The Last Adventure of Constance Verity by A. Lee Martinez Page A

Tia, who glanced through it. It was a miniature globe, but when turned, it focused on a close up of North America, then Florida, then a small house in a small neighborhood.
    â€œWhy would a fairy godmother be in Florida?”
    Connie took the marble back and dropped it in her pocket. “Guess we’ll find out when we ask her.”

11
    T he broken-down house might have aspired to be a charming cottage in its heyday, but it’d long before abandoned such ambitions and was little more than a decaying ramshackle home in desperate need of repair. A window was boarded up. The lawn was nothing but dirt and yellowed grass.
    â€œThis can’t be it,” said Tia.
    Connie checked the marble, which was flashing with a soft light, humming in her hands. It’d been doing so since they’d landed in Florida.
    The front gate was rusted shut, but they walked around through the gap in the fallen picket fence beside it. Connie tried the broken doorbell. She knocked. Nobody answered.
    â€œMaybe she’s not home,” said Tia.
    Connie knocked again. Harder, this time.
    â€œGo away!” shouted someone from inside the house. “No solicitors!”
    The door wasn’t locked. Connie pushed it open. Beforeshe could take a step inside, a lightning bolt blasted a hole in the door. Connie and Tia jumped back.
    â€œI said, ‘No solicitors!’ ” yelled Grandmother Willow. “Get the fuck out of here, or I’ll shove this wand so far up your ass, you’ll swear I enchanted your colon.”
    To illustrate the point, a few flashes and thunderclaps echoed from inside.
    â€œThis is the place,” said Connie.
    She slipped on her iron knuckledusters.
    Tia said, “You aren’t going to just kill her, are you?”
    Connie shrugged. “That was kind of the plan from the start.”
    â€œYou can’t seriously be planning on beating a fairy godmother to death with your bare hands? That’s pretty brutal.”
    Connie tightened her grip on her knuckledusters. “Why did I bring you along, again?”
    â€œSo you’d have someone to talk you out of doing something you’d regret.”
    â€œI can hear you out there!” shouted Grandmother Willow. “Get off my property!”
    â€œYou don’t know if killing her will even solve your problem yet,” whispered Tia. “What if it only makes it worse? Or maybe you need her alive to reverse the spell. Did you think of that?”
    Connie mumbled, “No, I guess I didn’t.”
    â€œHey, I’m your friend. If I thought it would help you, I’d hold this old lady down while you bashed her skull in.”
    â€œNo, you wouldn’t.”
    â€œNo, I wouldn’t. But I wouldn’t blame you for wanting todo it. We have to be smart about this. You should talk to her before you kill her. If you decide you still want to kill her.”
    Connie grumbled. “I guess you’re right.”
    â€œYou know I’m right.”
    Grandmother Willow, in a dirty pink bathrobe, flung open the front door and stepped onto her porch. Her hair was a mess. A cigarette hung from her lips, and her eyes were bloodshot and sunken.
    â€œDon’t say I didn’t warn you!”
    She pulled a gray mouse from her robe pocket and dropped it at her feet. She waved her wand, which sparked and sputtered as it sprinkled glittering dust onto the rodent. The mouse grew into a hulking brutish humanoid covered in fur with an adorable face and twitching ears.
    â€œShow them the way out, my dear.”
    The mouse monster scampered away, seeking shelter under an old, rotted tree in the yard. The uprooted tree fell over and smashed a hole in the house’s roof. The monster cowered under a few roots.
    â€œDamn it.” Grandmother Willow shook her wand. “This fucking thing isn’t worth a damn anymore.” She pointed the wand at Connie and Tia, but before Grandmother Willow could