Chapter 9
Community.
For the first time in a long time, I stared in the mirror. Without the charm. A fleeting curiosity that prodded my mind. I avoided mirrors still like the plague while not wearing it, and when I wasn’t wearing it I kept it by my bedside, in a jar. I don’t know why, that just felt like the best option for me.
My face was a little softer. My chin was a little less sharp looking.
Were my eyes a little brighter? It looked like I’d stopped growing facial hair entirely. A blessing in every way.
I’d been in San Venus for a month and a half now.
Where had the time gone?
I could still feel the little pinpricks of revulsion.
‘Don’t look. Never look for longer than needed’ echoed an entirely male voice that had once been mine from some forgotten recess inside my head.
I turned around to look at the bathroom door. I reached backward into the bowl of the sink and twisted the charm around my fingers, pulling it up and securing it to my neck. I feel the refeshing magic wash its way across my skin like being dipped in cold water on a humid day, and I become entirely me again
I turn back around, and the girl in the mirror gives me a nervous smile as I let out the anxious breath I had been holding. “You look fine,” she assures me as I talk out loud.
The way I feel about mirrors would more than likely just end up being something that I’d either never grow out of…or would take a very long time to move past. I turn back one more time to the door, pausing to adjust my pajamas and underwear to make sure nothing was stuck.
The door vibrates with a sudden knock and I jump.
“You okay in there? It’s been 30 minutes,” Calamity calls from outside. I open the door, pressing on the nob as I lean on it.
“Everything is cool.”
“Cool, get dressed, we’re going out tonight.” She motioned toward my part of the dorm with a swing of her head, wanting me to move.
“We’re going out?” We circled each other as we spoke, Calamity taking my place at the doorway.
“You asked about our community the other day, well now we’re going to see the community.” She shut herself away in the bathroom, ending the conversation right then.
In the next few minutes I found myself dressed in casual clothing, eschewing my school uniform for a pleated skirt and striped leggings as we walked across town. I’d finished most of my studies and homework already so I felt less nervous about being yoinked around town on a school night.
There was still a part of me that felt self conscious that I’d never gotten rid of my work boots from home, but they felt comfortable and I think if I was going to carry around any advice from my dad it would be ‘if they keep your feet dry, keep em.’ So my boots stayed. As unfashionable as they were.
Calamity was a lot ‘louder’ a striped top in pink and black, pants with a lot of pockets that had been dyed and patched all over the place, a lot more belts than usual, some of which weren’t even looped in, and her casting bracelets now rattled around amongst a multi-colored assortment of other varying types of jewelerly that sparkled in the street’s crystal lamps.
“How are you able to stand running around without a jacket?” I asked, keeping my hands pushed deep into my pockets. I couldn’t help looking at the thin material of her sleeveless shirt.
She smirked, putting an accent into her voice, “and how exactly are you able to run around in them big boots a yers?” She shuffled to playfully bump into me as we walked.
I gave a laugh before going silent a moment. “Do I sound like that?”
“Nah… not really,” she chuckled.
The next several minutes passed quietly as Calamity led me towards a place on the edge of town. It felt as though it were on the opposite side of the city of the start towards Hazel's home. There we arrived at a freestanding boulder, the size of a storage shed from back home, it’s natural protrusions had been smoothed-over by unseen laborers, with white stone dust caked into the cracks and divots they left behind.. The amount of houses on this edge of town made me consider the kids that might have lived here, and the possibility that a parent, or group of parents, had hammered away some of the sharper, less kid friendly spots across its surface.
“Here we are,” Calamity said.
“Uh…” I stared at the boulder. “It’s a rock?”
Calamity blinked and looked at me. “Right… uh.” She quietly tapped three spots on the rocks, a series of glowing lines from those three spots suddenly illuminating until they formed a new door made out of what appeared to be metal.
“So. To start. Anything that happens here is all up to you, anyone offers you anything and you don’t feel up to it, you say no. If they push, come hunt me down… but most people here get consent, so you should be fine.”
“Uh… is this gonna be safe?”
She knocked on the hard metal of the door, “Well yeah, I wouldn’t bring you here if it wasn’t. Anyway, wanna see the cool way we open doors?”
On cue, a slot in the door opened. The eyes and nose of someone tall peered just enough to be too close to the door. “Who’s there?”
“Speak, Friend!” She directed herself toward the door, hands open as if to give a hug.
The door pulled open as Calamity finished speaking, the towering human doorman replying with “and enter.” Calamity’s face broke into a grin.
“Eli!” Calamity rushed into a hug with the man The both of them laughed as I followed in, my eyes pulled between the flamboyant decoration and the ostentatious crowd.
I was transfixed as I looked around, I don't know how but there was an atmosphere of warm kindness all around. Bunched up crowds of people across the edges of the floor, some people more lightly dressed than I expected, but nothing unseemly; there were people dancing, moving hand in hand together in the middle of the floor of the floor.
Looking at the ceiling there were low hanging lights that pulled my attention to a second floor with a loft that overlooked, I could see more people. I had no idea how many people were here, it felt like an absolutely astonishing amount, yet it felt so intimate.
Music. A live band that I couldn’t see yet played an intense rhythm full of fire and explosive positivity that seemed to make the floor wave. I found myself tapping my foot to the guitars and accordion sounds. I remember the music growing up, there was certainly music like this but nothing that quite felt as…alive? I wish I knew what to explain despite no lyrics accompanying the melodies there was something about the feeling that it caused in everyone around me that was infectious.
With out really thinking I found myself pulled out into the dance area, my feet moving me this way and that, feeling the percussion as I compulsively stomped with the heavy drum beats
This was loud in a way that stirred me.
Moments..hours? Eventually I found myself being tugged on my sleeve, suddenly jerking to the direction to find Calamity there.
“Someones having fun.” she held a glass bottle of water out to me, another squeezed between her ribs and arm, the smile on her face mirroring mine.
Was I blushing, or was I just way too warm? I took the bottle and cracked the seal, taking giant glugs from it, the cold sensation shaking a shiver out of me. “I haven’t felt live music like this since I was a kid.”
“Well don't exhaust yourself too much, Lentock’s gonna make a presentation, and then we got like…uh…now that we’re here I realize I never asked you about how you feel about being out past academy curfew.”
My smile inverted. “We’re breaking curfew?!” a flash of panic, in two hours there would be night guards all over the campus…
“Yeah, I should have started with that.”
“Calamity!”
“Sorry… I dunno, i just wanted to hang out with you outside school and without the possibility of one of my dad’s forever enemies showing up.”
I listened, Gods I wanted to be upset…
We were suddenly pulled out of the conversation by a thumping on a triangle piece of metal with a crystal tied into it, the magic inside amplifying his voice as though it vibrated out through the stage, matching crystals lining the perimeter of the stage being the source of the sound.
A tall goliath with tusks held attention as everyone looked his way “Hey! Everyone! Assemble, Lentock’s got stuff to say,” he informed everyone. I realize how many people seemed to be present there, maybe a hundred people… maybe more? Somehow more and less than it felt like when I stepped into this place. I was reminded of the feeling I had in the few times Olmsteady had festivals. Everything felt small… until it wasn’t. And yet it still didn’t feel big.
“Come on.” Calamity took me by the hand again, excited to show me another aspect of her world… our world? That felt new to think. I hadn’t really thought about the fact that it was entirely voluntary on Calamity’s part to include me in all this. I dont know how well I’d have stumbled into this with out a little help when I thought about it.
The music finally crawled to a stop, the instruments being put away as a man made his way through the crowd, everyone around him parting and making distance. He was short, shockingly white hair buzzed entirely close to the scalp. Dark pants and a vest made of venom
The man in denim took a spot on the platform as the band vacated the staging area. His skin was like Lilith’s but darker, and circles around his eyes somehow were even more dark than that making his blue eyes shine like stars.
I felt Calamity tug my hand as she leaned close, “That’s Lentock.”
“We all have to talk” The man spoke calmly to us all. His eyes wide open as he stared onward to the crowd around him.
Everyone was quiet “I feel like someone more poetic than I would try to put together something flowery and nice, but I ‘m going to get to the point; There is something happening in this town and we are all in danger.”
He cast his hand out a ring on his middle finger shined with light, from his palm a shower of twinkling stars flew and dropped to the floor creating an elaborate constellation, the shape adjusting and tweaking itself until it took on a human appearance.
It took a moment, Lentock Grayson standing in silence as we all stared upon the silhouette of Amy, her likeness undeniable as the shape of her hair and a sash she wore around her middle came into form. I felt my gut twist and tighten with anxiety, I’d recalled the feeling of morbid curiosity when Calamity talked to me about her outside the apothecary, now I was as close as I would ever be to seeing the actual statue.
There were gasps and swears of anger at the sight before Lentock spoke up“ About a week ago a member of our own was attacked. An enchantment was cast, and now Amelia has been petrified. Her family has told me the Hex Wardens are reversing the process but it’s going to take a while” He quietly stepped around the constellation. “Further, The Hex Wardens believe that this was a case of an ‘interpersonal feud escalating past the point of reasonable discussion,’ however..”
Everyone stood and watched onward, Lentock flicked his hand, more stars creating additional new constellations besides the one of Amelia. Each person in some pose of mid-petrification
He stepped around the quartet of illusions “Amelia isn’t the only person who’s now a statue. In the past two weeks alone now three more have been petrified. Each one selling enchantments for people trying to change themselves.”
“As an oracle, let me show you what my own personal investigation has shown me.”
A snap of the fingers, suddenly the figures around Amy’s constellation collapsed into swirling stardust. When it rearranged, the three figures were joined by an additional two, and they were all pointing at Amy.
Each member of the group depicted in Amy’s assault had stars twinkling on fingers and wrists, I recognize that as a representation of casting tools; bracelets, thimbles, one of them had a staff that crooked like a walking cane.
Each individual’s face was out of focus, the stars shifting more like a cloud of hazy cosmos above the shoulders.
And yet I had seen her enough now that that way her coat was outlined, the tiny bits of puffed clouds in between starry constellations.
The Woman In The Pink Coat. Astriel Everhart.
My guts churned again as I squeezed gently on Calamity’s hand.
The crowd went deathly silent.
“SPYTE.” Lentock started again, I felt my stomach ease itself slowly. “It seems they’ve finally moved from harassment and protests to assaulting our friends.” Another snap and the stars dispersed, moving above him and into the air “I don’t need the sun to see the shadows coming.”
“What do we do?!” someone yelled out, a series of echoes in variation disappeared into more murmurs and chatter.
“If you can, keep your friends with you. Numbers are important. Not all of us have magic so the bigger our numbers, the better we’ll be.”
Someone cried out “isn’t there anyway we can just coexist with these people?” everyones eyes turned to a person who was dressed fairly plainly, black lips and a skin that seemd more reflective under the light than I would have expected. “I’m a shape shifter, like I’m fluid, but I dont..can’t I just be one thing around them and they let me exist? Isn’t there a way we can show them we’re good people?”
Lentock walked forward. In that moment I realized something that had been the cause of that uneasy sense while watching him speak. He let out a breath. The entire time he’d been talking he’d not breathed even once. And now that he was he was becoming a lot more…natural? Normal? Normal didn’t feel right to say with regard to him.
“What's your name?” He asked. The tone wasn’t mean, but it reminded me of a parent or one of the professors from the academy.
“Rey,” The person spoke
Lentock approached the edge of the stage and knelt down to get at eye level with the person“Is that with an E, or an A?”
“Uh… E.” in such a limited amount of speech they were practically shrinking as Lentock spoke to them
He nodded “Rey. I don’t recognize you. So know that I don’t mean this to come off as mean or scolding. I’m not about that.” he stated “But to those people, To SPYTE, and people who agree with them? The good ones…the ‘good people’ you want to be for them? Are the ones in the ground.”
A few people responded with affirming echoes and punctuation “They may say they want what’s best for us…but for them it’s binary; You’re either as you were born… or you’re dead., there are no ‘good ones’ to speak of for them. ”
The crowd started getting more lively, clapping and hollering as they egged on his speech and the fire in his voice.
“I think we all know about binaries, and nothing, and I mean nothing…” he paused as the crowd started buzzing. The colors of the stars above him shifted, waving in multicolored hues that shifted back and forth as he became more animated, more alive than he was when he began “...Nothing is ever that easy! Nothing cuts so cleanly, we are not black and white as chalk on a chalkboard. We are colors on an easel blending in every which way and that and SPYTE just wants to wipe it clean and keep us all separate and as it was when we were put here at birth and that!” he stopped suddenly the room lit with a fire in the air from his own light, He cast his hand to the crowd and in an almost unsettling way the noise stopped. “Rey..that’s why we can’t just try and coexist..because they don't see coexistence as even an option. Their way… or no way.”
The crowd fell silent, all staring at Rey. They nodded in silent agreement. Disappearing back into the crowd, I could see a bit of sadness in them… I was uncertain, with how far off they were.
Lentock eventually stood back up, still breathing. Looking less ominous than he had moments earlier. “We are a community though. Look to each other, look out for each other. Brothers, sisters, siblings… talk to one another tonight. I don't know when we can get together again, but I promise it won't be long. If you see someone you’ve seen here getting hurt… stand up. Let's make sure they know we are NOT alone. ”
There was murmuring agreement before he let out a quick stomp. “But now! We got refreshments, the potion stalls set up; we got more music, the night is young and SPYTE isn’t here! Let's party!”
In the next few minutes the band returned, the dancing recommenced and somehow the area felt more dense with people. I still hadn’t left Calamity’s side as she led me along through the place.
“And this is the main attraction!” Calamity grinned, showing me to a bar that had been situated on the opposite end of the building where the refreshments had been served “The potions stall! ” She grinned, slapping her hand across the polished wooden surface.
“Well well well, if it isn’t the evil empress herself” The person looking away from her spun around in his seat revealing himself to be Lentock Grayson. “Almost thought you weren’t gonna show up.”
“You know I’d never miss it for the world”
Lentock leaned around her a bit, eyes making direct contact with me. Those eyes pierced through into me. It felt like he could see…everything? My secrets? The way I looked with out the glamour?
He then spoke, breaking the facade of dread he’d created “And you must be the new friend Calamity’s gone on about everytime we hang out.”
“I don’t talk about her all the time”
“Only most of the time” He corrected.
I felt a nervous anxiety “I’m Roxanne” I held out my hand to shake.
In response Lentock took mine firmly and gave it one good up and down shake. “Not heard anything too revealing, just that you’re the new roomie, stood up for what’s right against little Van Winkle, and that you’d make an excellent member of our big weird family.”
The creeping blush again “I just did what I thought was the best thing to do” I tried to wave it off.
Calamity interjected “Was literally your first day in town and you punched her in the face”
“And anyone good in Calamity’s eyes, is good in mine. Her word is a currency that travels.”
Now I was surely blushing. I did the best thing I could to move the conversation “So…potions?”
Calamity turned to look at the stall. The corners of Lentock’s smile never faltered, seeming to see through my attempts to shift the focus away from me. “Ah yeah. A fun little pastime. Nothing permanent.”
“We’re explorers. In the further regions of experience!” Lentock leaned over picking up the rest of the explanation “a bunch of witches and warlock’s all in one place, exploring their identities, it’s only natural we’d use it as a way to have fun and kick back to let it all loose.”
“I got you your wing as requested” the man at the counter held forward a vial of bright blue fluid in calamity’s direction.
“And this is safe?”
“Of course” Calamity said. “The potions take a bit to kick in so you can prepare yourself for the physical changes. And nothing is permanent”
“Exploring in a social setting is cool, but you need to have a clear head when you make a physical change like these” Lentock added in smoothly, doing a swirly hand motion
“What exactly are you gonna take?” I asked curiously
“Oh I took something 20 minutes ago” he said, holding up his leg, the boots I’d seen him wear stage now seeming to have been discarded for the sake of the splayed claws of some sort of bovine hoof, the bits of leg that weren’t hidden by his pants covered in a shiny golden fur.
I felt a twinge of excitement, and a strange jealousy I’d never quite felt before. Options unlimited available to play with as I looked across the counter to the vials on display, the multicolor kaleidoscope almost hypnotic as I tried to consider what I’d try.
Did I want to try?...Yes. “What do you recommend?” I think I wanted the question directed at Calamity but it ended up sounding very open to anyone in range.
The Potion purveyor looked me over appraisingly, scratching his chin a second “You look like you could use a little bit of that Mephitus Brew, lady” he grinned and with the spin of a wrist and a flick his fingers revealed a purple vial.
Upon cautiously taking it in hand I could observe thick rivulets of another fluid more dense than the primary body of liquid.
“What’s it do?”
Calamity looked at me “ah yeah…it’s..well it’s best experienced, but trust me it’s pretty worth it.”
A hum vibrated in the roof of my mouth and I uncorked it quickly, and in a smooth motion took it to my lips and drank it down, swallowing it.
I coughed for all of a second, not expecting the way the thicker parts of the drink would catch, bursting with a tart bitter flavor.
“Ellah’s braids, you knocked that back fast!” Calamity exclaimed. She leaned in looking at me “didn’t even let me ask if you were sure about it”
“I didn’t wanna let myself back out.” my stomach was clenched with anxiety, the feeling of the liquid warming inside it.
“Hold on, you’re gonna need a quick clothes alteration”
“I’m sorry what?” suddenly Calamity had held me by the hips spinning me around.
“Hold still” she said, Out of sight I felt her grab the hem of my skirt “never leave home with out a pair of scissors” she stated out loud, and I suddenly felt her pull at my skirt
“Hey! Don’t touch that!” I pulled away from her, mortified and somewhat angry
“Trust me I-” she stopped and caught herself, holding the back of her head with her free hand. “Right consent…Roxanne, I’d really appreciate it if you let me cut your skirt just a bit so the potion doesn’t ruin it.”
“But I like this skirt!”
“And when the potion kicks in and you have your new part..you're gonna thank me.”
“Why won’t you just tell me what it is then?”
Calamity spun me around “It’s…well okay I don’t wanna spoil it, it’s a new appendage…and if your skirt isn’t adjusted to make room for it, it’s gonna kinda…expose your butt and underwear to basically everyone in here.”
I took that all in, rolling it out in my mind. I felt better knowing she had my interest in mind. But also…I realized she was giving me an out if I suddenly felt uncomfortable with this.
I was..mostly just nervous but that didn’t stop me from wanting to do it. So I held in a breath and then exhaled “Alright, cut me”
“Right on” Calamity then circled around me, I felt her tug at the hem of my skirt and the feeling of my skirt being carefully cut with a pair of scissors followed. “There we go. All set..now I gotta go get my own things ready and grab us both a drink. Trust me you’ll be needing it for the dry mouth”
And before I could reply she darted away.
“I swear…..”
“She sure is something, ain’t she” Lentock commented looking at me from his lounged position against the counter
I watched her disappear into the crowd feeling a tiny bit of separation anxiety “she is…but don’t know what I’d do with out her”
“Had a hunch it was that kind of a thing” he said cryptically.
I raised an eyebrow and looked at him “what's that supposed to mean?”
“Eh..just from what little she’s told me, I had a feeling you too felt close. It makes sense”
“Oh.”
There was a long silence between the both of us. I felt an odd question that somewhat weighed on my mind “can I ask you something, Lentock?”
“Lay it on me”
“You’re…trans?”
“Yep.” the answer was as smooth as he’d been all evening.
“Forgive me if it’s weird…why would you wanna be a guy?”
He answered with a question in kind “Why would you wanna be a girl?” He didn’t seem mad but the tone made it feel like he wanted an answer to the question.
“Because…being the way I was born felt..wrong” I’d done my best to ignore all the suffocating ways being a boy for the first seventeen years of my life had felt utterly miserable.
“Exactly” he said with half a grin “We do what we gotta do to survive” he took a sip from a bottle of water, giving a pleased sigh “One can’t live in the wrong self. And if you’re stuck in it, you gotta do what you can to change it. I’m pretty sure everyone here knows that even if they’ve never said it out loud”
His words sat in my head as I pondered them. I’d ran the first moment I had a chance. I’d known something was wrong, and I did something about it. It took time. But I did do just that “That’s..definitely the truth”
“So…if I can ask you a personal question…what was the moment you realized it was the wrong self?”
The question hung in the air between us as I just sorta thought on it. “I..think I was eleven years old…there was a witch who’d saved my village a year or so earlier. She was inspiring…amazing..everything I wanted to be”
“Sounds like it.”
“But boys can’t be witch’s” my voice sunk down as I held up my bottle of water and took a long drink out of it, feeling the relief as it hit my dried mouth.
“Funny how our parents say we can be anything we want, but then the momemt we try to be anything, thats when they start with the exceptions to what you can be. ” The man’s wisdom felt powerful as he spoke “You made the right choice. Don’t let em tell you otherwise”
I couldn’t help but smile at that as we sat there in silence.
And then something happened and my mouth dropped open “uh….oh..no”
There was this sudden shift inside. Every muscles in my lower half eased into relaxedness and I panicked “I gotta go to the bathroom” I could feel the panic in my voice as I felt like I was going to soil myself.
My feet pumped up to the floor as I stumbled forward, a conscious sensation of trying not to move my legs to much for worry of exposing too much with the back of my skirt cut in half as my walking speed elevated into a sprint.
I stumbled into a bathroom, the lowered light making it feel like I was in a different reality as my eyes darted around seeing urinals and sinks. I pushed into a stall, my mind reeling as my muscles started acting involuntarily, my lower back seeming to push in a panicky fashion despite the impulse to hold it in. Whatever it was.
It came all at once.
The Release as I pushed my hands to the wall, bracing like I was expecting my dinner to explode out of me but to my luck nothing so disgusting happened.
This strange crackling sensation like a knuckle popping on my hand followed, my tailbone extending. rushing releases of tension along my legs as though I’d sprinted for hours
The stall became much more cramped as I felt my body expand with a brand new appendage, the thing swaying and moving, the exposed flesh shivering in the cold before I could feel it shifting, fur rapidly growing along the 5 feet of length. IT WAS HUGE.
Gravity. This big swishing thing wasn’t heavy..but it wasn’t negligible. I could feel the pull of the fur, and that fur tickled under my shirt as I felt it extend up my back somewhat.
I tried looking back and saw the thing, a gasp of shock followed by a weird nervous giggle from..me? When did I giggle?
I shuddered as I pulled the tail around and hugged it, running my hand over the draping fur and breathed. It smelled feminine. It smelled like me.
Now I understood why my skirt needed a slit, this prevented me from exposing to much.
I walked up to the mirror with a smile, looking at the tail wag and sway behind me at the sight of it. A large black tail with a white stripe down the center of it. Funny how everyone in my village hated skunks when I was growing up and yet seeing the tail of one attached to my backside made me feel utterly giddy.
I opened the door outside and Calamity was there “I saw you rush over here, wanted to make sure you-oh…oh my god that's beautiful”
My face heated up again, the smile unable to drop at this rate “it’s amazing!”
She thrust the bottle forward, the cap already removed “Need this?”
My hands grabbed it, tilting it up and gulping it down fast, I needed it all the more as the cold quenced the raging desert that my mouth and throat had manifested inside me.
Pulling the bottle away from me panting I stumbled forward, Calamity caught me. “woah woah hey, I got you!” she murmured as I felt her arms circle around me and my chin rested into her shoulder.
my arms hugged tight to her. it was then I noticed something. her shirt had been altered by a huge margin, straps that fit around her like a bra. that was holding her shirt to her, clasps keeping it all in place.
The smell..the feeling of feathers under my hands that contrasted with the fur of her back.
The potion guy said the words wings and I had the naivete to think that had been a metaphor.
Calamity had wings. And that was amazing.
I pulled back out of the hug, now a bit more balanced, unable to stop smiling as we looked at each other.
Calamity’s hands pulled back. “So…wanna dance? we got a whole night ahead, right?” her face was as red as mine.
Why would I have said no?
I had felt more myself living in San Venus than I’d ever felt growing up back in olmsteady
This Community of strangers who all sought out the same thing. To be accepted, to be themselves.
The beat of drums and wild guitar moved me. moved us.
My body vibrated with the happiness as I danced with Calamity in a vast ocean of strange bodies all living a blissful truth.
Our Truth.
hours pass and Calamity and I sneak back into town.
That rooftop again, she’d flown to meet me up there as I climbed up there.
“So..liked the community?” She asked as we sat over a ledge, my tail swung back and forth.
“It was..Calamity, I never felt this alive..ever?!” I almost shouted as we both giggled.
Somewhere there was this moment of contact between my tail and…oh..how had I..well of course she had a tail. it kind of blended into things, but..it rested on mine as we both sat together.
“theres usually one or two of these a month. We try to make sure everyone is still safe and having a good time..we can come again if you want.” She talked in a way that seemed for the first time worried. Her wings were pulled in with some slight twitchiness like she was nervous as we sat there.
There was a moment of hesitation but I reached out and held her hand, smiling back at.
I couldn’t tell with the light beneath us but I’m pretty sure we were both blushing.
Her tail gave mine a slight squeeze.
We were close. Everything felt safe. I Felt her tail around mine. I had never felt this close to another person before. Peaceful. Calm. Above all else, right.
She leaned in.
I leaned in.
Calamity was my first kiss.
***
After classes the next day I sat opposite Hazel, sketching out some..shape with a pencil that I hadn’t figured out, something that I had to paint in later. She insisted this would help with my magic somehow but I think she just wanted an excuse to paint during part of our tutoring sessions.
There was still this buzz of excitement from the evening prior that outweighed the drowsiness. Though the drowsiness had me questioning whether anything I’d experienced was real or had been a dream. but…oh what a dream if it had been.
I could still feel phantom sensation of the tail from last night…a yearning for…
but of course…the thoughts about SPYTE still edged their ways in. Wringing the happiness out of the moment.
“So…”
“What's on your mind?” she interjected before I could start properly
“What?”
“you sound like something ate your canary” she stated, looking around her canvas at me. “Easy to notice when your reverence eases up”
I sighed “What do you do when you know something your pretty sure no one is really gonna believe? And your worried sharing it with too many people will blow up in your face?”
From past the barrier of canvas’ I heard a paintbrush being dropped into a cup and Hazel nudged pushed her seat with her feet so she’d be more in line of site with me “who did what?”
I could feel my face heat up from how fast she’d cut through the conversation “Uh.” I let out a sigh staring at the ceiling “a while back at Gremlin night I think I saw someone planning a crime”
“Juicy. Was it at least a fun crime?”
I didn’t know whether to laugh nervously or let out a groan of frustration so some sort of weird goat bleat came out of me mouth “hleah..no..uhm..I’m pretty sure I saw-well I think I saw a group of people planning the petrification of Amelia..you know..the owner of the Apothecary a few blocks from the school?”
Hazel quirked an eyebrow, “anyone I would know?”
I held my breath as I spoke “Astriel Everhart. And SPYTE.”
“That is a big claim, she’s got a lot of pull if it really was her, her husband's a member of the San Venus city council. ”
I squeaked “He’s what?!”
“Hey..calm down. Look I’ll see what I can do with this. I got a few people I can talk to about it….one person. Okay I’m gonna talk to Uriel about it”
“No!” I freaked out more
“Hey..trust me it’s gonna be fine, they already sort of hate each other. Not much more I can do to make it worse”
“What?”
“I’ll tell you some other time, but we’ll get it sorted. Trust me”
With an interesting amount of timing a kettle from the kitchen let out its steaming whine.
“So..how ‘bout tea?”
Thanks for another great chapter in Witch’s Gambit. Even as Roxanne is discovering her niche, her gut is wrenched by the realization that she witnessed the planning for Amy’s petrification. As improbable as it seems, given her lack of experience and ability, I can’t help but think she will have some role to play in the retrieval to human form for Amy and the other affected purveyors of enchantments. But I’m sure those details will be revealed in the future chapters that I’m certainly looking forward to reading. Thank you Adra.