Tiffany Tumbles: Book One of the Interim Fates Read Online Free PDF

appointment with Megan. We sisters all have different times to see her. She’s supposed to hold us together through the week, help us adjust and stuff.
    I don’t know how she can in just an hour, but Megan’s the only person besides my stepmom Hera who can control my dad, so she’s some kind of miracle worker. Maybe she can get us through this.
    Maybe she can take me to someone with overt magic so that they can undo this invisibility spell I seem to be suffering from.
    Mom doesn’t think it’s a spell.
    “You’re so pretty, honey, and you dress so beautifully. I’m sure you intimidate everyone.”
    Yeah, me, right. I intimidate people. I would intimidate them if I had magic. Sometimes I imagine myself commanding these teachers to shut up and watching them struggle to open their mouths, unable to, of course. And sometimes I imagine everyone bowing in front of me, not that I’m a megalomaniac like my dad, but just because it’s the opposite of ignoring me. And sometimes I just wish someone—anyone—would look at me, anyone at all.
    Mom says once they get used to me, they’ll talk to me.
    I don’t know what there is to get used to, since I’m not talking to anyone, and they can’t see me.
    The phone call’s at three in the afternoon. That’s six for Crystal in New York, and five for Brittany in the Midwest. The moms set up this conference calling thing from Crystal’s mom’s office and it’s way cool. Crystal’s mom wanted to do some internet video thing, and we wanted it too, but Brittany’s mom couldn’t afford the bandwidth (whatever that is)—and she wouldn’t let Crystal’s mom pay for it either—so we’re just doing a standard phone call on a landline, which Mom says is ridiculously old-fashioned.
    Mom lets me sit in her big plush chair, the one with all kinds of levers and pulleys and stuff to make it perfect for her. I’ve learned not to say that, once upon a time, I could have made a perfect chair for her with the wave of hand. First, she knows that, and second, she really doesn’t care.
    She’s pretty entrenched in this mortal world, and that’s what I’m supposed to become. The difference is that she’ll get magical powers someday. She doesn’t know what having them is like. I do. I had them once and had to give them up.
    Waiting to get them again—waiting decades —is awful. I can tell you that right now. It’s awful.
    I press my fists against my forehead. I have to stop thinking about that. I have to stop thinking about a lot of things. I made the choice to give up life with my dad. I gave it up because it had a lot of bad elements, and even when I go through the menopause thing and get my magic back, it won’t be the same. I’ll be older and fuddier like Mom is, or maybe worse than her.
    Maybe I’ll even be wedded to this world, where you have to do everything—like adjust chairs—all by yourself.
    I sink into the seat and wait for the phone to ring. My stomach is jumping. Mom stands by the door.
    She has her arms crossed. I’ve been looking forward to this; she hasn’t. She thinks we shouldn’t have any contact at all—the better to adjust to the new life, I guess. Megan says we need to remember who loves us, and when Mom heard that she softened a little.
    I’m not sure she’s sure that Brit and Crystal love me. She has these weird notions of love, which I think come from living so very alone. I mean, this big house in this mundane town with no family at all around her. How normal is that?
    (Actually, I can’t answer that question, since I really don’t know. It’s not normal for me. I’m used to having half brothers and half sisters everywhere and real aunts and uncles and fake aunts and uncles and all their spouses and former spouses and lovers and ex-lovers all over the place. I know that’s not normal for the kids at Central High here in Eugene, but it’s normal for me.)
    The phone rings and I grab it so fast that I almost feel magic again.
    “Hi!” I