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Wizard’s Holiday By Diane Duane **** Diane Duane’s Young Wizards Series So You Want to Be a Wizard Deep Wizardry High Wizardry A Wizard Abroad The Wizard’s Dilemma A Wizard Alone Copyright © 2003 by Diane Duane **** For Virginia Heinlein **** Unending stairs reach up the mountain above you, And you keep climbing, while the welcoming voices Cheer you along. They make the long climb easier, Though the gift you’re bringing may to you seem small. Don’t worry, it’s what they need: For all the cheering, See how empty the streets are? Take your time. Make your way upward steadily toward what waits, Through day’s blind radiance to the city’s pinnacle, And fall up the last few steps into empty sky.... —hexagram 46, Sheng “Onward and Upward” “With me, a change of trouble is as good as a vacation.” —David Lloyd George (1863-1945) What, can the Devil speak true? —William Shakespeare, Macbeth, I, iii **** That Getaway Urge It was the Friday afternoon before the start of spring break. The weather was nothing like spring. It was cold and gray outside; the wind hissed unrepentantly through the still-bare limbs of the maple trees that lined the street, and in that wind the rain was blowing horizontally from west to east, seemingly right into the face of the girl, in parka and jeans, running down the sidewalk toward her driveway. Except for her, the street was empty, and no one looking out the window of any nearby house was close enough to notice that the rain wasn’t getting the young girl wet. Even if someone had noticed, probably nothing would have come of it; human beings generally don’t recognize wizardry even when it’s being done right under their noses. Nita Callahan jogged up her driveway, unlocked the back door of her house, and plunged through it into the warmth of the kitchen. The back door blew back and slammed against the stairwell wall behind her in a sudden gust of wind, but she didn’t care. She pushed the door shut again, then struggled briefly to get her backpack off, flinging it onto the kitchen counter. “Freedom!” she said to no one in particular as she pulled off her jacket and tossed it through the kitchen door onto the back of one of the dining room chairs. “Freedom! Free at last!” And she actually did a small impromptu dance in the middle of the kitchen at the sheer pleasure of the concept of two weeks off from school... though the dancing lasted only until her stomach suddenly growled. “Freedom and food,” Nita said then, and opened the refrigerator and stuck her head into it to see what was there to eat. There was precious little. Half a quart of milk and half a stick of butter; some small, unidentifiable pieces of cheese bundled up in plastic wrap, at least a couple of them turning green or blue because of the presence of other life-forms; way back in a corner, a plastic-bagged head of lettuce that had seen better days, probably several weeks ago; and a last slice of frozen pizza that someone, probably her sister, Dairine, had left in the fridge on a plate without wrapping it, and which was now desiccated enough to curl up at the edges. “Make that freedom and starvation,” Nita said under her breath, and shut the refrigerator door. It was the end of the week, and in her family, shopping was something that happened after her dad got home on Fridays. Nita went over to the bread box on the counter, thinking that at least she could make a sandwich—but inside the bread box was only a crumpled-up bread wrapper, which, she saw when she opened it, contained one rather stale slice of bread between two heel pieces. “I hate those,” Nita muttered, wrapping up the bread again. She opened a cupboard over the counter, pulled down a peanut butter jar, and saw that the jar had been scraped almost clear inside. She rummaged around among various nondescript canned goods, but there was no soup or ravioli or any of the faster