One Good Wand

by Grace McGuiness

  I paused to think. “I bet the character creation engine would allow for it. The size, anyway. Probably not the hair.” As he started wrenching off clothes, I gasped, “Not like that. You’ll ruin it!” I grabbed the bustier before he could rip it off and ruin my hard work. We wrestled, my arms wrapping around his neck from behind as he bent forward to throw me off. That was how my brother found us, with me shouting over Mueller’s grunts, “Just a little more, I swear!”

  Mueller froze. Danny froze. I froze. He stared at us, blinking, as if he couldn’t quite take it all in.

  I released Mueller’s throat, dropping back to the floor as we said at the same time, “It’s not what it looks like.”

  Danny tugged on the cuffs of his shirt sleeves, averting his gaze. “It looks like you’re breaking your Non-Disclosure Agreement to…you know, I don’t even want to think about what you’re going to do with it.”

  “It’s for Comic Con,” I blurted as Mueller pulled the spare t-shirt from his truck over his head. It was oily and grimy, but no doubt it made him feel a lot better. “Or it was, until you mentioned the NDA. I didn’t think about that…”

  “That kind of thing will get you fired. And then sued. You should think about it.” His tone carried more than warning; it dripped disapproval. “You should think about a lot of things.” He checked the top button on his white shirt with its tiny, blue, vertical stripes. “I’m off to the hospital. I’ll see you there. Alone?” He said it like a question, but I knew it wasn’t. My kid brother was giving me an order, like I was the irresponsible one. Like I was goofing off while he was dealing with the situation. Which, as I watched Mueller try to slide the skirt off without losing his boxers, too, I realized was probably how the situation looked. But what was I supposed to do? He’d probably have me committed if I told him not only could I do magic, but I was the only person who could save Mom from the sleeping curse. By dressing up a random girl I met on the internet for Comic Con so she could impress the boy she liked…

  Maybe I would save him the trouble and check myself in.

  “Woah, woah, woah!” I shouted as Mueller gave up and started to remove everything. I spun around and threw his spare jeans at him without looking. “Nobody wants to see that.”

  “She’s a bit of a prude, your sister,” he said to Danny. “Has a problem with nudity. Everything always has to be in the dark, no matter how many times I beg her to leave the lights on.”

  My cheeks flamed. Not because of Mueller’s concocted fantasy, or because he was half-naked not two feet away. But because my brother caught my gaze and shook his head. Not a big shake; no dramatic thing that one might expect from Mueller’s performance. Just a teeny back-and-forth that barely stirred his perfectly starched collar. The disappointment in that infinitesimal movement made me feel just as small.

  When he left, I dropped onto the couch and hugged a pillow to my chest. Mueller laid the costume on the ottoman and sat on the wide, overstuffed arm at the other end of the couch.

  “Your brother’s kind of an ass,” he said.

  I barked a single, humorless laugh. “He’s right, though. I can’t put Amy in that if it’s going to invite a lawsuit. Even open beta testers have to sign NDAs.”

  “She played her character in the arcade. That was a company-sanctioned event. Technically, they revealed the costume when she played so it probably wouldn’t fall under the NDA. But that’s not what I meant.”

  I gave the wand a sort of infinity-circle wave and added a dip of finality at the end. The bustier morphed back into his t-shirt beneath the oily one. The skirt expanded into legs and then, with a soft pop, returned to its usual shape as a pair of slightly baggy jeans. Rather than fading into pale denim, however, the jeans remained leafy green and brown with a padded look around the crotch. I frowned at them and sank back into the couch.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I don’t want to get her in trouble. That’s not what a godmother does.”

  Mueller shrugged. “Cinderella didn’t exactly walk away from the ball without trouble.”

  I considered that idea for a minute. “Being chased by a prince is better than a team of bigwig lawyers.”

  He shrugged again. “Maybe she’d end up marrying one of them. How do you know?”

  I pressed my cheek into the pillow. It smelled like my mom’s perfume. A lump formed in my throat that no amount of swallowing dispelled. “I just need to get this right. I have a habit of making bad choices and screwing stuff up for other people. I mean, look at your tail.”

  “You won’t make me turn in circles like a dog again, so stop trying.”

  I wanted to laugh, to let him lighten my mood, but… “This is too important to screw up, even without the sleeping spell. It’s somebody else’s life, you know? If it were mine, I would strut right out there in bustier and ineffective pelvic armor. But it’s not. I’m supposed to help Amy, not make her life worse.”

  “Who says you will?”

  “Me. Oh, and Danny, in case you missed the warning.”

  “He was threatening you, not her. You really think his company is going to waste time and money prosecuting a dumb kid who may or may not be violating a non-disclosure agreement by wearing a costume? Hell, I’d bet there are a ton of games that have archers running around in exactly that.” He waved at his green jeans, a grimace curdling his face.

  “Padded jeans would definitely be a protection upgrade on that skirt,” I mused, buying time to consider his words. “You really think it would be okay? For her, I mean. Danny can do whatever he wants to me. I have nothing to lose.” I dashed my knuckles against Mueller’s knee. “Except for you. Thanks, by the way. In case I haven’t said it.”

  The grimace returned as he pushed away from the couch, holding his hands up, palms out, in front of himself. “No need to get all mushy. Just do what you need to do. That’s all I’m saying.”

  I hid my smile in the pillow. Without looking, I idly waved three circles with the wand and punctuated it with a little jab at the air. Mueller’s strangled gasp reminded me, again, that he was still wearing the shirt. I peeked at him from behind the pillow. He looked like I was trying to shove a blunt object some place it didn’t belong.

  “Let’s go find Amy, huh?”

  “If I can take this damn thing off, I will do anything you want.”

  “That’s what he said,” I snickered, and hopped off the couch to deliver Amy’s costume.

  Chapter 25

  My first goddaughter/princess/girl/client/whatever’s place of business was one of those always-charming places that said simply, “Bar,” over the door. For all that O’Toole’s had looked like a total dive from the outside, this place really was one on the inside. It smelled more than faintly of stale beer and a more putrid smell I didn’t want to think about. At five o’clock, it was already half-full. Which was the optimistic view; the pessimist in my brain said it was already half-drunk. Except for the balding guy in the corner with the Korn shirt; he was totally wasted. And for all that the college guys watching baseball while playing pool seemed wasted, I was pretty sure that was just their natural dude-bro state.

  It was the kind of place where no one noticed a new addition to their number, a fact with which I was totally cool. The less attention I drew in here, the better. Mueller stepped in behind me, heading straight for the bar before my eyes could even adjust to the dim room.

  “I’m looking for Amy,” I told the bartender, a middle-aged guy with eyes like a basset hound.

  He grumped at me. “I don’t trade in girls.”

  “Two Stellas,” Mueller grumped back. He dropped onto one of the bar stools and scratched his tail. After a second or two, he froze and then moved his hand a couple inches to the right to scratch…not his tail. As if the regular people in the bar could tell the difference.

  I considered being a smart ass and commenting that technically a Stella was a girl, too, but the bartender’s talk to me and die vibe kept me from certain doom. “That second one be
tter be for you,” I said to Mueller as I turned to scan the room for Amy. “I don’t see…” I trailed off in surprise. For I might not have seen Amy, but I did see someone else. Someone who stuck out like a sore thumb. “Be right back.”

  “Say hi to the cougar for me,” he said, popping a handful of peanuts into his mouth. How had he seen her without looking at the room?

  Making a mental note to pay more attention to my sidekick’s abilities in the future, I sidestepped a pair of dude-bros sizing me up and crossed the sticky floor to the two-person table that nearly glowed in the dingy interior. “Didn’t figure this for your kind of place,” I said, leaning against a support beam behind the white-haired guy sharing Sabine’s table.

  Sabine opened her mouth, but the short man answered before she did. “Oh, yes. Reminds me of the pub back home. Less brawly, maybe.” I pegged his accent as Scottish. The look of delight in the watery eyes behind thick, heavy spectacles told me how much he missed his homeland. Or maybe just the pub.

  “Yes,” Sabine added with a forced smile. “Tavish is my guest, and I go where my guests prefer.” She hurried on with a glance at me, as if she expected me to make a snarky comment and wanted to steer the conversation away before I got the chance. “Tavish, this is the young woman I was telling you about. Tessa Hargitay, Tavish MacTavish.”

  Tavish squinted up at me through those bottle-base glasses and smiled. He took my hand and kissed it, sending a sunshiney jolt of magic up my arm. “The pleasure is all mine, Miss Tessa.”

  “Speaking of…” Sabine snapped her fingers at the bartender and swirled them in a circle over the table. “Another round?” The basset hound bartender’s lip curled in annoyance, but he did his job.

  “Always room for another,” Tavish said with unabashed glee.

  “While you await our drinks, I think I will slip away to powder my nose. You don’t mind, do you?” She batted her baby blues at him.

  “Never been one to keep a pretty nose unpowdered. The local wildlife is plenty entertaining. Take all the time ya need.”

  To me, Sabine said, “Care to join me, Miss Tessa?” It sounded like a question, but the French manicure digging into the soft flesh of my upper arm suggested otherwise.

  “Uh, sure…” I had never been one to visit the bathroom in a herd of other women. Even in high school, I frequently volunteered to be the one to hold the table. For a split second, it occurred to me that maybe my ostracism from my old friends had less to do with being a loser and more to do with my refusal of bathroom bonding time over the years. But then the bar’s bathroom door slammed behind us, shrouding us in dank pseudo-darkness that smelled strongly of urine and brought me back to the moment. I didn’t want to stand in this room a second longer than necessary.

  Sabine clearly shared the feeling. She only moved far enough inside to make sure I had room to follow, then pulled out a seashell-shaped compact. “Light,” she murmured to the shell, and we were instantly enveloped in a soft, golden glow. It had a strange effect on our pocket of universe, like we had been gaussian blurred. Or like she had slipped a soft focus lens over my eyes, the kind they used in old movies to make women look more feminine. Sabine, herself, needed no help in that department. She dabbed daintily at her nose with a powder puff while examining her reflection in the compact’s mirror. “Your seventy-two hours are up,” she said, flatly.

  “My seventy-two hours?” I asked, feeling light-headed in the blur.

  She let out a sigh as sweet as a baby’s. “Maysie’s wand. Seventy-two hours. I’m certain I mentioned the former needed to be found in the latter or there would be dire consequences.”

  “I vaguely remember something about that…” I didn’t, not really. Too much had happened in the last few days.

  She started to stomp indignantly, then apparently thought better of what might happen on the moist floor. “At the factory three days ago? When we first met? I told you I needed your help to locate Maysie’s wand.”

  “Oh, right.” Longest seventy-two hours of my life. “Is there a reason we have to keep talking in bathrooms?”

  “Privacy,” she said, waving away my concern as if it should be obvious. “The seventy-two hours have passed and Maysie’s wand is still missing. Because I have been, ah, unable to locate it…” she sounded more than a little miffed about it, “…WHIRA has no choice but to escalate the issue.”

  I eyed her sideways. “What do you mean, ‘escalate?’ That sounds like nuclear launch readiness.”

  “The agency has dispatched a team specially trained in locating lost and spelled items.”

  I imagined a team of bespectacled nerd sleuths with magnifying glasses and trench coats. “That doesn’t sound so dire,” I said, trying to hide my amusement at the image.

  “This is no laughing matter!” Her tight voice should have echoed in the tight space, but it didn’t. “The WHIRA squad is authorized to use any force necessary. Whoever is found in possession of the wand will be incarcerated until their motives are explored and retrained.”

  My heart missed a beat. “What do you mean, ‘retrained?’”

  She leveled those blue eyes at me over the top of her compact, and they held none of their usual sugary pleasantness. Now, they were as cold and hard as a glacier. “I mean they will be run through a battery of spells and trainings designed to…” She hesitated, as if saying it were as foul as swearing like a drunken sailor.

  “To…?” I pressed.

  She took a deep breath; the lack of eye-watering cough afterward made me realize her compact had not just blurred us, but also cleaned the air in the immediate vicinity. “To redirect their thought patterns into a more acceptable and pleasing arrangement.”

  I frowned. “Redirect their…” And then it clicked. “Wait, you mean they brainwash people? What kind of operation do you work for?”

  “It’s a common folk method for dealing with the more unsavory elements of society. We have a long-standing tradition of cleaning up messes, after all.” The bitterness in her tone triggered my curiosity, but it was overpowered by the worry now coursing through me.

  “That doesn’t seem…above board.” I didn’t want to insult her, but dude.

  The Arctic tundra stared at me out of her eyes. “If you haven’t noticed, the folk are not like mundanes. Your limitations are not ours and neither are your laws. We have our own Rules that we follow to the letter. Those who don’t…well, we know what happens to them.”

  “We do now,” I answered, casting around for a way out of this mess. How the hell did I get caught up in a world that used brainwashing as an acceptable and expected course of punishment? “Surely individuals have rights?”

  “Not those who break the Rules. We are very serious about our Rules, Tessa. And about punishing those who break them.” She stared at me like she knew. Like the wand back in Mueller’s car had left telltale evidence all over my hands. Blueberry stains from a pie I shouldn’t have stolen from a stranger’s kitchen window.

  “I’ll make sure not to break any, then,” I said, evenly. So evenly, in fact, in spite of my racing heart and tight breathing, I impressed myself. “Is that why we’re whispering in a nasty women’s restroom in a dive bar? So you can, what, warn me not to do something I haven’t done? Because again, I have no wand on me.” The words came out of my mouth without thinking. I raised my hands and turned them this way and that as if to prove there were no stains on me. I wasn’t entirely sure why I kept up the ruse; it wasn’t like I had committed myself to this life. It wasn’t out of a sense of loyalty to a woman I had only met a couple of times. I just…kept on pretending.

  Sabine snapped her compact shut, cutting off the glow and all its pleasant effects. Without it, the bathroom was too warm, too dark, too smelly. The sudden change made my eyes water. I sneezed three times. Ever-perfect Sabine didn’t seem to suffer at all. Her voice, just above a whisper, sliced directly to my nerves: “I’m here to offer you a deal.”

  The bathroom grew hotter. Or maybe it was j
ust me. “What do you mean?”

  The practiced godmother cut me a look that said, Please. Don’t insult me. Her mouth said, “The squad will not stop looking until they find Maysie’s wand. Believe me, they live for this sort of infraction.” She took a step closer. “Give me the wand and I will speed your retirement process. It could take a year, or it could take three weeks. Your choice.”

  Anger flamed to life in my belly. Where had this deal been when I was freaking out over my mom’s condition? When I was practically begging for help? “You said I needed a wand of my own before I could get out of this. Can you speed that process, too?”

  She smiled a more true smile than I had seen from her yet, sly and triumphant. “Mr. MacTavish is a wandcrafter. He has two weaknesses—a good, strong stout, and pretty women. With a wink and request, he’ll build you a wand by the end of next week. Your paperwork to relinquish that wand will be processed within three. I will see to it.”

  The noise of the bar beyond the warped wooden door that didn’t quite close faded to a tinny whisper on the edge of my hearing. I stared at the golden-haired woman with her perfect nails, perfect lines, perfect shoes. Once, I would have seen through that facade at first glance. For the first time in months, I realized just how far off my game I really was. Not enough time behind the camera, no doubt. I would have to rectify that soon. I couldn’t let such an oversight happen again, not if I intended to stave off the sort of situation that landed me in a marriage with no passion, no intimacy, no trust. Or the kind that landed me in a disgusting bar bathroom listening to calculated, shady offers.