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This story is a work of fiction, and contains 2spooky, strong language, a naturally occurring girl-boy protagonist, scenes of violence and sexuality and young girls with gigantic boobs that may be offensive to some readers.
Amazingly, this is not porn. Your discretion is advised.
Don’t say you weren’t warned. Because you were.
But if you don’t take my advice, that’s not my problem.
Amazingly, this is not porn. Your discretion is advised.
Don’t say you weren’t warned. Because you were.
But if you don’t take my advice, that’s not my problem.
Some characters appearing in this writing are the creation of others, and are used with artistic and creative license with permission from their creators. Any likeness to other characters is purely coincidental.
💖-Cookie Souris- 💖
XOXOXO
💖-Cookie Souris- 💖
XOXOXO
Chapter 1
I felt like crap.
I woke up on the first day of school far from bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Instead, I felt like a zombie – like an animated corpse with rigor mortis having long set in to stiffen all my joints and make the simple act of putting my underwear on a painful experience. There was a point where the thought of dropping out of school crossed my mind because I obviously slept funny the night before. It must have been the almighty powers that control our universe telling me that I should have just stayed home that day. Still, I guess if I just decided not to go to school, I’d miss out on a fun-filled year of teenage anxiety and body odour.
\tMy name is Cookie Souris (that’s Souris, like “sore-E.” It’s French. If I hear someone call me sour one more time, I swear…) and I am an interesting person… if maybe by “interesting” you mean weird. I like to call it “individual” or “unique,” but that doesn’t really help. I exist somewhere between hermit levels of alienation and celebrity levels of infamy. Some people don't want to be seen with me, others are just afraid to approach me; but honestly? I don't mind. I like the space. I’ve got much, much more important stuff to worry about now, and it all started when I got into the eleventh grade.
I really didn’t think the day was too out of the ordinary, despite being more tired than normal for seemingly no good reason at all. I mean, what teenager wants to go to school after having two months off? Not me. After ten years of the same old thing, I was feeling ready for a change. What would I do when it was over? Beats me. I didn’t really care. All I really knew at the time was that I woke up every day during the summer no earlier than ten o’clock, so rolling into the school at about eight-thirty was criminal by comparison. Still, I had my social responsibility to become an educated member of society, so I sucked it up and went to my first class.
I could hear people whispering about me as I took my seat in my new “Foundations for College Mathematics” class.
Woo, math with a couple of clucking hens first thing in the morning. My luck knows no bounds.
They thought they were being quiet, but they were sitting right behind me, and I suppose idiots think the size of my mouse ears is just for show. Normally I wouldn’t have let that sort of stuff bother me, but I was crabby and under-rested so naturally I continued to dampen my mood by forcing myself to listen to them as they talked behind my back.
I sat hunched in my seat in the second row from the front of the class, as far to one side as I could get, trying to hold myself up and look like I couldn’t hear the people behind me. It must have been a couple of girls who never had a class with me before, because they were going through all the usual lines: “is she a he or what” and “what kind of a name is Cookie” and things like that. I flattened out my ears and tried to angle them so their voices just became muffled noise, and closed my eyes and tried not to fall asleep; even though I wished so bad that sleep would come and deliver me mercifully into the dreamscape where I would find myself battling the alien forces invading Earth… or with some cute boy.
I don’t like starting new school years. Not that I mind going to school, I’m good at school, but what I really don’t like are the people. High school is a pain in the butt. It will forever be a pain in the butt. It’s one big popularity contest where half of the people participating don’t seem to even care about the grades they get. I guess you can call me a bit of a forward thinker, because I tend to think that sort of stuff matters. Because of that I guess I’m a bit special or something, because I don’t feel like everyone else. It also doesn’t help that I don’t usually become fully cognizant until eleven in the morning on a good day (which I was not having). I also prefer solitary hobbies like video games and reading. Oh, I’m also a boy-girl… or girl-boy, or shemale, or whatever.
Yeah, I guess I should get that out of the way. For all intents and purposes, I ought to be a boy – that’s about all the plumbing I’ve got. But then everything else about me is all girl; you know, the “soft features” and “curves” and all that sort of stuff. I fill out a comfortable D-cup bra, if you’re wondering. The whole dual-genderism thing isn’t hard to notice; I fill out a skirt reeeeal well in the front too, if you catch my meaning. Setting my piece, I like girl stuff, but I don’t pretend I’m not biologically a boy. I am a boy, really... just my body, my voice, my fashion sense and my love of footwear is girl. All I know is that I’m not one of those “transwomen” because the root word in that term, “transition,” doesn’t really apply to me. I was born that way, complete with nearly fatal-at-birth hormone imbalances. Hurray.
So now we’ve probably made a few assumptions about me: I’m kind of a loner, but I have no trouble standing out. Irony abounds. People tell me I’m pretty quiet too, but really I just don’t say much if I don’t have to. I’m about as sarcastic as they come and I’m not afraid to admit it, and I’ve got a sharp wit to make that interesting. I like the jokes that come at the expense of others. I think they’re funny.
I just wish I found math funny.
I felt myself nodding off but was saved just in time by the teacher entering the room. I opened my eyes and sat up as straight as I could to get a good look at the guy as he walked in. I had actually seen him before, his name was Mr. Monroe and he just screamed “math teacher.” He looked like he was in his forties, but I wasn’t ever really sure. Since he was a hippo it could have just been his the way his flabby body sagged or something. Everything about him was thick, from his face to his chubby fingers, and his skin was a colour I always described as dark chocolate. He had beady, shiny little eyes stuffed into his skull, and he always seemed a little happy. His big mouth yawned sometimes when he spoke, giving everyone listening to him a good look into his gaping face… it never seemed to bug him, but it sure bugged me. He dressed in dress pants and suspenders, and frumpy dress shirt with rolled up sleeves and a necktie. He wore his pants too high and it just kind of made it more noticeable that he was practically a walking sphere with arms and legs.
He looked specifically at me – big surprise – as he got to his desk. I just stared back at him and tried to psychically wound him with my powerful boredom. He just smiled though and then addressed the class.
“I’m glad to see you’re all awake,” He said, “Let’s do some math.”
He went on all “I’m Mr. Monroe, some of you may have worked with me before, blah blah blah...” I decided to stop listening until he got to the actual mathematics. Since it was the first class of the year though, he didn’t get to much. Everything was going to be refresher for a little while, just to make sure the dopes sitting around me could shake off all the rust from summer. Me, well, I didn’t rust. I know my integers and I know my order of operations, and I’ve never forgotten any of it. Instead of listening to the teacher go on, I thought I’d check my phone. Nobody sat beside me, so it was easy to discretely reach to my bag and get my cell phone from the side pocket. I put it on my lap so Mr. Monroe wouldn’t see it and started zoning out.
I started thinking about the stuff I liked to do. Video games was the big one – I love video games. There were some stories I wanted to get around to, too. I bought some books over the summer and never got a chance to read them because I was too distracted… by video games, and my summer job. I bought “The Witch Next Door,” a romance-horror, “Skinless,” a horror-mystery, and “Wizard Kid.” I still hadn’t gotten all the way through “The Dresden Files” though, so I never got to them. Thoughts of the books turned to thoughts of other things, and I sort of ended up drifting off and not paying full attention.
Before I knew it, the day was ending. I breezed through all four of my classes and a lunch period where I sat by myself in the cafeteria, and was on my way home from school. I finished the English homework in-class, which was some crap about getting to know everyone. I had a feeling the teacher was going to make me talk in front of the class and I didn’t really care for it. Trying to ignore that, I just wanted to go home. The bus ride seemed to go on forever and I just sat as low as I could with my arms crossed and my attention focused out the window. I don’t like how noisy the busses are, and whoever actually sits next to me usually doesn’t say a word to me. I’d gotten used to just listening to the music on my phone all the way home by then.
My stop was down the street from my house, which was a nice place nestled into some… I want to call it a valley, just a little past the water tower belonging to the town. You could call it the outskirts of the city. There’s actually a golf course out there, and a nice public soccer field… I’ve just never actually seen anyone playing soccer on it. The neighbourhood was quiet, and I think it was mostly filled with old people like my Mom and not many kids. Kids wouldn’t have ever hung out there anyway, there’s really nothing going on. It being the way it was though wasn’t so bad – I like the quiet, if you haven’t guessed.
I walked home as usual. My house is bigger than it needs to be because my family is bigger than it needs to be. I’m the second-youngest of seven kids. My mom had her first two kids when she was twenty-five and just… kept having more, even though my Dad (who I’d never met) left her. I live with her and my eleven year old little sister, Fraise; but I actually have three older brothers and two older sisters that used to live there too once upon a time. They’ve all grown up and moved out, but Mom never moved to a new place. It’s a four-bedroom house with two bathrooms, mottled stone exterior, and a big deck out back. The lawn’s usually nice and green, Mom makes me mow it a lot, and there’s a nice swimming pool built into the deck outside. It’s actually pretty sweet. It’s nice to drag myself back to after a long day.
So I stepped inside the big double doors into the foyer and unbuckled and kicked off my boots – which effectively brought my 5’1” height down to its more natural 5-0.
Yeah, I’m little. I’m also a mouse, so that’s kind of normal. We’re all mice, my whole family, but I was one of the shorter ones. I… guess I should tell you what I look like, huh? I’m kinda… sorta thin, a little. I mean, I’ve got, uh… chunky legs a little, you know? Oh, I have white fur too, because a lot of people in my family do. The ones that don’t have some shade of brown, either tan or chocolate, and I just happened to also get chocolate in splotches on my body too. It’s kind of like cow spots. I have black hair, supposedly inherited from Dad, and blue eyes, inherited from Mom, and a normal, pink nose inherited from… being normal. I’m just your regular mouse.
“Fraise?” I called out for my little sister, knowing that Mom wouldn’t be home from work yet. I didn’t hear any answer, so I made my way to the kitchen. I put my backpack on the island counter in the middle of the room and went to open the fridge when I saw a note stuck to it by a butterfly-shaped magnet.
It said, or read: “Cookie, Fraise will be at her friend’s house for a little while after school. Love Mom. PS: there are 11 popsicles left in the freezer. If I find less than 10 when I get home, you’re in trouble!”
I didn’t think much of it, it was just one little mystery solved, and it meant I had the whole house to myself so I didn’t really care. I only took one Popsicle because I didn’t want to incur my mother’s wrath and unwrapped the frozen treat. I promptly then crammed it into my face. Mm, cherry.
So what’s a girl with no homework and no one to bug her to do? I opened my bag and pulled my laptop and its power cord out from behind all my books and brought it to the living room. I turned on the TV to a sitcom, plugged in my laptop, and sat down to do some… opportune web-surfing. I spent my time looking up builds for a Warlock character class I was planning on running on a game called Archedoom, and some, uh, more unsavory viewing material while I had the chance.
Hey, I’m sixteen and I’m alone at home. That’s what we do.
Around the time the sitcom was winding down to its important moral lesson, and my popsicle had been worn down to the stick that I continued to chew on, and I was just starting to really appreciate the terribly skimpy armor designs implemented by game designers for incredibly voluptuous female characters, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I fished it out and took a look to find a text from my Mom that read: “Going to be home late from work. Do you know where Fraise’s friend Gwen lives? Can you pick up your sister? Leftover lasagna in the fridge. XOXOXO.”
I knew where Gwen lived, I’d been there before to get Fraise. I didn’t really want to go back.
Gwen’s parents? They creeped me out. Hard.
Whenever I went over there I got a feeling like… well, I wouldn’t have known how to explain it at the time. It felt like I was buzzing. My body would get all tingly and the fur on the back of my neck would get all prickly and I just felt… uncomfortable. It got worse whenever Gwen’s parents were around and I never knew why. One was a big, tall cat, and the other was a not-so-tall husky, and both of them were women… as far as I could tell. I thought at first that it was because I was being weird and shy or something because they were good-looking, but after a couple of times being over there I started to get the feeling it was something else. It was a bad feeling, like dread and arousal at the same time, and it just filled me whenever I stepped foot in or around that house. I sighed thinking about just not going back there, but… I couldn’t just leave Fraise there. Maybe, I thought, it wouldn’t be so bad that time. Maybe I could take a look around and figure out what was up with me.
I closed my laptop and got up to get my boots back on and head outside. Gwen didn’t live far from our house, I just had to go up the street, up the nearby hill, then down past the soccer field and playground, around the bend, and down into the next suburb. It’s not the sort of walk I’d rate as being long, but it’s not short either.
After all that, I’d arrive at the subject of my fears and uncertainties… and it had a flower bed in the front lawn. It was a normal house, with a normal, albeit European style minivan that a soccer mom might drive parked out front. There were curtains in the window that looked dark, yet flower-patterned. There was absolutely nothing about that little, picket-fenced suburban home that should have really put me off, and yet standing at the end of the driveway I could feel a tension start to creep up my back. It was like the house just had some nasty sort of aura, reverberating with a creepy energy. I shook out my shoulders and arms, working out all the shivers I got before approaching the door. Getting up on the front step, the feelings came back to me in waves. My hand was practically trembling when I pushed on the doorbell, and I could feel my body break out into a bit of a sweat.
I tried not to let my uneasiness show when one of Gwen’s moms opened the door, even though it’s kind of hard not to be intimidated by her. This one was, like, seven feet tall and a black and white like an Oreo. She was of the family Felidae, or Feline to the layman (don’t worry, I just looked that up). She was enormous and curvy as all heck, with a chest that dwarfed my head and thighs that looked like they could have crushed my torso between them easily. She always seemed to wear stuff that just showed everything off, too… Her Mom jeans looked like she’d put them on with a paint roller that morning, and her shirt wasn’t any better. Whatever the picture was printed onto the front didn’t make any sense because it’d been all stretched out. She had legit cat-eyes, yellow with vertical slits for irises, and the way she stared at me just… it was messed up.
She just smirked when she saw me standing there, though she had to look pretty far down past her own boobs to do it. I did my best to look up at her, but it felt like her presence was trying to force me off the step. I didn’t know it at the time, but my legs were shaking. I kept a straight face though… I’m actually super good at that.
“Uh, hey, I’m looking for my sister?” I said, trying not to sound shaken.
She just kept staring at me, sizing me up. I looked at myself, tugged a little on my denim skirt, and tapped the toes of my boots on the step, not sure what she was looking at me like that for. When I looked up though, all I saw was her hand reaching out towards my head. I couldn’t really react in time to stop her.
“Oculus excitant,” Her hissed words echoed in my mind as she flicked me in the forehead, and it felt like every muscle in my body had become paralyzed.
I went totally rigid and I fell. I fell off the step and hit my back on the lawn, staring up at the sky. I felt all the breath escape my lungs when I looked up and saw not a blue sky with fluffy white clouds, but some black, star-speckled nebula, hazed with gassy mists of beautifully vibrant greens and purples. The moon hung high above, but it looked more like a Red Dwarf star, burning in the sky. I’d never seen anything like it in my life – and the feelings it gave me were intense. I wanted to cry, it was so beautiful, but I couldn’t move or do anything. My arms and legs were numb and my attempts to move them brought nothing. I just laid there like a limp noodle, as if I’d just broken my spine. All the energy I once felt approaching that house spun nauseatingly in my head. I thought for sure I was going to throw up.
Soon enough I could move my fingers, and then my hands, and after that my arms. I grabbed hold of the grass and it writhed in my hands, squirming around like I’d just grabbed a handful of worms. I pulled on it to roll myself onto my side, and I slumped down with my face half-buried in what looked like little swaying tentacles, turquoise in colour, trying to reach for the sky above and lazily dancing. Tall mushrooms stuck out of the writhing mess and shined. Every time they moved, glittering dust fell from them. In the air, more lights danced, and I could see all down the street that every lawn had its own little ecosystem. Creatures I could hardly begin to describe frolicked, and in the distance I saw a large fish-like creature leap out of the ground and eat another odd animal before disappearing in a bout of what looked like molten lava.
I was freaked the heck out. It was getting hard to breathe, my eyes stung, my throat just wanted to close in on itself, and things got blurry. I felt someone grab my shoulder and push me to turn me onto my back, and I was looking straight up into the eyes of a monstrous creature that defied any explanation, but was vaguely humanoid. It had wicked yellow eyes, but a scarier-looking set of teeth, sharp and jagged. It was inky black and… throbbed as it touched me, with black tentacles moving in the air behind it like they were trying to just suck everything up. I opened my mouth to scream but nothing came out. The creature reached out for me, but my vision blurred so much and I started to feel so weak from the strain that I started to pass out.
“Quiesco,” Was the last thing I heard.
Chapter 2
I felt the last of my breath just slip away, and my brain shut down.
When feeling came back, it was soft and warm. It was like my whole world was twisting itself back into what it should have been starting with what was closest to me, which seemed to be another person’s body. I instinctively grabbed hold of that person and pressed into their warmth for comfort, shivering as all the feeling came back to me little bits at a time. For a second the air around me felt really cold, and gradually things started to warm up from there. I felt weak in my arms and legs and my stomach felt empty. I struggled to open my eyes like I’d been sleeping for ages, and light came harshly through my fluttering eyelashes to burn my vision and make me clench really hard to block it out again.
“Well,” I heard the cat woman’s voice again. She had a British accent I would’ve recognized pretty much anywhere. Admittedly I’d heard it in my dreams more than once.
“It seems you’ve got a bit of a gift, dear,” She said, “You can see things for how they are. I knew I was right. Zeroelle owes me.”
I breathed but it was past tears, so I kind of choked. Gently the woman rested her hand on my head and combed her fingers through my hair. It felt weird, her touch made me tingle. I didn’t understand what she was saying, but when I tried to ask and couldn’t get the words out, she just shushed me. She gave me gentle “shh” sounds and continued to stroke my hair. Eventually the tingles faded away and her touch was just warm and relaxing. I realized that my head was in her lap and I was laying out on her couch, and I’d grabbed onto her legs and had my face wedged in against her stomach. She was oddly calm about the whole thing, but I felt so messed up I couldn’t help but grab onto her.
“Are you alright, dear?” She asked. I nodded. She pat my head and said, “Good. Peering past the veil isn’t easy on anyone, let alone someone so young.”
Remember when I said I had more important things to worry about than my social situation? This is it.
I eventually got the strength back in my arms to push myself up off of her. She helped me, lifting me and sitting me up on the couch before handing me my glasses. I wiped the tears away from my eyes before putting them on and finally looked at her. We were sitting in her living room, and it was dead quiet. There were plenty of homely decorations to look at – photographs, clutter, the TV, stuff like that; but I just looked at her.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, “What happened?”
The woman crossed her legs and folded her hands in her lap. She took a breath and paused before answering me. “Well, to explain it to you might take some time,” She said, “So let me ask you a few questions. Firstly, have you ever seen anything… strange, in your life?”
I blinked a few times and asked, “Strange? Uh…”
“Like monsters,” She clarified.
I didn’t answer right away. Of course I wanted to say monsters weren’t real – I wasn’t even sure what happened on the front lawn was even real – but there was something that nagged at me. It was a memory that was pretty deeply embedded in my mind, one that wouldn’t go away. “Uh…” I felt embarrassed answering her, “Well… When I was little I thought I saw…”
The cat woman turned her head and watched me with curious eyes. I sat forwards and wrapped my arms around myself, feeling stupid.
“Well, I mean…” I didn’t want to say it, but she asked, and I felt compelled to, “Okay I used to think there were goblins in my closet when I was, like, six.”
Gwen’s mother tilted her head. “A normal sort of thing for a young child,” She said.
“I saw one,” I insisted, “I was really sure, anyway… I thought I saw some monster coming out of my closet.”
“You’re certain?” The woman asked, “Mm.”
“What?” I looked at her.
She took a deep breath that made her chest puff up real attractively and then let it all out slowly. “What you saw may not have been simply a trick of the imagination,” She explained, “Just like what you saw just a short while ago was quite real.”
I had no idea how she knew about what I saw, but the event was a haze to me at that point. I didn’t even remember how it started.
“What I tell you next is going to be hard to believe, but…” She said, “I cast a spell on you. I had to, to see if my hunch had any merit. I opened your Third Eye, just for a short while.”
She turned toward me and pressed a finger against the center of my forehead. I winced and she removed her finger quickly. Those strange, almost nauseating feelings came back, swimming around, focused on that spot for a few moments. They faded away, and I rubbed my forehead to try and urge it away faster.
“Your Third Eye,” She spoke, “The ability to awaken True Sight and peer beyond the mortal realm to see the world for what it truly is – to see people for who they truly are, and to see things kept just out of reach of the layman. Normally such a thing would take years of training to get even the simplest grasp on, but you, my dear… You appear to be naturally sensitive to the supernatural and the powers of magic that intertwine and mingle with the fabric of your reality.”
I must have turned my lip up into some kind of snarky curl. “Huh?”
“You can see what other people can’t see, and feel what other people can’t feel,” She explained, “That monster in your closet, it’s likely that it was very much real… but commonly, most creatures from beyond the veil go completely unnoticed. You have an energy about you, however, that catches the attention of things beyond your comprehension. It’s also why approaching my home must rack your little body with certain… sensations, does it not?”
I reluctantly nodded while trying to take in everything this amazon cat was trying to tell me. “What… does that mean?” I asked, “I don’t get it.”
“You’re reacting to the magical energies that surround my home – you’ve triggered several wards I’ve placed on your first visit alone, and I believe you’ve felt every one I’ve set again since, but were still very much able to pass though,” She said, completely serious and straight-faced, “And they’ve been reacting to you. Even now I can sense the energy swirling around you. I could sense it the moment I laid eyes on you, and I trust being near me has caused some reaction for you.”
It was too much for me to really take. I shook my head and scooted aside to put some distance between me and her. “This… sounds crazy,” I said, “That’s a bunch of crap.”
“You’re magic,” The woman pressed, “But there’s something strange about you. You don’t react to my wards the way you should.”
I got to my feet, but immediately wobbled. Gwen’s Mom reached out and took hold of my arm, which immediately sent buzzing tingles up it and up the back of my neck. I jerked my arm away, tearing it from her grip, and then immediately tripped over her coffee table and fell onto the floor. The woman got up to pursue me and it wasn’t hard to catch me since I was trying to crawl away on the floor. She just stepped over me and reached down to pull me up off the floor with impressive strength. She held me up and pulled me against her body, restraining me. I struggled against her as she held me in a bear hug with my back cushioned by her chest.
“Listen to me,” She said, “You have an innate gift that could be a danger to you if you leave it unchecked. I can help you, but you need to trust me.”
“Let… go…!” I grunted as I kicked my feet and tried hitting my fists against her arms, “Get away from me…!”
“Mom!”
The woman and I both stopped when her daughter got our attention. She stood at the bottom of the stairs, a blue skunk with white markings and white hair. She wore little pink overalls and a yellow t-shirt and a butterfly hairclip. She couldn’t have been more than twelve years old.
“Really, mom?” She gave the woman holding me a disapproving look, “Fraise’s sister?”
My sister came literally bouncing down the stairs just then, a mass of mouse. She’s only eleven but her boobs are about as big as beach balls or something – they’re fuckin’ gigantic. It’s some kind of weird… Wingerism or something that Mom never explained to me. How she fits into her yellow dress is a mystery no one could solve. Otherwise she was a regular mouse like me, with white fur and dirty blonde hair done up in corkscrew pigtails. I was pretty relieved to see her, actually. If I couldn’t get this crazy woman off me, then Fraise could, no problem.
“Cookie? What’re you doin’?” She asked.
“Nothing!” Gwen’s mother laughed, dropping me immediately, “We weren’t doing anything, dear.”
“Yeah, we’re leaving,” I groaned as I got to my feet and stepped around the large woman, “Come on, Fraise.”
“Huh? Oh!” My sister nodded her head a bunch, “Oh yeah, okay! Is Momma not coming? Is she at work still?”
I was way too impatient to answer her and just marched to the door on shaky legs. “Fraise,” I said as sternly as I could, “Shoes now.”
Fraise didn’t say anything, but quickly did as I asked and slipped her shoes on with some help from her friend Gwen. She had a hard time reaching around her own breasts most of the time to do things like that. They said their goodbyes and I waited outside for my sister to come bounding down the front step like the jiggly bundle of hyperactive pain-in-the-butt she was. Gwen saw her off with her mother standing there too.
“Think about what I said,” The cat-witch said to me, “It’s for your own good.”
I couldn’t do much more than grunt. I took Fraise’s hand and walked off the lawn with her. The further I got from that place, the better I started to feel; it still felt like I was nursing some kind of hangover or something though. I felt sick to my stomach and my head, ugh… I can remember it just spinning. I must have stumbled a couple of times on the way home, and Fraise was talking but I didn’t hear a word she was saying. I couldn’t take my mind off of what had happened. Whenever I closed my eyes and thought about it, I could see the strange visions I saw laying there on the front lawn. It was a perfect memory, no detail out of focus. I’d say it was unsettling, but that would be an understatement. I tried to look on the bright side; at least I wasn’t there anymore, anywhere near that woman. I felt relief just wash over me the second I got back home.
Fraise rushed into the living room and I went and gathered my things to go to my room. She and I have this agreement that when I watch her, I don’t actually literally “watch” her. She stays out of trouble and I stay in my room. For the most part it works, and if she’s got a problem she’ll come knocking. So I closed my door and set my things on my bed. Then I went to my closet and opened it up.
There weren’t any monsters inside, even if I stared really hard at the dark corners.
I checked under my bed after that, and found nothing but a few socks. None of them matched.
I sighed as my butt hit my wheelie chair in front of my desk and my back hit the rest hard enough to tilt it a little. I pushed my feet out in front of me and looked up to stare at the ceiling, thinking about stuff. I was obviously freaking out, in some nervous, neurotic sort of way, but I couldn’t just ignore what happened. Fraise’s friend’s house was weird, the feelings it gave me were weird, that cat woman was weird, and the things I saw… well, they were way past weird. I thought back to all the things she said after I’d woken up, about my ‘Third Eye’ and stuff. It sounded like some clever innuendo to me, but I’d never heard anything like it before… Peering past the veil, seeing things that regular people couldn’t see; monsters being real. She listened to my story about the goblins when I was six and didn’t even bat an eye. Why did I even tell her? That was a little weird.
“Oh,” I blinked as a thought occurred to me. Pushing with my feet I wheeled my chair across my carpet until I could reach my laptop on my bed. Google was to be my guru that night, and it was going to tell me what that Third Eye was. I curled up in my chair with my knees up in front of me and kept my laptop in my lap and started my search.
Wikipedia is of course the best place to find anything ever. I’ve finished at least six essays just blatantly plagiarizing it. I started reading the page aloud to myself.
“The Third Eye (also known as the inner eye) is a mystical and esoteric concept referring to a speculative invisible eye which provides perception beyond ordinary sight.”
Okay, so that sounded like what Gwen’s Mom was saying.
“In certain dharmic spiritual traditions such as Hinduism, the third eye refers to the ajna, or brow, chakra. In Theosophy it is related yadda yadda yadda…”
Not interesting.
“The Third Eye refers to the gate that leads to inner realms and spaces of higher consciousness.”
Peeling back the veil, sure.
“The Third Eye is often associated with religious visions, clairvoyance, the ability to observe chakras and auras, precognition, and out-of-body experiences. People who are claimed to have the capacity to utilize their third eyes are sometimes known as Seers.”
“And do you believe in UFOs, astral projection, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trans-mediums, the Loch Ness Monster and the theory of Atlantis,” I waved my hands and spoke to myself in as nasally a voice as I could. My brothers made me watch that movie, like, a million times.
It sounded like the sort of stuff I’d read about in fiction and see in edgy horror movies. I kind of like that sort of stuff, honestly. That story about goblins in my closet? It stuck with me, you know. When you think you see a monster come out of your closet and your Mom’s just like, “Try to ignore it,” and you eventually ignore it, I guess it gets you thinking about monsters and stuff. I never took as much of an interest in it as I did just then with the Google search, but I always found things like hauntings and folklore kinda cool. I think the part I found the coolest about the whole Third Eye thing when reading up on it was that, if I wasn’t just being totally crazy, that I was a “Seer.”
I looked over towards my closet again, not sure if the door being slightly open was just me or not.
I was being crazy, and I tried to reason with myself that I had a bad dream or something… But then that didn’t explain that woman. Gwen’s Mom, whatever her name was, she was, in algebraic terms, my unknown variable; my X. No amount of “oh that was just a weird dream” could explain why it happened right then and why she seemed to know exactly what I’d seen. She talked about wards and magic spells and things like that… forces that intertwined with the “mortal realm” or “real world” or whatever like she was some kind of…
... Well, like she was some kind of inhuman... thing.
I mean, she’s an anthromorphic cat, so she’s obviously not really human; she’s also giant, British, and super-hot. But she’s different. She’s not normal. When she touched me it felt like something between the warm fuzziness you get when they do head lice checks at school, and electric shocks. Being around her felt like something was pushing against me, and being around her house made me… scared. For absolutely no explicable reason, I felt uneasy there. Her eyes, too, there was something about her eyes that just…
Well, maybe there was another reason she made me feel weird, and I lifted my laptop for a moment to check. She was really hot, like crazy hot; like super models had nothing on her. She had tits bigger than my head and an ass I could’ve gotten lost in. To prove my point, I was a little turned on just thinking about her various… parts, as evidenced by the boner I was getting. I set my laptop back down and pushed my glasses up with an affirmative nod. That woman was just attractive. That had to be it.
… Oh who was I kidding? Even that didn’t explain much.
I got back into the internet searching. The whole chakra thing? Apparently lots of people actually believe in it. Of course, I shouldn’t be the one to say who’s right and who’s wrong in believing what or whatever – Mom believes in God, after all. But if what Gwen’s Mom told me was true, my whole perspective on things was about to change. I had to steady myself before getting into it; deep breaths and everything.
I found a YouTube vid about someone’s… I guess "documented findings" on the side-effects of opening the Third Eye.
“A very normal side effect of opening the Third Eye is an intense pressure on your forehead and you may feel a consistent tingling or vibrating sensation on the Third Eye that can stay for days after opening the third eye chakra.”
I rubbed my forehead, still experiencing that awful tingling sensation like I was coming down from painkiller high after spinning around too fast on a tire swing.
“People often times experience symptoms directed to their vision and they begin seeing unexplainable things not from this world. This is what you need to be prepared for, as it will be a frightening experience if you are not properly informed and did not prepare yourself for this. One of the things you may see are paranormal entities or what we call spirits of those who have passed. You can develop clairvoyance and the ability to communicate with spirits. Some people see other beings not of this world, and could be creatures of other dimensions or what religion might refer to as demons. No matter what type of entity you may encounter, it will be a very overwhelming experience, and for some people it starts to feel like insanity and something they have a difficult time shutting out.”
I slumped more in my seat until my butt finally slid off and I fell out onto my bedroom floor. It was about that time when I decided that I was being absolutely crazy and needed to just forget about the whole thing. That’s when I heard a knock at my door and my sister – bless her heart buried behind several feet of bosom – called out.
“Cookie? I’m hungry. What’s for dinner?”
“Yes,” I said to myself. I stood, put my laptop down, and pounded my fist into my other hand. “I have to go be a normal big sister, who goes to school, and stuff,” I said before moving to the door and opening it. Fraise looked utterly miserable staring up at me, and I kind of just cocked a brow at her. “Didn’t they feed you over there?” I asked, “Jeez. There’s lasagna in the fridge, come on.”
“Woo! Lasagna!” Fraise bounced on her toes. I gave her a shove to keep her moving and walked her downstairs. That whole Third Eye thing was just going to have to take a back seat for the time being.
Chapter 3
Alright, so, new thing about me. I’ve always had really lucid dreams. That’s the word for it, right? “Lucid?” In other words, you know how people wake up and forget what their dreams were about? I don’t. I remember them all the time… Or at least for a while anyway. But it’s been a thing I’ve always had. I used to be able to tell my Mom every detail about my dreams when I was a little girl. I still could, but who the heck tells their Mom about their dreams? Seriously.
The dream I had that night was one I’ll never forget. Oh man.
I remember that I was in some kind of library… not a library I’d ever been to before, but one of those really big, really impressive ones where the shelves literally took up entire walls. It was dark except for candlelight, the wax of said candles in various degrees of melting, flickering flames dotting the whole area. I was in some kind of beanbag chair on the floor with my nose stuffed into a book. I heard people, but no people were there. Whenever I looked up from whatever I was reading, I was alone. Eventually I’d just settle back into the book and keep going… but I was feeling a little horny.
That’s not unusual for me.
So one time I look up, and there she was. Gwen’s Mom, that huge cat-woman, standing at the far end of a stretch between two stacks of books - stacked far better than any books I’d ever seen in my friggin’ life, I’ll add. All she was wearing was some lacy purple lingerie, slightly see-through. I don’t think I ever remember seeing that much of her white underbelly exposed before, but somehow my imagination filled in the blanks. I just stared at her, and she stood there purring up a storm and giving me serious bedroom eyes. She stroked the wood of the shelves at either side of her and stood posed for me to look at. It was unreal. Even from far away she looked like a total babe.
Of course it was my dream, so she ended up getting closer like I wanted her to. She got a lot closer. She walked over to me, swaying every step of the way on her long, long legs and dainty little toes until she stood over me. Literally over me, like I was just staring up at her crotch. I remember telling her that I wanted her on me, and that she was sexy as hell, and since it was my dream she complied. Except she just kind of let herself drop right down on my chest. It knocked the wind right out of me. Did I mention she was huge?
So there she was sitting on my chest and me barely being able to breathe. She was very, very warm and her thighs were so big they pinned my arms against my sides. Despite the obvious asphyxiation problem, I was still turned on like all fuck. I could actually hear my pajama pants creaking as they tried to hold back my possibly exaggerated hard-on for her. Then she said something really weird.
“Don’t struggle. Don’t move at all.”
Of course, I was way too willing to do everything she said, because I thought we were going to get up to some crazy sex or something. But she just sat there, and I just sat there, and after a while I realized that nothing else was going to happen. Everything was quiet, I got to listen to her breathe and at least enjoy the way her breathing made her boobs push out over me, but… that was it. I was very disappointed, as you’d probably think. I don’t know how long it went, but it seemed like it just went on for hours of us just sitting there.
Eventually she just got up off of me and turned and walked away. Naturally I stared at her ass every step of the way, but… yeah. She walked back to the stacks she came from and disappeared into the shadows until all I could see were her yellow cat eyes just peeking out. It was creepy seeing them like that, even though I knew it was her in there. She went back to purring, I could hear it from across the room.
“Don’t let the hag ride you, dear,” She said.
I jumped when I heard a slam, and bolted awake in my room on my bed. All the covers were thrown off of me, and I felt pretty chilly when I sat up and looked around. The sun was out and light was coming through my closed blinds; it was morning. I felt a wave of fatigue wash over me and I yawned. My eyes felt sore and heavy, and I really didn’t feel like I’d gotten any sleep at all. I went to bed at the usual eleven o’clock and I remembered falling asleep pretty quickly… but seriously, I felt as gross and exhausted as if I’d never slept a wink.
To make matters worse, I had a bad case of morning wood and my dream seemed like a huge disappointment when I thought back on it. I was way too tired to take care of anything myself and I just wanted to go back to bed, but just when I let my head fall back down on my pillow, my alarm clock went off. BEEP BEEEP BEEP BEEP, right in my ear. I pounded it with my fist until the stupid thing stopped and dragged my sorry butt out of bed. All grumbly and tired, I grabbed a towel from the hook on my bedroom door and was literally able to hang it off my morning wood sticking out of my underwear as I made my way to the bathroom. The images of my dream were still playing back in my head.
“Ew!” I heard my sister laugh as I passed her in the hall.
“Cram it,” I grumbled.
She was standing in her bedroom doorway in her nightie, and she lifted her hands to cover her eyes as I walked by. “You’re gross!” She laughed, “Cookie!”
“Shut up, it’s normal,” I said. I still hurried my way to the bathroom and made sure to lock the door behind me so Fraise couldn’t bug me anymore. I looked at myself in the mirror and decided that I looked like absolute crap. I had bags under my eyes that made me look like my mom almost, except for my black hair and brown mottled fur pattern. I jokingly thought it was easier to see the resemblance between us when I appeared to have thirty pound bags under my eyes.
And what did that hag thing even mean anyway? I was some kind of messed up. I thought for sure that cat lady ruined my life somehow, I just knew it.
On top of having crazy boner-dreams, and maybe being able to see crazy demonic entities, I also had a presentation in English class and a whole stupid day in stupid school to go through on what felt like zero sleep and even fewer fucks given. Negative fucks. My forehead still felt like it was being bore into by some kind of tingly cerebral drill, and I thought if I blinked I might see either Gwen’s Mom’s eyes staring back at me or just some screwed up dreamscape of weird centipedes with fifty-bajillion eyes and lava geysers. I couldn’t even fix my “morning glory” I was so tired. I nearly fell asleep in the shower… standing up.
“Back to normal please…” I yawned when I stepped out and toweled myself off.
I dragged my butt through breakfast and put minimal effort into dressing myself that day. I tossed together one of my many skirts and a baby tee and was out the door on tired feet before I really knew it. I was yawning when Fraise boarded the elementary school bus and was trying to have a nap on the transformer box near the stop when my bus pulled up. Part of me wanted to turn around and go home, but if I said I was sick my Mom would have known I was full of crap in an instant. There’s just no mercy for the tired student, it almost doesn’t seem fair.
After falling asleep on the bus and again during first period, it became pretty obvious: that day was going to suck. I might have hit rock bottom when I dozed off while looking through my locker for my math textbook. I’d left it in my bag from the day before, but I really wasn’t running on all cylinders. Whenever I wasn’t sleeping, I was thinking about that Third Eye stuff and trying to nurse the side-effects of having it opened. I probably would have felt better if I had actually had the flu. I was doing my best to pretend no one else existed in the entire world, just so I didn’t have to concern myself with their trivial junk, but having done that I almost missed something pretty startling.
I was woken up by someone saying, “’Scuse me… dude…”
I opened my eyes and rolled my head to look at my locker-neighbour. He was some dude-bro whose species I lovingly identified as the “foot-smell troglodyte;” on account of him seemingly sharing an IQ score with lesser-evolved humanoids and carrying an odor comparable to old running shoes. In reality he was what you’d call a “Grackle.” He was a bird, black feathers, iridescent from his chest and shoulders up. I was never really sure what colour he was there, because it changed colour depending on the light. Sometimes he was all green, sometimes there was some blue, and sometimes purple… it blended a lot too. It was actually kind of pretty. His, uh, head-plumage was always really messy and shaggy, and his pants never seemed to fit quite right. Nice enough guy though, if you don’t mind the stink.
All I managed was some tired-sounding mumble of syllables mostly containing the letter M.
“Ya fell asleep on my locker there,” He grinned, stupidly.
I had to look around and get my bearings before I muttered, “Sorry.”
I moved out of his way and he went about dialing in his locker combination. He’d forgotten what it was, so it took him a few tries. “No problem mi amigo. My casa is your casa,” He waved his feathered hand through the air, then laughed, “I didn’t know it was so comfy though. Might use it to catch some sleep myself. I’m bushed, dude.”
Foot-smell literally dropped his books into and onto his bag, grabbed a warm energy drink out of his locker, and then took off toward his next class… if he even went to class. I watched him go, squinting my eyes as it took me way longer to realize than it should have… but he was all “tired zombie” too. I looked around the hall and noticed that, well… lots of people were zombie-mode like I was. I guess I was just too tried to really care about it at first, and I’m not exactly prone to people-watching since people suck. Several students, a noticeable number of them, looked like they hadn’t slept all night – some of them looked like they hadn’t slept for days.
They were all weak and sluggish and distant. As much as that sounds like my every-day, I knew for a fact that wasn’t the same for that many people. I watched Freddy Mac-G, jock extraordinaire, who normally shoved hapless kids around in the halls between classes with his also-jock buddies in a testosterone-riddled attempt at establishing ape-like dominance (which is fitting for a gorilla), just moan and groan and slump down to the floor. Evangeline Dickson, toy poodle bane of my existence, was dragging herself through the hall instead of walking with her normal “I’m perfect at everything ever” prissy-pants walk. Horrible-at-his-job Vice Principal Mr. Larson gave a big, fat yawn and nursed a coffee. There were at least six other people I saw who looked like they’d been through hell, not including myself.
I noted how weird a coincidence that was when I closed my locker and made my way down the hall. I passed by Freddy Mac-G and thought I was just going to get away with it, but in a moment where my head seemed to throb and the spot on the middle of my forehead felt like something was trying to jump out, I got distracted enough to not notice that he stuck his foot out to trip me. I stumbled over him, practically right into the Vice Principal.
“Watch it, Thug Big-Boots!” Freddy laughed, as did his gaggle of Neanderthal linebackers.
That was one of his nicknames for me, Thug Big-Boots. It’s because I like to wear boots, and my favourite are a black leather pair of shin-highs with inch-thick soles and buckles, lovingly polished and painstakingly maintained. It’s also because Freddy is an asshole.
I looked to the VP, who just stood there staring off into space. You’d think it was because he looked so tired, but no. Mr. Larson barely ever noticed anything that ever went on. You could’ve set his pants on fire and it’d still take him a while to notice. I stood there, hand on my hip, tapping my boot on the floor, watching him. He continued to say and do nothing. After the laughter subsided he finally looked at me.
“Huh? Oh,” He said, “Can I help you… uh… Miss Souris?”
I’ll note that he put a weird emphasis on “Miss” and pronounced my last name like “sour is.” I hate that.
I just rolled my eyes and kept on walking. I live every day surrounded by dicks – and not in the good way, I can assure you that. On the bright side it’s given me the ability to shake off jackassery like it’s no one’s business. I’ve learned not to even slightly crease my mouth into anything resembling a reaction. I’ve also got, like, 50 DEX from dodging paper balls and “accidentally” sports balls through elementary school, so my reflexes are pretty good. Now if only I could just learn how to shoot lasers from my eyes, everything would be perfect.
Hey, if what that cat lady said was true, maybe I could. How about that?
I kept an eye out for tired-looking students in math class. If I had to put my findings into math-y terms, roughly seventy-five percent of the twenty-nine students were trying not to fall asleep at their desks. That meant twenty-one people together in one room all had a rough night – twenty-two if you round up. The average number of students so bored with math it’d put them to sleep was normally around four or five at the very absolute most. What we had just then was a four-hundred and twenty-five percent increase in sleepy students based on numbers from tenth grade mathematics class and one single day of my observations in eleventh grade Foundations for College Mathematics.
Mr. Monroe did not have that kind of boredom-inducing power, even if he tried really super hard to do it. What we had was some sort of insomnia pandemic… but then, if those other kids, those… twenty-one other kids were like me, then they actually did sleep. They slept, maybe, and still felt incredibly tired even though they had a full night’s rest.
Something was really wrong with this picture. I couldn’t be the only one who was noticing it. One girl did fall asleep in a puddle of her own drool on her desk though, so maybe I really was the only one who noticed it… everyone else was too tired!
I was so distracted with my thoughts, math was over before I knew it. I was still staring at the students as they got up from their desks and dragged their feet all the way out of the classroom. I followed them, deciding that if my next class was just the same it would mean that something was definitely up. I had to exercise my usual levels of skepticism – the whole Third Eye thing had me paranoid, and I could have just been being weird. There could have been a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why so many people seemed so out of it. A large-scale construction project in the city keeping people up at night? No, construction workers ended work at like six… A high-traffic period of low-flying airplanes throughout the night? I was reaching for that one.
Just when I was getting to blaming tectonic shifts, I’d gotten to English class. Somehow I managed not to walk into anybody the whole way there even though my head was in the clouds. I’d gotten so good at ducking and weaving my way past people, I’d managed to do it entirely on muscle memory. I actually found myself standing in front of the classroom door like I’d just snapped out of some late-morning nap. I shook my head and tried to stay focused. Odds were I was going to walk into the classroom and, aside from the students I had already observed, everything was going to be as normal as my life could possibly be. I slipped in, literally ducking under Freddy Mac-G’s arm as he pushed the door open, spun on my heels and stepped to my seat at the back of the class in one movement. My butt planted on my chair, and I looked around.
There were fewer students looking tired, but they were definitely there. Yawns were being contagiously passed around the room and back to me as the English teacher stood up from her desk to address the class. She was such a whale… which is just a funny way for me to say that she actually is a whale. A beluga. She’s huge and fishy and wears sundresses and I think she’s, like, forty years old or something.
“Hello class! Alright, are we all ready to present a little blurb about ourselves?” She said, all smiles.
Everyone groaned and grumbled; except me, I just started chewing on my pen in blatant disinterest.
“Think of it as an exercise in public speaking,” The teacher tried to assure us.
Foot-Smell put up his hand from two rows in front of me and two seats to my left. “But Mrs. Willows, there’s totally a public speaking class. I thought we were here to learn English,” He said.
Mrs. Willows barely bat an eye. She just placed her hands against each other and used them to gesture at the guy. “Speech is an important part of English, and being able to present in front of a group in a proper and professional manner is important not only in school, but in your future careers as well,” She said, “The Public Speaking class with Mr. Tuck is a wonderful way to expand on those skills, but it will be covered to some extent in our curriculum, Mr. Delany.”
“Righteous,” Foot-Smell concluded most eloquently.
Mrs. Willows smiled as some people laughed. “Well, I think you should be first, Mr. Delany,” She said.
“Right on,” The guy stood up and pulled a piece of paper out of his backpack that was stained in… stuff. He made his way to the front of the class and turned to speak.
I immediately stopped paying attention.
As special as listening to Foot-Smell would have been, and as enriched as I would have felt for doing so, I had more important things to worry about. That feeling in my head was starting to come back in more intense waves than before. It really throbbed, and it felt like something was pushing against my forehead and trying to get out. It made me feel dizzy, and my vision actually blurred. I folded my arms on my desk and rested my head there just to try and get a handle on gravity and make my world stop spinning. I rubbed my eyes and tried taking off my glasses, but that just made me feel exposed. The oatmeal I had for breakfast that morning felt like it was rolling around in a ball inside my guts.
I remember rubbing my face against my arms, just rolling my head back and forth a few times, then stopping to rest again. I turned my head to look at one of the other kids next to me and my breath got caught in my throat. Things were starting to get weird again… The room started looking like the walls were made of thick glass, and through that glass I saw strange, shadowy creatures gliding along the surface like fuzzy bugs skittering around. They moved randomly like they were stalking us, but I guess they couldn’t get in. I looked to the front of the room and the chalkboard was a giant stone slab with letters in a foreign language chiseled into it. Mrs. Willows stood behind some kind of podium rather than a desk, and she looked like some kind of stone guardian watching us, like a statue or something.
The students looked like clay, but if I looked really closely, lines and creases were being drawn into them one little bit at a time. They were taking shape right before my eyes, but looked pretty nondescript otherwise. I wasn’t at all sure what I was doing during the whole thing. I just stared and gawked at everything around me. No matter how much I wanted to move, I was forced to sit there and not. I was witnessing the same sort of thing I did when Gwen’s Mom supposedly opened my Third Eye
“Ms. Souris.”
Mrs. Willows’ voice thundered from the front of the room and the stone guardian turned its head and cast a gaze of glowing eyes on me. I was caught literally in its headlights. On one hand, she pronounced my name right, but on the other that booming voice made my head pound. I groaned and tried to pull my ears down around my head.
“Don’t be shy Ms. Souris. It’s your turn. Come on to the front of the class now.”
I peeled myself up off my arms and stood to do as I was told. I don’t know why I thought going up there was a good idea, but I felt compelled to just do it. So I walked up through the rows of desks to the front of the class so when I turned I was looking at rows of clay lumps that were vaguely human-shaped. They had holes in their heads for their eyes and mouths that drooped and sagged, and I wasn’t sure they were always looking at me. I squinted my eyes, realizing I’d left my glasses on my desk. It didn’t seem to matter though; I could still see everything perfectly fine.
I took my pen out of my mouth and said, “Hi.”
The creatures outside of the glass walls darted to hover around me, separated from me by the protective layer of glass. They buzzed around above, below, and around the spot I was standing, as close as they could possibly get. I was more than a little nervous about that, so I stopped talking for a few moments. That didn’t seem to make them go away.
“Uh,” The creatures buzzed around more when I spoke again, starting to batter themselves against the glass, “I’m Cookie.”
I looked at Mrs. Willows in her weird statue form and she watched me with judging, unblinking eyes. The clay students looked… I don’t know, bored? Some of their faces had simply melted into themselves and were blank, others weren’t looking at me. I blinked my eyes and rubbed them, and when I looked up I noticed that some of the students began to appear… different. Their clay forms started drying up, cracking, and their necks started to compress a little, looking like they were getting… squeezed. If I remembered the positioning right, those students were the tired-looking ones I watched before. My head was buzzing as they changed, and I started to sway around.
“Wh… Whuh…” I couldn’t even get words out at that point, I just kind of bumbled.
The strangled clay figurines had words carved – no, slashed – into their bodies. They were all the same and they all said the same thing: “MINE.” It was carved into their bodies all over them in different sizes and slashes. Their torsos caved in a little, their chests getting crushed in against themselves, and they drooped noticeably. I started to feel sick. Suddenly during the episode, I stopped being able to breath. I took a breath, but the breath was sucked back out of me like I French kissed a vacuum cleaner. I gasped hard for a breath but I couldn’t get it, it was ripped forcefully away from me each time. Mrs. Willows’ statue eyes lit up again as she stared me down, and I collapsed to the ground while struggling to breathe.
I swallowed and ended up just choking on my spit, so I coughed until I felt like my lungs had shriveled up like raisins. I started to panic, so I thrashed around on my hands and knees on the floor while everyone stared at me. Mrs. Willows’ moved from her podium, I think to help me, but when she tried to touch me I tried to smack her hand away. By all means, she was made of rock or something and shouldn’t have been scared of me. Her foundation began to crack when she was confronted by my freaking out. Since I couldn’t breathe, I was starting to really go down. I tried to turn before I hit the ground and only saw the chalkboard slab with shadowy creatures buzzing around behind it like I’d hit an angry bees’ nest.
The whole surface of the stone began to shift like it was being erased and scratched over and over again. It went so fast it looked like marks were being gouged into the stone and moving around, kind of like animation on paper. The words all moved around on the stone until one message was roughly carved into it by what looked like nail marks.
“DON’T LET THE HAG RIDE YOU.”
That was the last thing I remember before passing out. I wasn’t sure what else could have happened – I thought weird things had started to swarm my body, I felt something grabbing at me. But when I lost consciousness, it all stopped. I’m not sure how long I was out, but when I came to again I opened my eyes to find myself in the nurse’s office.
Chapter 4
I didn’t want to believe it, but I knew what had happened. I had another vision thanks to my Third Eye. When I woke up I was afraid to open my eyes. I did, eventually, and was pretty relieved to just see a regular tile ceiling. I was laying on one of the patient cots in the school nurse’s office with privacy curtains on both sides of me and a large dry erase easel acting as room separation at the foot of the bed. My boots had been taken off, so I was pretty comfortable being barefoot under the clean, somewhat cold sheets. I had total privacy to just lay there and get my wits back, so I did.
Apparently I was going to suffer from those visions and have episodes whenever they came up. If they were always going to be like what I suffered in class, there was no way I was ever going to accomplish anything. I tried to remember back to what I read on the internet. How long were those side-effects of the first opening supposed to last? Did it say days or weeks? I didn’t have time for either. How was I supposed to go to school like that? How was I supposed to live my life like that? I couldn’t just start freaking out every day, I’d end up in therapy before I knew what happened.
Gwen’s Mom told me she could help me, and that I had to trust her. As far as I was concerned at the time, it was her fault that I was having that problem in the first place. Why did she even do that to me? What did I do to deserve that sort of thing? My train of thought ended up derailing entirely; I just started moaning and groaning over my situation. I didn’t even remember how I got to the nurse’s office, and everyone must have seen me losing my shit at the front of the class. As if I didn’t have enough problems, I could add social Armageddon to my list; then I could file that list under “reasons to stay in bed forever.”
“Man…” I groaned, rubbing my eyes. My glasses must have still been in class, because they weren’t on my face.
I heard the curtain pull back on my right side. My ear twitched up before I even looked, and I ended up turning my head to see some guy looking at me. He had a distinct look about him… some kind of monkey, to be sure. He had dark hair, but it was the sort of dark that looked like it had a bit of blue in it than actually just… black. It was short, teased in the front, and his tan face was framed by it with a whole beard and chop ensemble that was neatly trimmed and also dark. His eyes were a dark, but surprisingly expressive hazel colour. His fur was brighter shade of brown, almost golden tan, and seemed to cover his arms and the back of his neck. He waggled his thick black eyebrows at me when he saw me there, and I pushed myself to sit up when he did. I couldn’t decide if it was creepy, or if the sheer magnitude of ego that poured off his suave little grin completely overpowered that in a sad, sad way.
“Hey there cutie, what’chya in for?” He asked. He stepped past the curtain, and was apparently pretty tall, or just long… he was lanky, but his t-shirt looked a bit tight over his chest and I could tell he was in shape. He wore faded blue jeans that, in my opinion, crumpled the acceptable amount around his feet.
“Uh, none of your business,” I responded, rolling my eyes.
He raised his hands. “Hey, easy! I’m just showing a little concern for my fellow student,” He said, “Especially one as good-looking as yourself. My name’s Perseus, I don’t believe we’ve met.”
He clicked his tongue and pointed at me with a wink. That sent shivers down my spine – not shivers of attraction, more like the shivers you get when you feel a spider on you. This guy was trying to pick me up in the nurse’s office, when I’d just woken up from a weird-induced coma. What a sleaze.
“Wow, okay,” I said as sarcastically as I could, “Hey, Percy, if I said ‘don’t let the hag ride you’ would that mean anything to you?”
The guy stopped to think, rubbing his chin. “Uh, don’t pick up ugly chicks?” He guessed, “Or… old chicks? Like, old-old, not older. Have you seen that new nurse? Me-yow.”
“Yeah, no,” I sighed.
“Why?” Percy asked.
I shrugged my shoulders. “Been hearing it a lot today,” I answered, “I dunno what it means.”
“Do you have a cell phone?” The guy looked like he was struggling with the question, his forehead was so wrinkled.
I looked at him and just pulled my phone from my pocket and held it up. He went on to ask, “Well then why don’t you Google it?”
I was about to try and cut him deep with some smart-mouth comment, but instead I came to the realization that monkey-boy was right. Instead of wasting my time on him, I brought up my phone’s browser and typed in the phrase. I waited for the search to bring something up with the guy sneaking in next to my bed to look over my shoulder. I gave him a look, but ignored him for the time being. When I turned my attention back to my phone, I blinked in surprise.
The very first search result was a Wikipedia article about something called a “Boo Hag.” I had no idea what this thing had to do with the saying, so I tapped the link and let it load up.
Apparently a Boo Hag is a creature in folklore that originated from Gullah culture. According to the legends, they’re like vampires that feed off of breath instead of blood. They sneak in during the night and sit on their victim’s chests, sucking the breath out of them. When they do, the victim usually wakes up feeling tired and short of breath, but ultimately they don’t die. The phrase “don’t let the hag ride ya” was coined in South Carolina and is a reference to that legend.
Tired and short of breath… I felt that way that morning, and all those other kids…
“If a victim struggles, the Boo Hag takes their skin?!” Percy, reading over my shoulder, cringed, “What the heck is that?! Why were you asking me about that? You’re not one of those Occult Club weirdos, are you? I am so done with you guys.”
“What? No,” I looked at him, “Why?”
“Nuh-uh! No way!” Percy backed off and crossed his arms in front of him, like an umpire, “I don’t care how hot you freaks are, I’m not talking to you! Forget it!”
I opened my mouth to say something but Percy just cut me off and ducked out the way he came in. I raised my eyebrow thinking that guy had some major issues, then turned my attention back to my phone. A Boo Hag, huh…? The pieces were coming together. I have a weird dream, in which Gwen’s Mom tells me not to struggle, and then I wake up feeling like crap. A whole butt-load of other students are tired and crappy, just like me. I also had visions that kept pounding that “don’t let the hag ride you” stuff into my head. Unless the universe’s coincidence machine had gone into super ultra-overdrive, it all but spelled it out for me: this “Boo Hag” thing was… riding us, whatever that meant. I swiped my thumb across my screen to scroll the page and saw pictures of the thing.
It was a woman, and it looked like all its skin was missing. Whether it was just scribbled illustration or something made up to look photo-realistic, it always looked red and… icky. I cringed at the thought of some skinless woman straddling me in my bed at night and looming over me as it sucked the air out of my lungs. And what did the article mean by it taking a victim’s skin? Did that mean that if anyone was to move or try to get away that it would peel their skin off? That sent chills down my spine, legit ones, as I tried to imagine what that was actually like. Any imagery I made up seemed cartoony, like having my skin peeled like I was a banana, but if that thing was really… real, then… it would have been way worse than that. Like a Pyramid Head from Silent Hill sort of bad.
Gwen’s Mom had said that supernatural creatures would be attracted to me for some reason. That meant that this Boo Hag was probably going to ride me more than anyone else. If I ever struggled, even once, then it would have ended up ripping my skin off. It seemed crazy to even think about, let alone admit that any of it was real, or true, but there I was… thinking about it seriously. I didn’t smirk about how stupid it was or even chuckle a little, because there was one very strong chance that the Boo Hag wasn’t playing around.
I had to start getting answers and the best place to do that… was Gwen’s house.
Once again the curtain was pulled back by the nurse. She saw me sitting there and she smiled, stepping in to check up on me. Percy was right, she did look “me-yow,” partially because she was a Siamese and partially because she was really hot. Before you start getting ahead of yourself, she wasn’t dressed up in one of those skimpy nurse costumes – this isn’t a porno. She did wear a white doctor coat though, over what looked like a proper pencil skirt and pink sweater combination with her legs done up in nylons. She was older and a little chunky, but she was sure curvy for it. Big ol’ boobs and some wide hips made for something nice to look at, which was great because I was getting tired of LSD-worthy hallucinations.
I think she saw the tent I was pitching under the sheets, because she laughed a husky sort of laugh before she asked me, “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” I eyed her up and down several times, “You?”
Wait, why did I ask that? Stupid…
She laughed again. “I am fine,” She said, “But let me check you. I heard you suffered a panic attack in class?”
She pulled a stool nearby to sit on as she leaned over and checked my temperature by resting her hand on my forehead. “Yeah,” I answered, lying, “I was supposed to do a presentation and kinda just… you know…”
“This is a welcome change,” She sighed, taking a stethoscope from around her neck and putting the auditors in her ears. She had me turn on the bed so she could pull the back of my shirt up and press the cold disc against my skin and listen to my breathing. “It’s nice to look after someone who actually needs my attention,” She said.
“Oh. Yeah,” I thought about that Percy guy and how many students like him she must have had coming in.
She listened to my breathing for a while and then tugged my shirt back down. “Your breathing seems fine. Do you feel light-headed or uneasy?” She asked. I felt uneasy for sure, but I just shook my head anyway. Admittedly I felt like I still had a bit of the shakes from my vision and my head still felt fuzzy. I couldn’t have just told her that, though… she wouldn’t have been able to explain it, and neither would I.
“Well, I have no choice but to say that you’re…” She began speaking so I turned around to face her, and her eyes fell to look below my waist at a hard-on bulge in my skirt that I tried to cover up, “… Healthy. Take what time you need, then hurry on back to class. If you feel strange at all, don’t hesitate to return to me.”
I blushed, I couldn’t help it. “Thanks, uh…”
“Mrs. Chutney,” She said.
Chutney? I tried not to laugh but it came out my nose.
“My husband’s name,” She said, patting the cot’s mattress before she stood up and pushed her stool back where it stayed tucked under what appeared to be a small cabinet that must’ve contained various check-up supplies. I watched her the whole time… or more accurately, I watched her butt, and she knew it. It would have been pretty inappropriate to say that I was feeling strange just then, even if it would have been funny.
“Do you need anything? She asked.
“Yes,” I answered.
She waited a moment and then asked, “What is it?”
I kind of looked away and said, “Oh, uh… water.”
“Just a moment,” She said as she excused herself. I shook my head. I needed to stay focused – I had more important things to worry about than big fat butts and how good they’d feel in my… Gwen’s place! I needed to go to Gwen’s house after school and hook up with – I mean, meet – Gwen’s Mom so she could tell me whatever it was I needed to know about the Third Eye, the Boo Hag, and… whatever else I could come up with.
Gwen’s Mom’s butt looked really nice too, though. How does anyone expect me to concentrate around here?
I steeled myself against the onslaught of teenage hormones I suffer on a frequent basis and charged through the rest of my day like the little soldier I was – a five foot tall, punk boot wearing soldier. Alright, admittedly it’s not really “steeling” myself. The metal I’d equate with my resolve at the time is more malleable, like copper or aluminum or something. I had a goal in mind though and I needed to see it to its bitter end, no matter how much I may have wanted to instead get some chips and spend all night sitting on my butt playing games on my computer. Anything would have been better standing up against delving into the mysteries of the arcane.
Fortunately the rest of the day went by without any more visions, and being unconscious was kind of like being asleep, so I wasn’t as tired as I was when I’d gotten up that morning by the end of the day. I still felt it in my back mostly, aches and pains making things like walking difficult; I ignored it all though since I had a job to do. When I got off the bus that afternoon, I went right past my house and headed up the hill and past the soccer field to head down into the little suburb where Gwen lived. I went right back to that creepy house, and pushed past the odd sensations that washed over my body the second I stepped onto the property to head right up to the door. I wasn’t going to ring the doorbell or even knock – I did the only thing I thought would project how pissed off I was by then: I kicked the door.
The way my big boot pounded against the door was kind of like knocking, but much harder and more… angrier. I heard a hustle from inside that made it clear to me that I’d gotten the attention that I wanted. The minivan wasn’t in the driveway like it had been the evening before, so I wasn’t entirely sure who was going to open that door. If I’d just scared the crap out of Fraise’s little friend and her mom wasn’t there, I was going to feel like an absolute jerk. Good thing then, since it was Gwen’s Mom who opened the door. She stood there in some tight purple dress that barely fit, looking unconcerned. I shot her the fiercest annoyed pout I could around a sucker I’d taken from the nurse’s office before leaving that morning, and she just blinked at me.
“I see I’ve finally gotten your attention, hm?” She spoke so casually for someone who had a lot of explaining to do.
“Don’t let the hag ride you,” I spoke without taking the sucker out of my mouth.
“And that’s what I wanted to talk about,” She said, “Come inside. I’ve got plenty to tell you.”
The woman stepped back into her home and said, “I invite you. Come on in.” I stepped into her home and immediately noticed that it looked like a regular old home. Not far inside the door was the living room (or den, if you want to call it that), a door to the dining room, the stairs, and a passageway into the kitchen at the far end with big glass doors leading out to the fenced-off backyard. Of course, when I looked at it while I was having that weird hallucination, it looked more like an old ruin, torch lit and crumbling in the midst of all that mystical-looking weirdness I had been subjected to out on the lawn. Really, for all intents and purposes everything looked completely normal. Nothing was one hundred percent clean and it was obvious from some of the things laying around that a child lived there with her parents. I couldn’t help but wonder what the big deal was, or if I’d expected something completely different.
I was taken upstairs (following behind Gwen’s Mom was awesome), and then I watched as the woman opened up the entrance to the attic with a snap of her finger. The drop-down staircase came down on command, and I was taken even further up into a part of the house that looked less normal. It was a study nestled up in the attic, with bookshelves filled with reading material and even more books resting in stacks on the floor. A desk was nestled in the midst of it all over by the window, where they had an actual honest-to-goodness scriptorium set up. “Scriptorium” literally means “a place for writing.” It’s one of those set-ups like what old monks used to use to copy important books in times before the printing press; Ancient History 101. There was an ink bottle and quill pen and everything was lit by candlelight. If it weren’t for the afternoon sun coming in through the window, I wouldn’t have been able to see anything.
Gwen’s Mom snapped her fingers and the drop-down entrance to the attic closed up behind her. “Firstly, Cookie, you may call me Alexandra. None of that Gwen’s Mom stuff,” She said as if she’d been reading my mind. She smiled as she watched my eyes and knew exactly what I was thinking. “I know your name because you and I have become acquainted in the Nevernever, my dear.”
“The what?” I blinked.
Alexandra approached me and placed her hands on my shoulders. She pushed me back until she’d guided me into the chair at the desk and had me sit. “And that will be lesson number one,” She said, “The Nevernever. This is what you’ve been seeing whenever you open your Third Eye and I suspect you’ve seen it a couple of times already.”
I just sat there looking dumb, so she stood back and began to explain.
“There is a world beyond yours. It is truly nameless, truly fathomless, and houses things beyond any mortal form of comprehension. Those of us in the know, however, tend to refer to it as the Nevernever,” She said, pacing around and gesturing in various ways, “That world touches ours and is shaped by it. In a way, it is the place of all human imaginings – if you came up with it, it’s probably there. Heaven, Hell, Atlantis, faeries, goblins, they all exist as part of the Nevernever.”
“To explain to you the Nevernever is impossible. It’s always changing, always different, but is ultimately shaped by the here and now. It’s far larger than our world here, expanding not miles or kilometers, but eons. To travel it entirely is impossible, and to understand everything within it would lead to madness.”
I pulled my sucker out of my mouth and held it up to gesture a stop. “You’re telling me that there’s a make-belief world connected to ours?” I asked.
“A place where we dream, a place where we go after death; one in the same,” She answered, “Separated from us by a veil, a barrier of sorts that keeps things in and out. Those of us who are magic can see it, however. We can see the sorts of things that regular people cannot, and that, my dear, is the presence of the Nevernever. We have the Eye.”
“The Third Eye,” I said, but I was starting to space.
“Everything that exists in this world has a form in the Nevernever, as you may have noticed. These forms are influenced either by the Nevernever itself, or by certain mortal qualities imparted and imprinted through the veil,” She said, “And you must be wondering what all this has to do with you.”
I thought I already had it figured out, so I said, “I can see it. You said I’m magic.”
Alexandra shook her head and approached me again. She squat down in front of my chair so she could look me in the eye. “No, dear, not quite. I mean, yes, you’re correct, but any practitioner of the arcane arts can see past the veil with practice,” She said, “But you’re different. I can see it on you, you’ve the mark of a natural born Seer. You could see it since birth, though the innocence of youth has kept it from you. You’re getting to the stage in your life where that shield is wearing off. But there’s more to it than even that.”
“There is?” I raised a brow.
“Yes,” She said, taking my hands into hers, “Cookie, dear… your form doesn’t change under the gaze of the Third Eye. When viewed, you appear exactly how you are now, sort of. You have a mark, but that’s it.”
“And…?”
“And?” She repeated, “That can only mean one thing: you exist on both sides. Simultaneously, at once, in tandem. You are a true Seer, dear. You are a Wayfarer between the mortal realm and that of the Nevernever. Why, with but a little effort you could step past the veil like one might enter a door, and you have control over a certain flow between them.”
My brain was starting to get royally screwed. I just stared at Alexandra like she was crazy or something, and I was trying to figure out if what she was saying had any truth to it at all. I was skeptic. I mean, if people had the ability to cast magic spells, wouldn’t I have known about it? Someone would have heard something, especially if it had to do with a whole dimension stuck against ours. Sure, there were all sorts of theoretical physics applied to the possibility of other dimensions, but that’s all it was; a possibility. Alexandra could have been some kind of whack job and I could have been losing my mind and suffering from some kind of early onset dementia. I couldn’t have just been expected to believe that sort of thing.
“I see you have some doubts,” Alexandra broke me out of my trance, “Either that or you really like looking down my dress. I suppose I wouldn’t blame you if it were both.”
“It’s both,” I muttered, definitely noticing the warmth her breasts blanketed my lap with.
“Well,” Alexandra stood up and smoothed out her dress, “There’s one definitive way to prove to you that what I speak is truth. So long as you’re willing to co-operate, I could teach you a thing or two about utilizing your magical abilities and tapping into your Sight. But I don’t take students for nothing, there is a bit of a catch to it.”
I sighed, letting my shoulders slump.
“I said you would be in danger if you remained unprepared,” She said, “That’s not just the visions. I said you exist on both sides, and I said that the beings of the Nevernever notice that. They’ll come to you like moths to a flame… or avoid you, depending. Anything that wriggles its way into the mortal world sees you as a danger to them, for with enough work you could send them back… and for the safety of us, I think you ought to.”
I sat up straight as I came to the conclusion she was getting at. “Wait,” I said, “What?”
“Cookie, dear,” Alex placed her hands on my shoulders and leaned in close. Her touch made my skin buzz with energy.
“You are to become a Sentinel.”
Chapter 5
My sucker dropped onto the floor.
“A what?” I asked, “A Sentinel?”
Alexandra released me and stood up straight again, turning to one of the bookshelves she had placed haphazardly around the attic. “It’s unavoidable, really,” She said, “You must learn to work the doorway to the Nevernever and acquire the strength and skill needed to defend yourself against the denizens therein. They would seek to undo you, dear, if it meant keeping you from sending them back.”
She pulled out an old, musty tome and started to look through it. The leather bound cover was blank, I had no idea what she was reading. “But I don’t even…” I started.
“Whether you’re in attunement with your abilities or not means nothing to them,” Alexandra said, “Even an untrained magician can be dangerous.”
“Wait,” I said, “So this Boo Hag thing…”
She looked over at me. “Oh, did some research on your own, did you?” She turned her attention back to the book and nodded, “Yes. Wretched creatures they are, straight from the Nevernever. I suspect they’re wreaking havoc in town. I did what I could to warn you, but you were rather uncooperative yesterday, so instead I did a little entering into the Nevernever myself to visit you in your dreams… and it’s a good thing I did. Had I not kept you still, that thing would be wearing your lovely skin like a jacket right about now.”
“Wait, what?” I asked, having a hard time following her, “You did what?”
She put the tome back she’d gotten and looked for another. Her dress was too short… I tried not to look at her underwear when she bent over, but it was just… right there. “Look, this is all going to take some time to explain to you, and there’s no easy way to do it,” She said, taking out another two books from the shelves. She handed them to me, practically pushing them into my arms, saying, “Take these home with you. Inside one is a little history you may be interested in, and the other contains some meditation techniques to help you get a handle on that no doubt rubbish Sight of yours. Read them, and practice what is inside. When you’re finished, come visit me again – but do not under any circumstances attempt to open your Third Eye alone. You must have me there with you to pull it shut again should anything go wrong.”
The books smelled of years-old must and looked worn around the edges. I couldn’t even begin to guess how old they were. I stared at them, trying to keep up with this dump truck of instruction she was unloading at me.
“I will explain more to you in time,” She said, “For now, we will start slow. Ultimately I cannot force you to do anything, but if you wish to learn more then come back to me and I will do what I can to teach you. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, after all. I don’t think I could handle seeing that sweet little sister of yours cry, and I’m rather fond of your mother. I like to think of it as doing them a favour, keeping you around.”
“And a very good choice on the lingerie in that dream, dear,” She grinned, “I’ve a set almost just like it. I’ll show it to you sometime. For now, your mother will be wondering where you’ve gotten off to. If I’m not mistaken, she arrives home at four thirty? You best hurry along if you aim to be at home before she does.”
You know in cartoons when someone’s so overwhelmed all they can do is just kind of lean or tilt their head? And it sounds like a creaking door? I did that, minus the sound effects, my one eye twitching as I felt like a vein was going to burst in my forehead. I looked at the books and back to Alexandra and then the books again, and I just didn’t know what to do. My mind was playing catch-up on maybe an hour of unconscious sleep time. I had to think about Nevernevers and barriers and Seers and meditation and math homework and spooky monsters all at once. Needless to say, I was feeling pretty messed up. Was I going to always leave that house feeling like that?
When I stepped outside, the air felt colder. It wasn’t actually colder, really, but it felt that way. I felt uneasy from the tips of my ears to my toes, and I can’t say that I wasn’t freaking out. I wasn’t a Sentinel or whatever, I was just a sixteen year old kid. I went to school, and worked summer jobs, and woke up every day just hoping to get by without farting too loud in public. I wasn’t some magical defender against things that went bump in the night. I didn’t want to go up against skinless hags or werewolves; I just wanted to maybe get a boyfriend or a girlfriend and just be… normal for a change.
I couldn’t do it. There was no way. I didn’t want any of it to be real. I wanted to wake up in my bed and just have had a bad dream. I kept scratching my arms on my way home, harder and harder, but the nail-raking wasn’t going to wake me up from reality. The fact was that I had seen things. Even if I wasn’t magic, I was going out of my mind with weird hallucinations and phantom pains. I came to the realization upon stepping inside my door that I couldn’t just go back to the way things were before. Something was wrong with me and it was going to leave me screwed up forever. Therapists, pills, drama, it was all in my future somewhere. I didn’t want to be that way, I just didn’t.
“Cookie!” My bouncy little sister greeted me when I stepped in the door. She was so happy it hurt me.
“Leave me alone,” I said, pushing her aside as I walked past.
I really didn’t want her to say the next part, but she did anyway. “What’s the matter?” She asked, hot on my heels. When I glared at her she just looked up at me with big violet eyes full of concern.
“Just leave me alone!” I raised my voice a little so she’d get the picture, and it worked. She shrunk away, clearly hurt by my tone. She didn’t say anything and allowed me to march up the stairs and to my room. I slammed the door behind me, making one of the posters on said door fall off and crumple onto the floor. I looked at it in abject anger and decided it wasn’t worth picking up again. Instead I just tossed my school bag onto the floor and threw myself onto my bed.
I rolled over and curled up, feeling helpless. I mulled over my options, none of them being “return to normal.” Either I would smarten up with this magic thing, or I would one day get my skin yanked off in my sleep. What was I supposed to do in the face of all that? I felt seriously lost as I laid there, spiraling into a deep, miserable, panicked depression – complete, by the way, with tears. I’m not about to say I was okay, or thinking about all these things with anywhere near a level head. I was emotional, and I didn’t like being emotional. I didn’t like to cry – who did? But crying just made everything feel worse. It was as if I couldn’t do anything about what was happening but lay there and cry.
Those sorts of things happen when something threatens to derail your whole life.
Eventually I heard a knock on the door. Without asking, my mom opened it and looked inside.
I said before that she and I sort of look alike, right? It’s true. If I didn’t have brown splotches all over my fur, I’d have all white fur just like her. We both have blue eyes, and my hair would be a lot like hers if it wasn’t black. Mom’s hair is brown; I get the black hair from my father… or so mom says. I’m supposedly the last kid she had with him, and even then it was via artificial insemination. My dad left my mom way before I was born, so I’ve never met the guy. So, when I was feeling down I could only really rely on her to come see what was wrong.
“Cookie, sweetie, are you alright? Fraise said you were upset when you got home,” She said. She came in looking all… old and tired, like a fifty-two year old woman ought to after working all day. She was still wearing her scrubs.
I rubbed my face all over my pillow to try and dry my tears. Mom took that as a flag for approach, so she stepped over to my bed. Unlike most times she was in my room, she ignored the dirty bundle of laundry I had piled up next to my closet and didn’t even comment on how I never make my bed. She just sat down on my bed and gently placed her hand on my shoulder. Mom’s hands are always warm and gentle, so even when I’m upset she can make me feel relaxed.
“Hard day at school?” She opened in that motherly tone. I could tell she was trying to be sensitive towards whatever was bothering me.
Now, I couldn’t tell my mom what happened. I couldn’t tell her that I passed out in class after seeing visions of strange planar creatures hailing supposedly from a magical dimension that one of her best friends told me about, and that I was supposedly able to cast spells and perform magic. My mom is Christian. If it weren’t for the fact that she had to take her jewelry off when working, she would have been proudly wearing her silver cross around her neck at that very moment. She was the kind of Christian who got nervous about Dungeons and Dragons because it perpetuated believing in false gods or deities, which went against one of God’s Ten Commandments – “thou shalt have no other gods before me.” She’d loosened up as time went on, sure, but I couldn’t say that I was getting into witchcraft. She probably would have started tearing my room apart to find my secret satanic altar or something, maybe take me to get a second baptism.
I had to lie to my mother. I value honesty, so I don’t lie to her that much… just about really big, important things. I wish I could have told her, I really do… but I couldn’t just unload that on her. I already knew what that felt like.
I shook my head, so she asked, “What’s bothering you sweetie? You can tell me.”
“I don’t feel good,” I answered. I wasn’t lying about that, I felt like trash.
I looked at my mom, and she reached over to gently brush her hand along my face. She used her thumb to wipe away my tears, and took the opportunity to check out how bloodshot my eyes looked. She examined me pretty closely – since she was a personal support worker at the local Old-Folks’ home, she was kind of like a nurse. She placed her hand against my head to check for fever, and used her fingers to feel around my jaw for any sort of swelling.
“Is this the mood-swinging sort of feeling bad? Have you been taking your pills?” She asked.
I take pills to balance my hormones. You can’t have a body like mine and not have it trying to destroy itself because your hormones are imbalanced. When I was little, my mom let me have full reign over the whole thing after she made it clear that I’d get sick if I didn’t take the pills. I turned out the way I am, mostly feminine, because I picked it. That meant, though, that I have to keep everything at a very careful balance. If I missed taking them long enough, I’d start to get all loopy in the head, and my body would start getting all kinds of messed up and I’d end up getting really sick. I had to take weeks off school when I was growing up whenever my body would make one big change, because my dosages would have to change and I’d need time to adjust.
Naturally, being sixteen, I’m at the peak of the most volatile hormonal stage of my life. Mom asking me about the pills was the smart thing to do – I’d tried to ditch them once before and lived to regret it.
“Yeah,” I nodded. I’d been taking them, just like I was supposed to.
“Mm… It could just be an episode,” My mom said, thinking about it for a second, “You look exhausted. Just stay here and get your rest and I’ll bring dinner up to you tonight, okay?”
“Okay,” I said.
She got up and helped me out of my shirt and under the covers in my bed and made sure I was comfortable and set to relax. Before she left, she placed her hand on my cheek again and gave me a comforting little smile. I reached up and grabbed her hand and held it. I wanted to tell her what was wrong so she could make it all better. Mom always made things better, and even though she had no idea what was going on… I liked that she tried. I just stared at her, and she stared at me, and she knew I was saying thank you without actually having to say it. She pulled her hand back with mine and gently kissed the back of my fingers, and then placed my hands folded over my chest. After that, she got up and left my room without making a sound and I heard her tell my sister that I wasn’t feeling well and not to bother me because I’d be having a nap.
I shivered when she left. I felt a little more at ease, but far from comfortable.
My Mom had a strange sort of power too; I felt it when she touched me. It wasn’t like Alexandra’s power though, it felt… different. Warmer, gentler, but present, like a hot water bottle being put on me. Jokingly I thought of it as the “mom power,” granting her the ability to kiss boo-boos better and an almost telepathic ability to know when I’m hungry and feel like having some soup. Whatever it was, it convinced me that I wasn’t just diving into things alone… If I was in trouble, my Mom and sister were still going to be there, and Alexandra said she was going to help me… even if I wasn’t sure if I could trust her to do it.
Maybe I would take a look at those books. If nothing else, it would have been interesting to see the sort of stuff written inside.
I was too tired to read though. Instead I just laid in my bed and took the opportunity to calm down and relax a little bit. My mom ended up coming back up just before I could fall asleep to bring me some dinner, which was fish and chips. She brought up a little tray we had on the coffee table that normally had some flowers and clutter on it for decoration. It made a good make-shift serving tray, and she brought up everything: the food, a glass of soda, the vinegar bottle, the salt and pepper shakers, and napkins. If I wasn’t so hungry I would have been crabby about not being able to sleep, so I took the food and ate it in bed before actually laying down to rest. The food was filling and tasted great, as usual, and when I was done I just set the tray on my bedside table and went to sleep.
I’m not sure how long I was asleep exactly. I remember having a dream that went all over the place. At one point I was in an airplane waiting to jump out for some reason, the next I was outside on a warm day talking to Gwen about random stuff, and it kept going from there. I do remember getting woken up by the sound of my window opening.
When I opened my eyes, it was dark out. I could see light from the street lamps outside shining in through my black curtains, just barely shining on the wall. I woke up on my side facing that wall, and I could definitely feel a draft coming in as my window slid open quietly. I froze in place, the sudden feeling of panic shaking off the sleepiness I felt when I woke up. I curled up under my covers into a little ball to try and stay warm and listened as hard as I could. I suspected that the Boo Hag was back. The curtains swayed in the breeze, and I heard the leaves rustling outside, and even heard a car drive by once, but other than that I didn’t hear anything. I decided to wait a little longer, just to see if I was right. Honestly, I was too afraid to move.
It took a while, but a shape seemed to fade in against the light on the wall. The shadow of a figure, humanoid in shape, appeared. The shape of the shadow didn’t look right, the limbs looked almost crooked. It moved slowly, but strangely… less of a walk and more of a stalk. The size of the shadow shrunk as the figure got further from the light, which meant it was getting further from the window and closer to my bed. My whole body got tense and I flexed my ears to listen hard, hearing soft footsteps on my carpet and a raspy breathing.
I mouthed curse words to myself and tried to squeeze up as tightly as I could. There was a monster in my bedroom – a real live monster. I remember back to when I thought I saw the goblin in my closet when I was little. Back then I just stared at the strange little creature as it sulked out of my closet, and I remember that it looked at me as it did. It smiled a twisted little smile and scuttled out of my bedroom and that was the end of it… but the fear I felt back then was the same. I was afraid that the monster was going to “get” me, and I didn’t know what would happen to me. Even though I was older and more mature, my mind was still racing to frightfully ridiculous conclusions on just how I was going to be found dead the next morning with no skin left on me.
I should have read those books or asked Alexandra to tell me what to do if the monster came back! I was so focused on just getting away from it all that I forgot the Boo Hag didn’t care if I was prepared to defend myself. Alex told me I was in danger, and then just let me go home. What was wrong with her?!
I felt the hag push down on my bed, climbing onto it like some kind of animal. The way it moved felt a lot like a cat had climbed onto my bed… except the cat was as big as a person. Its body sunk into my mattress with enough weight to nearly roll me over, but I kept myself facing the wall. I tried to avoid breathing too hard or even stirring too much as it got close. I needed to stay completely still or else I could kiss my skin goodbye – and as much as I sometimes hate the pimples that develop under my fur, I liked my skin and preferred to keep it.
The hag didn’t move for a while, it just sat there on my bed, probably watching me. It breathed all raspy, like hissing, dry wind, and that was the only sound it made. I bit my lip and waited, trying to anticipate what it would do. It started by just touching me with one of its hands, and it dragged its nails along my exposed shoulders. Its nails felt sharp, like little knives. I very nearly gasped or whimpered or something, but instead I caught my breath and swallowed it. When I didn’t respond, the creature studied me closer… and I only knew that because I felt its breath on my ear. It was leaning over my body and breathing on me. I broke out in sweat and tried to stay still while its breath tickled my ear. Its body felt warm so close to mine and it smelled like… metal; like the pipes under the kitchen sink. I knew that smell was actually blood.
I swallowed again, this time gulping down a mouthful of my own bile. I couldn’t stay calm anymore, and my breathing started to pick up. My sweat started to feel cold and I started shaking, and my forehead starting buzzing violently like a nest of angry bees. The hag hissed in my ear and reared back. It knew I wasn’t asleep, and it was waiting for me to do something just as much as I was waiting for it. I closed my eyes tight and grit my teeth, planning my escape out of my bed and trying to muster up the courage to do it. The seconds felt like minutes.
Alright, here we go…
I slowly dropped my leg down, placing my foot against the side of my bed. I grabbed onto the edge with my hand and sucked in the last ounce of courage I had… then I pulled. I yanked my body aside and rolled off the side of the bed. I felt a stinging pain over my arm as the hag’s claws ripped through my skin and drew blood as I fell off the other side of my bed and onto the floor. I had no time to worry about how much I’d been hurt, and instead I rushed my ass towards my bedroom door as quickly as I could, crawling on my hands and knees. The hag moved fast, faster than I could have ever expected, and it rushed the door to cut me off. It practically blurred into sight, and not just because I wasn’t wearing my glasses. It was the first time I ever got a really good look at it as it stared me down.
Have you ever seen one of those anatomical mannequins? The kind they have in biology class or doctor’s offices? Better yet, have you ever seen Attack on Titan? The Boo Hag’s exposed muscle cord and tissue reminded me of the titans. It was all red and stringy, but those red strings were pulled tight over a human skeleton, and it had various… pinker strips stretched over its body, connecting its joints and probably allowing it to bend and move its limbs. It had no eyes, just dark holes, and it had no lips to cover its teeth. Its claws were skeletal in nature, boned extremities that pierced its muscle hide. It had no ears, no genitals, no breasts… it was like a human had been stripped of everything on the outside and still lived the rest of its life a meaty skeleton that reeked of blood.
I didn’t have time to throw up, so I did it while I pushed myself under my bed. I had to stop once I was fully under, my body shivering as my dinner ended up all over the carpet. I coughed and hacked, trying to breathe past it all as best I could, and dragged myself out the other side of my bed to stumble to my feet. I caught my bedside table as I grabbed for anything to help me up, knocking the tray mom had brought up and everything on it onto the floor. I looked back to see the hag climb onto my bed, perch itself like an animal, and leap off towards me. I threw myself to the floor as the thing took my lamp out, sliding across me and my bedside table until it too fell onto the floor.
I landed on the plate that used to have my dinner on it. It dug uncomfortably into my torso but reminded me I had stuff on the floor. I grabbed the first thing I could. I wish it had been the knife I used to cut my fish up, but instead I grabbed the salt shaker. I held it so hard in my hand that the glass actually cracked and broke. A sharp edge cut me across my fingers, and true to my luck salt got into the wound. It stung, a lot, but that stinging brought me to a very sudden conclusion. I took the shaker and scrambled back toward my bed, sitting up with my back against it. I dumped out a handful of salt, and when the creature turned to look at me, I tossed the stuff right into its ugly face.
The hag’s reaction was intense. It hissed in pain and rolled back on the floor like I’d just shot it with a gun. It clutched its face and writhed on the floor wildly, throwing its body around and knocking more things off of my desk. It kicked my computer chair towards me hard, sending it rolling across the carpet where it clipped my leg and fell over onto me. I pushed it off, fueled by pure adrenaline, and got up from the floor. I took the salt shaker and turned it upside down to pour the rest of it onto the hag, making it hiss in pain and claw at its chest where I’d dumped it.
“Yeah, fuck you,” I breathed, grabbing for the vinegar off the floor. I unscrewed the top of the bottle and dumped it onto the creature too. If I remember my chemistry, the salt dissolved in the vinegar. The smell that came off the thing was like salt and vinegar chips as its flesh sizzled and steamed. The Boo Hag threw itself around and barely got to its feet, and it took one last swipe at me with its claws. It scratched me across my collar, tearing right through one of the straps on my bra, and then scrambled to the window.
I watched as it faded from sight, disappearing in a near blink of an eye. My window slammed shut, locking out the cold air all at once, and I was left in silence.
I dropped the vinegar and fell to the floor, grabbing the plate for lack of anything better and threw up again all over it. I cried and panted, swearing and shivering there on the floor. I’d never gotten into a fight at school let alone battled a supernatural creature. If I hadn’t eaten that specific dinner in bed that night, I wouldn’t have made it through that. Thinking about what could have happened made me feel sick again, and my head spun. I stayed there for several moments trying not to breathe in the smell of my own puke. I tried to relax, tried to think. I needed to lock the windows, I needed to lock the doors, and I needed to clean up. It was a crawl, but I got up and turned on my bedroom light to see the damage. My lamp was broken, there was blood on my sheets, the salt shaker was broken and spilled on the floor, I had two puddles of barf to clean up, and a desk to organize.
All things considered, that turned out pretty good. For a second I stopped freaking out long enough to realize that I’d just smacked down a real live monster. Me! Cookie Souris, monster fighter, with the magical powers of condiments. I was a goddamn super hero. I was invincible! The feeling hit me like a rush and I felt so energized, just then realizing that I couldn’t remember the last time that I blinked. How was I going to explain the broken lamp and bloody sheets to mom? Did anyone else hear that? I needed to change my clothes and throw out my bra. I kept thinking of things I had to do and questions so quickly I couldn’t keep up with myself. I started my clean-up in a sort of out-of-body stumble, clumsily going about getting things to clean up my room with.
I started by getting in the shower and cleaning myself up. I put bandages over the cuts on my arm and hoped the thin cut along my collar wouldn’t be too noticeable. I got changed into new underwear, my most comfortable pajama pants and my favourite t-shirt, then tore my bed apart to go throw the sheets all in the laundry. I threw out the lamp and cleaned up my barf with soap and water. I picked up all the dishes; and in my most genius move yet I put the broken salt shaker on the floor in the kitchen and poured some salt from the box in the cupboard to make it look like it just fell over by accident. I went over my floor a second time, then I reorganized my desk, and by the time I was done no one would have been able to tell I’d been home-invaded by a hissing meat stick.
“C-Cookie, is… i-is the monster gone?”
I blinked and my ears swiveled up when I heard my little sister at my bedroom door. I spun around to see her standing there in her purple night gown, tears streaming down her face as she shook and trembled.
“I heard noises and came and I saw… I s-saw… I saw…!” She blubbered as she started to cry.
I entered big sister mode and practically ran over to her to pull her into my room and give her the biggest hug I could. She clung to me and started to really bawl like a baby… but then she wasn’t the only one. I cried too as I held onto her as tightly as I could, mashing as close into her as her giganto-boobs would let me. She held me so tightly I actually choked on my tears, she cracked my shoulders and back and squeezed so hard I could barely breathe. I had to pry her off of me just so I wouldn’t suffocate.
“It’s gone,” I said, getting her to look at my face, “Fraise, it’s gone. I beat it.”
She was obviously terrified, so I let her come into my room and sat there on the floor. I let her cuddle up to me and held her as long as I had to.
“What was it?” She asked, wiping her puffy eyes on my shirt.
“It was something called a Boo Hag,” I told her. I don’t know why I told her, but I did. In that moment I thought it was best to be honest with her and make her understand. Knowing stuff made it less scary, after all. “It’s a monster that comes for people in their sleep.”
“Is the Boo Hag gone forever?” She asked.
She was begging me with her eyes to say yes, so I just nodded and gave her another hug as she sat on my lap. She whimpered and buried her face against me, and I sighed. Great. Not only did I get attacked by a monster but my sister saw the whole thing. She’s only eleven though, so maybe that wasn’t so bad… no one would believe her if she told anyone about it. Still, I looked at her and said, “Don’t tell mom about this.”
She lifted her head and asked, “Why?”
I reached for a lie and came up with, “She’d get scared if she knew a real monster was in her house. Mom’s really scared of monsters.”
“Momma says monsters aren’t real,” She blinked.
I looked around my room, just so she would too. “Uh huh,” I huffed.
Fraise thought it over for a while and then nodded. “Okay,” She said.
“And don’t worry,” I said, reaching up and poking her nose, “I’m going to do something so that we don’t see any more monsters.”
Chapter 6
I woke up in my sister’s bed sprawled out on top of her with my head buried between her tits. I lifted my head and wiped some drool from my face, and saw her sleeping soundly under me. I wasn’t even sure when I had fallen asleep, but god was I happy I did with Fraise. I needed her that night as much as she needed me.
That was a weird feeling. Normally Fraise needed me to help her reach things high…er up than she could reach, or to help her with homework when my mom couldn’t. What she needed me for that night was to keep the monsters away. I had to protect her that night. I’d never protected her before… my sister was super strong and always handled things herself. But even though she could lift up a whole book case pretty easily if she wanted to, she was still just a little girl who was afraid of things that she didn’t understand. I could relate to that; the Boo Hag was horrifying. Whenever I closed my eyes I still saw it, and it was haunting my dreams that night… But the difference between me and Fraise was that I could do something about it.
I could send that thing back to where it belonged in the Nevernever. I had to send that thing back because there were little girls and boys out there like my sister, and moms out there like my mom, who couldn’t protect themselves against things like that. If I just learned a little magic and practiced a little, maybe I could’ve done it for them. I wanted to start right away, but when I got out of bed I ended up waking up my sister, so I took her into the kitchen and started making her some oatmeal for breakfast. I went over our promise about not telling mom about the Boo Hag, and then made sure my bedsheets were out of the dryer before my mom even got up.
I had my shower and made sure I wore a t-shirt to cover up the scratches I’d gotten from my fight against the hag. I tossed on some jeans too, just to protect against the September weather. After that, I got Gwen’s phone number from Fraise and called while I was getting my things together for school.
“Hello?” I heard a voice that wasn’t Alexandra’s on the phone.
“Hey, is Alex there? I need to talk to her,” I said. I also started calling her Alex, because it was easier.
“Who is this?” The woman asked.
“Cookie,” I answered.
“Oh,” The woman said in a sudden shift in tone, “Alexandra’s at work right now. I can give you the number for the Guild, you should call her there. Is something the matter?”
“I fought a Boo Hag and I’m still wearing my skin,” I said, calmly as could be.
“… O-kay, let me just get that number for you; I’m Zeroelle, by the way, Alexandra’s husband,” The voice sounded hurried, “Get yourself a pen. When you call, I’d recommend asking her to set up some defenses around your home – a few well-placed wards ought to do it.”
I got the number from Zeroelle and called it pretty much right away. I finally got a hold of Alex through the receptionist, and by that time I was strapping on my boots to head out. I walked alongside my sister toward the bus stop and had no real issues talking about it in front of her. Curious as Fraise was, she understood that I was doing what I said I’d do about keeping the monsters away.
“Cookie, dear, it’s so good to hear from you!” Alex said over the phone, “Have you given your situation some thought?”
“Don’t you have a cell phone? I got attacked by one of those things,” I said, not wanting to beat around the bush, “I barely fought it off by throwing salt at it.”
“Oh, lucky for a bodge job! Salt has strange qualities for repelling monsters and demons – they’re not especially fond of it,” Alex said, “You know more than you let on, dear!”
“I just figured that if a little salt stung in a little cut, then it’d really hurt something with no skin at all,” I explained, “Keep this thing away from my house. I’m going to read your books.”
“Excuse me,” Alex said, “But what you mean to say is ‘keep that thing away from my house – please, Missus Salome.’”
“Please,” I repeated flatly.
“Oh very well. You’re all right? Is your family all right?” Alex asked.
“No one’s hurt but me. I’m fine though,” I said.
Alex took a breath and sighed, sounding a little relieved. “Very good, well then I’ll come by later and put up some protective spells around your home,” She said, “I would recommend pouring salt along your windows as well. It acts as a barrier, creatures of that beastly nature are loathe to come into contact with it. In fact, keep some with you always – you never know when you may need a protective circle.”
“’Kay,” I said, “Hey… where do you work, anyway? What’s the Guild?”
“Oh, why, that’s the Prostitute’s Guild, dear!” Alex answered and I could almost hear her grinning, “I was just with a client when you called, I really must get back to him. Tara!”
I reeled away from my phone and even gave it a weird look. Great, my mentor is a prostitute.
“Fraise, we need to salt your windows tonight,” I said, “Mom’s too.”
My little sister had been marching along beside me all the way down the street, and when we reached the bus stop she turned on her heels to face me. I stepped aside before her chest could take me out. “Why?” She asked.
“Because it keeps the monster out,” I said all matter-of-fact.
That must have been good enough for her, because she breathed a sigh of relief. “Good!” She said, “That was so scary! It was all icky and gross and moved like woosh woosh! And it was all ‘haaaah.’”
Fraise started stomping around in a circle on the gravel at the side of the road and kicked some of the pebbles onto the street. She was making sounds vaguely like the Boo Hag the whole time, making me wonder how much she actually saw. I shook my head and stepped forward to grab her and pull her back a safe distance from the road and she stepped back against me and let me hold her close. “Now remember,” I said, “Don’t tell anyone.”
She looked up at me agape. “Not even Gwen?! You said not to tell Momma!” She said.
“No one,” I said, “No one can know about the monster, or they’ll get scared. It has to be a secret, okay?”
Fraise grumbled and pouted but agreed to my terms. Maybe she knew that the existence of a monster was going to be hard to get people to believe. She had to know, Mom spent a lot of my childhood telling me monsters weren’t real, Fraise heard it too once in a while. Besides, her best friend Gwen? She was a real smart kid, way smarter than she should have been. She wouldn’t have believed in monsters from a purely scientific standpoint… Odds were she’d be all too willing to explain my visions away by claiming I had mental trauma that caused hallucinations. Yes, a twelve-year-old was that smart. My life is just full of neat little characters.
Her bus came first, like it always does, and I let her go so she could get on her way. The high school bus came a little later and I climbed on to take a seat somewhere. I wanted to tear into those books, but reading a couple of obviously ancient books on the bus could have gone wrong in so many ways that I couldn’t afford the risk. It was always a rowdy ride, and some of the other students sometimes threw things or wrestled. The ones at the very back had claimed their seats there and thought they pretty much had the run of the place – they were the biggest and debatably ‘coolest’ out of everyone. I didn’t want them seeing my books; they could have taken one and started berating me about how much of a freak I was for reading what might pass off as Ancient Literature instead of, I don’t know, having a conversation like a normal person.
As always the day started out with Mathematics first thing in the morning (yay me) followed by English before lunch. Lunch was going to be my moment to get a quick read in, as I bought and ate my food as quickly as I could in the school cafeteria before making a break for the library. The school library was about what you’d expect; it wasn’t stocked much for casual reading and was stuffed to the gills with educational books that had been printed anywhere up to five years ago or more. There was a small section for computer usage, and tables placed in a collective study area where students could sit down. There was also something kind of like a lounge, except there was no chance of actually having fun. Noise was strictly forbidden, so students didn’t even talk to each other much when they were inside. That made it the perfect place for me to sit down somewhere hidden away between the stacks and finally get into one of those books.
I sat on the floor in the quietest corner I could find and pulled the tomes out of my bag. Opening them up, I noticed the paper felt… different. It wasn’t paper, more like parchment, with each page being thick yet at risk of tearing if I wasn’t gentle. The pages weren’t white, they were browned or yellowed with age and had obvious water damage in some places. Even so, the ink hadn’t run and all the pages were legible, even if the writing was in old English and eloquent cursive. It was kind of hard for me to read it, but I got through it. I started at the beginning…
It was a written, first-hand account on the existence of the Nevernever written by an author who simply marked the book with the initials “D.M.S.” With writing that old, you really have to take your time and try to understand the flow of it, and I took my time reading through the accounts of the author’s foray into the supernatural.
“I has’t seen into the world of dreams, the realm of the retired, to whither conjurations of the mind both fevered and at rest frolic and playeth. Quaintness immesurable, insurmountable fears, the judicious and ghastly of all things once bethought fairytale. I has’t a clarity of which none understandeth. To explain in daytime is the sound of madness. My colleagues gaze me with mixed thoughts; disbelief, cynicism, concern for mine wellbeing. Those gents doth not share my clarity, they doth not share the records of dreams I has’t been able to recall so perfectly.
“I has’t visited many times and seen many things. The visions haunt mine waking life as much as mine retirement. I see what none see, I heareth sound that none can. It racks mine body with dread so powerful it paralyzes the senses. Mine mistress worries, mine son and daughter cry. I can heareth the wails of the babes in the Dreamworld, so much like a fairytale I would to calleth the Neverafter – for we doth not liveth happily, but ever after in this world.
“Death and dreams art alike. The images in the Neverafter art as likely to beest ghosts and spirits as they are to be make-belief. To telleth a difference is a foolhardy pursuit that strains thy mind. Mine head aches all hours of the day, mine vision wavers between that of life and death. The people I meeteth taketh on new forms in mine new eye, some quite quaint, many much more twisted and evil. They stare at me ravin as tyrants coequal the malt-worm. They see that I see those folk. I fear that they wish to silence mine eyes.
“I hads’t nev’r seen a mirror in the Neverafter, but it hath showeth mine true visage. Mine body does not shift like the others, it remains as I am in the waking world save for several markings across my body I hads’t nev’r once seen. The ever-seeing eye is present upon mine crown, peering out into this new and frightening world from within and I am covered in markings arcane. I hath scrawled all I can, however the symbols spell out a language I fear is unknown to men, or preadventure long forgotten. My son now telleth me of his nightmares, the things that boy sees, and I fear he hath earned this affliction without valor.”
I turned the page to see sketches of what looked like an eye encased in a diamond and several runes and symbols I’d never seen before. I figured that was what this person saw on themselves – an eye that was visible on their crown that saw into the Nevernever. I stared at that eye for longer than I should have, my head swimming with thoughts that made no sense. I had to snap out of my trance and flip the page quickly to carry on, yawning as I went along.
“I met a lady the present day who could see that I see that lady for what she is, but the lady worried naught. She whispered words to me I hadst longed to heareth, words of troth, of knowledge. I am quickened; not mad, I am not ill, but gifted a rare gift mortals hadst seldom seen. I can see into a world past mine own, a world from which this lady hails. Thither art others like myself, others who can not only see this world but journey it at will. She hast giveth to teachest me this ability so that I might escape this asylum and hads’t reign ov’r my mind once more. The lady calls me a Seer… how quaint.
“The ones who imprisoned me hence, I has’t seen their true eyes. Those gents art monsters, parading about in the guise of normal men and women. With the things I hads’t learned, I can reacheth out and touch those folk from beyond the bars, but without mine hands. I can push myself from mine body to sense things, to touch things and heareth things, to manipulate the mortal realm from the Neverafter that touches the plane. I can feeleth it pushing on me from all sides, I push back. The barrier is more malleable than those folk want me to believe. It can be punctured.
“Tearing a hole in the barrier between us, I can moveth through the Ways of the Neverafter. Every point of earth is connected to one of the Neverafter, but only a few short leagues from one point to the next in the dream world spans far greater than that of the mortal realm. I has’t escaped mine prison using these Ways, and the creatures has’t taken notice. I hide and prepend for now, I push and pull on the boundaries, and I knoweth I am pursued. I must learneth to defend myself with these newfound abilities.
“I has’t learned to useth the door, and I has’t learned to bind the creatures that invade mine world to it. I can now send those folk back, locking them into a Neverafter prison like a mortal Warden. Tis like a war, the creatures battle me and attempt to wrest me from mine flesh and bone. They resist mine efforts, but I persevere, and in the end I sendeth them home. If ‘t be true thither art others such as me, then surely those gents too must be in danger of the supernatural. I must find those folks, maketh power in numbers, and emboss the enemies of mankind with all expedience.”
The book I had been reading wasn’t a report about the Nevernever, but a diary of someone like me. I flipped back and forth through the pages a bunch of times so I didn’t miss any details, trying to piece together who this person was. They had a wife, a couple of kids, they got locked away by monsters and managed to escape… and their initials were D.M.S. They learned how to become a Sentinel, as Alex called it, and learned how to throw monsters back into the Nevernever. If they could learn how to do it, then so could I. The entries were undated, so I didn’t know how long it actually took… but it was possible.
I looked up to find myself not in a library, but some kind of ancient archives. The shelves of books had been replaced by stone that had runes carved into its surface, ones that glowed a beautiful collection of colours. Small lights like fireflies danced in the air, lighting the stone chambers. I saw cloaked figures down the hall passing by the stacks, their feet not touching the ground, lanterns glowing with ethereal light held in their outstretched hands. They didn’t seem too worried that I was there. I tried to shake out the visions, but couldn’t manage to snap myself back to reality. I guessed that I was seeing into the Nevernever again.
I tried looking at my hands but saw nothing out of the ordinary with them. I reached up and touched my forehead, but felt nothing strange. Did I look like what those pictures looked like? Was there some kind of magic eye on my forehead right then?
I shook my head. The best thing to do was try not to think about it. Instead, I picked up the other book from my bag beside me and set it on my lap. The leather bound tome had handprints all over it, ones I hadn’t noticed before. It must have really got around. I opened it up and started to read through the pages. Like Alex said, they spelled out various things about the Third Eye, a lot of them I already knew thanks to the internet and personal experience.
What I did read, however, was that keeping the Third Eye closed was going to take constant effort. Like learning to walk, it was going to be a struggle at first just to keep things going, but eventually my mind would work itself into a constant state of spiritual awareness. All I needed to do was get in touch with my will. “Will” is willpower, obviously, and apparently it was something that I could learn how to control. I could shape it and work it in ways to suit my purposes, and because of my magical aptitude I was one of the few people who could even be in touch with that sense. Traditionally, people tended to think of will like mana. It took a certain amount of energy to use, and an untrained mind could tire out so quickly that it wouldn’t be able to tap into one’s will. It was like a muscle I always had, but never knew how to flex.
I could have used will to extend my senses or even my sense of self by painting a mental picture with it of what’s behind a door, for instance. I could use it to touch others, to sense their presence, or I could even use it to attack. It worked off emotions, where I could use my anger, sadness, fear, or other sensations as physical objects. With the right words, the right focus, and the right manipulation of will… I could conjure fire, wind, ice, or more. The book said that trying to manipulate the elements was dangerous if someone couldn’t control their will properly. There were ways to help that, like magic wands, staves, or more, but even then it required a certain number of baby steps to make sure someone got a spell just right.
There were meditation techniques inside the book that outlined a process of clearing my mind and getting in touch with myself, tips on how to close my Third Eye, and a description of what it should have felt like to get in touch with my will. It cautioned me against acting rashly, to lose control of my emotions or myself, and that if I took steps to learn all that… there’d be no going back. You can’t, apparently, unlearn magic. Kind of like riding a bike, I guess, it’s just muscle memory after a while.
Well I had no choice. I didn’t want to be stuck in the Nevernever forever. I set the book aside and left it opened, then I closed my eyes and tried to dump everything out of my head. That’s easier said than done. When I was alone, I was used to listening to music, or hearing the murmuring voices of people around me. I was always watching and listening for stuff, and to just stop that was… well, hard. I had to focus on what was going on inside of me instead, not even just me in general. If I had to put it into words, I had to think of nothing but closing off my extradimensional sight, and then I had to focus on keeping it closed.
I was a total novice in meditation and stuff. I didn’t know what the hell to expect or what to even really do. I’d only really seen people meditating on TV, which never helped because those were just actors. I never would have known how to actually do it for real. The best I could come up with was thinking really hard about closing the third eye. Kind of like mentally poking it with a stick to see what would actually work, I sat there cross-legged on the floor and tried to think about nothing else. That meant not even thinking about what would happen if I couldn’t do it, or thinking about the things I just learned about Sentinels, or about school or even about eating.
\tIf you’re thinking that sounds impossible, it really feels that way at first. I had under an hour to get a handle on the thing, maybe even less than twenty minutes before I was expected to head to my French class. I wasn’t going to be able to fessée le cours de française if I was seeing les visions de monstres. I thought really hard on it, like super hard, and the key might have been to think about it even harder when my head started to hurt. I really pushed myself to what felt like no real purpose, a goal in mind but no idea how to reach it. I just kept thinking “close, close, close…”
\tI opened my eyes and stared straight ahead at the stone slab in front of me, with glowing runes all over its surface. I tried picturing what it was supposed to look like: a crappy-looking metal-framed wooden shelf where every one of those glowing symbols was supposed to be a book. The knowledge there was supposed to be paper, not magic, and written by regular people. It was about science, not the supernatural, things like bird and insect anatomy. Those cloaked figures were supposed to be invisible to me, and those dancing lights were florescent bulbs that flickered every now and then overhead. I kept starting at the stone like I wanted to reshape it, take it apart and put it together again like it was supposed to look in the regular world.
\tAfter a while, it started to work. Everything in my visions started to shake and blur, trembling and shifting around. I heard the sound of my blood rushing into my ears, making it sound like I was underwater while it was all going on, and eventually those trembling shapes began to vibrate so quickly that it was hard to make out what they were. My vision doubled, the images parted, and then twisted and turned together to rebuild themselves right in front of my eyes. Stone turned to wood, the floor became carpet, the dancing lights fell into line above my head, and like a big tub of Legos the whole thing snapped back together and then settled like actual mortared brick.
Looking around, I was back in the normal library.
“Yes!” I whispered to myself and gave a mighty fist pump. Sure, the score might have been Sight 3, Cookie 1, but I was on the board. All I had to do then was focus on keeping it closed… I was going to be even quieter than usual that day, but it was so going to be worth it.
I had a couple of lapses when I got up to leave. Those things are disorienting, and so is the effort of stopping them. I went in and out of Never-vision like it was going out of style, and it completely threw me through a loop on my way back to my locker. I actually forgot which way I was going a couple of times, stumbled around felt dizzy; it really crunched the time I had before the next class started. It was sort of interesting though. The students had different forms in the Nevernever, ones that reflected the sort of person they must have been. Generally speaking, you could tell that people were angry, confused, lonely, or whatever. They’d look mad or sad, or some kind of freaky kinky; their forms would be monstrous or just plain unreal. Others were a little weirder and their forms would blur in and out or change randomly. It was like every room in the school was different, too, and some had even changed since passing them the first time around. Then there were other things that were just the same; some sections didn’t change at all, but did have strange creatures crawling all around them.
I shut my sight off as many times as I had to and it had me running late for class. By the time I got in and sat down, the teacher was already a little into the lesson – “Pronoms Personnels,” or in English, “Personal Pronouns.” It was just more refresher junk, so I just stayed as quiet and undisruptive as I could and focused on keeping everything in order. It was like flexing some mental muscle, I had to keep doing it every once in a while. It was weird because the eye didn’t turn on that much before I started trying to play around with it – now that I’d actually tapped it, it was going nuts. I suppose that’s like when a newborn baby gets to breathe air for the first time. It’s a bit of a shock, but I felt like I was getting used to it by the time school was ending. I couldn’t stop it from opening, but I could close it when it did.
When I got to my locker, I dialed in the combination with a yawn. School’s even harder when you’re trying to focus on something else the whole day, making the hours just drag on and on. I wasn’t as tired as most people though… that Boo Hag was making the rounds, I could tell. I pulled open the lock and took it off, then I opened the door to my locker.
Light burst forth from inside my locker and towards my face, making me lean back and try to shield my eyes. Peeking through my fingers, I saw that it wasn’t light that had come out, but instead a glowing sort of apparition. Two big, fat breasts stuck out my locker, and even though they were pale and transparent, I recognized them as being Alex’s. I quickly slammed the door on my locker shut, forcing the image back inside and sealing it in.
“What’s up, brah?” Foot-smell the locker-neighbour asked.
I looked at him, took a breath, and calmed down. “Uh, nothing,” I shrugged. I could have been having a bit of a vision, but… I was keeping my Third Eye closed, I thought.
“Right on,” He grinned, grabbing his skateboard from his locker and closing up. He dropped the deck to the ground and stepped onto it, riding away into the student traffic.
I looked around to see if anyone else noticed, but they didn’t. I opened the locker again this time to see that the image of Alex had shrunken down to the size of a Barbie doll, and stood on the upper shelf of my locker. She fussed with her owns shape, her boobs and ass extremely exaggerated for a moment before she pushed them down to a more proportionate size.
“Pardon me, dearie. Sometimes when you’re projecting your consciousness to another place, you don’t always get a good handle on size restrictions,” She said.
I… ignored how weird that was and whispered, “What are you doing in my locker?”
“Astral projection, dear!” Alex explained, “By using focus and manipulating my entire self, I am able to release my consciousness from my body and…”
I closed my locker door a bit when someone passed by, and I watched them out of the corner of my eye until I assumed they were far enough away. “I mean why?” I asked again.
The little Alex crossed her arms and gave me a look. “Because I don’t have a cell phone,” She said, “This was the best I could do.”
I blinked and the image of the small Alex seemed to have strings of light connected to all her limbs like a little puppet. I blinked again and they were gone, with a little mental effort on my part.
“Oh, you’ve flipped the switch! Finally starting to get your Sight all sorted then?” Alex clapped her hands for me and smiled a happy cat smile, “Nice one!”
“Get a cell phone,” I glared at her.
“Tut-tut, don’t take that tone with me young lady,” Alex waved a finger, “Just perk your ears. I’ve set up the wards you asked for around the house. They’re as basic as could be; normally it would take days to make one suitably strong enough to repel even a moderately powerful creature. However, your threshold there is rather strong, it will take some doing now for any creature to pass through, let alone pesky Boo Hags. You’ve nothing to fear from them anymore.”
I blinked. “Oh,” I said, moving my body to try and hide Alex from sight, “Thanks.”
“Piece of cake, my luvvly-jubbly,” Alex nodded, “Still, it could be a good exercise for you to improve them on your own… At least now you’ll get some sleep. As for tracking that hag down…”
I leaned in to listen, practically sticking my head into my locker.
“If you’re getting the hang of that eye of yours, we can use that to track those creatures down,” She said, “Did you perhaps notice it going invisible when you encountered it?”
I thought back to how the creature entered my room and nodded. “Yeah, when it came in and left,” I said.
“Well it’s not really invisible, per-say, but rather it’s simply hidden,” Alex explained, “Under a shroud. Shrouds are a sort of magic used to blend into the barrier of the Nevernever. Think of it like wrapping yourself in a security blanket. Many creatures have this ability naturally, and it allows them to hunt without being caught or noticed. When they pass the threshold into your home however, that veil is taken down.”
“So… if they’re wrapping themselves up in the veil, then… shouldn’t I be able to see them?” I asked.
“Bang on!” Alex grinned, “You have the gift of Sight, and with a little untangling you can peer through a shroud. Some are more complicated than others, like untangling barbed wire, while others are as easy as unravelling a spool of thread. Either it comes apart with little effort or it will take some doing. Boo Hags are basic creatures, it shouldn’t take much effort for even a novice to strip their shroud. Still, you’ll need more practice if you expect to hunt one down and return it to the Nevernever.”
“Uh, okay, um…” I shifted my eyes left and right, “Can’t you do it?”
Alex laughed and propped her astral form on my nose, holding her chin in her hands as she leaned on me. I didn’t feel her though, she was basically a hologram. “Dear, I am a sorceress of extreme capability, but I can’t just send things to the Nevernever. That’s your job,” Alex answered, “Not to worry! Come to my house sometime when you think you’ve had enough practice keeping that little eye of yours shut, and I’ll do what I can to try and teach you the finer points of magic.”
“Can you teach me how to fight?” I asked.
Alex scoffed and stood up again. “Can I teach you how to… Cookie darling, you’ve no idea to whom you are speaking with,” She said with a smirk, “I can have you shooting level three firebolts in no time at all, granted you’ve the aptitude to keep up with my lessons. I suppose then that you’re taking your position seriously?”
“That thing attacked me in my own bedroom,” I said, “It deserves a little payback for breaking my lamp.”
Alex watched me for a moment before just nodding. “Well then, come to my home on the weekend and we’ll see what we can accomplish,” She said, “For now, continue practicing with your Sight and how to keep it closed. That should be enough for you to grasp the fundamentals of willpower manipulation.”
“Ta-ta for now!” Alex waved and blipped out of sight.
A sudden thud on my locker door closed it around my head in a quick moment that didn’t really hurt as much as it startled me. I heard Freddy Mac-G and his friends laughing as they walked by and I sighed to myself. I couldn’t believe what I was putting up with for guys like him, but I supposed that even he didn’t deserve to get his skin peeled off and worn like a suit. I thought to myself, “Oh well!” It’s not like I could have relied on anyone else to do it for me, so I stuffed my bag full of homework to go along with the tomes Alex gave me.
It was time to continue my training.
Chapter 7
I watched Alexandra as she paced around the attic. I was completely fixated. Not because she was teaching me the ins and outs of magic spellcasting, but because she was doing it while wearing a sexy as hell outfit. She wore a baby doll, a kind of lingerie nightie that most retailers passed off as being pajamas; but really they had no other purpose than to turn people on. Hers was actually kind of classy for being as skimpy and blatant as it was. For one, the whole thing was transparent purple fabric aside from patterns made to look like tangled, thorny rose stems over her gigantic boobs. For two, it barely, just barely covered up her crotch and even then her panties peeked out. Thirdly, those panties were tiny and strappy, and it was hard to tell she was even wearing them at all when she turned her back to me. It made her almost seven feet of curvy cat with bare, surprisingly sexy feet and exposed shoulders, and thick curves that bounced and rolled all over the place.
I could see her fat, purple nipples and her cute belly button, and her thick ass made cleavage under her tail.
She was right in the middle of a lesson about how willpower was the source of all magic. If I could get in tune with my will, I could have been casting magic in no time at all… but right then, I couldn’t get in touch with anything more than my throbbing dick. I totally drooled as I stared Alex down, and I knew I was blushing super hard because I could just feel my whole head getting flush and hot. I tried to hide it, you know, but my pants just weren’t doing it. I chose to wear some of my green and black elastic plaid leggings, the kind that’d stretch a lot, and a long, brown-gray hoodie sized to reach down to my thighs. It turned out to be a bad idea, because my hard-on was too big for them, and pushed against my belly. Luckily the hoodie was long, so I grabbed hold of the bottom of it and kept it tugged down in front of me.
God I felt like I was just going to… blow up or something, right there. I couldn’t even breathe right, it was more like I was panting. Alex had been parading around like that since I arrived at her home for my weekend training, which had started around three hours before that. I’d been watching her way too long, and the heat I felt from it was intense. If she noticed, she didn’t make it obvious. She just kept going, explaining to me what harnessing my will ought to feel like and giving me tips on how to keep focused and aware of my power at all times. All while I was trying to imagine what ever centimeter of her body must have tasted like.
Eventually I swallowed and spoke up amidst my heavy breathing, “Alex, why are you wearing that…?”
“Emotions are a key part to willpower manipulation,” Alex stopped her pacing and turned to face me, “You’ve heard of bottling your emotions? Well, magic users take it one step further, and toss that bottle out in a proper display of magic. It takes focus, discipline, and imagination. I, personally, deal the most frequently in one of the strongest, darkest, and most easily manipulated of all human emotions…”
She stepped over to where I sat at the only chair in her scriptorium. She bent over, draped her arms around my neck, and purred loudly into my ear. Her posture was so obviously on purpose, the way it flashed the grand canyon of cleavage made by her huge, soft breasts for me to look at. She smelled nice when she got that close, like delicious vanilla, and I took a deep breath just to smell her. “Can you guess which one it is?” She asked me. If I opened my mouth all I did was breath in and out, and I think I was shaking. I pulled on my hoodie as I felt myself losing control over my arousal. Things were starting to get… messy under my clothes.
“Lust,” She purred into my ear, “Sexual attraction… arousal. It’s a powerful emotion, and not exclusive to human beings either. It’s just one of many emotions that you can use to find your will: anger, sadness, fear, joy… they all have a part to play, and some will be easier for you to grab hold of, ball up as tightly as you can, and then send it hurling from your body.”
“Oh fuck…” I whispered. Alex was overpowering everything. Her smell completely masked the smell of the dust n’ must around the attic, her body made me warmer than the sunbeam coming through the window, and all I could hear was the purring coming from her awesome chest. I felt like I was going to go nuts just sitting there, or jizz like a firehose and pass out. There was a pressure inside me that I never got to feel that often. I couldn’t turn myself on that much, not with my own hands, pictures on the internet, or fantasies about Mrs. Chutney. I felt full to bursting, and I was afraid that I was going to do just that sitting there with her talking to me. I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to look at her and tried to get a handle on myself… but I just couldn’t.
“Mmnh… I do love an honest one like you,” Alex tickled under my chin playfully and I tried to lean away from her, but I couldn’t. I tensed my arms straighter as she leaned forwards, and with a hand placed on the back of my chair she tipped my seat back on two legs and pressed her chest against mine. “You fancy me, and I’ll be honest dear… I’m rather keen on the idea of getting off with you.”
I pinned my ears back and squirmed in my chair and tried not to make any noises. I failed. She chuckled at the little whimpers I made, and it just embarrassed me all the more. I couldn’t help but feel sensitive! Alex’s touch made my body buzz and tingle, because I could feel that she was magic too. It was her energy getting all mixed up with mine, and no one else made me feel that way. I felt like I was getting dizzy as she pushed in against me, pinning me to my chair with her big body, and started to kiss my cheek. I could feel her lipstick coming off and leaving marks into my fur, and every kiss tingled pleasurably.
“I’m simply giving you what you need to practice,” She said, “You’re right turned on now, aren’t you dear? So try and handle that. Take hold of it, shape it, and make it yours.”
“But…!” I clenched my eyes shut.
“Tut-tut, no buts!” Alexa placed her finger on my lips to shush me, “Put a sock in it and just focus. Lust isn’t hard to find in you, it’s so prevalent in your little teenage body that you ought to be swimming in it. Normally, when you’re alone in your room on a weekend, you probably just let those feelings run wild with no regard until you’re right knackered. Now, you’re going to try and bottle it all up.”
God! What did she think I was, a monk?
Alex let my chair drop back to four legs as she moved around behind me. She squeezed my shoulders and leaned against my back, and her giant tits mashed down on my head from above, blocking out the sound and any hope of me opening my eyes again. I grit my teeth, panting through them as I… tried to do what she wanted me to do. I think if she breathed on me the right way she would have set me off like a bomb, but for a while she just stood there and rubbed my shoulders. This was both relaxing and not, since her energy was sent buzzing through my skin and all. For being a complete nut-job, Alex was… inhumanly sexy. I was obsessed with her body and the things she must have known how to do, being a prostitute and all. She must have been godlike at fucking, and I wanted that. I wanted that so fucking bad. I wanted it so bad in fact that I couldn’t think of anything else.
Closing my Third Eye had a particular feeling to it, one that I’d gotten used to over the past few days. It was almost like flipping a switch, and when it opened I’d feel a presence all around me pushing in. All I had to do was… push back. It’s hard to explain, but I had to push back with my mind, not my body. So if I could think so hard that it felt like I was moving my arms to shove all that stupid Nevernever stuff away from me, I would actually succeed in clearing my head enough to just flip that switch and turn it off. I was getting good at that, and that’s supposedly using my willpower externally. I was pushing it away from me rather than drawing it in. What Alex wanted me to do there was draw it in on myself. I’d never done that before.
I tried to think like I was folding myself inside out. What I wanted to do was reach down into myself and grab onto my lust. Finding lust is surprisingly easy, it’s that tingle you get in your dick, balls, or pussy or whatever you’ve got. It’s the way your heartbeat picks up, and that nagging sense of taboo you get in the back of your mind when you’re doing something really naughty. It’s the heat and the carelessness in the moment, and the urges and desires that are brought to the forefront in that time. Lust came from so many places at once that I wasn’t sure where to start: bottom to top, or top to bottom? The mind, or the body? I wasn’t even sure how to reach inside myself, but I tried. I wanted to try if only to keep myself from getting too turned on with Alex.
Your emotions are like snakes, I say. When you’re not really messing with them, they just do their thing and everything’s all hunky-dory. When you’re trying to grab them though, they start going absolutely bananas. I found this out the hard way as I sat there trying to meditate. I was able to kind of block out Alex’s presence around me, I was able to make that tingling stop, but when I tried to get a handle on my lust, well… Apparently, lust is volatile. It’s like a volcano ready to erupt, and if you’re not quick you can really lose control over it. The feeling that washed over me in the instant I pretty much accidentally tapped into it was like I cranked my bonerometer to eleven.
In an instant, everything I was feeling got a hundred times more intense, and that was it. I was finished. I moaned, lifted my butt off the chair a little bit and started cumming all over myself without a care in the world. I could feel it splattering all up my belly and chest and all up under my hoodie, soaking my tank top, and just piling on from there. Alex made a surprised little ‘oh’ sound, but instead of doing anything she just stood there and held me so I didn’t just slide off the chair and fall onto the floor. She sighed and leaned in to rub her face against my head in a very cat-like way, and I just stayed as quiet as possible as I rode out the biggest orgasm of my life. I blew so hard, I felt tired when it started to wear off, and I was pretty much dripping in my own jizz. I kind of just wanted to curl up and die when I realized what I did.
“That spark,” Alex said calmly, “That’s what magicians aim to master. That one moment where you either take hold of everything and shape it to your will, or lose control and let your emotions overwhelm your senses… That’s the most vitally important part of magic. If you were attempting to cast a spell in that moment, what do you think would happen?”
I didn’t answer. I just tried to pull my head into my hoodie like a turtle.
“Catastrophe,” Alex finished, “If the effect was meant to be harmful, it’s possible that you’d turn it all on yourself. Imagine freezing yourself solid or erupting in a mass of deadly flames. You wouldn’t survive the outcome.”
I groaned. Everything smelled like hot jizz, but I didn’t want to come out of my shell.
“I had to teach you this,” She said, “To let you get burned by your own abilities in a way that wouldn’t harm you. Are you alright, Cookie?”
Well, I was mad and embarrassed. I was so mad and so embarrassed that I thought I might’ve started to cry. I think I was scared too. I’m not going to lie, I’ve masturbated enough times to give my mom a heart attack if she ever found out. I thought I was very familiar with what felt good to me. I thought that, anyway, until that moment where I realized I probably had no idea how good something could feel, or how bad. Like, what if I was sad instead of aroused? Would messing with that pit me into some crushing depression? What if I was happy? Would I just go nuts with joy? I was deeply disturbed by the thought. I didn’t like getting worked up over stuff most of the time. If I got worked up for any reason, I’d just sort it out. I was used to having a certain level of control over everything, even if I was surprised. Even the Boo Hag didn’t scare me that much, in the end the Boo Hag even made sense. What I just went through made no sense. I had no idea how I was supposed to be able to control that, and I was afraid to try.
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” Alex said. She stepped around the chair and lifted me out of it to carry me with her as she headed toward the attic dropdown door.
“This sucks,” I whined.
“For now, yes,” Alex said as she took me to her upstairs bathroom. It had a whole tub and shower ensemble, toilet, countertop sink, big mirror, tiled flooring… you know, a bathroom. Once inside she set me down and started to take off my clothes. I pulled away from her and she put her hands on her hips when I turned around to look at her.
“Well it’s nothing I haven’t seen before!” She said, “Come on now, don’t make me go full mum on you.”
She stepped forward and I tried to juke right. She stepped with me, and when I tried to run past her she scooped me up in her arm again and lifted me up off the ground. I struggled as she tucked me under her arm and held me, and she started yanking on my hoodie with her other hand. “Now stop pissing around,” She said, “I’m only trying to help.”
“Well then why’d you do this to me?” I grunted, kicking my feet.
“Why did… Oh, Cookie, darling,” Alex sighed, “Dear, while it is true that I made you jump the gun a little on your awakening, it would have happened on its own in a couple of years anyway.”
She pulled off my hoodie and my tank top and tossed them on the floor. Before I could get away she turned me around and grabbed me by the cuff of my pants and hung me upside down in her surprisingly strong grip until I slid out of them on my own thanks to gravity. I fell onto the bathroom floor and turned around to sit up. I rubbed my throbbing head and took my glasses off to check them for cracks.
“But other creatures of the Nevernever are taking notice of this place, and unfortunately there are few other options than to get you all spruced up,” She said, “I know it’s difficult. Magical ability becomes truly optimized in individuals like yourself when you’re mature. You hardly have control over your emotions as it is… I mean, look.”
Alex pointed, and I looked down to where she was pointing to see that I’d pitched a full tent in my underwear all over again. I was surprised for a change… after that rush of feelings, I thought I wouldn’t have it in me, but there it was. I blinked a few times, brushed over the tip of it with my finger, and then looked up at Alex again. She gave a flick of her tail and crossed her arms.
“I appreciate the compliment, dear, but this is precisely what we need to work on,” She said, “You get too excited about things. We can’t move on to the next step until you put the reins on your libido at the very least.”
“It’s not my fault,” I argued, “Look at me? Look at you.”
Alex looked down at her bust line, her boobs hefted by her huffy arm-crossing, and she sighed. “Alright, alright, perhaps I pushed a little too hard,” She said, but then she grinned, “Ohh, but it was exciting to watch. I haven’t induced a reaction like that from someone in such a long time. It was invigorating!”
I stood up and narrowed my eyes.
Alex watched me for a moment and then knelt down to grab onto my underwear and yank them down. I blinked and quickly tried to cover myself up, but that was pretty freaking useless. “Very well then,” She said, “We should start a little slower. I’ve shown you a taste of the worst-case, but we can ease you into yourself. You need to start with smaller ventures, baby steps.”
She looked me over and I tried to turn away from her.
“Oh,” She raised her eyebrows, “Brilliant bollocks, dear.”
I blushed and she stepped past me to draw back the shower curtain and turn on the water. The showerhead turned on and started spraying. The sound of the running water was… relaxing. Even though I was still kind of aroused, it was the sort of thing I could ignore. Alex had me step into the shower and she closed the curtain behind me. She didn’t say anything after that, so I guessed I was just allowed to get cleaned up on my own. I suppose I should have known better.
Alex got in after me. She must have taken her clothes off, because when I tried to turn and look at her, she stopped me by pressing her naked body in against my back. I throbbed and froze in place.
“Damnit…” I mumbled.
“Consider this part of your lesson,” Alex said calmly, placing her hands on the sides of my head and gently rubbing my temples, “Close your eyes and relax.”
“But you…” I looked up towards her face and started to argue.
“Tut-tut,” She interrupted me again, looking back down at me, “Just try. I’m not here to bonk you, and I’ve no intention on it. After that episode of yours, I trust you’re feeling a bit buggered. Relax yourself, don’t allow yourself to get too carried away… then focus and try to find that little hump of yours. There’s more to be gained from finding a needle in a haystack than sticking your mitts in a pile of needles.”
“Uh… okay…” I said, lowering my head and deciding to close my eyes.
Alex let go of me for a moment, and when her hands came back she was rubbing soap into my fur. She rubbed my head, neck and shoulders really gently, more like she was trying to massage me than anything. I took a deep breath and tried to relax against her. Her body was just so big and soft, and she was naked right behind me. It must have looked like something out of a porno, and I pictured it in my mind for a bit. But then, that was exactly what I wasn’t supposed to do… I breathed out and in again and tried to push all that out of my mind. Alex was good-looking, yeah… very, extremely good-looking, and her eyes were bewitching and she was really strong and mysterious… But I guess there was other things to focus on.
She was warm, for sure, and soft… she was actually really relaxing. I guess because she’s so big and I’m so small, it’s was easy to think that I felt safe there with her. She cared about me, I supposed, or else she wouldn’t have been in there with me trying to do what she was trying to do. She was obviously comfortable with my body, so… I had to try and be comfortable with hers. Luckily, unlike last time, she was trying to make it easy for me to do that.
I breathed in, and out… and in, and out… I pushed out Alex’s energy, her will trying to impress itself onto me, and I focused on myself. I was pretty, you know, normal… flustered, cranky, hard as a rock… I was erect, sure, but not like… turned on; not like before. I tried to reach down, dig deep, to find that lust I was feeling. I wouldn’t have had a hard-on if I wasn’t feeling it, right? I crossed my arms over my chest and rested my hands on my shoulders, and just tried to focus myself and narrow my entire scope of awareness into one, singular point.
“It’s not just the feeling, but the things that cause that feeling,” Alex said, starting to wash my back, “Don’t just think of them - know them. Understand yourself, and understand what makes you feel the way you do. Sound logic will ease your mind into it. All of this will give your magic shape, a shape that you can grasp and wield.”
“Why are you aroused?” She asked.
“Because of you,” I said.
“Yes, because of me. Why me?” She asked.
“Uh… because… you’re hot?” I scrunched my eyebrows.
Alex purred. “Yes,” She said, “You… are…”
… Attracted to her?
My attraction to Alex was what made me horny for her. That seemed obvious. I was attracted to her because she was big. I loved that. I loved how big she was in every sense of the word, and I liked that she was older than me. It seemed… dirty to be hit on by an older woman, and I didn’t even know how old Alex was. She could have been as old as my mom, even if she didn’t look like it. It seemed crazy, her being fifty years old and somehow still looking that good… but it was hot. She had experience I didn’t understand and… it didn’t bother me so much that she was a prostitute. I think that was actually really kind of… awesome. Probably because I’m some kind of weird pervert.
I really am a perv. But I’m allowed to be, aren’t I? I’m not hurting anybody, and I wouldn’t go out of my way to hurt anybody. I know that, but I’ve never really had to think about it. But my mind was going down a road that seemed paved for my thoughts. I went all the way down that line until I reached the conclusion. My lust, my arousal, it was there. It wasn’t very big… in fact, thinking about all the reasons I liked Alex kind of reminded me that I don’t really know anything about her. It diminished the feelings of sexual attraction for her a little bit, but not enough to make them disappear completely.
I didn’t grab the emotion, but I did pluck it. It felt so small at that point, but it was there. I had it. My hard-on? Softened. I just knew what was up, and I thought it all the way through, and it made sense. I was relaxed and had the time to search it out, and in the end I found it. I can’t tell you how it feels to manipulate your own emotions. It’s not like picking up a broom or something. I just felt an energy in my body, all over me, that I could have done something with… but I didn’t know what to do. After a while, the feeling just disappeared, and the energy died off.
“Good girl,” Alex purred, wrapping her arms around me and starting to lather up my front, “Oh, I’m so proud of you, dearie!”
I snapped my eyes open and reared back a bit, but I was stuck pinned against Alex. “W-Wha…” I fumbled my words.
“You did it,” She said, “It was very faint, weak really, but I felt it. You were ready to do some magic.”
Alex’s hands squeezed around my dick.
That softened hard-on? Totally hard again in, like, seconds.
“Now, you ought to practice that,” She said, “I’ll give you three days, and then I’ll see if you’re ready to learn an actual spell.”
“N-Nghn…” I just kind of made a noise as Alex started to squeeze and stroke me. I felt like my legs were going to turn to jelly.
Alex leaned over me and smiled big. “I must admit to being something of a liar. You didn’t think I was just going to torment you all day, did you?” She said, “Come on. Gwen’s off at her friend’s house, my husband’s at work…”
“… Let’s make a little magic of our own, Cookie dearest.”
Chapter 8
Sorry I didn’t go into detail about that whole Alexandra in the shower thing, but this is a blog, not a porno. I’ve got to keep some things private.
I had a lot of practicing to do over the weekend, but I didn’t really know what to do with my will after I’d gotten it all balled up. I couldn’t just make magic happen, so whenever I actually did manage to get something, it just disappeared. I decided to instead work on my focus a little bit, so I left my house on the Sunday afternoon and made my way into town.
As I said before, I live in a little valley out by the water tower near the town limits. It’s a bit of a walk to get all the way into town, and it would be way faster to bike in or take the town bus, but I walked it anyway. It wasn’t too cold yet even though it was getting into autumn at the time, and there wasn’t actually a lot of traffic in the afternoons going along the road into town. I had a lot of time to just stick my earbuds into my ears and listen to some music. I find that listening to a little Cute Lobotomy helps with the thinking process.
I took my homework for the weekend with me, carrying it under my arm. I’d almost forgotten to get it done, and I was expected to have two exercise pages in the math textbook on simple division done by Monday. It might be hard to believe, but balancing school work and magic was hard. If the whole year was going to be like that, I wasn’t looking forward to it. As if homework wasn’t bad enough, I had to worry about the Boo Hag running around town. I was kind of curious to see if it had struck in town anywhere, or if I’d be able to notice people obviously suffering from the hag’s… riding. Yuck.
Boo Hags only did their riding after sundown. During the day they wore other people’s skin… meaning that they probably just appeared to be regular people. If they weren’t back in their skin by sunrise, well… they’d be cursed to be without their skin forever. I guessed that meant that Boo Hags wouldn’t be able to hide among regular people if they didn’t follow that strict timeline. That could have been bad for them, obviously… if anyone saw them, then they’d’ve probably been hunted down, like in the Witch Hunts of the Inquisition.
That was an interesting thing to consider, too. If magic was real, then people’s superstition probably had some truth to it. The Basque Witch Trials could have been legitimate, the Fountain of Youth could have been real, the Lady of the Lake could have really given Arthur a blessed sword, Merlin probably existed, and H.P Lovecraft could have been a non-fiction writer. It really opened up a lot of possibilities, and I was taking my time to consider every one of them. I didn’t want to be surprised if anything else came up, I wanted to know as much as I could so that I was ready for it. Werewolves and Frankensteins, Boo Hags and pixies, rain, sleet, snow, hell or high water.
The library was going to be my friend for that. The horror section of the public library in town was pretty extensive. I’d gone there a couple of times, but the books always seemed so lame; and how could I be blamed for thinking like that? Books about werewolves were cheesy most of the time, and I wouldn’t have ever thought that lycanthropy was a real thing up until I discovered I could see into a world beyond my own and had magical capabilities. Besides, who wants to read books about werewolves when I can watch a TV show about it? Watching a rabid beast tear some poor bastard apart was way better than reading it. I had to get classic now though. Magic is an ancient practice and the only things that would help me understand it had to be pretty old too.
Books aren’t exactly cave drawings, but they’d have to do.
Getting into town is way different than just being outside where I live. I live pretty far out in the outskirts, in some sleepy little suburban valley with golf courses and a soccer field. The more commercial areas of the town are way, way more packed. It’s because there’s a beach nearby, so in the warmer seasons the town gets crammed full of tourists and vacationers or whatever. For the rest of the year, though, all the attention was focused on department stores and strip plazas and whatever chain restaurants we’ve got. The traffic is usually pretty high since we’ve got a big four-lane highway that runs straight through town, and foot-traffic was pretty consistent all year round. There’re a lot of trees and public parks too, and several beach areas. It’s a nice place if you like being outside, which I don’t usually.
No, I’m not going to tell you what the name of the town is. For safety reasons, right? For the sake of identifying, let’s just call it Beach City.
So when I reach town, I come from way out. There’re no sidewalks up until I actually reach the main highway, and from where I live that happens when I pass by Howard’s Convenience. From there it’s like one big road that I can walk either up or down, and there’s all kinds of places to visit on it and, like, fifty side-roads to wander into. There’s a seafood restaurant just called “Sizzlin’ Shrimps,” there’s at least three motels, one grocery store really far in either direction, a couple of bars, a place called the “Waterside Plaza” that has three restaurants, a pet shop, and a dollar value store, and if I went far enough I’d find the beaches and the marina.
To reach the library, I had to walk away from the downtown core of storefronts and businesses. Going that way I find myself heading towards the sleepier end of town. It’s got a lot of scattered residences, camp grounds, more beach access, and with only a few turns to take, the elementary school that Fraise goes to. Town hall was tucked away somewhere over there too, and so the public library wasn’t far from there. Don’t go thinking that any of these buildings are really impressive, either. I don’t live in New York or something, where there’re glass skyscrapers everywhere. Think of it more as something you’d see in some… lower-end island residence where most of the cabins have a lot of their paint stripped. It all looks pretty crappy.
Oh, and my high school? It’s practically in the next town over. Yeah. My town doesn’t even have a high school. That’s why my bus comes after Fraise’s.
It took me about an hour to get into town, maybe a little more. I started walking towards the library, passing by various stores on the way and thinking over a bunch of stuff about what I would do when I finally learned how to cast a real spell. I’d passed by that road tons of times, so I barely even looked up as I walked along. I did, eventually, and it was a good thing too; I nearly missed a store I’d never noticed before. It was right next to a gas station, the front doors turned towards the station as if actually being part of the place. It was some crummy-looking bricked building with an overhead striped tarp casting shade over the entrance and big front window. The window was painted on the inside to be a sign that read “Jude’s Occult Shop.” I stopped across the street to get a look at it, and with my interest piqued I decided to get a closer look.
I bolted across the highway when the coast was clear and stepped on up to the shop. The text painted under the store’s name listed some things in bullet point such as: witchcraft supplies & occult store, metaphysical supplies, wicca supplies, pagan supplies, and crystal balls. The display in the window was a three-layered shelf covered in velvet. The bottom shelf had tarot cards on display, and the shelf above it had crystal balls and loose gemstones as well as some stones with runic symbols carved into them. The top shelf had ornate things like a big ivory scorpion statuette with red gem eyes and some component casing made of black metal with a spider carving on the top. The spider’s, uh, butt-piece had a big blue gem embedded in it.
There was a mannequin head showcasing a crystal necklace on one side of the shelf and some wooden staves on a rack on the other side. The backdrop was a bunch of tapestry cloth hanging behind everything, all of them decorated with weird symbols and drawings. The staves ranged from just carved wooden sticks to ones with actual set pieces for big glass orbs and stuff, and the crystal pendant had a big purple rock embedded into a metal base with wire-wrap around it in an ornate pattern. I must have stood there staring at everything for, like, minutes at least. I actually said “whoa” as I stared at everything.
If magic was real, then… was any of this stuff any good?
Curiosity got the better of me, and I turned to enter the shop. I stepped into a store that just reeked of… I don’t know what. Incense and oils overpowered my sense of smell for a moment and I paused to try and turn and take a breath of fresh air before the door closed entirely. A bell jingled to tell whoever was working there that a customer came in, but no one seemed to be behind the counter when I entered. I took it as a chance to go and look around at the things lining the shelves in the store. The little shop actually felt crowded with how many shelves there were, and every one of them had something different to see. The space between them couldn’t have fit more than one person at a time though… it was pretty bad space management.
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not when I saw things like the ‘Uranus Spell Oil’ or the supposed ‘Dragon’s Blood Ink’ for spell writing, or ‘Marshmallow Root.’ With other things like Hazelnut Oil, Ginger, Lavender, Nutmeg, and various Herbal Teas, a lot of the things lining the shelves in little glass bottles or sandwich baggies were just things I could find at a grocery store. There were more interesting things though, like Mandrake Root, Mugwart, Wormwood, Rosehips, and other things I’d never heard of. They even had Brimstone, Iron Shavings, Raw Lead, Pure Tin, and whatever a Lodestone was. All in all the stuff just stepping into what I may as well had called the Herbs and Spices aisle wasn’t too out of the ordinary…
It got a little more weird when I started seeing individual baggies with things inside them like a fossilized cave bear molar, a beaver mandible, a cat’s ankle bone, rattlesnake salt… and table salt sold in quantities no fewer than five pounds a bag, and some that may as well been entire fertilizer bags. Seeing that, I started to think that maybe this place had a little merit.
They had things for alchemical laboratories like mortars and pestles, and miniature cauldrons. There were candles – a lot of candles – and I swear enough “rune stones” to at least fill a kiddie pool. Things got more ornate the closer I got to the counter. There were “charged” talismans of various types that were supposed to bring luck, or protect. There were more wooden staves along the walls, and a glass case full of wands and rods and even daggers. Behind the counter there were swords, honest to God swords, hanging up on display, and more shelves full of books.
A door behind the counter, I supposed leading into a storeroom or something, flew open and a man stumbled out. He was some older guy, forties maybe, thin and hunched. He was a monkey, I could tell that much right away just by looking at his almost-human features and dirty tan fur. He was balding, wore glasses, and seemed to be dressed in the most out-of-place silk button-up and fine dress pants I could have imagined. He saw me and smiled, hurrying behind the counter where I now stood looking around.
“Hello young lady!” He said, “Welcome to Jude’s Occult, I’m Judas Iroas, sole proprietor and proprietor of the soul!”
He seemed to be studying me up and down, before saying, “Well now I can’t say I’ve had someone like you in my shop for some time, little miss! My apologies for not hurrying out sooner, I heard you come in but was busy doing inventory in the back. What can I do ya for?”
I wasn’t sure what to say, my eyes just drifted to a small stand on the counter that had small vials of water on it and a sign that said they were free. “I… dunno,” I said, shrugging.
Jude followed my gaze and quickly moved over to hunch down low. One of his blue eyes was magnified behind the water vials as he peered through them at me. “Got your eye on this? One-hundred percent genuine holy water blessed by our own local priest, Father Gregory!” He pitched a sale at me, “Guaranteed to protect you against unholy abominations should they ever impress themselves into your home!”
I blinked a few times and asked, “Why is it free?”
Jude folded his arms and propped himself up with them on the counter. “Well, monetary gain just isn’t in the spirit of the holy ritual, little miss. In the true spirit of it, it’s provided for free to anyone who might need it for their own protection,” He explained.
I looked around the store again. “Has anyone actually ever, you know, taken some?” I asked.
Jude studied the vials and pushed out his lower lip. “Nnnnot yet,” He said, “But it’s better to have it and not need it, especially in this line of work! It… also makes decent macaroni and cheese?”
Jude and I just shared a long, silent look for a bit.
“Are you going to actually buy anything?” He asked, pushing his hand up to hold his cheek.
Before I could answer, the door behind the counter was kicked open again and a familiar face peeked out.
“Did you say young lady?” Perseus, the guy from the nurse’s office, asked. He hurried out, but when he saw me standing there he stopped. He stuffed his hands into the front pouch pocket of his hoodie and gave me a flat look. “Oh,” He said, “It’s you.”
“You work here?” I asked. I put my hands in my own hoodie’s pockets, but mine was a zip-up so the pockets were separate.
Jude looked between Percy and me. “You know this girl, Percy?” He asked.
Percy turned away from me, waving a hand at me. “She’s just one of those occult nuts from school,” He said.
Oh, suddenly the whole Occult Club thing he was talking about before made sense. He must have gotten bugged all the time by those kids about the store. Jude seemed more pleased by Percy’s false information than Percy was, and he looked at me with a big smile.
“I am not part of the Occult Club,” I said.
“Whatever, you were looking up monsters on your phone,” Percy shrugged, “Anyway, can I go on my break now, Dad, or what?”
Jude looked at me. “What monster were you interested in?” He asked.
“Oh, uh…” I shifted my eyes around, “… Boo Hags.”
“Boo Hags,” The man repeated.
“Aw, Dad, c’mon, she’s not going to buy anything, just forget it,” Percy groaned.
“Folklore conjured up the Gullah culture, character of a popular saying in South Carolina,” Jude ignored Percy and went on, “Don’t let the hag ride ya! They’re like vampires that feed on breath, and climb on top of you while you sleep and inhale your breath all night. Leaves people feeling tired and sluggish during the day. Did you know they’re technically fairy creatures? Not what you’d think of when you think of fairies, huh?”
I looked at Jude and raised my eyebrows. “Really?” I asked.
“Yes!” Jude beamed. He moved to the bookshelf behind him and fingered over the spines of the various books there and pulled one out. He opened it up to a page and set it down on the counter where he turned it to face me. It contained a crude illustration of a Boo Hag, and various written facts about them.
“Boo Hags are an accepted version of the Hag myth in certain mystic circles, and Hags are generally fairies themselves that take on the form of old women,” Jude explained, “You hear about them in all kinds of stories, cursing or bewitching mortal men and women, or tricking them into making deals. Oh, fairies and their deals…”
“That’s a bunch of crap,” Percy shook his head, “Not real. None of that is real, why do you always talk about that stuff like it’s an actual thing? It’s stupid. If there were fairies, I’d know about it.”
“Would you?” Jude grinned, “They’re hiding sorts, you’d never know if you saw one!”
I picked up the book and looked over the weaknesses for fairy creatures. Salt or sugar was listed there because fairies see them as little crystals and feel compelled to count each one and thus were kept out of places lined with salt. They also supposedly disliked cold-iron. “Cold-iron?” I lifted my brow in interest.
“Iron, basically,” Jude said. He stepped out from behind the counter and walked past me to head to the shelves near the front of the store. He went right to one part and returned in no time at all with a little plastic bag that contained four old-looking nails, “Fae creatures have a superstition that metallurgy is an unnatural practice. They believe it so much that they’ve fooled themselves into making anything iron hurt them, a lot. It’s one of the few ways that normal men and women can combat them. Lemons and limes are also bad for them, and salt.”
“Really,” I said, holding out my hand and having the nails placed there.
“Forged wrought iron, none of that cut or wire stuff,” Jude said, “That makes it a bit hard to find now-a-days. Only people building arks use straight-up wrought iron.”
“Is that true?” I asked, feeling very inclined to believe it.
“Of course that’s not true!” Percy cut in, “That’s just a hoax to get you to buy a bunch of old nails.”
“It’s in all the books!” Jude argued, “It’s true, and people like you are the reason we don’t sell anything around here. At least try to pitch a sale, Percy! Honestly!”
“Whatever!” Percy threw his arms up, “Can I go get lunch now?!”
Jude sighed, “Yeah, go on. Remember, you only get a half-hour.”
Percy moved out from behind the counter and walked past me. I put the book and the nails back on the counter and nodded to Jude before turning to head out myself. As much as it sounded like buying a few nails would be helpful, I didn’t actually have any money. I only worked when school was on break and even then I don’t make much more than just spending money working at my older brother and sister’s gaming store. I was thinking I should have asked Alex anyway if anything in that store was legitimate. She would have known that way better than I would, and Jude looked desperate to sell just about anything so I couldn’t just trust his word.
I followed Percy outside, who stepped down off the curb and started making his way down the street. I stepped down and turned in the opposite direction to head towards the library.
“Hey, wait a second,” Percy called to me, and he walked over to me.
I looked over him from his skinny jeans up until I reached his face. “What?” I asked.
“Look, I don’t know what your whole thing with this magic and superstition stuff is, but don’t let my Dad talk you into buying any of his junk, okay?” He said, “You’re weird, but you’re good-looking so I wouldn’t want to see you burning your money away like that. None of his stuff even does anything, it’s just a bunch of pretty-smelling plants and decorations.”
“Really?” I blinked.
Percy blinked back at me. “What?” He asked, “You’re cute, sorta… I mean… for a… whatever gender you are.”
He looked at my black baggy pants and then back up at my face and he shrugged.
I shook my head and chose to ignore him. “I mean you really think it doesn’t work?” I asked.
Percy just kind of got some tight-jawed look and he stared at me in disbelief. “Uh, yeah,” He said, “It’s just my Dad’s stupid hobby and he dragged me down here just to open that stupid store. It really doesn’t mean anything.”
I stopped, just remembering that normal people didn’t think that magic was real. It was me who wasn’t normal, so the train of thought I was on had to change rails pretty fast.
“Oh… yeah, right, magic isn’t a thing,” I said, looking back down the street towards the store, “Looks pretty cool though…”
“Sure, whatever,” Percy raised a hand and waved it at me defensively, “Look, only real weirdos buy stuff from my Dad. Just don’t, okay?”
“Oookay,” I shrugged my shoulders. Percy turned and left then to head towards one of the restaurants nearby no doubt. When he was gone I turned and went back into the store. I stepped in and Jude came running out only to look confused when he saw me.
I walked back up to the counter and looked at the books that lined the shelf behind Jude. “Do you have any books on… magic spells?” I asked, trying to read the titles of the books from where I stood. They had titles like ‘Amulets and Talismans for Beginners’ and ‘Golden Secrets and Mystic Oils.’ I think one of the more ridiculous ones I saw was ‘The Love Magic Book: Potions for Passion and Recipes for Romance.’ I really wasn’t sure what to expect from him.
“You’re darn right I do!” Jude said, moving over to the shelves again, “How about the Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells? Maybe the Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard?”
“Err…” I was uncertain, “Do you have any that are, um… more legit?”
Jude gave me a funny look. “Legit?” he asked, “Little miss, everything in this store is legit! What do you even mean legit? You mean in the practical sense? Like actually making magic?”
“Sure,” I nodded.
Jude hummed and hawed over the idea, pondering to himself obviously for a few moments before he snapped back into reality with a jerking lift of his head. “Well let me tell you something about magic,” he said, “I don’t know much of it. Many people say it isn’t real, but then many people probably just can’t do it. But if you’re looking for books, then there’re a few you really should keep.”
He held out a finger, “One! A Book of Shadows. Your Book of Shadows is used by wizards to record lesson notes. You never know when you’re going to need them, right?”
He lifted a second finger, “Two, get yourself a Grimoire. Any time you learn a new spell or need to record a ritual, it’ll go in there. It’ll be your magic cookbook.”
“Fortunately, I sell proper books for such a thing; like these!” Jude turned around, took two big, thick books off of the shelf, and dropped them onto the counter in front of me. They made a big, loud thud when they hit the countertop that made me jump a bit. I took a look at the books, opening it to examine its empty pages.
Jude smiled, “I price them both at $59.99 each.”
“Whoa,” I closed the books and stepped back as if the sixty-dollar price tag was going to catch fire and burn me, “Uh, you know what? I can’t really do that. Sorry.”
“No good for you, eh?” Jude picked the books back up in a hurry and stuffed them back onto the shelf, “Well any book will work just as well, or anywhere you can write things.”
I glanced down at my pocket. “So… my phone?” I asked.
“Sure! Yeah!” Jude said, “But I’d prefer it if you bought my books. Plus, technology doesn’t work very well with magic I hear. It’s all covered in this book, ‘Hexes and You.’ Right here, see?”
Jude pulled another book off the shelves and I started to get the feeling that I was going through the motions with him. He was just trying to pawn whatever he could off on me, it was so obvious… I shook my head and sighed. The shop was a waste of my time so I turned around to leave.
“W-Wait! Wait!” Jude scrambled, and I heard books fall onto the floor as he dug through them quickly. I ignored him and walked to the door, stopping only to look back and see him knocking things off the back end of the counter in his rush to find something to sell me. He tripped and stumbled, but snagged something off the countertop and held it up like he was brandishing it.
“Of Mice and Magic!” He proclaimed, holding up a pamphlet, “Perfect for you! Goes over the two big schools of magic!”
“Uh…” I hesitated.
“Evocation and Thaumaturgy,” He went on, “No student of the arcane arts should ever be without it!”
The man was panting as he stared at me. I watched him, wary, and said, “How much…?”
Jude held up one fully open hand. “Five bucks,” He panted.
I kept watching him for a little before I turned around and made my way to him. His face lit up when I did that, and when I got to the counter I slapped a little bit of my allowance I get every week, from my mom for watching Fraise and doing chores, down onto the countertop before snatching the little pamphlet out of his hand. Jude didn’t even wait for me to leave and celebrated with a mighty fist-pump and a hissed ‘yessss’ when he opened the cash register and dropped the money inside.
“You won’t be sorry, apprentice magician!” He said. I felt it to be a little condescending.
I rolled my eyes. “I hope not,” I muttered, turning and leaving the store.
When I stepped outside and moved in front of the store’s display window again, I looked in the window at the objects sitting on the shelves. I reached out and put my hand on the glass window, and I concentrated. I took all the uncertainty and doubt I had in my mind and did my best to make it into a little ball with my will. I concentrated and thought about pushing it out, and imagined a sort of pinball machine or mirror that I was shining a light into. I thought about it, but my will just sat there. I thought I felt it in the tips of my fingers, but I just couldn’t make anything happen. Eventually the feeling just popped and was gone. I sighed.
When Alex touched me, I could feel her magic, her will… But I didn’t feel anything in there. Maybe it really was just some kind of hoax, set up by some guy who just really liked the whole mystic and arcane business. As impressive as the inside was, with all its voodoo mumbo jumbo, decorative dreamcatchers, and a surprisingly cramped space, it just didn’t feel magic. It just felt like a regular old store stuffed full of weird things. What I wanted to do is see if I could somehow get any possible magic energy to react to my own – if Alex’s touch made me tingle because I was magic, then I thought that all magic reacted to will. Either that wasn’t the case or I was just barking up the wrong tree.
I turned and lifted the pamphlet to look at it while keeping my math books tucked under my arm. I opened it up and briefly skimmed the headings. Evocation and Thaumaturgy… Two schools of magic most commonly used by wizards and magicians, or so it said. I kept looking it over when I pushed away from the store to carry on to the library.
Magic was controlled by will and implemented by power, and conceived by intelligence and the imagination. A magic user could take in energy, shape it with their will, and then release it. The left side of someone’s body is typically what takes in the magic, and the right side is what’s supposed to release it. Apparently all wizards are left-handed when they hold their staves for this purpose… which was something I definitely never noticed before. Alex didn’t say anything about that… which meant it could have been bogus.
Large spells took more will and energy than small spells, and small spells are supposedly best exemplified by “Evocation” – the quickest, most dangerous form of magic.
Evocation is your magic words. It’s the sort of magic where you push your hand out, say “abracadabra” and then make something happen. The main ingredient in Evocation spells is belief – a spell caster who doesn’t think they can cast a spell, won’t cast the spell no matter what. After that, it’s just the right amount of will exertion and a good imagination. If you can’t perfectly picture what you’re trying to do, the spell lacks the focus needed to go off. The magic words themselves don’t even need to make sense, like “abracadabra” or “alakazam.” What the words are for is giving your magic a shape or form to release, triggering the spell. The word could be anything as long as it helped you ultimately envision the end result. It’s a real ‘something from nothing’ sort of deal that just requires practice to accomplish, and the gift of magic.
Thaumaturgy on the other hand is a magical connection between one person or object to another. Often activated by small rituals, feeding magic from a spell caster to something left behind by a person or something of deep significance to something else, can cause a resonance the caster can then use to track down whatever it was they were then connected to. It could also be used to affect a person or object at a distance using magic. Voodoo dolls are the best example, wherein pushing a pin into a doll after giving it a little magic juice would cause pain in its target. All the doll needs is some hair or something to connect it to a victim; and the stronger the likeness, the better for concentration. It takes longer to cast than Evocation by a fair amount.
The pamphlet didn’t cover much more than that, and by the time I was done reading it I was sitting in the library already, switching focus between the pamphlet and my math homework in the silence of the place. It sounded so simple, but was actually much harder. Alex taught me all that when she had me go orgasm-crazy all over myself when trying to get me to use lust as a source of energy for the first time. Maybe it failed back then because I wasn’t sure I could do it… but then, I could close my Third Eye just fine, probably because I thought it was my damn eye and I could close it when I wanted to.
Thinking I could do something was easy, but I had no way of knowing what counted as a large spell or a small spell. In theory, fireballs are small spells, and gusts of wind, and maybe even small thunderbolts. I guess if I wanted to do something like make it rain frogs all over everyone in town; that might have taken longer and needed some kind of ritual to do it. That sounded easy enough, if I knew what to do… But that begged the question, how was I supposed to get a Boo Hag back into the Nevernever? Would that have been Thaumaturgy?
And then, was any of it even true? I flipped the pamphlet over and opened the fold-out pages to try and find some kind of author name, but found none. I had no idea if the information was even remotely credible.
I put the pamphlet down and planted my elbow on the table I was working at. I held up one finger in front of me and concentrated. I reached for everything I could, all the doubt and desire to actually make a spell, and tried to bundle it all up and push it out the only way I could think of.
“Chandelle,” I said. Nothing happened, I lost my grip on my will, and then it was gone.
I took a deep breath and tried again. “Chandelle,” I chanted after gathering what I thought was enough energy, but it all poofed out again and nothing happened.
I tried again a few more times, “Chandelle, chandelle, chandelle…”
Nothing, nothing, nothing. I just didn’t have it, and the more frustrated I got the harder it was to focus. Eventually I was just grabbing at nothing.
“Chandelle” means “candle,” by the way. I could have said “bougie,” but “chandelle” sounds more romantic. It should be obvious what I was trying to do: I tried imagining opening a lighter or something and making a flame flicker on, but it wasn’t working out. A little fire should have started right on the tip of my finger, but I just got nothing for all my effort. Sometimes it felt like something was going to happen, only to be blue-balled right before it could. I wasn’t sure what I was doing wrong…
“Gah, piece of crap,” I grumbled, crumpling up the pamphlet I bought and throwing it away.
I thought maybe Alex would know what to do, so I pushed it all out of my head and reached over to pull my math homework so it settled in front of me. I looked up for a moment and looked around at the gathering of tables in a big open area in the library, seeing other people there. Three of them were sleeping where they were reading books just a little while earlier… some of the other ones looked pretty tired. The Boo Hag must have been making the rounds. It’d been almost a week since I saw it in my room, and I started to wonder how it got around so quickly. Then again, if it was supernatural, maybe it could have gotten all the way across town in no time.
I could have sworn I saw someone looking at me when I looked around the first time, but when I checked again everyone was either asleep or had their nose buried in their books. I shivered and shook my head. That was enough magic for one day, I had math homework to get done. I picked up my pencil, sharpened it with the sharpener out of my pencil case, and then got back to work in my binder. I looked up one last time, just to see if anyone caught me being weird before. I saw nothing again and dipped my head back down to work.
Chapter 9
Foot-smell was sleeping on my locker on Monday. It looked like he managed to open his locker and was using the open door to help keep himself propped up as he mashed his head against my locker and I guess fell asleep. He looked all messed up, his wide-necked maroon shirt exposed his shoulder and his blue skater jeans looked about ready to fall down. It didn’t help that one side was being weighed down by the stupid chain he always wore. I tried to just work around him, but he seriously got in my way, all up against my locker like that. My attempts to wake him up by shaking him a bit were fruitless.
I sighed and turned to look down the hall, maybe to quietly plead for help from someone, when I came face to face with a girl, and she sure surprised me. She wore a black dress, with no straps or anything over her shoulders, and it flowed loosely down to nearly her ankles. It exposed one of her legs to about the thigh, and she was wearing some white leggings and some high-heeled, small boots. She was some kind of lizard or something, she had all green scales and no hair except for some reptilian spines. She stared at me, but for a fraction of a second her eyes looked in two different directions before she was focused on me again.
“Hello,” She said. I had to look up at her, she was taller than me.
I kind of tilted my head and reluctantly returned her greeting. I didn’t really like the way she was staring at me, smiling like some weirdo. “Uh, hi,” I said.
She had a purse shouldered, and she started digging through it to pull out the crumpled pamphlet I threw away at the library the day before. “You dropped this in the library,” She said, “I must return it to you.”
I looked at the crumpled up paper that she had obviously tried to smooth out again. I reached up and took it, crumpling it up again and shoving it into the pocket of my denim skirt. When I grabbed it, the girl let go a little too soon and almost dropped it, the klutz. “Thanks,” I said, turning back toward my locker.
“The stars said I would find another,” She said.
My ear twitched. I turned my head stiffly and eyed her. I was ready to bolt if she made any sudden move to, like, grab me or something.
“You’re interested in the practices of the spiritual arts,” She smiled, “You should join our club…”
“Uuuugh,” I groaned and bumped my forehead against my locker, which effectively woke up Foot-smell. He snorted awake and looked at me and the girl before offering up a tired, stupid grin. He excused himself with some ‘mondo dude’ thing or whatever and got out of the way.
The Occult Club… Percy talked about them so much, but I never really thought about them actually being a thing. Now they had their sights set on me, and I quickly realized why Percy didn't like them. They probably went around recruiting anyone who even showed a hint of interest in their weird occult stuff. I think the school only gave them the okay to start the club because it could squeak by on claims that they had merits in ancient history. I didn’t want anything to do with that, I had enough to worry about with real magic. When I turned my head, she was still standing there… but then there was another one. She was shorter, heavier-set, and dressed a lot like the first one aside from some minor modifications and weird fur make-up. She was also a golden Labrador. The cleavage those dresses made was… apparent, but so was the fact that the two of them were complete space-cases.
“You would fit right in,” The lizard-girl said, “You obviously have an interest in the dark arts.”
“I don’t,” I said, trying to ignore them so I can open my locker. I watched them warily when I dialed in my locker combination, just to see if they were watching. Between looking away and back again, a third one had shown up. I decided to affectionately call her ‘Potato,’ because she was a little butterball of a hamster, thick and lumpy, like a potato. She also stared at me like a vegetable, like the other two.
I ignored them and got my books out of my locker for my next class, French Language Studies. They still didn’t leave by the time I had my books and closed my locker, so I turned to them and tried to be as blunt edge as possible.
I said, “Your club is dumb.”
The girls looked a little stunned. The lizard girl shakily came back at me with, “But… but… you have to!”
“I don’t have to do anything,” I shrugged.
When I turned to leave, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I stopped and tried to turn around, but I felt the grip tighten over my shoulder. The girl tried to dig her fingers in as hard as she could, and using that grip she spun me around and pushed me back against my locker. I was face to face with the golden lab. She was taller than me too, but not as tall as the lizard.
“You don’t understand,” She said.
I looked down the hall, seeing Vice Principal Mr. Larson standing too many feet away from me to actually be of any help. He also wasn’t paying attention. Again. I turned my head back to look at the girl and reached up to push her arm away from me.
“Knock it… off!” I said. I pushed as hard as I could, my arm shaking to do it. I wasn’t using my other arm because I didn’t want to drop my books. I put every ounce of strength I had into the push, but the girl just strong-armed me. That was weird, since she was no Freddie Mac-G or anything, she was way too thin to be an athlete or even very physically fit. She squeezed my shoulder tighter, tight enough to make the joint pop. It didn’t dislocate or anything, but I got a sudden pain in my arm that made me gasp, and as soon as I backed off the girl slammed me up against my locker again.
My whole arm tingled and buzzed as she said, “The Nevernever is real, Cookie.”
I stopped everything and just stared at her. She said “the Nevernever.” She didn’t say Neverland, she didn’t say Other-World or anything like that. She very specifically said “Nevernever” and made a point to emphasize it. Alex said that only people ‘in the know’ refer to it by that name, and as far as I figured, no one would even believe it existed. But this girl wasn’t saying it in passing or anything like that – she said it to me, and she just watched my face go from anger to realization without even cracking a little smile. She was serious.
“She knows,” The lizard girl smiled. Her glee was a little too malicious for my taste. I was starting to get freaked out now. Did those girls know I was magic? And if they did… how? I was starting to think their coming to me wasn’t just a coincidence.
Suddenly, something slammed against the locker next to us. A long stick separated the lab from the two other girls, and everyone followed the length of it to its end. The stick was a composite lacrosse stick shaft – you know, lacrosse? The game that’s basically hockey played in a grass field? Tossing balls into nets with weird scoopy sticks? And the one holding it was… Percy. He stood there with a big duffle bag slung over his shoulder that probably had a whole bunch of other lacrosse equipment in it. Theory was at that point that he was on the school’s lacrosse team; because a school couldn’t have too many teams. He was wearing one of his hoodies again and a skinny pair of jeans over his tall, lanky frame, as usual.
“Whoa, whoa, ladies, please,” He grinned, letting himself slide along the stick until he came to rest against the lockers. He propped his elbow on it and struck a leaning pose to try and look… I dunno, good?
“There’s no need to fight over me,” He said.
Dog-breath let go of me and I uncomfortably adjusted my turtleneck. “No one’s fighting over you,” She said.
Percy looked over his shoulder at the Labrador and turned to face her instead. He pushed off the lockers with his stick and planted it butt-end on the ground. “Oh! So you’re just fighting then,” He said. He blinked then, “Hey, you’re not picking on the little kid, are ya?”
“We’re not picking on anybody,” The girl growled.
“Cookie likes magic, she had a pamphlet from your Dad’s store,” The lizard girl added.
“What!” Percy slapped an open palm to his forehead and he stared at me, “I told you not to buy anything from there! Now look what you’ve gone and done. These vultures are never gonna let you go now!”
“Unless…” Percy smirked. He reached into the pocket of his hoodie then and pulled out a necklace. On the end of it was some kind of six-pointed star on a circular pendant made out of silver. He held the necklace out towards the Labrador, who backed away rather suddenly.
“That’s the Pentacle of Solomon!” She said.
“Not fair!” The lizard girl shouted at him, “You know that we’re bound by spirits from beyond!”
“That’s what you said, anyway,” Percy turned rather suddenly when the lizard girl took a step closer to him and he shoved the necklace in her face. He laughed when her eyes bugged out in two separate directions and she stumbled away with Potato.
“You’re agitating the dark ones!” The Labrador said.
“You’re agitating me,” Percy shrugged, “Just lay off, Cassie. She’s not interested in your clubhouse.”
“Occult Club!” Cassie, the Labrador, grit her teeth.
“Whatever,” Percy shrugged again, “Don’t you guys have candles to light or something?”
For a while Cassie just stood there staring at the necklace Percy held out, watching it dangle. Eventually she said, “Come on… Jessica. We’ll be late. For… class.”
“Yes,” The lizard girl nodded, “Class.”
Potato, who had just remained incredibly silent through the whole thing, just nodded. The girls gathered up and sulked away, staring and glaring at Percy and me when they left. I sighed when they disappeared among the students walking from class to class and I slumped back against my locker. When I looked up, Percy was standing over me.
“Hey, you okay?” He blinked, “Did those nutbags actually hurt you?”
I had to take a moment to actually realize I wasn’t hurt, really. Even my shoulder popping was just a thing, not really an injury of any kind. I was a little… phased, I guess, but I was mostly focused on the girl’s, Cassie’s, mention of the Nevernever.
“They said something about the Nevernever…” I mumbled, ignoring Percy. I was kind of off in my own little world, “How could they… Are they…?”
“Uh, hey?” Percy waved his lacrosse stick in front of my face, “Earth to cute boy-girl nerd? Planet Earth, calling all weird shemale nerds; come in, shemale nerd.”
I snapped out of my thoughts and shot Percy a look, “Seriously, dude.”
“Hey, I’m just making sure you’re okay! That looked like some serious bullying or something,” Percy said, shooting a look in the direction the Occult Club girls had left in, “I mean, they’re nuts, but I’ve never seen them act like that before.”
I tilted my head. “They’re not always like that…?” I asked.
“Heck no!” Percy said, “They used to follow me around because my Dad owns that stupid store, but that was it. They’re stalkers, not bullies. I thought they liked me at first, I mean, I could see that… Kind of a shame, they’re kinda hot.”
Percy grinned, and I blinked. “So… what?” I asked.
Percy shrugged. “I dunno, they’re just weird. Weirder than usual, I mean,” He said, looking back at me, “Here.”
He tucked his lacrosse stick against his shoulder and used both hands to place the necklace he had in my hand. “Just hold on to this and they should leave you alone,” He said, “They think it’s some kind of weird magic protection necklace, but we’ve got, like, five others like it back at the store. I started carrying that around when they started getting pushy; because I knew they didn’t like it. They think they’re all connected to the spirit world or something.”
Percy wiggled his fingers a little and made spooky ghost tones when he explained the last bit to me. I’ll admit, I smiled a little and snorted a little laugh.
“Yeah, that’s… that’s stupid,” I said. I lied. Again.
“Right?” Percy smiled, “Anyway, I gotta go to practice. Getting outta last period, booyah! Hey! Me and you, we should see a movie sometime.”
“No,” I said.
“Dinner?” He pressed.
“No,” I said.
“Friendly hug?” He batted his eyes.
“No,” I said.
“You sure?” He asked.
I held out the necklace he gave me and waved it around in his face, and he laughed and backed off. “Okay! Okay! Jeez,” He said, “Just watch out for those nuts, okay? Not your nuts, I mean the girls. I don’t mean your girls, I mean, like, the club girls. You know what I mean.”
“You’re leaving now,” I sighed.
“Yup!” He agreed and took off down the hall quickly.
I sighed again and rested my back against my locker. I took a few deep breaths just to calm down. Ignoring Percy’s idiocy, the thing that was the most important was that some random girl knew of the existence of the Nevernever. I didn’t want to get too involved in that without asking Alex some questions first… but since she didn’t own a cell phone and I didn’t know how to astral project, there was no real way of getting in touch with her until after school. Getting through the day shouldn’t have been too difficult, even if those girls seemed oddly aggressive. Maybe they just didn’t take rejection well, or maybe I shouldn’t have made fun of their club to their faces. I should really just stick to muttering under my breath.
Things were getting so weird.
I’d been thinking that since the very start, but I’d been trying to go along with it as much as I could. I never really took the time to sit back and just adjust myself to my surroundings. There I was, a lone girl in the middle of high school, a social reject who likes to think they’re comfortable in their alienation from the rest of the world, who had just discovered that they’re magic. Not only am I magic, but I was supposedly a part of a very specific group of magic-users who could travel between the real world and a place called the “Nevernever” where creatures pulled straight out of my nightmares were very real. I was being mentored by some… prostitute amazon cat woman whose methodology included bringing me to knee-shaking orgasm. To top it all off, I’d walked into some thrifty occult shop and actually believed in the stuff.
I always considered myself to be grounded by logic. It put me at odds with my mom’s Christian upbringing when I simply chose not to believe in God because there was no definitive proof that he even exists. People have always needed to explain things they couldn’t explain, and they used things like omnipotent beings and creationist theory or big bangs and evolution to do it. Me, well, I always thought that of course things were the way they were for a reason; but I wasn’t ever bothered by not understanding what that reason was. Whether I was the result of God or plankton that grew legs some millions of years ago, it never really mattered to me. I didn’t like poking too far into things, and avoided thinking about bigger-than-big picture stuff. But right then I’d been given a glimpse, literally, into something that I never would have thought was possible.
I looked up and down the hallway and watched the number of students at their lockers shrink as they started going to class. I couldn’t help but think, “Is it really happening everywhere? Even right now?” It made me think that the Occult Club was just irony at its best. The idea that magic and witchcraft had any real effect on reality was nuts to a majority of the modern population, and those girls believed in it in spite of that sort of thing. What’s worse, they were absolutely right about every bit of it, and I couldn’t have been sure they even really realized that. At least, I would have thought that, if that one girl… Cassie; if she hadn’t have said anything about the Nevernever, I wouldn’t have been questioning what I thought I knew.
I wished that I knew more. I wanted to know more about magic, about the history of it and why people didn’t believe in it if it was real. I wanted to know about the Seers and what their whole thing was. I wanted to know about the Nevernever and how things worked in it. I’d only ever gotten glances at it – old dungeons, beautiful fields, barren deserts… It all looked like something pulled out of a high fantasy novel, where humans took weird shapes and every monster they ever imagined ran around somewhere in there. Alex said that Heaven and Hell existed in the Nevernever, making me wonder which came first – the religion, or the places?
But then, as I looked around at the other students, I realized that no one else thought about those sorts of things. There wasn’t an Arcane History class I could just join, and it definitely wasn’t the sort of thing I could talk to other people about. The second I told someone I got attacked by a skinless woman in my bedroom, they would have strapped me in a jacket and locked me in a mental house. Nobody believed in that, it wasn’t real to them. Only I knew it was real, that the gashes across my arm and collar were as real as the monster who made them. Only I knew that someone could reach down into themselves and pluck at an emotion like a harp string, causing a massive reaction. And I knew, I just knew, that I could pull in energy from around me and in me to unleash it in some sort of spell. I could feel that on the tips of my fingers, but I couldn’t actually do it. Nobody else felt that way, nobody at all.
After a while, the halls were empty. Everyone was in their classrooms and just doing their thing, and there I was all alone out in the hall. It was fitting, in a way. I’d always been weird, tried not to talk to people, picked last for sports teams in gym class, and sometimes just avoided by people who were uncomfortable because of my body or just me. I had a good reason to make people uncomfortable then. I saw monsters, and I fought those using abilities that I could imagine some government facility trying to probe me to find out more about.
Before, I was used to being by myself. I liked being by myself. No one bugged me, no one distracted me; it was just me doing whatever I wanted to do. But I wasn’t so sure anymore that it was such a good thing. Mom always said that idle hands were the devil’s plaything, and my hands were pretty dangerous in theory. There wasn’t much I could do about it though. The best I could come up with was just reminding myself every now and then that there were other things to think about. I had a normal life to live past all that magic and mysticism. What I’d do with it though… I didn’t know. I kind of just didn’t know anything at the time.
I’d spent so much time trying to ignore things that I didn’t have any idea how I was going to adjust. The problem wasn’t going to go away, so I had to figure it out, and fast.
I managed to make it to Career Studies class just in time for the bell.
(For anyone paying attention that means my day goes like this: Math > English > Lunch > French > Career Studies.)
The class is exactly what it says on the tin: it’s about studying the concept of careers. It’s also the kind of thing that I should remind myself of when it comes to being a magical guardian against the denizens of the Nevernever. In that class, I was supposed to learn the skills I needed to actually find a job or go to college or university after I graduate high school. We were going to cover things like resume building and cover letters, as well as understanding the rights and responsibilities of employees in the workplace. Eventually we’d learn about conducting interviews and looking at workplace trends, and then we’d kick it all off by looking into specific fields that we could pursue. It was mandatory that I take the course, so I didn't have a choice.
I didn’t like the class. They always wanted me to know what I wanted to do when I was done school, but who knows that when they’re just getting into the tenth grade? I always argued that things could change between the two points; and with the development of my new, fancy magical know-how, I was totally right. Before, I figured I could just go and land any job I wanted for bilingual speakers: I could be a flight attendant, or a tour guide, or design signs and stuff in two languages, or some kind of service representative… or just a translator. There were all kinds of government jobs I could have gotten just being able to speak French and English as well as I could. Now I was magic though, so maybe I should have started looking into being a stage performer – it was funny to think I could perform real illusions and not just sleight-of-hand.
If I did that though, I wasn’t sure what would happen if I got caught. Magic and real life just don’t mesh well.
I felt like if I learned even one more ounce of knowledge, my head was going to explode. Math, magic, English, magic, French, magic, and now careers and magic? How was I expected to deal with all that? Not to mention that the whole magic thing came with its own brand of paranoia. I couldn’t stop thinking about those Occult Club girls the whole time I was sitting there in class. I never remembered seeing them, or even hearing about their little group until just recently. Then they show up seemingly out of the blue and are all over me like white on rice… conveniently mentioning the Nevernever at such a time where I had just learned about it and my own abilities not long before. The more I thought about it, the more uncomfortable I felt. Something was wrong, I just knew it.
I ended up being distracted the whole class, but I’m pretty sure it was going through some “right to refuse unsafe work” and crap like that. It didn’t matter, careers could wait until after school. Heck the whole thing wouldn’t have mattered if I woke up with a Boo Hag on my bed again. I wouldn’t have been able to get a job shaking fry baskets in a fast food place without any skin. Rather than worry about it, I went straight to Alex’s after school so I could explain to her what happened. When I got there, Alex’s husband, Zeroelle let me in, and I found Alex just… doing the dishes in mom jeans and some overly big t-shirt like she’d been home all day.
I say “Alex’s husband Zeroelle,” but Zeroelle isn’t a man – as far as I can tell, she’s a woman. She likes to wear masculine clothes though, and usually something sharp-looking. She was wearing some untucked button-up and some corduroys when I came in, a black and white set like she always seems to wear even though it kind of blends with her Siberian husky fur. Alex assured me that Zeroelle was fine for being around when I talked about magic and stuff. Apparently, she already knew all about it. I guessed that their marriage didn’t have any secrets.
So I told Alex the whole story about what happened at school.
“So… you’re saying that these girls are just regular-old school girls?” Zeroelle asked, turning towards me as she casually dried a plate her wife had set in the dish rack at the kitchen sink. “You’re sure there’s nothing special about them?”
“Huh?” I blinked, “Well, no, I mean… When Alex touches me, I feel all funny. When they touch me I don’t feel weird at all.”
Zeroelle gave her wife a sideways glance and very lightly shook her head. “I’ll bet,” She grunted.
Alex smiled at her husband and then looked over her shoulder at me. “Well,” She said, “It’s perfectly reasonable to think that, yes, these girls did connect to the Nevernever. Even without magical abilities, people can still manage it.”
“How?” I asked as I stood there in their kitchen.
“Rituals, mostly,” Zeroelle explained. She gave up her glaring at her wife and started putting the dishes away in various drawers and cupboards after drying each one. “I remember a fiction writer who described the process as being like a ‘cosmic vending machine.’ Do you know what that means?”
I shook my head.
“Well, when you put money in a vending machine and push a button, something comes out,” Zeroelle explained, “It’s actually a clever comparison. See, when you perform a ritual, all you’re really doing is putting money in and pushing a button; metaphorically speaking, that is. In the literal case of performing a ritual, there are more steps than that. It would be similar to… having to push seven buttons just to get your soda.”
“Except in this case, that fizzy drink is something out of the Nevernever,” Alex added, “And not a drink at all.”
“That would be the other important question,” Zeroelle said, “If they really got in touch with the Nevernever, opened a door maybe… did something come out? Did they say?”
“No,” I said, “But they name-dropped the Nevernever, like… on purpose.”
“Do they maybe sense her power?” Alex asked, looking at her wife.
Zeroelle shrugged, “She said they were completely normal. But yes, that doesn’t explain why they would target Cookie specifically…”
Alex and Zeroelle just looked at each other for a few moments without saying a word. They both turned their attention to me when Alex unplugged the kitchen sink and let the water drain out. “I believe it’s worth investigating,” Alex said. She took the dry cloth from Zeroelle when she finished her work, and used it to dry her hands.
“At least find out where they did this,” Zeroelle said, “And then go and see the place for yourself. We may be dealing with mortals who know more than they ought to. We’ll see, depending on what you see.”
I kind of looked around the clean kitchen. “And then what?” I asked.
“That really depends on what you discover,” Alex said, “Until then we can’t really tell you anything.”
I felt weird just leaving it like that, and I looked to Alex for something that I thought might be related. “Hey, so… how do I open doors to the Nevernever anyway?” I asked, “If everyone can do it with rituals, what makes me so special?”
“Mm,” Alex tapped her lip thoughtfully, “What makes you special, Cookie, is that you don’t need a ritual. You don’t need an anchor point to secure the door because…”
“You’re a walking hotspot, child,” Zeroelle cut in, “While everyone else is looking for a coffee shop to set up their laptops, you can do it from wherever you wish. Once again, that’s metaphorically speaking.”
“You have a special sort of sense,” Alex explained, “Though you’re so new at this, I doubt you’d really realize it yet. You can feel the barrier between the Nevernever and our world, something that most spell casters could only do when the barrier is experiencing a strong turbulence in an area. You, my precious, can do so at all times. That’s what makes it easy for you to create doorways.”
“All you’ve got to do is reach out and tear the thing a new arse,” Zeroelle said. After a pause, she smiled, “And I mean that one literally.”
“With your will,” Alex added, “Not literally… well you know what we mean. That’s why getting a handle on your will is so bloody important for you. Believe me, dear, there are only a handful of people like you left who can even do that.”
“Really?” I tilted my head to lend a curious ear to them, “Were there more?”
“There always ‘was more;’ that’s always the way these things go, isn’t it?” Zeroelle said nudging her wife, “This seems like a good opportunity for you to give the girl a few pointers, don’t you think?”
“Oh, is it?” Alex blinked a few times and then stepped towards me, “Well, perhaps Zeroelle is right. Let’s try and practice with your will while you’re here. I’ll send you along for your nosh before dinner time comes around.”
Alex turned me around and walked out of the kitchen with her hands on my shoulders, leading me. Zeroelle called after us, “And no parading around in your underwear!”
“Well,” Alex clicked her tongue, “Now you’re just stifling me, love.”
I spent the next hour up in Alex’s attic with her. She lit some candles and guided me into a relaxed state, trying to coach me through the process of taking hold of certain emotions and sensations. She told me about being able to drum up certain feelings just from memory, and then tried to teach me how to take my will and project it from my body. She kept referring to it as an out of body experience, achieved by never actually leaving your body. There’s supposed to be a certain level of understanding in the world around you that is key to making it work – knowing how air moves around objects, or knowing the mechanism of a door from one side or the other, it’s all pretty important for that sort of thing. The more I knew about the way things interacted in the real world, the better an understanding I had in creating various effects through the use of will.
Me in particular though, I’m supposed to have a very special ability. As soon as I start messing with the flow of magical energies around me, I’m supposed to feel the barrier between the Nevenever and the real world touching my form. Alex described it as the world’s most comfortable cocoon. Normally, no one would ever be able to feel it enclosed around them, even though it is everywhere and around everyone. But when I get down to it, Alex said I’d feel like something was rubbing against me from all sides. From there, I have the unique challenge of having to break that feeling and cut out a spot for me and my spellcasting.
One benefit, though, is that the barrier was a sort of energy in itself. That energy taps into everything I do, every spell I cast, to make it more powerful… with the offset of being more difficult to control. Where most spell casters worked on one channel, I’m required to work with two at the same time. Lucky me.
“If you can do that,” Alex said, “If you can get those energies to resonate inside of you at just the right sync… you have one up on other spell casters, even for your age. That makes you very dangerous, especially with your ability to create doorways at will. These doorways could allow you to summon or banish almost anything to that plane, or allow you to travel seamlessly through the Nevernever – a dangerous undertaking, but you could go many miles in the span of a short walk if you learned the Ways.”
“You just need to open not only your mind, but your body and spirit as well,” She said, “In a way I couldn’t even begin to describe to you. Most Seers grow into this ability naturally, but you’ll have to find your way. It will become easier in time.”
“I feel like it’s just stuck inside me,” I explained to her as I sat there on the floor cross-legged, “It’s there. I know it’s there, but it gets stuck.”
“If this makes any sense at all… you need to become transparent,” Alex paced around me, “Feeling the barrier against you, and feeling the will inside you… you need to let it flow through your person as if you were a screen door. It’s not going to be easy… Perhaps if you experiment with your Third Eye. Seeing the Nevernever may allow you to touch it with greater ease, and improve your awareness.”
“I could try that,” I opened my eyes then and looked up at Alex, “I’ve been keeping it closed really good.”
Alex smiled at me. “And I’m proud of you for that,” She said, “That is an accomplishment, even if it feels small. Be aware, though, that if you open your eye, you’re going to see things that will stay with you. You’ll never forget the way a person looked when you peeled away the visage that your mortal perceptions impart upon them. I don’t recommend looking at anyone unless you’re ready to accept what you’ll see.”
“The kids at school didn’t look too weird…” I said, “Kind of expected half the things I saw. Benjamin Dale, he’s got a huge anger problem, and he looked like some big fire demon. It was scary, but you know…”
“Well, that means no using it here,” Alex crossed her arms.
“Huh? Why not?” I asked.
Alex just shook her head. “That’s one thing I don’t think you’re ready for,” She said, “… Let’s say that looking at other magic users can be a startling experience.”
I didn’t see what the big deal was, so without saying anything I just released the grip on my Third Eye. All I got for my efforts was Alex’s palm in my face, and a jolt of energy that sent me to the floor. I landed on my back feeling like I just touched an electric fence, my whole body numb and tingling like when she first opened my Third Eye on her doorstep. I couldn’t move my arms or my legs or anything, and all I could do was stare up at the unfinished ceiling stuffed with fiberglass insulation.
“I said not here,” Alex almost growled at me, she sounded way more pissed off than I’d ever heard, too, “That was just a warning. Next time I’ll really box your ears.”
“H’okay…” I managed a hoarse sort of whisper as my joints all buzzed. Suddenly, I really didn’t feel like arguing with her over it.
“Now, when you regain the use of your limbs, you can kindly chivvy along and see yourself home,” Alex said, and she went to the drop-down for the attic, “I need to start supper, and you need to get home before your dear old mum starts to worry.”
I tried to lift my arm and give her a thumbs up, but my body wouldn’t react at all. I just kept staring up at the ceiling, feeling dumb and surprised. Alex took my silence as an affirmative and disappeared down the steps, leaving them open assumedly for me when I was able to get down. I did, though I was dragging myself because my legs felt more like cheese string than actual limbs. I managed to even make it home all right too… just, I wasn’t about to tell anyone that I got owned by a magical cat.
It became pretty obvious what I had to do next – I had to talk with those Occult Club girls and see where they made contact with the Nevernever… while practicing my magic, and trying not to forget my math homework. A Seer’s job is never really done, I guess.
Chapter 10
I’m not sure what I expected walking into the Occult Club meeting room. The room itself was just one of the independent study areas in the library. Those were nestled into small rooms off to the side, with no actual study materials in them that students would actually want to use. The few shelves in those rooms were there just to hold out-of-date encyclopedias no less than six years old. Other than that, the rooms only had a round table and about four chairs each to their name. Those chairs often got taken and never returned, and sometimes other chairs from within the library ended up in the club meeting rooms, so the exact number of chairs varied on an hourly basis. I’ve stolen chairs out of there lots of times, and no one has ever stopped me.
There were decorations on the walls, which was good because they were just eggshell white otherwise. Since the rooms were shared by multiple clubs, the decorations didn’t match each other. There were pictures of cartoon school girls for the anime club, some kind of astronomy mobile hanging from the ceiling in one spot, and for some reason a sticker depicting a waffle was stuck to the wall by the door. The occult club’s decorations came from little straw dolls they’d made and hung off of the shelves. The straw was all done up to look kind of like a person, with arms and legs made by tying the straw together with ribbon. They were creepy-looking, mostly because they’d all been hung off the shelves by what I assumed were their necks and were dangling there. Hung straw men. Very unsettling.
No sign of the Occult Club around…
I didn’t know their schedule or anything, so I was really just guessing like an idiot by randomly showing up to their meeting room. Fortunately, I brought my French homework with me to finish up as a contingency in case I found myself just wasting time during the lunch period. I didn’t want to sit in that stupid little room though, so I turned to leave and find a more comfy spot somewhere in the library.
I stopped and stared at Cassie without even flinching when I turned to find her standing in the doorway right behind me. It was weird, I didn’t even hear her and her friends show up, but they all stood in a little bunch and kept me from leaving. I held my binder against my chest as if it’d be some kind of shield, in case one of them tried to grab me again.
“What are you doing here, Cookie?” Cassie asked.
Jessica, the green lizard girl, looked at me from over Cassie’s shoulder and asked, “Did you reconsider our…”
“No,” I cut her off.
“Oh,” She kind of disappeared behind Cassie again.
“Well then,” Cassie said as she stepped forwards. I stepped back to keep at least a little distance between her and me. It seemed like she wouldn’t have stopped walking even if I didn’t move. I didn’t stop until my butt hit the table.
“What are you doing here then?” Cassie asked again, “If you don’t want to join, then what could you want with us?”
I tried to think of a way to word my question so that I didn’t seem too interested or even too aware of what the Nevernever was. “Well, you said you actually touched the, uh, Neverland?” I asked, playing dumb.
“Nevernever,” Jessica corrected me.
I looked at her and shrugged. “Yeah, Nevermore, whatever,” I said. She glared at me, and I masterfully refrained from smiling. “What is that?” I asked.
“As if you don’t know!” Cassie stepped around me and hopped up to sit on the table. I had to admit, the way those black dresses they always wore made them look was… neat. Like some kind of attractive gothic sort of girls, with smooth fur or scales or whatever, and eye-shadow make-up in dark colours. The dresses were sized just a little too small. Somehow though, I managed to pay attention to what they were saying rather than how the upper hemline squeezed their boobs just a little bit to make them spill over. It must have been because I thought they were a bunch of psychos. Yeah, that was probably it.
“The Nevernever is the Fairy World!” Cassie said, “It’s the place where all fairy creatures live; everything the mainstream media would have us think is make-belief! It’s all real, and it’s all there.”
“The creatures there are what all the movies and books are based off of,” Jessica added.
Potato, whose name I still didn’t know, added nothing. She just waddled to a seat and sat down.
You know, I didn’t even have to work too hard in giving them the most ‘are you serious right now’ expression I think I had ever done up until that point in my life. I must have bunched up my eyebrows and curled my lip in some kind of upper-lip pout that only professional boxers should have been able to pull off. It’s like they were right, but wrong at the same time… so close, yet so far. The monsters didn’t come from there, supposedly… they came from us and were placed there. Somehow. I ended up just kind of confusing myself then.
“Uh,” I paused, “What?”
“So you really don’t know?” Jessica stared at me with her bug-eyes leaning in to study my face. I leaned away from her and tried pushing her away.
“Don’t know what?” I asked, frustrated, “That you guys saw a bunch of fairies? That’s stupid and doesn’t sound very occult at all.”
Jessica gasped, “It has everything to do with the occult! It’s where black magic comes from!”
Again, that wasn’t true at all, so I just shook my head. “This is dumb,” I said, “Forget it.”
Since I wasn’t being blocked in, I pushed off the table to walk out the door. My bluff worked, because before I could get too far, Cassie was on her feet and coming after me.
“Wait!” She said.
She touched my shoulder and I turned around quickly. She had yanked her hand away from me when I did and was holding her wrist like she’d been surprised or even hurt. I stared at her curiously and placed my hand on my shoulder to rub out the heebie-jeebies she gave me. I just waited for her response, but she seemed a little shaken. It was probably because she noticed that I was wearing that pendant that Percy gave me, except I’d had it on under the hoodie I was wearing that day. She must have just barely seen the chain and decided not to mess with it, for the sake of her ‘dark spirits’ or whatever.
“W-Well, if you want proof,” She rubbed her wrist and took a deep breath, “Then you only need to go to the park. The National Park.”
I gave her a blank stare. “… Okay, the National Park is like a six miles of trees and crap,” I said, “You’re gonna have to narrow that down.”
“Alright, here’s what you do,” Jessica approached me and held her hands up to count out her steps. “Do you know where Nox Road East is? Just follow that right to the end, and then, like, turn left. I think that’s south? And if you keep going that way you’ll find a dock, and like…”
“When you cross to the other side of the river there’s the park,” Cassie interrupted, “And if you just keep going straight from there, you’ll find an old cabin. That’s where we made contact with the Nevernever. How about we meet you there tonight? We can show you all the stuff we used to do it, and maybe even do it again just for you.”
I thought over the details. “How am I supposed to get across the river? And why tonight? Why can’t I just go on the weekend or something?” I asked.
“We totally have a raft,” Jessica answered, “And, like, we can’t do it during the day. It’s a ritual that takes place in the night time! That’s when the dark energies are strongest.”
Somehow, that made sense. I nodded, thinking about how all the movies always showed rituals happening at night. I guess a ritual during broad daylight would have been stupid… but then again, I just didn’t know if the whole day and night thing even really mattered. I tried to make that a point to ask Alex about the next time I saw her. For the time being, I had my in. I did a little humming and hawing before reluctantly agreeing to their little night-time meeting. I felt more than a little nervous about it, but I assumed that getting to the bottom of the Nevenever stuff was important enough to take a chance. I had to work out how I was going to get out of the house that night, but I’d do it one way or another.
“We’ll be seeing you,” Jessica waved her hand. Her tone sounded… I dunno, condescending?
“We need to have a meeting now, so you can go,” Cassie said, “Just remember to show up tonight around midnight at the old cabin.”
“R… Right,” I tried not to sound too concerned and probably failed. I didn’t even get all the way out the door before they closed it behind me, basically shoving me out into the library again with the door literally hitting my ass on the way.
Midnight at an old cabin. That sounded so horror cliché that I was actually worried about going. I’d seen horror for real, and anything idea that was remotely like the movies made me a little nervous at that point. I had scratches on my collar and shoulder from something that was way past cliché, and now I had these creepy girls trying to show me a ritual in the middle of the night. All I could really do at that point was hope that everything was bogus. Hopefully the Occult Club was just full of weirdos who didn’t really know anything, hopefully their ritual accomplished nothing…
… And hopefully they have nothing to do with the Boo Hag that coincidentally showed up around the start of the new school year and was making all the students and faculty alike tired by riding them every night. Unfortunately, that seemed so likely that it pained me to think about it. Sure, Jessica, Cassie, and Potato were weird, but I didn’t want them to have anything to do with that… fairy monster. That thing was dangerous. It could have done real harm to people. I may be bitter, sure, even sarcastic; but I’m not downright hateful enough to wish that on anyone.
I had to be ready for whatever would happen, so that afternoon I went to Alex’s house to tell them about the plan to go see this cabin. I ended up getting Zeroelle’s number, and she told me to call her if I saw anything legitimate to worry about. All I had to do was go in, see what the girls were up to, and then leave. I didn’t have to hang around for any reason and I couldn’t risk letting the girls talk me into anything since Alex and Zeroelle were still not sure if the girls took an interest in me because of my powers or not – powers, I might add, that I still didn’t really know how to use. Since I didn’t know how to use any magic, I decided to go and find a few things to bring with me so I wouldn’t feel so helpless.
The first thing was Percy’s pendant, the Pentacle of Solomon. I read up on Solomon, by the way. Turns out he was an ancient eastern king circa 970 to 931 BC, according to the bible and various other records. Solomon was involved in many, many legends though. They included genies and demons and angels and all kinds of creatures that, until recently, I wouldn’t have assumed existed. The king owned many magical items, including a ring that could capture and house demons. The Pentacle of Solomon was supposedly a magical artifact that invoked the name of the old king for power, and was crafted based on an original set of 13 Pentacles in all. Any one pentacle housed protection from demons, something Solomon always seemed to have in every one of his tales and legends. If nothing else, it kept the girls away from me because they were superstitious or something; but if they really did touch the Nevernever, then maybe it could protect me against the monsters that came pouring out of it… well, maybe. It did come from a store that shared a parking lot with a gas station.
Second was salt. Did I ever tell you that I was good at shop? I can repair most of the things around the house if they get broken. I’ve fixed a drawer or two, and the toilet three times. But I knew how to make things too if I really thought about it. My idea was pretty simple – I just needed something that could break easily. So, I grabbed the box of table salt my mom kept in the kitchen and as many spare light bulbs as I could find. I spent the next several hours in my room with my tools where I hollowed out the bulbs, filled them with salt, and then taped over the opening. I’d effectively made four salt bombs. Yeah, I’m pretty proud of myself for that. I just had to be careful because, well, they were made to be easily breakable. My winter coat is duffle and has deep pockets, so I decided to bring that with me. It might not have been winter yet, but I probably would have been comfortable in the coat if I left it undone, and besides… I needed to carry the bulbs somehow.
Whatever time I had left after that was spent with me just meditating to try and get a handle on my will. The anxiety I felt made for some pretty good fuel, I have to say. It was actually pretty easy to grab onto it, but I kept having the problem of not being able to do anything with it. I opened and closed my Third Eye, which revealed something particularly interesting about my home – it was more or less the exact same in the Nevernever as it was in the real world. Aside from having a nasty bug problem – and all those bugs looking like alien creatures who just seemed to be hanging around because it was comfortable – everything was the same. It looked older in the Nevernever though, like it’d been there for a really long time. I knew our house was old, but I never really knew how old. Looking around the cracked but sturdy walls in the Nevernever, I would have said it was at least 100 years, even though it was amazingly maintained. Again, shop class. I like building.
There really was something about it though… When I moved, it was sort of like I was swimming. I was met with resistance I never really noticed before. Of course, I knew that was what Alex was talking about when she said that there was a barrier around me. It made me think that maybe I wasn’t exactly in the Nevernever when I opened my eye, but just looking through at it from where I was. Maybe I was astral projecting my consciousness onto that plane of existence. The thing was, when I moved around, the small creatures that stuck to my bedroom walls and crowded under my bed would react as if I was there. They’d never let me touch them, but they’d move out of the way for me if I was walking towards them, and then crowd around wherever I stepped like they were eating off the floor. The creepy three-eyed slug things were cute, in a way… but I really had no idea what their deal was.
One thing was for sure, I was leaving an impression on the Nevernever somehow… I just didn’t really understand how. Until I figured that out, I was kind of on my own when it came to my magic. I had the theory but not the practice. I just didn’t know what I was doing, or what I was supposed to do… and since magic came from understanding, I was pretty much screwed; which sucked. I really wanted to be able to shoot lightning from my fingertips if shit went down.
If I could have found some cold iron, then my whole little arsenal would have been complete… but since pretty much everything is made out of steel alloy or something like that, I had no real way of finding any unless I ran to Jude’s store and got some. I had no money and no time though. By the time I was done with my practice the sun had already gone down and if I left my mom would have probably stopped me. I had to wait until she went to bed before I went outside, which wasn’t so bad… my mom never really stays up past ten o’clock if she can help it, because she has to go to work for six in the morning. Fraise was also in bed around that time, so all I had to do was wait. Still, it was the longest few hours of my life. I kept feeling like I was walking into battle, and it gave me the sweats.
The hours dragged by…
When the time came to leave, I dressed… uh, well… Okay I’m not exactly a girl of function when it comes to my fashion. My duffle coat is dark blue tartan squared by a deep forest green in a wide and thick pattern. The stitch on it is just a darker blue, making the whole thing kind of blend at a distance. I’ll also note that the pattern resembles the Black Watch tartan; a tartan worn by Commonwealth military, and that the coat had the military-style double-row of big, black buttons. Anyway, I just had to wear a blue dress that went well with that, but not one that was too long… and some nylon leggings to keep my legs warm.
Now you’re wondering, “Who cares?” Well I think you don’t appreciate how hard it is to find nylon leggings roomy enough for my boy-bits.
I slung on my Girl Detective-worthy outfit and crept out of my room at eleven o’clock. I didn’t know how long it was going to take me to get to the cabin, but I didn’t really have a choice to go any earlier because of the whole ‘family being awake’ thing that these girls somehow didn’t have to worry about. Nox Road isn’t far from my house though, in fact I just had to get out to the highway and go across from my exit point and I’d be pretty much right there. Nox Road East went to a dead-end where the dock should have been if I went beyond the road, according to the Occult Club girls, so that’s where I was headed. I just hoped that an hour was enough time… Or, well, no I didn’t. Considering what I was wearing, I thought I was allowed to be fashionably late. Those weirdos could just deal with it.
I strapped on my boots, checked the salt bulbs in my pockets and reminded myself to be careful with them; then I hit the street.
Night time in Beach City is pretty nice. The traffic is pretty much nothing, and there aren’t many lights on the back roads where I lived so most of it was just dark. Especially when you got up to the soccer field and playground, the darkness there was pretty much pitch black except whatever light the night sky could provide. There’s a glow from in town, but it comes from so far away that it does almost nothing. I liked walking around there in the winter late at night with some coffee, I found it relaxing. The thing that kind of ruined it for me was the whole “monsters being real” thing I had recently come to learn. My usual relaxing routine walking around in the dark was turned into a crappy, anxious experience where I never really knew what made every shadow in the distance. Could have been a raccoon, could have been werewolf… who knew?
I sucked it up though and used my cell phone’s assistive light to guide my steps. I walked past the playground and into the small no-exit street that rested just off the highway. I crossed the big, empty highway and walked up it a few minutes towards town, and then turned off onto Nox Road East. From there it was a downhill journey towards the dead end. I found myself swallowed up by trees all around me at the lower elevation and the houses nestled along the street almost seemed buried under the branches and bark as well. The street was more lit by the lights coming through the windows of every home than the actual street lamps, so I kept my phone light on as I moved. The street wasn’t really long, it only took a couple minutes to reach the end. There were houses on either side of the dead end, but going straight lead into a ditch that dunked me deeper into the thick woods.
The branches were everywhere. I had to twist and turn and push things out of my way. I got thwacked a few times, but luckily none of my light bulbs broke. It took some doing, mostly because I’m not the most athletic mouse in the world, but I made it to the riverbank. The river was really wide and ran straight through the middle of Beach City – it’s why “Riverside Plaza” has its name. Boats sailed all over the water whenever they could, and people went fishing out there and stuff too. While I’m a pretty good swimmer, I was lucky that the Occult Girls weren’t lying. Right there, just off Nox Road East, was a tiny little dock. It was pitiful, really, and strung up to it was this yellow inflatable raft. I approached the raft and looked inside to see that there was a paddle in it, which was good. I climbed in uneasily, worried that the raft would collapse under my weight or something, but it held. I took the paddle and started to paddle my way across. I… I’d never actually paddled a raft before then, so it took me a while to get to the other side.
Since the river was so wide – twenty feet or so, maybe – the water was pretty still and the current, at least in that area, was gentle. The water reflected the stars that managed to get past the clouds in the sky, and even the moon when it decided to peek out at its one-quarter illumination. Somehow it made everything seem darker. If I lifted a hand in front of my face I couldn’t really see anything but a dark hand shape. Some of the light caught my clothes, but ultimately I must have been pretty well-hidden as I went across. If it weren’t for the buildings along the riverside I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell where the opposing bank was. Even then, knowing where it was didn’t stop me from hitting it pretty hard. I dragged my bouncy little raft onto the shore using the paddle like a stake, and when I was sure I wasn’t going to just hop out into three feet of mud I got out to carry on to the cabin.
I had to work to remember Jessica telling me to turn to my left, which was supposedly south. I’d stepped off into nothing but trees, and was technically on the park grounds. The National Park was really huge, and full of hiking trails and camping grounds, and a lot of other areas where people weren’t allowed to go. I never really thought about it before, but it seemed weird that there was a cabin out in those woods. I didn’t think anyone was allowed to build a house there or live there or anything… it must have been really old. I mean, the Occult Club girls called it an old cabin, so it must have been some abandoned shack out in the middle of nowhere. I probably wasn’t even allowed to be there at the time, probably trespassing on federal ground, but I guess it didn’t matter. I wondered over the details as I walked blindly through the forest, using my phone to light the way again. The forest thinned out a little when I got away from the river, so it wasn’t just me marching through a… what’s it called, a thicket?
Eventually I found the cabin, but I’m not sure how long it took. It felt like it took a long time. I finally stepped out into a clearing and found the log cabin sitting there in its crappy, decrepit glory. The windows were all boarded up, the grounds around it were all overgrown and ugly-looking, and the roof looked partially collapsed. It’d been sitting there so long without anyone tending to it that moss had started to grow on some of the wood. It was dark, except for some very faint light I noticed flickering through the cracks between the boards covering the windows. The air kind of tasted… damp? It’s hard to explain but there was a definite moisture floating around there, it made the air a little foggy. Perfect, I thought.
Dark, check. Foggy, check. Spooky, triple-check.
“2spooky,” I muttered to myself. No matter how badass I felt because the collar of my coat almost covered my jaw, I was still a little frightened. Hey, I’m not ashamed to admit it, because you know why? I’m a friggin’ magician. I took that fear I felt and balled it up and shoved it somewhere deep inside me before I took another step towards the old house. The wind blew and rustled the grass in an almost comforting way. The place wasn’t so bad… it was just old, and dark. The important part was that the girls had started a ritual there, and if it wasn’t complete bullshit, then it’d be a problem I’d have to solve.
I realized that’s what it was coming down to. No matter how many times Alex and Zeroelle said “we’ll see what happens,” I already knew what would happen. I’d have to go all magic on them. I was a Sentinel, and I’m not so stupid that I don’t know what that means. That means I’m expected to do stuff like that. ‘So,’ I thought, ‘I better just get used to it.’ Scary house, meet Cookie Sour-is.
I lost my nerve when my boots made the planks on the wood of the cabin’s front deck creak and crack under my weight. My foot fell through the old wood and got caught, and it made me gasp and almost drop my phone. I said words my mother would have smacked the shit out of me for saying. You know, like “shit.” It took a few tugs but I got my foot free and then approached the front door on then-shaking legs. I pushed it open, and the brass hinges on it were so corroded and old that the metal screeched when I did. The door just swung open though because the bottom of it was so worn down that it had a couple inches clearance from the floor. I was startled when one of the hinges broke, snapping just because of how old it was. The door was still held up by the lower hinge, somehow. I sucked in a breath and tried to slow down my heart as I stepped inside and looked around the old foyer.
The stairs were broken down, completely collapsed, as well as some of the roof supports. The second floor was completely inaccessible. There were a couple of doors left and right and a hallway that lead deeper into the house. Everything smelled moldy and disgusting and there had to be enough spider webs that I could have made a quilt out of them all and had some to spare. Fortunately, my path was spelled out for me by the flickering of candlelight I could see coming from the left passageway. I cautiously moved deeper into the house and looked around when I stepped into what had to have been the living room. It had one of those old fashion stone fireplaces… a hearth, I guess it was called. There was a broken divider wall that separated a small part of the room from the area closer to the window, but no real furniture anywhere. The place was pretty spacious.
“Hello?” I called out into the house, but got no answer. I checked my phone to see that it was actually 12:26 and that I was really late. Maybe the girls got tired of waiting for me and went back home, I guessed. It didn’t really matter if they were still there or not, they weren’t the important thing. The important thing was spread out on the floor in front of the hearth.
There were a collection of circles on the floor, three in all drawn one around the other. The innermost one was an extension cord that had been placed on the floor and wrapped double-layer into a thick ring. I shined my light on the second one and it caught the light back at me. It was drawn in some kind of liquid, but it was too dark to really see what kind. It was messy and didn’t make a perfect circle shape. Outside that ring there were candles that looked like they’d been there for a very long time, held in candle holders and melted almost down to the base. The wax dripped off them and onto the floor. Outside of that was one final ring made of salt that had been poured out onto the floor. There were other things around, stuff that looked like cheap reagent containers bought from Jude’s shop. Inside were just flecks of burnt leaves and some ash.
I took my time studying the circles. The only thing that really stood out to me was the fact that none of the circles closed on themselves. The cord had been moved so there was a gap, the oily liquid was smeared, and the salt line looked like it’d caught a breeze or something. Lots of the salt was scattered over the floor, so the whole thing looked messed up. I turned my phone to get as much of the circle in frame and I took a picture of it for safekeeping. I didn’t know anything about magic circles at the time, but anyone who had watched enough movies or played as many computer games as I did knew right away that there was definitely some ritual mojo going on in that old cabin.
I looked around some of the other nooks and crannies, trying to keep my steps light so I didn’t end up punching a hole through the floorboards again. Heck there were holes in it all over the place already. It was in one of those holes that I passed by that something caught the light from my phone. I turned the light down and knelt down to reach my hand in and pick out some soggy old book. I dragged it out and put it on the floor so I could open it up and look through the pages. It was written in cursive, and in plain English, which I was thankful for at this point. It was just scribbles and notes, and pictures of circles and rings set up just like the ones on the floor were. The notes talked about summoning a fairy and outlined all sorts of steps to do so, including what looked like a spell written in old Latin.
~MY ANACONDA DON’T- MY ANACONDA DON’T- MY ANACONDA DON’T WANT NONE UNLESS YOU GOT BUNS, HUN!~
Suddenly my ringtone went off at the high volume I often set it at, scaring the crap out of me and making me drop my phone into the hole I got the book out of. I quickly scrambled to pick it up and wipe it off. Zeroelle’s name was on the screen, so I quickly answered it.
“What?” I snapped.
“Wow, rude,” Zeroelle said, “It’s after midnight. What did you find?”
I stood up and took the book with me. I turned around to keep looking, but I reported on what I’d found so far. “They definitely did a ritual here, there are circles on the floor and I found a notebook that one of them obviously wrote,” I said.
“Circles?” Zeroelle asked, “Tell me, are any of them broken?”
“Uh, they all are,” I said.
“What?” Zeroelle suddenly sounded alarmed, “All of them? How many?”
“Three,” I said as I moved to a closet at the side of the room near the entryway to the foyer. If I had to peg where the closet went into, I’d have to say it was a hollowed out area under the broken down stairs. I opened the closet door and the handle broke off in my hand after I only got it a little of the way. I grabbed the wood and opened it the rest of the way, listening to the silence of Zeroelle taking in what I’d said.
What I saw there still makes my skin crawl to this very day.
It was like… coats. They hung up there in the closet on hooks, and dangled towards the floor like loose fabric. They had holes in them in certain places, empty, hollow holes that sagged on themselves when no one was in them to fill it all out. See, they were like coats, in every way, except they weren’t coats. They were bodies… sort of. Imagine taking all the bones and muscle and organs out of someone and just leaving what’s on the outside. I was staring at the hanging skins of three teenage girls, their black dresses barely hanging onto their bodies. One was reptile skin, one was dog hair and the other… should have been a lumpy potato hamster.
They just… hung there, barely swaying.
“Oh my god,” I gagged, slamming the closet door and stepping away from it.
“Cookie?” Zeroelle spoke to me over the phone, “Cookie, what’s wrong?”
I stumbled back into one of the holes in the floor and fell back onto my butt with my foot caught in the gap. “Oh god, oh my fuck,” I started to freak out, panting for breath as my heart started to really pound. I felt queasy pretty much right away and I couldn’t help holding one of my hands over my mouth like I was gonna throw up at any second.
“Cookie?!” Zeroelle called out to me over the phone, “What did you see? What’s going on?”
“Their skin, they’re…” I couldn’t really find the words, and I tried to stay calm even though I was trying to talk back mostly through my hand, “Oh no, no… no no no…”
“… Is it the girls?” Zeroelle asked calmly.
“Yes,” I barely said.
“Cookie, get out of there,” Zeroelle took on a commanding voice, “Get out of there now.”
“But…!” I didn’t even know why I was trying to argue. Getting out of there was all I wanted to do at that point.
“Cookie, you’ve walked right into a trap. Run. Now.” Zeroelle repeated, “Send me your GPS if you can, I’ll come and get you.”
I hurried to do what Zeroelle asked, accessing the map app on my phone to share my exact co-ordinates with Zeroelle. I’d never done it before and my fingers were shaking like crazy, I barely managed to actually do it. Just as I sent her the coordinates, something dripped onto my screen. Red liquid droplets splashed onto the screen of my phone and my fingers, and I caught my breath in my throat. Slowly I looked up to hear the familiar, raspy hissing of a supernatural creature, and when I finally lifted my head enough I tilted my phone to have the light of the screen light up the room in dim, greenish light.
A skinless Boo Hag crawled across the ceiling, its body swaying when it moved like the way a fish would swim. It stopped above me and looked down at me with hanging, blood-dripping cords of scraggly hair and an eyeless stare. Its always-showing teeth parted in a hiss that breathed out hot steam, the smell of it travelling down to me and making my stomach churn as my nostrils filled with the iron scent. It dug into the ceiling with its claws, but even then the way it moved didn’t make any sense to me because its feet still should have fallen from the ceiling. I couldn’t do much but just stare at it as it stared at me. Of course, that wasn’t going to last for long.
In a panic I thrust my hand up at the creature, opening my palm to it as it dropped down from the ceiling. I took all that terror I was feeling and shoved it out through the palm of my hand and I screamed at the thing.
“Incendier!!”
Chapter 11
Well, I did it.
When I shouted that word, energy exploded from my hand like a shockwave. It sparked the air in front of me, catching fire and rushing out in a blaze that lit up the whole cabin in an orange light. The force of the flames struck the Boo Hag and sent it reeling off to the side. Fire caught on whatever small parts of it weren’t just gooey, messy muscle tissue. The heat of the spell swallowed my hand, the flames licking up my arm in some uncontrolled burst that caught my coat sleeve and set it on fire. I yanked my hand out of the flames in pain. The fire splashed against the ceiling of the cabin and stuck to it, spreading out over me and the monster and gradually growing bigger as the flames spread further to start burning down the cabin. I quickly rolled to smother the flames on my coat and got to my feet, my boots slipping through the damp muck on the floorboards a little. I stood to see the Hag writhing on the ground, its body sizzling. The air smelled like cooked ham, sort of.
That was the first spell I ever cast… and it hurt like hell. Nobody told me that it’d hurt! I felt like I had burns all over my hand, but my fur wasn’t singed off or anything; I took a split second to check just to make sure. The other second I had was used to turn tail and run just like Zeroelle told me to. I made for the foyer, but before I could escape the burning living room, a second Boo Hag dropped down outside the entryway from above. It landed with a meaty thud and hissed at me, getting ready to dive into the room and take me out. I stumbled as I tried to stop myself before I ran face-first into the thing and back-pedaled without trying to go too far back into the other Hag I’d burned. I reached into my pocket and quickly grasped one of my homemade salt bombs, and then I hurled it towards the monster. The bulb struck, hard; I don’t think I’d ever thrown anything that hard in my life. The glass shattered and salt exploded in a cloud into the Hag’s face. The monster shot backward and clutched its face and started to roll around on the ground screaming in agony.
I couldn’t risk just running past that Hag even if I’d given it a good shot. I knew these things were fast and deadly, but I learned they didn’t stay down long either. I turned back to see the first Hag back up and ready to pounce. I threw another homemade bomb into the thing’s face to stall it for a bit longer as I looked for my exit. The only one I could find was the boarded up window at the far side of the room looking out to what would have been the property’s front yard. I charged the old boards and came at them with my shoulder, but my tackle wasn’t enough to break through. I bent the boards, cracked them somewhat, and broke some shards of glass off, but that was it. Even with a few other attempts, I couldn’t break through. Finally I stood back, thrust out my hand, and tried for another spell – something that might blow the boards out.
Moving my arm, I felt the barrier try and fight against my motions. I brute forced my way through it, moving faster than it could stop me, and then I gathered up my terror and loaded it like some kind of shotgun to blast out of my hand, desperately trying to think of the word I wanted to use that would pinpoint my intended effect.
“P… Percuter!” I shouted. The gathered will, fueled by my fear, surged out of my palm like a concussive blast. The force blew back against me, shooting my arm back and nearly throwing out my shoulder. I was thrown onto the floor, but the window didn’t do much better. In fact, it wasn’t just the boards and the glass that came flying off, but a big part of the wall too. The wooden cabin got a big hole blown into it, popping out like a zit, rupturing wood splinters and chunks of log out into the overgrown lawn. The fire around me was snuffed out by the smothering force of my second spell, and I ached when I got up again. I really needed to learn how to plant my feet properly before I started slinging magic around…
My head felt like it was trying to split open, but I ignored the pain and made a break for the woods. I had to run… somewhere, I had to get away from those things. The Boo Hag… or Boo Hags, I guess, lured me there. I’d forgotten my theory that they didn’t just wear skins like clothes, but they walked around as regular people during the day. I couldn’t imagine what they did to the actual Occult Club, but I knew they weren’t okay. They must have suffered at the hands of these Nevernever monsters and I was going to be next if I didn’t get my ass out of there. So I ran. I had never, ever run so fast in my entire life, and as I pushed myself deep into the woods, I knew I was running too hard. I was panting and gasping in panic and the air wasn’t going to last long if I kept it up, but I didn’t care. I had to leave, I had to get away.
I heard them behind me. Those damn monsters, they screamed after me as they chased me down through the woods. They weren’t trying to sneak around then, they were being real bold about it. I could hear their bodies thumping against the trees behind me, as they must have been leaping from branch to branch to catch up. I heard those branches snap and the leaves rustle behind me like a stampede was passing through. I just ran, clumsily on my big-soled boots, not bothering to look back because I knew if I did all I’d get for my trouble was boney claws gouging out my eyeballs. I imagined at least three gruesome ways they’d tear me open and shred me to bits, and I doubt you’d be surprised if I told you that I ran even faster at the thought.
One of the Hags got around me faster than I could really see. They were just a zip of movement out the corner of my eye before they smashed through the brush in a leap at me. I let out a little cry as its body hit mine, and out of pure instinct I grabbed hold of its arms to keep its claws from just ripping into my shoulders. I tumbled onto the ground under the bloody creature, rolling with it. In some stroke of genius I actually got my feet under it, jamming the soles of my boots into its stomach. Blood squirted out and all over my legs like I’d just squeezed a grapefruit too tight. The feeling made me want to puke and the smell didn’t help, but I ignored it. I pushed with all the strength I could muster to throw the thing off of me, shoving my feet out and kicking it away from me. I actually managed to throw it off, so I shakily got to my feet to keep running.
I was starting to lose steam by the time I broke from the woods and found myself running alongside someone’s house. I could barely breathe and my legs felt like ten pound weights that I had to throw around just to keep moving; but I was by a house, an honest to God house, where people actually lived. I’d managed to come out at Owens Drive, but I didn’t know it at the time. It’s a side-street with no exit that looped around a small area on the other side of the bridge past the Riverside Plaza. Technically, that area was just across the river from Nox Road East, where I’d found that little raft before… meaning I had taken the shortcut to get into the heart of Beach City. I just wanted to go back to my home way outside the city… but I wasn’t going to get there any time soon.
So I had no idea where I was, I was scared half to death, I felt like I was going to cough up a lung, and I thought I was going to die. So I did what any regular, sane person might do when they’re getting chased around by something that means to kill them – I screamed. I screamed as loud as I could so that someone would hear me. I’m not religious, my mom tried to get me onto that, but I did pray to whatever deity or God or force of nature or whatever the hell looked over my sorry ass existence and begged it to let me not end up like the Occult Club girls. They must have been three corpses by then, skinless and rotting somewhere out in the woods. I didn’t want to end up like that, I just wanted to go home. I have never wanted to go home more in my life, and I was only a few miles away from it.
None of my screaming did any good. If anything it just helped the Hags find me faster. One ran next to me, rushing by on all fours like an animal, where it lunged at me from the side and slashed at my legs. The claws didn’t get through my boots but the strength of the impact sent me careening towards the ground. I was practically laid out flat on my side in midair, so I slammed into the ground roughly on my shoulder and bounced hard enough to mash my teeth together. I coughed, choking on a squeak of air that I’d sucked up in alarm. That Hag didn’t come back at me, but the second one leapt out above me, claws raised in the air, and it was all ready to come down on me and slice through my tender parts like a hot knife through butter. I shrieked and closed my eyes and tensed up my whole body and prepared to just die outright.
The monster made contact with me, but a sudden unleash of will energy from my chest went off like a grenade. It stopped the Hag completely. I didn’t feel it on top of me, I didn’t feel it ripping me apart; it was just gone. I opened my eyes and shot upright to see it flipping back onto its hands and feet in the grass like it’d been knocked off of me. I didn’t know how or why, but I didn’t care how things turned out that way. I rolled onto my belly and pushed myself off the ground to keep running. One of the Boo Hags stood in a patch of light that came from the house I was near, and so I reached into my pocket to grab my salt. All I got was a handful of salt and shattered glass that cut into my hand and burned it right away. The sting made my eyes water, but I took the stuff anyway and threw it in the face of the thing that was waiting to stop me.
It may have stung me, but it burned them, so to hell with it. I had a hand stuck with glass shards and salt literally poured into the wound but it didn’t matter. It was better than being dead, so I grit my teeth and went with it.
I rounded the side of the house and caught my foot on a stone divider for the flower garden the homeowner must have planted out front. I tripped, fell, scraped my shin on the stone, and landed in the grass. I struggled to get up, but I didn’t have the energy to jump back up to my feet. I tried and ended up just thrusting my chin into the grass again when the front of my body just fell like a bag of bricks. I wanted to get up, I wanted to get up so bad and keep running but my body just wouldn’t let me. My arms couldn’t even hold my weight and my legs wouldn’t stop shaking. I was stuck face-down and ass-up on someone’s lawn and was just waiting for a Boo Hag enema to be the last thing I ever felt. Well, at least I wouldn’t have died a virgin, technically, right?
The Hags surrounded me, three of them in all. I watched them as they stalked me like wolves, just waiting for one of them to lunge at me and rip me open. Their claws dug up the grass and soil under them, looking sharp, deadly, and… long. The claws didn’t really shine in the light, because they were bone, but the blood soaking the Hags definitely shined. They hissed and snapped their teeth, and I wondered for a second why they weren’t just killing me. Maybe they couldn’t decide which one of them would do it… Maybe they had to decide which one would do it. They really reminded me of feral animals as they stalked me. They’d weakened and run down their prey, now all I needed was a set of jaws around my neck.
I just clenched my fists closed and my eyes shut and began to cry. What else was I supposed to do? If I tried to cast a spell they probably would have sliced off my arm, or impaled my neck to keep me from saying anything. Maybe they would have just ripped off my jaw, or jumped onto my back and just started carving chunks out of me in some brutal Flurry of Blows sort of way. I cried, but I wasn’t going to beg. Still, I wished they’d just end it quickly. Maybe if I was lucky I wouldn’t even feel it.
“Hey!”
The Hags hissed when someone yelled, and I opened my teary eyes to try and look. All I saw were blurry shapes but I heard someone shouting from the house’s front step.
“Hyaaaah!”
There was a sudden loud crack and one of the Hags shrieked. There were a few more cracks, sounding like impacts, and the Hags began to scatter.
“Gyaaah!!”
I think other people started to come out of their houses, I heard doors open in a hurry. The Hags beat feet, fleeing away from me and probably back into the woods. I didn’t move from my embarrassing position down on the ground until someone knelt down close to me and put their hand on me. I tensed up, but when their hand didn’t have any claws on it I relaxed into sobbing cries.
“Holy shit, Cookie?”
I recognized the voice. I reached out and grabbed hold of their sleeve and held it as tight as I could. I tried to look up without really raising my head, straining my neck to peer up over my crooked glasses at the blurry face of my savior. Percy knelt in front of me with his lacrosse stick in one hand and my shoulder securely grasped in the other.
“Percy,” I coughed, tightening my grip on him.
“C-Cookie, what the hell were those?!” He shouted, “Were… were those animals?! W-Wait are you okay?!”
I curled up a little and tried to catch my breath, huddled there on the lawn. That’s when I heard the roar of a substandard engine and the screech of tires. Obviously the sound came from the road, but I didn’t bother to look up.
“Cookie!” I heard Zeroelle yell at me, “Get over here!”
I shook and shivered and didn’t really move. After a little bit of awkward waiting, Zeroelle honked the horn of her minivan. Percy ended up putting down his stick and grabbing me to help me up, and he walked me to Zeroelle’s van. I kept my eyes down as I caught my breath.
“Get her in the van,” Zeroelle instructed.
“Who the heck are you?” Percy asked.
“We don’t have time for this,” Zeroelle gruffly responded, “Just. Put her. In. The. God damn. Van.”
Percy didn’t act right away, but he must have decided to listen to Zeroelle because he ended up throwing open the sliding door of Zeroelle’s little European van and helping me inside. He got in with me to sit me down in the passenger seat and make sure I was okay. I just let my head fall back onto the seat and swallowed a mouthful of mucus, and tried to just nurse my pounding head and aching lungs. Zeroelle turned to look into the back seat where she glared at Percy and said, “You, get out.”
“Wait, she’s hurt!” Percy said as he took my one bloody hand and studied it, “Is this glass? Just what the heck is going on, Cookie?”
“Listen, you can play chivalry later,” Zeroelle said, “But right now you have to leave. Don’t worry about her, she’ll be fine now that she’s with me.”
“Just let him stay, I don’t give a fuck,” I groaned, “I want to go home!”
“Yeah, I just saved her from… from whatever those things were!” Percy shouted.
“Whatever,” Zeroelle huffed.
She turned and put the van into gear, pulled a U-turn, and we started off down the street without even enough time to close the door. Percy reached out and closed it, but when he did he stared out the window at the rising glow of a forest fire that had started in the distance. I barely rolled my head to see it too, and knew that it must have been the cabin going up in flames. We barely got out of Owens Drive and onto the main road when flashing red and blue sirens roared past us. Police cars and fire trucks rushed toward the scene, and Zeroelle only took a moment to pull over and let them pass before she started back on the road again. As we crossed the bridge toward Riverside Plaza, and heading back towards home, we could see the fire clearly as the flames swallowed a small area that reflected on the surface of the water.
“Whoa…” Percy said, “What the…”
He turned in his seat and went back to checking me out. He carefully started pulling glass out of my hand, making me grit my teeth and try to flex through the pain. I had several pieces of shattered lightbulb mostly sticking into my palms and fingers. Having balled my hands into fists, I buried a few pieces deeper under my skin, and I could feel them wedged in there pretty tight. Percy did his best to pull out what he could, but he was kind of a clumsy idiot about it, and eventually I just pulled my hand away from him and tried to just get him to mind his own business. I was too scared to really think straight. He was just being nice but I just wanted him and everybody else to go away and leave me alone.
Percy eyed me, and he reached out despite me turning away to scoop the pendant he loaned me into his hand. He rubbed his thumb over a deep gash in the surface of the golden pendant, one that scarred the image and had cut through deeply. I eventually looked to see what he was looking at, and realized the Pentacle had been damaged somehow… It occurred to me that it had protected me from the Boo Hags. The one that was going to jump me had been repelled, and I didn’t know how until I saw the Pentacle; then it all clicked. I looked at Percy in surprise, and he just stared back at me in some kind of confusion.
“That… you… the Pentacle it… it protected me,” I said, “I… it actually protected me.”
“Protected? From what? I don’t know what’s going on!” Percy said, “You just ran across my back yard screaming like you were gonna get murdered and then I come out and see these things all around you, and… what the hell were they? They looked like… like I dunno! Dead bodies or something!”
“So you saw them?” Zeroelle asked.
“Yeah I saw them!” Percy said, “And then you show up outta nowhere… what’s going on here?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I sighed.
Percy just stared at me and threw up his hands in a shrug. “Well holy crap why don’t you just try me!” He exasperated.
“Boo Hags,” Zeroelle said.
“Boo-wha?” Percy repeated.
Zeroelle kept her eyes on the road as she explained, “Boo Hags. Monsters. Animals from the Nevernever that made their way into your world by way of a ritual gone wrong.”
Percy struggled with this, letting out some kind of huff. “Nevernever? Ritual? What…” He said, “You guys are starting to sound like the Occult girls.”
Oh God, the girls… I briefly remembered their hanging skins in that closet and I broke down again, trying to hide my face as the tears came back. Percy was confused and Zeroelle was quiet, neither of them really giving me any assurance over what happened. I’d guessed that I probably destroyed those skins when I burned down the cabin, and that Cassie, Jessica and Potato were dead because they tried to summon a fairy and got… those, instead. They were just girls, just doing some weird hobby of theirs, and now they were dead. It was horrifying. I can’t even begin to explain the whirlwind of emotions that I experienced over that. I felt mortified, I was sad and I felt… guilty.
Percy looked around the van, his eyes going all over the place before he asked, “Is… is that true? Were those really monsters?”
“They killed the Occult Club girls,” I finally said through my tears.
Percy’s eyes bugged. “What?!” He shouted, “No way! Cookie! You… that’s…”
“One hundred percent true,” Zeroelle cut in, “The way I see it, based on what you told me over the phone… the girls mistakenly summoned the Boo Hags. That would have been fine if their magic circles held, but they got broken somehow. The protective magic was dispelled and the creatures were allowed to escape. From there, they needed skins to blend in…”
I could feel my anger and sadness trying to just explode, so I turned to Zeroelle quickly and said, “Shut up.”
“Excuse me?” Zeroelle said back.
“I said shut up!” I repeated, “I don’t want to hear about them anymore!”
“Cookie…!” Zeroelle tried to scold me.
“I don’t care! Just stop!” I yelled at her, “Stop it!”
I turned myself away from them and curled up into a little ball and pulled my ears down against my head.
“Whoa,” Percy said.
“… Fine,” Zeroelle whispered, “But I’m bringing you to my place first. You may not want to talk about it, but we do.”
“I wanna go home!” I yelled.
Zeroelle ignored me. She kept driving and I kept sulking all the way back to the little sleepy valley where we lived. When she pulled into her driveway and turned the car off I didn’t make any move to get out, but I didn’t have to since Zeroelle got out, went around to my side, opened the door, and dragged me out. I reluctantly followed her as she pulled me into her house, and Percy followed us and closed the door behind him when he got inside the cozy little home. I didn’t even take off my muddy boots, and I didn’t really get a chance as Zeroelle pulled me into the living room and marched me out in front of Alexandra. My… mentor was sitting on the couch and she looked at me with no surprise at all, not even questioning why Percy was there. She just closed the book she was reading and set it down on the coffee table, calm as could be.
“Well, it’s pretty much what we thought,” Zeroelle said, “The girls were responsible for bringing them over.”
Alex took a deep breath and sighed. “Foolish,” She said.
I looked up and tried to pull my arm away from Zeroelle, but she held onto it too tightly. “Well how were they supposed to know?!” I shouted, “You can’t just sit there and fucking…!!”
“Blather, blather; Silence rather,” Alex chanted and flicked her wrist, a wave of energy gripping my throat and squeezing around my vocal chords until I couldn’t make any more noise. I was stunned for a moment, not expecting to be shut down so quickly.
“She… saw them,” Zeroelle said.
“I see,” Alex nodded.
Alex pressed her fingers together in front of her face and stared down at the floor for a few moments. For once, she was actually trying to choose her words. “Cookie,” She said, “You have to listen to me very carefully now, alright?”
I looked away, red in the face.
“Alright?” Alex repeated, standing up to approach me. She reached up and I expected her to just grab me and force me to pay attention, but she instead placed her hand on my cheek and rubbed it with her thumb. She smudged some of the dirt of my face, and when I looked up at her I sniffled and my eyes got all misty again.
“This is not your fault,” She said, as soothingly as she could, “What happened to those girls… was a horrible accident, you’re right. They didn’t know any better, they couldn’t have known better; they got their hands on something they shouldn’t have, and they paid dearly for someone else’s mistakes.”
“But… that can’t be true,” Percy said, “That just sounds crazy.”
“It is true,” Alex said, “And we need to accept that it happened that way. You can’t just pretend otherwise, and you can’t get angry at someone when no one is to blame. Not even the Boo Hags can really be blamed for this – they were summoned into this world, and they acted the only way they know how.”
She looked back down at me and my face was all screwed up trying not to bawl like a baby. “You can send them back,” She said, “You can make sure that they never hurt anyone again. That is the responsibility that comes with your power.”
I shook my head.
“You can, Cookie,” Alex urged me. She looked me in the eye and said, “You can do it, I know you can. I can teach you how, and when you know how you can prevent accidents like this from happening to others. That is what the Seers do. That is the foundation in which you and those like you have based the use of their powers on.”
“Now you know that the consequences are real,” Alex put her other hand on my face, “People can be hurt, and things will change. You need to find the courage to stand up for those people and protect them from the things they can never know about. You’re the only one who can.”
Every one of her words may as well have been a punch in the stomach, I felt worse hearing them. I thought I knew what this whole Sentinel thing was all about, and I thought I was okay with it, but at that moment I realized that I wasn’t ready for it. I was just sixteen years old, it was bad enough that I now knew someone who died, and it was worse that I was one of the only ones who knew how they died. That was hard. I had a hard time just accepting that. I kept thinking it would be like if I died and no one really knew how it happened. I imagined how sad Fraise and Mom would have been if I was just gone one day, and it made me mad that there were people out there right now who were going to go through that.
I may be a lot of things… but I’m not heartless. I didn’t want that to happen to anyone.
“You understand, don’t you?” Alex asked, “You need to do this.”
“You can’t just kill most Never-Creatures,” Zeroelle added, “If we could, your special abilities wouldn’t be so important. If the city is to be safe from those monsters, it’s you who has to send them home.”
“Will you?” Alex asked.
Alex effectively calmed me down from my earlier hysterics, and I felt pretty embarrassed but also pretty justified in my reaction. Now, though, I was being presented with a choice that no one really gets to make. Monsters being real, magic being real; the surprising part is having someone fight that stuff. So it was either try to pretend that none of that ever happened, that I wasn’t some special magician, or… leave the fate of others in the hands of an awkward sixteen-year-old shemale who spends most of her time playing computer games and jerking off. I wasn’t really convinced that if I said “no” that I’d really be off the hook, but looking back on it having that responsibility placed on me was kind of an opportunity. I could stop being Cookie Sour-is, the loner freak who speaks French, and start being Cookie Souris – the loner Seer who casts spells using French words… for the protection of others.
“I… guess I could try…?” I answered.
Alex smiled, “There’s a good girl. Now let’s take a look at those wounds.”
“Hopefully the confusion will make covering this up that much easier,” Zeroelle sighed as she left me to Alex’s care. She walked to her front window and looked out into the night, as if looking for more sirens and police cars.
“Covering what up?” Percy asked. While the two of them talked, Alex started plucking shards of glass from my hand. Eventually she stood up and walked with me towards their downstairs bathroom, opening the door to the small one sink, one toilet room and opening the medicine cabinet. She started with tweezers and began plucking glass out from deeper within my hand.
“Well for one, starting a fire on federal grounds would have Cookie tried as a minor in court and undoubtedly sentenced to juvenile detainment,” Zeroelle explained, “For two, no one’s going to assume that the girls found dead there are dead due to mingling with the supernatural. If we’re lucky, investigations will conclude that the girls started the fire with their ritual in the forest, and if they find their… left-overs in the woods, maybe they’ll chalk that up to animals.”
“Fortunately there’s no reasonable means to connect the fire to Cookie,” Alex added, calling out from the bathroom as she dug out the last of the glass from in my hand. She got some gaze and some alcohol then, and waited for me to brace myself before starting to soak the stuff into the wounds. It stung like hell and I felt my eyes watering all over again as I bit my lip and just tried to bear it.
“Magic leaves no traces,” Alex said, “And so the fire department won’t be able to find the means of the fire being started.”
I hissed and tried to pull my hand away from Alex as she dabbed my wounds. “M-Maybe the candles,” I squeaked.
Alex finished her work and calmly set her tools aside to run my hand under the sink for a while. I watched my blood swirl down the drain and carefully cleaned myself off. “Did they use candles?” Alex asked, “I see…”
“I have stuff,” I said, reaching carefully into my pockets to give Alex the notebook I found and then I got my phone out to show Alex the picture I took of the girls’ summoning circle. Alex did one more treatment on the scrape I got on my shin and then took my phone from me. After cleaning up her medical equipment, she took her time studying the things I showed her as she stepped into the kitchen. I followed her, and as she passed by the counter she grabbed a small lollipop from a ceramic cup on the counter and handed it to me. I looked at it, then at her face, and she shrugged. I took the sucker and unwrapped it, popping it into my mouth immediately.
Percy walked into the kitchen after a while. I turned and looked at him and noticed that he was just wearing a t-shirt and some boxers. He must have run out into his yard when he heard me screaming and I guess bashed the Hags with his lacrosse stick. The guy looked really confused, but I figured he must have been taking things as they go. Still, I thought about it for a moment and decided to be a little more honest.
“I can really cast magic spells,” I took the sucker out of my mouth to talk.
“I kinda got that, even if it’s… I dunno,” Percy said as he looked around Alex’s kitchen, “Who are these guys?”
“Alex,” I pointed my sucker at Alex, who mulled over the notes I’d given her, “Was the one who opened my Third Eye and taught me how to some magic stuff. She can use it too.”
“Zeroelle,” I pointed my sucker towards the living room, “Is Alex’s husband and… well… I’m not really sure what her deal is.”
“And you’re some kind of special monster exterminator,” Percy finished, cocking a brow at me as he tried to make sense of the whole thing.
I nodded, “They call it a Seer, I guess. I can see into the Nevernever.”
Percy shrugged, “And that is…?”
I thought about it for a moment. “Well, I guess it’s like a different dimension where all things of imagination exist,” I said, “Like monsters.”
“It’s a bit more varied than that,” Alex added, “But yes, essentially.”
“And you’re not just screwing with me?” Percy blinked at me.
“No, seriously,” I said, “I shot fire out of my hand and blew open a wall at the cabin, all with magic.”
“So you actually managed to cast a spell?” Alex looked up from the notes, interested, “Really? Without a focus? That’s… unusual. Are you alright?”
“I think so,” I said, “Why?”
Alex closed the notebook and set it down on her kitchen table. She walked over to me and carefully looked me over again; she rested her hands on my head and moved it around and looked at my eyes closely. My head throbbed a little when she did this, especially when her touch started to make me feel fuzzy and dizzy like it did before.
“It’s dangerous to conjure the elements without a full understanding of your limitations, dear,” She said, “And without using a focus, like a wand or a rod, you end up using more power to cast simpler spells. If you had enough power to blow open a bloody wall, then maybe I’ve underestimated the level of power your connection to the Nevernever actually gives you, my lovely-jubbly.”
Percy stared at me and Alex, obviously trying to figure out if we were serious. “That’s… can that even really be a thing?” He asked.
“Ah, yes, you don’t believe in magic, do you?” Alex asked him, “Well, perhaps I can show you a little trick. What did you say your name was, dear?”
Percy watched Alex closely and answered, “Perce- ah!”
Alex cut him off my snapping her fingers and making a small orb of light appear floating just an inch over her index fingertip. She turned away from me and moved her hand close to Percy’s face so he could see clearly, holding the little bead of light so close to his face that he went cross-eyed. Percy stepped back and away from Alex, so she turned her hand and flicked her fingers, sending the small light flying like a marble through the air. When it hit Percy square between the eyes, it popped into glittering dust that disappeared way before it could float down to the ground.
Alex said, “Tell me something… do you intend to continue following our Cookie around like this?”
“Uh…” Percy gapped.
“Because if you do, I must warn you,” Alex said, “This sort of thing will not be uncommon. It’s no coincidence that the Boo Hags tried to trap Cookie specifically. They know of the power she wields, and it is a dangerous one – not only for her, not only for the Hags, but it can be dangerous to her acquaintances as well.”
I stared at Alex when she said that and felt my heart sink. Did that mean I couldn’t even have friends? Percy was pretty quiet through it all too, and when Alex left him to that question he seemed to withdraw into deeper thought. He was probably pondering his options, and as he did he just looked at me. He gave me a look-over, and then went back to thinking. He rubbed his chin and hummed a little, and I just stood there seeing what he was going to say.
“… I dunno,” He said.
“Well, you best figure that out,” Alex said, “But know that associating yourself with her may not be safe.”
I let out a little breath and felt my neck heat up when Percy looked at me again. I turned away and tried to just ignore the conversation. Alex wasn’t wrong, even if I didn’t like the idea. Clearly, with what happened to the Occult Club, things could go real bad for people who hung around me. The monsters could target me specifically, so I guess anyone within ten feet of me was always going to be at risk. I didn’t really think about it before because I normally just hung around by myself. Percy, to his credit, was probably the only guy I’d consistently had even talk to me for a long time.
Zeroelle interrupted by stepping into the kitchen and saying, “I need to get you both home. It’s late. Cookie, I’ll get you home first.”
“And whoever you are,” She looked at Percy, “I’ll give it a bit of time before I get you back to your house. That forest fire isn’t going anywhere for a while.”
“Uh, okay…” Percy blinked, “Um… yeah, alright.”
He shuffled out with Zeroelle and Alex stopped me before I could leave. “I’m really sorry,” She said, “We didn’t think that you’d be exposed to this sort of thing… at least, not so quickly.”
I hated when they reminded me about what happened, it always made me tear up. When I did, Alex just hugged me close to her big, soft chest. “Come over as soon as you can,” She said, “I’ll try and teach you what you need to know to open a door to the Nevernever.”
She ran her fingers through my hair and I just stood there awkwardly.
“Then we’ll put a stop to this nonsense,” She said, “For good.”
Chapter 12
“… The bodies were found one mile from the fire’s origin point where the victims are suspected to have encountered wild animals and suffered fatal injuries.”
It had been three days since the incident happened and it wasn’t getting any easier for me to try and forget about what I saw and what I knew. Three days was enough time for the police to identify three bodies found out in the woods of Owens Drive as the Occult Club girls and be able to throw together an official statement about what happened. It’d been on the news since the crack of dawn… I knew because I wasn’t able to sleep. I had a hard time sleeping those nights, even after Alex patched me up and Zeroelle snuck me back into my house. I still went to school, at least in body, but my mind wasn’t there. I skipped my homework and focused on practicing with Alex and trying to find out where the Boo Hags went after that night. Neither made any real progress, and it just made me anxious to finally be able to put those freaks out for good.
Zeroelle helped cover up any involvement I may have had in the whole thing. She said she was the one who found the bodies of the girls after she went back, and she… made sure that the police found them. Somehow she “made certain” that they’d think animals tore the girls apart. I don’t know how she did it, and I didn’t want to know how she did it… but it was a little comfort I guess. I didn’t have to worry about being hauled in on counts of trespassing, arson, and potential manslaughter. That at least gave me time to get that Nevenever Door spell down. I was having a really hard time with that though… the lack of sleep and lack of focus really messed with my ability to even feel the Nevernever’s barrier without making me dizzy and wanting to pass out.
I sat at the island area in our kitchen looking like death warmed over. I could feel the bags under my eyes trying to weigh my head down and urge me into sleeping in my oatmeal. My mother rushed around me, setting my sister up with her own bowl of warm cereal before starting to get ready for work. Fraise hopped up onto her stool and sat with her body leaned forward so her boobs weren’t in the way of her morning meal, and she started gobbling it down like a girl possessed. My mom didn’t have breakfast with us… I think she only ever ate with us in the morning on Christmas and Thanksgiving. Instead she was getting her car keys and things, and she kept an ear out for the news that was playing on the TV in the living room.
“… identified as three sixteen year old girls; Casandra Bullard, Jessica Hayle, and Kylie Moorse. Evidence of strange, cult-like activities at the scene lead law officials to believe…”
“That’s just terrible,” My mom sighed as she put on one of her flats; she was already dressed in her scrubs. “Cookie, did you know those girls?”
I did my best to hide any change in my expression as I shook my head and said, “No.”
“Just awful,” Mom said. When she got her shoe on and grabbed her purse off the kitchen counter, she took a second to sign the cross over her chest and say a prayer. “God have mercy on their young souls, and take them into your arms in Heaven,” She said.
“Amen,” I muttered.
“Momma, are those girls dead?” Fraise asked, finally looking up from her breakfast with sticky oatmeal on her face.
Mom walked over to Fraise and nodded, placing her hands on my sister’s shoulders. “They are,” She said, “And it’s very sad.”
“I hope God’s nice to them in Heaven,” Fraise said, continuing to eat.
“So do I,” Mom said. She left Fraise to go turn off the TV then. She said her goodbyes and hurried out the door to go to work, leaving me alone with Fraise. I at least lasted until Mom was gone before I put down my spoon and took my glasses off to cry into my hands.
Fraise hugged me and laid her head against me, her chest smothering my legs for the most part when she did. She’d caught me a few times struggling with stuff and even though I wouldn’t tell her what’s wrong, she tried to cheer me up anyway. She blamed it on mood-swings and I was perfectly fine with letting her do that. She didn’t need to know about the Boo Hags and the ritual. Heck she barely even seemed to understand how awful it was that those girls died, so I doubted she’d ever be able to really wrap her head around the whole thing. It’s hard to stay upset around Fraise, it really is, but even she couldn’t just make the feelings go away. The only thing that was going to do it was finally getting rid of the Hags.
There was no sign of them anywhere, not that I even knew where to look. Since Boo Hags only come out at night and look like regular people during the day, they’re not the easiest things to track down. I could have found them using my Third Eye, but I would have had to wander around town with it open and I wasn’t exactly prepared to do that. The panic attack I had in English class on my second day of school had me more than a little cautious about going all willy-nilly and Third Eying everything in sight. The best thing I could do, supposedly, was wait for them to show up again.
I tagged some alerts on Google, mostly looking for the terms “skinned alive” and “skinless.” I never really got anything out of that aside from some unique recipes for cooked chicken and prepared fruits. Even so, I watched it like a hawk, sleeplessly, for days.
I was being forced to just sit on my hands, and I didn’t like it.
I struggled to just go on. That Friday morning, I finished my oatmeal and threw on some pants and a sweat shirt that didn’t make any fashion sense, never bothered to pack my lunch, and then strapped myself into my boots to start another day at school. I was so distracted, so distant, I barely listened to Fraise when she tried talking to me, and I found myself ignoring the other students on the bus a lot easier too. I did my best to just stay away from them, and barely ever said anything to anybody. All I could think about were those monsters.
If someone even looked exhausted, I worried that the Hags were causing it. If someone didn’t show up for class, I prayed to the powers that be and hoped nothing terrible had happened to them. I didn’t exactly let my grades slip, though. I did the least work I could in school to still be passable and that was it. I didn’t study for any tests and sometimes I even finished my homework before the day it was due. I just didn’t care about stuff like that, and I spent my nights trying to study more magic, or familiarize myself with as many mythological creatures I possibly could.
Not everything was bad, though…
That day at lunch, Percy sat down at my table with me. He started hanging around ever since that night where he… saved me, I guess, from the Boo Hags. It was relieving to have him around, sort of. I could tell him about things. I never would’ve thought that some creepy guy who tried hitting on me at the Nurse’s office would ever be my rock, but hey, sometimes I don’t mind being surprised.
“So how’s the training going?” He asked, taking a bite into a banana.
“… Crappy,” I mumbled, having just been sitting there at the table with my arms folded and my head down.
Percy sighed a little, “That sucks. Think you’ll ever find those, uh… Boo Hags again?”
“Maybe,” I shrugged.
“Well, you know,” Percy started, turning to cross his legs as he leaned back against the table and looked at me, “If you need someone to, like, help you find them sometime…”
“No way,” I sat up and glared at him.
Percy grinned and waved a hand at me. “I’d just be keeping an eye out,” He said, “And if you went on a patrol or something, I’d be there with you, that’s it! I’m not some magical wizard, I’m not fighting any scary stuff.”
“That’s why you can’t go,” I said.
“Pffft,” Percy ignored me and took a bite of his banana again. He then went on to talk with his mouth full, “You’re not getting rid of me that easy. Every wizard needs a handsome squire.”
I shook my head and said, “Squires are for knights, not wizards, you idiot.”
“Whatever!” Percy waved his hand, “Dream team supreme, me and you.”
“I don’t want to be on a team with you,” I threw my legs over my seat and turned around to get up, “You… creepy nurse stalker.”
“You mean creepy nurse stalker who saved you from bloodthirsty monsters,” He said, “And you can’t blame me for that! I’m a guy! Going for pretty girls is what guys do!”
“I’m a guy too,” I said, then I grabbed my bag out from under the table and took it with me when I left. Percy wasn’t put off though, and he got up to follow me.
“Well, I… Well, I mean, I guess, but how was I supposed to know?” He asked.
I ignored him and made my way to my locker. He followed me all the way there, and eventually stopped me by grabbing onto my wrist. I turned on my heels and yanked my hand away from him, extending my palm and planting it on his chest. I could have blown him away right then and there, and I was so mad at the time I almost considered it. The only reason I probably didn’t do it was because there were other students around. He stared at me as if he expected me to do something, but I held back and instead I just pushed him a little bit. I barely budged him, but whatever.
“Okay, listen,” He said, “What happened to those girls was pretty much the worst thing ever. I didn’t even like them, but you know what? I don’t like what happened to them any more than you do. Why don’t you just let me help? I don’t care what you make me do, but don’t just expect me to forget about it and walk away.”
“But you can’t do anything, that’s my point,” I answered.
Planting his arm on the lockers, Percy leaned over me and said, “Are you really going to make me say please?”
He was looking me right in the eye, which must’ve been hard since I swear he was over a foot taller than me. He didn’t even know what he was saying, he was just some lanky jock with stupid hair. The thing was, even though I really wanted to? I couldn’t just tell him to fuck off. I had a moment of clarity where I realized that the big idiot in the ripped jeans and an NHL t-shirt probably… really did feel as bad as me. I was trying really hard to just keep people away, because I didn’t want them to end up like the Occult Club, and he was making it really hard. It didn’t help that he was probably the first guy in a long time who actually wanted to spend time with me… I took a deep breath before I got all emotional. He may have been the first guy in a while, but he wasn’t that guy.
“Fine,” I said quietly, “You’ll just keep an eye out?”
He nodded. “Yeah,” He said, “So… you just keep practicing, okay? One day we’ll find ‘em and kick their butts.”
“… Yeah,” I said, turning to open my locker. I dialed the combination in silence, and when I finally opened it I looked at Percy again.
“Hey, uh… You wanna like… grab lunch? Sometime?” He asked.
“Oh my god,” I rolled my eyes.
“No! No, no,” He laughed, “No, I mean… well… I saw them, you almost got killed by them… We’re kinda in this together, you know? I can do more than just watch out for monsters. If you just wanna hang out or something, we can totally do that.”
I blinked a few times. “Oh,” I said, “Uh… really?”
“Yeah, sure,” He said, “I know a good place by the beach that makes good chili fries. Oh! Also, if you’re really stuck on that monster thing, I can hook you up with stuff from my Dad’s store. I mean, if that necklace actually worked, then… not everything there can be crap, right?”
“I… guess not,” I said, diverting my attention to my locker to put my bag away and take out my pencil case and books for French class. “That, uh… that sounds good,” I said, “I guess.”
“Cool,” Percy nodded once and pushed away from the lockers, “Then let me just get your number and we can do that this weekend if you have time. If you don’t, that’s totally cool, I mean you’ve got the whole magic thing and I don’t want to get in the way of that.”
I opened my mouth to say some stuff but nothing came out right away. “I, uh… I… um… Well okay, no, I can maybe… I’ll text you. We’ll see.”
“Sure, yeah!” Percy and I took our phones out of our pockets and exchanged phone numbers. After we finished, Percy put his phone back into the pocket of his jeans and turned to walk away. “Alright, well… text me sometime!” He said, waving before he walked down the hall and rounded the corner and went out of sight.
See? Not everything was bad… just a whole lot of things were bad. Until I got everything under control again, things were just going to be that way. I had to deal with that, and it was hard; I was doing my best to pretend nothing was wrong though. I had to stay optimistic and focus on the good things. The good things were that I could beat the Hags if they ever showed up again. I could and I would.
I reached inside my locker and didn’t grab anything more, but kept my hand hidden in there as I lifted a finger and held it straight up.
“Chandelle,” I muttered, and on the tip of my finger sprouted a little flame. It was warm against my hand, and comforting sort of, knowing I had that kind of power. I quickly blew the flame out when I thought people were walking past. I closed my locker and gathered up my things, taking a deep breath before I made my way down the hall. I hurried along to class as quickly as I could, holding on to some sense of routine in the middle of all the craziness going on and not wanting to be late.
When the teacher walked into the class I turned to face forward and start working. When I opened up my binder to find my work pages though, an image unfolded from inside of it like a pop-up book. Alex’s astral projection popped up and I didn’t even give it a second before I threw my book closed again with a loud smack. I didn’t say anything, but some people looked at me, especially the girl next to me. Instead I stood up and took my binder and hurried out of the class. I didn’t stop to ask the teacher to leave or anything, but I figured they’d all be able to guess I’d be back because I left my pencils and things behind.
Once I got out into the hall I walked until I found a quiet little corridor that joined the science wing to the front of the school. No one was there, so I tucked myself into the small alcove where a door that entered the gymnasium change rooms stood tucked away. I guess you’d call that an alcove or a niche or something. I opened my binder and Alex’s image popped up again just like before. I… must have caught her at work, because she was dressed in her underwear and a garter belt and some stockings. I definitely didn’t want anyone to see that.
“Stop doing that,” I said.
“I’ll get the hang of it,” She said, standing amid the last day’s work on full French sentences and sentence structures, “I do believe I’ve come across an idea in regards to your door-opening.”
“Yeah?” I listened.
“We’ve simply been assuming that you’d be able to do it naturally – and by all means you should,” She said, “But you’re not in tune with this for one very simple reason: you’re too young, my little sorceress. Because of this, we need more structure… training wheels, essentially. We need to try a proper evocation.”
I tilted my head a little. “What, you mean with the words and stuff?” I asked, “I thought that was only for making fire and stuff.”
“Heavens no!” My tiny holographic mentor said, “Many magic spells, including many rituals, have always needed a vocal component. There are very few casters who could ever hope to master any one spell or ability to the level of not needing to speak. While you could in theory cast a spell without so much as a word, doing so has a very low chance of success.”
“Your ability to open portals is supposed to come naturally,” Alex went on, pacing around on my paper, “But your body is in all ways incapable of pulling that off. You need to shape your magic, and I believe it would become the equivalent of… belching on command, if I may take a crude example.”
“Okay, so… I need magic words,” I said, “For opening a portal.”
“For grabbing hold of the barrier and forcing it to your will,” Alex corrected me, “I’d advise you to take some time in picking your words carefully, and then you should visit me this coming weekend when you’re prepared so we can test some theories. Do try to get in touch with the barrier as well, the more familiar you are with that divider, the better.”
“Ooookay,” I said, nodding to the affirmative. It sounded like we were actually going to get somewhere for a change. I was a little excited about this.
“Right then,” Alex said, “I need to return to a client; they’re getting a little concerned that my physical body isn’t responding to them.”
I gave her a weird look. “Wait, you…?” I almost didn’t want to ask.
“I suppose being comatose would be a little disconcerting in the moment,” Alex hummed, “Well, in any case, Saturday!”
The image popped like a bubble and Alex was gone before I could say another word. Well, that was one way to spend a Saturday, and a way I really wanted to spend it. I had already started trying to think up methods to touch the barrier between the real world and the Nevernever while I made my way back to class. When I was just a few feet away from the door my phone buzzed in my pocket. I took the opportunity of not being in the classroom to check what sort of message I got.
Another text, from my Mom.
“You’ll have to be home Saturday to watch Fraise. I will be working late,” It said.
I answered “K” and put my phone away to get back into class. The teacher, Miss Gretchen, watched me come back in and asked me, in French, where I’d gone.
“Je pris la mauvaise livres de mon casier et a dû récupérer les livres appropriés,” I said. That was enough to satisfy her and I was allowed to sit back down. That was good, because I didn’t stop for a second to answer her and already had my butt in the chair when I finished explaining that I’d just taken the wrong books out of my locker. I gave no fucks anyway, and opened my binder to start writing down words I thought might help me open a door to the Nevernever.
French has one-hundred thousand words, give or take because new words are popping up all the time. Those words, though, have three-hundred and fifty thousand definitions. English has over one-hundred and seventy-six thousand words, and they’ve got six-hundred and fifteen thousand definitions. I just looked that up. Fewer definitions for fewer words means less ambiguity when it comes to intent. It means that the language was simpler and more to the point. I felt confident using French words as my magic words because there were only so many of them that my meaning couldn’t get lost under it all. I did have my choice of words though. There was a difference between “ouvir” and “déplier,” and I had to take that into consideration when selecting one.
I wanted to rip open a hole in the barrier, and the words I used needed to guide my will to that purpose. That was what I learned about evocation – the words just weren’t as important as the will, but the words did change the will in certain ways. It was simple, yet complex, and I learned that I couldn’t just say gibberish, because I wouldn’t have believed in the words. Belief and confidence were important parts of will, and the absence of either resulted in a spell going flat.
“If you think you can’t, you won’t.” I actually wrote that in a notebook I kept in my desk at home as one of my rules of magic.
I spent the class writing words as they came to me. I wasn’t allowed to second guess them, so when a word came to me I had to write it down and tell myself that it would work. That was step number one; step number two was not thinking I was just full of crap. I had to believe that when Alex said that I can rip open the barrier, that I actually could do it. So if I even thought I was wrong for a second, I turned my pencil around and erased the word to come up with a new one. It was harder than it sounds.
I never explained why I’m so good at French, did I? It’s because my Grandma doesn’t speak English very well. I come from a French family. That’s it, really. I’ve been learning how to speak it since I was just a little kid, so French courses were really just easy credits towards graduation for me. I didn’t even bat an eye when I was given more verb tense practice to do when I got home. I was tempted to take the work sheet and fill it out right then, but the bell rang to end class a little too soon. Instead I clipped the papers into my binder and gathered up my things to leave. Homework would have to be for that night, and I aimed to finish as much as I could so that the next day I’d be able to just go to Alex’s house.
About half-way through Career Studies, I thought I had a damn good spell written up that would help me open that door. I was satisfied with it, which was the first time I’d felt satisfied with anything for a while. I was going to practice it when I got home. For that moment, I closed my binder and listened to the teacher talk about various job-hunting strategies, and had a feeling in my head like… I had nothing to do. For the first time in what felt like weeks I just sat there and zoned out and didn’t think about anything. Stuff was there, sure, but there was literally nothing I could do about any of it. I couldn’t do anything about the Hags until they showed up. Even though I wanted them to show up faster, I couldn’t go too far out of my way to find them. Even then, I couldn’t find them until I knew how to get rid of them.
I couldn’t do that until the next day, and there was no way to know if I’d even know how by the end of the day.
So I had my whole game plan set up:
Step 1: Learn how to open Nevernever doors
Step 2: Find Boo Hags
Step 3: ????
Step 4: Profit
Sub-objective: Do homework
That sounded pretty good to me.
I took a really deep breath and let it out in a big siiiiiigh. I slumped in my chair, spread my legs, sat with my feet kicked out, and let my arms hang limp at my sides. If I felt any lazier, I would have tried falling asleep. I finally had it, I finally had… something.
I thought, “Don’t worry, I’ll get them.”
Was it my job? I still don’t think so.
A job is something you get paid for.
It was… just something I had to do.
The class just breezed by and when the bell rang to end it, I gathered up my things and just strolled out. I wasn’t in a big hurry aside from getting to the bus on time, so I took my time. I waded through the crowds of students to my locker, grabbed the things I needed for that night and shoved them all into my backpack, and then just kept walking. I passed by the school library on my way out and felt compelled to stop there. I ducked in and quickly went to the little room the clubs used for their meetings.
The decorations were still set up, including the straw men that the former Occult Club made. I walked over and took one off the shelf. I looked at it as I held it in my hand, turning it front and back. It didn’t have any magic in it, I couldn’t feel anything as I held it. For all intents and purposes, it was just some silly little thing made by some silly teenage girl with a silly fascination with things that could have not been real. It was harmless, like the club members probably were.
I decided to keep the straw doll, so I put it in my bag with the rest of my things. I don’t know why, but I actually kind of liked the ugly thing. It reminded me what I was doing and why. I took it with me and brought it home where I put it on my desk in my room. I tucked it into the cubby my computer’s monitor stood in and I kept it tucked aside so no one could really see it if they weren’t pretty much sitting at the computer… which I never let anyone do. I was anxious to practice my magic, so I sat down with my written spell open at my desk.
“Sai…”
“Cookie! Dinner!”
I was cut off half way through the first word by my Mom yelling up the stairs for me. I paused and groaned. People were just starting to get annoying to me. I got up in a hurry and stomped out of my room, rushing downstairs to eat. My Mom picked up on my bad mood right away, but I told her I didn’t want to talk about it and it was nothing she needed to worry about. She pushed one more time like she always did, but I shut her out. Lucky for me, she never asked three times. She just told me to lighten up because she didn’t want to send anyone to their room. That was fair enough, I did that then. Besides, she made home-made pizza for dinner and I wanted that.
Pizza came first, then practice. Life just kinda went on, after all…
Chapter 13
I stayed up late since it was the weekend by then, chanting magic words and focusing my will at the same time to get a feel for which ones resonated the strongest with what I wanted to do. I tried reaching out and touching the barrier, and even though I could feel it around me, I never made any direct contact with it. It was literally just out of reach of my will, no matter how far I tried to reach out. It was frustrating, and I could have thought of a million other things I could have been doing instead if it weren’t for Alex introducing me to magic in the first place. No matter what, though, I couldn’t get the image of the Occult Club girls’ skins hanging in that old cabin’s closet out of my head.
I was going to do it, if not for me and my family, then for those girls and all the other stupid, clueless people I went to school with.
As for looking after Fraise, well… I figured I could just bring her along to Alex’s. She was friends with Alex’s daughter, so it wouldn’t be hard to keep her distracted. Part of me felt good about that because I knew Fraise would be happy spending time with her friend, and the other part of me was just thrilled at the convenience. It almost felt like real life and magic stuff could live in harmony… Ha, I wish. I was a little angry I couldn’t focus on school as much as I wanted. I was angry that I couldn’t focus on the magic, too… I could feel the strain of it all, and I was really hoping that whatever Alex had in mind was going to be worth all the trouble.
Saturday morning came with me drooling a puddle into my pillow.
I dragged myself out of bed and prepared for my first big day putting a real effort into opening a door to the Nevenever. I brushed my teeth, brushed my hair, took a shower, and then threw on some clothes. My grandma – or ma mémé as she prefers Fraise and me to call her – knit me a gray dress with pockets at the hips, long sleeves and a wide turtle neck; it was really super comfortable so I decided to wear it. I put on my comfiest bra, my smallest underwear, and some nylons too. It made me look cute, but smart. My glasses always helped the smart look.
Mom went to work after getting Fraise some toast with Nutella on it. I got my own breakfast: Raisin Bran cereal. I sat at the island countertop we had in the middle of the kitchen and ate it up as quickly as I could before I looked at Fraise still in her nightie and asked, “Do you wanna go to Gwen’s today?”
She pushed her tits against my lap and stared right back up at me with those big, violet eyes of hers shining with excitement. “Really?! Yeah!” She said.
“How about we go after lunch?” I asked.
“Yeah! Yeah!” Fraise bounced on her toes.
“Alright, knock it off,” I pushed Fraise to get her away from me because all that bouncing around was making me uncomfortable, “Well then you gotta get dressed because you’re not going anywhere in your pajamas.”
Fraise blew a raspberry at me and then scampered off to her room. I heard her stampeding up the stairs and I sighed.
I spent the time trying to meditate and push my will from my body. My connection to the Nevernever was a little… spotty. Sometimes I’d be able to feel its energies swirling around my body and sometimes I felt nothing. It wasn’t consistent in any way. When I cast my first spell in the old cabin, it must have been a fluke. I really wasn’t thinking about how I was doing it at the time, and now that everything had calmed down, I couldn’t just do it again. Fear must have been one hell of a motivator, but unless I was going to be running for my life any time soon I just wasn’t going to be casting any more spells.
Lunch came, I made grilled cheese sandwiches, and Fraise and I ate them, and then got ready to go. Fraise had gotten into one of her dresses, a light blue one with a white waist sash, and had brushed and curled her hair into her corkscrew curls. I helped her with her shoes and strapped into my boots and left for Alex’s house. I wouldn’t even have to watch her, but she’d stay out of trouble thus keeping Mom from getting pissed off, and still get magic pointers from Alex at the same time. Weekends really were the best…
When we made it to the house I rang the doorbell and Alex answered it. We exchanged our hellos and Alex’s little blue skunk daughter came to invite Fraise inside. Fraise ran in and the two of them hurried off to Gwen’s room to play together, leaving me with Alex. Alex let me in and closed the door. She knew exactly why I was there, so I didn’t have to say anything. Instead of bringing me into the attic first, though, she walked me up to her bedroom. It felt weird going in there, mostly because it looked like she styled her room to fit some Gothic-Victorian style. Her bed could have fit way more than two people and was huge because, well, she was huge. It had a canopy and privacy curtains, making it look about as fancy as her regal vanity and impressive wardrobe did. The room had a big ornate rug covering most of the floor on top of plain-looking carpet, and impressive curtains over the windows.
“I’ve got a couple of presents for you, Cookie dear,” She said as she walked into her room. I had a hard time not watching her butt sway around in her jeans. Her boobs stretched out the ruffle neckline of her plum-coloured top, too. Even in normal Mom clothes she was… well, sexy; and even if I was feeling bad, I couldn’t ignore it.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“I’ve been working with that friend of yours, Perceus, and his father,” She said, “And I’ve made some purchases from their shop that should help you. I’ve spent a fair bit of time over the past few days enchanting some items that will improve your focus.”
Alex opened her wardrobe, a big standing closet sort of deal with multiple compartments and drawers that took up a good half of one wall. She didn’t have to reach very high to grab something from the top shelf before closing the door again and returning to me standing at the doorway. “Here,” She said.
The first thing she handed to me was a glove… not two gloves, just one single glove. It looked old-fashioned, made out of dark leather hide, with small metal discs stitched into the fabric. The glove was fingerless, but otherwise it covered my hand down to just past my wrist, so it wasn’t very long. “That glove is special,” Alex explained, “It is made from Grim Hide – a Grim is a Nevernever creature, and one that can actually tear holes in the barrier separating it from the mortal realm. Its hide allows it to travel through relatively unharmed. They’re dangerous, but rare. That glove should allow you to be more sensitive to the barrier.”
“Only one?” I asked as I held the glove up by its finger.
“It fits the right hand because of the way energy flows through your body,” Alex said, “That Grimfang Glove will allow you to more easily manipulate the barrier.”
I slid the glove onto my hand. It was a good fit.
“Copper is a conductive metal in magic, so your energy should flow easily through the material, and vice-versa” She continued, explaining the discs.
I turned my hand over and studied each side of the glove. “Neat,” I said. It really was interesting… The way the material hugged my hand, I could feel a little resistance moving against me whenever I moved my hand at all. I swung my arm around slowly and reached out to my side with my fingers. I swiped my fingers across the air and half expected to see a ripple. If I focused, it felt even better.
Alex grinned. “Alright,” She said, “Secondly, this.”
She handed me a little nylon sleeve with a clip and a fastening button. I opened it up to find stick of coarse metal with a wrist strap attached to one end, like a handle without a weapon. Taking it, I turned it to notice that there was a compartment on the opposing end that had something inside of it. There was a button on the side as well that I could push in, but it didn’t do anything when I tried.
“Give it a flick,” Alex said, “Off to the side now.”
I did what she asked, but I was a little confused about what she meant at first. She demonstrated for me by swinging her arm. Her boobs jiggled, and I watched them until they stopped, then I took the weapon into my hand and swung my arm out to my side. It extended, releasing into a telescopic metal baton like the police would have. The rod locked when fully extended into three segments and a blunt tip on the end. I turned the rod around when I brought it back to my face and noticed that every segment was separated by a lighter, silver ring.
“The grooves in the surface, do you see them?” Alex asked me, stepping in close to point at the baton, “They’re very specifically carved, to my understanding, to guide your will. This is a focus… though perhaps a little more modern than what you may be used to, it’s essentially a magic wand. It gives you a point to gather up all that energy, making spells safer to cast. That means you’ll hold it in your right hand as well, I’ll add.”
It really did have a certain texture to it, and the handle was made entirely of metal too and carved so that it wouldn’t slip out of my hand. “Is this… cold iron?” I asked.
“No, no,” Alex laughed, “Cold iron isn’t as good for transferring magical energies. It contains properties in itself that effect the supernatural, and our magic is simply muddied by it. No, this is Crucible Steel. It’s an alloy a little more effective for our purposes.”
I pushed the button on the handle and it unlocked the different segments so I could push them back in. I put the baton back in its holster and put it in my pocket for the time being.
“That should help,” Alex said, “So now we’re going to try in earnest to open a door. Come with me to the attic.”
I followed her up to the attic as usual, and she quickly started to move things around and clear out as large a spot on the floor as she could. She pulled up the entrance to the attic and closed us off from the girls downstairs before she moved me to the center of the room. Leaving her hands on my shoulders she instructed me to close my eyes and try to focus on the barrier between us and the Nevernever. I did as she asked, feeling her body warmly push up against my back as I got ready to try and reach out and touch the ephemeral plane, I guess you could say.
Moving my hand was like pushing a light sheet of plastic that would settle again around my hand in seconds. I tried to reach out and touch that, trying to grab hold of it, but physically I couldn’t do it. My fingers just kind of grabbed at the air in front of me. Alex continued to encourage me whenever I tried, and instructed me to focus my will out from my body. I stood there trying for what felt like forever, just grabbing at nothing over and over again. Even when I got my will to tingle in my fingers, forcing it through my body and to the end of my arm, I couldn’t quite get the hang of pushing it out.
“Try an evocation now,” Alex suggested, “Choose your words carefully, envision yourself as if you were ripping apart a rice paper wall.”
I took a deep breath and extended my hand again. Gathering my will and focusing it into my hand and then started the spell I’d written and rehearsed the day before.
“Saisir.”
My fingers clenched around the barrier, bunching it up and balling it in my fist. I was actually holding it in my hand! I turned my hand, twisting the barrier, pulling it.
“Fissurer.”
Seize and rip. I connected with the barrier and began to rip it, tearing into it with my will. My power stretched from me like fingers, matching the intent of my movements to grab onto what had no form. There was a ripple of energy in the air as I turned my fist like I was opening a lock.
“Démolir…”
I grit my teeth as pulling back my arm became difficult. The barrier resisted me, trying to force itself back into its natural form. I yanked on it as I drew my elbow back with a stiff arm, stretching it outward toward me from a point I could feel was a few feet in front of me. When I had just about pulled back all the way, the barrier was stretching like a bungee cord. My arm shook just trying to hold onto it. I pushed to keep pulling and tearing at it, starting to breathe harder from the effort. I clenched my jaw so tight I thought I was going to burst a vein in my neck. Alex stepped back to give me some room, so I shifted my feet and tried to plant them.
I started to grunt, sweating practically as I tore back with my fingers. I could feel the barrier pulling back against me so hard that it stretched physically around my fingertips. The air rippled around my hand, visibly stretching against my fingers as if I was actually grabbing reality and trying to rip it. It only got harder, and the barrier pulled me and made me step forward. I stomped my foot on the floor and pulled back harder, trying to leverage my weight into it. I… just don’t weigh much, so I spent minutes standing there and struggling with Alex coaching me every step of the way.
Finally after enough pulling, I got some slack. The barrier tore at my fingertips. All I needed to do was punch one big hole into it, just like at the cabin.
“Déverrouiller la porte!"
I thrust my hand forward and my energy burst into the air like a shockwave. I pushed books off shelves and scattered papers all over the attic. The room shook with the force, the stretched air whiplashed away from me and then was forced to fold in on itself as my magic struck it. That hit tore a rift open. Blown apart by my will, a bright, shining hole sat waiting for something to come through. It was bigger than me, it could have fit Alex comfortably even, and it just… sat there. I released all my focus and sighed when I was able to breathe normally again, and Alex was quick to catch me when I stumbled back. I landed against her soft body and she held me up, staring past me at the hole I’d ripped between there and the Nevernever.
“You did it,” She said, “Bloody hell, you did it. And look at you…”
Alex looked down at me and I blinked up at her.
“Huh?” I asked.
Alex chuckled a little and shrugged her shoulder. “Oh, you’re just starting to look like a real Seer now, that’s all. Right now, you ought to be chuffed. You don’t realize the accomplishment you’ve just… well, accomplished! You’re half way there now.”
I gaped, “Half way?”
“Oh yes,” Alex laughed, “It takes some doing to shove something through that gaping hole in the universe. It’s not something you’ll bang out overnight.”
I groaned, staring at the rift, “Man…”
“Have some patience, little one,” Alex brushed her fingers along my hair and then grabbed me and propped me upright, “And close that thing, won’t you? Chop-chop, before something slips through.”
“Aw jeez…” I huffed, getting my footing and sticking my hand out again to focus, “This fuckin’ blows.”
“Language, young lady,” Alex gave me a small smack on the top of my head.
I grit my teeth and, with the glove on my hand, I reached out and took hold of my energy to pull it back. I shouted “arrêter!” before I threw my hand aside and dismissed all the whirling energy that kept the rift open. It collapsed on itself, and sent another shockwave through the room that sent me stumbling back into Alex. She caught me again and kept me standing, and little by little I could feel the barrier reform as it was meant to be. I took a deep breath and tried to relax, dumping all the focus from my head and taking off my Grimfang Glove. I felt pretty tired and a little shaken, and Alex pat me on the shoulders. The glove really worked, amplifying my own abilities like that… I looked up at Alex by pushing my head back against her tits, and I smiled at her. She kind of laughed and messed up my hair.
“You’re welcome, you little goober,” She said.
I blushed a little and enjoyed myself all mashed up against her boobs for a little while.
“Mooooom?” We heard Gwen calling from downstairs, “What are you doing up there? You’re shaking the whole house!”
“Yeah the whooooooole house!” Fraise yelled up after.
Alex rolled her eyes and let me go. “Nothing, dear!” She shouted back, “Never you mind!”
Gwen and Fraise didn’t yell up anymore so I guessed they just ran off to go do something. I turned to Alex and asked, “So… how do I send things back?”
“A binding spell,” Alex said, “But… I know you must be in a hurry. Still, I think it’ll do you good, love, to relax a little. You just opened a portal to the Nevernever with no mind for spatial conditions, spiritual turbulence, and no goat sacrifices.”
“Yeah, but…” I started, but Alex cut me off.
She shook her head and raised a hand to silence me. “The only but I want to see is yours going down the steps,” She said, “Let’s make you some tea and take some strain off you.”
“Tea?” I asked, “I can’t just drink tea, the Boo Hags…!”
“Are biding their time, so bide a little of your own,” Alex cut me off again. She stepped up to me and wrapped me up in a hug that lifted me off the ground and squashed my face against her chest again. This muffled any attempt I made at arguing with her, and gave me a tired, distracting boner as her energies mixed with mine.
“Do you know what sets us apart from those beasts?” She asked, “Preparation. It’s a spell caster’s number one weapon. Acting swiftly and rushing are two different things and you’d do well to remember that. Besides, if you’re going to send something through, I’d rather it not be me. Allow me some time to set up an exercise, alright?”
“Omph,” I blinked, realizing that, yeah, if I was going to practice sending things to the Nevernever, I’d need something to practice on. I nodded and looked up at her as best I could and muffled an affirmative, “Mmhmph.”
Alex smiled and closed her arms around me tighter, jamming me in against her body as tightly as could be. She buried my head against her breasts and I could hear the purring that made her vibrate all over. “Oh, dear, mm… Maybe we can relax a different way…” She said. She teased my hair and crushed me against her body, and it had me all excited even though I really didn’t plan on anything like that. I couldn’t really hide the way my dick rubbed up against her thigh. That sort of reward was sounding nicer and nicer by the second… but she was probably just trying to distract me. I felt anxious, but… I couldn’t help myself at that point.
Stupid, sexy Alexandra…
“Donnez-moi ta bite, petite souris…” She said, and I felt a hot wave of blood rush into my ears and face.
So she and I, uh… fooled around in the attic for a little bit before we went downstairs and she made me some really gross tea and had me drink it. It was supposed to be some kind of herbal thing that was going to make me relax, but I didn’t really care at the time. She spent the rest of the afternoon teasing me and I spent the rest of the afternoon staring at her and not really thinking about the training. I had the wand baton and I had the glove, and that set me way ahead in terms of what I was able to accomplish. If I went up against the Hags then, I would have been able to hold my own, I thought… maybe, anyway.
It was still weird, though, that Alex went out of her way to distract me like that. It sucked that it worked, at least after I realized what she did while I was on my way home with Fraise.
“Aw damnit,” I said.
Fraise whipped her head up to look at me. “What?” She said, “I didn’t do nothing!”
I shook my head and said, “Uh, never mind. Just remembered something.”
“So, hey, hey,” My sister tugged on my arm a little, “When me and Gwen were playing in the back yard she told me that roly-poly bugs are actually called Armadil… Armadillider… Armidillidee… Armathingies!”
And I learned how to open portals to the land of fairies. After that I banged Gwen’s mom.
I sighed and nudged my glasses up so I could rub my eyes in frustration. “That’s… that’s great,” I said, “Awesome.”
“So hey,” She said, “Did you get rid of the monsters? I haven’t seen any more of them!”
I looked up in surprise. “Oh, uh, yeah,” I said, forgetting that she knew about the Boo Hags, or maybe I was just surprised that she was even still thinking about them.
“I mean no,” I said, “I haven’t yet. I’m learning how.”
“Ohhhh,” Fraise marched along, “How?”
I shrugged, “I just am, okay? I’m going to get rid of them real soon.”
“What’s that?” She asked, poking the holster for my baton in my pocket.
I scowled, “None of your business.”
Fraise just puckered her lips and stared at me with this suspicious look on her face. “You’re being reeeeeal weird, sis,” She said.
Fraise walked faster, bouncing on ahead as we got over the hill near our home. She started jostling her way down the slope, making her steps heavy and sloppy. I sighed as I kept her in sight, rubbing the back of my neck as I followed behind her. All this lying was getting tough. I was going to have to go back to Alex’s place the next day, but I didn’t really have an excuse for it… hopefully no one asked any questions.
Alex may have been able to keep me from learning how to send things back with the old bait and switch, but she couldn’t stop me from testing out my newfound power. I was finally able to go into the Nevernever, no more just looking in like a cosmic voyeur. I just needed a decent spot to go test it out, so I called down to Fraise. “Hey, go on ahead!” I said, “I’ll be home in a second!”
“Where are you going?!” She yelled back at me.
I thought up a lie in record time, “I left something at Gwen’s!”
Fraise yelled back, “Okay!” She skipped off to the house after that. I stayed standing at the top of the hill just to make sure she got in okay, and I watched her go in through the garage. Knowing she’d be safe for just a little while, I turned and started walking through the tall grass at the side of the road. I went around one of the large hills that made up the entrance to our little valley, cut across the next door neighbour’s lawn and back yard, and then disappeared into the woods behind our houses.
The woods were thick behind my house, and behind everyone else’s house from the valley entrance all the way to my bus stop where the trees stopped. I never usually went into the woods for very long, even as a kid, because there just wasn’t anything out there; nothing but trees, branches, and leaves waited for me there. Usually you could see birds out there of all different kinds, but with September almost half over I started to see them less. I heard them less, too, which suited me just fine. But for as boring as the woods were, it was the perfect place to do just about anything I wanted. No one was going to see me, even with the leaves falling off the trees. The sheer number of branches made things difficult enough even without the greenery.
It was the perfect spot to tear open some portals. I went a long way away from the house, until it looked pretty small in the distance through the trees. I had to march up a little bit of an incline to get there, but I managed it. I stood there then and took the Grimfang glove out of my pocket, putting it on my right hand before I stood with my feet planted. I closed my eyes, extended my hand out in front of me like last time, and chanted my magic words one at a time while performing the same motions I did back at Alex’s house.
“Saisir… Fissurer… Démolir…”
It became a struggle again when I was trying to rip open the barrier. The way it pulled back from me when it rippled and crinkled between my fingers felt like it was trying to pull the energy out of my body from starting at my feet. I had to push my limits until my head started to throb and felt like it was going to pop. It was even harder to do than the first time, feeling like it was taking longer to get that release of pressure I needed to blow open the path. It was like I was trying to pull a refrigerator down the street with nothing but a rope. Eventually I felt that tear, and knew it was my chance to act. I forced my hand forward and unloaded a blast of will into the spell that would punch a hole through the barrier.
“Déverrouiller la porte!”
Boom. The door opened up with the same unleash of magical energy as before. I felt my knees go weak and I buckled. I collapsed onto the ground, but caught myself with my arms to stay at least on my hands and knees. I needed to take a moment to catch my breath and try to ease all the strain from opening the portal out of my body. It felt like I’d just run a fifty meter sprint while piggybacking Fraise. I swallowed and looked up to see my handiwork after a while of rest, pushing myself back onto my feet.
It looked exactly the same, a glowing tear with pink edges like I’d burned a hole into some film. The other side of the portal showed a big, grassy field with beautiful flowers like daisies as far as the eye could see, under a dark, starry sky. It was beautiful to look at, and appeared peaceful and serene… there was only one thing I could think to do: I stepped forward and reached out my hand to put it through the portal. My hand dipped into the portal and it rippled like pond water. Nothing bad happened, so I took a few careful steps forward. My arm submerged into the portal and I stopped when it reached my bicep. I found myself just standing in front of the portal staring into it.
My arm was on the other side clearly, but my hand had a few pink designs on it that glowed like arcane markings. I wiggled my fingers and turned my palm up to examine the marks. Some of them ran up under the sleeve of my dress, leading me to suspect that they went further up my arm too. The marks made no real sense, but they looked impressive and very deliberately placed in a symmetrical pattern, closing on the back of my hand like pincers and encircling a pink, glowing eye on the palm of my hand. The eye was just a design, it didn’t move or blink or anything weird like that. I looked at my other hand and saw nothing, but the same marks appeared on it when I pushed it through the portal too.
I took my hands back out and studied them both to find the markings gone. The portal stood waiting for me to do… something, whether it be closing it or doing what I planned on doing: passing through. I pushed my hands back through, took a deep breath, and then stepped slowly past the precipice and into the Nevernever. As I passed through there was a moment, maybe a split second where I was standing between the real world and the Nevernever, but the moment passed and I found myself on the other side pretty readily.
Looking around there, everything was different. Where there used to be trees, there was just open field. Looking back towards my house, it stood in the field by itself, exactly the same as it appeared in the real world, except there was a giant barrier around it. Big, glowing magic symbols stood surrounding the house, but not the smaller buildings around it. The symbols seemed to stretch all the way into the sky and looked impressively mystical as big, giant round shields with strange writing and symbols on and around them that probably meant something I’d never figure out. The rest of the field seemed empty for miles in every direction. The horizon just went on forever and the stars in the sky stretched nebulously onward, some falling from the sky in beautiful lines.
Magical energies were everywhere. I could feel them, subtly, all around and through my body. My body was the same in the Nevernever as it was in the real world, I looked at myself and saw no real difference. I did pull up my dress to see myself a bit more clearly though, and the same arcane markings on my hands and arms were on the outer sides of my legs and decorating my abdomen too. They must have been all over my body, but of course I couldn’t see my own face, so I just went on the assumption.
“I didn’t expect this chance of meetings. Hello young Seer, greetings!”
I hurriedly pulled my dress back down when I heard someone speak from behind me. I quickly turned around to see who it was, my hand going for my baton in my pocket. I didn’t see anyone there. Confused, I tried to listen hard and catch whoever it was moving around. I heard a fluttering by my left ear, so I snapped my attention that way to see a tiny little fairy looking at me. He was a humanoid fairy that glowed a bright green and had rapidly fluttering wings like a butterfly. Even from that close, the glow of his body made it hard to make out, but he had arms and legs and a nose and ears… a perfectly normal human shape all around. He wasn’t an animal like me though, but with his pointed ears he looked kind of like a little elf. He even wore a little hat and some kind of tunic.
“Of Seers I’ve only seen a few,” He said, “Tell me, who are you?”
He didn’t seem hostile, so I eased up. “Uh,” I said, “I’m Cookie S…”
“Ah! No need for full names!” He said, putting his tiny hands on my lips to clamp them shut, “Steer clear of such introductions around here! Giving away your full name could leave you at the mercy of a witch’s game! It’s safer just to name your first if you plan to traverse head first into our worst.”
I was speechless.
“I am Treasel,” He introduced himself, “Spring Fairy! I was tasked to watch this place, the Seers, they asked! Did you come here through that door? You must be who I’m watching for!”
Treasel fluttered around to look at my portal. “Oh that is a mortal portal,” He said with a nod, “You’re a Seer for sure, though I must say you look a little immature. Are you supposed to be here?”
“Uh, well,” I blinked a few times as I stared at the portal.
“If you have no reason to be here, then you had best steer clear!” He said, “It’s dangerous. You don’t want to be on the bad end of any exchanges, not here!”
“I just learned how to do that,” I said, “I was practicing.”
Treasel gasped and balled his hands into little fists in front of his mouth. “You’re just a baby!” He said, “Not even a grown-up lady! You must be skilled indeed… Of you, the Seers must take heed! I’ve got to tell them right away!”
“So there are other ones?” I asked, lifting a hand to stop him from just flying away.
“Not right here, that’s why I’m watching for the Seers!” He said, “But I need to ask you to go back, Cookie. This is no place for a rookie!”
I looked to my left and right to see pretty much nothing but empty space. “But there’s nothing here,” I said.
Treasel shook his head. “But you’re a Seer, you’ll bring them here,” He explained, “And so you must leave through the hole you cleaved before you’re perceived by things worse than me!”
Treasel flew around behind me and started pushing on the back of my neck. He struggled to move me, because he really couldn’t, shoving and grunting back there before turning and pushing his back up against me. I stood there for a few seconds and sort of smiled at his effort. I turned around and he bumbled into my neck, so I plucked him up by his tunic and lifted him up to look at his face. He started swinging his little fists and kicking his legs right away.
“Release me!” He shouted.
“Have you been watching this place a long time?” I asked him.
“Very long!” He said as he tried to kick my nose. I pulled him away from me so there was no hope his little legs could reach me.
“Okay… have you seen any Boo Hags around here?” I asked.
“Boo Hags?” He asked, “No, I haven’t. Why? Did something happen?”
Thinking that maybe he could help me, I told him about what happened with the Boo Hags. He seemed like he was working with the Seers, the ones I kept hearing about but had never met. I trusted that if I let him know what my situation was, that would just work out for the better. He stopped fussing long enough to listen to my story, but when I finished he started to thrash around again. He was a strong little guy, he actually jerked my arm around by throwing his weight. Still, he wasn’t strong enough to actually get me to let go, so I kept holding onto him.
“Please, I need to report you!” He begged, “Would you let me go if I said I’d look for Boo Hags too?”
Well, that was exactly what I wanted. I decided to mess with him though, and shifted my eyes left and right in devious thought. “I dunno,” I said, “You’re kind of cute. Maybe I’ll just keep you.”
“No! No! Whatever you do!” He squeaked, “If you let me go, I promise! I promise I will help you! But reporting to the Seers is what I’ve been told to do, so let me do that or I’m through!”
I chuckled. “Are they really that mean?” I asked.
“I don’t want to find out!” He said, “That Grandmaster’s a real sour kraut!”
“Grandmaster? Hmm… Alright Treasel,” I said, “I’ll let you go. But if you could look around Beach City for me for the Boo Hags, that’d help out a lot.”
“Teasel is a friend to all Seers, far and near!” He saluted, “Those Boo Hags won’t be able to hide from me; I’ll find them and report in with glee!”
“Alright little buddy,” I said, letting him go.
He immediately zipped away, moving so fast I nearly lost sight of him. I watched his flickering little light fade away into the distance, and eventually I wasn’t able to really make out where he was because he started to blend in with the lights in the sky. I put my hands on my hips and felt pretty good about myself for muscling a fairy into co-operation. He said a lot about the Seers though, and I was actually pretty curious to ask him more things… It was obvious he wasn’t going to co-operate that much though, because he would’ve gotten in trouble if he didn’t tell the others about me. I had no idea what that was going to mean for me, but I decided not to worry about it. I mean, if there were other Seers around, that would have made my job a lot easier. I was looking forward to meeting one.
I did what I promised to do and stepped back into the portal to come back out in the woods, and then I dismissed the portal and started heading back to the house. Fraise was probably wondering where I was by then.
Chapter 14
“What, a fairy? Like Tinkerbell?” Percy slurped his soda, using that to swallow a mouthful of chili fries.
He’d brought me to the place he was talking about a couple days before. It was called Jump Jack’s, and is basically the building equivalent to a food truck. It wasn’t very big, had panel siding and a tacky lit sign on top of it, and its menu was strictly summer. The thing was, it was open all year round… Supposedly because the food was good. But since it was such a dinky little place, I never really noticed it before. The food was all burgers and fries, hotdogs and onion rings, sodas and milkshakes, and everything else a person my age would like. Music played over some cheap PC speakers probably hooked up to an employee’s MP3 player, and the few booths and tables set up were relatively comfortable.
The only reason I was there at all was because Alex still needed more time to set up her experiment or whatever to see if I could force something back into the Nevernever. So, I took Percy up on his offer to go out there and get something to eat. I had no money, so I brought my homework for that weekend with me and sat at a booth with him, trying to get it done. He bought me some soda and offered to share his chili fries with me, but I passed and just tried to focus on my work. In the meantime I told him about my short meeting with Treasel and my newfound ability. It was weird talking about that stuff with him, but once again he seemed pretty okay with it… He just asked a lot of questions.
“I guess he kind of looked like that,” I said, as I attempted to find the common denominator to a series of fractions, “Just more green.”
“Wow… So, hey, let me get this straight,” He said, plucking a fry out of the basket we had and waving it around, “This Nevernever place… it’s everywhere? So even here?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Everywhere-everywhere?” He asked.
I slurped on my soda obnoxiously for a brief moment.
“Yes,” I answered when I pulled the straw from my lips.
He paused for a second, munching on his fry. “And it looks different almost everywhere,” He said, mouth full.
I stopped writing and looked at him with as flat an expression as I could. “… Yes,” I answered, then went back to work.
“So what does it look like here?” He asked, “Can you see it?”
I was finding it hard to focus on my homework, so I took a breath and sighed. “No,” I said, “I can’t. I could, but I won’t.”
“Why not?” He blinked at me.
“Some places are great to look at,” I said, “And some are weird and creepy. Plus, everyone has different forms when I use my Third Eye to look at them. It usually has to do with basically who and what they are on the inside. I don’t wanna see everybody’s true selves.”
“So even I have one?” He asked.
“Yeah and I’d hate to see it,” I said, “It’s probably perverted. Okay, what the fuck is the common denominator between four fifths and six fifteenths? I hate this stuff.”
“Hey, I’m not a perv!” He exclaimed, just as one of the employees came to the counter to check on the small dining room. The employee stared at him, Percy looked back, and then he ducked down a little in the booth out of embarrassment.
“Heh,” I grinned and went back to my homework, “Anyway, I’m going to Alex’s later to learn how to get things in the portal.”
Percy hunched down pretty low just to get on my level. “Uh,” He said, “Push them really hard?”
“There’s got to be a better way than that,” I shook my head.
He rubbed his chin with one hand and then leaned back to sit up straight in his seat. “Hmm… Can I come too?” He asked.
“No,” I looked up quickly from my homework.
“What?! Why not?” He blinked.
“I dunno, mage class only?” I shrugged my shoulders, “Alex wouldn’t let you just hang around anyway.”
“Oh c’mon!” He said, “You keep telling me about all this magic stuff but I’ve never actually seen any of it. How else am I gonna know if you’re just lying?”
“You think I’d make this stuff up?” I cocked a brow at him, “After everything that’s happened? Look! Look at this!”
I tugged my dress’s collar down to show him the healing cut along my collar bone. He stared at me, but I realized he was just gawking at my cleavage so I pulled it back up. He blushed, then shook his head to get his senses back.
“Uh, yeah!” He nodded, “Monsters, fairies, magic, you sound like… like a crazy novelist or something. You can’t just tell someone stuff like that and expect it to just be ‘oh, okay!’ all the time.”
“I… hm,” He actually had me there.
Percy took another few fries and pulled them into his mouth. The melted cheese and chili kind of smeared on his face and dripped down his chin. “I said I’d help,” He said, mouth full, “I’ll just be there for… moral support!”
“Unless you’d look good in a short skirt and some pom-poms, I don’t want a cheerleader,” I huffed, taking some napkins out of the dispenser at the table and throwing them his way. They spread out in the air and buffeted him in various places. It was funny watching him flail trying to keep them away from his face.
He took one, wiped off his face, them crumpled it up and threw it back at me. I leaned aside without even looking up and the napkin bounced off the back of my seat and off to the side.
“You could use someone who can actually throw out a tackle,” He said, “And run fast, and… like, pick things up. You’ve got the magic, I’ve got the brawn. I’m a solid midfielder on the lacrosse team, and I happen to have a nutso Dad who owns a shop full of magic crap. Just bring me along, will ya?”
“And what happens if one of those monsters got their hands on you, huh?” I asked seriously, “You’d get killed.”
“You’d send them back to the Nevernever before that happened!” He held out his arms and smiled, “Perfect plan! I can run defense while you get the magic ready!”
“More like distraction,” I rolled my eyes.
Percy flattened out on the table and planted his hands over my papers so I couldn’t keep ignoring him with my homework. “Come onnnnn,” He begged and overdramatized, “Please! Alex and what’sername already know I know about the magic stuff! Just bring me along! I don’t wanna go back to the stor-or-ore!”
“Good God,” I sighed.
“Cookie I wanna see magic!” He said, placing his hands over mine, “It sounds like the best thing ever!”
I looked at him and he pouted at me and gave me really big puppy-dog eyes. I felt so annoyed with him at that point that I pulled my hand away and quickly slammed my books closed on his. “Fine!” I said.
He yelped when my books closed on his hands and he pulled them back quickly. “Really?” He asked as he shook the pain out.
“If it’s okay with Alex,” I said, “If she says no you’re gonna have to just screw off and go to work.”
He let his head drop back and kicked out his long legs. “Uuuugh, who works on a Sunday?” He groaned.
Man, this guy was starting to seem really weird. I wasn’t sure if he actually realized how dangerous this stuff was. “Hurry up and finish,” I said, checking my phone for the time.
Percy sat up and grabbed a bunch of fries. “You can’t rush this greatness,” He said before stuffing his face and starting to mow down quickly.
“Yeah, well, I have to go see Alex soon,” I said, “So hurry it up.”
“Nag, nag,” He rolled his eyes.
The beach was not actually anywhere near Alex’s house. In fact, she lived pretty much on the complete opposite side of town. I had to leave the little restaurant and catch a bus, and then ride it the rest of the way around town until it looped back around to drop me and Percy off near the convenience store at the end of the highway. Public transportation is a blessing, let me tell you, especially when you’re forced to stand with other passengers sitting at crotch-level and you just happened to decide to wear something a bit tighter that day – like asspants. I love asspants, but they, uh, leave nothing to the imagination so they’re a little… embarrassing… and super-duper annoying. I tried to wear a sweater dress to, you know, be a little more modest but I… peeked out, a little, in the front. Sufficed to say it was not an enjoyable ride; yet somehow the six-foot-one monkey I now carried around had no problem with being in everyone’s faces. Must be nice.
The bus only dropped off along the main roads, so the closest I could actually get to my side of town was the convenience store at the end of the highway leading in. I had to walk all the way back, which isn’t a short walk if you remember me talking about it before, and then I had to go just a little bit further to round my way to Alex’s house. It wasn’t a hot day, but I still had sweat in my buttcrack by the time I got there and I was tired. Super gross. Whatever Alex’s experiment was better have been worth the trouble, I thought. If it wasn’t, I’d… probably do nothing. But I was going to steal her shower by the end of the day, I swore to it.
When we knocked on the door, Gwen answered. The little blue skunk looked up at us, standing there in her little shorts and frilly tank top. I didn’t get to say anything before Percy squat down to be more level with her. I watched him, deciding not to say anything.
“Hey there,” He said, “What’s your name?”
Gwen just looked at him for a few seconds, obviously sizing up the creep factor of a sixteen year old boy in skinny jeans and a dark red denim jacket. After a decent inspection, she turned into the house and called, “Moooooom! Cookie’s back!”
Percy stood back up and looked at me. He shrugged and I just shook my head.
There was a crash from inside the house, coming from upstairs. Percy, Gwen and I stared up the steps towards the second floor as we continued to hear a struggle. Things were clearly getting knocked over up in the attic, with a loud crash of what must have been one of the book cases hitting the floor. “Bollocks!” We heard Alex curse, “One moment dear! Let her in!”
Gwen turned back to us and swept her arm as she invited us inside. “My name is Gwen and it’s a pleasure to meet you,” She said.
“Uh… yeah,” Percy said, “Perseus.”
We stepped inside and took our shoes and boots off. Gwen shut the door behind us and said, “Oh good, you’re named after a Greek legend.”
“It’s fitting!” Percy grinned.
“You’ll fit in great I’m sure. Now if you’ll excuse me, I am having a conference with Princess Bubblegum,” Gwen said, skipping past us then to head into the living room where she had obviously been watching cartoons on TV. Percy and I both watched her skip away, because that bubble butt of hers demanded the attention.
Percy furrowed his brows at me and asked, “How old is she again?”
“Easy now, lady-killer,” I said.
“No, I mean…”
Another crash from the attic cut Percy off from retaliating from my witty repartee. I decided that it was time to go upstairs and see what Alex was doing up there. Percy followed me as I walked up the steps and then up the drop-down stairs into the attic. The place was trashed, to no surprise. Papers were thrown around everywhere and books were tossed around the room. The main attraction was a magic circle designed on the floor. The two outer layers that Alex stood outside of were drawn in chalk. The middle circle was made of metal and placed on the floor. Inside that middle circle was a little tiny creature about as big as a two year old child with long ears and covered in brown fur. It sat in the middle circle, a musty old tome in hand, chewing on the pages and tearing them out with its teeth.
“Whoa,” Percy said, “What the heck is that?”
Alex turned to us. She was wearing some casual tights and a tanktop, but looked a little… frazzled. “Oh, you’ve brought your friend,” She said, studying Percy with a careful eye, “Well… I suppose that secret’s out anyway.”
She turned back to the circles and gestured at the creature. “This little devil is a fairy creature known as a Gremlin,” She said, “And it will be what you rid us of today… and I do wish you would.”
Percy and I walked towards the circle to stand at Alex’s side. She crossed her arms and sighed. “Well that’s a tome I won’t be getting back any time soon,” She shook her head, “Bugger all.”
“Is it… important?” I asked.
Alex threw up her arms in a shrug. “Well, not unless anyone wishes to ever know of the Abelihan Civilization,” She said.
“I’ve never heard of that…” I looked at her curiously.
“Exactly,” She said, “Moving on, I will have to break the magic holding the circles in order for your spell to send it back to actually connect. We just need to figure out how you’re going to do that. Whichever way is easiest for you.”
Percy squat down at the edge of the circle and the Gremlin locked eyes with him. It snarled and threw the book it was chewing, but it struck the air where the circle surrounded and it bounced off like it’d hit an invisible force field. Percy leaned back when the book struck, but when he realized it wasn’t going to hurt him, he leaned back in and started poking at the barrier that separated them. “So where’d you get him?” He asked.
“Zeroelle found him rummaging through our garbage bins,” Alex said, “I convinced her not to kill it so that I might use it for your practice. Also, do be careful around the circles. One errant smudge and that thing will be all over this attic. Again.”
Percy cautiously stepped away.
“You did prepare a spell for this,” Alex asked me, “Didn’t you?”
I blinked.
Uh oh.
“Uh…” I looked left and right, “Yes…? Yes. I did.”
“Excellent,” Alex smiled, “Just open a portal and we’ll get started.”
Alex shooed Percy to the side of the room and had me stand ready in front of the circle. The Gremlin trapped inside chewed through the pages of the tome and had ruined it. In its need to escape it began to leap around and bounce itself off the magic keeping it in place. I watched the little thing nervously. It wasn’t particularly scary or anything, I’d already seen way scarier than that… but I just wasn’t sure I knew how to actually pull something into the portal. I had to wing it, which was an undesirable way to do magic. Why I didn’t have the foresight to plan a spell ahead of time was beyond me…
I started by prying open a doorway. It was the same struggle as before, taking me over a minute to open it. I shook the attic when I finally punched open the barrier, stopping the Gremlin’s little rampage and turning its attention entirely onto me. It stared at me like it just saw the face of God with its little snake-eyes, and when its simple little mind understood just what I was and what I’d do, it started to go crazy again. It slammed itself off of the field holding it, trying hard to break the magic’s circle but not even making a dent. Alex’s magic was stronger than that, and Gremlins didn’t look too powerful, so there was probably no chance in Hell that it’d get out until Alex broke the circle.
She instructed me to get my magic ready, so I moved to stand between the Gremlin and the portal. Maybe if I could have just guided it with my will, I’d be able to throw it into the portal. My idea was some kind of telekinesis, but… what were the words for that again? I quickly tried to remember them as I poised myself to get ready, extending my hand towards the creature and readying my will. I wanted to throw the monster like I was pitching it, like baseball. What was the word for baseball again? Oh, right. Base-ball.
No, that wouldn’t work.
“Alright, I’m breaking the circle,” Alex said.
I lifted my ears in a hurry. “Wait, don’t…!” I shouted.
It was too late, Alex snapped her fingers and I could feel the magic disperse all at once like a bubble had popped. The Gremlin was free and I only had a second at best before it realized that nothing was holding it back. I wasted that second in panicked thought, and the Gremlin rushed at the edge of the inner circle to slam its body against it. It ended up passing over the copper ring on the floor and falling onto its face, not prepared for the lack of resistance. I blinked a few times and shook my head. I had to get something ready!
“Uh, A-Azurath Metrion Zinthos!”
Well, I pulled that gibberish out of my butt.
My spell didn’t do anything, and the little Gremlin leapt up off the floor at me with a strange screech. I gasped just before it latched onto my face and held onto me with its slimy arms and legs, trying to pull and tug at my hair. I stumbled and started trying to pry the thing off my face, unable to see where I was going. I was sort of having a hard time breathing under there though, so I was pretty desperate to get it off of me. I started stomping around the attic and tugging on the creature as it giggled and pulled my hair with maniacal glee.
“What are you doing?!” Alex hissed, “Stop pissing about!”
“Mrphhngh!” I yelled.
“Don’t worry, I got it!” Percy shouted. He leapt into action and grabbed the Gremlin and began yanking on it. Its little hands gripped my hair tightly and its claws on its toes raked across my cheeks as Percy pried it away from me. I yelled, naturally, “Ow! Ow! Stop! Ow!” Percy didn’t stop though, and he pulled on the little monster until it finally came free from me, taking a little bit of my hair and my glasses with it. I winced and rubbed my head, my scalp burning where some of my hair had been yanked out. My head was throbbing so much at that point that I couldn’t concentrate. My eyes got all watery and I just tried to grit my teeth and bear it.
The Gremlin bit one of Percy’s fingers, making him cry out in pain and release it. The little bastard spun quickly in midair and slapped my glasses onto Percy’s face unexpectedly, and Percy blinked several times as his vision was probably so suddenly blurred that he was immediately put off. The Gremlin gave him two slaps across the face, then caught his jacket before it could fall and quickly scrambled up his body to grab his hair and yank on it like a jockey whipping a horse’s reins. Percy let out a girly scream and spun around trying to throw the Gremlin off and it just cackled.
“Agh! Get it off!” He cried, “Get it offfff!! I don’t got it!”
“You’re stomping all over the circle you twat!” Alex hissed, her fur and tail jutting up on end, “You two…!”
The Gremlin yanked on Percy’s hair and made him stumble around like he was steering him. Annoyed, I pushed out my hand and shouted, “Percuter!” The resulting rush of air that erupted forth from my hand flew the short distance and was going to hit the creature and send it flying… except I didn’t aim right, and I instead got Percy right in the stomach. He made a funny face as he got the wind knocked out of him and was sent flying across the room. He took out Alex’s scriptorium, and the Gremlin just jumped off his head in the meantime and made for the window. It scrambled up onto the ledge, turned to us, took a bow, and then leapt through the glass. It smashed its way through the window and I hurried to it to see the Gremlin leaping over rooftops of the nearby houses before disappearing out of sight.
“Uh…!” I reached out the window, but I couldn’t actually do anything. My wrist went limp as did my ears.
“W… Woops,” I kind of laughed.
“What was that?!” Alex shouted, marching over to me and pinching my ear before I could even turn around. She pulled me away from the window and marched me back closer to the middle of the room. I stumbled along with her, watching as she thrust her hand out in Percy’s direction as he unburied himself from the scrolls and the podium he was stuck under. “Bulla!” She hissed, and water swirled around Percy quickly before encasing him in a full bubble. He flailed around in the bubble as it lifted him off the ground and then zipped towards Alex. She caught him with her other hand and the bubble popped. It soaked us both, and yet somehow Alex was still bone dry.
“That was the sorriest bunch of codswallop I’ve ever seen!” Alex shouted, “You didn’t have a spell prepared at all!”
Percy raised a finger to interject. “O-Okay, I can see you’re angry right now…” He kind of laughed.
“Angry? I’m brassed!” Alex shook him a little bit, “Cookie you have not once screwed the pooch quite so hard! I specifically instructed you to be prepared for this, and what did you do?”
“… My homework,” I said.
“Not bloody likely, I told you…!” Alex started.
I frowned, “My real homework. For school.”
“Eh? You what?” Alex cocked a brow and stopped shaking the two of us around.
“Yeah, sorry for not being able to keep up with all this,” I huffed, “It’s kind of hard, you know.”
I started counting on my fingers, “I had math homework, French homework, and career studies too, on top of all this magic stuff. I haven’t been able to sleep, and my family keeps bugging me, and this guy…”
“I… I didn’t do anything…!” Percy grinned.
“So yeah, whatever!” I said. I took my foot back and kicked Alex hard enough to make her eyes bug. She bit her lip to keep from yelling at me and instead just held Percy and me straight out in front of her so my legs didn’t reach any more.
Alex’s expression softened for a moment, but only for a moment, because my open portal became a problem. Something came out.
“Seeeeeerrrrrrrr!!!” Treasel cried.
He zipped out of the portal like a streak of green light, and immediately collided with Alex before he could stop. He plunged into her chest, losing himself between her knockers. He must have started to panic because I could see his shape in Alex’s shirt starting to go nuts, darting every which way and around her body. Alex was surprised, as was I, and probably Percy too… but my mentor couldn’t contain herself for very long. She started to laugh and wiggle as Treasel darted around under her clothes, and eventually she let us go to try and catch the little fairy.
“Aha! Ahahaha! Oh! Ooh!” Alex twitched and jiggled, “Oh you…! I…! Haha! Oh that tickles! Get out of there!”
Eventually Treasel found his way out of the bottom of Alex’s shirt, and he fluttered around in disoriented confusion before darting over to me. He rose level with my face and got really close to grab me by my nose and try shaking my head around. He sure was an excitable little fairy, it was kind of hard to keep up… Just ask Alex, she was still getting a hold of herself even after Treasel had left her.
“Seer! Hags!” Treasel wheezed, “This is no gag!”
“The Hags?” I asked, reaching up and grabbing Treasel in both hands so he’d hold still and I could hold him away from me, “You found them?”
“Yes, yes, a million times!” He said, then paused, “Though I suppose even I can be wrong sometimes… No! No! I know for sure!”
“You don’t sound sure,” Percy commented, leaning in to examine Treasel closely.
“Oh enough of your snark!” Treasel flicked his wrist and wiggled free of my hands to flutter up in the air, “I saw them in a park! A park of old, with swings busted, playsets broken, and slides rusted!”
“And just who is this?” Alex put her hands on her hips.
I looked past Treasel at her and kind of smiled like I’d been caught. “He’s… a fairy? From… the Nevernever?” I answered.
Alex glared at me and leaned in close. “You went into the Nevernever?” She asked, “My goodness you teenagers these days are dense! Did you have any idea how dangerous that is, especially for you?!”
“Uh, no,” I answered, “Maybe you should teach me!”
“I have been, though it seems you’ve a bit too much wax between your ears to hear me,” Alex growled, “But no matter, we can deal with you later. This fairy has found the Hags and so we must act before they move again.”
“Are you sure he found them?” Percy asked, trying to grab at Treasel who stayed just out of his reach every time.
Alex nodded, “Fairies cannot lie, so anything he says is true.”
“It’s true!” Treasel added.
“But what’re we gonna do when we find them?” Percy asked.
“Why, Cookie is going to send them back to the Nevernever,” Alex smiled at my gawking expression, “So you’d better think of that spell right away, dear. We won’t be letting them get away this time.”
I nodded. I wanted those Hags gone just as bad as anyone else… probably worse than anyone else, actually. At the very least, if I couldn’t actually manage to cast the right spell, I wanted to hurt them. I wanted to make them pay for what they did and what they tried to do to me. I guess Alex could see the look in my eyes because she just nodded again as well before she turned to hurry down the attic steps. Treasel fluttered after her, and I pushed Percy to move his butt. I went down last, taking one last look at the mess we left behind before moving along. Every step of the way I was putting some serious thought into the spell I wanted to cast… I just had to figure out the right way to do it.
We all scrambled down the stairs and got our shoes and things on. Alex took a moment to tell her daughter to behave while we were gone, and then we all went outside to pile into Alex’s small minivan. Well, most of us just got in no problem but Alex crammed herself into the driver’s seat and found way too little room for her to sit there. She fussed around until she found the release lever for the seat and pushed it backward right into Percy, crushing his long legs in favour of hers being more comfortable. With that done, she put her seatbelt on – barely, because it barely fit – and then managed to dig her car keys out of her pocket after a few moments of struggle. Her pants were so tight that she couldn’t just get her hand in.
“Mm, now, let’s see…” She said, putting the key into the ignition and starting it up. I sat in her front passenger side and watched her, and Teasel fluttered just over my shoulder to watch her too.
“It’s… taking some time to begin our pursuing,” Treasel said, “Do you even know what you are doing?”
“Of course I know what I’m doing,” Alex said, “I know how to operate an automobile, I’m not that old yet.”
She adjusted her mirror and gave a little fanged grin at her reflection. “Or, well, I am that old, but your worries are misplaced,” Alex said, “Worry more about what we may do when we arrive. Especially you, Cookie. If you do not bind the Hags and send them back into the Nevernever, we risk losing them and they may never show themselves near us again. And Perseus?”
Percy perked up in the back seat, “Yeah?”
“Try not to get killed,” Alex sighed, shifting the van into gear and pulling out of the driveway. She made it to the end of the street driving on the wrong side, but when she made that turn she corrected herself and stayed on course. Treasel gave her directions – very sudden directions that had us turning corners really sharply on a dime, tossing us around the van – the whole way there, leading us far away from Alex’s home and through the center of town, far off past Percy’s home and past the National Park. We broke a few speed records making our way down the highway towards the far-off parts of the beaches, ones that gave way to grass and rocks rather than sandy shores.
Eventually Treasel had us pull over outside of the city limits, at the edge of a deep ditch that separated us from a long shoreline stretch of uncut grass up to my waist and some treelines. The clouds started to roll in by then and the breeze whipped through the fields more powerfully than in the city, making it a gloomy, overcast sort of evening. In the distance, just on the shore, I saw some old structures, and Treasel pointed to them. It was the park he’d mentioned, but no one appeared to be there. It didn’t have any paths running to it or anything, and the building next to it was boarded up and showed significant signs of age. Once again, it must have been some abandoned structure from who-knew-when.
The Boo Hags were there, though. I had no reason to doubt Treasel. So Percy, Alex and I made our way over the ditch and into the grassy fields. We were making our way to what I hoped was the last time I’d ever see those stupid Hags.
Chapter 15
"The sun's nearly set," Alex said as she waded through the grass at my side, "The Hags won't be able to leave whatever skins they're using yet, but we'll face their full wrath if we tarry too long. I hope that you've been giving your binding spell some thought."
"Yeah I'll just come up with one in a single car ride," I grumbled, "Yeah no problem."
"I heard that," Alex glowered.
Percy walked at my other side, and he shook off his pant leg when we emerged from the grass into the sandy opening the old playground stood on. "Yeah but... where are they?" He asked, looking up to Treasel for answers. The playground was seemingly abandoned without a soul in it. There weren't even any signs of anyone walking there recently, which should have been pretty easy to see in the sand. Treasel fluttered above us, sweeping left and right in the air with one of his little hands bridged on his forehead.
"I saw them here," He said, "Crystal clear! They must be hiding, biding their time."
There was a lot of playground equipment to hide in though. There was a sort of jungle gym that looked like a big plastic dome with holes cut into it for children to climb on and play in. There were half-buried concrete tubes to crawl through, too, and then that boarded up building just off to the side. The signs on that building by the two doors leading inside made it clear that it used to be a public washroom. The men's side was boarded up but the women's side had its door taken off, leaving it open for anyone to just walk in.
After putting on the Grimfang glove, I lifted my dress to grab my baton from its holster clipped onto the side of my jeans. "Okay, check in there, there, and there," I said, extending my baton and pointing at the various structures with it, "Treasel, check the surrounding area and see if they're maybe hiding in the woods. If you see anything..."
"If I see anything it will be bloody sorry I did," Alex chuckled, striding off towards the concrete tunnels.
I watched her go and looked to Percy. "If you guys see anything, yell," I said.
"Okay, uh..." Percy looked around the playground before deciding to make his way toward the jungle gym. Treasel gave me a salute and zipped off to scan the forest's edge. That left the old bathrooms to me.
I kind of felt like the leader of a little team. The thought filled me with a little confidence as I made my way to the bathrooms. I stopped at the doors to examine the building more closely, but nothing really stood out against the wear and tear of time. I perked my ears and strained them to listen for any sounds, but beyond the breeze and Percy calling out into the jungle gym I couldn't hear anything out of place either.
"Cassie! Jessie!" Percy echoed in the dome jungle gym, "Kylie?"
I rolled my eyes. That doofus, if the Boo Hags were hiding from us then they weren't going to answer him, and him calling them by the Occult Club girls' names was just weird. But Percy's bumbling did give me an idea... If the Boo Hags were hiding from us, the best way they could have done it was with a veil. Under the effects of the veil they could be completely invisible to the naked eye, supposedly. Also supposedly, my Third Eye would be able to pick them out just fine if I looked hard enough. Before investigating any further, I opened up the eye and saw that playground for what it really was.
It was a dead place. The equipment looked so worn out that the rust had actually eroded most of the slide and the chains on the swing set. Rusty clouds hung in the air, painting everything in a red fog all around me. The sky was dark, bleak, and brown, and the grass was withered and dead. The dome jungle gym looked like a cage, and I could see what I assumed was Percy looking around inside it. He appeared to me as just a figure in a long dark coat and hat. Cloth wrapped around his face and most of his body to almost hide his features completely. While I could only see Alex's butt sticking out of the tubes while she looked, she appeared as an inky black silhouette too. Everything was quiet, but I kept thinking I could hear something from far off... something like laughing children; or maybe they were crying, it was hard to tell for sure.
The bathroom building was torn up. It had giant gashes taken out of the brick and what looked like blood splattered over the walls in thin swipes. Inside it was dark, dank, which was probably the very same way it was in reality too. The place was kind of like a dungeon… Fortunately, my Third Eye’s vision seemed to do well enough in the dark as well. I stepped into the women’s washroom, pulling my sweater dress up over my nose to block the smell of old sewage as I started to look around. I held my baton out in front of me and swept it across the air just in case I somehow missed what I was looking for. Stepping around the divider, the normally tiled bathroom really did look like a dungeon, or some bathroom pulled straight out of some World War 2 age torture flick. More blood was dried into the walls and the old, rusty sinks and toilets looked like they’d turn to dust as soon as anyone touched them. Other than that, it was dark and wet.
But I saw what I was looking for hiding under the countertop where the sinks were. A Boo Hag sat there, curled up into a little ball and wedged as tightly into the corner as it could get. It kept its head down and rocked a little like a restless animal. I closed my eye and saw nothing but darkness, so I took my phone out of my pocket and turned on the assistive light. Shining it into the corner the Hag hid, I saw nothing. Opening my Third Eye again, the Hag appeared, looking at me for a second before ducking back down. Whatever veil it was using was pretty weak – my vision saw through it without any trouble.
“I see you, you bitch,” I said through my grit teeth, pointing my baton in its direction. The monster kept trying to hide, turning its body left and right as if the fact it couldn’t see me may mean I also couldn’t see it.
It was stupid. That Hag was a complete idiot, and what made me mad about that was that such a stupid creature ended up killing three girls. I felt myself getting angry, and after a few weeks of magic training I was getting used to knowing what I felt when I felt it. I got used to that because I could use that sort of feeling in my magic; so I did. I focused all the anger and hatred for that putrid monster and turned it into something dangerous. I pointed my baton at the creature, and it looked up in a hurry knowing exactly what I intended to do. So before I could do it the thing ran at me. It lunged out from its spot and tried to reach out for me.
I didn’t quickly fire off a spell. Instead, I lifted my baton and swung it as hard as I could down at the creature’s head. The hit connected, and hard. I kind of swung myself around and tried to keep at least a little distance between me and it, and the hag stumbled a little, dazed from the blow, and made for the exit. I followed in a hurry, chasing it outside. Once I was in the light, I closed my third eye again and saw the Hag’s skin.
It was Potato, er… Kylie, the hamster girl in the Occult Club. Her dress was torn and ragged and showed off a lot of her body… her maimed, burned body. She was missing an eye and several patches of her white and orange fur were singed off, and the flesh of those patches was crisped and blackened in places, flaking off here and there. Her feet bled onto the ground, probably having stepped on broken glass or something while the Boo Hag in her skin ran from that fire to here. She looked… dead. She looked hideous, like she’d be a perfect extra in a zombie movie. She looked awful, but I knew that wasn’t her at all. Her body was buried in a grave somewhere and the… thing standing in front of me was just an animal from another place.
“Oh my God,” Percy said, noticing me from where he was.
“They’re veiling themselves,” I said, pointing my baton at the Hag, “They must have gotten their skins back before the cabin burned down.”
Alex, who had stopped to see what I was doing, knelt down next to the concrete tube again and peered inside. “They are veiling themselves,” She announced, reaching in and grabbing one of the Hags. She dragged the similarly burnt and injured body of Cassie, the golden lab, out from inside the tube. Its veil must have been broken with the contact. It kicked its legs as Alex dragged it free and held it by its throat off the ground. She was much, much taller than Cassie was, so it had at least a foot of clearance.
“Clever girl,” Alex said.
“Man, I can’t do that!” Percy said, ducking down to look in the jungle gym again.
“Percuter!!”
Without warning, I unloaded a spell into the Hag wearing Kylie’s skin. I’d never used my baton before to cast a spell, but it really was an interesting thing… My will seemed to guide itself, drifting naturally through my arm and into the Crucible Steel rod, and when I unleashed the spell the effect was much more concentrated than normal. The concussive blast I launched from it hit the Hag in its stomach, practically folding it in half in midair and launching it several feet through the air to land in the sand amidst the playground. I waited for it to get up, and it did with a little bit of a struggle, and then I launched it again.
“Percuter!”
It tumbled across the ground, blown back until it hit the wooden platform where the playground’s slide was built. It fell to the ground and lurched around like the animal it was – something I was particularly happy to see at the time.
“Cookie! What are you doing?!” Alex shouted at me.
I ignored her and marched on the creature. I walked until I was maybe four feet away from it. It stumbled to its feet and hissed at me, and I just stared it down. I was panting, my adrenaline was going nuts, and if I squeezed my baton any harder I was probably going to snap the solid steel. I waited, and sure enough the Hag tried to lunge at me again. I wasted no time in blasting it with another force of energy that took it off the ground and sent it flying, bones snapping and meat tearing as it slammed into and through the slide. The whole of the wooden structure had its supports taken out by the Hag’s used body, and the wood splintered, bowed, and collapsed loudly into a heap on the sandy ground. The metal slide sagged, parts of it snapping off and falling as well when the old screws holding it together failed it.
I saw Kylie’s body on the other side of the now ruined slide, cringing on the ground and struggling to stand up.
“Not so tough now, are you?” I spat.
“Cookie stop this immediately!” Alex shouted, “Get control of your emotions! Do you want to endanger yourself?!”
“I’m fine,” I gave Alex a glare.
Alex glared back at me and dragged the other Hag with her to approach. “You are not fine,” She said, “You are far from fine. I understand that you’re angry, I understand the way you feel right now, but it won’t do you any good. The only thing you’re going to do is tire yourself out before you have a chance to send them back.”
“These things killed innocent people!” I yelled back at her.
Alex firmed up. “They can’t die,” She said, “Harming them is pointless. Magic is a gift, Cookie, one that is to be used only with a level head. Anything else, and that gift can become your greatest disaster.”
“Well how do you expect me to do that?!” I stomped my foot, “I can’t just not feel anything! Do you not feel anything? Don’t you even care about…?”
“Of course I care,” Alex cut me off with a hiss, “I’m here, aren’t I? Now, as your teacher, I’m telling you: focus on making a portal. You can be as mad as you like when these things are done being a problem.”
“Uh, guys?”
Percy cut into our argument, and we both stared him down.
“The, uh… The sun’s setting,” He said, pointing out to the horizon.
I quickly looked out across the water to see the sun disappearing over its edge. The orange-ish hue of the sky was giving way to dark night. Without the sun up, the Boo Hags wouldn’t need their skins anymore. They’d be able to take on their much more brutal and monstrous forms, complete with sharp, killing claws and supernatural strength and speed. Cassie’s body twitched in Alex’s hand, and I snapped my attention to it to see the body spasm and twist in weird, not-human ways. I stared in horror as a bone claw exploded from Cassie’s chest, followed by several others that twisted around the opening and proceeded to pull it apart. The Boo Hag ripped itself from inside Cassie’s body, splitting the skin in half in Alex’s hand. It landed on the ground and shrieked at me. That shriek was echoed by the other Hag, who had no doubt torn Kylie’s skin apart to free itself as well.
“Holy crap!” Percy shouted, suddenly giving a cry as the third Boo Hag broke through the jungle gym just next to him. Percy frantically scurried away as the Hag landed and shrieked at us just like the others did.
Alex threw Cassie’s skin aside, and when that Hag tried to leap at me she quickly grabbed it by its bloody foot and yanked it back out of the air. I watched as she grabbed it with both hands, let it hit the ground, and then began to spin her body. She built up the inertia to have the thing sailing off the ground, spinning it in the air a couple of times before she released it. It flew through the air and hit the swing set with a long *DONG!* and then collapsed to the ground. The swing set buckled and collapsed on top of it.
Alex looked at me and said, “Make that goddamn bloody portal before we’re all peeled like apples!”
Well now I just felt like an idiot.
I needed to find some space away from the Boo Hags before I had any hope of making the portal. It took me minutes to make something like that, but now I had maybe seconds. I scrambled to go… somewhere. I was a little too shaken by the sudden danger to really know what I was going to do. The Hag by the jungle gym made a move on me, but Percy intercepted it and tackled it to the ground. The other one I had thoroughly thrashed around got on all fours and darted across the ruined slide, but it was pushed aside mid-leap by an angry little green fairy that zipped in and struck the Hag so fast I had no idea what exactly Treasel did. He was at least strong enough to push the thing, albeit not very far.
That’d have to be enough distraction. I thrust out my hand and made a grab for the barrier.
“Saisir… Fissurer…”
I grabbed it, I pulled it, and it resisted as it always did. I started pumping as much will, fueled by the desperation to not get killed, into my fingers, trying to power up my grasp and make things a little easier. The end result was like I was yanking a door that just wouldn’t open like a terrified child. I physically attempted to throw my body back a little, jerking my arm to pull and tear at the barrier to little result. I ended up getting tired quickly. Alex was right, all those spells I cast before, baton or no baton, just took away more energy than I needed to spend to get rid of the Boo Hags. I really should have just made a portal in the first place.
I heard the hissing from a Hag to my right, and I broke concentration to turn and try to defend myself against the incoming attack. What ended up happening, though, was Alex shouting “mortem tonitrui!” and what appeared to be a giant green lightning bolt flying from Alex’s fingertips struck the Hag and stopped it dead in its tracks. The monster shuddered and struggled to get back up, so with the opening, I aimed my baton at it and fired off another spell.
“Incendier!”
A bolt of fire flew from the tip of my baton and struck the Hag like a gunshot. It rolled across the ground back towards Alex, and I turned my attention back to the barrier. Panting, I seized it again before it could correct itself, and continued to pull until my fingers started to drag through.
“Démolir…!”
I forced more will into the effort, my knees buckling as I did. I fell to one knee, finally feeling the barrier buckle under the pressure I exerted. So, finally, I unleashed a massive wave of energy forwards, thrusting into the weakened spot and tearing open a bright, glowing portal. The other two Hags had gotten away from Percy and Treasel and started to rush me, but when the portal opened they shielded their faces and were thrown back as the energy rippled out all around me. The door was open, and it stood triumphant in the small battlefield, but I was tired. My legs shook as I forced myself back to my feet and my head pounded with all the strain I was putting myself through. If I had to do anything that big again, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to.
“Feel like m’gonna throw up…” I groaned.
“Cookie! Quickly!” Alex warned me.
A loud, thundering crash sounded out and everything just stopped. Again, the thunder boomed, and then again, and again… But there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I turned slowly to see the old bathrooms shaking, the whole building quivering as loud impacts from inside loosened the stones and bricks holding it together. Again, a massive crashing thud, and the ground shook under my feet. I wobbled and fell to my knees again. Something in that building was trying to get out, and we all just watched as it did. With one last mighty blow, the whole men’s washroom side of the building came loose and crumbled. The bricks fell and the roof collapsed over a figure that shook off the debris like it was nothing. It waded its way out of the rubble, bricks and dust sliding off its body.
It was friggin’ huge. Like a big, meaty gorilla at least two feet taller than even Alex waded out from the rubble. Its arms were massively thick and long, making it stomp around on its fists, its large legs coming after. Its little head was eyeless, skinless, lipless, grit teeth parting to breathe out bloody mist. Tendril-like hair fell around its shoulders, and its hunched back had visible bone spikes jutting out of its spine. Its torso looked mangled, ribs exposed to the open air, waist almost completely missing, but its legs were as whole as they could be. It looked like a Boo Hag on steroids, and seeing it almost made my heart stop. It had to have skipped a few beats at least.
The Boo Hags hurried to it, leaping up onto it and hanging off its body with their claws as the creature reared back and shook the earth with a loud roar. The force of it, it felt like it was putting pressure on me from eight feet away. I covered my ears and closed my eyes tight, waiting for the sound to die down before I dared to open them again.
“What the heck is that?!” Percy screamed.
“That,” Alex yelled back, “Would be a Boo Daddy!”
“Seriously?!” I shouted.
The monster roared again, like “GRAAAAAAGH!!!” It pounded its giant piston fists against the ground, kicking up sand and cracking the foundation of whatever was left standing of the bathroom, causing the rest of it to collapse.
“Seer!” Treasel fluttered over my head, “Whatever you’re going to do, do it now or we’re through!”
I pushed myself to my feet again, scared beyond the capacity for rational thought. The massive, lumbering Boo Daddy lifted one fist and planted it on the ground in a step toward me, making the ground shake and causing me to fall again. I fell backward into the portal I’d just created, stumbling between my world and the Nevernever. I found myself on the other side, able to see the Boo Daddy and its… harem of Boo Hags on the other side of the portal. I didn’t know what to do. I stepped forward again to pass through the portal back to help Alex and Percy, but I stopped, frozen in fear. I stopped in limbo space, some spot in the very middle of the portal where it looked like the whole cosmos was zooming past me. I didn’t want to go back out there… what was I going to do out there? Get crushed into Cookie dough? I felt more at ease in the limbo space, safer. I couldn’t stay in there either, though… If only, I thought, I could make them come here.
It took me a while to notice, but in that limbo space… I didn’t feel tired. I didn’t feel… well, anything. In fact it took me so long to notice that, that I was sure my friends would just be dead by then… But the Boo Daddy was still out there, barely moving. It was like watching it in super slow motion, and when I turned my head to look elsewhere, I found I could actually see Alex and Percy, like the direction of the portal didn’t even matter. I could look around both the real world and the Nevernever seamlessly, depending on what I wanted to focus on, and nothing was really moving. It was like time slowed down all around me, moving at a snail’s pace.
My hands were still covered in those arcane marks I got when I was in the Nevernever. They glowed intensely, more than I remembered them doing the first time I saw them. Could it be that my body was energized there? In that space, that little pocket of… wherever the heck I was, that place was mine. It made me feel… not really okay, but like I wasn’t even… happening. I felt like I could cast a million spells, but I wasn’t sure any of them would even do anything. It would just be nothing. I was nothing. I wasn’t on my side or the Nevernever, I was between them, somewhere.
“I’ve gotta get that Daddy,” I said, but I don’t think any sound came out.
If only I could make it come here, to me…
Come to me. Come here.
I could do that. I had to try, anyway.
I lifted my left hand and held it out toward that end of the portal. I did my best to flatten my palm against the entrance, which was hard to do since there was no solid object stopping me. Then, I had to take my will, all of the will I could muster and all of the energy inside me, and I had to force it into a spell. Not only that, but I had to force my spell from where I was, into where the Boo Daddy was about to make pate out of Percy, Alex, and Treasel. It was the biggest spell I ever really dared to try, but with a word, I forced it out of me with enough power to send pain shooting all through my body.
“Encercler…!” I squeaked out as the pain lit up my nerves like a Christmas tree – which coincidentally is what happened to my body when I did it. Those strange marks all over my body burned on my flesh and fur brighter than ever before, so bright that I could see the full extent of them through my clothes. My lungs tried to shrivel on themselves, wilting from the pain, but I forced on ahead anyway.
I wanted them to “come here.” There was only one way in my mind that spell was going to work.
I saw massive beams of light fire from the portal and out into my world, taking on the shape of linked iron chains. The chains blazed bright with the pinkish hue of my marks and the portal, and on the end of those enormous chains formed massive hooks. The magical chains shot out lightning fast and slowed only to coil around the monsters in front of me. The hooks on the ends looked poised to strike, so I gave the order.
“Piéger!”
The chains lunged into the bodies of the Boo Hags and Boo Daddy, one for each Hag and several for the big guy. The chains constricted them like snakes and the hooks dug deep into their bodies to trap them, squeezing them and locking them all in place. They howled and screamed, I could hear it in my head at that point. When they tried to fight against me, I was almost pulled forwards like I’d hooked a sea monster with a fishing line. I planted my feet and used my hands to grab onto the ends of those chains, even though I really wasn’t grabbing onto anything… and then I pulled. I pulled back on them with strength I didn’t know I had, making them all fall towards the portal at once. My entire body suddenly felt like it was on fire, searing pain covered my shoulders, neck, and face, burrowing into my skull and hitting me right at the core of my everything.
I felt like my head was going to explode and that I’d burst every blood vessel in my ears and eyes.
“Créature faute…! Viennent… ici…!!”
I was speaking French even though I didn’t mean to at all.
Just when it felt like flames were shooting out of my shoulder blades, I gave one last big, mighty pull.
“Renvoyer[/b]!!!”
Suddenly they all felt so light. Any resistance I was being met with disappeared and the chains yanked back on the creatures to reel them in. They were pulled into the portal, the Boo Hags screaming as they disappeared lightning fast into it. The Boo Daddy dragged across the ground, its mighty bulk digging up the earth like a bulldozer as I dragged it in. Just like the Hags, it was effortless on my part. I had them, everything that was them was mine to do with as I pleased and I pulled their sorry immortal asses through that portal with the big Boo Daddy coming in last. They passed me in the portal, or at least some part of them did. It was like nothing, a blink of an eye and they were on the other end, the spell ejecting them with a shattering force that dispersed their very beings into nothing. When I looked back, there was no trace of them in the Nevernever. They had disappeared into a strange mist and were simply gone.
I stepped back out of the portal on my side, and as soon as I hit the real world, all that pain came at me at once. I stopped, my vision tunneled, my breath stopped, and I found myself falling. I’d blacked out before I even hit the ground.
I was out for around an hour.
When I came to, I was in Alex's living room. I had been laid out on the couch with most of my clothes taken off and wrapped in a warm blanket. A pillow had been placed under my head to keep me comfortable, but I didn't feel very comfortable. My head was spinning and throbbing and I could barely keep my eyes open for a few seconds at a time. I went in and out of consciousness for a little while with no one around and no sound or anything to clue me in on where everyone was. To be honest, I couldn't even wonder if Alex, Percy and Treasel were all okay. I couldn't even wonder if I was okay; I couldn't even think straight. I was pretty convinced I was alive though.
That spell I cast, it really hurt. Why did it hurt so much? What happened to me, exactly? And what happened to all those assorted Boos? I guess what I did made sense at the time, but after the fact I had no idea how to explain where I went or what I did. The best I could figure was that I did Seer-y stuff. You know, those things that Seers do. One of the last times I remember looking at the clock on the DVD player in Alex's living room, and it read 7:49. I closed my eyes for a second and when I opened them again, it was 8:09. Eventually, after about the fourth time I nodded off, I opened my eyes just to see one of Percy's legs blocking my view as he sat on the coffee table across from me.
"Hey there, cutie," He said, "What'chya in for?"
"Well now I know I'm not in Heaven," I groaned.
"I'm betting Heaven has less smelly candles," Percy laughed, tilting his head to look at me, "You alright?"
"Aside from feeling like I got hit by a fireworks truck, yeah," I answered. I moved to sit up, pushing myself to let my legs fall over the side of the couch and let my feet touch the floor.
"I don't even know what happened!" Percy said, "One second you're falling through that weird portal and the next it's all 'SHING' and 'WOOSH' and all these chains came out and wrapped around the monsters and they got pulled inside. Then you walk out, the portal closes, and you fall on the ground unconscious. Alex and me had to drag you back to the van and get you home."
"Oh," I said a little dumbfounded, "Sweet. Where’s Treasel?"
“Who, Tinkerbell? He went back to the Nevernever,” Percy said, “He said something about having to report, and then took off.”
“Ah,” I nodded. That sounded like Treasel. I’d have to thank him, if I ever saw him again.
I looked Percy up and down for a second. "You look okay," I said.
Percy laughed, "Are you kidding? Check it out!"
He lifted up his shirt, revealing a spot where he had a big piece of gauze over his abdomen held on by medical tape. The wound underneath was clearly three deep scratches from one of the Boo Hags. My expression must have changed because he laughed at me as I stared at the injury. His laughter only lasted a bit before he grunted and then gently rubbed over the gauze.
"Ow, it hurts to laugh," He said, "But if anyone asks, I got it in a fight. With ninjas. Underwater. The ladies oughta be impressed."
"Jeez," I frowned, "I'm sorry."
Percy shrugged and tugged his shirt back down. "Hey, I wanted to go, remember?" He said, "And after seeing all that stuff, I'm glad I helped. I mean, it was kinda freaky what they did to those girls..."
"Yeah..." I nodded, closing my eyes.
"Cassie was the first person I met when I moved here. She heard about my Dad's store and came running," He said, "She was weird, but... not bad. I didn't want anything to do with the Occult Club, but she was way into that stuff, you know? Like it was fun or something."
"Jessie was nuts,” Percy laughed, “I guess her and Cassie had been friends for a long time…They didn't deserve what happened to them. I'm glad I kinda helped you stop it."
I watched him struggle to say more. I understood that those girls, even though he always said they were annoying and weird and stuff, were… well I dunno about friends, but they were a part of his life. They were a part of his life and that part had drastically changed. I felt bad for him. I felt like it was partially my fault something like that even had to happen. I reached out and touched his hand, but that was it. He just looked at my hand for a bit, then lifted his head quickly and stood up.
“I should tell Alex you’re up,” He said quickly, smiling at me, “And uh… well, no one else is going to say it, so… thanks. Thanks for beating them.”
I was surprised to hear him say something like that, but he didn’t stick around long enough to let it register completely on my face. Instead I just got to watch him go, and then sit there feeling some weird mixture of sadness and pride. It was nice to be recognized… not just for beating monsters, but for anything at all. I was always used to being on my own and doing my own thing, so people never really acknowledged me or anything I did most of the time. My mom did, of course, but she was my mom, that was her job. It was nice to hear it from someone else for a change. What I did wasn’t pretty but… it was good. Who doesn’t like being recognized for doing good things?
Not long after Percy left to head upstairs, Alex came down. She walked over to me and quietly sat down next to me on the couch.
“It’s good to see you awake,” Alex said, “That was hard on you.”
I thought about it for a second and kind of squinted. “What did I do?” I asked, “I don’t really get it… The monsters, I pulled them in, but then they were just gone.”
Alex hummed a moment and shrugged. “You know,” She said, “It’s hard for me to say. You Seers are strange creatures. You touch so many places at once, it’s hard to say for sure just what you do. I’d forgotten it looked as impressive as it did, really. If I had to make a theory, and I suppose I ought to, then I would say that when you connected with the monsters, you broke them down into their original forms.”
“Broke them down? How?” I asked.
Alex shook her head. “I don’t know,” She answered, “I can’t know. Seer magic is strange. It’s as if you control a certain part of space, and are able to manipulate a very specific entity. In your case, it’s whatever connects the Nevernever to our world. So if those monsters became nothing when you sent them back, then you broke them down into what they began as: imagination.”
That stunned me. “I made them into imagination,” I stated flatly.
“Most all of the Nevernever is built on mortal imaginings, as I said before,” Alex said, reaching up and gently combing her fingers through my hair, “Whatever you come up with in that little mind of yours has a home there. They start as that essence, that imagination aether, and as more and more imaginings happen, they take form over time. After long enough, they become a singular being. It can take a while to pick out just what that being is, but ultimately it becomes something that people believe in, for better or worse. Those Boo Hags and their Boo Daddy, they’ll be reshaped one day. They may not come out again in the same way, but their essence will create something new… Whatever that is, only time will tell.”
“How long would that take?” I blinked.
“Longer than most people have,” Alex chuckled, “And so, you’ve a victory under your belt. You did marvelously… despite some slip-ups and teenage bravado.”
Oh, there was that guilt again. I blushed and lowered my ears.
“Don’t,” Alex said, pinching my cheek, “Cookie, dear… I may have been a little barmy. I perhaps forgot what it’s like to be a teenager, and my goodness it must be so very different now for you than it was for me. I know a great, great many things, but I’m willing to admit that I don’t know what it’s like to be you. Perhaps I’ve pushed you too hard, and for that I apologize. Starting out is never easy.”
“I assure you I don’t mean you any harm by it,” Alex said, sitting back, “But I’ve pushed you, and you pushed back. That, at least, is something I remember from being young and hormonal. But I couldn’t just let it sit, you understand.”
“Yeah,” I nodded, head down.
“Cookie, you have done something that only a few people in legend have ever accomplished at your age,” She said, smiling at me, “You should be proud of yourself. You did right by those girls, too. I’m sure wherever they are, they appreciate what you’ve done.”
I never really thought about that. Alex said that the Nevernever was a place people went to after death. So… if someone died their soul went to the Nevernever, into Heaven or Hell or wherever else they were going to be allowed. I pondered that for a while and then just shrugged with a muttered “huh” of interest. The more I thought about it, the more mixed emotions came in, so I tried to just move on.
“Now, we’ll have to discuss your future,” Alex turned toward me a little.
“Huh?” I looked up at her.
“There will be more like those Hags,” Alex informed me, “Things that will terrify you to your core. But as a Seer you have the ability to beat them, and to keep people safe. Unfortunately, that isn’t about to stop any time soon… And from what I can tell, your body can just barely handle the effort. We can’t have you taking a nap every time you send something back.”
“O-Oh, uh…” I rubbed the back of my neck, “Can I… not right now?”
Alex laughed out loud. “No! No, not right this instant dear,” She chuckled, “For now, take some time to rest and recover – you’ve earned it.”
“Besides,” She tapped my nose with a wink, “It’s a school night.”
“Oh crap,” I stood up as quickly as I could, swaying a little and holding myself up by planting my hands on the coffee table, “I gotta get home.”
“No need to hurry!” Alex said, “I’ve put your clothes through the wash and just started the dryer. I called your mother and informed her that you were at my house having my little Gwen help you with your math homework. Those darn fractions, eh?”
I stared at her in boggled amazement. “Gwen?” I asked, “Your daughter, Gwen?”
Alex laughed again, slapping her thigh. “That’s what your mother said!” She grinned, “But yes, don’t worry, you’re all accounted for. So relax, go have a shower or something, and don’t go rushing about.”
“Oh… uh, okay,” I nodded, turning toward Alex and staring at her. Sitting down she was still almost as tall as me, just a few inches shy. “So… you’re… okay?” I asked.
Alex blinked in surprise this time. “Me?” She asked, “Why, I’m fine, dear. Not a scratch.”
I felt a strong urge to hug her, so I did. A practically fell on her to wrap my arms around her shoulders and give her a squeeze. She let out a little sound of surprise when I did, but gently placed a hand on my back and held me there. She was purring, a little, I could hear it.
“Alright, come off it,” Alex grunted, “Move your arse.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Alex waved a hand. “This job is meant to be thankless, don’t forget that,” She said.
I kind of laughed, but it hurt to, so it was just a breath. I let her go and made my way up the stairs to her bathroom, taking a towel from the cabinet and starting a shower. I washed my body, half expecting Alex to sneak in there with me, but she never came. I was allowed to clean up in peace and just enjoy the hot, soothing water. The only interruption was a knock on the door. Percy had stayed about as long as he could and said he’d be leaving. I told him I’d see him at school, and he left. I finished my shower as quickly as I could and stepped out to dry off. Then Zeroelle just walked in.
“Ah!” I squeaked, wrapping the towel around myself.
The husky just smirked at me and handed me my folded up clothes. “Patsy, at your service,” She said, “I heard what you did. Good job!”
“Uh…!” I blushed.
“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” Zeroelle shrugged, “And besides, compared to my wife? No offense to you, you’re cute as a button, but my wife is a staggering ogress of sexual prowess. You don’t frighten me!”
“Are you all like this?” I asked, taking my clothes with one arm and holding my towel around me with my other hand, “Get out.”
Zeroelle raised her hands. “Alright, no need to send me to the Nevernever,” She chuckled, “Really, I’m glad to see you’re alright. I’ll leave you be, but once again, thank you for all your effort, and I’m sorry we couldn’t do more for you.”
Finally she left, and I put on my fresh-out-of-the-dryer clothes. They felt so warm and so good, and I loved it and it made me happy. I was happy, all things considered. I did a great thing and I knew it, and I didn’t even have to pat myself on the back because everyone else was willing to do it for me. I finally beat the Boo Hags, I finally avenged those girls, and I finally understood a lot about magic and being a Seer. I left Alex and Zeroelle’s house a happy boy-girl and made my way home to my loving mother and way-too-happy sister, and I had hamburgers for dinner that night and everything was awesome. I had no homework to do, and I felt like going to bed early that night… but not before I told Fraise that I got rid of the monsters, just like I promised.
And if any more monsters came out from under the bed? I promised to get rid of them too.
She was so stupidly happy about that.
And so was I.
Fin.