Accidental Magic

“Vickie! Victoria!” called Jessica, my sister, from upstairs. “I found a wand for you! Now we can play fairy!” She came down the attic stairs holding her fairy wand and a long, thin, pointed stick.

“Yeah, that will work,” I grumbled. I didn’t want to play fairy.

“You do the first spell” she said.

“Sure. Fine. What do I say?” I asked.

“You say . . .” She paused. “You say hocus-pocus, make a mermaid appear.”

“Fine,” I said, pointing my stick at a cup with water in it. “Hocus-pocus, make a mermaid appear.”

Was I going crazy? I wondered. I thought I had seen the stick glow golden and felt it vibrate. No, I thought. Just my imagination.

Jessica’s voice interrupts my thoughts. “Whoa, Vickie.” She breathed. ”How did you do that?”

“Do what?” I ask.

“That!” She points to the cup of water. I look over at it and my jaw drops. The cup is still there, but it’s huge. And sitting in the cup, with her green tail glittering in the sunlight and her wavy brown hair, dazzling olive-green eyes and rosy cheeks, was a mermaid. And she was staring at me!

As I ran my fingers across the grooves of the stick, I thought, Was I magical or was this the wand of one of the last fairies?