Page 34 of Run, Run Rudolph
“They chose to be seen!”
I glanced at the reindeer for verification, but they all seemed too busy pawing the snow to pay me much heed. I turned back to Tamara. “Please. Make a wish and I’ll fix all of this for you.”
“I’ve scrubbed the word ‘wish’ from my vocabulary.”
I’d expected this. Her friend, Char, due to a filing error thanks to her former fairy godmother, who’d been a bit senile, had ended up with incredible debt. But it had all turned out well in the end. Spectacular, really. So, it made little sense that Tamara would give up on us fairy godmothers, and the light we could bring to her life. Or in this case, her salvation from the scariest woman in the white magic world.
Thumping and banging, and a weirdly masculine yet squeaky voice came from inside Tamara’s car, which was parked beside me, its top down. I paused. I knew that voice.
I slowly turned from the car to Tamara, a feeling of dread sinking deep into my fairy bones. “Why is Hugo in your trunk?”
“He likes it there.” Tamara crossed her arms, clearly trying to look tougher than she felt.
I sighed and rubbed my temples. This was getting worse by the minute. I got the impression that Hugo was Mrs. Claus’s favourite. She wouldn’t take too kindly toward this sort of treatment. “Make a wish, and I’ll do my best to undo all of this.”
“This is a magical world fiasco. I shouldn’t have to make a costly wish in order to fix it.”
“I’m a fairy godmother. I can’t fix your problems without a wish.”
“Isn’t this a magical world problem?”
“It started with you.”
“Did it though?” She crossed her arms.
“You need extraction.”
“Well, I saw what happened with Char. I’m not plumping up your Christmas bonus, or whatever you get for charging people for all their wishes.”
“In the end, Char put a lot of good out into the world,” I reminded her, struggling to hold on to my patience. “And I can procure a price list for you, if it would make you more comfortable. Or we could ask Char if she’d share her account’s credits. I’m sure she’d like to help you.”
“Why are you really here?”
“To help.”
“You implied I’m in trouble.”
“Yes, you could be.”
“Am I going to get eaten by Igor?”
It took me a second to realize what she was getting after. “The guy in accounting? No.”
“But he’s an ogre.”
“Yes, but he doesn’t eat people, remember?”
She shook her head as though not quite believing me. Seriously, Trish, my rival at Your Fairy Godmother, had made me believe that if my clients didn’t pay on time, Igor would eat them. And me. I accidentally let it slip once, and now here we were. This was one big muddled mess of confusion that just wouldn’t die, no matter how many times I insisted that Igor was vegan.
“I just want all of this fixed so I can go home, have a hot bath, and go to bed.”
“You could wish for that.”
“I can’t afford it, Estelle. I’m barely making ends meet on my rent, and feeding horses is way more expensive than I realized. Can’t you use your magic to help your magical reindeer friend?”
I shook my head. I’d already looked into what I could do from the sidelines—nothing. The only way I could help was if Tamara made a very specific wish. Then I’d be tagged in, and ready to rumble. But her wish had to be solely about herself, and not Rudolph. As in, I wish I’d come home a minute sooner. The impact would be that she’d miss Rudolph on the road and not hit him. Then she wouldn’t be wishing about things that involved magical creatures, and I could grant those wishes. It would change their timeline, preventing this unfortunate overlap.
The longer we let this mess run, the more likely bad things would happen. Such as Mrs. C. finding out. She had special powers and was caught between two magical worlds in many senses. She hadn’t been born into Santa’s world, and her residency was tentative. If she got mad—sorry, madder than she already was—and refused to do her part with Christmas, she could get sent back to her world. Seeing as the woman didn’t have a pinch hitter who could jump in for her if she didn’t feel like doing her Christmas jobs, the holiday would be screwed.
