#blurring the lines between magic and muggle

[[previously: one, two]]

Newly crafted headband? Check.

Kajol and rouge? Check.

Skinshade? Check.

Trixie dabbed on a splash of her lucky scent, a mix of vertiver and mint with thin slices of dirigible plum. It had become especially popular in these summer months for its cooling properties and she spent quite a bit of time brewing up bottles for her growing clientele, most of whom she met or would meet tonight.

Though for their bottles she left out the dirigible plum: that was her own little secret.

She placed a couple of those bottles in her bag, along with assorted sample bottles of some experimental mixes and a few other headbands, popped on a pair of red satin bar shoes, did one last mirror check, and made her way to Gatsby’s.

***

Fern had been exaggerating somewhat about her connections to this semi-regular extravaganza. She didn’t know Jay Gatsby - though to be fair, hardly anyone at the party knew him. Some people claimed to know him, but mostly he was myth and legend, perhaps apocryphal, extant only in the oohs and ahhs of the admiring.

She did have a cousin in New York, Ladon Greengrass, and that cousin really did know how to bring people together. Having moved to New York soon after graduating from Hogwarts to visit Gatsby (an old friend, he claims, though Trixie never figured out if that was true), he became the American point of contact for the British wizarding travellers who, like him and his cousin Fern, were piqued by rumours of a weird and possibly dangerous land where thrill-seekers flouted prohibitions and statutes, where magic flowed as freely as prescriptions for firewhiskey, where the exotic were prized and revered.

It was this love for the exotic, as fleeting and fickle as it could be, that earned Trixie’s keep in New York. The fabled Orient had also captured the dreams of the denizens here and Trixie’s fashion and perfumery were much sought after by those that wanted to be especially hip to the Hindoo jive. Her chachas and fupis could barely keep up with the jamdani orders that Trixie transformed into flapper dresses that made their wearers float as light as the fabric flitting on their skin, made to glow by saffron-gold-laced potions adapted from recipes shared by a friend of her grand-mère’s, the resident mambo of her Brooklyn enclave who adopted her as one of her own.

Family.

The mambo was not at the party tonight, nor were the weavers of the jamdani. The rest of Trixie’s family weren’t here either. Not her blood family - they were either long gone or far away, and she was an only child - but her rag-tag chosen family, Fern and Ailene and Florence and Walter, forged far south, almost a lifetime and another world away.

She did try to invite Walter up here, but he kept blowing her off, telling her that he had some ‘business to do first’. Last she heard from Florence she was planning to move to Virginia to pursue further study, but nothing since. And Ailene, sweet powerful secretly-magical Ailene who’d given her the final boost to her move out here - Trixie couldn’t get a hold of her. Walter had said that Ailene was 'in a spot of trouble, but she’ll be OK I think’ - and then nothing.

Trixie tried to not freak herself out, blame herself for something she doesn’t even know has happened. Maybe she’s just busy. Quiet. Nothing’s wrong. Surely

As for Fern? Fuck Fern. Fern had, just one day and out of nowhere, left. Moved her wanderlust on, perhaps, to some other actual exotic part of the world. Maybe somewhere closer to where the jamdani or the saffron-gold had come from. Trixie didn’t know: the only warning she got was when she bumped into Ladon one evening and he made an offhand comment about seeing Fern the day before she left, expecting Trixie to have known about her departure. Fern didn’t even bother to say goodbye, leave any way to get in touch. As if Trixie didn’t matter worth a damn.

Trixie wished she could forget Fern the way Fern had forgot her. She drowned herself in the parties, the perfumery and couture, the liquor-spiked candies and never-spiced-enough roasts - anything to keep her mind away from the fact that Fern had left her hanging.

She still cared.. Cared, even if they’ll never meet again. Parties and potions do not stifle a caring heart, no matter how much she tried.

But anyway. Enough reminiscing. Trixie has work to do.

***

The swarms around Trixie made it hard for her to even get a sip of her lavender champagne, but that wasn’t too much of a problem.

Her new headband had a panel that changed colours according to the current fancies of the wearer. She observed the colours of the people trying on her samples: lots of metallics and golds and silvers - not surprising given the moneyed crowd that tended to frequent Gatsby’s parties. Splashes of reds and pinks, the passionate and lascivious ones, joining the perpetually smiling yellows and oranges in chatting up other headband-wearers and making connections. The occasional purples and jewel tones, many whom Trixie recognised as being similarly gifted in magic as she was, others who spoke of poetry and spirit and learning. The rare rainbows and colour-shifters, ones who loved all the world had to offer, never content with just one path, a constant explorer.

Walter? Strong silver. Florence? A light yellow, or pale orange. Ailene would be a deep amethyst or ruby. Fern, fucking Fern, she would have definitely been a rainbow.

Trixie’s headband shifted colours, currently floating the same shade as her drink. She was collecting names and numbers for preorders - a cool couple of hundreds dollars’s worth, not a bad haul for one night - when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

“Ladon. Oh. Hey.”

“Greetings, dear Trixie. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

Trixie had not really spoken to Ladon since hearing the news of Fern’s depature, asdes from the occasional pleasantries when crossing paths at Gatsby’s. She could have asked Ladon more about Fern, where she’d gone and how she’s been, but it’s hard enough to get someone who chat for longer than a few minutes at these parties, let alone the rest of New York.  Besides, if Ladon wanted to talk to her he could have made more of an effort to do so.

Trixie took down the last name, closed her notebook, and turned to face Ladon and his companion: a striking, strapping figure, his face hardened with scars and stubble, sporting one of the headbands that Ladon had borrowed from another party-goer. Teal.

“Looks…interesting on you,” said Trixie, stifling a laugh. “You much of an outdoors person?”

The companion’s eyebrows perked with cautious curiosity. "In a sense, yes,“ replied the companion. "How could you tell?”

Trixie explained the magical science of the headband to him: how they were based on the divinatory art of scrying, the panels made out of squares of black mirror coated with a specially brewed solvent giving it its colour-changing properties. Her adoptive mambo had used scrying mirrors often in her witching work to get the lay-of-the-land of the situation at hand, and aura-reading had just caught on as the latest spiritualist craze. Trixie saw an opportunity to combine her skills and cash in - everyone wanted every part of themselves to be pretty and glitzy, why not the soul?

“Ah, the old magic - I haven’t seen this since I helped tracked the African jungle manticore over in Tanzania,” mused the companion. “Indeed, the colours in your ornament remind me of the streelers I occasionally ran into - though perhaps their changes in colour were less metaphysical, more physiological.”

Trixie wasn’t sure what to make of this strange man’s answer. He knew about magic - but that wasn’t necessarily so unusual in New York, even if many didn’t take it all that seriously. Yet he spoke of this magic as though it was a foreign, ancient, long-dead relic, the domain of the yet-to-be-civilized. Something to be studied by the ones more educated.

And what was all this about manticores and streelers?

Ladon stepped in: “I should introduce you two. Trixie, this is Newt Scamander, an old friend visiting from England, he’s a magizoologist. Newt, this is Trixie Shafiq, she’s a close friend of my cousin Fern, you may have been at Hogwarts at the same time. She’s an artisan, mostly with clothing and perfumery and accessories…like that headband you’re fiddling with.”

Hogwarts. That fancy British magic school Fern talked about. So he too was magical.

“Hello Newt, fancy meeting you,” said Trixie. “What’s a magizoologist do?”

“I study animals - magical ones.”

“Ah, explains your manticore business. Fitting name, by the by, Newt. Mind if I call you Figsy?”

“Figsy?”

“Y'know, like Fig Newtons. Damn good treats. You ever had one?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“Let me see if I can get some for you,” said Ladon, waving down a waiter. Soon after the waiter returned with a tray of thick rectangular cookies; as Newt bit into one the cookie crust crumbled, revealing a tart dark paste.

“Hm, not bad,” said Newt after finishing the cookie. Trixie smiled and helped herself to a few off the tray.

“Good. Figsy it is, then.”

“While we’re on the topic of names - yours. Shafiq. Don’t think I’ve heard that before, though it seems a little familiar. But anyway. Very unusual. Exotic.”

Trixie had the very odd sensation of being examined, like one of Florence’s teenage science experiments.

“Fancy yourself a little Oriental, I take it?” continued Newt. “It’s such the rage, even in old Blighty town…”

Trixie winced. Yes, her 'exoticness’ is what allowed her to be successful, but for heaven’s sake, you don’t call people Oriental, that’s for rugs and knick-knacks.

“My name is mine,” said Trixie, biting her inner lip to stop her from yelling. “'Trixie’ was given to me by friends, but Shafiq was from my father - who was from the Subcontinent.”

Newt, oblivious to Trixie’s measured reaction, picked up another Fig Newton and tore off a bite to eat as he prattled on. “Ah, you’re Hindoo? You don’t look at all -”

Trixie yanked Newt’s wrist, the cookie collapsing on the shiny tiled floor. Her skin shifted shades the same way as her headbands, moving from near-alabaster to dark chocolate. Her face rounded a little, her eyebrows fuller, her eyes so wide open they startled Newt and Ladon with their intensity.

“Don’t tell me where you think I am from,” snarled Trixie, gaze locked on Newt. “Everybody does, and they are always wrong.”

Ladon was dumbstruck by Trixie’s attitude, but Newt didn’t seem to be particularly frazzled. Instead, he beamed, like a kid discovering a new toy.

“You’re a Metamorphmagus!”

Trixie’s grip returned and tightened on Newt’s wrist. “A whatnow? Figsy, are you calling me some sort of animal?”

Newt pulled his hands away from Trixie and shook his wrists out. “Oh no, no no no. They’re most definitely people, just a rare sort. Shapeshifters. They can change the way they look. Though the ones I know of tend to opt for less…subtle changes. Purple hair and duck faces, that sort of thing. Just a little fun, y'know.”

“I don’t know about fun, Figsy - I know about survival.” Trixie could have shapeshifted into dynamite based on mood alone. “My parents taught me this to make sure no one could hurt me for thinking I was an alien. Things weren’t so good for our kind. Still aren’t.”

“I don’t understand. Surely shapeshifting in public would get you even more persecution from the Muggles?”

Muggles? The word seemed familiar, and yet…

“He means people without magic, Trixie,” said Ladon. “You know, people not like us. Like the people who bought your headbands thinking it was just some silly fun.”

Trixie’s loud cackle held a hint of bitterness. “Honey. It’s not your so-called Muggles I have to worry about. You go to New Orleans - hell, you leave this party and go to the real New York, and you’ll see magic out in the open. Everyone knows and nobody cares. Where do you think this spiritualism jive all came from? No, you know who I’m more worried about? White folk.”

Trixie’s features shifted again, now more closely resembling one of the other flapper girls at this party - bright skin, cropped blonde hair, a dash of freckles. “My people are getting locked up for being the wrong color. My father’s people - they didn’t know whatwe are, White or Colored or Turkish or Malayan or Italian or what. One time the big lawmakers said we were White, which means we should be OK.”

“But then people realised, people like my father - we’re not exactly light-skinned. So we started getting in trouble.” Trixie’s features shifted back to the version that surprised Newt and Ladon: her usual, non-Magic-created self. “My mother’s people, they would never be OK. They were Colored, the bad kind of Colored. Means you could get hauled up just for existing sometimes. They used to call themselves Hindoo to try and protect themselves, but then the White folk started hating Hindoos and now we’re all in trouble.”

Trixie suddenly had a flash of Fern: she wasn’t exactly White either. But she was British, from a land where the magical ones lived apart from these Muggles. Do they treat their Colored folk the same way there? Was that why she disappeared? Walter, Ailene, Florence…? Is that why…?

“You could be arrested just for being not White?” said Newt in disbelief. “What a barbaric lot these Muggles are!”

“Oh don’t be too sure that it was all Muggle, Figsy boy. As I said, everyone knows about magic. Some of those White people causing trouble for us were also magical. Catch you in a corner, chant some words - boom! Off a tree you hang, upside down, don’t even need a rope.”

“Hang off…wait, how did you survive?" 

"We use glamour. This Metamorph thing you said it was. Both my parents knew what to do. They taught me glamour magic, taught me how to transform just enough so that I could blend in just enough to get by. Or stick out a little if the place was right. Like here - being a little unusual helps my business. But not too unusual or else they think I’m one of the waitstaff - or worse, that I cheated my way in. Look around, boys - you see anyone darker than these cookies round here?”

Ladon and Newt saw mostly people that looked just like them: White, European, not likely to have their ethnicity questioned by the authorities. They wondered if some of them were like Trixie, shifting themselves to safety.

But what if you weren’t born a Metamorphmagus - well, as they know it, Metamorphmagi are bornnotmade - but Trixie seemed to imply that this 'glamour’ business could be taught - there didn’t seem to be that many magical Colored people that they knew - were they all -

“You see, boys, when you have to walk through multiple worlds all the time, when you’re never one nor the other, when what other people think you are is more important than what you think you are - you don’t have to be some Metamorphwatsit. Or even magical like us.”

Trixie looked out at the crowd in front of them, a mess of magic and glitz and illusions. Everyone dolled and suited up to present as fine society. Everyone, in their own way, using glamour magic.

“If you want to survive? You knew how to shapeshift.”

[[source: Heather Romney
some ideas from other blogs have been linked where relevant.
SO VERY SORRY for the long delay. I’ve been busy with a show, and then MH370 has been sucking so much of my energy. I’m not entirely content with how it ends, mostly because there’s one last small thing I want to make happen but don’t know how. But I’ve been working on this for ages and wanted to get it out there.
According to Bengali Harlem the South Asian immigrants were designated White for a while, and there had been many other POC that assumed themselves as “Hindoo” to gain the same racial protections, but it didn’t last very long.]]

thepostmodernpottercompendium:

The Sacred Twenty Eight: the Most Ancient and Noble Houses of Shafiq and Shacklebolt. (Part ¼)

When they first saw the list, they laughed.

When they asked them why they laughed, they only shook their heads and did not answer. How could these people understand? To them the world was simple. There were three kinds of people: the pure, the sullied and the impure. The ones without wands were aliens, a different kind of species. Sub-human.

They knew better.

They had built civilizations. They were there when the Babylonians planted their trees in the Hanging Gardens. They were there when they laid the first stones in the pyramids. They were there when the Mesopotamians wrote their first histories and humans first recorded time. They were there at the founding of the first cities of the earth. They were there when the first men ploughed the field and built their homes. They were there at the breaking of the continents. They were there, among the first men of the Earth.

And while these savages were still scrounging around in the earth, speaking a primitive language of grunts and growls, they had been there reading the stars and considering the very nature of being and existence. These savages who were only learning how to wield the plough when their people were at the very height of their civilizations. These savages who were still shepherds and the like during the waning of their peoples.

Oh yes, they knew better.

They understood what differencemeant. They saw it in the eyes of the pale-faced muggles who eyed them on the streets. They heard it in the speeches of politicians who called them dirtyandoilyandcorrupt and claimed that their blood would soon flow freely on the roads of England if they did not go back home. They felt it in each death and in each drop of blood shed to fuel the Empire.

These people mourned over the tragic nature of Grindelwald’s short lived rule and conveniently forgot other horrific numbers. Eleven million, ripped from their homeland and shipped across the sea for the fat to get fatter. Three million dead, so that Britain could eat and fight their war on full bellies. 200 years of pure destruction.

But they would never forget. These were their people. It did not matter if the blood in their veins was magical or not. These were more their people than these savages waving their wands, who thought that this wand waving magic was the only form of magic worth knowing. Who thought that those who did not wave wands were without magic. But in truth, where they came from, magic was a part of the lives of everyone from the highest king to the lowliest slave and dalit. Where they came from, everyone lived their lives by the signs they read in their stars. Medicine and magic were one and the same, for healers were witches and witches were healers and every village had a witch-healer. They all came together to ward their homes and lands against evil spirits and evil eyes. They all sang the songs of mysticism together, deep spells to work magic that the non magical folk called miraculous. Magic worked for the sake of magic, for enjoyment and pleasure. Deep magic which called for time and patience and acuteness of mind to thread together all the spells in a pattern as complicated as life itself.

And these people, these wand-wavers now deemed them worthy enough to join their little club of those pure enough to be elevated above the rest of magical Britain.

How noble!

How gracious!

How patronizing! - but they did not say this aloud though they thought it many times.

No. The Shafiqs and Shacklebolts only smiled, and did not bother to tell these people that being a Shafiq and Shacklebolt was not a matter of a tightly knotted family tree, but a question of beingness. Nor did they tell them that this list was young and they were old, old as the very bones of the earth: they did not need this list to tell them their worth or explain who they were. They knew, even if these foolish children did not.

They smiled and they did not speak, for centuries had taught them this at least:

Never cross the white man
And he will not hurt you.

[Picture sources: Pureblood 28 List by thestagpatronus,detail from the Ishtar Gate in Babylon,Girl with a parrot from the Tutinama manuscript,Igbo Maiden Spirit Mask,Nabta Playa,the Goddess Nut,Astrolabe, The assembled animals complain to the raven of their mistreatment at the hands of man by Miskin (or a student) c. 1595-1600, Leopard, kingdom of Benin, Nigeria, ivory with copper inlay, 47 cm high, late 19th century.

In case you’re wondering why there are pics of Igbo/Benin artifacts alongside Egyptian/North Africans one, I have a well planned out migration route for the Shacklebolts and I’m not just saying stuff because I can’t be bothered to pull out culturally specific works of art. Ditto Shafiqs.]

[[As far as my Shafiqverse is concerned, this is canon.

I’m kind of busy the next couple of weeks, but I’ll reblog more from this series - I’ve contributed a bit to this story and it looks to be more amazing than I’d anticipated.]]

“I don’t think that would be a good idea, Sabila.”

“Areh jaan! You want her to grow up without any idea about her background, her history, who she is?”

“Backgrounds and history - that’s for the past! You have to see the future. See what is best for her now.”

"What is so wrong about speaking to her in our language? Teaching her what we learnt? You think all those years at the Cadet College were a waste?”

“Even the Cadet College is no more, Sabila. It was all destroyed in the war - there’s nothing left!”

“The war for our culture and language! And we won!”

"With everything destroyed - all our infrastructure, our leaders, our intellectuals, dead and gone! Our kind, gone!”

"They cannot be all gone. I know it. I know our kind are still around. It’s not like all Bangladeshis were killed off in the war.”

"Our kind? Our kind either escapedor died! No two ways about it! And let me tell you - those that escaped? I know for sure that they don’t follow the old ways anymore.”

“‘Old ways’? OLD WAYS!? You think all those years of jadu that we learnt are “old ways”?! Cheech! Maybe maa was right…”

"Right about what?”

“Right about you thinking we are just stupid casi. No respect for our heritage. Maybe I should have listened to her.”

"Sabila! Don’t be ridiculous. I have a lot of respect for our heritage. I just don’t think that trying to teach it to Ayesha now would be useful for her. I mean - firstly, who is she going to speak Bangla to?”

“There are other Bangalis here too, you know. You moved here specifically because of them. And I’m sure there’s at least one jadukara in there.”

"Ya, they move here, with their big names and big jobs and big degrees, and what happens? They become cooks! or taxi drivers!”

"Is there something wrong with being a cook or a taxi driver?”

“NO! It’s just…they also learnt so much about their culture and what not, but look, the Bilatis, they do not care. I don’t want our Ayesha to suffer because the Bilatis don’t care.”

“Then why not just move back to Bidesh then?”

“Did you forget already? Everything is destroyed. What can we return to? We would suffer. Ayesha would suffer. You want Ayesha to suffer? I got us here for a good life, you know. Lucky for us she is born here, makes things so much easier I think.”

"So you want her to grow up like a Bilati? No concept of her culture at all, is it? Pagol na ki tui?”

"No no no! Sabila, shuno na? It’s not that I want her to not know where she comes from, at all. Na na. I’m just saying, I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to learn Bangla right now.”

"Then how is she supposed to learn our literature, our stories, our songs? How is she supposed to be a good jadukara?”

"There are magical people here in Britain you know. With that one school…Hogwarts, I think? Some top people from there. It’s not like she will never know how to perform jadu.”

“But she won’t know how to do it like us! How is she supposed to cast a good tantramantra if she can’t even speak Bangla properly? How is she supposed to make good potions if she doesn’t even know the names of the ingredients? How, Faizal, how?”

"She will learn Bilati magic! It’s not hard, look - Lumos - see, there is light.”

"Where did you get that wand from?”

“Oh, one of my friends took me to Diagon Alley the other day. Said all the Bilati magicians have wands. We should get one for Ayesha. Oh, and you too.”

“And why should I have to learn Bilati wand magic? We didn’t need this faltu wand business back in Bidesh!”

“Things are different, Sabila. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, ha na?”

"Oh, so if the Romans all jump off a bridge I have to jump also? Chagol!”

"If I am a chagol then you are a goru - so stubborn.”

"DON’T YOU DARE FAIZAL…”

“Hey hey, I am only kidding, areh. Sabila. Look. I’m not banning Bangla from the house. You want to tell her all our stories and literature and what not, you can. What I am saying is, for her sake, I think we should talk to her in English. And teach her English. Do everything in English.”

"And what happens if I put ek Bangla khota in my sentence? What, it will be all ulta palta hai hai ki hoisei?”

"One or two things, ok. But we have to be careful not to mix up so much. One of my cousins, he is a child psychologist, he says that sometimes the children get confused when they hear more than one language, so they keep quiet. They don’t know how to say anything! But if you pick one, then they learn easier.”

"Your cousin, ah? You Shafiqs, you think you know everything.”

"You wanted to be a Shafiq. Couldn’t stop talking about it even before we got married. Thought we had the good life.”

"I didn’t think having the good life means we have to forget ourselves!”

“We don’t have to forget ANYTHING! We can teach her Bangla later, when she’s older and can master one language. Then she won’t be so confused. But Sabila, look - even if she knows Bangla now, who is she going to practice with?”

“Us…”

“Yeah, and that’s it. You think the neighbours can talk to her in Bangla? Her school teachers? Her classmates? They will only make fun of her.”

"Oh, you think Bangla is funny?”

"No, I think the Bilatis are stupid. But I don’t want their stupidity to cause my children trouble. So we have to adapt.”

“Then what about the jadu?”

"Again, where is she supposed to cast tantramantra or find ayurveda ingredients? Where is she going to find the sahitya books we loved so much? For all we know, it’s probably banned here. One strange word and whoosh - off to Azkaban. The Bilati Ministry did ban flying carpets after all.”

"Faizal, I don’t think the Bilatis will send a child to Azkaban.”

"Oh you don’t know. I’ve heard them punishing children very strictly for doing magic in front of Muggles. Just small things, but oh - Statute of Secrecy!”

“Listen to you! You sound like a Bilati already. ‘Muggle’, what a lousy word. As if they are like a pig or something.”

“That’s how the Bilatis see jadunai, really.”

"WHAT? Are the Bilatis really that backwards? Are you sure you want to raise Ayesha in this place?”

"It’s better than our other option, Sabila. At least here she still gets a chance to learn some jadu, even if it’s different than ours. Maybe she can be a magical scientist and put our jadu and their magic together. I don’t know. But back in Bidesh? She will be nothing. Worse than here.”

"I’m still not sure about this.”

“I know you’re scared, Sabila. You loved sahitya so much. I do too. That is why I loved you! Your passion for the language, so evident in your eyes! But it will have to wait, jaan…just wait a few years. Just wait till she is old enough to be able to appreciate it. You try to tell her now, she will forget.”

"And you’re sure talking to her in English only and giving her only English books is okay.”

“It will prepare her for a bright future. We don’t want her to suffer because she doesn’t know the language. People are already going to criticise her because she is not White like the Bilatis. Even though she is born and raised here. The less hurdles she has to jump through, the better.”

“So we have to hide ourselves because the Bilatis are close-minded?”

“I know, I hate it too. But that is how the world works. Not everyone can fight fight fight. That is why we did not go to the war. Sometimes we have to take care of ourselves first.”

“Spoken like a true Bilati.”

“I’m just saying the facts.”

“sigh…”

“Sabila, I promise you, if she wants to learn Bangla, once she’s ready, you can teach her. You don’t have to hide anything. You can tell her about the old days if you want. All I’m asking is, just do it in English. Until she’s old enough. OK?”

"…ok, jaan. I hope you’re right.”

[[source:Rajiv Ashrafi
OOPS WRONG BLOG LET ME TRY THIS INSTEAD
written to commemorate International Mother Language Day, which in turn commemorates the Bengali Language Movement. It’s a pretty huge deal in Bangladesh. thanks to serkestic for the reminder!
a lot of this is based on a true story: I was primarily raised in English because my family figured I would not have any avenues to practice Bangla while being raised in Malaysia. English is my first and primary language. I speak rather broken Bengali and can’t read the language. This project is as much about me trying to reclaim what I’ve lost as it is me having fun with fandom.]]

[[a continuation - well, a prequel really - of this story]]

“Trixie bè, come on, come with me.”

Trixie lets her sweet friend’s house rest in her mind the way she rests on her shoulder, their own little world amidst the noise ruckus of the Dixie Drug Store.

Oh don’t let the name and the plain little storefront fool you - the drugs of choice in this joint weren’t those newfangled sulfa or insulin or pepper-up or stinksap, oh no no no. Just say the magic words and the friendly nurses will dispense some fine bootleg  - firewhiskey and gin and daisywood draught and absinthe, currently being poured in a glass by Fern in preparation for a slotted spoon, a cube of sugar, and Incendio.

Fern, Trixie, and a small group of other friends were at one of their regular nights at the joint, listening to good time jazz and watching shake dancers and laughing at each other’s progessively zozzled joking.

Zozzled - surely that explains Fern’s claims about this swanky party at this exotic far-off city? I mean - fountains of champagne and dragon-barrel brandy, oysters Rockerfeller and butterbeer bonbons by the plateful, the skies lit up with violet and sapphire fireworks, the best of the dirty blues singing to molls in their finely tailored suits and dolls in their ropes of pearls and diamonds - maybe just the pearls and diamonds? (That got her attention.)

“Are you sure there really was such a shindig, Fern shè, or did the Green Fairy give you a mirage?”

Fern stirred the melted sugar into her absinthe glass and took a sip. “I’m telling you, it’s real! My cousin has this canny ability to bring the right people together and create a swell time! You could say…it’s like magic.”

The rest of her friends laughed, which made Trixie roll her eyes. It’s not like the rest of them had nothing to do with magic - those limeys might have tried to put up some statute or other, but America’s ley lines were throbbing with power. Even if you weren’t especially trained, like Fern at Hogwarts or Trixie with the matriarchs in her family, you knew enough to sprinkle salt on your doorways for protection or tie a knot in your clothes to find a lost item.

Still, there were some things about magic that the other people in her table wouldn’t be able to appreciate in quite the same way: the underlying rules and logic, the effort to skillfully harness magical power without letting it overwhelm you, the sheer amount of work and study it took to really understand magic, its potential, its limitations.

Most people just assume that being magical meant you could snap your fingers and all your wishes would come true. Indeed it was Trixie’s friends, children of her parents’ friends and neighbors, a porous yet tight-knit group that lasted through the years, that named her: “Tricksy”, she of the rabbits and hats and voodoo dolls. As the gang got older their ideas of magic became a little more nuanced, but the old nickname stuck - and sometimes so did the jokes.

Then there was Fern. Fern was in most ways very different from Trixie - while Trixie was as flapper femme as they came, Fern stylised herself like one of those bull-daggers, solid and steady with a predisposition for fine suits. But Fern was similar to Trixie in one very crucial way: she, too, was a trained witch.

Fern’s training was rather distinct from Trixie’s; Fern’s English family had sent her off to Hogwarts, a fancy formal school where students took special classes in things like spell-casting and ayurveda but named them things like Charms and Herbology. The school wasn’t new to her - her father had mentioned some distant relatives that had decided to head to Bilat instead of Markina and had sent children there or that other fancy European school, Doomstrang maybe? and her mother had sometimes wished she could have sent Trixie to Beauxbatons so that she could learn to be a more refined fluently-French belle, but alas circumstances and currency were not in their favour. Bit of a blessing, really; Trixie couldn’t see how a school named after pigs or pretty sticks could teach her the depths of her family’s inheritance.

Even so, even with its cross-cultural variations, magic - like music and love - was universal. One could meet a wizard, witch, spell-caster, shaman, jadukara, sorcierè, and be able to strike a kinship on shared understanding and skill. Trixie wasn’t always fond of the way Fern and people like her tended to brand non-magical folk as Muggle, separate from them - but at the same time she was deeply appreciative to find someone that gets it.

(Doesn’t hurt that she’s a sweet sight.)

And now Fern was telling her about this fantastic shindig, supposedly run by a cousin of a cousin (I thought it was us Bengal kids that were supposed to have the convoluted family trees) who had himself gone to Hogwarts before deciding to explore the New World (nothin’ new here). Fern had been invited one time, while back up in New York visiting family, and could not stop talking about it since. 

And Fern wanted her to come along.

“Sounds like a good time,” remarked Walter, one of the others at their table. His mother used to see Trixie’s mother all the time for remedies to maladies medical or otherwise, and while they had their meetings he and Trixie would have their playdates. Now he was one part wisecrack one part dreamer, his fashion sense carefully created to display effortlessness, always looking for a way up. Running the business that kept the Dixie Drug Store stocked wasn’t quite enough for him. “If you ain’t going I’ll go.”

“It’s invite-only, Waldo.”

Walter shrugged and took another sip of his whiskey. “Then I'll be Trixie. With her shapeshifting dresses and sparkle and whatnot. What are they gonna do, put me through some magic body scanner to see if I’m the right person?” He shook his head; Trixie did not seem to really appreciate the golden opportunity in front of her. He really would take it if he could.

“I wouldn’t put it past him, honestly,” replied Fern, drinking the last of her absinthe. (Maybe her last absinthe for the night. For now.) “He does like his experimenting. Every time I hear about him he’s gone and transfigured something else or made up some new charm.”

“Ooh, a scientist,” cooed Florence, another friend of Trixie’s whom she had known in school. She was fond of learning, the group’s resident bookworm with the voracious appetite, and occasionally did experimenting of her own. Trixie was sometimes glad that Florence wasn’t a witch simply because who knows what kind of chaos that girl would cook up? “God, I wonder what his library would look like. If his parties are that spectacular, imagine the books!”

“Maybe you should go, Florence - you’d probably appreciate it better,” said Trixie, sighing. “Me, I’m just ordinary.”

The fifth person at the table slammed their shot of bourbon on the table. “Child, you are not ordinary,” bellowed Ailene.

Ailene, Trixie’s oldest friend, a whirlwind of confident energy who created new bonds fast and held on to them hard. Indeed, it was so long that they’ve known each other that Trixie wasn’t quite sure when it started: all she could remember was that her mother had been unusually kind to Ailene’s mother, a single parent, and they’ve been close ever since.  

Sometimes Trixie wondered if Ailene was really a witch in hiding: she did have a really peculiar ability to read people’s truest intentions, protect against harm, attract all sorts of weird and wonderful circumstances. Ailene didn’t say. Maybe she was magical the way everyone was magical, each individual carrying innate abilities to create and destroy and transform. Maybe she was magical the way only Ailene could be magical.

“If anyone’s not ordinary it's you,” said Trixie.

Her friends weren’t having any of it.

“Stop it, girl. Yes, we know Ailene’s extraordinary. What we’re saying is - so are you.” Walter took Trixie’s hands in his while Fern rested her hands on Trixie’s shoulders and Florence and Aliene watched on. “You have a gift for haute couture of the deepest kind: your work makes people not just look - but feel like one of your Sultanas.”

“That’s just because my family left me with all these fabrics from back East. Anyone could look like an exotic princess with some sparkly gold-embroidered fabric.”

“Any old fool can try - but your work? Bè, you make it real. Every last cut and stitch - smooth as silk. And I know you put in some of them magic skills to make it look like you’re wearing liquid jewels. Even an old frumpy puss like yours truly can be a superstar.”

“You’re never a frumpy puss, Walter.” Indeed, with his leather jacket (old and well-loved, charmed by Trixie to withstand any wear and tear) and a shirt that seemed to shine even in  the darkest night (a gift from Trixie for his birthday many years ago, still fits beautifully), Walter had a sharp dress sense to make even a sack of flour look fabulous. But yes, Trixie’s knowledge of dressmaking went beyond the typical seamstress standbys: magical silks called for magical skills, and her father had been very particular about her mastering the family trade even across oceans.

“Oh and honey, that bottle you gave me all those years ago?” chimed in Florence. “Couldn’t ace those tests without them. I was a quakin’ mess! And whoosh – flying colours!”

Trixie remembered the little vial she had given Florence when they were at high school together and Florence was about to collapse from exam stress. A standard of her mother’s and one of the first potions Trixie learnt to brew, it was said to give the wearer luck - well, really, what it did was lift the wearer’s spirits enough so that they created their own luck. That little boost was enough for Florence to face the exams with calm confidence and get straight As. (Not too long ago Fern had told Trixie about Felix Felicis, a fairly common potion back in Limey-Land, and she wondered if the idea had jumped over with the slave boats.)

“That was mostly your smarts, Florence dear, that’s kind of the point of the potion.”

Trixie was never really very good with taking in praise. Sure, her clients loved her work - most of them had been familiar with her parents’ work and were glad that there was someone else continuing the legacy. Also there was a sudden revival of interest in the Orient, which made her work even more in demand just for the exotic factor. But being strongly skilled in dressmaking or potions-making was expected of her; it would have been unusual in her family if she wasn’t at least competent. Whenever someone asked her if she was any good, she didn’t feel like she was the best person to answer - she knew she had the technical chops, but she didn’t have Ailene’s confidence or Walter’s drive or Florence’s intelligence or Fern’s whimsy.

She was Trixie, dressmaker and potion-maker, trained in the magical arts, but not quite sure who she is outside what she can do.

Well, she had dreams. Dreams of travel, like Fern: being able to see the world and retrace the footsteps of her father’s people. Dreams of learning, like Florence: diving into subjects she’d never even thought about and soaking up everything there is to know. Dreams of ambition, like Walter: jumping on any opportunity that presented itself and really make something of herself. Dreams of poise, like Ailene: commanding a room with just her presence, no problem too big for her, self-assured and strong.

“You know, Trixie, I think you undersell yourself,” said Ailene after a while. “Yeah, maybe Walter would look great anyway and Florence would have graduated. But you’re the spark that gets things going. You have a talent for bringing out the best in people. You see what’s possible – and you make it possible.”

Trixie was somewhat taken aback by her oldest friend’s assessment. “But I thought that was your thing!”

“Where the hell do you think I learnt it from, sweetheart? Your mother befriended my mother when no one else would. You befriended me when no one else would. Your heart is in everything you do – and the purest of hearts can accomplish wonders. I tell you, Trixie, New York? New York will be a goldmine for you.”

Trixie looked at Ailene, then at Fern, then at everyone else around the table. New York could be a goldmine, yes. Maybe she can parlay some of the trendy Orient there. And she did always want to get out of Storyville for a spell.

But what would she do without all the people that made her who she is? People were leaving Storyville by droves already, including some of the gang’s old friends that would have otherwise been at this very table right now. How can she abandon her closest ones like these?

Sure, Fern would be there with her – but for how long? Fern never really stayed at one place long enough for anything; it was a wonder Fern hung about Storyville for longer than a month. And what about the rest?

“Hey, listen. You get to New York, you become a superstar, then we’ll come to visit, okay?” said Florence, noticing Trixie’s anxiety.

“Yeah babe, we’ll be fine. We still have lives here,” continued Ailene. “But you – you are destined for the stars. Or at least more of this world. I can feel it, I know.”

Walter leaned back and smiled a rare smile. “And hey, you stay there long enough, maybe you can invite me to this party. See if it’s as good as Plants here says it is. Then I won’t have to be you to get in, I’ll just be me.”

Fern would have thrown absinthe at Walter in response, but the absinthe was all gone, and she wasn’t going to waste a drop anyway. “Yeah. At least come up for the party. You can always come back. Just one weekend.”

Just one weekend. One weekend that could change everything, or one weekend that could give her a blessed break, or one weekend that could just be the same ol’ same old.

You ain’t gonna know if you don’t go.

Trixie drank some of her brandy and let the jazz roll back into her brain, sparking daydreams of golden fountains and brass horns.

“One weekend. Let’s do it.”

[[source: Andrew Ding]]