by Sharon Pape
While we were talking to Hannah, Merlin sidled over to the next booth. Since it was Lolly’s, I didn’t try to stop him. He’d be waiting in her line for a good fifteen minutes or more. Hers was always the longest line at the fair because she was known to be generous with the free samples of her satiny fudge. She believed if you wanted to hook a customer on your products, they needed to associate your shop with abundance and satiation. It was a philosophy that had served her well over the years. After scoring their free sample, most of the people in line generally bought a slab of fudge along with a box of her chocolates.
Tilly and I had just bid Hannah goodbye and were crossing over to Lolly’s when a deep voice from the line shouted, “Hey, old man, no cuts.” From what I could tell, Merlin had bypassed the line and marched straight up to Lolly who was in the process of handing him a number of samples. Lolly got to her feet, her cherubic smile stiffening. “Thank you, sir, but I’ll decide on the rules and how to enforce them. There’s plenty here for everyone.”
Without missing a step, Tilly snagged Merlin’s arm as she went by and dragged him away before he could turn the man into a slug. She made it less than thirty yards with her charge before he dug in his heels, bringing her to a hard stop that could have given her whiplash. “Don’t you dare change him into some odd creature with all these people around,” she warned him as I caught up to them. Merlin didn’t move or show any indication he’d heard her. I followed his line of sight. He was glowering at No-Cuts-Guy in the line across from where we were standing.
“No dark magick,” I added.
“Fear not, mistress,” he said without shifting his focus. “I will do nothing untoward.” I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. It wasn’t like I had much of a choice anyway. Tilly looked at me and shrugged, having apparently come to the same conclusion. Since the day the legendary sorcerer crash landed in my shop, we’d tried to keep him from drawing attention to himself and the fact that he hailed from another time and place. It was a losing battle from the start. On New Year’s Eve, Tilly and I had finally caved. We resolved to continue giving him advice on spells and other actions he was considering, but we wouldn’t penalize him for his choices. Unless they were likely to have a deleterious effect on our lives as well.
Merlin was still staring at No-Cuts-Guy. We waited anxiously for something to happen, something to change. I was half expecting the guy to turn into a frog right there in line. When the spell started working, I didn’t immediately realize it. Two squirrels chased each other across the grass, coming to a stop near No-Cuts-Guy’s feet. They were quickly followed by half a dozen more. Before we knew it, No-Cuts-Guy had an entourage of a dozen chittering squirrels chasing each other around him. The people nearby gave him and his squirrel circus as wide a berth as possible without forfeiting their place in line.
No-Cuts-Guy tried to shoo them away. He looked around for help, but since there were no squirrel containment officers at hand, he resorted to kicking at them. That was unacceptable to Merlin who instantly recalled his minions. Released from his control, they scampered off, except for the one Merlin charged with a second mission. That squirrel shimmied up No-Cuts-Guy’s pant leg. The expression on his face was priceless. He broke into a panicked little dance, no doubt to dislodge the critter. When that proved unsuccessful, he ran off screaming in the direction of the first-aid station and port-a-potties.
“Doesn’t he know you can’t run away from your problems?” Tilly said with a giggle. Merlin had a grin from ear to ear. Everyone who’d witnessed the squirrel incident, as it was destined to be called, was roaring with laughter, until even I couldn’t resist. But I never lost sight of the fact that there might be consequences for allowing the wizard such latitude in casting spells. Our resolution might need some editing.
Still in high spirits, we wandered into the part of the Midway where one could win a stuffed animal or a goldfish in a little round bowl. After scouting out the various games, Merlin opted to try his hand at darts. “All I must do is hit one balloon on that board,” he explained as if we were the newbies at the fair.
“It’s not as easy as it looks,” I said.
“I’ll have you know that back home I am considered the finest player of darts in the realm.” I paid for three games with three tries each. The finest player in the realm failed to hit a balloon on any of his first eight attempts. However his last dart sailed straight into the heart of a sky-blue balloon that burst with a satisfying pop. I had my suspicions about how he accomplished that, but I kept them to myself. He picked out a gray stuffed bunny with a white fluff of a tail, after I nixed the goldfish. Too many cats in the family. The poor fish would die of a heart attack if it didn’t wind up as someone’s lunch.
When Tilly asked what he planned to do with the stuffed animal, he proposed giving it to Lolly’s new great granddaughter. Silly as it was, I felt like a proud parent whose offspring has shown signs of thoughtfulness and generosity. From there we followed a crowd of people to what we hoped was the petting zoo. Merlin hummed a song as we walked. There was a familiar ring to it, but I couldn’t immediately identify it. Once I did, I wasn’t happy. He was humming the song “Camelot” from the Broadway musical. He must have seen the movie version of it on TV. Tilly chimed in with the words.
“I know what you’re up to,” I cautioned the wizard. “You’re trying to send the subliminal message that New Camelot is the town’s proper name.”
“Oh dear,” Tilly said, abandoning the tune. “If I’d realized that, I would never have aided and abetted.”
The wizard looked wounded. “Why do you always think the worst of my intentions? Is it not possible that the song simply popped into my head on its own? Have you never had a tune take up residence in your mind?”
“Not such a convenient one.” All the people passing around us were now singing the song too. Great, sooner or later someone was going to realize that by adding two letters to the odd name of New Camel, it became the much lovelier and more romantic New Camelot. From there it was a short leap to the fabled home of King Arthur and Merlin, the acclaimed sorcerer.
When we arrived at the petting zoo, we were able to go right in. Once inside the enclosure, Merlin’s eyes lit up and he dropped his aggrieved expression as if it had come to the wrong address. Tilly and I knew how much he missed the animals that populated the forest near his home. But that was thousands of miles away and hundreds of years in the past. He folded himself down onto one of the low benches meant for children and within seconds the goats and piglets, lambs and bunnies left the children who were feeding them and surrounded the wizard, vying for his attention the way my cats did.
Children complained to their parents that he was hogging the animals. Parents complained to the animal wranglers that the old man must be feeding the animals unsanctioned treats—why else would they be acting this way? Before irritation could boil over into nasty words or heated actions, we told Merlin it was time to leave. He did not take it well. The animals seemed to share his disappointment and tried to follow him out. In the end, two animal wranglers and a maintenance man had to hold them back so we could leave without causing a mass exodus.
Poor Merlin was still reeling from his hasty expulsion from the zoo when he realized we’d come to the end of the fair. Of course no New Camel Fair would be complete without a couple of the town’s churlish mascots stationed at the exit. Merlin took strong exception to their presence. “Thus the lie is perpetuated for another year,” he protested at the top of his lungs. One of the camels spat at him. He spat right back. Before the animals’ owner could add his two cents to the exchange, Tilly grabbed one of the sorcerer’s arms, I grabbed the other, and we whisked him out of the fair, his feet skimming the ground.
I drove my aunt and our foster wizard to her house, stopped back home long enough to deposit my car in the driveway, grab Sashkatu, who was clearly miffed at being left for hours with the five other cats, and walked across the street
to the rear door of Abracadabra. The moment we were inside, he ascended his custom-built steps to his padded window seat with its fine view of Main Street. He’d been my mother’s familiar, and she’d spoiled him shamelessly. Not that I’d done anything to remedy the situation since he’d come into my keeping eighteen months ago.
I was turning the CLOSED sign to OPEN as my first customer reached the door. “I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you were willing to open for me on your day off,” Lenore Spalding boomed. She was a petite woman in her fifties with the vocal projection of a stage actress. Whoever raised her had failed to teach her the difference between an outside voice and an inside one. “For a little bitty thing, she can sure rattle the timbers,” my grandmother Bronwen used to say after each of Lenore’s visits.
“I’m happy to oblige,” I said. “Let me know if you need help finding anything.”
“Thanks, but I know this shop like the back of my hand.” She slipped one of the rattan shopping baskets over her arm and disappeared down the first aisle still talking. “I’m out of almost everything. If you hadn’t opened, I was thinking of getting a hotel room and staying overnight.” Her words carried back to me loud and clear. There wasn’t a lot of Excuse me? or What was that? when you were dealing with Lenore.
She returned to the counter ten minutes later with her basket filled to the brim. “You have enough here to last you an entire year,” I said, ringing up her order.
“Trust me, I’ll be back in six months the latest. When I go without your amazing products for even a few days, gravity strikes.” She let out a booming laugh that woke Sashkatu, in spite of his growing deafness. He opened his eyes, homed in on the source of the disturbance, and yowled at her. “Oops, sorry,” she said. “I forgot how much he hates idle chatter.” In all the years she’d been coming to my shop, she never figured out that it wasn’t the chatter he minded, but the decibel of it.
After Lenore left, a steady stream of customers kept me busy until closing time. Word that I’d be opening must have made it around the fair. I was about to lock up when Lolly flew in the door, breathing hard, her face bleached a scary shade of white. “Kailyn, please,” she said, her voice shaking, “would you—I mean, I need you to come with me.”
“Of course. What happened? Are you okay?” Ignoring my questions, she grabbed my hand and pulled me out the door. By the time we crossed the street to her shop, she was bent over gasping for air. She allowed herself a few deep breaths, before leading me through her shop and out the back door to the small patch of weeds and dirt where she kept her garbage cans. That day a woman occupied the remainder of the space. She was on her back with her eyes wide open and one of Lolly’s fudge knives protruding from the left side of her chest.
About the Author
Sharon Pape launched her acclaimed Abracadabra Mystery Series with Magick & Mayhem and its sequel, That Olde White Magick. Magick Run Amok is the third book in the series. She is also the author of the popular Portrait of Crime and Crystal Shop mystery series. She started writing stories in first grade and never looked back. She studied French and Spanish literature in college and went on to teach both languages on the secondary level. After being diagnosed with and treated for breast cancer in 1992, Sharon became a Reach to Recovery peer support volunteer for the American Cancer Society. She went on to become the coordinator of the program on Long Island. She and her surgeon created a non-profit organization called Lean On Me to provide peer support and information to newly diagnosed women and men. After turning her attention back to writing, she has shared her storytelling skills with thousands of fans. She lives with her husband on Long Island, New York, near her grown children. She loves reading, writing, and providing day care for her grand-dogs. Visit her at www.sharonpape.com.