Page 34 of Hexual Healing
Baz was now completely naked.He was now sitting down in a chair with a pillow over his junk.He shrugged, apparently either completely disaffected or he’d just given up on maintaining any semblance of dignity.
“Fine,” I said.“How do we stabilize my magic?”
Zelda grinned, and something about that expression made me very, very nervous.“Easy.We're going to teach you to aim.”
* * *
Zelda's idea of teaching me to aim involved dragging us all to the town diner in the middle of the night, which seemed a bit counterintuitive to keeping people safe from my magical disasters.
“Shouldn't we practice somewhere more…isolated?”I asked as she pushed open the door to a diner.
“Your magic deserves an audience,” she said cheerfully.“But better to practice where people can dodge.”
The Assjacket Diner was aggressively quaint, like your grandma’s tea party had a scandalous one-night stand with a Pinterest board and then got tag-teamed by every contestant in a glue gun battle at a fairy convention.The tables were all heavy dark wood, smothered in pastel shabby chic-ish tablecloths that looked like they’d been sewn from the ghosts of discarded prom dresses.Kitschy mismatched napkins perched beside floral teacups, daring you to drink your coffee with an extended pinkie or risk divine judgment from the Shabby Chic Council.
What I didn’t expect was for every head to turn when we walked in, like a magical version ofCheers, ifCheershad more shifters and fewer bar tabs.
“Is that her?”someone whispered.
“My petunias started singing this morning!”
“My cat spoke French!”
I tried to shrink behind Baz, which was difficult given that he was still shirtless and drawing his own attention.Pretty sure I was gonna have to fight a bitch tonight.They were looking at him like he was a tall drink of water and they had just stumbled out of the desert.
“Zelda!”A woman behind the counter waved.She had the look of someone who'd seen too much and decided to open a diner because of it.“Heard we had some excitement yesterday.”
“Dee Dee, meet Tansy.Tansy, Dee Dee owns this place with Wanda.”
Dee Dee looked me up and down, then nodded.“You’re the one who enchanted the Thompsons’ cow to moo in Morse code?Apparently, their secrets are pretty juicy.”
“I…what?”
“Your magic,” Zelda explained, guiding us to a booth, “has been pulling from the town's ley lines.Every spell you cast sends ripples.Most of them have been surprisingly helpful.”
“Most?”
“Well, the library basement may have developed a taste for blood, but we told it it was gaining weight and convinced it to switch to tomato juice.”
I put my head in my hands.“I'm a walking disaster.”
“You're a walking miracle,” Dee Dee corrected, setting down coffee without being asked.“This town's been stuck in the same patterns for much too long.You're shaking things up.”
That's when it happened.
When I reached for the sugar, my fingers brushed the tabletop jukebox, and suddenly the entire diner filled with music.
Of course it wasn’tnormalmusic…
Every person in the room suddenly had their own personal soundtrack playing from the speakers, all at once, creating a cacophony of sound.
The businessman in the corner's theme was “Money for Nothing” mixed with what sounded like circus music.A teenager near the door was broadcasting “Teenage Dirtbag” at volumes that suggested his emotional state was exactly what you'd expect.
But the worst, or best, depending on your perspective, was when the music hit our table.
Baz's theme was “Sex and Candy” by Marcy Playground.Every note screamed barely contained want.
Mine was worse.It was literally the wedding march mixed with “Let's Get It On” and what I was pretty sure was the music fromPsychoduring the stabby, stabby shower scene.