Page 25 of With the Key in the Office
“It is relational magic that can be repurposed as a cat toy,” Jessie said. “Which means it is perfect.” She handed them each an end. “Five sentences. Then switch.”
They tried. The first round snagged on history within two sentences and the charm on the hourglass pinged a warning for an eye roll that could have fueled a small town. The second went better. The third reached something under both wishes. I watched the moment land in their faces.
Tamsin squeezed the yarn. “I need to know you like me,” she said, each word careful. “Not love. Everyone says love while they hold their breath. I need to know you like me when my hair is bad, and my room is a disaster, and I haven’t put the bowl in the sink.”
Victoria’s hand tightened on her end. The dish towel lay forgotten beside her. “I do,” she said. “I worry so much about you. Your father travels and I am trying to be two people and I somehow started making my rules do the job of being affectionate for me. I’m sorry.”
The air changed. Not a miracle. A clean inch of truth.
“Pause,” Jessie said, soft. “Decision time. Do we push or do we hold.”
“Hold,” Jaylyn said. “They need to practice the small things before we rewire the house.”
“Hold,” I agreed.
“Then we build scaffolding,” Jessie said. “Two charms, both light, both consent based.” She tapped her wand against the hourglass and spoke one line. The sand flashed and settled. “This runs for exactly one minute, twice a day, at dinner and at ten. It won’t move unless both of you touch it. It won’t start unless both say ready. You don’t have to fill the minute. You only have to speak the truth.”
She reached into her bag and pulled a neat square of card stock, blank except for a grid of days.
“This posts phone rules and curfew and practice hours in your handwriting,” she told Victoria. “Not mine. If you change a line, you both sign the new one. If anyone writes in anger, the ink vanishes.”
Tamsin perked. “Can I draw on it?”
“Please do,” Jessie said. “Doodles remind us we aren’t in court.”
The house watched us. It did not unclench fully. That would take time and dinners and an acceptance that mess happens even to people who laminate. Still, something shifted into place that hadn’t existed an hour ago.
“Test drive,” Jessie said. “Door rule first. Practice.”
Tamsin stood and walked to her bedroom. She closed the door, not in a slam, just enough to make the latch click. She waited. Victoria walked to the hall, knocked once, then twice when the first knock sounded too polite. “May I meet your friend,” shecalled, because Jessie had asked for rehearsal, because certain scripts need bodies before they become muscle.
Tamsin opened the door and stuck her head out. “No friend in there now,” she said, deadpan. “You may meet the ghost under my bed when she gets back from rehearsal.”
Victoria stared at her, then covered her mouth to hide a smile and then gave up on hiding the smile. “Ten minutes,” she said. “Then dinner. You pick the music.”
“Deal,” Tamsin said. “No yacht rock.”
“We don’t own yacht rock,” Victoria said, with the offense of a woman accused of a crime she did not commit. “The Phil Collins album is a relic.”
“Yacht rock adjacent,” Tamsin said, and then the smallest bubble of laughter burst, and it hung in the hallway with a silvery sound that doesn’t come from charms.
Jessie relaxed her shoulders. Jaylyn leaned back in the chair and exhaled.
“Last step,” Jessie said. “A tiny charm for the house. It resets light when the mood goes sharp.” She murmured over the nearest lamp. The bulb warmed by a degree and shifted from blue to gold. “That one turns on when voices climb. If anyone says pause, you touch the base and start the minute. I’m setting it to ignore sarcasm.”
“It can do that?” Tamsin asked, skeptical.
“It can try,” Jessie said. “So can we.”
We were almost done.
The basil pot tipped. No one touched it. A prank of gravity. Soil fanned across the sill and cascaded down the wall in a neat sheet. The house took that moment to flex award and the spill froze mid-slide. Every dirt crumb hung in the air like a diorama about to be graded.
Tamsin barked a laugh. Victoria gasped. Jessie’s wand flicked up, which only startled the ward into tightening its grip on the basil. Jaylyn leapt for a towel that did not get to the wall and stood there uncertain between help and theater. I grabbed the pot, righted it, and held it steady. Then I took the towel from Jaylyn and set it under the sill. Jessie switched tactics and tapped the stuck dirt with two fingers instead of magic. The ward let go as if soothed. Soil slid into the towel in a neat sigh.
“See,” Jessie said, hands muddy wearing an unconscious smile. “Real life. No fireworks. Only towels and people deciding not to shout.”
Victoria wiped the sill clean and looked at Tamsin as if she had just remembered why houses have windows. “You can keep the basil in your room if you want,” she said. “On the condition that it survives two weeks.”