Chapter 6

Grace continues her narrative:

Breakfast was very late that Saturday morning, but Joe was smiling when he came in to eat.

“Good morning,” he said still smiling.

“Is everything okay, Joe?” I asked on seeing the smile.

“Oh yes ma’am,” he assured me, as I sat the food on the table.

There was still much cooking to do this morning to have the meal finished for the party following the wedding. I wasn’t sure how many would be coming, and it being February, there wasn’t a great variety of food available. I had some canned vegetables, and also some preserved ones but not a large quantity of anything, plus they had been meant to last us the rest of the month. We would need to visit the grocer to replace them next week.

Margie, her Mother, and Celeste appeared in the kitchen while I was worrying about this, and they had brought quite a number of things with them.

“Are you ready to start cooking?” Margie asked.

“Yes, but I don’t know how much to prepare. How many people will be coming?” I asked.

“Oh, probably only a dozen or so in addition to us and our husbands,” Kathleen told me. I was shocked, as I had nowhere near enough food to feed 18 people in addition to Owen, Joe, and me.

“We brought additional food,” Celeste told me on seeing the look on my face.

“Really?” I asked and looked at the the box they had brought. I could see that there were a number of bags in the box in addition to a large roast of beef.

“What are these?” I asked thinking that they were dried vegetables before picking up one of the bags to find it to be very cold. So cold in fact that I released it to fall back into the box.

“They’re frozen vegetables. You only need to boil them to have fresh vegetables,” Margie told me.

“Frozen?”

“Yes, it’s a very old way to preserve food. It has been used for hundreds of years by the Clan. There are also preservation spells that are used on other types of food so that it will keep for long periods of time,” she told me.

“Yes, we used canning in Kentucky to preserve things for use later,” I assured her, “but how do you freeze things and keep them that way?”

“It’s easy to do naturally in the winter or if you have a thing called mechanical refrigeration, but it’s just being discovered here. It replaced the ice box long ago in the Reality that we came from. There is also the cold spell that one of our Ancestors found in the Reality of Continuous Magic, but it requires masonry walls at least two feet thick to work, and it’s mainly used for large spaces,” she finished.

“Bring out some large pots, and we’ll fill them part way with water and start them boiling. We can add the frozen vegetables when the water has started to boil, and they will be ready about eight minutes after the water begins boiling again. You’ll need some large serving bowls to put them in,” Kathleen told me.

“While you’re doing that, I’ll start on the roast. Do you have a roasting pan?” Margie asked.

“Yes, but I don’t know if that roast will fit in it,” I told her, “Or if it will fit in the oven either.” I was getting out my two large pots in the meantime.

“I’ll take those,” Celeste told me, and she placed them on top of the stove before casting a spell. When I looked, both pots were half full of water, but they had been empty only seconds before. More firewood had appeared while I was checking the pots, and the firewood door on the stove opened by itself. The wood flew into the stove, also by itself, as the grate rocked to drop the ashes before the door closed again and the dampers opened, much to my amazement.

When I turned, Margie had the roasting pan in her hand and was looking from it to the roast and shaking her head.

“This will never be large enough,” she said, and my roasting pan disappeared and shortly another pan appeared in her hands.

“This will be large enough, but I’ll need to cut the roast in two for it to fit,” she told me, and turning to the roast, she said something as she raised her arm. As she brought her arm down past the roast again a bright light emerged from her fingers and cut the roast in half, startling me greatly.

“That’s better,” Margie said, as she called the salt and pepper to her to season the meat. Next potatoes, fresh carrots, onions, garlic, and celery appeared from their box to be chopped up and added to the roasting pan along with some water.

“The water’s boiling,” Celeste called out, as two large bags of the frozen vegetables flew out of the box to her hands, and she poured one bag into each pot.

“It’s a little crowded in here with four of us. I believe I’ll do some work outside,” Kathleen told us and vanished. The kitchen had become very hot by now with the dampers open on the stove, but neither of the O’Connell women seemed to notice.

“The Wedding is scheduled to start at two o’clock, so you’ll need to go up and bathe around noontime,” Margie told me after putting the roast in the oven.

“Where are we going to feed all of these people?” I asked having realized that they would never fit in the small dining area by the kitchen.

“Why in the dining room, dear. It’s large enough, and there are plenty of dishes for the food there as well as plates and other things for the guests to have their meal on,” she assured me. We, that is Owen, Joe, and I, had never eaten in the dining room, and I had only paid scant attention to the dishes and things in the sideboards.

“How... ?” I started to ask, but Margie was speaking again.

“Your house is very nearly the same as the Founder’s House, and the dining room IS the same. Don’t worry about it, everything will be fine,” she assured me with a smile.

Noontime arrived before I knew it. The O’Connell’s whirlwind brand of cooking had left me stunned.

“I’m taking Grace upstairs to bathe, Celeste, I’ll be back shortly. The roast won’t be finished for a while yet,” Margie told her Apprentice. There were numerous bowls of vegetables on the large work table by now as well as several gravy boats full of gravy that they had made from packages that they had brought with them.

“We’ll need to take the heated water from the stove upstairs with us,” I told Margie and was ready to collect some in the wooden buckets kept in the kitchen to carry the water.

“Don’t worry about that,” she told me, and we immediately appeared in the bathroom of the master bedroom.

“I’ll take care of the water while you strip,” Margie told me, and I saw the tub fill half way with water. A can of something also appeared in her hand, and she sprinkled part of its contents into the water.

“A nice hot bubble bath is just what you need to relax you for your wedding,” she told me. I checked the water and was shocked. It was hot, not warm but hot, and there were many gallons of it in the tub, yet Margie didn’t seem in the least bit tired, and she had heated all of it by herself. I had been worn out just heating a pitcher of water, and that said a lot about the size of her Talent. Whatever she had poured into the water smelled very good by now, and as she stirred the water with a spell, large quantities of bubbles appeared on the surface.

“Get out of those clothes and get into the bath,” she directed me. I was embarrassed to remove my clothes in front of someone who wasn’t part of my Family. That just wasn’t done in Kentucky, but with her prompting, I removed my clothes and quickly got in the tub. IT WAS AMAZING! The water was just hot enough, and the smell was wonderful plus no one could see most of me because of all of the bubbles.

“Just soak in there for a while. I left a spell that will keep the water hot for a good three quarters of an hour,” she told me before disappearing. I just leaned back against the tub’s back and enjoyed this luxurious bath. I must have lost track of time sitting there in the warm fragrant water, as the next thing that I knew, Margie was there again beside the tub.

“Time to get dressed. It’s one o’clock already,” she told me as I looked at her in confusion.

“Don’t worry, the bubble bath will have cleaned you up already,” she added, and held out a large fluffy towel to wrap me in as I rose from the water.

In the bedroom after drying off, there were clean underthings and stockings waiting for me. Once half dressed, Margie worked on my hair before helping me with the makeup that she had brought with her. My shoes followed, and then the wedding dress with its veil and train. When I looked at myself in the mirror in the bath, I didn’t recognize the beautiful woman staring back at me, but it was me.

“Where is Owen? He needs to be getting ready also,” I asked Margie in a frantic voice.

“Robert has him in the other bathroom getting him ready. They’ll meet us over at the chapel,” she assured me with a smile. I noticed then that somehow she had changed clothes, as she was wearing a very fancy dress as well as having her hair rearranged.

“Shall we go?” she asked, and I braced myself expecting to be moved by her Magic again, but instead to my surprise, we calmly walked down the stairs and out the front door to the chapel. There was a distinguished looking older man in the vestments of a minister standing outside of the chapel. There was another man there with him, a younger man, but not a young man.

“This is my Great Uncle Seamus O’Connell. He is the one who will be marrying you,” Margie told me, as we stopped in front of the man in vestments. He appeared to be just a bit taller than Owen, so he was maybe 5’-10’’ tall. He was also heavier than Owen by maybe 20 pounds. His hair and short beard were white, and he had gray eyes.

“Good afternoon, sir.”

“Good afternoon, Grace O’Malley. Are you ready to be married, and is this your own decision?” the minister asked in a pleasant but gravelly voice.

“Oh yes sir. Owen and I have been ready to be married for some time now, we just didn’t know where to go to have a quiet ceremony, since the people here think that we’re already married,” I explained to him.

“Yes, that’s what I had heard, but I wanted to be sure,” he told me patting my hand. Margie had brought the other man, who had stepped away while I spoke with the minister, closer to us now and introduced us.

“This is my Father, Carl Michael O’Connell,” she told me with a smile.

“Good afternoon, young lady, my Daughter has told me much about you. I’ll be the one escorting you down the aisle,” he finished.

“It’s approaching two o’clock. Shall we all take our places?” Minister O’Connell asked.

“What about Owen?” I asked in worry.

“He’s already in the chapel with his best man waiting for us,” Carl O’Connell told me. Minister O’Connell had already vanished, and Margie’s Father guided me toward the chapel doors.

As we mounted the steps to the chapel, I heard an organ begin to play the ‘Bridal March’, but we had no organ or even a piano. How could there be organ music, I wondered?

“That’s part of the music that we brought with us,” Carl O’Connell told me, as if reading my mind. “Maybe he can read my mind,” I thought for a second, but we were passing through the doors of the chapel now, and I stopped in shocked amazement on seeing the interior.

There were several Magic Powered lights hanging over the aisle and the sanctuary. The pews were packed as was the standing room in the back and on the sides of the chapel. There were certainly more than the expected dozen people that I had been told would be here, and none that I recognized except for Joe, who was sitting in the last row of pews. Minister O’Connell stood in the sanctuary with a large, long lit candle in a tall stand on either side of him. Owen and Frank were standing in front of him.

Most amazing of all however, and what had startled me were the flowers. There were hundreds of various types of flowers in brightly colored bouquets hanging in baskets on both sides of the chapel as well as in the sanctuary. I was stunned and wondered where all of them had come from. However, I was given little time to contemplate this as Margie and Celeste dressed as my bride’s maids stepped in front of me from either side of the chapel and proceeded down the aisle to the renewed sound of the organ music. Carl O’Connell took my arm in his and walked me down the aisle several steps behind his Daughter and her Apprentice.