The vacation cabin sat in a lot with four outer such homes, close to a pond that was named something or other lake (Miss Sophy couldn’t be bothered to look up the name of the thin as it was little more than a pond in her mind, since one could easily walk around it in less than an hour, and it was very shallow). All of the homes were closed for the season, and hers looked just as closed due to the seasonal spell she’d cast on it upon arriving here.
She’d driven herself most of the way, abandoning the borrowed car in a ditch. That had taken a bit of a jolt to her body to do, and her back still ached a little. She was certain the car had belonged to one of the policemen who had come to her house, armed with handcuffs and some sort of legal paper about it being a felony to use magic. She’d read the entire document while the foolish men were still sitting in their car. Did they really think a mast wand maker, seer, and fortune teller as herself would not know who they were or what they were up to?
So she’d released Goldie from his cage and transformed him into her temporarily, and hidden herself under the front seat of the police car. She’d watched the police arrest Goldie, and watched while the Peabody boy and his nerdy little friend ran through back yards, no doubt trampling on precious plants. She was proud of the boys, nevertheless, as they apparently had the foresight to get to a safe place as quickly as possible.
The police officers, not so much. Why, she had been John McLaughlin’s Second and Third grade teacher, and he’d been a most pleasant child. Blake Conely had been one of her Seventh grade students when she was principal of the junior high, and he’d been one of her honor students, and a good basketball player. Now, they were unceremoniously dragging her (Goldie) to the squad car with handcuffs on, and not a please or thank you to be had.
They’d arrived at the police station along with other squad cars, and many befuddled, struggling, or angry wizards and witches. There was little Miss Sophy could do, but she lifted Blake’s personal car key from his key chain and walked, invisible to the human eye, to the private lot where it was parked. She pulled out of the parking lot as the officers were inside booking Goldie, and Goldie was – presumably – returning to the yellow parakeet he actually was. It was, after all, a temporary spell.
Wrecking the car had been an unfortunate last minute decision, but she was later glad she’d had the misfortune of swerving to miss the elk. The car was hidden, there were no tracks of hers leading down the drive to the vacation cabins, and she’d had the good fortune to run into a five-tailed red fox on the way. She recognized Mr. Nagasaki right away, and they had a pleasant conversation all the way to the cabin. He convinced her to provide a safe house for anyone who managed to escape the clutches of the police.
She had not counted on that being a convoy of cold, wet, and frightened fifth and sixth graders, led by the resourceful Miss Beaman, herself scarcely a teenager. There were ten of them, all told: four in the 5th grade, five in the 6th grade, and Miss Beaman. Miss Beaman went by Missy, which was easy for Miss Sophy to remember.
Missy told her that the elementary school bus had been pulled over before it got to the particular bus stop where she waited for her bus, and her twin brothers waited for their bus. The children had simple run off into the woods like gypsies before a raid, running pell mell until the weakest of them got a stitch in the side, or ran out of breath. They took it more orderly after that, staying out of sight, and trying to find a place to hide. It was a very frightening time, but they had their back packs and some snacks they could share, and they made it to a dry shelter under a bridge, where they shivered and waited out the night.
There was much more to the tale, but eventually, they stumbled into a meadow where a deer was browsing, and the deer led them to the lake and the vacation houses. The deer told them to come to this cabin and to knock on the door. They were certain they’d had a very mystical experience, and so Miss Sophy did not bother to suggest that perhaps Mrs. Woodhouse (assuming they would know the Woodhouse family. Certainly Missy would).
Decades of experience in the public school system had Miss Sophy quite prepared for children, and she put them to work reading books or doing simple crafts. She had a small stash of board games, and they played those until they were bored and whiney, and prone to bickering with each other.
The twins, Mike and Tito, had to be separated on several occasions, and threatened with corporal punishment.
“You wouldn’t,” Tito dared.
“You couldn’t,” Mike challenged.
Miss Sophy had grabbed each boy by the ear, tweaking it hard, and walked them to their corners, respectively. “Now, gentlemen, let me explain a few house rules here. You do understand house rules? Good. Rule number one: never, ever, challenge me. Because I can, and I will. Number two: do not think you can outsmart me. Because you can’t. I see everything. And rule number three: there will be no fighting or rough housing in my vacation home. If you need something to do, I am quite certain that the bathroom toilet needs cleaning and the kitchen floor needs mopping.”
Miss Sophy kept her crystal ball in her private bedroom. She had it covered with a black cloth. She had a chest of wands she had not finished spells for, or had not yet begun to carve. That was locked in the cedar chest at the foot of her bed. Several decks of cards used for the sleight-of-hand carnival fortune telling were also in the locked truck. Her own wand was kept tucked in the pocket of her long skirt.
Miss Sophy brought out the crystal ball the first night with the children in the cabin, and they gathered around it like families around the radio during the Great War. Images of their parent’s faces surfaced, and whispered snippets of their conversations revealed the depth of the troubles the wizarding community was in. There were barriers erected against the use of magic, wands had been confiscated, and nearly the entire adult population had been taken into custody. Custody appeared to be housing that resembled disaster relief housing.
Miss Sophy communicated with Mr. Nagasaki as well. He came through the campground once or twice per day for a few days, always full of interesting news from town.
“Now, what family heirloom could someone have possibly taken from that fool head of a governor that he would abuse his authority so?” she asked the Kitsune.
“I have no idea, but he is determined to round up even the children.”
“He thinks a child stole it?”
“I did not say that, Miss Sophy. You are jumping to conclusions.”
“No, he is jumping to conclusions. If this heirloom could only be removed by means of the Dark Arts, then he has nothing to fear from the wizarding community in general. He should be consulting us for our wisdom in dealing with evil practitioners.”
“It is as is everyone in the non-wizarding community is under a spell.”
“Indeed.”
“How are the children?”
“Rapscallions. We need an army, not children. They are much too active, and they don’t have critical thinking skills.” She wiped her hands on her skirt. “I was hoping to tutor the Peabody girl this winter. Her father said he thought she was beginning to open up to her magic. She’s a level-headed young woman, well-grounded in science.”
He laughed. “I think we may have to turn to teenagers to form our army. I have a small group of them due at my cabin this evening.”
“Here we are, you and I, guardians of knowledge, now babysitters of our youth. What has the world come to, Mr. Nagasaki?”
She returned to the cabin feeling peevish. Her mood was not enhanced when she found the Beaman boys had been wrestling in the kitchen, and her teapot had been broken. They were quite ashamed of themselves, and were trying to glue it back together with white school glue.
Miss Sophy stood with her hands on her hips, glowering at them.
“We-we’re sorry, Miss Sophy.” Tito blushed a deep red. The other children fell very quiet.
“We didn’t mean it. We weren’t fighting,” Mike hurried to explain. “We were jostling…”
She took a deep inward breath. “Young men, school glue is water permeable. That means that the teapot, thus repaired, will not hold water again. Let me show you how it should be repaired. We will call it a lesson in magic.”
She pulled out her wand and waved it over the teapot. The teapot rearranged itself, and fused back together. It then filled with water from the sink by itself and made the short hop to the stove, where the propane came on, and the burner lit of its own accord.
“Cool!”
“How’d you do that?”
She turned to go to her room. “Come with me. All of you.”
There, she opened the chest and withdrew the wands, from the very roughest to the almost complete. The children pushed inward, trying to get a look. “Mike, carry this – carefully – out to the living room and set it in the middle of the table. Tito, you take these cards to the table.”
In the living room, she had the boys carefully lay out the wands. They were more than careful with them.
“Now, these are unfinished wands. They have no magic in them, and this is a good thing. I am a maker of wands, and a maker of the magic that lives in wands. Each of these wands represents a wizard or witch who will rise to his or her abilities, and who will be then gifted the wand at the appropriate time. These are not toys, but tools.
“Each of you will one day hold one of these in your hands. Think about the responsibility necessary to wield power that can mend a pot, fill it with water, and turn the stove on.”
“Can you teach us?”
“We cannot use that much magic,” She sighed. “Mr. Nagasaki tells me they are tracking the use of magic these days. I want you to each pick a wand. You may handle it – reverently, Tito – and then I want you to put your wand back into this chest. I will then lock it and store it until the time comes to award you with it.”
The children pored over the wands, selecting their favorite. Tito chose a rough looking one, but the rest chose more finished wands. Tito looked at Miss Sophy, who was watching him closely. “I think you can make it beautiful by the time I earn it,” he said softly. “Like the tea pot I broke.”
She put the wands away, and spent the rest of the night and part of the next two days teaching the children sleight-of-hand carnival tricks. Each evening, they checked the crystal ball for news, but there was little to report. The midget adults were getting restless, again, when the crystal ball turned a deep aquamarine and the foxy face of Kitsune appeared.
“I hope all is well,” he said.
(“Cool, a talking fox!” Mike elbowed one of the other boys, not Tito.)
“As well as can be with preteens.”
The fox smiled. “We have a plan. That is, Ella Peabody has a plan. Let me explain it to you.”
42,213 words
Jaci Dawn 