Chapter 7

Andi stared longingly at the photo, “Thank you…”

Madame Zedecker exhaled sadly, “I’m feeling quite tired today, Andi. I think I need to go back to my room.”

“Oh, sure,” Andi got up and gently lifted up her client, who settled into the tall woman’s arms. Andi carrying Madame Zedecker up and down stairs had become a well-practiced skill now.

Once in her wheelchair, the broken woman wordlessly swiveled the chair and headed towards the foyer.

Andi frowned and quickly caught up, “I’ve upset you. Was it the photo? I shouldn’t have said anything about Quinn, I’m sorry.”

“No, Andi, it’s nothing you did. I promise. “

Before Andi could say anything, Kei Shang glided into the foyer.

“Don’t mind me,” he said smoothly, “I was just checking on this…” He laid his hand lovingly on the giant hourglass.

“Oh,” Andi looked at the top bulb, “Is it almost time to turn it?”

Shang chuckled, “There’s still a little time left… but yes, it’s almost come to the end of its run. Stick around, it’ll be quite a sight.”

“Andi was just leaving, actually,” Madame Zedecker stated in a surprisingly blunt manner.

Andi looked at her in surprise, “I am?”

“Yes, Andi, you’ve been working very hard – take the day off… in fact, you don’t have to come back. I’ll have the contract changed so you don’t have to be here anymore.”

Andi stood rooted to the spot, hurt by the abrupt dismissal. This isn’t right. “It’s fine, Madame Zedecker, I have quite a bit to get done – I can take a break later.”

“Andi, go,” Madame Zedecker said wearily, “Please. For me. Go.”

“If you wish it,” Andi said, still confused. She slowly headed out.

“Well, well,” Shang’s simpering whisper was almost too quiet to be heard, “Didn’t you just shoot yourself in the foot.”

Andi drove home and spent the next three days in the cocoon of her room. Her heart was hurting. Her instincts were telling her that she needed to be back at the estate, but her head was telling her to trust Madame Zedecker and comply with the request to stay away from the Estate.

“Andi!” Tina’s shout was muffled, “Lunch!”

Andi sighed and shuffled downstairs to the kitchen and slid into a chair.

“Did something happen at the estate? You’ve been hiding in your room for days now. What’s wrong?” Tina asked.

“Ma, I don’t know. She released me from contractually having to be there, and I don’t know why,” Andi explained for the tenth time, “So I am listening to her and staying away. The end.”

“You keep saying that,” Tina scoffed, “But clearly something’s wrong, you’re behaving like someone just died.”

The beeping of a truck saved Andi from having to answer.

“Are you expecting a delivery?” Tina asked her husband.

“Nope,” Steve said with a mouthful of food, “Let me go check.”

Andi pushed her food around her bowl.

“Still no appetite, huh?” Tina asked.

Tina sighed, “ANDI! You need to stop with this self-pity business. Either talk about it or snap out of it.”

Andi put her chopsticks down. “I don’t know why she sent me away.”

“You miss her.” Tina stated.

“You’ve never missed someone so much that you allow yourself to waste your life away in dreamland.”

“I sleep, but I don’t dream anymore,” Andi muttered. It was true. No matter how hard she willed it to happen, Quinn no longer appeared in her dreams.

“What do you mean you ‘don’t dream anymore’?” Tina was confused.

“Nothing,” Andi waved her hand dismissively.

“Who’s in your dreams?” Tina asked.

Andi shrugged again.

“Madame Zedecker?” Tina was starting to put the pieces together, “En Ming told me to expect this.”

“A Gu curse can make dreams and reality mix together. The fact that you’re having dreams about Madame Zedecker confirms you’re definitely the key to the counter-curse.”

“But I’m not having dreams about Madame Zedecker. I’m having dreams about… someone else. A younger woman.”

Tina frowned. This was unexpected. “Who?”

Andi shrugged in deflection. She felt stupid confessing her dreams about Quinn.

“Andi, who are you dreaming about?”

Andi hung her head, “It’s not a real person, Ma.” She knew her mother would keep nagging her though, so she decided to reveal the bare minimum of information. She told her mother about her dreams of an unnamed woman, about the woman’s mis-matched eyes… and how the dreams stopped when she returned home.

Tina didn’t interrupt as Andi talked, but she quirked an eyebrow at the end, “There’s more to these dreams than you’re telling me, isn’t there, Andi?”

“You’re in love with this woman,” Tina made the correct guess.

Andi gave a short, bitter laugh, “Except she’s not real.”

“She might be,” Tina said, “Remember what En Ming said about dreams and reality.”

“She’s a fortune teller, she’s all about conflating dreams and reality.”

“ANDI!” Steve shouted from the driveway.

Mother and daughter looked at each other and quickly made their way outside.

A massive Zedecker AutoParts truck stood idling noisily in the driveway. Steve jerked a thumb towards the driver, “Took him a couple tries to back this baby into the driveway. Says it’s a delivery for you, Andi.”

The driver hopped out of the cab, wearing the instantly recognizable company colors, with the stylized “ZAP” logo on the shirt. He quickly lowered the rear ramp door of the trailer, revealing the classic red muscle car from the Zedeckers’ basement garage.

“Andi Zhao?” the driver looked at the three Zhaos.

Andi raised her hand.

“This is your lucky day!” The driver disappeared into the trailer and moments later, the car slowly reversed onto the ramp and off the trailer.

Andi couldn’t quite believe her eyes. The young man handed her an envelope, “Madame Zedecker wanted the car delivered to you ASAP, with this note.”

“Thank you,” Andi didn’t know what else to say.

“This was her daughter Quinn’s favorite car, you know, you must have done something right with the boss lady,” the man said holding out a pen and a clipboard, “Sign this; the title and keys are in the car. Have a great day!”

Andi blindly signed the form and didn’t move for a long time, not even after the truck rumbled off.

“What does the note say?” Tina asked. Steve was walking around the car, muttering “wow” every few seconds.

Andi looked at the envelope in her hands and finally got her brain to coordinate her fingers properly to open it.

An elegant script met her eyes, ‘To Andi, with affection and gratitude, Z‘

Andi turned over the card to see if there was more to read, but it was blank.

“I’m so confused,” Andi shook her head, “She tells me to leave, and now she gives me a priceless car that Quinn loved… I mean, what the hell do I do with this car?”

“We put it in the garage and take very, very good care of it,” Steve said.

“That’s not what I mean, dad,” Andi said, “She’s in trouble. The hourglass in the house was running out. If I can be helpful, why did she send me away?”

“Maybe she’s given up?” Tina suggested.

“That’s what I’ve been afraid to think,” Andi said. She turned and headed back to the house, “I’m going to take a nap.” Maybe I’ll have that dream again…

“Want me to put this in the garage for you?” Steve asked hopefully.

Andi didn’t even look back, “Yeah, okay, dad.”

She fell into bed, desperately hoping to find Quinn in her dreams.

A dream came, but it was not the dream she hoped she’d have.

Andi was walking down the familiar hallway again. Andi felt apprehensive, her stomach lurching with nerves. She reached a door, the same door from the other dreams, which she pushed open. It was definitely Quinn’s room. Sunlight flooded in from the windows and Andi looked across to the enormous four-poster bed to her left. The bed in which she and Quinn had spent passionate nights of abandon. There was someone in the bed. As Andi walked closer she realized it was Madame Zedecker, whose face was in her hands, wracked with sobs.

“Andi… Please come find me… You promised you would….”

Andi woke up, heart pounding, “She’s not… She’s…”

Andi’s brain felt like a jumbled-up Rubik’s cube that was solving itself at lightning speed.

The room, the voice, the dreams. Those images all collided at once. Andi gasped, “She’s Quinn!!”

Andi looked at her watch. She’d been asleep for an hour, “I have to go!! I have to go!”

She sprinted downstairs and jammed her feet into her shoes, “Ma, I gotta go back to the Estate. She needs me!”

Tina came hurrying out of the kitchen, “I’ll come with you. I sent dad to run some errands, but I’ll tell him to head straight there afterwards.”

Chapter Seven — The Sorcerer’s Vengeance

Kei Shang was watching the sand relentlessly drain out of the top bulb of the giant hourglass. He was giddy with anticipation. Sweet, sweet victory. He had initially regretted the one year time horizon, but now that the last day had arrived, he realized he had enjoyed every minute the Estate writhed in agony under his malicious tyranny.

Damian Zedecker had been an easy mark; the man was all ego and ambition. Kei Shang dangled his alchemy skills under Damian’s willing nose — promises of power, riches, fame, immortality — in exchange for vast sums of money. Shang got his initial payouts, but then hit a brick wall in the form of the Zedecker women. Joan did not fall for Kei Shang’s charms nor his promises. She even threatened to divorce Damian and cut him off if the sorcerer continued to stick around.

Quinn Zedecker proved an even more formidable foe. Quinn held the family together despite Kei Shang’s efforts to cleave them apart. In a last-ditch attempt, Shang tried a seduction charm to ensnare Quinn into his favor. It didn’t work. His ego wounded, the sorcerer decided getting the money was not enough, shifting his malice and evil to destroying the Zedecker family.

Damian and Joan disappeared the next day; losing their lives to Kei Shang’s wrath. Now, after a year under the power of Kei Shang’s potent aging curse, Quinn’s end was finally at hand.

He was so deep in thought he almost didn’t hear the thumping of closing car doors outside in the motor court. He turned in surprise as the front door was thrown open.

Andi skidded to a stop as she almost ran into Kei Shang.

“You came back?!” His face was a picture of disbelief.

“She needs me,” Andi started down the corridor towards the stairs, but Shang blocked her path.

“What’s this? She needs you? How much is she paying you to be needed?”

Andi frowned. Kei Shang had always been cold towards her, but this was outright hostile.

The sorcerer took Andi’s silence as contrition, “Ah, so it’s the money, eh? You’re just going keeping hitting up the Zedecker ATM until she dies?”

Andi’s heart stopped, “She’s dying?”

“Manifestly so,” Kei Shang sneered as he looked at the giant hourglass. There was only a fistful of sand remaining.

Andi’s eyes widened. “You did this!” She barked, “You’re the one putting her through this!” Andi once more made for the bedroom upstairs, but Shang grabbed her arm in a vice-like grip.

The sneer turned into terrifying smile, “I’m not putting her through anything she doesn’t deserve.”

“No one deserves this,” Andi ground out, “Least of all her. She wouldn’t hurt anybody. Let go of me!”

Kei Shang tightened his grip and pursed his lips, “Why do you care? One last cheque from the Zedecker cash pile–“

“Enough!” Andi roared, “I care because she is worth my care. She’s worth it.”

“Worthy of your care?” Kei Shang snickered, “She’s an old crone. She’s not worthy of care or love.”

Kei Shang smirked again, “Worthy of your love and care?”

Andi stood up straighter and squared her shoulders, “Yes.”

Kei Shang’s eyes grew fearful for a moment, but then he looked at the hourglass. There was no sand left.

“Do you love her?” His derisive tone left no question about his thoughts on the matter.

Andi stared at Kei Shang, whose mouth curled up into a savage grin.

Yes, I love Quinn! She squared her shoulders, “What’s that got to do with anything?”

The sorcerer sighed dramatically, “Nothing, just a harmless question. Pity. It’s too late anyway.”

Andi rushed forward and this time, Kei Shang let her go.

The sorcerer let out a high, cackling laugh that was filled with vengeance and resentment. He lovingly caressed the hourglass and ran his eyes all along the empty top bulb. Empty of the life that thwarted me…. The thrill of success tore through him. He was sure of his own genius now. Every grain of sand had fallen to the demand of gravity in exquisite revenge. Every last gr—

“Noooooo!” His eye caught an impossible sight; there was one final reflective speck that sparkled in the light. No, no, no! It can’t be! But yet, as he leaned in closer, he saw one grain of sand — the one that was supposed to have been Quinn’s last breath on this earth — stubbornly clinging to the curve of the glass.

Kei Shang brought his palm down hard on the side of the hourglass in an effort to dislodge the granule. The thick glass let out a stubborn thud but it wasn’t enough to nudge the piece of sand from its spot.

Kei Shang screamed with rage; his talon-like fingers clenched with homicidal intent. He slammed his fist into the side of the glass again, to no avail.

Kei Shang whipped his head around. Tina Zhao stood calmly in the entryway. Andi had left the front door open when she ran in. Tina stayed out of sight by the entrance and witnessed the conversation between Andi and Kei Shang. Now, she stepped forward, cheating her body slightly with her left foot planted forward, ready to defend. She’d seen enough to know that protecting the hourglass was important, and she knew her job was to draw Kei Shang away from it.

Flecks of spit flew out of Kei’s mouth as he expelled a Cantonese invective through clenched teeth, “屌你老母!!!”

Kei Shang flew at Tina, who quickly sidestepped her adversary and lightly shifted into crouching stance. Tina was now between the sorcerer and the hourglass. Shang recovered quickly, leaping up with a high-pitched scream and aimed a kick at Tina. Tina blocked the kick, spun and struck him in the neck with the outer edge of her hand.

Andi heard Shang’s shout of pain and knew her mother had followed her into the house, but she had to focus on getting to Quinn’s room upstairs. She took the stairs three at a time, and the moment she reached the landing, she recognized the corridor from her dreams. She knew immediately where to go. Images of Quinn in the room mixed in her head with the images of Madame Zedecker in the room.