Read Online The Wizard Returns: Book Three of the Wizard Born Series by Geof Johnson - Free Book Online

time so that it flew in a tight spiral, streaking through the air. Rollie zipped down the yard after it, and Jamie felt a magical tingle. Rollie grabbed the ball at the last instant, just before the clubhouse, and turned back toward him.
    “Well?” Rollie said.
    “I felt it that time,” Jamie said with a nod. He turned to Bryce. “Did you get that?”
    Bryce pressed a button on the camera and focused intently on the display. Then he gave a thumb’s up.
    “One more time for good measure,” Jamie said.
    “Aw, man, I wanna go home and shower,” Rollie said.
    “We need to be sure.”
    Jamie and Rollie returned to the front end of the yard and repeated the process, only this time Jamie propelled the ball faster.
    The tingle was stronger.
    After Rollie caught the ball, Jamie said, “That’s good. Let’s go inside and watch it.”
    Jamie turned in his seat at the computer in his family room and looked at Rollie and Bryce, standing behind him, both with glum looks. Jamie’s mother stood nearby, arms crossed, eyes filled with concern.
    Rollie gave his head a tight shake. “ Got to be something wrong with the camera. Check the wires again.”
    “No, there’s not.” Jamie gestured at the rented device sitting on the desk next to the monitor, a thin green wire snaking out of it to the computer tower. “This is exactly what I see when I watch you with my magic vision. You blur, disappear, and reappear a step or two farther away.”
    “Then why don’t I see it that way?” Bryce said.
    “I think it’s like a cartoon. Animators don’t draw every part of an action, like when a character swings a bat or something. They draw the bat in starting position, then maybe again at halfway, and then they draw the completed motion. Our minds fill in the gap. Rollie’s moving so fast that we don’t see the missing parts. It looks like one smooth run. Fast, but smooth.”
    Rollie rubbed his forehead with the heel of one hand and closed his eyes. “This can’t be magic. It just can’t . If my dad finds out....”
    “He won’t find out, Rollie,” Jamie’s mother said. “We’ve been keeping Jamie’s magic a secret from your dad for a while, and now Fred’s magic, too. It’ll be okay.”
    “What am I going to do about basketball, then?”
    Jamie pressed the side of his face with one hand and regarded his worried friend. “We need to talk about that.”
    * * *
    Carl sat down next to Rachel on the couch in their family room, picked up the TV remote and tapped the mute button. “Jamie, why aren’t you at Fred’s on a Saturday night?”
    “She’s still mad at me.” He was slouched in the recliner, eyes half-lidded, jaw tight.
    “About Rollie?”
    “She thinks I should have left well enough alone.”
    “It’s not well enough if Rollie has magic,” Rachel said. “But are you really sure it’s him doing it, and not some...I don’t know, by-product of your power?”
    “It’s him. I’m certain of it.”
    “Have you figured out how he’s doing whatever he’s doing?”
    Jamie shook his head, glanced at his parents, and turned his gaze back to the muted TV. “I don’t know what it could be. He’s not translocating, and he’s not making doorways. It’s something else, maybe something new. It’s like he’s taking shortcuts or something. It’s strange.”
    Carl rubbed under his jaw with his thumb. “How could he do it if he doesn’t know anything about magic?”
    “Well....” Jamie scrunched his face up thoughtfully. “Eddan had this theory he called the Magic of Necessity. He thought that if a wizard had sufficient innate power, and the need was strong enough, like he was falling off a cliff or something, he’d find a way to call forth the required magic to save his life, or whatever.”
    “Rollie wasn’t falling off a cliff.”
    “No, but he really wants to be good at basketball, and he’s not tall enough, so he compensates by being faster than everybody else. And the faster he goes, the better