Part I
Life’s Journey
1
I shouldn’t but I do it, anyway. That’s me, Abby Teller, a magician with a mind of her own. I used to worry about doing the right thing. Now I wonder what the right thing is.
He stands on the shoulder of the on-ramp, a string bean in his T and jeans beneath the sweltering September sun. A toothsome grin on his face, cowboy boots on his feet, and a cardboard sign in his hands:
BERKELEY
Whoa! I pull Hi-Ho Silver over, slam on the brakes. Four days of driving since I fled Buckeye Heights leaves me yearning for talk with more than my ‘65 Mustang. Chat with a hunk of steel tends to be one-sided. How about a hunk in cowboy boots?
I know, I know. It isn’t the sanest idea I’ve ever had in my life, picking up a hitchhiker on I-80 outside Sacramento. And me, Abby Teller, a lady alone. The most notorious bloodthirsty sorcerers in all the old stories always trick their victims into believing they’re foxy rogues.
I am nobody’s victim, but am I in danger? You never know when you’re on the run, on the road, and on your own.
He tears open the door, stows the sign and a backpack in the backseat, and slides into the bucket seat beside me, bringing with him the scent of male sweat and Florida Water cologne. The kind of cologne jailbirds and voodooists favor. Uh-oh.
What kind of man is he? A magician, a monster, or a mortal?
“Hey, thanks for stopping. I thought for sure the highway patrol would cruise by any minute and bust my ass.” He reaches over the gearshift and holds out his hand. “I’m Brand.”
“Brand?”
“Like the mark you burn on a heifer showing her who’s boss.”
“You a rancher?”
“Babe, I’m free range.”
My, my, he’s got an opinion of himself. I look him over one more time. Some ass Brand has. I mean, some grin. And Paul Newman eyes, an impossibly bright blue the color of Windex. From a distance, the vivid tattoos on his arms tell me twenties. Up close, the lines around his eyes and his mouth tell of sun-drenched days and high-life nights. Thirties, maybe? Forties?
Dangerous? Oh, yeah. He oozes the charm of a grifter, the shifty aura of a liar, the arrogance of a man who takes for granted what women do for him because women always do.
I’ve stopped for him, now haven’t I?
Why doesn’t an able-bodied man his age drive his own car? I consider the likely scenarios, none of them good, with the possible exception he’s a die-hard greenie. No consumption of fossil fuels unless absolutely necessary. Double up with someone already doing the consuming. A Greyhound bus would work, but I’m free.
I get a kick out of him, anyway, macho swagger and all. But there you go, that’s me, a daughter of Buckeye Heights where people still trust moneylenders, horse traders, grandstanders, and the foxy rogues of the world when they shouldn’t. They really, really shouldn’t.
I take the hand he offers in a knuckle-crushing grip, and a jolt ripples through my fingers, through palm and wrist, all the way up my arm like when you touch a live wire. Electric, electrifying. Black sparks follow the jolt, glittering over my skin.
The jolt reaches my shoulder; sparks cluster at my throat. The jolt, the sparks start pushing. Pushing in, trying to touch things inside me.
No, it’s not animal magnetism.
Not the alchemy of male and female hormones.
I’ve never shaken hands with anyone like Brand.
He’s got power. Crazy, wild power. Most likely not a monster; his skin is too hot for that. Some stripe of magician, then?
And me? I wouldn’t have glimpsed his power at all if I didn’t possess power of my own. I am vexed.
Why should I let this stranger, this hitchhiker, push his power into me? My instinct says push back, and push back I do. I drive the jolt, the sparks from my throat, out through my shoulder, down my arm to wrist and palm, and out through my fingertips, back to the source.
Back to him.
Only then do I release his hand.
Surprise flickers in his eyes, then dives beneath the surface, disappearing in the Windex depths. Oh, he’s good. Much better than me at concealing his true nature from the quotidian world when he’s got a mind to.
I don’t try to hide my smile. He ought to know from the start he can’t push me around. Or my power.
“I’m Abby.”
“As in ‘Dear Abby’?”
“The same.”
“Then you’re famous. Everyone in the world knows ‘Dear Abby.’ You’ve got some handshake, dear Abby. A magician’s handshake. And some eyes. I love a lady with green eyes. And cool wheels.”
I accept the compliment, though my eyes aren’t so much green as the color of absinthe, a mingling of hazels and golds. The eyes I inherited from my mother, along with my dancer’s legs and the ‘65 Mustang.
We share a comradely laugh, Brand and I. Fascinating, how a man in cowboy boots dangles that particular love-word inside of five minutes. A carrot, one carat, fourteen karats?
Better that I keep my guard up, as the teacher of “Street Smarts for Women” advised our class. If Brand turns out to be a notorious bloodthirsty sorcerer, I know just which part of the man’s anatomy I’ll aim the jab of my knee at.
********
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