by Gina Whitney
—Honoré de Balzac
“They’re here!”
Aunt Evelyn’s giddy declaration was way too much for me to handle at that time of morning. My head was completely cocooned in the comforter; the rest of the blanket hung off the side of the bed and made a nice heap on the hardwood floor. I managed to crack open one eye, and it didn’t even matter that rogue threads poked the white of it. When I didn’t hear Aunt Evelyn say anything else, I started drifting back to la-la land.
Then it hit me: who they were. The ones Aunt Evelyn had summoned in that spell.
Oh, snap. I bumbled out of bed, of course getting my foot caught in the comforter. After I recovered from my spill to the floor, I ran over to the window and saw an unfamiliar silver car in the driveway. From my second-floor vantage point, I could make out a woman’s legs in the passenger seat. The driver’s hands, resting on the steering wheel, were obviously male.
Probably some old, haggy witch and a crotchety warlock.
I guess I really should’ve been ready for their arrival at any moment, but I kind of hadn’t expected that kooky spell of Aunt Evelyn’s to work. Even though after all I’d seen so far, I shouldn’t have doubted it.
I could hear Aunt Evelyn’s Børn clogs clacking like little mouse feet to the front door. Meanwhile I ran over to my suitcase and sat on the floor with my legs tucked under me. My arms started windmilling, throwing clothes out of the suitcase I had never bothered to unpack.
“Grace, come on down. Hurry!” Aunt Evelyn shouted from downstairs with nervous excitement all through her voice.
“Coming,” I responded, not finding anything good to wear. When Julie and I’d had to get the hell out of Dodge, I hadn’t exactly had time to pack an extensive wardrobe. I’d left Dad’s house with a few shirts, shorts that didn’t match any of them, socks without mates, and an armful of cotton granny panties. None of it was appropriate to make even a mediocre first impression.
I decided to bank on Aunt Evelyn’s closet; surely she would have something I could borrow for this nerve-wracking moment. When I surveyed the abyss where unfashionable clothes went to die, the only appropriate response was bewilderment. Aunt Evelyn’s wardrobe choices consisted of checkerboard shirts, a punk-rock leather jacket, a T-shirt with an iron-on decal reading “hot tamale,” and nine pairs of culottes circa 1978. I knew she was a bit of a wacky-doo, but goddamn. This was the kind of shit I had read about in microfiche copies of Life magazine. I was obviously going to fare better with my own ratchet clothes.
The doorbell buzzed, and I knew I had to get it in gear. I threw on the first thing that smelled clean, with absolutely no consideration of looking in a mirror. I hopped to the door on one foot, trying to get my shoe on and wondering what they’d be like. Surely they’d have Third Reich temperaments. They’d need personalities like that to take on the dangerous task they’d been given: protecting me.
I walked slowly down the long hallway, hoping the creaking, wooden floorboards wouldn’t give me away to the crowd gathering below. I could hear Aunt Evelyn talking to a young woman with a Received Pronunciation British accent. Wow, what happened to the German accent I was expecting? I hid in a nook, steeling myself. My ego made an appearance and was wondering why I was tripping out over making a good impression on these people. They were there for me, not vice versa. However, my cowardly id quickly reminded me I didn’t want to be a disappointment to them.
From the nook I could kind of see Aunt Evelyn and Julie standing at the door. The British woman, for some reason, had not yet entered the house, and I could hear some hesitation in her voice. I could tell she was being polite but really didn’t want to be there.
“Addison, get on in this house,” Aunt Evelyn chirped, sounding actually happy to see the young woman.
I left the safe confines of my little corner and covertly looked over the railing, to see down below. In walked this really cute girl. She looked like she had just come home from a club or something. She did look little whorey. However, despite her ensemble, she had a regal air about her. She tilted her head back ever so slightly, so she could look down her nose at Aunt Evelyn and Julie. Her lips were pursed like she really couldn’t have been—rather shouldn’t have been—bothered.
That didn’t stop Aunt Evelyn from grabbing and hugging her. “Oh, Addison, it is so good to see you. It has been too long.” She put Addison in a bear hug and shook her about.
Addison tensed up and gave her a rigid pat on the back. “Mm-hm. It is nice to see you again too.”
Julie and Addison greeted each other like two gun slingers about to draw. I didn’t know what the deal was, but no love was lost there.
“Addison, it’s so awesome you managed to show up. What, no mani-pedi?” Julie said, glaring at her.
“Oh, Julie, didn’t you hear? I moved it to next week. When I heard you were actually still in the game, I had to come and see for myself. Now that I’ve seen your lovely face, I can go have hundreds of manicures. I think I’ll start with some OPI ‘Don’t Pretzel My Buttons’ and think about you the whole time.”
Before Julie could say anything, Addison switched gears. Oh, she was a clever woman. Not giving Julie a chance to respond was a hand-to-the-face maneuver that instantly made her Addison victor. Then she pulled an even cheaper trick. She gave Julie a surly, superior smile and proceeded to be…nice. Yeah, she was faking it, but it worked.
“Julie, let’s not fight. I have a surprise for you,” she said.
Julie didn’t know what to do. She was ready with an aggressive defensive move, but she didn’t know how to counteract nice. All she could do was blurt out, “What?”
“Come on in. Julie’s ready for you,” Addison said, looking toward the front door with a winner’s grin on her face.
Hari, Julie’s younger brother, leapt from the side of the front porch. I could barely make out his features, but clearly saw his attire. He looked like he had just come from a Hawaiian vacation, complete with flowered shirt and loose khaki shorts. He didn’t understand the concept of socks, preferring high-tops with their tongues pressed down instead. And Hari kept his sunglasses on top of his head, which was thickly covered by a mop of curly hair.
Julie was silent for a moment, stunned that Hari was standing in front of her. When she came back to her senses, she hollered, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”
Hari dropped his bag on the porch and stood in a V stance, leaning back with his arms wide open. “Get over here, bitch!” he yelled back with the biggest smile. Julie ran onto the porch and jumped into his arms, wrapping her muscular legs around his waist. Hari had to hurry and grab the doorframe to keep from falling.
After a bunch of chicken-peck kisses all over his face, Julie slid off him. “Why didn’t you tell me you’re a helper too?”
“You know all this had to be kept on the down low. I couldn’t say a word.” Hari attempted to move his face away from Julie’s. She punched him on the arm and let him go.
Now that she was no longer blocking my view, I got a better look at Hari. He was rather short and thick. Not fat, just powerfully compact. His dark hair and olive skin made him racially ambiguous like Julie. I could remember many times when Julie had been mistaken for Sicilian, Mexican, Louisiana Creole, or Middle Eastern.
Hari actually hadn’t changed that much since I had last seen him years ago. Julie had taken me to her house only a handful of times since our childhood. And when she had, no one else had been home, and the visits had been as quick as a premature ejaculator. Though I’d thought it strange, I’d never dwelled on it. I’d assumed Julie just liked hanging out at my house instead.
But now I knew why. There were secrets that needed to be kept, and if I’d hung out at her house too often, they could have slipped out. That would have been really bad for me. No child should accidently discover she’s a witch with a deadly destiny while she’s playing Chutes and Ladders at her buddy’s house.
Aunt Evelyn caught sight of me trying my damndest to hide, and
ordered me to come down to the foyer. I grabbed the banister and gripped it so tight I cut off the circulation to my fingers. I didn’t care; I was making sure I didn’t take a tumbling roll down the narrow staircase.
It might as well have been prom night the way everyone was watching me. All that was missing was a taffeta gown and a dried-up corsage. I descended slowly, taking my time, making sure to hit every step. I couldn’t take my eyes off Addison, who looked at me with contempt. Her stank facial expression gave away her thoughts: This is what’s expected to save the world? Really? I came all this way for this bullshit? This is going to be such an epic fail.
After I managed not to fall down the stairs, Aunt Evelyn placed right me in front of Addison. I was so intimidated I couldn’t even look at her directly. “Uh…hi. I’m Grace,” I said, sounding like I was twelve.
Addison pointed at my shirt and smirked. “You put it on wrong.”
I looked down at it. I had put it not only inside out but backward. Oh my God. I stretched the collar out in front of me and fiddled with it as if that were going to help anything.
My mind instantly went into panic mode, and I started to pull the shirt over my head so I could turn it around. What? Not only was I embarrassed, but I was going to try and remedy the situation by stripping in front of everyone. Just one of those moves you make when your Stupido Retardo Auto Response kicks in.
I’d already lifted my shirt over my face when I felt someone pulling my arms down. I thought it was Addison doing something compassionate. But when my shirt was back down over my torso, I saw a male face instead.
The way Adrian just showed up out of nowhere was right out of a clichéd horror movie. The one where the girl goes to her locker alone. She opens it up, casually putting her books away, totally oblivious to the danger around her. As soon as she shuts the locker door…BOOM. Some random dude materialized from the ether all creepy-like, and now he’s just standing there. Yeah, that was how this guy was standing before me.
Adrian cheesed all in my face. He’d better be glad he’s so cute, I thought, because if he’d been ugly he would’ve been irritating as hell. Yes, that was shallow on my part; I admit I wasn’t above it. But hey, hotness can make up for dense any day—at least until the sex gets boring.
“I like fashion trendsetters,” Adrian said, quite convincing in his smoldering way. “I’m Adrian.”
“I’m—” I said, but he interrupted.
“Babe, I know who you are.” He raised a meticulously groomed eyebrow. Addison then stepped between him and me.
“Enough, Adrian,” she said, shooing him away.
“What’s the problem? I was just talking to her.” Adrian put up his hands like he was surrendering to the police.
“Yeah, I know about your talking,” Addison said. Adrian backed off from me, but never stopped giving me that mischievous leer.
Even though the others didn’t necessarily get along, I felt like the odd man out. They had already-established terms and conditions, unspoken rules through which they engaged each other. I had to play social double-dutch, trying to jump between two ropes that were swinging fast and furious.
Addison looked around and started to say something. “And where is—”
“James,” said a particularly low-pitched voice. From the way it sounded, I thought James Earl Jones had walked in. But it turned out to be a young man. My heart fell into my stomach as I saw him for the first time: this was the guy from my intense fantasy the night before.
His very presence caused me to have some sort of weird vertigo attack. Even though he was only about five feet from me, the foyer seemed to elongate itself, placing him at the other end of it. And I actually heard the THX Deep Note. I figured he must have had some sort of instant recognition of me too from the way he gave me a disturbing double take.
Aunt Evelyn introduced us. “Grace, James. James, Grace.”
I couldn’t speak. I literally couldn’t say a word. I could only make a sound resembling a cat coughing up a fur ball. Aunt Evelyn took my hand and brought me closer to James. He didn’t speak either, just looked at me curiously. I thought, Fuck! My fucking shirt. He can’t take his eyes off it.
But eventually our eyes met, and I became lightheaded and dizzy. I felt like I was being smothered. I could tell James was uncomfortable too from the way he squirmed around. He kept adjusting his clothes, needing a place to disperse that nervous energy. I swear we must’ve looked like two crackheads, as twitchy as we were. However, nobody else seemed to notice this bizarre undercurrent flowing between James and me.
“Grace, these are your wonderful teachers. Aren’t you excited?” Aunt Evelyn said, clasping her hands in delight.
I wanted to tell her “hell no” as my heart palpitations grew stronger.
“I’m sorry, guys. Please excuse me,” I said, making a mad dash out of the foyer. I ended up in the den, leaning against the wall. As I thought about James and tried to catch my breath, my mouth filled with saliva, and my stomach tightened. Before I knew it, I retched into Aunt Evelyn’s lovely wicker trash can, but not before spraying some upchuck on the wall as well. From the foyer it probably sounded like an exorcism.
“Are you okay, honey?” Aunt Evelyn called out, not daring to come in and experience the horror of my lurching.
I wiped off a long line of vomit-spit mix from my mouth. “Yeah, everything’s cool,” I said— right before I hurled again.
Addison crossed her arms and grimaced. “Now that’s just nasty.”
James was in the basement unpacking his things with Addison’s help. He saw Adrian waltz in and put his duffel bag on one of the two twin beds.
“That’s for you,” James said, pointing to a pitiful blowup bed in the middle of the room. James figured that was all Adrian deserved after his antics in Chesapeake.
“Whatever,” Adrian said as he reluctantly took his bag off the bed. He then proceeded to plop down on the halfway-inflated blowup. He almost sank to the floor, but was too lazy to do anything about it.
As James put his clothes away, he couldn’t keep his mind off Grace. The last time he’d seen her, she was a newborn. So, despite the twenty-plus years that had passed, James had somehow expected to see a girl, not a full-grown woman. His reaction had been a surprise to him, and he didn’t like surprises. Though he was normally reserved, he now felt the need to talk about Grace like any man who just met a woman he was interested in. Though he was trying to convince himself he wasn’t. He decided to get some input from Addison, albeit in a roundabout way.
“She really grew up, didn’t she?” he said, trying to be as subtle as possible.
“Who? That bitch Julie?” Addison sharply responded. “No…Grace. For some reason I kind of expected her to still be a little kid.”
James glanced over at Addison and could see he was starting to overstep. She kept hanging up the clothes while looking suspiciously at James out of the corner of her eye. Despite that he just couldn’t help talking about Grace.
“She seems okay, barring the vomiting,” he said, smiling some.
Addison huffed, “I wouldn’t know, James. I didn’t take the time to notice how all sunshine and lollipops she was…unlike you.” She took a long pause then spoke again, somewhat more calmly. “Our lives are about to be consumed with Grace. Can we have these last few moments of peace without talking about her?”
“I was just trying to talk to you,” James said, now wanting to end the conversation.
Adrian piped in. “Yeah, I think she’s real hot. I might have to give that filly a ride.”
James marched over to Adrian and picked him up by his collar. “Don’t you talk about her that way,” he growled.
Adrian was still tired from his charisma spell and knew he was no real physical threat to James at that time. He backed off, appearing to be meek and mild. But James saw in his eyes that this encounter wasn’t the last of it. James looked over at Addison, who was shaking her head back and forth like a mother trying to rattle th
e incessant noise of boisterous children out of her ears.
“Enough already,” she said, pointing a hanger at James and Adrian like it was a loaded gun. “We are here for one reason and one reason only: to train Grace for her mission. You boys better not even think about getting twisted up with this chick in any other way. We do our job, and we try to get back home. To our people. To not having to save anymore Valoises.”
“I know what we’re here to do. I asked you to come. It was my idea, remember?” James said.
“No, you just remember that,” Addison snapped back as she tossed the hanger on the bed and went upstairs.
Chapter Sixteen
You can always tell a real friend: when you’ve made a fool of yourself, he doesn’t feel you’ve done a permanent job.
—Laurence J. Peter
I sat at the kitchen table with Hari, Julie, and Aunt Evelyn. I found myself feeling more comfortable about everything, especially about being a witch.
We cracked jokes about Aunt Evelyn’s lack of cooking skills, my weirdness, and Julie’s big-ass feet. In the middle of the laughter, we saw Addison trying to rush past us in the hall. She had just come from the basement and looked flustered.
Aunt Evelyn waved her in. “Join us. We’re having some hot cocoa. I can make you coffee if you’d rather have that.”
“Naw, she looks like she’s in a hurry to be somewhere else,” Julie said before swigging a thermos-sized cup of Swiss Miss.
“You know, I’m quite tired,” Addison said, trying to slip away.
I tried not to be obvious, but I kept looking past her for James. I figured he would be right behind her. So I sucked in my stomach and tried to position myself in my best sexy pose.
“No, thank you. I’ll just go to my room,” Addison said. Her head was the only part visible to us at the edge of the doorway as her body tried to get away.
“Our room,” Julie corrected.