The Magic Touch Read online

  Rose shrugged. “Not everything that’s hackneyed is false, Ray. Keep your chin up,” she admonished him, reaching up to chuck him in the jaw with her knuckles. “It comes and it goes. You enjoy the high points and wade through the lows. We all do. It’s one of the balances of the job.”

  “About those rewards,” Ray wanted to know, as Rose turned to walk along the street again. “I heard something like a pension plan…?”

  “Later,” Rose said, with that exasperating smile of hers. “Wait until you do the job first, if you don’t mind. There are children out there who need us. Follow me.”

  O O O

  Half a block later, they stopped in front of a brick apartment building. Ray eyed it, wondering what was special about this one, out of half a dozen just like it to either side. The brick was the same yellow, the lintels and doorframes made of cast concrete just like the sidewalks. There was no neon in any of the windows saying, “Help me!” His fingers felt for the wand in his pocket.

  As soon as he touched it, he felt those need strings again. Sure enough, there was one strong enough to pull him. They walked along the narrow sidewalk that led into the U-shaped building’s courtyard, toward the entrance. Ray had all he could do to keep from veering off to the left where the sensation was emanating from. Somebody was hurting, hurting really bad. Ray wanted to make it better.

  Rose reached the door and shook the black-painted doorknob.

  “These security systems,” she said, stepping back a pace to shake her head. “It seems like such a good idea, but it doesn’t keep out a really determined burglar. The person who it makes the most trouble for is the person who lives there.”

  “For us, too,” Ray said, looking over her shoulder. “So what do we do, ring all the bells and get somebody to buzz us in?”

  Rose gave him an exasperated glance that approximated Grandma Green’s look enough that he backed away from her.

  “We have other means,” she said. “Locked doors do not keep us from doing the job. Come on.” She turned and trudged back toward the place that had been pulling Ray.

  The wall rose steeply three stories out of a thick bank of juniper bushes like green steel wool. Rose looked up, and peered at the wall as if estimating a jump.

  “Second floor,” she said, pointing with the star of her wand. Ray saw, and felt, the need string going up to the window.

  “Might as well be a hundred if we can’t get in,” Ray said.

  “Oh, we can,” Rose said. “Come on.” Grabbing Ray’s upper arm with one hand, and brandishing the wand with the other, she marched forward into the bushes.

  “What are you doing?” he cried.

  “We’re going in,” Rose said. Ray tried to yank back, but she had a good grip on him. He closed his eyes and covered his face with his free arm to protect it from the thorny evergreen. A dozen paces later Rose stopped short again, and Ray stumbled.

  “Watch where you’re going,” she said. “You could hurt yourself.”

  Ray opened his eyes. The evergreens were gone. He couldn’t see the stars, and the air was cool and musty instead of steamy. It took his brain a couple of minutes of terrified confusion until he realized he was actually inside the building. But how? He spun to look behind him. There was no door. A few feet away on one side was the outline of a boarded up window. They hadn’t come from that direction anyhow. He wasn’t that disoriented. There was only one conclusion he could reach, and he blurted it out before he could stop himself.

  “We walked through a wall! We walked through a solid brick wall!”

  “That’s right,” Rose’s voice said. “You have to learn to trust me, you know. It’s a terrible thing not to trust.”

  He couldn’t see her clearly. She was a short silhouette in front of him. The only thing really visible, that he could hold on to for a reference point, was the star on the wand. It gleamed with a comforting light. Ray groped in his pocket for his own wand. The goodness made him feel a little better, but what he really wanted to do was sit down. He pushed away from Rose and felt around him for any kind of solid furniture, and finally sank to the dusty, coarse carpet. He wrapped his arms tightly around his knees.

  “We went through a wall,” he said to the pink star. “How?”

  “We have special abilities when we’re on the job,” Rose said. “Do they help you when you’ve missed a bus? No. Do they help when you lock yourself out of the apartment? No. But this is so nothing can stand between you and a child who really needs you.”

  The children. Ray thought about them, and gradually the shock began to wear off. Magic was good, because it helped children. Rose acted like it was a normal, okay, everyday thing. Maybe this lady wasn’t so crazy after all. He hadn’t been seeing things in the Assembly Hall, and there were veils of light that came out of wands, and beams of light that led you to kids. He had a magic wand in his own pocket, and he was going to do stuff with it for children.

  “Penny for your thoughts, honey,” Rose said.

  As his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, he could see that he was in a big room. A hallway and the darker patches of two doors showed on the wall opposite the one they came in. Her short, plump figure became more visible.

  “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 qui
ck 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.