LOST

Papers rustled and the legs of chairs scooted as class let out and students began to stand up. “So, is Alex short for Alexis or Alexandra?” asked the guy seated next to her in class, leaning close, competing with the chatter around them.

“It’s short for Alex,” she replied as she stood up and slung her backpack over her shoulder.

“You don’t have to be a smart-aleck,” the guy said, standing up himself. “I was going to ask for your phone number,” he said as he turned his back on her and walked toward the door of the lecture hall.

“Yeah, well, you don’t have to be an idiot. I wouldn’t have given you my number, anyway.”

Her Irish red hair suited her fiery personality—nearly to a fault. Sarcasm had always been Alex McDaniel’s strongest trait and now she was benefiting from a small jolt of energy that showed itself through a slight bounce in her step. Though, as she stepped outside the door, her thoughts suddenly became more introspective.

As afternoon classes let out at Central Piedmont Community College, Alex stood still on the sidewalk, letting the other students file passed her. She wore brown jeans, a black My Chemical Romance t-shirt and an olive green cardigan sweater. Even though she owned a car, rather than deal with the chaos that is afternoon Charlotte traffic and to do her part for the environment, she always took the bus to and from school. As she waited, she took the opportunity and enjoyed a moment of reflection. She thought about how far she’d come in the last three years, the things she’d lost along the way and also the knowledge she had gained—both in the classroom and out.

Her parents had kicked her out of the house in the middle of her senior year of high school, at which point she had a 4.0 grade-point-average, for refusing to go to church past her eighteenth birthday. Her parents were strict Southern Baptists and their views of how a young woman should act did not match Alex’s. Her grandmother offered to move her to Virginia, but Alex wanted to finish school in Charlotte. Her grandmother promised to send her money every month for rent and food as long as she stayed out of trouble. Alex kept her 4.0 and graduated with honors and scholarship money.

Now, she was a semester and a half away from an Associate’s degree in Graphic Design and as she began to walk to the bus stop, tears of sadness ran down her cheek alongside tears of pride. She wished she had a better relationship with her parents, but she was just as stubborn as they were and neither side was willing to step up and apologize. Her face glistened in the afternoon sun, which was now brown and cloudy with the exhaust from the city bus that had just pulled away… without her on it. This was the third time in a row she had missed the bus, and the fifth in two weeks. Just like all the times before, she chose to walk the ten blocks to her apartment rather than wait a half hour for the next bus, each time wishing she were less environmentally aware so she could drive her car guilt-free.

Wiping away her tears with her sleeve, she hiked the strap of her backpack high on her shoulder, let out a sigh and started walking, holding her head up as though this had been her plan all along.

She had gotten used to her lifelong cliché of always being at the right place at the wrong time. Countless times, she had misread her schedule or calendar and showed up for class an hour early, an hour late, a day late. Luckily, she managed to get into a groove, as far as her classes were concerned, and started to show up on time, but the rest of her life was as mixed up as a slide puzzle in the hands of a three-year old.

As she walked down the street, she had to remind herself to pick up her prescription from the drugstore, which was just around the corner from her apartment building.

“It’d be my luck to get all the way home and then have to go back out to pick it up. At least I remembered now.”

Wiz had been known by many names over the years, depending on where he was and whom he called friend. Modeos, son of Thórólfr was his given name, which was a fine, strong name for an eighth century nomad of Greek-Norse heritage, but as the centuries passed and he traveled from country to country searching for his brother, standing out was something he tried to avoid.

He picked up the nickname ‘Wiz’ from a man in England whom he had met in a tavern in the early part of the twentieth century and had several conversations about mythology, heroes and the lack thereof at that time. The man—John was his name—said he reminded him of a wandering wizard, minus the long, white hair and beard. They had fought together in the trenches of the Western Front in World War I as a member of the Lancashire Fusiliers, a British infantry regiment. Any free time they had, when John wasn’t writing to his wife, they spent talking about elves, goblins and worlds older than this one. John caught trench fever and was bedridden for the remainder of the war. Wiz never saw him again. When his journey brought him to America, the port authority gave him a new name, but he had since forgotten what that name was and chose to simply be known as Wiz.

He was reminded of those tavern and battlefield conversations as he sat at the counter of the greasy spoon diner Regan had found, though he doubted the old man sitting next to him, slurping his beef with vegetable soup, cared much for listening to a stranger go on about mythology and heroes.

Wiz stared at the plate in front of him. Nothing left of his French toast but a few bits of fried egg and a smearing of syrup. “I wonder whatever happened to old John,” Wiz thought. “Oh, well. There are more important things to tend right now. What time is it?” Wiz said to himself as he looked for a clock on the wall. “One forty-five. I still have that itch in my stomach. I hate waiting around for something to happen.”

“Excuse me, Miss,” Wiz said, gesturing for the buxom waitress to assist him, though he had to force himself to look at her eyes.

“Whatcha need, Hon? You want some more coffee?” the waitress replied in a sweet, yet bold, country accent.

“Uhh, sure. Do you think you could make that to go?” Goose, who had been lying beside his feet, sat up and stretched his neck, lifting his front paws off the ground a little to peer over the counter and see if there were any scraps to be had.

“Sure, sweetie.” She reached up to the shelf behind her and grabbed a styrofoam cup. “Busy day today?” she asked as she poured steaming coffee into the cup.

“Yeah. A little,” Wiz replied.

“I think your dog’s still hungry,” she said and gave Goose a wink as she headed toward the back, likely to get a few pieces of bacon.

“I appreciate it, Ma’am. Goose? Yeah, he probably is hungry. He’s always hungry.” He reached into his pants pocket and instead of feeling a bunch of wadded bills, he pulled out a Starlight mint that was sealed in its wrapper with a sugary gel and a little bit of lint. He had forgotten that he never did get that sword pawned. An attempt to conjure money brought nothing but four pennies and a quarter. Disappointed, he looked at the waitress and confessed, “I’m sorry. I thought I had some cash on me. Can I come back later and pay you then?”

“I’ll spot you,” the old man next to him piped up.

“The kindness of strangers never ceases to amaze me,” he said, turning toward the man.

“No worries. You just looked like the kind of person who would do the same for me. That’s all,” the old man said as he put a five-dollar bill on the counter.

“Well, I appreciate it immensely,” Wiz said as he took his jacket off the chair back. The man beside him replied only by nodding his head and blinking as he slurped a spoonful of soup. Wiz felt a tapping on his shoulder and an ever-so-gentle flutter of wings by his ear. Wiz looked to his left shoulder and, sitting there impatiently, was Regan.

“Come on. Hurry,” the faerie frantically whispered.

Wiz put his jacket on and turned back to the waitress as she handed him his coffee cup and a white, paper bag with grease stains around the bottom, and then to the old man, “You two have a wonderful day. Thank you again, sir, for the coffee and breakfast… oh, and the doggie bag.” Wiz reached down for Goose’s leash and quickly headed for the door, carefully trying not to spill his coffee. Regan flew close behind him.

“What? What is it?” Wiz asked once outside the door.

“We have to stop them.”

“Who do we have to stop? Tell me what’s going on!” Wiz demanded, suddenly very alert.

“I saw three men sitting outside a coffee shop down the street. They were talking about kidnapping someone.”

“What does that have to do with us, exactly? I’m not a superhero. It is not my job to fight crime. Right now, my job is to find Xamn. That is all.”

“We can’t just let them kidnap someone. You have magic. You can stop them. You have to stop them, Wizzy! Come. I’ll show you.”

“I’m going to pull your wings off if you keep calling me ’Wizzy,’” he scolded her as he hurried after her down the sidewalk. “I swear on Odin’s good eye,” Wiz said under his breath, shaking his head, “if she gets me in the middle of something I can’t easily get out of…”