by Geof Johnson
“Sammi is adorable,” Brinna said as they watched the kids survey the offerings. “Her eyes...they’re so big and dark.”
“She has dimples, too. She could put Melanie to shame.” Then Evelyn lowered her voice and explained Sammi’s situation to Brinna.
Brinna listened quietly with one hand on her cheek until Mrs. Wallace finished, then said, “That poor girl! What’s to become of her? Will someone take her in?”
“I think Lisa wants to,” Evelyn said, “but not Larry. Rachel and Carl are thinking about it, but it’s more complicated where we’re from. One of the families will have to become certified as foster parents, and that’s a lengthy procedure. Sammi is a good kid, though. I’ve spent a lot of time with her lately.”
Brinna turned to watch Sammi, who was still investigating the candy display. “She is so beautiful. Maybe I could take her.”
Evelyn frowned. “And look after a shop and a house by yourself?” She shook her head.
Just then, Sammi squealed, “M&Ms! Leora, Aiven, get those. They’re the best.” She looked over at Evelyn and grinned. “They have M&Ms on this world.”
Brinna laughed. “That’s because John Paul brought them to me.” She turned to Evelyn and said, “He bought a bunch of things for me in bulk at a place called Costco. Have you heard of it?”
“Certainly. What did you do about exchanging money, or did John Paul pay for it?”
“Oh, he can’t afford that, and I wouldn’t want him to pay for it. It’s my business, after all. I had to get a gold coin from the Rivershire bank, because that’s the easiest to exchange, but coming up with that much money wasn’t easy. I had to scrape up every spare copper I could find.” She smiled broadly. “But it was worth it! I have made my money back and then some. Not just on candy, but the other things he bought for me, like lipstick. You wouldn’t believe how popular that is now, since Fred and Melanie put some on those girls that bought love potions from them. I have sold out.”
“I’m afraid the girls here will never be the same. How about you? Did you keep any lipstick for yourself?”
Brinna reddened and cleared her throat. “I only wear it for John Paul.”
“How often do you see him?”
“Every weekend.” Then her face lit up. “But I have a telephone now! It is so amazing! We can talk whenever we want.”
“I bet he calls you every day.”
She seemed to redden more. “Um, sometimes twice.”
Evelyn laughed. “And still no engagement ring?”
“We have only been courting for seven weeks,” she said with a defensive look. “But I visited him at his home in Thibodaux last weekend. He says it is a modest house, but I think it is wonderful. It is right on the lake, and has a dock for fishing.”
“What about his parents? Did you meet them?”
“They are both dead. They were killed in a robbery, and that is why John Paul became a policeman.”
“I never knew that. Is he still looking for a job in Hendersonville?”
“He already interviewed with the police department there. He said he will miss fishing on the lake, but it will make it easier for him to see me if he moves.”
“Well, at least he has his priorities straight.” They both laughed. Evelyn paid for the candy and they left, with sincere pledges from the kids not to eat their M&Ms until after lunch.
Evelyn led them to the area of the market where the produce vendors sold their wares, mostly fruits and vegetables from the local farms. They found Leora’s mother there with her slat-sided wagon full of fruit, wedged between two others selling cabbages and celery. Leora begged her mother to let her stay at the school for a while longer, so she consented to pick Leora up on her way home.
Evelyn and the kids had lunch at the picnic table under the big tree by the school and then got back to their chores, Aiven assembling desks and the girls helping Mrs. Wallace sort supplies. After a while, Mrs. Wallace excused herself to the restroom, and Sammi heard a knock on the front door.
Aiven was sitting on the floor, struggling to fasten a leg to a desk. He looked up and said, “Can you see who that is?”
Sammi went to answer it, and waiting out front in the shade of the awning were two well-dressed men, one portly and the other thin and white-haired, with a pinched face like someone who’d eaten a lemon drop when they’d expected a cherry Lifesaver. Behind them was a glossy black carriage, with a matching top, hitched to a pair of black horses.
The portly man introduced himself as the mayor and his companion as a councilman, and asked to speak to Jamie. Sammi said he wasn’t in, but Mrs. Wallace was, and Sammi went to get her.
Mrs. Wallace frowned deeply when Sammi told her.
“What does that blowhard want, now?” Mrs. Wallace stomped to the front door, her fists clenched at her sides, while Sammi, Leora, and Aiven watched her go.
“Aiven, why is she mad at the mayor?” Leora asked.
“Because he keeps coming by to bother her. He really wants to talk to Jamie, but Jamie doesn’t stay here much.”
“What does the mayor want?”
“He and the other councilmen want more control over the school. They don’t have any at all, really, because it is outside of the city limits.”
“Just barely. I can see the south gates from the front door.”
“Jamie said it’s far enough, and he doesn’t want them to have any say so in how the school is run. He said they’ve had years to build their own school, and they didn’t bother to, so....” He shrugged and then looked in the direction of the door. “I wish I knew what they were saying right now.”
“Hold on,” Sammi said. “Maybe they’re still under the awning.” She faced the front of the building and concentrated, and her eyes went out of focus. Then she heard the voices.
“We’ve been over this a dozen, times, Mayor,” Mrs. Wallace said. “All major decisions about the school are made by Jamie.”
“But surely you have some influence over the young man,” the mayor said.
There was a slight pause, and then Mrs. Wallace answered, her tone exasperated, “I advise him, but he makes his own decisions.”
Sammi heard the other man’s voice, but not well enough to make the words out clearly. Then the mayor said, “When might we be able to speak with him? Does he keep regular hours?”
“Like I told you last time, he comes and goes, but he’s usually only here long enough to make a doorway for me to go back to Earth.”
“Yes...Earth.” He cleared his throat. “The real Earth, so he claims.”
“Look, I don’t care if you believe it’s Mars, but he’s not here, and I don’t know when he’ll be here for longer than sixty seconds. He’s busy.”
There was another pause before the mayor said, “Well, please have him come talk to us when he gets the chance. We meet every Monday and Wednesday morning around ten o’clock.”
“I’ll tell him, but I can’t promise you that he’ll come.”
“Very well. Good day, madam.”
Sammi’s eyes refocused to see Aiven and Leora gaping at her. “What just happened, Sammi?” Aiven asked.
“The mayor wants to talk to Jamie. Mrs. Wallace wasn’t making it easy for him.”
“You heard them? That’s so cool! Was that your magic?”
Sammi nodded, and Leora stared at her with her mouth open. The fair-haired girl said, “What magic?”
“She’s a witch. A Shadow Witch.”
“A...a witch? But you are so young.”
Sammi shrugged as Mrs. Wallace returned to the room, her face tight and her arms crossed.
“Mrs. Wallace!” Aiven said. “Sammi listened to you with her magic!”
“Tattletale!” Sammi said.
“What’s that mean?” Leora asked.
“Never mind, Leora,” Mrs. Wallace said, her eyes, already angry, became narrower as she looked at Sammi and put her hands on her hips. “Sammi, you know you’re not supposed to do that.”
Sam
mi’s breath caught in her throat for a moment. “I know. I...I didn’t mean to.”
“Didn’t Mrs. Callahan ask you not to do that?”
Sammi felt a heavy wash fill her insides and her lip begin to tremble. “Yes ma’am. I’m sorry! I...I didn’t —”
“What do you think she would do if I told her?”
She might send me away! Her eyes began to sting with tears, and Mrs. Wallace’s face became blurry. Then her voice receded into the distance, as if she were talking to Sammi from the bottom of a well. “Sammi?”
The sounds in the room changed, replaced by two men’s voices and the clip clop of horses’ hooves. Sammi recognized one of the men — the mayor. He said, “If we handle this carefully, we can get exactly what we want with minimal or no cost.”
“We will not get what we want from Mrs. Wallace,” the other man said. “She seems to be a hard woman.”
“Yes, but if the young sorcerer really is in control of the school, we may have better luck. We just have to be careful in our dealings with him.”
“Do you fear him?”
“Of course? Don’t you? He is a wizard, after all, perhaps more powerful than Renn. But I doubt he has Renn’s brutal nature and rage.”
“Let us hope not. I would not even consider doing this if we were dealing with Renn, instead.”
“No. If it was Renn, and he knew we were conspiring against him, he would kill us without a thought.”
“In a most painful way, so I have heard.”
“Yes, you can be sure of that. But I do not believe the boy would be so harsh.”
“We should be careful, just the same.”
“I agree. We should discuss this further with the other council members on....”
The voices faded when Sammi felt someone shaking her shoulders. “Sammi? Sammi? Are you okay?”
Sammi blinked hard several times and Mrs. Wallace’s face came into focus, just as it had earlier that day in the stone house.
“Did she have a fit?” Leora said.
“I don’t think so.” Mrs. Wallace looked deeply into Sammi’s eyes. “Are you all right?” Sammi nodded and Mrs. Wallace said, “Did you just use your magic again?”
“Yes ma’am. I couldn’t help it!” Sammi wailed. “I didn’t mean to...I didn’t even try, and —”
“It’s okay. Don’t cry.” Mrs. Wallace put her hand gently on Sammi’s cheek. “Who were you listening to?”
“The mayor and the other man.”
“What were they saying?”
“You told me that I shouldn’t eavesdrop.”
Mrs. Wallace stood up straight and smiled ruefully. “Yes, I did, didn’t I?”
She took a deep breath and regarded Sammi for a long moment. “Um...were they saying something important? If they were, maybe this time we should make an exception.”
Sammi bit one corner of her lip and stared back at Mrs. Wallace. “Are you sure it’s okay? I don’t want Mrs. Callahan to get mad at me.”
“I’ll let you decide. Do you think it’s something I should know?” Sammi hesitated before nodding, and Mrs. Wallace said, “What were they talking about?”
“They’re still plotting to get control of the school, I think.”
“Please tell me what you heard.”
Sammi related what the mayor and the councilman had said. Mrs. Wallace listened silently with one hand on her chin and her eyes intense, and when Sammi finished, Mrs. Wallace took another deep breath and nodded. “We need to tell Jamie as soon as he comes to get us. Do you think you can remember this?”
“I can remember every word of every conversation I’ve ever heard, as long as I was listening like that.”
“You mean, with your magic?”
Sammi nodded again.
“Cool!” Aiven said, “That must be part of your power.”
“All right.” Mrs. Wallace tightened her mouth and looked off in the distance, then turned back to Sammi. “There’s nothing we can do about it right now, so let’s get back to work.”
Chapter 5
Jamie carefully situated Rollie in the shadow of one of the support columns of the gazebo. Then Jamie edged a few inches to his right so that the setting sun lit up his shoulder, but no more than that. “Okay. That’s good.”
“What do you want to say this time?” Rollie asked.
“I don’t know. Anything, as long as it’s about her.”
“All right.” Rollie grinned mischievously. “Sammi is a poopy head.”
Jamie stifled a laugh. “And her breath smells like dirty socks.”
“And she can only count to three.”
Jamie pulled his phone from his pocket, put it to his ear and said, “How about that, Fred? Did she hear it?”
“Well,” Fred said through the phone, “she’s giggling...now she’s nodding. I guess that means yes.”
“Hold on while I think of something else to try.”
“Don’t you think that’s enough? You’ve talked in every kind of shadow in the yard, and Sammi needs a break. She worked at the school all day, remember?”
Jamie sighed and said, “Yeah, sure. We’re done.”
Seconds later, the back door popped open and Sammi burst from it like a cork from a shaken bottle of champagne, ran across the yard to the playset and jumped onto one of the swings, a big smile on her face.
Fred emerged right after her, followed by Bryce and Melanie. “That was pretty amazing,” Bryce said as they crossed the lawn toward the gazebo, where Jamie and Rollie still waited. “She could hear everything you said. I bet the CIA would love to get hold of her.”
“Momma Sue would’ve liked to have seen that.” Fred took Jamie’s hand when she reached him. “She’s really interested in what Sammi is capable of. She thinks Sammi may be able to fine tune her power as she gets older.”
“Your dream-talking skill seemed to grow more sophisticated when you started using it a lot,” Jamie said.
Melanie rested her hands loosely on her hips and looked across the lawn at Sammi, who was swinging merrily away. “But she’s so young. She’s just a sweet little kid.”
“That’s a very useful talent she has, though,” Jamie said. “She told me word-for-word what the mayor and that other councilman were saying earlier today about the school.” Jamie frowned. “I don’t like what those puffed-up idiots are trying to do. I’m going to have to go down to the courthouse and have a word with them. All of the councilmen. We need to nip this in the bud, before it goes any further.”
“Sounds like they’re not afraid of you like they were of Renn,” Fred said. “Maybe you need to do something to scare them.”
“Send them to the planet where you banished the demon,” Bryce said.
Jamie shook his head. “I don’t want to kill them, just make them stop trying to meddle.”
“But you have an advantage now,” Fred said. “Thanks to Sammi. You know they’re still up to something.”
“Well,” Rollie said, “if you were wondering what the Big Cosmic Reason why Sammi is here, maybe this it. To snoop on the Rivershire council and warn you about what’s going on.”
“Could be.” Jamie glanced at Sammi, who was still swinging. “But she thinks she only hears stuff that’s important to her, and this deal with the mayor probably isn’t.”
“Maybe the Big Cosmic Whatever is more complicated than you think,” Melanie said.
“Who knows? I need to talk to Uncle Charlie about this sometime. That old Cherokee seems to have some special insight into stuff like this, for some reason.” Jamie waved one arm loosely and tilted his head to one side.“He wants me to take him to Eddan’s world to pick out the wood for my walking stick that he’s going to carve for me. We can talk then, I guess.”
Jamie, still hand-in-hand with Fred, walked toward the back door of his house. Melanie reached out and took Bryce’s hand, too, and smiled sweetly at him as they followed behind.
Fred yelled toward the playset, “Come on, Sammi, it’s time to go ho
me. Dinner should be ready soon.”
“’Kay.” Sammi leaped from the swing and raced to catch up with them as they neared the steps of the deck.
Rollie grunted at the two couples walking ahead of him. “Dang. Quit holding hands, will ya? You’re making me feel bad. I’m the only guy around here without a girlfriend.”
Bryce looked over his shoulder and said, “We need to get you one, dude.”
“Yeah, but my requirements have gotten too high. Not only does she have to be cute and nice, she’s gotta go to college this fall at Western Carolina and she’s gotta have some magic in her. Or at least be accepting of ours, like you and Melanie are.”
Sammi skidded to a stop when she reached them. “I know somebody.”
Jamie paused with Fred at the edge of the deck and said, “What?”
“I know somebody who’s going to the same college as you, and she’s a witch, a real one.”
“How do you know that, Sammi?” Melanie asked.
“I’ve heard her talking with her mom. Her mom is sort of a witch, too, like a fortune teller or something.”
“You heard them with your magic?”
“Unh hunh. Lots of times.”
Jamie and his friends exchanged glances, and Fred said, “I thought you could only hear things that are important to you.”
Sammi shrugged, and Melanie said, “Maybe this other girl is, somehow.”
Bryce squinted with one eye. “How could Rollie’s potential girlfriend be important to Sammi?”
“Now hold on.” Rollie held up both of his hands. “Hold on just one minute. Who said this girl is my potential girlfriend? I’ve never even seen her, for cryin’ out loud.”
“Maybe you could,” Melanie said. “She could have a Facebook page or something. What’s her name, Sammi?”
“Nova. Nova Belanger. She lives near the beach somewhere.”
“In North Carolina?”
“Dunno.”
Jamie stepped up onto the deck with Fred and said, “We could probably figure that out. Let’s go check Facebook.” He opened the back door and everyone gathered behind him.
Rollie groaned and put his hand on his forehead. “Aw, come on. This is dumb.”
