More Than Meets the Eye

 

A THING OF BEAUTY

Brindle Davis ducked her head and shut her eyes, feeling far too large for the café booth. She did not want to be doing this right now. There was nothing more humiliating than having an intimately awkward argument with her girlfriend in public.

“Well?” Bloom Fairfield scooted forward on the pleather seat to press against the table, expectantly. “Talk to me.”

Brindle shrugged, her hulking shoulders tense. “I don’t know what to say.” Bloom was dumping their most personal and private issues out on the lacquered table for everyone to see; frankly, what Brindle wanted to tell her was to stop.

At least they were at Faere Trade, a magical café that was used to seeing far stranger things than a couple bickering. Not that that made it much easier for Brindle.

Bloom huffed. “Could you please look at me, while we talk?”

Brindle couldn’t. She wished she could. But she struggled to lift her head, when she swore she could feel the weight of other people’s stares. She tried to tell herself that no one was looking at them, but it felt as if everyone was. Bloom’s gaze alone made Brindle’s shoulders slump in a useless effort to make her massive body small. As someone who did not like to be stared at, Brindle wanted to shrink and disappear into the booth’s creaking cushions.

“Brin?”

Shaking her head in a silent shush, Brindle coughed and sat up straighter when she saw the waitress approach with their drinks. Part of her was grateful for the small reprieve. But, as the waitress set their drinks in front of them, Brindle’s gaze caught on the café’s window and her own reflection haunting like a specter there. Not her reflection. Her glamour. The magically applied face she presented to the world. Leaning back, she sat on her large, awkward hands and stared at the strange, petite woman in the window.

Most women — most people — she knew hated their reflections, wishing they could change this and that about their appearance. Brindle wanted nothing more than to look like the rather ordinary-looking brunette she saw staring back at her.

But, staring down at her large, fur-covered body, Brindle knew no amount of magic could do that.

———

Bloom looked at Brindle, who sat across from her in the booth, fiddling awkwardly with the straw in her large, mostly undrunk root beer float. “Well, let’s start with, what do you mean, I’m too beautiful?”

Brindle shook her head. “You know exactly what I mean.” Bloom tried to meet Brindle’s gaze but, no matter how she tried, the other woman wouldn’t. “Look at you.” Brindle shrugged. “Then look at me. You want to know why I don’t really take our relationship seriously?” Brindle pushed back in the booth, the pleather squeaking under her sliding weight. “Well, that’s why.”

Bloom was beautiful.

She’d grown up knowing this. Often — especially in that awkward transition between girl and woman — had cursed it, knowing she had this odd and seemingly irrational power but had no idea how to use it, much less to have it not used against her.

She remembered a boy her age in town who’d professed his love for her every day for a year. He would go on and on about the brilliance of her eyes and the silk of her hair. He’d tell her that her skin was like cream touched by the sweetest honey and her mouth like the lush petals of a rose.

At first, it’d been flattering to go from the knock-kneed girl the boys teased to a woman adored. It’d even been a little bit fun. She’d asked him for favors and gifts, which he would eagerly give. He would do anything she asked, except accept that she didn’t return his affection.

It’d quickly become less fun, when he began to demand her attention and to jealously snap at anyone who threatened to take it from him. Without warning, it’d felt less like he appreciated her beauty and more like he’d assumed he possessed it. Not even her, he hadn’t wanted the whole of her. Just it. That beauty. Even now, she couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment his attention had stopped being flattering and began frightening her, all she knew was that it had.

In the end, it’d taken a pretty ugly act involving his best friend, a kiss, and a black eye to convince him that she wasn’t the girl for him after all. It was a lesson Bloom would never forget. For all the many gifts and privileges having a pretty face provided, there were always drawbacks.

She just never thought this would be one of them.

Bloom shook her head. She was so sick of this argument. “I don’t care what you look like!” She looked at her partner.

No, not her partner, not the real, non-glamoured, no-spells Brindle.

Bloom’s lips thinned at the pretty, but not-too-pretty brunette sitting across from her. She stared into her brown eyes, hating that those weren’t Brindle’s real eyes. Wasn’t even where her face was. She stared at the small woman’s frame sitting across from her, knowing that her girlfriend’s body looked nothing like her glamour’s. Bloom shook her head.

It was all a lie. And Bloom hated it. She didn’t get what the big deal was.

Okay, well, that was a lie.

She did know.

Without her glamour, even among the magical community, Brindle always attracted stares. Bloom knew that the startled gasps and instinctive recoils that were most people’s first reaction tolled on Brindle’s soul. Brindle was well-aware that people took one look at her and saw the embodiment of every monster, every nightmare, every demon, they feared.

Bloom watched the avatar’s head shake. “Do you have any idea how much magic it takes to glamour myself every morning, just so I can walk down the street without being stared at? Which is still better than when I was young and we couldn’t afford to pay for the spells, making it so I couldn’t leave the house at all. I’ve lived my entire life terrified that someone might touch me and discover my secret, since glamours might change how I look but not what I am.”

Bloom knew all that already. They’d talked about it. But damnit! “I just want to be able to hold my partner’s hand!”

Brindle’s eyes rolled. “That’s not all you want.”

Bloom sighed. She wasn’t wrong. “So I want to be able to kiss you and hold you and, yes, make love to you.” Bloom already knew what Brindle really looked like — though getting her to drop the glamour had taken months of building trust too — how could touching change anything? Bloom already knew Brindle’s secret; she longed for a different kind of discovery. “Is that so wrong?”

Arms crossed, Brindle made a disgruntled sound. “We talked about this, when we first started dating. I told you that touch is hard for me.”

Bloom sighed and reached out her hand to Brindle. “I really like you, so hard I can handle.” But they’d been dating for seven months now with nearly no physical contact. “But impossible… I don’t know if I can do that.”

Brindle’s eyes widened, even through her glamour, hurt shone clear in the brown depths. She stared at Bloom’s outstretched hand with distrust. “Are you breaking up with me?”

Bloom’s jaw tightened. “No.” That wasn’t what she wanted. But… “Even if we go slowly — as slowly as you want — I just need to know that it’s possible.” That, together, they’d get there. Someday. “I just need to know that there’s reason to hope.”

Brow furrowed and gaze lowered, Brindle nodded. “I’m good with hope.” The sounds of the café, the hum of tens of different conversations and the buzz of the espresso machine and the clink of cups and plates, filled the space between them. Brindle sighed. “But I don’t know if I can guarantee anything.”

Bloom hated the despondent tone in Brindle’s voice. To the point where she almost wanted to just laugh and tell her to forget the whole thing. To assure her partner that what they had was enough for her.

But it wasn’t.

She wished it was.

But she knew that, if she put her own needs aside for Brindle’s sake, she’d start resenting it. Bloom looked around, seeing the other couples there, some cuddling in booths or kissing over coffees. She wanted that. For herself. For Brindle.

She knew that Brindle couldn’t understand — couldn’t even imagine — why anyone would want to touch, to love, her body.

But, when Bloom closed her eyes at night, that was all she thought about. How would their bodies fit together? What would Brindle’s mouth on hers feel like, taste like? What would it be like to make love? Could they even do that? She wanted to know. However long it took, she could wait.

But, if she could never know, if it ultimately wasn’t something Brindle ever wanted, Bloom knew it would be better for her to walk away now. Before she fell too deep. Felt too much.

Before it would break her heart to leave.

If it wouldn’t already.

Bloom instinctively touched her chest as if anticipating that pain.

She shook her head. Maybe this would end and she’d be left with nothing but regret and loneliness. Nothing was guaranteed in life, not even in magical ones. But they weren’t done yet.

So she reached out her hand again. “I’m willing to try, if you are...”

Check out my monster love novella A Thing of Beauty. 

If it looks like a monster & moves like a monster, it must be one, right?

Then why does the human world seem so much more frightening to Brindle? Built like a beast, she never felt like she fit in the world she was born in.

Until Bloom.

Can she and Bloom find a way to live and love together in a world that refuses to see them as they are?

This wlw Beauty & the Beast story explores the realties of loving a monstrous body, from toxic gossip and body issues to defiantly following your bliss and discovering the joys of pervertable sex toys!

Available Now in eBook on

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Listen to an Excerpt

The Taste of You Makes Me Weak

 

THOUGHTS & PREYERS

 * This story started out as a short story that you can find on Circlet Press (I've posted it her(fix)e but it, unlike this particular story, is an erotica story, so consume responsibly). After I finished that story, I loved the characters so much that I really wanted to know more about them, so I expanded it into a full length novella.  I hope you enjoy their story as much as I do!

CONTENT WARNING: This story contains a humanoid spider, allegorical prejudice, and hate-based violence and terror, but is ultimately about community, belonging, and building your own happy endings. Again, consume responsibly.

Listen to an Excerpt

My human father told me once to be careful; that people will rise and fall to my expectations of them, so I should set them wisely. If I expect people to act their best, they’re more likely to do so than if I go in expecting their worst. But that was, of course, before my arachne aunts ate him, so I’ve always taken that advice with a grain of salt.

As you and I walk down the crowded, dinner-time streets, I can't help but think about that particular piece of parental advice as I see you frown at the gasps and the stares of the people around us scuttling away. I wonder, if he'd lived with my mother long enough to...well, live in this world — to walk in it, the way we have — if he'd still believe that.

Juggling armfuls of boxes and bags, we both turn when we hear a choked cry. A slicked-back guy in a nice suit shields his girlfriend, her tiny fists clutching and crushing his lapels’ crisp lines. He glares at us. At me. As if it’s my fault his date scares too easily. Gripping the box I’m carrying, I smile tightly, flashing my fangs fully, the long curved lengths sharp against my bottom lip, and blink innocently. All six, pitch black eyes. I can practically see the breath leave his lungs as the boyfriend’s peach-colored skin pales and his arms grip vice-like around the shivering girl even as his knock-kneed legs wobble in the finely woven linen.

Believe it or not, I’m not the scariest thing walking around the world. But it’s better for everyone if that’s what the world believes. It’s not openly talked about — not in polite company, anyway; certainly never in mixed — but the real reason the government restricts the sale of glamours to magical creatures with a history of...shall we say, appetites that run counter to human interests is that it makes the rest of humanity feel more in control of their world, if they think they can see the danger coming.

And, you know? That’s fine. I’ll be the boogeyman paraded out into the light that makes the children feel safer, in order to keep the truth in the shadows where it belongs. It doesn’t bother me.

But it bothers you. I can see that it does. Your pretty hazel eyes dull as you try to block it all out. With an indignant sniff, you tip your head back so your blunt-cut bangs part like a black curtain as you look past the pedestrian-packed streets and up at the smog-hidden sky.

I try to do the same. I really do try to ignore it and pretend my father's pretty advice could somehow — like magic words — re-shape me in the eyes of others but, scenting the couple's fear combine and swell, my joints inevitably shake. The sensitive hairs along all my limbs raise at attention as my articulated legs and arms twitch as if to pounce. I lick my lips and feel my heart race.

“Aida, don’t.”

I look to you, the corners of my lips uncurling. My face flushes hot at your censure. I hate the smug looks on the faces of people in our earshot. They think you’re putting me in my place. Keeping the monster on its leash.

I know you’re not.

As if you could. You’re strong enough. For a human. Broad-shouldered with sleek muscles over a slim yet sturdy frame, you look tougher than you should be. Like life beat you down, until you learned to beat it back. It’s one of the things I love most about you, Frey.

So, yes, I understand what you’re saying, even if no one else does.

Don’t. Such a small word that can mean so many things. Right now, it means Don’t be the monster they want you to be. Don’t prove them right. Don’t reinforce the humanity-first stereotypes these people already hold against arachnes and vampires and gargoyles and gorgons and anyone whose existence, for centuries, has been relegated and reduced to the public’s nightmares. That tone in your voice, that look on your face, it all screams, begs and pleads with me, to not feed their worst fears. Don’t make my own life, the lives of others like me — not to mention your life — worse for a fleeting feeling of pettiness.

No matter how good it might feel.

Fine. For you, Frey. Because it bothers you. And because I love that you’re not bothered by a girl with six eyes and eight limbs. For you, I’ll be the better being.

Besides, you’re right. We have more interesting things to deal with tonight than distressed damsels, stink-eyed suits, and pettiness.

Shifting a garment bag to your other arm, you reach your hand out to me. I pout and fidgetingly tap my fingers against the cardboard between my hands, listening to the jewelry inside jangle with the jostle.

You love public displays of affection. Not just because you like to touch and be touched, part of you loves to flaunt us in front of people. You’re proud to be with me and you don’t care who knows.

I am...less thrilled about it. The way people stare at us. Still more used to living in the shadows, I don’t like being looked at.

But they’re staring already.

So, on a sigh, I juggle my own bags from arm to arm to arm, and reach out a freed hand to clutch yours. I giggle when you, knowing I like it when you act tough and take charge, tug me forward, pulling me closer to you possessively. Like I belong near you. I lift my chin and let you lead me through the crowd, feeling the strength of your grip, being comforted by it, even as I put more sway into my four-legged gait.

The effect would be better if I was wearing anything but the plain, black t-shirt and shorts I threw on to get ready for tonight. I think about all the amazing clothes hanging neatly in the bags we’re carrying, including my own delicate, self-spun lace dress, that had taken months to finish and that I can't wait to show off tonight. I wish I was wearing that. Sauntering away in that would be a statement. Or at least a better one than the rumpled outfit I chose because, when it comes to setting up shop, comfort comes before style.

Whatever. Screw them. All of them. The whole world. I have you, I have my work, I have tonight, and that’s all I need.

We walk to a nondescript building, a blank-faced, barely renovated warehouse, and enter Preyer Service. When the magical community first came out, those who’ve preyed upon humanity under the cover of darkness and in their nightmares for eons, were the first to be targeted. With hate crimes and lynch mobs, with protests and, finally, laws. And, since prey now overwhelmingly outnumber us, monsters made for surprisingly easy marks. Especially now that the shadows where we used to dwell scare them less and less. The timid, little humans of the past were made brave with blindingly brilliant tech and efficiently lethal guns that our fangs and claws and spooky legends can no longer compete with.

Initially, Preyer Service had been created as a way for the government to capture and contain those on predatory lists. For our own protection as well as the public’s, so they said. In reality, with its vague allusion to religion and higher-powered morality, it was the nice, righteous public face for our extermination. We were quarantined and kept in captivity, those of us lucky enough to survive the raids, all in the name of national security and safety. And we stayed that way until the magical community, joined by non-magical legal support, were able to strike a compromise.

Conditional amnesty was granted for those who agreed to reform and conform to society’s laws and norms. And, for those who could not or would not agree...well, mercy is never meant for monsters.

So, even after the official department of Preyer Service was disbanded, those of us who remember keep it alive. We’ve reclaimed it for our own. Built a community in its ashes, where we make our own safety. Where we’re allowed a small space in this new world to be unapologetically ourselves. Where we can gather, for celebration and survival. Where we are protected by each other. And where we protect each other — even from one another and, especially, from ourselves.

There’s a strange accountability in community. We all know each other’s business. We know each other’s partners and practices. We share our joys. We lighten each other’s burdens.

And we call ourselves out, when we see each other slip. We deal with our own. The world can be cruel; no one knows this better than us. We are predators, by nature. But, after being made the modern world’s prey, we won’t be held at anyone’s mercy again.

So we come here. Our safe space.

I look around the building. Once it became ours, we tore down the bureaucratic cubicles and the government-sanctioned cages. We ripped apart the laboratories and gutted the multi-floored warehouse to its original bones. This is our only home — the gathering place of a messy mix of displaced creatures who all need it for countless reasons. This sacred space, like a phoenix, is near nightly built up as required — for pack-led hunts or unholy rituals or orgiastic feasts — only to be torn down again and made new, waiting for its next demand. There is magic in these walls and tested strength in its foundations.

Tonight, it’s bustling with stands and risers. Racks and shelves stand naked and bare, waiting to be dressed and filled for the Night Faire, a seasonal weekend-long market to show off and sell the wares of the monster world. We’re a small community, often with unusual needs, but the one thing that binds us all together with the rest of the world is cold, hard cash.

It used to be we could hunt in the night for what we needed. Pick off varmints or vagrants, those that wouldn’t be missed. We used to live in sprawling forests or hidden caves, haunted places people knew to avoid. Now we pay mortgages and utilities and grocery bills just like everyone else. We, who used to live for the thrill of the hunt and the kill, now barely survive paycheck to paycheck.

Most of us, despite attempts at anti-discrimination laws, are unhirable. We lack the skills and experience and often the bodies for this world. Talons tend to make for poor typists, touch technology tends to not work well with scales, and no one wants to present the face of their company to their clients if it sports fangs or horns.

So, for the most part, we work for ourselves or each other. We employ from and invest into the community. Supporting each other, since no one else will.

I nod to several people as we make our way through the room. Couples and groups huddle together, talking to each other and avoiding everyone else. Even under the best circumstances, predators, by nature, tend to be solitary or pack creatures. We don’t group well. But an awareness hangs heavy in the room. My feelers tingle with it, sending shivers up and down my limbs. I can feel others watching me, even as I indirectly watch them.

“Looks like Jericho brought a new partner.”

I turn to you before eyeing the pretty, young thing hanging on the arm of the vampire in question as the two tally stock. I shake my head. “No, we’ve seen her before. But she lives out of town and only comes to events while on business.”

“Oh yeah.” You nod. “She had blond hair last time; that’s why I didn’t recognize her.”

I shrug, paying less attention to what she looks like — most humans look more or less the same to me — and more to how she appears. Her scent. The sound of her voice. The rhythm of her movements. I turn away, dismissing her as beyond uninteresting.

But there is something interesting here. Someone new. I scan the room, trying to pinpoint the presence.

“Shhh.”

I see it in the corner. A young yeti in a screen-printed t-shirt for The Smoky Case of Dr. Jerky & Mr. Hide, the local werewolf butcher business, is crouched on the floor, his back up against the wall. Even through the cotton shirt, it’s clear his fur is standing on end. Willem, a werewolf in a matching shirt who recently joined the local pack, is kneeling at the yeti’s side, trying to settle him. “You need to calm down.”

He really does. Poor, sweet yeti; he may be a beast, but he’s no monster. His kind had hid in the most remote caves and mountains, hunting deer and rabbits, more afraid of humans than those humans ought to have been of them.

My gaze flicks around the room and sees other eyes zero in on the couple, drawn by the scent, sound, and promise of fear as it mixes with the savory smell of smoked meats. My own body reacts to it, making my mouth water and my blood heat.

In an age-old dance between hunters and the hunted, the yeti instinctively looks up, his ice blue eyes wide as they take in the room’s collective, dangerous gaze. His eyes meet mine across the room and widen. I can’t help but smile, somewhat proudly. Even in a room full of nightmares, I stand out in the crowd.

I grip my box before it slips from hands that would rather grab at prey that already knows it’s mine. My joints feel weak as the scent of his fear blooms stronger, filling the room. As a low rumble echoes hungrily through the space, I can sense countless claws clench and pointed teeth grind. Everywhere, muscles tense in as much restraint as excitement, and any wrong move could tip the balance.

But, then in a moment — for just a moment — the tension eases as San, one of the Preyer Service moderators and a fearsomely powerful witch, leans down and whispers into Willem’s ear, undoubtedly advising he take the yeti and leave, for their own safety as well as everyone else’s. Willem looks sadly at his friend, but nods resignedly. Uncontrolled fear in a gathering like this is like blood in the water.

Speaking of scary, that woman is truly terrifying. San straightens, her beautiful form the picture of serenity in the face of the thwarted bloodbath. Her flowing jewel-toned clothes and dark hair flutter hypnotically around as if she’s moving through some serene sea as unavoidable waves of soothing peace sweep over the room. It’s hard to believe that she’s one of the deadliest creatures in this room — in existence. But we’ve all heard the legends surrounding her. For all her elegance and grace, the blood on her hands could make a vampire weep. That kind of power, that level of legend, is the only way to make a den of hungry predators bend like this.

Taking advantage of San’s enforced clarity, I subtly shuffle my things to stretch out my limbs, trying to rid my body of any residual strain. Others shake their heads, trying to clear the haze of the hunt’s call. Others still turn back to their business and curl their lips in disappointment, in silent longing for the good old days.

I understand that longing. I do. But, with overpopulation and advancement, the world has become too small. There’s no safety in the shadows anymore. We may be humanity's nightmares but, without the alliance with the humans, they would have been our extinction.

We ought to hate them. Some of us do.

But I look at you. And I can’t. I want to. I want to hate them for everything they’ve done to us. For everything they’ve taken from us. For everything we used to be — creatures of myth and legend to be feared and respected — and now, because of them, can’t.

But here you are, hefting bags filled with my creations as you weave past and wave at inhuman creatures. Walking among us like there’s no difference. Like you’re one of us. As if we’re just like you. How do you do that?

 

To read the rest of my spider romance novella, please check out Thoughts & Preyers.

If the home is where your heart is, what happens when it’s taken away from you?

Aida, a spider woman, and her human partner, Frey, belong to a community for monsters called Preyer Service, that resides in the middle of a human city. But, after a human child frightened by one of the monsters is injured in an accident, the humans in the neighborhood want to shut it down and push the monsters out of their streets.

As the human and the monster communities clash, Aida and Frey find themselves stuck in an awkward and dangerous middle, facing anti-monster, humanity-first attitudes everywhere they go. Aida and Frey will have to do their best to work with those in their world, human and monster alike, to stay together and rebuild the broken heart of their community.

Spice level: fade to black

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What You Really Want

 

Small Magic

A Faere Trade Novella

Louis Williams stared at the lamp in his hands, the tarnished copper heavy and almost iridescent against his darker, sepele-shaded skin. It really was a beautiful piece, catching his eye amid the mounds of memories left in his Aunt Dottie’s old attic, now that she’d moved to her new assisted living apartment.

But nothing compared to the man now standing with his arms crossed over his broad chest.

No. Not a man.

“Genie?” Louis eyed him up and down, his skin as brilliant and multi-hued as his lamp — flashing copper, gold, bronze, and even burnished green in the low light. “Do you mean a djinn?”

The genie rolled his shoulders and looked at Louis, his eyes dark as night. “Nah, my magic’s not that old. Not of that time or place. ” He shrugged casually, his shoulder-length black hair falling into his eyes. “Magic is always born out of belief. Mine’s only a few decades old. Born right here in the states, because of some 1960’s sitcom,” he said, nodding at the old, rotary dial television sitting dust-covered and broken in the corner, “but made strong from a 1990’s cartoon.

Louis arched an eyebrow. “A sitcom gave birth to you?”

The genie huffed. “Do I look sixty to you?”

Louis blinked, unsure of what to say. How was he supposed to know what a sixty-year-old genie looked like?

“Strictly speaking, I’m ageless; I was born this way and will die this way. But I’ve been around for about forty years. At least according to the date you told me.” He waved that off dismissively. “My magic — or species, if that’s easier to understand — is around sixty years old.”

“Birthed by belief?” Louis tried not to smirk.

The genie shot Louis a smug, superior look. “Everything, not just magic, exists because someone believed it should, willed it to be so. My kind is just young enough to remember it.”

“People were willed into existence?” Louis shook his head. “By whom?”

The genie shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you; I wasn’t there. But creation is always an act of magic, wouldn’t you say?”

Louis didn’t know what to say to that, so he just pressed his lips together and thought about it.

The genie studied Louis and frowned. “Usually, my magic only works on children; adults tend to have a hard time believing.” He shook his head. “You have no idea how many perfect stray puppies, kittens, and ponies I’ve magicked up in my time.” He raised a curious, arched eyebrow. “How is it that my magic works on you?”

Louis gave a musing grin. “I’ve seen some weird things in my life. Rags to riches stories. Men on the moon. Devices that can both fit in your pocket and connect people halfway across the globe.” He held up his hands, mystified. “None of it makes sense to me; who am I to judge what’s possible or not?”

The genie narrowed his dark eyes. “So you believe anything’s possible?”

Louis just chuckled. “Well, you’re here, so it would seem so.” He tilted his head and jutted his chin at him. “So what do I call you?”

He bowed his head. “We don’t really get names. What would be the point? It’s not exactly a long-term relationship. You get three wishes, then it’s back to the lamp for me.”

“Well, until then, I’ve got to call you something.” And he couldn’t call him Genie, not without thinking of Robin Williams. “I know you said you weren’t one, but what about Genn.”

“Jen?” He lifted an eyebrow. “Like Jennifer?”

Louis flushed. “No, like Genn, as in short for genie.”

“I don’t think that’s how abbreviations work,” the man said with a confused look. “Aren’t you changing the letter’s sound?”

Louis shrugged. “English is weird and malleable. Think of it like gif.” Louis frowned. Did that even mean anything to a man — a genie — like him? He shook his head. “If you prefer something else…”

“Whatever you want.” He stretched out his arms and cracked his knuckles. “Speaking of which, it’s wish time. What do you wish, Master?”

Louis frowned. “Yeah,” he said with a grimace, “not that.” He knew there were people out there who did — and, hey, Louis always figured you do you — but it was hard to be a black man in this country and play those kinds of Master/slave power games. “Let’s stick with Louis and Genn.”

He bowed his head. “Very well, Louis.” He waved his hand dramatically. “What is your wish?”

“Oh no.” Louis shook his head and turned to pace the attic. “I’ve read this story before. Genies are tricksters by nature. Quintessential be careful what you wish for creatures.”

Genn lifted a noncommittal shoulder and gave a small, but intriguing smile. “Don’t believe everything you read.”

Louis snorted. “Like I said, I’m a believer.”

Genn rolled his eyes and flopped down on the antique fainting couch, a cloud of dust kicking up under his weight. “Well, you’re the Mast—” He caught himself on a cough. “You’re in charge. I’ll just enjoy stretching my legs until you decide.”

Louis shot him a skeptical look. “You’re really going to follow me around until I make a wish?”

Genn kicked his feet up on the cushions and put his arms behind his head, the corded muscles stretching and flexing, causing the light to play across the man’s burnished skin. “That is the deal.”

“You must have something better to do.”

“Really don’t.”

Louis paused. His gaze narrowed and his nose wrinkled. “That’s sad.”

Genn blinked before staring off at the plank wood ceiling, the cocky light in his dark eyes dimming a bit. “Kinda is.”

Sounded pretty lonely too. “What if I wish you free?” Wasn’t that what the heroes did in those stories?

He shrugged. “Genies and our lamps are intertwined; our stories — the magic and belief that keeps us alive — rely on them. Like turtles and their shells, we can’t really survive without them. Wish me free and there’ll be a lot of flash and sparkle from all the noble, warm fuzzies you’ll have, all so I can wait for the next person to rub-a-dub-dub and start the whole story over again.”

Louis sighed and sat down on the wood floor. “So we’re stuck together until I make a wish?”

Genn held up his fingers and waved them. “Three, to be exact.”

“So, if it’s not to be free,” Louis asked, “what would you wish for, if you were me?”

“Telling feels like cheating.”

“Think of it more as a consult.” After all, who would be better to ask? The genie had to be an expert by now, after decades of seeing what made a good wish and what didn’t. “Or I could just ask for some stray pets and be done with it.”

“Anything but that.” Genn chuckled before thinking about it. “Don’t ask for things. We aren’t conjurers by nature.” He gave a sly smile. “Tricksters. Thieves. Liars. Our power is great, but it’s far easier to steal than to create.”

“No things.” Gottcha. “What else?”

He tilted his head one way and then the other, his loose, black locks swaying around his face. “Nothing big. Nothing world-changing. Or even life-changing; things can get complicated and run astray. The bigger the ask — the more I have to tinker with or alter the wider world — the more likely it is for things to veer off path and go places neither of us intended. Wishes are changes; and change is always hard and not always good.”

Louis bit his lip and nodded. Wise words. “Okay, then what should I ask for?”

“An experience.” Genn looked off into the sunlit afternoon through the tiny attic window. “That’s what I’d ask for. Some fleeting moment that can’t last, but that you can keep forever.” He turned to face Louis. “I’ll let you in on an insider secret.” He smiled mischievously. “The shortest-lived magic is always the hardest to screw up.”

An experience. “What kind?”

Genn shrugged. “Whatever. Ever want to skydive over the Gold Coast? Or trek through the Amazon? Or be in the middle of an orgy of Hollywood starlets? Whatever your little heart desires.”

Louis shook his head. “I hate heights. And leaving home. And starlets...” He gave a small laugh, feeling his face flush. “Not, uh, really my thing.”

Genn raised an eyebrow and held out his hands in the universal sign of indifferent neutrality. “Whatever your heart desires.”

Louis hung his head and gave a tense chuckle. “I wouldn’t even know what to do in the Amazon or the Gold Coast.” Or at an orgy. Knowing what to do with only one other partner never came terribly naturally to him, much less multiple ones. Hell, he’d only ever had the one.

It wasn’t always easy being the only openly gay person in a small town. It’d been, by far, harder when he’d been younger. When neither he nor anyone around him had really had the words to talk about it. But Louis knew, because of those more brave and prominent than he was and the shift in culture they’d moved like a mountain or a miracle, that he’d been lucky. His aunt may not have always understood him, but she’d always loved him enough to try. To find the words and ways to let him know that he mattered more to her than beliefs that helped no one and hurt people like him. And the same was true of most of the people in town. His friends. His neighbors.

It hadn’t always been easy and might never be perfect, but this was and would always be his home. It was where he belonged.

But it could be lonely too sometimes. To watch his friends date and marry and have kids. To know that wasn’t and might never be possible for him here.

His aunt had told him, when she’d decided to move into the assisted living home, that he should leave. Live. Go to some metropolitan hub and find a life — and a love — that, no matter how amazingly accepting this town was, he could never find in such a remote place.

But he was, by nature, a homebody; how did someone like that leave his hometown? And did he even really want to?

Louis scrunched his nose in thought. What did he really, really want? Sighing, he looked about the room. Well, if he was honest with himself. “What I really want is help cleaning up this place.”

Genn smiled and leapt to his feet. “Is that your wish?”

“Sure.” Louis shrugged. “I guess.”

Genn’s dark eyes sparkled impishly. “Then say it...”

Louis tilted his head one way and then the other thoughtfully. It was just a little housecleaning. What could go wrong? “I wish for your help to clean up my aunt’s house.”

Genn clapped his hands excitedly before giving a little whoop. He crossed his arms over his chest dramatically and bowed his head. “Your wish,” he said with a gleeful nod, “my command...”

 

To read the rest, check out my genie romance novella “Small Magic.”

Be careful what you wish.

When Louis Williams finds an old genie lamp in his aunt’s old stuff, he knows better than to mess with magic. But that won’t stop this handsome trickster from messing back!

Genn’s been stuck in that stuffy lamp for so long, all he wants is to do a little magic and have a little fun. But what’s a genie to do with a Master that literally wants nothing from him? And why does that make him even more determined to grant his every happiness, sure that in doing so maybe—just maybe—Genn can find his own.

Spice level: slow-burn to a kiss at the end

Available Now as an eBook on

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Extended Stay - Part Three (The End)

 

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Chapter Six: Extended Stay - Part Three

Leander

Leander sat on the ledge of the library bay windows, looking out into The Elysium gardens. Hugging his shins, he laid his chin on his knees.

The little Lenten girl, dressed in a somber but still pretty, black lace dress, tucked herself into the crook of her uncle’s knees, her fists clenching the neat, creased material of his black dress pants. They looked nice. Dark against the sunlit, mountain morning, but nice.

Black, the absence of all light and color, is often a sign or symbol of formality, mystery, and mourning.

Were they mourning?

Had someone died?

Leander wondered and stared at the sad, awkward expression on the little redheaded girl’s face. The tight, twisting grip she had on her little doll worried him a little, reminding him of something he couldn’t quite place.

Leander turned to squint into the rising sun, his hand drifting up to clutch the pointed arrowhead artifact hanging around his neck. He let the edge bite against the rough pads of his hand.

“You’re not ready.”

Leander turned to face a frowning Rowan who was struggling with a long, black tie. Leander lowered his gaze before rising to his feet and tugging at his gray T-shirt. “No.”

“Well,” Rowan said, still trying to tie the strip of cloth into a suitable knot, “we’re going to start the ceremony soon. You should get going.”

Leander blinked at the boy. “A seventeenth century man, Charles Boothby Skrymshire, committed suicide because he couldn’t stand to put on his English dandy-styled clothes.” 

Quirking an eyebrow, Rowan looked at him with amused chastisement in his green eyes. “So you don’t want to get dressed up?” he asked as if trying to decode Leander’s rambling words. “Fine.” He shrugged, removing his tie altogether to wind it around his hand. “I’m sure no one will mind.”

No, that wasn’t it. Leander bit his lip and shook his head, trying to decipher his own thoughts. “I can’t go.”

“Sure you can,” Rowan said. “But we have to go now, if we don’t want to be late.”

Leander shook his head, his fists clenching. No. Leander tried to order his thoughts, tried to find the words. “It’s said that, in some cultures, people aren’t buried immediately after death, but are instead placed in a large jar and kept in the homes of relatives for a year.”

Rowan looked at Leander curiously, even as Leander’s own face curled in confusion. Where had that thought come from?

“Do you need some more time?” Rowan asked. “I can see if everyone’s willing to wait a little bit, if you want.”

Leander shook his head again, more furiously this time. “Some cultures observe a mourning grace that can last for years.”

“You don’t like funerals,” the bright-haired boy said, “do you?”

He gave a little relieved sigh. Yes. Leander shook his head slowly, a little shameful.

Rowan nodded thoughtfully, pausing to pace a little. “Did you know,” he asked idly, “that funeral rites are as old as human culture itself? Dating back to at least 300,000 years ago, which predates the existence of modern homo sapiens.”

Leander stood straighter. Really? He pursed his thick lips, cataloging that fact away within his brain.

“It’s okay to be nervous.” Rowan took off his suit jacket. “But it’s important to be able to say goodbye to people who matter, to acknowledge their passing. I think Lenten and Olive really need this. I think we all do.”

Leander wrinkled his nose and closed his eyes. He couldn’t even remember the name of the person who died. He just knew — felt — that somewhere in the hotel there was an empty room that had once been full, a lingering scent of heather and lilac fading slowly.

“It would be nice if you were there.” Rowan’s voice sounded over the darkness behind Leander’s eyes. He felt him slide the soft, clean suit coat up his arms and onto his shoulders. “I know Lenten and Olive would appreciate it.”

Leander opened his eyes and looked at Rowan, pleading with him to understand. To accept. To not hate him for being scared and weak. “German writer of the twentieth century, Hans Fallada says that every man dies alone.”

Rowan smiled and held out his hand. “I’ll be right there. You won’t be alone.”

Leander tentatively laid his hand in the Rowan’s, his huge fist engulfing the slim, delicate hand. It took a lot of effort for him not to clutch it. He was afraid that, if he held on too tight, he might hurt the other boy on accident.

Rowan’s smile widened. He curled his fingers around Leander’s huge hand. “Jacket’s a bit short,” he said, eyeing the tight cuffs hovering an inch and a half above the other boy’s wrists, “but it looks nice.”

Leander nodded, thinking that this all seemed a little scary. He followed Rowan through the aisles and out the library doors. A little nerve-wracking, but kind of nice.

*

Olive

Olive toyed with the bow braided and wrapped into her hair. She frowned. It itched, pulling at her hair a few strands at a time, and made her scalp all tingly. She wanted to rip it off her head. Wanted to change out of the dress Uncle Lark had picked for her. It was too hot in the greenhouse, stuffy and sweaty even in the coolest part reserved for winter-blooming flowers where, since there wasn’t a casket or tombstone or anything, they’d planted flowers in place of a gravestone for Mei.

Heather, that was what they’d told her was planted in the dirt. Uncle Lark had suggested it, said that it was her flower.

“Hey there, sweet pea.” Flax crouched down next to her on the floor. “How you doing?”

She pushed her bottom lip out even further. She stared at the large, wide, white ash planter box, filled flat with black, wet dirt.

Soil.

That’s what Calla had called it.

“Dirt is dirty;” she’d told her today while Olive had watched the woman pack and pat the moist, dark stuff into the rectangular base, “soil has possibilities. Personality.”

Olive could hear her now. “I think it went well.” Calla came close to join them, followed by Rowan and Leander.

“Lovely service,” Rowan added. He leaned down to look Olive in the eye. “You did a wonderful job singing. I’m sure Mei would have really liked it.”

Leander even smiled at her. “ ‘You Are My Sunshine,’ the state song of Louisiana, has been performed and adapted by many different artists since its first recording in 1939, including a rendition by Ray Charles that reached number one on the soul singles chart and made the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.”

“Thank you,” she replied reflexively if half-heartedly.

“What’s wrong, petunia?” Flax touched her cheek softly.

She shook her head. She didn’t want to say it. It was going to sound so childish. And ungrateful. And petty and just plain bad.

She felt Rowan’s hand on her shoulder. “What is it?”

She sighed sadly and pouted. “There are no flowers on Mei’s plant.”

“Aw, sweetie,” Calla said and knelt down on the floor, “I told you before, there will be. You just need to give it a little care and a bit of time.”

Olive’s face scrunched with disappointment. She knew that. She knew that flowers started as seeds. She’d seen Calla tuck the tiny, impossibly small seeds into the soil. She knew that with water and sunlight the flowers would come.

Eventually.

She knew that. A small whining sob escaped her lips. It’s just that she wanted them now. She wanted flowers there and growing for Mei now, not sleeping seeds hidden deep underground.

It seemed wrong somehow.

Creepy and contrary.

“Sweetheart.” Calla cooed when Olive felt the woman wipe away a sneaky tear that squeezed out from the corner of Olive’s eye. “Please, don’t cry.”

She tried. She didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want to ruin the day with tears. But, as if the words called them forth like magic, the tears came hot and burning in the stuffy space.

Suddenly, she found herself surrounded, embraced from behind. The presence, familiar and comforting, smelled like home and haven. Uncle Lark, with his hands busy in front of her, was folding something quickly, the tiny creases and lines transforming the rather plain paper from the notebook he carried in his suit pocket with him into something special. She sniffled and leaned her back against his chest and watched him wordlessly push and pull the paper into a tiny, full flower.

Silently, he handed the pretty, little bloom to her before pushing her toward the empty tray with a gentle hand to her back. Peeking back, she saw him tear another page out of his ever-present book. “Go on.” He nodded encouragingly to her, smiling only slightly sadly, before he began to fold again.

She sniffed and turned to the tray. She pressed the small, fragile, paper flower to the soil — filled with its secret seeds waiting to grow under the layer of rich black. Gasping with surprised delight, she thought she suddenly saw the possibilities. Her uncle handed her another flower and then, after she planted that one, another. Olive stood back with her hands on her hips and stared with the others at the neat rows of origami orchids lining the potted soil.

“It looks nice,” Leander said.

Rowan nodded. “Perfect.” 

Olive thought so too.

More than that, it felt right.

Reaching over to touch one curled paper petal, she sighed, satisfied. “Goodbye Mei.”

THE END OF BOOK TWO

 

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Extended Stay - Part Two

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Chapter Six: Extended Stay - Part Two

Rowan

What had he done?

Rowan stared at his hands, still seeing — feeling — what it’d felt like to wield that shovel, striking his aunt. He could still hear Gillian Drury screaming. Then, when she was bleeding and broken, the lightning came — the flash and heat of it.

He didn’t even know if she was alive, if somehow she’d miraculously survived. In a way — he supposed — perhaps that was a blessing, the not knowing. At least, he could hope. For as far as hope could go. At least it tempered the trembling horror he still felt at the memories.

“Rowan,” he distantly heard Lenten say, “we need to talk about this.” In the back of his mind, he was aware of the man lowering himself to the floor to sit beside him. Was detachedly aware of how awkward the man felt — shifting and smoothing his suit — while he adjusted to the unfamiliar position. “We—” He stopped with a frown. “I talked to you about this before. I know that you want to go home, but you can’t.”

Rowan pouted, pushing the man’s words — his damned lecture — away. He could. “I did it tonight.”

“What happened here exactly?” the manager asked.

Wanting the man to understand — to accept, even though it had gone wrong — how close he was to an answer, Rowan explained everything. Told him about the books and the spell. About the potion and the potholes in time. He told Lenten about the killer and his aunt. About how he’d been forced to participate in her murder. About how she’d sacrificed herself to save him. “She told me that it was important that I survive, so I can make it back to my family.” He turned pleadingly to Lenten. “I told you, they need me. They’re dying without me. I have to go back.” Rowan shut his eyes and shook his head. “I’ll not let my aunt’s actions be for nothing. She may have... ” He frowned, acknowledging a truth he’d rather not. “In all likelihood, she died.” Opening his eyes again, to stare at the man. “She sacrificed herself for me. For my family. I can’t give up.” He sat up straighter, determination in his voice and pose. “Please, don’t ask me to.”

For a long moment, Lenten just studied him shrewdly. His gaze narrowed, sweeping him from crown to arch. With pursed lips, the man nodded. “I understand that. I respect that,” the stiff-spined manager said. “However, I simply ask that you remember that The Elysium is home to over two-hundred permanent guests, not just you. I can’t have you endangering everyone here — not even to save your family.”

Rowan turned quickly to sit on his knees, imploring the man. “I never meant to—”

“I know,” Lenten interrupted. “I know you didn’t mean any harm, but I think you proved tonight that these types of attempts are dangerous and cannot be done without proper caution and understanding of the consequences.” He sent Rowan a pointed look that made him feel terribly guilty and sorry. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Rowan replied.

“No more rips in the delicate fabric of time and space?”

“No, sir.” He’d find another way, but Lenten was right. He had to get out of The Elysium, but he had no right to burn it down behind him.

“Good.” Lenten gave a satisfied nod. “One last thing,” he added before he brushed invisible dust from his pant legs, pausing thoughtfully.

Rowan looked at the man questioningly.

The man frowned again, his brow furrowing. “I don’t want Olive involved in your schemes. Not in any way.” Still staring at the perfection of his suit, he stated in a monotone voice, “She’s been through more than enough; she doesn’t need more nights like tonight to haunt her.” With a decided sniff, the man looked up at him. “Understood?”

Rowan nodded. Of course, he understood that. Remembering the frightened tears trailing sad\ness down her fragile, little, porcelain doll face, Rowan wouldn’t even consider letting her near another spell like that. It positively broke his heart to think of causing that child more pain and he wouldn’t do it anymore. “I’m sorry, Lenten. It won’t happen again, I swear.”

The manager simply nodded before they both settled into silence. They stared out the third floor windows, out into the starry night’s sky.

Rowan tilted his head, turning his attention instead to the reflection of the weary man beside him. Lenten was a good man. An honorable one. Reminding Rowan actually a lot of his father. Proud and protective, both men knew the value of responsibility and family. They both — no matter what they were going through personally — would do what was needed to take care of those around them. They would both put their emotions — their pain — on hold to do what needed to be done.

But Rowan’s father had his mother. Had Rowan and his brothers and sister. Had his own brothers and sisters and a whole houseful of aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, cousins and others, who would do for him in the same way he did for them.

Who did Lenten have?

Staring at the ghostly image of the man in the makeshift mirror, Rowan’s heart — his soul — bled for the lonely, stoic manager. With an awkward cough, Rowan reached out and asked, “Are you all right?”

“Sorry?” the man asked, startled as he turned back to Rowan.

“I mean, I know that I caused all this trouble just when you... ” He paused, shrugging his shoulders, and tripped all over his words. “At the worst time,” he settled on. “I’m sorry, Lenten. For this whole mess.” He pursed his thin lips. “And for Mei.”

Lenten gave a mirthless laugh. He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It’s not your fault, Rowan. If you had come at a different time, before or long after Mei had... ” He gave another sorrowful laugh before putting back on his glasses with a sigh. “Well, maybe I would know how to deal with all this better.”

“I am sorry.” Rowan regretted — truly did — causing so much added trouble. “I know what it feels like to lose someone you love. How it changes everything.” Rowan winced when he saw the man bend over, his shoulders slumped and his head dipped low against his chest, and shake.

Dear Lord, was he crying?

Rowan crawled closer, putting a hand against the man’s bent back. “I’m so very sorry,” he said before he realized that the man wasn’t crying.

He was laughing.

Laughing?

“Lenten?”

Taking a shuddering breath, the man whipped his glasses off again, wiping wet eyes. “Sorry.” His voice shook with shuddering chuckles. “I apologize. I,” he said with a shake of his head, “don’t know where that came from.”

“Are you okay?” Rowan was more than a little worried and disturbed.

“Yes.” He tucked his glasses into the vee of his buttoned-down shirt. He wiped a hand over his face. “Yes, I’m,” he paused, “fine.” He turned to Rowan, his nearsighted, blue eyes struggling to focus on Rowan’s face. “Too fine.”

Rowan blinked in confusion. “What do you mean?” 

Lenten scratched his forehead idly. “This is going to sound bad,” he warned, looking sheepish before he whispered, “but I envy your grief, the strength, the passion, the fight in it.”

Rowan cocked an eyebrow at the man, not sure he understood. But he said nothing, not knowing what to say.

The man sighed and he propped his elbows on his knees, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “My brother, Ash, disappeared on May 18th, 1957. Officially. That was the day I filed a police report and the day Olive was placed in my care.” Lenten sighed. “But he’d been gone long before then. Disappeared into drink or drugs or whatever he did with the slick, slippery men he’d hung around town with for months before he vanished.” He shook his head. “I lost Ash long before he never came home. Then the search happened. When no clues or leads came, the case went cold.” He scoffed. “Then my final appeal to reopen the case was denied. And then came the threats.” He shook his head as if trying to shake the memories. He sniffed and then shrugged. “I don’t know. I just snapped.”

Lenten turned to look out the window again. “I bundled Olive in the car and just kept driving. I drove until the car gave out. When it died, I got out of the car, gathered her in my arms, and ran.” He let out a shaky breath. “I just needed to get away. I don’t even remember how I got to the hotel. One minute, I was running down along some river and, then, I was heading toward The Elysium.” Rowan watched the man frown, lost in his own thoughts while he ran a hand through his neat hair, disrupting the tamed strands. “My life literally stopped in that minute. The difference was there, felt, identifiable.”

Rowan still didn’t know where the man was going with this story. “I’m sorry, Lenten.” 

Lenten nodded. Putting back on his glasses, he looked at him. “With Mei, it was different. I always thought of her as my world. My rock. I thought that without her, my world would shatter.”

Rowan nodded and thought about the tear-soaked sorrow that had followed — still followed — the man. Yes, the man’s world had been rocked. Rowan made a small sympathetic sound.

“I thought that nothing would ever be the same again. That it would all just come to a crashing halt.” A confused look wrinkled Lenten’s face. “But it didn’t. The hotel — the place, the guests, the rhythm of it — stayed exactly the same. Going on without her.”

Suddenly, his words began to piece together, making a loose form of sense.

“How could everything look so normal, when nothing was?” Lenten wondered desperately. “But what did I expect? The world couldn’t break twice.” Letting his head fall again, Lenten asked no one in particular, “Where do you retreat when you’ve already retreated?”

Rowan sighed and studied the man with new eyes, understanding — as much as he thought he could. Poor Lenten. A part of the man — a corner of his heart, a space within his soul — had died and yet the world was making him limp on. Rowan understood that much. He could still remember seeing Paddy Drury dead and butchered on the foyer floor. He could now count Aunt Gilly among the number of people lost to him.

Because of him.

It was something he would have to live with for the rest of his life. And the thought of it — the grim imaginings he’d seen flash before his eyes just before the black had lifted — would haunt him for the rest of his life. It was horrible. Worse than anything anyone should ever have to deal with.

But, for Lenten, it must be even worse. Rowan had hope. He had a mission. A goal. He knew that he had to get home. That, if he could do that, his life would go back — maybe not to normal, but at least back to something he recognized and longed for.

Lenten was forced to wake up every day, walk through The Elysium, and watch the world move on, leaving him with the memories and the loneliness. Life would force him to go through the motions to act as if nothing had changed, when everything had. How was a person expected to do that day in, day out? “I feel like a shell,” Lenten muttered, shaking his bent head. “Like the walking dead.” Rowan felt chilled by the man’s words, worried that the man’s sadness went far beyond grief. “Sometimes,” the man whispered, his voice low and quiet as a confessional, “I think this is what checking out feels like. I wonder if this is what she felt.”

Rowan knew it was just his imagination, just his jumped-up, jumbled mind, but he thought he saw Lenten’s features begin to blur. The dull, once brilliant blue behind his glasses fading into flesh. Rowan could suddenly see what the man would look like Faceless and forgotten. In the man’s current, sad state, the difference wasn’t as shocking as it should be.

“I should have faded,” Lenten said simply.

“No.” Rowan shook his head. “Lenten, no, that’s not true.”

“Without Mei, what good am I?” he asked. “I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

“What about Olive?” Rowan looked at the man desperately. “She still needs you.”

“What for?” Lenten shrugged. “What can I do for her? What can I give her when I’m,” he said, looking at himself disgustedly, “like this?” He shook his head. “How can I help her deal with this — with the sadness, the loss — when I haven’t a clue how to deal with it myself?”

Rowan stayed silent. Lenten didn’t really expect an answer and Rowan didn’t have one to give. He wished that there was a spell he could cast — some magic words he could say — that could erase the man’s pain, could fix the man’s heart. But there wasn’t. No, magic wouldn’t help with this, wouldn’t work in this situation. If he’d learned anything from tonight, it was that he couldn’t force Fate to do what he wanted by casting a spell. Magic wasn’t a tool to be dusted off and used. It was a force to be taken seriously, to be considered carefully. He wouldn’t shy away from the history — the heritage — that flowed through his veins, but neither would he abuse it. He’d learn how to use it and when to use it and would limit himself to that. And he would admit that Fate — that life, that magic — had led him to this place and to these people.

We don’t work through magic, it works through us.

He would help Lenten. And Olive. And Calla and the others. But he didn’t necessarily need magic to do it.

“What about a funeral?” he wondered aloud.

“What?” Lenten looked confused, edging on offended, at Rowan’s words.

Rowan’s face flushed. He hadn’t actually meant to say the words aloud; he’d only been weighing the options. Trying to explain, he said, “You said that you don’t know how to deal with this.” He shrugged. “I don’t really either but, when a loved one dies, just about every culture — no matter the time or the place — has some kind of grieving ceremony.” Looking at Lenten, he bit his lip. “Some way to say goodbye.” He’d give anything to be able to replace the memories of his grandfather’s and his aunt’s last moments. To have images of blood and pain and fear be erased by those of flowers and family and love. Even with the inevitable tears and morbid pomp that accompanied funerals, Rowan thought that it would give a cleaner sense of closure, a way of making peace with the change.

Lenten took a deep breath, considering. “Do you really think that it will help?” 

Rowan sighed and shrugged. “Milestones and huge shifts in life are hard enough to define and accept. Sometimes it’s nice to give it a name, to allow it and acknowledge its time and space.” He shrugged. “And, anyway, I can’t see how it could make it worse.”

Lenten nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll think about it.”

*

Calla

Libra: Don't dwell on the past. Don't chase the future. Happiness lies in learning to live in the present.

Calla watched the numbers on her digital bedside clock change.

2:23.

Sleep.

Just close your eyes and sleep, she ordered herself, squeezing her eyes shut.

She wanted to just shut it all out.

The images.

The memories.

But she couldn’t get to sleep. Her mind just wouldn’t shut down, wouldn’t shut up, wouldn’t let her be.

She groaned at a knock on her door. Tempted to throw the pillow — or something harder — against the door, Calla rolled over onto her back and growled. “Who is it?” she shouted, unwelcome clear in his voice.

There was a pause before another knock sounded. Kicking the covers off her bed, Calla sat up, her auburn, autumn hair flying bed-mussed around her head. She yanked open the door. “What the hell do you want?” She glared at him. She should have known that the man couldn’t just leave her alone. Couldn’t just let her be. No, of course, he just had to meddle. “I’m trying to sleep,” she snarled at him.

Shaking a bottle of honest-to-Oz Bundaberg rum at her, Flax smiled his usual half-smile. Leaning against her door jamb, he drawled, “Now what kind of greeting is that for someone who comes bearing gifts?”

“I’m trying,” she repeated through gritted teeth, “to sleep.”

Flax just continued to grin. “Yeah.” He smirked. “How’s that going?”

Calla rolled her eyes, fighting her own curling lips. “What do you want?”

Flax cocked his head. “C’mon.” He turned around to start down the hallway.

“What?” She leaned out the door. “Flax, no. I’ve got to get some sleep.”

“Hurry up,” he called over his shoulder while he kept walking away. “C’mon.”

Arrogant, insufferable, irritating man!

Screw him.

She was going back to bed.

Turning, Calla gazed at the rumpled blankets and scattered pillows only to sigh. What was the point of going back to bed? She’d just be lying there. Not sleeping. She peeked out the door just in time to see Flax turn the hallway corner and disappear out of sight. She should just go back to bed, whether she slept or not.

Grabbing a blue, terrycloth robe off her door hook, Calla called herself all kinds of senseless and headed down the hallway after the crazy seppo costing her... well, not sleep. By the time she followed him to the kitchen, Flax had set up the island counter into an impromptu table of sorts with a couple of dishes of chocolate bundt cake and tumblers half-full of Bundy. Now this was her kind of tea party. She smirked and stalked forward, taking one of the tumblers. She swallowed the warmed hard liquor.

Flax laid a fork down next to the plate closest to her before pulling out her chair. “Have a seat.” 

With a shrug and another sip, she sat down. “What’s all this?”

This time Flax lifted a shoulder dismissively. “Just some warm rum and cold cake.” He picked up his fork even before nodding toward hers. “Try some. Chocolate. Dark. Universal comfort food.”

She picked up the utensil and took a bite. She gave a small moan; it was so good. She took another bite before she turned to him again. “Thanks.”

“Pleasure.” He watched her eat.

He let her eat her first piece in silence. He seemed to be content to study her while she licked the glazed frosting from her fork before he dished up another serving wordlessly.

She took her time with her second piece, feeling the tension in the room between bites. “You’ve got something to say,” she stated as she sponged up crumbs with her fork, “so say it.”

“Want to talk about what happened tonight?” He set down his fork to give her his full attention.

She’d known that was coming. Had known it when he’d knocked on her door. Had probably known it — somewhere in the back of her brain — when she’d walked through that damned window. She wasn’t any more ready to answer that question now that she’d been then.

She lifted her shoulder in a flippant shrug. “What you said. We cast a spell, it went bad, we got back. End of story.”

“Where’d you go?”

She ran her tongue along the tops of her teeth, more to stall than anything. “Back to Australia.”

“Sydney,” he said, his gaze steady and unwavering, “isn’t that where you said you’d been before you came?”

“Yeah.” She snatched up the tumbler before downing a swig.

“What happened there?”

She winced while the fiery liquid burned down her throat. “Nothing.”

“Something happened.”

She looked away, so he wouldn’t see the annoyance in her eyes. “It was nothing.” Or at least it was nothing to him. Or Rowan. Or Lenten. Or anyone but her. So why should she talk about it? It was pointless.

“No,” she heard him say, so damned sure of himself, “it wasn’t.” He paused so long she thought maybe he’d drop it, let her eat in peace. Instead, he pushed around a piece of cake with his fork, not looking at her. “You smile a lot.” 

Calla snorted. “What of it?”

“Laugh a lot too,” he said as he leisurely licked his fork. “People who do that do so for one of two reasons.” His brows furrowed as he shrugged. “Either they haven’t experienced enough bad to bother guarding themselves.”

Calla rolled her eyes, hating that she was playing his game even as she did. “Or?”

“Or that is their guard.” When she didn’t say anything to that, he sighed and continued on, “You work very hard to seem open, friendly. Almost… frivolous.”

She scoffed. “Well, fuck you too.”

He shook his head. “You do everything you can — created this whole outward face and way of being that flirts and flits through life, dances in a way that feels like an artful dodge — to convince us all that you’re shallow. All so no one even thinks about digging too deep.” He looked up at her, his eyes dark and sympathetic, like he knew what he was talking about. He pursed his lips and sighed. “Nothing doesn’t do that.”

Calla closed her eyes. She wasn’t a person who opened up often. Or well. And, the few times she did… Well, life was always quick to remind her exactly why she shouldn’t. Hadn’t Benji been the latest lesson in that. She blinked back tears, hating the idea of someone seeing something like that — something vulnerable and weak — within her. She squeezed her lids tighter and shook her head, her breathing rough and determined. With her guards down and her thoughts raw, she’d felt stripped of everything. She scrambled to build back up her walls. 

“I’ve seen it in your eyes even before tonight — the effort it takes to look so effortless — but never said anything,” he told her. “I figured you didn’t seem too keen on talking about it. Thought maybe that had changed.” He waited a while, thinking she might fill the gap.

Calla just sat back, fixing a smile on her face. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“Guess not.” He slapped his thighs decidedly before standing to put his glass and plate in the sink. “Well,” he said, his tone instantly lighter, easier, “if you ever do, I’m here. If it’s not me, you should find someone. Bottling and burying that kind of thing doesn’t make it go away; it just leaves you alone with it.”

“I have a question,” Calla blurted before she could stop herself. He paused and turned around. She kind of wished he hadn’t. It’d been a little easier with his back turned, when she couldn’t see his face, couldn’t read his expression. But she had to know. She had to understand. “When I went back, I went back to—” She swallowed hard. “I went back in time. Back to the last memory I had.” She frowned. “But Rowan didn’t.” Time had passed in his world. It hadn’t in hers. “Why would it do that?” 

Flax quirked a confused eyebrow at her. “What do you mean?”

“We did the same spell,” she said, frustrated and confused. “Used the same elements. Same procedures. Exact same conditions. But ended up with different results.” It shouldn’t have happened. But it did. And Calla had a theory. “The spell supposedly caused a mirroring effect between our worlds.” As far as she understood weird, woo-woo logic. “So a way to explain the difference in results could be,” she said, trying to science her way through the spell, “the spell delivered Rowan to that point because it found a concurrent place and time where his soul exists.” 

“And with you?”

“I don’t think she’s surviving the ride to the hospital.” She could hear the echoes of the paramedics’ voices in her head. “Pretty sure, given the state of her, even if she does, it’d be better if she didn’t.” Calla winced at the memory. “Doesn’t matter; we save every life. Until we can’t.”

What if they couldn’t?

“I don’t think there’s a world left for me to return to past that point.”

When Flax didn’t say anything, she looked up at him. He gazed at her with sad sympathy, but not surprise. “The Elysium offers sanctuary to those that need it.”

She wouldn’t have come here, if she had anywhere else to go.

She grabbed her glass and drained it, sitting with the burn in her throat. Despite the warning and the lectures — despite the detailed notes she’d taken on Mei and the hotel and fading — she’d always assumed that her stay at The Elysium would be temporary. A vacation of sorts. Eventually, she would go back and live her life.

Now she didn’t know.

“I don’t know.” Flax leaned against the shined steel edge of the huge, double-basin sink. “Honestly, I don’t think any of use truly know why it would do that.”

“If I try to go back again,” she asked, her voice small and quivering, “what if there’s nothing to get back to?” 

Flax’s lips thinned. “I don’t know.” He shook his head. “Time, at least the way we think of it, isn’t really real — not even in the best of circumstances. The question of whether time can move in more directions than one has plagued mankind since the start. And that’s just in the real world, that’s not even adding in the mess of flux running rampant in The Elysium.”

“It didn’t feel real,” she said, taking another bite of cake, chewing miserably. And yet somehow also all too real.

“Who knows what’s really real?” Flax turned around to rinse out his dishes. “Maybe the world you visited tonight was the real world or maybe it was just a facsimile of it. Maybe the hotel is what’s real and our other lives were the dream.”

“More of those -physices?” she asked, thinking the topic — while feeling safer, less personal — had gotten very heavy all of a sudden.

He gave a short laugh. “Something like that.”

He put the glass and plate in the dishwasher before grabbing her plate, but leaving her glass. “Fact is, none of us can know what waits for us out beyond The Elysium.” Pouring her another drink, he cocked his head a bit. “Never much gave it a thought before. Figure life here — for all its faults and flaws — still beats what I had back home.”

Calla frowned and clasped her glass in both hands. She studied the man with his back turned to her now while he washed her plate with clean, efficient movement. She sipped quietly, weighing the worth of his words.

READ PART THRE(fix)E

 

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