Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Being the Story in Which the Tree Talks, or, Aristotle Meets a Girl Called Izandria Dauntless, Otherwise Known as Izzy
Being the Story in Which Ari First Visits Castle Beauregard Mandelgreen
Being the Story in Which Ari Discovers the Secrets of Castle Beauregard Mandelgreen
Being the Story in Which Helen Doesn’t Like Izzy
Being the Story Where Izzy and Ari Sail Like Pirates
Being the Story in Which Izzy and Ari Get Thrown Out of a Zen Garden for Dancing (Well, Izzy Was Dancing)
Being the Story in Which Izzy and Ari Decide Not to Have a Sleepover
Being the Story in Which Izzy and Aristotle Have a Fight
Being the Story in Which Matthew Wanders the World in Search of Answers
Being the Story in Which There Is a Magisterium
Being the Story in Which Izzy Acquires a New Family Member
On Tom Doncourt
About the Author
A Possibility of Magic
Rachael Ann Mare
Copyright © 2021 Rachael Ann Mare
All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections of this work, contact Rachael Mare at Spunky Misfit Girl: rachael (at) spunkymisfitgirl (dot) com.
Cover design by Seedlings Design Studio
To Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Mackrelmint Ephraim’s Daughter Longstocking,
for bringing magic to the everyday
To Tom Doncourt,
for being real and doing the same
And to Matthew Baldelli,
for recognizing magic when he sees it and always giving it its proper due
Being the Story in Which the Tree Talks, or, Aristotle Meets a Girl Called Izandria Dauntless, Otherwise Known as Izzy
“There’s no such thing as magic,” the boy said to the tree.
He had wandered out of doors, along the street he lived on, and, quite unintentionally, down to the park, where he had encountered his favorite well-leafed silver maple tree. He had wanted to get back to reading Poor Richard’s Almanack, but his mother hadn’t wanted him to stay inside “on such a nice day.” He didn’t much like outside, whether the day was nice or not, but he supposed he ought to listen to his mother. He wished idly that he were still reading when he noticed a splash of color on the edge of his scope of vision. He followed the color and there it was, a sign made of rainbows that said, “Magic Here, 5 Cents Per Request, Inqwire Within.”
This sign made the boy think many things. He noticed the misspelling, of course, because that was the sort of thing this boy noticed, but he spent more thoughts on the fact that there was no “within” here, for it was a tree, and he couldn’t fathom what the sign-writer meant by “within” in this particular case. But in the face of the third thing, a lack of “within” seemed less important. The most urgent of all the urgent problems with that sign seemed to him to be the thing he said aloud.
“There’s no such thing as magic,” he said again.
The boy said this less because he truly believed it and more because he needed to try it out to find out if he believed it. It didn’t seem as straightforward as it ought. When he said it out loud, it seemed to fit with what he knew. He didn’t like how it felt. But it did seem to fit.
“Why, that’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.” The voice came from the tree. “Of course there’s magic. What sort of nimrod told you there isn’t?”
“Why do you suppose I need someone else to tell me? What if I figured it out myself?”
“It was your mother, wasn’t it? You might want to teach her a thing or two about the Magisterium.”
“What’s the Magisterium?”
“The place where magic is made.”
“I’ve never heard of it. And it was not my mother.”
“Of course you haven’t heard of it; you don’t believe in magic. Who would let you in on the secrets of magic if you can’t be bothered to believe? That would be the second dumbest thing I’d ever heard, if you had heard of the Magisterium but didn’t believe in magic.”
The boy peered into the thick leaves above him, but all he saw was the tree. It seemed unlikely that there could be a girl up there, it being all leaves and branches, but there was the voice, and so there must be a girl. Or well, a person, at least.
He didn’t know why he thought it was a girl. She didn’t talk like any girl he’d met before.
“I think it’s true.”
“What’s true? That there’s no such thing as magic?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, true things can be dumb still.”
“They can?”
“Of course! What about this? My sock has a hole in it. That’s true, and dumb, too.”
“Do trees wear socks? Or are you an especially unusual tree? Where are your feet?”
The voice muttered to itself. Something about how a tree would talk and what it would say if it did, the boy thought, but he couldn’t hear.
Then: “I suppose a talking tree wouldn’t be altogether too concerned about socks, would it?”
“It doesn’t seem likely,” the boy had to admit.
“We’ll conclude, then, that socks are a singularly unimportant thing, because surely a talking tree would know which things mean something and which don’t.” And with that, a filthy striped sock with a hole in the toe sailed out of the tree and landed on the ground in a puddle next to the boy’s foot.
“But trees don’t actually talk,” he said, wrinkling his nose at the sock.
“Maybe not to you,” the voice shot back. “But you don’t believe in magic, and talking trees, well, that’s magic then, isn’t it?”
The boy peered up into the tree again, trying to sort out where the voice was coming from. He wasn’t much of a fan of talking to someone he couldn’t see. He liked to know a bit about a body before committing to something so personal as a conversation, not being much for conversation in general. He knew, of course, that it couldn’t really be the tree talking, but the more they talked and the more he couldn’t see any human or even any sign of a human involved, the more he began to feel like he was having a conversation with the tree. And that seemed dangerous. For a tree might get one to open up about things better left unsaid.
“OK, tree,” he said. “It’s been all right to pass a minute, but I prefer to know a bit more about who I’m talking to. I’ll be on my way, then.” And the boy turned, fully intending to walk straight away, and yet feeling in his heart a twinge that seemed to want him to stop and stay and not go, which he couldn’t explain. He thought he ought to ignore it, and yet he couldn’t deny that it was there, tugging at his attention.
“Oh, bother,” he heard the tree say, and by now he had almost begun to think of it as the tree talking, which is how he knew he had better forget the twinge and walk away.
But before he could take another step, the voice said, “Wait one minute there now, I’m coming down. You don’t have to run away,” and the leaves of the tree shook and shivered and a foot appeared, followed by a leg extending down to the lowest branch. The leg was peppered with brown and green smudges. A second smudged leg followed, and then a girl appeared, as if from nowhere, all at once.
She was not small, especially for a girl, with lanky limbs and feet that were as big as his. It couldn’t have been said that the boy was an especially large person, either, so that was perhaps not saying too much about either of them, but still. The girl had two big messy pigtails that stuck straight out of the sides of her head; the ties keeping them together looked about ready to fall out whenever she moved, but somehow they never did, even as she clambered down the
last of the tree trunk and shook herself all over before coming to stand in front of him.
That was when he saw that she had giant blue eyes, the biggest he’d seen. He thought, with those eyes, she must see more of the world than he did, and he ought to pay attention to whatever she saw, because she must see things he was missing.
After her giant blue eyes, the boy noticed the other biggest thing about her, which was the amount of dirt on her. As much as he thought her eyes were the biggest he’d seen, more than that, he thought she was the dirtiest person he’d seen. She wore no socks now, which meant before she’d been wearing only the one, with the holes, and no shoes to speak of.
She looked as though she lived in the wild.
“Are you a savage?”
Her eyes grew to saucer-size. “What sort of question is that? Am I savage? I may be a bit unlearned, or, as I like to say, self-taught, but I’d venture I’m no less civilized than you, Mister Cleanly Pressed Trousers. I prefer the dirt, you see. How do you suppose one gets learned in the first place, if not by digging into things?”
“By studying. Reading books and going to school.”
“Oh, that will never do. Books. Foo. I want to put my hands on things. And in things. And under things. Did I mention on things?” She wiggled her fingers near him, and the boy backed up a step. Or two.
“My mother will be upset if I get my shirt dirty.”
“Mothers, foo. A girl learns more from getting dirty than she does from mothers.”
“You’re peculiar.”
“I’m Izandria Hydrangea Dauntless. Pleased to meet you.” She stuck a hand out.
The boy eyed the dirt beneath her nails and opted not to shake. “You’re…”
The girl didn’t seem offended. She shrugged and put her hand away. “It’s a mouthful, isn’t it? I daresay my father did that on purpose. If you must, you can call me Izzy, or even Iz, but it really is a shame. It’s quite a name, don’t you think? What’s yours, then?”
“Matthew.”
“Hmm. That won’t do, either. It doesn’t suit you, and it’s not nearly interesting enough. Who wants to be in a story about Matthew? You’ll need a new one. What about Aristotle? Ari for short. Yes, I think I shall call you Ari.”
“Why that?”
“He’s some kind of big deal dead guy who wrote a lot of those fussy books you like so well. I’d think you’d know him more than I would. Perhaps you’d like to ask that mother of yours who knows so much. At any rate, I’m particularly pleased to meet you, Aristotle.”
She tried to give a curtsy, but without a skirt (which Iz never wore), it turned into a bow, which went too deep, which then turned into a face-first tumble, which seemed to have been on purpose.
Aristotle frowned and bit his lip. “Is that a new way of greeting someone?”
“Why, yes. I thought it up this instant.” Iz brushed the dirt into her shirt harder so it would stay. She had no patience for tidy clothing. It wouldn’t do to return home after hours of hard play with no dirt showing. If one didn’t get dirty, what evidence was there that one had accomplished anything? “You should do it for me, as well, or we won’t be true friends.”
“My mother…”
“Yes, yes. Your mother. Can’t you explain to her that you needed to cement the bond of a true friendship? Surely she’ll understand! What kind of mother could fault you for that? It wouldn’t be fair.”
Mattthew—or Ari now—wrinkled his nose again. “I don’t believe it has much to do with fair.” Quickly, he rerouted the conversation. He didn’t want to find out what his mother would do if he tumbled home with dirt on his new pants. “What kind of magic do you do, then?”
“Who said I do magic?”
Aristotle pointed at the sign on the tree, but Izzy ignored his pointing.
“Foo. You don’t believe in it but you want me to tell you what I do with it? How piggish.”
“Piggish? What is that? And why? Maybe you can show me, and then I’ll believe.”
The girl tugged one pigtail, and he was sure the tie would now fall out. It didn’t. She chewed her lip and poked her tongue out of the side of her mouth.
“OK, that seems reasonable. The magic I do is: I tell stories.”
“That’s not magic.”
“Of course it is. What do you think those books you like are but stories? And what d’ya think they’re supposed to do but magic you away from everything that’s real and turn it into make-believe? Make-believe is what makes any day worth it’s sunlight, I always say. A day with no make-believe dies a slow terrible death and you’re stuck up in it. But when you’ve got that just-right story stuff, everything and all the things have the possibility of magic. Then it’s down to you to pull it out. Guess you’re not that good at pulling it out, then,” Izzy said, thrusting her chin out.
“Guess not,” he said, kicking at a rock and thinking about going home. He wasn’t sure he liked this girl.
“Oh fer whiskers and whippersnappers,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Don’t you want to get better at the things you’re not good at? Guess I thought that was the whole point of being alive, but if you’re not interested in sailing away like a pirate and climbing Staircase Mountain to Attic Peak and becoming a statue of the Buddha, or whatever other things we might get up to with a little magic, then I can get right back up in this here tree and you can go on home to read your books and that will be that.” Izzy kicked the same rock. “And I’ll be fine with it, and so will you.”
“Who said we wouldn’t be fine with it? Of course we’d be fine with it. Who needs to sail away like a pirate anyhow?”
“Right! Nobody. Not us.”
Aristotle glanced at her sideways. “Would there be a genuine pirate ship?” He unbuttoned his shirt cuff and pulled his sleeve down over his hand. “And a villain with a hook for a hand?” He waved the sleeve about as though he had no hand.
“There would be Indians and crocodiles and islands. There might even be a girl who gives you a thimble.”
“I thought you didn’t like books much,” Ari said.
“I don’t.”
“But you know Peter Pan.”
“Peter who? I had a friend once who used to call kisses thimbles. Silly girl obviously never had to mend her own socks, or she’d know about thimbles. Always a bit odd, that one, with her head in the clouds like she wasn’t quite from this world. I never did know what to do with her; she was always worried about some boy she knew who wasn’t going to grow up. I said that was ridiculous, of course it was ridiculous, because everyone grows up, even silly boys. But she said she hadn’t been able to convince him. Convince him, like you gotta talk people into growing up. Fluffhead.”
Ari frowned. “Izzy… that was a friend you had for real? A real girl? Not a story you’re telling me for magic’s sake?”
“Guess you’ll never know. I’ve got to go.”
Izzy carefully removed her sign from the trunk of the tree and tucked it beneath her arm. “See you,” she called, and Matthew wasn’t sure why, but he expected her to say something more, or for something more to happen, or even for himself to say something more, though he wasn’t sure what he expected himself to say. And in the end, neither of them said a further word, and yet the boy couldn’t help thinking that the girl was right—that he would see her.
He didn’t know how, because he didn’t know where she lived and she didn’t know where he lived, but she had this way about her, of saying things as if they were going to be so, and you had to believe her.
And so Matthew went home, without any worry, 100% certain that he would see that tree-voice girl again, and soon.
Being the Story in Which Ari First Visits Castle Beauregard Mandelgreen
The very next thing that happened was that Izzy invited Aristotle to her home. (Well, the very next important thing. Some other things happened in between, like going home and going to sleep and waking up a couple of times.)
The invitation came to the Gentian family mail
box. It was a birthday card-sized white envelope, and it sat alongside a skinny ladies’ home magazine for Matthew’s mother, a big blue coupon for a bath store, and an envelope from the electric company. It carried no stamp or other evidence of postage, so Matthew thought it must have been hand-delivered. He knew instantly who it was from when he saw the word “Aristotle” scrawled across the front in large capital letters, in handwriting that was—as much as he hadn’t thought it possible—quite a bit messier than his own.
There was not a single other person in the world that such an envelope could have come from. She had found him, and it only took her two whole days, during which he had only once wondered if he’d been wrong.
In her invitation, she gave directions, but no address. The end of the directions promised that when he got to the right street, he would know which house it was. He had no idea how that could be true, but he hoped she was right.
Izzy had used a pre-printed invitation that allowed her to fill in the details:
You are invited!
Please come to the home of IZANDRIA HYDRANGEA DAUNTLESS at FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS on TODAY at ANY o’clock. Please bring YOURSELF AND DO NOT BRING YOUR MOTHER.
Aristotle couldn’t think why he would bring his mother, but he supposed Izzy had a right to decide who was invited to her house.
Before he left, the boy wetted down his hair and tried to comb out the spot that stuck up, but it wouldn’t go down. He wetted it til it sopped and combed relentlessly, but that sticky-up bit was more stubborn than he was. Eventually he left it, a crooked kink. He wondered if he ought to also wear his best sweater, but then he figured that a girl who hangs out in trees with holes in her socks was not likely to give two figs about his best sweater. Or his wetted-down hair, but it was too late to do much about that.
Matthew tried to put an extra skip in his step as he left the house, tried to remember what had compelled him so about Izzy, tried to feel good about looking like this, and failed at all three.
A Possibility of Magic Page 1