In his office, Mickey was perplexed. He searched the Valley News on his old laptop. There was no mention of the attack at the sheriff’s department. That should have been a huge story on the front page. Hell, it should have been national news, or at least statewide, but the only thing in the paper were the headlines:

BLIZZARD HINDERS VOTE

ALLGOOD EXPECTED TO SWEEP

COMSTOCK A SHOO-IN FOR LAKE COUNTY SHERIFF

The night before lingered in his head. Not just the horror of the murders—he wasn’t sure how to tackle that one yet—but he couldn’t stop thinking about the concert. Even after he’d heard that first note, Francis’s music had echoed within him. The memory of the music, the impossible rainstorm inside the jail, and what he’d seen, a vision now faded like a dream, sent shivers down his spine.

When he got home from the police station, he searched the internet to see if someone had uploaded anything. Oddly, there was nothing on the video tubes or socials. It took some hunting, but at last, on a poorly coded, back-web indie forum that looked like the entrance to an old barn, a user by the name of Firefan79 posted: Builds A Fire Brings the Rain (raw). It was Firefan79’s first and only post, and their profile card revealed a registration time of yesterday.

There was one comment by an anonymous user: Check your file, bruh. Don’t hear shit.

During the live performance, he had not, for some strange reason, been able to hear the first song—just like when he and Alan had met the hippie in the sandwich shop’s parking lot—then something changed. Francis had drawn him in, spoke to him, taught him how to hear, and there it was, the boy’s sweet, soft voice and the pluck of his guitar.

Resisting the urge to listen to the entire concert again, he skipped to the last few seconds. Firefan79 had left a period of silence without music in the recording, but it included muffled voices, laughter, the sound of rain, distant thunder, and the first scream that marked Comstock’s arrival. A girl’s voice said, “Let’s go—” and the recording ended.

The presence of Foxy standing next to his table snapped him out of his trance. “You’re listening to Builds A Fire,” she said.

“Yeah—hey, yeah! You know him?”

She nodded, an expression on her face he couldn’t quite place. “The Maji. That’s from last night.”

“At the sheriff’s office. There was a—”

“Concert,” she finished his sentence. “I know. I was there.”

“Wait, you were there? I didn’t see you,” he said.

“I know.” She bit her lower lip in concentration. Her expression held words that needed to be spoken. There was something about her now, something he’d not seen in all the years he had crushed on her, as if she were taking off a mask to reveal a depth, a mystery.

She leaned close to him to look at his computer screen. He could feel the warmth from her face and chest and smell her perfume, lilacs and honey.

“I’m surprised it made it online so fast,” she said.

“Foxy, what do you know about Builds A Fire?”

“I’ve been waiting a long time for that concert. He’s the Maji. His music… Wait, I have some of his songs on my phone.” She retreated behind the counter, and after a moment, the sound of guitar strings replaced the Christmas jingles on the restaurant’s speakers. “This song is called ‘Steal the Fire.’ It came out about a year ago. It’s about finding your power.”

Just as it had the night before, he felt the music reaching out to him, touching him, drawing him down deep into his mind.

She sat across from him and rested her chin in her hands.

He lost track of time and urgency, like he was a kid again, daydreaming in school. At some point, Francis began to sing—or had he always been singing? Mickey wasn’t sure. The words were gentle at first, narrating a story of a journey. The way the boy controlled his voice was mesmerizing, and the voice controlled Mickey. He tingled with excitement, an unexplored energy suggesting infinite iterations. In the next stanza, the hero of the ballad came into focus—a young girl in a frozen land. She was a fierce fighter with a sword in a vast forest where lurked a dark danger.

Mickey trembled intensely with the intuition that he was on the verge of understanding a point of monumental importance. He needed to know this wisdom, to capture it, possess it, yet it flitted like a shadow at the boundary of his comprehension… of his courage.

He had been watching her gaze out the window into the falling snow that hid the lake beyond its dense curtain. Her expressions fluctuated as the music played. He thought he could read them; from joy to longing, to a single tear that formed at the corner of her eye and slipped down her cheek. He reached out and brushed it away with his thumb. She was warm and soft. She smiled at him. The song faded.

“Alright?” he asked.

“Yeah, I guess I hear a lot of sadness in this one. It makes me think of my mom. I wish she could have heard the music.”

“I’m sorry. Did you lose her?”

The beautiful waitress nodded, wiped her eyes, and said, “No makeup to smear today.”

“You’re stunning,” he said.

She blushed. “You would say that, Mickey Verona.”

“Maji?” he said the word he’d heard her use.

Foxy opened her mouth to speak but stopped.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I need to know.”

“I don’t know anything, really. Not much.”

In his mind, he saw the clouds rolling across the ceiling. It had rained inside the jail and drenched him. The water had run into his eyes, blurring the world. When he wiped it away, he had seen another world, briefly. He had known and understood, but then it had been ripped away by Comstock’s insanity, like a baby from a mother’s breast.

“This boy, this singer, is my client.”

“You represent the Maji?”

“Francis Builds A Fire. He got into some trouble. Remember I was in here with Dr. Smith a couple days ago?”

“Yeah, the tall guy, Dr. Handsome but Brooding.”

“Right, the tall, brooding guy. That was Francis’s shrink.”

“What’s he need a shrink for?”

Mickey told her of Francis’s arrest because he was suspected of doing something to John Taylor’s daughter. He told her about finding the poster that had predicted Francis would give a concert at the jail, about how so many people had come, and how he at first couldn’t hear the music, but then he could—the guitar and singing—how it had rained, and how he’d wept, how everyone had wept.

“Then Comstock showed up and crashed the party. He beat Francis down, busted the blue guitar. He got Alan, too. But I can’t believe I didn’t see you there.”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Mickey,” Foxy reached across the table and took his hand in both of hers. “Call it my faith, but that boy, whatever happened, he wasn’t trying to hurt that girl. I know it like I know myself.”

“I don’t believe he did. There’s something else, Foxy, something terrible. Last night, there was an attack on the sheriff’s department. Ten people were horribly killed.”

She gasped and put her hand to her mouth.

“Comstock and an FBI agent paid a visit to my house this morning. He said Francis, Alan, and Deputy Wolf are missing. They’re suspects in the murders. Hell, the FBI’s watching my house as we speak. I gave them the slip to get here.”

Foxy squeezed his hand hard. “It was the hunters. That was a big enchantment. They tracked it to the jail for sure.”

“Hunters,” he said. “Francis used that word, and this morning, when Deputy McGreevy brought me the boy’s guitar, he said that hunters had come for him. That he killed them… I almost thought he was having an episode.”

“You’re saying you have the Maji’s guitar?”

“That’s right. It’s sitting on my sofa, all smashed to pieces.”

He relayed McGreevy’s visit in the predawn hours. He’d been at his table, hoping for more information to come across the scanners, but there were only the garbled messages of encrypted transmissions. The knock had come at the back door. The storm was raging so hard that when he opened it, the short deputy blew in with the snow and shoved the guitar into Mickey’s arms. “The hunters came for me. I killed them. I burned their bodies just like she told me to,” McGreevy exclaimed. Mickey could tell he was manic; his eyes were wide, and his breath was coming in gasps. “You need to get this to Francis. Tell him the next concert is in Billings. He needs to get to Billings. You didn’t see me. Promise me, Mickey, you didn’t see me.” And with that promise, he was gone back out into the stormy night.

“The hunters are real, Mickey.”

“I have no reason to disbelieve it,” he said. “I sure as hell find it more likely than Dr. Brooding ever lifting a finger. Alan can hardly blow his own nose without having an existential crisis.” He grunted at his own wit. “What is it, girl?”

The waitress’s face had gone pale.

“Last night after the concert, I felt the hunters prowling around. I thought they were after me. For what I did.”

“After you? You mean they came here?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t look out the window. I came home, locked the door, and pulled the blankets over my head, like when I was a little girl. I said the words my mom taught me to—” She pursed her lips then sipped her coffee. “It must sound crazy.”

“You can tell me. I need to know. It’s all different now.”

“Oh, Mickey,” her voice trembled. “They’ve been after me for so long.”

“Foxy, if anybody fucking touches you, I will rip their goddamn nuts off!” The idea of Foxy being a victim of what transpired at the jail made his heart pound in his chest. “What did you do that made you think someone was after you?”

She sat upright. “I don’t think you’ll understand.”

“Try me.”

She took a gander around the restaurant. It was still empty.

“Do you believe in magic, Mickey, real magic?” There was no hint of amusement on her face.

“Like hocus pocus?”

“I guess so. Why not? Why not like that?”

“Lawyers are pretty logical types, apart from the odd superstition here and there.”

“What superstition do you have?”

“Who? Me?”

“Yeah, you.” She poked a finger in his face and, for a glorious instant, touched the cleft of his chubby chin.

“It’s kind of embarrassing.”

“Darn it, just tell me. I won’t laugh. Then I’ll tell you my secret.”

“You have a secret?” To learn anything from Foxy’s heart chamber made his throat dry. He had to sip some coffee.

“Sure, I do, silly, real interesting secrets.” She bit her lip, and Mickey spilled the beans.

“So, when I go to court, I only wear a special pair of underwear. They were my dad’s. He wore them the day he passed the bar exam.”

Foxy let out a giggle. “Are you serious?”

“Hey, you asked me. But it’s a superstition. I don’t actually think it’s magic.”

“Sure, that’s magic, and a bit perverse.” She grinned. “That’s what I’m talking about. You do something that affects something else. The thing you do, the way you think, has some bearing on what happens when you’re in court.”

“It’s just psychological.”

“But you feel better when you’re wearing your magical lawyer-daddy dungees. It changes you, even just in your head.”

“Yeah. Court can really fuck you up, but I got my magic underwear, so come at me.” Mickey did a little matador dance with his arms.

“Christ, Mickey, you’re too much! Are you wearing them now?”

“Nah, I’m free balling. No court today.”

“Ya know, you’re pretty funny for a guy being watched by the FBI.”

She retrieved a pot from the coffee island and filled his cup.

“And what about the concert last night? Was that magic? I think rain inside a building is pretty magical.”

“It was crazy,” he said. “The clouds, right where I could touch them. I even saw lightning.”

“And the music?”

“I’ve never heard anything like it. I could listen to it forever. I could lose myself in it.”

“But you said at first you couldn’t hear it.”

“That’s right. I couldn’t, not the first song. It was totally silent. I could see he was singing. I just couldn’t hear it.”

“But then you did. Now you can hear that song you didn’t hear before.”

“Yeah, Francis, he did something. He did…” Mickey began and then stopped, as if saying it to another person would make him a true believer.

“Magic,” Foxy finished for him.

“You think he really did magic, like real hocus pocus? Real magic?”

“The fact that magic is not real has never crossed my mind,” Foxy said. “To me, it’s always been real. I’ve always been able to hear his music, and I’ve always known it was special.”

“That’s a crazy scenario. I don’t know if I can accept it.”

“What about your psychologist friend?”

“Alan?” There was something about Alan he couldn’t understand. He was completely devoted to Francis. He wanted to fight all the kid’s battles and lash out at the forces rallied against him. But at the same time, he seemed to fear the boy. “Yeah, Alan drank the Kool-Aid. That thing for him last night was a baptism, not just—”

“Mickey, listen to yourself. You were there. And now you’re saying it wasn’t real.”

“I’m saying that my client, his shrink, and the cop who arrested him have fled, accused of murdering six law enforcement officers and others. I can’t afford to play fucking Harry Potter. I have motions to file. The fucking FBI is on my doorstep.”

Foxy placed a hand on his arm. “Come here.”

She led him through the tables to the door of the ladies’ restroom. He pulled back slightly at the taboo of crossing that threshold.

“It’s okay.”

“You gonna show me your secret?”

“I am. I trust you.”

The bathroom had the flowery smell of just having been cleaned.

“Look at yourself.” She pointed into the mirror. “What do you see?”

He had never been a fan of his own reflection, yet he forced himself to look. A short, middle-aged man who was bald on top with messy black hair around the sides. He had gained some weight in the last year—shit, he needed to get back into the gym. The dark circles under his eyes that never seemed to go away were darker today.

“What do I see?”

“Yes. Be honest.”

“I see a not very handsome man,” he said.

“I’ve always thought you were handsome.” She quickly pecked him on the lips. His heart jumped at the stolen kiss. She squeezed his arm harder. “Look again.”

As he looked, she traced his cheek with her finger. His double chin vanished. She ran her thumb under his eyes, and the dark circles faded. She caressed his bald head, and healthy locks of full, thick hair, like he had in high school, spilled between her fingers. She pressed her palm on his stomach, and his gut melted away. Foxy lifted his shirt, and he saw the fine definition of a six-pack.

“You look quite handsome to me, Mickey Verona,” she whispered like nectar in his ear.

He felt her weight slump against him, and he caught her before she could fall.

“Foxy, are you okay?”

Her eyes were closed. “Yeah, just a little bit dizzy,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to try that on someone else.”

The veritable Adonis in the mirror faded. Once again, there was the old Mickey Verona, bald, chubby, with dark circles and all.

“That was incredible!” he said.

“Thank you, but like I said, not very useful.”

“How…”

“Call it magic, I guess. I’ve always been able to do it, but…”She went back into the restaurant and looked around—empty. “But before last night, the hunters could have found me. That’s why I went to that concert. The Maji’s music helps people like me.”

“What do you mean, people like you? You’re perfect.”

“I mean… there are others. We cross each other’s paths from time to time. It’s rare, but it happens. We all know to keep it a secret, keep to ourselves. It’s the only way to survive. Don’t do enchantments. Enchantments bring the hunters.”

“Those people at the concert. They were… like you?”

She nodded, “Most of them anyway. Running scared. They needed to hear the Maji’s music. And, if they survived the night, the hunters can’t find them now. That’s why.”

“I need to find Alan and Francis. He needs that guitar.”

“I’m going to help you,” she declared.

“No, it’s too dangerous,” he said boldly.

“I’m tired of hiding,” she nearly cried. “You can’t understand.”

The waitress was easily six inches taller than him, but he couldn’t help himself. Ever so slowly, ever so timidly, he leaned forward, stood a little on his toes, and kissed her. And she kissed him back. The passion that had incubated as a spark for a little more than five years suddenly burst into flame. When at last their lips parted and their tongues ceased to dance, Mickey and Foxy were both breathless.

“Was that okay?” Mickey asked. “I’m not as handsome as that man in the mirror.”

“Shut up, Mickey Verona.” She pressed her lips against his one more time.