Wish Upon a Star (38 page)

“But why would you do that?” I asked, utterly confused. “Isn’t that like going on vacation, and then phoning in to the office?”

“That’s just it. I don’t have an office. I don’t have an obligation, to anyone. But if I
want
to do anything, I can. Just for the sake of doing it.”

I nodded. It had to be like Timothy, choosing to cook dinner for me, when he didn’t have to. “So you wished me here?”

Teel smiled, and the curve of her lips lit up her entire face. She looked like a complacent harvest goddess, beaming with power. “I wished you here, so that I could see the expression on your face. I wished you here so that I could know what you’d say when I work my other wish.”

“Your other wish?” I felt like I was being stupid. It seemed like Teel was infinitely older than I was, endlessly wiser. I imagined that I’d felt this way when I was a child, when my parents spelled words over my head to keep me from understanding whatever secrets they shared with each other.

Teel closed her eyes and took a deep breath through her perfect nose, exhaling through her flawless lips. She raised her fingers to her shell of an ear, once again snaring my attention with the endless wrap of flame around flame. She intoned, “I wish that Derek Carlson was home, safe and unharmed, from his duty overseas.”

“Teel!” I shouted her name, awash in disbelief. I had never dared to make that wish. I wasn’t sure that it would be a good one, that Derek would be happy at home. Sure, he loved Amy and Justin, that was never in doubt. But he was also proud of his career as a soldier, proud of his service to the country.

Teel merely smiled at me as if she were certain that Derek wanted to come home. And because she was so certain, I was, too. It couldn’t be any other way. There couldn’t be any other truth. Teel raised her fingers to her ear and tugged twice at the lobe.

I braced myself for the shock of electricity, for the jangle that I expected to shake me from crown to toe. There was nothing, though. No sharp jolt. No lingering hum. “It didn’t work,” I said, and I was astonished to hear my voice shaking. I was on the verge of tears. How could I be so upset about losing something I hadn’t known I could have, just one minute before?

“Of course it worked.” Teel laughed. “You didn’t feel anything, because it wasn’t your wish. It was mine.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I wanted to,” she said simply. “Because I like Justin. I liked the time I spent with him. He’s trying so hard to be good, which is more than I can say for most of you humans.” She shrugged her impossibly delicate shoulders. “I made the wish because I wanted to,” she repeated firmly.

“Thank you,” I said. I could barely imagine how Derek’s return would change things. Amy would be happy again—her old self, her strong self. She wouldn’t judge her worth entirely by how she did in her classes. She might even drop some of her business school jargon. Justin would be happy, too. He’d follow through on the changes he’d begun under Teel’s tutelage. He’d continue growing up, a good, healthy boy. And Derek… Well, I had to trust Teel. Everything else had worked out perfectly.

An owl hooted from behind a nearby bush. Teel rolled her eyes and laughed. “That’s Jaze. She thinks she’s being subtle. She thinks that you won’t notice an owl during daytime. Jaze, dear!” she called. “I’ll only be a minute more.”

She. Jaze had been a “he” when I arrived. I’d never get used to genies’ glib exchange of gender.

I wouldn’t have an opportunity to try, anymore. I met Teel’s eyes. “You shouldn’t keep her waiting. Don’t waste your time in the Garden.”

Teel laughed, and the sound cascaded toward me like tiny silver bells caught in a breeze. “Thank you, Erin.”

“For what?”

“For making your fourth wish. For freeing me. For letting me come here. I know you were reluctant. I know you were afraid.”

All of that seemed so long ago. I shook my head. “No,” I said. “Thank
you
.”

The owl hooted again, a little more impatiently. Teel glanced at the honeysuckle-shrouded bush before she raised her fingers to her ear. “Ready?” she asked.

“Ready,” I confirmed.

She tugged twice. My eyes were swept closed. My chest was compressed with the enormous power of nothingness. I stumbled, missing the invisible floor, and then I opened my eyes to find myself back in the alley. The muggy heat of a summer night pressed down on me. I tapped my foot against the ground, reassuring myself that I was in New York, in the real world. The human world.
My
world.

My phone rang, deep in my tote bag. I recognized the ring tone—Amy. I didn’t need to answer, though. I already knew what she was going to say. I knew that she’d just received word—from someone, from the base commander, from Derek himself—that her husband was heading home to New Brunswick. There’d be time enough for us to rejoice together, tomorrow.

I squared my shoulders and turned the corner into the Garden Variety courtyard. The canvas chairs had disappeared, along with the lighting instruments and all the scurrying technicians. The restaurant’s four iron tables melted into the shadows. The light inside Garden Variety was dimmed, barely splashing onto the flagstones. I thought back to the first time I had visited. Then, as now, I felt as if I’d stepped into a fairy tale, a place as magical as Teel’s Garden.

“It’s warm for eating outside, isn’t it?”

I realized that I’d been expecting Timothy to speak from the shadows. He’d startled me the first time I’d ever found the restaurant, but now I knew what to expect. He was robed in deep shadow beside the green-painted door. He stepped forward, utterly familiar in his dark jeans, his dark work shirt, his casually tied apron. I smiled at his unruly hair, at the waves that still refused to submit to any comb. I fought the urge to rub my fingertips across the rough stubble of his beard.

His hand was curled around a stoneware mug, and I caught a whiff of Earl Grey—the same hint of bergamot that he’d left for me the morning of my debut. Was it only the day before? He shrugged. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

He’d said that to me before, the first night that I’d come to Garden Variety. “No,” I said. “You didn’t.” I felt like I was reading from a script. I strayed from the lines, though, when I closed the distance between us, when I clutched at his shirt, pulling him close, trying to melt his entire body into mine.

He buried his face in my hair, breathing deeply. “Hmm,” he purred. “Honeysuckle.”

I clutched him closer, relishing the feel of his palms against my back, the grip of his fingers on my hips. “It’s late,” he finally whispered, when we both came up for air. “You must be starving.”

I smiled in the darkness and nodded toward the door. “I hope you have something to eat in there.”

“As you wish,” he said. I laughed as he drew back enough to usher me inside. Timothy would never know why those words were so funny. But that was all right. He didn’t need to know. Teel was gone from my life forever.

Timothy locked the door behind us. “I think I might be able to come up with something for you,” he said. As he took my hand and led me into the kitchen, I thought to myself,
One
.

From here on out, I was counting the good things that happened. And I was willing to bet there would be a lot more than three.

Thank you for reading
Wish Upon a Star
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Genies are not the only supernatural creatures who roam through our daily lives. In fact, there are a number of supernatural beings who makes themselves at home in Washington, D.C. Here’s your chance to read the first chapter of
Fright Court
, absolutely free!

* * *

As I watched Judge Robert DuBois drink a steaming glass of blood, I realized that my new job wasn’t going to be the usual nine to five.

This couldn’t be happening to me. I couldn’t be sitting in the courtroom for the District of Columbia Night Court, watching an actual vampire devour a midnight snack. I couldn’t be staring at suddenly-apparent fangs, at jet-black eyes in a whey-pale face, at a cruel and commanding supernatural jurist, where a mousy human judge had sat mere moments before.

It looked like my dream job, Court Clerk for the District of Columbia Night Court, was going to leave a little something to be desired.

“James,” Judge DuBois snapped. “Do we have a problem with Ms. Anderson?”

My boss stood at attention beside me. In his impeccable dark suit, Mr. Morton looked every bit the Director of Security for the Night Court. “No, Your Honor. No problem at all.”

But we did have a problem. A huge one — gaping in the center of the courtroom floor. The red-headed Amazon of a bailiff, Eleanor Owens, had pressed some hidden lever on the courtroom wall, and the sleek marble tiles started to slide back, folding away silently, one beneath another. An iron railing rose up from the emptiness below. Stairs gleamed as they marched into the darkness, and a metallic clang announced some door opening far below.

Eleanor’s impressive display of violet eyeshadow glittered as she stepped away from the lever and intoned, “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! All persons having business before the Honorable, the Night Court of the Eastern Empire, are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the Court is now sitting. May Sekhmet watch over all proceedings here and render justice unto all.”

I barely had time to register the odd words before a woman walked up the shadowy stairs. Exquisitely dressed in a plum-colored suit, she was the living — or, I rapidly came to suspect — the undead image of a professional lady lawyer. She strode to the defense table and snapped open her briefcase.

A doddering old man followed behind her. Okay, he wasn’t actually doddering, and he was probably only fifty-five, but he looked fat and soft and stupid next to the woman. He lugged a heavy litigation bag, one of those oversized briefcases that attorneys use to cart around endless sheaves of paper. He grunted as he hefted the satchel onto the prosecution’s table.

Once both lawyers had settled into their places, Eleanor descended the stairs. My mind was reeling; I was twisting the coral ring on the middle finger of my right hand as if it could turn back time, could make everything normal again. I had only completed one year of law school, but my classes had certainly never prepared me for anything like this. Even my interview with Mr. Morton had seemed perfectly normal — he had glanced at my resumé, asked me a bunch of questions about the three dozen jobs I’d held over the past few years, nodded when I explained that I was good at organizing information. He’d accepted my writing sample, told me that he was looking at a couple of other candidates, and said that he’d be back in touch.

And three days later, I was hired.

Now, sitting in the courtroom, Mr. Morton leaned forward, as two heads came into view on the secret staircase, Eleanor’s and the defendant’s. Clever me — I realized that the slight guy with the white-blond hair and ice-blue eyes had to be the defendant, because a gleaming silver chain was strung between his feet. That, and the fact that he wore a baggy white prison uniform, along with dirty flip-flops.

Eleanor followed behind the guy, towering over him without regard to the sneer he directed at her. She hefted a length of silver chain in her left hand; the links stood out against her heavy amethyst bracelet. In her right hand, she held a wooden stick, the length of her forearm and the width of her wrist. It tapered down to a knife-sharp point.

The Night Court bailiff held a stake.

This had to be a joke — some sort of hazing for the new girl. Mr. Morton had read my resumé. He knew that I’d written my undergraduate thesis on Gothic literature in America — old horror stories, like Edgar Allan Poe. The courtroom staff must have decided to pull my leg.

Strike that. Judge DuBois didn’t look like the type of guy who would put up with courtroom pranks.

This was insane. They couldn’t be vampires. Vampires had no lungs. No beating hearts. I focused on Mr. Morton’s starched white shirt. As soon as I saw him take a breath, I could laugh at myself. I could say that I had been taken in by a strange series of coincidences, that I’d been a gullible fool.

But he didn’t breathe.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eleanor clump back to her place at the front of the bench. She proclaimed: “The matter of the Clans of the Eastern Empire versus Karl Schmidt, Judge Robert DuBois presiding.”

Mr. Morton still didn’t breathe.

The blond woman stood and announced, “Your Honor, we’d like to call our next witness, Ernst Brauer.”

No breathing yet.

Eleanor heaved herself toward the impossible stairs in the center of the courtroom, stood at attention as another man climbed those steps. Judge DuBois ordered Brauer to take the witness stand.

No breathing at all.

My head swam. My vision clouded, and I realized that I had to get out of that room. “I can’t— “ I started to say, and I staggered toward the courtroom doors, doors that I had watched Mr. Morton lock behind us, a mere half hour before.

“James!” Judge DuBois snapped, and my boss’s hand suddenly reached for my elbow.

“No!” I said, jerking my arm out of his reach.

“Sarah!” Mr. Morton shouted, and he blocked my way to the courtroom doors.

Before I could push past him, a snarl ripped the air — pure animal fury that shattered whatever formality remained in the courtroom. Judge DuBois slammed his gavel down, demanding order in his court. There was a clatter as the court reporter leaped to one side. Eleanor clutched her silver chain, and Mr. Morton grabbed at me again, closing his icy palm around my arm.