The Bootlace Magician by Cassie Beasley
Author:Cassie Beasley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2019-09-30T16:00:00+00:00
* * *
For Micah, the real world went dim.
He was vaguely aware of the magicians around him, but they were only startled shadows, running here and there, so much less interesting than the shining new universe he’d found underneath the old one.
It was a golden place made of webs and strands of light.
Some of the strands wound around and around one another to form points of light no bigger than pinpricks. These tiny sparks were knots, Micah saw. Just ordinary knots. Tied into ropes or scarves or shoelaces.
These twinkles here were the knots that held the crates together in the Lost and Found. And those glimmers over there were the knots the Strongmen had used to secure the circus’s luggage.
How interesting, Micah thought. How nice to see you all like this.
But even as he thought it, the small lights were winking out.
They faded one by one, the minuscule strands that formed them falling away from one another and going dark, as if they were candles someone had snuffed.
Did I do that?
Micah thought he might have.
But it was all right. There were so many other things to see in this place.
Strands of light as thick as rivers. Webs of it that stretched to the horizon. A knot was just a sort of connection, Micah realized. The smallest and least important kind.
Here, in this universe, were so many others.
The rivers of light were the connections between people, ties made not of string but of friendship. Of love. They burned strong and bright, and Micah thought it wouldn’t be right to touch them. They were so perfect on their own.
But what’s that? Up there? That’s not right.
Overhead was a hideous snarl of knots that writhed like a pit of snakes. Just looking at them made Micah feel sick to his stomach.
I’ve seen something like this before.
All those months ago in Terp’s paddock. A twisting, tortured vine of light.
As if the memory had called it into being, Micah saw it suddenly. That same light, less a knot and more a hideously stretched and tangled rope. It was on the edge of the writhing mass, and Micah reached up for it, intending to straighten out the mess.
But as soon as he brushed against the rope of light, it splintered and went dark.
Ow. He drew back, shrinking from the pain.
The snarl was smaller now. It writhed a little less. But it had hurt him.
Micah stumbled away from it, aching and unnerved. He passed gleaming rivers and glittering streams, careful not to touch, until he came across a huge tapestry of light, so magnificent he had to stop and admire it.
What are you? he thought, staring at it.
It certainly didn’t writhe in that awful, nauseating way. In fact, it was beautiful. Not as grand as the rivers, not as bright as the streams, but fascinating in its own way. A big, powerful lacework of knots that connected . . . what?
Micah traced the pattern of light with his eyes, trying to figure it out. It was a funny thing, a golden connection that somehow joined here to there.
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