Who Needs Magic? by Kathy McCullough Read Free Book Online

Delaney. I told you it was fate that we met. And it was fate that you called me! And that mom had to go out tonight to meet her beneficiary! Who happens to live near the Castle Gates Mall! And … what do you think it was that your house is on the way?”
    “Fate.”
    “Right!” It wasn’t exactly multiple choice. “Our destinies have collided, Delaney, because I’m destined to help you get your next beneficiary. I already granted a small wish for you—why not a big one?”
    “So
my
big wish is to grant somebody else’s big wish?”
    “You should be proud. It’s the most admirable wish there is. Totally selfless.”
    “I’d rather find a way to hang on to my ‘self’
and
get a client.”
    Ariella lets go of my arm. “You call them ‘clients’? That’s so … clinical.”
    “It’s because my dad—”
    “Mom! You’re going to miss it!” Ariella flings herself between the front seats and stretches one arm toward thewindshield, straining against her seat belt, as she indicates a curved indentation along the sidewalk where a couple of other cars have pulled in to drop off or pick up passengers. The mall version of the elementary school car circle.
    We get out of the car, to the left of an escalator that leads up to the mall. All that’s visible from down here is scattered pinpricks of light poking through the hedges. There’s also a low hum, the sound of many voices too far away to distinguish but close enough to recognize what the sound is.
    Ariella rises on the escalator a few steps above me. “What you need to do first is get your motor up to speed.” She tosses this advice to me over her shoulder. When we move up through the shadows of the lower-level pedestrian drop-off and into the golden glow of the mall’s lights, the sequined angel embroidered on the back of Ariella’s pink denim jacket gives off more and more flecks and flicks of sparkle, making it look like the wings are fluttering and propelling Ariella forward. “I aim for fifty small wishes a day.”
    “Fifty!”
    “At least.”
    Ariella’s silver headband, her twinkling triple-star drop earrings and her angel jacket are brought to full shimmering brightness as she steps off the escalator, onto the shiny-stoned path that opens before us. Meanwhile, my outfit, “perfect” for an art gallery, is completely wronghere, where it’s all about reflecting and glowing. I’m like one of those cutout silhouettes—a shadow, an absence of color and light.
    “And you need to do them as fast as possible. Once you’ve done like ten, pause for a second. Wait and see if anything hits you. Mom says granting a lot of wishes at once shakes up the molecules in the atmosphere and deep-seated wishes rise to the surface.”
    The glow and glare of the store window displays add to the luminescence from the giant globe streetlamps that seem to march down the middle of the walkway, set off in pairs that each bracket an S-shaped slate-gray metal bench. “We’ll start in Fermier’s. It’s up here a little ways.” I follow Ariella past several clothing stores and a travel shop. We turn a corner and pass another row of similar stores, at the end of which there’s yet another corner that leads to more of the same. It’s a dizzying maze, and it makes it impossible to tell how big the mall is, but it feels like it might go on forever, one corridor angling into another, on and on and on to infinity.
    After another turn, there’s finally something different: a department store that spans one whole side of the passageway. Ariella leads me to the revolving door and we push through. As big as it looked from the outside, it’s even bigger inside, the ceiling angling up like the interior of a cathedral. The air is cold and clean, as if it’s being pumped in directly from heaven. Everything about it isartificial, disconnected from reality. After spending all day in a mall, I’m feeling seriously stifled, but I remind myself why I’m here and that the