Very well, she knew how to steel herself. She could play this game.
“But the magic isn’t always enough.” There was a knowing tone to Eslar’s addition.
“This one will fall to you,” Snow affirmed with a nod in the elf’s direction.
Jo remembered the A to C premise Snow had previously explained. “So, Eslar will help move the world to B so you can get it to C?”
“B. . . what?” Eslar’s brow furrowed in confusion.
“Just so.” Snow understood her perfectly. And Jo didn’t miss the way his lips quirked up just barely into a smirk. It was like a secret they both shared, even if it wasn’t secret at all.
“I can help,” she offered, newfound confidence building.
“Not this time. We have no need of you for this task.”
The words seemed harmless enough, but they grated against something raw, a space in her chest that looked like home. “If you have no need of me” —she threw his words right back at him— “then why bring me here in the first place?”
“As we discussed—”
“I really think I could help,” she interrupted. She needed purpose, reason. She couldn’t have her entire world taken from her, only to be shoved aside. “I’m sure there’s some research somewhere that I could hack—”
“I have made myself clear.” Snow pushed away from the table, his face expressionless. Any emotion he’d spared for her was now so far buried that there was no hope of dredging it up. “Eslar will see to the preliminaries of the wish and I will ensure the world knows of the cure. You are all dismissed.”
Jo watched him begin to leave, completely stunned until a different emotion took over.
“But!” Jo shot up from her chair so quickly, it nearly toppled backwards. Everyone in the room, even those only halfway out of their own chairs, startled into stillness. She swallowed, trying to collect the nervous energy into something that could be explained to everyone else. “Please, I. . .” How she hated begging. “It will help me get used to things. . . if I can be a part of this too. I promise I won’t be a burden.” Her eyes were on Snow’s motionless back as she made her plea. Surely, he had to take pity on the situation she’d been thrust into. They all knew how hard it was, right?
A long moment passed where Snow didn’t even bother to face her. He stood in the doorway, his posture set tall and stern, intimidating (despite how much Jo loathed to admit it at that moment). Then, very slowly, he turned around, and looked her in the eye.
There it was, that look again that seemed reserved for her alone. At least, it felt that way. Jo swallowed hard, but couldn’t dislodge the breath caught in her throat. Hope swelled in that air, ready to carry a thank-you to him for agreeing to keep her hands busy and let her help.
“I realize it is not your intent to be a burden,” Snow assured, taking a step towards her. “But you are a novice. You need to learn your own limitations—your restrictions. You need to enhance your strengths and get a hold over your magic. Until then, you have no place on the field.” Snow continued to walk towards her, eventually standing directly in her personal space.
Jo’s hands remained at her sides. No matter how much she willed them, they didn’t move. It was as if her body admitted he was right before her mind would. Snow’s eyes scanned her face, waiting for an objection she couldn’t seem to muster no matter how hard she tried.
“Learn your magic, and your place, before trying to jump into a wish.”
With that hanging in the air between them, Snow left the conference room, Jo standing in his wake with nothing but her own shell-shocked, silence to cling to. It was neither kind, nor cruel; he’d left her in a space void of emotion that Jo suddenly had a hard time navigating.
It took a moment for her to remember that she wasn’t alone. The sound of Pan’s chair sliding backward filled the silence as she stood.
“Well, that was certainly exciting!” The woman-child clapped her hands. “Good luck, Eslar. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.”
And with that, she was gone.
Everyone else stood in relative silence and began to filter out. Jo, however, sunk back into her seat. The feeling of uselessness was more bitter than waking up and finding that she had been pulled outside of reality.
Chapter 8
Git of Time
SHE HAD ONLY just begun scheming ways to prove her worth to Snow when Wayne cleared his throat and Jo’s head jerked up. Jo hadn’t even realized he’d lingered while the rest of them had left. He offered her a shrug, a half smile, and the tension seemed to instantly break.
“Is he always such a dick to the new recruits?”
“Snow doesn’t always need all of us for a wish,” Wayne explained. “He has the tact of a three-year-old, but I’m sure he only meant to remind you that fieldwork can be dangerous, especially when you’re only just beginning.”
“Thanks for coming to my defense,” Jo huffed, and rested her chin in her palm. Right or wrong, justified or not, it still left her with nothing to do other than stew about not existing. Wayne chuckled.
“Well, fine, he was also being a right pill.” Wayne pulled up a chair next to hers. Boldly, he took the hand that wasn’t occupied with her chin, giving it a squeeze. “Don’t let it get to you.”
“Easy for you to say,” Jo mumbled. She hadn’t invited the contact, but she also found she didn’t mind it, either. So, for now, she let his hand stay. “You’re already integrated here, familiar with this life; you have nothing to prove. You’ll be useful as they need you to be.”
“But I’d rather not be needed,” Wayne said quickly. “Trust me, dollface, helping with a wish isn’t always what you want.”
Jo turned to face him, searching. “Why?”
Wayne shook his head. “It’s a lot of pressure. But you’ll have your moment. When you’ve had a chance to learn and understand more of what it is we do, I have no doubt you will be an irreplaceable asset to the team.”
“Even still. . .” Jo sighed heavily. “I wish I could do something now. I’m not the sort to just sit around and wait for something to happen, I never have been. I’ve always had a job or a duty to someone or something. Even if it’s not helping with our mission, I’d take any distraction.”
Jo’s eyes drifted toward the Door. It was as unassuming as it had been yesterday. But she now knew it was her only portal out.
Remembering all at once her new circumstances, Jo twisted her wrist, looking at her watch. Sure enough, under the time where her stopwatch would count down—if she was using one—the numbers read 10:00.
“I have time,” Jo whispered. “How? I’m not part of the wish, so—”
“Everyone gets time when a wish comes in,” Wayne clarified. “Snow isn’t the one to dish out the time; it’s given by default.”
“Is it the same for every wish?”
Wayne shook his head. “It varies, depending on the complexity of the wish. And any leftover time can roll-over from one wish to the next. I think Takako has almost a hundred hours stored. She’ll never risk wasting minutes, just in case she’s not given enough time for a future wish.”
“Has that ever happened?” Jo asked. “Not having enough time to complete a wish?”
“No, never.” Wayne chuckled. “That’s just the sort of woman Takako is. Nothing ever in excess. Boring if you ask me. But you seem like a woman who can appreciate spending a little bit here and there.”
Jo wasn’t ready to let him derail the subject. “If Snow doesn’t dish out the time, and doesn’t decide how much is given for any wish. . . who does?”
“Who knows? Maybe it’s just some automatic magic system?” Wayne shrugged. His nonchalance grated her. She didn’t like the idea of some invisible force governing such an important aspect of her life. But Jo swallowed down the worry. The Society and its members had been around long enough. If it was something worth worrying about, they would’ve already done it.
“How do I use it?”
“Let’s n
ot get ahead of yourself, doll.”
“What happened to appreciating someone spending a little?” Jo grinned, satisfied by his look of surprise and brief frustration at her throwing his words back at him. “Do I just go through the door?”
Jo didn’t wait for a response; she was already at the threshold, her fingers hovering over the keypad. Intent, Wayne had said—she just had to have the right intent to get to where she wanted. As long as she had that, she shouldn’t risk using the same magic that picked up the last code input and took her to the Ranger’s HQ—she supposed. Magic seemed more guesswork and determination than an exact science.
“Now that I have time, can I just go out and interact with the real world?”
“Ease up.” Wayne grabbed her wrist, pulling it away from the keypad. “Let’s not be hasty.”
“I want to go home,” she demanded, her voice raising by a fraction. Jo blinked at herself, startled by the sudden ferocity that escaped her, but she stood by it.
“Jo, there isn’t—”
“I need to see it,” she whispered. “Snow tells me that I didn’t exist, that I’m not real.” She shook her head. Saying it was harder than she thought it would be. But it wasn’t the first hard thing she’d done in her life and it wouldn’t be the last. “He says that my wish worked, but how do I know for sure? How can I give up on that world if there’s any hope that it still has a place for me?”
His grip went slack on her wrist and Jo could tell she was gaining ground. An inborn sense told Jo that if she pressed just a little more, he’d break.
“I’m going to go either way. You can either help me or stand aside.” It sounded threatening, but Jo intended it simply as matter of fact. As if to seem less threatening, Jo shoved her hands in the pockets of her hoodie, a threadbare thing that had become softer with every wash since her first year of junior high.
“All right, I can tell when a dame’s mind is set,” Wayne conceded. “It shouldn’t be an issue, I suppose.”
“Good.” Jo freed her hand and held it back over the touch pad.
“What you need to do is—”
Before he could finish the thought, her fingers were moving. Home was crisp and clear in her mind. Jo didn’t even know what numbers or letters she depressed, but her fingers moved with certainty. There was that same hiss of pressurization, the click of the door opening, and then—light.
Chapter 9
Not Real
SHE FELT TUGGED alongside Wayne, drawn from her navel as if by some magic umbilical cord pulling her back toward the real world, a world that she’d been born into just nineteen short years ago. Jo raised a hand up to her eyes, guarding them from the suddenly all-too-oppressive sun.
The door spit them out on a side street connected to her mother’s neighborhood. Jo instantly recognized the squat houses and modest lawns. It wasn’t a long walk from her home, maybe ten minutes. She should be glad to be so close, but Jo’s anxiety had already kicked into overdrive and she found herself wishing she’d had just a bit longer to compose herself.
“So, where’s home?” Wayne looked around, hands in his pockets.
“Texas.” Jo followed suit, beginning to lead the way.
“The mighty Lone Star Republic doesn’t look like what I’d expect,” he mumbled.
“What would you expect?” She latched onto the conversation as an opportunity for distraction.
“It to look a lot more different.”
“Different than what?” She gave him an up and down look. “No one has dressed like that in America for over a century, you know.”
“More than fashion, doll. When a country is invaded and then split up. . . I just thought it’d look a lot different is all.”
“Texas has always been Texas. It’s not even like this is the first time it’s been its own country, even.” Jo shrugged. “I’m surprised you even know about the outcome of World War III.”
“I haven’t lived in a hole.” There was mock offense in his voice.
“Just outside time,” she countered.
“And even there you can’t escape the talking heads on the television.”
“Really?” Jo arched her eyebrows. “You get news in the mansion?”
“How else would we keep up with the world?”
She merely hummed and kept wondering why people who existed beyond time would even need to “keep up with the world.” Jo looked at the sky; it was already turning a dusky color with the beginnings of sunset.
“I was born in 2038, a full twenty-three years after the war ended. Can’t say I know what the old America even looked like to compare. Plus, most of the fighting stayed on the coasts. America surrendered before any of the bombings got here.”
“For the best, as they say.” Wayne’s voice grew distant as he pulled into his own thoughts.
Jo nodded in agreement. The war had been hard and costly in both life and finances. But history was a topic her mind withdrew from when they rounded the corner of her street—or rather, the street that once marked home. Down at the end of the cul-du-sac, her family home crept into view—still small and square-shaped, a one-story affair painted in a rich terracotta that her mother got to keep after the divorce. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed that it looked exactly like she remembered. It was almost too similar, eerily so, and Jo had to keep reminding herself that this was a house that she had now never visited before.
“Come on, dollface,” Wayne pulled her out of her thoughts, one hand on the back of her neck as the other fiddled with his coin, flipping it up and down. “You were rallying to come here. How’s about you give me the nickel tour?”
Jo hadn’t realized her feet had stopped moving at the edge of the driveway. She took a breath and nodded, walking up the concrete with renewed purpose.
Her mom’s car wasn’t there, so it was unlikely that anyone was home—unless this was now a universe where her father was a stay-at-home husband. Unlikely, even in a world of magic. Jo thanked her lucky stars, not quite sure if she’d have been able to handle that. Knowing the woman who had been everything to Jo wouldn’t be able to hug her, probably wouldn’t even recognize her? Even with her ability to go unseen, she didn’t think she had the heart for it.
They walked up to the keypad on the garage door. Jo raised a hand, hooking the cap to open it. When it didn’t budge, Wayne caught her wrist.
“Just a sec, doll.”
“What?”
“Let me.” Wayne motioned to his watch. “You can’t interact with things outside of time.”
“Why? I got time with the wish, didn’t I?” Jo flipped her watch, affirming the fact. The numbers 10:00 still read where her stopwatch usually was.
“Time doesn’t just run because you walk through the Door. Thankfully,” Wayne added the last word as a mutter under his breath. “You have to activate it.”
“How do I do that?”
“Let’s not worry about that for now,” he said with more delicacy than Jo had previously thought possible for him to muster. As Jo moved to object, he continued. “I have some time still leftover from a prior wish. So, just in case, I’d rather preserve yours.”
“Didn’t Snow make it clear that I wasn’t going to be of help anyway? Shouldn’t I use mine?”
Wayne just shook his head, clearly not wanting to go down that route of conversation again. Jo watched closely as he pushed in a knob on his over-sized Rolex. Just like that, the hands began turning on the face. She didn’t perceive him as any different, but the keypad opened up with a flick of his fingers.
“Code?”
“Eleven, Seven, Two,” Jo recited, watching his fingers depress the buttons as though that—of all things—was the most magical thing she’d seen. “And press the car button after.”
The door groaned open, then closed again as they slipped through.
The garage was a little messier than she remembered, but she hadn’t visited her mother in months, so that could very well have been a recent change. Eith
er way, she ignored the little details for now and started for the interior door.
“It should be unlocked,” she informed Wayne.
Sure enough, it was, and he ushered them both inside, closing the door behind them and pulling out the pin on his watch again. Time stopped flowing through the device and the hands stilled. Jo gave him a once-over, waiting for some magical aura to appear, but he seemed the same as he always had.
She didn’t know why everyone was making magic out to seem so complicated. All this “learning her place.” From what Jo had seen, so far, magic was about intention, determination, and simple actions.
The moment Jo took more than a step into the house, however, all thoughts of magic and time vanished from her mind. Out of reflex, she found herself sniffing the air, heart clenching when she could smell none of the familiar scents of home.
“You all right?” Wayne asked softly. Jo startled slightly.
“Oh, yeah. Fine,” she replied quickly, clearing her throat. “Just. . . habit.”
“To sniff your house?” He asked, and his obvious attempt at keeping the mood lighthearted almost worked, the grip around her heart loosening a fraction.
“Whenever my mom knew I was coming home, she would always make my favorite dessert,” Jo said, taking a breath as she reminisced, even though it came away lacking. “The first thing I would smell whenever I visited was sopapillas.”
A brief pause, and then, “Your mother used to feed you soap?”
She couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up her throat, but she offset it with a tight roll of her eyes. “Yes, Wayne. My mother used to feed me soap.” After a second, however, she felt her own face soften, the laughter settling into a sigh. “Sopapillas are like hollow donuts you can pour warm honey into. When you take a bite, the honey pours out all over your fingers, and it’s just. . .” She took another breath, this time more to combat the renewed tightness in her chest than any lingering desire to smell dough and honey in the air. “They’re just really good, that’s all.”