Made of Magic and True Grit

by Landry-Daniel Lié

  “Shut up, Voly! I heard something about you: how you wet yourself when you confused a fox with a wolf. They don’t even look alike. How dumb can you be?” Pinly snarled at him. The other boys started laughing at Voly, and even Lion was rolling on the ground. He had told Pinly the story and had made him swear never to repeat it, but even though Pinly had broken his promise, Lion was too busy laughing to reprimand him.

  It would be better to get beaten up by one of the older fairies than to jump off that cliff—anything was better than that—so he had provoked Voly to get a reaction.

  “It was dark, you little…” Voly’s face contorted with fury as he stepped closer, his fists clenched. Pinly raised both his fists too, even though he knew it was a fight he was not going to win. But before he could throw a punch, Lion rushed to his feet, pushed Voly back, and stood between the two of them. The one time he didn’t want to be saved by his brother.

  “Give it a rest, Voly,” Lion said, “and you”—he turned to Pinly—“you either jump now or stop wasting our time!”

  Pinly looked back at the fall, then put his face in his hands. “I can’t…” His fingers grew wet with tears.

  “Ha, not so big now!” Voly said with venom in his voice.

  “Cut it out!” Lion said, enraged. Pinly heard the smack as he punched Voly in the face. He opened his eyes to see Voly raising a shaky hand to his cheek, where he was hit. Lion had his fists raised, ready to rumble. “You want more?” he asked.

  “Let’s go, we don’t have to stay with the loser brothers,” Voly said to the other boys. Pinly watched as they lifted off, flew away, and disappeared into the forest.

  “Yeah, you better fly away!” Lion turned back around to face his weeping brother. “Stop it! You’re really embarrassing, you know that, right?” He pulled Pinly’s hands off his face. “You wanted to come here, no one made you!”

  “I know!” Pinly sniffed, then used his sleeve to wipe his tears.

  Lion seemed to soften a little bit. “Alright, stop crying. I’ll show you how to do it, but you don’t have to jump if you don’t want to,” he said. “All you have to do is imagine you have wings that open as soon as you want to stop yourself from falling.”

  Lion closed his eyes and seemed to be playing the scene in his mind. From a young age, they had learned how to fly by observing birds taking flight. Despite their physical differences, the takeoff movements were similar. The opening of wings was a metaphor frequently used by the fairies around these parts, because fairies beat their arms a couple of times before soaring through the air. Once for the most experienced, but it usually took ten times for Pinly. He started mimicking his brother’s movements, closing his eyes and opening his arms too. He already knew how to fly, but tended to take a little longer than others. He usually had to boost himself with embarrassing little jumps before he actually lifted off, and that’s what worried him the most: there was no room to do any of that.

  “Look at me!” Lion said before jumping off the cliff. Pinly’s heart raced, probably faster than Lion’s, as he watched his brother plunge down. “Woohoo!”

  Lion was always doing the craziest things. No wonder he could never keep up with his brother? How on earth were they related?

  Lion was rapidly descending when suddenly, just a meter off the water, he stopped himself. Now he levitated, looking as light as a feather.

  “So?” Lion called from below, “are you going to jump?” Pinly looked down cautiously. “You don’t have to.” Lion showed off his skills as he pivoted around, stood up, and began to glide on the water’s surface as though sliding on ice. If he didn’t jump now, his brother would never let him forget and he would never forgive himself. Standing by the edge of the cliff, Pinly closed his eyes and extended his arms wider than necessary. He held that position for a long while, encouraging himself: Come on, you can do it! He said it over and over again.

  It took all the courage he had left in him. Pinly tipped forward and let himself go. His heart beat faster as he plummeted down. The strong wind of the descent forced him to keep his eyes closed. The water seemed to be rushing up toward him; he had lost all control of his limbs. He started screaming. “Stop, fly, stop, fly!”

  “Focus!” his brother shouted.

  Pinly stopped screaming. What took only seconds felt like forever.

  He thought about what his brother had told him and murmured to himself, “Just imagine you’re opening your wings.” Then he opened his eyes.

  He had stopped himself just millimetres off the water, his nose almost dipping into the pond. The smell of the freshwater had never been so strong.

  “I did it,” he cried out in excitement. Lion jumped on him, and they both fell into the water.

  “You did it! Finally!” Lion seemed proud as they emerged from the pond again. “Want to do it again?” he asked.

  “Have you lost your mind? I’ve barely recovered from the first jump!”

  “Oh come on, you just started to be fun. Don’t ruin this for me.”

  “No! I’m going home,” Pinly said, “where it’s safe.”

  “You better not tell Pa about this!” Lion warned him. If their parents were to hear about the game at the pond, they would most likely be punished for a whole month, helping their father at the library— “the most boring place in the world” as they liked to call it.

  “I’ll race you home,” Lion said as he flew ahead of his brother.

  “Oi! Not fair,” Pinly shouted as he battled to get out of the water. He managed a wonky takeoff, but once he was in the air, he was as fast as any. He tried to catch up with Lion as they twined through the woods. Lion, seeing his brother rapidly approaching, lowered himself close to the ground, picked up a handful of mud, and threw it at Pinly, who went crashing into a puddle. Lion stopped flying and started laughing at him. Pinly stood up, dirty from head to toe. His older brother thought that was even funnier and leaned against a tree as he exploded with laughter.

  “Ma is going to kill me, you idiot!” Pinly was not amused. Their mother had just mended that shirt for him, and she never used magic to mend clothes for them; it took her a long time to make one. How was he supposed to show himself to her like this? He knew she wouldn’t listen to any excuses, and she would probably ground him.

  “You’ll be fine!” Lion said as he tried to stop laughing. Pinly picked up a handful of mud and threw it at him. It was a poor attempt to get even, but Lion didn’t seem to care much. He simply wiped it off, and they started flying home again. Lion always finds a way to ruin a good day, Pinly thought.

  Pinly and Lion arrived in their village. It buzzed with life. The village was in the middle of the forest, part of a city called Soubrey. Here, the houses were built around massive tree trunks like giant wooden rings. Some stood very high, some very low, but none on the ground—a bit like birds’ nests. The trees were linked by wooden bridges. Not everyone had the ability to fly for very long, since Soubrey’s population included half humans too. The brothers started flying up to their house, which was at the top of a tree. They were greeted by the neighbours as they flew by.

  “Hello, young ones,” said an old fairy sitting on her balcony, smoking herbs from a long bong. Pinly hated the smell of it. The smoke almost engulfed them as they passed.

  “Hello, Miss Poli,” they replied and coughed together. Their mother always told them to be nice to Miss Poli. The old fairy looked after them when their parents had to leave them behind to travel over a few days or just overnight. She was almost like family to them. But Pinly had mixed feelings toward her. She was prone to anger and quite patronising toward him whenever they spoke, but she was old and that was the kind of thing old folk did. Or maybe he and his brother were really the handful she said they were.

  On the next floor up, Pinly’s number-one enemy, Voly, lived with his two twin sisters and their parents John and Ria. Pinly pulled a face at Voly, who did the same. When Voly’s father, John, came out, Pinly flew away as fast as he could, almost knockin
g his brother off balance. John was a human and Lion had terrified Pinly with stories of humans hunting fairies for as long as he could remember. He knew they were just stories, especially since John was no giant. Humans were the same size as fairies, after all—they didn’t have the sharp teeth or the claws Lion talked about. The only difference was the lack of powers in humans. But even though he knew all that, Pinly couldn’t help but be terrified at the sight of John.

  Then—at last—they arrived home.

  “What have you done with your clothes?” The second he stepped through the door, their mother was shouting at him. Here we go again, Pinly thought. Before he knew it, the clothes started coming off his back, all by themselves. It was Nema using magic to undress him.

  “Mama, wait!” he shouted. “I can do it myself,” he added, as he pulled his shirt off.

  “You boys are going to be the death of me,” she said, inspecting Lion’s dirty face. “Go wash up quickly before your father arrives, so we can head down to the celebration and have dinner with normal fairies.” She shook her head, muttering, “It took me forever to sew this shirt.”

  The boys went to their respective rooms, where they finished undressing. By snapping his fingers, Pinly sent his clothes flying into a pile of dirty laundry on the floor. He sighed at the mess his room was in— books, parchments, toys and clothes were scattered all over. Just the thought of having to clean it made his head hurt. He opened the creaking wooden door that led to his small bathroom. Although the room was little, the bathtub could fit three other fairies in it. The bath was usually ready for him to just jump in and get cleaned; the water would normally be steaming, just the way he liked it. But as he entered today, the atmosphere was different. Pinly shivered at the colde. He looked into the tub to find that the water had been frozen into a giant block of ice.

  “Ma!” he called out. He could hear Lion laughing in his own bathroom.

  “Scared of a little cold water, are we?” Lion shouted and then laughed even louder. His laughter and the ruckus as he splashed water about echoed annoyingly into Pinly’s bathroom.

  “How did you even have time to do that?!” Pinly shouted.

  Nema entered his bathroom. She shook her head, looking at the ice and then at Pinly pouting in the corner.

  “He’s only playing with you,” she said as she ran her hand over the ice. It warmed up and turned back into liquid before steaming. “In you go.” She turned around so he could hop into the water.

  “I swear one day I’ll take revenge,” he said as he sank into the water.

  “How about today?” Nema said, turning back with a big smile on her face.

  “Keep talking…” He narrowed his eyes, intrigued.

  “Close your eyes,” she told him, and he did. “Now imagine your brother in the tub…”

  “Eww.”

  “Just do it,” she insisted. “Can you see him?¨

  “I guess…” Pinly matched the splashing noise he heard with his imagination. In his mind, Lion was settled in his bathwater. Little did he know what was coming for him.

  “Now imagine a snake dropped in his bathtub… Not a big one, just a small snake,” she continued.

  In Pinly’s imagination, Lion was scrubbing his face thoroughly, trying to get the dirt off. He suddenly stopped scrubbing and looked down—at something undulating around his legs in the water. Lion, with a piercing high-pitched voice, screamed.

  “SNAKE! Oh no!” Lion had flown out of the bath and out his window, then past Pinly’s window, naked.

  It had worked!

  It was probably thanks to a nudge from his mother’s powers, but he had done it. Lion was panicking, pivoting around outside before coming back to his senses. He realised it was a prank when he saw Pinly and Nema laughing through the window of the other bathroom. Too late; he was already, naked out in front of the entire village. He flew back into his bathroom, embarrassed. Nema left, and Pinly sponged himself clean.

  “Anyone home?” A deep voice resonated through the house. Pinly hurried to get out of the tub and dry himself. He sighed his discontent when he saw the clothes his mother had left on the bed for him: a white shirt and white trousers he had worn more times than he could remember. “Do we really have to wear these at every celebration?” Pinly whispered to himself

  “I’m coming, dear!” his mother replied before popping her head back into the room. “Get ready quick, your father is here.”

  Pinly came into the living room and his father looked at him. His grey hair and a long beard made him look so stoic. He wore floor-length grey robes—his best ones. He was so tall, the tallest fairy Pinly knew. When Nema reached him, she stood on her toes and even flew up a little to give him a kiss.

  “Where is your brother?” he asked.

  “He’s getting ready, I think.” Pinly shrugged.

  “You should both be ready by now. We can’t always be the ones who are late to these things.”

  Pinly was about to roll his eyes when he caught the severe look from his father.

  “Kwassy, calm down, they won’t be a minute,” his mother said. “Lion, hurry up!”

  Lion walked in the room, still putting on his shirt. “Hello, Pa.” He and Pinly flew into their father’s arms for a warm hug. Kwassy opened the door for them to fly out.

  “I’ll race you down there, P!” Lion’s voice faded away as he flew out, way ahead of him. Pinly shook his head as he watched his brother speeding down.

  His father’s long-fingered hand patted him on the head. “You’ll get him next time,” he said.

  Pinly had his arms crossed as he came down. Lion was laughing at him. He sat at a long, empty-topped wooden table with all the other fairies from the village, young and old.

  “I don’t know why Ma and Pa called you Lion; they should have called you Ferret!” Pinly said. Everyone at the table laughed apart from Lion, who flew in his brother’s direction, ready to teach him a lesson. Pinly hid behind their father.

  “Sit down!” Kwassy’s voice deepened. Before he did, though, Pinly pulled his tongue at Lion from behind Kwassy’s great figure. “Both of you, that’s enough now!”

  The whole family sat down at the table. Everyone patiently waited while the last few fairies rushed down from the trees and took their places. Then, Kwassy stood and clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like my son Pinly to do the honours tonight. It is, after all, the celebration of the young ones,” he said.

  All eyes focused on Pinly, who felt the heat rise to his face. Lion and Voly looked at him and then each other and started giggling. Pinly hated the weird friendship these two had; one day they hated each other, and the next they were best friends again. Sure, he was always the cause of Voly and Lion’s fights, but he still did not understand how they were still friends. Nema elbowed Lion to make him stop.

  “Ouch!” Lion rubbed on his arm.

  “But Pa…” Pinly started.

  “No buts. I told you to train. You should have mastered this already. Now hurry up,” Kwassy insisted.

  Pinly took a deep breath and started clapping his hands, and with each clap a dish appeared on the table. He saw the proud look on his father’s face as the dishes materialised one by one all around the table. Fairies grabbed their cutlery, others attached white towels around their necks. but then, what he feared happened. Lion lifted one of the lids and a chicken came flying out in an explosion of feathers. Voly’s sisters, the twins, screamed and flew away from the table when they realised their plates were full of live worms.

  Pinly stopped clapping as disgusted chatter rose around the table. One lady had grass on her plate and another, a bird’s nest filled with eggs and feathers. Pinly felt ashamed as the fairies all around the table pushed their plates away. Voly and Lion were laughing at him.

  “It’s okay.” Kwassy pulled his son close to him. He snapped his fingers to make the dishes disappear one by one until the table was clean again.

  Voly stood up. �
��I’ll do it.”

  “No, I’ll do it.” Lion stood up too. Pinly could feel his brother’s aura bursting like wild flames; that happened anytime Lion was excited. How annoying! Pinly thought as he sat down.

  “You can both do it,” Kwassy said. Lion and Voly clapped their hands in a fierce competition at first, they locked eyes. They eventually stopped competing and clapped in each other’s hands. The table filled with hot potatoes, greens, nicely cooked chicken that steamed and smelled heavenly, a whole pig with an apple in its mouth, fruits, and apple pies. Soon the table was overflowing with food of different colours and smells. Pinly rolled his eyes back as far as they could go.

  “That’s enough. thank you.” Kwassy stopped the boys before there was too much food. Pinly nodded in agreement with his father; he hated it when his brother showed off. Voly and Lion bowed to applause and cheers from around the table. Everyone started eating apart from Pinly, still frustrated by his poor performance.

  His mother Nema nudged Lion and pointed at him.

  “Come on, P, just eat already. You’ll do better next time,” Lion said.

  “I don’t even like what’s on the table,” Pinly protested.

  “Don’t you now?” Lion snapped his fingers and Pinly’s empty plate filled with turkey, yams, and bacon. Lion snapped his fingers one more time and a slice of strawberry pie appeared next to the plate, then twice more for cream and a cherry on top. Pinly couldn’t hold his smile back any longer and he began to devour his food.

  Chatter and laughter filled the table. Everyone seemed to be having a good time except for one person: Doria, Professor Jups’ wife. She stared down at her empty plate. Pinly wasn’t used to seeing her like that. She normally always smiled, but the lines of happiness on her face had been replaced by scars of sadness and lack of sleep.

  “Has anyone heard from Jups?” Kwassy asked Voly’s parents. Pinly couldn’t help but eavesdrop on his father’s conversation.