The Loblolly Boy and the Sorcerer by James Norcliffe

the loblolly boy could see the beautifully chiselled detail, the fine carved lines suggesting the texture of hair, the delicate sharpness of ivory teeth in a grinning ivory mouth.
    Then the busker clasped his large hand over the rat.
    ‘Now you see it … Now you don’t!’ he whispered in his deeply modulated voice.
    He opened his hand and the rat had vanished.
    Looking right through the loblolly boy, so that the boy couldn’t know whether he’d been seen or not, the busker gave a thin, satisfied smile and stepped back again.
    Thoroughly frightened, the loblolly boy looked around for his father who had been standing a metre or so to his left.
    To his despair, he realised that his father had gone. He looked desperately about the thinning crowd and up and down the footpath, but his father was nowhere in sight.
    Like the ivory rat, he had disappeared.
3
    The street corner was suddenly darker and almost deserted. The loblolly boy felt furious with himself. The one thing he’d promised to do — keep his father in sight — had been betrayed. Everything had fallen apart. What was the phrase? Turned to custard.
    He could understand the darkness: a large appropriate cloud had spread across the sky, but he couldn’t quite understand why there were now only two people on the street corner: himself and the strange busker.
    The man, who had been bending over to place his violin back into its case, stood up once more. Now that the busker was no longer bending or crouched over to play his fiddle, the loblolly boy could see how tall and thin he really was. He looked at him sourly, for in some obscure way he blamed the busker for the loss of his father.
    For all that, the busker gave no sign of acknowledgement and the loblolly boy remained unsure whether he was even aware of his existence.
    He couldn’t resist demanding of him though: ‘Why did you do that?’
    ‘Do what?’ asked the busker in an amused voice.
    That settled one thing. The busker could hear him. He’d suspected as much anyway.
    ‘You sent my father away. Why did you do that?’
    The busker turned towards him and if there had ever been any doubt it was now washed away completely.
    ‘It seemed an interesting thing to do.’ The busker smiled bleakly.
    ‘Interesting?’ said the loblolly boy. ‘Did you know how important it was that I find my father?’
    ‘Of course,’ said the busker.
    ‘Then why did you do it?’
    The tall man laughed lightly. ‘Why not?’
    ‘You had to have a reason!’
    ‘Did I? Well, try this. I did it to make the plot of your life a little more complicated, a little more challenging.’
    The loblolly boy stared at him in amazement. ‘Don’t you think,’ he demanded, ‘that it’s complicated and challenging enough already?’
    ‘How much is enough?’ asked the busker dryly. ‘Anyway,’ he added, ‘you were warned about me, weren’t you?’
    ‘I was?’
    ‘You seemed to know about the song,’ said the busker. ‘I suppose the ridiculous Captain Bass taught you it.’
    The loblolly boy stared at him. Again he cursed his own stupidity.
    ‘That’s right,’ said the busker. ‘Some people call me the Sorcerer. I’m very pleased to meet you.’
4
    The loblolly boy nodded slowly. He was not sure he could say he was very pleased to meet the Sorcerer in return,especially when the Sorcerer added, ‘Very pleased, indeed. I sense we’re going to have a lot of fun together.’
    The loblolly boy couldn’t imagine how he could have any sort of fun with this tall, forbidding creature.
    ‘Well, little loblolly boy,’ said the Sorcerer, sweeping back his hair with his free hand, ‘you know, I’m hungry and feeling thirsty after all that activity. Will you join me for a meal?’
    ‘I’ll come with you, if you like,’ said the loblolly boy. ‘But you know I can’t eat or drink.’
    ‘Ah, yes … My little mistake. No gustatory pleasures for you, are there little loblolly boy?’
    The loblolly boy had only a rough idea what