by Brian Olsen
Alisa lowers her eyes a little. “I don’t mind. If you want to.”
“You, you I will not drain to death.” He leans in closer. “You I must love. You will give me strong offspring, Alisa. Wouldn’t you like that?”
Alisa shoots a quick look at Zane, who gives her a thumbs up.
She puts her hands on Sifiso’s shoulders. “Let me show you what I’d like.”
She knees him in the balls. He groans and buckles over, cupping himself.
“I’d like you to take your true form, and hold it!” Alisa yells. “Truth!”
Sifiso shifts back into his bird form. He flaps but he’s obviously still in pain and just skitters across the floor instead of flying anywhere.
Alisa runs to us. “Now!”
She puts a hand on the book. I do the same. She, Zane and I are all touching it.
Book, send Sifiso back into the coin! Suck him right back into it! Do it now!
The bird shrieks once more. He tries to fly away, but he’s pulled towards us, twisted, distorted and stretched into a long thin strand that touches the coin and is absorbed. The storm cloud above shimmers with flashes of lightning until Sifiso is completely gone. Then it fades, letting sunlight shine in through the windows in the mall’s roof again.
Everything’s quiet.
And then there’s applause. Just one person at first, then more. The people across from us, the ones Sifiso was headed towards before I blasted him, are cheering the loudest.
A couple of younger kids come running up to us. “That was awesome!” one of them shouts. “Those were the best effects I’ve ever seen!”
“Were those drones?” another asks. “The bird and the fire guy! Were those drones?”
“Yeah,” Zane says. “Sure, kid. Drones. Whatever you say.”
“Awesome!”
Alisa takes the book and the coin from Zane. “Let’s head for the exit before we get too many more admirers.”
We hurry down the escalators. Nobody stops us, since nobody on the ground floor saw the big finale and they don’t know we were involved. We make it out to the parking lot and hurry to Nate’s car.
“Why didn’t you guys put him back in the book earlier?” I ask. “Once you saw we were fighting?”
“Alisa tried as soon as we saw you getting your birdy groove on,” Nate says. “But it didn’t work.”
“Something fought back,” Alisa explains. “Keeping him out in the world. Then Zane and I tried together and it felt like we got a little closer. So I thought if all three of us did it…”
“And you used your truth power to keep from being hypnotized by him.” I laugh. “I like that your signal for us to use the book was kneeing him in the balls.”
Nate laughs, too. “What a creeper. He deserved it.”
“Hah! Indeed! Humor at someone else’s expense!” Tannyl holds his hand up. “Up top, brother!”
Nate high fives him. “Yes! Perfect usage! I’m so proud.”
“What do we do about the creeper lightning birds, though?” Jasmine asks. “We’re leaving them in there, right?”
We reach Nate’s car and start piling in.
“For now,” I say. “But Sifiso said some of his people feed on animals, not humans. So I’m not so sure they’re all as dangerous as him. We’ll have to get them out of there.” I see Tannyl make a face, so I say, “I know. Not right away. We’ll find some friendlier creatures first, and let them help us sort out the others. But your world got by with creatures like the impundulu in it. Ours will have to, too. Eventually.”
The elf settles down at our feet again. “I agree. I would not inflict that imprisonment on any creature, even the lightning birds. But we must proceed with caution.” He squirms around. “Zane, your foot is on my hair.”
“Oh, sorry.” Zane shifts his foot, then pulls his door shut. “So that was fun. But aren’t we back where we started?”
“Worse.” Jasmine holds up her phone so those of us in the back seat can see. “There are already videos online. You can’t see Chris’s face in any of the ones where he’s flying, but we’re in a whole bunch of them.” She frowns. “What if Mr. Liefer sees them? He’ll know Chris is using magic even though he promised not to. What if he comes after him and kills him in his sleep?”
“And not to give us another thing to worry about,” Alisa says, running her fingers over the book’s cover. “But how did the impundulu get released from the coin in the first place?”
“Yeah,” I say. “And who tried to keep you from putting him back?”
Fifteen
Lily runs up to Alisa and me as we’re getting out of class. She pulls us into the empty room across the hall and hisses, “What the hell?”
I thrust my hands into my pockets. “I’m guessing this is about all the videos of us and the lightning bird?”
“Of course it’s about the videos of you and the lightning bird!” She smacks my chest. “I thought Mr. Liefer’s head was gonna explode!”
“Is he going to go after Chris?” Alisa asks.
Lily slumps down on a desk. “No. I don’t think so. He doesn’t know you have the book so he doesn’t know you set the bird free. Which was an immensely stupid thing to do, by the way.”
“We didn’t set it free,” I say. “We found the artifact it was in, but it got out on its own.”
“Oh. That’s bad.” She scratches her chin. “I convinced Liefer that Miller must have found a way to free creatures from their artifacts. I thought I was covering for you, but maybe I was right.”
“That’s what we think. Miller, or the Nightmare Queen.”
“Same thing. Be more careful, okay? You were obviously trying to stop the lightning bird from hurting people, so Liefer’s not coming after you yet. But that could change. He’s not having any luck finding Miller, and I don’t know how long it’ll be before he decides it’s safer just to take you out.”
“Thanks for having our backs. I was expecting a visit from Liefer last night.”
Lily shrugs. “He’d probably be more worried if it weren’t for the Moment working its amnesia magic. People are explaining the video away as a hoax or a publicity stunt for the mall.”
Alisa nods. “There’s already a video up debunking it. Explaining how the effects were done.”
“Good,” I say. “In another day or two people will stop talking about it altogether, hopefully.”
“I’ve gotta go.” Lily stands up. “Gotta split off and report in to Liefer that I talked to you. I’ll tell him everything I guessed was right, that you were just taking a trip to the mall and the bird appeared. Oh!” She snaps her fingers. “Who was the cute white guy in the hat? Liefer’s worried you told somebody else about magic.”
“That’s Tannyl,” I answer. “An elf we freed. He’s helping us.”
Lily stares at me for a second, then says, “Yeah. Probably not gonna share that with Liefer. I’ll tell him he’s a townie friend or something.”
The classroom door opens and Kenny stands half in the doorway. He sees us and freezes.
“Hey, Kenny,” Lily says.
“Hey.” He looks down. “Sorry. Thought this was empty. Sorry.”
“No biggie,” I say. “How you doing? Didn’t see you at lunch.”
He nods. “Yeah. Sorry. I ate outside.”
“Did you want to study in here?” Lily asks. “We’re leaving.”
“I…uh…that’s okay. Sorry.” He leaves, closing the door behind him.
“Poor Kenny.” Alisa shakes her head. “He hasn’t been the same since the whole school saw him naked.”
“I feel like he’s avoiding us,” I say.
Lily snorts. “How would you know? You’re all still off by yourselves half the time.”
“You didn’t tell Liefer about Kenny’s magic, did you? Liefer hasn’t recruited him?”
“Hell no. Kenny’s got it hard enough. Alisa’s right, he’s just permanently embarrassed.” She heads for the door. “Okay, gotta split. I’ll talk to
you later. Try to stay off YouTube, will ya?”
“We’ll do our best.”
Alisa waits for Lily to leave, then sighs. “We’re not doing very well, are we?”
“We’re not doing great. Any luck divining where the Nightmare Queen is?”
She shakes her head. “I can’t get it to work for anything but finding artifacts, and even then, only when I’m holding the book.” She looks at her pocket, then takes out her phone. “Jasmine’s texting me.” She types a reply to the message she just got, then waits. “Oh, she’s…”
She goes to the door, opens it, waves, and after a second, comes back in, followed by Jasmine.
“Hi, guys!” Jasmine holds a brown paper bag out to Alisa. “Lunch.”
“I ate.”
“Not for you. For our elf friend.” She sighs. “Poor guy must be going stir-crazy hiding in the prop storage room all day, waiting for school to let out.”
“Yeah.” I fold my arms and lean sideways into Alisa. “Poor Tannyl. Just sitting there. All alone. Nobody to talk to…”
“Okay, enough.” Alisa pushes me off. “I know. I have to talk to him.”
“Why have you been avoiding him?” I ask.
She rolls her eyes at me. “Oh, I don’t know, because he’s in love with me and I have no memory of him at all? Because it’s weird, is that a good enough reason?”
“But…” Jasmine puts her hands to her heart. “But it’s all so romantic!”
Alisa huffs, “I won’t be obligated to love someone.”
“You’re not,” I say. “None of us are obligated by what we were before. But…he seems like a great guy.”
“He is!” Jasmine says. “Nate loves having him stay over! They’re totally bro-ing out. It’s adorable.”
“Oh, god.” Alisa snatches the lunch bag from Jasmine. “Fine. I’ll talk to him, if only to counter whatever influence Nate is having. I don’t think I can handle it if Tannyl starts calling people ‘dude’ and listening to old people’s music.” She heads for the door. “Wish me luck.”
Jasmine pumps her fist in the air. “Go get him!”
Alisa heads out into the hallway. Jasmine turns and smiles at me.
“What are you doing now, Chris? Wanna hang out?”
“Uh. Sure. Just the two of us?”
“Yes!” She slips her arm around mine and leads me out into the hall. “Why should we only spend time together if Nate is there? We can do fun stuff without him!”
“I was actually going to work on our problem of how to get to the artifacts that are too far away for us to drive to.”
“Ooh, magic, fun! I can help! Can I help?”
I used to find Jasmine irritating, but she’s been growing on me since the Moment. I’m seeing why Nate loves her. I always thought her relentless cheerfulness was a facade, but I think she’s actually a genuinely good person.
“Yeah,” I say. “Sure. Let’s go into the woods and find a quiet spot.”
“Yay! Magic class outside again!”
We hold hands and run out into the courtyard, then off the path to the back of the school. There are a few students hanging out on a patch of grass, so we head deep into the woods that surround the school until we’re out of sight. We find a clearing, surrounded by trees, with a big flat rock perfect for sitting on. The sun shines down, filtered through the canopy of leaves.
I sit on the rock. “Huh.”
She sits next to me. “Huh, what?”
“I think…” I kick my foot in a patch of dirt. “This is the spot I ran to the morning of the Moment. Where Zane’s shadows chased me.”
“Zane!” She rests her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands, and grins at me. “How’s all that going? Nate doesn’t like to talk about it because he doesn’t like Zane very much.”
“Yeah, I know.” I blow air through my lips. “It’s going well, I guess.”
“Guess?”
“We text constantly but we haven’t had much alone time.”
“Oh.” Jasmine sits up straight. “We’ve been doing a lot of group activities lately, haven’t we.”
“You could say that. We said we’d have a real date tonight but we still haven’t figured out our plans.”
She claps her hands. “Yay! Oh, you should go to Carelli’s. It’s so romantic. I took Nate there for our six month anniversary. And it’s right by the park and you can go for a walk around the pond. Oh!” She squeezes her fists tight. “I love you guys as a couple!”
I laugh. “You’re one of the few. I still feel guilty sometimes, dating my childhood bully.” I pick up a twig and start scratching in the dirt. “He was awful to us, you know.”
“You guys have talked about it, though, right?”
I shrug. “Really just once. He apologized. Since then we’ve kind of ignored it.”
She’s quiet.
I continue. “I sort of pretend he’s two different people. Like my boyfriend isn’t the same person as the kid who almost made me change schools.”
She rests her head on my shoulder. “It’s still bothering you.”
I sit there for a minute, scratching in the dirt.
It does still bother me. Zane did horrible things to me and Nate when we were kids.
“I forgave him,” I say. “And I like him a lot and I’m happy to be dating him and I don’t want to mess that up.”
“But?”
“But…” I throw the stick down. “But I think I need something else from him. I don’t know what, though. To apologize again? He’s already done that. He’s already explained everything. It was, like, the perfect woke bully apology. Do I just want him to suffer a little more? Even though I care about him? That’s messed up. Is that messed up?”
“I don’t think you want him to suffer,” she says. “Maybe you don’t want anything specific from him. Maybe you’re just not done talking about it yet.”
“Huh.” I put my arm around her shoulders. “Thanks, Jasmine. That’s really helpful.”
“I know. I’m super smart about people.”
“You are. How are you doing? Are you okay with everything that’s going on?”
“Aw, Chris!” She hugs me. “That’s the first time you’ve ever asked me how I am, and meant it!”
I hug her back. “I’m sorry. I haven’t always been great to you.”
“That’s okay. I forgive you.”
We pull away. I rub my eyes with my sleeve.
“And I’m good,” she says. “I wasn’t as scared yesterday as I thought I’d be. With the bird, I mean. I’d still like to stay away from any fighting if I can avoid it but I’m proud of myself that I don’t panic when it happens.”
“Yeah.” I nod. “Me, too, to be honest.”
She nudges me. “Maybe we should quit our yakking then and get to practicing? Then we can find some nice magical creatures instead of scary ones and nobody will have to fight anybody.”
“Right. Yeah. Okay, here’s my idea. Tell me if it sounds crazy. I’ve been using my word pretty literally so far. Fire and light, like the sun gives off, and flying, because the sun rises and sets.”
She nods. “Right.”
“But the sun travels all over the world, right?”
She squints at me. “Not…really?”
“No, no, I know. We go around the sun. But, like, metaphorically speaking. Mr. Miller said that with practice we could interpret our words in other ways than the obvious. And the sun kind of travels around the world, right? If you look at it that way?”
“Yes. Right.”
“So why can’t I?”
She tilts her head. “Are you going to go to space?”
“No! I hope not. No, I was thinking I would try teleporting. Like Mr. Liefer does.”
“Ooh! Yes!” She jumps to her feet. “That would be so cool! Try it, try it!”
I stand up. “You think it—”
“Yes, yes, yes! It makes perfect sense!” She looks around thoughtfully, like she’s thinking about how to redeco
rate the forest. Then she moves to the center of the clearing. “Try to go right here. Big empty space. So you don’t land inside a tree or something.”
“Oh. I didn’t think of that. Yeah, that would be bad. Okay, stand clear.”
She moves to the side, and I take a few steps back to give myself more space. I look at the spot Jasmine indicated.
I want to be there. Just like the sun can shine anywhere. I want to be in that spot, right there, without traveling the space in between.
I want to be in that spot safely. I don’t want…how do I phrase this? I don’t want the molecules of my body to overlap with the molecules of…anything else.
Too clumsy. Start over.
I want to move from where I am now to that spot right there, without traveling the distance in between. I want to disappear from this spot and immediately reappear, safely and intact, in that spot.
“Sun.”
Huh. I feel…something. Like that little jolt when you wake up from a dream where you’re falling.
But I don’t move.
“Nothing?” Jasmine asks.
“Not nothing. But not what I wanted. It feels like it should work, though. Like it would work if I were…”
If I were a little stronger, I was going to say. But if I had a little more of the Common King’s power, is what I meant.
I know what I have to do.
Jasmine looks at me expectantly. “Do you want to keep trying?”
“I think I need to…meditate for a minute. Or maybe a few minutes. Do you mind?”
“Oh, okay.” She points back towards the school. “Do you want me to go?”
“Sorry. Is that okay? I need to focus. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay! I’m sorry I couldn’t help.”
“No, you did. Seriously, Jasmine, you totally did.”
She smiles at me. “Yay! Okay. I should go do homework. Text me when you’ve done it, okay? Because you’re so going to do it.”
“I will.”
She gives me two thumbs up, then turns and heads back through the woods to the schoolhouse. I wait until I can’t hear her anymore, then sit back down on the rock and close my eyes.
I’ve seen the floating room when I was awake before, but never on purpose. I’m not sure what to do.