by Mara Webb
“You literally have found him! Twice! We just need to figure out who he is!” A devilish look came over her. I recognized the glint in her eye, it meant mischief was abound, and that some ulterior plan was brewing in her mind. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Mom hopped out of the chair and ran over to her over-sized handbag. She pulled out a book and set it down on the table. “Have you read this?” she said. I grabbed the book and looked at it, recognizing the cover as one that I had seen advertised recently.
It was a crime thriller, titled ‘DEAD AS A DODO’, authored by a LK MOON.
“No, I’ve seen it everywhere though. Who is this guy? I’ve seen everyone talking about his books, I’ve been meaning to check one out. Wait! You think this guy could be my dad?”
She laughed and shook her head. “Chelsea, no! It’s the twenty-first century, get with the times. I am LK MOON!”
“What?!”
“Darling I started writing crime books on the side to pass the time and I got published! Several times! LK Moon! Lorelai Kinsley Moon!”
My mouth was wide open, and I didn’t even know what to say. For the first time in my life I was actually proud of my mom. “Mom, that’s amazing!”
“Thank you darling. I’m trying to keep it all hush hush, I can’t be rattled with the fame, but I thought it was time to clue you in on matters.”
“I don’t understand though,” I said. “What does this have to do with my dad?”
“Darling it has everything to do with it.” She paused. “Possibly. A studio has picked up my book, and they’re making it into a TV movie.”
“Okay? That’s awesome. I’m still lost though.”
“Chelsea dearest, they’re filming it here on Pendle Island. The producer that picked it up is an old flame of mine, and he’s on the muse shortlist. I came back to the island to check up on the production.”
“I thought you came back here to visit me.”
“I came back for several reasons! My point is that there’s a possibility this man might be your father. I’m swinging by the studio tomorrow to nosy about. What do you say? Want to come with?!”
Mamma mia!
2
I half anticipated the rest of the day to be more melodrama and stress, but thankfully mom took herself upstairs and busied herself with unpacking her things. Despite her insistence that she wasn’t planning on staying here long, she did want to sleep at the house for a night or two.
As I currently already had a houseguest, things were a little tight space wise, so I decided the best thing to do was give mom my room while I crashed at Deacon’s place.
When I came back to the house the following morning, I found my mom, Serena—my houseguest—and Artemis all sat around the kitchen table laughing.
“Oh it’s true! It’s true!” Artemis roared as I walked in on the tail end of some evidently hilarious joke. Serena was cooking breakfast at the stove and wiping a tear from her eye, while mom was at the table almost doubled over in stitches.
“Good morning all,” I said unsurely and set my things down. “Glad to see we’re all in a good mood.” To be honest I’d half expected mom to rub Serena and Artemis the wrong way, so I was happy to see everyone getting on. “What’s so funny?”
“Lorelai was just telling us about the time you threw up at Dolphin World!” Artemis howled. “Chelsea, you have so many funny stories, how have you not told me any of this?!”
“Gee, I don’t know. I will make sure to volunteer the most embarrassing moments of my life more freely going forward!”
“Chelsea sweetest don’t be a spoilsport, we’re just having a bit of fun!” mom said from the table. I grabbed a slice of toast and gave Artemis a little scritch behind the ears.
“I’m regular size again!” he said. “Can you believe it?! Lorelai helped fix me!”
Artemis had run into a little bit of magical trouble recently when brewing potions at the bottom of my garden. His confidence exceeded his ability and after changing a few ‘harmless items’ in the recipe my little cat started to grow until he was the same size as a small dinosaur.
Serena attempted to help fix the problem, but things went too far the other way. Artemis ended up the size of a mouse and no one knew how to fix it.
“You fixed this mom?” I said.
“It was the least I could do. People always act so surprised when they remember that I am a good witch! I could teach you a trick or two you know! Where is the knight in shining armor by the way? I assume you are going to introduce us?”
“Deacon had to run to work, but I’m sure you will meet him at some point.” Something that I was not looking forward to. “Did I miss much while I was gone? Serena?” I was looking at Serena because as houseguests went, she was a bit of a nightmare. Serena was a special type of witch, one that could transform into animals. After spending several years as a puma that roamed the island she had shifted back into her human form.
Shifters apparently got shifter sickness after spending too long in one form, and it made them do funny things until their logic clicked back into place. Serena was a sweetheart, she really was, but after several days of her antics I was ready for her to get better.
“Don’t worry Chelsea, I’m all better!” she said. “I had a very strong impulse to pull up all the floorboards this morning and turn them over, you know, so they feel good under foot, but I didn’t!”
“That’s great, we’re making progress!” I said through my best smile.
“I caught her in the middle of the night darling,” mom laughed. “She was on the landing with a crowbar and a hammer. She only managed to rip up a dozen of the things. It’s all fixed now.”
“Ah. Marvelous,” I said through gritted teeth. “How about you Artemis? Have you done anything to make my hair fall out?”
“How very dare you! I have enough on my plate now that oaf Adam is back! Do you know how many pranks I have to catch up on?!”
Adam looked after the gardens and lived in a little cabin at the back of the house. He and Artemis didn’t get on, and Adam had been missing for a few weeks after he ran into trouble with a local werewolf pack. Adam was a werewolf too, though he had never officially said as much to me. While he was gone Serena decided to help look after the garden, and in her temporary lunacy she ended up pulling up all the grass.
“Leave Adam alone, he’s been through enough,” I said.
“Oh you’re no fun,” Artemis growled. “That does remind me though. Do you have any books that I can read on mystery solving?”
“What? No. Why?”
“No reason,” he said, his eyes moving about shiftily inside his skull. “Hey, here’s the oaf now!”
The back door opened, and Adam came into the kitchen. He was a big man and dressed like a lumberjack most of the time, but this morning he was in a vest and cargo pants. He was covered in sweat, had a large machete in one hand and mopped a hand across his forehead.
“My favorite gardener!” mom swooned from the table.
Adam laughed nervously. “Morning Ms. Moon. Oh, Chelsea, you’re home!”
“I am. What’s going on? You look like you’ve been wading through the Serengeti.”
“What’s the report Adam?” mom said as she took a bite of toast. “How far back does it go?”
“I have no idea, but it’s big all right! It’s hot in there too! I’ve got my work cut out for me!”
“I prowled the perimeter this morning,” Artemis said. “It’s the same size as the garden on the border, but once you get in there… it’s a different story.”
“I saw a toucan on the kitchen windowsill this morning!” Serena said. “Do you think it came from in there?!”
“Can everyone stop one sweet monkey moment and tell me what’s going on?” I said.
“Oh Chelsea, I’m sorry. I keep forgetting you weren’t here last night,” my mom said. “Mommy did a little magic to help patch up your garden and well—” She paused to take a sip of her tea. “We
ll perhaps it’s best you just see for yourself.”
A moment of dread came over me as I looked at the back door. I had no idea what was in store for me now, but something told me it was going to be interesting. With a breath to still my nerves I walked out of the back door and braced myself to see a—jungle in my back garden.
“What in the name of Avalon…” I muttered to myself. The back garden in this house was already a pretty decent size, one long lawn that was about half a football pitch. The garden still appeared to be that width and length, but inside those normal boundaries I could now see a deep and seemingly endless jungle.
“Yes!” Mom laughed as she stepped out of the back door to join me. “There’s a chance I may have messed things up. If I’m being honest, I don’t know how to fix this one, Glenda might know! She always was the resourceful one.”
“I don’t even know what to say.” I stood there listening to the distant whoop of what I suspected to be howler monkeys. “Why is my life like this?”
“Oh darling, it’s better than the field of dirt that was here before! Live a little!” Mom kissed me on the cheek and looked at her watch. “You better hurry up and get ready. I told Tyson we would meet him at the studio by 10!”
“Tyson?”
“The sweetheart responsible for putting my book on the silver screen!”
“I thought you said this was a TV movie?”
“It’s still a big deal! Now hurry up and get ready and we can go to the studio. You can drive us, right?”
“I don’t have a car.”
“Oh Chelsea! I’ll call the studio and have Tyson send someone. Just hurry up!”
Mom disappeared back inside the house, leaving me to stare at the jungle in my back garden. Adam was staring too. I heard the faint sound of tribal chanting on the air.
“I uh… better go check that out,” he said, brandishing a machete as he headed into the jungle.
“Pretty neat huh?!” Artemis shouted from the door. “Say, what’s a red herring?”
“I’ve officially gone mad,” I whispered to myself.
A taxi arrived shortly after and picked us up. Normally I relied on my cousin Lizzie or my Aunt Glenda for lifts around the island, but Lizzie had a busy couple of days at the music studio, and Glenda and my mom hated each other, so that ruled her out too. I did have enough money now to sort out my own car, I just needed everyone else in my life to leave me alone for two minutes so I could organize a bit of car shopping.
We got into the taxi and mom immediately started flirting with the taxi driver, an older Italian man who seemed nice enough, but was no catch by any stretch of the imagination. The most important thing is that he didn’t have a ring on his finger, which was basically an open invitation for mom. By the time we got into Pendle town center the two of them were practically howling and laughing, and the energy in the car was vibrant—for them.
“Oh darling drop us off here for two minutes, would you? Lorelai likes to start her day with a sweet tea!”
“Sweet tea?” the driver said as he pulled his cab into a parking space on the street outside Café Arcana. I hadn’t actually been here yet, but I’d heard good things about their tea. “Aren’t you already sweet enough?!”
“Oh Frankie, stop!” Mom said, laughing much too much at the cab driver’s line. “Make sure you write that number down while you’re waiting. You are my personal driver going forward!”
Mom hopped out of the car and I joined her. We walked down the sidewalk to the café, mom smiling to herself all the while. “Ooh, great energy with this one, Chelsea,” she said as a shiver shot through her. “He’s already deeply in love! I think he’ll propose by the weekend!”
“It’s a miracle there’s anyone left on this island that you haven’t already fallen in love with.”
“I guess moving away for twenty years paid off! There are ripe pickings for momma! What do you want to drink?”
“Whatever you’re having. I’m going to wait out here on the sidewalk. I need a bit of fresh air.”
“Suit yourself darling. Two mins!” Mom kissed the air on both sides of my cheeks and disappeared inside the café. I looked up at the sky and frowned at the grey clouds swirling overhead. It had been blue when we left the house and I’d forgotten to pack a raincoat or umbrella, if I was lucky the rain would hold off, but that wasn’t likely on Pendle Island.
As I waited there on the sidewalk, I gazed at an empty parking lot between two buildings on the other side of the street. I don’t know what captured my attention exactly, but all of a sudden the dull lot came to life. A small white circle of light appeared on one of the walls and a man with a long silver beard stumbled out.
Straight away I recognized the magical homeless man as Benny, someone that I had run into on the island a few weeks ago. When I first met Benny I didn’t realize he was a wizard, I just assumed he was a regular homeless man, but after giving him a dollar he gave me a wish in return and vanished in a cloud of smoke.
I thought nothing of it at the time, but when I told Lizzy and Artemis, they were both very excited. Apparently, it was rare to see Benny, but he was kind of a big deal on the island, a local celebrity wrapped in an enigma.
The magical door closed behind Benny and the kooky looking wizard immediately started fiddling with a tie around his neck. He was wearing denim cutoffs, a floral Hawaiian shirt and a bright pink baseball cap. Needless to say the tie didn’t really go with the rest of the outfit. For some reason I felt compelled to go over and say hi.
“Benny!” I shouted as I ran across the road. He looked confused to hear his name but smiled as he saw me approaching.
“Let me guess!” he said. “You want your wish?!”
“What? Oh, no! I just came over to say hi!”
“Oh!” he said, his thick white eyebrows high upon his forehead in surprise. “Well, most folk don’t voluntarily want to talk to me!” Benny shifted the tie around his throat, using both hands as he tried to wrestle with the knot.
“Are you trying to tie that?” I asked. “Do you want a hand?”
“Would you? That would be great. Thanks!”
I completely unknotted the tie and looped it around his neck as I started from scratch, in a few seconds it was done, neat and proper. “There you go,” I said. “What’s the occasion?”
“Job interview!” he said, kind of shouting, but in a happy way.
“You have a job interview? You’re looking for work?”
“Oh, I work. Well, I did, but they’re cutting me loose!”
“They?”
“Can’t really talk about it,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “Top secret stuff. Complicated state missions… magical espionage of the highest order!”
“I… see,” I said, getting the impression that this all might be some sort of delusion. “So you’re a spy?”
Benny laughed. “No! You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
“No, it’s just—”
“There’s a lot of homeless people spouting crazy, I know how it seems!”
“I’m sure there are, but I believe you,” I said, feeling like I wanted to humor him for some reason. “You do have a bit of a crazy energy about you though,” I said.
Benny nodded. “That’s what happens when you’re a Cepa!”
“A what?”
“A Cepa! It’s Latin for onion! Meaning, many layers!”
“Okay…” I said, feeling like I wasn’t any closer to understanding Benny’s special brand of crazy.
“Touch my hand, I’ll show you!”
I did. I’m not sure why. Maybe I was just trying to cheer up a crazy old man on a quiet weekday morning, but when I touched his hand the craziest thing happened. Everything around me seemed to split into a thousand pieces.
“What is happening?!” I said.
“You’re seeing it!” Benny said. “The layers! Every action and likely reaction, and every action after that!”
I didn’t understand at all, all I could
do was watch in utter disbelief as I saw things unfold around me. I saw thousands of versions of myself all walk off and move across the lot in different directions. I saw countless versions of Benny, all doing slightly different things. I realized that I was seeing the multiple possibilities that branched off from this very moment, a universe of choices all hiding within one innocuous second.
I pulled my hand back as quickly as I could, my ears deafened by a thousand potential conversations. “That’s what you see all the time?!” I said in amazement.
Benny nodded and cackled. “The world’s an interesting place when you deal in time magic. Bet I don’t seem so crazy now!” The old man squinted at the hardware store next to the lot. “You think they’re hiring?”
“I think you might be a tad overqualified. Couldn’t you, I don’t know, get rich on the stock market or take advantage of this power to do anything?”
“Can’t do that,” he said, as if he wouldn’t even consider the idea. “Time magic can’t be learned, it’s a gift and a curse, one that shouldn’t be taken advantage of!” He paused and thought to himself. “I could get a hotdog stand…”
“Well I should get going,” I said. “Do you need anything? Money? A sandwich?”
“Oh you’ve already given me the best thing I could ask for, a good conversation! Now you should mind yourself.” He snapped his fingers and a canary yellow umbrella appeared in his hands. He handed it to me, and rain started to sprinkle down. “You’re in for a firecracker of a day!”
I opened my mouth, but Benny suddenly disappeared in a poof of smoke, leaving me alone in the lot by myself. I took a second to try and ponder what had just happened and ran back across the road just as my mom came out of Café Avalon.
“Oh Brian, you really are a riot, and still so strong! See you tomorrow darling!” she shouted to whatever unfortunate soul was working inside the café. “Chelsea! Here you are sugar, one vanilla iced tea, extra honey!”
“Sounds… interesting,” I said as I took the cup. “Thanks. Should we get back to the cab?”
“Let’s! Oh, I can already feel Frankie’s eagerness buzzing on the air. Doesn’t it make you feel young Chelsea?!”
