“Me too, and it’s rather annoying,” I replied. “So you know how to get rid of it?”
“Yes,” Grandma Rosie replied. “A regular spell won’t work. It’s a curse, which means it’s immune to your magical powers. Also, while it’s going to start off being pretty harmless, it’s going to get more and more destructive until finally, after a few days, it’s going to do its best to kill you.”
“Well, that’s a promising thought. How do I kill it first?”
“You need to fool it,” Grandma Rosie replied. “Make it follow something else that it believes to be you. You’ll have to disguise yourself and convince the curse cloud to follow someone else. Then, when it has finally detached from you, you can use a spell to destroy it for good. But none of your spells will work so long as it’s still attached to you.”
“Alright, so he’s like an annoying ex-boyfriend,” I muttered. “He’s going to try and keep latching onto me until he finds someone else.”
“Exactly, now you’re getting it. Although frankly, compared to some of the guys you’ve dated, he looks like a catch.”
“No argument there,” I answered. “Alright, thanks, Grandma.”
“Good luck.”
I hung up the phone and glared at the curse cloud. “Alright, Ghostman. Time to get rid of your clingy butt once and for all.”
I quickly developed a plan and started putting it into motion. I pointed my wand at a tree and cast the first spell I needed.
“Rhea, mother of the gods, turn this tree into me.”
The cloning spell worked. The half-grown fir tree suddenly began to shift in size and shape, going from seven feet tall and green to about five and a half feet tall, dressed in jeans and an oversized black T-shirt. It was weird, staring back at something that looked exactly like me. Well, apart from the eerie, dead-looking black eyes that betrayed that this was totally not a real human.
My eyes were freaking brilliant.
Fake Ali walked up towards me casually, without any sort of sign that she wasn’t the least bit real and had been created by magic.
“Ok, that’s kind of cool,” I said. “Follow me.”
Fake Ali obeyed as I walked in the other direction back towards town. I had to find a large group of people, and while Ghostman was probably going to do his best to embarrass me while I did, it was a sacrifice I was going to have to make.
Ghostman floated back up in front of me and tried the smelly gas trick again. I scrunched up my nose and waved my hand in front of my face to try to make the smell go away. It was so bad my eyes were watering.
“Seriously, dude?” I asked him. “She’s not even real; she has no idea I smell. But of course, I guess it’s better that you think she is. And that you got whatever that smell was out of your system before we hit the crowd.”
Fake Ali and I quickly reached downtown where a group of tourists was walking towards The Magic Brewmstick. Their guide had a purple flag floating above his head, and his voice had been amplified magically so that it carried to the back of the group of fifty-plus people in the tour.
Perfect.
I rushed towards the group with Fake Ali following behind me as I had ordered her to. The ghost cloud followed closely after us, and I dove into the crowd.
Fake Ali and Ghostman followed. Our intrusion wasn’t welcome; we were being yelled at in a language that sounded like Italian. A young witch took one look at Ghostman and burst into tears. I couldn’t really blame her.
“Sorry, sorry,” I muttered as I passed through. Then, I quickly pulled out my wand and pointed it at myself. “Rhea, goddess mother, turn me into a cat for just a quarter hour.”
My insides suddenly felt super strange, like I’d just gone over the big crest of a roller coaster, and everything began to get smaller. I shrunk bit by bit until finally I was looking at people’s calves and shins, and I darted away from the group as fast as I could.
Of course, the first step I tried to take on four legs I completely forgot about my front paws, and I face-planted directly into the pavement.
“Ohh, povero gattino,” one woman said, stroking me softly on the back. I bristled, not really used to strangers stroking me, and ran off, this time remembering that running with four paws was different than running on two legs.
I darted down an alley and then turned to see if my plan had worked. Fake Ali had obviously lost track of me and was now wandering aimlessly, occasionally walking into a wall, stepping back, and then doing it again. As far as clones went, she could certainly have been more convincing.
Still, it was enough to get Ghostman off my back. He was following Fake Ali and had moved on from smells to shooting water from his mouth directly into her face. Boy was I ever glad I had gotten away before he got to that point with me. I didn’t know where that water had been, and I didn’t want to know.
The good thing was, my plan had worked. He had totally hooked himself onto Fake Ali thinking she was me when I had disappeared into cat form. I just had to wait out the rest of the fifteen minutes before turning back into myself, and then I could use my magic to send him back to the netherworld of curses or wherever Ghostman came from.
When I felt that weird stomach sensation once more, I knew I was going back to being Real Ali. My wand appeared in my hand again, and I pointed it at Ghostman, who was still harassing an apparently unfazed Fake Ali. She really wasn’t all that intelligent. Definitely not a perfect clone of me.
I pointed my wand at Ghostman, ready to send him into the abyss.
