Betwixt the Moments

What if you could just pause life?

The App Warned, "You're not scheduled for lunch for another ten minutes. Are you sure you want to clock out now?"

Ooh, managers might make me sign some paperwork. I yawned and tapped it.

"Status: Out to Lunch. Bon appetit!"

Sighing at the empty breakroom and the dingy white table, I pulled the book I stole from Aunt Meliza's estate sale, Magick without Getting Burned, out of my purse and bit into the salad. An amusing image of hands roped behind a stake with a crossout symbol on the dust jacket.

Despite the mouth watering smell of ranch, my stomach rebelled.

If it wasn't Team Lead Teryl's snippy sarcasm, it was the customers. Always so upset about what bag you stuff their junk in! If it wasn't the fear that the automotive oil would poison their bottle of soda pop, it was, 'why didn't you put the leaking tray of raw chicken with my avocado.' Nothing worked every time. Was there any way to win?

I flipped through the pages. There was a spell to do housework in half the time, and a spell to remember people's names. And the one titled Calgon's Instant Vacation.

Calgon, like the bubble bath.

I glanced at the hand gestures. Easy, and totally useless. They said to choose a memory to live in for a time, as an escape. And: Upon returning, the memories of the vacation may take a moment to download to your body.

With a cockeyed smile, I chose the vacation I had when I was fifteen, with Aunt Meliza, then shook it off.

"Like I'd ever." I laughed.

I studied the gesture. I could do that in the middle of a transaction. A bit like scratching my thumb, or the money gesture—easy to pass off. Not that it would do anything.

"Meliza, where did you get this book?" I peered closer.

The ink sort of wobbled under my gaze, and some of the words seemed handwritten. The pictures, hand drawn. A recipe book? No, not like Betty Crocker: like the Charmed sisters.

I blinked. Checked my hands, they were normal. My watch had lunch hour nearly ending, not some dream made up time. And finally, I reread the piece about how the vacation memory could trickle back like a dream. You can never reread a message in dreams, at least I can't.

My phone sang the alarm, time to get clocked in. Frank Sinatra talking about the woman with the hoodoo on him. Maybe Aunt Meliza had a few magical health-and-beauty aids to help me in the dating world. I sighed and punched out the alarm, then clocked in.

***

I am like, so late—I move like I'm chasing a rabbit.

Gary waved at me. "Alison, thank God, come to my register."

"Didn't Teryl cover your break?"

"As if," he said, swiping away the extra receipts and logging out of the register with a nervous smile. "So I'm wondering."

I punch in my creds and take over the register. "No, Gary. I'm not free for your Dungeons and Dragons game. No matter how lovely that sounds."

"You're not? I'm like, of course you're not." He took his crossbody bag. "But I was thinking, if I can't have your number, can I at least have your name? Your real name?"

"What, and let you do spells on me?"

Gary's head tilted as his eyebrows pressed together.

True names. Fey enchantments. I waited, and he just looked more confused. "Right, you play barbarians. I'm flattered, Gary, really, and… Alison is a real name." I pickpocketed his name tag right off his shirt with my sinister hand. My left.

He swallowed, and nodded, as if that made sense to him—it didn't, not like it did to me. Totally asleep, the boy didn't even know he'd been robbed.

Honestly I couldn't tell which of us was more of a nerd. I 'manifested' the nametag from my sleeve and held it up. "If you need a name, how about this one?"

"How…?" He smiled, and took it.

I caught myself before I pinched his cute little cheek. Maybe I would give him a try. Just not at the gaming table.

I ran the standard script on the first customer. Hello, did you find everything, you did good—the whole spiel. Then, she misstepped. She thought I didn't see the extra two packs of gum in her pocket. But the register did—I eyed the 'suspected shoplifter' button and passed the gum over the scanner once, twice, and again, ringing all three. "Did you hear about the Jackson boys?"

"Um, no. I… who?"

"My creepy boss Teryl caught them stealing. Up for felony charges, one pack of gum at a time. Amazing what happens to us. What do you suppose should happen to them?"

The lady swallowed hard, and pulled at her collar.

I shook my head and waved it off. "Just beware. Nobody really gets away with anything."

The next lady slammed her cat food on the belt.

My thief took a deep breath, and nodded. "That's…. good advice?" She paid for her purchase.

I squeezed her hand as I gave her the ticket.

Several more things slammed into the belt.

I picked up her eggs and checked them. She hadn't slammed them.

"Do I look like an idiot to you?" The raging giant shook her fist under my nose, as if she were about to stab me with her finger.

My shaking hand nearly let slip the eggs as I placed them into the bag, then I erased the accidental double scan. "No, hon. Ma'am."

I pushed the groceries on to bag some more.

"Do I look like I need six hundred bags at my house? Fill it up."

I took the bag of cat food, and gently placed it over the eggs.

"Now was that so hard? Stupid bitch."

I looked about. Even if I flipped the sign to distress, nobody was there to help me. No cashiers, no Teryl. I bagged six cans, laid sideways, and cinched the bag so that they could easily be pulled open.

"I don't need some stupid bitch tying my bags."

My light was already flickering—when had I switched it to ask for help— but Teryl was off bothering people. I had to deal with this on my own.

That's when I thought I heard Aunt Meliza, like an Obi-wan voiceover. "The spell!"

I scratched my thumb like it showed in the book.

The next thing I knew, I was standing tall, looking at this raging woman that seemed like a distant memory. I didn't remember being out of body, but time had passed, for me at least.

I hadn't seen the tears on her red cheeks, or the tremor in her arms.

"I want to speak to your manager."

It sounded more like a cry for help than an attack. I pointed to my light, flashing helplessly for Teryl. "Kinda thought so. While we wait, can you tell me, what do you hope she can do for you."

"I need someone to hear me."

I nodded, slowing my breath. "I am someone."

"You wouldn't…"

I smiled, and tilted my head. "You're right, I'm kind of slow. And that's okay. I already don't understand, and at least you'd have a chance to speak your mind."

"It doesn't seem like anybody cares."

"Nobody cares like they should, nobody understands."

"That's right." She took a long, deep breath. "It's not you. It's my son. I told him not to go to that party and now… I don't know if I can afford his surgery."

"That's heavy for anyone to carry." I hit the total button.

She swiped her card. "I… um, don't see where to give you a five star rating."

I laid my hand on my heart. "You just did."

She sniffed, and nodded, taking her bags.

Teryl rushed up to me. "Just heard. Are you … you're alright?"

I had always known Teryl kept herself put together, but never noticed how… threadbare and faded her designer dress actually was. "Better than I deserve."

Her brows furrowed and lips pursed. "Never in the right place, am I?" She shook her head at my tennis shoes and met my gaze. "Did you need a break?"

Teryl's contempt, intense enough to heat my face, raged with scathing ire at herself. How did she not crack under that? "Not really, surprisingly."

Teryl bit her lip. "I deserve that. But seriously, go get something to drink."

"I appreciate that." I brushed the silk of her sleeve, elegant and fragile at once. "I hope you know that."

Teryl shrugged and signed me out of the register.

As I waded through the forest of shirts and dresses toward the lunch-room vending machines, I began to remember my magical vacation.

I actually had had a dream of a week!?

Most vividly I remembered the tea, hot and cold—like a deep cooling mint. And we constantly talked about customers getting aggressive.

"Hon, you're the expert here. You've read all the scripts. Watched the videos."

I had looked out the window, bright and foggy at once. "But that's just it. It's so much like a Mentos commercial. It's not real."

"That's okay. That's who you are."

"But it's not who you are. Why can't I be better?"

"You're young. We're here." She poured me another of those wonderful cooling mint teas. "Give people time."

I tilted my head. "People? Not myself. People?"

"You heard me, hon." She ruffled my hair. "Leave the flower and wait for the fruit."

"You sound like a fortune cookie."

"Does that make me wrong?"

"No. How long can I stay here?"

"Until you do the exit scratch."

"The…"

She put her teapot down with mock alarm. "Don't tell me you've not learned the exit gesture?"

I ran to her. "Does that mean I'll be stuck here?"

"What do you think this is, an episode of Sabrina?" She waved her hand. "No, but the spell works better if you come out on purpose. Fortunately your unconscious read more carefully than you."

"I did read this could be done with hypnosis." I frowned. "But, does that mean…?"

She nodded. "Totally real. To you."

"That's not an answer."

"An answer would be telling." My aunt walked up and hugged me from behind. "Are you ready to go?"

"I don't want to leave you."

"You can come back anytime."

I nodded. "Send me back."

She whispered in my ear. "So, 'there's no place like home,' right? And do your fingers like this.

I matched what she did, and… that was when I came back.

The tea I had tasted hot and minty just like Meliza's.


Gary came in, and grabbed his coat. "Oh, Alison, is that yours?"

"Oh, yeah. Something I picked up from my Aunt Meliza. I've been reading."

"I knew you'd—" He stopped cold, shuffled his feet, grabbed the back of his neck.

We stared at one another for a moment.

My throat went dry. A tingling heat rose in my knuckles, and in my… my fingernails.

Then he snorted.

Relief flooded me, washing away whatever force gathered, at least most of it. I grabbed the back of my neck.

The bear, my tenth birthday. Mom told everyone Kailissus, the brown bear, had been mauled by a mountain lion. Supposedly, I just broke her scab.

I always called it hysterical strength, maybe a lucky blow. Had I been ready to tear Gary apart like the bear? Like the barbarian in his game? Like…

A witch hunter.

If I woke him, I feared, I wouldn't be able to just frighten him off like the bear. It might not end well. For now, that powerful ally inside Gary had gone to sleep.

Gary showed me the book, open to a good luck spell. "Wha'd you do, cast 'Read Magic?"

I raised my eyebrow. "That's English."

He shook his head and laughed, handing it to me. "You are pulling my leg. That's straight from the Voynich Manuscript."

I looked closer. A variant on crossed fingers. As I blinked, familiar type shifted to weird handwritten script. The next blink, it had a spell for deep sleep. "Is that where I saw that? The—what did you call it?"

"Oh, you know what the Voynich is. That's the coolest thing I have ever seen."

'Read Magic?' A bit more than that. In a flash, I remembered the afternoons Meliza and I spent in the attic practicing writing. I always wondered why the English alphabet seemed so limited—why everything normal seemed so small.