“Huh? Oh, yeah.”
I hurried past Desmond and into the house, narrowly avoiding eye contact with the old lady across the street who was putting out her trash. Not that the questioning stare that I got from Seth or the smirk from my sister was any better. Like they thought they were so much better than me because they were wearing pants. Suddenly, Nai’s smirk turned into shock.
“Oh my cow! What did you do?” she asked.
“What are you even talking about?”
“Don’t try to play dumb,” she snipped. “I mean, dumber than usual. I can feel that something is off. You’re lost.”
“I’m not lost,” I protested. How can I be lost? I was pretty sure that wasn’t possible. Or was it? I couldn’t remember, but I knew I wasn’t lost. If anything, I felt way less sympathetic to the Discordant than usual.
“No, you’re not…” Seth muttered and I could feel him casting out to read my soul. “Well that is certainly interesting.” He turned to Howie. “You reversed his personality? Why on earth would you do that?” he asked, switching his focus to me.
“I… Uh…”
“I didn’t do anything the kid didn’t ask me to do himself.”
“Jem, did you ask Howie to make you more like Nai?” Desmond asked.
“What? No! I mean, I didn’t ask him to do anything!” I protested. “I might have accidentally asked for a vacation, but that’s it. Oh, and then I guess I did wish I was more like Nai. Why? Is that a bad thing?”
“You were supposed to be keeping your mind blank,” Desmond reminded me. “All wishes granted by the Discordant are a bad thing. Need I remind you what will happen if you find yourself enslaved?”
“Duh! As if I didn’t know that already,” I reminded him. “But it’s not like I can shut my mind off or anything. Look, try not to think about a monkey riding a bicycle! I bet I know what just popped into your head.”
“Jem, we understand,” Seth said. “I can only imagine how stressful this has been, but you have to be vigilant.”
“Do you?” I shot back. Suddenly I was angry. A lot angrier than I’d ever been in my life. What did they know about stress? “Do you really know how hard this has been? The stress was killing me! The whole reason I panicked was because my teacher noticed that I looked like I was going to hurl. Can we get ulcers? Because I probably have about twenty.”
“Okay, just calm down,” Desmond said with just enough agitation in his voice to sound hypocritical. “Getting upset is just going to make you lose control.”
“Um, not really,” Nai butted in, staring at me with a critical eye. “If you really wished to be more like me, then I’m guessing you aren’t as stressed out as you were before, are you?”
“Not really,” I said with a shrug. “But that was likely due to the fact that I just spent the afternoon at the beach drinking ruh… pineapple juice and chillaxing.” That was a close one.
“Uh, yeah, but that’s what I’m talking about,” Nai said, rolling her eyes. “Like you would ever skip class, even with a genie at your beck and call to do whatever you want.”
“Djinn! For the love of Chaos, I ain’t no dame!” Howie interrupted, but Nai ignored him.
“Think about it. You asked to be like me. Come up with a wish. The first thing that pops into your mind.”
The first thing that popped into my mind was not fit to say out loud and made Howie flinch.
“Ouch! Geeze, kid! Tell me how you really feel,” Howie muttered.
“Okay, fine. You can stuff your head up your own butt while you’re at it,” I added with a satisfied smirk. Wow. Saying what was on my mind was kind of fun.
“Why me though?” Howie asked. “I’m just as much the victim as you are, kid.”
“Why? That was your own fault,” Nai answered for me. “You took away Jem’s stupid puppy personality and gave him Nai the uber-bitch instead. In case you didn’t know, I’m not too fond of you and your kind. And you can so cut the victim act because it’s not going to work.”
“Damn, sis,” I whooped, holding up my hand for a high five. For a moment she just looked at me in shock. Then she rolled her eyes, but slapped my hand.
“Okay, you’re still a dork,” she muttered.
“Like you’re not?”
“Okay enough,” Desmond cut in with some kind of a pained expression on his face. It kind of looked like he didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or be furious. Or he had some wicked gas pains. I wasn’t sure. “What’s done is done and although the sudden personality shift is…disconcerting, I’m afraid Nai is correct. That being said, we have much to discuss and little time left with which to do it. Jem, if you would please send Slick away.”
“What? Why?”
But Desmond ignored Howie’s pleading and raised his eyebrows at me.
“Sorry pal,” I said and gave a little wave. As he blinked out of existence, I was pretty sure I caught a string of creative curses aimed at both me and Desmond. Ah well. It really was Howie’s own fault for trying to pull one over on me.
As soon as he was gone, Desmond started to explain the situation to us. Rather, the situations, because apparently, there were a whole crap load of issues. So many that Nai and I both stopped Desmond to grab a notebook and start taking notes. That part was kind of weird and slightly annoying because we literally both got up at the same time and had the same idea. But after he and Seth left to take a look at the old mill, Nai and I went our separate ways to analyze what we learned. I got kind of pissed off when I heard her stomping up to her workspace in the attic. It wasn’t fair that she should have all that extra room.
Whatever.
I threw a frozen pizza in the microwave and spread my notes out on the kitchen table. According to Desmond, Howie’s appearance was only one small part of a bigger problem that stemmed from the fact that Blackbird was a djinn magnet. Smaller to everyone else, that is. The fact that I was once again in danger of being turned into a human doorway for the Discordant was kind of a big deal in my opinion.
If we could just kill Howie, life, for me at least, would be a lot easier, but no, we couldn’t do that because then I would just be open to another djinn coming and taking over. Except because there’s some crazy mystic keeping the djinn from taking over the town, I would actually have all of them using me as a portal to grant everyone’s wish, which would then cause the whole town to become slaves to Chaos. Oh, and if that wasn’t bad enough, there’s a crack in whatever it is that separates Order from Chaos right here in Blackbird, under the old mill.
And just because we weren’t done piling on the suck, this mystic who’s been keeping the djinn out would be powerless to help if that were to happen because he’s about as royally screwed as I am. According to Desmond, the only chance I have to keep from becoming a djinn portal was to get Howie out of his contract with me and to get all the djinn this guy’s trapped to leave town. The problem is, neither of these events seemed very likely at the rate we were going.
But I wasn’t going to sit around and wait to become a tool for the Discordant.
What I needed to do was find a way to investigate that Hell mouth. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking for, but I knew I wasn’t going to find it hanging out at the diner waiting for Seth to send lost souls my way. Besides, I really wasn’t in the mood to sit around watching my sister pathetically flirt with the nerdy waiter.
Actually, that was it! I had a plan. When it was time to go to the diner, I would tell Nai I left something back home and go off to the mill. By then Seth and Desmond would be at the bar and Nai would be too busy trying to get with Jake to care. Sometimes I was so brilliant, I even amazed myself.
I reached absently for a slice of pizza, but dropped it when I looked up and saw Nai staring at me. “Ah! What the hell are you doing?”
The corner of her mouth twitched up like she found something amusing. “Don’t act like you don’t want to go check it out.”
“Check what out?” I asked innocently, but Nai wasn’t b
uying it.
“Whatever,” she huffed and rolled her eyes. “There’s a portal opening right under this suck-hole of a town and if we’re not careful, we’re going to be overrun with enough Discordant to bring about the end of the world. Like you don’t want to go see it for yourself?”
“I might,” I said with a casual shrug. “But I never said I wanted to go check it out right now or with you, did I?”
Nai winced. “Wow, don’t be an ass. Even I’m not that much of a bitch.”
“Uh, if I’m supposedly just like you then yes you are,” I shot back. Seriously, Nai was super unpleasant. I don’t know if I didn’t notice before or I was too nice to care, but now it was getting on my nerves. “Besides, don’t you need to go meet your boyfriend?”
“I don’t have a … he’s not my… Just shut up!” Nai stammered, turning an unflattering shade of bright red.
“Really? You want me to dig into your brain and pull up whatever sick fantasies you’ve been having about Jakey-poo?”
“Oh, don’t you even try that stupid demon trick,” Nai warned. “Mess with my brain and I’ll mess with your face, brother dear!”
“Oh yeah? Maybe I’ll just wish some ill upon you,” I said, smirking like hell because I knew I had the upper hand. Two seconds later, I heard the now familiar plink of Howie’s arrival and Nai turned a shade of green I’d never seen on a human before.
“Need something, kid?”
“Don’t you dare!” shrieked Nai, grabbing the chair as if it was somehow going to protect her against anything I could do. I wasn’t really going to do anything because I wasn’t stupid. I knew that the more wishes Howie granted, the quicker I would screw up and become a slave to Chaos. Still though, it was fun to watch Nai squirm.
“You’re lucky I’m so nice,” I said.
“Lucky?” Nai snorted. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I liked you better when you were an idiot.”
“What’s the matter?” I taunted. “You can be a royal bitch to everyone else, but you can’t handle it when someone treats you the way you treat them?”
“Oh that is so not fair and you know it! I saved your stupid life three days ago and I never threatened you with Discordant magic.”
“Hey! Hey now!” Howie cut in, making a time out ‘T’ with his hands. “Now, you know I gotta do anything you tell me to do, Jem, but I ain’t gotta sit here and listen to the two of you bickering. If I may make a suggestion?”
“Go ahead.” I eyed him warily.
“Right. Now it looks like the issue here is that the two of yous being exactly alike is causing you to get up in each other’s craw.”
“Um, duh,” Nai and I both said.
“So wish yourself back to your own personality.”
“Why? So you can take advantage of my niceness?” I asked, giving him a look that told him I knew what he was up to. Well, I told him that I knew what he was up to. The look was just extra emphasis.
“Hey, kid, cut me some slack here,” he protested.
“What, are you serious? Like it hadn’t occurred to you that turning me into a portal from the Chaos realm would probably be a big enough deal to get the banishment lifted?”
“Well, ya know, since you mentioned it,” he started to say but I cut him off with a look. “Okay, I get it. No going back to Mr. Nice Guy. You could always ask me to do the same to little missy here,” he suggested.
“What? Hell no!”
“Hm,” I said, giving it some thought. It didn’t seem like a bad idea. It didn’t matter if Nai ended up having sympathy for Howie because he wouldn’t be able to do anything she asked. I almost agreed, but then I remembered how annoyed Nai had always gotten with me and I nixed that idea. All it would do was give me a different reason to be annoyed with my sister.
“No,” I said at last. “I still feel like you’re trying to trick me.”
“Can’t get nothing past you,” Howie said, but with a load of sarcasm. “Wouldn’t be surprised if you was Sherlock freaking Holmes in a past life.”
“Sherlock Holmes was a fictional character,” Nai said, rolling her eyes.
“Oh? So who was you then?” Howie retorted in the same mocking tone.
“Like we know?” Nai spat back.
“Wait,” Howie held up his hand and looked between the two of us. “You mean to tell me the two of you never thought to take a peek and see who you was in a previous life?
I looked over at Nai, whose expression mirrored my own look of incredulity at the nonsense Howie was spewing.
“We can’t do that,” I said.
“Well sure you can!” Howie shook his head at us in bewilderment. “You two was once one person, but now you isn’t. When you do that whoozy-whatzit business and see into the other’s past, you’ll be seeing your own as well.”
“Actually,” Nai turned to me with a shrug. “It could work.”
“Of course it could,” Howie said. “Ya know, being in the unique position you two is in, I’m surprised it hadn’t occurred to you earlier.”
“But what’s the point?” I asked.
“You might be more like me, but you’re still an idiot,” Nai said, rolling her eyes at me. “Don’t you want to know if we were anyone famous?”
“Oh yeah! I guess that would be cool,” I said nonchalantly, but to be honest, the idea of finding out who we had been was really intriguing. I’d only ever had to soul gaze one person so far, and he’d been someone boring in every life. “I guess if you want to,” I said.
“Oh please,” Nai rolled her eyes. “Quit trying to act cool.”
“Okay, fine.” I said. “Wanna make bets on who we were?”
“Sure. I say we were probably somebody horrible like Hitler and this is our punishment.”
“Creepy, Nai. Creepy for you even. I’m guessing Elvis and that’s why you love peanut butter and bacon.”
“Dude, if we were Elvis, I’m so going to barf. Remember Graceland?”
“How could I forget?”
Our Grandparents once made us stop there on a road trip because they had been huge Elvis fans back in their day. It was pretty tacky. Even mom and dad were snickering.
“Okay,” I said, letting out my breath in a huff. “How are we going to do this?”
“Um, on the count of three?”
“All right. Ready? One… Two… Three! Argh!!!”
There was a jolt, as if someone had stuck a cattle prod into my brain and kicked me in the crotch for good measure. After that, I felt like I was going to throw up, but before I had a chance to bolt to the bathroom, everything faded to black and I passed out.
Chapter 7
Repercussions
Back when I was still working for the mill, the EPA came in and threatened to shut us down. Concern for the environment was a brand new concept back then and as such, there was a loud and boisterous outcry from the concerned citizens of Blackbird. Not concern for the environment, mind you. The mill employed nearly seventy percent of working age adults and the changes the EPA required were expensive. Because of this, many mill workers feared they would lose their jobs. I remember as well that this was the first time we began to see a larger than average influx of Discordant.
Over the next two months, a construction crew was brought in and parts of the mill were shut down to facilitate the implementation of the changes. As the workers were shuffled around to accommodate the construction, rumors and speculation about job security became rampant. Tensions among those employed by the mill ran so high that I nearly considered quitting as a preventative measure to maintain my own sanity. I can’t remember another time in history where the Five Penny did such a booming business.
And then one day, nearly as soon as it began, the crisis was over. Six months after issuing their initial citation, the EPA was brought back to inspect the changes and the mill was deemed compliant. Though none of us received a raise that year, there had been no need to lay anyone off to cover the cost of the changes, so there was minimal co
mplaining. The mill continued to operate for more than a decade before the owners realized it was cheaper to move the entire operation overseas and pollute someone else’s back yard.
Yet despite averting the crisis, the number of Discordant flocking to Blackbird continued to rise. Even as those who had worried about job security realized their source of income was secure, the number of lost souls crossing my path went up exponentially. Now, after decades of speculation, in the partially demolished and heavily vandalized remains of what had once been Blackbird’s driving economic force, I finally found the reason why.
The owners of Blackbird Paper & Pulp had cut every corner imaginable.
The scrubbers on the smoke stacks, the giant filtration system that kept the pollutants out of the river, even the lower impact acids that were used in the pulping process, were all for show. Behind the scenes, it was business as usual. The workers hadn’t installed a new system at all. They had simply dug a series of underground tunnels to surreptitiously dump the harmful waste into different river systems underground. In doing so, they not only eroded the foundation and structural integrity of the land upon which Blackbird sat, but they also eroded the barrier between the realm of Order and that of Chaos.
That this was not discovered during my time at the mill was not surprising. All the owners were required to prove was that their pollutants were no longer being dumped directly into the river. But the fact that the tunnels had remained a secret for all these years since was suspicious to say the least.
“This is not good,” Desmond said, appearing suddenly beside me. Although I should have been used to his use of trans-cyclical travel, I still flinched, not expecting to hear another voice in the darkness. “I am unable to follow the entire network as it extends beyond my geographical limits, but from the direction of the forks, I can only assume they run off into the three nearby river systems. However, that is not what concerns me.”
“Oh? What does?” I asked.
“Less than one mile from here, the tunnel is flooded as a result of the hydraulic fracturing. I was able to follow along just outside the Cycle and discovered that the pipeline runs directly through the fracking site. Surely, had the city inspectors done their due diligence, they would have discovered this before allowing the drilling to continue.”
You Wish (Rise of the Discordant Book 3) Page 8
