Inappropriate Magic Preview
Prologue
When destiny knocked on her grandson Chauncy’s door, Grandma Little decided she’d better answer it for him.
She happened to be busy slaving over a hot stovetop at the time, cooking a hearty breakfast for Chauncy. The boy was ten, technically old enough to cook his own meals without setting himself on fire. But after his mother had passed away unexpectedly a year ago, Grandma Little had made it her life’s mission to mother him…in grand fashion, naturally. And that meant protecting him from everything. Especially himself.
Poor boy, she thought, glancing through the kitchen window. Chauncy was out in the yard as usual, running around with a big stick in his hand. A short little nothing of a boy, spending most of his time outside playing make-believe, or with his nose buried in one of his silly magic books. So sweet and awkward and meek, a good soul like his mum had been. And he had a hard time saying no, just like his mother. She couldn’t say no to that spindly coward that knocked her up. The guy had gone as quickly as he’d come, so to speak. But without this rapid sowing, poor Chauncy would never have been born. So there was that.
Still, the boy was far too much like his mother. Always with her head in the clouds, dreaming of nonsense.
Don’t think ill of the dead, Grandma Little reminded herself. Which she found herself having to do quite often. She was far more forgiving of herself when thinking ill of the living.
Then came that fateful knock on the door.
She ignored it, hoping beyond hope that whoever it was would give up and assume no one was home. But her hopes were in vain, for when destiny knocked upon one’s door, it rarely did so just once.
“Well for the love of…” she muttered, slamming a pot on the stove. She stood there, her ear aiming right at the door. Waiting…and building up a good seething while she was at it. People were always knocking on her door, after all, so much so that she’d been forced to put up a sign on it. “Do Not Disturb,” it read…and it disturbed her that nobody seemed to read it. An annoying consequence of being the owner of A Little Magic, the only magic shop in the city. Everyone either wanted her advice, or to hawk their wares in hopes she’d sell them in the store.
If they knock one more goddamn time…
And she half-hoped they did. For Grandma Little loved nothing more than to give rude people a piece of her mind. It was the one thing she gave away for free…and the one thing she offered that no one wanted.
Sure enough, there came another knock.
“All right all right!” she cried, slamming the pot again for good measure. She lifted it off the stove then, setting it on the wooden countertop, then stormed off to the door, making sure to stomp. She unlocked it quite viciously, tearing it open. “What?” she blurted out, before the door had had the chance to fully open. She saw a man standing there on her doorstep.
A very peculiar man.
He was tall and quite thin, the kind of man most would call slender, and she would call scrawny. And he was rather uncomfortably old. His back was stooped, his big hands knobby and snarled with arthritis. His face was lined with deep cracks and fissures, as if he’d spent a hundred years in the sun, and he sported a long white beard that draped over his belly and chest, and would have been impressive if his hair hadn’t been so thin.
And in his right hand, the man held a very tall wooden staff, one of the ones that twisted and turned slightly but still managed to be mostly straight, like Chauncy’s uncle. And he was dressed entirely in blue; blue robes, blue pointed hat, and blue eyes.
In short, he looked ridiculous.
“Did you read the sign?” she demanded, pointing right at it.
“Is this the Little house?” he inquired in a deep, powerful voice, rudely ignoring her question.
“Read the sign,” she commanded…and slammed the door shut in his face.
Grandma waited then, glancing at the pot with Chauncy’s breakfast in it. She had the urge to return to it, but resisted that urge, knowing full well what was…
Another knock.
She rolled her eyes, then opened the door again. And promptly rolled her eyes again, realizing she’d done things backward.
“What?” she snapped, glaring up at him and putting her hands on her hips.
“I know full well that this is the Little residence,” the man declared rather indignantly.
“Then why’d you ask?” Grandma shot back. He grimaced.
“I was attempting to be polite,” he explained.
Grandma relaxed, but only a bit. Politeness was to be rewarded, after all. And besides, Chauncy might be listening, seeing as the window to the backyard was open. Probably not, considering the boy was afflicted by that singular curse of males, to only be capable of focusing on one thing at a time.
“What do you want?” she inquired.
“My name is Imperius Fanning,” the old man introduced. And then stood there, looking as if he was waiting for some sort of reaction.
“Am I supposed to know who that is?” Grandma inquired. He grimaced again.
“Actually, yes.”
“Well I don’t,” she notified him.
“I am a powerful wizard of the Order of Mundus,” he declared. “And I require your help.”
Grandma sighed.
“Is this about the shop?” she grumbled. “For the last time, I only sell my own products!”
“Ah…no.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, eyeing him dubiously.
“If you’re such a powerful wizard, then you don’t need my help,” she declared. “And I wouldn’t give it anyway. You ‘wizards’ have been nothing but trouble for my family!”
“I misspoke,” Imperius admitted. “I don’t need your help, I need your grandson’s help.”
That got Grandma’s attention. Her eyes narrowed.
“Explain.”
“Our world is in grave danger,” Imperius warned, his tone darkening dramatically. “The Dark One has resurrected, and is gathering his hordes. One day they will spread across the land like a great plague, and destroy everything you know and love!”
“Oh really.”
“Oh yes,” Imperius confirmed. “And the only one who can stop him is your grandson.”
“Mmm hmm.”
“It’s true,” he insisted rather indignantly.
“So you’re saying the world is in danger and only a ten-year-old boy can save it,” she translated. He grimaced yet again, but held firm.
“Correct.”
Grandma Little laughed in his face. She laughed so hard that her guffaws bent her over, and she even slapped her knee, tears streaming down her cheeks. Imperius Fanning tolerated this in rather embarrassed silence, waiting for her to finish. Which, eventually, she did.
“Madam, what I say is absolutely true,” he insisted. “If Chauncy doesn’t come with me and journey through the Great Wood to the Cave of Wonder – then defeat The Dark One at the summit of Mount Thrall – all hope may be lost!”
Grandma composed herself, arching an eyebrow at him.
“So you’re saying,” she summarized, “…that you want me to let a ten-year-old boy go off with a strange old man into the woods…so you can have an ‘adventure’ together?” she inquired, accentuating the air-quotes rather viciously. She looked him up and down. “Off to the ‘Great Wood,’ before plunging deep into the ‘Cave of Wonder’ eh?”
“Madam!” Imperius blurted out, his eyes widening incredulously.
“Let me guess…you’re going to teach him how to use your staff? Make a bit of magic together?”
Imperius glared at her, slamming the butt of his staff on the doorstep.
“I would never!” he all-but-shouted.
“Correct,” Grandma agreed. “You never will.”
She started to close the door on him again, but he had the gall to wedge the butt of his staff in the doorway.
“Go away!” she barked, kicking the butt of his staff out of the doorway.
“Madam, I’m quite serious!” Imperius complained.
“My grandson’s breakfast is getting cold!” she retorted.
“Madam, the fate of the…”
“Good…” she yelled, slamming the door shut and locking it, “…day!”
There was a thump at the door, followed by a bit of cursing. Followed by another thump.
Then, mercifully, there was silence.
“Wizard my ass,” she grumbled. “Can’t even unlock a door.”
She sighed then, wiping her hands on her dress, then returning to the kitchen. The delicious aroma of Chauncy’s breakfast reached her nostrils, and she immediately felt the stress of her encounter seeping away. She looked out the window, seeing Chauncy prancing about in the woods beyond their small backyard. Cracking it open, she leaned out.
“Chauncy! Breakfast!” she yelled.
The boy rushed inside, coming through the back door into the dining room, a big smile on his face, transfixed by a small rock he was holding. Utterly oblivious, like his mum. Or rather, mostly oblivious; he glanced up from his rock to look at her.
“I heard yelling,” he told her. She rolled her eyes, fixing him a plate and setting it on the table.
“Just another salesman,” she lied. “Wanting to hawk his wares at our shop.”
“What was he selling?” Chauncy pressed.
“Nothing I was buying,” Grandma answered.
And that, dear reader, was how the end of the world began.
Chapter 1
Chauncy always found Grandma Little’s cooking utterly delicious. She told him it was because she made each meal with love. Well, she must have loved him very much indeed, for the breakfast she’d made him that morning was absolutely delightful. His mouth watered with the scent of it, and Chauncy gobbled his breakfast up in record time, devouring every last morsel with glee.
“Slow down!” Grandma chided. “You’ll choke!”
Chauncy nodded agreeably, slowing down a smidge. She always said that, and he never did. But he did what he was told, because that’s what he was supposed to do…and because he couldn’t imagine doing anything else. He was, as Grandma always said, a very good boy.
“I can tell you like it,” Grandma observed with a twinkle in her eye. She never ate breakfast, of course, believing it would just weigh her down. So she only drank tea. But she clearly loved to watch him eat, as long as he did so at a reasonable pace. “You’re humming again.”
Chauncy blushed, feeling a bit embarrassed. He always hummed a tune when he ate a particularly good meal, just like his mum had. After licking his plate clean, he handed her his plate, eager to get back outside. He’d found a few rare pebbles by the creek in the backyard, after all; one yellow one and one blue. The yellow one was warm, and clearly magical, for it’d absorbed the rays of the sun. And the blue stone was cool and slightly moist from having absorbed the water of the creek he’d found it in.
“Can I go outside now?” he asked, standing up. She sighed.
“Five minutes,” she replied. “Then we go to work!”
Chauncy dashed out of the back door, sprinting across the yard into the woods beyond. The creek was only a dozen yards past the tree line, and its shallow bed was the best place to find choice stones. He’d always gone to the creek with his mother when they’d visited Grandma, back when Mom had been alive; they’d spent hours together in the woods, collecting stones and sticks and such.
Even now, as he reached the tree line, he felt her spirit running beside him like she’d used to, her long blonde hair flowing in the wind.
“Come on Mom,” he urged, making his way to the creek. But as he reached its leafy shore, he spotted something on the forest floor.
A fallen tree branch.
He veered toward it, eyeing it critically. It wasn’t just any old branch. It was a bit longer than he was tall, and just the right amount of twisty. It even had a bulbous knot at one end, the other end slightly tapered.
“Wow,” he breathed. It was perfect.
He stuffed his magical stones in his pocket, then knelt before the branch, reaching out to touch it. Doing so sent a little shiver down his spine, and he broke out into a big smile. It was just as he’d suspected. This was no branch, no-way-no-how. This was a staff.
It was magic.
Chauncy picked it up, feeling its warmth in his hands, and its considerable weight. It was as thick around as his wrist, and quite sturdy. He stood, holding it in one hand. He imagined his Mom smiling at him like she used to, and putting a warm hand on his shoulder.
A breeze whipped through his hair and clothes, and his smile broadened. It was a sign, he knew. A clue to the great staff’s mysterious power. He thrust it up above his head rather dramatically.
“I dub thee Staff of Wind!” he cried triumphantly.
“Chauncy!” Grandma’s voice shouted out from the house.
He flinched, nearly dropping the staff. Then he ran dutifully back to the house, going inside. Grandma had cleaned up the mess from breakfast, and was putting away her cooking apron.
“Let’s go,” she ordered. “Don’t forget your costume,” she added. “It’s Founder’s Day!”
Founder’s Day, of course, was the annual celebration of the birth of Archibald Merrick, the founder of their city.
“Yes Grandma,” he mumbled. She smiled, then immediately frowned, spotting his staff.
“Put that away,” she told him. “Not in the house!”
“But Grandma…”
“No buts!” she interrupted sternly. She stomped up to him, tearing the staff from his fingers and walking it promptly outside. She tossed it onto the lawn, then closed and locked the door.
“But what if someone steals it?” he pressed.
“A stick?” she retorted. “No one will steal it, Chauncy. And if they do, who cares? Find another one.”
“But it’s magic,” he insisted. She sighed.
“Chauncy…” she began, then grimaced. She looked as if she was going to say something else, but then grabbed his hand, pulling him to the front door. “Come on Chauncy,” she prompted. “It’s time to go to the shop.”
Chauncy broke out into a smile, forgetting all about his staff. For Grandma Little didn’t just have any old job. No, she had the greatest job in the whole wide world…and for the last year, he’d gotten to do it with her. For Grandma Little didn’t just have any old shop.
She owned a magic shop.
* * *
A Little Magic was the name of Grandma Little’s shop, and it was exactly as the name implied. A store wherein customers could purchase all sorts of magical items, it was just the kind of place he’d always dreamed of growing up in.
Chauncy hurried to stay at Grandma’s side as she strode quickly down the street, making her way toward the shop in the distance. It was smack in the center of Southwick, named thusly because it was the southern-most city in the Republic of Borrin. A city not twenty miles from the border with the kingdom of Pravus, a land that – the legends told – was inhabited by magical creatures of indescribable beauty and power.
In stark contrast to Southwick and the rest of Borrin, which were about as boring as Chauncy imagined a place could be.
But legends were the closest Chauncy would ever get to the mystical kingdom of Pravus, for the kingdom was surrounded by a massive stone wall two hundred feet high. Southwick had been built right smack up against that wall, which Chauncy could see quite easily in the distance, not a half-mile away. A monstrosity of gray stone, it loomed over Southwick, casting a shadow across the southern part of the city.
Chauncy found his eye drawn to the huge silver metal double-doors built into that wall, shining dully in the morning sun. The Gates of Pravus, the only entrance into the fabled kingdom.
They had never opened, not once in the last thousand years.
Grandma Little must’ve noticed Chauncy’s wistful gaze, for he found her eyeing him critically.
“You’re sure they’ll never open?” he asked for the umpteenth time.
“Not in my lifetime,” she answered. “And not in yours.”
At length they reached the city center, a large circular courtyard with benches and trees and such, and a statue of Archibald Merrick, the founder of Southwick. Like the statue, Chauncy – and everyone else they met – was dressed in a green suit and golden tie. The uniform of an employee of the Evermore Trading Company, the very business that Archibald Merrick had founded years before founding the city.
Shops lined the courtyard, horse-drawn carriages clip-clopping down the streets and pedestrians congesting the sidewalks. Grandma’s shop was a narrow, three-story-tall building facing the courtyard, sandwiched between two much larger buildings. Their shop was on the first floor, below a dance studio and a lawyer’s office.
“Prime location,” Grandma noted with a proud smile, her heels clicking on the sidewalk. “People would kill for my shop. Used to be owned by a man called Ginny Smithers.”
“What happened?” Chauncy asked, dodging around a stray dog.
“Doctor told him he had cancer,” she explained. “I promised to use my magic to cure him if he passed the shop on to me.”
“You cured him?” Chauncy asked, his eyes widening.
“Well…let’s just say the doctor was a friend of mine,” she replied. “A few weeks after trying my goods, the doctor told Ginny his cancer had miraculously disappeared. Ginny Smithers was overjoyed, of course. Turned over the deed to the shop and moved out of Southwick to retire and make the most of his second chance at life.”
“Wow,” Chauncy breathed.
They reached the front door of the shop. A large sign above it read “A Little Magic,” with the word “Little” larger than the others, oddly enough. Chauncy gawked at it while Grandma produced a key, unlocking the door. Even after a year, he still couldn’t believe that he got to spend every day with Grandma at the shop. A real magic shop!
Grandma tried to push the door open after unlocking it, but it didn’t budge. So she put her shoulder into it, and the door popped open.
“There we are,” she proclaimed, striding through. “What’s the most important rule?” she inquired as Chauncy followed after her.
“Work first, play later,” he recited.
“Good boy,” she replied, patting him on the head. Then, with her usual businesslike efficiency, she got to work preparing the shop for customers. Chauncy went right to the broom closet, eager to do his part. He hardly minded the work; he was in a magic shop, after all.
And he knew without a shadow of a doubt that here, amongst artifacts and potions and tinctures and lotions, and crystals and staves and books, he was where he wanted to be. For there was nothing more magical to him than magic, and magic made work into play.
Chauncy made quick work of sweeping, making sure the floor between each long row of shelves was as spotless as a ten-year-old boy could make it. Which was pretty well spotless. Chauncy wanted the customers to love the shop as much as he did, and dust-bunnies would muck up the whole experience.
“You’re a good worker,” Grandma noted with approval when he was finished. “You know what they say about us Littles?”
“Littles do a lot,” Chauncy recited. Grandma smiled, ruffling his hair.
“That’s right,” she replied. “All right, flip the sign on the door. A Little Magic is open for business!”
It was the same routine every day, and after the chaos of his life before living with Grandma, Chauncy found that routine profoundly comforting. Everything Grandma did was regimented, organized, and on-schedule…and she expected everyone she worked with to operate similarly.
So it was that Chauncy found himself sitting on a small stool behind the counter with Grandma Little, one she’d put there for him and him alone. He found himself filled with pride to sit on it, waiting on customers with such a great woman. The stool made it feel like it was their shop, not just Grandma’s.
Thus Chauncy waited happily for the first customer to arrive…all while reading her endless supply of books. Books on giants and elementals and dragons, and on zombies, liches, and such. And crystals and potions and wands, and…oh! The list just went on and on.
He caught Grandma eyeing him as he opened up his first book of the day: “Rods, Wands, & Staves.” He glanced up at her.
“Huh?” he asked.
“I didn’t say anything,” she replied.
“Oh.”
He began reading:
A wizard’s power comes from his mind, but can be concentrated in his trusty tool in preparation for magic’s release. Wands are smallest and weakest, for wizards of minor worth. Rods may or may not be longer, but are more potent in correlation to their girth. Beware those lucky enough to sport a full staff, for their power is greatest of all. And a thick staff topped with a great big crystal will make the most dreaded of enemies tremble in their boots!
Chauncy studied the paragraph once, then again, committing it to memory.
“Why do you like those books so much?” Grandma inquired. Chauncy found her still gazing at him.
“I want to learn everything about magic,” he answered. “So I can become a great wizard.”
“A wizard?” Grandma scoffed.
“Well…yes,” Chauncy answered, rather taken aback.
“Why would you want to become a wizard?” she asked.
“Because…I want to.”
“Why?” she pressed.
“Well, I love magic,” he reasoned. Grandma stared at him for a long moment, then sighed. “What?” he asked.
“You want to learn about magic, Chauncy?” she inquired. Chauncy’s eyes lit up.
“More than anything!” he gushed.
“Well then,” she declared. “It’s been a year, and you’re old enough to know what’s what. I suppose it’s time to start teaching you…after we close up shop.”
“Really?”
“Really,” she answered with a smile.
The ringing of the bell on the door drew both of their attentions to a customer entering the shop. An elderly man with a bit of a hunchback tottered in, carrying a wooden cane and wearing brown…everything. He stunk a bit, which Chauncy learned that the elderly often did. For the body died slowly, one organ giving up at a time, and this man’s nose had done so long ago.
“Morning Mr. Fipps,” Grandma Little greeted. “Happy Founder’s Day!”
Old Mr. Fipps waved noncommittally with his free hand, making his way immediately to the wall of potions and salves and such. A girl Chauncy’s age followed behind the old man, a pretty blonde with bright blue eyes and the most heart-melting smile Chauncy had ever seen. It was Mr. Fipps’ granddaughter, Addie. She turned that smile on Chauncy, giving him a little wave…and he waved back, his cheeks burning. Suddenly he wanted to duck behind the counter; he’d been in love with Addie ever since he’d laid eyes on her. And, despite being surrounded by potions and staves and such of enormous mystical power, she was easily the most magical of all.
“How can we help you today?” Grandma asked. “A gift for the holiday, perhaps?”
“Salve for the gout,” he shouted, for his ears had given up too.
“Chauncy, be a dear and…” Grandma began, but Chauncy was already on it. He leapt up from his stool, making a dash for the salves, and presented a blue bottle to Mr. Fipps. Who seemed rather astonished and disturbed at the rate at which this had all occurred. For like most old people, his sense of urgency had gone the way of his nose and ears.
“Eh,” Mr. Fipps said, which was about as much thanks as Chauncy would get. An eternity later, the old man made it to the counter to pay, Addie following faithfully behind him. And with that, they turned and left, the bell on the door ringing once again. Addie turned to wave goodbye to Chauncy, giving him another smile…and his cheeks flushed again.
That was how it always went, every time he saw her. After a year, neither one of them had said a word to each other…and now Chauncy was terrified to do so, for fear of ruining what they had.
He felt Grandma’s eyes on him, and turned to find her looking at him from behind the counter with a bemused expression.
“How does it work?” Chauncy asked, hoping desperately to change the subject before it came up. “The salve, I mean.”
“I told you I’d teach you after work,” Grandma chided. Chauncy’s face fell, and she sighed. “It works the way all magic works,” she added. “Through the power of belief.”
“Belief?”
Grandma glanced furtively at the door, then gestured for Chauncy to come to her side. He went back to his stool, plopping himself down beside her, and she leaned in conspiratorially.
“You want to know what magic is Chauncy?” she asked. He nodded vigorously. “Magic,” she declared, “…is faith.”
He stared at her blankly.
“Magical things are magical because people believe they are,” she lectured.
“I don’t get it,” he admitted.
“Mr. Fipps believes my salve will make his gout better,” she explained. “Not cure it…make it better. So when he puts it on his gouty foot, what happens?”
“It…feels better?”
“Precisely!” Grandma agreed, thrusting her pointy finger in the air. “And that, my boy, is magic!”
“So it works because people think it works?” Chauncy pressed, his brow furrowing. “That doesn’t sound like magic.”
“Oh but it is,” Grandma countered. She paused, looking around the shop, then pointed at the wooden staves set against the far wall. “See those?”
“The staves?” he asked. Which was plural for staff, he’d learned.
“I sell them saying they’ll focus people’s concentration,” Grandma told him. “That the harder the wood, the more concentrated their concentration will get. Now, these people aren’t wizards, so they don’t expect to do miracles with these things. But when they buy a staff – when they pay good money for it – and hold it in their hands…” she continued, grasping an invisible staff tightly. “They feel their minds sharpen!”
“Because they believe?”
“Exactly,” she confirmed, beaming at him. “The staff is magical because they make it magical.”
“But…” Chauncy’s protested, glancing at the staves. “Aren’t they magical all by themselves?”
Grandma sighed, putting a hand on Chauncy’s cheek and turning his head gently to face hers. She gave him a sad sort of smile.
“Oh Chauncy,” she murmured. “Nothing is magical all by itself.”
Chauncy stared at her incredulously, then lowered his gaze, struggling to understand this. Then he looked up at her again.
“So the magic is in people?” he asked. “And we make things magical by touching them?”
“Ah…” Grandma began with a grimace. “No.”
He just stared at her helplessly, and she gave a heavy sigh.
“Chauncy, magic is a feeling,” she told him apologetically. “It’s a hope that there’s something more to life than…this,” she added, gesturing around. “Than eating and sleeping and working. Than money and bills and worries.”
“Isn’t there?” Chauncy pressed.
“Well…no,” Grandma answered.
“What?” he blurted out, staring at her in horror.
“This is it Chauncy,” she confessed. “There is no real magic. You get up, you eat breakfast like we did this morning. You go to work, then you go home. You clean up, you eat dinner, spend time with family, and you go to sleep. That’s it.”
“That’s it?” he cried in horror.
“That’s it,” she confirmed. “That’s life, Chauncy.”
“But…what about all this?” he demanded rather angrily, gesturing at the shop.
“I’m selling a feeling, Chauncy. A feeling that people desperately crave.”
“But it’s a lie,” he protested. “They believe in magic. They believe in you!”
“And that’s why it works,” she pointed out. “The people who believe are the only ones who come in here.”
“But it’s a lie!”
“Shh,” she replied, putting a finger to her lips and scowling at him. She glanced at the door again, which of course was closed. “It’s a lie, yes,” she conceded. “But people lie to themselves all the time. They have to, Chauncy. They’re desperate to.”
“Why?!”
“Because they have to believe there’s something more to life than their life,” she answered. “They’re desperate to relive those times when they were your age, and believed that the world was more than it is. That it was magical, and that anything was possible.”
Chauncy’s vision blurred, and he blinked away tears.
“Oh Chauncy,” Grandma murmured, leaning in and giving him a hug. “I didn’t want to tell you, but I couldn’t lie to you.”
He began to cry, and sobbed into her shoulder.
“It’s all right,” she soothed. “It’ll be alright.”
He cried for a long while, and it was a relief that no customers came in during that time. At length his tears ended, and Grandma released him from her embrace, cupping the sides of his face in her warm hands.
“See how you feel right now?” she asked.
He nodded miserably.
“That’s why people need magic,” she insisted. “So that they don’t have to feel this way.”
He lowered his gaze.
“Isn’t that noble?” she pressed. “To give people hope in something more?”
He nodded, still not meeting her gaze.
“I’ll teach you Chauncy,” Grandma Little promised. “I’ll teach you how to help people like I do.”
“But you don’t help people,” Chauncy protested miserably. “Magic isn’t real.”
“Then why does Mr. Fipps come to my shop every week?”
For that, Chauncy didn’t have an answer.
“He comes because, when he puts my salve on his foot, he feels better,” she declared. “And because it’s the only thing that does make him feel better.”
“But it’s not real,” Chauncy insisted.
“It doesn’t need to be,” Grandma replied with a smile. “It just needs to feel like it is.”
Chauncy lowered his gaze, feeling absolutely miserable. He felt more tears coming, and wiped them away with the back of his sleeve.
“Oh Chauncy,” Grandma murmured, leaning in and embracing him. She held him tight for a moment, then held him at arms’ length, giving him a kindly smile. “I didn’t want to tell you, but it’s true. I made the mistake of not telling your mother, and I promised myself I wouldn’t make the same mistake with you.”
He said nothing. Could say nothing.
She sighed, patting him on the cheek.
“I’ll teach you everything I know, Chauncy. I promise you. And you’ll lead a good life because of it. Just do as I say, and you’ll be wealthy and wise. And one day,” she added, raising her index finger and touching his nose with it. “…this shop – and all of its magic – will be yours!”
There was a ring as another customer entered the shop, and Chauncy wiped away his tears quickly. Grandma stood up straight, smiling as a young woman waved at them.
“Good morning Miss Gilson,” Grandma greeted cheerily. “Happy Founder’s Day!”
“Happy Founder’s Day to you both,” the woman replied. “Looking for a gift for my nephew for the holiday.”
“Well then you came to the right shop,” Grandma replied. “Everyone needs A Little Magic in their lives!”
Chapter 2
That evening, Chauncy and Grandma returned home, and after barely eating his dinner, he glanced out of the window looking out at the backyard. His staff was nowhere to be seen, not that it mattered anyway. For its magic had been just a feeling, a lie he’d told himself.
And armed with that terrible knowledge, that feeling was gone.
So it was that Chauncy’s days spent in Grandma Little’s shop turned to months, and months to years. And to his surprise, years marched on to decades. Two of them, in fact….and a half to boot. Every day was a little different, but mostly the same. He and Grandma opened the shop together, cleaned up, customers came in, and then the shop closed. On and on and on, just as Grandma had warned him that fateful day.
“That’s life, Chauncy,” Grandma declared as they stepped up to the front door of the shop on yet another morning. She used a cane now, and it clacked with every other step. The air was chilly, autumn having transitioned into winter. Gloomy gray clouds blanketed the sky above the city square, matching the somber gray stone of the massive wall looming over the city in the distance. And matching Chauncy’s mood.
He stared at the huge silver doors serving as the gate into the kingdom of Pravus, feeling particularly bitter. For though he’d once believed them to lead to a place of mystery and magic and wonder, he now knew that it was a place that would forever be closed to him. And for that he was thankful, knowing full well that what lay beyond those doors would be more of the same. Endless drudgery, a world as gray as the wall that protected it.
“Then I don’t see the point,” he muttered. Grandma twisted the doorknob to open the door, but it was stuck as usual. “Let me…” he began, but Grandma was already ramming her shoulder into the door. It burst open, and Grandma cackled, shooting him a wicked grin before storming into the shop. Chauncy followed behind her, dismayed by how she was walking. With a limp, he noted…one that was getting steadily worse, even with the cane.
She glanced back at him, noticing what he was noticing.
“Damn hip,” she muttered. “It’ll warm up in a bit.”
“Maybe you could sit,” he offered, not for the first time. She rolled her eyes at him, limping to stand behind the counter. “All that time on your feet can’t be good for it,” he insisted.
“Blah blah blah,” she shot back, waving her cane at him. “I’ll sit when I’m dead.”
“But you sat for tea this…”
“At work,” she interjected. “I’ll sit at work when I’m dead.”
“But you can’t work when you’re dead,” he pointed out, walking to the broom closet. He retrieved the broom, getting to work sweeping the floor. A dull, dreary task…one he loathed. For it meant the start of yet another day of drudgery. Task after task after task, all for the sake of getting enough money to pay the bills. For – even after a quarter century of working six days a week – if they stopped working, they’d very quickly lose everything.
“Watch me!” Grandma replied with a cackle.
But instead, she watched him as he swept, going up and down the aisles mechanically. When he’d done a passable job, he put the broom away, then went out to flip the sign on the front door to signal that the shop was open.
That done, Chauncy went behind the counter with Grandma, stopping to gaze at the same small stool he’d sat on for the last quarter-century. He’d spent so much time on it that its wooden seat had bowed in a bit. With a sigh, he eased himself onto it…and waited, staring out of one of the windows at the streets of Southwick. Grandma had given up her stool years ago, on account of her back.
He felt Grandma’s eyes still on him, and he turned reluctantly to glance at her.
“What?” he asked.
“You,” she answered. He frowned.
“What about me?”
“It’s a special day,” she replied, a smile broadening her lips. Her eyes twinkled merrily, and she lifted the butt of her cane, jabbing his shoulder with it. “Do you know what day it is today?”
“Um…Monday?” he answered, shrinking away from her cane and rubbing his smarting shoulder. The most depressing of days, as everyone knew.
“Correct!” she declared. “And what does that mean?”
“That I’ve got to do this for six more days?” he guessed. Which was true; the shop was only closed on Sunday.
“That you’ve been doing it for twenty-five years!” she exclaimed exuberantly. She gave a big, happy sigh, stepping up to him and giving him a big hug. He’d grown quite a bit since he’d first started working in the shop, while Grandma Little had gradually transformed into her namesake. Even with Chauncy sitting, he was still taller than her.
“Oh,” he replied.
She extracted herself from him, practically beaming.
“We should celebrate,” she decided. “A party for Chauncy!”
“That’s not necessary,” he protested.
“But this is a magical day!” she insisted.
“Feels like any other day.”
“But it isn’t,” Grandma argued. “It’s a magical day for A Little Magic!”
“More like ‘No Magic,’” he muttered under his breath. And immediately regretted it. He froze, half-expecting Grandma Little to use her cane on him again, but she must not have heard him. Luckily for him, her hip wasn’t the only thing that was going.
They fell into a common silence then, with Chauncy propping his chin in his hand, his elbow resting on the countertop. Both staring at the front door of the shop, waiting for the inevitable ding of the doorbell.
Which, being inevitable, happened minutes later.
“Oh hello Mrs. Drake,” Grandma greeted, beaming a smile at a woman that stepped into the shop. She was tall and slender, with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Chauncy found himself sitting up a bit straighter, staring at her as she came in. For it was none other than the late Mr. Fipps’ granddaughter, Addie. A dedicated customer since coming with her grandfather every week since she was a girl. She’d gone and married the city’s largest grocer – literally and figuratively – and had two kids to boot.
She flashed him that same smile he’d found so captivating and sweet twenty-five years ago, and he smiled back. But this time he didn’t blush, for there was no more hope for them now. His chance at her particular magic had passed him by, like everything else.
Grandma elbowed Chauncy, who snapped out of his morbid thoughts, getting up from his stool and beaming a much brighter smile at Addie.
“Oh hello there!” he greeted automatically. He stepped around the counter, coming up to Addie. “Can I help one of our favorite customers find anything today?”
That got another little smile out of Addie, and she even managed to look a bit flustered. For Chauncy was, according to Grandma, a relatively handsome man. Relative to whom, however, she wouldn’t say.
“Why yes,” Addie replied, eyeing the staves. “I’ve been saving up for a staff of my own.”
“A staff?” he inquired, arching an eyebrow. He shot a glance at Grandma. They both knew Addie and her husband were having some rough times. The spring had been so rainy it’d drowned the local farmers’ crops, and food prices had spiked considerably this year for the grocery store.
Grandma frowned, then shook her head ever-so-slightly. Chauncy returned a kind smile to Addie.
“Have you thought of a wand perhaps?” Chauncy asked, redirecting Addie to the wands hanging on a rack on the wall beside the staves. “A staff seems much too big and bulky for you.”
“Oh no,” she replied, resisting his pull. “It’s not for me. It’s for my husband.”
“Ah,” Chauncy replied, suppressing a grimace. He saw Grandma shooting him a look, her frown deepening. “May I…uh…ask what he needs it for?” he pressed.
“With the store doing so badly, he’s fallen into a bit of a rut,” Addie confessed. “He doesn’t talk much, and he’s not sleeping either. And…”
“Yes?”
“In complete confidence,” she requested, looking abashed. Chauncy’s expression turned grave.
“Always, Addie. Your secrets are safe with me.”
Her cheeks turned red, and she cleared her throat nervously.
“Well, it’s just that…he’s started drinking,” she confessed, her blush deepening. “A lot.”
“I see,” Chauncy murmured. He shot another glance at Grandma, who made it quite clear he was on his own. “Quite normal to turn to vice when life gets tough,” he comforted. “For that, a staff won’t do.”
“It won’t?”
“It won’t,” he confirmed with as much fake authority as he could muster. Which, after twenty-five years of working under Grandma Little, was quite a lot. Say things with authority, Grandma always lectured, and people will believe you. As long as you stick to claiming authority on something that couldn’t easily be proven false.
But lying to Addie – the sweet crush of his youth, a girl he’d waited for for far too long – still made him feel like absolute rubbish.
“So what would work?” Addie pressed, looking rather worried that her plan was derailing.
“A tincture,” he answered, guiding her over to a shelf filled with dark bottles. Each was elegantly labeled, and had a colored cork painted different colors to indicate the function. When it came to fooling people, the more expensive something looked, the more likely people were to believe it worked. Another lesson from Grandma Little. “This should do quite nicely,” he added, pointing to a dark green bottle with a gilded cork. Addie glanced at Chauncy nervously.
“May I…?”
“Go ahead,” he prompted. She took the bottle carefully in her hands, eyeing the label.
“Solarus Magnifantus,” she read. “Created from herbs blessed by an ancient sect in Gavaria,” she added.
“Gavaria,” Chauncy agreed, raising his eyebrows for effect. A land quite far away.
“Oh my,” Addie murmured, clearly impressed. Chauncy grimaced inwardly, feeling like an utter cad. It was all bunk, of course. But telling people something was ancient made it seem more important. And things from faraway lands were naturally more strange and rare and valuable. According to Grandma, drudgery and mundanity were strictly local phenomena.
“Have Mr. Drake drink a teaspoon of this every morning,” he instructed. “And it’s sure to brighten his mood.”
“Thank you,” Addie replied, smiling hopefully at him. “How…how much does it cost?”
“Two silver,” he answered, referring to the second-smallest denomination of money. A hundred copper coins made a silver coin, and ten silvers a gold coin. Platinum, of course, was the most valuable of all, worth ten gold coins.
“Oh dear,” Addie murmured, her face falling. “I can’t…”
“Now now, how long have you been a customer of ours for?” Chauncy interrupted.
“Forever, I think,” she answered.
“For anyone else, this would be two silver,” Chauncy declared authoritatively, so that there could be no doubt. He glanced at Grandma, who held up four fingers. “But for you, I’ll offer a discount: twenty copper,” he concluded.
Addie’s eyes widened, and she smiled broadly…even as Grandma’s eyes widened, her lips curling in the opposite direction.
“Really?” she breathed.
“Really,” he confirmed.
“Well that’s awfully generous,” Addie stated, eyeing the bottle. She rung her hands a bit. “But I don’t want to put you out…”
“Nonsense!” Chauncy exclaimed, doing his best to look taken aback. “After all these years, you’re practically family!”
“Well…alright,” she decided. “I’ll take it.”
And with that, Addie brought the precious bottle to the counter, shelling out twenty copper coins. Grandma beamed at her, and they both said goodbye, watching as Addie practically bounded to the door, rushing outside with newfound pep in her step.
Chauncy sighed then, walking back to his stool behind the counter and plopping himself down on it, his shoulders slumping.
“Twenty copper?!” Grandma blurted out, shooting him a glare…and smacking his shoulder with her cane. He stood up from his stool, backing away from her and rubbing his shoulder gingerly.
“She’s in trouble,” he protested.
“So are you,” Grandma warned.
“We have enough,” he insisted. That made Grandma’s expression soften, and she sighed.
“That we do,” she agreed. She broke out into a smile then. “Look at you,” she exclaimed proudly. “My grandson, the master salesman! You handled that perfectly, Chauncy. Oh! I’m so proud of you my boy.”
Chauncy didn’t say a thing, and Grandma’s smile turned to a frown.
“Oh come now,” she chided. “The tincture has some coffee beans in it. It’ll pep poor Mr. Drake up.”
“So would a cup of coffee,” Chauncy groused. “At a twentieth of the price.”
“The tincture will work better,” Grandma retorted. “And you know it. How many repeat customers do we have?”
Chauncy sighed, having had this conversation countless times before.
“All of them,” he grumbled.
“All of them,” she agreed. “If it didn’t work, they wouldn’t come back. That,” she declared authoritatively, “…is the power of magic!”
“Or the power of horseshit,” Chauncy grumbled. A comment that he hadn’t quite meant to say out loud…and one that earned him a whack on the butt with Grandma’s cane. “Ow!” he blurted out, rubbing his sore posterior. But to his surprise, Grandma was smirking at him.
“People pay for horseshit too,” she told him, pointing the butt of her cane at his nose. Without jabbing it, he was relieved to see. “You know what for?”
He just shrugged.
“Food!” she cried, throwing her arms up. “Without shit, what happens to plants, hmm? They don’t grow!”
“Okay Grandma,” he mumbled.
“If we don’t sell magic, someone else will,” she declared, rapping her cane on the floor for emphasis. “We have a good life, Chauncy. We have a roof over our heads, a good business, and food in our mouths. What more could we want?”
Chauncy shrugged.
Grandma leaned in, eyeing him critically. Then she nodded to herself.
“I know what this is,” she realized.
“What Grandma?” he said with a sigh.
“You’re lonely,” she told him. “You need a wife. Kids! Oh, but they bring such joy into a house!”
Chauncy rolled his eyes.
“It’s true,” Grandma insisted. “All this time in the shop, then home, taking care of me. You need a wife!”
“Then who’s going to take care of you?” he asked.
“The wife!” Grandma cried. “Women take care of everything. Men, eh,” she added, dismissing half of humanity with a gesture. “I know just the girl, too.”
“No Grandma,” Chauncy retorted, having heard this many times. “You really don’t.”
“She’s nice.”
“Uh huh,” he grumbled. For Grandma, nice meant ugly…and for Chauncy, they were both four-letter words. “All the girls are married now,” he added despondently. He’d been terribly shy as a boy, and had always imagined he’d grow out of it. But as it turned out, shy boys grew up into shy men…and waiting for Addie to proposition him had proven to be a losing strategy. One that he’d stuck to until she’d gotten married a few years ago, unfortunately. It was far too late now, of course. He was, quite embarrassingly, still a virgin…and he’d resigned himself to the idea that he always would be.
“Hmph,” Grandma harrumphed, leaning on her cane and staring at him. He glanced sidelong at her.
“What?”
“It’s Mrs. Drake, isn’t it,” she realized. “You still have a crush on her.”
“No Grandma.”
“Yes you do,” she insisted. “I can see it from a mile away. You always did like each other. Giving each other googly eyes every time she came to the shop.”
“She did not,” he protested. “She never paid me any mind.”
“You never went after her,” Grandma shot back. “I bet if you had, you two would’ve been all over each other like rabbits. I’d have a whole litter of great-grandchildren by now!”
Chauncy rolled his eyes.
“It’s true,” she insisted.
“Well it’s too late now,” he muttered.
“Too late for her,” Grandma agreed. “Unless of course things get worse and she gets divorced,” she added, giving him a wicked smile. “There’s always hope my boy!”
“Not for me.”
“Well, find another girl to chase,” she urged. “Find more than one if you have to. Live a little!”
“I’m not good at that,” he explained.
“You don’t practice!”
Chauncy threw up his hands, turning away from Grandma…just as the bell at the front door rang. Both of them immediately turned to look over the counter, spotting another customer coming into the shop. It was Miss Jasper, a relatively new customer. She’d moved into Southwick with her husband two weeks ago.
“Welcome,” Chauncy greeted, his voice suddenly warm and cheery.
“Good morning,” Miss Jasper replied. “I’m looking for some rejuvenating facial cream for my mother-in-law.”
“Well then you came to the right shop,” Chauncy replied automatically. “Everyone needs A Little Magic in their lives!”
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