Modest Magics

He was aware, judging by the redness of her face and the way the tip of her hat was trembling with suppressed rage, that he should stop. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Nobody was as fun to bait as Cousin Jane.  

“I’m just saying,” He said, spreading his hands and shrugging his shoulders, “In the big picture, what is a degree in Modest Magics really going to do to better the world? Right wrongs, enforce justice, that kind of stuff? You won’t be stopping any wars with Modest Magics.”

“Fine!” She said, squinching her face up against tears, her ears red, teeth bared. “Fine! You know what? I’ll give you some Modest Magics! I’ll show you—”

“Oh dear,” he said with mock horror, “Are you going to start out your career, two days after your graduation, by cursing somebody? That’s the path to being the Wicked—”

She whipped her wand out of her side holster and jabbed it towards his face. There was a BANG and a lot of what seemed to be glitter shot out of the end of her wand and into his eyes.

“Oww!” He said, wiping at his face. The glitter was hot—not enough to burn but enough to be pretty darn uncomfortable. “Jane! For crying out loud…I was just kidding! W-what did you just do to me?”

“Can’t be too much.” She growled. “It’s only Modest Magics, remember?”

“Fine,” he sighed, and reached back to scratch at the tag on the back of his shirt that had been itching him. “Ugh, this glitter is getting on everything.”

She gave him a suspiciously toothy smile. “You should probably wash your hands, then.” She turned and flounced back outside. Michael watched her go and then shrugged, wandering back into the living room. His mother and his aunt, Jane’s mother, would be outside, gardening, but he doubted Jane would complain to them. His cousin may have been an impossible ditz, wasting his aunt and uncle’s money on a useless study like Modest Magics, but she did like to fight her own battles.

It was really pathetic, he thought. She had always been a fairly nice kid, bright, pretty—could probably do something worthwhile with her life—but studying Modest Magics was the kind of degree you did when you were sitting around waiting for Mr. Amazing to come sweep you off your feet. Not the kind of degree a real pioneer in magic wanted.

He, Michael, was going straight into practical magics. Already had a year’s apprenticeship at Dovelans, and he didn’t think there was something much more practical than wand-making. Some of the junior fellows were already making six figures and he didn’t think that Farrell Coswald nitwit had as much talent as he, Michael, had in his little finger.

Now where was the remote? Ten fruitless minutes of hunting later, he noticed that everything he touched was getting covered in glitter. It would be better to clean up first. But the glitter resisted being cleaned up. He scrubbed his face but there were still suspicious looking sparkles around his nose and eyebrows. He eyed them irritably. Trust Jane not to think before acting. Modest Magics was really all she was fit for anyway. Hopefully they wouldn’t notice at work tomorrow.

But he had much more to fret about the next morning than a few sparkles of glitter. When he went to get ready, he could only find one of every single shoe he owned and while walking around looking for his shoe, managed to step with his socks on in a puddle on the floor. The puddle turned out to be from the dog, and by the time he found his other shoe and cleaned up the dog’s mess and changed socks, he was late.  And irritable. He banged through the door in a rush, not bothering to enjoy the scent of wood, weathered paper, and the hot coffee always available on the back wall.

Dovelans was not just a wand manufacturer. It was a repository for rare magical books, the kind that were only rented, never sold, and the front of the shop was wall-to-wall of the finest magic-directing things: staffs, pendants, jewels, and of course, wands. Today something had gone off and was emitting a tiny, piercing beep every forty five seconds. Michael shook his head in irritation. Was it the scarab of Ank-Puttan? Or that awful Wand of Searching that “Effortlessly Combines Ancient Magics with Modern Technology!” By which they meant they’d incorporated a useless GPS into the wand.

But there were customers to attend to before he figured out where the beeping was coming from. He glanced at them as he passed them on the way to the time clock. An old lady was browsing the stacks, twittering away to someone standing beside her—it was Jane. He stopped and scrunched up his nose. What was she doing? Elder care? How demeaning…

Jane, however, looked like she was enjoying herself. She was bent over the small white-haired woman, murmuring confidentially. He scowled, clocked in, and swaggered over to her, absentmindedly pulling the tag up out of the collar of his shirt so it would stop itching him. It stuck out sideways. “Can I help you ladies?”

beep

Jane looked up and smiled. “Mrs. Smith is looking for a new wand. She needed a little assistance as she lost her last one in upsetting circumstances.”

beep

Michael bowed stiffly to Mrs. Smith. “Have you looked at our selection of oak wands, ma’am? They’re very popular, and a lot of our seniors have mentioned the oak as a very steadying influence.”

beep

“Thank you, young man,” Mrs. Smith said, and went towards the oak wands section.

“Playing nursemaid, now?” He murmured to Jane. “Can’t you get a job in your field?”

beep

“This is a job in my field.” She said quietly. “Mrs. Smith was violently assaulted and her wand was snapped. I’m sure you know how difficult it is channel your magic through a new wand when you’ve lost your previous one in traumatic circumstances. I’m soothing her and helping her to relax so she can connect with a new one.”

“Oh, well…I don’t see why she even needs magic. Can’t she sit at home,” beep “and read and cook without it? –Augh, the beeping! It’s got to be the Wand of Searching…” He dashed off to rummage through the selection of staffs propped up against the wall, scratching irritably at the shirt tag still flipped up on the back of his neck.

But Jane was not about to let the conversation go. Her face darkened and she stalked after him, hissing: “She has arthritis! Using magic to do household tasks is the difference between independence and having to live in a retirement home!”

‘Yeah, well,” Michael was about to come up with some kind of witty retort, when his nose began to tickle. “’Scuse—ahh—ah—”

beep

“You were right!” chirruped the old lady, suddenly standing right in front of him with a black oak wand. “This is perfect!”

Michael, his face stuck in the oh-no! grimace of an incoming sneeze, flinched away. And at that exact moment the door to the inner office swung open behind him and a creaky voice snapped, “Michael! What are you standing there for like a dingbat? Help that woman! Dovelands provides service!”

“Ah—ah—” Michael turned towards his boss, eyes wide. But the explanation didn’t come because the sneeze did. “ACHOO!”

Wind gusts of up to twenty-five miles exit the nose when sneezing. Mr. Doveland looked like he’d come face to face with a jet engine. He spluttered, veins popping out on his neck. “My office!” He snapped and vanished through the door with a bang like an angry coo-coo.

beep

“AUGH!” Yelled Michael.

“You know,” Jane said, casually examining her fingernails, “You seem very stressed, dear cousin. None of the things that are irritating you are earth shattering. I don’t see why they matter. To you, I mean. I think they matter; enough that I have educated myself in smoothing out the frustrations of daily life like that, but someone like you, who doesn’t waste time in petty little things, no doubt don’t even notice things like that since you’re so focused on matters of worldwide importance.”

Michael sagged. His hair stood on end. The tags stuck out of the backs of his clothes. His sock was still damp, even though he’d changed them after stepping in the dog pee that morning. “Jane.” He said, “I’m sorry. Please take off whatever curse you put on me.”

Jane smiled. She flicked her wand at him and a stray piece of glitter that had been lodged under his ear twinkled to the earth. Michael heaved a sigh as the beeping ceased, the back of his neck stopped itching, and his feet suddenly felt dry. “Don’t worry,” he grumbled, “I’ll never suggest you do anything important again.”

With a sigh, Jane crossed her arms. “Will you just listen to me for once, Michael? I don’t mean that you shouldn’t try to do something truly great with your life—solving world hunger or stopping wars.” She said. “But maybe if more people were interested in just being there for other people in the middle of the frustrations and irritations of life, there wouldn’t be as many awful things to have to save the world from in the first place.”

Michael eyed her and the wand still in her hands and decided that this would be a good time to employ the entirely non magical power of discretion. He smiled. His cousin smiled back. And if it wasn’t exactly the lesson his cousin had hoped to teach him, it did make things a little more peaceful at family get-togethers.