A Lady of Many Charms and Other Stories Read online

  Ellie loved Josh.

  Josh never gave a second thought to Ellie.

  Ellie thought this tremendously unfair, since her world revolved around him.

  She had carved his name on the back of three school bus seats. That way she would be guaranteed to see his name every morning. This was in case she failed to open her notebook and forgot to gaze at his name written one hundred and thirty-two times on the inside cover.

  At school, Ellie thanked her lucky stars she shared three classes with Josh, not to mention that extra lucky star that destined Josh to sit in front of her in algebra. She spent most her time and all of her brain cells staring at the back of his gorgeous brown hair. Who cared about quadratic equations when the only math Ellie wanted to do was addition: one plus one equalled… one point something?

  One point something. Yeah. Never two. Sigh. The only problem with this otherwise happy love affair was that Josh barely knew Ellie existed. It was as if she was a piece of furniture, like the ezy-chair in which one of the support straps had broken, so one had best not sit in it until it was fixed.

  This irked her to no end. How on earth could he ignore her when she loved him so much? Sure, he wasn’t perfect (Ellie made sure that she didn’t delude herself) but that didn’t matter. A touch portly could be awfully cuddly. And weren’t slightly crooked teeth supposed to be adorable in a British sort of way?

  There were more pressing matters than quadratic equations. Like how to get Josh to fall in love with her. Smiling at him in the hallway between classes didn’t work. His eyes just skirted by her without hesitation. Even marching up to him and saying “Hello” failed to grab his attention.

  She needed a little help. In her alternative magazine column, Good Witch Glenda Bellwether suggested a rather nice spell for drawing love to you.

  Alas, even that failed. Perhaps Ellie had burned the wrong type of candles. Perhaps the pink sheet of paper she enfolded about her grass-wrapped apple twig was the wrong shade of pink. And when she said it was supposed to go under her bed, was it under-under, or just under the mattress?

  No matter. It didn’t work. Maybe she needed someone who knew what they were doing? Luckily, her almost-best-friend Marta’s ex-aunt Luna (who was divorced from Marta’s uncle) claimed to be a witch.

  Marta really didn’t like talking to her aunt, “who was awfully weird", which is why her uncle divorced her.

  “But I need help with a spell,” Ellie whined.

  Marta sighed and rolled her eyes at Ellie. “Come on! Everyone knows that stuff isn’t real.”

  “The goths believe in it. They’re always doing their coven circles first thing in the morning in the Faith Room, before the Christians arrive from early morning seminary.”

  Marta sighed even deeper, her patience teetered on the edge of tolerance. “You’ve been reading Good Witch Glenda again, haven’t you? Can’t you just stick to the horoscopes in the magazine?”

  Ellie’s face split with her grin. “I did. Mine said that I’d discover a solution to a problem this weekend.”

  Marta didn’t fall for it. “Didn’t say which problem.”

  “I doubt it’s going to mean I’ll finish my homework. Just gimmie your aunt’s phone number.”

  ~*~

  The next day Marta slipped Ellie a piece of paper with Aunt Luna’s phone number. That evening, Ellie called Aunt Luna. About an hour into the conversation, she realised why Marta thought her aunt was “awfully weird". Aunt Luna couldn’t stay on topic. Ellie learned the meaning of the two of cups (assuming it was the Tarot card she nattered about and not a recipe for bread), the best place in a Reiki wand to place the amethyst crystal and why columnist Good Witch Glenda’s love spell didn’t work.

  “As everyone knows, love spells cannot be cast without a piece of the person you’re casting it on. It’s not just a ‘personal item’ you have to use, but actual body parts.”

  Ick. “What sort of body parts?” Josh wasn’t going to fall in love with her if she chopped off one of his fingers.

  “A shirt could work, but only if it was dirty and recently worn, as it’d have flakes of skin, and they’d count.”

  Double-ick. “Look, Aunt Luna. I can’t go rummaging through his laundry hamper. I’ve only been to his house once, and even then, it was a Friday night, and I simply sat in the car across the street because I didn’t have the courage to go knock on the door. So I spent the evening watching his cat leap at moths around the porch light.”

  Aunt Luna tched in sympathy. “You poor dear. Perhaps you need more courage.”

  As Aunt Luna rattled through a spell to bring the caster courage, Ellie remembered how she spent the first quarter of her freshman year slipping love notes--signed, no less--into Josh’s locker. She stopped that when she watched him pick up her note without a glance and drop it in the nearest garbage can.

  No wonder she felt like beige wallpaper in an unused room of the next-door neighbor to the house of Josh’s world.

  Ellie interrupted Aunt Luna. “Courage isn’t a problem. Unrequited love is the problem.”

  “Oh. Well then, try Glenda’s love spell again.”

  “Yes, but what do I use?”

  “Use?”

  “Parts of him. What do I use?”

  “Hair will do. Yes. Use some of his hair. I trust you can manage that?”

  ~*~

  Ellie’s best chance for hair of Josh was in algebra class… assuming he was there, which he wasn’t, when she arrived. Ellie plunked herself down behind his empty desk and waited.

  The bell rang. No Josh. The teacher droned on and on, marking letters and numbers on the board. Still, no Josh.

  Four ex squared plus two ex plus two. Maybe. Ellie wasn’t sure. Josh wasn’t sick, was he? How on earth could she concentrate on quadratic equations when Josh was missing? She needed his hair!

  Two ex plus one, two ex plus two. She thought. Oh, where was he?

  She spotted him later that day at his locker between sixth and seventh periods. He’d missed all his morning classes and they didn’t share the same lunch schedule.

  Propriety? What’s that? Ellie skidded and slammed into the locker next to Josh. “Where you’ve been? You weren’t in class this morning!”

  Josh looked at Ellie. Was that surprise or annoyance on his face? He certainly couldn’t pretend she wasn’t there. When she didn’t go away, he said, “Dentist,” and that was that.

  Ellie ignored that half his lower lip seemed a little puffy and droopy. “Oh.” She turned to walk away. Josh turned back to his locker.

  Oh wait! The hair!

  Ellie reached up and ran both hands through Josh’s rather short hair.

  In surprise, Josh turned around and stared at her as if she sprung three more heads.

  Ellie froze, her fists clenched to her small chest. “You had a spider in your hair,” she squeaked.

  Josh turned back to his locker cautiously, always keeping an eye on a retreating Ellie.

  She’d done it. Clenched between her middle and ring fingers of her right hand were two short hairs, one light, one dark. To be sure she didn’t lose these precious two, she taped them into the inside of her notebook.

  Once home, she locked herself in her bedroom and cast her spell.

  ~*~

  Ellie had spent a sleepless night. Did it work? More than once she leaned over the side of the bed to peer at the paper-wrapped spell she’d placed under there. Not that she’d know if it had worked until tomorrow at school.

  How would Josh behave? What would he say? Or do?

  At four thirty in the morning, Ellie got up, got ready for school and finished the homework she couldn’t concentrate on the night before. She was at the bus stop long before its six-thirty arrival.

  Somewhere between climbing on the bus and arriving at school, butterflies popped up in her stomach. Now whether they flew down her mouth when she wasn’t looking or they hatched out of her cornflakes, she didn’t know. All she knew is that they flitte
d about her insides, brushing the walls of her tummy with their tickly, tickly wings.

  She was almost too afraid to go inside the school. Josh would be there.

  Perhaps it was better when he was ignoring her. At least, she’d know what to expect.

  He was at his locker, as he was every single morning at this time. Ellie froze in the hallway, staring at him, until he turned at looked at her.

  Rolling his eyes as if to say, “Oh, it’s you again,” he turned back to his locker.

  What? Was that it? It couldn’t be.

  Ellie had to do something. She strode on past and very politely said, “Good morning, Josh.”

  In mild surprise he paused. “Uh, morning,” he replied with a mildly puzzling look on his face before turning back to his locker.

  And that was that. She hastened on. No use standing there looking even more stupid.

  The butterflies in Ellie’s stomach turned to lead and sank to her intestines. Her spell had failed. Perhaps Marta was right, and she’d been reading Good Witch Glenda a little too much.

  Throughout the morning he spirits sank lower and lower until even the sight of the back of Josh’s head in Math couldn’t cheer her up. One square plus one negative constant equalled one frustrated square whose love was not requited despite her best efforts.

  Ellie sank her head down on her desk. She would not cry. She absolutely would not cry. Not in class, not in public.

  So busy was she in trying not to cry, that Ellie did not hear the suppressed giggles and shufflings of the rest of the class.

  “Mrowp?”

  Ellie startled upright as something landed on her desk. Before she could get her thoughts together, something warm, fuzzy and purring rubbed its face against hers, over and over.

  It was a black and white cat. And it loved her very much.

  “Hey!” Josh cried out. “That’s my cat!”

  All sense of discipline left the classroom. Mrs Keir, the math teacher, was none too pleased. “Joshua, what is your cat doing here?”

  “I don’t know,” Josh grabbed for the cat, but it wriggled out of his grasp, and back to Ellie. As it rubbed against her, she stroked its soft fur. “Hey, kitty,” she murmured. “What are...” Then she noticed the fur.

  It was the exact shade of light and dark as the two hairs she’d taken from Josh.

  The butterflies were back. This time, they were doing dive bomb raids on her heart.

  She’d cast her love spell using cat hair.

  Gathering the cat into her arms, she pressed her face into its soft fur. Oh, how could things go so wrong? Good news was the spell worked. Bad news was it was the wrong hair.

  “Joshua, if that is your cat, I suggest you remove it to the office until your mother can pick it up.”

  Ellie hastily stood. “Oh, don’t worry. I can do it.”

  “Ellie, I said--”

  With the cat pressed firmly to her chest, Ellie hurried out of the classroom.”

  “…Josh.” Mrs Keir sighed.

  ~*~

  Oh dear, oh dear,” Ellie muttered over and over. “What am I going to do with you?”

  The cat didn’t care. It stroked its face up and down her chin, kneading her chest with its sharp little claws and purring loudly.

  It wasn’t until she stood before her locker that she realised she didn’t know where she was going or what she was going to do. She couldn’t just abandon the cat outside, for it would find its way inside, and the school would just call the pound.

  No. Something had to be done about the cat until she could break the spell.

  Could the spell be broken? Oh no. What if it couldn’t? She never asked Aunt Luna if the spell could be undone or if a counterspell was required.

  This was not good.

  “What are you doing with my cat?” Josh stood behind her, hands on his hips. “What’s going on?”

  Ellie turned, dropping the affectionate cat. “I... I’m not sure.”

  “What are you doing with my cat?” he repeated. Josh stood to scoop up the cat, which had been rubbing figure-eights around Ellie’s ankles.

  “What are you doing with that cat?” asked a new voice.

  Ellie and Josh turned to find Mrs Betts, the assistant principal standing behind them. The butterflies of Ellie’s stomach turned to ice, to fall down and shatter into fragments against her intestines.

  “I would also like to know what the two of you are doing out of class. Perhaps you’d like to tell me in my office.”

  ~*~

  A... spell...” Mrs Betts repeated. Her elbow rested on her chair, her chin resting on her fist. One eyebrow furrowed deeply over one eye while the other raised itself in disbelief.

  Ellie nodded, sinking lower into the chair. Josh couldn’t keep a hold of the cat. It insisted on sitting in Ellie’s lap and he gave up on restraint. She stroked the purr-machine absently. “It was an accident. A couple of cat hairs got into a spell I was casting and caused this. I promise, I never meant to cast a spell on the cat. The cat has nothing to do with this.”

  Mrs Betts changed position by leaned on her desk and cupped her chin in her hand. The eyebrows never moved. Ellie hoped vainly that she was buying her story. After all, it was the truth. “And how did you get hair from Josh’s cat?”

  Ellie squirmed. “I must have picked it up yesterday. Josh had a bug in his hair, and I shooed it out.” That sounded lame. She glanced over at Josh and then looked away. Josh didn’t look at her once. All his attention was on Mrs Betts. He absolutely refused to look at Ellie.

  Things weren’t supposed to go like this.

  “A ‘spell’? I suggest you uncast it.”

  Ellie nodded. “Yes, Mrs Betts.”

  Mrs Betts turned to Josh. “And I think we’ll give your mom--”

  “Dad,” he corrected.

  “--dad a call and he can pick up the cat. The both of you will receive warnings on your records. If I see this cat in this school again, you both will receive detention.”

  “Yes, Mrs Betts,” they both chimed before rising.

  Suddenly, Ellie realised this could be her last chance. “I need more hair.” She turned to Josh. “Give me some of your hair, and then I’ll break the spell over the cat.”

  “No way!” Josh spat. Still, he backed up.

  He wasn’t fast enough. Dropping the cat on the floor, Ellie sprang at Josh. She grasped what she could of his short hair and gave it a good shake.

  “Eleanor Smith, stop that.” Mrs Betts chastised her.

  Ellie didn’t listen. She pulled at Josh’s hair while he protested loudly and swatted at her.

  Finally, she came away with a fistful of hair.

  “Ow!” he hissed. “Why’d you do that?”

  “Eleanor, sit down!”

  Ellie looked up, fists pressed tightly to her chest. Oh, please, she begged the powers of the universe, please to have let her have some hair. “Sorry. I’ve got some spellcrafting right now.” She worked the doorhandle with two clenched fists and shot out the door before anyone could stop her.

  ~*~

  The next day, when Ellie got out of detention for assault, invading personal body space, fibbing and disobeying an assistant principal, she found Josh waiting for her. That she had not expected.

  “Hi,” he said, nervously.

  Ellie expected the butterflies in her stomach, but there weren’t any. Instead, she felt a cold lump inside. She felt really bad about assaulting Josh like that. It was the only way she could get some hair. It wasn’t like he had a hairbrush or anything she could raid.

  “Hi.” Then all her words came out in a rush. It was like she had to. That, or throw up the lump of coal that had taken residence in her gut. Ellie didn’t like throwing up in front of people, especially in the rather full hallway.

  Definitely not in front of Josh. “Look. I’m terribly sorry about yesterday. I desperately needed your hair, and I knew if I asked you wouldn’t--”

  Josh held up his hand. “Ellie. Elli
e.”

  “But I couldn’t think of any way of getting it--”

  “Ellie! Stop.”

  Ellie stopped. She looked at Josh. His brow furrowed.

  “Oh, never mind!” She turned to flee down the hallway, but the crowd blocked her way.

  A hand descended to her shoulder, halting her. Josh turned her around to face him. “Look. I gotta talk to you.”

  What could he have to say to her that wouldn’t make everything worse?

  All this time, all these years, he’d ignored her or spurned her or threw away her notes unread, but she persevered. The cold lump of coal dissolved into a cold puddle, to envelop her heart and flow through her veins. It made her hands shake. How much heartache had she wasted on him? How much of her pride had she forsaken in her efforts to have him pay this much attention to her?

  Now that he wanted to speak to her, she didn’t want to hear it.

  With his hair, she’d cast one last spell. No love, or anything like that. She cast the first spell she’d ever learned from Good Witch Glenda’s column--the spell of Good Luck.

  Interesting spell, that one. One could not cast it for oneself. One could only cast it for the benefit of someone else. Until now, Ellie had never given a thought as for whom she could cast a Good Luck spell.

  She cast it for Josh as her way of saying goodbye. Let him go on and do well in algebra. Go on and maybe he’d find a girlfriend. Get into a good university. Marry that girlfriend and have many fat babies.

  As for Ellie? No more spells.

  “Ellie,” he said. “You’re weird.”

  Perhaps throwing up would be a good thing. She’d certainly feel better, and nothing could be more embarrassing than realising what a fool one has been for most of one’s teenage life.

  “You’re really weird,” Josh continued. “I don’t know if I can handle it. It scares me. You couldn’t be scarier if you dressed up like Freddy Kruger.” He started to run his fingers through his hair, but stopped when he winced in pain.

  Guilt spidered within Ellie. No doubt she’d bruised him in her grapplings. She took a shuffle back and looked around her for an easy way to run. Students pushed past them, their noise crackling through the air.

  “But ever since yesterday, I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  Really? Ellie abandoned her plans to dash and stared slack-jawed at Josh. “I thought I scared you,” she mocked.

  Josh fidgeted. “You do. But I can’t stop but wonder why you’d bother doing all this.” Couldn’t get any more honest than that.

  “Well, you don’t need to worry about that. I’m not going to bother you anymore. You’re more trouble than you’re worth.”

  He caught her arm. “Wait. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “How did you mean it?”

  Josh, still holding her arm let out a sigh of frustration. “I don’t know. Look. Ellie. I know this sounds strange, but realising that you’d do anything for me--even go to detention--is kind of flattering.” He sighed again. This seemed difficult. “All I’m saying is that I don’t know how to deal with this. Just...” he released her arm. The crowds of students in the hallway had thinned as they ducked into their classrooms. The bell would ring soon. “Just let me think about it. I need time.”

  “Time? Time?! I gave you plenty of time!” She fought the tears and won, for now.

  “No, no. That’s not what I meant.” He turned from her. “I just can’t handle--” He waved his arms in confusion. “Look, just gimmie some time.”

  Final straggling students dashed past them. The bell would ring soon. Ellie had an excuse for being late; Josh did not.

  She looked at him, standing alone in that hallway, fidgeting. Oh, how she had loved him, once. He’d filled her head with deliciousness and caused her heart to ache so much. She’d gone through embarrassment after embarrassment for him. The last act of her love for him had been to go to detention.

  Love, true love, could not die in a moment. She loved him still. And it still ached.

  “You really are afraid, aren’t you, Josh?”

  He drew in a breath and looked her in the eye. “Yes.”

  “Why? I’m just a girl.”

  A laugh broke out from him. “A girl is the scariest thing I can think of.”

  The tardy bell for next class rang. Instinctively, Ellie and Josh dashed down the hall.

  Ellie’s class was first. She paused in the doorway and called after him. “I do have a spell for courage, if you’re interested.”

  He paused, turning back to look at her. “Another spell?”

  Ellie smiled at him, one of her truly genuine smiles, one of the multitudes she’d been saving up for this moment, the moment when she had his full attention. “Give it some thought.”

  The End

  The Valentine Raffle

  Leo and his co-worker Katerina have fallen in love. Secretly, of course, for an office romance is illegal, and all marriages are strictly regulated. In a dystopian corporate future, where women outnumber men four to one, love is no longer a matter of personal choice.

  There’s only one exception: the Valentine Raffle. But to win at love, Leo and Katerina may need to cheat the system…