The Magical Match

by E. D. Baker

  Certain that they must have heard some sort of animal, Cory waited for the little dragon to return. When time passed and she didn’t come back, Cory pulled on her robe and went downstairs to knock on Blue’s door.

  “I think there might be something outside,” she told him when he opened the door. “Shimmer went to investigate and hasn’t come back.”

  “Just a moment,” he said, and shut the door. He was back out a little while later wearing his robe over his pajamas and shoes on his feet.

  “Is everything all right?” Macks asked from two doors down.

  “We’re going to see what Shimmer found outside,” Blue told him.

  Macks grabbed his shoes and followed them down the hall. They went out the back door onto the terrace and stopped to look around. There was a full moon, and everything stood out in an eerie light.

  “Is that fire coming out of Shimmer’s den?” Blue asked, peering into the darkness.

  Cory looked toward the den and saw a bright glow on the ground outside the opening. She jumped when she heard a horrible bellow and the glow flashed brighter. All three of them began to run.

  “Shimmer! Are you all right?” Cory called.

  Blue reached the den first. He stopped just outside the opening. Macks stopped beside him and said, “Who is that?”

  Shimmer was standing a few feet inside her den with her back to the opening. A being as tall as an ogre faced her from the other end of the cave. Big and broad-chested, he had a blocky head and knobs sticking out from either side of his neck. When he saw Cory, he let out a half-hearted roar.

  Taking it as a challenge, Macks roared back. The full-blooded ogre’s roar was enough to make the walls of the den shake. The creature cowered as if someone had hit him.

  “May I ask what you’re doing in my dragon’s den?” asked Cory.

  “Hiding, until I could jump out and scare you. At least that was my assignment. But when I got here and saw that you hang out with ogres, I figured you wouldn’t find me all that scary.”

  “Are you a member of the Itinerant Troublemakers Guild?” asked Blue. “Because if you are, I need your name and membership ID number. I’m FLEA Officer Blue.”

  “This just keeps getting better and better,” the being said. “And I was told this would be an easy assignment! Technically my name is Frankenstein’s Monster, although I prefer Frankenstein. I have my guild ID card here somewhere.” He started patting his pockets. “I was supposed to be here a few weeks ago, but my last job terrorizing villagers in the mountains ran a little long.”

  “You shouldn’t be here at all now,” said Macks. “The ITG contracts on scaring Cory were all canceled when the guilds that placed them lost the court case.”

  “You have got to be kidding me! I’ve been hanging out here, trying to figure out how to do my job for days now and the contract was canceled? No one told me! I’ve got to talk to somebody in the main office. I have three other villages I’m supposed to visit back in the mountains, but I came here instead. I can’t believe the guild loused up my schedule like this! I’m not the only one, either. Wolfie’s going to be mad when he hears that he didn’t need to come to town.”

  “Who is Wolfie?” asked Blue.

  “A friend of mine. If you’ll call off your dragon, you can talk to him yourself. No more fire, okay? I really hate fire.”

  “Come here, Shimmer,” Cory called. The little dragon turned and ran to her, flying into Cory’s arms with one beat of her wings.

  “If I’d known there was a dragon here, I never would have taken this job,” Frankenstein muttered as he stomped out of the cave.

  Cory rubbed her nose as he passed her. Frankenstein smelled awful! “He must be the one Weegie was telling me about,” she told Blue.

  When Frankenstein was well outside the den, he opened his mouth and howled three times. He was about to howl again when something moved among the trees and a werewolf slunk into the moonlight. “That’s enough already! I heard you the first time!” said the werewolf.

  “We don’t have to hide anymore,” Frankenstein told his friend.

  “I wasn’t hiding! I was waiting for the full moon to come out. It makes a bigger impression when I do this.” Positioning himself so that he stood with the moon behind him, the werewolf threw back his head and howled.

  Even though Cory could see the source of the sound, she shivered and grabbed hold of Blue’s hand.

  “You’re right,” said Macks. “That was very impressive.”

  “So why did you call me?” Wolfie asked Frankenstein.

  “The contract was canceled and the main office didn’t tell us! We came here for nothing!” the monster said.

  “Is that so? Well, if that’s the case, I’m going home. If I lope fast enough, I should be home before dawn. See you later, Frankie!” the werewolf said, and disappeared into the darkness.

  “Not if I see you first!” Frankenstein called after him.

  “About that guild ID card …,” said Blue.

  “I swear I’ve got it here somewhere,” the monster said, patting his pockets again.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Blue told him. “Just go and don’t ever come back.”

  “With pleasure!” Frankenstein said. With a wave of his hand, he tromped off into the darkness, leaving nothing but a lingering odor behind.

  “I hope that was the last of the ITG members coming after me,” Cory said with a yawn.

  “So do I,” said Blue. “You don’t deserve to be harassed.”

  “I was more concerned about getting some sleep. No maid of honor wants to look like something the monster dragged in.”

  This time when Cory crawled back into bed, she fell asleep right away. Shimmer had stayed outside, so Cory was confused when something in the room woke her a few hours later. She looked around, wondering what had woken her, when she spotted a vague shape at the foot of her bed. Cory peered at the figure, which seemed to be reaching toward her.

  “Lorelie …,” the figure moaned.

  “Who is Lorelie?” Cory asked as she sat up. She turned on the fairy light beside her bed and realized that she could see through whatever was standing there.

  “Turn that off!” the creature ordered.

  “You’re a ghost, aren’t you?” said Cory. “Do you want the light off because you think you’ll be scarier?”

  “No! I want it off because I’ve been in the dark all night and the bright light coming on like that hurts my eyes. Turn it off, will you?”

  Cory sighed and turned off the light. “You didn’t answer my question. Who is Lorelie?”

  “You are, of course,” said the ghost.

  “No, I’m not,” replied Cory. “There is no Lorelie in this house.”

  There was a rustling sound as the ghost riffled through a small stack of leaves. “Are you Chloe? Winnie? Francine? Cory?”

  “Yep, I’m that last one. I’m Cory.”

  “Dang! I must have gotten my leaves mixed up again. You were supposed to be my last visit of the night. Oh, well. At least I found the right house.” The leaves vanished as the ghost began to moan, “Cory …”

  “Are you a member of the ITG?” Cory asked. “Because if you are, you shouldn’t have come. The contracts to harass me have been canceled.”

  “Nope. No connection,” said the ghost. “Cory …”

  The door to the room suddenly burst open and three putti ran in brandishing squirt guns. “I told you I smelled a ghost!” cried the chef, Creampuff. “I have the best sniffer in the house!”

  “You can smell ghosts?” Cory asked, even as the ghost floated away from the putti, moaning.

  “Putti have amazing sniffers,” Orville said, touching his nose.

  “Stay away from me!” cried the ghost.

  “Ghosts don’t like us because we’re one of the few beings that can sense them,” said Orville.

  “Us and cats,” Creampuff told Cory.

  “Leave me alone!” the ghost wailed. “I have a job to do.”<
br />
  “Not in this house!” said Orville. “Get out and don’t come back!”

  All three putti started shooting their squirt guns at the ghost. Shrieking, it fled through the outside wall.

  “Thanks for that,” Cory told the putti. “I’m curious, though. What do ghosts smell like?”

  “Freezer-burned bananas,” said Creampuff.

  “What’s in the squirt guns?”

  “Lemon juice,” Orville declared. “Ghosts can’t abide anything citrus. Why don’t you keep this one? You never know when you might need it. I’ll put it in here.” Walking around Cory’s bed, he tucked it in her nightstand drawer.

  “You learn something new every day. Thanks again for your help,” she said, lying down. “But I really need to get some rest.”

  “Good night, miss,” Orville said, and hustled the other putti from the room.

  Cory was just drifting off when it occurred to her that she had no idea why the ghost had been there. If only the putti hadn’t come in quite so soon, she thought before she fell asleep.

  CHAPTER

  8

  The next morning, Cory and Blue rode with Lionel, Macks, and Estel to the park where Micah and Quince’s wedding was being held. After parking the car, they started following signs that read, THIS WAY TO THE WEDDING! Cory carried the bag with her new shoes and the things she was going to need to get ready. She was hoping she hadn’t forgotten anything when Blue said, “There are the tents.” She looked up to see two white tents set up in a small clearing.

  “They aren’t very big,” remarked Macks. “It must be a small wedding.”

  “I want a huge wedding, Macksie,” said Estel.

  “I know, sweetums, and that’s what we’ll have,” Macks told her.

  “Creampuff was disappointed that she wasn’t going to have to cook for a lot of people,” Lionel said.

  “They didn’t invite very many—only family and close friends,” said Cory. “Look, there are my grandparents.”

  Clayton and Deidre Fleuren stood at the edge of a small crowd, looking lost and slightly confused. They waved when they spotted Cory and Blue.

  “Why are you wearing that?” Deidre said, wrinkling her nose at Cory’s ordinary clothes. “I thought you were supposed to be in this wedding.”

  “I am,” Cory replied, and held up the bag she was carrying. “The store is bringing the dresses here. I have to go change my clothes.”

  “I don’t know if Quince is here,” said Deidre. “Micah said he hasn’t seen her.”

  “That’s a good thing,” Cory told her. “It’s supposed to be bad luck for the groom to see the bride the day of the wedding. At least not until she walks down the aisle. Is her family here?”

  “I don’t know!” Deidre snapped. “No one has introduced me to anyone. Hello, Lionel. I wasn’t expecting to see you. I thought you were dead.”

  “No, I’m still very much alive,” Lionel said with a laugh.

  “It’s good to see you again,” Cory’s other grandfather, Clayton, said as he held out his hand.

  “Cory,” Deidre said in a loud whisper. “Why did you bring two ogres with you? I told you they’re nothing but trouble.”

  Cory glanced at Macks. He looked particularly rough with his broken nose and missing tooth, but at least he was wearing a nice suit. “Macks is our friend, Grandmother. He’s also a friend of Micah’s. And this is Macks’s fiancée, Estel.”

  “Well, I never!” said Deidre.

  “Your mother hasn’t arrived yet,” said Clayton. “I thought she’d be here.”

  “I’m sure she was invited,” Cory said as she looked around. “I bet she shows up at the last minute.”

  “She’d better hurry, then,” Blue told her. “The wedding is supposed to start soon.”

  “I need to go find Quince and get ready. I’ll see you at the reception,” Cory said, and kissed Blue.

  Cory wasn’t sure where to look. She peeked into both tents. A long buffet table was set up in the first tent, along with smaller tables and lots of chairs, but there was no one in it. Everyone seemed to be headed for the second tent. When she peeked inside, she saw that rows of chairs had been set up to face the other end. Micah’s neighbors Salazar, Felice, Selene, and Wanita were seated together on one side. She also saw a few teachers who taught with Micah, as well as some people she didn’t know.

  Cory finally looked past the two tents and saw a third that was much smaller. She had taken a few steps toward it when she heard Quince wail, “What am I going to do?”

  “How could this have happened?” cried a woman’s voice.

  “What’s wrong?” Cory asked as she stepped into the tent.

  Quince was sitting on a chair holding a garish pink dress covered with ruffles. Another dress in a sickly shade of green was hanging from the corner of a large mirror. A woman who looked like an older version of Quince stood beside her, wringing her hands.

  “Oh, Cory, I don’t know what to do,” Quince said, holding up the pink dress. “They delivered this instead of the dress I ordered. Look at the color! Look at the size! And the ruffles! I can’t wear this.”

  “And that dress is for you,” the woman said, pointing at the one hanging on the mirror.

  “I’m sorry that I forgot to introduce you, Cory. This is my mother, May Apple,” said Quince.

  “Everyone calls me May,” the woman told her.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Cory said, then turned to look at the dresses. She was afraid that fairies were trying to ruin the wedding just because she was involved, and was thinking that she never should have agreed to be Quince’s maid of honor, when it suddenly occurred to her that the dresses seemed very familiar. Surely she had seen them before. Cory was trying to remember their visit to the store, when she recalled where she had seen the dresses. “These are the gowns those ogresses picked out! They must have gotten the tags mixed up. I bet those sprite children switched the tags! It’s just the kind of thing sprites like to do.”

  “But what am I going to wear?” Quince cried. “The ceremony is going to start soon and no one would even see me in this dress.”

  “Can we send someone to the store to get the right ones?” asked Cory.

  Quince shook her head. “There isn’t time.”

  “Even if we could stand the color, we can’t alter them. There’s far too much fabric to pin up,” said Quince’s mother.

  Cory thought for a moment. If they couldn’t exchange the dresses, or pin them up, maybe there was something else they could do—something that wouldn’t take any time at all. “Just a minute,” she said. “I might know someone who can help.”

  Cory ran to the tent where the ceremony was about to begin. Spotting Micah’s neighbors, she darted to the row where Wanita was seated. “Can you come with me?” she asked the witch.

  “I don’t want to miss the start of the wedding,” said Wanita. “I do love watching the bride walk down the aisle. I always watch to see if she’ll trip.”

  “Believe me, you won’t miss a thing,” Cory told her.

  When Wanita stood up, Cory hustled her out of the tent. “We need your help,” she said, leading her straight to Quince. “The store brought the wrong dresses.”

  “What do you want me to do—turn the shop girl into a mackerel?” asked Wanita.

  “Quince, do you remember Wanita? You may have met at my birthday party,” Cory said. When Quince nodded, Cory turned back to Wanita. “Actually, I was hoping you could change the dresses. These were made for ogresses. They aren’t anything like the dresses we ordered.”

  “I see!” Wanita said when Quince held up her dress. “You want me to make them smaller.”

  “And less pink,” said Quince. “And lose the ruffles. I want the dress I picked out—not this!”

  Wanita shrugged. “I can do that. But first you have to put them on. It’ll be a lot easier to get the right sizes if you’re wearing them.”

  As Cory and Quince changed their clothes, May looked at
Wanita and said, “You can do all this in just a few minutes?”

  “I’m a witch. I can do lots of things in a few minutes. Tsk! This is taking too long. I want to get back to the tent to make sure no one takes my seat. Here, let me help.”

  With a wave of her hand and a few mumbled words, Cory and Quince were wearing the dresses.

  “Oh!” Quince cried out from inside the enormous pink pile of fabric where only the top of her head was visible.

  Cory struggled inside the green dress, trying to pull the neckline below her eyes so she could see.

  “All right!” said Wanita. “Size first!” With a wave of her hand, the dresses shrank until they fit the girls.

  “And next we’ll lose the ruffles!”

  The ruffles vanished, leaving two plain, but full-skirted dresses.

  “Can you change the—” Quince began.

  “Style? Of course! We’ll start with the bride’s. The neckline is all wrong. No, not that. Maybe this. A little low. No, not low enough. Go stand in front of the mirror and tell me when I hit on something that you like. Sleeves? Short sleeves? No sleeves? High waist? Low waist? No waist? Long train, no train?”

  Cory and May stood back to watch as the gown changed on Quince with every flick of Wanita’s wrist. When Quince finally liked the style, Wanita said, “Now about the color. Are you sure you want to change it? I actually like the pink.”

  “But I don’t,” Quince said firmly. “I want it to be a very pale blue.”

  It took three tries before Wanita hit on a color that Quince liked. Then it was Cory’s turn. Instead of letting the witch try her hit-and-miss approach, she told Wanita what she wanted. It took her just a few tries to get the dress close to the one Cory had originally picked out.

  “Can I go now?” Wanita asked when Quince and Cory were satisfied.

  “Yes, and thank you very much!” Quince told her.

  “You’re welcome,” said Wanita. “We can call this my wedding present to you and Micah. I bought you some dishes and wrapped them myself. They’re already on your gift table, but I think I’ll take them back and keep them now. I really like their pig pattern, and apparently I like pink a lot more than you do.”