Slight of hand magic. That was my solution. I would do little card tricks and illusions in order to convince them that I was like them. They were all magical beings with the ability to fly, or shape shift, or pick up cars like they were toys. They had no reason to study dumb little magic tricks. They usually ate these tricks out of the palm of my hand, until it didn’t work one day.

“Is this your card?” I asked, flipping the seven of hearts out of the deck. Wait, what?

Kathy eyed me for a second. “Uh, no.” She responded. This trick had never failed me. I didn’t know what to do.

“It’s not?” I asked. My face flushed, my cheeks and ears were hot. I REALLY didn’t know what to do.

“No,” she giggled slightly. “But you knew that, right?”

“Of course!” I laughed with her. Her card was supposed to be the Queen of Spades. I had looked at it after she picked it out and palmed it so that it could “magically” resurface just when I needed it at the end of my trick. “This is all part of the magic!” I laughed. A bead of sweat rolled down my back.

“You always find a way to spice it up, Georgie. I love that!” She beamed at me.

Kathy had the ability to read minds. “Everyone but yours!” She always said, and that was why she liked me so much. She’d never heard me think anything bad about her.

She was a really good person! She just... couldn’t stay out of other people’s business. But it wasn’t her fault! She literally couldn’t help it. Their thoughts just popped into her head and all she ever wanted to do was help. It was rarely appreciated.

Every Sunday we sat across the table from each other in this little coffee shop. She would update me on the town gossip, and I would show her my new magic tricks.

I was thankful for Kathy. Everyone else in town seemed skeptical of me. With good reason. I didn’t actually have any supernatural powers like they did. But Kathy thought otherwise.

“I read this one romance book once, and the main character had this magical ability to stop other people from using their powers, that must be what you have!” I’m pretty sure she was talking about Twilight.

So that was what I had, a fake power blocking ability and slight of hand magic.

“Georgie,” she snapped. I jumped in my seat. My hands had grown clammy and my mouth dry.

“What?” I asked her.

“So are you going to make my card appear or not?” She was still beaming at me.

“Absolutely!” I stated. Except I didn’t have a single clue where the Queen of spades had ended up.

I looked down at my lap, on the floor around my chair, I felt around for the card in my sweatshirt sleeves. I had no idea where it was. I flipped the deck of cards over and started shuffling through them one by one.

“Now that’s just cheating!” Kathy clicked her tongue at me. Her tone was less cheerful than it was before.

There was no Queen of spades in the deck. “Just trust the process!” I told her with fake enthusiasm.

I was fully panicking now. If I didn’t produce that card soon, Kathy would realize that my magic was fraud. She’d expose me in front of the whole town and I’d be exiled, or worse, killed.

I began hyperventilating when John, the town strongman, bent over behind Kathy and picked up a playing card off of the floor.

“Is this your card?” He asked Kathy, and tossed the Queen onto the middle of the small table.

“Oh my gosh!” She exclaimed. “How did you do that?! And you got John involved?! That is so crazy!” She was delighted.

So I had dropped the card. I looked up at John. I wanted to thank him. I couldn’t though, as it would be much too obvious and lead to exposing my secret.

He didn’t seem to need my thanks though. He was standing in line, waiting to order himself a coffee when he turned to look at me, and quickly he winked.

Why did he wink?