Mahogany

Mahogany for Rasmus' wand!

It is never going to make it into the book, but this scene would just not leave my brain, and begged to be written out.
If it was to go into the book, it should supplant some scenes in this chapter. Furthermore it is a chance to tell of one of my favourite places in Copenhagen.

Finnbogi rose and went over and placed his big hand on Rasmus' shoulder: "We need you here. We need you to heal Sandra, and your girls, or not to heal, but to help me find the reason they're ill!" He turned his head towards Susan: "Susan get started singing that wand! I'm impatient."

Susan took Rasmus' parcel and unwrapped it. She looked forlornly at the big slab of wood inside It was beautiful, soft and with a nice grain, but it did not inspire her at all. She placed her hands on the slab of wood, it felt nice, soft, but no music emerged from it at all, she tried humming, but to no avail. Disappointedly she said: "Dear Rasmus, I'm afraid this won't do. I can see you making bowls and things from it, but as for making a wand, it's as inspiring as a kitchen cabinet door. I think wand woods have to be alive."
She thought back to Unicorn Farm and to all the wands she had made so far. "Rasmus," she said, "grab that slab of wood and let's find Rósa, I need to talk to her as she might know something I don't. And I need you with me to sing a wand for you."
He grabbed the wood and followed Susan into the library where they found Rósa surrounded by books in smaller or bigger stacks.
"You'll have to come and copy some of the books from the museum," she said after half a glance at Susan. "Some of this is in a sorry state, I have more than enough work for my two weeks' holiday preserving and sorting this mess. Where have these books been stored?"
"At the bottom of an old well!" Susan said looking like an excuse for herself. "But right now I need your help as a wandsinger."
Rósa looked up and noticed Rasmus standing a little behind Susan with the slab of mahogany.
Rósa ran over and looked at it. "No, won't do. Wood for cabinet doors can't be made into wands."
Susan and Rasmus started laughing.
"Oh, please let me in on the joke. Life has not been too funny lately." Rósa said impatiently.
Susan stopped laughing: "No, life is not funny right now, but I said almost the same upon seeing Rasmus' precious mahogany. Cabinet wood indeed!" And she burst into laughter again.
Rósa smiled broadly and added: "Wands have to be sung from live wood, now get out of here, find a nice tree somewhere for Rasmus' wand and leave me to nurse these poor books back to health again."
"Can we leave the cabinet wood here," Rasmus asked, still a bit short of breath from laughing.
"Yes, I won't touch it," Rósa promised.

Susan and Rasmus went out into the garden.
"Now what. Mahogany is a tropical wood, you say. Where can we find this kind of woods?" Susan mused. "No nurseries will sell it, as it would not survive our winters."
Rasmus looked at all the different trees around him. "Do you even have more than one of each, this looks most like a botanical garden."
"Botanical garden!" Susan exclaimed. "That's it. That's where we're going!"
"But," Rasmus said, "We can't just walk up to a mahogany in a botanical garden and start lobbing branches off of it. We'd be arrested, or something ... This sounds crazy."
"No cutting or breaking or anything is needed, and the modern idiocy of tree hugging and such will help us along. Come .." She pulled Rasmus into the main house and up the stairs to the attic. "We found some of our old party clothing in the well together with books and cauldrons. Finnbogi did a bit of a cleaning, so they should be usable. Help yourself."
Susan found a yellow tunic with white and green trimmings and a pair of emerald green trousers made of some felt like material to go with the tunic. A pair of soft, white boots completed the outfit. Then she brushed her hair, wound it loosely up on her head and fastened it with a many toothed clasp made of mock turtle shell. As a finishing touch she grasped a handful of strings of coloured beads and put them around her neck. "How do I look now?" she asked.
Rasmus looked at her and grinned: "Like a left over hippie!"
He dressed in the same style, but more subdued.
"Can you drive my car?" Susan asked. "I hate going into the city."
"I can," Rasmus answered. "I drive lots as a part of my job."
Knud saw the two of them going down the stairs and almost fell of the ladder laughing: "What on earth are you trying to prove?" he asked.
"Rasmus need mahogany for his wand. We're going to get one from the Botanical garden. I'm a tree hugger and tree singer." Susan explained.
"Wonderful," Knud answered. "I hope you pull this off and won't get arrested or expelled or some such nonsense."
"I'm thinking of Kai right now, Heidi's father," Susan explained. "He always said that he was a stage magician because it was the perfect disguise. No-one expected the real stuff. This is a bit of the same."
During their ride Susan told Rasmus some more about Kai. "And that's what made me think of this ruse. When we enter the Botanical garden we walk around a bit, and once inside the greenhouse, we locate the mahogany - I just have to look up its botanical name - and then you place your hand on the trunk, I embrace, "hug", the tree and start singing. If we time it right it should drop a wand before anybody gets suspicious. Your only job really is to catch the wand when it drops. In case of emergency I have a spell."
Rasmus looked at her, "But spelling people is not ... you don't."
"No we don't, normally. But as I said only in an emergency. And this spell is not intruding or harmful, not even cast at the person in question. Its one of the 'green' things. It works best on animals and unsuspecting non magical people. It's roughly speaking the opposite of a calling spell, some kind of  'There's nothing here worthy of your attention'-thing." She thought for a second. "Did you ever read Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy?" Rasmus nodded. "Well, then its akin to the SEP field actually."
Rasmus smiled. "I like that."

Rasmus parked the car and together they walked to the Botanical garden.
"Oh, look," Susan said as she saw the small transportable ice cream parlour, "They have raspberry ice cream, my second most favourite after pear. I'd like one. What about you?"
"Yes why not," Rasmus said, "But I'd like lemon instead, that's my fave."
Susan bought them an ice cream each. It came in small paper cups with spatulas in different, bright colours, Susan got a green one and Rasmus a red, which they took as a good omen. While eating their ice creams they strolled through the Botanical garden, under the pergolas dripping with Wisterias and over the bridge where Susan stopped and pointed out the turtles for Rasmus.

The bridge and a pergola
Picture from Google Maps.

"Now we better get inside The Palm House," Susan said. "I wonder if the bananas are flowering. They are very impressive. By the way, the botanical name of mahogany is Swietenia mahagoni." There's two other species of Swietenia as well, and they are also used for wood, but S. mahagoni is the original one. It should have some funny fruits, called Sky fruits because they look like they grow upwards. I hope they do have some fruits today."
Susan paid the entry fee for both of them and put the tickets into her small backpack.
They entered the greenhouse and turned right, and there were the banana plants, unfortunately not flowering, but with hands of tiny, green bananas growing upwards from the closed, wilting flowers. "I love those small bananas," Susan said in a high pitched voice, "The way they grow, so virile, so impressing!" Some of the other visitors looked at Susan, noticed her flower-power looks and shook their heads.
The greenhouse was labyrinthine, the paths were laid out in concentric circles, and everywhere white, ornate  pillars carrying the upper storey  and at irregular intervals even more ornate spiral staircases leading up or down from the gallery stood next to the paths.

Inside the Palm House
Picture from Google Maps

.

Finally, in the part of the greenhouse hosting the dry tropics they found the three mahogany species. "Ohh!" Susan exclaimed in her high pitched voice, "Here we have the Sky fruit trees." Let¨s see if we can find any. She placed her hand on the Cuban Mahogany, and as Rasmus did the same, she could feel the tree, eager, humming, like a well tuned harp. She nodded in encouragement and said: "It seems so lonely, so far from home, poor tree, all alone of its species." With these words she embraced the rough trunk and quietly started singing to the tree. People passing them, luckily few and far between, looked at them and quickly looked away in embarrassment. Susan did not sing for very long before she felt the small loss of power, that meant a wand had been made.
"Catch it!" she said under her breath to Rasmus, still almost singing, and he did, and as he slipped the piece of wood inside his sleeve a man from the staff came up to them.
"What are you doing here, lady?" he asked.
Susan looked at him: "You have heard about tree huggers, I suppose," As the man nodded, Susan continued. "Well I am a tree singer. I go around in parks and public gardens and hug the trees and sing to them. This here tree looked forlorn, in need of a song."
The man looked at Susan with badly hidden disdain: "I must ask you to stop hugging and singing to the trees in the Botanical garden," he said sternly. "If you continue I'll have to ask you to leave the premisses."
Susan gave the tree a last loving pat. "Bye, bye, old tree, you'll have to do without my singing today." She turned to the gardener. "I'll refrain from more singing, and hugging. But I'm not doing anything wrong by simply touching the trees, am I? And how old is this one really?"
The gardener mellowed, "Touching and feeling the trees are not discouraged, on the contrary. getting to know how trees look and smell and feel are some of the purposes of this garden, but normally only children touch the trees. And if you want to know age and origin of any of the trees, those small metal signs at their bases will tell you all yo want to know."
"Oh, thanks, now I see it. Why did I not notice before? Thanks again," Susan said, bending down to read the sign.
The gardener walked away, turning and looking back on Susan and Rasmus several times, as if he wanted to check that they were not up to more singing.
"I think we should call it a day," Rasmus said. "We do not want any trouble."
Susan nodded, rose and followed Rasmus out through the white double doors. They backtracked their steps through he garden and found the car where they left it.
Once inside Susan drew a deep breath and slowly let it out. "Phew! I thought he had seen us stealing that wand. I was ready to try the distracting spell."
"Strange," Rasmus said, "it felt like he was attracted by your singing."
"Not so strange, maybe," Susan said slowly. " We are not the only wizards in the world. Martine confirmed that they planned on expanding. We were only to be the first wave. We were either living near by the old teachers, or they found us by some chance."
"This opens up whole new possibilities," Rasmus said.
"Yes, and that's why we need you. There must be many wizards out there. Classmates, parents, colleagues, old ones, waiting for a rescue from mundane life."
"Or they might be reluctant to leave the well known and comfy mundane life behind," Rasmus said.
"That too," Susan admitted, "And that feeling should be more common among those never having had a taste of magic. One more thing to talk over in front of the fire in the evening."

They hurried home to Birch Manor and as soon as they were out of the car, Susan pulled off the strings of beads and let down her hair. "Ahh, this is better," she said waving her arms and shaking her head. "I am not cut to be a tree hugger after all."  
"You sure was convincing," Rasmus said. "Are you sure you do not want to follow that career?"
Susan dealt Rasmus a mock blow and told him that being a teacher at Birch manor was career enough for her taste. "Apropos which. Let's get you ant that wand acquainted. Can I see it?"
Rasmus handed her the wand, and Susan looked at it. "Yes, pretty. Let's see if it works too."
She gave it back to him and said: "Now swish the wand through the air like this." Susan showed him the simple move, that made sparks fly. He swished the wand, nothing happened. He tried a couple of times more, but still nothing. Susan put her fingers over his on the wand to check on the placement of his fingers, and could feel the pent up energy in them."
"Relax," Susan said. "Think of how nice it would to become a full wizard. Nana won't be able to tease you any more. And praise the Lord you are not swinging that kitchen cabinet door of a wand you tried to make me sing for you!" Rasmus laughed and swished the wand. Bright red and golden sparks flew from the wand like stars from a sparkler and ended up in Susan's hair and down her dress. Hurriedly she pointed her own wand at herself: "Slökkvið!" she exclaimed, and the sparks died without hurting her. "Fine, job, Rasmus. Now it's back to school for you. You are going to study Icelandic, wand movements, history of magic, transformation, cryptozoology and all that together with my grandkids and your own children."
"My children," Rasmus said. "They are witches both of them, aren't they?"
"You felt their magic, and so did Finnbogi. I'm sure it will awaken, or we'll find out how to awaken it. Study they will."