Summer of Salt

“People aren’t either wicked or noble. They’re like chef’s salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.”

- Lemony Snicket

It was an unassuming Tuesday by all accounts. Gentle even, as the grass danced like waves under the playful touch of the wind when a letter arrived at Thistledown in Roseton-on-Sea, Kent.

As the bewildered postman slipped the letter into the slot of the door, pushing aside the wisteria and jasmine blooms, he thought to himself how strange it was that he didn’t remember there being a white brick house on the edge of the sea in their sleepy village. ‘How queer,’ he mused, as he had been postman for thirty-odd years now and was a veteran of his rounds. 'I must ask Penelope with the council’ and as he turned his back to the house so named for the thistles shaking in that playful breeze to continue his route, he promptly forgot about Thistledown’s existence once more. 

The soft slap of post hitting the doormat was not a sound often heard in the Eztli household, and Ixchel shot a smirk at her sister who had been bullying her into flying yet again. She threw her hand-me-down broom back onto the bed, and glided down the steps in pseudo-coyness. 

When Socorro simply rolled her eyes, and stuck out her tongue, Ixchel returned the rude gesture, and headed out the door, letter in hand to read in peace.

Dear Ixchel, 

I’m sure to your great pleasure, you were right. 

-Tom M. Riddle

P.S I’ve included a list of questions. Write back. Please.

Ixchel sat outside, toes buried deep in the cool sand as the sun hung high behind her. She wondered which of the professors had come to visit him, and if he had been just as rude to them as he had been to her. 'Probably,’ she thought, almost affectionately. 

If she didn’t find the haughty brevity of his note so amusing, Ixchel would have probably found herself annoyed. But she smiled softly to herself as she looked at the thick list of questions and planned out her response.

Tom waited. 

‘You’re a wizard. Just like I’m a witch.’  That solemn girl with full eyes and a gap between her teeth had told him. 

'I’ll be seeing you.’

That day, prayers were a little easier. The tedious drone of the vicar was easy to tune out, the ache in his knees from the terribly scratchy kneelers simple enough to ignore. Hope was fresh, and with it, Tom thought 'Yes, yes, she was right! I am more. A wizard, that’s what I am supposed to be!’

There were more like him, a chance to learn more, be more. He’d be a powerful wizard too. Formidable and imposing, Mrs Cole and her army of nuns would never again beat his left hand raw with canes until doing everything with his right became automatic, telling him it was proof of his wickedness. He’d eat lamb roasts with mint sauce and knickerbocker glories every day instead of the two slices of bread and drippings they had for dinner. They’d know how powerful and important he was and weep with remorse.

Maybe his father was a wizard just like him, and he nearly vibrated with the possibilities. 

The days turned into weeks and his hope grew stale and heavy. That cow had fed him delicious lies. She had probably been a pikey, Tom fumed, giving him a load of that fortune telling nonsense to try to earn some pennies or pickpocket him. He thought of the watch he had secreted away. It was probably paste.  

He wished he had pushed her into the lake. 

A few weeks after that fateful meeting brought a grey July day that left them all relegated to the walls of Wool’s. That particular morning nothing was especially out of the ordinary. Tom woke to one of the new orphans crying great hiccuping sobs, trying to wash the stains and smell of urine from their sheets in the toilet sink. The boy had wet the bed sometime in the night. He may be a recent addition, but knew just as well as Tom that he’d be made to stand with the soiled sheets over his head for hours on end as punishment. 

After morning prayers followed by a breakfast of watery porridge, Tom stared out the window at a rainy London as a half finished novel sat listlessly in his lap. The other orphans gave him a wide berth. 

Ever since Amy and Dennis had returned from the seaside cave, mute and trembling, there had been a tense armistice between him and the others. He smiled in grim satisfaction at the thought. 

He was drawn out of his reverie by the sound of a knock on the large door of Wool’s. As Mrs Cole scuttled to greet their guest, Tom shot a sour look towards the entryway and slipped into his room. 

There was no point in staying; standing there whilst couples inspected the leftovers offered to them. They would pass over Tom before pinching the cheeks of the babies, or offering hard boiled sweets to any particularly cherubic toddlers. The newer residents stayed hopeful, combing down their hair and smiling brightly to show off dimples and missing baby teeth, but quickly learned. They weren’t wanted. Tom remembered the days he used to fantasise that a tall, well dressed man who looked like him would storm through the doors. He had been told his son was in this ghastly place and demanded him returned. And if he still felt that small pang of possibility every time the buzzer at the door was sounded, he squashed it. 

He sat at his small desk, waiting for whomever had shown up at the orphanage to find themselves a baby and leave, when there was a knock, and the door to his room was opened. 

“Tom, you have a visitor.”

She was right. A Professor, Albus Dumbledore had come and told him, showed him he was a wizard and there was a school for him. He had shown him magic, magic Tom was sure he’d be able to master just as soon as he received his wand. 

‘A wand!’ He thought with reverent joy. ‘How do I pick a wand?’

He had so many questions. 

Professor Dumbledore had left him with a contact card in case of such a situation, but he had not seemed to really mean it. Tom thought back to the way the professor had left his question about his ability to speak to snakes hanging heavy in the air around them and his admonishment for Tom’s stolen treasures hidden in his cupboard. 

The older man had told him to return his prizes, and he may have nodded his acquiescence,  but he had no plans to do so. When Professor Dumbledore had eyed the elegant wrist watch Tom had insisted that it was a gift, but could tell the man did not believe him. 

As he reread the books the Professor had left him - he had pored over them in a matter of hours - he thought back to Ixchel in Thistledown and her invitation to write. He hated the feeling of appearing ignorant but he thought of all the knowledge secreted away behind her cool smile and put pen to paper. He added the please as an afterthought, and writing the word felt clunky and bitterly false. 

Two days after he had slid his letter into the red London post box, Tom sat on his small bed in his small room, but his world was large as he flipped through the pages of books detailing a world of wizarding history, charms, potions, and magical creatures. It had grown dark and he knew lights out would soon arrive. 

A sharp tapping at his window drew his attention away from the pages spread before him, and he looked up in startled curiosity. A Tawny Owl was pecking a demanding rhythm against the pane of glass, a rather impatient look on its face. Unsure of what to do, Tom sat and watched the owl. When it didn’t stop, and continued its incessant rapping, Tom threw himself out of the bed, prepared to make it stop. In drawing closer, he noticed the slim letter clutched in its talons, addressed to him. Dumbly, he opened the window, where the owl quickly dropped the letter to the floor, shot a look of what could only be disdain, and flew back out into the night sky of London.  

Dear Tom, 

I hope Hecate didn’t give you too much of a fright. It’s a shame you live in Muggle London and don’t have an owl of your own for post, they’re so much faster. I don’t quite understand the muggle post. Why are the letters decorated with stickers?

I take it you had your visit, though I dread to think what you made a professor do to prove it to a skeptic such as yourself. As they say, a spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar. I’m sure you could be quite charming if you gave yourself the chance.

Yes, it’s called Hogwarts, and it's one of the finest schools for witchcraft and wizardry in the world. My sister is going into her third year and says it’s cracking, even with the extra safety precautions they’re taking because of Grindelwald. I won’t be explaining that to you today in the hopes the curiosity makes you write me back! 

No, there’s no magical primary school you missed. The children who were born into magical families are generally taught at home. Quite a few countries don’t even have schools. Wizards and witches are exclusively taught by their families or the local witch. If you don’t mind reading (and I certainly hope you don’t), I can lend you some books on the subject. Well, any subject really. I’m not sure what they tell muggle-born students; here a letter was just delivered to the house outlining my school supply list. I wish it had a bit more fanfare. If we have the magic to add excitement, why not? 

What classes are you most interested in? I’m quite looking forward to charms. I’ve read through some of the Transfiguration reading and whilst it’s supposed to be terribly elegant, it’s so practical. No room for experimentation bores me. 

Do you know what house you want to be in?

Yours, 

Ixchel 

P.S To say I’m pleased would imply surprise. Which isn’t the case. I knew you were magic the moment I set eyes on you. 

As the summer progressed, they continued to write to each other. Her owl, Hecate, waited patiently for him to write his own missives before returning home as Ixchel insisted it was quicker and would save him the cost of postage. Tom felt intoxicated by the knowledge Ixchel imparted. She was quick and sharp and knew so much. He imagined Thistledown and dreamt of a house filled with magic. A house and a family he should have been born to, should have been raised in; his birthright. Bitterness brewed within if he thought too hard on all he missed. All because they waited to tell him who he was. 

They spoke of magic both practically and theoretically. ‘There’s a big emphasis on dark versus light magic here,’ Ixchel had written in her now familiar looping handwriting, ‘but it’s different elsewhere. Mum is a Yucatán witch and it’s not so much about good and evil there, it’s about the balance of order and chaos. Nature cares only for balance, not our interpretation of ethics.’ 

‘What is it called when one of your parents is a wizard and the other isn’t?’ He had asked. ‘I think that’s what I am.’

She asked personal questions occasionally. They were dotted across her letters, but he ignored the queries and wrote on different topics. 

Hidden under his sheets with a shoddy aluminium torch his only light, Tom wrote to her a confessional describing his “powerful words”. He recalled Dumbledore’s weary gaze when he had used them in an attempt to have the professor admit he was a doctor, and it was with a wash of anxiety he sent the letter off into the night sky. Her letter arrived the next evening just as it had done so before. Ixchel simply wrote ‘You sound like you’ll be a powerful wizard indeed,’ before returning to their conversation about Aldabert Waffling’s Laws of Magic, and he was bolstered by her praise and easy acceptance. 

Tom had told her he was planning his trip to Diagon Alley sometime soon. Professor Dumbledore had given him the instructions on how to get there, a list of the supplies he needed and recently, enough of the strange money Ixchel had explained to him to buy said supplies. He made no mention of anyone helping eleven year old Tom do his shop. ‘Alone? That seems awfully strange.’ Ixchel had mused over paper, ‘What day? I’ll do my shopping then too. We could meet up. Don’t fret, you won’t have to be charming to my mum (hah!) I’ll meet with you when she’s distracted haggling over canvas prices. Would you like to borrow a book on wand lore?”

Tom debated only a moment before responding. 

Dear Ixchel, 

I was planning on 24th August. I’ll see you there. 

-Tom M. Riddle 

That night, he dreamt of Ixchel. He watched her from the dry earth below as she sat in the branches of a beech tree, eating a pomegranate. Her delicate fingers plucked the small ruby jewels until they and her lips were stained crimson. She looked down and smiled upon him with her stained mouth. 

“Where have you been! I’ve been waiting. Come up here!”

Tom frowned, suddenly terribly sad. “I was lost! I can’t get up.”

“You were never lost. You’re here.” He was in the tree with her, and she poured him pomegranate seeds until his cupped hands overflowed and spilt to the ground below.