"There you go, just keep your focus girls," Fairy Godmother said from her place on a patio chair as she watched Jane and Mal hold two pumpkins each in the air in the backyard. It had been a little over a week and a half since Mal had finally moved in and so far things were getting better. Jane was a little skittish at first, but eventually she started to mellow out. As for Mal, while she didn't go out of her way to make Jane any more nervous than she already was, she certainly took advantage of it when she could for her own amusement by teasing Jane over it. She liked to think that those first few days were just the girls feeling each other out and testing where their boundaries were. And for the most part, the two of them were starting to fall into a routine, though part of that routine was something she could do without.
This morning had been the tenth straight day in a row where she'd had to break up an argument over their use of the bathroom they were sharing. Most mornings she was able to wake up before they did and stop the arguments before they began, but she had decided to sleep in this morning, and was promptly woken up by Jane shouting through the bathroom door, "Quit hogging the bathroom, Mal, you've been in there for a half-hour! It's like your Evie!"
To which Mal replied: "Says the girl who was in here for forty-five minutes yesterday! Now wait your turn!"
And then, to Fairy Godmother's final straw, both girls took it farther than previous mornings.
"Mal, hurry up or I'm gonna make you bald!"
"Do it and I'll turn you into a pet bunny!"
For Fairy Godmother, that was the last straw. While she could tolerate them arguing over the bathroom; after all they were teenage girls, it was expected; she wasn't going to allow them to threaten each other with magic. Which brought her to this afternoon's magic lesson: basic levitation. Both of them had mastered it after about three days, which meant they found its continued use boring and tedious; which is why she found it the perfect punishment.
"How long are we going to have to hold these things?" Mal asked.
"Until I say so," Fairy Godmother answered.
"But it's boring," Jane whined. "And we already know how to do this, at least give us something harder," she added as she held out her right hand to keep the pumpkins steady.
"Girls, levitating objects is a great way to hone your concentration, and sharpen your focus; both of which will be needed when we get to the more advanced lessons. And besides, it never hurts to work out the basics. Right now you can levitate two objects, with time and practice, you can do more."
"I get that," Mal chimed in, "but I agree with J here, this is boring. How much more could we learn about focus and concentration from more time and practice with this?"
Teenagers, Fairy Godmother thought, think they know everything. Since she had started training them, she often found herself wondering if she'd been the same way with her own mother all those years ago when she was being trained. She liked to think she was more studious, willing to undertake any lesson offered with the most diligent nature. Then, as she remembered what her training was actually like, she cringed when she realized she sounded just like Jane and Mal.
"How much more?" she said, almost like she'd been dared. "Put your pumpkins back on the ground."
When both girls just looked back at her, she repeated the instruction. Once they'd done as asked, she got up and stepped between them, and looked at both of them, a sly smile on her face. Then without a word, she walked to the center of yard, and then both girls watched as the four pumpkins they'd been levitating rose off the ground, along with every other pumpkin in the yard, twenty in all. That alone would've been impressive, but then Jane and Mal watched in shock as the gardening tools, a couple of baskets of apples she'd picked earlier, and the patio furniture behind them all rose with the pumpkins. What astonished the girls was that while they'd needed their hands to help hold the pumpkins in place, Fairy Godmother's hands were at her sides. And then, in a final showing of her mastery, every object began rotating in place.
With the same sly smile on her face, she calmly walked back to the girls and stopped in front of them. "When you can do this, I'll stop with the levitation lessons. Until then, you will work on your concentration and focus everyday if I tell you to. Two pumpkins each, hold them still in the air for fifteen more minutes, then come in for lunch. Okay girls?"
"Yes, ma'am," Jane and Mal said in union.
She smiled at them and then went inside to start lunch.
"Uh, Mom, what about the –" Jane started to ask as she pointed to the floating objects, but before she could finish, all of the objects stopped spinning and slowly descended back to the ground. "Did you see that?" Jane asked in awe. "She practically levitated the entire backyard."
"I need to apologize to her for all the times my mother called her a no-powered hack," Mal said.
A half hour later, Mal and Jane sat at the table, a simple lunch of sandwiches in front of them. The both of them were on their second sandwich each and they'd be lying if they weren't tempted to get a third. Fairy Godmother just watched as they practically sped through their food, almost wanting to tell them to slow down, but she knew that they were just compensating for the loss of energy. Despite the fact that the levitation lesson was fairly basic, making them practice it for almost two hours had taken a toll on them.
"I'm starving, but I'm also really tired," Jane said through a mouthful of food." And when is this headache going to start going away, Mom?"
"Soon," she answered. "Focusing for so long put a lot of stress on you physically, so you just need to take it easy for a little bit."
"I get why I'm so hungry then, but why aren't I whining about a headache?" Mal asked, also with her mouth full, before taking a big gulp from her drink.
"I am not whining," Jane squealed in defense.
"My head hurts," Mal teased again in an exaggerated whiny tone, with a smile.
"Mal, be nice. You're only feeling fine because you're older, and have used a little magic already, so your body's handling the stress better right now. And can both of you not talk with your mouths full; show some manners please."
Both girls nodded and then Mal turned toward Jane. "Ha, guess you're the only rookie here, huh?" she teased further.
"Mom, tell her she's a rookie, too."
"Easy Mal," Fairy Godmother said before Jane said something back. "You're fine now. Once the lessons get tougher, you'll start feeling like Jane for a while."
"Ha," Jane fired back with a smile. "I'll call you a crybaby when that starts happening."
"I don't cry, Fairy God-whiner."
"I'm gonna remember you said that when you're head's pounding."
Fairy Godmother almost started laughing as she watched the girls interact. Most people would've agreed that they were sniping at each other and probably tried to put a stop to it, but she could tell that they weren't actually trying to be mean, which was probably quite the accomplishment in Mal's case. And she'd never really seen Jane actively try to defend herself. She supposed Mal's presence was the cause. Watching her back at school she could clearly see that Mal was a born leader, and had a tendency to draw out the confidence in those around her, even if they didn't think they had any. At the very least she thought that if having Mal around brought her daughter out of her shell, then a little playful teasing was something she could look the other way of.
After lunch, Fairy Godmother was in her home office, trying to get some work done concerning next school year's incoming freshman class when she heard her laptop ping. She turned to it and saw that she had a skype request. She turned on the program and was surprised to see Belle on the other end. "Your Majesty, how are you?" she greeted happily.
"I'm good, and you?"
"I'm well, thank you for asking. How's your tour of the kingdoms going? Where are you right now?"
"It's going well, Ben, Adam, and myself are in Camelot right now," Belle answered. "I just wanted to check in on you, you know, see how things are going with Mal."
Fairy Godmother laughed at that. "I'm surprised it's not Ben calling then."
"He texts Mal daily, and they talk whenever he has a few minutes at the end of the day once all his duties are done."
Fairy Godmother nodded at that news. "Oh, to be young and in love," she joked, to which Belle laughed and agreed herself. She then began filling the Queen Mother in on the status of what had been going on. Belle was pleased that Mal and Jane were getting along, and things had more or less been going smoothly. She almost teared up from laughing when Fairy Godmother told her about the daily confrontations over the bathroom.
"I'd actually pay to see that," Belle said as she composed herself after laughing.
"Some mornings the fights actually are funny. Other mornings, well, other mornings lead to them practicing basic magic lessons for a few hours as punishments," Fairy Godmother explained.
"And how are the magic lessons coming?"
"Good, both of them are fast learners, so it makes getting the simple stuff out of the way easier."
"Is Jane excited to finally be doing some magic?"
"I have to rein her in sometimes because she gets a little too excited, but yes, she's thrilled. And Mal seems to be eager to learn all she can too."
"Have you started teaching Mal to use the wand?"
Fairy Godmother shook her head in the negative. "Not yet. I figure she'll be ready to handle it in about another week. Then I'll start the one-on-one lessons with her."
Belle nodded, and soon the two of them were discussing more mundane matters and just having a normal, run of the mill chat. Their conversation had Fairy Godmother so absorbed that she wasn't paying attention to her surroundings as well as she should have. As she and Belle had been discussing the matter of Mal's upcoming magical lessons, she'd didn't notice that she'd had an eavesdropper.
Jane had been on her way to talk to her mother when she heard Belle and her talking. She ducked back behind the doorway, making sure she hadn't been seen and listened in as they talked about their lessons, Mal, and, to her disbelief, the wand. She's going to teach Mal to use it, she thought, that means she's going to give it to her one day. As soon as she was sure they were done talking about Mal and the wand, she went back to her room.
She lay in her bed and thought about what she heard; and tried to process it. "I'm not getting the wand," she said out loud. She could feel the tears welling in her eyes as soon as she'd said it. She knew that she wasn't able to handle the wand at the coronation, but always figured that it was because she was just inexperienced, not because she was apparently unworthy. Before she could stop them, tears were forming in her eyes and falling down her cheeks.
"Jane, you okay?" she heard from her door and saw Mal standing there.
"I'm fine," she said through her tears, doing her best to sound normal.
"Which is why you're crying?"
"I said I'm fine," she repeated as she turned to her side, trying to put her back to Mal.
Mal walked in slowly, concern written on her face. "Is it your head still? Did the headache get worse?"
"I…said…I'm…FINE," she shouted.
"Alright, I'll just leave you alone I guess," Mal said in defeat. "Just, um…just let me know if you wanna talk."
Mal walked out of the room and once again, Jane was alone. To spare herself the chance of possibly having to go through a visit from her mother, she got up and closed and locked her door. She went back to her bed and just stared at the ceiling. She flinched as she felt her head begin to throb slightly. She figured it was her anger and her obsessing over what she'd just heard that was causing another headache. However, if she'd been willing to talk to Mal, she would've ended being taken to her mother because Mal would've become concerned since the throbbing was her anger causing her eyes to glow blue.
Later that day, the three fairies were seated for dinner. Usually dinner was a talkative affair, but tonight it was almost silent. The only sounds that were breaking up the silence were the scrapings of silverware on plates. For Fairy Godmother, this was cause for concern.
"So Mal," she began in an effort to get dinner back to normal. "Belle tells me that you and Ben have been talking almost every day that he's been away."
"Mhm," she said quickly.
"Have you been telling him about your magic lessons?"
"Yeah, he's been pretty supportive. Said he can't wait to be back to see me perform some."
Jane scoffed. "Jane," Fairy Godmother chided. "Sorry about that, Mal."
"It's alright," Mal said as she looked at Jane. "Jane, can you pass the salt, please."
Jane just continued to eat, not even looking up.
"Jane, can you pass Mal the salt?" Fairy Godmother asked her daughter.
Jane put down her fork and pointed at the salt shaker. It began to lift off the table, but she held it in place, scowling at it.
"Jane, I thought I made it clear that there would be no magic at the table," Fairy Godmother told her. Jane proceeded to lift it higher. "Jane, put it down and give it to Mal," she said again, slower this time, and with more authority in her voice.
"Okay, I'll give it to her," she said, a new, and previously unheard, venom in her voice. Then, with a flick of her wrist, she sent the salt shaker flying at Mal. It hit her in the shoulder before crashing to the floor, shattering and spilling it next to her chair.
"What the hell?" Mal screamed at Jane.
"Jane!" Fairy Godmother said at same time, her voice raised.
"I'm sorry," Jane replied sarcastically. "Why don't you get the wand and show Mal how to put it back together?"
"What did you say?" Fairy Godmother asked her daughter, surprise in her voice.
"You have the wand here?" Mal asked.
"Oh yeah, because apparently, she's gonna teach you to use it," Jane said angrily.
"Y-you're gonna teach me?"
Fairy Godmother sat motionless in her chair. How did Jane find out, she thought. It wasn't that she was going out of her way to hide the fact the she was going to train Mal to use the wand, and one day take over with it, but she wanted to broach subject slowly, so as not to scare Mal, and have what was happening in front of her right now occur – completely anger Jane. She knew that Jane probably felt that the wand was going to be hers one day since she was her daughter, but it didn't work that way. If she hadn't retired from using magic, she might have had that conversation with her years ago, and gotten her to understand that the passing of the wand wasn't based on heredity, but on merit…and the wand's eventual ability to reveal its future user.
"Why her? I'm your own daughter. Why not me?" Jane asked the anger nearly completely replaced with heartbreak. "Is that why she's here? So you can pass it on to her?"
"Jane, I told you why she's –" Fairy Godmother told Jane softly.
"Answer me!"
"J, calm down," Mal said, trying to sound calm when she was boiling with her own emotions over what she'd heard.
For some reason, one even she didn't understand, Jane became furious at seeing Mal essentially come to her mother's defense. It was almost confirmation for her that she'd been lied to about why Mal was here. Not sure she could take anymore, Jane just leapt from her chair and ran out of the dining room, tears already running down her face all over again. Mal and Fairy Godmother sat in stunned silence until they heard Jane's bedroom door slam shut.
Neither of them moved for a few seconds until Mal finally spoke up.
"Is she right?"
"What, sweetie?" Fairy Godmother asked once she snapped out of her reverie.
"You told me I was coming to live you because you were concerned for my safety. That you didn't think I'd be safe back home and you…you wanted to take care of me," Mal said, her voice breaking near the end as she fought back tears, though her eyes were already watering. "But is Jane right? Is the real reason I'm here only because you have to teach me to use the wand? Am I just a freaking heir?"
Fairy Godmother looked at Mal and was about to answer her. She was going to immediately deny the second reason, since she knew that wasn't the sole reason. As her mouth opened to begin speaking, Mal spoke again.
"Please don't lie to me."
"The wand is part of the reason I asked you to come live here, but it's not –"
Mal ran off before Fairy Godmother could finish speaking. A few seconds later, she heard Mal's door slam shut. She actually flinched as the sound of the slam reached her. She leaned into the table, holding her head in her hands, rubbing her temples. "Things were going so well," she thought out loud. "How the hell am I gonna fix this? Can I fix this?"
