That Touch of Magic

by Lucy March

  I started back toward Zipser Lane, wanting to put my eyes on that truck again so I could be sure I wasn’t imagining things, but the checkout girl stood in my path. She had her long, scraggly red hair pulled into a ponytail, and her eyes welled up huge behind her thick glasses, making her look like one of those cartoon kittens.

  “Ms. Easter, I really need to talk to—” She stopped as I walked right past her, and then I heard her footsteps plodding after mine.

  “Ms. Easter is my father,” I said, focusing my eyes in the direction of Peach and Nick’s place, even though I couldn’t see the driveway yet from where I was. “Call me Stacy.”

  “I need to talk to you … about … you know.”

  I sighed, stopped, and turned to face her.

  “What did I tell you the last time I talked to you, Chloe?”

  She pushed her glasses up on her nose and looked up at me, clearly nervous, which was smart, because I was in a scary state at the moment. “It’s Clementine, actually. Clementine Klosterman?”

  “Sorry. Clementine. What did I tell you the last time we spoke, Clementine?”

  She pulled one edge of her lip under her teeth. Most girls did that to look unassuming and vulnerable, so whoever they were talking to would ease up on them. This kid was doing it because she was genuinely unassuming and vulnerable. It was like watching a live nerve walk through a thicket of brambles, and it made me tense just looking at her.

  “You said…,” she began, but her throat caught, so she cleared it and started again. “You said that you couldn’t help me?”

  “That’s a statement, Clementine,” I said. “When you make a statement, don’t say it like a question. It’ll make people think you’re weak, unsure of yourself, an easy mark, and they’ll take advantage of you. Let’s take another run at it. What did I tell you the last time we spoke, Clementine?”

  She swallowed visibly. “Um … you said that you couldn’t help me.”

  “Right,” I said. “And why can’t I help you?”

  “Because I’m too young,” she said, and then started talking in double-speed desperation, “but I’m seventeen, and I’ll be eighteen next spring and—”

  “What else did I tell you, Clementine?”

  She sighed and her shoulders slumped downward. “You said that you don’t make magic potions, you make homeo—”

  “Homeopathic solutions,” I said over her, finishing the sentence. “Right. Which means that I can’t make the quarterback love you, so beat it.”

  “Oh, it’s not the quarterback,” she said quickly.

  “Linebacker, then. Either way, I can’t help you, and I’ve got stuff to do.”

  I started down the street again, and damned if her stubborn little footsteps didn’t follow me. “But I heard some stuff about things happening at the wedding last night, your brother’s wedding, and—”

  I turned on her. “What did you hear?”

  She skidded to a stop, visibly drummed up all her courage and said, “I heard that your mother was glowing. You know. Like magic and stuff?”

  Crap. Of course, I knew it would be all over town eventually, but that was pretty fast, even by the fiber-optic standards of the Nodaway Falls grapevine. But before I could deal with that, I had to get this kid off my leg, so I turned my attention to the task at hand.

  “Yeah? In the seventh grade, people said that I had sex with Matt Grieb in the back of the bus on the way home from the class trip. That didn’t make it true.” I sighed and put my hands on her shoulders. “Listen to me, because this is the last time I’m going to tell you this. If the boy doesn’t love you without a potion, you don’t want him.”

  “But it’s not just about a boy,” she said. “It’s because my—”

  “Stop arguing with me, Clementine. I gave you my answer. It’s no. I respect your determination, but now is not the time, okay?”

  She looked up at me with those big kitten eyes, and God help me, they started to well with tears. I let out a huff of frustration, grabbed her elbow, and dragged her down Zipser Lane with me until we were close enough to see that I hadn’t been imagining things: Nick’s truck was definitely parked in the driveway. Of course, it was possible that Nick and Peach had postponed their honeymoon to check on my mother, but … no. In my gut, I just knew, the way I always just knew about things where Leo was concerned.

  Leo was still here.

  I pointed. “See that fugly green truck? That truck means that the man I’ve loved since before I was your age is still in town, and the fact that I’m here looking at that truck isn’t saying much for me, either. He ripped my heart out ten years ago, and now he’s back, and I’m twenty-nine years old, and he can still level me with a touch.” I put my hands on her shoulders and turned her to face me. “I’m angry, I’m tired, and it hurts just to look at him. Is that what you want for your future?”

  Clementine slowly shook her head, looking a little scared.

  “Don’t fall in love now, Clementine, because when you fall in love at your age, you don’t know enough to hold anything back for yourself, and that means that for the rest of your life, he’ll be able to get in, whenever he decides he wants to, and you won’t be able to do a damn thing about it.”

  That’s when I saw Desmond out of the corner of my eye, standing patiently at the end of the road, respecting our space as he waited. I met his eye briefly, got hit by a metric ton of guilt, and looked back at Clementine.

  “Consider me your cautionary tale,” I said. “Now get the hell out of here.”

  She nodded, then darted away with her head down, giving Desmond a wide berth as she approached him on the sidewalk. Desmond waited for me to meet him at the end of the street, and I stopped and stood there for a while, just looking at him. He seemed like a good guy: straightforward, uncomplicated, maybe a little cool but I’d had heat, and I was still nursing the burns. There was a lot to be said for cool.

  “Sorry about that,” I said finally, not sure if I meant the delay with Clementine, or the fact that I’d used him to shake Leo off my skin, or if I was apologizing for me just being me. Gun to my head, I’d say all of the above.

  “Not to worry.” He held his hand out in invitation for us to continue our walk, and get on our own separate ways. With gratitude, I started down the street, anxious to drive him back to the ’Bago and send him away.

  If he was a good man, he’d stay gone.

  Chapter 8

  Two hours later, I drove to Deidre Troudt’s house, my mind still in a jumble.

  That morning after Desmond left, I had gone out to my garden shed and looked through all of my supplies, trying to see if some detail there might explain what had happened. Nothing was weird, nothing was out of place. All the ingredients I’d used in Deidre Troudt’s potion were pretty standard, and none of it looked as if it had been tampered with. Of course, I hadn’t made the Anwei Xing potion, but Desmond hadn’t touched Deidre Troudt’s potion, or my mother’s fauxtion; those had been mine from start to finish.

  I’d held my hand out in front of me; there had been no sign of the magic since last night, and right now, it looked like an ordinary hand. No ropes of smoky light, nothing unusual at all, aside from that wonky pinkie finger I’d broken in the third grade. Then again, day magic manifested as electric light, and night magic, as light-filled smoke. I had spent some time that morning testing to see if I could light a candle, with no joy, but the real test would be after the sun went down.

  I tried to remember back to last summer, how I’d burned paper and melted my car keys. They had both been surprises to me, but I couldn’t recall any specific trigger. Except I wasn’t running on my own steam then; it had been Liv’s day magic that had fueled mine, and her magic had been triggered by strong emotion. She’d gotten freaked out, and I’d melted my keys.

  The night before, when I’d burned my clutch, I’d been with Leo, and the magic had been night magic, and it had been all mine.

  That was when I’d felt the nudge of intuiti
on, and I tried to follow it. I had taken a potion to keep me from feeling anything for Leo, and then when the potion wore off, I’d sparked some magic.

  My mother had taken a potion—okay, not really, but she thought she had—that had made her more beautiful, and just when she was feeling at the height of her beauty, her magic had sparked.

  Deidre Troudt had taken a potion to show her The One, and her magic had sparked … she said she’d been at her therapist’s, hadn’t she? Which didn’t make sense, because she’d taken the potion to learn about Wally Frankel, the pharmacist. If this theory had ever held any water, it was leaking fast now.

  It was a start, though. I turned the corner to Ms. Troudt’s house and almost swerved into what would have been oncoming traffic if she hadn’t lived on a cul-de-sac.

  Nick’s green truck was in her driveway.

  I carefully pulled over to the curb and parked the Bug, then took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Any doubt I might have had about what Nick’s truck in the driveway meant was now gone. Unless Deidre Troudt was having some landscaping done, Nick wasn’t at her house. And even if she was, no way would he be working the day after his wedding. No, Nick was definitely on a beach in Spain right now, sipping cocktails with his wife, the way he should be.

  It was Leo. Of course it was Leo. He was still here. Not only that, he was still here and sticking his nose into my trouble.

  I got out of my car and headed toward the front door, but before I could knock, I heard laughter coming from the backyard. I went to the wooden fence and unlatched it, walking through until I found Leo and Deidre Troudt laughing at the picnic table set in the middle of her garden.

  “Oh, man,” Deidre said, wiping her eyes. “I’d forgotten about that.”

  “Nick still says it’s one of his proudest moments,” Leo said. “Although I don’t think you can say as much for the chicken.”

  They both busted out laughing again, and that’s when Leo saw me, his laughter fading as our eyes met. Ms. Troudt followed his gaze back to me and said, “Hey! Easter!” and that’s when I realized she was drunk.

  “Hey, Ms. Troudt.”

  “It’s Deidre, damnit.” She pushed up from the picnic table and staggered inside without bothering to tell us where she was going or when she’d be back.

  I sat down opposite Leo and whispered, “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Same as you, probably,” he said, meeting my eye coolly. “Trying to figure out what’s going on.”

  “You don’t need to figure out anything. This isn’t any of your business.”

  “Maybe not,” he said, challenge in his eyes, “but you’re in trouble, and I’m not leaving until you’re not in trouble anymore.”

  “When did you decide that?” I asked, leaning forward. “Did you know you weren’t getting on that plane when you left me last night?”

  He shook his head and gave me a small, sad smile. “I went through security and everything.”

  Before I could respond, Ms. Troudt stumbled back out of the house, a carafe of hot coffee in her hands. Leo was up like a shot, taking it and the empty mug she carried. She gave it all up to him and came back to sit down next to me. Leo poured coffee into the mug, put the mug in front of Ms. Troudt, set the carafe on the table and sat down, his intention clear: He was going to stay and listen to everything. I started to say something to him to get him to leave, but Ms. Troudt patted my arm to get my attention.

  “Glad you’re here, Easter. You’re gonna fix this, right?”

  “I’m gonna try. What happened?”

  She leaned both her arms against the picnic table, hung her head in dejection, and said, “He had the aura.”

  I glanced at Leo, who was watching us with sharp eyes, taking everything in. I let it go and focused on Ms. Troudt. “So, Wally is The One?”

  She shook her head slowly from side to side, reminding me of an elephant. “No. Dr. Feelgood.”

  I stayed silent for a moment, hoping she would elaborate on her own, but when she didn’t, I said, “Who?”

  She raised her head and looked at me. “Dr. Darius Wood, Ph-friggin’-D. My therapist. You know, the therapist I’ve had for twelve freaking years?”

  I nodded, even though I hadn’t known, but it didn’t matter.

  “Oh, wow,” I said.

  She pushed herself up higher, but when she talked, she talked to the coffee mug. “I had an appointment on Friday, and I took the potion first because I was meeting Wally for dinner right afterward, and there wouldn’t be time. But then … Dr. Wood had the aura.” She finally looked at me. “It was blue. Well, blue-ish. Kinda green, maybe. A little purple at the edges.”

  I glanced at Leo, who was paying very close attention to everything Ms. Troudt was saying. “Leo, I could really use some coffee…,” I said.

  He met my eyes, clearly on to the fact that I was trying to get rid of him. “Later.”

  Dammit.

  “For the entire forty-five minutes,” Ms. Troudt went on, oblivious to the tension between me and Leo, “I stared at him and mumbled. He must have thought I’d had a stroke. Then after the appointment I went into the bathroom down the hall to cry, and the next thing I know, four bluebirds are racing around my head. By that time, I thought I was having a stroke. Then I hid in the stall for an hour until they went away.” She laughed for a moment, then thunked her forehead against the picnic table. “Fuck my life.”

  “Ms. Troudt…” She raised her head and gave me a flat look, so I said, “I mean, Deidre…”

  She sighed. “What?”

  “I’m trying to figure out what happened, so I can fix it. What were you feeling, exactly, when the bluebirds appeared?”

  She gave me a blank look. “What do you think I was feeling? I was pissed. I waited my whole life for that bastard to show up, and when he does, he’s my goddamn therapist? I mean, come on!”

  “I know,” I said. “That’s really unfair. But I need you to tell me about the bluebirds. Were they solid, or kind of transparent, like a hologram? Did they disappear into thin air, or fly off? Did they look real, or cartoony?”

  “Hologram, disappeared, cartoony,” she said miserably.

  “Does that mean something?” Leo asked quietly.

  “Yes,” I said. “I don’t have to go chasing down escaped cartoon bluebirds, for one, and if it happens in public, Ms. Troudt can say it’s a high-tech Japanese … I don’t know. Hologram hat.”

  Ms. Troudt snorted. “Japanese hologram hat. I’ll give you one thing, Easter, you have always been creative with the bullshit.”

  “Ooh!” I said, my heart pounding with a cheerful thought. “Or maybe it’s just perception magic. You know, maybe you’re the only one who can see them. I mean, the potion I gave you was perception-based; maybe you just saw something only you could see. Did anyone else see them?”

  She gave me one of her patented your-stupidity-disappoints-me looks. “In the bathroom stall? No.”

  I sighed. “Okay … well, still. It’s a maybe, and if you’re the only one who saw them, maybe it’ll just … I don’t know. Wear off.” I tried to inject a hopeful note in my voice.

  “You’re being chipper. I don’t like it. Cut it out.” Then she groaned and put her face in her hands. “Oh, hell. My head is gonna explode.”

  I looked at Leo. “Maybe you should get her some water.”

  “Sure.” He got up and disappeared silently into the house.

  “And the thing was, I knew,” Ms. Troudt said to me after Leo left. “I knew when I started seeing him twelve years ago, but I rationalized. I thought, Of course you love him, Deidre. He’s the only man who’s ever listened to you. And I just let it go. I wasted twelve years.”

  “Well, you could just tell him how you feel,” I said. “Go on a date, see where it goes.”

  She gave me a look. “He knows that I think my g-spot is traveling, because Wally can’t seem to find it in the same place twice. How am I going to make small talk with this man?”
<
br />   Leo came back out with a large glass of ice water. He slid the door shut, walked noiselessly back to the table, and set it down in front of Ms. Troudt.

  “Deidre?” he said, his voice soft and comforting.

  She shot me a look. “See? He calls me Deidre.”

  He motioned to the water in front of her. “You need to drink this, or you’re going to feel terrible when you wake up later.”

  She pushed herself to a full upright position. “Right. Right.” We stayed silent until she finished the water, at which point, she looked at me with a hazy expression.

  “If he’s The One, he feels the same way, right? I mean, can someone be your One if you’re not theirs?”

  I exchanged a look with Leo, and then we spoke over each other.

  “No,” Leo said.

  “Maybe,” I said. “It’s complicated.”

  She looked back and forth between us. “Fat lot of help you guys are.” Tears sprang to her eyes, and she covered them with her hands. “Twelve years.”

  I reached out to pat her on the arm, and that’s when I saw them. At first, they showed up like a strange blue blur around her head, looking a little bit like a blurry sideways Ferris wheel. Then they took form, looking cartoonish and slightly transparent, but I could see the breeze from their flapping wings shifting some of Ms. Troudt’s mussed hair. So much for my it’s-just-perception-magic theory. This was full-blown, 100 percent, kick-you-in-the-balls magic.

  “Oh, crap,” Ms. Troudt whined. “They’re back, aren’t they?” She kept her hands over her eyes, ignoring the electric blue light that was snaking over her fingers. Circling her head, the birds began to chirp.

  “So help me God,” she said, still frozen with her hands over her eyes, “if they start braiding my hair, I’m going to have to kill someone.”

  “Stop thinking about Dr. Feelgood,” I said. “Think about something else.”