A Spoonful of Magic

by Irene Radford

  “Your choice to live there.”

  “Could I come home?”

  “No. You can afford a nicer place anywhere else in the city. Shara showed me your bank accounts online. Leave the cheap, dismal, and noisy apartment to the college kids who need cheap and don’t care about dismal and noise.”

  “We’ll see. I need to be close.”

  “Not my problem. I’ll be back by seven. Be gone by then.”

  G’s words worried me more than I let on. The Wizard Guild compromised. Can’t trust anyone. If I hadn’t seen G so rattled, vulnerable, and indecisive at the edge of waking up, I’d have dismissed the words.

  So I chewed on them all day. When Ted came for his morning coffee break, I smiled bleakly and sent him on his way without conversation or flirting or anything. John showed up just before two. I signed out of the kitchen and sat with him for a moment, twisting my own cup of latte around and around as I thought of an approach.

  “How long have you known G?” I blurted out before I lost my courage.

  “Most of our lives. We went all through school together. Speaking of school, don’t you have children to transport to various and sundry activities?”

  “Not yet. The girls will stay at the middle school for Math Olympics and programming club. I understand you had a part in getting Shara admitted to that activity.”

  “She is qualified, but a bit too young. Since I sponsor the club, however, I have some say in admitting students outside the normal club rules. Besides, G twisted my arm. Significantly.”

  I smiled into my cup at that. G could be most persuasive when he needed to be. And right now, Shara needed extracurricular activities to keep her from finding trouble behind locked doors. Or in warded safes.

  “If you and G are such longtime friends, how come I didn’t meet you until two weeks ago?” I guess I’d met him when he helped move the wardrobe to the attic all those years ago. But other than a brief greeting at the shop, I couldn’t remember seeing him since.

  “We . . . um . . .” He looked around to see who might be listening. The shop was quiet for a few minutes in midafternoon, between lunch rush and those with dragging feet requiring caffeine in the afternoon. “We in the community don’t socialize much. It draws attention to who is in and who isn’t,” he whispered.

  That almost made sense. All the parties G and I had attended over the years had been held by my friends. Only twice had he taken me to cocktail parties with his business associates. I now had no idea who they really were.

  Didn’t the community meet for rituals and such? They certainly didn’t meet at my house with that giant pentagram in the attic. Where else would they go for a private ceremony?

  The top of Skinner Butte? Not during summer when rattlesnakes made their homes up there. More likely an isolated copse outside of town. Or maybe someone else’s home or above one of John’s shops.

  If G ever attended a ritual when he was home, he’d sneaked out in the middle of the night. A few times over the years I’d risen at four thirty to find a note and a flower beside my pillow. He’d been summoned to work and would call later. He’d traveled so much during the years of our marriage I couldn’t account for his whereabouts most of the time. Maybe he didn’t go out of town every time he said he did. Maybe he’d kept the apartment above the flute and drum shop all along and merely hid out there, working remotely with another pentagram.

  Or did he hide in our own attic working remotely?

  “Well, it’s a quarter after. I need to take Jason to dance class. Tiffany Tyler has classes this afternoon, but she’ll bring him home this evening. From the theater, I have to run to pick up the girls. They only get an hour after school for clubs. I hope Shara gets an interesting assignment to keep her occupied.” And out of the greenhouse.

  “Let me walk you home.” He shoved back his chair.

  I gestured him to stay. “That’s okay. I drive on school days.”

  Now that Jason had been fully admitted into the ballet company, he took his classes at the theater. After warm-up and floor exercises, they’d set about learning the pieces in the classroom, or working on trouble spots or group pieces. Then they adjourned to the stage for rehearsals. Considering that this was a very small regional pro-am company, he only stayed about two or two and a half hours. In the past two weeks, they’d put the dances for all the Halloween numbers together, step by step, aiming for a mid-October opening. Jason had assured me that the wicked witch part in Danse Macabre, traditionally danced by a man, was worthy of the Halloween season.

  I wondered if he had made the connection yet between Halloween witches from ancient morality stories and himself as a magic practitioner.

  Now that Tiffany drove him home, my time crunch had eased, and I could spend more time with the girls and keeping the house in order. And cooking. Over the summer I’d spent more time in the kitchen, often teaching the girls some of the basics. Maybe now we’d have time to review the chemistry of baking.

  Cooking is an art. Baking is science.

  The combination of art and science equals magic!

  Where had that idea come from? I must have read it somewhere. Otherwise, I’d have to consider that what I did in the kitchen was . . . magic. Real magic, like what G did to criminals, Jason did with dance floors, Belle did to attract people, and Shara did with locks and puzzles.

  No.

  Not possible. G had said that talents emerged at puberty or not at all.

  Right?

  Seventeen

  I FOUND G WORKING in the backyard.

  “Your split personality is showing,” I said, aiming for casual. He wore faded blue jeans and a threadbare chambray shirt. Never in the fourteen years I’d known him had he looked so casual. Today was proving a day of firsts with him.

  He turned his piercing blue eyes on me, quelling any more words about his wardrobe. I knew from experience I’d get no further explanation.

  “Shoring up the fence is hard work. I do have work clothes. Sometimes in the field I have to climb mountains, blaze paths through the forest, and wade through swamps.”

  What?!

  “Shoring up the fence? I didn’t know it needed fixing.”

  “It’s vulnerable. I haven’t tended to it in a long time. Someone has been poking at it from the other side with something sharp, like a tire iron or a pry bar. There are also traces of baby magic in the probes.”

  “Baby magic?” My mind immediately went to my three children.

  “Babies in magic. Those who are about to manifest but don’t know they have magic; they attack things with determination as well as tools. That determination has little thorns of magic embedded in it.”

  “Our kids?” Had any one of the three been out here alone this summer? I couldn’t account for all of their time.

  “Doubtful.” G stared at the fence, hands on his hips, eyes narrowed but glazing over. “The probes came from the back,” he whispered. Then he blinked and shook his head. “Why would one of our kids try to find an opening from the back?”

  “Then who?”

  “Unknown. But I’ll keep my eyes and my tendrils of power open to future intrusion. Sometimes a magician will sprout from a family that has no genetic heritage of magic. We call them ‘sports’ and they are dangerous, very dangerous indeed, unless a full wizard finds them and teaches them right from wrong.” He muttered something under his breath that I couldn’t catch.

  “While you’re at it, you could cut back the blackberry vines.” As much as I loved the fruit, mostly gone now for the season, they were an invasive non-native species and a major annoyance. I envisioned Shara’s twenty classmates attending her birthday, catching their party clothes in the thorny vines and tearing fine fabric before the near sentient vines let go.

  Belle’s birthday came later in the month, and she wanted a quieter, smaller gathering of mixed boys and girls
(all geeks) for formal tea on the flagstone patio. Dresses or white shirts and ties required.

  How did we manage three children with autumn birthdays? Blame it on some pretty wild New Year’s Eve parties with a lot of alcohol.

  I had to swallow a big lump in my throat. The thought of G and his first wife making merry after a party on New Year’s Eve saddened me. She’d died giving birth to Jason.

  But Jason’s birthday was the last day of September. And at one time G had mentioned that the doctors had performed an emergency C-section on his first wife at seven and a half months, trying to save her life, and Jason’s. They failed. But Jason lived. Maybe I didn’t have to share the same celebration with her ghost.

  “Sometimes a natural barrier entangles intruders better because it isn’t expected of me,” G replied to my question from many thoughts before. He had his pen/wand in hand as he studied the tall wooden planks that stretched from end to end of our acre.

  Then from one eye blink to the next, the wand extruded from the pen carrying blinking spots of sunshine with it.

  Before I’d registered the sparkling lights, the worn and weathered boards ceased their sag and stood upright, reinforced by renewed two-by-fours across the top and bottom, and the four-by-four posts every six feet anchored more securely in the summer-hardened ground.

  “While you’re at it, how about a conversation with the blackberries, something about only snagging people who come over the fence into the yard and not everybody who walks within two feet of them?”

  He flipped the pen at the offending vines. They cringed backward, as if slapped into submission.

  “That should do it. Magical and mundane menaces repelled.” G pocketed his pen, returned to normal size, and dusted his clean hands free of any lingering dirt—or magic. “I checked the safe. It shows signs of Shara’s tampering, but will last another day or two.”

  Don’t bet on that, I thought as I glimpsed a small face peering out the basement window.

  “Dad, I think I got past the last firewall on your computer. Want to come check it for me?” she called up to us.

  I knew she’d seen and studied every move her father made. Another puzzle for her to disassemble or reverse engineer.

  “Homework first,” I called back, loud enough that Belle, too, had to hear me from her own window around the corner on the second floor.

  “But, Mom,” they both protested.

  “I’ll come help with your homework. Dining room table in five minutes,” G informed them. He must be getting the hang of this parenting thing, knowing his presence was the only way to keep their noses out from where they didn’t belong.

  G didn’t get back to the greenhouse the next day. He sent me a text that he had to go to Portland on “Business.” Back Sunday afternoon.

  I breathed a sigh of relief that he wouldn’t be hanging around when I went on my Saturday night date with Ted.

  How does one prepare for a date with a new man after fourteen years of being committed to another man? As I stared at the clothes hanging in my walk-in closet, I almost wished I had a magical wand. That horrible rapping earworm “Alakazam, Magic Slam” started up in my head.

  Like singing could transform my jeans and T-shirts or flannel shirts and sweaters into something that would make me look like a mature and glamorous woman.

  Worth a try.

  The first notes formed in my throat. My hand beat the rhythm against my thigh.

  An idea whopped me upside the head.

  I had a little black dress. I wore it rarely, like the abortive anniversary dinner. And before that, two years ago at another New Year’s Eve party with a lot of alcohol. For three weeks afterward I bit my fingernails to the quick wondering if I was pregnant again. I wasn’t. I still wasn’t sure if I was glad or sad.

  Anyway, I found that little black dress that flared around my hips and floated in all the right places hanging in the back. Draped over the hangar was a green-and-blue silk scarf to add some life to the black. Maybe too formal for pizza and beer at the brew pub. Ted was not G in his obsession with formality. Ted lived in jeans and work shirts. Surely, he wouldn’t wear a GQ custom-made suit for a friendly evening out, away from our children. No black silk jersey for me.

  What about the jeans skirt I sometimes wore for business meetings at the bank or with our accountant?

  Yes. Denim and lace. A lacy blouse I’d had since college. And flats, no heels. I hated having to watch my balance every step of the way when I wore heels.

  I’d dithered so long about clothes, I didn’t have time to take a long bubble bath in the kids’ bathroom, so I opted for a longer than usual hot shower. A dab of perfume and smudge of lipstick made me presentable.

  “Who are you and what have you done with my mother?” Jason chortled as I stepped into the kitchen.

  I swallowed my smile. I guess I was presentable for my first date.

  And . . . Tiffany grinned back at me from the nook. For once, she didn’t have her feet in a basin of hot water with healing salts.

  I spun around. For wherever Tiffany was when not on stage, her father couldn’t be far away.

  “Sorry we came early. I hope it’s okay,” Ted said from where he propped up the doorjamb into the dining room. “Tiffany needs more of your magical potions, so I thought I should order pizza for the four of them while I take you out.”

  The first genuine smile in a long, long time creased my face. “Of course, it’s okay. Have you been waiting long?” I moved to stand beside him, putting half a room between us and the children.

  “A few minutes. The pizza is ordered and Tiffany has money to pay the delivery person. Plus a tip.” He waggled a finger at her as if expecting her to hold back a little for her own purposes.

  She made a face at him.

  I could tell this was a familiar game, all in fun.

  “There’s soda and iced tea in the fridge. Dessert when we get back,” I said, still holding that smile.

  We made our escape. I have to admit my heart beat a strange rhythm in trepidation. I’d never left the children alone while I went out with someone not their father. We were long past the days of babysitters, unless I considered Tiffany an overseer of Deschants juvenile activities.

  Maybe she’d keep them from trying anything magical.

  Why did I not believe that?

  Ted escorted me to Tiffany’s little compact sedan. “Oh, we’ve graduated to the adult car,” I quipped.

  Ted laughed. “You wouldn’t want to ride in my work pickup. No amount of clearing out and cleaning it up could make it presentable for a lady.” He opened the passenger door and handed me in.

  “I feel the same way about my van. There are days when we practically live in it. And that means fast food meals, spilled drinks, upset tummies, the works.”

  “My daughter is a lot more fastidious than I am. Tonight, I’m grateful for that,” he said as he got in on the other side and started the engine. It purred softly. We could actually carry on a conversation and not be drowned out by engine noise.

  And talk we did, all through dinner and back out into the parking lot. Mostly about our children, about ballet, about his work and mine. And about how much trouble the dancers had dancing Tubular Bells, and how the ballets differed from movies and cartoons, and how even modern special effects could not work “Alakazam, Magic Slam” into any of the scores planned for the This Is Halloween dance festival.

  “Has Jason asked you to remake his costume for Tubular?” Ted finally asked as we left the pub.

  “What’s wrong with the one assigned to him? Mostly he’s wearing rags and bones, in the first two numbers,” I asked, alarmed.

  “For Tubular, it’s an old, black brocade tunic and made for a larger man. He’s very young for the part and doesn’t have the shoulders yet.”

  “That could be why he asked for a set of free w
eights for his birthday. He wants to do more lift work. Someone named Denise?”

  “Denise,” he confirmed. “Tiffany’s understudy and second lead. Will he get the weights?”

  “Probably. Presuming his father remembers and is in town long enough to deliver them.”

  “Is that why you split up? He’s gone all the time? Not a great parent when he is around?”

  “Partly. He also manipulates people and has an interesting relationship with the truth.”

  “Oh.”

  “He promised he’d be home in time for Shara’s birthday party tomorrow afternoon. I’m not holding my breath.”

  “Do you need another adult at the party?” He held both my hands, and looked down at me with concern.

  “Thank you for offering. I appreciate that more than I can say. But I’m used to doing it all on my own, and I will have some other mothers chaperoning. At this point having a man around, even as nice a one as you, will just complicate things.”

  “You think I’m nice?”

  I nodded. He smiled as he lowered his head and kissed me. I rose up on tiptoe to respond. He clasped my waist. I held his shoulders.

  And we kissed. Once, a gasp of air, twice, and we sank back into reality. A nice kiss. A comfortable kiss.

  No champagne bubbles lit my blood.

  After the sizzle I experienced every time G touched me, I was a bit disappointed. But knowing that sizzle was magically induced, another form of manipulation, I’d take nice and honest and appreciate it. Welcome it.

  Eighteen

  RETURNING HOME TO MY children from a date felt . . . awkward at best. Ted and I found all four of them, er, five if you counted BJ, in the kitchen. Where else?

  That was where the remnants of the pizzas were. And, miracle of miracles, the Black Forest cake I’d made. It still sat in the middle of the round table, on a pedestal, with the cake knife, dessert plates, forks, and paper napkins beside it, and not a single crumb was absent. They all stared longingly at it, even Tiffany who usually disdained sugar.