Monster - A. Lee Martinez [57]
Judy decided she preferred staying to avoid having her eyebrows burned off.
The old woman smiled very slightly. She plucked the white cat off the floor, holding it in her arms. “I trust Rob and Evelyn have been pleasant company. They’ve adjusted quite well. Much faster than I expected, and now they’re so much happier this way. Isn’t that right, Evelyn?”
The white cat half meowed, half purred.
“Can we dispense with the nonsensical small talk and just get down to it?” asked Judy. “What am I doing here?”
“No reason to be hostile now, dear. I’m merely the guardian of the stone. What I have done is only in the name of preserving the rightful order.”
Lotus removed the Post-it stuck to Judy’s forehead.
“Will you look at this?” Lotus shook her head slowly. “Such sloppy work. Have the arts succumbed to such inferior magic? It’s enough to bring a tear to this old woman’s eye.”
Pendragon turned his back on Judy for a second, and before she could talk herself out of it, she took advantage of the opportunity. She jumped out of her seat and kicked the fire-breathing cat across the room. He yelped, spitting a fireball that blackened the battle of Waterloo.
“How ridiculous,” said Lotus. “Why do they so rarely cooperate?”
Judy punched the old lady right in the throat, who took the hit without flinching. A backlash knocked Judy into her chair and left her dizzy.
“I should have warned you that nothing can hurt me as long as I guard the stone,” said Lotus.
Judy was still shaking off the weird magical repercussion of her poorly-thought-out escape attempt. The haze was coming back. It slammed down over her perceptions of the situation. It was just too much to absorb, too quickly.
Pendragon stalked forward and hissed.
“They always have to learn the hard way, don’t they, Pen-dragon?” Lotus sat in the other chair beside the table and poured herself a cup of tea from the pot. “Care for some?”
“I hate tea.”
“I think you’ll like this. It’s my own special blend. Specially brewed to help you with that memory problem of yours, dear. And, if I do say so myself, it is delicious.”
Lotus poured Judy a cup and set it before her. The entire process was almost mechanical in its precision.
“Go on, drink it. You’ll be glad you did. It will help you remember. For a few hours at least, and with far more vibrant clarity than any shoddy runesmanship can provide.”
“And there are no side effects?”
Lotus said, “You won’t be able to spell anything for a day or two, and you might have trouble riding a bicycle. But even the most perfect magic isn’t a free lunch. As I see it, you have two choices. You can either drink the tea and begin to understand what is happening to you, or you can not drink it and stay as confused as you have been your entire life.”
Judy contemplated the cup.
“It’s your choice, really,” said Lotus.
Judy, once again seizing a moment before she had time to think it through, drank down the tea. There was a twinge in her brain. She knew it was impossible for the brain to feel anything by itself, but that’s how it seemed. Like a spark fired at the base of her skull, activating some unused portion of her mind, clearing out the fog and dust.
She asked for another cup, and Lotus was all too happy to comply.
“Tell me something, Judy: do you ever wonder where it all came from?”
“No, I can’t say that I have,” she admitted.
“The cosmos, I mean,” said Lotus. “The totality of what you and I would label, for lack of a better word, the universe.”
“No.”
“Not at all?”
“Not really,” said Judy. Everything seemed sharper now, more in focus. It was like she was seeing things for the first time. She noticed an odd shape to Pendragon’s weak shadow. It was hard to identify, but it didn’t match up. It was long and thin, and two triangles (Wings? she wondered) were attached to it.
Lotus picked up her cup, took another sip, and pondered her tea for a few moments.
“Would you like me to tell you?”
“You mean, the meaning of life?”
Lotus chuckled. “Oh, no. I never said that.