Oh, the return of the prodigal! The rapture with which Julia was received back into the domestic fold! The blurry, beaming faces of her parents, a pair of rain-soaked headlights trained upon her, as she presented herself to them in the form of a reprobate reformed. She had disappointed them so many times, in so many ways, they hardly dared to hope anymore. They’d been through so many stages of grief they’d lost count.

Now here she was, returned from Chesterton, her spirit crushed, ready to be part of the family again, and they let her. They actually let her. With a kindness utterly unlike anything she recognized in herself, they took her back, even though she could not have deserved it less. The wreck of the good ship Julia, out of Brooklyn, carrying the precious cargo of Their Love, was ready to be hauled off the Reef of Life and salvaged and refloated, and they did it. They took her back without a word of reproach.

Now it was Julia’s turn to grieve, and they let her, which was another gift. She mourned her lost life, and she mourned the death of the magician she would never be. She buried that mighty sorceress with full honors. And with the grief, unbidden, came its ghostly golden cousin, relief. She had been trying so hard, for so long, to be something the world did not want her to be. Now she could finally stop. The world had won. She yielded to her family’s embraces, and she was grateful for them. What was so great about magic anyway, compared to love? Seriously, what?

Oh, the timorous overtures of her sister, the humanist! By now she was a senior in high school herself. As she labored over her college applications, Julia reactivated her own. They worked on them together, side by side at the kitchen table, swapping tips, her sister coaching her on her essay, Julia dragging her sister through basic calculus by main force. They were a team again, the two of them. Julia had forgotten what it felt like to be part of a family. She’d forgotten how good it could feel, and how much she needed it.

Of Julia’s legendary seven acceptances, only Stanford’s could be salvaged, but that was enough. There was a gap or three in her résumé, sure, but if you cocked your head and blurred your eyes you could take her magical research for some sort of worthy independent ethnographic project. So it was sunny California for her. Just what she needed. Fun in the sun. Put some color in her cheeks. She’d spend a year saving up cash and matriculate in the fall. It was all arranged.