Chapter One

I had never imagined myself in this position at twenty-six with a Bachelor's degree. While I wiped the slime from my hands, a troll stood on the other side of the counter, hunched over with his lips to the glass and his tongue hanging out as he admired the sliced meats inside the case. "Hey. Hey!" I shouted, marching towards him with a damp rag. I threw it over the counter and whipped him on the top of the head, but he ignored me.

I recognized this troll. Bill, or Dollar Bill as we had called him in high school, was one of the few successful men of his species, and bright for his kind too. He’d only taken two years of college before inheriting his father's software programing business. How trolls could type with such fat fingers was beyond me.

"Bill!" I whipped him again, hitting his eyebrow this time.

He stood, towering over me and looked first at my nametag then at my face. He raised his brow and his eyes widened. "Jackie? I didn't know you were still in town," he said. A smile spread across his cracked lips. Two tusks poked through the corners of his mouth. His eyes were small and black.

I began wiping my hands again with the rag. "Came for Mom's funeral. Stayed for Dad and Byron," I said.

"I heard about your mom." He hung his head. It was an awkward sight. Trolls were not known for their compassion or understanding of human emotion, but Bill had tried since school to act more human. He hoped it would make him seem more professional. "It's a terrible thing. I'd thought you'd gone back to... Where was it? Alabama?"

"Arizona," I corrected. “I moved back to help take care of Dad and Byron.” They were wrecks since Mom died. I'd given up my career job to come back to South Dakota and work in a grocery store. The deli, to be precise.

Bill crossed his massive tan arms. Green veins bulged from them, clearly visible. He nodded. "Sad stuff." His eyes fell on the meats in the glass case again. Long strings of saliva hung from the corners of his mouth beneath his tusks. "I need two pounds of smoked ham, and a pound of honey," he said.

I tossed the rag behind me without looking, and it fell directly into the sink thanks to my manipulation of aura, a small gift that some humans could inherit.

Bill raised his brows. "Tell me again why you weren't on the basketball team in school? Tell me you played in college."

"Nope," I said, grabbing a pair of stretchy plastic gloves and slipping them on.

He grunted. "You're tall enough. You have freaking good aim. And your shots.” He gave an amused huff. “I remember in P.E. you always beat us at U.N.I.C.O.R.N."

I recalled all of the boys' shock when I beat them in any game. U.N.I.C.O.R.N. was the new version of H.O.R.S.E. invented just to make the game longer by using more letters. It was true. I had used my gift without my classmates or teachers knowing I even had such power, but aside from the games I could use the gift on, I was horrendous at sports.

I reached into the glass case and pulled out a handful of the smoked ham for Bill. I set it on the scale. Slightly over a pound. I wrapped it and put it in a bag with a label and did the same for the next pound of smoked and the single pound of honey. "I gave you a little extra," I said with a forced smile. Most customers didn't realize that when we weighed the meat, it calculated price based on the exact weight and not just what they asked for. Extra money for us deli folk.

He smiled back and took the bags in his thick arms, cradling them like children.

"Anything else I can do for you?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I'm good for now, thanks. I'll see you around." He waved as he turned to leave, walking toward the registers.

I rolled my eyes. I hadn't needed the reminders that I hated working here and that I should be in the desert putting my degree to use. Instead, I was back where I started. Working from seven in the morning until nine at night with half an hour lunch break every day. Not to mention the half-hour commute. Just when I thought I couldn’t feel any worse, that song came on the radio again. The same pop song that played at least once every hour. I winced and covered my ears, forgetting that I still wore the slime-covered gloves. And now my ears were slimy. Great.

My eyelids twitched as I called my gift, the aura lifting the rag from the sink and floating it into my hand. An easy enough trick to pull off when no one was around. I dabbed the moist fabric at my ears. The disgusting meat byproduct here was enough to make me go vegetarian.

I glanced at the clock. Time to start closing up shop. There would inevitably be a customer or two who would stop by literally seconds before I clocked out to ask for some meats or cheeses from the now closed case, but I'd give in and get it for them like I always did.

I clocked out and marched straight outside to Mom's old Toyota Camry. Dad wanted to sell it after she died, but I insisted on keeping it. It was already paid off and in decent enough condition, although red wasn't my favorite color, especially for a car. It roared when it started up.

I tore the uniform cap from my head and tossed it into the passenger seat. Pulling the ponytail and bobby pins from my hair, I let my wavy blond locks fall comfortably over my shoulders. After a moment of relaxation leaning my head against the headrest, I put the car into gear and pulled out of the parking lot. For half an hour, it putt-putted down the highway to take me home.

Dad slept on the reclined chair wrapped in an electric blanket. He wheezed in his sleep. He hadn’t felt well the past few days.

I rounded the corner into the kitchen to make myself some dinner. A cup of noodles, most likely. Spread across the kitchen table was a mess of papers. Byron’s homework. I glanced over them to find that none of the answers had been filled in yet. “Byron!” I shouted up the stairs.

Dad jerked awake, peered around the corner at me, and settled himself back into his chair. He scratched at his gray beard as he dozed.

Byron poked his head out of his room. “What?” he called back.

“Do your homework,” I said. I placed my hands on my hips, my eyes locked on him, giving him the stink eye.

He ran his fingers through his shaggy brown hair and rolled his eyes. “I’ll do it later. I’m in the middle of a game.”

I furrowed my brow and pursed my lips. “It’s getting late. Do it now so you can get to bed at a decent time.”

He rolled his eyes again and closed his door. I swore he could be the poster child for teen angst.

“I’m serious!” I shouted after hearing the lock click from up the stairs.

He did not emerge or make a sound.

I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs and drag him down to do his bloody homework, but thought better of it and let him be. Dad needed sleep.

I popped a cup of noodles into the microwave to heat it up and sat on the couch, turning up the TV just loud enough so I could hear. Dad had the news on, and though I didn’t care much for what was happening in this blip of the world, I cared even less for silence. As I expected, nothing exciting happened in the news. Nothing exciting happened in my life. Just another day in the life of Jacqueline Robinson.

***

The morning went by slower than a snail in molasses. My manager called me in early and expected me to stay until closing. My eyelids were already heavy, and my arms and legs weak. I hadn’t slept well last night between Dad’s coughing fits and Byron’s music playing. The boy claimed he couldn’t sleep at night without it.

I yawned and looked at the clock. Almost noon. The most I had to look forward to today was an hour lunch break, provided I could get someone to watch the case for me. The girl working the salad bar was more than happy to oblige.

I clocked out and headed to my car. I hopped in and turned the key in the ignition. I felt too sick to eat right now. It wasn’t too far to the old soda fountain. I could have walked, and probably should have given my hazy condition, but I was too tired to care. I pulled into the tiny parking lot and got out, slamming the car door behind me as I went.

A light tinkle rang in my ears when I opened the door. Behind the counter stood a little old woman. She stood barely over five feet tall. Her white hair was curled tight about her head, and she wore a pair of glasses around her neck. I’d never seen them placed properly on her face. She stretched her wrinkly face into a smile, her eyes squinting, when she saw me come in. “Been a while, Jackie,” she said.

I chuckled. “Yeah, a whole week,” I joked. At least two of my lunches each week were spent in this soda fountain. It was a quaint place, and left me feeling at home. Beth was a friendly, almost grandmotherly, face. She was one of the few people I had told about my powers.

She offered me another warm smile as I took a seat at one of the barstools. “What can I get ya today, hon?” She ran the sink water and washed her hands while I looked over the menu. I had mostly memorized their options, but it was fun to ponder which item I wanted.

“I’m thinking something strawberry today.”

“We looking for a drink or a snack?”

“Not sure.” I rested my elbows on the counter.

“Soda? Phosphate? Sundae? Shake?”

“Strawberry shake sounds nice.”

Without delay, she started to work. She grabbed a metal cup and filled it with soft vanilla icecream. She spun to face me and squirted three shots of strawberry syrup into the cup. She knew I didn’t like the way that real fruit’s seeds got stuck in my teeth. “How’s your dad doing?”

“He’s still got that cough.” I dug through my back pocket in search of cash to pay her with. “We’re not too worried. He saw the doctor the other day, and he says it should clear up in a week or so.”

“Good, good.” She spun again, quick for someone her age, and ran the cup under the mixing machine. It screeched and whirred and made my headache worsen. She turned the machine off and faced me. “You feeling all right today, hon?” Reaching into a tall jar, she retrieved a spoon and handed it to me with the metal cup. There was no need to fill one of the glasses with icecream for me. I didn’t care for any of that fancy stuff, and I figured it helped by giving her less to clean up.

“I’m a bit tired. Got called in early today, and Byron kept me up all night.”

She smirked. “Could be because he’s named after a vampire. He might think he’s turning into one.” She picked a glass up out of the sink and wiped it with a soapy rag.

“Maybe.” I forced a small laugh before digging in to the icy treat. Just what I needed to wake me up: sugar and cold. It would give me a nice buzz for the rest of my break.

“So, hon, do you still practice your magic tricks?” She was trying to be nonchalant about it, but there was no way to ask a G.H. without it coming off as awkward.

I swallowed my mouthful of icecream. “Not as much as I used to,” I said.

She put the glass down and picked up another to scrub. “Back when I was a girl, all this magic and fairy tales used to be just that. Fairy tales. And now what? The world’s been turned upside down.”

I smiled and nodded. What more could I do? I’d never been a fan of this conversation. Beth talked about her youth like it was the golden age of humanity before all of these witches and vampires revealed themselves. Actually, it was the emergence of G.H.’s that started the whole thing. Certain “gifted” humans found that they could use some sort of magic. Turned out it was aura manipulation. It hadn’t been uncommon for us humans to be granted the ability to see auras, but to use them at will was something entirely new to us.

That’s when these other creatures started showing up. I guess they felt less threatened when humans were just as dangerous as they were? I can’t be sure.

It was normal now for humans and, what used to be, fairy tale creatures to live amongst each other. That was a little too much for people like Beth to handle at times. The elderly despised big changes like that. She seemed to like me well enough, though.

“Just the other day, I was out in my garden and one of those horrid little pixies flew in and bit me,” she said, dropping the dishes into the sink. She reached over the counter to show me the tiny bruise on her thumb.

“Yeah, they’re troublemakers,” I said, turning my eyes down. I preferred not to talk about pixies.

“You know, he told me it was his garden?” She huffed. “Those pests are taking over everything. There should be some kind of pixie repellent spray.”

I kept my head down, eating away at my icecream. “Some insect sprayers do spray for fairies and pixies,” I muttered. Something I’d heard on the news a few nights ago. Personally, I found it inhumane. Pixies, though small, were people too.

“Really?” She returned to wiping a handful of spoons. “I’ll have to look into that.”

“How much do I owe you?” I asked, steering the conversation away from old lady murder schemes. I brought the metal cup to my lips and gulped down the remainder of the strawberry shake.

“Two-fifty,” she said.

My hour was nearly up. I handed her a five and told her to keep the change. I darted out the door to my red Camry and sped back to work.

Just as I was about to clock in again, my manager approached.

“Jackie,” he grunted. He strode towards me, and I feared the worst. He was a hulking man, intimidating yet dignified. Well, as dignified as a grocery store manager could be. He cleared his throat. “Line one’s been asking for you the past forty minutes.”

Why hadn’t he answered? Why couldn’t salad bar girl answer? Surely I wasn’t the only one who could answer questions about how many flavors of turkey we sold. “I was at lunch,” I squeaked.

He lifted his chin, signaling for me to tend the phone.

I backed away, unable to complete the process of clocking in, and picked up the phone. “Deli department, this is Jackie,” I said.

“Miss Jacqueline Robinson?” came a woman’s voice. She sounded professional, but her voice quavered when she asked my name.

“Yes?”

“This is Miss Horsche. I need you to come get your brother, Byron.”

 “Why? What happened?”

Her voice shook as she spoke. “I tried getting hold of your father, but he’s busy. Please come pick up Byron as soon as you can.”

My heart sank. “Tell me what happened,” I insisted.

“I’ll explain when you get here. Please hurry.”

Before I could ask again, static buzzed in my ear as she hung up on me. I turned to my manager who had moved to stand directly behind me. “I think my brother’s in trouble,” I said.

He nodded. “They told me earlier while we were waiting for you. Take the rest of the day off. I’ll cover for you.”

“Thank you.” I nodded to him and rushed to the door and back to my car. It growled upon starting up. I put it into gear and made my way to Byron’s high school. I hoped that whatever had been happening the past forty minutes could keep calm for another twenty.

Author's Note

This is just a short piece from a WIP manuscript.