One Good Wand

by Grace McGuiness

  After all, what harm was there in a simple flower?

  Chapter 7

  The next morning, I dressed in my best pair of jeans and a nice, grey top that would hide dirt and dust, and made the long drive to the factory. I checked my makeup and ponytail before I went in; I may be stuck in a file room all day, but that didn’t mean I shouldn’t shoot for a good first impression.

  Butterflies crowded together in my stomach as I climbed the stairs to the second floor. Words kept flying around my head, over and over again. Mostly just, I have a job, I have a job, I have a job! But they sure were noisy words for all their simplicity.

  “Good morning, Robin,” I said, rather jauntily, as I entered reception. “First day.” I kind of fist-bumped the air and immediately felt like a moron. The feeling intensified when she stared at me and popped an unamused gum bubble in my direction.

  “Maysie had some out-of-office business to see to, so I get to be your PoC.” She slid a small stack of papers across her desk for me to pick up.

  “PoC?” I asked as I sifted through copies of my paperwork and the employee handbook.

  “Point of Contact.” She looked up at me in a way that managed to only sort of appear to be the world’s biggest eye roll. “Yaaay…”

  I ignored her teenage sarcasm and smiled brightly. “I’m ready to work. If you’ll just point me to the file room…?”

  “Oh, you don’t get to work yet.” Pop went a bubble. She dangled a badge on a long, blue lanyard in front of me. “Here’s your security badge. It’ll get you into most doors. The ones it doesn’t are off limits, and the locks are crazy hard to hack, so don’t even try.”

  “Okay,” I said, as if hacking electronic locks were something I did all the time, but I’d restrain myself today.

  She gestured to the hallway behind me with an aqua-colored pen that matched the streaks in her bouncy red hair. “Go down the stairs. At the bottom are the bathrooms.”

  I nodded. “Maysie gave me the tour.”

  Robin blinked blandly at me, then continued as if I hadn’t interrupted. “Take the hallway to the right of the bathrooms. Go all the way to the end and hang a right.” Pop. “Third door on the left belongs to the head maintenance tech. Name’s Mueller. He’s waiting for you.”

  “Great,” I said, painting on a friendly smile I wasn’t feeling at all. “Can I ask why maintenance is expecting me?”

  A long-suffering exhale whooshed out of her at the same moment her eyes seemed to roll a full, spherical three-sixty. This girl had bored teenage insolence down. “Safety training?” She inflected it like a question, but spat it out like I was the dumbest person alive.

  I just kept on smiling. It was my first day, and no doubt Robin would have no problem whatsoever spilling my mistakes to the boss in droll detail. “That’s important. I’ll just head on down there now. And afterward, you can show me the file room?”

  She flicked her fingers at me. The nails were painted that same shiny aqua, yet somehow they only accented the softness of her entirely professional outfit. “Have Mueller do it. I’ll be busy.”

  I glanced at the nail file on her otherwise empty desk, but said, “No problem. Good luck with…your work.”

  In a bored monotone, she recited, “Once you are cleared for the floor, you are free to roam and enjoy the halls of Fairytale Endings. Play with the toys, test the food. Our employees are our best resource. Have a nice day.”

  I headed off to find the maintenance tech, just as happy to leave her behind as she was to have me leave.

  My security badge settled around my neck with a comforting weight as I descended the stairs. Not so nicely, my canvas shoes squeaked on the clean, tiled floor, and it was a long hallway beyond. I tried to walk in a way that I didn’t make so much noise, but it made me look like a tightrope walker with an inner ear condition, so I gave up.

  The third door on the left stood dark and empty. Empty of people, and almost anything else. A metal desk sat against the far wall, its uncomfortable-looking padded metal chair pushed out and awaiting the return of its occupant. There was no other sign that anyone ever used the room.

  “Maintenance techs probably spend most of their time on the floor,” I reasoned aloud. “Where I’m not supposed to go until I get safety training, which is why I need to find the maintenance tech…on the factory floor.”

  With a shrug, I returned to the bathrooms and the big fire doors across the hall from them. I pushed one of the heavy things open and peered into the enormous room filled with all those unnamed machines, hoping I would see someone I could ask to find the tech. But of course, there wasn’t anyone. It was early enough that the machines hadn’t been turned on yet, though, leaving the factory pretty quiet.

  I felt like an idiot, but I called out anyway, “Mueller?” I snickered to myself as the movie reference climbed into my head. Turning my voice nasally and monotone, I repeated the name. “Mueller? Mueller?” Long pause. “He probably gets that all the time. I wouldn’t answer, either.”

  First action of the day, and I had to choose whether or not to violate safety protocol. Grand. I could just go back upstairs and ask Robin to find him. That would be the appropriate, rule-conscious choice. Somehow, I didn’t think she’d appreciate it. Still, it was better to put out my point of contact for five minutes than to wander out onto the factory floor untrained and unsupervised. Right?

  I was about to let the door close when a deep, growling voice shouted, “God damn it! Who took Winona?”

  My stomach gremlin felt an odd sort of kinship with that voice, so I stepped onto the floor and shouted, “Mueller?”

  “I did not!” he shouted back.

  I hid a smile and shouted, “I need your help!”

  “I’m not frigging Obi-wan Kenobi!”

  “That’s a shame,” I shouted, my amusement spilling out with a laugh. “Because you’re my only hope!”

  A few clanks echoed across the expanse of cold machinery. “Fine. Get your ass over here!”

  Indecision paused my feet for a good ten seconds before I shrugged and obeyed. The machines were off, and my guide to surviving them had given me permission…sort of.

  I found him inside one of the machines, little more than a pair of legs in oily jeans sticking out of a square access duct. A lot of grunting and mumbling was going on inside. “Just. Frigging. Turn! Gotcha!” For some reason, I expected him to say “Who’s your daddy?” but he didn’t. He scooted out with a bit of flailing footwork and then hoisted himself up. He slammed the duct panel closed behind him with a clank that echoed over the factory like he was breaking into it, not declaring his success.

  He threw his tools back into a heavy-duty toolbox and then directed his attention to a control board covered in buttons. A few switch flips and a key-turn later, and he punched a big red button on the side. The enormous machine gave a metallic whine, groaned once, and then eased into smooth functioning.

  The tech pulled out the key, flipped the protective covers back over the panels, and locked them in place. “Thought you could beat me, did you? ‘I’ll just drop a few screws, clog a few vents.’ Ha! You’re mine, and don’t you forget it.” He hit the machine with the side of his fist.

  Since he hadn’t appeared to notice me standing there, I cleared my throat and said, “Um, Mueller?”

  “Now I just have to find the sonuvabitch who stole Winona. D’you think stringing them up by their overalls is enough?”

  “Hanging is pretty severe…” I offered, though I wasn’t entirely sure he was really talking to me.

  He looked up and gestured toward the ceiling several stories above. “They just dangle there, their legs kicking, whining at everyone who passes for an hour. Reminds everyone not to mess with my stuff. But if I do it too much, they won’t fear it anymore… Then again, it’s Winona. I gotta find a way to pay that back.”

  “Winona?” I asked, imagining workers strung up across the factory as he advanced his quest for answers.

  “She’
s beautiful. Steel frame. Chrome accents on the handle. Best damn multi-use tool I’ve ever had.” His shoulders slumped. “And now she’s out there, somewhere, cold and alone…” I half expected him to cry out her name to echo back and forth across the factory, a fading roar of grief. Instead, his dark eyes narrowed as he turned to face me. “They’ll get theirs, and it’ll be epic.”

  Mueller was a couple inches taller than me, but built like a bear. The comparison deepened as I blinked at him, not sure how to respond. He stared back with big, pissed-off eyes below a heavy brow that seemed tailor-made for scowling. His jaw clenched with enough strength it might break through a walnut casing all on its own, and the dark stubble shadowing his heavy features made him look like he was on the verge of going wild. Actually, all of him did. For a second, I flashed on my mom’s warning about the Trapperstown Trapper; if ever there were a man who might embody the mountain man of the urban legend, here he was. And he was the one I needed to give me a lesson in safety.

  “You’re not supposed to be in here,” he said. Rather than the growl he’d used so far, his voice suddenly smoothed out, even softened. Oh, it was still low and rumbly enough to warn off casual hikers in the woods, but it made him sound much less threatening. More like he might be looking for a wayward pic-i-nic basket than someone to tear apart for fun.

  I felt myself snap back to the moment, as if his glare had held me like a frightened deer facing down its own mortality. “No, I know. I was looking for you so you could give me the safety, um—”

  “You should’ve asked someone to come get me. Technically, the factory could get in a lot of trouble with you just standing here.” Stern, yet he didn’t seem too upset. Certainly not anything like Winona’s absence had caused.

  “The only person I could find was Robin, and she—”

  “That kid is going to seriously piss me off. I bet she’s the one who stole Winona. I keep telling her I don’t date teenagers, but she won’t listen. Son of a…” He added the last in response to noticing a heavy oil stain across his flannel shirt. “It’s not even nine yet! I’m going to have to start adding my shirt expenses to my list of necessary equipment.” Without any hesitation, he started unbuttoning.

  I glanced at the floor, giving him privacy he clearly didn’t need. “So, are we going to do the safety thing now, or should I come back?”

  He swore. I jerked a glance back at him, expecting there to be some kind of medical emergency given the colorful nature of his outburst. Instead, I saw a soft-around-the-middle physique covered in a white t-shirt. He was cursing the oil that had seeped through his outer shirt, but my eyes snapped to the print across his chest.

  “’Official breast cancer prevention specialist,’” I read, wanting to heave a sigh but holding it in so I didn’t come across as a humorless drag.

  A sly grin changed the angry bear into a twelve-year-old trapped in a man’s body. “It’s a medical fact that palpation of mammary tissue—”

  “Oh, I get it,” I said, unamused. He gave a low chuckle, his dark eyes suddenly lit with the kind of humor that lightens everyone in the room by association. I may not be amused at his shirt, but I couldn’t help but be amused by his amusement. “Shame about the oil.”

  Out went the light. Like a kid with a broken bike, his broad frame slumped as he wiped at the stain with his overshirt. “Damn it…”

  And like that, I found myself on equal footing. A growling, intimidating, pissed-off maintenance tech might have been too much for me, but a guy led by his inner pubescent boy who was also a geek? Old hat. “Sorry you’re having such a crappy morning. I’ve had so many of those lately, I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to have a good one.”

  “You and me both,” he growled. Then, unexpectedly, he waved one of his bear paws and gestured me back to the main walkway. “C’mon. I’ll give you the training. You gonna be on the floor much?”

  We headed deeper into the factory, our footsteps echoing off all the metal parts. “I doubt it. I’m just here to sort out the file room.”

  “We have a file room?”

  Mueller, whose first name wasn’t offered, walked me thoroughly through the machines and their purposes. “The girls call this the Fizzy Wizzbang,” he said in front of one machine with a lot of vats and pipes. “It’s new, for our new line of old fashioned sodas. Break it and I will kick your ass.”

  “Somehow I doubt HR would like to hear you say that,” I said wryly.

  “You know who HR is? Robin.” He gave an evil little laugh and rubbed his grimy hands together. “I can get away with a lot, so long as it looks like normal teenage bullshit. You wanna know what I call this one?”

  The speed at which his brain changed directions impressed me, like he was playing two video games at the same time, one controller in each hand. “Not particularly.”

  He told me anyway. The not-quite-clever sexual alteration of the machine’s nickname made me feel the distinct need to shower. With all my clothes on. For six hours.

  I grimaced. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s a direct line to a sexual harassment suit.”

  “Too much?” he asked. When I nodded vigorously, he stood back and observed the machine for a second. “Oh, wait!” He flew at the controls like a kid on Christmas morning with his eyes on the biggest box under the tree. His key unlocked the machine’s control cage with a flourish before his surprisingly dexterous, oil-lined fingers danced across the buttons, switches, and dials.

  The machine let out a loud popping sound, then began to whir and hiss and…pump. Vigorously. After it got up to speed, I gained new insight into Mueller’s nickname for it. My mouth formed an ‘o’ of surprise all on its own, my eyebrows shooting toward my hairline.

  Mueller chuckled low and delighted. “Right? This one’s generally safe, except…” He waved a hand at the pistoning injector. “I’d stay away from that part.”

  “That definitely does not look safe,” I agreed.

  “Safe? That thing will slam you against the wall, give you a fast and wild ride, and leave you pregnant with its soda pop spawn without even buying you dinner first.” He gave me a once over. “But maybe you’re into that?”

  I should have been offended. This boyish, foul-mouthed bear in his immature t-shirt should have disgusted me. And yet I heard myself laugh - the belly-deep sort, short-lived but a welcome release of tension - and say, “Maybe I am, without the impregnation and with dinner.” I eyed the injector dubiously. “And a great deal less metal…”

  “I can work with that.”

  Laughter gone. “Oh, I didn’t mean…I wasn’t saying…” I clenched my teeth and forced myself to blurt, “I just got divorced.”

  He looked at me warily, like I was suddenly the creeper harassing him. “And I have a girlfriend. Now, if you’re done undressing me with your eyes, we’ll move on.”

  So many thoughts darted through my head, I fell wordlessly into step behind him. What kind of girl dated this kind of dude? And then, as we rounded the corner of a squarish machine with a long conveyor belt, I saw him grin to himself. He was teasing me. I wanted to punch him, but I kept my hands to myself. Who knew what he’d say if I decked him? Besides, for some reason his grin made me grin, and I was suddenly too worried about my own psychological state to be angry.

  When this machine turned on, two large presses thudded onto the conveyor belt. I braced myself for whatever not-at-all-veiled innuendo came out of Mueller’s mouth next. “This,” he said with the pride of a superhero facing off against a lifelong nemesis who both challenged and irritated him, “is The Ogre.”

  I breathed a relieved sigh. “What does it make?” Since nothing had been fed into it yet, I couldn’t tell what might possibly need to get crushed flat as a pancake before it was finished.

  “Headaches,” he growled, narrowing his eyes menacingly at The Ogre as it began making a funny rattling noise. “Stay away from this one entirely. It’s possessed.” He turned his glare on me with some serious intensity. “And that’
s not a joke.”

  The rattling quickened as he spoke. With his attention on me and not the machine, he didn’t see the lug nut that fell off and bounced away, but I did. “Look out!” I shouted, then tackled the bear to the floor. Half a second later, The Ogre’s cutting blade sliced through the air where we’d been standing, burying itself in the rear wall of the Fizzy Wizzbang. Clear fluid began leaking everywhere, spurting out between the blade’s teeth and filling the air with the aroma of sour apples.

  “Holy shit,” I breathed.

  Mueller’s deep voice rumbled through me from my position on top of him as he said, “Well, if you want me that much—”

  He didn’t get a chance to finish the thought. Another rattle from high overhead made us look up just in time to see a weight from some unseen pulley system crashing down toward us. The bear’s big arms wrapped around me and rolled us under the conveyor belt right before the weight slammed into the floor.

  My voice shook as I struggled to catch my breath with him atop me. “Who wants whom, exactly?”

  The surprise in his eyes slanted into that sly grin again. Before he had a chance to say anything, The Ogre groaned like the Titanic’s hull beneath the weight of the onrushing ocean. “Bastard’s coming apart!”

  Chapter 8

  Together, we rolled away from the collapsing conveyor belt. At the dead center of The Ogre’s moving pieces stood a concrete slab and a maintenance stair that might go all the way to the ceiling. There was just enough space below the platform for the two of us to fit, but not comfortably. His elbow jammed into my ribs. My hip ended up somewhere I didn’t want to think about. The groaning and rattling and crashing and screeching of The Ogre as it collapsed blotted out all other sound as we clung to each other. Multi-hued dust made up of dirt, oil, metal shavings, and pulverized concrete exploded over us, forcing me to bury my face in his breast manhandler shirt. He smelled surprisingly good for a man who worked with machines all day, spicy and sharp cologne mixed with the floral scent of detergent and the manlier smell of sweat, which, luckily for me in a humongously unlucky moment, actually smelled kind of nice.