Once Upon Stilettos
Mom came to an abrupt halt, pulling Dad and me to a stop with her. “Now, she’s good,” she said. She released her death grip on her purse and opened it. “I want to give her a dollar.”
I turned to see a fairy hovering above the sidewalk. She wasn’t a street performer. She was the real deal, just going about her business. That sick feeling in my stomach came back in full force. My mother could see the fairy.
It would have been nice if the fairy had been someone I knew, someone I could get to play along with me. Unfortunately, she was a total stranger. Before I had a chance to react, Mom tried to hand her a dollar. “I don’t know how you do that, but I’m impressed,” Mom said. “Lovely costume, too.”
The fairy looked at her like she was crazy. “What the f—” she started to say.
“Kathleen Elizabeth Chandler, I did not raise you to be that rude,” Mom protested.
The doorway turned out to lead into a souvenir shop. “Look! Postcards! You’ll want to send one to each of the boys, right?” I said with forced enthusiasm. The huge rack of cheap postcards would distract my parents for a good five minutes while they argued over which ten to buy and which view of the skyline was nicer.
That brought up my next problem: what should I do about Mom? My first instinct was to call the office and ask for advice. Rod knew all about immunes. He’d know what to do. Then I realized that would be a very bad idea. The company was desperate for immunes to help them guard against other magic users, and we were increasingly rare. I couldn’t let them try to recruit my mother. If she knew what I was mixed up in, she’d haul me back home, magical immunity or not. We were going to get through this visit, and then I’d put her back on a plane to Texas where she could live a blissfully unmagical existence. All I had to do was keep the secret for a few more days. Fortunately, my mom was primed to think New York was exceptionally weird. I’d lived here a year before I learned the truth. Surely I could get my mom through a few days.
I counted to ten to steady myself before going back into the store. Mom and Dad were still arguing over postcards. “This night view is a good one,” Mom said.
“But you can’t see anything other than lights,” Dad pointed out. “The sunset one’s nicer.”
As we left the store, Mom asked, “Now, Katie, what was that all about?”
Dad gave one of his long-suffering sighs. “Lois, you tried to give some girl on the street a dollar. I know she was funny looking, but if you tried to give a dollar to every funny-looking person you saw on the street in this town, you’d run out of money awful fast.” He put his hands in his pockets and walked ahead of us, like he was ashamed to be seen with us in public. I couldn’t entirely blame him. In fact, I wanted to join him.