He was still bowed, but his head craned up, the smile again apparent. “Ah, now this is a good wish.” And then he clapped his hands, and a crash of thunder erupted that shook my bones and made my legs bounce. And, well, that was that.
I blinked. I felt the same. “Well?” I asked.
He righted himself. “Think where you would like to be, Paul. It will be as you wished for.”
I blinked again. And in that split second it took my eyelids to lower and rise, we were no longer in the desert. I felt the whoosh of it, felt my body disappear and reappear, felt my very atoms reassemble, all in that split second. I could also feel the sheer power of it. It was, as feelings went, rather nice.
“Mi casa es su casa,” I said to him, aping his bow with one of my own as I set my backpack down on the carpet. Se
