A Witchly Influence

by Stephanie Grey

  “Saucy?” I raised a brow.

  “That’s right. Saucy.”

  “I’ve never rehearsed an argument I wanted to have.”

  The mirror smiled sardonically. “But you have rehearsed a job interview.”

  “I might have done that. Okay, don’t look at me like that. Yes, I have done that.”

  “Looney.”

  “That’s not ‘looney,’” I said, quoting the mirror. “That’s perfectly normal. I didn’t want to sound like a blabbering idiot.”

  “You do realize you’re still talking to yourself, don’t you?” my image asked smugly.

  “It’s not really to myself, though,” I pointed out.

  “It would look weird if someone just walked in and saw us.” The mirror smirked as I tried to respond.

  “All right, that’s enough of this conversation. You’re not even being helpful.”

  “Sure I am,” the mirror argued.

  “You most certainly are not,” I said, annoyed. “You offer no solutions. You just teased me instead.”

  My image laughed. “I did do that, yes. Hey, are you taking me to college? I could stand to see some new scenery.”

  “Absolutely not,” I answered. I started to leave my bedroom.

  “You’re such a spoiled sport,” the mirror complained.

  It was still complaining long after I left it.

  “There you are!” Maeve grabbed my hand and dragged me back down the stairs and toward the party. “Your mother has been looking all over for you.”

  “I’m sure,” I murmured.

  Maeve stopped. “Are you okay? You’ve been acting strangely all week.”

  I nodded. “I’m all right.”

  “You’re such a liar,” Maeve replied. She looked around and whispered, “Is something wrong? Really?”

  I took a deep breathe. “Maeve, you want to be an archaeologist, right?”

  “You know I do. What, you’re not going to lecture me like my dad did for not going into law school and following in his footsteps? I just don’t want to be in a stuffy office all day. I want to learn about our past, maybe even make a discovery of my own!” she said passionately.

  “Stay away from Egypt.”

  “What? Why?” she demanded. “You know that’s one of the places I’ve wanted to go see.”

  “Please,” I begged. “Trust me on this.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “No.”

  “Maeve, I have a really bad feeling that something is going to happen to you if you go. Please promise me that you won’t go.”

  “Damn, Carmen, you’re shaking! Do you really feel this way or did my dad put you up to this?” She sighed. “Of course not. I’m sorry. You know how I get paranoid when I talk about my dad. All right. I promise. I won’t go to Egypt. There are plenty of other options, I suppose.”

  I wrapped my arms around my friend to hug her. “Thank you,” I said, relieved.

  “If someone makes a cool discovery in my absence, though, I’m never going to forgive you.”

  “I wouldn’t expect anything less from you,” I replied.

  “Now can we get back to your party? Evelyn is so nice for throwing this. Dad is so mad at me that I’m surprised my parents even came to my graduation.”

  “He’ll come around,” I told her. The truth was that her father never fully accepted what she did until she’d disappeared. It was then that he realized how proud he had been of her for making her own tracks instead of following his.

  Outside, a game of corn hole had been set up and several people were gathered around it. “They’ve set up a competition,” Mom said, standing next to me.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t conjure up more boards.”

  “It made sense for us to have two hidden in the attic, not six,” she said. She looked around at the guests laughing, drinking, and eating. “Are you having fun, sweetie? Look at your friends in the pool. Don’t you like that swan floatie I made?” Little did my mother know that she would spark a hipster trend for social media with that particular creation.

  “I am. Thank you so much for having this.”

  “You’re welcome.” She put her arm around me and squeezed. “You’re my favorite daughter.”

  “By default.”

  “It’s still nice to be the favorite, isn’t it?” she said affectionately.

  I chuckled. “It is.”

  “Oh, my. I can’t believe it!” my mother suddenly whispered angrily.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She pointed a long, red fingernail toward the corner of the backyard. “Do you see that?”

  In the corner stood three pale, shimmering figures. Two of the people quietly watched the activities and I followed their gaze. Across the yard was a young couple holding hands, giggling as they talked to each other. The guy leaned forward and gently brushed a lock of hair across the girl’s forehead and tucked it behind her ear.

  The third figure watched the couple intently. She was dressed in an outlandish costume of a bright pink tutu with red tights and a cropped top that bore a giant heart in the middle. She held a miniature harp.

  “It’s a Cupid!” I whispered excitedly.

  “They are so obnoxious,” Mom said, still watching them. “When your father and I were going through our divorce, one just showed up for no reason. Now they only answer to formal requests.”

  “They’re still working out the kinks on that,” I said, thinking of the Cupid that had shown up after my own divorce.

  “Hopefully this couple will get things worked out,” my mother said softly. “But I don’t want them hovering and trying to crash the party. I know we’re the only two that can see them, but I don’t want any funny business.”

  “There won’t be.” I thought for a moment. “Mom, I really appreciate everything that you’ve done for me.”

  “You’re welcome, sweetie.”

  “I’ll go talk to the Cupid and see how long they’re staying.”

  “Okay, but don’t take too long. I made a cake!”

  “Sounds delicious,” I said warmly. I strolled across the yard until I was next to the shimmering figures. “Hello,” I said, careful to keep my back facing the partygoers. I didn’t want them to see me talking to a blank space.

  The Cupid looked at me, annoyed. “I’m sorry, but I’m with clients right now. If you need anything, you can contact our office. Do you need that information?”

  “No, thank you. I do need your help, though.”

  “I told you I’m with clients,” the Cupid said, her tone terse.

  “I heard you, but I’m desperate. I was left here by accident in the wrong time. I’m thirty-two, not eighteen. I’ve already been to college, gotten married, got divorced, moved back to my hometown, and procured a new job. I am not going to relive that. I can’t relive that.”

  The Cupid grimaced. “I’m not supposed to take hitchhikers.”

  “I am begging you to help me,” I pleaded.

  The couple, who had been ignoring me, turned and stared at me. “Go ahead and take her back with us. We don’t mind,” the guy said.

  “This is exactly what pisses me off about you, Gerard. I cannot stand that you speak for the both of us!” shrieked the woman.

  “I’m sorry, Greta, but she looks like she needs help. Do you actually mind if we take her back with us or are you just bitching to bitch?”

  “Hey!” shouted the Cupid. “What did we discuss?” she said, sweetening her voice. “We should speak to each other in a loving, positive, and supportive manner.”

  “Fine, take back the beggar,” Greta mumbled. “I’m tired of her whining anyway.”

  “That’s the spirit! Kindness is always wonderful!” the Cupid said cheerfully. “Now,” she said, speaking to me, “I’m going to have to do something to separate your current body and your former body.” She produced a crossbow from a sling behind her back.

  “I thought Cupids used bows and arrows,” I said nervously.

  “Most of us do,
but the crossbow really pops, don’t you think? It makes me look fierce.”

  “Cupids aren’t supposed to look fierce,” I pointed out.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head vigorously. “Not fierce as in scary. Fierce as in runway fierce.” She gestured toward her outfit. “Like I slay this outfit. I don’t mean slay as in murder it. I mean slay as in I kill it, I pull it off.”

  “Uh-huh,” I replied.

  “Are you sure you’re from the present?”

  “I am, but I’m older than you, and I don’t use those slang terms.”

  “Oh,” the Cupid said thoughtfully. “I guess you wouldn’t. Well, let’s raise the roof, shall we?”

  “Too young for that one, at least.”

  “Whatever. Let’s do this.” She raised the crossbow and shot me in the chest.

  White-hot pain coursed through my body and I screamed. I fell to the ground, pain washing over me in waves. As I writhed in agony, I saw my younger self saunter back to the party, completely unaware of what had just happened.

  “Stop being such a baby!” Greta yelled.

  I clutched my chest, expecting to feel a bolt. Instead, I felt nothing but the fabric of my shirt and warily rose to my feet.

  “Are you all right? That looked like it really hurt,” Gerard asked worriedly.

  “What is this? Are you trying to be her knight in shining armor?”

  “No,” he replied, his teeth clenched. “Someone has just been shot with a crossbow. That someone has been hurt. I was concerned for that someone’s well-being.”

  Greta flung her hair over her shoulder. “I don’t see what the big deal is. It was a magical bolt, not a real one.”

  The Cupid pouted.

  “Thank you,” I said, my voice hoarse. I looked over my body and discovered that I, too, had become pale and shimmered.

  “We’ll just wait here for a few more minutes,” the Cupid whispered to me. To the couple, she said happily, “Don’t you see how your romance was budding? Greta, don’t you see yourself as carefree, open to the world, and to love?”

  “This feels a little one-sided,” Greta said defensively. “I feel like I’m being attacked. I’m not heartless. I care about people.”

  I doubted that greatly. Greta and my stepbrother’s wife would get along famously.

  “Then why don’t you show it more?” Gerard asked cautiously. “You certainly don’t seem to care about me.”

  While Greta and Gerard argued, the Cupid and I moved away. “Do you ever see a couple and just know that they’re doomed?”

  “I’m always supposed to believe in the power of love,” the Cupid said breezily.

  “So you do, but you just can’t say it out loud.”

  She smiled and lowered her voice. “She’s a real pill. He could do better,” she admitted. “Love will bring him someone who is worthy of his devotion and admiration.”

  “What about her?” I asked. Greta’s hands were flailing in the air as her voice grew higher and higher with anger.

  “Love might help her learn to love herself before sending her someone else,” the Cupid answered smoothly.

  “You’re good.”

  She laughed lightly. “Thank you. I am, after all, almost like a politician. I represent the state of Love.”

  “I’m ready to go back. Take us back,” Greta demanded.

  Gerard shoved his hands into his pockets. I caught his eye and tried to smile, but he merely frowned and looked away. I recognized that expression. He was giving up on Greta and was already mourning the end of their time together. Greta wasn’t even aware of how much she had wounded him. She probably never would and would feel blindsided when he parted ways with her.

  “There’s so much more to see,” the Cupid said, though her enthusiasm was waning.

  “I don’t care!” snapped Greta.

  In a flash of bright red and pink smoke, we were gone.

  Smoke was still swirling around us after we stopped moving. We were in a bustling office that looked like it came straight out of a midcentury newsroom. “Are we back?” Gerard asked.

  “Yes. You’ll have to sign the exit paperwork. Last desk on your left. The person’s name is Grover. He’ll help you with any questions you might have. Oh, and, if you don’t mind, there’s a survey at the end that I’d love for you to take. It helps us be better, which also helps you!”

  Greta practically stomped away. Gerard looked at the Cupid sadly. “Thanks for trying,” he said.

  Whispering in his ear, she said, “It will be tough to leave her, but you need to. You will find love again. It will be powerful and true. I promise you this.”

  He brightened slightly. “Thank you.”

  Watching him walk away, I asked, “Can you see the future?”

  The Cupid shook her head. “No, but you get to learn to trust your gut feeling when it comes to this job.”

  I held out my hand to shake hers. “Thank you so much for your help.”

  She returned the handshake. “You’re welcome, but you can’t leave yet. I have to make a report about why I brought back an extra passenger and I’m going to need you to sign it. You’ll also need to log a complaint against whomever left you in the past.”

  “It was Marcy Bloomberg.”

  The Cupid inhaled sharply. “Seriously? I am so happy I am not you right now. She is going to want to throttle you. Her record is spotless.”

  “You’re going to have go to back and try it again.”

  “The hell I am!” I seethed.

  Simon nervously straightened the already-neat stack of papers on his desk. “Yes. That’s final.”

  I slammed my hands down on top of his desk. “No, it’s not. I am not going anywhere with that woman. I don’t care how great she’s supposed to be, I don’t care that Abby channeling my magic caused a ripple, and I don’t care what Fate thinks. I refuse. No more memory trips. No more time traveling. I’m done. I just want to get back to my work and put this whole experience behind me.”

  “I’m afraid it’s not that easy, Carmen,” Simon said gently.

  “I swear that if I see Marcy again, you’ll regret it.”

  “I understand why you’re upset,” Simon began.

  “Oh, do you? Really?” I could feel my temperature rising as anger boiled beneath the surface.

  “Calm down. People will hear you and no one knows you’re here. They all think you’re downstairs working on that Vegas mess.”

  “Marcy left me in the past, Simon. She never even came looking for me,” I said, not bothering to lower my voice.

  “She was going through a tough time,” my boss replied simply.

  “A tough time?” I laughed mirthlessly. “Did she even tell you what happened?”

  “Her husband was having an affair.”

  “No, he wasn’t.”

  “You of all people should be understanding. You went through the same thing.”

  “My ex-husband cheated on me with other women. Her husband is cheating on her with food.”

  Simon stared at me, flabbergasted. “Food?”

  “Yes. She put them on a diet and he’s not been following it. She was distracted because she was tracking his movements and caught him buying doughnuts and that’s how we wound up with me in the third grade again. She apologized and transported us to my senior year of high school, right before she became furious and promised to be right back and that’s the last time I saw her. She was so focused on him eating a fucking doughnut that she couldn’t do her job and she almost royally screwed me over.”

  “Really, you’d only have screwed yourself over if you had changed the past.”

  “But I didn’t,” I lied. I didn’t think that not sleeping with Xander would change the present, and I had been right. Telling Maeve about not going to Egypt, however, had the outcome I wanted. She had switched her studies from archaeology to paleontology and was working at the Museum of Natural History in New York City. In the brief amount of time I was able to research her, I dis
covered that, while she and I remained on good terms, we had drifted apart as we’d gotten older. I was okay with that. She wasn’t missing and that gave me comfort.

  “I’m sure you didn’t,” Simon said, skeptical. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to do this again. I also need to tell you that you should drop the complaint because it will make working with Marcy much easier.”

  “Hell will freeze over first, Simon.”

  “You really don’t care about the repercussions of someone else channeling your magic?”

  “I do care,” I answered. “But I don’t believe that one person doing that one time is going to suddenly alert the rest of the mortals that witches and wizards are real and that, should they touch us during a memory trip, they can do whatever they want with our magic. Just make people wear special gloves so there is no transference of power.”

  Simon leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on his desk. “Okay.”

  “Okay? Is that it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “I’m not in trouble?”

  “This incident will show up on your record as a slight insubordination, but you recommended a solution, so I am sure that it will be expunged by next year.” He chuckled. “I told them you wouldn’t be interested in going back with Marcy.”

  “Then why did you push me so hard?”

  “It’s my job.” He shrugged.

  “What happened while I was gone? How was my absence explained to Abby and Finn?”

  Simon looked at his feet guiltily.

  “Simon, what happened?” I demanded.

  He held out his hand and a bottle of water appeared. He took several sips before responding. “The tech took the android to New Bern to be you. Here, people thought you took an impromptu vacation.”

  “Samuel and Carmen were in my house for a week?” I sunk into his guest chair and rubbed my eyes. “Finn.”

  “Now, Carmen, Finn never realized there was a difference.”