I felt it. My magic moving, flowing, shaping. There was a moment I wasn’t sure what it would do. Like, me and my karmic powers were two separate things, and I had no real control over it. And then I knew, the magic had made its decision.
Whatever was meant to happen, would happen.
And just like that, the magic relented. Rick and Candy appeared in front of me with a pop, naked and disheveled.
They looked at each other, then at us in shock.
“What are you doing here, naked?” Deva asked, sounding outraged. She turned to me. “I’m so sorry. They’ve obviously taken drugs or something.”
There was a tense moment when I wasn’t sure if they’d buy it, and then Candace glared at my ex. “What the hell?” Candace said. “Where did you get those mushrooms?”
She stared at Rick and then belatedly seemed to remember us standing there. “Oh!” Looking down, she suddenly saw that she wore no clothes and squeaked before running out of the room. Rick followed behind, but not before shooting me a suspicious look.
“They think they’ve been high all this time,” Deva whispered. “That couldn’t have worked out better.”
“You’re a genius,” Carol said with a laugh as she bumped Deva’s shoulder with her own.
But I didn’t feel much better. The whole thing left me feeling a little defeated. What good had all of it been? I walked out to my garden while the girls chattered and started lunch. It also made me sad to see it in this state, not that I’d ever admit that to the nosy neighbor. But this had been my happy place, out here in the greenery, and it was gone to pot now.
“Emma?”
I stiffened when I heard Rick’s voice. “What?” I asked. “Do we have to get into it right now?”
He circled the bench I sat on and stood in front of me. “Actually, I wanted to tell you that you deserved better than me.”
My jaw unhinged. I never in a million years would’ve expected to hear that come out of his mouth. “What?”
“I’m going to sell the house and I’ll give you the value of half the business and half the house’s selling price,” he said. “You deserve more, but that’s the best I can do.”
“Thanks,” I said.
He ran his hand through his balding hair. “I don’t know what came over me. I guess I just got so used to you giving and giving, and me taking and taking, that it felt right at the time. It was like all that mattered was what I wanted. But something… I don’t know… made me realize that I’m just a small part of a bigger world, and that nothing does, or should, revolve around me.”
So, his time as a toad had done him some good after all. I cocked my head. “I’m moving back home to be near Henry.”
Rick looked surprised, and then he gave a tentative smile. “You also talked about that place like it was perfect.”
“It is,” I told him.
He nodded. “And I understand you wanting to get out of town. What was the name of your hometown?”
I almost didn’t tell him, for fear he’d look me up, but that seemed unlikely. “Mystic Hollow.”
Rick stiffened. “What?”
I raised my eyebrows. “What, what?”
Seriously, it took effort not to get mad. I talked about my hometown a lot. The fact that he didn’t know after all this time was yet another reason he was an ass. I was half tempted to look away from him and ask him what color my eyes were. But I don’t think I needed more proof that he hadn’t cared one bit about me.
“It’s nothing…” he said.
“It doesn’t sound like nothing,” I said, feeling more and more uncomfortable by the second.
He seemed to realize I was getting freaked out and gentled his voice. “I didn’t realize you were from Mystic Hollow. That’s such an odd coincidence. A friend of mine, sort of. A guy I know, Al, works remotely for a company we do a lot of work with. We’ve become sort of friends over the last ten years.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. How in the world did Rick know Al from Mystic Hollow? And what did that mean for us? Who the hell was Al? Maybe Daniel knew him.
“No one has said anything to me about knowing you,” I told him.
