Minerva Gold and the Wand of Silver Pt. 01

She breathed out a slow sigh. "Well," she said. "We just have to soldier on, huh?"

Minerva frowned at her. "Petunia, it's okay to say things aren't all right."

"No, they could be much worse," Petunia said, shaking her head. "I could be in an iron lung, you know, and I got off light, in my family." She nodded firmly. She always brought that up to deflect; her father hadn't come home from the War, and one of her brothers had to walk around in public with a small black cloth draped over the ruin that had been his face. There had been rumors that plastic surgery could fix it, but none had been offered to him, not during the War, nor after it. "Come now, it's not so bad, Minerva." She smiled at her friend.

Minerva sighed. She knew her friend could go on like this for ages. "Do you need any help with that?" She nodded to the cardstock that would soon be folded, cut, snipped and pasted into matchbooks to sell for half-penny to the man she rented her equipment from. When all was said and done, there were days she didn't eat.

Petunia laughed a gay little laugh.

"Minerva, please, I can do my own job. My fingers work fine," she said, wiggling her long, dexterous fingers. Minerva felt her heart clench in her breast as Petunia started to pick up and fiddle with her tools - leaving the door open so what little breeze came in through the open window at the end of the corridor would ruffle her long blond hair. Minerva stepped back to her bedsit. She could barely stand to have the door shut, but just blocking out the rest of the world for a little bit felt valuable. She curled herself up and plopped onto her bed, her eyes wanting to drag themselves shut. Sleep wanted to steal away what time she had away from the firm and her job. She forced herself to roll onto her back and to pull down one of the many books she had bought for cheap - scrimping and saving and pawing through second hand stores. She had just picked a chemistry textbook that was at least thirty years out of date when a sudden rap tat tat came to her door.

Minerva opened the door, thinking it would be Petunia or one of the other neighbors.

Instead, it was a telegram boy. He was spiffy in his blue uniform with polished brass buttons. He beamed at Minerva.

"Telegram, ma'am!" he said.

Minerva took the telegram. Her brow furrowed as she turned it around in her hand.

"This must be wrong," she said, having read the label. But when she lifted her head, she saw the telegram boy was already off, scampering down the corridor. Petunia, who had kept her door open, cocked her head.

"What's that there?" she asked, curiously. "Looks fancy."

"It's a telegram," Minerva said, then shook her head, realizing how silly that was. "It's from something called Hexagramatica. It's addressed to a Minerva, yes, but some Minerva Schross-Sableknight..." She frowned. Despite the name being wildly wrong, the address was...distressingly accurate. They had even gotten her precise room number down. She set it on the side table in her tiny room, smiling wryly. "I'll take it back tomorrow, unopened."

Petunia nodded. "That's probably for the best."

Minerva glanced at the telegram. The sudden urge to open it and start reading it spiked inside of her. She pushed it aside and instead stepped out of her room - closing it. "Come on," she said, forcing herself into Petunia's room.

"I can do it myself," Petunia said, huffing slightly as Minerva picked up one of her half-finished snippings. Minerva grinned at her.

"And I can work for free for my friend," she said, starting to snip away at the cardstock. "What's that the socialists are going on about, from each to their ability, to each from their need or something?"

"Come now, they're all godless heathens, aren't they?" Petunia teased, her voice playfully prim as she stuck her nose into the air. "Jews aren't godless, even my parish priest used to say that." Despite everything, despite the fact even she treated it as a joke, Petunia clung to her middle-class origins; she'd not say she was poor even after she skipped her second meal.

"How enlightened of him," Minerva said between snips. "There. See! Many hands make light work."

"You have enough work for yourself," Petunia added. "I can take care of myself."

"And you can always help me whenever you want. Fair?" Minerva asked, then leaned over and planted a sisterly kiss atop her friend's head. She felt a strange urge to bury her nose against Petunia's curls and breathe in the warm scent of her. The urge only grew brighter, hotter and more confused in her belly as Petunia leaned against her for support, her own snipping as swift and expert as a machine in the factory.

"I never help you," Petunia muttered.

"You do all the time," Minerva said.

"Name once," Petunia said, smiling slightly.

Minerva chuckled softly. "Bookmark! You will remember which page I was on when I'm reading. You're a marvelous way to get more legroom on the trolley. Oh, you're an excellent conversation piece in all those posh dinners and dances we're always going to." Petunia let out a giggling snort. "Why, I heard Nevil Chamberlain himself talking about how sickly you were - I'm sure we could wriggle something out of him, next time we're both invited to the King's birthday party..."

Petunia covered her mouth with her hand to hide her giggling.

***

Minerva tossed and turned in her room.

It was hot.

Blisteringly hot. The air was trapped with her door closed. But something that bothered her more than the heat was the light. It glittered and glinted out of the corner of her eye. She squirmed and tossed and then finally, she gave up even trying to sleep. She opened her eyes, sat up, groaned...and then stared in gaping astonishment. Her hands bunched up on her light sheets and she scrunched her knees against her chest as she pushed herself along her bed and against the corner of her room.

The telegram she had planned to return...was glowing.

The edge of the envelope containing the telegram was shining with a green and gold flicker, sparkles popping and hissing. The telegram itself was beginning to swell, the envelope growing wider and wider and wider as if it were being pumped full of hydrogen - and like the blimps and zeppelins so filled, the envelope was beginning to drift up and off the table. It grew and grew and strained at the edges of the envelope like it was about to burst, trembling and sparking and hissing. Minerva thought about fleeing, or trying to grab the envelope, or...

The envelope exploded with a spray of sparks, hissing streaks and howling squeals. Fireworks bounced around the room, rebounding and rebounding again as a silhouetted figure stretched and spread its arms and then dropped down onto the floor of the bedsit. The lights around him faded and Minerva gaped as she saw a short, stubby, bare footed fellow with long, pointed ears, curly brown hair, a rather pronounced nose, and oversized hands. He was dressed in a dapper green suit with suspenders, a green tophat, and bright green shoes. He beamed at her, his hands sliding along those suspenders, drawing them taut, then letting them snap against himself.

"Good after-" he stopped, looking around himself. "Good heavens! This won't do! This won't do at all!"

He rapped his heel twice against the ground and the whole room rumbled, then expanded outwards. Minerva yelped as the wall she had been leaning against fell away and she collapsed backwards, flailing. But the bed grew as well, fanning outwards, then flexing and bouncing her up like a trampoline. When she collapsed back, it was into thick silken sheets and a comforter that felt like a cloud. Red cloth swaddled her and she flailed, then burst from the bedding with a gasp to find that her bedsit had become the mansion home of an industrialist - or a royal. The walls were gilded, the windows were fine and looked out on the London streets like her flat now consumed the entire upper story of the tenement she stayed in. A chandelier clinked and glittered, while the absurd green tiny man remained standing before her bed.

He looked smugly pleased with himself.

"There we go," he said, harrumphing.

Minerva gaped at her. "I'm dreaming."

"You are assuredly not, my Lady Minerva," he said, bowing. "I'm Tumpleton Tweed, Gnomish Postage service, here to deliver your mageogram."

"Mageo-what?" Minerva asked, her eyes wide.

"Mageogram! The telegram is ever so much faster, but a mageogram is ever so much more impressive!" Tumpleton Tweed said, chuckling. "You have been offered enrollment into the foremost school for wizardry and the arcane arts in the whole Empire - why, in the whole world!" He rapped his knuckles against his chest, puffing up his chest and then gesturing to his side. The walls fell aside, and the London night beyond stretched like taffy. Buildings collapsed and the landscape humped up, folding in on itself so that the horizon bent close and she could see a forlorn castle perched on a hill surrounded by an even more forbidding dark forest. The castle was lit from within by glowing lights - and as she watched, she saw tiny figures darting about at night. Women. Women on broomsticks.

Minerva slid from her bed, her hands absently brushing her palms along her nightclothes as she stepped to the edge of the 'room', half expecting to bump into the wall that should have been but a few paces from her bed. She instead felt the cool wind of the evening and heard the distant laughs and cries from the fliers around the castle. She looked down at Tweed.

"Behold," he said, smugly. "Hexagramatica! Founded in the year 1112, it has spent the past eight centuries teaching Britain's finest wizards everything they need to know about spellurgy, spellomancy and spellcrafting. Divination! Transmutation! Necromancy! Conjuration! Evocation, Invocation and Diabolism - all this and more are taught by the finest teachers the world has ever seen. Hexagramatica is why British wizards have been the dominant force in the Magical World since 1837. Why, it was Hexagramatican wizards that crushed the Indian Cultic Mutiny, and ended the Boxer Rebellion and won the Great War of Shadows."

"I..." Minerva whispered. "I must be dreaming."

"Dreaming?" Tweed scoffed. "My lady Minerva, you're not dreaming!" He beamed up at her. "You're a wizard."

"A what?"

"A wizard, a magic-user, a magister! Gifted in the noble arts, a member of the Secret Peerage! That entitles you to a proper magical education, you see."

"I can hardly afford-" Minerva began, but Tweed cut her off with a jaunty waggle of his finger and a soft 'ah ah ah!'

"Not to worry! By one of our most ancient treaties, the Church of England pays the tuition of all English wizards, in defense of British Christendom you see."

Minerva felt the words blurting out before she could stop them. "Do they know I'm a Jew?!"

Tweed coughed. "Well, while that may be true, the Treaty has no clause regarding it, and no one at Hexagramatica will hold it against you. For while, yes, you may have some Jewish blood-"

"Some? My mother's a Jew!" Minerva exclaimed, cutting him off.

"Ah, but your great grandfather, on your father's side, was Maximilian Schoss-Sableknight of the Westminster Sableknights, and you are now his nearest living descendent," Tweed said, bowing his head to her. "And thus, you are eligible for the new enrollment year at Hexagramatica."

Minerva felt like her skin was crawling; she'd never been told about such a great-grandfather, but were it true, she suspected she might know why. She rubbed her hands along her shoulders. "W-What...what proof do you have for any of this?" She asked as Tweed lifted up his hand, the wall closing itself and the land unbending, returning Britain to the normality that it had been before. Tweed tapped his nose, cheerfully.

"Fortunately, my Lady Minerva, I came here just with that," he said, then reached into his suit pocket. He withdrew a slender rod of metal, with a sleek, slightly curved grip, so it looked rather similar to the handle of a fencing saber. He held it out. "This is a Lolipan wand - some of the finest wands on the open market. Take it!"

She took it, her hand shaking.

"Now, to get to Hexagramatica, you must come to the intersection of Tottenham and Gower then rap twice on the largest stone of the gray wall," he said. Minerva opened her mouth, about to say one of half a dozen objections she had to that...but Tweed simply ran right on ahead of her.

"But! For the proof you wish?" He smiled. "Next morning, take this wand, and point it at an empty plate. Then speak these words, and speak them well and true!" He lifted his nose. "Kemb Awer Foda and flick the wand like thus." He twitched the wand once, twice, upwards, then pointed it down. "You must do it precisely like so. Demonstrate!" He held the wand to her.

Minerva took it. She was dreaming. She had to be dreaming. Right?

She gulped, then pointed the wand. "Kemb...Awer...Foda..." She said, flicking up twice, then pointing-

And with a flash, a small rugelach, just like one her mother used to make, appeared from the air. It dropped into Tweed's palm and he beamed at her. "Many thanks, my Lady!" He beamed. Winked. Then Minerva jerked upright, gasping as she looked around herself in her utterly, ordinary, stifling hot room.

"What a dream," she whispered, her eyes wide. She laid back - then yelped as she felt something jab into her back. She scrambled around in bed, reached under herself, then pulled out a sleek, gleaming metal wand. Curved elegantly around the hilt, like a fencing sword. She looked at it with wide, wide eyes. She reached around in the room, found the lightswitch, and brought on the glowing yellow bulb of the light in the room. She held the wand up, glaring at it as she examined every part of it- and found, stamped on the side, a tiny logo.

Lolipan's Magical Merchandise on one side.

Utility Wand-3rd Class on the other.

Minerva scowled at the wand. "You are absurd."

She flicked off the light, set the wand down on the nightstand and tried to go back to sleep.

Minerva laid there.

Tossed.

Turned.

Tossed again.

She sat up.

"An absurd dream," she said, glaring at the wand. It was a practical joke.

The wand was still there.

"Petunia?" She said, as if expecting her friend to hobble from the shadows and announce that she was behind it. But even as she said the name, she knew it was absurd. Petunia was so sweet she wouldn't even hurt a fly. The idea of her playing this kind of practical joke on someone was preposterous. Minerva tried sleeping a bit more - then finally, she growled, sat up, flicked on the light again. She grabbed the wand, then stood up. She paced in her tiny bedsit, from bed to wall to bed again all in a few steps.

"This is absurd!" she said. "Magic is not real. You have a job! You need to sleep to do your job."

And a tiny part of her...

The tiny part that had heard her grandmother telling her stories of the Rabbi who had written the word אמת on the head of a man of clay and breathed into him life to protect the Jews of Prague, the tiny part that had wanted to see a golem live and walk and protect her people... that part of her whispered.

What if it's real? What if?

"Silly stories," she whispered. "Stories for children."

What if?

She looked down at her bed, rumpled and disheveled. In the bare harsh light of the electric lamp and hot, still night, Minerva felt in her gut the utter lack of magic in the world. The mundanity of it all. There was no way that this would work. And so, feeling utterly foolish, Minerva lifted the wand. She pointed at the bed and then spoke, carefully: "Kemb Awer Foda."

Nothing happened.

Minerva sighed. She almost started to cry. Her hand went to her face. Then...a jolt of hope flared in her as she remembered.

She spoke, again. "Kemb Awer Foda." And as she spoke, she flicked the wand up, up...then pointed down towards the bed. The wand-tip glowed and sparked with reddish glitter and Minerva gaped as a bright, green, fresh apple appeared from the air and dropped to the floor before her feet. It rolled slowly against her foot and rested there. Minerva whimpered, her knees trembling. Her hand went to her mouth. She looked at the wand, then at the apple, then snatched up the apple, holding it in her hand. She whimpered quietly.

"Oh my God," she whispered, softly, then slipped into the Yiddish she had learned as a child. "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!"

Magic was real.

Minerva Golding...was a wizard.

TO BE CONTINUED