By Magic Alone (13 page)

The two-year guy was a pear, so not only hadn’t I learned anything with Mr. Orange, but I then went on to choose a guy who was two levels
beneath
the orange, going by Verda’s scale. Lovely. Just lovely.

Finally, the most recent man in my life was described as . . . oh, wow . . . a kiwi? Second to the top, kiwis were described as self-starters and high achievers. They were also—supposedly—caring and attentive lovers with the right partner. Kiwis, it seemed, were keepers. Only, for a reason I couldn’t quite remember, I’d let my kiwi go. A kiwi my parents had hooked me up with, by the way.

Jameson wove his way into my brain then. He was probably a freaking pomegranate.

I shoved that thought away. Fast.

The rest of the pink section was a series of intense questions that pretty much encompassed every relationship in my entire life. There were questions about my father and mother, siblings (if applicable), friends, pets, and on and on it went. I was sweating by the time I finished. But I wasn’t done. The red segment was next: pages and pages devoted to my romantic wishes, hopes, and fantasies.

Yay, right? Not so much. Especially because there were a dozen or so fairy-tale questions tossed in, like “What was your
favorite fairy tale as a child?” My answer: none. “Which fairytale heroine do you most identify with?” My answer: none. “If you could become any fairy-tale heroine, who would you be?” My answer: yep, you got it, none. This was obviously where Kara and Leslie came up with all the talk about Snow White, Aurora, and Belle the other day, but that didn’t mean I wanted to dip into their madness. I was Julia Collins, not a fairy-tale princess, period and end of story.

The last bit of paperwork centered on my relationship goals for the future. Huh. What
were
my relationship goals? I posed this same question to every one of my clients, but I’d never answered it for myself. I supposed that someday, settling down with an appropriate man wouldn’t be a horrible thing. I wasn’t opposed to the idea of children or a white picket fence or a dog or two. But not now. Not for a while.

My fingers tightened around the pen. What should I write? Finally, I gave up and put a huge, fat question mark as my answer, then moved on.

The final page was the confidentiality agreement Leslie and Kara had spoken of. Hm, she should have had me sign this before handing everything over. Really, I was within my rights not to sign, but there was no reason not to, so I did.

Done! Good grief, was Verda thorough. I’d always worried that my entry process at Introductions was too long. Now I worried it wasn’t detailed enough. Fruity men aside, was this Verda’s secret? There’s a lot to say about digging beneath the surface to draw a person out. She’d dug all the way to China and back. Twice.

My head ached from the intense concentration, and a solid state of bemusement settled in, mucking everything up. Also, though, a hint of frustration existed below the surface. Because as crazy as this process was, I’d expected more. A lot more. I’d expected . . . magic.

Oh, not the wand-waving, spell-casting, fantastical type of magic. But something that felt like magic, especially given my friends’ raves. I wanted something that would clearly distinguish her business from mine. I should’ve been pleased. Our methods at this stage, while they varied hugely in complexity, were similar enough at their core to not raise any major red flags. But the disappointment hung on.

Gathering the papers together, I shoved them back in the envelope. My gaze landed on the book I’d ignored earlier. What was it? A volume of love poetry, perhaps? Knowing Verda and the questions I’d just gone through, I figured that was likely the case. Or maybe a collection of fairy tales. My hand slid across the top of the book, the leather binding soft as if it had been rubbed with lotion.

There weren’t any words etched onto the cover. As I picked up the book, something—call it a hunch—sped my pulse and sent a chain of trembles through my body. I turned the book in my hands, checking the spine, but that was also blank. My shivers increased and goose bumps dotted my arms. When I opened the book, there, written on the first page in spidery handwriting, was

I stared at the message for so long that my eyes stung, and the writing itself seemed to glitter and twinkle as if made up of millions of tiny diamonds. Ridiculous! I squeezed my eyes shut, held them that way for a minute, and then opened them
again. The weird sparkle I thought I’d seen was gone, but the urge to touch the words pressed into my consciousness, overshadowing all else.

My fingers hesitated above the script. The compulsion grew stronger, and a strange sensation overtook me. It was as if another hand covered mine, guiding it, and without conscious thought, my fingers brushed the writing. The page, which should have felt cool and smooth, warmed beneath my touch. My hand moved across the message, and each letter, word, and sentence seemed to take physical form and melt into my fingertips.

Electricity sizzled at my toes and wove its way up me until my entire body vibrated with energy. The beat of my heart echoed in my ears, and the writing once again began to glow. Heat, like the sun of a hot summer day, radiated through every muscle until my skin flushed with warmth. In one fast, jerky movement, I removed my hand, dropped the book, and jumped away from the sofa.

I stared at the journal, now closed and lying on the floor, trying to find a rational, practical, not-freaky explanation for what had just occurred. The energy within me flashed once, twice, three times before draining away. My breathing erupted in raspy, short gasps of air that had me backing up another step.

“What the hell was that?” I shrieked.

Naturally, there was no response. I was alone, after all. But my throat tightened as the scent of roses infused my awareness.

I’d been wrong. I hadn’t walked through the wardrobe. No, I’d fallen down the freaking rabbit hole.

I arrived at Magical Matchups exactly on time for my meeting with Verda. After the out-and-out weirdness in my living room, I’d given serious consideration to canceling the appointment, burning the journal, and wiping my hands of the entire mess once and for all. In the end, though, I couldn’t.

Not because of Scot’s threat or my difficulties with Introductions. Nope. My reasoning had very little to do with those and a lot more to do with Leslie. While I sincerely doubted my ability to alter anything with Scot, I had to try. For her sake.

As for me . . . well, I had a few choice questions for Verda. Namely, what the hell was up with the sparkly writing in the journal, and why had I felt as if I’d been zapped with lightning after touching it? I really, really hoped she’d offer up some good answers. Ones I could believe. Otherwise, I’d be dialing the nearest mental-health professional for an appointment and a straitjacket fitting.

Verda met me at the door with a gleam of anticipation in her faded blue eyes. “There you are!” she said, gesturing for me to come in. “Right on time. Punctuality is an excellent trait, Julia.”

Nodding because I agreed with her—I hated being late for anything, even Wednesday dinners—I followed her inside.

Despite my distress, my lips twitched in amusement. Verda wore stretchy—not quite spandex but a close cousin—orange leggings and a bright yellow and orange polka-dotted tunic that fell an inch or so above her knee. Yellow beaded necklaces
in varying lengths, along with white high-top sneakers laced in tangerine loopy bows, completed her ensemble. A touch of youthful pink dotted her cheeks.

Evidently, Verda wasn’t afraid of color. I was oddly jealous and instantly promised myself I’d pick up a few upbeat outfits for work. Oh, nothing in her psychedelic-rainbow range of upbeat. But perhaps I could extend beyond my standard black, brown, and blue.

She locked the door behind us and led me to a room I’d yet to see. A tiny amount of stress vanished when the only scent in the air was that of Verda’s perfume. Which, thankfully, held more fruity tones than floral. I’d had quite enough of roses.

The space was far more a sitting room than an office, but it was lovely. A sofa upholstered with flowered fabric—cabbage roses, naturally—rested like a queen in the middle of the room. Two chairs covered in the same fabric angled on either side, giving the impression of cozy comfort, like you might find at a bed-and-breakfast. What really caught my attention, though, was the large framed painting on the back wall. The scene was that of a window, looking out into a very realistic flower garden. It was painted with such intricacy, such attention to detail, that I couldn’t help but stare.

“What a gorgeous painting,” I murmured, entranced enough that I stepped in for a closer look. “I can nearly believe that’s a real window with a real garden just beyond.”

“My granddaughter is an artist. She painted that specifically for me.” Verda’s voice held pride laced with melancholy. “That was the view outside of my bedroom window when I was growing up. Alice captured every detail perfectly.”

I’d seen window paintings before, but nothing so vivid or realistic. Certainly nothing so beautiful. “Did she have a photo to work from?”

“No, dear,” Verda said, a twinge of sadness evident. “I don’t have many photographs left from my childhood.”

“Oh. That’s . . . I’m sorry.” Maybe my parents and I weren’t always on the same wavelength, but they’d photographed nearly every aspect of my life. Too much so, maybe. “So . . . um . . . Alice painted this from what? Your description? That’s amazing.”

“Well, Alice is quite talented. She has a gift, you see.” Verda walked over to the painting and laid her hand on its surface. More of a caress than a simple touch. “This is the view I saw every morning when I woke, from the time I was a little girl to the day I married. Sometimes when I stand this way and stare, I can feel that girl. She’s still here, you know. Buried underneath all of these wrinkles.”

For an eerie half second I could almost imagine the girl of whom Verda spoke—a much younger version of the woman who now stood in front of me, with light blue eyes and smooth ivory skin and the vitality of youth. One blink and the image vanished, but Verda stayed lost in the picture, in her memories.

My burning need to ask questions about the journal faded into the background. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—interrupt this moment, so I retreated to the sofa to wait her out.

Not quite a minute passed before she faced me with a smile, though her cheeks were pale and her recollections of the past misted over her features like a fine fog. “I’m glad you’re here, Julia.” Circling the sofa, she patted my shoulder. “Do you drink tea?”

“I do, but I’m fine. I can wait if you’d like to get some for yourself, though.”

“No, no. If you’re all set, we can get right to business.” The eye twinkle returned. Maybe not quite as brilliant as before, but I was happy to see it. “Did you bring the paperwork?”

“Yes.” I handed her the envelope and continued to swallow my questions. My curiosity was unabated. My concern for my sanity, too. But for now I’d let Verda take control of the conversation so she could regain her momentum.

“Perfect!” She accepted the package and perched herself on one of the chairs. Her movements were quick and birdlike; I doubted she ever sat still for very long. So unlike me. I could curl up like a slug for days, if time allowed. Which it never did. So maybe not so unlike me, after all. “I only need a few minutes to look these over.”

Scot, I was sure, had already spoken with Verda. Likely she knew full well that I’d agreed to date her grandson. So her perusal of my responses probably had more to do with proving to herself that Scot and I were, in her words, soul mates. That was fine by me. Scot and I weren’t compatible, and I had no true need for Verda to hook me up with anyone else.

In three seconds flat, she had the bundle of papers out of the envelope and in her grip. Nimble fingers flipped through them page by page, her eyes moving as she read to herself. I totally expected her to engage me in conversation, to ask for clarification here or to express her opinion there, but she didn’t.

Every now and then, Verda would mutter an
ah,
or an
ooh.
Her mouth curved into a tiny smile one second, a frown the next, and back to a grin a second later. I wondered why. What did she see that made her happy or unhappy? I gnawed on my bottom lip. I crossed my legs, counted to ten, then to twenty, then to thirty, and uncrossed them.

She murmured something incomprehensible, and that pushed my impatience and my curiosity to another extreme. It seemed Scot wasn’t the only person I couldn’t read. That, along with her continued appraisal of the inner workings of my mind, created a sense of uncomfortable limbo. I suddenly had
a greater respect for every client who had the guts to enter my business and put their trust in me to find them an appropriate partner.

I started to interrupt her but stopped. I wiggled and jiggled in my seat, feeling very much like a child at the dinner table impatiently waiting for the adults to finish so I could be set free.

Countless minutes later, she finished reading the last page—the one I’d marked with a question mark—and set the papers on her lap. “How did you find the questions, dear? Were they easy for you to answer, or did you struggle with any of them?”

“Um . . . they were fine.” At Verda’s pointed and quizzical glance, I amended my statement. “Okay, I found some of the questions a little unusual. And I didn’t understand the whole fruit thing at all. And the journal—”

“We’ll get to the journal later.” I recognized the edge in her voice. It was my mother’s don’t-argue-with-me tone. My mother had trained me well, so I didn’t even consider arguing. “I noticed that your last three relationships were an orange, a pear, and a kiwi. That’s a little curious, you know.”

“Maybe for men,” I deadpanned. “But it would make a tasty fruit salad.”