The Present...

I closed my eyes with a sigh. In my hasty greed, I’d done this to myself. I’d effectively cursed myself.

“It's not all bad,” the voice said in response. “You've got me now, and I've got you…”

The voice let out a deep, rumbling laugh and the shadow in the corner solidified. A shape emerged from the shadows and I sucked in a deep breath.

Several Days Earlier...

I might’ve been nicer to Rick and Mrs. Rick had I known I would be invited into the magick world the next day.

“This isn’t a negotiation,” Rick said.

“Sure, it is.” I smiled and leaned onto the counter of the Nightsbridge Stop ‘n Shop, keeping his attention away from what my left hand was doing. “Everything is a negotiation.”

“Hexana,” he said.

“Rick,” I said, batting my eyelashes and pouting out my lip. My left hand blindly felt around for some gum and slipped it into my purse. “I’m only asking for a one-dollar discount per ticket. You know how expensive those things are.”

“I don’t set the prices,” he said. “If I did, they’d be cheaper.”

“Yeah, but you sell them. You can sell them for a little cheaper. Right?”

“No,” Rick shook his head emphatically. “No, I can’t. It’s against the law.”

“What law? It’s just you and me in here.”

Beef jerky. Corn Nuts. Slim Jim. Directly into the purse.

Gotta keep him talking for a little longer if I want to get a full minimart meal out of this, I thought.

“I just can’t do it.” Rick shook his head sadly. “You know you’re one of my favorite customers. You even helped us catch that shoplifter last year. I’ll forever be grateful for that, but I just can’t sell scratch offs for cheaper than what they’re marked for. That’s not how it works.”

“So, you’re telling me that scratch offs never go bad?”

Rick nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

News to me.

I took a deep breath and sighed. Snowballs. Sticky buns. Big League Chew.

“Okay. How much did you say again? For the whole lot?”

“$41,” Rick said. “Even.”

He placed the scratch offs on the counter between us and waited. I took a deep breath and sighed, reaching my hand into my purse and rustling around past all the loot I’d stolen as I tried to find my wallet.

The crinkling of the cellophane paper as my fingers moved around it made an awful racket.

Rick raised an eyebrow at me. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, “I’m fine.”

I was not fine.

The snowballs and sticky buns were directly on top of my wallet and I couldn’t seem to shift either of them out of the way to get the wallet. Not without crushing one or the other that is.

Stay strong, Hexana. Don’t crush the treats.

Frowning, I chewed on my lip as Rick watched me doing my best to keep the opening of the purse out of his vision. His eyebrows got a tiny bit higher, a fraction of a millimeter, with every second that elapsed. Soon his eyebrows would be on the back of his head and he would look like a monster. I didn’t want to do that to Rick. Not me.

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“Hold on,” I said. “Can’t seem to find my wallet and it’s that time of the month so my purse is filled with—”

Rick cut me off, waving his hands in my direction to shut me up.

Works every time.

I reached deep, twisted the wallet, and wouldn’t you know it, but the snowballs popped out of my purse and onto the ground.

I froze and the only thing that moved was my eyes peeking at Rick from the corners.

He was still looking up at the ceiling, waiting for me to find my wallet and avoiding eye contact with any feminine unmentionables he didn’t want to think about.

That’s perfect, that’s fine.

In fact, he probably missed the whole thing. I bent down, grabbed the snowballs off the floor, slipped them into my purse, shuffled around in the purse for the damned wallet, and stood back up.

I was clearing my throat when I found myself eye to eye with Mrs. Rick.

Pamela? Erin?

I still don’t know her name. All I knew was that she hated me. She’d long suspected what I’d been up to in the Nightsbridge Stop ‘n Shop. Now, though, she had proof.

She opened her mouth to tell her husband, but before she could get out even a single syllable, my hand shot out, grabbed her lips, and squeezed them together. Mrs. Rick’s eyes went wide. I’m sure mine did too.

Neither of us had expected that move.

Hexana, what are you doing? How are you going to explain this? Shoplifting and assault? Cool rap sheet, bro.

Rick’s brow knitted in concern. “Hex—”

I just started rambling. Not even really knowing what I was going to say but trying to sell it. The name of the game was getting out of the store without getting arrested.

“Did y’all see that segment on skin cancer last night? On the news?” I asked in a low, scared voice. I was still holding Mrs. Rick’s lips together, but I was gesturing with my chin in the general direction of her lower lip. “This is what it looks like. Right here. Rick, do you see this?”

I brought Mrs. Rick’s face over to him, surprised that she wasn’t fighting back against me, surprised she hadn’t whipped her face away.

I guess the rumors about her are true: she’s a hypochondriac. By the same token, I guess the rumors about me were true: I’m a heartless bitch.

“Right there,” I said. “Do you see it?”

I let go of her lips and hoped my gambit paid off.

Come on, come on, just let me get out of here without the cops being called.

Mrs. Rick and I stared into each other’s eyes.

She’s gonna to tell him I shoplifted the whole store.

“She shoplifted the whole store!” Mrs. Rick screamed.

I whirled around and ran for the entrance. Luckily, no one was in the store, so I didn’t have any other obstacles besides the screaming and howling of Rick and Mrs. Rick behind me.

I hit the front door hard, stumbled out onto the sidewalk, looked left and then right, saw zero cops, and took off running. I made it around the corner and stopped, already out of breath.

Don’t judge me. It’s not like I have to run a lot. It’s not like I normally have to flee from minimarts, or steal.

Okay, so that last part is a lie. Ignore that.

I took a deep breath, pulled out the snowballs, and started munching on them as I walked. I made my way through the back alleys of Nightsbridge, my home since I’d been born, a suburb just outside of Houston city limits.

On my way home, my feet found a familiar path, bringing me to the theatre.

I’d essentially been raised in it by my father, Darren. It was boarded over now. Broken windows. Graffiti. It hurt me to see it like that.

I sat on the curb the parking lot, staring up at it, wishing that it was mine, wishing that I could have my old home back.

Squeezing the crystal necklace he’d given me, I closed my eyes.

When my father disappeared, he left me in the care of my aunt. The theatre had been one of his holdings and it had been willed to me, but first to her. What that meant was that she promptly sold it for the money.

“Your father may not have been good for many things,” my aunt had said, “but at least he left me a pittance to take care of you with.”

I don’t think she knew what the word pittance meant.

The theatre was one of the last physical things I could tie to my father, to any sense of family I had. My aunt, demon aunt that she was, had long since passed away. She may have been blood, but she was never family.

I started in on the sticky bun and shook my head. One day the theatre would be mine. One day I be able to buy the entire lot the theatre was on.

I had a plan: hence the scratch offs.

My crappy job as a waitress at Luke’s would never cut it, assuming I could even make it to whatever amount they were asking for the land.

I didn’t even want to think about the renovation that would get have to go into getting the theatre up and running again. Better not to think about it. I took a deep breath and sighed, finishing up the sticky bun and standing. I started walking again.

How else can I get my hands on enough money for the theatre? I could rob a bank.

I snorted.

Rob a bank. Right. Sure, you could…

I slid into my apartment like a ghost, not wanting the landlord to see me. I already knew what conversation would be coming next if he saw me.

Where’s the rent, Hexana? Why haven’t you paid? Don’t you have a job?

The landlord was nice enough, but he was still a landlord.

I flopped onto the tattered couch and dumped my bag out onto the coffee table. Snacks went sliding everywhere and there, at the center, was the grand prize: Every single scratch off I’d asked for.

I grinned.

Rick had been so focused on his wife that he’d forgotten he’d placed the scratch offs on the counter. I hadn’t forgotten this. Half the reason I’d pulled his wife over for Rick to inspect was so that I could get closer to the counter and those sweet, sweet scratch offs.

I took a deep breath and smiled with the theatre, and everything it would mean for me to own it, at the forefront of my mind.

After pulling my lucky quarter out of its hiding spot, I bent over the pile of scratch offs.