A Possibility of Magic

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A Possibility of Magic Page 9

by Rachael Ann Mare


  Night fell faster than it ever had, because it was the last day of summer. They barely had to wait, and the sun was gone, down below the horizon, letting the stars rise up. The two summer kids yawned and took their third cherry limeades to sit down in the grass and crane their necks and stargaze some, because only the best days, only the last days of summer, could have both cloud-gazing and star-gazing in the one and the same day.

  “Cherry limeade is darn good,” Matthew said.

  “Yuss,” said Izzy, who was busy drinking.

  “Maybe… like a kind of magic.”

  Izzy didn’t look at him. Instead she gazed up at the expanse of sky above her, drinking it in with her giant eyes in her way of eating up every little thing, not speaking for long enough that Matthew thought she might not, that perhaps she hadn’t quite fully forgiven him, and then, when he was sure of it, and also that he couldn’t live without her and so he would figure out how to make her forgive him, so he could keep seeing that way of looking of hers, she said, finally, only, “Possibly.”

  On Tom Doncourt

  Sometimes you meet people who seem to only do what they want, in the best way possible. Everything they do is a sort of magic, because they’re doing it solely because it lights them up. It’s like every step of the way in their lives, they said, hey, this would be cool. Let’s try it.

  Without a worry. Without a care. Just, let’s try it.

  This is the kind of energy that Tom Doncourt had. Tom Doncourt was an artist who worked for 24 years at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. I had the brief but delightful pleasure of getting to know him when I organized walking tours of the dioramas at the Museum of Natural History for Atlas Obscura, a website that covers curious and wondrous travel destinations. Tom’s tours sold out faster than any other events I organized, every time.

  I later also attended the class Tom taught at the museum on creating your own diorama, mostly because I enjoyed the museum, the dioramas, and Tom’s personality so much. After that, every now and then I would think of him. But when the museum notified me, as one of his former students, that he had passed away, I explored his Facebook page and his YouTube channel and wished I had known him better. He is the inspiration for wizard Tom, who Matthew meets while wandering the world looking for answers. He really did live in a strange tower (a former mews), collect Mellotrons (and a whole host of other strange and interesting instruments), and write incredible, weird, interesting prog rock.

  He made a life of collecting all his different artistic interests and just doing what he loved. Every new thing I learned made me say, hey, that’s so weird and interesting and cool. I want to be like this. I want to just pursue all the strange and weird and interesting things I love and not get caught in worrying if anyone will like it or if it will make any money. Tom did these things and seemed not to notice, seemed not to worry. (I don’t know if he did; I imagine he must have, sometimes, but man did he not carry that energy at all.)

  I am eternally grateful that I had the opportunity to know him and to experience his energy of pursuing all that stuff simply because he wanted to, because it lit him up. I can imagine him saying, Hey, this would be cool. Let’s try it.

  And so, here you have something of mine that I did just because I thought it would be cool and fun—with no worries about whether anyone else would like it or if it would sell. If you’ve made it this far, hopefully you enjoyed hanging out with Izzy and Matthew as much as I enjoyed creating them, but if you didn’t, oh well. I had a great time with them anyway.

  xx Rachael

  About the Author

  Rachael Ann Mare is a writer who believes in real-life magic. In addition to A Possibility of Magic, she’s the author of a YA urban fantasy titled The Flight of the White Crow and is hard at work on a companion novel, The Sight of the Lost Girl. Sign up for her extremely irregular newsletter at SpunkyMisfitGirl.com.

 

 

 


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