E. Godz Read Free

meant nothing. A photograph was a
moment's illusion artificially preserved. The reality of the situation concerning her
precious offspring had nothing at all to do with smiles.
    "Why can't the two of you just get along?" she inquired peevishly of the glossy faces.
"I'm not asking you to adore one another. I'm not even asking you to remember each
other's birthdays. All I want is just one itsy-bitsy little indication that you can work
together. And I don't mean simultaneously plotting each other's professional destruction.
Good gods, I hope it would be limited to professional destruction only, but the way you
two have been going for each other's throats lately, who knows? A little cooperation for
your mutual benefit, to say nothing of cooperation for the benefit of the company: Is that
so much to ask?"
    Something behind one of the parlor walls went *ding!* This was followed by the
sound rather like a passel of cats scratching madly in their litterboxes, but when Edwina
went to the wall whence issued these noises and touched the spring catch that opened the
desired panel, she revealed their true source, a flock of fountain pens rapidly scribbling
away as if guided by unseen hands. There were twelve of them in all, though only two of
them were working at the moment, transcribing a telephone conversation between Dov
Godz and his older sister, Peez. Each one of the dozen pens was linked by suitably arcane
spells to a piece of office equipment—be it telephone, fax machine, or any item of
computer wizardry from desktop to day planner—in either the Miami or New York City
offices of E. Godz, Inc.
    Which was to say that the items themselves—all gifts from Edwina to her offspring—
were enspelled eavesdropping devices, clandestine portals that permitted her to keep
constant, magically enabled tabs on the children's every move.
    Wouldn't it be silly to own and run America's only family-operated clearinghouse for
magical power and not put some of that power to work spying on your kids?
    For that, in a nutshell, was E. Godz, Inc.'s stock-in-trade: magic.
    It was not a career path that Edwina had consciously sought out, at first. Rather, it
was a by-product of all those years back in the '60s that she'd spent crisscrossing the
country in flower-splashed vans, salvaged schoolbuses, or, in a pinch, VW Bugs painted
to look like Peter Max's worst nightmare. Like so many of her hippie brethren, Edwina
discovered that life on the nation's back roads and byways led a person to consider
whether there were also spiritual roads-less-traveled that might bear exploration. The
faith of her forebears wasn't a good fit for her new lifestyle: Peyote and Presbyterians
didn't mix worth a damn.
    She was not alone in this quest for new ways of getting in touch with her mystic side.
The '60s were famous for having driven hordes of young people out of their families'
churches and into the arms of the "earthy" religions out there. Chanting mantras was in,
catechisms were out, and the incessant beating of drums was much more desirable than
any silly old Bach mass for organ. It was part of the whole tribal-is-cooler/ethnic-is-in
package. And in some cases it was a pretty good excuse to get high, in the name of
seeking the One True Path, though heaven help anyone uncool enough to mention that
the end-justifies-the-means trip had its roots in the writings of Saint Jerome.
    It was here that Edwina's One True Path took a sharp right off the spiritual interstate
and left the rest of her contemporaries far behind. Whereas they only nosed around the
borderline belief systems, she jumped in feet first, with eyes and mind wide open. While
her tribemates picked up this or that back-to-the-Earth faith, only to put it down again
when the glitter of the new toy wore off (or when it failed to piss off their parents
sufficiently), Edwina actually spent serious study time on every non-suburbia-standard
religion she encountered.
    And