Chapter Text
Five year old Petunia Evans was a thoughtful child unlike her sister Lily (who was a hurricane personified at the tender age of three and showed promise of being a hellion as she grew older). Petunia never did anything without first thinking it through, from the way she dressed her dolls in matching outfits to stacking the spelling blocks in perfect order.
Her daydreams were not filled with ponies or the circus, but rather of the small garden, of the lovely roses, of sunshine and fresh air. There, she would brush her doll’s hair until it gleamed in the sunlight, her small hands neat and tidy at their work. She was a quiet child who loved quiet things; magic was not something near to her thoughts.
Her parents, Martin and Marigold Evans, had noticed immediately that their eldest daughter seemed a little too thoughtful, a little too quiet. At first, they had chalked up Petunia’s behavior to having a child that was possibly gifted. Surely the reason their daughter acted the way she did was because she had a much higher intelligence level than most children her age. Maybe she needed an outlet that was not currently available to her, such as chess, music, or perhaps art like drawing or painting, something that would challenge her intelligence.
The Evans family were not well off financially, but Martin and Marigold did their best for their eldest daughter to channel her intelligence and discover how she was gifted. They found her a language tutor, Mrs. Williams, that attended their house weekly to teach Petunia the art of French conversation. Petunia tried her best, but she found herself confused by the conjugation and her small sentences in French were stilted at best, and confusing at worst.
So, they moved Petunia to an arts and crafts class at the local church, hoping that being around other children her age and the opportunity to explore herself in whatever artistic medium was available would allow her to blossom. The class was open to the community, and they hoped that maybe Petunia would find friendship with her classmates.
Unfortunately, Petunia’s shyness came off as cold to the other children who deliberately avoided the Evans girl. While Lily happily hummed and covered herself and everything she touched with paint, Petunia did not feel that same joy her sister felt. Though her drawings and scribbles were impeccably colored, and Petunia’s crayons were never broken nor dull, an artist’s gift was not her forte.
They tried one last time, sending Petunia to a neighbor down the street who had an out-of-tune piano in her home. Ms. Cynthia only knew as much about music as what her practice books could teach her, but she was happy to welcome the budding musician to her cramped hovel and stumble their way through a lesson or two. Petunia gamely tried the piano, a little tired of all these new lessons, but talent was not found at her fingertips.
Martin and Marigold were stumped. They knew their daughter had above average intelligence. Her manners and habits, the way she treated her toys and played with her sister spoke of a much older girl than one of five.
They had consulted a child psychologist who had Tested their daughter and found it to be so, but they weren’t sure how they could support her. They consulted a great many pieces of Important Literature at the psychologist’s recommendation but struggled to understand what they could do for their daughter. Thus, they ended up on the front step of Martin’s father.
Mr. Evans father, Rudolph Justinian Evans (“call me Rudy”), was an intelligent and well-educated man. His home was filled with many books and important pieces of paper, where conversations occurred not just in the study with brandy snifters and cigar smoke, but over dinner and at breakfast and in the garden. These conversations were about important topics such as the government and the parties, of books and great authors, of travel and new destinations, but there was no greater topic that Rudolph enjoyed more than the discussion of his two granddaughters and the sheer joy their presence brought into his life.
While not a child psychologist himself, Rudy had great experience with gifted children as a Professor of Literature and the Classics at university. From time to time, he had a precocious child of a young age enter his literature classes and exceed his expectations. He had grown to enjoy these young scholars and their efforts in the academic world at such young ages, and he had come to consider himself an “identifier” of gifted children.
“Poppa Rudy” examined his granddaughter quite closely. He played with her, discussing how best to build a kingdom out of the wooden blocks that littered his office study; had afternoon tea with her at a table built for a small child. His cup and saucer, a ghastly pink etched with what was supposed to be a menagerie of animals (but looked more like yellow blobs that had been dabbed on by an unskilled hand), looked so small and childish in his adult hands as he and Petunia ate biscuits and drank the milky tea. They discussed Lily, and how Petunia often felt ignored and colorless next to her radiant sister. As they colored pages, it was Petunia who confessed that sometimes she felt like she had bubbles in her stomach, making her feel lighter than air, or that she saw strange glitter at the corner of her eyes, golden and bright.
Rudy was both troubled and at ease with the dear conversations he had with his eldest granddaughter. He pulled his son and his wife aside and had a frank discussion with them. While the two girls ran in the garden, chasing after rabbits and giggling together, Rudy laid his findings out.
Petunia was Not Gifted. At least, not in the way that normal people associate gifted children with calculus or chess or Mozart. Petunia was a very Normal girl, possibly more intelligent than her fellow schoolmates, but she was still quite Normal. She felt jealous of her younger sister as eldest siblings sometimes do, but that could be rectified by Martin and Marigold spending more time with Petunia.
He did not relay the conversation they had as they had colored together, of the fizzy feelings and bubbles that traveled Petunia’s body, or how she saw sparkles from the corner of eyes.
He had met a few of these Gifted among his students, and while only vaguely familiar with them, he knew that the Evans family tree did not have a history of “Gifts”. He knew little of Marigold’s family, but he did know that Marigold herself was of plain solid stock like himself and Martin. The idea of her daughter being anything more than a smart little girl would never have crossed her mind.
Occasionally, those precocious students who entered his classes that were young and gifted, were more than just “gifted”. He observed these children and knew that they were Gifted with something else than just intelligence. He had seen, on occasion, things that were unexplainable, things that he thought of late at night by the fire. These students would withdraw and leave as they grew older, never to return to his classes. He would later find that they withdrew from university all together. Any attempt to contact the student was usually rebuffed by cautious parents who were very careful to avoid mentioning their children.
Petunia was intelligent and possibly more fanciful than her parents knew, more imaginative, but she was not Gifted.
Rudy nodded to himself as the Evans family left, waving goodbye from his front step. Petunia was a normal little girl, that was all. Surely if Petunia was Gifted, wouldn’t she have shown it by now?
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It wasn’t long after this meeting with Poppa Rudy that Petunia had discovered her mother performing magic.
She found mummy in the parlor, a question on her lips that had gone silent as she watched her mother at work. Marigold’s sewing basket was open on the seat next to her, a multitude of colors and fabrics poking beyond the basket’s edge and Petunia was curious to know what her mother was doing.
Mummy had taken one of Lily’s cotton shifts and was mending a rip along a pocket seam. Lily loved to collect the rocks she found during their daily walks, placing each one in her pocket as they went. She was desperate to not give up a single one until the pocket final tore. Petunia remembered clearly how Lily bawled and both Petunia and mummy had picked up the rocks and carried them home for Lily.
Petunia watched, entranced as she saw the pocket repaired, the hole in the seam growing smaller and smaller. The silver needle gleaming as it dove in and out of the shift, shining in the sunlight flooding the parlor. The white thread was almost invisible in the brightness of the sun, and it seemed for a moment that Mummy held a wand instead of a needle.
Magic was not a word much thought of by Petunia. She had seen magic shows at birthday parties and had watched magic shows on the telly. Some of her first board books had been about a magician freeing a trapped unicorn who then went on to have adventures together. Magic was known in the Evans house, but it was just a thought, a concept, not a reality.
Petunia watched the gentle hands of her mother guide the needle in and out of the fabric, and she wondered at the simple magic that her mother was creating. Her body felt fizzy, like bubbles were in her belly, and her mind felt fuzzy as well.
This was important. She wasn’t sure how, but deep in her soul, something locked into place and Petunia knew she had to learn this, how to command the needle and thread.
The sewing needle finished its work, the thread knotted and bound, the pocket repaired. Marigold folded the shift and set it aside, setting her needle and thread back into the sewing basket.
“I want to do that,” Petunia said, “Mummy, I want to do that. How’d you do that?”
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Marigold smiled. She was excited to pass on her love for sewing to her daughter. She had learned handicrafts at her granny’s knee—sewing, embroidery, cross stitch, crochet and knitting-- and was overwhelmed with joy at the thought of teaching her eldest daughter the very arts she fell in love with.
Marigold had an idea to help her daughter learn to sew and had described what she had in mind to Martin. With her description in hand, Martin created a small board, the perfect size to fit the lap of a small child. A uniform grid of identical holes were drilled into the board.. A small wooden dowel with a ribbon attached at the end allowed small hands to weave the dowel through the holes to create simple stitches and designs.
Her parents presented the board to Petunia who had uncharacteristically shrieked with glee and then promptly burst into tears. Her parents, with good humor, comforted their overwhelmed daughter but it was true they didn’t understand how important this gift was to her.
Petunia could do magic now, just like mummy. She wiped her tears away, ignoring the glitter-spark at the corner of her eyes.
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Petunia’s hands slowly followed along with the wooden dowel and board, trying to imitate the graceful way mummy’s needle escaped the fabric for a moment only to be recaptured once more. Her ribbon was a soft pin and shone brightly against the dark polished wood of the practice board in her lap.
They were practicing the simple straight stitch, just up and down in a single direction with no purpose or end to the stitch, just practice. Her mother’s stitches were neat and tidy, the thread lying flat and the cloth not buckling under the tension. They were uniform, perfect, as everything touched by her mummy’s hand usually turned out to be.
As she practiced this stitch with her ribbon, Petunia fell into a half-trance. The safety and warmth of the parlor, the joy of being with her mummy, the fascination at this new craft she was learning—it created a glowing afternoon for her, and she felt bubbly, shiny around the edges. She didn’t notice the small bits of glitter that floated at the edges of the vision, as they sparked and delighted at her steady hand and the slim pink ribbon.
She loved this. This moment of spending time with her mother. She loved her sister Lily, and they were such good playmates together, but Lily had no time or inclination at being a quiet girl like her older sister.
It wasn’t a surprise then when Lily came running into the playroom, tears dripping off her chin as she gasped and cried at their mother over the new scratch on her knee. She had been in the garden and had been playing with the neighbors’ kitty when Tufty had tired of the game they were playing and offered a swipe as a parting goodbye across Lily’s knee.
The wound was small, but it might as well have been as large as a great canyon stretching across the expanse of her knee. A few drops of blood welled up just like tears and were dropping one by one down her leg.
Petunia sat there as frustration and concern flooded her little body. She was only five, but she knew her sister had taken away the moment she was having with their mother because of Lily being stupid again.
The glitter sparks disappeared. While Petunia didn’t notice them at all, she did notice losing the fizzy feeling from her body and the bubbles disappearing. She no longer felt so golden and bright, and the color from her pink ribbon seemed to fade as well.
She just wanted Lily to shut up with her bawling. Just be quiet!
Their mummy stood up and left the room consoling Lily that she would be right back with a bandage, and Petunia was left with her sobbing sister.
It wasn’t right, Lily interrupting them. She could have gone to daddy and bothered him with her knee. Her cheeks flushed as pink as the ribbon. Petunia stubbornly stared down at her ribbon board and tried to ignore the sniffles from Lily as she silently wept over her knee.
It wasn’t even that big of a scratch, Petunia thought with rudeness, it’s so small.
A rather large sniffle interrupted Petunia’s rude thoughts and she re-examined her sister more closely.
Lily had a soft heart and a special affinity for animals. She was known in their neighborhood to say hello to every pet they came across during walks, and shamelessly waving to pets in the front parlor windows of homes she didn’t even know. Tufty and Lily were best friends, and Tufty let Lily pet her where Petunia could not. To have received a scratch from Tufty without a reason….
Up. Down. She drew the dowel through once more and watched the pretty ribbon come up through the hole and then pulled tightly through the next one.
It wasn’t fair, Petunia thought. Lily didn’t do anything wrong. She shouldn’t have been scratched, she shouldn’t have bled, and she shouldn’t be crying. Her shoulders hunched in as she grew angry for a different reason all together.
Lily was just a baby, only three! It. Wasn’t. Fair.
Her eyebrows drew close together, the dowel unmoving as Petunia stared at the ribbon board. The glitter sparks were back, shining at the edge of her vision but Petunia ignored them still. Lily’s sniffles had turned to hiccupping sighs as their mummy came back up the stairs. Cooing over Lily’s injury, she gently applied the plaster across her knee, hiding the injury from view.
Their mother sat back down next to Petunia, cuddled Lily close on her lap and picked her sewing back up in hand. She examined Petunia’s board and smiled proudly, “Petunia it looks wonderful! Look at how neat and tidy your ribbon has become!”
Petunia smiled at her mother and pet Lily’s uninjured knee, her anger draining away. Poor Lily. She wished she could help in some way, as her sister cuddled into their mother more. Something to stop the pain.
She wished, for a moment, that she could heal the scratch so Lily could go back to playing. Not for selfish reasons, not so she could keep her time with their mummy to herself. The spark of glitter shone so bright, golden and warm and fizzy.
No, thought Petunia, as she picked up her ribbon and started a new stitch.
Up, came the ribbon.
I want Lily to be okay because I love her.
Down, went the ribbon, and the glitter, the spark, the golden feeling, her love for Lily—
Gently, quietly, softly, as the ribbon pulled tight against the practice board, the plaster glowed gold for only a second, those glitter sparks shining so bright that Petunia had to blink to see that she didn’t notice the shining bandage.
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Martin and Marigold shared a bottle of wine in the kitchen as they watched their daughters tumble and play in the back garden after dinner. Petunia chased Lily who shrieked with delight. Her legs worked fast to outrun the older girl, and the plain plaster on her knee was crumpled and grass stained from their play.
As Petunia tackled her sister, hugging Lily close to her as they softly tumbled to the grass, the shrieks of joy from Lily, a yell of triumph from Petunia, the crumbled plaster fell away. Unblemished skin shone from beneath the grime and dirt that came with rough horseplay. As Marigold called for her daughters to come in, and turned the garden lights on, the bandage lay hidden in the shadows from where it had fallen off.
They would find the plaster later, and without thinking, toss it into the trash.
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Petunia Evans was five years old when she performed magic for the first time. It would not be the last time she did so.