The Magic Touch

by Jody Lynn Nye

  “Thank you very much for escorting me home,” she told them. They seemed to snap out of their little pink cloud when she spoke. The girl, embarrassed to have been caught in such a vulnerable state of mind as love, ducked her head and looked up at Rose through her long eyelashes.

  “It was our pleasure,” Antoinette said. “Really.”

  “You’re very gracious,” Rose told her. “I do appreciate your coming all this way out of your way for a stranger.” Although they had just met, Rose felt unexpectedly warmly toward the teenage girl. Examining her reaction, she identified the reason with some amusement. “And thank you, Ray. You know, she’s a very special girl. Very special,” she added significantly.

  “I know,” Ray said, with a blissful smile that told her he had no notion what she was talking about. Well, the girl would tell him, or she wouldn’t. Ray leaned in to whisper, and Antoinette withdrew tactfully to a few steps away. “See you Wednesday evening? There ought to be lots of kids around then.”

  “Absolutely,” Rose said, also in a low voice. “Come for dinner. We’ll go out while it’s still light for a change.”

  “Thanks,” Ray whispered.

  “Wednesday!” she called to them as the couple went away. She took a last, quick check around with her hand on the wand in her purse to make certain there were no emergencies nearby. “What sweet kids,” she thought, as she opened her postbox for the mail. Ray didn’t know what a treasure he had there.

  O O O

  The first apartment Zeon tried was empty. He hugged himself because the pangs of withdrawal felt like fire eating his ribs. Nothing here to spend or sell. Better try another, his dazed brain told him.

  He turned into a puff of smoke and let himself float upward through the floor. Yeah, this one was inhabited! And they had lots of stuff. A VCR, new model—maybe not; ah, but who cared, so long as it worked? He started to undo the cables, when he felt that he was being stared at. A black kid, maybe ten or twelve years old.

  “You came right through the floor!” the youngster said, his eyes wide.

  “Yeah,” Zeon said. He felt in his pocket for his shank, then remembered Froister had taken them all away. He had to get another one. Unarmed, he felt naked. “You be quiet now. Don’t you shout.”

  “I won’t,” the child said, staring at him with admiration instead of fear. Zeon thought he was weird, but as long as he didn’t get in the way, he wouldn’t have to hurt him.

  So Clarice wasn’t lying after all, Colton thought. Weeks ago, his stepsister had told the family all about her adventures with the white woman and the brother in the zipper jacket who had given her magic skates and five dollars to go out. He had scoffed along with the rest of them, assuming she had saved up her allowance for the bad duds and skates, and made up a story to make her life sound more cool than it was. Clarice was dreary. The only part of her story that had sounded true was that he couldn’t fit in her skates. God knew he’d tried. But now it looked as if it was all true. This guy wore a zip-up leather jacket. He guessed it was the white lady’s day off.

  “Are you my fairy godfather?” Colton asked. The brother, his eyes slightly unfocused, turned to him with a grin that didn’t look at all nice.

  “Oh, yeah, man. I’m your fairy godfather all right. Sure! Hey, your folks home?”

  “No,” Colton said, uneasily.

  “Great! Show me around, man. Let’s see the place. Your old fairy godfather’s got to know the lay of the land.” Unwillingly Colton did. The stranger started to put things in his pockets, which seemed to have an infinite capacity. Colton felt more and more uneasy as the VCR, his sister’s boom box, and a couple of knickknacks off his mother’s special shelf all vanished into the leather jacket.

  He spun, daringly, to confront the man at last. “Ain’t you gonna grant my wish?”

  “Maybe later,” the magic man said. “I gotta score first. See you later!” Patting his pockets, he folded his arms and turned into a puff of smoke. Numbly, Colton stared at the place where the magic man had stood, realizing he’d been robbed. He didn’t know what to do first. And what would he tell the folks?

  Chapter 13

  Three whole days without a single wish to grant! It was only Sunday, Ray thought impatiently when he woke up. No magic to look forward to, no happy kids. He’d probably go mad with inactivity by the time Wednesday came along. At least on Monday, he’d have to go to work, but he saw the long, empty stretch of Sunday lying before him, a Sahara without oases. Even the sunlight peeking in through his bedroom window and the sweet warmth of the air failed to cheer him up.

  All morning long he loafed around the house, feeling a little sorry for himself. There were plenty of little tasks he could be doing to help out, but he couldn’t concentrate on any of them. He thought about trying to go out and find some of his friends for a game, but he lost interest in doing it even before he had put his shoes on. All he wanted to think about was fairy-godparenting, a subject which would only brand him as weird among his peers. To him, it was so new and so wonderful that he was utterly frustrated that he couldn’t go out and do some of it. He’d been more than half counting on Rose to be available to go out with him. How dare she have other commitments before he was fully fledged and ready to go out on his own? Television, books, and computer games in turn all failed as diversions. He kicked discontentedly around the kitchen and living room with his hands deep in his pockets.

  His parents manifested that maddening, parental long-sufferance families got when they had a moody teenager in the house, so he took himself upstairs and out of their sight. He swung the door closed, careful not to slam it, and flopped down on his bed to stare at the ceiling. It took only two minutes before the fidgets set in again. Maybe some tunes would change his mood. He reached for the thumbtack thing Rose had magicked up for him, and Tony Bennett. Rose’s invention was like something out of Star Trek. Put disc on spindle, and listen. No moving parts, no batteries, and no headset. He marveled at the fidelity of the stereo sound, playing right inside his head. Amazing.

  The album was full of old ballads such as his grandmother loved, jazzed up with modern rhythms and backup. It was as if someone had designed music around his life. He lay down and let the music ramble through his head, smoothing away the twitches.

  At hand, on his bedside table, was the thick manual he’d been given by the FGU on the same day he’d received his wand. Out of desperation, he picked it up and thumbed through it, and found himself becoming interested. The little brown-covered book was printed in a tiny typeface that, while clear and easy to read, reminded him of nineteenth century literature books he’d read for school assignments.

  The first section dealt with the history of the FGU. Various intriguing facts caught his attention, but he turned resolutely to the beginning and began to read. As Rose had said, most of the activity had started out in southern Europe, and spread from there in every direction. It gave Cinderella’s real name, Ella von Schlampickenwald—what a mouthful!—and the name of her fairy godmother, Blomhilde Franchmuller. The girl’s situation was even more dire than in the bedtime story, and he found himself sitting up on the edge of his bed, worrying about her before the part when Frau Franchmuller came to her rescue. Whew!

  That story was followed by more celebrated case histories, but Ray preferred to save them for another day. One intense story was enough for a while.

  The second section of the book dealt with the structure and function of the union. There sure were a lot of rules governing union activity, he thought, as he went from chapter to chapter: hundreds of prohibitions, restrictions, bans, and other no-nos. It was worse than being back in school. Just reading them made him feel repressed. He found, to his surprise, that he already knew a good number of the regulations by heart. Rose had taught him the right way to do things, made him stick by the regs without shoving them down his throat. He thought she was clever. That way he’d see the point of the rules before he protested them. Rose must have guided a lot of other baby wis
hmakers before him. There were also suggestions and wisdom contributed by other fairy godparents starting from hundreds of years ago. The one that provoked the deepest reflection in Ray was: “Sometimes to grant a wish, one must start the process to fulfillment, and not give the item itself, as being impossible.” Maybe that’s what should have happened with that car out west, he thought.

  Raymond turned back to the beginning of the second section, and read the first and most important rule of conduct over and over. “Magic shall be used for good and never for evil.” That seemed so obvious to him he wondered why it was in the book at all. Then he thought of people like Zeon, who wouldn’t hesitate to make a crippled five-year-old dance on a hot griddle if he could get a laugh out of it. Was there any way to stop a Zeon from using fairy godmother magic, if he got hold of a wand? He flipped through the pages, but found no specific entry under “Evil persons, magic, usurpation by.” Well, that must be a big reason there was a group like the Fairy Godmothers Union in the first place, to keep power out of the hands of wrong-headed types, or more precisely, wrong-hearted ones.

  Not that Raymond thought of himself as particularly virtuous. It embarrassed him every time Rose referred to him as a Sir Galahad, or one of those other classical saints. He was just a kid, but he knew his folks had raised him right. There was nothing special about what he did, except most of the kids he knew weren’t doing it. It could be lonely walking the righteous path, even downright dangerous sometimes.

  Maybe there was a shutoff on the wand somewhere. What if he could rig it so it locked out any other user, like a computer password? He fished the wand out of his jacket pocket and looked at it closely.

  He knew every stripe and dot in the pattern of the staff, every whorl and angle of the star, but maybe he’d missed something. Nope. Even under the most painstaking scrutiny, it was still a painted piece of wood. He flopped down on his back, holding the wand in the air, concentrating, to see if his inner eye knew about a shutoff valve.

  “Oooh, look at that!” Chanel’s voice squealed. Ray felt the wand being snatched out of his fingers. His eyes flew open, and he sat up to glare at his little sister. Because of the music playing, she had managed to creep into his room without him hearing a sound. Who knew what else she had planned to snitch?

  “Give it back, Chanel. It’s mine.”

  His little sister, already at the door, looked back at him and pouted. She was a pretty eleven-year-old, and already knew the power her charm had over other people.

  “Oh, come on, Raymond!” she said, in her best wheedling voice. She cocked her head, waggling the puffy braids of hair tied up with ribbons and beads. “It’s pretty. I want it.”

  “I know, little sis, but it’s mine,” Ray said. He realized with anguish that insisting on his claim to it would only make her want it more. “I mean, I can’t give it away.”

  “Why not?” she asked, ignoring him and turning the wand over in her fingers. “It’s so nice.”

  “Because I can’t,” Ray said. Chanel took another half step out of the door, the precious wand in her grasp. If he leaped up and made a grab for the wand, she’d tear down the stairs to their parents and whimper he was bullying her. Then they’d surely let her keep it. He couldn’t let that happen, because the only way to get it back would be to tell the whole story about being a fairy godfather. He could hear his father’s guffaw in his mind, and cringed. “Come on, Chanel, give it back.”

  “Was it a present? From a girl?” Chanel teased, grinning at him. She scented blackmail, possibly resulting in extortion. “You have a new girlfriend, Raymond? What happened to Antoinette? I’m gonna tell her you’re seeing another girl. She’ll kick your chops in.”

  “No, it’s not that,” he said, trying to appear casual.

  “Then, who?” Chanel resumed her playful examination of the wand. “It’s like one of those pretty pencils they sell, only without a point. I’ll just take it downstairs and sharpen it.”

  “No, don’t!” Ray said.

  His grandmother came up the stairs at that moment, huffing at the effort. She braced herself on the banister at the top. The stairs were steep for a heavy, elderly woman. “Let him be, Chanel. Don’t you have homework?”

  “Grandma!” Chanel said, halfway between whining and exasperation, “it’s June.”

  “Oh, I know that, honey.” Grandma Eustatia smiled blandly. “You leave your brother alone. He’s busy.”

  Chanel look surprised. It was rare that anyone supported Ray’s wishes over hers. As the youngest of the Crandall children and the only girl, the folks found it hard to deny her anything. She was beautiful, smart as a whip, and so talented it was hard not to think in light of his new knowledge that three fairy godmothers hadn’t said a blessing over her cradle. Like Grandma Eustatia, she had an incredible voice that had matured in advance of her body. She sang like an angel. He felt protective of her, but tried not to seem too soft about it. The eight years between their ages meant they’d never been in the same school together. His brother Bobby had started kindergarten when Ray was in fourth grade, so they’d been together three years, but Chanel was a mystery to him. Her giggly little friends hung around the house, playing dolls and dress-up, then mooning away over TV stars and rock idols, while he and his friends tried to find some peace and quiet away from them. In the perverse way of little girls, they’d tailed Ray and his friends, staying underfoot where they were least wanted. His parents had insisted that he tolerate them, since they weren’t doing any real harm. Ray’s protests of privacy had done no good. Chanel just had to look pathetic and cute, and she got her way. As a result, she had become a little spoiled.

  Ray put out his hand for the wand. Chanel held on to it for a while longer, giving him a big, hopeful-eyed gaze. When he didn’t change his mind or his expression, she gave in and handed the wand over.

  “Thanks, little sis,” Ray said. With a histrionic show of reluctance, she bowed her head as if his cruelty was too much to take. Ray pursed his lips, trying not to laugh. He put the wand in his jacket pocket and zipped it securely. “Don’t be upset. I’ll do something else nice for you.” Chanel’s face brightened at once.

  “Take me downtown?” she begged, jumping up and down. No setback was too severe that it interfered with her permanent agenda of personal indulgence. “Can we go to the Art Institute? Can we go shopping? Water Tower Place?”

  “It’s Sunday, honey,” her grandmother said. “Most things are closed. Why don’t you wait until after school lets out next week? Then I’m sure Ray will be happy to take you to the Art Institute on a weekday when the crowds aren’t too bad.”

  “I work weekdays, Grandma,” Ray said, almost apologetically. He was grateful to her for bailing him out with Chanel, but he couldn’t take a day off work just to bribe his little sister.

  “Some Saturday, then,” Grandma said. “All right?”

  “You’ll take me then?” Chanel asked Ray.

  “Yes,” Ray said. “I promise. Uh, next week.” All the stores closed before he’d be going out with Rose, so that seemed like a safe offer. Chanel was overjoyed.

  “All right! I’m going to call Mikala. She can come with us. I know you won’t mind taking two of us,” Chanel said, her eyes bright with plans. “And Sophia. She won’t go anywhere unless Mikala’s going, too. I wonder if her sister Rachel wants to come, too.” She shot away down the stairs two at a time. “I’d better call them and make sure they don’t have to do anything else that day!”

  “Hey!” Ray said, starting after her. He hadn’t meant to make it a shopping party, but Chanel could blow even the smallest favor into a major production.

  “Let her go, child,” Grandma Eustatia said, in her soft voice. “I’ll talk to her later.” She skimmed rather than walked, a surprisingly graceful mode of locomotion for such a short, heavy woman. It had made men turn and look at her again when they’d mentally dismissed her for being too old to be interesting. Ray had seen the phenomenon at church, and in stores, when t
he two of them went shopping together. Her eyes were the same light brown as her skin. As her hair had grayed, she had tinted it that color, too, giving her the look of the bronze statue of a wisewoman. “Do you have a little time? I want to hear how everything’s going for you.”

  “Sure, Grandma,” Ray said. “There’s nothing going on today.” He glanced back at his room to make certain his fairy godmother manual was out of sight. Yes, there was a fold of blanket hiding it from direct view.

  “Good,” Grandma said, taking his arm so he could help her down the narrow staircase. “You can help me make Sunday dinner. If it looks like work, no one will disturb us.”

  O O O

  Grandma’s powerful laughter pealed throughout the kitchen, causing the glass in the windows and the pans on the shelf to ring. Ray took a quick peek through the living room door to make sure no one heard it and wanted to know what was so funny. Nope. Dad was bent halfway over the television, watching the baseball game, trying to hear the audio over the jazz horns blaring out of Mom’s stereo. Bobby was nowhere in sight. The day was too nice for him to be inside. Ray thought that he was probably up the street at his friend James’s. The bunch of them were trying to start a garage band. Grandma slapped the table.

  “And the whole thing came apart, and it was shooting dirt all over the room? Honey, that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard!” Grandma said, her round eyes gleaming merrily.

  “It wasn’t funny when it happened,” Ray said darkly, his brows compressed over his nose. He started to think about it, and realized the absurdity of the situation now that he was a couple of weeks removed from it. He sputtered, remembering the dirt flying and Rose goggling popeyed at him. “But I guess it is now.”