“Real or not, there are some accidents a dude doesn’t want to even pretend might happen.”
I did a little dance. “Ooh! I know!” Quietly, so he wouldn’t know what was coming - if anything happened at all - I whispered with more force and enthusiasm, “Tame the beard.”
Stars flew out of the wand like fireworks, exploding into a shower of golden light halfway between us. I thought maybe I would need to get closer to see the effect, but it was blatantly apparent. My eyes went wide. “Well,” I hemmed with an eye on his temper, “at least I’ll get some practice in doing reversals. That’s important, right?”
“What did you do, Ray?” he quoted at me, looking much less impressed than Venkman had when faced with the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
“Nothing. I mean, something. But it’s not bad. Your clothes are still on and everything. And it’s not like I gave you a new nose or something.”
Mueller stalked to his side mirror, angling the whole thing so he could see himself better. The look he gave me was equal parts relief and annoyance at being tricked. “No being a pain in the ass while we’re doing this. No tricks. If you don’t do anything, you can’t pretend you did. Got it?”
“Um…” I wasn’t sure how to answer that. On the one hand, I had no problem agreeing to his demand. On the other… “Mueller, your hair is…”
“What?” He checked himself again.
“Your mutton chops are blond.”
“Shut up. I can see them, right here. No problem. Spectacular as always. Though I think this exercise is making me greyer.”
I came closer, but not too close. “I’m serious, Mueller. Your face is as blond as the Coppertone baby. Your chin even kind of looks like her bare butt…”
“I will leave you here and you can walk your own ass back to town.”
My hands came up, shooting stars arcing from the wand to glitter in the air above me. “Okay, okay. Truce.” If he couldn’t see the difference, we were going to have a problem. He couldn’t make suggestions or improvements if the factory spell was getting in the way. Or…could regular people not see magic at all? No, that couldn’t be it. Otherwise, Cinderella would look like her raggedy usual self at the ball, and the prince would never have given her the time of day.
Mueller returned to his place on the crunchy cement, braced for any teasing I might throw his way.
Then again…if he couldn’t see what I did… My mind spun with all the ridiculous things I could do to him as payback for all the jokes, the bar, getting me drunk. All of it. I could put him in a dress. That would brighten my day considerably. Give him Rapunzel’s hair. He would make an excellent Little Red Riding Hood.
“Stop it,” he growled, reminding me that he was more Big Bad Wolf than innocent little girl.
“I’m not doing anything,” I protested, but the laugh in my words betrayed me.
“Whatever you’re thinking of doing to me, quit.”
I heaved a sigh. “Fine. Spoil-sport.” I squared my shoulders, shook my head as if my hair were down and able to sift over my shoulders, and faced him solidly. That seemed like the thing to do. Confidence, I thought, referencing every inspirational movie ever made. Be the wand. Be the spell. “Reverse the spell,” I said as forcefully as I could.
The wand made an unpleasant little sound, like it was choking on its own magic. Mueller’s muttons remained as golden as the grasses waving in the wind around us.
Mueller didn’t bother looking, probably because my whole body slumped in defeat. “Maybe you have to do all that boopety-boo crap. Make it sound like a spell.”
“How many Disney movies do you watch, exactly?”
He shifted his feet. “They were on in the background a lot when I was a kid. Which is lucky for you, if this is the weak-ass stuff you’re bringing to the table.”
“If I start calling you Fair Maiden Mueller, would that offend you?”
His expression told me where I could stick my wand. “If you’re not going to listen to me, what the hell am I doing here? Find a field mouse and use it for practice.”
“Does it need to be able to sew or sing? ‘Cause I think those might be harder to come by…”
He responded by storming back to his car and opening the door.
“Okay, okay, okay!” I shouted over a new gust of wind. It was strong enough to keep him from getting the car open. “No more joking. I’ll try it your way.” When he was back in position, I pushed aside the silliness and found the desperation lurking beneath. Swallowing against what felt like my whole life telling me I couldn’t do this - and not because magic wasn’t real - I raised the wand with its faint glow. That glow enveloped my hand now, too, as if melding with me like Spock shifting his consciousness to poor old Bones. Pushing that image away, too, I focused on Mueller’s face. Because if there was one thing I knew for absolute certain, it was that without him, I would be totally lost. Not because he had a strange knowledge of princesses and fairy tales, but, well, he was the only friend I really had. Which didn’t speak awesomely for me since I’d only known him a week, but whatever.
I groped for appropriately fairytale words to turn into a spell. There should be a training manual for this stuff. That would be so much easier than searching inside myself for what was apparently already there, waiting to be used.
My brain was wandering, desperate not to take its task too seriously. Or maybe desperate not to fail at this, too.
“What kind of girl doesn’t know the words to that stupid song?” Mueller asked, irritating me out of my mental meander.
Without thinking, I incanted, “Bubbling and brewing like the overhead storm, give this man his most natural form.”
I heard him say, “Rhyme. Nice.” But most of me was focused on the river of light cascading from the wand, sliding across the broken concrete to pool at Mueller’s feet. It illuminated him in its soft golden glow, sparkles rising to his waist like an upside-down shower. As if I were looking through a long camera lens, I saw his body bend and elongate, sprouting hair from every inch as his clothes tore away. A howl sounded inside my head.
I yelped and dropped the wand. The river of light winked out, leaving Mueller all manly and unchanged. I rushed forward to squeeze his forearm and poke at his belly. “Are you okay?” I asked, breathless.
“It’s kind of hot standing out in the sun like this. I’m probably getting skin cancer while you play around. Are we done yet?”
I placed both hands on his biceps and turned him to make sure his body still worked appropriately. “You don’t feel any different?” He didn’t look any different. At least, not until I turned him fully to the side. “Oh…no…”
A long, wolfish tail jutted out the back of his jeans, swishing gently in the breeze.
“Don’t play with me, woman!”
“I’m not! I…” I stammered, then flashed him a bright smile. “It’s okay. Everything is okay. At last your beard is back to normal.”
He glowered suspiciously at me. “It was normal before.”
“Ish,” I answered.
“So what’s wrong-ish with me now?”
I watched him incredulously. “You don’t feel that?”
“Feel what?”
“That.” I pointed at the tail.
Like a dog, he spun in a circle trying to see what was wrong. “Did you make my ass huge? That’s not my natural state.”
I pressed my lips together. “Don’t worry. I think I can fix it.”
“Fix what?!”
“Hold still.”
An hour later, I had made a sagebrush grow out of the concrete. I had turned my mom’s suit purple. I had even shaved Mueller’s head and gotten the hair to grow back normally. But the tail never budged. Well, I did turn it into a curly little pug tail, but it returned to the long, hairy wolf tail almost immediately.
“That’s it,” he said, glancing at his watch. His frustration was as palpable as my own. “I played with you. Either that wand is a dud or this whole thing is a giant halluci
nation. Either way, I need a beer.”
My stomach gremlin gnashed its teeth, but even it couldn’t keep tears from threatening my eyes. “I’m not going back to that bar,” I refused.
“Fine,” he spat, returning to the car. “Stay here. I’ll pick you up when I’m done.”
“Fine!” I shouted back, stalking to a rock at the end of the concrete and sitting down a little too hard. I winced. I really needed to stop bruising my butt before I couldn’t sit down anymore.
I heard him swear a couple times, and then the door slammed. With my back to the car, I expected to hear his feet crunching across the concrete toward me. Instead, the engine roared to life and away he went in his SUV.
He left me. He really actually left me here, all alone, miles from anyone. Sun beating down on me. Everyone I loved either at the hospital or en route, assuming my brother thought it important enough to drop everything. My only friend was on his way to drink away my stupidity. Unluckily, no amount of booze would do that for me. My stupidity would be with me forever, just like my incompetence. And just like I was stuck in the middle of nowhere, there was no way to convince my one and only friend that I wasn’t a total basketcase. Not without breaking the spell that kept him from seeing magic. And there was no way for me to do that. Maybe I should have kissed Nicky when I had the chance. Just in case. Too late now, though. Even if Mueller went along with my insanity when he came back, Nicky probably wouldn’t kiss a woman who was falling apart as badly as I clearly was.
I was busy digging a hole in the rocky dirt with the toe of my pumps while excavating a much deeper, much more damaging hole in my emotional core when my phone rang. I hadn’t realized it was in the pocket of the suit jacket. I glanced at it, my mind registering a familiar and yet unknown number from an area code I didn’t recognize, and answered it without thinking.
“Hello?” I sniffled, anger and defeat vying for first spot on Tessa’s Next Top Emotion.
A pleasant male voice responded, “Is this Tessa?” His voice sounded as familiar as the number looked, and yet I knew I didn’t know either one.
“Yes…”
“My name is Gerald Mueller. You left a message earlier.”
“I did?” So much had happened, I was having a hard time remembering everything. And then the name clicked. “Oh, you must be Mueller’s dad! Thank you for calling me back.”
“My pleasure.” And his voice actually made it sound like it was. “Is this a bad time?” How did a guy like Mueller come from such a polite father?
I shook my head for five seconds before I realized he couldn’t see me. “Not at all. Perfect, really.”
“You said you had a question about Jake’s background? I don’t know how much I can say. He doesn’t like anyone to talk about it.”
I cleared my throat and sat up straighter, as if he could see me and I needed to impress him. “I was just wondering…has he ever…um…this is probably going to sound weird. But it’s for his own good, I promise.” I hesitated.
Gently, Mr. Mueller said, “I have no idea what my son is up to these days, but I do know that I haven’t gotten a call from a friend of his in years. Possibly not since he left home. It’s nice to know someone cares enough to go behind his back, whatever the reason.”
That seemed like an odd thing to say, but I wasn’t going to let weirdness deter me. “I was just wondering if he’s ever been…in love. Possibly a love to end all loves?”
A heavy sigh crossed the airwaves, and my sense of defeat beat out sudden hope. Mr. Mueller muttered a few things I didn’t understand, and then replied, “I’m sure you’ve noticed, but Jake isn’t exactly…open. To people.”
“I’ve…noticed, yes.” Understatement of the year?
“Several years ago, there was this accident…”
Twenty minutes later, I assured him that Mueller was fine and well, and said goodbye. Then I punched the buttons to call the poor dumbass up. When he answered, I said, “Get your butt back here. I need you to take me to work so I can fix this mess. Oh, and also? Call your dad once in a while, jerk.”
Maybe calling him a jerk wasn’t my best move - likewise, revealing that I had talked to his dad - but he deserved to know I was pissed. For me, for his dad, for Mueller himself. But I was also one hundred percent certain I knew how to break the spell keeping Mueller in the dark. If I was going to save my mom, I needed his help. And the only way I was going to do that was for him to see what was going on.
I tried to convince myself that my main driving force wasn’t the echo of his words about hallucinations or the pain in my chest it caused. I only kind of succeeded.
The important thing was that I knew how to break the spell. I knew where to find Mueller’s true love, and we were going to save the day.
Even if he hated me for it…
Chapter 21
“Aren’t you supposed to be sick today?” Mueller asked as we slipped in the front door of Fairytale Endings. That familiar smell of plastic and new paint wafted over us. “You kind of look like you went on a job interview.” He eyed me sideways. “A job interview that went really bad. So never mind.”
I punched him in the arm. Again, probably shouldn’t antagonize him, but he’d had two beers before he deigned to come get me. I had a right to be angry, too. “I could drop into a deep coma from which I might never wake up at any moment. I’d call that sick enough.”
I led the way down the central corridor. Nobody else in this barely-populated version of the factory used the front entrance, so I was sure we wouldn’t be spotted. Mostly. At least not until we got to the bathrooms. Still, I was fairly certain there had to be an executive washroom upstairs somewhere. So the only person we had to worry about was Od, Ms. Zent’s hunchbacked assistant goon, and we would hear him coming long before he saw us. His distinctive clump-step was pretty loud.
Mueller paused as we passed the first set of fire doors, listening. “Ogre’s acting up again,” he grumbled. His hand was on the door before I managed to hiss, “Don’t you dare!”
“It’ll be a quick fix, I’m sure. Now. If I wait, it could cause a cascade of—”
“Do it and die,” I said, using my finger like the wand. “I already gave you a tail. Don’t make me do worse.”
He was only half listening, but that half made him hesitate and turn to glare at me. “What did you say?”
I grinned innocently. “Nothing. Now, come on!” I grabbed him by the arm and attempted to drag him down the hall.
Mueller was not a small man by any stretch of the imagination. Not that he was particularly meaty, either in muscle or in fat. Just…solid. Stocky. Impossible for a hundred-something-something-pound woman to move when he didn’t want to be moved. The glower he gave me was only a little irritated. The rest was all amusement. Butthead was laughing at me.
“Fine. Go fix your machine. I’ll just be rooting around your office.”
“What’s in my office?”
I shrugged nonchalantly. “Your true love.”
He searched my face, probably for signs I was being a pain in the neck. Which I was, of course. “Do you mean…are you saying that…you…?”
“Oh, God no!” I felt my face flush in spite of myself. “I am not your true love. Can you imagine us together? We can’t have a simple argument without you leaving me in the middle of nowhere.”
His nods agreed with me way too much. “You’re wound way too tight for me. Though I could probably fix that…” Dark eyebrows waggled at me suggestively.
Stupidly, that made me blush harder. “Go fix your damn machine, perv.” I shoved him. He tripped into the fire door with a thud. “Shhh!” I warned.
“Yeah, like that was my fault.”
I waved him off. I didn’t really need him to find what I was looking for. I was pretty sure I’d seen it yesterday. Or had that been this morning? What day was it, again? One in which I hadn’t had enough sleep, obviously. Or food.
Mueller’s office was just as it had been the last time I w
as in it. Stark, mostly empty, kind of sad. I went straight for the drawer of broken tools. There, wedged in under a hammer with a jagged handle and a pair of matching screwdrivers broken in the same place, was Mueller’s omnitool.
“Hello, my lovely,” I cooed once I got it unwedged. But my smugness was short-lived. Winona’s bottom half was missing. That wasn’t any good. The chrome handle was her prettiest feature. Somehow, I doubted she would break the spell on Mueller with only half of her present. Especially when that half was warped beyond use.
I dug through the drawer, nicking my fingers and scraping my knuckles on various broken edges and sharp tools. “What the heck does he do to these things?” I asked the cabinet. “And why does he really keep them?”
He startled me by answering from the doorway. “So I can create weird mutant tools with crazy abilities. I’ll be the next Swiss Army guy, but like Professor X.”
I glanced up at him from the floor. “Really?”
He shrugged. “That, or I’m just lazy. What’re you looking for?”
“The bottom half of this,” I answered, waving Winona seductively. Well, what I imagined might be seductively for a tool that was meant for greasy, hard labor. “Remember this?”
For a second, I expected his eyes to widen in shock, or an explosion of magic to go off over his head. Instead, he just frowned at me. “Should I?”
I slumped. “She looks better with her bottom half. Help me look, would you? It’s a fancy chrome handle.”
“What kind of idiot uses a chrome-plated screwdriver?” he asked, bending over the drawer.
Laughter escaped me before I could stop it. “You do.”
“Like hell.” He emptied the trash can onto the floor, spilling its sandwich wrappers and soda cans into a nice heap.
“You’ll see. Soon as we put her back together.”
“Is she going to turn into a hot blonde?”
“That’s a creepy thought,” I said, pausing to think about it.
“Hey, you’re the one who called it a her.”
“Yeah, but it’s in half. If it was a woman…” I shook my head. “Never mind.”
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