Alexandra Quick and the Thorn Circle

The Invisible Bridge

Charlie was not a welcome addition at 207 Sweetmaple Avenue. Alexandra's parents immediately made it clear that they had expected her to return home with schoolbooks and uniforms, not a cauldron and a crow.

"Charlie's a raven, not a crow," said Alexandra.

"Same damn thing," said Archie. "They're just noisy pests. Good for nothing but target practice."

Charlie screeched angrily, and Alexandra stood between the cage and her stepfather. "You're not shooting Charlie!" she said furiously.

"Archie," Claudia said, and her husband snorted and fell silent. She looked at Alexandra. "Why on earth would you bring home a bird?" she demanded. "What made you think we'd suddenly change our minds about a pet, especially considering you're already in trouble?"

Alexandra had been rather hoping that her parents wouldn't ask any awkward questions, but apparently that Confundus Charm only went so far. "We're going to study... birds and things at Charmbridge," she said, improvising a story she had only partially concocted in her mind as a backup plan while riding the bus home. "Nature, plants, you know, like when we collected leaves in third grade?"

"There's a big difference between collecting leaves and keeping a pet cr - raven!" her mother exclaimed.

"We have to take care of a bird so we can learn about them," Alexandra said. "About their nests and diets and mating habits and everything." Charlie clucked softly. "Anyway, I'll be taking Charlie to school with me, so it's only for a few days and I promise there won't be any noise or mess and Charlie will stay in my room." She said it all in a rush. She didn't think her stepfather would really try to shoot Charlie, but the comment had made both bird and girl rather tense.

Her mother made an exasperated sound, and threw her hands in the air. "You're still grounded!" she said. "And you'd better take care of that bird!"

Not waiting for her to have second thoughts, Alexandra hurried upstairs carrying Charlie's cage and her other things.

"And if it makes noise or leaves a mess around the house..." Archie added as Alexandra retreated up the stairs, and he raised his hand with an extended forefinger and thumb, but Claudia immediately slapped it down. "Archie!"

Once safely in her room with the door closed, Alexandra set Charlie's cage on her desk and opened it. The raven hopped to the bottom edge of the open cage door, and then stepped out onto the desk.

"Don't worry, Charlie," Alexandra said. "Archie isn't really going to shoot you. He's just kind of a jerk like that sometimes. And if he does try anything..." She slid the box from Hoargrim's out of her stack of school supplies, and opened it. "I have a wand now." She smiled as she held it up, and Charlie made an approving chuckling sound.

---

Both Alexandra and Charlie behaved themselves for the next four days. Alexandra left Charlie's door open, and the raven actually seemed to prefer sleeping in the cage so long as it was always possible to exit it. Alexandra also left her window open, and Charlie would fly in and out during the day. Alexandra was envious of the bird's freedom, since she was now observing the terms of her restriction. Since she had no one to play with in Larkin Mills, there really wasn't much point in her going outside anyway, a thought that made her unexpectedly gloomy. Without Charlie's company, she might have become even more lonely, but she spent some of her time reading more about ravens, and some of her time studying her locket, which she still seemed unable to open without magic. She had a feeling that with a wand, it would now be much easier to open it magically, but she dreaded receiving another owl from the Trace Office, or worse, a screaming lecture from Ms. Grimm.

She was half-expecting to receive one of those anyway. After the trouble she'd already gotten into, she wasn't looking forward to hearing what the Dean would have to say about her fight with Benjamin Rash. She spent a couple of days worrying that she might still be expelled from Charmbridge before she even started, while watching her window anxiously for the arrival of bad news, but none came. It was too much to hope for that the incident might be dismissed or forgotten, but after four days had passed without a word, Alexandra did start hoping that.

Charlie remained fascinated with both the bracelet and the locket. Actually, the raven seemed fascinated with anything shiny, and Alexandra was careful to keep her bedroom door closed, for fear that Charlie might begin "collecting" things from the rest of the house. But Charlie was particularly delighted when Alexandra would relinquish the golden locket and bracelet, and squawked unpleasantly when she took them back out of the raven's cage.

"They're mine, Charlie," Alexandra admonished her familiar. "You can watch them, but I still have to have them back." But she got the feeling that Charlie was not in complete agreement about ownership of the items.

Monday morning, Alexandra dressed herself according to the Charmbridge Academy Dress Code. In her dark slacks and white shirt with black jacket, she thought she looked like a waitress in an expensive restaurant (the sort her mother never took her to), and grimaced at the thought of having to always dress this way for class. At least according to Gwendolyn, they were allowed to wear normal casual clothing when the school day was over.

All of her books and other clothes had been packed by her mother the night before. Perhaps as a lingering side effect of the Confundus Charm, her mother had never gotten around to asking about the cauldron, though she did give it odd looks. Alexandra reached into Charlie's cage to retrieve her locket and bracelet, and after a brief tug-of-war over the bracelet, which she won, she tucked them both into her jacket pocket with her wand. "Stop sulking, Charlie. You'll see them again," she said, and picked up the bird's cage and carried it with her cauldron downstairs.

Alexandra hadn't really been nervous about the first day of school since her first ever day of school, as every year since then had just been a repetition of previous years, with more or less the same people at the same old elementary school. But now she was going to get on a bus and go to a school she'd never been to before, where she only knew a handful of kids, and she would not be seeing her mother or Archie again until Christmas. It was the furthest she'd ever traveled, and the longest she had ever been away from her parents. She wasn't scared, not really, but the new experience looming before her (and the thought of the reception Ms. Grimm might have waiting for her) did set her heart to pounding a little harder than usual as she came downstairs to eat breakfast.

Archie and her mother were both at the table. Archie was drinking coffee and wearing his police uniform, and give Charlie a nasty look (which the bird returned) before squinting and going back to his newspaper.

Her mother seemed pleased at Alexandra's appearance, and laid her hand on her daughter's head to smooth her hair down. "You look just like a schoolgirl," she said.

"I am a schoolgirl," Alexandra replied, thinking that this was a rather stupid thing to point out. But her mother just laughed, which was also unusual.

"Have some eggs. I also made sausage, and orange juice, and there's some toast and cereal too."

Such a grand breakfast was a rarity. Alexandra sat at the table and ate heartily, her appetite not at all diminished by the nervous fluttering in her stomach. She stuck some sausage and bits of toast through the bars of Charlie's cage. The raven gobbled the handouts down eagerly, over her mother's objections.

And finally it was time to go outside to wait for the Charmbridge bus. Alexandra was a little surprised when Archie picked up her suitcase and bookbag and carried them for her.

"I want you to call or write, at least once a week," her mother said, as they walked down the steps in front of their house.

"I will," Alexandra said, but she was distracted by the knot of kids waiting at the corner, a few houses down. There was Brian and Bonnie Seabury, and Billy Boggleston and his friends, and everyone else who would be getting on the Larkin Mills School District bus to Larkin Mills Elementary School. Normally, Alexandra would be there with them, goofing off with Brian or exchanging insults with Billy.

She took a few steps away from her mother, towards the other kids, and stopped. Billy saw her, scowled, and turned his back on her, while he made some sniggering comment to his friends. Eyes and pointed fingers swung in her direction, and she heard mocking laughter. She guessed that they were probably making snide jokes about how she was dressed, but she didn't care what Billy Boggleston and his friends said.

Brian looked up, and their eyes met for a few seconds. Neither of them said anything.

She remembered Ms. Grimm telling her that she would no longer be part of Brian's world, but she hadn't quite expected that separation to happen like this. She saw Bonnie looking at her too, and then Brian, expressionlessly, turned away.

"Aren't you going to say good-bye to Brian?" her mother asked behind her.

"No," said Alexandra. "We've already said our good-byes."

She turned away from the kids at the bus stop.

The Charmbridge Academy bus was coming up the street now. A few days ago, Alexandra had been horrified at its external appearance, but now even the derisive hoots that rose from Billy Boggleston's crowd didn't bother her.

"I'll miss you, Alex," her mother said, and drew her into a tight hug, squeezing her harder than Alexandra could ever remember being hugged by her mother, and this did embarrass her a little.

"I'll miss you too," Alexandra mumbled, and realized she hadn't thought about whether or not she would until now.

"Be good, Alex," Archie said gruffly.

Alexandra nodded, and got on the short bus.

---

Darla Dearborn and Angelique Devereaux were already on the bus, so Alexandra sat down with them. It turned out that Anna Chu and the Pritchards were already at Charmbridge Academy, as they had been staying on school grounds since before the shopping trip to Chicago. But there were many other students who hadn't been along for the trip to the Goblin Market, so the bus was more crowded than last time.

"Wizard children used to mostly attend smaller local schools or be educated at home," Darla said. "More and more students from other parts of the country are attending Charmbridge because of the Automagicka."

"I almost went to Baleswood," said Angelique. "It's closer to New Orleans, but -"

She was holding her ferret, which suddenly hissed, "Who cares, you stuck-up little brat?" Darla jumped, but Angelique only grimaced.

"Shut up, Honey!" she snapped.

"Your ferret talks?" Alexandra asked, amazed.

"Duh! Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, are you?" sneered the ferret.

"It's not a ferret," Angelique said through clenched teeth. "It's a jarvey. Apparently, the Familiar Corner somehow managed to sell a jarvey which somehow kept silent until someone was foolish enough to took her home."

"Jarveys look like ferrets, but they can talk," Darla said, a statement which Alexandra thought was more deserving of the jarvey's last comment. "Unfortunately, they mostly just memorize rude phrases."

"Do you ever stop yapping?" the creature interrupted.

"Her name is Honey?" Alexandra found this quite amusing.

"Mudblood!" screeched the jarvey.

"Yes," Angelique sighed. "Of course I didn't know she was a jarvey when I named her."

"Bunch of hens squawking, cluck, cluck, cluck!" mocked the jarvey.

"Shut up, Honey!" Angelique snapped again.

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" Honey repeated.

Angelique was fumbling with a pouch, and finally withdrew a little piece of candy from it which she offered to the jarvey. It snapped it up, and then began pawing at its face as it fell silent.

"A bit of imported Ton-Tongue Toffee," Angelique sighed. "Fortunately, jarveys aren't very bright. I can't wait until I learn the Silencing Charm."

"Neither can anyone else," said Darla.

"Why don't you just return it?" asked Alexandra.

Angelique held the animal up, which slid slinkily about in her hands. Its growing tongue was flopping around in front of its face.

"Well, I sent an owl explaining their... mistake," she replied. "And Mr. Jolly wrote back that of course they'd refund my money and take Honey back, but since obviously no one wants a jarvey as a pet, she'd be, well -"

From inside the cage Alexandra was still holding, Charlie suddenly made an ominous, lethal-sounding "Kk-kk-kk" noise.

Angelique shoved Honey back into her own cage. "Anyway, I did have a Silencing Charm put on her cage, so we can't hear her while she's in it. I just have to let her out now and then."

Alexandra looked at the obnoxious creature that was now circling about in its cage. It stuck its tongue out at her, which was now swollen to (relatively) enormous proportions.

"It called me a Mudblood," she said.

Angelique winced. "They just pick up any bad words they hear. It wasn't personal. She's called me worse."

The bus repeated the route they had taken on the previous trip, stopping at Detroit to pick up David. He was wearing another sports jersey and a cap this time, as well as baggy pants and expensive-looking sneakers. He had earphones on and practically swaggered down the aisle. Heads turned as he passed by, until he sat down next to Darla, across from Alexandra and Angelique. "Yo, wassup?" he said, pulling his earphones out.

"Trying to look like the biggest Muggle around?" Alexandra grinned.

David grinned back, but it was a rather belligerent grin. "Just wait until some punk calls me a Mudblood again."

Angelique nervously pushed Honey's cage to the other side of the table.

"You shouldn't use that word," said Darla primly. She leaned forward and said in a low voice, "Don't worry, no one important is going to hold it against you two that you're, you know, Muggle-born."

Darla, with her lipstick and glittery eyeshadow and perfectly coiffed hair, was obviously trying to look older than she was, and Alexandra thought she was talking to them almost the way Gwendolyn did.

"You said your grandmother is a Muggle," Alexandra said abruptly. "Wouldn't that make you a... m-word also?"

Darla sat up, and a dark flush spread beneath her cheeks. "Well, not, I mean, some very nasty, very old-fashioned families might say so, I suppose," she stammered. "Not that it matters! I'm not ashamed of having Muggles in my ancestry at all! But technically, that is to say, in the Confederation Wizard Census my family is listed as pureblood. I suppose technically I might be listed as a three-quarters blood, but my grandmother wasn't part of the census so I don't know why anyone would bother to research our blood status in that much detail. Of course blood status is so old-fashioned, no one really pays attention to it anymore anyway."

David and Alexandra looked at each other as Darla's words poured out in a rush, and she could tell David was thinking the same thing she was. Darla was awfully defensive about something that "didn't matter."

"One drop," David muttered. "Don't kid yourself, girl."

Darla looked as if she wanted to be offended, but wasn't quite sure what David meant, and Angelique and Alexandra didn't get the reference either, so they spent the rest of the ride talking about school. David had been informed that all Muggle-raised students who had not already taken the SPAWN would be given the test the next day. Darla and Angelique said that everyone would be assigned to a dorm room, usually two to a room. Alexandra wondered if she'd wind up with them as roommates. The prospect didn't thrill her, especially not if it would include Angelique's jarvey. Anna would be all right as a roommate, she thought, and the Ozarker girls Constance and Forbearance seemed nice enough, although if Ozarkers tended to be concerned about "blood status" like Benjamin Rash, they might not like having "Mudblood" roommates.

After a while, Alexandra thought the bus had left the Automagicka, as they were not traveling as fast, and the road seemed narrower. She had no idea where they were, as there was no city in sight and they seemed to be driving up a long, green valley.

"Oh, I think we're almost there!" said Darla. And indeed, a few minutes later, the bus pulled off the road onto a shoulder at the top of a long, steep incline.

"Everyone off!" said Mrs. Speaks. "Make sure to remove all your things from the bus."

They filed out of the bus, and found themselves standing on a bluff overlooking the valley Alexandra had seen out the window. Behind them was a rocky cliff face through which the road had been carved, rising only a little further above them before the road curved around and headed back down the other side of the mountain. The valley was vast and full of lush summer greenery that hadn't yet begun to change colors for the fall. It extended as far as Alexandra could see in either direction, and it was nearly a mile across to the rose-colored cliffs on the other side, and half a mile deep. While the valley floor was mostly tree-covered, here and there she could see segments of a river wending its way along its length.

It was spectacular, and Alexandra wasn't the only student to be awed at the sight. Even some of the older students, who had presumably been here before, were hushed as they took in the view.

Only after soaking in the scenery for several minutes did she realize that there were no signs of human activity. Other than the road they'd climbed to get to this point, there were no other roads or trails in sight, no buildings, no telephone poles or power lines, nothing she could see from one end of the valley to the other.

Alexandra had never been to any national parks like Yosemite or the Grand Canyon. The most wilderness she'd ever seen was in the woods around Larkin Mills. She'd seen scenes like this on TV and in books, but this was different. She could have stood there with the wind whipping her hair for a long time, and she felt the cage she was holding shiver as Charlie hopped around inside, making impatient noises. She wanted to let the raven out, but wondered if Charlie would soar out over the valley and never want to return.

"Quite a view, ain't it, Starshine?"

Alexandra blinked and turned around. There was a tall man with long blond hair in a ponytail and a beard and mustache, looking down at her with a kindly smile. He had bright blue eyes and looked like he had probably been quite handsome when he was younger, though his face now was now weathered and his ponytail and beard were going gray. He had a brightly colored scarf tied around his head, and beneath his long and faded leather jacket he seemed to be wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt. His jeans and boots were also very Muggleish in style, but he was carrying a broom over his shoulder, and she saw a wand sticking out of one of his jacket pockets.

"Ben," he said, extending the hand that wasn't holding the broom. "Ben Journey."

"Alexandra," she said, taking his hand. "Not Starshine."

Ben laughed. "I call all the girls Starshine. Welcome to Charmbridge, Alexandra-not-Starshine. I'm the custodian, groundskeeper, and dude who tracks down students who get themselves in trouble. Got a feeling I may be seeing a lot of you." He winked at her, and ambled away to join Tabitha Speaks, who was starting to call the students into lines by grade.

"He looks like a hippie," David snorted.

"He seems nice enough," Alexandra said.

"He's probably a Radicalist," Darla sniffed, joining them.

"A Radicalist?" Alexandra hated constantly being educated about the wizarding world by Darla, but had to admit she did seem pretty well-informed.

"Years and years ago there was some Muggle fad for dressing in rainbow clothes and dancing naked and smoking herbs that make you have visions and stare at the sky," Darla explained. "They thought they were actually learning magic. Some wizarding families in Alta California - they've always been a little odd out there, my mother says - actually began imitating the Muggles. They had a lot of strange ideas, like ending the Confederation and trying to teach Muggles magic. Total nonsense. They even started a wizarding school. It's still running but of course no one who cares about their reputation would want to attend Sedona."

"Of course," David said, exchanging another look with Alexandra. They rolled their eyes together and Alexandra had to stifle laughter. She had a feeling Darla's account might not be completely reliable, and perhaps she should find another source of information about Radicalists. Maybe Anna would know better, since she was from California.

"Everyone is to cross the bridge in a single file line," Mrs. Speaks was saying. Alexandra saw that she and David weren't the only sixth-graders to look confused, but the older kids were all grinning at the youngest students. "Now, for those of you who have never crossed the Invisible Bridge before, I know it may seem scary, but I assure you it's perfectly safe."

"Yeah, it's been almost ten years since the last kid fell off!" called an eleventh-grader, provoking laughter and hoots from his friends.

"John, would you like to start the school year with detention?" Mrs. Speaks snapped. "No one has ever fallen to their death from the bridge since it was completed, and the stabilization and windbreaker charms are reinforced every year." She smiled at Alexandra's group. "This is a sort of rite of passage for new Charmbridge students. You can hold hands if you like."

Alexandra noted that Mrs. Speaks had not refuted what John said about a kid falling off. But she wasn't afraid, and she certainly wasn't going to hold anyone's hand like a kindergardener. She stepped forward, determined to be the first to set foot on the Invisible Bridge.

Charlie chose that moment to burst out of the cage, cawing and flapping manically. Alexandra spun around and yelled at her familiar. "Charlie! What are you doing? Get back here!" She actually pointed at her cage, but the raven flapped up to perch atop the Charmbridge bus.

"Mr. Journey, would you please help Miss Quick secure her bird?" said Mrs. Speaks, sounding a bit exasperated as every student on the bus stared at her. Alexandra heard laughter and snide comments as she ran to the side of the bus and glared up at Charlie. "Do you want me to lock the door to your cage from now on?" she demanded. Charlie cawed at her while Journey ambled over.

"Ravens are smart birds," he drawled, looking up at Charlie. "You know some say they're smarter than dogs?"

Charlie made a disparaging sound.

"Well, Charlie's acting like a birdbrain!" Alexandra said. Charlie squawked. She looked over her shoulder, and saw that the first group of sixth-graders had started across the Invisible Bridge. With some nervousness (and a bit of nudging from their friends in a few cases), they simply stepped off the cliff, and now appeared to be walking on air across the valley. She looked back up at her familiar.

"Now look what you did! I wanted to be first across the bridge!" she said angrily. The raven cocked its head.

"Don't you worry, Starshine," said Journey. "The walk's just as spectacular if you go last as if you go first. Charlie!" He addressed himself to the raven. "You be a good bird, now, and get back in your cage. You get to see what the earth and sky look like every time you take wing. You going to deny Alex a view like that?"

He spoke in a lazy drawl, and Alexandra thought he really was a little odd, his eyes not really focused on the raven but at some middle point in the distance. To her surprise, though, Charlie made an acquiescent chirping sound that she hadn't heard before, and hopped off the bus and landed on her shoulder.

"I'm already in enough trouble," she said quietly. "Could you please try not to get me in any more?"

Charlie squawked softly, which she decided to interpret as an apology. Alexandra held up the cage, with the door open, and Charlie reluctantly hopped back in.

There had been over a hundred students on the bus, and they were now streaming across the bridge. Alexandra moved forward to join them.

"Looks like your friend is waiting for you," he said. David had hung back, and was standing at the edge of the cliff waiting for Alexandra.

"Thanks," said Alexandra, hurrying over to join him. "I guess Charlie's had enough of being caged after being cooped up for the whole bus ride."

"Yeah, Malcolm is getting pretty edgy too," David said.

The two of them looked over the edge of the cliff. It was a vertigo-inducing straight drop. Alexandra could see rocks and a tiny bend in the river coming close to the base of the cliff, far, far below. The Invisible Bridge was directly in front of them, but it was truly invisible. She thought it might be transparent, like glass, but they could not see even the faintest trace of an outline.

Alexandra saw David hesitate. Before anyone could "encourage" her, or think she was afraid, Alexandra stepped off the cliff, into thin air.

The Invisible Bridge was solid underfoot, and without pause, she immediately took another step. Now both of her feet were on the bridge. She didn't know what it was made of, but it felt as solid as concrete. She kept walking, and then casually looked over her shoulder at David.

David swallowed hard, and stepped out onto the bridge. He wobbled a bit as he walked, and slid his feet to either side as he moved forward, as if trying to figure out how wide the bridge was.

"Who the heck thought of this?" he muttered, as he reached Alexandra.

"I'll bet it keeps Muggles out," she replied.

He snorted, and the two of them proceeded out over the valley.

The view from the bluff was nothing compared to the view suspended half a mile above the valley, surrounded by nothing but air. It was, Alexandra thought, almost like flying. She held her arms out to either side, dangling Charlie's cage from one hand and her cauldron from the other, and imagined that she was a raven also, soaring through the sky. She couldn't do it for long, because her cauldron was heavy, but for a few moments she felt completely free and truly magical. She was walking on air.

Then suddenly there was nothing underfoot, and she was falling through the air.

David screamed in fear as the two of them plummeted straight down. Charlie and Malcolm both screamed in their cages. Alexandra heard people screaming high above them, as the wind rushed past.

She remembered jumping off the roof of her house. She remembered making fireballs come out of a wet branch. She didn't know how to stop falling from a height like this. Charlie's cage door flapped open and Charlie tumbled out, screeching, wings spread. She was glad.

Looking down she could see her feet against the sky above, and looking up she saw the green valley floor rushing up at her. Her cauldron and books were tumbling away. Her hand slipped into her jacket pocket and curled around her wand. She was sure there was some magic that could save them, but she didn't know any spells. Only the rhymes she made up at home, and there was so little time. She whipped out the wand, but had no idea what to do with it.

"Charlie save us, or we'll die!
Bigger, stronger, faster fly!"

In her fevered imagination, Charlie turned into a giant bird and plucked them out of the air. But she knew that her rhyme wasn't even proper English and that Charlie was after all, just a raven, and that she was still falling - it had been a stupid idea, but she couldn't think of anything else, except to grab one of David's flailing arms.

There was a deafening beating of wings. A shadow blocked out the sun and giant bird talons wrapped around Alexandra's waist. She felt a little like a worm.

"David, hold on!" she cried out.

"You've got to be kidding me!" he gasped. He wrapped both arms around hers, with Malcolm's cage still clutched in one hand.

They were jerked upwards. Alexandra was having the breath squeezed out of her, and her arm felt like it was going to break. She clenched her teeth as her head swam and prickly pinpoints of light began filling her vision. She heard other voices over Charlie's booming caw, and felt hands on her, but she was too breathless and numb to even look around, until Gwendolyn and Mrs. Speaks and another older student laid her down on the far side of the valley, at the other end of the Invisible Bridge.