Rebecca Bloomsey. Forty nine years old, Bay native, proud dog mom to two little miracles from god—chihuahua-pitbull mixes, which, Momo could allow, did seem a bit miraculous—and less proud mother, if Facebook was anything to go by, of two human children. Jared and Jonathan. The dog pictures outnumbered theirs 591 to 3.

  Unfortunately, Ms. Bloomsey, alleged skill book creator, was not, as Momo had selfishly hoped, within walking distance of Headquarters.

  She occupied a rather adorably named town called Half Moon Bay. Less adorable, though, was the drive there—half moon was a very appropriate way to describe the shape of the turns their car was making in order to get there.

  “Stop! Stop! Slow down! Oh my god. Why on Earth did I let you drive?”

  Momo was holding the handle above the window with the grip of a professional wrestler.

  Her life had just flashed before her eyes at least six times in six seconds.

  Momo and Momo’s rented vehicle careened around another sharp cliff corner. The Pacific lurked like a gaping mouth underneath as their Kia sputtered from side to side, patiently awaiting them to inevitably Thelma & Louise it.

  Why choose Mallmart for this task, you might ask? Well, they had left Marie at home to continue her research. The scientist was undoubtedly the most valuable member of their troupe by far, at least when it came to actually progressing the cause. Mallmart was doing a good amount of physical conditioning, but that could only go so far without some real field work. And that was what this was, Momo decided as they were leaving—field work. Definitely didn’t have to do with the fact that Mallmart still had a valid driver’s license, and Momo almost rear-ended a cat on her way out of the driveway.

  Mallmart snorted, jerking the driving wheel again. “I drive completely fine.” She rolled her eyes. “Also, you're literally immortal. And can fly. Why are you complaining?”

  Momo squeaked almost as loud as the tires. “Because my nervous system doesn’t know I’m immortal.” She released a shaky breath and thanked the heavens as they turned onto a street closer to land.

  A “Welcome to Half Moon Bay” sign greeted them as their tires whined onto the city’s main drag. Quaint little shops popped up left and right, bookstores with fairy lights hanging over window sills. Snowglobes and little postcards with illustrations of different dog breeds. A kebab place, a Mexican joint. All the houses and the shops could use a little bit more paint. Well-loved, they’d probably be called by a novelist.

  The charming little town seemed strangely untouched by the chaos.

  In fact, the only signs that the apocalypse had hurdled through it at all were Help Wanted posters hanging from business windows. Quite a few restaurants were lacking waitstaff and dishwashers—all the local high school students had decided to quit their part-time jobs and focus on their superpowers, evidently.

  Their car pulled noisily into Rebecca’s driveway, the two of them arguing all the way up until the moment the car doors slammed shut. Ms. Bloomsey’s cottage style house was very unassuming; box windows, vaguely chipping paint—as modest and nice and normal as you’d expect from a woman who you’d trust your children with for eight hours out of the day.

  Mallmart strode across the perfectly manicured lawn, her sneakers making a mess of the dirt, and peeked brazenly into one of the front windows. Momo grimaced.

  If Marie hadn’t given Rebecca the heads up on Reddit that they were coming, she was quite confident the teacher would think they were extremely indiscreet home-burglars. Actually, she still might think that.

  “Stop staring inside her house,” Momo hissed. “You’re going to scare her.”

  “I’m the one who’s going to scare her? You’re the one with the wings. You’re going to make the poor old lady think she’s about to be taken to heaven.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Momo flushed, rescinding the wings in a flourish. Fair point.

  “Oh, hi there dears! I didn’t expect you so early!”

  Both their heads snapped up. Straddling the rooftop in nothing but overalls was none other than Ms. Bloomsey herself. She had her hair in a high ponytail, sweat dripping down from her forehead. Her hands were clutched around each other curiously, and when they opened, Momo realized that it was magic she had been conjuring inside them—a blue, swirling pit of it.

  Momo cleared her throat, pointedly studying the ground. She did not feel comfortable with the direct eye contact she was making with the woman’s near-naked sternum. “Hi there, Ms. Bloomsey. I'm Momo, this is Momo. We really appreciate that you could take the time during your weekend to see us.”

  Mallmart cut in with a disbelieving laugh.

  “I’m sorry, but… what in the world are you doing up on the roof?”

  Momo glared at her, sending her a look that said Don't ask a woman what she's doing on her own roof. It was pointedly ignored.

  “Oh, great question, honey.” Ms. Bloomsey beamed down at the younger girl. Momo could tell Mallmart appreciated that look—she was blushing like a peach. God, I’m so predictable. “Just testing a new spell I came up with recently for lawn maintenance. If you’d kindly back up to the driveway, I could show you how it works.”

  The Momos obliged, and Ms. Bloomsey twisted her wrist in the air, flicking her fingers forward. The blue magic dissipated, and a scream erupted in the yard.

  Momo whipped her head around, alarmed, but the screaming seemed to be coming from the grass itself.

  It was an absolutely ear splitting noise, accompanied by the sight of each piece of grass, now imbued with mana, snapping at a ninety degree angle—as if each strand of grass was snapping its own neck off in unison.

  The screaming stopped. With another flourish of Ms. Bloomsey's hand, the halves of grass that had been sliced off were blown into the wind, flying over Momo’s head and decorating their windshield.

  Mallmart looked toward Momo with a barren expression.

  “Quick question, boss.”

  “Yes?”

  Mallmart opened her mouth, then closed it. Then opened it again.

  “Did she just imbue the grass with souls, then force it to kill itself?”

  Momo licked her lips, and nodded.

  “Looks like it, yeah."

  She made a mental note to never tell Valerica about this.

  ***

  “So I’ve been practicing necromancy, is that right?" Ms. Bloomsey snorted, delighted. "What a funny little word.”

  The older woman sipped her cup of tea joyfully as they sat on her plush living room couch, surrounded on all sides by stacks of books. Momo had one open in her lap; she was studying the crude drawings with awe. She had only ever seen skill books that featured oil paintings, ancient works of art—but Rebecca’s were full of stick figures.

  Momo looked up with an urgent curiosity. “If you don’t mind me asking,” she said. “How did you… think to start doing this? If you didn’t know how skill books functioned, how did you think to create them?”

  Rebecca grinned warmly.

  There was something nostalgically comfortable in her smile. In the wooden smell of her house. In the clumsy way she sat in her chair, or the fact that her kitchen was a carefully constructed pit of chaos—things stuffed in cupboards, peeking out from behind closed pantry doors but not yet bubbling over.

  “How’d I start doing my little scribbles?”

  Momo nodded.

  “Well.” Rebecca clicked her tongue, taking the book from Momo’s lap and studying it. “I’m a bit of a compulsive doodler. When I’m not teaching, or talking, or feeding the little princes, I have to keep my hands busy, or I go crazy. Just the way my odd little brain is built.”

  Rebecca’s eyes slid over to her dogs in the window—currently being occupied by Mallmart in the yard in a rather intense game of catch (one where the dogs were doing the throwing, somehow). Momo ventured that those were the little princes she was referring to.

  “And since school is on a bit of a moratorium right now.” She waved her hands around, gesturing at the general apocalypse of it all. “I just sort of happened to start creating these diagrams.” She tapped one of the stick figures, who was jumping very high, nearly ten feet in the air. “I thought it would be a creative way to teach my students how to use spells when they come back.”

  How endearing. “That’s really sweet.”

  “That’s me.” Her demeanor changed, and she snapped the book shut. “Sweet.”

  Momo frowned, surprised by the abrupt shift. She sounded exhausted by the word. Was that the wrong thing to say?

  Ms. Bloomsey seemed to catch Momo’s confusion, because she shook her head and quickly apologized. “Sorry.” She smiled, but it was less beaming than before. This time her eyes went to her fridge, where there was one single picture of Jonathan and Jared. “Let me… are you hot? I can fiddle with the air conditioning a bit.”

  Before Momo could get another word out, the woman was up, running around to fill her time with what, Momo wasn’t sure. Maybe I read her wrong. Momo blew a breath out. Becoming a god certainly didn’t make it any easier to understand humanity. She was just as lost as she was fresh out of the womb.

  Her eyes went to the blank stack of paper Ms. Bloomsey had left out.

  Oh well. Time to put that art degree to use.

  Momo grabbed an ink pen, and got to work.