Spellbent (20 page)

I abandoned the empty cart and headed toward the exit, pretending to sip my drink.
Smooth enough for you?

“I admit I am impressed by your talent for larceny,” Pal replied.

Be impressed if I can get the two of us out of this mess without prison sentences,
I thought back.

Goat was nowhere near the entrance; I sensed he’d made a mad sprint to the men’s room to pry out the magical wedgie I’d given him. I took a deep breath and plunged through the automatic doors. To my relief, the spellbound booty didn’t make the security alarms go off.

“Where to now?” Pal asked.

To Kai’s, of course,
I replied.
So I can add marijuana trafficking to my criminal résumé.

Ganja Goddess

Pal and I managed to catch the very last bus back to the north campus area; it dropped us off on High Street across the street from the Blue Danube restaurant. Cooper loved the food at the Dube, particularly their savory patty melts and their hummus. And he thought their beer selection was one of the best in town outside the Warlock’s place. However, I had deemed their restrooms far too cramped, dingy, and frequently visited for any type of making out, despite Cooper’s insistence that all we’d need was to turn ourselves invisible and be very, very quiet.

Poor Cooper. I hoped he was okay. I couldn’t let myself think too hard about what he might be going through, or else I’d start crying again. We’d figure out a way to get him back soon. If I said that to myself often enough, maybe I would start to believe it.

I walked to the corner of High and Blake and set my soda cup down on the curb. I pulled Kai’s flyer out of my back pocket to double-check his address. “Yep, his place is on East Avenue, just a couple of blocks from here.”

“Oh, good,” replied Pal as he peered down Blake Avenue at the rows of dilapidated clapboard duplexes and crumbling brick town houses. “And all this time I was afraid we’d be staying in a
dump.”

“Hey, you’re the one who said we needed a rat for this potion. Don’t complain about easy hunting.”

I picked up my cup and walked toward Kai’s address. I found the place easily enough; it was a huge old Victorian single in dire need of a paint job. The broad front porch had surely been stately a hundred years before. Now the floorboards were warped and the railing supports were as broken and gray as a meth addict’s teeth. Ragged lawn chairs surrounded a short plastic table covered in crumpled beer cans, with cigarette butts spilling from an old glass ashtray.

I went up the creaky wooden stairs and rang the bell. A burly young man in knee-length denim cutoffs and a BUCKEYES FOOTBALL T-shirt pulled open the door.

“Yeah?” he asked suspiciously.

“I’m Jessie,” I said. “Kai told me to come by. I’m here to rent the room.”

“Oh.” He looked me up and down. “Come in, I guess.”

“Charming young man,” Pal whispered.

I stepped into the living room. There was the usual array of College Guy Furnishings: a sagging old brown couch, stained maroon velvet recliner, thrift store end tables, and CD/DVD racks made of bricks and boards beside a shiny new wide-screen television and Sony gaming system. Rock posters adorned the walls. A half-empty bottle of tequila sat in the middle of the cluttered coffee table. The wooden floor was so old and worn that I got a pretty good view of the basement through the gaps in the boards; I saw the glow of fluorescent plant lights gleaming off the white enamel surface of a washer and dryer.

“Yo, Kai!” bellowed Buckeye Shirt. “That chick’s here to see the room.”

“Be up in a minute!” Kai yelled back from somewhere in the basement.

Two other young men stuck their heads into the living room from the kitchen. One was a slightly built guy with black hair and glasses, and the other was a tall, handsome boy with a mop of curly red hair. They gave each other a glance that said
This should be entertaining
and came into the living room, grinning like schoolkids about to play the best practical joke
ever.

Nice,
I thought.
I know that look. It’s the look that says, “Ha ha! We’re going to take this stupid deluded witchy girl apart at the seams and laugh her right out of the house.”

“You did express a disinterest in involving
nice
people in our current difficulties,” Pal reminded me.

True enough,
I thought back.
Hallelujah, it’s raining jerks.

“So how exactly
are
you going to handle these young gentlemen?” Pal asked.

I know a few party tricks,
I replied.
Any Talent who ever went to OSU knows how to make faery liquor. It’ll seem just like the real thing going down, but it’ll turn to water a few minutes after they’ve drunk it. It’ll be better for their livers, anyhow. And plant growth is pretty basic stuff.

The dark-haired fellow in the glasses stepped forward and waved at me. “Hi, I’m Scott, and this is Patrick, and you already met Mikey.” He pointed at Buckeye Shirt.

“Hi guys. I’m Jessie.” I nodded at them and set my soda cup down on a clear spot on the end table beside the recliner.
Keep an eye on that, would you?
I thought to Pal.

“Certainly.” He hopped off my shoulder onto the back of the recliner and took up a watchful position on the chair’s arm near the cup.

“Nice ferret,” said Scott.

“Thanks,” I replied. “You’re practically the first person I’ve met today who didn’t think he was some kind of rodent.”

“So is he supposed to be your familiar or something?” Patrick asked, looking like he was desperately trying to keep a straight face.

“Why, yes. Yes he is,” I replied.

“So, urn, where’s your broomstick?” he countered, his face turning pink from his effort at not laughing.

“Broomsticks are
sooo
1695,” I replied, rolling my eye. “Modern witches use vibrators and drop acid just like everyone else.”

“What?” He frowned, looking confused. “Yeah,
flying on broomsticks
equals a big-ass euphemism for pagan women getting their freak on with broom handles greased up with morning glory butter,” I said. “Sometimes strychnine. Not a good idea, but hey, back in the day they used to think a wolf’s testicle wrapped in a greasy rag was a good barrier contraceptive. So, yeah, no broomsticks for me. But thanks
ever
so much for asking about my sex life when we’ve only just met.”

Just then, Kai came thumping up the basement stairs with a couple of small, spindly marijuana plants growing in a rectangular clay pot. He set the pot reverently on the floor.

“Okay, so. . . make this grow,” Kai said.

 “Wait, don’t I get to see the attic first?” I asked.

“Show us your stuff first, or show us some cash,” Mikey said. “Ain’t no way I’m giving up dibs on the attic unless you got proof of some real serious voodoo.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll do my thing on your lovely little pot plant here, but you don’t get anything else until after I see the attic,” I said, then thought to Pal,
You don’t have diarrhea, do
you?

“What? No,” he replied. “Why the sudden interest in the condition of my gastrointestinal tract?”

Because I just realized I need a fertilizer starter for this charm, and I won’t gain the best credibility with these guys if I have to ask Kai for some MiracleGro. So I need you to poop in my hand, but not if it’s going to be all runny and disgusting,
I thought back.

“Ah. Indeed.” He hopped off the couch and climbed up to my shoulder. I moved my hand under him so he could discreetly deposit a small, warm black pellet into my palm.

“I feel so close to you right now,” Pal said.

Shut up and go back to the comfy chair, smart-ass,
I replied, holding my cupped hand out toward the pot plants.
I haven’t tried this trick in a while..
.
I need to concentrate to do this right.

Pal hopped back onto the chair.

“Okay,” I said, “first I need you all to swear that what happens in this house stays in this house. You’re not to discuss anything you’re about to see with anyone else.”

They looked at one another and shrugged doubtfully.

“Yeah, whatever,” said Mikey.

“I need a promise that’s just a teensy bit more formal,” I replied. “I need you all to raise your right hands and say ‘I will not speak of the magic I see.’ Can you do that? Okay, on a count of three. . .“

After I counted down, they grudgingly raised their hands and repeated the words. As the boys said the final part of the promise, I spoke an ancient word for “bind,” and the room briefly went cold as the spell took hold. They wouldn’t be able to talk about my magic with outsiders no matter how hard they tried.

“Thanks, guys.”

I closed my eye and focused on the stronger of the two plants. It had suffered greatly from lack of nutrients and proper water; a lesser plant would have died weeks before. Kai, despite his abiding love of the resinous bud, had a thumb browner than a politician’s nose.

I began the chant, calling on the power of the trees and bushes nearby to help their herbaceous cousin grow tall and strong. Old, alien words for “growth” and “bounty” flowed off my tongue.

I felt Pal’s pellet grow hot in my hand, and it burst with a small firecracker pop. A heartbeat later, I heard the college guys shout in surprise as the clay pot shattered. Pain stabbed through my skull. I stopped the chant and opened my eye.

The puny little plant had exploded into a seven- foot-tall bush. Shards of the broken clay pot lay around its tangled root-ball.

“Ho-ly shit,” Patrick said, his skepticism drained clean away along with the blood from his face. “You’re not a witch; you’re some kind of ganja goddess.”

 “Ganja goddess, will you marry me?” asked Kai, tears of joy welling in his bloodshot eyes.

“I’m touched, Kai. . . but no. I’m already spoken for. May I see the room now?” I asked.

I collected Pal and my cup, and Kai took me upstairs to the sweltering attic room. It smelled of mildew and dirty feet. The room was about twenty feet long and maybe nine feet wide. The carpet was 1970s green shag and bore stains of unknown origin, and the floor was still littered with trash and milk crates left behind by the previous occupant. The walls had originally been white, I supposed, but it was hard to tell from the scuffs and stains. A noticeable nicotine line from cigarette smoke circled the room a few inches from the water-stained ceiling. Six-foot- square dormers were built into both faces of the roof; the left-hand one had been converted into a cramped bathroom with narrow closets on either side. There were windows in the dormers and in the wall at the far end; if I opened them all and set the stove in the dormer I wouldn’t have to worry about choking on carbon monoxide.

A bare fluorescent light fixture—the sort of thing people usually installed in their garages—hung crookedly from the ceiling. There was a light switch to the right of the door. I flipped it experimentally; the fluorescent lights flickered on harshly. I flipped the switch down again.

“This’ll do,” I said. “Okay, here are the ground rules: You let me know before you come in, and you don’t come in here when I’m not around unless it’s a life-or-death emergency. I grew you enough pot to stone a small army, so we should be good there for a while. I’ll make you liquor, but don’t expect me to create it out of thin air. I’ll need a finger of whatever you want me to make still in the bottle. I don’t care when you have parties, but don’t wake me up at four AM when you want more tequila. Sound fair?”

“Sounds fair,” agreed Kai.

“Great,” I said. “Now I really need a nap, so I’ll see you in a while.”

“Wait. . . aren’t you gonna bring in any of your stuff?” Kai asked.

“I’ve already got it right here.” I held up the soda cup, then set it down so I could close the door. “Bye now. Buh-bye, Kai.”

I latched the door after Kai left; the slide-bolt seemed pretty ffimsy, but anyone forcing it was bound to make more than enough noise to wake me from a sound sleep.

“You realize of course that the flowers from the plant you just magicked for them aren’t going to be particularly rich in THC,” Pal said.

Yes, I know,
I thought back, just in case Kai was still in earshot.
They’ll have to hang the plant up in the basement to cure for a while if they want a good smoke, anyway, and I hope to be gone from here well before then.

“God, I’m so tired,” I continued aloud, suddenly feeling the weight of the day pressing down on my very bones. I knelt, popped the lid off the soda cup, and pulled the plastic bag out. It looked like all the miniaturized goods floating inside had stayed dry. I desperately needed a nap on the cot.

“How do I unshrink and unfloat everything?” I asked Pal.

“Well, the counter-charm is essentially the reverse of the packing charm—”

 “Jeez, more dancing? My feet are getting sore.”

“—but it’s usually much quicker, especially you’re not particular about where things go.”

“All right; let’s give this a try.”

Pal coached me through the unpacking charm; soon everything was re-expanded and arrayed around me. My head hurt worse than ever. I unpacked the cot and set it up in the dormer; then unpacked the little fridge and plugged it in.