Chapter Six #2
I managed a sheepish grimace that I hoped looked apologetic.
“I’ve changed my mind.” I’d decided somewhere around a third of the way into the pie that I didn’t want to sell the wolpertinger.
If it was real, and if it could grant wishes, then there was nothing stopping me from making one.
But I knew as well as anyone that a wish had to be carefully crafted, even if the granter were benevolent.
I needed more time to think about my wish before I went ahead and wasted it.
Anyhow, I only needed four months’ worth of rent, and there were plenty of other objects in the shoppe I wanted to test first.
I told none of this to Bri and Finlay, however.
I already knew what Finlay would say: that wishes were a foolish idea.
Truth was, I didn’t fully disagree with him.
But that was all the more reason not to sell the wolpertinger to whomever offered me the highest price.
A wish in the wrong hands could have disastrous consequences, and not only for the wisher.
“Then I suppose we should go,” Bri said to Finlay when she realized I wasn’t going to explain further.
“No, don’t. I’d like you to do something else for me instead.
” I ignored their questioning glances and walked to the shelf containing the enchanted ostrich egg, talismans, and various other objects.
“Can you tell me which of these are real?” I asked Bri over my shoulder.
“Which have true magical potential, if any, and which are fakes?”
She nodded and approached the shelf. Hesitantly, she began to run her hands over the objects at a distance, never touching.
To my mild disappointment, she went past the ostrich egg—it was supposed to contain a golden bird with the voice of a thousand angels or some such nonsense—and hovered over the dish of faux talismans.
“There,” she said finally, pointing to one small silver charm in the shape of a cupped hand.
There was nothing to distinguish it from all the other talismans, each one representing a different body part.
There were tiny legs, minute fists, even breasts of various shapes and sizes that I sometimes dangled in front of Finlay just to see him squirm.
“What does it do?” I asked.
“I won’t know until I pick it up,” Bri answered. “Are you sure you want me to?”
Suddenly, the prospect of magical potential in everything around me seemed daunting, frightening.
Da hadn’t told me what all of it was supposed to do, and by the time I was seven and realized nothing in the shoppe was magical, I didn’t bother asking.
I always assumed the body part talismans were supposed to be curatives for specific aches, pains, and diseases.
Ill humors, various and sundry rashes, etc.
But what did a cupped hand mean? Perhaps it turned the wearer into a supplicant, cursed to spend the rest of his life begging with an open palm.
“Ehm,” I said finally. “I don’t know.”
“What about your broom?” Bri asked. “It seemed awfully twitchy when I passed it last time.”
“It’s only a broom,” I said, because surely it was. Da had only ever used it for sweeping.
“It’s most definitely not an ordinary broom,” Bri replied flatly, approaching it as though it were a skittish colt. “I think it’s a witch’s broom. For flying and whatnot.”
“And whatnot?” Finlay asked over my shoulder.
Bri shrugged. “Mostly flying. I think.”
As Finlay walked past me, his gaze flicked to the bodice of my dress.
I knew it was snug given how difficult it was to take a full breath in the dratted thing, but the way his eyes goggled made me self-conscious enough to pull my loose hair over my shoulders like the world’s rattiest shawl.
Our eyes met, and while one part of me prayed for the floor to open and swallow me whole, another small, petty part of me was tempted to toss my hair back behind my shoulders.
Finlay’s mouth opened, as though he wanted to say something.
The words catching flies? hovered on the tip of my tongue.
“Let’s take the broom outside,” I said instead, sparing us both. “If it does fly, we don’t want to risk it going airborne inside the shoppe.”
We trailed outside and across the street, where a narrow alley opened onto an abandoned lot. I held the broom in question before me. It truly seemed like an ordinary old broom. A trusty one that swept commendably, but still.
“Here goes nothing,” Bri said, taking the broom from me.
As soon as her hand touched it, she gave a little gasp.
Then it was my turn to gape when her skirt and hair began to drift slowly upward, as if she were underwater.
The broom looked the same as it had only a moment ago, but something about it seemed different.
Without a second thought, Bri held the broom horizontal before her, hitched up her skirt, and climbed aboard.
“Brianna!” Finlay exclaimed. I grasped for her foot, but it was too late. She was already hovering ten feet off the ground.
“What—how—” Finlay sputtered, glancing at me for confirmation that what he was seeing was real.
I stared up at the broom, my disbelief instantly overshadowed by pure, unadulterated wonder.
“Can someone please tell me what in the seven hells is going on?” Finlay finally managed.
Magic, my father’s ghost whispered in my ear. Magic, magic, magic.