Learn to see the magic
Moving to another town feels like tearing a fresh page from a book you have just opened, before youve even read the first chapter. Sam, Ethel and their son Jack flipped that page with a soft, muffled rustle as exhausted movers slipped the last cardboard box into their new flat on the edge of an unfamiliar city.
The decision had not come easily. Six months earlier Sam, who had spent fifteen years as an engineer at the old steelworks, was caught in the wave of restructuring. The word was cold and merciless, like an axe blade. The plant stayed open but cut half its workshops. Sam, who could coax life into any machine, suddenly found himself surplus. Months of searching in their sleepy hometown hit a wall: No vacancies, Well consider you, but the pay is lower. The suggestion to reskill sounded like a joke.
Their former town was like a faded photographcharming, familiar, but offering no future. It was Ethel, always quiet and tenderhearted, who gathered the resolve. Watching Sam scroll through job sites for the hundredth time, and seeing Jack, infected by the collective melancholy, abandon his paperaircraft inventions, she finally spoke.
Were moving, she said at dinner, her voice carrying command, not request. Well go to a big city. There work, there life. Here well wither.
She showed him a notice: a large logistics hub in the regional capital of Birmingham was hunting designers, fitters and equipment technicians. The vacancies were plentiful, the wages one and a half to two times higher than before. The city seemed vast and intimidating, but there was no other path.
The price of the move was their spacious Victorian terrace with lofty ceilingsthe very place where Jack had his own bedroom overlooking the back garden, and where Ethel kept a bright sewing studio. They sold it, that slice of comfort and roots. With the proceeds they could only afford a modest oneandahalfbed flat in the expensive, unfamiliar citya cramped living room, a tiny bedroom for Jack and a kitchen no larger than a school locker. Sam grimly nicknamed it the halfflat as he signed the lease.
Now they lived there. The air in the flat was still, scented with dust, sharp fresh paint on the windowsills, and the uneasy freedom that comes with a clean slate, terrifying the moment you dare make the first mark.
Sam, his face worn, immediately began checking the sockets. Ethel, unable to battle the chaos, placed a single familiar thinga geranium in a pretty potfrom the moving boxes onto the windowsill. Jack slipped away into his tiny room.
A week passed as they settled. Sam started work, Jack was enrolled at the nearby school, and Ethel busied herself unpacking and tidying.
The miracles began the evening Jack returned from school, thoughtful, poking at his meatball with a fork before announcing, Theres a dragon living in our garden.
Sam and Ethel exchanged glances. Adjustment, whispered Ethel. Daydreamer, sighed Sam.
Well, dragon or no dragon, Sam said indulgently, just make sure it doesnt set the bins on fire.
Jack was serious. The next morning he went to school with a tiny lantern and a pocketful of vanilla biscuits. For the dragon, he explained.
The first wonder came a week later. Ethel, aching with nostalgia for her old home, sat in the kitchen watching the grey, drizzly courtyard. Suddenly she noticed their geranium, usually capricious, awash in delicate white blossoms. She stepped closer. Each flower was not merely a flower; it resembled a tiny star and smelled of sweets. The very candyfloss sweets she loved as a child. The fragrance was so strong and joyous that her melancholy melted away on its own.
Jack, did you see our pot plant bloom? she asked that evening.
I saw, Jack nodded. The dragon sneezed this morning. He caught a chill. His sneeze is magical.
Sam snorted, but the candyscented geranium defied explanation.
The second marvel belonged to Sam. At work a crucial project stalled. He spent sleepless nights hunched over his computer, irritable and tired. One morning Jack handed him a strange stoneflat, with a hole in the centre, like a miniature wagon wheel.
Keep it in your pocket while you work, the boy instructed sternly. The dragon said its a decision stone.
Sam, skeptical, slid the stone into his jacket out of solidarity. That evening, while sifting through schematics, a clear error that had eluded him for three days suddenly leapt into view. The solution arrived as if someone whispered in his ear. The project was saved.
From then on a quiet reverence settled in the flat. Ethel watered the enchanted geranium, Sam rubbed the stone in his pocket, and Jack became the familys conduit to the unseen.
The greatest miracle, however, lay ahead. At school Jack struggled with classmates. He was the new oddball who talked about dragons. The other children didnt get angry; they simply ignored him, and Jack retreated further.
One day he didnt go to school, claiming a sore throat. Ethel placed her hand on his icecold forehead and understoodhis soul ached.
What shall we do? she asked, exasperated, that evening. They had no friends, no relatives in this town.
Jack remained silent until bedtime, then whispered, We have to ask the dragon. But its hard. He needs a real reason.
The next Sunday morning, a knock sounded at the door. A girl with twin braids and wide eyes stood there.
Is Jack home? she asked. Im Lily from the parallel class. My my balloon drifted onto your balcony. Its colourful.
There was no balloon on the balcony, yet Jack, suddenly animated, offered to search the yard. They went out together.
An hour later the children returned, cheeks flushed, balloon missing but pockets full of chestnuts. Lily turned out to be a neighbour who built model ships and also believed that fairies lingered in the old park behind the houses.
That evening the flat smelled not only of candyscented geranium but also of apple crumble, which Ethel had baked for the unexpected visitor. Sam laughed, watching Jacks newfound vigor.
When Lily left, Jack approached his parents.
The dragon helped, he said mysteriously. He brushed her diary, and she remembered she wanted a friend.
Sam and Ethel exchanged a look, this time without condescension or doubtonly delight.
They realised they had not merely moved to another city. They had arrived in a place where magic could exist. The true marvel of their new life was not the dragon, the scented geranium, nor the decision stone. It was their son, who could turn loneliness into friendship, melancholy into hope, and a foreign city into a personal, enchanted world.
Perhaps the dragon really lived beneath the old chestnut trees, watching over its little friend. After all, miracles always find those who truly believe.
Six months passed. The halfflat grew accustomed to habits and memories. On the livingroom wall hung Jacks first drawing from his new schoola colourful dragon, scribbly yet with kindly eyes. The geranium on the kitchen sill, once again in magical bloom, released its candy fragrance whenever Ethel felt wistful for the old flat.
One Saturday morning they all ate breakfast together. Jack, now with a couple of new, though not yet close, friends, suddenly set his spoon down and declared, The dragon is leaving.
Sam and Ethel looked at each other. After months of wonders, they asked, Why? Ethels voice trembled with anxiety.
He says his work here is done, Jack explained seriously. He came to help us settle, and now well manage on our own.
That day they walked to the old parkthe one Lily had spoken of, where fairies were said to dwell. Autumn was warm, the air tinged with ripe leaves and sweet fruit leather. The parents sat on a bench while Jack darted between trees, tossing golden foliage into the air.
You know, Sam said, watching his son, that dragon turned up at just the right moment, as if someone sent him when we needed him most.
Ethel took his hand. Perhaps miracles never truly go, Sam, she murmured. Perhaps they simply change their shape.
At that moment Jack rushed back, breathless, clutching a large, featherlight crimson maple leaf.
Look! he shouted excitedly. The dragon left us a feather as a souvenir! He said, if we ever need him, just call and hell hear us!
Sam took the leaf. It was warm, as if it truly contained a sliver of light. In that instant another thought rose: the miracle was not the dragon. It was within them alltheir ability to shrink from three rooms to a halfflat without shrinking their spirits; Jacks talent for turning solitude into imagination; Ethels strength to keep them together; and Sams willingness to begin anew.
They walked home to their snug, now truly beloved flat. The wind chased clouds across the sky, clouds that resembled exotic beasts, while Jacks hand cradled the glowing leaf. Sam knew their story was only just beginning, and the next page would be even more fascinating. For the greatest miracle does not reside where dragons are said to roam, but where a family, tested by hardship, remains a family, and where in the tiniest room lives a boy who can see enchantment in an ordinary autumn leaf.
