Excerpt:
Sometimes I’m blown away
by my city. Trudging through the tedium of daily life, trying to survive, it’s
easy to forget how Liberty Island is so close, or Ellis Island, or any islands
with tourist attractions.
“The last time I was
here, I was eight.”
“I come here often.”
As we head toward Lady
Liberty, I swear she looks down and gives me a wink.
“Did you see that? She
winked at me.”
“Maybe she finds you
attractive.”
“Ha ha.”
“You should be so lucky,”
Jack says, surprising me by having a sense of humor.
As we approach the
entrance, I stop. “Don’t tell me I got to walk it.”
With a cocky grin that
makes him look too hot to be human, he wraps his arm around my waist and pulls
me in close.
Hello. This has taken a
strange turn. Can’t say I hate it. The man is gorgeous. If a golden sunray were
a person with an eccentric sense of style, it’d be him. Even so, I’m not
marrying a stranger.
With a wave of his hand,
we shoot straight up, flying past the top of her head into the sky, and I
scream at the top of my lungs the entire time. Next thing I know, we’re in a
shrine made of light and gold that shines like we’re standing inside the sun.
It’s a big, ornate room suspended above the Statue of Liberty.
“Wow,” I breathe.
“Please try something for
me.”
“Uh oh. If it has
anything to do with jumping out one of these windows to see if I can fly on my
own, the answer is no friggin’ way.”
“Perhaps try something
simple.”
“Simple works.”
“Focus.”
“Alright. Focusing.” Deep
breath in and exhale.
Oy, I feel like a dope,
but I stop myself and open to the possibilities. Hello, I’m in a magic temple
floating over the Statue of Liberty. Anything is friggin’ possible. Time to
give this a real shot. What if Mr. B’s right? What if I’ve got powers? Who
knows?
“Let’s start with
something simple any witch could do—I’d like you to float a feather.”
A small white feather
flutters in, hovers before me, and drifts toward the ground.
“If it touches the floor,
the floor will disappear,” he says, and my heart jumps into my throat.
With as much speed as I
can muster, I try to snatch the thing. No matter what I do, it flies away. Soon
enough I’m chasing this thing around like a psycho, flapping whatever parts
necessary to create enough wind to keep it afloat.
“Magic! Use Magic,” Jack
chides.
“The stakes are too
high!” I shout as I keep it up with the breeze from my spastic body movements.
“Use your powers!”
“I don’t have any!”
Wait, I know! I pull out
my lint roller with such speed it might as well be magic and use the rest of my
body to guide the feather to the sheet of stickum. Thank God, it works!
“Screw you, feather! I
win!”
“That’s not what I
meant.”
“I know, but I don’t want
to die like that, and I don’t have any powers. I’m sorry.” I plop down onto the
gold floor etched with sunray patterns.
He takes a paper out of
his pocket and reads as he paces before me.
“Have you ever felt like
you knew when the disasters you experience would strike?”
“Only around my birthday
because it’s always a disastrous time. The others catch me unaware, even now. I
mean, I’ve gotten to where I can spot and avoid them, but that’s from
experience, not from a magical power or nothing like that. It’s my job to
notice those things.”
“Do your dreams ever come
true, or your nightmares?”
“Yeah,” I say with a
chuckle.
“Why’s that funny?”
“If I remember my dreams,
it’s always boring stuff, like I’m at work filing or some random crap. I don’t
have interesting dreams. Never have. They come true, but it’s because I’m
dreaming about the stuff I do every day.”
“That’s unique.”
“Is it?”
“Perhaps not,” he says
and sighs, massaging the bridge of his nose.
“If I had magical powers,
I’d have used them by now, wouldn’t I? It’d be great to be a goddess, but
that’s not my reality. And it’s cool. Most people don’t have magical powers.
I’m happy to be most people.”
“Maybe we could try one
more time. Maybe you’ll undergo some transformation if you find them–”
“I’ll look like a woman
you could love?”
What a dick.
“I… I’m sorry, but I’ve
had a very clear image of her in my mind my entire life and you are nothing at
all like her.”
The sigh that escapes me
is unavoidable.
“Look, I want to be
offended, but I saw her in Evelyn’s memory. She’s smoking hot, and I am nothing
like her. That’s alright though, because she’s a goddess, and I’m just a
person.”
“If they buried the
magic… Maybe we could try—”
“—Alright, let’s try
again.” I pull myself up to standing. “Go ahead. Give me another test. Can it
not be a life-or-death thing, though?”
After a moment, he
proffers his arm, his hand reaching into a ray of light that shines in through
one of the ornate windows. He grasps the light and squeezes it. When he opens
his hand, a glowing amber colored marble is there.
“Uh, so, how do I do
that?”
“Catch the light in your
palm and make it solid.”
“Oh, sure. No problem.
Make light solid. Easy peasy,” I say and walk over to the same sunbeam.
When I try to grab the
light like he did, nothing happens.
“Maybe it’s that sunbeam
that’s the problem, since you already grabbed it,” I say, trying to appease him
and go to the next one, and the next. Each time, reality reminds me it exists
by laughing in my face. “I feel like an idiot,” I say, and he sighs. “I suck.
Admit it. I suck at magic.”
“This is not the way it’s
supposed to happen,” he says as he sits on the floor, his head falling into his
hands.
Defeated, miserable, and
distraught, he pouts. I sit and give him a pat on the back.
“I wish I was her.
Believe me, I do. You’re a jerk, but you’re a handsome jerk. Who’s not into me.
Most everyone else is though, so I’m not worried.”
“Belvedere says it’s the
human body—it’s nothing like living as a god—but visions of her plague me. If I
look somewhat like who I was, why wouldn’t she?”
“No clue.”
“If you’re a pawn and not
a minion, then the Winter Witch cursed you too. I’m not so sure being near each
other is best for either of us. We’re at the brink of the apocalypse.
Somehow, you are at the
center, perhaps to create disasters, obstacles. From what I’ve gathered, you’ve
been disastrous since birth.”
“Let me make sure I’m
hearing you right—you’re saying every messed-up thing that’s ever happened to
me—”
“—Is part of a curse to
keep me and Flora apart, to end our reigns as gods. Which means the death of
Spring and Summer for eternity. No growth, only decay. Nothing to harvest. Only
cold darkness year-round. If I die, if she dies, both seasons die with us. Gods
are immortal for a reason.”
“You’re a god now? An
actual god?” I say and snort. Talk about ego problems.
“I am the God of Summer.
Flora is the Goddess of Spring. That day, we were to commit to each other for
eternity.”
“But I was born the day
before—”
“Of course, the Winter
Witch knew what she would do to us before she did it. She was prepared. With
you and who knows who else.”
“Basically, you’re saying
all the tragedy in my life is because of you and your girlfriend and the old
hag who hates you, and now the end of the world is going to happen because of
me.”
“Put in the most remedial
of ways, yes.”
Talk about screwing someone
over. I’m cursed because of this crap I ain’t got nothing to do with no how?
Who does that to a baby that ain’t even born? There’s no way I’m causing the
end of the friggin’ world. This winter witch can keep dreaming. She picked the
wrong girl… woman… whatever. And if I am cursed, and she’s the one who cursed
me, I wonder.
“Let’s say I find your
goddess for you. Does my curse break too?”
“If your misfortune
results from this curse, yes, it would, in theory, break too. But if we find
her, Mandi, I promise you, I will break the curse for you. I am a God. When I
have the full force of my powers returned to me, I will remove your curse and
bless you. You have my bond.”
“Does this blessing
include magical real estate? Specifically, I could use a rent-free penthouse
with magical perks, like built in cleaning and laundry. And one of those
enormous gardens the size of Central Park like you got. That’d be incredible.”
He cracks a smile and
almost laughs, but I’m not kidding.
“I’m being serious, Jack.
If you could hook me up, I’d appreciate it. Living without disasters…” I stop
and think about what that might be like. “I never thought about that as a
possibility. That’d be…” Knowing nothing was going to happen to me would change
everything.
“I guess that’d be blessing
enough. But I’m homeless. I don’t want to go back to Danny.”
“How would that even be
an option?”
“What do you mean? I got
nowhere else to go.”
“What about a friend who
might let you stay on their couch?”
“Nah, I’m not a social
person.”
“You don’t appear to be
introverted. In fact, you should be far more introverted than you are.”
“Alright, I’ll ignore
that because you’re stressed. Don’t you worry, Jack. A witch-goddess, I may not
be, but I fix screwups for a living. You’re looking at an expert—this is what I
do. I got this,” I assure him. “Come on. Let’s blow this sunbeam. We got work
to do. I got a plan. Magic us on out of here.”
“I knew it wouldn’t
work,” he says with a sigh, takes out a golden whistle, and blows it, but I
don’t hear nothing.
“Dog whistle?” I ask with
an arched brow. “I’m not riding no dog back to the city, magic or not.”
“Dragon whistle.”
As
the vaulted ceiling opens to the sky, a massive golden dragon glides down and
lands, perching on the top of the wall. A staircase of light materializes, and
we climb it to a landing.
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