The Magic Maker

On the last afternoon of summer vacation, she sat in the grass with her legs crossed in front of her and looked at the small treehouse that was awkwardly shoved into the junction of two gnarled branches and the towering trunk to which several thin boards were nailed for use as a ladder. Shielding her eyes from the sun, she looked up to the doorway of the treehouse and watched the curtain that hung in place of a door flap wildly in the wind. As she stared, she remembered how it used to be red and neat, but the sun had faded most of it to a dull pink shade and the wind that constantly blew across the fields surrounding the house had left the edges tattered and frayed.

She was beginning to learn that, like the treehouse, nothing was immune to the harsh effects of time. Her parents used to be jolly giants, standing far above her head and always displaying the biggest smiles when they saw their babies. Now they barely spoke and when they did it was short and painful and they seemed much smaller, or was she just bigger?  They no longer looked at her like she was the moon and stars, instead they averted their gaze and tried to busy themselves.  She couldn’t blame them; she had a hard time looking in the mirror without feeling that weight in her chest double and her tears threatening to drown the world.

But she forced these thoughts from her head and the tears from her eyes as she came to her feet. After a few steps that felt like miles, she reached the trunk and raised her hands, grabbed hold of the boards on the trunk, and began to climb. With each step she grew closer to the door and with each step she wanted to turn around and never look at this place again. But she continued to climb. Just as she reached the last rung of the ladder a strong gust of wind smacked against her left side and she stifled a yelp and clung tighter to the ladder, trembling until it subsided. Once she felt the wind die down, she quickly scrambled into the treehouse, landed on her back, and released the breath she had been holding since her feet left the ground.

She had never been a fan of heights. When she was little, back when Mommy and Daddy were still jolly giants, all of the neighbor kids would want to play in the treehouse, but she was too scared to climb the ladder alone. Everyone used to laugh at her for being scared, so she would sit at the bottom of the tree and feel like the rotten egg the other kids said she was until she heard the magic from inside the treehouse. The magic always helped give her the courage to climb the ladder, even when it was extra windy and scary.

Letting out a quiet sigh, the girl pushed herself up onto her elbows and looked around.  There were drawings in crayon and watercolor pinned to the walls that fluttered in the slight breeze that moved through the structure.  The small table where these artworks had been made sat in the corner near the doorway, covered in doodles and paint splatter. Other clutter filled the treehouse: a wooden dollhouse and dolls; bean bags, pillows, and blankets for making forts; a chest filled with dress up clothes; and a small bookshelf filled to the brim with colorful books of all sizes. But across the room sat what the girl had come to see.

She stood up and brushed off her back and bottom then crossed the wooden floor slowly.  She inhaled deeply, but shakily as she thought of all the times she listened to the magic that would flow from this corner and how she was never, ever allowed to touch this revered object. But that was then, and this is now and nothing was the same now, so why not touch it? Maybe, she thought, just maybe she could make the magic too and things would be better. She had never really learned to use it herself, but she had watched and listened for years. So she ought to at least try, right? She had to try.

So she pulled the stool out a bit and sat down in front of the magic maker.  She crossed her fingers that the batteries still had some juice left in them and pressed the power button. But nothing happened. Wasn’t it supposed to do something once it was turned on? She couldn’t remember. Frustrated, she dropped her fists onto the black and white rectangles which sat before her, but jumped back in fright when a loud chorus of mismatched noises shouted angrily at her. It did work! She smiled, but her delight was quickly swept away when she realized that Mommy or Daddy might have heard.  She quickly jumped up and ran to the doorway to make sure they weren’t exiting the back door of the house to investigate.

After waiting and holding her breath for what seemed like long enough, she returned to her seat at the magic maker. She held her hands up above the rectangles like she had seen done many times before and paused.  What was she supposed to do next? She wished she had asked to learn this before, but like Mommy and Daddy kept telling each other, she couldn’t change the past. So she took a deep breath and lowered a finger from her left hand onto one of the white rectangles that had a purple “C” sticker and pressed it softly.  A low noise grew from the magic maker and this time it didn’t sound angry, but nice and low and warm.  She smiled, released that one, and pressed another rectangle with a “C” sticker. This time the noise was higher and sounded brighter. She held that one and pressed the other “C” rectangle again with her right index finger.  The two notes floated from the speakers and danced through the air.

She might not know how to make the magic sound like songs, but this still felt like magic to her. She released the two “C” rectangles and, starting from the very first white rectangle on the left, slowly pressed each white and black rectangle one at a time.  As she moved from left to right, the noises became a higher pitch and sounded brighter and happier.  She liked the ones on the right more and pressed those a few extra times before she realized that something was missing. She remembered that when she used to listen to the magic that sounded like songs there was always a book held in the clips toward the back of the magic maker, but the book was not in its place. She rose from the stool and walked toward the bookshelf where she immediately saw the familiar glossy white cover resting right on the top.

She returned to the magic maker and sat in the stool with the book in her lap.  Flipping the cover open to the first page inside, she saw a name written in large clumsy letters with a purple marker.  She traced the letters with her left index finger over and over until she had memorized every stroke the marker had made and she could see them when she closed her eyes. Eventually she willed herself to turn the page again.  This time there was no handwriting.  Just instructions for how the magic maker was supposed to be used; how to sit, how to hold your shoulders, and how to curve your fingers the right way.  She reviewed this page until she felt she could do the magic maker justice and turned the page again.

This page looked different from the first set of pages. This page had lots of horizontal lines and shapes under big letters that said “Hot Cross Buns.” Under the circular shapes that had sticks on the side, the book called these“notes,” were letters “B, A, and G.” She looked at the rectangles, “keys” as the book had taught her, on the magic maker and noticed that the little stickers on the keys matched the letters printed under the notes in the book. With her left hand, she pressed the “B” key, then the “A” and then the “G” key like the book said. She realized that she really was making magic now and so she smiled.

After fumbling with the clips, she managed to get the book to stay in its place on the other side of the magic maker. She sat up straight and curved her hands like she was holding a bubble over the keys just like the book had said to then took a deep breath and slowly pressed each key the book had printed on the “Hot Cross Buns” page. As she reached the end, she smiled. She had heard this tune before and it reminded her of how things were before. But that made her actually think about the way things were and now they were never going to be that way again and those thoughts opened the floodgates.

The tears she had been forcing down for weeks sprang out before she even realized what was happening and the magic was gone from the room. All that was left was a shell of what should be her life and the realization that all of the plans she had made and things she had hoped for before were never to be. And then she felt selfish for mourning for her own changed life, when she was the one still here and able to sit at the magic maker and feel the hot tears and warm sun and the breese and see Mommy and Daddy and run in the fields by the house and go to school tomorrow and play kickball at school and go to art class and grow up! Her mind rambled on and on until thoughts that were screaming in her head threatened to make her head explode and her heart shrivel into dust.

Then she felt a pair of familiar hands rest on her shoulders and looked up to see Daddy’s watery eyes looking back at her. He didn’t say anything, just dragged a chair over and sat down next to her at the magic maker. She wiped her tears on her cheeks and the snot coming from her nose on the bottom hem of her t-shirt and watched as Daddy lifted his hands to the magic maker. Daddy closed his eyes and started pressing the keys then the magic flowed from the speakers. She sat and listed, and as she listed her mind quieted and things felt a bit more normal. The song eventually ended and the treehouse grew quiet, but the magic didn’t leave just yet. Daddy pulled his wallet out of his pocket and handed a small picture to his daughter.

“After your mother and I brought you home from the hospital when you were born, we thought you would never stop crying.  You wailed all day and night and the doctors kept telling us that nothing was wrong, but no matter what we did you kept crying,” Daddy stopped for a moment and took a deep breath, “After awhile, your sister decided she had to do something or she was never going to get to sleep again. So she snuck into your nursery with her keyboard one night while you were crying yourself to sleep and she started to play for you.  It wasn’t an actual song, just a few notes that sounded pretty, but it worked. Like magic, you stopped crying. So she kept playing for you and eventually you fell asleep. I knew how to play a bit of piano, so I taught her what I knew and she never stopped learning.  She never went a day without playing and you became the happiest baby I’d ever seen. I know it would make her happy to see you playing her keyboard now.  Do you want me to teach you?”

While Daddy spoke, she looked down at the picture in her hands. Captured forever was a scene of Daddy, the jolly giant, cradling her in his arms while her big sister sat at a toy keyboard that had bright letters “Magic Maker” printed on the side. She had a glowing smile on her face, a face that looked exactly like the younger sister’s.

“Yes please,” she responded.  She tucked the picture of her big sister and the original magic maker into the clips that held the music book and looked expectantly at Daddy.