Of Millinery and Magic(s)

by Rudi Dornemann

The system had worked perfectly for years. Illusionists wore top hats, neat and shiny black. Wizards and witches wore tall peaked caps, of course, and embroidered them with whatever arcane symbols they fancied. We mundanes wore our bowlers, rarely adorned with anything more flamboyant than a bit of feather or sprig of seasonal greenery. And it all worked well; we all knew each other’s nature by our hats. And then he came to town, the stranger.

In his fez.

A crowd began to form from the moment he stepped through the east gate, and only grew as he made his way to city hall square. All our leading citizens were there.

The wizards claimed him for one of their own.

“It’s truncated, this is true,” said the chief Wizard. “But it’s clearly conical.”

“I’m afraid I must disagree,” said the Grand Houdin. “It may lack a brim, but it’s as flat on top as any top hat. He is clearly of the prestidigitator persuasion.”

“Hurrumph,” said the Mayor of the Mundanes as the noon sun gleamed from his gold-brimmed bowler. “He looks to me like some kind of hybrid of both your ilk — a trader in both flim-flam and miracles.

The stranger only smiled.

With a flourish as practiced as any matinee magician, he raised one hand. With the gravity of the most learned mage, he shifted his hat’s tassel from one side to the other.

From that day forward, the meaning of the hats changed. The illusionists found themselves pulling real rabbits from hats. They knew the identity of every hidden card, and the economy of our city collapsed under the deflationary pressure of all those coins pulled from behind ears. The wizards found themselves unable to levitate without the aid of nearly invisible threads and unable to transmute lead to gold without a false-bottomed cauldron. Their oracles spouted vague pronouncements that might mean anything and their grimoires were full of diagrams of fake thumbs and boxes holding hidden mirrors.

As for the rest of us, we found that our comfortable bowlers were gone and, in their place, we too wore fezzes that were always sliding askew, and tassels that swung like pendulums, whether we wanted them to or not.

Eeny, Meany, Miny, Med, Crack A God On The Head, If It Squeals Kill It

by SaraG

Dear Diary,

The ministers are back, but they haven’t burnt anyone yet. Momma locked me up in my room so I wouldn’t get into fights with “those minister boys”, but Susan helped me out through the window and we went godhunting.

The ministers have shut down the Swindler’s market and taken old Beth to cus-to-dy (she’s the only one they could catch, ministers can’t run much). It’s sad about poor Beth but Momma says she was getting too old anyway.

Since the market is closed our mothers can’t sell the gods and we get to eat all the brains we want.

So, we caught a god up by the creek and I went eenie, meany, miny, med and Susan won, so she ate it. Then we caught another one and I ate it. We were playing all quiet and not bothering anyone, dear diary, so everything that happened afterwards wasn’t our fault. We were sharing the third (see, like good girls) when this minister boy pops up from behind the rocks and starts yelling and calling us cannibals.

“I didn’t call you no names!” I told him, but he kept at it, shouting that we were eating our baby-brothers.

“Oh, so now little gods are our baby-brothers,” said Susan. “And how would you know?”

The stupid minister boy started crying. “Because I remember. From when I was little.”

Well, I tell you, dear diary, we had enough of that nonsense. I took a rock and threw it at him, just to shut him up, but my aim is too good, even when I don’t pretend it to be and it hit him square on the mouth.

He blubbered like a little god, even though he was only bleeding a little and threatened to call the Inquisitives. And that’s when Susan punched him in the gut and we took off.

I slipped back into the room and Momma never knew that I was gone.

And that was that.

I sure hope that minister boy doesn’t tattle.