Today

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Snowdonia Cottage, Brechenridge Village, Mt Timpanogos

“So that’s my father. He built Snowdonia Cottage for Mother, and then she gave it to me on my eighteenth birthday.”

“That surprises me a little. It’s customary for the eldest son—or only son, in this case—to inherit the family home…”

“Yes. But that assumes a few things, foremost among them: that the son would marry and have a family. And that just wasn’t in the cards for me.”

“Please say more…”

“Well, as a gay man in the 1920s, I could live the lie of feigned heterosexuality or play the confirmed bachelor.”

“We talked about this a little in the garden, before coming in… and I asked this then, and I’ll ask it again: Wizardkind has long had a tradition of same-sex couples… why wasn’t that an option for you?”

“I’m not an anthropologist or historian, so I can only speak to the view from where I stood and my own lived experience… and from where I stood, living authentically was a privilege of the wealthy. As someone who had to earn his way in the world, trust was essential. And witches and wizards are no more trusting of folks who are different than the Mundane world. Magic doesn’t cure us of our bigotry or fear. That’s only cured with hard work.” Erastus looked down at his hands. “No, there just wasn’t any room for a queer, working-class Wizard in my world.”

* * *

A Good While Back

Friday, May 24, 1918

Polecat Lane, Salt Lake City

“Faggot”, someone growled in his ear, and then he was on the ground—his school books scattered in the dirt with one in a puddle and another bumped up against a pile of road apples. Erastus looked over and saw the puddle was coming down from the back of the butcher shop. “Rats”, he cursed, as he reached for the sodden arithmancy and soiled physics texts—his palms raked and bloody.

“Erastus!” He heard Minerva holler, from down the lane, as she ran toward him.

“Oh look, his bodyguard.” Erastus recognized that voice and looked up. It was Tommy, with a boy Erastus didn’t recognize. “See that, Cal?” Tommy asked the boy, pointing at Erastus, who was still on his knees, picking up his books. “That there’s an Ethel.”

“I don’t know what that is, Tommy”, Cal said, his thick Brooklyn accent taking great liberties with the sentence. “But why’d you push him down—don’t he go to school with you?”

Minerva arrived just then and gave Tommy a snarl as she bent down to help Erastus up. She, Erastus, and Frankie had been walking back from their supplemental classes with Mr Greengrass and she’d stopped to re-tie her shoes. She looked up to watch Frankie and Erastus pass Tommy and the other boy, then saw Tommy shove Erastus to the ground.

“An Ethel… a little bird…”, Tommy stepped closer to Erastus. “A cock biter.” Tommy shoved Erastus again and spit in his face.

“Does your father know you talk like that”, asked Minerva, wiping the spit from Erastus’s face. “Mr. Del Vecchio!”

The Polecat Market, which was open before dawn, was closed this late in the afternoon.

“Mom and dad are long gone, you sap”, Tommy then turned to the other boy and spoke to him. “Anyway, it was my pops who warned me about Erastus, here—says all the Howells are cock biters.”

“Has your pops been kissing my grandfather, Tommy?” Erastus asked, cooly. “Have you? … Seems you know all the words for guys who fancy guys… why do you think that is?”

Tommy’s right hook connected squarely with Erastus’s jaw, and his knee delivered a crushing blow to the young man’s testicles.

“Tommy”, Cal said as he pulled the bigger boy back. “I don’t want no trouble. Nonna sent me here to get away from this baloney. You’re gonna get my hide beat raw.”

Erastus had his wand out and was ready for Tommy, this time. He looked around… Frankie was standing several feet off, gripping his books tightly, pale as a sheet, but the street was otherwise empty.

“Minerva”, he said quietly. “Go to Frankie.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Go. To. Frankie. I’ll sort this.”

Erastus stood his ground. About an inch taller than Tommy, Erastus was, nevertheless, a full stone lighter.

“I said go!”

Minerva ran to Frankie, but Erastus knew she’d tear into him later. Two years younger than Erastus, but his sister Zina’s step-daughter had somehow inherited the woman’s fire.

Erastus wiped a trickle of blood from the side of his mouth, then nodded at Cal.

“Cal, here, is the smart one, I see.”

Cal gave Erastus a look—begging not to be dragged into their argument—but tightened his grip on Tommy’s arm, all the same.

“Let’s go, Tommy. He’s not worth the skin.”

“Yeah. You’re right Cal”, Tommy grumbled, and let himself be pulled back.

Erastus smoothed down his clothes, looking for tears or scuffs, bent down to pick up his books, then turned to catch up with Minerva and Frankie.

“Hey, faggot!”

Erastus stopped, an icy frisson slicked down his spine.

“This isn’t over, faggot. You watch yourself!”

Erastus flexes his jaw, then turned and saw Tommy down the road a bit, Cal tugging at his arm.

“It’s over Tommy. It was over before it began.” Erastus replied. “So you’ve got yourself a bright shiny new word, eh? That’s just ducky—and you learned it from an old man who’s interested in the sex lives of children, yeah? Even better.”

Erastus bared his bone-white wand, Frith.

“But you know what they called me, right? Demon Boy. Wand Killer. You know the stories, right? Do you think I’d ever let you lay another hand on me? Do you think I’d ever let you threaten me or my friends?”

Erastus stepped forward.

“Do you want to see what my magic can do, Tommy? Do you want to taste my wand?” Erastus threatened. “Try something again, Tommy, and you’ll find out for yourself.”

“Let’s go!” Cal insisted, and yanked Tommy back down the street.

Erastus turned and shuffled toward his friends.

“Minerva, do you think your mother has any anti-bruise paste? Could you run and get me some?” Erastus rubbed his jaw. “But do it quietly. I don’t want to have to explain this to anyone. Not to mention it’s Hope’s birthday—I don’t want to take away from that.”

“Sure thing, Erastus”, Minerva hesitated. “You’re all right, though?”

“I will be. Thanks, Minerva. You’re the best.”

Minerva hurried off, then Frankie took Erastus’s books and set them carefully back down on the ground. He cast a couple of librarian charms on the lot of them, and a few quick cleaning spells on Erastus, then turned Erastus around to get a better look at him.

“Erastus”, Frankie paused. “Did you piss yourself?”

“You weren’t the only one who was scared, Frankie.”

Frankie used a couple of charms he’d learned from changing his little sister’s diapers. Then took Erastus’s dirty, bloody hands in his own.

Scourgify, episkey, episkey, episkey…

Erastus ran his clean and mended hands over his front and backsides, self-consciously; suddenly aware of the intimacy of Frankie’s administrations.

“Thank you, Frankie”, he whispered.

Frankie waved him off.

“Well, you didn’t look scared to me.”

“Good! I don’t want to have to follow through on my threats. I don’t think it would end well for the Demon Boy of Haxton Place if he cursed the son of everyone’s favorite fruit vendor.”

Frankie snorted.

Erastus snorted back, then swung his arm around Frankie’s shoulders.

“Stop it!” Frankie shrugged Erastus off. “That’s probably what got us here in the first place, sheesh!”

Erastus looked surprised, wounded.

“You should have hexed Tommy”, Frankie said, bumping Erastus with his elbow—a bit of affection to smooth over the hurt.

“Who says I didn’t?”

“He didn’t yelp, or cough up slugs, or anything!”

“Merlin, Frankie. Give me some credit. I can be subtle.”

“Subtle, eh?” Frank looked at his best friend with a cocked eyebrow. “Erastus Q. Powell… what did you do?”

“Tommy’s piss’ll run bright pink and burn—just a little—until the next full moon.”

“What the hell?!”

“It’s an old diagnostic charm they used on suspected werewolves, back in the old country. I picked it up from a book in our library.”

“What happens if he’s actually a werewolf?”

Erastus looked sideways at Frankie, a smirk on his face.

“His whole body turns bright pink.”

Both boys fell apart laughing, side by side, as they walked the rest of the way home.

* * *

Today

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Snowdonia Cottage, Brechenridge Village, Mt Timpanogos

“So. I’d like to pivot to something a little less somber… Wands? Tell us about yours…”

“Which one?”

Erastus smiled, mischief in his eyes.

“Um. How many do you have?”

Wands choose the wizard, so the idea that a wizard might be polywandrous was… unusual. Helena looked and felt perplexed… but she knew ratings gold when she heard it, and made a mental note to have the newsroom work up a few stories to be published in conjunction with the release of the memcast—maybe even a follow-up memcast with a wandmaker!

“Well, I currently work with two wands… my fourth and fifth wands…”

“I’m not sure which is more peculiar, Erastus—a polywandrous wizard, or a wizard who’s had so many wands!”

“So where would you like me to start, Helena? The lurid tale of the wands I’ve left behind? Or my scandalous relationship with two wands at the same time?”

Erastus chuckled to himself, a sparkle in his eye… and he pulled his wand, Frith, from his sleeve, holding them between his hands, out in front of himself.

“This is Frith, my fourth wand. They are 10 ½ inches in length and carved from the right femur of a Great Plains chirruping jackalope. They were crafted and given to me by Abe Smith, whom I’ve mentioned already.”

Erastus held Frith out in front of himself with both hands, turning the wand around in his hands carefully, so Helena and Priya could see.

“It’s covered in runes and… it’s coreless?”

“It would probably be more appropriate to say that they are ‘woodless’ or ’sheathless’ since the bone of a jackalope is endowed with its own magical presence… In an ordinary wand, a sliver of a jackalope bone would be the core, just as we use the bones of other magical beasts.”

“And the runes?”

Erastus rehearsed Abe’s story for Helena, then concluded: “the Wizarding world didn’t know what to do with a mute wizard, but Abe wasn’t about to be written off. He couldn’t utter an incantation—and, like most wizards (myself included) only mastered a few bits of wandless magic. But he could write and he let his letters do the talking for him. Abe’s runes blessed the second foundation of the famous Salt Lake Temple, they strengthen Frith, they enchanted the carriages we rode to town in, this morning. Abe was, perhaps, the greatest wizard of his generation, and folks only knew him as a barber.”

“He sounds wonderful…”

“He was. When my father—one of Abe’s best friends—died, Abe became my mentor and friend.”

Erastus’s voice caught. And he paused while he composed himself.

“He’s the reason we’re sitting here today. He saved my life four times, taught me how to wield a wand, and laid the foundations for the sort of magic I practice today.”

“So I want to explore that in detail… but let’s return to that in a moment. You said Frith is your fourth wand… so tell us about the others?”

“Well, like most witches and wizards, here in the US, my Wand Day fell within a week of my eleventh birthday. That year my birthday, August 24th, fell on a Monday. And so my mother decided that my Wand Day would coincide with my birthday. She, my sisters, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, and all of my cousins went to McKay’s Wands—on Main Street, a couple of blocks north of the Wizarding market at Exchange Place. It was a big deal to me and I felt truly seen by my family for the very first time.

My mother, though, made sure that my Wand Day was also a win for the family. So when we came to McKay’s Wands, she asked for everyone but me and her to remain outside and await the reveal. And it made sense that she’d ask that… there were so many people and the shop—even magically expanded within—wasn’t large enough for everyone. But when the door closed behind us and we’d made our way to the well-warded backroom, Mother demanded that I only be shown wands which had been imported from Ollivander’s, in London.

‘You’re a Snow, and the Snow family have been loyal customers of the Ollivander family for a thousand years!’

And she would not be moved.

After a few false starts, the shop clerk brought out a 10 ¼ inch hazelwood wand with a dragon heartstring core. They were my first wand and they were beautiful—a smooth taper that terminated with a small ball finial. They felt so good in my hands. I gave them a quick swish and a small spray of lilac-colored sparks sprang from their tip.

’We’ll take it!’, my mother proclaimed approvingly, then paid for the wand, quickly marching me out of the shop to our family, gathered outside.

‘An Ollivander wand!’ she announced, and everyone from her side of the family nodded at each other, as though that somehow meant something profound… even though it couldn’t really have meant anything at all since Ollivander wands were the only ones we’d tried…

Anyway. Everyone crowded in and admired the wand and complimented me on my good fortune… and my younger cousins all talked about what they expected from their respective Wand Days… and for one brief shining moment, I was the center of my family’s universe.

It was… wonderful.”

“Did you name your first wand?”

“No. I didn’t understand the value of wand names until my third wand, Sabre.”

“What is the value of a wand name? I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who named their wand—though I’ve certainly read about wands which had names, in stories and in history books…”

“So you’ve heard, of course, that the wand chooses the witch or wizard…”, Helena nodded (and Priya, too, to herself). “And it’s absolutely true. Raw magic has a certain sentience… and that magic, filtered through the wand’s core and sheath, also has a personality and memory. Wands come to know their witch or wizard and witches and wizards come to know their wands…” Helena (and Priya) nodded again. “Now imagine having a friend but never knowing or using their name… how weird would that be? Could it be said of those two people that they really had a friendship at all?” Erastus shook his head. “No, of course not. They certainly had some kind of relationship… but it couldn’t possibly be called a friendship. Yet!” Erastus raised his index fever in exclamation. “A witch or wizard who came to know their wand well enough to christen it with a name that they and their wand could agree upon? I think it might be safe to say that they had cemented between themselves a special bond and maybe—maybe—even a friendship.”

Priya and Helena had crept to the edges of their seats, with excitement, and Erastus then punctuated this last bit of wisdom by leaning back into his chair.

“What kind of wand do you have, Helena?”

“A 10 ⅜ inch hawthorn with a unicorn hair core.”

“That’s a fine wand. A good fit, I imagine? Hawthorn is your birth tree, no?”

“That’s correct! I was born on May 18th. And yes; it’s been a very good wand to me.”

“Let’s start by using the proper pronoun, Helena… a wand isn’t an ‘it’, a wand is a ‘they’.”

“They have been a very good wand to me.”

“So let’s return the favor… Not today, of course, but maybe tonight or in the next few days, take some time to think of your relationship with your wand and put together a list of seven names—seven is a powerful number!” Erastus beamed. “And then go to your wand and inquire after those names, in any way you see fit. If the first seven names don’t work, find seven more… and repeat this process until you both agree on the name. The process isn’t just about choosing a name, it’s a way for both the wand and their witch or wizard to come to know each other in a new and better way—a true meeting of the minds, if you will.”

“I can’t wait to do this!”

Helena felt a small thrum! from her wand.

“I’m glad to hear that. And I’m sure Abe would be glad to hear it as well—he’s the one who taught me about wand names.”

“So your wand day was August 24, 1914… pick up the story from there; what happened next?”

“Well. Almost one month later, at my family’s Equinox bone fire, I was invited to join all the cousins to cast the spell to light it up. I was so excited—I’d been practicing for a couple of weeks with Abe and my grandfather and even my sisters… perfecting the incantation and wand movement. I was nervous, but I was ready… So when the sun set that night, we all gathered around the dried wood and the bones of our ancestors. But as I recited the incantation—just as I had a hundred times before—I felt the ground beneath my feet begin to warm. Then, instead of a cord of fire streaming into the air from my wand tip to join the cords from my cousins’ wands… Instead of that, a great column of fire burst from the ground beneath me. And while it behaved in almost every regard as it was intended to, it took with it all of my clothes, my hair, my eyebrows… And my first wand.”

“That’s quite the image.”

“Yes. An eleven-year-old boy, naked and bald as the day he was born, standing there in front of gods, angels, and all those gathered… holding a stick of almost pure carbon.”

“I’m speechless.”

“So was I! It was Abe who ran up to me and wrapped me in a blanket, carefully removing the spent wand from my hands. And a few days later, it was Abe who taught me to bury my wand in the family garden. But my family was still giving me long sideways glances… so it was just me and Neige, Mother’s house-elf, at the graveside.”

“How… how did you process all of this?”

“I was just a kid. My father was dead and my family and friends looked at me strangely. And because I didn’t know any better, I thought it was because I had embarrassed them by incanting improperly or by swishing when I should have flicked… so I apologized for what I had done. Again and again and again. And over time, things went back to something like normal. But I had performed the spell just as I had done a hundred times during practice. It wasn’t what I had done that vexed all the grownups—and whose children subconsciously mirrored their parents’ distrust in me—it wasn’t what I had done. It was who I was. I was a child who could summon Primal magic from the very ground. And as a grownup, now, myself? I agree with them that such a child is worthy of a great deal of concern. Concern… and love. You run toward that child, not away.”

“So what happened?”

“Well, Grandfather Powell—Myrddin, my father’s father—knew this in his bones. And so… five days later he took me, alone, to McKay’s Wands and stood with me as we found a new wand. Of course, Grandfather wasn’t immune to wanting my wand to reflect well on the family… so when a 10-inch black walnut wand with mother-of-pearl inlay and a wampus core—from Jonker’s of Manhattan, no less—responded well to me, he declared the matter settled. We signed the MACUSA wand licensing papers and left.”

“Had you licensed your first wand?”

“Of course not”, Erastus chuckled. “No self-respecting Western witch or wizard gave MACUSA even an inch if they didn’t absolutely have to. Of all my wands, only my second one was licensed…”, A sudden realization flashed across Erastus’s face. “Which now explains several very odd conversations I’ve had over the years with MACUSA border agents. Heh.”

“Do you still have your second wand?”

“Oh, no. They’re buried next to my other wands, in the family garden at Powell House.”

“So your first three wands were all destroyed…”

“Yes. My second split in half the following May, during a May Day family celebration… and my third wand—a 10 ¾ inch yew sheath with thunderbird tail feather core, whom I’d named ‘Sabre’, after being coached by Abe—crumbled on my twelfth birth’s eve.”

“So in your first year of wand use, you destroyed three wands.”

“Yes.”

“If one was bad… three? What was that like?”

“I was the subject of many many discussions. And I had many many visits by all sorts of Western witches and wizards who were experts in various fields. In public, my family spoke of my ‘great strength’ and ’special gift’… but in private, it was a different matter. In private, I overheard adults wondering aloud whether I was possessed or not. I rarely saw my cousins anymore. My only playmates were kids who lived nearby and the ghost of a little boy who enjoyed the company of Magical children.”

“How did that make—“

“Make me feel? Like garbage. Like human refuse. No child should be treated like that. Not one. And so, on the night I wasted Sabre, I had two desires fighting for domination: I wanted to die and I wanted to prove them all wrong. It was Abe’s love and the trust he placed in me, by giving me Frith—a wand he’d made himself, that he’d started to craft the night of the bone fire—it was his unwavering trust in me that saved my life the first time… and set me on the path that has brought us together today.”

“How so?”

“Well, I was always a curious boy… a careful observer. But I’d never had a reason to wonder at how magic worked before that… and in trying to help me process everything, Abe asked me questions. Lots of questions… and then he gave me the space and the tools and the support I needed to find the answers I craved. And maybe, more importantly, he explained the behavior of the adults around me. He was a translator of sorts—like I suspect my father would have been. He never made excuses for the bad behavior of others… but he contextualized it, which also fed my analytical mind.”

Erastus sipped a little more from his mug of hot cocoa, stirring it warm again with the charmed spoon.

“So that brings me to wand five, Thallídion^[1].”

Erastus stretched out his right hand, and wandlessly summoned his walking stick from where it had been standing, next to the door. The blood-red cane flew through the air to his waiting hand. He clasped it and tossed it lightly in the air, and when he caught it again, it was a small wand.

“Tell us about Thallídion…”

* * *

A Good While Back

Sunday, August 21, 1932

Ruby Mountains, Nevada

Nevada is dragon^[2] country.

Erastus knew this first-hand. He’d stumbled upon more than a lifetime’s worth of them. Two lifetime’s worth. This is why he was grateful that he and Abe had been able to put their heads together on a powerfully charmed map before Abe had been killed.

It was a fascinating bit of magic, Erastus admitted. It was mostly Abe’s runework, when all was said and done, but Erastus had his hand in there, too. And it was one of his prized possessions. First because of its connection to his fallen mentor… and a close second because of the number of times it had saved his life.

And here he was. Back in Nevada on assignment. Erastus was glad for the work of course—as a wizard of modest means, he was always grateful for the work—but August in Nevada is hot and dry and filled with all sorts of nasty critters. Worse, he missed his garden, and though it was being looked after, it wasn’t the same. August at the Cottage was heavenly.

That’s why he’d set aside winters for working. Most years, he’d spend Samhain with family and then pack up for a four-month job—returning just in time for Ostara and Easter with his family again. His first several winters, after moving to the Cottage, were spent working all over the West, on spelled markers for rail lines and Wizarding trails—which is when he’d met Henry Byrd. But then the Great Depression struck, and his benefactors turned their sights to opportunities in South America. He was scheduled to be in Peru this winter, working on some spelled markers for a couple of mine spurs and a Wizarding passenger train, and Erastus was looking forward to spending some time in Machu Picchu.

But when your biggest client shows up—at your house—and asks you to look into a problem they’re having that’s holding up an important project… well, you pause long enough for them to offer to pay you time-and-a-half, and then you agree enthusiastically and promise to be on-site by the end of the week.

He’d narrowed the problem to this spelled marker and after a thorough examination of the marker above ground, he’d surmised the problem was in the cistern, below. And so here he was. About to shimmy through the back way into the cistern, between two multi-ton granite boulders. Experience—painful experience, actually—had taught him that entering through the larger “front door” to the cistern was a good way to come face to face with any of the magical beasts that liked to use the cisterns as their dens. The list was pretty long, actually—and usually not that friendly (there would be that faun, a few years down the road, in Latvia…).

Erastus looked around him. It was 113º, even in the shade of the rockface that towered over him. It would be much cooler in the cave, of course. He checked his leather satchel to make sure his wool jacket was safely stowed inside, and then he pulled out a folded sheet of parchment. He kissed the top edge, whispered “peek-a-boo”, then spread it out on the ground in front of him.

As he stared, the blank parchment began to fill in with the surface features of the land around him—maybe a hundred yards in any direction. Four dots behind him and out toward the edge of the map made their way like hoof prints across the parchment and a small label “Pronghorn Antelope” appeared then disappeared as the hooves ambled off the edge of the map. A swift-moving X moved from north to south with a small label surround by a rough little cloud explained: “Golden Eagle”. After a moment, a small cross-hatching appeared in the talus at the base of the cliff, not a stone’s throw from where Erastus sat. Six labels appeared, “Great Basin Rattlesnake”, they each read. Erastus looked a while longer, but nothing else noteworthy appeared.

Satisfied, Erastus picked up the map and pressed it with his palms to his face—like a hand towel—then relaxed his mind and opened his inner eye. The world appeared before him semi-transparent; sketched, as it were, in ink. He could see that the opening he was about to wedge himself into was narrow but otherwise clear of debris or critters. He tilted his head up and peered into the cistern cavity, then waited.

Nothing appeared.

Erastus folded the map and kissed it again, whispering “thank you”, before slipping it into his satchel and securing it tightly. Erastus produced his wand and then began the slow, tight belly crawl up into his workspace.

Lumos

Sometimes, the map would take liberties when it encountered something noteworthy but unknown. A couple of years back, work had taken him to the Black Hills of South Dakota. It was the first winter he’d had the map, and he’d been confused—then terrified—when it showed the cistern he was about to crawl into had an “enormous not-dragon” in it, with exclamation points all around the label. Erastus cast an observation charm and a few nuisance charms, then came back a few days later, when the not-dragon had cleared out.

An hour later, Erastus emerged from the floor of the cistern. Exhausted and parched. But before he did anything else, Erastus pulled the map from his satchel, kissed it, then whispered the passphrase. He spread the map before him, and while it resolved, he set a flock of a few dozen brightly glowing orbs into the great and cavernous space above—maybe sixty feet high and about thirty feet across—filling the upper space with bright, even light, that faded gently, closer to the ground.

Erastus looked down at his map, carefully. But nothing noteworthy appeared. Then he dragged his wand across the map and the map responded: “Testing link to Wand Frith.”

Frith vibrated softly in his hands.

The text changed—“Link affirmed”, it read now, then faded away.

That last bit of charmwork had been Erastus’s idea. When someone—or something—approached, the wand would vibrate in his hand, and details would appear on the spread-out map. A handy feature that allowed him to focus fully on the work in front of him.

Finally, Erastus went to work.

His first charm, a light seismic charm, cleared the surfaces of the cistern of several years of dust. A dampening charm pulled the fog of tiny particles to the floor. Several banishing charms made quick work of the settled dust, the cobwebs, and the leaf litter. With his workspace clean and tidy, Erastus began to examine every surface for structural soundness. By early evening, Erastus was deep in diagnostic work on the charms that transferred stored magical reserves from the cistern to the marker above ground. He saw the problem but was having difficulty with the delicate wand work necessary to reweave the broken threads of magic. He realized he could be there all night.

And that’s when it happened.

Frith vibrated violently in his hand.

Erastus looked down at the map between his feet, then shot a frightened glance across the room toward the main entrance, still shrouded in shadow.

“Not-man-man” the map read.