Suddenly, a harsh movement came from Maria’s left. Claire had the car door handle. She couldn’t take what she was seeing.
My best friend has turned into something out of DC Comics, Claire thought, freaking out. She wanted to scream, but the fear of the situation, the surprise—all of it—closed her throat.
“Wait,” Maria said. And even her voice sounded different, Claire realized. It was deeper, commanding. The type of voice someone like Wonder Woman would have.
“You know you’re glowing?” Claire found herself saying.
“Yeah. It’s called magic.”
Claire’s mouth opened to say bullshit, but how could she say that? The proof was right in front of her. She needn’t look any farther than the glowing blue skin of Maria Apple, sitting in the front seat of her Kia Rio.
“Magic?” she said instead.
Sherlock barked from the backseat, as if in agreement. That was weird, too weird.
When Maria finally stopped glowing, Claire had forgotten all about her shift at Sephora.
“So you’re a magical alien?”
“At least partly,” Maria answered. “You know how my grandpa is a little…off?”
“A little?”
Maria rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, all that stuff about a planet called Oriceran is true.”
The reality of the situation had started to settle over her. Pictures of dollar signs, bags of money, bars of gold, the TV appearances, the memoirs (My Best Friend is a Magical Alien: The True Story of Midwestern Weirdness), and everything else that came with the fame of knowing an honest-to-God extraterrestrial hit her.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Maria said.
Claire started. She felt like she’d been caught doing something bad. Exploit my best friend? No, I could never do that. Maria was more than a friend, when it came down to it. Maria was part of her family.
“You’re thinking you should call the police or the government, and they should lock me up in Area 51 so they can run tests on me, or whatever.”
“Not exactly,” Claire allowed.
“Oh. I know what you’re thinking…” Maria tried again.
Claire found herself hiding a smile. Once the initial shock of the situation wore off, they were best friends again, and Claire wouldn’t hold the flick to the chest against Maria. They laughed again.
“Real nice,” Maria said, “thinking of banking on my gift.”
“More like deformity,” Claire said.
“Don’t make me flick you again.”
Claire flinched. “Okay, so how does the fact that you glow blue sometimes play into you almost crushing Kaylee and her gang of hyenas with a clown sculpture?”
“Hey, I don’t think it would’ve crushed her—maybe given them a concussion, or something, but definitely not killed them.”
“Too bad,” Claire said.
Maria hit her playfully.
“Well, from what I’ve been able to glean—”
“English, please,” Claire said.
“Read a book or something, geesh.” Maria raised a finger. “And don’t you dare say ‘LOL’.”
Claire motioned with her hands, making an ‘L’ shape, then an ‘O’ shape, and finally another ‘L’ shape.
Maria sighed, and then explained, “What I’ve been able to understand is that the magic only comes to me when I’m angry. Though Gramps said I’ll be able to control it eventually.”
“Is that what you want?”
“To be different?” Maria asked. “I guess I’ve always been different and I haven’t noticed it.”
Yeah, you can talk to your dog, Sherlock said.
Maria ignored him, a smile playing on her lips.
“Yeah, it’s what I want. Ignatius Apple raised me the right way. And that’s to always help out when you can. Right now, I can.”
“What do you mean?”
“Long ago, there was a battle fought between the village I came from and creatures of the Dark Forest.”
Claire held her hand up. “Whoa, Dark Forest? What’s next, a trail of bread crumbs and a house made out of candy?”
Sherlock barked. Yes, please.
“Yeah, I thought the same,” Maria said to Claire. “But the people of that village were tucked away into a world in between our worlds.”
“By that, you mean Oricer-e-an and Earth?”
“Oriceran,” Maria corrected, “but yes.” Her skin was back to its usual peachy color, although the buzz of magic in her head hadn’t subsided. “It’s a purgatory, I guess; a place where the dead and the living can get stuck. There was a Queen Witch who used this,” she pulled out the music box that she had tucked away in her pocket, “to open the way into this world in between.”
“Wait, Queen Wi—”
“Don’t,” Maria interrupted. “It’ll get weirder. Apparently there are Gnomes and Elves, and all kinds of magical creatures Tolkien or the Brothers Grimm made famous. And some of them live right here on Earth!”
“Like that movie Men in Black with Will Smith, back when he was a total knockout.”
Maria thought about the movie, about the aliens hiding in plain sight. “Yeah, kind of like that. Except, from my understanding, most of the Oricerans seem like they’re on the good side.”
Claire looked at the clock on the radio, its numbers roughly translating to, ‘YOU’RE LATE, GETTING CLOSE TO BEING FIRED’. She tried to speed the conversation up, but, naturally, there was no speeding up Maria. She’s just like her grandfather when it comes to telling tales.
“Except for one,” Maria went on. “His—or its—name is Malakai, and he was a double traitor.”
“And, let me guess,” Claire jumped in. “He’s out there and he’s after you.”
“Close.” Maria paused dramatically. “He’s after the music box. Gramps and Salem think he wants to find his old crew in the world in between.”
“Salem?”
“An old wizard my grandpa hangs out with at that ice cream shop.”
Claire nodded. “Oh, yeah. Bunch of weirdo old people hang out there, I forgot. Wizards and witches, who knew?”
The concept of another world full of magical beings was far from sticking in Claire’s brain, but she chose to go along with it for her best friend’s sake.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I thought,” Maria said. “But I hung out with them last night —talk about a nineteenth birthday bash—and they’re actually really cool. You should come hang sometime.”
“Maybe I’ll take a raincheck on that one,” Claire hedged. “But cut to the chase. If I don’t get back in the store, I might have to have Sherlock here
