A Snicker of Magic

by Natalie Lloyd

  “Like Mama.” I gulped.

  Cleo didn’t answer. Neither did Boone. But I felt my heart whisper against my ribs: Yes.

  I swallowed down the fear in my throat. “Why’d he fly a balloon?”

  “Because that’s the only way he felt any peace.” Cleo scooped up a quilt with her free arm and tossed it into the hallway. “As long as Stone’s body was moving, his heart could rest. He saw the whole world from the basket of that balloon. But the whole world’s nothing compared to people you love. Stone didn’t ever see his family.”

  “And we’re cursed the same as him.” I didn’t ask it like a question. I said it in the for-sure affirmative. We were cursed. Cursed Pickles. Cursed Harnesses.

  “S’only a story,” Cleo murmured. She huffed as she reached farther back into the closet, pulling out extra pillows and another shoe box of flashlights and batteries. Then she propped the door back against the closet.

  We piled all of our survival gear plus a bag of Cheetos into the hallway.

  Boone didn’t help us. He was still studying the picture of Stone Weatherly.

  “Cleo.” Boone narrowed his eyes at the picture. “Is that a banjo on his back?”

  “Guitar,” Cleo said. “Stone’s brother, Berry, played the banjo. He played the very same one you’re holding, in fact.”

  Boone’s eyes glanced up slowly from the picture. “Come again?”

  Cleo’s nostrils flared as she looked away. She took a long draw of her cigarette. “I’m done telling these stories. I promised Holly I wouldn’t mention them. Y’all are going to get me in a heap of trouble.”

  Boone’s eyes sparkled mad-blue. He pulled the banjo off his shoulders and shook it at Cleo. “Why do I have a banjo that belonged to the Brothers Threadbare?”

  Cleo heaved a sad sigh as she leaned back against the wall. The lights flickered again. Thunder pounded against the rooftop. Cleo narrowed her eyes up at the ceiling, took the cigarette out of her mouth, and hollered, “Hush!”

  Cleo was the only woman I knew who was brave enough to yell at a storm.

  “Cleo!” Boone clipped. He was the only man brave enough to yell at my aunt.

  “Fine!” Cleo seethed. “Our mother’s family lived way up in the backwoods of Virginia. One day when she was still a little bitty thing, she saw a fancy old car zooming down the gravel road toward her house. Mother said an old man stepped out of the car; he was a scrawny feller with sad eyes and shaky hands. The man said he’d come there looking for Stone Weatherly. Well, Mother’d grown up hearing stories about her grandfather, of course, but she’d never met the man. Mother told the visitor all that. She told him about the day Stone Weatherly’s balloon drifted off into the sunset and never came back. Nobody’d seen Stone Weatherly in years. Nobody ever saw him again, as far as I know.”

  I let out a shattered breath. Because I knew somebody had seen Stone Weatherly again. Oliver had seen him. Stone had gone looking for Berry, the same as Berry had gone looking for him. I opened my mouth to tell Aunt Cleo, but my heart kicked hard against my ribs: WAIT. And then again, NOT YET.

  Cleo spoke softly, “Mama told the old visitor that Stone Weatherly was gone. She’d no more than said it when the old man sat down on the porch and cried a waterfall of tears. The visitor introduced himself as Berry Weatherly, and then he told her the real story of what happened to the Brothers Threadbare. He told her about that mean old witch woman who set the curse. Before Berry left, he gave mother the banjo that he’d played alongside his brother all those years ago. Said the banjo didn’t sound good without his brother playing, too. He told her to give the banjo to Stone if she ever saw him again. If not, he told her to find a good place for it. Mother gave the banjo to me. I passed it on along to you. And there was something else, too —”

  Cleo popped open the wooden container she’d pulled from the closet. She rummaged past piles of pictures and postcards and pulled out an oval-shaped locket dangling from a long silver chain. She handed the locket to me.

  “Berry Weatherly gave this to Mother, too,” Cleo said. “He said it reminded him of better times. You can hear something rattling around in the locket if you shake it, but nobody’s ever been able to get it open.”

  Cleo was right. I pried at the locket with my fingernails but it wouldn’t budge.

  “You can keep it if you want.” Cleo shrugged. “I don’t figure you can put much magic in a locket. It’s safe.”

  The locket was kind of big and tacky but spindiddly, too. I looped it around my neck.

  The lights flickered and dimmed, then flashed back to bright again.

  “Cleo,” Boone said thoughtfully, “… am I playing a cursed banjo?”

  “Nah,” Cleo said. “The banjo ain’t cursed. It just doesn’t make good music anymore.”

  “That’s good to hear now.” Boone pressed his palm against his forehead and wailed, “No wonder my career won’t kick-start, Cleo! I’m playing a moody banjo!”

  “Your ca-reer,” Cleo huffed, “won’t kick-start because you keep saying you’re Boone Taylor instead of Boone Harness.”

  “Cleo,” I interrupted, “you do know that Oliver Weatherly is …”

  “Of course I know he’s related.” Cleo waved off my question. “But I don’t want to talk to him about those brothers, and I don’t want to talk to y’all about them anymore, either. That story is done; it was done a hundred years ago. We can’t change the past. So I don’t want to hear anything about it ever again.”

  “But, Cleo —”

  “No. More. Questions!”

  Lightning-colored words flashed against the wall:

  FIERCE

  DETERMINED

  PURPOSED

  I sat up tall and pushed my shoulders back. I traced my thumb back and forth across the smooth surface of Berry Weatherly’s locket. “At least tell me what our curse says, exactly. I won’t ask you any more about it after that.”

  “Not our curse,” Cleo whispered. “His curse. When Stone Weatherly lost the duel, the old witch woman locked her hand around his wrist and said these words:

  Foolish heart who fought and failed,

  Where talent bloomed, your greed prevailed,

  Cursed to toil, till labor-worn,

  You’ll spin up ashes, you’ll harvest thorns.

  Now pack your dreams, make haste, take flight,

  You’re cursed to wander through the night,

  Till cords align, and all’s made right.

  Where sweet amends are made and spoken,

  Shadows dance, the curse is broken.

  “It means we …” Cleo’s voice trailed off. She cleared her throat and said, “It means he was cursed to wander and never rest. Cursed to fail at everything he put his hand to. But that’s only if you believe the stories, which I most certainly do not. And I don’t want to talk about them again after this.”

  “Me, neither,” Boone said. But he stared down at his banjo like it had betrayed him.

  I traced my finger back and forth across the smooth face of the locket. I did want to talk about the curse. I had too many questions buzzing inside my brain now, such as, if the curse was real, had it traveled my family’s history all the way to us? Did that mean us Pickles would always be wandering from town to town? That Boone would never catch a break? That Cleo would always have so much sad caught in her eyes?

  And what about me and Frannie Jo? Would we fail at everything we tried?

  What was the point of even trying to do the Duel if I was cursed to fail? What difference would it make for Mama to see me happy if she was cursed to keep on traveling?

  I had too many questions fighting for the front seat on my tongue. Right at that moment, I didn’t care about getting any answers. There was only one thing I wanted.

  “I sure wish Mama was here.” I gulped. Cleo kept the window shut that night because of the storm, so I couldn’t smell the waffle cones baking. That smell always made me feel like Mama was safe, even if I couldn’t see her. On my way home
from the Gallery, the air hadn’t smelled like anything at all. Instead, the wind felt too warm and too prickly. Electric, almost.

  “I sure do, too,” said Cleo. “I wish she’d stay here is what I wish.”

  As if we’d willed it to be, the front door burst open and Mama pushed her way inside. I squealed in relief just as the thunder SMACKED, so loud and clear you’d think somebody’d dropped the world and broke it in two.

  “Tornado warning!” Mama said, locking the door behind her. As if that little bitty door lock could keep out a whole big tornado. “They let us leave work early. The radio says we need to get to a safe place.”

  We all looked at Cleo then. She was the only safe place any of us really knew.

  “We probably ought to get in the bathroom,” Cleo said, heaving as she got up off the floor.

  Frannie Jo hopped up into Mama’s arms. Then all three of us Pickles plus two Harnesses were picking up all our worldly possessions — which wasn’t much — and running for the bathroom.

  “Biscuit!” I ran for my dog’s hiding place. But Boone was already kneeling down in front of the couch, pulling my dog up into his arms. I didn’t know much about Boone Harness/Taylor, but I decided right then I loved him.

  Mama and Cleo were already in the bathroom, hollering my name, but I ran to my backpack first. I wouldn’t have been able to see anything if it weren’t for all the purple lightning flashing outside. My heart was thumping yes, yes, yes … or maybe RUN, RUN, RUN, as I shoved aside all the crumpled homework papers and books. Finally, I found my blue book.

  “We gotta go, Liss!” Boone hollered. He had a banjo on his back and a trembling dog tucked under his arm. And he was holding out his hand, waiting for me to grab on.

  “One more thing!” I yelled. But the storm was yelling louder than me.

  I ran to the corner of Cleo’s apartment where we’d piled the grocery sacks full of clothes and junk that we’d brought from Kentucky. I dug through the bags until I found mama’s paintbrushes, still tied together and wrapped in an old T-shirt. I held the brushes, and my blue book, tight against my heart, and I ran for Boone.

  “Good girl,” Boone said. His hand was strong around mine as he led me down the hall. I wasn’t afraid of the storm at all right then, not with him leading the way. Not with my cursed family so close to me.

  We all crammed into Cleo’s dark bathroom and shut the door.

  At first, none of us talked. We listened to the storm howling all around the apartment complex. I heard the rain whoosh up against the building. I was glad Florentine had her stupid burdens there with her on a night like this. At least they kept her safe from the wind and rain.

  Mama sighed and stretched her arm around me to pull me close. She smelled like the sugar wind.

  “What have y’all been talking about tonight?” she said. Her voice was tired.

  I couldn’t see Cleo’s face in the dark, but somehow she told me, without words, to keep our conversation a secret.

  So I leaned against Mama’s shoulder and said, “Nothing.”

  And then lullaby music filled up the air around us. Boone strummed the sweetest tune on his banjo. The thunder outside was a rock song, electric and loud and strange. But the rain only whooshed and swooshed; the rain was a gentler song. Boone played like the rain.

  Cleo didn’t turn on the flashlight but if she had, I probably would have seen all kinds of dancing words. Words like failure, fake, regret, curse.

  Cursed to wander through the night,

  Till cords align, and all’s made right.

  Mama leaned over and kissed the top of my hair. I laced my fingers in with hers. I would keep her safe and steady in a world that kept rocking her soul.

  Stay, I wanted to tell her. Rest your heart here. Stay.

  But I knew I was no better at keeping her in this place than Cleo’s door lock was at keeping out the storm.

  When the storm finally passed and we all shuffled back to our sleeping places, I flopped down on the inflatable mattress, thinking about all I’d heard, and all I’d seen.

  “We’re cursed,” I whispered.

  “We’re Pickles,” said Frannie Jo.

  “Same thing,” I said back.

  I licked my chapped lips and reached over for the locket Cleo’d given me. “I wonder …” I held the locket up and let it swing back and forth. “I wonder if there’s anything stronger than a curse,” I whispered.

  Frannie Jo didn’t answer me. She was already breathing steady, sweet-dream breaths beside me.

  Where sweet amends are made and spoken,

  Shadows dance, the curse is broken.

  I didn’t speak the words out loud. I just moved my mouth around them, wondering what in the world they meant.

  As I swung the locket back and forth, I heard something. A familiar something that sent shivers up my spine.

  I sat up and lifted the locket up to my ear. Then I shook it.

  I shook it again to make sure I wasn’t imagining things.

  Berry Weatherly’s locket had the wind-chime wind caught inside it.

  The next afternoon, Jonah told me to meet him at his mom’s beauty salon. The shop is called

  Jewell Pickett’s Lube & Dye

  because it happens to be the only salon offering beauty services and minor car repairs in the entire town of Midnight Gulch and possibly the whole world. Jonah said the shop came about because his mom, Jewell, had two great passions in life: tinkering with carburetors and coloring people’s hair.

  So Jewell signed up for beauty school on the same day she signed up for mechanic school. When she moved back to Midnight Gulch a few years ago, she decided to blend her two passions. Now every mechanic Jewell hires has to be well versed in rotaries and acrylic nails. And every stylist at the Lube & Dye knows how to change oil and cut a perfect mid-length bob.

  I didn’t need a perfect mid-length bob or an oil change, but I certainly had business to attend to at Jewell’s Lube & Dye. Bad business. Awful business.

  My business: I had to tell Jonah that the Duel couldn’t happen. Somewhere way back in my twisty-turny family tree, I was related to a couple of dueling, feuding magicians who wrecked a whole town and cursed my family in the process. It didn’t matter what spindiddly Beedle plan Jonah cooked up: Mama was cursed to wander. I was cursed to wander.

  I dreaded the way Jonah’s eyes would flicker from neon-happy green to mossy-sad all because of what I had to tell him. His know-how had never failed until me. I was broken up over it, too. I didn’t want to leave the only place I’d ever felt at home. But there was no reason I should go through with the Duel, especially after Cleo’s storm tale. I’d mess it up, no matter what. We would leave town, no matter what. I freewrote about my dilemma in the blue book:

  Florentine was right. I did have magic in my veins. But it was the wrong kind of magic. My family magic was way worse than whatever she was packing along in her traveling bag. Worst of all, I didn’t need to collect words or practice for the Duel anymore. So Jonah wouldn’t have any reason to hang out with me.

  As I shuffled my way toward the Lube & Dye, I imagined going through with the Duel, standing in front of the entire school, hoping the right words would work their way out. They wouldn’t, though. And even though I was only at the Duel in my imagination, my hands trembled the same as if it were real. The skin above my lip got sweaty and the back of my head started to itch.

  Itchy

  Twitchy

  Puke-ish

  That’s an awful way to be remembered. It was all for the best, really. As long as I didn’t Duel, I wouldn’t disappoint Jonah or embarrass myself.

  “I’ll tell him quick,” I said to Biscuit, who trotted along beside me, wagging her tail. “It’ll be like ripping off a Band-Aid.”

  Then I let out a sigh. I dragged my sneakers slower across the sidewalk. “You think he’ll still be my friend? Even if I don’t compete?”

  I knew Biscuit wouldn’t answer for real. But she stayed close beside
me. Sometimes you don’t need words to feel better; you just need the nearness of your dog. Or your best friend.

  Biscuit and I stood outside the window of Jewell’s Lube & Dye for a while, watching all the chatter and commotion happening inside. I could see Jonah sitting in the back of the room. He was polishing an elderly lady’s nails.

  Biscuit sat down and pressed her paw against my shoe.

  “I know he’ll be sad,” I said. “But I have to tell him today. Wait here, okay?”

  Biscuit lay down on the sidewalk, resting her fuzzy head on her paws.

  The door jingled as I pulled it open. Jonah smiled at me from the corner of the room. As I made my way toward him, words fell down in such thick curtains I thought I might have to push them back just to get by. I’d never expected so many words in this place.

  In Jewell’s Lube & Dye, words were crashing into each other like bumper cars. And they were exploding up above me like fireworks. Some words looked extra lovely, though.

  H o p e

  Hope was lipstick red, reflecting back at me from the mirror over Jewell’s station. On that same mirror, Jewell had taped a yellow ribbon and a picture of a handsome soldier: Jonah’s dad. He looked brave and strong. Even in a picture, his eyes were full of love and sorrow. I wished he could climb out of the picture and see hope so close to him, right there beside him.

  Hope didn’t fade when I walked past Jewell’s station. Hope doesn’t fizzle or flicker or burn out. Hope isn’t the same as other words. Hope holds steady.

  I pulled the pen from the pocket of my jeans and wrote hope on the inside of my wrist. I’d put it in the blue book later. For now, I wanted it as close to me as I could have it.

  Jewell Pickett was nodding her head mmm-hmm, mmm-hmm while she trimmed Elvis Phillips’s hair. He tapped his foot to the music on the radio, antsy for his haircut to end so he could get back to dancing.

  Most of the words above the rest of the clients were all people names:

  Divinity Lawson

  Burl Honeycutt

  Cleopatra Harness

  Holly Harness

  My mama’s name was fading, floating up slowly toward the speckled ceiling. I wondered which one of those clients had been thinking about her. I wonder if they’d said something kind or something sorrowful.