A Slice of Magic

by A. G. Mayes

  Stumbling on Secrets

  Dear Stumbling on Secrets,

  Finding out a family secret can be shocking. Especially if it makes you question your whole life up until now. There are many reasons people keep secrets. Talk to your family and try to understand why they did what they did. It might be hard, but take a step back and really try to see it from their side. That’s the first step to being able to forgive them. Most often secrets are kept out of fear or to protect someone. Remember that holding on to this resentment will only hurt you further.

  Ask and I’ll Answer,

  Elodie

  I couldn’t sit still for the rest of the night. I was filled with a nervous energy. Mitzy seemed to pick up on it, and she followed me everywhere, including the bathroom, with anxious eyes. Every now and then she would catch my eye and give me a low, uncertain tail wag.

  The bottle I had swiped from Alice’s was, in fact, Spice #7. This one bottle wasn’t enough though. I had to get them all back.

  I couldn’t quite figure out why she had stolen them in the first place. They were really great spices, but it seemed like an awful lot of trouble to go through. Was she really just trying to destroy my business that badly? Was she a complete nut job? I was pacing faster and faster. I had to stop myself and find something else to do before I wore a hole in the floor.

  After all this time trying to respect Aunt Erma’s privacy, curiosity was getting the best of me. I opened the front closet and pulled out a box. My mother had taught me well, so at least I felt guilty about snooping. The front closet seemed like the safest place. I didn’t want to accidentally discover that on the side Aunt Erma was a dominatrix or something, and I figured those things would be kept in her bedroom closet.

  The first box I pulled out was full of gloves. Fancy gloves with lace and ribbons and sequins. The box smelled a bit like Aunt Erma’s ever-present cinnamon scent. I held up each pair, oohing and aahing a bit. I wondered why she needed so many pairs of fancy gloves. I imaged Aunt Erma at fancy balls dancing minuets while violins played in the background.

  I ran my fingers along a red velvet one before sticking my hand inside. It fit perfectly. A strange rushing feeling ran through my hand. I pulled the glove off, and it stopped. I put it on, and again I felt a strange surging feeling through my hand and up my arm. I pulled it off. It must be some strange static electricity thing or maybe I was having an allergic reaction.

  I moved on to the next box which was filled with pictures of Mitzy. Lots of pictures of Mitzy.

  ‘Really, you put up with this?’ I asked Mitzy, holding up a picture of her in a frilly tutu with hearts for what I could only assume was Valentine’s Day. Mitzy glared at me, clearly not happy that I had discovered her box of shame. ‘The things we do for treats,’ she seemed to be saying.

  The next box I grabbed was packed full of envelopes. I pulled the first one out of the box. It was addressed to me in Aunt Erma’s handwriting. The envelope wasn’t sealed, and I took out the letter. It was dated twenty-one years ago, when I was nine years old. It must have been shortly after she left. In the letter she apologized for leaving and said she would explain it all to me one day. She said no matter what my mother said, I should never forget who I am.

  What did that even mean?

  I pulled out a handful of envelopes and leafed through them. They were all addressed to me. They were detailed accounts of Aunt Erma’s life but also filled with questions about my life.

  ‘Did you ever conquer your fear of horses?’ she wrote in one. ‘I’m still working on mine. I signed up for riding classes at a ranch out here, but at the last minute I opted to join a book club instead.’

  The next letter changed everything.

  Dear Susie,

  I wanted to tell you this in person, but I worry that I won’t see you again. Our family descends from fairies.

  I stopped reading at this point and flipped the page over to see if it ended with a ‘just kidding,’ but it didn’t. I kept reading.

  Your mother and I grew up learning about magic and how to use it. She began to drift away from it when you were little, after your dad got sick. She struggled with magic’s limits, but I want you to know who you are if your mother doesn’t tell you.

  I think you have the power in you. I saw evidence of it several times when you’d make things happen or fix things that were broken with such ease at a young age. Your mother forbade me from telling you about it. She wasn’t sure she wanted this life for you. It can be dangerous. Especially if people find out you practice magic.

  I moved to this town when I found out they were like us – people who shared our magical abilities. It’s a wonderful and safe place to live where I can be who I am. I hope you can visit me here someday. I’ll teach you about all the different spells and how to use them.

  Some people who live here are part-fairy, some are part-elf, and a few are part-giant. Everyone here was born with a particular natural ability. Mine is making magical spices. Flora is good at knowing exactly which book people need in their life. Mr Barnes can effortlessly put people at ease. Lena is a whiz at fixing things. I suspect you share her ability.

  Everyone still has to practice their magic to hone their skills, and you can learn different skills. Mr Barnes is trying to teach me to put people at ease, but it’s been a bit hit or miss. I would like to teach you how to make the magic spices. Maybe you and Lena can teach me how to fix things.

  I love you.

  Love and Sparkles,

  Aunt Erma

  I slammed the letter down against the coffee table. I felt like my brain was going to explode. Aunt Erma had always been a little kooky, but this was a whole new level. I didn’t know what to do with this information or how to process it. I assessed my body. I didn’t feel magical. My active imagination wanted to believe it was real, but the logical side of my brain wondered what kind of crazy fantasy world Aunt Erma lived in.

  Mitzy watched me, perfectly still from her perch on the back of the sofa. It was as though she couldn’t decide if she should hop down and comfort me or if she should stay safely in her spot. I sat frozen too, staring straight back at her. I let it all sink in for a minute. The thought of magic being real was both perfectly insane and made complete sense all at the same time. It would explain so much, including why the spices were so important.

  I read the letter and read it again. I got up to make a pot of coffee because with my brain moving at a hundred miles an hour, my body needed something more to do. I paused as I was reaching up to grab the bag of beans out of the cupboard.

  ‘Come here coffee beans,’ I said in an authoritative voice. I waited for the bag to fly through the air. ‘Come,’ I said more forcefully. Mitzy came trotting over and sat attentively at my feet. I gave up and grabbed the coffee out of the cupboard.

  Mitzy’s tail wagged harder. She wanted a reward for her obedience so I gave her a treat.

  Coffee was clearly a mistake. All of the emotions and thoughts that I was having before, I was still having only even faster and more confusing. The questions in my head were all fighting for top billing at once. So I switched to wine. Wine would help me relax and then maybe I could finish a thought. I poured a big glass and drank it far too quickly. I lay down on the sofa and wondered if there was a spell to get rid of a stomachache.

  I thought back to my childhood. All those fairy tales Aunt Erma had told me. Were they real? I squeezed my eyes tightly shut. No, that would be impossible. This was all impossible. I grabbed the next letter out of the box.

  Dear Susie,

  If your mother hasn’t told you about it, I’m sure learning that magic is real would be quite a shock. Your grandparents taught your mother and I magic as soon as we learned how to talk. I thought everyone knew about magic. It wasn’t until I went to school that I learned that not everyone knew, and we weren’t supposed to talk about it. As a child, that was hard for me to wrap my mind around. Magic was so wonderful, I thought everyone should know about it. My parents w
ere firm, and I obeyed them. I learned as I got older that magic could be dangerous in the wrong hands.

  I was thinking about you a lot the other day when Lena helped me build a dog house for Mitzy. Watching her work reminded me of the time we built that fort in your parent’s living room. Well, really you did most of the work. You got this look in your eyes as you built the most intricate, beautiful blanket and pillow fort I have ever seen. Lena got that same look in her eye as she built Mitzy a two-story dog house. You probably didn’t realize at the time that magic was at work, but I could tell it was.

  I hope I get to show you all the wonderful things about magic! Flora has some amazing books. They have stories and spells in them. Even I still have so much to learn.

  Susie, I hope we can find our way back to each other one day. I hope your mother and I can heal and reunite too. I miss you both more than I can even put into words.

  Love and Sparkles,

  Aunt Erma

  Why didn’t she ever send these letters to me? If she really was magical, couldn’t she have found a way? She’d essentially been lying to me my whole life. Was she off having some magical adventure while I floundered here, trying to run her shop?

  I didn’t sleep a wink. I stayed up all night reading and re-reading the letters and occasionally trying to make something magical happen. I checked all the books on the bookshelf again to see if any of them were spell books. They weren’t. So I tried making up my own incantations. I felt a little silly waving my hands around trying to move things across the room or make pages in a book turn, but I had no one there to judge me besides Mitzy.

  Did everyone in town really know about this? Holly would have told me, wouldn’t she? What about Henry? And the Morning Pie Crew? This would be a pretty big secret to keep.

  My emotions ranged from anger towards my mother and Aunt Erma for keeping this a secret, to fear over what magic could do, to excitement at the prospect of being magical.

  I was a jittery mess the next morning when I heard Stan crash into the kitchen. Maybe that fifth cup of coffee had been a bad idea. I cautiously went downstairs to see what he’d brought me today.

  I pushed open the door to the kitchen, and he jumped up quickly from the spot he was crouched down at looking in a cupboard. He looked even more nervous than usual.

  ‘I was checking to see if I brought the powdered sugar last time.’ He answered the question I hadn’t asked.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘But I keep the sugar in the pantry. Like my aunt always did and yes, you brought the powdered sugar.’ In fact, I think that was the only correct thing he brought me last time.

  I sized Stan up. Why was he snooping through the cupboards? Was he magical? What was his ability? Clearly it wasn’t making deliveries.

  ‘Right.’ He nodded. ‘Well, here’s today’s delivery.’ He presented it with a flourish of his arm, and he was out the door. I heard the truck pull out of the alley before I realized he had left his dolly in the middle of the kitchen.

  I unpacked the delivery. Everything felt different this morning, even the clean kitchen. How did all the dishes get done? Was it actually through magic? I eyed the sparkling countertop suspiciously. I couldn’t get the unsettled feeling out of my head.

  It was my need for ice cream that drove me out of the shop that morning. We only served vanilla at the pie shop, and it was not a vanilla kind of day.

  I needed something with chocolate, and maybe peanut butter, or mint, or cookie dough. The cravings were coming fast and strong. I headed to the grocery store while the pies I’d baked cooled on the counter. The oven had worked perfectly, and I was glad I didn’t have to see Henry. Before I left, I checked the freezer to make sure there was plenty of room for ice cream in case impulse won out over discipline.

  Everyone and everything looked peculiar today. More magical. Did the buildings have a little sparkle to them? Was that a stain on that brick wall or a magical doorway to a secret land? I sized up every person I passed trying to gauge if they had magical abilities. I saw Mr Lanigan, the mailman, walking down the street. His mailbag was stuffed full, but he effortlessly switched it from one shoulder to the other as though it was light as air. Without looking he reached into the bag and pulled out a stack of mail and put it in a mailbox. At the next building he did the same. It was almost too much for my brain to handle. I considered turning back, but I convinced myself to continue my quest because I wanted the ice cream.

  The grocery store was quiet. I must have beaten the midmorning rush. I let out a sigh of relief when I saw Luanne wasn’t at the register. I wasn’t sure I could handle a lecture on the importance of getting enough fiber in my diet right now. I went straight back to the freezer section and stared through the glass doors debating between triple chocolate fudge and the chocolate peanut butter swirl. I was just deciding that I should get them both and maybe the mint chocolate chip too, when I saw Henry turn the corner from the canned soup aisle.

  I leapt behind a display of granola bars. I wanted nothing more than to avoid him. I still hadn’t come up with a non-creepy reason for his notebook about me. Even magic couldn’t explain it away. Henry was slowly pushing his cart towards me with his elbows as he looked down at his phone. I didn’t think he’d seen me.

  I watched him put his phone in his pocket and then study the freezer case for a minute.

  ‘What are you doing?’ a voice whispered in my ear and I jumped out of my skin. I turned to see Holly. She crouched down next to me and peered around the display until she spotted Henry. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ She gestured at Henry, still keeping her voice low.

  I shook my head then peered around the display again. Henry was pulling boxes of something out of the freezer and setting them in the cart. What were they?

  I leaned a little closer and my mouth fell open when I saw them. He was buying several boxes of frozen pies. Even after everything that had happened the last few days, I still felt a little wounded by his actions.

  ‘Oh no he didn’t,’ Holly whispered and then jumped to her feet.

  I tried to grab her arm, but she moved too quickly. ‘Hey, Henry!’ Holly greeted him with a wide smile.

  Henry froze with one box of pies still in his hand, his eyes wide.

  ‘Ew, gross! Why on earth would you buy frozen pies instead of Susie’s pies?’ she spoke loudly, and Henry flinched a little. I reminded myself again to never get on Holly’s bad side.

  ‘Look at the time.’ Henry pointed to his wrist, but he wasn’t wearing a watch. ‘My break is almost over. I have to get back. Great to see you, Holly.’ He practically flew out of there. Luckily he didn’t look back or he might have seen me crouching down clutching two tubs of ice cream.

  ‘Well, at least he’s ashamed now.’ Holly looked pretty proud of herself as she marched back over to me. ‘Um, honey, I think you’re melting.’ She pointed to my shirt. I looked down and saw streaks of chocolate running down the front of my white shirt underneath the containers of ice cream I was closely holding.

  I muttered a few choice words and then grabbed the mint chocolate chip and cookie dough out of the freezer, stacking them on top of the melting peanut butter and triple chocolate. Today was not a day to limit myself.

  When I got back to the shop, I put away the ice cream and ran upstairs to change my shirt. I jumped back. Mitzy was standing on top of the bookshelf just inside the door. Her tongue was already licking before she even made contact with my shirt.

  ‘Ah, no,’ I said nudging her away, much to her dismay. How did she know I would be covered in ice cream? I changed, running the chocolate covered shirt under cold water for a few minutes before throwing it in the washing machine. I was both hoping to keep the stain from setting and trying to deter Mitzy from licking my shirt clean. Knowing that dog, she would be able to find it no matter where I hid it.

  I headed back down to the pie shop still muttering angrily at Henry and his frozen pies.

  The Morning Pie Crew came bursting through the door in the a
fternoon.

  ‘You guys are late today,’ I said as they all sat down at their usual table. I wanted to ask them questions about magic, but I had no idea how to broach the subject. What if Aunt Erma just wrote those letters for fun? Maybe she was just getting in a little creative writing. Maybe my sleep-deprived mind was twisting everything that was happening up into some fairy tale, when it all had a perfectly mundane explanation. If they were true, they would explain a lot about what had been going on though.

  I looked at Mr Barnes. Did I feel extra at ease around him? I wasn’t sure.

  ‘We’re celebrating.’ Lena threw her arms out wide.

  ‘What are you celebrating?’ I asked.

  ‘Flora’s bookstore was named one of the top ten small town bookstores in Town and Travel magazine,’ Mr Barnes told me as he patted her shoulder proudly

  Flora flushed. ‘It’s no big deal, really.’

  ‘Of course it is,’ Lena cried. ‘And we’re going to celebrate all week!’

  ‘Oh Lena, you’ll use any excuse to celebrate,’ Flora laughed.

  ‘That’s true, but this is still a big deal.’ She hit her fist on the table. ‘You’re going to bring so much tourism into town.’

  ‘That would be nice,’ Flora said.

  ‘Congratulations, Flora,’ I said. ‘Pie is on the house today.’

  ‘No, no.’ She wagged her finger at me. ‘I won’t let you do that.’

  They ordered their pie and while I was serving them, Lena reached into her bag and pulled out a bottle of champagne.

  ‘Come on, Susie, join the celebration.’ She popped the top off.

  I laughed. ‘Do you need glasses?’

  ‘Oh no, I have those in here somewhere too.’ She rooted around in her large purse before producing four champagne flutes. ‘Always be prepared to party, that’s my motto.’ I wondered how she managed to lift that purse that seemed to hold everything. Was it magic? I was afraid to ask.

  ‘I noticed you were up kind of late last night. The lights were on in the apartment well after midnight. That’s not healthy. You need to get eight hours of sleep. I’ll be watching,’ Flora said with the lack of social boundaries I had come to accept as normal in this town.