Three Wishes(10)

And he’d made absolutely certain sure Lily’s was the best of all.

Something else must be happening with this… Nate.

Fazire peered at his mistress and made his decision.

Decision made, he declared, “Then we must go and find him.”

* * * * *

Fazire walked up the short staircase to the beautiful white house that Lily told him was something called “Georgian”. It had black shutters and in every window there were window boxes filled so full with startling red geraniums, you couldn’t tell where one flower stopped and the other started. Each box was trailing lacy, green ivy. There were fancy wrought iron fences in front of each house all were painted a shiny, perfect black.

All the houses looked exactly the same. It was almost as if they had a pact that everyone on the whole street would have the same coloured geraniums with trailing ivy so the street would look tidy and splendiferous.

Fazire very much wanted to hate this place called England and he was pretty certain he’d really hate London for although Jim had found his bottle in a market in London, Fazire had actually come from a bazaar in Morocco and never been released in Europe at all. But even though some of London was rather shocking, busy, grimy and graffiti-filled, this street was quite lovely.

During their terrifying plane ride (neither Lily nor Fazire had a good time on that plane after what happened to Becky and Will, and it had far more than two engines), Lily told him some people lived in this house that knew her Nate, a man and woman named Victor and Laura. She said they were nice people, kind and caring and they’d taken care of her after Nate had saved her life. Or, she’d understated the story when Fazire had been struck dumb at the idea that her life was in danger, and she explained this Nate saved her and her purse from a purse snatcher.

Lily was nervous, he could see her shaking and he stood two steps behind her. He was certain everything would be all right. This Nate had come to her through Fazire’s wish so of course it would be all right.

She knocked, using the hoop that went through a brass lion’s face nose. Fazire thought that was peculiar, he’d never seen a lion with a hoop through its nose but he figured he’d mention that titbit later maybe use it as an opening gambit to some future conversation with Lily’s Nate.

A dark-haired woman answered the door. Fazire was surprised that she was young, not much older than Lily. She was also crying, her face wet with tears and a mottled red with the force of her emotion. Fazire thought she might have been pretty without the tear-stained face but then decided she was not when she looked at Lily and her face contorted with repugnance and her eyes filled with hate.

“Oh, hello, Danielle, I was…” Lily paused then asked, “Are you all right?”

Lily stopped speaking and Fazire heard her voice was concerned as she lost all track of their quest and asked after the girl who was looking at her with such venom. Fazire wanted to grab Lily back but he stayed where he was in order to let her do what she needed to do.

“No, I’m not all right,” the girl snapped. “What are you doing here, Lily?”

Fazire found himself thinking these people who lived here weren’t very kind and caring at all.

Lily hesitated, somehow not surprised at this reaction from the woman, then she went on. “This is a little embarrassing but I had to leave town unexpectedly and now that I’m back, I went to Nate’s and his doorman says he doesn’t live there anymore. I was just –”

The woman didn’t allow her to finish, her face changed to what looked somewhat sly and scheming to Fazire but he lost those thoughts at the next words she said.

“Nate’s dead,” Danielle informed them coldly.

Then, without further ado, she slammed the door right in Lily’s face.

Lily stood staring at the door, frozen to the spot.

Fazire stood behind her, just as frozen.

And then, after what seemed like an age (and Fazire had lived many of them so he knew exactly how they felt), slowly she turned and stopped and simply stared down at him, every bit of colour had drained from her face.

Two years ago she’d lost her beloved grandmother. Barely two months ago she’d lost her parents. Now her new beloved boyfriend, the romantic hero that was supposed to sweep her off her feet and at the sound of their meeting and courtship he certainly did that, and love her more than the earth was dead.

She was twenty-two years old, pregnant with only a genie to call family.

And the expression on her face showed every bit of that pain and agony.

Fazire ascended the two last steps and carefully put his arm around her fragile, tense shoulders.

“Let’s get home,” he murmured to his Lily-child.

She didn’t move. In fact she seemed rooted to the spot.

Then she whispered, “But Fazire, where’s home?”

He had no answer for that, for he didn’t know.

Then it came to him.

“Wherever we make it, my lovely.”

PART TWO

Chapter Four

Nathaniel

There were no genies in Nathaniel McAllister’s life.

Nathaniel’s father died before he was born. A knife fight in a pub brawl that had started because of his father’s bad temper and penchant for fisticuffs and ended with him in a pool of his own blood.

Not that Nathaniel’s mother, Deirdre, would have known that was his father. It could have been one of three, maybe even four, candidates. She did figure it out in a hazy way as he grew older and she’d look at her son and had some recollection of that drunken, drug-fuelled night with his tall, lean, muscular, good-looking father.