A Dangerous Legacy Pt. 01

(c) Nora Quick 2013

Summary: A woman in poverty learns of a legacy left to her. A series of tests prove her intelligence, honor, and self control as she is given magical powers. When the legacy comes it brings with it magic, riches, and three irresistible men. But what secrets lie in her mysterious bloodline, and will ultimate power corrupt her ultimately?

I have the kind of life no one believes, because pretty much everything I've lived through Dickens once wrote and soap operas like to use once a month. Taken one instance at a time it might be believed across multiple lives: if you had a friend who discovered the mother they hated wasn't their real one after her death, and another friend was tragically forced into prison to protect herself even as the victim of a crime, you might believe both women's stories, right? Well, both things happened to me when a young age and are just two footnotes in a life that should have belonged to a dozen people, not one woman.

The result is by age thirty I was tired. Bone-deep tired of living. Please don't confuse that with being suicidal, I was hardly that. If I wanted to die life gave me more than a few opportunities to do so and each time I fought like hell to stay. Why? I suppose answering that question had become the focus of my "retirement." Most people want the meaning of life, yet I just wanted a reason to live.

I'd come to think of the past year since turning thirty as the twilight of retirement. I gave up the games I played. I stopped working hard for money at a cost to all else, stopped looking for love or a good time with multiple faces. I got rid of the people who called themselves my friends but really were drama queens and suicide kings seeking an audience, and pared down to a handful of people I felt I could trust.

The result? I was bored, alone most of the time, and had little company beyond my thoughts and my trusted dog Diego. Sure, people who haven't gone through that will tell you it gives you perspective. It just bored me to tears. Hell, there's a reason why rich people go to Nepalese retreats to meditate and think things over...have you ever seen the staff at those joints? And hell, you have some bald dude in orange telling you how to think, how to meditate and ruminate. I just have a dog who wants little in life beyond eating my hand lotion.

At some point I became a grand statue, like that baboon-looking thing in Daley Plaza Picasso bizarrely claimed was a woman. Something amazingly and terrifyingly beautiful to behold, anchored to the ground with rusting bolts. Like the baboon, the locals ignore me, the tourists didn't know about me, and only a few old souls who truly understood took notice, but they tended to come and go in constant motion.

Trust me, it's less fun to be a work of public art than a human.

I suppose after such a static year I was using my time to figure out how to tear up the bolts and go somewhere where statues became human. Swimming my way back to life, I guess, but I couldn't go into the pond I'd dwelled in before. That's the price of a break, you can't ever go back. Blink and the race is over, new one's beginning.

My life had taken a strange turn and I ended up living in a small two bedroom house by myself for free, the only bill I paid was the Internet. Great, sure, but strange enough to always keep me wondering and slightly agoraphobic. It rose because I was between landlords, the old ones having sold the house I occupied and the new ones MIA. Any knock on the door could have foretold doom to this idyllic situation, so I learned to fear the sound.

One day in February, when the ground was covered with ice and grey slush, and the air alternated between the ghostly promise of warmth and icy frost, a dreaded knock came. My heart pounded and I tried to remind myself no matter which villain of my past or unknown of my future it was, I could handle them. I had a black belt, I was tall and sturdy, and I had made a life out of fighting my way through greater odds to no aim in particular.

Armed to do so once again, I did my best to ignore that it was just after noon and I still wore pajamas. I'd begun to treat every new meeting as a battle, and when in doubt, confuse your enemies.

The woman at my back door was tall, slim, gorgeous. She looked young at first glance, older at second, and when she smiled she was both. Her hair was long and dark blonde, and she was dressed in an expensive cashmere coat and shiny heeled winter boats magically free of salt, slush, and snow.

"Hello, Anna."

It's never good when someone uses my legal name. Everyone friendly uses my nickname, Groucho. Stupid, I know, but I was both a grump and a Marx brother fan, and the nickname had stuck since high school. Only debt collectors used what's on the driver's license.

"Yes?"

"I'm Alessandra Joeson. May I come in?"

"Why?" I asked automatically. There was something familiar about her in a distant way, but no good ever came of inviting strangers into my home.

"It's rather cold out here, I'd like to warm up."

"Tell me why you came, then we'll see." I folded my arms and tried to look imposing, but in her bare feet she was my height, and her heels added almost four inches.

"I'm here about your mother."

"Which one?" I felt a tick in my left eye. Twenty-five years ago the mother who raised me, the one I'd thought for thirty years was my mother, had died. Just one year ago a strange woman called and explained she was my real mother. It was complicated, and nothing ever came of it. Both were open wounds, and neither one appealed to me as a topic of discussion with a stranger.

"Pardon me?"

"The dead one or the one who abandoned me?"

Her hard green gaze softened. "I'd really rather speak of this inside."

"Yeah? Well, I don't. State your business or go."

She recognized the challenge and met it, something few people ever tried with me. "Your birth mother is why I am here. She's dead."

Shock rolled through me, and I fell back on social training as much as instinct and stepped back, letting her in. I didn't even stop my dog when he came up to sniff her, just closed the door after her and walked through the house to the front where my familiar overstuffed recliner waited.

It was truly shock, not pain. Shock simply because I didn't know how to react. All I knew was that I was sick of people dying on me when I didn't know how I felt about them. Selfish, yes, but in pain we are all selfish, it is the nature of life.

I wanted to curse as she followed me in, sitting on the formal settee left by a former roommate that the dog used as a bed. He followed her in, oblivious to my turmoil, and begged of her affection as he usually did with all strangers I didn't immediately try to punch.

I suppose a normal person would ask when and how. I couldn't. All I knew of my birth mother was that she had met my father one fateful night, and then nine months later left me on his doorstep in a classic ding 'n' ditch. My married father had somehow talked my step-mother into raising me as her own, and she had regretted it the rest of her life. Then, thirty years later I got the call and I never found it in me to forgive her for abandoning me, so we'd never met. Not surprisingly, my "retirement" began soon after.

"So why exactly are you here?" I finally asked this stranger.

"At the reading of her will we found out about your existence. All these years and she never mentioned you. There is a legacy for you, though."

I felt a stirring of hope. Statues don't make much money and I was destitute. I knew my birth mother came from a well-off family and had herself a good, stable money-making career and had married a man on the same track.

"Oh?" I said casually, trying not to get too excited. In the past people had died and left me very wonderful things and large amounts of money. But somehow, a third party always fucked it up so I was left with nothing. My life seemed to be one big tease always leaving me high and dry.

"Before I can explain it to you, you need to experience it for yourself."

"What the hell is it?" For some reason I was envisioning some fancy horse at a stable whose upkeep was the GDP of a small island nation.

"The true legacy is something passed to the firstborn daughter in our family. However, it comes with three smaller gifts. They are to prepare you for the legacy. I am going to give you the first gift right now. You need to experience it for yourself."

Rising from the couch she crossed to me and grabbed my hand, holding it between both of hers. Closing her bright eyes, she began to murmur in some strange language I didn't know. I felt wind, and at first thought it was leaking through the ancient windows to blow her light, long hair back, but it was warm.

Heat began where our skin touched and grew to a burn. Suddenly her words grew faster and louder and at the crescendo I felt the intense warmth shoot through me, more like an explosion. It was all fire and heat, lightning filling me like a teacup from hell.

I tried to jerk back but she held me, chanting still as the pain wracked me, only to disappear as fast as it came.

"What the fuck was that?" I asked when I could talk.

She let me go and I fell back to the loveseat. Standing above me she smiled. "Make a wish, about your body or mind. Wish to speak a new language, or to be taller, shorter, thinner, or bigger. Wish it now, Anna."

"What!?"

Something powerful ran through her light green eyes. It wasn't anger, it was more like the emotion that gave birth to anger that had died when humans were still clinging to trees.

Wildly I wished I was black. I felt a tingle somewhere between licking a light socket and my legs coming back to life after falling asleep. Looking down my pale white skin was a rich mocha.

I began screaming.

I'm not the kind of person to scream. I yell often. The night my mother died I howled like a wounded wolf, but I never remembered ever screaming no matter what horror or pain came my way. But reality broke in that moment, and the weight of the lie was too much for my brain, so I screamed.

She waved her hand and I went silent. Oh, my muscles still worked but no sound came. Once more I felt the feeling when she waved her hand and I was pale white again.

"I'll leave now, but know this. Over the next twenty-four hours you may wish for anything to change about your body or mind. After twenty four hours it will remain for a week. I will be back after that week. If you pass the test you will receive the next gift, and any mistakes you discover you've made may be undone then."

"-the fuck!?" My voice came back in the middle of my yelling.

"It's a test. Three gifts, three tests. If you pass them, then you get your inheritance. Good day, Anna."

I started to rise to grab her but she just disappeared into thin air. My dog, trained never to bark unless in real danger, simply whined and ran from the room, scared. He was the smart one, I thought.

What the hell just happened? I reached for a cigarette and my computer, and searched for my birth mother's name. Dead, killed in a drowning accident on vacation the week before down in Florida. A cold feeling filled me: did I grieve? Should I be relieved I didn't have to make up my mind about her? Did I call up my half-siblings and step-father? If I did, what would I say?

I wandered into the bathroom for the only mirror that was easy to see in the house.

I wished I have perfect skin, my scars and pimples to be gone. The tingle came and my skin was perfect. Heart pounding I felt my face and my fingertips felt no small mountains or rough skin. Jerking down my pants every mark on my legs was gone. I wished I had no leg hair, and it disappeared.

Taking a deep breath, I wished I weighed whatever the ideal weight was for my height and build. The tingling was harsh and dropped me to my knees, my head hit the sink and I saw stars. When cool air touched me I stood, and my pants and panties fell off. My arms were slimmer, my legs too.

In the mirror the woman who looked back was slimmer in the face. I thought my heart might explode and wished to calm. A tingle and instantly I was calm. I wished my hair was blue for no reason then I wanted to see if this was real. It was blue.

I kept scissors in the kitchen and ran for them, cutting a hank off carelessly. It was blue. I wished for my hair to go back to its bland mouse brown and ran to the mirror again. My hair was brown, the uneven cut showing. The hank in my hand was blue.

I passed out.

I couldn't sleep. Not that night, not with the terror and hope this "gift" installed in me.

I played around and did the things I'm sure anyone would expect. I removed my epilepsy and fixed my bad back. I fixed my teeth and removed the filled cavities, made them straight and as white as my eyes. I removed allergies and made my alcohol tolerance higher, though for both those I didn't have a way to test them.

I shaped my body until I was like a pin-up. I made it so I looked more like I was twenty-five, not thirty-one. I made my skin a little less pale, my hair golden blonde, and made the green of my eyes brighter. I made my nose smaller, my eyes bigger, and my lips thicker, my mouth wider.

I kept the basic shape, desiring to look like myself, just...more. I fixed my posture, wished to be graceful, wished to be athletic with great stamina. I wished my breasts, still large, were perky, I wished my ass was more lush and larger. I wished my waist was nipped in nice and tight, as small as it could be and look natural. I wished for no hair on my body except the hair on my head and my eyebrows. I wished those be perfectly groomed. I wished my eyelashes to be thicker and longer, inky black.

I wished I could tan, I'd never get cancer, that basically I'd be super human. I wished for things no one would notice, but made me happy. I couldn't say why, but I kept my freckles. When I was done I had firm skin, a body for sin, and beauty that was haunting and captivating. Yet somehow, I was still me, just an idealized version. I had explored the full depth of my vanity and stood in the bathroom laughing for long minutes.

Then I turned to my mind. First I wished to speak, read, and write Spanish perfectly, and then I went to Spanish websites. It worked. By six a.m. I'd learned twenty more languages. I played with my IQ but had no way to really test it, so I settled for making my memory near perfect and acquiring the knowledge of ten degrees.

After breakfast I remembered to wish food would always give me energy, but I would never gain weight. Then I wished I would not have a period, no cramps, no PMS. I wished for no colds, no sickness of any kind.

I wished for knowledge in fighting right out of the movies, then wished for the strength of a much bigger man, but still having the body of a woman who appeared to jog and lift a few weights, no more. I could have wished to fly but I admit, it scared me, so I kept it basic.

By noon I could think of no more, and twenty-four hours had passed. I waited twenty minutes to be sure and wished my hair had a blue streak. Nothing happened. In the mirror I was still the new me. My dog watched it all with no canine comment. I had concrete proof, but I couldn't quite believe it.

I looked great but nothing fit me, and I had no money. I could have dressed up with a mask and robbed a bank, and I truly thought about it. But this was a test, of what kind I didn't know, so I decided against it.

Instead I found my smallest dress and put it on, pinning it tight. Luckily my bra still fit as did my shoes, but nothing else. So I went onto craigslist and looked for a modeling job. I took a picture with my camera and uploaded it and emailed a few people looking to hire. One wanted to work that day.

Yes, it was nude, and I wasn't proud of that, but I needed money. I posed naked on fake zebra rug, touching myself lightly, but the photographer was perfectly nice, the make-up woman too. It paid five hundred cash which I took happily.

At a thrift store I bought two pairs of pants and five shirts. From the drugstore I bought a pack of five panties, food for me and my dog, and I had three hundred left over. I walked to Bank of America and opened an account for half, and the rest I put in my pocket.

Back home I fed me and the dog and then changed. I took him for a walk and bought a paper. With my knowledge I pieced together a few trends, went home, and opened an online trading account. By then I was exhausted and passed out, sleeping through until morning.

Day two I woke and bought a few stocks. I bought one hundred dollars worth and traded all day, closing out with four hundred. I got calls from three more photographers and set times for the next three nights. This time, none required me to be nude.

I went to the first one and for three hundred posed with another girl pretending to be boxing with me. After she and I went out to dinner and she offered to set me up with her agent but I declined. That night I rented movies at RedBox and brought leftovers home to share with the dog.

Day three I was up to twelve hundred on the stock account and made another three hundred at a shoot pretending to be a waitress for a new restaurant. I had six hundred in my pocket and twelve hundred in the stocks. Day four brought a photo shoot for a Gothic art project and my cash on hand was nine hundred, my stocks were up to thirty-five hundred.

I took the nine hundred that night and right before close bought a new laptop at Best Buy.

Day five and my stocks went up to six thousand. I cashed out that night all but one thousand to play with. The morning of day six and I bought a car from the used lot around the corner, and a full decent basic wardrobe of new clothes from Target.

I was too scared to see my friends, not sure what they would think, so I told everyone I was sick. I couldn't work my night job at UPS when I looked so different, so I quit and kept to my new schedule.

By noon on day seven I was back up to four thousand with only four hours of trading when the knock came. I locked in the long buys and sold what I needed to and then answered the door.

Alessandra was there, smiling. "Anna, you look good."

"Come inside."

My dog greeted her as usual and she patted his head and followed me into the living room, smiling at the new laptop.

"Are you immortal?"

That shook me. "What? No! I wouldn't wish it even if it were possible. That's a curse, not a blessing."

Sitting, she smiled. "And quite impossible from the magic you had. And did you steal money, seduce it out of anyone?"

I sat too, scowling. "I did photo shoots. I'm not proud of the first one, I was nude, but it was safe. I used the cash to invest, did a few more shoots. I made sure I had the knowledge to invest wisely. I made enough for the computer, some clothes, and a car."

"And what is hardest about your changes?"

"I'm cut off," I said with a sigh. "I can't work my night job because I look so different. I can't see friends or family."

"Would you change anything about yourself?"

I looked down to my feet, an awkward size twelve narrow. "I would have changed my feet to size ten, average width, but I didn't have money for shoes."