The Root of Magic

by Kathleen Benner Duble

  Willow blinks with surprise.

  Topher laughs. “I guess in all their excitement to make money and show everybody else what would happen to them the next day, they forgot to eat their own berries and see their next day—like I said, pretty dumb. They could have at least known it was coming.”

  “What happened after that?” Willow asks.

  “Not much,” Topher says. “Nobody found the bush again until, I think it was 1862. That’s when Grace’s great-, like three or four times back, grandfather found it. He was about ten and down fishing by the lake near the open water hole and discovered it.

  “Anyway,” he continues, “this great-grandfather took his own father down to the lake to show it to him. There were these old legends about the bush, rumors, so when Grace’s great-grandfather’s father saw it, he was kind of shocked but also pretty willing to accept its abilities. So, like the dumb Fabres, he set himself up for business. He dug up the bush and replanted it in his backyard. He watered the plant with waters from the lake and picked the ripe berries every day. And he sold them to people so they could see their next day.

  “Of course,” Topher adds, grimacing, “by 1862 there were no more witch hunts, so he was fairly safe doing that. But what he hadn’t counted on was the war. You know, the Civil War.”

  Willow nods. “Yeah, I know about the Civil War. But what does a war have to do with anything?”

  “Well,” Topher tells her, “a lot of people were losing their sons and husbands. And every family got really anxious, wanting to know if the papers the next day would announce that their son or father or boyfriend had been killed….”

  In Topher’s pause, Willow has a sudden vision of Wisp. And it hits her hard. If her mom knew she could face a day with the certainty that Wisp would be okay, she would pay the stars and the moon to have that peace of mind—even if it was only for twenty-four hours. Now she realizes why they might be staying in Kismet for a while.

  “But what Grace’s great-grandfather didn’t count on was the frenzy of these people. They wanted to know before the sun rose—was their son or husband alive? And in all the chaos and clamoring and people shoving and pushing and chasing him to get a berry, he was murdered, and the bush was torn to shreds.”

  “So how did you get it back?” Willow asks.

  Topher gives her a slight smile. “In 1962—exactly a hundred years later—someone found it down by the lake, growing just as tall and large as you please, right where the waters meet. Remember I told you they were magical?”

  “It just grew up again?” Willow asks in disbelief.

  He nods. “Yep. But this time around, the town council laid claim to it. And they built that brick building and transplanted it there and controlled the berries. They knew the dangers now and the possibility of its being discovered by the world—the craziness that might ensue. They didn’t want that. They wanted a cohesive town that believed in the magic. So while they realized that the berries gave a lot of people comfort in an uncertain world, they felt they should be offered to everyone for free. They built a wall around the town and put up gates and kept the bush locked up. Now everyone who wants that peace of mind has his or her own set of keys and can pick up a berry anytime during the day once they turn thirteen. Everyone eats it at night, so your dreams of the next day coincide with your regular sleeping patterns, and we don’t fall asleep during normal daylight hours. And the bush has been here for over fifty years now,” he finishes.

  “What did you mean ‘everyone who wants that peace of mind’?” Willow asks. “Can you choose whether you want to eat the berries or not?”

  “In a way…,” he says slowly.

  “What way?” Willow asks him.

  “Well, it starts, like I told you, when you’re little,” Topher says, his voice stiff like a tightened violin bow. “Occasionally, your parents reveal something to you. And you are kind of amazed and you begin to wonder how they knew something before it even happened….Then when you turn twelve, there’s a little ceremony in each kid’s house, and your parents finally tell you the truth—basically what I’ve just told you. After that, the serious stuff sets in. They begin to tell you more of your next day, things you’ll experience in common. Like your mom might pour the cereal you want without you even asking her for it.”

  Willow remembers Cora giving her grapefruit juice the first morning they arrived in Kismet. Now she sees how Cora knew.

  “It kind of freaks you out,” Topher continues, “having parts of your life unfold the way they told you it would, seeing yourself do things they said you would do. For a week, they let you eat a berry before bed and see what it’s like.”

  Willow realizes that yesterday she did just that.

  “And then,” he says, “they tell you about the choice.”

  “The choice?” Willow asks.

  “When you’re thirteen, you have to choose,” Topher says softly. “Stay in Kismet and know your future, or leave.”

  “You can’t stay here if you won’t?”

  Topher shakes his head. “They want a town living together in harmony, believing that knowing your day ahead of time is important. So you have to take a pledge to the town if you want to stay, agreeing to eat a berry and follow your fate for the day.”

  “And if you choose to not eat a berry every day?” she asks.

  “Then you…” He pauses, sadness filling his features. “You have to leave Kismet permanently.”

  Willow stares at him. “You mean you have to choose between knowing your future every day or leaving your family forever?”

  He nods, and his mouth curls down. “You’re supposed to think about your decision from the time you turn twelve until you make your choice at thirteen. If you leave, like my father did, you can’t come back.”

  “But that’s ridiculous,” Willow says. “How can they prevent you from coming back?”

  Topher looks at her. “The locked gate? The bridges that give you access to the town? They both can keep you out. One you need a key for. The other, over the years, has become harder and harder for outsiders to find. Did you not notice that the bridge is difficult to see?”

  Willow thinks on this. She remembers the night they arrived. She and her mom had not seen the bridge at all. She thought then that the snow had been coming down too hard. But today—yes, even today, she did not see the bridge when they first left the town.

  “How can the bridges do that?” she asks. “Appear and disappear like that?”

  Topher shrugs. “The magic of the waters that feed the bush and make the berries. The bridges appear to all of us from Kismet, and to people who are meant to come here. But they aren’t always visible to people who aren’t welcome.”

  “Do you think we were meant to come here?” Willow asks.

  “I think there was a reason for letting us bring you in,” Topher says.

  “What are you going to do?”

  Topher’s face is anguished. “I don’t know. I’ve thought about it this whole year, and I still don’t know what to do. I mean, I love my brothers and my mother and living in Kismet. But the idea of knowing what the next day will hold, and the next day after that, and the day after that, with no surprises…well, I don’t want that either. It seems so…so boring.”

  Willow has always heard that there are two sides to every story. And suddenly, in that moment, she sees how dreaming your future every night wouldn’t always be a good thing. Yesterday had been fun, knowing what was to come, but maybe that would get old if it happened every day.

  She thinks about her day today. If she had known what was to happen ahead of time, would she have felt the same incredible happiness?

  Angeline might have been right—there was a good point to it all. But Topher has gotten to the heart of the argument. How can you enjoy life if you always know what happens next?

  “If you ref
use to join Kismet, where would you go?” Willow asks.

  “One person from Kismet is always on the outside,” Topher says. “That person lives in the real world and handles working and getting food and clothing for the community. The job rotates. Everybody does one year on the outside. Right now, there’s a woman named Annie out there. She takes any kids who don’t want to stay.”

  “Why don’t you just go live with your dad?” Willow asks.

  Topher sighs. “I told you. I haven’t heard from my dad in a while. The last I knew, he was living outside Boston. But I’m not a hundred percent sure he’s still there.”

  “Can’t you call him from Cora’s?” Willow asks.

  Topher shakes his head. “That phone is only for the colonel to contact our outside person and place orders or give directions or—for people like you, ones who might join Kismet.”

  Willow shudders now when Topher says this.

  “Not that there have been any new people here since I can remember,” Topher adds bitterly. “And I’m really sorry you even had to hear about all this.”

  “Why don’t you run away and tell someone? I’m sure somehow you could find a way back,” Willow says, her mind searching for escape plans, daring schemes, a trick that will help Topher avoid this prison of a decision.

  He shakes his head again. “Someone tried that—twenty years ago. This boy named Harry stole a key and escaped without making a decision. And he went and talked to a reporter, told him the whole thing. And he brought the reporter back. But he wasn’t able to find the bridge. Eventually, he gave up and the reporter left, thinking Harry was just crazy. And as soon as the reporter was gone, the bridge appeared. Harry never left Kismet again.”

  He looks at her. “That’s fate, Willow. You can’t escape what is planned for your life. You can’t beat your fate. No one can.”

  “What if you just absolutely refuse to make a choice and insist on staying?” Willow asks, her voice rising with this new idea, her mind imagining Topher taking a stand, beginning a battle.

  “You’re not allowed to stay,” Topher said. “It’s that simple. They force you out, take away your key to get back in. And as I said, if you don’t have a key, you can’t open the gate, and finding the bridge has become really difficult. It’s almost as if the waters are making this town more invisible every day, as if we are fated to not ever leave here at all. That scares me too.”

  “Angeline says you can change little things,” Willow says. “Why don’t you just stay here and change your day every day the way you want it to be?”

  “You can only change really little things,” Topher says, “like we don’t have to reread mail we’ve already read in our dream so we don’t even bother delivering it. And if we know something is about to happen, we can prepare for it somewhat—like Old Woman Wallace knowing what you’ll eat and having it ready before you order it. But the big things—those are the ones that if you try to change them, you struggle physically. People who’ve tried get terrible headaches that they say are unbearable. If you try to change too much of what fate has in store for you, you literally can’t hold your head up. It’s not a way anyone would want to live. Besides, the town wants everyone to agree not to change anything anyway. They all want the certainty and predictability.”

  Willow thinks about the headaches she had last night when she tried to change a few things. They were incredibly painful. She imagines that living with such agony for any extended amount of time would be impossible.

  Topher sighs. “I’ve tried to come up with an idea to escape this decision, Willow. But there’s no way out. I’m stuck.”

  Willow’s stomach churns as she thinks about Topher’s situation. On the one hand, there is the feeling of comfort and reassurance that comes from knowing what is ahead. But to do that every day? To already know you’d win a game would be awesome. But to know every Christmas what your gifts would be before you open them would pretty much ruin the day. So which would she choose?

  She thinks about today again—all its lovely surprises. And she knows then which she would opt for: she would choose unpredictability over knowing. But for Topher, that choice means leaving his family and Kismet.

  Where yesterday she had enjoyed knowing what her future was for the day, today Willow is truly glad not to be a part of this berry-eating, fate-knowing town. Still, she is a fighter. She’s not about to give up.

  “There has to be some way around this, Topher,” she says. “Maybe together, we can think of something.”

  Topher smiles, but it’s a sad smile. “I don’t have much time, though. I’m supposed to be deciding tonight, at the party.”

  He gets up and looks out the window. “The snow’s stopped.”

  Willow stands there and looks out too, thoughts of the berries and magical waters shoved to the back of her mind. Topher is right. The sun is almost setting. It is a fine line on the horizon, pushing a sliver of light through the remaining black clouds.

  “What do you think we should do?” Topher says, and for once his savvy sureness is gone. “It’s going to get kind of dark out there soon. We won’t be able to find our way easily. If we miss the gate, we could be in real trouble.”

  But Willow knows they have to get back. She may be able to escape her mother for a few hours, but all night is another story.

  “We have to try,” she says.

  “Okay,” Topher says, frowning. “We’ll head back.”

  Slowly, they put on their coats, hats, and mittens, each reluctant to leave. Topher finds a flashlight in a drawer.

  They are lucky. The batteries work, so they will have some light to help them find their way.

  They step out into the newly whitewashed but darkening world.

  Willow knows she is going to be in a lot of trouble.

  “Stay close,” Topher says. “I’m going to try to follow the road the whole way around rather than the wooded path, even though it will take us longer.”

  Willow nods. She prays that leaving the cabin is the right decision. What if they get lost? Today, she has no way of knowing.

  But she can’t let these thoughts hold them back. They have to plow on—through snow and darkness—back to Kismet and their waiting families.

  Cold sneaks into the small open slices of skin at her wrists and the sliver exposed at the base of her neck. The night is blackest black, and the flashlight Topher holds floats like some ghostly spirit over the snow as they push themselves on what he thinks is the road back home. Soon her arms and legs shake with fatigue, and Willow is unsure how much longer she can keep going in this dark and white world.

  She tries not to let fear bury her thoughts any deeper than her skis sink into this fresh carpet of snow. But it is difficult not to feel a rising panic—much like the rising wind that whips about them now, drawing the storm away with it.

  What if they made a mistake leaving the cabin? What if they are headed not toward Kismet but toward more wilderness? If she’d eaten a berry, she’d know if they were going to be okay. She’d know how mad her mom will be.

  And that leads her mind in its swirling circles back to Wisp.

  What if he got really ill while she was gone? The guilt of wishing for normal, the guilt of wishing for anything, washes over her. She knows it is Wisp who needs all the luck. It chews on her heart and her head, and she pushes herself harder to try to outrun it.

  Up they climb. Willow prays that this is a good sign, for didn’t they go up and down on their way to the cabin?

  But nothing looks familiar. And how could it? Trees all look alike with their similar bare branches, each one weighted with matching snow.

  She passes tree after tree on a path she hopes is a road, following a boy and a flashlight and these trees, which even now may be misleading them in their quest to find Kismet.

  They drive on, her breath coming out in misty clou
ds, the sky above them slowly clearing, starlight announcing the end of the day.

  At last, they crest the hill. In front of them, the bridge shimmers into view, and beyond, the gate offers them a welcome. In the rising moonlight, they can see that they have reached their destination.

  * * *

  Main Street is quiet. The snowbanks encase them as they enter the town. Willow has no idea what time it is, but from the hunger pangs she feels and the darkness that surrounds them, she would guess it’s past dinner.

  When Willow’s footsteps echo on the first step of the porch, Cora’s front door flies open. Her mother stands there, in the warmth of the doorway, arms crossed, a look frostier than the windowpanes of these town houses frozen onto her face.

  “Yep, I’m in trouble,” Willow whispers to Topher, though fear and relief twine together in her gut. If Wisp were ill, her mom would not be angry with her. She would be too focused on Wisp. And so Willow knows that Wisp is probably safely inside.

  “Topher,” her mother says. “I believe your mother is looking for you.”

  Topher sighs. “You may be in trouble,” he whispers back to Willow. “But nothing like I will be. I’ve ruined my party.” He steps away. “Later?”

  Willow nods and hands her poles and skis back to Topher. And then she goes to face her punishment.

  * * *

  Her mother’s lecture is fast and furious.

  Willow tries to explain about the cabin and the snow and how they only meant to go for a few hours and not for an entire day. Her mom listens but does not excuse Willow’s brash behavior.

  Finally, she tells Willow what her punishment will be, landing on the single thing in Kismet she can take away from Willow.

  “You’re not allowed to see Topher for one week,” her mother says.

  “Mom!” Willow pleads. “No! I mean—I get it. You’re mad. But Topher’s the only friend I have here. The only one I can talk to about the berries. Mom, I know…” She pauses. “I know about the magic. Mom, we need to talk about it.”