by Judi Fennell
“Where do you think your kind got the story?” Merlin fluffed his breast feathers, and a shower of pink sequins fell like peri dust onto her arm. “And no, I’m not a merlin, though I must say, I do appreciate the honor of having a species named after me. I’m a phoenix, you know. And not just any phoenix, mind you. I’m the First Lieutenant of the Third Order of Pyre. Pretty spiffy stuff, if I do say so myself.
“You should be thanking your lucky stars—which are Vega and Rigel, by the way—that you’re meeting me. Do you know how many mortals go their entire lives without seeing a phoenix?” He struck a pose, one orange-and-red-striped leg stretched out beneath an open wing. “So, Mr. Negativity, are you sufficiently impressed?”
Zane looked anything but impressed. Disbelieving, stunned, maybe even a touch angry… And, with his gaze on the ceiling, praying.
Great. She did not need him invoking the gods. One word from Saraswati to the High Master and it’d all be over. She’d be whisked right back to Al-Jannah, the djinn capital city, to be reprimanded for all her transgressions (of which there were plenty) and possibly stripped of her status.
And that could not happen because not only would she be a failure in the (overly critical) eyes of her parents, as well as a joke in the djinn world, but she’d let Peter and the children down. And none of them deserved that. The children had been so innocent in their transformation and Peter had been so kind to her, believing in her when no one else had.
“Uh, what’s the matter, big guy?” asked Merlin. “Cat got your tongue?” He nodded Zane’s way and said behind his raised wing to her, “Why is it so hard for mortals to believe in us? They’re all for aliens and loch monsters and conspiracy theories, but show ’em a real, live talking bird and they dumb up.”
“I’m not ‘dumbing up,’” said Zane, shaking his head and glaring at Merlin.
Good. Vana always preferred mortals who accepted magic; it gave them a starting point for conversation instead of the mortal merely staring at her as if she had a big wart on her chin like some witches she knew.
She’d have to hold off mentioning the children, though. Merlin was enough of a surprise for now. She’d release them when Zane wasn’t around. Children could be quite exuberant, especially when they’d been tucked away nice and safe and invisible in the armoire in the attic for a hundred years. When she’d caught them dancing in Peter’s study during that last party, where anyone could have found them, she’d magicked them to the attic, planning to let them out once the party was over. Only, the bear had shown up and, well…
“Merlin and I have known each other for about five hundred years,” she said to get her mind off that fiasco. “He kept me company while I was hanging out in my bottle.”
“Actually, Van, it’s 567,” said Merlin, tossing back the moussed-up pompadour on his forehead that was starting to droop in the late-afternoon humidity. “Remember the years in Rio?”
Merlin had inspired the themes for Carnival when they’d been there.
“Wait. Hold on.” Zane held out his hands. “How much am I supposed to put up with today? A genie isn’t enough? Two broken legs don’t cut it? Time travel? No?” He raked his hands through his hair. “Now I have to buy into a talking myth named after a myth?”
“And what, exactly, would you call Vana, then, oh Great Bestower of Nicknames?” Merlin propped his bent wings on his flanks.
Vana shushed him. The bird never could tell when mortals were on overload. When he got like that, all he had to do was burst into flame and rebuild himself, but no other creature on earth (or off it, for that matter) had that same stress reliever. Sometimes Merlin, who was almost as narcissistic as Narcissus, forgot that.
Vana turned toward the attic doorway. “How about we go downstairs and I’ll make us something to eat? I bet we could all use some food, and it’s been eons since I’ve had someone to cook for.”
She tossed Merlin into the air, the beads woven into the ends of his tail extensions clattering on the hardwood flooring as he took flight, and she tugged Zane’s arm. “Come along, master. I promise you, Merlin doesn’t bite.”
Not with his beak, anyway. His words, on the other hand, were a whole other story.
***
Zane brushed the corner of his mouth in case he was sporting some of the potato latkes Vana had whipped up with the lamb stew for dinner. It’d taken her three tries before the bullwhips had stopped showing up with the food, but the effort was worth it.
“So why were you in the bottle, Vana?” He tried ignoring the talking phoenix perched on the chair beside him. He wasn’t sure which freaked him out more: that phoenixes were real, or that the bird could speak. “I would’ve thought Peter would’ve wanted to keep you with him at all times. A lot of people would be after you if they knew.”
She finished the last bite of her latke and washed it down with some sweet mint tea. “Well, after the incident with the stairs—”
“Incident, Van?” asked the phoenix. “That was a bit more catastrophic than an ‘incident.’”
Yeah, it was the fact that the bird talked.
“Go on, Van,” Merlin chortled. “Tell your new master about the stairs. It’s one of my favorite stories.”
She turned a shade of pink softer than the color of her smoke, and Zane wanted to hurt Merlin for hurting her. He reached for her hand to keep from punching the feathered bully. “That’s okay, Vana. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“No, it’s all right. It’s not as if everyone doesn’t already know it. Well, everyone back then.”
Right. Then. Zane still hadn’t wrapped his brain around the fact that she was eight hundred and twenty-nine years old. As of two weeks ago.
“I was trying to repair the bottom of the staircase because of an earlier, er, mishap—”
“I tried to tell you bear claws weren’t the best kind of pastries to conjure, but you wouldn’t listen,” said Merlin, bolting back another latke.
Vana pursed her lips but kept going. “As I was saying, I was trying to varnish the stairs, but instead, they vanished. Peter was understandably upset with me.”
“Understandable? Really?” Merlin shook himself so hard he started molting. “Seriously, Van, you deserved better than that. For all your shortcomings, it wasn’t as if you did it maliciously. Not like Mr. Hornswager, or whatever his name was. Hunting that bear down during the party… Thank the gods I was in Antarctica that day or I would have fried myself to a crisp. It still burns me up.”
Zane stuck a latke in the bird’s face. Vana was feeling bad enough already.
“Hey, thanks.” Merlin scarfed it down.
“Yes, well.” She fiddled with her fork. “Peter suggested I take a break inside my bottle, and he put it out of the way for safekeeping. Unfortunately, he died shortly thereafter and I ended up stuck. I used to hear the family, though. The parties, the holidays, people stomping up and down the stairs.” She had a soft smile on her face, and for a moment Zane forgot that she was a genie.
Until the bird ruffled his feathers, sending sequins cascading into the stew, and the whole illogical reality of the situation returned with a rush.
“So you were here all along when I was growing up?” he asked, scooping the floaters out of the dinner and onto a dish towel Vana handed him.
She nodded. “I remember hearing the birthday parties in the backyard. I used to try to imagine what it’d be like to know Peter’s family. He was a good man. Had everyone’s best interests at heart.”
“They said he was delusional. A crazy old man.” Zane couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice. Bitterness… and self-recrimination. Because he’d bought into those stories. He’d condemned Peter along with everyone else, when all along Peter’s genie had been the one wreaking the havoc.
And now she was his.
His.
The word sounded hollow. Zane didn’t want anything from Peter. Not this legacy and definitely not a genie who could royally mess things up for him if the pre
ss ever got wind of her.
Zane winced. Like Merlin said—and he couldn’t believe he was actually agreeing with the feathered menace—Vana didn’t mean to be a mess; she just was. Zane couldn’t condemn her for it, but at the same time, he could want to keep her out of sight.
Jesus. All he’d wanted to do was come home, pack up a few things, sign some papers, and the family homestead would be no more. He’d never seen a genie coming—who could have?
Peter, that’s who. His great-grandfather had actually gone on a quest for one. And Zane supposed most people would be thrilled. After all, she could grant his every wish.
Hmmm, he’d forgotten that in the ensuing insanity. Maybe he should use it. See if she could do something to make him a starter again. She could put his body back in the shape it’d been in ten years ago, make him catch the ball every time and outrun every opponent. He could be MVP. A Pro Bowler again. Win a Super Bowl. Vana could do all of that for him.
Except he’d feel like shit about himself the whole time. Winning was nothing if you didn’t do it yourself. And yet, one bad play could change the entire game, both on the field and off.
Sighing, Zane picked up the cast-iron salt shaker in the shape of a little girl Vana had set on the table earlier. His grandmother’s. “I remember this.” He turned it around. The dent that had made him laugh as a boy was still in the girl’s backside. When his grandmother had finally figured out what he’d been laughing at, she’d shoved the shaker into the cabinet and had never pulled it out again.
“Peter got that in Germany,” said Vana. “It made the trip back with us. The motion of the ship would clink it against my bottle, kind of like a song to put me to sleep every night of the crossing.”
Zane looked at it. The piece had been a joke to him but a nice memory for her. “Here.” He held it out. “You should have it.”
“Really?” She licked her lips and took the shaker. “Thank you. This is one of the nicest gifts anyone has ever given me.”
“Be real, Van,” said Merlin. “It’s the only one anyone ever gave you. Most of your masters were single-minded in pursuit of their hearts’ desires. This one’s different.” Merlin arched his eyebrows. “Jury’s still out on whether that’s a good thing or not, Romeo.”
Vana clamped the bird’s beak shut. “Hush, you. It’s very thoughtful and I’ll treasure it always. Thank you, master. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”
“You can start by calling me Zane. ‘Master’ is a little much.”
She bowed her head. “Zane, then. Thank you. And I hope you don’t find this condescending, but I think Peter would have been very proud of you for that kindness.”
That made him shudder. Sure, okay, he knew the truth now, but still… thirty-plus years of stigma didn’t go away in one afternoon.
He glanced at the Swiss cuckoo clock on the wall. It’d probably been a long time since anyone had reset the timing weights on Mom’s pride and joy. “I wish that still worked.”
Vana perked up and sat straighter in her chair. “Oh, I can do that, master. I mean, Zane.”
She aimed a kiss at him again, and suddenly the weights started swinging wildly and the little wooden bird shot out of the tiny door to chirp the hour—except that it was twenty-three minutes after five. And the bird didn’t stop at the end of its perch; the momentum flung it off the end.
Then the minute hand went haywire, followed shortly thereafter by the hour hand. And the chains started swinging not only faster, but out of sync so every couple of seconds there was a clash as the two weights smacked into each other.
“Holy smokes.”
He was seriously coming to hate that phrase.
“Can you fix it?” He had to shout over the din because Merlin had ducked his head beneath one wing and was making some weird, keening noise.
“Um… yes.” She cleared her throat and sat up a little straighter. “If that’s what you wish, I can.”
He could have sworn she muttered, “I hope,” when he said, “I do,” but she puckered up and blew a kiss.
The bells and whistles stopped. The weights stopped. The clock hands stopped. And the little bird flew backward from the floor onto its perch, which then zipped back inside, and the door slammed shut.
“Ah, peace at last. Never a dull moment with you, is there, Van?” Merlin scratched his beak with a talon—that was painted teal blue.
“I wouldn’t mind a dull moment, actually.” Zane pinched the bridge of his nose. “Listen, Vana. I’ve got a real estate agent coming out this week, and I can’t have wacko clocks or talking birds,” he glared at Merlin, “or flying carpets or… jitterbugging willow trees.”
“Now that would be something to see,” said Merlin. “They do look pretty when they waltz, though.”
Zane glared at him again. “You know what I mean. I need Vana to keep her magic under wraps.”
“Why do you have a real estate agent coming here?” She walked to the sink and started cleaning the dishes.
Zane carried his over, then propped his hip against the counter. “I need to find out what the house is worth so I can put it on the market.”
“Market?” A curtain of her hair shielded everything but her upturned nose.
“It’s a building with products for sale,” said Merlin. “But that’s not important right now.”
Vana flipped her hair back, her silver eyes sparking with surprise. Or maybe that was the glint of the late-afternoon sun through the bay window above the sink. “You mean you’re going to sell Peter’s house?”
“Not Peter’s house, Vana. Mine. And, yes, I am.”
“But why? This is your home.”
“My home?” Zane reached for the dish towel and handed it to her because she was dripping suds on the floor. “This isn’t my home. It wasn’t even when I lived here. I have a life somewhere else and it’s not practical to keep the house. It makes more sense to sell it.”
She twisted her hands in the towel with more force than mere drying merited. “Not to me it doesn’t.”
“Uh, Van?” Merlin leaned toward her and spoke out of the side of his beak. “I don’t think you get a say in the matter.”
She stopped mangling the dish towel. “But Peter wouldn’t want you to sell it.”
“Peter’s not here.” Zane took the dish towel from her and spread it out over the back of the ladder-back chair.
“But I can’t leave here, Zane.”
That didn’t exactly strengthen her argument. He could lose the house, the legacy, and the cause of it in one shot.
“Vana, while I get that you cared about him, I can’t keep the house.”
“But the ch—the chores. I could help you with them. I could even fix the house up for you. You’d love it. I can make it look just like it did when Peter lived here. It was the most beautiful home in town. And the parties… ah, the parties. Everyone wanted to be invited, and there was music and dancing and food…”
“And uninvited bears,” said Merlin. “You know they only wanted to come to see what Crazy Pete would do next, Van, right?”
Vana’s exuberance deflated like a balloon.
Zane glared at the bird and mouthed one word. “Barbecue.”
Merlin gulped.
Zane didn’t know why he cared, but he did. She looked so forlorn. He guessed that was understandable, though, given that this place had been more of a home to her than it’d ever been to him. “What was the house like back then, Vana?”
“It was lovely. All the rooms were decorated just so, and the gardens… Peter had such lovely gardens, and I didn’t even have to use my magic on them. Nature has her own magic, you know. How else could there be such perfection in rose petals? Such symmetry in daffodils? Such perfume in jasmine—”
“Such poison in oleanders,” said Merlin out of the other side of his beak. He then looked up at the clock, whistling an off-key tune.
She pulled her hands free and clapped them together. “Oh, Zane, please let me turn it back in
to what it once was. I promise you won’t want to sell it. You’ll want to stay.”
No he wouldn’t. But he’d kicked enough kittens for one day, and she looked so darn hopeful, he couldn’t kick another. Besides, he’d been planning to do some work around here, and the better the condition the house was in, the more he could get for it.
“Vana, I am going to sell, but if it means that much to you, sure, you can help me fix it up.”
Silver flashed in her eyes just before she jumped up to plant a kiss on his cheek—but one small turn of his head and that kiss was everything it’d been before: hot, delicious, sexy—and over entirely too soon.
“Sheesh, you two,” whistled Merlin. “Get a room.”
There were a dozen and a half of them in this place, and Zane wouldn’t mind christening every one.
Which could pose big problems in the days to come.
9
“So what’s the plan again?” asked Merlin. “You lost me.”
Zane would like to lose him. The damn bird hadn’t shut up since they’d stepped off the porch, bitching the entire walk around the property. Zane had offered him the opportunity to leave, but the bird felt some crazy compulsion to stick to Vana like glue, as if he expected Zane to try something.
Yeah, he might be thinking along those lines after that teaser of a kiss in the kitchen, not to mention the one in the attic when he’d thought she was a figment of his imagination. But she was a genie, for crying out loud. One didn’t lust after a genie.
Then she walked a few steps ahead of him, her see-through outfit leaving nothing to the imagination, and yeah, maybe one did.
“Isn’t this where the lawn-bowling court used to be?” Merlin clacked his beak, and midflight, his wings turned purple and gold.
“Yes. By the fence beneath that mimosa tree,” Vana answered.
“I’d rather have a mimosa than go lawn bowling near one.” Merlin landed on Zane’s shoulder. “You don’t mind, do you, buddy? My wings were getting tired. Just flew in from Baghdad, you know.” The bird cracked only himself up with the joke. “Geez, talk about boring. What is it with you mortals? Can’t take a joke.”
