Hazel Blackwood and the Malaise of Fortune
4
Chapter 1
"The Letter"
It had been two weeks since Granny Hazel died and in the endless parade of casseroles and commiserations, no one had gotten around to cleaning out her room yet. The thin particle board door at the far end of the trailer banged against the thin walls as Hazie pushed it open, empty laundry basket perched on one hip. Nostalgia was great and all, but it was starting to smell. Somebody had to get in there and find out which empty cereal bowl or old beer bottle it was, and as usual, that someone was Hazie. She sidled through the doorway and stopped, rock in her throat, as golden dust motes swirled around her grandmother's empty bed in the august afternoon sunlight, shimmering like fairy dust. Even though she was the only one home, Hazie felt all tiptoes and whispers- not sneaky so much as sacred. In life, her grannie's room had never been OFF LIMITS but even as a toddler Hazie had known not to try and touch the many strange and wonderful things that hung from the ceiling or spilled out of jars in the cluttered bedroom closet. Granny was easy and warm with her recipes and remedies, a sort of hedge-healer for the whole holler. But Hazie had always known there were things in that closet that could nip you good if you weren't careful. Now, with her gone, the mystery and magic seemed to have faded. It was just the bedroom of a dead woman. Dead and gone and never coming back.
Hazie sat down abruptly on the adjustable bed with its crinkly plastic mattress cover as the tears welled up hot and overwhelming. Granny was dead and she was alone. Sure, there was mom and whatever shithead boyfriend was leeching off her this time, but it wasn't the same. Granny Hazel was the one that raised her, the one that told her bedtime stories of fantastic creatures and far off places. The one who dosed her with smelly syrup when she was sick, and gave her chocolate when she woke up from bad dreams. At twelve years old, Hazie had been beginning to feel like she was a bit too grown for all that babying. Idiot. She flopped over and buried her face in the bed pillows, breathing deeply the smell of dusty herbs and cigarettes that still lingered, trying to imagine the feel of her granny's smooth, cool hand stroking her back.
After a couple minutes she sat back up and wiped her eyes. Granny had never been one for long drawn out emotional outbursts. She always said cry if you've got to, but then get on with it when things had thrown them for a loop. So. She would go on. She quickly filled up her empty laundry basket with trash, dirty dishes, and random odds and ends that had wandered into Granny's room over the years and never left. She bagged up the clothes in good enough shape to sell at the flea market and trashed the rest. Granny had had an unexplainable fondness for t-shirts with sayings on them, the weirder the better. Hazie dried her face on a faded gray one that said "Paint me Green and Call me a Pickle Because I'm Done DILLin' With You People" that had been a particular favorite, and pulled it on over her tank top. Granny hadn't been a large woman, but the tshirt still came down almost to the hem of Hazie's cut-off jean shorts, like a crazy dress. She giggled, imagining her grandmother's laugh and her saying I wouldn't call it fashionable but it sure is a look. Granny had never let anyone or anything take themselves too seriously, including herself.
Two hours later and the room looked even less inhabited than it had when Hazie first walked in. Herbs still hung in racks made of old window frames from the low ceiling, tickling and tangling in her hair as she moved around the room. She'd gotten a growth spurt a few months back and was still growing into all her extra leg. But even the herbs seemed a bit forlorn as she carefully unhooked them and gently rolled the bundles up in old plastic grocery bags. She didn't know the names for half of them, but Granny Hazel's friend Aunt Bee would probably know what they were for. Next, she tackled the closet with its precariously towered piles of mismatched mason jars and old shoe boxes.
She was down on her hands and knees, smeared with dust when she found the letter. She almost would've missed it, had the golden calligraphy on the envelope not glinted in an errant ray of sunlight and startled her. The envelope had fallen down the back of the closet and gotten stuck in a crack where the carpet didn't tack down. The paper was creamy and heavy, so smooth it almost felt like cloth.
Miss Hazel Blackwood
The Library Bay Window
Blackwood House
Manchester, England
Blackwood house? England? Granny never spoke about her childhood. Hazie knew she hadn't been born in Tennessee, but when she'd moved and wherefrom was a story her grandmother had kept close to the chest. Guiltily, Hazie removed the single sheet of folded paper inside the envelope and read:
Dear Miss Blackwood,
We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.
Albus Dumbledore,
Headmaster
Hogwarts? What kind of name was that? Letter in hand, Hazie headed out into the kitchen to find her school laptop. It was a cheap chromebook that everyone had gotten issued in 3rd grade after their school won a grant for poor kids. It barely did more than send emails. Still, the internet was a magical place full of every fact you could ever need…. Except about "Hogwarts". At twelve years old, Hazie had spent nearly half her life on the internet, mostly searching for funny animal pictures and word games. She wasn't a computer wiz by any stretch, but she knew her way around a search engine. She tried several different spellings, keywords, and combinations to no avail. Of course "Hogwarts" didn't exist. The letter was probably part of an old costume or party trick. She felt a little foolish. What had she been thinking, that there was some magical wizard school and her grandmother had been some kind of sorceress? A sorceress who had then decided to move to the backass nowhere mountains of Tennessee and spend her life in a shitty trailer smoking cigarettes and raising her half-feral granddaughter. The more she thought about it the more ridiculous it sounded. Just because her grandmother's life had a been mostly a mystery to her, didn't mean it had actually been all that mysterious.
Feeling foolish, she shoved the letter in her jean pocket and wandered back into Granny's room. The envelope sat on the bed where she had left it. Hazie picked it up and then dropped the paper as if it had burned. The words had changed…
Miss Hazel Blackwood
Her Grandmother's Old Bedroom
The Blackwood Trailer
Townsend, TN, USA
Hazie picked the envelope up and read it again. The words gleamed a little smugly, as if they knew exactly what they'd done. She pulled the letter out of her pocket and opened it up. Nothing had changed except….there. Instead of being signed by "Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster" it now read "Minerva McGonagall, Headmistress".
What. The. Hell. Was going on. Hazie stood up, paced back and forth, and then sat back down. There was an explanation for this. The grief of her grandmother's death was driving her crazy. She had accidentally breathed in some herb she shouldn't have while packing them. She had forgotten to eat breakfast and the low blood sugar was making her hallucinate. But nothing really made sense and the only person she wanted to talk to was Granny, and she wasn't ever going to get to talk to her again. She was crying before she realized it. Big hot tears rolling down her cheeks, a few splashing on the creamy paper of the letter still clutched in her hands. She needed a break. A break from cleaning. A break from this trailer. A break from her life. At twelve years old she already felt so, so tired and her mom wasn't even home yet. Mom, who Hazie seemed to raise more than the other way around, depending on who mom was dating and which of his bad habits she'd decided to copy. Without Granny as a buffer and an anchor, it felt as if the whole trailer might spin out or float away.
She was outside, the screen door banging behind her, before she even knew it. The muggy august air hit like a wet wall, immediately plastering her auburn curls to her forehead with sweat. Hazie felt as if the whole world was trying to suffocate her. With the foolish, fantastical letter still crushed in one hand she raised both arms and whooped "WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE GET ME OUT OF HERE" at the top of her lungs. One of the great joys of living in a holler was that no one could hear you when you needed to yell. The hills obliged by echoing OUT OF HERE OUT OF HERE out of here back at her. Hazie closed her eyes, arms still outstretched, and felt the warm hot sun on the backs of her eyelids. The hot air felt still and close. Suddenly, there was a rushing sound and a whoosh of air across her face. Hazie's eyes sprung open and she put her arms protectively out in front of her. In front of her, having appeared out of nowhere, was a giant purple double-decker bus.