Freshmen Pete's Magical Delivery

“I don’t normally advocate this,” Pete read out loud. “But close the door anyway. Remove your shoes and socks — what the?” Pete put the letter from the package down, closed the door, and sat on his bed. As he removed his Chucks and socks, he laughed, realizing he still had on the Christmas socks from Shea — the ones with her beautiful, smiling face printed all over them.

James pounded on the wall four times. Pete turned down his Don Caballero music. He didn’t think it was that loud in the first place, but he didn’t want to make James angry. What was he studying for, anyway?

Pete picked the letter back up. “Also, take off your shirt… okay, dude, what’s going on here?” he asked aloud in the empty dorm room. He closed the blinds, then threw off his hoodie and t-shirt in one swoop.

“You might be wondering why you’re taking your clothes off, but the last time I did this, I caught on fire,” the letter read. “If your clothes catch on fire, you could burn your building down, but if it’s just you, you’ll be fine. Keep your pants on — literally speaking, not figuratively.”

Pete laughed. “Whatever, man. Everyone’s a comedian now.”

He turned up the dial on the space heater that stared at him by his feet. December here in Blacksburg was always colder than he liked, and the recent ice storm had everyone trapped inside with nothing to do. It was an especially cold Friday, Virginia Tech’s classes were canceled, and only one dining hall was open. Pete was one of the fortunate freshmen whose roommate, Zack, had decided to skip out on their second semester, leaving the room all to him. It made him all the more bored, though, sitting there in West Ambler-Johnston, playing computer games by himself.

But a package that came in for Pete that afternoon had his spirits lifted, and he was even entertained. No return address. No signature. No recognizable handwriting. To top it off, the box was full of junk.

He continued reading. “Now, you’ll notice that there are several things inside the box. There’s a rock — a very pretty one, I might add.”

Pete looked away from the letter and laughed out loud. “So I’m undressing, and now you like pretty rocks. Who are you, dude?”

He scanned the rest of the letter and followed its instructions, piecing together the contents of the package into what looked like some sort of prehistoric Lego build.

The rock had two indentations on it, one which fit perfectly onto a cylindrical shape he could only guess was bone or ivory. The other slid down upon a metal artifact that was shaped like the oar of a miniature ship. A few smaller pieces of wood, glass, and some kind of organic-looking substance fit snugly around either the ivory or the metal. The final touch, the letter explained, was to wrap a length of twine around the whole setup, fastening a twig to its side.

“All this, and I’ve got no shirt or socks on. Good thing the blind’s closed and I got to keep my pants on,” Pete laughed. He looked at the paper again after he realized the box was empty. “Must be done,” he said.

“Now stand as if you’ve got a sword in your hand, pointed at the throat of a tyrant.” He laughed loudly.

As he laughed, James from next door banged on the wall of the dorm again. Pete remembered all of a sudden James had an important math test next week. “Sorry, James!” he yelled.

“Right, then, where were we?” Pete stood there, starting to shiver a little. He cranked the space heater up another notch, rubbed his bare arms, plopped his feet firmly against the linoleum — was this how he was supposed to do it? — and stuck the stick-creation forward as if he were holding an enemy at bay. “Take that, you scoundrel!” he whispered emphatically.

Blue smoke poured from the tip of the ivory, and James yelped quietly as if not knowing what to do. He snatched up the paper. “As you’re pointing, be careful not to say anything…” the letter read.

“No!” Pete cried out.

He continued reading. “Be careful not to say anything yet or this might not work and you could possibly even summon a warrior from another dimension.”

“A warrior from another dimension?” he shrieked.

He scampered around his room as the smoke continued to fill it, tried to calm himself, threw his hoodie back over his head — but wait! It didn’t fit!

He pulled on the socks covered with Shea’s smiling face, thinking about how desperately he missed his girlfriend. If she were here, she would definitely know what to do.

The smoke continued to billow out of the wand and around the room, choking him. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror of his dorm closet. “Wow, I’m jacked!” he exclaimed. “And I have a beard?” Just then, Zack’s closet started to thump and rattle, and it startled him.

As the smoke died down, he realized that no scoundrel had been summoned, but he himself had been transformed. His face still looked the same, only much older. He was a fit man, now, a brawny soldier-type, maybe twice his usual age and weight, with the far-off look in his eye a fellow gets who’s seen war. He picked up the letter again.

“If you did speak,” it read, “you are now likely in heaps of trouble of one kind or another. You should have read the entire letter before you pieced together the Wand of Quim. I’ll have to amend the rest of the letter to help you now. Your mother always did say you were a bit of a rush-to-it sort of guy.”

“What… a wand?” said Pete to himself, as the letter seemed to be reacting in real-time. In fact, the remainder of the letter disappeared, being replaced only one sentence at a time as Pete read it.

“I said I know you goofed, Pete,” the letter read. “And now I’ve got to clean it up and get you out of there. And don’t open your roommate’s closet. I think it might be full of kandrites. You don’t want to get bitten by them on top of it all.”

“Kandrites. Got it,” said Pete with his new, manly voice. “What should I wear? I can’t leave like this!”

“Pull open the second drawer from the top, grab the pink Snuggie. Get it out and wave Quim’s Wand at it.” Pete watched in amazement as the words started to scribble across the paper while he read them.

“All right,” said Pete, doing as the letter said. “I didn’t know Zack had a snuggie, let alone a pink one…” He took the Snuggie, laid it on the ground, and waved the wand at it. A black leather jacket, hoodie, jeans, black boots, a beanie, and a dagger all appeared on the floor in a flashbang of blue smoke. The Snuggie was gone. Pete looked back at the paper.

“Can’t have something for nothing. That pink thing needed to die, anyway. Hopefully, Zack won’t miss it. Your mother said he was a bit lazy. Heard he quit school.” The letter was beginning to sound more and more familiar as he read it.

Pete dressed, but only after struggling to pull the joggers off of his now incredibly large legs. He took it all in in the tiny mirror there before him. “I look good. I look big, and strong like my uncle Bryan. I bet I could even beat him in a wrestling match right about now!”

Words scribbled quickly across the paper. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Pete. Remember, that’s what you’re used to doing. Now, take Quim’s Wand, and I want you to stab the paper with it.”

Pete hesitated. Stab the letter? The only thing between him and normalcy? The only thing coaching him through this strange afternoon?

“Do it, Pete. It’s okay. I’m a friend,” the letter read.

Pete stabbed the letter with the wand. As he did, the wand and the letter both started to seethe with blue smoke again. This time, though, the letter froze in the air, as if held there by fishing line. And he couldn’t remove the wand, but instead, felt something tugging at it. He instinctively pulled. In that same instant, a hand plunged through the hole in the letter. Soon, the letter itself started to peel away, as if it were on the tip of an incredibly gigantic, invisible banana. Within a few seconds there stood before Pete a large man topped with a puff of rusty hair and a beard to match.

Mouth agape, Pete nearly drooled from his disbelief. A man, who looked just like his uncle Bryan, simply stood there, brushing himself off. Pete had to sit down. The events of the day were already too much for him, but as the man fanned the blue smoke away from his suit, it doubled over on itself and changed, so that he was now dressed in clothing much like the kind Pete himself was wearing.

The thumping continued in Zack’s closet, but the man ran his hand gently down the opening, whispering, “Hush, now, little kandrites, Xcieshmka.” The scratching and rustling within the closet stopped, and more blue smoke poured out from beneath the closet doors.

“Kandrites, check!” he said. Then, turning to Pete, “It’s been ages, man.” It was the same voice that Pete had imagined while reading the letter — Bryan’s voice. “Aren’t you going to give your uncle Bryan a hug?”

“Bryan? But… how?” Pete said, walking over to him and embracing him.

“Pete, are you really going to ask me how, after you’ve already seen yourself turn into Jason Momoa in an instant? I mean, look at you! Or watched your roly-poly roommate’s snuggie transform into those classic threads?”

“What are threads? What is going on?” Pete asked, stuck between excitement and confusion.

Bryan rolled his eyes and smiled broadly at Pete. “It’s all very simple, on the one hand. On the other hand... I’ll have to show you.”

Taking the assembly of junk from Pete, Bryan grabbed a handkerchief from his back pocket. He wiped it down, looking just like Shea when she cleaned her glasses — even sticking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth. When he finished, he produced a crystal rod from where the stuff from the package had been. “This… this is the Wand of Quim!”

Gently, Bryan took the cylinder between the thumb and forefingers of each of his hands, pulling his elbows in and down, as if trying to bend it. The rod did begin to bend, and finally, with a strange, chime-like sound, it snapped into two pieces, each the exact shape and size of the original whole. “One for me, one for you, eh?” Bryan asked sarcastically, dancing his eyebrows about and shaking the wand near his mouth as if it were a cigar.

“I don’t really smoke,” said Pete, his mouth still hanging open.

“Come on, kid,” Bryan said, holding his hands out in exasperation.

“Oh, was it a movie reference?”

“No, just…” Bryan sighed. “It’s just a thing people do… you make me feel old.”

“You kind of are old, Bryan,” Pete said, in his kindest voice.

“Thanks, kid. You know how to cheer up a 34-year-old. Put it on your resume.”

“My resu-what?”

“Never mind. We’ve got to go!” Bryan handed Pete one of the two crystal wands, then drew a circle with his own wand on the floor, each of the walls, and finally, the ceiling. Each one was roughly four feet in diameter, and presently, they all started vibrating and filling with strange symbols.

Pete felt like asking any more questions was pointless now. Besides the fact that Bryan was who he was — impatient, haughty, and not great at explaining things — he was also his uncle. The uncle who had taught him how to fend off bullies at school. The uncle who had helped him with his math homework every day after school for three years when they were an ocean apart and had to hop on Zoom to be together (it was midnight for Bryan every time they talked, and he always had to go to work at 5 a.m.). This was the same Uncle Bryan who had saved him from drowning at their family beach trip to Myrtle when he was five. He was also the uncle who, until this very minute, Pete had thought was a financial analyst in London.

“Well, Pete, I’m not a financial analyst,” Bryan chuckled.

“Haha, yes; was just thinking about that actually,” stammered Pete.

“I know you were... Listen. The thing is, well... I’m a wizard from another dimension, Pete. And you are too.”

“So you’re just going to shoot me straight, huh?” Pete laughed uncomfortably.

“Yes, but that’s not all of it. It’s more complicated than that.” Bryan stood facing Pete directly. Even though Pete was just as big as Bryan now, if not bigger, he still felt small in the man’s presence. Bryan’s hand fell on Pete’s shoulder stiffly. Bryan was Pete’s favorite uncle. His favorite family member.

“The fact is, Pete, well... Our whole family is from another dimension. I’m a wizard, yes, but the rest of them were at one time as well. Each one of them, for his or her own complicated reasons, gave up the life we led before so they could live a normal life here in this dimension, on Earth. Everyone, that is, except for me. And sort of you.”

“Mom? Dad?”

“Yes, your parents, your Aunt Cecilia, your great uncle…”

“Lewis?”

“Yes, but not his wife Yasmin — they married after we came here. His first wife Elsa was one of us, though.”

“I’ve seen her picture.”

“Sweet lady. I miss her sometimes.” Bryan looked away for a minute.

“This is a lot. Why did everyone else give it up?” Pete asked, his face full of questions.

“They didn’t want to have to put up with interdimensional travel anymore. It’s hard on the mind and the body. Not to mention what all the fighting can do to a person’s heart and soul. They opted for a less-complicated life. So, they all used their skills to get rid of the memories of the life we had before.”

“Why?”

“Well, we’re in the midst of a battle. A type of battle, anyway. They were afraid of getting wrapped up in it again, not because it’s scary, but because there’s such a great need. It will bleed you dry and snuff out your life if you try to right every wrong and fight for every cause.”

“So they just gave up?” Pete yelled. James hit the wall a few times. “Sorry, James!”

“It’s a little more complicated than that, Pete. Adults’ lives are… well, they’re complicated.”

“So you’ve said.” Pete tried to compose himself. The life that his parents had taught him was one of taking action, responsibility… that’s why he was known for rushing into things. He was a helper, a doer, a fixer. It infuriated him to think that his parents gave up if there was a so-called ‘great need.’

Bryan squeezed Pete’s shoulder. “Hey, kid. You and me, we’re going to walk through Pury’s Gate here in a minute. You’re going to see our homeworld, and then it might make a little more sense. And you’re going to get to decide for yourself whether or not you want to get involved — whether or not you’re ready to give up living a simple life and fight for a cause that’s bigger than yourself. Our first stop is meeting your parents around twenty-five years ago, Earth time.”

“I’m ready.” Pete felt suddenly full of strange, bright courage. He was going to meet parents when they were younger, still full of passion, and not yet out of the fight! He could ask them himself about why they left. How wonderful! But then, he looked around at the room and his belongings. “But what about…”

“Don’t worry about where or when we are. I can return us to this exact minute, in this exact place, and turn you back to normal. Though you might miss the muscles, you won’t miss any school, you can still have your friends... it’s as easy as cake. I promise. Stop worrying, Pete. You’re with Uncle Bry, the Big Guy!”

“Wow, haven’t heard that since I was three.”

“Okay, okay. Listen,” said Bryan. “I love you, kid. Don’t worry. I’ve got your back. Nothing bad’s gonna happen. Well, you might get banged up a bit, but it’s nothing that will last.”

“That’s why you made me big and indestructible looking?” Pete asked sarcastically, staring into Bryan’s eyes. His uncle had just said the three words he most wanted to hear from really anyone in his family, words which were very rarely said. “I love you too... Bry the Big Guy.”

Bryan cleared his throat awkwardly and patted Pete firmly on both shoulders. “You get to do the magicky stuff now. Go ahead and use your wand to tap each of the circles near their centers. Doesn’t matter what order… just hit the one on the floor last. That way we end up back home with our feet on the ground instead of a mile in the air.”

Pete went around the room, tapping the walls, then jumped up and tapped the ceiling. Bryan grabbed onto his free hand, then motioned for him to tap the floor. “Might want to get out that dagger I made you, by the way. It could get a little rough in there.”

Blue smoke filled the room, along with a terrible, pulsing, hammering noise. Sounds like fireworks and wailing sirens were all around. An overwhelmingly loud sloshing sound emanated from the ceiling and walls as if it were an ocean about to pour down upon them and drown them. At one point, Pete even thought he heard a few screams.

Then, just like that, no one was in the room, the smoke cleared, and there was no sign of either Pete or Bryan. The room was in perfect order, clean, with books stacked neatly on Pete’s desk. The only noise that could be heard cutting through the stillness was coming from James, who was furiously pounding against the wall, yelling about his math test.