From the Mouths of Babes
Season 1, Installment 2
That was how she found herself on the couch, having an in-depth conversation about magic with her cat, scratch that, both of her cats and her dog. They had suggested bringing the turtle into the conversation as well, but that was more than she could handle all at once. This was not at all how Lisa had thought her Tuesday was going to go.
“Hold on! Let me make sure I have this straight,” she interrupted Emmy, a petite fluffy calico who seemed certain that the human was quicker on the uptake than she currently felt. The prissy feline rolled her eyes but paused a moment allowing Lisa to lay it out. “You are saying the only thing wrong with me is that I didn’t outgrow fairy tales? That magic is actually real? That sounds insane, you know that right? But then you are talking cats so…” she trailed off.
Emmy shook herself with a huff, commenting to Charlie, “Children are so much easier. They only get stubborn after they forget.”
With a twinge of sadness, Charlie sighed, “I had hoped she would remember me, but it is what it is. This would seem like insanity to her.” Feeling defeated, he continued, “It will be easy for her to write us off as some sort of delusion or mental break. You know how little she can hear when she’s medicated to human normal.” Barnum, the aged beagle, everything greying even his eyesight, just leaned in against Lisa for pets, offering his old head as a familiar comfort.
“It is what it is,” the phrase echoed in Lisa’s head as her fingers absently scritched his ears. There was something about that phrase. It was a phrase she had used with her children and was using with her grandson when things couldn’t be changed and had to be dealt with. Where had it come from? She couldn’t remember her parents ever saying it, but Lisa was sure she remembered it from her childhood. She lost track of the pets discussing her, compelled to follow the phrase deep into her memories. It had been someone older than her, but not someone who felt like an adult to her. She fought to pull the memory into focus, but it was like the bees’ melody slipping away the harder she tried.
“Lisa? Knock, knock, are you there?” Charlie’s familiar voice intruded on her memories. Suddenly everything snapped into place like a Tetris cascade.
Lisa gasped, “It was you!” staring down at the bemused tux cat, suddenly losing her words, her hand freezing on Barnum’s head.
“What was me?” Charlie was startled at her vehemence, but curious.
“Perhaps you can let us in on your revelation?” Emmy mentioned dryly after waiting several moments for Lisa to pull herself back together. The beagle just leaned his chin on her knee, blinking up at her patiently.
Lisa started and stopped several times before managing to get out, “You have Bagheera’s voice!”
Charlie beamed, “You do remember me!” head bumping against her shins and rubbing all over them, brilliantly happy.
“But… You… You weren’t real?”
“I was as real then as I am now. That hasn’t changed.”
“You aren’t,” she stalled out, thinking hard for words and finishing lamely, “...you though?” She felt like an imbecile with everything coming out unformed questions.
Charlie laughed, “The neighbors would talk if you had a pet jaguar wouldn’t they?”
That made Lisa pause, “Well, yes, but how can you be who, or what, I knew then and be my pet cat now?”
“What part of Magic do you not understand?” Emmy complained.
The best response Lisa had was, “Any of it.”
Emmy turned back to Charlie impatiently, “I am not sure I have the patience to retrain a full-grown adult human.”
“She will get there. She knows it all; I’m sure of it. She just needs to remember. It’s not like we are starting from scratch,” and then, settling himself and turning his head up to Lisa, “Names have power. When you were little, I was who you named me to be, a teacher and a protector from a book. I’ve been with you under various names filling different needs your whole life. Currently, you’ve named me Charlie and so Charlie I am.”
“But are you a cat? Or a spirit? What are you?” Lisa waved her hand at the three of them, including them all.
Emmy replied scornfully, “I’m a cat, obviously!”
Barnum looked shy, answering in a deep slow rumble, “Just a dog, mum. Nothing so special as a spirit or any of that.”
“As you can see, I’m currently a housecat, but,” Charlie started before being interrupted by Emmy.
“Maybe currently, but what you really are is a tag-a-long,” she commented disdainfully.
He sighed, his patience with her visibly starting to wear thin, focusing on Lisa he continued, “I am what your pagan friends would call a guide. Others might call me a guardian angel, or an ancestor, or a spirit. They would all be partially correct.”
At Lisa’s confused expression he went on, “A lot of what humans remember about Magic and the Unheard world has bits of truth in it. Many of your fairytales, myths, folktales, and superstitions have a strong grounding in fact. It would be weird if so many cultures had stories of helper spirits, as a pertinent example, for such things to not exist after all. In a nutshell, that’s what I am, a helper spirit.”
She nodded slightly, the concept was familiar to her and it made sense based on the murky memories that were resurfacing from when she was little and the completely incomprehensible events of today.
“Also, technically something is wrong with you, just not quite what you think. You are autistic so you understand the concept that brains can develop differently and that those differences in development can lead to different outward expressions. For some weird evolutionary reason, humans evolved in such a way that shortly before they hit puberty their brains stop being able to easily connect with the unseen energy that binds the universe together, in other words, to become an adult human you first must lose the ability to access Magic. You have to outgrow fairytales. You didn’t,” he paused, letting that sink in. Lisa blinked silently, trying to process it all.
When she didn’t respond, he continued, “Obviously this made it hard for you to fit into the human world, but it doesn’t make you broken or a freak. Many humans glitch at that developmental step and never lose the ability, like you. A few others regain the ability to hear the Unheard as they grow older, often during menopause. Most of the seers, prophets, and shamans of cultures around the world were people who never lost the ability to hear the Unheard. Call it another type of neurodivergence.”
Lisa just sat there, stunned. Could it be true? Could she have spent her whole adult life working so hard to convince herself that reality is real and imagination is fantasy, and be wrong? Her mind quickly worked through the options.
Could this be the result of her coming off her meds? She hadn’t been off them for long and this was an awfully long and incredibly elaborate hallucination if that is what it was. She was pretty sure this wasn’t how hallucinations worked. She couldn’t rule it out as a possibility until she could test it though. How to test it would be the question.
The only other possible option was that this was real. Lisa allowed herself to sit with that for a moment, absently chewing lightly on her lower lip. She had always felt different, alien almost. Once she had gotten her autism diagnosis at forty, she had thought that was why. What if it wasn’t? What if she was a special type of different? What if fairy tales really were real?
Before she could pull together any sort of response, Barnum lifted his head off her knee and trotted to the front door, nails clacking on the hardwood, chuffing excitedly, “Miss and the young master are here!” The sudden motion and sound, and likely the threat of the very affectionate “young master’s” imminent arrival, sent Emmy skittering into the master bedroom and under the bed. Charlie jumped onto the couch as Lisa got up, trying to compose herself. With all the craziness she had forgotten it was her day to watch Severin.
A moment later, after a short knock to announce herself, Rosemary walked in, blond hair impeccably styled and her suit mostly child-crumb free, carrying chubby little Severin. She absently gave Barnum a quick pat on his grizzled head as she pushed past him to get to the living room. The slender young mother looked exhausted under her meticulous make-up as she gave her mom a one-armed hug before passing over the dirty blond, mop-headed toddler who was squealing with joy and wriggling to get down and play with the dog. Lisa put him down carefully after the prerequisite grammy snuggle, asking her daughter how things were going.
It was difficult to pay attention to Rosemary’s response about the stress of juggling a toddler and her accounting business with Barnum and Severin in the background being adorable and, wait, what? Talking!?! Lisa did her best to school her expression to calm interest in what her daughter was saying, but it was hard considering the background conversation.
“Hi there little master! I’ve missed you. You smell so yummy today!” Barnum snuffled the little boy thoroughly.
Through chortles and squeals of, “BUM!” as he sloppily licked Severin’s face, Lisa somehow heard, “Cookies! It’s cookies, Bum. That tickles!” his little hands ineffectively and only half-heartedly trying to push the dog away.
The dog’s cataract-filmed eyes lit up, “I love cookies! Did you save any?”
“Sorry, Mommy cleaned all the big bits up.”
With a big disappointed sigh, Barnum moped, “Well that’s a shame, ain’t it?
They had distracted Lisa enough that she had missed what her daughter had said and, trying to salvage the conversation with her daughter, she responded, “I know it’s hard, Rosie. Littles have so much energy! Just look at him and Barnum though. It’s memories like this that will stick with you when he grows up,” knowing the memories Rosemary would have of this moment would be exceedingly different from her own. They both smiled and watched the antics for a moment, Rosemary relaxing in the moment of appreciation and Lisa fighting to not get too distracted by her grandson’s conversation with the dog.
Luckily she didn’t have to split her focus for long since Rosie had to get to work. Once her daughter left, Lisa got back to figuring out what on earth was happening to her. Severin had shifted his attention to Charlie, who was safely ensconced out of reach on the back of the couch. The little boy stretched as far as he could but still couldn’t reach him.
With her ears, Lisa heard him calling Charlie in his toddler way, “Cha-lee!” but somehow there was more, “Cha-lee! Lemme pet you!” She could definitely hear it, but not specifically with her ears.
“I’m a bit busy with your Grammy at the moment, little one. It seems she is finally able to hear us again. That and you really need to work on not grabbing so hard.” He turned to the befuddled Lisa, “Do you believe yet?”
She shook her head slightly, more in confusion than denial. Knowing exactly how crazy it sounded, uncertainly she asked Severin, “Hey, my sweet boy, are you really talking to the pets and hearing them talk back to you?” A shiver ran through her upon hearing the words out loud.
The toddler’s brown eyes brightened at her question. He giggled and nodded happily, “Yah, Grammy.” Lisa also heard, “And you can hear them again? They told me you’d forgotten them.” When she watched his face fall at the thought of her forgetting the animals could talk, she knew everything that she was experiencing was real, knew it deep in her bones the same way she had known she was pregnant well before a test could have told her all three times.
There were so many questions to ask, so many things to know! It was near impossible to learn much while entertaining a toddler though, even a toddler who could talk to pets and sense magic. Luckily, the only unusual thing about the rest of the afternoon was being able to hear the pets and Severin interacting. Her questions could wait, so Lisa let herself get caught up with fingerpainting and snacks, nice, calming, non-magical reality.
The usual cacophony kicked up as soon as the pets heard Damien turn the old truck down the street, Emmy, who had re-emerged from under the bed, jumping onto the window ledge meowing for food, and Barnum baying to let everyone know Damien had arrived. He came in smelling like pine dust and varnish, kicked off his work boots, and swept his grandson up in a big hug, making the little guy giggle with tickles from his salt and pepper beard. After a quick Grandpa cuddle for Severin, the pets got fed and Lisa opened the refrigerator to get Severin some milk to go with dinner, Damien behind her, washing off the spoon he had used for the cat food.
Distracted by trying to figure out how she would ever be able to explain any of this to Damien, Lisa reached for the milk. She knew she would have to tell him at some point because not telling him already felt like lying and she couldn’t do that to him, but how would she convince him that magic is real and she wasn’t just losing her mind and needed meds?
If she hadn’t been distracted, the delicate winged figure behind the milk carton, waving dramatically and holding a finger to her lips in the universal “Shhh!” symbol might not have made Lisa jump and let out a startled squeak.
Index
Season 1, Installment 3
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