Pooka in My Pantry

by R. L. Naquin

  I considered this for a moment. “So, with you here, shouldn’t that knock out the hex, or whatever it is?”

  Silas frowned. “Yes. Unless you already have a good-luck token cancelling it.”

  I dug in my pocket and held up the gargoyle stone. “You mean like this?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Sorry about that. Thought it would keep you safe with me around. I didn’t realize you had something else before I got here.”

  My head throbbed from the bump I’d taken, and the pain was spreading. “I’m not following you.”

  Andrew’s head moved back and forth from me to the seemingly empty space I was conversing with. “You have a bad luck curse on you?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Plus a good-luck stone made of gargoyle snot. And a bad-luck pooka companion. Apparently, I’m all kinds of messed up. This curse must be my test. But how does all this add up to the walking disaster I’ve been all week?”

  Silas, exhibiting more patience than I thought he had, launched into an explanation of what he called “luck math.”

  “First of all, stop thinking about it like they’re numbers you can add and subtract,” he said. He took a seat on the edge of my desk and swung his legs. “There’s good luck, bad luck, and neutral luck.”

  “Okay.” I glanced at Andrew. “Sorry. I’ll explain all this when I understand it.”

  He nodded.

  “Don’t look at him, look at me,” Silas said.

  I snapped my head back. “Sorry. Isn’t there any way you can, you know, show yourself to both of us?”

  “No. One person at a time. Them’s the rules. Now, listen up.”

  I shrugged, shook my head at Andrew and returned my full attention to Silas.

  “Luck is normally set at neutral. When other forces come into play, they bring either a negative or a positive charge. Do you remember the rules of multiplication? A negative times a negative is a positive, right?”

  I thought about it. “I’m not great at math, but yeah, I’ve got you.”

  “And two positives, multiplied, are still positive, yes?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “But luck doesn’t carry any actual value, so in the case of a negative and a positive, when they meet, they even out and create a neutral.”

  I thought about this a minute to get it straight. “Okay. So, two symbols of bad luck actually create good luck. Two good lucks are also good. One of each makes a neutral.” I gave Andrew a quick look to make sure he caught everything so far.

  “Right,” Silas said. “That’s the easy part.”

  I sighed. “It gets worse?”

  “How much do you remember about algebra?”

  “No,” I said. I shook my head from side to side, regretting it when pain blossomed down my neck. “I’m not doing algebra with luck. I was promised there would be no algebra in the real world.”

  “Girly, the real world has nothing to do with this.” He hopped off the desk and paced the floor while he spoke. “The only thing you have to remember is the order of operations. Opposites have to be figured first. Imagine they’re in parentheses in the formula.”

  “Formulas. God, help me,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  Silas poked my bandaged hand. “It’s only complicated if you make it that way. If you have a bunch of different kinds of luck, you take each negative and match it with a positive. Those matched lucks all cancel each other to neutral. Once that’s done, you see what you have left over. One or more good lucks, and you’re fine. An even number of bad lucks, and you’re fine.

  “But—if you have an odd number of bad luck leftover, you’ve got bad luck.”

  My head swam. But I thought I had it.

  “Okay,” I said. “From what we can tell, I’m sitting on three forms of luck juju at the moment. Two are bad lucks—this reaper mark thing and you. And one is a good luck symbol—the gargoyle snot rock.” I paused, checking to see that I had it right so far. He nodded.

  “You and the snot rock cancel each other out, leaving the reaper whammy. So, that’s why my luck has been so awful.”

  “Good,” he said. In his best professor voice, he brought in the final exam question. “And how can you fix it, then?”

  I bit my lip while I puzzled it out. “If I want to bring myself back to neutral, I have to get rid of one of the bad luck symbols, or bring in a second good luck symbol.”

  He smiled. “Sure. Got a lucky rabbit’s foot lying around?”

  “No.”

  “So, what are you going to do?”

  “Get rid of you?”

  “Not likely, girly. Darius sent me here for a reason, even if I’m not sure what that reason is. And I never miss a good show.”

  “How do I get rid of the mark?”

  “You don’t. That’s gnome ink. It’s like a temporary tattoo. Lasts for thirteen days. Any other ideas?” He looked smug, as if I’d missed something.

  I looked around the office, seeking something lucky, searching my memory for anything with the slightest reputation for good luck. I drew a blank.

  “You forgot one of the rules,” Andrew said. He leaned across the desk and grabbed the snot rock. “Let the two negatives fight it out by getting rid of the positive charge.” He turned the stone over in his hand, examining it. “Is this really gargoyle snot?”

  I nodded. “Who knew?”

  He made a face and slipped it in his pocket. “You’ll get this back at the end of the semester.”

  Silas wandered over to Sara’s desk, whistling. “I think my job here is done.”

  “Is it naptime yet?” I asked. He was turning all of Sara’s pictures upside down and rearranging her plants.

  He ignored me. Milo whimpered under the desk.

  Andrew straightened in his chair. “Now that we have you sorted for the moment, I kind of have to ask you a huge favor.”

  I grinned. “Jeez, Andrew. You came all the way down here, and I never once asked you why.”

  “You had issues to deal with first.”

  “Still. Horrible friend. What do you need? Name it.”

  “Don’t be so quick to say yes until you hear what it is.” He looked uncomfortable. This was going to be a good one.

  “Andrew, I owe you my life on at least two counts, plus various emergency calls for mythical creatures, and don’t forget the tea for my migraines. And the aura spotting. Also, you keep me from thinking I’ve lost my mind. Let me do something for you, for once.”

  He laced his freckled fingers together. “Okay, here’s the deal. And you can say no if you don’t have time or don’t want to do this.”

  “Spit it out, Andrew.” I laughed. I’d never seen him anything but sure of himself before.

  “Fine. My grandparents are having their fiftieth wedding anniversary, and I want to give them a second wedding—you know, a vow renewal thing. I have no idea where to start.”

  “It’s what I do for a living. I’m happy to help. What’s the catch?” There was a catch. The way he was acting, there had to be a catch.

  He shifted in his chair. “Grammy can’t travel well anymore, so it has to be at the retirement home.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “And it’s a week from Saturday.”

  Ah. The anticipated catch.

  I straightened my shoulders, put on my business face and took out a fresh checklist and notepad. “All right,” I said. “Let’s do this.”

  I asked questions about the location, the happy couple, their likes and dislikes. Andrew answered me in a solemn tone, knowing he was asking me to perform six months of work in a little over a week.

  Silas was bored in the first three minutes.

  “You’re not seriously going to spend the rest of the afternoon choosing flowers and tablecloths?”
He sounded exasperated.

  I glared at him. “I’m sorry I can’t be entertaining every second of the day. This is kind of my job, you know.”

  He made a comical harrumphing noise. “I’m not going to sit here and listen to it.”

  With my head bowed over my paperwork, I snorted. “Nobody’s asking you to.”

  “The inside of my eyelids would be more interesting. Wake me when you get home.”

  With that, Silas popped out of existence.

  “What’s he saying?” Andrew asked.

  “Nothing. He left, leaving glorious silence behind.”

  I rose from my chair to retrieve a box of cookies Sara had left behind. Milo chose that moment to dart from under Sara’s desk across the room, directly in my path. I managed four graceful steps before I tripped over him and fell on my face.

  I lay there for a moment, wondering what had happened. We’d fixed the bad-luck situation. We’d calculated the formula. I should not be facedown on my office floor with a skinned knee and two broken fingernails, examining the carpet weave.

  A slow realization crept into my banged-up brain. “Andrew,” I said, my voice muffled by carpet. I stuck my arm up and behind me without looking at him. “Could I have that rock back now?”

  The stone dropped into my hand. “I think we have a new problem,” Andrew said.

  I pulled myself to my feet without assistance, having brought my luck needle back to neutral with the charm in my hand. “Silas comes and goes all the time. The balance will keep going back and forth with him. If he shows up, I have to get rid of this. If he leaves, I need it again.”

  “For today, I’ll stick with you. I can take it off you if he returns.

  I sighed and straightened my crooked skirt. “I think what we need is more good luck.”

  Chapter Seven

  The problem with finding lucky talismans is not that they’re so rare, but that they’re so plentiful. Souvenir shops often sell laminated four-leaf clovers and rabbit’s feet in garishly dyed colors. Antique stores sometimes offer carefully aged horseshoes to hang over your door. Scan any sidewalk long enough and there’s bound to be a penny to pick up.

  Fortunately, Sausalito had an abundance of all these places. But does a lucky rabbit’s foot or four-leaf clover really hold any magic when it’s gone through so much processing? Does plastic seal in the luck or leech it away? Does aquamarine dye make the luck brighter, or does it dull it? If you search for a lucky penny—or worse, if your friend drops one for you to pick up—is that as powerful as coming across it when it’s unexpected?

  And seriously, lucky or not, I couldn’t see myself lugging around a horseshoe.

  We loaded up with everything we found, kitschy or not, and hoped for the best. What I really needed was a luck-o-meter so I could check my status. Maybe a dowsing rod of some kind. Andrew tried to check my aura, but luck didn’t show up in the patterns and swirls of colors he could see.

  Somewhere around the third shop, Milo’s little legs gave out. Or maybe he was feeling needy. Either way, he wouldn’t go another step unless I picked him up and carried him. He wanted nothing to do with Andrew. It had to be me. The little fluff ball had nursed a serious crush on me from the moment I first walked through Andrew’s door. Andrew had said that animals naturally trusted me because I was an empath. I got along well with animals, but had never noticed it was a thing. I’d spent most of my life being oblivious to my own weirdness.

  My pockets jangled with all the loot we’d found, but neither of us thought any of it was any good. It was junk and we knew it.

  Andrew stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, his blue eyes wide. “I know where to take you,” he said, grinning. “Why didn’t I think of it before?” He grabbed my elbow and whisked me down the street.

  When he opened the door to the shop, a sweet cloud of smoke drifted out. A bowl of incense burned just inside, and we walked through the smoke into the bright and cheery space. The incense was light and uplifting, not at all the cloying scent I expected. Crystals and dreamcatchers hung from the ceiling, and bins filled with semiprecious stones lined the walls. Further back, the main store opened into other rooms filled with books, and a staircase led up, the walls tacked with strange maps and drawings.

  I’d seen the store before, but never had a reason to wander into a place called Endless Moon. I figured it was a place for new-age hippies and people who believed in weird shit like ghosts and psychic phenomenon. Things that go bump in the...Oh.

  Maybe I should sign up for a rewards card.

  Zoey Donovan, this is your life.

  A man sat on a stool behind the counter, his shaggy, gray head leaned forward over a book. Bells jingled when we walked in, but he took the time to finish the page he was on before he looked up.

  “Andrew! Great to see you,” he said. “And Milo brought a friend with him. Wonderful! Make sure you all spend a little time cleansing before you come in. You never know what you’ll pick up on the street.”

  I looked around for hand sanitizer or a wash basin and saw nothing. Andrew nudged me and put his hands directly into the stream of smoke from the incense, then cupped it in his hands and pulled it over his body. I had no idea what he was doing. My hands were full of fox. I did my best to run first one hand and then the other through the smoke, and Andrew wafted it over the rest of Milo and me. I didn’t argue. When in Rome.

  Having doused ourselves in smoke sufficiently, we made our way to the counter.

  The man came around and gave Andrew a huge bear hug.

  “Jason, this is my good friend, Zoey,” Andrew said.

  Before I had a chance to say anything, Jason folded Milo and I into his arms and squeezed us tightly. “I’m so glad you’re here, Zoey.”

  I smiled up at him. Behind his thick glasses, his brown eyes sparkled with little flakes of gold. “It’s nice to meet you,” I said. Milo squirmed in my arms, demanding release for the first time all day.

  Jason laughed and held out his hands. Milo wiggled from my grasp and leaped at the man, who caught him up for foxy kisses. He tucked the animal under one arm and went behind the counter, digging around until he found a bag of homemade dog biscuits. Milo yipped and took a treat before Jason put him on the floor to eat it.

  He waved his hand at us. “Come to the back. I’ve got tea and people cookies.” He headed down the hall, pausing to shout up the stairs. “Lola! I need you to mind the front for awhile.”

  A young, blond woman, thin and willowy with eyes rimmed in black eyeliner, stampeded down the stairs. When she got to the bottom, she stopped. “Oh. Hi, Andrew!” She kissed his cheek and scurried to the counter. As we walked into the room, I could hear her chattering to Milo at her feet.

  Jason led us to comfortable, mismatched chairs, surrounded by brightly painted tables and shelves packed with books. Andrew and I sat to wait while Jason set up a tray of fragrant tea and tiny cookies made with sunflower seeds and honey. After reassuring me that Jason could be trusted with my whole story, Andrew filled him in on my need for a powerful good-luck charm. I contemplated the tiny cookies. I took a bite of a silver dollar-sized treat, and it was tasty as hell. I did some quick cookie math. If my normal cookie intake was, say, three or four regular-sized cookies, how many miniature cookies should I eat when trying to be polite?

  Andrew interrupted my musings with a polite cough, and I looked up from the plate.

  Jason made thoughtful sounds while he tugged at his scraggly gray beard. He shook his head. “I have a lot of things that give off positive energy and a few that are supposed to attract good luck, but I don’t think there’s anything here of the caliber you need.”

  I nodded. “I figured. They put a pretty good whammy on me.”

  He took a cookie and crunched it while eyeing me up and down. “I could do a reading for you, though. Maybe
it’ll tell us if you’re really this Aegis thing or not so you can plan accordingly.”

  “You read the future?” I curled my hands around my tea mug and watched his face. My friend’s faith in this man went a long way—I trusted Andrew with my life and all my secrets. Still, it was difficult to shake a life of skepticism. Even after having Andrew read my aura so many times, I wasn’t totally on board the psychic train. Sure, I’d seen a lot of things that I wouldn’t have thought possible in the past. But that didn’t mean every person who professed to have supernatural gifts really had them.

  Jason smiled as if reading my thoughts. Maybe he was reading them. Or maybe my face was too expressive to hide anything.

  “No,” he said. “I read the past, not the future.”

  I gave him a blank look. “Oh.” I couldn’t imagine what good it would do for this nice man to tell me my past. I’d already lived it. I needed to know what was coming next, not what had already happened.

  He settled in his chair and took in a big, noisy breath through his nose, held it, then blew it out through his mouth. It looked similar to the cleansing breaths Andrew had taught me to take when working on my empath skills, only bigger somehow. After the third breath, Jason opened his eyes and stared at me with an intensity that made me uncomfortable. His pupils had dilated to triple their original size, and his gaze grazed my body and looked deeper.

  I shivered.

  Jason’s eyes, already large, widened further in surprise. “You’re Clara’s daughter,” he said.

  My fingers went cold around my cup. I nodded, numb and without words.

  His expression softened and his gaze cleared. He looked at me instead of through me. “I liked her very much,” he said. “She was one of my favorite customers. Always with a kind word or a helping hand. She was a dear friend.”

  I didn’t think I’d ever stop being surprised each time I found another piece to the puzzle of my mother’s secret life.

  Jason shifted in his chair and sat up straighter. His eyes resumed their unfocused stare. He lifted his left hand and slid his fingers left to right, as if moving the beads on an invisible abacus. He mumbled as he sorted backward through my life, examining events and pushing them away. “Incubus, marriage, college...” He stopped, his eerie gaze flicking up at my face. “Your father’s passing was very hard. I’m so sorry.”