by Paul Gallico
And Jane had to think hard about that, too.
“What do you see just across the valley?” Adam asked her.
“A herd of cows,” Jane replied.
“Oh no,” Adam said. “Not at all. A whole field full of magicians.”
“Magicians?” The child stared at him.
Adam plucked a handful of the sweet, green grass growing where they sat. He said, “In Mageia they can turn wine into water, no doubt, or water into wine, or at least make it seem so. But those great wizards over there can change this into milk, from which comes cream, butter, cheese for us to eat and drink and grow on.”
Even from across the valley they could see the full udders swinging low between the legs of the herd. “And nothing up their sleeves,” Adam smiled. “You can see it happening before your very eyes. Still, no one really knows how they do it. That’s real magic, Jane.”
The little girl looked at him and there was a new kind of trust in her eyes. “Is it truly, Adam?” she whispered back. “Can we see any more magicians?”
“Oh, yes indeed,” Adam replied. “That farm is a regular magic house. Just full of hocus-pocus. See down there, for instance, pecking and clucking in the yard.”
“What?” said Jane with scorn in her voice. “Chickens? They’re the silliest creatures!”
“On the contrary,” said Adam, “great conjurers. I put the egg together again, after it was broken, but I couldn’t make one.” He pointed once more dramatically, “They can. And out of them come omelettes and cakes and noodles, not to mention those little, yellow, fluffy balls of newly hatched chicks that you see running to their mothers. But even though you scolded and cried, or stamped your foot, they wouldn’t and couldn’t tell you how they do it.”
The two were standing together now, side by side and Jane’s eyes were roving the valley life with excitement.
“And what about that fat, old lady magician rolling in the mud down there?” Adam continued, with a nod of his head towards the sow in the pig pen. “She eats swill and, ibbety-bibbety-alakazam, she can be changed into more useful objects than you can name: shoes, pocketbooks, suitcases, wallets, brushes to keep your hair straight and neat, pork chops, gammon, sausages, shortening and goodness knows what else.”
“What about the sheep over there?” Jane asked, “They don’t do anything.”
“You mean the wool-making warlocks?” Adam replied. “Oh yes they do, but of course a good deal has to happen to it before you can button it up under your chin in the form of an overcoat, against the winter storms. But only they know how to deliver the raw material and they aren’t telling, either.”
There came a humming close by as a honeybee wavered in its erratic flight to probe into the petals of a purple clover blossom, before buzzing away.
Adam whipped one hand smartly to his forehead.
“What are you doing that for?” Jane asked.
“To salute one of the greatest masters of them all—the messenger of love between the flowers. They bring new life to shrubs and blossoms many miles apart and at the same time they practically throw away another little trick which they hardly notice, it comes so easily to them.”
“Honey!” cried Jane, clapping her hands with delight that she had guessed.
“Honey indeed,” Adam concurred, “And there isn’t a human being living who could make a solitary drop of honey, or the combs in which to store it.”
Jane begged, “More, please. Do go on.”
“Why,” said Adam, “there’s so much about, one hardly knows where to begin. For instance, the pond down there.”
“The ducks and geese?”
“Only minor sorcerers and pillow-stuffers, compared to what goes on below the surface.”
“What happens there?” Jane asked.
“Chockablock with magic,” Adam replied. “Did you know there’s a whole universe of creatures in every single drop of water in that pond? Some day when you’re a little older, you’ll look through a microscope and see the millions of little animals that live with us in this world, invisible to the naked eye. Besides which, I’ll wager there are hundreds of tadpoles swimming around down there.”
“Oh, those . . .”
“Yes, but what a marvelous, magical performance. They start off as an egg, turn into a fish with a tail, then grow legs and lungs, come out of the water onto the land and turn into frogs. You can hear them croaking by the pond side.”
“But that’s real, honest-to-goodness, changing magic, isn’t it?” cried Jane. “That’s the hardest thing to do.”
“Oh, is it changing magic you like?” Adam said. “Then see here,” he picked up a twig and bending down, retrieved from between the blades of grass a small, green caterpillar which showed its indignation by rearing up and waving half a dozen of its legs at them. Simultaneously a lemon-yellow butterfly with black spots on its wings came floating, drifting, zigzagging and skimming the tops of the field flowers to settle on a buttercup.
“Hocus-pocus,” said Adam.
Jane looked puzzled. “I don’t understand.”
“Our angry, green friend will change into that,” and Adam pointed as the butterfly sailed off lazily to another bloom. “Oh, and there’s an even prettier bit of enchantment,” he continued. “Look quickly—him!”
Him was a dragonfly, its diaphanous wings shining like diamonds, emeralds and mother-of-pearl as it hovered for a moment in the sunshine before their eyes, exquisite as a fairy, before flying off over the treetops. “He came from a little brown grub.”
Leaning against a small boulder a dozen or so yards away, still pretending to sleep and producing loud snores, Ninian was in a perfect fever of excitement. For he was certain that in a moment now, Adam would be revealing to Jane exactly how he achieved his astonishing effects. He hardly dared look in case he should be caught eavesdropping and so he kept squinting at them occasionally, from beneath almost closed eyelids which made for a rather blurry effect, but Ninian was determined not to miss anything. Mopsy slept on.
Adam raised his arms and his face had become transfixed. “Wherever you look,” he cried, “earth magic, water magic, fire magic, sky magic. See that cloud up there, just over the hill? The one that looks like a hippopotamus?”
“You mean the elephant?”
“It has turned into an elephant, hasn’t it? And now it’s changing into a kind of polar bear.”
“No, it isn’t. It’s a seal,” and Jane laughed with delight. “But I never thought of that as magic!” she cried.
“Hadn’t you?” Adam said. “What about when it becomes dark, swollen and angry, shoots forth lightning flashes, rattles the dishes with thunder and pours out bucket after bucket of rain? it’s the same cloud, you know.”
“I used to be afraid of thunder,” Jane said. “I won’t be any more, if it’s just a magic cloud.”
“And when the sun sets,” said Adam, “then the night magic spreads out above your head; worlds and universes a-borning and a-dying-stars and planets and galaxies. And the bigger the telescopes they can make, and the farther into the beyond they are able to penetrate, the greater grows the mystery.”
They fell silent for a little. Jane toyed with a tiny field flower growing at her side, a miniature daisy. She touched it gently with her fingers to see how it was made and looked upon it with eyes that were opened as they had never been before.
“And then,” Adam concluded, “there’s still the ‘You’ magic.”
“The ‘Me’ magic? I don’t understand.”
“Close your eyes,” Adam said.
Jane obediently screwed them tightly shut.
“Now, think of another place—say, where you were once happy.”
“The sea shore! I loved it. Mummy, Daddy, Peter and I went when we were small.”
“What was it like?” Adam asked.
“Lots of sand and running away from the waves breaking onto the beach, so as not to let them wet our feet. We had buckets and spades and I built a castle and Pete
r spoiled it. Oh, and the color of the sea, the way it smelled and the sound it makes.”
“You’re there now, aren’t you?” said Adam.
“Yes,” Jane replied.
“Open your eyes!”
Jane did so.
“And now you’re here,” said Adam. “But you’ve just made a trip of many hundreds of miles.”
She stared at him.
Adam gently touched her forehead with a long finger. “It’s all inside there, Jane, like a box with many compartments. Each one you can call upon for anything you want or desire. It contains the greatest magic of all. It can carry you into the past, or let you imagine the future. It can help to make you well when you’re sick and make bad things good. Everything that men or women have ever accomplished has come out of that miraculous box. When you use it properly it enables you to think of or create things that no one has ever done before, even the way to the stars.”
“Will it help me to become a magician?” asked practical Jane. “Better than my brother Peter, or even Daddy?”
“Yes,” said Adam.
“How?”
“There are compartments just for that called, ‘I Can,’ and ‘I Will.’ When you have learned to unlock them, the strong magic will help you to move mountains.”
“But Daddy says I can’t, that I’m stupid. And I’m always dropping things.”
“That’s because you’ve never used all the wonders you have packed away inside there,” and he gently tapped her brow once more. “No one really ever has.”
Jane murmured to herself, “I can and I will.”
“Abracadabra!” said Adam. “Now close your eyes again and tell me what you see.”
Jane gasped. “Me! Doing the trick with the little red balls, but better than Peter or Daddy ever did it and they’re watching me and clapping their hands.”
“It’s the imagining magic beginning to work. Now all you have to do is make it come true.”
“Oh, Adam,” Jane cried, opening her eyes and throwing her arms about his neck, “I love you! I do believe you. You are an honest-to-goodness, real magician, aren’t you?”
Then, as though frightened by her own temerity, she drew back, looking up into the face of the red-haired stranger which, for an instant, was filled with a kind of faraway mystery and at the same time, an unusual tenderness.
But before he could reply there was a disturbance. Mopsy’s little body began to twitch and shake and squeaky, unhappy noises came from him, even though he was still asleep.
“I’m afraid he’s probably having a bad dream,” Adam said. “We’d better wake him.”
Jane went over and stroked him gently.
Mopsy stopped shaking, awoke with a start and cried, “Help! They’re chasing me! A whole lot of men.” Then seeing Jane close to him, he leaped straight into her arms and began to squirm and lick her face frantically.
“It was a bad dream,” Adam declared. “He said he was being chased.”
Holding Mopsy close to her, Jane felt happier than she had ever before in her life. That moment of mystery had passed when she had looked up into Adam’s face and he had appeared like someone not of the world she knew. But something of it still remained—something unspoken between them that she felt, and a new trust In him. Although she was a child, she was aware of a change that had taken place in her life, that somehow thereafter nothing would ever be quite the same again.
And poor, muddled Ninian, still feigning sleep, too felt that something odd had happened and it brought a little, green-eyed monster to sit upon his shoulder and whisper into his ear, “They’re in league together, the two of them. They’ve left you out of it. She’s learned something while you weren’t looking, that you don’t know, and probably never will.”
For the truth was that for all his gentleness, Ninian wasn’t very bright or he would have been a better magician. And being human, too, he was prey to jealousy. He now made a great show of waking up with an, “Ah . . . Ho . . . Oof . . . Hmmmmmm! I must have been asleep. Well, well!” He stretched his creaking joints upon the ground, sat up and looked fuzzily about him.
Jane ran to him, crying, “Oh, Ninian, what do you think? While you’ve been asleep, Adam’s been teaching me to be magic.”
And Ninian, of course, misunderstanding, felt even more out of it, but had to pretend to be pleased, saying, “How splendid!” and, “What a lucky girl you are,” and other remarks of the same nature, which were not entirely sincere.
Thereafter a silence fell upon the three, as though something had gone out of the gay party that had been and even Mopsy had nothing to say for the moment, but sat looking up at Adam with his head cocked to one side.
Adam arose to all his lanky height and gazed towards the westering sun and the far horizon. His gay spirit seemed to have fallen prey to some momentary sadness. He said, “I think perhaps we’d best go home. The picnic is over.”
Only Jane noticed that the dishes, the tablecloth and the napkins were not there on the ground and when she picked up the basket, it was empty of whatever had been in it. But the fact no longer disturbed her, so thrilled and bemused was she by the new kind of magic Adam had shown her. It wasn’t until they descended the hill and were already some distance from the farm that Jane cried, “Adam, you’ve forgotten your staff. You left it under the tree.”
“Why, so I have,” the magician said, smiling. The shadow that had fallen upon him fleetingly appeared to have lifted. “Oh well, if I succeed tonight perhaps I shan’t be needing it any more.”
The return of his buoyancy lifted Jane’s heart too. For his remark seemed to promise that he might be remaining in Mageia and there was so much more she hoped to learn from him. Confidently she took Adam’s hand and skipped happily beside him in the direction of home.
XIV
THE GATHERING STORM
“What trick will you perform tonight, Ninian?” Adam inquired on the way.
The tall magician did not dare reply that he had been hoping to find something to match his mysterious production of the goldfish bowl by spying upon Jane and Adam. Instead he said, “I’ve a little routine which is very amusing. That is, when it works. I begin with the flag and handkerchiefs, then do the billiard balls and the flowerpots. I may try the Chinese rings, and I finish up by taking a live rabbit out of my silk hat. I had a spot of trouble with it the last time. He was such a vicious little blighter, I couldn’t hold him. He scratched my hands and wrists and got away onto the stage and then into the orchestra pit. They had to ring down the curtain. I’ve got some very young rabbits for tonight.”
Jane thought: Poor Ninian. Those are all such old-fashioned numbers. Nobody does them any more.
“I’m sure this time it will be a great success,” said Adam.
“I’m not,” replied Ninian, gloomily. “I get so nervous and upset.”
“Use your magic box,” Jane said.
Once more Ninian found himself shot through with a pang of jealousy. Then Adam had given Jane some special kind of equipment, sometime during the picnic.
At the doorstep of The Great Robert’s house Ninian said good-by and thanked them once more for the day. He stood there for yet another moment, first on one leg and then on the other, as though wishing to say something further, which indeed he did. And it would have been: “I did a rotten thing, Adam. I pretended I was asleep and instead I was watching you and Jane and listening to what you were saying, hoping to find out something. You see, I’m such a terrible magician and I do so want to become a member of the Guild. And now I’m worried and frightened because I know I won’t pass. Please help me!”
But instead, he just looked miserable and then mumbling his thanks again, went shambling off up the street. Jane, Adam and Mopsy watched him go until he turned a corner out of sight.
But what they didn’t see, since it was around the bend, was that as he arrived there, four large, brawny magicians stepped out from a doorway, two ranging themselves on either side of Ninian, grasping his arms a
nd his coat collar. One of them said, “All right now, Ninian the Nonpareil, just don’t make a fuss and you won’t get hurt. You’re coming along with us.” And with that they frog-marched him off between them.
But now after Ninian had gone and they were standing in front of her home, Jane’s own troubles returned to worry her and she said, “I’m frightened to go in. Peter will blame me for what happened and Daddy will be furious. There’ll be another row and he won’t let me be your assistant.”
Adam smiled his crinkly smile. “Do you know two things that just never go together?”
Jane asked, “What?”
“Fear and magic. Can’t you see why Ninian’s tricks don’t work? Because he’s afraid they won’t. Remember your magic box and never be frightened of anything.”
“You wouldn’t like me to handle this, would you?” whispered Mopsy.
Adam was about to reply, “No, I would not,” but then remembering that his little dog had been pretty clever several times that day, said, “Why, what do you suggest?”
“Do the silly egg trick for him again, if that’s all that phony magician needs to keep him happy. He’s certain to think that the second time around he’ll be able to catch on.
“By Jove! I think you’ve got something, Mopsy.”
“There you are,” said the dog delightedly, “my brains and your magic—what a team!”
Jane asked, “What’s going to happen?”
“Our friend here has come through with an idea,” said Adam. “Just leave everything to me.”
They went inside and sure enough the reception committee was awaiting them, very stiff and grim-looking, Mrs. Robert wearing a sour expression and The Great One, his public face laid aside, equally unpleasant. As for Peter, he was a mess. One eye was shut, his lips were swollen twice their size and a bandage had been wound around and around his head.
“I must say,” snapped Mrs. Robert, “you’ve been long enough getting back, Jane, while your poor brother here has been suffering.”
“I’m sorry, madam,” Adam said, “but it was so lovely where you told us to go. Why, whatever has happened to your son?”