Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Beginnings

by Lydia Sherrer

  Lily rolled her eyes. With everything going digital these days, people often forgot written records did, in fact, still exist. She didn’t care how convenient digital content was, nothing could ever replace the feel and smell of a book in hand. Fortunately, most old-fashioned people agreed with her. As small and quaint as this town was, there were sure to be plenty of phone books about.

  “One of the shops around here should have one. Come on.” Lily said.

  Sebastian bowed theatrically, extending his hand toward the shops across the street, inviting her to take the lead. “As you’re the queen of a papery domain, I’ll leave the finding of any and all books in your capable hands.”

  With a snort of amusement, Lily started across the street, Sebastian trailing behind.

  * * *

  Their phone book search had proved fruitful. They now stood on a little neighborhood street looking at Rob Smith’s house, a mere four blocks away from Pitts’s main thoroughfare. In any larger town, Lily would have despaired at finding the owner of such a common name. But he was one of only two Rob Smiths listed. The other lived so far out in the country they decided it would be outside the geographical reach of the time loop.

  Rob’s house was small but tidy. A somewhat dented white sedan was parked in the driveway beside a mailbox adorned with a handful of “Happy Birthday” balloons. Several other vehicles were parked on the street to either side of the driveway. Sounds of children’s laughter drifted on the summer air, coming from the fenced-in yard behind the house.

  “Looks like we’re about to crash someone’s birthday party,” Sebastian observed.

  “Mmm,” Lily agreed absentmindedly. She was busy looking inward, feeling for something, anything, that would indicate this particular house was the source of the loop’s magic.

  “Well, I guess this is it,” Sebastian said, not bothered by her silence. “Let’s go see if our ‘time-lord’ is to be found amidst the balloons and streamers. Leave the talking to me, Lil. I’ve been known to charm snakes with my voice alone. This should be a piece of cake. We might even get some actual cake out of the deal, if all goes well.” He winked at her before striding forward up the tidy walkway to the front porch.

  Rolling her eyes, Lily followed, forbearing to mention his lack of success with the antique dealer.

  The man who answered Sebastian’s ring at the door was middle-aged, with short-cropped hair and a face lined with care. His welcoming expression turned to a look of guarded curiosity upon seeing two strangers at his door. No doubt he’d expected to greet another birthday party guest.

  “Mr. Rob Smith?” Sebastian asked politely, a tentative air obvious in his tone.

  “Yeah. What do y’all want?” the man asked.

  Sebastian nodded in greeting. “Good afternoon, sir. We’re very sorry to interrupt your celebration, and we don’t wish to intrude, but might we have a moment of your time?”

  “What for?” Rob asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

  “Well,” Sebastian said, hesitating as he carefully evaluated his word choice. “We have a bit of a problem and were hoping you could help us. In fact, you’re the only one who can help us.” Lily noticed that one of his hands was curled around something in his pocket, just like when he’d interrogated Cory.

  Sebastian paused, giving Rob a chance to comment, but the man remained stony and silent.

  “You see,” Sebastian continued, “We’re looking for something you recently bought at the antique store in town, a sort of cylinder made out of clay with rotating dials. It’s a family heirloom of great sentimental value that was mistakenly sold. It would mean a great deal to my family to get it back. Have you seen it?”

  Rob’s expression changed from guarded to angry. “I already told the other guy I don’t know what you’re talking about. Y’all had better stop harrassin’ me or I’ll call the sheriff. It’s my son’s birthday, for God’s sake. Now get off my porch!”

  With that, he slammed the door in their faces, and they heard the sound of a turning lock. A moment of stunned silence followed in which Lily and Sebastian shared a worried look.

  “The other guy?” Lily asked.

  “I think your wizard friend has beaten us to the punch again. Though with no better luck, it seems.” Sebastian turned and left the porch, going to peer through one of the front windows.

  “Stop that!” Lily hissed, grasping his arm and pulling him back onto the porch. “Do you want him to see you and call the cops right now? That wouldn’t help our situation. We need to persuade him to talk to us. If we wait for the next loop, he won’t remember speaking to us, right? We can try a different tack.”

  “Maybe,” Sebastian mused. “But why wait? Can’t you just wiggle your fingers, do a bit of magic, and get us in? Or say a special word and summon the device, like the boy with the glasses and funny scar on his forehead in that kids’ book?”

  Lily gave him a withering look. “No, in fact, I can’t. This is why we wizards prefer to keep to ourselves, because everybody reads made-up stories about magic and assumes it’s as easy as waving a wand and saying a few words. They’d ask us to do all sorts of ridiculous things.”

  “Well, isn’t it that easy?” Sebastian asked, giving her a knowing grin.

  “I mean, yes. In a way. But not like you’re implying. We do use words of power to shape the magic, and there are many well-studied spells which, if done right, give predictable results. But unlike in stories, magic is part of nature, it doesn’t defy it. The only reason mundanes call what wizards do “magic” is because it’s science they don’t understand yet. It took centuries of experimentation to perfect the spells we know about, and creating new ones can be dangerous.”

  “If you say so,” Sebastian replied, shrugging his shoulders as they left the porch and headed back to the road.

  “The question is moot anyway,” she said. “I don’t think I can use magic within the loop.”

  “Really?” he asked, brow furrowing.

  With a sigh, Lily shook her head. “Ever since I entered the loop, my connection to the Source hasn’t felt right, much less stable. I don’t know what effect the loop may have on my spells. They might work, or they might spin wildly out of control. I’d rather not try unless the situation is desperate. We should have plenty of time to explore other less risky options. On the bright side, if I can’t use magic, hopefully the other wizard can’t, either.”

  Sebastian clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Okay. Back to plan B, I guess. We’ll see what we can do in the next loop.”

  * * *

  They whittled away the hours until the loop reset, Sebastian’s relaxed unconcern contrasting with Lily’s barely suppressed worry. At the reset, her transition to the gray in-between world was much less disorienting now that she knew what to expect. Before seeking out the crack through which she would join Sebastian, she took some time to explore Rob Smith’s house. As she’d suspected, she found nothing of interest or value, only a gray, blurry version of the house in real time, devoid of inhabitants or evidence of the device that started it all.

  Not only did she not find anything at the house, but on the way back to Pitts she kept seeing disconcerting flickering out of the corner of her eye. It was as if the barrier between timelines was weakening in places beyond her perception. The anomaly worried her.

  Her second time through the crack took fewer tries, and she was soon back on the sunny main street of Pitts. This time she found Sebastian waiting for her on the bench just down the street. Obviously bored of waiting, he was playing with his coin, though he put it away as soon as he saw her.

  “Finally,” he said once she was in earshot. “What took you so long?”

  “I searched Mr. Smith’s house, but there was nothing useful.” Lily shrugged.

  “Pity. So what’s our angle on Rob this time?”

  “I think we shouldn’t be so direct, and you should let me do the talking.” Lily peered over her glasses at Sebastian, adopting the look of a teacher
studying her student. “Obviously, your handsome charm doesn’t do the trick.”

  “And your bookish awkwardness will?” he replied in a teasing tone.

  Lily lifted her chin in a show of confidence she didn’t quite feel. Confrontation wasn’t her strong point, but she had to try.

  “I’ll approach him as a professional and make my affiliation with Agnes Scott College known up front. That should make him less suspicious.”

  Sebastian shrugged. “It’s as good a plan as any.” Standing, he stretched, then motioned in the direction of Rob’s house. “Might as well get it over with.”

  “What about the little girl?” Lily asked as she stood up, recalling the last time-loop’s events.

  “Her? I gallantly snatched her from danger a good thirty minutes ago. You took longer to show up, remember?”

  “Oh,” she said.

  Sebastian grinned, giving her a slap on the back. “Well, let’s go crash a birthday party…again.”

  * * *

  This time Lily rang the doorbell, having instructed Sebastian to wait on the steps. As it opened, however, before she even had a chance to speak, Rob started yelling.

  “What the heck do y’all think you’re doing? I told you to leave me alone! I swear, if I find y’all or that other guy on my doorstep one more time I’ll call the sheriff. Now beat it!”

  Completely taken aback, Lily barely got out a “well, excuse me” before the man abruptly slammed the door in their faces. Again.

  The moment of stunned silence was even deeper this time as Lily worked to regain her composure and Sebastian made only a small effort to hide his smirk.

  “Oh, hush!” she exclaimed, having wheeled around and spotted his ill-disguised smile. She stomped forward, dragging him after her as they retreated once more to the road. “Don’t you see? This has nothing to do with anything I said. He remembered us from the last loop, and he’s the only one in this whole mess besides you and me who does. That means he must be the one resetting the loop, because only the one who initiates the magic would keep their memories.”

  “How do you know?” Sebastian asked.

  “Time magic wouldn’t make any sense otherwise, now would it? The person controlling the magic needs to be fully aware, or else they can’t manage the spell. There would be provisions written into any such spell to ensure the caster kept their memories. I don’t know how he’s doing it, though, unless Rob is a wizard himself. Such a device would have to be initially activated by a live connection to the Source, though I suppose the creators could have written controlling runes to allow secondary manual control once the initial spell was activated.”

  “Okay,” Sebastian said, rolling his eyes, “now that everything is clear as mud, could you repeat that in English?”

  Lily sighed. “The magic of the loop wouldn’t reset the memories of the person who was using the device. A wizard would have to be the one resetting it, since it needs magic to work, unless the device was built to be controlled by a physical switch once it was active. Like pushing buttons on a remote.”

  “Ah, that’s what you meant. So, do you think Rob is a wizard?”

  Lily shook her head. “No. Wizards can’t hide from each other. It’s hard to describe, but being connected to the Source makes you sensitive to others who use it. There are masking spells, but they have tells, too. The only reason I wasn’t sure if the man in the antique store was a wizard is because I wasn’t in the same time dimension as he was. I couldn’t feel anything, much less his connection to the Source.

  “What if he activated it?” Sebastian mused.

  “And then let it slip through his fingers? Not likely. If that wizard gets his hands on it, he’ll make sure it stays there. No, there’s a part of this we’re missing.”

  Sebastian frowned. “So how are we going to get this guy to listen to us if he remembers everything? Why not just break in and take the device?”

  She looked askance at him. “And risk him attacking us in self-defense? That’s begging for trouble. I think we simply need to be more insistent and explain the danger. I’m sure he’ll be reasonable if he understands what’s at stake. He could be looping it by accident.”

  “Hmm. I wouldn’t count on it,” Sebastian said doubtfully.

  “Well, we have to try,” insisted Lily.

  “Be my guest, Ms. Professional. A woman is less threatening anyway, so maybe he won’t call the cops on you. I’ll stay here.”

  Lily gave him a look of consternation but couldn’t deny his logic. “Fine, if you insist. Somebody has to fix this mess, after all. Heaven forbid it be you.”

  Without waiting to see his reaction, she turned and marched back up the drive. This whole situation thoroughly irritated her and she was quite ready to pound sense into somebody, she didn’t care who.

  She rang the doorbell over and over, not stopping until she saw the doorknob turn. Expecting him to come out shouting, she began talking at once to cut off his anticipated tirade.

  “Mr. Smith, please. My name is Lily Singer and I’m the archives manager at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta. I am aware you’re using some sort of device to loop time, and I have to warn you everyone here is in serious danger. We need to talk about this.”

  Standing in the now open doorway, Rob regarded her with a stubborn expression. “You’re out of your mind, lady. I got no clue what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes you do,” Lily insisted, “You can’t pretend you’re unaware. This time looping has to stop. The magic holding everything together is weakening and you’re putting everyone’s life at risk if it fails.”

  Except for a brief flash of uncertainty, Rob’s expression remained set. Most people scoffed or protested at the mention of magic. He did neither, making Lily even more certain he was responsible for the loop.

  “I got no idea what you’re talking about,” he repeated, though the look of knowing in his eyes belied his statement. “We’re celebrating my boy’s birthday, and we’ll keep celebrating it for as long as we want. Ain’t no harm in that. Beats me where you get your crazy ideas, but take ’em somewhere else. I’m calling the sheriff.”

  Lily suffered the door being slammed in her face a third time. Letting out a sigh of frustration, she turned to rejoin Sebastian.

  “That went well,” he observed, making an effort to keep his face straight this time.

  “That idiot!” Lily fumed. “He knows, he knows what he’s doing and he doesn’t care. He’s using a dangerous and unstable magical artifact he knows nothing about and ignoring any possibility of danger. What a complete and utter…utter…” she spluttered to a stop, at a loss for words to express the depth of her disgust.

  Sebastian gently took her shoulders and steered her down the street, away from the house. “Maybe he has a good reason.”

  “What possible reason could there be to endanger the whole town so your child can have a perpetual birthday party? His son won’t even remember!”

  “No idea,” Sebastian said, shrugging, “but I suggest we make ourselves scarce. If he really did call the cops, waiting for the next loop won’t wipe his memory but it sure will wipe theirs.”

  * * *

  They spent the remainder of that loop talking about strategies for getting the lugal-nam, as well as how to end the loop once they got it. Ideally, they could wait for the loop to run out and then rejoin real time. But in case the spell wouldn’t dissipate on its own, Lily assured him they could break the device to end the spell. She knew from experience as soon as dimmu runes were broken, they lost the magic cast on them.

  They also kept an eye on the street leading to Rob’s house, in case the other wizard showed up. Once the loop reset, Lily even spent time searching the in-between space for him, though she was hindered by the constant flickering. It had become worse and was now accompanied by a strange shifting of time and space. Again and again, she took a step and was suddenly a few yards away from where she’d been seconds before. Once she was transported a whole block, en
ding up in the middle of the street. With how unstable the time loop was becoming, she was surprised the little girl Sebastian had saved was the only one hurt so far. The continuity of the in-between space especially was crumbling, and soon it might no longer be passable. They were running out of time. How many more loops could they survive before everything broke apart?

  Spurred on by this new sense of urgency, she gave up her fruitless search and rejoined Sebastian inside the loop just in time to watch him save the little girl again. She even managed a smile when the girl’s ice cream splattered itself all over Sebastian instead of the pavement. It wasn’t anything a few wet napkins couldn’t fix, but his affronted look, as if he’d been personally insulted by the ice cream, was priceless.

  When they approached Rob’s house for a third time, Lily’s heart sank. A sheriff’s cruiser sat in Rob’s driveway, and the sheriff himself stood on the front porch talking with Rob. An older man, the officer had the look of a body-builder gone to seed. His impressive girth spoke more of desk-riding and paper-filing than fieldwork.

  Lily pulled Sebastian off the road and behind some bushes, shielding them from view.

  “Now what?” she asked, exasperated and utterly sick of the whole affair. “We can’t keep waiting for another loop. I don’t know how much longer the magic will hold.”

  Sebastian looked thoughtful. “What we need,” he finally said, “is a distraction. Something to keep the sheriff busy while you talk some sense into that thickhead.”

  Lily looked around, at a loss. “What, though? What would be disturbing enough to get the sheriff’s attention, yet not endanger innocent bystanders?”

  A glint of mischief entered Sebastian’s eyes, and he grinned widely. “You leave that to me.”

  “Wait, what are you going to do?” she asked, suspicious.

  “Never you mind. I’ll take care of it.”

  “But what if Mr. Smith calls more cops?” Lily protested.

  Sebastian shook his head. “In a town this small, I bet there isn’t even a proper police station. It’ll just be the sheriff’s office and he’s probably the only one staffing it. Besides, we’re in a closed loop, remember? He can’t exactly call for backup.”