Epilogue

Three Months Later

“Shit, I’m going to be late!” I said to myself as I searched through my dresser, throwing clothes haphazardly behind me, desperately searching for something to wear. I went through every single drawer without success and had made a mess of my bedroom in the process. I seized my vanilla yogurt from the top of my dresser and shoveled another delicious spoonful into my mouth as I sprinted down the stairs.

If all else fails, mother’s closet was the way to go.

“Mom!” I shouted. I was on the edge of desperation; if I wasn’t dressed appropriately, I was going to get the living daylights pinched out of me. “I need your help!”

“What is it?” My mom asked as she tumbled out of the bathroom, fear of something going wrong on her face. After I had come back, that expression found itself on her face more often than ever before. In fact, things had been way different since that night. After I woke up and after everybody had gone home, mom and Todd both fired off a barrage of questions I was unable to come up with a good answer for (“Where were you?”; “What happened to you?”; “Who did it?”; “Why didn’t you call?” etc.) Because I wasn’t able to answer clearly in my groggy, newly-awakened state, they both freaked out and I could only assume they assumed the worst: I was kidnaped, I ran away from home—and being the doting parents they had suddenly found themselves thought whatever it was, it was there fault. After a few days, I sold it to them that I had got lost in the woods behind Luciole, and Trick was the one who found me; they didn’t really buy it. Now my mother worried about me more than ever and Todd was less inclined to leave me alone. Neither of them would loosen up no matter how many times I insisted everything was fine, and eventually, I just got used to it.

But, returning to more pressing things.

“I need something green to wear!” I moaned. I had purged my closet some time in January, leaving me with naught a single green thing to my name. The pajamas Trick had made me the morning of my return after the ordeal—the green ones—were taken back into his possession after the closet had been completely wiped, saying he’d like to have a memento of me to soothe him when I wasn’t around.

“You’re going out with Patrick again, aren’t you?” she teased. I rolled my eyes and nodded, a spoon hanging out of my mouth as I snacked.

“Do you have something green I could borrow?” I said with difficulty, trying to wrap my tongue around the yogurt in my mouth. “I’m desperate.”

“It won’t be long until you’re running around asking to borrow something blue, hmm?” I felt my cheeks flame up immediately, much to my mother’s delight. “Well, lets see what my closet has, okay?”

After a few minutes of browsing and rifting, my mother unearthed a simple hunter green long-sleeve thermal. I shoveled the rest of my yogurt down my throat and shoved the empty container into my mother’s hands as I yanked the shirt off the hanger. I pulled it over my head and down over my tank, quickly finding it covered the scar on my wrist and at the same time exposed a bit of skin in the chest (but not the breast) area. And it matched the jeans I was wearing too—it was perfect.

“Thanks a million!” I said as I rushed past her, slipping on my chucks and grabbing a jacket to fend off the winter-spring chill before running out the door, keys jingling in hand. Her expression of shock and dubiousness when I left her standing with yogurt and a hanger in hand was priceless.

To my credit, I didn’t speed (even though I was running a half-hour late) to the address Jakobi had mapquested for me. When I came to a stop, I was in front of a pub leaking noise into a quiet slum on the opposite side of town. I checked my hair in the mirror and made sure that there wasn’t anything in my teeth (even though the only thing I had ate was yogurt) before I locked the doors and headed inside. Luis had re-upholstered the interior, in addition to re-carpeting and re-doing the ceiling. Regardless of how much replacement was done, it was hard to shake the smell of smoke and the traumatic memories of Luciole burning inside and out that came with it. Luckily, as those traumatic experiences I remembered so well had taught me, being exposed to something often was enough to get used to it.

Inside the pub, I was overwhelmed by the crowd. It easily had twice the people it should have been able to legally and comfortably contain and was unmistakably populated by almost all Irish aficionados. Considering that I, a seventeen year-old, was wandering around alone in a drinking establishment (something that is more or less illegal in the United States) that I had never even seen before, I felt a little out of place. I roved around, avoiding as many flailing drunk Irish people as possible. Half-way through sneaking past the bar without gaining a black eye or getting soaked in beer, I saw him.

Trick was decked out in all his St. Patrick’s Day finery, and looked like a walking, talking Irish flag. He was clad in bright orange pants and a long-sleeved green and white striped shirt, spangled with patches of the Irish flag. He was in the middle of a drinking contest with a big, burly Irishman (who was easily twice his size—and he was winning) when I laid eyes on him. Upon discovering me standing there, he spat alcohol everywhere in surprise.

“Helana!” I heard a voice call to me. I turned and found Jakobi and Terra sitting at a booth a little ways away, ushering me over. I glanced at Trick, who was getting quite the threatening talking-to by the man who he had spayed alcohol all over, and decided to leave him to his own devices. I went over to Jakobi and Terra and sat down across from them.

“Thank god you’re finally here. I’ve been having to keep Jak company this whole time,” Terra said, wholly exacerbated.

“I’m sorry. I got caught up in something,” I said, recalling my yogurt with delight.

“Something that fills you with joy, hm?” Jakobi said knowingly, reading my face (possibly my aura) like the open-book it was.

“Guilty,” I said with a smile, rousing a laugh out of him. “Did I miss much?”

“Not really, besides Trick saturating himself with liquor,” Jakobi remarked. “And Terra wanting to get hammered.”

“I’m not even tipsy!” Terra complained brashly, elbowing Jakobi in the side. He sighed and rolled his eyes. “He shouldn’t be able to have all the fun,”

“Where’s Rat and the rest?” I inquired. Terra scoffed.

“You think he’d really go out and associate with commoners? This is an Irish pub, for Christ’s sake,”

“This is very true,” I said in retrospect. She nodded.

“He’s probably at home having a ménage à trois,” she said loudly, causing my eyes to bulge out of my head.

“He’s at home watching MTV,” Jakobi said, matter-of-factly correcting his companion.

“MTV? Why?” I wondered aloud.

“He finds it puzzling. His favorite show is called Flavor of Love,” I recalled Thanksgiving when he discovered the enigma that was Flavor Flav, and erupted in laughter.

“Hey, what’s so funny?” said a deliciously accented voice I was very familiar with in my ear. Trick slipped into the booth beside me with a tall glass of lemonade in his hand and a sober-driver bracelet.

“A virgin fer my virgin,” he said as he placed a kiss on my temple; he received a punch in the gut in return.

“Can I go now?” Terra pleaded. “Jakobi hasn’t let me have a single drink all night,”

“Oh, fine,” Jakobi said with a dramatic sigh. Terra’s face lit up and she threw her arms around his neck and placed a sloppy kiss of joy on his cheek.

“Oh, thank you! I love you!” She exclaimed before she grabbed a sputtering, protesting Trick and dragged him away.

“All the ladies do,” Jakobi said, wiping the saliva off of his face with disdain.

“If ya flash that bracelet, Hels, you’ll get free refills!” Trick shouted over the crowd “Christy’s dad owns the place!”

“So, now that we’re alone...” Jakobi said seductively, leaning across the table and placing his hand on mine. I rolled my eyes.

“Not in a million years, pal,” I said firmly, a grin stretching across my face as I slipped my hand out from under his and seized my drink.

“Oh,” Jakobi joked “I can wait,”

We exchanged a series of laughs in which Jakobi leaned back and lounged in the booth and I took a long quaff of my beverage. After the giggles were out of our system, we turned our attention to more important things.

“Have you heard any word from Adam?” I asked. Jakobi sighed and shook his head.

“Not a bloody thing,”

Three months ago, after Ekaj’s suicide, Adam left. Jakobi had tried to stop him, had tried to talk him into going back, but Adam was firm in his decision to disappear. He said that there was no going back to being who he was, and that he had to find who he was going to be. With only the clothes on his back and a walking stick to help with his limp, he just turned his back on Jakobi and Rat, and left them behind.

“I wish he’d send a postcard or something,” I remarked sullenly.

“He’s like his father,” Jakobi said with a smile. “Trick did the same thing a long time ago. He’ll be back,”

I couldn’t help but smile too as my eyes wandered over to Trick and Terra. Terra was in the middle of downing a draft of Guinness (with another waiting in hand) while Trick and many other admiring onlookers observed in awe.

“He’s come a long ways since you’ve two got together, you know,” Jakobi gossiped, hiding his mouth behind his hand, leaning in close as not to be overheard. I didn’t doubt it; Trick’s surprising recovery in history class and his shocking development of a friendly relationship with our teacher was a testament of his evolving people skills. “You’re a good influence on him,”

“Good influences would probably tell him to stop being a living shot glass,” I remarked, watching Trick hop up on the bar and pull up his shirt while the bartender (whom I recognized to be Trick’s Irish friend, John-Christy) filled his belly button with liquor with disdain; when Terra sucked it out, my expression quickly turned to disapproval. He sat up laughing hysterically, wiping his stomach with a rag while Terra collapsed against the bar, giggling to the point of gasping for air.

“Well, nobody’s perfect,” Jakobi said, his expression and voice mimicking mine.

“So, you guys been up to Luciole recently?” I asked, turning my attention back to the conversation.

“Yeah. We found a chest full of some old file work still intact. It held Pascale and Penelope’s original birth certificates, so they were quite pleased,”

“That’s good,” The inside of Luciole had been completely burned out, and very few things had survived. Arson by unknown perpetrators had been cited by the police as the cause of the fire, and when all leads turned up with nothing, the case was closed. Because of the proximity of my car and my mysterious disappearance, I was considered a subject, before Jakobi, Rat and Trick all affirmed I had nothing to do with it. Trick and the rest had been living out of hotel rooms while they combed through the wreckage, Trick using his magic to repair what he could and completely destroy what he could not. Reconstruction was set to start in the summer.

“I wonder what it takes to get a refill around here,” Jakobi wondered aloud, glancing around for any sign of a waitress.

Our attention again was stolen by the bar crowd. Trick had hopped up onto the bar and had pulled the bartender up next to him. To the delight of the crowd, they broke out into quite the little jig, drunken Irish folk songs tumbling haphazardly from their mouths.

“Use your charms,” I suggested. “No woman is immune to the come-hither gaze of Jakobi Kirabo,”

“Oh, isn’t that the truth,” he joked good-naturedly, lifting his arm to display his own sober-driver wristband. His shirt slid down his arm just enough to reveal the bleached-white scars caused by Dolores’s stomach acid. “Can I get a refill over here?”

I pulled up my sleeve to look at the scar I had obtained. The wound itself had healed, but a deep scar remained, a pearl-colored river snaking through an expanse of tan. Seeing me examining my disfigured wrist caused Jakobi to unbutton the sleeve of his own shirt and lay his banded, patterend arm down next to mine.

“Look at us,” he said “Comparing scars like old war fellows,”

I smiled, holding his gaze as well as I could. We were bonded now, by friendship and blood.

“So, we’re going on vacation this summer,” Jakobi said, buttoning his cuff and bring my attention back to his face. “A European tour, if you would. Would you be interested in coming with us?”

I blinked twice. “Me?”

“Who else would I be talking to, Hels?” he said patiently, his smile getting the better of his face.

“I don’t know. I doubt my mom would go for it,” especially with the way she had been acting lately.

“I can smooth things over with her,” he offered quickly, and then with a sense of suave sophistication as he ran his fingers through his hair (back to its usual length,) he added “After all, my talent does lie in smoothing over things,”

“I’ll think about it,” I said with a nod, watching the smile on his face widen as the bar crowd joined Trick and Christy in a round of old pub songs—everything ranging from “Belle of Belfast City” to “If You’re Irish”. An old Irishman whom I could only assume to be Christy’s father, judging by the family resemblance, broke out an accordion and the whole bar supplied a drum beat by stomping their feet and clapping their hands. Dapper gentlemen began seizing buxom lasses by the elbow and began tearing up the crowded, spur-of-the-moment dance floor.

“Let’s get closer,” Jakobi said, grabbing me and pulling me away from the booth and through the crowd before I could protest.

“C’mon, Paddy! You gotta dance!” Christy implored, practically shoving a strangely modest Trick towards the dance floor, where a hole had opened up for him, surrounded by waiting spectators.

“You’re the best dancer in here!” Terra pushed (quite literally).

“I couldn’t...” Trick was saying, spying me inching my way closer through the crowd.

“This crowd is so thick!” I complained, turning to Jakobi for some sign of agreement, only he wasn’t there. “Jakobi?”

Moments later, a song poured out of the speakers of the jukebox, and I watched as Trick’s face contorted into a devilish grin. The song playing over the speakers was familiar to me, seeing as it was his favorite song and he was fond of singing and dancing to it whenever he got the chance; the song on the juke was none other than his most beloved tune in the whole world: “Devil’s Dance Floor” by Flogging Molly.

Trick, being the being of fancy that he was, just couldn’t help himself; as soon as the music hit his ears, his toes started tapping and his as the brunt of the song crescendoed, he was shimming across the floor—shaking his shapeless hips right towards me.

“Oh no you don’t!” I warned as Trick thrust his arm into the crowd, ensnaring mine.

“Oh yes I do!” he said, grinning as he pulled me out into the dance floor. Desperately as Trick wrapped his arms around my waist, I searched for the bastard that had dared to play that song, the foul villain who had dared to embarrass me in front of a group of surly, hiccuping bar folk. Leaning ever so casually against the juke box was Jakobi, wiggling his fingers in a dainty, innocent wave as he smiled ever-so pleasantly. I, without a doubt, was going to kill him.

“Let me go!” I exclaimed as Trick wrapped his legs around mine and began leading me across the floor, leaning in close and letting his breath tickle my ear as he sang along. “I don’t dance!”

“Pressed against her face, I could feel her insecurity...” he sang, pushing his chest against mine, pushing me backwards across the floor. For all my luck, I managed to stay on my feet and more or less keep up with his impossible-to-follow foot work. “Her mother'd been a drunk and her father was obscurity,”

“Well swing a little more, little more o'er the merry-o,” he echoed as spun me around, swinging me around here and there like a big, lanky ironing-board. “Swing a little more, a little more next to me!”

“Trick, let me go!” I whined, smiling in spite of myself as he whirled me around. His hands were again on my back and shoulders as he pulled me to his chest, the lyrics in his mouth taunting me.

“The apple now is sweet, oh much sweeter than it ought to be. Another little bite,

I don't think there is much hope for me...” he continued to sing, pulling me closer so our noses were touching. His lips hovered succulently close to mine as his hands began to sink down my back towards my undefended apple-bottom “...The sweat beneath her brow travels all the way an' headin' south. This bleedin' heart's cryin’ cause there's no way out,”

“Alright, alright!” Terra said as she shoved her arms between us, freeing me from both Trick’s wandering, manhandling grip and the exhilarating, embarrassing dance. “Keep it clean, kids!”

Terra seized Trick in a much more skilled dance than ours had been and pushed me out of his reach and into the crowd. I didn’t miss the weight of the heavy gaze he sent my way as it settled in my stomach, nor the sight of his tongue grazing against the edges of his teeth. I practically ran back to the table.

“My, my: is it hot in here or is it just you two?” Jakobi cooed, his corny humor only fanning the fires in my cheeks, spreading the blaze down my neck and across my collarbone.

“Is it hot in here?” I said breathlessly, double-checking to see if sweat had accumulated on my brow. In response, Jakobi just rolled his eyes and laughed.

“I’m mad at you, you know,” I remarked, fanning myself as I collapsed into my seat, reaching for my lemonade and taking a big gulp.

“Wait—!” Jakobi said, reaching out in an attempt to warn me. I tasted the distinct taste of liquor and spat the bitter liquid everywhere. He finished with a wince: “—that’s Terra’s...”.

“Verdammt! I am so tired of tricks!” I screamed, slamming the glass back down on the table. I reached for my virgin lemonade only a glass away and purged the taste of alcohol from my mouth. Jakobi couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Okay, okay,” Jakobi said, raising his hands in a sign of defeat, and then placing a hand on his heart “No more tricks, I promise,”

I eyed him suspiciously as I continued to drink. Trick and Terra wandered over after the song had finished, Terra seizing her drink and plopping down next to Jakobi while Trick wrapped his arm around my shoulders, stumbling a bit in his inebriation.

“Well,” I said, setting my glass down and after some thought, seized Trick’s giggling face and kissed him hard on the cheek “maybe just the one...”

~Fin~

Commentary:

Oh, my god. I definitely had a panic attack while I was loading this up.

It's up early, everybody, as an early New Years present. I don't even know what to say, now that it's done. I can't believe I actually finished something. Thank you so much, everyone who has ever supported me and this story. A reviewer, Marilyn, asked me how Trick got as big as it is, and that's because, in all honesty, the support I had from my fans. Your reading and your reviewing is probably the only thing that sustained my will to write, and certainly the only thing that made me keep with this story (considering all of my actual friends won't read it). My goal as a writer now is to entertain those who I can, and envoke emotion in people's hearts. If I'm lucky, perhaps, I've touched at least one person in the three and a half years I've worked on Trick---that would make all of the frustration and time I put into it worthwhile. I can't express my gratitude enough; thank you from the very bottom of my heart.

But, for those who are in desperate need of tissues because Trick will no longer be updated, take heart! I have other works, such as Boo or Shenanigans that you may or may not enjoy. There will definitely be a sequel, and it will begin publication on St. Patrick's Day of next year. I would highly recommend those of you who have not done so to put me on their author alerts, so you don't miss out! But, I'm off topic. If my other work doesn't satisfy you, and you just can't get enough of Trick, check out my livejournal community, SkylarAlexander! It is has been revamped and is now open for membership; join today for exclusive insider info on your favorite characters, and for those who want to write as well (or better) than I do, I will be providing writing guides in the near future. I've recently posted a "What could have happened" scenario in Trick if I had went with my original ideas, and my favorite inside joke, Count Ratcula, and a large entry detailing the villains of Trick, all the way from Aconite to Ekaj. (Oh my god, I just realized something. Aconite, Bane, Camio, Dolores and Ekaj---ABCDE XD XD XD) and a soundtrack with music for those who want to get the full experience out of Trick. Also, character art, fan art, and exclusive info on the coming sequel and eventually where to buy Trick after its publication. Check it out; you'll enjoy it. If you have a Livejournal account, friend me; if you don't, make one. Because linking is like, impossible for me in chapters, get the link on my profile page.

Thank you so much for bearing with me. Give me one last review, and I'll give you one last reply, for old time's sake.

*cries* I can't believe its over!