Magic by the Lake

by Edward Eager

  "Oh, we're not complaining," said Katharine quickly. "We think it's awfully nice of you. We're grateful. You've been very obliging. Thank you very much."

  "Humph!" said the turtle.

  "Magic's just about all we needed to make things just about perfect," said Jane.

  "Ha!" said the turtle. "That's what you think. And a lot you know about it! But of course you couldn't be sensible, could you, and order magic by the pound, for instance, or by the day? Or by threes, the good old-fashioned way? Or even by halves, the way you did before?"

  "Why, how do you know about that?" said Martha.

  "I know everything," said the turtle. "If it's worth knowing. But no, not you. You had to be greedy and order magic by the lake, and of course now you've got a whole lakeful of it, and as for how you're going to manage it, I for one wash my hands of the whole question!"

  "You mean the whole lake's magic?" said Mark. "All of it?"

  "It is now," said the turtle.

  Jane's eyes turned toward the lake. She gasped. "Look!" she said.

  The others looked.

  "What did I tell you?" said the turtle. It took one look at the lake, shuddered, and withdrew into its shell.

  The four children stared, transfixed.

  Every bit of the lake's surface seemed to be suddenly alive, and each bit of it was alive in a different way. It was like trying to keep track of a dozen three-ring circuses, only more so.

  Water babies gamboled in the shallows. A sea serpent rose from the depths. Some rather insipid-looking fairies flew over. A witch hobbled on a far bank. A rat and a mole and a toad paddled along near the willowy shore, simply messing about in a boat. A family of dolls explored a floating island. On the other side of the same island, a solitary man stared at a footprint in the sand. A hand appeared in the middle of the lake holding a sword. Britannia ruled the waves. Davy Jones came out of his locker. Neptune himself appeared, with naiads and Nereids too numerous to mention.

  The two younger children shut their eyes.

  "Make it stop," said Martha.

  "Now I know what too much of a good thing means," said Katharine. "I never thought there could be before."

  "I wouldn't enjoy it," said Jane, surveying the lake critically. "Not in front of all those people. We couldn't enter in."

  "Maybe it could be sort of simplified," said Mark. "Moderation is pleasant to the wise." And he turned to appeal to the turtle.

  But the turtle had seized this opportunity to escape and was making for the water as fast as it could, which was fortunately not very fast.

  The four children gave chase and brought it to bay. It went into its shell again. Mark rapped on the shell politely. The turtle peered cautiously from within.

  "We've got to talk this over," said Mark. "You've got to do something."

  "I did," said the turtle, from inside the shell, "and now look! There's no satisfying some people. And you needn't go asking me to take it back, because it's too late. Magic has rules, you know, the same as everything else."

  "Yes, we know," said Mark, "but you'd never think so, to look at it now. It's all every which way."

  They all looked at the lake again. Some Jumblies had appeared, going to sea in a sieve. A walrus and a carpenter danced with some oysters on a nearby shore. In the distance Columbus was discovering America.

  "It's too big," said Katharine. "I think it needs alterations."

  "Couldn't you let us have a few more wishes," said Jane, "so we can sort of tame it and know where we stand?"

  "We'll be awfully grateful," said Katharine. "We'll build you a lovely tank and give you the best care money can buy."

  "No, thank you," said the turtle. "I was perfectly happy in my own inlet, until you came along. I had a lovely life there. I want to go home."

  "Not till you let us make more wishes," said Jane, putting her foot on the turtle firmly.

  "Oh, very well," said the turtle, "if I must, I must. Only I have to make them. Im the magic one around here. And only three, mind. That's the magic number."

  "Naturally," said Jane.

  "Proceed," said the turtle. Jane removed her foot.

  "First of all," said Mark, who had been thinking, "let's have only one magic adventure at a time. And not every day, just every so often. Then we'll have time to recover in between."

  "Is that all one wish?" said the turtle. "I'll try, but it will take a lot out of me. The other two had better be easy."

  "No grown-ups noticing," said Katharine. "So Mother won't abandon all hope of sanity, the way she did last time."

  "And nothing scary," said Martha.

  "Granted," said the turtle, "and that is absolutely all."

  The other three turned on Martha. "What did you have to go and ask that for?" said Jane. "Now it'll be all tame and namby-pamby and watered down! Like those awful children's editions of books Aunt Grace always gives us!"

  "That Three Musketeers with Lady de Winter left right out!" said Mark.

  "Excavated versions, I think they're called," said Katharine. "You can see why."

  The turtle gave them a look. "Don't be so sure," it said. "After all, I made the wish; so there won't be anything in it that would scare me. But then," it added, and Katharine swore afterwards that it winked at them, "nothing does!"

  And it started for the lake, leaving the four children with that to think over.

  Mark ran after it. "Wait," he said. "How'll we know when it's time?"

  "You won't," said the turtle, turning at the water's edge. "When you feel like magic, touch the lake and wish, and if the time is ripe, you'll get it. Or not, as the case may be." And it plopped into the water.

  "Will we see you again?" Jane called.

  "Not if I see you first," were the parting words of the turtle. "Try not to call unless it's absolutely necessary." And it swam away.

  And where it touched the water, the magic started disappearing, and the disappearing spread outwards to both sides, like the wake of a ship, until, as the last ripple of turtle vanished in the distance, the lake lay calm and untroubled and uninhabited (except in a normal fishy way) under the setting sun, just as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

  "So that's that," said Jane, "and we're left to cope with it."

  "When'll it start, do you suppose?" said Katharine.

  "Tonight?" faltered Martha. "We just touched the lake a while back, and I was probably wishing all sorts of things."

  "I shouldn't think so," said Mark. "I shouldn't think till tomorrow, when it's fresh. It's getting pretty late now."

  "Good," said Martha. "I'd rather it didn't start at night."

  "Joy cometh in the morning," said Katharine.

  "Dinner!" called their mother.

  The four children went into the cottage.

  Going to bed that night was interesting, for they had never slept on their own sleeping porch before, to say nothing of crickets, and water softly lapping, and the sound that night in the country makes, which really isn't a sound at all but the echo of silence.

  "The end of a perfect day," said Mark, from his side of the porch.

  "Peace, perfect peace," said Jane, from hers.

  On the long front part, by the summerhouse and the silver birches, Martha got out of her bed and into Katharine's.

  "What's the matter? Can't you sleep?" said Katharine.

  "I keep thinking," said Martha. "I keep thinking about all that magic in the lake. And that part where they've never found bottom. And that big snake thing that came up out of it."

  "Trust ye unto the magic's power," called Jane, who had overheard. "It never let us down before."

  "In youth it sheltered us," said Katharine. "Chances are it'll protect us now."

  At that moment a bloodcurdling laugh rent the air.

  "Help! What was that?" said Jane.

  "A loon," said Mark, who was a Boy Scout.

  "What's a loon?" whispered Martha, trembling.

  "A bird," Katharine told her.

>   "It couldn't be," said Martha. "It's that big snake thing."

  "Hush," said Katharine. "Listen to the crickets."

  "I don't like them," said Martha. "They could be ghosts twittering."

  "They aren't," said Katharine. "Get back in your own bed."

  "Hold my hand, then," said Martha.

  "Oh, all right," said Katharine.

  And Martha got back in her own bed, and Katharine reached out an arm from hers, and the sisters joined hands in the space between. And which limp hand fell first from the lifeless clasp of the other and sank into utter drowsiness will never be known. The next thing that was known was the sun shining in their eyes and turning the lake all blue and gold.

  Breakfast followed as the day the night, and then Mr. Smith had to leave for the city in time to open the bookshop for the afternoon, which is what he had decided to do every day this summer except weekends, when he would be gloriously free, like the others. But first he drove the four children over the rolling pasture to a farm on the red clay road, and they saw milk being milked, and carried the nourishing cans of it back to the car; and today Mr. Smith delivered it and them to the cottage, but after this getting the milk would be the four children's morning task, on foot.

  And then Mr. Smith departed, and the children's mother suggested a morning dip.

  Farms have charms to soothe the most savage breast, and swimming is just about the highest good; so it was some time before thoughts of magic entered the children's heads. When they touched the lake for the first time, all they wished was that swimming would be as wonderful today as it was yesterday, and it was.

  It wasn't till they lay spent on the sand that they began wondering about the magic, and when it would begin, and what would be its alluring form when it did.

  "Do you suppose we get to sort of choose at all, or will it take us by surprise?" said Jane.

  "Shush," said Katharine, nodding in the direction of their mother, who was sitting all too nearby.

  But their mother didn't look up from the book she was reading and didn't appear to have heard a word; so that part of the magic seemed to be working already.

  "What would everybody choose if we could?" said Jane.

  "Pirates," said Mark at once, touching the edge of lake that rippled shallowly at his feet.

  "Mermaids," said Katharine, touching her bit of lake-edge at the same moment.

  "Neither one," said Martha quickly, but nobody heard her because everybody was talking at once.

  "That's done it," Mark said. "Now I suppose we'll get a sort of blend."

  "What would the blend of a mermaid and a pirate be?" said Jane.

  "A mer-pirate," said Katharine "Long golden hair and black whiskers."

  But that wasn't what the four children saw a few minutes later. What they saw, floating toward the beach, was a perfectly ordinary mermaid, such as you might meet any day in any perfectly ordinary sea. She was combing her long golden hair, and the scales of her supple tail glittered through the foam behind her. She saw the four children and beckoned with her golden comb.

  "Come, dear children, let us away, down and away below," were her thrilling words.

  Martha chose this moment to be difficult, as only she knew how.

  "I won't go," she said. "I know all about what she does. Mother read me a story. She lures poor sailors, and they drown. Something about a laurel eye.

  Jane propelled her sister forward. "You can't back out now," she said, "now we're in the thick of it."

  "It would be changing courses in the middle of the stream," said Katharine.

  "Then that's what I'll do," said Martha.

  But Jane took hold of one of her arms and Mark took hold of the other, and Katharine pushed from behind, and the mermaid seemed to take hold of all of them, though she had only two hands, and they shot forward into the lake.

  "Mother!" called Martha, to the vanishing shore.

  "I see you," her mother nodded smilingly. "Keep it up; you're swimming fine."

  Martha's answering wail was cut short as the waters closed over her head.

  At first she kept her eyes tight shut, but at last fear gave way to curiosity, and she opened them cautiously. To her surprise she could see perfectly well underwater, which had never been true before, but she couldn't see much, because they were going too fast. She got an impression of sandy bottom far below. Things moved squidgily in it, and Martha shut her eyes again firmly.

  Katharine was holding her breath. After a while she began to wonder if this were absolutely necessary. At last, when utter bursting seemed likely, she decided to try.

  "Can we breathe, do you suppose?" she said, "or will we drown?"

  "Glug glug," were the words of Mark. Or at least that's what they sounded like. Katharine decided that breathing was possible but conversation wasn't.

  Then, just as the rushing wateriness was beginning to pall on even the most venturesome heart (Jane's), there was a change in the atmosphere. It grew lighter, and brighter, and next thing the four children shot out of it entirely into open air.

  "Land ahoy!" said Mark.

  "Where are we?" said Martha, relieved to find herself anywhere.

  Jane's eyes were shining. "Lagoons!" she said, pointing. "Desert islands. Coral reefs. Coves."

  The others looked where she pointed. There was only one island and one coral reef and one lagoon (or cove), but that was exciting enough. They were floating rapidly past the reef and into the lagoon and toward the island, the mermaid (who seemed to be a mermaid of few words) still towing them.

  Then they touched land, and barnacles scraped Katharine's knee.

  "I didn't know the lake had all this in it," she said. "Which way is home?"

  "Don't be silly," said Mark. "We left that old lake behind ages ago. We're halfway around the world by now. Feel the climate. It's tropical."

  Jane was already scrambling up the rocks. Mark hoisted Martha up to her, and he and Katharine followed. The mermaid draped herself fishily against the base of the rock.

  "So far, so good," she said. "Now sing."

  "Sing what?" said Katharine.

  "What for?" said Mark.

  "To lure a ship in to shore, of course, stupid," said the mermaid.

  "What did I tell you?" said Martha.

  But now the mermaid was raising her voice in song, and Jane and Katharine, feeling that in a magic adventure it is best to do whatever seems to be expected of you, joined in. After a bit, Martha added her piping tones to theirs.

  Who knows what song the sirens sang? I do not, and neither did Sir Thomas Browne, who once wrote some well-known lines on the subject. Few will ever know what song Jane and Katharine and Martha sang upon that coral coast, either.

  But they listened to the mermaid's tune and did their best to follow it, and as to what words they sang, they let inspiration take its course. "Come unto these yellow sands," they sang. "Come all ye young fellows who follow the sea. Come, come, I love you only; my heart is true."

  Katharine even tried to put in the alto, the way her Aunt Grace always did in church. As for Jane, she got carried away completely, and soon was nodding and becking and smiling wreathed smiles, and waving her freckled arms with alluring grace, and combing her longish ungolden hair with the mermaid's extra comb, which she borrowed for the purpose.

  Mark, who had been holding his ears, turned away and made a gagging sound.

  But the song seemed to do the trick, for a sail appeared on the horizon and turned into a ship that veered from its course and came rapidly toward them. And as it came nearer, a delighted gasp was heard from the four children, and they would have shivered happily in their shoes, except that they didn't have any on, being still dressed for swimming.

  For the ship was dark and looming, and its sails were black and sinister. A skull and crossbones was its suitable flag. And among the toiling figures on the deck walked a tall man in high boots and the kind of hat that made it all too plain what his dreadful trade was, and from the way he
strutted up and down you could tell even at a distance that he thought it was a glorious thing to be a pirate king.

  "Shiver my timbers!" said Jane.

  "Shush," said Mark.

  The ship was so near now that the four children could hear the pirate's voice plainly as he gave orders to drop anchor and man the longboat. A few seconds later the longboat began to descend.

  "This is where I leave you," said the mermaid, in a businesslike way. And without a backward glance she turned tail and sank beneath the waves.

  "Wait!" cried Katharine, for there was much she wanted to ask the mermaid about life in undersea circles.

  But the mermaid was gone, and the four children were left a prey to feelings of doubt and conspicuousness as the pirate chief and his men drew ever nearer to shore in the longboat.

  "Let's hide," said Martha suddenly, and all agreed that the suggestion was excellent.

  The island afforded little shelter except palm trees, but the four children were soon stationed behind four of these, all too aware of the fact that their plumper parts were still sticking out plainly to either side of the meager trunks.

  The bow of the longboat ground against sand, and the pirate chief leaped nimbly ashore, for all his high, heavy boots. The children could see that he was a handsome devil, with beautifully curling black whiskers.

  "Up with the treasure and after me," he said to his men. "Bring spades, picks, and shovels."

  Some of the men heaved a great chest up out of the boat. Others followed with the tools of digging. The black-whiskered one strode to a sandy spot just in front of the four palm trees. He pointed with his fine, white, gentlemanly hand that had rings on all the fingers, diamonds and emeralds.

  "Dig," he said.

  And the men dug long and deep in the sand, while their chief paced up and down, muttering to himself and biting his nails. He did not seem to see the four children, though they were sure that any minute he would.

  "This treasure," he muttered, "will rest safely here till I am ready to retire and take my place in the world as a gentleman, or my name's not Chauncey Cutlass!"

  One of the digging men had overheard, and whispered to his fellows. They put down their spades. The first man stepped forward, with the others behind him. "What about our part in it?" he said. "We pirated it the same as you."