Work Like a Charm

Chapter 1 I had only been away for a week, but when Mr. Trevor turned onto Summit Avenue, I found it completely transformed from when I had seen it last. September had turned over into October, the rain had dried up, and the air had acquired a distinct chill. When I had left the leaves had still been clinging wetly to all the trees, their green faded like the colors on a newspaper left out in the sun. Now, everything was a riot of reds and oranges not yet succumbing to the inevitable browns. They rustled and crinkled dryly together as the chill breeze swirled through them, and their crumbling edges filled the air with that autumn smell. Back home in cow country, we had a few trees, so I knew that smell. But here trees were all around me. That smell permeated absolutely everything. I loved it. "Miss Amanda," Mr. Trevor said, glancing over at me briefly as he drove down the boulevard. "Sorry," I said, rolling the window back up. "I guess it's colder here than back in Iowa." "Just a touch," he said, but there was a twinkle in his eye. "Happy to be back?" "Actually, I am," I admitted. "I was only here for a few days, so I'm not sure why this feels so much like coming home. But it totally does." "Magic," Mr. Trevor said. "Yes, magic," I agreed, looking down at the branch that rested on my lap. I always had at least one hand on it and often found myself rubbing it between both hands during the long drive from southwestern Iowa to St. Paul. I wasn't sure if I was trying to infuse the wood with something inside myself or to draw something out of the wood into myself. But one thing I was certain of, I had picked the right branch from the right tree for my wand. Every time I held it in my hand, it just felt so perfect. Maybe it would help me after all. I was skeptical when Brianna and Sophie had given me a bogglingly long list of instructions for choosing and harvesting my branch. It all sounded so silly. I mean, I knew magic existed. I had felt it flow through me. I had felt a brief moment of near-total power over everything around me. But then it went away, and I had gone back to being my normal, powerless self. I was certain it was going to be a waste of time, going all of the way back to my hometown to pick out a stick. I wouldn't even have agreed if I hadn't wanted to pack up the rest of my things, clean out my apartment, and say goodbye to the Schneidermans, who had always been like the grandparents I had never had. Still, the moment I had stepped up to the willow tree that my father had died under, that I had been born under, where my mother had lost her voice and perhaps also a piece of her soul, I knew what I was there for was more than a simple branch. And now I had it. I didn't know what would happen next, but I was sure Brianna and Sophie were more than ready to show me each step in a process they had gone through years before. Their own wands were a part of them now, never far from hand and always there when trouble raised its head. I turned the willow branch over in my hands. It did feel like a part of me. I just wasn't sure it was going to be a part any better at connecting to magic than the rest of me. "Thank you, Miss Amanda, for letting me accompany you," Mr. Trevor said as we cruised past the governor's mansion, always a hubbub of activity. "Are you kidding?" I asked. "You were doing me a favor, saving me another two bus trips." "Yes, but I don't get out as much as I'd like, and your hometown was full of truly lovely people," he said. "You were quite popular, weren't you?" I teased. While I had been packing, sorting my meager belongings into what I would keep, what I would donate, and what really just had to be thrown away, Mr. Trevor had been sipping coffee at the diner counter and striking up conversations with all the locals. People who were politely friendly enough to those passing through - the diner got most of its business from travelers from the nearby highway - but were generally slow to truly warm to strangers. I don't think my mother ever was accepted as one of them, and even I was an outer tier member of the community despite being born in the diner parking lot and living my whole life in their town. But each time I came back in to eat or drop something off with the Schneidermans or just to check on Mr. Trevor he had a tighter group of locals around him. They traded stories and advice and recipes. When I was finally done with the final walk-through with the landlord, I felt like I was the one pulling him away. "You have a long list of email addresses, don't you?" I asked. "Gerta is going to send you pictures of the cookies she bakes from your old family recipe this Christmas, and Dan is going to try your technique when he fishes next weekend and is sure to send you a pic with some mammoth walleye he catches, and I'm sure tons more I missed out on." "Email addressess, yes," Mr. Trevor said, eyes on the road. "Actually, Gerta set up a f*******: group." "Of course she did," I said. "You're welcome to join-" "I'm just teasing," I said. "You made a lot of friends." "You come from fine people," Mr. Trevor said. "But then I could have guessed that from the moment I met you." "Oh," I said and felt my cheeks flushing. "Thanks." "You did tell the Schneidermans they're welcome to visit any time?" "Yes, I did," I said. "But I wouldn't get my hopes up. They would have to close the restaurant, and they still haven't even replaced me, so that's going to be tough. Definitely won't be happening this year." "Well, perhaps you'll have to visit them instead," he said. "Maybe," I said. "If it's possible." My mood suddenly turned quite glum. I had a calling, a duty as a witch to guard the time portal that was anchored to the house I had inherited together with Sophie and Brianna. But that duty required a lot of magic. All three of us together, that's what Miss Zenobia had said when she had bequeathed it to us. But I had been able to leave because in truth I wasn't needed. Not with my lack of ability to access magic. I couldn't even see the time portal myself. I could only access with the pendant Miss Zenobia had crafted for her nonmagical lawyer from the past to cross over to the present on her own. Which should have made me feel free, but I didn't. I just felt bad because I could see even in the few days we spent together before I had gone back to Iowa that our sworn duty was taking a toll on Sophie and Brianna. They needed me to step up. I touched the branch again, still warm from the last time I had rubbed my palms over it. I really hoped it helped. I was prepared to work as hard as required, but I was more than a little afraid mere diligence wouldn't be enough, "I'll drop you off at the front door," Mr. Trevor said as we neared the end of Summit Avenue. The spire from the cathedral reached higher than even the tallest trees, impressive as the building itself was not so high up on the ridge as the palatial homes around us. "If you can get the bags in the back seat, I'll carry in the boxes from the trunk." "I can help with that," I said. "No, I'll have it," Mr. Trevor assured me. The house itself had no attached garage; he parked in a rented space down the hill. It was a narrow stall, one among many, the door barely wide enough for the wing-like mirrors on the sides of the old town car. I had only briefly glimpsed the interior before, as Mr. Trevor had insisted I wait in the driveway for him to back the car out. But that glimpse had been enough. Somewhere in the home that was also Miss Zenobia's Charm School for Exceptional Young Ladies, there was a room and little office that was his personal space. None of the three of us had seen inside it. But I was certain that the space Mr. Trevor considered truly his own was that little rented garage stall. Something about the desk with cubbies where a workbench might be more customary, the neat tools hanging from the pegboard on the back wall, the cleanly swept and oil-free concrete floor just felt like him. Mr. Trevor pulled the car close to the curb, and I swung the heavy door open. The rustle of the leaves. The dusty, foresty smell from above and the loamier smell from the decomposing piles below. It all swept around me like the neighborhood was rushing in to give me a hug of welcome. I tucked the end of my branch into the back pocket of my jeans then pulled bag after bag out of the back seat. Every bit of clothing, every boot and shoe and winter coat, I carried it all easily over one shoulder. I remembered when I had piled it all into the car hours before, and the look that had passed over Mr. Trevor's face as he saw that the few boxes that only half-filled his trunk were all that I had in the world. He had mumbled something about a stipend and taking me shopping. I had, after all, inherited more than a gigantic responsibility and a house that required constant maintenance to hold back the ravages of time. There was also a bit of cash. Not a lot by some measures, but more than I had ever contemplated having. That part hadn't really sunk in yet. Perhaps if it had, I wouldn't have bothered to bring back so much of my shabby, faded clothing. I shut the door with a hip thrust then raised a hand to let Mr. Trevor know he was good to go. Then I just stood there a moment, breathing in that smell. It really is a fantastic smell. The town I grew up in was dairy country. Mostly that smells like grass, which is pleasant in its own way. But sometimes it can smell a little too strongly of cow. You couldn't see cows from my apartment or from the diner, but when the wind was right, there was no way not to smell them. I heard the sound of feet slapping on the pavement, someone jogging along the sidewalk. I opened my eyes, but the hope that had started to rush up in me quickly dampened back down. I smiled a hello at the woman who ran past me, ponytail swinging in time to her gait, and told myself I was being silly. It was two in the afternoon on a weekday. Surely Nick was still in class. Did they call it class in a police academy? I had no idea. The bags on my shoulder were getting heavy, the handles digging into my flesh. But I spared one last moment to look to the house next door, the one with the newly planted hostas in a row along the sidewalk. The tall hedge blocked the yard and the lower level of the house from view. And no one was peering over it, waiting to accost me. Not that Mrs. Olson had anything left to complain about. The first thing Sophie and Brianna had done was to fix the gaps in the magic that was letting the music from the Jazz Age bleed across time, to plague an old woman with the sounds of a neverending party. But somehow I was pretty sure that was a temporary reprieve. The fix would be good - Brianna was too thorough in what she did to make mistakes - but Mrs. Olson seemed the type to quickly find a new source of complaint. And yet she wasn't around now. Perhaps it was too chilly for old bones and arthritic joints to stand in the yard and wait to spring out on passersby. Or maybe it was just time for her show. It was a couple of minutes past the hour; likely I had just missed her before she had gone inside. But something didn't feel quite right. Not seeing her before going inside the school, it felt wrong. One thing I had been learning since coming to the school was that those feelings I had were far from delusions. But they were also far from being clear. There was nothing more useless than a vague feeling of unease, especially when it was so dim I wasn't sure if it was really even a feeling, or at least really one of those feelings. I was still standing there on the sidewalk, clutching the handles of far too many canvas bags and I guess consulting my feelings when the front door opened with a bang and two witches came charging down the steps straight for me.