When my phone’s alarm goes off the next morning I’m already wide awake, my eyes open and staring at the ceiling. Actually, I never got to sleep; after yesterday’s discoveries about James and the genie…scratch that, Arthur, my brain was overloaded with new information, and I spent the remainder of the night trying to process it.
“Ready to go?” I call out, jumping off the bed.
“Absolutely, milady.” He is already fully dressed.
I guess he didn’t catch much sleep either. That is, if he ever does.
“Arthur—” He smiles slightly when he hears me calling him by his real name again. “Can you please call me just Ally?”
He nods in agreement.
I change from my pajamas into a pair of jeans and a dark gray t-shirt, and only need a quick stop to the bathroom before we can leave.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say as soon as I am ready.
On the way home, we stop at a Starbucks to have breakfast.
“You should really give coffee a chance, you know?” I say to Arthur, handing him his cup of hot tea. “But considering that you’re partially French, I thought you could appreciate a butter croissant.”
“Indeed, you are most kind.” He thanks me, and takes his drink and food.
“How are you?” I ask, a little bit worried. After talking about Héloise and the curse, a new veil of sadness seems to have wrapped itself around him.
“Fairly good, maybe a jot on the melancholic side. But it will pass—it always does.”
“Good! We need all your positive energies, because today we are in the business of breaking curses,” I announce with enthusiasm, trying to stay on the positive side of things.
He doesn’t say anything; he simply rolls his eyes while sipping from his paper cup.
While enjoying my breakfast, I open up a Google search on my phone and type in “how to break a curse”. I know I probably won’t find anything useful, but trying won’t hurt anyone either, so why not?
The first website has a long introduction before telling me I could learn everything about curse breaking in their next seminar at the convenient cost of one-hundred-fifty bucks. No thanks.
After opening most of the search results, I decide on a few that seem to descend from some old magical beliefs or traditions. Hey, I know it sounds crazy, but if a while ago someone had spoken to me about magic and curses I would have called an asylum, so I’m keeping an open mind on the subject.
Some of the rituals require a waning moon, I read, claiming that the moon while disappearing can bring along any bad influence. These rituals are out of the picture since, by checking again on Google, I find out that the moon is now on the opposite phase, and considering what Arthur said about its power, I don’t want to mess with it.
Luckily enough, some other incantations require a waxing moon, as it will help grow the power of the person performing the spell. We’re good for those, and for the ones that don’t say anything specific about lunar phases. We just need to do a little shopping before we can get started.
A few hours later, back at my apartment, I decide that our first attempts should be the ones we can easily try in the kitchen. Victim number one is a lemon.
“You have to purify the fruit first—here, use this,” I say, passing a more-skeptical-by-the-second Arthur an aromatic stick of incense.
“May I express my doubts about this entire process?”
“Hush—we need faith for it to work.”
He takes the stick and passes it under the lemon multiple times.
“What now?” he asks, voice still loaded with skepticism.
“You have to cut it in two perfect halves and say:
Forthwith I crush this acid lemon
Freeing myself of the malefic venom
Hither I let thee rotten
Let my curse be forgotten.”
“Could you repeat the magic formula one more time?” he requests, deadly serious with his arms crossed on his chest and the knife in one hand. “I am not sure I remember all of it.”
I begin to repeat it when I notice a smirk escape his lips; he tries to hide it and regain his original composure, but it is too late. I saw it.
“You had it the first time,” I say with feigned outrage. “Go on.”
He laughs, openly this time, before proceeding with the killing of the poor lemon. He pronounces the words with great solemnity. Another mockery, I suspect.
“What shall we do with the corpse?” he asks teasingly.
“Leave it there—it has to rot for the night,” I answer, reading the instructions on my phone. “Tomorrow we’ll have to throw it away, far from the house.”
“Perfect,” he says, putting the small plate with the crushed fruit next to the window. “What is next on our list?” he asks, maintaining his pretended gravity.
“We have to pass the curse on to an egg,” I reply, trying to keep a straight face.
After the egg, we proceed to brew a disgusting concoction of curry, ginger, and vervain that he has to chug at once. We write his and Morgene’s names on a piece of paper with black ink and burn it to break the bond between them. We do a ritual with crystals, and Arthur bathes in hot salted water mixed with lavender and juniper within a circle of thirteen white candles. He had a bathing suit on, in case you were wondering.
Sugar happily participates in all our rituals, mostly playing with the ingredients, stealing them, or trying to eat them.
“Are we finished, milady?” Arthur asks, dabbing his wet body with one of my towels.
“Hm…” I am momentarily distracted by his muscular chest and toned abs. It really has been too long since I’ve been with a man… “We only have one thing left that we can try,” I say, shaking the image of his naked, damp body out of my head.
I move back into the living room to prepare everything for our last ceremony, a cleansing ritual with sage. We must burn a dried stick of it and wave the smoke around Arthur in circles to purify him.
“Stay put,” I tell him when he joins me from the bathroom and reaches the center of the room.
He raises both eyebrows, but stops as instructed, watching me in silence while I light the little twig.
“Don’t move. I am going to circle around you,” I say, flapping the stick in the air surrounding him.
I am about halfway through the process when suddenly the smoke sensor goes crazy.
“No, no, no,” I shout, trying to put out the stick. “Open the windows,” I yell to Arthur while, pushing the entrance door ajar.
I try to wave the smoke out of the apartment with my hands while madly stretching upward to push the security button on the detector, which is definitely too high and out of my reach. I’m brushing it with the tip of my finger, but it’s too late…the security sprinklers go off, and suddenly it’s raining in my house.
The fire alarm of the whole building picks up and adds its awful noise to the general confusion. The doorman is on my floor in a matter of seconds, and he stares aghast at the ruins of my apartment through the open door.
“Miss Johnson, what happened here?” he asks me, panting hard. Poor guy, he must have run the five flights of stairs to my apartment because he thought there was a fire going on, and you are not supposed to use elevators during fire emergencies.
“Here, uh…I am so sorry, Fred. Nothing happened—it was a mistake.” In that moment I follow his gaze that moves from my face to my general bosom area. Oh no, with my t-shirt wet and stuck to my body, my nipples must be showing. I concentrate deeply on bringing them back to order while still trying to say something reasonable to Fred, inwardly thankful that my t-shirt is not white. “I…umm…think these smoke detectors are a little too sensitive,” I continue, embarrassed.
“There is no fire then?” he asks, still gasping for breath. Given the roundness of his belly, this is probably the first time he has taken the stairs in his entire life.
“No, Fred, no fire,” I confirm.
“I’d better let the other occupants know or the panic will spread.” With this, he turns on his heel and takes long, worried strides down the hall. “No. False alarm, nothing to worry about. It’s only apartment 5B—she was burning some sort of medical herbs,” I hear him reassure one of my neighbors. Ouch, perfect! Just what I needed…the entire building hating me and thinking I am cuckoo-crazy.
Unfortunately, my ordeal is not so easily over as I have to explain myself also to an angry fireman. Apparently, my building’s alarm system is directly connected to the closest fire station.
“And why were you burning herbs in your apartment? Don’t you know that it’s dangerous?” the fireman asks after hearing my story.
I can’t come up with anything better than the truth, so I go with it. “It was a cleansing ritual for spiritual purification. I didn’t think…” I try to justify myself, keeping my eyes on the floor and wringing my hands like a five-year-old.
The fireman’s astonished gaze passes quickly from me to Arthur, who hasn’t moved from his position in the center of the living room. I have to admit he is quite a sight. Even though the sprinklers are now off, he’s soaking wet and has water trickling from his hair into his face and dripping from his clothes on the floor. His expression is mutinous at best. Sugar is sitting at his feet, equally drenched and indignant.
The fireman takes in the scene and sends Arthur a look of manly sympathy mixed with utter pity. He too must be thinking that I am looney-tunes, and he’s empathizing with Arthur for having a wacky-into-new-age girlfriend. After a long sermon on fire prevention and security, he finally lets me off the hook. I wait patiently until he’s finished, apologize one more time, and gladly shut the door behind him, blocking out the external world.
“Hm…” I clear my throat. “Could you possibly do something about this?” I ask in a small voice.
Arthur stares at me from under the damp hair clumping on his forehead and says nothing.
“Please?” I add with my most innocent expression.
He snaps his finger without further comment, and my apartment, Sugar, and our clothes are magically back to normal.
“So how are you feeling?” I ask, sagging on the couch. “Any less cursed?”
“I am afraid not. But I thank you for the effort.” His features finally relax in an amused smile. “It was a rather interesting afternoon.”
“Sure was,” I agree, smiling back. “We will have to come up with something more effective tomorrow, because the last bullet points on my research list are to summon the dead and exorcism. Speaking of research,” I continue, “I need to do some of my own. Will you be fine here by yourself?”
“Completely. I have two centuries of literature to catch up with,” he reassures me.
Since he discovered my eReader I have had trouble using it; he reads one novel after the other. I should buy another one.
As I step away toward my room I call out for Sugar, but he gives me a defiant stare and jumps on Arthur’s knees instead, the little traitor.
Once in my room, I switch on my laptop, recently upgraded to a top-of-the-line model, and Google the following:
How to buy a bank
Prime Capital National Bank assets
Adam Van Horn
M&A banks in Chicago
M&A banks in Chicago –jobs –career
Vanessa Van Horn
Vanessa Van Horn James Avery
James Avery
Cheney Smythe M&A Chicago appointment
How to evaluate your net worth
Vanessa Van Horn James Avery wedding
P.C.N. Stoke Exchange Value
Barneys’ latest fashion
Some searches prove to be more profitable than others, but I manage to find a phone number to call first thing tomorrow to get an appointment with a Wall Street animal. At least, I’m hoping I’ll get a ruthless financial beast; apparently bank acquisitions require a little longer than a month to be achieved, but according to all sources Cheney Smythe is the best. It’s the most aggressive you can get, so I’m hoping they will live up to their reputation and get me what I want in time.
The tiny clock on my screen tells me that it’s not very late, but after a sleepless night I feel completely exhausted. I stroll into the next room. Arthur hasn’t moved from his reading station on my favorite armchair, and Sugar is still comfortably nestled on his lap, producing a constant purring sound as Arthur strokes his fur absentmindedly. The little deserter has definitely been spending more time with Arthur than me! This is weird; with James he always used to hiss and claw at him any opportunity he got.
“What are you reading?” I ask to make my presence known.
“Dracula, Bram Stoker,” Arthur replies without lifting his head.
“Uh, scary!”
“Count D. makes Morgene look like an amateur,” he comments, looking at me for a brief moment before returning his gaze to the book.
“Glad you can joke about it. Hey, I’m going to bed,” I add, yawning. “You should go too. Tomorrow we have to go into shark mode, and that book is going to give you nightmares,” I tease.
“I am not a little boy,” he states, too engrossed in the story to look at me again, so I bid them both good night and go back to my room. I gladly peel off my clothes, trading them for the soft comfort of my pajamas, and jump into bed.
Today has been a nice distraction from the James drama. I needed to give my brain a bit of a rest. An image of the shocked expression on Arthur’s face when the sprinklers started spraying water on him is my last thought before I doze off with a soft smile stamped on my lips.