“You always say that.”
“Yes, I imagine I’m prone to repetition. Nature of a repetitive spirit manifestation, isn’t it? After all the time I spent studying them, I have to say becoming one isn’t very interesting.”
He always said that, too.
“I miss you, Arthur. I never really got the chance to tell you when it mattered, but I think I was falling in love with you.”
Arthur eyebrows arched. His glasses slid down his nose. He pushed them up.
“I had no idea.”
“Neither did I. Not until after you were gone.” She sighed. “Died, I mean. You’re still here.”
“And you still come to visit me?”
“I hope you aren’t here. And I hope you are.”
“Connie, you can’t torture yourself like this. I’m sure you did everything you could to save me.”
She laughed. “I’m not feeling guilty, Arthur. I’ve lost people before. Goes with the territory. I just wish we could’ve lived different lives.”
“Yes, well, I’m afraid it’s too late for one of us. And you never really had a choice.”
“I’m going to become normal,” she said.
“Do you want to do that?” he asked.
“I’m going to try.”
“No, Connie. I didn’t ask if you could. I’m asking if you want to.”
“Of course I want to. What kind of question is that?”
“Connie, being normal isn’t as easy as not having adventures. It’s not something you just become.” He tried to take her hand, but his fingers passed through hers. “Oh, right. Ghost. Keep forgetting that. My point is that you can’t just elect to be normal. You’ve seen and done too much. It’s not as simple as flicking a switch.”
“I know at least four or five guys with time machines,” she said.
“Time machines are not how ordinary people solve their problems,” he said. “As I recall, you always said time travel never works out the way you want, anyway.”
“I never got to go to my prom,” she said.
“I didn’t go to mine.”
“I didn’t get to go. I was off fighting yetis on Venus. Not that it would’ve mattered. I barely went to school. Didn’t make any friends there. You’re my second-best friend, Arthur, and you’re dead.”
“Again. Not a very ordinary thing. Is it so bad being special?”
“I used to love this stuff. Gallivanting across the universe, fighting evil, discovering lost mysteries, saving the world.” She smiled. “It was fun. And I didn’t think a whole hell of a lot about what I was losing in the process. Proms and weddings and casual Fridays. I lost my virginity in the Amazon jungle to Korak the Savage, and it was glorious. But it isn’t supposed to be like that.”
“It’s easy to see what you don’t have.”
“Don’t feed me that grass is always greener line. I keep thinking of all the things I didn’t have that most people do, and it’s starting to piss me off. I know a million people would trade places with me in a heartbeat, but it’s not everything it looks like from the outside.”
“Yes.” He cleaned his glasses. “As clichéd as this might seem, we all have our crosses to bear.”
She was hoping he’d understand where she was coming from. His own extraordinary passion had been his undoing, and now he was trapped between life and death. It probably helped he kept forgetting that.
“I missed your funeral, Arthur.”
“I’m sure you had a good reason.”
“There are always reasons. And they’re always good. But, goddamn it, I loved you. I could have at least been there to pay my respects.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this experience, it is that ghosts don’t generally care about such things.”
“Yes, but the living do. I do. Even if I ignore all the things I can’t get back because it’s too late, I think about all the things that are destined to come up. My mom had a bunion removed the other day. She didn’t call me. It wasn’t a big deal, but one of these times, it will be a big deal. And I won’t be there for her or Dad when it happens. I’m sure there will be a good reason for it, but it won’t change that I’ll end up letting down the people I care about.”
“But what about all the people you’ve helped?”
“Strangers. Mom keeps a scrapbook of all the commendations, thankful letters, and awards I’ve gotten. It looks nice, but what does it add up to in the end?”
“Haven’t you saved the world on multiple occasions?”
“That’s what people tell me, but I’m beginning to think that the world isn’t as fragile as all that. The universe got along just fine for billions of years without me. I don’t think it needs me to save it. I think it all works out about the same in the end. Sometimes, I like to think of myself with a dead-end job that I dislike, a husband who is letting himself go, and some ungrateful kids I take to soccer practice. It sounds dreary, but at least it would be my life. I know it sounds selfish.”
“It’s not selfish,” he said. “Or maybe it is. But it’s not unreasonable.”
He smiled at her, and he was so handsome in a bookish way that she wished she could kiss him. Touch his face. Caress his hand. Anything.
“My question does then become Can you?” he asked.
“I can try,” she said.
“I’d wish you luck, but you don’t need it.”
“Thanks.” She paused on the way out of the study. “Sorry again about missing your funeral.”
“Funeral? Wait? Am I dead?”
Sighing, she closed the door on him.
3
Connie, as a woman of two worlds, had always had some trouble making friends. The extraordinary people she met on her adventures were usually so busy on their own adventures that unless they needed help foiling an alien invasion or exploring the booby-trapped ruins of a long-lost civilization, they didn’t keep in touch.
Ordinary friends came with their own unique set of problems. It wasn’t easy to balance the normal and the extraordinary. Those two sides of her life didn’t get always get along, and the consequences could be bothersome.
She’d had three boyfriends meet tragic ends. Once would have been bad luck. Twice would have been forgivable. Three times was a sign from the universe. The healthiest relationship she’d ever had had been with a warlord who lived in the mythic past, and that was complicated by the whole time travel thing, which she’d learned to avoid ever since having to kill several evil versions of herself from the future. Or would kill them at some point. She still wasn’t clear on that.
Connie did have one friend among the ordinary, who had been a friend of hers since Connie’s seventh birthday party, which had been interrupted by a giant snake attack. After she’d slain the monster by taking advantage of its severe birthday cake allergy, all the other children had fled. All of them except Tia, who had managed to save a cupcake for Connie. From then on, they’d been the best of friends.
They’d made plans to meet up at their go-to, a kitschy chain restaurant designed with a manufactured quirky aesthetic. It was boring and dull, the kind of place adventures didn’t happen. Not often, anyway. Everywhere Connie went, adventure might be lurking.
Connie arrived first. She always did. It was protocol. She found a table, and when she sat down, her cell rang.
“The eagle eats cheese at midnight,” said Tia mysteriously.
“The moose dances under the half-moon,” replied Connie, equally mysteriously.
There was a pause.
“Wait. Is that good or bad?” asked Tia.
“Why are you asking me? You’re the one who came up with the code phrases.”
“It’s a lot to keep track of. Moose is code for vampires, right? Is there a vampire there right now?”
“Moose is code for aliens,” said Connie.
“There are aliens there?”
Connie glanced at the unassuming man sitting at a booth across the room. Not many people would’ve noticed the secon
dary gills on his neck or the slit where his third eye was shut tight. Even fewer would’ve known to look.
“There’s one,” she said. “But he’s just here with friends. Shouldn’t be a problem.”
“This isn’t going to be like the mummy incident, is it? As I recall, you said he wasn’t going to be a problem, either.”
“No, I said I didn’t think he would be problem. Mummies are unpredictable. You’re the one who still wanted to go to the Egyptian artifacts exhibit with me, even knowing my history with the cursed undead. So, that wasn’t my fault. But this is just an alien, a native of the Ragkurian Spiral, from the looks of it. They’re perfectly harmless.”
“Then why did you mention him?”
“Will you stop giving me a hard time and just come on? The coast is clear, I swear. The most dangerous thing here is a woman at the bar contemplating killing her husband for the insurance money.”
“You know I love you, Connie, but it’s creepy when you do that detective thing.”
“Sorry. We can do this at the Safe Zone.”
The Safe Zone was the break room at the insurance company where Tia worked. Nothing exciting ever happened there.
“No, it’s cool. I’m sick of microwaved burritos, anyway.” Tia slid around from behind Connie and stepped up to the table. Tia hung up her phone and arched her eyebrows. “Did I surprise you?”
“Sure. Totally. I had no idea you slipped the busboy ten bucks to hide in the kitchen to try and get the drop on me. Just like I have no idea that you got here forty minutes early to do it, and that you ate a BLT when you got too hungry to wait.”
Tia took a seat at the table. “Somebody is feeling snarky today. I take it the job interview didn’t go very well.”
“I did keep the world from killing us all, but other than that, it was a bust.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“It’s cool. I’m just cranky because I’m hungry.”
Connie ordered a soup, sandwich, and beer. The soup was bland. The sandwich was chewy. The beer was warm. None of which was surprising. The restaurant’s unexceptional nature was why they came here.
“I still don’t know why you want a job, anyway,” said Tia. “Jobs are boring. And you don’t have to work, right? You’re rich.”
“Not as rich as you might think. Most of the treasure I’ve collected over the years was cursed. You can’t really spend that stuff. But, yes, I’m not hurting for money. This isn’t about money. Money doesn’t mean much when you don’t have time to enjoy it, and if I could go on a vacation now and then, I wouldn’t have much to complain about.
“Every day is an adventure for me. Every single day. Sometimes, if they’re short, I can manage to fit in two in a day. I just want to go home, curl up on the couch, and not worry about being kidnapped by rock monsters or getting mixed up with handsome, devil-may-care rogues.”
“I keep telling you to feel free to send any unwanted rogues my way.”
“They lose their charm,” said Connie. “And that’s if they don’t end up betraying you in an elaborate scheme to steal the crown jewels of England.”
“I bet betrayal sex is pretty hot, though,” replied Tia with a wry smile.
Connie nodded. “True. It’s almost worth it. Just as long as you don’t mind dangling over a crocodile pit afterward.”
“I still have a hard time believing they have a crocodile pit in the Tower of London.”
“They have crocodile pits everywhere.”
Tia asked, “What’s your plan, then?”
“Who says I have a plan?”
“You do. I can see it your eyes. You’ve got that look. Determined. Focused. Don’t deny it. I’ve seen it a thousand times before. Which leads me to believe that you’re about to do something foolhardy and incredible, and since it’s been a while since I’ve seen it, I can only assume that this is all about your desire to be normal.”
“That detective thing is kind of creepy,” agreed Connie.
“For an ordinary person, I have my moments.”
“You’re right. I do have a plan, and the beauty of it is its simplicity.”
Connie leaned forward. The cheap restaurant lighting cast dark shadows across her face.
“I’m going to kill my fairy godmother.”
4
Constance Verity wasn’t born special, but she did become special a little over three hours later.
The very short woman fluttered into the hospital room. Her tiny gossamer wings were far too small and delicate to bear her aloft, but since they barely flapped at all, it was safe to say they were mostly for show. She wore a garish purple-and-blue pants suit. Glittering gowns had fallen out of favor among her profession several decades before. She still had a fondness for sequins, and they sparkled on her lapel.
“Ah, there you are.” Her round, cherubic face wrinkled into a soft smile. Her rosy cheeks glowed, and she removed a wand from her inside jacket pocket. “I had a devil of a time finding you, my dear.”
Mr. Verity, an unassuming man of indeterminate ethnicity and aged somewhere between twenty and fifty years (as best any casual observer could guess), was a technical sort and was intrigued how she managed to stay airborne. His first guess was some manner of wire harness, but that seemed impractical.
“May we help you?” he asked.
She chuckled. “Oh, no, it is I who shall help you. Not you, specifically. It’s far too late to help you. You’re both perfectly fine, perfectly dull people, though I don’t mean that as a slight to either of you. The world can always use more perfectly fine, perfectly dull people. But your daughter need not be one.”
Constance’s mother, who was every bit as indeterminate as her husband, said, “Did Sharon send you?”
“Fate itself sent me, my good woman. To offer a blessing on this beautiful child.” She landed beside the bed and offered a business card to Mr. Verity. It read GRANDMOTHER WILLOW, FAIRY GODMOTHER.
Grandmother Willow winked at Constance, who studied her godmother with the blank, confused stare reserved for newborns and potheads contemplating if their cats knew the secrets of the universe and just weren’t sharing them.
“How much does this cost?” asked Mr. Verity as he waved his hands over Grandmother Willow in search of wires.
“For you? Not a thing. I’ve been contracted by an outside agency for this one.” She put her stubby finger to her lip. “Don’t ask me. I’m not allowed to tell. But one blessing shall be yours, and it shall shape the course of this beautiful child’s life in the most fantastic ways.”
She tapped her wand against the end table to shake loose the fairy dust. A small pile of colorful sand glittered like a rainbow.
“The question is, what form shall that blessing be? Great fortune? Too uninteresting. Great fame? Too shallow. Flawless beauty? So last-century. Superhuman strength? Too traditional. Speaking with animals?” She shook her head and chuckled. “Heavens, no. The chattering gossip of birds alone is enough to drive one to endless distraction.”
“Don’t we get a say?” asked Mrs. Verity, who didn’t believe this for a moment but was enjoying the game.
“No, no, no. Parents can’t be trusted with this decision. It’s far too important. Perhaps I should ask the child herself.” Grandmother Willow floated over the bed, and Mr. Verity decided it must have something to do with magnets.
“Tell me, dear child, what is your fondest wish?”
She hovered close to Constance, who gurgled.
“I see. But could you be more specific?”
Constance sneezed in Grandmother Willow’s face. Frowning, the fairy godmother landed at the foot of the bed. She wiped her face with a handkerchief as a dark little cloud rumbled over her head.
“A dangerous choice, little one, but it is yours to make.”
She waved her wand in circles in the air, spewing sparkling dust throughout the room.
“Though all other mortals tread in either the ordinary or the fantastic, you shall journey through
both. On the dawn of your seventh birthday, yours shall become a life of adventure and wonder, and it shall be so until the day of your glorious death.”
A blinding light bathed the room.
“So it shall be!” shouted Grandmother Willow. Her words echoed throughout the hospital for several minutes, running back and forth playfully through its halls.
The light vanished in a pop.
Grandmother Willow brushed the fairy dust off her shoulder. There was a layer of the stuff on everything.
“Sorry about the mess.” She nodded to Mr. and Mrs. Verity as she tucked her wand back into her pocket. “Good day. And congratulations.”
She hovered out the door via a carefully concealed personal hovercraft built into her slacks, Mr. Verity decided.
5
“Isn’t it bad luck to kill a fairy godmother?” she asked.
“Probably,” said Connie. “But it’s what I need to do.”
“That’s pretty cold-blooded.”
“I’ve killed before.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. Those other times, they were self-defense, right? You’ve never tracked someone down to kill them before, have you?”
“The way I see it, this is self-defense.”
“You’re sidestepping the question.”
“I’ve studied under the second-greatest assassin in the universe. And when he was killed by the greatest assassin, I studied under her. I’ve seen enough and done enough to know that life is cheap, and that the line between hero and killer can be a thin one.”
“Oh, brother.” Tia rolled her eyes. “How long have you had that speech in your pocket?”
“Since this afternoon when I came up with this plan and knew you’d try to talk me out of it.”
“I’m not trying to talk you out of it,” said Tia. “I’m just trying to get you to think about it some more. It’s what friends do when friends are on the verge of possibly making a mistake.”
“You do think this is a mistake.”
“I said possibly. I don’t know, Connie. I haven’t led your life, but I have been sitting on the sidelines for most of it, been mixed up with it now and then. I can say this isn’t you. You’re not a killer. Not like that.”
The Last Adventure of Constance Verity Page 2
