Summary:
The ABCs of Spellcraft #14
If Spellcrafters value anything, it’s family. (And a good deal from the clearance rack, and an exceptional hand of poker. But mainly family.)
So, when a long-lost relative surfaces, everyone is absolutely thrilled…until the newcomer challenges Dixon for the title of Hand.
Yuri is perfectly willing to force the usurper back under whatever rock he crawled out from, but Dixon insists on proving himself the best man for the job. A magic string chose him as the Hand, after all. And while Spellcraft can be capricious, surely it would never let Dixon down.
Would it?
To make matters worse, Dixon’s attention is divided. Not only is he scrambling through town on a magical scavenger hunt, but a Handless customer with a sob story has him searching for her lost dog. Because, as Yuri points out, there’s always a dog.
From one end of Pinyin Bay to the other, the whole family pitches in to help Dixon keep his rightful place in the final installment of this heartwarming series.
The ABCs of Spellcraft is a series filled with bad jokes and good magic, where M/M romance meets paranormal cozy. A perky hero, a brooding love interest, and delightfully twisty-turny stories that never end up quite where you’d expect.
Original Review February Book of the Month 2023:
Say it ain't so! The end is here! No more Dixon and Yuri! As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end . . . doesn't mean I have to like it😉.
The ABCs of Spellcraft may be over. No more new adventures for the always over-optimistic and endless ray of sunshine Dixon and his stern but never not supportive man-friend Yuri, and the incredibly intriguing cast of wacky family, friends, and occasionally not-quite friendly characters. Yes, that's sad to hear but their adventures will live on in re-reads and re-listens and they will never get old, I will never tire of re-visiting Pinyon Bay for a ride-along. For me, that statement alone is the best way to explain how much I enjoy this series and characters. I have a list of books that I re-read/re-listen to every summer, it's not that long but the year would never be complete without them and I am 99.999% certain Spellcraft has just hitched a ride on that list.
Now, as for the final entry, It's All Relative, itself.
What can be said that hasn't already been mentioned in my previous entries reviews?
Jordan Castillo Price has a unique and creative way to bring the world of magic to life, to make it real, to make one look up and expect to see a crafting, or the result of a crafting, float by your front window. Frankly I don't know how Yuri stays so calm. If my significant other had the never-ending energy that Dixon lives life by I would be off my rocker. My mother always looks at life postiviely but her views on "it's going to be okay" has nothing compared to Dixon, so I don't know how Yuri does it but he manages to not only stand by his man sanely but he does so with Dixon's family as well. His desire in Relative to see Dixon keep his place as the Hand probably tests his control more than any other obstacle the couple has tackled but he maintains his voice of calm and focus.
I've probably given away more than I intended to so I won't say more but know it's brilliant and if this series had to end, I can't think of a better way to do so. This series is simply put: FUN! FUN! FUN! FUN! and what's the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah: FUN!!!!!
Now I realize that for some 15 books, even novellas, can seem daunting if you haven't been reading as they've been released. That's a lot of zany, madcappery magic to digest but trust me, you won't regret it. Dixon and Yuri and the whole Spellcraft gang is so enjoyable the time will fly by and before you know it you will be where I am right now, the end with no more new coming and you'll be a little sad but also happy for having discovered such a crazy, fun, romantic, entertaining universe.
1
DIXON
The Practical Penn Spellcraft shop has been in my family for years. My folks partnered with Uncle Fonzo to start the business while I was still in diapers—and, for the record, I was very easy to potty train, unlike Tuesday. Probably because even at that tender young age I was so concerned about disappointing anyone—while Tuesday is probably the least motivated baby I’ve ever known. Though she’s so utterly adorable, no one really minds.
I’d spent my childhood at Practical Penn playing hide-and-seek with my cousin in the various offices. My school years doing homework on a desk where enchantments were Scribed. And, more recently, the occasional weekend helping clean out the cages of the various small animals we’d inherited from Precious Greetings.
But as for actually working there as a Spellcrafter? Between my walkabout after college and the span of time I’d endured as an unquilled WheelMeal driver, the hours I’d clocked in the family business were surprisingly few.
I plucked a curved piece of metal from the supply cabinet and held it up for inspection. While my inventory list did contain some pretty obscure items, we Scriveners do know our stationery well. Surely it was just a matter of eliminating the various tools I recognized, and whatever was left would cause recognition to dawn.
I was debating whether the object seemed more like a distance page-turner or a rubber band stretcher when I realized a shadow had fallen across the curve of the metal. I turned and found my mother filling the doorway to the supply room, hands on hips, looking very businesslike indeed. She knew this office inside and out, so surely she’d know what it was. The trick was in not letting on that I didn’t. I smiled my winningest smile and said, “So, if one were looking to loosen up his rubber bands….”
“Give me that.” Mom snatched the mystery object out of my hands and tucked it into her cardigan. Either she has extra pockets in there or she’d just developed the ability to hold onto various small items with her body mass—a handy trick to be sure. “It’s the arm that holds a globe on its stand, but the globe shattered years ago and the stand turned to rust. I’d better get rid of it while your father’s off running errands.”
I turned to the list in my hands and added the words Globe Holder…then dutifully crossed them off.
Mom blinked in that way she does when she’s counting to ten. “Dixon, is this really necessary?”
“The Annual Reckoning must be completed in an orderly manner,” I said brightly, quoting a pamphlet I found stuck to the back of a desk drawer in Shirque Mansion. It was printed in 1948, so all the men in the photos are wearing hats and smoking cigarettes—but fortunately, Spellcraft traditions themselves are pretty timeless.
“Everything’s there in black and white on the spreadsheet I printed out,” Mom said. “All you need to do is sign it.”
“If I wanted to scrape by doing the bare minimum, then sure. I could read through the spreadsheet, ink my very fetching signature at the bottom of that form, and be done with it.”
“You think that’s the bare minimum? Your uncle never even bothered to sign the darned thing himself, let alone read it. Look, I get that you take pride in being the Hand of the family. None of us can argue with that. But no Hand in their right mind would do all this manual bean-counting unless they were planning to Fold.”
Obviously, the last thing I wanted to do was liquidate the business and leave everyone in my family unemployed. Not to mention invalidating the work order that kept Yuri in the country.
However….
“These beans you’ve just referenced—I’m not seeing them on the spreadsheet.”
The chime of a customer coming through the door interrupted our lively debate, and Mom threw her hands in the air and bustled off to go see what they wanted. And since the tallying of staples, pencils and paperclips had indeed grown truly tedious, I followed her out to the front counter.
A red-haired woman in her mid-thirties stood in the lobby, visibly fretting. There was a nylon strap of some kind in her hands, and she twisted and re-twisted it nervously as she rocked from foot to foot, scanning all the various signage, from the jaunty “Got Problems? Spellcraft is the solution!” to the stern, “No Bad Checks…Or Else.”
“Can I help you?” Mom asked the woman, in a brusque, no-nonsense way most Handless find oddly comforting.
“Gosh, I sure hope so. I was told that—”
Outside, a car horn blared. Not just a polite toot-toot, either, but a long and weirdly loud bellow that went on and on. I hurried around the counter and pressed my face up against the glass to see what such a beepable offense might be, only to find a little old lady pawing desperately at her steering column trying to get her horn unstuck. A truck driver had stopped to help her, but despite his intervention, the honk just kept right on honking. Eventually, he gestured in the direction of the nearest mechanic, and the old woman hastily drove off, the beep fading behind her as she turned a corner and was gone.
“Wow,” I said, “that must’ve been painfully loud from inside the car. I’d hate to have all that beepage blasting right in my face. Good thing the horn on our truck stopped working ages ago.” I turned toward the customer. “Now, how can we help?”
“This is a prime example!” she said. “Every time I—”
A raucous clatter cut her off. I whirled around and saw the truck that belonged to the helpful driver had opened up, and hundreds upon hundreds of cans had fallen out the back. I was excited for a split second there, imagining such syrupy delights as fruit cocktail and cherry pie filling up for grabs, distributed throughout the neighborhood like tiny treasures waiting to be stumbled upon later. But then the vegetables painted on the side of the truck quashed my nascent fruity fantasies.
Still, the spill was entertaining. Those cans could really roll! Though why they were just loose in the back of the truck to begin with was anyone’s guess.
Eventually, the cacophony ebbed long enough for the red-haired customer to say, “I can’t take much more of this. I need someone to—”
Suddenly, we were enveloped by the rousing sound of a marching band. Through every speaker in the building, from the stereo that usually piped in Musak to the intercom no one ever used (as it was a lot quicker to just yell) some vaguely patriotic parade music blasted forth. Rufus Clahd reeled out of his office with an empty CD case in his hand—the title of which was March! March! March! He waved it around a few times, then stumbled back in.
Mom held up a Just-a-Sec index finger and bustled off to help our Seer with his musical selection. That left me standing there in the lobby with the customer—not usually a problem, but the fact that we couldn’t talk was surprisingly awkward for me. I offered her an encouraging smile and she tried her best to smile back, though really, it came out as more of a wince.
Banging and clanging ensued, and the rousing march went skip-skip-skip, sounding oddly techno as it stuttered over the end of a cymbal crash replaying the blat of a trumpet. Several bangs later, the march fell silent, and my mother stomped out of Mr. Clahd’s office, muttering, “Why we let him have access to the sound system, I’ll never know.”
The customer was just about to try again when Mom cut her off with, “Not one more word, young lady. Not until I get a look at that piece of Spellcraft in your pocket.”
The customer sagged all over with relief, pulled out the paper, and slid it across the desk.
The Seen was adorable—something right out of a children’s book, with a poodle frolicking in a green field of grass dotted with pastel wildflowers, puffy clouds overhead, and a butterfly circling lazily in the sky.
But the Scribing overlaid on the clouds was downright puzzling.
Nobody listens to me.
“I see the problem,” Mom said, as the customer nodded so vigorously I was worried she’d make herself dizzy enough to keel over. Not that that’s ever happened to me. Lately. “Crafting a Spell is challenging enough. It’s part discipline, part innate ability, and part luck. Most people who discovered a Crafting like this on their person would just tear it up, and it’s a good thing you didn’t. That might only make things worse. If you figure out who saddled you with this thing, you’d have a good case against them—though bringing it to the authorities would be a challenge in the state you’re currently in.”
The customer shook her head no.
“That’s good. I don’t recommend involving the law where something like this is concerned. Litigation and Spellcraft are an unpredictable combination. My advice would be to neutralize the Crafting—which just so happens to be my son’s specialty. But it doesn’t come cheap.”
The customer whipped out a credit card and flapped it up and down.
“Fine. Dixon?” Mom gestured at the Crafting. “It’s in your capable hands.”
Bursting with pride over my mother’s genuine praise, I gingerly picked up the Crafting and took it back to my office. It was the smallest office with the worst view—and it smelled like burnt mozzarella—but now it was so much more than a place to keep the nocturnal animals no one wanted in their house. Don’t get me wrong, the super loud toad was still there…but he was currently asleep, so he made a perfectly acceptable office mate.
Aside from the cages and tanks, there were now various Spellcrafty things a Hand might need. Copies of all the contracts and forms involved with the business. A giant box of dubious receipts. Contact info for the other local families, as well as a pile of generic gifts I might give if a social obligation cropped up…though someone had broken into the chocolates and taken a bite out of them. The fancy soaps, too.
In short, my office was a real office. And while I had once balked at the thought of joining my family business, now that I was actually rolling up my sleeves and getting down to work, I found it surprisingly empowering.
Though I had to admit, it was a lot more fun now that I was technically in charge.
I cleared my desk, drew my quill from its case, and lay the Spellcraft on the blotter. It wasn’t a curse—curses are in a horrific category all their own, and I’d be just as glad to never see one again—but it was definitely a hindrance. I would have expected the vibe it gave off to feel negative somehow. But when I turned it this way and that and tried to get a sense of the telltale tingle, it just felt…tingly. Nothing more.
If it weren’t for the actual words, I would’ve taken it for a perfectly benign Crafting. Maybe it was meant to teach someone a lesson. Or maybe it was just a poorly thought out practical joke. Whatever the reason, the only thing that mattered now was how to Uncraft the Spell.
Jordan Castillo PriceAuthor and artist Jordan Castillo Price writes paranormal sci-fi thrillers colored by her time in the Midwest, from inner city Chicago, to various cities across southern Wisconsin. She’s recently settled in a 1910 Cape Cod near Lake Michigan with tons of character and a plethora of bizarre spiders. Her influences include Ouija boards, Return of the Living Dead, “light as a feather, stiff as a board,” girls with tattoos and boys in eyeliner.
Jordan is best known as the author of the PsyCop series, an unfolding tale of paranormal mystery and suspense starring Victor Bayne, a gay medium who’s plagued by ghostly visitations. And her quirky, sweet, magical series The ABCs of Spellcraft is sure to make you smile.
ABC Spellcraft Series
