Abregruta and Renata

“Come, I will teach you the nature of magic,” she says the morning after, standing at the bedroom door, dressed for going out: a black coat with a white cravat and a long black skirt. I know enough already to understand she means for me to dress similarly.

But not too similarly.

“Follow my lead,” she says, “not my example. You’re my apprentice, not my understudy.”

“I think I look cute,” I say as she grabs a yellow handkerchief and stuffs it into her front pocket. I spot the ghost of a smirk pass over her lips.

When she opens the door, it leads us to a busy market avenue, a double wide sidewalk with stalls and tents crowding the edges. She marches ahead, waiting until she’s out of the shadow of the tower to turn and beckon. Her hair flies in the wind, catching sunlight on every strand. Her eyes, too, reflect blue-green at me. Showoff.

We walk to a crowd at the end of the avenue, where the sidewalk dissolves into sand. In front of the crowd, a man does a levitating card trick while explaining each mudra he positions his hand into. With each flick of his fingers, the card finds a new resting place in the air in front of him.

We watch for hours.

I develop an admiration for the man’s control of the variables. Here he is, in broad sunlight—that should catch on the gossamer he’s using—and ocean breeze—that should pull at the card, spinning it out of place and revealing the trick for what it is—but his positioning is just right. With his shoulders keeping the light off the string, and his arm separation keeping the string taut, he maintains the illusion all day.

“But it’s still just string and a weighted card,” I say, only loud enough for her to hear. “How is this the meaning of magic? It’s just a trick.”

She does that thing, then, where she speaks without barely moving her lips, and gestures without barely moving her body, that I’ve come to hate and be entranced by every time.

“But it’s only just a trick for you, who understands the technique but not the artistry,” she says. “Listen to the parts he says and the parts he leaves out. The story is everything. It gives the audience a reason for his hand movements, yet hides the mechanics of the card movement.”

She gestures with a glance at another onlooker who’s been here almost as long as we have. A younger man, maybe a teenager, scribbling into a pocket journal. “And spells out the recipe for those who know the ingredients, but not the proportions. That is the true nature of magic.”

“So it’s all fake?” I ask.

Her eyebrow raises farther than I’ve ever seen it raised. She turns and walks back to the tower. “You’re not ready.”

“Hold on!” I say, jogging behind her. Fuck, she’s fast when she wants to be.

“If falsehood taints the work too much for your taste, then the work may not be for you,” she says, striding past stall after stall. “Every magician, every witch and every alchemist is a liar. If you cannot lie, I cannot train you.”

“Hold—“ I pant, losing steps on her. I start to panic, imagining her going through the tower door, and me opening it after her to find nothing beyond it. “Hold on…”

She turns, then, stopping abruptly. I crash into her chest and fall back on my ass. “What is the purpose of the levitating card act?”

“T-to levitate a ca—“

“What is the purpose of the levitating card act?” she asks again, leaning over me.

My brain catches up to my ass. “To make money. To fool an audience into giving up their money.”

“Correct. And how does the magician achieve that purpose?”

“By making them believe he’s levitating a card.”

She holds out a hand, now, and pulls me up while asking the next question. “Correct. And how does he achieve that belief?”

“By hiding the strings.”

She lets go of my hand, and I fall on my ass again. “How does he achieve that belief?”

“By telling a story,” I say, getting up on my own. “He tells a story about his hands—while hiding the strings—that makes him the master of the levitating card.”

“Correct,” she says, appraising me. “So what is the true nature of magic?”

I really, really want to say “to make money and win bitches” but it doesn’t seem like Renata’s in the mood for jokes. I answer carefully, in that zen-ass way she says things. “To achieve the magician’s purpose and hide how she does it, that only the initiated may ascertain her method.”

“Correct,” she says, turning and resuming her walk back to the tower, this time at a leisurely pace. “Seducing money from the gullible is no fine art, seldom limited by skill or technique.”

She points with her eyebrows and the twitch of a smile, at a tent selling those energy-balancing wristbands. Then another tent, selling vibration-purifying rings. “Yet how many on this avenue can attract crowds like that man?”

“What about, like, real magic, though? Like your tower, or—or when you grabbed me from that car?”

She stares at me. “I think you’re missing the point.”

I shake my head. “No, your point is that if the magician didn’t hide their methods, then anyone could do what they do.”

She tilts her head, urging me to go on.

I sputter for a second before finding our shared train of thought. “Magic is—is a framework, for achieving the possible and making it seem impossible, for… well, for fame and fortune, generally, but also for security, and—and—and safety, I guess—I mean if anyone could make any door go anywhere, you’d have s-so many accidents, my God—“

“Give me the sum,” she says, looking away, then back at me.

“If it’s not a secret, it’s not magic,” I say. “And… you talk like this because you get bored easily.”

“Busy mind,” she says, and takes my hand. “And now that you’re up to speed, we have work to do.”

—

“Why me, though?”

“Because you asked.”

“There’s more to it than that.”

“Tell me, then.”

“What I mean is—okay, like—if Cliff, from the fishmongers—if he came up to you and asked to be your apprentice, would you say yes?”

“Is he likely to?”

I groan. She scoffs, looking away. I try again, “were there any qualities, other than willingness—or—or—or obsequious—“

“That’s not what obsequious means.”

“So you do understand nuance,” I nod, jutting my chin forward.

“Of course I do,” she shakes her head, steps closer. “Yes, there is something that sets you apart from any potential—and previous—applicants.”

“What is it?”

“You’re a bum.”

I choke. “What, bitch!?”

She clears her throat. “You’ve got a bag full of books and socks, and,” she cranes her neck, “a toothbrush, which tells me there must be a suitcase nearby with the rest of your clothes and you might have too many socks.”

“Okay—I,” I start, looking back and forth between the bag and her. “Doesn’t mean I’m homeless, though! If you’d said no, I would have gone back.”

She watches my shoulders drop. “It’s your father. And your mother, yes. And a sister? They don’t… see you, when they look at you. They see someone else. A boy, or a poor imitation of one.”

My mouth hangs open. Then I realize that’s maybe self-incriminating, so I start crying.

She strides over, closing the gap between us and pulling me into her shoulders. She rests her chin on the top of my head. “These things happen. It’s nothing you did. Set things right in no time, I promise.”

She holds me while I sob once, twice, and another one to make sure I have it down; one more to show off, and I’m done. I sniff, to announce I’m done crying. She doesn’t move. I sniff again.

She lets me go, turning toward the desk before i can see her face. “Little spell there, to calm the nerves. I apologize for being invasive. Lots to do today.”

“Is that spell as good as your spell for hiding your tears?” I ask, wiping my eyes. “Cause I think I saw one on you.”

“It’s no consequence,” she wipes quickly before turning to me. “I find it’s best to get through the uncomfortable facts promptly.”

I laugh wetly, “Yeah, that was prompt. Quick as hell.”

“I like to use my time reflecting, or practicing. Or sleeping. Sleeping is important.”

—

This is a story about magicians, and about spells as passwords, shortcuts that capitalize on someone else’s immense effort and must forever remain hidden, and it will always return to that sticking point: if it’s not a secret, it’s not magic. As soon as the spell is known, it is undone.

Our two main characters are a haughty, meddlesome witch and a naive, caring apprentice.

The Curse Breaker: a mythical figure described by their tattered robes, skeletal physique, and mission to rid the world of magic by destroying spells, one by one.

Abregruta “Billy” Kirlian, the Fool: the missing heir to the Killian Estate, a stowaway in the Witch’s Tower seeking to live life as her true self and learn magic along the way. She is notoriously inept at the hard work of magicry, and breaks more spells than she learns. The Witch keeps her around because Billy cleans up after herself and has her heart in the right place. With some experience and instruction, she might become the kind of magician that can change the world.

Renata Melchiórica, the Witch:

With the protagonist, the story will ask: what kind of person wants to know how the spell is done at all costs? What are they made of? What will it take to get them to accept mystery?

With the antagonist, the story will ask: how far will a person go to keep a secret? What is it worth? What will it take to get them to give up?