Morning came perhaps too quickly. Either this teenage body didn’t sit right with a measly 7 hours of sleep, or she had spent too long staring at the pretty literature fire. As promised, Wanzewan left a clean plate. Not a spec of ash or dust to be seen on her shelf. There was something morbid, she thought, about the water damaged spiral notebook standing tall over the crime scene of it’s book-cannibalism. Her FM alarm still blaring radio tunes cut through the malaise of waking. Reality bled in through the blinders, sun rays creeping in, to the tune of Dreams. ‘And They’ll come true…. Impossible not to do… Impossible not to do…’ .

 

She beckoned her closet doors open from her bed, revealing her tote.  Shooting a look at her familiar, she said aloud “You’re coming with me today, Wanzewan.” Silently, her servant slipped into the still soaked satchel. The grog of the morning was still wearing down on her, but her room was well heated enough to ignore her cold feet. The vanity set to the right of her bed called to her, and against her better judgment, she answered.

 

It took two years to grow her hair out, so Agatha brushed it diligently. She made an effort not to look into her vanity mirror while seated in front of it, but as always her concerns grew too large to contain. I didn’t start too late, did I? She pleaded to the forces that be. Of all the unfathomable horrors of Heaven and Earth, none caused such existential dread as her own dysphoria. Cheekbones are tall and… pronounced. Eyebrows plucked… or they’d be bushy. Slim neck and fair complexion… all the better to highlight my Adam's apple. To ascertain if the observation or the imperfection came first was an exercise in delirium. Take your eyes off of one, and two will take its place. What she saw was a simulacrum; a prototype of what was, hopefully, to come. For fleeting frames in time, she could see her. The woman she was in another time.

 

There was just no way to know if the medication she stole as a homeless youth were enough to prevent her partial slide into masculine puberty. What’s more, she couldn’t begin to quantify the treatment her father provided her first time around… but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was lost this time. Her reflection held the key to understanding what that was, but it was sunken in a sea of lies. The icicles sharpened as she stared down that lie in the mirror. Cold rage, mourning the loss of what she had, and damning the lost potential of what would be intoxicated her.

 

They couldn’t just take my father and my world. No, they had to take the woman I already was. All of my labor, all of my care, it wasn’t enough. I had to do it again. With help coming too little… and too late…!

 

She was shaking. Her reflection seemed to refuse such weakness. With the snap of a finger, the proper sign, or the simple gesture of bloodying a fist, this reminder and affront to her self sacrifice could be shattered into hundreds of little pieces. The will to keep it together wasn’t winning out, only the reason to express more animosity kept this fragile game going. Every morning, for the span of a single song, she allowed herself to hate. To mourn. To swear. But only in silence. Just one song. The Cranberries had just finished wailing by the time she pulled her face from the mirror, and continued brushing. Slowly, the icicles melted, and she could feel it. She hated letting go of it most of all.

 

Agatha crossed the room to her armory, or in conventional terms, her closet. Today she needed full body protection, selecting the black turtleneck top without deliberation. The Yellow/White/Black pleated skirt would provide tactical mobility and warmth with black leggings. The white ankle socks helped draw attention to one of her more advantageous aspects, her slender legs. Her charm necklace served the utilitarian function of being cute, and also being highly parafunctional, and her ace in the sleeve. She was decidedly ready for battle, despite leaving her ordnance in her wet leather tote all night. She wasn’t in the mood to stare into the mirror and apply it, anyway. Never one to leave unprepared, she settled the hardly dried strap to her shoulder and set off down the stairs.

 

Meredith was already dressed in her business best. A navy blue business vest, cotton undershirt, and black khakis. Her trademark hairpin gilded the back of her head, serving to accentuate the fire and earth shades underneath.  Power shoulders died some 4-5 years ago, but she was dragging them kicking and screaming into the 90’s.

 

“What are you doing up this early, young lady?” Her foster-mother said, playfully.

 

There she was, sipping coffee with a plate of eggs and toast, and a wall of paper in front of her. Why am I still amazed to see newspapers? The question would take a backseat to Meredith’s.

 

“I’m always up this early.”She said, rolling her eyes with her tone. Meredith chose to respond with raised eyebrows, behind the paper of course. “I’m not about to give up the best seat in the library because I lost a little sleep.”

 

“So there’s a demand for good seats? Competition?”

 

“Oh yeah. It’s fierce.”

 

Meredith put the paper down to read her foster child’s face. Agatha wasn’t even trying to hide her dry sarcasm. This wasn’t the first time she’d let herself be read so obviously, but it was the first time in a long time. Then and there, she decided not to play hardball with the pager, and asked something a little more easy.

 

“So… got any plans for Friday, Dear?”

 

As a matter of fact, that’s the day I plan on using a self appointed god to scan the county library for files on my father, she thought.

 

“You’ll have to get back to me on that one, Mere.”

 

“Oh no you don’t, there’s a hot new TV show on at 8 and I’m ordering chinese. You game, or not?”

 

Such an innocent jab seemed to cause a chain reaction all across her face from Meredith’s point of view. Eye contact was being avoided, the corner of her lip was bit inward, and after some internal struggle, Agatha made her choice known:

 

“Yeah… Yeah I can be here for it.” and a carefully placed smile surfaced.

 

Meredith returned the smile, knowing full well that something was sacrificed for that evening, and she may never know what, but whatever it was clearly meant a lot to this mysterious girl. Agatha made a reach for the untouched toast. Meredith flashed a judging but gentle look, then nodded and rolled her eyes. Cromch.

 

“07:30, Agatha. Seven—”

 

“Seven Thirty!” Thunk. Cli-ick.

 

She was already out the door, 06:50 sharp and without her bike. School was around a 40 minute walk, and Meredith couldn’t fathom why the girl wanted to walk there and back every day. There were no convenience stores, dive bars, or other manner of seedy locales for her to bring her brand of trouble on this side of town. She supposed her time must really be spent at the library. The one thing that never added up? There was no way Agatha could put up with the inefficiency of walking every day.

 

To her credit, Meredith was absolutely correct. Agatha had no intention of walking to school. At least, not for any significant amount of time. The moment she emerged outside, she could feel the eyes on her. The passing cars, a dog walker up the hill, and one more…. The neighbor kid. Her face shot in the direction of a windowsill to the house next door. Somewhere in the dark, curtains were drawn. She smirked.

You just have to say hi, Erik.

Her neighbor had been perhaps too curious. She knew Erik in passing, a Freshman. Her school lumped both grades together for P.E. , and he seemed nice enough… but he just couldn’t stop staring at her. It wasn’t infatuation, from what she could surmise. More like someone staring at the impossible architecture of R’lyeh. Regardless, she enjoyed the game of somehow always knowing when and where he was staring.

 

Her ability to play this game hinged on a powerful artifact of her making. Her charm necklace allowed her to feel any eyes on her, and what direction they were coming from. The trick was how it was attuned. Too weak, and someone could spy on her from across a field. Too strong, and she could feel the eyes of old ones piercing her soul in 7 dimensions of existence and non-existence. She even managed to tune out semi-intelligent animals, which was notoriously hard to do for crows. Her goal was not to get to school, but to get somewhere that would get her to school. The abandoned property at the end of the cul-de-sac had proved ideal. Some simple wards that give kids and trespassers ‘the heebie-jeebies’, including the would-be developers of the property. She’d feel bad about it if she didn’t know what was coming in 15 years for the whole housing market.

 

The foundation of the building was pin-pricked with the skeletal remains of wooden support beams and door frames. A stairway in the middle of the corporeal concrete led to a basement some 8 feet below the ground. Knowing she was perfectly hidden, she set about drawing her chalk circle. If not for the risk of someone stronger willed than her wards discovering her handiwork, she would make this arrangement permanent. The time she lost in preparing and performing the ritual was insignificant to the peace of mind to know no one could follow her.

 

Just over a minute and a half of drawing and chanting later, the chalk runes responded with an unnatural glow. Reality contorted into lacerations of void and light. An endless horizon of black below and white above stretched presumably forever. Such thoughts did not concern her, as she steered her esoterica towards the point in the distance she’d commuted to every day: the gateway. It’s colors from out of subspace glowed like a cheap Neon sign above a cheaper motel. Her points merged with the gate, and before long the truth of the universe was replaced with darkness.

 

Like clockwork, she reached up with her left hand, grabbed the pull string, and clicked the light switch on. The familiar sight of the 3rd floor janitor's closet greeted her with pleasant mundanity. Something about light bulbs in this decade are just… warmer, she decided. Back in early August, she’d found this mostly forgotten janitorial closet behind some flat paneling in the Girl’s bathroom. Something about the dry must, the logos on the cleaning supplies, and the untouched mop bucket told her there was a high chance that a change in the guard rendered this closet a secret to the staff. Her precautions included drawing the runes in invisible ink on the ceiling, and a surprisingly expensive black-light bulb.

 

Two hours of paranoid scribbling and avoiding ceiling drips had saved her a grand total of 5 and a half hours on her daily commute. Agatha listened at the panel for noise on the off chance someone was using the most out of the way bathroom in the building. After confirming the coast was clear, she concealed the hidden door panel and left for the Library.

 

YOU SPOIL ME SO

 

THEY SHALL BURN SO BRIGHT

 

SO BRIGHT

 

No, none of that Wanzewan. We’re here for just one thing: I need you to gather information on Gerald Price.