Charming Fools And Magic School

Chapter 1

Chapter One

I like bagels

Today was just like any other day, until a mouse asked me for a bagel.

The furry creature stared at me with big brown eyes and wiggled its nose. I blinked multiple times to make sure I wasn’t imagining the rodent resting next to my tea mug on the wooden table.

Thankfully, it vanished.

“What was in that bedtime tea last night?” I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples.

I woke up at two in the morning with a killer headache and a queasy stomach, and I still hadn’t recovered. Everything felt off… like I’d been on a rocky boat for hours.

“Was that a yes for picking up bagels at the store?” a tiny voice asked, and my eyelids shot open.

The mouse stood at the edge of the table on his little pink feet and head tilted.

“Uh, sure?” I could freak out. I wanted to freak out. But I’d wake up my daughter if I panicked.

Besides, it was just my imagination.

I was still dreaming or there was something severely wrong with those tea leaves.

“Thanks for not screaming. The neighbors downstairs are screamers.” The mouse wiggled its ears as if it could still hear them, then scampered off the table.

My lips turned down as I examined the wood surface. Was I going crazy? Sure, hours at the bank have been long lately, but I’ve worked more before. It had to be the tea.

Piper walked into the kitchen wearing her pajamas with little bookworms on them, which brought a smile to my lips despite my momentary inner crazy. She’d always had that effect on me.

“Mom, have you seen my blue top? The one with the—” Her words cut off abruptly. “What’s wrong with your face?”

I dragged my attention from her cute pajamas to meet her gaze.

My daughter’s head was tilted, and her eyebrows were pinched together, concern etched in her features.

She looked so much like her father, especially when serious, though his was never out of concern for me.

But the black hair, thicker eyebrows, bow lips, and bluntness were all him.

How she could be so beautiful yet an exact replica of him was a mystery from the universe I’d never understand.

Those vibrant green eyes currently searching my soul, though, were the same as mine. She shifted her hips to the side while crossing her arms. Poor girl got those sturdy hips from me too.

“Mom, seriously, what’s up? You look like you’re gonna puke or something. Your face is paler than normal.”

“Your face is paler than normal,” I parroted for no reason, voice sounding far off to my own ears. “A mouse just asked me to pick up bagels when I go to the store.”

Her face softened. “I like bagels.”

Piper no doubt thought I’d finally lost my mind, and she was being gentle about it. There was a reason I loved her to the moon and back.

“Yeah…” I said with a ragged sigh, “but a mouse sat by my tea and talked.” My hands tingled with a strong urge to scrub my cup because, ew, a mouse.

“Did it ask for a cookie too?” She sat in the seat beside me and waited, a small, playful grin began to tug at her lips. “Wait… Are you high?”

“No.” At least I didn’t think so. “Maybe it was that tea I had before bed. You know, from the package your father got me for Mother’s Day.” I mean, I wouldn’t have put it past him to gift me expired tea. It was the only logical reason for my sudden hallucinations.

The gift basket was full of teas, and grape scented bubble bath.

I hated grapes. I swear he did it to annoy me, or he didn’t actually know me at all despite interacting monthly since we had Piper in high school.

Knowing him, he got it from a garage sale or flea market.

It was likely I’d been drinking tea unearthed from someone’s dead grandma’s cabinet from 1982.

My stomach roiled at that thought.

“Maybe,” Piper said gently, “but I had a bag the other day, and I didn’t imagine talking mice.”

She touched my hand and the tingling intensified. My head throbbed, and my mouth watered. Maybe it wasn’t my ex inadvertently poisoning me. Maybe it was something else.

“I think I’m gonna puke.”

I jumped out of the seat and ran to our only bathroom, as bile burned up my throat. The idea of purging the source of all my distress this morning wasn’t a bad one.

“I’ve got a hair tie!” Piper’s voice broke through the chaos while I fell to my knees and thick vomit shot out of my mouth.

No one liked to puke, but I was eager to get this crap out of me.

Between hacks, I tried to push Piper away. She’d be extra susceptible to stomach bugs with her IBS. The last thing I wanted was to pass the ick to my daughter.

She ignored me and promised to help clean up if we both ended up with it coming out both ends. At least when I become an old lady one day, I’ll be confident in her ability to take care of me.

But, again, for her sake, I’d hoped it was only food poisoning and not a bug.

At least a minute later, I rested my head on the cool toilet seat, gasping for air, while my sweet eighteen-year-old pulled back my long brown hair. She then rubbed my back in soothing motions. Did I mention she was my favorite person ever?

“I feel better,” I croaked, not exactly sounding better. I sat up and paused, my fingers hovering over the flush button. I expected to see tea colored vomit and remnants of a muffin I ate this morning. However, the contents in the bowl were not that.

“Why did you eat daisies and purple glitter?”

So, I wasn’t hallucinating this time…

“I didn’t. What the fuck is happening?” I scrambled back, unfortunately taking Piper out at the legs.

I wasn’t crazy. There was clearly something growing inside of me. It was pretty, too, which somehow made it worse. Puke wasn’t supposed to be pretty! I shakily made it to my feet, unable to pull my stare from the toilet bowl.

“Something is wrong.” The tremble in my voice had nothing to do with being zapped from the sickness. It was fear. Maybe I should go to the hospital. Piper’s father did poison me, that moron!

The tips of my hands burned, as if I needed any more symptoms, and suddenly fiery blue sparks flew out of my normal human fingers.

Fiery. Blue. Sparks.

This wasn’t happening.

Nope.

“Mom!” Piper shouted at the same moment our phones blared an alert.

On top of me dying, we now had an emergency on our hands?

That tracked for my life. Moms couldn’t ever just be sick.

They had to be sick and take care of a crabby, fever-addled toddler with a nasty infection in both ears.

Or they were sick and still had to drag their puny selves to a bank that prided themselves on attendance and no regard for contagions.

They could have fiery, blue sparking hands and glittery daisy puke, but would still have to pull themselves together anyway.

“Holy shit!” Piper cried out which jerked me from my rambling thoughts. “Uh, I’ll call help!”

While she scrambled to grab a phone, I turned on the faucet and shoved my sparking hands under the cool water. They hissed upon contact, but thankfully the water doused them out.

Sweat coated my pale face, and my stomach twisted in knots.

Again. Green eyes stared at me in the mirror, and despite knowing those eyes, everything felt unfamiliar.

The dusting of freckles over my nose had been there since childhood.

The dark, wavy hair tied back in ponytail wasn’t new.

I looked the same, but something had changed on the inside.

Something big.

Catastrophic.

Life-changing.

“It’s the government.” Piper’s voice shook. “They say to turn on the news. I’ve got it on. Need you in here.”

The strangled tone in her words needled its way past my shock and activated Mom Mode.

“Come on, Temperance. Get it together.”

I pointed at my reflection to punctuate my words and I rinsed out my mouth with water. I then gave myself a little shake to put on a brave face and left the bathroom.

I had to keep it together. I was a thirty-five-year-old woman with a soon-to-be college student. I could handle this, or at least I could pretend in front of her.

“There was an accident.” Piper stood by the couch as her body trembled.

The need to comfort my child chased away my illness, and strength, deep down inside me, bubbled its way to the surface.

That was the thing about moms. Our superpowers could be summoned at will if our children needed us.

Even glitter daisies and sparking hands and talking mice could be shoved into second place as we performed our motherly duties.

I pulled Piper down into the gray cushions of our cozy sofa with me and hugged her to my side. Like always, whatever was going on, we’d handle it together, and I’d protect her with my life if it were to come to that.

I wasn’t usually one to watch the news, since in the end I still had to go to work and pay taxes, regardless of the worldwide drama. It made me curious, though, what could be so alarming that the government would insist we turn it on to watch.

Aliens? Invaders from the ocean? People doing shit I couldn’t do anything about?

Were they paying my rent?

No?

Then I had to get to work and cook dinner.

That was my typical response. Today, though, felt different. Something big was going on and I could feel it all the way to my tingling fingertips.

The news anchor on the screen showed a construction crew scrambling to escape a glowing blue hole in the dirt. Apparently, McKenzie Enterprise had been excavating in Ireland when they hit something last night.

Okay, so nothing life-altering or alarming from what I could tell. I certainly didn’t see any of those people barfing up lovely flowers that would no doubt clog the toilet.

“We urge everyone to stay inside your homes,” the official government speaker stated into one of the many microphones at the podium. “All flights, worldwide, have been grounded.”

Reporters chose to interject with a thousand questions, all of which made the man frown in annoyance. He was annoyed? I just vomited flowers and glitter. While that wasn’t dying, I still wanted to get looked at by a doctor, and his vague statements were standing in my way of that.

As soon as the thought came to me, a government website page URL appeared on the bottom of the screen to contact if we had strange occurrences happening. Beneath the site information were the words “DO NOT LEAVE YOUR HOMES” underlined in bright red.

The man held up a hand and said, “If you are feeling sick, and strange things are happening around you or to you, you are not alone.”

How did we go from “stay inside and flights are cancelled” to sickness and strange “things” happening all in the span of thirty seconds? Dread pooled in my stomach. I wondered if it was floral-scented.

“We’ll continue to keep you advised,” the man stated and then stormed away from the podium, ignoring another barrage of questions from the reporters.

The screen cut back to the newsroom where two reporters for our local channel stared into the camera with wide eyes.

“Well, there you have it,” the woman said in an overly cheery tone despite the seriousness of this situation.

“Refer to the website on the bottom of your television screen to report anything unusual.”

Her partner nodded and added, “Remember, stay in your homes and keep watching. We’re receiving videos and first-hand accounts of, dare I say magical occurrences worldwide. We’ll keep you updated here at Channel Nine News.”

They cut to a clip of a man sneezing, and a lightning bolt shot out of his nostril. The next clip showed a woman screaming at a goose, who then suddenly transformed into a goose herself.

Those first clips looked like something out of a movie, but then videos of car crashes, and a burning plane made it all too real.

“What the hell is happening?” Piper whispered as she clutched onto my hand tightly, reminding me of when she was a toddler who’d had a bad dream.

Except, there would be no waking up from this.

This alternate reality was real.

My situation felt minor compared to what I was seeing on the television, but it was still something. The government was “on it,” but I wasn’t so sure. Nothing about this was okay. My chest tightened as the cut to a reporter who rushed to go live on scene at the construction site.

“Mr. McKenzie,” the reporter called out, as he hurried to keep up with a tall, broad-shouldered man with a sharp jawline and blue hard hat on. “Do you have any word for the press about the incident that has caused worldwide pandemonium?”

Mr. McKenzie tensed at the question and then stated in a tight voice, “Our site managers have been diligent with every step of construction. These otherworldly disturbances have affected us all today. Many of my hardworking employees are under quarantine to study those strange effects.” He opened the door to a black SUV and paused.

Then, he turned his stormy gray-blue eyes toward the camera, and I squirmed.

Who even stared into the camera so intensely? I felt that stare in my soul.

“McKenzie Enterprise will commit all of our considerable resources to identifying what happened here and why.” He slipped into the SUV and closed the door, ending any further conversation.

The live feed stopped, and the newsroom reporters went on to talk about how the unaffected world leaders were on their way to an undisclosed space to discuss how to handle the unfolding situation.

Unaffected?

Who were all the affected and how did we make it stop?

At least my daughter didn’t seem to be inflicted with the strange happenings.

“Does this mean I’m not going to college?” Piper shot me a worried look, and she gnawed on her bottom lip.

Hysteria rose up inside me at the implications of this worldwide catastrophe. Would life ever be normal again?

Keep it together, Tempie.

I put on my most confident face and prayed she didn’t see the sheer terror beneath the surface.

“Let’s just see what happens,” I told her gently and stroked her cheek. “Trust the people who can do something to do something.”

She nodded, but that little wobble in her bottom lip cracked something under my ribs.

I nudged my shoulder into hers and pushed the hair out from her face with my free hand.

“Seriously,” I said as confidence bled into my words. “Maybe it was a worldwide gas leak and it’ll be out of our systems soon. There’s nothing we can do but speculate right now.”

Piper tore her gaze from mine and glued it to the television screen as if the news suddenly had more information that would make more sense.

“We got this baby P.” My assurance was for the both of us. “We always do.”

And it was the truth.

We’d made it this far together and it hadn’t exactly been easy.

My empowered thoughts vanished out of existence when I saw movement in my peripheral.

A small furry creature walked across the TV stand and wiggled its nose in the direction of the reporter. “Humans are hardy. This is for the best. You’ll see.”

Piper’s hand squeezed mine as a terrified mewl crawled out of her throat.

“Mom, did that mouse just talk?”