One Good Wand

by Grace McGuiness

  Mueller leaned against the door frame. “I don’t see it.”

  “Crap.” I sat back on my heels, thinking. “Where else would it be? Out on the factory floor, maybe?”

  “Or it got thrown away.” Just as I was about to get really depressed, he snapped his fingers. “Wait! I think I have seen it. Come on.”

  I hopped up and followed him out of the office, down the hall, and up the stairs. He opened one of the wooden blinds to give us a view of the factory floor with all its moving parts and huffing machines. I hadn’t seen it like that before, from up above. Not without a giant cloud of dust obstructing my view. Up here, it was less intimidating and more impressive. Especially since half the machines puffed pink, sparkly smoke. I didn’t remember them doing that, no matter my viewpoint.

  “So it is on the floor?” I squinted through the slats. “How are we going to find it like this?”

  Mueller lowered his voice, somehow making it even growlier as it quieted. It sent a shiver down my neck as I remembered the spell that almost turned him into a wolf. “Not there. It’s up here. This is for show. To give us an excuse for being here.”

  “Here?” I scanned the hallway around us. The only thing in it were the potted plants. They had taken on a weird sort of fiendish aura, their leaves drooping at the edges, their shapes twisted and gnarled in a way I didn’t remember. “There’s nowhere for it to—”

  He cut me off by sliding a hand over my belly. “Shh!” His gentle strength pushed me back against the wall. His thigh pressed against mine as his hand crept around to the small of my back.

  “What are you—” I started to demand, but then I heard it. The step-thump of the boss’s weird little assistant as he approached from the front of the building.

  Nuzzling my neck for show - at least, I hoped it was for show…I really had to stop letting him put us in this position - he whispered, “Od’s got it. We just have to figure out how to take it back.”

  “And you thought making out would help that cause?” I muttered.

  “Element of surprise. Stop being a pain in the ass and go with it.”

  “I bet you say that to all the girls,” I said with snark, “which explains a lot.” But I did as instructed, sliding my fingers up his arms and into his dark hair. His mutton chops tickled the sensitive skin of my neck, making me giggle in spite of myself.

  Odmenticus hobbled down the hallway, his short, squat frame working hard just to get from point A to point B. I felt a little sorry for the guy. Hunchbacked, barely as tall as my shoulders, his face pinched and paunchy both. And that hobble…what I had before taken to be a leg too short was, in fact, an entirely missing foot. The clump of the step-clump came from the replacement, a shiny chrome thing that gleamed with every step.

  “Oh!” I exclaimed softly, realizing what I was looking at.

  “Yeah, baby,” Mueller growled in my ear. At the same time, the waggle of his wolfish tail increased at the bottom of my field of vision. I wasn’t sure which was worse, but something got to me. A shiver of freaked out disgust shuddered from my toes to my hair.

  I shoved Mueller away from me, shouting, “Perv!” He stumbled straight into Od and the two of them went down in a heap of cursing.

  “Jeez, Hargitay,” Mueller grumbled. “Tease much? You know what that sort of behavior does to a guy?”

  “Don’t be disgusting,” I snapped, not having to fake it much. “In fact, keep your hands to yourself from now on.”

  The two were just starting to get up when I shoved Mueller again, knocking him on top of Od.

  “Get off!” the small man shouted, his limbs flailing. “She’s right—hands to yourself, pretty boy!”

  Nobody had said anything about my hands yet, so while Mueller had the assistant occupied, I darted in and wrapped them around the bottom half of Winona. I tugged and pulled and swore, but it wouldn’t budge. “It’s stuck.”

  “Pull harder!” Mueller roared over his exertion. Apparently the little man was stronger than he looked.

  No amount of tugging did the job, and I was starting to feel bad about stealing the guy’s peg leg.

  “Lemme go!” Od shouted. He kicked at me, clocking me in the cheek with Winona’s bottom half. I fell back onto my butt and heard a distinct ripping sound from my mom’s skirt.

  “Dammit! My mom’s gonna kill me.” And then I remembered that she wouldn’t, because she was in a coma. All my fear and heartache and anger seemed to bubble up inside me as I pictured her in that uncomfortable hospital bed for the rest of her life, never waking. What would she miss if I couldn’t break this stupid spell? “Come off!” It was my turn to roar.

  It did. With a little spark of silver, the tool handle popped right off Od’s stump. I toppled backward, sprawling across the floor in a very unladylike sort of way. Not caring, I clutched the thing in my tightest grip and scrambled to my feet.

  “Go!” Mueller growled. “I’ll hold him off.”

  I didn’t think it would take much. How was the poor guy supposed to follow us on one foot? But I didn’t argue. Too much was riding on this silly piece of metal, hot in my hands. I grabbed the top half of Winona from where I’d dropped it and shot down the stairs, out the front door, and straight to Mueller’s car. Locked. I turned to shout for Mueller, only to see him barreling out the front door like a bull in search of something red. He clicked the remote and the locks opened. I hopped in, shoved his door open from the inside, and buckled in.

  Thirty seconds later, we were tearing out of the parking lot with a hunchbacked assistant hopping after us, waving his meaty fists at our dust cloud.

  When I could no longer see the factory out the back window, I said, “What do you think? Did we just get ourselves fired?”

  “Your mom cooks, right?”

  I frowned at Mueller, who sat hunched over the steering wheel, his knuckles white where they gripped it. “Yeah. Why?”

  “Because if whatever you’ve got planned doesn’t work, I’m gonna need somewhere to live. I prefer that place have food.”

  The car seat was hot with summer sun when I leaned back against it, bouncing my head a little on the headrest. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  He relaxed a little, easing back about an inch. “Look on the bright side. I can wander around in my boxers, too. Give your stepdad a run for his money.”

  Somehow, that didn’t make me feel any better. My hands still shook as I aligned the two pieces of the broken wrench-screwdriver-pliers-whatever. My heart still thudded in my chest. When Mueller said, “Wait, lemme pull over first,” my breath caught in my throat…and not because I was afraid of losing my temp gig.

  “What if this doesn’t work?” I whispered.

  He threw the car into park on the side of the road outside of Mayfair and shrugged at me. “What’s it supposed to do?”

  “Break the spell. The one on the factory.” If it didn’t, what would I do? This was a long shot on its own. After this, I might as well give up having help. If I couldn’t lift the spell keeping my one ally from hearing my telephone conversations and seeing my magical mistakes, I was well and truly on my own.

  Panic tightened my chest.

  “By fixing an omnitool?” His expression added sinking doubt to the vice grip on my upper abdomen.

  I swallowed hard and nodded.

  “Must be a damn fine piece of equipment.” That he didn’t remember…it gave me hope. A smidgen, like Tinkerbell’s dying light.

  I whispered, “I do believe in fairies…” Then I picked up Maysie’s wand, pointed it at Winona’s broken middle, and spoke as strongly as I could. “To give us both a healthy start, magic mend this broken heart.”

  The wand warmed in my hand. The tip glowed, faintly at first, and then built to rival a low-watt light bulb. With a flash, the two pieces reconnected. “That was easy,” I said, turning it over in my hands. I raised it to show Mueller. “Now do you remember?”

  His dark eyes narrowed at it before they glared at me. �
�I still think it’s dumb to use a chrome-plated tool.”

  My elation over succeeding at casting my first spell deflated like an air mattress after a hard night’s sleep. “You don’t remember it?” He shook his head. “What about all the factory workers? Last week?”

  Mueller’s brow furrowed as he tried to think. This time, I actually saw the magic cloud his vision. It was a split second, there and gone, but I saw it. “What are we doing out here, again?”

  Tears sprang to my eyes, but I forced myself to ease back into the seat without breaking down. “Finding you a new tool. To thank you for your help.”

  “Help for…” He trailed off, then shrugged. “Whatever it was, I won’t say no to a new toy.” One meaty hand with grease-crusted fingernails jutted out in front of me, palm up.

  I sighed, refusing to let my defeat show too badly. It wouldn’t do any good; Mueller would have no idea what I was talking about. He couldn’t comfort me, just like he couldn’t help me save anyone. Hell, I could barely save myself from my own life. What business did I have trying to put anything right for anyone else?

  The grimy fingers snapped impatiently. “It’s my gift, right?”

  “Yep. It’s all yours,” I said, dropping Winona into his hand.

  The SUV pressurized around us, like a plane preparing to take off. I glanced outside, figuring a storm must be rolling in fast and angry. Blue skies and sunshine as far as I could see. “What—” I started to ask, but then I saw the expression on Mueller’s face. His eyes riveted on Winona’s pretty chrome accents. Or rather, on the point of light growing brighter at her center. It built to a blinding crescendo accompanied by a sound I couldn’t describe until every nerve in my body seemed ready to split in two. The pressure in the cab seemed to crush whatever air remained in my lungs out of my body, threatening to never let me breathe again.

  And then, with a cacophony somewhere between shattering glass and the world’s biggest bubble popping, everything exploded in a blinding, deafening fury.

  Great. My first real spell and I blew us up.

  Mueller stared at the omnitool in his hands, his eyes as wide as a pair of full moons that glowed with the sparkles of the receding magic. The visor mirror showed the same expression on my own face. A quick survey of the area around us proved that nothing had actually exploded.

  “Holy crap…” I breathed, sounding like I had just run a marathon. “Note to self, don’t do magic in the car.”

  As the brilliant golden light faded from my vision, Mueller’s eyes seemed to grow glassy and wet. Or maybe that was just my imagination. Half a second later, they were dry and angry again, so it probably was. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

  I took a shaky breath. If the sound of shattering glass still echoing in my ears had been any indication, I had succeeded in breaking the spell. Well, a spell. Hopefully it was the right one. There had to be a way to work around multiple spells, to direct the counterbalance. But I had no idea what that way was. “Maysie made me a fairy godmother and left me her wand.” I rushed through the words, as if speed would make them sound less flat-out nuts. “Then Ms. Zent or her company staged a hostile takeover of the factory, and apparently included a spell that got rid of practically every other employee and kept you from remembering the way things were. Hopefully you just broke part of it.”

  Mueller watched me for a long, dark moment. It seemed to stretch into eternity and back. Finally, he slid Winona under his seat and started to turn the key in the ignition.

  “Wait,” I said, laying a hand on his arm. “I should test if it worked. So…um, how long have you known me?”

  “Not long enough,” he growled. My stomach gremlin woke up and went to stand in the corner.

  I pushed my feelings aside. “How long is that? It’s important, Mueller.”

  “A week.” Relief flooded me, making my limbs light and floaty and a bright smile leap to my lips. It was short-lived.

  “Too short a time to be getting involved in something so effed up.”

  He flipped a u-turn and sped back to the factory. There was no sign of the peg-legged assistant in the lot, but my desolation didn’t improve for it. When Mueller reached over me to open my door without looking at me, I fought tears. Not out of pride; I didn’t want him to think I was manipulating him.

  “How am I going to break the sleeping spell?” I whispered, aware of a vague pleading in my voice.

  “Dunno. All those people in a coma are prolly screwed. I’m not going to be one of them.” His anger, normally so vibrant and free, sank beneath a calm exterior. Banked. Cold. It reminded me that a week wasn’t long enough to really know someone.

  Desperation drove the next words from my mouth, even as my intuition tried to reel them back. “Your dad said this would happen.”

  “What?” One word, almost inaudible, and yet I felt it like a punch to the gut.

  I couldn’t stop myself. It was like those roof-raising fights I had with Danny when we were kids—my brain told me to shut the hell up but my tongue kept right on going. “He said you ditch people, you know, when you start getting too close. Ever since Joe disappeared that day you found the house in the middle of the highway. That’s why I thought of Winona. You were really upset when you found out she was broken and if you don’t let people close, then—”

  “Get out.”

  “Mueller, seriously. It was good that I found out. I wouldn’t have broken the…”

  He leveled a stare at me so intense, it almost knocked me out of the car on its own. The wave of prickly pain that slammed into me a second later from my own heart was worse.

  I got out of the car. Before I closed the door, I murmured, “I can’t do this without you.”

  “Shoulda thought of that before you went behind my back. I’d tell you not to call me, but you obviously wouldn’t care what I want.”

  Gut punch. “That’s not how it happened.”

  “I’ve only known you for a week. What do I care?” He managed to slam the door from the inside. I had to jump backward to keep my arm from getting slammed with it.

  And like that, he was gone.

  Chapter 22

  I got into my mom’s car and pulled out onto the highway on autopilot. Not since Kyle…well, since Kyle’s issues had I felt so small and squashable. So devoid of bones and spine and any protective coating. Halfway home, I had to pull over and turn the car off because I was crying too hard to see the road.

  After a couple minutes of mopping at my face with a tissue I found in my purse, my phone rang. Danny. I didn’t want to answer, but if my brother was sitting at the airport waiting for a ride or something, I should probably know about it. “Hey,” I said, doing my best not to sniffle.

  “How dare you?” No hello, no polite greeting.

  I rested my forehead on the steering wheel and turned off the headlights. “What did I do now?”

  “You thought you’d just dump this all in my lap, right? Call Danny, bring him home. And hey, here’s your ex-girlfriend! Never mind that Mom’s in a coma. Never mind that the girl ripped your heart out and stomped all over it. And by the way, I’m going to run off and do whatever flighty-ass thing strikes my fancy and let you handle all of it on your own. You know, I thought for a second that Mom might be right, that all you needed was a chance. Somebody to give you a break. Now I think you bring it on yourself. That you don’t want to do anything or be anything or accomplish shit. You can’t blame your behavior on Kyle this time. When are you gonna grow the hell up, Tessa? Take responsibility for—”

  I hung up on him.

  I shouldn’t have done it. It was childish and selfish and…and he was right. I was ill-equipped to handle anything. Not my life. Not a crisis. Sure as hell not saving an entire town. How in any version of the world was I supposed to do that when my spells, my gut instinct, backfired so very badly?

  Fairy godmother? I couldn’t even handle being a responsible adult.

  I was twenty minutes into a good, roadside
sobfest when a purple burst of flame lit up the night sky. Not a firework. Not anything manmade. I hadn’t seen much magic up to this point—my pathetic attempts at spells notwithstanding—but there was no way that firespout was anything else. A quick nose-blow and sopping up of my face, neck, and chest, and I was out of the car. Night had fallen around me when I wasn’t looking, the kind of deep, oppressive dark that only happens in summer when the air is hot and the weather stagnant. The buzz of insects pressed on my ears with the weight of the night. With Maysie’s wand in my hand and my keys shoved into the waistband of my mom’s ripped skirt—it was too hot to wear the jacket—I surveyed the waving pines and scraggly brush of the Black Forest. Not exactly high heel terrain. A minute of digging around in the back of the car turned up a pair of garden shoes and two pairs of the giant, puffy socks my mom loved so much, brand new with the tags still on. Hoping she wasn’t intending to return them, I snapped off the tags and pulled the socks over my pantyhose. Both pairs, which wouldn’t stop me from finding cacti hidden in the deadfall, but would protect me from all but the pokiest pine needles. I couldn’t bring myself to wear the plastic clogs, even way out here. Besides, I was pretty sure the stuff caked on the soles was dog poo, and I didn’t want that smell trailing me if I found some random moisture. Or to draw the attention of any interested woodland predator.

  After locking the car, I slipped my way up the embankment to the higher woodland and went in search of the flame’s source.

  It took all of two minutes for me to lift the wand and whisper, “Lumos!” Didn’t work, of course. I was a fairy godmother, not a muggle-born kid who just got her Hogwarts letter. I considered backtracking to dig under the seats for the flashlight I knew had to be in the car somewhere, but I’d already wasted too much time. I didn’t know what magic-users (mages? Witches? Fairypeople?) might be doing in the middle of nowhere with purple fire, but that was kind of the point. I knew nothing about this world I’d been press-ganged into, and I was desperate for information. Even just another contact who might be willing to help me. Someone not contractually bound to silence by a ridiculous amount of red tape.