Chasing the Moon (12 page)

“You can call it whatever you like.”

“Spell just makes it seem too… ordinary,” she said. “New Agey. Like something hippies do.” She imagined herself dancing in darkened forests, wearing long, lacy sleeves, and honoring the mother goddess. She didn’t have anything against it. Seemed like it might be more fun than church.

It didn’t feel right because there was nothing mystical about her newfound powers. No rituals, no incantations or prayers, no sacred tomes. No commandments or law of threefold return to guide her. She was on her own here with what little help
Vom could supply. And that wasn’t much, since, in many ways, he was just as lost as she was.

All she knew was that she could make things happen by editing reality, and if she could start a fire by accidentally revising it into existence, she didn’t see why she couldn’t re-revise it out of existence. She’d willed away her original fire last night for fifteen minutes until a tingle along her spine suggested that the edit had taken place. She’d considered calling this morning to double-check, but couldn’t think of a way to phrase that phone call.

“Hi. It’s Diana. I was just checking if the department store was still burned to a crisp or if that thing I just mentioned no longer happened.”

It’d be easier to just go and see for herself.

Vom swallowed his entire book and woke Smorgaz. “Get up. We’re going to work.”

“
I’m
going to work,” she said. “You’re staying here.”

“Is that a good idea?” asked Vom. “What if you run into another lost entity seeking a focus? You’ll want us around.”

“I thought you said that didn’t happen very often.”

“It doesn’t. Not usually. But it’s not as if there’s a cap on how many deranged other-dimensional monsters will be drawn to you in a week. You seem to have a knack for it.”

She didn’t want them to tag along. Two pet monsters, even well-meaning ones, could wreck the illusion of normality she was going for, but that was already a lost cause. Outside this apartment, on the streets, was a city filled with monsters and contradictions that a sane mind could only ignore.

“You can come,” she said, “but try not to be conspicuous.”

The fuzzy green beast and the giant rubber hedgehog saluted.

“You won’t even notice we’re around,” said Vom.

Her magic wish had worked. The department store was restored. Diana noticed the remnants of the undone reality. Some black smudges, leftover smoke damage she assumed, clung to spots on the ceiling, and the whole place had a subtle, seared-wood-and-insulation scent throughout. But otherwise everything appeared in order, and once the managers had lectured the cleaning staff (something Diana felt bad about but couldn’t prevent) everything went back to normal. She even succeeded in making everyone forget that she’d been absent for five days.

That was the thing that bothered her most about this experience. It was one thing to unmake her previous mistake. It was another to go around screwing with people’s minds. It was a violation of their innermost selves. People weren’t robots for her to reprogram at her whim, but she didn’t see a choice. Undoing the fire and allowing everyone the memory of her absence would only leave questions she couldn’t answer and very probably cost her job too.

Just this once, she decided. No more. The resolution would’ve held more weight if she’d even understood these new powers.

“Very nice work,” said Vom. “Not many human minds can pick up the subtleties of reality manipulation. Usually it’s all ‘I am like unto a living god. Quake before me, mere mortals! I wish for a million dollars, a gold-plated robot butler, and adoration from all around me.’ ”

Diana said, “Jesus, is everyone that petty and dumb?”

“Not everybody,” said Smorgaz. “But most.”

“Of course, those kinds of eager beavers don’t last long. They end up drawing too much attention to themselves, and the universe usually has to slap them down to keep things in order.”

Smorgaz pulled a coat off a rack, checked it in the mirror. “Does this color work for me?”

“Yes, it goes great with your eyes,” replied Diana reflexively. She snatched the garment away and put it back. “You guys promised you’d be unobtrusive.”

“Sorry,” said Vom. “We didn’t realize it would be so dull.”

“Didn’t you just spend one hundred years locked in a closet?”

Unending Smorgaz hiccupped, and two spawns rolled off his back. They scampered away to wreak whatever havoc they could in their brief life span.

Smorgaz cringed. “Whoops. Sorry.”

She handed them a few dollars. “Go to the food court and buy a soda or something. Just behave, please.”

“We’ll be nearby. Just whistle if you need us for anything.”

“And remember,” she called just before they turned the corner. “Don’t eat anything that doesn’t come on a menu!”

And then they were around the corner and gone.

She leaned against a display and gathered her wits. When the monsters were around they caused all manner of trouble, but she could keep an eye on them. When they were gone she didn’t have to think about it, but it didn’t mean they were behaving. Either situation was both a relief and frustrating.

She spotted Wendall walking by and waved to him. He lowered his head and picked up his pace away from her.

She wondered if she could alter his memory just enough that he wouldn’t freak out when he saw her, but immediately ruled it out. This magic stuff wasn’t a cure-all. It wasn’t perfect, and even if it had been, she’d only been using it for two days. She was no expert.

Wendall’s half-memories of yesterday were important. She was dangerous company, and he would be better off keeping his distance.

Diana hadn’t thought much of Wendall in the time they’d worked together. Now he embodied that ultimate normality that had gone missing from her life. Something she’d taken for granted when it’d been around. Something that actively avoided her now.

She’d fix that by ignoring the weirdness and concentrating on the ordinary. So even though there was a shadowy bloblike entity browsing skis in sporting goods and a snaky thing swimming through the air, she ignored these things and thought about selling coats.

She was going to sell an assload of coats. To prove that she could, and to make up for burning down the store, even if that now technically had never happened. And also because she wanted to do something normal.

A mother with two children in tow stepped into her section. Diana, smiling perhaps a bit too widely, approached.

“Can I help you, miss?”

The woman acknowledged Diana in the vaguest manner, like a mosquito buzzing in her ear.

“I think it’s time the children bought some new jackets.”

The boys were noticeably annoyed by this.

“Mom,” whined one, “we just went jacket shopping last week.”

The woman ignored them and started looking through the racks. Diana, knowing the drill, stepped aside and waited to compliment the woman’s choices. She bought two new coats for the kids and two new coats for herself. It was an auspicious beginning, and Diana took it as a good omen.

No sooner had the family left than another man appeared. This one sneaked up while she was working the register. He was tall with sallow skin and a big, waxed mustache.

“Excuse me, young miss, but I seem to have a great need of a new coat.”

She smiled. “Right this way, sir.”

He bought the first garment she showed him. He paid in cash, then wandered away in a bit of a daze.

Almost immediately two more customers appeared to take his place. They were just as eager to buy, and all Diana had to do was point them toward the racks. A woman with a distant stare set her purchase on the counter.

“Anything else for you, miss?” asked Diana.

The woman’s gaze focused on Diana. “Oh… of course. Yes, something else.”

She grabbed a random coat within reach and put it beside her original purchase.

Diana got the nagging suspicion that normality was about to slip out of her fingers again.

“Do you really want that?” she asked.

“Yes, I do,” said the woman in staggering syllables, almost as if she didn’t know where the words came from. “I want a coat.”

“I want a coat too,” said the elderly woman in line behind her.

“Coats are good,” they said in unison. “We need coats.”

Wendall walked up beside her.

“Hey,” she said. “How’s it going?”

“I want to buy a coat,” he replied.

He reached for one of the garments beside the register. The customer grabbed him by the wrist.

“This is my coat.” There was an edge to her voice.

“Have you bought this coat?” he asked.

“Not yet.”

“Then it’s not yours,” he replied. “I will buy this coat since you haven’t bought this coat yet.”

“Hey, I’m next to buy a coat,” said the old woman. “You can’t buy a coat before me.”

“No, I will buy all your coats too,” said Wendall. “One can never have too many coats.”

A new customer, carrying more jackets than he could reasonably hold and struggling to keep them all in his grasp, jumped in line. “These are my coats. You can’t have them.”

Diana sighed. Things were weird again. She tried to bring them under control. “Can everyone please stop saying the word
coat
so much?”

They all paused.

“But coats are important things,” they intoned in one cultish voice.

With that point of commonality settled, they resumed squabbling over who was in greatest need of a coat and who deserved the lion’s share of the sacred garments.

Diana lowered her head and muttered to herself and the universe.

“This isn’t what I had in mind.”

Only a moment later the coat department was brimming with customers, all of them fighting over purchases. Aung man with crunchy, unkempt hair tried to grab a garment from a frail middle-aged woman. Shrieking, she pounced on him.

There was madness as coat-mania caused the crowd to turn on each other. A dozen melees broke out. A group of children wrestled with a leather-clad biker. A blind man beat a chunky nerd with his cane. And a slimy tentacle monster battled a duck-like Neanderthal over a blue hoodie. The combatants were hampered by their refusal to put down their prized clothing, which limited the damage they could do to each other, but things were getting out of hand.

Diana focused her willpower.

“Stop it!”

The mob hesitated. A few people carried on halfheartedly. The feathery Neanderthal yanked away the hoodie. The tentacle monster growled.

“I said stop.” Diana sensed the shift in reality. “Everybody… just go home.”

“Go home,” they chanted in unison, turning and shuffling away.

“No, no. Stop.”

They stopped.

“Give me a second here. I need to think this through.”

She leaned against the counter and pondered. These magical powers were messed up, a monkey’s paw she couldn’t throw away.

“Okay, I have it,” she said. “I want you all to put down your coats and just go about the rest of your lives as if everything that just happened never actually took place. Oh, and it’s okay to like coats, just don’t like them too much. I guess what I’m saying is that coats are nice, but they’re nothing to kill someone over.”

“Coats are nice,” her cult agreed in unison, “but don’t kill for them.”

“Oh, and stop doing that, please. It’s starting to creep me out. Now go on. Get out of here.” She adopted the kind of gentle voice reserved for stray cats. “Shoo now.”

The short-lived Church of the Hallowed Windbreaker quietly dispersed. Diana spent the next half hour putting coats back on the racks. Her department remained empty until lunch rolled around. She grabbed a piece of warmed-over pizza at the food court and sat at the table with Vom and Smorgaz.

“I just don’t get it,” she said. “There has to be a way to turn this off.”

“Why would you want to turn it off?” asked Vom. “Most people are unwilling victims of reality.”

“And now I’m the victimizer.”

“You’re just being melodramatic.”

She slurped her soda, nibbled her pizza.

“It’s not right. People weren’t meant to have this kind of power.”

“Says who?”

“Says everyone.”

Vom shook his head. “Everyone is idiots.”

“Everyone
are
idiots,” corrected Smorgaz. He pursed his lips. “Everyone am idiots?”

“Regardless of whether you were meant to have this kind of power, you have it,” said Vom. “And there’s no way to get rid of it. Are you going to finish that?”

She slid her paper plate across the table. Vom devoured it.

“I know how to get rid of it,” said Smorgaz.

“You do not.” Vom slurped Diana’s soda without asking, then ate the cup.

“Sure, I do. It’s not permanent, but it works.” Smorgaz leaned forward and spoke in a quiet tone. “World peace.”

He sat back with a knowing grin.