Blonde With a Wand
The night Anica Revere turned Jasper Danes into a cat started out innocently enough.
They'd dated for nearly three weeks, and tonight lust ping-ponged across the restaurant table. Anica had anticipated this moment since she first glimpsed this dark-haired Adonis with golden eyes. Although Monday wasn't a common date night, Jasper's favorite restaurant was open and he hadn't wanted to wait for the weekend to see her again. All the signs pointed to finally Doing It.
He studied Anica as if he wanted to lick her all over, which sounded great to her, except ... she still hadn't mentioned a significant detail, one that could be a real buzz kill. She hadn't told him she was a witch.
With chemistry this strong she was so tempted not to tell him, but one mistake with a nonmagical man was enough. The image of Edward racing out of her bedroom a year ago still pained her.
He hadn't even bothered to grab his clothes. Sad to say, a Chicago police squad car had been cruising by the apartment building and poor Edward had been arrested using a Keep Lake Michigan Clean leaflet as a fig leaf substitute.
She'd heard all about it from her neighbor Julie, who kept a video camera running from her third-story window in hopes that she'd get something worth airing on her brother's independent cable show, Not So Shy Chi-Town. That clip made it on the show, no problem. To avoid legal repercussions, Edward's features had been scrambled so no one except Julie and Anica knew who it was.
"You're frowning," Jasper said. "Anything wrong?"
Good thing he wasn't a mind reader. "No, no. Sorry." She smiled to prove that everything was hunky-dory.
He reached for her hand. "What do you say we get out of here?"
The night Anica Revere turned Jasper Danes into a cat started out innocently enough.
They'd dated for nearly three weeks, and tonight lust ping-ponged across the restaurant table. Anica had anticipated this moment since she first glimpsed this dark-haired Adonis with golden eyes. Although Monday wasn't a common date night, Jasper's favorite restaurant was open and he hadn't wanted to wait for the weekend to see her again. All the signs pointed to finally Doing It.
He studied Anica as if he wanted to lick her all over, which sounded great to her, except ... she still hadn't mentioned a significant detail, one that could be a real buzz kill. She hadn't told him she was a witch.
With chemistry this strong she was so tempted not to tell him, but one mistake with a nonmagical man was enough. The image of Edward racing out of her bedroom a year ago still pained her.
He hadn't even bothered to grab his clothes. Sad to say, a Chicago police squad car had been cruising by the apartment building and poor Edward had been arrested using a Keep Lake Michigan Clean leaflet as a fig leaf substitute.
She'd heard all about it from her neighbor Julie, who kept a video camera running from her third-story window in hopes that she'd get something worth airing on her brother's independent cable show, Not So Shy Chi-Town. That clip made it on the show, no problem. To avoid legal repercussions, Edward's features had been scrambled so no one except Julie and Anica knew who it was.
"You're frowning," Jasper said. "Anything wrong?"
Good thing he wasn't a mind reader. "No, no. Sorry." She smiled to prove that everything was hunky-dory.
He reached for her hand. "What do you say we get out of here?"
Whoops. She wasn't quite ready to be alone with him. Better to reveal her witch status in a public place, where she could resist the urge to prove that she had special powers.
That had been her biggest mistake with Edward. He hadn't believed her, and she'd worked one teensy spell to convince him and had been inspired by what was at hand, so to speak. He'd left before she could explain that his penis would return to its normal color in a few hours.
Soon after Anica stepped out on the sidewalk, the wind picked up and blew the rain sideways into her face. She adjusted her hood. When she'd been blessed with magic she'd never worried about arriving wet and bedraggled. A quick spell and her hair and makeup had been restored to the way they'd looked when she'd left her apartment.
She'd taken those magic powers for granted. Too bad it'd required a major screwup like this for her to realize how cocky she'd been about her well-ordered life. She dreaded seeing the condition of Wicked Brew. Although her employees cleaned reasonably well, she'd used magic every hour or so to make it white-glove spotless. But her spotless place of business, her spotless life, were no more.
When she pushed open the door of Wicked Brew, she saw an ordinary coffee shop with ordinary spills on the tables, ordinary straw wrappers on the floor, ordinary sugar scattered on the counter. The place wasn't dirty or in danger of failing a health inspection. But the magic was gone.
The chaos she'd found after the fairy vandalism had been horrible, but this was almost worse because it hadn't been caused by magic. Instead it had been caused by a lack of magic, and that broke her heart.
She hated for Dorcas and Ambrose to see her shop in this condition, but then again, they wouldn't know the difference. They'd never seen it the other way.
Several of her regular customers called out to her as she walked in, and she returned their greetings with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. She picked up a couple of straw wrappers from the floor and threw them in the trash. If she'd had time, she would have grabbed a rag to wipe down the tables. Todd and Sally were busy filling orders behind the counter and couldn't do it.
But she wasn't here to tidy up the place. She was here to meet a witch and wizard who had the experience she lacked to fix the mess she'd made of her life. Lily had given her a description of them, so they weren't hard to spot. She saw them over at a corner table, sipping on lattes.
They seemed like the sort of boomer couple who would live in Lakefront Towers and have season tickets to the symphony. Dorcas could be a head buyer for Nord-strom, and he could be the CEO of some innovative ad agency. They dressed in a style that never went out of date -- sport jacket and turtleneck for him; cowl-necked sweater for her. He was graying at the temples, while Dorcas's chin-length hair looked as if she'd just spent a few hours with a top Chicago stylist who understood all the secrets of color and cut.
Anica knew about Big Knob, of course. Everyone in the magical world had heard of that peculiar little town filled with people clueless about the town's magical heritage. When Anica and Lily were small, their parents had taken them for a drive down to Big Knob so they could see the streets laid out in the shape of a five-pointed star and the pentagon-shaped gazebo in the middle of a five-sided town "square."
Anica remembered the place as quaint but not the least bit sophisticated. Dorcas and Ambrose didn't look as if they'd fit in with the good folks of Big Knob, but somehow they'd managed to survive down there. Anica was grateful they'd stayed, though, because that placed them close enough to help in her hour of need.
Taking a deep breath, she walked over to the corner table.
Dorcas glanced up and smiled, but there was nothing jolly about her expression. Sympathetic was more like it. "You're Anica."
She tried not to read too much into that smile. "Yes. Thank you for coming."
Ambrose pushed back his chair and stood. "It's our pleasure." He pulled out a chair. "Have a seat. Can I get you some coffee?" "Uh, no, thanks." She thought it was cute that he was offering her coffee in her own shop. "But is there anything more you'd like? On the house, of course. We have all sorts of pastries in the case." She hoped that was true. She hadn't been around to oversee reorders.
"We'll probably go out for lunch after we talk with you," Dorcas said. "So we're fine."
That reminded Anica of the expenses they were incurring on her behalf. "Listen, I've never asked for this kind of intervention before, and I'm willing to compensate you in whatever way you -- "
Time stretched out endlessly as he watched the doorway. He clenched and unclenched his hands, resettled his cap on his head about twenty times, and retied the laces on both of his shoes.
After about a hundred years, the door opened and Julie came out. Although the door closed after her, she beckoned him closer.
Julie's eyes were bright with excitement. "Her magic works!"
"It does?" Jasper stared at her. "Then how come I haven't changed into a cat?"
" 'Gift of the Magi.'"
"I don't get it."
"You each sacrificed for the other, so you both get what you wanted. It's classic. I'm so glad I got to be part of this!"
Jasper felt a bubble of hope rise in his chest. "So ... is she going to let me in?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Dorcas told her that under the terms of her contract, any contact would result in you turning into a cat again."
Stunned, Jasper tried to process that information.
"Personally," Julie said, "I think that part's null and void. If each of you sacrificed for the other, I think you lifted the spell. I mean, neither of the provisions of the contract came true, right? You're still a guy and she has her magic. So I can't believe that she'd turn you into a cat just by looking at you, but she's very scared about that."
Certainty flooded him with warmth. "I'm not scared. I want to see her."
"Then we have to strategize."
"I won't lie to her, Julie. I did that once before and that's how we ended up in this mess."
Julie looked disappointed. "I thought we could cook up a plan that would get her to open the door, and then you'd just step up and there you'd be, looking at each other."
"Nope. I'm going to try the truth and see how that works." He walked to the door and rapped on it softly. "Anica, can you hear me?"
"Yes, but I wish you'd leave."
His heart beat faster. So close and yet so far. "Let's think logically. We each signed a contract giving up what was most precious -- your magic and my human form."
"And I couldn't be with you."
"And I told myself I couldn't be with you, either, because I wasn't a worthy partner when I was half cat and half man. But guess what? You have your magic and I didn't change back into a cat at six this morning. So those contract clauses didn't come into play, right?"
"No, but maybe we're not supposed to be together. Maybe that's the price we're supposed to pay."
Jasper leaned his forehead against the door. "I don't believe that. I don't believe that the kind of love that allowed each of us to make that sacrifice is supposed to be tossed aside. If I can't be with you, I might as well be turned into a cat again. But I refuse to believe that will happen."
"I don't know, Jasper."
"How can you doubt the power of our love? Look at what happened because of it. You're magic again and I'm a man again. Don't let fear keep us apart."
"But -- "
"Trust that our love is good, and we're meant to be together. I think that's what we're supposed to learn. Open the door. Please." He closed his eyes and concentrated on sending all the love he had through that door.