The Wizard Returns: Book Three of the Wizard Born Series (29 page)

“I think it’s sweet that she and John Paul are doing that,” Melanie said. “They both seem so nice.”

Fred turned to Jamie. “I think you should make a doorway for John Paul so he can have dinner with us, too. Then he and Brinna can have some time together.”

“I am
not
making a doorway. Not after what happened with that kid earlier.”

“You’re sure it’s
your
magic he felt and not someone else’s?” Bryce asked.

“He came here, didn’t he? And he said he felt it twice today and twice yesterday, which had to be when I made the doorways.”

“Because they put off a powerful signal?”

“
Really
powerful.”

“So he didn’t feel it when you did the other stuff, like lighting the fire in the stove?”

“You have to be close by to feel that.”

Rollie snapped his book shut. “I want to see if I can feel some magic.”

Jamie scratched under his chin with his thumbnail while he regarded Rollie. “All right.” He set his book on the floor at his feet. “Let’s try this. Close your eyes and tell me when you feel something.”

“Should I clear my mind?”

“That would help, since you’re not used to it. It gets easier with experience.” Jamie gestured with one hand and the book slowly floated from the floor to head level, like it was suspended from an invisible string.

Rollie nodded, eyes closed. “Ahhh...yeah. I feel something.”

Jamie lowered the book silently to the floor with another gesture. “Keep ’em closed and tell me when you feel it again.” He flicked his hand a third time and the book rose.

“Feels like...kinda like the tingle I feel when we do the chant, but...not as nice.” Rollie opened his eyes and looked at Jamie. “Like a cross between a mild electric shock and a vibration, deep down inside me. A twinge, sorta.”

“That’s it.” Jamie grabbed the book out of the air. “You just did your first spell.”

“You tricked me! You know I don’t want to do that stuff!”

“You’re the one that suggested it, Rollie.”

“He’s right, dude,” Bryce said.

Rollie frowned. “Whose side are you on?”

Melanie sat up in the bed. “He’s not on anybody’s side.”

“If you don’t want to do magic, then don’t ask Jamie to help you,” Fred said, then turned her head. “Hold on. Somebody’s at the door.”

She opened it to find Brinna. “Dinner’s ready,” the young woman told them. “Mrs. Wallace said for you to wash up.”

Jamie and Rollie brought the folding chairs from the bedroom while Bryce fetched the card table. Bryce set it on its edge and began opening the legs. “Jamie, I noticed a couple of crates of books in the cellar just now. What’s the story on those?”

“Mrs. Tully said that Renn didn’t think they were very important, so he stashed them down there.”

Rollie rested one hand on the chair he’d just unfolded. “He must’ve thought they were important enough to keep. Maybe we should have a look at them.”

“Sure,” Jamie said. “Right after we finish going through these.” He gestured at the books stacked against the walls around them. “We should be done by...say...November.”

“Of next year,” Bryce said with a laugh and pushed the card table up against the end of the main one, which was covered with a spotless white cloth.

Melanie walked out of the kitchen with a stack of plates, followed by Fred, who carried the silverware. Brinna came a moment later with another cloth for the card table.

“Brinna!” Lisa’s voice came from the laptop. “It’s so nice to see you. How was your talk with John Paul?”

Brinna set down the cloth and looked at the little computer. Lisa’s grinning face filled the screen. “It was fine,” Brinna said.

Lisa stared back and blinked a couple of times, her eager grin still in place. “Fine?”

“We had a good talk.”

Lisa continued to stare as if she were expecting more. Fred stepped beside Brinna and said, “That’s her way of saying it’s none of your business, Mom.”

Brinna glanced at Fred and said, “No...I didn’t mean that. It’s just —”

“It’s just private, and my mom needs to butt out.”

“Don’t be disrespectful, young lady!” Lisa frowned, then shook a finger at the screen. “You’re starting to get a bit of an attitude. Maybe I need to ground you.”

“Ground me? Really, Mom? From what? You can’t take away my phone because I didn’t even bring it...doesn’t work here. Why don’t you take away my driving privileges? Oh, that’s right...no cars here, either. Hmm, TV, then...oops, sorry, there’s no TV. And I can’t use the Internet ’cause you guys want the video link on all the time. Can I go out with my friends? No, there’s no place to go.” She nodded her head and pursed her lips. “Kinda sounds like I’m grounded already, doesn’t it?” She turned on her heel and walked back into the kitchen, leaving her mother glaring at the screen.

Jamie followed her and caught up to her by the stove, where Mrs. Tully was pulling the roast out, holding a pair of oven mitts. “Fred, do you really feel like you’re grounded here,” Jamie said, “like it’s a punishment?”

“No. I kinda like it, actually. I just wanted to make a point.”

“Why were you giving your mom a hard time about prying? You were trying to listen in on Brinna and John Paul a few minutes ago.”

“That’s different,” she sniffed, and turned to Evelyn, who was counting glasses that were set out on the counter. “Would like some help, Mrs. Wallace?”

Evelyn handed her two clear plastic cups and the ugly brown ceramic mug. “You can put these on the table. Mrs. Tully doesn’t like them, but there aren’t enough of the good glasses and plates.

“What’s wrong with them? They look fine to me.”

“Just doesn’t seem proper,” Mrs. Tully said, easing the roast onto a large silver platter. “Nothing to be done about it, though. We’ve a crowd to feed tonight.” Fred watched as Mrs. Tully scooped the delicately cut up potatoes from the roasting pan with a big spoon and arranged them around the roast. Then she poured the juice from the pan into a silver gravy boat.

“Sure smells good, Mrs. Tully,” Fred said, feeling her stomach rumble.

“You can admire it from the other room, Fred,” Evelyn said. “We need to get the table set before the food gets cold.”

Fred took the plastic glasses out to the table and found Melanie filling the others with ice from a Styrofoam chest at her feet. “I don’t think there’s enough ice left,” Melanie said. “We used most of it during lunch.”

“I got it,” Jamie said. He hurried down the cellar stairs and returned a moment later with a towel over his shoulder and a pair of ice trays. He spread the towel on the table and set the ice trays on it.

“What’s the towel for?” Melanie asked.

“Don’t want to ruin the finish on the table.” He grabbed a pitcher of water from the shelf beside him and filled each tray. Then he held his hand an inch above one and closed his eyes, his face a mask of concentration. The water in the tray quickly frosted over before forming a skim of ice on top, and then it froze solid with a cracking sound.

Melanie clapped and smiled. “I like that! Do the other one.”

Jamie repeated the process, and made a theatrical bow when he finished. “Ta da! Fresh ice.” He popped the cubes from the trays into the Styrofoam chest and then scooped them into the remaining glasses.

Brinna stood nearby, admiring Jamie’s handiwork. “Do you do that when you are at home?”

“Don’t have to. We have a freezer, and it makes ice automatically.” He pointed at the small refrigerator sitting on the floor by the wall. “That thing has a little freezer compartment, too, but it would take hours to freeze two trays of ice. My way is faster.”

“Is that spell similar to the one you used to dry the floor?” Melanie asked.

“Yep. I just reverse the action.”

“You slow the motion of the molecules in the water instead of speeding them up. Slower motion, colder temperature.”

“Exactly.” He nodded firmly. “I’m glad somebody around here appreciates what I do.”

“We appreciate what you do,” Bryce said. “It’s just that we don’t care about the details.”

“Yeah,” Rollie said. “Not everybody’s a geek like you and Melanie.”

“Hey!” Melanie frowned. “I’m not a geek.”

Brinna furrowed her brow. “What is a geek?”

“It’s a....” Fred paused with her mouth halfway open. “Um...it’s a really smart person who’s kinda...it’s hard to explain, but you know one when you see one.”

“It’s kind of like jazz.” Evelyn set two large ceramic bowls on the table, one filled with asparagus and the other cauliflower. “Hard to define, but you know it when you hear it.” Brinna stared at her blankly and Evelyn added, “Jazz is a type of music.”

“I listen to it all the time,” Adele said from the laptop.

“Mom!” Rollie turned and grinned.

“Hey, baby.” She smiled into the computer. “I’m eating over here at Rachel’s tonight with everybody.”

“What about Dad?”

She shook her head and glanced over her shoulder as Carl and Larry moved the table into the family room in view of the camera. “I made him a microwave dinner before I came over here.”

Rollie didn’t say anything. He only stared at his mother’s image, his jaw tight, until Mrs. Tully entered the room with a loaf of bread on a cutting board and called them to dinner.

Evelyn opened the little refrigerator and pulled out a plastic jug of dark liquid. “Brinna, I want you to try some iced tea. It’s a popular drink where we come from. This is store-bought, but it’s still good. Your mother won’t try it.”

Mrs. Tully frowned as she sliced the bread. “Tea is meant to be taken hot.”

“I’ll try it,” Brinna said with a brave face. Evelyn poured a little into Brinna’s glass and Brinna took a thoughtful sip. One corner of her mouth turned up and she nodded. “Yes. I like it.” She held out her glass to Evelyn. “May I have some more, please?” Evelyn filled it and took her seat.

Jamie started to sit by Fred again, but Evelyn shot him a meaningful glance and he took a seat at the head of the table.

“Smells incredible, Mrs. Tully,” Bryce said as he sat across from Melanie at the card table, where Rollie had taken a seat at the end.

Mrs. Tully didn’t answer at first. She looked at the seating arrangements with an anxious look on her face, then settled for a spot next to her daughter on the side of the table. “Mrs. Wallace made the vegetables,” she said as she sat down.

“Ma’s not used to sitting at this table,” Brinna said apologetically. “Neither am I, for that matter.” She set a piece of bread on her plate and reached for the butter. “Everyone is so excited about having a new witch around, Fred. That’s all I heard in my shop today. Your arrival has really set the tongue’s a’ wagging at the market.”

Jamie paused as he spooned potatoes on his plate. “They didn’t talk about me?”

“Does that hurt your feelings?” Fred reached over and gently patted his arm, her lower lip poked out in an exaggerated look of sympathy.

“There was some talk about you, yes,” Brinna said. “But you must understand that we’ve had wizards here for many, many years, but we’ve not had a practicing witch for quite some time. Not since Mrs. Malley’s eyes started going bad, and that’s been...what Ma?” She looked at Mrs. Tully. “Two years or more?”

“At least.” The stern woman watched while everyone else served themselves, her plate still empty. “Mrs. Malley was a good witch. I went to her myself, once, when I was having terrible headaches. She fixed me up a potion, and I felt better within the hour, I did. She was a right fair healer in her time, for one who’s not naturally born to it.”

“Is there no doctor in this town?” Evelyn asked.

“She means a healer.” Jamie nodded. “That’s what they’re called here.”

“The nearest true healer is in Paulsbury. It’s a bigger town.”

“So she can make more money,” Jamie added. “Basic witch economics.”

Brinna dabbed her mouth gingerly with her cloth napkin. “Fred, I’m sure you’ll have more than a few people knocking on your door now, looking for potions and such.”

“You won’t be disturbed by any more silly girls, though,” Mrs. Tully said. “I’ll see to that. You let me answer the door, and I’ll send those shirkers back to their mothers and their chores, where they belong.”

“We already had two girls come by earlier.” Fred told Brinna about Feather and Flower.

“That Feather Cates.” Brinna
tsked
and shook her head. “She’s anxious to snare that blacksmith’s apprentice, she is. And she’s not the only one.”

“She was the first to get a love potion, though,” Fred said. “And makeup, too. She’s got an advantage.”

“Makeup?” Brinna wrinkled her brow. “The paint that you put on your face?”

“I wouldn’t call it paint,” Fred said. “We should put some on you, before you talk to John Paul next time.”

“Please don’t.” Evelyn shook her head. “She looks fine just the way she is.”

“I still think it would help,” Fred said. “Even Melanie wears it.”

Melanie blushed and said, “Feather and Flower said that Fred looks just like some girl named Shira.”

“Shira Coy?” Brinna pursed her lips. “You do, at that, Fred. Don’t you think so, Ma?”

“Except for the green eyes.” Mrs. Tully finally began serving her plate, now that everyone else had. “I hope Fred’s disposition is not like Shira’s, though. That girl can be quite the imperious one, I’m told.”

Jamie and his friends broke out in laughter. Fred, however, did not. She lowered her eyebrows and frowned.

Jamie reached over and squeezed her arm, then gave her a loving smile. “Maybe you’re related to her. You should get your dad to check one of his genealogy sites.”

“Funny, Jamie. Real funny.”

“Brinna?” Evelyn said as she poured brown juice from the gravy boat over her beef and potatoes. “What do you sell in your shop?”

“Oh, a little bit of everything. Bolts of cloth and sewing needles and scissors. Hats, shoes and boots...and shoe laces. Nails and a few books and candy.” She shrugged. “All kinds of things.”

“I’d like to see it sometime, if possible. Maybe I can get your mother to take me. It’s in the market, isn’t it?”

“I can take you if Ma can’t. How about tomorrow sometime? My shop is closed, but I can still let you in for a private tour.”