A Snicker of Magic

by Natalie Lloyd

  “Mine, too,” Jonah said, and he held the carton of ice cream up like he was about to make a toast. “Then what happened?”

  “Just a sec,” Oliver said as the delivery truck slowed to a creeping crawl. He drove along a tangle of old barbed wire fence until he came upon a gravel road that led to a sweet little house in the middle of a sunflower field.

  Jonah nodded. “Charlie Sue was right. Nobody’s home yet.”

  “Perfect,” Oliver said, and he threw the truck into reverse and backed into the driveway. “Y’all can leave it on the porch!” Oliver hollered to Boone and Bruce. “And don’t forget to stick that red ribbon on it.”

  I heard Boone huff and puff while he tried to get a good grip on the piano. Somehow, they managed to haul it out of the truck. Boone puffed out his cheeks, and his face turned stop-sign red as he helped Bruce carry it up on the porch.

  “I’m gonna owe him big-time,” I sighed.

  Jonah elbowed Oliver’s arm. “What happened to Burl?”

  “Burl grew up,” said Oliver. “Burl’s dad wanted him to take over the ice-cream factory, but that’s not what Burl wanted. Burl loved the stage; he wanted to go to New York City first, see if he could make it as an actor. But his father didn’t even want him to try. They had horrible fights, the two of them.”

  Oliver took off his glasses. Before he wiped the lenses clean, I saw a cluster of tiny words forming, and fading, against the glass:

  Hear and remember

  Hear and hold close

  “So one day,” Oliver continued, “Burl climbed the bus headed north and he never came back. He didn’t tell his parents where he was going or how long he’d be gone. He only left a note for his mother. It read:

  “ ‘I love you. I’ll never forget my Blackberry Sunrise.

  Love, Burl’ ”

  “And then …” I waited. “When did he come back?”

  Oliver shook his head. “Never. Nobody saw Burl Honeycutt again after that.”

  “That’s awful,” I said.

  “It was indeed,” Oliver agreed. “Abigail sat on that red bench every day at noon for ten years. The bus stops there by the bench. So Abigail would go and wait to see if her son got off the bus. When she finally realized he wouldn’t be doing that, she took all of her memories — all the good ones — and all the bad ones — and she steeped them in a teapot. Then she walked down to Snapdragon Pond and poured every last drop in the river.

  I heard the heavy thud of Boone’s cowboy boots climbing up into the back of the delivery truck. “Done!” he hollered, raising his arm in victory.

  Big Bruce rolled his eyes.

  Jonah pointed to the ice-cream box. “Toss them some ice cream, Flea.”

  I picked two pints, Rosie’s Strawberry Rhubarb and Bridgett’s Hawaiian Pineapple, and tossed them into the backseat.

  “Hallelujah,” Boone sighed.

  “Uh-oh.” Jonah pointed toward the far-off edge of the dirt road. “Car’s coming! Haul out, Oliver!”

  Oliver stomped down so hard on the gas that my body slammed against the seat. I heard a loud FWOMP in the back of the truck, followed by another unsavory word, which no doubt came from Boone. He and Cleo are alike in lots of ways.

  “You think they saw us?” Jonah asked.

  Oliver smiled proudly and shook his head. “We barely made it.”

  “Finish telling about Abigail,” I said.

  Oliver nodded. “As time dragged on, the strangest thing began happening to Abigail Honeycutt. First her color started to pale a little. The bright orange dress she liked to wear faded to peach. Her black hair faded to brown. Her pale skin got even whiter. Then she started looking like she stepped out of a black-and-white photograph. And then she started to look transparent. Lionel gave her a red umbrella to carry so people could see her. So they wouldn’t run through her. But soon she’d faded completely, and the red umbrella was all anyone could see. One day the wind came and lifted that umbrella and spun it up into the stars.”

  “She got rid of her memories because they hurt too much,” I said.

  “They sure do hurt,” Oliver said. “They hurt like the dickens.”

  Oliver patted his shirt, right over his heart. “They’ll help heal you, too, though, if you’ll let them.”

  “Are you still trying to figure out Isabella’s riddle?” Jonah asked me. I stood on Oliver’s porch, kicking my shoe back and forth.

  “Definitely.” I nodded. “But even if I figure it out, I’ll compete in the Duel.” I told Jonah what all Florentine said about my poems. He nodded along, but didn’t have much to say. Big, fat raindrops plunked down from the sky. I pulled my hood over my head and smiled. “You’re being awfully quiet.”

  Jonah tugged on his hair, pulling his words together slowly. “I’m trying to figure out how to tell you something….”

  I raised my eyebrows. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  Jonah laughed nervously. “The thing is … I want you to know …” He took a steadying breath and looked up at me. “Even if I didn’t get a know-how over you, I still would have found an excuse to talk to you. When you stood up in front of Miss Lawson’s class and said ‘My name is Flea … ,’ I wanted to be your friend. I’ll be your friend no matter what. I feel kinda guilty for pushing you so hard to do the Duel. I mean, I’ve been trying to talk you into doing something you are morbidly afraid of. You know what I’m afraid of?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Wrong,” Jonah sighed. “I’m afraid of clowns. And if somebody tried to get me to shake a clown’s hand, or wave to a clown, or even touch a clown with the tip of a vaulting pole … I wouldn’t do it. I’d tell that do-gooder to buzz off.”

  “I don’t want you to buzz off,” I said. “And clowns are severely creepy. They have painted smiles.”

  “I don’t like painted smiles,” Jonah said.

  “Amen.” I nodded.

  “Hallelujah!” Jonah grinned. “If I start pushing you too hard, just tell me to back off. Okay?”

  “I’m plumb flattered you’d want to help me,” I admitted. “I’ve never had a friend like you.”

  I looked out toward the end of Oliver’s driveway. Past the gate was downtown Midnight Gulch and past the Gulch were the gray mountains that hemmed us in and kept us safe. How strange, I thought, when you can see what’s way out ahead of you but not what’s right up close. “We’re leaving soon, if the Duel doesn’t work.” I swallowed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re gone by next week.”

  “The Duel’s going to work,” Jonah said. He pulled his backpack around and fished a carton of Blackberry Sunrise out of it.

  “Geez,” I said. “I’ve never met anybody who eats more ice cream than you.”

  “I consider that a compliment.” Jonah held the carton out for me. He’d tied a red ribbon to the top. “But this one’s not for me. It’s for you. I got a know-how over you….”

  “Again?!”

  “All I know is that if you eat this ice cream, you will do great in the Duel. This is from the Beedle,” Jonah said, “when you’re ready for it.”

  The carton of Blackberry Sunrise was so icy cold that it stung my fingers. I knew Jonah meant well, but I had absolutely no desire to eat that stuff. Ever. I swerved around to fling the pint deep into the abyss of my backpack. Before I did, I noticed something unusual on the carton. Two somethings.

  “Did you write this?” I squinted my eyes.

  “Write what?”

  SWEET

  AMENDS

  Those two words were golden, glittering. They’d become familiar to me already, but I’d only seen them scrawled in my blue book. I’d read Isabella Thistle’s curse a zillion times wondering what the hayseed sweet amends meant. And now, here it was, out in the wild.

  Maybe biting into that ice cream would help me break Isabella’s curse, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t eat it. I’d find another way. I shoved the ice cream deep into my backpack and cleared my throat. “I’m going to miss you and your
crazy know-hows.”

  “You’re not gone yet. The Gallery’s not even done.”

  I was as good as gone, but I didn’t want to think about good-bye. Not right then. So I smiled and gently punched Jonah’s arm. “You’re splendiferous, Jonah Pickett.”

  I walked down the ramp, toward Oliver’s spiraled gate. I was nearly to the balloon-shaped hedge when I heard Jonah say, “You’re spindiddly, Felicity Pickle.”

  Mama marked out the scene she wanted on the Gallery wall: the blue sky, the silver river, some of the buildings on Main Street, the fields, and the forest. I hoped as soon as Mama started painting, she’d remember how much she used to like it. I thought it all looked spindiddly.

  But the more beautiful the Gallery became, the more frustrated Mama looked.

  She’d just painted a cluster of river rocks when she stepped back, crossed her arms, and squinted her eyes. “It’s all wrong.”

  “It’s all going to come together,” I assured her. “Take all the time you need!” And then more quietly, just so she’d hear me, I said, “Maybe it would be better if you didn’t have so many people watching you work….”

  Since the Gallery painting was the most newsworthy thing to happen in Midnight Gulch in years, I wasn’t surprised to see townspeople wandering by all day long. Elvis Phillips serenaded us for a time. Day Grissom brought us sandwiches from Ponder’s Pie Shop. He brought one for Cleo, too, but I told him she was busy back at the apartment. Day frowned and gave the sandwich to Biscuit instead.

  “That’s not it,” Mama sighed. “And anyhow, it’s everybody’s Gallery. I like them being part of it. It’s me that’s the problem; my work’s not good anymore.”

  When I’d suggested Mama could paint the Gallery, I thought it’d be great for her. But I could see now I was wrong. Mama was so frustrated by her own lack of inspiration that she was eager to quit, and therefore even more eager to bolt. I could see it in her eyes.

  I watched folks come and go from Abigail Honeycutt’s bench. Jonah parked beside me, scanning the paper for do-goods. Boone sat on my other side, strumming his banjo.

  “Wonder where Florentine is?” I asked Jonah.

  “Probably trying to find a place to put her burdens down,” Jonah said. “That’s where I hope she is.”

  “Me, too,” I said as I flicked the locket around my neck. I pulled my legs up pretzel-style on the bench, then slid my blue book out of my backpack. I needed to concentrate on Isabella Thistle’s curse.

  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.

  “What’s that noise?” Boone stopped playing. “Y’all hear it? That creepy-tingly sound?”

  “The wind-chime wind!” I slammed the blue book shut. “You hear it, too?”

  “Hear what?” Jonah asked.

  “Of course I hear it.” Boone shivered. “It’s … weird.”

  “Plumb weird,” I agreed. “I think it’s a snicker of magic.”

  “Why don’t I hear it?” Jonah asked.

  Because you’re not cursed is what I wanted to say. But I just shrugged my shoulders.

  Boone played his banjo louder and faster to try to drown out the wind-chime sound. I saw Elvis Phillips start tapping his foot to the music. I thought he might pick up his microphone and start singing again, but instead he said:

  “Hey, Boone! You know any songs by the King?”

  “I know a few.” Boone smiled. “I’ve never tried to pluck them on a banjo.”

  Elvis nodded so sadly that it got to Boone. So Boone said there was a first time for everything and he shrugged and gave it a whirl. Elvis Phillips sang along till he was red faced.

  “I got a request, too!” said Day Grissom, who was busy refilling Mama’s paint trays. “Could you play ‘Foggy Mountain Breakdown’?”

  “Sure.” Boone flashed his eyebrows at me while he tuned. He whispered, “Cleo and Day used to play bluegrass together, back when they were young and in love. She ever tell you that?”

  Jonah put down the paper. “Day and Cleo?”

  “No way!” I whispered.

  “Way.” Boone nodded and spun back around. “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” wasn’t the sort of song he could play standing still. The music spun him around a few more times before he was done.

  “Now I have a request,” drawled somebody behind us.

  All three of us looked back in time to see Rosie Walker shuffling toward the bench, her cowboy boots scrape-scraping across the sidewalk. As soon as Rosie sat down, Biscuit crawled out from under the bench and jumped up in Rosie’s lap. Biscuit gave Rosie a big sloppy kiss on the cheek.

  Rosie chuckled. “I do love this darlin’ dog.”

  Boone looked shell-shocked. His face went pale. Puke-ish pale. The kind of pale I get when somebody mentions the Duel. “Ramblin’ Rose?” he whispered.

  “Once upon a time I was,” Rosie said with a nod. “And you must be Boone Taylor? I’ve heard good things about you.”

  “I’m Boone Harness, actually.” Boone held his banjo steady, right over his heart. He looked down at the strings, like they might tell him the words he needed to say. “I’m such a big fan of yours. You’ve really heard of me?”

  “Yes, sir.” Rosie nodded. “Now you better play me a tune so I can tell if I heard right. My favorite song is an old mountain tune, ‘Fair and Tender Ladies.’ You know it?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Boone said. He took a deep breath and tightened the banjo pegs, looking for the right note to start on.

  Boone played the song so gently, strumming across the strings as softly as the summer wind rolls over the river. It seemed like that banjo was made for that song. Then he sang out the words. Boone didn’t get red faced when he sang, like Elvis Phillips did. Instead, he closed his eyes and let the lyrics roll out peaceful and easy. I was spellbound. If Boone’s music painted pictures, that song was a sunset.

  The painting party all took a break to hear Boone sing. I saw a tear sparkle down my mama’s face, even from all the way across the street. Day Grissom took his hat off his head and held it over his heart.

  Something was happening in my heart, too. At first, I thought I was getting sentimental on account of Boone’s sweet music. But then the little circle of warmth I felt heated into an almost-burn, and then the almost-burn scorched its way into an almost-sorta-deep-fry. And then I realized the heat wasn’t coming from inside my heart but right over the top of it.

  Stone Weatherly’s locket was burning red-hot against my skin.

  I gasped as I yanked the locket off my neck and flung it onto the sidewalk. Boone was playing so loud, and people were so lost in his music, that nobody noticed what I’d done. Nobody except Jonah.

  “Flea?” Jonah raised his eyebrows. “What’s your —”

  But he never finished his sentence. As Jonah gasped softly, I knew he was looking at exactly the same thing as me: The air around the necklace rippled in time to Boone’s music. And as Boone strummed his last note, the air around the locket shimmered one final time. And then … stillness.

  Nobody except Jonah and me noticed it. Everybody else clapped and whistled and hollered out more songs for Boone to play.

  But I kept my eyes on the locket. I wondered if it might burn a hole in the sidewalk.

  Jonah punched my arm. “Pick it back up.”

  I punched his arm harder. “You pick it back up.”

  Jonah rolled his eyes and reached down to grab it, but I didn’t want Jonah to think I was too girly. So I snatched it up first. The locket felt the same as always: big, tacky, shiny, and cold against the palm of my hand.r />
  And sealed tightly shut.

  “Well, Flea.” Jonah reached for the locket and let it fall long, swinging it back and forth in front of his face like he was trying to hypnotize himself. “There’s something weird about this locket.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You think?”

  Jonah chuckled as he passed the necklace back to me.

  “There’s something weird about that old song, too,” I said, rolling the pendant over in my hand. Boone had already launched into another tune, but nothing strange was happening. The locket didn’t scorch my fingertips. The air didn’t tremble. But as Boone’s tune played louder, the wind chime rolled down the street. It blew through the trees, rattling the maple leaves. Then it blew down around us both, and pricked against the back of my neck. And I remembered something.

  “‘Fair and Tender Ladies’ was the Threadbares’ favorite song. Remember when Rosie told us that? At your mom’s shop? Must be one heck of a snicker of magic in that locket….”

  “Too bad we can’t just open the dumb thing and look,” Jonah said as he tried to pry open the locket. But it remained sealed shut. Tight-lipped.

  “That locket’s keeping a good secret,” I said to Jonah. “I can feel it.”

  I watched Mama step back from the wall again, and sigh, and look over her perfectly imperfect painting. She was standing right there, right on Main Street. But when she looked toward the bridge that first brought us into town, I caught a familiar look in her eyes. A wandering look.