One Good Wand

by Grace McGuiness

  Too tired to sort through anything, I made the drive home without really noticing the road. I walked into the kitchen expecting to be greeted with canine interest, but Destiny just looked up at me all pathetic-doggy-eyes.

  “Where’s Dave?” I asked Danny, interrupting some show involving women in bikinis.

  “Nick stopped by to pick him up at lunch. He didn’t call?”

  I checked my phone reflexively, even though I knew the answer. “No.”

  “You still have a flip phone?” He shook his head in exasperation. “Try resetting it. They bug out a lot.”

  I turned it off and on again. “Nothing.” Not from Nicky. Not from Mueller. Though why I expected him to jump to rectify our situation, I didn’t know. He didn’t owe me anything.

  Danny shrugged. “He said he’d call.”

  “He was okay when you saw him, though? No dire wounds or missing limbs?”

  “Fine. He’s been working out since high school. I get why you’d want to date him.”

  I snorted. “You do?”

  “Yeah, he’s…” He whistled at one of the bikini women. “I don’t find him attractive, but I can see where you would. And he’s funny. You should be with someone who makes you laugh.”

  “That sounds an awful lot like brotherly affection,” I teased. I wasn’t really in the mood for it, but he wasn’t in town that often. And better to make nice than fight. Again.

  “You’re not really dating that dude from last night, right?” The disapproval coating his words snapped my irritation firmly back into place.

  “Why not? He makes me laugh, too.”

  He paused for a second before he said, “You deserve better, Tess. You deserve a guy who’s got his shit together.”

  I threw him a half-hearted smile that suggested how I felt about that, and let him get back to his show. A big part of me wanted to yell at him for being so stupidly hypocritical. I couldn’t be both deserving of a guy with his life together and as inept at living my own as he accused me of being not twenty-four hours ago.

  I fell asleep in a weird mixture of anger, sadness, and worry. It gave me an even weirder montage of dreams: Mueller, sitting alone in the dark with a pretty, tortoiseshell cat beside him on the worn couch; Sabine, her golden tresses loose and wild, snoring lightly in a feather bed with an empty bottle of gin on the pillow beside her; and Nicky, poring over paperwork and crime scene photos and all sorts of things I couldn’t make sense of, every so often picking up his phone to type out an apology text only to delete it a second later. The same images, over and over again, unchanging. Each time feeling heavier and more tense than the last until I felt like I might burst with it.

  And then I was flying in the darkness, the summer air cooler at altitude but no less delightful as it rushed against me. The beat of my wings felt luxurious and free. I could breathe easily for the first time in years, with the kind of depth that relaxed me all the way to my toes. I banked beneath a thin wisp of cloud and glanced down to see my moon-cast shadow on the prairie far below. The shadow of a dragon large enough to blot out the sky…

  “Tessa? Tessa, is that you?”

  The dragon disappeared with a jolt to my mind, leaving me in darkness with no moon and no wind. Only the voice. It seemed both familiar and irritating.

  “I don’t have long, Tessa. They’ve trapped me using old magic. She shouldn’t have been able to, but… Well, I found a way to break through. Tessa? Tessa, are you listening?”

  I managed to make my dream mind focus on the voice, ignoring the strange stillness around me that made me want to shudder with revulsion. “Who’s there?” I whispered, my words sounding flat and empty. Dead.

  “Time is running out, Tessa. Do you remember what I told you? Keep the wand safe, whatever you do. If they take it, they will dismantle I. Then both my magic and I will be lost. My wand is the only thing that can save me, and you’re the only one that can wave it. Do you understand? Tessa?”

  The darkness began to lighten, shifting in swirls of grey and deep purple like paint on an ever-turning black canvas. Each repetition of my name drew me back, but I could tell the space was fading quickly. Or was it me?

  “Tessa, you have to remember! Keep my wand safe. Keep my wand. Keep my—”

  I jerked awake with a shock, the sort that used to be accompanied by a pillow lobbed at me by Ally during a sleepover. Except there was no pillow. Only thin morning light streamed through my curtains.

  Oh, and the nut-brown, pinched face of my resident brownie, stared at me from atop the dresser.

  “Godmother dreams,” he said, his voice creaking, harsh and wooden, across my newly awakened ears. “Nightmare?”

  “I don’t know what it was.” I pushed myself up to sitting. My head felt like it exploded with the movement, but a quick pat proved it was still in one piece. “Oh, man. I need to stop drinking what O’Toole gives me. I didn’t even drink that much.”

  “Never trust a leprechaun. Tricksy. Breakfast?” He tapped a mug of steaming brown liquid and a plate of pancakes with a side of bacon.

  I squinted at him through the headache. “Did you make that?”

  “Boy of house. Drapple only brought it down. Want?”

  That made my head hurt worse, which I had thought impossible only a second prior. “Danny can cook? Er, yes, I want it.” Despite the usual queasiness of a hangover, I felt ravenous. “Thanks.”

  “Live to serve, Godmother.” He bowed low. “Message,” he said, a split second before my phone beeped. And then he climbed off the dresser and disappeared.

  I bit off half a strip of bacon and grabbed my phone. It was a text from Mueller. Good feelings surged as I flipped the phone open to read it, only to have my heart sink the next instant. Don’t bother going to work. Factory closed until Monday.

  No apology. No attempt to explain. Not even a quick query to make sure I got home okay. Short. Perfunctory. All business.

  “Ms. Zent probably made him send it,” I growled, throwing my phone across the bed to sink into my comforter. And then I stuffed my mouth full of pancake so all the thoughts swirling around my head didn’t fall out of my mouth. Not that there was anyone to hear them, but I felt better with them bottled up inside where they belonged.

  Since I hadn’t done it the night before, I spent the next two hours recreating Amy’s costume. It had changed back into Mueller’s stinky boy clothes overnight. I was in no mood to return them so I went ahead and used them as the base again. After checking the rules pamphlet again, just to be sure. Timeliness, check. Normalcy, check. Most of the other eight were things I didn’t need to worry about yet. As I waved Maysie’s wand in short flicks and spins, creating the costume using the measurements from Amy’s email, I tried to imbue it with all the power of my need to break both the spell on Trapperstown and on the factory. I thought about Mueller’s girlfriend, but trying to add a flourish for her charred one of the boots so I abandoned that notion. A spell big enough to break two spells would surely be enough to help find Val.

  Once I was satisfied with the accuracy of the design, I threw on some clothes - trying hard not to compare my own measurements to Amy’s and failing miserably - and jumped in the car. Danny was already gone. No doubt he would sit at the hospital all day like the perfect, responsible adult he was. It wasn’t until I was halfway to Amy’s place that I realized my headache was gone. I made a mental note to always drink hot chocolate and eat pancakes for a hangover, and then forced myself not to think about anything but helping Amy. Today, nothing mattered but getting Amy to her happily ever after.

  The excitable little geek met me at the door with a squeal and a hug. “Today’s the day!”

  “Are you ready?” I asked, extra grateful my headache had disappeared.

  She took the costume bag from me with a sort of barely contained reverence, then bounced on the camel-colored carpet. “Well, I already did my makeup. I don’t know what I’ll do with my hair. I thought maybe just a ponytail, since that’s what Princess Fi
reflower always has.” She danced in a circle as we reached her bedroom and let out a nervous trill. “Actually, I’m totally freaking out. The truth is…” She laid out the costume pieces on her bed with a delicate touch. “I’ve never actually been on a date before.”

  “Never?” I looked her over. “How come? Guys obviously like you, and you’re smart.”

  She fingered one of the perfect silver flower buttons that held the bustier closed. “But I can’t talk. I get all…” She waved her hands around, knocking over the lamp beside the bed. With dexterity that surprised me, she caught it and righted it before it had a chance to hit the floor. “Spazzy.” She blushed.

  I smiled, recognizing that feeling well. “Everyone gets nervous. Even the guys.”

  “Yeah, but not like me.” She stripped in front of me as easily as if she’d been alone. As comfortable as she might have been, I turned away to give her a little privacy. “My brain shuts down and all I do is stare at my hands and then, when the weirdness gets too big, I blurt something totally stupid. Totally stupid, and totally weird. Like this one time, I was trying to talk to this girl in Computer Science. We’re the only two girls there, so I figured it was safe, right? But no. She asked me where I got my t-shirt, and you know what I said? ‘The computer.’ And then she got this look on her face that said I was the dumbest person she had ever met and it was almost painful to talk to me, and she never said anything else to me the entire semester. And that’s with a girl. What am I going to do with a guy?” She stopped talking to take a breath, then said, “Well? What do you think?”

  “I think it might be easier with a guy, really. You’re kind of like me, and I’ve always had an easier time talking to guys.” She was like me, I realized. Geeky, cute but not gorgeous. Willing to put the work in but never quite sure where to start.

  She tapped me on the shoulder so I would turn around and giggled. “I meant the costume.”

  “Oh.” Feeling like the spazz she claimed to be, I turned my artistic eye on my work. “That’s…not half bad.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” She stuck her tongue out at me.

  I laughed lightly. “I meant the costume. I didn’t do half bad. On you, though, it looks absolutely perfect.” And it did, too. I hadn’t quite been able to visualize with Mueller as my model (big surprise there), or without a model that morning. But seeing it on Amy—it enhanced all her natural features, giving her thin limbs a more muscular look, changing her posture to one of strength and self-assurance instead of the computer hunch I knew all too well.

  She opened her closet and admired herself in the full-length mirror on the back of the door. “It is kind of, isn’t it?” She beamed. Without warning, she threw herself at me for a giant hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! You have no idea what this means to me! Tyler is going to love it. But what about my hair?”

  “Sit,” I instructed, pulling her desk chair out for her. “Let me.” I reached for my wand, but hesitated, remembering the rules. Always keep things as mundane-friendly as possible. “But you have to close your eyes until I’m done. Deal?”

  “Deal!”

  I played with her hair for a few minutes to make a show of it, letting the light, blonde strands stream through my fingers. “Do you have hair stuff somewhere?”

  “Oh, here…” She pawed around her desk for a minute, evidence that her eyes were still closed, and opened the top drawer. A brush with several hair ties and bands wrapped around its handle was wedged in with an assortment of flash drives, tiny screwdrivers, pencils, and a ton of used sticky notes.

  I picked up one of the notes. “‘Too many newbs confused by initial gameplay,’” I read aloud. And, “‘Pinestock could be funnier.’”

  “Oh, don’t read those,” she yelped, opening her eyes to grab it back. “They’re lame.”

  “Your eyes are open,” I chided.

  “Sorry.” She scrunched them closed again once she made certain the notes were buried deep inside her desk.

  “You’re absolutely right, though.” I ran the brush through her hair. “The tutorial isn’t specific enough and Pinestock is kind of a letdown. I expected hippie elves telling me to make magic, not war.”

  Amy tensed. For a second, I thought she was upset by what I said. Then I realized she was trying hard to not wriggle with excitement so she didn’t mess up what I was doing. “Right? There are a lot of spots like that in the game, where the ideas are obviously there but not used to their full potential.”

  “You should submit those,” I said, nodding at the sticky notes’ hiding place. “I’m sure they would help the developers.”

  She shook her head, messing up the ponytail I was in the middle of smoothing. “I’m just a lame college kid with no experience. I’m sure they have that stuff covered. They’re just busy. It’ll get in there eventually, in the finishing touches.”

  “I could ask my brother. He should know.”

  “Your brother? Is he a platinum tester or something?”

  I brushed her hair out again, then stepped back and made a few quick motions with my wand. “He works for the company, actually.” Stars flew from the wand, causing me to tense as I waited for her response.

  Amy sat silently as I freaked out internally about blowing my cover. Instead of demanding to know what had just happened, she whispered, “No, that’s okay.”

  “Are you sure? He’s the one who hired me as a tester, so he should be able to influence changes. Or at least he’ll know who to talk to directly.”

  “I’m sure,” she mumbled.

  “He’s even in town right now, so it will only take a couple seconds.” I started to pull my phone from my pocket, but she spun around to stop me.

  “Don’t!”

  Surprise washed over me, not only from the speed and vehemence of her command, but also because my waving ministrations had significantly enhanced her makeup. Her eyes sparkled beneath long, sexy lashes. Her strawberry-pink lips pouted at me while her now-sleek eyebrows drew down across pale skin that sparked with glitter. Her high, magically straightened and perfect ponytail swished against her bare shoulders, gleaming golden in the late morning sunshine that lit her small, cluttered bedroom.

  “Okay,” I said, sounding a little breathless. The spell had gone extra right! Best of all, there were no wolf ears or weird byproducts of magical fumbling to fix. Except… “Can I touch up your makeup a little?”

  If she said no, how was I supposed to explain the extreme difference? I didn’t want to break the rules of being a godmother on my first job. Could I get fired? That possibility had never occurred to me. Would that allow a new godmother to take over my area? Getting ousted as a godmother might be quicker than waiting for all the paperwork…

  “Sure, if you think it’ll help.” Her voice was as quiet as a mouse. She opened the second drawer in her desk. It was pretty much the same story as the one above, except this one included a variety of school objects like erasers and a dusty stapler.

  “Close your eyes,” I reminded, smiling. I used her brushes and sponges and the rest to pretend I was crafting with real makeup something I would never have been able to achieve on my own.

  “Sorry I yelled at you,” she murmured. “I’m such a spastic moron.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “You’re here to help me. For free. And you don’t really even know me. I mean, we’ve played all of what? Twelve hours together in the game? Maybe? It’s incredibly nice of you, and all I can do is yell at you for trying to help.” Tears glistened beneath her darkened lashes.

  “Hey,” I said, setting down a brush and squeezing her shoulders. “It’s okay. If you don’t want me to mention it to my brother, I won’t. I don’t want to do anything that makes you uncomfortable.”

  She smiled without opening her eyes. “Thanks.” She sniffled.

  I handed her a tissue from the box hiding behind her computer monitor. “You want to talk about it?”

  A shrug. “There’s not much to s
ay. I’m a nobody. And I can’t…” She shook her head, causing her ponytail to sway almost hypnotically. Maybe I’d overdone it… “I don’t want someone from my dream company thinking I’m a total loser.”

  “Danny wouldn’t think that. About me, sure. But you? He’s too nice for that.”

  She finally opened her eyes to blink up at me. “How can he think that? You’re possibly the most amazing person I’ve ever met. You’re definitely the nicest.” She dabbed at her nose.

  “You know. Siblings.”

  She laughed softly. “Yeah, I know how that goes. But if he’s that blind, even about his sister, then I don’t want to share my ideas with him, anyway.”

  I gave her another squeeze. After a slightly awkward moment of my own, I asked, “Want to see the finished look?”

  “Yes! And no…” She laughed at herself, this time a more robust thing that told me she was feeling better.

  I moved out of the way so she could see the mirror behind me. She gasped. “Woah, Tessa…” A wide-eyed archeress sauntered toward her as she moved across the room, turning her head this way and that as she appraised my work. She beamed. “I look awesome!”

  A bouncy hug from a sultry archeress was somehow exactly the same as from a t-shirt-and-jeans computer geek. Her gratitude poured out of her in a long litany of thank-yous and ohmigoshes. She practiced poses and blew herself kisses for a long time, unable to stop giggling in delight.

  “I didn’t get the chance to make you a bow. Sorry about that.”

  “That’s okay,” she said, peering over her shoulder to admire the boots. “They might confiscate it at the gate, anyway.”