Magic Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page B

it now, he would end up like Roger, a dry cadaver full of nasty magic.
    “Calm down,” Jim said.
    “I am calm! Get in the car.” Emergencies called for desperate measures.
    He got in. I flopped into the driver’s seat and chanted the engine into life, watching him like a hawk. He stayed awake. I dropped the parking brake and gunned it out of the parking lot. “Roll the window down,” I yelled over the roar of the engine. “You need wind on your face.”
    “Where are we going?” he roared back.
    “To see my mother!”
    *

    MY MOTHER LIVED in a small cluster of apartment buildings in Riverdale. It took me more than an hour to drive over there through the crumbling city, and the entire time I watched Jim out of the corner of my eye. I punched him in the arm a few times to make sure he stayed awake. After the first eight times he told me to quit it.
    I maneuvered down the smallish road and into the horseshoe formed by the squat two-story townhomes and parked in front of my mother’s house. The pale blue light of her fey lantern filtered through the window. I climbed out. Jim already waited by the door, surveying the houses.
    “Why are those three buildings facing to the left?”
    “Because this is an Indonesian community, mostly older people who practice magic. They’re more superstitious than usual. It’s bad luck to build a house facing north. Some people believe it will make you poor. The subdivision street was already laid out when people moved in, so those three families chose to build their houses facing east.”
    “Aha.”
    “It’s bad luck to build a house facing a field, it’s bad luck to have the kitchen face the front door, and it’s bad luck to build a fence taller than six feet. This is just the way things are, Jim. Just go along with it.”
    “Your fence is taller than six feet.”
    I turned to him as I walked. “I didn’t say they were my superstitions. But they’re important to my mother.”
    We headed to the door. The familiar scents washed over me: rice, onion, chili peppers, cumin, coriander. Mom was cooking
nasi goreng
, fried rice. I was home.
    Help me.
    Jim sampled the wind. “It’s past one. Does your mother usually cook after midnight?”
    “No, it’s special for me. She sensed us coming.”
    I raised my hand to knock on the door. Before my knuckles touched the wood, it flew open and my mother clamped me in a hug. Looking at her you could tell exactly how I would look in thirty years or so: tiny, skinny, dark, quick to move.
    “Why are you so dirty?” My mother pulled a cobweb out of my hair. “What is happened? Come inside. Who is this man?”
    Here we go. I took a deep breath and walked in. “This is Jim.”
    Jim stepped inside.
    My mother shut the door and peered at him. “He is dark. Very, very dark.”
    Jim grinned, showing a tiny edge of his teeth.
    I felt like slapping myself. “Mother!”
    “What is it you do?” She leaned over to Jim. Her accent was getting thicker. “Do you have money?”
    “He is my alpha. He’s in charge of the whole Cat clan. Very important.”
    My mother’s eyes sparked. Oh no.
    She leaned over and patted Jim’s hand. “That is so nice. My daughter is so smart. Always respectful and well behaved. Never any trouble and she does as she is told.”
    “You don’t say,” Jim murmured.
    “Doesn’t spend a lot of money. Two doctor degrees. Little problem with her eyes, but that’s her father’s side of the family. Very rare magic, a white tiger. One in seven generation. Very special. She can cure evil eye with a touch. And if you had your house cursed, she can purify it for you. Everyone respects my daughter. All our people know her.”
    Jim nodded to her with a solemn look. My stomach lurched. I felt like throwing up. “Mother …”
    She nodded to Jim, as if sharing a grave secret. “And she’s a good cook, too.”
    Jim leaned a little toward her, his face deadly serious. “I’m sure she is.”
    My mother smiled, as if he’d