The Man Who Was Magic

by Paul Gallico

  As for Jane, she was heartbroken over the loss of her friend Adam and in particular, Mopsy. Her arms ached to hold and cuddle the little, silken creature who had loved her. Often, thinking about him, she cried herself to sleep at night. In her longing and sadness she forgot all about the magic box.

  True, things were somewhat better with her than before. For one, her brother Peter was a little afraid of her since her association with Adam. He remembered his encounter with the wasps and hornets and was not quite certain just how much of that kind of magic the stranger might have taught his young sister. And so a good deal of the teasing and plaguing came to an end.

  The Great Robert was impressed with his daughter now, especially since the downfall of Malvolio and his crowd had left him more firmly in the saddle than before as Mayor and Chief Magician. In fact, since it was known that he had extended the hospitality of his home to Adam, he somehow shared in the credit for the wealth that had come to the city. And being a shrewd politician, he did nothing to disabuse anyone of this notion. The only one who really knew the truth of the matter was Jane.

  Yet, even the fact that life was more peaceful and agreeable did little to make up for her sense of deprivation and loneliness. Nor did she make any further progress in her ambitions to become a magician herself. She had not even touched the things with which she once tried to practice.

  It was over a year later, on a crisp November day, while Jane was on an errand for her mother to a shop located not far from the gates of the city, that she saw Ninian for the first time since the night of the disaster.

  Jane was almost thirteen now, taller and prettier since, no longer badgered about being ugly or ungraceful, her natural beauty had flowered. She had not wished to see Ninian ever again, even though she remembered that while in his weakness he had betrayed Adam, in the last moment he had tried to save him and had nearly been trampled to death for his pains. She had heard that he had become famous and overwhelmed with offers for appearances and had made a great deal of money. Of all those in Mageia he was the one who seemed to have profited most from Adam’s brief sojourn. Word of his triumphs on foreign stages had reached the city of magicians but Jane had not heard of his return there.

  Yet in spite of herself her spirit lifted at the sight of him, for he was a link with the vanished friends she missed so sorely and whose going had left such an empty place in her heart. But she was astonished too, for he was no longer dressed like the Ninian she had known. Instead of his magician’s uniform he was wearing rather old-fashioned hiking clothes, baggy knickerbockers that fell below his bony knees, stockings of a rather repulsive diamond pattern in yellow and green, heavy shoes, a rough tweed jacket with leather patches at elbows and pockets and a slightly too small cloth hat that perched on the top of his head. For the rest, his lank, black hair and limp mustaches still drooped on either side of his face. He carried a heavy knapsack strapped to his back.

  But what dispelled the remnants of Jane’s anger and disappointment in him was the unusually melancholy expression, even for him, as he stood beside the Gatekeeper. Ninian was gazing back for a moment at the city with the sad and intense look of a man about to leave behind everything of which he had been fond and with one last view trying to impress all he had loved upon his memory. Without his uttering a word, Jane knew that for some reason or other he was saying good-by to Mageia and magic forever.

  “Ninian! Ninian!” she called and ran to him. “Where are you going?”

  He turned at her cry and his eyes lit up for a moment. He was glad to see her. “Jane!” he said. “How you’ve grown! And what a fine girl you’re getting to be.” Then he replied to her question, “I’m going away to try to find Adam.”

  The old Gatekeeper now cocked his hand to his ear and queried, “Adam? Adam? Who’s he? Oh yes, I remember now, that young man with the feather in his cap, with the polite dog, who was supposed to have brought down a lot of gold for everyone. I was the one who let him in and I never saw a penny. I heard something about his disappearing. They all came rushing down here and asked whether I had let him out. Well, I hadn’t. Why must you be going after him?”

  “Because I betrayed him,” Ninian replied. “I was weak and wicked and even worse, I was jealous of him too. I shall go in search of him to say that I’m sorry and ask him to forgive me, if it takes me to the end of my days.”

  “But Ninian,” protested Jane, “what about your magic act and your success? You’re rich and famous now and everybody wants you.”

  “I’ve given it up,” Ninian replied and for a moment his sad eyes were filled with pride and determination. “I shall never practice magic again. At least, not until I’ve been able to find Adam.”

  Jane held out her arms to the tall thin man in the somewhat absurd hat and forgave him for everything he had done. “Oh, Ninian, Ninian, please take me with you. I want to find him too, and Mopsy.”

  Ninian shook his head. “I can’t, Jane. I have to go alone. You must stay here with your family, you who remember him better than anyone else, and grow up and perhaps help others to remember him.”

  “He said he came from over the Mountains of Straen,” put in the old Gatekeeper.

  “That’s where I’m going,” Ninian said.

  “But it’s impossible,” the old man protested. “They say no one has ever crossed them.” Then he added, his voice dropping, “And no one knows what lies on the other side. It might be dangerous.”

  “Nevertheless, Gatekeeper, I must try,” said Ninian. “Open up, please.”

  The guardian pressed a button and the bronze doors swung wide. Jane begged, “Ninian, please, can’t I just go a little way with you?”

  To the surprise of the Gatekeeper the tall Magician hesitated and then, turning back and offering his hand to Jane, said, “Well yes, then, if you will, but only a short piece.”

  As they passed through the gates, the porter admonished her, “Don’t you be staying away too long, now, or your mother will be after me for letting you out.”

  “I promise,” said Jane. “I’ll be back very soon.”

  The Gatekeeper watched them go down the road together but soon they turned off on a lane that led up through a wooded knoll.

  “But Ninian,” Jane said, “this is the way to the picnic ground where once we . . .”

  “Yes,” said Ninian, “it is. And you may come that far with me, if you will promise then to return home at once.”

  “But why are you going there?” the child asked.

  “Do you recall Adam’s staff?” said Ninian.

  “Oh yes, of course!” she said. “He stuck it in the ground under the oak tree and then forgot it when we left. And don’t you remember? He said perhaps he wouldn’t be needing it any longer, when I reminded him.”

  Ninian nodded. “That’s right. I thought I would see if it was still there and if it were, I would take it and perhaps it would lead me to him, or in some way help me to find him.”

  Side by side, silently, they climbed the path leading through the woods, no longer the green tunnel through which they had marched the last time. It was now only a forest of bare branches to which clung no more than a few withered leaves. Occasionally one detached by the wind would come sailing down to fall upon the carpet of brown below. Their feet crunched and rustled through the dried ones on the ground.

  Jane wondered what it would be like on the plateau and whether Adam’s staff would still be there. She felt a strange excitement and was aware that her heart was beating in her throat. She glanced up at Ninian and wondered whether he was feeling and thinking the same. But the Magician was only looking straight ahead, carrying his head high, filled with the thoughts of his mission.

  They emerged at last from the woods onto the top of the hill. The grass was still green but had grown long and the turf spongy. The bushes by the fence where Peter had once concealed himself were bare. The oak tree, stripped of its foliage in preparation for the coming of the winter snows, looked even more noble and stark,
flinging the many arms of its naked branches towards the sky.

  Time and the season had wrought their changes on the farm. On the opposite hillside the farmer was plowing. The cows were grazing in the field, but the sheep in the meadow were huddled close together for extra warmth. Haystacks had sprouted and yellow corn sheaves stood neatly stacked in the yard. The ducks and geese still sailed the pond, the chickens pecked the dirt. Beside the barn was drawn up a wagon loaded with sugar beets. Close by a laborer was raking up and burning the dead leaves and the smell of the smoke came drifting to the two upon the hill.

  It had needed only a moment for them to take in the scene and they turned now eagerly to the tree. “Oh,” cried Jane in deep disappointment, “the staff is gone. But look, something is growing there.”

  “That’s odd,” said Ninian, “let’s see what it is.”

  But as it turned out when they went over to look, the staff was still where Adam had planted it, except that it seemed to have taken root and from its polished knotted sides white roses grew in profusion, green-leafed as though it were spring. Some were in bud or just emerged and tight-rolled, others full-flowered and heavily scented.

  The two stood there silently regarding it. There was no mistaking Adam’s staff, for both of them remembered the shape of the knob at the top, smoothed by the grasp of his hand.

  To Ninian the strange phenomenon was like a message of encouragement, a sign almost of approval upon his mission and whatever doubts he might have had as to the conclusion of the journey upon which he was setting out were dispelled. Adam was somewhere and in proof of it had left white roses sprouting from his staff of oak, as though to confirm that the impossible was possible. How long or how far he would have to travel Ninian did not know, or even care any longer.

  Magic man! Magic dog! Magic staff! Jane thought of the day when one white rose, fresh and fragrant, with a drop of dew upon its velvet cheek, had been conjured for her from this very staff and there welled up in her such a longing for her friends that tears came to her eyes and she implored Ninian, “Oh, please, please, let me come along.”

  To her surprise Ninian did not reply or reject her plea immediately and when he finally did, he spoke to her no longer as a child but said gravely, “No, I think you must remain behind. You see,” and here he indicated the rose bush, “in a way you should be its guardian. You would know. And if people in Mageia forgot about him or thought it had all been a trick of some kind, or even that it had never happened, you could bring them here and then they could see for themselves and remember. As for me, I know now I shall find him someday. I’m certain I shall.”

  Jane asked, “When you do, Ninian, will you bring them back?”

  Ninian replied, “Who knows whether they would ever want to come?”

  Jane said, “Then, will you give them my love?”

  “Oh yes,” Ninian replied, “indeed I will. And now I must be off.”

  The sadness that filled the child was more than she could bear, for with Ninian’s departure would go her last link with the Man Who Was Magic and she slumped onto the soft turf, put her hands to her face and began to cry.

  Ninian knelt down beside her. He said, “Jane, don’t weep. He was your friend and he cared about you. Didn’t he leave you with a most precious gift—a magic box? What have you done with it? I never really saw it, or quite understood what it was, you see, because I was only pretending to be asleep that day of the picnic. I was spying on you two and I heard him say that inside the box was the greatest magic of all and that whenever or whatever you needed, you could call upon it for anything you ever wanted or desired. Isn’t that true?”

  The magic box and its uses that she had all but forgotten! She ceased her weeping, lifting her face from her hands and looking gratefully at the magician bending solicitously over her, his brow lined with deep concern. She felt a new tenderness and affection for Ninian. How like him to get everything muddled and believe that the stranger had actually given her some kind of a real box, with a lid and clasp and knobs and twiddles, instead of realizing that Adam had only pointed out to her the wonderful and astonishing things that were inside her very own head and the magic that could be performed with them. She smiled at him, “Yes, it’s true, Ninian, and thank you for reminding me.”

  She rose to her feet and he did too, his expression showing his relief that her tears and importunings to accompany him were over. “Well then, I must be starting, because I think I shall have rather a long way to go. Good-by, Jane.”

  He made her a slight bow and held out his hand most formally. But she ignored it, reached up and kissed him, whereupon he turned quite red with confusion and embarrassment and said, “Ha!” and “Hum!” and “Well, well!” and then finally, “Good-by, good-by, my dear. God bless you.”

  And with that he turned and marched down the hill along the fence until he came to the road at the bottom and Jane watched him growing smaller and smaller in the distance, until finally he rounded a bend and, like Adam, disappeared forever.

  Left by herself, Jane looked down upon the busy scene that once had been the magic farm; the plowman guiding his plow through the soft earth, the cloud of birds reminding her of those that Adam had conjured up, following on behind to pick up worms; the cows placidly munching in the meadow; the sheep stirring idly and the water fowl cutting their Vs in the pond. It had all been strong enchantment once. Why could it not be again? Only time had passed and the season had changed. But beside her, as though to confirm that in the world of Adam and hers, too, all things could be, white roses sprang from oak.

  The sorcery began to reassemble as it had that summer’s day. At her feet lay acorns by the thousands, each one a tiny conjurer’s package which could be turned into such as the mighty tree beneath which she stood. The magic cows were at their work of transformation, the wizard sheep were growing their winter coats that soon would be human coats. The quacking of the ducks and the clucking of the hens recalled their own special arts. And before her eyes, galloping around his mother mare hitched to the plow, was the strong young horse that had once been a gangling colt and before that a nothing—something non-existent, until it had been brought forth into life, all legs and huge eyes, to roll in the summer grass.

  She looked up to the sky for cloud pictures, but it was gray and overcast that day. Yet behind the veil she knew was the magic of the sun, the sky would be blue and behind the blue all the other suns and stars and worlds, galaxies and solar systems of which Adam had told her. At her feet a large brown furry multilegged caterpillar crawled up a withered stalk and inspected her. Jane pointed her finger at the creature and invoked her babyhood incantation, “Higgledy-piggledy-parabaloo! Someday you’ll be a beautiful butterfly floating free in the air.”

  And what about the “Her” magic? How could she have forgotten that wonderful box which Adam had promised her would grant all her desires, if only she would take the trouble to use it?

  What was it she had wanted to be and had been crying over, locked in her room, when Adam first appeared at her window? A magician in her own right, shedding helpless tears because her fingers had refused to obey and kept dropping the little red spheres with which she had been trying to perform the sleight of hand known as the Multiplying Balls. She had not attempted it since.

  She held out her two hands in front of her, looked down upon them and visualized labels on two of the compartments: “I Can” and “I Will.” She turned the key upon them, unlocking them and it was almost as though she could feel the fire of “Can” and “Will” coursing through her veins. And she knew from then on that she would, as surely as—as a fresh white rose could grow from a wanderer’s staff.

  She had opened her magic box wide and though the hinges had creaked with disuse, out of it memories came tumbling, remembrances of that unforgettable picnic wherein for the first time she had been made aware of all the unseen magic that surrounded her, more marvelous and powerful than any that had yet been invented by the clever magicians of Magei
a.

  What was it Adam had said about the “You” magic? Oh yes, it was, “Close your eyes.”

  Jane closed them tightly.

  And then he had said, “Now think of another place, say where you were once happy.”

  But why think of another place, when it was here that she had been happier than ever before in her whole life, with Adam and Mopsy . . . ?

  And so she imagined the bright warm summer’s day, the humming of insects, the feel of the sun upon her cheeks and the fragrance of the meadow flowers. She saw the brilliant butterflies zigzagging through the greenery and the silvery-winged dragonfly suspended in mid-air. And then they were there beside her, too, the man and the dog.

  She had conjured them up exactly as they had been that day. He in his suit of doeskin and the cap with the pheasant’s feather set jauntily upon his bright red hair. Here was Adam again, grinning at her, the strange eyes vanishing behind the crinkly smile, the same, long humorous nose and the calm voice.

  He was saying to her, “There, you’ve got it, Jane. Plain and simple magic. Don’t lose it again.”

  And Mopsy, a ball of animated fur, leaped into her arms, wriggling, snuffling, his soft hair and the cold of his button nose against her cheek and he was, as usual, shrieking with laughter and full of talk.

  “He says not to worry,” Adam interpreted, “he loves you. And we’ll come to you, he and I, whenever you have need for us, now that you’ve learned the trick. Well then,” Adam continued, “until you call upon us again, Mopsy and I will be on our way. Good-by, Jane. Open your eyes.”