Read Online The Magic Touch by Jody Lynn Nye - Free Book Online Page B

wall.
    O O O
    “That was very good for your first try!” Rose took Ray’s hand and beamed up at him as they emerged into the warm, damp air of the night. “I agree with Matthew. It’s hard to believe you haven’t been granting wishes for years.”
    “It was hard and easy,” Ray said, unsuccessfully attempting to find the right words to describe the sensation. His hand was still tingling with residual magic. “But it wasn’t as fancy as what you did for Clarice. Just one whisk of the wand, and a phone call.”
    “It didn’t have to be,” Rose said. “The Cinderella coach-and-four is not necessary in most cases, nor appropriate. Doing too much magic can take away a person’s choices, their free will. You won’t always be there with them, so they have to be able to straighten out their lives on their own. You’re there to maybe reverse a downward spiral, to turn around a young person who was otherwise on his or her way down. In this case, Matthew was losing trust in his father, who really wanted to do the right thing. You just made fate whisper in his boss’s ear. Nothing more.”
    “I thought flashy was good,” Ray said.
    “You play too many arcade games, young man. Every miracle is as different as the child it’s for. We bestow transformation, transportation, intervention, incredible and unlooked-for healing, and so on, but not all on the same client. It has to be the very best thing, the one that your heart tells you is the necessary one. You saw. What else would have been right for Matthew?”
    Ray felt in his pockets for a scrap of paper to write down the list, and came up with a wrinkled receipt about two inches square. “Transformation, transportation … what were the others?” he asked. He searched in vain for a pencil or pen.
    “It’s all in the manual,” Rose said. “Read it, and we can go over any questions you have next time. Then, you can ask me anything. In the meantime, come on. The night is still young!”

Chapter 6
    Ray was content to let Rose take over again after that. He wanted time to think, let what he had done sink in. Besides, he told her, he wanted to observe a pro a few more times before he tried it on his own again.
    They found a fairly secluded niche between two buildings where Rose could do her detecting act without passersby seeing it. Ray wasn’t that surprised to find that his attitude had changed from worrying people would think the two of them were crazy, to protecting her from prying eyes. He was finding a lot of respect for this energetic lady.
    The narrow corridor of concrete was illuminated only by the star on the top of Rose’s wand. She held the wand at chest level and turned around in a slow circle with her eyes closed.
    “There aren’t too many traces tonight,” she said. “Quiet. Good for teaching without running too much. Oops, I spoke too soon. That way,” she said, opening her eyes and pointing west. She led Ray out onto the sidewalk and strode energetically toward the next corner.
    “Don’t your feet ever get tired?” Raymond asked, trailing after her.
    “All the time,” Rose said over her shoulder. It seemed it didn’t make her slow down.
    “Well, my feet are on fire,” Raymond said, hurrying to catch up alongside. “I want to sit down a minute. These are my good shoes. I don’t use them for walking much.”
    “Don’t worry,” Rose assured him. “This call is very close by.”
    Just on the other side of the street at a tall frame house, Rose halted so quickly that Ray overran the destination by a dozen paces. He came back to see what she was looking at.
    Above them, on the main level, the curtains of the sitting room window were wide-open. Inside, Ray saw a young boy with curly brown hair sitting on a sofa and just staring straight ahead of him. The boy’s light hazel eyes shifted slightly in their direction, proving he noticed them, but he was too preoccupied with his own troubles to react further.
    Rose smiled up at the child.