Scene III (Finale)

When I was back in America, I made one final stop with the camera. No one on my team opposed my decision. Not that anyone was in a position to oppose me. The entire project depended on me, my endless funds, and my magical artifact. Besides, they were too distracted by the suitcases of film I had brought back. That would keep them busy as I attended to my private matters.

The car ride from the airport took five hours. My escort, a balding scientist, talked the entire time.

"I’ll have you know, I loathed going to your place back in the day. The drive took forever, and not being able to send texts or check my email almost drove me crazy. But wow, is the view ever something. Almost makes it all worth it."

I nodded and smiled, but said nothing. My default setting in situations like these.

After we steered down a lush forest path, the GPS stopped working. I had no idea where we were, but the driver knew the way by heart. He had seen the forest many more times than me, having visited twice a year with his father. Back then, he was a nervous graduate student while I was still a child. How could I have known that he would become such an important colleague and mentor in the years to come? We had both grown up so much since those days.

"Are you sure this was not too much trouble for you?"

He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. "You asked that already."

"Sorry."

"No worries. You must be tired."

"Yes. I must be."

When I had found myself alone in the non-magical world, it had been through the help of those who knew Father that I made it. Among them had been those who saw me as a ticket to my family’s wealth. And, I am ashamed to say, I fell for the ruses of many who sought to exploit my position as heiress. Though, even after I became more jaded in my views and more prudent in my interactions, I still could not avoid work relationships with opportunists. Such is life.

"Never be afraid to make use of me," my driver said out of the blue.

"But does your wife really have nothing to say about it?"

"She’s fine."

"Was she not angry about your overtime hours?"

A snort escaped him. "Nah, that wasn’t a problem. She was pissed about me spending time with a pretty young lady at work."

My interest was piqued. "A pretty young lady?"

"Who else but you?"

The blood rushed to my cheeks as I struggled to maintain an even tone. "That is quite a terrible misunderstanding." 

"Yeah, it was a whole ordeal." He smirked. "But after she talked with you at the last Christmas party, all suspicions were dispelled." 

I beg your pardon, I do not understand.

His laughter left me completely mystified. Non-magical adults — no, perhaps all adults — were incomprehensible beasts. But who was I to talk?

"All you need to know is that I’ll help out where I can. You’re like a little sister to me, you know."

"Am I?"

"Sure. A little sister who covers my rent and groceries."

I blushed again, this time with a different feeling — a better one. "Please remind me to give you paid leave when this is all over." 

He waved his hand. "Much appreciated. But when is science ever over?"

In a dog-eat-dog world, I was lucky enough to find trustworthy allies. As much as they were few and far between, each oasis was a precious reprieve. Through how many grains of sand did one have sift one by one before finding but a single safe haven in the desert? I became somber, and my companion was silent for the rest of the car ride.

We arrived at the gates sometime later. My steps were tentative when I opened the door and stepped out. My companion was still in the car, adjusting his seat to lie flat. He kicked back, put his arms behind his head, and closed his eyes.

"I’ll just take a nap. You run along, now."

"Thank you." His bonus was all but signed. After giving a nod that he could not see, I went ahead by myself. 

Hesitating for a moment, I pushed against rusted metal. The gate creaked open, its magical locks long disabled. The front door allowed my passage just as easily, leading me into the home I had abandoned thirteen years ago. This time, I expected the emptiness that greeted me. Last time, the first and only other time, this exact scene — with less dust and mold — had greeted the prodigal daughter who had returned after several long months alone in non-magical society. 

Even now, I do not know what became of my parents. Are they in hiding? Living under assumed identities, no longer wanting anything to do with the child who abandoned her role? But would they really make no effort to find the girl they birthed and raised, even if she was an unforgivable covenant breaker? After leaving a note bequeathing the family estate to me as some sort of parting gift, did they really vanish and seclude themselves somewhere outside the reach of the world’s best private eyes?

The likely, unspeakable answer was obvious. But only now, while writing this account, can I finally grieve. That second time I went back to the castle, I might have still had hope in my heart. With the camera, I took pictures all around the house, trying to find clues. The temporal gem — the single artifact I had recovered from Father’s collection — had shown me the path forward in the scientific world and had guided me in harnessing its forbidden magic. Then, as the engine powering this device that could peer into the past, the gem was my last shot at uncovering the truth — at getting closure.

This has to work, I thought. It just has to. But after spreading out the instant film on the dining table, I could only laugh to stave off the incoming sobs. In those half-developed pictures, there were not only no hints regarding my parents, but no traces of any magic whatsoever. No signs of alchemical experiments in Father’s study, of culinary sorcery in Mother’s kitchen, nor of beginners’ charms practice in my bedroom. It was as if the magic of the past had been overwritten or sealed away, hidden from my scientific eye set on concrete answers. In those still images, we were just a normal family: Father chatted with his friends, Mother served dinner to the guests, I ran around the garden under Greg’s watchful eye. 

The last photograph to fully develop — the one for which I was least prepared — was one of my parents alone together. Father was gazing out a window at the forest outside the gate. Mother had her arm around his, as if comforting someone in mourning. My heart ached. Somehow, it only then occurred to me that my parents truly loved each other. Father was confined to the castle, and Mother stayed there by his side. Together, they cradled a baby and raised her into a little girl. That girl loved Narnia and Harry Potter, got bored easily, asked too many questions, clung onto adults, and could not wait to grow up. And grow up she did, into a rebellious teenager who felt trapped by the walls and gates of tradition. That young woman departed without a goodbye, in search of new frontiers. Having found them, she stumbled back to the place she had left to die. 

My time in non-magical society had armed me with so much knowledge, but knowledge has a habit of disarming those who happen upon it. Rather than reveal the secrets of the universe, science simply gave me new ways to rationalize and accept my new fate.

What was there, beyond Newton’s laws of motion? Beyond classical mechanics, beyond the standard rules of reality, beyond good and evil?

Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle: the mathematical inequality limiting our best guesses of position and momentum — the calculated injustice of a world where we lose sight of either where we are, or where we must go. Caught up in what I wanted, I was blind to what was mine. Then, unable to forget what was lost, I could no longer find my way. How convinced I was that I could be absolutely sure about everything. I was nothing but a know-it-all who got what was coming to her.

Gödel’s incompleteness theorems: no formal axiomatic system can be both complete and consistent. And so, unruly and unworthy humanity — with or without God — is stuck being either powerless or irrational. Who was I, to yearn for a scientific future? Who was I, to choose which way to pull the lever? And who am I now, to despair over a magical past now lost? But what is the past, and what is the future? Even if they exist outside imagination, how can we hope to move either way? So many years to my life were devoted to unknowable truths, to unsolvable problems.

Clarke’s third law: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. But what if there were, in theory, sufficiently advanced magic that technology could never match? I was doomed — am still doomed — to never know. I had already made my choice. No matter what, I am stuck in the present, right at the cusp of possibility and impossibility. Thirty years it took me to see this simple truth. 

My pilgrimage ended there, when I accepted that the present was the only place in history I will ever be — am ever meant to be. I was ready to grow up. I was ready to move on. Once my crying stopped, I got up from the table and raised my hand. Closing my eyes tight, I channelled my mana for the last time. With a simple wave, I removed my anti-aging charms. Instantly, an immense weight lifted off my shoulders.

Stranded in the lonely present, a hundred years is more than plenty.