Mogtober 2022

Day 7: The Gossamer

The Gossamer was not inanimate. Nothing made of wunder ever was. The gossamer was created a long time ago, by two Wundersmiths by the name of Ezra Squall and Elodie Baur. This was how it happened.

Elodie was sick again. This was the third time she couldn't come to class this year, and Ezra was trying not to be upset. He went to her house to see her, but her grandmother said that she needed her rest. Ezra tried to respect her wishes, but when Elodie was still out the next day, and his parents insisted that he stay at home and practice his Wundrous Arts, he couldn't take it anymore. He tried to leave a false Ezra sitting on the sofa, but he'd used that one before and his mum saw right through it. 

What on earth could he do? Ezra thought, hard. 

"Hey, Ezra! His sister, Margaret, came running down the hall. "Look what I got! Ms. Dearbourne showed me a wundrous contract and let me write my own!" 

That's it! Ezra leapt up. "Margaret, you're a genius!" He picked her up and spun her around as he ran to his room. "Hey, what'd I do? Ezra!" She called from the ceiling. In his haste, he'd forgotten to put her down. "EZRA!!" 

The next day, when Elodie was back, he told her his idea. She was very excited. They found Rook, the Scholar Mistress for the School for Wundrous Arts, and she was also fascinated by the idea. She found a wundrous contract and the three of them began to study it. They discovered, based on their own observations and several old sketches and manuals, that wundrous contracts used a web of wunder that stretched across the universe to record what was written on it on a matching contract, essentially allowing the signer and the second party to in two completely different states and still sign a contractually binding agreement. 

The only thing left to do now was figure out how to use that to transport humans. 

Ezra and Elodie worked tirelessly for weeks, trying to figure out how to use this invisible web of wunder to their benefit, but to no avail. Until one day, about two months later..

Elodie was working on her Decoding Nevermoor project when suddenly, Ezra popped into her bedroom. "Elodie, look! I've done it!" He flickered out for a second, before coming back into focus. 

"Wow, Ezra! And you've really transported yourself here?" Elodie felt a little embarrassed; her grandmother had asked her to clean her room weeks ago, but she still hadn't gotten around to it. 

"Well, it's more of a projection, really. But it still works reasonably well. It feels like I'm only connected to my real body by a tiny little thread- like that stuff that butterfly wings are made of."

"Gossamer?"

"Yeah, that's the word! Look, it's real simple: You just find the wunder, then imagine where you want to go." 

Elodie hummed a few bars of her song, "Downward sails the sea", and the next thing she knew, she was standing on the beach. She wished herself back home. "You're right, Ezra, it does feel like little gossamer threads."

Ezra grinned. "In that case, let's call this 'The Gossamer'."