by Brian Knight
She pulled one out and examined it. One end was splintered and ragged, as if someone had snapped it in half, but the point of a small crystal glinted at the other end. Curious, she searched and pulled out another piece and fit the snapped ends together.
A narrow wooden stick with a clear crystal tip.
“Weird.”
She pulled more pieces out, matching them up, and counted four broken sticks. One had a red crystal tip, another green. One of the crystals appeared to be made of some kind of crystalline metal.
She found the fifth lying unbroken atop a leather-bound book and plain brass cup, and pulled it out. A shiver ran up her spine as her hand wrapped around it.
A wand, she thought. How weird is this?
The wand resembled a dried twist of root more than anything crafted. It was very thin and twisted, with a tiny clear crystal tip. Penny thought it looked a lot like one of the big tree’s roots. The wood was smooth, slightly gray with age, the tip around the crystal point scorched.
She held it up to the light, turning it in her hand until it fit comfortably.
Still feeling a little let down, she dropped the broken wand pieces back into the chest and set it aside.
“So this was the big mystery,” she said, and jumped as a small yip sounded from the other side of the creek.
Ronan stood inside the mouth of the cave, all but his pointed face lost to the darkness within.
“Is this it?” She waited for Ronan to respond, but he said nothing, only watched her.
“What now?” She looked from Ronan to the wand, feeling suddenly very stupid. “Do you turn into a prince now, or something?”
Penny gave the wand a little wave and pointed it at Ronan, expecting nothing to happen.
She felt a spark between her hand and the wood of the wand, saw the crystal tip flash briefly, and a rush of wind blew from the wand tip, stirring dust from the ground, rippling the lazy water at the creek’s edge, and blowing Ronan’s fur back from its head.
Shocked speechless, Penny only stared at Ronan as he stepped forward, blinking in the wind.
“Very good, young lady. I knew you’d figure it out,” Ronan said. “But I’ll thank you not to point that at me.”
Penny jerked her arm down, pointing the wand at the ground, and the wind died.
For several long seconds, Penny tried to speak, but the words seemed to trip over her tongue. Her jaw worked, her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.
“You look like a fish when you do that,” Ronan said with a dry little chuckle. It stepped from the cave and lay down on the stone ledge by the water.
“What did I just do?” Penny managed at last.
Ronan’s eyes opened a little wider and it bared its teeth in a parody of a smile. “I thought that much was perfectly obvious,” it said. “Magic.”
Penny’s knees buckled and she fell heavily onto one of the boulders by the fire pit, dropping the wand into the chest as if it had tried to bite her.
“Probably comes as a bit of a shock, doesn’t it?” Ronan yawned. “Well, while you’re trying to wrap your mind around it, I’m going to go finish my nap.”
Ronan rose, stretched, and stepped back into the mouth of the cave. “Don’t normally get out during the day, but I couldn’t miss that. Good day, young lady.”
Then Ronan was gone and Penny was alone again, staring numb with shock at the wand inside the chest.
“Magic,” she whispered.
Her right hand tingled, moved toward the wand, and she forced it to her lap.
“There’s no such thing as magic,” she whispered, and then, as if to prove it, snatched the wand up again. There was no shock that time, but the tingling in her hand grew stronger. She could not think what to do with it though, so she set it in her lap and reached inside the chest for the book.
The Secrets of The Phoenix Girls decorated the hard leather cover, burned onto it in fancy, looping letters. Below that, a large brass coin with the image of a phoenix inlaid in the leather, and below the coin, burned into the leather like the words above, were two crossed wands.
Penny traced the edge of the embedded phoenix coin with a finger, it felt warm to the touch, and then tried to open the cover. It would not budge.
What now, she thought, frustrated.
She recalled the night before, pointing at the box and saying open sesame, and an idea occurred to her.
She decided, after only a moment’s pause, to try it.
What could it hurt?
Penny held the book up in her left hand, grasped the wand in her right, and gave the phoenix coin a poke with the wand’s tip.
“Open,” she said, feeling more than a little foolish.
The book’s cover sprang open immediately, nearly tipping it from her hand.
The top page was blank, as was the next, and the next. Penny rifled through the book, viewing pages at random. They were all blank.
Penny fought the urge to slam the blank book shut and throw it back in the chest with the pile of broken sticks. She sat with it open on her lap, arms folded, bouncing the wand against her arm.
Pop.
Penny screamed and jumped from her seat, spilling the book to the dirt, and spun to see what had made the sudden, loud noise. There was nothing. Then she smelled smoke, felt heat against her leg, and looked down to see her wand’s tip issuing a tongue of flame.
Panicking, Penny waved the wand over her head to put out the flame, and screamed again as it let out another loud pop. The canopy of joined willow limbs over her head shuddered, shaking leaves down around her.
She dropped the wand, deciding for the moment it was safer out of her hand, and kept a wary eye on it as she bent to pick up the book, still open to the first blank page.
Maybe The Phoenix Girls, whoever they were, used disappearing ink...or magic ink.
An idea occurred to her, and she felt stupid for not having thought of it right away. It was so obvious.
Carefully, she picked the wand up. It did not pop again or shoot flames, so she pointed it at the book, and tapped the first blank page.
Instantly, characters appeared on the old, yellowing paper. The language was alien, composed of stick figures that reminded her of Native American petroglyphs and a thousand complex little runes.
As Penny stared at them, they began to twitch and wiggle, dance and rearrange until they settled on the page in lines of perfect English.
Chapter 9
The Principles of Magic
Penny spent the rest of that Saturday in her bedroom, sitting on her bed reading the same two pages of the book over and over again, and on the phone in the living room, trying to reach Zoe. The first few times it just continued to ring until she gave up. After that, she got a busy signal. She had a feeling Zoe’s grandma had taken their phone off the hook.
As desperately as she wanted to talk to Zoe, to share her discovery, Penny decided it might be best to give it up for the rest of the day. Whatever Zoe had done to get in trouble, Penny didn’t want to make it any worse for her.
She regretted leaving the wand at Aurora Hollow, wanting badly to hold it again, eager to try what she’d read in the old leather-bound book. Overall, she decided she was better off not using it at home until she knew she could do so without burning the house down, or startling Susan with earsplitting bangs.
“Penny, what are you doing up there?” Susan sounded half-irritated, half-concerned. “You’ve been hiding since I came home.”
Penny waited for the sound of her opening trapdoor, ready to hide the book if Susan decided to come up. Her eyes wandered to the new book Zoe had given her. “I’m just reading.”
“Is Zoe coming for dinner?”
“No.” Penny frowned, irritated that Zoe hadn’t tried to call back.
“Well, it’ll be ready soon. Come down and set the table for me.”
Sighing, Penny stashed the book beneath her pillow and pulled her shoes on to go downstairs.
They watched television after eating, a
nd Penny went to bed early that night. She was exhausted from the day’s excursion and her excitement over discovering the magic at her new home. Disappointment that she couldn’t share it with her new friend kept rising in her, but she reminded herself that there was always the next day, or the one after that.
All that night she dreamed of phoenixes and foxes, magic books and magic wands. She dreamed of the two pages of The Secrets of The Phoenix Girls that were now visible to her.
She woke the next morning with the tall figure of Zoe leaning down over her.
“Good morning, Little Red.” Zoe sat on the edge of her bed, chuckling.
Penny groaned. “Susan! Did you have to tell her about that?”
Zoe laughed. “Sorry about yesterday. Grandma grounded me.”
“What for?”
Zoe blushed. “She told me I couldn’t spend the night, so I snuck out after she went to bed.”
“Does she know you’re here now?” Penny asked, alarmed.
“Naw,” Zoe said. “Don’t worry. She’s at church. She’ll be gone most of the day.”
“But …”
“C’mon,” Zoe said. “I wanna go back and see the chest!”
“Oh,” Penny said, feeling slightly guilty, “about that.”
Penny told Zoe about finding the key, but wasn’t sure how to tell her about what happened afterward.
“Well,” Zoe said, not at all upset she’d missed the opening. “What’s in it?”
Penny hesitated, then reached beneath her pillow and pulled out the old book.
“Wow!” Zoe practically danced in place, then snatched the book from Penny’s hand. “Hey, why won’t it open?”
Penny sat up in bed, swung her legs over the side and searched for her shoes. “You’re going to have to see it to believe it.”
They stood in Aurora Hollow a half hour later, gazing down into the open chest, and Zoe looked as disappointed as Penny had felt upon seeing inside it the first time. Then her eye caught the gleam of crystal, and she reached in, plucking out the broken wand with the green crystal tip.
“Colored quartz,” she said, and tried to pry it from the wood.
Penny reached in and pulled out the unbroken wand, and decided on the spot to try out what she’d read the night before. She pointed the wand at the piece of broken wood in Zoe’s hand, concentrated, and gave the wand an upward jerk.
The broken wand slipped from Zoe’s grasp and hovered in the air a few feet above them. Penny was so surprised by her success that she let it drop. It landed on Zoe’s head and bounced into the fire pit.
Zoe stared at it, bent to pick it up again, but hesitated as if afraid it might jump out at her. Instead, she turned toward Penny, her eyes going wide at the sight of the wand she held.
“How did you do that?”
Penny did not answer, but held out the book to Zoe, who took it with a look of bewilderment. Penny tapped the phoenix coin on the cover and it sprang open, displaying the same text to her as the day before.
“Wild,” Zoe said, and turned the first page. “There’s nothing in it.”
Penny was only momentarily stymied by this.
“You have to do it then,” she said, and handed Zoe the wand.
Zoe accepted it with a look of excitement. “What now?”
“Tap the pages.”
Zoe did, and grinned as the alien print appeared to her, then transformed to English. She tapped the second page, and the same thing happened, but the third remained blank. She tapped it again, but still nothing happened.
“It only showed me the first two pages,” Penny said. “I think maybe we have to learn them before it shows us more.”
Zoe flipped through all the blank pages of the book, her eyes and smile growing wider.
“Is this … is this real?” She turned to Penny, excitement and skepticism pulling her features in contradicting directions. “Are you playing a joke on me?”
“Go on,” Penny urged. “Try something.”
Zoe scanned instructions on the second page for a minute, then set the book down beside the chest. She pointed the wand at the debris inside the fire pit, concentrating until her face was almost as red as Penny’s hair. The tip flashed, and a spark shot from it, erupting into a small ball of fire that winked out in midair. Smoke drifted into her face, and she waved it away, coughing.
“Was that real enough?” Penny asked, smiling.
The Principles of Magic.
Ability.
One must have a degree of natural ability to feel, channel, and control magical energy. No amount of study, theory, or practice will help a person without natural talent to use magic.
Intention.
Clear intention is vital in channeling magical energy for a specific task. Without clear intention of what you expect channeled energy to do, anything could happen. Most accidents and unintended effects happen because the user’s intentions were not clear. Know what you want to do before you try to do it.
Focus.
Without proper focus to propel channeled energy, the intended magic will be weak, or may not work at all. Concentrate on your goal.
Imagination.
Imagination is the key to developing new kinds of magic, and expanding uses for known magic.
This book will only open for one with the ability to use magic. Keep it safe, for it holds the secrets and lessons of those who came before you. Study the secrets of The Phoenix Girls, practice their lessons, and when you are ready, the book will give you more.
Learn and grow, and when the time comes that you have learned all the book has to teach, you will become the teachers.
You are The Phoenix Girls.
Penny practiced while Zoe read the principles of magic written out on the first page of the old book again, first picking up and moving a fist-sized rock with the wand, then making it fly in circles over their heads around the hollow.
“It’s like a school textbook.” Zoe said, setting the book down and glaring at it, as though it were being intentionally boring.
Distracted, Penny turned to Zoe and lost control of the flying rock, sending it shooting through the upper boughs and startling birds into flight.
“Yeah, but not at first. I think it changed for us because that’s how we’re used to learning.”
“How would it know that? It’s a book!” Zoe turned away from the open book, arms crossed stubbornly over her chest—but snatched it up a few seconds later, unable to resist the temptation to reread it.
Penny pointed the wand at the inside of the fire pit, her pale face flushing as she concentrated. The wand tip flashed, and a bright spark shot into the center of the stone ring, erupting into tall, bright flames. Without proper fuel to sustain the fire, it guttered and died in only a few seconds. “Just know what you want to do, then point, and concentrate.”
Zoe turned to the second page and scanned it. “I want to try something.”
Penny handed the wand over and stood back.
“Throw something at me,” Zoe said.
Penny thought she knew what Zoe was going to try, but hesitated. “Are you sure?”
“Yep. If it doesn’t work, I’ll jump out of the way. Just make it something small.”
Penny pried a small stone from the dirt. She still didn’t think it was a good idea, but threw it anyway, aiming to the right of Zoe instead of at her.
Zoe whipped the wand up, pointing it straight out in front of her, her eyes narrowed in concentration. A foot away from her, the stone stopped abruptly and bounced back toward Penny, landing at her feet.
Zoe gave a little shout of triumph. “It worked! Here, you try it.”
She ran forward and pressed the wand into Penny’s hand, then ran to the creek’s edge, plucking a small rock from the water.
“Ready?”
“No,” Penny said, but raised the wand anyway.
Zoe grinned, made a show of winding for a pitch, and threw it.
Penny tried to concentrate on making a shield to bloc
k it, but her brain froze as she saw it whizzing toward her, and all that happened was that the wand gave a feeble little hoot. She jumped out of the way at the last second, and the rock just missed hitting her.
“Oh! I’m sorry,” Zoe said, running forward.
“It’s okay,” Penny said, though her heart was beating hard at the near miss. “Maybe we should practice that one with something softer next time.”
They took turns with the wand for the next three hours. While their efforts yielded unpredictable, often nearly disastrous results, they at least had a handle on the few spells—if spells are what they really were—that the book had to offer.
There were no ‘eyes of newts’ or ‘bat wings’ involved, no magic words or incantations. Penny didn’t think these were spells, only crude manifestations of will. Potions and fancy words would come later, if at all, she guessed.
Why guess when we can check?
“Zoe, come here,” Penny said, taking a seat on a boulder by the dead fire pit and picking up the book again. It had closed itself while they practiced, and Penny didn’t need to try the cover to know it wouldn’t open.
Zoe, who had been using the wand like a leaf blower, sending the cover of dead and rotting leaves off the ground of the hollow and under the curtain of low‐hanging willow limbs, turned to Penny. When her concentration broke, the wind blowing from the wand tip died.
“What?” she asked, trotting to Penny’s side.
“Let’s see if there’s anything new.”
Zoe brightened at the suggestion, and tapped the Phoenix coin inlaid in the leather cover. The book’s cover sprang open, and Penny thumbed the first few pages over to the first blank page.
Zoe tapped it without hesitation, and her grin widened. She pressed the wand into Penny’s waiting hand and Penny tapped the page.
Print spread across the page, not the weird pictures and runes, but neat and crisp handwritten English. She tapped the next page, and more text appeared across the top of the page. Beneath the text several illustrations appeared. They looked to Penny like pictures in an instruction manual. She flipped the page and tapped the next.
