Night Flight
ighing with relief as they pulled up to the airport terminal, Jina felt anxious and rather sick to her stomach. The tumultuous drive seemed to have covered several hundred miles worth of roadway in under five minutes. Zipping through traffic at breakneck speed, the taxi had somehow managed to dodge all the lumbering Muggle vehicles on the road by weaving around them, in between them, and even underneath them at times. To make matters worse, Fenowith and the cabbie had argued the whole way about everything from directions to the smell of the taxi to the proper way to calculate a fare.
“Eleven silvers,” said the cabbie, holding out a hand to receive his fare. “Plus tip.”
Jina got out of the taxi, and Fenowith muttered under his breath as he pulled open the leather sack.
“Here. There’s nine, plus the two we already shelled out,” he grunted, smacking a handful of coins into the cabbie’s hand. He turned himself invisible before exiting the cab, which Jina supposed was a “just in case” maneuver, to prevent any Muggles from catching a chance glimpse of a magical being. “And here’s a tip for you: Clean up this awful mess. Have you even looked at your back seats lately? It’s a skrewt sty back here.”
The car door slammed shut. Jina wasn’t sure if it had done so on its own or if Fenowith had forced it.
“Whatever, bub,” the cabbie growled through the open passenger-side window, and the taxi screeched off, leaving behind a black cloud that stank of burning rubber.
Fenowith nudged Jina toward the nearest terminal door. “We’d better get inside.”
There was a loud BANG, followed by something like the sound of air being let out of a balloon and another screeching of tires on pavement. Jina glanced back at the taxi, which had stopped just short of turning a corner ahead. Great plumes of sickly green smoke poured from the car’s open windows. The cabbie thrust his head out the driver’s side, shaking his fist in their direction and shouting indiscernible expletives in between retches.
“Hoo-hoo! Now that’s what I call a Dungbomb,” came the pukwudgie’s disembodied voice. “Special Erumpent Edition. Oh, those are the best. That was my last one.”
“That wasn’t very nice.” Jina said to the empty air to her right, but she giggled too, in part because nobody in the vicinity seemed to have noticed what had just happened. Plus, for some unknown reason she could not fathom, everyone was wearing masks that covered their mouth and nose, just like Nurse Norton — although in a slightly wider variety of colors and styles.
“That’s because he wasn’t very nice,” said Fenowith. “It serves him right, the slime ball. Come on. The airline we need is over here. Remember to keep that hood up.”
Jina followed Fenowith’s invisible tug to a ticket counter on the terminal’s far end. A sky blue sign behind the counter featured a fluffy white cloud logo above the words Aethereal Airlines in gossamer script.
“Hello there. Are you lost?” asked the woman behind the counter, with horn -rimmed spectacles and a pink polkadot mask with purple pompoms.
Jina responded with uncertainty. “Who, me? Uh, no.”
“She’s with me,” Fenowith’s raspy voice sounded beside Jina.
“Oh, I’m sorry, sir,” said the woman, who didn’t seem at all surprised to hear a voice coming out of thin air. “We don’t allow invisibility in the terminal.”
A mangy looking gray dog came swirling into sight next to Jina and said, “There. How’s that? Better?”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “I see. I’m afraid it will have to do, sir.”
Jina glanced about, wondering how a talking dog might seem less conspicuous to Muggles than something they couldn’t even see, but again nobody seemed to be paying any attention.
“We need to get to New York City by tomorrow morning,” barked Fenowith. “Got any red-eyes?”
The woman consulted a long roll of parchment. “Hmm. Yes. As luck would have it, there is a flight to New York, scheduled to depart in about ten minutes.”
“Fantastic. We’ll take two tickets. One adult, and, uh,” he turned to Jina. “How old are you, kid?”
“Um, I — I don’t really know.”
The woman behind the counter raised her eyebrows and peered at Jina over her horn-rimmed spectacles.
Fenowith made a nervous laugh. “Ah, you’re killing me here, kiddo,” he said, then he addressed the woman behind the ticket counter again. “She’s had a rough day today — got into some funny business with a couple of trolls, rattled the marbles a bit — but you can see she’s just a kid, right? Couldn’t be more than, what, ten or eleven?”
The woman made an dubious expression and rolled her eyes. “One adult and one ‘child’ to New York.”
Jina watched the tip of a long-feathered quill wobble about behind the high counter as the woman scribbled something down. “Your total comes to thirty-seven Dragots, fifteen Sprinks, and three Knuts.”
Fenowith groaned. “Right, hang on.”
Still in dog form, he hunched down over his front paws, arched his back, and began to gag and heave, like a cat coughing up a hairball. Jina’s nose wrinkled, as did the brow of the woman behind the ticket counter.
“Hwulagh!”
The leather sack full of coins came rolling out of Fenowith’s mouth and landed on the floor with a clanking splat.
“Here. Pay the nice lady, would you, sweetheart?”
Jina hesitated — then, seeing no other option, she braced herself and bent down to pick up the slimy moneybag.
“Whi-wulp — ugh, excuse me. Which ones are w-which?” she asked, almost getting sick in the process.
“The gold ones are Dragots, the silver ones are Sprinks, and the bronze ones are Knuts.”
Jina counted out the airfare and paid the woman behind the counter, who produced two large tickets that read:
Aethereal Airlines #9
Terminal: 1, Gate: 7½
Departs: 12:00 A.M. (PHX)
Arrives: 9:00 A.M. (JFK)
Fenowith started off. “Come on. We’d better hurry.”
“Just a moment,” said the woman behind the counter, and then she addressed Jina. “I’m sorry, but do I know your parents? I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere before.”
“No. You don’t, and you haven’t,” said Fenowith, nudging Jina away in a hurry.
They approached what appeared to be some kind of security checkpoint and wound their way through a small maze of thick rope railings. At the maze’s end was a stodgy old guard with a navy blue mask, who eyed them with suspicion as they approached.
“Hey, kid. You think you can just take your dog on the plane like that? What do you think this is? A public park?”
An older guard with a periwinkle mask then approached and stood behind his comrade. “Is there a problem, Mr. Portman?”
“Oh, gee, you think?” said Mr. Portman, without noticing that his partner was now holding something over his head — a kind of thin wooden baton. “Or is there a new rule nobody bothered to tell me about that says little girls can bring their mangy pets on the p—”
Mr. Portman stopped mid-sentence, and his eyes went blank as the young guard tapped the top of his head with the baton. A bemused sort of look spread across his face, just like the one Jina had seen on Norton earlier. The young guard gave Jina a wink, then led her and Fenowith away.
“Have a nice trip!” Mr. Portman called after them, waving enthusiastically. “Don’t forget to send us a postcard!”
“Is that some sort of magic wand?” Jina whispered to Fenowith, indicating the old guard’s baton.
“What? Oh, yeah. That’s a wand. All wizards carry them . . . plus a few non-wizards, like me, now that we’ve got the right.”
“You used to not be allowed to carry one?”
“Yeah, that’s right. In the old days, no one could, except the humans. It’s only been in the past decade or so that others have gained that privilege — but not everyone, mind you, and only here and a few other countries. Actually we’re pretty lucky in the States that the law hasn’t been repealed in the last few years.”
Jina was just about to ask Fenowith why, but then he said, “Ah, here’s our gate,” which caused her to stop and check her ticket.
“Uh, Fenowith, the ticket says Terminal 1, but I think we’re actually in Terminal 3. And this is gate 7. Look: that’s 6 over there, then 8 on the other side of this — oof!”
A pair of paws shoved Jina in the back, and she stumbled into the support column she’d just been about to mention — or rather, she stumbled through the column. The next thing she knew, she was standing in another place altogether.
It was still some sort of mass transit terminal by the looks of it, but more old-fashioned in appearance and populated by a very different sort of folk than the Muggle fliers — people wearing cloaks and funny hats and toting things like cauldrons, potted plants, and boa constrictors as their carry-on luggage — and nobody, not one single person, wore a mask. Many were chatting with one another; others had their noses buried in newspapers; a few shifty-eyed people seemed distressed, often looking over their shoulders and jumping at passing shadows.
The one thing everybody had in common was how different they all were from all the Muggles Jina had encountered so far — and not just in the way they dressed. They seemed to come in a greater variety of shapes and sizes, from the extra-tall couple who towered over everyone else by several feet to the group of little pointy-eared folk who were even smaller than Fenowith. Even beyond the obvious physical differences, there just seemed to be a different sort of air about these people — an air of intrigue, of mystery, of magic! The Muggles, by comparison, seemed . . . well, kind of boring.
“Like I said: here’s our gate,” said Fenowith, standing beside Jina, once again in pukwudgie form and pointing up to a sign that read: Gate 7½ (which fell between Gates 6⅔ and 8¼).
As they passed a group of elders in turquoise robes, all huddled around a small fireplace, Jina caught a snippet of conversation.
“I told you we never should have come here,” one old man said sharply to another. “Now the Floo Network is down, the Transportals are all offline, and we have to fly back home in a tin can like a bunch of Squibs. This is all your fault!”
“Shh!” said a woman, before gazing into the fire. “Is anything missing?”
The fire then seemed to speak, in another man’s voice. “Yes, I’m afraid they’ve taken the Tablet.”
There was a collective groan from the elders, and the woman shushed them again.
“What about witnesses? Did anyone see the thief?”
“Paracelsus, apparently,” the fire replied, “but he’s still stunned, unable to talk.”
“How do you stun a portrait?” another woman asked.
Jina strained to keep up with the conversation as she and Fenowith walked on, but it was soon drowned out by an announcement over the loudspeaker.
“Attention all passengers: This is your final boarding call for Aethereal Airlines #9 to New York City. The aircraft is now boarding and ready to depart on time — so all you dilly-dalliers had better get a move on!”
The cheery announcement came from a pert female flight attendant in a navy blue uniform, who was standing behind a nearby podium, beaming at nobody in particular. Fenowith strode over to the podium, and Jina followed.
“Boarding passes?” prompted the attendant, who made a polite smile, while simultaneously giving both Jina and Fenowith an appraising look.
“She’s got ’em,” Fenowith said and poked Jina, who handed over the tickets.
The attendant ushered them down a moving staircase that led out onto the tarmac, where a gigantic ruby red zeppelin was poised for takeoff. No sooner had they all climbed aboard than the entryway doors snapped shut behind them, and the scene through the windows began to fall away at a lazy speed.
The blimp’s interior featured spacious sitting areas, with large plush armchairs and tables with delicate lamps, lighted candelabras and other not-so-flightworthy objects perched upon them. There were also beds of all shapes and sizes, all of which seemed to be occupied with dozing passengers. Indeed, only a few of the seats were in use. Given the late hour, most people were more inclined to recline on a nice pillow-top mattress for a few good winks. The far corner of the cabin hosted an array of café tables, a well-stocked bar, and a pair of swinging doors that led into what appeared to be a full kitchen. In the opposite corner was a gaming section with several dartboards, billiard tables and pinball machines.
“We shall be arriving in New York at nine o’clock sharp,” said a snappy-looking male flight attendant, who wore a similar navy blue outfit as his female counterpart, but with slacks instead of a skirt. He cast Fenowith a wary glance. “Please make yourselves at — er, at home. That is . . .”
“Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean,” Fenowith grumbled. “Home like a human home, not a den of filthy pukwudgies.”
“Er, yes, sir,” said the attendant, smoothing the front of his already-smooth uniform. “And I do remind you that this is a red-eye flight.”
Fenowith glared at the steward. “I know that. You don’t think I know that?” He turned to Jina. “Come on, kid. Let’s find us a spot to settle in.”
Most of the passengers had already settled themselves into bed for the night, so finding a spot wasn’t easy. Long after the city lights below had all disappeared from view, Jina at last discovered a small vacant bunk bed with maroon curtains, in an alcove next to the restrooms. Fenowith climbed into the bottom bunk and began to pull the hangings closed.
“Um, Fenowith?” said Jina, whispering, so as not to disturb any slumbering passengers. A restless feeling was beginning to sweep over her, and she doubted she’d be able to fall asleep anytime soon. “I was just wondering. If I don’t live in New York, why are we going there?”
Fenowith peeked out from a gap in the curtains.
“Oh. Sorry, I thought you knew that already,” he said. “I’m taking you to see MACUSA.”
“But what does that mean?” said Jina with growing unease. “Do you have any idea why they want to see me?”
“Well, yeah, of course. I suppose they’re going to want to question you for a little bit. Oh, that whole ‘grilling you for two weeks’ thing was just a joke though, by the way. Sure, they’ll try to get whatever info they can out of you, but don’t worry. I’m sure old Rus’ll be there to keep ’em in check.”
“But why?” Jina asked, not at all relieved by Fenowith’s attempt at reassurance. “I mean, if someone wants to question me, I guess I must have known about something important at one point, but — well, I just don’t know it anymore. Fenowith, I honestly can’t remember anything that’s ever happened to me in my entire life.”
Fenowith scratched his chin. “Wow. Somebody really did a number on you, didn’t they, kid? Listen, uh — Jina — that’s what you’re going by now, right?”
“Yeah — I mean, I think so.” Jina sighed, feeling more uncertain than ever. “I don’t really like the sound of my name — my real name. So, I’ve been thinking. I kind of thought, maybe I could just go by the one I made up instead? You know, for now at least. I don’t know. I just . . . like it more. Do you think that’s silly?”
“No, not at all,” said Fenowith, and he yawned. “I’d want to change my name too if I were you. You know, disassociate.”
Jina frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Well, who in their right mind wants a dark cloud like that hanging over their head?” said Fenowith.
“Ssshhhhh! Be quiet!” Someone a few beds down shushed Fenowith, who was doing a rather poor job of keeping his voice down.
“Dark cloud?” said Jina, frowning even more. “What do you mean by that?”
“Oh!” Fenowith winced. “I forgot. You don’t know. Sorry, we pukwudgies have memory problems too sometimes. Never mind. Forget I said anything.”
“Never mind?” said Jina, laughing in disbelief. “Are you serious? How can anyone just forget a comment like that?”
Fenowith stretched and yawned again, making a poor attempt to feign sleepiness. “Boy, am I tired. Aren’t you tired? We should get some sleep. Big day tomorrow.” He began to draw the curtains closed again. “Well, good night, sleep tight, don’t let the boggarts fri—”
“Wait! No, really,” said Jina, holding out a hand to stop Fenowith from closing the curtains all the way. She wondered if this was the reason why these MACUSA people were so interested in what she had to say. “What don’t I know? What’s this dark cloud hanging over my head?”
Fenowith, who had been trying hard to avoid eye contact, seemed to force himself to look up at her, then his shoulders slumped as he exhaled a long breath. “Oh, all right . . . fine . . . but here, you might want to have a seat first.”
Jina apprehensively obliged and sat next to Fenowith, who snapped the bed curtains shut and made his first real attempt to keep his voice down.
“Okay — now, I don’t know that I’m really the best one to be telling you all this, but here goes,” he said, wringing his hands. “Um, so, your relatives — you know, the Grimwars — pretty much the whole family — well, they ain’t exactly a bunch of saints.”
“How so?”
“Well, they — agh, I guess that was putting it too lightly,” said Fenowith, scrunching up his face. “The truth is: all of your relatives are just a bunch of mean and nasty folks, the whole lot of ’em. It runs in the family, I guess. Even on your mom’s side, the Venins — they’re not so well-liked either.”
“But why?” said Jina, imagining a large group of shadowy people. “What do they all do that’s so bad?”
“Oh boy, where do I begin?” said Fenowith. “First off, both families have been mired in the Dark Arts for generations. Then there’s both families’ association with Grindelwald back in the day, and their support of You-Know-Who later on.” He gave Jina a knowing look. “And I can think of one Grimwar in particular who was a bit too big of a fan, if you know what I mean.”
Jina of course had no idea what Fenowith meant by any of this, and her blank stare seemed to suddenly remind him of this fact.
“Oh, right. Well, the bottom line is that most of the Grimwars and Venins you ever come across are all just a bunch of mean and nasty people who do a lot of mean and nasty stuff. Whatever you can think of, if it’s something mean and nasty, chances are at least one of your relatives or ancestors has done it.”
Jina thought about this for a moment, then said skeptically, “Hmm. I dunno, I can imagine some pretty horrible stuff.”
Fenowith gave her a grim look. “Well, then you have some idea.”
A chill swept over Jina. She knew so very little and had so many questions to ask, but now she was beginning to find herself a little hesitant to proceed.
“Um,” she said, not altogether sure of what she planned to say next. “So, my mom is from the Venin side, but she married my dad, so now her last name is Grimwar — right?”
“Oh,” said Fenowith. “No, I don’t think so, but it doesn’t really matter anyway, because Mulcedra — that’s the name everyone knows her by —”
“Mulcedra,” Jina repeated in a barely audible whisper. “That’s her first name?”
“Yeah — oh, I mean, no. I think she just made it up. Hey, kind of like you and your made-up name! Huh. Well, anyway, her real name is Astraea.”
Jina made a little smile, relieved to hear Fenowith talking about her mother in the present tense.
“But the name change made a lot of sense, I suppose, seeing as how she pretty much became a whole new person. She couldn’t be more different from her former self. Astraea was outgoing, popular, captain of the Quodpot team, and all that. Mulcedra, not so much — as selfish and soulless and shady as you can get. Some say it’s all because she went crazy — and I’m tempted to agree — but nobody really knows for sure, because she’s just so reclusive. You know, doesn’t get out much, unlike your old man.”
“My dad? What’s his name?” Jina asked.
For some reason, the question seemed to fill Fenowith with sudden dread. “Oh, no you don’t! I’m not falling for that! No way, Le Fay!”
“Will you shut up?” came an angry man’s voice from somewhere on the other side of the bed curtain. “People are trying to sleep here!”
Fenowith apologized in a very loud whisper.
“I don’t get it,” said Jina uneasily. “Why would you think I’m trying to — to trick you into telling me my dad’s name?”
Fenowith grimaced. “Gah! How am I supposed to explain this? Hmm. Well, first off, let me just say — ooh, how do I put this?” He cinched up his eyes and rubbed his fingertips in small circles on his temples, thinking hard. “Okay. How about this: Your mom’s pretty far up the totem pole as far as dark witches go, but your pop — well, let’s just say Dear Old Dad could easily take First Prize in a Most-Despicable-Person-to-Ever-Walk-the-Face-of-the-Earth contest.”
“What?” Jina laughed, thinking Fenowith must be making some kind of weird joke.
“I ain’t kidding, kiddo,” said Fenowith. “Your pop’s as bad as they come, the worst dark wizard this country’s ever known. A real jerk, the king of all jerks. Everybody hates the guy!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on," said Jina, trying to make sense of what she was hearing. "So you’re telling me my dad is, like . . . famous? — for being a — a really bad wizard or something?”
“Yeah, but infamous is more like it. And bad as in evil bad. Everyone’s afraid of the guy, except big bosses like Rusthorne and Whitewolf . . . and real dunderheads!”
The male flight attendant’s footsteps came striding over in a hurry. “Sir! Please, keep your voice down.”
Fenowith apologized again, and the attendant walked away.
“Wow,” Jina whispered, feeling very cold all of a sudden. “I had no idea.” She conjured up the mental image of her parents’ silhouettes — two dark shadows that just got a whole lot darker. It all started making sense: her father was no doubt going to be the topic of tomorrow’s conversation with MACUSA — although, of course, the conversation was going to be pretty one-sided, as Jina could no longer recall anything about the man.
“So, wait — I still don’t understand though. Why can’t you say my dad’s name?”
“Because it hurts!” said Fenowith. “It really hurts! The name’s cursed, see? He did it — cursed his own name — as a way to find out who’s on his side and who’s not. Say it out loud without taking an oath of allegiance first — well, I sure hope you know a counter curse, because if not: ZZZZAP! Pain in the brain unlike anything you can imagine.”
The flight attendant ran over once more. “Sir! I’m going to ask you one more time to keep your voice down, and if you can’t —”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry.” Fenowith apologized again, and the attendant walked away. “That’s why everyone calls him You-Know-Who-Else all the time — I mean, being that the title of You-Know-Who was already taken years ago, so everyone always says You-Know-Who-Else when talking about your old man.”
Jina frowned, wondering how on earth her own father could be so despicable a person as to place such a horrible curse on his own name . . . and wondering what kind of a person it might make her.
“He was always a big fan of You-Know-Who and that other old guy, Grindelwald — the two biggest baddies of the 20th century. Learned everything he could about how they operated, then rose to power on his own in this century and made a name for himself — quite literally — as the first big baddie of the new millennium. He cursed his old name to make people forget, then he took on a new name, just like your mom, and he cursed that one too! And that’s the one we all remember, even though everyone’s afraid to say it. I mean, I, uh, hmm . . .”
Fenowith seemed to be weighing his options.
“Oh, why not? I guess I might as well just tell you. But let me just take a second here.”
He took a few deep breaths and braced himself. Jina leaned closer to make sure she would hear him properly, lest she’d have to ask him to repeat himself.
“Your father’s name,” Fenowith whispered, as quiet as he could, “is . . . uh . . . it’s, um . . . his name is — oh geez, this is harder than I thought — anyway, it’s . . . his name . . . is . . .”
He screwed up his face in fearful anticipation and at last gurgled the name in the back of his throat:
“Morgod — AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHH!”