A Spoonful of Magic

by Irene Radford

  “I’ll call you in the morning,” he whispered.

  “Anytime. I’m up early.”

  Another quick kiss and he left me alone.

  “Tomorrow, I’m going to seek help, the kind I usually resist,” G said when I returned to the living room. At least he hadn’t followed us through the kitchen.

  I heard Jason rummaging around the kitchen for a bedtime snack, his third.

  “What kind of help?” I asked.

  “Healing hands.”

  “As in?”

  “A massage therapist across town. She’s licensed by the state and the Guild. Works miracles on torn muscles and knotted tendons. She uses mundane methods as well as magical, depending on who her client is and what they truly need.” G eased himself into the recliner and lifted the footrest. His body looked more comfortable, but his face remained contorted with pain.

  “Physical therapy isn’t enough?”

  “Too slow.”

  “I’ve heard of that lady. She’s in one of the high-rise bank buildings downtown,” Jason said around a corned beef sandwich that leaked sauerkraut and mustard.

  I dashed to thrust a paper napkin under his hands and caught a blob.

  “Anyway, Aaron and Matt, our two lead male dancers, go to her after intense rehearsals. Is her name Judy? No, Judi with an i. Say, if Tiffany is leaving first of the year, do you think Denise will be promoted to prima? I’ve been practicing with her on some lifts, and she’s got really great balance. She might ask for me as her new partner.” He took another bite, almost dislocating his jaw to get around the bulk of the sandwich.

  “I think there will be intense auditions for the spring program. And Denise dances with Matt as if they were made for each other. Now off to bed with you. You have both a matinee and an evening performance tomorrow,” I ushered him toward the stairs.

  “Will the police close the theater?” Jason asked.

  Good question.

  “Doubtful. No one was hurt and they found all three slugs. They have the perp in custody,” G said, more familiar with police procedure than I was.

  That hit me like a blow to the gut. G a policeman. Different title and jurisdiction. But now that I’d seen him dealing with the aftermath of a crime just like an authorized detective, I knew for certain that he really and truly was a law enforcement officer and not just playing at it with magic.

  I had to sit down on the bottom step.

  “Mom!” Jason leaped to my side, landing with precision and lightness. Oh, yes, he had magic in those feet and legs of his.

  “Probably shock,” G said, still in the recliner. “Get her up to bed. I’ll make her a cup of chamomile tea if you’ll carry it up to her.” He braced his arms on the chair in preparation of getting up.

  “Stay put, G. I’m still the mom in this household. I’ll get my own tea. Both of you go to bed and stay there until breakfast. That’s an order.” I hated chamomile, therapeutic as it was. Peppermint for me, with a double shot of scotch. Maybe a triple.

  Ted called at six and asked me to turn on the local news. It was less than inspirational. Bret Chambers Sr. faced the camera with Flora standing stalwart at his side. Not a stumble or emotion got in the way of the “Candidate’s” prepared speech.

  “The lengths some of our neighbors will go to in order to sabotage my campaign by luring my son into committing an act of irrational passion saddens me. It is not my son’s actions that should be on trial here, but the enticement to violence perpetrated by the heathen members of our community who should be held accountable.”

  He went on for some time. I tuned him out. “Does he honestly believe he can get BJ off with that kind of defense?” I asked Ted bleakly over the phone.

  “I don’t know. His pastor has made a statement that BJ was weak and needs therapy to strengthen his character while several parishioners say his parents are not to blame,” Ted replied. “I’m getting implications that they want to name Jason as a drug dealer so the blame will fall back on your ‘broken home.’”

  I wanted Ted here, his solid common sense to lean on. Instead, he was on the other end of the phone line.

  “What’s going to happen now?” I asked, bewildered.

  “State mandated competency consultation, probably later today,” Ted replied.

  “And that means . . . ?”

  “State psychiatrist will interview BJ and evaluate his competency to stand trial. Does he know why he’s in jail? Does he remember shooting at people? That sort of thing. Since he’s sixteen, it’s iffy if the parents will be present or not.”

  “Flora will demand she be present at least. I can’t see Bret Sr. staying out of it either.” I wondered if G could use his contacts to observe the evaluation through one of those windows that looks like a mirror from the inside. The kind they showed on TV all the time. I’d ask.

  “Competent or not, he’s going to be locked up for a while. Doubtful any judge will grant bail on criminal charges. Psych charges means the State Hospital for a long time, with supervision, therapy, and drugs.”

  “Bret Sr. will probably push for the State Hospital. He can spin that to a positive in his campaign.”

  “If BJ starts spouting phrases like magical coercion and destruction of wands and such, you can almost bet he’ll get the State Hospital for a good long time.”

  That would satisfy me. BJ had been a good kid until all this magic stuff descended upon us. I could well imagine his unacknowledged talents chewing on his mind, driving him insane.

  The same thing had happened to D’Accore.

  It might happen to me. . . .

  No. I had accepted magic before I manifested. I had help, training, and people to talk with about it rather than keeping it all in and hidden from those closest to me.

  “Want to come over and help Jason refinish the attic floor before the party?” I had to change the subject before I fell into a deep depression about what magic was doing to us—ripping my family to emotional shreds.

  “Love to, but I’ve got a ballerina in the throes of being delicate until showtime.”

  “Let me know if I can do anything to help.”

  “You’ve already done so much. She’s soaking her feet in your special solution and burning up the phone lines with her friends. I’ll call you later, even if it’s just to chat. Bye.”

  I felt like I was in high school with the first blush of a crush on the captain of the football team. Only this time he liked me back.

  “Mom, when did Dad learn to speak German?” Jason asked, stumbling down the stairs and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

  “What?”

  “He was on the phone all night. Sometimes German. Sometimes French. Once it sounded like Chinese. Cantonese, I think. Not Mandarin. And a really weird dialect that might have been some Indian tribe.” Still rubbing his eyes and shuffling his feet, he opened the fridge and hauled out milk and OJ. “Oh, and he made an early appointment with Judi. Nine, I think. He gets the priority treatment for Guild members.”

  “Use a glass, don’t drink from the carton. And how do you know the difference between Cantonese and the other hundred or so dialects of Chinese?” I didn’t care about the massage therapy as long as it didn’t disrupt Jason’s—or my—schedule.

  “I dunno.” The universal answer of a teenager.

  “Wake up and start talking.” Before I slammed into G’s old office that had become his bedroom to ask what was going on. No more recliner or hospital bed for him. Last week he’d directed Jason, Aaron, and Matt to drag an antique double headboard and bedframe out of the attic. I’m not certain where he found a mattress and bedding. Maybe he and Jason had bought them on one of their driving lesson excursions. Or Jason had dug them out of one of the dowry chests in the attic.

  He was taking over my life. Again.

  “He was up all night, I think, tal
king on the phone. His room is right below mine, so I heard it all. Understood some of it. The French part anyway. Maybe he was dragging my dream self into the conversation so I would understand.” He stared longingly at the pancake batter I’d mixed up earlier. And the eggs. And the sausage.

  “I’ll fix you breakfast, but you have to let me know what your father was doing on the phone all night.”

  “I don’t think I’m supposed to tell. It sounded like Guild business.”

  That would explain the multiple languages.

  “And I think he might be calling some deputies.”

  “Good. He’s getting better, but he’s still not up to snuff. He needs help, and he needs to learn to delegate.” I plopped batter onto the griddle and listened to it sizzle. Then I started a half pound of bacon and four eggs in other fry pans. “You need some fruit with this. There should be a melon mix in the covered red bowl.”

  Jason sat in the nook and stared at the refrigerator door as if it were a mile away.

  He got silence from me. Finally, he dragged himself upright and stumbled the ten steps to his goal and rummaged around until he found the bowl right in front of him. He flipped the lid into the sink and began pulling chunks of cantaloupe and watermelon out with his fingers, stuffing them into his mouth almost as fast as he could grab the next piece. I knew he’d at least leave the pineapple and grapes for the girls.

  “Get a fork. And save some for your sisters.”

  “And me,” G said, emerging from his room. He limped. Badly. His cane thunked heavily on the floor with each step. He’d been considerably better yesterday. He was dressed, casually for him, in pressed khakis and a polo shirt, also neatly pressed.

  I hadn’t done his laundry, so I wondered who had ironed his clothes. Or did he use a magic spell to “refresh” them?

  “When are you moving in with Raphe?” I asked, trying for casual, but even to my own ears I sounded annoyed. “You can manage stairs again, and you’ve been here for two weeks.” I didn’t add that he was keeping Jason up all night with his phone calls.

  “Can’t. I’ve got three deputies flying in this afternoon and I need the extra rooms at Raphe’s to house them until we settle things with D’Accore and Mooney.” He flopped onto the bench seat in the nook, rubbing his injured knee and looking pitiful. Or as pitiful as he could manage in order to get on my good side.

  “They can drive you around, so Jason has time to do his homework for a change and rest between performances.” I added more batter to the griddle for him. No sounds from above, so I guessed the girls would sleep awhile longer. Jason could use up the batter that should have fed the entire family. He was growing again. Or was that still?

  “I need to be with Jason at the theater, so I’ll need you to meet my people at the airport . . .”

  “I can protect our son if I have to. But I think he can probably do a better job himself. And you need to watch the morning news. Bret and Flora are blaming us for encouraging violent tendencies in their precious little boy. They are hinting that if drugs are involved, they came from ‘that fag, Jason.’”

  G covered his face with both hands and rubbed circulation into his head.

  “That accusation is hardly anything to be ashamed of now, but Chambers still considers ‘fag’ the ultimate insult. In the current political climate, more and more people are giving in to previously hidden prejudice. Not much I can do about that,” he countered. “I can try to observe the competency test, so I know what kind of cleanup I need to do in the aftermath. But I doubt that even my credentials will get me into the interrogation room. That sort of thing is usually kept very private.”

  “The best we can hope for is that BJ tells the truth and no one believes him,” Jason said.

  “There is a particularly cute and perky blonde reporter hanging around town looking for her first story. She seems to have zeroed in on the unusual happenings in town. I ran into her after the protests at the shop. Please be charming when she rams her microphone into your teeth,” I said. “You might suggest to her your concern that BJ is schizophrenic. Let the press jump on that and thus make it true before the psych eval.”

  “I’ll just say I sympathize with Mr. Chambers trying to defend his son even if he is grasping at straws.” He flashed his most winning smile.

  This time I detected the sizzle of magic emanating from him. Mentally, I sidestepped his charm.

  Jason was hovering at my shoulder with an empty plate. I stacked four pancakes onto it. He used a spatula to gather his eggs and a long-handled fork for the bacon. That should keep him busy for about thirty seconds.

  “Can I have Dad’s room when he moves out again?” he asked around a wad of pancakes dripping in syrup.

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” G admonished, before I could.

  I just said, “No.”

  “But it’s quieter than my room right across from the girls and I’d have my own bathroom that I wouldn’t have to share with my sisters!”

  He had a point.

  I saw Gayla drive up along the side of the house and park by the back gate. Her little station wagon looked stuffed to the gills with odd shapes in black and gray. Oh, yeah. We’d planned to start decorating for Halloween.

  “New plan. G, you will fetch your deputies from the airport. You are driving again whether you like it or not. I’m taking Jason to the theater and dropping him off. Ted will be there with Tiffany. Gayla and I will be busy with the girls here.”

  “But . . .”

  “Mom . . . !”

  “Are there any pancakes left for us?” Belle asked with Shara right behind her.

  And the muted TV in the corner showed fire trucks rolling toward a massive blob of red flames at the heart of roiling black smoke in the center of old town on the block where John Mooney had his shop. The flames threatened to jump streets headed toward Magical Brews.

  Thirty-Five

  “DAFFY, a little rain right now would help a lot,” G demanded as he leveraged himself upright. Damn that knee. He had a major situation to control and an appointment with the healing hands lady in ninety minutes.

  “I can’t produce rain,” Daffy replied. She let Gayla in, and they immediately began discussing what they needed to do to protect their coffee shop.

  “You can predict the weather to the minute. Controlling it is only one step above that,” G said. He grabbed her arm to pull her out of her discussion.

  She stared at his hand as if it were a snake about to bite her. His palm grew hot, her skin burned him. Damn she was developing yet another aspect of her talents.

  “Think about it, Daffy. Think hard. Don’t just know when the clouds are moving in from the west. Concentrate on how they move and how much water they want to dump.” Her eyes grew wide in wonder. “Don’t let them drop any water on the coast range. Make them come farther inland.”

  “It was starting to drizzle when I drove in,” Gayla said, probably oblivious to the storm fury going on in Daffy’s mind.

  Shara bounced to the window. “The sky’s getting dark and the wind is picking up,” she reported.

  “Wind won’t help the fire much,” Gayla snorted. “It will carry the sparks farther afield.”

  “Not if we make it circle,” Belle added. “Dad, I need to be on the roof. I think I can attract the wind, make it split and crash together, and then let the clouds dump rain to lighten their load while the two halves fight it out.”

  “That should keep it from spreading too fast and give the firefighters a chance to contain it,” Jason said. He stood up, flexing his knees, preparing for whatever he could do to help. But his movements were slow, almost labored. He wasn’t as rested as he pretended.

  “I need to be outside,” Daffy muttered, eyes glazed. She stumbled toward the front door.

  “We have to make sure the rain concentrates on the center of the fire,” G said
, guiding Daffy onto the front porch.

  “I’ll carry Belle up to the tower roof,” Jason almost chortled. “I know I can jump that high.”

  “Start at the top of the tower and use the door to the widow’s walk,” G thundered at him. “Do an occasional hover high enough to see over the trees into old town. But don’t invite observation, don’t stay in the air long enough to be spotted.”

  “What can I do?” Shara asked, staring at the muted television screen.

  “You’re the maze runner, kid,” G said. “Find the core of the fire.”

  Shara scrunched her eyes almost closed in concentration as she followed them onto the porch.

  “Wind your way down through the flames,” G instructed her.

  She winced and cringed backward. He steadied her with both hands on her shoulders. “I know it’s hot in there, but the flames can’t touch you. The flames are an artificial construct. You need to find the fire imp at the core. It’s fanning the flames. You find it. I’ll flatten it.”

  “What about D’Accore and Mooney?” Daffy gasped. She’d done her job, bringing the rain and clouds in. Now she had time to think. She wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the morning chill. Then she shook her head and ushered everyone back inside.

  Gayla handed Daffy the fruit bowl and started feeding her. Good. The woman didn’t have a magical talent, but she knew what magical people needed and when they needed it.

  “This feels more like a temper tantrum than planned destruction. We thwarted her twice last night. Now she’s taking it out on whoever is closest. Mooney, I guess, since he owns that building.” G tasted the essence of the fire through Shara and the televised images.

  “Dad, I need line of sight. Up high.” Shara slumped against him. Gayla handed her one of Daffy’s wonderfully nutritious cookies.

  “Balcony off my bedroom,” Daffy said. She grabbed their daughter’s hand and dragged her upstairs.

  G had to follow. Shara would need a few minutes to find the imp while he limped up the stairs.