“I like my bagel burned!” the man sang out, and all but skipped out of the store.
Throughout all this, Rocky hadn’t said another word, and I hadn’t acknowledged his presence. But once the customer was out of the store, he turned to me incredulously and said, “What—?”
“Just happened?” I finished for him, even as he said, “—are you doing here?”
He added, “And yeah, what just happened?”
What just happened was that I’d broken at least half a dozen Council rules about using magic in front of mortals—and using magic on mortals—in a non-life-threatening situation, but all I said to Rocky was “Must’ve turned the toaster up too high. You know those banker pervs. They’re all masochists—they love it when a pretty girl abuses them.”
Rocky just looked at me for a minute, clearly disbelieving what he’d just seen, and I found myself contemplating putting a hex on him to make him forget what had just happened. I could do it gently, whispering a few words over some valerian leaves and dropping them in a glass of iced tea, or I could do it roughly, literally pushing the thoughts out of his brain with an image of my own making. But though one would leave a little psychic scar and the other would give him nothing more than a headache, both felt wrong to me for some reason. I had cared for Rocky. You didn’t treat people you liked this way. Before I had to choose between two equally unpleasant options, however, he shook his head.
“Okay, then, that’s one question. And question two?”
“The what-am-I-doing-here question?” I stalled. He nodded. “Didn’t you get the memo? I work here.”
Another long stare, followed eventually by another shake of the head. Without another word, he headed to the back room to drop off his backpack and came out wearing a Cheesemonger apron. You know the old saying about the tension being so thick you could cut it with a knife? Well, we were in a cheese shop. I’d say it was somewhere between a firm feta and a hard Havarti. But all Rocky said was:
“You started on Billy and Bruce’s order yet?”
“Are they still getting all those Anthony Weiners?”
“A dozen. Plus a dozen Marilyn Monroes.”
“How gay men can eat so much red meat and mayo and stay so thin is beyond me,” I said, pulling out a platter of pepper-crusted roast beef and a tub of dill-infused aioli.
Rocky didn’t say anything, but the corner of his mouth twitched.
“Was that a smile?” I teased.
Rocky’s mouth twitched again. His lips actually curled this time, and I caught a glimpse of teeth.
He laid out twenty-four slices of rye bread and began spreading horseradish mustard on every other slice. I followed along behind him with the aioli.
Rocky started to slice the roast beef into wafer-thin shavings, and I laid on the red and brown slices of prepared bread like a maid in a boutique hotel making the bed with Yves Delorme sheets. I tried to imagine what the name of this color would be. Lipstick-and-Tobacco, I thought, or Cranberry Iced Tea. Or who knows: Rare Roast Beef.
I laughed again.
“What’s so funny?” Rocky said.
“I couldn’t even explain it if I wanted to. Let’s just say that if I can’t build a career out of making sammies and coffee, I can always try to come up with product names for bedsheets.”
Rocky looked at me like I was crazy, but crazy in a good way. He stared at me with a confused but gleeful, goofy grin on his face, framed by crescent moon dimples. And then the smile faded and his dimples disappeared, like a crazy double eclipse.
A line from that old Vanessa Williams song popped into my head. Sometimes the sun goes ’round the moon . . .
“Molly,” Rocky said, “what happened to us?”
I knew he didn’t mean the customer from ten minutes ago.
He meant what had happened to us after we’d watched the Wimbledon final and celebrated by losing our virginity to each other, and then I’d disappeared.
What had happened? I thought to myself.
I thought about telling him that what had happened was that he and I had met right when my mother had resurfaced in my life, and as great as he was, he couldn’t really compete with her. Couldn’t compete with any mother, but the fact that my mother just happened to be Janet Steele made it that much harder for him to stand out.
But I knew that wasn’t true.
I thought about telling him that my mother’s majordomo was so jealous of her daughters that he cast a spell on their phones so they couldn’t contact anyone. Just to screw with them. But aside from the fact that I knew I couldn’t tell Rocky that, I knew it wasn’t true either.
I thought about telling him the truth: that I’d fallen in love with the sweetest, funniest, sexiest, good-hair-having boy I’d ever met, but he was mortal. A mortal who I knew was going to die one day, while I’d still go on living year after year, and no matter how powerful my magic grew, the only thing I’d have left of him was a memory.
All of a sudden, I was filled with incredible respect for Ingrid. Respect, and sympathy. Because I knew that as much as I loved Rocky, she loved Matt a thousand times more, and she was still going to lose him and keep on living.
“Molly?” Rocky said in a nervous voice. “The look on your face is scaring me.”
I looked up at him. Wide jaw. Full lips. Stubbled cheeks. Hair that any member of One Direction would kill for. And right then I knew that if I spent all my time worrying about the future, I’d never be able to enjoy my present. Eternity was going to be really freakin’ miserable if I lived it that way.
“Nothing happened,” I said. “I freaked out a little bit, I guess. It was my first time, you know.”
He nodded goofily. “I remember,” he said in a hushed voice.
“You damn well better,” I said, and gave him a little shove.
“It was my first time too,” he said, his voice even more hushed—husky—now.
“I remember,” I said.
“You better,” he said, and gave me a little shove. But he didn’t let go when he pushed and ended up pulling me closer than I’d been a moment ago, until the fronts of our jeans were just touching. His hands were resting on my hips, and I could feel them trembling slightly, as he fought off the desire to crush my body against his.
“If you don’t kiss me, I’m afraid your hair’s going to catch fire like that bagel did.”
“What?” he said confusedly. Then: “Oh, never mind,” and his mouth closed over mine.
Because I’m a goddess, I can tell you that our kiss lasted exactly ninety-eight seconds. It would have gone on a lot longer than that, but then three things happened.
First, the bells over the door rang.
Then the toaster exploded.
And then a familiar voice rang out:
“Oops.”
28
WAKE ME UP INSIDE
Mardi-Overbrook-Journal.docx
At the sound of my voice, Molly and Rocky had broken their lip-lock. They both stared at me in shock for a moment. Then Rocky whipped his head around toward the flaming toaster.
“Holy crap!” He jumped toward the fire, whose flames were racing toward a shelf of boxed teas. His hand darted out and pulled the plug on the toaster. Then he reached under the counter and pulled out a box of . . . baking soda, it turned out, which surprised me, to say the least. But when he vigorously shook the box over the flames, they began to sputter. Within a few seconds, the fire was out, nothing but a thick white smoke emanating from the counter like the aftermath of a stage magician’s trick.
I saw all this out of the corner of my eye. My gaze was focused on Molly, and her eyes never left mine. She watched me warily.
“Mardi, what are you talking about? What’s wrong?”
I didn’t know what to say, but something about seeing them together made me want to summon my father’s lightning and
hurl it somewhere.
“Mardi, calm down, you’re not really jealous,” Molly said. “You were just into him to get back at me over Mum.”
“That’s ridic—”
I was cut off by the piercing shriek of the smoke detector. My hand jumped up of its own accord, my fingers curled into a claw. The smoke detector exploded off the ceiling in a dozen pieces.
“What the Hell?” Rocky exclaimed into the sudden silence. “What is going on with this place today?”
A look of concern replaced the anger on Molly’s face. “Mardi, what are you doing? You’re going to get yourself busted by the Council!”
“What council?” Rocky asked. “Like, the city council?”
“Uh, not exactly,” I said. “The White Council, which oversees supernatural beings and the use of magic.”
“Mardi!” Molly said, darting a look at Rocky. There was a confused expression on his face, but then he let out a little nervous snort.
“Okay, this is going from uncomfortable to just weird. Maybe I should take off for a while, let you two work this out?”
“Stay where you are!” Molly barked.
Rocky froze in his tracks, and his eyes glazed over as though he was hypnotized. He wavered back and forth slightly, as if a breath of wind could knock him over. Molly looked startled. I don’t think she’d intended to use magic, let alone turn Rocky into a zombie.
“Now who’s trying to bring down the Council’s wrath?” I smirked.
“Oh, crap,” Molly said, ignoring me. She hurried over to Rocky and walked him backward a few steps until he was leaning against a counter. “Rocky? Babe, wake up.”
It was the babe that got me. Even as Rocky started to blink rapidly, I said in a deep, powerful voice:
“Yes, Rocky, wake up. Wake up and let Molly explain to you how she used her powers to make you fall in love with her, then kicked you to the curb as soon as she got what she wanted!”
“Wh-what?” Rocky said, his eyes clear now, but still dazed.
“Are you kidding me?” Molly said. “If anyone used magic to seduce Rocky, it was you.”
“Magic?” Rocky said, his face rotating from Molly to me and back again. “Babe, what are talking about?”
There it was again. Babe. In that one word, I knew I’d lost and Molly had won.
I opened my mouth, but Molly spoke first.
“Mardi, think about what you’re about to say,” she implored, nodding at Rocky. “We can still roll this back without having to resort to . . . other means.”
“What, like wiping Rocky’s memory?”
Rocky looked completely at sea now. “I must’ve inhaled too much smoke. What the Hell are you two talking about?”
And of course what really pissed me off was that I knew I should have lost. Knew I shouldn’t have been fighting for Rocky in the first place. I was the one who’d used Rocky as a toy, a stand-in, not Molly. But I was overcome by a rage that felt like it had been building in me all my life. Not just seventeen years, but seventeen hundred. Seventeen thousand. And now, finally, I was going to let it out.
I whirled on Rocky.
“Don’t know how to break it to you, babe, but the pair of sisters standing in front of you are witches. And not your garden-variety, sold-my-soul-to-Satan bubble-bubble-toil-and-trouble witches, but card-carrying goddesses of the Asgardian variety. Your babe beside you is really called Mooi, the goddess of strength, and I’m Magdi, the goddess of rage.”
Molly’s jaw dropped. I could see Rocky fighting to disbelieve me, but I’d put just enough magic in my voice that it was impossible. As surreal as my words were, he had no choice but to accept the truth behind them.
“Witches,” he said, the way the character in Jurassic Park says dinosaurs the first time he sees a living, breathing one. “Goddesses.”
Suddenly, Molly raised her hand and pointed it at him. “Sleep,” she commanded.
Rocky’s eyes rolled back in his head, and his knees buckled. Molly must’ve been accessing some of her goddess of strength power, however, because she caught him as if he was as light and precious as a Balenciaga gown slipping off its hanger. As if he were no bigger than a sleeping infant, she kneeled and laid him on the floor behind the counter.
“I think I know what’s going on here,” she said as she stood up again. “I think this is the Reawakening! Our powers are manifesting.”
“Really?” I said skeptically, not because I didn’t believe her but because I felt like being a bitch. “Whatever it is, it feels good.” I waved my hand at a shelf and watched as jars and boxes flew across the room and shattered against the walls and floor.
“I’m serious, Mardi. You’ve got to get yourself under control. It’s like the magical equivalent of hormones. It’s not you who’s doing this; it’s chemicals, or energy or something. And every time you use your power, I can feel it triggering mine too.”
“I don’t know why you’re complaining. Isn’t this what Mum wants? For us to embrace our identity as goddesses? The Mimir? The saviors of Midgard?”
“Look around you. Does this like you’re saving anything?”
Molly waved a hand at the store, which was in shambles. As she did, I could feel a wave of . . . something . . . an energy . . . a force . . . a pulse away from her, and still more items went sailing through the air. A horrified expression took over her face, and she snatched her hand back as if it had been shocked.
“What’s happening?”
I threw back my head and laughed, and was rewarded with the sight of the pressed-tin ceiling buckling and tearing like wet paper.
“You called it, sister. It’s the Reawakening.” I threw out my arms and felt the whole store shudder. “Embrace it. It feels wonderful!”
“Mardi!” Molly screamed. “Stop!”
Another wave of power hit me, hard enough to send me reeling backward. I managed to stay on my feet, but the overstocked table beside me wasn’t so lucky. It went flying Real Housewives–style across the room, nearly going through the plate glass window at the front of the store.
“That’s how you want to play it?” I said. “Okay, let’s do this!”
I flung out my hands. Molly was still on the far side of the counter, which shuddered and lurched and then rolled toward her, sending bowls and buckets and knives and forks clattering to the floor. Molly screamed in fear and jumped forward to catch it. She ignored all the little things, throwing herself at the counter itself, catching it with both hands before it tipped all the way over. It must’ve weighed twenty or thirty times what she did, though, and she was clearly struggling to hold it upright—especially since I was still using my power to push it forward.
“Goddess of strength, huh?” I said. “What do you say we put that to the test?” Squinting my eyes, I concentrated all my anger at the counter. The glass sneeze-guard shattered, and the tubular metal frame began bending like licorice.
“Mardi, stop!” Molly grunted. “You’re going to hurt Rocky!”
“What?” I said, confused, but not so confused that I stopped pushing at the lopsided counter. “Rocky?” I’d completely forgotten about him. “Where’s—?”
I was cut off by a loud crack! The marble slab on top of the counter had shattered into half a dozen pieces and begun falling to the floor on the far side of the counter. Crash! Crash! Crash! Thud!
Thud?
I figured it out a half second before Molly screamed.
“Rocky!”
Thud.
29
HIGHWAY TO “HEL”
From the Diary of Molly Overbrook
Crack!
The marble countertop broke into pieces and began falling to the floor, directly over Rocky’s body. I wanted to swat them away, but I couldn’t let go of the counter or it would fall on him and crush him. I tried pushing with my mind the way Mardi was, but I had
to see the pieces clearly to affect them and there were too many and they were falling too fast. I managed to keep three of them from smashing into Rocky’s chest and stomach and legs, but then there was a sickening thud at the other end of Rocky’s body, and I whipped my face around just in time to see a massive piece of marble—at least a hundred pounds worth—falling off Rocky’s head. His body twitched once, and then it settled into an eerie stillness.
“Rocky!”
I felt something move through me like a chill. My whole body shuddered, and the next thing I knew, the entire counter was flying through the air toward Mardi. I didn’t see if it hit her, though, because I’d fallen to my knees next to Rocky.
“Rocky!” I screamed. “Rocky! Wake up!”
I could feel the magical force behind my words, but it didn’t matter. Rocky didn’t move. I snatched his wrist to feel for a pulse, but even as I did, I saw the . . . the dent in his forehead oozing with blood, and I realized it was hopeless. It was at least an inch deep, and bleeding profusely.
I whirled toward Mardi, who was extracting herself from the wreckage of the counter with a dazed expression on her face.
“What—what happened?” She seemed genuinely mystified.
“What happened?” I screamed. “YOU! KILLED! ROCKY!”
My voice was so loud that the windows at the front of the store shattered outward. Some part of my brain heard the squeal of brakes and a few startled shouts, but my rage was still focused on Mardi—who seemed to have no idea what she’d done.
“What? No. No!”
But the answer was lying dead at my feet.
Mardi stood up as if to run toward us, but one look at my face stopped her.
“Stay back!” I yelled, grabbing Rocky in my arms.
“What’s going on in here?” a voice said behind Mardi. A sixtysomething woman in rubber boots and gardening gloves had appeared in the glassless window. “Is everyone okay?”
Mardi spun around.
“Fire!” she yelled.
I heard the magic in her voice and felt static electricity prickling the air around my skin. For a moment, I thought the whole store was going to burst into flame, but instead, it burst into smoke—thick, blinding bolts of black smoke that filled the entire space.