Nefarious

Welcome to the Spot Writers! This week’s prompt is to write about a superpower that only exists one day per week.

Today’s post comes to us from Val Muller, author of the Corgi Capers kidlit mystery series. Learn more at www.corgicapers.com

Nefarious

by Val Muller

Magic is not the way it’s portrayed in the movies. It’s not all, wave-a-wand-and-turn-a-pumpkin-into-a-coach. Well actually, that coach only lasted ‘til midnight, didn’t it? Messed everything up. So, I guess maybe magic is just like in the movies.

My magic is more like: when she’s sixteen, your mom agrees to go to the prom with the class ogre—and I mean this in the literal sense, a real-life ogre, like that’s-not-just-acne, ogre, like shunned-by-the-human-race, ogre. Reason being, the ogre just happened to have a serum that, when consumed, assigns your first-born daughter preternatural powers for one-seventh of her life.

So of course Mom goes to prom, downs the drink, thinking her daughter will have a magical childhood. She didn’t realize until later that the whole “one seventh of her life?” That’s once per week.

But it’s not even the same day each week. It reset every Sunday, and it can happen anytime during the week, with no way to predict it. Sometimes I’m magic two days in a row—Saturday and Sunday. Sometimes it’s evenly spread. Impossible to predict.

Mom’s whole motivation was to turn my childhood into a get-rich-quick scheme. When I was little, Mom tried to get me to turn objects into gold. But she didn’t understand: magic doesn’t happen without effort. I mean, I was four. It’s like asking a four-year-old to create the Mona Lisa in fingerpaint.

Best I could accomplish for her was turning a salad into chocolate cake.

The dang magic sure picked its own days, too. Did it show up for my SATs? Nope. Important exams? No. Election Day? I wish. But on rainy Saturdays, I could sometimes clean the house by snapping my fingers.

In middle school, when most girls were starting to babysit, Mom hired me out to clean houses. Yes, I could clean a house in about two minutes, but customers did not appreciate the erratic schedule, being told the morning of that I would be visiting. And my school didn’t appreciate the frequent absences from school sent in the morning of.

When I got to high school, I realized working is for mere mortals. Me? I didn’t need a job. Making a living was easy enough. To stop my mom’s meddling, I set her up to win the lottery one magical Friday. Years later, I arranged my own jackpot under a different name.

With my livelihood secure (after all, I work my magic on stocks all the time), what to do? This strange gift should be put to use, but how?

At first I went with philanthropy. I was young and happy. I crept around cafes, enchanting awkward dates and igniting the flames of life-long love. I stood on highway overpasses and prevented accidents, blessed bridge jumpers with a new hope and love of life.

But still my life continued on, with my magical day rarely coinciding with my mood. After my lack of magic sabotaged several college interviews, I decided to go rogue. I didn’t need no education. I’d look around and see all the ordinary people unaware of how disgustingly mundane their lives were. They didn’t know the thrill of waking just after midnight, feeling magic floating through their veins, the rush of power knowing I can grow trees, shake foundations, turn paper to gold. (Yes, I was skilled enough to do that now.) Knowing I could literally fly.

Ordinary people didn’t have to wallow in their powerlessness six (unpredictable) days out of the week. No one could know the despair of wishing away time in favor of the next rush.

That’s when I turned dark.

I went around causing bad days. You know the ones. You forget your umbrella the one day it pours. The bus comes early the day you’re late. You say the wrong thing, split your seam, spill your coffee. There was a limit to how serious I would allow the nefariousness to go, but for months I looked forward to my day of chaos.

I started having too much fun, expressing my frustration with my strange power in more sinister ways. Rigged elections are hilarious, but so are allegations of rigged elections. It’s even more fun if no one knows whether they were rigged or not. My magical powers work best with large groups of people. So easy to manipulate. And so I expanded my scope. While I couldn’t guarantee my powers would work on Election Day, I could certainly set in motion my fair share of awful candidates. For years, there was nothing more satisfying than watching voters hold their nose and vote for human garbage. What a rush.

What a thrill.

But then it too became mundane. I had to up the ante.

Now’s the part I hesitate to admit, but what the heck. My revenge against humanity, my punishment for their ability to enjoy their mundane lives day after day after day… it came to a head after a much-anticipated date stood me up for our second date. And boy did I cause a whopper.

Ever hear of 2020?

Guilty.

But don’t worry. It’s been 8 days since my last magic, and I’m due soon. First thing I’ll do is make you forget this whole confession. You can go back to believing what you want about what caused that train wreck of a year. You can go back to your mundane lives. And I think, finally, my nefarious days are over. I’ve had my fill.

What’s next? Well, I prefer to surprise the targets of my powers, but 2022 is on the horizon, isn’t it? I feel a magic day coming on, and I say there are better days ahead.

Just do me a favor. If an ogre tries to bribe you to go to prom with him in exchange for a magical potion for your daughter—turn him down nicely, will you?

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The Spot Writers—Our Members:

Val Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/