Robert Sheckley: Magic, Maples, and Maryanne

“It’s not a good idea to ask magic for any particular thing,” I said.

“Then how do we know it works?” he said.

I couldn’t answer that.

“I’ll want it back,” he said, handing me the coin. “Hopefully, with a couple of others like

it.”

“You’ll probably get it back. As for getting more, we’ll have to see what magic decides.”I put the coin in the sacred space I had created in my closet. I asked Phil to stay in the front room while I did the formulas and gestures. I don’t like people to see me doing magic. I think it works against the success of the enterprise. Phil sat down on the bed while I went into the closet and closed the door. In magic, moments are not all alike. You have to guess which kind of Power you’re working with, and what its mood is. I did what I thought would work for that particular moment.

When I came out, Phil asked, “So what happens now?”

“Tomorrow night at this same time,” I said, “I open the door to the temenos.”

“You mean the closet?”

“For now, it’s a temenos.”

“Couldn’t we take a peek now? Maybe whatever it’s sending is there already.”

I shook my head. “I won’t open that door until tomorrow evening. Impatience is very bad form when you’re dealing with magic. You can’t rush the Powers. Twenty-four hours is a minimum time. A couple of days would be better.”Phil looked like he had a few things to say about that, but finally he shrugged and said, “See you here tomorrow,” and left.

Next evening, after Phil arrived, I opened the closet door, and there were seven gold coins in the temenos. They all looked the same.

I handed them to Phil. “I think this is what the Power or the spirits or magic or whatever wanted you to have.”

“I thought you said the spirits don’t like to be asked for anything specific.”

“The spirits are

unpredictable,” I said.

Phil jingled the coins in his hands. Then he held out one to me. “You might as well get something out of this.”

“No thanks,” I said. “Suit yourself.”

Phil put the coins in his pocket. He was thinking hard. Finally he said, “Might you be open to a business proposition?”

“I’d have to hear it first.”

“I’ll get back to you,” Phil said, and left.

About a week later, Phil asked me to meet him and a couple of friends at an expensive restaurant not far from Sullivan’s. He indicated that they had talked the previous night and had a proposition to put to me.

I could imagine how his meeting with his friends had gone. I could hear Phil saying, “I don’t want you fellows to laugh at me, but I know we’re all interested in far-out investments.”

“Sure,” Jon said. “What have you got?”

“I’ve got a guy who does magic, or some damned thing.”And he would have explained what happened. He would have said, “Hey, I don’t know what he’s doing, but it looks good enough to invest a few bucks in.”So we sat in the restaurant in a comfortable haze of smoke and beer smell and dim golden lights and hurrying waitresses with twinkling legs, and we had drinks and they all stared at me.

Finally, one of them, a fat, complacent-looking guy named Haynes, said to me, “so what exactly do you do in this magical closet of yours?”

“It’s not the closet that’s magical, it’s the temenos, the sacred space I create within it.”

“And what do you do with this sacred place?”“I perform certain procedures.”

“Such as?”

“I can’t tell you. Telling destroys the magic.”

“Convenient, if you want to keep your secret.”

I shook my head. “Necessary, strictly necessary.”I didn’t tell him how I had deduced that magicians in the past like Cagliostro and the Comte de St.-Germain had grown rich and famous, but finally their powers had deserted them and they ended badly. I think their downfall came from telling, and from demanding too much.

They held a whispered consultation. Then Jon, a tall, thin, balding guy in a three-piece business suit, said to me, “Okay, we’re interested.”

“It’s a far-out kind of thing,” I told him.

“We’re not scared of far-out investments,” Phil said.

“We’ve got a share in a shaman’s school in Arizona. Is that far enough out for you?”

“How could you invest in me?” I asked.

“Oh, we weren’t thinking of anything fancy. But we could set you up with a place to practice your magic. A place where you wouldn’t be disturbed. We’d supply your food and pocket money. You could give up that lousy day job at Sullivan’s. You could live on your magic.”

I said, “Looks like there’s a lot you could do for me. But what could I do for you?”

“Split the take with us fifty-fifty.”

“Take?”

“Whatever you produce in that sacred space of yours.”

“But that might be nothing.”Phil said, “Then we’re stuck with fifty percent of nothing. But we like a gamble. We can get this facility in Jersey for free. Feeding you for a couple weeks won’t cost much. And we can drive out and see how you’re doing.”

“Interesting,” I said.

“And don’t forget,” Haynes put in, “you get to keep fifty percent of what you wish for.”

It struck me as a pretty good deal at the time.

Phil had rented this place in northern Jersey to use as a software lab. But then the bottom went out of that business. Or they found it wouldn’t be profitable under present conditions. They still had a couple months’ rent paid for, so they set me up in the place. It was a small, isolated facility with a two-room apartment in back. I moved in, and Phil drove out from New York every few days with some frozen dinners.

I lived alone, saw no one—the nearest town was two miles away, I didn’t have a car, and besides, what would I do there? I had books to read when I wasn’t working on magic. I had a collection of Marsilio Ficino’s letters. His nobility made me ashamed of myself. I knew I was being too self-seeking. But I went on anyhow. I figured, what’s the sense of being a magician if you can’t prove it to anyone?

A week later, on a late afternoon on a golden day in late October, the maples were just starting to turn colors. I could see birds overhead, flying south, away from the dark winter that was waiting for me.

The little lawn in front of the facility was set back from the road. No one ever came by here, but she came.

She came with an easel and a folding chair and a big straw purse in which she had watercolors and a bicycle bottle filled with water. She was sitting on my front lawn.

I came outside, and she got up hastily. “I didn’t know anyone lived here. I hope I’m not trespassing.”

“Not at all. I live here, but I don’t own the place.”

“But I’m intruding on your privacy.”

“A welcome intrusion.”

She seemed relieved. She sat down again in front of her easel.

“I’m a painter,” she said. “A watercolorist. Some say that’s not real painting, but it pleases me. I noticed this place a long time ago. I wanted to paint it, but I wanted to wait until the maples were in just the stage of bloom they’re in now.”

“Are they at their peak?” I asked.

“No, they’re still one or two weeks from their full color. But I like them as they are right now, with

the brilliant reds and oranges showing, but merging with the green leaves. It’s a time of change, very

fragile, and very precious. Anyone can paint a tree in full autumn foliage. But it’s something else to paint

one just before it explodes from cool green to hot red.”

“And after that comes winter,” I said.

“Exactly.”

“You’re very welcome to paint my trees or anything else. Perhaps it would be better if I went