A Dash of Magic: A Bliss Novel Read online

  Everyone in the audience gasped and turned to look at her.

  Lily glared at Rose. Then, for just an instant, Lily’s eyes went wide, and Rose knew that Lily had recognized her.

  “Ha! We have a comedian in the audience!” Lily said, giggling and clapping. “That’s so cute! Next question!”

  Before the next person could stand, Ty bounded up from his seat and pointed a finger in the air. In his gray beard and red cloak, he looked like Santa Claus. “This young lady, whom I have never seen before and am not related to, deserves a chance to bake!”

  The studio fell silent. Scattered applause fluttered up from the risers.

  Rose raised the microphone once more. “I challenge you, Lily Le Fay, to compete against me in the Gala des Gâteaux Grands in Paris, France.”

  Rose handed the microphone back to the young man with the headset and plopped into her seat, her arms folded across her chest.

  The audience gasped once more, looking back and forth between their idol and the curly-haired little girl who had just challenged her to a duel at the world’s most prestigious televised pastry competition—back and forth, back and forth, like they were watching a tennis match.

  Lily stood frozen in the center of her studio kitchen, wobbling on the points of her high-heeled shoes. Lily had no choice but to accept the challenge. If she didn’t, it would look like she was afraid of being outdone by an adolescent.

  Suddenly Lily’s face transformed, her glare replaced by a sweet smile. “I accept the challenge! I will compete against this brave young thing at the Gala des Gâteaux Grands!”

  The audience went wild, clapping and hooting and hollering.

  “What’s your name, sweetheart?” Lily asked.

  Rose stood and pulled off the blond wig, letting her long, black hair cascade down to her shoulders. “My name is Rosemary,” she said. “Rosemary Bliss.”

  Beside her, Ty discreetly pumped his fist. “Yes!” he said.

  “Well, Rosemary Bliss.” Lily spat out the name as if it were another term for a skin disease. “Just because you’re little doesn’t mean I’m going to go easy on you. You know that, right?”

  “Yup,” Rose said defiantly. And she curtsied to her aunt Lily, who steadied herself by leaning up against the kitchen counter.

  I can’t believe I just did that, thought Rose.

  At the end of the show, while the rest of the audience was filing out, the bearded man in the headset plucked Rose and Ty from the line. “Lily wants to see both of you,” he said. “This is huge! She never wants to see anyone!

  “I’m Bruno,” he went on, leading Rose and Ty down a back hallway of the studio. “But Lily still doesn’t know my name. She calls me Bill. But hey, she’s Lily! She could call me Armpit for all I care.”

  Rose scowled. It seemed Lily had everyone in the country wrapped around her elegant pinkie finger.

  At the end of the hall was a metal door painted blue, with a sign in the shape of a star that read MS. LE FAY.

  Bruno knocked quietly on the door. “I have the little girl and the old man here, Lily!”

  “Oh, thanks, Bill!” she called. “Send them in!”

  Bruno pulled the door open, and Rose and Ty walked into what could only be described as a palace. In the center of the room gushed a stone fountain ringed by ornate cast-iron benches. A lush forest of orchids hung from the ceiling, and flowing swaths of blue silk draped the walls.

  And there, sitting in a hammock, rocking gently from side to side, was Lily. She was wearing a plush white robe, like she’d just emerged from the shower; only her perfect black hair was dry. Even in a bathrobe, she looked ready for an awards show.

  “Have a seat by the fountain, Rosemary. You, too, Thyme.”

  Rose sat with her brother on one of the cast-iron benches and looked up at the massive fountain, which was a fifteen-foot marble statue of Lily stirring a spoon around an overflowing bowl, her neck long and elegant.

  “It’s so nice to see both of you again! How do you like my little dressing room?” Lily stepped out of the hammock.

  “I gotta say, it’s pretty sweet, Tia Lily,” Ty said, looking around.

  Lily perched on the edge of the fountain, folding one tanned, silky leg over the other. “Let’s get down to business. Your little stunt today was reckless, to say the least. What exactly are you trying to do?”

  Rose sat up straight and cleared her throat. “Losing the Gala des Gâteaux Grands would ruin you. But unlike you, I don’t have a reputation to worry about. I’m twelve. So we’re offering you a deal. I will lose the competition on purpose if you just give us back our Cookery Booke and stop selling Lily’s Magic Ingredient.”

  Lily feigned surprise. “Right, the Booke! You want the Booke back. Of course. I’d forgotten all about it.”

  “You already have a TV show, Tia Lily,” said Ty. “What do you still need the Booke for? Our town is in trouble!”

  Lily plucked a bit of fuzz off her white robe and flicked it into the fountain. “See, this is the problem with the Bliss family. None of you has any ambition. You’re more concerned with your Podunk town than with succeeding. You think that just because I host the highest-rated daytime TV show in history and have a fifteen-foot marble statue of myself in my enchanted-forest-themed dressing room that I have ‘enough.’ There is never enough!”

  Lily stood and sauntered toward the brilliantly lit mirror on her makeup table. “I could have real power. I could be running the country! But I can’t do it without the Booke. Or Lily’s Magic Ingredient.”

  Ty itched under his beard. “Wow, Tia Lily. You’re scary. You’re like a devil-aunt. You’re like . . . a tia . . . but you’re also the Devil, El Diablo. You’re like . . . El Tiablo!”

  “So, you see, I can’t give it back in exchange for you throwing the contest,” said Lily as she examined her flawless cheek in the mirror, hunting for clogged pores that weren’t there. “And I can’t stop selling Lily’s Magic Ingredient.”

  “But—” Rose began to protest just as two men wearing suit jackets and polo shirts burst through the door.

  “There you are, you geniuses!” said the shorter of the two. The taller one was studying the screen on his cell phone.

  “My name is Joel,” said the short one. “I’m one of the producers of Lily’s 30-Minute Magic. This is our other producer, Kyle.”

  The taller man looked up from his cell phone for a moment and nodded, then looked back down.

  Joel shook Rose’s hand. “You were fabulous today,” he said enthusiastically. “I thought maybe Kyle had arranged your showdown with Lily as a birthday present to me, but he was as surprised as I was!”

  Rose gave a confused half smile.

  “Anyway, we can’t wait for this year’s Gala des Gâteaux Grands,” Joel said. “Could a twelve-year-old girl possibly beat Lily Le Fay, the world’s most famous baker? It’s genius! Everyone in the universe will be tuning in to watch! And that includes aliens!

  “We’ll get all the contracts ironed out later,” Joel went on. “For now, just know that you’ve made us very happy producers. Kisses!” he said, kissing the air on either side of Rose’s cheek.

  “Bye,” muttered Kyle.

  After Joel and Kyle had closed the dressing room door behind them, Lily went back to examining her skin in the mirror. “As I was saying, I can’t just give the Booke back, or stop selling Lily’s Magic Ingredient. But I also can’t back down from your challenge, because I already accepted on TV. That would make me look like a chump. Am I a chump? I don’t think so. Do chumps wear plush cotton robes and smell like lilacs? No. The only way to settle this is to play it out at the Gala fair and square.”

  “You mean,” Rose said, wincing, “actually compete?”

  “Yes, actually compete! Did you think I would just roll over without a fight?” Lily swung around on her dressing stool to face Rose and Ty. “If you win, which you won’t, I’ll stop selling Lily’s Magic Ingredient, and I’ll give you back the Booke, an
d you can continue to lock it in a closet in your refrigerator and let its power go to waste. But if I win—and I will win—you’ll swear to me that not a single member of your scraggly, weird, classless family will ever come near me or the Booke again.”

  Rose gulped. Now, if she lost the Gala des Gâteaux Grands to Lily, she would lose the Booke forever.

  “Don’t worry, Tiablo. Rosita’s gonna bring it. Hard.” Ty patted Rose on the back. “But how do we know you’re not lying? What’s to stop you from holding on to the Booke or making more Magic Ingredient after you lose?”

  Now Rose patted her brother on the back. She hadn’t even thought of that.

  “Come with me,” said Lily.

  Rose and Ty followed Lily out of her dressing palace and onto the set of Lily’s 30-Minute Magic.

  Rose looked out at the rows and rows of empty seats, at the darkened grid of lights hanging from the ceiling. The studio was cold without all those giddy fans.

  Lily set to work, tossing some pantry ingredients into a metal mixing bowl: flour, brown sugar, eggs, butter, milk.

  “What are you making?” Rose asked.

  “I am making a No-Renege Rugelach,” Lily said, twirling the spoon through the batter. “After eating one of these, neither of us will be capable of going back on our word.”

  Lily unlocked a small drawer beneath the sink of her TV kitchen and pulled out a miniature blue mason jar filled with a clear, viscous liquid.

  “And what is that goop you’re putting in?” Ty asked.

  “Throughout the ages, the majestic ring fairies have been known for never going back on their word. This,” Lily said, pouring a few drops of the clear gloop over the rest of the ingredients, “is their saliva.”

  “Great,” said Ty, rolling his eyes.

  Thirty minutes later, Lily pulled the tray of No-Renege Rugelach from the oven and handed Rose and Ty two piping-hot pieces. “On three, we eat,” Lily said, lifting a piece herself. “One . . . two . . . three.”

  Rose shifted the flaky, buttery roll of dough from one set of burned fingertips to the other, back and forth. She never imagined actually having to beat Lily at the Gala des Gâteaux Grands. She had no idea how—or even if—she could win.

  “Well?” asked Lily, popping the rugelach in her mouth. “Are you going to eat it or not?”

  At that moment, Rose hated her aunt so thoroughly that she felt her blood get hot. I can beat her, she thought. I have to.

  She stuffed the rugelach into her mouth and swallowed.

  Exhausted, Rose and Ty stumbled out the back door of the studio to find Purdy and Albert there to greet them. Sage and Leigh were seat-belted in the back of the Bliss family van.

  “How did it go?” Purdy asked, kneeling on the sidewalk. She was wearing the same filthy, striped apron that she wore every day, which looked right at home in the Bliss kitchen but seemed very out of place next to a television studio.

  “She accepted,” said Rose.

  “She’ll do the contest?” asked Purdy.

  Rose nodded.

  “And you’ll lose on purpose, and she’ll give back the cookbook?” Purdy asked.

  “No,” said Rose.

  Albert paused nervously. “What do you mean, no? Wasn’t that the plan?” Since losing the Cookery Booke, he had stopped shaving, as well as exercising. His cheeks had filled out considerably, and a thick beard the texture of steel wool had enveloped the lower half of his face.

  Rose gulped. “She said she’ll give back the Booke if we beat her fair and square. And if we lose, we have to promise never to go looking for it again. It’s lost forever.”

  “Oh,” said Purdy quietly. “That’s another matter entirely, isn’t it.”

  “Yup!” Albert shouted, beginning to hyperventilate. “Oh boy!”

  Rose hung her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how it went wrong. I was sure she’d give the Booke back if I offered to throw the contest! But now I actually have to beat her! And we ate a No-Renege Rugelach, so there’s no backing down now.”

  Purdy cupped Rose’s cheek in her hand. “Well, you know what this means.”

  “What?”

  “You’re going to have to win the Gala des Gâteaux Grands.”

  Rose hung her head.

  “Oh boy,” Albert repeated, pacing around the concrete sidewalk, scratching at his sweaty, round head.

  “Albert, love, you’re not helping,” Purdy said. “Don’t worry, Rose. You don’t have to do it alone. We’re all going to beat Lily together. We’ll be with you every step of the way.”

  Leigh called out to Rose from her car seat in the back of the van. “Foolish, simple Rose!” She chuckled. “Daring to duel with the mistress of muffins!”

  “You have to win,” Purdy continued, “if only so that we can get our hands on the recipe for Turn-Back Trifle and fix our little Lily-loving monster here. I’m assuming the effects of Lily’s Magic Ingredient wear off shortly if you just eat a little bit of it, but Leigh ate a whole pound cake. She could be stuck like this forever if we don’t get the Booke back.”

  Leigh folded her arms across her dirty 101 Dalmatians T-shirt. “Oh, Purdy!” she called. “My bladder is . . . replete. If we don’t get to a bathroom soon, we’re going to have a situation on our hands!”

  Purdy rolled her eyes. “Come on,” she said, loading Rose and Ty into the van. “We only have five days before we have to fly to Paris for the competition.”

  “Good,” said Sage. “I forgot my blue pajama pants at home. I have to get them.”

  “Sorry, Sage, but we’re not going back to Calamity Falls,” said Purdy. “We are going to Mexico. We need to pick up your great-great-great-grandfather Balthazar Bliss.”

  Albert settled in the driver’s seat and turned the key while the van sputtered into gear.

  “We have a great-great-great-grandfather?” Sage asked, brandishing his tape recorder. “Is he a mummy?”

  “No, not yet,” Purdy replied. “He’s very spry. We need to see him because he has a second copy of the Booke. Unfortunately, Balthazar’s copy is written in another language, and he’s the only one left in the world who speaks it. He’s been working on a translation, but he’s slow. When last we checked, he’d only managed to translate six of the seven hundred and thirty-two recipes.”

  “We need him to hurry it up,” said Ty.

  “No time for that. We’re going to need his help.” Purdy grimaced. “Unfortunately.”

  “Why ‘unfortunately’?” Rose asked.

  Purdy sighed. “You’ll see.”

  The dusty main road of the village of Llano Grande cut through a lush green mountain. As the Bliss van rumbled over the dirt, Ty and Sage dozed in the backseat, while Leigh muttered long sentences to herself that no one but she understood.

  They’d driven for two days straight, all to get a copy of the Booke. Suddenly an obvious solution occurred to Rose. “Mom,” she asked, “why didn’t you guys ever make a photocopy of the Booke? Just so you’d have an extra?”

  “The Booke can’t be photocopied,” Albert replied, turning the wheel with one hand and fanning his face with the other. “You put it on a copy machine, the pages come out blank. It’s an odd trick of the Booke. Can’t be photographed, either. Remember that picture in the newspaper of your mom baking Love Muffins?”

  When the photo was taken, the Booke had been sitting open on the chopping block, where it often sat. But in the picture, there was no Booke—only an empty countertop.

  “The Booke knows how to protect itself. The only way to duplicate it is to copy it by hand,” he said. “And your mother and I were always too busy. Plus, that would have meant one more copy of the Booke floating around that we had to protect. Bad enough a copy fell into Lily’s hands.” Albert hushed his voice and turned to Purdy. “Imagine if another copy got to . . . you-know-who?”

  “Who?” Rose cried.

  “Let’s just say,” said Purdy, “that there are far worse bakers in the world than Lily Le Fay.�
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  “Anyway,” Albert went on, “you can’t even take the Booke apart. Once you remove a page, the recipe goes haywire. There is magic in the Cookery Booke binding that keeps everything in working order. That’s why there are only two copies in the world.”

  A minute later, Albert pulled off the main road and rolled to a stop near a brick hut with an overhanging tin roof. Leather saddles and empty canteens dangled from the sides of the roof, and the front porch was littered with sacks of corn and stacks of firewood. A sign hung from the tin roof: LA PANADERÍA BLISS.

  “We’re here!” said Purdy, swallowing hard. “Everybody just be nice to him and we’ll all make it out alive.”

  Rose touched her finger to the screen door of La Panadería Bliss, and it creaked open. Albert and Purdy stood behind her, with Sage and Ty and Leigh heading up the rear.

  It was dusty and dark inside. An empty hostess stand sat next to the door.

  Ty glanced back up at the sign. “What’s a panadería?” he whispered.

  “A bakery,” Albert whispered back.

  “This doesn’t look like a bakery,” Ty said.

  He’s right, thought Rose. There were no tables, no chairs, no glass countertop, and no baked goods. It was a tiny, stuffy, windowless room with a damp floor and a toppled stack of chairs in the corner.

  “Oh dear,” Purdy mumbled. “He’s probably gone off to a nursing home. I can’t blame him—I mean, he is one hundred and twenty-seven years old.”

  Rose noticed a little silver bell sitting on top of the hostess stand. She reached out and pressed her palm against it.

  Leigh balled her tiny hands into fists and crossed her arms. “And I suppose it would have killed you to call ahead? Lily, the empress of empanadas, would have called ahead.”

  “Well, Lily isn’t your mother, now is she?” Purdy said.

  Just then a tall man with a thick chest and shriveled, spindly limbs hustled through a doorway in the back of the dingy room. His head was mostly bald except for two patches of gray above his ears. He wore spectacles and a sour frown.

  “Hola,” he grumbled, grabbing six menus from the hostess stand. “Follow me.”