Soul Mates

by John R. Little

  He was much older than she, but even so, she felt an instant connection. She’d never believed in love at first sight, but this guy, Jeremiah something-or-other, had her caught in his spell.

  Of course she could never say anything to him. He’d laugh and call her a little girl, and she’d feel ridiculous and have to stop going to the dance studio because she’d be too embarrassed to ever see him again.

  She could remember his face, the nice smile that lifted the corners of his mouth. His eyes were locked onto hers while they spoke, showing he was actually interested in what she was saying. He seemed like the kind of man who would treat a girl with kindness and respect.

  He was gentle but confident. She liked that.

  She’d wanted that kind of man without even realizing it.

  Of course, maybe he was secretly a hatchet murderer. How could she possibly know any damned thing about him after talking to him once for just a few minutes?

  “I just do,” she answered herself. “He’s—”

  She stopped because the next words out of her mouth would have been “The One,” and that was too big an image to allow to pass her lips.

  He was so much more mature than her, so much more worldly. Surely he could tell her about vast areas of knowledge that she knew nothing about. And she’d love that. His voice was soothing, and she imagined him holding her in his arms and telling her stories he’d lived through. She wondered how it would feel to be held that way . . . .

  He was a magician. A real magician. That brought emotions of mystery and amazement to her.

  Her daydreaming ended as she reached the dance studio.

  In front of the shop stood three police officers. One of them stared at her defiantly, arms crossed over his chest. The others were talking to two women. Alannah didn’t recognize either of them.

  There was a cardboard sign taped to the door of the studio:

  CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

  The sign was written in messy blue handwriting that she could barely read.

  She stared at the scene, unsure what to do. She wanted to dance, but clearly that was not possible today.

  A movement above caught her eye, and she looked up to see Jeremiah staring at her. In that instant, the dance studio fled from her mind, and she focused on him. He was bare-chested, and she blinked, trying to get a clearer view of him.

  Then he was gone.

  She wished he’d stayed, but his leaving forced Alannah’s eyes back to the scene playing out in front of her.

  “Nickie?”

  With tentative steps, she walked toward the cop who wasn’t talking to anybody.

  “Hello,” she whispered.

  She felt scared without knowing why.

  He nodded. “Can I help you?” His voice was much gentler than his appearance suggested it would be.

  “Is everything okay? Is Nickie all right?”

  “Who are you, Miss?”

  “I’m Alannah Clark. I take lessons here. Nickie lets me come in whenever I want, to practice. Is she okay?”

  “Maybe you should ask her sister.”

  He pointed to a woman leaning against the wall near the door. She was smoking a cigarette and blowing clouds of smoke.

  Alannah nodded.

  The sister didn’t look much like Nickie. Her face was stretched tightly. Her long, unbrushed hair was ratty.

  “Hello?”

  The woman stared at Alannah. “What?”

  “I’m a friend of Nickie’s. Can you tell me what’s going on? Is everything okay?”

  The sister stared daggers at her, took a long pull on her cigarette, and blew the smoke out slowly.

  “She was killed.”

  Alannah stared for a moment, not wanting to believe what she’d heard.

  “WHAT? That’s not possible!”

  “Somebody strangled her and then stabbed her with a pair of scissors, over and over. Blood everywhere.”

  “Oh, God . . . I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah, well . . .”

  “When did it happen?”

  “Tuesday.”

  “I can’t believe it. She was so good to me.”

  “Yeah, well, believe it.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  Alannah stepped backward and wanted to run and hide. She turned around and—

  “Whoa!”

  —almost crashed into Jeremiah.

  “Sorry!”

  He’d put his hands on her shoulders to stop her from running into him.

  “It’s okay, no worries.” He nodded his head at the studio. “What happened?”

  “Somebody killed Nickie.”

  “Oh . . .”

  They locked eyes and Alannah didn’t know what to say. She wanted him to grab her and hug her tightly, but of course he did no such thing. He looked as bewildered as she felt.

  She didn’t know what to say. She knew she should be crying, losing her mentor and possibly the best friend she’d ever had, but now all she wanted was for Jeremiah to reassure her.

  “Can I do anything?” he asked.

  She shrugged. She looked into his eyes, and she wanted him to do something, anything, but she couldn’t find the words.

  “I want her back,” she said.

  He nodded, as if that was the most normal request in the world.

  “How about a coffee? I’m not much of a cook, but I do know how to make coffee.”

  She nodded, and he led her to the door at the side of the studio that led to the stairs.

  When they reached his place, he said, “My apartment is like your dance studio. It’s where I practice my magic, and the living part is pretty much incidental.”

  When they walked in to the main room, Alannah marvelled at the shelves and boxes full of gadgets. She saw some large, carefully crafted wooden blocks, lots of shiny steel items, and hundreds of smaller colorful things.

  “You have a lot of—” she hesitated and added, “—are they tricks? Is that the right word?”

  “Tricks, equipment, articles, things. I’m not much of a wordsmith, but these are the tools of my trade.”

  “I’d love to see you perform one day.”

  “I hope that can happen. I’d like that.”

  He pointed to the far end, “There’s my bedroom over there, and the bathroom, and on this side is the place I call the kitchen.”

  He walked over and started to make a pot of coffee. The area was a side nook off the main room, with a small table and three wooden chairs. There were still crumbs from his morning toast and egg sandwich. He pulled out a chair and gestured for her to sit.

  “I can’t believe somebody killed her,” Alannah said. “Who would do that? She treated me so well.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll never understand how monsters like that can walk among us.”

  Tears formed in her eyes as the weight of the loss finally sank in. Nickie had helped her in so many ways, always pointing out the flaws in her dance while praising the perfect flip she might have done or her improvement from a previous attempt. She’d never had anybody to encourage her that way. She barely remembered her mother, and she certainly didn’t remember her providing any encouragement on anything. Her father never entered her thoughts at all.

  The only person she had in her life was Savannah. Until Nickie.

  She wanted to change the subject.

  “Tell me about magic.”

  She smiled and she heard him gasp as she did so.

  * * *

  Oh my God, he thought. That smile just nailed me in the chest.

  He didn’t know what to say for a moment and bought some time by pouring them each a cup of coffee. She wanted two sugars and he took his black. He took a deep breath as he came back to the table.

  “Thank you.”

  Her voice was tiny, as if she were a Barbie doll. She looked at him with piercing eyes, and at that point he knew the single word that would best describe her: fragile.

  She was nice and sweet, that he already knew,
but she was also so fragile. He wanted to hold her, to protect her and to make sure that nobody ever hurt her for the rest of her life.

  He craved her.

  And that’s just fucking stupid.

  But it didn’t change how he felt. She kept looking at him, her eyes imploring him to talk, but he couldn’t seem to remember how.

  Finally he answered. “Magic is the best thing in the world. It allows you to give something to people that they almost never really have. You give them hope. You let them believe that anything is possible, that birds can appear out of thin air and disappear back into it, that people can fly just by wishing it, that we can see into each other’s minds and know exactly what we’re thinking, and really, we let them believe that dreams can come true.”

  The corners of her mouth rose and she slowly opened her lips into a huge smile.

  “That’s so cool. I’ve never met a real magician. I’ve seen them on TV, but they can fake anything on TV. It must be so much better in person.”

  He nodded. “It truly is a joy.”

  Jeremiah hesitated and took a sip of his coffee.

  “I moved here for a reason,” he said. “I mean above the dance studio.”

  She shrugged. “What?”

  “I’m looking for an assistant. You know that every magician has an assistant, right? A pretty girl who helps set up the tricks and is always the one the audience watches?”

  Alannah nodded.

  “The best assistants are very flexible. For some tricks, they need to be able to fit into very small spaces or twist themselves quickly into a certain shape.”

  She didn’t say a word, and Jeremiah knew she was hanging on every word.

  “When I watched you dance the other night, I knew you were the one I wanted. You’re perfect for me.”

  “Me?”

  He leaned over the table so their faces were only six inches apart.

  “You.”

  She looked down at the table, as if ashamed.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to push.”

  “No,” she blurted out right away. “I’d love that! But—”

  “But what?”

  “You’re not fooling, right? You’re not just joking with me? I don’t want to . . .” Her voice trailed off, but he heard her finish. Her eyes were closed and a tear fell from one eye. “Please don’t tease me.”

  He reached out with his thumb and wiped the tear away.

  “Nothing of the sort. I promise you.”

  She opened her eyes, and he saw hope. She wanted to believe him.

  What happened to you to make you so fragile? he wondered.

  “I promise you, I’ll take care of you.”

  Chapter 12

  2014

  Nickie Amsterdam’s funeral was sparsely attended, which surprised Jeremiah. She had been an outgoing woman, she seemed to have a nice personality, and in his dealings with her, she always had a smile on her face.

  So, when the entire audience for her funeral consisted of five people, he didn’t understand it. Nickie had been his landlord, and he only saw her once a month to pass on the rent check for the apartment above the dance studio. Her sister was there, of course. And he was delighted to see that Alannah was also paying her respects. When she glanced at him and smiled, he made his way over and sat beside her.

  “Okay if I join you?”

  She nodded.

  That left only two other people. One of them seemed familiar, and Jeremiah thought he recognized the darting eyes as belonging to one of the detectives working on Nickie’s murder investigation. The other person was a woman who sat several rows back of everyone else. She was older, in her late sixties.

  Maybe an aunt or something? he wondered.

  The service was held in Foster’s Funeral Home, not in a church. Apparently that was Nickie’s wish. There were four rows of chairs set out, ten seats in each row, but as 2:00 came and went with no other visitors arriving, a man in his forties walked to the front of the room, turned off the microphone because it clearly wasn’t needed, and started to talk about the lasting impression that Nickie Amsterdam left on those she left behind.

  The ceremony lasted fifteen minutes. Only Alannah cried. Jeremiah wanted so much to put his arm around her and help comfort her, but that would have been out of line. He did touch her hand at one point, though, and she grabbed it like a drowning woman might grab a life-line. Her hand felt soft and warm in his, and every synapse of his brain seemed to short circuit all at once. He felt lost. He caught his breath and wanted to grab Alannah and kiss her right there.

  Instead he found some way to keep his body in check, and eventually he squeezed her hand back.

  Jeremiah heard little of the ceremony.

  When the man at the front of the room said a last prayer and then silently led the audience down to the back of the room to leave, Alannah finally let go of his hand. He wished the ceremony had gone on for hours.

  “I really liked her,” Alannah said. “She would let me come in to the studio whenever I wanted to practice. We had formal lessons for two hours each week, and that’s all she ever charged me for, but her words and her lessons stayed with me during every practice.”

  They inched out of the funeral home together. “I can believe that,” Jeremiah said. “I liked the few times I dealt with her. She seemed very real.”

  Alannah just nodded.

  He continued, “I can’t imagine what kind of a monster could have done this.”

  She stopped and looked up at him. He hadn’t realized before that he was quite a bit taller than her. She was about five foot two, he guessed, so he was a foot taller. She was so cute . . . and once again his mind seemed to short out.

  “I know,” she said. “She deserved to live a long life.”

  They walked to the street in silence. He wanted to take her hand again, but he couldn’t find the courage. The age difference between them was like a stone barrier.

  “Have you thought about my suggestion?” he asked.

  For the first time today, she smiled at him.

  “I don’t really know what a magician’s assistant does,” she said.

  “Oh! Well, how about I buy you a coffee, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  She nodded. “I’d like that.”

  * * *

  Alannah was by no means sure she wanted to be Jeremiah’s assistant. She had thought about it, and although it was true that she didn’t know much about what it might mean, she also wasn’t unhappy with her current job. On top of that, what about Savannah? They shared the same job and what would she do if Alannah found something else?

  That was something best not thought about, at least for now.

  But she did like the idea of going for coffee with Jeremiah.

  Like? Hell, she would follow this guy anywhere, even though she knew almost nothing about him. It was like he had sprinkled some kind of magical potion on her to entrance her.

  He drove them to a nearby Starbucks. She rarely went there so she let him do the ordering. Two grande Caffe Americanos.

  They found a small round table in the back. She liked it. It was cozy and intimate. There was music by Taylor Swift playing, quite loudly. Normally she would have complained, but this gave her an excuse to lean closer to him.

  “You’ve never seen a live magic show?” he asked.

  She shook her head. It felt like she’d failed a test of some kind.

  “Don’t worry, it’s a lot of fun. I’m the guy that the audience watches the whole time, but it’s actually my assistant who does half the work. That’s how a lot of the tricks work. They’re all watching me, but it’s her that’s making the magic happen right in front of their eyes. They just don’t see what she’s doing.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, some of my favorites are levitation. I’d make you float in thin air. There’s two different tricks I like to do that would have you levitating. One of the best tricks, though, is where I would lock you in a c
age, cover it with a sheet for a few seconds, and then magically transform you into a tiger.”

  “What? That’s impossible.”

  She loved the sound of his voice and wanted him to keep talking.

  “Nope. It’s totally possible. I don’t get to perform that one every time I have a show, because I actually do need a real live tiger.”

  He chuckled and she found herself smiling, looking at his mouth. He had a beautiful smile.

  “How would you turn me into a tiger?”

  Jeremiah laughed. “You’ll have to sign up with me to learn that.”

  She frowned, but of course that made sense.

  “What else?”

  “I’ll attach you to a large circular board and spin you around while I throw sharp knives at you.”

  “Umm . . . I’m not sure I like the sound of that one. What if your aim is off?”

  “It won’t be.”

  “But what if it is?”

  That’s when he reached out to take her hand and her life changed immediately.

  They looked at each other in silence. She didn’t hear the music anymore. She and Jeremiah were locked inside their own dimension, totally apart from the rest of the world.

  At that point, she would gladly have let him throw sharp daggers at her. She trusted him more than she’d ever trusted anyone except Savannah.

  After a moment when neither of them spoke, he lowered his head to look at their hands.

  “I hope that’s okay,” he said. His voice was soft and whispery, and she thought he was ready to faint if she complained.

  “I like it.” Her voice was equally tenuous. She gripped his hand tightly. She added, “You’re braver than me.”

  The silence started again as they looked into each other’s eyes.

  About a million years later, Alannah licked her lips and said, “But what about it? What if your aim is off that day?”

  He laughed and she basked in the wonderful sound.

  “I promise you, you’ll never be in the slightest danger.”

  She nodded, believing him.

  “Do you ever do that trick where you cut a woman in half? You must do that, right?”

  Jeremiah frowned. “I haven’t done that for a long time.” He didn’t say anything more for a moment, but then he realized he needed to trust this girl and for her to trust him. He did trust her. He didn’t really have any reason to do so, but he just did.