Not Just Voodoo

by Rebecca Hamilton

  The world receded as I focused completely on sending life into the body before me, willing it to breathe in time with me.

  I was so busy imagining Evan taking a breath that I almost missed it when he actually did.

  When he sat up, brushing tarot cards away from his face in irritation, the crowd behind me cheered.

  “What just happened?” he asked, staring up at the giant Ferris wheel above us.

  “Must’ve knocked the wind out of you,” Crazy Jimmy said, walking up behind me and holding out a hand to help Evan stand.

  “Must be,” I said.

  Evan stared at me through narrowed eyes. “Hm. Yeah, I guess.”

  “Come on.” Jimmy tilted his head toward the wheel. “They’ve almost got your friend down.”

  Nodding, Evan started the following, but paused and looked back, his gaze flicking suspiciously between me and Granna. Then he shook his head. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  Granna gave him her sweetest smile, along with a dismissive shrug. “Tomorrow we leave.”

  Evan’s lips pursed, and he shook his head, but he didn’t argue.

  As he walked away, I turned to my grandmother. “What was that?”

  “You’re a Gypsy,” she said, with another of those eloquent shrugs. “You have magic.”

  Then she turned and headed toward our RV in the back yard, gesturing for me to follow her.

  9

  The next morning, it was as if nothing had changed, when I knew that everything was different. But no one acknowledged it. Instead, we worked through breakdown exactly like we did at the end of every run in every town—except this time the roustabouts were being especially careful in their repairs and take-down of the Ferris wheel.

  Also, we’d started packing up even earlier than usual. I wasn’t sure what the local authorities had said when they arrived at the scene of the accident the night before, but whatever it was, it had prompted everyone to get a nice, early start.

  I can only imagine what it might have been like if Evan had stayed dead.

  Not that anybody but me, Granna, Crazy Jimmy, and Evan himself knew about it. Apparently, we had all decided to keep that incident to ourselves, at least so far.

  I had just finished stowing our personal belongings in the RV and headed from the backyard up to the midway. I planned to help Granna and a couple of roustabouts pack our show tent into one of the trucks that carried the carnival from one town to another.

  But I was going slowly, reading the midway one last time for loose change. My head was down and I was scanning the ground when a voice from a few feet in front of me said, “Hey, lifesaver.”

  I skidded to a halt, my head snapping up as I stared in shock at Evan.

  “Or I guess I could just call you Kizzie. That’s what the guy last night said your name was, right?”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. “We’re closed. We’re heading out today. Can’t you see we’re packing up?”

  Evan nodded. “Yeah. I’m supposed to find some guy named Big Joe. He’s gonna tell me what I need to do.”

  “What you need to do?”

  The corner of his mouth twitched up in a grin. “Apparently I’m running away to join the circus.”

  “This is not the circus. It’s a carnival.”

  Evan laughed. “It was just a joke, Kizzie. Don’t take yourself so seriously.”

  “So you’re not joining up?”

  “Oh, that part wasn’t a joke. Just the line about the circus.”

  “You can’t. Don’t you have family? Or school? Why are you doing this?”

  He shrugged. “I live with my uncle. He won’t be sorry to see me go. And I can finish school anytime. What do you do for school?”

  “I graduated early.”

  “Well, then.” Evan waved a dismissive hand. “I’m done, too.”

  My stomach tightened, and my hands shook as I remembered some of the cards from the readings I had given him. Complete change, transition, new beginnings.

  Temptation.

  Was I The Devil card in this situation?

  Why don’t the cards tell us more?

  It didn’t matter. This was a terrible idea.

  “You can’t.” I glared at him, practically daring him to contradict me.

  Evan’s grin deepened a dimple in his cheek. “Why not?”

  “That’s not how it works. Carnies go, townies stay behind.”

  The smile faded from his face, and I realized that throughout the conversation, there had been an intensity in his gaze that didn’t match up with the happy-go-lucky banter. “If last night taught me anything, it’s that the world doesn’t always work the way we expect it to.”

  “But… I….” My voice faded away. I couldn’t think of anything to say to that.

  “So, will you tell me where to find Big Joe?”

  I pointed in the direction of the Ferris wheel. “Last time I saw him, he was overseeing the ride breakdown. You can’t miss him. He’s the giant redhead who stuck his head into my tent last night to check on me.”

  “Great. Thanks.” Evan started walking away, then turned around and kept moving backwards while he continued to speak, pointing both forefingers in my direction as if he were a gunslinger drawing on me. “And when we get to the next town, wherever that is, you and I are going to have a talk. I want to know how you did what you did. Why I’m alive. Again.”

  With that, he spun around and strode down the midway as if he owned it.

  I watched him go, my mouth hanging open, as I tried—and failed—to come up with a retort.

  Finally, I muttered to myself, “I can’t tell you what I don’t know.” Shaking my head, I inhaled deeply and tried to calm down enough to go back to reading the midway.

  As I approached our fortunetellers’ tent, something fluttering in the grass caught my eye. I bent over to pick it up, and my breath hitched in my throat.

  All I could think was that somehow it had blown away as I tried to bring Evan back to life. Either that, or the same magic that had moved through me the night before had placed it here for me to find. I stared at it for a long time, wondering what it was telling me.

  It was a tarot card.

  The Chariot.

  A card that indicated the need to make a choice, to be decisive and assertive.

  I didn’t know yet what things I would have to choose between, what the black-and-white sphinxes pulling the chariot in two different directions might represent in my life.

  All I knew for sure was that everything in my world was about to change.

  The End

  About Margo

  If you enjoyed this story, keep an eye out for the Gypsies After Dark box set releasing in 2017—it includes the first full-length Kizzie Stroud novel—and be sure to check out Margo’s other books. For news about new releases, join her newsletter here.

  Another Freebie from Margo

  His kiss might save the world… unless her kiss kills him first.

  It’s been almost two thousand years since the mer-shifter Skyla walked the streets of Athens—not since her heart was broken by a human man and she exchanged the land and sky for the ocean depths. Ever since, she has lived in the underwater ruins of Atlantis, studying with the priestesses of the goddess Amphitrite, refining her mermaid powers and ignoring her human half. But her studies are interrupted when she is called upon by the god Poseidon himself to investigate rumors that the world above is being polluted by the magic of creatures from another realm—and worse, that the ocean kingdom of the mer-people might be next.

  When her inquiries in modern-day Greece lead her to an American detective asking similar questions, Skyla realizes that the magical problem she’s been sent to research is bigger than she anticipated—and that one human’s kisses might be more dangerous to her, and her world, than she ever could have imagined. But that’s nothing compared to how dangerous her kisses are to him.

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Laney Harris thinks there might be monsters in Fairy, Texas.  She’s right.

  When her mother remarried and moved them to a town where a date meant hanging out at the Sonic, Laney figured that “boring” would have a whole new meaning. A new stepsister who despised her and a high school where she was the only topic of gossip were bad enough. But when she met the school counselor (and his terminal bad breath), she grew suspicious. Especially since he had wings that only she could see. And then there were Josh and Mason, two gorgeous glimmering-eyed classmates whose interest in her might not be for the reasons she hoped. Not to mention that dead guy she nearly tripped over in gym class.

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  I Wish I Weren’t A Djinni

  Erin Hayes

  1

  I learned ten thousand years ago that to live inside a bottle was to live with constant claustrophobia. Even if I hadn’t feared small spaces before squeezing into a bottle, being stuck in one for all eternity made me terrified of tight quarters.

  Then again, I couldn’t remember either way, it had been so long.

  Sure, I was smoke and fire in this form, but if I concentrated too hard on my confines, sheer terror threatened to overwhelm me and I would go insane. I think I have lost my mind multiple times during my existence, so much that I forgot my own name.

  This was my life. And this was all I’ll ever be. Full of claustrophobia. Boredom. And loneliness.

  The loneliness was the worst part.

  I would be willing to give up some space in my bottle for another entity—something, anything—to communicate with so I wasn’t trapped in my own thoughts. I’d already thought every thought. Contemplated everything there was to debate.

  In the end, I was still by myself. Trapped in my bottle.

  I was a djinni. One of those who lived in a dimension parallel to the human one, with magical powers and shapeshifting abilities. I was proud and strong once.

  Then I was put into my bottle and an existence of servitude.

  I imagined that time went by at a different pace for the djinn, since we had such long lives. Humans had the gift of death, which made every moment precious.

  I wanted that.

  Instead, I had this.

  Glass, no air, and a whole bunch of wandering thoughts. I’d fantasize about someone finding me, rubbing my bottle, and setting me free. Three wishes, that’s what they’d get. And at the very end of the third wish, they’d wish for my freedom. They’d wish that I would be free from these confines and my duties, and I could live my life however I pleased.

  It almost became a prayer, really. I held onto that dream tightly with my smoky, ghostly arms, hugged it into my chest and tried to assimilate it into me so that it would happen.

  Of course, I’d had masters summon me from my bottle before. The last one was about five thousand years ago and he wished for things that made me shudder even today. Even though I’d been confined to this bottle ever since, I’d rather have this than deal with him ever again.

  I guess there are worse things than loneliness and claustrophobia.

  I hummed to myself often in my bottle. There wasn’t much else for me to do other than hum, dream, and fight the rising nausea from my claustrophobia. I got decent at humming, too, if I do say so myself. Not that I ever had an audience to listen in on me during my sessions.

  I never could see out of my bottle, either, which was frustrating. I must have been stashed away somewhere inaccessible to human hands, because it had been a very long time since that last cruel master. Before, someone would find me every so often.

  This had been my longest tenure inside my bottle. And I began to worry I’d never be free again.

  Until one day, I felt the pull of the bottle being rubbed and my summons from a new master.

  And I welcomed it with open arms.

  2

  “Whoa!” was the first human word I’d heard in over five thousand years.

  Even though it was a strange language, my djinn ears translated it, and with a little more magic, I was instantly able to speak it, as well.

  Human language has evolved and changed a lot over the years. As I expected it would.

  I stood on a beach, the white sand crunching under my bare feet. I faced a young man who watched me with a wide, slack jaw. For the first human I’d seen in five thousand years, he looked strange, and taking in his appearance told me that fashion, customs, and even body types had changed while I was imprisoned in my bottle.

  He appeared to be in his mid-twenties, a man with a wiry body and sandy, disheveled hair. He had sharp angles in his cheeks, proud cheekbones, and a princely nose that pointed to his strong jaw which had the stubble of a growing beard.

  Despite the nose, there was nothing princely about him. He wore a pair of torn, bluish pants, a shirt that had some sort of weird design with the words “Thundercats, HO!” on it (and I had no idea what a Thundercat was or a ho), and a light outer coat.

  He wore something on his face, two rounds pieces of glass with frames. I made a mental note to ask someone what it was later.

  He was…attractive…if not in the way I was accustomed to seeing humans.

  His brown eyes watched me dubiously through those twin pieces of glass, as if in disbelief of my existence.

  That was the way it went with most of my masters, the ones who serendipitously found my bottle and summoned me. There were, of course, also those who sought me out and used my powers for their own nefarious plans.

  The fact that he had no idea who or what I was gave me encouragement, and I grinned widely at him before dropping on one knee in a deep bow.

  “Greetings, my master, I am…” I frowned, glaring into the sand, as I had no idea what name to give him. Suddenly I realized why—even though I had a name before, my masters never called me by it. My ears rarely ever heard my own name. While the drudgery of servitude was instilled in me all the way to my smoky marrow and I could bow and complete all the formalities I’d been following for the past ten thousand years, I’d forgotten my name.

  But my voice had trailed off long enough for him to recover, if only slightly.

  “I must have eaten something very strange last night,” the man muttered, running a hand through his hair. “One minute, I’m picking up trash from the beach, and the next…you’re here.” He looked back at me as if I were a shaytan that had popped out of the bottle and bitten him.

  Looking up him from my spot on the ground, I noticed he had my bottle in his other hand, and I smiled at him encouragingly.

  “You were the one who summoned me from my bottle,” I told him.

  “Summoned you?” He looked at the bottle in his hands—my bottle—and then inspected it closely. It was blue, handblown glass with a wide base and designs etched into it. It had been so long since I saw the outside of it that I found myself tearing up.

  I was free.

  For how long, I had no idea.

  “Look, lady,” the man said, “whatever your name is—”

  I cast my eyes down. “I have no name.”

  He blinked. “Right. Well, I’m James. James Hoover. And I think we must both be hallucinating from something inside this bottle. Because this is very weird.”

  I shrugged. “It is. Such is my existence. I live to serve you and grant you three wishes.”

  This caught his attention, and warnings went off in my head. This was the moment when he realized all he could do with me. He would put all of the pieces of the puzzle together and reveal himself to be something other than the innocent, naïve man I thought stood before me.

  “Three wishes?” He frowns. “Like a, uh—” He sucked in a deep breath. “Like a genie?”

  “Djinni,” I corrected him. “It means that I grant you three wishes, but you must take heed, my master, for every wish has its consequences.” The grander t
he wish, the more of a toll it took on the universe. “Please consider your wish and all whom it affects.”

  Please don’t be like the others.

  I braced myself for his wish. Would it be for riches beyond his wildest imagination? Would it be for him to rule his country? Live forever?

  Any single wish could be disastrous if he didn’t plan it out.

  He scratched behind his ear, looking away from me. “Don’t call me that.”

  I froze. “What?”

  “Master.”

  I frowned. “Okay, James.” The name felt weird on my lips. At least he had a name, though.

  “And I think you’re crazy,” he added, turning away from me to continue walking down the beach.

  It took me a second to process what he said, and even then, I couldn’t believe it.

  “What?” I demanded, grabbing him by the shoulder to spin him around. “What do you mean by that?”

  James looked surprised at my outburst—apparently people in this era didn’t go around grabbing others by the shoulders—before shrugging out of my grasp. He gestured helplessly with his free hand, indicating me. “You’re a, uh, young lady, who is standing on Neptune Beach in a white dress, who looks like she could be in some sort of New Age music video. In December. Aren’t you freezing?”

  None of that made sense to me, but I bristled, standing to my full height, which was nowhere near as tall as he was. Still, I wasn’t about to back down. I knew I appeared to be a young woman with long, luscious brown hair that most of my masters commented on, hazel eyes, and dark eyebrows. I wore a white dress the color of my smoke, as I learned long ago that nudity in front of humans was improper.

  In short, I was wearing my dress for his sake. What’s more, I wasn’t cold. The djinn do not get cold. Ever.

  “I’m not crazy,” I told him thought gritted teeth. “I am your servant and I can grant you three wishes if you’d take me seriously.”