I rolled my eyes.“In their eyes, I’m being selfish, because it’s only clothes and food.”
“Maybe you should move back home with them if it’s only food.”
I had briefly considered that.“I’m not going to buy any more food.I’ll buy what I need for dinner, and I’m going to keep my breakfast at work.”It was going to be inconvenient, but I was sick of propping him up.He had a job, and if he spent less money going out, he’d be able to buy his own damn food.“As for the clothing situation, I’m not going to wash anything.”
Crispin laughed.“You’re going to let the laundry stack up?”
“Yup.”I nodded.It wasn’t a great plan, but I hoped to make a point without demanding that he respect my clothing again, because asking hadn’t worked.“I might check out a few places…just to get a feel for what’s in my range.”
If I didn’t have a job, I’d automatically qualify for housing.But the housing provided was only three months in a share house with three others.Which, as far as I was concerned, was worse.Besides, if I had no job, I would have no access to the human world.And I liked my job.I didn’t want to work in a restaurant or a factory, or in transport, and I certainly didn’t want a government office job.
The boss walked in and silenced the room with a roar.We all hushed up and waited.The lights dimmed, and she replayed the footage of the disaster.It wasn’t a tsunami this time.
It was worse.
I stared as the child walked into the bridge room.Sirens and lights flashed as the breach was detected.The child walked up to a desk, reached her hand, pulled out a chunk, and ate it like cake.
My mouth hung open.
A monster rushed into the room, and he exploded in a shower of green glitter.
The boss paused the video.“The child had been told that our world was edible, so it became edible.She was told monsters are scared of children and that when scared, they explode into glitter.Her thoughts became our reality.”
A ripple went through my coworkers as we all shuddered in horror.Very few of us wanted to die in a green glitter shower.Or any kind of glitter, for that matter.
“The girl was stopped before she got too far, and the situation has been dealt with.But two things have become very clear.We cannot be complacent about the threat children pose.Ten years ago, we had the jelly incident.”
I was in school during the jelly incident.But I remember the news and the chaos when one of our lakes became jelly instead of water.The jelly killed all the fish, and people went hungry.There was a water crisis, and some of the trees that supported the housing in the area became sick or died.It took months to fix and was one of the reasons I joined Bridges—I didn’t want to see more of my world destroyed when it was preventable.
My boss continued.“Now this.It shows us that sorcerers are still using children to create magic.”
That drew hisses and growls from my coworkers.Using children for their own purposes was heinous, and one of the reasons we held such disdain for Santa.He realized children could connect with the monster world and hold magic, and he used that against us.He wasn’t the first, but he created the most havoc.
Since him, there have been plenty of others.
Including the ones who inked themselves with dragons as a reminder to believe in magic.
Timothy… He wore the dragon, and he had access to a child, who he wanted me to stay away from.Santa, I needed to spend more time talking to him and less time watching him come.
My boss was still talking.Something about needing to stop sorcerers.
My heart became heavy in my chest.I was playing with magic that might end with me exploding in a shower of glitter.If I was lucky, I’d get to pick the color.
Chapter14
Timothy
There wereother things I could’ve spent five hundred dollars on, and buying better cameras for my room was not what I thought I’d be spending my scratchie winnings on two weeks ago.But a lot of shit had happened in two weeks, and I needed to be sure that I wasn’t losing my mind.
I’d spent a couple of hours setting them up and then making sure that they recorded well if only the bedside light was on…or only the bathroom light.I’d been refusing to leave my door open when I wasn’t home.My father made a point of opening it, and the invasion of my space was doing my head in.
What was he going to do next?Take the door off the hinges?
That would be enough to make me leave, wouldn’t it?
But what would I do if I left?
Where would I go?
