Free Finn Fancy Necromancy by Randy Henderson Page B

of his bed, pulled on his gloves, and unlocked the door. Dawn walked in.
    The woman who stood in the doorway looked wildly different from the Dawn of my memories. The glasses were gone, replaced by a silver piercing on her left eyebrow. The cornrows had become a wavy lavender afro. And she’d gone from scrawny to Mother Goddess curves. She carried two plates with slices of what looked like berry pie.
    â€œHey, Petey, I brought—” She stopped when she spotted me. “Finn? Is that you?”
    I smiled. “Hey, Dawn.”
    â€œHoly son of Godzilla! Long time no see. You look good. I heard you were living way off the grid down south or something, but Jesus man, why the hell didn’t you ever just drop me a line? That was really shitty of you, you know?”
    Ah, shoot. Of course Dawn didn’t know I’d been in exile. As far as she knew, I’d simply left without saying good-bye. And she’d never had a lot of friends besides me and Pete and Sammy. Being new in town was part of that at first, and the fact that she was one of only two black kids in all of Port Townsend probably didn’t make it any easier to fit in. Mostly, though, she was just weird. Like the way she said whatever random crazy thought popped into her head.
    Man, I’d missed that, especially in the perpetual sameness of the Other Realm.
    But I could only imagine how my disappearance must have seemed to her.
    â€œUh, yeah, I’m really sorry about that, Dawn. You know, I was having some real problems, and I needed to get away, time to deal and, you know … find myself.” I winced. Lame.
    â€œHey, you’re talking to the queen of self-exploration, my friend,” Dawn said. “Not masturbation, though I’m pretty well the queen of that too, but I meant, you know, trying to figure all that head and heart crap out.” She crossed her arms. “So how’d it go?”
    â€œUh. I … good?”
    â€œYou don’t sound so sure there. I’d be happy to help you explore yourself some more—again, I’m talking head and heart here. Mostly. Although this place brings back some memories, huh? Well dangity, I don’t want to interrupt a family reunion or whatever—”
    â€œNo, no, it’s fine, really, come in.”
    â€œNaw, I think I’ll just go. You’ve kind of thrown me, to be honest, appearing out of the blue and all, and I need to process some things. But here, you two can have these. I’ve got plenty more at home.”
    â€œReally, you don’t have to go,” I said.
    Dawn set the plates on Pete’s end table. “But I want to go, and these days, I pretty much do what I want.”
    â€œWell then, do you want to go to dinner in town tomorrow? With Pete and me?”
    Dawn stopped, and stared at me in silence. Just as it began to feel really uncomfortable, she said, “I don’t know. Are you going to wear those adorable pajamas?”
    I looked down and blushed. Great.
    â€œProbably not.”
    â€œWell, that’s a shame. But still sounds delovely and delicious. Let’s say the Belmont, six o’clock? See you there.” And she left.
    I blinked at the closed door for a second, and then shook my head. “Well, she hasn’t changed much.”
    â€œUh-huh.” Pete looked down at the two pieces of pie. “Which one do you want?” he asked, as though afraid of my answer. One of the pieces was nearly twice the size of the other.
    â€œI’ll take the small one, dude. You need your pie.”
    Later, as I drifted off to Pete’s snores, I made a decision. I couldn’t control what my enemies did, even if I could prove my innocence in time to save myself. If the past was any lesson, I was pretty screwed, in fact. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t try to save myself, just that success was a long shot.
    So I would make the best of whatever time I did have. That’s what I