Alternate Susan: Alternate Susan, #1

By Kater Cheek

Her mom disappeared. Her siblings are dead. And a dangerous djinn is demanding payment for an unholy bargain.

 

Susan Stillwater is magically thrust into a not-quite-right version of her home town, where she has no idea who to trust, and the Magical Investigation Bureau (MIB) is interrogating her about an illegal summoning. Susan desperately buys time by feigning memory loss, but her lies are starting to unravel.   

When Susan's friends narrowly survive a vicious attack, she learns the truth: the alternate Susan committed an abominable crime and left this Susan holding the bag. Now she has to locate her missing mother, dodge sleazy-hot men seeking favors, and open a portal to escape home again ... all before the djinn collects payment for his wishes, which were never free.

 

Can Susan escape the lethal pledge made by the alternate Susan?

 

Alternate Susan is book one in an excitingly original trilogy by the author of the Kit Melbourne Series. If you like off-kilter magic in the American Southwest and non-stop tension, you'll love Kater Cheek's captivating novel.

Buy Alternate Susan to summon a quirky desert legend today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kater Cheek
• Release date: May 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393796954

Book preview

Chapter One

I realized I was in an alternate reality when I came home Thursday night and tried to order pizza.

My usual Thursday routine was to go to the Roadhouse with my mom, Maggie, to see Smiling Politely, the band my sister and brother play in. Go to work, come home, hang out with Jess and Christopher. Thursday was also my day to cook. That meant takeout.

I changed into my favorite denim skirt, but it felt strangely tight so I put on jeans and an ivory blouse that Zoë always said was cut too low for busty girls like me. Then I took the yellow pages off the shelf and flipped to restaurants.

Nello’s okay? I asked my roommate Zoë. Or would you rather have Chinese?

Zoë and I shared a three-bedroom house with desert landscaping and the universal college-house couch on the porch. It was not too far from the trailer park where I’d been living with Maggie and my siblings before they drove me nuts and I moved out.

You know Susie, I really prefer Mexican, Zoë said. She’d never called me ‘Susie’ before, but somehow that didn’t tip me off.

Mexican places don’t deliver, and if I have to go and get something, I might be late for—hello, that’s weird. I drew my finger down the listings in the phone book. ‘Hayden’s Ferry Mexican Cantina’ and ‘Tres Hermanos, voted best margaritas in Hayden’s Ferry for 2005.’ Since when is Tempe called Hayden’s Ferry?

What are you talking about? Zoë asked. Her boots clomped across the floor. She must have gotten home from work before I had, because she was wearing cut-off sweat pants and a sport bra instead of the usual leather-and-vinyl sex kitten garb she wore at the tattoo parlor where she poked people with inky needles for a living. Her midriff was bare, showing most of her dragon tattoos and about half her piercings.

Zoë is half a foot shorter than I am, but she’s so skinny that she appears tall, even though she only comes up to about five five in her highest stiletto heeled boots. She has jet black hair with pale roots, giving her an unfortunate resemblance to a skunk. I don’t know why a natural platinum blonde would ever dye her hair black. I’ve been blonde on occasion, but a lack of bonuses at work meant that brown roots now came down to my ears.

I ran my finger down the pizza listings, looking at the city addresses. Phoenix was still Phoenix. Scottsdale was Scottsdale. Chandler and Guadalupe stayed the same. No Mesa listings, but plenty of businesses in a place called ‘Brighamville’.

If this is a joke, it’s a good one. These yellow pages look just like the real thing. I turned the book over, looking for something that said it was a fake. Zoë, where’s the real phone book?

This city’s always been called Hayden’s Ferry.

This was getting annoying. Zoë wasn’t usually a practical joker.

There you are, Miss Susie! Finally! said a disembodied voice. It sounded like Maggie, except more masculine, and a lot less cigarette-rasped.

Who was that? I looked around the kitchen. Next to the window was our fish, and next to the light switch was the cat food dish for Zoë’s cat, Spaz. No one else. I went to the window and looked out, and saw no one there either. Something fluttered in the tree outside, something that wouldn’t have been there if the world were still normal, but I told myself it was birds. What was that? Is there a ghost in here? Who’s talking?

I didn’t hear anything, Zoë said. She leaned over my shoulder and drew her black acrylic nail down the yellow pages listings. And there’s nothing funny about these listings. I vote for Filibertos. I could go for a burrito.

I heard something. It sounded like my mom. I pulled away from her. Had she planted a recording or something? Why was she playing all these tricks?

Miss Susie, it’s me, Miles. I’m here on the wall. On the wall of the dining room was a lizard, appearing as though he were clinging to the painted branch on the mural of two maple trees flanking the window.

Zoë, you’re sure you can’t hear that?

No, Margaret passed the spell on to you, said the voice. Only you can hear me. The lizard ran along the branch, and down the white molding to the window sill. He was barely the length of my hand, and a pale beige color. His neck, an iridescent blue, pulsed in and out with what might have been agitation. Then he spoke again. I backed away, the hair on the back of my neck standing up.

The lizard’s talking ...

What’s he saying? asked Zoë. She didn’t sound surprised.

Miss Susie. Do I sound like Margaret to you?

It ... it wants to know if it sounds like my mother.

Does it?

It did. I addressed the creature directly. What are you?

I am Miles, and you are Miss Susan. Margaret is the one who made me able to talk. That is why I have her voice. She’s capable of great magic, on occasion. The lizard sounded patient, understanding, and more than a little sarcastic.

Everyone calls her Maggie. My mom hates being called Margaret. I didn’t know why I was telling the talking lizard that. Why are you here?

I’m here because she left when she got her wish. She’s gone. Fled. She even left her trailer behind. And here I thought those things were portable, the lizard said, again deeply sarcastic.

Wish? It was like being in a dream, or in some sort of inexplicable play where no one had given me a script.

What did you wish for, Miss Susie? Gross ignorance?

What the heck are you talking about, lizard? I was beginning to get angry. This joke needed to stop.

Your wish from the djinn. What did you wish for?

What’s with you, Susie? Since when is your mom’s familiar just ‘lizard?’ Zoë asked.

I sat down at the table and stumbled as I nearly missed the chair. Familiar? What’s going on here? Why do you keep calling me Susie? This isn’t funny anymore. Stop it. Seriously. I felt ill. This was the kind of crap Chris might pull, thinking it was funny long past when everyone else did, but Zoë wasn’t like that. Zoë was levelheaded, serious.

Are you on drugs? Zoë asked. She sounded something between concerned and disapproving. I shook my head numbly.

Oh, dear, this could be serious. Miss Susan, why don’t you have some whisky? the lizard suggested.

Whisky. I repeated. I had the urge to climb into bed and pull the covers over my head. Something was wrong. Something was unnatural. My arms prickled all over with goose pimples. Zoë opened the cabinet over the sink, and a moment later she handed me a shot glass. I knocked it back. The familiar scent of whisky wafted up my nostrils. Why was it familiar? I liked rum.

Better? the lizard asked.

No. Talking lizard, alternate reality. Not at all cool. The shot glass had a drop or two in the bottom. I’ve drunk this before.

Zoë scoffed as she put the rest of the bottle back in the cupboard. It was nearly empty. You used to put back a bottle a night after the funerals.

Funerals? I asked. A creeping horror told me I didn’t even need to ask, but the whisky kept me from panicking.

Your siblings, Miles the lizard said. Jess and Christopher. Did you ask the djinn for memory loss?

They’re dead?

Jess and Christopher have been dead for most of a year now, Zoë said.

I started crying. Zoë wouldn’t lie to me about something like this. I wanted it to not be true, but as I reached into my mind, I knew it was. The grief felt old. My sister and brother had both died months ago. Sobs shook me back and forth. But it was like I was two people, Susan and Susie. The Susie part of me had already dealt with it. For her, the sorrow had diminished to a muscle-ache level, not a toothache level. The rest of me, the one who had gone to bed in a normal world last night, was still in shock. Zoë moved away respectfully. After a while, I stopped sniffling and wiped my face on a paper napkin.

I wanna call Maggie. No matter how independent a woman thinks she is, when the world changes this much, she wants her mom. Gimme my phone.

Don’t bother. She disappeared on Tuesday, Miles the lizard informed me. He scampered off the wall, up the table, and onto the back of my hand. I didn’t want him touching me, but it didn’t seem polite to just fling him off. Just after she made her wish. It took me a long time to get here from her house. It’s a brisk walk for a lizard.

So, are you a real person, Zoë asked, or are you made of clay or something?

He feels real to me.

No, not Miles. You, Susie. Are you a real person?

What? I gave Zoë a confused look.

Susie said she’d be gone by the end of the week, but that she’d have a replacement. I guess you’re the replacement. Are you a real person?

I’m me. Zoë, we’ve known each other for years. I’m Susan Stillwater. The world I woke up in yesterday didn’t have talking lizards, and the city I lived in wasn’t called Hayden’s Ferry. And Jess and Chris were fine, and Maggie hadn’t gone missing.

You must be from an alternate reality, Miles proposed. I’ve heard of such things, but never quite believed it. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Susie switched places with you, her counterpart.

An alternate reality? If he was right about me being from an alternate world, then back there, Jess and Chris were still fine, and Maggie was probably over at the Roadhouse now. When had I come over? This morning? During my lunch break? But work was the same, wasn’t it? Except for that new chick, the new loan officer, who had the unusual yellow-irised eyes and a cackling laugh. I’d asked about her, but everyone else said she’d always been there. But shouldn’t there have been some booming sound, some flash of light, some miraculous orgasmic power feeling? And what about the weird not-quite-bird creatures flying around in the trees?

Zoë nodded, as matter-of-factly as if Miles had proposed takeout Chinese for dinner. That makes sense. Well, I’m glad she wished for a replacement. It’s hard to find roommates at the beginning of summer.

Zoë ... I began, struggling for words. I wanted her to disagree with Miles, to tell me that it was all a big joke, that this wasn’t really an alternate reality with dead siblings and a missing mother. But she didn’t.

Zoë wasn’t just a roommate; she was the closest thing I had to a responsible adult in my life. Zoë was the one who knew who to call when the pipes busted. Zoë helped me file my GED papers. Zoë drove me to urgent care when my just the flu had turned out to be a raging bronchial infection. And if she was taking this so calmly, what could I do?

Find Maggie. If Maggie was a witch or mage or whatever in this world, she would be able to help me get back to my own reality. I’d have to find her. Miles, can you help me find my mom?

Miles coughed. Of course there is the matter of the— and then he broke off, because Spaz had jumped onto the table, taken Miles in her mouth, and run off with him.

No! I ran after the cat, but Spaz ran out the pet door. I chased Spaz only long enough to see her eat Miles. Miles screamed for a few brief moments, and then there was only silence, and the disgusting crunch of lizard bones in a cat’s jaw. I wanted to yell at her, hit her, call her a murderess, and for a moment I did, yelling anyway, not hitting. Then I stopped myself. She was only doing what cats naturally do. It still felt like a murder. And Miles didn’t have a chance to tell me all I needed to know.

I locked the cat door in case Spaz puked. Then I plopped into the kitchen chair and buried my head in my hands.

Well, that’s a shame, but I never liked him anyway. You know what I think you should do? Zoë said, eyeing me with concern. I think you should go out, have some drinks, then call your boss and fake a case of the flu tomorrow. What with your mom disappearing and all that’s been happening, you’re probably exhausted.

Why are you taking this so well? I asked her.

She snorted. I’ve been your friend for how long? You think I haven’t seen something weirder than this? Come to think of it, don’t fake the flu, fake diarrhea. Even the Hag won’t make you work through that.

Thank God you haven’t changed. In this world, she was the closest thing to family I had left. Even Maggie’s familiar (familiar?!) was gone.

Since when do you thank God instead of your demon? Go, get plastered. Call me if you can’t drive yourself home.

I looked at the room. Scratched teak table with mismatched chairs. Floor with the linoleum half-scraped, awaiting new tile. Zoë’s serious china doll face, and the red fins of her fish swimming in his bowl. Everything looked exactly the same. How could it be so different?

And then there had been Miles, talking to me, the eggshell in my omelet. But he wasn’t here now, was he?

I looked at the things that hadn’t changed, concentrating on them, the way I replayed my trip to Disneyland to keep me from freaking out when I was getting a cavity filled.

Panic rose up, threatened to make me run around screaming, so I concentrated on the details, pretending nothing was different. Magnet on the fridge with the pizzeria phone number, secondhand mixing bowl and stainless-steel coffee maker. Smudged glass window overlooking the dusty carport. My red leather keychain from the normal Tempe, (where Jess and Christopher were just now setting up for their show tonight). All this could keep me sane.

I’m gonna go to the Roadhouse, I said. Go to the Roadhouse, just like every other Thursday.

She nodded. There are worse places to start looking for your mom.

Chapter Two

I went outside and got in my car, feeling furious at Maggie for leaving and Susie for swapping me into this horrible reality. Susie’s Christopher and Susie’s Jess were dead, not mine. I hadn’t mislaid my mother. Let Susie deal with her own problems! I wanted to go home, back to the world where if I went to the Roadhouse, I’d find my brother and sister and Maggie. I knew clicking my heels three times wasn’t going to work.

The sun had set just far enough to blind those of us driving west. I flipped down the visor, which didn’t help, then made a right so I wasn’t driving into the sunset. Might as well stop by Maggie’s place. If I got a look in my mom’s (Susie’s mom’s!) trailer, maybe she would have left a note, or better yet, returned. If she was back, she might come with me to the Roadhouse. I parked my Daewoo in Maggie’s now-empty spot and climbed the steps.

Maggie? I called out, stepping on to the Astroturf-covered porch of my mom’s run-down trailer home.

The windows on the small trailer were cracked open, leaking the smell of baked furniture. Since the windows were open, it meant she had left in the morning, didn’t it? Even in May it was too hot to go without air conditioning during the day. Where was the key again? Her porch had dozens of potential key-hiding places. Windchime. Windchime. Gnome. Gnome. Gnome. Fake rock. Bingo. Lifting the key out from under the fake rock, I let myself into the overheated white tin-can of a domicile and shut the door behind me. Maggie, where are you? I shut the windows against the heat, turned on the AC, and got myself a cold Diet Coke before I started to look around.

There was no note. The heat had turned Maggie’s patchouli candles into slumping puddles of nostalgia-scented wax. Dirty clothes lay all over the floor and bed, and she’d left two whisky glasses in the sink. A three-inch wide space next to the turntable meant that she had taken her records with her. Okay, so that meant she had left intentionally. And where had she gone?

Maybe there were clues I could find if I searched. The cabinets were full of junk; crock pots, bike pumps, and old lava lamps. The only thing on her counters in the tiny kitchen were dirty coffee cups. In the back, on the fold-down table, I found her computer. It was ancient, a cantankerous beast that she got for free a decade earlier, but it might have some information. It had a thick layer of dust on it, and a purple bumper sticker reading ‘Peace’ over the broken disk drive.

But there was a thing sitting on it. It looked like a sparrow-sized harpy. It had a vaguely human, feminine face, with feathery hair that shimmered like a hummingbird. Its wings were tipped with extra-long feathers in iridescent green, and the rest of it was feathered in pinkish-orange. Wisps of smoke coiled up from it, as though it were smoldering.

It looked at me. There wasn’t any human intelligence in that too-human face, but it didn’t seem to like me being so close, the way pigeons get nervous when you stare too intently. It fluttered its wings once, flapped into the air, and vanished.

I squished my eyes shut for a count of ten, pretending I hadn’t seen it. When I opened them again, there wasn’t anything in Maggie’s trailer but me. Okay, maybe I had imagined it. I pulled the power cord out from the wall, disconnected the monitor, and carried the ancient computer out of the trailer. I put it in the trunk of my car.

Standing in front of Maggie’s trailer for another ten minutes didn’t give me any brilliant insight, so I got in my car fully intending to head to the Roadhouse. The Daewoo, on the other hand, decided that Maggie’s trailer park was a good place to spend the night, and stalled as soon as I made a U-turn to get out. Great. Even in this reality it was a piece of crap. Maybe Susie knew some spells to make it run.

Eighteen thousand dollars of crap. I told it.

I’d taken over the payments for the Daewoo, along with years of rolled-over debt, from Maggie when she came to me whining one night about the repo letter she’d got. I had some money saved, and better credit than she had, so I bought her car and sold mine. Stupid me. My future house down-payment and a chunk of debt for a car that wasn’t worth a tenth of that. Maybe Zoë was right. I should have ignored Maggie’s whining and just let the repo guys take it.

You’re the reason I can’t have nice things, you POS, I told the car.

The Daewoo neglected to comment, or turn over, for that matter. It was useless to do anything but wait for ten minutes until the engine cooled down or warmed up or whatever it had to do in order to run again.

You could have done this at the mechanic’s but nooooo, you reserve this kind of crap only for me.

The Daewoo sulked. I turned up the radio and waited as the sun set and it started to get dark.

Four songs later, a bicyclist rode into the trailer park. He was tall, lanky, and dark skinned, with oddly pale hair that glinted in the streetlight. He leaned his bike against the support post for Maggie’s awning, then climbed the steps to her door. Now, that was odd. I’d never seen him before, but he obviously knew Maggie. He lifted the rock, set it down again, and then looked around as though he knew he was being watched. He didn’t appear to see me, but got on his bicycle quickly, and began to pedal towards the street.

As he pulled out of the trailer park, I turned the ignition key, holding in the insults out of superstitious dread that my lemon would hear it. The Daewoo was being charitable and started on the second try. As I pulled out to the entrance of the trailer park I searched around for the cyclist, hoping maybe I could follow him and see where he went. The street, well lit by a steady flow of headlights, had wide sidewalks and bike lanes in either direction. Both were empty. It was as though he just disappeared.

I frowned, and drove alone to the concert where Jess and Christopher would not be playing.

***

The Roadhouse is about as original as a ‘Transformers’ sequel. Some people enjoy it, but then again, some people eat pork rinds. I’d been there a hundred times before, and even now couldn’t tell you what it looked like inside. Neon? Yeah. Sports memorabilia? Probably. Greasy bar food and domestics on tap? You betcha.

The warm-up band was just breaking down their set when I got there, so I went straight to the bar to get a rum and Diet Coke. I recognized the bartender as the guy who often set up the sound system when Smiling Politely’s regular guy was too hung over to come. He gave me that half-nod of people who barely know each other. I beckoned him.

Do you know Maggie Stillwater? I asked, holding a bill over the tip jar.

Are you still going to tip me if I say no? He smiled again, one of those half-teeth smiles that only models seem to be good at. It made him look dorky.

I let the bill fall into the oversized brandy snifter.

What’s she look like?

She looks like me, but about ten years older (exactly sixteen years five months, actually; my mom had poor judgment when she was young, too) and much more Jerry Garcia. She comes to these shows just about every week.

He shook his head, so I shrugged and turned around to face the stage. A girl got up and introduced the next band. She looked like my sister Jess in that she was thin and had white-girl dreadlocks. I kept seeing Jess and Christopher in everyone, turning every time someone new came in the bar. Dead. How could they be dead? Christopher, Jess, and Maggie were my life.

It was all gone. Why had that bitch Susie done this to me? Was she sitting in the Roadhouse now, in my world, hanging out with my mother, drinking a rum-and-coke and watching my brother and sister play? I sat there in a daze, refusing to think any more about it. I felt disconnected, horribly alone.

Susie?

I barely caught a glimpse of muscle-shirt and immense pectorals before a bald hunk hugged me right off the chair. Hel-lo. He was tall, smelled like expensive aftershave, and held me close enough to send a shot of whiskey-warmth to my nether parts. Susie wasn’t so lonely, then.

Derek? I asked, when he set me down. The name came out automatically, and he didn’t flinch, so it must have been the right one. His head was shaved, not shiny, and his arms didn’t have any tattoos, though it kind of seemed like they needed them. A tiny silver earring sparkled from one ear, a pea-sized spiral. I repressed the almost instinctual desire to check my make-up.

Haven’t seen you in a while, Susie. What’s new?

Maggie’s taken off somewhere. I watched him carefully for a reaction, but couldn’t tell if his look of surprise was feigned or not. Have you seen her?

No. I didn’t know she was gone. He pulled his stool closer and leaned in, as though we were really good friends or maybe lovers. Since when?

Tuesday. And should I tell him that I was Susan, not Susie? No. It was too hard to explain. Besides, if Susie could poach my life, I could flirt with her man.

Was her familiar there?

What?

Her lizard.

If you mean Miles, Miles is dead. Poor little guy. Dead lizard, dead siblings, and Maggie was missing.

What’s going on, Susie? Derek looked at me out of one eye, as if to say he was on to me. What had I said?

Going on? I got flustered, and scrambled for a way to make him explain what he was talking about. Or should I confess? No. Instinct told me to keep it secret. I turned away and hung my head, as if he had made me upset about something and I was sulking. The band, apparently suffering some technical difficulties, had turned the stage lights on and replaced their mike-testing sounds with the radio. The call letters were the same as what I listened to at home, and the first song was The Doors’ ‘People are Strange.’ It felt like an omen.

Are you mad at me? he asked, trying to turn me around.

No, I’m not mad, I said, in a tone of voice that made it sound like I was. If he were Susie’s boyfriend, this was the point at which he’d probably wrack his brain trying to find something he did wrong. With any luck, I’d get a slew of confessions, and therefore information.

Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you upset. Derek put his hands on my shoulders and began kneading. Even if he weren’t Susie’s boyfriend, seriously hot guys who liked to give backrubs were a perfectly acceptable alternative. You’re so tense.

My whole family is either dead or gone, and the one person who thought he might be able to help me find Maggie got eaten by a cat.

You’re a thaumaturge, why don’t you summon your demon?

What? I whipped around to face him.

Derek smiled and put his hands up. Oh, excuse me, I meant summon your goddess.

His tone of voice implied that your goddess and your demon were as different as tomato and toe-mah-to. Susie’s rage flared underneath me, some gut response hardwired into her. As for me, I only felt fear. Demon summoner. Was that what I was? Did Susie know how to summon demons? Was that little harpy-thing a demon?

I haven’t summoned anything. Demons. Fiery hell beasts bent on claiming your soul? Was that how Jess and Chris died? The thought of it scared the warmth right out of me. I turned my back to him. "I don’t