Study Buddy

“Something happened,” I said, observing the oddly drained coloration of my hand closely. I looked up from my hand and saw myself, my copy, standing within the circle -- right where I should’ve been. In an instant of bewilderment, I said, “Hey, how did you --”

“It worked!” he excitedly yelled loud enough to make me and Kelly jump. “Kelly! It really worked!”

“Quiet down.” Kelly wasn’t even looking at either of us. She just brushed aside the page she was on and scanned the final part of the spell.

I asked: “How is he in the circle?” I took a step towards Kelly --

-- and my other self yelled a warning at her. She immediately looked up from the book --

-- and the next thing I saw was the ceiling, the shelf full of books falling, and painfully bright stars popping in my vision. Without being aware of what was going on, I simply let the books crash down on top of me.

Then I realized she’d knocked me clear across the room, likely with some readied cantrip. I had smashed into the wall before her, laid flat out on the floor like a skeever.

Groggily, I said, “That hurt.” Getting up on my sore ass, I asked: “I hope there was a good reason for that?”

She divided her attention between us. “You remember everything I told you?”

“Eh,” said my other self before he responded first, “yeah?”

After I rubbed the swelling lumps on my head, I answered: “With the exceptions you’ve made, the copy will be identical.” I pointedly spoke to the other me in the circle. “That means, any memory I had before being copied would’ve been retained and passed onto you.”

“You.” My attention sped away from my other self to Kelly, and she repeated: “You.”

Confused, I said, “Me?”

“Yes, you,” she repeated. Then she pointed at my other self in the circle. “Craige is the original.” Then that finger pointed at me. “You’re the copy.”

...That didn’t sit very well with me. I kept quiet and stared back at them.

“Can I come out now?” My… Craige appeared eager to leave his protective circle.

I looked down at my hand again and saw the difference. When I held my hand up, the two of us were slightly off color. Compared to him, I was sickly in color. I had thought that was because a part of me was removed to make a copy. Instead of that, I wasn’t retaining enough lifeforce to remain in their world.

Only what magic Kelly was evoking kept me from crumbling to dust.

“Don’t!” To’ve caught his attention was a miracle. Craige looked at me, but as I waved at him, he already lifted a foot to step out. “Stop! Don’t step out of the Goddamn circle!” He paused and held himself perfectly still with his foot in mid-step. I turned and yelled at Kelly. “Dammit, Kelly! Tell him why!”

“Why not? It worked.” She shrugged and clapped the book shut. “We don’t require your presence anymore.”

Any life I’d had drained from me in that instance. “Kelly, please don’t.”

“You’re syphoning off of me.” She walked over to the desk and sat down in my -- Craige’s chair. “If you want to remain, then convince him to be your host.”

“What? Like a leech?” He gave me a disgusted look. “No thanks.”

“Wa-Wait! I can be beneficial.” I turned my attention back to Kelly. “Please explain to Craige the alterations -- the bonuses to your prime when you conjured me from him.”

That had caused her to raise a brow and give me a surprise appraisal. “You are an observant one.”

“Between him and me, it didn’t take me long to figure out what you did.” I gave Craige a sheepish grin. “She increased my intellect.” She’d done a lot more than that, I realized as I began piecing together many other puzzling thoughts and memories. The negligence, ignorance, and carelessness of Craige weren’t present in me. My eyes drifted to Kelly, giving her a look of incredulity before I said, “And my awareness.”

Everything Craige had failed to comprehend in his history, I now understood. Like when he’d spaced out as Kelly explained unrealistic formulaic designs she’d personally stylized to become reality... like what made me. I had recovered every one of those missing pieces of conversations, lessons, and experiences as if I had retroactively attended them all with my utmost attention.

When Craige gave me a funny look, I took the hint that he still didn’t quite grasp the situation. I simply said, “I’m smarter than you.”

“You made him smarter than me?” That disgust he had on his face was redirected to Kelly. “What the fuck? Why would you go and do that?”

“To see if I could.” Kelly smirked at him, but glanced back at me. “And I did.”

After I sat, cross-legged, I dropped my gaze down. Both of my palms rested in my lap. I stared at them and wondered what I was capable of doing.

“Interested in what else you’re made of?” Kelly grabbed my attention again. She looked between the two of us and said, “Give me a minute to circle the room.”

She was about to create a prison, but one that I could live in.

I closed my hands and leaned back at the wall in relief. “Kelly, for giving me a chance,” I said as I nodded to her, “thank you.” Then I rested the back of my head against the wall and watched her work.

“What am I doing?” Craige had finally put his foot down and looked around impatiently for something to occupy his time while Kelly enchanted the room.

With a grin, Kelly said, “Standing there and looking handsome is the best help you can give me right now.” Her focus returned to the task at hand, literally in a bright hue of glowing colors, and that shut everyone up.

Like a laser point, she beamed the rainbow across the room until a complete circuit was created. And at that instant, a burst of light illuminated the whole room until the magic could be felt having evenly spread about the enclosure.

“Can I come out now?” Craige didn’t wait and stepped right out of his “inner” circle. So long as he stayed inside the room, I was safe.

I had to explain that to him before he tried to go somewhere. “Neither of us can leave the room without me going --”

“Poof!” Kelly finished for me with a dramatic wave of her hands. “I’ll work on that issue, but there’s a price to pay.”

“To exist, I’ll gladly offer anything.” At least, I said so, but if she intended to experiment on me to the point of torture…

She clapped my thoughts close. “Great! You can start with telling me how much of the last class’s lessons you remember.”

“Which last class? The one I -- Craige had alone or the one you two shared?” I had to be sure.

She answered: “The one with Mrs. Rose teaching.”

“She taught us the fundamentals of physics and biology being altered in lieu --” I paused right there and then when I realized what she intended to do with me. Now I was scared and would rather not be alive anymore. “Please don’t.”

Her eyes lit right up when she saw the realization on my face. “Wow, you really worked.” The smile on her face was big. “Sorry Craige, I might replace you with the copy after all.”

“Funny, not,” was his reply. He asked: “What’s his problem? And what does ‘lieu’ mean?”

Kelly redirected her attention back to Craige. “Remember I said he’s syphoning off my magic?”

“Yeah.” His disgust returned as he glanced back at me. “He’s leeching off of you.”

“Exactly.” In her seat, she leaned forward and observed me. “So what happens to a parasite living off of a host?”

“Uh… they make themselves a home?” Craige was close to the mark on that one.

With a mournful voice, I corrected him. “They adapt.”

“What does that mean?” I had to wonder if Craige really was that moronic or if the shock of being copied had done something unexpected. “And are either of you going to tell me what a ‘lieu’ is?”

“Craige, dear?” With a sweet voice, Kelly smoothly wiped clean the disgusted look from Craige’s face. He listened to her speak: “Do you remember when Ash Thompson and Rachel Bailey fused an illusion together?”

“Yeah.” He laughed and said, “It blew up in their faces.”

She nodded and asked: “Do you know why?”

“Because joining hands, chanting together, and signing pacts is a bunch of witchcraft nonsense the Church lied about?” I had to give him credit, he wasn’t wrong, but that wasn’t the reason behind the feedback of magic.

So I explained: “The magic courses through us and streams out when we cast it.” I held my hand up above my head and aimed at the ceiling. “Imagine I’m a lightning rod, up on the rooftop and grounded by a wire. Lightning struck me.” I looked at Craige and asked: “Where does the electricity discharge?”

He answered: “Through the wire and into the ground.”

“Good work.” After I said that, he smiled at me for the first time. “Can you tell me what would happen to the lightning rod if the wire was severed?”

“I’m not sure.” He looked at Kelly for a moment for the answer, but she shook her head. So he turned back to me and guessed: “It would explode?”

With a smile on my face, I exclaimed: “Exactly right!”

He punched the air in excitement and said, “Yes!” After he settled, he asked: “Is that what happened to Ash and Rachel?”

“Pretty much.” Kelly answered that time. “Their connection was cut off when they crossed each other’s stream.”

That was when Craige shook his head, waved a pointed finger back and forth between Kelly and me, and asked: “I don’t get it. If he’s leeching off of you, why hasn’t he gone kablooie yet?”

“Because I’m technically not a full copy of you,” was what I said. “While she may have extracted my existence from you, the reason you don’t feel drained is because she altered me.” To explain like I had with the lightning rod, I thought about my creation for a second. “Imagine you are a mountain and she carved a stone out of you.”

“Okay.” He turned his attention on Kelly and said, “I’m a mountain and you took a piece out of me.”

“Yes I did.” She gave me a thumbs up and continued for me. “Do you feel any pain?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“It didn’t hurt at all?” After she asked, he shook his head again. “That was because the piece I took out of you was too small to be noticed.”

He squinted a single eye at her, then at me before he said, “Wouldn’t that make you tiny?”

I laughed and said, “No. She filled the stone up to my size with her magic.” There was a look on his face like he still didn’t get it, so I explained further. “Ever see the pores in a stone before?”

“Not really… I mean, I’ve seen volcanic glass.” When he made that comparison, I cringed and nodded my head side-to-side.

“Kinda.” Another idea hit me and I said, “A sponge. Imagine a sponge with those pores, but it’s really a stone.”

“Okay.” He smiled again. “I got it.”

I happily clapped and said, “Good, now you know what happens when the sponge is dropped in water?”

“Sure,” he said. “It absorbs the water.”

I nodded and said, “That’s what happened.” To give him a better understanding, I explained the comparison. “The container of water the sponge was dropped in is the circle of magic.” Like a halo, I pointed out the circle over my head to gesture at the magic in the air. Then I pointed at myself and said, “I’m the stone sponge she carved from you.” And I patted the floor to conclude the last part. “And after she cast me away, I sank, filled and anchored with her magic.”

“But why does it have to be her magic? Couldn’t you suck on an enchanted binky or something?” Despite how he’d worded that, he had brought out a very good point.

I reminded him of a subject he should’ve paid closer attention to in the last class they took together. “Mrs. Rose talked about pure mages,” I pointed at Kelly, then to him as I continued, “and magic dabblers. Both can bolster their affinity to magic if they alter their biology.” I looked to Kelly and said, “She’s altering me to carry her magic.” My gaze returned to Craige and I added: “You simply dabble in magic, cantrips and rituals, whereas she has the ability to harness magic naturally. As the old folklore would call her, she’s a Sorceress.” I tapped my chest and said, “While I’m still mostly you, I wouldn’t be capable of existing without being fed magic.”

“Craige?” Kelly caught his attention as she asked: “You remember when Simon Woodiwiss shapeshifted into Mrs. Beverly?” Once he nodded, she continued: “He looked exactly like her, but once he spoke...”

He cracked up laughing. “Oh yeah! He fooled everyone in class for a few minutes!” After a moment, he settled down and said, “He couldn’t get rid of his husky voice. If it weren't for that, nobody would’ve figured it out.”

I loved the fact he refrained from mentioning he was one of the ones duped by Simon’s prank. I remembered, and I was certain Kelly knew.

Back to pointing her out, I concluded: “Right on. If my biology doesn’t alter, I can’t naturally carrying my own magic, otherwise her magic would reject me once the protective circle falls.”

He looked like he understood, but I detected a question. “I think I got it, but what does me having to be in the circle mean?”

On that note, Kelly spoke up and pointed at Craige. “Like he said, you can’t cast magic.” She then pointed at me and said, “But since my magic stream originated from copying Craige, now I’m conducted through him and streams into you.” But she gave me a knowing smile.

So I revealed the secret. “Until, like a stone, my roughness is smoothed out by the current.”

“Huh?” Craige looked bewildered.

I took a deep breath and explained. “To adapt to my new environment.” With a wave of my hand, I gestured around us. “Her magic in the circle, the magic I’m syphoning from her, and the magic alterations she gave me; I’ll change to fit in and not blow up when the streaming stops.”

Craige had a dull look on his face and simply glanced at Kelly for the answer again.

Kelly gave it up. “You’re going to be me, with a little bit of him.” Then she joked: “Our magical child.”

“Funny, really?” Craige looked back at me. Then he approached and got down on his knees to get a closer look. “I guess I do see some of you in him.” But he shook his head and stated: “Kinda in the eyes, but I think he’s looking at me like that because he’s shrewd like you.”

“...I’m not going to be a ‘He’ for much longer.” I glared at Kelly for that one.

“Huh?” As expected, Craige was stupefied by our continued revelations.

I explained: “She is mostly what’s filling me up.” Then I added: “Once she cuts off the magic, I technically should ‘Poof’ into magic dust.” Pointing up under Craige’s chin, I also said, “If you’d stepped outside the circle, that would’ve meant the same as yanking the wire out of the ground.”

“And instead of a puff of dust, an explosion,” said Kelly.

“But since I’m ‘living’ in this circle, my environment, I can barely squeeze by with her trickling magic into me.” I looked past Craige, at Kelly, and said, “She’s streaming her magic directly into me, keeping me locked in this circle as a pet labrat is obviously not what she intends to make of me.”

Craige glanced back at Kelly and asked: “‘Kay. What are you doing?”

She decided to reveal the rest. “While you two might share the same memories, the copy will be closely like me in almost every way.” She smiled broadly and stated: “I can be in two places at once.”

Craige returned his attention to me and asked: “Why does that scare you?”

“Other than the fact that I remember being you, but I’m going to be her?” After I rolled my eyes in disbelief, I looked straight at him and bluntly asked: “What classes did you drop out of?”

His eyes rolled up in thought as he began to list them off. “Thaumaturgy, Mysticism, ah… and the studies of Cleopatra?”

One more time, I asked him to recall our specific reasons for dropping out. “Do you remember why you opted out of Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra?”

“Because that involved…” Then it finally dawned on him. “Oh.”

Since he didn’t say it, I said, “An around the world study of the most elusive subject in magical history: The Secrets of Alchemy and Transmutation.“ He grunted a confirmation, and I continued my explanation for why he dropped out. “You’d be okay with the course if they permitted you to be a laid-back tourist. But to obtain your credits, the class objective required you to uncover those hidden secrets.” I looked past him and at the highly ambitious Kelly. “Except you not only discovered one and created me, but went a step further and redesigned the whole homunculus formula.”

The issue I had with her and the secret she now possessed was that she’d never reported the finding. That wasn’t just a class requirement, but also a legal one. To her, I was probably an illegal stepping stone in her ambitions. A stone sponge in her experimentation for a moment of greatness. No spotlight, for if someone found out, she’d be expelled and charged with improper conduct unbenefiting our arcane nation. But with my imagination, I thought I would undergo worse treatments...

Kelly sat there with the most triumphant look on her face. “With a mind like yours, I can’t wait to read your reports and what you can come up with.” She leaned further forward and said, “I’ll be here if you need anything.” At last, she asked the big question. “Are you willing to volunteer for an adventure of a lifetime?”

As I felt her magic seep further into me, subtly shaping me in her likeness, I thought about all the locations I would have to search. The first place would be this very school. Once the academic research was out of the way, I’d travel to ancient ruins dating back to the first century of Cleopatra. After that, I’d have to go hunting for specific ghosts that may have once acquired or were clued in on the many undocumented secrets or simply what was kept from the public.

What I was about to do was less a class and more of an ongoing operation that had been actively spreading across the globe for centuries. And I knew my existence would depend on my answer to her. Craige had originally jumped at the chance because it meant getting out of all his other studies. Unfortunately for him, that meant he’d have to write essays on all he studied while traveling. It was easier for him to stay in school and tolerate the sessions of droning teachers eagerly buzzing with boring information. At least, it was boring to him, but I found the opportunity to learn fantastic.

Unfortunately, like him, I wished I could drop out of this one. But doing so would cost me my life.

What choice did I have? I answered: “Yes.”

And as Craige got up, he said, “Heh, good luck on your studies, buddy.” As if I were a child or pet, he mussed my hair on the top of my head. “I’ll be rooting for you.” 

He went and laid down on his bed while Kelly rotated the chair to face the desk. She opened up the spellbook and began to study. I looked from the lazy complacency snoozing right away to the prideful ambition busily absorbing more information.

There must be some mistake. If I thought about it, I would be more like her than him. With that in mind, even if I carried his memories, I’d be more eager to go off and make something of myself in the world. So why was I afraid?

I didn’t know then because Craige didn’t, but Kelly had heightened my senses. I felt fear of going into the unknown alone.

She’d made the perfect choices in cooking me up, that was for certain. I would be alert for danger, from Craige’s countlessly foolish experiences, and with a new sense of awareness, from her personality, to investigate where I was going and not get myself killed. Despite studying beforehand -- or maybe because I would -- I’d be kept on my toes the whole trip around the globe!

...Alone. No one would know what I was and I couldn’t be found out. I was one of those secrets.

“Kelly?” My voice sounded funny, scratchy, like I was going through puberty again, but I continued. “Do I have to do this alone?”

When she glanced back at me, I caught her change of expression. I must’ve looked more like her. At least, I was gaining Kelly’s appearance in lieu of Craige’s.

She looked away to return her attention on that book, but she answered: “Not always. It’s my study.” The book clapped shut and she lifted it up for me to see. “If you find out about anything as valuable as this, I’ll visit you.” After she laid the book back down on the desk, she rotated the chair around to face me. “We can make a discovery together.”

I uncrossed my legs and drew them up to my chin as I felt weird. My flesh crawled, my guts felt like they were a nest of snakes coiling around each other, and my bones ached. I hugged my legs close and kept quiet.

As I slowly changed under the influence of her magic, she observed me. “Does it hurt?”

“Does it matter?” She nodded. “Yes, it does.”

“I can weaken our link.” Kelly stood up and walked over to me. “The change will be much slower, and you will have to remain in this room for a very long time.” She turned to sit down beside me. “Possibly months until it is safe for you to walk out on your own.”

“But you won’t,” was what I said. “Do you honestly believe Craige could endure being cooped up in here for that long?” I laid my cheek down on my knees and said, “You also can’t afford to waste time. You need me out there soon.” When I thought about how soon, I remembered Craige seeing the dates for departure. I mentioned: “Sooner than this transformation will finish.”

She smiled at me. “You calculated that out, but have you figured how I intend to make this work?”

“Rings.” I let go of my knees and raised my hands. When I transitioned from Craige into the likeness of Kelly, my fingers would be slender. I tweaked my answer: “Or jewelry.” Remembering Craige’s crack at a joke about a ‘binky,’ I said, “No pacifiers.” But I did add: “Maybe clothes inlaid with active runes? Enchanted, infused with as much of your magic as possible.” I would be bundled up until the process was safely completed. “To keep our link, I’ll have to expand our search in a slow radius around where you two are presently located.” A light chuckle left me. “Just to test my boundaries.”

“Yes, but you could begin a local search. Here,” she patted the floor, “at this school.” Just like Craige, she laid her hand on my head. But in contrast to his rough treatment, she gently smoothed my hair back and came back to soothingly begin petting me. “We will take care of each other and learn all we can.” As she leaned down, to orient herself to face me directly, we locked eyes. “Once I obtain the materials, I’ll make you something special to wear and keep you safe.”

Her eyes were a soft brown. Warmer than I ever remembered seeing them. One day, I would have eyes like those. That was just a reminder I wasn’t who I remembered or would become.

As my current eyes teared up, I put on a smile and said, “I don’t have a name.”

“Chrys Cleopatra. It will be your name for obvious reasons.” She leaned in and kissed me on my forehead. Then she pressed her forehead against mine. “How does that sound?”

To test my name, I whispered: “Chrys.” I wasn’t sure about the ‘Cleopatra’ part of my name, but I reasoned that would be my maiden name. Under the right circumstances, my future could spell out a new surname for me.

In that moment of self discovery, I searched for where that crazy line of thought came from.

Taking a look inward, reviewing the entire path of Craige’s memory lane, all the way to my magical birth, I knew I was straight. Fully, one hundred percent, virile male, who was born and raised, and driven to lust for the fairest of them all. And my attention drifted outwards, back to my senses, I captured the image of my perfectly wicked witch right next to me.

Not my girl. Craige’s… but I learned something he hadn’t. Maybe a secret that no one else knew, except Kelly and me.

In a sense of unease, I was able to figure out that secret could tear Kelly and Craige apart.

I would have kept that to myself, but then my eyes widened in realization. “Oh shit.”

“What?” She looked at me in confusion.

Angrily, confused, hurt, and torn between the two, I glared at her and said, “You try having Craige’s memories of narrow minded bigotry and suddenly start having your sense of adventure.” For the first time, she looked confused at me until I blurted out: “You swing both ways!”

At first, Kelly looked at me in shock. Stunned to silence. Without a single word brought up in defense, she nodded.

Once her eyes began to water, I felt terrible for calling her out of the closet. In all honesty, I wasn’t upset at her. What that was… that was me being pissed because I had an attraction towards men with Craige’s pinheaded judgement in my freed mind. I truly had nothing against her. Craige might’ve, if he’d known, but not me.

I whispered: “I’m sorry.” I reached out and hugged her tightly. As I rubbed her back, in return for her soothing pets, I felt how much she trembled.

“Pfft!” Then in a loud burst, she lost control and guffawed. I stiffened, detached enough from her to get a good look, and witnessed her cracking up.

How she found any of what had transpired between us funny, I had no idea, but I much preferred her laughing than crying, so I made no argument. And I had to admit her laughter was contagious. I chuckled with her, even if I was a bit subdued by my misfortune being the center of that amusement.

In the corner of my sight, I caught movement. Craige sat straight up in bed and stared down at us. When he registered all we were doing was laughing our butts off, he fell and laid back on the bed, aimlessly launched a pillow at us, and snored loudly in challenge.

That only made me laugh more. I thought then, ’Maybe this life won’t be so bad?’ To go out on a worldwide trial run was the only way for me to find out for sure.

And with Kelly by my side, and maybe a Craige supporting me, I couldn’t wait to see how well I’d fit in at school.