Excerpt of “Resurrecting My Magic” by Timoteo Tong
Copyright 2024 Timoteo Tong

“One night, I sat in the window seat in my room, watching the rain falling outside my window, when I heard a cry for help.

“Someone help me!”

I glanced at the clock: 3:00 AM. I padded to the door, peering outside to the long hallway stretching from Aunt Christine’s suite on one end to Mom’s on the other. The darkness was punctuated every few feet from the dim chandeliers overhead. Silence. The house and everyone in it were asleep except me. I returned to the window.

“Help!” a voice shouted, weaker this time.

“Shit,” I complained. I returned to my room, walked over to the closet, then jammed my feet in my running shoes and headed downstairs. I grabbed my raincoat from the front hall closet and stepped outside.

Where was security? They usually patrolled the grounds at night. Maybe there was a shift change. Rain thundered down on the roof of the veranda and on the brick walkway winding down the front lawn to the main gates. I stepped onto the stairs and into the rain. I hurried to the wrought iron fence separating our property from the street. I paused, noticing a strange pink light illuminating the jacaranda trees lining the street. I turned to see where it was coming from. I gasped. The house glowed with a fluorescent pink light from the runes Mom had recently cast over the house in the Jotomoarlo Sangrancto. The ancient characters  appeared as if projected on the house moving up along the façade and disappearing on the mansard roof.

“Please, help little old me!” a voice called. I looked back at the house. The house was actively fighting some evil force itself. I turned and made my way to the empty street. A half block away, I spotted a figure, shrouded in shadows between the streetlights, waving to me.

“Help! Monsters!”

“I can help you!” I called, patting my pajama pockets for my PlasmX. Puxhàredo! I left it on the dresser in my closet. I stretched out my arm and raised my hand on the off chance my PlasmX would levitate out of my room and into my hands. Nothing happened. Crap. Máurso had drilled it in my head to never be without my PlasmX. And I had forgotten that rule already. I grumbled. Okay, I would just use my fists and body to battle any monster. My Xem Sen Ou improved every week. I was a walking weapon, I told myself.

I closed in on the figure.

“Come and help me.”

The stench of ashes and sulfur wafted into my nose. I gagged. Okay, a chain smoker needed my help. Mom had drilled it into my head to never smoke.

“You want yellow teeth? Wrinkles when you’re eighteen? Smell like cigarettes?”

“No?”

“Good, don’t smoke, ever!”

I could do this. I paused in front of a shadowy figure.

“Elijah Delomary, Bane of the Gloom, here to help..uh..ma’am, sir, they?”

The figure reached up to their hood with their hands, only the skin was blistered and black and oozing. My eyes widened, seeing rotting flesh on their arms. I stopped in my tracks. I began to back away.

“What’s wrong? Don’t you remember me?” A raspy voice called as the hood fell off the head of the figure. The face of an old woman with wrinkled skin and washed-out blue eyes peered at me. Fungus crusted half the woman’s face.

“Come here, honey. It’s me, your great-great aunt Mady!”

I turned and began to run. That couldn’t be Aunt Mady. She had died when I was eight years old at the ripe old age of 102. My foot hit a rut in the sidewalk, sending me tumbling forward. I crashed onto the lawn of my friend Letitia’s house. I sprawled on my back, rain beating down on my face. My heart lodged in my throat. I wanted to cry out for help. I wanted to run, but for some reason, every muscle in my body was paralyzed. I heard the sound of Aunt Mady’s walker clacking on the sidewalk.

“Come and give me a hug, honey!”

I closed my eyes. I should have woken Barn, called Sunny. Security. No, I— Stop, Elijah. You didn’t know any better. You meant well. The path to hell is lined with good intentions. No, stop. Stop. Stop beating yourself up.

The clacking stopped. Aunt Mady, or whoever she was, stood over me. I was helpless. Thunder rumbled. Our twelfth atmospheric river of the rainy season. The vernal equinox passed weeks ago. Springtime. It never rained this much in Southern California. Something was wrong, someone was trying to drown the land of milk and honey. Drown La La Land and wash California into the sea.

Wheezing filled the air. I pressed my eyes closed as a hand reached for me.  A vision bloomed in my head. Two pinpoints of red light that grew and grew and grew filled my mind.

“You proved yourself quite capable,” the voice said. “I was hoping you’d run yourself ragged, trying to prove to yourself you’re not some piece of crap like your father. I hoped to watch you collapse and die. You didn’t. Then I was sure you would give up. You surprised me. So now I am here to destroy you, so Devlina is weakened, and I can grow stronger!”

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