by Amy Boyles
“You were like you always are. Wishy-washy. I thought you’d come around.” He paused, and I felt the weight of the pain in his voice. “But you didn’t.”
I didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry that my decision came out of left field for you.”
He said nothing. I wanted to scream that in my real life we were engaged. We were getting married.
“Something’s off,” he remarked.
Every inch of me froze. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“About you. About your cousins.”
I licked my lips, trying to use the moment as a way to figure out a perfect lie. “Nothing’s off. Maybe your sense of animal smell is broken.”
“I didn’t say anything about smell.”
And there he had me. I’d just assumed that he could smell a difference in me same as Ratchet. Oh no. I’d tipped my hand and hadn’t even meant to.
He pivoted toward me and relaxed his arm onto the column. “How was that ceremony? Did Rufus give you blood?”
“He did.” I swallowed. My throat suddenly felt like a desert. Like I needed an ocean of water to quench it.
I felt Axel’s body heat from his position. It was like a blanket of warmth floating onto me.
“And how did that make you feel? More connected to him?”
I nodded.
His brows hiked up. “Then it did its job. But I wonder…”
“What?”
He inched forward. “If it can really compare.”
“Compare to what?” I said quietly.
Axel took one more step, evaporating the distance between us. He stood mere inches away. I watched the rise and fall of his chest, afraid to look into his eyes.
He sensed my fear and in response hooked a finger under my chin and lifted it until my gaze pinned on his.
I sucked air.
“What would Cordelia say? You’re out here with me and she’s inside.”
Axel ignored my question. “There was something about what Amelia said that makes me think Cordelia might be wondering a whole bunch of things.”
I shook my head, trying to pull from his grasp. But Axel wouldn’t let me. He held my chin tight, and to be honest, I didn’t want him to stop touching me. I’d yearned for that since the first moment I’d stepped into this world.
Wow. I was such a mess.
My brain said Rufus, but my body said Axel. And my heart…with the help of the potion, it screamed Rufus.
But that’s how this was supposed to go, wasn’t it?
“I need to get inside,” I said.
Axel studied me. He must’ve seen something in my eyes, because he dropped his hand. “Go.”
My heart broke in two as I crossed back in. Garrick was leaving as I entered. With Sherman, I noticed, and Cordelia and Amelia had both vanished somewhere.
As soon as everyone was gone, Betty, from her position in the rocking chair, yelled, “Girls! Why don’t y’all come in here for a moment?”
Cordelia and Amelia shuffled out from the kitchen, and I sat on the couch, waiting for who knew what.
I knew we’d be in trouble for the conversation Amelia had started at the dinner table, but I didn’t know what else we were in store for.
Amelia and Cordelia squeezed beside me.
“Move over,” Amelia said.
“I did move over,” Cordelia snapped. “Pepper isn’t giving me enough room.”
“I’m all the way to the edge,” I growled.
“Can it, right now,” Betty snapped.
Our spines straightened and our lips zipped shut.
Betty pressed a finger to her nostril. A line of magic uncoiled, shimmering until it tightened into an object that Betty plucked from the air and directed at us.
“Whoa,” I yelled. “What’re you doing?”
Betty aimed a shotgun at the three of us. “Who in the Sam Hill are y’all? Because you sure as heck aren’t my granddaughters.”
“Yes, we are,” Amelia argued.
“No, y’all aren’t,” Betty snapped. “What did you do with them?”
Cordelia shook her head. “We are them.”
“Ratchet,” Betty yelled. “Get down here and tie these three up. They’re imposters and I’m gonna do whatever it takes to find out the truth. To discover where my true kin have gone.”
Ratchet strode down the stairs. “What’s all this racket?”
Betty threw him a line of rope that she magicked from thin air. “Tie up those imposters. We’re gonna put hot coals to their feet and make them admit who they are.”
Ratchet took one look at the shotgun and then gazed at us. The raccoon burst into laughter. “Oh, this is good. Betty, those are your granddaughters.”
“No, they ain’t.”
Ratchet looped the rope into a knot. “I didn’t believe it at first, but they’re from a place called Fantasy Island.”
“Wow, did he get that wrong or what?” I said to Cordelia.
“We’re not from Fantasy Island,” she argued. “We made a wish—all three of us—and now we’re stuck here, in a different reality from our own.”
Betty cocked her chin. “Likely story.”
“It’s true,” Amelia said defensively. “We’re not from here. In our real life everything is different. Pepper’s about to marry Axel. Not Rufus.”
Betty stared at us, her eyes glittering with mistrust.
I sighed. “Put the gun down and we’ll explain everything.”
“How about y’all explain it with the gun on you?”
Did we really have a choice? Betty was calling all the shots on this one.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said slowly. “But promise you won’t shoot?”
“I’m not promising anything, kid. Start talking.”
After about thirty minutes of explaining, pleading and begging, Betty finally started to believe us.
“So y’all are in a real pickle, huh?” She spat into the fireplace. “You’re supposed to see what your lives could’ve been like and they’re so different all you want to do is leave, but you can’t. You’re supposed to go with it.”
“That’s right,” Amelia said.
“Then why,” she said sharply to Amelia, “are you trying to muss it all up? What was with all that gibberish about swapping partners like this was a flea market or something?”
Amelia’s shoulders sank. “I guess I think it’s silly for us to go along with something we don’t like. I mean, in It’s a Wonderful Life, Jimmy Stewart asked for his old life back and he got it. I want my old life back. I don’t like shooting stinky skinks.”
“Tomorrow we’re going hunting for demonic snipes.”
Amelia threw her arms in the air. “See? That makes no sense. I asked for a less dangerous job, but here I am getting shot by you and stuck with a boyfriend who doesn’t want to be with me. He says he does, but he really doesn’t, so I don’t buy any of this. I don’t think my uncle is right about the wishing stone.”
Betty extended her hand. “Let me see it.”
Cordelia slowly took it from her purse and handed it over. “Please don’t break it.”
“Maybe the stupid thing needs to be broken.”
“Uh-uh,” Ratchet chided. “Don’t do that. There’s no telling what will happen to me.”
Betty quirked an eyebrow, and Ratchet explained that he wasn’t my familiar in my other life.
Betty turned the disk this way and that, glancing at it in the firelight. “So what’s real? Are we the real players with different motivations, or are we figments, fragments of something, and when you return to your world, will we disappear?”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Ratchet said quietly.
“You say you’re supposed to go along with this life. That’s what Morgan said.”
We nodded.
“But what if you’re not,” Betty theorized. “What if you’re supposed to rebel?”
“With all due respect,” Cordelia said, “my father knows a lot about that stone. He�
��s the one who brought it to Southern Wishes.”
Mischief glinted in Betty’s eyes. “What if he’s supposed to tell you that?”
“Why would he do that?” Amelia said.
“This stone reminds me of one I saw a long time ago, when I was very young.”
“You were young?” Amelia scoffed. “I don’t believe it.”
Betty closed her hand around it, sealing it from view. “The stone I remember had complicated power, but the main crux of it was similar. It would give you what you wanted, but it was up to you to decide which way to go about it.”
“And?” I said.
“If you returned to the way you wanted things to be, then all the world would go back to normal. But if you accepted the reality, you stayed there.”
Cordelia shook her head. “That’s the exact opposite of what my dad said.”
“Because it’s a puzzle wish,” Betty explained. “Your father can’t just give you the answer. He can’t tell you to change everything you’ve been given. It’s up to you to figure that out.”
“But you just told us,” I said.
“But Amelia started thinking it first,” she countered. “So technically the idea came from one of y’all, which sort of leaves me out of it.”
We sat silently, mulling it over.
“You’re saying we should be trying to screw this up,” Cordelia confirmed. “We’ve arrived and realized this isn’t the right world, so the way to get back, instead of screaming through the streets like in a movie, is simply to change things to the way we want them?”
Betty nodded sharply. “Otherwise you’ll get stuck here.”
“This is not what we were told,” I murmured.
“Think about it, Pepper.” Betty pulled her pipe from her pocket, lit it with a flame that shot up from her finger and started puffing. “If you accepted what you were given, why would you ever leave? Wouldn’t it make sense that you’d be trapped here forever?”
I considered it. Betty studied my expression and kept talking. “If you loved being here, the wish would think you wouldn’t want anything different, so it would keep you smack out of your reality, wouldn’t it?”
“But if we change things, why would it send us back?” I argued. “We would have changed things back to the way we know them and the wish would think we were happy then, too.”
That made sense to me as well. Darned if you do and darned if you don’t, so to speak.
“Plus,” I said, “if we change things, then we’re in our own reality, aren’t we? Minus a lot of differences.”
“I’m with Betty,” Amelia said. “I don’t like it here. I don’t want to shoot skinks or demonic snipes. This isn’t what I signed up for, and first thing tomorrow I’m going to start making this world work for me.”
With that, Amelia rose from the couch and marched upstairs. I wished her luck, I really did, but if I was going to believe anyone, it was my genie uncle. He knew the stone and everything about it.
I was here for a reason, and I was going to stick to the plan. If that meant I stayed right up until Saturday when I was supposed to marry Rufus, then so be it.
Chapter 13
“Where are you off to today?”
I spooned a glob of grits onto my plate and eyed Amelia smoothly. After she’d abruptly left the living room last night, all full of pee and vinegar, she’d stomped to her room and slammed the door.
She wore a silk blouse and a skirt. Her soft curls were smoothed down, and she’d even dabbed on a bit of makeup.
My cousin looked fit for a job interview.
“I’m going to see Erasmus Everlasting about working at the Vault. It might be dangerous, but I’d rather do that than deal with bushes and getting shot by Betty.”
I fired off a concerned look to Cordelia, whose forehead wrinkled in worry.
Cordelia glanced at me and shrugged. “Okay.”
“That’s my girl,” Betty said, settling a tray of biscuits on the table. “We’ll see who wins this contest.”
“It isn’t a contest,” I argued.
“So you say.”
I shook my head. “So you’re really going through with this?” I asked Amelia.
“Yep.” She shoved a biscuit in her mouth and chewed. “I sure am. I’ll let y’all know how it goes.”
I rose. “Well, I’m off to work.”
Ratchet appeared on the stairs. “Work?”
I nodded. “Yes. Work. What’s so strange about that?”
He and Betty exchanged a look. “You haven’t been to work in months. You don’t even go into the familiar store anymore.”
I frowned. “Then who works it?”
“You hired an employee.”
I scoffed. “Do they have experience in familiar matching?”
Ratchet scratched his head. “Not exactly.”
“Well, I’m going there.” I grabbed my purse and shouldered it. “You coming?”
He nodded. “Sure thing. I’ve gotta see this.”
Ratchet grabbed a biscuit, slathered it with butter and walked with me to the store.
“I’m not really sure I like this Pepper,” I remarked.
“Well, I love her. If it wasn’t for you, er, her, I would still be homeless.”
My gaze darted to the raccoon. He didn’t seem upset, just matter-of-fact. My heart pinged at the idea that the Pepper I was impersonating seemed to care so little about all the things that I cared about.
Except for Rufus. I cared about him. But my feelings for Rufus were getting all knotted up. I couldn’t remember how I felt about him in my other life.
The potion made all my emotions for him so strong that I couldn’t wait to see him. Couldn’t wait to touch him. The confusion from last night had vanished, and Rufus was just about all I could think of.
Except, of course, my animals.
I stopped outside Familiar Place and exhaled a deep shot of air.
“You sure you want to go in?” Ratchet asked.
I frowned. “It’s my store. Why wouldn’t I want to go in?”
“You’ll see. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I yanked open the door. A flock of macaws flew at me. They cawed, talons extended like they wanted to rip my hair from the shaft.
I gasped and slammed the door before they could exit.
My breath came in ragged gasps. “What was that?”
“See?” Ratchet folded his arms. “I told you that you wouldn’t want to go in.”
I slowly pivoted toward him. A jolt of fear coursed all the way to my toes. My mouth opened and shut like a fish. I couldn’t form words.
“But why? Why were they trying to attack me?”
“Because they aren’t tame. They’re crazy. It’s been that way ever since you took control of the place. You never really accepted that you have the ability to communicate with animals the way your uncle did. You never tried with them. And so they run loose.”
“But how?” Where were my words? I shook my head and forced words into my brain. “But how do I make money? How does anyone work in there?”
“Morning, Miss Dunn.”
And then CJ Hix strode right on past me wearing what looked like a beekeeper’s uniform, complete with the head cover.
“You coming in today?” CJ said.
My face contorted in confusion. “CJ, what’re you doing here?”
“Miss Dunn,” he said with a hint of bite in it, “I know you’re joking. I work here full-time.”
“But what about real estate?”
CJ shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. If you don’t mind, if you’re not here to be part of the solution, then you’re part of the problem. Excuse me while I go to work.”
CJ blew right on past me into the store and the cawing birds. They converged on him. My jaw dropped.
“No! He’ll be clawed alive.”
Ratchet grabbed me. “Why do you think he wears the suit?”
I watched in horror as the birds b
it at CJ’s arms and legs, attacking the poor man with a fervor that made my stomach tighten.
After a couple of minutes they stopped.
“This…this is horrible.” I raked my fingers down my face. “What has happened? CJ isn’t nice like he’s supposed to be, and he’s a Realtor, not my employee.”
“Not anymore. CJ lost a girlfriend and started drinking. He couldn’t sell houses anymore, so you took him in. Gave him a job and got rid of this headache of a store of yours.”
I stood outside, baffled and honestly a little terrified of what I was watching.
“And clients?” I said, shocked that anyone would want to have anything to do with Familiar Place with the state it was in.
“CJ catches an animal and brings it out one at a time.”
I clawed my fingers down my face. “What a disaster.”
“Pepper Dunn, it’s about time you showed up.”
Theodora, a wonderfully friendly woman who owned Castin’ Iron along with her husband, Harry, stormed up to me.
Only this Theodora didn’t look happy. She looked ticked as heck. “Those rats of yours have been breaking into my shop and chewing on the iron skillets,” she fumed. “I expect you to pay for the damages.”
“Oh. Um. I’m so sorry,” I gushed.
She threw her hands skyward. “Sorry. You’re sorry. When is Pepper Dunn ever sorry about the horrible things her animals do? You don’t even come into your store.” She jabbed a finger in my face. “How can you say you’re sorry?”
I grimaced. “I am. I’ll fix it. It’ll stop now.”
Theodora’s face twisted in anger. “You’d better or I’ll make sure I get your shop condemned and you won’t be able to sell it to anyone.”
Flustered, I didn’t know what to say. Sorry seemed pointless. “Okay,” I mumbled weakly.
Harry stepped onto the sidewalk. “What are you doing over there, woman? I thought I told you to stay away from Pepper Dunn.”
She waved him away. “I’m coming. Just telling her to mind her animals.” Theodora shot me a look that could’ve burned the hair off my head. “Which this time she says she will. I’ll believe it when I see it.”