Don't Expect Magic (8 page)

The pen stays the pen, though, through it all. “Why isn’t the pen doing that glowy thing?”

“That doesn’t happen with small wishes, only with the big ones. The ones for your clients.” He actually calls them clients. I don’t remember
that
from the fairy tale.

“Let me see.” I take the pen and study it. I shake it. “How does it work?”

“It’s not the pen. You can use any pointed object. That’s how you focus your intention and direct the energy. With small wishes, it’s only directed one way, from you to the recipient. But with your clients, there’s a connection between you, like an electrical current. You’re linked to their wishes. The energy this creates charges the pen, or whatever you’re using, and the pen becomes—”

“A magic wand.”

“ ‘Magic’ is a word people use when they don’t know how to explain something,” Hank says. “That makes it sound supernatural, but it’s a perfectly natural physical process. You’re not creating something from nothing. You’re manipulating what’s already there.”

“So you can, like, read all these people’s minds?”

“I can’t read anyone’s mind. For small wishes, you’re guessing what they want, in that moment, from observing them. But with your client, because of the bond you have with them, you … feel their yearning, and the feeling doesn’t go away until you’ve granted their wish.”

I point the pen at him. “So this is your big secret. The reason you left Mom, right? You didn’t want her to know.”

Hank takes the pen out of my hand. “That
is
why our relationship ended. But it’s not because she didn’t know.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“She didn’t like that I was always running off to help a client. She thought it meant I didn’t care enough about her. As if I had a choice.” He pockets the pen. “She wanted
me to quit, but that’s like asking someone to quit being half Irish. It’s not something you can change.”

“I don’t believe you. She wasn’t like that. Plus she would’ve told me.”

“She wanted to protect you.”

“From
what
?” Hank doesn’t answer. I try to come up with proof that he’s making it all up, but my brain has hit information overload.

A trio of kindergartners run onto the lawn behind the fountain, waving those toxic neon glow-in-the-dark sticks, chasing each other around and shrieking. It’s one quasimagic wand too many, and a bunch of images suddenly hit me at once, banging together like scenes from a frenzied music video. Mom in the hospital, the stacks of photos and letters in Hank’s desk, Andrea in her dress and in her car, and flashes of light. Over and over, they speed past in my head. It’s all too much.

“I’m sorry, Delaney. This is a lot of emotionally intensive information for you to have to take in all at once.” If he really cared about me, he’d stop the Dr. Hank pseudoscience crap, because that’s making my brain swirl even more. “We should sit down.” Hank guides me over the tiny toy bridge toward a small bench beside a brass statue of a little boy and his dog, frozen in a state of carefree joy. I never thought I’d be jealous of a piece of metal.

I don’t want to sit down. I want to get away.

Ding ding
. The trolley that takes awed tourists, excited
kids and lazy shoppers from one end of the mall to the other grinds up its track at one one-hundredth of a mile per hour. Hank steps aside to let it pass, but I dart across the tracks so it separates us.

I shake the images crowding my head loose and text Posh: “Mental Health Emergency.” No response. The time on the screen is 8:15 p.m. That’s 11:15 New Jersey time.
Star Trek
reruns on Syfy. Why is she always out in geekland when I’m in a crisis?

There’s a department store ahead. It’s the closest thing to an escape I can find, so I cut in front of a man opening the door for his wife and slip inside.

I hate department stores, with their crisscrossing escalators, hairless cardboard-colored mannequins, piped-in piano music and women with pinched faces, as if the shopping bags hanging from their elbows are a cruel burden they’ve been forced to bear. I especially hate the shoe departments, because they’re always filled with too many stupid styles that you
know
will be on the sale rack tomorrow so why did they even bother, and fashion crimes like leopard-print sandals and ballet slippers with plastic roses safety-pinned to the toe.

The boots are no better. There are the usual red cowboy boots and slouchy suede ankle boots in lollipop colors like orange and grape, and Uggs in all sizes. Nothing I would be caught dead—or alive—wearing. The display shoes are always size 6, which is my size, so I grab a pair of basic black calf-length boots and put them on.

I hate them. The toe’s too tight and the calf’s too loose and the zipper scratches. The heel is skinny and wobbly and the black is boring. I want to scream, I hate them so much.

I’m definitely feeling more like myself again.

“Those are fantastic.” One of the shoe salesmen is standing behind me and pointing to my boots on the floor. I’d changed into my dragon boots before we went to Andrea’s. The body and tail are painted up the sides, and one’s tipped over, so you can see the fiery open mouth carved onto the sole. I pick it up. The worn leather is soft in my hand, the chunky heel reassuringly heavy.

“Thanks.”

“Where did you get them?”

“They’re originals. Custom-made.”

“I should’ve guessed.” He shifts into work mode, gesturing to the boots I have on. “And how are you liking those?”

“Not so much.”

He nods, with a little “I didn’t think so” smile. “Well, let me know if you need any help.” He leaves to wait on real customers. When I put my boots back on, they’re so comfortable and perfect, they’re like a hug. I admire them in a floor mirror. They
are
fantastic.

My mind is calm again. Clear. So clear that a thought occurs to me. Something that I can’t believe I didn’t think of before. Or maybe I did, but I guess I needed to “process it” too.

“Delaney?” Hank makes his way through stacks of shoe boxes and clusters of shoe shoppers toward me. “What are you doing in here? You can’t just run off like that.” He waits for a response, his scolding look morphing into worry.

Why am I having so much trouble speaking? It’s five words. But they’re taking up all the space in my mind—all that precious space I had cleared out. The words are huge, that’s why. Just when I think they’re too big to ever make it out, I say them:

“I’m a fairy godmother too.”

“No.” Hank’s eyes dart around, but no one’s paying attention. Trying on shoes is one of those all-consuming tasks. You really don’t have time to notice fathers and daughters discussing their supernatural genetic makeup.

“You said it was hereditary.”

“I also said it passed from mother to daughter,” Hank says in a hushed voice. “I’m not your mother.”

“
You’re
not a daughter either.”

“Let’s discuss this somewhere else, all right?”

I glare at him, toss the black boots back on the shelf and then march past him, zigzagging through the slip-on sneakers and lace-up wedges to the handbag section. Hank tries to catch up but he’s no good at navigating sales racks and discount tables. Not my problem. I spot a door on the other side of the coat department and head for it.

“Delaney—”

I pause as a new thought occurs to me. One that makes
me want to grab a tasseled two-toned scarf off a nearby rack and strangle Hank with it.

I spin around to face him. “How could you not have told me this? I could’ve been using my powers this whole time! I could’ve helped Mom.”

“No, you couldn’t. You can’t change reality, only alter bits of it.”

“I could’ve
tried
.” I turn my back on him, push open the door and step out.

“It doesn’t matter anyway, because you’re not—”

I let the door close on him and look around. I’m back outside but in a different area than where I came in. Ahead is a row of mini-restaurants—Greek, Italian, Mexican, French, a mix-and-match play dining set.

Hank appears next to me, so I start moving again. “I’ve watched you over the years, Delaney. Very carefully. You never showed any signs.”

“Watched me
when
? In the five half-hour visits you’ve made in the whole fifteen years of my life?”

“There were more than five. And they were more than a half-hour long.”

“They weren’t enough for you to know
anything
about me.”

“
You’d
know.”

At the far end of restaurant row is a normal-sized diner. Finally, something real. Hank probably thinks I’m slowing down because I’m listening to him, but it’s really because suddenly I’m starving. I’ve probably been hungry
all along, but my brain’s been too busy to pay attention to my body. A bowl of cereal, a mini-bag of pretzels and a kindergartner’s lunch is not enough calories to fuel the day
I’ve
had so far. I need food right now. Comfort food.

I’m already at the diner door when Hank says, “Good idea. Let’s get something to eat,” like it was his idea, but whatever. I’m too weak from hunger to correct him.

Of course, the diner turns out to be nothing like the ripped-vinyl, cracked-linoleum places back in New Jersey. The booths here are eye-popping purple. The waitresses are TV-star pretty and Cadie Perez–friendly, and the tiny individual jukeboxes are plastic facades covering speakers that spray identical fifties tunes out over each table.

At least the food is familiar. I order my favorite: grilled cheese and tomato with mayo and a side of fries. But once the food comes, my stomach clenches up. I stuff the fries down one by one, but they just lie there in greasy lumps in my chest. It would be nice if I could let go of my rage for five minutes so I could enjoy one meal today, but this is impossible, since the cause of the rage is sitting across from me, calmly eating his fruit salad as if my entire understanding of how the world works hasn’t just been shattered into a million mismatched pieces.

Hank stabs a piece of pineapple, pops it in his mouth and then points the fork toward a revolving display case of sliced pie. “You
do
have cherry,” a man who’d been studying the pies says a second later. In the booth across from us, a lady shakes her almost-empty ketchup bottle and
Hank waves the fork her way, refilling it. The lady blinks in surprise as ketchup pours out.

“Stop
doing
that.” He’s not “showing me” anymore, he’s showing
off
.

“I’m glad you’re finally talking to me.” Hank smiles and spears a tangerine slice. I don’t answer. Instead I stuff in another fry and try not to gag. “You shouldn’t feel bad that the ability didn’t pass down to you, Delaney. You’re better off.”

“Who said I feel bad?” I’m relieved. I am. Why would I want to be a freak like Hank? Still, it’s one more thing I can’t have. One more thing I don’t get a choice about.

“It doesn’t surprise me, really,” he says. “The DNA’s been so diluted over the centuries—we had to die out eventually.”

“You mean there aren’t any others? You’re it?”

“As far as I know. Although I’ve wondered sometimes about people who are overly empathetic. The ones who are always rescuing dogs and feeding the homeless. I suspect they might be distant descendants.”

“That’s what Mom wanted to protect me from, right? Being one too.”

Hank sets down his fork and leans back. “I warned her early on that you might have inherited the powers, but since she believed it was something I chose to do, not
had
to do, she didn’t want me giving you ‘ideas.’ She made me promise not to tell you.”

“That’s why you never asked me to come visit. Because
you decided it was better for me to think you hated me than for you to tell me the truth.”

Hank meets my eyes, which is brave, because if I could shoot laser beams out of them, he’d be ashes. “I wish now I’d fought harder to tell you, Delaney. I always imagined that on my next trip to see you I
would
tell you, no matter what. But it never seemed like the right time, so I kept putting it off.…” My laser-beam stare must get to him, because he looks away.

My whole life, I’ve had all these questions. I wish somebody had told me before I asked them that I wouldn’t like
any
of the answers.

In bed that night, I can’t get to sleep. I’ve got way too much to digest, food-wise
and
thought-wise. I stare up at the earrings I’ve dangled through the little eyelet holes in the lace canopy. I don’t wear earrings. They’re Mom’s. Something easy to bring with me. They twinkle in the light from the Snow White lamp, and it feels like Mom is smiling down at me, but from really, really far away. Too far away to talk to her. Too far away for her to hear me.

I still can’t believe she knew all this and kept it from me. Whenever I got upset about not seeing Hank, she’d always cheer me up by saying we didn’t need anybody but each other. I believed that, but now I see that my knowing about Hank being an f.g., and my possibly being one too, would’ve meant more time spent with Hank and less with her, and this would’ve broken up our tight one-on-one
world. But why didn’t she tell me at the end, when she had to know I would find out? Did she think I’d be mad? Was she worried she would lose me?