She'd forgotten how much she had always wished for a close friend. Someone to share those small, everyday moments that made life special. Someone who got excited about your successes and supported you through your struggles. Someone who saw past the surface to who you really were. She'd never found that, had eventually given up hoping to find a friend like that.
Oh, she had Sabrina… but she was her daughter, a sacred trust to raise, then let go so she could fly when the time came.Sabrina had her own life now, her own family, and that was as it should be. It just left Mandy a little… lonely.
To be honest, the possibility of friendship with someone like Jacinth felt like the real magic. The wishes were merely the icing on the cake.
Mandy's stomach growled, but the thought of a full breakfast after last night's ice cream sundae made her wince. Still, she needed to eat something, so she dropped an English muffin in the toaster. A few minutes later it popped up golden brown, filling her kitchen with its toasted aroma. She spread butter and raspberry jam across both halves, the seeds crunching pleasantly between her teeth as she took her first bite.
Mozart wound around her ankles, eyeing the muffin hopefully. "Don't even think about it, mister," she told him. "You had your breakfast."
She carried her muffin to her desk and pressed the power button on her computer. The familiar whir of fans and blinking lights provided a comforting counterpoint to the otherworldly warmth of the pendant against her chest. She forced her thoughts away from magical pendants, and Djinn, and wishes, to focus on the present. Time to work.
She'd lost the last two days, and she had deadlines to meet, regardless of the eruption of magic into her life. Her latest manuscript wasn't going to edit itself, and her newsletter needed to go out by Friday. The routine tasks would help ground her, while her mind processed everything else in the background.
Her computer screen flickered to life, displaying the familiar desktop background of a sunset over the Sonoran Desert. Mandy took another bite of her muffin, letting the tart sweetness of the jam ground her in reality while her writing software loaded.
Bach jumped onto the desk beside her keyboard, settling into his usual spot where he could supervise her work, while Mozart stretched out on the window sill, supervising from afar. Theirstaunch companionship helped anchor her as she dove into the familiar rhythms of her daily routine.
After thirty minutes, Mandy slumped away from her workstation, sweeping stray locks away from her forehead with frustration. The words wouldn't come. Her mind simply refused to concentrate.
Though she could compartmentalize the reality of the Djinn's visit, of Jacinth and Kieran's supernatural nature, and even the confirmation that magic existed, she couldn't escape the persistent thoughts about her three wishes. The endless potential outcomes kept invading her consciousness, nudging at her attention, making it impossible to concentrate on her tasks or accomplish anything meaningful.
She glanced at her word count - a measly hundred and twelve words in thirty minutes. Usually, she could knock out at least three hundred words in that time. But today... today her characters refused to cooperate, their voices drowned out by the whispers of "what if" that filled her head.
Bach stretched and yawned from his perch beside her keyboard, fixing her with that particular feline stare that somehow managed to convey both judgment and sympathy.
"Don't look at me like that," she muttered to Bach. "You try writing when you've got unlimited possibilities spinning through your head."
All the normal, everyday tasks of being an author piled up before her, but her brain refused to engage with any of them. Instead, it kept circling back to wishes, to magic, to the incredible reality that she could literally change anything about her life with just a few carefully chosen words.
Mandy groaned aloud and covered her face with her hands. The enormity of keeping this secret pressed down on her chest like a physical weight. She knew she couldn't tell anyone about this - not even Sabrina. Her daughter would be fascinated, andjust think of the conversations they could have! Keeping this to herself was surely going to kill her, but breaking the trust of the Djinn was unthinkable.
The urge to pace hit her hard. That's what people did in situations like this, right? Wore tracks in their carpet while muttering to themselves like lunatics in bad movies. She could picture herself doing exactly that - striding back and forth across her living room, gesturing wildly while having animated conversations with herself about wishes and Djinn princes.
But no. Her treacherous back and arthritic knees wouldn't allow such dramatic displays of frustration. The mere thought of pacing made her joints ache in protest. Even if she tried, she'd wind up right back in the ER, where she'd just been, and she wasn't that anxious to repeat the experience.
Bach walked across the desk and headbutted her arm, purring. She scratched behind his ears, grateful for the simple comfort of warm fur beneath her fingers.
"At least you two know I'm not crazy," she told the cats. "You saw them too. The Djinn were right here in our living room."
Both cats blinked at her slowly, offering neither confirmation nor denial of her sanity.
Mandy pushed back from her desk with a sigh. Maybe if she felt more put-together, more professional, she could focus better. Slouching around in her robe all day certainly wasn't helping her concentration. One thing she'd learned over the years was that looking nice made her feel better, even if no one else saw her. It didn't matter that she was older, with grey, thinning hair. It was about how she felt about herself, and when she was dressed up with nice clothing and makeup, it lifted her spirits.
In her bedroom, she opened her closet and surveyed the contents. Her hand automatically reached for her usual comfortable jeans, but she hesitated. No, today called for moreupscale. She pulled out a flowing maxi skirt in deep purple - one of her favorites - and paired it with a soft heather gray top that draped nicely over her rounded curves.
The familiar routine of getting dressed helped settle her mind. She slipped on her most comfortable sandals, and moved to her vanity.
Her reflection stared back at her as she opened her makeup bag. She wrinkled her nose as her greying, salt-and-pepper hair caught her attention. Time for another color appointment, she always had fun with those. An image flashed through her mind of that contestant from the Great British Baking Show, the one with the gorgeous pink and lilac hair that looked like cotton candy. Now that would be fun! She loved going to salons and letting them experiment - after all, if she didn't like the results, it would always grow out.
She narrowed her eyes at her reflected self. "If you write five thousand words, you can go get your hair done in pink and purple. Deal?" She nodded at herself solemnly. "Deal."
Deal offered and accepted - these little rewards and challenges had become her most reliable motivational tool - Mandy turned her attention to her makeup, applying it with practiced strokes - lightly tinted moisturizer with a touch of blush to warm her complexion, mascara to define her lashes. She kept it simple but polished, the way she'd learned from classes at a modeling agency when she'd been in her twenties. Her fingers worked through her hair along with the brush, smoothing out the sleep-tangles.
The last thing was to swipe on her favorite lip gloss, a sheer rose shade that added just enough color without being too dramatic.
"Alexa, play 70s and 80s hits," she called out. The apartment's 360-degree speaker system came to life, filling the space with the opening notes of "Dancing Queen." A smiletugged at her lips as ABBA's infectious rhythm got her shoulders swaying.
The familiar songs wrapped around her like a comfortable blanket. These were the songs she'd grown up with, had danced to in her living room, had sung at the top of her lungs during long car rides. Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is" began to play, as Mandy nodded with satisfaction at her mirror. The woman looking back at her appeared polished, put-together, ready to face whatever the day might bring - even if that was simply progress on her manuscript. The flowing purple skirt swished around her ankles as she rose from the vanity's stool, making her feel as elegant as it had when she was half her age.
