Terrell and Diramina

"Ah."

He stands straight again, a few eggs in his hands, and graciously decides to elaborate. "Less of a farmer, more of a lighthouse keeper. I've only got about thirty in my group. They're pretty healthy, and... honestly just keep me busy. I supply wool for a luxury boutique one of the other residents owns. I hire out if I need time away, reach out to others in Homei when I need stuff I can't get through the mail. Not too busy otherwise, seeing as I have a town-sized plot of land to myself."

I nod, remembering the other buildings I saw on the GPS. "And how do you have Internet?"

"Internet?"

"I'm able to use my phone. Well, Maps on my phone, at least. It showed me what this place is called. So there's gotta be some kind of global positioning system, but this isn't..." I dumbly make the shape with my hands. "A globe."

He shrugs, cracking eggs into a hot skillet he's set up over the stove. "Couldn't tell you much about that. I've been here since the second quarantine reinstatement came up, not too sure about any advancements they've made. Probably easy to get a satellite or two up."

"About ten years?"

"Eleven." I wonder how to ask him about why he hasn't gone back since they nullified all of that about two months in. Too much money to lobby, and not enough magic left in the district to justify the expense. Oh God. Does he know they didn't go through with it?

"I talk to my family regularly, I know I can go back," Terrell says dryly, reading my face.

"Aiight, I was wondering how to ask," I laugh, the ball of anxiety in my chest fading away. "Okay. Cool."

"Did you want food? First round of eggs are about done, I didn't ask."

I shake my head. "I dunno when I'm leaving, no sense making another plate."

He nods, flipping bread in a second pan. "What do you do? You don't look too stressed to be out here this late in the morning."

"Ah... it's the weekend and I might go in later today, but I work under my mother. She makes designer costumes."

"I remember. Convenient. She's one of the people who can't speak about the... dream travel? Whatever it is?"

"Yeah. It's freaky. They've been trying to find new ways to tell me something, but... the spell goes as far as to paralyze them sometimes."

He leans over the counter with a toasted over easy egg sandwich, and I wonder if he ever sits at the dining room table. "So the woman who caused all this... and who caused the magic leak in Olita... that's who you're talking about seeing."

"Mmhmm. Actually I should call her today, since I've come back so soon. Should probably figure this out sooner rather than later before I actually freeze in your subzero temperatures."

He gives me a wry look before taking a bite, gesturing purposefully at my body with his head. I look down and see my hazy outline. "Huh, usually I only catch it when I'm all the way see-through."

"Mm. This is what I see every damn time. Cuddled up with my sheep."

"I don't cuddle up with your- oh hey, clothes." I start speed-stripping, but his choke of laughter stops me.

"Just keep them so you don't almost die next time you pop up."

I nod, realizing this means wearing them practically every night. They're comfortable enough. I shrug and wave, and fade away.

...

"Took you long enough, D'Mina."

"Hey Grandma. How have you been?"

"We'll talk when you come by in a couple hours. Already spoke with your mother."

She disconnects and I stare at my phone, kind of relieved but more than a little anxious at the thought of meeting with her alone. I never know what I'm going to walk away with, and usually my mother vets things to make sure she hasn't smuggled any spells or wards on or into me.

I swallow my own egg sandwich - Terrell's looked too good not to replicate - and bundle up against the much milder winter weather, compared to the frost of Homei. The drive to my grandmother's house is full of errant thoughts.

Namely, I don't know what to expect. Is this some kind of mission to bring Terrell out of the pocket dimension? He looks pretty happy out there. Or rather, content.

It could be her matchmaking. She's not known for it, but she certainly has the skillset to do something like that. God have mercy on our souls if that's what this is.

"Diramina," my grandmother smiles cheerily, sweeping back with arms wide open in a velour lounge suit and orange crocs. "A lovely young woman on my doorstep."

"Hey Grandma," I smile, stepping into her arms. I can never help but love her as she is. I think that's why she's so dangerous to me.

"How's Terrell? Farm life suiting him?"

"Wh- uh-" I guess we're cutting right to the chase. "Yeah. He's going on eleven years out there now."

She sits down in her favorite loveseat and pours something from a pitcher filled with lemon slices and other plant cuttings into the glass before her. She sips and considers me. "You've been getting along."

I'm trying to maintain a sense of propriety, but she just makes an inquiring face at me and all that's forgotten. "Grandma why do you have me out there in wannabe Alaska. Is this some kind of hookup thing?"

She sprinkles laughter all over the room, but I don't respond to her pretty smile this time. "For the record, the only thing I required of the spell was that it let you get to know someone who wouldn't cause such... explosive reactions. Like your father and mother together."

"Mom says I don't even have-"

"Aht," she interrupts. "It's not expressed, but you have it. She can only detect if it's active. You're very much what the rest of us are."

Well, oh no. But I have other questions. "So. You decided to take matters into your own hands."

She shakes her head, sipping idly on her tea.

"No. I made it so I hopefully wouldn't have to take it into my hands again. Olita was a...." she lets a giggle spill. "Well it was glorious. But people were suffering."

I nod, and cross my arms. "How about - instead of secretly hexing people when they're children with incredibly traumatic, inconvenient spells, we just take our potential matches to you? Like a normal person with a DNA test to make sure they're not siblings?"

She only smiles. And I realize that it probably would be no fun for her. With that, I'm ready to leave. Time to wrap it up.

"Okay, the spell decided to bring me to... a match. Just a potential match?"

She wiggles in her seat. "Mm... well it probably leaned towards him since he was already associated with the family. Magic is lazy by nature, didn't wanna look too hard."

"Well now I know. I'm dragging whoever I choose to you now that I know, so prepare for that. I get the reasoning, Grandma, but you have to know you're whipping this family around in the dark when they don't deserve it."

She considers this statement, nods, and refills her glass. "That could be right. We won't know for a while. You have one more question though."

I nod, irritated. "What am I supposed to do to make all this transportation stop, then? Could you release the hex? He clearly didn't ask for this, neither did I. I keep showing up in his goddamn barn in the middle of the night with no clothes on. I almost froze this time."

She rises. "You're going more often?"

She walks by me and I sigh. "This time it only took three days until it pulled me back."

"Mm. Well I could put in a few suggestions to the spell, but it's happy right now. So I can only assume you're happy."

"Grandma."

She laughs a full laugh, almost wheezing at the end of it. I step back, and when she lifts her head to me, I know I've either stayed too long or pushed a bit too far.

"Diramina. You know your parents named you 'Unlike Mina?' Trying to manifest that you wouldn't be an absolute terror of a person."

"Grandma..." I grab her hand, and she squeezes it, but I can tell she's not even fighting the magic's hold. "Yes, I know. I just wanna know if there's something I can do to make it stop, or how I can make it easier on myself. I can't keep going like this."

She pulls me in for a hug, and I shiver because I know I can't really say no to it. I need to keep reminding myself to not cause offense right now, or else I'll walk away with three more hexes than I started with. She pets my hair, and pulls me back to look at my face. What she sees makes her laugh again. "I'll adjust the hex a bit. And you choose when you stop going. The spell will have fulfilled its duty of providing you with an option that won't cause any major... difficulties."

She says this on a wistful sigh, and I wonder if she enjoyed punting my father's satyr body into several trees on that day in town, as he's told me.

"Grandma, how do I choose," I plead. She ushers me back into the hallway, and I frantically pace through my mind to see if all my questions have been answered. "Or... you know what, I'll figure it out. Are there anymore spells on me that none of us know about? You almost gave my parents a heart attack."

She grins, turning me around once I'm out the door. The house behind her seems hazy, and for a minute I'm scared that I'm going back already. But I realize, it's just the atmosphere shifting around from the presence of the magic. Her eyes look even wilder, and I fight to not step back from her hold.

"Mm. Tell them that their communication hex has the usual cure. And when you stop wanting that man is when you stop going. Clear enough?"

I only have time for an incredulous look before she eases back into a gust of wind and halfway dances off into it, the door sliding closed behind her.

...

"That was the first thing we tried," my mother nearly shouts. "Okay. Whatever. Thank you, baby," she adds, before yelling for my father from the other room. "We need the buckets again."

He laughs. "Really?"

Watching them haul buckets of cold water over each other's heads with straight faces is not the strangest thing I've seen today, but it's still strange.

"Alright," my father shivers. "Terry Sheffield. Homei. That crazy b... my mother-in-law. Dreamwalking." He takes the towel my mother offers him, his breath a cloud before him. "Guess it wasn't gonna work until she wanted it to."

My mother nods, already swaddled in her towel and storming back towards the house.

"So she's told you, in her own words, everything that's happened?"

"Pretty much. She cast that I'd get to know... a potential significant other? So what happened with you guys wouldn't happen with me and she wouldn't have to interfere again."

"So she betrothed you to a kid she leases to?" my dad's still standing, shaking, in the kitchen, too angry and not cold enough yet to go change.

"She said the magic just provided me with the nearest option. Although Homei's a whole dimension away... leases to?"

"Homei is her property," my mother says, sweeping back into the room in a puffy floor-length robe and handing my father a larger, identical one.

"Shit."

"All that bullshit about not wanting it to happen again when one of her tenants is a direct effect of all that mess," my father bellyaches.

"Baby-"

"I know, Sandra. We can go over it all we want but I still think the leak was on purpose. I'm grateful she did what she did, you know that. But she's dragging our daughter into this to patch up what she did wrong."

There's a beat in the air, and I feel five years old, watching them stare each other down. "Eyes full of words," he mutters, looking away from her. "Anyway, D'Mina, are you okay? Did she tell you how to stop it?"

"She said something about choosing not to go, and not wanting the man. But it makes no sense, because who chooses to get ripped out of their bed and tossed into Siberia? Terrell's okay once you get to know him, but I didn't know that when I was being dragged there every few weeks."

My mother's face shifts, interest dancing across it. "He's... okay?"

My father makes an about face when I immediately glare at her, and he hustles out of the room, suddenly cold and wet enough to go change into his robe.

"Really, Ma?"

"It just makes sense, that you were sent there and back for a few moments at a time until the spell could get you both calm enough in the same room to get to know each other. Your grandmother... she tells you magic is lazy all the time. But it's also in love with her. Would do most things for her. It does them very well."

"It was dragging her around the house, last I saw," I grumble. And then I feel bad, because my mother's face falls.

"It's got her again?"

"Sandra, it's always got her. Just tightens its grip up sometimes."

She rolls her eyes as my father reappears behind her, hugging her shoulders and equally ridiculous in his robe.

"Okay. I'm gonna go check on her today, then. D'Mina, it's good that you went to see her," my mother assures me, leaning back into my father. "Bottom line, you know you need to talk to Terry more."

"He doesn't like being called Terry," I say, already thinking about the headache that this conversation is going to give me.

"Ooo," my father croons. "I knew it." I'm trying to ignore them feeling up on each other now, but when my mother starts giggling I start for the door.

"I'll see y'all later, bye!"

"Ask him to dinner!" My father calls after me. Mom giggles again as I'm racing down the steps, and I think I hear the door close much in the same way as my grandmother's did, but there's no way I'm looking back to see.

...

I show up to work and my mother smiles at me from behind a draped-up mannequin.

"Doing the tulle for the Faecon dress today?"

I nod, yawning. "Bane of my existence."

"Again, we could always switch."

"Nothing would make me feel worse," I call out from the shadowy project closet. Watching her magic gather the tulle in an hour tops when it takes me days to do it by hand would have me absolutely sick.

I hear her tinkling laugh and watch my own hazy hand grab for the garment bag the fabric should be in.

"Shit." I rush back into the room. "Ma, I think I'm going now?!"

She looks up at me and her face goes long. "I thought it only happened in your sleep?"

"It did. Grandma said she would make suggestions to the spell, I guess this is what she meant? I-" I've got tears of frustration in my voice. "Okay. I don't know when I'll be back, but don't touch that fabric!"

My mother rushes over to hug me, remembering to slip her pincushion off her wrist before she does. "Okay, baby, tell him we said hi."

I feel her arms literally closing through me, and she looks like she'd snatch me back if she could.

It's just like closing your eyes, I find. When the darkness blinks away, I'm standing in the middle of the hallway at Terrell's house. And I'm dizzy.

"Hey? Terr- ah." Very dizzy. I sway a little bit and spread my feet a bit to balance myself, but it doesn't help. My legs kind of slump under me, and I sink to the floor, but it ends in a loud thud anyway.

"Well damn," I hear behind me.

I turn my head, eyes cracked against the blinding light of day coming through the open door behind him. "In the house this time, I'm moving up in the world."

The dogs file in behind him, covered in snow, and push forward to snuffle at my face. I flinch. "Cold! Frank, you're cold, baby."

I'm snatched up under my arms and pulled off the ground, startlingly close to Terrell's creased face. "What happened? Why are you here, you hurt?" My vision swims.

"Whoa, hold on, I'm trying to get myself together. Gimme a minute." He continues to hold me up and look me over, almost dangling me above the ground like a toddler until my legs regain their footing. "Okay. I'm good."

"It's eight am."

"Yeah, I was at work, but I think my grandmother - well I know my grandmother manipulated the spell so I appear in the house. I guess the time changed too, so it's not when I'm asleep. I almost regret asking her."

"Did she know it would do that?"

"Who knows what that woman knows. But uh... I spoke to her this weekend, and I've got answers? If you're not busy."

He stares hard into my eyes, and I feel like I'm in trouble. "Snowstorm coming in today, everybody's indoors."

I nod, and sigh, already embarrassed about the conversation to come. "Well." He doesn't move, and I'm still wrapped up in his arms, now less supportive and more just resting on the sides of my body. I can feel his still-gloved fingers sliding down in a relaxed hold above my chest.

He wakes up then, dropping his hands at his sides and methodically removing his outerwear. I don't want to feel the way I do, especially knowing it's the exact reason why the magic keeps dragging my ass back here. "Go on and sit, gotta check the dogs' feet," he huffs as he bends over to start on the boots.

I walk down the hall and actually see the living room now that I'm not distracted by crippling cold like last time. It's nice. Looks like he spends a lot of time in there. There's a TV, and even though he can't explain how he has wifi I'm betting he's got at least one or two streaming services he watches faithfully.

"Can I meddle around in your kitchen?"

"Don't start any fires," is the response, and I set about scavenging for anything I can make into a meal. Potatoes; no greens, but he does have frozen broccoli. Canned beans; an army of seasonings with many duplicates at various levels of use.

I get excited when I see the flour and baking soda, and grab a kind-of sorry-looking lemon out of the fridge that I'd spied before. Don't need yeast at all. I go into a sort of determined haze setting things up for the next twenty minutes, and when I'm through, the potatoes are chopped and soaking, the beans are simmering in marinara sauce that is probably way too acidic for my gut, and dough is rising in a bowl on the counter.

"You know if you disappear in the next thirty minutes, I'll have no idea how to complete any of this."

Terrell leans up against the countertop, watching me sip tea with the remains of the lemon juice that I didn't use in the bread.

"Just gotta throw all this stuff in the pot together and put the loaf in the oven," I reason. "It's gonna be ready to bake in about fifteen minutes, done in about forty."

A shrug and a smile from him, and a grimace from me as I decide to shatter the atmosphere, my blood jumping too much for my comfort. "My grandmother owns Homei."

His smile begins to fade a bit, but he doesn't look extremely disturbed by the news. "Crazy lady, decent landlord. Why's she sending you here?"

A nervous smile splits across my face, and he looks at me suspiciously. "Some convoluted version of blind dating. Basically."

This time he frowns. "For... she didn't think you'd find anybody back home so she blasted you off the face of the planet?"

A short, even more nervous burst of laughter runs through my lips, and I press my cold hands to my hot cheeks. "My father and mother's magic was so reactive that he went crazy. My great grandmother was a warlord, my name is literally a ward against hers; I guess we generally have trouble not ending the world. So my grandmother thought it'd be a good idea to cast a spell on me, probably while I was still a baby, to find a nonreactive partner."

His face is priceless.

"I am so, so sorry."

"Does this have something to do with me living in Homei?"

"The magic chose somebody pretty close to home... connection-wise, apparently... who fit the description. But listen, it doesn't really mean anything. She said it was an option, not an official thing. So you can pretty much forget I said anything."

He looks the youngest I've ever seen him, mouth flopping open and shut, and unable to formulate a gruff and grumpy response. I completely shutter my hands over my face, overcome with embarrassment. I hear the dogs romping around in one of the other rooms, and the bubbling of the pot of beans behind me. I want to toss myself into it.

"Please just get angry. Or tell me I'm lying. You have no reason to believe anything I'm saying."