Hank arched an eyebrow. “Does he have horns like that Pope Lick Monster fella?”

Charlotte laughed. “No, other complications. I’ll talk about it when Mama gets on the call. That way I just say it all at once.”

“Well, speak of the devil,” he said, ducking away as a hand came into frame and lightly smacked his shoulder.

“That man,” her mama sighed as she sat at the kitchen table. Charlotte watched Daddy make her mother a mug of steaming coffee, doctored just the way she liked it with three sugars.

“Daddy said you had a late night,” Charlotte said.

“Oh, it was fine. Your daddy just worries if I’m out past sunset. How are you settling in?”

“Fine,” Charlotte insisted. “It’s a little strange, so many magique living in one place, but nice.”

Lizzie rolled her eyes and sipped her coffee. “What a time to be alive, eh?”

“She’s seeing someone!” Daddy called from the stove, where he was frying eggs. “And he’s ‘complicated.’”

“Thank you, Daddy,” Charlotte muttered.

“Complicated how?” Lizzie asked. “Honey, is he married? You know better!”

“Mama, he’s not married!” Charlotte laughed. “Though, that might be preferable. His whole line’s been fae-cursed. He gets progressively more clumsy the more stressed out he gets. Apparently, it ruined his career in the science labs, so now he’s working as an administrator for the big muckity-mucks here in the Bayou.”

Lizzie sat back in her chair. “Oh, that is a nasty bit of magic.”

“It really is,” Charlotte agreed.

“Have you offered to remove it?” her mother asked.

“Apparently, the only way to remove it was for the cursed ancestor to apologize to the girl he hurt. Which is impossible now, since that guy’s been dead for a century or two,” Charlotte replied. “And if anybody else tries to remove it, it will get three times worse.”

Lizzie frowned. “Well, the apology was the only way for the original casting fairy to remove the curse, sure. That was the condition she was allowed to apply to the magic, as the creator.”

“I’m sensing a ‘but’ here,” Charlotte said.

“Well, magic is different for everybody, but the basic laws are still the same. You couldn’t just create magic without end, echoing on forever. That’s not how it works. It’s like the terms and conditions in contracts. If you can apply a clause, you can remove it,” Lizzie said.

“That is a sad and pragmatic way to describe magic,” Daddy told her, sliding a plate of buttered toast in front of her.

“It sounds like the fairy who cursed the line just wanted to make sure the family never consulted a magic practitioner to undo her work,” Lizzie said.

“Leonard’s family never tried to remove the curse, because they were too afraid…so they stayed cursed forever. Wow, that fairy godmother was mean,” Charlotte marveled.