Magical Menagerie

Liz

2019

Liz casts her eyes around the place, a once over of everything as she steps into the building. She doesn’t know exactly why she does it--she’s never been here before so why should she look around as if she’s looking for differences?

But she had studied the address outside, and it matches the one on the slip of paper in her hand. This is it. This is where Nana had wanted her to come.

The only question is why.

Nana was always a little off, one of those eccentric old ladies who owned lots of cool things and would tell you the stories behind them if you were patient enough to listen. 

Liz had listened when she was little. When all her brothers had headed off to bed and it was only her and Nana in the sitting room. Nana would sit in her plushy lavender armchair and Liz in her leather blue one, flicking through the tv channels for late night cartoons.

And it was during those nights when Nana had transformed in Liz’s eyes. She was no longer a strange old lady with too much perfume and too little sitting space, she was a wanderer. An explorer. A dreamer.

And Liz had vowed to be a wander, an explorer, and a dreamer as well. In those early years she had hung on to Nana’s every word, listened to her tales of adventure, and daring, and romance, and just a bit of magic.

The words, the stories came to life in those days, in that small space surrounded by dust and antiquities. The world had seemed so full, so bright. As if Liz could walk out the front door and become someone, anyone, could find and live those stories of her own. 

Then somewhere in between then and here Liz had grown up. Outgrown all the ideas of wandering and exploring and dreaming. And when she realized that she wanted to find them again it had been too late.

Nana had passed--peacefully thank goodness--in that same lavender chair Liz remembers so well, the spot where Liz had learned about the world and its small bits of magic. It had been sunrise, they said, when the maid found her, Nana’s body awash in golden early morning light, as if heaven itself had come to shine upon her.

The funeral had been short, the inheritance reading even shorter. A simple piece of paper, words scrolled across it in Nana’s handwriting.  

And when Liz had discovered what Nana had left for her, a simple half-crumpled business card for a flower shop with an address scrolled on the back, the words signed in Nana’s own writing, complete with her signature of Lucy, when she found the place the address belonged to…

Well, she had booked the first flight out to New York City, wondering if perhaps there’s a bit of that magic Nana had talked so much about leftover in this place.

And so here she is, dripping wet with the rain, but full of hope, full of wonder.

Because this is a menagerie. One of the last ones.

Lucy

1949

The place smells exactly how she remembered it smelling. Earth and soil mixed with morning crispness from the open roof far, far above, blocking out the stench of animal feces--mostly. And cloaking over it all, twining its way through animal enclosures and cages, clinging to Lucy’s dress and coat and shoes--magic.

After a greeting to the owner of the space, the keeper of the menagerie, she begins to wander.

It had been one of the places she had been most scared for during the War. Those horrors had lasted long and the effects still cling to her, still cling to everyone, but this place helps her forget.

Even during those wartimes there was magic.

You might not be able to feel it, not everyone can. But if you look, not with your eyes, if you touch not with your hands, and you truly, truly believe, then there is a fair chance you will find it.

It’s how Lucy did. 

The creatures look normal enough, and when Lucy passes by some of their enclosures, reaching her hand in to stroke the albino lion or hand the dangling monkey an orange slice, she sees them for what they truly are.

The albino lion walks away from her, stretches wings of ebony and claws of gold before settling down atop a rock drenched in sunshine for a nap.

The small monkey uncurls its second tail and reaches its other two arms out towards Lucy for more orange slices.

Smiling, she obliges before moving on to the next set of enclosures.

There are elephants that change various shades of pastel colours, fish that leap out of the water to fly about lazily with gauzy fairy-like wings, and horses that race across the tips of her shoes, tiny as mice.

But the farther she crosses into the menagerie, the more her smile fades. Just like the magic.

She’ll have to tell them that the place is dying. That it needs more believers. Adventurers. 

Dreamers.

This corner of the place is dull and bare, hardly more than a great grey wall with peeling paint and a few rusty cages, their doors all hanging open.

Perched in one is a bird, its feathers curled around itself, like the edges of paper.

And indeed as the bird looks up at Lucy’s approach she can tell that the creature is of a different kind of magic, that it isn't wholly bird but...something else.

Its body is still white, but its edges, its wings, its tail, its crown of feathers atop its head, are all curling yellow with age. There are patches of black across its body, so small that Lucy hadn’t noticed until now, that form little clumps of words.

As if the bird is truly a creature of paper and ink.

But--magic. There is still some magic to it.

“Here, sugar.” Lucy offers it a cube of butter.

She’s learned that these creatures, for all their peculiarities, like some peculiar things in return.

The bird studies her now, cocking its head to the side as Lucy moves her fingertips, the cube of butter balanced precariously atop them, closer to the bird.

After a few moments of nothing the bird moves forward and--

“Ohh!” Lucy resists the urge to pull her hand back as the butter begins to melt into liquid on her fingers, the melting coming directly from the little bird.

From its black beak comes a steady stream of what has to be fire, although this fire is violet and indigo and surprisingly cool.

Lucy can only stare in wonder as the butter continues to melt into a small puddle, the cool breath of the bird somehow making it so. 

“I will never understand you creatures.” She breathes as the bird begins to drink the butter that somehow doesn’t begin to slip through Lucy’s fingers. More magic. 

“That isn’t the point though, is it?” She continues, moving her other hand so she can stroke the top of the bird's yellowing crown. “The best part about magic is the illogicalness of it. Some things are just not meant to be understood are they?”

The bird looks up at Lucy, chirps once, then finishes off the melted butter.

“I only hope there will be more like me to visit, little one.” Lucy smiles at the bird as she pulls away. “To keep the magic alive, to continue to see the world not as it is, but for all the magic it hides beneath.”

The bird will not understand the gesture, but Lucy inclines her head towards it anyways, a sort of informal bow, then turns around and walks out.

The magic seems to cling to her, holding her close even as she leaves the menagerie. And she swears that as she gets into bed later in the evening, the bit of magic is still there, curled around her in a warm promise that it will never let go.

Liz 

2019

She should have known Nana would send her somewhere like this.

It’s quaint, it’s beautiful, and it feels...right.

As Liz steps further into the room, as she begins to take it in anew, all the golden swirls of the gilded cages, the glittering coloured glass that forms the roof, casting multicoloured shades across the trees and bushes and stone walkways, she swears she feels something shift in the air.

She could not describe it, nor would she want to.

Nana had always said that the best things were left unexplained and Liz is beginning to realize that she was right in saying that.

After all, how could she describe this place?

The animals look normal enough, no strange colours or strange limbs, no talking voices or singing hymns--except for the birds of course--but there is an intelligence, an awareness in their eyes.

Almost as if they’ve been expecting her.

Liz knows that it's ridiculous, these animals, while they may be contained in this extraordinary building, they have no extraordinary qualities to them, right?

But this is Nana Lucy, Liz argues with herself. She would never send me anywhere ordinary. I don’t think she would even know such a place.

So Liz walks further into the menagerie, giving a polite nod and smile to the few people she passes on the walkways. She keeps an open mind, her earlier amazement not fading, but not quite as...new, as fresh anymore.

That is, until she sees the cage.

The door is open, so the birds can flit in and out as they please, but this bird…

The closer Liz walks towards it, the more it seems to perk up to her. It hops off of its perch when Liz is close enough to stick her hand into the cage, and it flutters to the bottom and perches on the lip of the ornate metal.

“Hello.” She whispers to the creature.

She isn’t so sure anymore if she would be surprised if it talked back. But instead the bird just tilts its head to the side, pristine white feathers seeming to almost glow in the sunlight starting to peek through the thunderclouds above.

Liz studies the creature and it studies her right back. They stay in that silence for a few more moments before Liz reaches out a tentative hand…

And is met with soft silky feathers.

“I’ve never met a bird like you.” Liz says, her voice still hushed. “Maybe that’s why Nana sent me here. To see you.”

The bird almost dips its head into a nod. Almost.

With a few more final strokes of the bird’s head, Liz moves her hand away and dips her head into her own little nod. A goodbye.

“One day we’ll meet again you and I.” Liz says, and when she waves her hand in a goodbye, the gesture does not seem to feel as ridiculous as it would have to the Liz who had never been to this place.

Because this menagerie...it is not just a menagerie of animals but perhaps of something more.

Maybe the other dreamers, the other wanderers and explorers come here too, to see this place and feel it’s magic.

And indeed had Liz turned back around to see the bird she would have seen it open its beak and call out a goodbye chirp, plumes of purple flame curling from it.

Almost like the last flickers of magic.