Furever Enchanted, page 1
Furever Enchanted
A Magical Realism Novel
B. E. Bang
Belle Ink Books
BELLE INK BOOKS
An Imprint of Belle Ink Publishers LLC, Denver
First published in the United States of America by Belle Ink Books, an imprint of Belle Ink Publisher
Copyright © 2024 by B. E. Bang. All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
Visit us online at BelleInkPublishers.com.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 979-8-9913455-3-8 (Paperback)
ISBN 979-8-9913455-8-3 (E-Book)
Cover Illustration Alexandra Zaytseva
Cover Illustration © 2024, Belle Ink Books
Developmental Editing by Ravenn Bang
Copy and Line Editing by Sasha Bent
Proofreading by Sasha Bent
Formatting by Belle Ink Books
This is a work of fiction. The entirety of this book is from the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons, places, or events are entirely coincidental
Contents
Acknowledgements
Author’s Note
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18
19. Chapter 19
20. Chapter 20
21. Chapter 21
22. Chapter 22
23. Chapter 23
24. Chapter 24
25. Chapter 25
26. Chapter 26
27. Chapter 27
28. Chapter 28
29. Chapter 29
About the Author
Acknowledgements
This book never would have happened without one special Chow having come into my life in April 2017. I owe so much to you Baby Bear. I know I wasn’t a perfect pet parent, but I hope you know that I loved you. Still love you. I hope you are either resting in peace on the other side or have moved on to a better life. This book never would have happened without you.
Special thanks to my twin Ravenn for supporting my dream of publishing a book and listening to me talk about the ins-and-outs of making this book a reality. I appreciate you taking the time to read my first draft and this book wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without your feedback.
Thanks to my friends, Gracie, Katie, Erzhena, Eunice, Angie, Amanda, Judy, and many others who also supported my author dreams (and sometimes delusions).
Thank you Mom, for frequently taking us to the library as kids and letting us max out the card every single time.
Author’s Note
I started writing this book after trying for a year to write a memoir about the time I had with my Chow Chow, Baby Bear. I adopted her on April 21, 2017 when she was estimated to be around seven years old. I lost her on October 29, 2022. Arthritis. She started pain management at eight with Carprofen and Gabapentin. Eventually we added on Adequan shots I gave her at home. At some point, everything just stopped working. I was devastated.
After failing to write a memoir, due to the guilt and regrets that always accompany grief, I decided to try fiction instead. After watching movies like Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) and Polite Society (2023), I got the idea to take a mundane situation and make it extraordinary.
This book is not the next great American novel. It probably could have been better if I'd given myself a longer timeline, but I challenged myself to get it done and sometimes things don't have to be perfect. It's just a fun story. Set your expectations accordingly and enjoy.
Peace and Love,
B. E. Bang
P.S. If you haven’t seen Polite Society (2023), it’s so fun. You should watch it.
Chapter 1
Monday
Red and blue lights flashed as Zuri turned onto her street. Thankfully, not in front of her place, but they were close. Too close.
After pulling into her driveway and turning off the engine, she stepped out of her car and looked across the narrow side road at Mr. and Mrs. Lopez’s house. With the police cars parallel parked on the curb, she didn’t have a clear view of what was going on, but their window was definitely smashed.
“It’s just terrible,” Donna, Zuri’s next-door neighbor, commented from her driveway.
They shared a single wall, Zuri’s bedroom and Donna’s garage. Donna was a good and mostly quiet neighbor, but also a nosy one. The woman constantly looked out her window and often stopped Zuri to chat if she caught her coming or going.
“Another break-in?” Zuri slid her laptop bag over her shoulder and slammed her car door shut, stepping closer to Donna. Donna turned her walker to face Zuri.
“Yeah, only this time someone was home. I saw an ambulance take Mr. Lopez.”
She hoped Mr. Lopez would be okay, but the man was in his early seventies. Not exactly prime recovery age.
“It’s the third break-in this month. You’d think they’d have caught them by now. Clearly someone is watching the neighborhood. It could even be somebody who lives here.” Donna huffed, annoyed by the incompetence of the officers.
Zuri glanced around at the small community of single-story stucco condos. It was only about fifty units, give or take. Three houses broken into in less than a month. That wasn’t random. They were being targeted.
Although it wasn’t a fifty-five and up community, most of the houses were owned by older couples and empty nesters. Each condo had a decent size of 1,200 square feet, making them ideal for downsizing from larger family homes. At thirty-one, Zuri was an anomaly. She’d bought her unit a couple of years ago and mostly kept to herself, except when it came to Donna, who didn’t give her much of a choice.
Every unit had their own little yard, and everyone had a garage or carport. Nearly all the front yards were subject to xeriscaping with drought and heat-resistant plants or just boring rocks because the intense Arizona spring, summer, and fall temperatures killed most plants. The HOA insisted on keeping grass around their small pool area just to the left, across from Zuri’s unit, but it proved more difficult to keep it green every year. The neighborhood was nothing fancy to look at. It was fairly average, and before the recent break-ins, things had always been quiet.
“Isn’t your family worried about you living here all by yourself?” Donna asked, actual concern in her eyes.
“My family and I aren’t close. So no, I doubt they’d be worried about this at all.”
It was true. While she was no orphan, she was still more or less on her own in the world.
The child support paid to her mother was the only evidence she had a father for most of her childhood. Her parents split up before she finished elementary school and once her father moved out, she hadn’t seen or heard from him again. No birthday cards. No graduation gifts. Just gone. Zuri didn’t miss him or pine for the missing father figure in her life.
Her mother was another story. They had been close once, or she thought they had. But that was before expanding her world in college. Before realizing that something was wrong. Before therapy. A lot of therapy.
Zuri hadn’t spoken to her mom much in the last few years apart from a quick phone call every now and then. Usually, if her mom called, she needed something. Sometimes just an ear to vent to, like six months ago, when her last boyfriend had suddenly ended things. Mostly money. It wasn’t the typical mother-daughter relationship, but it was all she knew. She stopped hoping for anything different a long time ago.
“Consider getting a roommate, or even better, a husband,” Donna said, drawing Zuri out of her thoughts.
“What?” Zuri shook her head. “No, I like living alone.”
Images of the many different places she’d lived growing up flashed through her mind. None of them truly hers. The apartments and houses of her mother’s boyfriends. Her grandparents’ house. Temporary student housing. Never a space that belonged to her the way her house did now, and always spaces occupied with the presence and energy of other people.
She couldn’t imagine giving up the sanctity of her home to a roommate, and if she sought a spouse (which she wouldn’t), it would be a wife, not a husband. Zuri didn’t bother telling Donna that. No need to delve into specifics with her. Not that she thought Donna was homophobic or anything. She just had an aversion to divulging too much information. She liked to keep to herself. It was easier that way.
“Get a dog then. No one should be completely alone.” Donna then shuffled inside her unit without giving Zuri a second glance, probably to cook a feast for her husband and the son and grandchildren living with her.
She looked at the scene across the street one last time, then headed inside as well. She kicked off her shoes and gently placed her laptop bag onto her oversized mustard couch before striding over to the kitchen to make some tea.
Her home was clean and cozy. Everything had a place. Houseplants covered corner shelves or hung on macrame planters near windows. Tall, dark bookshelves covered a single wall from floor to ceiling in both her bedroom and livin
Every time Zuri looked at the shelves, she felt a sense of calm wash over her. Her mother had never let her buy books growing up. With how often they moved, she always had to consider box weight. Then there was money. They were always short on cash. Now that she was grown, had her own place and her own money, she could buy as many books as she liked. Especially since she didn’t plan to move anytime soon.
After pouring water from her filtered water pitcher into her electric kettle to boil, she opened the white kitchen cabinet and took out her favorite blue mug. She grabbed her glass tea infuser from the counter and added some turmeric chai loose leaf tea, also her favorite, before pouring in the hot water.
No matter how hot it was outside, nothing beat the aroma of her spicy herbal tea, paired with a warm blanket on the couch.
Leaving her tea to steep, she walked to the bathroom, grabbed a hair tie, and pulled her dark, curly hair into a high ponytail. The feeling of her hair being pulled back was comforting. Lately, she tried wearing it down more often, as others responded better to her that way. Well, white people did. The only other black woman working at her company was older than Zuri and always telling her she should “do something” with her hair (aka straighten it). Despite few wins with her hair, she intended to maintain its current state: how God made it.
Mixed, half-white and half-black, Zuri had soft curly hair that defied gravity. She vaguely remembered sitting in the living room in front of her father while he wrestled with it in the morning before school and she tried to focus on the cartoons instead of her tender scalp. After he left, she had to fend for herself.
She used to straighten it, because her mom liked it that way, but somewhere around college, she decided to stop appealing to Eurocentric beauty standards and go natural. It drove a wedge between her and her mother, who had nothing nice to say about her hair after that.
After washing her face and hands, she poured her tea, grabbed her tablet, and got under her blanket on the couch, ready to read a few chapters of her latest sci-fi book she started the night before. It was a short novella series by Martha Wells about a remarkably relatable android who referred to themselves as Murderbot. It was amazing.
Despite her efforts to concentrate on her book, she couldn’t escape the glimpses of red and blue police lights that peeked through the living room curtains. Donna’s suggestions continued to circle in her head.
A roommate was out of the question. All three of her college roommates had been complete slobs. Clothing strewn about and old leftovers littering the fridge. Dishes left unwashed in the sink for days. There had even been one unfortunate incident where she’d walked in on her roommate with a tinder date nakedly entangled on the living room sofa. She had never been able to sit on that couch again.
She could buy cameras or one of those video doorbells to deter the thieves, but she didn’t like the idea of her home constantly being monitored. There were plenty of videos online about hackers watching people and even talking to them through their cameras. The thought alone made her shudder.
She would be fine. No need for cameras or a roommate. Everything would be fine.
For some reason, it was always when her head hit her pillow that her brain decided everything would not be fine.
Zuri tossed and turned. It was late. Really late. She wasn’t exactly an early bird, more of a night owl than anything else, but 2:30 a.m. was well past her usual bedtime. She needed to get some rest, if only she could fall asleep.
Creak
She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Sighing, she checked the kitchen, living room, and office for signs of intrusion for the 100th time. There was nothing and no one. Just another normal house noise. Or a ghost. Either was preferable to an intruder. After peeing for the 99th time, she climbed back into bed.
Donna might have been right. If she couldn’t stand having a roommate or security cameras, maybe she should get a dog. Dogs didn’t bark at normal house noises. Okay, sometimes they did, but she wouldn’t get an anxious dog. The house couldn’t handle more anxiety. Not with her around.
Zuri liked dogs. She always thought she would get one someday, but she kept finding reasons to wait. At first it was the money. Pets were expensive. Then it was a trip planned. A busy work schedule. The list kept growing, and it never felt like the right time. Now could be the best opportunity she had.
But could she keep a dog alive? She had plants. Most of them had survived at least a year, which was basically forever in houseplant time. She could do this.
She grabbed her phone off the nightstand and found the nearest animal shelter.
Tails Animal Shelter: We choose the right furever friend for you.
The shelter wasn’t far, just a few miles down the street. She looked through their newly adoptable dogs. Tons of Pit Bulls and a few Lab mixes. She wanted, no, needed a big dog, to ward off potential thieves, but preferred something fluffier.
She scrolled a little longer until she found a Husky named Max. The large dog sported a fluffy gray and white coat. His eyes called out to her, begging her to break him out of the cage-like kennel. If you looked up “puppy eyes” in a dictionary, Max’s face would be the picture under the definition.
This was it. She’d go to the shelter when they opened and rescue Max. Starting tomorrow, she’d be a dog mom.
Her brain started spinning with all the things she needed. Dog food. A leash. Dog beds. Bowls. Treats. Poop bags. Instead of falling asleep, she spent the next hour reading about Huskies on her phone and making a list of everything she needed to buy. Tomorrow promised to be a long, busy day.
Chapter 2
Tuesday
Zuri pulled up to the shelter at exactly 10 a.m. Her car was the only one in the visitor parking lot, probably because it was a Tuesday morning. She called out from work after her mostly sleepless night. Her schedule was flexible and nothing she did was an emergency. She was ahead in her work on the team’s current project, so she could afford an unexpected day off. Anyway, paid time off was meant to be used.
It wasn’t until around 4 a.m. that she had finally fallen asleep. Unfortunately, her alarm started blaring at 8:30 a.m. Too anxious that her dream dog would be gone if she didn’t get to the shelter when they opened, Zuri quickly washed her face, changed, and was out of the house in no time.
First on the list was to buy pet supplies. She couldn’t bring a dog home with no supplies. That would be irresponsible. Now her trunk was completely full.
At the pet shop closest to the shelter, she bought three extra-large memory foam dog beds. One to match the aesthetic of her bedroom, office, and living room. One might have been enough, but she wanted to make sure the dog would be comfortable in each of the rooms she spent a lot of time in.
A large bag of dry dog food and a small case of canned wet food, for variety, took up a good chunk of space. She hoped it was good quality, considering the price.
Taking up considerably less space in her trunk was a purple leash and matching white ceramic food and water bowls that would suit her white and green kitchen. Treats and chews recommended by the store associate filled at least two grocery bags. After adding in several toys, she had already dropped at least five hundred dollars on a dog she hadn’t even adopted yet.
She watched as a shelter employee unlocked the front doors while she took a sip of her venti flat white. The rich, bold taste helped calm her nerves. It was hard to tell if she was more anxious about adopting a dog, or her house potentially being robbed.
Now or never.
Zuri hopped out of her car and walked into the shelter. Unlike the pristine and joyous looking photos on the website, in-person, the shelter was a bit overwhelming. Actually, a lot overwhelming. Photos were quiet and odorless. Life was loud. Louder than she’d expected, multiple dogs barked at her entry. The lobby stank of a combination of cleaning chemicals and the large quantity of animals all under one roof.
The shelter appeared to be smaller than it had in the photos, too. A couple rows of dogs on the left, cats on the right, all behind glass windows. A small reception and front desk area stood near the entrance. Three small, windowed rooms, each containing three blue plastic chairs, lined the wall behind it.
