Page 3 of Spelling Disaster

No more creating a playful fantasy escape.

As an adult, I’ll have no choice. I’ll have to put those things away forever even though I have no idea what waits for me once I do.

It’s my duty.

It’s an obligation.

And it’s supposed to be an honor for some reason.

The women coo and remark about how wonderful it is for me to be this age. They talk about what I have to look forward to while my mother apparently glows with pride.

“Are you excited?” the woman on the left asks me.

I concentrate on the mole beside her mouth, more Monroe than Witch of the West. “Sure,” I tell her, and the word turns to ash in my mouth.

“Of course she’s excited,” Mom answers for me. “She understands the gravity of this day as well. Sometimes Yasmine doesn’t allow herself to fully express her emotions.”

I blink at Mom.I don’t?

The two women utter pretty much the same sound of comprehension before Mom pushes me off toward the rolling cart. “Go ahead and reshelve the stacks,” she tells me.

I’m happy for any kind of exit and to take the one offered to me.

Except my mind won’t rest. It spins around and around the fact that it’s my birthday today and my birthday is nothing but the executioner’s ax to the only joys in my life and no one to tell me why it’s happening.

Still, I get to work pushing the cart through the stacks. The book on top is an occult history of eighteenth-century London.

It’s one of the most popular items and we check it out with regularity.

I hum to myself as I find the right stack, but the sound dies soon after its birth. There in the stacks ahead—I know the hair, I know the slope of those shoulders.

I’d know Atlas even if I went blind because he gives off a certain air of power.

Currently, his hands are wrapped around the waist of my vastly more popular sister Remi. She’s only a few years older than me but what a world of difference.

Enough difference that she has no issues finding a man and keeping him. A man like Atlas.

He’s handsome, smart as a whip, and he makes Remi happy even though their hookups are a secret from Mom. She’s not supposed to have a boyfriend, especially not a human one. Remi constantly sneaks him into the arcane section where she thinks they won’t be bothered.

Which is true because sometimes their affections make me sick to my stomach. Today, I don’t need any help there.

They both ignore me without giving me even a look.

The next hour zooms by as I reshelve and the clock counts down.

The air smells of dust and old worn book bindings as I mechanically bend and reach. Bend and reach. Sometimes I wish I was as free as Remi. Free to do what I want and be who I need to be and go wherever on a whim.

When it comes to magic, I got the payload, while Remi got the mortal half of our parents. Her lack of power leaves her free from the shackles of responsibility that I have, but I’ve never begrudged her the circumstances.

We can’t help how we’re born.

“Hey, yo.” Remi reaches out from around one of the shelves and grabs my hand.

Startled, I drop the book I’m holding and it falls to the ground loud enough to make me wince.

“What’s the matter?” I ask.

“I know you were watching. You can’t tell Mom about Atlas. We were just talking,” Remi insists. Her eyes narrow on me.

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