Misfortune Teller

Chapter 2-1

Chapter TwoI put my spoon down. “I just heard a voice in my head.”

“Yeah,” Felix says.

“Join the club.” Ariel beams again.

My stomach clenches. “It’s a symptom of psychosis,” I say to no one in particular.

“Not if your roommates have been conversing with the same voice in their heads.” Felix winks at me. “So unless it’s a group psychosis…”

“No jokes,” I say to Felix, then look at Fluffster intently. “You were saying?”

“I was trying to emphasize how sorry I am for your loss.” The voice in my head is as soothing to my brain as Fluffster’s fur is to my skin. Even the hangover recedes slightly, though it could be the Tylenol taking effect.

I stare at my pet as though I’m seeing him for the first time.

He stares back at me, standing unnaturally still.

“You better start at the beginning.” I rub my brow. “Why are you sorry? And what did I lose?”

Fluffster now gives Felix a penetrating stare.

“Fine,” Felix says to the chinchilla after a moment. “I’ll help you.” Turning his attention to me, he says, “So, he doesn’t remember this, but when we first moved in together, he had a transparent form that Ariel and I would sometimes spot. We thought maybe he was a ghost at first—”

“Wait, ghosts exist too?” I look at Fluffster, who seems to shrug his tiny furry shoulders.

“There are many Cognizant who can be invisible to people not under the Mandate,” Ariel says. “A few groups have the characteristics of mythical ghosts—but they are never souls of departed humans, so in the strictest sense, ghosts do not exist.”

“Fine,” I say, at a loss for words yet again. “Let’s get back to the domovoi. You two saw him, and I couldn’t because of the Mandate.”

“Correct.” Felix smiles. “You’re catching on very quickly.”

“And what did he look like?” I skeptically examine the squirrel-bunny-like creature in front of me.

“A bit scary, actually,” Ariel blurts out, then gives Fluffster an apologetic look. “But Felix’s dad explained that it was a domovoi, and that they protect the dwelling they inhabit.”

Felix nods and shoves away his plate. “It’s considered a huge blessing for a Russian household to have one.”

“I understand,” I say, though I don’t really. “What did you mean when you said he doesn’t remember? Do these domovoi have memory problems?”

“Right.” Felix shifts in his seat. “It all happened the night you got the original chinchilla.”

He looks at Fluffster pointedly, who seems to shake his head.

“As far as Ariel and I could puzzle out,” Felix continues, “the creature you got from the pet store had a seizure the very first night you brought him home, so the domovoi saved it, sort of, by taking its embodiment.”

“Fluffster had a seizure?” I look at my pet uncomprehendingly.

“I’m so sorry,” says the voice in my head. “My very first memory is trying to save the little creature’s life. The damage to his brain was too severe for my powers to repair, so I took his body.”

“You took his body,” I say dumbly. “So he’s dead?”

“I think that’s a philosophical question,” Felix says. “If this body were killed, the domovoi would be incorporeal again, so to me that implies the animal is still alive—or his body is, at least.”

I rub my temples.

“The key thing to remember,” Ariel says, “is that the being you know as Fluffster has pretty much always been the domovoi. And though he couldn’t tell you the truth about his nature, he’s always tried to be what you wanted him to be—a companion.”

I try to wrap my mind around that and wish for the millionth time that I weren’t so hungover. With the headache squeezing my brain out of my head, I’m having trouble deciphering how I should feel. Do I mourn the chinchilla I’d only known for one evening, or do I feel grateful to the domovoi for all the joy he’s brought me?

“He didn’t do that good of a job pretending to be a mere animal,” I say after a pause. “I always thought he was the smartest pet who’s ever lived.”

Fluffster proudly lifts his chin and chirps excitedly. In my mind, he says, “Thank you, Sasha.”

“You’re welcome,” I say, and giggle hysterically as I picture someone who isn’t one of my roommates witnessing this conversation. “So where did you come from?”

“I don’t remember,” Fluffster says and hungrily stares at my bowl of unfinished oatmeal.

I dip my spoon into the oatmeal and offer it to Fluffster. With a chirp, the chinchilla-domovoi grabs a clump and puts it in his mouth.

“Do either of you know where he came from?” I ask Ariel and Felix while Fluffster is eating.

“He didn’t talk to us when he wasn’t embodied,” Felix says. “Just kind of spooked me a few times.”

“At first, we thought he was Felix’s family’s domovoi.” Ariel sips her coffee. “Until Felix asked his dad about that.”

“Yeah,” Felix says as he gets up—probably to make himself a cup of coffee. “My dad says our domovoi lives in my grandfather’s house in Yakutsk, Russia. My best guess is that some Cognizant from Russia once lived in this apartment and had the domovoi, and when he died, he left the entity here. I think they follow people in certain families, but if no one is left, they stick with the house itself.”

Ariel looks like the proverbial lightbulb just lit up above her head. “You know,” she says. “Back when we pondered all this, we didn’t know Sasha was a Cognizant. But since she is, there’s a more intriguing possibility for Fluffster’s origin. He could be hers.”

“You’re right.” Felix places his coffee mug on the table, his eyes shining with excitement. “That would mean we have the first ever clue about Sasha’s heritage.” He looks at me. “Could you be from Russia?”

“Your parents always said that Sasha is a Slavic name,” Ariel says to him. “So it’s feasible that—”

My mouth literally hangs open as their words penetrate the haze of my hangover.

A clue about my heritage.

The mere thought triggers a cascade of hard-to-identify emotions that I should probably discuss with Lucretia, the Cognizant shrink at my work.

I’ve known I was adopted from the very beginning, so I’ve obviously wondered who my biological parents were and what happened to them. However, Mom (my adoptive one) wasn’t a big fan of such questions. She thought they meant I wasn’t happy with her and Dad. That logic was faulty, though, since I was happy with my new family—I just wanted to know who my real parents were.

When I was little, instead of counting sheep, I would regularly ponder questions about my biological parents as I was falling asleep. Did they lose me, or did they abandon me? If they abandoned me, was it because I somehow deserved it? Who are they? Where are they? What were they doing at JFK airport on that fateful day? The list of questions grew as I got older, until I learned to suppress my curiosity—as many of the possibilities were too painful to contemplate.

Now that I know I’m a Cognizant, however, I need to revisit the topic. The Council didn’t seem to have a clue as to my origins, and to quote Gaius, “not for lack of trying.” The good news is that being a Cognizant has shrunk the pool of potential candidates for my parents dramatically, as we are only a percent of a percent of the total world’s population.

On top of that, one or both of my parents were seers, which narrows it down even more. And now there might be something else I can latch on to: the domovoi, a.k.a. a Russian connection, assuming Fluffster really is—

“Sasha?” Felix says worriedly. “Are you there?”

“Sorry,” I say, shaking my head in the hopes of clearing it.

“It must be a sensitive subject for you,” Ariel says, lowering her voice in sympathy. “I’m sorry I just blurted—”

“No,” I say. “This is indeed an interesting idea. Does a domovoi have to ‘belong’ to a Cognizant household? What if he was living in the household of one of my adoptive parents?”

“I have no idea,” Felix says.

“I have to find that out,” I say. “Is there any way to make Fluffster remember what happened before he became furry? A way to verify that he really lived with my biological parents? Because if so, maybe he’d remember who they were—”

“I’d love to remember, but I just don’t,” Fluffster says mentally, and there’s a large dose of sadness in his words—which I guess is less odd compared to his mental voice affecting an accent.

Ariel looks at Felix, who shrugs and says, “I think you might want to talk to my dad about all this. I’d never met a domovoi before this apartment, but Dad knew the one at my grandfather’s house.”

“Okay,” I say and realize all this—or pills and liquids and food—has made my hangover recede. “I’d like to meet your dad for lunch sometime this week and see what he might know. I want to be sure Fluffster isn’t here because of your family. Besides, maybe your dad knows a way to jar Fluffster’s memory.”

“He’d be thrilled to have lunch with you,” Felix says, then grimaces. “My mom might not be as excited, though. You know how jealous she gets.”

In Felix’s mom’s defense, his dad does seem to enjoy the company of females a little too much—and that includes me, though at least he’s not as weird around me as he is around Ariel. I think I saw him drool when he first met her.

“Maybe a family lunch?” I say. “This way, your mom would be there to supervise.”

“Sure,” Felix says. “But you’ll regret adding Mom to it. Despite what I keep telling her, she still thinks we’re together.”

Ariel chuckles, and I just shake my head. His mom actually thinks both of us, Ariel and I, are with Felix. I’m not sure if it’s because polygamy is a thing in Uzbekistan, or because she’s convinced her son is irresistible to women—or both.

“Great,” I say. “I’m going to research who owned this apartment before us, and if they were Russian. I’ll also find out if my adoptive parents have any Russian heritage, or had pets, or, for that matter, if they are Cognizant—since we do tend to attract each other.”

“Your mom doesn’t have the Mandate glow,” Felix says. “But I’ve never met your adoptive dad.”

“It’s unlikely that a Cognizant would marry a human,” Ariel says.

“Then again, they did divorce,” Felix says and yelps in pain. Ariel must’ve kicked him under the table.

I exhale a relieved sigh. If Mom were also Cognizant, I don’t know what I’d do.

I eat another spoonful of breakfast and give Fluffster the next one. “I have to head to work soon, so we’ll have to set up the lunch via text.”

“Sure thing,” Felix says, taking out his phone. “Let me call the family units.”

“Are you going to finish your oatmeal?” Fluffster asks in my head.

“No.” I push the plate toward him. “You’re welcome to it.”

“I’m actually full,” Fluffster says but walks up to the oatmeal and gives it a mournful glare. “I guess I’ll eat it. It’s a shame to throw away perfectly good food.”

“Felix poured too much for me as usual,” I say. “He thinks my stomach is as big as his.”

Fluffster looks at Felix’s unfinished plate disapprovingly. “That boy is going to bring this household to financial ruin.”

Felix pretends to be busy with the phone, but I can see he’s trying to suppress a grin as he mouths to me, “Welcome to the dictatorship.”

“I heard that,” Fluffster says in my head—and given Felix’s reaction, it’s clear he heard the thought too, proving that the domovoi can send thoughts to multiple people at once.

“Hi, Mom,” Felix says into the phone. Covering the mouthpiece, he tells us, “Sorry, guys, I’m going to take this in the living room.”

“No respect for his elders,” Fluffster mumbles in my head, darting a grumpy look at Felix’s back.

“I better go,” I say, getting up. “I have stocks to evaluate.”

“Wait,” Fluffster says in my head. “Can I ask for a big favor before you go?”

“Of course, buddy,” I say out loud, and despite the lingering headache, I can’t help but smile. I’m actually having a multidirectional dialog with my pet. “Do you want your dust bath?”

“Felix can help me with the bath,” Fluffster says. “I was hoping you could show me one of your magic tricks. Ariel has told me so much about them, but you’ve never shown any to me.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, blinking. This has to be the first time I’ve been accused of not showing someone my effects. “I didn’t know you would understand—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Fluffster says, his mental voice extra soothing. “It’s just something I’m dying to see.”

Though I really need to rush to work, I don’t think I can say no to such a cute and cuddly spectator. Besides, now that I’m forbidden from performing magic for people not under the Mandate—which is almost all of them—I have to treasure these opportunities.

“Show him the thing you do with the cards,” Ariel says.

“A thing with cards.” I suppress the urge to chastise Ariel for reducing a whole branch of magic to such a triviality. Casually dropping my hands so they’re parallel with my pockets, I say, “Got it. Too bad I don’t have any cards on me. But hey, can you get me a lighter?”

“Here.” Ariel walks up to the kitchen counter and grabs the lighter we keep there in order to relight the stove burners when necessary.