A Small Magic
Grandma gave Tobi a wooden spoon. It was a plain spoon, very smooth where many hands had held it, very dark where many soups had been stirred.
"This is the homing spoon," she said. "It knows the way home."
Tobi was six. He had recently decided that nothing was magic and everything was just things. He did not believe in homing spoons. But he loved his grandma, so he tucked the spoon into his coat pocket and said, "Thank you, Grandma."
The next day Tobi went into the forest with his cousins. They were going to look at the stream.
The stream was farther than they remembered. They went past it. They turned around. They turned around again. They could not find the path.
The cousins started to argue. The cousins started to cry, a little. Tobi felt his stomach go tight.
He put his hand in his pocket. The spoon was there. It was warm.
He thought of his grandma, very hard. He thought of her kitchen, the steam from the pot, the chair he sat in to peel carrots, the way she sang under her breath.
He took the spoon out and he laid it flat on his palm.
The spoon turned. Not by itself, exactly — Tobi was not sure if his hand had moved, or the spoon had — but the handle was now pointing somewhere, and the somewhere felt like home.
"This way," said Tobi.
His cousins did not argue. They followed.
The forest was the same forest as before, but Tobi walked it differently now. He did not