One Jar of Magic

by Corey Ann Haydu

  Thirty

  Zelda looks strange, standing in the center of town with her overalls and toothy smile, not worrying about what anyone’s thinking.

  “We should go to your place,” I say instead of hello. I want to get her out of here, away from my father and away from everyone. I want to go back to that perfect sunny moment with dandelion crowns and no one looking at us.

  “No way,” Zelda says. “Look at all these people! Are they all your friends? What are their names? Can you introduce me to them?” Zelda is rosy-cheeked and beaming, seeing a town full of people. I want to believe they’d like her, if they got to know her, but after the fight with my father, I know that’s not possible. Belling Bright doesn’t like people who don’t like magic. There isn’t room for someone like Zelda here.

  “They used to be my friends,” I say. “But we don’t need them. All they care about is magic. It’s not— Whatever you think it is, it isn’t that way. I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have invited you.” The center of town is filling up with party-goers, and all of them are looking at Zelda, looking at me, looking back at Zelda again.

  I look at Zelda too. Her smile’s gone. “Oh,” she says. “You wish I hadn’t come.”

  “No,” I say, “I just like where you live. I want to get to know your parents. And your sister. And I want to get better at dandelion crowns. And I want to be . . . not here.”

  She nods. But she doesn’t say okay, doesn’t start walking the mile to the rest stop.

  “And I want to get to know your parents and your life and these people,” she says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I don’t know anyone. I don’t see anyone. No one—people avoid our place and we avoid them and—can we stay a little while? I just want to see how people—what it looks like, to have all these people in one place. To be a part of it.”

  I can’t help loving how Zelda doesn’t pretend she’s fine. She doesn’t pretend at all, I think. I wonder what that’s like.

  My dad won’t be here for a while. We can stay for a moment; then maybe she’ll see how much Ginger’s changed and how sneaky Maddy is and how cute Evan Dell is and how shocking it is that he’s Ginger’s boyfriend. Maybe she’ll see the way they look at me—like they’re happy I failed—and maybe she’ll have some way to make me feel better about it. I let myself believe that if I let her see Belling Bright, I won’t feel so alone in it anymore.

  “Okay,” I say. “Let’s stay for a little.”

  Zelda beams. “Thank you,” she says. “I just want to—know what it’s like.”

  I try to see it through her eyes, but it’s impossible. These are just people and this is just a party and it’s all just Belling Bright, the same as it’s always been. I’m what’s different and new.

  There are tables set up with all different kinds of food. Baked goods and fruits and cheeses and miniature sandwiches with nothing but cucumber and butter inside. It’s the same every year. There’s delicious cake, and some high school band plays songs that we all sort of half know, and Ginger’s mother tries to get us started on a bunch of games that I’m never interested in but somehow always end up playing. Freeze tag. Hide-and-seek. Hopscotch. Kickball.

  “It’s exactly how I imagined it,” Zelda says. “All these people. Having fun. But where’s all the magic?”

  “Everywhere,” I say. Zelda’s looking for something specific, and that will happen too, but magic is everywhere, always, and especially right now. “Her hair,” I say, pointing to a woman with intricate braids who used to have chin-length hair a few days ago. “That tree. Those shoes. The temperature. The way the air smells.” I pause. The clock in the center of town chimes out. Greggor Barnum is using his magic to tell us the time. “The way people seem happy. That’s magic. The things they’re talking about. What they remember of last year’s party. Magic. All of it is magic.”

  “Just—everything?” Zelda asks. “Isn’t that confusing?”

  “Confusing?”

  “Like, how do you know what’s real and what’s magical?”

  “It’s all magical,” I say.

  “Except for you, maybe,” Zelda says with a smile that tells me she doesn’t know those words sting me.

  She’s saying things and I’m saying things, but we aren’t really having the same conversation, I don’t think. I can’t explain how magic makes everything work, how it’s not just the cake and the balloons and the weather. That it’s also the way we walk around, it’s why no one has the sniffles today, it’s the angle of the sun in the sky. It’s everything.

  Except Zelda’s right too. It’s everything except me. And her.

  “If you’d gotten more magic, what would you have used it on?” Zelda’s never asked much about my magic. Or maybe I’ve never let her. It’s hard to say.

  “I guess the same things Ginger’s using hers on. Hair. Clothes. Math. It’s sort of silly, I guess.”

  “Not silly,” Zelda says. She sounds like she’s thinking really hard.

  “What would you have used your magic on?” I ask Zelda. I bet she would think of something amazing, and that she’s the kind of person who would capture important and beautiful magic. The kind that could help a sick cat or make you really good at painting or turn weeds into violets or something.

  “I wouldn’t use magic,” Zelda says.

  “No, I know you’re Not Meant for Magic, but if you were, what would you do?” I ask.

  Zelda tilts her head and shakes it. “I wouldn’t,” she says again. “Even if—even if I went to the lake with you and captured something, I guess I’d just let it back out. Like the way my dad does when he goes fishing.”

  We walk under a canopy made of streamers, and I watch it for signs of magic. Maybe it will sing or light up or move around in some beautiful way. Maybe the streamers will perform a dance. Or change colors. Or float into the sky like fireworks. But they stay put.

  “So which one is Ginger?” Zelda asks.

  I point to my old best friend.

  “With the yellow dress?”

  “Yes.” I’d noticed how much more pink is in Ginger’s hair, how much longer it is, how straight her back is, her big smile. I hadn’t noticed the dress, but it’s one I’ve never seen before. It’s got skinny straps and orange flowers and it waves around her knees like it’s dancing there. I squint and it shimmers. Magic. The rest of Ginger’s clothes are from the secondhand shop downtown and from her brothers and sisters. She’s always wanted a brand-new dress, and I’m happy she has one now. For a moment, I’m not jealous. I’m just happy for Ginger, who looks pretty and calm and more like a birthday girl than she’s ever looked at one of these parties. She hugs people hello and practically seems to be glittering herself. Or levitating. She might be levitating.

  “Huh,” Zelda says. “She isn’t anything like you.”

  It isn’t meant as anything—not a compliment or an insult. Zelda says everything like it’s a fact, and I don’t like that this might be a fact now, too. The jealousy comes back, landing right in my throat, where it squeezes and then speaks. Zelda is seeing something I’ve been afraid is true. That not only do I not fit into Belling Bright, but I don’t belong to Ginger anymore either, or my family, or myself. I don’t belong anywhere or to anyone, and everyone—even someone who has never left her little home on the outskirts of town before—can see it.

  “We have a ton in common,” I say. “We’ve been—we were—best friends forever. We like all the same foods and colors and singers and books.”

  “I’m not talking about that kind of thing,” Zelda says.

  “Well, what are you talking about, then?” I ask. My voice is starting to break a little on the edges—all of me is starting to shatter and fall apart, really, and the closer Ginger gets the shakier I am until she’s right in front of me and Zelda’s hand is on my shoulder, which isn’t an answer to my question but is something else I needed much, much more.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Ginger says right away. She pulls me in
for a hug. Then it’s over and I miss it.

  I almost say: My mom said I had to come, but I realize just in time that just because that’s true doesn’t mean it’s nice or worth saying.

  “I like your dress,” I say instead, which is true enough. I like it. Maybe not as much as I’d like it if I could have one of my own, but the dress reminds me of spring and gardens, and that’s something, too.

  “I like your—” She looks me over. She’s looking for something about me to like. Something that seems magical or worthy or just okay. She comes up short. “You brought a friend,” she says instead.

  “Zelda,” I say.

  “Zelda. Hi. You’re from . . . ?” Ginger is having trouble finishing a sentence.

  “The rest stop,” Zelda says. “Right on the edge of town.”

  “Oh. Okay. The rest stop at the edge of town. I’ll have to check it out.” Ginger’s mouth is doing a funny thing. It’s hiding something. I look closer, to see what’s underneath. A smirk. She’s hiding a smirk. There’s a meanness to it.

  “We’d love to have you!” Zelda says. Zelda’s mouth isn’t hiding anything. I wonder if Zelda’s mouth has ever hidden anything. Maybe not. Maybe she doesn’t know how to.

  “It’s not just a rest stop,” I say. “They have a house.”

  “Well. That’s good,” Ginger says. She’s doing worse at hiding the smirk.

  “A really nice house,” I say.

  “We’re Not Meant for Magic,” Zelda says. The words shoot out of her before I have a chance to stop them.

  Ginger’s eyebrows dart up as far as they can go and maybe a little bit higher. They look like they hurt, hanging out up there. Then she looks at me. She tilts her head.

  “You’re Not Meant for Magic?” she asks me.

  I’m going to answer. I mean to answer. An answer is definitely brewing inside of me, but before I have a chance to let it out, Zelda answers for me. “We’re not sure about Rose yet,” she says. “Maybe!”

  “Wow. Well. That would explain a lot,” Ginger says. Her smirk is all the way out, and now she’s hiding a laugh. A big one. Maddy flies up to us and gives Ginger a hug, and the hug shrivels up whatever okay-ness was left in me.

  “I have my jar,” I mumble. But no one hears me. Maddy and Ginger sort of lean against each other. I remember that lean. The way it felt to have Ginger’s shoulder against mine. How it was bony and cool. How it felt, sometimes, like it was part of my body, like we were the same person.

  I try leaning against Zelda now, but she moves too quickly, too often for it to work. She fidgets. She shifts her weight every second. Her shoulder is only her shoulder. It’s not something I know or love or recognize. It’s just a shoulder.

  “I’m so curious what you’re going to use your jar for,” Maddy says. “You’ll have to let us know.”

  I shrug. There are probably a hundred ways I could respond to this, but I can’t come up with them. And before I have a chance to linger on it, Maddy’s pulling Ginger away and the two of them are running toward Evan Dell and his friends and Zelda is smiling after them and I’m just here, watching streamers wave in the sky, watching balloons bounce on strings, wondering what here is magic and what here is not, and knowing mostly that I am the thing that is not.

  Thirty-One

  “We should go,” I say. “There’s not much else to see. And my parents will be here soon.” I want to say other things too. That she shouldn’t have said I might not be Meant for Magic. That we should have stayed at her house and not come out into town together. That I’m not ready to not care about magic and that a big part of me still wishes my life was the one I was supposed to have instead of this one.

  But mostly I just want to get out of here.

  “They will?” Zelda’s eyes light up. “Like, your dad will be here?” I’m used to people wanting to meet my father, but it doesn’t seem quite right for Zelda, who doesn’t care about how many jars he’s caught and how powerful the magic in his jars usually is.

  “In a little bit,” I say. “And we should leave before he is.”

  “Why would we do that?”

  “Oh, well, they don’t really want me hanging out with you. My dad especially. I’m not really supposed to—he doesn’t like it.”

  Zelda’s face clouds. “He doesn’t want me around?” she whisper-asks. “He doesn’t want to meet me?”

  “Why would he want to meet you?” I whisper-ask back.

  “I thought maybe—after all this time—and how well we get along—and everything that’s happened with you—I thought maybe he’d finally—” She doesn’t get a chance to finish her sentence because there’s an explosion of laughter so loud I have to look over to where everyone else is looking.

  The laughter is coming from Ginger and Evan Dell. They’re standing together, and Ginger’s laugh is a little bit nervous and a little bit forced. Evan Dell’s is loud. Then louder. Then he’s calling his friends over. “Ryan! Ashton! Garrett! Come here! You gotta see this!”

  “Oh, it’s not— I don’t think we should show everyone,” I hear Ginger saying.

  “This is so funny!” Evan Dell says, laughing harder still.

  My heart pounds. I don’t know why, exactly, except that Ginger’s laugh is usually light and easy, the kind of thing that pours out of her. And her laugh right now keeps getting stuck on its way out of her mouth, so it sounds like little hiccups in the middle of her giggles.

  “Are you okay?” Zelda asks.

  “What are they laughing at?” I ask, because my hands have found their way to my face and I can’t bear to move my fingers away from my eyes. Whatever is happening, I don’t want to see it.

  “A piece of paper?” Zelda says, asking it like a question, which makes sense because there’s nothing very funny about a piece of paper. “And— Oh! The magic! Something’s happening!”

  “What’s on the piece of paper?” I ask, but I think some part of me knows.

  “You have to open your eyes, Rose!” Zelda says, not hearing my question or not understanding that I’ve seen magic a hundred times, but I’ve never seen Ginger have a boyfriend. I’ve never heard Ginger laugh like that. “It’s—it’s incredible.” Zelda grabs my hands and pulls them from my eyes. I know what she wants me to see: there’s a jar in the center of the party that has been opened. And exploding out of it is water, except the water is pink and purple and green. Everyone runs to stand under the magical water fountain. The temperature of the air goes up in an instant, a magical heat wave that makes the magical water fountain even better. Zelda gives a little gasp-shriek that none of the rest of us do, because the water is pretty and the heat feels good, but magic isn’t anything new, isn’t really all that magical at all, anymore.

  I see the water. I feel the heat. I watch Maddy and Layla run under the water first and everyone else follows. When the pink and purple and green reaches their skin, it turns them into rainbow-people, for a moment, then they return to their normal selves. It’s pretty. It’s strange. It’s exactly the kind of magic Ginger’s family hopes for every year.

  But I don’t care about any of it. Because I see what’s in Evan Dell’s hands. It’s a thick piece of construction paper with a pencil drawing on it. The drawing is of Evan Dell himself. It couldn’t be anyone else. It is exactly his head and exactly his eyes and exactly his mouth drawn by someone who has spent a lot a lot a lot of time thinking about Evan Dell’s head and eyes and mouth. There is a border of hearts around the perfect drawing of perfect Evan Dell. And the artist has signed her name. Because she was told, once, that real artists sign their name to even the silliest doodles they draw in case they are famous one day.

  And the artist thought maybe she’d be famous one day, because she already sort of was.

  Rose Alice Anders, the drawing says, in my loopy handwriting, which is always crooked and always messy and always, always, big enough for anyone who sees the picture to read.

  Zelda runs herself right into the fountain of rainbow-colored wa
ter and grins at the way her arms turn neon pink and forest green and royal blue. She lifts her hands up and up and up, like she wants to capture magic, right here and now, even though she’s not meant for it, even though she doesn’t believe in it and doesn’t like it and has spent her whole life hearing about how silly and fake it all is.

  Her hair turns all kinds of colors, too, orange and yellow and a sparkly bronze. She shakes it off and rainbow-colored droplets fly from her head and land all over the lawn.

  Rainbow drops are flying everywhere, colors I’ve heard of but never seen flying through the air. But I can’t see anything except for that stupid picture I drew for Ginger and Maddy, when everything in the world seemed safe and sure and fine, when Evan Dell was cute in a far-off, distant way, when Ginger was my friend and magic was mine to capture and there wasn’t a girl with dandelion crowns and long arms and a face a little like mine who said strange and mysterious things.

  It feels like a long time ago, but it wasn’t that long ago.

  But also it was forever ago. Because now Ginger won’t look at me, and Evan Dell and his friends won’t stop looking at me, and my dad is here and he is looking right at Zelda.

  Thirty-Two

  I run.

  I’m getting good at running. I’m getting fast, which is saying something, because it’s Ginger who is good at sports and running, and I’m not really much good at anything, it turns out, except for drawing the exact shape of Evan Dell’s nose.

  I’m good at running, but Dad is better because Dad has magic. And when he catches up with me we are halfway between the party and our home, which just happens to be the school playground, a place no one plays in anymore because a playground isn’t so interesting when you have magic to experiment with and crushes to think about and friends to make miserable and mysterious girls on the edge of town to befriend.

  Zelda’s fast too and she’s right behind us, the tops of her hair still golden-green from the magical water.