chapter 35
Sid’s story that night was called “After the Transfer.”
As Sid approached the chair, Alex knew that “After the Transfer” would be a disaster. Sid had lost his nerve since leaving the library. He had hunkered down in a bay window in New Aubrey House with a legal pad and pen, and started strong: Alex checked in on him and saw outlines taped to the window, and even outlines of how Sid was going to use the next few hours (“2:00–3:00 BRAINSTORM. 3:00–4:00 OUTLINE. 4:00–4:45 WRITE. 4:45–5:30 REVISE.”). Alex stopped in again around five, and Sid was sitting and scrawling amid piles of yellow wads of paper. He had no idea if Sid was in revise mode or not. The boy looked panicked.
And now Sid trudged toward the big chair with feet dragging, his arms swaying as though his hands were dull wads of meat, the papers weighing him down.
Sid sat under the candles and the room hushed. Alex heard the creak of wooden seats as students leaned forward. The yodeler girl, Ilsa, was not among them; a debutante with a highly placed parent, Ilsa was among those now recuperating in the Alps.
“‘After the Transfer,’” Sid read.
He was silent, then, for what seemed like a minute and a half.
Finally the tension broke, and Sid opened his mouth. Alex looked in his friend’s eyes and saw something like desperate panic. Sid’s hands shook, but when he spoke, he sounded still.
“It has been twenty-three years since I have spoken of our time in the garden,” read Sid, “and after tonight I shall not speak of it again.”
And off into the far reaches of story went Sid, and Alex realized he had been duped by his own eyes.
And also proven right after all: Sid did not need the spell in the book, for he had spells of his own.