‘Ahh, hold your blathering, Fitzhollow,’ said Hooligan. ‘If it weren’t for the broomsticks I make you wouldn’t have half your trade and you know it!’ He waddled back round to the front of the counter bearing four rough boughs taken from the racking. He laid them out parallel to each other on the floor in front of Grady. ‘You come stand here in front of these, my boy,’ said the clurichaun. ‘Now, I’m going to stand behind you and help to get a wee bit of the magic you can use flowing through you. Though after seeing what your sister did I won’t be offering a lot of help, I can promise you that. I want you to put your hands out in front of you at shoulder height with the palms open as if you were about to grab a bar.’
Grady did as he was told as Hooligan moved around behind him and placed the wand on Grady’s shoulder. Grady felt a magical surge the moment the wand touched his shoulder.
‘When I tell you to I want you to close your eyes and, in your mind, ask one of those pieces of wood to come to you.’
Grady thought this sounded silly but closed his eyes anyway.
‘On three, okay?’ said Hooligan. ‘One, two, and three,’ he counted. Grady heard himself asking for the right wood to come to him and a moment later felt a thump as one of the boughs smacked into his palms.
Grady opened his eyes to see a rough red-brown length of wood in his hands.
‘Ha Ha! I knew it, I knew it!’ danced Hooligan behind Grady. Jigging over to Merritt he bounced up and down in front of him saying, ‘Just like you!!!’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Grady.
Turning back to him Hooligan continued bouncing. ‘That’s Red Oak. The first broomstick I made for your father was Red Oak too. I guessed when I tested you just then that the fiery nature of Red Oak would suit you.’
‘Stop your jigging, ya show-off. If you’re so good then test the girl and see if you can pick it again.’
‘Easy peasy,’ said Hooligan, waddling over to Niamh. Repeating the same process he did with Grady, Hooligan picked out two pieces of wood from the floor and swapped them out the back for two other boughs. ‘Now. Just to prove I am the genius I say I am I’m going to tell your mother here what I think your broomstick will be,’ he said, grinning at Niamh. Grace bent down to the little man and he reached up on tiptoes to whisper into her ear. She stood up with surprise in her eyes and a smile on her face. Hooligan took his wand and, just like Grady, told Niamh to hold her hands out with her eyes closed. Another surge of magic coursed through Niamh which even Grady fancied he could feel. A bough of rough white wood quivered for a moment before leaping from the floor into Niamh’s hands.
‘What did I tell you, Princess?’ said Hooligan, looking up at Grace.
‘It’s Poplar, Niamh – just like my wand,’ said Grace. ‘It’s what he picked alright. Tell me what you saw when you felt the magic that time.’
‘I saw a roaring wind on a river, Mum. But I didn’t just see the wind, I was the wind.’
‘Poplar is a water wood, Niamh,’ said her father. ‘It’s also a tree that talks to the winds. You’ve seen what the poplars were like at Avalon’s End? Whenever there is a wind the trees feel its power and celebrate by dancing. What do you think it means, Fitzhollow?’
‘Oh, I’m not entirely sure I would know. Ask the genius over there,’ he said pointing at Hooligan.
‘Now, now. Don’t be in a grump. We can’t help it if we have massive intelligence,’ he said, grinning at his colleague.
‘Massive intelligence?’ laughed Fitzhollow. The only thing massive about you is your ego – and maybe that head of yours.’
‘I love you too, Oscar,’ said Hooligan. ‘But if I were to take a guess I’d say she’s going to be fast and furious on a broomstick – as fast as the wind, and I wouldn’t get in the way of that blasting wand you plan to make her. But what about the boy? His turn now?’
‘Oh yes, please,’ said Grady, jumping forward. ‘Can I have a blasting wand too?’
Sorry young man, but it doesn’t work like that,’ said Fitzhollow. Grady looked crushed. ‘If we just made you any old wand and it wasn’t a match for your mix of skills, you could end up not being able to use your magic correctly and damage yourself – and most likely others. The special powers of the wizard need to be aligned with the special powers of the wood. Get that wrong and you might have an accident and end up as ugly as my show-off friend over there.’
Hooligan stuck out his purple tongue at Fitzhollow and said, ‘Stop being so petulant and test the boy, for heaven’s sake.’
Fitzhollow took Grady’s hands and examined them just as he did with Niamh, turning them over and examining them. He took a few moments to stare deeply into Grady’s eyes and then played a subtly different tune on his tin whistle before placing his hands on Grady’s head to give him a subtle magical surge. This time he wasn’t hurled across the room but he still let out a low whistle as he quickly let go and stepped back. ‘You two have a big job on your hands with these children,’ he said quietly to Grace and Merritt. ‘Do you understand what they can do?’ he asked solemnly.
‘Not fully,’ said Grace. ‘But I think we’ll find out soon enough. What is his wand to be then?’
‘Ash. It’s to be Ash.’
The room was quiet for a moment before Hooligan broke the silence. ‘Jazus but you’ve a dark bloody mood in your manner sometimes, Fitzhollow. Just because there hasn’t been an Ash wand in centuries doesn’t mean you need to come over all morbid like that. Are you trying to scare the child?’
‘Why haven’t there been any Ash wands?’ asked Grady. ‘Is that not a good wand to have?’
‘The wood is neither good nor bad, Grady,’ said Fitzhollow. ‘Ash is the wood that links this world to others. Unusually powerful and unusually dangerous wizards were known to have Ash wands. But we haven’t seen one for a long time. A very long time indeed.’
‘I think it’s time to move on from wand-talk, don’t you?’ said Grace. ‘You’re starting to sound all odd and mysterious and frankly the children don’t need that yet.’
‘Fair enough, Princess,’ said Hooligan, waddling back behind the counter. ‘Come back on Friday. We’ll have everything ready by then.’
‘Friday!’ said the children together. ‘That’s ages away!’
‘You can’t rush craftsmanship. Friday it will be,’ said a haughty Fitzhollow.
‘Alright,’ they grumbled, but while Grady scowled when he said it, Niamh couldn’t hold back a smile.
‘Thank you gentlemen. A pleasure as ever,’ smiled Merritt, shaking the hands of the two odd little men. ‘We’ll see you on Friday.’ He opened the door to the shop and ushered the family out. Fitzhollow grabbed him by the hand before he could step out the door. With the children out of earshot he still spoke quietly. ‘Merritt, be careful with those two. They have powers I haven’t seen in anyone for a long, long time. They make you and Grace look mild by comparison. If you don’t teach them control they will have trouble. Mark my words, their magic isn’t normal – there’s something odd about the way the elements come together in them.’
‘I’ll be careful with them, Fitzhollow,’ said Merritt. ‘I know they are different – that’s why we’ve come home – so they can learn and be safe. Trust me when I tell you now that before long we will all need the help of these children. I will come and see you again soon. Help will be needed from those I can trust.’
‘And help will be given when trust requires it,’ said Fitzhollow.
‘See you Friday, my friend,’ said Merritt.
The door closed behind him as he stepped out onto the path. The quiet of the field outside the house was immediately broken by the sound of Fitzhollow shouting at Hooligan again; ‘... and if you think I’m cleaning up your mess again, you drunkard, you’ve another thing coming. Get your hairy little hide down here and get this rubbish off the floor ...’ Merritt smiled as he walked up the path to the family, leaving the argument behind. They reached the arched entrance, opened the door and stepped through to
the dark alleyway that seemed such a long way from the cottage.
They spent the rest of the morning and into the afternoon sourcing the children’s school supplies. There were the usual books (but unusually bound in gilt-trimmed leather covers with inset pictures), pens (not quills but disturbingly modern, the children were disappointed to find – “Too impractical and messy” said the woman in the inappropriately named Quills-R-Us store), screeds of notebooks and paper, and far too many folders. They were measured up for their school clothes at Ballantynes Bazaar – a dark green blazer for Grady with several white shirts, grey jerseys, shorts for summer, and pants for winter. Niamh had a check dark green skirt, the same blazer – though much more fetchingly cut than Grady’s, and multiple white blouses. The children thought cloaks and robes would have been all the go in a land of magic and didn’t hold back expressing their disappointment at the bland normality of it all.
‘I’m terribly sorry it’s not measuring up to your expectations,’ Grace said with mock sympathy. ‘Shall we just go back home and forget about the wands and broomsticks then?’
‘NO!’ chorused the children.
‘Well school is school no matter where you are,’ Grace pointed out.
‘But what about learning magic?’ asked Niamh – quite reasonably, she thought.
‘Oh, don’t worry – you’ll have plenty of time for that. There are games and competitions and sports which all use magic. But we have to teach you the basics of magic to start with before you can do all that. Murdock will help. He taught your father and me and I’m sure he’ll really enjoy working with you too.’
‘Why can’t you teach us?’ asked Grady.
‘I can’t get you to clean up your rooms or even remain civil to each other for more than an hour, so what chance do you think there is of us teaching you magic?’
‘Good point,’ said Niamh thoughtfully.
‘Murdock will do a much better job at the basics. Once you have those in place the rest usually just ... flows.’
They walked across one of the beautiful vaulted stone bridges which spanned the Epsilon and headed for a cafe in a many-turreted building that sat in a park beside a lake filled with the biggest pond lilies the children had ever seen. The surface of the lake was broken now and then by almost transparent faeries that skimmed around and under the lilies. They were exclusively female and so transparent as to be almost invisible in the sunlight. The family had an enormous lunch to fill up the empty pit that had developed in their stomachs. The cafe had faeries zipping left, right and centre as food was delivered and plates and dishes cleared. It looked to Niamh as though there was a disaster looming whenever a plate flew off a table towards the kitchen, but beautifully choreographed trajectories by the faeries prevented the expected crash of crockery.
Once their hunger was sated they headed back into town for their final stop for the day. A beautiful glass shop stood by itself in a cobbled plaza. It had almost no decoration except for an enormous red “i” suspended in the middle, which slowly revolved. People could be seen inside rising up out of the ground from stairs which disappeared into the earth. The doors opened as they approached, though there was no one to open them and no apparatus in sight that could account for their opening. They stepped inside in search of their iWands.
‘Why do we need iWands if we are going to have other wands, Mum?’ asked Grady.
‘The school says you need them, Grady, so we have to get them.’
‘Yes, but why? We won’t need them to do magic, will we?’
‘I think the school can use them for sending messages to you and you can communicate with other iWand users with them. The Wand Wide Web is used here for sharing information and staying in touch with other wizards and witches. It never used to be like this before we left but it seems things have changed very quickly. Let’s talk to the sales wizards or witches and see what they say about them.’
Walking into the shop the children saw white panels and white walls with all manner of things they couldn’t identify in little alcoves. A very pretty witch, with a badge proclaiming her unlikely name to be Demolina, walked up to the family and said, ‘How can I help you today?’
‘We have two little ones starting school next week and we need iWands for them. And while we’re here we’d better get one for ourselves. But we’ve no idea what we need to get; can you help?’
‘You’ve come to the right place then. Let me show you,’ said the sales witch, turning back to a long table in the middle of the store. A number of very similar-looking beautifully designed wands were delicately balanced on practically invisible display stands which were lit from below by delicate pastel coloured lights. The witch chose two wands from the display and passed one each to Merritt and Grace. ‘These are just display wands but once you buy your own the wands will be sealed to you and only work with your touch. Press the white button on the end there,’ she said, pointing to a smooth white bump just at the top of the moulded handle. Grace pressed it and the wand telescoped back into itself without making a sound. In no time at all it was barely the size of a pen with nothing at all to show it was a wand. ‘Press it again to open the wand,’ said the sales witch. Grace did so and the wand slipped out of the handle to form a sleek and completely smooth wand. There was no hint of a join in the silky smooth surface.
‘That’s extraordinary,’ said Grace, smiling.
‘They are beautiful, aren’t they,’ said the sales witch. ‘Would you like to see them in action?’
‘Yeah!’ chorused the children.
Demolina proceeded to show them the delights of the iWands – how they could project pictures of someone talking to them from a long way away (a little face popped up above the end of the wand) and how it could be used for different spells (each wand had a whole load of spells built into them AND you could buy new spells when they became available just through the iWand WandWide-Web store!). Best of all, though, was you could make up new spells and the wand would learn them and allow you to share them with whoever you wanted. Whole new experimental magic industries had grown up around the web with people creating spells willy-nilly. There were so many spells now that you could be sure that practically anything you wanted could be found at the iWand Wand Application (Wapp) store.
‘Could we try one?’ asked Grace.
‘Of course,’ said the sales witch in her maddeningly nice sales voice.
‘What do I do?’ asked Grace.
‘Try some basic levitation if you like,’ she replied, gesturing towards a series of blocks arranged at the side of the table. ‘You shouldn’t need to do anything different to the way you would normally cast a spell. The wand will work more or less the same.’
Grace gave the wand a graceful flick towards the blocks. The closest block lifted itself neatly into the air and floated wherever Grace pointed.
‘Smooth, isn’t it,’ said the sales girl.
‘Yes, it is,’ said Grace. She gave Niamh a wink and flicked the wand back at the pile of blocks. In moments the entire pile of blocks was whirring around Demolina’s head – dancing in and around each other causing her to cry out in surprise!
‘How did you do that!’ shrieked the sales girl as the blocks whizzed around her.
Grace smiled and gave another flick making the blocks suddenly fly up to the roof of the shop and then shoot back down to the table forming a big, neatly-stacked pyramid.
‘We’ll take four of them, please,’ said Merritt, smiling at Grace. ‘Show-off,’ he mouthed at her.
The sales witch took a moment to recover herself and then said, ‘Yes ...yes of course. I ... ummm ... I’ll just go and, and ... I’ll be back in a moment,’ she said, before scampering off.
Garrett chuckled at the display. ‘That girl would choose your best party trick, wouldn’t she,’ he said, smiling at Grace. ‘But even I have to admit that was pretty clever, handling so many at the same time.’
‘It was easy,’ said Grace. ‘You couldn’t do it with just those wands
though, so I had to cheat a bit. Their magic is good but it’s not great. I can see why Fitzhollow still has some demand for his services. If you relied on those wands for your magic you’d always be disappointed. They are a very lovely design but I don’t think my life will be any better for having a shiny white gadget.’
After paying for the wands they made their way out of the shop, back down the road and over the bridges towards the dragon parking building. They handed back their ticket and parking fee to the parking faerie (Niamh noticed the faerie actually wore a grey coat, glasses, and wore a grumpy little moustache). The troll unfolded itself from the ground and crunched its way back to Garrett, handing him the reins.
‘Up we get, kids,’ said Garrett. ‘Fancy being out front again?’
‘No way!’ said Niamh as she leapt up into the carriage in front of her parents. ‘I’m getting inside this time.’
‘What about you, Grady? Game for a ride?’
‘Ab-so-lute-ly!’ replied Grady, jumping onto the front of the carriage as Garrett mounted from the other side.
‘Righty-ho. Off we go,’ said Garrett. He gave the reins a slight tweak and the dragon moved slowly out of their parking spot and down the ramp towards the entrance. Garrett took a look out onto the street before moving out into a gap in the traffic. A few minutes of trotting along took them back to the air strip. As they lined up in the take-off queue with the other dragons Garrett noticed how excited Grady looked. Their turn to take off came quickly and Garrett urged the dragon on down the runway. Just a few strides gave the dragon enough speed to get airborne and they found themselves soaring quickly away from the ground. Grady was ready for it this time and instead of a cry gave a whoop of delight. They levelled out slightly as the dragon pointed its nose to the castle. Garrett leaned conspiratorially over to Grady and said very quietly to him, ‘Would you like to have a drive?’
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