Magick Run Amok

by Sharon Pape

  “Sorry. It was so good I lost my head. You know we can’t ever tell Tilly about this little piece of baked heaven.”

  “I disagree,” she said. “It wouldn’t be the worst thing if she came up here and wangled the recipe out of Enid. That way we could have one every now and then without having to drive up here.”

  “Wouldn’t it be more efficient if we brought one home for her to try?”

  “Forget it. You know very well that the second it’s in the car, we’ll both be pulling pieces from it.”

  I sighed. “I wish I could come up with a spell to suppress the desire for carbs.” Bronwen and Morgana had spent most of their adult life trying to concoct such a spell, without success. What made me think I could succeed where they had failed? The universe had its rules and many of them were immutable. Why not messing with carbs was one of them, I had no idea.

  “Ready to tackle Willy?” Elise asked.

  “I would have been more ready after a whole Danish,” I murmured, expecting a friendly punch in my arm. Elise did not disappoint.

  We found Willy behind the counter at the back of the store. When we walked in, we needed a moment to get our bearings. There were bikes everywhere, suspended from the ceiling, mounted to the walls, and occupying nearly every inch of floor space. There was no clear path through the maze to the counter. It reminded me of the layout of department stores. To get from point A to point B, you had to walk between and around a lot of other merchandise. It was a shameless ploy to entice you into buying items you hadn’t come for. Personally, it just irritated me, especially if I was in a hurry.

  “How may I help you today?” Willy asked when we finally made our way to him through the metallic forest. He was short and thin. If he were a woman, he’d be described as petite. He had a great smile and perfect teeth, although they were blue-ish in the florescent light. He’d clearly overdone the whitening agents in an effort to play up his best feature.

  “Hi,” I said. “We’re not actually here for a bicycle.” No need to get his hopes up about making a sale. His smile drooped at the corners. “We were told Axel Stubbs worked here part-time before his passing, and we’re wondering if you’d tell us a bit about him from your perspective as his boss.”

  “Mind if I ask why the interest three years after his death?” His expression had changed from “pleased to meet you” into “what are you up to?”

  I gave him my standard reply. He chewed on that for a minute before agreeing to talk to us. I couldn’t tell if his decision was based on the merit of my words or old-fashioned boredom.

  He stayed on his side of the counter; we stayed on ours as if we were neighbors chatting over a fence. “Sorry I can’t offer you seats,” he said with no apparent regret, “but space here is at a premium and the merchandise always wins.” We assured him we understood. “So what is it you want to know?”

  Elise jumped right in. “For starters, why did you take him on after his conviction?”

  “I believe in giving a guy a chance,” he said. “It’s not like Axel was a murderous thug. I liked the idea of helping him to avoid becoming one. Thought of it as a good deed. If we all did more good deeds, the world would be a nicer place, right?”

  “I like the way you think,” I said.

  “How was Axel as an employee?” Elise asked.

  He shrugged. “I didn’t have any complaints. Sure, when things were slow and he’d done everything I expected of him, he’d sit and play with his phone. He wasn’t what you’d call a ‘self-starter.’ I hear that’s often the reality in today’s world. But he didn’t take any sick days. He was polite enough to the customers and pretty talented at bike repairs. I missed his help the last couple of years.”

  Elise and I exchanged looks, both of us clearly thinking that bicycle shop Axel wasn’t the same Axel of the coroner’s report and rumor mill. “Did he ever appear to be strung out on drugs or alcohol?” I asked.

  “He’d have a beer with lunch now and then. I would too for that matter. Some days he seemed sharper than others and he could be moody, but I never saw him impaired, if that’s what you mean.” I wasn’t sure what I meant anymore. Who was the real Axel Stubbs?

  After leaving Willy of the blue smile, we spent the next couple of hours interviewing other shopkeepers and people at some of the local farms. Their take on Axel was a lot like Enid’s. Maybe you had to work closely with Axel to appreciate him. Or maybe if you were the school rebel, it made sense to folks that you’d eventually die an ignominious death. It fit their Zeitgeist. They could point to Axel and warn their kids not to be wise-asses and troublemakers or they’d wind up dead like him.

  On the way out of Burdett, we came to the turnoff for the Stubbs’s farm. Elise knew I wanted to try speaking to him in person. “This is it. What do you think?”

  “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” she said. “Wow, I’m really beginning to sound like my mother.” We drove up to the white, two story house that was clearly in need of some TLC. The peeling paint made it appear to be shedding its skin like a snake. One of the green shutters on an upstairs window was missing and another was hanging by a nail. We rang the bell. Austin Stubbs opened the door. I introduced myself and he slammed it shut in our faces. The whole encounter took ten seconds—max.

  Walking back to the car, I glanced into the backyard, which was mostly dirt and would have benefitted greatly from a camouflaging layer of snow. A big tire that must have come from a tractor was leaning against a tree trunk. Planted nearby was the aluminum skeleton of a clothes line. With no string left on which to hang anything, it was more like a modern sculpture of hard times than a useful device. Rounding out the attractions was a tarpaulin-covered motorcycle, part of its tires visible.

  Before heading home, we stopped on the outskirts of town for a couple of quick burgers. “Is it possible Willy isn’t a great judge of character and behavior?” Elise asked when we were seated at a table in the corner. “Maybe Axel used those deficits to his advantage.”

  I took a bite of my burger and my appetite roared back to life. After the Danish, I’d been too engrossed in our mission to realize how hungry I was. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked after swallowing.

  “That the killer knew Axel’s history, figured an overdose wouldn’t seem out of character, and helped him get there?”

  I nodded, took another bite, and washed it down with some Coke. Elise was eating her French fries like a chain smoker, clearly caught up in the excitement of trying to solve the mystery. “How far do you think the police investigation went after hearing the coroner’s report?” she asked between fries.

  “Not far enough would be my guess. I’d love to know if they ever questioned Austin and made him account for his time during the hours preceding his son’s death.”

  “There must be some way to find out,” Elise said, locking eyes on me.

  I laughed. “Is that supposed to be a subtle hint?”

  Elise swallowed her first bite of burger. “Who said anything about subtle?”

  I rolled the idea around in my head. Stealing information fell into a very gray area of magick. The reason for taking the information had to be above reproach. Satisfying my curiosity didn’t cut it. But if said information could prevent more deaths, the gray was more like dingy white. First I’d have to determine who was likely to hold the answers I needed, and then I’d have to propose the idea to Tilly. But I didn’t want her to get into trouble with our progenitors, or more importantly, with higher powers. I explained all this to Elise in general terms while we finished eating.

  Not for the first time since my mother and grandmother’s passing, I missed their wise counsel. Unfortunately I had no way to summon them. I could only hope they dropped by for a visit soon.

  “I’m starting to understand why you love these investigations,” Elise mumbled around a mouthful of burger. She paused to drink her soda. “My
brain is fired up. I swear I can hear the thoughts pinging from neuron to neuron like a jazzed-up game of pinball.”

  “I know, but the other half of the job involves confronting the bad guys. That can get scary fast. You’re a single parent with two kids to think about, whereas I’m unfettered and have magick at my disposal.” Not entirely true. I couldn’t leave Tilly adrift with Merlin for the rest of her days and my magick was hardly fool proof.

  “Thanks for the reality check,” Elise said. “But I’d love to be included in the brainstorming.”

  We made good time on the drive home. I dropped Elise at her house with a promise to keep her posted. “Before I forget,” she said, with one foot already out of the car, “I decided to go up to my sister’s for Christmas, but I want to have Thanksgiving here with you and your family. Please pass my invitation on to Tilly and Merlin.”

  “Are you sure you know what you’re signing up for?” I asked wryly.

  “It’ll be great. And don’t forget to invite Travis.”

  Chapter 22

  I found Tilly in the customer chair, eyes closed, rhythmically petting Sashkatu, who was curled up in her lap. They looked so peaceful I hated to disturb them. But before I could, I heard a duck quacking. It seemed to be coming from Tilly’s shop. At first, I thought it was on the small TV she kept there to amuse Merlin, but there was no denying that the sound was coming closer. I thought I heard webbed feet. Wet webbed feet squishing on the floor. I didn’t have long to puzzle it out, because a duck walked into view from the hallway to the connecting door. It was a typical white domestic duck with an orange bill and feet. Maybe Tilly was duck-sitting for a friend. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d cared for a friend’s pet. An iguana, a mouse, a llama and a pony were the ones that immediately came to mind.

  The duck waddled toward me, dripping water from its lower feathers and leaving wet duck prints on the hardwood. Tilly issued a deep sigh before opening her eyes, as if she didn’t want to deal with the reality that awaited her. Sashki leaped to attention, back arched, hissing in a way I rarely heard. He left Tilly’s lap for the window ledge and gave me a piercing look that clearly said, “You own this establishment—do something!”

  The duck stopped a few feet away and eyed me hard with one of its beady brown eyes. The other one was fixed on Tilly. “A friend’s duck you’re watching?” I asked hopefully.

  “Oh how I’d love to say ‘yes,’” she replied.

  “I’m not going to like the truth, am I?”

  She shook her head. “Perhaps you should look at it this way—in ten years, we’ll remember this and have a good laugh.”

  I leaned back against the counter as ready as I would ever be. “I’m listening.”

  “Well the best I can figure it, Merlin wanted duck for lunch. When he tried to conjure up the dish, he must have messed up the spell. This is the result.”

  “Is he an actual duck or does he just look like a duck to the world?” The wizard was capable of making anyone or anything appear to be different, but he could also transmute any living being into another form. We’d seen him do it a few months ago. Thankfully he’d had no problem then and had easily reversed the spell as well.

  “I think he transmuted into a duck and I have no idea how to return him to his human form.” She sounded hopeless.

  “What about the spell to reverse spells. The one Bronwen gave me when Merlin summoned all the woodland creatures?”

  “That was the first thing I tried.”

  I didn’t say so, but I was thinking she might not have remembered it precisely enough. “I may as well give it a try too,” I said. “The way things have been going lately, maybe something as silly as the timbre of my voice will make the difference.”

  A spell was cast,

  Now make it past.

  Remove it here

  And everywhere.

  I repeated it ten times. Nothing changed. Merlin was still very much a duck. Was our magick so strangely warped that we couldn’t even depend on a spell from one usage to the next? It was a scary thought. But rescuing Merlin was a more immediate issue.

  Tilly’s brow knotted for a moment; then she brightened. “The only thing I remember him saying was a number, but for all I know it was a magickal bar code for duck. Although the man drives me crazy at times, I want him back as he was.”

  “I know you do, Aunt Tilly. We’re going to figure this out, I promise.” I was awfully free with my promises. What if I couldn’t figure it out? No! I chastised myself. No more negativity!

  Bronwen always said, “What you send out into the universe is what comes back to you. Raise your thoughts to a higher level and believe in the light.” Thinking of her words lifted my spirit. Even if I couldn’t figure out the right spell to restore Merlin to himself and even if I wasn’t highly enough born for it to work, there was always the chance that he’d set a time for the spell to lapse.

  “You need to create a reversal spell of your own,” Tilly declared with absolute certainty. “Morgana was incredibly talented at creating spells, and you are her daughter. You must at least make the effort or you will never know.”

  My aunt was right. I had to try. The Merlin-duck interrupted my thoughts by stomping his webbed feet up and down on the floor. I thought he was dancing, until I looked at his face. For a second, the sorcerer’s countenance swam into focus beneath the surface of the duck’s feathered one. As brief as it was, I could see Merlin’s frustration and fear. “We’re working on it,” I shouted, enunciating each word in the hope that he would understand me, like a traveler expecting to be understood in a foreign land by speaking louder and more distinctly. Sashkatu opened one eyelid and sighed, no doubt to remind me there was no excuse for using an outside voice when you were inside where someone might be napping. “Stop complaining,” I told him, “at least you get to nap.”

  Chapter 23

  Tilly and I started the night at her house, poring over the ancient scrolls that were spread on the dining room table, in hopes of finding a spell to change the famous wizard back into human form. Although I was still intent upon fashioning one myself, I had no idea how long my creative juices would take to percolate. In any case, a backup spell would be welcome. Deciphering the archaic words was hard enough without the Merlin-duck pacing around the room, issuing an endless stream of strident squawks and quacks at often painful decibels.

  In spite of our best intentions, dinner had only made his distress worse. We’d bought him the best duck food on the market and made ourselves omelets, because he wasn’t overly fond of eggs. He dug into the mixture of cracked corn, oats, and Milo seed as if he was famished, but promptly spit it out. We offered him ice cream, although we worried it might hurt his duck digestion. He spit that out as well. The weird hybrid he was couldn’t or wouldn’t eat anything we gave him, until we tried grapes. It took him a while to make it through the first one, but he finally managed to break it up and swallow it. To make the process easier for him, we cut the grapes into pieces. He ate them as fast as we could supply them, polishing off the entire half pound Tilly had in her refrigerator. Once he seemed to have had his fill, I foolishly hoped he’d settle down and sleep. But food only served to refuel him. Without some peace and quiet, we were never going to make headway with the scrolls. I suggested locking him in the bathroom with a tub full of water to swim around in. There was silence for all of ten minutes. In the end, we left him in there to quack himself to sleep, while we drove over to my house.

  By one in the morning, Tilly and I had both fallen asleep with our heads on the table. Tilly awoke first, needing a bathroom break, and hearing her moving around woke me. We didn’t have much to show for the hours of eye-straining study of the scrolls. Who were we kidding? Even if the scrolls contained an antidote spell, we’d need Merlin to translate it for us. If nothing else, we were in good company. Morgana and Bronwen had never been able to make heads or tails of
the archaic language and overwrought writing either.

  Tilly didn’t want to go home and take the chance that the Merlin-duck would hear her come in, so she spent the rest of the night in the room that used to be mine. I crawled into the cat-laden bed that had been my mother’s and was now mine and fell asleep before I could turn off the lamp.

  Travis called at 7 a.m., knowing I always set my alarm for that time. I was barely coherent.

  “You okay?” he had to ask twice before I processed what he was saying.

  I fought my way through the cobwebs in my brain and pushed myself up against the headboard. “Just tired, late night.”

  “Were you at least having fun?”

  My pillow was beckoning with its come-hither softness, but I struggled to ignore it. “Merlin is a duck,” I said bluntly. “Not much fun at all.”

  Travis was silent for a few moments as though trying to get his bearings. “Kailyn,” he said finally, “I need you to wake up and talk sensibly. You’re scaring me.”

  I shook my head, trying to rattle my brain awake. I explained as best I could about the wizard’s latest disaster and our current lack of success in restoring him to his proper form.

  “Whoa, that’s awful. That’s…I can’t…I can’t imagine,” he stammered with a hint of laughter that he tried to mask by gruffly clearing his throat. “Kailyn, I’m really sorry.” He was making a valiant effort to sound properly serious and concerned, but I could still hear the amusement bubbling just beneath his words. How could I be angry with him? If I weren’t the one who had to rescue Merlin, I’d be rolling on the floor with laughter. Responsibility was a sobering task master. “Then I guess you’ll be busy with that today,” he said, sounding disappointed, once he had himself under control.

  I had to admit, I felt perversely pleased about disappointing him. But I was equally glad to lift his spirits, no magick required. “Not necessarily,” I said. “Tilly and I are stumped, so unless my mother or grandmother drops in with a solution… What were you going to ask me?”