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“Veronica and Jax, we need to form a triangle around the hole.” He took a deep swig from a silver flask embossed with a giant and a young boy. “Try to make the distance equal between us.”
Antoine replaced the cap on the flask and deposited the silver canister in his knapsack. He reached out to hold Veronica’s and Jax’s hands. “Now you two.”
Tentative and a bit nervous to touch her again, Jax curled his rough fingers around her smooth ones. She squeezed his hand. A jolt of electricity snapped between them. It could have been a mystical connection here in the stone circle, but it felt deeper, older and more personal. His gaze caught hers and his heartbeat calmed to a deliberate rhythm.
Antoine exhaled a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Mystic beanstalk, grow for this three. To heights unseen, love is the key. Riches we’ll find, all that may be. Three you require, three we be.”
Wind whipped through the circle, picking up stray leaves and debris and blowing it sideways with such speed, Jax couldn’t see the world outside the boulders. The moon brightened until it neared the sun’s brilliance. The children’s singing grew more distinct, ringing out clearly around them.
Undeterred, Antoine raised his eyebrows, urging Veronica and him to join in his chant. The words tumbled forth.
“Mystic beanstalk, grow for this three. To heights unseen, love is the key. Riches we’ll find, all that may be. Three you require, three we be.”
The gusts increased in ferocity, the temperature dropping until Jax’s breath froze in his nostrils.
The tiny glass bottle containing the beans floated out of Antoine’s pocket. It danced through the air in time with the measured pace with which they chanted the spell.
“Mystic beanstalk, grow for this three. To heights unseen, love is the key. Riches we’ll find, all that may be. Three you require, three we be.”
Wind yowled around them.
A beam of light shot out of the hole Antoine had dug.
The glass bottle exploded and the three beans dropped like rocks into the ground.
“Ashes. Ashes.” The children sang in deafening screams. “We all fall down.”
The light disappeared. The air stilled and the voices vanished into silence.
Jax’s heartbeat echoed in his ears. Sweat ran down his neck like a flooded river, when moments before, it had been so cold he could see his breath.
The three of them collapsed. Veronica rested her head against his shoulder, her almond-shaped eyes closed. Jax wrapped an arm around her, and was amazed when she allowed him to bring her closer. The bittersweet moment taunted him. If he’d never made that awful call, would they still be together? Married? Would he be sleep deprived and rocking a newborn into the wee hours? An ache burned his gut. The old wound had never completely healed, he’d just gotten used to the daily throb.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her soft hair.
Veronica stiffened and pulled away. She not only refused to say anything to him, she wouldn’t even look in his direction. His arm fell awkwardly to his side.
The hole had been filled in, the dirt patted down. If he didn’t know better, he’d believe the ground had never been disturbed.
Antoine rocked back and forth on the grass, mumbling what sounded like an incantation. He circled his hand above the buried beans three times, then brought his palm down to the cool dirt. An otherworldly hush fell and the stars sparkled like literal diamonds in the sky. He looked up at the heavens, the moon bathing his face in light. “Three you require, three we be.”
And then, nothing. For a long frickin’ time. Nothing.
Something poked him in the butt. He must have settled down onto a rock.
Would Veronica still taste of jasmine? Did she still start with the opinion page first and use the sports page to line her trash cans? What had it felt like when she’d finally built up the nerve to tell her father to fuck off?
Oh yeah, he’d heard the story. At least twelve people had called him up to tell him about how her father had demanded she give up her treasure hunting hobby or he’d cut her off. For the first time in her life, she’d given her dad the figurative bird. Jax had added a Google alert for Kwon Limited when she’d started her treasure hunting company, and had reveled in each of her finds. She’d always had the ability to whittle something down to bare bones and find the clues others had overlooked.
Antoine cleared his throat. “A watched pot never boils, you know. Let’s set up camp.”
Without waiting for their response, the older man brought out a flat metal object the size of a business envelope and pushed the single green button on its top. It flipped open, and out popped three miniature tents. Shuffling from one spot to another, he arranged the miniatures in a triangle around the beans. Once they were in place, he clapped his hands three times.
The tents rose from the grass and spun around at dizzying speeds before dropping, full sized, to the ground.
“Well then, children, I bid you goodnight. Have a good rest. I imagine we’ll have quite an eventful day tomorrow.” With that, Antoine walked into his tent and zipped shut the door flap.
Veronica strutted into her tent and closed the flap behind her.
