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The Storm
Life was simply not magical enough for Eliza, who pulled into the driveway of her small one-bedroom bungalow. Eliza had chosen to purchase this as her first home some years before, moving away from the suburbs where she had been raised. She settled some forty-five minutes from her childhood home, in a small village where she could live a slower life. Far from the irritant air of daily traffic, she felt closer to nature and immediately fell in love with the charming village of Windham. Mature oak trees and birdsong had lined the streets that first time she visited, and it was just what she needed. Homeowners here were proud and kept their gardens neatly mown and their flower beds well-fertilized.
While this village continued to charm Eliza years after her arrival, her garden drew some negative attention from her neighbours. It was now totally overgrown and taking over some of her house. Blackberry canes rested against the low-sloping roof, their fruit ripening far out of reach of human hands. Coneflowers had gone to seed in the front yard, and the backyard contained a miniature meadow of un-tamed wildflowers. Eliza neglected to remove the dry stalks that remained, and black-eyed Susans, daisies, milkweed, and even dandelion heads were spilling their seeds onto the earth and into the air. There was a path, just wide enough for one person to tread carefully, that led from the driveway through the backyard toward a shed. Upon this path sat a small black cat, named Pal.
It was a fine September day; leaves had yet to turn, and wasps were feasting on fruit that had gone too long without being picked. Eliza slumped against her car in the driveway of her home and closed her eyes to breathe in the clean air. A woman from the village garden club had once told her that her garden had so much potential, that she could do so much with it. There had been a lot of gossip about the scandalous quantity of cotton-y milkweed seeds drifting away from Eliza’s garden and into neighbouring properties. Windham villagers used phrases like, “Noxious weeds,” to describe the flower that Monarch butterflies depend on for survival. One neighbour sourly glared at Eliza each time he stood with a backpack sprayer, dousing his lawn with herbicide wherever dandelions grew. How could she explain that the bright yellow flowers were food for bees (which often elicited a scandalized gasp from people afraid of a sting) and beautiful whether or not they were accused of being weeds?
Presently, though Eliza did not notice, a couple with a pram were crossing the street to avoid walking directly in front of her yard. The pavement in front of her house was strewn with overripe elderberries which would stain their nice white walking shoes. They exchanged glances with one another at seeing Eliza appearing to admire the disorder. The couple congratulated themselves for not being so bizarre and out-of-touch with presentability as Eliza.
The truth is, Eliza had perfected the garden to her needs. A fragrance of herbs and flowers drifted through the air, mixing with the earthy smell of decomposition. Perennial onions still stood firmly, bright green, among the many plants that were now going dormant in time for winter. Those onions would also be among the first plants to reappear in the spring when the snow melted, along with several hundred flowering Crocuses and Siberian Squills. Eliza could mix dozens of teas from the herbs and plants she grew, and with those she could cure most minor ailments (as long as those ailments were sore throats, headaches, and menstrual cramps).
Besides providing tea, food, and medicine for Eliza, it was also a place of refuge for many animals that had little where else to go. Though she lived in a village, the village was merely an island. It was surrounded by hundreds of acres of productive land. Agricultural fields that specialized in only two or three crops; mainly corn and soybeans. Eliza’s overgrown garden provided the perfect hiding place for insects, birds, and mammals alike. Recently she became aware that there were other visitors to her garden, too. Visitors she could not see but whose presence was given away by certain clues. There was no denying it. A family of gnomes had made camp next to a toad’s den, and the glittering pink and purple wings of faeries caught the evening light just before the fireflies began their own show. Yes, there was magic in this garden.
Eliza’s day job left her feeling robotic and empty. She remembered being a teenager and being told she had her whole life ahead of her, anything was possible, she was brimming with potential. But life had only brought her to become an assistant in an office where she contributed nothing, created nothing, and aspired to nothing. Belonging in a society where it was more acceptable to spray poison on your grass, just meters from the well where you get your drinking water, than it was to let plants go to seed took its toll on Eliza. She often felt she’d been born in the wrong century, that the hubbub of normal life left much lacking in her soul.
Her garden was the only place that provided her a sanctuary where she could fully believe that there was a world of magic and joy interconnected with the mundane one. A world of magic, faeries, and timeless eternal belonging. Here among the prickly canes of raspberry plants and stinging nettles, she could feel the turning of the seasons and the hum of something more than Ordinary singing beneath the surface of reality.
The grim expression she wore when she arrived from work was wiped away when the little black cat in the garden started to make its way toward her. Pal sauntered down the garden path, ducked beneath wild bergamot, and hopped over flowering tufts of oregano and tarragon to arrive at Eliza’s feet. She felt happiness with the arrival of the bouncing feline, whose tail was curved into the shape of an interrogation mark. Pal brushed himself heartily against Eliza’s legs in welcome and she reached down and lifted him into her arms. He purred loudly while settling himself comfortably against her shoulder.
Eliza began to walk through the garden with Pal keeping a watchful eye out for birds and squirrels. She reached a patch of fragrant plants she had selected for their usefulness in herbal tea, and came to rest on her knees among them. Eliza released Pal from her embrace, and he bounded happily into a patch of red clover to catch a grasshopper. Running her hand along the tops of some herbs, a rich fragrance filled Eliza’s senses. All thoughts of her stressful workday were erased as the gentle smell of mint mixed with lemon and thyme swirled around her.
Laughter sprang from Eliza’s lips when Pal dove headfirst into a gooseberry bush and all that was left of him were his hind legs poking ridiculously up in the air and his tail swirling wildly as he became tangled in the spiny branches. Eliza gently extracted the thrashing cat and stroked his head.
“Cats are supposed to be elegant, you know. And proud,” teased Eliza.
“And humans aren’t supposed to talk to cats,” Pal retorted, tail twitching in embarrassment.
Eliza sighed, “It’s a shame, in the old days they would have accused me of witchcraft. Not that that’s much to be envied, but at least people would have believed in witches back then. Now science is the new magic and people roll their eyes if anyone admits they believe in anything that can’t be explained with a formula. If you talk about the flow of energy or spirituality you get treated like a gullible airhead. It would’ve been nice to live in an age where you could scare people just by being able to read and have opinions.”
“Up until the part where they burn you alive, of course,” said the cat.
“That goes without saying.”
There was a pause in which both admired a fat bumblebee’s slow flight from one flower to the next.
“Why do you have to go to work?” asked Pal. “You spend almost every night dreading the next day. Then when you get home from the office you look traumatized; like you’ve just witnessed some terrible thing. It can’t be healthy being that miserable all the time.”
Eliza smiled. “I don’t know what else to do, I have to pay for this house and all the tuna you eat.”
The cat flopped onto the ground next to Eliza and rolled onto his side, exposing his belly, “I can’t help but think you’re overcomplicating things. There are other ways to pay for tuna that don’t involve you being unhappy.”
There was no refuting this, he was right. But the life Eliza dreamed of, she doubted existed in any job. She wanted to be a witch in a world of witches. She wanted to have a passionate romance with a handsome man and have dangerous and exciting adventures. She dreamed of sweeping around in big medieval dresses and living in an old castle that had no electricity but many roaring fires. There wasn’t much chance of cackling from a broomstick flying high above the clouds by moonlight in the same world that offered suburbia and convenience stores.
“You just like to complain,” continued Pal, “You could change your life if you really wanted to. You don’t change it because you’re happier being miserable than you are excited about possibilities that are unknown.”
Eliza said nothing as she glared out into the garden. She resented the cat. She knew Pal was right about some things, but he didn’t understand how years of social conditioning were difficult to break away from. There was no use voicing this opinion out loud. He would merely accuse her of creating yet another excuse.
The cat was staring at her now. “You know there is magic, you can’t keep doubting it. You’re criticizing other people for not believing in it, but you’ve seen it with your own eyes. Why do you still think you have to live this difficult life?”
“Okay, so what if faeries and gnomes are real, and apparently sprites have been eating my raspberries?” asked Eliza. “How does that change my life in any way?”
Pal’s ears folded backward with annoyance, “I’ve taught you how to do magic, haven’t I? I can’t have this conversation with you again.” The cat stood and marched off into the deeper recesses of the back garden. His black tail disappeared when he slipped behind the shed.
Feeling ashamed, Eliza stared at her hand. She remembered what Pal had taught her. She closed her eyes and spread her palm on the earth beneath her. She used her soul to feel through the soil, several meters deep, until she felt moisture and free-flowing water. She scooped up the moisture using her mind and carried it back up out of the earth, feeling as it wound its way between every particle of sand, silt, and clay. She opened her eyes. It was beginning to rain in her garden. A light and totally impossible rain. Streams of water were coming upward out of the earth, swirling a couple feet above the surface, and pattering back down in a steady drizzle. Eliza smiled at the miraculous sight.
“I’m a witch,” she said. The joy was short-lived. A small sadness took over her.
Not for lack of trying, Eliza found herself alone in her miracle. She had started small, reading about magical herbs and mushrooms and using crystals for energy. She read about how to use tarot cards and runes to predict the future. She had now studied every book she could get her hands on that spoke about magic, fortunetelling, and witchcraft. Eliza had tried lighting candles while in her bathtub, reciting poems above moon-charged salt with a pendulum in one hand and a broom in the other. She had an altar of magical objects where she chanted intentions. None of the wacky rituals she tried yielded any results other than a few very rare occasions. But such occasions were so rare it could be better explained by coincidence than magic.
Only when she met Pal did things begin to change. Pal did not immediately take to Eliza, he was resentful that his previous home had given him up and he was determined not to like living with anyone else. After a while, though, Eliza let Pal out of the house to enjoy the garden with her. It was shortly after this that he began to speak to her. She learned that he had long conversations with faeries and sprites in the garden and that they told him about a world of magic where witches and warlocks gathered at an institute to learn to use their powers. Kids were usually invited in their teens and learned to make rain, create fire, make objects disappear, and use the wind to transport themselves anywhere in the world they wished to go.
“If the institute is real, why haven’t they contacted me?” Eliza had asked when Pal told her about it. “They invite teens to study magic, why didn’t I get invited?” She lamented the missed opportunity but thought she already knew the answer to her own questions. She must not have enough magic in her for the institute to find her. It was a bitter realization, knowing she had failed even before she had begun.
The thought of a school full of happy teens manipulating the elements and flying on the breeze brought bitter tears to Eliza’s eyes. It was a childhood dream that she might be whisked away during the night to Neverland, or Narnia, or transported through time with a patch of thyme! She felt anger and injustice that for other people this wasn’t a dream. They actually did get to a place like Brakebills from The Magicians, or Miss Cackel’s Academy for Witches like the Worst Witch. Why couldn’t Eliza have this life of fantasy? Why couldn’t she go to an Academy of the Unseen Arts like Sabrina?
She reached deeper into the earth and called forth more water to the surface. She threw the moisture as high as she could muster, feeling it gathering higher up in the sky. The sudden influx of cold water from below the earth meeting the warm September air caused friction that preceded a flash of lightning quickly followed by a rumble of thunder. Eliza stood, arms awkwardly poised on either side of her as she tried to control the gathering storm. Lightning flashed three more times in such quick succession that the thunder that followed rolled into one loud clap and a long, breathless growl.
Eliza dropped her arms to her side and stumbled a bit. She placed her hand on the gooseberry bush she had planted a couple of years before and borrowed some strength from it. She looked up as the dark cloud above collapsed and the rain she had created came falling down in one sudden sheet of water that immediately drenched her right through. She laughed nervously as the freezing cold water infiltrated through layers of clothes and a chill ran up her spine. The rain was over as quickly as it began. She had not really sent all that much water up, after all. Eliza wrang her long brown hair, letting the drops patter down onto the garden path.
A miserable yowl drew her attention and she burst into a fit of giggles when she saw Pal, completely soaked through. He was no longer slender and sweet, but a strange creature with eyes and ears far too big for the rest of his body. She scooped up the soaked cat and ran into the house with him cradled in her arms. They would warm up and dry themselves by the fireplace.
As Eliza’s laughter disappeared from the darkening yard, she had no way of knowing that on an island some hundreds of kilometers away, an instrument made of copper and powered by magic began to whirr. A blown glass quill connected to the instrument by a long pewter rod scribbled earnestly on a sheet of paper;
ELIZA PALADIN
AGE, 28
MAGIC LEVEL 8
WINDHAM