A Snicker of Magic (24 page)

M
AGIC
S
TILL
H
APPENS
H
ERE

Jonah and I pushed our way through the dancing crowd until I found my aunt Cleo. I grabbed her arm and said the two words I hoped I’d never have to say: “Mama’s gone.”

“Maybe you should let me drive, Cleo,” Day Grissom said to my aunt as she swerved the Jalapeño out onto the main road. We were all packed in tight: Cleo, Day, Frannie, Boone, Jonah, Toast, and me. It was Jonah’s idea to bring the musicians along with us, just in case Mama’d left before the curse was broken.

Mama left. She really left. “What if she’s gone?” I asked as Cleo came to a screeching halt at Midnight Gulch’s only stoplight.

“We’ll find her,” Cleo said, clutching the steering wheel.

“I don’t have my suitcase!” Frannie rubbed her eyes. “I forgot to bring it.”

“You won’t need it,” Cleo said. But she wouldn’t look back at us.

Day Grissom said, “Cleo … let me drive.”

“Day!” Cleo hollered. “How long does this infernal red light last?”

“I’m gonna be carsick,” Toast groaned.

Jonah raised his hand. “We might need Le Barfbucket!”

“Why are you raising your hand?” I asked. “We’re not in class.”

Boone popped open the way-back window with his elbow so Toast could get some fresh air. “Holly walked, so she can’t be too far off, right, Cleo?”

“Trade seats with me,” Day said. “I get nervous when you drive.”

“Everybody HUSH!” Cleo scolded. “ ’Specially you, Day Grissom. If you don’t like my driving, you can walk.”

“THERE!” Frannie yelled as the Jalapeño squealed its way onto Main Street. Mama was painting the Gallery.

“That’s what I figured,” Cleo said. The Jalapeño bumped up on the sidewalk near Abigail Honeycutt’s bench. Cleo pushed her door open at the same time Day Grissom reached down to shift the gear into park, because Aunt Cleo had forgotten. As usual.

“Let me go see her first,” I said. “I’ll make sure everything’s okay.”

I scampered across the street, yelling her name. “Mama!”

When she spun around I noticed three things:

First, I noticed that she’d been crying. Her eyes looked red and glassy. Long, inky rivers of mascara rolled down her face. But she looked pretty that way; she looked painted that way.

Second, I noticed she was holding one of her old paintbrushes. She’d been doing detail work.

And third … even through her tears, I noticed, she was smiling.

I flew at her. I latched my arms tight around her waist and she wrapped her arms around my shoulders.

“Did you see the shadows?” My throat burned the way it always does when I’m trying not to cry. “Did you hear the music at the end? The chords aligned and the curse is over. Did you —”

“Shhhh,” Mama cooed against my hair. “I don’t know what shadows you’re talking about….”

I was about to holler across the street to Boone and Toast and tell them to fire up the music! But then Mama tilted my face up so I was looking at her, so she was looking right into my eyes. She said, “I heard
you
. As soon as I heard you start talking, I figured out how to fix the Gallery. I figured out how to fix … lots of things. Let me finish this, Felicity, and then …”

“And then …” I whispered.

“And then we’ll talk,” she promised. “But first I need to fix this. Alone —”

“I’ll keep you company,” Cleo said, shuffling up the sidewalk. “Day and Boone said they’d take the kids for ice cream. I’ll stay here with you.”

Mama finally let go of me and turned back to the Gallery. “I’ll be here a while.”

Cleo nodded. “That’s fine. I got my soap operas set to record. Go on, Felicity. I’ll come get y’all when she’s ready to unveil the masterpiece.”

I was just about to argue when I caught the flicker of a
yellow ribbon out of the corner of my eye. I glanced across the road to Abigail Honeycutt’s bench.

“Florentine!”

I must have looked half crazy as I ran across the street, because Florentine raised one eyebrow. “I don’t know what’s got into you.” She nodded across the street. “Don’t know what’s got into your mama, either. But I can see already that your mother ain’t talented. She is gifted. There’s a difference. You see? By the time she’s done, that wall’s gonna be something special.”

“Don’t I know it,” I said. “And speaking of special things …” I took the locket off my neck. I could hear it chiming, even as I closed my hand around it. “Jewell Pickett told me about your people. Did you know we had some history in common?”

“Yeah, I figured it out.” Florentine nodded. “I figure everybody’s got history in common if you go back far enough. A curse ain’t such a great thing to have in common, though, so I didn’t bring it up.”

“We’re not cursed anymore,” I said. “Jewell told us Isabella took something that didn’t belong to her and left a perfect memory in its place. She says that’s what you came here looking for. I don’t think you have to look any further. I think this is Isabella Thistle’s perfect memory.”

I’d never seen Florentine’s eyes shine like they did when I dropped that cold locket into her hand. Florentine
locked her fingers around it. And I locked my hand around her hand. The locket made her finger bones cold.

“The story’s too long to tell right now,” I said quickly. “But the music made it open.”

“How ’bout that …” Florentine’s voice crackled.

“When you open that locket, you’ll see something spindiddly.”

Florentine lifted her fingers, one at a time, and stared down at her reflection in the locket. I figured she’d want to be alone when she saw Isabella’s memory for the first time, so I stood and began to make my way back toward the Jalapeño. My chest felt funny without the locket pressed against it. It was just a pendant, just a tacky little snicker of magic that weighed next to nothing, but it was strange not carrying it. That reminded me.

“Florentine,” I turned and said. “Why don’t you let me get rid of those burdens for you? If you’re ready to put them down, I mean.”

At first, I thought Florentine might just keep the burdens with her. She’d been packing them around for so long, I knew it’d be hard to let them go. But then, very slowly, she shrugged off the strap around her shoulder and nodded to me. When I reached for the bag, her bony fingers clutched my wrist.

“Let me take them,” I whispered. “Enjoy your perfect memory.”

The Pickled Jalapeño was full of happy chatter as Day drove us toward the Dreamery Creamery. He turned on the radio and turned up the volume of a Bob Dylan song about a tambourine man. Boone and Toast both sang along and plucked their instruments. Frannie Jo dozed against my side. On my other side sat Jonah, nervously wringing his hands. “Go ahead,” he whispered. “Open the bag.”

“What if I set those burdens loose in the van?” I whispered back. “That’s worse than spiders. Who knows what kind of magic she’s got packed up in here?”

Jonah shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”

I pulled back the flap and held the bag as far away from me as I could. Slowly, I reached down inside. “It’s probably gonna bite my hand off….”

“Is it magic you feel?” Jonah asked.

“No,” I said. I pushed the bag open wide to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. “It’s just … old jars.” Two old jars, to be exact. Jars as dark as midnight on the inside.

I handed one to Jonah. I wiped the dust off the other one and tried to open it, but the lid wouldn’t budge. I held it so close to my face that my eyelashes fluttered against the glass. But all I could see was murky, dusty nothing.

“Nothing rattling around in it,” Jonah said. He held the jar up to his ear. “No sound of any kind.”

I turned the jar around, carefully examining it. That’s when I noticed a yellowed note taped, and retaped, to the front of the jar. The words on the paper were scrawled so
small and so fine that I had to lean in close again to read them. “This jar’s got a riddle on it, Jonah.”

“Mine does, too!” Jonah said. “And look! It’s the same as yours!”

“Felicity,” Jonah whispered. “Look who wrote the riddle….”

My heart fluttered hummingbird fast when I saw the handwriting underneath:

“I don’t know what you’ve got planned this early, Felicity Pickle.” Aunt Cleo drew on her cigarette. She wheezed a puff of smoke. “But I’ve been awake nearly twenty-four hours, so this better be worth it. Else I’ll be in a bad mood all day long.”

The sky was still dark when my family piled in the Pickled Jalapeño again. Cleo still had curlers dangling from her hair. Mama sat in the front seat. She didn’t put up much fuss over Cleo driving. Mama had been so quiet all morning. I knew she was probably just tired from working on the Gallery all night. But she seemed almost peaceful, too. Or maybe I just wanted her to seem peaceful. We still hadn’t had a chance to talk about the Threadbare curse, or the dancing shadows. The plastic grocery bags full of our worldly possessions were still packed up all bulgy and full, propped beside Aunt Cleo’s door. But we’d already done our packing before the Duel. So maybe Mama just hadn’t had time to unpack. That’s what I hoped.

I wished I could see some words close to Mama and maybe I could get a hint of what she was thinking about. But I couldn’t see a thing. Frannie Jo called dibs on the second seat so she could keep on sleeping. Biscuit had the same thing in mind, apparently. Boone and I sat in the way-back with his banjo.

Boone yawned and put his arm around the back of the seat. He said, “Care to divulge what this little road trip is all about?”

“Not yet.” I shook my head. “You’ll see when we get there. And when I tell you, you play ‘Fair and Tender Ladies’ again. Got it?”

“Got it.” Boone ruffled his hand through his shaggy blond hair. “But just so you know, no song I play’s going to sound good this early. Why couldn’t we play later? After dark?”

“Because I couldn’t wait till then,” I said. The base of the sky was turning orange and pale pink. I figure that was the sun’s way of yawning and stretching before it puts its hands on the hills and pushes on up into the sky.

Mama rolled down her window so we could hear the sounds of a mountain morning: wind and birdsong and the
per-clunk
,
per-clunk
of the Pickled Jalapeño.

“The Pickled Jalapeño’s heart is beating fast this morning.” Frannie Jo said, yawning. “Felicity must be taking us somewhere good.”

“I wish Felicity would have waited till sunset,” said Boone.

“Amen,” Cleo coughed.

“Not me,” Mama sighed. “I’d rather go with the sunrise. And I would have dragged everybody out of bed this early, anyway, if Felicity hadn’t done it. I can’t wait for you to see the Gallery.”

Boone scratched his scruffy jaw. “You figured out what it was missing?”

Mama nodded. “I did. I absolutely did.” I couldn’t see much of her face; it was turned toward the dip-dyed sky. But I could tell by the sound of her voice that she was smiling.
Sunrise
is a good word to smile over.

“I don’t like how stories always end with folks riding off into a sunset,” Mama said. “I’ve never cared for that. I’d rather ride all the way to the end and see that there’s a sunrise still waiting for me. Morning in my eyes, stars at my back.”

When Cleo swerved the Jalapeño onto Main Street, the wind carried all sorts of smells through the open windows: The smell of autumn and cool wind and rain. The smell of coffee brewing in somebody’s kitchen. Bacon frying on somebody’s stove. I never thought there’d be much to see or hear or smell before the sun came up, but I was wrong. I liked watching Midnight Gulch come awake.

Songbirds swooped through the trees. Lights flickered on in the little square windows of the houses we passed. Somebody was probably taking a shower and somebody was slapping
SNOOZE
on their alarm clock and somebody was making a to-do list for the day.

I had one more thing to do. The curse was broken already. But Florentine’s burdens were in my arms now. I wanted to lay them down for good, put them someplace where nobody could pick them back up. I can’t see much good in carrying regrets around like keepsakes. That’s why I didn’t just chuck the jars into Cleo’s recycle bin. Florentine laid the burdens down. I planned to turn them loose, for good.

I clutched Florentine’s bag tight against my side. Mama must have heard the jars clink, because she turned around and her forehead wrinkled.

“Why’d you bring that?” she asked. “What’d she keep in that satchel anyhow?”

“You’ll see,” I said.

Mama shook her blond hair away from her face. “I don’t know if I wanna see….”

Aunt Cleo sneezed. Then she cussed.

“Cleo!” Mama yelled.

But Cleo hollered, “Felicity!”

“Ma’am?”

She glared at me in the rearview mirror. The skin around her eyes was extra creased and puffy. “Why you bringing them nasty old jars out to the Gallery?”

“That’s what I just asked!” Mama said. “Felicity says we’ll see!”

“Oh, mercy,” Cleo sighed. “Please tell me those jars don’t have anything to do with us.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Not really. This is more of a symbolic observance.”

“A
what
?”

“I think it’s probably a snicker of magic.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have got outta bed for this.” Cleo cranked the steering wheel and parked us on Second Street, near the Gallery.

Midnight Gulch was still quiet when we climbed out of the van. The sun was rising, reflecting off the puddles in the road. The whole world looked golden that morning, as if there were a big light inside of Midnight Gulch that nobody could turn out, not even the night.

Good magic
, I thought. And as I thought it, three words fell down from the sky, parachute shaped:

Magic

BELIEVE

THREADBARE

“This is going to be a good day,” I whispered.

“What are the Picketts doing here?” Mama waved.

Jonah and his mom were waiting at Abigail Honeycutt’s bench.

“I don’t know what these two are up to,” Jewell said. “I’m almost afraid to find out.”

“Not me!” Ramblin’ Rose came clomping down the sidewalk, her pajamas tucked into her cowboy boots. “I trust these two with all my heart. I sure do.”

“Felicity.” Mama looked down at me with the sort of stare insinuating I might be in trouble. “Why did you get Miss Walker out of bed so early? You better have a
good reason.”

“I do!” I said. I slung Florentine’s traveling bag down onto the sidewalk. “Trust me.”

“Whoa …” Florentine said as she walked up behind us. I thought she might be wondering what in the world I was doing with her magical jars. But Florentine wasn’t looking at me, she was looking at the Gallery.

I hadn’t even looked at Mama’s painting yet. But what I saw was even more wonderful than I’d imagined it to be. I knew Mama was painting a landscape of Midnight Gulch, the mountains, the river, the tall pine trees that stood all across town. But I didn’t know she was painting the people. People I knew, and people I’d never seen, filled up all the land space.

“Look at those faces,” Florentine sighed, stepping closer to the wall. She pointed to the painted likeness of Ramblin’ Rose — red dress and cowboy boots and silver hair falling in curlicues around her face. Rosie’s smile was spot-on perfect.

“She even painted the roses on Rose’s boots!” Jonah laughed. “And there’s Oliver, and Elvis … and Team Pickett!”

Cleo snorted. “There’s Charlie Sue Hancock. Ha!” She nudged me with her elbow. “Bet that’s the only picture Charlie Sue’s ever shown up in.”

“And there’s you,” I said to Florentine. Mama had painted Florentine sitting under a tall apple tree, reading a book. “She didn’t paint your burdens.”

“She knows I put those down for good.” Florentine
glanced down at her traveling bag. “Why are
you
carrying ’em around?”

Before I could explain, Boone rested his hand on my shoulder. “Did you see how she painted us, Felicity?”

He pointed to the corner of the building. And there we were. All of us.

“Holly Beth!” Cleo said as she stomped over toward our likenesses. “You gave me a different hairstyle!”

Had she ever. Mama had given Cleo a cooler hairdo than I’d ever seen my aunt actually wear — but she’d captured everything else perfectly: the blue in Cleo’s eyes, the kindness in her face. Cleo had a hedgehog quilt wrapped around her shoulders.

Boone was beside Cleo, playing his banjo with his head tilted back. She’d painted him singing. She’d painted him exactly right, all the way down to his cowboy boots.

Frannie Jo was tight against Mama’s leg, her eyes big and blue and full of trust and a little bit of mischief, too.
Factofabulous
Frannie Jo.

Mama painted herself exactly right, too — slender and small, with messy, paint-streaked hair. She had the beginning of a smile on her face. Mama was good at seeing herself exactly the way she was: no more, no less.

And then she’d painted me. I’m kneeled down on the ground, hugging Biscuit close to me, and Biscuit and me both have smiles on our faces. My red hair is falling all around my shoulders. My freckles are extra sparkly.

“I figured out what was missing from Midnight Gulch,” Mama said softly as she walked up beside me. “Us.”

I looked up into her face, squinting against the morning sun. The light spilled down over her shoulders. She squeezed my hand, and I squeezed her hand back and I decided to remember that moment, forever and always. Because that’s when I realized that it’s possible to have a happy ending, even if the ending isn’t what you imagined. I still missed Roger Pickle. I was still hurt that he hadn’t come back to us. But I didn’t feel like my family was in pieces anymore. We might never look like a normal family, but I didn’t mind.
Normal
was never one of my favorite words anyway. I glanced up at the painted faces of all the people I’d come to know, and wanted to know. Home isn’t just a house or a city or a place; home is what happens when you’re brave enough to love people.

“Hey!” Boone shielded his eyes from the light as he looked toward the painted sky. “You painted the Threadbare balloon! Spindiddly detail, Holly.”

“That reminds me,” I said as I stepped back from Mama and slung Florentine’s bag off my shoulders. “I’ve got an idea, and it’s going to sound silly, but you need to trust me.”

Jonah was by my side in a flash. “I trust you.”

“You’re the only one.” I smiled. I pulled one of Florentine’s jars out of the bag and passed it to the Beedle. “Wait till I tell you before you open it.”

And then I stood up tall and yelled, “Everybody stand over here in a line, facing the Gallery.”

“Felicity,” Mama sighed. “What on earth …”

“Boone,” I said. “And Miss Walker … you two play that song together. ‘Fair and Tender Ladies.’ Boone, you can sing the words, too, if you want.”

Rosie Walker nodded to Boone. “You start us off, young man.”

Boone pulled the banjo across his heart. He strummed the tune alone for the first few bars, but then Miss Rosie joined in with her guitar.

“Nothing’s happening,” Jonah whispered.

“Give it a second,” I said.

The wind-chime wind rolled down Main Street, whipping through my hair. The jar in my hand began to rattle.

“Now?” Jonah asked.

“Almost …” I said.

“Felicity!” Cleo hollered. “Do not open that infernal jar! Who knows what diseases and dirt and critters might come spilling out!”

Boone sang out the first lyric, loud and clear and beautiful.

“Now try,” I said to Jonah. The lids on both our jars twisted as easy as if we’d just put them on.

We got them open at the same time and held them out. Sure enough, two tall shadows spilled out onto the pavement.

“Oh, this can’t be good …” Cleo said. Everybody else was too dumbstruck to say much of anything.

The long and shapeless shadows stretched out farther, and farther, until they were on the Gallery wall. Then the shadows settled into the shapes of two men, both lanky and tall.

“Hey-yo,” said Oliver Weatherly, who’d come to stand behind all of us. “If that don’t beat all …”

As we watched the Gallery, the two shadows wandered around in the painting as though they were looking for something. Or someone. Finally, the shadows spun around and faced each other. They didn’t move for a time. And then one shadow opened up his arms. And the other shadow ran into those arms and held on tight.

I suppose there’s no way of knowing which shadow belonged to which brother. There’s no way to tell which shadow reached first. I guess it doesn’t matter who reached first, though. What matters is that one of them reached out. What matters is that the other one held on.

We watched as the shadows climbed into the painted tree, then jumped up into the hot air balloon my mama had painted.

Boone played the music faster; the music sounded happy now, even though the words were still sad.

Bittersweet
, a ribbon of a word, came drifting off the edge of Rosie’s guitar.

As Boone and Rosie played, the painted balloon sailed back and forth across the wall.

The shadows waved at us. We all waved back.

And then the balloon disappeared off the wall completely. We watched its shadow slide across the pavement, all the way down Main Street. And then it was gone.