A Pinch of Stars

Benedict Augustus Reardon had the misfortune of discovering he was in possession of magical powers whilst aboard a speeding train. A man who believed every situation deserved a singular, well-selected adjective, his exclamation upon turning the morning toast of every traveler in the breakfast car into a parliament of owls: “Untimely!”

“I say sir,” declared the official in the dining car, a burly man named Franklin who bore a brusque moustache, “An impolite time to be practicing magic while people have their breakfasts.”

“My apologies,” Benedict replied. “I’ve only just discovered I have the ability.”

“I’ll be! Is it your birthday?”

(As if he would have risked a train ride on his birthday!)

“It is not.”

“Death in the family then?” (Commonly, if a magical relative passed, someone else would inherit the ability.)

“No, none.”

“No warning for you then,” Franklin concluded. “Unfortunate timing that is.”

“As I just declared,” Benedict reminded him.

“Can you turn them back into toast sir, or should I begin opening the windows?” Franklin asked as the owls began gathering everyone’s time pieces and causing much distress.

Benedict had been concerned about the train’s arrival time. I’m late, he’d anguished as he buttered his toast, so in a vague sense the owls’ actions were not without cause.

“I shall make an attempt,” he told Franklin and lifted his hands in what he hoped was a professional manner. 

He hadn’t had occasion to see a lot of magic. It didn’t run in the family. This was all very awkward. He hoped it didn’t interfere with his upcoming lecture on the precise navigation of sea-faring craft using the stars for guidance. He would have infinitely preferred sea travel to the train but there was, inconveniently, no water between home and the university he was invited to speak to.

He thought of hurrying the owls back into toast, but the magic seemed to clamp onto the idea of hurrying only and transformed the owls into a scurry of squirrels. The squirrels dropped every time piece instantly and ran rampant through the breakfast room, creating much worse dismay than the owls.

“Rampageous,” he observed with horror.

“Open the windows!” Someone shouted (very reasonably).

Instead, someone else opened the door between train cars and the squirrels exited violently into the next car down—the startled screams of the passengers echoing back into the dining car.

Benedict hurried after them, determined to make things right. Unfortunately, in the next car were a gathering of holiday crafters fashioning cheerful wreathes and the cranberries were instantly converted to an aria of canaries.

“Inopportune,” he sighed, examining his hands for some kind of sign as to how he was igniting his own magic.

Happily, the crafters thought the opera of canaries were part of the crafting experience and applauded as the birds settled daintily on the curtain rods in a tidy row.

Franklin had hurried on ahead of him but now doubled back to inform him: “The squirrels have been exited from the next car sir. Perhaps we could put you in a car without any people until we arrive at our destination?”

“An excellent idea.”

Franklin led him through the next two cars and Benedict diligently kept his hands in his pockets and his head down. What a messy business. He would have to acquire a magical tutor upon arrival.

Franklin took him to the luggage car, which housed no real place to sit but also no passengers or their food items to be transformed into animals. Only one person was in the luggage car besides Franklin and himself: a small but sturdy looking woman, her vivacious hair only just contained beneath her hat. She wore a very responsible shade of navy blue and was securing what looked to be a very irresponsible number of pies in the luggage hold.

“Impolitic inventory requests…” she was muttering.

What a fine choice of adjective, he thought.

Then the aroma of the pies reached him. Gorgeous blueberry, a symphony of apple and cinnamon, strawberry and rhubarb so superb as to be poetry…

Too late he realized he was once again near food. In the next instant every neatly boxed pie was a shrieking magpie. The woman in navy with the vivacious hair looked straight at him, her eyes an ice blue that pierced him like a spoken word. He wasn’t sure what the word was, but it was instantly inscribed on the marrow of him.

“Have you just converted all my pies into a convecticle of magpies?” she asked.

“My sincere apologies, Madam.”

“He’s only just discovered he has the ability,” Franklin hastened to explain. “We hoped this car would be empty.”

“Your first magic is a flawless tidings of magpies?” she said. “Astounding!”

This was the first and only positive reaction to Benedict’s magic—including his own. He was grateful.

“Agatha Frons,” she introduced herself.

“Benedict Reardon,” he replied over the din of the magpies.

Another passenger walked briskly into the luggage cart and came to a startled halt.

“What on earth is going on here? This is absolutely preposterous! What are all these egregious birds doing near the luggage? Outrageous!”

“Really sir,” Agatha said sternly. “A single adjective suffices for all situations.”

In that moment, Agatha won Benedicts’ heart forever. Here was the moment he met his future wife.

In the next moment Agatha clapped her hands together, “That’s quite enough my mischief of pies!”

Every magpie returned calmly to a pie.

“As it happens, I am in possession of magic,” Agatha informed them. “May I offer my services as tutor for the remainder of our trip?”

Benedict felt his heart leap for every reason.

“Madam, I would be most grateful.”

“Likely you think animal conversion magic is the result of the positioning of your hands?”

“Indeed, I do!”

“A common misconception in the use of magic. Animal magic is triggered by one of the five senses—often taste or smell.”

Benedict’s hand came to his mouth, “Of course! I keep turning food to animals!”

Franklin left them to it in the luggage car where Benedict spent the remainder of the ride with Agatha learning the nuances of magical abilities and falling incrementally more in love with her.

“A recipe is a kind of navigation,” she said many hours later when they had exhausted the topic of magic and moved on to their respective careers.

“A great deal of math goes into the process and yet, there is a certain muscle memory to measuring is there not? Is there ever a night that calls not for precise coordinates but the right wind and a pinch of stars?”

Benedict was ready to propose at this moment but waited, very reasonably, for some months of courtship to pass and instead proposed in a park where he quietly summoned magpies--to Agatha’s delight.

“You’ve brought me more than one kind of tidings,” she said as they settled in for a picnic in the late Spring sunshine.

“As memorable as our first meeting was,” Benedict told her. “It is every quiet moment since that is more memorable still.”

“We have enjoyed constant amity,” Agatha agreed.

She had come with him on his last sea voyage, and he enjoyed providing the bookkeeping for her magical bakery. 

“What have you inscribed inside this ring?” Agatha asked as she gently took it from his hand after saying yes and exclaiming, to his delight, “Ben, it’s exquisite!”

“Coordinates,” he smiled. “For this very location. A pinch of stars, with you always, from this moment where our next journey begins.”

In her eyes was the perfect adjective. A word without name. A magic that did not turn one thing into another, but instead navigated the space between them as if it were no space at all. 

Benedict came to enjoy telling the tale of how he met his wife on a speeding train after turning all her pies into magpies.

“A full gulp of magpies!” Agatha would add, or, “A convecticle of magpies, in a single train car!”

But it was the in-betweens of her, the adjectives, that he liked best of all. 

“Two magics came to me in that train,” he would finish each version of their story. “One a paltry catalyst to the elements, and the other the real thing.”