“Here I am, Egeus. Now let him go.” My voice didn’t tremble or anything. Go me!
“No more tricks?”
“Nope. Three misses, and I’m all tapped out.”
Egeus snarled. “Not three. I’m not so easily confused, Godmother.”
I raised my hand to count off on my fingers. “Troll bridge, dragon, factory. That’s three.”
He shook his head. “Empty hallway where I first demanded the wand, troll bridge, parking garage, dragon, factory. Five.”
“And her house,” Mueller interjected. “Six.”
“And your first attempt here,” the Chisel added. How he knew about it, I neither knew nor cared. “That’s seven. And according to the Rule of Numbers…”
Egeus’s normally pale face went dead white. “No…No, it can’t be.” He counted on his fingers, too.
The Chisel stepped out of the protective half-moon in front of the file room door, tugging his charred suit jacket at the wrists and abdomen like it enhanced his stature to have a perfectly fitted fire-singed suit. And, according to the twinge of attraction that zinged through me even in such a precarious situation, it worked. “WHIRA representative, you have made seven attempts to procure the wand of a retired godmother. Seven times you have failed. According to the Rule of Numbers, you are illegally detaining a mundane individual. As a witnessing bystander, I hereby invoke the Right of Citizen’s Lore and demand you desist immediately. If you do continue to harass or otherwise attempt to make any claim upon the godmother in question, I will personally bring all the legal strength of my family down upon your head. If you endanger her or anyone within her sphere of influence again, I will ensure your superiors are also implicated. Stand down now or face legal action.”
Egeus wheezed as he stared at the Chisel. He looked to me and then back at the imposing, stone-faced man staring him down. I saw a tremor pass through the nymph’s long body, and then he released Mueller with a whimper. “You win. My superiors will decompress me for this…”
“Why should they?” The Chisel gestured to the door. “You have proof that other magic was acting upon hers. And here is the origin point of that magic. It is not a wand, but a protection spell set by her previous employer. The one to whom the wand belonged. You are not failing to retrieve the wand from her. Quite the contrary—you discovered there is no wand to be found.”
“Quite,” a new voice added, though it sounded more than a little mocking. Ms. Zent approached from the hallway opposite me, coming up behind Egeus with her misshapen, hobbling minion close at her six-inch heels. “Wherever Miss Maysie has gone, she must have taken her wand with her.”
The air nymph’s eyes took on that same blank, foggy expression the others had gotten when she used her laugh to subdue them. “Yes…yes, that must be it. She must have taken it with her.”
The Chisel glared at my employer, who looked like she had been in no hurry to get here and help me. In fact, she looked relaxed enough to have just come from a spa. Perhaps getting her nails done. “Have you no care for your employees, Ms. Zent?”
“Of course I do, Windchase.” She flipped her sleek, black hair over her shoulder. “Which is why I’m here.” To Egeus, she commanded, “Be gone, minion, before I press trespassing and harassment charges.”
“Yes, Mistress Zent.” Still under her spell, he bowed from the waist, stepped back, and vanished in a flash of tarnished yellow-brown light.
“Good minions…so hard to find,” Odmenticus chortled.
“Yes…” Ms. Zent mused, but she was looking at me when she said it, as if she could see some part of me only she could access. “I am not amused at the mess downstairs, Mr. Mueller. It will be put to rights by Monday when the factory reopens. Understood?”
I shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t think that’s possible. It’s pretty—”
“By Monday,” she emphasized. “And I’ll forget it ever happened. No pay docked. No jobs lost.”
“Understood,” Mueller agreed.
“Good. Now, all of you…out of my factory. Immediately.”
I frowned at her. “How’s he supposed to fix—”
“You may return in three hours, Mr. Mueller. I expect that is enough time to assemble your team? Good. Now go, before I get angry.”
Odmenticus swept backwards with a strange grace, gesturing us to be off down the hallway. “You won’t like Mistress when she’s angry. Angry is hungry.” He wheezed out a laugh and licked his thin lips.
More than a little creeped out, I did as we were told. Within three steps, it became clear that Mueller could barely stand by himself, let alone walk. The Chisel and I helped him out of the factory and down to his car. Once there, the Chisel showed me a basic healing spell.
“You concentrate here,” he said, tapping his chest over his heart, “and direct it where you want it to go. Then it’s a simple…” He lifted a finger and spun it in a slow circle. Mueller got a little color back.
Once he was sure I had the trick of it, we put Mueller in the back seat for a nap.
“Thank you,” I murmured to the Chisel, wishing I had the courage to take his hand. Gratitude always seemed so much more…grateful…while holding someone’s hand. “I think I would have died without your help. And you would have sacrificed yourself for—”
He held up one strong, sexy hand to silence me. “I did what needed to be done.” The way he looked at the ground and set his jaw made my heart lurch, but not in a good way. Whatever came out of his mouth next, I wasn’t going to like it. “But that is the last time I may do so. Not only have I violated Family policy when it comes to free agents, not to mention godmothers in general, but…” When his eyes lit on mine, they did so with all the sharp, chilly distance from whence his nickname must have derived. “I want nothing to do with liars. Yes, I understand the situation.” He answered my objection before it even came out of my mouth. “It makes no difference. Nor does it make any difference that you are a godmother, and therefore predisposed to falsehoods. You told me you weren’t in possession of Miss Maysie’s wand. Yet you are. I saw it, out there in the field. Our business is, therefore, concluded. We shall not see each other again.”
The stone his words chiseled from my confidence collected in my gut, where it reached critical mass and imploded, taking out most of my insides with it. I wanted to argue. I wanted to give him a zillion explanations and remark upon the unfairness of the situation. But the man had saved my life several times over. He had been willing to sacrifice his own life for mine. He even used his knowledge of the Folk legal system of which I was entirely ignorant to stop the wand squad from coming after me. If he was rejecting me…well, he had every right to do so. I had lied. I hadn’t trusted him, even after he’d helped me. Hell, I hadn’t even seen all of it as helping until I was standing here, thinking back on it. Any regrets I had were entirely of my own doing.
It didn’t stop the frog from lodging in my throat, though. “I understand.” I extended my hand to him. “Thank you for all your help, Mr. Windchase. Truly.” Damn my eyes and the tears they couldn’t quell. At least they didn’t escape and trail weakness down my cheeks.
The hard, cold expression never faded. His hand was equally as icy in mine as we shook.
“Farewell, Tessa Hargitay. May your daughters be prosperous and your magic flow true.”
I felt that last word like a punch to the gut. My voice broke as I said, “Goodbye, Mr. Windchase.”
And then he was walking across the sun-lightened asphalt, a stoic figure in a slightly burned suit, glowing faintly yellow-green.
I climbed into the driver’s seat of Mueller’s SUV and rested my head against the steering wheel. No matter how hard I tried, the tears wouldn’t stop.
“Seriously?” Mueller grumbled at me from the back. “You still have the hots for a gangster, even when he tells you off? Even with holes in his suit?”
“No,” I whispered as I turned the engine over. “Not anymore.” And even if I did, it wouldn’t matter.
Mueller thought about that for a minute, then shrugged. “You still have that other guy. He looked like he was a damn fine kisser, which is probably more than you can say for a guy they call the Chisel.”
I forced myself to smile. “You’re right. I do. And I have you.”
“Damn straight. Did you see me take that lightning bolt? No gangster would do that for you. Probably.”
My next smile was easier. “Probably not,” I agreed, refraining from mentioning that the Chisel would have taken seven lightning bolts for me at the same time.
The road leading away from the factory was deserted as I drove us toward Mayfair. No sign of the Chisel anywhere. Not that I expected it. But it made his departure final, and I couldn’t help but feel like I’d lost something important. Like having dessert taken away before I ever got a taste.
I didn’t want to dwell. Amy had her fairytale ending, even if I hadn’t really done much to make it happen. She had it, and that was all that mattered. She had broken the sleeping curse, and my mom was awake. I still had a job, and I had a friend. I even had a potential boyfriend waiting back in Trapperstown for me. They were all safe, and so was I. That was what mattered most. So what if one man would never look at me the same way again?
“So,” I asked, trying to redirect my attention. “Want me to take you back to your place?”
“I told you, Hargitay. I’m not going to sleep with you, no matter how hard you beg.”
“I meant so you could get some sleep.”
“Sure you did. And you were just going to take a nap on my face last time, not kiss me.”
“Shut up.”
“Is that any way to talk to your hero? You would have fried back there in your gangster’s arms without me.”
“Just for that, I’m not changing your car horn back.” I pressed it, filling the car with strains of tinny music.
“Not funny, Tessa.”
“I wasn’t joking, Mueller.”
“You have to change it back. Wolverine can’t be seen driving a car with a horn like that. Bad for the rep.”
“What rep? Of being grumpy, growly, and unwashed?”
“Seriously. Change it back.”
“No.”
“Change it back!”
“Not gonna happen. I won’t know who’s driving in to save me if I change it.”
A pause. “I’m going to have to do this again?”
I shrugged, and let the words I had been trying not to think about spill out of my mouth. “Maysie said I’m supposed to help her save the world.”
He was silent for a long time, his dark eyes watching mile markers stream by. Finally, just when I thought he had fallen asleep and I should take him back to my place where I could keep an eye on him, he muttered, “Fine.”
“Fine, what?”
“Leave the horn that way. If I have to save your ass again, you need to know it’s me and not some insane elemental virgin.”
I tried to hide my smile. “That’s very chivalrous of you.”
“I know.”
I started to say something else, to tell him how much it really meant to me that he was still with me, that we’d made up and he had saved my life and all the stuff I felt welling up in me that needed an exit. Except within two seconds of closing his mouth, it opened again and let out a long, harsh snore.
I smiled to myself and redirected us onto the highway back to Trapperstown.
I might be a godmother for the rest of my life whether I wanted to be or not. There might be nothing I could do about it, not ever. And maybe I had to save the world with no idea how to go about it. I was still broke, still living with my mom and her pantsless, randy husband. My ex was still dating the most beautiful woman in the world and living his dream. But none of that mattered. Not in that moment.
For the first time in my adult life, I felt like I’d done something right, and it had nothing to do with magic.
Epilogue
Mueller waved me over to our usual lunchtime spot and popped the top on a Pot of Gold, one of the new flavors of soda pop Ms. Zent had insisted be pushed through immediately, despite the newness of the machine.
I eyed the drink warily as I accepted it. “I dunno. Are we sure there’s no curse on these?”
He shrugged. “You’re the one with magic.” Three bites of a sandwich from the bakery, and then he added, “Besides, I drank two of them this morning, and nothing’s wrong me with me.”
“Oh, there’s plenty wrong,” I said with a grin, and took a sip. Minty. “You just hide it all behind that charming personality.”
He watched me as he chowed down, but I refused to blurt out my good news before he asked, “What’s up? You look like Od when he found a new pegleg.”
“Oh, nothing. Amy called. She and her boyfriend are starting a new program for newbies in the game, now that it’s live.”
“Good for them.” He went back to his sandwich, but when he noticed I hadn’t touched my food, he pressed, “What else is up? You haven’t looked this happy since the Chisel…” He caught himself and changed direction like an expert. “You finally got laid!”
I swatted him. “Not so loud! And no, that’s not it. Nicky and I are taking it slow.”
“This, from the girl who practically got naked on me the first day we met. At work, no less.”
I ignored his taunt and let loose my secret. “I found it.”
He stopped chewing and glanced around. The machines were all clunking and whirring and making their usual cacophony, and none of the new workers were within earshot. “What’s it say?”
Pretending to be opening my sandwich, I set the business card on the table where he could read it. “I had it wrong. Haynes was the first name, not the last name. That’s why I missed it.” And had proceeded to tear up the entire file room. Reorganizing, I had explained to Ms. Zent when she noticed. She hadn’t believed me, but we had fallen into a nice pattern of pretending we didn’t know each other’s secrets. She “didn’t know” I was a godmother with a secret mission, and I “didn’t know” that she was the one who poisoned half my hometown, including my mother. I still wasn’t sure what I was going to do about that, but I had time to figure it out.
“H. B. Pruitt,” he read aloud. “Who is he?”
I slipped the card back into my pocket. “The old you. He worked here when the factory first opened.”
“Why are you supposed to find the old me, when the new me is so awesome?”
I shrugged. “Search me.”
“So you gonna call him?”
“Haven’t decided.” On the one hand, I wanted to know what Maysie was talking about. And if I was going to be a fairy godmother forever, then I needed her to teach me to do it right, which meant finding and freeing her. On the other hand, the Chisel had made it sound like all godmothers were liars, and I wasn’t real thrilled with having been tricked into signing my life away. “It’s been so long, it’s probably disconnected, anyway.”
“You never know if you don’t try.” Easy for him to say. He was the one who could happily enjoy his sandwich because the fate of the world didn’t potentially rest on his shoulders. “Come on. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Last time I talked to a little old man I didn’t know, he put a spell on me that kind of ruined of my life. I don’t even know all it did yet. He didn’t tell me.”
“But if he hadn’t done that, you wouldn’t have met me.” He took a swig of his own Pot of Gold, then belched. “And think of what a loss that would be.”
I laughed, a real, honest-to-goodness, light-hearted laugh, and dialed the number into my phone. Three rings and a brief message later, I snapped the phone closed and threw it across the loading bay. At least, I tried to. Mueller caught it and set it on the table between us.
“Well?”
My eyes were wide, my heart racing. “It was a message. For me.”
“What did it say?”
“Not to look for him.”
“Did it say why?�
��
“Because he…” I had to swallow three times before I could say it. “He wants nothing more to do with the Trapperstown Trapper.”
Mueller stared at me. I stared at Mueller.
“Shit,” he said.
“Dragon-sized,” I agreed.
We contemplated my situation in silence before, finally, Mueller said, “It’s okay. You can turn my car into a DeLorean if you want to go back to 1967. Just promise me you won’t feed Mr. Fusion any beer. That’s a waste of a good brew.”
Author's Notes
Dear Reader,
Thank you for taking the time to read One Good Wand, the first book of the Reluctant Godmother series. It was a tremendously fun book to write, and I hope it was a fun read!
Reader reviews are instrumental to the success of a series and the author behind it. Your opinion matters! Please consider leaving a review on Amazon.
Book 2, A Wand a Day, is available now!
If you would like to be notified when future books are released, sign up for my newsletter. I promise not to bug you very often.
Before closing, I have to express my sincerest gratitude to the real-life inspiration for Mueller. Throughout writing this book, he was there to cheer me on and offer ways to further awkward-up a scene. If you laughed at all during your reading, it was probably because of him.
Thanks, too, to my husband for all the late-night food runs and child chasing. Without him, I would never have the time to write.
And last but hardly least, a lifetime of love and appreciation to my mother, who taught me where to find magic in the world.
Have a sparkly day, dear reader!
~Grace
One Good Wand Page 41