The Book of Magic Read online

  I stayed quiet. At first, I had thought “pica.” I’d known a girl in school who pulled the buttons off her coat and ate them. Paste eaters in kindergarten. People with pica eat all sorts of odd things. But a whole shoebox of plastic soldiers wasn’t pica. Nor was it an age regression. I’d never heard of this before, and I was pretty sure I had no idea on how to fight it. Or whether it needed fighting. So an old woman could eat toys and get young again. Who was she hurting?

  Farky got up and opened the cupboard under the sink to toss in the banana peel. His eyes wandered the kitchen, and he got a wistful expression on his face. He has a lot of history here, almost as much as I do. Afterschool snacks. Playing Magic cards or Clue on this table. First aid from my dad the time he got beat up really bad when he was fourteen and there was no one home at his house. I hardened my heart. It’s his own fault he’s not welcome here anymore. Don’t crap in your own nest. “Selma,” I reminded him.

  “Oh. Yeah.” He came back to the table and dropped into his chair. “So, like that. Twice a week. I’m supposed to be taking her to doctor visits and the pharmacy and Safeway. But it’s always garage sales. And it’s mostly toys. Always the same; she picks them up and holds them and then she buys them. And she eats them. And she can eat anything! A forty-five of ‘Rainbow Connection’ by Kermit the Frog. Cobra Ninja G.I. Joe doll. This little worn out Raggedy Ann doll; she tore it to pieces with her teeth and ate it, stuffing and all. And it’s pretty much that she’s an old lady when she gets in the car, and younger when she gets out.”

  “Selma,” I reminded him.

  “Yeah. Her. That was bad. She rents a little house over on Jay Street, you know?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I didn’t. We pulled up to a garage sale, and I didn’t recognize Selma at first. She had on this big hat and shorts and was sitting in her lawn chair. And you remember that binder of Magic cards she had? She always had the best deck, remember? Well, she was going through it, really slowly, and taking out the cards and putting them in piles on a folding table. Ms. Mego was busy digging in a basket of plastic ponies, so I walked over and said hi to Selma, and she said hi and we talked. She needed some cash and she was sorting out cards to sell on eBay. I guess you can get money for vintage Magic cards. She had some little D and D figurines on the table, all painted. And we’re talking, remembering games in this kitchen, and she even remembers the names of the little figurines and some dungeons we were in together. So we’re laughing and going, ‘do you remember,’ and Ms. Mego comes up and she bends over really close to look at the cards and figurines and then she says, ‘How much? How much?’ And I get this really, really bad feeling!”

  Farky did the dramatic pause. I wanted to hit him. I’d all but forgotten how he loves a stage. I glanced at the front of my store. Still no customers. “What happened?” I asked him quietly.

  “Well, Selma tried to say they weren’t for sale yet, that she was still sorting and hadn’t really decided if she wanted to part with some of them, but all Ms. Mego says is, ‘How much? How much?’ And she’s really being rude, leaning over the table, really close to Selma. And Selma finally gets mad and says, ‘Four hundred cash for all of it.’” He paused again. He waited. Then he said very softly, “And Ms. Mego opened her big black purse and started counting out first hundreds, then fifties, and twenties. Selma just watched, and I could see by her face she didn’t want to just sell that stuff, or maybe she was wishing she’d asked for a thousand. Ms. Mego set the money down in a messy pile, and then she started scooping up the cards and figurines like she couldn’t wait. She grabbed the binder, you remember that one Selma had, the one she made all those stickers for? She took that, too. She scuttled back to the car like she couldn’t wait, even opened the door herself. She crabbed back into her car, one arm clutching everything to her chest so she wouldn’t drop the little painted clerics and that barbarian warrior. You remember Selma’s warrior? Used to kick butt every time we played?” He stubbed his cigarette out.

  “I remember him,” I said, and I did.

  “So I stood there, and Selma was, like, sort of frozen. She looked at the money and said, ‘I really needed money. But not that bad, I think.’ And she was crying, a little. Not making sounds, just the tears. And over in the car, I can see Ms. Mego stuffing things in her mouth, and chewing. She was ripping the cards out of the card sheets, and I didn’t want Selma to see her eating them, so I tried to stand in the way. And I said something like, ‘I’m sad she took your cleric. I remember how cool she was. Her name was Selmia, wasn’t it?’ But Selma suddenly just picked up the money and looked at me like I might try to take it and said, ‘Kid stuff, Farky. I don’t even remember how to play. Now buzz off before you scare the real customers away.’ And she said it mean, and, well, she really meant it, Celtsie.

  “So I went back to the car and without even asking, I drove Ms. Mego home. And when I opened the door for her and she got out, she was, like, maybe in her twenties. And she’s rocking that black dress and stockings, and the old lady shoes look punk, the way she’s wearing them. And as she walks past me, she grabs my ass and says, ‘I know you like my legs, driver-boy. Want to see where they end?’ And that scared me so bad that I just about pissed myself.”

  He drew a ragged breath. “I been to get coffee from Selma twice since then. The first time, I said, ‘Hi Selma,’ and she looked at me like she was shocked I knew her name. And the second time, she gave it to me in a to-go cup and said, ‘The boss doesn’t like crackheads hanging out here.’ I thought she was making a bad joke, but she wasn’t. It’s like the Selma that knew me is just gone.”

  “And Ms. Mego?”

  “She was young for a while. And she had me driving her to the mall, and once I had to sit outside Jazz Bones and wait for, like, two hours, until she came back with some dude. And he thought it was just awesome that she had a driver, and I had to take them to his place, and spent half the night sitting out in the car.”

  I gave him a look.

  “I got to! One complaint from her and I’m doing jail time, Celtsie! But she’s getting old and powdery again. Only garage sale season is over, so I don’t know where she’ll get her food. And I think it’s really bad when she eats those old toys. Like she’s eating more than just toys, you know? And you’re the only person I know who might know how to fix it. Fix her.” He flung himself back in his chair. He took a pack of Camel filters from his shirt pocket and shook one out.

  “You got a whole pack of cigarettes out of the drawer!”

  He halted, cigarette and lighter poised. “Sorry. I didn’t think to imagine just one cigarette in there.”

  I squeezed my head between my hands. He’d depleted the junk drawer magic for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He lit the cigarette, drew in smoke, and blew it up toward my ceiling. “So. What do we do?”

  “I don’t know,” I said flatly.

  “But you’ll think of something? Soon?”

  “I’ll try. For now, get out. I get something, I’ll call you. You’d better have some minutes on that phone.”

  “I got no money!”

  “Fine.” I went to the cookie jar and tipped it. The emergency twenty was still taped to the bottom. That was a surprise. When I saw the cigarette, I’d just assumed he’d already taken it. I slapped it onto the table. “Go buy minutes. Right now. Drugstore is only three blocks from here. Buy minutes and don’t use them. They’re mine.”

  “But what if someone calls me or—”

  “Don’t answer. Out, Farky. I’m doing this for Selma, not you.”

  “That hurts, Celtsie. I’m going. I know I deserve it. But that hurts.”

  “I meant it to,” I told him coldly.

  I followed him out to the shop front and watched him leave. The rain had calmed. He wrapped his arms around himself and hurried away. I wanted to go see Selma right away, to be sure his tale wasn’t a bul
lshit one. But as life always does, or perhaps it was contrary magic, I suddenly had a stream of customers. A dachshund, two ferrets, an old gray cat, and a pair of sleek black cats were all occupying the boarding cages in my shop before I finally got a break. I hung up the “Back Soon” sign, locked the glass door, and pulled my grate down over it for good measure. Farky was pretty good at picking locks.

  I turned up the collar on my windbreaker and jogged the six blocks to Expensive Coffee. It was busy, and Selma was behind the counter, simultaneously taking orders and making coffees with the smooth expertise of years. The other barista reminded me of a maddened squirrel as he dashed about behind the counter, doing little more than getting in her way. Selma’s focus was on the customer in front of her. I took my place in line. I waited for her to notice me. She didn’t, even though her smile slid over me twice as she scanned the waiting queue for signs of impatience. Then it was my turn.

  “I’d like a grande iced sugar-free latte. With soy milk. And a plain bagel.”

  “Sure thing!” Her fingers danced over the register. “Anything else?”

  “Selma,” I said.

  She looked up at me. “Oh. Celtsie. Nice to see you. Anything else?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “That’ll be $7.85.”

  I reached into my pocket. “Damn! Left my wallet at the shop. Back soon.”

  “Okay. Next, please.”

  I walked away, feeling queasy. My old friend. Could she possibly not remember that soy milk makes me throw up, as in all over the front seat of her mom’s car when I was seventeen? And that I hate bagels? And did she not remember that artificial sweeteners give us both terrible headaches? Any one of those I might have slid past her on a busy day. But not all of them. Not unless some precious part of her had gone missing.

  I walked back to the shop, scanning the sidewalk as I went. I found a scarred penny in the gutter. And a little girl’s blue butterfly barrette, rather grubby. I unlocked and went in. All was as I’d left it. I went through to the kitchen, rubbing the scar on my neck as I went. Cold weather makes it pull sometimes. I opened the junk drawer and tossed in the barrette and the penny. I stirred it hopefully, not even sure of what I should ask it to produce. Sometimes it gives me hints. But only when it’s charged. I saw a ticket stub, a leftover piece of candle from my jack-o-lantern, a sparkly red slipper charm on a keychain, a ruler, a dried up orange marker, a marble darning egg, three hairpins…just the stuff the junk drawer seemed to produce for its own amusement. I shut it.

  The rest of the afternoon passed slowly. Cooper came down to sit beside the till. The dachshund barked at him until Cooper growled back. One of the black cats was crying pathetically. I passed out sardines to all and sundry, and that calmed the shop for a time. I wondered how you got rid of a toy-eater. And if she was only choosing the most precious toys, how did she know what they were? How had she become a toy-eater? Was she really dangerous to people, or had something else happened to Selma? Had anything happened to Selma, or were we just growing apart through the years? I should have asked Selma if she’d sold her cards. Farky was such a bullshitter. And a crackhead. And he’d burned up the charge I’d built up on the junk drawer for a cigarette. Toys. Precious things. Upstairs, in the top of my closet, in a cardboard box, were two ancient stuffed animals. Terry and Boomer. What would happen to me if the toy-eater ate them?

  I cheated on closing time by fifteen minutes. Once the grilles were down, I opened all the cages. “Crates,” people called them, as if dogs and cats and ferrets were things to be stored when not in use. Cooper was asleep beside my register. I nudged him awake. “Take them upstairs, Coop,” I told him, and he did. He dropped to the floor with a solid, twenty-eight-pound thud, looked at our tenants, and led them to the pet hatch in the door that went upstairs. I watched the ferrets go, lippity, lippity, after the cats, and the dachshund last of all. The dachshund high-centered for a moment on the pet hatch, teetered there, and then tipped in.

  I finished closing up, scooped some litter, refreshed water bowls, and then followed them. I climbed the stairs slowly. The old runner was threadbare in the middle, but the edges of it were still rich red. I went past the locked door on the second floor that led to what I thought of as my legacy rooms. Behind that door, a Wurlitzer jukebox crouched in one corner, gleaming and waiting for a quarter. There were two moose heads, mounted as if battling each other, and some Kipling first editions. Ancient toys, and prized LPs, and a hundred other marvelous things that perhaps no one would ever value as highly as they had. Precious things. A feast for a toy-eater? Maybe.

  I climbed the next flight of stairs and pushed the door to my apartment open. It’s a big apartment. Three bedrooms, a kitchen, a bath with a good-size tub, and a library. I don’t know why anyone has a living room when they could have a library instead. There’s a beat-up squashy couch in the library, and two overstuffed chairs, frayed where Cooper and other cats have cleaned their claws on them. There’s an old nineteen-inch Sylvania television set in a console. There’s a turntable in the compartment next to it. It all works. Why replace stuff that works? I put some of last night’s chicken chow mein in the microwave to reheat and shook some crispy noodles onto a plate. Then I went into my bedroom and opened the closet.

  In a big shoebox from some winter boots were Terry and Boomer. I took them out and looked at them. Terry had been a stuffed toy terrier. Now he was a rather lumpy bag of stuffing. Only the felt backing for his button eyes remained. The stiffener for his ears had long since given up its stiffness. Boomer had stripes. That was about the only clue that he had been a tiger. He had two stiff whiskers left, and his tail was limp. Yet I found myself handling their battered fabric bodies as if they were old and beloved pets. I settled them again in their shoebox and layered the tissue paper over them. “Good night,” I told them, as I always had when they’d been on my childhood bed. The same single bed I sat on now. Their bodies had absorbed my junior high tears over boys who passed me by, and my high school tears over failed tests. They’d gone off to college with me and adorned my dormitory bed. And come home again when I returned to Tacoma.

  I put the lid on the box. Why didn’t I throw them away? What were they, really, beyond some threadbare fabric sewn around cheap stuffing? The answer seemed both silly and simple. They were Terry and Boomer. My friends. Imbued with the life of a thousand play-pretend games. My friends when it seemed no one else cared.

  I tried to imagine Ms. Mego eating them. Eating my hugs after nightmares, tears after Steve broke up with me on the school bus in front of everyone. Teeth ripping frayed fabric, chewing old stuffing.

  Okay. I had to stop the toy-eater. How?

  It seemed obvious. She fed on beloved toys and grew younger. What if she ate something that had been hated?

  Did anyone keep a toy they hated?

  I thought of toys I’d hated. Scary ones. A chimp doll the size of a two-year-old, with rubbery hands that felt like he was holding on to me. A fashion model doll with slutty eyes and the flat mouth of an axe murderer. Oh. That clown doll with the big mouth with red lips and flat black eyes. What had become of them? Two donated to Goodwill. One I ditched at a bus stop.

  The bad part of running a business is that people expect you to be there during business hours. Especially if they want to pick up their pet. I sat in my shop the next day, calling secondhand stores, asking if they had chimp or clown dolls in stock. I spent a lot of time on hold. Then I started on the quasi antiques stores and the “collector’s stores.” No chimps or clowns, but two offered to show me “vintage” dolls. And they were both open after my regular closing hour.

  Both were outside the Wedge, the section of Tacoma I live in. No bus service from the Wedge to where they are. I have an old Celebrity station wagon for the rare occasions when I need wheels. I’ve customized it to my needs over the years. Like my TV, it does everything I need it to do, and I see
no point in replacing it. It got me to Marcella’s Vintage. Her dolls were immaculately dressed, in boxes and completely unremarkable. At Raymond’s Old Toys, I had better luck. I walked into a cluttered shop that smelled vaguely like cheap cigars and Pledge furniture wax. The clerk, who was possibly Raymond, waved me toward some glass cases in the back and went back to reading an old issue of Tiger Beat.

  Pay dirt! There were three glass cases, containing appalling dolls. Most were in mediocre condition. A Barbie sneered at me, her model’s mouth flat. A Cabbage Patch doll slouched in coveralls. There was a brightly painted marionette of a Mexican bandit with bandoliers on his chest and thick six-guns in each hand and a maniacal look on his face. But none of those were the one that gave me the chill.

  There was a baby doll, eyes an improbable staring blue. Mouth ajar, two tiny teeth showing. Chubby hands open and reaching. It was dressed in a pale pink garment that reminded me of a hospital gown. It looked like a little succubus. It had the sort of scuffs on its face and pink plastic hands that told me it had been stuffed into a toy box under the Tonka trucks and plastic McDonald’s Happy Meal horrors. Yes, horrors. Has anyone ever wanted a plastic Hamburglar to play with?

  I pried the owner free of his cigarette and coffee to unlock the case and departed the store with the succubus in a brown paper sack. I phoned Farky before I started the car. “I think I’ve got what you need. Come get it.” I didn’t give him time to ask any questions.

  When he arrived at my shop, I unlocked the glass door and slid the grille up and let him in. He came in shaking off rain and then clasping his hands in front of him to still a shaking that had nothing to do with weather.

  “Where’s your coat?” I asked him.