One Good Wand

by Grace McGuiness

  “Yeah, but I’m as clueless about that as you are. But you’d figure out a way to travel without a car if you were the one with a wand, right?”

  He surveyed me. “Yeah…prolly. Except on special occasions. Can’t make out on a broomstick.” He hesitated, his gaze sliding sideways. “Or could I…”

  “So if some magical government agency showed up to search for, say, a missing wand, you don’t think they’d drive, do you?” He stared at me without blinking for so long I was forced to uncomfortably demand, “What?”

  He scratched his mutton chops. “Just trying to figure out how one woman of relatively normal size manages to land herself in such big trouble.”

  I made a face at him. Then, as he led the way inside, I said, “Wait, what do you mean, ‘relatively’ normal size? And you didn’t answer my question!”

  It was no good. Silent, glowering Mueller had settled into place over the momentarily intrigued version. I slumped and followed him inside. Not because I particularly wanted to go in. Although I did enjoy a good tango…

  O’Toole greeted us as we entered. “Why, if it isn’t my favorite new customer. Pleasure to see you again, Miss Tessa. How fares your mam? It was delightful to make her acquaintance after your last visit.”

  Did he know she was in the hospital, or was he making casual chitchat? I decided it best to answer both question at the same time. “The doctors aren’t sure what’s causing the sleeping sickness…but I’m confident it will resolve itself soon.”

  His bright green eyes lit with interest before he gave me a quick but thorough once-over. “Are ya, indeed? Pleased to hear it.” And then, as if he meant nothing more than the casual comment might seem on the surface, he switched gears and grinned like the leprechaun he was. “What can I get for you fine folk this glorious evening?”

  Mueller grunted. “I need a care package. Don’t think she’s eaten all day.”

  O’Toole’s grin turned sly. “To go, I presume?” After Mueller nodded, he clapped his hands once and whispered to a waitress in what looked to be a Little Bo Peep costume. As she scurried off, he glanced at me and then winked at Mueller. “I’ll add an extra kicker, to get ya over the hill and into the verge, as it were.”

  Little Bo Peep returned with a to-go box the size of a small pet carrier. She handed it to Mueller with a flirty smile before flouncing away. Mueller paid, then had to physically drag me out the door with his free hand. As much as I didn’t want to sit in a bar, my body seemed to disagree. I blamed it on the light show fluttering between the fairy dancer’s wings and her partner’s hands. The magic mesmerized me.

  “You okay to drive?” Mueller asked once we were outside.

  I blinked a few times to clear my head and nodded. “Where are we going?”

  “My place.”

  My eyebrows arched on their own. “That seems a bit presumptuous.”

  “Not for sex. You’ve got more important stuff to brush up on.”

  “I’m sorry. I thought you said there’s something more important in your world than sex.”

  “Follow me,” he grumbled, and away we went.

  Mueller’s pad behind the little fresh grocer’s in Mayfair was a lot less bachelor pad and a lot more what my married apartment had looked like. Since I lacked my mom’s innate ability to make any space homey, I had done the next best thing—I let Kyle decorate. Which meant a house full of movie posters and mirrored surfaces. We had been as broke as could be, though, so Mueller’s entertainment center far outstripped ours. His TV was a good forty inches and flanked by shiny black gaming consoles both new and vintage. Custom-made, I guessed, because I didn’t remember a black NES. Beside the shelves lined with games and action movies and comedies slumped a serviceable wooden desk practically groaning beneath programming texts and old computer components. All the seating options looked well-worn and comfortable while the small, mismatched dinette set practically disappeared beneath old mail and greasy tools. The apartment smelled faintly of cat, though I saw no sign of one. Still, it made me smile to think that Mueller kept a cat around for company.

  “Sit,” he ordered, practically shoving me onto the black leather couch. At least, I was sure it had been black once upon a time. Now it was a dark grey color, the smooth finish worn to scratchy nubs.

  Still, that fluffy sucker was as comfy as it looked. I sat down and immediately sank deep into its cushions. For a second, my brain started to compare it to a large woman’s protective bosom, but I forced it to pay attention to what Mueller was doing. “What’re we watching?”

  He popped a disc out of a red sleeve and into the blu-ray player. “You need a refresher if you’re going to make this whole thing work.” The couch fluffed around me ever so gently as he sat down next to me.

  Concern raced through my body like electric eels searching for an attacker. “We’re not watching porn, are we? Because I may be out of practice, but…”

  “Again, not about sex. Not unless Disney figured out a way around a PG rating.”

  I blinked at the TV, having a hard time believing what I was seeing. “You brought me back to your place to watch Cinderella? Voluntarily?”

  “And drink.” On a tv tray he slid in front of me, he set a to-go cup from O’Toole’s full of something pretty and pink. Beside it, he arrayed several plates full of simple yet delicious-looking food. Wings, a veggie tray, fruit kabobs, even a tiny cheesecake. “But eat something first. We won’t get anything done if you pass out in ten minutes.”

  “You’re really volunteering to watch fairy tales with me, with no expectations of anything…physical?” My stomach gremlin growled with suspicion.

  “Listen to that. You need food even if you don’t think you do. Eat.”

  “Stop avoiding my questions.”

  “I’m not avoiding them. I just want you to eat so we can get down to business.”

  “Business that isn’t an innuendo for sex…”

  “If you haven’t noticed,” he said as he stole a wing, “I can think about other things.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Not voluntarily. And not, I don’t think, if you have a woman on your couch.”

  “If you want me that bad, I guess you can do me first. So you can focus.” He said it with such deadpan seriousness, I burst out laughing.

  “Fine, fine. We’ll watch the movie. Ooh, this is tasty.” I said the last after dipping my finger into the sweet-spicy wing sauce and licking it off with slow deliberation.

  “Yep,” was all he said, ignoring my half-hearted attempt at playful seduction and focusing on getting the volume right on the television.

  I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. Knowing too well what feelings followed in its wake, I shut down the part of me that felt everything and focused on the movie.

  After Cinderella, we watched the old animated Sleeping Beauty. By the time we started Maleficent, I had downed enough of the chilly pink drink to be comfortably sleepy. Added to the warmth and cushiness of the couch, I couldn’t help but let my eyelids droop. I rested my head back on the fat cushion, then wiggled around to find a better position. Warmth drifted against my neck and shoulders, and I was so out of it that it wasn’t until I felt his breath on my cheek that I realized Mueller had put his arm behind me.

  My eyes fluttered open to discover his dark, intense gaze focused on me from mere inches away. I tilted my head to meet that gaze better, bringing our lips into perfect kissing position.

  Warmth flooded other, deeper places in me. An urge so disused it felt ancient welled up, quickening my heart and moving my fingers to trace the edge of his jaw.

  I felt more than saw the moment his guarding walls collapsed, darkening his eyes even more and enveloping me in the masculine energy of a man on a mission. A panic alarm sounded in my head, trying its best to shut down my feelings and physical needs. But this wasn’t Kyle, this was Mueller. Mueller, who had accepted all the insanity I forced on him and then bought me dinner and stayed by my side. Mueller, who had saved
me from certain doom on more than one occasion. Who took me to places I would like and took the time to help me feel better. Mueller, whose pervy exterior suggested he could do all kinds of new things to me. Good things. Things that made it difficult to stand up afterwards.

  The heat overpowered my thoughts, wrapped my fingers in his stained shirt, and moved me across the whisper-length between us.

  A knock loud enough to wake the dead thudded hard and angry at the door.

  The spell of the moment shattered, our lips impossibly close. Awareness returned to me, my brain crackling back to functioning with the sudden realization of what I had almost done.

  “Open up, Mueller, or I will beat this damn door down!” The man on the other side of the door clearly meant business.

  I released Mueller’s shirt and eased myself backward. Mueller shifted a bit, downed the last bit of his beer, and stood. He steadied himself on the wall beside the door, then flung it open. “Get bent, Forester.”

  The man who filled the entire door space looked like an Ironman candidate. Not the superhero; the triathlon. His hairstyle looked military but the raging anger pouring off him suggested any discipline he possessed came from crushing workouts…and possibly the heads of his enemies.

  Forester grabbed Mueller by his shirt and shoved him against the door. “Where the hell is my sister, you slimy little weasel?” I would never have considered Mueller little until I met this guy. I wasn’t sure anyone alive would be anything other than small by comparison. Fezzik the kindly giant might give him a run for it, but that was about it.

  Mueller muttered something I couldn’t hear with all of Forester’s muscles in the way. Forester slammed him against the door again, prompting me to leap to my feet like my comparatively tiny frame could do anything against the brute squad.

  “Let him go!” I shouted, grabbing his meaty elbow.

  It took Forester a long minute to realize I was standing there, making me feel even smaller. When he did, it seemed to enflame his rage all the more. “Already on to another poor girl? Where is my sister, you sonnuva bitch?”

  Mueller gargled out a suggestion that Forester copulate furiously with himself. I thought I saw his eyes roll back in his head as Forester responded with another body slam.

  “Stop!” I pawed at the enormous man, knowing I wasn’t going to be any help but trying anyway. “You’re hurting him!”

  “Tell me what you did with Val, and I will let you get back to your pathetic excuse for a life.” He shook Mueller so hard I heard Mueller’s teeth rattle.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Liar!” He shook him again.

  “If I knew, don’t you think I’d be going to get her? I woke up one day and she was gone. That’s all I know!”

  “Yeah, and next you’ll tell me you didn’t hop in the sack with this one the next day. Stop your lies or I will stop them permanently!”

  “She…just…business…” Mueller croaked as Forester leaned a meaty forearm against his windpipe.

  Just business. I released the big man’s arm and took a step back, feeling myself stumble. I couldn’t catch myself, so the next thing I knew I was staring at them from the floor. Without thinking, I raised my arm, my wand inexplicably in my hand, and pointed it at the pair, unsure which one I wanted to shoot more.

  In the end, the magic decided for me. It exploded from the wand in white light, its heat sizzling across the room to blow Forester off his feet and out into the courtyard. Mueller collapsed onto the floor, coughing.

  Forester looked more than a little dazed. He stared at me for ten beats of my galloping heart, then greeted me with a nod and a respectful, “Godmother.” He got to his feet and leveled a finger practically as big around as Winona at Mueller’s face. “Find my sister, or the next time I see you, not even a godmother’s magic will save your life.”

  Mueller slammed the door in his face.

  “I’d say you should get more locks for the door but I’m not sure they would stop him,” I said, breathing hard even though all I did was basically beat at a brick wall and then fall down.

  Mueller didn’t respond. Instead, he pulled a bottle of Jack out of a cupboard in the kitchen and downed a glass in one gulp. I didn’t want to feel sorry for him. I wanted to be mad at him. (Just business. Was that all I was? The jerk!) But he was clearly upset. I couldn’t really blame him for saying it in his position, either. Things we say with giant arms trying to choke us shouldn’t count.

  “So, Val’s your…?”

  “Girlfriend.”

  For some reason, that made my eyes burn. Weird. “She work at the factory?”

  He nodded. “Least, she did until that damn spell. And now…”

  “She just vanished?” I had wondered what happened to all the factory workers. I assumed they had simply been laid off. “You don’t think it’s the…” I couldn’t bring myself to say it. “You know. There are rumblings—”

  “The Trapperstown Trapper died in 1972. Could be a copycat, I guess.” His own rage was no less than Forester’s had been; it just wasn’t quite as beefy. The look in Mueller’s eye as he downed a second glass of whiskey told me it would be even more violent if it ever found a target.

  “Did you call the police?”

  The scathing look he gave me made me wish I could crawl under the table. As it was, I hadn’t managed to stand up yet, so it wouldn’t be so far to go. “The police won’t find her.”

  I followed his thought process pretty easily. “You think it was the spell? It somehow made her and the rest of the factory workers vanish?” One single nod. “Did you know she was magical?” He didn’t say anything or look at me. “Of course not,” I answered for him. “You didn’t know about magic until you broke the…” This time, the way his fingers went white when he knocked back the glass…it made me get to my feet and join him in the kitchen. “That’s why you wanted me to kiss Nicky so badly, isn’t it? To bring her back?”

  He didn’t look at me. Didn’t say anything.

  “And when you broke the spell, it woke you up but didn’t bring her back.” Realization dawned on me. “Because it didn’t actually break the spell. Your connection to Winona was enough to wake you up, but not to break the larger spell on the factory.” I nodded to myself, walking through the steps in my head. “Right. So all I have to do is get Amy her fairytale ending, right? That should be strong enough to break the bigger spell. And then either Val will come back or you’ll figure out what happened to her.”

  Something about the way he was standing, or the fact that he still hadn’t looked at me…something set off that warning alarm in my brain again. The old one trained to protect my heart. This time, it sent a shock of ice water through me as the full extent of the situation occurred to me. That was my manipulation alarm. The one that went off whenever Kyle was using my feelings to keep me in my place. The one I heard so loudly at the bar just a few hours ago. The cold wind of distance blew through me and I turned my inner analytical lens on this man I had been relying so heavily on for two weeks. I saw the guilt in him, in the slow working of his jaw and hunch in his shoulders. In the way he leaned into the counter with muscles tensed to defend himself.

  He expected a fight.

  He was going to be disappointed.

  “That’s why you’ve been helping me,” I said, flatly. No accusation; simple fact. “Why you brought me here tonight with no interest in sex or anything other than watching movies. Why you’ve been taking care of me. You need me in top shape in order to break the spell so you get your girlfriend back.” It wasn’t jealousy squeezing my words; not exactly. I didn’t want to date Mueller; hell, the only reason I almost kissed him was undoubtedly the alcohol. I got caught up in the moment, that was all. Nicky was the guy I wanted. Professional, handsome, well-groomed Nicky. So I wasn’t jealous that Mueller wanted his girlfriend over me; of course he would. He should.

  No, what created the tightness in my throat and the burning behind my eyes wasn’t jealousy; it was h
urt, plain and simple. Hurt from our situation and anger at my own stupidity. I had let my excitement over having someone to talk to, to hang out with for the first time in years shut off my common sense. I had been so lonely that I let myself ignore important details, like that Mueller and I barely knew each other. Real friendship didn’t happen instantly. Hell, even my own brother couldn’t be bothered to support me without our mom’s order. If I disappeared, would he beat Mueller’s door down to demand my whereabouts? Of course not. Because I was just me. Always the supporter, never the supported.

  I stuck my wand in my back pocket and nodded absently. “Right,” I said, my voice as cold and clinical as a scalpel. “Well, not to worry. I will do my job. Be Amy’s godmother. And when she gets her boy, the spell will break and you will get your girl, too.”

  “Tessa…” He made some kind of vague gesture, like he wanted to stop me, wanted to say something but the whiskey was getting in the way.

  I smiled at him, but there was no warmth in it. “No, it’s okay. You don’t need to worry about it. After all, it’s just business.”

  And with that, I left.

  Chapter 27

  I stopped at the grocery store in Trapperstown and bought flowers before heading to the hospital to arrange them beside my mom’s bed. The room was eerily quiet with just the rhythmic beeping of the machines to break the silence. I sat with her for a while, holding her hand and feeling sorry for myself. I wanted to be angry at Mueller, to blame him for being a jerk. For using me. But it took too much energy I didn’t have. So much easier to blame myself for not being stronger, more impressive, or whatever it was that kept other women from being manipulated by the men in their lives. I wanted desperately to talk to Mom about it, to cry on her shoulder and have her rub my back and tell me all those impossible things mothers say to soothe hurt feelings. Instead, all I could do was squeeze her hand and let the tears roll down my face.

  Just as I was about to leave, the door opened. For a split second I expected to see Mueller there. Then I was mad at myself for both expecting it and getting my hopes up. It was just a nurse I didn’t know, come to tell me visiting hours were over. I gave Mom a quick peck on the cheek, said goodbye to Bob, and then dragged my feet down the hallway. I remembered to inquire after Nicky at the desk, but as always they had no idea where he might be. No calls or messages on my phone, either. Worry crept in, displacing some of my self-pity. Where was he? Had something happened? Did I need to call the cops, or was this something I needed to fix with a spell, too?