Chapter 5
The Shadow Civil War
"Ha ha ha! Sorry about scaring you like that," said the freckled young man who was, just a few minutes ago, literally nothing but bones. It turned out that skeleton was an intern from a magic school, working in the office as an assistant. "Here's a donut, my treat."
Seated on the black couch, Peggy graciously accepted the chocolate-covered treat from the young man. She took a bite while glancing at the intern, wondering if it was normal for magicians to shape-shift into whatever weird thing they want.
"By the way, what brings you here?" the intern asked.
"The Head Magus told me to stop by to do some paperwork," Peggy replied.
"Oh! So you're the immigrant that the boss lady mentioned," said the intern. "Sorry, but you're probably going to have to wait a while. She's in the middle of an interview right now."
"An interview? For what?" asked Peggy.
The intern answered, "It's about the Shadow Civil War. A historian is writing a book about it."
Peggy blinked. "The what war?"
The intern looked at Peggy in surprise, but then slapped his forehead at realizing something.
"Oh, right," he said. "You're from out of country so it's no surprise you don't know about it. The Shadow Civil War is, like the name says, a civil war the kingdom had a long time ago."
"Okay, I understand that much," said Peggy. "But why call it the Shadow Civil War? Why not just Civil War?"
"That's because the war was mostly in the shadows of society," said the intern. "You know, like with spies and criminals. With me so far?"
"I think I get it," said Peggy. "But at the same time, I'm as confused as heck."
"Well - !" The intern was going to speak, but a lady's voice suddenly cut him off.
"Basically, the Shadow Civil War was a fight between the kingdom's ruling lords and ladies that took place in the criminal underworld, using spies and criminals in place of soldiers. Because of that, most normal folks didn't even know there was a civil war going on until it was nearly over. Well, in the end, the Shadow Civil War was really just a string of crimes that happened to connect to one another, caused by the very people ruling this country."
When Peggy looked up, she saw a lady standing at the doorway to the back room with her arms crossed. The lady wore white robes and a big, white pointed hat.
Peggy had never seen the lady before, but the intern flew out of his chair in a panic and cried out, "H-Head Magus! D-done with your interview already?"
"Huh? Head Magus?" Peggy looked at the lady, confused. "Wait, YOU'RE that creepy doll that visits the coffee shop all the time!?"
The lady grinned and nodded.
"That's right," she said. "Now that I think about it, you never did see me in human form before, huh?"
She flashed another wry smile before turning her gaze to the intern who was visibly nervous beneath his boss's cold gaze.
"By the way, Intern," the Head Magus said, "it's good to welcome visitors and make them feel at home, but make sure you don't accidentally skip out on work, okay?"
"Y-yes, Ma'am!" The intern snapped a quick salute before rushing back to his desk to complete his work.
"Anyway," said the Head Magus, "sorry for the wait, Peggy. Right this way to my office."
The Head Magus led Peggy into a smaller room with bookshelves covering most of the walls. Whatever space on the wall was not covered by books was used for framed pictures, newspaper clippings, and fancy certificates. Stacks of paper took over the large desk beneath the square window, and about a quarter of the room's floor too.
Oh man, that's a lot of work, Peggy thought, staring at all those paper stacks at the back corner of the room.
As soon as Peggy was seated on a free chair, the two ladies went straight to work filling out a worksheet. The questions were all easy to answer for Peggy since they were just asking about herself, like name and age. But there were a lot of pages to the form, which made it take a really long time. The Head Magus had her own work to deal with, but still broke away from it to answer any questions that Peggy had. Other than that, though, the two ladies worked in silence, with the only things making noise were their pens scratching paper and the clock ticking away the seconds. Complete and utterly boring silence with nothing to distract the ladies.
Well, except for when the Head Magus suddenly sprouted six extra arms and two extra heads so she could work on several papers at the same time. That sort of distracted Peggy a little.
After a while, the Head Magus decided to break silence and spoke up.
"About the Shadow Civil War," she said, "you're probably wondering why I was being interviewed about that."
"A little," Peggy admitted.
"There's really not much for me to say," the Head Magus's first head said. Her second head continued, "The interview was really about my father and his part in the war. I was a kid at the time."
"Your father was part of the war? Was he a spy or something?" asked Peggy.
"Ha! Nothing like that," scoffed the Head Magus's third head. "He was a knight. Solving crimes is part of a knight's job, and some of the crimes he solved were part of the Shadow Civil War. That was about it."
"But it must have been pretty scary to get mixed up in business like that," Peggy said.
"It was," the Head Magus admitted. "All those times hearing something bad happened, waiting for Father to come home late at night more and more, feeling a nervous air around the grownups . . . It was a really unpleasant time for me. But my family wasn't the only one having a hard time."
"It wasn't?" Peggy said. She was starting to get used to the three heads interchanging in the conversation.
The Head Magus nodded. "That's right. Even though the civil war stuck mostly to the underside of the kingdom, it still had an effect on everyone else. Regular folks have gotten hurt by the war. And that caused a wave of fear from one side of the land to the next.
"Wow," went Peggy. "I've only lived in this town for a few weeks, but it's hard to imagine something like that happened here."
"All places have their dark times, Peggy," said the Head Magus. "Even right now, there are places dealing with dark times. You're just lucky to be in a time and place where such dark times had already ended."
Thinking back to her old home's dark times, Peggy said, "I guess so."
"Anyway," said the Head Magus. "How is the paperwork going? Done yet?"
"Huh? Uh, yeah. Here."
Having finished writing out what she needed to write out, Peggy handed the papers over to the Head Magus. After she finished looking them over, the Head Magus tapped them against the table to straighten them out and said, "Everything looks to be in order. We're all done here, unless . . ."
"Unless what?" asked Peggy.
The Head Magus put the papers down, propped her elbows on the table and rested her chin atop the back of her fingers as she leaned forward with a question.
"Say, have you ever thought about learning magic?"
"That's a bit sudden," Peggy said. "What brought this on?"
"Well, I heard you're from Earth where magic is pretty much extinct," the Head Magus said. "Most people on Earth don't have any magic power at all. I'm sure you must have wondered what it's like to use magic."
"A little," Peggy admitted.
"In that case, I can have you fill out a form now and print you a license right away," said the Head Magus. "It'll only take a few minutes."
"I suppose it wouldn't hurt," Peggy said. "But then, where am I going to actually learn magic? Won't I need to go to school, or get a tutor? That'll cost money, 'specially since I'm an adult."
"That's no problem," said the Head Magus. "I can teach you myself. As the town's Head Magus, I also got a license to take apprentices."
Peggy blinked in surprise. "Really?" she said. "But aren't you busy with -?"
She froze, suddenly realizing something.
"Head Magus," she said.
"Yes, Peggy?"
"You're not trying to make me your apprentice so I'd help you with all your extra work, are you?"
"W-w-what? N-no! Whatever gave you that idea?" asked the Head Magus.
"For starters, none of your heads are looking me in the eye anymore, you're really sweaty now even though this room's got air conditioning, and all three of your faces are all twitchy. You're not good at lying, are you?"
"ANYWAY," the Head Magus spoke up at the top of her lungs, "having a magic license comes with lots of perks. You get to learn magic, which can make life super, duper easy. And with a license, there are also a whole bunch of jobs you can choose from, like, I don't know, a stable, good-paying job here helping me with all this excess work."
Peggy sat back to think for a moment. Putting aside the Head Magus's obvious ploy to use her to reduce the office's workload, having magical powers would be like a dream come true. Who hasn't wondered what it would be like to have magical or superpowers? And with more chances to find a better job, a very grownup reason, her choice was clear.
**********
"So you decided to get a license, after all," said Boss, as he wiped a white mug with a red table cloth until it shined.
By the time Peggy had come back, the sun started to set and the coffee shop had already closed. She sat on a stool with a plastic card laid out in front of her. The card had her picture and one bronze star next to it. Beneath her picture were all the details you'd expect an I.D. card to have.
"Yeah," Peggy said.
"Well, I guess congratulations," Boss said. "But what's the plan now? Gonna get a tutor?"
"I thought about it," said Peggy, "but . . ."
Peggy trailed off without answering her boss's question. But that didn't stop the vampire coffee shop owner from making an educated guess.
"Let me guess," said the Boss. "You're too embarrassed to sign up for one because you'll be sharing classes with little kids."
Without looking her employer in the eye, Peggy nodded.
The Boss sighed. Suddenly, he pulled out a black, leatherbound book and handed it to Peggy.
"Here," the vampire said.
Peggy took the book and flipped through the pages. She could tell by the yellowing of the paper that the book must be very old.
"What is this?" she asked. "It looks like a notebook."
"That's because it is a notebook, obviously," said the Boss. "It's my old magic journal that I used when I was a kid. They're all beginner spells with easy-to-follow instructions. And most of the spells are harmless, so you can practice them on your own. Except for the fire spells. Those need to be practiced with a full-fledged magician keeping watch."
"You're just giving this to me?" Peggy said.
The Boss shrugged.
"I don't have a use for it," he said. "George is already way past whatever spells are in that book. I can take it back if you don't want it. But then you'll have to go to school with classmates one-quarter your age."
"I'll keep the book, thanks," Peggy said.
"You're welcome," said the Boss. "By the way, you were with the Head Magus for a while. Did you guys talk about anything interesting?"
"Nothing much, really," Peggy said as she stuffed both the notebook and her license card into her bag. "We just talked a little bit about the Shadow Civil War."
The Boss suddenly froze and stopped wiping the cup. His back was to Peggy, so Peggy did not see how the vampire's face went dark.
"Do you know about it, Boss?" Peggy asked innocently.
Without turning around to face Peggy, Boss resumed cleaning his cup and replied, "Of course. It was a major event of the Kingdom of Ariela. Anyone born and raised in this kingdom would know about it. My parents may have been from another country far, far away from here, but I'm an Arielan through and through. Though I still do follow some Zhaoese traditions."
"Did you know that the Head Magus's dad was mixed up in it?" asked Peggy.
"I did," the Boss. "She came from a family of knights, so it's no surprise she would have relatives connected to the war."
He finally turned his head and glanced at the clock mounted high on the back wall so it could look down on everyone in the room with its old kingly face.
"Peggy, are you okay to stick around here so late?" the Boss asked. "Weren't you planning to make dinner tonight for Mrs. Arkans?"
Peggy looked up at the clock and swore.
"That's right!" she cried out. "Thanks for the reminder, Boss. See you tomorrow!"
After bidding farewell to the vampire, Peggy grabbed her bag and ran out of the store. The Boss watched her through the window until she disappeared to the side. When she was gone, the Boss put down the table cloth and cup, and then climbed up the stairs to his office.
He sat down on a big, cushy leather armchair behind a big mahogany desk, and then raised his hand over his head. A book from the adjacent bookshelf flew out on its own into the vampire's grasp.
The Boss laid the book open on his lap and slowly flipped through the pages. In the book were photos from the Boss's past, when he was still a kid. He was suddenly in the mood to think about long ago.
The pictures in the book started with him as a boy with a bunch of friends. The Head Magus was there as well, but there was also a werewolf boy, a werelion girl, another human girl, and a human boy. A few pages later, he and those friends became teenagers, but there were fewer of them now and their smiles had become less bright.
By himself, full of melancholy, the present day Boss muttered, "The Shadow Civil War, huh? Sure brings back memories. Not very fond ones."
The sun set behind him, causing a shadow to shroud his whole face in darkness.
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