A Snicker of Magic: Chapters 1–7

“Midnight Gulch used to be a secret place,” Mama said. “The mountain hid the town high-up-away from the rest of the world. And the river surrounded the mountain and kept it safe. And the forest stood up tall around the river and caught all of the town’s secrets and songs in its branches.”

Since we never knew when Mama might wake us in the middle of night ready to bolt out of town, Frannie liked to keep a suitcase packed full of all her worldly treasures, the special stuff she didn’t want left behind.

I squinted my eyes at the cloud of exhaust billowing out the tailpipe and saw three smoke-colored words:
Spunkter
Sumpter
Siffle-miffle

I know I can’t be the only word collector in the whole world, but I’ve never met anybody else who has the knack.

Frannie Jo was concentrating on her most favorite things: the name of our dog and the vehicle she aspires to drive when she grows up and also her most favorite food.

I made a big show of catching invisible words in my hands and putting them in my mouth and chewing on them. I knew my word-catching charade wasn’t the best way to make a fast friend at Stoneberry Elementary School.

She chewed on her lip and fluttered her eyelashes in such a way that I thought she might be tearful again. But I didn’t see sadness when she looked up at me. I saw determination.

Frannie pranced into the room with her chin high and her ponytail swinging.

Miss Lawson walked to the chalkboard and scrawled out a familiar word:
Stoneberry

I guess they’d had a few weeks to get used to Miss Lawson’s energy. Even though she stood tall and smiled, I could see:
Jitters
Impressions
Impressionable souls...

Cleo’s partial to the Chocolate Chip Pork Rind flavor.

I caught some of the other words I saw skittering across the room:
Pocket
Bubble
Cage
Confine
Isolate

I hoped a character called the Beedle would at least have a cape and a mask and a mustache that twirled into curlicues at the edges.

I expected a dastardly villain of some sort.

Then he turned up the radio and bopped his shaggy head to the rhythm of the song playing: a feisty tune full of banjos and guitars that had a dancing beat to it.

Her eyes darted frantically around the bus until she saw me waving.

“Most people don’t know I’m the Beedle. That’s my business moniker, and it has to stay secret.”

But only like four people in the whole world know about my alias. You’ve got to keep it all secret.

I know how to fix what’s ailing people. My granny’s the one who first called it my know-how. I see something wrong. I know how to make it right.

“My know-hows are never wrong, Flea. You see the best words floating around crazy people, right?”
“Interesting people,” I clarified.

“You kin to Cleo Harness?” he asked.
I nodded. “She’s my aunt.”

Frannie and I shared an inflatable mattress in our room, which had formerly been Aunt Cleo’s craft room until we surprised her and moved in.

“What’s threadbare mean?” I asked.
“Shabby-looking,” Cleo said. And I saw the other words, too:
Old
Thinned out
Roughed up
Well loved

Because home is where shabby hearts like ours belong.

The one stipulation Aunt Cleo had given us when we showed up at the Sandcut Apartments complex with a dog and three grocery bags full of dirty clothes was this: We had to go to church with her.

“Church was your idea, remember? Because you think I’m a wayward soul.”

She slammed the door, yelled out an unsavory word, and leaned over, clutching both knees to steady her breathing.

Old words from the hymnals spun closest to me:
Yonder
Wayfarer
Everlasting

The preacher at the pulpit wiped his forehead, and I saw a word leave his mouth that he never said out loud:
Lonely

And we know there are kinds of happiness that don’t last, that fade off, that leave us feeling wrung out and fickle—

“Felicity is a particular kind of joy...a wondrous joy. This week, I dare you to choose joy.”

Mama nodded curtly and didn’t object when the woman threw her arms around her and squeezed tight, like they were long-lost best friends.

One day the weeds were pulled up and the kudzu was cut back and there was a bundle of red roses settled against Abigail Honeycutt’s grave.

Finally, Mama sighed and said, “I can’t believe the Beedle is still doing those things. That doesn’t make any sense. That’s impractical. The Beedle can’t last forever.”

“What’s got you looking so perplexed, Felicity Juniper?”