Marigold Mysteries: Part One, Ashes To Ashes

Chapter 4: A Familiar Feeling

I sigh. "I did this to myself," I state flatly, "if I hadn't been reckless and pushed for information, I wouldn't have paid the price." But she's still got that look on her face. It's making me depressed just looking at her.

"Information we didn't need. I got my eye back, so it doesn't matter."

I shake my head. "I don't think so. If there's still a mystery, you're still my client!" She gives me an incredulous look. "Don't you want to find out who took your eye?"

She doesn't look like she's considering it, so I switch methods. "Well I want to know what happened. How about you help me solve the mystery, and we call it even?" Leaning out over her shoulder, I give her what I hope she can interpret as a smile. After a moment of hesitation, she gives a hesitant smile back.

"I suppose I can do that. But you have to to tell me about the whole lizard thing." Well, I'll consider that a victory.

"That's a long story. One best told over lunch, don't you think?"

...

We arrive back at Juniper's office. She hops onto her desk, while I hang her jacket and clothes on the back of her chair. Juniper shows me the location of the key to her desk, and I place the Raising the Dead for Fun and Profit in there next to some objects that look slightly cursed. Finally, I take the jar containing my eye. It's bizarre to be sure. I've seen my eyes in the mirror and in pictures plenty of times, but the dark green of my iris feels foreign looking back at me. It doesn't gross me out too much though, what kind of nurse would I be if I was squeamish?

I pop the stopper off of the jar, and place it on the desk. Juniper crawls up for a closer look, her slit pupils scanning it erratically in the way that most lizards do. They settle on me once more. "Well, what are you waiting for? Put it back in." I can only hope it's that simple.

I grab the eye out of the jar, trying to ignore the unsettling squishy feeling on my skin, and bring it up to the socket, my other hand holding my fringe out of the way. Done with hesitating, I slot it in and-

My head explodes in a flood of sensation. The paths my magic had taken, lying dormant in my veins, all connect once again as the loop is completed. It prickles over my skin like electricity, familiar and warm, like going home to a warm fire after hiking through a blizzard. I'm now aware of the magic around me as well, my sixth sense closing in on Juniper's aura, the magical trinkets in the office, the people outside on the streets. Everything is living, and, for the first time since the beginning of this entire mess, I feel alive as well.

I blink, with both eyes this time, coming back to the real world. Having depth perception again is disorienting, but I'm just happy to be whole again. I plop down in the rolling chair, and Juniper hops up on one of the stacks of books on the desk to reach eye level, and stares directly into my newly returned eye. "You know, it actually looks a bit different from your other one."

"Really?"

"Yeah, here." She jumps down from the desk and shuffles around its bottom drawers out of my sight. When she climbs back up, she's awkwardly holding what looks like a compact in her mouth. I take it, popping open the lid and observing myself in the mirror on the inside. My first thought is that my hair looks terrible, but I soon notice what June was talking about. While my left eye is its usual dark green, my right eye is significantly lighter in color.

"Well, I suppose in terms of permanent effects, it's not too bad," I say, "I could have been left with a gaping bloody hole in the back of my head." Juniper nods.