Happy Birthday to You (Birthday Trilogy, Book 3) (2 page)

“Ma’am, I can
assure you, all booster seats come in the same size—”

“We were just
here two days ago! She fit fine! There’s something wrong with this booster
seat!”

My parents and
Kimber ignored the nearby argument, but Liesel and I were transfixed. I couldn’t
help but dart my eyes toward Liesel. She was already staring at me, a panicked
expression on her face that would’ve been comical if it weren’t so apparent
that Hell was nearly upon us. This was the first piece of evidence that
something devastating was beginning today. The booster seat would be too damn
small for one baby. Two babies. Ten babies.
A thousand
babies.

And so it starts…

---

Our plane flight
back to Reno wasn’t scheduled until tomorrow, so Liesel and I would have to
suffer through a day of sightseeing in Washington D.C. I had been looking
forward to this special weekend for months—I had never traveled to D.C.
before—but I spent most of the day praying for Sunday to arrive so we
could get back to Reno and start mapping out a game plan about that very big
problem—Liesel’s pregnancy. Oh, and the end of the world.

We spent the
morning touring the White House, but after an early, way too heavy lunch at an
Italian restaurant called Francisca’s, I was able to convince my family to let
me and Liesel tool around the city by ourselves before we would meet up again
for a fancy dinner.

As soon as my
mom, dad, and Kimber were out of earshot, Liesel and I started discussing the
dreadful situation, the conversation intensifying with each passing minute. We
decided to take an extra long walk toward the Capitol to give us time to hash
out what was on our minds.

“I just… Leese…”
I shook my confused, aching head. “You said you were on birth control.”

“I was, Cam.”

“I would’ve used
a condom!”

“I know. I was
surprised as you were—”

“You’re
absolutely certain you’re pregnant? Like, have you seen a doctor yet?”

“No, not yet.”

I shrugged.
“Then how do you know?” I watched as dozens of tourists sped past us, sensing
tension in our voices and mannerisms.

“I took five pregnancy
tests, Cam.
Five
.”

“Maybe they’re
all wrong. I mean… you’re a witch, after all.”

She crossed her
arms and stopped walking altogether. She leaned back against a black gate and
sighed. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“Let’s think
about that, Leese. Maybe just… I don’t know… the end of the
world
?”

At least ten
people darted me a confused look at that scary phrase. I just smiled at
everyone, like there was nothing to worry about.

“Good, Cam.
Let’s tell everyone. That won’t incriminate us at all.”

“You knew this
was going to happen,” I said. “You knew it was coming. How can we possibly deal
with a
pregnancy
right now?”

“What are you
saying?”

“I’m saying,
Leese… I’m saying…” I blinked a few times, noticing for the first time just how
hot it was outside. I thought I might faint. “I’m saying… I need to lie down…”

I found a bench
covered in shade just a few yards away, and I lay down on my back in a way that
suggested I didn’t want to leave that spot for another hour. I rested my head
against the armrest and stared up at the large trees above me.

“Cameron,”
Liesel said, making her way up to me, “I know this is a lot to take in right
now—”

“A lot to take
in?” I turned to my right and just stared at Liesel for a moment, my eyes wide,
drool forming at the edge of my bottom lip. “Nobody in the history of the
universe
has had to take something like
this in! You tell me that you’re six weeks pregnant. And you tell me that
everybody in the world, including everyone we know, is going to be dead in three
months. How would you like me to react to all this, Leese? Smile? Jump for joy?
You should be happy I haven’t thrown myself off a cliff!
Seriously
!”
  

Liesel sat down
on the bench next to me and rested my legs on her lap. She didn’t say anything
for a minute or two; we just sat in silence. I knew there was nothing she could
say to make me feel better, to make either of us feel better.

As my headache
started to fade, my tear ducts started to open up. For the first time since
last night, I was able to understand the complexity of this situation, which
was seemingly ripped out of a cheesy science fiction novel, but miraculously
coming true before our eyes. “Leese, if this is really true, everybody is going
to die. My parents… my sister… And the two of us are just gonna sit and… what…
watch
?”

“No.
Of course not.
Once we get back to Reno, we’re going to do
everything we can to stop Hannah—”

“You could’ve
stopped her that night! You had her in your
grasp
!
Now millions of people are going to die!”

My throat was
starting to ache from all my screaming. I rarely yelled at anyone, let alone my
beloved Liesel. But this situation required a frantic, emotional diatribe.
 

“Cam, I never
had a chance with her that night. She was too strong. She was going to kill me,
and then she was going to kill Wesley, and then she was going to kill you. I
told her she could take me, but let you live. I told her I’d do anything. She
said the only way she’d let you live… was if I gave her all of my powers. What
was I supposed to do? If I had tried to fight her any longer, I would’ve become
weaker, she would’ve killed me, and she would’ve killed you, and we’d both be
dead. And then this dilemma with everyone aging would’ve happened anyway. At
least now we have a chance to stop her.”

I sat up and
brought my feet to the ground. I rubbed the tips of my fingers against my
forehead. “But Leese… if you couldn’t stop her with all your magical powers…
how in the hell are the two of us going to stop her, when
neither
of us have any powers? She’s inherited your magic, and now
we both have nothing. There’s no stopping her.”

“That’s not
true!” Liesel shouted.

“It is true!
We’re not gonna have a chance!” I took a few deep breaths and tried to compose
myself. “Why is she doing this, anyway?”

“She’s mad about
Mom.”

“She’s mad about
your mom. So she’s gonna destroy the planet.”

“Something
like
that. She said this was something she’d been planning
ever since I abandoned her over four years ago. You know what she told me up
there on the mountain?”

“What?”

“She’s robbed
the powers of five other witches who live in the western part of the United
States, plus me. So now she has the powers of seven witches put together.
Seven, I guess, was the magic number. That’s what she needed to make this
happen.”

“Oh my God…” I
swallowed long and hard, then darted my eyes at hers. “Leese, if we can’t stop
it…”

“We will.”

“Things are
gonna get crazy… really, really, really fast—”

“Oh my God, he’s
walking
!” somebody shouted on the
grass from afar. “Honey, our son is walking!”

Liesel didn’t
bother to address the commotion, but I looked over at the field, not overjoyed
at the idea of this little boy walking for the first time, but overly depressed
in knowing that the kid was going to grow up without a mother and father very
soon here if we didn’t get this insurmountable problem solved fast and
efficiently. Hell, if we couldn’t find and kill Hannah, this little
two-year-old only had three months left to live. And then he’d be dead.

And then the
world, as humankind knew it, would be obliterated. Forever.

Now my head
and
my stomach hurt. This was all just
too much to take. I stood up and started walking down the sidewalk, not having
any clue how to get to the Capitol. I just wanted to walk again, let the breeze
flow through me, take in the sights and sounds of a brand new city, and try my
best to forget the horrors Liesel and I were about to face.
 

DOM

“That Tim Allen,
what a kook,” Dom said, watching his fourth episode of
Home Improvement
in a row. Chewing on a gooey, cinnamon waffle, he
figured, since those kids were so little, that this was one of the earlier
seasons of the show. “The only
problem with this show are
the damn commercials!”

Liesel’s
eighty-four-year-old grandfather, now eighty-five, had woken up a little past
four this morning. He had only moved in the past seven hours to make
himself
some tea and a waffle, and to sit down in his comfy
yellow chair in what he liked to call the “story room.” His television set was
a forty-two-inch Samsung bought three years ago, marking the only major
appliance in his ancient apartment that he had purchased in the last decade. He
loved it, and was happy Liesel had insisted on it. His old TV, which still
worked even though it had been bought in 1986, had definitely needed an
upgrade.

Dom scratched
his butt and enjoyed the last bite of his waffle. He brushed the cinnamon
specks off his white t-shirt and sat upright in his chair.

“Tim, the Tool
Man Taylor,” he said with a chuckle, shaking his head, and waddling over to the
kitchen to throw away his paper plate. “The guy gets me every time. Why they
don’t make new episodes of this show is beyond me. Maybe I should write the
company a letter. Or better yet. I’ll write Tim Allen a letter!”

He pulled a
piece of paper out of a drawer and set a pen next to it. He sat down on his
stool and tried to think of a way to start his letter. He sat there for five
minutes, at least, trying to form in his muddled brain the perfect opening
sentence.

Finally, he set his
pen down and walked back toward his bedroom. “I’ll write the letter tomorrow. I
have all the time in the world, after all!”

Dom hadn’t
showered in two days, so he decided his next order up for business, before
sitting back down on his favorite chair for another TV marathon—he
decided he’d change over to old episodes of
Full
House
, or maybe
Saved by the Bell:
The College Years
—was to take a quick shower. He made his way back
toward his bedroom, but stopped when he reached the door.

He took a few
steps forward, turned to his right, and looked into his granddaughter Liesel’s
bedroom, its door wide open. The place didn’t look like a bomb had gone off
anymore, thank God. Liesel hadn’t been home for long before departing for her
European honeymoon, but she had cleaned the place up so well it was as if a
ten-member maid service had serviced the room. He did, though, see one pair of
her underwear under her bed. He didn’t like that. He didn’t want to think of
his granddaughter like that. Even though she wasn’t
really
his granddaughter. It was just something he had led himself
into believing over these last four and a half years. He was an old geezer, but
his mind, and his memory, hadn’t completely disintegrated yet.

“You look like
you could use a friend,” a young girl had asked him across a pizza joint one
evening.

And it was true.
He did. When Dom’s wife Carolyn died six years ago, he became lost, like he had
never been capable of taking care of himself before meeting his wife at the age
of twenty back in Denison, Iowa. He had lost touch with his friends over the
years. Carolyn was it for him. And when she passed away, he had nothing left.
When Liesel strolled into his life and offered him comfort and friendship, in
exchange for him telling everyone a lie, he didn’t have to think twice. It was
simple—he had someone in his life again, and someone to care for him in
return. It was a win-win.

Dom smiled and
closed the door behind him. He just stood there in the hallway for a moment,
realizing how much he missed his friend, his caretaker, his granddaughter,
whoever she was. She was the best thing since Carolyn. She gave him a reason to
live. And that was what mattered most.

He turned to his
left and looked up at a framed picture of him and Liesel hugging each other at
Uncle Tony’s.

“Oh, Liesel…” he
said, resting his hands against the wall. “Get back soon. I sure miss you.”

He stepped back
toward his bedroom, and his bathroom, trying to ignore a subtle headache coming
on, not to mention, a temporary cramp in his hands.

Dom thought long
and hard about what color towel to use when he reached the cabinet nearest the
bathroom door. He had towels in all colors, including purple, turquoise, and a
dark, bloody red. He picked the light green one, stepped into the bathroom, and
turned on the bright overhead light.

He didn’t really
mind his small living space—he actually preferred the tiny apartment
versus the two-story house he had lived in for over twenty years—but he
did admit from time to time he wasn’t a huge fan of the miniscule bathroom.
While the bedrooms in this apartment were medium-sized, his bathroom was barely
big enough to fit a shower and a toilet, let alone himself. Liesel’s bathroom
wasn’t any bigger across the way, but still, he would’ve preferred to find an
apartment with bathrooms big enough to move around comfortably in. But he was
too old now. He didn’t want to move to another apartment. And certainly, as he
told Liesel now and again, he was never going to spend a second in one of those
senior living homes.