Fiction River: Hex in the City by Fiction River Page B

whip cream on her lip and nose remained.
    “To be honest, you have unsettled me a bit this morning.” I replied.
    “Not as unsettled, upset, as your world has been these past few months. Has it?” Her eyes looked at me over the top of the whip cream mountain, trailed down past my chest over the table and landed on the light pink straw that protruded rudely out of the top of my coffee mug. We both stared at the vile thing. I gripped my ever shaking hands in my lap under the tablecloth and willed my shame at bay. Commanded my self-respect, thinned over the past months by the gradual decline of control over my body, to firm up and stay. Though it threatened to flee under the power of the Lady’s gaze. So I emboldened it with my anger.
    “You, lady, have no right to come here and disrupt this man’s morning on a whim. Hot chocolate and mockery. Not something I ordered off the menu. Please take them elsewhere.” More difficult than I imagined, I held her eyes with mine. Just before her clear gaze of ice had mine beat, she released me. With a slow reach, she fingertip slid the petal she had handled across the table to me.
    “The magic is real. And yours.” She spoke simply, her eyes on the petal beneath her finger. “The control you have lost, the deterioration of your body, cannot be changed. But in exchange, for the time you have left, a gift. A magic gift for you. To add a bit of the life to that which you are losing in the remaining time you have.”
    She lifted her finger from the petal, now a dark wet purple from the pressure she had put on it. Bruised and mortally wounded, the petal sat square center on the white tablecloth in front of me. Her hand returned to the side of her mug, but she did not drink.
    My eyes would not leave the poor, abused petal. A threat and a promise. The magic and the woman felt like both. I reached out a second shaky reach in the direction of something a breath away from death. But I wanted life to fill out, spring up from that petal once again. My will near begging, I jumped when the destroyed petal plumped up with a fresh blush of color. The tingle on my finger tip sizzled with intensity.
    “Nicely done.” The Lady whispered, an intimate speech, just between her and me. “You even healed the others.”
    The two other fallen and wilted petals matched the flush health of the one I focused on.
    “That takes strength of will, which you seem to have in spades.” She continued. “Your ability will develop quickly, if that is your desire.”
    “How far can I go? I mean, if I master this…magic. What is at the end? What would I be able to do?” I did not look up at her when I asked. My hope too fragile under her aware gaze.
    But it didn’t matter.
    “Plant life only. Not animal. Not human. This magic will not help your body, nor anyone else’s.” She answered, her voice flat in her intimate whisper.
    Frustration. Anger. Rage. All trapped behind my walls, gentlemanly acceptance and my abhorrence of weakness bubbled and burst out of my chest in a fount of fear and pain. Only decades of practice to keep my emotions masked in public kept me from screaming in the face of the woman who had wiggled the carrot of my manhood and self-respect in front of me and yanked it away in quiet tones.
    “Then what is the goddamned point!” I spit. Literally. Blood pressure be damned. And I shook. And shook. Hell, I shook so bad I near punched myself in the face with the cloth napkin in my lap I snatched up to wipe the spittle from my mouth as I tried to regroup.
    She just watched me and said nothing. Which didn’t help in the slightest.
    At least her eyes held no pity.
    “Who. Are you?” I growled in a low whisper to match her own. The force of my anger made it difficult to keep my words below a roar.
    “Once upon a time…” She started.
    “Jesus Christ!” I threw the napkin on the table and pushed back my chair. Then leaned in to her. “Whatever trick you have Lady, you’re done playing