Spell Song: An Enchanting Urban Fantasy

by J. F. Forrest

She walked the kids toward the door, each holding the next’s hand in a single-file line. The strange feeling of exhaustion she’d had after the Sunsphere incident had started to fade, so she started humming along with the carols blasting from the speakers overhead. The kids all joined in, and they warbled about reindeer and snowmen all the way to the door.

  3

  Ghost Face Killah

  “Did you freakin’ see that back there, Patrick?” Joe slid onto a barstool at the Casual Pint.

  He had his cellphone in his left hand and was swiping through his contact list. Peering over his reading glasses made him look older than he was, or maybe it was his white-gray hair. At only thirty-one, he liked saying that he didn’t care if his hair turned purple as long as it didn’t turn loose. Patrick, whose head was a horseshoe of prickled baldness, would always grunt in agreement.

  “Looked like magic ta me.” Patrick studied the tall chalkboard of craft beer choices the Pint had on tap, “and speakin’ of magic, I’ll try that new Magic Hat Taken For Granite IPA.”

  The cute blond bartender the regulars called Sissy, winked at him and looked at Joe. Joe continued to swipe. Patrick sat back on his stool, his hairy arms crossed over his hard, pumpkin-like belly. He cleared his throat conspicuously.

  Joe continued to scroll. “Stupid text ought to be bigger on this fancy phone. Cost enough.”

  “Joe,” Patrick said sniffing, “you want a beer or what?”

  Joe looked up. Sissy jumped like a small child discovering the crank on the music box popped up a monkey after a few turns. The glasses magnified Joe’s eyes and the only thing visible in the lenses were his pale blue irises.

  “Ahhh,” he said looking at the beer selection board, “just uh…gimme a…Pat, little help here?”

  Patrick immediately knew that Joe couldn’t read the board. “He’ll have the Ghost Face Killah.”

  The girl behind the bar arched her left eyebrow. “You know that’s the one with the gho-.”

  “Yup,” Patrick interrupted her, “that’s the one. Thanks, Sissy.”

  Joe smiled at her and went back to scrolling through his phone.

  “Got it,” he said finally.

  “Got what?”

  Joe scanned the bar from left to right. When he was sure the other patrons weren’t spying on them, he leaned closer to Patrick.

  “The number,” he said out of the corner of his mouth, and added, “shhhhhh.”

  “What number? Did you order a pizza or somethin’?”

  Sissy sat two beers in front of them and tucked a receipt into a shot glass between the two. Joe nodded and grabbed his. Patrick sipped his IPA and waited. Joe gulped and swallowed and clicked his phone.

  “The White Cloaks, you oaf.” He put the phone to his ear.

  “Oh, that number” Pat pecked through a half-empty bowl of Chex mix crumbs on the bar. “Pizza woulda been nice.”

  “Yeah. Hello?” Joe whistled air over his tongue. “Yes, this is um, wait…um…my code name is um… something like Muse?”

  Joe waited as the person on the other end spoke.

  “I’m on hold,” he mouthed to Patrick.

  Joe’s tongue felt warm and a strong aftertaste lingered on it, but he hadn’t had anything to eat. He took a big gulp of his beer and noticed that Patrick was straining not to laugh. His tongue, which had been on a low broil, was now in flames. He wiped his forehead with a bar napkin.

  “Jesus Christ, Pat!” he panted over his tender gums, “What did you do?”

  The bartender was laughing and Patrick guffawed, slapping the bar.

  “How you like the Ghost Face Killah?” asked the bartender.

  “It’s freakin’ hot as hell!”

  “It oughta be.” Patrick wiped his eyes. “It’s got ghost peppers in it!”

  Sissy slid a glass of water in front of him. Joe slurped and sloshed it down his shirt.

  “Asshole.” Joe was shaking his head. “I oughta beat the -.”

  He stopped as someone picked up the line. “Yeah. That’s right, it’s Muse. It was huge. We both saw it. Right there in the World’s Fair Park. Knocked me down and almost knocked big Pat over too. I got a pic, but it’s from the back. Then we lost her in the crowd at the convention center. Okay, sure. We’ll stay here and wait.”

  Joe hung up the phone and smacked Patrick on the back. Pat was laughing wildly.

  “Cheer up, pal. It usually goes away after a few hours.”

  Joe felt his stomach lurch and the heat that had been sitting like a red-hot brick started edging down, past his belly button, below his belt, and into what used to be his intestines.

  “Hey, Sissy,” he belched and felt hot bile bubble up into the back of his throat. “You got any antacid tablets back behind the…? Oh, God!”

  Joe clutched his stomach, but the lava-like pain had gone much farther south than that. He jumped up and a gurgling sound erupted from his backside.

  “Oh, no,” he moaned, “Stay here, Pat, you jackass. If the Cloaks get here before I get back, tell ‘em what happened and that I was the one who called it in. Joe, or um, Muse, got it?”

  Joe wanted to get in good with the White Cloaks, maybe even earn a promotion.

  “Got it,” Patrick saluted him and pointed to Joe’s half empty glass. “What about the rest of your beer?”

  “All yours, pal.” Joe flipped him off.

  He looked at his watch. It was seven forty-three, just enough time to get down to the Mast General Store. As he waddled through Market Square and down past the Tennessee Theater, the night’s early bar-hoppers gave him strange glances and a few turned up noses. He tried to remember if Mast sold underwear.

  4

  Old Matilde

  Sami shivered in the cool air whooshing around her as she walked down the cobblestone sidewalk of what Knoxville’s locals called the Old City. It was home to craft beer breweries, music halls, sports bars, frat boy and sorority girl hangouts, yuppie dance clubs that played Rick Springfield at least five times a night, barbecue wing joints, steakhouses yearning to be classy, and one cool brick-walled coffee shop.

  She pulled the plush wool collar up around her face against the fluttering snowflakes that were starting to fall. A small brass bell tinkled on the ten-foot tall mahogany and glass door that opened into Old City Java. Sami wasn’t a coffee snob, but the coffee was good enough that she came here at least four times a week in the morning and two or three times at night. Their chai tea lattes were to die for, especially on an all-nighter during exam week. The warm air and rich café smell washed over her. To her left was the row of square tables that were usually scattered with a few beanie-headed granola kids, clicking self-importantly on their brand-new, parent-bought MacBooks. The soft glow of iridescent apples reflected on the marble-top tables. Most had one ear bud stuck in their ear the other dangling from the cord, as if to say, “I’m not here to be bothered, unless I deem you worthy.”

  To the right, they usually had two small round tables for the real coffee drinkers, the ones who ordered without looking up at the menu board. But tonight those were gone. Sitting in their place were a lime green and a rusty red metal stool, black tripods holding Peavey speakers, and two microphone stands. Behind one of those stands was a violin case that Sami knew well. She shook her head wondering if Pa knew it was here. This violin was no Stradivarius or Guarneri. It was even better. A powerful magic artifact with the oldest kind of magic, old Matilde (as Wilmot Proctor named it) was a Fountain of Youth. When played by a resident of the right Caulla—specifically, the Cantus Caulla, it didn’t seem to reverse the aging process, but it slowed it to a crawl.

  She walked up to the counter, slid out of her jacket, and jutted her chin out at the man hovering over the espresso machine. He had a flannel painter’s cap pushed back on his head revealing salt and pepper mutton chops and a black soul patch. His t-shirt had several panels of pictures that showed the gradual lowering of a Rebel flag followed by the gradual raising of a rainbow flag. And to com
plete the effect, Gilroy Parrish, the owner and manager of Old City Java, wore black horn-rimmed glasses that he didn’t need. In fact, they had no lenses.

  “What’s a girl gotta do around here to get a large chai latte with a double shot of espresso?” Sami called over the display of individually packaged honey-buns.

  “Hey, hey, Sami,” Gilroy clapped his hands together. “Nothin’ much, just have the most talented musician for a brother.”

  Sami laughed. “Yeah. He’s okay I guess.”

  “Okay?! The guy brings in triple my normal bank when he plays here. I keep trying to sign him up for more gigs, but he says he can’t. Has to study or some such like that. I tried to tell him, college degree ain’t where it’s at no more, but he don’t listen.”

  Gilroy was pouring ingredients into a metal cup and scurrying around behind the counter as he spoke. He didn’t measure anything and he never looked at any containers as he mixed Sami’s drink.

  “Well, don’t talk him out of it. Ma and Pa would kill him if he dropped out.”

  They’re gonna kill him anyway when they find out he has the violin out here. Gilroy clicked a plastic lid on a paper cup, slid a piece of cardboard up on it, and handed it over to Sami.

  “Tab it?”

  “Yeah. You mind?”

  “Just like the dang Congress,” Gilroy shook his head and winked at her, “runnin’ up a tab, you ain’t never gonna be able to afford.”

  “I get my financial aid on Friday. I’ll settle up then.”

  “Uh huh. Pay me with that government money, test my delicate liberal sensibilities.”

  Sami laughed again. She turned back toward the tables on the opposite side of the room and found who she was looking for: Ricky Boshears and Doris Miller. They were sitting at one of the square tables watching the empty stools behind the microphones.

  “Hey guys, mind if I join you?”

  “Sakes alive! Look who it is, Ricky. The prodigal daughter has returned. Haven’t seen you since…gosh, two or three weeks ago,” Doris said.

  Doris Miller was a ninety-year-old woman who visited the Old City Java coffee shop every single day and ordered, you guessed it, black coffee.

  “Haven’t missed a day since I lost my Arthur,” she’d say every time anyone asked.

  “I was here yesterday, Doris.”

  “That’s right, she was,” Ricky chimed in.

  He was leaning back in his chair so far that it threatened to fall. He had his left leg propped up on the table proudly displaying the metal rivets he’d added to the seam of his jeans and the white paint that spelled out RICKY on his thigh. Stroking his long chin beard, he bobbed his head up and down with every word he said. His eyes blinked open and shut in the opposite rhythm of his tottering head making Sami dizzy. She thought the odd tics might have something to do with his triple shots of espresso.

  “When you’re old like me and you, sometimes you don’t remember those things as well, dearie.”

  “Hell, woman, I ain’t old. I’m forty-six.”

  Doris pursed her lips and tilted her chin down to look at him over invisible reading glasses.

  “And with no wife or kids. Tsk tsk.”

  “Hey, I can’t help it if the chicks down here don’t dig my art.”

  “Making puppets is not an art.”

  “I beg to differ, Doris. And they ain’t puppets, they’re marionettes, much more difficult to craft than a stupid puppet.

  “I gotta agree with him,” Sami slid into a chair at their table, “I’ve seen the one he made of you. Pretty dang good.”

  Doris inhaled deeply. Her gaze softened and she patted the side of her head, her hair net protecting her latest blue-tinted, combed-out perm.

  “And I’ve had plenty of girls come out to my shop to watch me work.”

  He gyrated his hips and raised his hands up, waving them back and forth. Sami rolled her eyes.

  “You mean to the garagenous zone?” Doris arched an eyebrow.

  Ricky grinned, “That’s where the magic happens, baby.”

  The word magic snapped Sami back to the reason she’d wanted to come see these two people. They knew she was powerful, in ways they sometimes didn’t understand. Doris often stared into the sky and babbled about the power taking her husband. Maybe someday she’d see her husband Arthur again. Sami was never sure what to make of it, but, she never pushed the kindly woman to talk about it...the subject seemed too painful

  “Speaking of magic,” she glanced around the café, “I need to talk to you guys about—”

  She intended to talk to them about her brash use of magic at the Sunsphere to protect the children, but a familiar voice on the Peavey speakers interrupted her.

  “Good evening, everyone. I am glad you all decided to brave this wintery weather to come and hear us play.”

  A slight Japanese accent colored the voice. It had a hint of Tennessean as well. Sami turned to see RayRay Proctor sitting on one of the stools behind a microphone.

  “Hey, brother,” she called out, not sure if he heard her.

  She’d have to wait to get his attention after the set. RayRay hadn’t seen a thing since birth.

  Her parents had found him in a Japanese orphanage while on a training mission for the Cloaks and had fallen in love with him immediately. His birth name wasn’t actually RayRay, it was Ryuji. While rocking him as a tiny baby, Mary had taken to singing lullabies to her little RayRay instead of Ryuji and it had stuck. The only time she called him Ryuji now was when he was in serious trouble.

  Even though he was her adopted brother, RayRay was like Sami in so many ways. They both had a knack for music, though his talent for it had always been much stronger than Sami’s. He loved people and always found joy in making music for crowds. He was also a magic user—known as an Incantor to the people of the Caullas—like her. He’d grown up being dutifully trained in the use of his magic – and more importantly not using his magic – on The Farm with Wilmot, Mary, and Sami for more than a hundred years.

  The night turned out to be a special treat as RayRay had coerced his pal, Jeff, to play his guitar with him while he played the violin. Bluegrass was the theme of the set list, but they had a few fan favorites sprinkled in here and there: “The Tennessee Waltz”, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”, and – duh – “Rocky Top”. Playing a gig in Tennessee without playing “Rocky Top” is likely to result in a lynch mob chasing you out of town with torches and pitchforks.

  “We will start with an old favorite, 'The Tennessee Waltz'.”

  There was a smattering of applause as RayRay adjusted his dark sunglasses and drew the bow across the violin. Familiar notes fluttered like the snow falling outside. For the human patrons of Old City Java, this was an experience like tasting the best, most flavorful steak they’d ever eaten or seeing a sunset on the beach throwing every hue of orange, yellow, red, and violet reflecting on the waves. It was the joy of well-played music multiplied by one hundred. The notes were soft and strong, full and round. Some even said they thought they could see the notes as they drifted out of the violin.

  Sami watched an aura of blue, purple, pink, and gold tendrils swirling as he played. She was lost in the music, swaying back and forth to the tune. It was like what she had done at the Sunsphere, but then again, completely different.

  “My, oh, my,” Doris had her eyes closed as she listened. “That boy sure can play. It’s like magic.”

  “Oh, crap!” Sami snapped out of her daze.

  Such a brazen use of magic in public was sure to draw the attention of the White Cloaks. Sami’s heart raced and she stood and walked toward RayRay. The din of normal café noise was gone and the music drifted through the air like Smoky Mountain clouds.

  As she took another step, the copper bell on the front door tinkled and Scott walked in. He beamed at Sami and opened his arms wide…then the music caught his attention. He looked like one of those old Hannah Barbara cartoons when a tendril of smoke from a hot plate of food lifts the sniffer o
ff the ground and carries them toward it.

  “Scott, we have to stop this!”

  The big guy’s head lolled back and forth to the tune. At her command, he snapped out of the daze and locked eyes with her.

  “Magic?”

  She nodded once. Scott winked at her.

  “I’ll stop this quicker’n a badger on an ant hill.”

  Sami had no idea what that meant, but she agreed anyway. Scott took two steps toward RayRay and stumbled. He caught his foot on a speaker stand, sending it tilting toward the ground. He dove toward the falling equipment, hands outstretched to catch it, but his right foot kicked out and jerked the power cord from the wall. The music stopped leaving a void of quiet. The speaker passed through his fingertips scraping his nails and then smashed to the ground. Scott lay outstretched full on the floor, a pile of wires and plastic parts in disarray between his hands. He winked at Sami.

  “Guess that’s why coach won’t never let me play wide receiver.”

  RayRay sat stunned as the crowd began to recover from their reverie. The clinking of dishes, the whoosh of the espresso machines, and murmuring voices started up again.

  “So sorry everyone, I am not exactly sure what that was all about, but we will return as soon as possible to—”

  Sami reached him and slapped a tight grip on his elbow.

  “Bro, you’re gonna get both of us in so much trouble. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Cloaks weren’t on their way here right now.”

  “Hello Sami.” He smiled a toothy grin. “It is nice to see you too.”

  “You oughta know better.”

  “Ah, there haven’t been any of those guys around here. Besides, how would they find out about me playing anyway?”

  “Well, they’re not going to now, cause you’re taking Matilde back to mom and dad.”

  “But, Sis,” he protested, “I have a gig here tomorrow night.”

  “Not anymore you don’t,” she squeezed tighter on his arm, “you’re not playing the violin out anywhere.”