by Jessica Grey
He looked at me through narrowed eyes. “You are a strange one, to turn down riches and power.”
“I don’t desire riches. I just want to be happy.”
“Everyone has their own definition of happy, miller’s daughter.”
“They do.” I didn’t tell him what mine was. I felt, somehow, like that would be giving him power over me.
“I am in the business of making deals: I give you your heart’s desire, and you give me something in return. How can I help you if you don’t tell me what you desire.”
I looked down at my skirt. The king’s servants had clothed me in a dress fit for a princess. It felt weighty and uncomfortable to me, as if it too were trying to trap me. I stared at the intricate beading on the skirt, as if somehow it would give me the answer I sought. If only I could figure out a way to not be beholden either to this twisted man or to the king.
“I have something to trade,” I finally said. “If you are willing to take it.”
“What is that?” he sounded bored, but I could see the spark of interest in his eye.
“My beauty. Would you trade for it? A one-time bargain—you take my beauty and I...I will look like you.”
“What’s in it for you?”
“I want to be taken out of this tower. I want a little cottage in the woods for my very own. And I want to never see you, or be asked to bargain with you, again.”
A strange look passed over his scarred face. “You will grow tired of being ugly and want to go back on your deal.”
“No,” I assured him. “I will not seek to trade with you again.”
“A cottage in the woods, you say?”
I nodded and he clapped his hands twice, loudly. The tower was gone and I stood in a little clearing in the forest. A small cottage with a thatched roof sat by a sparkling stream. It was quiet and secluded, and everything I could have wanted.
“This meets with your approval, then?”
“Yes,” I looked him squarely in the eye. “I wish to trade for this cottage. And then to never see you again.”
“Time for payment then,” he laughed and clapped his hands again.
I felt my body changing, twisting and distorting; felt the scars streaking down my face.
“I’d ask if you’re happy with your end of the bargain, but I don’t really care.” The twisted man was still laughing, except he wasn’t twisted anymore. He was actually quite handsome. He stood tall and straight, his face no longer scarred. I recognized my dark curls on his head and the dimple in his cheek as my own. It was odd to see my features made masculine on someone else’s face, but I felt no sense of loss. Only relief. “You won’t learn to value your beauty until you’ve lived without it for a while.”
I merely smiled. I could feel the movement of my lips pull at the scars on my face. I turned and walked toward my cottage. I didn’t turn back to look; I knew that the now handsome man was gone.
He was wrong, I already had learned the value of my beauty and the value of freedom. It has been many years and I have never once regretted my choice, but I sometimes wonder if he has.
Oh My Fairy Godmother
He was standing near his locker. It was now or never. Okay, it wasn’t really now or never—I’m sure I could accost him in the parking lot after school or something, but “it’s now or sometime later” isn’t really as psychologically motivating.
I’d even worn a powder blue t-shirt for the occasion. Not that it was required or anything, but channeling the fairy godmother from Disney’s Cinderella made me feel all postmodern and referential. Of course, fairy godmothers looked nothing like the slightly tubby, gray-haired, blue-cloak-wearing animated character.
I should know. I was one.
And I was just one poor, distraught soul away from full licensure.
The four-levels were kind of a big deal. My aunt was beside herself with excitement that I was about to become the youngest fairy godmother in two generations to complete them. She’d gotten her license when she was twenty-one. My grandmother had been almost twenty-five before she’d finally passed her four-levels. I was one happy customer away from earning my full license before I got out of high school.
The first three had been relatively easy. A business woman, a shop clerk that worked with my cousin, and the lead singer of a struggling punk band had all become satisfied recipients of my magical services. It took a surprisingly small amount of magic to get people to buy the whole fairy godmother deal, especially when they’d never met you before and you just poofed into existence in front of them.
Level four was harder. Level four consisted of fairy godmothering someone who actually knew you. For some reason it’s harder to believe that your friend or coworker is a magical being than to believe it of a stranger.
My level four was currently pulling books out of his locker in the main hallway of John Quincy Adams High School. I took a deep breath and headed down the hall.
“Hey, Justin.” I leaned against the locker next to his and crossed my arms casually. “Got a minute.”
Justin Donnell looked up in surprise. “Hey, Maggie. Sure.”
His surprise wasn’t unwarranted. We hadn’t talked much in the last year or so. Justin and I had been friends forever and a day—well at least since second grade. There was a time, oh say second grade through sophomore year in high school, when I’d wanted to be more than friends. But Justin persisted in seeing me only as a buddy, and even more dastardly, lusting after the uber-popular Stacey Fuller. Justin had not-so-secret aspirations of moving past geekdom and into the popular crowd. I chose not to support these lofty goals, and we’d had a falling out right around the time that the whole fairy godmother training thing started taking up quite a bit of my time. Justin and I had existed in a sort of uneasy “nod to each other in class or passing in the halls” state for almost twelve months now.
I rolled my eyes when I caught sight of the Dr. Who t-shirt he had on beneath his open plaid button-up. If he wanted to be popular, this was not the way to dress. Seriously, he needed me. Maybe he was filling out said t-shirt a little better than he had been last year. I didn’t really notice.
“There’s really no good way to put this,” I started. I could see the wariness in his hazel eyes almost immediately. “The thing is, I’m magic. In fact, I’m a fairy godmother. At the moment, your fairy godmother.”
Justin stared at me for a moment and then threw his head back and laughed. I had expected this reaction, so I just looked at him calmly while he guffawed.
“Okay, what did you really want to talk to me about?” he asked once he finally stopped laughing.
“Actually, it’s not a joke. This is what I wanted to talk to you about. I’m going to be your fairy godmother for the next two weeks or so...I mean, I am your fairy godmother, like if you’re ever in dire need in the future, I might pop in and help. But you get my concentrated attention for a few weeks.” I ignored his stare and produced a card from my back jeans pocket. “My card.” I handed it to him.
He took it, still staring at me as if he was certain I’d gone ‘round the bend. FInally he looked down at the card.
“Maggie Goodwin, O.M.F.G.” he read out loud. “What the heck?”
“Oh my Fairy Godmother, that’s how you call me if you need me. You know like ‘Oh my fairy godmother!’” I cupped my hand around my mouth, as if I were an actor dramatically calling out for a character who was off stage.
“Maggie, you’re nuts.”
I shrugged. “Or you could just text me.”
“I’m not gonna text you. I don’t want to support this delusion.”
“Look, I get it; you don’t believe I’m a fairy godmother. It’s hard to believe that someone you know is a fairy godmother.”
“That’s cause you’re not a fairy godmother!” He ran his hand through his curly brown hair in exasperation. He’d let it grow long enough to touch his collar. Probably part of his “to be cool” campaign.
“Why not?” I quirked an eyebrow a
t him. The quirking an eyebrow thing was new for me. It’d taken me hours in front of a mirror to perfect, but I thought it made me look more other-worldly. That’s also why I’d started adding a red wash to my otherwise drab brown hair. Auburn seemed like a much more fairy godmotheresque color than brown.
“Mags, you’re six months younger than me.”
I leveled a glare at him. “Irrelevant. Being a fairy godmother is more about benevolent magic than age. It’s a genetic thing; women in my family tend to end up as fairy godmothers.”
Justin rolled his eyes. “You seriously expect me to believe that you’re my fairy godmother? We’ve known each other since first grade.”
“Also irrelevant. Just because we’ve been in the same classes for ten years doesn’t necessarily mean you know everything about my family history. I don’t know everything about yours.”
“Yeah, somehow I doubt any of my family secrets would be quite as unbelievable as your ‘All the women in my family are fairy godmothers.’”
I sighed and uncrossed my arms. “Not all, just some. The unlucky ones.”
Justin stared at me for a moment. “Are you seriously not joking? Like you really believe you’re magical?”
“I don’t believe it, Justin, I know it. There’s a difference.”
“Okay, now you’re starting to get me concerned.” He closed his locker, looking up and down the hallway as if afraid someone would overhear our conversation and immediately cart me off to the loony bin. No one was going to hear us; I’d already put us in the middle of what my Aunt Linda always referred to as “the bubble spell.” I’m sure it had a real name but I hadn’t ever bothered to learn it. The point was less knowing the name of spells and more being able to successfully do them.
“Afraid someone is going to overhear us and think you’re as crazy as I am?” I grinned at him. I could see the truth in is eyes, even as he tried to deny it.
“It’s not me I’m worried about,” he replied grimly.
“Sure it is. I’m already a semi-social outcast, but you—you still have a chance for high school greatness if you play your cards right.”
Justin looked uncomfortable. His eyes darted once again to the stream of students flowing down the hall past us. Past us, but never quite too close to us. Bubble spell—it was a thing of wonder.
“Why are you doing this?” he almost hissed at me.
“What, helping you? I’m not entirely sure. I mean, to finish my levels and get my full license I have to help someone I know. It’s harder to make them believe, as you are demonstrating now. Why I chose to help you? Not sure. Nostalgia maybe?” And that I still kind of had a small, tiny, minuscule, itty bitty crush on him. Not that I said that.
“No. Not helping me. Whacking out on me. In public.”
“I’m not going to ruin your precious—and more precarious than you probably realize—social advancement. It saddens me to say this, but I’m actually prepared to help you in your quest to transition from relatively nice person to popularity.”
I could see he wasn’t buying it. Would I if I were in his place? Justin was bright, but he’d always been more math and science smart than imaginative. The arts weren’t really his thing. Somehow I figured it would be easier to convince an artsy person of the truth of my fairy godmotherness than someone who took advanced placement calculus for fun.
So that was my second mistake: picking a hard to convince subject. My first mistake was not just poofing right off the bat. Maybe there was a small part of me that just wanted him to believe me cause I was me, and not because of a magical demonstration.
“Look, no one can hear us, or even see us. Well, they can see us, sort of, but they aren’t going to notice us no matter what we say or do. I’ve got a bubble around us.” I turned toward the mass of humanity still milling through the hallway and yelled an obscenity, rather loudly, at a passing teacher. Justin looked shocked at first, and then confused as the teacher passed right by us without even glancing toward my shout. “See?”
“I think I’m done with this conversation. Sorry, Mags.” Justin shook his head at me one last time before turning to walk away. He made it about three feet. I stepped quickly to the side as he flew back toward me, landing in an untidy heap right where I’d been standing just a second before.
“Didn’t I just mention the bubble?” I didn’t mean to sound sarcastic and triumphant. At least not quite as much as I did.
Justin blinked up at me. A strange, glazed look in his hazel eyes. I remembered my first experience with magic. It had felt like grabbing hold of an electric fence in the middle of a rain storm. I’d ended up tossing my cookies and crying for an hour afterward. But then I’d also been the one making magic. And I’d been five.
I smiled sweetly down at Justin. “Are we a believer yet?”
He stood up shakily. “How in the heck did you do that?”
I shook my head slowly and made a tsking sound. “Seriously? Still no? I begin to think you don’t want to be helped.”
I was actually kind of enjoying using such a sarcastic tone with him. I don’t think I ever had before, because, well he was Justin and I’d been slightly googly-eyed over him for the better part of a decade.
Maybe a change of scenery would help. I fixed on a place in my mind, muttered under my breath, and let the magic spark out of me. The electric fence sensation was still there, even now after a few years of wrangling the magic, but it had dulled considerably. Or maybe I was just used to it by now.
Justin was not used it. He looked kind of like he’d stuck a fork in an electrical socket. But he couldn’t exactly ignore that he was no longer in one of the hallways of Adams High but standing under the big oak tree in his own back yard.
There was a long moment of silence.
“How, exactly, are you planning to help me?” His voice was surprisingly steady for someone who’d just experienced magical teleportation for the first time.
“That depends on you. You know Cinderella, right? She wanted to go to the ball—her fairy godmother made it happen. That’s kind of our gig. We’re not like genies that grant wishes, so I can’t make Stacey Fuller fall in love with you, for example.”
I saw the flash in his eyes as I mentioned the ever popular Stacey. Freaking typical. In fact, the annoyance I felt over the fact that Justin was interested in such a vapid, air-headed, walking and talking stereotype was just because it was so horribly, ridiculously, bad-1980s-movie typical. Jealousy had nothing to do with it.
“However, like Cinderella’s godmother (my great-great-great-great-aunt by the way, chew on that little factoid for a minute; that blew my mind even more than finding out I was a fairy godmother), I can ‘ease’ your way into places or events or outfit you with the right clothes or car. I can’t essentially change you, and I can’t change her, or the rest of them. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah, I guess. So like, you can make me look good, but you can’t make her, or anyone else, like me. That’s up to me.”
“Correct. I’m more about giving you the opportunity to work your own magic.” Wow that sounded really corny. I liked it though. I mentally added it to my list of “funny fairy godmother sayings.”
“So, you can’t, like, make her say yes if I ask her to the Junior Formal, for example.”
I briefly closed my eyes. Argh. He would ask that. And I couldn’t lie. “Actually, yes. I can arrange it so that she says yes. That doesn’t mean she will have a good time; that’s up to you, got it?”
“Got it.”
“So that’s what you want, then? Stacey Fuller to say yes to going to the Junior Formal with you? Would you like a carriage and a fancy dress too?”
He colored slightly. “So you think I’m Cinderella?”
“Not exactly; it’s just a very popular wish. Might as well get the whole package, right?”
“I guess. Then yeah, that’s my wish. Junior Formal, carriage and all that.” He grinned at me.
“Okay.” I held out my closed fist in f
ront of me. “Bippity Boppity Boo,” I muttered under my breath.
Justin mouth dropped open. “You have to be kidding.”
“I’m being postmodern and referential. Oh never mind,” I sighed. I uncurled my fingers and held out my open palm to Justin. “Here.”
He stared at the key in my hand.
“Are you going to take it? The car is out front,” I asked somewhat impatiently.
“That key has the Porsche logo on it.”
“I don’t skimp on carriages, Justin. I’m a freaking fairy godmother.”
“Is it going to turn into a pumpkin? Like at midnight after the dance?” He was still staring at the key as if it were a snake that might bite him.
I laughed. “No, it’s yours. The pink slip and registration are in your name. It’s fully insured, and the insurance won’t expire. Cinderella didn’t really have anywhere to put a coach, or a coachmen and horses for that matter, whereas you have a two-car garage.”
He slowly reached out and took the key. “Wow.”
“Yeah. Also, your closet is now filled with a rather distressing amount of clothes from Hollister. You should probably change before you go.”
He looked up at me in confusion. “Go where?”
I rolled my eyes. “Back to school, cheerleading practice ends in thirty minutes. If you park in the east parking lot she will be able to see your car from the field.”
“Okay.” Justin still sounded a bit befuddled. He looked back down at the key in his hand, turning it over a few times. “Okay!” he said again, this time more excitedly.
“You know how to reach me if you need anything else. I’m kind of on Justin duty for the next two weeks, so don’t hesitate to call. The card,” I reminded him when he looked at me in confusion.
“Oh right. Oh my fairy godmother.”
I nodded, gritting my teeth against the responsive flare of magic his words caused. It was like an internal pager going off. Only I didn’t need to poof anywhere; he was right in front of me. I sent the excess magic into his mom’s prize rose bushes. She’d be shocked to come home to forty new blooms, but I needed to do something with the extra power. “Have fun.” I managed to sound sincere.
