=:= Jessica =:=

A few seconds after Jess knocked, she heard Cindy call from inside the bedroom. "Come in."

Jess opened the door and let herself in. She found the small witch sitting crosslegged on her bed, with a couple notepads infront of her. Cindy was still in her nightie, it looked like she wasn't going to bother getting dressed at all today.

Cindy had been in her bedroom all day. She hadn't bothered coming downstairs for breakfast this morning, Zoe said she was sleeping in. And now Zoe was with Ciara in the guest room, Kara was down in the basement using their home gym, and Sam and Nikki were talking with Maria. So Jess figured she'd pay Cindy a visit and see how she was managing.

She'd been worried that Cindy was depressed, lost in grief about her friend. Jess was a little surprised instead to see Cindy's bright eyes flicking back and forth between a couple notebooks on her bed, then at the one on her lap as she scribbled down some new thought or idea she'd had.

"Hi Cindy," Jessica said. "I just wanted to check that you were doing ok. What are you up to?"

Cindy shrugged, still focused on her notes. "I'm still feeling really bad about Becky, if that's what you're wondering. Distracting myself from that, focusing on magic. Coming up with some new spells."

That made sense of course. Jess knew Cindy tended to lose herself in her magic when she got too stressed or upset.

"What are you working on?" she asked. "Anything fun?"

That brought another shrug to the small blonde's shoulders. Then she grinned, looking up at Jess.

"Actually, I dunno about fun but I came up with something for you and Kara. It might help with your protestor problem, at the support org?"

"Oh yeah?" That caught Jessica's interest. She'd been wondering last week what spells might be good for scattering the bigots away from QSAW. She smiled, "Tell me about it!"

Cindy motioned for Jess to have a seat, as she flipped back a page or two in the notebook she was working on.

Jessica sat on the edge of the bed, watching as Cindy found the page she was looking for, and a smile formed on the small witch's lips.

"Ok, so it's like, call it a 'suggestion spell'," Cindy explained. "It lets you plant a suggestion in someone's mind. Nothing too complicated, nothing against their nature. Like, you couldn't make someone hurt themselves, or anyone else. It won't do anything permanent, it won't mess with their head or whatever. And it wears off pretty quick, like a few minutes. So it's a really safe spell, and I don't think Samantha will freak out about it too hard. It's not gonna like, actually change a person's mind or thoughts or whatever."

Jess frowned, "So how does this help us with our bigots?"

Cindy smiled, "I was thinking, if they come back again you could try putting a suggestion into their heads to make them leave. Something like, You've done a good job, now you can go home. Or maybe even, Get thee to church, pray for more guidance! Like, that sort of thing. Just enough to get them to pack up and go. Then by the time it wears off, they'll have already left. And people are usually kinda lazy so they probably won't turn around and come right back."

"Ok, that sounds kind of fun," Jessica smiled. "So how does it work? How did you come up with this?"

Cindy grabbed one of the other notebooks on her bed, the one Ciara had written her brother's spells in.

"You remember the Brotherhood's 'telepathy' spell, right?"

Jess nodded.

"So I combined parts of that with aspects of our 'stun' spell," she explained. "Basically what happens is this new spell puts the person's brain on hold for a second, slips the new thought into their mind, then un-pauses their brain. They don't realize the thought's not theirs, and they just act on it. That's why it can't be too complicated, and it won't work if it's something against their nature, or something harmful or whatever? Because they'll reject it, or question it rather than act on it."

Jessica smiled, "Ok this sounds really good, Cindy!"

Cindy smiled back, and offered "Want a demonstration? You'll hafta take off your anti-magic amulet first."

When Jess hesitated, Cindy made a show of pouting and asked, "Don't you trust me?"

Jess grinned. "Ok, fine! Since you said it's harmless and won't make me do anything too crazy." She took the amulet off and put it next to her on the bed.

She could see Cindy was about to work the spell, but before she could finish Jess interrupted. "Wait a sec, Cindy. You've been in here all day, working on this stuff. Have you been staying hydrated? Hang on, I'll be right back."

Jess got up and exited the bedroom, hurrying downstairs to the kitchen. She poured a glass of juice then quickly returned to the small sorceress's bedroom, and set the glass down on Cindy's bedside table.

Then she sat back down on the bed and said, "Ok there. Now you can give me the demonstration."

Cindy smiled, "Thanks Jess, that was really thoughtful of you. Ok here we go."

As she was waiting, Jess noticed it was really hot in here and decided she should take off her t-shirt for a while so she could cool down. She almost reached for the hem of her shirt when she caught herself.

"Hey!" She gave Cindy a mock-glare. Then she smiled, "Ok, that almost had me. Like, it seemed perfectly natural, till I realized it wasn't actually that warm in here."

Cindy grinned back at her, "Put your amulet back on, Jess."

Jessica did so, but commented, "The spell didn't actually work though. I mean it was close. Or was that because like you said, it was too 'outside my nature'?"

Cindy just gave her a sly smile, then reached over and picked up the glass from her bedside table. "Thanks for the juice."

Jess felt her cheeks warming up as her eyes widened. "Wait... You did that! You little sneak!"

After drinking a few gulps, Cindy grinned. "Successful demonstration, and a failed demonstration. So you could see both outcomes."

Jess couldn't help herself, she smiled as well. "Yeah ok. It was a good demonstration."

Cindy just giggled, then held out her notebook. "Here. Scan it with your phone or whatever. You won't be able to mess with anyone wearing the protective amulets, unless you can get them to take their amulet off first. But like I said, it might help you if those jerks come back to the support org."

"Thanks Cindy," Jess was still smiling as she pulled her phone out and took a picture of the page Cindy indicated.

"You're welcome Jessica," Cindy replied. "And thanks for checking on me."

=:= Zoe =:=

"Ok girls," Zoe said, setting her backpack down on the floor. "Today we're going to do a little testing, to see how you've been doing with your training."

It was Monday afternoon, and she was back at the Watson house again, in the master bedroom with the three seventeen-year-olds.

Amanda, Sadie, and Ashley were all sitting on Maria's bed watching her. The teens had all just got home from school a little while ago, and now the two younger girls were downstairs with Maria, while the three older ones were here with her for another lesson.

"Is the test gonna be multiple choice, or essay questions?" Sadie asked with a smirk on her face. Ashley grinned, Amanda smiled but also rolled her eyes.

"I never would have taken you to be the class clown, sis." Amanda said, grinning at her twin. "You're supposed to be the mature one."

Ashley asked, "Actually that's something I've been wondering about. Which of you two is the older twin? I knew a set of twins in grade school and the older one was always holding that over the younger one, even though they were only like ten minutes apart."

The sisters looked at each other. Amanda looked a little lost, like she didn't know what to say.

"Amanda came first." Sadie stated, sounding very confident. "She's the older twin."

"How'd you figure that?" Amanda asked, sounding genuinely curious.

Sadie shrugged, "It's the truth. If anyone outside the coven asks I'll say you were born fifteen minutes before me, but we both know you were really here fifteen years ahead of me."

"Oh." Amanda said, her eyes widening. "I see."

While the three girls were talking, Zoe kneeled down and opened her backpack. She had a dozen 500ml water bottles in there, which she removed and lined up on the floor.

"All right, time to focus kids." Zoe announced. "Each of these water bottles weighs a half-kilogram. I'm going to stuff a few of them back into my backpack, and get you to try and teleport it across the room. I want to find out how much mass you can handle, that'll let me gauge how your training is coming. After we're done the testing, then I'll teach you all another spell or two."

The girls were all paying attention again, as Zoe loaded half the water bottles back into her backpack. She stated, "That's three kilos. Maybe three and a quarter, including the backpack itself."

She then had the girls try teleporting it, one at a time. All three managed without too much trouble, so Zoe put another bottle in, then they went again.

This time she could see Amanda and Ashley both struggled slightly, but all three succeeded.

Another bottle went in, and Zoe said, "This is four and a quarter kilos now." As she had them try again.

Ashley couldn't do it, she sighed as she gave up. "Sorry. It's too much."

"That's ok Ashley." Zoe smiled at her. "It's still really good, considering we only started this training two weeks ago."

Amanda struggled again but she managed it. And Sadie managed it too, without any obvious difficulty.

Another bottle went in the bag and they tried again. This proved too much for Amanda. Sadie was successful, but she was obviously straining this time.

"That's really good. So, Ashley got three and a half, Amanda got to four, and Sadie got four and a half." Zoe smiled at them all.

Sadie said, "I'm not done. Let me try five."

"Now you're just trying to show off." Amanda teased.

Zoe smiled and dropped a tenth bottle into the bag. "Ok Sadie, there's five kilos, plus the backpack."

The brunette twin focused. She was clearly struggling, and Zoe was about to suggest she leave it, when the backpack teleported to the other side of the room.

"Not bad!" Zoe smiled. "Five-and-a-bit kilograms."

Sadie grinned triumphantly. Then she frowned, "Ow."

"What's wrong?" Ashley asked her.

Sadie winced, then exclaimed "Ow!"

"Sis?" Amanda asked, looking concerned. "Are you ok?"

Sadie brought her hand up, pressing it against her right temple. She grimaced "Owie-owie-owie-ow! It's like an ice-cream headache!"

Ashley put an arm around her girlfriend, trying to comfort her.

Zoe gave her a sympathetic smile, "So, that's what can happen when you over-do it. If you push yourselves too hard, you're going to feel it."

Sadie had her eyes closed now, her hand still pressed against the side of her head. She groaned, "Aaaaaaa this sucks! Owwww!"

Amanda looked worried as she asked, "Is she gonna be ok?"

"Yeah," Zoe nodded. "She'll be fine in a little while. It might take thirty minutes to an hour though."

Sadie groaned again, "Fuuuck... I can't deal with this for an hour! It suuuuuucks!" She still had her eyes closed, her face scrunched up a bit as she was obviously still suffering.

Ashley still had her arm around Sadie, and asked "There won't be any permanent damage or anything, will there?"

Zoe shook her head, "Nah, not that I know of. If you get to the point where it hurts and you keep going, then it's just going to hurt worse, and for longer. Like, instead of wearing off in half an hour, maybe it takes six hours. And if you keep pushing even more, then maybe it takes two or three days."

She added, "If you push far enough, you'll eventually black out. Uh... Cindy told me she did that once. She wound up unconscious for a day, then had a killer migraine for another couple days after she woke up. So generally, if it starts to hurt, stop doing magic."

There was more that Cindy told her about that experience, but they'd agreed to keep it to themselves.

After Cindy had finally recovered, she'd discovered she was noticeably stronger with her magic. She thought maybe the pain was indicative of her magical threshold being raised. She decided to keep that secret though, because she hadn't been sure there were no negative side-effects. When she'd described the whole incident to Zoe after-the-fact, Zoe agreed with Cindy that it probably wasn't safe to try and replicate that 'experiment'.

Zoe certainly wasn't going to tell the teens about it. She didn't want to risk them intentionally hurting themselves on the chance it was a shortcut to getting better at magic.

Sadie was still suffering, but obviously still listening. She asked, "So I could still do magic now? Even though it hurts?"

"That's right," Zoe nodded. "I don't recommend it though, because like I've said, it's just going to hurt worse and for longer. So, for the rest of this lesson you can listen in Sadie, but I don't want you trying any more magic until you're feeling better."

The suffering twin nodded "Ok." Then she teased, "It'll give Amanda and Ashley a chance to catch up to me! Ow!" She winced again.

Zoe smiled, "Sadie why don't you lay back on the bed and relax. Amanda, Ashley, we're going to learn some new spells. Truth spell is a good one, super useful and convenient. And maybe a Healing spell, that's a good one to know."

Sadie sighed as she lay back across Maria's bed. She was still holding a hand against her right temple, still grimacing now and then in pain.

Amanda and Ashley both nodded to Zoe, their full attention on the catgirl now.

"Ok," Zoe began, "Here's how the truth spell works..."

=:= Samantha =:=

Samantha and her sister volunteered to take care of dinner tonight. Nikki had returned from a long day at the winery looking and sounding tired. The year's harvest was nearly completed, which meant they were very busy ramping up production.

Technically they had staff there who were quite capable of handling the whole thing without her supervision, but Nicole couldn't stay away. It was her passion after all, she wanted to be there directing and overseeing everything. And she wasn't above getting her hands dirty, or breaking a sweat helping out with the manual labour either. When it came to her winery, she was a very hands-on boss.

In contrast, the wellness centre was all but closed now for the winter season. They were only open Friday through Sunday, and unlike her wife, Sam wasn't as obsessively involved with things there if she had more important matters to worry about.

Jessica and Kara had been at QSAW again today, and Maria had joined them there as well. They'd reported it was quiet there too. The protestors hadn't returned, but they also had very few visitors.

Now Kara and Nicole were relaxing on the leather sofa, each with a glass of wine in their hand. Ciara was there too, sitting on one of the easy chairs again. She still had that plushie cat with her, she'd been carrying it around everywhere since Cindy gave it to her on Friday.

Cindy was busy setting the table and getting out drinks for everyone. The only one missing at the moment was Zoe, though she was expected back in time for dinner. The catgirl was over at Maria's place right now, giving the three teens some more magic training.

Sam turned the TV on while she and Jess were fixing dinner, it was currently showing news from one of the local stations. Mostly it was some background noise, since nobody else had been talking much so far this evening.

Jess started mixing up a salad, and Samantha had the casserole into the oven. It wasn't going to be as fancy as some of the meals her wife could whip up, but it would be enough. Nikki taught her a few tricks over the years they'd been together, and Sam was happy to give her wife a night off in the kitchen whenever she wanted, or whenever she looked tired.

In the background, the news anchors had already done the world news, and they were just wrapping up the national news. They moved on to local stuff, and Sam saw her sister freeze, suddenly staring at the TV.

"...identified as local businessman Jack Matthews, and his wife Karen. The couple were returning home from a fundraiser. Police haven't ruled out alcohol as a contributing factor..." While the news anchor was speaking, the image showed footage of a luxury car wrapped around a telephone pole, with a blue tarp covering the front part of the vehicle.

The anchor continued, "...third anniversary of the disappearance and death of their son, Brock University student and promising athlete Scott Matthews..."

Jessica was staring at Cindy now. The small witch had finished setting the table and was slumped in one of the leather chairs. She was looking at one of her notebooks again.

"Hey Cindy? Are you ok?" Jess asked.

Cindy looked up at her and shrugged. "Yeah? Why wouldn't I be?"

Jess nodded at the TV, "The news..."

Sam moved closer to Jess, while Cindy looked toward the TV. Sam touched Jessica's arm, then gave her sister a look and a slight shake of her head.

Cindy shrugged again, looking back at Jessica. "So? Who were they?"

Samantha replied, "Don't worry about it Cindy. I think that stuff was from before your time."

"Oh, ok." Cindy turned her attention back to her notebook again.

Kara was staring at the small blonde as well now. Then she and Nikki both looked towards Sam and Jess.

Sam looked back at Kara and gave them a slight shake of her head as she'd done with Jessica.

Jess leaned closer and whispered, "Sis? What's going on?"

"Later," Sam whispered back.

• • • • •

Zoe got back in time for dinner, then afterwards she and Cindy and Ciara all pitched in and did the dishes together. While the three of them were cleaning up, Sam and Nikki, Jess and Kara all settled down to relax on the living-room sofa infront of the fireplace.

After the dishes were done and put away and the kitchen was tidy, Cindy and Zoe went up to their room, and Ciara did the same, going into the guest room.

Jessica then looked at Sam and asked, "Ok sis, what was all that about with the news? Cindy was acting like she didn't even know her own parents."

Samantha glanced at Nikki, then sighed. "She wasn't acting, Jess. She doesn't know them."

"What?" Jess frowned. "They were her parents, how can she not know them?"

Nikki explained, "Cindy doesn't remember anything of her old life. Not even her original name."

Jessica gasped, "How's that? What happened to her memory?"

"Cindy assumes it's part of her curse." Sam explained. "She has no idea who she was, where she came from. There's only one thing she still remembers from her old life, from before she was cursed."

Jess sighed, "Damn. No wonder she's always so stressed about having somewhere she belongs, and why she wanted to 'find herself'. She literally doesn't know who she is..."

"Cindy knows who she is," Nikki stated. "She doesn't know who she was, or where she came from. And as far as we know, she isn't trying to find that out. She doesn't need to know about that stuff. If she wanted to know it, she'd have asked already."

Kara finally spoke up, asking "You said there's only one thing she still remembers. What is it?"

Sam and her wife both hesitated, exchanging a glance with each other.

"It's something bad, isn't it?" Jessica asked warily.

"Yes," Samantha sighed. "She remembers the assault on you, Jess. It's part of the reason she gets so upset this time of year. Ontop of everything else, she's dealing with the guilt of what she did to you."

"Damn," Jess sighed. "Poor kid."

Kara didn't comment on that, but from the look on their face Samantha suspected the enby wasn't as upset about it as Jessica was. Instead, they asked "Do you think the Matthews' deaths could have been caused by the Brotherhood?"

"I doubt it," Nicole replied. "I mean, Cindy doesn't even know who they were, so attacking them wouldn't have any affect on her. And I can't think of any way they'd even link them to her. The rest of us are all in contact with our families. Or at least, we were."

Sam asked, "Kara, have you been in touch with your parents at all?"

They shook their head. With a wry smile they replied, "Not since before you two were married. Not since Jess and I drove out to Essex. That was uh...two and a half years ago."

Jess nodded, "Right. It was March break, in our first year at Brock."

Kara shrugged, "I've had them blocked since then. No calls, emails, whatever."

"I think the Matthews' death is an unrelated coincidence." Nikki said. "It's unfortunate, but I doubt it has anything to do with us, Cindy, or the Brotherhood."

"I guess that's good." Jessica commented. "I mean, tragic accident and all that, but good that it's not the Brotherhood getting murderous with families."

Samantha nodded in agreement. They'd already had enough trouble with the Brotherhood turning their families against them. The last thing they needed to worry about now was that their parents' lives were at risk.