Midwest Magic Chronicles Box Set Read online

  “Cute,” Maria said. Also inside the card was a gift certificate to Sephora. “You know I don’t wear makeup. I’m a natural beauty.” She winked at Claire.

  Claire laughed. “It’s the thought that counts.”

  “No, I think it has something to do with the employee discount.”

  “Could be.”

  “Oh well, at least it’s a normal gift. I don’t think I could take another music box that belts out gibberish,” Maria said. She leaned over and hugged Claire as Claire parked the Kia into the employee-only section of Rolling Hill’s parking lot.

  “Geesh, if I knew you were gonna get all sappy on me, I wouldn’t have bothered.”

  “You’re so sweet, Claire,” Maria said. She got out of the car and into the baking heat of another Ohio summer morning. “Let’s go. Time to kick today’s ass.”

  Maria had forgotten she was to work with Ted today. Ted was the manager of the Popcorn Palace, and the mall’s very own dictator. He was in his forties, with a stomach that hung over his waistband. His face always seemed sweaty. A few of the security guards—Joe included—called him Little Hitler behind his back.

  He was an unpleasant man, and Maria hated working with him—especially in the morning.

  This morning, the hours were slow. Maria and Ted found themselves standing around, forcing awkward small talk. Around noon, the lunch crowd came in, and business, for lack of a better term, popped. Too much, in fact.

  They made the previous year’s total sales for that day in a mere hour and a half. The back of Maria’s neck was sweaty, and her feet hurt like crazy.

  Ted barked orders at her. She filled them.

  An old woman with a flowery purse as big as her torso came up and ordered a medium caramel popcorn. "All right, ma'am," Maria said, "that'll be six dollars, please – " But Ted brushed past Maria, rushing to take the lady’s money. The woman gave him a ten dollar bill with a shaking, arthritic hand.

  Maria watched him closely.

  “All right, thank you, ma’am,” Ted said after the woman paid. The line at the Popcorn Palace had thinned. The lunch rush was over. Maria stood by the register and held out her hand for the money. She sometimes rang the orders out while Ted, or whomever she was working with, filled the bags of popcorn. It was easier that way. Except, Ted didn’t hand her the money. He went to the cash register and rang it out himself.

  The lady stood at the counter, looking on in confusion. Maria felt bad for her. Suddenly, she never wanted to get old, never wanted to have to sing songs in made-up languages, or limp around the mall with arthritis-riddled knees.

  “You’re all set, ma’am. Have a nice day!” Ted said, punching the order into the touch screen register.

  “Thank you,” the old lady replied somewhat hesitantly. She turned and waddled away with her popcorn sticking out of her purse.

  Maria scowled. “Uh, Ted?”

  “What?”

  “You totally ripped that old lady off.”

  “What?” He sounded surprised.

  “She gave you ten bucks and she only got a medium.”

  Ted looked down at the bill, then up at Maria. He knew he’d been caught. The only way to get out of the situation was to lie about it.

  “Oh, my mistake. Thought she gave me—”

  “What, a six-dollar bill? They don’t make those, Ted. You know that, and I know that.” She leaned over Ted, bumping him out of the way, and took four singles from the register. A medium bag of caramel corn was six bucks. “For all you know, that old woman could be on a budget, and you just took her bus fare and pocketed it.”

  “Don’t lecture me, Maria. It was an honest mistake.”

  “Yeah, and pigs fly.”

  She closed the register and gave Ted her best evil eye. It felt good to stand up to her boss, even though the possibility of losing her job was in the back of her mind. She left the kiosk and followed the old lady. Luckily she hadn’t gotten very far—only to the water fountain in the middle of the mall, between a JCPenney and the entrance to the food court.

  “Excuse me, ma’am?” Maria ventured when she got close.

  The old lady turned around. She smiled once she recognized Maria’s uniform.

  “You forgot your change,” Maria said. “Four dollars.” She handed it to the woman, who looked grateful.

  “I thought I was due change, but that man…he just seemed so mean.”

  “Between you and me, he is.” Maria gave her a wink.

  “Here, young lady,” the old woman said. “For being honest.” She gave Maria two dollars. “It’s not much, but it’s something.”

  “No, I can’t accept that. Doing the right thing is just how I was raised.”

  “Then you were raised very well, indeed.”

  Maria pictured her grandpa and grinned. “Yes, yes, I was.”

  “Well, thank you, dear. I’ll make sure to come back and get some popcorn when Pete and I finish this bag. Tonight’s movie night!” There was honest excitement on her face.

  “Enjoy it. I’ll see you next time,” Maria said.

  When she got back to the kiosk, Ted was frowning, and his arms were crossed over his flabby chest.

  “You better watch yourself, Apple. I can fire you, you know.”

  Maria nodded.

  “Let that be a warning. For now, you’re on popping duty.”

  “Ugh, c’mon, it’s my birthday!”

  Ted shook his head. “You reached into the register without permission. You’re really lucky I don’t report you to corporate for theft.”

  “Theft? You gotta be kidding me! You were the one—” Maria caught herself. An odd prickling feeling raced up her arms, causing her chest to burn with fire. She took a deep breath, steadying herself.

  Then she turned around and went down the few steps that led to the Popcorn Palace’s bottom floor, where the magic happened. If she kept running her mouth, she had no doubt Ted would fire her. Getting fired was never a good thing, but getting fired on your birthday was damn near embarrassing.

  The workers of the Popcorn Palace called the bottom room, which doubled as a stock room and kitchen, ‘the Last Level of Hell,’ because once the kettle got cooking, the temperatures sweltered. Maria was already sweating.

  “So hot,” she huffed to herself, wiping her forehead. “And screw you, Ted. Trying to rip off an old woman. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  How people could do such terrible things was beyond Maria. She wondered how Ted was able to fall asleep at night. Probably hanging upside down—or maybe in a coffin, the fucking bloodsucker, she thought.

  The booming business rush had left the store low on buttery popcorn, the regular movie theater kind. Working the kettle meant she’d smell like hot butter and oil for the rest of the night. The odor would get trapped in her hair and be near impossible to get out, unless she shampooed and conditioned at least two times. Maria had plans after work; she really didn’t want to smell like a movie theater’s dumpster while she was playing putt-putt with her friends.

  “Beats being up there with Ted,” she murmured. “But I wonder how many senior citizens he’s ripped off since I’ve been gone. That poor woman.”

  Maria turned the kettle on. It would take about five minutes for it to warm up, and for the kernels to start popping. She laughed as she read the name of the kettle. ‘Cornelius, the Cornado.’ Clever, very clever, and it never gets old.

  She hit the button for the oil release. It squirted into the bowl at about a hundred miles per hour, sizzling as it hit the heating metal. Then Maria scooped a cup full of kernels out of the bin, salted it with two scoops of bright orange popcorn salt, and dumped it in the bowl. She hit the button for the motor, which would spin the kernels in a gritty, oily mess until it was time to pop-pop-pop. But the motor jerked and made a hair-raising whine.

  “No, not again,” Maria groaned. She opened the lid and peered in. Dried oil caked the spindles inside. The same thing happened last week. She couldn’t fix it herse
lf; instead, she’d had to call Ted and have him go in and try to fix it, which was unsuccessful. The idea of calling her boss down here now brought a bad taste to her mouth.

  “No, I can do it myself. I don’t need that rat bastard.”

  She flicked the ‘On/Off’ button back and forth. Nothing.

  “Ugh.”

  She leaned the kettle forward far enough that she could see the underside, but not so far that she had to worry about spilling the kernels and oil. The motor underneath was caked with grease. She wiped some of it away with a rag, leaned the kettle back down, and hit the motor again.

  Nothing.

  “Damn it all to hell. You gotta be kidding me.”

  Anger came over her. She felt her cheeks getting hot and her eyeballs were pulsing.

  “Don’t do this to me. Don’t make me have to call that asshole down here,” she begged the kettle.

  It hadn’t even started to get warm yet.

  “Not the fucking heater, too!” She let the kettle drop and studied it in all its stainless steel glory. “God, could this day get any worse?”

  Another weird feeling passed over her; her arms tingled, her hair stood on end. She jammed her eyes closed. The room began to spin, like the motor would not.

  “Oh, I don’t feel so good. Maybe Gramps was right.” She swooned and stumbled forward, putting her hands out in front of her to steady herself.

  They landed on the cold metal of the kettle, and an explosion of colors lit up the room. Deep greens and oranges. The room’s temperature dropped. Maria’s muscles quivered and tightened.

  “Oh, what the fu—” she began; she never got to finish the sentence, because the kettle exploded in a rain of popcorn, knocking Maria on her ass.

  The air smelled of hot butter and salt.

  “Oh, crap!” she shouted, and shielded her face as popcorn came down all over the room. “Stupid kettle!”

  It seemed never-ending. The popcorn should’ve fallen into the catch tray as it rolled out of the kettle like a slow moving wave of deliciousness; instead, she was hit by a blasting volcano of kernels.

  Maria tried to pull herself up, but she slipped in the oil, landing on her side with an, ‘Oomph’.

  “God, can this day get any worse!?”

  Suddenly she heard footsteps coming down the steps, and soft cursing.

  “Yeah, I guess it can,” Maria sighed. She managed to pull herself up using the sink to the right of the kettle, while her feet were sliding out from under her.

  “What in the hell is going on down here?” Ted boomed.

  “Kettle’s on the fritz.”

  “What did you do? Damn it, Maria, you act more like a kid who needs to be babysat than a full-grown adult. I didn’t hire you because I wanted to act like your damn mother.”

  That struck Maria the wrong way. Not only because she’d never known her mother, but because nobody talked to Maria like that and got away with it. Nobody.

  She stood up tall, squaring her shoulders to Ted’s own slumped ones. Her fingers worked at the apron knot tied behind her back. Once it came undone, she whipped it off. “You know what? I don’t need you to belittle me, man. I’m going home.”

  “What? You don’t get to go home until your shift is over.” Ted checked his wristwatch dramatically. It made Maria chuckle. “You still have another hour.”

  “Well, screw your hour. You can fire me if you want to. I don’t care. I’d rather work with Satan than with someone who rips off defenseless old women.”

  Ted’s mouth dropped open. “You can’t talk to—”

  “To you like that? I can and I just did.” Maria stormed over the popcorn-covered floor, the kernels crunching beneath the soles of her work shoes. Once her back was to Ted, she smiled. God, it feels good to stand up to him.

  Something definitely has changed, she thought as the cool, air-conditioning of the upper level hit her. A line of customers waited at the counter.

  “Hey, some service would be real nice!” a guy in a tank top said. “Get your head out of your ass, and gimme some popcorn.”

  Maria ignored them, feeling the tingling in her arms again. She clenched her hands into fists and walked out of the small store, to the Sephora beyond. Claire, dressed in her red and black dress—the uniform of Sephora makeup pushers—stood in the doorway, holding a tube of mascara.

  “What the hell, Maria?” she said.

  “I’m ready to go play putt-putt,” Maria said, walking past her into the store.

  “Maria, are you feeling okay? You still have an hour left on your shift.”

  “I’m fine. Let’s go pick up Tabby and get this show on the road.”

  Claire’s eyes were wide open. “All right, gimme a minute to finish up with this customer.” In the seat, her face half-painted with blush and eye shadow and all types of product Maria didn’t truly understand, sat a middle-aged woman. “Sorry about that,” Claire said to her, then continued brushing her eyelashes with the black stick that Maria thought looked like a medieval torture device.

  “I’ll be in the car,” Maria said, taking Claire’s keys authoritatively from the back room. A couple other Sephora employees gave her a wide berth. I could get used to this, Maria thought, and left Rolling Hill Mall on foot, heading to the parking lot beyond.

  As she sat in the car blasting both the air conditioner and 97.5’s classic rock station—Led Zeppelin was singing about a misty mountain hop—she felt a calm run through her, one she’d never felt before.

  “Something is happening,” she said. Then, “Oh, great, I’m talking to myself. Maybe I’m going crazy. Maybe Gramps put some of his old psychedelics in that music box he gave me. No! Maybe I’m having my coming of age, like in all those movies I like. That’s it. I’m just coming into my own.”

  She tapped the dashboard to the rhythm of John Bonham’s drums. People had told her Zeppelin wasn’t normal girl music many times before, but then again, Maria didn’t think she was a normal girl. She was a product of growing up with Ignatius Apple as her only source of parental guidance.

  About five minutes later, she noticed a tall man staring at her from the front fender of a Ford Escape.

  “What the hell? Mind your own business, buddy.” Creepers at the mall were a norm. Getting hit on wasn’t something foreign to Maria, but when it left the safe confines of the mall and stretched out into the parking lot, that was borderline stalking—not to mention a little scary.

  The man’s nose pointed out around the back tail-light. He had a head of wispy white hair, and his skin was the color of the moon. He jumped when he realized Maria was looking at him, and went back to hiding.

  Maria raised her fist, waiting. Sure enough, the man poked his head out again. Then Maria let her middle finger come up. “Yeah, how do you like that, asshole?” she whispered.

  The man seemed not to pay her middle finger any attention. He looked longingly at her, as if he were an entomologist studying a new sort of bug.

  Claire’s laughter filled the air behind her, drifting in through the window. Maria looked back and saw Claire walking side by side with Joe, the cute security guard Maria had a certain soft spot for.

  “Yeah, she’s right in there. Go say hi! Tell her happy birthday, too!” Claire’s pointing finger found Maria, who forgot all about the creepy man hiding behind the Ford Escape across the way. If he was still looking on, she didn’t notice.

  “God, I must look like a mess. This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Maria whispered, quickly pulling down the mirror visor and taking in her oil-stained clothes and messy brown hair. “I can’t let him see me like this. I’ll have him running for the hills.”

  Time was running out. Her hands searched Claire’s Kia blindly until they came upon a hat on the backseat floor. It was a silly hat made up mostly of pink feathers, which Claire had worn on Halloween the year before. It was not the type of thing Maria would be caught dead wearing under normal circumstances.

  Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Only way I could look stupider is if I let him see me in my popcorn-greasy state. Maybe he’ll think I’m whimsical, a little cute. She rolled her eyes. Keep dreaming. What are my other options? Roll the windows up and lock the doors? No. What about burning rubber out of here? Borderline psychotic, Maria, and possibly a felony. How about—

  Time had run out. They were a few steps from the car now.

  She put the hat on. It was a little tight around her head, but she made do.

  When Claire saw her, she burst into uncontrollable laughter. A heat ran up Maria’s arms, quickly followed by a tingle—the same tingle she’d felt when she thought of Ted ripping off that old woman. But when Joe smiled at her, she melted a little. The anger went out of her like air from a popped balloon.

  “Hey, Maria!” Joe said. He had a thick head of blonde curls—surfer hair—and he was tan year-round, as if he lived on the West Coast instead of the sometimes-Arctic wasteland that Ohio could be.

  Maria’s voice caught in her throat. “Heeeeey,” she choked out.

  “Happy birthday. I like your hat.”

  “It’s my hat,” Claire said. “But, yeah, you’re right, it looks better on Maria.” She grinned.

  Maria’s face grew hotter.

  “Gotta. Putt,” Maria said.

  Claire titled her head as if she were confused. “What about Joe’s butt?”

  Maria face-palmed. She had never been so embarrassed. Oh, well, maybe that wasn’t true. Gramps came in for career day when Maria was in the third grade, and told this wild story about how he was a great general in a war between witches, wizards, and the evil spiders of the Dark Forest, or something like that. Most of the kids loved it, but they didn’t know Gramps was being dead serious. She’d face-palmed then, too.

  “Gonna be late,” she choked out.

  “Right,” Claire said. “Nice seeing you, Joe.” She climbed into the driver’s side.

  Joe wore a movie star grin. When he bent down, Maria could see the definition of his pecs through the opened collar of his polo security shirt. She bit the inside of her cheek and looked forward.