The day was hot, humid, and muggy, but the sun was setting, giving the world an orange hue.

#7890_0008 didn't mind because it was a nice change from the fear he felt last night of the evil that was...

Terrence.

He was in the same spot he always was in, next to the rotting mattresses at the entrance of the tire maze, and was rusted away under the dim glow of sunset. He didn't expect anything to occur that day, maybe another horrible visit from the evil mastermind that was Terrence, but he was mistaken.

Soft crunching across dirt, lazy and soft were heard, and when she rounded the corner #7890_0008 recognized her immediately.

It was the long, brown-haired woman from last night.

Seeing her in the daylight, not covered in blood, was very different.

She wasn't ugly nor beautiful, with long brown hair, brown eyes, and a small nose. Freckles plastered her entire body and she was the sort of person who blended into a crowd, with her band t-shirt, jeans, and red sneakers. 

#7890_0008 thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen because she returned as she said she would. He thought that she was beautiful like Maria, through her actions instead of looks.

He was elated that she returned, with a purple backpack, an awkward smile, and a little wave.

"Hello there," she said.

She felt quite silly introducing herself to a truck.

#7890_0008 said nothing back.

He was shy.

"My name is Lynn," she said, enunciating herself, loudly, making sure the truck could hear her, and also that she could make sure that she wasn't crazy, that the truck was alive.

He said nothing back.

He was still shy.

"Uh, so I came to fix you up. Is that cool? I don't wanna touch you without your consent. I don't wanna get Me Too'd by a truck."

#7890_0008 did not know what that meant, but he did want to be repaired. He opened the front hood, giving permission for her to fix him. It was a vulnerable thing, to show the deepest part of oneself to someone you had just met yesterday, but he was desperate to leave the junkyard, to be of use and help others once again.

Lynn smiled and cautiously walked over, gave him a thumbs-up, and opened up her purple backpack. 

Instead of a set of tools, she took out an old, worn book. #7890_0008 assumed that this was possibly an instruction manual because she would be fixing him all on her own and it would be quite the task. 

Lynn mumbled a few words under her breath, found the page that she reviewed at home, and took out more objects from the bag. #7890_0008 was confused because it was a regular-sized bag, but the number of objects that came out of it, and the size of the objects could not have possibly fit inside.

She took out a book, a car battery, three bottles of soda, a bottle of water, a giant jar of pickles, an oar, a jar of blood, a can of motor oil, shoe polish, a piece of paper with the word NEW written on it, and a bucket of chicken wings.

She was hungry.

The first thing she did was ask #7890_0008 if he could eat, and if so if he wanted chicken, but he said nothing and she wondered if he could talk because he was very quiet compared to last night. No words came out but she could feel his intentions but now he seemed to not want to say a thing.

"Well you can't complain when I eat all of it," Lynn said between chews.

#7890_0008 didn't like chicken.

He preferred pork.

Using the jar of blood, she unscrewed the lid, and there was a foil on the top of it, tied on top. A small hole was punctured into it because Lynn found this the easiest way to do her work. She tilted the jar slightly with her left hand while walking around the truck, chewing her drumstick, unperturbed by the arid smell of rust and rot around her. 

She continued until a small circle was around him, and then she closed it, walking in a straight line, and then created a new circle, all around her and the medley of objects that she pulled out of the purple backpack. Lynn broke her chicken bone into pieces, put it in the bucket, and opened up the bottles of soda.

The first was for herself.

The last two were for #7890_0008.

She poured them over his front compartment, the acid sliding away from the rust and lime, and Lynn swore she heard a slight shudder and gasp.

"Uh, you're welcome," she said.

#7890_0008 felt it was the best massage he ever had in his life, the rust and grime sliding off the inside of him.

At that moment he worried if he and Lynn were moving too fast, thinking that this was something sexual instead of her just being friendly because it had been so long since he had any attention, and he didn't like her like that.

She didn't either, and she gave him a look.

"Don't get any funny ideas," she chastised the car, shaking an empty bottle in his direction.

She promptly turned and hummed to herself as she stuck her hand inside her purple backpack once more, pulling out connecting cables. She latched them onto the older car batter, still inside #7890_0008, and then she hooked the other end onto the car battery inside her own bloody circle.
"Yes, yes," Lynn mumbled. "Almost there, be patient."

She then told herself, he can't go anywhere, he's a broken truck, and again felt quite obtuse.

Mumbling the instructions to herself in her head so she wouldn't have to open the book again, Lynn placed the can of motor oil on the line that connected the two bloody circles and unscrewed the lid.

#7890_0008 had no idea what this had to do with fixing him up, but he didn't question any of it.

People did many strange things. They wore socks with sandals and sometimes would put paint on their nails. This was just another thing people did that he did not understand. Lynn herself didn't seem to be sure what she was doing, reciting words to herself over and over, looking at the remaining objects, and then remembering the final steps.

She picked the large jar of pickles, grunted, sweated, and strained, until she unscrewed the lid, and took out a fistful of them, clenching them in her left hand. With her free hand, she picked up the broken chicken bones and placed them at five different corners of the circle.

She turned around, swiveling, several times, and was quite pleased that she had set it up all on her own! She didn't need a coven to help her, not one bit at all!

Still holding the pickles in one hand, she carefully walked over to the oar, not to mess up anything she had set up.

Lynn grunted, and strained, holding up the oar with one hand. She wasn't strong, and she wasn't the most patient, but she had ingenious ways of creating her own spells. She didn't have a wand, but she knew with magic, sometimes intent was all one needed.

For some reason, the oar worked best.

With her arm shaking and in the direction of #7890_0008, she waved the oar side to side and rubbed the pickles in the other hand together.

Squeak, squeak, squeak.

The sound of the pickles in the dark was quiet compared to the sounds of the dogs in the neighborhood and the traffic of the cars from the street nearby. Yet it seemed to focus and become louder, the faster Lynn waved the oar in the air.

"Squeaky clean," Lynn proclaimed.

The truck was now clean. No blood on the inside, no torn seats, nothing faded, but the mechanical parts were still rusty and broken.

#7890_0008 didn't care, he was quite surprised. His creaky window wipers shot up in surprise, but Lynn wasn't done yet.

Lynn knew she couldn't stop or else she would fail the benevolent truck that had saved her life.

She quickly bent over, to the side, and held up the paper with the word NEW.

"Good as new!"

#7890_0008 started to clatter and shake, as his wheels were inflated, his axis realigned, and finally, his bolts were replaced.  Sweet relief. Rusty nuts and bolts on a car were the equivalency of human arthritis.

His engine was brand new, as the day he was manufactured, even his lost driver's manual was replaced, his new car smell returned.

The last part of him to become brand new was the battery.

The new battery, inside Lynn's circle, was crackling with electricity, connected to the one inside the truck, and it was now time for the final touch.

It was not enough to make him good as new. She wanted him to be his own truck! Only the best for a kind automobile such as himself. 

She carefully squatted while holding the oar up in the air, cursing as to why her fated object was an oar of all things. She picked up the bottle of shoe polish, unscrewed the lid with her mouth, and poured it over the new car battery.

"Sparkle and shine!"

She grinned, as the shoe polish seeped into the car battery, up the cables, and shot up into #7890_0008's own frame. It whirled around him, twirling, leaving a magical sparkle about him, something different.  In the blink of an eye, his car battery was a new one as well, but the one in Lynn's circle was crumbling into dust.

The battery was a conduit, taking all the dirt and grime off the truck, all his pain away, leaving only a true representation of what he always was.

He was never trash.

Now his outside reflected his insides.

#7890_0008 did what any other automobile in his situation would do, in the middle of the night, when no one else was around.

His car alarm went off. 

"No, no, it's okay! It's okay!"

It was okay, but #7890_0008 was frightened and started to cry, setting off his alarm.

"You gotta stop or else the owner might come out and they'll find me again!"

#7890_0008 winded down his alarm and told himself to keep it together.

He had to be tough. He was fourteen years old, too old to be crying!

Lynn marveled at how she could feel his presence much stronger than ever before, but he was still silent because... well because cars can't speak, after all. 

She picked up the bottle of water, poured it over her hands, washing whatever bits of oil and grime were on her hands, and stuffed her ridiculously long oar into her too-small purple backpack. It was weightless, and she put it on, leaving the mess over the ground, not caring if she left evidence any longer of her various spells and techniques.

"You look incredible," Lynn said.

#7890_0008 beeped back.

"Oh, thank you," Lynn giggled. "I'm doing a new thing with my hair lately."

She giggled softly, still feeling quite silly at being friendly with a truck. She circled him, making sure everything was right and inspected him. 

Now, with all the rust gone, she could see that he was well made. Four seats, a large back compartment to carry plenty of supplies, top-of-the-line add-ons like seat warmers, and jumbo cup holders to boot. He was white all over, with black and grey parts for his frame, and large side mirrors. 

His headlights were large, round, shiny, none of that foggy stuff on the inside, either!

Lynn tried to imagine what he would look like if he were a person but wasn't sure how she would turn a truck into a person and decided she would work on that later, not thinking about the ethical ramifications.

All that was left was giving him freedom.

She fumbled through her pockets, which unlike her bag was not infinite. Women's pockets were quite the opposite, and she was quick not to spill anything out of her pants that she carefully stuffed inside. She pulled out a singular key, on the chain was a cute little mascot.

#7890_0008 was not sure if it was poop or candy, but he liked it!

She was about to open the door, but then she hesitated.

"May I?"

The door unlocked, clicked open, and Lynn got inside. She put the key into the ignition, and he roared to life.

Lynn knew the key she imbued with magic was meant to make it easier for him to get out of the junkyard, she enchanted it to make it so he could bounce from place to place, but the moment the truck turned on, something felt different.

Immediately the door shut, the seatbelt wrapped around her, the AC turned on, and the radio as well. It was her favorite station, and Lynn was touched.

"All this for me?"

#7890_0008 beeped several times, and Lynn assumed this meant yes.

"You're such a sweetheart. Do you wanna come home with me?"

The beeps were loud and quick, and Lynn laughed hard, snorting through her nose.  She gripped the steering wheel and told him that he could go anywhere he wanted to go.

"The key inside of you makes you go wherever you want. So where should we go first?"

#7890_0008 didn't know where to go, but he wanted to be anywhere Lynn was. So he decided to go home with her. He didn't know how he knew where her home was, he was sure that there was a destination and that he would get to it. He held his window wipers up high in determination and turned on his headlights at the highest setting.

This meant serious business.

The sound of cracking glass could be heard, faint, and then louder, and Lynn was worried that she had an incomplete spell. She tried to find the source of the crack inside the car, but it was from outside. 

A small, white dot, slowly expanding, opened up in front of the truck, and the more it strained, the louder the sound of breaking glass could be heard. Little sparks of purple and blue jumped out of it and Lynn held her breath as the truck slowly moved towards the light.

"Heh."

Lynn cackled like the witch she was, she had mistakenly made something magnificent!

#7890_0008 didn't know what was so funny, but he wanted to join in and started beeping erratically and loudly, while slowly moving towards the light because he wasn't sure what he was doing and was a little nervous about the entire ordeal. 

At 8 PM, the owner of the junkyard, Charlie, rounded the corner of the maze of tires and saw a young woman, laughing erratically inside a beeping truck, swallowed by a bright light, and disappearing into thin air.

Charlie would later take a month-long vacation, citing mental health reasons.