“Jace-een-tuh!”

  Well, at least it wasn’t the way that her name was actually pronounced. Still, she paled, tensed, froze in place. This was supposed to just be a regular day at work, not…

  This.

  Whatever this had devolved into. Ugh.

  She returned to the old woman, scowling, before realizing that she was staring at her breasts—wait. No. Her nametag.

  Wow.

  Jacinta mentally slapped herself in the face. Great. The guy definitely got her name, then…

  Okay, maybe she’d switch it out with one of the other servers’ tags. No, no—

  Focus. So much was happening, God—

  “What kind of place are you running? It’s been an hour since I received my food and I want the check!” the woman gasped, face reddening. Jacinta’s gaze swept to the clock in the corner. Twelve minutes. Not an hour.

  But sure.

  “I apologize for the wait.” she sighed, trying to swallow her annoyance. “Let me get that check for you.” She moved to ring the order up, but the woman’s hand coiled around Jacinta’s arm first. She squeezed, pulled her closer.

  “Actually…for my first, awful burger, I expect my order to be on the house.”

  If the woman was pleasant, then yeah. Sure.

  Not the case here.

  “I apologize for the extra few minutes for your new burger, but we made the second one right away to your liking. I’m afraid it’s not our store policy.” Jacinta hissed through gritted teeth, trying to uncurl the woman’s fingers away one-by-one. She was surprisingly tough, though; apparently all four of her strength points went into the grip. She felt magic rushing again, growing—

  Swallow it. Breathe.

  Warmth in her face. Magic stored in the blood. The blush. Breathe. No.

  No.

  The Atlas was buzzing in her skull, vision distorted, warping. Jacinta clenched her jaw and poked it in her ear, flicking it off.

  The woman screeched and leaned away. “What are you?! Ugh, one of those supernaturals too?”

  Jacinta’s eyes fled to the agent. He had his arms folded across his chest, face smug. Asshole. Back to the woman, who was leaning far, far away from her, twisted back like a snake about to rear; however, she only showed veneers instead of fangs.

  “No. You may be having a stroke, miss. Sudden heat flashes are one of the symptoms.” Jacinta said, trying to be smart, but failing on delivery. Her voice cracked, wobbled; uneven. She rushed to the computer and typed up the order, aware of the agent’s opalescent gaze.

  She printed out all of their orders, handed them out, put in new orders for the next group of customers, waved goodbye to Mike—he always tipped nicely, thank God, thank him.

  When she went to the woman’s receipt, there was a single penny extra.

  “How fucking generous.” She mumbled. A negligible tip. She set it aside, moved back; orders out, again, again, again. If she didn’t have the enemy’s eyes on her, she’d be in a groove.

  Once she handed out the food, she wiped her face with a towel and returned to the table with the agent, staring down at him. She wasn’t going to sit.

  “You almost had an outburst there.” He noted, dipping a fry into ketchup. “Little things really do set you off, don’t they?”

  Jacinta sucked in a breath. “You got anything better than that?”

  “I do, actually, Jacinta.” He said her name correctly. “Sit and join me before I shoot you. That old woman would be a great witness, you know—you nearly burned her arm off with that magic.”

  He knew what he was doing. Then again, this was his job.

  She couldn’t teleport like Gregory did. Memory spells were far too unstable and complex. She needed to comply here, then…what would she do? Change jobs? Make a deal with him? Offer some magic in return for freedom?

  No, no—they became leeches. They never unlatched; they never were satisfied. She’d never get out of this unless she was smart.

  Options, options—she sat. Stared. Gun’s barrel steadied against her leg once more, cool steel cutting through the fabric.

  Breathe.

  “There was a portal in there, as you know. A passageway. Shops and storage for the coven members. So…how did you both go there? Who are the other members of the coven? There was the one other guy with you. He—”

  “Jace! I need you back here.” Joe’s voice called. Jacinta perked up. Thank God—alright, good, good—

  “I need to get back to work. If you want questions, I need—” Jacinta began, but the agent jumped forward, pulling something from his pocket, black and sleek and sparking, taser-like, with a light that grew and grew and grew and Jacinta stepped back and tried to scream and pull away but the light extended

and

extended and the world cracked like a mirror-met-sledgehammer and pixels fell apart and she was collapsing, colliding; Alice-in-Wonderland slow-fast, sinking, writhing,   body torn as though snagged on trees, pulled apart, bones falling into a pile, jangle-jangle, shaman ceremony inverted, falsehoods, glimpses of worlds like marbles in a vase and droplets in the rain

and

A doe strides through the half-burnt wood, ears swiveling. Crunch and snap of a branch, boot against the ground. She turns her head aside and

stares, pupil widening at bullet-break—

 

Selfhood, shattered.

(Her head hangs in a mantle. She cries behind her

plastic, constant, unblinking eye.)

 

 

A rabbi covers all the mirrors in black. He weeps for a death that is

needless, for people burnt and brittle. They are not his, but still, he weeps.

Three days pass.

The soul is not trapped in this realm. Instead, it passes on, wanders beyond,

reborn/remembered/forgotten.

(You decide which.)

Rabbi removes the sheets. His reflection is cracked.

His face, different; his eyes, indifferent.

We all have grown up with so much violence and death.

Yet

Our souls linger.

 

 

Bone-crush beneath a foot. The branch becomes a body, splitting apart itself. Jacinta over the agent, heel to finger, bone to shard,

inverted, spun like a

globe on its axe-is.

 

Axe-chop against the neck, blood

spool unwound like red-ribboned thread.

Perhaps in another universe, the tree is the axe-wielder, the man the chopped. They build homes of his body, skin stretched as wallpaper, bones as framework, muscle as concrete. They say “this house has good bones,” literally, between the rattle of branches,

taking root between the clavicle, the sternum, the ribs.

 

An outsider chuckles at the pun. Another rolls their eyes. A universe looks inward, unaffected.

 

A penny drops from a pocket, face-down. Unluck’ed item, picked up by a stray child’s hand. His mother tells him that the penny is dirty; he drops it, sighing. He lives to be an unlucky man in an unlucky world. In another universe, the penny is lucky. The boy’s wishes are granted. He becomes the president of another United States, and works to bring peace and safety to an increasingly worried populace. But he and the rest

are too late to stop the ice-crash, the

end as beginning. Typhoon sweats cities into seas.

Ouroboros lives within the ever-warming ocean.

Humanity recalls why it was afraid to swim.

 

Trees fall in the forest all the time, no matter the universe. They always make sound.

 

(Can you hear it? Hear me?)

---

 

  It took an equivalent of fourteen seasons within the new realm for Jacinta to wake.