The Man Who Was Magic (13 page)

And as for Jane, she was thinking:
At last, here’s my chance! For with both Ninian and Mopsy asleep, I can make Adam tell me somehow.

XIII

T
HE
M
AGIC
F
ARM

J
ane began in her most wheedling manner, “Please, please, please, Adam, won’t you tell me how you did it?” She had climbed to her knees, with her hands clasped before her, in supplication.

“Did what?” Adam asked. He was stretched out on the ground, leaning on his elbow with a quizzical smile on his face, his eyes half lost in the crinkles.

“Oh, everything. The rose you gave me; Fussmer’s teeth; Ninian’s trick—he didn’t do it at all, because I was watching. And then putting the egg back together again. As for those ants and hornets and things, I know they weren’t there when we came. Oh, and then that scrumptious lunch. I saw what Mummy put in the picnic basket and it
wasn’t
what Ninian took out.”

“But, Jane,” said Adam, “what else is there to say? It’s nothing but . . .”

Jane clapped her hands to her ears and cried, “If you say ‘plain and simple magic’ once more, I’ll scream!”

Adam grinned at her. “You’ll wake Mopsy and Ninian, if you do.”

“But you promised to tell me!” Jane wailed. “And I must know because Daddy will be furious if I can’t tell him. Oh dear! It slipped out! Now I’ve told you. It was Daddy’s idea for us to go on the picnic and Peter was to hide in the bushes and listen. I was to find out how you did the egg trick and if I didn’t, I was to be punished when I came home. I was frightened not to try, he was so angry with me. And he said also that if I told you it would be even worse for me. I thought it was a rotten thing to do and I hate myself. I wouldn’t have done it, except Daddy said if I didn’t he’d forbid me to be your assistant and then you wouldn’t be able to appear tonight. I don’t know what to do or say any more. I’m so unhappy, Adam!”

He sat up now, facing her, serious and concerned. He said, “How awful for you, Jane; I do understand. It was foolish of your father to make all that trouble for everyone, for I told him last night how it was done, only he didn’t believe me and neither do you. I can only tell you the truth, as indeed I promised. It’s the only magic I can do. Until now I’d always thought it was the same kind as yours.”

For the first time Adam’s sincerity made an impression upon Jane yet she could not believe.

“But there’s no such thing as real magic,” she said, shaking her head. “There can’t be because Daddy says so and he knows. There’s an explanation for everything. It’s all a trick of one kind or another, because Daddy shows us. We have a whole library full of books on how to do them—things worked up to fool people. That’s the only magic there is.”

Adam said gently, “Perhaps that’s the only kind of magic there is in Mageia.”

She was regarding him defiantly and yet with longing in her eyes, as though she wished that what she had said and believed so firmly might not be wholly true.

“Can’t you see, Jane,” Adam continued, “that there’s magic all about us? None of it can be explained and there isn’t a single soul who really and truly knows the secret. Supposing, for instance, you tell me how this is done.” He picked up an old, brown acorn from the ground and, holding it between thumb and forefinger, he indicated the spreading branches and shining leaves of the ancient tree towering above their heads. “From this, comes that,” he said. “Well?”

“It—it just grows.”

“Oh, yes. But how does something so tremendous come from something so tiny? And why? And when was the first one? And how did it all begin?”

Jane reflected. It had never occurred to her before that oak trees, or for that matter any tree, must have had a beginning. Now, no longer quite so sure of herself, she replied, “I don’t know.”

“Can your father, or Malvolio, or Fussmer, or anyone in Mageia do this trick?”

Jane whispered, “No. But you made a real rose come out of a staff and put an egg back together again.”

“Is that so very remarkable?” Adam asked. “See over there,” and he indicated the field at the bottom of the hill where the young foal was lying on its back, wriggling and squirming, waving its thin legs at a cloud sailing by in the sky. “Look how full of life and joy he is. And only a little while ago he wasn’t here. He wasn’t anywhere. You could have searched the ends of the earth and you wouldn’t have found him. And now there he is, strong and happy. Super magic, isn’t it?”

And Jane had to think hard about that, too.

“What do you see just across the valley?” Adam asked her.

“A herd of cows,” Jane replied.

“Oh no,” Adam said. “Not at all. A whole field full of magicians.”

“Magicians?” The child stared at him.

Adam plucked a handful of the sweet, green grass growing where they sat. He said, “In Mageia they can turn wine into water, no doubt, or water into wine, or at least make it seem so. But those great wizards over there can change this into milk, from which comes cream, butter, cheese for us to eat and drink and grow on.”

Even from across the valley they could see the full udders swinging low between the legs of the herd. “And nothing up their sleeves,” Adam smiled. “You can see it happening before your very eyes. Still, no one really knows how they do it. That’s
real
magic, Jane.”

The little girl looked at him and there was a new kind of trust in her eyes. “Is it truly, Adam?” she whispered back. “Can we see any more magicians?”

“Oh, yes indeed,” Adam replied. “That farm is a regular magic house. Just full of hocus-pocus. See down there, for instance, pecking and clucking in the yard.”

“What?” said Jane with scorn in her voice. “Chickens? They’re the silliest creatures!”

“On the contrary,” said Adam, “great conjurers. I put the egg together again, after it was broken, but I couldn’t make one.” He pointed once more dramatically, “They can. And out of them come omelettes and cakes and noodles, not to mention those little, yellow, fluffy balls of newly hatched chicks that you see running to their mothers. But even though you scolded and cried, or stamped your foot, they wouldn’t and couldn’t tell you how they do it.”

The two were standing together now, side by side and Jane’s eyes were roving the valley life with excitement.

“And what about that fat, old lady magician rolling in the mud down there?” Adam continued, with a nod of his head towards the sow in the pig pen. “She eats swill and, ibbety-bibbety-alakazam, she can be changed into more useful objects than you can name: shoes, pocketbooks, suitcases, wallets, brushes to keep your hair straight and neat, pork chops, gammon, sausages, shortening and goodness knows what else.”

“What about the sheep over there?” Jane asked, “They don’t do anything.”

“You mean the wool-making warlocks?” Adam replied. “Oh yes they do, but of course a good deal has to happen to it before you can button it up under your chin in the form of an overcoat, against the winter storms. But only
they
know how to deliver the raw material and they aren’t telling, either.”

There came a humming close by as a honeybee wavered in its erratic flight to probe into the petals of a purple clover blossom, before buzzing away.

Adam whipped one hand smartly to his forehead.

“What are you doing that for?” Jane asked.

“To salute one of the greatest masters of them all—the messenger of love between the flowers. They bring new life to shrubs and blossoms many miles apart and at the same time they practically throw away another little trick which they hardly notice, it comes so easily to them.”

“Honey!” cried Jane, clapping her hands with delight that she had guessed.

“Honey indeed,” Adam concurred, “And there isn’t a human being living who could make a solitary drop of honey, or the combs in which to store it.”

Jane begged, “More, please. Do go on.”

“Why,” said Adam, “there’s so much about, one hardly knows where to begin. For instance, the pond down there.”

“The ducks and geese?”

“Only minor sorcerers and pillow-stuffers, compared to what goes on below the surface.”

“What happens there?” Jane asked.

“Chockablock with magic,” Adam replied. “Did you know there’s a whole universe of creatures in every single drop of water in that pond? Some day when you’re a little older, you’ll look through a microscope and see the millions of little animals that live with us in this world, invisible to the naked eye. Besides which, I’ll wager there are hundreds of tadpoles swimming around down there.”

“Oh, those . . .”

“Yes, but what a marvelous, magical performance. They start off as an egg, turn into a fish with a tail, then grow legs and lungs, come out of the water onto the land and turn into frogs. You can hear them croaking by the pond side.”

“But that’s real, honest-to-goodness, changing magic, isn’t it?” cried Jane. “That’s the hardest thing to do.”

“Oh, is it changing magic you like?” Adam said. “Then see here,” he picked up a twig and bending down, retrieved from between the blades of grass a small, green caterpillar which showed its indignation by rearing up and waving half a dozen of its legs at them. Simultaneously a lemon-yellow butterfly with black spots on its wings came floating, drifting, zigzagging and skimming the tops of the field flowers to settle on a buttercup.

“Hocus-pocus,” said Adam.

Jane looked puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

“Our angry, green friend will change into that,” and Adam pointed as the butterfly sailed off lazily to another bloom. “Oh, and there’s an even prettier bit of enchantment,” he continued. “Look quickly—
him!”

Him was a dragonfly, its diaphanous wings shining like diamonds, emeralds and mother-of-pearl as it hovered for a moment in the sunshine before their eyes, exquisite as a fairy, before flying off over the treetops. “He came from a little brown grub.”

Leaning against a small boulder a dozen or so yards away, still pretending to sleep and producing loud snores, Ninian was in a perfect fever of excitement. For he was certain that in a moment now, Adam would be revealing to Jane exactly how
he
achieved his astonishing effects. He hardly dared look in case he should be caught eavesdropping and so he kept squinting at them occasionally, from beneath almost closed eyelids which made for a rather blurry effect, but Ninian was determined not to miss anything. Mopsy slept on.

Adam raised his arms and his face had become transfixed. “Wherever you look,” he cried, “earth magic, water magic, fire magic, sky magic. See that cloud up there, just over the hill? The one that looks like a hippopotamus?”

“You mean the elephant?”

“It
has
turned into an elephant, hasn’t it? And now it’s changing into a kind of polar bear.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s a seal,” and Jane laughed with delight. “But I never thought of
that
as magic!” she cried.

“Hadn’t you?” Adam said. “What about when it becomes dark, swollen and angry, shoots forth lightning flashes, rattles the dishes with thunder and pours out bucket after bucket of rain? it’s the same cloud, you know.”

“I used to be afraid of thunder,” Jane said. “I won’t be any more, if it’s just a magic cloud.”

“And when the sun sets,” said Adam, “then the night magic spreads out above your head; worlds and universes a-borning and a-dying-stars and planets and galaxies. And the bigger the telescopes they can make, and the farther into the beyond they are able to penetrate, the greater grows the mystery.”

They fell silent for a little. Jane toyed with a tiny field flower growing at her side, a miniature daisy. She touched it gently with her fingers to see how it was made and looked upon it with eyes that were opened as they had never been before.

“And then,” Adam concluded, “there’s still the ‘You’ magic.”

“The ‘Me’ magic? I don’t understand.”

“Close your eyes,” Adam said.

Jane obediently screwed them tightly shut.

“Now, think of another place—say, where you were once happy.”

“The sea shore! I loved it. Mummy, Daddy, Peter and I went when we were small.”

“What was it like?” Adam asked.

“Lots of sand and running away from the waves breaking onto the beach, so as not to let them wet our feet. We had buckets and spades and I built a castle and Peter spoiled it. Oh, and the color of the sea, the way it smelled and the sound it makes.”

“You’re there now, aren’t you?” said Adam.

“Yes,” Jane replied.

“Open your eyes!”

Jane did so.

“And now you’re here,” said Adam. “But you’ve just made a trip of many hundreds of miles.”

She stared at him.

Adam gently touched her forehead with a long finger. “It’s all inside there, Jane, like a box with many compartments. Each one you can call upon for anything you want or desire. It contains the greatest magic of all. It can carry you into the past, or let you imagine the future. It can help to make you well when you’re sick and make bad things good. Everything that men or women have ever accomplished has come out of that miraculous box. When you use it properly it enables you to think of or create things that no one has ever done before, even the way to the stars.”