Who knew that Thanksgiving would provide the revelations that it did? As it turned out, a secretive member of the Quandary clan was spending much of their time in Massachusetts learning magic and potion making, and it wasn't Evergreen. Well, it was, but it was also someone other than him. Who knew that the genius logician that was Miracle Zuri Black would turn out to be some kind of advanced enchantress? Not Evergreen. His two worlds, that of Ilvermorny and that of his No-Maj family were shrinking.
It turned out that Miracle had been studying at the Salem Witches Institute over the past few years. She was studying cures to magical maladies and had been going out on dates with, not dating, she was sure to clarify, going out on dates with various guys from Ilvermorny that she met on the magical Island off Massachusetts' coast. Of course, Evergreen never came up in conversation as he wasn't really known by many upperclassmen up until he helped save the school.
"So, you go to Salem Witches Institute?" Evergreen asked again.
"I sure do. I did get a letter from Ilvermorny about five years ago, but after I worked through their curriculum and took all of their placement tests, they determined that I would learn more on the university level." She replied with a grin.
"We are both magical, then? Is uncle Ian a wizard?"
"Dad? No. He's like, super ordinary. Mom couldn't explain it, neither could he. But your mom, then?"
"Yeah Mira, she's known as "Glinda the Good Witch". She is one of the most powerful witches ever."
"But isn't she –"
"She's alive, if you were gonna ask that." Evergreen interrupted, "In fact my dad, Seta here, and a few others were going to go after her captor any time, hopefully."
"Consider me a part of your motley witch hunt, then." Miracle snipped with a playful tone in her voice.
"You'd do that?" Evergreen asked with a slight blush.
"You're my family, honey. You and Aunt Glinda. I'd do anything for you. Plus, someone needs to be there to help in case your dad comes in with guns blazing."
"Yeah, that does sound like him." Evergreen said, opening the door while Miracle switched off the light.
They continued to chat as they crossed the field. It was soon revealed as well that Seta was capable of speaking and understanding human speech. It was the sort of thing that Miracle's scientific mind found absolutely amazing. She was positively tickled to learn that Seta was trained when he was quite young by his city guardsmen and was quite proficient in battle in his own right. Evergreen vouched for his skill and the fact that no one had ever bested the bunny, as far as Evergreen knew.
Just before they got to the door that led into the laundry room and then the rest of the house, a small, paper crane flew in the air towards them. Before Evergreen could do anything, Miracle pulled it out of the air and opened it up in one swift motion. She glanced at the note and a cheesy grin lit up her face.
"Ohhh cute! Who's Bianca, sweetie?" she asked a horrified Evergreen, who quickly took the note from his cousin's nimble fingers.
At dinner, Evergreen was, of course, seated next to Dad, but Miracle, by her persuasive powers, managed to get herself seated next to him, so they could chat just a bit more about all that was going on. Dad, Bonnie's Ian, and grandpa spent most of the meal disagreeing about a variety of things that Evergreen didn't really pay too much attention to. The spread was unbelievable as Miracle's dad brought a number of southern inspired dishes to share. Sweet potatoes, grits, collard greens, he was quite the wizard in the kitchen. There was also a large ham and a smoked turkey with creamy potatoes and stuffing. There was also grandma's world-famous Jello pudding that had graham cracker crust, a mixture of strawberry Jello and pudding, and fresh strawberries topped with whipped cream. It was a staple for their family every Thanksgiving. Nothing tasted more like childhood than grandma's Jello pudding, after all.
"So, it was by magic, then?" Evergreen asked Miracle under his breath.
"Yeah. According to the medwitches I go to school with, it's common for magic to initially manifest during times of life or death."
Evergreen stopped and thought of the time that on their way to Canada, Dad and he had rolled the truck into a ditch. No one was harmed and even the truck was completely untouched. There wasn't even any forest rubbish stuck to anything. He couldn't really remember any weird magical happenstances to him before then, that is, except for seeing Seta's then red eyes watching him and Dad through some underbrush before he revealed himself at the hotel room in Victoria. Miracle's magic manifested when she was minutes old and not breathing while his did so in a car accident that should have at least paralyzed one or the two of them for life.
"But you weren't breathing and had no brain activity, right? That must have meant you came back from the dead!" Evergreen whispered under Dad's boisterous story that was entertaining most of the cousins.
"Or something. Ev, there is no magic that can truly revive the dead. I may have had no vitals, but I was probably just mostly dead, not entirely. I'm really not sure. That is part of my study at the institute, to find out what happened, why, and if it could be replicated."
"That's great, Mira. I wish I had an idea of what I wanted to do." Came Evergreen's response as he stabbed the uneaten half of his dinner roll half a dozen times.
"You're 13 years old, Ev. You don't need to have everything figured out. Plus, don't you kind of have your hands full with a wicked witch who's thirsty for your blood? Yeah, I asked around some of the upperclassmen at Ilvermorny and they were more than willing to provide me with the gossip. Why don't we take one thing at a time? We'll bring your mom home and then she and I will help you figure it out. How's that, honey?"
She took a long and noisy slurp of sparkling cider from her glass which prompted Evergreen to do the same. As he looked at her long black eyelashes and frizzy, curled hair, he couldn't help but smile. With her in his magical corner, he suddenly felt so much more prepared to storm a castle or to topple some regime. Sure, Miracle was one of the prettiest people imaginable, really all of her siblings were ridiculously good looking, it wasn't fair, but she was also formidable and smarter than anyone else he had ever met. She graduated high school at 11 after all and according to Aunt Hannah, took her institute by storm.
"I think that sounds fine."
Dad and Evergreen were in the front room getting their boots and jackets on when Miracle caught up with them and pushed a small cylinder into Evergreen's hand. He opened his hand and found a curious device. It looked kind of like a cigarette lighter, only it was as white as pure marble. It was, that is, except for the rune imprinted on it in a dark red color. It wasn't a Norse rune, so he didn't recognize it.
"What's this?" Evergreen asked.
"When you get word of when you are to leave, light this immediately and I'll be by your side shortly." Miracle whispered as she embraced him.
"Thanks for everything, Mira. I love you."
"Yeah, me too." She replied with a soft smile, looking down into Evergreen's face before letting go and letting the aunts and uncles wish Evergreen and Dad a happy holiday.
The Quandary men and Seta left the warm, cheery house and were instantly enveloped in the cold evening mist. It was another overcast night, but there was not any sign of a storm to be found, so it was to be another nice night, despite Evergreen still not able to finish his animagus transformation which he had been thinking about every day. At sunrise and sunset every day he spoke the incantation, but he had to keep doing so every day until the next lightning storm. It was a drag, but it was what it was.
They made the drive back to the house and Evergreen told Dad everything that he had learned about Miracle. Dad wasn't paying much attention at first, as he was never the best listener, but when he started listening, he did so quietly and closely. Dad was just as surprised as Evergreen was about the whole situation, but it wasn't long until they lapsed into comfortable silence and Evergreen fell asleep in the comfort of being in Dad's and Seta's company and having quite a full belly.
When Evergreen briefly awoke to make the climb up their household stairs, Dad said something that was indiscernible as Evergreen left his shoes at the foot of the stairs. That night, he slept quite soundly and had a curious dream.
He began, like most of his dreams, flying over the dark forest with the cliffside yellowed castle of the Wicked Witch off in the distance. He realized that the castle itself was probably gray or something, but he had never seen it during the day. Hundreds of orange torches illuminated the outside walls and the inner corridors, casting the ghastly glow about the place. He shivered unconsciously. How anyone in their right mind could ever live in a place so cursed-looking and devoid of any real life was beyond Evergreen. Elphaba had once been close friends with Mom, who was, according to everyone who knew her, the poster child of life and love. How those two women ever managed to be roommates was a complete mystery to Evergreen.
Eventually, Evergreen found himself passing over the fortress's deep moat and over the cold ramparts. There were a few scattered flying monkeys here and there, but they paid him no mind at all. He drifted higher and higher until he got to the highest tower. The doors were open on the balcony, giving him a full view of Elphaba's bedroom and lair. She was there in all of her green, nasty and wicked glory, a few inches from the open doors, looking out into the dark. She, of course, did not see Evergreen.
Within the room, her only companion was a flying monkey. This one looked like it was supposed to be dressed up as some sort of lewd pirate, meaning it was wearing a fluffy shirt and layered jacket and a wide hat, but had on, of course, no pants. Elphaba was grumbling to herself about something that Evergreen couldn't really hear, and the pirate-monkey seemed to have a hard time looking at the emerald witch.
"So," her raspy voice managed, finally above a whisper, "You're telling me that this chicken has been openly and often traveling between the land of Oz and America?"
The pirate-monkey let out some hoots and some grunts that sounded like gibberish, but Evergreen supposed that it made some sense to the Wicked Witch. He was pretty confident in his supposition when she turned around to face the pirate-monkey and replied to him.
"I don't care that she's a hen. Hens are chickens, you nitwit!"
More hoots and grunts came in response. Elphaba merely shook her head and then took out her gnarled, blackened wand, pointing it at the pirate-monkey.
"Find her and bring her to me. I need to know how she does what she does. I have a plan forming and with someone like that chicken, it could come to fruition! By any means necessary, bring me the yellow hen!"
The pirate-monkey replied in kind and ran across the room, out of the door, and leapt right off of the tower, taking flight, quickly getting out of that room as fast as possible. Evergreen didn't remember it raining earlier, because it looked like the pirate-monkey was soaked with water the moment he left. Who knows what was going on with that? Elphaba, overcome with something, probably just exhaustion, just turned to her bed, collapsing upon it and kicking off her shoes all in one swift motion. She looked up at the ceiling, pointing her wand at it and shooting red sparks, burning the stone to black.
"Ohhh Glinda…" she whispered in a voice Evergreen could hardly hear, "What are you doing? It's a dangerous game you play."