Blue Magic Hair Grease
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Magic is real. It’s just not the magic that you want to believe in or the magic I wanted to believe in when I was young. Magic is what happens after a spell has been cast and it doesn’t work like that at all—it’s too much like the universe we see every day, with its cold laws and unending logic; it can never be the kind of thing a wizard would understand.
If you ever meet up with your old teacher from Hogwarts, tell him that for me, will you?
I’ve learned some tricks in my time, though, which are worth knowing about.
The most important is this: if you have to do a spell that requires a lot of energy and concentration, don’t try to hold it for more than one or two hours, because if you’re out too long and you suddenly get hit by something else happening around you, that might knock the whole thing sideways, and it’ll be ruined right there.
You could also end up with an extra head if you’re unlucky enough, but those people usually go into hiding as soon as they get out of bed; it’s nothing to worry about. So you can figure on having to come up for air pretty often during casting, even if you can keep things stable the whole while, and then you’ll need to take whatever comes next before you can start over again.
It’s really quite easy once you know how.
When I was a kid, though, the biggest problem was always being able to remember what you’d done wrong last time so you knew where to put in a correction. Now, though, with computers and the internet and such, wizards use software called spellcheckers.
They’re simple programs that run off your computer keyboard, and they check each letter in your spell as you type it. You just click on them and they do their business, and you never have to worry about whether you’ve spelled something the same way twice in a row.
So, anyway, when I first saw a spellchecker, I figured, why not? I used Spellchecker Plus. When it came back to me saying that the spell should be reversed—”Cum-Bucko!” it said, and “No, no,” I thought, that looks right; I’m going to give it a go.
The only trouble was when I clicked on its advice, the damned spell changed completely. It became something entirely different. And that was the moment when I found that spells didn’t obey your commands the way you expected them to, either.
So now you won’t hear any more of this nonsense about the magic word. You just make sure that you’ve got a clear idea of what you’re doing and then you do it, regardless of anything anyone tells you.
***
The Great Wall
There’s a wall, and there’s a river. That’s where everything begins. We’ve been living beside that wall since the time of our ancestors. But the Wall wasn’t always there; it’s just grown up out of the ground, and you can’t say exactly when or how it happened.
It isn’t made of stones, although sometimes it seems to feel solid enough to be real stone. There aren’t many trees on the other side, but there are lots of birds and small animals and insects. Sometimes the wind makes them whistle. Sometimes, if we look closely, we see tiny little people moving around on the other side. They’re very shy.
But we haven’t seen anyone crossing the Wall, not for hundreds of years. People talk about crossing it, though; some people actually do cross it and come back, with stories about what they saw. It’s dangerous to try. No one really knows what happens to a person who tries to step across and gets caught in between. The Wall keeps us safe. It guards against the outside world.
That’s what they say—that’s what I’ve always believed. But recently there have been rumors. People claim to have seen lights on the other side, far off in the distance. A man says he heard strange noises coming from over there. One family has lost all their sheep.
They say there were strangers among them at night, whispering to themselves in voices we don’t recognize; their faces were hidden under hoods. Other people say it’s just an old wives’ tale, that nothing is really wrong.
I’m not afraid. It’s just another kind of fear I know well. I’ve lived with it my whole life, in every part of my world. I grew up believing it wouldn’t ever stop. And it doesn’t. Not yet.
And yet, there’s a part of me that thinks it will. That says it’s all an illusion, like what I see inside the Wall whenever I go to visit Grandfather. It’s only a trick of light or sound, a story we tell ourselves to make sense of things that are hard to understand. If I could find the words, I would tell him about it.
He’s too old to travel these days; he stays home and watches the Wall from the window of his room in the west wing, and I go on ahead of the rest of the family on the wagon. He doesn’t want to leave. His heart isn’t strong enough for the journey anymore, and neither is mine.
But the Wall is changing, growing taller, and the forest is spreading wider; we don’t know what might come creeping through the trees after us.
As we approach the Wall, the horses start shaking. I put my hand down to pat their necks to calm them, and I realize that I’m holding onto my father’s walking stick instead. It’s still warm from where he touched it; his fingers had slipped off, but he hadn’t quite let go yet.
“Father?” I whisper because that’s what he used to call himself before I knew he was Father, long ago when he was my teacher.
His voice is thin and weak, but it sounds close by.
“Don’t speak,” he says. “Let’s watch quietly.”
We stand in front of the Wall for a while, watching the shadows move on the other side. Then a horse rears up and kicks out, and we run away, toward the forest. It’s only a game, and I never get hurt, even though it scares me sometimes. I wish the others were here with us; maybe they’ll think it’s fun and follow us, but they’re probably busy talking about what they’ll eat for dinner once we arrive.
It’s almost dark when we reach the edge of the woods. There’s no sign of any travelers, but the air feels different: warmer and damper than before, and a faint scent of water hangs in the air.
“Do we wait until dawn, then?” Dad asks and laughs as he realizes he hasn’t spoken aloud in years. I shake my head.
“No—we’ve got to be ready before then.”
Dad takes another drink from his flask of water. We’re going to need it.
The Wall is getting closer now; we can smell its earthy tang, and feel the vibrations of its stones through our legs and feet. I wonder why we don’t hear a sound when we pass through it, and remember something I saw once in a book.
It talked about people trapped on the other side of the Wall, left behind by friends and enemies. It said sometimes those people died because they didn’t belong on either side anymore; sometimes they came back home and started living among us again, but more often they stayed over there and kept dying.
I’m trying hard not to think about the people who stay over there.
“You ready?” I ask Dad and nod at the wagon.
“I am, but not you—you look pale, my dear.”
I force myself to smile and take another step forward, pushing my way into the forest. We walk slowly, and carefully, listening for sounds that aren’t ours. It’s hard not to think about everything else we should be doing besides waiting around in the woods for nothing to happen, but I manage to push most of my worries away.
Then we hear them: shouts in the distance cries echoing through the trees and over the hills. Someone is calling for help.
“Run!” whispers Dad, and we break for the Wall again, leaving the forest far behind us.
The Wall looms before us now, a black and the featureless line stretching across the night sky. The wagon is still where I left it, sitting in the middle of the grass.
We cross quickly, running as fast as we can. Once again, we don’t speak aloud. I try not to think about how close it looks, and how tall it is already. We’re going to have to get past this thing soon; if we don’t hurry, someone might notice and send us packing right off this cliff without giving it a chance.
My father is breathing hard, wheezing with each breath; his chest barely moves when he exhales. I put my hand on his arm to reassure him, but he shakes it off, so we just keep running. We’re close enough to the wall now that we can hear the shouts and screams coming from somewhere nearby.
Something grabs my ankle, pulls me to the ground, and knocks the wind out of me. My head spins and all I can do is lie there and stare up at the stars. For a moment, I don’t feel any pain, or fear, or anything else, because my senses are gone—my eyes closed and my mind empty, like when I first found myself in the woods.
And then something cold touches my face and a voice says, “Hello, darling”—a woman’s voice, but unfamiliar to me—and her hands reach down and pick me up.
I know she’s a witch, because she doesn’t say a word before she speaks to me, and she carries a staff, which makes her an old one. Her skin is smooth, and her hair is long and white like hers always is in pictures of witches. But I’ve never seen a witch before; she has to be an impostor.
“Come with me, sweetie,” says the witch, and holds me tight against her body as we fly upward into the starry sky.
***
We’re standing outside the Wall now. The sun is rising, and a cool breeze blows past us. There’s a small crowd waiting for us, and a lot of confused faces looking down from above. The witch walks straight ahead of me; I can see my family and some of the others staring up from within the Wall. A few are trying to wave, but their hands are shaking too badly.
“They’ll figure it out soon enough,” she whispers in my ear and sets me gently down near the edge of the Wall. Then she goes on to the rest of us, touching each face and making sure we’re okay.
“Good morning, love,” she tells Dad and gives him a kiss. His eyes are wide, but he nods.
She smiles at Mom and kisses her forehead. The two women hug each other for several seconds before they let go. I watch in silence, unable to stop my heart from pounding as we stand together waiting for what comes next.
And then Dad starts to laugh and tears come to his eyes. “What’s so funny?” asks the witch, and looks back over her shoulder toward the Wall.
He points at me and says, “Look! They finally came home.”
Mom smiles laugh softly, and says, “It was worth the wait.”
A chill runs down my spine at the words. She really did mean to send them back here after all, didn’t she?
But then her smile fades, and she turns to find the witch standing behind her, and she reaches around to give me an awkward hug and whispers in my ear, “Don’t worry, my dear. Your father’s got a good head on his shoulders.” Then she pats my shoulder and steps away.
“You know I wouldn’t send them anywhere without giving you fair warning,” says the witch, and smiles as she glances at all of us. “So tell me, are they ready for this?”
Everyone nods, and I’m so relieved that I could cry.
“Okay, then let’s get started,” she says and lifts her staff over her head. The end begins to glow and then brighten until it lights up the entire world.
For a moment, nothing happens; we stay exactly where we are and look up at the Wall, wondering why it isn’t glowing too. And then, suddenly, it does. A huge ball of light shoots outward from its center, expanding and spreading like a flower unfurling its petals in bloom.
It stretches high into the sky and then disappears in an instant. And when the darkness returns to replace it once more, a single person sits atop the Wall: A man whose features I cannot distinguish. He’s wearing a long white robe with black sleeves and a golden crown resting upon his brow; it almost looks like the symbol of a king.
The witch lowers her staff, puts her hands together, and says, “Welcome home, everyone.”
The End