Chapter 5

You wait for the ink to dry and fold the paper into a third and put a dob of wax to seal it. You hadn’t expected to be going back to Mr Morgan’s and even less you expected that you might be seeing him again tomorrow night.

In the silence of the room you sit back in the chair. Things have changed. You know it’s as simple as that and you know, just as this narrator knows there is no story with no change, that from now on, your life will be different. But whether you’ll be waltzing in gold, or running through muck you do not know.

“Oh sorry.”

A maid had entered.

“I saw lady out so I thought it was empty.”

“I’m leaving now.” You pick up the letter and give it a last wave to make sure the wax is dry.

“Ayeston.”

She stops you as you reach the door.

“Yes?”

“When I saw lady, she was talking to Magalouf. They were talking about you.”

You take the maid by the hand, give her a smile, and run.

Out the door at the back, out onto the street, down the path that’s in an alley and when you stop, you’re outside the house that oddly has a servant.

When you knock she answers and looks surprised to see you.

“Back again?”

“I have a letter for Mr Morgan.”

She lets you in and you walk straight to the same room as before, the view the same as when you first entered. He’s still sitting there.

You walk up and place the letter right in his lap and he looks up.

“I want you to take your ring back.”

He doesn’t say a word, but breaks the seals and reads.

“She’s got her henchman on me.” You remember the day you first meet Magalouf. It had been your first day at the house and he had looked at you, smiled like there was nothing, and walked past. But you had come to learn of his ways. No one had known how many years he had been working for your lady, some would say since he was born. But what everyone knew was that he would do whatever she asked, and she wasn’t always the most honest of women. If your name was passed from her to him, it meant you were most likely better off to walk out then and there instead of waiting around to see what it was about.

Finally, the man speaks.

“What’s your name lad?”

You had expected him to say something about the letter and for a moment forgot that the question required something of you.

“Ayeston,” you say hurriedly.

He nods and suddenly you’re confused. Everything has just come to you and you don’t know what you’re doing. Things were normal not long but now you’re in trouble. But you don’t regret it. You remember that flash across his face when you took the ring and the way his relief made you feel like you like you had helped someone who really needed it.

“How’s your brother?”

You hesitate. “Good.”

“I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve put you in. I’ll take it back.”

You reach into your shirt to return the package and regret for a moment that you have to cause him the pain of keeping it. It’s not there. There’s rumblings through your pockets, your purse, your shirt again, and you tousle your hair for good measure.

“I think I dropped it.” But you know you couldn’t of. When you went to knock you felt the package weigh there.

“Check your shoe.” For the first time that day the man is leaning forward and there’s an interested expression on his face.

After the events of the day you don’t half-doubt that it may be in your shoe so you slide it off your foot.

“Empty.”
“Try the right foot.”

You slip that shoe off and as you do you feel something odd in the toe. When you reach in the package is there and you hold it in your hand in nothing but disbelief.

“How did you know about my brother?” For some reason this is what comes to your mind as you stare at the package. How it got in your foot you do not know but it’s your brother that leaves your mouth as speech comes.

Now something is about to happen, which of course this narrator knows (because of course this is meticulously- anarchy!- so that everything happens rightfully), but they are an honest one and so must confess the reasons for this happening. You see what was meant to was that there would be no letter but then there was a letter and you were just going to go have a nice calm chat with this fellow but then the maid came it, it all had to do with the maid. There had to be a reason for the maid coming in, the original purpose of the maid to just come in say a few lines and then it all be a forgotten memory just set alarm bells ring; every word must have a purpose, the world needs reasons these days. So the maid was given a reason, and Magalouf came to be. So now this man needs to be something he was not originally going to be and let us go to the moment where he is telling you.

“I’m a wizard.”