A Taste of Magic (5 page)

“I know. That’s not what I meant. I just … understand, I guess.”

Her eyes remained on me, her expression both sad and thoughtful.

“What did she do?” I asked.

“She did what any young woman would do. She met a man, and she fell in love.”

“Well, that’s good, right?”

Ignoring my question, she said, “For some reason, the other gypsies decided to stay in one place for a while, rather than moving on as quickly as they normally did. Maybe they recognized that something was happening with Miranda. Maybe they hoped she’d leave. We’ll probably never know. But Miranda took advantage of the opportunity and spent every minute she could with her new love.”

At those words, something opened up inside of me. It was as if I could feel this woman’s happiness. Strands of hope, love, and joy wove through me. And, as strange as it was, it felt right. It felt real. And I felt a connection to Miranda that I’d never been aware of before but somehow realized had been there all along.

Grandma seemed to notice, because she smiled. And in that smile, I saw the young woman she once was. Lines in her face softened, almost disappearing. Her faded blue eyes deepened in color to the rich hue of a ripened blueberry. Mischief sparkled, and her skin glowed with youth.

I didn’t want to lose this picture of my grandmother, but when I blinked the vision vanished. The room was eerily silent. I wanted her to continue, to finish Miranda’s story, but I didn’t want to rush her, either. Finally, when the quiet didn’t seem as if it would ever end, I said, “What happened? Did she live happily ever after?”

Grandma Verda’s lips curved downward. “What happened? She fell in love with the wrong man. He wasn’t a pomegranate, I can say that much for sure. She became pregnant, and her wishes and hopes were tied to the man who’d fathered her unborn baby. Only, when she told him, he rebuffed her. He was already married. She was nothing but a plaything.”

My hands shook. I clenched my fists to make them stop. “What did she do?”

“I’m not done. Later, the man returned with his wife. They wanted Miranda to stay with them until the child was born. And then, they wanted her to give the child to them.”

As fast as a breath of air, Miranda’s agony became mine. It grew inside of me until I could hardly bear it. This mysterious woman I’d never met, whom I’d known nothing about before that night, somehow became intertwined with me. Anger, fear, and loneliness flashed inside of me so fast that, when it passed, I wondered if I’d imagined it.

“Don’t cry. This was a long time ago.”

I wiped the dampness from my cheeks. Did it matter how long ago it was? I mean, pain is pain. It felt as real today as it must have felt for Miranda then. “She didn’t give in, did she?”

“Of course not! What she did was talk the gypsies into moving on, and she went with them.”

An almost overpowering scent of roses saturated the room. I breathed it in, and if I hadn’t known better, I’d have sworn I was standing in a rose garden. The music from the show
The Twilight Zone
echoed in my ears. Kind of apropos, really, considering the circumstances. “Grandma? Can you smell that?”

Little lines crinkled around her eyes in confusion. “Smell what?”

“Flowers. Roses, I think.”

A tiny smile. “No, I don’t smell that. But the fact you do tells me you’re ready for this. That you’re the right one for the gift. My mother talked about smelling flowers, but I never have. I don’t know what it means.”

Seriously strange, but I could almost see velvety red roses stretching their petals to the sun. The scent was so intoxicating. I set it aside, for now. I wanted to hear the rest of Miranda’s story. “Finish, please.”

Grandma Verda closed her eyes, her soft voice weaving around me. “Miranda kept to herself throughout the early months of her pregnancy. One night, in a temper, she decided to use her powers to curse the father of her child. But before she did, she felt her baby kick for the first time.” Opening her eyes, Grandma clasped my hand. “In the flutter of that soft, sweet kick, Miranda’s sixth sense told her she was carrying a daughter. Your great-great-grandmother.
My
grandmother. And so she didn’t.”

“She should have cursed him.” I scowled. “I would have.”

Grandma regarded me silently for a moment, but then she said, “Maybe so. Maybe Miranda would have if she hadn’t felt her daughter at that instant. But, if she had, it may have cursed us all, as we have as much of his blood in our veins as we have of hers.”

“Good point,” I realized.

“What she did instead was cast a spell in the form of a gift. This gift has been handed down daughter to daughter, and now it’s your turn. It’s only skipped one generation, and that was your mother.”

“Why did it skip her?”

“I passed it to Isobel when she was your age. I don’t know what happened, but it didn’t take hold. I got it back.” Grandma tipped her head, eyes on me. “I think because she doesn’t believe in magic. Even as a child, your mother had no affinity for anything make-believe. Even the Tooth Fairy was nonsense to her at an age when she should have been pure enchantment. Too much of your grandfather in her. Practical to the core.”

Reaching over, she stroked my cheek. My face warmed at her touch. “Open your heart, Lizzie. You are the descendent of a powerful gypsy. I gave you Miranda’s gift on your birthday. It’s your turn now. You have magic at your fingertips!”

“How does it work?”

“Well. It’s different for each of us. But simply speaking, it’s all about wishes. My magic has always been in my writing, which is how I passed the gift on to you—through your birthday card.”

Ah. The glowing writing. I hadn’t imagined it.

“And my grandmother was an artist, just like Alice, and that’s where
her
magic came through. What about you?”

If what my grandmother was saying was true, I knew how my magic manifested. Seeing as I baked for a living, this could pose a rather large problem for me in my day-to-day life. I thought again of Marc and the honeymoon wish. “Fuck,” I whispered.

“Lizzie! Watch your language.”

“Oh, sorry Grandma.” My mind flipped through the conversation we’d just had, trying to find holes and gaps. Anything to put my worry to rest. I couldn’t have really done that to Marc, could I?

“You said something happened. What was it?” Grandma asked.

I conjured up the scene at A Taste of Magic and whispered, “I was baking Marc’s wedding cake. I was upset.” Everything I’d experienced came back at me. The anger, the hurt. My whispered wish. I’d never thought in a million years I would share that moment with anyone, let alone with my grandmother. “And, well, I wished he wouldn’t be able to have sex on his honeymoon.” I rushed the words out, not sure how she would take it.

“Why do you think it worked?” Her matter-of-fact tone settled me.

“Alice said. She heard it from someone else. Or, at least, the same thing I wished for happened.” I peeked at Grandma. She was smiling, so I figured she didn’t think I was too small-minded for the wish I’d made.

“Did anything happen when you were making the cake that was odd or different?”

“There was this energy in the room and kind of a static electricity thing I can’t explain. I didn’t know. I thought the mixer was acting up.”

“That’s it! I knew it. I’m so happy you’re able to carry on the gift.”

Inhaling a breath, I pushed the surreal feeling away. As out-there as this was, I’d experienced too many unexplained instances with my grandmother to doubt her story. Plus, I couldn’t deny the truth. Not when it sat inside of me and was as clear as day. I had brown eyes. I had freckles on my nose. I had magic.

See? That simple. But also, more than a little scary.

“So, when I bake wedding cakes, I can cast a spell? Or is it with anything I bake?” Kind of a rhetorical question. The glimmering wooden spoon proved that.

“Anything, probably. Baking is your specialty. You’ll have to practice to be sure, but my guess is that’s where your magical energy is.”

“So, if I wish it, it will come true?”

She shook her head quickly. “Not everything. Magic is powerful, but it’s also unpredictable. You’ll have to practice. There were many things I wished for that never came to pass. I think it has to do with your emotions and how they affect the energy.”

“Do I have to say it out loud, or can I just think it?”

“I’ve never said my wishes while I wrote them. Be careful of what you think when you bake. And you need to understand that as wonderful as this gift is, it doesn’t come without hazard.” She hesitated. It was obvious she didn’t want to say anything that might dissuade me from accepting the gift, but come on—hazardous?

“What hazards, Grandma?”

She shifted in her seat. Her gaze, once again, hit the wall behind me. “It’s not a big deal, not really. You just need to be very clear in what you wish for. You need to be positive of the words you use and the outcome you want.”

“Or what?”

“Well. As I said, magic can be unpredictable. And where there’s the chance for unpredictability, there’s the chance that something negative will occur. Of course, how bad the possible negativity is depends on the wish itself, what’s at stake, and a whole lot of other things I still don’t really understand.”

“Grandma! If I need to be careful, shouldn’t you have told me about this from the beginning?” I mean, come on, I bake almost every day. And, mostly, my mind wanders while I do. What type of damage could I have done? A chill overtook me, and I rubbed my arms to stave it off.

“I was afraid you’d turn it away, like your mother did. So you needed to experience it first. Besides, in all my years of wishes, I’ve only had one truly negative result. I figured you’d be safe enough for a little while.”

“And what was the negative result?”

She shifted again. “I don’t know if I want to share this with you.”

“I’m trying hard to believe everything you’ve said to me, but I need to hear all of it. Otherwise, I’ll wish the gift away. I can do that, right?”

“Why would you want to? It’s your legacy.”

“Because if I don’t know the ramifications, it’s not worth it.”

She pouted. And then, in one huge burst of words, she said, “Years ago, when your grandfather was still alive, he’d lost interest in sex. I wanted him to have that interest again, so I wished that he would.”

Oh, no
. I already knew where this was heading. “Shirley?” I asked.

Grandma Verda nodded. “His interest was revived, but with someone else. I wished again, over and over, hoping to bring him back to me. Out of her bed and into mine. Into ours. Only, it never worked.”

“So you knew about her before Grandpa’s funeral?”

“Of course I did. Your grandfather may never have asked for a divorce, but he left me just as surely as Marc left you. The difference was I had to live with it, every single day.”

“You don’t know your wish did that. You can’t be sure of it.”

The sheen in her eyes told me she was holding back tears. “I know. In my heart, I know.”

“Then why did you name your cat after his mistress? I’ve always wondered that.”

“To remind myself that I needed to be careful with the magic. While your grandfather was alive, that was all the reminding I needed. And even after he died, for a long time, I was fine. And then one day, the pain left. That scared me, because without the pain… how would I remember? So I bought Shirley.”

We were quiet for a few minutes. I knew she needed time to pull herself back to the present, and I was still considering everything that had been said. Then I said, “Can you show me? Write a spell now so I can see it work. Something simple.”

“I can’t. I don’t have it anymore. I gave it to you. This is why I’m so pleased you can use it. I thought it might die with me, which would be a travesty. It’s our heritage; it needs to stay alive.”

“You’re not dying.” I loved my grandmother. I didn’t want to think about her being gone.

“Right now? No. But someday.”

“There’s always Alice,” I pointed out, changing the topic.

“You needed it more. She’s doing just fine right now.”

Exasperated, I asked, “What if I don’t want magic?”

“Why wouldn’t you want it? It’s a gift. Think of how you could change your life!”

And that was the problem. I couldn’t stop thinking about the
what ifs
. “I didn’t say that. But if I don’t, what happens?”

Grandma’s expression relaxed. “That’s simple. You can either pass it to Alice or back to me.” She snorted. “Or you can try your mother, for all the good that will do.”

I grinned. Mom was Mom. I loved her the way she was.

“What do you want?” Grandma asked.

“I’m not sure.” Maybe I
was
crazy, because I wasn’t sure I wanted this gift. While I knew my grandmother meant well, it sort of seemed like cheating to me. Not to mention the supposed possible hazards.

But then I looked around my living room at the remnants of a half-lived life. Memories of Marc’s betrayal came next, along with the pain of the past year. Then Nate’s sexy face popped into my head, along with images of Maddie and her new boyfriend, Jon and Andy, and even Vinny and Grandma. I thought of all the dates I’d never gone on, all the men I didn’t know, and all the possibilities I’d let pass me by.