Thomas is not just failing to see the forest for the trees but oblivious to the trees as he pursues boons while attempting to ignore debts incurred even after they are due. Will he understand what his Grandma is trying to teach Tegan, or keep blaming her?

Getting into the Triumph I startled from my hair getting pulled followed by my head being tugged back by my hair trapped behind by back. “Oh Tegan, you’re going to need to be more careful sitting down and when you go to bed tonight. Lift yourself off the seat and tease your hair up a little before sitting back. That’s right girl now pop your seat belt on lass.” How much longer was she going to punish me with female pronouns? We pulled away from the curb and I started wondering what my punishment was going to be.

“Well young lady, what do you have to say for yourself?” My Grandma asked as she drove away from the Salon.

I pushed myself into the red leather car’s cushions hoping for a miracle. None materialized as we made a third turn and I lashed out at Grandma. “It would have been okay if you hadn’t disagreed on my school’s rules on nails.”

“Tegan, I’m not going to aid you in your lying. I’ve told you that a lie that survives, is truth’s dagger.”

“You accepted me as your granddaughter and being named Tegan…

“Tegan, I didn’t aid a lie there. That was a case of barn doors wide open, and the horse had already bolted. I tried to minimize the impact based on what you had already done.”

“How does me having acrylic nails minimize the impact?”

“This summer Anne Marie is going with her family to Falmouth. That is basically right next door to where you live, so Tegan needs to be in Cornwall this summer. I will likely be pestered by Doris and Melyonen for updates on my granddaughter. Doris will have all my friends knowing about my granddaughter Tegan, and I don’t lie, so I must have two granddaughters. Melisa and Anne Marie have said they will write to Tegan at Bellmare Moor…

“They both know I’m Thomas. They’ll write letters to Thomas not Tegan, so there will be no oddly addressed letters arriving at my school.”

“Their parents might ask to see or post those letters. Your school is not too far away that Anne Marie’s family might not decide to visit. There are too many people that expect Tegan, so by pressing you to get acrylics they will get Tegan. Thomas is gone.

“Then what was wrong with me letting them think I’m half Cornish?”

“Your parents told my Leslie Thomas Goss, before he died that they were naming their son, Thomas Allan, after both him and your Dad. Thomas was both your grandfather’s middle name and his father’s first. As you chose Tegan, I at least brought it back to the man your parents wanted to honor in naming you. Les’s Mum was named Tegan, and now Tegan, you are named after her. Les was my husband, in naming you after him your parents wanted you to be his legacy. I miss Leslie every day. I could honor him, in seeing him in you, and you Tegan, just threw Thomas Allan away, as easily as a piece of trash.”

How do adults make you feel a few inches tall? It was just a lark a bit of fun and she blows it all up out of proportion and brings out the guilt trip. I am left miserable; she is grieving, reminding herself of what she has lost.

“Tegan Allana Lesley Wehl, do you think I’d ever let you, dishonor my husband?”

“I didn’t choose Tegan. Anne Marie introduced me to her Dad as Tegan. He wanted to find out where I lived, and as I answered Cornwall well he was positive I was half Cornish and half Yorkshire like his own daughter. That’s when I found the Cornish link and that it would have been Anne Marie’s name. It seemed easier to be half Cornish so he didn’t question if I was a girl. I never said I was…

“But you never said you weren’t. The ease of the story all falling together, even to the point of what you said and didn’t say is one of the reasons why I think you should become my granddaughter. Come on open the garage door, Tegan.” My Grandma said handing me the garage key from her handbag. I was startled as I hadn’t realized we were already idling outside her house.

“Come on into the back sitting room, Tegan.” Grandma said locking the kitchen door after I’d entered the house. According to Grandma, a house should always have two sitting rooms. The front is formal for guests, and the rear is practical for family.

“Light a fire for me.” She was busily looking for something in the glass cabinet book shelves that were normally kept locked. I took the coal scuttle and carefully poured some coal into the fireplace. This was a more usual task when I visited in November, but I knew that when my Grandma was speaking the way she currently was, you should just do whatever she told you to do. Things just got more and more awkward until you found you had to do it, even if you ever tried not to. Turning the key for the gas valve and striking the match the fire flared from the gas poker through the coal heap I’d poured. Yes, it is always easiest to just do what my Grandma asks.

Once a couple of years ago when I was being a stubborn brat she’d asked me to prune the rose bushes and I had chosen not to, and said I was reading. She’d said fine but I couldn’t read my book until the rose bushes were pruned. Taking the book from me and locking it in the very same class bookcase she was currently perusing. She pushed me outside the kitchen door where the pruning shears and gloves were on the exterior kitchen window sill.

I, being stubborn instead went to play with Mark who lived a few houses down. We’d been playing for a while when Mark’s father came out and said we couldn’t play in his garden as we were making far too much noise and stopping him from working. Mark was all set to let me leave, but I talked him into returning to my Grandma’s house and play football in my back garden.

When we arrived, my Grandma handed me the pruning shears and gardening gloves, telling me she’d now asked me thrice to get done today the pruning of her rose bushes found in this back garden growing along that fence, and it would be better if I started taking care of those specific rose bushes now. I dumped the gardening tools on the garden seat. I always hated the rules she forced me to use with that word, and hoped my friend didn’t question how oddly pedantic my Grandma was in asking me to do an errand.

After we’d been playing for a while I glanced around thinking I’d seen something. The rose bushes seemed wilder than I first thought they were. There was absolutely no way I was pruning the rose bushes as the job was harder than I’d originally thought it would be. Ten minutes later and Mark’s mother arrived saying she needed him to help her with the shopping. I looked at the rose bushes, but they were so thick with braches filed with thorns it would take me hours to prune. Knowing that I left tomorrow back to school, I knew if I just ignored the rose bush today she’d have to get the gardener to take care of it.

I began to dribble the ball around the garden making up an imaginary game. This carried on for a bit until I stumbled accidently kicking the ball at the garage wall. It bounced off the garage wall hit one the swings support posts and ended up in the middle of the rose bushes against the fence. I couldn’t get to the ball unless I cut some of the bush back. It had to be a strange coincidence, but I was determined to stick this out this time. Normally when I got to this point I caved, but was determined to stick it out this time. I kept telling myself I leave tomorrow; nothing could make me prune the rose bushes.

A chattering noise and I see a squirrel pulling one of the gardening gloves toward the rose bushes. Worried I might end up having to do the job without gardening gloves I chased it and thankfully got the glove when it wasn’t too far beyond the thorns. So, I’m on the ground arm stretched out in the soil beneath the rose bush holding the glove when I hear the chattering. Beyond the glove protected by the thorns of the rose bush is the squirrel thief, but behind the squirrel there seems to be a paperback book. It’s my paperback book. The one Grandma took from me saying I couldn’t read it until the rose bushes were pruned.

Well I now found myself pruning the bushes and nearly three hours later I was able to retrieve the football and my book. Though of course it wasn’t my book. I’d been daft to think the squirrel could have got the book from a locked bookcase and dragged it under the rose bush. Nope obviously when the gardener had dumped the fertilizer into the well in the greenhouse, a bit of the fertilizer bag must have torn off and got blown under the rose bush. In my agitated state I’d thought it was my book. However, part of me was positive it had been my paperback I’d seen earlier, and even if it wasn’t the rose bush had not been as overgrown when I first looked at the requested task, I’m sure.

Needless to say, from that day on I did whatever Grandma asked me to do. I left the being stubborn and difficult for my parents. The tasks were always much simpler if done right away than the ones I’d tried to evade. So on a hot early June evening she wants me to light a fire. I’m lighting a fire.

“Sit down Tegan, and take this.” I sat on the sofa beside her where she’d patted, and took the book.

I looked at her and then back at the book.“Do you want me to read it Grandma?”

“Read what?”

Well we were off into weird land this evening. “The book you gave me.”

“I gave you something? What and where is it?” Grandma asked.

“The book you gave me, that is right here, in my hands.” I waved the book at her. “Do you want me to read this book?”

“What does the title on the cover say?”

I went to read the title, and hopefully get some answers but the letters I knew were there on the front cover, now I was giving the book all my attention, were gone. I recalled there were three words in black cursive ink. Now it was just a plain light brown leather covered book. I flipped it over thinking maybe I’d twisted it back to front when I waved it earlier. The other side was completely blank, identical to the front. I just knew it was the back though. The spine matched the back in having no markings aside some straight black lines an inch or so near the top and bottom edges. Other than that, it was blank and offered no clue to what the book was. Starting to flip it back to the front I saw the three words.

However, as soon as I was looking straight at the front it was blank once more. I turned my head and the book at a steep angle and the three words appeared. A long word, beneath it two letters then beneath that the third word. The third word was short but longer than the two letter word. It was ‘Word’. No it wasn’t it had gone again. The first word started with a capital ‘D’. Now it was gone too. It seemed the more I concentrated on anything the less I saw. The annoying thing was if I didn’t concentrate I could vaguely know there were three words, but the vagueness meant I didn’t get the information. The middle word was ‘of’ and it was a completely blank book cover once more.

Frustrated I figured the title would likely be inside the book too so I should just open...

“Don’t open the book Tegan. The title must be read before this book is opened.”

“It’s annoying Grandma, I see bits of the three words when I glance at an odd angle. But I can’t see anything if I concentrate and look directly.”

“What have you seen, Tegan?”

“Three words in fancy black calligraphy swirling letters centered at the top of the front cover. Each word is on its own line. First word is long and starts with a capital ‘D’. Second word is all lower case and is ‘of’. The third word starts with an upper case ‘W’ and I thought it was ‘Word’ but then knew it wasn’t.”

“Tegan, give me the book and turn off the gas poker I think the fire is going well.” After I returned she handed me the book once more.

“Which is the front of the book?”

“This side is.” I pointed holding the book front side up. There were no words visible, but I knew this was the front.

“Tegan today is the first day you are aware of the book and you’ve almost got its title. The first letter of the first word, all of the second and almost all of the third, and I am pleased to talk with you about it.”

“I think I would remember if I’d seen this book before Grandma.”

“Tegan, can and will remember, but Thomas never could. Thomas was holding it just two days ago when you arrived from your Uncle’s Saturday evening. Since Thomas was four every new visit to my house the first thing we do is sit down here and I give him this book, and away in its trance it has put him in ‘till I take it back. Every single time since the first time I gave it to him on his fourth birthday, when I brought the book to where you were living in Carpenter’s Park.

“Thomas was the best candidate of all my grandchildren and both my children.” Grandma leaned over and placed a hand on mine.” You’re Mum had the worst reaction a girl has ever had with that book. It would burn her hand before she had the chance to drop it. I have only had her try to hold the book two more times. The third time was the only time she could hold it. The third time she was pregnant with you.”

I was rather concerned. I mean sure I loved reading fantasy and fiction books. Even dreamed of something fantastical happening in real life, but this oddness was a bit worrying. Had Grandma fallen into dementia, or gone mad and worse was it contagious because I seemed to be in one of my fantasy books and sure I wanted to just jump in with both feet...

I took a deep breath, I’d always ridiculed the characters that didn’t accept the wonder when something odd and unique happened. I would enjoy whatever this weirdness was unless I thought it was hurting me.Then I would do whatever was needed.

“Tegan, are you awake lass?”

“Grandma I was just thinking. I am still aware of the book. I haven’t drifted off into sleep as you said usually happens when I held it before. You have dropped a large amount of oddness on me. Is this book magic?”

“Look at the fire, Tegan.”

‘Why does she do that!’ However, even angry I looked at the fire and I knew my Grandma was doing something while sat next to me. I wanted to turn and see what she was doing but years of doing what my Grandma asked had me held to the task assigned. It was frustrating how she evaded and as usual provided no response to a direct question.Then again if ever she were to answer quickly, it would likely mean I wasn’t talking to my Grandma.

The flames looked odd. I’d turned off the gas poker why were they looking greeny-blue? They were shrinking. The fire was dying, it was nearly out. “I think it’s going out. I should turn the poker back on.”

Suddenly the flames flared momentarily into the chimney bright orange then from a normal fire slowly they cut back again their colour changing to greeny-blue and almost sputtering out. Two more times they almost spluttered out then to roar up the chimney to diminish once more. After the third time it went out. No it didn’t just go out. There were no glowing embers, no ash beneath the coal rack. The coal looked cold. I wasn’t going to touch it to verify though. Even if it looked like the fire hadn’t ever been lit.

“Tegan, what happened to the fire?”

“You saw it too. It dimmed and flared, dimmed and flared and went out.” I said getting annoyed.

“Is that what you saw; The fire dimming and flaring twice then going out?”

“No it flared three times…

“Tegan, while remembering the rules to contain I’ve always told you must occur when speaking or thinking of what I have always told you to use for something that occurs once more than twice, can you give me a constrained sentence of what you saw?”

I carefully thought before speaking. Years of having that word and the punishments I’d been given for idle use had reinforced in me care with that word. “Grandma the fire went through a cycle thrice of dimming to greeny-blue flames ‘till it almost died then it momentarily flared brightly up the chimney orange, then after those cycles ended, it dimmed, went out and looks like it never burned.”

“Tegan, was that magic, and if so, is the power of a thing happening once more than twice contained?”

As I could see that Grandma was just going to make me do all the threshing to decide magic was real or not I figured she deserved a googly for all the odd bowling she’d sent my way. “Grandma, remember the day I refused to prune your rose bushes and after finding myself having to do it anyway, I called you a witch.”

“I don’t have any problems with my memories, Tegan. Now my joints aching before its going to rain, and a host of other medical conditions old age gifts us with. Those I have, but my memory is as sharp as it ever was, my girl.”

“Grandma is the reason why you didn’t get angry or punish me for calling you a witch that day, because you are a witch?”

“The reason I didn’t get angry when you started throwing out labels might be a bit like you not getting angry or wanting to lash out at me for referring to you as a girl, or calling you by your name, Tegan. Do you recall how I answered that question?” Grandma turned round and asked me a question. It wouldn’t be Grandma if she answered, yes Tegan, I am a witch.

I had to think a moment to recall the exact words and ensure I had it correctly formed in my mind.The requested quote was another of those phrases my Grandma has used often. “You said, ‘A label is as true as the one using it believes and I won’t waste my time getting angry if another thinks differently of me than I do myself. I know exactly what I am and whatever others think has no power changing what I know.’ You’ve also often enforced that you shouldn’t lie. Just today you told me that omission is a lie too, and then surely evading the question is a form of omission. Thus I ask you twice, Grandma, are you a witch?”

“Tegan, stop! Don’t even think of trying to say that. I’ve punished you many times for idly using that next word. You would be best off not using that word again for as long as you can, considering what it has already done today.” Grandma looked older and world weary. I was worried, but she seemed to shrug off the years with her next calmer breath and my vibrant Grandma, was thankfully sitting down next to me once more.

“Look I know you’re getting frustrated. That’s why you’re randomly asking me questions instead of thinking of the answers to the questions I asked you. The key thing above you must think about is I said ‘Whatever others think has no power changing what I know’ and I also warned you how that which happens once more than twice must be contained.” She took a sip of her tea that I’d not noticed she had before. I was mesmerized by the steam swirling off the freshly poured cup.

“Thankfully, we can see from your description of what the fire did once more than twice, that it was contained. It had been constrained by the fact that afterward the fire looking like it was never lit. We can go to sleep safe tonight in the knowledge it won’t suddenly flare up and burn the house down. I believe you put it well when you said I had dumped a whole heap of oddness on you. I’m sure if you thought of all the oddness you experienced today you could come up with different questions you might want to ask me. So Tegan, what do you ask me?”

I gazed at the book still in my hands. Grandma told me to not open it until I had read the title and I almost had the third word. I started looking at it askance to see if I could get more of the title. I mean I wasn’t going to make the rookie mistake of trying to run before I could walk, and open the book before reading the title. There are rules of course I’m going to follow them. “I’d ask to learn magic of course.”

Grandma sighed then shifted to get my attention. “Tegan, if you knew there were prices to pay to being a witch, would you pay them?”

“What kind of prices? Are they a one-time cost or a constant requirement to pay?”

“Very good questions. Tegan the price is sort of both or one-time depending on how you view them. The one you might think the highest initially might be not valued as being that costly as another later. As you change through life so do the costs of witchcraft. Also, just like taking a loan from a bank depending on your growth as a witch you could either pay less early or more later depending on the paths you choose to walk. You don’t just become a witch, it is a way of living.”

Could she be more vague? So many words to say it is and isn’t. I thought back on my interactions with my Grandma and thought about what was her defining characteristic with how we interacted. “Does the cost have something to do with your constant berating of me to not lie?”

“That’s one of them. When I first entered the salon and worked out who you used to be, I nearly pulled the whole building of cards, you, and your two accomplices had made. I want to say right now that though I have benefited in you becoming Tegan, I didn’t do anything to manipulate you into how you got yourself where you were, and I wasn’t going to lie to help you get deeper into the mess you’d made, as I don’t lie. Then I realized how everything had fit together to not let you or the girls get found out. Magic had lent a hand in what had happened. Another that we will call a meddler got involved, but I had two choices to choose from that point forward that allowed me to not lie. Each had a debt due for the magic so far done.

I chose to make it harder for you to not be Tegan. Maybe you feel I gave you a higher cost to pay. I hope you’ll later decide it was far lower or no cost compared to the costs that the other path would have required us both to pay. I know in you being Tegan, the cost I must pay is far smaller than that if I chose the other path and it has yielded me a net boon. If you are Tegan, my granddaughter, then I haven’t lied. Now you must step up and pay the price owed.”

“Wait what happened to the magic. I have this book. You said all I need to do is read the title and then I can open the book. How does me paying with the loss of being your grandson Thomas, create magic? I can’t go to school like this with nails and…

“Why do the young always rush in after what they can get now, and not what they must put in first? Recall, I said it is like a bank loan. Demand the magic first and you must pay more for it later. Put the time and effort in to grow. Paying first to learn and gaining the magic years later. When you get it, you will have paid far less, or depending on how you think, and the paths trod, you could end up thinking what was paid was a boon to pay.”

“I will never think that you causing me to be humiliated. Making me look like a girl…

“Tegan, I had nothing to do with you looking like a girl.”

“You could have allowed my lie of the school rules on nails…

“I told you Tegan, I don’t lie. Tegan can go to your school with those nails. There are reasons stopping Thomas from doing so, but not Tegan.” My Grandma cut me off.

“I am Thomas!” I yelled, and my Grandma just calmly straightened the skirt I was wearing.

“Tegan, I don’t lie. You unfortunately still have to learn the cost of lying.”

“You really are a witch! If I go to school like this I will be at best teased and humiliated. I could be beaten, possibly even to death.”