A Malevolent Magic in Faerywood Falls

by Blythe Baker

  She didn’t take her sharp gaze off me. “I want to know why you decided to ask me about the records again when I had clearly already told you that I had no idea about them.”

  I blanched. So, she wanted to dive right into that discussion, huh? I should have expected as much. “I’m sorry,” I said, holding up my hands in defense. “I really do apologize. Something happened yesterday that really upset me, and it got me thinking about all this stuff again, and I was just really hoping that you’d have the answers I was looking for – ”

  “So you called and threatened me?” she asked, arching a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “Honey, I don’t know where you learned about social etiquette, but that’s not the way to get someone to answer your questions. The real world is not a movie set.”

  “I know,” I said, looking down at my fingers knotted together in my lap. “I really am sorry. I should have watched my temper better.”

  Ruth folded her arms and glared at me across the table. The peace offering cookies didn’t seem to be doing anything.

  “Look, I don’t know if someone is putting you up to this or what, but I’ve got to be honest, I – ” she said.

  “No one’s putting me up to it,” I said. “I really am looking for answers about where the files containing my parents’ death certificates went.”

  “I already told you, I have no idea what happened to them,” she said. “And no amount of threatening voicemails is going to change that.”

  I sighed heavily, sitting back in my chair. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  “Why do you need this information so badly?” she asked, shrugging her shoulders. “If they’re already dead, then why does it matter?”

  “It matters to me,” I said. “I have…a lot of questions about my past, and knowing who my parents were will help me to get those questions answered.”

  Ruth’s eyes narrowed. “But knowing how they died? It doesn’t seem like that will give you anything aside from more anguish about the whole thing.”

  “I know,” I said. “And it probably will. But – ”

  I hesitated, looking across the table at her. Even though I’d been pretty awful to her over the phone, she’d still showed up and was willing to hear me out. Even if she was upset, she was still willing to show some level of kindness toward me by asking me about this.

  But did that mean I could trust her? She knew manipulative singing spells that could change my emotions, much like that little music box I’d found just a little while before.

  I decided it was maybe best to get her on my side before asking her about the records again. Something told me she was still lying to me.

  “I found something of my own from when I was a child…it had…well, it had blood on it,” I said.

  Ruth’s gaze sharpened. “Oh?”

  I nodded. “And I think it belonged to one of my parents. I’m assuming it was my mother. When my aunt and my adoptive mother found me, there was a note that my biological mother had written. She must have written it before she was killed. And if the blood I found was hers…”

  “But how would you know it was hers?” Ruth asked.

  “I don’t,” I said. “That’s why I am having it tested. I need to be sure.”

  Ruth took a deep breath, and shifted in her chair. “So you were hoping I’d be able to confirm the names for you? Help you find the files so you could work out what happened to your mother?”

  “Right,” I said.

  “I see,” Ruth said, tossing her hair over one shoulder. I caught sight of a glittering diamond ring on her left hand. “What I want to know, though, is what this proof is that you claimed to have, the proof that I somehow am responsible for the missing files? That I somehow…oh, how did you say it…doctored the records in order to deliberately hide information?”

  My heart skipped and I looked away. “Oh. That. Um…”

  Her dark blue eyes hardened into chunks of icy anger. “Just as I thought. You were bluffing. You don’t have any proof about anything.”

  “Then why did you come here?” I asked defensively, my cheeks starting to burn with frustration and embarrassment. “If I wasn’t right, then all you would’ve had to do was call me back and tell me so.”

  “Because believe it or not, I rather like you, Marianne Huffler. You’re a sharp girl, and I didn’t see any reason why we couldn’t work this out like grown adults,” she said. “I understand that you’re hurting and that you want some answers, but I’m sorry, I am not going to be the one who can give them to you. Threatening me over the phone is not going to change any of that.”

  I opened my mouth and immediately snapped it closed again.

  “I understand it might look incriminating that I was one of the few who had any sort of access to those files. But you don’t even know if the files that are missing even belonged to your parents. And no one knows whether or not someone else could’ve come in years ago and ripped out the pages you’re looking for,” Ruth said.

  My own eyes narrowed. “And how do I know you weren’t the one who went in and did that a long time ago?” I asked.

  She closed her eyes momentarily, taking a deep, steadying breath. “Because, as I’ve said more than once now, I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Then why am I still so sure that you’re hiding something?” I asked.

  “I have no idea,” Ruth said, looking away. “But you’re a lot nosier than you probably should be. And if you wanted me to talk with you more about this, then you shouldn’t have called me and left such a nasty message.”

  “I’ve already apologized for that,” I said.

  “And yet, here you sit, continuing to ask me probing questions,” Ruth said. “I realize there’s nothing I can say that will get you to listen to me, or to believe me, so I think it’s best if I just leave…”

  “Hold on – ” I said, my mind racing. But it was no use. I didn’t want her to think that I’d asked her here to accuse her. I just wanted her to be honest with me. Maybe if I hadn’t left her that message, I wouldn’t have been in this mess.

  Ruth stood up and quickly turned on her heel back toward the door. Her purse swung around and struck the bookshelf behind her.

  The edge of her bag caught the corner of the wooden music box, and just like it had done earlier, it fell through the air and struck the floor with a crack.

  My heart leapt into my throat as I watched the box roll over and the lid fall open. Not again!

  I jumped out of my chair and bent over to pick up the box, but Ruth, who’d turned around to see what fell, stretched out her arm, preventing me. Her eyes were glued to the now open box on the floor.

  The sad, lulling melody drifted up toward us like steam off a river on a cool fall morning. It grabbed hold of my heart, making my eyes sting and the back of my throat itch. The urge to cry crept up within me, nearly smothering me.

  We stood there, frozen, peering down at the box on the floor. I needed to close that box, but her hand was on my shoulder, making sure that I didn’t move an inch.

  “What is this…?” Ruth murmured, getting down on her knees to stare at the box. Her blonde hair swung in front of her face like a curtain, shielding her expression from my view.

  My heart was fluttering madly as I tried not to listen to the music. I had to close that box. I needed to…needed to…

  What was it I needed to do with that box?

  The harder I tried not to listen, the louder the music seemed to grow in my mind. It swirled around me, tangled itself in my soul like a knotted cord, and the tighter I pulled on it, the worse the knot became.

  My gaze began to blur, and my eyelids suddenly felt as if tiny weights were tugging them downward. My body felt warm and relaxed, and I staggered into the shelf beside me, making it tremble.

  “Ruth,” I said, curling my hands into fists and digging my fingernails into my palms, hoping the pain would help keep me awake. “Don’t – don’t touch the…”

  But either she couldn’t hear me, or s
he didn’t want to, because her fingers were closing over the small music box, lifting it into the air.

  I clamped my hands over my ears. It didn’t help much, if at all. “Ruth, close it,” I said, my own voice echoing inside my head. “Please.”

  She glanced over at me, her eyes wide with excitement. She opened her mouth and spoke, but I couldn’t hear her.

  The music caused memories to bounce around inside my mind. The man I used to love back in my old hometown lying in a casket. Athena, my pet fox, lying at the side of the road after being struck by a car. The look on Mrs. Bickford’s face when she realized I’d stolen her ability to see and speak with her deceased husband. The anguish I’d felt when I found that baby blanket with the blood streaked across it…

  I blinked, forcing my mind to clear. But it was like trying to wave fog away, and it did hardly anything.

  I blinked groggily, and grabbed onto Ruth’s shoulder. She was entranced by the little box, but it didn’t seem to be bothering her at all.

  She turned her gaze up to me, and I saw that her eyes had taken on a glassy appearance.

  “Do you know what this means?” she asked me, returning her gaze to the wooden box.

  Inside the lid, a tiny mirror glittered, surrounded in crushed red velvet. A miniscule dancer on a spring spun in front of the mirror, her painted figure worn as if she’d been touched many times by a loving child’s hand.

  “No…” I said, stifling a yawn.

  The world around me was growing dark. The melody was drawing up emotions from within me like a bucket in a well, bringing things to the surface that I hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

  More memories rushed through my mind. My mother crying after my adopted father walked out on us. My friend from elementary school getting beaten up at recess by one of the meaner girls. My eyes on the rearview mirror as I drove out of my little town in Missouri for the last time before moving to Faerywood Falls.

  The sorrow was so great that it was like I was drowning in it. It grabbed hold of me, shook me, and tried to smother me beneath its weight.

  I didn’t know what to do.

  My legs seemed to give out beneath me, and this time, I didn’t try to stop them. I didn’t have the strength.

  The music played on and on as I fell, washing over me like I’d fallen beneath the waves in the sea, and all I could feel was relief. Immense, pure relief at not having to fight the magic anymore. Something in my spirit gave up, gave in, and succumbed to the spell’s design, even as some part of my mind raged against it.

  I landed on something soft and warm, though if that was in my dreams or in reality, I couldn’t be sure. It caught me, though, and soon the sounds of the music grew distant. My mind disconnected from reality, and I drifted off into a sleep so deep that I never had a chance of fighting.

  3

  Warmth was the first thing I became aware of. And pain. Severe pain in the side of my neck, and on the back of my leg.

  How hadn’t I felt that sooner?

  Slowly, I tried to open my eyes, but my body didn’t want to respond. The heaviness in my limbs and slowness of my breathing was trying to tell me to stay where I was. Maybe adjust myself so the pain would disappear, but to not linger long in the land of the waking.

  I pushed past the exhaustion, and with a sharp inhale, my eyes flew open.

  I was sprawled out on something soft, staring up at the ceiling of Abe’s antique store. I glanced to either side of me, and saw that I’d landed on the velvet sofa beside the table where Ruth and I had –

  Ruth.

  I sat up, and winced in pain as my neck muscles seized. Clamping a hand over the sore area, I realized that I’d fallen onto the couch at an odd angle, stretching the muscles of my neck in a way they weren’t used to being stretched.

  Massaging the side of my neck, I fished around underneath my legs, trying to find the culprit of the pain there, but as my senses came back to me, I realized that it had just fallen asleep, and the tingling sensation was sending sharp, needle-like jolts through my body as I shifted my weight.

  I looked around, realizing for the first time that the music had stopped. Another quick glance around told me that the box was gone. As was Ruth.

  It only took me another second to put two and two together.

  With a heavy sigh, I collapsed backward onto the sofa.

  I rubbed my eyes with the tips of my fingers, not caring whether or not I smeared my mascara all down my face.

  Ruth had somehow gotten away while I’d let myself fall asleep on this couch.

  How had I managed to do that? Just a few seconds before, things had been so tense between her and me. Under normal circumstances, it would’ve taken me quite some time to cool down after an argument like that one. Yet here I was, wiping the dried drool from the side of my cheek, the wrinkles from the velvet still clearly pressed into the skin of my bare arms.

  There was no doubt about it anymore. That wooden music box was magical. The song that it sang was a spell of some sort.

  A shiver ran down my spine. A spell like that could work, even without words?

  Then I remembered that I, too, had used music as a spell when I’d recently subdued the vicious dogs that belonged to a hermit woman who lived in the middle of the woods.

  Ruth must have known something about that box. It looked so ordinary, but the music…it hadn’t affected her like it affected me. She’d obviously been able to fight off its effects long enough to escape.

  Had she waited for me to fall asleep? Had she known that would happen? Maybe she recognized the song itself, and knew what it would do?

  I brushed some of my hair from my forehead where it was clinging to the sweat that had beaded there. Whatever it was, the music was powerful, and it had surprised her.

  I knew she was a spell singer. She’d been able to manipulate my emotions that day I’d gone to her house without her even knowing I was there. Her song had been simple, and by the sounds of it, I wasn’t the first one who had been lured into her yard by her spell songs. So my question was, was it possible for a music box like the one I’d found here in the shop to play magical songs?

  I pulled myself up off the couch and looked around, trying to will the blood to travel back down my legs. The one leg was tingling as I hobbled over toward the door.

  The only cars in the parking lot were my own and Abe’s.

  I sighed. She really did leave.

  The several clocks throughout the store suddenly chimed all at once, causing me to jump. I whirled around and glanced at the closest one; a black rimmed clock that hung on the wall with the image of Mallard ducks flying over a pond.

  It was almost an hour after opening.

  My blood ran cold. Had any customers showed up while I’d been passed out on the couch?

  I listened hard, but all I could hear was the sound of my own frantic heart and the ticking of the clocks.

  I wandered back to the counter and poured myself a tall cup of coffee. I didn’t even care that it wasn’t all that hot.

  Sipping it greedily, willing the liquid to work as fast as it possibly could, my eyes fell on the silver necklace that had fallen out of the music box.

  That box wasn’t the first thing to have been stolen from Abe’s antique shop. I wished that it hadn’t happened at all, but to have yet another magical item disappear right from underneath my nose?

  It made me think about the magic book that Silvia Griffin had stolen. She’d gotten so upset with me that she’d broken in and taken it under the cover of darkness; Ruth had just waited until I passed out to take the music box.

  What was it with these spell weavers being so eager to get their hands on these magical items that they felt the urge to just steal things?

  So, not only had Ruth lied to me about the records – at least, I was almost positive she was lying about them – she thought it was okay to steal the music box, too.

  Maybe she wasn’t as sweet as I’d originally thought…

  If
I left now, I might be able to catch her just as she was getting back to her house. Then I could just demand to have the box back, and tell her that I really did have proof now that she’d done wrong, and tell her that I had Sheriff Garland’s number at the ready –

  There was a creak on the staircase going up to Abe’s apartment over the shop, and my heart skipped.

  “Hey, Marianne? Everything okay down there?” I heard him call.

  “Yeah, everything’s fine,” I said, my voice betraying my grogginess.

  I wandered over to the stairs and saw him standing on the top one, peering down. His hand was gripping the banister as he stared down at me.

  “It’s been awfully quiet down there. I thought I heard some raised voices a while ago, and haven’t heard anything since,” he said.

  “I know, I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “There was a customer here who got a little upset.” Part of me wanted to tell him that it was handled, but the truth was it was anything but handled. And I wasn’t sure that I was ready to admit that something had gotten stolen.

  Again.

  “Well, is everything alright now?” Abe asked, concern making the wrinkles in his forehead stand out.

  “Things are fine now,” I said. “She left a little while ago.”

  “What about you?” Abe asked. “Are you alright?”

  “Oh, me?” I asked. “I’m fine, yeah. Maybe a little tired still, but that breakfast with you really helped me this morning.”

  A smile split the worry on his face. “Well, I’m glad to hear it. Oh, and while I’ve got you here, my daughter is coming by to take me to my doctor’s appointment around eleven.”

  “Okay,” I said with a smile. “Just a check-up, I hope?”

  His smile widened. “Just a check-up, not to worry. He says the physical therapy seems to be helping my leg get stronger, so I’m not going to complain.”

  Confident that Abe had no idea about Ruth and the stolen box, I wandered back to the counter and waited for more customers to arrive.