Stranger Magics Read online

  I’d pointed what remained of my crust at him in accusation. “You’re forty-nine. Stop complaining.”

  “Says the one of us who can’t get arthritis,” he’d retorted. “Look, my transfer’s not up for discussion. You’re welcome to come with me, but I understand if you’d rather stay on the coast. Your call.”

  I’d studied the vestiges of my dinner for a moment, then sighed. “I suppose it’s time to press on, but really, Phoenix? You couldn’t have pushed for LA or something?”

  Paul’s reply had been a shrug. “I go where the Lord wills and the allergist directs.”

  And that had been that. Sure, I could have lingered in Boston, aging my glamour as necessary, but by then, I’d been working with Paul for fifteen years, and a good exorcist was hard to find.

  The move went off without incident. Paul drove out in early June, and I followed a few weeks later, silently cursing him every time I stopped for a rest and felt myself broil just a little more in the sun. He’d helped me make the arrangements for my new life—“If anyone asks, you’re my nephew,” he’d instructed over the phone—and located a modest house and empty storefront in the suburb where he’d been stationed, Coleridge. Unfortunately, as I soon learned, Coleridge was light on all vegetation that wasn’t cacti or succulents, and my new store had bad western exposure. But there was nothing to do for it, and so I parked my new black pickup truck on the street that Saturday morning, grabbed two duffel bags, and headed for the door. At least I had been able to drop the age-disguising glamour, one less thing to think about while I adjusted to a new city.

  Moving is seldom fun, but it’s slightly easier if one is fae. With the shades drawn and the door locked, I undertook a few minutes of enchantment-aided renovation, staining the hardwood floor, painting the walls an inoffensive beige, and removing the cobwebs the realtor had overlooked. With the basics completed, I opened one bag and pulled out my stock—entire shelves, shrunk to the size of dollhouse furniture and plastic-wrapped to keep the books in place during transit. I carefully unbound and resized each and directed it into position, stuck the cardboard box of bargain paperbacks by the door, and turned to the second bag.

  The store had a stockroom tucked behind the office, into which I carried the portion of my wares that wasn’t marketed to the general public. For these books, in lieu of a shelving unit, I opted for a lockable cabinet with solid doors and wards against fire, water, and theft. Here, I kept my better editions and signed copies, treasures I’d accrued over time and carried from city to city. True, most of my customers weren’t in the market for a first printing of Dante, but that didn’t bother me.

  It wasn’t as if I needed to actually sell books when I could produce cash from thin air.

  My move-in was complete within half an hour, and as I stepped outside to hang my wooden sign, I noticed a young woman sitting at a plastic table outside the café next door. Much of what I saw at first glance was hair, a tied-back mass of fiery curls that bounced as their owner nodded in time to the music coming through her headphones. She appeared to be working—she had a notebook in front of her, at least—but her pencil beat a drum solo against the tabletop, giving the true object of her attention away. Smiling to myself, I leaned my ladder against the brick, then climbed up with my sign and a decoy screwdriver. I had no desire to procure a proper masonry drill, and I’d found that as long as I seemed to know what I was doing and was quick with the enchantment, passersby never gave me a second glance.

  I was three-quarters of the way up and double-checking my protective gloves before going for the screwdriver when I felt the ladder twitch. Looking down, I saw the redhead standing between the ladder and the building, her pale blue eyes staring incredulously up at me. “Are you nuts?” she said, clinging to the sides of the ladder. “This thing isn’t properly braced. One bump, and you’ll have a broken arm or worse.”

  I gaped for a few seconds, surprised at the chastisement. “Uh . . . thank you?”

  “Go ahead, I’ve got you,” she said. Hastily, I affixed my sign to the building and climbed down, and she released the ladder with a grunt of disapproval. “If you want a real ladder, my dad could hook you up. Bellamy Hardware, it’s a few blocks that way.” She pointed down the cross street, then stuck out her hand. “I’m Meggy.”

  “Colin,” I replied, and shook it.

  She looked curiously at my leather gloves. “Dad could show you some real work gloves, too. You’re going to ruin those if you’re rough on them.”

  “I have extra. Skin condition,” I said, resorting to my customary half-truth, which was usually enough to end the matter.

  But Meggy was intrigued. “Ooh.” She grimaced. “Psoriasis?”

  “Contact dermatitis.”

  Her eyes flew wide open. “Me, too!” she exclaimed, surprising me for the second time. “What triggers it for you? I’m sensitive to metals—so is my mom, but not as badly as me. See?” Taking a closer look at her hands, I noticed the network of old scars like hatch marks across her fingers and palm, even her wrists. “Benadryl doesn’t work. Got any tips?”

  Startled by her enthusiastic reaction, I could only manage, “Gloves.”

  “Well, yeah”—she sighed—“but it’s going to one-ten here next week. Leather and Arizona don’t necessarily mix.”

  I stared at Meggy, momentarily convinced that I’d stumbled upon another half faerie, and decided to take the risk of revealing myself by glancing at her mind. A mundane would never suspect—I’d grown skilled enough that my touch no longer left the target with even the slightest headache. But anyone with sensitivity to magic would notice the intrusion.

  With a flicker of will, I was in . . . but there was nothing on the surface of her thoughts to suggest that she was anything but mundane. The young woman was genuinely excited to meet someone with whom she could commiserate about her condition—and, I saw with amusement, she thought I was cute.

  When I retreated a few seconds later, Meggy seemed unperturbed, and so I chalked the matter up to an unfortunate coincidence. “Want to come in?” I asked, pulling the ladder from the wall. “The air-conditioning works, at least.”

  “Sure,” she said, and held the door for me while I wrangled the ladder back inside.

  Returning from the stockroom, I caught Meggy staring about the store with her hands on her hips, taking in my recent modifications. “Decent start?” I said.

  “Totally. I didn’t even know anyone was working in here, and I come downtown all the time. But you could use some chairs, you know? Something cushy. Maybe there, by the window,” she suggested, pointing to an open spot of floor.

  I began checking the laminated paper flags demarcating the various sections. “Good idea. And since you were so kind as to keep me from breaking my neck, how about an opening-day special? Pick something on the house.”

  “Really?” She beamed a megawatt smile that dimpled her sun-freckled cheeks my way.

  “Yeah, sure,” I replied, trying to keep my cool but finding myself grinning back at her.

  “Thanks!” she exclaimed, and immediately bounced away among the shelves.

  While she browsed through the romance novels, I caught myself sneaking glances at her as I worked. She was moderately tall—the hair added at least an inch—and of a healthy build, somewhere in the soft spot between thin and athletic. Her oversized blue and white linen blouse hid most of her curves, but I caught hints when it slid away from the navy tank top beneath. Her cutoff denim shorts and white Keds certainly did nothing to disguise her toned legs. All in all, she cut a striking figure, her aesthetic lodged at the intersection of grunge, prep, and Saturday casual, and I decided that I wouldn’t mind if she had a nice, long browse.

  All too soon, however, she had made her selection and squirreled it away in her canvas messenger bag. “Thanks again, Colin,” she said, catching me at the end of the aisle. “This is your place, huh?”

  Having anticipated that line of enquiry—I did look rather young for a business owner
—I nodded and continued straightening the shelf. “Orphaned. Took my inheritance and tried to make something of it. I recently joined my uncle out here,” I lied.

  I wasn’t expecting to feel her hand on my shoulder. “I am so sorry,” she said in a rush.

  “Nothing to be sorry about,” I said, and flashed a smile. “It’s been a while. Your family lives in town, I take it?”

  “Yeah. Dad’s the third generation to run the hardware store.” She paused, and her hand tightened around her bag’s strap. “Uh . . . by any chance, are you looking to hire help?”

  “Help?” I echoed.

  “Like, you know, salespeople, stock assistants, janitors, whatever. I’ll be honest,” she said, cutting her eyes to the floor, “I need a job. Anything. So if you could use someone, or . . .”

  In general, anything is a dangerous word to throw around when bargaining with a faerie, but I had no intention of upsetting Meggy, who seemed to be growing comelier by the minute. “I suppose I could do with some help,” I said, and she flashed that dazzling smile again. “There’s nothing glamorous to do here, but if you don’t mind retail . . . sure, why not?”

  She squealed, then threw her arms around me. “Oh, thank you!” she cried as she squeezed. “This is so great. I’ve been working on my stupid résumé for two days, and I’m about ready to shred it.” Releasing me from her exuberant hug, she took off her bag and straightened her shirts. “I finished my associate’s in accounting last month, but no one seems to be hiring. Anyway, I can definitely handle money. When can I start?”

  I glanced around the otherwise empty store. “How about today? You hold down the register in case anyone slips in, and I’ll see about those chairs.”

  “You’ve got it,” she said, and hurried to the front of the building to raise the shades. “And you won’t regret this, Colin. I promise.”

  My unheralded grand opening was a total bust in terms of customers, so Meggy and I passed the time in the pair of purple armchairs I’d conjured up and lugged in, drinking coffee and chatting. She was twenty, she informed me, an Aries, and hoped to be leaving town in two years’ time, once her fiancé graduated from Clemson. Jack Horn—the original owner of the gold class ring that Meggy wore as a necklace—was across the country on a football scholarship and working on campus over the summer, but he’d promised that she’d have a real ring from him as soon as he had his degree. She had wanted to go east with him, but her parents had refused to bankroll it, and so she had opted for community college in Phoenix. “I may go back and finish a four-year degree someday,” she explained, “but it’ll depend on where Jack gets a job. He’s hoping to do well in the NFL draft.”

  I kept the conversation going with half-truths and questions that turned the focus back on Meggy, and before I knew it, it was five o’clock, and Coleridge was beginning to roll up its sidewalks. “Give you a ride home?” I offered as I locked up.

  Meggy took me up on it, but instead of directing me into one of the little neighborhoods around the downtown district, she guided us out of town and almost to I-10, into the parking lot of an extended-stay motel. “This is me,” she said, smiling as she collected her bag. “Thanks for the lift.”

  I considered the establishment—midcentury in construction and largely untouched since—its parking lot half empty and its neon sign half lit. I caught Meggy’s wrist before she could slide out of my truck, hardly realizing what I was doing. “I thought you said your parents live in town.”

  “They do. Kicked me out last week. Dad said it’s time I got my own place, so I’m living here until I can get an apartment.”

  “Is this . . . safe?” I gave the motel another dubious glance.

  “Eh,” she shrugged, “I guess so. And I’ve got a hot plate and a TV, so I’m set for the essentials.”

  Having wandered through more unsavory properties than I cared to remember, I knew well enough the look of a good place to get into trouble. The young men lurking in the parking lot, far from the security lights, only heightened my suspicion. “You’re wasting your money,” I heard myself tell her before I knew what I was going to say. “I have a spare bedroom. Stay with me for now, save up for rent, get yourself a place that doesn’t scream ‘narcotics raid.’” When she hesitated, I said, “How about we grab dinner first, and you think it over? Did you have any plans tonight?”

  She looked sheepish. “It was going to be peanut butter or Taco Bell.”

  “Do you like Chinese? And if so, is there a decent place anywhere near here? I haven’t had a chance to go scouting.”

  Meggy glanced once more at the dilapidated motel, then grinned at me. “I might be able to help you.”

  Two hours later, having swung by the motel with our Bamboo Garden takeout so that Meggy could retrieve her belongings and surrender her key, we lounged on my leather couch in a post-dinner coma, staring at the television in comfortable quiet. Eventually, I looked at my new roommate—I still couldn’t quite believe that I’d managed to acquire one—and found her asleep against the cushion. I threw an afghan over her and settled back into my spot, telling myself that I’d go to bed after another half hour.

  Instead, I woke with a crick in my neck and the sun in my eyes when Meggy muttered, “Oh, shit,” and climbed off the couch. Blinking sleep away, I watched her rummage through her suitcase and extract a wrinkled blue dress and a toiletry bag. “Bathroom?” she asked.

  “Upstairs, second door on the left,” I said between yawns, and followed her to the staircase. “What’s your rush? It’s Sunday.”

  “And Mass is at ten,” she replied, hurrying up the steps. “Which means I have half an hour, assuming the bus runs close by—”

  “Are you going to Our Lady of Sorrows, by chance?” When she nodded, I asked, “Want company?”

  And so I soon found myself stuffed into the lightest suit I owned and flipping through the bulletin while Meggy glanced around at the church’s modest crowd. I was lapsed, I confessed to Meggy, but she didn’t mind, and I remembered enough of the choreography to avoid embarrassing myself. Finally, we joined the press heading out of the sanctuary, and Meggy pulled me aside to speak to the priest. “Father,” she began, nudging me closer, “this is Colin, he’s new to town—”

  Paul just smiled. “Yes, it’s about time he stopped by,” he replied, and patted my shoulder. “Are you keeping my nephew out of trouble, Ms. Bellamy?”

  “Neph—oh,” she said, looking back and forth between us as the realization dawned. “Colin, you didn’t say—”

  “Because he has a reputation to uphold,” Paul interrupted, and winked. “Stop by the rectory sometime, bud. We should catch up.”

  “I understand you’re living in sin with Meggy Bellamy.” Paul eyed me over the rim of his beer. We had just finished an especially brutal extraction of several faeries who had decided to encamp in the old theater, and though I was sore, the alcohol was helping.

  I rolled my eyes and swigged. “It’s perfectly chaste. She needs funds to get an apartment, so she’s staying in my guest bedroom for a few months. And she’s a pretty good cook, so this isn’t entirely a charity case.” I picked at the label on the bottle. “Made lasagna to die for last weekend.” I drank again, then frowned. “Lousy of her folks to throw her out with nothing. She doesn’t even have a mattress.”

  Paul made no reply for a long moment, though he worried his lip with his teeth, a sure sign he was agitated. Finally, he said, “This is in strict confidence, and should the subject ever arise, it’s news to you. Understood?” I motioned him on, and he rose from the table and disappeared into his study. On his return, he held a spiral-bound book—a parish photo directory. “In all of my placements, I’ve found that the most helpful person is the church gossip,” he said, wincing as he took his seat. “If you want to know why your people behave the way they do, you have to have some idea of what they’re hiding. Luckily for me, Mildred Anne Winthrop has a big mouth.”

  He flipped through the first pages, then turned the b
ook around and pointed to the Bellamy family portrait. “What do you see?”

  The height of the hair and width of Mrs. Bellamy’s shoulder pads gave away the picture’s age, even before I looked closely enough to see that Meggy couldn’t have been in high school when the book was made. There were five of them in the picture: the seated mother, the father standing behind her right shoulder, the pair of sons flanking them, and Meggy, shortest of the lot, squeezed in between her mother and brother. Aside from the decade-old fashion, nothing seemed out of place . . . and then I realized what Paul was trying to show me. The Bellamy men were broad-shouldered, dark-haired, and brown-eyed. Mrs. Bellamy also had brown eyes, but she wore her honey-blonde hair in an updo. And then there was Meggy—blue eyes, red ringlets, abundant freckles, and gapped front teeth.

  “She’s adopted,” I murmured.

  “Not exactly.” Paul took the book back and closed it. “As Mildred tells it, Charlie and Sandra had their boys, Justin and Mike, and then Sandra went down to Florida on a girls’ trip, got plastered, and had a quickie with a bartender.”

  I frowned at that. “She talks about her affair?”

  “No. Mildred just happened to be polishing the altar silver when Sandra went to confession, and the booth isn’t soundproof. Apparently, Charlie almost left her when Meggy was born looking like that and Sandra told him the truth. But they went through counseling and stuck it out for the boys’ sake. I don’t think he has much to do with Meggy, to be honest.”

  With that, the picture began to come into focus—why Meggy wasn’t in school with her fiancé, why she’d been pushed from the nest with a couple suitcases to her name, why she called Jack long-distance every other night but never seemed to phone home.

  “All I’m saying,” Paul continued, “is that Meggy already has a taint on her through no fault of her own. She’s kept her nose clean, and she’s engaged to a fellow who is, by all accounts, a nice boy. Don’t give her a reputation.”

  “I assure you,” I said, lifting my beer again, “there’s nothing untoward about it. We’re sharing common areas, nothing more.”