by Dalya Moon
“No I don't,” she says, waving her hand between us. “Forget.”
“You won't be able to rewrite my memory,” I say, surprising myself at how easily I can bluff. Yes, I was immune to Heidi's attempts to replace my real memories with ones of cucumber sandwiches, but I don't know that I have a natural resistance to all such spells. I keep going, bravely saying, “And I'm not going anywhere until you actually help me with something magic-related.”
She purses her lips at me.
I purse my lips right back.
She reaches under the counter, as though reaching for a weapon or pressing an emergency call button. I stand my ground. Behind Moira, a panel slides to the right, revealing a hidden room beyond what I thought was a solid wall.
Chapter Seventeen
After the panel door behind Moira slides open, I half-expect knife-wielding ninjas to jump out to slice me to shreds, but none appear. Instead, she steps back and invites me through.
“What about my friend?” I ask.
“She's in another world.”
Moira's right. Julie is still in the vampire-werewolf section, reading and smiling, completely oblivious to the reveal of actual witchcraft and hidden rooms.
I follow Moira into the space, which has a little purple sink attached to the wall and a toilet in the corner. The panel slides shut behind us, and the light that flicks on overhead is a simple bare bulb.
“Your strangely secret room is ... a bathroom?” I ask.
Moira crosses her arms. “It's not for customer use.”
“Are you a witch? How many people in town do magic? Is there a coven or some other organization? Why has nobody told me?”
“Turn around,” she says.
“No. What are you going to do to me? People know I'm here. You can't get away with anything.”
She sighs. “I have to pee. It's conditioning. I can't come into this room without having to go, okay? I see that white toilet and the urge is unbearable. Now turn around.”
“EWW!” I say, which I realize isn't very manly.
She's already hiking up her skirt, so I turn quickly and cover my ears to muffle the noise.
“I guess you don't have a sister,” she says.
A long moment later, the toilet flushes and I hear her washing her hands, so I turn around.
“Demonstrate your power before I tell you anything,” she says.
“My power might not work. It's been on the fritz lately.”
She pokes a finger angrily in my face. “Are you bluffing me, kid? Don't tell me you're a fraud!”
“I'm not, I swear! I'm the real deal. Put your finger in my belly button.” I pull up my shirt.
She makes an expression of disdain. “Now you are pulling my leg.”
“I'm not. I swear, this is how it works. I've tried the handshake but it doesn't do anything.”
She takes a huge breath and an enormous sigh. “The things I have to do,” she says, but she points her finger and pokes me anyway.
* * *
My vision begins.
The tiny, claustrophobic bathroom fills with a hazy stillness and everything slips away, and I am but a tiny red spot of light where my belly button was.
Oh crap, it's totally not working, I think, but then I see something. Moira, but she's much younger, maybe fourteen. She's wearing a lot of makeup and a tight, revealing outfit that's about the exact opposite of the long, shapeless, smock-like things I've seen her in at the store. Now a big, older boy is pulling her hair and trying to get her onto his lap. He's her stepbrother, and he's bad. He's been her brother for three years, and it's been leading to this.
We're alone again, she thinks.
What he does next makes me feel like I'm throwing up. I try to close my eyes, to get away from this vision, this heaviness of him on her, which feels like him on me, suffocating me.
He's so strong and I'm tired of fighting him.
Nobody believes me, they call me a liar and a whore.
I'm in so much pain and I feel so ashamed.
Shame.
Tears.
* * *
Am I back? I'm me again? The vision is over?
We're in the bathroom and this Moira woman in front of me is no longer a stranger. I push past her and throw up in the toilet.
“Some power,” she says. “You barf on command?”
After I finish heaving and wipe off my mouth with some toilet paper, I say, “I'm sorry. About your stepbrother.”
She's quiet and doesn't move from where she's standing at the door.
I wash my face and rinse my mouth in the sink.
She stares at me with her expression open, as though seeing me in a new light as well.
“They're called The Bridge,” she says. “It's their little joke, because they're mostly seniors. They call it Bridge Club, and no, you don't want to be a member.”
“You're in this group?”
“Of course not. And you'll steer clear of them, though they're hard to avoid. They've got people everywhere.”
“You've got to help me with my powers. I can also do something with bees, but I'm worried I might kill myself by accident.”
“What have you seen me do? Write a grocery list without getting hand strain. Does that sound like powerful magic to you? I don't know shit about what I do, nor do I want to. Sometimes books find their way to me, but I try to get rid of them. Power is bad.”
“Power's not always bad,” I say.
“You're so young.”
Moira's eyes are incredible, a pale blue that's almost lavender in this light. How could I not have noticed her eyes before?
She pushes open the panel door. “And this concludes our pow-wow. Please use the washroom at home, or the alley. This space is not for customers.”
I walk out ahead of her. “Do you have any more books that might deal with real magic?” I keep my voice low now that we're out in the book store.
She waves an arm toward the books. “Feel free to look. They manifest in the strangest places, and burning them only makes them come back in triplicate. They're like gray hairs.” She gives me the first smile I've seen from her, and her pale lavender eyes sparkle with life.
I think I've made a friend.
A pen jumps from a mug full of them and continues making the grocery list, several feet from Moira as she hums and sorts through a stack of papers. Now she's just showing off.
I find Julie, still in the sexy-werewolf books, and give her a censored version of what I found out. We spend the next two hours looking for anything vaguely magical from amongst the books, but nothing manifests.
We thank Moira and I buy some bookmarks to help support the store.
Outside, Julie remarks, “That poor girl needs a good waxer.”
“To each their own,” I say.
Up and down the street, the late afternoon's long shadows are dark with danger and spies. The narrow spaces between buildings have eyes, watching me.
What Moira said about The Bridge having members everywhere is making me paranoid, but is it paranoia if people are actually after you?
People are watching me, right now, I know it!
I peer around the streets, but if people are spying, they're being subtle. Some seniors on a bus bench are both wearing sunglasses, which gives me an unsettling feeling. Are the window shoppers we're walking by now staring at the mannequins, or watching me in the reflection? Those mannequins, in plain brown suits, don't seem worthy of so much interest.
The taxi driver I met last week had seemed nice enough, but now I KNOW I didn't tell him my name. Who else is under their control?
Not helping matters is the lingering sensation of what I experienced in my vision of Moira. I want to go home, shower and change, and hide away from the world and all who would harm me.
I should be relieved the vision wasn't as black as a powered-down computer screen, and that my power seems to be working again, but I'm not. I feel ashamed and weak, small. How can I do anything?
&
nbsp; Heidi was right about the visions becoming more than me seeing things. I'm feeling them, getting them under my skin and in my heart.
Now what?
My second item of business for the day is to try to see Detective Wrong. Could she be working for The Bridge?
I don't know who to trust. The only person I can be sure of is me. Little seventeen-year-old me.
When we get to the Jeep, Julie asks if I mind if she takes us out of our way, to Chesapeake Avenue.
“Why?”
“To desensitize myself. I figure I might stop having the body nightmares if I can see that pawn shop place a few times. You know, set a new memory on top of the old one.”
Aw, crap. This whole time I haven't considered how Julie's been with all of this. Last week, she saw a dead body for the first time, at a murder scene. She's been sensitive and moody lately, but I've been preoccupied.
“We can do that,” I say with a forced cheeriness.
She's unusually quiet as we drive to the place. As we turn down the block, I point out the tallest building in the area, Hotel Doccione, where Gran and Rudy are having their wedding on Saturday.
“I've never been inside. Looks fancy,” she says. “Ooh, gargoyles!”
“Technically, they're grotesques, because they don't spew water.”
“I love gargoyles,” she says, ignoring me.
“I can't believe my grandmother's getting married. Everything's happening so fast.”
Julie doesn't answer, just drives slowly past the former pawn shop, her knuckles white as she grips the steering wheel. She parks the Jeep in front of the fancy shoe store.
“Holy crap,” she says.
I turn to take a closer look at the pawn shop. “Holy double crap,” I say. “How's that for rewriting your memory?”
All-U-Can-Pawn, Newt's former shop, is unrecognizable from the front now. A construction crew has completely changed the look of the place from seedy to upscale, with enormous new windows on the front and a glass door. The signage announces it's to be the new home of some chain store I don't recognize, Williams-Sonoma.
“What's that, clothing?” I ask.
“No, they sell cookware and stuff,” Julie says.
“Like pots and pans?”
“Yeah, but for rich people. Really expensive pots and pans. Stuff to show off at fancy dinner parties.”
“Rich people,” I say with a snort. “Do you think Newt's ghost is in there now, haunting the construction crew?”
“Don't be silly, ghosts aren't real.”
“What? Then who sent me the notes? Who sent the crow-mail?”
Julie takes some photos of the storefront with her phone. “Probably some practical joker. You're sure James isn't doing it? Some sort of long con?”
“No way. How could he? No.”
“You're sure he's not recreating something from a movie, to make your life more interesting?”
“Julie! How can you even say that?”
She takes some pictures of me. “I don't know what's real anymore. I keep having these confusing dreams, not just about Newt, either. I dream I'm a servant.”
“Is that why you've been so emotional lately? Is that why you kept crying when we were at the cabin? Or are you traumatized from seeing the, uh, body?”
“Hmm. That may have been PMS up at the cabin, actually. Plus I slept with Liam and he's been ignoring me ever since.”
“You WHAT? I'll kill him!” My fists clenched, I see nothing but flashes of white and red.
Julie giggles. “If I knew you'd react in such a chivalrous manner, I would have told you sooner.”
“Julie. What were you thinking?”
“Oh, shut up. You know I have lusty feelings too. You and James are always hooking up with girls, so why can't I have some fun?”
“I only hook up with Austin.”
“Well, whatever. Don't judge me. But if you want to punch Liam in the face, be my guest. Punch him right in his lying mouth.”
“Are you ... okay?”
She rolls her eyes. “Obviously I'm damaged goods, but I think I'm okay. I could probably walk into a church and not be struck by lightning. Could you stop looking at me like that? Stop looking at me like I'm different.”
I turn away from her and study the former pawn store to take my mind off the weird feelings I'm having about hugging Julie and punching Liam in the face.
The owners of this new store are getting a nice, prime location thanks to Newt's demise. What do I know about Williams-Sonoma anyways? That name sounds suspicious. Do they grow their corporate empire through the use of voodoo?
I'll have to tell Detective Wrong about this possible lead when I see her. She can question Mr. Williams and Mr. Sonoma, if they are indeed real people.
“I won't sleep with Liam again,” Julie says.
“Good.”
“Probably.”
“Julie!”
“I feel better now. Want me to drop you off at your house? Austin's still mad at you, huh?”
“It'll blow over. Actually, could you take me to the police station? I'm going to do what you suggested and tell Detective Wrong about my abilities.”
She claps her hands. “Yay! Can I come?”
“This is something I have to do myself.”
She agrees, but when we get to the police station, she tries to come inside with me. I tell her to go home and try not to worry about anything.
“I'm a woman,” she says. “We worry. Don't you know that about women?”
After I step out of the Jeep, I realize she referred to herself as a woman, not a girl, which is something I've never heard her say.
Our little Julie is growing up.
* * *
The inside of the police station smells like doughnuts. I'm serious. I know my doughnuts, and I smell fried dough and powdered sugar and chocolate.
I was planning to set up an appointment to see Detective Wrong, but the receptionist behind the thick glass tells me to take a seat and the detective will be with me in a few minutes. Then the nice woman slides part of the glass over, revealing an opening perfectly-sized for food delivery, and pushes through an apple fritter on a tray.
Lunch was decades ago, so I grab it greedily and thank her profusely.
“Doughnut Wednesday,” she says.
“What do you get Thursday?”
“Pizza.”
“And Friday?”
The receptionist smiles sweetly. She's a pretty girl with short red hair, and I wonder if Austin having short hair has made me more appreciative of the pixie look. “I can't talk about Friday,” she says.
I eat the apple fritter and I'm licking the sugar-coated crumbs off the tray when a metal door opens and Detective Wrong appears, inviting me in.
A huge white guy stands next to the short woman, making her look even tinier.
“He's going to pat you down as a security precaution,” Detective Wrong says.
I don't argue as the big hands roughly pat all over my chest and back, then down my legs and up my inseam. If James were here, he'd crack a joke like “a little to the left.” If Julie were here, she'd say something about this being the most action I'd gotten in ages. But it's just me, and I have the good sense to keep my mouth shut.
After I'm cleared as a weapons threat, Detective Wrong leads me to somewhere for us to talk. To my disappointment, our destination is not a cool interrogation room, but a regular old desk.
She sits on a rolling desk chair and I take a seat on a metal chair on the other side of her desk, facing the back of her computer monitor. We're in the middle of an office full of desks and people talking and tapping away at keyboards, the rhythm punctuated by phones buzzing and ringing. Nobody seems to be paying any attention to me or what I'm about to say. Even Officer Wrong keeps peering over at her computer screen.
“I'd like to offer my services as a psychic,” I say.
She doesn't even blink, but says flatly, “We already have one.”
“You what? W
ho?”
“A woman.”
I keep my mouth shut, and try not to think about Moira from the book store, even though she's the first person who pops into my mind.
“You know people who have abilities like mine?” I ask.
“I know enough. Now tell me why you're so interested in this murder investigation. Some people get a false sense of involvement when they encounter a crime scene. I think that's what's happening here, because you aren't on the pawn shop's customer records, and your connection to the crime is tenuous at best.”
“I do feel involved. My feelings are not false.”
Detective Wrong smooths down her hair, which is black and straight and comes to her chin. Her roots are very curly, showing she's overdue for a straightening. Her job's been taking all her time and she's not had a day off in a while.
I look away, embarrassed I've made these deductions about the woman's personal life just from looking at her.
“How involved do you want to be?” she asks.
“The man—the victim, Newt, has asked me to solve his murder. He's been sending me messages.”
She rolls back about six inches on her rolling desk chair, putting even more space between us. “Are you hearing him like a voice in your head?”
“Nothing like that. I'm not crazy.”
She rolls back in slowly. I didn't notice the other times I met her, but she's really pretty, with a dip in the middle of her lower lip, so her bottom lip matches the top in shape.
“I'm not,” I repeat. “I'm not crazy.”
“Here's a pointer,” she says, looking at her computer screen and moving her mouse while she talks. “For future reference, any time you feel compelled to use the phrase I'm not crazy, you've already lost. There's no coming back.”
“But you believe me that I'm psychic, right? Your other psychic told you about people like us.”
She relaxes a little in her chair and sits back, bringing her focus off the screen and over to me. “Yes. Working with Heidi has been quite the eye-opener.”
My voice shoots up high to the ceiling. “Heidi?! Oh, hell no!”
Chapter Eighteen
Heidi's working for the police? How can this be?
“Oh, hell yes,” Detective Wrong says.