Trouble in Taco Town Read online

  “Hey!” I yanked the bottle out of reach and pointed. “What’s that?”

  He shook his head and released the sigh he’d been trying so hard to hold back, grumbling in Russian, then plucked the Crafting from his sleeve. Another Rufus Clahd special—a lopsided circular orangey-red blob that could be anything from a deflating basketball to a distorted sunset…to a freakishly overripe tomato. Scribed over it was the word Fecund.

  I called up the definition and read, “Fruitful, productive, flourishing.”

  “Why would he not use a common word?” Yuri asked.

  “And why limit himself to a single word at all?” Whatever had prompted Uncle Fonzo to adopt this new aesthetic, it obviously hadn’t done him any favors.

  “Can you Uncraft them?”

  Parsimonious made my eyes cross, and I was still worried that Revivify might end up making our brains look a little too tasty. But maybe I could do something with Fecund. I held up the Crafting and squinted. Daylight was the best light for studying Spellcraft. Some folks say the devil is in the details. I’m not convinced there is such a thing as Satan, but I do know that the details are what holds the Spellcraft mojo—and the broad, pure spectrum of sunlight brought out the most detail.

  The familiar paper was quite heavy. When I held it up, it only let the slightest bit of light through. But that bit was enough for me to see the single word was poorly inked. The margins of the stroke were rough, with a wispy gap in the center. Not only that, but faint spatters marred the Crafting where a ragged quill had caught the paper surface. And with the quality of the stock my family used, that hardly ever happened.

  It looked as if the strokes had been made with a poorly-trimmed quill. Strange. Unlike regular feather pens, Spellcraft quills don’t wear down. And yet, this had to be a magical quill. Otherwise, the Scrivening wouldn’t work.

  Although the strokes were janky, since there was only the single word on the page, at least the lettering was large and well-spaced. For Uncrafting, the space in which to slide additional letters, to re-harness the Spellcraft and change its trajectory, was what mattered the most. Not the look of the calligraphy.

  I cleared my mind and focused on the orangey blob—Yuri’s painting was so much more inspiring—and thought about Vanessa and her greenhouses. Obviously, I still wanted her plants to be fruitful. But not to the point where they’d explode on impact.

  Could I squeeze another letter into the current Crafting? I thought so.

  I visualized the words re-tooled as PerFECt, UNDamaged Tomatoes, and excitement coiled in my belly as the Spellcraft began to flow. My heartbeat quickened and my fingertips tingled.

  I could fit those letters in.

  I could make it work.

  Yes—I could reshape the Spellcraft.

  I just knew it.

  The anticipation of the feel of inking the letterforms was palpable in my hand as I unstoppered my ink and dipped my handsome white quill. I saw how to slant the letter t that would break the two words just so, to make the calligraphy appear almost natural. I imagined the flourish I’d add to the final sweep of my pen. I squirmed, just a little, at the thought of Uncrafting something Scribed not only by a family member, but by Uncle Fonzo—the strongest of us all.

  With a deep breath, I steeled myself, imagined my Scrivening one more time to fix words and letters in my mind, then set quill to paper and inked the stem of the letter P.

  But by the time I finished, lifted the nib, and set it down again to add the bowl of the letter, the stem contracted into a dozen small beads of ink. They scattered like a spill of black pepper in the midst of a powerful sneeze.

  Anyone who’s written their name on Easter eggs with a white crayon before dyeing them is familiar with the concept of resist. The wax is invisible until the egg meets its dye bath, and the color shrinks away from the crayon marks. (A great many years ago, I may or may not have written “poo face” on Sabina’s egg. After my caption appeared beneath her name, she threw it at me and splattered half the kitchen purple.) But when I ran my thumb along the paper, it didn’t feel any different from our normal stock. Smooth, yes, from the quality finish. But still absorbent.

  I tried to draw the P again. And again the ink beaded up and scattered.

  Yuri pulled a pair of glasses out of the glovebox, perched them on his nose, held out a hand and said, “Show me.”

  I handed over the Crafting and he held it up for scrutiny. Whereas I’d looked at it face-on, analyzing the character of the ink, he held it sideways as if he could see the Spellcraft wafting off it. He studied it a good long while, then set it carefully on the dashboard and told me, “It doesn’t look right. Don’t touch it—don’t touch any of them.”

  “We can’t just ignore the Crafting. Maybe the town could survive without snow globes, and no doubt they could import their tomatoes. But if the Big Taco falls apart…that’s it. A member of my family made this mistake, Yuri, so it’s my responsibility to set it right.”

  “You can’t layer a good Crafting over a bad one. You might as well perfume a turd.”

  “If only we knew what to do.” I looked at Yuri pointedly.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Obviously, it’s too risky to tinker with anything that’s been touched by the funky Crafting. But if there’s anything we know for sure wasn’t in town when the Spellcraft was put in place, it’s us.”

  11

  YURI

  I had never worked with a Scrivener willing to Craft anything for me as a gift—and I’d certainly never paid for Crafting to be made on my behalf. I wanted to feel leery of the idea, and frankly, I realized, I didn’t much trust Scriveners in general…but this was Dixon. And he was bursting with sincerity.

  We stashed Fonzo’s tainted Spellcraft in the truck bed to keep it as far away from us as possible. I was already worried the Crafting we’d done to reveal the nasty little things would make them stick to us for the rest of our lives. And yet, the moment Dixon suggested we Craft yet another piece, the urge to paint began welling up inside. It felt like hunger. Or, more accurately, it felt like the food must feel when it’s about to be eaten. A queasy excitement mingled with dread. All bound together in a net of inevitability.

  My eyes were open, but only dimly did I see. My attention was focused instead on the landscape of my mind—and even that was more instinctive than deliberate. Dixon tipped water into a bottle cap, then held it for me. I dipped my brush. I became the brush, and the water drawing up into the fibers was like a balm creeping through my veins. If this was how drugs felt, I understood how addicts were made.

  The brush was not moving of its own accord, but it was certainly some primal part of me that moved it, with only enough conscious control to hold on. When I daubed the wetness into the pigment, my brush swept through multiple pans of color. Sometimes this left an ombre of varying hues, and sometimes the paints mingled in the brush to become muted and neutral. When I touched brush to paper this time, it was a bit of each. Rounded, cottony forms where the paint mingled toward gray, and a hint of a prismatic arch in the sweep of the stroke.

  I turned up the defroster and held the wet painting to the air, then slid it across the dash to Dixon, who dumped the last few drops of water from the bottle cap out the window, then turned his full attention to the Seen.

  I held the inkwell as he’d held the water, and when he dipped his quill, his gaze turned inward. Did we search for our Spellcraft in the same place, I wondered—some mystical bit of nowhere in which the volshebstvo lived? Or were we opposites, drawing from two distinct sources of energy that only rarely combined?

  Even written on the dashboard, Dixon’s handwriting was hypnotic and elegant. With room enough to write as he pleased, without needing to fit letters within and around another Scrivener’s lettering, he began with a flourish so graceful it made my breath catch. And then the rest of the Scrivening flowed from his pen.

  A silver lining, every cloud

  Inspiration has endowed
r />   After the Crafting was penned—after volshebstvo lit across the back of my neck like a playful breath—Dixon scanned the words as if he had no memory of writing them. “I, ah…didn’t mean to be quite so literal. Or so cliche.” He blushed. “But, look. It’s a cloud with a cute little rainbow. See?” He shielded his eyes and peered through the window. “You don’t suppose it will change the weather, do you?”

  “Is that what you meant for it to do?”

  “That would be awesome! But no. I’m sure those clouds are entirely too far away—we’d have to send it up on a rocket launcher to make anything happen so high in the sky. I was just thinking that in any given situation, there’s always an action that’ll lead to the best outcome, even when it looks like every possible option is a bad one. Trying to change Spellcraft that clearly doesn’t want to be altered might only make things worse. But you and I could be inspired to make the best of a bad situation, regardless of what else was going on. So I focused on us instead.”

  He tucked the Crafting onto the passenger visor with an embarrassed little laugh. “Old habit—I never carry Spellcraft on my person.”

  “Bad luck?”

  “No—in case I get arrested.” As if the truck would not be searched as well. “So, what now? We’ve got a bunch of funky Craftings that won’t let us change them. Quick, don’t think too hard—what’s the best course of action?”

  “Get rid of them.”

  “Mom always says that destroying an active Crafting is like trying to wash blood out of your clothes in hot water. All it does is set the stain.”

  That, I definitely could hear Florica Penn saying. “If they can’t be destroyed, then we take them somewhere far away from here and let the town recover.”

  Dixon brightened. “Whaddaya know? Being in the middle of nowhere can actually work to our advantage. We make a final sweep to be sure we have everything, then drive the Craftings halfway to Grimford and bury them under a rock. That should keep the influence of the Spellcraft to a minimum while the magic eventually dissipates. We’ll just need to make sure it’s not a dairy farm. I’d hate to make anyone’s cows explode.” He leaned across the seat, nuzzled my cheek, and said, “Who knows…maybe the motel in Grimford has a jacuzzi tub, too.” He quelled his perpetual smile only long enough to brush a kiss across my lips.

  I found myself unexpectedly optimistic about the trip. A pleasant drive with pleasant company, a good supper and a warm bed at the end of the day—one I would not fall into alone. What more could we really want?

  I pulled away from the Big Taco and headed down Salsa Lane, wondering if we’d need to buy a shovel, or if the hunting knife in my toolbox would suffice. We were almost to the foot of the hill when a figure in khaki stepped into the road, waving her hands. I pulled to the gravel shoulder and unrolled the window.

  It was the woman we’d met last night in the motel lobby—and she was too winded to speak. As she caught her breath, Dixon greeted her with, “If it isn’t Buggin’!” And, “Was your bathtub everything it was cracked up to be?” And, “Where’s your adorable orange Bug?”

  “I’m Genevieve—Buggin’s my car.” She planted her hands on her knees and drank in a few more deep breaths, then said, “And she’s not starting, poor baby. I turn the key, and nothing! Hopefully the garage can figure it out. But in the meantime, I need to get to the top of the hill. Give me a lift?”

  If Dixon were not in the truck, would I have done so? Who knows. It was unlikely I would have stopped for the woman at all. But Dixon was there, and naturally, he shoved open his door and said, “No problem. Hop in!”

  Once introductions were made and Genevieve was situated, with Dixon in the middle snuggling happily against me, I pulled a U-turn and headed back up the hill.

  “I’m sure you’re excited to see the Big Taco up close,” Dixon told her, “but be sure not to judge it too harshly. It’s been through some tough times lately.”

  Genevieve seemed excited to talk about the Taco—but whatever her reply might have been, it was drowned out by a thunderous bang. Instinctively, I ducked to avoid oncoming bullets, but soon registered that the sound had come from underneath the rear of the truck.

  Apparently, tomatoes and cows were not the only things in danger of exploding.

  Dixon craned his neck to look behind us and said, “Quick, Yuri, turn around. The muffler’s getting away!”

  Normally, I’d leave the exhaust system where it landed and drop off our passenger. After all, we were the only ones around. But since we were on a hill, not only was the muffler rolling…it was picking up speed. I spun the steering wheel. With a noise like a jet pulling out of a hangar, the truck swung around yet again, only for us to see the muffler pitch toward the foot of the hill, bounce twice, then somersault around the nearest turn.

  “Wow!” Dixon said. “Look at that muffler go.”

  We roared down the hill in pursuit. I turned the corner. Late night traffic was just as sparse as any in Taco Town, but a few curious bystanders had paused in front of the diner to puzzle over the automobile part rolling down the street with the very loud truck right behind it. The ground was level now, but somehow, the muffler kept right on going. It rolled through Taco Town’s single stoplight—which, of course, turned red before we could make it through. Small town police being what they were, I didn’t dare floor it. Especially with a piece of Spellcraft in the truck.

  But Taco Town being the size it was, there just weren’t that many places for the muffler to go. And given that it had traveled so much farther than any normal object might, we could only presume it was Spellcraft at work.

  That muffler wanted to be followed.

  It curved gracefully around one more corner, and when I pulled up behind it, I realized we’d been there before: the You-Make-Um factory. And the muffler rolled to a stop right at the foot of the wooden Indian. Stunned, baffled, bemused, the three of us climbed out of the cab and assessed the truck. “You should really get that looked at,” Genevieve said. “But not until Buggin’ is fixed. There’s only one mechanic in town.”

  Dixon rounded the back of the truck. The duct tape hung in long streamers. Where they dragged behind, they’d picked up a few empty cans along the way—despite the fact that there’d been no trash in the road. “It looks like someone’s getting married,” Dixon chortled. “Do they do that in Russia?”

  I was beginning to suspect he didn’t actually want answers when he asked me these things. I ignored the question and peered through the factory window instead where, despite how late it was, a light still shone.

  When Dixon pressed his face to the glass beside me, the shouting began.

  “Hello? Who’s out there? Help!”

  We let ourselves in and made our way to the Globe-o-Matic snow globe maker…only to find Wendall dangling by the collar of his shirt from an articulating arm at the top of the machine. His toes hovered inches off the ground, and his arms were hitched up at an awkward angle on either side of his head.

  “Help me,” he cried. “I can’t feel my arms.”

  A taller man would not have been lifted off the ground. And a slimmer man would not have been caught around the belly by the hem and slid right out. But Spellcraft was involved—and I was not the least bit surprised. While Dixon took stock of the situation, clearly wondering if it was best to unbutton Wendall’s shirt top to bottom or bottom to top, I walked over and simply lifted him off the hook.

  “Have you seen my son?” he asked as he flapped his arms, hoping to regain sensation. “Hooray for hands-free dialing, right? But I’ve been calling and texting him all afternoon, and no answer. What a relief you guys came along. Who knows how long I would’ve been trapped.”

  “Talk about getting hung up!” Dixon said. “What happened?”

  “I was trying to fix the Globe-O-Matic by figuring out which calibrations the traveling mechanic changed. But I got too close to the robotic arm and it snagged me by the collar. I knew better, darn it. I’m usually more careful. This
hasn’t happened in nearly a month!”

  While Dixon suggested Wendall install a workplace sign—X Number of Days Without Being Strung Up by the Machine—Genevieve was looking more closely at the contraption. I came up beside her and followed her gaze. “What is it?” I asked.

  “See these dials?” She ran her finger along the control panel. “If you look very close, you can tell where they used to be set. The off-gassing in the atmosphere tarnished this plate just a little, and now there’s a tiny notch where the knob used to cover the metal.”

  It was faint, but when I looked very closely, I did see it. The previous settings were there, you just needed to really look. Wendall was thrilled. He dug up a very bright flashlight and magnifying glass to restore the settings to their prior positions as precisely as possible. Dixon found the whole procedure fascinating—then again, he was easily entertained.

  “The proof is in the pudding,” Wendall said.

  Dixon rubbed his hands together expectantly. “I love pudding!”

  “Ahem. Let’s see what magic we can make.” Wendall flicked on the power and pulled the giant lever. The Globe-O-Matic powered up with a cacophony of whirs, buzzes and crackles. And as the scent of melting plastic filled the air, the machine lumbered into action.

  Just moments later, a snow globe rolled through the curtains and hobbled off the end of the conveyor belt. But there was no box of packing foam to collect it. We all turned toward the globe—I thought Dixon would dive across the machine to catch it and adjusted my trajectory to catch him instead before the Globe-O-Matic minced him into glitter. I snagged him by the belt loop before he dove within range of any indiscriminating robotic arms. Besides, Genevieve was closer—and thankfully, she was quick on her feet. She snatched the globe just before it hit the concrete floor…and then she shook it and held it up to the light.

  Even from where I stood, it was plain that the figure in the globe was decidedly vaginal.

  “Don’t worry,” Wendall called out over the noise of the machine. “That one was leftover from before. It’s the next globe we want to check.”