Kiss and Spell (Enchanted, Inc.)

by Swendson, Shanna

  “That’s interesting,” Owen said mildly. I wondered if he was doing this on purpose, playing a game he’d played before with Mac. “Did you win that one?”

  Mac’s brow creased, and he said vaguely, “I don’t remember.”

  “Then I guess we should keep playing.” Owen indicated the board, and Mac leaned forward to make his move.

  The moves went rapidly back and forth again for a while, and then they slowed down as each of them thought about his moves—though I got the feeling Owen was only pretending to think and knew exactly what he was going to do. During one pause, Mac asked, “Who taught you to play chess?”

  “My father—foster father, actually, but he was the only father I ever knew. He started teaching me when I was just a kid. That was what we did in the evenings for fun.”

  I watched Mac carefully to see how he reacted. He rubbed his temples, then he shook his head, like he needed to clear it. “Some fun for a kid,” he said, making his move.

  “I was a strange kid,” Owen said with a shrug. “I thought it was fun. What I really liked when I got a little older was when my parents’ friends came over and I got to play against them. I’m not sure they liked it so much, though, being beaten by a scrawny little kid with thick glasses. I had to sit on a phone book to reach the board. I think my father thought that was the fun part, watching his friends react to the way I played.” He moved a piece, then said, “Check.”

  Mac looked like his attention was barely on the game, and he didn’t even react to Owen’s move. I didn’t know anything about chess, but I knew that Owen’s “check” was bad for Mac. He stared at the board for a long time, and I got the impression that he was really seeing a different board from a different game.

  Owen went on like he hadn’t noticed. “The first time I asked to learn to play, I must have been about five. I’d started kindergarten, but they quickly moved me up because I was bored. I was so little, and those kids were so much bigger than I was, and I kept beating them in everything, so they hated me. I had an older friend who tried to defend me, but my parents were worried we’d get in trouble for fighting, so they got me a dog.” He paused as Mac finally made his move, made his own move in response, then continued.

  “They figured that the dog would scare off anyone who tried to hurt me on my way to and from school. It was a small town, so no one minded that this dog would walk me to school and then run home, and he always knew when to head back to the school to get me. He must have heard the bell and knew it was time. Anyway, that dog was very protective of me, and one day I was playing in the front yard after school when one of my parents’ friends came over. The dog didn’t know he was a friend, and I had to call him away. It was probably the first time I’d seen an adult look scared.”

  Mac froze, his eyes distant, and Owen glanced at me before going on. “Later, the friend and my father were playing chess, and I watched the whole time. I think that made the friend almost too nervous to play because that meant the dog was there, also watching him. After that, I asked my father to teach me to play.”

  Mac blinked, then whispered, “Owen Palmer?”

  “It worked,” I murmured under my breath. I’d been kind of hoping it wouldn’t, in spite of what big-picture implications that might have had.

  “Don’t react,” Owen said softly to Mac. “We’re being watched.”

  “Watched? By whom? What are you up to, Owen?”

  “I’m not up to anything,” Owen protested, visibly fighting to keep the appearance of cool. “I’m as much a victim here as you are.” He quickly described the situation as we understood it, then asked, “What’s the last thing you remember from the real world?”

  “You and Katie went into that warehouse, and we followed you. I didn’t think it was anything, but McClusky’s a hard-liner and didn’t want to risk letting anything slide. There was a portal open in there, and then some elves came into the room and grabbed you two. We moved to intervene, and I guess they got us because after that, the next thing I can recall is being here.” He paused, looked at Owen, then at me, and said, “Wait a second, altering consciousness …”

  Before Mac got around to connecting the dots on his own, Owen plunged ahead. “Yes, it works on us. Something happened when we destroyed the brooch, and now neither of us is magically immune. In Katie, it’s very likely temporary. She’s already losing her powers, and that’s why the spell seems to have been weaker for her. She fought it, and that allowed her to snap both of us out of it. I’m still not totally certain what it means for me, but I haven’t used magic outside the office since then.”

  “You hid it well,” Mac said dryly. “So the elves have us captive, huh? I guess we saw something we weren’t supposed to.”

  “That’s what we think. I was hoping you saw more than we did.”

  “Just a portal. Who else is here?”

  “We’ve seen a few people we know from MSI who’d gone missing,” I put in. “There had been a lot of reports of missing elves, so I imagine they’re here, too.”

  “And you say memories break the spell?” Mac asked.

  “Bringing up a vivid memory from the real world seems to work,” Owen said. “For us, it was an accident that we simultaneously came up with something that reminded us of each other.” He turned pink and left out exactly what that something was. “My story from when I was a kid worked for you, so I hope that’s all it takes for us to wake up everyone else. You’ll have to bring your partner out of it, since you know him best.”

  “But be careful,” I added. “There are people we think might be monitoring us. If they notice we’ve remembered, they might do something.”

  “If you’re worried about that, then you’d better act natural now,” Mac said. “There’s a guy across the park who’s watching us.”

  I was facing away from our possible watcher, and my back itched between my shoulder blades at the thought of being observed. It took all my willpower not to turn around to see who it was. I was afraid that even using the compact mirror trick to see behind me would be too obvious. “Is he an elf wearing gray?” I asked.

  “Yeah. You’ve seen him?”

  “Even before the spell broke last night, I did something that I shouldn’t have been able to do if the spell was working—probably because I’m losing whatever magic I had. They’ve been following me since then. I’m trying to convince them that one part of the spell may have broken, but the big spell is still okay.”

  “What do you think they’d do if they knew you’d broken the spell?” Mac asked.

  “Probably put us back under it,” Owen said with a shrug as he moved a piece on the board. I didn’t know enough about chess to know if it was a real move or if he was maintaining the pretense.

  Mac frowned. “I’m worried that they’re keeping such close tabs on you. We should probably have a contingency plan. I wonder if it would help to write down a memory and then keep it in a place where you’re bound to see it, even if you forget who you are again.” He moved a piece on the chessboard.

  “That’s a good idea,” Owen said, countering his move. “We should all do that as soon as we can.”

  Mac nodded acknowledgment and continued authoritatively. “The first step is getting information. We need to find this end of the portal that brought us here. We need to find the boundaries of our prison. It would help if we knew what they’re hiding. And then maybe we can find a way to get out or send a warning. If we can revive the people we trust, we can get more done.”

  “We’ll revive the ones we know, and I think they’ll know which of the other elves should be on our side,” Owen said. I was a little surprised that he didn’t resist Mac taking over, but then he’d known Mac since he was a little kid, so it probably seemed natural to Owen to defer to him. “We’ll take every opportunity we can to see what else we can learn.”

  “Okay, then.” Mac nodded toward the board. “Finish the game. I’ll try not to be a sore loser. I’ll deal with McClusky. You want me to tell him al
l that I know?”

  “If we’re going to work as a team to get out of here, I think he’ll figure it out, so you may as well be up front about it,” Owen said wearily.

  Mac looked even more somber as he said, “And you know I’ll have to report this when we get back.”

  Owen went a little pale, but he nodded. “Of course. I guess I’ll deal with that when we get back.” He made a move, then said, “Checkmate.”

  “And just in time, too,” Mac said out loud as McClusky arrived, sipping from a paper coffee cup and nibbling on a giant cookie.

  “Did the kid beat you?” McClusky asked.

  “It was a good game,” Owen said diplomatically.

  “You were right about these cookies,” McClusky said around a mouthful.

  “Come over any time,” I said. “You have to try the brownies, too.”

  “See you around,” Mac said with a wave as Owen and I headed toward the store.

  When Owen still hadn’t commented even after we reached his office and closed the door behind us, I said, “That went well.”

  “As well as can be expected,” he said with a solemn nod.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Wrong?”

  “You don’t seem happy.”

  “We’re prisoners with no obvious means of escape and I’ve just let the magical authorities know that my powers have been back for a while without me telling them. The best-case scenario isn’t exactly rosy.”

  To distract him from his bad mood, I said, “Since it worked to break the spell, I’m going to assume what you said to Mac was true. But did you really have to have a dog to protect you on the way to and from school?”

  “The dog wasn’t to protect me.”

  “He wasn’t?”

  He blushed slightly, a hint that my tactic was working. “The first time the bigger kids got to me, I panicked and lashed out with my powers. I had very little control over them then and didn’t even do it consciously. There was no serious harm done—at least, nothing that didn’t wear off after a while—but the bullies were in danger until I learned to use my powers. James and Gloria figured that if I had a big dog at my side I wouldn’t be frightened, and everyone would be safe.”

  “Did it work?”

  “After a few dog bites. The bullies were kind of slow to learn.”

  I hated to bring up business again after relaxing him, but we needed a plan. “What next?”

  He frowned, thinking, for a moment, then said, “Act as normal as possible. And we should probably avoid talking to anyone else we know is a prisoner for the rest of the day.”

  “Do you know how hard it is to act normal? Just the fact that you’re acting keeps it from being normal, by definition. Nothing about this situation is normal.”

  He took my hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Of course it isn’t. Maybe a better way to phrase it is ‘unchanged.’ What would be normal in this scenario?”

  “Well, we’ve just fallen in love and found each other, and we’re in romantic comedy world.” I tried to remember every sappy movie I’d ever watched with Nita. “I think we’re due for a montage where we walk around the city, generally acting like we’re in a perfume commercial—stuff like holding hands, acting like you’re oblivious to the rest of the world, or else seeing the world in a new way now that you’re in love. Doing spontaneous things like buying flowers or getting a street musician to play our song.” I felt my face growing warmer as I listed all the things that I’d imagined in those moments that had probably led to me getting stuck in this scenario to begin with. “Talking, laughing, splashing each other in fountains, pausing to kiss in picturesque places.”

  “That would be the perfect cover for exploring the dimensions of our prison. Good idea, Katie. You may have to cue me, though.”

  “Oh, come on, you can’t be that hopeless,” I teased. He sure knew how to burst a girl’s romantic bubble.

  “I’m not that spontaneous.”

  “Remember, we’re acting normal, not being normal. And speaking of normal, since we haven’t hired someone to replace me in the coffee shop, I’d better get up there. Florence is really grilling me about you, by the way. I think she’s working for them.”

  “Then this is your chance to convince her. But before you go …” He slid a notepad and pen across his desk. “Write down a memory powerful enough to jolt you out of the spell, just in case.”

  I scribbled a few lines about growing up in Texas, since that was something that hadn’t come up in this scenario at all, and put it in my skirt pocket. “See you after work,” I said as I left the office.

  The gray-suited elf was in the store, lurking among the shelves. I fought to keep my eyes from focusing on him as I passed him on my way to the stairs, then forced myself not to turn around when I heard footsteps behind me.

  “Sorry that took so long,” I said to Florence when I reached the café. “We’ve got to hire someone new for the coffee shop so I don’t have to juggle this and the assistant manager thing. Owen’s already giving me the info dump.”

  “I bet that’s not all he’s giving you,” she said.

  “We just went to lunch and then had a meeting,” I protested, willing myself to blush and forcing myself not to look at the gray guy lurking in the background.

  “A meeting, hmmm,” she said with a smile. “About what?”

  “Well, what to do tonight did come up, but otherwise we were talking about progress at the store.”

  “So, that’s what you’re calling it these days,” she said with a wink. She seemed louder and more cheery than normal, probably because of the gray guy.

  I was about to reply when she gasped ever so slightly, then gulped. I turned around to see Josh standing at the top of the stairs. “Awkward!” Florence singsonged under her breath.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Oh, no,” I moaned. Then I noticed Josh acknowledging the gray guy and realized Josh had to be one of the prison guards. He must have been assigned to watch me. No wonder he’d been keen to keep me close. I must have really messed up his assignment.

  Josh came toward the counter, and I clutched its edge until my knuckles went white. “Katie,” he said stiffly, then without moving his gaze from me, he said, “Could we get some privacy?”

  “Hey, I work here,” Florence sassed back at him.

  “Over here,” I said to Josh, moving away from the counter—but not so far that Florence wouldn’t be able to hear if she concentrated hard enough. The gray guy moved with us, and I tried not to look at him. “What is it, Josh?”

  “You owe me an explanation,” he said.

  I couldn’t say what I really wanted, so I tried to look contrite as I said, “I’m sorry for leaving you in the lurch like that, but I just couldn’t—”

  He cut me off. “Couldn’t what? Give me an answer?”

  “You mean saying ‘I can’t’ and running off wasn’t answer enough for you? I thought it was pretty clear. But in case you need it more specifically, no. My answer is no.”

  “No, you won’t marry me, or no, you don’t want to be with me?” His tone shifted from angry to gentle. “Because we don’t have to get married now. We can take more time to work things out. You not wanting to be engaged doesn’t mean we have to break up.”

  “I mean no to all of the above. I knew it wasn’t what I wanted, so I had to get out of there.” It sounded weak, but I wasn’t sure how I should play this scene. In a romantic comedy scenario, the story dictated that I do something big and dramatic instead of talking about it like a normal person would. In the movies, we didn’t get to see Mr. Wrong in the aftermath of the dramatic exit unless something hilariously humiliating that he totally deserved happened to him. We just saw the heroine happy with Mr. Right. Unless …

  With a sinking feeling, I realized that this was supposed to be the scene where the heroine reconciled with Mr. Right after making the biggest mistake of her life in ditching him temporarily for Mr. Wrong. If I was still under the spell,
I’d realize the error of my ways and apologize, and then we’d have a romantic reunion where all was forgiven. I didn’t think I could pull that off.

  Instead, I dredged up every scene I could recall of the heroine explaining herself to Mr. Wrong before rushing off to be with Mr. Right. “It was an epiphany,” I blurted. “I looked at you there with the ring and the sparklers and the music and all that, and although it was everything I thought I wanted, I knew it wasn’t right for me. You were doing the right things, but you just weren’t the right guy. You’re going to make some lucky girl very happy, but you need to be free to find her.” I thought that sounded suitably noble, even if I did have to fight my gag reflex to say it. I didn’t hate him like the prison guard that he was. I was giving him up so he’d have a chance to find happiness.

  He made a good show of acting distraught, waving his hands in the air and making a pained expression. “Did I do something wrong, something that made you upset?”

  “No, you did everything right. It’s not you. It’s me.” I had to bite the inside of my lip to keep from laughing. I didn’t think anyone ever actually said that.

  “There’s someone else, isn’t there? Your boss.”

  “Don’t you think it’s a bad sign for us if I could be attracted to anyone else?”

  He reached for my hand and grabbed it, holding it too tightly for me to pull free without making a scene, and this wasn’t supposed to be a scene. I felt the tingle of magic grow around me, and my thoughts went hazy. He was putting the whammy on me again. Was it the little whammy to make me like him or the big one to make me forget who I was? Or would the little one not work without the big one? I desperately tried to hold on to any memories I could of my true self. I remembered kissing Owen, being part of magical battles, working in my family’s store back home—all the things that weren’t supposed to be a part of this world. My name was Katie Chandler, I was from Cobb, Texas, and I worked for Magic, Spells, and Illusions, Inc. I wasn’t part of this world, and I wasn’t in love with Josh, or whatever his real name was.