Magic, Machines and the Awakening of Danny Searle

by John McWilliams

  “Of course I wore a helmet. Remember what Susan said about being too protective?”

  The line between our boats pulled taut. I glanced at my father, who looked as perplexed as I felt.

  “I remember, I remember.” David unhitched the line, and our boats drifted apart. “See you back on shore.”

  Without another word, my father filled his sail and they departed.

  David stared off at the horizon, our yellow and blue mainsail flapping in the wind.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” he said unconvincingly. He ran a hand across his forehead, pasting back his jet black hair. He looked down at the canvas. “Danny’s her own person now,” he muttered. “But—” He looked up at me, as if seeing me for the first time. “Aren’t you a little young for her?”

  “Aren’t you a little old?”

  He smiled and waved off the conversation. “Sorry, that’s none of my business.”

  “So, why is Danny so elusive about her past?”

  “Elusive?”

  “Secretive. I was hoping you might be able to tell me something about her.”

  “Me? Not me. And if I were you, I wouldn’t press her on it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because…” He sighed. “Tyler, things aren’t always the way they appear. Look, just accept her for who she is. That’s what I’ve learned to do.”

  “So you don’t know anything either?”

  “I didn’t say that.” He pushed on the jib boom, filled the sail and nosed us out of the wind.

  “Was she once a man?”

  “Just take the tiller.” He chuckled. “And let’s see if you can keep us out of the drink.”

  We crisscrossed the bay a few times, flying the hull, avoiding “the drink,” and finally headed in. By the time we made it to shore, David and I were joking about a motorboater who had attempted to cut us off.

  “As if we didn’t have the right of way,” I said.

  “Not when the official beer-can-slash-middle-finger signal is given. It’s the latest maritime law.”

  We lowered the sails and, trudging through the muddy water, tied off the 18 at the foot of the ramp. I coiled the dock lines the way my father preferred to see it done.

  “Your dad’s coming in awfully fast,” David said.

  We watched as the red and white 16 skipped toward us at breakneck speed. At the last second, my father de-powered the sail and swung the bow around. The girls lunged forward.

  “You’re all crazy,” Danny said as she and Ishana climbed off into the water. My father lowered the sails and David and I pulled the 16 up to the ramp.

  “I thought I was in need of a hot shower,” Ishana said to Danny, “but your lips are actually blue.”

  “Are they?”

  “They are,” I assured her, tasting my own briny lips. “We should get you up to the house.”

  Sloshing out of the water, I saw my mother and the twins coming down the back yard. My mother was wearing a red and blue Thinsulate ski jacket; the twins, white puffy coats, their black silken hair flowing out of their pink knit hats.

  “Hi, Danny!” The girls waved their mittened hands.

  “Hi, you two.” Danny’s teeth were chattering.

  “You’re all wet and sandy.” Tara stopped short and grimaced.

  “And your face is all red,” Jasmine added.

  “That’s because it’s freezing out there.” Danny touched Tara’s nose, and Tara stepped back, warming the spot with her mitten.

  “Touch mine,” Jasmine said, giggling as Danny did.

  “Did you have fun at least?” my mother asked.

  “Absolutely. I got to steer.”

  “Is that David over there?”

  At the water’s edge, my father was talking to David, pointing out something on the roller ramps.

  “That’s Danny’s boyfriend?” Tara asked.

  “Old boyfriend,” my mother clarified.

  “But we’re still good friends,” Danny said.

  “And, technically, he is a boy,” my mother said. “Okay, well, Danny, you’d better get yourself up to the house and into a hot shower. Use the one on the second floor across from the TV room. It has the best water pressure.”

  I went with Danny. She used the shower my mother recommended and I used the one downstairs by the laundry room.

  Twenty-five minutes later, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, drying my hair, I walked into the kitchen.

  “Come. Sit,” my mother said. The kitchen smelled of toasted bagels and coffee. She handed me a buttered bagel freshly popped from the toaster. I set the dish down.

  “How’d they get showered so fast?” I asked, referring to my father and David at the table—my father using his hands to describe some kind of acrobatic maneuver, David in a burgundy sweatshirt, hair neatly combed, attentively following along.

  “We used the outside shower,” David said, breaking away from his conversation with my father. “Aiden failed to mention it has no hot water.”

  “Who wants to ruin that wide-awake feeling with hot water?” my father said.

  “Everyone,” I replied.

  “We’re pretty certain Aiden is half polar bear,” my mother said, causing the twins, at the table playing Go Fish, to giggle.

  Danny, freshly showered and effortlessly sexy in her sweatpants and Sag Harbor sweatshirt, entered the kitchen running a brush through her hair. She muttered something about finding seaweed in her hair, and this caused the twin’s giggles to turn into a fit.

  My mother offered Danny a cup of herbal tea and a cinnamon bagel.

  “Can David do some magic now?” Tara asked. “Everyone’s here.”

  “Ishana isn’t.”

  “Gödel, Escher, Bach.” Danny read the cover of one of the books on the kitchen island. She leafed through it. “Strange,” she muttered.

  “What’s strange?” my father asked. “Have you read it?”

  “GEB by Douglas Hofstadter,” she said, appearing transfixed by the pages. “It’s like I remember it, but I don’t remember actually reading it.”

  “That happens to me all the time,” my father said.

  “But you’re old,” I quipped.

  “And you’re in the way of my breakfast.”

  I turned to see my mother standing there with a plate of scrambled eggs and a toasted everything bagel.

  “Why do you always do the domestic stuff?” I asked, moving aside.

  “I like doing the domestic stuff. You think I should sit at the table with the boys just to prove I can?” She brought over the pot of coffee and refilled my father’s cup. “Who cleared the ramps this morning and rigged the boats? The dudes, that’s who.”

  “But you didn’t even go sailing.”

  “Not this morning, no—but a hundred other times.” She looked at me. “It’s not about keeping score, Tyler. I like to do these things, and your dad likes to crawl around out there in the mud. I call it strength through diversity.”

  I shook my head. My parents are so weird.

  “Danny, why don’t you sit down?” David pulled a chair out for her at the table. She brought the book over, still leafing through it.

  “Can David do some magic now?” Tara asked as Ishana entered the room.

  My mother handed Ishana a cup of tea and directed her to the table. No doubt my father would be getting an earful about this later. And, I wondered, was this—the opportunity to cause a little friction—another reason my mother was so willing to play homemaker? Not the main reason, perhaps, but, as my father would say, it certainly had to be a perk.

  “Everyone’s here,” the twins pleaded. “Can we see some magic now?”

  “You two certainly are anxious,” David said, smiling at my mother. “So, what kind of magic would you like to see?”

  “Real magic.”

  “That’s good, because that’s the only kind of magic I know.” He glanced at Danny, who was sipping her tea. “Danny believes that the entir
e universe is magic. And she’s pretty smart.”

  “She’s really smart,” the girls agreed.

  “Danny believes that the difference between magic and science is that science is about the way things usually behave, and magic is about the way things usually don’t. So—” He brushed Jasmine’s hair aside and pulled an egg from her ear. “If I were to let this egg go and it floated…” He held the egg out, and it appeared to float an inch below his fingers. “That would be magic. On the other hand, if the egg fell…” The egg hit the table and cracked. “That would be science.” David carefully picked up the egg and placed it on a saucer. He wiped the table with a napkin.

  “Now, watch again.” He pulled another egg from Tara’s ear and held it out, letting it float below his fingers as before. “In a world where eggs stayed right where you put them, this would be science. And this”—the egg hit the table—“would be magic.

  “But actually, doesn’t the egg hitting the table seem more like magic? I mean, the egg just suddenly threw itself against the table.”

  The girls laughed. “It’s gravity,” their voices rang out.

  “Really? Have you ever seen gravity?”

  The girls looked at our father.

  “Actually, he’s right,” my father said. “We only see the effects of gravity.”

  “And this is what Danny says is the job of magicians,” David said. “They remind us of how magical the world really is. You see, just because there are rules, doesn’t mean there isn’t magic.”

  “And yet,” my father said, picking up the saucer with the cracked eggs on it, “I bet there are now two less eggs in my refrigerator.”

  “That is possible,” David said, “But—” He went over to the refrigerator and returned with a carton of Farmers Fresh eggs. He opened them. “Well, at least this carton is full.” He looked at the girls. “What kind of magic do you think we could do with an entire carton of eggs?”

  “Make them float!” Tara blurted.

  “Make them disappear!” Jasmine added.

  “Well, we already made the eggs float, so, okay, let’s make the carton disappear.” David asked Danny for her scarf, which she made appear, never taking her eyes off the book she couldn’t remember reading.

  David draped the scarf over the carton and, before it could even settle, whisked it away.

  The carton was gone, and in its place: a large, red brick.

  “Oh my goodness.” My mother gasped.

  We all clapped.

  David stared at the brick and rubbed his chin. “I had intended for the eggs to vanish, but where did this brick come from?” He looked at the girls. “Were either of you thinking of bricks? Or perhaps something made out of bricks?”

  “I was thinking about a fireplace,” Tara said.

  “Me too,” Jasmine added enthusiastically.

  “Their magical powers are becoming quite strong,” David said to Danny.

  “I told you. They’re smart and they’re twins.”

  “Well.” David pushed his chair back and hoisted the brick up to his shoulder. “A dirty old brick like this certainly doesn’t belong in the house.”

  “The door’s the other way.” My father pointed with his thumb.

  “I just thought I’d throw it out the window.” David drew the brick back like a football.

  I glanced at the closed bay window—have I missed something?

  David threw the brick.

  My father ducked, we all cringed, and the brick hit the glass.

  The drapes fluttered, but…

  The window was fine.

  The brick, it seemed, had passed right through it.

  David dusted off his hands and sat down.

  We all stared at him in silence.

  “How in the world—that was amazing.” My mother clapped, and we all followed suit.

  “Now that was really, real magic,” Tara said.

  “But, if the brick did actually go through, it should be outside, right?” I went to the window.

  “That’s true.” My father turned around in his chair and looked out the window. “I think I see it.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  My mother and Ishana crowded in next to me.

  “There,” my father said.

  “Is that it?” Ishana pointed at a lump in the grass.

  “That’s the cat,” my father said. “It’s right over there.” He jabbed at the window.

  “No way,” I muttered.

  “Where are you going?” David asked.

  “To see for myself.”

  “You want me to go? I’m wearing a sweatshirt.”

  “Oh, no, no, I’ll be fine.” I stepped out the door.

  At the end of a short skid mark in the fallow grass, I found the brick. Or, should I say, a brick. I knelt down and touched it. Holy crap. It can’t be more than forty degrees out here and this thing is warm—warm as the kitchen.

  I looked toward the Hobie Cats tied up in the water. My father must have helped David set this up. They must have heated this thing in the oven, knowing that I’d eventually ask the obvious.

  So, now these two are conspiring together. Great.

  When I returned to the kitchen, David was at the counter, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

  “Find it?” he asked.

  “A close relative, anyway.” I handed it to my mother. She was at the table with Danny, Ishana and my father. The twins had gone off to the library to feed the kittens.

  “I thought you didn’t want Tara and Jasmine brought up gullible.” I looked at my father.

  “Your mother and I have decided to let them explore their fantasies and draw their own conclusions.”

  “They’re smart; they’ll figure it out.” My mother rested the brick on a placemat.

  “What’s interesting,” my father said, “is how easily they fooled themselves. When David asked them if either had imagined a brick, or something made out of bricks, they both claimed they had. And they believed it because, if they had, they were the ones who were responsible for the magic behind the brick’s appearance. They altered their memories in order to create a desired reality.”

  “They’re just little,” I said.

  “But we adults did the same thing. None of us saw the brick go through the window, and yet that’s the way we remember it. We watched David go through the motions—”

  “But we heard it hit,” my mother interrupted. “And I’d swear I felt glass hit me.”

  “We heard what sounded like a brick hitting the window. The windowpane rattled, the drapes fluttered, and even the lamp swung—all the result of David’s special-effects devices.

  “Of course, he never threw the brick in the first place. Everything, other than a few noises and peripheral movements, was produced by your subconscious mind. That’s what the subconscious does: it makes sense of sensory data. And if the information coming in is incomplete or confusing, well, it patches things together the best it can—which is why witnesses at accident and crime scenes can be so wrong.”

  “Then how can we ever trust anything we see?” I asked.

  “Because, unlike the twins, who still believe what they saw, we adults have the power of skepticism.”

  “Then shouldn’t we be teaching them to be skeptical?”

  “Those two will become skeptical soon enough,” my mother said.

  “But isn’t that the problem?” Danny said. “That’s their choice: believe in magic or believe in some kind of heartless, mechanistic world. I think science needs better packaging.”

  “What do you mean by packaging?” my mother asked.

  “In Of Consciousness and Machines, Aiden showed how the brain initially learns by simple observation—a child sees that rocks fall, balls fall, and spoons fall, and soon a belief is formed that ‘unsupported things fall.’ That’s what I consider a belief without packaging. It’s a belief free of explanation. Free of words. The child probably isn’t even aware he possesses this belief. To him, it’s simply
the way the world works.

  “But later, once he learns about gravity in school, that’s when the idea becomes packaged. His belief about falling objects becomes wrapped in a statement about gravity, which is wrapped in statements about the laws of motion, which are wrapped in statements about the laws of physics. So now, things don’t just fall, gravity causes them to fall. And that’s not the same world. It’s a world wrapped in a scientific package.”

  “The Quinean package of which you speak is keeping you warm right now,” my father said.

  “I’m not minimizing the importance of science. But, as David demonstrated with those floating eggs earlier, isn’t it odd that if not for the sake of things being predictable, everything would be considered magic? If this teacup, for example, always stayed hot, that would be considered magic—but only until someone changed the current scientific laws to include this cup. Then the magic would be gone and my teacup would be forever wrapped in the cold hard facts of science.”

  “Yes, and because it’s now wrapped in those cold, hard facts,” my father said, “we’d now be able to understand its unusual thermal characteristics and build huge, teacup-powered power plants.”

  “But why cold and hard?” Danny stared at him. “Doesn’t it seem kind of unscientific to personify facts as cold and hard?”

  “It’s just an expression. It just means that nature, when it comes to the facts, can be pretty unforgiving. As a scientist, ignore the facts at your own peril.”

  “But why can’t you just admit that science is the study of a magical world that just happens to be consistent and logical?”

  “Danny, there’s no proof that the world is magical.” My father got up from the table and headed over to the coffeemaker.

  “Are you kidding?” Danny followed. “The proof is all around you…”

  My mother, David, Ishana and I exchanged glances as my father and Danny continued their debate.

  “All right then,” my mother said at last. She got up to go check on the twins.

  A minute later, Ishana went over to my father and Danny and interrupted them with a proposed plan to see the Christmas show at the Gateway Playhouse in Bellport.

  I sat alone with David at the table.

  “Those two are quite a pair,” he said, referring to my father and Danny.

  I shrugged.