by Moshe Harel
She smiled as she thought of an idea. “Suppose you open a portal to Africa. Along with whom you want to go through the portal, some unwanted mosquitoes and other insects could come uninvited. Even if they can’t survive in the colder climate, they can still cause some damage before they perish, and that’s just an innocent example. A portal to Avalon may cause even more damage, if any pixie or goblin find their way out of there. Close the portal as soon as you finish using it.”
“But we may want to use the same portal on our way back,” somebody commented.
“We use tagging for that. Once you found a place suitable for the portal, you may magically tag it—that’s like putting a beacon on it, allowing you to find it much easier than by random searching. You don’t need to tag places you often use and know, but you may want to tag places you’d like to reuse in the future.”
Tagging a place was almost as easy as tagging on the internet, and just like internet tags, one could also remove them, if found not useful or no longer relevant.
Gran explained some more about wands and how a fairy finds her (or his) wand. As another girl in our group had found her wand during the visit, it was very relevant.
She then went into explaining some differences between us. “Just like every living thing, no two of you are the same in any aspect. You look different, you have different feelings and you have different talents. Your magic also differs. All these affect the form and the colors of your wings. As you’ve previously seen, some of you easily learn certain kinds of magic while others find them difficult, and it changes with the magic we try to use. Even a very adept fairy finds some kinds of magic easier to use than others. Don’t feel inadequate if certain aspects seem beyond your abilities. As you gain more power and more experience, you will eventually find it all doable, although you may not enjoy everything the same.”
“What do you mean by different kinds of magic?” one asked.
“We’ve already seen some examples. All of you have mastered portal creation, but some found it easier than others. Yet finding a proper location for the other side of the portal was something that made a different division between you. Even flying—some of you like it and enjoy flying, while others prefer walking, finding flying too tiring. The more you learn the more you’ll find what you like to do, and just like in normal life, you’ll each choose your own specialties.”
Since this seemed the right time for various questions, one asked, “Why are our wings so different in shape, color and size?”
“That’s a very good question,” Gran commented. “Unfortunately, I have no good answer. All we know is that the various shapes and colors are a manifestation of various aspects of our magic. I suspect that the size can also be influenced that way. There has never been a serious research done about this, as far as I could find. You can see that your wings are still changing, indicating that your magic is not yet stable. They will not change so much in two or three years, but I expect them to continue to subtly change for as long as you live.”
11 End of Summer
With all the new experiences, that summer seemed to fly by, and I was almost surprised when we reached the last week of vacation. I knew I would soon return to my normal life as a high school teenager, leaving most of the fairy stuff behind me, at least for a while. I was actually more concerned about my ability to stay in touch with all the other girls. During our club meetings, we’d become very close friends, and none of us wanted to lose that friendship. Yet we all knew that we needed to put it somewhat on hold, as we all needed to continue with our normal life, despite our newfound abilities and friendships.
It was our last meeting before the end of the summer vacation. Gran intended to continue meeting with us, but only once every few weeks, not to interfere with our regular life, yet there was a feeling of ending, of closing a certain chapter. In more than one way, all of us were very different from the girls who came to the first meeting of the fairy club. Most of us—and even I, to a certain extent—had been mere teen girls then. After several weeks of almost daily meetings, training, learning, and experiencing, we were full-fledged fairies. We didn’t change much externally, but we were almost different people inside. Well, maybe ‘people’ was not even the right word. We were fairies—that was our defining attribute—and we were in our human form for various reasons, but we were no longer just people.
Gran started the meeting by teaching us a simple but fun spell to create some colorful sparks which could take different shapes. Once we all mastered it, she started her end-of-vacation speech.
“We were all a bunch of strangers merely a few weeks ago. I believe that I can honestly say that we are now as close as family, or maybe even closer. It is this feeling of sharing a common fate, aspiring to the same goals, that makes us so unique.
“I’ve taught you many spells. Now I say—forget them! You don’t need them if you follow my explanations. They are only crutches to help you gain control of your magic, but once you gain that control, you no longer need them. You can now do everything that your imagination can see and your mind can envision. You only need a strong enough will to make it real, and the knowledge of how to direct your magic, which I know you all have by now.
“I’ll keep in touch with you, and I hope you’ll stay in touch with each other. I expect to see you evolve and grow in both magical and regular abilities. In a short while, you’ll be the ones leading the fairy species into a bright new future and you need to be prepared for the challenges that will pose.
“Now, let’s toast to the Fairy Magic of you all before we say goodbye.”
She had already prepared some cups with flower nectar that we all liked now, much more than any sparkling or artificial beverage. The girls started leaving soon after the toast.
“Sophie, don’t neglect your studies now. You’ve been doing us honor with your grades and I expect no less this year. You too, Brian. I have some grandiose plans for you two, but it all depends on how well you do in your studies.”
“We’ll be fine,” I promised. Gran was treating us as a legitimate couple since that first night. It was natural for one of us to answer for both.
“Good! Text me, if you need anything from me. Tell your Mom I’ll come for a visit in two or three weeks.”
We all hugged tightly before Gran urged us out. I knew she would do some cleaning (magically, of course) and then leave in her car for another new adventure, as I saw it.
Brian stayed with me for a few days until school began. He practically lived in my house and slept in my bed, going home only for a change of clothes and so that his parents could know he was still fine. I went with him at those times.
I wasn’t sure how I could return to school. My head was full of flying, magic, sex, and other things I had experienced during the summer. I felt as if school would seem so boring and out of place, compared to my summer experiences. I was wrong.
My close friends, whom I had neglected during the summer due to my evolving relationship and my fairy training, were all so glad to see me, that we almost missed the bell. Each of us had a lot to tell the others about what she’d done, where she’d gone, and who she’d met during the summer. Although I couldn’t tell much about my experiences, there was still enough I could tell—like having stayed with Brian for a few nights with my parents’ permission, visiting some interesting places and meeting all those girls in Gran’s private club. I subtly used some magic to make them disregard the fact that my stories covered less than a week of the vacation. I could probably skip that, though. With so many stories, no girl could tell a full and concise story about her vacation.
By the end of the second period, I almost forgot about the summer. The teachers were making sure to quickly bring us in line so that we could study effectively (or, as some said bitterly, to make us less of a nuisance for them).
Before the end of the day, we found another nasty surprise. We now had to choose two extra-curricular activities. One had to be some social or cultural activity. The othe
r had to be some kind of sport. I found swimming on the list. I thought that it would be a bit like flying, only in the water, so I chose that as my sports activity. It was more difficult to choose the other one. I couldn’t join the theater club, as I didn’t feel I was enough of an actress. Helping the residents of some nearby houses for the golden age was also not high on my list, and most other activities were even more boring.
“Why don’t you choose the choir?” Brian’s voice brought me out of my musings. “I think you have a nice voice and even if not, it doesn’t matter much, as long as you sing in tune.”
“But I don’t sing!”
“You sang a bit at the club, I remember. Besides, I took the choir and swimming.”
That really helped me make up my mind. Besides, for some unknown reason, singing started looking very compelling, once Brian mentioned it.
The first meeting of the swimming club was only two days later. Mom prepared my bikini, but I took the one Gran had bought for me. The swimming instructor seemed reluctant to allow it, probably because I had used my magic to make it even smaller, covering nothing more than strictly essential. Eventually, after looking me over several times (and I wasn’t sure if he did that to ascertain compliance with the rules or just because he enjoyed the view), he reluctantly nodded his approval. Brian’s swim briefs were not much larger, though, making his package very evident, yet he got it approved with only a glance.
I was a bit surprised to find only two other girls there. Both had their boyfriends in the swimming club, just like Brian and I, yet both wore much more conservative swimwear, making me stand out. I felt a bit conscious of the attention I was getting. A few months earlier, I would have freaked at that. I would have probably worn a very conservative swimsuit as well. Now, after having a mate and finding my fairy magic, I only accepted the attention as compliments for my athletic, yet very feminine, body.
In a way, my new found confidence was quite weird, come to think of it. Although I had never been very shy, I always refrained from attracting attention (except with my grades, of course) and that seemed to become more pronounced as most of my classmates reached puberty, leaving me the only “small girl” among these young women.
It all changed almost overnight when I reached sixteen, gaining my fairy powers, as if not only my magic had surfaced but also some unknown confidence. I actually liked my new self, yet occasionally I found myself as if looking from the side on me, wondering what happened to that girl.
It was fun in the water, but our instructor didn’t let us forget our purpose there. “I want each of you to swim the length of the pool as fast as you can, freestyle, so I can see what I need to work on.”
Although I liked swimming, I only knew the basic form. It had always been more fun to chat with my friends, in or out of the water, than to really swim. When trying to swim as fast as I could, I longed for flying, which was so much faster than this!
“You have power and stamina, but you need to improve your style and learn some faster styles as well. I see great potential, though,” the instructor told me.
Brian was much faster, mainly because he already knew more. We were both put in the “powerful swimmers” subgroup.
“Nobody said anything about the marks on my back or yours. I feared they would attract some undue attention,” I told Brian once it was over.
“Some other features of yours attracted plenty of attention,” he teased me before turning serious again.”Didn’t you pay attention to your Gran? She told us that only magical people can see these marks. Nobody noticed them when we went to the pool on my birthday either, if you remember.”
“I do, and you saw my marks even before yours appeared.”
He shrugged. “Some abilities mature earlier than others, so it seems.”
We only had the first choir meeting the next week. There were fewer participants than I expected and most of them had already taken part in it for at least one year. I wasn’t surprised that the conductor—our music teacher—wanted all new members to demonstrate their singing. He played a few notes on the piano and made us sing them. He promptly dismissed one of the new members. “You’re so far from the melody, that I need a telescope to find you. Until I buy one, you can’t join the choir.”
He seemed to like the way I sang, though, as he nodded his head approvingly and let me join the soprano group. Brian had already been in the choir the previous year and didn’t need to be tested.
I was surprised to find that I really liked singing. It made me feel almost as free as flying, without the risks.
I soon found that I liked swimming just as much. I didn’t mind using my muscles and making them stronger, and I didn’t care about sweating, as being in the water made that irrelevant, and I could still cool off in the water after some vigorous swimming. While developing my style, it also made me think about flying. Could I use some of what I was learning to enhance my flying? Could I use what I already knew about flying to enhance my swimming? It merited some more thinking, of that I was sure.
12 Practical magic
We were walking home after visiting the movies when Brian suggested, “Why don’t we fly home? It’s been a long time since we last flew.”
He was right. Although Gran and his parents were still reluctant to let us fly without supervision, they couldn’t spend enough time flying with us, while we needed to exercise our flight. By now, we were able to transform and shrink our clothes to fit at the same time, so getting undressed where somebody might see us was no issue. There was another problem, though—we were both wearing warm clothes, appropriate for the cool nights of late autumn, with no allowance for wings.
Brian seemed to understand my reluctance. “We can first change our clothes to make room for the wings,” he suggested.
The back of his overcoat changed, revealing an opening in the middle, through which I could see his markings. I followed suit, changing my clothes similarly. He smiled and held my hand. A moment later we were already in our fairy form, soaring happily above the dark rooftops.
The first few moments of flying will always be exhilarating for me. They feel like getting free from the limitation human form imposes on me. Moving up and down, swaying in the breeze, reaching treetops with no effort—I lacked them all in my human form. I knew Brian felt the same. We just fluttered around, enjoying our freedom. We were aware of the dangers inherent in our fairy size but didn’t let them bother us.
It didn’t take long to fly home. It didn’t take long even to walk home, yet we were in no hurry. We flew from one rooftop to the other, chasing each other like little children, yet trying to stay hidden.
None of the neighbors or the other people on the almost deserted streets noticed us. If they could even see us, we probably looked just like little birds or some insects—nothing to be bothered about. Yet another being saw us quite well. We suddenly saw a shadow gliding silently towards us. There was no time to plan. “Split!” I called at Brian and changed my direction abruptly, moving to one side, almost perpendicular to my previous direction. Brian was quick to understand and he did the same, only in the opposite direction.
The owl wasn’t affected as I hoped it would. It changed direction immediately, trying to follow me. I had to think of another maneuver. I folded my wings tightly and let myself fall several feet, almost reaching the ground, before unfolding them and escaping in a different direction.
Brian wasn’t idle all this time. He landed on a rooftop and directed some magic at the owl, forcing it to abandon the chase and hurry somewhere else. He then landed on the sidewalk, made sure nobody could see him, and transformed back to his human form. I landed at his side and transformed back a moment later.
We looked at each other and started laughing. It wasn’t our near encounter with quick death that made us laugh; it was just the feeling of having escaped such fate while causing no harm to anybody—not even that owl, who had just been looking for food. We were still high on adrenaline from the flight and the chase. Once we r
eached home—we were now living in my room, except during weekends, when we moved to his—we needed a very long series of copulations before we could fall asleep.
It was late the next morning, when we woke up and started discussing our nightly adventure, when we finally understood the implications.
“That’s what Gran said innumerable times, that we must never let our guards down. We were so happy to be flying, that we almost forgot about it,” I told Brian.
“Almost—but not quite. We were both aware of that owl way before it came close enough to do us any harm and we kept our cool, confusing it and making it leave. You acted wonderfully, confusing it and staying far from danger,” Brian said.
“You acted very bravely as well, using the distraction I created to use your magic and direct the owl elsewhere.”
He smiled shyly. “I wasn’t really sure it could work. I never tried something like that before, but I couldn’t let the owl get you.”
“I believe I could handle it, but it was nice seeing you fight for me.”
His smile widened. “We are mated for life, aren’t we?”
We then kissed. It would have turned into much more, but our grumbling stomachs dictated a different course of action. We walked to the kitchen and were surprised to see Gran there.
I ran immediately to her, hugging her as usual. It took me a moment to realize that she didn’t hug me back. She looked quite sternly at both of us but said nothing. She kept talking to my parents while Brian and I ate breakfast. She didn’t waste her time, though, and asked us to come to her room as soon as we took the last bite.
“Care to tell me what happened last night?” she asked as soon as she closed the door.
