The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes

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The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes

For the real Queens of the Universe…

Kate Christlieb

Kate Ohlrogge

and Mollie Smith

Mare Fortune bounded down the stairs of the family home in her ragged blue ru

‘Oh,’ Mare said, feeling bereft and then feeling stupid for feeling bereft. He left you, he’s gone, it’s been five years, you’re over it. She turned to close the heavy door, just as her oldest sister Dee took down their mother’s jewelry chest from the mantel in the living room and, beyond her, their middle sister Lizzie bent over her metallurgy book at the battered dining room table, everything normal, nothing to worry about.

‘Big storm coming in.’ Mare yanked down on her tank top, shoving Crash and the whole vision thing out of her mind. ‘Big old Beltane storm.’ Her tiger-striped cat, Pywackt, padded down the narrow stairs with dignity, and she made kissing sounds at him, which he ignored. ‘Lightning on the mountain just for us, Py, baby.’

‘Didn’t we throw those away?’ Dee said, cradling the brass-bound jewelry box in her slender arms as she frowned at Mare’s tattered shorts.

‘You tried,’ Mare said.

Dee nodded, looking distracted. ‘Come on,’ she said and turned toward the dining room, her gray wool suit perfectly fitted to her tiny waist. Mare stuck her tongue out at Dee’s auburn chignon and followed her into the dining room where ethereal Lizzie sat hunched over her book in her purple silk kimono, her blond curls tangled and blue eyes wide, dripping muffin butter onto her notebook as she ate.

Dee put the jewelry box on the table and said, ‘Mind the butter, Lizzie,’ and Lizzie turned another page, oblivious to Dee, the butter, and the wind whistling outside the open garden windows.

Mare plopped herself down at the table and looked at the muffins. ‘They’re all apple bran, Lizzie. That’s boring. I like blueberry and lemon poppy seed and-’

Lizzie moved her hand over the muffin basket, still not looking up from her book, and tendrils of violet smoke trailed from her fingertips and across the apple bran.

‘Thank you.’ Mare craned her neck to look into the basket and then went for a newly transformed blueberry, but Dee moved the basket out of her reach.

‘First we vote.’ Dee straightened the jewelry box.

Lizzie looked up from her book. ‘Now?’

Crap, Mare thought, and looked longingly at the muffins. Lizzie had baked them so they were bound to be munchable.

‘Yes, now.’ Dee sat down at the head of the table. ‘If Mare’s going to college, she has to register now. Which means we have to decide if we move so she can go to a school we can afford. And which piece of Mother’s jewelry we sell to finance it. And I have to be at the bank in an hour, so we have to do it now’

‘Not now.’ Mare stared at the blueberry muffin just out of her reach – come here, damn it - so that a couple of dust motes lazing in the air sparked blue. ‘Not now, not ever.’ She lifted her chin, feeling the weight of the muffin in her mind, and it rose slowly until it hovered at eye level.

‘Mare,’ Dee said. ‘Not in front of the window.’

Mare gri

‘Oh, dear.’ Lizzie waved her hands a little, as if to warn Mare off, tendrils of violet smoking from her fingertips, and her butter knife turned into a rabbit.

Py sat up and took an interest.

‘Easy there, Lizzie,’ Mare said, staring cross-eyed at her muffin, now floating in front of her nose. ‘You know Py and bu

Dee flushed. ‘Put down the muffin, please, Mare. You know how important this vote is.’

‘It’s important to you,’ Mare said, concentrating on keeping her muffin afloat. ‘It’s not important to me. As mistress of all I survey, I feel that college is, how can I put this? U