A Snicker of Magic (15 page)

Rosie nodded. “I’m sure he wants to. Anybody who sings a note or strums a string wants to play there.”

“Felicity is a storyteller, Miss Rosie,” Jonah said. “She sees words hovering in the air and shining over people’s heads and stuff. She collects the ones she loves the most. That’s how she’s going to win the Duel.”

My heart flopped down into my stomach again.

“Is that right, Felicity?” Rosie asked.

“I collect words,” I said. “But I’m not much at making them into anything.”

“Word collecting is a special gift,” said Rosie.

“And a curse,” I barely sighed.

Rosie chuckled. “Jonah, I like Felicity. She seems unique.”

“Felicity is enchanting,” Jonah said. And he said this as though the word had been on the tip of his tongue, ready to break loose and be said for weeks.

Enchanting

The word perched on Jonah’s shoulder like a tiny silver songbird.

I leaned over and wrote
enchanting
on my shoe in big bubble letters. I never wanted to forget my songbird word. I never wanted to forget it was mine.

Plumb pretty

Poet

Enchanting

Those were all words Jonah’d given to me because he believed they were true. He believed I
was
those things. And I was minutes away from telling him that he’d believed for nothing.

Rosie turned toward Jonah. “I’m not wearing my glasses. Is Felicity as cute as she sounds?”

“Felicity has gray eyes,” Jonah said. “They almost look silver sometimes, the same color the river turns when a big rain comes through and it’s about to overflow. She has sad eyes, but she’s not a sad girl, not always.”

Jonah finally looked up at me. “Maybe a little bit today, though.” His forehead wrinkled when he concentrated on my face. “Why are you sad today, Felicity?”

“Jonah.” I had to do it now. It was pure torture to put it off any longer. “I came to tell you —”

But I didn’t get to tell him a thing because suddenly the doorbell clanged and Oliver Weatherly shouted “Hey-yo!” from the doorway. He wore overalls, a white T-shirt, and a big smile. He held a large red cooler in his hands. Oliver hoisted the cooler above his head like it was full of treasures and said, “Free ice cream for everybody!”

“Woo!” Ponder Waller raised her hands in the air.

“Your nails are still wet!” Big Bruce hollered at her.

But she didn’t hear him because the folks getting their hair done and the people out in the shop all started hollering out their favorite flavors:

“Virgil’s Get-Outta-My-Face Fudge Ripple!”

“Bobby’s Buttered Avocado!”

“Suzie’s White Chocolate Cherry Walnut!”

“Aunt Ruth’s Pumpkin Sampler!”

“I could sure use a Blackberry Sunrise,” said Rosie Walker, so softly I didn’t know if anybody besides me had heard. “I’m in a remembering way.”

“I’ll get it for you!” Jonah said. He wheeled away and I stood to follow him, but Rosie Walker caught my wrist with her bony hand.

“Felicity darlin’,” she drawled, “you know what helped me figure out how to put my words together?
Music
. Music gets my words where they need to go. So you keep catching them words, you hear? Pluck them out of the wind. String them together like the finest set of pearls. Line them up on paper. And if it hurts too much to say them, then you sing them, or whisper them, or write them into a story. But
don’t waste them. Your words matter more than you know. You hear?”

I nodded sadly. “I’ll try.”

“That’s all you have to do.” Rosie patted my arm. “The rest takes care of itself.”

Jewell Pickett walked to the front of the shop and stared down into the wondrous abyss of Oliver’s cooler. “What’s the occasion, Weatherly? And what are you doing here so early? Your appointment ain’t till four!”

I liked Jewell Pickett’s voice because it sounded like it had a laugh caught up inside it. I could tell that some of Jonah’s weirdly-wonderful had come straight from his mother. She smiled the same way Jonah smiled. And her hair was blond and prickly, like his.

“No occasion!” Oliver said. “I figured I’d scoot in early. Share some ice cream and shoot the breeze.”

“All he’s good for is shooting the breeze,” said an old man in a plaid shirt and dirt-stained blue jeans. He tried to sound tough, but a kind smile stretched across his face. “I never met a man that told more tall tales in all my life.”

“There’s more truth in my tall tales than your weather reports, Virgil,” Oliver said as he tossed the old man a carton of ice cream. They both laughed. If there’s one thing I dearly love, it’s a chorus of that kind of laughing. Happy laughing. It’s as fine as any symphony.

Survivor

Safe harbor

Sweetheart

Anchor

Those were Virgil’s words. They clung to his arms. And I could tell — by his strong shoulders and bold words, and by the twinkle in his eye — that he was a man who’d been dearly loved.

Virgil scratched the scruff on his jaw. “You might as well settle in, Weatherly. Spin a few of those tales, since you’re here.”

Oliver plopped down underneath one of the hair dryers and propped his boots up on the footrest. “Any requests?”

“Tell us about sweet Eldee Mae!” said Big Bruce.

“Tell us about the Duel!” hollered Harriet Bond, Jewell’s lead mechanic, through the window connecting the salon to the body shop. She waved to Oliver from underneath the hood of an old Ford truck. “That Duel Miss Lawson’s cooking up’s got everybody talking about the Brothers Threadbare again.”

The last thing I wanted to hear more about was the Duel.

There was another story I wanted to know about.

“Tell us about the witch of Midnight Gulch,” I said.

Even though I said it quick and quiet, you’d think I’d shouted. The room fell silent. Folks cranked around in their seats to stare at me.

Elvis Phillips tapped an anxious rhythm against the swivel chair. “What witch?” he asked. “I’ve never heard anything about any witch …”

“Everybody hush.” Jewell raised her voice over the chorus of mumbles and grumbles. “Let Oliver tell the story.”

The dark clouds that had been slinking in and out of the mountains ever since I got to town rumbled low across the sky, like a warning.

Oliver laced his fingers together over the paunch of his belly. He sighed, as if he’d been expecting me to ask that very thing. He leaned back in his seat and began, “All right, then.”

And I leaned in close and prepared my heart for a storm of a story.

Biscuit was thrilled when Jewell told me I could let her inside the Lube & Dye. She zoomed in and shook the raindrops out of her fur and then she walked around, getting to know people. Every hairstylist and mechanic and client in the whole shop reached out to pet her, which Biscuit didn’t mind a bit. When it comes to affection, she knows how to dish it out.

I helped Rosie Walker to a seat closer to the front of the shop, where she could hear Oliver’s story. Rosie had just sat down when Biscuit pounced up in her lap. At first Rosie let out a surprised “
OOOOF!
”

But then Biscuit turned toward Rosie and nuzzled her cheek.

Rosie smiled. “Well, hello there, darlin’!”

Once I’d seen that the two of them were settled, I pulled a seat for myself beside Jonah and told him, “Don’t forget … I need to talk to you about something later. It’s an important something.”

Jonah’s smile pinched into a frown. “Important how?”

“I’ll tell you later,” I said. Because I had more important things to focus on. Things like who the hayseed the witch woman was and how the heck I was going to undo her stupid curse.

The room got quiet as we all settled in for Oliver’s tale. The only sound I could hear was the
snip-snip-snip
of Jewell’s scissors.

Oliver tapped the dimple on his chin, collecting his thoughts. He started his story with the part I knew but never got sick of hearing:

“Many years ago, Midnight Gulch was a secret place. The mountain hid the town high-up-away from the rest of the world. And the river surrounded the mountain and kept it safe. And the forest stood up tall around the river, and caught all of the town’s secrets and songs in its branches. The town
had
to stay secret, you see, because the people who lived there had magic in their veins.

“Some families had more powerful magic than others, of course. Some families, like the Tripletts, had flashy magic. They say Owen Triplett could catch starlight in glass jars. He got in trouble for selling his starlight jars to tourists, though. People’d no more than pay for their jars when the starlight would bust loose and head back for the skies. Starlight doesn’t take good to domestication.”

“Note to self,” Jonah whispered to me. “Stars don’t make good pets.”

“Duly noted,” I agreed.

Oliver continued, “Some families had a purpose to their magic, though. The Terrys could conjure up the rain. The Smiths could bake secrets into their pies.”

“Tell about the Hancocks!” Charlie Sue yelled.

Oliver rolled his eyes. “The Hancocks could turn themselves invisible.” He closed his eyes and sighed contentedly. “I wouldn’t mind if they started doing that again, honestly.”

“Me, neither,” Charlie Sue chimed in. “I’d follow you around all day and bug the daylights out of you.”

“You already do that every day,” Oliver laughed. He cleared his throat and continued, “And when the Weatherly boys played music, the whole world danced and sang.

“But there was another powerful family back then — the Thistle family. Nobody talks about them much, but they had the strangest and most exciting magic of all.

“In fact, back then, the most notorious woman in all of Midnight Gulch was a young lady named Isabella Thistle.”

Thunder rumbled low and long over the rooftop. I didn’t know if it was the thunder or the name Isabella Thistle that sent the shiver down my spine. And it wasn’t just me: Everybody in the beauty shop shivered or rubbed their arms.

“Now, the men in the Thistle family weren’t much tootin’,” Oliver said. “The most magical thing those men ever did was drink their weight in moonshine. But the Thistle women were powerful creatures. And Isabella was the most powerful of them all.”

Even though my heart was already drumming
yes
, I asked Oliver, “So Isabella was the witch woman?”

“Eh.” Oliver shrugged his shoulder. “She was no more of a witch than any other woman in the Gulch. Lots of women had magic in their veins. The problem was that most women despised Isabella Thistle. They were jealous of her because the Weatherly boys liked her so much. They hated her because she spoke her mind even if it made folks angry. They hated her kind of beautiful. I always heard tell that, if you passed Isabella Thistle on the street, you’d think she looked very ordinary. But she had a way about her: an easy laugh and a strong will. She didn’t care what people thought of her. She was bossy, opinionated, and feisty. Isabella wore her hair in a long, black braid. She kept a yellow flower behind her ear. To be in her presence, they said, was enchanting. And that’s why some people called her a witch. They said she wasn’t pretty enough to get the Weatherly boys’ attention. They said she must have put a spell on them somehow.”

“But you don’t think she did?” Jonah asked around a mouthful of ice cream.

“Jonah,” Oliver sighed. “I’m about to give you some advice about women, man to man.”

“Here we go.” Jewell shook her head.

Jonah settled his carton of Aunt Ruth’s Pumpkin Sampler in his lap. “I’m listening.”

“Here’s what you need to remember,” said Oliver. “Women who make you laugh, and who make you think,
and who also happen to wear yellow flowers in their hair are always dangerous. And if they happen to have magic in their veins, then heaven help us all. You either give up and fall in love or get out of town. Isabella wasn’t a witch no more than I’m a trapeze swinger. And she didn’t cast any love spell on the Brothers Threadbare, either. They both fell in love with her. She fell in love with both of them.”

“Both?” I blew my too-long bangs away from my eyes. “How’s it possible to fall in love with two people?”

“Stone Weatherly courted Isabella first.” Oliver popped open a carton of Blackberry Sunrise. He was quiet for a time as he considered the memories melting in his mouth. “Nobody knows what went wrong, but Stone and Isabella broke up. Not long after, Berry started courting her. I don’t know if Stone still took a shine to Isabella or if he hated the thought of his brother courting her, but that’s how the jealousy first got stirred up between them. The Weatherlys weren’t jealous of each other’s fame, the way most people think. They were both plumb crazy over a girl.

“Isabella wouldn’t have it. She ended up turning both of the boys down on account of their stupid antics. And that turned both of them bitter and angry and sad. Eventually, the brothers had enough of each other and they came up with the Duel. And because they didn’t know anybody who could twist magic like Isabella Thistle, they asked her to come up with a curse. And she was so mad at both of them, she agreed. It was a strange magic those Thistle women had.
Sad
magic.”

“And it worked?” I asked. My voice came out like a bullfrog croak. Of course, I already knew the curse had worked. I’d traveled enough dark nights in the Pickled Jalapeño to know it was still working just fine.

“
They
believed it worked,” Oliver said to me. He set his eyes directly on mine, the way you do when you want somebody to hear more besides the words you’re saying out loud. “
They
believed it,” he repeated. “I doubt there was any real magic to that curse. But Stone Weatherly believed he was a cursed man, and that’s all that mattered.”

Rosie Walker cleared her throat. She was still holding Biscuit, scratching behind my dog’s ears. Biscuit panted happily, her mouth wide open with a very satisfied smile.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Rosie said. “But this witch woman — you said her family had a peculiar kind of magic. What was it, exactly?”

“Legend says that the Thistle women were shadow catchers. Way back, during the War Between the States, soldiers would pay the Thistles to catch shadows and turn ’em loose over paths and trails to scare off the other side. People say Isabella used to hide bird shadows inside the hymnals at the church. When the choir stood up to sing, a hundred shadows came fluttering up off the pages, and people started shouting and hollering and carrying on. She had the gift. Seems a sad way to live, though. Collecting shadows. If ever there’s a waste of magic, I reckon it’s that.”

“I’m sure it didn’t start out as a waste,” Rosie Walker drawled. “Maybe the Thistle women collected sunsets, once
upon a time. Maybe they trapped stars in Mason jars or maybe …
maybe
” — her hands fluttered excitedly — “maybe they collected memories. I’ve heard tell of that, about mountain people who could keep memories and songs, hush them up for decades inside boxes and bottles.”

Oliver tapped his finger against his lips, choosing his words extra carefully. “A feller once told me that Isabella Thistle took something that belonged to the Brothers Threadbare. Right after she set the curse on them, she stole something that belonged to them, and then she lit out of town. Of course, most people think she took money. But I don’t think that was it …” Oliver shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t matter much what she took or what those brothers did. We can’t undo what’s been done.”

Elvis ran his fingers through his hair and said, “Reckon there’s no magic left in Midnight Gulch.”

And most of the folks in the shop all shook their heads and mumbled their
reckon not
s and
you got that right
s.

I knew better, though.

Words as beautiful as magic spells — hidden to most people, but shimmer-shining at me — threaded all across the ceiling of Jewell Pickett’s Lube & Dye:

Winsome

Wonder

B e l i e v e

I didn’t have to reckon anything about what magic might be left in Midnight Gulch. I knew it was still there.

“Sure wish they’d have made amends,” Oliver said sadly.

“Tell you what I wish.” Jewell swept around her station. “I wish somebody’d redo that trashy looking Gallery out there. Why don’t you get to fixing that, Oliver?”

“Aw, shoot,” said Oliver. “Nobody in this town could paint that thing right. I suppose I could have somebody plow it down, but that makes me too sad to think on. Too much history in that wall. I’d like to see it painted up again, but nobody here can do it.”

At exactly that moment, I saw one of my favorite words shimmering against the big window of Jewell’s shop:

Holly

“Mama!” I hollered. Everybody in the shop stared at me. “My mama could paint the Gallery, easy. She’ll paint something wonderful and winsome all over that wall. She’s an exceptional artist.”

“She really is,” Jonah quickly agreed. “She has a portfolio and everything. Holly’s painted murals all over the southeastern United States.”

“Why hasn’t anybody thought of that until now?” Ponder Waller asked. “I’ve always said Holly Harness was the most talented girl ever to come out of Midnight Gulch. You think she’d be willing to paint the Gallery, Felicity?”

“She might,” I said, as the most wonderful feelings came swirling up inside my belly: hope and pride and happiness. They snuffed out all the sad I’d felt over the Duel and over leaving Midnight Gulch. Holly Harness might paint again. This was the best kind of happy I’d felt in ages.

Also, the Gallery was gargantuan.

We’d have to stay in town at least until it was done.

Oliver thought that was a fine idea. I locked eyes with Jonah and saw a halo of words spinning around his spiky blond hair:

Clever

Stalwart

Brilliant

Splendiferous

“Spindiddly plan, Felicity Pickle.” Jonah grinned.

That night, while everybody else was sound asleep, I sat on the floor of my makeshift bedroom, spilling my heart out to my dog. “If Mama starts painting again, that doesn’t mean the curse is broken. But it means there’s hope. Right?”

Biscuit pressed her paw against my hand.

“The thing is, Isabella Thistle wasn’t some mean old witch out for revenge. She said the Threadbares were cursed
until
cords aligned. I don’t know what the hayseed
cords aligning
means … ” My voice trailed off as I fumbled with the locket around my neck. “But I’ll bet the Threadbares figured it out. Maybe that’s why they tried to find each other.”