A Witchly Influence

by Stephanie Grey

  I made myself a quick breakfast of bacon and eggs, forgetting that Lewis would leave for work at the same time I left for school.

  “That smells good,” he said. “You don’t happen to have any extra, do you?”

  I pointed to the microwave and blinked a couple of times so that a piping hot plate was waiting for him when he opened the door.

  “Perfect!” he said happily. “You even made me toast and buttered it!” His toast was midway to his mouth when he paused. “What do you want?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Nothing,” I said, munching on a piece of bacon. “I just made breakfast, that’s all.”

  “Uh-huh,” he replied. “This is blackmail breakfast, isn’t it?”

  I grinned, realizing he was joking. “Of course. One day you’ll have to take my mom somewhere in Europe on a second honeymoon.”

  “You’re in cahoots together!”

  “If that were the case, I would have told you that you should take me with you, too.” I finished my breakfast and washed my dishes before shouting goodbye over my shoulder. I walked to the bus stop, wondering what I was going to do at school. I hadn’t been to high school in fourteen years. I was worried about Finn and Abby’s progress in my absence, if the future was even still occurring at the same time as my past. I rubbed my temples as my head began to ache. There was a reason I wasn’t a time traveler, though I now had a good reason to kill one when I saw her again.

  I couldn’t deny a certain nostalgia in riding the bus once more. The smell of the old seats, the feel of the textured fabric against my hands, the sound of the engine rumbling as it trudged from stop to stop picking up more students.

  Surprisingly, I still remembered the location of my old locker, though I had to use my magic to remove the combination lock. It had been long-forgotten along with my senior class schedule. Opening the thin door, I saw that I had taped the schedule to the inside and smiled. I yanked it off and stuffed it into a folder I pulled from the top shelf. Homeroom and first period was math and I sauntered off to class, dreading it. It had been a long time since I had done any calculus.

  “What in the hell are you doing? That’s Tanya’s seat,” a shrill voice from behind me snapped.

  I slowly turned around to face a petite girl with blonde hair and brown roots at least three inches long. “Jessica Parker,” I said.

  “Carmen Devereaux,” she retorted, her voice mocking mine.

  “I apologize for taking Tanya’s seat. I didn’t remember it belonged to her.”

  “Yeah, so you better move your ass.”

  “I’m seated. If Tanya wanted this spot, she should have been responsible and shown up to class on time.”

  Jessica started kicking the back of my chair.

  “Jessica, I suggest you grow up. Where Tanya sits today does not determine neither her nor your futures.”

  “What in the hell are you talking about? Just move already.” She started kicking the back of my chair again. I created an invisible wall between the two of us so that I could no longer feel her foot.

  “Just move, you damn vampire! You telling me you’re growing a backbone now in the last week of school? Bitch, I rule this place.”

  “You don’t rule anything, Jessica. You’re going to run the cash register at the minimart and that’s about as far as you’re going to go.”

  “What?” Jessica asked, surprised. “What are you talking about, bitch? I ain’t going to run a minimart!”

  “I didn’t say that. I said you were going to run the cash register,” I corrected.

  “I’m going to be a model! Did you hear me? I’m going to be a model!” Jessica shouted. Her breathing grew heavy and she began to pout. “I’ll walk the runways in France, then maybe Paris.”

  I opened my mouth to correct her again, but decided against it.

  The math teacher finally entered, apologizing for his tardiness. Tanya was still nowhere to be seen and I stifled a laugh. Mr. Wheeler was only in his twenties and it had been rumored that he had flings with the eighteen-year-old students. If I remembered correctly, Tanya was one of the alleged students. A few minutes later, she joined the class, absently wiping the sides of her mouth. She frowned when she saw me in her chair and took the empty seat behind Jessica. She leaned forward and whispered to Jessica, asking her if she had any lip balm.

  To my relief, the rest of my classes were fairly easy. There were only a few days until graduation and most teachers, having already administered the standardized tests and given the results, were allowing their senior students relative freedom in the last week they had before they “entered the real world.”

  My last class of the day was English, and I smiled at the thought of Dr. Tanning. While he had often been a bit too harsh, I remembered him fondly for his blunt mannerisms. It wasn’t every teacher out there that had the nerve to write, “This makes no sense!” in bright red ink on papers his students had worked so hard to complete to his standards.

  “Ah, Carmen, you seem to be in a good mood,” Dr. Tanning observed as I took a seat in front of his podium. “And sitting in front of the class instead of trying to hide in the back. You’ve got a backbone today, don’t you?”

  “That seems to be the consensus,” I replied casually.

  “Good for you. Good for you. Today you’ll be the lucky first one to deliver her speech.”

  I cleared my throat. “Speech?”

  “Yes, a speech. Did you think I didn’t mean it when I gave you an assignment on Friday to have a speech ready today? I don’t care that you had your prom. The world out there does not care about the frivolity in which you engage during your weekends. If you have a presentation for work due on Monday, they frankly don’t give a damn that you were out gallivanting on Saturday,” Dr. Tanning said, his voice rising. “Now get up here and give us your how-to speech.”

  “Any how-to?” I asked timidly. I remembered why I preferred to sit in the back row.

  “Are you unprepared? I will give you a zero and drag down that A average so fast that your head will spin, young lady!”

  I nervously glanced around the room and spotted Maeve slouching low in her seat. “Of course I’m prepared,” I said easily as an idea popped into my head. “I just need to get a prop and a volunteer.” I reached into my backpack where I had created a pink mat that, as I unfolded it, was mysteriously longer and wider than it looked as it was laid out on the floor. “Please push your desks to form a semicircle on one side of me,” I instructed.

  The desks screeched against the floor as my classmates moved them and they gathered around me, sitting cross-legged on the floor. They watched me curiously and I glimpsed at Dr. Tanning who was frowning at me from his seat behind the podium.

  “Maeve, will you please be my volunteer?” I patted the spot on the mat next to me.

  “What am I volunteering for?”

  “Maeve,” I said, my teeth clenched. “I need your help.”

  “You owe me,” she muttered under her breath.

  I smiled brightly. “As you know, Maeve is my best friend. I’m about to hurt her.”

  “You’re what, now?” Dr. Tanning demanded. He leaned one part of his head nearer to me, as if the closer ear might hear my words more easily.

  I waved my hand absently. “Oh, I’m not serious. That’s what the tapping is for.” I looked at Maeve. “When something starts to hurt, tap me. Don’t tap the mat because I might not hear you.”

  “Would you please get to your topic, Miss Devereaux?”

  “I would love to if you’d stop interrupting me,” I said. I cringed inwardly, waiting for Dr. Tanning’s retort. He said nothing. “A lot of you don’t know that I’ve been taking Brazilian jiu-jitsu for the last several years.” I’d actually taken it in South Bend and had stopped after returning to New Bern. I had meant to pick it up again, but yoga and kickboxing classes drained my time and, at thirty-two, my body didn’t rebound as quickly as it had when I was younger. Kickboxing would have to go if I was going to resum
e my jiu-jitsu training.

  “You have?” Maeve asked, surprised. “I didn’t know this.”

  “It was just kind of my thing I did on my own,” I replied quickly. “Okay, let’s go over the basic positions.” When I got to the position of mount, a chorus of giggles erupted. “Yes, let’s all laugh at the name of the position.” Maeve was flat on her back and I straddled her hips. “Yes, it’s funny that I’m sitting on top of her. Oh, ha ha,” I said, my tone dry. I began to punch Maeve, stopping my fists just before they hit her face. “This is why mount is great. If you’re fighting, and you have this top position, you can rain punches. It’s also a dominant position for submissions.”

  Immediately the class went silent.

  “Is mount still funny?” I asked quietly.

  They shook their heads no.

  “Okay, let’s continue. Let me show you how to escape from mount. Maeve, please hook your left arm over my right arm like this,” I said, instructing her movements. “Now step your left leg over my right leg and bridge your hips upward and over.” Maeve rolled me onto my back. “Now she’s got side control.” I looked at Maeve and grinned. “Thanks,” I said, sitting up. She sat next to me, watching me carefully. “Guard, side control, and mount are your basic positions. I’ve shown you some very basic movements to escape them. Are there any questions?”

  “How long did you say you’ve been training?”

  “Where do they offer classes?”

  “Can you kick my ass?”

  “Are you done, Miss Devereaux?” Dr. Tanning asked.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “It was only meant to be a five-minute speech. It was not meant to become a thirty-minute demonstration.”

  “I was excited to share my knowledge, sir,” I said.

  “I bet,” he said skeptically. He jotted down a note. “A minus,” he said. “You went over your time limit. Imagine if you were in advertising and you only had five minutes to pitch an idea. The client wouldn’t be happy if you made them listen for an extra twenty-five minutes.”

  Rolling up the mat, I said, “But I’m not going to go into advertising.”

  “You get my point anyway!”

  He was such a hard ass. I smiled slightly. “Yes, sir,” I replied.

  The day of my high school graduation, I sat in my bedroom. I hadn’t seen or heard from Marcy in a week and I was furious. I had been going to my classes and interacting with my mother and Lewis as though nothing were different, though they and my friends could tell that something was off-kilter about me. Mom had briefly commented on my more adult-like behavior and I had held my breath, nervously waiting for her to pry. Relief flooded through me when she did not, though she paid closer attention to me than she normally would have.

  I was terrified that Marcy had lost me in time somehow and I would have to relive my life. I knew I was not supposed to change anything, but I had already decided that I could not—would not—date and marry Matthew Ferrara again. I didn’t want to lose my calling as an Influencer, but I could only hope that Fate would allow me this privilege even without him in my life.

  “Please tell me that’s not how you’re going to wear your hair,” Mom said, frowning as she stood in my doorway.

  I ran my hands over my hair. It had been almost to the middle of my back when I was a teenager. “What’s wrong with wearing it straight? No one is going to remember it anyway.”

  She snapped a photo with a camera that she had created. “I’ll remember.” She walked across my room and sat next to me. “Is there something wrong?”

  “No,” I lied.

  “There is,” Mom said flatly. “Honey, are you upset about graduation? Don’t be! You’ll go to college and meet new friends. You’ll have a great time and earn your degree. Then your life will really begin and I just know you’re going to do great things.”

  “Thank you,” I said, my voice thick with emotion.

  “I don’t think that is what’s really bothering you.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “I didn’t think so. I never thought of you to be the one afraid of change.” She caught my gaze. “But you’re not going to tell me, are you?”

  “No.”

  She sighed. “All right. You know I’m here with open ears when you want to talk. Until then, let’s do something with this hair. It’s just hanging there.” She ran her fingers through my hair, soft waves forming in their wake. “That is so much better,” she said, pleased with herself. “How do you like it?”

  I went to the mirror that hung on the back of my door. “It looks nice,” I answered.

  “Change your clothes and fix your makeup.” She took another photo. “And stop looking so sad!”

  She left me alone as I stood in my closet, trying to decide what to wear. I couldn’t remember what I had originally chosen and wound up putting on a black dress. Before I even made it to the landing, my mother vetoed it. “You’re not going to a funeral!” I changed once again, choosing a peacock blue dress that was sleeveless with a deep V-neck and cinched at my waist, then flared outward slightly.

  Standing at the landing once more, my mother looked over my dress, nodding in approval. “Make it go to your knees.”

  I tugged at the bottom and the fabric lengthened until it grazed the top of my knees. “Better?”

  “You look beautiful, honey,” she replied.

  “I don’t even want to know how much that dress cost,” Lewis said as I walked down the stairs and joined them in the living room.

  “I paid for it out of my allowance,” I said.

  He pretended to wipe sweat from his brow. “Dodged a bullet with that, didn’t I?” he joked.

  For the second time in my life, I begrudgingly stood for photo after photo that Mom insisted on taking. Even if she had known that I was stuck in the past and was really thirty-two, she still would have made me suffer through her photo session.

  The car ride to the school was long and silent. I was thinking about each action I had taken in the last fourteen years. Fourteen years. I could not live through that again. I was very happy in the present. I missed my life. I even missed Lenny the Snowman. Angrily, I wiped away a tear that had fallen down my cheek. Mom noticed and blinked softly, fixing the makeup that had smeared in the process.

  “Calm down,” she said quietly. “We’re having a party after this and all of your friends are coming. Today is an exciting day!”

  “I know,” I said, struggling to keep my voice even. “These are happy tears.”

  “How about no more tears? You’ll make me cry.”

  Forty minutes later, every student, parent, and other various family members and friends of families had taken a seat in the gymnasium. It had been decorated in the school colors of orange and black, along with congratulatory banners from local businesses for the graduating class. I groaned as the speeches began. They had been uninspiring then and I gently shook my head in dismay as I realized that, even as an adult, the words of wisdom being given to us were still just as lackluster.

  Finally, they began to call our names and one by one, we stood to receive our diplomas and cross the stage. At the end of the ceremony, we threw our hats into the air and cheered happily.

  More photos were taken as friends hugged, cried, and hugged again. Mom captured every moment with her camera, which other parents had commented on its uniqueness. “I guess Lewis must’ve got a raise at work since you’ve got that new fancy camera!”

  Mom smiled sweetly, snapped another photo, and moved on.

  Back at home, my graduation party was in full swing. The backyard was adorned with balloons, graduation-themed confetti, and a large banner that said in giant pink letters, “CONGRATULATIONS, CARMEN!” My mother had boasted that she could reuse it at my college graduation, which is exactly what she had done.

  Several family members had shown up from out of state and they swarmed around me, asking me about what I wanted to major in and where was I going to go to school. I answered politely
and, finally, feeling overwhelmed, snuck away to my bedroom. Peering at my reflection in my mirror, I began talking softly to myself. “You’re an adult. You can figure out a way to get back to the present. Go back out there and face those people. You were the life of the party the first time you did this, so go do it again!”

  “You act like reliving your past is the end of your life,” my mirror chided.

  “What in the hell?” I asked, flabbergasted.

  “Oh, yes, a talking mirror. How original. Is that what you’re thinking?” the mirror asked.

  “That is definitely not what I’m thinking.”

  “You’ve been moping all week. I knew something was wrong the moment you showed up from prom.”

  It was surreal and very strange watching myself talking, even though the lips on my face weren’t moving. “How could you tell?”

  “You stand differently. You move differently. You talking to yourself sealed my conclusion.”

  “Oh,” I said, not sure how else I should respond.

  “You fooled everyone else, if you were worried about that. Your mother is clueless. She just thinks you’re upset about moving to Indiana.”

  “I had been nervous about it then,” I admitted.

  “You’re a smart girl. Or I guess I should say you’re a smart woman. You’ll figure this out.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “I’m just a mirror. What more do you expect from me?” My image shrugged.

  “Why are you just talking to me now?” I asked.

  “I didn’t really need to until now.”

  “What changed?”

  My image rolled its eyes. “Come on, that’s obvious. I can’t have you going out there and turn into some crazy person who talks to herself. Next thing you know, you’ll be rehearsing arguments you want to have with people, but in a nice manner so you don’t come off seeming like you’re too saucy.”