Lucinda sighed glumly as she slumped against the wall. The red bricks were warm against her back, the imperfections of the mortar poking into her shoulder blades, her spine, getting caught in her hair. Blistering heat beaded instant sweat on her forehead and she blinked in the noon New Orleans sun.
*
She’d always believed in magic, ever since she was a little girl. Ever since she’d perched on her great uncle’s knee as he told her about unicorns and fairies and other worlds. She’d believed it even when she stopped believing, even when she came to understand those stories were fiction. For her, magic hadn’t given up the ghost; it had simply changed.
It had morphed from fairytale kingdoms to the way it felt to come home.
From unicorns and fairies to glimpses of an iridescent dragonfly drifting over a still lake.
From witches and wizards to New Orleans buskers, smooth jazz and hot beignets.
Magic was everywhere and nowhere, ethereal and tangible. And it was enough.
Or it had been until Great Uncle Andrew had passed away, leaving her everything including his big old house right in the heart of the quarter. As she was sure he’d known she would, the first thing Lucinda did when handed the keys to the house was go to his study—her study now. She slid her hand under the lip of the large oak desk, finding the secret catch. Jumping a little as the slim drawer unsealed itself from the rest of the wood, just large enough to hold a heavy brass key. The key fit the hidden lock on the bottom left of the desk, and she could hear the tumblers turn and click as another hidden drawer revealed itself, a note and a metal scroll the only things inside. Without hesitation, she’d sat down on the floor, cracked the seal, and begun to read.
My dearest Lucy,
Do try to enjoy the rest of the house at some point, yes? It’s a big old place that deserves to be filled with love and laughter and joy. Don’t lock yourself in here. Don’t lock yourself to this mystery.
What you hold in your hand is a codex; you probably caught me fiddling with it more than once. I never was able to decipher it. Nor was my father before me or his father before him. In fact, I’ll tell you, it may just be an unsolvable puzzle box, designed to frustrate those of us who love mysteries too much.
I leave it now to you, along with everything else. Though there were times in my life it brought me nothing but frustration, there were also times it brought me joy and purpose and satisfaction. I can only hope it does the same for you in equal measure.
I love you, and I wish you the very best in life—the very best being happiness.
Yours always,
Uncle Andrew
She had taken his words seriously. The house was constantly full of noise now—how could it not be with two children, three floppy dogs, and an enigmatic husband underfoot? She had a life, a whole life, but she had never forgotten the puzzle that still sat in its secret drawer. She would play with it, mindlessly, turning it this way and that, just as she turned over the possibilities of it in her mind. And then one night she had woken in a cold sweat, somehow knowing the answer.
She had slipped from her bed into the study, opening first one secret drawer and then the next, until she held the cold cylinder in her hands. She had moved it with unerring purpose and accuracy, until everything seemed to click into place and its secret was revealed.
Find me in the Ward Robes of old. Wave a wand, cast a spell, open your eyes.
Lucinda brushed her hair back from her face, letting out one final huff before peeling herself from the wall. This had been the last one, the last occult store in all of New Orleans. She laughed at the outrageous nature of that. Who would have thought it was possible to visit every occult shop in the city in one lifetime? She herself would have bet it was impossible.
But once she had deciphered the codex, she had thrown herself into it with a frenzy, feeling the answer was finally within reach. Every culture had histories of magic. Most had spell casting, the majority had wands, several had robes. Half had all three.
As the robes were the only capitalized clue, she’d set her focus there. Warding robes were annoyingly common among the occult. It made sense after all—if you were going to deal with dark magic, might as well at least try to protect yourself from it. And here she was, in the center of magic and occult and spirit, the best place in the world she could have been to find the answers.
So her quest had finally started in earnest. Time she wasn’t working or at soccer games or on family hikes, she was studying with shamans and witches and spiritual leaders from every walk of life she could find.
She’d tried on every robe, cast every spell, touched every wand. She had an ever growing list of psychics and mediums and warlocks that she had to contact if she ever found the answer. Sometimes it felt as though the entire city had rallied behind her quest.
And yet, she’d never found an answer. Trudging home through the sticky hot streets, Lucinda let her mind wander. Maybe she’d read it wrong. Maybe there was a second message to be found. Maybe it was an anagram or a trick. Maybe it was just a frustrating, unsolvable puzzle box as her Uncle Andrew had believed.
When she opened the door to her home, her husband looked up from his reading eagerly, and his love warmed her. He’d never thought her silly or crazy for her quest, he’d rooted her on every step of the way, and even now, all these years later, he still believed. Maybe that’s why she loved him—the only other adult she knew who still believed in the little magics of the world.
Sadly, she shook her head and slumped down next to him. He patted her knee gently.
“Oh Lucy of the Ward Robes, you’ll solve it,” he said quietly. “I know you will.”
She sat up quickly. “What did you call me?”
“Sorry,” he laughed. “I know only Uncle Andrew could call you that. I was just reading to the girls today, and…” he trailed off at the look on her face.
She didn’t need a mirror to know what she looked like, eyes glinting, brimming with excitement, passion, an answer.
“Go,” he said quietly. “Whatever you just thought won’t let you rest until you answer it.”
She kissed him quickly on the cheek before making her way upstairs, past the kids room, past their bedroom, past the playroom and the office and the formal sitting area. She snuck quietly into her office as if showing too much excitement would scare the knowledge away. Finally, she came face to face with the double doors in front of her.
They were old wood, older than her, older than Uncle Andrew. If she had to bet, they were older than his father—and his father before him—too. The wardrobe in front of her was tall and imposing, the only thing in the house without the scratches, dents, and faded veneer of time. Almost as if it had been specially preserved.
Almost as if it was magic.
She shook her head at her own obliviousness. All the spells and wands and robes in the world wouldn’t help her. Not out here. The only ones that mattered—the real ones— existed in there.
Lucy opened the doors wide, removing her knitting supplies, her files, the three tier stand of shelves she’d placed in its wide base. She made enough room to wedge her body into the space, and then she closed the door behind her, leaving only the smallest crack of light.
And then she closed her eyes, breathed, and turned toward the back of the wardrobe. She couldn’t look; that much she knew. She was too rational, too old. If she wanted to believe enough to find the answer, she was just going to have to believe and let that be the only sense she had.
With that determination, she took a step forward, a step that shouldn’t have been possible, a step that should have had her nose bouncing off the hard wood of the back of the wardrobe. Meeting no resistance, she took another and another. She stepped until pine needles brushed her cheeks, until she felt a cold, wet snowflake land on her nose. Finally, her eyes fluttered open to behold the snowy forest in front of her, a single lamp post shining in the distance.
“Hello?” she called softly into the hushed landscape.
“Hello?” a strange voice echoed from behind her. “How did you get here?”
She grinned wide, not quite ready to turn around, not quite ready for the truth. “Magic,” she whispered to herself. “Magic.”
Jess Feder is a queer, Atlanta-based author of folk tales, romance and horror. She believes in the magic of small things and is more likely to strike up a conversation about dragons than just about anything else.
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