A Wand a Day Read online

  Thus emboldened, I dug around in my closet and came up with a blouse I hadn’t ever worn. A soft, lacy mauve with a girly satin ribbon under the bust, it had always looked more feminine than I felt. Mom had bought it for me for some birthday long past in an attempt to get my husband to notice me. I hadn’t worn it back then, not wanting to look that soft in front of Kyle, who would probably have told me I was trying too hard anyway. Today, it fit more snuggly yet looked a lot more fantastic than it had before. Yet my reflection in the dresser mirror still bit at her lower lip in concern. Would I be jinxing things with Nicky by wearing a shirt meant for Kyle? Was there divorce etiquette about wardrobe changes? But it wasn’t like it was lingerie, right? All of my limited clothing options had come with me from married life; why did this one bother me so much if none of the rest did?

  It did show off my curves pretty darn well. A touch of pink lip gloss, and I looked softer than I had since college. I tied the pretty bow beneath my left breast and smoothed the lace. “Not bad, Tess,” I said.

  The answering whoosh in my belly drowned out my stomach gremlin’s protests.

  Looking myself in the eye, I took a deep breath and added, “You can do this.”

  The scent of pumpkin pie wafted into my room. I squeaked in surprise when I noticed the bulbous little face watching me from the edge of the dresser.

  “Drapple! We talked about this,” I said to the two-foot brownie. “You need to knock or something.”

  “Announced presence,” he grumbled at me, his voice low and creaky like an old tree in a cold wind. “Prefer a better smell, Godmother?”

  In the short time since I had first met the magical caretaker of my mom’s house, we had been working on a variety of human-brownie relation issues. Mostly his proclivity for appearing in my bedroom suddenly, no matter what I was doing. Brownies, apparently, had no sense of modesty.

  “A noise would be better. A soft chime or something.”

  His face wrinkled even further as his upper lip curled. “Chimes are for fairies. Pixies. Godmothers.”

  “Something else, then.” I waved a hand before using it to smooth the blouse over my stomach again. When Drapple kept staring at me, I sighed. “Did you need something?”

  “Trouble in the garden, Godmother.”

  I froze. He had never reported trouble before. My mind’s eye imagined all kinds of magical problems—notably the return of the Wand Squad, the air nymphs who had hunted me in search of that fairy godmother wand I wasn’t supposed to have. “What sort of trouble?”

  “Hairy one making a mess of things. Cake everywhere. Mayhem. Tears.”

  “What!” I didn’t wait for his short-response answer. I took the stairs two at a time and slammed through the ajar back door without even seeing the kitchen.

  Mayhem was right. My brain couldn’t even take it all in at once.

  Bob, soaked from head to toe, his grey pelt frothy where it poked out from his v-neck tee. The grill in front of him spouted flames twelve feet high as he watched with open-mouthed shock.

  Destiny, her black-and-white fur matted with cake, beans, and a rainbow of other foods, barked hysterically atop the picnic table.

  One of the biker dudes dangled, upside-down, from the big pine tree in the middle of the yard. He had a spatula in one hand and the salad tongs in the other, seemingly conducting an unseen orchestra in the grass.

  Another of Bob’s friends lay sprawled across the little reflecting pool, his jeans growing smaller by the second, receding up his pale legs as I watched. Only magic could do that.

  Likewise, only magic could build the glistening blue bubble floating a few feet from the table. Seeing it made my body go numb.

  Inside, tinged blue by the bubble, stood my mother, a knife poised to cut the destroyed cake. Her face had frozen in an expression of surprise and anger, fear just beginning to tinge her wide-set blue eyes.

  Chapter 2

  Without a thought in my head, I leapt down the deck stairs and propelled myself to Mom’s side. Magic wasn’t going to hurt my mom again. I raised my hand as I skidded to a halt in the grass. My old boss’s wand had already appeared in my grasp, the unicorn horn of wood cool against my hot skin. It still surprised me when that happened, when I summoned the implement from its hiding place without a thought. I hadn’t done it since the sleeping curse had lifted, afraid to so much as touch it. Now that I had it, I was glad.

  Except I still had no idea what to do to with it. Could I pop the bubble? Would it hurt Mom? Did I need a spell? Why would someone encase my mom in a bubble and then wreak havoc across the yard, anyway? What the hell was going on and how the hell did I stop it?

  I had some choice words for Miss Maysie, the godmother who had tricked me into becoming her apprentice before disappearing without so much as a how-to guide. Maybe she hadn’t done it on purpose - she said someone had trapped her, and I had no reason to believe otherwise - but it was still her fault. Her fault I had no idea what to do. Her fault it was my responsibility to fix things I didn’t want to know existed at all. Her fault I might not ever be able to go back to being a normal human Mundane.

  “Shut up, Destiny!” I yelled at the dog, who pranced on the table in a strange combination of menace and playfulness. “Stop barking at Mom!” She kept on barking anyway.

  As if my shout had decided something for her, she bunched her hind legs and launched herself into the air. Only then did I realize she hadn’t been barking at my mom; she had been barking at something - or someone - standing in the shadows of the house behind her. Destiny’s energetic leap missed her target, as usual. It carried her wide of Mom but not far enough from me to keep from kicking my arm. I had time to brace myself so she didn’t knock me over, only shoved me a foot or so. Except my last step to catch myself landed on an upended plate of beans, causing me to slip and slide across the grass…right into the bubble around Mom. The wand in my hand punctured the bubble with a soft pop.

  All around me, the backyard went blue as if we’d been transplanted to Atlantis. I caught my breath, waiting for the magical fallout of the dumb dog’s frantic lack of coordination. One second. Two. On the third, the blueness snapped out of existence as if it had never been. The biker fell out of the tree with a thud. The fire in the grill sizzled and smoked and shrank back to a small blaze. Mom blinked at me, knife in her hand still raised.

  “Tessa? What in the world?”

  I took the knife from her and set it carefully on the table. Then I hugged her with all my might. “Are you okay? Nothing hurt? Nothing…wrong?”

  Her return hug was weak, but the way she moved me aside was strong enough. She scanned the yard around us. The biker dude picked himself up, swearing like a sailor. The one in the reflecting pool splashed out of it, his jeans normal length again. And Bob slammed the grill lid down, controlling the belching flames with panache, as if he were taming a lion.

  I watched her face for signs of the magic doing its job. Mundanes couldn’t see magic generally, and on the rare occasion something happened they couldn’t explain, the magic filled in the gaps with plausible excuses. I didn’t see any change in her, but maybe it wasn’t obvious. I had seen it go the other direction, when I broke the spell keeping Mueller from seeing the changes at the factory, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

  Mom blinked and shook her head, as if trying to clear it. Then she glared across the yard. “Honestly, Bob. I can’t leave you alone for two minutes! Look at this mess.”

  My relief was almost complete. She appeared not only unharmed, but completely untouched by whatever madness had occurred while I was changing. I slipped around behind her to the spot where Destiny continued to bark at the empty air beside the house. Squatting, I saw no evidence of anything, man or beast, in the soft earth around the violets and lavender bushes. I expected to find footprints, though some magical Folk floated. Still, something had been there. Not only did Destiny insist on it, but I had caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye. I’d been too d
istracted to really look at it, but it had been about the size of a regular person. A regular person who was there and somehow…not, at the same time.

  “I’m sorry, Tess,” Mom said from immediately behind me, making me jump. She helped me stand and brushed off my arms as if I were as messy as the rest of the yard. “I should have let you taste the cake. Now no one will get to eat it.” She said that second part louder than the first, for Bob’s benefit. Softer, she added, “Well, if he wanted to use his cake for a food fight instead of eating it, that’s his prerogative. I’ll be inside. I just hope he didn’t embarrass you too much in front of your boyfriend.” She squeezed my arm and stomped inside.

  That relief and confusion zinged away with the force of an electrical storm. Nicky! I had forgotten all about him. What kind of girlfriend was I? (Or not-quite-girlfriend date.) I tried to console myself that I had been focused on the pressing danger around Mom, and was sensitive in the area where she and magic intersected. And that Nicky was an adult, capable of handling himself. Except he was just as mundane as everyone else in my backyard and, therefore, just as at the mercy of whatever magical being had inflicted chaos upon Bob’s birthday bash.

  Cursing the alliteration in my mind that was definitely getting worse the longer I was a godmother, I scanned the yard. Nicky wasn’t even in the backyard. I called his name and heard no reply. Quelling panic before it could take over, I leaped back up the deck stairs and let the kitchen door slam behind me.

  “Nicky?” I called again. The only reply was Destiny whining to be let in. I glanced at her. “And have Mom kill me for getting cake all over the house? Not a chance.” I left her scratching at the door and did a quick perusal of the main floor. Bathroom was empty. Living room silent. No Nicky anywhere. If he wasn’t outside and he wasn’t inside…

  My throat tightened as I stepped out the front door and onto the porch. The balloons Mom had tied to the railing flapped limply in the wind, nothing more than bits of burst latex on strings. Glitter dusted the walk to the driveway, shimmering blue and orange around clear spaces in the shape of a man’s shoes. I had no idea where the glitter came from - Mom didn’t typically use mess-making decorations she would have to spend a lot of time cleaning up - but I knew footprints when I saw them.

  I followed the prints to the drive, my gut roiling. What if magic had done something to Nicky? Abducted him? Turned him into a frog that the perpetrator could stick in a pocket before strolling casually out the front door? No, I chided myself. They didn’t go out the front door. They vanished from the backyard. Not the same person. Thing. Whatever.

  The footprints led me to the passenger door of a familiar dark sedan with tinted windows. For a minute, I thought the car was empty. And then the window rolled down and I sighed with relief.

  “I thought you’d gotten lost,” I said, even happier than usual to see those handsome features.

  Nicky, however, looked like I was the last person he wanted to see. He sat with one hand clutching the steering wheel, white-knuckled. His cell phone was face-down on his nicely muscled thigh as if he had just finished a conversation. “Tessa…” he started. Then he shook his head and flipped the lock on the passenger door. “Get in.”

  The tone of his voice made my stomach gremlin dig a deep hole to crawl into. I wanted to run, to dash inside and lock myself in my bedroom with the music blaring so he couldn’t say whatever it was he was going to say.

  I got in anyway.

  The chirping of birds, Destiny barking plaintively in the backyard; all sound vanished as soon as I closed the door. “Is your car sound-proofed? You still haven’t told me what you do, really. For all I know, you could be a government spy.” I babbled, probably hoping to stall the inevitable heartache. “Are you a spy? No, don’t tell me. I don’t want you to have to kill me.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard, and his right hand joined his left on the wheel. “Tessa…”

  I took advantage of his pause to blurt, “I don’t care that you dumped food down my shirt, you know. I blame Bob and the dog. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. We’ve all been there. Especially with those two. I mean, just last month—”

  “It’s not that,” he said, cutting off my nervous prattling. His voice was so hard and set, it made my throat tighten. “I just got a call from…from home office. They want me back in DC.” He swallowed again. “Tomorrow.”

  Tears burned behind my eyes, but I gave a little laugh, refusing to give into them. “So you are a spy. I knew you were a little too perfect to be real.”

  “I’ve really enjoyed the time we’ve had together. You’re…you’re great,” he said flatly.

  “Well, if you feel that strongly about it, it’s amazing you haven’t run away with me yet.” I hated myself before the words were out of my mouth. Sarcasm wasn’t the way I wanted to respond. I didn’t want my insecurities ruling the moment, regardless of what the moment might be.

  Nicky winced. “That’s not what I…” He took a deep breath. “I feel like I can be myself with you. That doesn’t happen. I’m used to powerful women who want things from me. Who make demands and play games. Who—”

  “Powerful women,” I repeated, hating the bitterness on my tongue. “And I’m what? Simple? Easy-going?” Weak was the word I wanted to use, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

  “Well, yeah.”

  I wanted to deck him. To sob. The drama of my marriage left its trenches within me, and I wanted to unleash the wife-kraken from within them. But Nicky wasn’t yelling. Wasn’t blowing me off. So I buried my lashing tentacles back in my depths and slumped in the seat. “Great. I’m a ready-to-assemble Swedish end table.”

  “My life is complicated. I can’t even legally tell you how much. I don’t want someone who adds to my problems.”

  “I’m sorry if I added to your list of troubles,” I murmured, fighting back tears.

  “That’s not what…” He clenched his jaw and tried again. “I can’t have a girlfriend here when I work in Washington.”

  Realization punched me in the gut. “That’s why you were okay going slow, isn’t it? Because you knew you’d have to leave?”

  He looked away. “I didn’t want to hurt you. More than I was already going to.” He shook his head. “I’m so sorry, Tessa. I shouldn’t have asked you out. I should have left you alone. Ally was right about that.”

  The mention of my ex-best-friend caused fireworks of rage to explode in my brain. Or maybe jealousy. Or maybe I just hated that she had been right.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. No. This had nothing to do with Alyssa. If I had learned anything from my failure of a marriage, it was how to spot a derailment, a shift of conversation away from a more painful topic. I’d let Kyle get away with it year after year because it had been easier than dealing with all the other terrible things between us.

  Even though my body insisted I bolt out of the car, I made myself reach over and take Nicky’s hand. I forced myself to meet his eyes, now tormented and full of pain. He had demons too, I reminded myself. They may not be as public as mine - whose were, outside of celebrity status? - but that didn’t make them any less difficult. “So we don’t end up happily ever after. So what? I can’t remember the last time I had three months this nice. You know, minus the whole mom-in-a-coma thing.” I smiled and found I didn’t need to force it. The tears still crowded in my throat, but they didn’t hurt quite so badly. I kissed his cheek, trying not to think about how it was for the last time. “Thank you for not just ditching me with no explanation.”

  “You don’t hate me?”

  “I may hate DC for a while for taking you away, but not you.” I squeezed his hand. “Friends?”

  He smiled at me, but it looked like it cost him a heavy price. “Always.”

  “Good luck with everything,” I said, opening the door.

  “Tessa, I—”

  “You need to go now, okay?”

  He reached behind the seat and pull
ed out a small box wrapped in Dr. Who paper. “I was going to give you this today. Like an unbirthday present. Sorry about the paper—it was all I could find around the house.”

  “You don’t have to do that.” I tried to push it back at him, but he insisted.

  “I have no use for it and I can’t return it. It was in this little antique store, and it…” He shifted uncomfortably in the seat. “It made me think of you. I don’t even know if it works. So just take it, okay?”

  The tears ran the blockade. I nodded, unable to speak, and smiled in thanks. Then I closed the door and stepped away from the car.

  He backed down the drive, pulled out onto the dirt road beyond, and drove away. I unwrapped the present to find an antique Kodak folding camera. In all the years I had been married, my ex had never once given me such a perfect, thoughtful gift. It felt like a dagger stabbing me in the heart.

  I wanted to run through the forest between the house and Trapperstown proper, sobbing out my pain with all the drama of a movie. I wanted to sit in the dirt and turn it to mud. I wanted the catharsis of sobbing, screaming, anguished release.

  Instead, Bob shouted at me from the front door, “Hey, Tessita! Party’s not over yet. Get your fanny back here—Jorge wants to hear all about your job. He’s got kids, you know. Little ones that like sparkly stuff. Don’t be a party pooper. It’s my birthday!”

  Heaven forbid I rain on Bob’s birthday.

  As I turned back to the house, the phone in my pocket rang. The sight of Bob, waving me inside while wearing swim trunks and nothing else made me answer the call in spite of the name on the display.

  “Tessa!” Ally burst out before I could say anything. “Do you have time to meet me for lunch at Gardenia?”

  So despondent was I, so trapped between the gut-punch of losing Nicky and the skin-crawl of returning to Bob’s party, that I actually agreed. I even almost convinced myself that maybe Ally wanted to apologize for her previous behavior. For crashing my first date with Nicky and insisting that he and I would hurt each other.