The Flower Bowl Spell

THE FLOWER BOWL SPELL

A novel by

Olivia Boler

Copyright 2012 by Olivia Boler

Smashwords Edition

Discover more at http://oliviaboler.com

Cover art design by Fena Lee:
http://pheeena.co.cc/

Author photo by Andrea’s Images Photography:
http://www.andreasimages.com/

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment
only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people.
If you would like to share this book with another person, please
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own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this
author.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to
persons, living or dead, or to places, events, or locales is purely
coincidental. The characters are either products of the author’s
imagination or used fictitiously.

This one is for Paul, for always supporting my dreams
with love and patience.

Acknowledgments

This book would not have happened without the
support of my writing group, Kill Your Darlings. Specifically, I
need to thank Susan Godstone, Fiona Hovenden, Michael Kay, Jesse
Potterveld, Mark Segelman, and Jeremy Adam Smith, for reading many,
many,
many
drafts of the adventures of Memphis, and never
holding back. Michael, when you told me you sometimes worried about
Memphis, it gave me the push to finally share her with the world.
Siobhan Fallon has always believed in my writing, encouraged me to
keep going even when I swore it was time to quit, and been brutally
honest about what must go and what should stay. My editor Jenny
Moore possesses a keen eye—thank you for a job well done. Thanks to
Fena Lee for the beautiful cover, and to Andrea Price, you are an
amazing photographer—you made me feel more than a little glamorous.
Anne Milano Appel, thank you for always being there with writing
resources, tips, and leads. My friends Melissa Stein and Lea
Aschkenas and I have shared many lunches commiserating over the
vagaries of publishing. To Heidi Ayarbe, who has been a writing pal
from afar—what would we do without the Internet? The National Novel
Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge of 2004, gave me the first
draft of this book. Asian American Women Artists Association
(AAWAA) is a wonderful community—I’m so happy to be a part of it.
To my mother, Lucy Yang, my appreciation and gratitude for spending
so much time with the children, freeing me up to write, and more
importantly, giving them the gift of a second language and culture!
Ed Marshall encouraged me to consider the independent publishing
path, and for that I’m grateful. Carol Marshall and Tom Price,
bookworms of my heart, thank you for always being interested.
Thanks for the inspiration from Paul Boler, Kathy Boler, Sarah
Jenkins, Woody Hoebel, and Callie Hoebel. And last but never, ever
least, to my dear children, Ludyvine and Renzo—if there are such
things as spells, I am under yours.

Prologue

I’ve always known that rats live in the Muni
Metro tunnels, but this morning, after I almost fall onto the
tracks, I find out that fairies hang out there too.

This should come as no surprise to a person
like me, even though I banished magick from my life two years ago.
In that time, I haven’t come across anything like fairies or
talking sparrows. Not one rag doll has tried to jump into my
shopping cart in ages. Yet, all at once, magick has come back to
me.

In the Castro Street station, waiting for an
M, L, or K car to take me to work downtown, I stand on the edge of
the platform with a trickling crowd of morning commuters. Teenagers
heading to Union Square for midsummer shopping sprees mingle with
hipsters and Asian elders. There are a couple of indigents, one
slumped against the wall, the other pacing and muttering. They wear
shabby clothes with dirty, threadbare cuffs. Their BO could be
bottled for biological warfare.

A high whining sound and blasting horn
signals an inbound train. I move with the crowd, the wind from the
tunnel gritty yet refreshing on my face. A shove at my back throws
me off balance. It’s split-second fast, and I can’t tell if I’m
being pushed to the tracks or pulled away, as my head is thrown
back and the dim yellow ceiling lights lurch into view. At the same
moment, a woman’s voice cries, “Watch out!”

A disheveled man in a San Francisco Giants
jersey has hold of my arm. I glance at him as the train pulls up in
front of us and the doors open—his eyes obscured by sunglasses and
the bill of his baseball cap, and his face covered in graying
stubble. He’s the homeless guy who’s been sitting on the floor.

“Thanks,” I mumble.

“You okay?” A young woman dressed like an
H&M salesclerk puts her hand on my shoulder, and the man’s
tight grip on me loosens and slips away.

“Yeah,” I say as the woman and I step through
the doors together, carried forward by the impatient crowd that
could give a hoot about my almost-accident.
You’re alive, aren’t
you? No biggie
, their indifference says. The doors close. The
man has not followed us. In fact, he seems to be distracted by
something just behind the train. I let my shoulders relax, unaware
until then that they’ve been tightly hunched. I look out the
window. Our train hiccups once before starting its slow glide out
of the station. He stands on the platform and, unexpectedly, I read
the gray cloud of his disappointed aura—but in response to what, I
can’t tell.

With a smile of thanks to the young woman, I
move away from the door farther into the car. I find standing space
near a back window. As the train enters the subway tunnel,
something on the tracks catches my eye. It’s a rat, looking a
little dazed and sniffing a bit of discarded muffin. Isn’t it
terrified by the rumbling train? I wonder why it doesn’t scurry
away. Then I see the reason. A tiny fairy is riding it
bucking-bronco style. A fairy who’s waving a shiny sword at me.

In the few seconds before the train rounds
the corner of the tunnel, I note that the fairy is only pretending
to ride the rat. Its wings beat rapidly, much like a hummingbird’s.
I’m not familiar with this variety of pix. The ones I’ve seen are
slow flitterers mostly, butterfly-winged. I can’t determine the
fairy’s gender, but guess it’s a dude. No self-respecting female
fairy would take part in such tomfoolery. He waves the sword around
his head as if holding an imaginary lasso.

I allow myself to toy with the idea that
perhaps I’m merely hallucinating. Perhaps there’s a speck of dust
on my retina or this is just a childhood memory resurrected. But I
know that’s wishful thinking.

And I have to say I’m more than a tad
concerned.

PART ONE: THE FAIRY

Chapter One

Life goes on. I have to work. Pay the bills.
Contribute to society. At the
Golden Gate Planet
editorial
meeting I try to concentrate.

“So, what do you think? Sound fair, Memphis?
Memphis?
Yoo-hoo! You with us?”

The urgency in Ned’s voice drags me back. I
focus on his face, the raised branches of his eyebrows.

“Sure! Sounds more than fair,” I say. I
haven’t the foggiest idea what my editor is talking about. Clearly
it’s time to act normal. But this is what’s been happening for the
last few months. I space out in meetings and think about that
morning on the Muni. It’s hard to forget that I nearly got pushed
into (or was it pulled from?) death’s door. Oh yeah, and saw a
rat-riding
fairy.

“Good. Okay, so Howie, what’s going on with
that story on the museum break-in?”

Howie, who has the news beat and favors
sweater vests, shuffles his notes. “The curator at the Asian Art
Museum was expecting a donation of antique Chinese foot-binding
shoes, but they got shanghaied—” He interrupts himself to guffaw at
his own joke. “Get it?”

No one laughs. More than being offended, we
can’t abide tired wit.

Howie coughs, his cheeks turning pink. “I
mean they were stolen en route from the donor’s home in Belvedere.
I’m going to talk to the donor tomorrow.”

“Who would want creepy old shoes?” Marisol
asks.

“They’re worth a lot,” Howie says. “They’re
in museum-quality shape.”

“It’s a big deal.” Ned thumps the table.
“Let’s move on.”

I lean over to Marisol. “You’ll tell me what
Ned wants me to do, right? I won’t have to pay you or anything. You
won’t get all smug on me?”

“Why don’t you just read his mind?”

“Don’t sass me. Please.”

“You’re interviewing third-tier famous
people. Same old same old.”

“Who?”

“Some band.” She shrugs. “They’re opening for
Yeah Right.”

“How come I don’t get to interview Yeah
Right? Cheradon Badler is like my idol.”

“Yeah. Right.” Marisol’s eyes pop and we
snort and giggle like dorks. We don’t like tired wit, but we often
let mock wit slide.

The meeting is adjourned and Ned’s assistant
hands me a press packet. It’s a fluorescent green folder with a DIY
sticker askew on the cover that looks for all the world like the
potato-stamp art kindergartners make. I think it’s supposed to be
the silhouette of four people, but it looks more like a Rorschach
test. I see a fungus-infested footprint.

Tossing the folder on my desk, I sit down. We
all share cubicles since we’re mostly part-timers here and often
work from home. In the two years I’ve been doing this, my
cubicle-mate—a proofreader—and I have never laid eyes on each
other. Urselina’s rosary, framed portrait of Saint Mary and Her
bleeding heart, and the little fake silk flowers kept in a painted
pot are like territorial pee markers. I keep one postcard of a full
moon over the Canadian Rockies, a place I’d like to visit someday.
I sometimes wonder what Urselina thinks of all the want ads she has
to proof—trannies, lesbos, queers, and leather-daddies looking for
their perfect one-nighter—as well as the lefty leanings of our
publisher.

Her little snow globe with an angel trapped
behind plastic reminds me again of the fairy. I’ve seen the fay in
the city before, but only in parks. They like to live near animals,
so I shouldn’t have been entirely surprised by the rat-rider,
although the Metro seemed a grim milieu for the little guy. But
it’s been a long time since one popped up. I guess I thought maybe
they’d all left. Or that I had actually succeeded in my wish to be
magick-free.

I can’t remember the last time I seriously
considered drawing down the moon or throwing together a charm
ritual, or saw a squirrel wearing a bonnet. Or read someone’s aura
by accident, and that used to happen all the time. I certainly
don’t recall the last time I saw a fairy.

I used to remember everything, because I put
a photographic memory charm on myself when I was eleven so I could
get straight As and be rewarded with the Arabian horse my parents
(falsely) promised. But I haven’t done any maintenance on the charm
and it wore off a couple of years ago. Like every other magickal
skill of mine.

I can’t give this an in-depth pondering right
now. I have to meet Cooper soon. It’s Columbus Day (or, as we like
to call it here in SF, Native American Appreciation Day) and he has
the day off, so we’re going to indulge in a little afternoon
rendezvous.

My cell phone rings. The caller ID reads
blocked call. I hit answer.

“Hi lamb. It’s me.” Auntie Tess. My last link
to magick. And family. “What are you doing?”

“Just had a meeting and—”