Chapter 6: Fish out of Water

Rachel Aliana
19 min readNov 11, 2024

--

Created by ChatGPT.

Daniel felt so drained from his experience at the farmers market that Amadeus had him rest from magic for the next week. The sole assignment Amadeus gave him was to think of water in all its forms.

He did not really know what Amadeus meant by that. He tried to look at the water that dripped out of the sink, but after a minute got bored. He looked at water in a puddle by his house, but all he noticed was old leaves at its bottom. Then there was the water in a water bottle that he stared at while on a break. He dozed off to sleep as he watched the dribble of water droplets fall down the side of the container.

Daniel had a feeling that there was likely something more that he was supposed to get from this exercise, but he had no idea what it was.

In the meantime they worked on the garden. The trash had been cleared away, save for some of the larger items like a couch, a broken piano, a rusted car. It seemed like they would become a part of the garden because even between Daniel, Avron, and Amadeus, they could not move them and Amadeus offered no magic to help.

This week they created a pathway around the lot. Amadeus had Daniel take the lead in staking out the pathway.

When Daniel closed his eyes he could see the plan for the garden in his mind, clear as a television display in front of him. He took the day and went around and staked out the path. The days after that Amadeus and he cleared the grass along it. Sometimes Avron would appear and help out for a few hours. Then together they would meditate. Avron would also sometimes do yoga. He kept trying to get Daniel to join him, but Daniel had never had the best balance and yoga always seemed to him to be more of a woman’s thing.

When Avron joined them he would drag Amadeus away in the late afternoons, only to appear later that evening washed and with a pot roast or a stew. One day he brought lamb and couscous, which Daniel had never had.

“This man,” Avron motioned towards Amadeus, “without me would be sitting alone with his pipe and his owl and his books like a proper wizard, but it is my firm belief you should never have good food alone.”

They would stay long into the night. They were always welcome, for with Avron’s talents they always knew exactly when to leave. Avron did most of the talking. He would regale them with stories of his travels. He had been all over Europe, Asia, the Middle East, lands that seemed as fantastical as Narnia or the Shire for how likely Daniel would ever be to be able to go.

Daniel had been told by his mother that she and his dad had taken him to the Grand Canyon when he was five years old. He had a blurry photo of himself, bleached from sun, standing in front of Mount Rushmore. But he could not remember a time when he had been out of the state.

Daniel learned that Avron had been an archeologist that studied how plant life had evolved over time. It was something Daniel had never really thought of.

When the two men left Avron he always seemed to forget the leftovers. The first few times his mother gave them back to him but he would always laugh it off, “Please, keep it! Keep it! I don’t usually have such an enjoyable audience for my stories and too many new recipes to try. Really, you’re doing me a favor.”

Avron said it in such a way that made them feel as if they were doing him the favor.

Daniel could not tell Avron that every time he opened the fridge and found good leftovers. He felt like a kid at Christmas.

And Amadeus’s check for his work cleared. Amadeus had always had the appearance of a wizard, so Daniel did not know whether he had such a thing as a checking account. But it cleared and he and Becca had enough to bring them current on their rent. He even had enough to buy a pair of work boots, the kind with good treads and thick soles. It took him three days of just looking at them every morning to actually wear them.

He could not remember a time when he had been happier. He remembered how insane Amadeus’s proposition had sounded as he stood outside of the grocery store, but now every day he woke up excited to see a little more of that image in his head become real.

That day they had to start digging shallow trenches in the outline of the garden path where they would put down gravel.

His phone lit up and he saw Don had texted him, Fishing trip tomorrow?

Just us? he wrote back.

Of course.

Daniel was elated all that day and into the next, right up until he saw his father pull into the driveway with his truck. There in the back were the bobbing heads of Carrie and Maddie.

“Fishies! We’re gonna see some fishies!” the little girl he thought might be named Carrie called out. She wore a bright pink sun dress.

“But I don’t want fish Daddy, I want ice cream!” Maddie, clad in a matching sundress in lilac, talked louder over her sister.

Daniel winced at the shrillness of their voices. He wondered what excuse he could use to get out of fishing now.

Don hopped out of the truck and came up to him.

“Good! I see you’re all ready to go.” Don noticed his shoes, “You got there some working man boots. What trouble are you getting into nowadays?”

“Well, now I’m helping someone fix up the junkyard by our house into a garden.”

Don looked past Daniel to the plot of land. “Well I’ll be damned, you cleared it. God, it was piles higher than me of crap when I lived here. When you get tired of planting flowers now, come see me. Judith’s brother has a construction company, has me doing wallpapering and drywall, the like. Could use you.”

Don walked closer to the garden, “Hey! That car I got from Simons in a bet. I planned to fix that thing up for years. I see your boss evidently wants to make use of it. Think he’d buy it for a thousand? Two thousand?”

Daniel looked at the car, which was not just unable to drive but was covered in moss. There was no way it was worth two grand.

“Not a chance you’ll get that, if anything,” Daniel said.

Don looked like he did not want to hear that. He brushed past Daniel and into the house. “Got any beer in the fridge? I forgot to bring some.”

Daniel followed him in. He was glad it was Saturday again and Becca was at the Eddington farmers market with Avron.

Don opened the fridge and saw it devoid of beer. But there was the remnants of the lamb and couscous Avron brought over in a glass container, covered in tin foil. Don got a fork and helped himself.

“God this is good. Your mother’s gotten better at cooking. Think maybe I should take her back?” Don snorted and took the food out to the car.

Daniel did not know how to say that he really needed his father to leave the tray in the house or that Becca was almost certainly on a date right now. He followed him out.

Don ate as he walked and then passed it back to the girls, “I got you kids early lunch.”

“Yay!” Carrie and Maddie said in unison.

Daniel did not know what to say to get out of the fishing trip, which he had a sneaking suspicion was going to be him babysitting. So he said nothing.

As he got in the car he saw Scamper on his house’s roof. He looked at him as if to ask whether he should come too.

Probably not a good idea, Daniel thought. His dad was really good at hunting. He gave a nod to Scamper.

Don drove. Daniel looked to the back seat where the girls were making fast work of the food. There went what he was planning on eating for lunch. His stomach rumbled at the thought.

They pulled in to a gravel parking lot. Don got out the fishing rods from the back. Daniel helped the girls out of the truck since it was too high up for them.

They walked down a path to the dock. There were five other men and four women. The men were all his dad’s age, but the women were his age or younger.

Don greeted the other men. Daniel hung back with the girls. His dad had brought nothing to entertain them. They looked a little lost.

“Hey Daniel!” a balding man came up to him with a smile. He seemed to have shoulders a mile long, but a stomach that now pooched out past his t-shirt.

“Randy,” he offered his hand, “You looked like you were parched,” he handed him a beer. “You might not remember me. I worked with your dad when he was a firefighter, over a decade ago now. I wanted to introduce you to my niece,” he waved to one of the women and she came over. She looked to be around Daniel’s age, with dark hair dyed blonde at the tips and clothes that seemed a size too tight.

“This is Ashley, she works as a secretary for the Volunteer Fire Department Association. And she’s single,” he winked and nudged Daniel closer. “I’ll leave you two to talk.”

Ashley sheepishly bobbed her head.

“Hey,” she said.

“Daniel,” he stuck out his hand.

She shook it.

“I’m actually studying to be a phlebotomist.”

“Woah, I’ve never heard of that.”

“It’s a nurse that draws people’s blood,” she shrugged, “I’m secretly a vampire.”

Daniel chuckled. “Good, because I’m a gardener that’s secretly a wizard.”

Ashley laughed. “I guess we have to stick together then while the normies fish. I’ve never liked fishing. Love sushi. Hate fishing.”

“Yeah, sushi is great.” He said this as he had never tried the stuff. Sushi was expensive.

“Any good places you know?”

“Sorry,” out of the corner of his eye Daniel saw Carrie dangling Maddie’s sandal off of the dock and trying to get her to grab it. “Hey Randy,” he said, “Do you have like a ball or something in your car?”

“Yeah, I might, I’ll go grab it for you.”

“Carrie,” he called, “you are going to give Maddie back her sandal and then we’re going to play catch, off of the dock.”

He looked where his father pointedly ignored the commotion by facing the other way as he spoke with his friends. Daniel did not doubt this was intentional.

He shuffled the girls off the dock and thanked Randy for the football he had in his trunk. The girls seemed ok with playing catch, which was good because he had no other ideas on how to entertain them. As they played on the hill above the water Daniel looked down to see all of the people on the dock. From here their motions looked like a school of fish, buffeted by the ebb and flow of conversation. He saw his father, standing amidst two different women. He was far enough away that he could not make out whether they were interested or not.

Daniel looked to Carrie and Maddie. He had spent so long being jealous of them he had never thought about how his father could do to them what he had done to Daniel and his mother. But he could see it now, like a story repeated against the shore time and time again until rocks gave way to sand.

As he looked at the people now, he saw the patterns between them, the longing of one to the other, the person that felt out of place, the satiated buzz of beer and sun, the nuanced dance of attention.

Then he could look past them, where he saw unfolded the years of use the dock had. He saw fights and family gatherings, lovers quarrels and lone visits full of quiet contemplation. There were proposals and reconciliations and friendships born and broken. This day was a ripple to the dock, like a wave amongst thousands of waves, immaterial.

He looked past this, out to the water where the sun touched it. He had never noticed if he just relaxed his eyes, he could see the patterns of water flowing into each other and back out again, in ever repeating variations. Below the water he felt the patterns between the fish, the pull of a single fish to stay in its school, the frog thats draws its last breathe in a stork’s mouth, the first stirrings of a fish’s eggs to life, the harrowing chase of one fish to another in the eternal dance for food and life.

Daniel saw the football out of the corner of his eye. He moved his hand up to catch it, but instead he felt as if his hand moved through thick water. He saw a massive wave rise up out of the water and follow the motion of his hand.

From far away he could see his father lift his head up. Don looked squarely at Daniel.

The football landed squarely on Daniel’s right temple, fell, and rolled down the hill.

A second later a fish smashed into Don’s face, followed by a huge wave of water that swept over the whole dock.

A second later he saw his father was no longer on the dock. He came up from the water sputtering and splashing. Everyone on the dock was soaked.

Randy called out, “You ok Don?”

Don swam to the shore. As he emerged from the water he looked right at Daniel.

“You did this,” he said.

Daniel shook his head.

The people on the dock looked confused.

Randy called out, “I think you’re drunk bud. Kid couldn’t have done shit.”

Don’s feet sloshed on the pebbled beach, unsteady. Pounds of water. His body shook from cold but he did not seem to care. He stepped further towards Daniel.

Daniel shook his head, “Randy’s right dad, I was over here,” but as he spoke he backed up.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Amadeus’s owl Isadora winged through the trees and out of sight.

Daniel turned and ran. Up the path to the car park. He turned and looked back.

His father had taken a few more steps up the hill but had stopped. He looked furious.

Daniel saw past him the crowd, all completely soaked, walked off the dock. He could see their hand motions mimic the wave as it crested over the dock. He could hear from far away, “…maybe it was a big gust of wind?” “do you think it was an earthquake?”

Daniel turned and left the car park for the road. Isadora passed overhead. He followed out to the road. Isadora then made for the forest on the other side of the road. Daniel scrambled up the embankment and followed. The leaves from last year and the rain created thick mud that clung to his new shoes up to his ankle. He wanted to cry at the sight of it.

Daniel opened his phone to try to call Becca. He tried, but she did not pick up. He saw he had one bar of service. He tried Amadeus, with the same result.

“No service,” he said to Isadora.

He kept going.

They made it to a clearing where there was a log. He sat. Isadora perched on a branch in front of him.

He saw an image of himself walking straight past a tree to his left. He would come to a dirt road. He had the feeling of waiting.

He blinked at Isadora. “Was…was that you?”

Isadora blinked at him slowly and flew off.

Daniel rested on the log for a minute. He checked his phone — -now he truly had no service. It looked like he would be taking the directions of an owl.

He walked for maybe half an hour more when he got to the dirt road. There was Amadeus’s truck. It was loaded with bags of gravel. It looked like he was talking with Isadora, perched on his side mirror.

Amadeus caught sight of him and smiled. “A little birdy told me you could use a lift.”

Daniel felt a wave of relief wash over him. He headed towards Amadeus’s car. He tried to brush off as much dirt as he could on his shoes before he got in.

“Thank you. I don’t know what happened, I like…” he made the sweeping motion with his hand, “I tried to catch a football, but instead I made this huge wave come up out of the lake, it sort of crashed into my dad and everyone there.”

“Ah, so you have been focusing on water!”

“Yeah, I didn’t know it would do this!”

Amadeus started the truck as he chuckled, “For most Gardeners it starts out much smaller. For me it was walking in the rain, but the clouds moved out of the way wherever I stepped. But this is good, it means you’re powerful and I chose well.”

“I would have much rather had the not getting wet bit. But Amadeus, like, maybe eight, ten people were there. My dad definitely saw. And he wasn’t happy at all.”

“Hmm,” Amadeus thought for a moment, “certainly not ideal, but I find that when people are confronted by real, true magic, most want to explain it away or forget about it. Because it is scary. Scary to look past the surface. There is a certain feeling of….bigness is the best word I can think of to magic, and it makes all of the television you watch, social media you consume, and video games you play feel very small in comparison. If he does hang onto the thought that you are a sort of wizard, thankfully we have moved past torchings at the stake, but we will deal with it. For now, what say you to a cup of tea?”

“That sounds wonderful.”

Daniel dozed off until he could feel the car turn into a driveway. He lifted his head up to see a small cottage, tucked away behind a field of wildflowers. He noted goldenrods and yellow coneflowers, New England aster and wild bergamot. Two months ago he would not have been able to name any of the flowers he saw. Blue birds chatted from bird house perches, and a host of blue jays cawed their hellos.

There were two low couches on the porch, and wind chimes that played in the light breeze. As they passed up the steps Daniel caught sight of a garden towards the back. A groundhog sampled the tomatoes.

Inside the place was well lived in on the verge of a mess. Stacks of books were piled everywhere. Where there were not books there were plants at varying stages of cultivation.

To his left he saw two different bedrooms but Amadeus ushered him in to the kitchen and set on a kettle.

“I’m not quite the cook Avron is, but I can try to put together some ramen.”

Daniel only knew of the packaged ramen, which was not very good but he had eaten a lot of it over the years.

“Sure,” he said. He sat on a chair at the kitchen island. A grey cat appeared from nowhere and hopped onto his lap, curled up and promptly went to sleep.

“That’s Misty, her brother Moon is somewhere around here. He’s a bit shy. You’ll probably see him when the food is ready.”

Daniel did not have much experience with cats, so he just lightly brushed his hand over the cat’s fur. It was unbelievably soft and warm. The cat yawned in response.

Amadeus got out a pot and Daniel could see him put dried noodles in. In a second pot he started to pour in different seasonings and sauces.

“Can I help?” Daniel asked. He realized this might not be the type of ramen he was used to.

Amadeus set out green onions and mushrooms on a board. “Cut very small.”

Then Amadeus got out eggs from the fridge and some kind of meat. “Good we didn’t finish the pork belly last night so it just needs to be heated up.”

At the smell of the heated pork belly Moon appeared from one of the rooms and leapt on top of the fridge to overlook the proceedings. He was all white with intense green eyes that were trained entirely on the stovetop.

Daniel diligently cut the green onions.

“Honey?” Amadeus asked, pointing to the cup of tea in his hand.

Daniel nodded.

Amadeus passed him the cup of tea, “Lemon ginger, a favorite of mine after traipsing through the forest.”

Daniel sipped the tea slowly. The taste of it was complicated, with a slight burn but finished sweet.

“Thank you, it’s really good.”

As he chopped and Amadeus cooked Daniel noticed a book set open. There was a man that stood on top of a mountain. Around him there were arches of lightening that turned into the shapes of animals. On the other side of the page he saw a wolf and a great bird emerge from the storm clouds.

“This was my mentor’s Codex. Herald was a great man even in a grander time. He was a Gardener but also, back then, there were enough Gardeners that there were subclasses. He was a Stormer, attuned best to the spirits of wind and water. He would travel the world on ships, and wherever he would go, that ship would always be blessed with fast winds and calm waters. For the life of me I can’t remember his real last name, for he had taken on the moniker of Herald Fairwater.”

“Will I get a specialty?”

“You might. I am teaching you to be a Gardener, with the ability to attune to all three of the major spirits. The major specialties are water, earth, and animal spirit. But within water some were Stormers, who could control the wind and waves to control vast storms. Then there were the Pattern Seers, who tended to be quieter. They could not quite see the future, but using water they could see likely patterns between people, communities, even whole countries.”

“There were the Earthen, who were attuned to plants. Some were attuned to flowers, others mushrooms. Personally I love them all. I would probably fit best in the Earthen category. Unlike Herald, I never much cared for travel. I much prefer to set deep roots down in one place.”

Amadeus dropped two eggs into a pot of boiling water.

“Let's see, there is the Animagi, who connect deeply with animal spirits. Some of the more powerful could even transform into animals. Then there were the Makers, who could imbue magic into physical forms. When I saw you at the grocery store, I thought to myself, there is the beginnings of a Maker. Which makes sense, since your Mother is one.”

Daniel choked on his tea. “My mother?” His mother was so mundane that she seemed like the last person to ever use magic. She took her coffee the same way every morning for decades. She worked the same job for decades. She did not even like to watch movies without knowing whether they had a happy ending.

Amadeus chuckled, “Next time you see her embroidering her pillows, maybe you should really look.”

“Then there are others like Avron, who might not have fully fledged magic, but have a sort of knack. Magic-adjacent if you will. Then the Rodagathe, this creature seems to be something else entirely, using either a new form of magic that I have never heard about and no one I have met knows how to defend against it. Most of these books,” Amadeus swept his hand around to the room filled to the brim with books, “are an attempt to find out what the creature is, and how to stop it. I have a few leads,” Amadeus took out a book, opened it, and placed it in front of Daniel. The photo showed a dog that rested its paw on a gravestone. “There are many myths and lore about spirits of the dead and decomposition. Europe has the Church Grim, that overseas protection of churchyards as the dead decay.”

Amadeus opened another two books. On top was a photo of an old crone sitting at the head of a sleeping old man. “West Africa has the Baron Samedi, Celtic Folkore the Anjou, Japan the Shinigami. I have spent years studying these traditions to try to find out how to call this spirit, how to harness its energy, or how to stop this creature. Avron thinks it might be a spirit that is angry about the destruction of nature. I think it was once a man.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because it seems…targeted towards Gardeners, Makers specifically. The stronger the power, it seems the more it draws this person in. Over time you will find that you can…sort of feel other Gardeners around you. Like a breeze that helps you find where you left a window open. It was how I found you, and I fear it is how the Rodagathe will find the both of us.”

Amadeus was silent. A timer went off. “Eggs are finished! There is great darkness in the world, but I find the world feels a great deal brighter with a full stomach.”

Amadeus placed a bowl of soup in front of him. There were noodles, much thicker than the store bought ramen noodles. Floating on top was the mushrooms and onions that he cut up. There was the egg, spilled across the whole soup, and the smell of the thick cut pork belly permeated everything. Daniel had never smelled anything so heavenly. He picked up the spoon and dug in. It tasted even better than it looked. The soup burned the top of his mouth but the salt and chew of it was so good that he kept eating.

He realized tears streamed down his face as he ate.

Amadeus saw. “Agh, did I make it too spicy?”

“No, no,” Daniel said, “it is literally perfect.”

“Alright, good.” Amadeus sat down to eat his own bowl. Moon and Misty got a bite of pork belly, along with Isadora who patiently waited outside of the window. Daniel was struck by the sudden thought that he wished Scamper was here. He probably would not like the cats, but he loved mushrooms.

When Daniel finished he washed the dishes and then laid down on the couch to wait for Amadeus.

Two hours later he woke up, with two cats sleeping on him.

“Ah! You’re awake. Good. Let’s get you home.”

Daniel nodded. His limbs felt heavy and his head felt groggy. He felt sad to leave the cottage, as if he wandered out of a pleasant dream and back to the real world.

When Amadeus dropped him off at his house, he grabbed his arm before he got out of the car.

“I need to leave for the next few days. There is a woman that might have a lead that lives out in Queens so I need to drive there. But since your power has woken up, you will likely be called by the water spirit soon. Think of the next few days as a sort of magical puberty where your power is coming into itself.”

Daniel hated going through puberty the first time and did not like the sound of magical puberty. And Amadeus only told him about this now, after he seemed to already have signed up to be a Gardener.

“The spirit will challenge you. I remember when I was called to the spirit of water, I ended up in a bog miles from school.”

“Like…a duel?” He could not imagine trying to fight the wave that he had conjured up. It would be a very short battle.

Amadeus laughed. “Think less physical challenge, and more emotional. It will feel emotionally uncomfortable to give yourself over to something. Just…let yourself relax into it.”

Amadeus relaxed his grip on Daniel’s arm.

Daniel got out of the car. He waved goodbye, “Safe travels.”

He watched as Amadeus’s truck disappeared down the road. He did not love the idea that there was some mysterious challenge headed his way. He was not great at swimming, so he really hoped the spirit would not ask him to swim.

He just hoped he could get it over with soon.

--

--

Rachel Aliana
Rachel Aliana

Written by Rachel Aliana

Interaction Writer and CEO of Adjacent

No responses yet