The delay didn’t stop Magdella, however.
Before I could tell her what I thought about hiring a specialist in the many wonders of Attractor-ing, Mother had already made up her mind. Her daughter—a Bramblewood through and through—obviously did possess a rare and unusual gift.
“Apple needs the best magic tutor available, one who will guide her through the murky waters of the UMP (Unusual Magical Practices) and prepare her for the challenges ahead.” And Mother knew just the right person—in fact, the perfect person for the job. “I’d better hurry and engage him before he commits to another family.” And she was off.
If the unknown him was already booked, that was fine with me. I hoped he’d stay booked for the next seventy years. After Phil the Alien, sweet Nora, and the devious Glucky—what difference would a special tutor make? I expected things would only get worse.
Reynard Grey. My mouth went dry just thinking the Wizard’s name. He probably had a long gray beard and a monocle. With hair growing out of his nose and ears. I really felt like retching. My parents would never torture Cornelia this way.
I paced the long room my father called a library and my mother called a classroom. One end was lined with books, a fireplace, and a wing chair for reading. On the other side, a narrow library table and four wooden chairs stood in front of a large window.
I sat and glared at the clock. Counting the minutes down to my doom.
Bong. Ding-dong.
The clock struck one o’clock at the exact moment the doorbell rang. Wizard Grey was right on time. Another reason to hate him. I heard muffled voices in the foyer, then the thump-thump of footsteps on the stairs.
I froze in the straight-backed chair and twisted my hands. My stomach churned like a bowl of crazed piranhas. Calm down, I told myself. Think of this as just another trial to endure in order to win the right to go to an Ordinary school in the fall. I tried to imagine being surrounded by kids my own age, going to sporting events and parties, having a best friend—having any kind of a friend. Living Corny’s life was what I wanted. Was that too much to ask?
The door flew open and my mother swept into the room. Magdella, with her flowing chestnut hair and trailing skirts, always looked magnificent. The person behind her was hard to make out at first. When Mom stepped aside and presented him, my jaw dropped.
“Tutor Grey, this is my youngest daughter, Apple.”
I barely registered the words, my heart beat so furiously. Tutor Grey, Reynard Grey, was the most beautiful creature I’d ever laid eyes on. He had wavy black hair and the bluest eyes. He was so tall his head almost brushed the top of the door frame.
My mother said some stuff—I didn’t catch a word of it—and left.
“Child—” Reynard sat beside me and leaned very close. “Let me see your hands.”
I offered them timidly, hoping they were clean. My heart raced. How embarrassing. Surely, he must hear that telltale organ pounding.
The Wizard studied my palms. “Hmmm,” he said after a while. He stood and shook his head from side to side as if clearing it. “I want to perform a little experiment. I will retrace my steps and enter the room again as if for the first time.”
Reynard Grey could do any nutty thing he wanted as far as I was concerned. I smoothed my wild hair and brushed lint off my frayed blue jeans. Shoulda worn the “pretty” outfit my mom laid out.
Minutes ticked away before the Wizard re-entered. He came in with his eyes closed, carrying the strangest wand I’d ever seen. It was shaped like a W with three prongs, and two of the prongs seemed to be fighting each other. It rotated from left to right, back to front, up and down, all the while twisting madly in Reynard’s fist.
Was I causing all that agitation?
The swimmers in my stomach turned to stone, and my mind suddenly skidded to the reason I had a tutor in the first place. These experiments and tests were no joke. As I’d read in a volume called Top Twenty Sorceries of the UMP, Attractors were cursed from birth with the unwanted ability to attract troubled spirits, both living and dead. Basically, I gathered, that’s all an Attractor was really good for, and it sucked lemon weed.
Suddenly, the forked wand propelled Reynard forward and jerked. The prongs had definitely zoned in on me.
Reynard opened his eyes. “Ahh.”
Hardly breathing, I waited for him to say something else, but he folded his strange wand and stuffed it into an inner pocket of his jacket. His blue eyes stared at me so hard that heat radiated from my face and a trickle of sweat rolled down my back.
“Well, am I cursed?”
“To be an Attractor is not a curse.” Reynard smiled. “It’s a responsibility.”
That sounded like a curse to me, but I didn’t say so.
He took off his tweed jacket, slung it over a chair, loosened his tie, and rolled up his sleeves. “Before we jump to conclusions, let’s start at the beginning. Today, Apple…”
He said my name. I swooned.
“Apple? Are you with me?” He studied my face and rubbed his chin. “Today’s lesson is an easy one.” A clipboard and pen appeared on the table. “I want you to write the story of your life, starting with your very first memory. Try to include all the important highlights. I’m going to do a little more research on your possible condition while I wait. I’ll be close at hand if you need me.”
Well! I didn’t know what I expected, but that assignment was going to be as easy as pie—Apple pie. There was nothing much in my dull life to write about—excepting my various “encounters,” which I preferred not to mention, especially to Tutor Grey. (Even though he’d probably think them “important highlights.”)
I settled my chin in my palm and began to scribble. The first thing that came to mind was a memory of me as a baby sitting in a high chair in a warm, cozy kitchen. One of Mother’s over-sized apple pictures hung on the wall. Mom took my hands to play a game of patty-cake, my favorite:
“Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, Wizard man,
Bake me a Spellcake, fast as you can,
Chant it and charm it, only for me,
What’s in the future? We’ll all soon see!”
I heard my baby self giggle when my mother’s face came close and kissed my nose. I doubted this was the sort of memory Tutor Grey wanted to read about, but I’d better put it in anyway. I bent to the task and scratched away.
Sometime later, the schoolroom door whomped open and Cornelia staggered in under a load of books. I looked up. Four o’clock! The hours had flown by unnoticed as I filled page after page with memories. Who would have guessed?
“Appie, wait ’til you hear…” Corny began, but when she saw the Tutor her eyes widened, and her ruby lips parted. She dropped her books on the floor.
Reynard leaped to her side. “Let me help you.” His smile dazzled.
“A…a…a…a…”
I’d never seen Corny at a loss for words before. She couldn’t stop staring at Reynard Grey with a goofy look on her face.
Hey! That’s my beautiful tutor! My whole body went into reflexive reaction mode. Cogs clinked in my brain. The corners of my mouth turned down. If I were a dragon, steam would have burst from my nose. My fingers stroked Wanda as I imagined something unattractive happening to Corny—like a big zit appearing on the end of her nose. The next moment I nearly fell off my chair. It worked! The wish-magic worked!
Corny’s eyes crossed as she looked at it. Her face reddened. Her hand flew up to cover her nose. “Excuse me, T-tutor,” she stammered. “I—I have to—to do something.” She raced from the room, leaving her books on the floor.
Shocked by what I’d done, and just a wee bit guilty, I tried twiddling my thumbs and looking innocent. Reynard’s gaze found me as he knelt to pick up the books. “Your sister is a very lovely girl,” he said with a slight smile. “She looks like you.”
Oh, joy!
Wait. What did he just say? Was he patronizing me? Because Corny and I definitely didn’t look alike. I was freckle-faced and skinny with fly-aw
ay hair—she could have modeled for Botticelli’s Venus. Reynard Grey moved to the table and ruffled through my papers. “We’re done for the day, young scholar. You can go now. I’ll see you at dinner.”
I sidled to the door and looked back with satisfaction. I’d almost forgotten the best part—Reynard was a live-in tutor.
“Devil-spawn,” Corny hissed as she sat for dinner with a gob of makeup on her nose. She hadn’t been able to remove the Pimple Curse. Of course not, since it wasn’t a true spell in the Ordinary sense—it had bubbled up from some deep, hidden well of desire inside me.
I grinned, pleased with myself, even if it had been done by accident. No good would come of it, though. Mother was furious. She made me promise to remove it, but the more I tried, the worse it got. Mom threatened dire consequences and life-long grounding if I didn’t figure it out. Without side-effects.
I stared at Cornelia’s humongous zit and thought wickedly—the punishment might be worth the price. Suddenly my tongue began to twist inside my mouth.
“Ah ant awk,” I sputtered. The Babel Hex! Corny was beginning to play rough. I knew she wouldn’t remove the hex until I figured out how to get rid of the zit.
All right, two can play this game! It’s war!
“E-lec-twuf-fy!” I whispered, snapping Wanda under the table. She’d been much more amenable (meaning—willing to cooperate) to my directions since she’d heard about my potential status as an Attractor.
Corny’s beautiful blonde hair frizzed out in all directions like a woolly dandelion. “Mommy!” she shrieked, throwing arms over her head. She hurled witchy swears at me. “Watch out, novice! The Bride of Frankenstein is nothing compared to Miss Piggy.” Her wand flashed in my direction.
My hands flew to my face. Yes, I had a snout. A rather large snout. I couldn’t speak, being tongue-tied, but I could grunt. The sounds I made startled everyone, particularly me.
Magdella, entering the dining room with a centerpiece of nasturtiums, froze. “Girls! Stop this nonsense at once. Reynard Grey will be in for dinner at any moment, and you will only embarrass yourselves.” Her cinnamon eyes flitted from daughter to daughter. “And don’t look at me for help. I can’t, and I won’t.”
“Apple started it,” Corny whined, crossing her arms and glaring.
I couldn’t speak, but shrugged my shoulders and snorted. Actually, Corny started it when she made goo-goo eyes at my tutor.
Reynard Grey entered the dining room through the porch doors. A fresh breeze followed him inside. “I hope I’m not late.”
Cornelia and I left our chairs tottering as we rushed from the room, hiding our faces. “Excuse us, please,” Corny said to the wall.
“What’s going on?” I heard my father ask as he came in from the kitchen with a platter. “Aren’t the girls hungry?”
Mother’s reply was inaudible, but bound to be embarrassing. Cornelia grabbed me by the arm and dragged me upstairs, muttering through clenched teeth. “You got us into this mess, now get us out.” Her eyes skewered me. “If it takes all night, you’re going to figure out how to reverse your wicked spell.”
“Oo’d etta un-oo ay ung, en.” I opened my snout and pointed at my twisted tongue.
“Oh, all right. But the snout stays for incentive purposes.”
Hours later, when Wanda and I had tried and failed at every possible reversal spell Cornelia could think of, I sprawled across my bed and sobbed. A stream of tears flowed over my snout and onto the pillow. “It’s hopeless. Mom’s going to have to call Dr. DeCharmer again.”
Corny sat at her dressing table and tried to pull a brush through her mess of hair. “Dang, my zit is getting bigger, too!” Her reflection glared at me. “At least you don’t have to go to school tomorrow.”
I couldn’t suppress a weepy groan. “At least you don’t have to face Tutor Grey. You can hide that zit with makeup and stuff your big hair into a hat. Nothing’s going to hide a pig nose!”
I dragged myself to the window and sniffed at one of the ham sandwiches my father had brought up for us. (Corny had moved away from vegetarianism weeks ago.) Below, Trickle Creek gurgled in the moonlight.
“I’m sorry, Corny,” I murmured as I changed for bed, completely miserable at what I’d started. “I shouldn’t have hexed you. It was wrong. I was just jealous and I never expected what I wished for to happen! I’d take it all back if I could, even if I had to live with a pig snout for the rest of my days!”
She couldn’t ask for a better, more heartfelt, and truthful apology than that.
Across the room, the hairbrush that had been stuck in Corny’s hair dropped to the ground. She squealed.
I turned to see two of the three combs slide through her now-silky hair.
“Zit’s gone, too,” I pointed out, a bit stunned, but hopeful.
“What did you do? What did you say? What charm did you use?” Corny preened in the mirror.
“I don’t know! Nothing—really.”
“Oh, who cares?” Cornelia snapped her fingers and my snout disappeared. She turned on her stool and leveled her gaze at me. “Truce?”
“Sure.” I rubbed my finger up and down the bridge of my nose. “But,” I couldn’t help adding, “Corny, he’s my tutor—you have lots of boyfriends, and I…I saw him first!”
“Are you stuck on Reynard Grey? You can’t be serious. He’s—well, he’s god-like. And you’re just a kid.” Corny closed her eyes to dream.
“And you’re not a kid? Fifteen’s not exactly grown-up!”
“Close to sixteen!”
“Lights out, girls,” called Mother.
Corny came over and plopped beside me. “Look, Sis. Let’s just be ourselves, give it our best shot, and let the better witch—er, wizard—win.”
Easy for you, I thought. We already knew who the better wizard was.
“Fine!” I muttered. “Move your butt.”
I got under the covers and pulled them over my head.
The lights went out and soon whisper-soft snores rose from Corny’s bed.
I moped at the unfairness of it. I knew I ought to write something instructive in my journal, like don’t start a fight you can’t finish, or don’t cast a hex you can’t fix, but platitudes wouldn’t make me feel any better. Nothing would.
Another day dawned.
I spent the morning in a fever doing my regular lessons with Mom—the whole time wondering about Reynard Grey and who he was at heart. What was his favorite color? (Green, same as me, I hoped.) Did he have a pet? (I wanted one so badly!) How about Mexican food? (My favorite.) Did he yearn to travel the world? (I did.) Did he find younger wizards with undiscovered talents interesting? (Please, please, yes!) Did he already have a girlfriend? (Please, please, no.)
After all the wondering and worrying, my afternoon with Tutor Grey was NOT totally embarrassing. I learned how to ward off evil apparitions like ghosts, ghouls, and goblins. Without a real evil apparition to practice on, “learn” was a strong word, but Reynard Grey was a very good teacher who explained things in a way that even I could understand and remember, so maybe when a ghost or ghoul showed up, I’d be ready.
As I memorized and practiced my new spells, Tutor Grey sat in my father’s wing chair, writing letters and staring morosely out the window. I stole glances at his profile as often as I dared. He seemed thoughtful and a bit lonely. Perhaps he missed his family and friends—I was sure he had many.
“We shall practice reversals today,” Tutor Grey announced when I arrived for class the next afternoon.
I hesitated. So far my magical demonstrations had been underwhelming. Even the spells that worked were a little bit off. And Mother had been trying to teach me such basics all year. It would be awesome to know how I reversed the nose-zit spell.
I suddenly remembered one of Great-Aunt Wisteria’s needlepoint pillow proverbs—An ounce of sincere apology is worth a pound of excuses. Could that be the hex fix? I was very sincere in my apology.
Naw, too easy.
Tutor Grey picked up Wanda and ran a finger down her shaft. “I have noticed, Apple, that you often tend to let your wand do the magic for you. Sometimes the old dear gets it right. Sometimes not. You see, you mustn’t depend on her to interpret what you want—clear direction must come from you. With follow-through. Your wand is a tool that must be used correctly. Let’s start with the basics. Why don’t you conjure us a pizza?”
I loved pizza so much, so I gave Wanda a crystal-clear order. “Bring me a pizza!”
Hot and fresh, the pizza appeared. I leaned over for a sniff, but wrinkled my nose. Anchovies! My least favorite. I suppressed a gag reflex.
Reynard noticed my disappointment. “Try again, Apple. Follow-through, remember.”
I gulped and pressed Wanda to my forehead. “I do not like anchovies. Not at all. Conjure me instead a spicy-hot pepperoni pizza with extra cheese!” I gave the wand a flourish. When the order appeared, I relaxed. It was small, not large, but I wasn’t going to quibble.
“Better, Apple?”
I nodded and watched a pizza cutter sail over and hover above the gooey cheese.
“Cut the pie in quarters, please, without using your hands.”
The yummy aroma tantalized me. I lusted for a taste. It’d be so much faster and easier to just cut it…but that wasn’t the lesson plan. I pointed at the cutting utensil and tried to be explicit. “Separate the pizza into four equal parts,” I instructed Wanda, confident I’d really gotten it right this time. The pizza cutter sliced the circular pie into four strips: two long narrow ones, and two half-moon ends.
Tutor Grey scrutinized the oddly shaped pieces. “They are equal in the amount of pizza, but was that what you expected?”
I shook my head.
“Try again.”
Again? I sighed deeply and rethought the situation. What did they call those pizza shapes? Wedges? Yeah, wedges! I was just about to ask Wanda, quite properly, to cut the pizza into four equal wedges when I realized the pizza was already cut. I deflated.
Almost Magic Page 5
