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helpers in the Multiverse, some menacing, some cute, but all recognizable, all normal. Why couldn’t she have had one of those and not some freak thing like lightning?
    “It’s a gift,” said SK. “A rare one.”
    “Yeah, right.”
    “Liv, look at me,” he said and waited several moments. “Livvy?”
    She sighed and looked up.
    “A lightning shaman is born once in a generation, if we’re lucky,” he said. “It’s rare and it’s powerful.” He hesitated. “But it’s also dangerous, hard to control.”
    Only recently had she figured out that she had the most control when the lightning strike was close to her, as with Anita earlier.
    “You’re going to have to work out how to handle it, and eventually you will, but it’s going to take time. You need to cut yourself some slack.” He paused but didn’t take his eyes off hers. “Agreed?” he asked.
    She nodded.
    Three teenage boys in a booth a couple of tables away laughed out loud–a little too loud. Livvy glanced over and saw them looking at SK. They stopped abruptly when they realized she was looking at them.
    “Fact of life,” SK said, not even looking over as he reached for the raspberry syrup. “Eat your food before it gets cold.”
    The tables here always had three types of syrup: maple, raspberry, and blueberry. One by one, Livvy took all three and poured as much syrup as the plate could hold. There was actually a secret fourth syrup, if you knew to ask for it, but Livvy had missed her chance when the waitress had brought the food.
    “You know,” said SK, looking at her plate with mild revulsion. “Maybe you should just skip the pancakes and ask for a mug.”
    “Syrup is the food of the gods,” said Livvy, as she carefully moved her fork through the three flavors, creating a striated pattern. “Pancakes only exist because there is syrup.”
    They ate in silence for a few minutes, until Livvy’s phone rang. She looked at the caller ID. It was Jack.
    They’d broken up months ago. Subconsciously though, she had left his number in the address book hoping he’d call. It had seemed less painful than deleting it.
    “You need to get that?”
    “No,” she said, trying to aim for a casual tone of voice and not succeeding.
    SK nodded as he chopped through the stack of banana pancakes with the side of his fork.
    A voicemail notification arrived on Livvy’s phone. Jack had left a message. She stared hard at it.
    “You know, it’s okay if you get that,” said SK.
    “I’ll get it later.”
    “Mmm hmm,” he said, turning his attention back to the plate.
    Livvy did likewise and realized that she’d hardly made a dent in her pancakes but that SK was nearly done.
    “How is it you eat so much?”
    He shrugged.
    “High metabolism I guess.”
    Livvy got a text message notification. Jack was texting her now.
    “Please call. Emergency,” it read.
    “Well, look, I need to get going anyway,” SK said, but Livvy barely heard him.
    He stuffed the last wad of pancakes in his mouth, took out his wallet and left twenty-five dollars on the table for the bill. Then he rifled through the big bills under the table. He took a few out and folded them up tight before handing them to her.
    “That’s three hundred for you,” he whispered, as he transferred the money to her hand. “And seventy-five for me.”
    She looked at him and cocked her head, frowning. Normally, for someone who was on death’s door, it was a higher fee and it was usually all in round numbers.
    “The family had already spent a wad on the previous shaman and couldn’t come up with the usual.”
    “Why just seventy-five for you?”
    With the usual twenty-five percent commission, he should have had one hundred dollars.
    “One of the lamps was damaged.”
    “Oh, SK, I’m so sorry,” she said looking down into her lap at the three hundred dollars. “Here, let me pay for it.”
    “No, that’s mine. If I’d known for sure that it was a soul transformation and that you’d need to