Community of Magic Pens

by Community of Magic Pens (epub)

  The night wind puffed up their habits like the sails of ships on a rough sea. A sudden gust blew around the corner of the workshop with a bang that snatched at Ennelin’s heart.

  Aurelia yelped. “The door! Oh, no . . . ”

  The wind rushed through the flung-open doorway, into the shop, and rustled the papers on the workbench. One whirled into the air and landed atop the lantern. A curl of smoke.

  “Quickly!” Aurelia tore around the corner and into the workshop.

  Ennelin’s spinning mind stopped on the open door. Providence had lit a path for them. She hurried after Aurelia into the shop without a word.

  Aurelia snatched the singeing paper off the lantern just before it could catch flame. Aside from harsh scorching, the paper was unmarked.

  “To think how easily it could have been . . . ” She dropped to her knees and made the sign of the cross upon herself. “Laus Deo.”

  How easily. Ennelin looked around the shop. Lampblack, sweat, and burning wood perfumed the air. Each inked paper on the floor chorused the same phrase:

  AVENTUR UND KUNST

  Enterprise and art.

  Aurelia took several deep breaths and clambered to her feet. Her fingers hovered over the glistening frame. “He has shaped each character out of metal, then laid them out in reverse order to form his words. ‘Enterprise and art.’ It is . . . oh, it is brilliant.”

  “It is dark magic.” Ennelin’s lip curled. “Child, do you not see that this is a vehicle for sin? It must be stopped.”

  Aurelia flinched as if Ennelin had struck her. “Stopped? What do you mean?”

  “Think of what this machinery will produce—what it will propagate. The Holy Word, like the texts we faithfully copy and illustrate?” Ennelin shook her head. “This goldsmith will produce whatever will reward him most handsomely. Words of the fallen world. Enterprise and art. Prideful, aberrant missives that will breed and spread like plague.”

  “But, sister—”

  “Do you not see it?” Ennelin’s voice sharpened. “This invention is the most deceptive work of the devil. Who will devote their hours to the Word when every tawdry comedy and bit of gossip can be recreated in this way? These devices will deaden the Church.” She pointed to the door. “Providence has brought us here this night and opened this door to us. If we act swiftly, you and I can yet save Christendom from this unholy contraption.”

  “What?” Aurelia’s voice shook. “Sister . . . ”

  Ennelin picked up the singed paper. “He departed so carelessly that he left his hearth and a lit lantern unattended, with the door hardly latched. If we had not been here, this paper would have surely caught his workbench on fire.”

  The paper trembled in her hand as she held it beside the lantern. If the workbench caught flame, the oilcloth upon the floor would also. The walls and framing would catch, and the thatched roof would burn faster than tow. Such an inferno would surely melt the lettering. The goldsmith’s work would be gone.

  “But we were here,” Aurelia quavered.

  Ennelin set her jaw. “Perhaps to bear witness, nothing more.”

  “Ennelin. You propose destroying this man’s work. His invention. His space.”

  “The God of Israel destroyed Korah and his rebellion with fire.”

  “But He spared the three thrown into Babylon’s furnace,” Aurelia countered. Her spine stiffened. “What if we were led here not to bear witness to destruction but to intervene and stop it? And who are you or I to judge the virtue of this creation?”

  “The light of admiration blinds you!” Ennelin exploded. “This man’s invention will steal the power of the scripted word. We are scribes because we respect this art as sacred, a duty to transmit the divine to the world.” She stamped her foot upon the oilcloth. “Johannes zum Gutenberg does not respect our art, nor our heavenly commission. If we allow his invention to propagate, words will be bought and sold. Truth will be bought and sold.”

  In the dim light, the sisters glared at each other, Aurelia’s hands hovering in guard above the frame, Ennelin’s hesitating beside the lantern.

  The embers upon the hearth crackled.

  “Sister,” Aurelia finally spoke, her voice quiet and slow. “What if this invention is itself a heavenly commission?”

  Ennelin’s face twisted. “Oh—”

  “No, truly. What if it is not magic, but the hand of God? What if ‘enterprise’ means not worldly fortune but boldness of faith? What if this device has a capacity beyond what we can envision, an ability to disseminate the Scriptures more widely than we could ever hope to do with our quills and brushes?”

  Ennelin’s fingers tightened against the paper. Tears spilled from her eyes. “Then what if it blights the holy texts we create with our own hands? What if our lives’ devotions are of no consequence? What if—” She gulped. “What if the holiness I seek to illustrate, with every fiber of skill and love I possess, is discarded upon a rubbish heap and burned to ashes? What, then?”

  Aurelia sank to her knees beside the bench and laid her hand upon Ennelin’s. Her voice was low. “Is not the pain you fear precisely what you would inflict upon this man?”

  “I do not know,” Ennelin choked out. “And I do not wish to cause anguish. But when I look upon that frame, the fear—it . . . ”

  Releasing the paper, Ennelin sagged to the floor. Shame blazed on her cheeks. “I suppose it matters not if these devices are destroyed,” she muttered. “The idea will remain. We cannot put out the flame that he has lit . . . but think how it will spread.” A sob burst from her. “What if it consumes us?”

  Aurelia embraced her. They sat quietly together, shoulders shaking as the hearth’s coals hissed lower.

  The night wind whistled against the window.

  Aurelia let out a long sigh. “Ennelin,” she whispered, “we cannot prevent destruction by destroying. We cannot walk by fear, only through it.”

  Ennelin nodded against Aurelia’s shoulder. “I know you speak true. I know we are called to walk by faith.” With a shuddering breath, she sat up straighter. “Faith that our work matters. That this invention is not borne of—of sheer arrogance.” She grimaced. “That whatever it ignites will not engulf us.”

  A small smile lit Aurelia’s face. “Faith that we can walk through fire?”

  Ennelin wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Bless you, sister.”

  She looked down at the papers laid on the oilcloth. She traced the air above the printed words as if each were a labyrinth. Finally, she found her crucifix with one hand, grasped Aurelia’s shoulder with the other, and closed her eyes.

  “Agnus Dei, Qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.” The prayer, as familiar as breathing, tumbled off her tongue. Lamb of God, You who take away the sin of the world, have mercy on us.

  “And,” she added, “let us continue to serve Thee, in . . . in boldness of faith and art. Amen.”

  “Amen,” echoed Aurelia.

  The sisters rose from the floor. Ennelin retrieved the singed paper and carefully burned it on the hearth. They slipped out of the workshop, leaving not so much as another leaf of paper disturbed. With the door securely latched, they interlaced their arms and walked through the darkened borough.

  The night wind breathed upon their veils, a gentle commandment: Walk boldly, daughters. The patient light of the moon illuminated their pathway home.

  Author's Note: I am immensely grateful to Sara Ross of Kent State University for her support and invaluable guidance on the historical aspects of “Illumination,” as well as her decades of friendship. Sara, you’re a princess and a scholar.

  Joy Givens (she/her) is an educating, caffeinating writer of stories and the lucky mother of two tiny superheroes. By day, she runs a tutoring company, volunteers with her church and several other organizations, dreams up new recipes for her hungry loved ones, and occasionally conquers Laundry Mountain. By night, she pens “fresh, fierce, fantastic” fairy tales and other fiction for children and young adults . . . and o
ccasionally stays up too late laughing with her dear husband. By morning, she’s usually quite tired but excited to do it all again. joygivens.com

  A Blank Canvas

  Ethan Hedman

  “Okay, Hap, it’s showtime.” Ameivia cracked her knuckles and took a deep breath, retrieving her lucky stylus from its usual place in her jacket pocket. She clicked its activation switch and it sprang to life with a bright blue glow and a gentle hum. “We came all this way. Let’s see what we’re working with.”

  The lights in the holobay dimmed as a rough representation of the surface far below loaded into the center of the room. Ameivia walked around it, peering at the pockmarked landscape. She gazed at the tiny newfound moon as a whole before sending it into a slow spin with a gentle flick of her wrist. “There’s potential,” she muttered, tapping her stylus here and there, each small poke marking another tiny dot on the transparent globe. “Do we have a resource scan yet?”

  “Affirmative,” came a quiet response from between her fingers. A handful of pings danced across the lifeless moon as the holographic array program, the onboard AI tied into the stylus which Ameivia had affectionately rechristened as ‘Hap,’ began interpreting the scan data. There were some common ore deposits found beneath the surface of the natural satellite, but nothing that would be particularly useful.

  Most formers hoped to unearth rare materials from simple mining worlds to attract more funding towards their future projects. She’d done exactly the same on all of her previous expeditions, cajoling the Terraforming Institute’s interest with detailed cost-benefit analyses of resource-rich terrain, but had grown tired of the corporatization of her work and longed for something different. She didn’t want her latest world to be built around optimized extraction, to be nothing more than a pleasant-enough work colony. She wanted to make something beautiful on a truly blank canvas, a canvas which wouldn’t be judged for its usefulness or production, and her canvas was finally in sight.

  “Here we go,” she said, closing her eyes as she swept her stylus across the map with a sweeping flourish. Ameivia imagined the intersection of earth and water in her mind and let them fuel each movement, her every stroke planning a future cut in the landscape to create shorelines and basins. She only opened her eyes after the first burst of adrenaline was finally out of her system. Eventually she began carving gentle, rolling hills from the edges of the moon’s jagged craters, layering thick swaths of color over the top of each one to plan the types of grass which would soon grow below.

  Ameivia spent her days almost entirely in the holobay, stylus in hand, humming and swishing with each and every movement as she poured her energy into forming what she hoped could soon be her home. Even when she wasn’t poking and prodding at the map itself, she used her trusty stylus to scroll through thousands of palettes, noting comfortable color combinations in the sorts of dirt, soil, and foliage which would complement the soft lavender tone she’d chosen for the sky and sea.

  Finally, after poring over every detail of the little world-to-be, from its rivers and valleys to its peaks and caverns, Ameivia made her way back to the cockpit. It was the one part of her vessel which had been largely ignored during the long process of creation. She nestled into her timeworn chair with a warm cup of hot chocolate in hand, taking a sip as she stared out at the nearby moon in its natural state for the last time.

  “Okay,” she whispered as she set her mug aside. “I’ve done everything I can.” She retrieved her stylus from her pocket and slid it into its holster on the ship’s control console. “It’s your turn, Hap.”

  Dozens of tiny dashboard indicators began to flicker as the ship received the plans from the stylus, launching its small fleet of terraforming drones to begin the long process of creating a livable world. Ameivia watched as they soared out towards the moon, barely able to see the beams of bright energy from the first bursts of laserwork on the surface.

  She took another sip of hot chocolate and closed her eyes, picturing the world she had poured so much love and attention into, feeling it starting to form just outside the confines of her ship. “We did good,” she said, reaching out to touch the stylus. “And now, we wait.”

  Ethan Hedman (he/him) is a speculative fiction writer from South Florida, the land of heat, humidity, and hurricanes. His work has been included in a variety of publications, including Gunsmoke & Dragonfire, Unrealpolitik, and The Hamthology. Ethan’s full bibliography can be found on EthanHedman.com, his little corner of the internet.

  One Story, Two People

  Nicole J. LeBoeuf

  Rachel is ten years old when the fountain pen wakes her up in the middle of the night. It’s always had an irritatingly scratchy stroke. By the glow of her old Winnie-the-Pooh nightlight (which no one but Erin is allowed to know she still has), she watches the pen scrawl its noisy way across the big sheet of butcher paper covering her desk for precisely these occasions. She does not, N-O-T not, go over to read what it’s writing. If she’s told Erin once, she’s told her a thousand times: No late-night scripts when they’ve got an important test the next day.

  Next morning, Rachel cuts the message out and brings it to school. Five minutes before first bell, she shoves it in Erin’s face. “What does this even mean?”

  “Hello to you too,” Erin replies coolly. She reads the message: ‘What time is it when you are now?’ Huh. Dunno. Wasn’t me.”

  “Well, who in the world else could it be? You loaned your pen to someone without telling me? Or you think there’s a third one out there?”

  “I don’t know, not on your life, and maybe?” Erin thinks a moment, then brightens. “Maybe it was me. Future Me! Trying to figure out which Past You she’s got ahold of. You should answer her. I mean me.”

  “Get real.”

  “The realest! It’s like I keep telling you: the pens work via some kind of quantum entanglement nonsense. Ergo time travel. Cue ee dee.” Erin studies the paper more closely. “Future Me has nice handwriting, though. Can I borrow this? I want to practice.”

  Rachel had become fascinated with fountain pens the summer before fifth grade. She was delighted when, as the final stop on their annual back-to-school shopping expedition, Mom took her to the fancy stationery store on the west end of downtown. Rachel could choose any pen she liked, Mom said, so long as it was reasonably priced. Thankfully, the one Rachel fell in love with cost just this side of what Mom considered reasonable. It was big and chunky, what Fountain Pens Online called “cigar-shaped,” in a deep midnight blue spangled with stars. Rachel wanted to fill it with indigo ink and write poems about space with it.

  The elderly lady running the register that day pulled out a bottle of ink (black, oh well) and a scratch pad so Rachel could try the pen out. Then she reached into a drawer and pulled out another pen, identical in design but bearing obvious signs of wear and tear. “Special offer,” she said. “Buy one, get one free.”

  Rachel blinked. “Really?” The lady nodded, smiling. “Oh, wow, that would be awesome!”

  “Then you’d have a spare,” Mom said, “just in case you lost one.”

  “Mom! There is no way I’m going to lose something this cool.”

  “Of course not, honey. Maybe you can give one to your little friend at school.”

  “Her name is Erin.” Rachel rolled her eyes, then grinned. “And I bet she’ll love it. Thanks, Mom.”

  The lady behind the counter had been observing this mother-daughter interaction benignly. “And thank you for giving it a good home,” she said. “I couldn’t sell it on its own, given its, shall we say, less than pristine condition. But I know for a fact that its previous owner treated it very well.”

  Home again, Rachel wasted no time filling both pens’ converters from the bottle of “Bleu des Profondeurs” ink Mom had let her pick out. “Deep blue,” the lady behind the counter had translated. “Like the night sky between the stars.” Rachel took out a spiral notebook and began to write down that very sentence.

  She’d only go
t three words in when the second pen stood itself upright and also began to write, echoing every line and scribble she’d just scrawled. Rachel stared as it worked its way from the capital L through the final T in “night” then lay gently back down next to the three words it had written on the desk’s polished maple finish.

  “Oh, crap,” muttered Rachel. She rushed to the bathroom for something to clean up with.

  She’d intended the pens to be a surprise for Erin when they saw each other on the first day of school. Erin could have the brand-new one, and Rachel would keep its second-hand twin. But after this development, the news couldn’t wait. She gave Erin a call.

  “So you’re saying these are, like, cell phones, except they’re pens? Huh. How does it work?”

  “How else? Magic.”

  Erin made a game show buzzer noise: Ennh! “Wrong answer! Try again—with science!”

  “Oh, you want science? When school starts on Tuesday, we are going to do all the science with these pens.”

  And they did. Just as Rachel had hoped, Erin was scientist enough not only to believe what was happening in front of her eyes, but also to devise multiple experiments. “Like, how far away from each other can they be for it to work? What if you’re holding the pen too tight when it receives a message, or it’s got its cap on? Does there have to be ink in them for it to work?” Rachel, quickly growing bored with Erin’s methodical testing at recess, suggested that they just start using the pens and see.

  In the weeks that followed, they passed notes to each other in class and between classrooms. They gossiped late at night across the distance between their houses. Sometimes they even did their homework together. When Erin’s family went to Florida for the holiday break, Rachel didn’t have to wait for Erin’s postcard to arrive—she already knew what it said. Erin was the one who started calling it scripting, “like texting, only in handwriting instead of on a phone.” They never found a distance too great for the pens to cross, and if one was unable to write the message at the moment it was sent, it wrote it as soon as its keeper took it out to write with.