One Good Wand

by Grace McGuiness

  The magical world was disappointingly bureaucratic, when I stopped to think about it. When I paused in the middle of the woods, the towering shapes around me illuminated only by starlight and a sliver of moon, prickly needles assaulting my feet despite my socks, I had to consider, too, what the hell I was doing here.

  Just because I had a wand in my hand…that didn’t mean I had to do jack with it.

  Just because Maysie had elected me as her successor—or however that worked—and then abandoned me, I wasn’t required to do anything about it.

  Yes, my mom was in a coma. Yes, it was probably magical. But how many other magical things happened in the course of our lives that were fixed or halted or improved without magical assistance? I had no way to know. Maybe doctors would find a cure. Science was pretty spectacular nowadays. No doubt they could find a chemical answer for the alteration of…whatever the spell did to a person’s body. And what would it hurt if Mom slept for three months? If I just waited out the paperwork process, I could remove myself from the ranks of godmotherhood, and a real godmother would take over the territory. Then she could fix the problem if doctors didn’t and I could go back to my pathetic but far less painful life.

  I mean, I was about to walk into a situation that involved skyhigh purple fire. On purpose. How had my life come to a place where that was okay?

  “Screw this,” I muttered to the trees.

  Two retraced steps later, I heard it. That snap of twigs that always signals the arrival of something big and bad in the movies. I froze, my heart leaping to my throat. Refusing to allow myself the stupidity of announcing my presence, I used my double-socked feet to advantage and eased across the fallen needles and dead plant matter that served as the forest floor. I made no sound at all, surprisingly. All I had to do was get back to the car and not drop the keys like people always did in movies. Hop in, lock the doors, and zoom away before whoever or whatever got me.

  How screwed up was my brain right now that I’d thought a nice night jaunt through dark woods with no lamp and no protective gear was a good idea? That was dangerous for normal humans with regular, non-magically-threatening lives, and I’d wandered into it without a second thought. Good job, me.

  Just get back to the car, I reminded myself as my heart rate climbed. Walk, don’t run. Stay quiet. There might be mountain lions or coyotes out here, but chances were good it was just a fox or other small nocturnal animal. Even a rabbit. I didn’t need to freak out. Caution was good, fear was not. No matter how quiet I might be, an animal would still smell fear.

  I only managed a few careful strides before a tree ahead of me shuddered. Keep your head, dummy. Probably just a squirrel. Veer left. You’ll be fine.

  Veering left didn’t help. A tall, man-sized shape stepped out from the shuddering tree. Not from behind it. Not from its branches. From inside it. He was big, broad, and though I couldn’t make out more than the gleam of silver, star-shaped buttons on his shirt, I watched his baseball-glove-sized hands open and close. There was hunger in that motion, a projection of intention that made every primal trigger in my body switch on.

  Like a terrified rabbit, I changed course with a leap and darted between the trees behind me. I took a pine bough to the face as I tried to duck under a branch, not daring to curse it in case he was more blind in the dark than I was. Zig-zagging between big trunks and jumping small bushes, I hoped to put enough blocks in his direct path to me that he had to slow down. He was, after all, larger and bulkier and probably way stronger. Had I been wearing real shoes—even the poo-covered clogs—I would have been more maneuverable. As it was, my only hope was to be quicker.

  I hiked up my skirt, now glad it had torn, and ran on, my breath ragged. The summer air seared my throat as I sucked it into lungs that couldn’t get enough. My brain became a pulsing, jumpy, instinct-driven survivalist. I didn’t think, just moved; didn’t feel, just ran.

  It occurred to me as I slid around a tree that my mom’s concern about the Trapperstown Trapper may not have been completely stupid after all. Thirty years ago, those women had disappeared from the side of the road without a trace. And where had I been wandering on the anniversary of those disappearances? Go me.

  Just as I completed that self-deprecating thought, the crashing, crunching steps behind me were joined by another set. This one sounded lighter, faster, more like an animal on four legs than a person on two. Agile. Determined. I thought I caught a whiff of baking bread, but it disappeared as soon as it arrived.

  I ran on with a burst of new speed, expecting teeth to sink into my bare leg at any moment. With a leap, I broke through the tree line, bursting into the open like an escaped Alcatraz inmate onto the shore of San Fransisco.

  Purple flame arced through the air, singeing the prairie grass ahead of me. The heat of it slammed into me, sending my muscles into a backwards scramble. I slipped, fell, felt something cut into my palm but held onto Maysie’s wand as if I knew spells that would save my life.

  The purple flame belched from the mouth of a giant, black beast whose silhouette practically blotted out the sky. Its back ridges glowed faintly purple from the top of its head to the tip of its whipping, angry tail. Its scales glimmered in the available moonlight. It would have been absolutely gorgeous if it hadn’t been a mere thirty feet away. Since it was only thirty feet away, it was the most terrifying thing I had ever encountered. Even my survival instincts shut down as I stared up at it, my mouth open wide in a mixture of horror and amazement.

  The dragon roared, stretching enormous, leathery wings in rage.

  “Stop with the theatrics!” an Englishman’s voice shouted across the open space. “You and I both know the consequences were you to eat me. I don’t think you want that any more than I do.” A pale green light encased the speaker, making his perfectly tailored suit glow with a sprightly vigor.

  The dragon snorted smoke from its nostrils and furled its wings.

  “Good. Now, if we could discuss the situation like civilized people? Let me begin by saying that if you’ve done what I think you’ve done—” He broke off as a bright, glittery golden light sparked into being. As he turned, the green glow around him proved that yes, the face was familiar. But what the Chisel was doing in the middle of nowhere having a chat with a dragon, I didn’t know. Just like I had no idea why Maysie’s wand had suddenly started to shine, or why that light enveloped me in a happy little bubble of warmth.

  Unfortunately for me, the dragon did know why the light appeared. Or at least, the light drew its attention in a way that made it angry. Hard to tell with a dragon.

  Completely ignoring the green man standing between us, the sleek black head darted forward, leading the rest of its bulk in a thundering crash of stampeding animal on open prairie. Its jaws opened wide, displaying a set of iron-like, carnivorous teeth that would rip me to shreds in two bites. Except it wouldn’t need to chew—as the head darted downward, I could tell it intended to swallow me whole…and there was nothing I could do about it but cower in ineffectual horror.

  Just as that awful mouth—awful in terribleness, for its breath smelled of mint and gin, which was only bad in its volume—was about to snap around me, a green arrow slammed into it. The magic bounced off uselessly, fading into nothingness before it even hit the ground. But it was enough. The dragon’s head whipped around to growl at the finely dressed man who came to stand more directly between us. So close to me, in fact, that the edges of his green light mingled with the golden light around me.

  “I believe this audience is at a close,” the Chisel said, his face like granite. “I will schedule our next meeting, that you may leave the scales and teeth at home.”

  The dragon reared up on its hind legs, pawing at the night with its foreclaws. I expected it to shriek loudly enough to rip open the ground beneath our feet, but it didn’t. Instead, it leapt up with a great gust of wind and flew away, disappearing into the distant night.

  “I can’t say I’m not perturbed by your arrival, Ms. Hargitay
,” the Chisel said as he bent to help me up. I slipped and slid on my socks (or maybe the jelly that had replaced my legs) until he slid an arm around my back to support me. The green of his magic seemed to infuse me, seeping into my skin like a spring rain on thirsty soil. It made me light-headed—or maybe shock was setting in. “But it’s my own fault for answering her summons after-hours.”

  “Dr-dr-dr—” I stammered. My tongue didn’t want to work. Neither did my brain. Or my legs. Or any part of me, really.

  “Dragon, yes. No need to worry about her, however. You look…” He surveyed me with those intelligent eyes like I was a new business acquisition. His face hardened even further, if that were possible. “…horrid,” he finished, really hitting that girlish pride of mine with a boost of confidence.

  My lips felt as if they might crack at any moment, so I licked them in order to say, “Man…” I glanced over my shoulder, expecting to see a black shape ease itself back into the shadows. No such figure showed itself. Somehow, that didn’t reassure me. “There was a…”

  He scanned the trees behind me. Nothing about him changed, and yet I felt strangely relieved when he turned away. “You have a vehicle?”

  I nodded. At least I thought I nodded. I might not have had as much control of my head as I imagined. “On the road.”

  As he helped me hobble back that direction, he said, “I doubt I have to explain the danger of being out here on such a night, Ms. Hargitay. You seem an intelligent enough woman.” Enough. Why did that qualifier sting so badly? “But why you are here is your business, and I shan’t pry.” Translation: I’m not asking any questions, so don’t you ask any, either. As if I had the wherewithal to form a whole sentence, let alone a whole question. “I will advise you, since you are new to…things…that you should not wander in woodlands after dark. No matter how small or how safe they seem during daylight hours. Woods are never safe.”

  I nodded mutely. What was I going to say? He clearly already knew I was being a moron.

  “At the very least, you should have brought your scruffy companion. Or is he out here, as well?” He sounded annoyed at the prospect of having to locate another human in the middle of the night. I couldn’t blame him.

  I shook my head, noting with the vain part of my brain—why was that the first part to come back?—that my smooth, professional updo had fallen into serious disarray. “Not…” My throat tightened, so I swallowed to finish what I was saying. “He’s not here.”

  If he noticed my despair, he gave no sign of it. “Even full-fledged godmothers need protection in the woods. Newly initiated apprentices…” He shook his head with enough derision, I felt myself sink into him as I grew smaller.

  I listened to the track of our feet, prepped and ready to hear steps that shouldn’t be there or the growl of something only kind of human. All I heard was the whir of night bugs, the chirp of crickets, and the beat of his heart. I wasn’t sure if I actually heard his heart through his body—my ear was pressed against him, but was there a pulse point in the shoulder?—or if his magic thumped with it. The calm rhythm made me sleepy. Sleepy enough to sleep for a week. A month. Hell, I was more than half hoping to contract the sleeping spell just so I could get some rest; so I wouldn’t have to think.

  He helped me into my mom’s car with more decorum than Mueller had. It occurred to me that I really needed to get my act together if I could compare the two so readily. I didn’t want to be the perpetual damsel in distress, and yet…

  I glanced at him, since he put me in the passenger seat. “You can drive?”

  “Do I not seem a capable sort of person?” He shut the door and then got in behind the wheel.

  “I just meant…you know, you’re…”

  “Nobility? We have to exist in the modern world just like everyone else.”

  That took me by surprise. He was a nobleman? Was that by normal standards, or magical? Like the Earl of Grantham, or more Prince Charming? I watched him glare at his watch before he drove back onto the road. Probably the former, I decided. His posture was too rigid for a fairytale prince. “I was going to say ‘glowing.’” Like that explained my mangled thought process.

  “Ah.” He didn’t look the slightest bit abashed. If anything, he looked even more irritated by my observation. “The Folk are not as different as you might think.”

  “Is that what you call yourselves? The Folk?” I thought I remembered hearing that before, but my brain wasn’t working well enough to remember where.

  He kept his eyes on the road and the car at a legally acceptable speed. “She really didn’t teach you anything, did she?” He sighed, the kind of sigh I used to give Danny when he was being a pain in my butt. “Yes. We are the Fairy Folk, though we are not all fairies. The others we call mundanes.”

  I was too overwhelmed to find that insulting. “Is that what you are? A fairy, I mean?”

  Something—insult, maybe—quirked the side of his mouth in a sort of pained grimace. “Technically, yes. The Family is somewhat apart from racial distinctions, however.”

  “And the Family is…?”

  “An organization dedicated to the improvement of folkish society through capitalist ventures,” he answered in an official tone.

  Helpful. “So you don’t work with us? Mundanes, I mean?”

  “Mundanes provide the backbone of our ventures. Greater capital.”

  I scrunched up my nose as I tried to make sense of his logic. “You mean you make money off the mundanes and give it to the folk?”

  He glanced sideways at me, a tiny thing I might have missed if I’d been at all interested in the road. But since I was more concerned about what I might see lurking out there in the dark and therefore more interested in watching him drive, I caught it. Not that I could interpret its meaning, but… “I suppose at its core, that is what we do. But I assure you that we provide adequate services for said capital. We don’t take advantage of anyone.”

  That did reassure me, at least a little. I still had no idea what he did, or who the Family really was, but maybe that was the whole idea. I couldn’t remember most of Maysie’s letter, but I did remember it saying something about trusting the right people. Trustworthy individuals didn’t need to dance around details quite so adeptly. There were still a million questions I wanted to ask, but for the life of me I couldn’t think of any of them. Regardless of how much he was sharing, I didn’t trust that he would want to share anything more important. At least not without an appointment to discuss what capital I might offer in exchange. Oh. That was worth a shot, actually. “Would you help me figure out how to use magic if I offered you something in exchange?”

  This glance didn’t make it to my face; he halted it halfway and returned his gaze to the road, as if he hadn’t been able to help his initial show of interest. And that, to me, was interesting. “The Family does not meddle in godmother business, even for a good price.”

  “But you came in to appraise the factory, right? So that was godmother business.”

  “That was a potential acquisition of property. It produces goods that are currently used in godmother business, but it isn’t directly godmother business. You understand.”

  Did I? “The factory produces godmother goods?”

  Now his attention was fully on me. “You don’t even know that much? Her apprentice doesn’t even know what goes on in the business? Disgraceful!”

  “Dog,” I warned, since I was the only one looking out the windshield.

  “I can’t keep up with mundane slang. If you mean I am wrong, then—”

  “No, dog!” I shouted, reaching over to grab the wheel.

  I didn’t need to. His reflexes were crazy fast. The car came to a delicate stop right in front of the dog, illuminating its brown-and-black coat and the tongue lolling from its mouth. “Explain yourself!” the Chisel demanded.

  His vehemence took me aback. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to hit the dog…”

  “Not you,” he snapped, rolling down the window. “G
et out of the street, you fool beast!”

  “It’s just a dog,” I said, eyeing the hard line of his shoulders under his pale shirt. He had removed his jacket before getting in the car and hung it on the little hook above the window behind him.

  “Of course it is.” He tried to wave the dog away, but it just stood there, staring at him.

  “No, I think I’m wrong.” In spite of my harrowing experience with the man in the woods and the dragon, I got out of the car. When the dog woofed and ran up to lick my hand, I checked its tags. “It is you. What are you doing way out here?” We were just outside of town, and though I didn’t know where Nicky lived, I doubted it was just up the street.

  “You know this creature?” the Chisel asked, his lip curling in distaste.

  “Sure do.” I wiggled my hands through his ruff before scratching his ears. “This is Dave. Say hi, Dave.” Dave barked. “Now, get in the car, Dave, before you actually get hit by a car.” I opened up the rear door and let him jump into the SUV. Dave took one sniff of the Chisel and growled.

  “The feeling is mutual. You just stay back there at a decent distance and I will deposit you wherever Ms. Hargitay directs. Which I imagine is going to be a nicer place than you deserve.”

  Dave growled for a few more seconds, so I said, “Be nice, Dave, and I’ll introduce you to Destiny. She’s very pretty. Not very bright, though. But maybe you’re into that, huh?” I petted him around my seat. He settled down, his expressive brown eyes watching me as he whined. I smiled. “I’ll just call Nicky. If that’s okay?” I added the last to my driver, whose noble upbringing might disallow phone conversations in the car. What did I know about official manners?

  “If it will get this beast away, by all means.”

  I dialed as he drove. There was no answer, so I left a message. “Hey, Nicky. I found Dave out on Trapper Road. I guess I’ll stop by the hospital, in case you’re there. If you’re not, I’ll take him home with me. Call me when you get this. Oh, it’s Tessa, by the way.” My cheeks flamed as I ended the call. How did I possibly have room to feel like a moron after almost getting eaten by a dragon? Shouldn’t that have won my stupidity award for the day?