Tim: Chapter Seven

Hooray! Chapter 7 is done! I’m sorry it took so long. I had to make some pretty big plot decisions, so I wildly procrastinated until I was inspired. Enjoy!

Tim

May 30, 2033

“Slow down Iris, I can’t keep up with you!” Daniel laughed, running after the quickly toddling three-year-old. The two raced past, Iris giggling defiantly in her diaper while Daniel chased her, holding an orange and blue polka dotted dress. She was quite nimble for her age, always running around the house like a little monkey.

As they rounded the corner, I snatched her up and she squealed in surprise. She turned her small, earnest face towards me and confided in me that she didn’t care about wearing clothes, so it was really a shame that everyone else cared enough to make her. I laughed to myself, seeing such familiar traits in her that I recognize in that man who lives in the mirror and looks just like me. It occurred to me that even though I had never really been close to my biological family as a young one, I found myself in others. I found little things that Timothy Waterburg would say and do being recited by other people.

I put her down and told her that though it really wasn’t fair, she had to do at least a few normal things. Trust me, it makes everything much easier, I told her. The inevitable “why, Dad?” followed. Because then people will look at your face instead of avoiding you because most people are afraid of bodies, I reasoned. She finally (but grudgingly) agreed to wear the dress. Daniel mouthed a thank you.

I sat down and my train of thought ran away with itself. I was brought to memories that should have stayed buried. Examples, they were examples of Thea and James mimicking me in their own adorable way. I saw flashes of Thea storing things in funny places, like coins stacked on a doorsill, or routinely keeping spools of thread with the spices. I recognized James’s opinionated rants ringing with a certain Timothy Waterburg charm and cadence. My heart sunk. I tried to get myself thinking of other things, other times, but it was hard to remember life before them.

I guess before there was an us there was a me; just a Timothy Waterburg. I recall feeling only like a name, a small person trying to live up to a long line of great wizards. It’s funny though, because I was only a mediocre wizard until I found a cause to fight for. No matter how many spells I conjured, my magic was never as great before I found an actual family. My parents and numerous siblings never felt like a real family, more like a bunch of teachers. I wasn’t even the youngest, either! One would think that the youngest would be the runt of the pack but I was right smack dab in the middle, I was child number four. The littlest child, the seventh, used to order me around like he was snotty royalty and I was a mere peasant. The difference between their magic and mine was that they were doing magic for show, to supersede each other in each possible way. I had no interest in this, I wanted an actual reason to improve my magical abilities. So I found a cause. I made a friend. Silly, naive, sulky eleven year old Timothy found a charming young lady of ten years who dedicated herself to calling me Tim, which I much preferred to the formal version of my name. Little Thea was just as much an adventurous, butterfly-chasing, impulsive, ambitious child as I was. She was one of those lovely people who frequently complimented and meant it. So naturally, when we found a Shadow Thief (who turned out to be James) hiding behind the school, Thea pranced right up to him and announced that no matter who he was, he had a fantastic sense of fashion and should most definitely be our friend. And so began the simple days of the better part of my childhood.  

Sometimes I think that I think too much.

Daniel’s gorgeous face ensnared my attention as he waved his hand in front of my eyes. “Wake up, sleepyhead,” he looked up at me critically through his eyelashes with a smile hinting in his expression. I could never pinpoint what about him was smiling, but it was apparent that he was laughing at me. At the same time, though, it was plain to see that he loved me dearly and thought I was cute. But the thing I’ve been trying to tell him is that I’m an evil scary wizard, which is very much the opposite of an adorable bunny (which Daniel was so fond of calling me).

“Hello? Anyone home? I’m looking for my husband, Tim. He’s adorable, possibly lost in his thoughts, and due for a walk in the park with me and our daughter,” Daniel handed me some sunscreen and gave me a smug look before continuing in his efforts to get Iris ready. The instant he looked away I let loose the smile I had been attempting to hide. He could probably see it; my acting skills were what you might call sub-par.

Yawning, I pretended to be just waking up. “Sorry, I had been napping in my thoughts. What’s the haps?” I began throwing together a quick lunch of delicious snacks.

“Silly Dad. You know we’re going to the park for lunch,” Iris clambered up onto a stool across the counter to talk to me with her tiny voice. “You make the lunch though. Because when Papa cooks, it’s not very yummy,” Iris whispered this last part to me, casting a guilty glance to a chuckling Daniel, who had overheard but pretended not to acknowledge his admittedly bad cooking.

“Oh, Papa’s not so terrible at baking, though. He made those cupcakes just last week.” At this, Daniel’s chuckle turned into a laugh. I was referring to some vanilla cupcakes that he had forgotten about for two or three hours, so they came out looking like chocolate because they were so burned. Iris and I began giggling with Daniel. This was my family.

When we got to the park, we ate an admittedly scrumptious lunch and we were all secretly very glad that I made it instead of Daniel.

After lunch, Iris immediately skipped over to the playground. Daniel and I chose a bench and sat in the shade, holding hands. It had become such an unconscious action to reach over to take Daniel’s hand, I usually barely noticed it. I only realized the difference when I wasn’t holding his hand, because during those times I was incredibly stressed.

“So,” Daniel broke the silence, “out with it.”

Taken off guard, the only response I could conjure up was a mumbled “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” accompanied by a falsely innocent look.

Daniel sighed and shook his head. “So you want to do this the hard way?” He looked down at me with that sincere, undeniable look.

“I’ve been thinking some about my childhood,” I confessed. I was proud of myself for not completely revealing all of my thoughts. I knew I was supposed to be completely honest with him, but I knew it would make him heartbroken to talk about James and Thea. It would be much easier for both of us if I just reminisced about my young years. I had been pondering that anyway, so it wasn’t a complete lie. Right?

“Ah,” Daniel nodded. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“It’s just memories of the adventures I used to have. I wouldn’t want to bore you with a rant,” This was true. I knew that if I got started, I would never stop. Nonetheless, Daniel settled into a more comfortable position, resting his chin on his hand and assuming his listening face.

“I’m listening,” he reassured me, as if I hadn’t just observed his transformation into Super Attentive Man.

        I paused to gather my thoughts. I focused on one memory in particular, the one where we snuck into Faery territory and were almost magicked to death. I was hit with a wave of grief as I realized that the “we” was me, James, and Thea. After all, I grew up a couple centuries ago, before I spelled Thea and I to stop aging. Daniel wasn’t there with me; he didn’t even know my world existed until he met me. The magic world was invisible to humans like him. At first, I couldn’t believe that he wasn’t aware of the floating kingdoms in the stratosphere that indicated different magical realms. I had to show him a fairly powerful spell in order for him to see any fragment of what I could.

        “I’ve been remembering when we were banished,” I blurted out, stupidly following my train of thought rather than my conscience. As always.

        Silence filled the air. In this moment, without me or my thoughts being so loud, I could hear my surroundings. The songbirds warbled a sweet tune and the trees provided a chorus of rustling leaves in the background. Playful shouts of children emanated from the nearby playground. I suddenly remembered my child and proceeded to jump up and frantically scan the scene to find her.

        “Don’t worry darling, I’ve been keeping an eye on her,” Daniel pointed to Iris, who was playing tag near the monkey bars. I let out a sigh of relief and sat back down.

        “Do you ever miss it?”

        I looked at Daniel as if he had gone mad. “Miss it? If I hadn’t been thrown out of that condescendingly strict life, I would never would have been happy, or met you, or adopted Iris. Why in the world would I ever consider that,” I pointed up at the realm overhead that he couldn’t see, “over this?” I kissed his ridiculous, worrying face.

        “I see your point,” Daniel responded, glancing briefly up at the sky as if he might glimpse the giant magical hovering ball of dirt above. He looked at me with so many questions in his beautiful eyes that were as deep and as dark as midnight. I knew he wouldn’t ask, he was too kind to push for something that might make me uncomfortable. So I figured I would try and answer all of his unspoken questions.

“Would you like to hear the story about how I was run out of town,” I asked.

“Yes please,” he adorably responded, as excited and attentive as a wide-eyed puppy.

“Alright. Where to begin,” I sighed, searching back past decades of thought, trying to trace back to the beginning. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw relief wash over Daniel’s face that he could finally figure out what had happened. He was so considerate, he wouldn’t dream of asking in case it hurt me to remember.

“Once upon a time,” I launched into the story as if it were some fairytale. It practically was, considering all the magic and childish adventuring. “Little Thea and young Tim were playing Imaginonsense, which is a game we made up when we were kids in which the objective is to switch something to it’s opposite like turning an orange the color blue or gluing all the desks at school onto the ceiling. We put everything back to normal, of course. Well, most of the time. We were children after all,” I rambled about the ridiculous game. “Anyway, Thea and I were arguing about the opposite of the color grey so that we could magic the school into being a more exciting color than such a dull, drab shade when Thea overheard a sobbing someone behind a bush. Of course, being the courageous and curious young minds that we were, we carefully crept to see who was there. And it was James! Poor little scrawny thing, he was, all skin and bone. However, despite his obvious disrepair, he wore a bright blue scarf that was clearly well cared for and a fancy black dinner jacket that most definitely didn’t belong to him; the sleeves were far too long, even for his lanky arms. Thea was instantly best friends with this tall, well-dressed, sniffling twelve-year-old. She complimented his clothing and invited him to play Imaginonsense. He couldn’t join in because he didn’t have external magic, but he ate lunch with us (we shared). We started playing together during recess, talking loudly during class, sharing inside jokes, and whatever else friends do when they’re young. And as it goes, we became an inseparable team of misfits.” At this bit, I got a little choked up. It was the inseparable part that really got to me, especially since in the end there was so much that viciously tore us apart. Daniel put a comforting arm around me and I nodded to him to tell him that I was fine, I could keep talking.

A few deep breaths later, I continued; “We didn’t quite know what species he was for a while, and frankly, we didn’t care. To us, friends were friends. But one day, the school bully (who happened to be my older sister Helen, the second Waterburg child ) decided that we were getting a little too brave with our magic, too self-assured and so she proposed a fight,” Daniel wrinkled his nose at this, “Children get into fights, Daniel, I’m sorry,” He rolled his eyes mockingly, which I took as a surrender.

“We knew that whether we accepted the offer or not, there was going to be a fight. So James volunteered to be the opponent. We argued with him and tried to talk him down, and each other down, but the challenge had already been accepted. Now this is the weird part,” I told Daniel earnestly.

“Just now it starts getting weird?” Daniel raised an eyebrow. It was hard to always remember that he didn’t grow up with magic, so it was all pretty strange for him to hear about.

“Well, it gets weirder. When Helen tried to punch him, he disappeared. It took us a minute to realize that he had turned himself into a shadow,” Daniel’s expression was struggling between critical and sympathetically understanding.

“Then, why have I never seen James as a shadow? He always appears as a person to me,” Daniel said, confused.

“He thinks it makes him seem sinister, like a dark spirit. Shadowy things are thought to be inherently evil. That’s why after the fight (which James won because Helen couldn’t hurt him), the authorities recognized that he was a Shadow Thief. This was enough to send the matter to the King. For you see, never before had a Shadow Thief been known to do anything other than something malevolent.”

I glanced over to see if Daniel was following me. He was so obviously confused, he had a million questioning creases on his forehead. I raised my eyebrows in amusement, waiting for one of those questions to be asked.

“Shadow Thief?” Daniel repeated back, this obviously being the most simplistic of the questions.

“Ah ha, that’s a fun one,” I was hoping that he would ask about that rather than why James was special, because honestly, I didn’t know anything more about James’s unique nature than he.
“They are shadows of ideas and desires that take on a physical form. They are formed from true emotions, which are hard to come by. True passion such as that which Shadow Thieves are composed of consumes the host, and that becomes the only thing they can feel.”

Daniel nodded as if that were the most rational thing he had ever heard. I almost laughed out loud at how hard he was trying to take me seriously. No matter how much proof, I always would be silly, fantastical Timmy. He loved me so much.

“That makes sense,” Daniel could barely finish his sentance without a slight smile of disbelief pulling at his lips. It was really too bad that he couldn’t see magic, it would have made it so much easier for him to unconditionally accept every explanation I gave. There would always be some sort of barrier simply since he didn’t grow up with it. We had an understanding about this, I could see it in his eyes.

We looked at each other for a while, grinning from ear to ear as if we were part of some lovely inside joke. We were part of one, really, what with everyone else claiming that magic didn’t truly exist. Those fixed-minded adults. How funny. I said adults because the children of Earth have it all figured out; fairies, ghosts, dragons, they believe in it all. Sometimes, I think humans think of me as a childish adult, but honestly, they’re the ridiculous ones. I’m just lucky; I get to be in a perpetual state of wonderment with the world.

Speaking of children, I glanced over to see little Iris telling tall tales (though true tales to her) to the other children, who weren’t believing a bit of it. She was having a marvelous time, but it was getting late and the Saturday afternoon in the park was coming to an end.

“Time to go?” I asked Daniel, standing up.

“Time to go,” he agreed, helping me collect our stuff.

That night, I thought some more about James. I tossed and turned next to poor Daniel as I thought about how cruel the King had been to the helpless 12-year-old, and how he had been willing to banish two more children to get it done. I was furious. I didn’t mind much about my own banishment; I most likely would have run away nonetheless and it allowed me to embark on an adventure. However, to think of a tiny Shadow Thief plopped into a completely foreign world with no one else to lean on is brutal.

I thought a little more and I realized that I was almost happy that I left; I never would’ve otherwise seen how wrong the basic practices of my own world were. I wondered if Thea had ever felt the same.

I decided then and there that I was going to do something about this. Those looming sky-realms have been above this Earth for far too long, thought I. If it hadn’t been time enough those centuries ago when we had been delivered here, it was sure as hell about time now.