Excerpt from novel MAGIC FLASK, published from Ciudad de Jersey
Just in time for your book buying haul for the holidays, an excerpt from MAGIC FLASK by Fennel Steuert. This speculative novel is from Reverse Chime Books of Ciudad de Jersey. Book review blog Quirky Cat’s Fat Stacks called it “a memorable story that is unlike anything else.”
MAGIC FLASK is about Evie MacColl and her attempt to pick up the pieces of her life post-stint in a pocket dimension and the death of her father.
This eighteen-plus novel is available to order through local and chain bookstores as well an ebook. The excerpt:
Chapter 3
Pygs had barked for hours the other night, and because of that I fell asleep more easily than I did with the usual ish of loud music elsewhere pretty much in the foreground here. But Shen got into my dreams, and we were on a bench somewhere quiet staring at each other and all that was feeling ridiculously peaceful.
“I didn’t think about it,” I said. “If his barking would bother you. He doesn’t do it very much.”
Shen didn’t say anything. He just tapped the space between us.
I woke up with the usual urge to cling to bed, but I wouldn’t.
I had a case to focus on. Focusing was good. Property taxes were due in about a month and a half.
Focusing made it easier to not think about having to pay for my illustrious quality of life. Or be quite so sad about what I tried to tell myself were little things really.
I should have been thinking about my dad’s radio, but I just coasted on purpose and vague thoughts of it not being the best day for a long, functional session with the shower head.
I felt centered enough to take Pygs for a proper walk. Away from the block jockeys we went, heading toward a park that happened to be glowing in the sheen of the sun setting over it.
Gosh, you forget how nice the world can be when you’re always on your guard, when you look at trees and they seem to be sagging over concrete too. … Maybe all that made it easier for me to appreciate nature, instead of thinking of it as a background fixture. At least in short bursts.
It would be my luck that Brendan was on a bench by the entrance, staring into nothing in particular.
I put the hood on my sweatjacket up and quickly turned around.
I was tense, 100 feet away (I thought), when he came jogging up behind me.
“I know,” he whispered. “I know we said that was it, but I can’t make it back here, Evelyn.”
“I’m finding a way,” she said. “You can too. I don’t think we could even go back without taking him with us. And he let the place stifle instead of grow, so how does that work? Maybe we’d be taking this advanced society back to a Stone Age.”
“How bad can Shen be? You two were pretty close.”
“Calling our relationship ‘pretty close’ is like calling my relationship to public radio ‘pretty close.’” I sighed. Brendan had never liked Shen, but I supposed that was this world for ya … making someone love the devil whose existence helped them at the moment.
“They’re like pacifists,” I told Brendan. “One of them helped us, and I’m not sure Shen would have let them be if he had known. And besides, you have it pretty good over where you’re at.”
“My family got lucky, I know that. But it won’t last, and they … they don’t need me.”
I laughed. I didn’t know why. Nervousness.
“I listened to public radio the other day,” Brendan said. “Remember when you tried to get me to call in there? Wasn’t it for the show about how much of a lottery system decent public housing was?”
“I don’t. Guess I didn’t try very hard.”
“Huh.”
“Don’t take that the wrong way. It’s just, I try harder with that since we’ve been back.”
Brendan nodded sadly.
“Oh, fuck,” I said. “Come on, let’s go to the amphitheater. That’ll totally cheer you up, and if it doesn’t, you can say whatever you want and I’ll support you. Except for one thing obviously.”
“Hurray,” said Brendan.
“Yes, ex-fucking-cactly, Brendan. Hurray.”
A local businessman who owned this big STEM theme park paid for the amphitheater– a way for people to voice their concerns with the world like that, in and of itself, would be enough.
A guy I used to work with was apparently on the businessman’s payroll now post-the other world. Lawrence … more on him later unfortunately.
For now, I gently tugged on Pygs’ leash so he didn’t go all the way down the amphitheater stairs to a man freestyling about everything under the setting sun.
“Mm, yeah. Two hours on the phone / let her know she’s not alone / in the most sensuous way / gonna make love today / doggy-style love.”
I put my hands over Pygs’ ears. “Hey!”
Brendan stifled a chuckle.
That’s the power of the amphitheater, praise Minerva! Some people just sat around it, pretending they couldn’t even hear someone rant away below in the center. But those words sank in to one’s subconscious with wisdom for the ages.
I lightly hit Brendan’s shoulder. “Attaboy.”
“Cute, Evie,” said Brendan, “but why would this make me really feel better about being stuck here?” He petted Pygs’ head.
I shrugged. “Uh, well, here’s the thing. If that businessman stopped coming …”
“He’s a politician now.”
“Same difference…and it’s because he’s embarrassed by what this has become – because it shows just how it’s not this thing he can control exactly, then that helps.”
“… Or, he doesn’t have the time about something that was symbolic in the first place ...”
“What you need is a purpose and you can refine that here, with my help.”
“Hey, you two!” said the rapper down below. “Shut the fuck up! I’m trying to freestyle here.”
“You’ve been trying for nine hours!” I yelled back. “And the style still hasn’t been freed. It’s trapped in the dog pound you woke up in this morning.”
Brendan’s head dropped.
My freestyling friend strained his eyes at the several other people scattered around the amphitheater. Their attention was trained on him now – “Ooooo, how’s he going to react?” – and he looked at me, my eyebrows raised, ready for the word “bitch” or something about “bitches” and pounds. Whatever he had to say, I was ready to keep going.
He waved his hand dismissively.
“Gonna stuck for a while, minus the stu. Add an F,” he resumed. “For all this heft.”
(The amphitheater had a rule against slurs, curse words and anything that would be true crime fodder – unless it was presented in like a Brooklyn-friendly podcast, of course. There wasn’t usually anyone around to enforce the rules, so someone taking the honor system route meant they were taking the amphitheater as sacred ground pretty seriously.)
“Damn. I think he might go for nine hours now. I guess that’s just what good doggy-style takes.” I jabbed Brendan in the ribs with my elbow, giggling.
Brendan put his hand over his face. “Wow,” he said.
“What? He couldn’t hear us. Sound in here travels up. He was just mad we weren’t passively ignoring him.”
“Purpose,” Brendan said. “I feel like that’s helped by people you can talk with and not at. Everybody back there was easier to speak with.”
“That’s ‘cause they were in awe of us and had a hard time speaking themselves. That should not be something you want from someone else around you – them just thinking you’re so different from this low baseline they’ve been made to accept.”
“‘Different.’ We …” Brendan shook his head. “Is this about your father?”
I made a face. “No.”
“Look, it wasn’t your fault that we stayed as long as we did. It wasn’t selfish. We couldn’t get back. And even if it we could have … ”
“What?”
“It’s the right kind of selfish. Simple. Clean. What people do all the time. Leave the nest and not look back. But I’m sure you would have checked in on him, is the thing, so you have nothing to--”
“‘Simple.’ ‘Clean.’ There’s no such thing. Trust me, I’m an expert on selfishness … not just because I’m selfish. But also ‘cause I’ve been around out there.”
Brendan’s head fell into his hands. “If you were, you’d want to go to back to that apartment, wouldn’t you? Be carefree again.”
I sighed, shaking my head. “Why don’t you pull out that copy of an Ayn Rand novel you have rolled up in your pants and do a reading?”
Brendan nodded. He stood up, patted Pygs on the head, and left.
“I’m sure the place is rented now anyway!” I called after him.
Pygs started barking. He was a little bewildered. People looked at me this time like I was in the wrong.
Down the stairs: “Mm, yeah. Roll up in the club. Find out you a dud. I smile all the while, from the inside, where this crown gets love.”
I bowed out.
From Amazon: “Fennel writes fiction like “Magic Flask" and is a proud non-Oxbridgian. Find Fennel on Twitter @ fennelsteuert, at least once upon a time.”