Page 47 of Fairy Godmothers Aren't Cheap

“By the time we get to the river park, it’ll be dark.” It was a couple of kilometres from my place—2.5km to be exact—and with no nearby parking. There was nothing close, and nothing in Everstone.

Again, we needed a park.

I sighed and James said cheerily, “The street it is.”

I eyed James’s Range Rover and Randy’s candy-red sports car. “We should go further down.”

We walked until there were fewer parked cars, stopping near the trashy empty lot and its surrounding brick buildings. It was flanked by a small, no longer functioning bread factory and a small insurance agency with grubby windows. But my eyes were drawn to the gaping section of chain-link fence from where the paramedics had cut their way into the lot last night. The landowner really needed to get down here and clean things up ASAP. But maybe they no longer wanted the land, and I could buy it and make it into a park. Or at the very least, slip in and take the sharp-edged piece of metal siding and hide it somewhere so the kids would stop using it as a slide.

James and I rolled our shoulders and stretched, then started a gentle game of catch. While we moved, I practiced saying Estelle’s mantra, hoping that helping out James would grant me at least a few bucks against what I owed.

“Do you have a catcher’s mask?” James asked as we finished our warmup.

I shook my head. “Just don’t throw it at my face.” I squatted into a catcher’s pose and slapped my mitt. “Come on, lay it on me. I have good reflexes.”

He threw a few easy tosses as though playing with a child. Realizing I could truly catch, he started adding more heat and speed to each successive one that I caught. A few of them stung the palm, even though I was wearing a mitt.

“How fast do you pitch?” I asked, leaning to the side to catch one that was outside the strike zone.

He shrugged. “Fast enough. You’re good.”

“Thanks.”

The zip of the ball relaxed me, and I found myself smiling, having fun. I likely wasn’t putting good out into the world, just my own heart, but it felt nice and I realized there was nowhere else I’d rather be.

“You should join the team,” he said. “It’s co-ed.”

“The team?” I shook my head, thinking of the sixteen-hundred or so good deeds a day I needed to accomplish. “I don’t have the time.”

“We only practice once a week, and have a game every other weekend in June and July.”

“Short season.”

“Leisure league.” He smiled.

“I’ll think about it.”

“I’ll send you the sign-up form.”

Unable to hide my pleasure, I smiled back, warmth flowing through my veins. “Yeah? You think you’ve convinced me to join?”

“The team usually grabs drinks and nachos after practices and games. I’ll buy you a drink after every single practice if you join us.”

“Sounds fun.” And expensive—drinks, nachos, baseball fees. Right now I needed to watch my pennies—even though Canada didn’t have them in circulation any longer. I wasn’t eager to spend any time in a weird magical court this August, and then possibly get eaten by a dragon or monster that everyone had previously, and falsely, believed was fictional.

Because, yeah, I’d overheard Estelle mutter something under her breath about Igor from accounting eating people and fairies when they misbehaved. Plus, there was already the story about a dragon eating Paxi.

I was somewhat confident I wouldn’t get eaten by anything magical. But then again, there were a number of unsolved missing persons cases out there….

I wasn’t very confident about discounting anything about Estelle’s world at this point.

We tossed the ball back and forth, my mind half present—the other half studiously building arguments for why ogres wouldn’t eat humans. Surely there was some sort of treaty in place that protected us?

James began mixing up the angles, speed and spin. He was good. He’d told me he’d played in high school, and it looked like he hadn’t lost his touch. “I’ll share my nachos with you, if you join.”

I laughed, tickled that while I’d been fearing ogres, James had been thinking about ways to spend more time with me. “I said I’ll think about it.”

“Great. I’ll pick you up Thursdays at seven.”

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