It doesn’t feel right as I get dressed in my stretchy jeans and a thick jumper. As I push my feet into my sneakers, I know that I’m heading to the mall, but it’s like I’m on autopilot, my feet two steps ahead of my thoughts as I snatch up the flyer along with my car keys.

It doesn’t feel right as I count not one but six dust devils kicking the autumn leaves into spinning vortexes in the fields as they pass me by.

And it feels incredibly not right when a herd – yes, a herd – if that’s what you call it – of black cats bound across the road, making me brake hard and hurl a few cuss words their way. Holy crap! There were easily twenty or more of the slimy little shits.

And it doesn’t feel right as I pull into the mall’s parking lot to find dozens of crows scattered about the place – on posts, on car roofs, on the ground – all looking at me.

Doesn’t feel right that they don’t even flinch when I slam the car door shut.

Doesn’t feel right that thunder rumbles and the heavens open and I have to make a run for it.

And it doesn’t feel right at all as I’m walking through the mall and see a man on a stepladder hanging big pumpkin decorations.

The only way past is to walk under the legs of the ladder.

But I don’t. I take the escalator to the first level instead, firmly believing doing so has prevented a catastrophe. Yet, when I’m walking past the spot where the man is hanging pumpkins below, I get the fright of my life when I hear him shriek, hear the clatter of ladders and the crash and tinkle of what I assume are shattering pumpkin decs.

And it doesn’t feel right at all when I descend the next escalator and come face to face with the shop I’ve been heading to. Doesn’t feel right because I could swear that only last week there was a perfume shop there.

For Her Sins

The door is open. Wide open. Through the windows I can see many displays of costumes, but there doesn’t seem to be any shoppers in there.

I glance at the flyer in my hand.

We can transform you!

$50 DISCOUNT – TODAY ONLY!

I step right on in there, and the feeling of surreal disquiet continues when the man sitting behind the counter looks up. He’s dark. He’s handsome. Black suit. Black shirt, open at the neck. A few days’ stubble. Piercing dark eyes. He could be Tom Ellis’ twin. I swallow away my dry mouth.

‘Perfect!’ he declares.

I glance over my shoulder, thinking he must be addressing someone else, but no, he’s looking directly at me.

‘You’re here to be transformed,’ he says, glancing at the flyer in my hand.

My smile is a nervous one. I tell him I’m just looking, and stroll casually through shelves and rails all stuffed with various costumes.

I feel his eyes on me. I also feel the heat between my legs. It’s been a while since I got laid. The alleyway outside of Club 66 knows my ass well. Only it’s never been a tall, dark and handsome. I tend to get the short, fair and average types. A good match for me, I suppose.

‘I think this is the one,’ says Mr. Handsome. He taps a finger on a package on the counter – a costume of some sort. ‘This will be your transformation.’

It feels as if my feet have left the floor and I’m gliding over to the counter.

The package turns out to be a Harley Quinn costume – a gray Daddy’s lil Monster tee and blue and red hotpants that my ass would surely burst apart. The price tag says – you guessed it: $50

Another nervous laugh and I tell him it’s not for me.

‘No, no, no,’ he says, ‘trust me, it’s perfect for your sweet ass.’

Did he really just say that? I stutter something and stammer something else and suddenly I know that he knows he’s made me wet.

His sexy smirk. His hot glistening eyes.

He reaches across the counter and takes the coupon from my grasp, then pushes the package towards me.

‘I couldn’t possibly,’ I tell him, feeling so cheap at not parting with a dime.

He dips below the counter and comes back up holding a plastic baseball bat. ‘On the house,’ he says, ‘to complete the look.’

I want to tell him that the costume isn’t really my style. I mean, those hotpants. I can’t even.

‘I couldn’t possibly,’ I tell him again.

‘Oh, I insist,’ he says.

I need to get out of here. ‘Then I must owe you something. Let me pay.’

He waves the coupon at me. ‘You paid already.’

I glance around. Maybe I can buy something else.

‘You don’t need anything else,’ he says, as though he knows what I’m thinking. ‘Do you have a dime?’

‘A dime?’ I reach into my pocket. ‘Sure do.’

‘Good,’ he says, ‘make a wish on your way out and we’re all square.’

I look over my shoulder to where he indicates and I’m taken aback by the wishing well that’s in the middle of the shop floor. A circular construction of plastic bricks with a bucket on a rope suspended on a rail over it. Mr. J’s Wishing Well it says on the bucket. I’m pretty damn certain that well wasn’t there before.

I look back to Mr. Handsome. ‘A dime for a wish?’

‘You got it.’

‘If you’re sure.’

He nods. ‘Sure I’m sure.’ He picks up the package and I take it from him.

I want to give it back. Along with the plastic bat. I want to get out of here because I’m so damn hot. I want to try the costume on while he watches. I want him to touch me. I want to get home and into the shower. I want to run and I want to stay. I want to do all those things at once.

‘Well, thanks,’ I say and head for the door.

I flick the dime into the well, where it joins a shitload of other dimes shining through the water. And I make my silent wish. A wish for a fantasy I’ve had since I turned eighteen. A wish that makes me grin and squirm at the same time. A wish that will never ever come true.

I’m two steps from leaving the shop when a gust of wind comes from nowhere and the door slams shut in my face. I’m sure I scream. I spin around to see Mr. Handsome grinning like a loon. ‘I knew it,’ he says.

‘Knew what?’ I ask, thinking that I’m being set up. This is gonna be one of those hidden camera TV shows. I’ve been wound up, somehow. And something else is going to happen. I just know it.

‘Brace yourself,’ Mr. Handsome tells me.

Yep, I knew it. The floor beneath my feet starts to vibrate. There’s a deep rumbling all around me. Costumes on rails are shaking. Hangers rattling. Even the walls seem to be trembling.

Earthquake!

Fuck!

But when I glance through the windows, the passers-by don’t seem to be experiencing the same thing.

When I look back to Mr. Handsome, he’s holding an open umbrella above his head.

Well that’s bad luck, I think to myself, but soon wish I had one myself as the water from the wishing well erupts like a geyser – along with a zillion dimes.

Yep, it rains dimes all around me. And I’m soaked and battered by the time the shower eventually stops, along with the trembling and the shaking.

I’m convinced a camera crew are gonna appear any second and I hope my ass doesn’t look too big on screen.

But no. Just the drip, drip, drip of water all around me.

Mr. Handsome closes the umbrella and puts it away. ‘On your head,’ he says.

I touch a hand to the top of my head and find a single coin in my hair. It doesn’t look like a regular dime, and that’s because it’s not a dime.

‘Tell me what it says,’ Mr. Handsome instructs.

I tell him the date on it: 1794, and the word LIBERTY.

‘Jackpot!’ he says.

I wipe the damp hair from my face and ready myself for the camera crew, but none appear.

Mr. Handsome beckons me to the counter and I glide right on over there, wondering if I’m really dreaming this shit.

‘Oh, you’re not dreaming,’ he says, as though he’s read my mind – again.

He plucks the coin from my hand and I watch as it dances across his knuckles before he flicks it in the air and catches it. He tells me it’s a rare 1794 silver dollar, and that it’s worth a cool million.

‘Dollars?’

‘Of course. And it’s yours once your wish comes true.’

‘Mine? But why?’

‘You hit the jackpot with your wish.’

I remember what I wished for and once again my cheeks are on fire.

‘And you’re perfect for it,’ he tells me.

‘World peace,’ I say, ‘always wish for world peace.’

Mr. Handsome raises an eyebrow. ‘Miss Adams, that is not what you wished for.’