A Possibility of Magic by Rachael Ann Mare

Author:Rachael Ann Mare [Mare, Rachael Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-04-17T22:00:00+00:00

Being the Story in Which Izzy and Ari Get Thrown Out of a Zen Garden for Dancing (Well, Izzy Was Dancing)

Aristotle leapt up and spun round. There she was—across the street. The absolute bonkers girl! She had almost died. Where was she going? Sighing, Ari trudged after Izzy.

“Look,” she said, pointing, her eyes glowing, once he had found a brief gap in the traffic and scurried across the street. “What is it? Have you been inside?”

The sign read “Zander Bealebright Zen Garden.”

“Let’s go in,” Izzy breathed, already following the arrow on the sign that pointed to the right, along the fence around the park, toward an entrance halfway up the block.

Aristotle trotted to catch up with her. “Iz, it’s a zen garden. Zen is a… well, I think you’re meant to be quiet.”

“Oh, good,” Izzy said. “That will be just the thing after a whole afternoon sailing like pirates and wearing ourselves out, won’t it?”

Aristotle couldn’t deny the truth of that. But it didn’t erase his doubts on the subject of whether Izandria Dauntless could be quiet for much time. Also, he thought he had heard something about this zen garden charging a fee. Perhaps that would save them. He certainly didn’t have any money, and he doubted Iz did.

But when she marched up to the entrance and asked, “How much for two?” of the lady inside the small ticket house, her head barely coming above the shelf, the lady mumbled something back that Ari couldn’t hear, and Izzy dug in her soaking wet pockets, from which she produced five soaking wet dollars, which she proceeded to hand over to the lady in the window. Aristotle could imagine the lady’s reaction, so he stayed out of sight behind Izzy.

Apparently the woman hadn’t any more idea what to do with Izzy than Aristotle did, as she accepted the soaking wet money. Or at least he assumed she did, because Izzy turned and waved at him to follow her through the turnstile into the zen garden. He trotted past the lady in the box, giving her a little wave of his own, and followed Iz inside.

The gravel garden path wound through two sets of soaring pine trees on either side. The air around the boy and girl seemed to hush in partnership with the trees, forcing a certain silence on the path, on them, on every living thing thereabouts. It was marvelous.

“It feels like it’s taking us to its secrets,” Iz whispered, and Ari wondered if he had been wrong to doubt her ability to be quiet.

Shortly thereafter, the pines opened to the view—an open space full of small, highly manicured trees; low-growing hedges; and stone fountains. The path meandered around a pond and then over the pond on an arched bridge and round stones that seemed to Aristotle to be meant for jumping. A pagoda gazebo presided over the whole thing at the other end of the garden.

Aristotle watched Izzy’s eyes light up, and his heart sank.

“Ari, it’s delightful! Let’s go!” Izzy danced down the path and over to the bridge.

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