AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I got here first,” one voice said.
“Oh, I don’t think so. I had my hand on it before you did,” said the other voice.
Gemma got my attention back with a hand on my arm. “Stay above the fray,” she said.
She approved of the dress Isabel had picked out and added it to the stash, which was getting heavy enough that she drafted Isabel as our pack mule to carry the dresses for final evaluation. She could carry the weight and keep them all out of anyone else’s reach.
As we hurried toward Nita’s signal, another argument broke out, but this time, the dress in dispute vanished from the hands of the woman who held it and reappeared in another woman’s arms. “Sorry, I got to it first,” the second woman said smugly.
Using magic seemed to me like cheating. I hoped my magical friends weren’t employing their powers, especially since Nita and Connie weren’t in on the secret and I didn’t want to have to explain that Trix was a fairy and Isabel was a wizard. I wondered how many magical people might be here. Wizards and other magical creatures getting into fights over wedding gowns could get really ugly.
And, of course, by merely thinking that I seemed to have jinxed the situation. Another gown vanished from someone’s hands, only she apparently knew what was going on. “Hey!” she shouted, and summoned the gown back to herself.
“Okay, let’s see what you’ve got for me,” I said perhaps a bit too loudly, in hopes of distracting Nita from the magical activity. She and Gemma got the dress on me, and both of them grinned.
“This may be the one,” Gemma said.
“It’s so you,” Nita agreed.
Just then, something bright whizzed overhead. I instinctively ducked, trying not to let the gown drag on the floor when I crouched. I felt the familiar tingle that told me magic was in use nearby. A glance upward showed fireballs flying back and forth, but the view was obscured through a haze. Isabel must have put up a shield to protect us.
“Are they shooting?” Nita asked, flinching as a fireball shot overhead.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It doesn’t sound like gunfire. I think maybe someone’s camera flash just went haywire.” It was a flimsy excuse, but she didn’t question it, probably because “magical battle” wasn’t top of mind as a possibility for her.
“I think we have enough to try on,” Gemma said. “Isabel, can you get us to the changing rooms?”
I was grateful to get away from the mayhem—and more important, get Nita away from it before she realized what was going on. By hanging out with me, she was probably eventually going to figure out the magical stuff, but there were strict rules about what we could and couldn’t tell or show outsiders. When and if that time came, I wanted it to be less of a crazy situation than this. It had been bad enough that Gemma and Marcia had learned the secret when an evil wizard kidnapped Marcia.
There was a long line at the curtained alcove that served as a fitting room, but at least it was away from the action. Some bright pops of light came from the middle of the warehouse floor, but it was easier to distract Nita when fireballs weren’t flying directly over her head.
“So, you like this one?” I said, gesturing at the dress I still wore. I couldn’t see much past a wide collar.
“Yeah. I think it’s you. Not too many flounces or bows, but it’s still romantic. Very fairytale, kind of like Aurora in the cartoon, but in white, and without the sleeves. And so much better than that thing your mom sent.”
My feeble efforts at distraction were nothing against the chaos that was unfolding in the middle of the sale, and soon Nita’s attention strayed to where an all-out magical battle was in full swing. “What is going on out there?” she asked. “They take their wedding dress shopping seriously around here.”
“I’d heard wild stories about these sample sales, but I didn’t know they were this wild,” I said. We were well past the point where I could safely deny seeing anything odd and make her think she was imagining things. Now my best hope was to acknowledge the weirdness and act as stunned as she was while I scrambled for a reasonable explanation.
People were fleeing the scene, some still clinging to or wearing wedding dresses, much to the dismay of the sales staff. The security guards at the entrances and exits had left their posts to try to break up the fight, so no one was there to stop people from leaving without paying.
The rest of my friends joined us, and when I saw Trix, I said, loudly enough for her to hear and hoping she’d catch my drift, “I wonder if anyone has called the police. Someone could get hurt.”
She frowned, glanced back at the fight, then nodded in acknowledgment before drifting away to a corner where she could make a call without being overheard. If magic was being used openly, that made it a matter for the magical authorities, and it was somewhat within my jurisdiction as a member of the security staff for MSI. Technically, the magical Council should have handled this sort of thing, but they only tended to get involved when the situation got political, so we usually dealt with these kinds of events on our own, with the weak excuse that any miscreants were probably using our spells, and doing so openly in front of nonmagical people violated the user agreement.
In spite of the chaos among the racks, the fitting room line kept moving as though nothing was happening. I guess getting a designer wedding gown for a fraction of the price was a big enough deal to make anyone tolerate a little mayhem. “Sample sales always get a little crazy,” Gemma remarked. “You should see what it’s like when it’s shoes. I remember one time when they had to call in at least three ambulances and police in riot gear.”
Finally, we were admitted to the fitting room, which was really just one big space with mirrors along the curtained walls. I was already wearing the dres
s, and I had to agree with the others’ assessment: This might be it. “Okay, this one will do,” I said.
Gemma’s eyebrows shot up so quickly I was surprised they stayed on her face. “It’ll do? You want a wedding dress that will do? Uh uh, you’ve got to at least look at the others on. You want to be in love with a wedding dress, not figuring it’ll do.”
Her eyes tracked back to the exit, and I realized she was giving me an excuse to keep Nita and Connie in the fitting area until someone could deal with the public use of magic. I supposed there were sacrifices to be made in the name of keeping the secret, so I let Gemma unclip the dress and help me out of it, then tried on each of the others.
The more I saw of myself in wedding gowns, the more it struck me that I really was getting married. I didn’t have cold feet at all. I knew I wanted to marry Owen. It was just that the wedding itself had seemed like some kind of far-off fantasy, but now here I was wearing white dresses and trying to picture Owen’s face when he saw me walking down the aisle in each of them. I still found it a little hard to believe that a handsome, powerful wizard wanted to marry a super-ordinary woman like me. At some point, I was bound to wake up and realize that the past year and a half had all been a dream.
“Any thoughts?” Gemma asked as I stepped out of another dress and handed it over to Marcia to put it back on its hanger.
