He nods, furrowing his brow in concentration. “Is that everything?”
“Are you kidding? We’re just getting started.”
I go into lengthy detail on the size of the bathtubs, the color of kitchen cabinets, the landscaping. A pantry stocked with gourmet chocolate truffles. A walk-in closet bigger than Eileen’s house. Valentino Rockstud Spike shoulder bags in pink, blue, yellow, black, white, andpoudre. I used to have one of those bags in blue, and it was my very favorite possession until I had to pawn it to get myself out of trouble with a loan shark. (The loan was for an actual shark, too. I used to have a seven-hundred-gallon aquarium in my bedroom.)
“And in the driveway, a red Aston Martin DBS Superleggera,” I conclude with a giddy clap, beyond ready to kiss this place goodbye. “Make my wish come true.”
Hall’s been taking feverish notes. “Okay. I think I got it all.” He sucks in a deep breath, shutting his eyes. A moment later, he opens them but doesn’t speak. Or look at me.
“So?” I prompt. “Did you do it?”
He still won’t look at me, those limpid green eyes fixating on the threadbare sofa. A hand lifts to scratch his head. “Hmmm.”
“Hmmm, what?”
“I mean, Idid. I did do what you wanted. Sort of.”
“Can I see?” I wait for him to cross his arms and tip his head like we’re inI Dream of Jeannie.
He pauses. “You might have to live without the sauna.”
“We can revisit that.” I am not living without the sauna.
To my surprise, we don’t teleport. Instead, he directs me to my car. “Are we driving to the airport?” I ask.
“We could walk, actually.” He nods, shutting the passenger door. Its hinges scream.
“Where are we going?”
He doesn’t reply. Hall is looking pretty nervous, and I find out why once we’re standing on the sidewalk along Old Homestead Road, facing a block of four buildings. At the center, between Teller City Trading Company (Gift Shoppe & Old West Portrait Studio) and the Blue Moose Café, there’s an empty plot fenced behind spiked wrought iron, with a carpet of soggy autumn leaves and a well-preserved vintage milk truck.
Next to the milk truck sits a dollhouse.
“Hall.”
Hall searches the sky with deep interest, pretending not to hear.
“Hall, what am I looking at?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll fix it. It just needs some... tweaking.” He glances around to see if anyone’s out and about. It’s a gray, drizzly day, which seems to have chased the town indoors.
“Why on earth would you put a dollhouse here? Hall, I want to go to Hawaii now.”
“Shh, I’m concentrating. I’m very new at this sort of transfiguration thing, you know.” He presses his fingers to his temples, knees bent. It’s a funny sight, but I’m pulled away from it by the spectacle of the dollhouse, which is growing in size while the milk truck shrinks down to a toy.
The house rises like something from a pop-up book, a narrow Georgian rowhouse with cinnamon-colored stucco in four levels, all fudged together with gobs of white paint that drip down unevenly like icing. The roof is trimmed in red and green scalloping. Warm yellow light pours through tall casement windows, illuminating the frosting ledges to show off how they sparkle, and all the way at the top, faint gray smoke puffs from two (out of four) chimneys in the shape of hearts. The whole thing inflates as far as thetwo flanking buildings will allow, bursting until the squeeze is so tight that there’s a loud, painful scraping of bricks that makes me wish my eardrums would pop. Only once half the shingles have peeled from the Blue Moose Café and all of Teller City Trading Company’s shutters have fallen off does his creation give an audible sigh and fall to rest.
It’s a gingerbread house. An inedible, goddamn gingerbread house.
My throat is dry. “What.”
I check the street to see if passersby caught any of this spectacle (no one is around, thankfully), then turn to him. He’s wearing aHoliday Realtybadge on a lanyard around his neck, clipboard in hand. “Let’s have a look!” he says brightly.
My scowl burns holes in the ozone. “This is not a Hawaiian villa. This is the opposite of a Hawaiian villa.”
“I think my magic wants you to live here instead.”
“Your magic, oryou? I don’t want to live here! I thought you were supposed to grant my wishes.”
