Trickster s Girl - By Hilari Bell Page 0,4

hadn't worked long enough to raise blisters, but she could feel it in her muscles, in her hands - the simple reality of a grave in the earth.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. All part of the cycle, her father would have said.

After she'd patted down the last of the dirt Kelsa wiped her hands on her jeans, dug a tissue out of her pocket, and blew her nose. She rose to her feet. The tree's quiet spirit, the rustling darkness, comforted her more than any human presence, soothing the raw pain. But nothing could fill the aching emptiness left by her father's absence. There was one more thing to say.

"Goodbye, Dad."

She was reaching for the posthole digger, turning to go, when a man stepped out of the shadow of the tree trunk, almost as if he'd stepped out of the tree itself.

Kelsa started back, stumbling, almost falling. The man - no, boy, for he looked only a few years older than she was - moved forward into the moonlight.

His face was round, but with high cheekbones, and his straight black hair was perfect for the asymmetric wedges of his fashionable haircut. He wore jeans and gel-soles, like Kelsa did, but his round-collared shirt had buttons like a dress shirt, though the sleeves were fuller and the cut was wrong.

He was one of the best-looking guys Kelsa had seen outside of a fashion ad, and his cocky smile told her he knew it.

"Relax," he said. "I think you'll do. I've been looking for you for a long time. I wouldn't dream of doing you harm."

Kelsa picked up the posthole digger. "I don't know who you are or what you're doing here, and I don't care. I want you to leave. Now."

His smile never wavered. "But I've only just found you. I can't let you go yet. Besides - "

He stepped forward so quickly she had no chance to back away, and he brushed the ball of his thumb over the flat spot between her eyebrows. He stepped back just as quickly, at the same time she did, and raised his thumb to his lips. "Yes, you'll do. So I can't afford to lose you. Sorry," he added with another charming smile. "But there it is."

Kelsa raised the posthole digger, prepared to swing it if he took another step. "Look, mister, I don't know where you come from..." His faint drawl didn't sound quite like any accent she'd heard before, and his skin had a swarthy cast. "...but Utah takes statutory rape seriously. So back off and get out of here, or I'll start screaming."

The creek might feel like a slice of wilderness, but there were houses only a few hundred yards away and the night was quiet. If she screamed, someone would wake up and report it. For all his creepy weirdness, she didn't feel like he was hitting on her. But if it wasn't that, what was he doing? She didn't lower the digger, even when his smile faded.

"I'm not trying to ... What's the phrase? Hook up?" The amusement in his voice was clear. "Or in a way I am, though not for the purposes you think. I want to ... recruit you? Yes, that's the right way to put it."

"A pimp's even worse than a pervert," Kelsa told him, though she didn't think he was a pimp, either. His English was fluent, but something about the phrasing didn't sound right. Maybe this was all some sort of linguistic misunderstanding.

"You have a very dirty mind," he said. "Not that I object to that. It's the fact that you don't believe in magic that's going to make this difficult."

Kelsa snorted. "I haven't heard a lot of lines, but that's got to be one of the worst. What part of 'go away' do you find so mysterious?"

He shook his head sadly. "You don't understand."

"Oh no, I got it. We'd be magic together. Or maybe it's just you that's magic, with any girl you meet. But you were right the first time. I don't believe in magic."

The smile came back, crooked now, but still annoying.

"Then why don't I show you some," the young man said. "It will probably be quicker than arguing."

Kelsa stepped back once more, but he didn't move toward her. Instead...

He began to shrink, not crouching, but actually growing smaller. His swarthy skin darkened, his whole body crumpling like a piece of paper laid on a bed of embers. His skin shredded into blackened strips. His clothes folded into