. He will be pleasantly surprised to have a guest, especially such a beautiful one. Follow me to the library where I will have you wait for him.”
Solaine smiled and narrowed her eyes. Sometimes when she whispered words, she went too far, and truth came out. She probably had worse suitors, but a troll man was still not high on a list for a Saturday night out. He was giving her exactly what she hoped for at this moment though. She straightened her jet black bob slightly, brushed down the corners of her dress which were riding up and followed the miniature mustache man through a hallway, painted flat black, into a room that had books on every single wall, table, and counter available. Finally, there was no black to be seen.
The tiny man smiled with all his tiny yellow teeth.
“Please make yourself at home while I summon Mr.Vrane.”
Solaine thought there was no truer word than summon for acquiring someone like his dark master.
“Thank you. My name is Solaine, Solaine Adams. Tell Mr. Vrane thank you for any help or hospitality he can provide.”
Her faithful new servant nodded his head and scurried out of the library, a prehistoric, confused bug. Solaine immediately turned her attention to the glass cabinet she came here to see, doors already opened as planned. Things could be too easy when you had the most powerful friends in the world. She reached for the globe, and as she did, she smelled a smoky maleness at her back and turned to see a man that could only be Mr. Vrane.
“Do you always show up unannounced and make yourself so liberally at home in the libraries of others? I’m Axel Vrane, and I hear you are Ms. Solaine Adams.”
Axel neither looked pleased nor displeased at Solaine’s presence. His voice was mildly irritated yet laced with charm. He was also not immune to the royal blue dress hugging every curve of her delicate frame. His gray eyes were locked in a repeating pattern, moving up and down her figure. She was warned of his rogue ways and stood firm in her mission, longing to finish this and return to attire without mild attraction spells cast on it.
“I am so sorry. This library is like nothing I’ve seen, and this cabinet was open and called to me. I was on my way to your neighbors up the road for a fundraiser.”
“I see. You are curiously fortunate in your misfortune as my gate and that cabinet are mostly closed. It is also fortuitous that you did not get stuck trying to drive with a flat tire up my old driveway. I assume you were going to my nearest neighbor’s house in your flattering blue dress for this event. Would I be correct?”
Solaine could hear a slight whisper from Axel at the end of his curiously polite summation as if he were casting, so she stumbled back a little to distract him. She should have planned this part better for she did not know the name of Axel’s neighbors, and she had been too obvious with her magical presence. She got lucky as he quickly moved towards her, still finding her intriguingly distracting yet realizing she was a threat, and he grabbed for the globe. She whispered four words at exactly the right moment before he touched the globe, watched Axel jolt, and then found herself and the globe in a slum in India.
The boy was waiting for her, standing between the rows of falling houses and makeshift storefronts on either side of them. There was a sweet rotting smell thick in the air, and Solaine’s heart broke as she nearly slipped on garbage on the broken street beneath them. Somebody had tried to pave it, bless their weary soul.
She bent down to the boy’s level, kissing his cheek, causing him to smile and show off the beautiful teeth she gave him the last time she was here. A rat scurried by them, slightly startling her.
“Aranav, son of Aarush and friend to the Wainwrights, I will take what is mine and give to you the gift of power to change what is around you. That power belonged to your great grandfather and would have been your father’s power to give to you if he were here. All I ask is that when the man arrives here looking for all of it, you do your best to keep our secret. Agreed?”
The boy shook his head vigorously, silently dedicated to this accord.
“Good. And as I have taught you, stealing from others, especially magic, is not okay unless it was not for them to take in the first place.”
The boy shook his head again.
Solaine motioned for Aranav to place his hands on the globe and began to whisper her words. She whispered for a long time as this casting required far more than conjuring and charms. Her magical strength increased exponentially as she paused then whispered more words, now unintelligible, syllables blending in unbreakable song.
At one point, the boy jolted, growing slightly taller and less emaciated, healed by the power between them emanating from the globe. The row houses grew tall and straight, and the slime and putrid smell of the slum evaporated. When she was done, she was exhausted yet full of everything a Wainwright deserved. The boy was also full of everything he deserved as son of Aarush, and the slum was now a simple neighborhood, far from riches, but safe from squalor.
Aranav met her eyes and hugged her, the globe still between them, and he finally spoke.
“Thank you, Ms. Wainwright for returning what was ours with honor,” he said as he looked around at a vibrant street around him, clean and full of food stands, soon to be full of people again as dawn was breaking.
Solaine kissed the boy one last time on his cheek and made her way quickly from this street.
An American man traveled to the area one month later. He smelled of smoke, and he told everyone his name was Jim Adams. Jim was searching for something that was stolen from him, and he deposited money in the hands of many along his way to find it. Jim eventually found his way to Aranav’s street, using a map on a scroll. When he arrived, he realized he had been duped by the magic man he paid to draw this map for the street was decent, not a slum. As he angrily turned on his heals, he saw a boy, tall and proud, carrying a plain glass globe. He pivoted to walk towards the boy, but he was too late. The boy disappeared with the globe in a cloud of smoke. Jim knew what had been stolen would never be stolen back. He would find a new way though for she had not taken everything.
Kelly Rogers 