A Spoonful of Magic

by Irene Radford

  But before that, while still in school, I’d been working the noon-to-closing shift, trying to make and save as much money as possible for room and board. My parents helped with tuition and books, but they’d only pay for a heavily supervised dorm room, nothing coed, not the tiny space off campus I craved. They expected me to get my teaching certificate and then go home to Seattle to live with them and teach locally. They’d already selected a member of Dad’s church as my future husband. As far as they were concerned, I had no choice.

  I had news for them. I had no intention of returning to rain-drenched Seattle.

  And then that day in late August, I was getting a head start on the final cleanup before I flipped the Open sign to Closed. A man about ten years older than me slid into the shop at almost the last possible moment. He wore a freshly pressed, light gray suit with a discreet blue-and-silver tie. He smelled of soap and aftershave, like he was going out for the evening. I looked up into his fabulous blue eyes and knew that he wanted an extra tall skinny vanilla latte, extra foam. I started fixing it before he asked. Words failed me as I handed him the cup with its cardboard heat sleeve.

  “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve seen all week, and you made the latte perfectly,” he said, looking at me and only me rather than his drink.

  “Thank you.”

  “What do I owe you?” He slid one hand into his inside jacket pocket for his wallet.

  “N . . . nothing. It’s the last of the grounds for the day. I’d just have to throw them out if you hadn’t needed them.”

  “Then I must thank you. I haven’t been into this shop before. Do you work every day?” He smiled. After just one smile I knew I’d have come into the shop to work at any time, without pay, to serve him. “I’m G, by the way.” He offered to shake my hand.

  I took it as I cocked my head in question.

  “I have a longer and more pretentious name. Everyone just calls me G.”

  “I’m Daffy. I, too, have a longer, lyrical name that isn’t me.”

  We laughed at that. Then I rattled off my complicated schedule.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow at noon, just before you leave for the day. I presume you have appointments to register for classes in the afternoon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then perhaps you will allow me to escort you to campus, perhaps buy you lunch.”

  A week later I moved in with him. We celebrated his son’s first birthday together. Three weeks after that, he left town for ten days—his first business trip for his new position with his company. The pattern held for the next fourteen years.

  Eleven

  “I SEE YOU HAVE redecorated again. I like the flour-and-sugar flocking on the wallpaper,” G said. He’d come in through the alley door to Magical Brews. Unusual. He normally disdained the alley because of the dumpsters and the haven for the homeless. Only one tattered gentleman, as slow of mind as of limping gait currently claimed our overhang as his camp.

  “Oh,” I said, awakening from my trance of pounding batters and doughs with my wooden spoon. The much-abused pastry would become offerings for our homeless man—and whoever else stopped by to share with him—Old Raphe had camped out in the alley during the mild weather of summer. Come winter, with the usual onslaught of rain and wind and sometimes snow, we’d have to move him to something better than seeking the relative warmth of the nooks and crannies between the dumpster and the brick walls. The imperfect dough I’d nearly beaten to death would be tasty enough but not the perfect texture for our paying customers who’d come to expect nothing less than perfection from my kitchen.

  “I guess I’ve made more of a mess than usual.”

  “The kids have eaten and cleaned the kitchen at home. I set them all lessons with their new wands, so they will be happily occupied for a while. You may have trouble getting them into bed they are so happy,” G said, inspecting my kitchen. “But not a lot of trouble. Magic drains people of energy. They’ll sleep well and long once they do get into bed.”

  “Thank you. I think I’m done here, so I’ll just clean up and go home.” I ducked my head to avoid looking at him while I gathered the flattened dough into a giant crockery bowl and covered it with a linen towel. Finding the perfect spot to let the dough rest and rise overnight occupied a few more minutes. My rising oven—a brick cubby kept warm by hot air passing over the building’s boiler—was already full.

  Why was I so uncomfortable with the man I’d lived with for fourteen years?

  Because he was being helpful and nice and represented warmth and safety and our divorce would be final in a matter of weeks. I didn’t want him to be nice and helpful when he’d rarely been before. It was like I’d done the job he’d hired me for—raising his children to the point where he could take over their education—and then fired me. Because I was no longer useful. Or sexy. Or arm candy for him to parade before his business associates—were the infrequent cocktail parties really computer business people, or high-powered wizards? And he lied to me. Frequently. And not just about the magic. About where he traveled and when he’d be back and how to get hold of him in an emergency. I could not believe anymore that he truly loved me.

  Strengthened by my anger, I finally turned and faced him. “Thank you for dealing with the children and checking in with me. I’ll just finish up here and go home.”

  Clearly dismissed, he turned toward the front of the shop, obviously so he wouldn’t have to brave the gauntlet of bad smells and bad-smelling individuals in the alley. He stopped at the swinging door between the kitchen and the front. “Have you eaten anything since your chicken strips and fries at noon?”

  I looked up at the clock above the ovens. After eight. Oops.

  “How about I get a pizza and bring it back here? I didn’t get much of your leftovers. Jason ate almost everything in the refrigerator.”

  We shared a smile at the boy’s appetite and his growth spurt. I hoped G had bought socks for him at the mall. They were on his list.

  “That would be okay,” I replied. I did need to eat and the kitchen would require more than a few minutes to clean, not at all my usual orderly style of baking. And I wanted to check again for signs of a grease leak beneath the burners.

  I set to work. Fortunately, the dry stuff came off the walls and counters quite easily. Then it was a matter of sweeping it up and mopping the floor and the counters and wiping down the walls with a clean sponge on a long handle. The mild bleach solution should take care of any lingering nastiness and break up any remaining grease.

  Before I knew it, G had returned with the fragrant decadence of cheese and sauce and pepperoni, with lots of veggies on a thick crust. He’d bought a large pie and a bottle of wine. Looks like Jason would have a substantial bedtime snack with the leftovers and I’d have the soft mellowing effect from the wine.

  If G thought he could work his wicked wiles on me, at least the wine and pizza were natural and not magical.

  We sat at one of the little round tables by the display window. Before I took my chair, I made sure the front door was locked, the blinds pulled, and the closed sign firmly in place. Many times in the past, I’d had people expecting service if they noticed any lights on or someone moving about inside. Closed signs didn’t mean anything to coffee-and-sugar addicts.

  Companionable silence enveloped us as I munched through my usual quota of two slices. I was contemplating a third when G spoke.

  “I have to go away for a while. A flare-up at work.”

  “Where to this time?” I asked. My curiosity wanted details. Of his work, not the aftermath. I didn’t need to know about the bimbos he found when the work was done.

  “I start in Marseilles. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”

  “A big case, then.”

  “Unfortunately.”

  In my imagination, the number of bimbos doubled. I put down that third slice I no longer wanted.
“Have fun,” I said with more than a bit of contempt.

  G didn’t need to read my mind to know where my thoughts led me. He reached over and rested his big hand atop mine. I looked small and frail in comparison to his strength.

  “It’s not always like that, Daffy.”

  “Like what?” I fixed him with a determined glare.

  “Look, I have, upon occasion found release with another woman when I was far away from you and the amount of magic I had to cast in order to close a case was too much to contain. Not often. Not habitually. There is always a woman of age I can pick up in a bar who is very willing to share a one-night stand. And I always use a condom.”

  He paused long enough to chew a bite of pizza and swallow it. “Normally, I hop the first flight home and return to you, my love.”

  “But last spring you flaunted your wanderings in front of half the gossips in town. Like you wanted me to find out and force me to divorce you. Well, look. You succeeded.” I slammed my chair back and returned to the kitchen, unable to face him anymore.

  “And what about the kids? Are they going to be bed-hopping after every practice session? Shara is only ten!”

  “No. They will be too tired. They won’t have the energy to even think about sex until a long time after they gain control of their talents.”

  Why was I not relieved?

  “Will you consider the fact that I need to put distance between us to protect you!” He breathed deeply until he was calm. “Keep a close eye on the kids. They shouldn’t be out on their own much this early in their training. New situations and people could trigger impressions and decisions that are out of character and they’ll have no control yet. You might think them insane until an expert talks them through the situation. I’ll call when I get back. I’ve left you a satellite phone with my number. It should reach me anywhere, though I may have to call you back if I’m in the middle of something important.” The front door slammed with a rattle of glass and shades. He took the remaining pizza and the wine with him.

  As I walked home, darkness had fallen, but the road and the streetlights were familiar. We lived in a low-crime neighborhood. I had no fear.

  At first.

  Two blocks from the shop I heard footsteps behind me. I thought it might be the remnants of the street party breaking up and heading toward their own homes in the neighborhood.

  Another three blocks and the footsteps persisted. A shiver of apprehension climbed my spine. I increased my pace.

  So did the anonymous footsteps.

  At the next streetlight, I looked behind me as I crossed the street. A blur of movement into the shadows. No one visible.

  I kept walking, moving a bit faster as I opened my phone. My finger hovered over the emergency icon.

  The footsteps continued at the same distance and did not get closer.

  As I turned down my driveway, a shadowy figure continued on toward the next-door neighbors’ house and beyond.

  I breathed a sigh of relief and unlocked the back door.

  The smell of smoke greeted me. Faint but distinctive. The fire alarm remained silent. Before I could shout for the kids, the smoke was gone, leaving no trace of its presence. Except in my memory.

  Twelve

  “I NEED TO REVIEW the evidence of any previous investigation into this matter,” G stated firmly to the seven elderly and crusty men lounging around the club room, deep inside an ancient ruined castle. Of course, it only looked ruined. The illusion of a boring pile of rocks that had nothing left to disclose discouraged even the most ardent historian, archeologist, and paranormal investigator.

  The Languedoc region in the foothills of the French Pyrenees was the perfect location for Guild Headquarters. The landscape was littered with ancient fortresses left over from the turbulent Middle Ages when life was uncertain at the best of times and everyone trained for war as a profession.

  “Any investigation will be impossible,” replied Sergei Bolovnovich. Fifteen years ago the bespectacled Ukrainian wrestler had held G’s position as Sheriff for the Guild of Master Wizards. He’d handpicked G as his successor. And trained him meticulously from the first day of recruitment as a deputy.

  Everyone agreed this was a natural choice since G’s parents had been roving field agents for Bolovnovich. They’d been on assignment in South Africa when they were executed by government forces.

  “Why is it impossible?” G demanded, barely in control of his temper. With flight delays and rental car snafus, getting to Marseilles and then here on a barely accessible crag overhanging the Mediterranean, he’d run out of patience hours ago.

  “An escape from our dungeon is unprecedented,” Bolovnovich replied. He spoke German these days, without a trace of his Slavic origins. He’d never spoken English or French well. The rest of the board spoke whatever language they chose. And they all understood each other. Fluency in multiple languages was a prerequisite for officials of the Guild.

  “I know how hard it is to escape our dungeons. I helped design the magical wards as well as the impenetrable locks. That is why I must review the evidence now that I am aware of the criminal’s goals and plans. I know the how; she had help. Expensive help. I need to know the why and the who.”

  The seven men stirred uncomfortably, turning their attention to their cigars and brandies.

  “We have erased all record of the prisoner’s existence as well as her capture, trial, and incarceration rituals,” Bolovnovich muttered, staring into his half-empty snifter. He’d been delegated spokesman even though he disagreed. As a former sheriff, he looked embarrassed. Good law officers never erased evidence files. You never knew when a closed case would come back and bite you in the ass.

  “But you did not erase her! She’s still out there, murdering members of our community. Absorbing power from their wands. She is more dangerous than ever. Deep anger at us now fuels her rampage and her insanity,” G protested. “And whoever helped her escape is also running free, planning more murders, more wand stripping. We can’t afford to allow this to continue. Our numbers are few enough as it is. And she is coming closer every day to revealing her powers to the entire world. Her sociopathic behavior endangers us all!”

  “You don’t understand . . .” Pickering, the oldest of the lot, said in his hesitant and rusty English voice. “Our Guild cannot afford the humiliation of this news getting out. It will weaken the structure of the community that has protected our kind for centuries.” He sounded as if he’d been part of the first Board over a thousand years ago when the Catholic Church had come down hard on magical practitioners. The Cather heresy had only been one front for the community. Pope Innocent III’s Crusaders had thought they wiped them out along with their strongholds. Conveniently, they left a number of ruined castles for the Guild to restore and obscure those restorations.

  “And how strong will you be when two rogue magicians have murdered us all in our beds?” G demanded. His voice rose in pitch similar to Shara’s steam whistle. He hated when he lost control. But that might be the only thing capable of penetrating his employers’ foggy brains.

  The seven men squirmed some more. G stomped out of the exclusive room and their rarified presence. Bolovnovich tried to stop him with a hand to his arm.

  G shook him off as soon as he felt the tiny weight of a thumb drive drop into his coat pocket.

  He stomped down the winding stone staircase, making as much noise as possible so his bosses could follow his path in their minds. Maybe he could get a sense of the sequence of actions lingering in the stones of the dungeon cell and the guardroom. Maybe he should have brought Belle and let her charm cooperation from the Board. Shara could help him figure out who picked the locks and how. Jason could jump up and inspect scenes from above for traces of footprints, or disturbed dirt and stones.

  He missed them all terribly.

  Daffy’s calm good sense most of all.

 
In the movies, magic spells are accompanied by pretty sparkles and dynamic music.

  In reality, magic spells are accompanied by small fires, overturned furniture, and breaking glass. Lots of breaking glass, especially mirrors.

  And constant refrains of “Alakazam, Magic Slam.”

  I learned to hate that song.

  A loud thump. My balance teetered as the floor tilted. I had to grab hold of the kitchen table as I set out sandwich makings. The entire house shook and windows rattled.

  “Jason!” I screamed.

  “Sorry, Mom,” he called down the kitchen stairwell.

  I steadied my balance, took a deep breath. And then another. This had been going on for a week. And G was nowhere in sight to help. I had to handle this on my own.

  By the time I had enough starch in me to march upstairs, Jason clattered down them. For a ballet dancer dedicated to landing a four-foot-high jump with as little noise as possible, he could certainly make a heck of a lot of it in bare feet when he wasn’t on stage. Right. The stairs were carpeted, he wasn’t in direct contact with wood when he planted each big foot.

  “What fell over?” I asked.

  “You know that big, heavy wardrobe thingy that was Dad’s grandmother’s?” He stopped on the first stair, making him taller than me. A position of power.