Page 59 of Having the Time of My Midlife

“I. Am. Never. Wrong,” It snapped. “My word is the law. They’ve been written in stone, and a little half-breed girl can’t subvert her way around them.” It laughed menacingly. The sound shook the entire plane. “I made the laws, and I’m the only one allowed to break them.”

“I call bullshit,” she said. Alana Catherine clapped her hands. An ancient book appeared. It floated in the air in front of her. The Higher Power gasped. Its eyes narrowed to slits, and It punched a hole in the ground that created a huge crater.

Crap. The divide was vast, and getting over it was going to be a challenge.

Gram grabbed my hand. “Daisy girl,” she whispered. “I know that there book. I seen Heather use it.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“I’m thinkin’ it’s the Immortal Book of Law,” she said, sounding a little frantic.

That was nothing. My stomach was one big painful cramp. “Why does Alana Catherine have it?” I asked under my breath.

“Goin’ out on a limb here, but I’m gonna say our little gal might be the future Arbitrator Between the Darkness and the Light.”

I looked at her askance. How was that even possible?

When the skunks flew out of my daughter one by one, the Higher Power backed up a bit. Even though the crater was a barrier, he wasn’t pleased that the skunks had shown up. I recalled Alana Catherine’s words—Spiritually, skunks symbolize fearlessness, protection and balance. The black and white of their fur embodies the balance between the dark and the light… Was the Higher Power afraid that Its careless disregard of balance was going to bite It in the ass? Did the skunks come out of my child to remind It of that?

The adorable little stinkers were armed to the butt. They surrounded my daughter in protection. I wish I could say that it gave me a sense of peace, but it didn’t calm me at all. Not one little bit. I’d watched them get decimated by a machine gun-wielding Fake Vanna White less than an hour ago. What could they do against a being that created life as we knew it?

Again, I felt like I was in the middle of a fever dream. This didn’t look like it was going to end well. Mentally, I gauged the distance that It was standing from me. Alana Catherine’s safety was my biggest concern. She was powerful, but how could someone who was a freaking baby this morning, fight the Higher Power with a book and a bunch of cute mammals? She couldn’t. However, I could kill the bastard and get us out of here. Jumping the crater was a little iffy, but I was fast. If I got up enough speed, I could make it.

“Gram, when I say go, I want you to cuss like you’ve never cussed before.”

“You want it worse than the string of words I strung together a little while ago?”

I glanced over at her. “You can be nastier than that tirade I lived through?”

“Way,” she assured me with a thumbs up. “You should hear Candy Vargo in her sleep. It’s a hot mess of poop words. I might be old, but I got a memory like a steel trap. I can singe the hair right out of your ears.”

That news was frightening and fabulous at the same time. “You’re going to distract It. I’m going to kill It. Then we’re leaving.”

“We takin’ the skunks home?” she asked. “I think Alana Catherine will be real dang disappointed if we don’t.”

“Umm… I wasn’t planning on it, but I suppose I could make it work.”

“One more quickie,” Gram said. “How we gettin’ out of here?”

“I’m gonna click my heels three times and say there’s no place like home,” I told her.

“Works for me,” she said.

I sure as hell hoped it worked for all of us.

Seconds before I gave Gram the go-ahead to set the world on fire with her filthy mouth, Alana Catherine spoke. Her voice was loud and clear. Her words were damning. She knew it. Gram knew it. I knew it, and the Higher Power knew it. It trembled with so much outrage, I wondered if It was about to obliterate the entire plane.

“You have broken the laws you created,” my child said, pointing at the book. She glowed brightly in every color of the rainbow.

“Well, I’ll be,” Gram muttered. “I’d put up with all kinds of rain to see a rainbow like that.”

“You,” Alana Catherine continued, her voice booming through the valley. “You have removed souls from the Light who did no wrong. You pulled them out for your own selfish reasons.”

“So what?” the Higher Power snarled. “What do you think you can do about it?”

Alana Catherine was calm, cool and collected. Her skunk army hung on her every word. Their asses were directly aimed at the Higher Power. It was certain a group butt blast wouldn’t kill It, but it wouldn’t be what anyone would call fun. “It’s not what I will do about it. It’s what you will do about it. The punishment for your crime is death. You wrote the law. You wrote the punishment. The question that hangs in the balance is what areyougoing to do about it?”

“Nothing,” It snarled.

---