Carmichael’s curse came true.
She proclaimed in her base voice that Angus, Sean, and Ian would never see their twenty first birthdays.
“You’re all going to die,” she cackled.
And sure enough, they did.
Angus was the first to go, dropping dead in Spain, whilst partying with his college chums, Sean meanwhile died during his missionary work in China. Both croaked at the stroke of midnight on the eve of their birthdays.
A few days after Ian’s own birthday, Carmichael merrily skipped to the Pádraig estate, knowing that with her three cousins out of the way, it all had to be hers.
To her surprise and disappointment however, Ian sat in the drawing room, very much alive.
“How?” she stammered.
Ian sipped his cup of coffee and smiled.
“Oh, the explanation is simple enough,” he replied slowly, leaning back in his leather chair. “It was all in the wording of your little curse. I’d never see my 21st birthday, which I took to be, what else, the day commemorating the anniversary of my birth. All I had to do was skip a full twenty-four hours to avoid dying.”
Carmichael scoffed at the idea that this mundane little boy knew how to time travel.
“Ever heard of the international date or time zones?” Ian went on “in a better world there’d be twenty-four, evenly spaced ones, but you can thank the Republic of Kiribati for an additional two. When it’s 11pm Monday night on Baker Island, just south lies the Phoenix islands where it’s Wednesday 12am.”
Carmichael felt that familiar ripple of frustration wash over her, which was common enough in Ian’s presence.
“It was easy if not cheap,” sighed Ian “All I had to do was rent a boat and hire a crew to take me across that dateline after eleven but before twelve. I left the last hour of the 24th of September behind me and entered the first hour of the 26th, bypassing the 25th completely, thus fulfilling the terms of your little curse. I never did see my 21st birthday after all.”
He placed his cup on its’ saucer and looked indifferently at his crazed cousin.
“That still doesn’t count!” Carmichael hissed, knowing that if someone evaded her magic once, they were pretty much immune to all subsequent spells.
“Doesn’t it? Sean and Angus died by local time in Spain and China, which have funny time zones. If they hadn’t snuffed it in those countries, I probably never would have come up with this plan.”
He then rang for the butler who kindly ask that Miss Carmichael leave.
“But” she snarled as the strong-armed servant led her away, “you’re going to die! I said so!”
“Sure,” replied Ian “we’re all going to die, but personally I intend to pass away peacefully in my sleep as an old man. Can’t see any reason not to.”
And he was right. That was exactly what happened.
