That Touch of Magic (13 page)

“Not to worry.” He held his hand out in invitation for us to continue our walk, and get on our own separate ways. With gratitude, I started down the street, anxious to drive him back to the ’Bago and send him away.

If he was a good man, he’d stay gone.

Chapter 8

Two hours later, I drove to Deidre Troudt’s house, my mind still in a jumble.

That morning after Desmond left, I had gone out to my garden shed and looked through all of my supplies, trying to see if some detail there might explain what had happened. Nothing was weird, nothing was out of place. All the ingredients I’d used in Deidre Troudt’s potion were pretty standard, and none of it looked as if it had been tampered with. Of course, I hadn’t made the Anwei Xing potion, but Desmond hadn’t touched Deidre Troudt’s potion, or my mother’s fauxtion; those had been mine from start to finish.

I’d held my hand out in front of me; there had been no sign of the magic since last night, and right now, it looked like an ordinary hand. No ropes of smoky light, nothing unusual at all, aside from that wonky pinkie finger I’d broken in the third grade. Then again, day magic manifested as electric light, and night magic, as light-filled smoke. I had spent some time that morning testing to see if I could light a candle, with no joy, but the real test would be after the sun went down.

I tried to remember back to last summer, how I’d burned paper and melted my car keys. They had both been surprises to me, but I couldn’t recall any specific trigger. Except I wasn’t running on my own steam then; it had been Liv’s day magic that had fueled mine, and her magic had been triggered by strong emotion. She’d gotten freaked out, and I’d melted my keys.

The night before, when I’d burned my clutch, I’d been with Leo, and the magic had been night magic, and it had been all mine.

That was when I’d felt the nudge of intuition, and I tried to follow it. I had taken a potion to keep me from feeling anything for Leo, and then when the potion wore off, I’d sparked some magic.

My mother had taken a potion—okay, not really, but she
thought
she had—that had made her more beautiful, and just when she was feeling at the height of her beauty,
her
magic had sparked.

Deidre Troudt had taken a potion to show her The One, and her magic had sparked … she said she’d been at her therapist’s, hadn’t she? Which didn’t make sense, because she’d taken the potion to learn about Wally Frankel, the pharmacist. If this theory had ever held any water, it was leaking fast now.

It was a start, though. I turned the corner to Ms. Troudt’s house and almost swerved into what would have been oncoming traffic if she hadn’t lived on a cul-de-sac.

Nick’s green truck was in her driveway.

I carefully pulled over to the curb and parked the Bug, then took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Any doubt I might have had about what Nick’s truck in the driveway meant was now gone. Unless Deidre Troudt was having some landscaping done, Nick wasn’t at her house. And even if she was, no way would he be working the day after his wedding. No, Nick was definitely on a beach in Spain right now, sipping cocktails with his wife, the way he should be.

It was Leo. Of
course
it was Leo. He was still here. Not only that, he was still here
and
sticking his nose into my trouble.

I got out of my car and headed toward the front door, but before I could knock, I heard laughter coming from the backyard. I went to the wooden fence and unlatched it, walking through until I found Leo and Deidre Troudt laughing at the picnic table set in the middle of her garden.

“Oh, man,” Deidre said, wiping her eyes. “I’d forgotten about that.”

“Nick still says it’s one of his proudest moments,” Leo said. “Although I don’t think you can say as much for the chicken.”

They both busted out laughing again, and that’s when Leo saw me, his laughter fading as our eyes met. Ms. Troudt followed his gaze back to me and said, “Hey! Easter!” and that’s when I realized she was drunk.

“Hey, Ms. Troudt.”

“It’s Deidre, damnit.” She pushed up from the picnic table and staggered inside without bothering to tell us where she was going or when she’d be back.

I sat down opposite Leo and whispered, “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Same as you, probably,” he said, meeting my eye coolly. “Trying to figure out what’s going on.”

“You don’t need to figure out anything. This isn’t any of your business.”

“Maybe not,” he said, challenge in his eyes, “but you’re in trouble, and I’m not leaving until you’re not in trouble anymore.”

“When did you decide that?” I asked, leaning forward. “Did you know you weren’t getting on that plane when you left me last night?”

He shook his head and gave me a small, sad smile. “I went through security and everything.”

Before I could respond, Ms. Troudt stumbled back out of the house, a carafe of hot coffee in her hands. Leo was up like a shot, taking it and the empty mug she carried. She gave it all up to him and came back to sit down next to me. Leo poured coffee into the mug, put the mug in front of Ms. Troudt, set the carafe on the table and sat down, his intention clear: He was going to stay and listen to everything. I started to say something to him to get him to leave, but Ms. Troudt patted my arm to get my attention.

“Glad you’re here, Easter. You’re gonna fix this, right?”

“I’m gonna try. What happened?”

She leaned both her arms against the picnic table, hung her head in dejection, and said, “He had the aura.”

I glanced at Leo, who was watching us with sharp eyes, taking everything in. I let it go and focused on Ms. Troudt. “So, Wally is The One?”

She shook her head slowly from side to side, reminding me of an elephant. “No. Dr. Feelgood.”

I stayed silent for a moment, hoping she would elaborate on her own, but when she didn’t, I said, “Who?”

She raised her head and looked at me. “Dr. Darius Wood, Ph-friggin’-D. My
therapist.
You know, the therapist I’ve had for
twelve freaking years
?”

I nodded, even though I hadn’t known, but it didn’t matter.

“Oh, wow,” I said.

She pushed herself up higher, but when she talked, she talked to the coffee mug. “I had an appointment on Friday, and I took the potion first because I was meeting Wally for dinner right afterward, and there wouldn’t be time. But then … Dr. Wood had the aura.” She finally looked at me. “It was blue. Well, blue-ish. Kinda green, maybe. A little purple at the edges.”

I glanced at Leo, who was paying very close attention to everything Ms. Troudt was saying. “Leo, I could really use some coffee…,” I said.

He met my eyes, clearly on to the fact that I was trying to get rid of him. “Later.”

Dammit.

“For the entire forty-five minutes,” Ms. Troudt went on, oblivious to the tension between me and Leo, “I stared at him and mumbled. He must have thought I’d had a stroke. Then after the appointment I went into the bathroom down the hall to cry, and the next thing I know, four bluebirds are racing around my head. By that time,
I
thought I was having a stroke. Then I hid in the stall for an hour until they went away.” She laughed for a moment, then thunked her forehead against the picnic table. “Fuck my life.”

“Ms. Troudt…” She raised her head and gave me a flat look, so I said, “I mean, Deidre…”

She sighed. “What?”

“I’m trying to figure out what happened, so I can fix it. What were you feeling, exactly, when the bluebirds appeared?”

She gave me a blank look. “What do you think I was feeling? I was
pissed.
I waited my whole life for that bastard to show up, and when he does, he’s my goddamn
therapist
? I mean, come on!”

“I know,” I said. “That’s really unfair. But I need you to tell me about the bluebirds. Were they solid, or kind of transparent, like a hologram? Did they disappear into thin air, or fly off? Did they look real, or cartoony?”

“Hologram, disappeared, cartoony,” she said miserably.

“Does that mean something?” Leo asked quietly.

“Yes,” I said. “I don’t have to go chasing down escaped cartoon bluebirds, for one, and if it happens in public, Ms. Troudt can say it’s a high-tech Japanese … I don’t know. Hologram hat.”

Ms. Troudt snorted. “Japanese hologram hat. I’ll give you one thing, Easter, you have always been creative with the bullshit.”

“Ooh!” I said, my heart pounding with a cheerful thought. “Or maybe it’s just perception magic. You know, maybe you’re the only one who can see them. I mean, the potion I gave you was perception-based; maybe you just saw something only you could see. Did anyone else see them?”

She gave me one of her patented your-stupidity-disappoints-me looks. “In the bathroom stall? No.”

I sighed. “Okay … well, still. It’s a maybe, and if you’re the only one who saw them, maybe it’ll just … I don’t know. Wear off.” I tried to inject a hopeful note in my voice.

“You’re being chipper. I don’t like it. Cut it out.” Then she groaned and put her face in her hands. “Oh, hell. My head is gonna explode.”

I looked at Leo. “Maybe you should get her some water.”

“Sure.” He got up and disappeared silently into the house.

“And the thing was, I
knew,
” Ms. Troudt said to me after Leo left. “I knew when I started seeing him twelve years ago, but I rationalized. I thought,
Of course you love him, Deidre. He’s the only man who’s ever listened to you.
And I just let it go. I wasted
twelve years.
”

“Well, you could just tell him how you feel,” I said. “Go on a date, see where it goes.”

She gave me a look. “He knows that I think my g-spot is traveling, because Wally can’t seem to find it in the same place twice. How am I going to make small talk with this man?”

Leo came back out with a large glass of ice water. He slid the door shut, walked noiselessly back to the table, and set it down in front of Ms. Troudt.

“Deidre?” he said, his voice soft and comforting.

She shot me a look. “See?
He
calls me Deidre.”

He motioned to the water in front of her. “You need to drink this, or you’re going to feel terrible when you wake up later.”

She pushed herself to a full upright position. “Right. Right.” We stayed silent until she finished the water, at which point, she looked at me with a hazy expression.

“If he’s The One, he feels the same way, right? I mean, can someone be your One if you’re not theirs?”

I exchanged a look with Leo, and then we spoke over each other.

“No,” Leo said.

“Maybe,” I said. “It’s complicated.”

She looked back and forth between us. “Fat lot of help you guys are.” Tears sprang to her eyes, and she covered them with her hands. “Twelve
years.
”

I reached out to pat her on the arm, and that’s when I saw them. At first, they showed up like a strange blue blur around her head, looking a little bit like a blurry sideways Ferris wheel. Then they took form, looking cartoonish and slightly transparent, but I could see the breeze from their flapping wings shifting some of Ms. Troudt’s mussed hair. So much for my it’s-just-perception-magic theory. This was full-blown, 100 percent, kick-you-in-the-balls magic.

“Oh, crap,” Ms. Troudt whined. “They’re back, aren’t they?” She kept her hands over her eyes, ignoring the electric blue light that was snaking over her fingers. Circling her head, the birds began to chirp.

“So help me God,” she said, still frozen with her hands over her eyes, “if they start braiding my hair, I’m going to have to kill someone.”

“Stop thinking about Dr. Feelgood,” I said. “Think about something else.”

“How does that help?” she said. “If you tell me
not
to think about something, of course I’m going to think about it. It’s basic psychology, Easter.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, and moved back a bit to give the birds a wider berth. “Think about…” I flailed for a moment, then said, “Ferris wheels.”

She pulled her hands down and looked at me. “Ferris wheels? Really?” Then her eyes crossed as her focus went up above her forehead, watching the bluebirds in orbit. “Fuck. My. Life.”

“You know, I’ve always kind of liked the end of
The Taming of the Shrew,
” Leo said, and Ms. Troudt’s focus snapped to.

“What?” she said, her voice suddenly sharp.

Leo smiled. “I don’t think it’s anti-feminist at all.”

Ms. Troudt blinked twice. “Are you
kidding
me?”

“No.” He met my eyes. “I think it’s about give-and-take in a relationship. Sometimes, the man has to give, sometimes the woman.”

“Yeah, except he starved and tortured her first,” I said. “He made her say the
sun
is the
moon,
just to put her in her place.”

“And when she did, he gave her everything,” Leo said. “He gave her himself, everything he owned, everything he was. He did everything in his power to make her happy. Wouldn’t you say the sun is the moon if the trade-off was happiness? Give an inch to gain a mile?”

“Are you kidding?” Ms. Troudt sputtered, throwing her arms out. “The big deal is that he made her sacrifice her integrity, her personality, who she was at her core. He tortures her to make her change, and she
does
it! That whole speech at the end? Just be pretty and give him whatever he wants?
Place your hands below your husband’s foot
? You seriously think that’s a pro-feminist message?”

“Kate’s happy in the end, though, isn’t she?” Leo said.

“Yeah, because she was written by a
man
!” Ms. Troudt and I said in unison, and then we looked at each other, equally incensed.

And that’s when I noticed that the birds had gone. Ms. Troudt saw my eyes flicker upward, and hers did the same. Then she sighed and gave Leo a small, tired smile.

“Well done, North. Glad you learned something in my class, even if it was just how to piss me off.” She finished the rest of her water and pushed up from the table. “I’m going to bed.”