Making Magic

“Did you ever believe in magic?” he asked.

It was such an odd question I didn’t know how to respond for a second. I sat up straight on my stool as if to prepare my answer.

“I guess, maybe I did, when I was a kid,” I said.

“Just because you stopped believing in it doesn’t mean it stopped existing,” he said, and smiled.

- Modern Magic (in progress)

My friend Banshee has made a remarkable and somewhat unbelievable living selling magic at Renaissance Faires across the country. Banshee, of course, is not his real name, as I don’t use anyone's real name in my substack, but it is his real Faire name, the one under which he runs the Gem Stone Mine, a Faire staple where children come to dig for treasure in a meticulously constructed fantasy sandbox. On the surface, it looks like Banshee sells highly polished rocks (gemstones, to the young and to the old with good memories), carved alabaster dragons, and chainmail necklaces. But what he’s really selling is magic.

I am not a Renaissance Faire devotee, but over the decades I have gone at least once every couple of years to whatever local Faire is within an hour of where I live. I used to attend in my street clothes but as time wore on I realized that part of the enchantment of the entire nerdy event was to be a part of it. While I never acquired full garb, I now attend in random pieces of fantasy-ware that I’ve picked up over multiple visits. This spring was the first time I attended simply to hang out with a local instead of as a Faire tourist.

I’ve never sat at a Renaissance Faire shop all day. In case you for some reason thought it might be similar to sitting at the Hallmark store selling greeting cards, spoiler, it’s not. First, there were no prices on anything except the little satchels sold for collecting buried treasure. Every object had a story that could be invented on the spot when its origin was questioned. Every item was negotiable, often by allowing the customer to choose their own price. This technique was the most fascinating, as left alone, potential buyers would discuss a fair price interminably amongst themselves, absolutely twisting themselves in knots about what to offer. Banshee told me that on occasion they would become so distraught they would just leave without buying anything. When I remarked that this seemed bad for business he only smirked, suggesting the amusement was occasionally worth it.

His biggest seller was of course his sand pit of buried treasure. He kept his gemstones in a trunk, grabbed handfuls of them, and climbed up on a bench where he would place them on the top rail of a tall wooden fence between his shop and the sand pit. I climbed up on this bench with him and from this vantage point we could look down on all the kids digging in the sand. He would observe them for a bit, and when their backs were turned, he’d throw the stones down into the pit.

“I like how you make an effort to throw the stones when they’re not looking,” I commented.

“Of course, it’s more magical that way,” he said.

As he said this I saw one of the parents sitting in the distance laughing to himself after seeing us throw the stones.

“Do you think we stop believing in magic when we grow up?” I asked.

“Yes, but that doesn't mean there isn't magic anymore,” he said.

“No,” I said, “we just call it ‘coincidences’ now.”

Banshee nodded and hopped off the bench. He walked out to the front of the store and shouted, “Dig for treasure, poorly buried!” in his best Faire accent.

I sat down on the bench and picked up a notebook and pen he had left there. He had told me earlier he’d started a kind of guestbook, where if he liked someone or knew them he’d pull it out and let them write whatever they wanted in it. He said he hadn’t even read it yet. I didn't know whether that part was true or not, but I flipped through it. In it were full paragraphs from parents and some children, now grown, who had visited his mine over many years and never lost a taste for magic. There were stories of life lessons learned from Banshee, summer vacations in between, and how everyone looked forward to returning. I would have loved to have seen his shop as a child rather than a judgmental adult. But even now, as a skeptical grown up, I could see where we all diverged from that path for no other reason than we stopped believing because it was easier.

I returned to Banshee’s shop one last time that season, on the final day of the Faire. As usual, I had many grown up obligations that didn’t include digging for rocks, and by the time I looked at a calendar there was only one day left before they all packed up. I threw on my garb and near closing time I hiked to the back of the venue where Banshee was set up. I watched the shoppers come and go for a while, and then as they started to usher people out of the park, Banshee told me they’d be having a party just for the Faire staff. No one checked my credentials of course, so I sat there until dark and watched as they built a rave in front of the castle and all the performers came out. The fire dancers, the jugglers, the fighters and swordsmen. Everyone had their light up gear, and their flames, and their tricks.

“They’re all so good,” I commented to Banshee as we sat and watched from the edge of his shop.

“They're performers, they practice all the time,” he said.

They practiced making magic. And even though we used to practice all the time as children, somewhere along the line, we stopped. The thing about practice though, is you can always pick up where you left off.

A few weeks later I drove out to the lake, and wrote in Modern Magic:

“Does this not prove that magic exists?” he asked.

“Why, because I wrote about it in a notebook?”

“No dummy, because if you hadn’t come back for it we never would have started talking,” he said.

“That’s called a coincidence,” I said, “not magic.”

“That’s the moniker all non-believers use for magic."