Magic Tickles Me

"Mommy, what's this?" Jacob called out to Morgan, who was rifling through boxes looking for their humidifier. She stood and clapped the dust from her hands. Jacob was deep within the storage unit, his bright orange shirt a beacon in the sea of debris. Morgan straddled a box of sports equipment, holding a pogo-stick for balance as she crossed over. She squeezed between two towers of crates and emerged four feet from Jacob. His fingers traced the gold and silver loop that formed a butterfly on the cover of an old book.

"Oh, wow! Where did you find that?" Morgan exclaimed. "I haven’t seen that for years."

Jacob handed the book to his mom and giggled. "It tickles me," he said, wiggling his fingers as if tickling the air.

Morgan touched the soft leather cover and remembered vividly the day she received this book, at the reading of Nana’s will.

Nana’s estate attorney used a gruff voice but read evenly, "To her Alma Mater…” Morgan slumped down, resting her shoulders on the back of the folding chair. “To the community at All Saints Church…” She stretched and yawned, “To her children…” When he finally read, “To her grandchildren…" Morgan, her sisters, and two cousins all sat taller in their chairs. "It is with great consideration that I have chosen these things to bestow on each of you. Please don’t waste any time comparing values. See that I’ve captured each of your personalities with my choices." The reader paused.

A tall man in a grey suit approached the grandchildren from the aisle. He delivered five identical boxes, handing one to each grandchild. Morgan studied the name tag on hers, avoiding the sideways glances from her sisters. She could feel their animosity. After all, Morgan was Nana's favorite. Pictures confirmed what Nana used to say, that Morgan was her spitting image. Auburn hair and freckles, peculiar in a family line of dark hair and olive skin tones.

Her sisters unveiled their new jewelry and appraisals for artwork, respectively. Her cousins received registrations for Nana’s boat and her car. Then all eyes fell on Morgan.

She pulled the sturdy ribbon and slid the box top off. A waft of encapsulated leather greeted her nose. Staring back at Morgan were two beautifully bound books adorned by matching butterfly medallions. Each with a leather thong, hugging its pages closed.

Having witnessed the lavish gifts bestowed on the others, she was immediately enamored. She presumed these to be first editions of A Little Princess and The Secret Garden. Frances Hodgson Burnett was their mutually favorite author.

She lifted the volumes with care in case they were fragile with age and then considered that the oils from her fingers may damage them. She returned both to the box and studied them from above. Morgan loosened the leather strap and reached for the cover. She folded back one page, then another, thinking these were meant to protect the text over decades of mishandling. But - there was no text.

Everyone awaited an announcement as to what Nana's mini-me was gifted. Morgan’s disappointment filled her throat like a hunk of unchewed bread. She reached for the larger book, hoping to be wrong. But she had indeed been left two blank books. Was it symbolic? That her story had yet to be told?

Morgan looked up. The faces of those in attendance were replaced by Jacob's expression of suspended amazement, waiting for her exciting story.

"My Nana gave me this book and another just like it," she told Jacob, lifting him and placing his six-year-old fanny on the lid of a plastic tub. "And just like when Aunt Totsie gave you the science kit… You were really bummed. But we made the volcano and balloon car. Then you realized it was a bunch of toys in one. Well, when I first got them, two blank books, I was devastated. But they turned out to be magic. – Real magic."

Morgan tucked the book up under her arm and freed her hands, "And it tickles me too!" She said, tickling Jacob between his ribs and under his arms. She straightened up. "Do you want to hear about the matching book? My Book of Money?"

"What?" Jacob stopped wiggling and froze, satellite ears awaiting a signal.

"Well, the smaller book had stubby pages which could tear out. It came with a tiny silver pen. I used the little book to keep my lists.” Morgan chuckled when Jacob rolled his eyes and puffed out his cheeks. "Yeah, I know…me and my lists.”

Morgan recalled, “The first thing I wrote was a grocery list for a meal I wanted to make. We were to have Daddy’s boss over for dinner, and I was planning a Crab dish with a special lemon sauce that my grandmother taught me to make when I was a kid.”

Morgan met Jacob's eyes, "Then I pulled the page from the book, and walla, it changed from a list on lined paper - to a crisp $100 bill!" Jacob’s mouth rounded in complete disbelief. Morgan mirrored his enthusiasm. "So, what do you think I did next?”

“Tore out all the pages?”

“I tore out the next page. But Ben Franklin was not staring back at me this time." They exchanged sour faces, "I was skeptical at first."

"What's skep-tickle?" Jacob asked.

"Ha!" Morgan stood back, considering how to define it, "I was holding a $100 bill. A second before it was a scrap of paper. I didn't trust that I could spend it because it's illegal to spend fake money. I didn't want to go to jail." This explanation seemed to satisfy him, so she went on, “I brought it with me to the store to have them check it before I spent it. On my way there, I met two people that needed $100 more than I did. I told them I found it and wasn’t sure it was real. They didn’t seem to care. The woman was pregnant, and neither of them had eaten for a long time.

“So, I went to the store, no list, no $100. As a result, I changed what I was going to make. I saw a beautiful cut of steak."

"Ew, gross," Jacob turned away like Morgan suggested he kiss the steak.

"One day, you'll know what that means. Anyway, it was good that I made steak because Daddy’s boss was allergic to seafood. Your dad was offered a new job that night." Morgan’s eyebrows were drawing the conclusion for him.

"Over the next few months, that was what I learned. If I wrote in the book, with the pen provided, and I spent the money unselfishly, then whatever was written on the paper came true,”

“like a wish?” Jacob interrupted?”

"Like a wish," Morgan confirmed. "But, if I spent the money on myself or I tried to save it up in the bank, then whatever I wrote went horribly wrong." There were two hundred pages. Two hundred chances to get it right. Morgan succeeded more than she failed. There were some real disasters while she learned the rules.

Morgan sat on an old trunk, "I remember one time; I needed to pay rent on my apartment. I wrote five very selfless wishes in hopes that I could reverse the order. But, when I put the $500 into the bank, everything went wrong. Not only did my apartment building catch fire, and the firemen made everyone leave, but all of the wishes backfired, too. I had been specific about how I wanted people to be helped by this one charity. Shortly after, I saw in the news the program closed its doors forever." Some sort of scandal at the top, she recalled to herself.

"By the time I spent all $20,000, I had it down—simple wishes, for small conveniences, and selfless acts with the money. Then I saw what impact I had if I always chose to do good. Actually, I hoped to one day find this book to write the story of what my inheritance taught me. I think Nana would like that."

Her hands began an ironing motion, pressing the leather and pages into her leg.

"Why wasn't this one magic?" Jacob inquired.

"I don't know. Maybe it was. I lost it long before you and your sister were born. I had to move in a hurry. I guess that was when the two books got separated. But anyway, I doubt I could even find the miniature pen."

Jacob touched the book again. His fingers followed the dangling cord, and Morgan said, "Open it if you want to. Just be careful. We don't know how old it is."

Jacob hopped down from his perch and sucked in a breath. He squared his shoulders and was quite reverent in the way he handled the cord. Exhaling, Jacob opened the cover and draped it across his mother's lap. He stroked the top page gently.

"What'cha doing, buddy?"

"I thought maybe it’d feel old. It's super soft - it’s even nicer than our Bible."

"Well, that’s high praise, little man." Morgan watched him turn the first page, and she squealed. "Oh my god!"

Jacob jumped back, letting the cover page go. "What? What is it, Mommy?" Morgan swiped the page to the left. She stared with intensity at a full page of her grandmother's delicate handwriting.

"What, mom?" Jacob leaned in to see for himself. He tilted his head, further inspecting.

Morgan turned page after page. "This whole book was blank before,” her eyes bulged. She stopped on a page with a large star. The eight points were sketched in gold, with ornate scrolls between them in delicate blues and deep reds. Symbols adorned the corners of the next page, framing a few short stanzas of text. "But – that's my Nana's handwriting. This is what she gave me."

Morgan noticed the next page was blank. And the next. In fact, there were five pristine pages in total before another carried Nana's inscription. That’s when Morgan realized the pattern in the pages; she lost one entry for every misstep she made with the small book.

Caught up in her thoughts, Morgan let the cover fall shut. She didn’t notice right away when her young reader opened it again and began sounding out the words. Just like when he read Dr. Seuss, she found herself reading along to support him.

Off the floor, off the ground,

off the table where it's found,

make the object that I seek

find itself within my reach.

Like a wind, something passed between them. In its wake, objects shook, rattled, then settled. A top popped off a small box on a shelf near the front of the storage unit. A basket fell out, spilling pens and pencils onto the dusty floor. A little silver streak rose like the chosen pick-up-stick and floated over to where Morgan and Jacob now stood, mouths agape.

Morgan glanced over at him before reaching her hand out to snatch the pen from the air. Touching the live object sent chills down her spine.

"Write something. Write something." Jacob’s eyes radiated his excitement.

Morgan flipped to the first blank page and considered how to begin. She rested the ballpoint near the top of the page. Her hand began moving as an extension of the pen instead of the other way around.

My dearest Morgan,

I knew you would figure this out. I knew you were my mini-witch. Always use magic for good. Make me proud.

-Nana

Morgan sat staring for what seemed like forever. Jacob sounded out the message that appeared. When he read mini-witch, he looked up.

They turned toward one another and chorused, “A witch?”