Free A Bitter Magic by Roderick Townley Page A

it turns out, at regressing butterflies to their pupal stage. Worse at making plants sprout before my eyes. Worst of all at making red rose petals darken to black. Asa is really disappointed by that one. He made me take that test three times. Each time, I saw him gritting his teeth.
    I’m starting to feel disappointed in myself. There are so many things I can’t do. Things it never occurred to me to do.
    Levitation?
    “That would be lovely,” I tell him. (My feet remain firmly on the ground.)
    Controlling the weather?
    “That would be really useful in this rainy town. But no.”
    Turn invisible?
    “I could walk out the door. Does that count?”
    Ultimately, all the experiments lead back to the rose. Half the books on the shelf are about cultivation, hybrids, horticulture. I’m just the fallback. If he doesn’t succeed with the rose, he might be able to use me in his act. He’s practically said as much.
    I’ve told him I’m not interested. It’s fine that he wants to restart his career, but it’s not for me. Not with him.
    Most people would be flattered by all this interest, and I admit I’m excited. If only Asa weren’t the one doing the tests. Asa is interested in Asa. I’m interested in Mother—learning if she’s alive, getting her back safe. Uncle Asa has hardly mentioned her; and that piece of black glass I saw on the worktable last week is nowhere to be seen.
    It’s been a long afternoon after a long week—test after test—but for now, in one of those rare moments, I’m here by myself. Uncle Asa has been called downstairs to attend to “a servant problem.”
    I wonder who’s getting fired.
    Wandering around the lab among vats and bins, I have the odd feeling I’m looking at a picture of my uncle’s mind, but jumbled, like a scattered puzzle. If the pieces were fit together, what would they show?
    A thought zings through my head. It’s one I’ve had before but discounted. If he is not trying very hard to find out what happened to his sister, maybe it’s because he already knows!
    No, he couldn’t. Not his own sister. Could he hate her that much?
    Now I’m hurrying from one table to another, pulling out drawers, looking on sills and shelves. It’s got to be here somewhere. I pull down a tall leather-bound book. Nothing behind it but dust balls.
    He should empty his trash barrel. My nose wrinkles at the mingled smells of rotting flowers, dead lizards, and who knows what else. I look closer, and a wink of glass catches my eye. I reach in. My God, there it is! A piece of broken mirror, ten jagged inches of blackness.
He threw it out!
    Breath catches in my throat. Footsteps!
    I slip the glass into my cloth shoulder bag.
    “Well,” Asa says, easing the door shut, “that was interesting.”
    A sound of ripping fabric—the glass is tearing through my bag! I lower the bag carefully to the floor.
    “You sound cheery,” I say.
    He smiles, not nicely. “It always bucks me up to fire incompetent servants.”
    “Not Strunk, I hope.”
    “Oh no.” He pulls on rubber gloves and searches around in a terrarium, pulling out a white mouse. “I’d be lost without Strunk.” He looks at me, his mouth tightening. “Well. Are we ready for some more tests?”
    I’d rather face the Latin ablative. “All right.”
    “Good. Heal this!” he says, and neatly slices off the mouse’s tail.
    “That’s
horrible
!”
    The creature writhes on the counter, blood dribbling from its stump.
    “Well, heal it!”
    “I don’t like you.”
    “Just do it, before it dies.”
    I bend over the creature, hold its severed tail against its frantic body, and blink away a tear.
Concentrate!
My hands grow warm. The wriggling diminishes. Now my hands feel actually hot. The smell of blood is strong as I let go of the mouse. The tail is fused to the body—but the animal is dead.
    Asa pushes me aside. “Clumsy child! You
cooked
him! Come now,” he says, seeing me turn away, “this is no time for squeamishness.”
    The