Chapter 20 #3
“Good call,” Malek said. “Does your dad know who you gave the jewels to?”
“No. That’s another reason why I had to go. Last straw, you know? There have been many last straws, but now, I swear it. I won’t go home.”
“You live with him?” Caspar asked. Natasha acted quite young, but the lines around her eyes and mouth when she frowned gave away that she was reaching her thirties.
The idea of someone like Natasha—who already had a job in real estate and only took the tour guide job because of her interest in Caspar—not living on her own was odd.
Natasha shrugged. “I’m the only single daughter, so I have to live with him.
My family is close, but it’s been like walking through mud the past six years, ever since I finished my Master’s degrees.
I work for my father at the real estate office, and then I go to the museum.
Without those two things, it’ll be hard, but I’ll start over.
Maybe do what I want this time.” She nodded like it was the easiest thing in the world, rather than a weight that Caspar and Malek both felt around their necks. “I’ll figure it out. I always do.”
“And until then?” Malek asked, stirring his tea. “You want a genie to grant you three wishes?”
“Oh, no! I have no idea what I’d wish for. But, you know, it sounds like fun.”
“What? The wishes?”
“No, looking for the lost objects,” Natasha said. “That’s why you’re all here, right? I can help.”
“You can? How?” Caspar asked.
“Well, I’ve overseen a lot of estate sales. So if what Malek says about a scavenger seeking out djinns for their own personal gain is true, then maybe I’ve come across their name before. If not, then maybe I’ve come across his items before. It’s worth a shot, right?”
Caspar’s heart hammered. All of it seemed possible. Plausible. Even if Natasha was a bit overzealous and downright obsessed with him, and probably saw the dozen love notes he’d written to Isabella and Randy in his notebooks, it didn’t matter. She was here. She could help.
“We could do this, you know,” Caspar said, turning to Malek. “All of us. Search for your items. We wouldn’t have to go at it alone.”
“I don’t know,” Make said. “That’s asking a lot.”
“It is asking a lot, but you’ve now asked, and we’re saying yes.
Right?” Caspar glanced at Natasha, who nodded with a bounce in her step.
So did William, though he rubbed his eyes, clearly exhausted.
They all wanted to do it, Caspar included.
So why did Malek seem like they’d offered to feed him sour milk?
“I don’t know,” Malek said again. “It’s a lot more complicated than you think. I can’t just find my objects and be free with a random incantation. There’s a lot more to it than that.”
“There’s the head honcho, Odafin. But he thinks you’re in a weakened state—or in the Summerland, right?
” Caspar asked, and Malek nodded. “Odafin never did find your crown, so if we found it first and sealed everything away, we’d be too far ahead for him to even realize you’d been freed. We’d win. Right?”
“But Jocasta. I work for her.”
“And you could still work for her. You’d get to decide that again.” Caspar reached across the table and took Malek’s hand. “Just think about it, okay? Everyone has ended up here for a reason. I have to believe that.”
“Me too,” Natasha said.
“Me too. But hey, maybe we could sleep on this decision?” William followed his question with a yawn. The yawn was infectious and soon spread to everyone at the newly assembled kitchen table.
“Oh, yes. I’m so sorry. I knew it was late when I came, but…” Natasha rose from her seat, as if to grab her things and go. When she realized she was just as stuck as everyone else, she sat back down. “Sleeping on it usually helps me. Then I write down my dreams.”
Malek rolled his eyes. “My dreams hardly make sense.”
“Nothing does until you write it down. Put it into a story,” Natasha said. “That’s why I like the lore in the Monster Mythology. It makes the landscape so much more interesting. The culture becomes so much more—”
“Shush for a second, please,” Caspar said. Natasha did as he asked so Caspar could focus on Malek again. He squeezed his hand. “Please? Will you think about it overnight?”
After a long, long time, Malek nodded. “But I want to sleep alone. That way I can think through things without distraction.”
Caspar felt a pang of regret over another missed moment between them, but he nodded. “Okay. I can agree to that. Now, I think we should all go to bed. It’s way later than it should be.”
“The birds are already singing,” William said.
“Huh.” Caspar paused and listened to the chirps from the oak and maple trees blooming outside. He hadn’t heard that sound in years. “So they are.”
After another fifteen minutes of bed making, Natasha was set up on the recliner while William stayed on the couch.
Soon their snores eclipsed the bird songs.
Malek led Caspar to the doorway, holding hands and kissing a couple of times.
When Malek said goodbye, Caspar didn’t want to, but he let him go.
What’s that expression? Caspar thought. If you love something, set it free? The words had new meaning to him now, but he didn’t get a chance to ponder it long before sleep took him.