by Simon Archer
After the initial shock wore off, Andi and I ran towards the open door. It was like getting punched in the chest when we saw that all of Bennett’s cars were still inside, and the Mustang engine was on. I pressed the button to get Jack back on the line.
“He’s gone, Jack!” I yelled.
“What do you mean, Vila,” Jack asked very calmly.
“His car is running in the garage, and he’s not in it. All the other cars are there too!” I continued to yell.
The line was silent for a long moment before Jack said anything else.
“Stay there, I’m coming over,” he finally said. He hung up, and I looked at Andi.
“Where could he be?” I cried out to her.
“What I want to know is why I can’t hear that car running?!” she yelled back to me.
We both went silent. I couldn’t hear it either. I saw the exhaust coming out of the tailpipe, and the way it vibrated, but I didn’t pay attention to the fact that I couldn’t hear it. The two of us slowly approached the car. Only magic could do something like that, and we were both afraid to touch it.
“We have to leave it on,” I told Andi in a much more mellow voice. Getting hysterical was only good to feel better for the short term. We needed answers now. “We don’t know what kind of magic this is.”
“How can magic be here at all?” she asked, carefully walking around the car to peer in the windshield.
“I don’t know, but I think I have a way to find out,” I told her. “We have to go back in the house. Come on.”
The two of us ran inside, leaving the car running in the garage. We’d have to make some excuse to Jack as to why we left it running, but I wasn’t concerned with that right now. What I was concerned with is that we needed to use a little magic ourselves, and we needed to do it before Jack showed up.
“What are we doing?” Andi asked breathlessly when we were in the house, and the door was closed behind us.
“I need you to do a memory-reliving spell on me,” I told her, “and I need it to be a deep one.” Her eyes grew big, and her mouth dropped open momentarily.
“Vila, I can’t do that. Not by myself!” she answered, almost frantic-sounding.
“Yes, you can,” I said softly.
“I’ve never done anything even remotely that significant without you. I don’t know if I’m powerful enough to pull it off without being in the money clip!” she cried out.
“You have to try. Bennett has the clip with him wherever he is, so we can’t go home,” I replied. I kept my voice low to try to calm her down. “Andi, think about it… The money clip is with Bennett… We don’t know where he is…” I stood still as Andi caught on to what I was trying to tell her. I didn’t want to say it outright because she was already panicking.
“Oh my God, what if someone else gets the clip?” She had barely whispered the thought as it terrified her so much.
“Let’s make sure we find him before that happens. Now, you know what to do, and I know you can do it,” I told her. It was an agonizing thirty seconds while I watched every emotion save happiness cross Andi’s face. Then she looked up and tipped her head towards the stairs.
“I’ll do it in the bedroom. It has the most of Bennett’s personal items in case we need them,” she said, turning to run up the stairs.
I followed behind her. None of the personal items in the bedroom would be of any use for the spell I needed her to cast, but I think it just made her feel better to think of his things being close. When we got to the room, we both crawled up on the bed. We laid flat, side-by-side, and held hands. She rolled her head to the side to look at me, and I turned towards her as well.
“I’m right here, just send me backward a bit. You’ll do great,” I whispered.
“What will happen if something goes wrong?” Her brow wrinkled, and her lip started to quiver. A single tear rolled out of the corner of her eye.
“Nothing will go wrong, Andolyn. I promise,” I lied. I knew if she got me under the spell but couldn’t get me out, or was interrupted for some reason, I’d be stuck in whatever time and place that I was reliving. She didn’t know that and most certainly didn’t need the added stress. I had no doubt that she was powerful enough to perform the magic I was asking her to, just as long as she could concentrate hard enough.
“Are you ready?” she whispered.
“I am,” I whispered back.
Andi squeezed my hand, and the two of us looked straight up at the ceiling. We took a deep breath and closed our eyes as we let them out. A soothing, fluid warmth began to wash over my body. It was like a warm blanket of smooth, soft gel pressing lightly on my muscles, inducing them to relax. The more completely I was engulfed in the warmth, the more stress drained from my mind.
I remembered that my mind is mine to control. I had to respond to my situation instead of reacting to it. When I was fully encased in the warm pressing comfort, I sent my mind backward in time. It was effortless. Andi’s magic was powerful, so much more so that either of us realized. That added a significant amount of ease to my journey because what I hadn’t mentioned to Andi, was that I had to go back into her memories.
I accessed her memories through her magic without her having to guide me actively. The strongest connection I knew to her memory of being human was through the world I had built her the day she became a genie. I took myself back to the moment she saw it for the first time. I was a spectator with access to her emotions, basically.
Andi stood at the bottom of a hill so green that it could only be in Ireland. I saw myself standing with her, explaining what it meant to be a genie. I had chosen to create her a place as familiar as possible to negate some of the shock. She looked out over the meadow before her with confused eyes.
I wanted to help my past-self comfort her better, but that is not what I was there for. I needed to know what she felt. I closed my eyes and concentrated on tapping into her emotions. Confusion was the strongest, and I let it wash over me. Wonder was next. It was her first time experiencing magic, and while most would choose to reject it for lack of the capability to believe, Andi embraced it. She examined every tree, blade of grass, and ray of sunshine with a mind so open, you’d think she was a child.
Then the fear came springing forward. It was the emotion I was waiting for because behind that fear was something I needed to know. When the terror sprung on her, she turned in circles, looking for her mother, whose health was failing. Then I felt what it was I was waiting for, hoping for: familiarity.
The instant between Andi’s mind being flooded with fear for her mother, and the moment my past-self took her back to her mother’s side in the castle bedroom, I felt the same familiarity I had when that scumbag Dave was present. I closed my eyes and concentrated on what Andi was feeling the moment she saw her mother again. Relief, gratitude, love… and then a tiny flash of fear again.
I opened my eyes and watched as Andi scanned the castle bedroom and finally figured out the connection I was hoping to. The familiarity wasn’t coming from Andi’s emotions regarding her mother. It was coming from her thoughts of her evil uncle, the one who’d just tried to kill her. He was the one who’d controlled me before Andi’s mom managed to get ahold the coin I was in, take possession of me herself, and wish her daughter to safety. The only place I could guarantee her safety was in the coin with me. That is how Andi ended up being a genie.
Once I recognized Andi’s uncle as being the one associated with Dave, I focused on the memory of my interaction with him. At the queen’s request, I had sent him so far away that he wouldn’t be able to travel back in his lifetime. When I’d done so, I had felt the evil in him. It twisted inside him like an oozing plague. In real-time, all I remembered was that he was evil, but as I was reliving the memory, I recalled how that evil made me feel. In a much smaller way, it was the same way I felt around Dave. It came across as familiarity because my mind had melded it together with my memory of that entire day.
I stood in shock, watching the rest o
f the memory unfold as realization prickled all through me.
Dave was related to Andi’s uncle, somehow.
I snapped myself out of my shock and regained my focus. I needed to go back and tell Andi what I’d remembered. I concentrated on the warm feeling that got me sent to the past, and I began to float to the present. That’s when I felt someone take hold of my hand. It startled me, and my first reaction was to struggle because I thought someone was touching my physical body, the one lying next to Andi on Bennett’s bed. Then I realized I was being pulled further into the past.
I turned my head, and an old, weathered hand had a hold of mine. Joy flooded my senses, I closed my eyes, and I let myself be pulled.
When I opened my eyes again, I was sitting in the dirty slave quarters that I’d lived in as a human. Across from me was a frail, tiny figure wrapped in a blanket, smiling at me with bright eyes. My face got hot, and the tears poured out. All thoughts of returning to Andi disappeared as I stared at the woman who’d raised me.
“How am I here?” I scooted forward and threw my arms around Gisele’s neck. She chuckled and hugged me tightly. I couldn’t let go even to let her answer my question.
“I wanted to see you. That’s how you got here,” she laughed. “It took you longer than I’d expected to try to mess with your memory magic.”
“I was afraid to do it by myself, and until Andi absolutely had to, she didn’t feel able,” I replied.
“Child, sit back so I can look at you,” Gisele told me gently. I finally let go of her and leaned back. “How is Andi?”
“She is… Wait. How do you know about Andi?” I hadn’t made Andi a genie until several hundred years after I’d been one myself.
“Just because you don’t play with memory magic doesn’t mean that I don’t,” she whispered mischievously as she winked at me.
“You can see my memories? Even the ones from after… After you spelled me into the lamp?” Gisele had used her last breath to perform the spell that saved me, but I still didn’t like to talk about it outright. Not even to her.
“Yes, I can,” she confirmed. “You have seen quite a lot as a genie, haven’t you?”
I nodded my head and took Gisele by the hands. I laid my head in her lap as I had done when I was young. She used to ask me to tell her about my favorite things in the world. Her voice was the most calming sound in the world to me, and I wanted to sit and listen to it endlessly.
“Servilia, I need you to listen to me,” Gisele said softly. She tipped my face upward to make sure she had my attention. “You can find Bennett without the money clip.” Hearing Bennett’s name while in my past created an unbalanced feeling in my heart.
“I want to stay here.” I hadn’t realized I was ready to stay back in that place until the words came out of my mouth. “Isn’t there a way to bring him and Andi here?”
“You aren’t alive here, Servilia. You are just an observer. You can’t stay.” Gisele was calm but firm in her statement. “You have to go find Bennett.” She stroked my hair and wiped tears off my cheek.
“Can you come with me?” I whispered, clinging onto the hope my words had stirred in me.
“You know the answer to that,” she replied.
I did know the answer, and it wasn’t one I wanted to accept. The strength in Gisele’s old voice pulled me out of my temporary self-pity, though. I sat up and cupped her face in my hands, putting our foreheads together gently.
“What do I need to do in order to find Bennett?” The one thing I was sure of, regardless of how bad my heart ached to stay, is if Gisele told me I had to go, then I had to go. She’d never led me down the wrong path, and I owed her the respect of doing what she asked.
“You are already doing it,” she replied. I leaned back and looked into her shining eyes for a long moment before understanding.
“I find him through his memories, don’t I?” I asked for confirmation.
She smiled, and my heart melted. I loved seeing her happy.
“It won’t take near the power it took to get here,” Gisele told me, her voice stronger. “You need to do it quickly, however. He’s in trouble.”
A tiny trail of panic shot up my spine. It instantly mixed with the heartache of knowing I had to leave.
“Don’t I have just another minute? I’ve missed you more than I can say,” I whined quietly, looking down at our intertwined hands. Shame burned my cheeks for even asking. Gisele had raised me to be stronger than that.
“Hug me, child,” she giggled. “I love you, and I am so proud of what you’ve done with your magic. You are truly my light. I didn’t get a chance to tell you before, but you are the best thing that I had in life, and now, after.”
I sobbed at her words and clung to her tightly.
“You are the reason for anything good in me,” I whispered through my tears.
Gisele squeezed me gently and took my face in her hands. I closed my eyes as she kissed my forehead. I fought with my urge to hold on to her as I felt the warmth of Andi’s magic wrap around. I knew when I opened my eyes again, Gisele would be gone. As I was pulled into the present, I wept both happy and sad tears.
I’d just had the best and worst moment in my life up to that point.
I opened my eyes and turned my head to look at Andi. She was already looking my way. I reached over and hugged her tight. After my desire to stay with Gisele, I was surprised at the affection I felt upon seeing her. She hugged me back, and the two of us sat up together as Andi wiped tears from my face that I didn’t realize had transferred into reality.
“Are you okay?” she asked, concern apparent in her expression.
“I am. I’m better than okay,” I told her. The strength that Gisele had instilled in me returned, and I was determined to make her proud of the person she’d molded me into. I slid to the edge of the bed and stood up. “We have to do the memory spell one more time.”
“Vila, I don’t know--”
“You just sent me centuries in the past, Andi,” I interrupted her gently. “You can most certainly send me back a couple of hours.”
“A couple of hours?” she asked, confused.
“I got a little tip while I was away. I know how to find Bennett without the money clip,” I told her excitedly.
“Really? How?” she squealed happily.
“By going into Bennett’s memory,” I informed her.
“How are we going to do that?” Andi didn’t know that I’d been in her memory, or that it was even possible.
“The exact same way I was just in one of your memories.” I waited for understanding to show in her eyes.
“You visited one of my memories?” she asked, astonished.
“Yes,” I started. “Technically, I was there too, but it had to be yours so I could feel what you were feeling.”
“Why?” She raised a confused eyebrow at me.
“Because I recognized something about Dave. I’ll give you the details later, but the short version is that he is related to your uncle,” I spouted. I was a little more anxious with every minute that passed.
“What?” she yelled. I wasn’t positive if she was just shocked or angry.
“I know it’s a lot to digest, and you don’t even know the half of it. However, we need to go meet Jack, find some reason to send him off somewhere, and do the spell again,” I rushed to tell her.
“Send me away to do a what?” a shocked voice said from the doorway beside us.
Andi and I froze in place. Neither of us had heard Jack knock or come in the house. We definitely hadn’t heard him come up the stairs calling to us. Whatever magic Dave had done to the garage must have spread to the whole house. Andi stood up, and we turned slowly to look at him.
“Jack,” I said shakily.
“A spell? Did I hear you right?” he asked curiously. A thousand scenarios ran through my head about what to tell him. Only one felt right, however.
“Yes, you heard me correctly,” I said, and the feeling of relief that ran through
me told me I’d made the right choice. I walked confidently over to him and took him by the shoulders, looking him squarely in the eyes. “You’ll need a lot more information than you have now, I understand that. I will fill you in on every detail you could possibly want to know, and some you probably don’t. However, if you will help us first, we can get to Bennett faster and have a better chance of getting him out of whatever trouble he is in. Can you do that?”
Jack stared unblinking at me.
“Yes,” he said flatly.
I took a step back. I hadn’t expected him to answer nearly that quickly.
“Yes?” Andi echoed him.
Jack looked past me and nodded to her. “Yes. What do you need me to do?” He acted as though he was presented with unknown magic every day. As baffled as I was, I didn’t have time to marvel at his unusual open-mindedness.
“We need you to simply make sure nobody comes in this house,” I started. “We can’t hear the way we normally do. Hence you making it up here without us knowing.”
“Is that all?” he asked, unphased. His acceptance of instruction in such weird circumstances was almost eerie.
“For now,” I replied.
“I’ll wait at the bottom of the stairs, in that case,” he said. “How long do you need?”
“Not long. We’ll come down when it is done,” I told him.
Jack turned and left the doorway. The only visible sign that he was a mortal who’d just discovered magic was the slight stiffness with which he walked. I shook my head in confusion as I walked back to the bed. I looked at Andi. She was horrified that we’d been discovered.
I patted her cheek and smiled. “Don’t worry about him. I’ll do that. You have work to do,” I said lightly. I crawled back up on the bed and laid down. I patted the bed beside me for Andi to resume her position as well. She climbed on with me and laid down. As I grabbed her hand to resume the memory spell, I couldn’t help but giggle just a little.
I was going to have a great amount of explaining to do before all of this was over. Andi, Jack, and Bennett were going to have miles of questions, no doubt. Gisele’s smiling face drifted across my mind, and I felt her strength. Just as I expected to feel the warmth of Andi’s magic again, I felt my legs turn to mist.