Read The Magic Touch Online

Authors: Jody Lynn Nye

Tags: #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fantasy, #Paranormal & Urban, #Literature & Fiction, #Contemporary Fiction, #Teen & Young Adult

The Magic Touch (4 page)

BOOK: The Magic Touch
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“Rose?” he asked plaintively.

“Yes, honey?”

“What if I don’t like being a fairy godfather? You didn’t swear me to secrecy or nothing.”

“Or
anything
,”
Rose’s voice corrected him immediately. “If you find you don’t like it, quit! Go home! You don’t have to do this at all if you don’t want to. It’s entirely voluntary. We can’t force service like this. No good would come of it.”

“You gonna come after me and curse me if I do?” Ray asked. He was surprised how small his voice sounded in the empty room.

The shape that was Rose crouched beside him and drew him into the cozy pink light of her wand. Her face, in the unearthly glow, was very serious.

“There is and will never be any coercion on you from the FGU or from me, Raymond,” she said, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You can tell anyone you want to, about all of it. Who would you like to tell?”

Ray thought about telling his parents, or his little sister and brother, or his friends how he walked through a wall with a crazy lady, and how he was going to go grant wishes for unhappy kids. He thought of telling his girlfriend and watching her face go blank with horror and shock. In his vision the men in the white coats arrived in an ambulance and strapped him up in a straitjacket. He swallowed.

“I guess nobody now,” Raymond said, looking up at her. “But I can if I want?”

“Anybody,” Rose said, positively. “Come on. Our first customer is waiting.” She waved an arm as he scrambled to his feet. “Help an old lady up, honey.”

O O O

Rose led him out of the room by the light of her wand, opened a door, and let them out into a wider hallway that smelled of laundry starch, dust, garlic, and disinfectant. Along the hall to either side, Ray saw the outlines of two or three doors with a faint strip of light coming from underneath, and a split staircase leading down to the left and up to the right. He heard noises for the first time. Somewhere in the building were the sounds of conversation, a baby crying, a dog barking, and two or three televisions blaring. “Where do we go?”

“Shh,” Rose hissed, holding her wand to her lips. “That’s a deserted apartment we came out of.” The star of the wand moved toward the stairs. “That way.”

She stumped up the wide staircase. Ray trailed behind her, his rubber soles catching on the thin, Persian-style carpet on the broad treads. His heart pounded in time with his steps.

Chapter 4

“Pay attention, now,” Rose said. “The wand can tell you more than just where you’re going. It can give you some insight into your client.”

The sound of a television came loudly from the apartment on the second floor where Rose stopped. Ray automatically headed for the door, but Rose pulled him back to a section of the corridor wall. A quick check of the magic-indicator in his jacket pocket assured him Rose was right. The need string led straight through the wall, right here. Purposefully, the little woman took his arm and started walking toward the worn, flowered wallpaper. Ray bravely kept his eyes open, determined that this time he would see how it was done.

He was so interested in watching Rose melt into the wall like rain soaking into earth that he almost missed it when his own arm began to disappear. It felt funny where it touched, as if something thick, heavy, and soft brushed over his fingers, then the back of his hand, his arm, his foot, and knee. He could only see the effect for a few seconds, because then the wall was in his face, brushing over it like a blanket, and then he was through it. All around him was darkness, but this time he trusted Rose and didn’t pull back. It was no more difficult than passing into a shadow. Ray wondered excitedly if wall-walking was something he could try on his own with the little pencil wand, or if he had to wait for promotion to full status. Talk about benefits!

They emerged in a small bedroom crowded with furniture. There were two pairs of bunk beds, two desks, four mismatched chests of drawers, and one ancient armchair covered with dilapidated-looking flowered chintz that matched the blistering wallpaper on the upper half of the wall. Until his head was clear of the bunk bed frame (which tickled), he didn’t notice the young black girl curled up in the old armchair. She looked to be about fourteen or fifteen, sitting clutching a blue stuffed plush toy so old and beaten up it was hard to tell what animal it represented. She started to scramble to her feet, gawking at them.

“Daddy!” the girl screamed. The television in the next room began to chatter loudly about indigestion, drowning her out even through the walls.

“Shh!” Rose said, brandishing her wand, holding the star out so it waved fascinatingly to and fro. “It’s all right.” The girl looked from the glistening star to the two faces, her large brown eyes torn between fear and wonder. “Please don’t be afraid. I’m your fairy godmother. My name is Rose. What’s yours?”

“Clarice,” the girl said, relaxing a little, but still braced to jump up and run. The blue toy lay forgotten over one arm. “Who’s he?” She pointed at Raymond.

“Raymond is my assistant,” Rose said. She sat down on one arm of the chair and motioned for the girl to settle back on her cushion. Huge-eyed like a doe, the girl folded her legs to one side and sat on them. “A busy fairy godmother like me needs help sometimes. It sounded a little to me like you needed some help, too, Clarice. What a pretty name that is. What’s bothering you?”

“I don’t believe in fairy godmothers,” Clarice said abruptly, her eyes still fearful. She glanced at Ray again.

Rose shrugged in a casual manner. She had this argument with half her clients these days. She blamed television for the hard skepticism she saw in almost every child.

“You just saw us walk through a wall, didn’t you? How could we do that if we weren’t actual fairy godparents?”

Clarice looked fourteen or fifteen, but she considered the question with the solemnity of a much smaller child. “You could be ghosts,” she said seriously.

Rose stuck out her arm. “Pinch me. Go on!” A little timidly, the girl did so. She grinned shyly. Rose grinned back. “There, I’m solid. I’m not a ghost. Is that all right now? Good. So, tell me a little about yourself. Who sleeps in all these beds?”

“My sisters,” Clarice said. “Well, not just my sisters. My stepsisters, too. I got two of them. And four brothers, two steps and two halves. And there’s another one on the way.” She sighed and buried her face in the top of her toy’s head. “My pop told me tonight.”

“You’ve got a big family,” Rose said. “So, what’s the problem?”

Clarice sighed without looking up. “I’m just blue all the time. I miss my mama. She died when I was eight, then my pop married Janelle. Nobody cares about me. Everyone just looks out for the next one in line, and now there’s another baby coming.” She sighed, and her breath caught as if she was ready to cry. “One more to fit in somewhere. I’ve got to be the responsible one, my pop says. All the time, it’s just me.” Her voice rose to a tiny squeak. “Can you bring my mama back?”

Rose’s heart twisted with sympathy. She put an arm around the girl’s shoulders and hugged her tightly. “I’m sorry, honey. That’s too big a job for just an old fairy godmother. You’ve got a nice family here. It looks like your daddy takes good care of you.”

“Nobody cares about me,” Clarice said, looking up at Rose and Ray with tears in her eyes. “Janelle takes everything for her kids, and leaves nothing for me. She even likes my sister! But not me.”

Rose patted Clarice’s back. “You’re a good girl, and a beautiful one, did you know that? No? Well, you are. You have such a lovely line to your jaw, and your cheekbones are enviable. You should be a model. Your self-image could use a nice boost, that’s all. Isn’t anyone kind to you?” Clarice shook her head. “How about your favorite teachers? Friends?”

“Got no friends.” Clarice looked down quickly, and squeezed her toy. Rose nodded. She knew at once what the problem was. Clarice was shy, probably couldn’t make friends easily. She glanced up at Raymond, who was watching with sympathy all over his sweet face.

“How ’bout a boyfriend?” Ray asked.

“Dyland dropped me for another chick,” Clarice said bitterly. “He never notices me anymore.”

Rose slapped her hands down on her thighs. “Then what you’ve got to do is make them notice you!”

“I tried that,” Clarice cried, looking more woebegone than ever. “It backfired. I followed Dyland everywhere, trying to get him back. I … I offered him everything. Everything!” She stared down at her cuddle toy, ashamed to meet their eyes. “But he turned me down. I was so embarrassed, I never wanted to go to school again.”

“You have to make them notice you in a good way,” Rose explained. “Not with sex. Sex is too important to throw away on someone who doesn’t love you. Right?” She glanced around the room, looking for clues to this shy child’s personality. It was a pity the girl’s own father didn’t take a special interest in her. The demands of a big family had left nothing at all for this little Cinderella. Her eyes lit on a poster of teenagers playing on roller skates and skateboards on a sunny day. Those children were all smiling. “Honey, do you roller skate?”

“Sure do, but I’ve got no skates!” Clarice said. “My stepbrother stole them. I can’t get ’em back. Janelle thinks he got them in a trade from someone in the neighborhood, not from
my
closet.”

“Well, we’ll see about that,” Rose said. She stood up on her tiptoes and pulled Raymond’s head down so she could whisper in his ear. “There’s a grocery store on the corner. Get me a couple of cabbages.”

“What?” Raymond squawked, pulling away. “They’ll be closed by now!”

“Check out the garbage bin,” Rose whispered urgently.

“You’re kidding!”

“No, I’m not kidding,” Rose said, exasperated. “Hustle!”

“Man, if anyone sees me …” Raymond said. He put his hand in his pocket and shot a wary glance at Clarice. With a big sigh, he drew his training wand. Clarice still stared at him in wonder. Reassured but still resentful, Ray walked away through the wall, muttering to himself. He shot a final, dirty look at Rose over his shoulder, and vanished. Rose smiled at Clarice.

“It’ll be just a moment,” Rose said, settling herself down on the chair arm with a bump. “You know us fairy godmothers. We need our special paraphernalia!”

O O O

Raymond was back in a couple of minutes with a plastic bag swinging gingerly from one thumb and forefinger. As soon as he saw Rose, he thrust it at her. Rose seized it with delight.

“Good!” she cried. She looked inside. The cabbages were only just barely intact. Ray must have dug through a heap of rancid vegetables and at least a couple of broken eggs to find these. He was certainly a willing young man, however he felt about the order. The sleeves of his jacket were stained at the end in six colors of goo. Rose promised herself she’d take care of that later. With a flourish, she presented one of the spoiling cabbages to Clarice. “
Voilà!

she said. “Just what we need.”

“Peeee-ew!” the girl protested, staring. “Need for what? Fumigation? That’s gonna stink up the whole apartment!”

Rose rolled the second cabbage out and set both tattered green globes on top of the bag in the middle of the rug. She motioned to Ray and Clarice to stand back.

“Don’t crowd,” Rose said. “We’ve got a lot of magicking up to do. This is the first step to making Clarice bloom. Ready?” The two youngsters nodded back, uneasily.

With an eye, she measured Clarice’s foot, and guessed a size nine extra narrow. No wonder the brother had found it easy to steal her shoes. Never mind; Clarice’s foot suited her height, or at least the height the wand told Rose Clarice was going to be when she finished growing. If this pretty child found the confidence, she
ought
to go and be a fashion model.

Rose tilted her head, estimating all the things she needed to do. She choked up a little on the long wand so she wouldn’t hit any of the furniture in this crowded little room. The wand tingled in her grasp, as if anticipating with pleasure the thought of making a child happy. Rose couldn’t have agreed more herself. The power welled into her from her toes and fingertips and the top of her head, built for a moment into a tornado of warm joy, and flowed out of the star.

Clarice and Raymond both gasped as the soft pink veil of light spread out, then formed into a cone over the cabbages, concealing them, changing them. Strands of hot silver light arrowed in and out, in and out, while electric blue bursts popped off one after another in a line at the bottom of both blobs of pink, sparkling light.

The spell was complete. Rose lowered her wand. At first the youngsters looked disappointed as the light faded, then Clarice let out a whoop. She fell to her knees beside what had been a pair of rotting cabbages, and were now the sleekest in-line skates in the world. On a white background, fuchsia and purple were inlaid in a tiger-stripe pattern that cupped the back of each boot. The laces were purple, and the wheels were purple, too, with a sparkling pink star at the hub of each. Rose patted the wand in thanks for a job truly well done.

“These are fantastic!” Clarice said, her voice dropping to a reverent whisper. “Are they really for me?”

“Absolutely,” Rose said. “And they won’t fit your stepbrother even if he tries to use a wedge to get his feet into them. They will fit you and only you.”

Ray looked from the skates to Rose with awe. She winked at him, and he stiffened up at once. Poor Ray, trying so hard to keep that facade of toughness and control. Underneath it all was a good man. His insecurities made a hard barrier to cross. She guessed part of it was purely for survival purposes, but there were other things in life he needed to be open to. He’d learn. Only it took time.

Clarice yanked open the bottom drawer of one of the dressers and felt around in it. She came up with a pair of thick socks. Yanking off her thin sneakers, she tugged on the socks, and buckled the skates on over them. Rose nodded. Skating certainly was this girl’s hobby. She knew better than to wear boots over bare skin. Clarice lurched to her feet, clutching an upper bed frame. Ray jumped forward to steady her. Clarice looked six inches taller, and not all of it could be attributed to the height of the wheels. Rose regarded her critically.

“Clothes,” she said, forming an image in her mind’s eye. Cute little skating skirts were thirty years out of date. What this girl needed was something showy, but modest, to suit her personality. Yes, carry the color scheme throughout. The pink star rose in her hand almost of its own volition.

Clarice watched, her mouth open, as the pink light appeared in a ring around her be-skated feet and swirled upward, over shin, knee, thigh, hip. The magical tornado surrounded her upper body, then sailed onward through the ceiling. Clarice’s whole body quivered. She stared upward, watching the magic go, and Rose surveyed her handiwork. The girl’s long legs were now clad in royal purple stirrup pants. On top she wore a thin fuchsia sweater with white and purple tiger stripes swooping down from one shoulder to the opposite hip. Clarice looked down at herself and squeaked with glee.

“This outfit is a one-night rental,” Rose warned her. “Tomorrow, you’re on your own for duds.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Clarice exclaimed. She tottered to the mirror on top of the nearest dresser to look at herself, and her mouth dropped open. Rose had to admit the spell had been first-class.

A little magical hairdressing had combed the girl’s hair, puffing here, braiding there, and tucked in a little pink star over one ear. Clarice looked radiantly happy, a transformation from the depressed, withdrawn child she’d been when Rose and Ray walked in on her just a short time ago. Rose nodded to herself. A little self-confidence. That’s all it would take to bring out all Clarice’s natural beauty. That Dyland would be sorry he walked away from such a treasure.

Clarice turned around, radiant with joy. “Now what do I do?” she asked.

“Now? You go skating.” Rose felt in her purse. “Here’s five bucks,” she said, extending a bill to the girl. “The local roller rink is only about six blocks from here, isn’t it? You go down there and have yourself a wonderful time, all right? Those are magic skates. I promise you, you won’t fall on your can—not even
once
,
and you’ll be able to dance, or race, or whatever daredevil thing it is kids do.” She raised a warning finger to still the girl’s rising enthusiasm. “But be home by midnight, or these things turn right back into those old, moldering cabbages. Got me?” Clarice nodded, speechless. “Now, go get your daddy’s permission to go, and you have a wonderful time, honey.”

BOOK: The Magic Touch
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ads

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