The New Magic - The Revelation of Jonah McAllister - Landon Wark (bill gates best books TXT) 📗

"I don't know what I see happening," Clay laughed. "There's fucking magic in the world!"

Carmen laughed weakly. "I mean, the world's felt so off kilter over the past few years. I guess we might need actual magic to bring it back into alignment."

"You want it to be real."

"Wouldn't you want there to be magic. Like, real magic?"

"I think we all do."

Carmen winced and groaned. "That's how they get you, you know. Cultists, politicians, corporations. They find out what you want and promise you it'll get done like—" She snapped her fingers. "—that! Magic!"

"Yeah. Hey, um listen. I might need someone a little savvier than me to make sure I don't fall for the old ‘pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.’ Can you help a dumb farm hand out?"

Carmen smiled. "All right, big guy. You and me, we'll keep an eye out for each other. And if this whole thing turns out to be one big grift, we'll go on a murderous revenge rampage together. Deal?"

"Deal. Do me a favour though?"

"Was'at?"

"Don't try anything until tomorrow? I think there's a couple of things we can do to maybe lessen the risk, or at least figure out how much risk there could be."

"I... I'll try."

Clay extricated himself from the doorway and started off down the hall.

"Okay. G'night."

"Good night," Carmen muttered, staring at the crumpled piece of paper and it's precious yellow flakes in front of her.

Overnight. Just overnight and it would have been an entire day and that was usually her limit. There was nowhere near enough on the paper before her to keep the worst at bay unless she did what Clay had warned her against. She made up and changed her mind first once and then twice, the fear of poison running up her veins into her heart doing battle with the pain in her joints and head. Finally she opened the drawer of the unfamiliar nightstand, crumpled up the waxy paper and tossed it inside, rolling into a fetal position in an attempt to finally get some sleep.

The Practical Magic Society's Single Blind

Paul Kwon lifted the last of the large boxes onto the cart and winced against the twanging feeling in his back as a muscle popped. He was not an old man, nor did he consider himself particularly out of shape, having spent a couple of summers helping build houses for needy families, but his back still acted up occasionally. He felt like there should be a gate for him to close, but the two gate posts stood naked to either side of where he stood. Why the delivery people couldn't bring the parcels all the way up to the house was a topic of some debate, but he placed the rumours that Satanists had taken up residence in the house as the primary reason.

The day was already turning out to be a scorcher, to use one of his mother's phrases. At six in the morning the sun was already a few degrees above the horizon and the wind had gone into hiding. He ran his hand over the front of his receding hairline and made a mental note that he was going to need a hat if he was going to be outside for any extended period of time.

The cart rattled and skidded along the tire tracks, refusing to stay straight. The jostling and rumbling of the wheels caused the boxes to slide around the flat surface, forcing him to stop and readjust their positions to prevent them from falling into damp grass. It was an annoying task, but he had been the first one awake and it felt like an obligation that he picked up the delivery.

After several stops he reached the porch and began the equally arduous task of moving the boxes up the steps, juggling to the point where he could manage to wedge his foot inside and kicking it open farther, propping with his elbow and then swinging himself and the box into the house. Sweat from the frozen goods formed in the heat of the early morning had weakened the last box to the point where he had to move each individual item, ice cream, three milk jugs and a large quantity of frozen vegetables.

"Oh," Jenny's voice from the stairway came as he dropped a pint of rocky road onto the entrance floor.

She scooped up the container from the floor and began moving obstructive groceries farther into the house while Paul brought in the rest.

"Next time deliveries come I'm sleeping in," he grumbled.

"I could have helped," Jenny said.

"It didn't seem like such a big job when I went out," he replied.

"Well." She pulled some cereal from out of the box closest to the hallway leading to the kitchen. "At least my Crunchy Flakes got here."

Paul took what pleasure he could in Jenny's slight smile, taking a step back as he thought about the conversation he had had with her (ex?) husband nearly a week earlier. In the interim he had gotten used to Jenny as a sort of slight, spectral figure who would sort of recede into the corner when any kind of attention was given to her. He had made a couple of attempts to talk with her over the brief time when they were the only other two people in the house, but she had seemed too closed off to make a serious go of it. From what he had learned from her husband he had little blame for her.

Strange that the thing that made her open up, however slightly was a box of cereal.

The two of them carried what they could of the items that required refrigeration, along with the cereal box, abandoning the remainder to those who were still asleep to manage.

"How are you doing?" Paul asked as he opened the chest freezer that rumbled quietly