Elmore’s eyes grew wide as he stared at the pewter figurine.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He stared at the statue.
“Would you like a glass of water?”
His eyes stayed wide.
Was he going into shock? It wouldn’t be the first time I’d seen it happen, though honestly, I’d thought he’d be able to handle it.
“Elmore?”
No answer.
“Can you hear—?”
“Yes,” he interrupted me, “I can hear you.”
“Do you remember?”
Behind his thick-rimmed glasses, tears formed. When he spoke, his unsteady voice sounded barely louder than a whisper. “The dragon fed me Meriwether berries. They tasted like peaches.” He removed his glasses as tears leaked from his eyes. “It’s true, isn’t it?”
“What do you think?”
He exhaled a deep breath, staring at the sunlight on the carpet, alternating shades of dark and light. “His name was Havanstache. Yes,” he said and looked up at me, “I remember.”
I left the apartment, my bank account still empty. I didn’t care. I’d never done this for the money. Seeing the look on Elmore’s face when he finally remembered the past—that feeling of genuine joy in knowing I’d helped someone who really needed it—that’s what I did it for.
Come to think of it, is this karma? Not a paycheck, but a reward without price?
That thought stayed with me for the next three-and-a-half minutes, right before I hit the five-o’clock Houston traffic.
Chapter 2
Han Solo—gray tail bushy, his purr only a little softer than a dragon’s roar—greeted me as I entered my apartment. He jumped onto my lap as soon as I took a seat on the barstool at the island counter, a bowl of Lucky Charms in hand.
My cat positioned himself next to the cereal bowl. His green eyes watched the spoon enter my mouth.
“No,” I told him.
He mewled, his eyes pleading.
“People food.” I pointed at his cat bowl on the floor. “Cat food.”
He looked at me with those wide cat eyes. After a few more bites, I relented and scooted the bowl of milk to him. I was such a pushover sometimes. Good thing I wasn’t a parent.
Glancing at the clock, I realized I should have been in bed hours ago. Crossing town had been murder—it had taken me two hours just to get back to my tiny little apartment on Galveston Island. Should have taken half that. I hated Houston sometimes.
Stumbling to my bedroom seemed a longer walk than usual. I only had seven hundred square feet to call my own, but even that seemed like a lot. My apartment was functional, decorated sparsely. Honestly, it probably looked like a bachelor pad. I’d never had money to spend on candles or plants or those cute little quotes people hung on their walls.
My mind wandered as I found the bathroom and turned on the sink to wash my face. Living alone was a solitary ordeal, and I found myself having conversations in my head. It sounded strange, but I had certain characters running around inside my head, representing particular aspects of my psyche. Bill Clinton represented my emotions. Albert Einstein represented my rational side. He always popped up whenever I had a moral dilemma. Don’t know how he came to represent my rational side, but I do know when it started. I was twelve, and it was the year I moved in with my mom—the year my world turned upside down.
After washing my face, I grabbed the towel.
A shadow crossed behind me.
I straightened, my heart beating wildly in my chest as the faint reflection gained substance.
A wisp of gray, like the tattered hem of Charon’s cloak, fluttered behind me. A translucent, skeletal face appeared and then faded.
Chills prickled my neck. My body froze.
Einstein spoke up. A specter from fairy world in your bathroom? Is this normal, Olive? Perhaps you imagined it.
The chills on my neck disagreed with him. Something had moved behind me, so close I’d felt it brush against me. I knew I hadn’t released any magic, so I shouldn’t have seen anything in my mirror.
This was why I hated living alone.
My doorbell rang. I almost fell into the tub.
Stumbling upright, I walked out of the bathroom, through the living room, and stopped at the front door. Peeking through the peephole, I almost wondered if Death were on my doorstep. Strange things happened to me frequently, but I never got used to them.
I spied Dr. Hill through the peephole. The streetlamp illuminated his dark brown skin. He wore his usual suit and bowtie, and trimmed his graying beard in the style of Abraham Lincoln. My heart rate evened out a tiny bit, and with shaking hands, I opened the door.
“Dr. Billy?” I asked, my voice cracking.
“You know I hate that name. And what’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Maybe I had. “I’m fine. Jittery, I guess.”
“Jittery? Should you make an appointment? Prozac or Effexor—”
“No pills. You know that doesn’t work for me.”
“I’m trying to help.”
“I know. But I’m fine. So what’s up?” I forced my voice to stay level. I didn’t like explaining weird crap, especially not to Dr. Hill. Stepping aside, I let him in, and he took his usual seat on the couch.
I sat on the loveseat across from him, trying my best to seem at ease.
His voice took on a doctor’s tone. “I’ve had a patient come in recently.”
Okay, I knew the drill. After seeing so many patients he couldn’t help, he finally agreed to let me give it a try. With a few successes, he’d given me a steady trickle of work ever since.
“So what’s this one got? Bi-polar? Depression? Anxiety?” Useless terms for my patients if you asked me, but scientists liked labels. Made them feel secure. And trying to convince doctors that the proper term for a ‘narcissist’ was ‘visitor to fairy world’ made them extra nervous. Angry, even.
I know. I’d tried.
Ninety-five percent of the time, I was just fine with the scientific terms. But for the five percent who suffered from
