"Yes," the girl replied. "I go to Mr. Knudlac's school of magic."
"Very well," her father said softly. Then maybe you can get us to eat some ice cream."
The girl looked at her father.
"But I still don't know how to walk without using my legs".
Her father gently stroke her head.
"That's why you have me. That's why you have your mother and me. To help you where needed and to correct you if necessary. Now take the wand in your right hand, please. You have a wand, don't you?"
The girl nodded head showing her father she had that wizard weapon and took it out from the sleeve of the robe she was wearing.
"Now think of a place where you saw ice cream," her father urged.
The girl closed her eyes, but her father interrupted her.
"My dear, don't rush so hard."
The girl looked at her father. She didn't know what to do so she waited for advice.
"We don't hurry, because we might be coming to another place. You have to think of as many details as possible, details directly related to that place."
The girl nodded head letting her father know she got it.
"For example, if you think about London Bridge, traveling magic can take you anywhere. Even on its cables. Or at the top of a pole on London Bridge. And we wouldn't want this, would we? Because it's dangerous to hang on cables," the father smiled warmly. "It's desirable to think as carefully as you can about a place on the London Bridge where you'd like to get. In many details. Did you understand, Elizabeth?"
"I did."
"I'd like to hear the details about the place where we go to buy ice cream."
The girl thought a little, then started.
"It's the only ice cream place I remember. I've never seen another. It's a place in the park in the world of sceptics. Where I was with Miss Harmony once to admire puppies in the park. Because at Elmbridge school there aren't many puppies. A girl and a boy played there with a puppy."
"We need clear details that won't disappear in a very short time. The children and the puppy may not be there anymore and there's the possibility of getting where they are at this time or in a place that was visited by them. Focus a little more!"
The daughter closed her eyes again.
"It was a path with a fork, a decrepit bench near that fork and a very thick tree, which wasn't like the others. Its lower branches were very dry."
The father placed his hand on her shoulder. The girl opened her eyes and saw her father smiling.
"Well done, Elizabeth. Such details help you get where you want. Now think about that place and say this word: Cogitamus."
The girl obeyed her father and the two came right to that tree and to that bench. Only that ice cream box and the seller were gone. Which was more than normal because it was a late hour.
"It is no longer here..." the girl said sadly, thinking they missed the opportunity to eat ice cream and she disappointed her father.
But the father cupped her cheeks in his hands and kissed her on the forehead.
"My darling. What I wanted you to learn, you learned. Very well…"
He hugged the girl. And kissed her forehead again. Then he put her down and said:
"As for the ice cream, let's go back where we left off, before a sceptic sees us."
Again Cogitamus and the two got back in the room where the hawk waited for them quietly.
"Now hold your hand as if you had ice cream there. Like me."
The girl looked at her father and did just as he did. The father closed his eyes. The two got an ice cream cone in their hand, surrounded by a kind of pink field.
"It just needs to be prepared. Say out loud what you want."
"I want three cups. One vanilla, one berries and one chocolate," said the girl.
She had the ice cream she wished.
"I want two cups," said the father. "Vanilla and chocolate."
The ice cream he ordered was there.
The girl and her father started eating those big, tasty ice creams then.
"My dear, after eating these ice-creams we'll have to say goodbye. Until the next meeting. And I want you to know I'm happy you learned so easily to 'move' so well."
"I'm also really happy, Daddy, because I managed to spend time with you. And I learned to walk without feet ... and I ate ice cream."
"Another lesson I want you to know from the beginning is to avoid doing magic with sceptics around. This is forbidden."
"I know, Daddy. The professors told us thousands of times."
"And also keep in mind that magic isn't meant to ease our life. For example, to 'move' just because we don't want to climb stairs, or eat ice-cream whenever we want using magic, or ..."
"I know, Daddy. They told it to us too. We'll only use it when absolutely necessary, only when it's really needed.
"You're a little wonder," Eliot Edwards smiled lovingly.
The father sighed softly. Then he looked into the girl's eyes as blue as a deep lagoon.
"I know, Daddy...that we have to say goodbye now. But I won't be sad because I know we'll see each other again."
"We'll definitely see each other again soon. And next time your mother will be with us too."
These words made Elizabeth very happy. Who wouldn't be happy to reunite with her mother after so long ... when they were separated against their will?
"You're exactly as I wanted you to be, Daddy."
The father smiled, then a bright light flashed for a moment and total darkness surrounded Miss Edwards. The girl looked around and saw the darkness slowly disappearing, and she was now in her room, at the same desk, with that nib in her hand.
And it was 9:51 p.m.
She stood up from her desk, and went to bed to rest. She took a pillow and hugged it tight as if she held her father or her mother in her arms.
Surely that night Elizabeth had sweet dreams. She slept thinking of her father whom she finally met and of her mother whom she'd meet soon.