Magic and the Modern Girl

by Mindy Klasky

  I could feel Gran trembling beside me—nearly overwhelmed by excitement and the exhaustion of our nightly magical study. I leaned close and whispered, “Are you all right?”

  “Oh, yes, dear.” She actually patted my arm, as if I were the one who needed comfort. “I’m perfectly fine.” She looked across the aisle and found Uncle George’s eyes. He was standing, straight and proud, a single sweetheart rose tucked into his buttonhole. The phrase “he only had eyes for her” was created for that moment. I somehow suspected that Uncle George would have dragged Gran down to City Hall just about any time in the past two and a half decades, if she would have agreed.

  Judge Anderson, a member of the Concert Opera board, did the formal honors. The civil ceremony was simple and straightforward, delivered with all the solemnity a wedding deserved. Nevertheless, the judge started by taking a few minutes to deliver some personal words to Gran and Uncle George.

  “Sarah, George, I’ve known you now for nearly twenty years. Together, we’ve seen pearl fishers and bohemians, emperors and queens. But rarely have we seen two people who love each other with the steady, simple love the two of you share.”

  As the judge went on, I looked out over the assembled guests. Most were nodding at the various operatic references. A few were leaning over to whisper to friends, obviously noting some remembered detail from productions past.

  Clara sat in the front row, Majom beside her. My mother had stepped up to the plate in a major way; she had given her familiar a Rubik’s Cube to keep him occupied and relatively quiet. He was twisting the block methodically, a frown puckering his forehead. I figured we’d have at least five minutes before he realized he could peel off the stickers and reattach them to any face of the cube, completing the puzzle in an unconventional flash.

  As I watched Clara, I tried not to be frustrated by her attire. The gauze skirt, I’d been expecting. The peasant blouse was a given. But she had insisted on wearing her pink kunzite jewelry. She had long advocated that the crystal meant unconditional mother love; I could still remember her lecturing me on the stone while poor Gran was collapsing on a bench at the Natural History Museum, victim of undiagnosed pneumonia. Clara wore a silver pendant, with a faceted trillion cut stone reflecting the auditorium’s subdued light.

  Unconditional mother love. From the mother who was leaving for Arizona in a week.

  Clara had not wavered from her plan to return to Sedona. She had mentioned it endlessly during the past several weeks, taking every opportunity to tell Gran and me that she was tired during our training sessions, that she had stayed up late packing, that she had gotten up early to take some books to the library for their annual sale. She mentioned Goodwill, Salvation Army and a dozen other charities, all of which seemed were reaping a healthy benefit from my mother’s decision to run away. She even told Majom that he would love the red rock box canyon just outside of town. She was definitely leaving, definitely abandoning me. Again.

  I’d asked myself why a dozen times. I’d tried to decide if she was leaving because she really missed Sedona, or if she was leaving because she couldn’t stand being around me. I thought that maybe—just maybe—she was staging this whole thing so that Gran and I would beg her to stay.

  But I took my cues from Gran. Gran, who simply smiled and nodded as Clara talked about packing. Gran, who merely agreed that Majom would love playing outdoors in the Southwest. Gran, who had made her peace with Clara’s broken family bonds decades before.

  I tried, anyway. More often than not, I found myself bitter, angry, more resentful than I’d been at any time since Clara decided to turn my life upside down by returning.

  More to the immediate point, I couldn’t imagine how we could find Neko, once Clara had skipped town. Gran and I would work together, of course. Under ordinary circumstances—whatever those were where magic was concerned—my power had been jump-started enough that I could work with Gran, that we could bolster each other’s astral force. But with Nuri as our only familiar…I wasn’t sure that we could do anything without Clara and Majom tied into our community.

  Of course Clara hadn’t considered our needs in the slightest. She’d made up her mind to leave back in August, and nothing that happened had changed her thinking. I didn’t know why I was surprised. She hadn’t thought of me twenty-three years ago, when she ran away the first time. Why would anything be different now?

  I shifted from foot to foot, trying to ignore my orange-dyed slippers, which didn’t quite fit. I could feel a pinch across my toes, where the silver bows attached. I’d worn them as a silent salute to Neko, but I already regretted the nostalgic urge. Black ballet slippers would have been a better memorial. Commemoration. He wasn’t dead. Missing, but not dead.

  Judge Anderson was saying, “So many of our operas use images of food, of feasts, to explain the richness of love.”

  I looked out over the rest of the crowd, determined not to dwell on Clara, not to let my bitterness taint this evening for Gran and Uncle George. Melissa was sitting in the front row, as well, on the opposite side from Clara. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen her in a dress, but she had donned a navy velvet jumper for the occasion. Her cheeks were flushed, as if she were still warming up from her walk from the bakery.

  Rob sat beside her. The guy was clearly smitten. He listened to the judge, laughing at the appropriate times, nodding judiciously. But his every motion was attuned to my best friend. He seemed aware of where she was, what she was doing. Even sitting in the auditorium chairs, he seemed to be waiting for her.

  I thought about all those years of horrible first dates, all the stories that Melissa had shared. She had kept Gran in stitches so many times, relating disaster after disaster. It would be patronizing for me to say that I was proud of her. I was happy for her. Pleased for her. She deserved the guy she finally got.

  Thinking of guys, I had to look at Will. His glasses were tilted on his nose, and his curly hair was doing its best to impersonate a rat’s nest. He’d put on a dark suit for the occasion. He’d teased me all afternoon, saying that with his black and my orange, we made the perfect Halloween couple. He’d sweetened the teasing with a couple of fun-size Snickers bars, so I didn’t complain too loudly.

  I couldn’t help but think what I had been doing a year ago, how I had stood against the Washington Coven.

  I had to look at David.

  He had taken a seat toward the back of the room. He was clearly trying to step back from this family event, trying to remove himself from his role as warder for all three of us witchy women. Even from the podium, I could see the glint of his flawless white shirt, and I knew that his charcoal suit would be perfect.

  I could see—could feel—his eyes meet mine across the room.

  I wasn’t certain, though, what he was saying, what he was thinking. Was he also remembering that other Halloween night, a year ago? Was he thinking of the magic I had worked, strong and powerful, with my now-missing familiar at my side? Was he remembering my humiliation in front of a group of women who had never had my best interests at heart, even when they had pretended to reach out to me?

  Reflexively, I stretched for the bond between David and me, the magical one. I had tested the connection obsessively since power started to trickle back into my storehouse. I knew precisely how much weight I needed to place on the link, how much I needed to apply to pull him toward me. I could measure out my energy precisely, count it like a miser’s coins. I could control it, without sparks and confusion, without whipsaw unpredictability.

  Will shifted in the front row, and I backed off from the bond, as if the touch had burned me. David didn’t move.

  Judge Anderson was finally intoning the wedding vows. Gran and Uncle George repeated their lines carefully, proudly. At the judge’s instruction, the couple exchanged rings. They kissed.

  They were married.

  After twenty-five years of dating, after whatever tempests had brewed in their respective teapots, after decades of saying that there w
as no need for change, for formality, Gran and Uncle George were one couple, united in the eyes of the law.

  Kit pressed a button and Andrea Bocelli’s voice rang out, filling the auditorium with Fauré’s “Chanson D’Amour.”

  Gran and Uncle George led the way down the aisle. I followed, taking Mr. Potter’s arm and reminding myself to walk slowly, to ignore all the eyes that had to be drawn to the silver lamé bow across my ass.

  When we passed David’s chair, he was gone.

  The guests gathered in the upstairs reference room, eager to congratulate Gran and Uncle George, to compliment Judge Anderson on a job well done. Melissa swiftly took on the job of cake-cutter, and Will volunteered to open a bottle or six of champagne. Everyone chatted and laughed, and I knew that the simple ceremony had been better than anything Gran had hoped for.

  Still, I sought her out after a few minutes, to make sure that she wasn’t too wistful about the party that hadn’t been.

  Uncle George was clapping his hand on Mr. Potter’s shoulder, regaling a group of opera friends with a story about some ancient production. Gran had taken the opportunity to snag a chair, slipping off her sensible black pumps.

  “It was beautiful, Gran.” I sat beside her, using my years of Peabridge costume expertise to shift the lamé bow toward the side.

  “Thank you, dear. It’s wonderful to be surrounded by friends. I’m just so sorry that Neko couldn’t be here.”

  “We’re doing everything we can,” I said.

  She sighed, and then she looked around the room. “There, dear. Why don’t you bring David a nice slice of cake, and a glass of champagne? He looks so lonely standing by himself.”

  Our warder was, indeed, lurking by himself, staking out a corner by my not-so-beloved coffee bar. I didn’t want to be rude, but I also didn’t want to be the one to bring him into the crowd. I was still more than a little unnerved by how easily I had reached out to him, by how routinely I had touched the connection between us during the service. I tried to tell myself that it was the memories, it was the calendar. It was the power of Samhain that had set my nerves a-jangle.

  “Some cake?” Will said, appearing from nowhere, balancing three plates. He settled one in front of me and one in front of Gran, taking the third for himself. Gran looked pointedly at mine before glancing toward David, but I managed not to understand her instruction. I was spared a direct command by Mr. Potter’s jovial voice as he stepped to the center of the room.

  “Ladies!” he exclaimed. “Gentlemen! Friends!” It took a moment for the mutter of side conversations to die down. “Now is the time for the best man to give his toast!”

  “Hear, hear!” some hearty soul called. I smiled. Gran’s friends were formal in a quaint, old-fashioned way that I had loved ever since I was a little girl. Before Mr. Potter could begin his speech, I snuck a bite of wedding cake. The buttercream was flawless—rich, smooth vanilla, the perfect complement to the delicate cake beneath. Neko would have been in heaven.

  “It’s the custom,” Mr. Potter said, “for the best man to tell about his longtime friendship with the groom. I’m supposed to tell an amusing little anecdote about a time we shared, a time before the groom met the bride, a time before the happy wedding at hand.” He paused dramatically. “Well, no one here has known George that long! After twenty-five years of George and Sarah dating, any story I might tell would be so old and so outdated that you would boo me out of this fine room.”

  On cue, someone booed, and the rest of the crowd laughed. I snared another bite of cake.

  Mr. Potter continued. “When George first told me that he was going to propose to Sarah, we had a good, long laugh. We joked about wedding registries, and how George and Sarah could finally afford to get a decent set of pots and pans. But when we stopped joking, George told me that he knew they didn’t need any gifts. They didn’t need any markers from friends. They had all the worldly riches they could ever use.”

  I looked at Gran. Her eyes were clear, and she held her head high. She obviously knew what Mr. Potter was about to say, and she was excited by it. She reached out and squeezed my hand.

  Mr. Potter looked toward me, as well. “In fact, George and Sarah wanted to give gifts, rather than to receive. Your invitations all said, ‘No presents, please.’ What they didn’t say is that Sarah and George are the ones distributing presents tonight.”

  Mr. Potter gestured, and Gran climbed to her feet after sliding her shoes back on, twitching her deep-green jacket into place with a single efficient tug. Mr. Potter held out his other hand, and Uncle George took it; the three of them stood in the center of the reference room, holding the perfect attention of every single guest.

  Mr. Potter cleared his throat, and then he said, “George and Sarah decided to take my advice. They decided to donate to a favorite charity, a different charity than the one that most of us know so well, to the Concert Opera. In honor of their wedding, George and Sarah have made a very generous donation to Human Rights Watch.”

  There was a rush of pleased surprise from the assembled guests. I wondered how many people in the crowd were familiar with the watchdog group, how many realized that Gran and Uncle George were supporting gay rights. Listening to the hubbub, I twitched my lips into a smile. Neko would have been snarkily amused.

  Mr. Potter raised his glass. “To Sarah and George,” he said. “Long may their generosity guide us all! Cheers!”

  “Cheers!” sang the crowd, and glasses clinked against glasses.

  A swirl of well-wishers came between Gran and me. I turned to Will, caught him laughing at the surprise on a couple of guests’ faces. “Did you know about this?”

  “Rob mentioned it earlier. He helped them find a lawyer to draw up the appropriate papers.” Will leaned in and kissed my cheek. He knew that I was worried about Neko. He whispered, “I’m going to get us more champagne.” I nodded and watched him cross the room. I shuddered involuntarily, suddenly chilled without him standing right beside me.

  When I turned back toward Gran, Clara had approached. “What a wonderful gesture!”

  “It was just something that we wanted to do, dear,” Gran said.

  Realizing that the three of us were alone for a moment, I couldn’t keep from asking, “But why the change? Why not something to do with opera?”

  Gran looked around at all the guests. She dropped her voice enough that Clara and I both had to take a step closer. “I had to do it. For Neko.” She cleared her throat, and then she shrugged. “Besides, do you remember that night, two years ago?” I narrowed my eyes. Two years ago, my powers had just awoken. Two years ago, I had just been learning what it meant to be a witch. Gran helped to narrow her meaning. “You had spent those days down in the basement, organizing your collection, after that horrid man lied to you. And we finally lured you up to the kitchen with fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies.”

  Oh. That night. “I remember.”

  “Do you remember the secret that I told you then?”

  Of course I did. Gran hated opera. She had gone along with Concert Opera for years because Uncle George loved it, because it was important to him. I nodded.

  “Well, I told him.”

  “You what?” My voice was louder than I meant it to be. My exclamation attracted a little attention. Majom came dashing across the room from where he had been studiously pushing buttons on the terminal for our online catalog. Nuri sailed behind him, as if the familiar had accepted the responsibility to watch over her colleague for the night.

  “What?” Majom asked, launching himself against Clara’s hip. Gran clicked her tongue, patting him on the head in a hopeless attempt to get him to settle down.

  “It was time,” she said to Clara and me.

  “I would say so, Mother.”

  “But why? Why now?”

  “I couldn’t get married with that sort of secret between us. It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be fair to George.” She could date the man for twenty-five years, but marriage changed everythin
g. It was sweet, in an old-fashioned way.

  “But what did he say?” I was fascinated, awed.

  “He said I should have told him twenty-five years before. And he said that his hearing’s going, so he’s not able to appreciate the performances the way he used to. We’ve decided to keep working on the board, to continue socializing with all our friends, but I think we’ll probably miss a few performances next year. And, with any luck, a few more after that!”

  I shook my head. All those years. All those lies. A facade maintained in the name of love, torn down almost overnight.

  Before I could say anything, Majom perked up. He cast his eyes toward the ceiling and stood up straight, dropping the fork that he was using to spear the remnants of my slice of wedding cake. Nuri followed his gaze by reflex, and then she also jumped to her feet.

  It took me a moment longer to hear the noise. It sounded like a train, barreling down on the library. No, not a train. A plane. A dozen planes. Flying lower than any planes had any right to fly.

  “Those are fighting planes!” Clara said. “Scrambling fighters—we used to hear them at the Sedona airshow every year.”

  The other guests had heard them now. Chairs were pushed back. Plates and glasses were dropped on tables. Everyone hurried to the doors, dashed into the garden, looked up into the moonlit sky.

  I turned around in the midst of the chaos, wondering what was happening. Adrenaline fired my blood. Reflexively, I reached my powers toward David, skating toward his protection. As I triggered the bond between us, I felt another touch, another astral tug.

  Faint.

  Distant.