Sunrise was only an hour ago and yet already heat mirages rose up from the road, distorting the distant horizon. In years long since passed this highway had been the main thoroughfare between California and Nevada, but then they built the freeway which was both more direct and allowed higher speeds and this old highway had fallen into disuse. The few people who did take this old highway were either the type who liked to take the so-called scenic route, or were lost.

  Miguel was lost.

  Ostensibly he was moving to California to find better work when in reality he was moving out there to help take care of his abuelita. Miguel’s abuelo had passed away last year and, according to his mother, his abuelita had been really struggling without him. She lived on the outskirts of Las Angeles in a small, rundown home that they’d built by hand when they were first married. Their house had seemed magical and whimsical to Miguel when he was younger, with all of it’s odd angles and sloping floors. As he got older, however, it lost much of its charm.

  Last month his abuelita fall while she was out shopping and though she didn’t break anything and was able to get up and dust herself off, it was too much for Miguel’s mother. She spent hours on the phone with him and finally he’d agreed to quit his job and move out to keep an eye on his abuelita. Of course they didn’t tell her that that was the real reason for his move, since she didn’t think she needed looking after, but she was always eager to help her family.

  She’d offered Miguel her spare bedroom until he could get an apartment of his own, though his mother was clear that he should be slow to find one, and even then it should be close by his abuelita’s home. It wasn’t his preferred arrangement, since his Spanish had never been very good and she spoke even less English. On the bright side he was actually looking forward to the chance of finding a better job. His parents were going to pay for his bills as long as he was living with his abuelita as an added incentive for him to stay with her, and he was thinking of perhaps getting his real estate license.

  So just like that he’d packed his clothes and few other belongings into the back of his old car and set off for California. He wanted to skip as much of the heat, since his car tended to overheat if he turned on the AC and so he’d left hours before sunrise. Unfortunately he’d missed his first exit and then got turned around on all of the looping on and off ramps and had somehow ended up on this old stretch of highway. The navigator on his phone said that this would still get him to where he wanted to go, though, so he decided to just keep going.

  That had been hours ago and he was beginning to doubt that choice. He’d topped off his car’s gas tank before he left but he was down to a quarter tank now and hadn’t passed so much as a sign telling him how far it was to the next gas station or how far he still had to go to reach Las Angeles.

  The road dropped suddenly down into a narrow, twisting canyon of weathered rock. The temperature in the canyon was significantly lower and he rolled his window down to flush out the hot air in the car. He let off the gas and allowed the car to coast through the turns, enjoying the brief shade afforded by the shallow canyon walls. As he came around a particularly tight bend in the road he saw a sleek black car parked as far off the road as it could manage in the narrow canyon. As it was, the car still stuck out halfway across his lane and Miguel had to slam on his brakes and swerve into the left lane to avoid hitting hitting it.

  Miguel lost control of his car and it spun, scraping the back end up against the canyon wall before coming to a stop. For a long while he just sat there, breathing heavily, until he realized that he was now blocking the left lane and at even greater risk of being hit by oncoming traffic. True, he hadn’t seen any cars going the other way the entire time he’d been on the highway, but he still didn’t want to risk it. He carefully maneuvered his car until he was parked a couple car lengths in front of the other car and then got out to inspect the damage to his rear bumper. With any luck it would only be superficial damage.

  As he walked around to the back of his car he glanced over to the other car and was shocked to see that someone was sitting in the drivers seat.

  How long had they been there? Their hazard lights weren’t on, so perhaps their battery died? Or did they just not think they’d need them? Of course, considering how blind the corners were in the canyon, Miguel doubted they would have been of any use anyway.

  He walked closer to the other car. In the shadow of the canyon it was difficult to see much more than just a silhouette of the person inside.

    What if they were dead?

  Miguel stopped walking towards the other car and instead rushed back to his own to grab his cell phone. There was no reception. He held the phone up high in the air, hoping that would help. He really didn’t want to just leave, but he also didn’t want to get involved in something like this if they were dead.

  “You can put that down, hon!” An elderly woman called out. “I’m not dead.”

  Miguel spun and looked around and was shocked to see that the person in the car had rolled their window down and was waving for him to come over.

   “You okay?” Miguel asked as he approached the drivers side door until he could finally get a clear view of her.

  Her skin was dark and contrasted with her powder-white hair. She looked tired but not infirm.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Miguel asked again.

  “So far, I’m doing pretty good,” the old woman said and her voice was dry and crackly, “but with any luck I should be fair to middlin’ by the end of the day. And how are you young man?”

  Miguel had no idea how to respond. Perhaps her mind was going.

  “Do you know where you are?” Miguel asked her.

  “Oh yes,” she replied in almost a sing-song voice, “on my way to LA.”

  “Is there anything wrong? You run out of gas or something?”

  “Certainly not,” she said and only added to Miguel’s wonder at why on earth she was parked on the side of the road in this canyon. “This car’s not given me any trouble for a good many years.”

  She turned the key as proof and the engine turned on with a gentle purr. She patted the dash appreciatively.

  “So then what are you doing here?” Miguel was about ready to leave. If she wasn’t senile then she was mischievous bordering on dangerous.

  “I’m waiting, young man,” she said and there was a little bite of impatience to her voice.

  Miguel looked up and down the road. Waiting for what? Was this some part of a drug trafficking route? If that was the case he definitely didn’t want to get mixed up in it and he turned at once to return to his car.

  “I didn’t say you could leave, young man!” The woman shouted to him as he left but he paid her no attention.

  Miguel put the key back into the ignition and turned it. The engine whined and his car shuddered a couple of times before at went still and silent.

  “No,” Miguel moaned, “come on, come on, come on!”

  He tried again and again to get his car to start but each time he had the same result. He checked his cell phone again, hoping against hope that it would have signal but of course, in the canyon, there was none. He doubted he would get any signal even out of the canyon, considering how far away he was from anything even remotely resembling civilization.

  “I told you, you couldn’t leave yet,” the woman called out to him. “Now come back over here so I don’t have to keep yelling!”

  There wasn’t much else that he could do so Miguel got back out of his car and walked slowly over to her window.

  “No, come around! Come around,” she waved at him and motioned that he should get into the front passenger seat.

  Getting into her car was the last thing he wanted to do right then but, again, he felt he had so few options open to him. It was a tight squeeze, getting into the car since it was parked so close to the canyon wall but he just managed it. The car smelled of old cigarettes and something else, old newspaper, perhaps, but it was otherwise clean. The leather interior was immaculate and he thought numerous chrome embellishments would prove to be too dazzling in direct sunlight for anyone to drive safely.

  She looked at him kindly for a time and then asked, “Are you familiar with the story of Aladdin and the Genie?”

  This was such an unexpected question that it took Miguel a while to believe that he had heard her correctly.

  “We’re in the middle of nowhere and…and you…” he trailed off at a loss for words. “Can you just take me to the next town so I can call a tow truck?” He said finally.

  “Humor me, Miguel,” she said, “and I’ll see you’re back on your way in no time.”

  “I didn’t tell you my name,” Miguel said and his fear continued to rise.

  “Yes, well,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand, “that was incredibly rude of you, I agree, but I’m willing to move passed it and just pretend like you introduced yourself properly like you should have done.”

  “Me? I’m the one being rude?” Miguel scoffed. “I don’t recall you offering to tell me who you are!”

  “I’m your elder,” she said and again there was the subtle bite of impatience in her voice. “Now show some respect and answer my question!”

  “You know what?” Miguel said with a shake of his head, “Forget it. I’ll walk.”

  He tried to open the door to get out but the handle didn’t work. He knew some car doors had a safety feature to prevent the door from being opened from the inside, but he thought that was only ever on the back seat doors.

  “Now Miguel,” she said and this time her voice was calm and soothing, “I don’t mean to upset you and I swear I mean you no harm.”

  “You let me out of this car right now!”

  “Young man, where would you go?” She asked. “There’s miles and miles between you and the next town. You’ll die of thirst before you get even half way there. Now just calm down and I’ll take you to where you want to go. I just want to have a little chat before we get moving.”

  Slowly, Miguel forced himself to turn away from the door and sit back in his chair. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the old woman and so settled instead on staring straight ahead.

  “I answer your questions,” Miguel said, “and you’ll take me into town?”

  “That is our arrangement.”

  A low sigh escaped his chest and he shut his eyes in an attempt to calm his nerves. If it came to it he was fairly confident that he could overpower the old woman, but then again perhaps her confidence betrayed some hidden physical strength or martial prowess.

  “Aladdin found a lamp,” he said, finally giving in to her madness, “rubbed it, and out came a genie, and granted him three wishes.”

  “Do you recall what it was that he wished for?”

  “No,” Miguel said at once in the hopes that that would be the end of it.

  “Try and remember,” she prodded.

  “Gold?” Miguel ventured.

  “Yes,” she said, “and yet also no.”

  She was infuriating and Miguel wanted her to just hurry up and get to the point. What did she want from him? What answer was she digging for  him to give her?

  “He wished for wealth, certainly,” she said, “but also for the power and influence necessary to shape his life as he saw fit.”

  “He even got the girl,” Miguel added.

  “And everything was grand until…

  She was obviously waiting for Miguel to finish her sentence and he had to take a moment to think. This was not a story he had grown up with and had only ever heard or seen it told a couple of times.

  “Until someone stole the lamp?” He said.

  “Correct,” she said with a pat on his knee, “and suddenly the universe had to balance out all of that good fortune he’d gained through wishing.”

  “He still ended up okay, though,” Miguel said.

  “That’s because it’s a story,” she said sharply, “In real life when debts like that come up they tend to be less forgiving.”

  “Well thank goodness there’s no such thing as genies in lamps,” Miguel said without trying to hide his contempt. “Can we get going now?”

  “There’s a small wooden box in the glove compartment there,” she said, ignoring Miguel and pointing to the compartment in front of him, “Be a dear and get it out for me.”

  The glove compartment clicked open at his touch and inside, held carefully in place with foam padding, was an intricately carved box slightly bigger than his fist. The wood was a deep ruddy brown and incredibly smooth as though worn down by countless years of being handled. And yet the carvings were still crisp and well defined. The carvings were of various people though there didn’t seem to be any connection between one figure and the next. What was more bewildering, the figures seemed to be from many different cultures, and even different periods of time.

    The lid was latched but not locked. The latch itself, as well as the hinge on the back of the box, looked as though they could be silver but there were swirls of some darker veins running through the metal as well and looked like no other metal he’d seen before.

  “It’s  yours, if you like,” she said.

  “Um, sure,” Miguel said in the hopes that appeasing her would mean they would leave sooner. “Thanks.”

  “Luck’s a funny thing,” the old woman said and Miguel’s brief hope sank back down. “Most of the time luck’s nothing more than a flip of a coin. Heads you get good luck, tails you get bad. Some people seem to have a weighted coin that always either turns up heads or tails. Some people have all the luck, and some have the worst luck, but on the grand scale, if you add up everyone’s good luck and bad luck, it always balances out. Normally.”

  Where was she going with all of this? She’d gone from talking about Aladdin, to an old box, and now she was rambling on about luck and Miguel was growing more and more uncomfortable and impatient by the second.

  “Yes, under normal circumstances,” she went on and Miguel had to bite his tongue to distract himself from his rising anger, “luck doesn’t care how many times you flip a heads or tails because there’s always someone else flipping the opposite of whatever you just flipped.”

  She closed her eyes and rubbed them briefly as though she had a headache starting or else was growing tired and for a moment she seemed weighed down. She breathed in slow and deep through her nose and then let it out even slower through pursed lips. Whatever the cause was, though, she recovered quickly and turned back to face Miguel.

  “You ever have something that was lucky?” She asked.

  Miguel couldn’t take it any more and he began shouting at her.

  “Are you just desperate for someone to talk to?!” Miguel demanded. “Is that what this is? You park your car out here hoping someone would rear end you just so you’d get to talk their ear off? You’re just some stupid old lady, and I’m sorry for whatever sad and lonely life you’ve led,” he added even though he wasn’t feeling sorry for her in the slightest, “but I am done with this conversation! So you either start driving me to the next town or one way of another I’m getting out of this car and walking!”

  She stared at him with cold eyes, the muscles around her lips tensing and relaxing as though she were debating on what to say. Finally she rested her hand on the ignition and turned the key. Her car rumbled into life and she slid it smoothly into gear and they began moving along down the road. Miguel let out a sigh of relief and for a time he did nothing but stare out his window and watch as the canyon walls whipped passed. A half hour passed and they finally slipped out of the canyon and the landscape opened up into a wide, empty plane with nothing but dry desert bisected by the winding highway that disappeared into the horizon.

  With nothing else to do, Miguel turned his attention back to the small box. He thumbed the latch open and lifted the lid. It was filled with a dark gray powder.

  “Please tell me this box isn’t filled with someone’s ashes,” he gasped.

  “Oh my goodness, no,” she laughed. “There’s nothing in there but dust. Old dust, mind you, but just dust. No ashes, I swear!”

  “And why did you give me a box filled with dust?” Miguel asked even though he knew he would likely regret starting any conversation with her. At least they were driving now so even if she went back to her crazy ramblings they were still making progress towards the next town.

  “Honest to goodness I never wanted to upset you,” she began, “but to answer your question we need to talk just a bit more about luck.”

  “Fine,” Miguel conceded, “I don’t care as long as you keep driving.”

  “Well all right then,” she said, “Like I was saying before, some people believe they have something that can swing luck in their favor. A lucky rabbits foot, or lucky pair of socks, that sort of thing. But those are, of course, not actually lucky. Luck, in fact, hates being tampered with since it upsets the balance, so in the rare event that a person does find a way to swing luck in their favor it’s almost immediately counteracted by an equal amount of bad luck for them so people rarely notice truly lucky things.”

  “I think I finally get it,” Miguel stated flatly. “ You’re like some wack-job missionary, aren’t you, hoping I’ll join your cult.”

  “You shut your mouth!” She spat at him. “I’m trying to explain to you about that dust! It has the power to not only swing luck in your favor, but as long as you own the dust it holds back all the bad luck you would normally be dealt to counteract your additional good luck!”

  She huffed and rolled her shoulders back and forth a couple of times before she calmed down enough to resume speaking.

  “All you have to do is ask, just like with the genie, and whatever you ask it to do you will find yourself lucky in that endeavor.”

  “And someone else gets all my extra bad luck?” Miguel asked though he absolutely did not believe her one bit. He was expecting her to begin asking him for donations any second so that she could make more such boxes of dust to help spread the good luck to others.

  “I said it held back the bad luck, not give it to someone else. You will have to face that bad luck at some point, just not while you have the dust.”

  “Right. So where’s your box of dust?”

  “There’s only the one,” she said.

  “And just like that you’re willing to share your magic lamp with me?”

  “No. The dust cannot be shared. It can only be given to, or stolen by, someone who knows what it is.”

  “Then what about all that bad luck you’re due?”

  She shrugged.

  “I used it very sparingly in my time and so I don’t think I have too much to worry about. If you can believe it, I got that box from JFK in October of sixty-three. He got it from Marilyn Monroe. I never learned how she got a hold of it, but I know Hitler had it, as well as Rasputin before it was stolen from him by the Romanov’s.”

  “Yeah, every one of those people died horrible deaths and you think you’ll be fine?”

  “Like I said, I didn’t use it that much and never for anything major.”

  “So then why give it up?” Miguel asked, more out of curiosity about what her reasoning might be rather than belief in her words. “Why not just keep it until you die of old age? Or better yet, just throw it into the ocean or something and forget about it.”

  “The dust doesn’t work that way. As far as I know no one’s ever outlived their ownership of the dust, and the dust won’t let you just get rid of it unless you’re giving it to someone. Here, go ahead,” she added and pressed the button to lower his window. “Throw it out the window and see what happens.”

  This is where Miguel felt her charlatan tricks would begin. She was expecting him to toss the whole thing out of the window and then she would mysteriously produce another box and claim it was the same one. So instead of tossing the whole thing he just tipped the contents of the box out into the rushing wind. He gave the it a few good taps on the side of the car for good measure.

  “Very clever,” she said, “since it’s not the box at all but the dust that has the power.”

  “Yeah, and now you’re going to tell me where I can find the dust again?”

  “It’s already back inside the box.”

  Miguel half laughed and he turned the box upside down to show her it was empty. A handful of dark gray dust poured out onto his lap.

  “What?!” He exclaimed in surprise.

  The old woman laughed and slapped the steering wheel with her palm.

  “Go ahead, try it again!” She cackled.

  Miguel threw the whole thing out the window and then pressed the button to roll his window back up. When he looked down again to his lap to begin brushing the dust off of his pants he instead found the box sitting there instead. His pants were completely dust free.

    “How are you doing this?” Miguel demanded.

  “Honey, I already told you,” she said, “You can’t just get rid of the dust.”

  He cautiously pick up the box and opened it up. Sure enough it was filled with the same dark gray dust.

  “You know what? I’ve changed my mind,” Miguel told her. “I don’t want your box of dust.”

  He held the box out for her to take but she just shook her head.

  “You’re right,” Miguel said in half jest, “You’re driving. Better keep both hands on the wheel. I’ll just put this back in the glove box.”

  “It don’t work like that,” she said. “You accepted it when I gave it to you, and now that you know what it is it’s yours and I won’t be taking it back.”

  He ignored her and returned the box to where he’d first taken it and sat back in his chair. What he wouldn’t give to be done with this insane woman and her box dust. Why hadn’t he just kept on driving? Why did he have to get lost and wind up on this forsaken strip of abandoned highway? He wished he was back in his own car, that it hadn’t broken down, and that he could just finish the drive on his own.

  No sooner had that thought passed through his mind that he began to take note of their surroundings. The wide empty plane was rising up suddenly in front of them and was quickly forming into another narrow and winding canyon. He hoped this was at last some sign that they were nearing a town. After several minutes more of winding back and forth they came around a corner and parked off on the other side of the road was a car. It looked like his car, but he knew it couldn’t be. They’d been driving in a straight line the entire time and there hadn’t been any way they could have turned around.

  “Oh, look at that,” the old woman said when she too noticed the car and she put on the brakes. “Looks like someone’s already using the dust.”

  “No, that’s not my car, it can’t be!”

  “Why don’t you just check?” She prodded him. “Just press the little button on your keys and see if it unlocks.”

  That wasn’t a bad idea, and one that would easily prove she was wrong. He pulled out his keys and pressed the unlock button on his key fob. The car lights blinked.

  “Do not leave me here!” Miguel said and he got out of the car.

    He was halfway across the street when he remembered his door handle hadn’t worked before, but he pushed that aside for the moment. The nearer he got to the car the more it looked like his car. He walked around it twice, hoping it wouldn’t be his car but it had every single dent and scratch that he remembered it having. Even the old fast food wrappers in the backseat looked familiar. There was one last test he could perform to prove once and for all that it wasn’t his car. Miguel pulled out his keys once more and he opened the trunk.

  There were three boxes inside. He didn’t need to open them to know what they contained. They were the same three boxes he had packed the day before. His handwriting was even visible on the side of one of the boxes.

  “How?” He asked, more to himself than anything else.

  Miguel looked back over his shoulder to where the old woman’s car still sat, its engine idling softly.

  “Everything alright?” She called over to him when she noticed him looking at her. “You haven’t tried starting your car yet.”

  It was like being stuck in a dream, only able to gaze out of his eyes as his body walked over to the drivers side door. It was all too surreal. It couldn’t be real. And yet when he sat down in the drivers seat and turned the key, his car started up without any problems. The woman turned her car around and pulled up beside him.

  “You going to be okay?” the woman asked.

  “Just…just go,” Miguel waved her on and she left.

    He watched her disappear around the bend in the road. Then his eyes slid slowly down to his glove box. He began to reach over to open it, hesitated, and then, moving as though he was expecting something horrible to leap out of the glove box as soon as it was opened, he shot his hand out and pressed the button to release the catch. The door flopped open and the dim yellowish light inside clicked on.

  Beneath the accumulated napkins and ketchup packets that had been stuffed into there over the years he could just make out the corner of a dark piece of ornately carved wood.