The Mystic District
ina and Fenowith were both very lucky the flight crew didn’t toss them both out of a window after he screamed bloody murder at the top of his lungs. Following that outburst, the attendants had forbidden him to say another word for the rest of the trip, on threat of charging a hefty fine. Fenowith had obeyed and gone right to sleep after snapping his bed curtains closed. Jina had followed suit, climbing into the top bunk and tucking herself in without another word, but sleep did not come so easily.
For hours she lay wide awake, turning things over in her head. She just couldn’t stomach all the terrible things that Fenowith had told her about her family. It was all so hard to believe . . . and even harder to accept. Perhaps Fenowith was just exaggerating or mistaken. Surely her mother wasn’t really crazy, and her father wasn’t really evil — because if they were, it meant . . . well, she didn’t want to think about what it all might mean. It was bad enough that she had her memory loss to contend with.
As her mind wandered through the small hours, the enormity of her predicament overwhelmed her at times, like a shroud of darkness closing in all around her. The lamps in the dirigible were all dimmed for the night, and Jina opened several gaps in her bed curtains to let in as much light as possible without giving up too much privacy. When she finally did fall asleep, the blue-skyed dreams she’d hoped for quickly turned into nightmares full of twisted, unfamiliar faces, haunting voices, and a perpetual sense of impending doom. And then there was the monster — a hulking, dark behemoth, chasing her, drawing ever closer, trying to snatch her up in its huge mouth full of dagger-like fangs.
The next morning, Jina awoke with a start, shaking herself out of a terrible dream. The dirigible was back on the ground, and the flight attendants were making their rounds, waking passengers and sending them on their merry way (or not-so-merry way, in some cases).
Peeking through her bunk’s hangings, Jina surveyed the scene: everything was drenched in golden sunlight, which was streaming in from the cabin’s far side through several large bay windows, their sheer drapes billowing in the breeze.
She got up and stretched, and then woke Fenowith, which was rather difficult, for he proved to be a very, very, very heavy sleeper. After voice alone failed to elicit any response whatsoever, Jina poked a head through his bed curtains to make sure he was still there, and he was. Light tapping soon gave way to mild prodding, which then turned into forceful nudging, that (out of necessity) became rather aggressive shaking. Finally, he grunted and opened his eyes a few millimeters.
“Just — just another . . . five minutes or so,” he whimpered and rolled over, turning his back on Jina.
“Fenowith! Come on, we have to go.”
The pukwudgie made a sleepy kind of limp-wristed wave but did not move any other muscle. “Go ahead. I’ll catch up . . . in a sec.”
Jina doubted that very much.
“No, Fenowith. We need to leave now. They’re kicking people off!”
Fenowith growled and rolled over on his back. “Okay. Just — yawwwwwn — give me a second.” He smacked his lips. “Could — yawwwwwn — Would you mind getting me a cup of coffee?”
“Uh, sure. I guess I’ll just —”
“With raw sugar, four lumps.”
“Okay. I —”
“And cream. Not too much. Kind of a medium-slash-medium-dark type of brown.”
“Right. Medium-dark brown.”
“No, medium-slash-medium-dark.”
“Sorry, medium-slash-medium-dark brown. Got it.”
“Thanks, kid.”
Jina rolled her eyes and withdrew herself from the curtains, looking around to see where she might be able to get a cup of coffee for Fenowith. She began making her way toward the café section, but something caught her attention before she got there: a full-length mirror, set inside an ornate gilded frame, with a strange message inscribed along its molding:
Emno pugnit celferem morfemocs gniht llasa
So all things go from me by way of reflection
What had stopped Jina in her tracks was not so much the mirror or its odd inscription, but rather the person she saw within its frame.
The girl looking back at her was pale and slender, a bit short for her apparent age (which, as Fenowith had guessed earlier, seemed to be about eleven or twelve). She had a small mousy face, with bright sky blue eyes set inside curtains of thick dark lashes, a short nose, thin rosy lips, and a few dark freckles, all framed by a coif of straight black hair that hung several inches past her shoulders — or rather, her hair was mostly black, save for an odd white streak that shot down the left side. That was curious . . . and kind of cool.
As she stood there, gazing into the mirror and running her fingers through the lock of white hair, Jina began to wonder more and more about the girl looking back. Who on earth was she supposed to be? Hecate Grimwar? Jina Dare? Someone else altogether? She really had no idea at this point, and that was a very odd feeling indeed.
What exactly had happened to her on the night before? Why had she lost her memory? Would she ever get it back? What if she didn’t? Would she still be the same person she had been before? Would she even want to be that person?
After a minute or so of quiet reflection, Jina and her mirror image jumped at the sound of a loud crash and a voice crying out.
“HEY! Let go o’ me, you creeps! Okay! Okay! I’m going!”
She turned to see several crew members shoving Fenowith toward the exit. Pulling herself away from the mirror (and forgetting altogether about the coffee), she followed him out of the dirigible.
Out on the tarmac, a sprawling jumble of skyscrapers and other tall buildings was just visible in the distance, all tinted blue by the haze. A giant gleaming thing roared overhead and landed on a nearby strip of asphalt, like some kind of great mechanical bird. Everywhere Jina looked, she saw more of the same — huge metal tubes with wings, moving about on the ground, launching themselves into the air, and swooping down for landings from all different directions. Then, as she scanned the sky, another unidentified flying object caught her attention. In rapid succession, her notice went from mild interest to mounting alarm to outright panic. The thing was diving fast, with its course aimed right at her! It plunged closer and closer, and Jina ducked at the last second as it soared by, an enormous golden eagle that now looked as though about to attack —
“FENOWITH! Look out!” cried Jina.
The pukwudgie turned just as the raptor was upon him, and Jina was sure it was about to carry him off in its razor-sharp talons. At the very last second, however, the eagle beat its tremendous wings downward and stopped just short of nabbing Jina’s new friend.
“GAAAH!” Fenowith screamed and jumped back in surprise, but then comprehension dawned on his face, and he actually smiled.
“Whoa! Don’t scare me like that, kid!” he said, wiping a sleeve across his brow, which was moist with little droplets of sweat. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”
“ME? But —”
She stopped herself before saying anything more — the eagle was hovering in place next to Fenowith, beating its wings to remain aloft, and it let out a shrill, rather impatient sounding cry that seemed to say: Well, what are you waiting for?
Fenowith held an arm out, and the eagle landed upon it; to Jina’s astonishment, it appeared quite tame.
“Hey, how’re you doing there, Harriet? You got something for me?” With his free hand, he took a newspaper with a small note attached from the eagle’s talons. “Thanks, old girl. Here, I think I might have a little something for you in one of these pockets.” He rifled through the inside pockets of his vest and pulled out what appeared to be the lower half of a dead rat. “Okay, off you go.”
As Fenowith tossed the chunk of rodent high into the air, Harriet the eagle launched herself skyward, caught the reward in her talons, and flew off.
“Wow!” Jina exclaimed.
“Oh, that’s right. I guess you’ve never seen a postal bird before, huh? Or at least you don’t remember ever seeing one before.”
“No. That was — Wow. That’s so cool!”
Fenowith began to unroll the parchment. “Eh, it’s nothing really. That’s just how the mail gets delivered . . . wizard-style!”
“So you knew that eagle just now?”
“Oh yeah,” he replied, as he read the small note. “That’s Harriet — she’s one of the Ilvermorny birds.”
“What’s an Ilvermorny bird?”
“That would be a delivery bird who just so happens to work for the greatest institution of magical learning on earth: the Ilvermorny School of Magic.”
Jina considered this, intrigued. “There are schools that teach magic?”
“Of course! How else are you going to learn?”
“I — well, I dunno. I guess I just figured —”
“Magic ain’t something you can just pick up on your own, kid.” Fenowith explained. “It’s powerful stuff, for humans especially — only a small percentage of you guys ever actually have any magic in you — and when you got it, you need to learn early on how to control it, otherwise all sorts of bad stuff can happen.”
“Really?”
“Sure. Well, it doesn’t happen very much these days, because MACUSA and all the other governments around the world keep a real close eye on people with magic in ’em.”
“They do? How do they know who has magic in them and who doesn’t?”
“Well, magic, of course.” Fenowith grinned. “I dunno exactly. I think there’s some kind of registry or something that updates itself automatically when new kids are born. Every once in a while, though, some kid’ll accidentally slip through the cracks . . . that is, until the day they inadvertently turn the neighborhood bully’s nose into a pig snout.”
Jina laughed. “That really happens?”
“Oh, a lot worse stuff than that happens. Trust me: most Muggle parents don’t have a clue until their kid comes of age, and even then MACUSA keeps them pleasantly Obliviated. At least with the wizard families, you know it’s coming . . . or it’s expected, anyway.”
Something inside Jina’s head seemed to shift, and she asked, “Why is it expected? Does magic get, like, passed down from your parents or something?”
“Yeah. For the most part, if your mom’s a witch or your pop’s a wizard, chances are you are too.”
“Oh,” said Jina, feeling a tingle run up her spine, followed by a jolt of realization. “Oh! So — so, since both of my parents — do you think?”
“Do I think you got magic in you? Oh, yeah, I’d bet my right eye you do. Gobs of it, I’m sure.”
Jina could barely believe it. This whole time, despite her immersion into this strange and fascinating magical world, it hadn’t yet occurred to her that she herself might be able to use magic. Of course, it made perfect sense now, once she thought about it; indeed, the notion that she was just an ordinary girl who was somehow lucky enough to be privy to this extraordinary secret world — well, that idea just seemed silly now.
She was a witch, just like her mother! A real, honest-to-goodness witch! Well, an honest-to-goodness witch-in-training, she supposed, given that she was still quite young, but that was good enough for her.
“Cool!” she said delightedly. “Wow. But — how does it work? Can I try a spell right now? I mean, just to see.”
“Sorry, kiddo,” said Fenowith. “Underage witches and wizards aren’t allowed to practice magic outside of school.”
“Oh,” said Jina, feeling a bit let down. “Well, I guess I must go to a school of magic then, right?”
“Ah, no — not that I’m aware of, anyway,” said Fenowith. “I expect you’ve probably home-schooled by your parents up to this point. But I think now, unless Rusthorne and Whitewolf have other ideas, you’ll probably be going to Ilvermorny in the fall. That’s where I work.”
Jina blinked and tried to look unsurprised. “Oh. So, you’re . . . a teacher?”
“Heh! I wish,” said Fenowith, kicking at a pebble. “Nah, I’m just the janitor. Whitewolf had promised me the Herbology job a few years ago. Ain’t she the best? But then she — well, you know.”
Jina raised an eyebrow.
“Boy, I’m telling you, old Whitewolf’s did more for pukwudgie-kind in the past decade than MACUSA’s ever managed to achieve after centuries of so-called governing. She’s not afraid to shake things up, you know? Challenge the status quo. Take her campaign to change all the school house names, for example — oh boy, did that ever cause a ruckus with the establishment!”
Jina grinned politely, once again having no idea what Fenowith was talking about.
“Oh, and hey, speaking of Ilvermorny, that reminds me — get a load of this: you know you’re actually related to not just one, but two of the school’s biggest benefactors?”
“I am? Cool! Um, that’s a good thing, right?”
“Well, yes and no. On the one hand, it means both sides of your family are rolling in dough — I mean, really filthy stinking rich — and it’s largely because of them that the school grew so big so fast, back in the day. On the other hand, both of the families you’re related to just so happen to be the ones with the worst reputations, due to their association with dark magic and all that.” Fenowith gave another look at the parchment Harriet the eagle had delivered. “Okay, listen: How about we go get some breakfast, and then I can show you around town a bit? Looks like your hearing with MACUSA ain’t until this afternoon.”
Jina felt the jitters begin to build inside her at the reminder of why she was here. Her stomach had been tying itself in knots anytime she thought about her upcoming meeting with MACUSA, and she wasn’t feeling very hungry for breakfast at the moment. In fact, she was feeling rather queasy all of a sudden, and she told Fenowith so.
“Well, I’m starving. Tell you what: let’s start out in the Mystic District and grab some grub, then maybe check out a museum or something — or better yet, the zoo.”
“Okay. Sure,” said Jina, feeling some small measure of relief at the thought of being distracted (for a while at least) from whatever was in store for her later that afternoon. She gazed toward the distant skyline. “Is the Mystic District in the city?”
“Ah, right, you don’t know. Yeah. Like most big cities, witches and wizards have their own special parts of New York that Muggles don’t know about,” Fenowith explained. “The biggest by far is the Mystic District, in Manhattan. It’s invisible and inaccessible to those guys, of course — oh, which reminds me . . .” He dug around in his pockets again and pulled out a small gold coin, about half the size of the Dragots Jina had counted out the night before. “Here, take this.”
“What for?” asked Jina, somewhat reluctant to take anything from Fenowith’s pockets after seeing him pull half of a dead rat out of one. She thought back to the Sinuscidal Snot-Shooter lollipop she’d licked on the night prior and went from feeling rather queasy to feeling downright sick, realizing that Fenowith had pulled the lollipop and the dead rat out of the same pocket!
“To get into the Mystic District,” Fenowith replied. “Apparently the Floo Network’s been taken offline this morning — makes it easier for MACUSA to round up the baddies, I guess.”
Jina still had no idea what Fenowith was talking about, but she took the coin anyway, gagging a little at the thought of whatever else might be stuffed into the pocket from whence it came.
“Aside from all the usual methods of teleportation, there’s only one way to get there, and that’s with one of these tokens.”
“Oh,” said Jina, staring down at the coin in her hand, which featured an embossed image of the Statue of Liberty on one side, and a three-headed` eagle on the other. “So, how does it work?”
“Just ask old Lady Liberty there where to go, and she’ll show the way. I’ll follow you . . . in stealth mode,” said Fenowith, wiggling his eyebrows before turning himself invisible. “Oh, and put your hood back up. We don’t want any trouble.”
A finger-snap sounded, and the hood of Jina’s robes once again billowed over her head. At least now she had a better sense of why it was necessary: to make sure nobody recognized her, which would probably be a bad thing. Once more, she lifted the brim of her hood a few inches, so she could see what she was doing. She looked down at the coin, and the image of Lady Liberty gave her an expectant look.
“Uh, hi there,” said Jina. “So, could you please — um, you know — show me where to go?”
Lady Liberty smiled and pointed her torch in the direction of the moving staircase that led up into the airport’s terminal. Jina followed her lead, hearing Fenowith’s plodding footsteps close behind. Once inside the terminal, the Lady swung her arm to the left, indicating that Jina was to walk down the hallway. The tiny torch continued to point the way, taking them down several more hallways, up another moving staircase, and through several sets of doors. Jina became confused for a moment when the Lady directed her into a wide alcove with two open doorways, separated by a dividing wall. When Jina tried the doorway on the right, the Lady swung her torch and pointed back outside. After double-checking the direction she was pointing in, Jina scrunched her brow.
“Um, Fenowith, I don’t think this is working anymore,” she said, and Lady Liberty stopped pointing long enough to thumb her nose, to which Jina protested, “But that can’t be right. This is a men’s bathroom.”
Lady Liberty covered her mouth and made a noiseless giggle, and Fenowith’s disembodied voice sounded beside Jina. “Ah, it’s got to be the nearest gate then. And it may be the only one in this place, so let’s get a move on. In you go.”
Jina checked to see if anyone was watching her; then, when the coast was clear, she stole through the doorway and into the men’s bathroom. An old man standing at a urinal chuckled as he glanced over his shoulder.
“Heh-heh! Well, now, missy, I do believe you’ve got the wrong room!”
“Uh,” said Jina, glancing down at the coin in her hand. Lady Liberty was now pointing her torch toward the stall at the far end of the bathroom. “Um, sorry, I’m just — I need to go, uh, in here for a sec.”
With great relief, she found the door was ajar, and she slipped inside the stall as fast as she could, shutting the door on Fenowith in the process.
“Ouch! That was my arm!”
“Sorry! I can’t see you. I don’t even know what we’re doing in here! Now Lady Liberty is just pointing at the wall.”
“Ah, this must be the gate then. Yeah, look: see that coin slot on the wall above the john? Just pop the token in there and give the toilet a good flush.”
Jina obliged, then Fenowith reopened the stall door, and Jina’s jaw dropped as a quite unexpected scene swung into view. Instead of seeing the drab, malodorous restroom, her eyes fell upon a sunlit plaza, with a huge stone fountain, tree-lined paths, quaint sitting areas, cobblestone walkways, and many, many people bustling about.
“Welcome to the Mystic District, in the heart of New York City,” said Fenowith, ushering her into the plaza.
Flabbergasted, Jina looked back — she could still see the smelly toilet through the doorway behind them, but the door on the plaza side was set inside a freestanding post and lintel made of pure stone, surrounded by nothing but open air. To the left and right were more stone portals, all spaced about twenty feet apart in a ring around the grand fountain — every so often, one of the doors would open, and a witch or wizard or two would emerge.
“They’re called Transportals,” Fenowith explained. “And they’re the only way in and out of the District for those too young to Apparate and too feeble or sickly to use the Floo Network.”
Jina looked up at a sign on the corner that marked the intersection of Park Avenue and 33⅓ Street. Fenowith set off down the latter, and she followed, marveling at all the different storefronts and the unusual wares and sundries in their windows — everything from buckets of bat brains and eel livers to moving models of the solar system.
“There’s Calderon’s Cauldrons . . . and Saggory’s bookstore there . . . and over there is the ice cream parlor, Eddard’s Sweete Shoppe — they’ve supposedly got a million flavors.”
Peeking through the window of a shop called Spirits for Spirits, Jina blinked when she saw what appeared to be a ghost, drifting through the air, arranging uncorked wine bottles upon the store’s dusty shelves.
“Are all those bottles supposed to be open like that?” she asked.
“Sure,” replied Fenowith. “How else are they supposed to spoil the merchandise?” Seeing Jina’s puzzled look, he added. “They guarantee all their wines to be sour or you get your money back. Not so great for us living folks, of course, but it seems to be a pretty big selling point for the dead.”
A huge smile stretched across the pukwudgie’s face. “Oh and hey, there it is, the greatest joke shop on earth: Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. I love that place!”
Jina grinned woodenly, thinking of the Snot-soaking Sucker he had given her the night before, then her stomach gave a lurch as an image of dead rats sprang to mind.
They strolled through a wide, open tunnel that cut straight through the base of a massive skyscraper — the Empire State Building, according to a sign above the tunnel’s entrance. All through the tunnel, dozens of street vendors sold food, trinkets and other wares from booths and rolling carts — everything from churros and falafel to enchanted rings and flying carpets.
Another row of shops awaited them on the far side. An artful array of red, blue and violet wands with gold and silver filigree was arranged in the window of the Beauvais Batonerie. A tiny green door for the law offices of Hangman and Burns was sandwiched between the Draughtcraft Potions Brewery and the Magic Beans Café. A sign outside Boot’s Boots, Mocs and Socks read, “Buy one, get one free!” And a tipsy old witch, between hiccups, bid Jina good morning outside a tavern called the Gulping Gargoyle.
As the old witch tottered off, a gleaming structure down the street caught Jina’s eye. It looked like an imposing fortress of white marble, with large, thick, very heavy-looking bronze doors.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Oh, that’s Gringotts, the wizard bank.”
Jina squinted at the squat creatures standing at attention beside the great doors. “Are those . . . pukwudgies?”
Fenowith glared at her. “Hmph. I’m going to let that one slide, seeing as how you’re kind of new to all this stuff.” He shifted his glare toward Gringotts. “No, those guys are goblins. You can tell by the smug looks on their faces. They act all high and mighty because they more or less control the money supply. Hey, look, there’s the post office.”
He pointed out another large structure, as though to change the subject. The building’s face was checkered with dozens of open windows, in and out of which flew a variety of birds of prey — eagles, hawks, falcons, owls — each of which was carrying some form of parcel.
“Cool, so then they all — WHOA!” Jina gasped. “What is that?”
As they were walking, a humongous round structure in the distance had just come into view down a side street. It had very high walls of red stone, a gigantic arch-gated entryway, and a dozen or so cone-capped towers jutted skyward along its perimeter. Flowing from each spire was an enormous flag with a red, white and blue logo that Jina could not quite make out from where she stood.
“That there is a Quodpot arena, where the local pros play — also known as Penn Station to the Muggles.”
There was no shortage of strange and amazing things to set your eyes upon in the Mystic District, but, far above all else, Jina found herself most fascinated by this one.
“Wow. What’s . . . Quod-pot?”
“It’s a magical sport, insanely popular with wizards, though I’ve never quite figured out why.”
Jina’s gaze lingered on the Quodpot arena for a long while before Fenowith chuckled and pulled her away. “Here, follow me. I’ll show you.”
He led her to a shop with a large sign above the door that read: QUINTESSENTIAL QUODPOT — YOUR #1 SOURCE FOR QUALITY QUODPOT EQUIPMENT AND SUPPLIES. The shop’s window featured a selection of stylish looking flying brooms, robes in all sorts of bright colors (most emblazoned with team logos), and a pyramidal stack of what looked like very large cannonballs. A small sign tucked away in the corner read: QUIDDITCH SUPPLIES ALSO SOLD HERE.
“Cool! Can we go inside?” Jina asked, excited by what she saw in the window display.
Fenowith grinned. “Sure.”
The shop’s interior looked just like the window display, but multiplied times a thousand: tons of sleek and shiny broomsticks, endless racks of colorful branded robes, huge stacks of cannonballs (or whatever they were), plus plenty of other items for sale, such as books, protective padding, and broom servicing kits.
What interested Jina most, however, were the posters on the walls. She couldn’t take her eyes off the images, which were all moving and showed people playing Quodpot. Players zoomed about on their brooms at very high speeds, sometimes appearing as little more than a blur. Some held the cannonball close and attempted to smash their way through blockades of opposing players. Some threw the cannonball, a smaller white ball or an even smaller red ball to nearby teammates, while others caught passes that had been thrown to them. Many of the players attempted to toss or jam the ball into a gleaming golden cauldron that floated high above the ground. The most exciting thing by far, however, was the fact that the ball would on occasion explode, seemingly at random. Whenever this happened, the explosion would always knock the player holding the ball off their broom and send them careening helplessly out of the picture.
“Whoa!” said Jina with excited admiration. “But don’t they get hurt?”
Fenowith chuckled. “Oh yeah, sure, all the time . . . then they get up and go back for more, the bozos.”
Jina raised her eyebrows, looking at a poster with a post-explosion scene: a man in orange and green robes hurtling sans-broom through the air.
“But that guy must be a hundred feet off the ground!”
“Well, they do have all sorts of spells and stuff to help keep people from getting really messed up — but, hey, it’s a physical game. People get bumped around and knocked off their brooms all the time . . . and by other people too, not just the Quod.”
“The Quod?”
“The ball,” Fenowith clarified, pointing at a nearby poster. “See? That round black thing there — although sometimes it turns white, like that picture over there, and sometimes it goes red, like that one there. Whatever the color, you never know when it’s going to go boom.”
Jina grinned. “Wow! But, well, it’s magic right? I mean, the explosion doesn’t really hurt, does it?”
“Oh, it hurts all right, from what I understand. And makes you temporarily deaf, and often knocks you out for a bit, especially the red ones. But I guess it can’t be all that bad if Ilvermorny has its own league — even a little kid like yourself can play Quodpot, if you’re good enough to make your house team.”
Already excited enough just to learn about the existence of this amazing magical sport, Jina just about burst upon hearing this news. “Really? I can actually learn how to do this at school?”
“Yeah. Sure. Assuming you’re good enough to make the team.”
Jina beamed, exhilarated by the thought.
“Ha! I thought you’d like it. Big surprise, so does everybody,” said Fenowith. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I’ll show you the creature shop over on 5th Avenue. I heard they got a whole new litter of cruppies in yesterday. I bet you’ll like those too.”