Max pointed to Helen. “You whispered words I couldn’t hear, but ended with ‘Poof.’ And then you,” he pointed to Matilda, “whispered more words I couldn’t hear and ended with ‘Shazam.’ That’s it. That’s all I heard.”
The moment he said Shazam, they both giggled. Matilda leaned forward. “I said shazam.” She giggled some more.
“Listen, I don’t find this as amusing as the two of you obviously do,” Max said. He sounded curt when he was only fearful of losing Ruby or his ardent love for her.
Matilda sobered. “All right. I’m sorry. Let us think a minute.” They put their heads together and whispered between them, using lots of hand gestures.
“What’s wrong?” Ruby whispered.
“Maybe…” He stopped to consider his words.
“Tell me.”
“Maybe I don’t want them to take away my love for you or my desire to marry you.”
Ruby’s eyes glistened and she sniffled. “Well, if you don’t love me or want to marry me anymore, maybe we should have a signal once they remove the spell.”
“A signal?”
“Yes. You could wink at me once if you still want to date me after the spell is removed.”
“Wink? Is that one eye closed or two?”
“One.”
“Okay. I’ll wink at you once if I still love you and want to marry you even without a spell on me.”
“Good.”
“But even if the spell is gone, we should make a date.”
“A date?”
“You know, maybe we could still see each other and date like humans do and eventually fall in love with each other and want to get married one day. We could do that, couldn’t we?”
Ruby’s eyes shone as if she was about to shed a tear. She patted his hand and said, “I agree. Let’s meet tomorrow for lunch at Howler’s for our date, okay?”
“Perfect. You know I love that place.”
Max stared at his love, Ruby. He peeked inside her head to see if she was thinking the same thing he was. It was still very difficult to get a glimpse, but what he did see surprised him. She was thinking about a large black bird. Interesting. He was about to ask her if she had a large pet raven, but Matilda and Helen had come to some sort of consensus. Matilda rolled a yellowish, crinkly piece of paper into a tube.
“Okay, you two. I believe we have it.”
“We’ll say our reverse spell and then you must go into the bathroom and look into the mirror and say the words we’ve written on this parchment. Then you must close your eyes for ten minutes. When you open them, the spells should be gone.”
Max took the rolled note and started to open it.
“No! Don’t open it yet. Not until you are looking at yourself in the mirror. And don’t forget, ten minutes with your eyes closed.”
He looked at Ruby with disbelief. She merely shrugged. “Go ahead. Follow their instructions exactly. You don’t want to get turned into a toad or something.”
“Okay.”
They ushered him down a hallway toward the back of the house, leaving Ruby in the parlor. At the end of the long space was a fancy glass door with a design cut into the edges.
Beyond the door, Max could see what looked like a very large garden behind the house. On his left, an ornately carved door led into a bathroom the size of a small bedroom. A clawfoot bathtub perched under a silver oval frame attached to the ceiling, supporting a crimson curtain tucked inside the tub. The urge to pull the curtain back and ensure no one hid in there became a new compulsion, but he fought it.
There was even a nice wooden table and fancy padded chair with arms situated between the toilet and sink and a divan-like padded bench behind him by the door.
