off Ms. Parkly at her apartment near the mill, Ridley asked her mother if she could come to town with her.
“Well… all right… but we can’t dawdle.… I’ve got to get back to work.… The words were flowing so well this morning before I had to come get you at the station.… I’ve really got to—goodness, watch where you’re going!” she shrieked as another car inched a bit too close to theirs.
“We’re barely moving, Mom,” Ridley said grumpily. What she didn’t share was that she’d already made plans for that afternoon in the village and wouldn’t be returning home with her mother.
It had been over a week since the Magic Misfits had seen one another, and that hadn’t even been an official meeting. They’d gathered in the back room of the Tip Top Bowling Arcade to play spades, which was only slightly fun, because Carter made the cards disappear one by one, and everyone besides Ridley kept laughing, which of course made Ridley so cross she snapped and then forced herself to apologize.
Ridley felt like she’d been doing a lot of that lately. Snapping. Apologizing. She’d watched her mother and father relate to each other this way ever since she could remember. She wondered sometimes if it was why her father spent so much time on the road.
“Ridley?”
Ridley jolted. “Huh?”
Mrs. Larsen pulled the car into a space on the street. “You’re not listening to me.”
“Yes, I am. I just…” Ridley felt her cheeks warm. “Say it again?”
Mrs. Larsen let out a huff. “I wanted to know if you were going to… not that I’m necessarily advocating that you do.… Oh dear, we really do need to hurry.… What was I just saying? Oh, I was asking if you were going to rebuild your project. The one that got broken today.”
Ridley almost thought she sensed a hidden meaning in her mother’s question. Something like: Are you okay?
Why couldn’t anyone in this family just say what they meant, Ridley wondered, instead of hiding it underneath layers of riddles and disguise?
“I think so… but now that the inventors’ fair is over, I don’t really see the point.”
“I suppose I have to agree with you,” Mrs. Larsen replied. “All right. Let’s go, then.”
In the village, Ridley trailed her mother, who walked in the direct center of the sidewalk. Ridley was sure she was in too much of a hurry to realize she was taking up the entire space. Ridley’s chair rolled over fallen leaves, red and yellow, though most of the trees lining the street were still green.
Tourists were out in full force. Visitors loved coming to the picturesque town on weekends this time of year—photographing the foliage, hiking the hills, picking apples and pumpkins and gourds at local farms. This was the last hurrah before the coming winter. Ridley didn’t like the chillier seasons. It was difficult to navigate slush after snowfall, and often the brisk air left her with a prickly discomfort deep in her muscles. She would bring it up to her father when he came home again; maybe there was a modification they could make to the tires of her chair so they wouldn’t slide on ice. Deeper treads maybe? Or a grittier rubber? Or maybe electric heaters attached to the bottoms of the footrests.
Mrs. Larsen opened the door to the cheese shop, and Ridley followed her inside. It was a skinny space, and it was crowded. Mrs. Larsen let out a moan when she saw the number of people waiting to be helped.
Ridley moved to the back of the shop and amused herself by rearranging the shelves of preserves and honey beside her. One woman approached a canister of mashed figs and reached to pick it up, but when she held it in her hands the canister appeared to turn into a fig-shaped rock. The woman let out a surprised “Wha—?” as Ridley turned away, laughing to herself. Ridley knew Mr. Vernon said that doing magic was supposed to make people smile, but sometimes watching them jump in surprise was just as satisfying.
And speaking of jumping in surprise, Ridley felt her chest clench as she heard a raised voice come from the front of the store, near the register. Peering across the space, Ridley saw her mother arguing with the cheesemonger (which, in case you were about to giggle, is the actual title of someone who sells cheese).
Mrs. Larsen shouted, “Wouldn’t you think it a courtesy to phone your customer if they were expecting a delivery that had not