Page 36 of The Fantastic Fluke

“Okay, Meredith Johnson. I’ll write that one down as soon as we’re done with the groceries. When was she?” I started stacking the items for the cupboard and fridge in different piles, and looked over at him, to assure he knew I was listening.

His eyes were distant, pointed at the ceiling but aimed at something else entirely. “Nineteen seventy-eight,” he said after a while. “Everyone was wearing these damn pants with hems they could trip over, and the ugliest colors.”

Trust Gideon to cut to the heart of the matter—the fashions of the era. “So Meredith Johnson, and she was what, like twenty?”

“A little younger,” he corrected. “Still in high school when we met. Training to be a forest mage, so nobody was too suspicious when she decided to move out into the woods after school.”

I started packing the refrigerator items away where they belonged, nodding. “So we’re looking for a Meredith Johnson born sometime around nineteen sixty. Here in Junction?” He nodded, and I turned back to my work, considering. “There can’t be too many people like that. I’ll check it out. Worst case scenario, we don’t find anything out about this one. It’ll be fine.”

When I turned back, he was staring at the pile of groceries that still sat on the counter like they’d called his mother a hamster. “What if we don’t find anything about any of them? What if there’s no information?”

“Then we move forward and hope for the best,” I said with a half-hearted shrug.

He spun to face me, and I could practically see a thundercloud cross his face. “Hope for the best? People have died, and too damn young. I’m tired of training the new kid and hoping for the best.” He caught my gaze and held it. “I won’t lose another one of you to hoping for the best.”

Maybe he’d have said the same about any of his students, anyone at all, but he was talking about me. He didn’t want me to die. Maybe the bar was on the floor, but it was the first time since my mother’s death that anyone had gotten that passionate in the name of protecting my life. Something about it made heat bloom in my belly. Standing there staring into those warm brown eyes, knowing that the man behind them cared about me... it was almost overwhelming, like his caring was a responsibility. A responsibility to live.

I loved Beez, she was a great best friend, but she was also ace at avoiding uncomfortable discussions, and she never, ever talked about things like losing people. Her grandmother had died when we were eight, and she still referred to it as “when lao lao went for a walk.” She never, ever talked about my mother.

“You won’t lose me,” I promised. “And if the worst happens, if something about the magic is dangerous, or, I dunno, there’s a vast government conspiracy to quell ley line magic, I’ll try to leave you a warning.”

He stared at his shoes for a long time before mumbling, “Meredith said that too.”

Ouch.

“I’m sorry.”

He shook his head, scrubbing a palm down his face, and then waved me off. “You’re the one who’s affected by this. You’re the one we’re trying to protect.”

“No, I’m not. I mean, sure, but if I die, Gideon, I’m dead. You’re the one who keeps getting dragged back, forced to deal with this over and over and over, and not knowing what happened or how.” Him dismissing his feelings hadn’t been what I wanted. The fact that he was willing to do so made my stomach ache. This time I was the one who stepped into his space, reaching up to put a hand on his face before remembering I couldn’t. “Your feelings are important, too. They didn’t stop existing just because you died.”

Fluke stepped up next to us and whined. I couldn’t say whether he was hungry, or trying to lighten the mood, or something else entirely, but it worked across the board.

Gideon chuckled at him, then motioned to me. “You better feed this monster before he decides to resort to eating his mage, and he’s the death of you.”

I pulled out my personal luxury of the day, a frozen pizza, and set to work making my dinner. Half an hour later, we all sat down to eat.

“And that’s a what, now?” Gideon asked, eyeing my dinner distrustfully.

“Pizza. And frozen isn’t the best kind, sure, but it’s still one of the best inventions ever.” I picked up my piece and bit off the end, the molten mozzarella scalding my tongue, and it didn’t remotely matter. It was the best meal I’d made myself in ages.

Yeah, okay, it was a cheap frozen pizza, but it wasn’t peanut butter and jelly or ramen. It might be the only time I had anything else before November.

I just had to hold out till November with what was in my bank account, I told myself, watching Fluke eating his bowl of dog food that had probably cost as much as my frozen pizza. He was worth it.

That was when it hit me right in the face. I wouldn’t have been perfectly happy giving up more than half my grocery budget to just any random fox.

“Fluke is my familiar.”

Gideon snorted, and Fluke looked up at me, like,“Well, you said my name, what do you need?”

They didn’t understand. This was huge. It was the biggest thing ever. I almost bounced in my seat, looking from one of them to the other, wanting some kind of emotional reaction. I turned to Fluke.

“You’re my familiar,” I told him.

He cocked his head one way, then the other, then he let his mouth fall open, tongue lolling out in the next best thing to a foxy grin and went back to eating his dinner.

I turned back to Gideon, trying to make someone understand why this was a big deal. “He’s—”

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