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The Garden of Abracadabra by Lisa Mason, Front Matter #LisaMason #SFWApro
BAST BOOKS The Garden of Abracadabra Lisa Mason This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not...
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The Garden of Abracadabra by Lisa Mason, 1—10 #LisaMason #SFWApro
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....
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The Garden of Abracadabra by Lisa Mason, Serial 2 #LisaMason #SFWApro
I pull off the shoulder of the on-ramp and ease Hi-Ho Silver up to the metering light. The light flashes green and we’re off, speeding westbound on I-80, merging between a FedEx truck and a VW bug the...
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The Garden of Abracadabra by Lisa Mason, Serial 3 #LisaMason #SFWApro
2 Sunset stains the sky lavender and orange by the time I crawl onto the parking lot that passes for the coastal highway. The slow-and-go affords me ample time to admire the restless gray bay and San...
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The Garden of Abracadabra by Lisa Mason, Serial 4 #LisaMason #SFWApro
3 University is a boulevard of eight hectic lanes, traversing the tiny town of Berkeley eastbound and west. A polyglot of enterprise holds court along the curbs. I spy Smokey’s Eatery featuring Bear...
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The Garden of Abracadabra by Lisa Mason, Serial 5 #LisaMason #SFWApro
4 Before I can take one step toward the great destiny I burn to claim as mine—wham!—the door bangs open and a funnel cloud whirls out. I duck behind Hi-Ho Silver and peer through the windows. What the...
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The Garden of Abracadabra by Lisa Mason, Serial 6 #LisaMason #SFWApro
5 Esmeralda locks eyes with Senor. The dog scrambles to his feet and smiles the way dogs do, lolling his tongue, snuffling and slobbering, and thrashing his tail. She nods. “Sure, I’ll show you.”...
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The Garden of Abracadabra by Lisa Mason, Serial 7 #LisaMason #SFWApro
6 I remember her dark, pinched look on a summer’s eve years ago. The Dibners and the Donnelleys sat at the redwood picnic table on our brick patio in the backyard, eating potato salad and sipping cold...
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The Garden of Abracadabra by Lisa Mason, Serial 8 #LisaMason #SFWApro
7 There was more to our last goodbye, but I don’t want to think about it right now. I need to appear upbeat and responsible, not weepy and bereaved. I pat dry my dripping face with a freshly laundered...
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The Garden of Abracadabra by Lisa Mason, Serial 9 #LisaMason #SFWApro
8 Blood spurts from my thumb. I love bleeding after a job interview. I hold my hand over a rat’s-nest of Post-its, cursing Stanley. If it’s the desktop or my black silk dress, the dress comes first. I...
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The Garden of Abracadabra by Lisa Mason, Serial 10 #LisaMason #SFWApro
9 Next stop on my whirlwind tour of the Garden of Abracadabra? Number Twenty-Seven, the lair of Jake, Flame, and Cuddles, a.k.a. Scorpio Rising. Have I ever, in my wildest dreams, wanted to meet the...
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The Garden of Abracadabra by Lisa Mason, Serial 11 #LisaMason #SFWApro
10 He loafs on luxurious black satin sheets, propped up on black satin pillows. He looks exactly as he looked in the iconic photograph. The big, bony face sun-baked to the shade of a walnut shell. The...
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The Garden of Abracadabra by Lisa Mason, Serial 12 #LisaMason #SFWApro
11 Poor old Stanley wasn’t so loony tunes, after all. What other stripe of entities are the rest of my tenants? As I climb down the last spiral of the staircase, I hear Brand’s comradely laugh echoing...
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The Garden of Abracadabra by Lisa Mason, Serial 13 #LisaMason #SFWApro
12 “The Horde is evil, pure evil,” my mother had said and shook with a long shuddering sigh. “You will know it, if they ever find you. They must not. You must not let them.” Her voice broke, and she...
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The Garden of Abracadabra by Lisa Mason, Serial 14 #LisaMason #SFWApro
13 Hah! I sit up, startled out of a sleep riddled with nightmares. Where am I? The place is so dark and silent—other than the distant trilling of the phone—I wonder whether I’m dead like too many in...
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The Garden of Abracadabra by Lisa Mason, Serial 15 #LisaMason #SFWApro
14 I slump in the chair, percolating with anger. Damn Daniel. I want to feel ticked off at Carla, too, but I can’t. She’s a true professional and loyal to me. She only did what she thought was right....
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The Garden of Abracadabra by Lisa Mason, Serial 16 #LisaMason #SFWApro
15 Mission accomplished! Now that my duties as superintendent have been discharged for the morning and my first class at Magical Arts and Crafts awaits me in the afternoon, it’s high time for a...
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The Garden of Abracadabra by Lisa Mason, Serial 17 #LisaMason #SFWApro
Part II In Dark Woods 16 I rip open the cell phone pocket of my butt-bag and pry out my phone. My hands shake so ridiculously, I promptly fling the thing toward the corpses, where the tiny device...
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The Garden of Abracadabra by Lisa Mason, Serial 18 #LisaMason #SFWApro
I must have told the dispatcher I’m in Tilden Park in the woods off the fire road. The dispatcher must have wanted to know which fire road. There is–she must have told me–a lower fire road, an upper...
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The Garden of Abracadabra by Lisa Mason, Serial 19 #LisaMason #SFWApro
17 Valdez, Malaky, and I hike through the forest, guided by crime-scene tape strung across the branches of saplings, break through the front line of trees, and stumble out onto the fire road....
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