Night of Jinxes, A Moonlight Dragon Short Story by Tricia Owens Page A

gloves, a
scarf, and a teapot—carried nasty curses. I considered removing
them from the shelves where I'd already placed them, but I hadn't
sensed evil from them. It kind of irked me to trash them without
justification.
    Just in case, I went out onto the shop
floor and collected all six items and placed them together on one
shelf so I could keep an eye on them and possibly narrow down any
nasty business to that area.
    I nearly added the hat box to the
trash pile since it was so battered, but at the last second I
decided to keep it for storing shoes or something. The majority of
my stuff was in Tupperware containers, which weren't exactly
stylish. I tossed the box into my studio.
    "When I was little, my dad told me a
story about our ancestors and curses," Melanie said as I returned
to the counter. She rocked once on the rocking horse. "Monkey
shifters are descended from the Mayan people, right? But how? My
ancestors weren't sleeping with monkeys or anything."
    "I had wondered about that," I said
straight-faced. I grinned when she stuck her tongue out at
me.
    "My dad told me that a long, long,
long, looong time ago on the first day of the Mayan solar calendar,
a ceremony was held called Night of Jinxes. Like, the Mayan gods
all stood in a circle around a cenote and threw jinxes at each
other, trying to knock each other into the water. This went on for
fifty-two hours on the longest night in Mayan history. One by one
the gods fell into the water: the jaguar god, the feathered snake
god, the rain god and mountain god...until at last there were only
two gods standing: a howler monkey god and one of the gods of
maize."
    I nodded, wondering what the heck this
had to do with my angry crank caller.
    "The two gods threw jinx after jinx at
each other. All different sorts, trying to find each other's
weaknesses. People saw jinxes they didn't know were possible! And
yet it seemed that neither god would win. Then suddenly the howler
monkey god collapsed.
    "'No way, he lost!' everyone
cried.
    "The god of maize celebrated. He was
the greatest god of jinxes! He turned to tell the Mayan people to
worship him and that's when the howler monkey god sat up and threw
a banana at the maize god's head, knocking him into the cenote."
Melanie giggled. "The Mayan people were so impressed by the
trickery of the howler monkey god that eight of them begged to be
made into the image of a monkey to honor him. And that's how monkey
shifters were born!"
    "Melly, that's really cool. I think
you've got plenty of your howler monkey god attributes," I teased.
"But what in the world does that have to do with anything that's
happening here?"
    "Duh, we need to hold a Night of
Jinxes and try to trigger all the curses that are in here until we
find the one we want!"
    My eyes bulged. "What?! That sounds
like a terrible idea. That'd be like—like a magickal
Armageddon."
    "Nah, you said it
yourself: there's nothing aggressive in here. Except for one
curse. Your curse. When it can't help itself and jumps on the bandwagon
and reveals itself, we isolate it and pounce on it."
    "Or, it kills me."
    She winced. "Well, maybe, but I really
doubt it, Anne. Seriously."
    "As long as you doubt it then why
should I fear?" I shook my head. "Triggering everything in here
would be the last thing I'd do, Melly. Who knows what would
happen."
    She looked around, her attention
pausing on various items before moving on. "I don't know. The most
dangerous things you've got in here that I know about are the
zombie nutcrackers. And they can only bite your fingers if you
stick them in their mouths."
    "You're wrong. The most dangerous
thing in here—one of them that I know about, anyway— is this music
box." I turned and pointed at the small, black lacquered box
sitting on the shelf behind me. "It opens to somewhere in deep
space. Literally. I've opened it twice to peek inside and both
times I was nearly sucked into the thing and pulled into orbit
around a planet."
    "That's kinda cool," Melanie