Magical Midlife Invasion

by Breene, K. F.

  “Did Dad mention anything else, other than the flowers?”

  She thought for a moment. “No. He said the weather’s nice, but I knew that.”

  I chewed on my lip. “Nothing about…seeing anything weird?”

  She tilted her head. “Like what?”

  “Like…animals…in the woods?”

  “No. Why?”

  “We have a problem with something eating the flowers,” Ulric said, peeling the label on his beer.

  “Oh yes.” She scoffed loudly. “They are constantly after my roses! I had to put wire fencing around them.”

  I let it go. Clearly my dad hadn’t said anything, and there were other extreme matters to attend to. “Why’d you bring down a doll, Mom?”

  “The dolls! You didn’t tell me you had so many dolls! I didn’t remember you having that many dolls when you were married to”—she put a gloved hand to the side of her mouth—“you know who.”

  “We all know who, Mom. I haven’t been secretive about the divorce—”

  “Oh, here.” My mom quickly took off her gloves and laid them beside the sink. “Do you want a beer? Austin?” Her smile spanned her whole face for Austin, it seemed like. “You’ll have a beer, won’t you?”

  “Yes, please. Thank you,” he replied.

  “So polite. I’d worried about the younger generation and their manners, but all of you boys are so polite.” She dug into the fridge.

  Mr. Tom jerked upright, hitting his head on the edge of the oven. He winced and rubbed his head. “I am perfectly capable of…” But the beers had already been pulled free of the packed space.

  Austin grabbed a couple of brown bottles—my mother favored Coors Light over my father’s Pabst—and twisted off the caps. He handed one to me and then stepped back, giving me space.

  “You are a true entertainer, Mrs. McMillian,” Ulric said with a sly grin. “An amazing host. You know what people want before they know it themselves.”

  “Oh now…” My mom batted her hand at him, pleased by the flattery. “Call me Martha.”

  Mr. Tom glowered and then shut the oven. “It has another half-hour. We held off a little in case you ran late, miss.”

  “Niamh was right,” Ulric muttered to Cedric. “He’s often late with dinner.”

  “Don’t mind them,” my mom told Mr. Tom. “I’m always late, aren’t I, Jessie? Time just gets away from me.” She took a long sip of her beer.

  “She’s trying to make you feel better, Mr. Tom. Is it working?” Ulric said.

  Mr. Tom met Ulric’s mocking grin with anger. “I will just check on the others.”

  “Jessie, how about some clam dip? I brought some up since you didn’t come for Christmas. I figure we can have a sort of mock Christmas dinner. I made some deviled eggs, too.”

  I didn’t bother telling her that she’d informed me of this twice already. “Awesome. Sounds great.”

  My mom pulled the plug on the sink before heading back to the fridge.

  “This is such a lovely, big kitchen,” she said. “We can all gather right here. I hardly have to move at all. And with Tom helping with the cooking, it’s almost like a vacation.”

  “If you let him do all the work, like he wants to, it’ll completely be like a vacation,” I said. “You can even go wine tasting in town.”

  “Don’t be silly, I couldn’t let him do everything.” She eyed me. “But wine tasting. That’s an idea. It’s such a cute little town. We only drove through. I’d love to visit some of the shops and things.”

  “And wineries,” Ulric said.

  My mom grinned sheepishly, resting the Tupperware of clam dip on the island and grabbing the chips. “Do you have a chip-and-dip party set, Jessie?”

  “I’ve told the others they can only have a taste so you and Dad can get enough,” I said, putting down my beer and rooting through the cabinets. “I think we do.”

  “Don’t be silly. They can have as much as they’d like.”

  “I do not think you should be worried about that, Mrs. McMillian,” Ulric said dryly. Cedric shook his head.

  “Call me Martha, please! You make me feel old.” My mom watched me dig through the various crystal bowls and platters.

  “What…” Mr. Tom bustled in with two empty cans. They clinked down onto the counter. “Miss, what are you looking for? Here, let me help you. I swear, the whole place is in complete disarray. Does no one respect my role in this household?”

  I got out of the way after telling him what I needed and, on impulse, ducked into to the fridge to pull out two deviled eggs. I handed one to Austin and bit into the other.

  “Really? Can’t pass one to me?” Ulric put up his hands.

  “You’re giving Mr. Tom a hard time. You don’t deserve one,” I replied, laughing.

  “I am not worried about what a disco-haired upstart has to say regarding my affairs,” Mr. Tom grumbled. “I was storming the gates when his parents were in diapers.”

  I nudged him with my foot, hoping my mom hadn’t noticed.

  “I am hurrying, miss. Please, have patience,” he responded, clearly misreading that nudge. “There are fine things in this house.”

  “How about you, Austin?” my mother said, sounding like she was continuing a conversation no one had started.

  “How’s that, ma’am?” Austin asked, stepping up to the corner of the island, his arm brushing mine.

  “You’re a handsome young man. Do you have a woman nailed down yet?” she asked.

  “Mom,” I said through my teeth. I knew where this was going.

  “Not yet, ma’am,” he answered.

  She clucked her tongue. “Well, isn’t that a shame. Such a well-mannered, handsome man with no attachments.” She shook her head. “Yes, such a shame. Does your mother have as hard of a time setting you up as I do with Jessie? I swear, everyone I mention isn’t good enough.”

  “I live five hours away from all of them, Mom,” I said, staring daggers at her. “I’m just taking a little me time after the divorce.”

  “I’ll never understand this new emphasis on me time. Back in my day, if you had a bump in the road, you just got on with things, right, Tom?”

  Mr. Tom finally pulled out a crystal set. “Yes, madam, on that we can agree. I have repeatedly told the miss that she must get back out there. She has had a few failed dates, not strictly her fault, but that is no reason to give up.”

  “Yes. Exactly. My, isn’t this beautiful? Jacinta McMillian, when did you get such beautiful dishware?”

  I didn’t bother correcting her on the last name. She’d never acknowledged the name change before; it seemed less than likely she’d start now, which was actually preferable. I didn’t really feel a connection to it anymore, anyway.

  “It was left over from the last owners,” I said. “Most of this stuff came with the house.”

  “Such a steal.” She finished transferring the items into the new bowls and pushed them into the center of the island. “Though I did see a couple cracks forming in the TV room.” She waved her hand at the far wall. “Must be the plaster or something. The plaster is coming off. I just pushed on it, and it seemed to click back into place, so that’s good.”

  I widened my eyes, looking at Mr. Tom. His brow furrowed. Could she be talking about the secret doors? They were innocuous enough to look like cracks in the wall when they were popped open. What else could it be? But why was Ivy House opening the secret doors for them?

  “I better get a bowl for your father,” she muttered into the suddenly still room. “He won’t want to come all the way in here to get it, and I doubt all these young people with good hearing want to go into that room with the blaring TV. They’ll be deaf in an hour!”

  “Let me, madam.” Mr. Tom reached for the Tupperware of clam dip, prepared to scoop some into the smaller dish he already had at the ready.

  “No, no, I have it, don’t worry.” She shifted, throwing her shoulder against his arm, knocking him out of the way. I’d never seen her
so pushy. “Anyway, Jessie, you have a handsome young man right there. He looks about your age. You two should go out. What are you waiting for?”

  “We can’t, Mom. We work together.”

  “What, on the woods stuff? That’s not really work. You don’t have a boss. I don’t think it’s a problem.” My mom took the bowl from an increasingly hostile Mr. Tom and spooned some of the thick white dip into it.

  “I do owe you that date,” Austin said, watching me pull the chip bowl closer and grab a ruffled chip.

  “You going to try that stuff, alph—Austin?” Ulric asked. Jasper leaned over the island, watching.

  “When in Rome…” Austin reached for a chip.

  “There, see? A date is a great idea. You two seem like you get along.” My mom beamed.

  “It’s just as friends,” I said, my voice tinged with warning, hoping my mother would just drop it. I wasn’t so sure a date, even as friends, was a great idea. Not after that episode outside. When it came to Austin, my brakes weren’t holding up as well as I would like. “Anyway, Mom, what about the dolls?” I said. “You can’t leave those things lying around the house. Wait…did you leave the door to the doll room open?”

  Austin paused with a chip barely dabbed with dip nearly to his mouth. Ulric’s eyes widened. Everyone knew what those dolls were capable of. Giving them free run of the house was a nightmare. A literal nightmare.

  I closed my eyes, mentally pinpointing the door to their room. Thankfully, it was shut. I’d have to keep checking it vigilantly, just in case. My mother could not be trusted. Neither, it seemed, could Ivy House.

  Having apparently ignored my question, my mom fussed with rinsing out the empty Tupperware. While she was otherwise occupied, Mr. Tom recognized his opportunity and grabbed the smaller bowl meant for my dad, then the bag of chips, and hurried out of the room.

  “Drat that man.” My mom fumed after him. “He just will not take a break. He’s doing too much, Jessie, he really is. He doesn’t need to wait on us!”

  “Mom. Listen to me, those dolls need to stay in that room. That’s their room.”

  “Tell that to the rodents you have running through it. Your father and I heard a big one up there. I’d hate for those lovely little dolls to get chewed up. I made sure to move them around the house so they can be enjoyed and stay safe. Your father is going to tackle that rodent problem tomorrow. It’s the least we can do.”

  “We do not have rats, madam,” Mr. Tom said on re-entry.

  Ulric, Jasper, Austin, Cedric, and I all exchanged anxious glances. None of us wanted those dolls running around the house willy-nilly, able to terrorize us at will.

  I connected eyes with Jasper. “Go,” I mouthed. “Put them away.”

  “Make sure you shut the door behind you,” Ulric whispered urgently.

  Ivy House had better stop animating those dolls for my parents to hear. I didn’t know how I’d retaliate, but I’d think of something.

  “Hmm. This is actually really good. Seafood dip is good, who knew,” Austin murmured, reaching for another chip.

  “I have very thoroughly checked every inch of this house for rodents and applied the correct defensive measures,” Mr. Tom said, missing the exchange about the dolls. He’d never considered them a problem.

  “Well, something up there is knocking around.” My mom patted Mr. Tom on the arm when he was within range. “It’s a big old house—it can be hard to get to every inch, especially with all those stairs. Don’t worry; Pete is an excellent mouser. He’ll help you out. Now.” She glanced around. “Where are the table settings? I’ll just go set the table, will I?”

  Mr. Tom hung his head.

  “I guess I need to make good on that date finally, huh?” Austin said quietly, still by my side, grabbing his third dip-laden chip. “Your mother said so.”

  Nine

  A vibrating scream filled my head and tore through my body, jolting me upright in bed. The darkness crowded in around me and pushed against the windows. My heart thudded, but no other sound reached me, the night still. Whatever had awoken me wasn’t auditory—it was magical.

  My phone clattered on my nightstand, and I jumped. Austin’s name blinked onto the screen. I’d left the connection between us open to monitor his healing—he must’ve felt me startle awake.

  “Hey,” I said when I put it to my ear, breathing heavily. “What’s up?”

  “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

  Another blast pounded through me, shaking every bone in my body.

  The alert! I’d set the tripwire before I’d gone to bed. Someone was out there.

  “Something must’ve tripped my magical wire,” I whispered, slinking out of bed and onto the floor.

  “Can you see what it is from your window?”

  “I don’t feel a presence,” Ivy House said through our magical communication. “It’s not the basajaun. I do not feel whatever is out there. My defenses are blind to it. There is a spell out there, that I do not know, that can have this effect. I thought it would’ve been lost with time…”

  Fear trickled through me. That was a huge blind spot. Ivy House had always been able to feel someone stepping onto the property. If she couldn’t feel the danger, neither could I.

  I crawled on my hands and knees across the floor, the phone in my hand, Austin saying something that was lost to the distance. Crouching below the window, I put the phone back to my ear. “I’m about to find out.”

  I rose oh-so-slowly, conscious that my head would interrupt the plane of the window and hoping the darkness would mask it.

  “You can’t feel anything through Ivy House?” I could hear his voice shaking with movement. He was probably jumping out of bed.

  I double-checked what Ivy House had said; the wood sparked to life in my mind’s eye, various dots flaring where animals roamed, lighting up my internal map. Edgar in the trees, the disturbance surely within his line of sight. I ripped away the barrier to our magical connection. His emotions roared to life—confused, incredulous, and a little let down. The affected area was a blank space on my Ivy House map. Whatever it was, Edgar could clearly see it, but Ivy House definitely couldn’t feel it.

  “Magic,” I said softly, my heart picking up the pace, probably pounding at a dangerous pace now. “It must be magic.”

  “What’s magic?” Austin asked.

  I quickly described the situation as I lifted up enough to see outside. The backyard spanned in front of me, the moon but a sliver, shedding next to no light. Which was exactly what drew my attention to the animal across the way. I sucked in a startled breath.

  “I see it,” I whispered hoarsely. “I see it!”

  “What is it?”

  I shook my head, then blinked a couple of times. “A deer. A great big buck. A seven-pointer. No, six? One side of his antlers has seven points; one has six. He’s the biggest deer I’ve ever seen in my…”

  My words faded away. My breath caught in my chest.

  “He’s a shifter, isn’t he?” I asked. “A deer this big has to be a shifter.”

  “Likely.” Austin’s voice turned fierce. “I’m coming. Don’t move. I’ll be there soon.”

  “Wait, but…” Dead air. I hadn’t gotten to tell him the unnerving issue with this animal.

  It glowed.

  Its body looked like it was shrouded in a sheen of pale blue against the black backdrop.

  I grabbed both edges of the windowsill, my phone on the ground, wondering what to do next. Ivy House couldn’t take care of the problem for me, not when she didn’t know there was one. This was up to me and my team.

  I could use the defenses, but I hadn’t practiced with them as I should’ve. I’d probably kill instead of trap or maim, and I didn’t feel comfortable doing that. Not until I was sure the creature posed more of a threat than eating Edgar’s flowers. The right thing to do would be to trap it with my magic so I could question it. For that, I’d need to get closer. I wasn’t totally set on magical nets.

&
nbsp; What if I spooked it before I could do a magical net, though? Deer could hear crazy well, regardless of whether they were shifters, and I was the world’s worst sneak. If I spooked it, it would know the jig was up. If its intent was dangerous, that would mean it would change its plan of attack. Knowing about the intrusion meant we had the upper hand right now—if it knew we were onto it, it would regain the advantage. I couldn’t risk it.

  Flight!

  I could head up to the third floor, jump off the roof on the other side of the house, get high into the sky, and follow it when it inevitably moved on. I could find out where it went, and if it changed into its human form, I’d know who we were looking for.

  But I had smaller wings than a male gargoyle, and I had to beat them more often, which could be loud, especially if I thought I was falling out of the sky and panicked. It would be smarter to recruit Ulric, small and swift, or Jasper, a great glider.

  I chewed my lip, feeling Austin on the move, but he was still too far away. That deer didn’t eat much at a time. It wouldn’t be here for long. I had to get a flyer in the sky right now, or I needed to attack the intruder, hopefully stunning it so I had a chance to get a net or magical binding around it.

  I turned around with purpose and immediately screamed. Mr. Tom was standing just a few feet behind me in his house sweats, staring out the window. I hadn’t felt or heard him enter the room. I ignored him so often that it had become commonplace.

  “Edgar was wrong—clearly it is a deer eating his flowers,” he said, sneaking toward the window.

  “Damn it, Mr. Tom, announce yourself, will you?”

  “Sorry, miss. I felt your distress. Is it my eyes, or is that creature glowing?”

  “It is. It’s almost certainly a shifter, and it must have a thick layer of magic on it to shield it from Ivy House.”

  Mr. Tom knelt next to me. “These are bad tidings. Someone has figured out how to make themselves invisible while on this property.”

  “Yeah, and we need to find out who that someone is, not to mention how to prevent it from happening again. If magic can get them in here, there has to be some kind of reverse spell to strip it away.”