The Demon in the Pastry Shop

19: The Mighty Wish

 "Do you have postage?" he strode toward Kit, taking a lantern and stepping over in long unassuming movements.

Kit didn't know how to say that she didn't know how she ended up where she was and did not have postage for the ride in a gesture because it was a little too dim for the notes. She shook her head.

"Do you know where you are?" the spirit asked her. Was he a spirit? The being was strange to her. Something mixed into the line where his body ended and his surroundings began. As if he and his surroundings were less divided than other beings were to theirs.

She shook her head. She knew she was in the Armadillo Post Headquarters, but she didn't know where that was located. He stepped into the cone of light casted from the fixtures on the wall by the map.

The being had silver hair that looked a bit blonde (as though the blonde part came second and as a hasty afterthought) and amber eyes piercing out from his white skin. Though his appearance called to Kit's mind pictures and stories of ancient deities and kings, this being wore slacks and a sweatervest with a wrinkly button-up underneath. When Kit sneaked a closer look, she found the fibers of the sweatervest sprung out at the hem. The vest was worn and possibly older than the one who wore it.

He smiled and it was a cordial, polite smile as he extended his hand for her to shake, "hello, there. Welcome to the Hollow Realm. You can call me Mavah."

Kit slapped a hand to her chest to convey her surprise. Should she bow? Was that customary? Was it expected. She found her notepad and grabbed her pen, biting her flashlight in her mouth. It was dark, but with Mavah's lantern, her light, and the wall fixtures, she could manage it.

She offered the paper to him.

Mavah took it and scanned it with his gem glittering eyes.

She said, "the Ace of Wishes!? I didn't mean to trespass!"

"Yes, the Ace of Wishes," Mavah confirmed coolly, returning her paper to her and tucking his hand in his pocket (not like the way Silus did -Silus put his hands in his pockets differently), "and don't be troubled. I've not long ago come into possession of the Hollow Realm and I don't mind visitors."

Kit cocked her head to the side and pointed at him, twisting her wrist for the inflection.

"Uh huh. It's not typical for Aces to rule Realms but this one kind of fell into my hands," Mavah shrugged.

With that word, another curiosity sparked into Kit's body. She gestured with splayed fingers at Mavah, scrubbing the air in front of his whole body. He narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips. He didn't quite understand. Kit mimed whiskers. She mimed ears on the top of her head. Mavah looked back at her patiently, but vacantly.

She went for her notebook.

"Oh," Mavah inhaled, "you were expecting me in cat form."

Relieved, Kit nodded.

"Well," he cleared his throat, face falling. Kit knew such a face intimately. She met it in the mirror. "I take human form now in honor of a... close Ephemeral friend of mine who passed recently."

Kit then knew the sweatervest belonged to this human.

"Would you like to come up to the castle where you can write on a table?" Mavah offered.

Kit nodded so vigorously she strained her neck.

Upstairs in the palace, waist-high monsters made of pottery shards and paper and bones swept the halls. A gnome with a pumpkin hat jutted right out in front of Kit in an attempt to free her path from sand. Mavah lead Kit into a dining area where the floor was lower than the surrounding hallway and the only thing separating the hall and the room were the pillars.

"There," he pulled out a chair for her from the banquet table. He stepped back and gestured to it. "Take a seat and take your time. Just tell me how you got here and who you are."

Kit rushed to the paper. She scratched out a dozen letters and restarted and pressed forward until she finally had some sort of coherent message that might lend Mavah to her side. He was an Ace of Creation. He was powerful. Maybe he could stop Silus from coming after her and get him to let Jude go. She handed it off to him with a sigh.

"The Collector wants me and sent Silus the Awakened Idol after me. I ran away with my father-in-law to the caves on the edges of the Realm of Inspiration, but Jude got caught and I don't know what they'll do to him. Please help me, Mavah."

He read it over and then read it again (Kit followed his eyes). When he handed it back to her, he told her, "I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do. It's not under my influence."

Kit gawked at him with frustrated eyebrows. She wrote it down and then threw at him, "Ace of Wishes. You can change anything!"

Mavah shook his head and even gave a small laugh, almost grandfatherly in nature, "I can't give a wish to you."

She threw her arms out to the sides and rolled her eyes.

"I'm sorry, but no," Mavah repeated, "even just looking at you, I can tell a wish would tear you apart. Wishes are for people who, deep down, know exactly what they need. And your need may be urgent, but so is your pain. Wishes will listen to the strongest pull inside you and there's too much pulling at you. I think a wish would rip you in three. Between your safety, your father-in-law, and whatever or whoever this third thing is that has a hold over you. No, I can't give you a wish. You wouldn't know what to do with one."

She would save Jude, of course! There's nothing else she could wish for right now, though the idea of securing her own safety was high on the list. At the same time, there was the temptation to reverse the clock, to keep Luca with her. If Luca never died, she wouldn't have started working at the pastry shop. Never would have flirted with Silus and put him on her scent. If Luca never died, then maybe...

"This is precisely what I meant," Mavah voiced over her thoughts, "by now, someone who knew what they needed deep down would be begging me for the wish because it's the only way for them to get it -the thing they want more than anything else in all the worlds. But you're thinking about different ways to use the wish, is that true?"

Kit closed her eyes and cried. She regretted that Jude wasn't the most pressing thought among the flock. She wished she were better.

"It's okay," Mavah told her, "you can stay in the Hollow Realm as long as you'd like, though if what I've heard of Silus the Awakened Idol is correct, that may not be a long-term solution."

"Thank you," said her paper, punctuated with a teardrop.

"Let me show you around."