Spells and Sandwiches, page 5
Nothing. Nothing but the white snow below me and the dark sky above. Never had the unbearable heat of a New York summer sounded more appealing. On hot nights, Grandma used to sing an old lullaby. I’d join her and make it a round.
I tilted my face upward. Even the stars were different here. I had no way of knowing where I’d gone—around the world, around the galaxy, through a hole in space and time and out the other side. This was not my home.
The words of the lullaby drifted through my memory:
Oh how lovely is the evening, is the evening,
When the bells are sweetly ringing, sweetly ringing,
Ding, dong, ding, dong, ding, dong.
Though the chill shook me, I felt peace. So I sang the lullaby, my voice lifted alone, in honor of the one who sang it to me. The tune came out rough but strong. I stamped my feet for rhythm and warmth, challenging the cold, the dark, the unknown.
Take that, Arcade.
When the lullaby was done, an icy sigh blew all around. Before me, the floating figure of a woman coalesced. Her long, crystalline hair drifted like it was underwater. So did her carved ice robes, which had long, trailing sleeves that covered where her hands would have been. Her face was so bright it was hard to make out her features, except for the piercing white glow of her eyes.
The Arcade.
Her lips didn’t seem to move when she spoke: You would command me, mortal?
“Yes, I would. Your price is already paid.” I thought I’d better clear that up, to be on the safe side.
She floated closer, and her spun glass hair curled and uncurled at the tips. My price is only the beginning. You seek to repair the Mirror Seal?
“What’s it to you?”
If you knew what would follow if you did…
“It can’t possibly be worse than what would follow if I didn’t.”
Again the bells of laughter. It was worse, in person, because her lips didn’t move, and those glowing eyes didn’t blink. There will be pain. Heartbreak. Even—the being shuddered, with fear or pleasure, I couldn’t tell—bloodshed.
“Will there be sandwiches, too? Because that’s what I’m really concerned about.” I hugged myself harder. The cold was making me mouthy.
You play at bravery, Zelda Hawkins. It is a mask that hides the truth: You have never, in your small existence, been truly tested.
I opened my mouth for a smart remark, but words deserted me.
Her glowing eyes nearly blinded me. Are you afraid?
“I—” The frigid air dried my mouth. “I’m not stupid enough to stand here in this godforsaken frozen field and tell you I’m not afraid. Of course I’m afraid. Of my restaurant failing. Of my dog getting sick. Of my family scattering across the country and growing apart. But compared to all that, you’re nothing.” I stood straighter, stared right in her high-beam eyes. “I will never be afraid of you.”
Her hair whipped around me. Close your eyes.
I closed them, letting the cold wind prop me up, my heartbeat a rat-a-tat-tat in my ears.
You will go where you have never been. And you will become what you never were. She paused. I grant you your prize.
I opened my eyes to a golden mask floating before me, sleek curves with twisting designs, shedding a misty waterfall of crystal sparks.
“A mask?” I reached for it, then hesitated, expecting it to be as much of an illusion as all the rest. “How is this supposed to—”
Before I could finish, the mask surged forward. My hands flew up, but it was too late—the golden material melted onto my face like warmed honey. I pressed my fingers to my cheeks, looking for edges to pry up. Edges that weren’t there.
Wear it well, said the Arcade. And then she laughed, one more time, the sound whipping away in a great wind that pushed me off my feet. As I fell, the sky turned upside down once more.
Sudden daylight blinded me. I sprawled on warm white flowers, the scent of star fruit filling my nose. I sat up. A trace of snow melted and slid off the tip of my boot.
The Arcade was gone, and with her, the midnight snowfield.
Victorine stood over me. “Well?” she said. “What gift has the Arcade bestowed?”
“A mask.” I touched my face. I couldn’t feel anything, but a haze of diamonds at the edges of my vision told me it hadn’t simply disappeared.
“Interesting,” she said.
“Interesting?”
“When you live as long as I have, everything is interesting, in its way.” She offered me a hand.
“As long as it’s not ‘interesting’ like that Chinese curse, we’re in good shape.” I took her hand and got to my feet. New magic prickled on my skin.
What would it do to me?
8
Back at Daniel’s, I found Jester nosing around the master bedroom. He had a knack for opening doors that weren’t all the way shut. “Hey, boy,” I said. “Want to watch Mama try her new magic?”
Jester wiggled out from under the bedskirt, stretched, then sat and regarded me with a tilted head.
“On second thought—maybe I should call Daniel. Letting him watch would be a good way to pay him back.”
Jester sneezed.
“Bless you.” I pulled out my phone. I have something special to show you, I texted. How soon can you be here?
Is this your weird way of flirting with me? he replied.
You wish, I wrote. Hurry up. Then I tossed the phone on his bed and regarded my reflection in the full-length mirror mounted on the wall.
I held my hands out. The light illuminated them directly, and I could see the vampire magic and air magic tracings faintly aglow in tracings of red and silver. Under the bedroom’s mood lighting, dramatic shadows wreathed the contours of my face.
I moved my head slowly, shifting the play of light. Where was the mask?
Ah, there it was! Transparent crystal flickers across my forehead, eyes, cheekbones, and nose. The mask was there and not there all at once.
But what did it do?
Jester leaned against my knee, then looked up and licked his lips expectantly. Clearly, he sensed something new, and thought it might be fun to chomp on.
“This would be a pretty expensive dog toy, buddy, if I even knew how to peel it off my face. Not sure what it would do to a poodle. Nothing good, probably.” I scooped up a stray dog toy from the carpet and tossed it into the living room.
Jester ran after it.
I returned my attention to the reflection.
This type of thing really was better not to try alone. I should wait for Daniel. Who knew what would happen? What if it had some kind of cursed effect and Daniel decided to stop for a protein smoothie on the way home?
Still, I couldn’t help wondering…
When I copied other people’s magic, I didn’t have to think about it. I didn’t really have to think at all. Touch someone for long enough, and the transfer just happened.
Jester poked his head through the doorway, chew toy in his jaws.
“Give,” I said.
He trotted over and dropped the toy in my open hand.
“Go get it.” I chucked the toy through the doorway.
He scampered away.
“‘You will go where you have never been,’” I mused aloud. “‘And you will become what you never were.’ What does that even mean?” I turned this way and that in the mirror. Daniel’s blazer wasn’t sitting quite right on my shoulders, so I fiddled with the sleeves. Although I was tall, and had a respectable amount of muscle, I certainly wasn’t Daniel. Everything about him created the ideal canvas for tailored clothes: close-shaved head, angular strong jaw, sculpted torso, well-proportioned legs—
Diamond streaks shot out of the mask, pouring over me, wrapping around my limbs, tracing me with prismatic light until I was damn near sure I was going to levitate right off the floor. Glittering light layered over every part of me.
I gasped.
Neither Zelda Hawkins nor Snow White looked back at me in the mirror.
I was Daniel. From head to toe, the mirror lied. My jaw—Daniel’s jaw—dropped. I turned, slowly.
Three-hundred-sixty degrees of Daniel.
Yet when I looked down at myself, I could see the illusion layered over my own body like a glowing ghost.
Then the keys rattled from outside.
I dove through the open bedroom door and skidded to a stop in the living room as the front door opened. “Daniel!”
He froze. “What the—”
What he was seeing flashed through my own mind in a fraction of a second: A perfect doppelganger of him, right there in his own living room.
Daniel barely hesitated before one step closed the space between us, and his fist came at me like a speeding Cadillac with his signet ring as a hood ornament.
I cursed, flinging both hands up and pushing with the fading remnants of my brother’s air magic. Not enough left to knock Daniel down, but enough to slow down a punch. “It’s me!”
Jester barked wildly.
Daniel stumbled. That gave me an opening—I tackled his knees and sent both of us to the floor.
He struggled against my borrowed vampire strength. Blessed, indeed. I held him down. “It’s Zelda. Zelda.” Oh, God, how did I turn it off? “I’m Zelda!” The diamond streaks rushed over me again.
Daniel lifted his head from the floor, looked at me, then dropped his head back with a thud. “Jesus, woman. Warn me the next time you want to play this game.”
“Do I look like—me?”
“Can’t you tell?”
“I wasn’t sure.” I let go of his legs and crawled up next to him. We both lay on our backs, panting. I examined my hands, my arms, even lifted my feet in the air. Plain old Zelda, no ghostly image over my own skin.
Jester trotted over, sniffed at both of us, gave a disapproving huff, and went back to his toy.
“I think he thought we were wrestling,” I said. “He gets jealous when he’s left out of the fun.”
“Next time he wants to confront his own doppelganger, he’s welcome to it.”
I elbowed him. “And your first instinct was to punch it?”
He elbowed me back. “What would you do? Offer it a sandwich?” He rolled to his side, head propped on his hand, his face close to mine. “What kind of magic did you use to do that, anyway?”
“It’s a mask.”
“Where?”
“Here.” I guided his hand.
His fingers touched my hairline, and his thumb rubbed lightly over my cheekbone. His pupils were wider than normal, and he was breathing a little hard. The careful examination had desire in it; whether it was for me, or for a window on my magical world, I couldn’t tell. What would it be like, to always be outside, pressing your nose against the glass?
“I don’t see it,” he said. He let go. Then he rolled up, stood, and offered me a hand. A gentlemanly gesture considering I’d recently tackled him.
I took it and bounced up. All that magic was making me feel younger than I had any right to feel: stronger, faster, more powerful.
Daniel motioned to me. “Use it again.”
“The mask?”
“No, a panini grill. Of course the mask. Let me see you do it.”
“You won’t take a swing at me?”
“This time I know it’s you.”
I touched my face, trying to be conscious of the magic when it took hold, and summoned a mental image of Daniel to match the man in front of me.
The diamond streaks poured over me again, a sweet surge of magic and light and the tiniest loss of gravity.
Without a mirror in sight, I couldn’t immediately be sure of what had happened—but when I looked down at myself, I could see that ghostlike haze again. “Is it working?”
Daniel looked thoughtful. “It’s uncanny.”
I peered at my arms and hands. Other than the transparent glow, they were the same as they’d been for forty-some years. Maybe a little tougher these days, but certainly not Daniel-esque. My hands went to my chest. Then I laughed. “I feel like me.”
“You sound like me. Turn around.”
I put my hands at my sides and turned in a slow circle. “I was able to see the change in your bedroom mirror, right before you came home. And then when I look at myself, I see this sort of impression of you.” I stopped turning. “I wonder what Jester thinks.”
We both looked in the poodle’s direction.
“I know!” I said. “Give him a command.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.” Jester didn’t listen to anyone but me, usually.
Daniel crossed his arms. “Jester, come.”
Jester gnawed at his toy and acted like he hadn’t heard.
“Here, boy,” I said.
He stretched, then walked over and dropped the slobbery toy at my feet.
I chuckled. “Good boy. See?” I said to Daniel. “He knows who his mama is.”
Jester shot me what could have been a reproachful look, before rolling over, belly up. Of course I do, Mama. Now rub my tummy.
I bent low and delivered the tummy scratches.
“Zelda?”
I straightened. “Hm?”
“Think you could stop being me for a minute?”
“Oh, is this weird?” I flexed into an Arnold Schwarzenegger pose.
He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples in small circles. “I knew letting you stay here would be a bad idea.”
I pictured myself as myself again before he got too weirded out. The magic flashed once more, and the ghostly aura faded away. “Daniel, Daniel. It was a wonderful idea. See how much fun you’re having already?” I went behind him and put my hands on his shoulders, squeezed the tight muscles. “This is new magic no one’s ever seen before. You’re the first to see it. Doesn’t that feel good?”
He grunted in response, either to the massage or my words. Or both.
“Tell you what we’ll do. We’ll test it out. See who else I can pretend to be: celebrities, politicians, the sky’s the limit. And then we’ll order some takeout and watch a nice, relaxing movie. Like Escape from New York.” His favorite.
“You don’t even like Escape from New York.”
“Come on, who doesn’t like Kurt Russell?”
He leaned his head back and opened one eye. “I’ll do it if you turn into him—”
“Easy-peasy—”
“And answer the door for the takeout.”
I kept the massage going. “You drive a hard bargain, sir,” I said, digging my thumbs in. “It’s a deal.”
And that’s how movie night started out—as a nice, relaxing evening for two.
Too bad it didn’t end that way.
9
That evening, I took one side of the long leather couch; Daniel half-reclined on the other. Our abandoned takeout containers adorned the coffee table after we’d made our best effort at polishing off shrimp diabla and tacos vampiros from Midtown’s finest contemporary Mexican restaurant.
It was nearly impossible to keep my feet from bumping into Daniel’s calves, which were covered by some kind of ultra-soft pajama pants. The couch was that short, or I was that tall. Each brush ended with me quickly pulling back and staring resolutely at the large screen TV and Kurt Russell’s eye patch. “Daniel?”
“Hm?” he answered, without taking his gaze from the movie.
“What are those pants made out of?”
No response.
I plucked at the hem by his ankle. “Cotton?”
He withdrew his foot.
I pursued it. “Linen?”
Daniel kept staring at the movie like he might miss some detail he hadn’t seen in the last dozen times he’d watched it.
Stoic. You had to give him that.
So I tickled the sole of his foot.
He pulled his leg away and trapped my wrist with his hand. “Don’t. Tickle. Me.”
I laughed and easily broke his grip. “Ooh, big scary man!”
“What about when your ‘Blessed’ powers wear off? What if I tickled your foot?”
“They haven’t worn off yet. So if anyone’s going to be the tickle-er, not the tickle-ee…” I blew him a kiss.
He rolled his eyes. “If it will make you happy, they’re bamboo.”
“Bamboo?” I scooted closer, until we were sitting side by side. “Can I touch it?”
A pause. “Knock yourself out.”
I plucked the fabric over his knee. “Nice. You don’t put anything on your body that isn’t expensive, do you?”
“I don’t even know how to respond to that.” He gestured toward the TV. “We’re missing the best part.”
I hushed. Watching TV on the couch made both of us tense with how easy it would be to turn it off and do something else entirely.
On-the-edge-of-being-broken Life Rule Number Two: Never repeat a mistake.
I tried to focus on the movie. A darker New York filled the screen, all rubble and grime. Very different from what could be seen out the window: sparkling Manhattan beauty, any flaws hidden in the streets below the soaring buildings.
Jester lifted his head from his station on the rug. In the low light, he could have been a furry black pillow that had fallen to the floor.
The pillow grew legs. Jester stood and paced.
“You need to go outside, boy?”
He hesitated, then paced again.
“That’s odd. He knows to go to the door.” I got up. “I’ll get the leash.” I’d left it on a table near the door. When I got closer, Jester stiffened.
Then he bolted for the nearest bedroom.
I turned and met Daniel’s gaze. Something was nagging at my senses.
His expression was quizzical. He reached for the remote, as if to pause the movie.
I shook my head. When he started to get off the couch, I threw my hand up in the universal gesture for stop.
I closed my eyes. That red glow I’d seen while walking the streets of New York was here, too, even through walls, if I paid attention. I could sense beings directly above and below us, beside us in the surrounding condos, and in the hallway outside Daniel’s door.
Wait. Those two were right outside Daniel’s door. And that was a red no human had any right to glow. The same red as Victorine. If it were a lipstick color, Chanel would have called it “Blessed Red.”
