Jon yelped, his heart jumping up into his throat.
He had been looking at the diagram in the book, wrapping the copper wire around three nails as instructed by the illustration, when the sharp tap on his window about gave him a heart attack.
It was Megan, waving vigorously at Jon to come let her in. The first thing he noticed was the half-dozen different rings she was wearing on her fingers. Megan never wore rings. Well, maybe one, but not six on each hand.
“You scared the shit out of me,” Jon said, unlatching and sliding open his window. “Don’t do that. I could have been doing something that might blow me up or something.”
“You worry too much,” Megan admonished. She stuck her hands through his window, fingernails freshly painted a pearlescent pink, wrists rattling with bracelets. Jon counted nine. She was wearing a bright aqua Ocean Pacific T-shirt that, while it had seen better days, was still very loud. “Come on, help me over.”
Jon took her hands and she walked up the outside wall, pulling against Jon, until she reached the sill—and then leapt in, landing squarely against Jon. One of the rings she was wearing scratched against his wrist, drawing blood. They fell against the bed, knocking the book off, and then slid onto the floor with a thump. Something else fell down with a clatter.
“Ow!” Jon complained. “You just, like, ripped my skin off.”
“Sssshhhh,” Megan shushed, holding a finger across her bright pink lips, blowing in Jon’s face. Her breath smelled like Budweiser. “Don’t be so loud.”
“You’re drunk,” Jon said. “You made me knock the book off the bed.”
“I’ve only had two beers. That and a Coke. With vodka. And some vodka. With vodka.” She giggled and rolled off him. “Okay, maybe a little.” As they sat up, she leaned over, looking at him seriously. “Is that a bad thing?”
“I—you just startled me. I was trying to make the flying shoes, from the book—”
Megan inhaled dramatically. “The flying shoes! Cool!” She kicked her feet up in the air, sticking her shoes—red and white, laceless LA Gear sneakers—in Jon’s face. Jon thought they must have been Carla’s. “Can you make my shoes fly?”
Jon frowned. “How much vodka did you have?”
Megan put her feet down. “I dunno. Whatever was left in the bottle. Mom and Larry—and Carla—arguing, yelling, acting stupid. I was getting moody. I’m sorry.” She looked at Jon with a drunken slyness. “Would it be okay if I wasn’t wearing a bra?”
Even after all the kissing, and casual intimacy, of earlier in the day, Jon felt his cheeks flushing. “No, I’m not saying that—I’m not saying anything—”
“Are you sure?” She swayed a little, arching her eyebrows. “It can be arranged.”
“Yes, I’m sure—I—um—did you say—what do you mean, ‘it can be arranged’?”
She smiled. “Watch this,” she said, pulling the dozen rings on her fingers off and dropping them casually onto Jon’s already littered floor. Then she pulled her arms into her shirt. “This is cool.”
After a moment of gyrations pushing and pulling the bright aqua Ocean Pacific T-shirt back forth, almost as if she were trying to stretch it out–or make brand new armholes–her right arm popped back out, holding her silky, cream-colored bra.
Jon took her hands and she walked up the outside wall, pulling against Jon, until she reached the sill—and then leapt in, landing squarely against Jon. One of the rings she was wearing scratched against his wrist, drawing blood. They fell against the bed, knocking the book off, and then slid onto the floor with a thump. Something else fell down with a clatter.
“Ow!” Jon complained. “You just, like, ripped my skin off.”
“Sssshhhh,” Megan shushed, holding a finger across her bright pink lips, blowing in Jon’s face. Her breath smelled like Budweiser. “Don’t be so loud.”
“You’re drunk,” Jon said. “You made me knock the book off the bed.”
“I’ve only had two beers. That and a Coke. With vodka. And some vodka. With vodka.” She giggled and rolled off him. “Okay, maybe a little.” As they sat up, she leaned over, looking at him seriously. “Is that a bad thing?”
“I—you just startled me. I was trying to make the flying shoes, from the book—”
Megan inhaled dramatically. “The flying shoes! Cool!” She kicked her feet up in the air, sticking her shoes—red and white, laceless LA Gear sneakers—in Jon’s face. Jon thought they must have been Carla’s. “Can you make my shoes fly?”
Jon frowned. “How much vodka did you have?”
Megan put her feet down. “I dunno. Whatever was left in the bottle. Mom and Larry—and Carla—arguing, yelling, acting stupid. I was getting moody. I’m sorry.” She looked at Jon with a drunken slyness. “Would it be okay if I wasn’t wearing a bra?”
Even after all the kissing, and casual intimacy, of earlier in the day, Jon felt his cheeks flushing. “No, I’m not saying that—I’m not saying anything—”
“Are you sure?” She swayed a little, arching her eyebrows. “It can be arranged.”
“Yes, I’m sure—I—um—did you say—what do you mean, ‘it can be arranged’?”
She smiled. “Watch this,” she said, pulling the dozen rings on her fingers off and dropping them casually onto Jon’s already littered floor. Then she pulled her arms into her shirt. “This is cool.”
After a moment of gyrations pushing and pulling the bright aqua Ocean Pacific T-shirt back forth, almost as if she were trying to stretch it out–or make brand new armholes–her right arm popped back out, holding her silky, cream-colored bra.
“Tada!” she said with a flourish, and tossed it to Jon. “Put it under your bed so your mom can find it. After we’re gone. That’ll freak her out.” She put her left arm back out, and adjusted herself. Both the way her bosom shifted, and the outline of her nipples against the Ocean Pacific t-shirt, were a clear testament that she had actually taken off her bra, right in front of him. Which was pretty damn cool, even if she had kept her shirt on while doing it. So what if she smelled like cigarettes and paint remover?
Jon blinked. “Wow,” he said.
Megan grinned blearily at Jon, her eyes lidded as she almost slurred her words. “Cool, huh? May not be quite as cool as your big book of magic. But I know some magic tricks, too. Yes, I do.”
Yes, she did. And she was good at them, too.
Megan abruptly lay down across his lap, staring up at him with bloodshot eyes, giggling. “I can see up your nose,” she said. “You need to blow your nose.” She nodded confidently. “Uh-huh. Blow it. Uh-huh, uh-huh.”
“Thanks,” Jon murmured. As she lay across his lap, Ocean Pacific t-shirt stretched tight across her torso and pulling over her navel so he could clearly see her belly button, she gazed up at him drunkenly. Jon wanted desperately to kiss her again. To touch her. Even if she did smell like she had doused herself in rubbing alcohol and eaten a plateful of cigarette butts. But there would be time for that, he thought. Later, there would be time. Right now, they needed to get ready. Plus, if they were going to make out—and maybe it was a minor detail, but Jon thought it was important—it would be nice if Megan was reasonably sober.
“You’re looking at me funny,” Megan said. She laughed, and reached up and touched his nose, bracelets sliding down to her elbow. “Honk!” She giggled. “You’re cute. Hey! How do you like my bracelets?” She raised her other arm up and shook them both. “And the hair band and the makeup and everything? I was trying to, you know, sorta disguise myself. I raided Carla’s closet. Mostly stuff she doesn’t wear, anyway.”
“I think you might have other options than, uh, dressing like a prostitute,” Jon said. It didn’t look all that different from what his mom might wear to go out drinking some nights, but he didn’t want to say anything that mean to Megan. “That might—” She rattled her bracelets noisily, as if to illustrate his point. “—might actually attract attention. Which probably wouldn’t be the idea.”
Megan stuck her lower lip out in a pout. “Fine,” she said. She sat up—and braless, in that tight aqua t-shirt, it was something to behold. Hormones, Jon though. Insanity. One of the two. No other explanation.
She stood up, clumsily, and then lay down on Jon’s bed. “There it is,” she said, and reached over and grabbed the book. She lifted it up and plopped it on the beaten pillow at the foot of the bed. She started flipping pages. “Lessee. Flying Nikes. Where are the flying Nikes? Hmmmmm. Oh, hey now, I want one of these.”
Jon got up off the floor and sat on the bed beside her. “Huh. A ‘A Variable Field Unidirectional Magnetic Pulse Bomb’. Um. Why would you want one of those?”
“Look at those cool circles coming out of it,” she said, nodding down at the illustration, on which animated rings emitted from what looked like a curling iron welded to a set of aluminum cans. As the rings spread across the page, they faded and then disappeared. It was a neat visual effect, especially on something that looked so much like paper.
“I don’t think it really works like that,” Jon said. “It’s just, you know, a diagram. Shows how it is supposed to work. I don’t think you’d actually see magnetic waves.”
Megan nodded. “Ah. Well, I still think it looks pretty.”
She flipped some more pages, stopping on an illustration of what could have been an open cigarette case in front of a smiley face with a crooked smile and comical spirals for eyes. The title of the page was Inductive Hyper-Hypnotic Suggestive State Generator. “Hey, cool,” Megan said. “Is that, like, for hypnotizing people? Like, putting ideas in their heads?” Her face lit-up. “Could I, like, make Carla think she was a lesbian? Or that she wanted to join the Peace Corps? Could I make Larry be—I dunno, not such a butthead? Or eat nothing but Twinkies?”
“I’m not sure. But I’ve actually already got some of these—there are some in the briefcase.”
“Hey, cool. Can I borrow one?”
“Um. I’m not so sure that’s a good thing to play with. I mean, what if I used something like that on you?”
Megan offered a sly smile, arching an eyebrow. “I guess it depends. What would you make me do?”
“Dress in a chicken suit and tell everybody your name was Irma. Irma Horsefeathers.”
Megan shrugged. “That wouldn’t be so bad.”
Jon sighed. “Point being, it might be better not to make everything a mess before we leave. And I don’t know if—you know, using something like that might do something to the person you used it on. Mess up their head or something. I just don’t think we oughta—”
“Fine, spoilsport,” she pouted again. “Hey, what about for getting hotels? Making people think we’re older. Or making people think we looked different? Or were never there! Could come in handy for that. We can use it for that, right?”
Jon nodded. “That makes sense. I guess we’d have to.”
She turned back to the book, flipping pages. “’Cryogenic Suspension Mines’,” she murmured. “I saw these last time. ‘Set mine for perimeter activation or set in grenade mode for timed target activation. Will place target in instantaneous superfrozen cryogenic suspension with less than point-oh-oh-oh-oh-seven percent tissue damage. Suspension lasts for up to thirty-six hours after activation.’ Can I at least leave on of those at the house? Put it next to the toilet for Larry?”
“Um. Maybe we should talk about it more,” Jon suggested. “Like, after you sober up.”
“You’re no fun,” Megan mumbled, flipped a few more pages, and then just put her face down in the book. “It’s so warm,” she said. “Like fresh laundry. Smells pretty good, too.”
“I think it’s like a machine. Dr. Bernhard—I read some of the notebook he left in the briefcase, he said it was something else. It was something entirely different, and I guess he made it—he told it to become the book, somehow. And I guess maybe it could be just about anything. Maybe I could make it like a computer, so I could type commands in—”
Megan shook her head against the book. “Uh-uh. You’re such a geek. This is cool. A book of magic oughta be a book. Computer of magic? What the hell is that? Calculator of magic? Pocket-protector and slide-rule of magic? That’s, just like, overly nerdy. Even for you.”
“Okay, okay,” Jon mumbled. “Just thinking.”
“Invisibility Belt. No shit. That’s, like, right out of Flash Gordon or something. What you could do with something like that.”
“Sneak into the girl’s locker room?”
“I can just walk in. It’s not that exciting. We don’t spend a lot of time half-naked snapping each others butts with towels or anything. It’s not like Porky’s, sorry.”
Jon shrugged. “Oh, well.”
She closed the book. “Did you write your note yet?” she asked.
“The good-bye note? No.” Jon knew he should have, but hadn’t been able to get further than a sentence into one without getting stuck. He had to get something soon, though.
“Yeah, I need to do mine, too,” Megan said. “I’ve been thinking about it. It needs to be good.”
“Yeah,” Jon agreed.
“But everybody was yelling. Carla wished everybody was dead. Larry wished he had never met our stupid family. I couldn’t think. Well, I wrote one note.” With some difficulty, she manage to hit a hand into the back pocket of her jeans and pull out a crumpled piece of paper, which she tossed to Jon.
Jon took it and unfolded it. It was on a piece of cream-colored stationery ringed with tulips, and scrawled across it were big block letters in fat red magic marker that read: I HATE YOU FUCK YOU GO TO HELL.
“Wow,” Jon murmured. “That’s sweet.”
“Needs work.” She yawned. Then she pushed on his mattress with one hand. “Your bed’s comfy. I like it.” She scooted closer to him. “You mind if I crash with you tonight?” she asked sleepily. “You think your mom will find out?”
“Um,” Jon said. “In the bed?”
“Your bed’s comfy,” she said again. “There’s a enough room for both of us.” She nuzzled her head against him, the shampoo-and-cigarettes smell of her auburn hair something like ambrosia. “If we snuggle.”
“Okay,” Jon consented. He had been planning to actually build something out of the book, but—well, this was actually better.
“You’re a really good guy, Jon,” Megan murmured against his chest. It was clear she was fading fast. “Real good.”
Jon blinked. “Wow,” he said.
Megan grinned blearily at Jon, her eyes lidded as she almost slurred her words. “Cool, huh? May not be quite as cool as your big book of magic. But I know some magic tricks, too. Yes, I do.”
Yes, she did. And she was good at them, too.
Megan abruptly lay down across his lap, staring up at him with bloodshot eyes, giggling. “I can see up your nose,” she said. “You need to blow your nose.” She nodded confidently. “Uh-huh. Blow it. Uh-huh, uh-huh.”
“Thanks,” Jon murmured. As she lay across his lap, Ocean Pacific t-shirt stretched tight across her torso and pulling over her navel so he could clearly see her belly button, she gazed up at him drunkenly. Jon wanted desperately to kiss her again. To touch her. Even if she did smell like she had doused herself in rubbing alcohol and eaten a plateful of cigarette butts. But there would be time for that, he thought. Later, there would be time. Right now, they needed to get ready. Plus, if they were going to make out—and maybe it was a minor detail, but Jon thought it was important—it would be nice if Megan was reasonably sober.
“You’re looking at me funny,” Megan said. She laughed, and reached up and touched his nose, bracelets sliding down to her elbow. “Honk!” She giggled. “You’re cute. Hey! How do you like my bracelets?” She raised her other arm up and shook them both. “And the hair band and the makeup and everything? I was trying to, you know, sorta disguise myself. I raided Carla’s closet. Mostly stuff she doesn’t wear, anyway.”
“I think you might have other options than, uh, dressing like a prostitute,” Jon said. It didn’t look all that different from what his mom might wear to go out drinking some nights, but he didn’t want to say anything that mean to Megan. “That might—” She rattled her bracelets noisily, as if to illustrate his point. “—might actually attract attention. Which probably wouldn’t be the idea.”
Megan stuck her lower lip out in a pout. “Fine,” she said. She sat up—and braless, in that tight aqua t-shirt, it was something to behold. Hormones, Jon though. Insanity. One of the two. No other explanation.
She stood up, clumsily, and then lay down on Jon’s bed. “There it is,” she said, and reached over and grabbed the book. She lifted it up and plopped it on the beaten pillow at the foot of the bed. She started flipping pages. “Lessee. Flying Nikes. Where are the flying Nikes? Hmmmmm. Oh, hey now, I want one of these.”
Jon got up off the floor and sat on the bed beside her. “Huh. A ‘A Variable Field Unidirectional Magnetic Pulse Bomb’. Um. Why would you want one of those?”
“Look at those cool circles coming out of it,” she said, nodding down at the illustration, on which animated rings emitted from what looked like a curling iron welded to a set of aluminum cans. As the rings spread across the page, they faded and then disappeared. It was a neat visual effect, especially on something that looked so much like paper.
“I don’t think it really works like that,” Jon said. “It’s just, you know, a diagram. Shows how it is supposed to work. I don’t think you’d actually see magnetic waves.”
Megan nodded. “Ah. Well, I still think it looks pretty.”
She flipped some more pages, stopping on an illustration of what could have been an open cigarette case in front of a smiley face with a crooked smile and comical spirals for eyes. The title of the page was Inductive Hyper-Hypnotic Suggestive State Generator. “Hey, cool,” Megan said. “Is that, like, for hypnotizing people? Like, putting ideas in their heads?” Her face lit-up. “Could I, like, make Carla think she was a lesbian? Or that she wanted to join the Peace Corps? Could I make Larry be—I dunno, not such a butthead? Or eat nothing but Twinkies?”
“I’m not sure. But I’ve actually already got some of these—there are some in the briefcase.”
“Hey, cool. Can I borrow one?”
“Um. I’m not so sure that’s a good thing to play with. I mean, what if I used something like that on you?”
Megan offered a sly smile, arching an eyebrow. “I guess it depends. What would you make me do?”
“Dress in a chicken suit and tell everybody your name was Irma. Irma Horsefeathers.”
Megan shrugged. “That wouldn’t be so bad.”
Jon sighed. “Point being, it might be better not to make everything a mess before we leave. And I don’t know if—you know, using something like that might do something to the person you used it on. Mess up their head or something. I just don’t think we oughta—”
“Fine, spoilsport,” she pouted again. “Hey, what about for getting hotels? Making people think we’re older. Or making people think we looked different? Or were never there! Could come in handy for that. We can use it for that, right?”
Jon nodded. “That makes sense. I guess we’d have to.”
She turned back to the book, flipping pages. “’Cryogenic Suspension Mines’,” she murmured. “I saw these last time. ‘Set mine for perimeter activation or set in grenade mode for timed target activation. Will place target in instantaneous superfrozen cryogenic suspension with less than point-oh-oh-oh-oh-seven percent tissue damage. Suspension lasts for up to thirty-six hours after activation.’ Can I at least leave on of those at the house? Put it next to the toilet for Larry?”
“Um. Maybe we should talk about it more,” Jon suggested. “Like, after you sober up.”
“You’re no fun,” Megan mumbled, flipped a few more pages, and then just put her face down in the book. “It’s so warm,” she said. “Like fresh laundry. Smells pretty good, too.”
“I think it’s like a machine. Dr. Bernhard—I read some of the notebook he left in the briefcase, he said it was something else. It was something entirely different, and I guess he made it—he told it to become the book, somehow. And I guess maybe it could be just about anything. Maybe I could make it like a computer, so I could type commands in—”
Megan shook her head against the book. “Uh-uh. You’re such a geek. This is cool. A book of magic oughta be a book. Computer of magic? What the hell is that? Calculator of magic? Pocket-protector and slide-rule of magic? That’s, just like, overly nerdy. Even for you.”
“Okay, okay,” Jon mumbled. “Just thinking.”
“Invisibility Belt. No shit. That’s, like, right out of Flash Gordon or something. What you could do with something like that.”
“Sneak into the girl’s locker room?”
“I can just walk in. It’s not that exciting. We don’t spend a lot of time half-naked snapping each others butts with towels or anything. It’s not like Porky’s, sorry.”
Jon shrugged. “Oh, well.”
She closed the book. “Did you write your note yet?” she asked.
“The good-bye note? No.” Jon knew he should have, but hadn’t been able to get further than a sentence into one without getting stuck. He had to get something soon, though.
“Yeah, I need to do mine, too,” Megan said. “I’ve been thinking about it. It needs to be good.”
“Yeah,” Jon agreed.
“But everybody was yelling. Carla wished everybody was dead. Larry wished he had never met our stupid family. I couldn’t think. Well, I wrote one note.” With some difficulty, she manage to hit a hand into the back pocket of her jeans and pull out a crumpled piece of paper, which she tossed to Jon.
Jon took it and unfolded it. It was on a piece of cream-colored stationery ringed with tulips, and scrawled across it were big block letters in fat red magic marker that read: I HATE YOU FUCK YOU GO TO HELL.
“Wow,” Jon murmured. “That’s sweet.”
“Needs work.” She yawned. Then she pushed on his mattress with one hand. “Your bed’s comfy. I like it.” She scooted closer to him. “You mind if I crash with you tonight?” she asked sleepily. “You think your mom will find out?”
“Um,” Jon said. “In the bed?”
“Your bed’s comfy,” she said again. “There’s a enough room for both of us.” She nuzzled her head against him, the shampoo-and-cigarettes smell of her auburn hair something like ambrosia. “If we snuggle.”
“Okay,” Jon consented. He had been planning to actually build something out of the book, but—well, this was actually better.
“You’re a really good guy, Jon,” Megan murmured against his chest. It was clear she was fading fast. “Real good.”
After a moment, she was snoring.
Jon had to get up to turn off the bedroom light, which disturbed Megan momentarily, but she shifted, smacked her lips, pulled at covers that weren’t there and began to snore again. Jon turned out the bedroom light, leaving only his little kitschy boy-gone-fishing lamp to dimly illuminate the room. He thought for a moment about just laying down on the floor and going to sleep, but she had seemed very open to the idea of them sleeping in the same bed. So, he grabbed a blanket off the floor and scooted back in next to her.
She shifted, turning so her back was towards him, wiggling her butt up against his midsection as he gingerly put an arm around her shoulder. He put his head down against her back so his cheek lay against her silky brown-red hair where it spilled across her shoulder blades.
Jon had to get up to turn off the bedroom light, which disturbed Megan momentarily, but she shifted, smacked her lips, pulled at covers that weren’t there and began to snore again. Jon turned out the bedroom light, leaving only his little kitschy boy-gone-fishing lamp to dimly illuminate the room. He thought for a moment about just laying down on the floor and going to sleep, but she had seemed very open to the idea of them sleeping in the same bed. So, he grabbed a blanket off the floor and scooted back in next to her.
She shifted, turning so her back was towards him, wiggling her butt up against his midsection as he gingerly put an arm around her shoulder. He put his head down against her back so his cheek lay against her silky brown-red hair where it spilled across her shoulder blades.
There was something perfect about the scent of her hair. Something mature and wonderful. It was the smell of seasons changing, from spring to summer. Them smell of his life changing, from being a dorky kid who played video games and read comic books and collected Coke bottles and argued about who was better–Superman or Spiderman–to someone a lot closer to adulthood. To someone with a real live girl–one who was, to Jon, really a woman–in his room, late at night. In his bed. Laying against him. She was the sight, sound, taste, and touch of the future—of the incredible potential of a wide-open world of wonder yet to come. To be near her, to smell her, to touch her, was finding out that the world was bigger and brighter and more wonderful than he had ever imagined, even just a few short days ago.
It was if he had grown up in a small, drab little room, and had been happy enough with it, for what it was. But then Megan had come and opened the door. Hell, she was the door. She was the door through which he could suddenly see that there was a world outside of the plain little box he had always lived in—great cities, deep forests, wide canyons, high mountains, hot deserts and cold blue oceans. Long, lush meadows of sweet green trees and cool breezes and still, clear ponds—that was Megan.
He touched the bare skin of her hip, right above where her jeans pulled tightly against it. She sighed softly, the sound almost like music. He propped himself up, craning his head over her shoulder so he could see her face, smashed against his pillow, in the dim light. For all the things he had seen, for all the things he had read in the past three days, if there was any book of magic in his room, it was Megan. In the end, the book on the floor, the one with the flying shoes and magnetic pulse guns was all smoke-and-mirrors—or gears and pulleys. Very advanced gears and pulleys, perhaps. Very small gears a pulleys. But in the end, it was just science and physics and algebra and programming. Nothing magical, really, just the same numbers and formulas, the same bits and bytes, he had steeped himself in almost since he had learned to read. Taken up another thousand notches, yeah, maybe to the very end of technology, as Dr. Bernhard had apparently been convinced was the case. But, even if: at the end of the day, it wasn’t sorcery, it was science.
The real book of magic in Jon’s world was laying in bed with him, smelling of Prell shampoo and cigarettes and snoring softly through her mouth. Drooling a little, too, he noticed.
Jon kissed her softly on the ear, and she mumbled incoherently and raised a hand to side of her head, brushing at it. Then she put her hand back down, and continued to snore.
Jon laid his head back down, smiling. Real magic, indeed.
A few minutes later, Jon was asleep.
It was if he had grown up in a small, drab little room, and had been happy enough with it, for what it was. But then Megan had come and opened the door. Hell, she was the door. She was the door through which he could suddenly see that there was a world outside of the plain little box he had always lived in—great cities, deep forests, wide canyons, high mountains, hot deserts and cold blue oceans. Long, lush meadows of sweet green trees and cool breezes and still, clear ponds—that was Megan.
He touched the bare skin of her hip, right above where her jeans pulled tightly against it. She sighed softly, the sound almost like music. He propped himself up, craning his head over her shoulder so he could see her face, smashed against his pillow, in the dim light. For all the things he had seen, for all the things he had read in the past three days, if there was any book of magic in his room, it was Megan. In the end, the book on the floor, the one with the flying shoes and magnetic pulse guns was all smoke-and-mirrors—or gears and pulleys. Very advanced gears and pulleys, perhaps. Very small gears a pulleys. But in the end, it was just science and physics and algebra and programming. Nothing magical, really, just the same numbers and formulas, the same bits and bytes, he had steeped himself in almost since he had learned to read. Taken up another thousand notches, yeah, maybe to the very end of technology, as Dr. Bernhard had apparently been convinced was the case. But, even if: at the end of the day, it wasn’t sorcery, it was science.
The real book of magic in Jon’s world was laying in bed with him, smelling of Prell shampoo and cigarettes and snoring softly through her mouth. Drooling a little, too, he noticed.
Jon kissed her softly on the ear, and she mumbled incoherently and raised a hand to side of her head, brushing at it. Then she put her hand back down, and continued to snore.
Jon laid his head back down, smiling. Real magic, indeed.
A few minutes later, Jon was asleep.
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