Utterly Charming

by Kristine Grayson

  He reached the door of the Porsche and pulled it open. Hot air streamed out, and he sighed again. He walked back to the sidewalk and opened the passenger side. What had he been thinking when he bought this thing? A black car always absorbed the heat. He would wait a few minutes before folding himself inside and then trying to find the switch for the air-conditioning.

  While he waited, he gazed back up at the windows of Nora’s loft. If anyone without magical powers could defend Emma against Ealhswith, Nora could. She had shown such fire, such spark. And that intelligence of hers intrigued him more than he wanted to admit. He even liked the sharpness of her tongue. It was a wonderful contrast to that petite beauty, which made her look so vulnerable at first glance.

  She was anything but vulnerable. She was tough and smart and confident. In his very long life, he had never met a woman like her.

  In fact, the feeling he got when he looked at her—well, he would have thought that was what it felt like to gaze on your soul mate. Of course he was wrong. The Fates had told him a millennium ago that Emma was his soul mate. Apparently feeling had nothing to do with it. Having a soul mate was an assignment like everything else.

  Magic was not as simple as mortals believed.

  He crumpled himself into the driver’s side of the Porsche, leaned across the stick, and pulled the passenger’s door closed. Then he started the car, pressed the clutch, put the car in first, and pulled out, letting the engine roar. Nora had to hear that. She had to know that he wasn’t happy. And he wasn’t. He had expected to take Emma home with him. He had imagined laughing in Ealhswith’s face. He had imagined a happily ever after.

  Instead his soul mate was staying with a woman he couldn’t get out of his mind, and they were both being threatened by a creature who made the Wicked Witch of the West look like she needed wickedness lessons.

  Nora had made it clear that he was uninvited, but he couldn’t accept that. He had to get her to change her mind somehow. Surely after a few hours with Emma it would become clear to Nora that she was in over her head. After a few hours, she would be ready to let Blackstone take Emma off her hands.

  He would see Nora at the office. By then, she would have changed her mind.

  By then, he would know how to fix all that he had done wrong.

  ***

  “The cover story is this,” Nora said after she and Emma had cleaned up the spilled tea, found the other cat, and had a rather lengthy and too technically accurate discussion of how the sink worked. They had also discovered that Emma wore the same size clothing as Nora and managed to squeeze her into some jeans and a loose blouse. It did make her look a bit more modern.

  Thank heavens.

  “Cover story?” Emma asked. She was standing beside the sink, one hand on the metal basin, the other toying with the faucet. She would turn it on, put her fingers beneath the water, and then turn it off. Nora didn’t want to think about how Emma would react when Nora showed her the shower.

  Nora had just finished using the phone. Emma had clearly thought that odd but hadn’t said anything. Which was good. Nora was getting tired of explaining things. The argument they had had over the toilet made her lose some of her enthusiasm for the job.

  “Cover story,” Nora said. “We have to have some kind of tale to tell other people about you.”

  “Would it not be simpler to tell the truth?” Emma asked.

  “No,” Nora said.

  “I do not understand why. Truth is always best,” Emma said.

  “You haven’t met my mother,” Nora muttered.

  “I do not see why I have to,” Emma said. She turned the faucet to hot, and before Nora could stop her, stuck her fingers in it. Emma screeched, then pulled her fingers back and shoved them in her mouth. The water pouring into the sink was steaming.

  “Now do you see why you can’t be alone? I’ve already explained the sink, and you’ve burned yourself anyway.” Nora took Emma’s hand out of her mouth and examined the reddened fingers. “No blistering, but let’s ice it just in case.”

  She opened the refrigerator and pulled some ice cubes from the ice maker. Frost spilled out around her.

  “It is winter in there.”

  “Yes,” Nora said. She wrapped the ice in a washcloth and then wrapped the cloth around Emma’s fingers. “This should take some of the pain away.”

  Emma stood there like an obedient child. “You do not seem to like your mother. Why would you leave me with her?”

  “She’s the only person I know who doesn’t work during the day.” Nora closed the refrigerator door and shut off the faucet. “Besides, she’s the only person I know who would probably scare Ealhswith.”

  “Then I do not want to be alone with her.”

  “Relax,” Nora said. “Mother genuinely likes people, and most people like her. It’s magic she’s not fond of.”

  “This is why we need a ‘cover’ story?”

  “Partly,” Nora said. “But we also need it for others as well.”

  “What would this ‘cover’ story be?”

  Nora had been thinking about that since she decided to call her mother. “We’ll tell them that you’ve lost your memory. All of it. Down to the simplest things, like how to work a sink.”

  “She will believe this?”

  “Yes,” Nora said.

  “More than the truth?” Emma asked.

  “Absolutely,” Nora said. “People will believe that you’ve lost your memory a lot easier than they will believe that you were in a magically induced coma for a thousand years.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t argue, please,” Nora said. “Just go with it.” She was feeling impatient. She needed to get to her office to establish Emma as a client and start forging Emma’s identity. She wasn’t sure how she would do that one without breaking a few laws herself; after all, Emma had been born more than a thousand years before. Birth records would be rather difficult to obtain.

  Nora glanced at the kitchen clock. Her mother had said she would be right over. But her mother was never quick about anything. And Nora had made the mistake of telling her to pick up some lunch on the way. It could take even longer.

  “Since you don’t want to sleep,” Nora said, “I suspect it’s time to educate you on the one thing that might help you learn more about this century. Kind of.” She started toward the television, then stopped. How do you explain television to a person who had never experienced radio, or movies, or probably books?

  Emma followed her, and as she did, Nora realized that one thing was missing, the very thing she would need to forge Emma’s new identity. Nora shook her head. Her mind was jumping everywhere, a sure sign that she was overwhelmed.

  “Emma, do you have a last name?”

  “Is it necessary to know to learn this thing?” Emma asked as she came closer.

  “No,” Nora said. “I need it for my work.”

  “A last name?” she asked.

  “You know, like Aethelstan Blackstone.”

  “He did not have the second name when I knew him.”

  “What was his name then?”

  “Aethelstan, son of Elwin.”

  Nora put a hand on the top of the television. “Your village was small, wasn’t it?”

  Emma nodded.

  “How were you known?”

  “Emma, daughter of Ian.”

  “Ian? That’s it?”

  “Do you need more?”

  Nora sighed again. She did. “You’re going to need more of a designation than that. Obviously Blackstone chose two words that fit together. You want to do that?”

  To her surprise, Emma’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Emma?”

  “I am lost,” she whispered. “That is what you must call me. Emma the Lost.”

  “It’s not usual—”

  “I do not care,” Emma said. “You asked me to chose.”

  Nora nodded. “So I did.” She took a deep breath. “We no longer call ourselves using articles, like ‘the.
’ So we will simply call you Emma Lost. Is that all right?”

  Emma nodded.

  Then Nora grabbed the remote. “Okay. Let me explain—”

  The doorbell chimed. Emma crouched, hands over her ears. Nora grabbed her and pulled her up. “That’s what our door knocker sounds like.”

  “Oh,” Emma said.

  Nora helped her to the sofa then went up the stairs to the door. As she pulled it open, her mother swept in, carrying two bags that smelled of kung pao chicken, sesame beef, and something made with curry.

  “I thought you’d leave me out there forever,” her mother said as she headed toward the kitchen. She was wearing a summer dress that flowed around her like a scarf and accented her hair which was, at present, a bronze blonde not found in nature. “I stopped at Chen’s, and you wouldn’t believe the crowd. Fortunately they knew me and—”

  “Mother,” Nora said.

  “—of course I had to wait for almond cookies, so I took fortune cookies instead—”

  “Mother.”

  “—and they weren’t going to give me steamed rice, so I had to call Mr. Chen up front. Or is that his name? I never know. Anyway—”

  “Mother!” Nora said.

  “Nora, dear, you don’t have to be so sharp.” Her mother’s face peered around the cabinets. “Oh, is this your friend? I didn’t see her. Hello. I’m Amanda Lowenstein, Nora’s mother.”

  Emma had her mouth open slightly but didn’t say anything. Then she blinked and said to Nora, “You do not have the same final name.”

  “No,” Nora said. “Mother’s name comes from her third husband.”

  “Fourth, dear,” Amanda said.

  “This is Emma Lost, Mother,” Nora said.

  “Lust? What kind of name is that? Lust?”

  “Lost. As in found.”

  “Oh,” Amanda said. “It’s still a strange name.” She disappeared back into the kitchen. Emma grabbed Nora’s hand.

  “You are not leaving me with her?”

  “Only for a few hours.”

  “I would like to come with you.”

  “That would be harder.”

  “For you perhaps,” Emma said.

  “Actually, believe it or not, it’ll be harder for you. She’s overbearing, but she has no magic. Remember that. And if you can’t stand being around her anymore, excuse yourself and go to the room where you changed clothes. That’s your room. She won’t go in there.”

  “Do you promise?”

  “Yes,” Nora said. She squeezed Emma’s hand and then went into the kitchen. Amanda had taken all the stoneware serving bowls out of the cupboard and was scraping the contents of the cardboard cartons to them.

  “Mother!” Nora said, starting to pull one away and then realizing she was too late. “You’re supposed to eat them out of the cardboard.”

  “Your lax kitchen habits are but one reason Max left you,” Amanda said.

  “Max didn’t leave me,” Nora said, putting her hands on her hips and surveying the disaster her kitchen had become in a matter of moments. “I left him.”

  “Even so,” Amanda said, putting the rice in the last bowl and then shoving that bowl into the microwave, “he would have fought for you if you gave him a proper home.”

  “You didn’t give Dad a proper home.”

  “And see where it got us?”

  The rice spun in the microwave. Squidgy sauntered into the room, tail high, sniffing as if the food were for her. Nora, resigned, took out plates.

  “Mom, I’m not going to stay long. But I should warn you that Emma is a bit unusual.”

  “Everyone from your generation is unusual, darling,” her mother said, somehow forgetting that she was part of a generation that painted itself colors and danced naked in the mud.

  “She has amnesia, and it’s a weird form of amnesia.”

  Amanda took the rice out of the microwave, fluffed it with a fork, and then frowned at Nora. “Weird?”

  Nora nodded. “She can’t remember much about anything. She doesn’t even know simple things, like what a television is.”

  Amanda frowned. “I’ve read about amnesia, dear, and that’s not how it works.”

  “Not usually,” Nora said, “but her doctors say this is a strange case.”

  “Then why aren’t they monitoring her?”

  Good question. Nora hated lying to her mother. “It’s too complicated to explain.”

  “And how do you know her name?”

  “Just her first name, Mother,” Nora said, letting the exasperation creep into her voice. “She chose ‘Lost’ herself.”

  “I think ‘Doe’ would have been better. More common.”

  “Emma’s not a common woman.”

  “I am getting that sense.”

  Nora took one of the bowls and moved it to the table. In the living room, Emma was seated on the couch, petting Darnell. Nora was beginning to wonder if the fickle cat liked Emma better.

  “Please do not take her out of the apartment and don’t under any circumstances let anyone in.”

  “Not even her doctors?”

  “Especially not her doctors.” Nora grabbed another bowl and carried it in. “If someone takes her—”

  “Takes her? As in kidnaps her?”

  “—call the police first and me second.”

  “It sounds like I need hazard pay,” Amanda said, bringing the plates to the table. “Emma, dear, do you prefer silverware or chopsticks?”

  Emma looked up and glanced first at Nora as if she needed help with the answer.

  “You know,” Nora said, “I don’t think it’ll make any difference. I think they’ll be equally confusing.”

  “Oh, dear,” Amanda said, sinking into her chair. “This is worse than I thought.”

  “Now you’re beginning to understand,” Nora said.

  Emma wandered toward the table, Darnell following her like a dog. She sniffed the bowls, the movement delicate. “This is food?”

  “Chinese food,” Nora’s mother said.

  “Chinese—?”

  Amanda frowned. “Well, Cantonese, I think. Or is it Szechwan? Nora, help me out.”

  Nora suppressed a smile, sat down, and spooned rice on her plate. “Actually, Mother, you started it. You can get out of it. I’m just going to eat.”

  ***

  “Bah!” Ealhswith said as she flung a slice of pepperoni and sausage pizza across her living room. The slice stuck to her white wall and then slid, slowly, onto the white carpet, leaving a tomato stain that looked like blood.

  She stood, wiped off her hands, and debated whether or not to make the short trip to New York. A good slice of pizza would be worth it, given the mood she was in. In fact, she could go for a long day of shopping and eating and theater in the City, a day to take her mind off everything.

  Everything, including Emma, Blackstone, that irritating little lawyer woman Nora, and the fact that Oregon—Portland, Oregon, in particular—had the worst pizza on the planet.

  It had been Ealhswith’s mistake. She had forgotten how bad Oregon pizza really was. She’d called for a delivery en route, hoping for a bit of comfort food while she decompressed from this horrid, horrid day. Being ordered out of a lawyer’s house. How low was that? Not to mention the fact that Emma was actually awake. Now Ealhswith had to maneuver her back into her tidy little coma and somehow blame Blackstone for it after she got that annoying attorney out of the way.

  The Fates would hate it if Ealhswith did something permanent to that little meddler. But Ealhswith might do something else, something that wasn’t permanent but which was annoying.

  She just had to figure out what it was.

  Ealhswith clapped her hands together, and the pizza vanished, along with the bloody stain against the wall. Her living room was white on white, as clean as she could get it, and she loved it that way. Her home was always ready for visitors, not that she had any and, if she ever did have any, they would be impressed at how perfect her decor was. Except, of
course, for her bedroom. She would never let anyone in there.

  Ealhswith’s stomach growled. A trip to New York was an indulgence at the moment. She would have to make do with something else. She certainly couldn’t try for another abysmal pizza. Maybe some Thai food. Portland did, at least, have good Asian cuisine. Ealhswith wouldn’t have been able to live here if all of the food were abysmal.

  She set down her remote and scratched a grease smear off her white couch. Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity would never have allowed herself to get uninvited. Nor would Bette Davis in any film she was in. Not even Kathleen Turner, in that terrible remake of Body Heat, would have allowed herself to be manipulated by a person less powerful than she was.

  Following the rules was for milquetoasts like Sarah Michelle Gellar and that flat-voiced redhead who played the exceedingly dull Dana Scully on the X-Files. Television and movies had it all wrong, of course. Powerful women weren’t soft-spoken or the defenders of all that was holy. Mortal entertainment made certain that all the truly powerful women died at the end of their films, usually through a mistake that no powerful woman would ever make.

  It had been years since Ealhswith watched the end of a movie—especially one with a proper villainess. She found series television just as difficult to finish. Still, Ealhswith turned to her rather substantial DVD collection in moments like these, moments when she felt as if she had lost control—however temporarily—of her life.

  She watched key scenes—like the one where Sharon Stone turned a routine police interview into a seduction in Basic Instinct or the moment when Anjelica Huston put wimpy little Drew Barrymore in her place in that saccharine—and mistold—film, Ever After. Ealhswith got her inspiration from scenes like that, and from novels, and plays—Shakespeare wrote some great female parts and could be forgiven for the little weaklings he called his heroines. Lady Macbeth surely could put them all to shame, and as did Kate, wonderful Kate, whom, it was clear, would forever make Petruchio’s life a living hell.

  Ealhswith shook herself out of the thought. As inspiring as she found all of those stories, none of them helped her figure out how to get Emma back. The lawyer had, for the time being, effectively barred Ealhswith from Emma’s life by quoting rules and legalities, and cultural norms, like any good wimpy heroine should.