Chapter 8

Andi wondered if she was actually back in her recurring dream.

When she ran into the room, it was exactly as she’d dreamed it before, except most of the Estate staff was there, and the body in the bed wasn’t moving. I should never have left!

“Andi,” the relief in Lewis Tremont’s voice was unmistakable, “Thank god you are here.”

Andi knelt by the bed and gently touched the frail woman’s arm, fearing the worst.

Madame Zedecker opened her eyes, hardly believing that Andi was back. “Andi?”

Andi blinked, “Hey… you’re okay…”

The two women looked at each other for a moment.

“Your eyes…! It is you!” Andi blurted out. Madame Zedecker’s eyes were no longer hidden behind tinted lenses and Andi fell into their glory: the left eye was a luminescent hazel. The right a sapphire blue.

Andi’s mind was a blur of images. The photographs of the Zedecker family, the woman from her dreams… and those eyes… eyes that could only belong to Quinn Zedecker. The dreams were real!!

“Quinn…” Those words came out of Andi in a wondrous whisper.

Quinn was shaking with suspense; Andi had returned voluntarily… all that was needed was for Andi to say three words…

Andi took Quinn’s broken body into her arms, “It was you all along…”

Quinn nodded. Tell me you love me, she begged silently.

Andi looked at Quinn, and then around the room at everyone else, who were all holding their collective breath.

“What do I need to do??” Andi looked at Quinn and then at Lewis, “Tell me what I need to do!”

No one said anything. They can’t tell me… Andi realized.

Andi turned back to Quinn and looked into her eyes, “You can’t tell me… okay, I get it.” Andi looked desperately around the room, hoping for inspiration, but none came.

She hung her head in frustration, “I’m sorry, I don’t know—“

Quinn lifted her hand and gently placed it on Andi’s cheek, “I’m just happy I got to see you one last time…” Quinn gave a weak smile and closed her eyes.

“No!” Andi cried, as Quinn’s hand dropped lifelessly onto the bed, “Don’t give up. I want to figure it out! I love you—”

There was a gasp. Andi looked around in surprise, “What? What did I do? Did I do it?”

Lewis nodded sadly, tears streaming down his face.

“But nothing is happening? Why is nothing happening?” Andi looked around the room.

“Because it’s too late….” Lewis is quietly.

“女!” Tina’s shout snapped Andi out of her confusion.

女 is the Cantonese word for “female,” but in a familial sense it is also the word for “daughter”. Tina only ever used it when trouble was ahead — usually when Andi had screwed up — or in this case, when Tina needed help.

“That’s my mom!” Andi looked at Quinn’s lifeless form, “I’ll be back!” She sprinted out of the room.

Tina and Kei Shang were both breathing deeply. Shang had been trying – but failing – to topple the six-foot hourglass. Tina had been a fluid wall of defense, but Shang’s last projectile (an ornate mahogany Barrington chair) had to be blocked, and while Tina managed to do so, she knew the throbbing in her upper right arm meant she would not be fighting at full strength.

She heard Andi’s return to the foyer. Tina barked out a command, and Andi knew exactly the combination they needed to execute in tandem. Mother and daughter synchronized their breathing and stepped towards Kei Shang, fists flying.

Shang whirled in defense, but he was no match for two Zhaos in coordinated assault. Andi aimed a kick at his chest while Tina aimed a kick at his hip. The sorcerer went flying backwards. He slowly got up, breathing hard. Tina and Andi stood resolutely between him and the hourglass.

In desperation, Kei Shang grabbed another chair and launched it at the women. Tina side-stepped it, but back of the chair hit Andi on the right shoulder. She lost her balance and fell against the hourglass.

Three sets of eyes watched the hourglass tilt for a quick second before righting itself with a thud. The last grain of sand shifted and slid towards the neck, then down towards the pile of sand at the bottom of the hourglass.

Kei Shang unleashed a scream of victory, but his joy was quickly replaced with horror as a thin black mist lifted from the hourglass. Cracks started to spread all over the thick glass until the hourglass collapsed into itself in front of Andi’s eyes.

“You meddlesome fools!!!” Shang’s face was twisted with hatred as he turned to face the women, “How dare you interfere! You will pay for this!”

Kei Shang picked up a sharp shard and lunged at Andi. Andi sidestepped her foe. They circled around each other, the foyer echoing with the sounds of feet stepping on broken glass and sand. Kei suddenly turned and flung the shard towards Tina.

Tina spun and kicked it back towards the sorcerer who ran out through the still open front door. Andi and Tina followed in pursuit.

Tina muttered another command and mother and daughter separated slowly. Shang looked back and forth between his two adversaries.

In perfect harmony, Andi and her mother advanced again, their movements fluid and deadly.

The crunching of gravel announced the arrival of Steve Zhao, who cut the engine and jumped out of the cab of his truck.

Kei Shang knew that he wouldn’t be able to defend himself on three fronts. With a malevolent grin, the sorcerer uttered an incantation, spinning his body into a cyclone of black-green mist and transformed into a massive cobra. The snake towered above the women and opened its mouth as if to laugh, showing off its lethal fangs. It slithered towards the Zhaos, its head slowly weaving back and forth, its dead, cold eyes glinting with murderous venom.

Andi’s heart thudded with terror; this was beyond her training. Her mother’s arm was injured. Kei Shang is going to kill us all. She almost didn’t hear the mundane put-put-put of an engine starting, but it was there, and it was getting closer. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glint of sunlight reflecting off a broad metal blade as her father ran towards the giant cobra.

The cobra lunged at Steve Zhao.

Thweppppp! The cobra’s head came spinning off its body. Wisps of heavy black mist lifted from the carcass. Almost immediately, there was a low groan from the mansion’s foundations as a black mist lifted from it as well.

Andi and Tina watched the mist dissipate and looked back down at the enormous cobra head lying at their feet.

Steve Zhao patted his chainsaw as he grinned at his wife and daughter, “You have kung fu, I have a five-and-a-half horsepower American-made chainsaw. You know, your average run-of-the-mill evil snake decapitator…”

Before Tina could come up with a retort, a shout erupted from inside the mansion.

“Go,” Steve said to Andi, revving up the chainsaw again, “Mom and I will deal with the snake.”

“Okay,” Andi turned and trotted back into the house. The overgrowth on the mansion’s facade had completely retreated. Andi headed back upstairs. Sunlight was streaming through the windows into Quinn’s room and there was a blur of bodies hugging and high-fiving each other. Andi noticed Frank Whitaker first, whose receding hairline was now a thing of his future. Then Lewis Tremont, whose face was more filled out, and whose thinning white hair was now a robust head of brown, with just a touch of grey at the temples. Stewart Bromley looked like twenty years’ worth of age and exhaustion had just melted off his body.

“It’s over!” They all kept saying again and again.

Andi blinked with emerging comprehension. Andi turned towards the woman sitting in the bed. The nameless woman from her dreams, but nameless no more. It was decidedly Quinn. Beautiful, vibrant Quinn, who was crying with relief.

She looked up at Andi, “You broke the curse. You came for me. You’ve saved us all.” The two of them stared at each other, almost in disbelief.

Lewis herded everyone towards the door, “We’ll let you two catch up.”

“I don’t actually know what I did, honestly,” Andi watched everyone quickly leave the room.

“You broke Kei Shang’s curse on this house. A curse he cast based on the bet I made with him. I had a year to win the bet and break the curse.”

“A bet?” Andi didn’t understand.

“Kei Shang killed my parents because they wouldn’t yield to his attempts to extort them out of millions of dollars. He wanted to kill me as well, but he decided to drag it out, that sick bastard. He made a bet with me. Either I find my soul mate in a year, or he would kill me. But the rules were that I couldn’t leave the Estate for more than a quarter of an hour, and I couldn’t say anything about the bet.”

Andi squeezed Quinn’s hands, mouth open with surprise.

Quinn stepped closer, “I couldn’t tell anyone about it because that’s how the curse spread. Lewis insisted on helping, and once I told him about it, he fell under the curse as well. Most of the staff did, too, they all wanted to stay and help.”

“Why didn’t you just take off your sunglasses?”

“I couldn’t. With so many people coming through the house… and my eyes being so distinctive… and my body so distorted… It would have led to too many questions I wasn’t allowed to answer. I couldn’t have said anything even if you’d seen my eyes. I wanted to tell you, so badly. But I couldn’t risk you getting hit by the curse as well.”

“I’m sorry it took me so long to figure it out…” Andi’s eyes roamed all over Quinn’s face in wonder.

“But you did. You saw past the curse; Lewis said you said you loved me. That was the key to breaking the curse…” Quinn’s eyes gleamed with happy tears, “You… you love me…?”

Andi nodded, “I know it seems sudden…” She stopped, unsure of how to explain the context. How do I tell her that I’ve basically been dreaming about us for a month without sounding totally creepy?

“It doesn’t feel sudden to me…” Quinn desperately wanted to Andi’s embrace, but it felt premature; there was still so much to understand.

Quinn hesitated for a beat, “This is going to sound weird, and I don’t want to freak you out… but every night I found a way to escape from the curse… because I spent those nights with you…” she scrunched up her eyebrows… “I mean, obviously not with you in person… but in my dreams… “

Quinn held up her hands pleadingly, “I know how inappropriate it sounds… but–“

Andi was shocked… and elated. Maybe En Ming was right! “You had dreams about me?”

Quinn nodded, “Don’t freak out, please. I know they were just dreams, but they helped me… and I wanted you to know that.”

There was a beat before Andi breathed out, “What kind of dreams?”

Andi took it as a good sign and forged ahead, “Because I had dreams about you, too. Every night. With this version of you… not the cursed version… until today…”

Quinn’s eyes widened, “Did you dream about the walk by the lake?”

“The day in Overcreek Park?”

“The boat… with–“

“… with the long talk about the merits of cold pizza,” Andi finished, chuckling at the memory.

“And…” Quinn started blushing again.

Andi was enchanted by the way Quinn’s pale skin flushed pink, starting with her face all the way down to her chest, which rose and fell with alluring speed as Quinn rushed to utter her next words.

“… and… all those times… in this room?”

Andi smiled and nodded.

“We had the same dreams?” Quinn said in wonder, “How…?”

“I don’t know,” Andi said earnestly.

Quinn blinked and sat down on the sofa. Her mind was a whirl of images from those dreams, juxtaposed with the proximity of Andi being in the room with her. She looked up and took a leap of faith, “So those dreams… they were real?” Quinn asked the question they were both thinking.

Andi sat down next to Quinn, “It felt real to me.”

“Me too,” Quinn took Andi’s hand in hers, “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about them…”

The two women stared at each other, big smiles forming.

Andi shifted her gaze from Quinn’s eyes to her slightly open lips. Both women moved at the same time, leaning in until their lips joined in a kiss. It was a kiss that the cosmos welcomed with open arms. Dreams and memories wove themselves together, clicked into focus, and became a new reality; it felt really, really good.

Andi never thought that a kiss this pure could feel so sweet and so utterly sexy all at once. Quinn’s lips were soft, warm, and perfectly pressed against hers.

Quinn’s mouth broke into a smile as she opened her eyes, “Hmmmm. Well, that was worth waiting for.”

Andi arched an eyebrow, “Was that all you were waiting for?”

Quinn slowly ran the tip of her tongue along her top lip, her eyes gleamed flirtatiously, “No…”

“Good,” Andi smiled.

“I can’t believe it’s over…” Fear crept over Quinn’s face, “Where’s Kei Shang?”

“He won’t be bothering you again,” Andi said, “My dad took care of it.”

Quinn looked puzzled. Andi took her hand, “Come on, let me show you… it’s too bizarre to describe.”

The two of them walked downstairs and out to the motor court.

Steve and Tina were there, planting incense sticks all over the place.

“Are you sure you need this many?” Andi joked.

Tina shot her daughter a look, “One year of a Gu curse… what do you think?” She was so busy with the incense she didn’t notice the young woman standing next to her daughter.

“Fine, Ma, okay,” Andi gave Quinn’s hand a reassuring squeeze, “What happened to the snake?”

“Snake?” Quinn said incredulously.

“Yeah, snake. That evil bastard turned himself into a massive cobra,” Steve dusted his hands off on his pants, “Too bad for him I had my chainsaw. What happened inside?”

“About a dozen people getting their lives back,” Andi grinned, “I don’t think you’d recognize any of ’em.”

“What about Madame Zedecker?” Tina asked, “Did she make it?”

Andi nodded, “Yeah, but she’s not Joan Zedecker… She – uh — “

Quinn stepped forward, “Hi, I’m Quinn Zedecker, I’m sorry I couldn’t properly introduce myself before.”

Tina and Steve looked stunned.

Steve cleared his throat and extended his hand, “Uh, Ms. Zedecker, we’re so happy that you’re okay.”

Quinn shook his hand and then scrunched up her face, “Oh! Shaking hands seems so formal. I have you to thank for saving us all of us… May I hug you?”