Tiny Glitches: A Magical Contemporary Romance

by Chastain, Rebecca

  “When?”

  “Yesterday morning.”

  After our amazing first night together and right after finding out I had no TV. I wondered if that had been the final straw to force him to turn his scrutiny on me, or if he’d planned to investigate me before he’d accepted my invitation for a nightcap.

  I should have been angry, or at least felt like he’d violated my privacy, but the invisible scales in my head weighed his action against my guilt and came out balanced. “Thank you,” I said softly. “For not pushing for the answer and for lying to the agents. And for helping me even when you didn’t know me. And for continuing to help me now that it’s gotten dangerous.”

  “You don’t have a driver’s license.”

  It wasn’t a question, but I answered it anyway. “As embarrassing as that is to admit, no. Sorry about the parking ticket lie.”

  Hudson didn’t speak for a block; then he said, “What Jenny has on you—is it bad?”

  “It would end my life.” I rubbed goose bumps from my arms. “Maybe literally.”

  Concern and confusion tightened Hudson’s eyes. “Okay.”

  “So what now?”

  “I’ll run a check on Atlas and Edmond, now that I have their full names. But our goal is the same: Get Kyoko back into Jenny’s hands. Which means we need to find Jenny. Again.”

  “And force her to take Kyoko back. I think that’s going to be harder than finding her.”

  We both fell silent, pulled into our individual thoughts. Mine were chaotic and unfocused, hopscotching between gratitude that Hudson was going to continue to help me without prying and fear that the FBI would arrest us. A film of terror coated my thoughts, bristling with anger directed at Jenny. I felt helpless and adrift. I didn’t know what to do next, and I couldn’t see a way out of this increasingly dangerous and illegal predicament.

  When we pulled up, Ari sat on her porch, worry clouding her expression, winged aluminum soda cans circling her head. I tensed at the sight. Ari had developed a fear of flying when we’d still been in high school, which was when the soda-can apparition had first appeared. Over the years, the apparition had taken root and was now associated with fears of all kinds. I expected the cans to disappear when she saw us, but instead they multiplied. A queasy feeling rolled through my middle.

  I jogged up the short walkway and she rose to meet me halfway.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. “I expected you hours ago. What happened to your nose?”

  “We were delayed by the FBI,” I said.

  Ari’s brown eyes rounded in her pale face. “What’d they want?” she whispered.

  Hudson opened the door to the house, and I went inside, Ari on my heels. “They wanted to ask us about Jenny. They’re doing some sort of investigation on her. Jenny said we tipped them off.”

  “You spoke with Jenny?”

  I caught Ari up on our adventurous night as succinctly as possible. Ari collapsed into a chair when I described the ninjas’ attack, then leapt from it when I summarized Atlas and Edmond’s rescue, which necessitated confessing to my first kidnapping by the cousins. She flopped back down when I told her Jenny’s brief, unsatisfactory explanation of why we needed to continue to keep Kyoko hidden for her.

  “This is unacceptable,” Ari said. “I wouldn’t even ask something this bizarre, this . . . dangerous of you, and you’re my best friend! Where does she get off on dragging you into this mess?”

  “I’d like to ask her that, too, but she’s disappeared on us again,” Hudson said.

  “Have you tried calling Sofie recently?” I asked.

  “I tried.” A queue of aluminum cans spun faster through Ari’s midriff, phasing through the chair and back out. Every third can resembled a coffin. My heart lurched. “I’ve been trying every half hour for the last two hours. I was just about to head over there when you got here.”

  My stomach knotted. Sofie could have gotten wrapped up in a painting and not heard the phone ring, but it wasn’t likely. She also could have left the house and forgotten her phone, she could have forgotten her charger, or her phone could be broken. None of those scenarios made me feel better, though.

  “Can we borrow your car?”

  “We don’t need to borrow her car,” Hudson said. “Mine’s working fine.”

  “For now.” I’d been in it for fifteen minutes. It wouldn’t make the drive to Annabella’s on top of that. Ari, thankfully, understood without me needing to explain.

  “Here. I just filled the tank.” Ari peeled her car key off a ring and handed it to Hudson. “No elephants allowed inside, okay?”

  I wasn’t in the frame of mind to hold up a conversation during the drive, and fortunately, Hudson wasn’t feeling chatty, either. I concentrated on counting the billboards, then finding the alphabet one letter at a time in the signs we passed. When that didn’t work to mask my worry, I feng shuied Hudson’s house.

  All soothing thoughts flushed from my mind when Hudson pulled into the circular drive and Dali bounded through the open gate to the backyard, barking excitedly. I swung out of the car and suffered Dali’s excited licks and wriggles. The front door to the house hung open. My skin shrank.

  “Sofie!” I shouted.

  Hudson rounded the car. A small shark leapt from the concrete to swallow his hand to the elbow. When he looked at me, the shark doubled in size; then Pac-Man erupted from his stomach, opened its mouth, and swallowed the tail of the shark. It kept chomping its way up Hudson’s arm, devouring the shark in wedge-shaped bites, leaving Hudson’s bare arm behind. If I hadn’t already been freaked out, that would have done it.

  “Hang on, Eva. There could still be someone here,” Hudson said when I rushed to the backyard gate.

  “If there was, Dali would have told us,” I said.

  Dali circled Hudson, licking at his fingers and feet and anywhere in between he could reach. When I pushed the gate open, Dali rushed to me, barking, then whined when I shushed him.

  The backyard was a trampled mess. I’d seen the pool cleaner after weeklong fall storms. The grass looked like a pack of starved voles had been released, followed by foxes, and capped off with a herd of horses. Two heavy divots plowed from the pool to the carport. Aside from Dali’s muffled woofs of disapproval, the backyard lay ominously quiet.

  Kyoko was gone.

  “Sofie!” I yelled. I ran to the sliding glass door and shoved it open. “Sofie!”

  My voice echoed through the empty, sterile house.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Before I’d smeared three muddy prints across the pristine white carpet, the power crashed. The recessed overhead lighting blackened and the stereo strangled Sofie’s favorite Mozart piece. A jittery thrum sucked through my skin and vibrated against my bones. Panic.

  “Sofie!” I screamed, my voice raw.

  “Wait—” Hudson grabbed for me and I shrugged him aside. “Eva, someone could still be here. Let’s be safe—”

  I dashed from the front room to the dining room to the library, ignoring Hudson. We could be safe later. Right now Sofie could be hurt.

  Upstairs suffocated in ominous silence. Empty. I pounded back downstairs and through the kitchen—

  I staggered against the counter, eyes riveted on the sheet of paper and Polaroid lying on top of it. Hudson bounced off my back and grabbed me to steady us both.

  The note was handwritten in kanji. I didn’t need to be able to read it to know it was a ransom note. I picked up the Polaroid with shaking fingers.

  Sofie, blindfolded, with duct tape slapped across her mouth and binding her wrists. A bruise stained her right jawline, and tears glistened on her cheeks. She stood in the kitchen.

  I pivoted to stare at the location of the picture. Tiny black dots swirled in my vision, and a high-pitched noise resonated from my throat. My body shook inside my skin.

  Hudson pushed me into a chair and stuffed my head between my legs. Bile swam in my stomach, lapping at my esophagus. I panted, staring at the wall of red ha
ir around me, listening to the ringing in my ears.

  They’d left a ransom note. They’d left a ransom note. It kept repeating in my head until Hudson gently removed Sofie’s picture from my white-knuckle grip.

  I bolted to my feet. “We need to call the police. No, the FBI! They—”

  “What about Jenny’s blackmail?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” God, I’d been so selfish. I’d put my own fears of becoming a scientific experiment above Sofie’s life. I’d been a fool. Please, please let me have a chance to make this up to Sofie.

  Hudson’s voice penetrated my thunderous thoughts. “. . . this translated. We need to know what it says.”

  “We need my aunt—”

  “We’ll get your aunt.”

  Hudson’s firm tone helped me focus on his determined expression beneath a bejeweled sombrero. A Rubik’s Cube engulfed around his torso and monstrous sea creatures circled around his legs.

  “Jenny can tell us what this says,” he said.

  “We don’t know where she is.”

  “But we know where Atlas and Edmond are.”

  “We do?”

  “They’ve been following you for days. They’re probably right outside.”

  “With the FBI!” I spun toward the front door, but Hudson grabbed my arm before I could take a step.

  “And if they are? What then?”

  “We have the cousins call Jenny, and then the FBI can arrest her.”

  “If we do that, how will we find Sofie?”

  “The FBI will get Jenny to talk, to tell us where Sofie is.”

  “Jenny might not know where she is. And the FBI have their own agenda.”

  “I’m not going to stand here and do nothing!”

  The doorbell rang. Hudson and I froze, staring at each other; then I pulled free and sprinted through the kitchen to the foyer.

  I yanked the door open. My heart sank. It wasn’t Sofie. It wasn’t the FBI. It wasn’t even Atlas and Edmond. It was a clown. A little person clown—a clowntini? Smears ran through her white face paint and fun-house eye and mouth makeup. Cake-smudged handprints peppered her white jumpsuit, and mystery crusty stains coated the layers of colored ruffles at her throat, waist, and cuffs. A pristine beaded breastplate layered the cotton, depicting a giant open mouth with lots and lots of teeth. The frizzy green wig sprouted a shark fin.

  “Hand over the elephant.”

  The clown’s shotgun was almost as long as she was tall, and her finger hovered over the trigger.

  I latched on to the first logical thought.

  “You’re the retrievalist?” Jenny had been spooked by a tiny skip tracer clown?

  “Listen up, animal abuser. I want that elephant. Relinquish it, rich bitch. Right. Now.”

  “You’re not the retrievalist?”

  “I’m going all retrieval on your ass. Hurry up. Hand it over.”

  A truck blocked the driveway behind Ari’s car. It looked like it had spent most of its life working on a farm and had been retired to the city. Even if it could handle the weight of Kyoko, the short sides wouldn’t hold her in. The clown couldn’t be the feared retrievalist, not with that truck.

  “Wrong house,” I said, and reached for the door. We were wasting time we needed to use to rescue Sofie.

  The clown jabbed me with the gun, stepping over the threshold.

  “I saw the elephant.” Overdue parking tickets fluttered through the air around the tiny woman and piled at her feet. “I saw you guys shove it in that tiny cage.”

  “Did you see a woman? Did she look okay?” I grabbed the barrel of the gun and pushed it aside to seize the clown’s shoulders.

  Hudson swung around the corner, grabbed the barrel in both hands, and yanked the gun from the clown.

  “Hey! Get off me, crazy! Give me back my gun!”

  “Tell us everything you saw,” Hudson said.

  “Endangered animal abuse, that’s what. I’ve got backup coming. I’m a card-carrying member of PETA. My posse will be here any minute.”

  I squatted down to get on eye level with her. “Forget the elephant. Tell me about the woman. Did you see a woman? My height, auburn hair, middle-aged.”

  “Don’t treat me like a fucking child.” The clown shoved my shoulders and I toppled onto my ass. “I will mess you up, rich bitch. I will tear out your weave and feed it to your emaciated body. I’ll—”

  “Freeze, clown.” Something ratcheted behind me.

  The clown froze. I rolled my eyes up to see Hudson standing behind me like a Mexican cowboy, legs spread, wearing an insubstantial sombrero, navy poncho, and dirty cowboy boots. He held the gun aimed toward the sun. Baby sharks spewed from the hem of the poncho.

  “Whoa there, tall fella,” the clown said, hands shooting to the sky. “I’ve got a name. It’s Dempsey, not ‘clown,’ not ‘you there,’ and never ‘short stuff.’ Got it?”

  “Answer Eva. Tell us what you saw.”

  Dempsey crossed her arms over her chest. “Or what? You’ll shoot me? Put me in a cage like you did that elephant? I’ve got rights, and so do animals.”

  “How many people did you see?”

  “I refuse to talk to anyone threatening me with a gun.”

  “You just threatened us with this gun!” Hudson said.

  “That’s different. I’m naturally handicapped, in case you hadn’t noticed. I was evening the playing field.”

  “There’s nothing even about a gun.”

  “Enough.” I pushed to my knees and took a gamble. If this woman had seen anything that would lead me to Sofie, the risk was worth it. “We had an elephant—”

  “Eva—”

  “I knew it! You scum-sucking rich are all the same. Think you’re above God—”

  “We don’t have the elephant anymore. Someone stole it.”

  “Ha! Right. I’m supposed to believe that.”

  “Look for yourself. Then tell me everything you saw, because they kidnapped my aunt, too.”

  Dempsey narrowed her eyes at me, then shoved past Hudson into the house. A plywood sign with a cartoon pirate holding out his arm dragged a trail through the billowing parking tickets beside the clown. The pirate’s arm hovered a foot above her head, and bold text proclaimed, “Arr, matey. You must be THIS tall to ride this ride.”

  “If this kidnapping is a trick, I will crush you under the full might of PETA. We won’t rest until you’re caged. No one harms an animal on my watch.”

  “Eva, do you think—”

  “I don’t think, Hudson. I want my aunt back. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  “Okay.” Hudson cracked the gun in half and emptied the shotgun shells into the coat closet, then put the gun on the top shelf and pushed it out of sight. Two waist-high army men, their green bodies melded with green plastic stands, took point on either side of the door. A third aimed a bazooka after the clown.

  I’d opened the divinations floodgate when I’d sucked in the entire house’s electricity. My stampeding emotions had flattened the weak mental barriers I maintained as a buffer between me and the onslaught of apparitions. I needed to reclaim every iota of control I could muster if I was going to be any use in rescuing Sofie, but I couldn’t find a crumb of calm. The elusive off switch remained as intangible as ever. My lack of control, the childhood handicap I’d never outgrown or overcome, added fuel to my frustration until the emotion howled within my head, drowning out everything else.

  “Eva!” Hudson shook my shoulders. “Can you handle her?”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To get help.”

  I shuffled out to the backyard and my only link to Sofie. Dempsey jogged through the decimated yard, checking behind the bushes, muttering to herself.

  “There may not be an elephant here now, but there was. That baby elephant’s probably got separation anxiety. Where’s its mother? In the garage?”

  “No. We only had the baby. Now, please, tell me, did you see a woman? She looks like me, only twenty yea
rs older.”

  “I didn’t see any redhead. I saw two people wedge a baby elephant into a shoe box of a cage. It was terrified.” The clown marched up to me and poked my thigh with a stiff finger. “The free ride is over—”

  I shoved the Polaroid into Dempsey’s face. “I’m not lying to you.” Through the wall of windows, I saw Hudson walk into the kitchen, followed by Atlas and Edmond. When I spotted Jenny, I snatched the photo from Dempsey’s hand. “If you can’t help, leave.” I pointed to the side gate of the yard.

  A cherry-red crest of hair superimposed over the clown’s green wig. Her beaded breastplate’s design morphed to enormous slanted eyes, confirming it was a divination and not part of the clown outfit. The sign and tickets disappeared, and oversize bird wings unfurled from her back. “I’m not going anywhere. Not until I have Attila back, and not until the elephant is safe.”

  “Attila?”

  “Twin barrels of no-nonsense.”

  She named her shotgun? I shuffled in place. I needed to get inside. I considered picking the clown up and carrying her to her truck.

  “Don’t even think about it.” She crossed her arms.

  “What?”

  “I know that look. Big people always get that look when they’re thinking about using their size against me. It won’t work.”

  I was pretty sure it would, right up until I set her down. I could carry her to her truck, but I couldn’t force her to drive away.

  “Fine.” I turned away. I’d wasted enough time.

  Jenny had the note in her hand when I threw open the sliding glass door. Her eyes scanned the page twice, and she sat down in the nearest chair.

  “What’s it say?” I asked.

  The pyramid of naked babies piled high at her feet, leaving only her eyes visible above their silent, wailing, writhing bodies. “The ninjas have Kyoko and your aunt.”

  Hearing her confirm my fear sucked the air from my lungs.

  “What do they want?” Hudson asked while I relearned to breathe.

  “The impossible. They want to re-create Kyoko.”

  “Great. Problem solved,” Hudson said. Everyone stared at him like he’d grown a second head. “What? I thought the whole problem was that she was a lonely herd animal. Now she’ll have a whole lab of friends. Or are you ready to admit that story’s a load of bull?”