Magic in the Mountains

by Donna Kunkel

  He looked down at the rocks and gasped. “How’d you do that?”

  “Magic.”

  “You can call them to you?”

  She gave a slight nod. “But this type of magic comes with a cost.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll learn that at school.” She sat up more and brushed her dusty hands off on her jeans. “I don’t have as much power as some wizards so I can only do this type of magic on special occasions.”

  “You did that for me?”

  She inclined her head. “If it means you’ll go to school, I’ll help however I can. You’ve done so much for me. This is my way of repaying some of the debt.”

  “You don’t owe me anything.”

  “You took me in. You gave me a reason to go back to my magic.” She tried to stand but couldn’t.

  “Wait a second,” he said and stuffed the stones in a canvas bag he’d brought back from the truck. He leaned down, picked her up, carried her back to the truck, and settled her in the seat. “Let me get you back to the cabin.” He ran around the truck, then started back. When he pulled in next to the cabin, Alex managed to get out. She headed straight to her car and got in. “Are you sure you’re okay to drive?” he asked.

  Alex nodded. She started the engine and pulled out of his driveway. She could see him still standing in front of the cabin as she pulled onto the road. He didn’t know, but she wasn’t okay to drive. She got to the hotel, checked in for two nights, then went up to the room and crashed on the bed.

  Peter headed out the next morning and noticed Alex’s car at the hotel. He pulled in and headed for the front counter. Victoria, their neighbor, was on duty so he stopped and asked, “Did Alex Klein check in? I saw her car out in the lot and wondered.”

  “Let me check,” Victoria said. She checked the computer. “She checked in for two nights.”

  “She said she had to go home yesterday. I wonder what changed her mind. What’s her room number?”

  Victoria looked around. “Don’t let anyone know, but for you…she’s in room 207.”

  Peter tapped the counter. “Mums the word. I’ll see you later.” He headed up and knocked on the door, but no one answered. He left and headed back home. As he approached Steve’s, he slowed, then pulled into the drive.

  Steve met him at the driveway as he pulled in. “What’s up?” He leaned on the door.

  Peter rolled down his window. “That’s what I wanted to know. I thought Alex was heading home yesterday.”

  “She did.”

  Peter shook his head. “She’s checked in at the hotel. I knocked on her door but no answer.”

  “She was probably getting something to eat.”

  “I looked. No sign of her. How was she when she left?”

  Steve thought. “I don’t know. She said she was fine.” But he had to wonder. She had passed out right after doing the magic and mentioned something about paying a price. Steve walked around Peter’s fancy SUV and got in. The SUV was the closest thing to an armored troop carrier a civilian could get. “Let’s go find out.”

  Peter looked at Steve. “Is everything okay?”

  “I don’t know, maybe not. How’d you find out she was there?”

  “Her car is in the lot, and Victoria was on duty, so I asked.” Peter pulled out and headed back to the hotel. They both walked in but had to wait while another guest was at the desk. As soon as the guest had left they approached.

  “We think Alex might not be feeling well and need to check. Can you help us?” Steve whispered.

  Victoria looked around. No one was near. “Don’t tell anyone.”

  Peter and Steve zipped their lips.

  “I’d never do this for anyone else, but I don’t want anything to happen to Alex.” She set out the Be Right Back sign and motioned them to the elevator.

  They knocked again, but Alex didn’t answer. Victoria used the master key card to open the door and they walked in. Alex was stretched out face-down on the bed still in the clothes from the day before. “Thanks Victoria, we’ll make sure she’s okay,” Steve said.

  “Let me know if you need anything,” she said and left.

  “Alex. Alex. It’s me, Steve. Talk to me.” He shook her shoulder, but she didn’t respond.

  Peter hovered beside him. “Any idea what’s wrong?”

  Steve lifted up her wrist and felt her pulse. “No, but I know someone who might. Can I use your phone?”

  Peter handed Steve his phone.

  Steve pulled out his wallet and removed a card. He dialed. “Mr. Vale please?” He could barely hear over all the static.

  “This is Vale. Who’s calling?”

  “Thank God. It’s Steve Davis. I think something has happened to Alex Klein.” The phone crackled again. “Can you hear me,” he shouted.

  “Just barely. Put the phone on speaker and set it down.”

  Steve handed the phone to Peter. Peter pressed a button and set it down on the nearby nightstand.

  “Can you hear me now?” Steve asked.

  “Yes. Can you tell me what happened?”

  “Peter, a neighbor, saw Alex’s car at the hotel and came to see me. We thought we’d better check and found Alex on the bed. She isn’t responding, but she has a good pulse.”

  “Is Peter with you right now?”

  “Yes,” Steve answered.

  “As carefully as you can, tell me what happened.”

  Steve had to think for a moment, how could he explain without talking about magic? “Alex helped me with one of my jobs yesterday. After she finished, she passed out. When she woke up, she said she was tired but okay. She left as soon as she got back to her car and I guess she came to the hotel. She did mention something about there being a price to pay for what she did.”

  “Place your hand over her heart, like I did to you. Concentrate hard and tell me if you feel anything. Take your time and pay attention.”

  Steve rolled Alex over and pulled up her t-shirt. He wiped his hand down his jeans then placed it flat over her heart. He closed his eyes and concentrated. Her heart beat steadily as he tried to feel anything else. Vale made this look so easy. Then he felt it—a tiny flicker. He yanked his hand away. After a moment, he slid his hand under his shirt. He could feel a similar sensation, but a lot stronger in him. He looked over to Peter. “Can you give me a minute?”

  Peter nodded and went into the bathroom.

  “We’re alone. I can feel a little flicker but nothing like what I have. What can I do?”

  “She should be okay after a few days of sleeping,” Vale answered.

  “What happened?”

  “My best guess is that she used too much power doing what she did. It will take several days for her to build it back up enough so she can function again.”

  “Is there any way we could speed up the process?”

  “Only one that I know of…But it will require you to do something you might not want to do.”

  “Anything. I’ll do anything to help her. Just tell me what I have to do.”

  “You have to have unprotected sex with her.”

  “What?”

  “Unprotected sex is the only way for one wizard to share power with another. It will change you. It will create a bond between the two of you. Do you still want to do this?”

  “But unprotected? What if she gets pregnant?”

  “That is a risk you will have to take. If the worst happens, will you do right by her?”

  “Yes. But I don’t understand why.”

  “The act of totally joining is what allows the transfer. If you do not want to do this, I understand. She will recover without this, but it will take longer. It is up to you to decide. If I can help in any other way, please call.”

  “Okay.” Steve turned off the phone and pulled her shirt back down. “Peter,” he called. Peter opened the bathroom door. “Help me get her to your house. We can make sure she’s okay until she feels better.”

  Peter pocketed his phone and the
y checked the room to make sure they didn’t leave anything behind. Peter picked up her overnight bag, and Steve carried Alex out. They nodded to Victoria as they left. Steve cradled Alex as they drove back. Steve asked, “Could you take care of her for a few days?”

  “Don’t you want to do that?”

  “You know I can’t. She wouldn’t be safe alone in my cabin.”

  “How do I know your bear won’t rip into my place trying to get to her? You’ve told me about what you did to your front door.”

  “I’ll use the shackles so I can’t wander around.”

  “Will you be safe all tied up like that?”

  “I can barricade myself in my cave so nothing can attack me.”

  Peter slowed down at Steve’s driveway. “You’re sure about this?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Peter drove on down to his house. Steve carried Alex up to the guest room and tucked her into the bed.

  As Peter drove Steve home, Steve said, “I’ll come by in the morning as soon as I finish taking care of the animals.”

  “Is she going to be okay?”

  “I was told she needs a lot of rest and then she’ll be fine.” Steve got out and headed into his cabin. He took care of the animals then barricaded the doors and closed the window shutters. He grabbed the shackles and headed for his cave.

  As soon as he approached, the unicorn was waiting at the entrance. Steve carried the shackles in and started putting them on.

  The unicorn sniffed the shackles and backed up.

  “I need your help for the next few evenings.”

  The unicorn pawed the ground.

  “Can you lie in the passage so I can’t possibly get out?”

  The unicorn nodded.

  “Thanks. Alex is at Peter’s, and I don’t want to accidentally hurt them.”

  The unicorn nodded.

  The next day Alex stirred. Steve was asleep in a chair and Peter had entered the room.

  “How is he?”

  “He’s had a bad night. He put the shackles on so he couldn’t get here.”

  “Oh no. You should have left me at the hotel.”

  “You know we couldn’t do that.” Peter set a tray of food down next to her. “The best thing you can do is eat and sleep so you can leave.”

  Alex ate whenever Peter came with food and slept the rest of the time. The next day, when Peter woke her for lunch, she looked over at Steve sleeping and noticed the bandages around his wrists.

  “What happened to him?”

  “He tries to get out of the shackles.”

  “He shouldn’t have to do that for me.” A tear trickled down her cheek. “I’ll leave tomorrow. I should be rested enough to get home.”

  After two days of sleeping and eating, she had recovered enough to drive home. Even then, she spent most of the week sleeping. She fell behind on her work but spent every waking hour getting done what she could. She tried calling Steve to find out how he was faring, but he never answered. Would he reconsider and not go to Aspen Glen?

  Chapter 29

  A week before school started, Steve drove into Denver to the wizarding mall. He parked along the curb and waited until Alex showed up. He kept looking over the sheets of paper Principal Vale had given him as he killed time. I’m actually going to do this. He’d seen how fast Alex had gotten the chores done with magic. If he could learn a fraction of what she could do, this would all be worth it. Then there were the stones. She’d gathered in minutes what took him a couple of years of hard work to get. He’d agreed to her spending the summer at his cabin. He’d given her the phone numbers for ordering a refill on the propane tank. Getting the hay in still worried him. Usually he rented a mower to harvest the meadow, instead she’d have to hire someone to come in. She kept insisting that she could take care of it. He had to trust that she could deal with it or call him if she had any problems.

  He had to wait ten minutes until the scheduled meeting time. Two minutes before ten Alex stepped out of the door that was under a swaying metal sign that said, The Dirty Dog. He’d wondered if this was the right place as he drove through the neighborhood of deserted brick warehouses. The sign and a few parked cars were the only indications that he’d followed the directions correctly.

  Alex led him in the first door through a brick hallway made from the same brick as the building. The hallway extended to the right along the edge of the building, with another door at the end. Next to this door was a chalkboard with a sign that said, “High Tension Lines Present Inside This Building. Management Is Not Responsible For Any Damage to Electrical Equipment. Please Leave All Electronics and Weapons Outside.”

  Alex led him through the door into another brick hallway that led back to the left. At the end of this hallway were various-sized lockers with a chalkboard on each one. Steve wondered why they had so many chalkboards and what they were for. The sign on the door at the end of this hallway said, “No Weapons Beyond This Point.” He was too busy looking around to notice what Alex wrote on the chalkboard. She opened the door and led him in.

  Once inside, Alex flagged down a waitress. “We have an appointment with Ms. Meggin.”

  The waitress led them through the tables toward the back. The restaurant had dark wood tables in the center and booths hugging the walls off to the left and to the right of the door. Dark wood paneling covered the bottom four feet of the walls and a richly colored mountain scene was painted above this. The scene seemed to blend right into the paneling. The colors lightened as the scenes turned to mountains, and the sky above the mountains continued up the walls onto the ceiling. An oil lamp with a red globe was on each of the tables. A wonderful scent of freshly baked bread and soups permeated the air. There were several tables with customers, so Steve wondered if the hours on the outside door hadn’t been correct. There was soft lighting throughout the restaurant cast by the many burning oil lamps hanging from the ceiling. He was reminded of an old-fashioned ale house, one from the nineteenth century.

  They were then shown to Ms. Meggin’s office. Alex sat down at one of the tables outside the office. “I’ll wait here while she gets you registered.”

  The office was another wood-paneled room with the whole left side covered with bookshelves containing large leather-bound volumes. Ms. Meggin was an older woman who seemed to always be smiling. She rose as he entered her office. After shaking his hand, she motioned for him to take a chair. She added, “Hi, I’m Dana Meggin. Please call me Dana. I’m glad to meet you. Congratulations on being accepted at Aspen Glen. You’ll enjoy your upcoming years there. First, I need to see a picture ID to verify who you are.” He pulled out an ID and showed it to her. “Good, now I need to get you registered so you can access the buildings.”

  With this, she opened one of the large volumes that had been lying on her desk. She continued. “You need to sign on the line next to your name. This book is magically connected to the chalkboards located at all of the entrances. To access the buildings, you sign one of the chalkboards, which verifies your signature, and the door will open. To access other malls in the different cities, you sign your name and then print Dirty Dog below. The board will then verify your signature with these books on the shelves. Now to get the bad part over with, I have the math and English tests. If you’ll have a seat at one of the tables, you can get these out of the way.” With this she led him back out to the tables outside her office. She motioned the waitress over and added, “Please have a complimentary milk, tea, soft drink, water, or coffee while you’re working. The tests are only to see if you might need some help in these areas.”

  Steve mentioned, “All the lamps on the tables had red globes when I came in. Now they’re all clear.”

  “When a nonmagical customer enters the building all of the globes turn red so the other customers know to not do any magic. They, and now you, are not allowed to do magic until the globes turn clear. You’ll notice that the kitchen is completely hidden from view. This is to enable the cook to continue working while nonm
agical customers are here. We’ll go over some more of this after you’ve finished your tests,” answered Dana while placing a test, some extra sheets of paper, and a couple of pencils on his table. “Take your time, and please show all work on the test sheet so the teacher can see how you formulated your answer. If you’re not sure about a question, write ‘My best guess is’ in the space.” With this he ordered a drink and sat down to work on the test.

  The first page was a math test with ten questions. He could tell that they were checking addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, a little algebra, with a little geometry thrown in. He struggled through but thought he had done well enough. The second part was to write a page or less on either “What is your favorite hobby and tell me why you like it” or “Tell me about your favorite pet.” He wrote a little over a page on the unicorn. He quickly finished and took his answers back to Dana’s office.

  After he entered, she added, “As a reward for getting through the test, I have a coupon for you for one free meal in the restaurant. The restaurant is open to the magical community from five a.m. to midnight. From five to eight a.m. and between eight p.m. and midnight we only have a partial selection of menu items available. Whereas, between eight a.m. and eight p.m. we have a full selection. On Friday and Saturday evenings from five thirty to seven thirty, the chef offers some specials that are out of this world. We usually have a waiting line during these times. If you need food at another time, some special arrangements can usually be made. We have one staff member here in the restaurant area twenty-four hours a day. They make sure that everything is running efficiently and can handle almost any problem. There are also rooms for rent on the second and third floors and a couple of suites on the fourth. Let me give you a tour of the facilities.”

  Alex got up and followed them.

  With this, Dana showed him to a door with a chalkboard on the back, left wall. “I would like you to try the door to make sure your signature has been accepted. If you are entering with someone else, one person needs to sign and write below escorting followed by the other names. Each person needs to personally sign except for the board accessing the garage, where the driver can sign everyone in. This is done as a security measure. If you’re in trouble, sign with your left hand, spell your name wrong, or write completely different; and you will all be sent to the security office for questioning.”