Night of Jinxes, A Moonlight Dragon Short Story Read Online Free

hurting me?"
    The sands formed a new word:
REMOVE.
    Big revelation there. I capped the
bowl with its lid.
    "Alright, enough of this. We need to
go big or go home. We need to hold your Night of Jinxes,
Melly."
    She clapped. "Yay! This'll be
exciting."
    That wasn't exactly the word I would
have chosen.
    "I need to set the mood," I told her.
"Hold on." I ducked into my studio and came out with a couple of
bed sheets. "Help me pin these up."
    Together, we pinned two bed sheets
over the front windows. The fabric wasn't opaque enough to cast us
into complete darkness, but it was enough to turn Melanie into a
short, shadowy figure by my side. It was now officially
spooky.
    "Just in case some things only operate
in the dark," I explained to her.
    Melanie edged toward the bead curtain.
"And activating all the curses?"
    Instead of replying, I reached into
that rumbly core behind my breastbone where I felt that my sorcery
lived. Normally I willed it to take the form of Lucky, my dragon.
But this time I didn't give it shape, I just sort of...let it bleed
out of me. I could see it as a faint glowing mist, but I knew that
Melanie wouldn't. She kept looking at me, waiting for me to
respond.
    "Anne?"
    "There," I said, as my sorcery began
to climb the shelves and slowly rise up over the items resting
there. "I'm infusing everything with magick." My heart was racing.
Was this the craziest idea ever or the cleverest? "Let's duck back
behind the curtain now and see what happens."
     
    ~~~~~
     
    "Your plan might make me sneeze,"
Melanie whispered from where she lay on her belly beside
me.
    We were stretched out on my duvet
which I'd spread on the floor of my studio. Each of us held small
hand mirrors which we had thrust through the bead curtain so we
could see what—if anything—occurred within the shop.
    "Maybe the warden will be by soon with
some Benadryl," I whispered back. I felt like a prisoner watching
for the daily mail cart as I angled my mirror this way and that,
trying to catch something in motion.
    "What do you think is going to
activate first?"
    I shifted the mirror, aiming it at the
shelf with the six items I'd taken in the night before, including
the bowl of sand, all items that could be considered gifts since
their owner hadn't demanded payment in exchange for them. None of
the items seemed to have become activated by my sorcery, though. I
muttered a curse beneath my breath. I wanted this to be over and
done with.
    But though my main suspects looked
innocent enough, something else had begun happening. "Check out the
second lowest shelf on the far shelves!"
    It was an old toy fire truck, made of
metal and weighing what felt like fifty pounds. What kind of kid
had been strong enough to push that thing around? Guess kids were
tougher back in the old days.
    Most of the red paint had been scraped
off the body of the vehicle but the wheels were intact. The upper
torso of a fireman would periodically pop up through an opening in
the roof of the car as you pushed the vehicle along. He was popping
up right now, even though the fire engine wasn't moving. Also, the
formerly smiling, friendly fireman was now a skeleton and the rest
of the fire truck was in flames.
    "Holy—Anne, that's gonna burn down the
shop!"
    "It's supernatural," I murmured,
trying to keep cool even though I was shocked. "See how the flames
are tinged blue at the edges? And nothing around it is
affected."
    Melanie nodded eagerly. "That's kind
of cool, then. Did you know it did that?"
    "No." And that worried me. I thought I
had just about everything in my inventory pegged. If I'd missed a
flaming, skeleton-driven fire truck, what else had I
missed?
    Eventually the flames died down and
the skeleton regrew his skin and became the nice fireman again, but
I'd never look at it the same way again. I practically felt
betrayed by it. But I didn't have to dwell on it for long. One of
the mini-Chinese vases was overflowing with blood.
    "Ugh," Melanie grunted when she
noticed it,