“Hypnosis,” Nita’s father said.
“Bull!” Kit said. “When did I hypnotize you?”
Nita’s father didn’t say anything.
“I haven’t said a thing,” Kit said. “If I hypnotized you without lights or words or anything, that’s a pretty good trick, isn’t it? You two better talk to each other and see if you’re seeing the same thing. If you aren’t, maybe I did hypnotize you. But if you are—“
Nita’s mother and father looked away from Kit with some effort. ‘Betty…” said Nita’s father.
Neither of them said anything further for a few seconds.
“Harry,” her mother said at last, “if I told you that I saw… saw Kit…” She stopped and swallowed. Then she started again, and the same feeling that had shaken Nita earlier about Kit took hold of her and shook her about her mother. Evidently bravery came in odd forms, and out of unexpected places. “If I told you that I saw Kit not sitting in the chair any more,” her mother said, all at once and in a rush. Then her voice gave out on her.
“Above it,” her dad said. And that was all he could manage.
They stared at each other.
“You got it,” Kit said.
Nita’s dad broke away from looking at her mother and glared at Nita instead. “Hypnosis,” her father said. “There’s no other explanation.”
“Yes, there is!”Nita hollered at him, waving her arms in frustration, “but you don’t want to admit it!”
“Nita,” her mother said.
“Sorry,” Nita said. “Look, Kit… this isn’t going to do it. We need something more impressive.” She got up. “Come on,” she said. “Outside. It’s my turn.”
Nita yanked the front door open and ran outside, up the dune and down its far side toward the beach. There was a long pause before she heard the sound of footsteps following her down the wooden stairs. Shock, she thought, feeling both pity and amusement. If only there was some easier way! But there wasn’t… She made it down to the beach, picked the spot she wanted, then stood and waited for them to arrive.
First her mother, then her father, came clambering up the dune and slid down its far side, to stand on the beach and stare up and down it, looking for her. Then Kit appeared beside them in a small clap of air that startled her mother so badly she jumped. Her father stared.
“Sorry,” Kit said, “I should have warned you.” He was still sitting cross-legged in the air, and Nita noticed that he didn’t sound very sorry either.
“Oh, Lord,” said Nita’s father at the sight of Kit, and then turned resolutely away. “All right. Where’s Nita?”
“Over here, Daddy,” Nita called from where she was standing on the water, just past the line of the breakers.
He stared at Nita. So did Nita’s mother, who slowly went to stand beside her husband. Her voice was shaking as she said, “Harry, it could be that my eyes are just going…”
“Mom,” Nita shouted, “give me a break; you both went to the eye doctor last month and you were fine!” She bounced up and down on the water several times, then took a few long strides to the west, turned, and came back. “Admit it! You see me walking on water! Well, surprise: I am walking on water! Get it! It’s like I told you: I’m a wizard!”
“Nita,” her father said, “uh, walking on water is, uh—“
“I know,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to overdo it. It makes my legs hurt.”
Nita trotted back in to shore, taking a last hop onto the curl of a flattening breaker and letting it push her up onto the beach and strand her there, a few feet in front of them.
Kit uncrossed his legs, got his feet back on the ground, and came to stand beside her. “So what else would you like to see?” he said.
Her parents looked at each other, then down at the two of them. “Look, Kit, Nita,” her father said unhappily, “it’s not a question of what we’d like to see. At this point I’m sure you two could get us to ‘see’ anything you wanted to… heaven knows how. But that’s not the point. This can’t be — none of this is real!”
“Wanna bet?” Kit said softly. “Neets, this is gonna call for drastic measures.”
“I think you’re right. Well, let’s see what the manual says about this. Book, please,” she said, thinking the six words of a spell she knew by heart and putting her hand out. Another small clap of air, about as noisy as a cap going off, and her wizard’s manual dropped into her hand. Her mother goggled. Nita opened the manual and began browsing through it. “Let’s see…”
“You two just stop making things pop in and out for a moment, and listen to me,” Nita’s mother said all of a sudden. “Nita, I want to know where this power came from! You two haven’t made a pact with, with—“
Nita thought of her last encounter with the Lone Power and burst out laughing. “Oh, Mom! Kit and I are the last people that One wants anything to do with.”
Her mother looked nonplussed. “Well, that’s — never mind, you’ll tell me about that some other time. But, honey, why, why?”
“You mean, ‘Why are there wizards?’ Or ‘Why are we wizards?’ “ Nita said. “Or do you really mean ‘What’s in it for us?’ “
“Yes,” her mother said, sounding lost.
Nita and Kit looked at each other, and Kit shook his head. “We’re never gonna be able to explain this,” he said.
She agreed with him. “Only one thing we can do, I guess,” Nita said, musing.
“Show them?”
Nita looked at Kit, and for the first time in what seemed days, a smile began to grow. “Remember that place we went a week and a half ago?” she said. “The one with the great view?”
“I’ll get my book,” he said, grinning back, “and the string.”
“Don’t forget the chip!” Nita said, but Kit had already gone out, bang! just like a candle, and Nita was talking to empty air. She turned to her mother and father. “He went to get some supplies,” she said. “Most wizardry you need things for — raw materials, kind of.”
“Fine, honey,” her mother said, “but does he have to keep appearing and disappearing like that?”
“It’s faster than walking,” Nita said. “And we haven’t got all night. He and I are going to have to be out early again tomorrow morning—“
“Nita!” said her father.
She went to him and put her arms around him. “Please, Dad,” she said, “let it be for a little while. We told you why. But you have to feel this first. It won’t make sense unless you do. In fact, it may never make sense. Just trust me!”
Kit popped back out of nothing, making Nita’s mother jump again. “Sorry, Mrs. Callahan,” he said. “It’s fun, that’s all. It’s a ‘beam-me-up-Scotty’ spell. So’s this one we’re going to do. Just a little more involved.” He dropped the necessary supplies on the sand — a small coil of cord, an old silicon chip salvaged from a broken pocket calculator, a gray stone. Then he started going through his own manual.
Nita looked down at the stone Kit had brought. “Good idea,” she said. “Shorthand, huh?”
“It remembers the way. Should save some work. Good thing, too… we’ve got two more sets of variables this time. Get the figures for me, will you?”
“Right.” Nita held out her book a bit as she went through it, so that her mother and father could look over her shoulder. “See, Mom? Dad? It’s just an instruction manual, like I said.”
“I can’t read it,” her father said, staring at the graceful strokes of the written form of the Speech. “What is it, Arabic?”
“No,” she said. “No Earthly language. At least, not strictly Earthly. A lot of the forces we work with don’t have names in any language on Earth — or they only have vague ones. You can’t be vague about magic.”
“Good way to get killed,” Kit said from where he knelt in the sand, scribbling with a stick and sounding cheerful. “Mr. Callahan, Mrs. Callahan, don’t step on any of these things I’m writing in the sand, or we’ll all be in big trouble. Mrs. Callahan, what’s your birthday?”