Wand Maker

Chapter 8

I watched Izzi's parents leave. They stormed out, not even bothering to shield themselves against the rain. I could hear the squeal of tires as they peeled out of our little neighborhood.

In the background, I vaguely registered Addy and her parents talking in low murmurs. But I was focused on Izzi. She had stood tall and strong while her parents were here, but now she sagged, like all her energy was spent keeping a poker face in place. She sat on the couch, trying her best to sit tall, but I could see her eyes. They swam with tears, a wavering layer over her shimmering irises.

Before I could even process that Izzi was sad, Addy had broken free of her parents. She enveloped Izzi in a hug, and Izzi started crying.

"Mary." My mom called Mrs. Erickson from her office where she disappeared to a few moments before. The Ericksons and my dad left us in the living room.

"Aliexa, go upstairs and unpack." I said. I got the feeling that Izzi was only trying to be so strong because she was surrounded by people she didn't know as well as us. It was going to eat her alive if she didn't let it all out now.

I beckoned to Joseph, and we went through the door to our kitchen. Mechanically, almost without thinking, I filled up our kettle. I got down four mugs and Izzi's favorite green tea, as well as some cinnamon tea for me. Addy loves tea, and she would drink whatever I gave her. Joseph just likes what I like. He isn't picky.

Joseph leaned against the counter, playing with the cuffs of his jacket. Seeing him made me think of something. I turned to him and asked "How did you know that my mother is a Squib?"

He looked up. His eyes were dark and unfocused. "My dad worked for MACUSA. I know a thing or two about your history because I looked into it awhile back. That was the only thing I could find though." He added quickly after seeing my look. He shifted his weight, and the collar of his shirt moved just enough for me to see the tip of a fading white scar.

"Why—?"

"I can't tell you that." Joseph interrupted.

"You can't tell me why you collapsed on my doorstep, a fresh victim of the Sectumsempra curse, in the middle of the freaking night?" I pressed.

"No, I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because it would put you in danger."

"Oh, come on Joseph. That's what you say while you're play-acting a game of spies or if you're in an action movie. You don't say that in real life."

"You do if it's true." He said darkly.

I opened my mouth to ask another question, but got interrupted by the whistling of our kettle. I poured the water in the cups and put the tea bags in. "Fine, Joseph. If you're not going to tell me, then don't."

I moved around the island and reached past him to grab the sugar. I stood in front of him, sugar in one hand and the other hand on my hip. "But if it affects you, then it affects me. We're best friends, remember? You're gonna have to tell me at some point."

I grabbed the milk out of the fridge and put some in Addy's tea, then spooned in sugar into each of the mugs, except for mine. "Take those mugs for me, will you?" I nodded to my mug and his mug, clutching Addy's and Izzi's already. He obliged and picked them up.

I walked back into the room, hoping and praying it wasn't a bad time. Addy glanced up at me from the couch and returned back to Izzi. I breathed a sigh of relief— she didn't give me the look of death.

Slowly, I handed Addy and Izzi their tea. Izzi's face was splotchy with tears, and she had never looked so small. Addy eyed me carefully, as though she thought I was going to say something that would set her off on a another crying spell. I had no intention of doing so, but it wasn't like I could tell her that. So I just accepted my tea from Joseph and sat in the chair that Mrs. Fermi had sat in not even twenty minutes ago.

We sat there for a long time, just drinking our tea and thinking. At some point, our parents had come out to bid farewell to the Ericksons, but no one tried to take Addy. I don't think she would've went if her parents had given her the choice, and exactly no one was going to force her. To this day, Izzi is one of the few things that Addy cares enough about to actually defy multiple sets of rules and many figures of authority. It's been a long held belief of mine that if faced with the choice, Addy would be banned from multiple countries because of Izzi.

I got up. My tea was long gone, and the warmth that my mug once had had disappeared. I had no intention of just sitting there idly there, and I had an idea. I grabbed my violin out of the music room and Izzi's viola. Izzi has always had anxiety, and playing her viola is the only medication her parents were willing to have her take. Therefore, her viola went everywhere she did.

I returned to the living room, my violin slung across my back and Izzi's viola in my hand. I offered the case to her wordlessly. She looked up, her eyes drained of emotion. She took the viola and started unpacking it. I sat on the floor and started unpacking my violin.

Have you ever heard a violin/viola duet? Done properly, it's beautiful. Izzi and I had collaborated before, but this was new. Being the violin, I was always on top, overlaying Izzi's lower tones. But this time, I stayed back and let Izzi take the lead. She was mechanical at first, trying not to be loud. But she loosened up when I encouraged her, and soon she was playing a low, mournful piece that I had never heard before. She leaped strings, skipped notes, and warbled out chords. Her bowing had become almost a dance, a song that had its own beat. She was in a world of her own, fighting her inner demons on a rain-soaked battlefield. Trying to accompany was almost impossible—  you can't keep up with things you can't see. It was like guessing steps in a dance I'm seeing for the first time, trying to predict where the feet will land in on a floor that is cropped out of a picture. Still, I tried my hardest to try to copy her melancholy tone.

She finished the piece with a note only a violist can pull off. I let it fade into the background before plucking out a chord of my own, so soft I think only I heard it. I looked up. Izzi had tears streaking down her cheeks, but her eyes were colored again. I smiled, and we played again.

We ended up playing throughout the day, sometimes pausing for song requests. Addy and Joseph had started singing at some point, and Aliexa got her electric bass for Addy and her acoustic guitar for herself. Joesph— not being particularly musical— drummed out rhythms on the table. Sometimes they were right, sometimes they were ridiculous, and mostly they were just out of sync from the rest of us. The songs got happier and happier until we were playing "Yellow Submarine" and "Pink Fluffy Unicorns" while laughing and clapping as we were singing. The rain turned to clouds, then to sunshine, and we sat in my backyard and told jokes while we watched the sun go down.

Sometimes I feel as though that day was the best we would have in a long, long time. I know for certain that it was the last innocently happy day that we would ever have again.

Wow. Happy thoughts, am I right? You'd almost think that something ominous is coming up...

- Nymph