Maps

Hello, reader! This story got away from me a bit, but since the story it's based on is so long, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. I made a few changes to the quests to fit our modern world. I don't know about you, but I'd be annoyed if someone brought me a cow. I don't have the space or time to take care of one, no matter how beautiful it is.

This is another one of Lizzy's stories. It's fun to discover her character and her family like this. I'll just have to be careful that I don't contradict myself with the timeline.

Be careful. Maps don't always take you where you want to go.

 

So, the thing about living in a magical family is that sometimes, your flippant remarks have consequences. I've never started a sentence with "I wish" unless I think about what I'm about to say very carefully. But, when I was young enough to think that kissing was gross, I said I didn't want to date boys and, when pressed, said that maybe if a boy had seven mothers that would be enough to make him okay. It wasn't until I was 14 that my grandmother told me that I'd made a prophesy.

Of course, I laughed and assumed she was joking. Well. A few years passed and I realized I was still single. Not for lack of trying, but I wasn't interested in most of the guys around anyway, and when I was it never went anywhere. There's nothing as annoying as self-fulfilling prophesies, so I tried to just ignore it. Several of my friends didn't date anyone in high school either and it wasn't really a big deal.

Then I got to college and I met Damien. There was something about him that gave me a big, goofy grin when I thought about him. My friends mentioned that I talked about him a lot and I hoped that maybe I'd beaten my prophecy after all. Because, when I texted Damien and asked if he wanted to get coffee, he said yes.

It was a great date. We had a lot to talk about and it was a nice night, so after our coffee was a memory, we left the coffee shop and took a walk around campus. The theater had a big flight of stairs out front with no one around, so we ended up walking about halfway up and sitting down.

I had just told Damien a little bit about my family, editing out the magical parts, and I asked him about his family.

"Well, I have two moms," he said.

I nodded. "Do you call one of them "mom" and one "momma" or something to tell them apart?"

Damien smiled. "Mom and Ma, actually, but yes. There's four of us. My two moms and my brother and I."

"Cool. How old is your brother?"

"He's a few years older. He graduated college last year. And he's gotten on this big genealogy kick."

"Oh yeah?" I asked. Apparently family was a good topic.

"Yeah. He's been tracing our biological family tree. Our moms adopted us out of foster care when we were little, and he's had some trouble tracking down our birth family."

I started to wonder how many moms that brought us to. As it turned out, Damien had Mom, Ma, a foster mom, a birth mom, a youth minister (who was like his mom and came to graduation), his best friend's mom (who had let him spend a lot of time with them starting in elementary school), and he had found a church group in college that had a great pastor who was like a mom to him here.

Seven mothers.

Apparently, I was a seer.

The really annoying thing was that I really did like him, and he really seemed to like me. So while part of me wanted to stop dating him to spite that stupid prophecy I apparently made, I really didn't want to. So, we kept seeing each other.

I was glad I could be there for him when Damien's mom got sick. That wasn't the way I wanted to meet his moms, but I met them both in a hospital room.

What was even weirder was that there was an aura of magic around his mom. Despite my pleas, Grandma Hazel had never taught me magic, so I couldn't do anything about it, but I could see it. I hoped it was something that the doctors could cure. Not all magical illnesses needed to be cured with magic. All the same, I decided I'd give it a week before I called my grandma and asked her for her advice.

Shortly after meeting his moms, Damien told me he met his ma's ex. Damien was going to college in the same town he'd lived in all his life, so I suppose that wasn't too unusual. What was unusual was that the ex, Cyril, had told Damien where to find the cure for his mom's illness. And that Damien believed him.

Damien showed me a map that fairly oozed with magic. Great. So, unless Damien's mom had pissed off two people with magic, her wife's ex had cast a spell on her. Typical.

I might not be able to cast spells, but I knew how to counter several. It looked like there was just a misdirection spell on this map. It was supposed to lead Damien where he needed to go and then he could exchange the map for a cure. With the misdirection spell, it would lead him where he needed to not go. A pretty simple spell reversal, but not one I liked. Damien left the map on the table when he went to the bathroom.

I had a choice. I could remove the spell and send him on his way, or I could offer up my grandma's services to remove the magical illness with no strings attached. It actually wasn't an easy decision.

Clearly, Cyril wanted to hurt Damien's mom. It might not be a good idea to tip my hand too early. If he thought Damien had magic, or had an ally who did, this could get messy quickly. Besides that, my grandma had told me we had to keep the magic in our family secret. People liked the idea of folks who could use magic, but you only had to look back a few hundred years to see what the fear of witches could do.

I sighed and headed to the kitchen. At least Damien lived in an apartment so he had a kitchen. I rummaged around in the cabinets for a little bit before I found the salt. I brought it back to the table and poured some out on the map. The misdirection spell tried to stick to the map, but the cleansing power of the salt was too strong. The spell shriveled and died. I picked up the map and carried it carefully to the kitchen where I could dump the salt in the trash. It wouldn't be safe for eating now.

I had just finished shaking off the map when Damien walked out of the bathroom.

"I'm just trying to get some better light on this," I said, holding the map up to the light. "Maybe there's a watermark or something."

Damien chuckled. "Is there?"

I looked at it. "Nope." I brought the map back down. "Let me come with you. Two people is safer than one, right?"

"Lizzy, I can't really be sure what I'll find when I follow this map."

"All the more reason to take me with."

"It might just be a joke and take me to a bad part of town. I don't want you to get caught up in anything."

"I don't want you getting caught up in anything," I replied.

Damien stepped forward and hugged me and I hugged him back. He squeezed me tight and then stepped back. "It'll be fine," he said. "I'll call you when I get there, all right?"

It's not like I could make him take me along. "All right."

I thought about following him. I really did, but if he found me following him, he would get mad. Besides, now that the spell had been taken off of it, the map was what it appeared to be, and it should lead him where he needed to go. And what creature wouldn't exchange a map that took you where you needed to go for a cure for some human ailment?

Still. While Damien was gone, I paced in my room. I had to pace in there so my roommates wouldn't see. This wasn't something I really wanted to explain to them.

I almost jumped when my phone started ringing.

"It worked," Damien said. "The map took me to this part of the park I've never seen before and right up to this old woman. She said she'd trade me the map for a cure for Mom. I'm going over to the hospital now to see if it works."

"I'm glad you're safe," I told him. "I hope it does."

"I'll call you when I'm done. I'm going to run to the hospital."

"OK."

I sat down on my bed. He was safe. And the map should have done what it was enchanted to do, so the cure should work. Either way, I realized I needed to call Grandma Hazel. Once Cyril saw his plan had backfired, he'd probably come up with something more elaborate.

The cure did work. Damien's mom came home for the hospital a few days later. Grandma Hazel was glad to hear that. "But I think you're right that he'll try again," she said over the phone. "When your parents come to visit, I'll have them bring you a few things."

"You aren't coming?"

"Not unless you need me. But I'll give you some things to put up wards in their house and Damien's apartment. That will do a lot to keep them safe and shouldn't draw Cyril's attention."

"I hope so."

After my parents visited, it wasn't too hard to put up the protections in Damien's apartment. And it was easy to get myself invited to his moms' house and put up the rest. The best part about these wards was that once you put them in place, your eye just slid over them and it was very hard to notice them. So none of them would wonder about the little tree figurines that appeared in their home because they wouldn't notice them.

I hoped that was the last we'd hear from Cyril, but I was wrong.

About a month later, Damien called me up. Cyril had given him another map. Since the last one had worked so well, Damien thought this one would too. Since I hadn't explained everything I could about magic last time, I couldn't go into detail this time. There was a possibility that Cyril hadn't put the magical illness on Damien's mom. Maybe he was just giving Damien bad maps.

But when I saw the second map, I knew that wasn't true. This map didn't just have a misdirection spell on it. It was enchanted to bring Damien to a very specific place. It was sort of like "the bad part of town" except for magical creatures. Not all magical creatures were as nice as that "old woman" Damien had met in the forest. The map lead him to the industrial part of town, near the railroad tracks. All kinds of nasty things liked to live in those places.

Fortunately, Grandma Hazel had passed along more than just those wards. I got Damien to bring the map by my house and we were looking at it in my room.

"Can you grab me a snack?" I asked him. "I'm starving."

"Sure," he said. It was a little odd that I would send him to the kitchen to get me something, but he'd been over enough times to know where everything was. I just hoped he didn't rush.

As soon as he left my room, I pulled out a small bag from Grandma Hazel. She'd thought Cyril would use a map like this, so she gave me a pre-made reversal spell. I laid the map on the floor. I pulled out a stub of a candle and what looked like potpourri from the bag. I lit the candle and set it on the map. Then I scattered the dried plants in a circle around it. "Reverse your true nature," I said to the map. I picked up the candle and carefully let two drops of wax drop from it onto the map. The map began to smoke and I put another drop of candle wax on it.

"Lizzy?" Damien asked from the doorway. "What are you doing?"

I blew out the candle. "I remembered this candle I had that smells really good so I thought I'd light it and see what you thought."

"What's all the smoke?" Damien asked. "You're going to set off the fire alarm."

"Crap." I had forgotten about that. "Close the door."

Damien stepped inside and I opened the window. The smoke dissipated. Fortunately, all of the dried stuff had been used up in the spell, so I didn't have to explain that.

"My map!" Damien said. "Lizzy, you could have burned it."

"I'm sorry. I forgot it was there." I hated lying to him. Maybe after this I'd talk to Grandma Hazel about when I could tell Damien about magic. A less emotional time would be better for sure.

Damien looked the map over. "Well, it seems to be okay."

"Great. Sorry about that."

"It's all right," Damien said. "Here. I grabbed you a granola bar."

"Thanks," I said. I was hungry now. It almost felt like I'd worked to make that spell happen. But since it was pre-made I guess that made sense.

Damien left a bit later and headed out on his quest. This time I did try to follow him, but I only made it as far as the creek in the forest. When he stepped across it, he disappeared. I sighed. The map had taken him somewhere you couldn't get to normally. I was pretty sure my spell on it had worked. At least the little forest was clean and so was the creek. That was usually a sign that happier magical creatures would be around.

I was on my way home when Damien called me.

"I went where the map said and I traded it for a food basket that will never empty. I've never seen anything like it!"

"I guess now you won't run out of food," I joked.

"I can't tell it what to make," he said. "So I won't know what I'm getting until I open it. But still."

"Still, that's amazing." Were we past the point where I had to pretend to be shocked about magic? I wasn't sure. Damien had seemed to believe in it pretty quickly, so maybe it was okay if I did too.

"I know!"

The third map Cyril sent was the worst. When Damien brought it into my apartment, I wanted to tell him to leave immediately. It had a terrible energy to it. When all else failed, Grandma Hazel had given me something to make Damien forget the map, a little elephant figurine that I would touch to Damien and then put on the map. Once I did that, he forgot about it completely. I had to cut his visit short, though. I did not like having that map in my apartment.

I called Grandma Hazel right away.

"Another map?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said. "This one is bad. I don't know what to do with it."

"I'll come for a visit this weekend," Grandma Hazel promised.

That still left me with two days. One of my roommates had some crystals out to cleanse the apartment. I put one on top of the map, and it helped a little.

Grandma Hazel is a formidable woman. So when she came into my apartment that weekend, suddenly my roommates understood why we'd been cleaning. Both of my roommates remembered they had somewhere else to be, which was helpful for what we needed to do, but also kind of amusing.

Once they left, Grandma Hazel took a long look at the map. "I'll cleanse that crystal for you too when I'm done," she said. Then she looked some more, and sighed. "It'll be easier just to destroy this map. Then we'll need to talk to Cyril."

"All right. I'll just tell Damien the map got lost." I swallowed. "Grandma, when can I tell him about magic?"

"On your wedding night," she said distractedly. She was moving her hands and making signs over the map.

I decided that she was joking, but I stayed quiet.

Grandma Hazel said a few words and the map erupted in flame.

I yelped and raced for the smoke detector. Fortunately, I was able to pull out the battery before it went off.

"Fire is for cleansing," Grandma Hazel explained calmly, like there wasn't a huge fire on my table. "Don't worry, it won't hurt the table," she assured me.

"That's good," I said. "Could you warn me next time?"

"Only if you don't distract me," she returned.

She had a point. "Fine. I'm sorry. But did you mean what you said?"

"I always mean what I say. Burden of age." The fire went out. Grandma Hazel picked up the elephant figurine and put it in a special bag. Its magic was canceled in there.

"What are we going to do to Cyril?" I asked Grandma Hazel.

"You said he was Damien's ma's ex?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Seems to me like he wants to get her back," she said.

"This is literally the worst way to try," I replied.

Grandma Hazel shrugged. "Still, let's see what we can do with that. Could you call her, please?"

"Call her?"

"Yes, dear. I think it's time she and Cyril had a chat."

I didn't have her number, but I was able to get it from Damien and she agreed to come meet with me at a nearby park.

"How will this help?" I asked Grandma Hazel.

"Patience," she said. She sat down at the kitchen table and drew a pattern in some of the ash that was left.

"Cyril?" Grandma Hazel croaked.

"Yes?" It was weird to hear a man's voice coming from my table, but I supposed this was just a magical phone call.

"Come to Woodford Park to see your beloved once again."

"Yes!" Cyril yelled.

Grandma Hazel cut the connection.

"Why did he believe you so easily?" I asked.

"I appeared to him as a demon," she said, shrugging. "Now let's get going."

We made it to the park in good time and met up with Damien's ma.

"Lakshmi?" Grandma Hazel asked as we walked towards her.

"Yes?" she asked, looking between me and Grandma Hazel.

"I'm Lizzy's grandma, Hazel. It's nice to meet you dear."

"It's nice to meet you too," Lakshmi said, still puzzled.

"Your ex, Cyril, has been stirring up some trouble," Grandma Hazel said.

"Again?" Lakshmi asked with a sigh.

Grandma Hazel nodded.

"Again?" I asked.

"I've tried to get him arrested, but he won't leave me alone," Lakshmi said. "It doesn't matter that I've moved on. He hasn't. I haven't heard anything from him in a few years, so I was hoping he had forgotten me."

"He was probably using that time to learn magic," Grandma Hazel replied.

I stared at her. I couldn't tell Damien about magic until I married him, but she could casually tell his ma about it?

Lakshmi sighed. "Not again."

"What?!" I was completely out of my depth.

"One witch to another," Grandma Hazel said to her, "it's okay to use magic on someone like him."

"I suppose I've got to," Lakshmi said, resigned. "I was really trying not to since it's dark magic, but if I must."

"He's on his way here now," Grandma Hazel said

"Good," Lakshmi replied, straightening her shoulders.

A car pulled up in the parking lot and a man got out. I don't know what I'd been expecting Cyril to look like, but he looked ordinary. Just like any person you might walk by on the street.

"It worked!" he yelled, running toward us. "Lakshmi! You've come to your senses!"

"Yes," she replied, holding out her hand. He must not have noticed that she wasn't smiling, because he immediately took her hand.

Lakshmi's grip increased and she closed her eyes. She was working magic without any preparation or words. I was impressed.

Cyril struggled against her grip, but gradually, he grew calmer.

"Cyril?" Lakshmi asked.

"Yes?" he replied, his voice dreamlike.

"Your Lakshmi is gone. She changed and you don't need her anymore. Let someone else have her."

"Yes," he agreed, peacefully. "She isn't the same as she used to be. Someone else can have her."

"You've moved on," Lakshmi said.

"I've moved on," he repeated.

"Now go to sleep," Lakshmi said.

Cyril yawned and laid down in the grass. Lakshmi let go of his hand and it dropped to the ground next to him.

"Couldn't you have made him start to do good things?" I asked, curious. "Make him turn his life around?"

"Not with a spell that hasty," she said. "I'd need a lot of preparation and time to make him change so completely. For now, this will do." She sighed.

"I'll be taking us out to lunch now," Grandma Hazel said. "My treat."

"Thank you," Lakshmi said. "It's so draining."

As we walked back to the car, I had to ask, "Lakshmi, does Damien know about magic?"

"No," she said. "I haven't practiced in years. Why, have you told him?" She was suddenly very fierce.

"No ma'am," I replied.

"Good," Lakshmi said, relaxing again. "It's a complicated subject and I was hoping he wouldn't need to know. But it looks like we'll need to have that talk after all."

"Lizzy did prophecy that she would date him," Grandma Hazel said, getting in the car.

"Really?" Lakshmi asked, turning around to look at me.

I sighed. "Can we just go, grandma?"

Grandma Hazel laughed. "Of course, dear. And I'll be happy to tell that story for you."

Like I said, living in a magic family can be weird, but grandmas will always take the chance to brag about something you've done.