Patrizio groaned.
“Wait a minute. Does she know her husband is in there?”
The three brothers groaned in unison.
“Well?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. He’s her one true love. She must suspect something.” Dad rubbed his temples the same way he always did when “the world’s worst headache” attacked him.
“She clearly knows someone is trapped in that statue,” Uncle Nunzio said, pointing at the crystal ball. “Look at her. This is terrible.”
Nonna held up her honorary degree and read it aloud, then launched into her acceptance speech.
“You think seeing this tonight is terrible?” Dad simultaneously smacked his brothers’ heads. “She does this every night. She tells him every detail of what went on during the day. Try living with this for twenty-five years.” He stared back at the image of Nonna chatting away at the statue. “You think this is terrible. I ought to…”
“All right. All right.” Nunzio ducked from Dad’s reach. Patrizio wasn’t so lucky.
“Hey!” He swung back and for the next five minutes Lena was forced to listen to the brothers argue over whose fault this was to begin with, which made it abundantly clear no one remembered exactly what happened as they all had a different version of the night Nonna found her husband with Renalta, the “whore, the hussy, the woman of the night.”
“Was he really cheating on her?” Lena asked, confounded at the idea a matchmaker would marry herself off to someone untrustworthy.
Patrizio banged his head on the table.
Nunzio put his head on the table and cried.
Dad sighed with such a sound of utter exhaustion, Lena thought he’d collapse.
“Well?” she asked.
“No.” Dad slouched. “He was actually planning a surprise for her.”
“That’s what he claims, but who knows?” Patrizio asked. “It could all be a ploy to make us feel bad.”
“Who plans a surprise with the town whore?” Nunzio blew his nose. “Just finding him talking to that woman was a surprise.”
“A shock!” Patrizio waved his fist. “My poor mama!”
“Wait a minute. Did you three nut jobs simply assume he was cheating and zap his ass into that statue?” Lena wasn’t generally a slow learner. She had been known to have good assessment skills when it came to sizing people up. But somehow her own family had managed to confuse her for the last hour.
“You three thought your dad had cheated on your mother, the saint, so you—”
“She is a saint, that woman,” Nunzio cried again.
“What is wrong with him?” Lena asked.
“We’re very emotional about this,” Patrizio shouted, then patted Nunzio on the back. “And if you don’t help us…” His voice cracked.
“They’re so guilty about sending Dad to the statue and making his only escape from the marble prison contingent upon you and Ralph finding true love, they’re losing it.” Magically two boxes of tissues appeared in Dad’s hands, which he hurled at his brothers with the sort of brotherly love Lena had experienced from Ralph on many occasions.
“I don’t understand how you did this when you were teens but included me and Ralph. We didn’t even exist at that point,” Lena said.
The three brothers looked around the room, no one making eye contact with anyone.
“Well?”
“Do you remember when the statue arrived at our house,” Dad asked.
“Vaguely.” The day itself stuck out for many reasons, but she hardly remembered the statue arriving. That was the day Nonna moved in and the only time she and Ralph had ever met Nunzio and Patrizio.
“We thought we could reverse the spell and set our dad free, but instead we broke the statue,” Dad said.
“So we put it back to together, but it kept falling apart,” Patrizio said, moving his hands in a packing motion like he was shoving things together.
“It didn’t work!” Nunzio hollered. “That damn statue crumbled, over and over. What a situation we had.” His eyes flooded again. “And Mama came running because she heard the marble.”
“That’s when we made the tent for you.” Patrizio sniffled.
“Is it me or are they overly emotional?” Lena was completely mystified at the tears.
“You don’t remember. Nonna was persistent, trying to get to the statue. We had no choice but to stall her so we had the tent…” Dad rubbed his head and frowned. “…ugh. We had the tent attack her so she couldn’t get out and you were inside and that made her nervous. It was very ugly.”
“Dad was so angry and worried I thought he would kill one of us so I said it. I did it. I’m the one!” Nunzio blubbered. “May the Goddess strike someone else dead, but I did it.”
Lena quickly ran through all the names in her memory in hopes she knew a therapist who’d be able to hypnotize her into forgetting this night.
“This is your fault!” both Dad and Patrizio yelled.
The tissue boxes multiplied and hurtled back and forth across the table as if ricocheting off invisible barriers.
“One would never guess you three were in your nineties. It is literally like having three giant babies around. I am ashamed of all three of you.” Lena waved a hand, making the tissues vanish. “Knock it off. Do you think for a minute this behavior helps? You’re giving me a headache!”
She conjured a glass of water and some Alka-Seltzer. “What do we have to do to get your dad out of that statue, and when he’s out is he going to kick the crap out of you? I can only hope.”
Silence befell the brothers, who Lena figured must have all been calculating the odds on their father’s reaction and whether or not Nonna would defend them, which in Lena’s opinion, she should not.
Then another, possibly more dreadful question crossed her mind.
Was it even legal in the magical world to trap a warlock for this period of time? Surely, not.
“Are you going to end up in the pokey?” The thought of it was horrifying, though Lena did envision it being more like a scene from an old mob movie where Nonna would arrive to cook for the gang.
Dad laughed, only this time it was a near hysterical chortle that was not remotely like his usual deep, melodic laugh. This time he sounded like the lunatic.
“No. Of course not. I don’t think so. It’s unlikely.” He brought a bright red handkerchief to his forehead and dabbed repeatedly, looking more and more like he might be sick. “Actually, it’s quite possible.”
“What?” Lena asked.
“That’s why you have to eat the meatball,” Nunzio yelled.
Lena glanced around the room, hoping she had somehow walked through a wormhole and ended up in another dimension. But, nope, she was in fact still in her shop with her crazy father and uncles.
“What exactly does the meatball have to do with my grandfather being trapped in a marble statue?” Lena knew the question sounded a bit hysterical, but at this point that damn meatball was the curse affecting everyone’s life. “Wait. Is this some sort of guilt trip trick?”
Dad shook his head. “So, we didn’t actually trap Dad in the statue. He put himself in there. He was hiding from us and Nonna. You have to understand we didn’t know all of this at the time.”
The crystal ball reappeared and a scene of a man who looked an awful lot like the men sitting around the table appeared. A beautiful blonde was with him, holding tickets to an international witches convention. Nonna appeared. There was yelling and the blonde disappeared with the tickets.
Nonna ran from the room and three teenage boys appeared. An argument ensued, followed by a bright light. Then the man was gone.
“When he swore his undying love for Mom, they, we, I did participate…made his ability to exit the statue contingent upon the three of us agreeing on a herculean feat…” Dad’s voice trailed off.
“At the time we couldn’t think of one, but the day the statue broke—” Patrizio began but was interrupted by Nunzio, “Which I think was Dad trying t
o get to Mama.” He shrugged. “That’s what I think.”
“Why didn’t you just let him out?” Lena said, realizing at that point they’d kept her grandfather trapped in a statue for nearly fifty years.
“We panicked,” Patrizio said.
“So you hexed him?” Lena was incredulous.
“Well, it’s only a hex if you and Ralph don’t…” Nunzio looked at Dad.
“Me and Ralph don’t what?”
“You and Ralph have to experience complete meatball magic for the spell to be broken.” Dad conjured a bottle of whiskey and three glasses, then mumbled, “That means you must eat the meatballs in order to fall madly in love with your one true loves, which is turning out to be a bit of a problem with Ralph so I really need your help.”
“Wait. What? Ralph ate the meatball and is ready to fall in love.” Lena’s head whirled with confusion. She knocked back a shot of whiskey. “He should be fine.”
“Wasn’t that for me?” Patrizio asked.
“Oh shut up!” Lena snapped.
“Listen to me. Your one true love is that bear shifter. Like it or not, that man is your true love and you simply need to eat that meatball to realize he’s it forever.” Dad pointed to the table in front of Patrizio and another glass appeared already full of whiskey. “I’m aware I must accept my little girl is going to do non-little girl things with him.” He looked like he might cry.
“Ralph, on the other hand doesn’t know up from down in the love arena. He knows about sex. Of this, I am certain. But love? No. He’s Ralph, a warlock with a heart of gold and a brain of cavatappi.” Dad’s shoulders sagged. “I had hoped for so much more, but he is what he is.”
“My brother isn’t stupid.” Lena had been defending Ralph’s brain their whole lives. He really had to stop using the moron card to get out of things.
“I know. He’s sometimes book smart, usually street smart, but never love smart.”
The uncles frowned and nodded, then drank their whiskeys.
He might have had a point.
“Well, what am I supposed to do? It’s not like I can produce a parade of women for him to meet.” Lena had tons of friends but not one crazy enough to date Ralph again.
“Actually, I was thinking maybe your friend Roma would be perfect,” Dad said.
“Yes!” Nunzio agreed.
“Who’s Roma?” Patrizio asked.
“Does it matter?” Nunzio asked.
“Well, no. I guess not.” Patrizio shrugged. “Though is she pretty? I would like my nephew to end up with a pretty girl. Wouldn’t you?”
“Roma? Roma who just opened the apothecary? Roma who has five master’s degrees and four PhDs? Roma who told Ralph, if he came within a mile of her ever again she’d permanently turn him into—”
“A statue of an ass! Yes! She’s the one.” Dad grinned and nodded frantically. “A very smart girl.”
The uncles laughed.
“Ironic,” said Patrizio.
“What is it with you and statues?” Lena stared at the three men before her and wondered how in the world Nonna hadn’t lost her mind ninety years sooner.
“Lena, your brother’s one true love hates him. We can’t get anywhere near her with that damn mate-ball.” Dad jumped up and paced the floor from the table to the partition separating the window display from the showroom. “Believe me. We have tried, but she’s a tough cookie.”
“I’m pretty sure she’s a vegetarian, too.” Lena poured another whiskey. The slight buzz washing over her was delightfully numbing. “At least she was in high school.”
Dad literally sobbed, which in turn made Nunzio and Patrizio wail.
Lena sucked in her cheeks and did not make eye contact with anyone. It was simply too painful to watch three grown men cry, especially with the dramatics.
“You absolutely refuse to eat your meatball, when your one true love is right under your nose. And now you tell me your brother’s one true love is a vegetarian!” A streak of gray began moving from Dad’s forehead through his hair to the back of his head. “If my two beloved, disobedient children don’t get hitched by the new moon, I’m going to find myself standing in front of Baba Yaga with these two idiots having to explain why my father, a man we do actually love, is permanently trapped inside a marble statue of himself.”
The stripe grew sideways and Dad’s hair went from a dark brown to pure white. “And then…your nonna and mother will figure out we are the cause of everything.”
He spun to face Lena. “Do you have any idea how difficult this has been?”
“I can imagine.” The insane expression, topped off with a Dr. Jekyll hairdo that appeared to be charged with several watts of electricity was disorienting. Lena looked away. “Why would you cast a spell dependent on other people falling in love? That’s just dumb.”
“Yes, well, we realize it’s a bit unorthodox,” Patrizio said, which was when Lena realized all three brothers had the same hair troubles. “It didn’t start out as anything quite so big, but then, well, he said I didn’t know what I was doing.” He pointed at Dad.
“You didn’t,” Nunzio said.
Dad nodded. “You’re the one who dragged me into this. You bound Dad’s freedom to my children’s happiness. Now I’m stuck chasing these two all over the place trying to convince them to eat meatballs and fall in love,” Dad shouted. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to force people to fall in love and to keep it a secret from their mother and Nonna? Any idea?”
“We thought you could tell her what to do, and she’d do it.” Patrizio looked utterly shocked that this idea was not plausible. “She used to be a good girl and do everything you told her.”
“She was eight! She thought I was a god!”
It had taken thirty-three years, but tonight it happened. Lena determined insanity ran down her father’s side of the family.
As the three now completely white-haired warlocks argued over how bright Lena might not have been as a child and how defiant she was as an adult she contemplated calling both Mom and Nonna, though having them here to add to the pandemonium certainly didn’t sound like the best alternative.
Plopping down on a stack of dog beds, she managed to ignore the loud argument and magical shots being fired overhead that left colorful, smoking splotches on the walls and furniture. After only a few minutes Lena was ready to make a break for it, but a simple text message caused her phone to buzz in her back pocket.
I miss you.
Her hardened volcanic heart melted just a bit.
Come home.
She bit her cheek. Home? A picture of a purple three-story Victorian home popped up.
You know I didn’t build this place for myself. Besides, the dogs miss you.
A picture of four big dogs wearing dopey grins followed.
Plus, they want their costumes.
Lena smiled, her heart turning to a fluttering ball of mush.
A shot of magic cracked against the belly of the Saint Bernard column a few feet from where she sat. Lena looked up in time to see her dad dive behind the counter as both Nunzio and Patrizio fired purple and red shots, leaving the cabinet smoking. Both uncles now sported several bald spots among the gray hair.
“My shop!”
“Last man standing wins,” Dad yelled, sending a blue stream of magic at Patrizio. The shot hit him smack in the middle of his back, knocking him to the floor before ricocheting off and hitting Nunizo in the face. The impact knocked him flat and covered his face in a black soot mark. “I win!”
While both brothers lay groaning Dad bolted from his spot to where Lena stood, jaw hanging open. Her store was an absolute wreck.
“I won’t be able to open…”
Three pictures fell off the wall at once and two light fixtures crashed to the floor.
“Looks like you’re going to need a good carpenter.” Dad looped four bags containing Big Dog Design’s first products over Lena’s arms. “Know anybody?”
“I…I…” The Sain
t Bernard column to her left creaked.
“Uh-oh,” Nunzio said, scrambling away as the column crashed to the floor.
“Take this, too.” Dad handed her the simmering pot. “You’re going to love this meatball.”
“I…you…”
“Off you go. There’s a bear waiting for you,” Dad said.
“Be gone, little witch. We have other things to do and as usual you’re taking up far too much time.” Nunzio clapped his hands. “Be gone. Be gone.”
“Yeah, hurry up. We have Rosa somebody to deal with.” Uncle Patrizio waved Lena away.
“Roma,” Uncle Nunzio corrected.
“Rosa. Roma. Whoever.” Uncle Patrizio sighed. “I’ll settle on anyone just as long as we get it done before the full moon.”
Dad kissed her cheek. “Go honey. Meatballs don’t last forever.”
“But I thought—”
“Never mind, gnoccini.” Uncle Patrizio spun her around and gave her a good shove. “Meatballs last forever. But there’s no stopping the lunar cycle and we have Ralph issues. Now go!”
And just like that Lena was thrust into the magic whirl of teleporting away, her heart and mind focused on getting to Jimmy.
Chapter Ten
As the sun was setting on the horizon and the moon rose Lena arrived on the porch of a giant new Victorian style home. The lavender paint was accented by white trim with scrollwork on the porch and fancy carvings on the shutters.
Pots of purple and white petunias hung every few feet. The bordering flowerbeds overflowed with lupines, irises, and pansies. White moon flowers peeked up from the grass. A line of lilac trees ran across one side of the yard while balls of rhododendrons and hydrangeas dotted the lush green yard.
A loud buzzing drew Lena’s attention and she wandered around to the back where at least a dozen beehives served as the home bases for what looked and sounded like a million bees.
Worker bees flew to and from the hives on what appeared to be black highways in the sky, busily coming and going to pollenate and propagate. It was impressive and terrifying all at once.
“Cool, isn’t it?” Jimmy’s voice came up behind her, and Lena felt the heat of his body against hers.
Magic and Mayhem: Secrets, Lies, and Meatballs (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Spaghetti Romances Book 2) Page 6