by Dia Reeves
“You’re ill. No doubt that’s the reason for all this…irregularity.”
Jimi was weirdly grateful that she’d given him such a fantastic out. The Mayor could be a monster sometimes, but she was his monster. His favorite, even when she was eating his friends.
“I would feel more like myself if you put those back where they belong.”
The Mayor hugged the wings tighter, and then gave in. “Remove her coat,” she told Sugar Lynn, who was startled to be singled out.
They shooed Rishi aside Mayor knelt between Jimi and Ophelia so he couldn’t see what she did, but she moved away quickly enough.
The wings were attached, huge and spreading to the side across the lawn; Ophelia was whole, more like an angel than ever. A comatose angel.
“Anything else you require, to close the doors in your mind?”
“Unwind me from this cocoon? Ophelia needs the blanket more than I do.”
The Mayor quickly unwound him, and Jimi collapsed next to Ophelia as his soul lifted from his body, tethered to his bellybutton by a single thread of light.
“Jimi?” Alexis knelt beside him. Swatted at his soul. “What is that? What’s wrong with him?”
“That’s the boy’s soul,” said the Mayor. “Stop hitting it. The last thing you want is for it to drift away. What the hell have y’all been up to?”
Everyone began to talk at once about the volcano and the temple and Jimi’s rescue, and as they explained, the Penetraliad howled like sad dogs. Sort of beautiful, really. Jimi hated Hamlet but the idea of flights of angels singing him to his rest was dope.
The Mayor explained that Jimi’s condition must have been caused by the seers attempt to, not only sever his soul from his flesh, but to make it more attractive to the All Seeing, and possibly tastier.
“How can we fix it?”
“You can’t,” Jimi said. “I’m a goner. You know it and I know it.” He exhaled, and the thread snapped. His soul drifted skyward.
Until the Mayor tossed Ophelia’s coat over it and it sank back down, floating just above Jimi’s chest. He liked having Ophelia’s coat as a shroud, to be surrounded by her as he breathed his last breath.
Jimi pressed his face to Alexis’s thigh. “Play ‘Nearer My God to Thee’ at my funeral. And dress me in my blue suit.”
Alexis stroked his hair. “You outgrew it last year.”
“The gray one then. And attach a carnelian to the lapel.”
“I think he means carnation,” said Rishi.
“Don’t tell me what I mean. Why are you even here?” Jimi’s most perfect vision of his most perfect funeral did not include Rishi.
“I’m proving that I’m not a coward. That I’m at least as brave as you are, you melodramatic son of a bitch.”
“I want a carnelian. On my lapel. At my own funeral. Is that okay with everyone, or am I asking for the moon?”
“The hell is a carnelian?” Carmin asked Lecy, under his breath.
“A red stone,” César said. “Like in his tito’s ring. He was obsessed with it when he was a kid.”
“I’ll find one,” Alexis said.
Sugar Lynn fell against Lecy, sobbing. “He’s dying, isn’t he? After all the trouble we went through to save him. How is that fair?”
“Will you stand over my grave,” Jimi asked, “and weep those same bitter tears for all that I might have been? Ophelia can tell you how to turn your tears black, to give it that special touch.”
“Sure, Jimi,” Sugar Lynn promised. “Whatever you say.” Everyone promised to weep for Jimi.
Except Rishi and the Mayor who were too busy rolling their eyes.
Chapter 30
Jimi awoke in his room in César’s house. Alexis was reading in a chair near his bed. Jimi didn’t mind. He’d been too sick to mind much of anything. He didn’t feel sick now—the gallons of chicken soup and bone broth Alexis had poured into him over the past weeks had done the trick.
“Feeling better?” Alexis asked, as he sat up.
Since Jimi’s skin was no longer transparent, his soul no longer dangled outside his body, and he wasn’t alone inside of an extinct volcano full of people who wanted to eat him, he said, “I’m good. Where’s Ophelia?”
“Resting. Same as you. That eye thing really banged up her soul, but she’s better now. Having her wings back has certainly helped. She’s recovering nicely.”
He relaxed back onto the pillows, after Alexis fluffed them. “I thought I was dying.”
“According to the Mayor, people don’t die from losing their souls. You were sick from lack of food. Proper food. You still aren’t one hundred percent. Drink this.”
Alexis handed him a mug of bone broth, the soup that was like being hugged from the inside.
She started fussing over him: was the soup still hot, did he want crackers, extra pillows.
“I’m all right.” Jimi drank slowly, to better luxuriate in her concern. “Of all the people who came to rescue me, I was most surprised to see you.”
“You shouldn’t have been,” Alexis said, staring him in the eye. Without flinching. “I don’t like to admit it, but I would have gone to Hell to get you back.”
“Why don’t you like admitting it? I like hearing it.”
“You’re the only child I ever had that I didn’t lose. Only I didn’t have you. I try not to get attached to things that aren’t mine.”
“You could get attached. Fiamma’s dead. Even if she wasn’t…I’d rather be your kid.”
It took so much courage to look at her after saying that out loud. But it was worth it. Definitely not the robo face Jimi was used to. This was her friendly face. The French face that he hadn’t seen in a long time.
“You understand about carnelians and you can throttle people with jewelry and you cook the way Jesus would cook if he was somebody’s mother. All signs of quality parenting.”
She was crying now, sort of sniffling. He’d never seen that before, even in France. She wasn’t wearing her black diamonds. Had replaced them with emeralds. He wondered if she’d lost the diamonds down in the volcano, but then he saw the bracelet. The one he’d given her, that rich green color: Alexis liked her jewels to match.
“Did you ever wish for a new baby?”
“No.”
“You should. That bracelet is potent. Or I could visualize a baby into existence. I’d do that for you. I might have to practice—”
“No need.” She dabbed her eyes with an embroidered handkerchief. “My wish already came true.”
It took Jimi a minute to understand she meant him.
“Mom? Do you still have my house key?”
She removed it from her purse on the night table, but instead of taking the key, Jimi took her hand and held it while he finished his soup.
✽ ✽ ✽
The next time Jimi awoke, Ophelia was in his bed, repeatedly kissing his ear.
As if she’d sensed the moment his eyes opened, she sat up. Wings spread. Braided hair forming the halo.
He said, “You’re alive.”
“I know, right?”
“And your wings!”
“Dude, calm down. They look good don’t they? Attached to my body?” She strutted around the room and let him admire her. When one of her wings knocked over his desk chair, she made them vanish, laughing.
“Now come on. Your ma’s downstairs making you soup. So you won’t get sick on all that barbecue and pie and stuff.”
“What?” Allowing her to pull him out of bed.
“She said to ask if you wanted it with or without human remains this time.”
“What?”
“They have a whole freezer full of dead body parts, in case you get the urge to go all Hannibal Lecter again.”
“I am not a cannibal. I could eat a person or I could eat spaghetti. It’s just an option.”
“You don’t have to get defensive. I’m a metaphysical cannibal, remember? I’ll support your gruesome habits if you support mine.”
> “How did you find me?” he asked, getting dressed. “In that place.”
“I ate a piece of your soul; I can always find you. I would have found you sooner, but I was…” She passed Jimi a shirt from the closet without looking at him.
“I know.” He hugged her from behind. “I’m sorry. So sorry I couldn’t stop the Mayor from picking on you.”
“It wasn’t your fault. The Mayor does what she wants. You were right, though.” She gave him that look of bashfulness that always took him by surprise. “You are worth the risk.”
“No, I’m not.” He put the shirt back in the closet, not in the mood for stripes. Or shirts in general. He released his wings and wore them instead. “I never risked anything for you.”
“Nothing except the Mayor’s wrath. Carmin was going on and on about you sassing her. To her face. ‘How would you like it if I became the new Mayor of Portero?’”
“Carmin exaggerates because he didn’t get enough attention as a child.”
“I thought you were scared of her. You and your brass balls.”
“I’m plenty scared. As long as she plays fair.”
“Who decides what’s fair, Bossy McBosspants?”
After Jimi carefully combed his hair, Ophelia ran her hand through it and mussed it, just to be irritating.
“How did you possess your dad anyway?”
He checked his hair and decided he didn’t mind the messy waves she’d created. “Dez showed me how.”
“Of course she did.” But Ophelia wasn’t angry, thank God.
“She didn’t really. I was so messed up in that place, I think I was seeing things.”
“She did. If anyone could get the dead to come back, it would be you.”
“She didn’t, damn it. People are made to move on. I’m okay with that. Now come on. I’m hungry.”
The apartment was splitting at the seams with family and friends. After greeting everyone and their dog in the living room, they moved into the kitchen.
“Look who’s on his feet,” Grandy yelled, prompting a new round of hugs and greetings.
Jimi squeezed Giselle extra tight. She had gone into early labor, but only a week ahead of schedule. The baby was fine, healthy and fat as a Butterball turkey.
Giselle plopped the turkey into his lap. “Can you hold Jimi Junior while I peel these potatoes? Thanks!”
Jimi bounced the baby on his knee, trying not to look as awkward as he felt. He liked babies in theory but, until they could walk and talk and do his laundry, they were useless.
Jimi Junior smiled at him.
Not entirely useless.
“It’s so cute them naming the baby after you,” Ophelia said.
“Is it? I’d rather not have to share my name with some upstart, even an adorable one. What’s with all this food? There’s enough for a hundred people.”
“We’re throwing a block party!” Giselle said, adding a skinned potato to the growing pile.
César passed by, carting several crates of beer on a dolly. “We were aiming for a quiet family affair—”
“Hah!” Grandy said.
“But everyone wanted in on it. You’re a regular Mr. Popularity around here.”
“You don’t have to go,” Alexis assured him, stirring a pot at the stove. “It’s for the neighborhood as much as for you. Everyone was so worried.”
A sudden foulness from Jimi Junior, filling the space.
Alexis laughed at his expression. “I’ll take her.” She took the baby from Jimi and promptly handed her to Giselle.
“Thanks a lot!”
Ophelia retreated with Jimi into the one cubic foot of space that wasn’t occupied by people or food.
“You okay? I know how you feel about alive people.”
“I’m dealing. Can we go someplace else later? Someplace quieter?”
“Sure. We can hook up with Carmin and Lecy and use his magic smoke to construct an army of tailors to get my shirts made without backs. I’m about to start a new fashion trend.”
“Or,” Ophelia said, “we could go ahead and give the backseat of my car a test drive. Didn’t you say something about Old Mission and making out?”
“But your car broke. Into pieces.”
“It’s made of my soul. My soul can’t be broken. Not permanently. I drove it here; it’s fine.”
“Cool. Wild monkey sex while I tickle your soul? Now that’s what I call an after party.”
“You don’t have to say it like that, pervert.”
“If we were really friends, you’d accept my perversions in all their glory.”
“We are friends, aren’t we?” Like it was a relief.
They kissed.
“Don’t wear him out,” Grandy yelled. “We only just got the boy on his feet!”
Ophelia blushed. “Sorry.”
“Come help make the spinach dip if you need something to do.”
Jimi said, “We’ll both help.”
Ophelia was enveloped by the bustling bodies in the kitchen, but Jimi stayed where he was for a moment, watching the streamers and bee balloons going up beyond the window. Ophelia’s Phantom V near the curb, sparkling. Rishi, Lecy, Carmin, and Sugar Lynn laughing as they tried to hang decorations to lampposts twice as tall as they were without falling and breaking their necks. The Mayor grilling bratwurst, wearing a party hat and an annoyed expression. The Penetraliad somersaulting in midair. Paul and several of César’s neighbors erecting a party banner across the blocked off street: Welcome Home, Jimi.
He stepped away from the window and joined his family in the kitchen, happy he’d get to be the center of attention in a little while.
But for now, it was nice to be one of the crowd.
About Miscreated
After struggling for years to write Heartsick, I had to take a break from it and work on something fresh. Miscreated is what emerged. It took much less time to write and was a lot more fun. I fumbled with it for a bit. For a long time, I had no idea that Jimi had wings, but when I made the discovery, it was smooth sailing from then on. Thanks for giving it a read. If you like it, feel free to leave a review, and if you’d like to keep up-to-date on new releases, go here to sign up for my newsletter. Thanks.
