Page 21 of Fairy Godmothers Aren't Cheap

“Of course! He’s my friend, and it wasmyawful wish that ruined his night. I need to know what my carelessly tossed wish is going to do to him.”

“You will see in time.”

“No! I need to know now so I can stop it.” My imagination was running wild with the possible consequences I’d set in motion with my wish. My lovely friend being single forever thanks to this one broken date. His faith in love demolished. It felt dramatic, but what had occurred after wishing my dad home on my birthday was evidence that things could go really bad—and fast.

“It’s all good, Char. Be rest assured.”

“How can you know that?”

Her smile was serene and unexpectedly reassuring. My relief took me by surprise, making me realize how worked up I’d gotten. “Why are we even talking about this?” I muttered. “You aren’t real.”

Her face fell, and she looked at my phone, then up at me with childlike confusion. “But I made him call you like you wished.”

“You need to make this bill go away.” I pushed it across the table toward her. “I didn’t know I was being charged. There is no approval from me. There have to be laws. Notice. All of that stuff.”

“There was notice. I saw it!” Estelle perked up. She swivelled in her chair, pushing herself across the room in her bright red heels. She grabbed a thick, battered file folder—not pink—from the files stacked on the desk, then rolled herself back to the table. Estelle dropped the stuffed folder onto the table with a flourish, sending sticky notes and small pieces of note paper fluttering out of the folder and onto the dusty carpet below.

“Why isn’t anything in here pink?”

“Paxi loathed pink. She thought it was a weak colour.” Estelle lifted a page from the stack. “Notice of future payment was granted to you on the eve of your thirteenth birthday. You were quite young.” She smiled at me. “You’d caught the hang of the wish bug early.”

“What notice?”

“It was served to you in a dream.” She placed the paper on the table and spun it to face me. “Signed by Paxi.”

“Yeah, no. A dream that I had when I was a—achild—isnotfair warning that you plan to bill me a hundred grand well over a decade later. This isn’treal.”

A shiver ran down my spine as a remembered dream flit into my mind. An old lady had stumbled into my room in a gauzy dress, muttering about wishes and payment. It had felt ominous and had freaked me out so much I hadn’t been able to sleep more than a wink for days. I’d barely made the baseball team that season thanks to my exhaustion and lack of focus.

“Dreams are discounted by humans, Estelle.” Hearing the edge of panic in my voice, I inhaled a deep breath and forced myself to talk slower. “That’s not serving proper notice, and this would never hold up in court.”

“But the Magical Court of Rules is very strict,” she whispered. “There’s a process which was followed.”

“Look.” I closed my eyes and inhaled, aware I was arguing with a crazy person and expecting to win. “You can’t just bill someone because they have the ability to focus on a wish! Imanifestedall of this!” I slapped the documents in front of me.

Logically speaking, if wishes weren’t real, then I couldn’t truly be to blame for the demise of my parents’ marriage.

Which then begged the question of why I’d been beating myself up over that wish for so many years? It was ridiculous. All of this was.

“I’m your fairy godmother. I want to make your life better. Are you not happy with your life or wishes?”

I shook the detailed invoice. “Why are there so many more wishes over the past few months? Huh? Talk about suss. Some of these things aren’t even real wishes! This is nothing but a scam!” I smacked the last page to illustrate the silliness of it all.

Wishing my colleague would shut up for five minutes. Wishing for a clean public washroom. Wishing for Randy to leave me alone. Wishing to have my apartment all to myself for the three-day weekend. A shiver zipped down my spine.

“The fact that any of these things happened is kismet, or coincidence, or whatever you want to call it. It’snotsomething you can bill someone for. It isn’t even creating karmic space or whatever you called it.”

“There are more wishes this quarter because I took over when Paxi…um, retired.”

“Got eaten.”

“Well, yes. She was getting a bit senile. So? More questions, or should we get you all paid up?”

“No, aren’t you listening?”

Estelle blinked at me.

“You aren’t real. None of this is real. I don’t understand how you know all of this stuff.” I shook my head. I’d believe in a psychic right now, but not this. “Just no.”

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