12 July, 1895 — Merlion Estate, Dedham Vale

There was a small pond on the estate in the Vale, feeding a creek that bubbled and tumbled over a slope of polished stones until eventually it reached under the fence to pour into Mr. Halstead's culvert, running under the fields to come out in a thinner trickle somewhere on the other side. Technically, he rented the land from the boy's grandfather, paying his lease in grain and milk and cheese, but for as long as Silas had been alive it had been Mr. Halstead's farm. Since as long as he could remember, Silas had wished he could sail under the culvert with the stream, just to find out what it was like.

He lingered around the pond today instead, staying closer to the estate house while winding the clockwork of the small model boat. Across the meadow, through the copse of trees that bordered one side of the garden, was a rather heated, discussion being aired in the back garden of the house. Silas hadn't been allowed to stay, despite being the subject of the conversation prompted by the arrival of a visitor. Along with his grandfather, something about heritage, and God's will, from the wisps of conversation he had been able to catch walking away.

Silas was curious by nature, and he liked being curious very much. He found out so many new things by being curious, most of them from his brother and only sometimes from his parents, or his tutors, or books. The Good Book had a lot to say about all sorts of things, but it couldn't teach him to climb a tree without skinning his knees on the way down, or find out where the creek went after it disappeared into Mr. Halstead's culvert. And since his tutors were enjoying the day off, instead of spending the day with him at his home in Ipswich, being excused from his parent's conversation with grandfather seemed a rather rude way to treat his curious nature.

He set the boat in the pond, its square rigging hoisted by giant-sized —relative to the boat that is— fingers and trimmed as best an eleven-year-old could. Silas couldn't feel a breeze now, though one could come up while the little ship was crossing. The worst thing would be to have the model veer toward the creek before he could get close enough to scoop it back up. Bobbing in the water, the little sailboat had a single smokestack, and when his father was around he could get real smoke to come out of it with his pipe flint. For now, though, Silas only imagined it as the small paddlewheel in the back began spinning the moment he let the craft loose.

Then he set off running, dashing around the edge of the pond as the model ship set sail. His legs, which were not as long and loping as his brother's, pumped as hard and fast as he could, leaving the boy nearly out of breath as he jaunted around the pond, one eye on the little sailing ship all the while. It was as if the wind knew the exact time to steal joy from his heart, ruffling his hair and cooling his warmed cheeks, but Silas' heart was perched instead on the matter of his little ship. It teetered in a blustery part of the breeze, wobbling a little more toward the creek with each passing moment.

And then it began to turn toward shore again, returning enough joy to Silas to put on a burst of speed to meet the ship on the other banks.

He hardly noticed the two figures emerging from the trees, the visitor being led by Daniel toward the pond. Daniel was one of the footman his grandfather had hired, from one of the Caribbean colonies where men were bred to look distinguished in a white suit, according to Grandfather. Silas ignored their encroaching presence until he had a hand on his ship again, holding his key into the winding hole to halt the paddlewheel's motion while his fingers ran over the rigging lines, trying to memorize the pattern the way Solomon taught him.

The last time Solomon was here they had raced boats, when his brother had been home on shore leave. Silas should have cast his brother's footprint's in plaster then, but all he could do now was follow them. One day, and hopefully one coming soon, he too would be off to the HMS Britannia, studying and learning the ropes in Dartmouth to earn his own commission. Then his boat would join his brother's, sitting on a shelf collecting dust.

He didn't like it when the servants dusted that shelf, it made him think something miraculous had happened. He woke up every morning wishing for one, which was plenty enough for him.

When Silas finally looked up, Daniel was standing nearby as if waiting to be acknowledged. It didn't seem fair to make the man wait, even if Silas could make him do it. Sometimes he liked doing that, sending the servants about as if he was Grandfather, who often made servants wait for 'a quiet peace of mind'. Not today, the boy turned his shaggy blond head to the footman with blue eyes brimming full of energy. Silas glanced once at the visitor, but when he spoke it was to Daniel alone.

"What did they say? Can I come back now?"

---

Samuel Griffith

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   Ashley Allen, Samuel Griffith

---

The servant bowed to the boy at the water's edge. "Master Merlion, this is Professor Griffith. He has come to talk to you," he introduced the visitor. The man next to him looked upon the boy with eyes that were interested but not affectionate in expression. He did not smile. Professor Griffith's face in the encroaching dark of the night appeared very still. The tiny movements that livened it and gave it character were veiled by the dimming light and as such it appeared like a mask; or as belonging to the likeness of a person carved into stone.

"Good evening, Master Merlion," the Professor greeted the boy, well aware that the 'master' would shrink to a 'mister' once their paths would cross inside the walls of the wizarding school, where his worldly title would not mean anything to his peers.

Griffith had a long day behind him, and it was doubtful he was nearing the end of it. The family of this boy proved to be difficult. High-born muggles often were. Professor Griffith was the second emissary the school sent to secure the education of young Merlion under its care. The task was of great importance and Griffith fulfilled his duty with great care and attention to detail, notwithstanding his resentment for having been chosen for reasons of his own background by a headmaster who thought and spoke derisively about the very circumstance.

Professor Griffith was dressed impeccably proper, from the shine of his shoes to the ascot tie. In any world, business is conducted between gentlemen who recognize each other as such -- his mother taught him that saying and he recalled it when he dressed in the morning. It was her world he moved in for the day, and the many little odd fragments his muggle mother ingrained into his head when it was still young and impressionable surfaced for the occasion; things he learned when he did not yet understand his mother was trying to prepare him for a world that did not belong to him, because she did not understand any better.

Nonetheless, when he greeted Mr. Merlion senior there was palpable relief in the man to be speaking to a Professor whose hair was cut short and whose dress deflected the most ardent and critical inspection. Samuel had not seen Vice Headmaster Valenduris on the day he paid the Merlions his visit, but it was so impossible to imagine him in anything but a wizard's robe that it had to be assumed that even if he dusted off a suit of muggle fashion for the occasion it would have been at least fifty years out of fashion.

To Griffith, the Merlions had slowly relinquished the offense and fear the suggestion of taking their son to a secret school for magic caused them. It had taken careful framing of magic as a divine gift. It had taken cold fire burning without consuming, and the turning of water into wine. Griffith was no friend of such theatrics, but they worked on the mother. The father was more aligned to promises of power and exceptionality, notions which had been easier to flatter.
The day's work culminated in this moment at the waterfront -- meeting the boy Griffith was undertaking all this effort for, and of whom he had seen nothing all day. Now he looked at him and soberly hoped that he would be worth it. "Thank you. You may go," he said to the servant, who bowed out and left them.

The professor advanced until he stood right across from the boy, a small and slight child Griffith was towering over by comparison. Out of his coat the professor took a letter sealed with the sign of the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. He offered the letter to the boy. "Please read it carefully."

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Whoever the stranger was, he wanted to talk to Silas alone. That was an odd happening, the only people who really sent the servants away were Grandfather when he got into one of his blustery moods. Once or twice his parents would, too, if they really had something serious to talk to Silas about. Silas could if he tried, too, sometimes he could be fairly convincing himself, and most of the serving folk were paid to be nice to him, too.

Unless he had missed something, the stranger wasn't in charge of his family's servants, but Daniel turned to go anyway. Silas stared after the footman for a moment, to turn his attention to the stranger at last. The man was tall with an imposing presence, and for a moment the boy searched the man's shoulders and coat for any signs of naval markings. That could only be what the day's hubbub had all been about, the naval college was looking for new recruits and had come for Silas early!

"Thank you, but I already know what I want," he said, gingerly removing his hand from the ship side. It listed just for a moment in the water, making the boy hesitate until he was sure his toy wasn't about to sink on him. Taking the envelope in his hands, Silas realized the paper had a weight to it, and his name was scrawled on the front in the long hand of a pen rather than the punched ink of a typewriter. It felt special and formal, igniting the lantern that often hung in his heart. "It has always been my dream to go, just like my father and brother."

The letters inside had been refolded, reminding Silas that he could have read them earlier if only Mama and Papa had let him into the room with Grandfather. He was old enough now, not to smoke like the gentleman did after dinner, but to sit with them like Solomon had done when he was his age. Silas only remembered being alone with the nanny at those times, longing for the day when he, too, could step into the velvet-paneled room with its high-backed chairs and hear the things that men talked about when there were no women or children around to listen.

Perhaps then he, too, would understand the words on the heavy paper in his hands. His eyes scanned for the expected names, looking for Her Majesty's Navy, H.M.S. Brittannia, or perhaps a mention of the First Lord of the Admiralty. Those were on all the documents Solomon received when he graduated as a Midshipman from Dartmouth, and they would prove his dream a reality. Silas looked up in confusion, searching the man's scarred face as he searched the letter, finding little better in the way of explanation. "Wait a minute, what is Hogwarts?"

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, said the letter, had accepted him as a new student for the fall term. Yet that was no school that Silas had ever heard of, and worse yet, its very name made his nose wrinkle. He could never fathom such an institution would proudly bear such a name here in England, and the more his mind worked over the letter, even turning it over to the backside to check for marks, the more he began to giggle. He didn't mean to feel so silly about it, after involving Grandfather himself, the boy thought this would be a much more serious affair.

"I don't mean to cause an affront, sir," Silas began, thinking it might be wise to add in the 'sir' just in case the man really was from the Navy still. It really wouldn't serve him well to be known as the cadet who laughed out his welcome to the Royal Navy, after all. "But are you aware this says 'Witchcraft' and 'Wizardry'?"

Silas stiffened the front of his waistcoat, puffing out his chest like he was a man of twice his age. "I'm a little too old for tricks, so you can tell me the truth now."

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"Indeed. You are old enough for the truth, which is why I come to you to hand over this letter and explain its meaning," Professor Griffith replied to the boy. "Your name has been written in our records since the moment of your birth. You hold a divine gift within you, a power one might call magic, however reductive that word is in the common understanding of it."

The last remnant of sunlight was hurriedly fading from the scene. Professor Griffith carefully removed his leather glove from his right hand.

"I don't expect you to understand right away, Master Merlion, nor would it be wise to believe a thing like that by my words alone," he said. "I am prepared to prove the existence of magic, if you ask me to."

He idly wondered what a boy like that would want to see, that would make him feel certain he was not being lied to or tricked. Perhaps something grand or outrageous. Perhaps something he deemed impossible. Professor Griffith did not think to worry that he might not be able to deliver whatever the boy's young mind devised, or approximate it in a way that would convince him.

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   Silas Merlion

Silas knew his name was written in the Bible that Grandfather kept in his smoking parlor. He had seen it done for his cousin on the day of her christening, written right below his name. That there could be another book of recording with his name on it as well piqued the boy's interest, and sent his eyebrows climbing up his forehead. Only one thing came to mind, and even in the presence of a stranger he couldn't help blurting it out, "Are you speaking of angels, sir? They write His records in the Books of Heaven."

Which weren't at all like the books of Man, he knew, though he thought they had to be similar enough. They were called books, and though some books were for writing in and some books for reading, they all had pages, covers, and were kept dry in a safe place at all times. Silas didn't look for any such books on the man, knowing he wouldn't find one brought here by the creek. His face held more curiosity instead, mulling over the words as he spoke them.

"And I think only angels can do real magic. Or Christ, and pardon my saying so, sir, but you don't look very much like Him." That was a harsh truth to speak aloud, and Silas looked away from the scarred man to glance about in case Daniel might still be waiting around to overhear him. He wasn't entirely in the habit of being rude to strangers, but could the truth really be all that rude? The man's own truth kept him wondering how it could sound so wrong and still be true. "What manner of divine gift makes a place for someone at a school of wizardry? I always thought my gift was meant for the sea."

He looked back down to his boat, sturdy but unwound as it floated near the boy's makeshift quay on the pond. He could step forward and replace his key, winding up the mechanics for another sailing trip, but a presence of mind stopped him. Silas tipped up his head with a new idea, one that might be an answer to the man's question. He wondered if it was really curiosity that tempted him, or folly.

Mama said that temptation was a path to sin, so he had to be careful either way.

"If I give you a chance to prove it, you won't laugh at me, will you? What you're saying doesn't seem right at all, and I think if Grandfather knew you were speaking to me about magic, he would see to your leave." At this point, Silas lowered his voice. He wasn't sure if the man was about to get him into trouble, or if this was all part of an elaborate prank somehow. One that he couldn't fathom involving his parents, much less his Grandfather, on such a silly endeavor. Nonetheless, he motioned the man to come down closer to pass the secret request between them in a voice that none other could overhear.

"Can you make my boat sail without a wind or winding?"

If this man was actually an angel, he was going to have a lot of apologizing and prayers to do in penance if anyone ever found out.

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   Ashley Allen

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"You are right, I am neither angelic nor christlike, Master Merlion," Samuel replied. The humor was not lost on him; despite dedicating his life to harnessing godlike powers of creation, the boy saw right to the point of it — he was speaking to a man, nothing more.
"The gift of magic does not make one divine. A man is not sanctified by power. But the power of Magic is an expression of divinity."

Samuel turned towards the creek. The little boat swayed in the water. What a humble wish it was to see it sail.
With a flick of his wand, the sails billowed and the little vessel danced across the dark surface.
The professor looked back towards the boy.

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   Silas Merlion, Themis Lyra

The way the man spoke of power held a reverence that made the boy's ears prick up with interest. He could hear part of himself in those words, and perhaps the two shared between them at last. It put Silas more at ease, he found it particularly hard to pay attention to someone when he couldn't understand them, after all. And it was far easier to understand someone when they, too, were devotees of something greater than themselves.

Silas thought himself most like his mother in that way.

"An expression of divinity..." Silas recited to himself, in that same low voice he'd used to make his request. It came to him in tutored lessons as well, making it easy to follow along while the sharp tones of the lecture came across easily above it. Here, there was only the quiet of the meadow, the burbling of the creek as it tumbled over pebbles and stones in its path toward the culvert. Not even a breeze to rustle the trees, he noticed.

Or was there?

From the dead wood and woven linens that formed the workings of his model sailing ship, Silas saw it come to life in the way it had so many times before on the pond. He had been far too distracted by the man and his talk of magical divinity to notice a wind picking back up, for there was no other power inside the vessel without his winding key. It leaped into action nonetheless, its prow gliding against the rippling current of the pond, turning against harm without Silas having made any adjustments to the rigging at all. And for his part, he could not see any angels aboard, working the ropes or tiller toward salvation.

"Impossible!" He blurted out, and dashed into action himself. His legs sped him along the pond's shore like before, away from the man and his questionable talents. There had been power left in the clockworks, Silas reasoned, and he must not have tightened the lines enough to keep them steady after the last course. That was it, of course, he was no seasoned sailor with a mind yet for the fullness of his vessel's personality.

"She's a clever one," Silas laughed aloud as he knelt down by the model ship, helping it heave to near shore again. It reassured both himself and the man, whose name still eluded him somehow. A man nonetheless, he had denied divinity or holiness of himself, so the boy had little to fear from upsetting him. There was no intent of it, but for all the man's claims, he seemed to have only the talent of the right words and timing for them. "Caught the barest of winds, I only just felt it now. Not magic at all!"

And as if on cue, the copse of trees nearby began to rustle from the wind Silas had so rightly named. Down on this end of the pond there was little to fret about from a wandering boat, so he turned to the man instead and threw his hands on his hips in a silent dare. There was still no magic evident before the boy's eyes, and they weren't about to lie about it either.

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   Samuel Griffith

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"Is she now?" Professor Griffith asked, slowly following the boy across the pond. His face showed a faint smile. Something in the daring posture of Mr. Merlion seemed to appear humorous to him. He stood across from him for a second and then drew his wand from his coat pocket. "If it is your heart's desire to sail, Master Merlion, then be my guest."

With an unhurried movement the wand described a half circle and Griffith's lips formed a silent invocation. For a moment nothing seemed to change, not the strength of the wind or the depth of the evening gloom; then suddenly the grass on the water's edge stretched into the sky and the trees nearby roared into the sky and turned into a mighty mountain range.

The model ship danced on the water next to them with billowing sails, tall like a merchant's clipper anchoring at the docks in Wapping, a vessel fit for a journey across oceans, or — in this case — to carry them across the great pond.

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   Silas Merlion

He spied it clearly that time. The long, slender stick that the man retrieved from his coat, it was carved and tapered to a point. Silas was fairly confident that Moses' staff had been bigger, there remained a small chance that he could have been impressed by something so large and powerful. The large man had seemed that way at first, himself. Now the boy looked to the source of his supposed power, and found himself more ready to sing hymns than believe in some manner of divine magic.

"Ha, I do believe my choral director has the very same—" Silas' boast trailed off as the scenery began to shift. At first he thought it to be more wind, blowing harder still against the trees and forming crests upon the small ripples of the pond. That notion dispelled itself when the trees shot up tenfold inside of an instant, the damp grey rocks beneath his feet became the expanse of a rocky, seaside moor, and an all-too familiar ship now loomed stories above his head. "By Jove..."

Many times, through sermon or in stories, the boy had heard of those who fell to their knees in awe and adoration. Until someday he might meet the Queen, it seemed fairly unlikely to him that he would ever be so overcome as to experience the phenomenon for himself. And yet, without quite meaning to, Silas felt his knees of his trousers touch the wet stones of his makeshift, now gigantic, quay. There was no place to look but up, his eyes turned skyward, where the fluttering red banner at the top of the mainmast nearly seemed to pierce its cloudy veil.

A heartbeat later, Silas felt his breath and senses catching up with him. He leapt to his feet and dashed toward the vessel, his model ship no longer toy sized, to look upon it with eyes that could now properly admire the craftsmanship. The way she floated in the pond, now practically a lake, looked every bit as majestic as those docked at Ipswich harbor. "Just look at the way her lines sit above the water! And the detailing of the chain plates, Solomon told me never to touch them and I haven't, so you can see the maker's bolts all in place. It took a sailor's hand to build it, seeing it up close removes any doubt of that!"

Silas had only to contend with one last remaining doubt. For that, he turned on his heel, carefully as so not to slip in the water that seeped onto the stone with each of the pond's ripples. He must look a sight by now, with his soggy shoes and removing any more doubts that he and his visitor might be under watch by now. That was not the doubt that lingered still, not the one that the nautical-minded boy had to wrestle with in his heart.

"This is what you meant, then, by the power of Magic being an expression of divinity? Only His power could have, well, brought us down here, I suppose that's the truth of it then." The words felt unnatural coming out of his mouth. If he ran his tongue over his teeth afterwards, they felt as hard and real as ever before. Silas glanced back at the ship, and with every surge of her hull above the water he, too, drew in a breath. He'd known that was the path he was meant to walk —to sail— almost as soon as he'd been old enough to understand how a ship sailed across the sea. Had it truly been the winds of Providence, then, that had filled them just moments ago?

The boy wanted so desperately to believe it was true, every word from the man's lips. Anything else felt too close to irreverence, or worse, to consider. As cruel a fate as it seemed, to abandon his calling for the sea, Silas couldn't ignore the thrill he found in looking between the two, his ship and the man who might set it sailing with only a word and a flick of the carved rod in his hand. Prophets called down miracles in the bible, and men whose faith guided their hands, so perhaps the stranger had spoken plainly after all.

"I pray it's so, sir, because if it is," Silas held up his hands to motion to the behemoth bobbing in the water behind him, "I should like very much to see her sail as she was meant to."

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   Samuel Griffith

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Professor Griffith's mouth changed in expression minutely, and it was not certain if it ticked towards a faint trace of benevolence or something else; it was a suppressed change. He thought about saying more on the matter of divinity. "The world was created—and may be changed—by nothing but the will of the creator," he answered. "Those gifted with magic, you will see, display similar possibilities," and there was a line under the way he said the word possibility. It was no certainty; a fool could be gifted and let the gift wilt into tired mirages. Only the select few were made of the material to harness what was there. But he did not think the boy would understand the nuances. Not yet. "We are made in his image," he concluded and he left it at that. Some are a closer likeness than others, he finished the chain of thought silently. Silas Merlion would understand the inherent logic in his words. Griffith could feel the quickness of the boy's mind, the sharpness of his eye.

He watched him, brought to his knees on the stone quay he might have built himself for his little ship. "Let us embark then." With another flick of his wand, a bridge of light spanned the distance between the water's edge and the deck of the ship. Naturally, it had no plank for boarding attached.
"After you, Master Merlion," he said and waited for the boy to dare take his first step onto the glimmering pathway.

Under the arch of light, the pond's water moved as ominously and secretively as the deepest ocean.

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   Silas Merlion

Up close like this, water lapped against his makeshift quay with a potent energy. His ship on the water, no mere model to his eyes any longer, creaked and groaned with the small tossing of the pond's waves, no mere ripples at his size now, sending waves of another sort through its hull. The persistence of vision, of all his senses, told an undeniable story to the boy whose longstanding dream was always to sail.

The chance offered to him was magic, real magic, and still there was a dignity to it, a righteousness unafforded to those who might be lacking. Assuredly, by the claims and proof of his visitor, divinity had guided Silas to this point. A child made in His image was hardly unworthy, but his foot hesitated near the first step of the glowing path that had shimmered into existence between them and the deck of his ship. It was not courage alone that would allow him to take that step, but faith.

Faith that his foot would not fall through, nor would his weight crush his model ship, such things had to be true in his heart as well as his mind.

"Thank you, sir," He intoned, and the words were just as much of gratitude as an acknowledgement. With the same weight, Silas set his foot down on the glimmering pathway, finding the lighted bridge sturdy beneath his feet. Such a thing came as a surprise, but only to a small part of him. The part that Silas had decided to discard for now, leaving it on shore as he climbed up the incline to take a step on the deck of his very own ship for the first time.

What he found was an empty ship, but the boy could populate it vividly with the characters of his own mind. Here, amidships, would stand the boatswain keeping his sailors at work with eyes and a whistle. Up on the quarterdeck would be the ship's master, watching over the whole of the ship with a readiness to call out changes as needed to follow the ship's course and captain's orders. His head tipped up to look for the sailors who had climbed to the rigging —though it would be rare in port the sails were rigged now for wind— and could envision them making last-minute trims to make good time under the weather conditions.

It was with a full crew behind him that Silas turned, the ship's captain by the puff of his chest and by virtue of being its only living soul aboard, to welcome the tall man who had followed him up. There was deference to give, and Silas only wished he had a hat to doff out of respect. He offered him a slight bow instead, gesturing to the rest of the deck and ship. The visitor had surely seen it from above, just as he had many times before, though being onboard the ship itself was an entirely different experience.

"Welcome aboard to His Majesty's proud puddle jumper, Valiant."

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   Samuel Griffith

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Griffith boarded the ship behind the boy, the arch of light appearing fragile beneath his adult form, in contrast to the lithe child clambering aboard, but it held, and he did not seem worried it could fail him; he stepped onto the planks and, being greeted by Silas, he smiled. "She's a fine ship." Turning more serious, he continued: "You will see strange and wondrous shores yet, Master Merlion." And turning away, he thought it was the truth. The journey would differ from what the boy had once imagined of his life, and it would be perilous — the foreign world waiting for him had its trappings, and returning unchanged was impossible. Everyone had their fate, and Silas might warm to his own. Professor Griffith hoped so; there was a great deal in the boy that he thought to be promising, although the extent of his potential was yet unknown.

He looked up to the sails billowing above them against the sky, a sky so enormous he could barely make out the stars. The professor's lips moved and suddenly a mighty wind took hold of the ship. The planks underneath their feet jumped forward. The wood creaked. "I do hope you know how to steer, Mr. Merlion," he said to the boy, and he held to the railing with one hand while the quay retracted away from them. The other bank of the pond seemed miles away, and the little creek might be the wild waters of the Nile.

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   Silas Merlion