Forced Magic

by Jerod Lollar

  "When she appeared to you, she sensed you had the egg. She probably wanted to watch you die. They can be cruel that way. In any other case the egg carrier would have died. That is how it has always been. She assumed that you would be killed by the dragon. Her luring you into the street would have just added to your pain as Fetch hatched. She could watch as you suffered through the hatching. It sounds like the sudden appearance of the truck, which almost hit you, startled her and she disappeared."

  "Assuming that you would soon be dead from the hatching, she didn’t bother finding you again. She waited until she felt the hatching process end and then cast a pulse spell. This is a type of magic that starts at a focal point, then moves outward. It’s like when you drop a pebble into water and you get that ripple effect moving outward.” I nodded my head to let him know that I understood. “This spell is a very powerful one that erases any and all knowledge that the victim of the fairy ever existed. That is why your brother didn’t remember you. All memory of you ever existing was erased from the world. You no longer exist. She then erased any damage caused by you at the store."

  I felt dizzy as the idea of being erased form everybody’s memory sank in. I wondered if it could be reversed, but, before I could ask, Johnathen continued.

  "As for the creatures that attacked you, they were goblins. A natural enemy of the fairies, so they could not have been sent by the fairies. The good news is that the fairies must think you’re dead and so, for now, they are no longer trying to kill you. The bad news is; someone else in the magical world had to send the goblins. Someone else is trying to kill you. If they can control goblins the way they did, then it is someone really powerful. You are a force of power, Jack, both you and Fetch. As far as I know, in the history of dragons, there has never been another occurrence like yours. You are new. You guys changed all the rules of magic. And there are many in my realm of magic that just can’t handle change."

  My coffee was now cold. I hadn’t taken more than the one sip from it. The sun had come up and it looked like another bright, hot, April day. It had been almost twenty-four hours since I had seen the fairy. I felt very tired. I wanted to lie down and just get some sleep. I was hungry again. I had left the bag of tacos and burritos on the other side of the pond. All that Johnathen had told me was sinking in. My world had changed completely around me. The thing that troubled me the most was that no one knew who I was anymore. My own brother didn’t even know that I was ever alive. This affected me more than the news of someone wanting me dead other than the fairies. I thought of my brother. He could be in danger. If not from the fey, then from this new threat that Johnathen had just told me about.

  I turned to Johnathen, wanting to understand. He sat there waiting for me to ask the question. I could tell, by the look on his face, what the answer was to the biggest question I had. I asked it anyway.

  “Is it reversible? Can a spell be cast so that my brother would remember me again?”

  I was something of a loner and the idea that the few friends I had not remembering me, didn’t upset me as much as the idea that my brother didn’t know I ever existed. Johnathen shook his head.

  “It has been tried before, with disastrous results. Restoring a person’s memories is a painful process that can tear a person’s mind apart. Your brother would never be the same.”

  I looked at Johnathen in shock.

  “Is he safe?"

  My voice was shaking. The idea that he would never remember me hit me hard. After our parents died, he was all the family I had. I had the same feeling inside that I had when my parents had died. I no longer existed.

  “I think he will be fine, Jack. I can send my bobcats from time to time to check on him if you like, but Jack, I would advise you to not see him. If your enemies found out that you were seeing your brother they might use him against you."

  The thought of having enemies was strange. I had people not like me, think I was weird, and possibly hate me for one reason or another. No one is liked by everyone, but I never had an enemy. It all seemed so unfair. My mind slipped back into the idea that I had been erased from my former life. It all seemed so unfair.

  "So, everything I had is now gone,” I said, “and now I have feys, goblins and some other creatures that can perform magic wanting me dead. I guess the thing that bothers me most is the fact that there is no evidence that I ever existed.”

  "Not necessarily,” said Michelle.

  She walked over to the front of the limo. Reaching inside she pulled out a laptop. She turned it on and attached a strange looking glowing box.

  "This allows me to get on someone’s Wi-Fi. It's magic so it doesn’t always work. It was designed by a friend of mine. It's new. Technology is very confusing to most people born in the magic world, Jack."

  I looked over at Johnathen. He had a strange look on his face. His hands were clasped behind his back as he stared at the computer. He seemed like he didn’t want to get too close to it.

  “That is why I am valuable to the magic community here in Tucson. I am able to get on a computer to check and see if a magic event has been recorded or reported. The pulse erases all memory and physical evidence of a person or thing, but it can’t touch a recording or a mention of something once it is on a computer. That’s where I come in. Me and my little friend." Michelle had a slight smile on her face as she mentioned her ‘little friend'. “I find these things and my friend gives them a kind of electronic delete erasing them from the world wide web."

  Johnathen grunted, giving me the idea that he didn’t necessarily like this friend of Michelle's. He seemed to not like anything that had to do with computers. He was looking at the laptop with suspicion. He saw me looking at him and smiled and shrugged.

  “I guess I’m just old fashioned. Can’t seem to get the knack of those things," he said pointing at the computer. "If it wasn’t for Michelle, I wouldn’t even have a cell phone.”

  After tapping on the keys of her computer, Michelle handed it to me. I set it on the hood of the limo. It was opened to a login page for Facebook. I looked at Michelle a little confused.

  “If you had a Facebook page, there is a chance that it is still there. I doubt Pek has found it yet.”

  My heart was pounding out of my chest. The idea that I still had a Facebook page was strangely scary to me. Fetch had walked over to my side. He gave me a gentle nudge. I typed my name and password in and found my Facebook page. There it was, my profile photo, my last post from the night before. A simple one of a forest painting. There were circles of colored light in the painting. I shared it off a page called 'Fantasy, Unicorns, and Elves'. I laughed at the irony of it. There was a message from my brother, dated around the time I had to be at the store buying my coffee. Right before I freaked out over Fetch hatching.

  It said, "Jack, don’t go anywhere tonight. We have got to talk. I have something important to tell you."

  “Well," I said out loud, "I guess I’ll never know what that was about.”

  These words really made it all sink in for me. A strange sick feeling hit me like a wave. I started shaking all over as I stared at my Facebook page. Eighty friends. Kind of pathetic really. Most of the people I knew had thousands of Facebook friends. I had eighty. I was lucky if ten would even recognize me if they saw me out on the street. In so many ways my life seemed kind of sad and pathetic. I never really pushed myself to do anything worthwhile; to meet new people or try new things. Yeah, my life had been pretty pathetic. But, at that moment, I would have given anything to have that pathetic life back.

  My Facebook page began to blur as tears of regret welled up in my eyes. My body shook in rage and fury, and regret clouded all other thought. I backed away from the computer. I started walking, tripping over Fetch's tail in my mad dash to get away. I stood up clumsily, embarrassed at my display of emotion. I reached down grabbing the remaining flip flop, throwing it toward the pond, and stormed off. No one followed me as I went over to the same bench that Michelle had walked over to just a short
time ago. I had to get away from everything for a while. They all seemed to understand my need to walk away for a minute.

  I looked up and could see the limo. Johnathen had made no attempt to come over, giving me this time to think things through. I noticed Michelle walking toward me. At first I felt like waving her away, but I realized that she was probably the only one who could understand what I was feeling. She had to have gone through worse. I felt a little embarrassed at my outburst right now. I thought about my brother, grateful that he was alive. I owed my brother so much. He took me in and took care of me during one of the hardest times in my life. He was there for me when our parents died and when I broke my hip. How could I ever pay him back now?

  Michelle reached the bench where I was sitting. She sat down next to me not saying a word. Both of us just stared at the limo. She put her hand on top of mine not speaking. This simple gesture seemed to say so much. It let me know that someone understood, at least in part, what I was going through. This simple gesture seemed to break down all barriers I was trying so hard to build up. Before I knew what I was doing I began to cry. Silently the tears poured from my eyes. I let myself feel just how lost I was. I was mourning my lost life. My own death. Michelle put her arms around me and held me for a few minutes. I could feel her gently crying too. I found myself comforted by those tears. I knew I was not alone in what I was going through, and if I had someone like Michelle as my friend, then I think I could make it. We looked at each other. Remembering what Johnathen had told me about her life, I didn’t know what to say to her. She broke the silence.

  “Pretty crappy huh?” she said.

  I laughed a little, "Yeah, I guess that describes it perfectly.”

  We both laughed. We sat there, enduring another award silence. I wished I was more comfortable talking to girls.

  “He can help you,” she said, finally breaking the silence. “He helped me and he can help you. We both can.”

  I could tell she really believed that he could. I wasn’t sure if anyone could help me.

  “I hope so,” I said.

  “He can,” she reassured me. “He has helped so many others who have continued on and now have great lives. I stayed with him to help with the others he finds, like you, who have had magic destroy their lives. He has asked me time and time again to leave and go on with a new life but I just can’t.”

  I could tell the way she was talking that she was in love with him. We sat there for a little while in silence. I looked down at her tattoo. From up close it looked even more amazing. It looked like multicolored scales wrapping all around her arm. She looked over and saw me staring at it.

  “It’s a dragon.”

  She turned her hand over and I could see the end of a spiked tail tattooed into her palm. She showed me her other arm that ended with a clawed paw resting on the top of her hand. She pulled her dress over exposing her shoulder. You could see part of the dragon's mouth and one of its eyes.

  "It's beautiful," I said.

  "Thanks, but it can’t compare to the real thing."

  Fetch wandered over as we sat there looking at the tattoo. His eyes changed color rapidly. Michelle gasped at this. She was in complete awe of Fetch. I couldn’t blame her, he was pretty cool. Even though he was a pain in the butt sometimes, I was beginning to think of Fetch as someone who had always been there in my life, even though he had only become a part of it in the last day. With all the things that had happened in this short amount of time, how I had changed, and how my old life had been erased, in a way, he had always been there. Fetch ducked his head down toward Michelle’s hand and nudged it gently. At first Michelle was confused.

  “I think you created a monster Michelle. He wants you to scratch his head.”

  Michelle smiled, happy to oblige. Fetch's eyes turned blue and rolled upward as he sat there really enjoying the attention. I thought of all the old stories of dragons eating young maidens and wondered of there was any truth behind them. Looking at Fetch I knew maidens had nothing to fear from him.

  Michelle made a strange sound. I looked over and saw the tears flowing from her eyes. She was lost in a fantasy. Her choice of a dragon tattoo gave me the idea of how much she loved the idea of dragons. Being here with Fetch must have been a dream come true. I wondered if she had ever seen a dragon before. She had been living in this fantasy world for a while, surely there must be other dragons around. Then the thought hit me. What about other fantasy creatures? I have already met goblins, wizards, dragons, and fairies. If they exist, then what about unicorns, griffins, dwarves . . . the list went on and on in my head. The fantasy geek in me was thrilled at the idea of it.

  “Michelle, are there unicorns?” I asked.

  She laughed, continuing to scratch Fetch's head.

  "Anything you have ever read about, Jack, they are real. Not necessarily the way they are in the books, but they do exist."

  “How have they stayed hidden all this time?”

  Michelle had a thoughtful look on her face. I could tell that she had given this a lot of thought.

  “Most people just refuse to accept what they are seeing. There are councils around the world, in all the different magic communities, that govern the appearance and effects of magic. You have experienced the pulse and what it does to people's minds when magic is seen."

  She stopped for a moment frowning at this.

  ”Sometimes the magic world leaks through. A lot of writers in the past have written what they have learned and seen and that became fantasy books and novels. It wasn’t always hidden, Jack. There was a time when it not only wasn’t hidden, but both worlds were one. Something happened that caused the magic world to separate itself from the non-magic world. I don’t know what it was. Johnathen does. I wish I could tell you more, Jack, but there is so much that I don’t know myself. Johnathen has protected me from a lot of the magic world because, just like you, there are those that want me dead or at least erased from knowing that magic is real."

  She was quiet for a while. I got the impression that she wasn’t necessarily happy with the idea that so much seemed to be kept from her by Johnathen. I looked at Fetch. He was listening very intently to what she was saying. He was new to the world and so much seemed to be unknown to him as well.

  "Have you ever seen another dragon before Fetch?" I asked this question not just for me but for Fetch as well.

  He looked over at me, his eyes turning green for a second. He seemed grateful to me for asking it. He looked at Michelle while smoke poured out of his nose in different colors.

  “No, Fetch, you are the first dragon I have met,” she said. “Dragons have been missing in this part of the world for a while now. They have great power and anyone who can gain control over them has a chance of taking over everything. It has always seemed obvious to me that it was the fairies that did this. From what Johnathen has told me they have always tried to take over.“

  At the mention of fairies, Michelle's face seemed to turn dark. I thought about the fairy that had tried to kill me. I knew Johnathen must be right about the fairies, but there was a part of me that wanted to believe they couldn’t be all bad.

  “Do you think that all fey are bad?" I asked Michelle.

  She stopped petting Fetch and turned to me, getting right in my face.

  "They're all bad, Jack, don’t ever think anything different. They tried to kill you and they killed my family. I have seen the damage that they have caused and the lives they have destroyed. They are a darkness in this world, Jack, and they must be stopped.”

  I looked deep into Michelle’s eyes. I could almost feel the pain she must have gone through. But I could also see a strength in her. She looked away, staring at the limo.

  "I will do anything I can to stop them, Jack. Anything! If you could have seen what they did to my family . . ."

  She stopped talking. There was a hitch in her voice and the tears began to pour out of her eyes. It amazed me that someone could be so strong and confident one minute, then could
begin to cry so quickly the next. She had to have gone through so much. She sat there with her head in her hands as Fetch rested a paw in her lap. She looked up at him, then grabbed him tightly around the neck, and began to sob. At first Fetch had a surprised look on his face, but slowly closed his eyes and rested his head on her shoulder. He gently wrapped his front paws around her, returning the hug. I stood there watching this exchange and I knew, at that moment, that Fetch was innocent. He was not to blame for all the things that had happened to me. I was reminded that in his own way Fetch needed answers too. I didn’t want to break up this touching moment, but, looking around, I started getting nervous that someone would come into the park and see this exchange between dragon and girl.

  I cleared my throat and said, "Looks like you have made a friend for life, Michelle."

  She broke the embrace turning toward me. There were tears in her eyes and a smile on her face.

  “Oh I hope so,” she said, "I hope I have made two friends, Jack."

  She grabbed me and gave me a tight hug.

  "Boy, look at us," I said, "you would think there is something wrong the way we keep breaking into tears."

  Michelle pulled away. Her reaction gave me the idea that it had come out wrong. I felt my old clumsiness coming out. I felt a thump against the side of my head as Fetch gave me a smack with his tail. Michelle looked at both of us and began to laugh. This made me feel better. She did understand that I was just trying to lighten the mood and not make fun of her. Wanting to keep the mood light, I thought of a trick I could show Michelle.