“What did I do?” Ted asked.
“It’s what you said. Let’s get to your house, and we’ll explain everything. Mia has been run off her feet.”
“How long can you do that?” Cid asked. “Ghosts aren’t supposed to be able to do that.”
“Who says?” Murphy asked.
“Science.”
“Well tell science to move over. Magic Murphy is in town.”
Chapter Ten
Murphy followed Ted up the stairs and to his room. He gently laid Mia on the bed and said, “No nonsense, I’ve got to go outside and recharge,” before disappearing.
“Dude, you have a girl in your bed,” Cid said.
“She’s unconscious. Does that count?” Ted asked. He stared down at her. “I wonder how she knew that stuff. Do you really think she’s from the future?”
“I don’t know. She has an actual ghost as her traveling companion. A ghost with an axe. I mean how cool is that?”
“A bit comical if you ask me,” Ted said.
“That axe is real sharp. Don’t make fun of the ghost,” Mia said, opening her eyes. She looked kindly at Cid and then glared at Ted and said, “How could you!”
Ted took off his hat and rubbed his head in confusion. “How could I what?”
“You called me Mighty Mouse, which means you’re the one that made the wish, and you’re the one that changed time. Why? What’s so important for you to do in 1998 that you would jeopardize our…”
“Whoa, Mia,” Murphy said, moving through the wall. “I think you’ve got this wrong. Ted, do you have a candle?”
Ted put his hands in his pockets and drew out fistfuls of junk. He put the contents on the bottom of the bed to shift through. “I have a lighter but no candle. Maybe my mother has one in the cupboard. I’ll be right back…” he said and left before they could stop him.
“What do you need a candle for?” Cid asked.
“It’s a long story.” Mia pulled the pillow out from under her head and put it over her head. “Cid, would you mind providing a little pressure so I can kill myself now?”
Cid backed away.
Ted ran in with a box of birthday candles, a few white stubby candles they had used last Halloween, and one of the fragrant ones his mother kept in the company bathroom. “What’s going on? Why is she under the pillow?”
“I think she wanted me to kill her,” Cid said in a horrified, hoarse voice.
“What’s her name again?” Ted asked Murphy.
“Mia.”
Ted sat down on the side of the bed. “Mia, I brought the candles. No one is going to assist you in your suicide attempt, especially in my bedroom. Let me…” Ted said, pulling the pillow away from her. “There, now sit up, and tell us what’s going on?”
“He’s got the same voice,” Mia said to Murphy. “His voice in my head when I’m working…”
Murphy looked at Mia, and even though it saddened him, he saw how deeply Mia was in love with Ted.
Ted looked from the girl to the ghost and back again. “Okay, guys, you’re freakin’ out the little guy, and I’m a bit unnerved too. What’s going on?”
“I’m not a little guy,” Cid scoffed.
“Be nice to him. He’s going to be tall and outmuscle you,” Murphy said.
“Yeah and I’m going to win the Nobel… No? Damn.”
“You still could,” Mia said, sitting up and sliding her legs over the side of the bed. “We only came from twenty years in the future. There’s still time.”
“So I still could go to Mars,” Ted said.
“I lied about that,” Mia confessed.
Ted’s ego was restored. “Okay, spill it. Why did you need a candle?”
Mia looked through the candles, and although relieved that it wasn’t her husband who made the wish, she was disappointed that their quest had to go on. “Twenty years from now, we’re all at a birthday party. We take these unusual candles that two from our group bought from a flea market and place them on the cake. I lit them, we all wished, and blew them out. Next morning, I’m twenty years in the past. I’m a thirty-two-year-old in a twelve-year-old’s body. I have the complete memories of a woman, but the skills of a child. Someone had wished to either go into the past, become twenty years younger, or for something that brought us to this time.”
“There is a hole in your story,” Ted said. “I never wish on birthday candles. Not scientific.”
Mia closed one eye in irritation. “Murph, he’s right. I had forgotten about that until now. I could have saved us time.”
“What time?” Cid asked and added, “I wish on candles all the time.”
“What do you wish for?” Mia asked.
“To be able to see without these things,” Cid said, lifting his glasses off his face. “I’m almost legally blind without them.”
“In the future, you get an operation that gives you that wish,” Mia said gently.
Ted waited and then repeated Cid’s question, “What time? What time have you wasted?”
“I have until the next full moon to find the wisher and have him or her break the candle. Upon doing so, time will resume at the point at which the wish was made. Anything that happens during the quest doesn’t matter if I get the candle broken in time.”
“That’s scientifically impossible. Anything you do in the past affects the future. It’s why time travel is so dangerous,” Ted said.
“I know, but not in this case. This is magic not science,” Mia said.
“Science before magic or things could get tragic,” Ted said.
“Magic before science, things stay in compliance,” Mia argued.
“You two said that before,” Murphy told them. “Ted’s called you Mighty Mouse before.”
“Yes, that’s why I thought he was the candle wisher. You see, I can’t prove it,
