Thora (The Magician – Chapter Twelve)

This is the twelfth chapter of the serialization novel I am working on, The Magician – < click there to read the other chapters if you missed them.

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Thora

“You’ll never guess what I just heard!” Thora hissed excitedly after the two cousins greeted each other with hugs and kisses.

Vanessa looked at her elder cousin, who practically danced with excitement.

“What?”

Thora looked about furtively and smiled as she pressed a finger to her lips. 

“We should probably, like, take this somewhere private,” she replied in a whisper. 

She dragged her cousin up the winding grand staircase of polished walnut.  They darted down the hall, their shoes pounding on the runner as they hustled.  With a flourish, the two bounded into the room they often used when they stayed at the house, closing the door behind them. As they flopped onto the majestic four poster bed, both young women giggled from their antics.

“What’s so important, Thor?” Vanessa asked after she caught her breath.

Thora’s pale brown eyes lit up as she smiled, making the freckles that dusted her nose and cheeks stand out even more.  She looked more like the Merriweather side of her heritage, since she was the product of Reginald’s marriage into that family.  Unlike most of the Tamberlanes, she was not magical because of her normal maternal line.

She was dressed in designer jeans and a vibrantly colored top that Vanessa’s mother would call gaudy, but the style worked on the young woman.  Her long hair looked freshly sun-kissed, the result of hours spent at a hair salon.  She looked every inch the vacuous socialite Allium’s media portrayed her to be.  But Vanessa knew better than to believe anything written about her more popular cousin. 

Thora was a gifted songwriter and piano player, though she was not trying to seek fame for that ability.  She was working on her own master’s degree in musical theory but loved keeping up her image as a vapid debutante of Allium’s society.  Her manner of speech helped cement the idea in some of society’s minds.

“There’s going to be this, like, super cool magician coming to town in a few weeks,” Thora exclaimed.  “According to what I was told, he’s supposed to be, like, the coolest act ever.  But until now, he’s like, only toured the old country.  Though I heard he got his start here long ago.  I hear he can, like, paint pictures with his magic.”

Vanessa nodded.

“I heard about him too,” she responded, staring up at the canopy of the bed.

“I wonder if he’s like better than you,” Thora replied.

Vanessa rolled her eyes as she scoffed.  “Oh gee, thanks!” she said snidely, pushing herself up to stare at her cousin.

Thora saw the hurt in Vanessa’s eyes and tried to placate her.

“Hey, I didn’t mean it that way.  Your magic is cool and all, but like, this guy is a professional.  It’s probably like your magic on steroids or something.  It’s like comparing my piano playing to that of, like say, a concert hall caliber performer.”

“Hey!” Vanessa exclaimed, throwing a pillow at her cousin.  “Don’t sell yourself short!  You could be concert hall caliber if you wanted to.”

Thora giggled as she caught the pillow, which had been flung wildly since Vanessa was still lying on the bed. 

“I know.  I know.  I am just saying that I heard this magician is really, really good.”

Vanessa nodded as she sat up.  “That’s what I was told.  I was also told I should go see him for my thesis, but I am not sure I’ll be able to get tickets.”

“Why?” Thora asked, her face scrunching into confusion as she also rose from her prone position.  “Any of your family names would, like, get you in the door.”

“I know that.  But I am not sure I should use any of those.”

Thora’s face scowled deeper in bewilderment. 

“How come?”

“Well, I heard your dad and Gran talking about the show.  It sounds as though the director Malatesta or whatever his name is connected somehow to Alexander’s decree and Grandaunt Constance somehow.”

“Oh, really?”

Vanessa nodded.  “But that’s all I dared to overhear.  I’d have been caught eavesdropping again.”

Thora’s eyebrows raised as certitude dawned.  

“Yeah, that explains it then.”

It was Vanessa’s turn to express some puzzlement. “Explains what?”

Thora stood up and began pacing the room, a trait she had when she was thinking.  It made Gran dizzy, but Vanessa didn’t mind.  

“Well, when I asked my mom about the show, like, she got all weird.  Even being a normal and divorced from my dad, she’s, like, bound to the decree set by Alexander.  She’s been able to circumvent that in the past to tell me things about the family that she thought I should know.  But, like, if Aunt Constance’s tears are a part of this too, then it’s a strong magical binding.”

Vanessa blinked and groaned as she dramatically fell back onto the bed.

“I’d forgotten about Aunt Constance’s tears!”

Constance Tamberlane was the younger sister of the cousins’ grandfather, Gerard.  She was a powerful magician in her own right but was also a brilliant pianist and composer who sold copies of her music worldwide.  She was known for her piano playing as well as the magic she used to create the beautiful music which she played.  

Unfortunately, her innocence and naivety caused her heartache.  She had fallen in love with a scoundrel of a sorcerer, whose known name was Enrico.  Despite the misgivings of Gerard Tamberlane and the rest of the family, she insisted on marrying the man. 

For three years, she told herself she was happy.  She had a husband with whom she was enamored.  She had a child, a boy she loved dearly.  Constance thought her life was complete.

But on their third anniversary, Enrico absconded from the home they had made together in the dead of night.  He took with him all of the funds that Constance had made available for them in their mutual account and his child’s nanny, whom he professed to love more than Constance.  He left behind his wedding ring and divorce papers that gave her full custody of their son.  He was never heard from again.

Constance never recovered from her heartbreak.  Like Nestor, she locked away her heart and her emotions, turning into the shell of the happy woman she once was.  She never laughed.  She never smiled.  She never composed music again, the piano in the coach house apartment where she lived collecting dust, for music was a part of her old life, the one that she had lost when she ignored her family’s warnings.  She became bitter and haggard.  

It was no surprise then that her child rebelled as the years went on.  Enrico’s heir, as he was named, had a wild streak in him that could not be quashed.  Eventually, like Nestor and Edmund, the child abandoned the family when in his young adult years.  Because of Alexander’s decree, any and all mention of the child was then erased from the family’s annals.  

But because of her own magic, Constance had created her own decree.  With the tears she finally shed over losing the family she had created, she cast a powerful spell that bound every soul who knew of her child and the rebellion he created to secrecy, hiding her child from the pain intended by the older Tamberlane decree.  And because the magic that created it was as emotional as the magic that created Alexander’s decree, it could not be broken.  Time could heal the wounds, Constance had decreed, but only if the wounds chose to be healed.

Her own wounds would never heal.  Constance died heartbroken and lonely, her only solace the family that had not abandoned her.  The legacy she had left though was a powerful magical binding that offered hope, even as it also cast Enrico’s heir out into the world.

“Do you think maybe this Malatesta is Enrico’s heir?” Vanessa asked breathlessly.  She blinked as she amazed herself with that thought.

“It’s possible,” Thora replied as she plopped down onto the bed again.  “We, like, only know Enrico’s first name, not his last name since Alexander’s decree wiped that away.  He could have been Enrico Malatesta.” She shrugged as she pondered.  “It fits.”

Vanessa plugged some information into her phone.  For a few moments, the room was quiet as she browsed the search results.  She then sighed as she shook her head.

“No, he can’t be Aunt Constance’s son,” she replied disappointedly.  “According to the biography on this website, he’s too old.  Aunt Constance would only have been ten years older than him, if I remember my math correctly.”

Thora laughed.  “You would be the one to, like, remember all the dates of everyone in the family.  Too bad both Enrico’s information and the heir were wiped from the Tamberlane annals.”

Vanessa sighed.  “I know.  No magic will ever bring them back either.”

“I bet you, like, tried to cast spells to fix that,” her cousin replied knowingly.

Vanessa laughed as she nodded.  “While my gifts allow me to push against the Tamberlane decree, whatever spells both of them used to cast their magic are far more powerful than mine.”

Thora rolled over onto her back and stared at the ceiling.

“Maybe one day, time will heal the old wounds,” she stated poetically.

Vanessa smiled wistfully.  “Perhaps,” she replied.

Perhaps, she thought.  But that day seemed way too far in the future to be anything more than a wistful thought.  Until then, she wondered just how she could get the tickets to see this Malatesta’s Traveling Show.  And she wondered just how it was all connected to the magic within her veins.

Click here for the next chapter – Abscond

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Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction written by K. S. Wood, and thus is copyrighted 2023. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.  No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.  All rights reserved.

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