Chapter 14: Mortal Danger

Before leaving, Pendragon gave me the Unimportant Hat, as he explained, it was the thing that made people ignore me.  "But I'm not giving you the Forgetting Fig."

I looked confused.

"Forgetting and ignoring are not the same thing, so do not interact with anyone, this time.  Once they realize you're there, they'll see you."  He turned me around and shoved me out of the backroom.

Aine read my look as I exited, and straightened up her back at once.  She rested her hands on the glass counter, but for once I didn't mind the fingerprints.  They were the last thing on my mind.

"That was fast!" Aine said, biting her lip. 

"It's not over," I said simply.  "Christ almighty it's not even close to over..." I felt like a zombie, or more like a guy on death row walking to his doom.  I must've looked sick because Aine retrieved me one of the bottles of water we keep in the mini fridge. 

I thanked her, and started to drink.  I hadn't realized how dry my throat had become.  

"Hey, whatever it is.  You'll live."  She smiled sweetly in the face of my concerned gaze.  Her endless positivity was greatly appreciated, so I didn't tell her what lay ahead of me.

"And if I don't," I said half joking, "Cayce is yours." 

"Awww I love her!"  Aine clasped her hands over her mouth and looked conflicted.

"You're hoping I die now," I stated factually.

"Well, I'm neutral," she replied as she grabbed her pink feather duster. "For me, it's a win win!"  Aine felt her job done in comforting me, so she went about dusting off the artifacts with a sing song hum in her voice.

It was odd but the momentary distraction helped.  As the situation sank back into my awareness it felt more like a possibility rather than a death sentence.  I headed out the door of The Shop with a "See you later" and I made my way to the only place I could picture putting myself into mortal danger.

The Brooklyn Bridge.

I placed the Unimportant Hat on my head and headed downtown.  Strangely enough, it felt like another one of Pendragon's weird errands.  'Bring this rusted copper to Yerba's Plant Shop', 'Drop this penny, heads up, on the corner of 9th and Broadway,' and even 'Deliver this seed to a squirrel in Washington Square, it will be waiting under the arches.  You can't miss it.'  Oddly enough, the squirrel was there and the delivery happened.  I chalked it up to Pendragon being insane and a coincidence, but now I realize that I've been toying in magic all along.

I arrived at the bridge and walked about halfway down making sure not to bump into anyone.  I was still impressed at the effectiveness of the hat, which made it nearly impossible to walk on a crowded sidewalk.  I skirted around people until making it to a part of the bridge that was easy to jump off.

Double checking that no one was watching me, I climbed up the iron railing, swung my legs over, and sat on the edge with my legs dangling off.  My heart was pounding through my chest but I just pretended like I was dropping a penny heads up.

I was just delivering a pipe.

I was just bringing a seed to a squirrel.

I slid off the edge of the bridge and felt the weightlessness of free fall.  

A great pit in my chest alerted me to the mortal danger.  I closed my eyes and held the hat to my head with both my hands.  As the fall went on for an entire second, two seconds, three seconds, I waited for the impact of water.  After seven or so seconds, the impact never came.  

I opened my eyes, and found myself falling in mid air.  At least it felt like I was falling, but I wasn't.  I was just hovering above the water.  How strange the sensation!  I closed my eyes and felt like I was falling through space, but when I opened them I could see plain as day that I was not moving at all.

I leaned over from my position in the air and stirred the water beneath me.  It rippled.  I looked up to the bridge and saw cars moving, people walking.  I was just floating there, alive.  I laughed.  I roared with laughter.  Exhilarating!  Fantastic!  It was like something straight out of a comic book!

"Okay!" I said once the novelty wore off, and my senses returned to normal.  "Now how do I move..."

Chapter 13: Here Endeth the Lesson

"By the age of five," began Pendragon immediately, "My son was able to light candlewick in utter darkness."  He heaved his suitcase to the table and rested it gently thereon.  "By your age," a scoff, "this will be like raising an infant all over again."

This, just as I had entered the backroom.  I didn't know whether to be offended, impressed, or inspired.  The information itself was interesting, as I had no notion of what magic would truly entail beyond the charms I had worn on my clothes.  And that was all so passive.

I put my hands in my pockets nervously and rocked onto my heels as I awaited instruction. 

As Pendragon spoke, he unpacked his new import of baubles and trinkets from his suitcase, and placed them with timely care beside their brethren upon the dusted shelves.  "You," he began pointedly, "come from his mother's stock."  It was as if he spat out her mention. 

Again, I wasn't certain whether to be offended.  It all seemed so personal, but I refrained from reacting.  Even had he been cutting me down I wanted to hear every detail of this shadow world.

How different my life would've turned out if I quit my job at the Shop and shirked this change of pace.  I can't even consider.  Knowing what I know now I still wouldn't make a different decision back then.  It was the right thing to do, even if I just thought it was cool.

Pendragon completed stocking his wares and finally turned to consider me.  He rested heavily upon his cane, and pursed his face as if sucking on a sour candy.  "Had you been raised properly, we would already know what sorcery you brand, and in which tongue."

"But I wasn't raised properly," I conceded.  I felt like I needed to join into the conversation in order to progress it along into the lesson.  I felt like my parents had done an all right job before they just kind of faded out of my life.  

"No, you weren't.  By wolves from the look of it," Pendragon sneered, "And that hair."  He shook his head very disapprovingly and went on.  "We'll have to discover your brand, first."

"All right," I mustered.  I withdrew my hands from my pockets and crossed them over my chest, "I'm ready."

"Oh I doubt that very much," Pendragon laughed.  He seemed giddy, excited.

I no longer felt confused whether to be offended.  I was.  My chin raised defensively and I very nearly shouted at Pendragon, "Tell me what to do!"

"Put yourself," instructed the old man slowly and venomously, "in utter, absolute, mortal danger."

"Kill myself," I corrected him.

"No.  Put yourself in the path of something to do so.  A train, a bus, jump from a building.  Do not shoot yourself.  We've learned that doesn't work."  He paused, tracing the lines of confusion on my face, and replied, "No, I was wrong.  This is actually easier with an infant.  Simply leave it in a bath and watch.  Someone your age, though, I'm afraid you'll have to be more proactive in the approach."

All of that horrified me.  Especially the potentially drowned babies.  I discovered later that he wasn't being entirely honest.  Most children simply revealed themselves in one of a few ways during infantile tantrums.  Any signs I displayed in my youth would have been disregarded as passing health concerns.  Still, it worked as a very effective illustration for my instruction.

I breathed deep, and clenched my jaw to avoid stammering some incomplete thought.

"I can see you need some time to consider this," said Pendragon more gently than I expected.  He approached me and said, "If there was something I could do to help you, I would.  But if I was there to push you in front of a train, you'd know I could just as easily pull you out.  You need to be alone." And then, with a pat on my shoulder, he opened the curtain to the backroom.  "Here endeth the lesson."

Chapter 12: Calm Before the Storm

Nothing seemed real as I left The Shop and headed back to my apartment in Brooklyn.  People walked past me but I regarded them as emptily as the world did me while under Pendragon's enchantments.  The train ride was inconsequential, while in thought I was no different.  

After having experienced magic for the first time, my body was sort of numb to the original five senses I had been dealing with.  I was a rock in a river who had no choice but to simply sink to the bottom and allow everything to go rushing by.

Cayce, my Jack Russell, greeted me at the door as she normally did.  Her cropped nub of a tail wriggling back and forth wildly with a need to be let outside.  So I did.  She walks herself to the bushes down the sidewalk, which is nice.  She took her time but returned through the open door to find me readying for bed.  I locked up behind her, and we both caved in for the night.

I slept a dreamless sleep.  Whoever was out their telling people to kill the magical members of my family took a night off.  Considerate of them, particularly because Mr. Pendragon was going to kick my ass tomorrow in ways I could never have anticipated. 

It started like any other day at work.  I arrived at the Shop to find Aine dusting with her pink feathers.  She smiled sweetly at me in that way that made me forget I had no idea what was in store for the rest of my life, and pointed her duster at the counter.

"Croissants!" I said obviously once I spotted her offering.  I snatched one of them out of the box, which was still warm to the touch, and paired it with sips of my coffee.  

Aine finished what she was doing and hopped behind the counter like a child into puddles.  Her elbows rested on the glass countertop and her chin upon her palms.  She looked upwards at me, almond eyes blinking furiously.

I tilted my head back that way I do when I'm feeling suspicious.  She caught it.

"Dude.  The stone.  You're going to do, like, magic with it..."  She seemed mildly impressed.  I wondered what it would take for her to be really excited.

"I don't know it sounded like I would just be protecting it," I deflected.  Not that I would ever have admitted it to her but I was doing what I could to keep my hopes down about this brave new world.  Yes, it was enchanting to believe that some parts of my childhood imagination would become reality.  

But only because people I never knew, people who were my family, were killed.  To enjoy this felt irresponsible.  

"Duh," said Aine unceremoniously, "You protect magic with magic.  Even I know that."

Finishing the croissant I wiped my hands on my shirt and folded my arms defensively.  "I didn't even know any of this existed until yesterday, I guess."

"But you work in the Shop.."  Aine rolled her eyes and shook her head.  "I swear, boys are seriously oblivious.  The second I walked in here, I was like, okay Harry Potter."

I laughed.  I honestly never drew the comparison between this shop in Manhattan and anything in a story book.  I think I just expected there to be a market for rusted over antiques and outdated medical equipment, with cobwebs.  If you told me then that they were magical items I would have scoffed anyway.

"I never read the books," I lied.  My girlfriend made me.

The bells jingled and the front door slammed shut forcefully.  Hobbled on his cane with a wretched look on his face, Mr. Pendragon had joined us.  He grumbled incoherently as he removed hat and coat to place them on the rack by the door.  "Mikey, backroom." 

"He's no Dumbledore," I joked softly, but reality was starting to set in.

Aine and I shared a look of brief concern, which she turned into an opportunity to be supportive.  She put her hand on mine and patted it while gently offering, "Don't blow yourself up."

Headed to the backroom, I called over my shoulder in response: "If I do I'm taking the whole shop with me."