Page 8 of Taken By the Twins

Hell, yeah. Sign me the fuck up!

A laugh escapes me. I know it can’t be real. Sierra’s probably practicing for her role as a lovesick, lonely woman using magic to find her true love instead of relying on online dating. It’s an amazing dupe, though, so props to the, well,propdepartment, I guess.

The little details really make you second-guess if a spell book could actually exist. From the names scrawled on the inner cover to the translation beneath the title, and even the added comments in the margin…

Lifting the book closer to my face, completely ignoring the fact that my last eye doctor appointed revealed I’ll need reading glasses sooner or later, I see that the same doodler marked two individual paragraphs. Each one is written in a language unlike any I’ve ever seen before, but the notes are in English. Next to the top paragraph, it says ‘manifest’. The second claims it’s a ‘promise’. There’s also a drawing of a pentacle, and something about using white chalk and salt to create it or something…I don’t know. I’m more fascinated by the idea that this could possibly be an actual true love spell.

Isn’t that what prop departments do? To make it as realistic as possible, they do their research.

Now, do I believe that, if I read these two paragraphs out loud, my true love is going to walk through Sierra’s apartment door, whisk me off of my feet, and carry me off to our happily ever after.

Ha. Not a chance.

But if it, I don’t know, helps the right guy somehow find me? I wouldn’t say no.

Can you believe it? Deep down, Tandy Lewis still is holding out hope that there might be someone out there for her. I’ve always figured I was just too much for one man to handle, but what if there was really someone out there for me? Who’ll love me, never betray me, and want me for me?

What if I have a true love?

I don’t bother with chalk. Salt? This isn’t my place, and even if it was the hotel I’ve been renting for the run of my latest show, I rarely use the condiment. I might have a couple of those tiny packets from my take-out orders, but that’s it. Enough to draw that five-point star with the circle around it? Unlikely.

Besides. Nothing’s going to happen, and I begin reading the strange words even while I believe that.

The sounds make no sense. The syllables are harsh, and some of the words make me feel like I’d be better off gargling rocks than attempting to read them. Part of me thinks that, even if itdidwork, I’m butchering the language so badly, the spell will fail regardless.

Um. Spoiler alert.

Itdoesn’t.

To my surprise, something actually does start to happen after I finish the first paragraph.

It’s December in the city, where my teeth chattered all the way to the front door because my dress is so short and the temperature is so fucking cold out right now. It was warmer inside the climate-controlled apartment, but as my eyes travel to the second paragraph—the ‘promise’ part—it seems like the heat kicked in or something.

Sweat forms at the base of my spine, my meticulously styled hair started to curl a little in the sudden blast of powerful warmth. Like when you walk past an open oven and get a face full of hot air, it slams into my back.

There’s only one light on in the apartment. It’s a cooler shade of white, but the living room I’m in becomes awash with orange by the time I’m halfway through the second paragraph.

Then, just as quickly, the room shadows over. It’s so dark, I think Sierra came in and turned off the light to catch my attention.

I spin on my heel, searching for her?—

—and that’s when I see a large… circle, I guess? I don’t know. There’s, like, this giant hole on the other side of Sierra’s gaudy chaise. Dark on the edges, but full of flames in the middle, my brain goes:fire.

If it is a fire, it’s contained. The flames lap at the edge of the massive pit hovering about two inches over the floor.

“What the?—”

Something flickers out of the corner of my eye. Turning slightly, I notice something strange in the shadows that have fallen over that side of Sierra’s living room.

Unless I’ve lost my fucking mind—and considering what led me to this exact moment in time, I very easily could have—there is a… a… afigurestanding in the middle of the shadows.

I stare, and the shadowsmove.

CHAPTER 4

I PROMISED?

TANDY

---