Wizard of Jatte by Rowan Erlking (ereader ebook .TXT) 📖

about how you have been going around town lately and disassembling all those stone dolls you made when we were kids?”

He frowned. “That isn’t mischief. I just figured I ought to clean up my messes.”

“But people have gotten fond of those dolls.”

To that, he smiled. “Thanks, but the magician keeps remarking that it makes our town look foolish, and lately I have been inclined to agree.”

She punched his arm again without thinking about it. “Foolish? Theissen, since when did you start listening to the magician?”

He blinked. That was a good point, and he started frowning to himself with wonder. When did he? “I—I don’t know.”

Milrina rubbed his shoulder for him. “I think everyone likes it better when you and he don’t think alike. That man scares me.”

To that, Theissen had to agree. He scared him too.

 

And he continued to scare him.

In town, whenever he passed by the magician’s home he got a distinct shudder, and he started to discover a noticeable smell he did not like. Whenever he passed the magician on the street, Theissen was inclined to cross the street. Then the magician would smile to himself, giving Theissen more shivers.

Then there were other things.

Around town while on deliveries or gathering supplies for his parents in between work, he noticed changes, shifts in the flow that had not been there before. These shifts were like footprints of something big passing, leaving a wake that was ruffled on the edge. No else saw it of course, but for Theissen it was unsettling.

In the fields when he played with the other young men he occasionally caught a whiff of unusual stink. And at those times he stopped playing, inopportune times for him since the others took advantage of his inattention and tackled him.

Then the last was in the carpentry shop while working or cleaning up. He smelled it there too. Only this time he could act.

He saw a flicker of the knot, but then it was gone, running at a pace too fast to catch a clear glimpse. It had ducked under the stack of wood along the left wall rack. No one else was in the shop but him (his father had gone south to deliver a dresser to a village along the west shore) so he dived right after it. But the flicker of the knot darted back out again and was gone through the window before he could catch it. Theissen stared out the window and then turned to go back to where the little thing was hiding behind the wood. Reaching down, he slid the wood stack aside and then reached in. Picking up what he though he saw shining under the other wood storage racks, Theissen lifted it out and held it up to inspect it.

“A plate?”

It was a porcelain plate, intricate design. Imported.

“Carpenter?” A man’s voice boomed out from the garden gate.

Theissen nearly dropped the plate. He knew the sheriff’s voice too well. Glancing at his scarred hands and then the plate, he immediately set it down again on the floor. Then with a slight shove, the wood parted and engulfed the plate so that it was buried under and even within the floorboards. Taking his hands out straight away, Theissen spun around. The sheriff was already coming to the shop door.

Knocking on the edge, the sheriff looked in. “Carpenter?”

He noticed Theissen and gave a nod.  “Oh, it’s you. Maybe you can answer for me then, since it regards you.”

Taking a step forward and trying not to look guilty, Theissen drew in a breath.

“Now don’t be uneasy. I just came around because some occurrence happened in the village, and that ratty magician is blaming you for it again,” said the sheriff. “He says Bakerswife’s fancy platter is probably at your place since you have a history of thieving and all. But you quit that years ago, I said to him.”

“Yes, I did,” Theissen said with a growing confidence.

“Still, mind if I search your shop?” The man looked reluctant to enter, apologetic even.

Theissen smiled and stepped aside. “No, not all. Search as much as you like.”

Stepping in, the sheriff gave Theissen a smart nod then went about the shop in an orderly manner. He checked in and under drawers, around the wood, under the wood, and in all the racks and closets. Of course he never found the plate under the floorboards. With a relieved smile, the sheriff walked back to the door again.

“Does she really think it was stolen, and not misplaced?” Theissen asked, accompanying the sheriff back into the yard.

With a nod, the sheriff said, “Oh, indeed, Carpenterson. Indeed she does. The Bakerswife says that she keeps it on the mantle and only takes it down to wash it. And she says that it wasn’t washing day for that platter for another week. She said it was valuable.”

“Mind if I help you find it?” Theissen waited to see what the sheriff would say.

“Can you…? That is, can you use those magic eyes of yours to find her platter?” The man looked startled, but also pleased.

Theissen returned the smile. “Let’s go to her house.”

The sheriff glanced into the shop door. “What about your work?”

“I was just cleaning up.” Waving over, Theissen trotted out towards the fence.

The sheriff smiled, grinning broader at the boy he had been loath to bring in front of the village elders years ago. He knew Theissen was an honest person. What he didn’t know was that Theissen was working out in his mind how the platter ended up inside the carpentry shop, and what was that little demon he had seen had been doing in there.

Many women came out of their homes to look as Theissen walked with the sheriff through town, most wondering what he had done this time. However, with the unworried look on Theissen’s face, they reassessed the situation and came out gossiping with one another because this alliance was entirely unexpected. The baker’s wife looked the most surprised when they both arrived on her doorstep.

“You brought him here? Where is the platter?”

The sheriff nodded his head to her and said, “I searched the shop. It was not there. However, this boy is offering his magic services to help you find it.”

“He can do that?” His aunt the baker’s wife turned with a stare at Theissen who also bowed to her.

“I can find things that are lost,” Theissen said. He looked around the kitchen, at last noticing the bare mantle. “Is that where it was?”

She smiled at him, seeing now that he really had not been in her home recently. His frankness was disarming.

“Yes. Over there.”

Theissen nodded. Then, glancing at the sheriff he drew in a breath. “Ok, what I am about to show you is something only my parents have seen. I find lost things for them occasionally. Just watch.”

Of course he knew exactly where the platter was, but this show was an honest one. He had found missing spoons, missing awls, missing keys, and even missing clothes this way. Setting his hand on the ground, Theissen closed his eyes. He could feel everything on the floor and then what touched the floor, and then the continuation of the floor into other things on the ground, from the buildings to the trees and the river in the valley. Feet striking the ground here and there added to the texture to what he felt. Groups gathered to gossip standing along the fence were also clear to his touch. However, he reached all the way back to the carpentry shop and pulled through the ground the plate he had found behind the wood stack. It took a bit, but the plate came closer and closer, shoved through the ground by the minerals and sand in the ground, parting for it so that it went through unscathed until it was under the floorboards and then up into his hand. Theissen drew up the plate and handed it to his aunt.

“Is this it?”

She gasped and reached out, clutching it like a lost child. “My platter!”

The sheriff grinned at him. “Amazing!”

“Oh, thank you! Thank you!” she tried to hug him, but Theissen raised his hands to show that he did not need thanks.

“Unnecessary. Really, I’m just glad I can prove I didn’t steal it,” he said.

Nodding, the sheriff also smirked. “Indeed.” Then he looked around himself as if he got an idea. “You know, there have been other things gone missing lately. Maybe you can find those too?”

Theissen nodded back. “If you wish.”

They went outside onto the street. There, Theissen crouched again and listened to what the sheriff described.

“Miss Weaver lost her button the other day—”

“Milrina? Oh, give me a break.” Theissen stared up at him. “She probably just dropped it in her room.”

The man shook his head. “No. It is kept in a box. Meant to be worn on her wedding day.”

Theissen frowned, sick of being reminded about any wedding that involved Milrina. “Describe it.”

So the sheriff did. It was a glass button with gold swirled in it. It was a family heirloom.

Theissen felt along the ground for it, and in doing so, he discovered it was in the grass near the field where he and the other young men played. He drew it from there into his hand. Looking at it, Theissen frowned.

Passing it to the sheriff, he also asked, “What else is lost?”

The man smiled at him. “A silver tea creamer. Belongs to Shoemakerwife.”

Frowning, Theissen didn’t like the feel of the particular things stolen. The baker’s wife was his aunt. Milrina, his fiancé. And everyone knew his situation with the Shoemakers. These missing objects did not bode well. It gave an air of personal theft.

“Anything else?” Theissen waited tentatively.

The sheriff had a notebook out. “Two more items. Scribeson’s brass pen and your neighbor the Cheesemaker’s marble candy making slab.”

Theissen remembered the candy making slab and his former schoolteacher’s pen. Both things he had seen, but had not admired as much as most of the villagers had. All of these things were valuable like that.

Feeling hard, Theissen found the pen also in the field where he found Milrina’s button, but the stone slab, as he felt for that, he discovered startlingly under the carpenter’s shop, stashed there. The silver creamer was right along side it. All of these were in places where he frequented. It gave his heart a start, and it continued to pound as he drew each object up into his hand. He was white as he handed them over to the sheriff.

“Boy, what is wrong?” The sheriff had to heft up the marble slab, as it was very heavy.

“I…I think I feel sick.” Theissen rose, glancing once in the direction of the magician’s shop.

He looked around at the ruffled nature of the flow that went down the street like a plow had been there. Something was definitely wrong, and it was clear he was meant to be blamed for the thefts.

“If anything else goes missing, let me know,” Theissen said, then started up the hill without even looking back.

He could feel eyes on him as he traveled back to his home. What the villagers around him thought, he started to worry about. Were they looking at him as a thief again? He had not stolen a thing since that day he had his hands cut. Glancing at them from the corner of his eyes now, he wondered why in the world would anyone think that he would go back to stealing. Didn’t they know how traumatizing that experience was? No man in his senses would return to theft after that.

Reaching his home, Theissen saw that little demon scamper out of their yard just as he had walked into the yard. He tried to call it over, but he felt a strong resistance, like it was being called elsewhere. Fury built in his chest. He crouched back to the ground and felt for any foreign object in the yard. There under his touch, he felt one. Drawing it to his hand, Theissen discovered a brass horn, one owned