As I stared at the shiny mucus path of the M the slug left on the kitchen window, I couldn't help but think this entire thing was ridiculous.

Become a vanisher. It’s what your father would've wanted.

Really? I was just supposed to take that at face value?

“Ridiculous,” I muttered. I sat at the kitchen table picking at my fingernail polish for a few moments longer as I tried to figure out what I was going to do next, what the correct decision was.

Decision? There’s no decision here. There’s a card with something insane written on the back of it.

Ever have a moment where you’ve read or watched something and wished that what you were seeing was real life?

That's exactly how I felt in that moment. I longed for there to be a real magick world. I longed for there to be a place where magick existed, and not just existed, but thrived.

It’s what your father would’ve wanted…

I kept chipping away at my fingernail polish, kicking purple flakes onto the surface of the table, making a little fingernail polish pile, a tiny mountain of trash.

Hadn’t Lebec said something about my father too?

I frowned. No matter how hard I tried to grasp at what he’d said exactly, I couldn't seem to do it. All I knew was that Lebec had said that he'd known my father had been involved in the magick world. In what way, I couldn't be sure.

I picked at my fingernail polish for another five minutes before sighing and shaking my head. I didn't know what to do. I didn’t know where to go. I stood up from the table, swiped my tiny Mount Everest of polish flakes into my palm, and opened up the cabinet below the sink. I tossed the flakes into the trashcan there and stared at it. The trashcan that is, not the flakes.

The dumpster.

There had to be proof, right? That was the one test, the one way I could examine what Lebec had said without making a fool out of myself. All I had to do was go to that alley behind Luke’s and see if that dumpster was destroyed or not.

Simple.

An easy litmus test to determine whether the magick world was real or fake: a destroyed, exploded dumpster.

If my logic sounds a bit off to you, that's because it was. I was reeling. So many things in my life were changing, so many things I thought I knew were shifting beneath my feet.

I headed to the bathroom, got ready, and, without another thought, headed out of my apartment.

In the parking lot, I considered taking my car. I considered tempting fate and trying to get the damned thing to start.

Ultimately, I decided it wasn't worth it. The hassle, the heat inside, the frustration. None of it.

I spun on my heel from the cursed car and started walking. I took the scenic route towards the theatre, hoping that maybe something else would jar itself loose in my memories once I stood in front of it.

It didn't take long to get there. And once I was there nothing rattled loose.

The theatre looked exactly the same.

The For-Sale sign was there, exactly in the same place I remembered it being: nothing new, nothing different.

As I passed by the sign, though, something did catch my eye. Something shimmered on its surface. Something that stopped my forward momentum and made me take several steps back, to get the angle just right, to get the sun to hit the sign in exactly the right place so I could see what that shimmer was.

As I stared at the For-Sale sign, at the shimmering path traced out on its surface, I could make out a single letter. The letter A. It was in the same sort of mucus the slug had left on my kitchen window. It had been written in the same upright, strict lettering.

An A and an M? Ma? Who is Ma?

I shook my head.

“This just keeps getting better and better,” I mumbled before continuing on my way. As I walked to Luke’s, I zoned out, not really thinking about where I was going or what I was doing.

What’s the magick world like? Is it wonderous? Scary? Both?

If (big IF) it was even real.

And why has it kept itself from the regular world for so long?

A single word floated up from the depths of my memory.

Stick.

Lebec had said something about a stick.

No, he called you a stick. He said that people who can't do magick are called sticks.

I snorted at that. It seemed like the magick world had its own sort of gatekeeping.

Can't wait to find out more about that… Once that thought hit me, another thought hit me right after in a one-two punch. I’m starting to buy into this.

“It's not real,” I said under my breath. “It can't be real. I know you want it to be real, Hexana, but it's not. Don't get your hopes up.”

Don't get your hopes up: the thing my aunt had said to me over and over as I was growing up.

Don't get your hopes up, Hexana. Your father left you, remember? He’ll never come back.

Don't get your hopes up, Hexana. No matter what you do in life, you'll never go far.

Don't get your hopes up, Hexana. You'll always be poor, alone, worthless.

That last line was mine. My aunt had never said anything that outright destructive, but my own mind could be my worst enemy at times.

I took in a deep breath and let it out.

“Don't get your hopes up, Hexana,” I said in a quiet voice. “The magick world may not be everything you’re hoping it is.”

Something about those words made me feel better. Something about the acceptance that something as ridiculous as the magick world might exist felt good.

That all came crashing down as I rounded the corner of the alleyway behind Luke’s.

I could see the back of the bar, three blocks away. Behind it, sitting in roughly the same spot it always had, was the dumpster. I took a deep breath and sighed.

“Don't get your hopes up, Hexana,” I whispered as tears started to fill my eyes. “It was never real to begin with.”

I walked down the alley in a daze, not wanting the dumpster to be real, wanting it to be some magickal trick, some illusion, but as I got closer, I saw that wasn't the case. Right on the front of the dumpster, exactly where I remembered it, was the sign that read, as always, Property of Luke’s Bar and Bookshop. Premises monitored by cameras. No dumping.

I even went so far as to touch (gross, I know, I regret doing it) the side of the big metal dumpster.

It was already growing hot under the Nightsbridge sun, the smell of trash inside baking in the soupy heat of Nightsbridge already wafting out.

“Fuck,” I hissed.

“Hexana?” A familiar voice asked from behind me.

I whirled around. For a second, I thought it was Lebec's voice.

It was Ted.

“Oh,” I said. “Hey, Teddy bear.”

“Oh,” he shot back at me. “Hey, Hexana.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Are you going to be a stalker?” he asked.

“What’s it pay?” I asked back.

He snorted out a little laugh then grew serious.

“Are you going to be okay?” he asked.

He was by far the best person who worked at Luke’s. He was someone you could count on; someone you could call in the middle of the night if your car broke down on the side of the road. He was the person who would drop everything to help you. Much like he’d done to help me in the bar the day before.

“I don't know,” I said. “I hope?”

“What's that mean?” His eyebrows lifted and came together in a look of earnest concern. It was so intense that it broke my heart.

“I don't know.”

“I’m really sorry about what happened here. It wasn't supposed to go like that. I didn't think Luke would fire you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Me neither. How's your head?”

He twisted his head to the side so I could see it. I could make out the black lines of several stitches there.

“Ouch,” I said.

“It doesn't hurt. It itches more than anything.”

I let out a soft laugh. “That's annoying.”

“Kinda like a certain waitress I used to work with.”

I rolled my eyes at him. He always could make me laugh when things weren't going the way I wanted.

“I really am sorry that he fired you,” he said. “I tried to talk to him, tried to convince him to hire you back, to change his mind, but—”

“But Luke,” I finished.

Ted nodded. “But Luke,” he agreed.

We both shared a depressing laugh.

“Anyways,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said and gave him a sad smile. “Anyways.”

I moved forward, not meaning to, not expecting to, but then my arms were around him and I was hugging him. “Thank you for standing up for me. In the bar. And to Luke.”

“Yeah,” he said in a soft voice. He put one hand on my lower back and placed his other on the back of my neck.

There was something soothing about the heat there, something that made me melt, made me want to do more than just hug him, but then something already broken inside me killed that and forced it away.

I released him and took a step back. I cleared my throat.

“Okay,” I said in a shaky voice. “The job search continues.”

Ted nodded, a sad look in his eyes. “Hey, you could always work as a dumpster salesman.”

My eyebrow lifted at that. “What?”

“Yeah.” He laughed. “Someone blew it up last night. When Luke and I got here this morning, the whole front end of it was torn open and it was flipped over.”