1. A Rude Awakening

Despite being a summertime Friday evening, I was walking alone back to my apartment just off campus. I returned to school for my final year only a few weeks ago, and classes were just getting into swing, so I still had plenty of free time, just like most other students. To that end, I had been invited to a start-of-the-year party thrown by one of the fraternities, along with my best friend, Kyle. Yet, when I met Kyle under the pretense of heading there, we concluded that neither of us were particularly invested in attending. Both of us had had our fill of that scene and largely grown out of it. The invitations were given to everyone even remotely acquainted with the hosts, and our absences wouldn't be noteworthy.

Part of my disinclination for attending a large rush party came from simply feeling under the weather. I had been feeling under pressure for the last month, a feeling that only grew more intense as the school year kicked off. The logical assumption was to attribute it to nerves. I was heading into my senior year, talking to professional recruiters and angling for positions when I graduated. In ten months, I would leave school behind and join the real world, becoming fully responsible for myself for the first time. My parents were a great help in financing school but that meant I was a bit less involved in the decision-making process. I didn’t fully grasp the financial realities of running my own life because I hadn’t been required to learn them. I figured the flutter in my chest and the aches in my bones were just nerves about growing up and taking control of my destiny.

After relaxing with Kyle for the afternoon, without really feeling any better, I headed home myself. Kyle lived on the other side of campus from where I did, his apartment located near where all of the greek life was — hence why I met him at his place, as it was more convenient for heading to the event when we were still entertaining that idea. Now I was walking across town back to my apartment. It was a refreshing night out — warm enough as summer came to a close, not a cloud in the sky, a pleasant and invigorating breeze passing lazily through with just a hint of the inevitable chill.

To get home, I had two choices. I could cut through the nightlife center that was just off-campus and frequented by every student with a fake ID each weekend, or I could walk through campus, detouring around the bars and clubs and taking an extra half an hour to get home. I wasn’t in a rush per se, but I felt no reason to avoid the surely crowded streets and rowdy atmosphere.

As I walked through McKinley Street, the center of the action, I found myself repulsed by the raucous noise, overexuberance on display, and the tackiness, bravado, and desperation shown by the owners and patrons alike. I found that thought confusing because I had never had a firm opinion about this area before. Sure, I knew it wasn’t my scene, but that just meant I didn’t frequent it. Suddenly being repulsed by what was in front of me felt jarring.

The main drag of McKinley Street was a strip mall that ran adjacent to a green area in the town center. The buildings were several floors tall, and many contained a business on each floor with the college demographic in mind. A bar on the ground floor, a take-out restaurant on the second, and a bubble tea cafe on the third. A tanning salon, a gym, several trendy fashion outlets — anything a 20-year-old with too much spending money and no parental guidance could be interested in.

Little alleys ran to the back between the ground floors of these stores to allow for deliveries and services. As I meandered past one of these, I heard some kind of altercation taking place and then winced as my curiosity got the best of me. A glance down the grubby path revealed two burly men in suits standing some ways off of a third man. This third man was wearing an old, beat-up pair of jeans and a tired shirt with some construction company logo faded on the back. He was yelling at a girl.

This girl was much smaller than he was, thin, wiry, and petite in every sense. She had cut her hair short, barely covering her ears. I couldn’t see more clearly in the dark of the night and the dimly illuminated alley. The man had one arm against the wall, trapping and holding her in place. She wasn’t going anywhere anyway, as she had pressed herself back into the wall and avoided his gaze, frozen in place and withdrawn to escape everything happening. He was yelling something but was clearly inebriated because the few intelligible words weren’t coherent. I could tell he was raving about money, but not much more.

When I paused at the entrance to the alley, the nearer of the two suited men cleared his throat. The aggressive man must’ve missed the obvious warning because he continued yelling and berating the girl before him. She started crying quietly, and I felt compelled to step in. I didn’t want to play a hero, but this entire situation seemed off, and the two suits weren’t doing shit to control the other man.

I cleared my own throat and loudly said, “What appears to be the issue here, sir?”

The aggressive man spun on the spot, but as he turned, he grabbed the girl’s arm and gripped her hard. She whimpered when he did. He wavered back and forth as he stood, no longer leaning on the brick wall, and slurred back at me, “The fuck you want, kid? This ain’t your problem — fuck off.”

“If you can explain why you seem to be holding her here against her will, I’ll be on my way.”

“Fuck off, asshole, she took some of my money, and I need it now.”

Oh. I understood what was going on now. The suits were here to collect money from him, and he didn’t have any to give them. He was making a big show of trying to get money from this girl, who had ‘stolen’ it from him. She probably had no idea what was going on. What a mess.

“I think it’s pretty clear she doesn’t have your money, man.”

He snarled at me. Something in the back of my mind clicked, and I realized I could smell fear from the man. He was performing being a tough guy to try and prevent anything from happening. He was desperate to avoid the wrath of the suits behind him. Wait — smelled fear? That didn’t make any sense. But now that I had realized it, I could feel that the entire alley was full of fear and loathing — coming primarily from the girl. That’s why I was so confident that she wasn’t in on this game the man was playing, as she was genuinely terrified by him and the situation she was in. I didn’t get anything but mild annoyance and impatience from the suits.

He spoke up again, shouting at me, “This shit ain’t about you! Just fuck off out of here.”

I nodded petulantly to the men behind him and said, “It doesn’t seem to involve her either, but here we are anyway.”

He swung at me, letting go of the girl and flinging a wild haymaker with his right hand as hard as he could. It probably could’ve knocked me out or seriously injured me if it had connected. Unfortunately, he was inebriated and slow, and his swing was telegraphed and easily foreseen. I took a step back, and his fist passed through the air where my head was located a moment prior.

I hadn’t foreseen that he would immediately follow his wild hook with a left jab. He had stepped forward with his previous strike, and the jab connected with my cheek. I had moved my head mostly out of the way, but he had made contact. He stepped back and pulled his hands up to guard his face, but he was billowing as if we were in a hurricane, rocking back and forth.

That’s when I felt it. I felt something else in my head, moving through my thoughts like a shark darting through the water in search of prey. It was cold, brutal, and unforgiving. The pressure I felt building for the last month came to its zenith as this presence came to the forefront of my thoughts.

It announced into my mind, “I WILL HELP.”

I then felt my entire body recede away from my control, the feeling of my limbs becoming numb and the pain in my face completely fading. I couldn’t move my limbs anymore. I watched this parasite in my head take over my body and manipulate my appendages how it saw fit. I was a mere spectator in a fight in which my body participated. I found that I wasn’t at all concerned or scared with what was happening, despite the logical part of my mind saying that this shouldn’t be possible and that I should be freaking out. I also noticed that the pressure I had assumed was nerves had completely gone. I was incredibly relaxed — and the only possible explanation was outside influence.

The man swung his fists at my head again. No longer under my command, I was momentarily concerned until my body began moving on its own. The fight continued like this, completely surreal and unexplainable to me. The girl was frozen in terror against the wall, oblivious to the scuffle. One of the suited men stepped into the entrance of the alley I had come from and stood there. The other walked to the other end of the passage, took out a phone, and began calling someone.

I watched through my own eyes as my body fought another man. I hadn’t been in any real fights before, but the presence that had taken over my body certainly knew what to do. It was incredibly passive and defensive, letting the other man attack constantly. Almost every strike was cleanly avoided, while the handful that landed were either glancing blows that barely connected or were blocked by my arm from connecting with their intended target.

Astoundingly, the places where I had been struck didn’t hurt. They stung on the initial contact, but the pain almost instantaneously faded from my perception. I was also confused because, at several points, even I could tell that the man had left himself wide open to counters, but the thing controlling my body never took them. I also noticed that my limbs never felt heavy, as I had anticipated. I wasn’t becoming fatigued from the minute of brawling, but the same could not be said about the man who had swung at me.

Eventually, even in his inebriated and emotional state, he came to the obvious conclusion: I was toying with him, elongating the fight for some reason. That’s what I also saw, only I didn’t understand why the alien in my mind was doing it. It wasn’t attacking him, but it easily avoided everything thrown at it without tiring like the other man. When he came to this conclusion, I could smell the fear grow and fill the alley. It was already covered in the scent, as the girl had been absolutely petrified in terror, but now his fear was competing with hers. The combination threatened to overwhelm my senses. Hints of concern from the two suits melded in the noxious mixture.

While I contemplated how weird it was that I could smell their fear, the man turned and ran away. I guess it made some sense — I was here elongating the fight for some reason, and he wasn’t going to stick around to find out. He was only putting on a show about getting the money from the girl and knew that there was nothing good for him here. He ran out the way I had entered the alley, and the suited man there let him pass with a sigh. They must've known where he would go and could get their money later. It wasn’t my problem, anyways.

I watched him flee into the night and then turned to the girl. She still exuded fear, even though the man who had been screaming about something she didn’t understand had left. It was almost overpowering in its toxicity. She kneeled on the ground while I was fighting, wrapped her arms around her knees, and was holding and gently rocking herself. It was awful to see someone in this amount of pain. Her condition left me somewhat conflicted with my decision to allow the asshole to flee unhindered magnanimously. Although to be fair, it wasn’t entirely my decision. What a mess.

As I looked at her, I felt the presence return control of my body. It was a unique experience, suddenly being able to perceive your aching limbs again after a minute of nothingness. I’m sure that I stumbled as I took my next steps. The presence didn’t fully recede, remaining against the surface of my mind to ask a question.

“WHAT OF HER? WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO WITH HER?”

That was a very confusing way to frame that question. I wasn’t sure I had any authority to do anything with her. I suppose I was going to try and comfort her, draw her out of the immediate shell she was hiding in, and see what she needed to get out of this mess. If she was amenable to that at all. It wouldn’t be unreasonable for her to reject my offer out of hand entirely.

“PROTECTED AND COMFORTED. YES. A NOBLE GOAL.”

With that, the presence fled from my mind, and I felt the pressure return. More than just returning, it built and grew inside me. Astoundingly, it was no longer painful. Uncomfortable and foreign, absolutely, but it was no longer distressing.

I stepped over to the girl and kneeled, so my head was closer to her eye level. I softly asked, “Hey, are you okay now?”

She was crying, still rocking back and forth, and hadn’t lifted her head to see who was talking to her. She was clearly not okay. She responded, shrilly and uneven, “I don’t have the money. He put it somewhere. Told me to forget about it.”

I responded, careful to control my voice to be as calm as possible, “I figured you didn’t know. He set you up to take the blame. Are you okay?”

She opened her eyes and looked up at me, and I got a good look at her face for the first time. Her makeup had been smeared by crying and subsequently wiping her face, and her green eyes looked up at me in anxiety and confusion. With that said, the flow of fear pouring off her slowed somewhat. It was now an old, lazy river pouring a large amount into the ocean that was already here instead of the raging torrent dumping incomprehensible quantities it was before.

“You aren’t here about the money?” She asked incredulously.

“No, I’m just a guy who saw something happening that didn’t seem right and couldn’t help but jump into a mess he didn’t understand.” I stood up but remained bent over and offered her my hand. “C’mon, we should see to getting you home. Can’t stay here all night. What would your parents think?”

She bristled at my comment, defiance growing on her face. The fear I was smelling faded, replaced with hatred and resentment. She practically spat her words as she spoke, “She'd say I got what I deserved.”

Still, she took my offered hand to pull herself to her feet. I felt a painful shock when our fingers connected and saw a quick spark between our palms. I could have ignored that as static electricity, except I also heard an echo throughout the alley, like a sonic pulse reverberating from our hands. The pressure that had been growing while we talked evaporated, suddenly relinquished. I was exhausted, and everything ached. I wondered if it was just my adrenaline fading, and I was feeling the effects of the fight now because my bones physically ached.

She shivered slightly but offered no other indication that she had noticed a change. She didn’t mention the shock, spark, or echo; she simply took my assistance in getting to her feet. I was astonished to feel that her hands were rough and dry. I would’ve expected them from a day laborer or perhaps the men in the suits behind me, not from this dainty girl.

The voice from the monster in my head spoke one final time, but it was subdued and sounded far away and weak, “OUR WILL IS DONE. I SHALL REST.” I observed it slink even further away, deeper into the recesses of my mind. I felt alone, abandoned in the dark of the night by the one thing that seemed to understand what was occurring.

As I stood, I realized the girl had never let go of my hand. She was still holding onto it for dear life. It didn’t bother me. It just made me curious, so I let it be for now. When we walked to the alley’s entrance, the suited man stopped me and spoke.

“You should not have done that. You know we can’t use our Gifts in mundane lands. You know I’m going to have to report this tonight.” He laughed softly before continuing, “Like they don’t already know. Seriously man, what did you do? People in Toronto — hell, maybe Cleveland — will have felt that.”

I was deliriously tired and wanted to get home and deal with everything tomorrow. I shrugged at the guy and said, “I don’t know what you’re on about. Are you stopping me here?”

He shook his head and said, “Playing coy and innocent in front of her now, yeah? Worth a shot, I guess. Nah, I don’t think I could stop you.” With that, he and his partner stepped out into the night, and I lost sight of them in the crowd within moments.

I was oblivious to how strange it was for two suited, massive men to disappear in a crowd of twenty-somethings, so I turned to the girl and asked, “So, where do you live? We should get you home.”

The fear that had been receding since I spoke to her spiked, and she mumbled as she quietly said, “I had been staying with him.”

I grunted, “Hmm. That could be an issue. Alright, how about your parents? They must be around here somewhere.”

She aggressively reacted to that suggestion, “I was staying with him to get away from my mother. My father died when I was young, or so my mother says. Staying with her was like living in a brothel, and they started to think I was on the menu. I’ll sleep here before returning there.” She shivered in disgust as she spoke.

That didn’t seem like a good option. “So, no friends or anything you could crash with for a night?”

She sighed and said, “No, that’s why I was staying with him. My friends all got tired of me couch-surfing between their places long ago.”

“Alright. I guess you can stay with me for the night. We’ll figure this out in the morning.”

For the first time since I realized that I could recognize emotions, I smelled hope coming off her. A hint of gratitude and a heavy amount of lingering fear, but for the first time, there was a refreshing hint of optimism.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to impose. I’m sure I can figure something out.”

I looked at my phone to see the time. “Figure something out alone after midnight when you’ve already rejected all the intuitive solutions? Nah, come on. It’s easier this way. Besides, you’re not imposing, I offered.”

We walked in silence back to my apartment, leaving the jubilation of the night behind us. She never let go of my hand, and as we got further from the crowded commercial streets and into my neighborhood, the fear she was producing faded into the background. It didn’t disappear entirely, but it was no longer oppressive and overwhelming.

It was nearly one in the morning when I unlocked my front door and let her inside. My place wasn’t anything special; a cheap (not inexpensive, my mother would remind me) two-bedroom apartment just off a college campus for students. My roommate had bailed out a few weeks before classes started, deciding to chase a girl on a backpacking trip through Europe, so I was on the hook for all of it myself. I didn’t mind — paying more was unfortunate, but having a place solely my own had advantages. Turning the second bedroom into an office and studying space certainly made concentrating on schoolwork easier.

As we came in, I turned on my living room light and got my first good look at the girl I had dragged to my home. She was petite and lean, wiry instead of athletic. She had a cute little button nose, curled up at the end, nestled between two sparkling green eyes staring at me and waiting for instruction. Her hair was a light brown, and for some reason, I thought that in the sunlight, it would look almost auburn with red sparkles where the light hit it. What struck me most was how young she looked. Too young to be caught up in the mess outside. Too young to be taken home by a random stranger she had just met in an alley because she had nowhere else to go. She must’ve been aware of how youthful she would naturally appear — her skintight jeans and strappy minuscule pink halter top fought hard to make her look older.

Despite her sultry clothing choices, she was still relatively plain and forgettable. Her eyes were bright and would’ve been quite pretty in another face, but her lean, gaunt features gave her the appearance of a recovering drug addict instead of one of the fair sex. She was undeniably young, but as I took a second look at her, I realized that nights like tonight couldn’t be that far out of her routine. I knew I had grown up well, but the evidence of others’ hardships stood before me. It made my heart ache.

In opening the door, I had finally gotten my hand back from her. I returned it by offering a handshake, “Sorry, I never gave you my name. I’m James.”

She tentatively shook my hand and whispered back, “Beth.”

“So, the bathrooms there. The kitchen’s there. Let me know if you’re hungry or thirsty. I’m not a great cook, but I make do. My bedroom’s on the other side of the bathroom. I’ll grab a couple of things out and then leave it for you.”

She looked at me like I had started speaking tongues. “But where will you sleep?”

“On the couch. You’re a gue—”

For the first time all evening, she managed something assertively by interrupting me, “I’m not kicking you out of your own bed.” With her hands on her hips and a scowl adorning her face, she reminded me of the cartoon depictions of Tinkerbell. I wanted to laugh at the absurdity, but I couldn’t undermine her first action.

“Of course you aren’t. I’m lending it to you for tonight. We can talk in the morning about this mess.”

“No. I’m not going to take it.”

“Beth, my bed will be there for me tomorrow, it was there for me yesterday, and it’ll be there next week. It doesn’t seem like you know that. You’ll sleep there tonight.”

She looked away from me and muttered something quietly, unable to speak to me but remaining standing there defiantly.

“You’ve gotta speak to me, not the floor.”

She screwed her face up, clamped her eyes shut, and pushed out, “Thenwe’llshareit.”

That’s not what I expected. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that. I’d feel like I’m taking advantage of you.”

Beth guffawed at that. She actually laughed out loud, her sudden assertiveness bordering on sounding aggressive. “You give me a place to sleep and are worried that you’re taking advantage of me. Oh, that’s rich.” For the first time since I had met her, she seemed to return to Earth from the shadow plane she had tried to hide her personality on. “Are you actually that pure? C’mon, white knight, we’re going to bed. Put your horse away first.”

“Beth, how old are you?”

She tilted her head as she looked back at me, and her bangs adorably flitted across her forehead, “Oh, is that why you’re so scared of me now? I turned 19 last month. You can look at my ID tomorrow if you're still concerned — it’s time for bed now. You need to go to sleep; you stumbled several times on the steps outside.” I had hoped she hadn’t noticed that, but my entire body ached and was only superficially under my control at this point.

She took my hand for the third time that night and pulled me to bed. Before I knew it, most of our clothes were on the ground, the lights were off, and I was lying in bed with a girl I had just met pressed against me. I desperately tried to suppress how cherubic she had looked in her matching lacy pink undergarments. I didn’t feel right about this, but maybe it was what she wanted. I had no idea. I had barely spoken a dozen words to her, and everything I said seemed unpleasant to her in one way or another. I was too tired to navigate the conversation I wanted with her — getting her to eat, shower, and sleep alone. I wondered when the last time any of those had happened.

After a few minutes, she leaned on her arms to look into my face. “James, you cuddle like a skeleton. Take a deep breath, accept that I want this, and then hold me.”

I guessed that I should respond to her request. I had nothing to lose by doing it anyway. The sarcastic part of my mind wanted to tell her I cuddled like a skeleton because I was cuddling with a skeleton. I could count her ribs just from the contact of her lying on me. I was genuinely concerned about breaking her if I rolled over while we slept. She was the size of a pet dog and clung to me like we were longtime lovers.

I took a deep breath to clear my mind and replied, “Sorry. My alarm’s set for 9:30. Is that too early, or do you have anything you need to be up earlier for?”

“You got me out of all of my obligations earlier.”

I just held her as she asked me to. After what felt like an eternity but was probably only fifteen or twenty minutes, I felt her shake. When I felt the moistness on my chest, I realized she was crying again. She didn’t smell like fear anymore, just guilt, grief, and loss. I just held her and rubbed her back, feeling each bump in her spine whenever I crossed it. I had no answers, and we hadn’t talked enough for me even to know the questions. Eventually, she stopped and melted into me as she fell asleep. I wasn’t far behind.

---

 

I was awoken by banging on my front door, violent enough to shake the entire apartment. The fog of sleep was still clinging firmly to me, and I was confused about what was lying on me in that delirium. Slowly, I realized it was a terrified girl. The events of the previous night started returning to me. This morning? Semantics.

Beth was babbling nearly incoherently, her eyes bloodshot and puffy. Frankly, she looked like hell. In the morning light, I could see her face well. Her skin was rough and leathery, several teeth were clearly out of alignment, and her otherwise cute nose had a bend where she must’ve broken it at some point.

Between her sobs, she eked out, “I’m sorry, I didn’t think about you. I’ll leave, I’ll go. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.” Her fear, and her guilt, filled the room. I wondered if opening a window would let it out or if it was all in my head and didn’t work like that. Something to figure out later.

I just held her with one arm. I didn’t have any real solutions for her, but it certainly wouldn’t do any good for her to fly out of my apartment, wailing and terrified she’d wronged me for something I asked her to do. “Beth, do you know who is at my door?”

“It’s gotta be him. I’m sorry, I’ll leave. I didn’t mean for him to come here. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t know who’s there then? I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. Stay in here; I’ll go see who’s raising hell.” I tried to exude an air of confidence, but I wasn’t exactly convinced myself. Her fear was pouring into the room, making her irrational and inconsolable, and it was starting to affect me.

“Please don’t get hurt. I’m sorry, I’ll just leave. It’ll be easier that way.”

“You’re not going anywhere until we have a chance to talk. You’re definitely not going anywhere with him, especially since it almost certainly isn’t him out there. Please try to relax. Take a deep breath and close your eyes for a minute.” She held the blanket on my bed with a death grip and nodded, the only response she was capable of. That was the best I was going to get at the moment. It would have to do.

I grabbed my bathrobe and cell phone and walked to my front door. As I opened the door, I could hear the woman on the other side begin to admonish me. “Alright, asshole, you’d better have a good reason for lighting up the sky all — James? What are you doing here?”

Oh boy. This was a confusing blast from the past. Standing in front of me was Samantha O'Brien. She had gone to grade school with Kyle and me and was friendly with us then. I had thought she was cute then, but she never really responded to any advances from anyone at all, and after a couple of light but firm rebuffs, I gave up my pipe dream of catching her. She was a loner, though, never really getting to be more than acquaintances with anyone. She didn’t seem interested the last couple of times I talked to her a few years ago.

I had assumed that was what she wanted. As we were graduating high school and sharing plans with each other, she had carefully avoided giving anything concrete or defined in her answers. Maybe she would be going to school, or perhaps she would spend some time backpacking in an undecided central European country; who could know? Not the people she was avoiding with her non-answers, that’s for sure.

She had certainly grown up in the time passed — cute before, she was stunning now. Her strawberry blonde hair framed her blue eyes and flowed into her curvy body. She had grown up from the unflinching tomboy into the soft, beautiful woman standing before me, at least physically. Her assertive reinsertion into my life had me very confident that the tomboy remained. I hadn’t expected to see Sam ever again; circumstances notwithstanding, I was relatively happy to have been wrong. I let my eyes linger for a second to drink in just how much she had visually changed before responding to her. I realized that I was staring, and she must’ve been trying to get in for a reason.

“Hi, Sam. This is my home while I’m here at school. Why don’t you come inside instead of trying to break my door down, and we can talk about whatever’s got you riled up?”

She watched me like she had seen a ghost, the color drained from her face and her eyes as wide open as possible. I guess I wasn’t what she expected. She certainly wasn’t who I expected to be woken up by. I walked to my kitchen and turned on my coffee pot as she entered my apartment. After last night I was barely awake. She must have a good reason to be banging on what she thought was a stranger’s door at — what time was it anyway? 7:13 am. Oh, look at that; I didn’t plug my phone in last night.

Hopefully, the coffee would be ready soon, and maybe my brain would catch up at some point. I noticed that I felt surprisingly well, given the previous night. I was still fatigued, but given that when I went to sleep, all of my joints ached and I struggled with the simple act of climbing up the stairs, I was astonishingly refreshed. I was tired and foggy from my interrupted sleep, not physically destroyed by the fight I had been in.

With the coffee going, I pulled out a chair for Sam and then returned to my bedroom. Beth was still in the exact same spot she was when I got up. I figured the blanket would have a permanent crease where she had gripped it. “Hey, Beth. An old friend of mine was at the door. She didn’t know this was my place, so I’m unsure why she’s here. We’re going to talk in the kitchen. Are you okay here?” She nodded but made no move to relax as I put shorts on. Yeah, I didn’t think that would help, but it was worth a shot. I returned to the kitchen, grabbed my now full hot cup of coffee, and sat at the table. Before I could say anything, Sam asked a question with a level of sincerity I hadn't been expecting.

“Do you have a girlfriend? Were you showing off last night?"

That caught me off guard. She had just been beating down my door like the building was on fire, and now she was intently questioning my love life. She looked earnest about getting an answer, though. And how could she know about last night?

“Neither," I answered tentatively, "It’s a complicated situation to which I don’t have all the answers. She’s a friend, I think, crashing here for the night. Sam, you just woke up the entire complex and didn’t know I was here. Surely that’s not what you want to talk about.”

She took a breath and then looked deadly serious at me, her brow furrowed and eyes focused on my soul. The intensity she had always exuded returned. “Why have you been broadcasting your spark like a bonfire to the entire city all night? Are you just showing off for the girl, or what? The normies are going to start feeling it soon. Can you turn it down? Did you have anything to do with the massive surge just after midnight last night? How about the rumor that someone used their gift in front of a pair of humans?” As she asked the questions, I realized she had worn a backpack here, had taken out a notebook and pen when I checked on Beth, and was preparing to take notes of my answers. She clicked the pen nervously several times.

I understood most of the words she said individually. “Sam, you’ll have to run that by me again. I have no idea what you even asked me.”

“When did you awaken? You didn’t have anything like this in high school. And can you turn your spark down? It’s kinda hard to talk to you like this. Feels like I need a pair of sunglasses for my soul.”

“Like five minutes ago when you were beating down my door. I don’t know what you mean by ‘spark.’ Do you want me to close the blinds? It is kinda bright in here in the mornings.”

She set her pen down and sighed, annoyed with my answers. “Why are you making this hard? When did you awaken awaken? Like, when did you find your spark, gift, beast, source — whatever you want to call it? Who brought it out of you?”

“Sam, you’re kinda scaring me right now. I don’t know what you’re saying.”

She groaned and visibly rolled her eyes before responding. “You are being such a dork. When did you discover you could use magic, James?”

“What are you playing at, Sam? Magic isn’t real. What do you want from me?”

She looked at me like I had just bluntly told her that she should cut back on sweets because she was putting on weight. Insulted and upset, she quipped back at me, “James! I know I’m not overflowing and filling the room like you are, but that’s no reason to pretend you can’t tell.”

Somehow, without understanding the question, I had stuck my foot in it and insulted her. Not exactly what I wanted to do when someone was insisting magic was real after basically breaking into my house. Either they were crazy, and I would really prefer to have them calm, or they weren’t crazy, and magic was real, and I had just aggravated them. That was probably a scarier possibility.

“I can see I’ve offended you somehow. That wasn’t my intent. I don’t know how to answer your questions, Sam.” I swallowed and tried to answer what she had said. “I don’t have any spark, magic, or gift, and I have no idea why you’re here or what any of your other questions mean.”

Now she looked less angry and insulted and a lot more confused. She turned, shuffled through her backpack, and pulled out a ball. It looked like a weird light bulb. Small enough to fit in a hand, with a metal base and a filament connection behind a glass cover. She held it out to me.

“Sam, you’ve woken me up out of the blue after not talking to me for years, you’re asking me strange questions, and now you’re handing me a strange device of some kind, and I don’t know what it is or what it does. Can you explain some more? I’m willing to give you a little benefit of the doubt, but you’re acting crazy and kinda freaking me out.”

“It’s a test of sorts. I want you to hold it, try to relax, and then I’ll give you the rest of the instructions. It won’t hurt you. It’s like a lightbulb, but it’s powered by magical differentials. It glows when you push energy into it. Just hold it in your hands for now.” She held it more insistently towards me. I guess I was obligated to take it. As I looked at it, I could indeed see it glowing faintly.

As she passed the orb to me, it lit up brightly. It started getting warm as I pulled it closer to my other hand. As I put my second hand around the base, it popped, the glass shattered, and the base started heating up even more. I set it down on my table, where it left a little burn mark, and a puff of smoke filtered out of the crack. Sam took it back, glanced at it, and then pulled out her phone in a robotic, rehearsed manner. I saw another movement from the corner of my eye and turned to look.

Beth was standing in the hallway with terror receding from her eyes. She was wearing one of my shirts like a dress, and I could see her bony shoulders holding it up as a hanger would. I guess she had calmed down enough to hide in my room and wait for me to figure out what was happening, but then a sudden sharp noise from another room made her concerned enough to join us. I pushed the chair next to me out and raised my hand, which she appreciatively took when she joined me at the table. We both sat in silence and heard one half of Sam’s phone conversation.

“Hi, Mom, it’s Sam. Hi. Yeah. I need you to come up here, like now. An hour ago would be nice. No, I’m not joking. If you can’t make it here today, I’m calling Aunt Jean. Yes, I know that’s dirty, but this is huge. There’s a big one here who just awakened, and he needs a lot of help. Maybe Class B, I dunno. He burned through the meter before I even gave him instructions on pushing, couldn’t get an accurate reading. You can feel him from the other side of town while he was asleep, though.” Sam looked up for a moment and realized that Beth had joined us. Her eyes focussed on the now frozen-in-the-headlights Beth as she continued talking to her mother. “Uhh, there’s also a human here as well, but I can’t feel her behind some very heavy enchantment. That’s crazy, would’ve taken months to do on an object. So, when are you coming? Uh-huh. Okay. For brunch, then? Nice, the regular? Perfect. Okay. Buh bye. Yes, I love you too. Okay. See you soon.”

Sam hung up the phone and stared daggers into my soul. “Who is she, why is she here, and why can’t I feel her? Are her enchantments registered? How did she even get enchanted like that?”

“This is Beth. She didn’t have a place to sleep last night because the guy she was staying with was a massive dick. We haven’t talked about it completely because we just went to bed last night, and you kinda got us up early today. I don’t know about the other questions, and I doubt she does either.”

Beth nearly imperceptibly shook her head.

Sam nodded. “Well, I hope she has more clothes. We’re having brunch with my mother at 10. This whole situation is above my pay grade. Oh!” She ruffled through her backpack and pulled out a ring. “Put this on, please. It will dampen your output until we get you to a safehouse and a trainer.”

“Excuse me? Safehouse? Am I being kidnapped? Does this have anything to do with the fight I got into last night?” Even just bringing it up, I could feel Beth tense next to me. I glanced at the ring, which seemed benign enough, and slipped it onto my finger. It didn’t seem to be metal, some kind of dark natural stone, and completely smooth. I didn’t notice anything different when I put it on.

Sam sighed audibly and visibly slumped into her chair. “Oh, that’s so much better. You were in a fight last night? Huh. Alright. Save it for my mother, though; I’m making her handle this. No, look, I’m not supposed to be telling you this, but it looks like you discovered some kind of magic recently, and frankly, you’ve got enough in there to break part of the city. At least. The safehouse is just as much to keep you safe from others as it is to keep the outside safe from you until you learn to control yourself. My mother will explain more. Oooooh, she will have such a fit when she sees you. She will be the center of gossip for weeks when this gets out. She’s going to love it.”

---

 

That is how I found myself sitting in Sam’s old beat-up sedan outside Jenny’s Diner at 9:30. Beth had taken a shower and then dressed in the same clothes she wore yesterday. She was adamant that she was okay with them; I was more convinced that she was terrified about trying to reclaim any of her actual belongings. Although, when we left my place, it was interesting to notice that she was wearing one of my sweatshirts. It was large enough to hold three of her and long enough that it nearly came down to her knees. The sleeves were entirely too long, and she struggled to pull them back up every couple of minutes. It would’ve been endearing if I had any real say in the matter. I hoped I could get a chance to sort out what she wanted, assuming I could get to that conversation without pushing her back into her shell.

I didn’t even know this place existed. I was never particularly inclined to breakfast, and it was out of necessity on the rare occasions I partook. I wouldn’t have ever made time to go to a restaurant for it — that would mean less sleeping time — which might explain my ignorance, but I felt there was more to the story. I had lived in the neighborhood for three years and hadn’t heard anyone mention the place.

Sam went in, explaining how she wanted to get a table before her mother arrived, and Beth and I followed. Well, I followed, and Beth hid in my shadow. The hostess took an exhausting time looking us over before telling us to take any empty booth. The place had a 50s American Classic vibe, and the hostess gave off a distinctly blue-collar demeanor. This was a place to get some good food and get out, not to host charity events or discuss business plans. It reminded me more of a bar or a pub than a breakfast diner. If I wasn’t here to talk with Sam’s mother about how apparently magic was real and now I had some inside me, I would’ve felt comfortable here. Well, that and it felt like everyone was watching us take a table.

We sat down, and I picked up a menu that was waiting for me there. I wanted to make it look like I was interested in the food options, but I was more interested in trying to understand my current predicament.

“Sam,” I said softly, “Why is everyone sneaking glances at us?”

She smiled back at me, and I realized she hadn’t touched the menu on the table. Maybe this was all some elaborate ruse to get us to go to her favorite breakfast haunt. As if I could get so lucky.

“Because you’ve never been here before, you smell like power, and the girl beside you has more enchanting done on her than many artifacts do. The president might have a hundredth of it on him.”

Beth inched closer to me in the booth, her hip digging into my side. If she was capable of climbing into my shadow, she probably would have.

“I guess I’ll have to wait for your mom for the easy answers.”

We placed our orders, including Sam ordering for her mother, with a waitress who could’ve been between a rough 35 and a pretty rough 55. I wasn’t asking. Sam said she would use the “little girl’s room,” and she went to the back of the dining area. When she stepped into the bathrooms and was no longer visible, Beth moved even closer to me in the booth. Forget shadow; I think Beth would’ve climbed inside my skin if it meant she could hide from everyone else in the building. Her elbow sharply dug into me as she clung to me, but the fear I could smell from her convinced me to tolerate the discomfort. Sam’s presence must’ve been dissuading them somehow because now the looks were open and unforgiving, their curiosity bordering on oppressive.

The front door opened with the bells attached to it jingling their announcement, and the gawkers had a momentary lapse in their concentration. I felt like I could breathe for the first time in a minute. Beth didn’t. A moment later, Sam’s mom joined our booth with a troubled look on her face, her brow furrowed and her lip curled on one side. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve said that Sam had returned to the table with us because they were reflections of one another. If you looked closely, you could see how she may have been older, but an uneducated guess would’ve been that they were sisters a couple of years apart. I knew Sam was 21 like I was and that this was her mother.

“Hi, Mrs. O’Brien. How are you?”

She looked at me, at Beth, and then back at me with a recognizable sparkle forming in her eyes. The furrowed brow had faded by the time she started talking. “Please, James, darling, call me Cynthia. How are you — How have you been? I haven’t seen you in years. I hope my daughter is around. She asked me to meet her here to discuss some...” She paused for a moment, struggling to develop a suitable description. “Work, I suppose.”

That was interesting. I had met Sam’s mother a few times before when we were younger, through school events and group projects, but she always had been quite reserved and aloof. I had never experienced anything like the familiarity and charm she just let flow. Even more so, it didn’t feel forced and synthetic — she seemed genuinely pleased to see me now that her initial confusion was abated.

“I had been doing fairly well, I suppose. I’m not quite sure why I’m here — Sam tried to beat down my door a couple of hours ago and insisted we meet with you now. She just went to the bathroom a —”

Before I could finish the statement, Sam returned and sat down, bumping her mother further inside the booth. Even next to each other, you never would’ve guessed Sam was the other woman’s daughter. It was uncanny how similar they were.

“Hi, Mom. He’s the one you need to talk to, so keep doing it.” Sam gave her mother a side hug that seemed uncomfortable, kissed her on the cheek in a way that felt forced, and then picked up the chocolate milk she had ordered.

“He’s the one? This isn’t some ploy to g—”

“Mom! I wouldn’t mess with this for that. I know what the consequences would be. No, he’s it. Open your eyes a bit; he’s blinding.”

“Huh, would you look at that? The nice boy from school turned out to have a gift. Never would’ve guessed. You think B? I could see that.”

“Mom, please don’t talk about that today — Wait, you think B now? I gave him one of the rings. He didn’t know how to dampen himself. I think he’s really, really fresh. This month, probably.”

“That much is coming through the ring?”

“Yeah, I think he was lighting up the whole city last night. It was so intense that I couldn’t sleep. Thought he was projecting intentionally to show off, so I tracked him down to give him a piece of my mind. Turns out he just has no idea what he’s doing and needs help. Something’s up with her, too. Try to feel her — it’s like a void, and all you can get are wisps of enchanting residue.”

Beth and I sat silently while the two mirror-image redheads across from us discussed things we didn’t understand. I felt like a child in a medical exam, with the doctor talking with my parents about how I was unwell. I was theoretically involved and present but didn’t understand half the phrases and had nothing to contribute.

Mrs. O’Brien — Cynthia? — looked at us again and just stared at us for half a minute, breathing in a rhythmic and controlled manner. Then she spoke and addressed Beth for the first time. Beth flinched as the words were directed at her.

“Hi, sweetie. You look terrified. What’s your name?”

Barely audible over the ambient noise of the diner, Beth squeaked out her name.

“Okay, Beth, can I see your hand for a moment? Nothing harmful, I swear.” Cynthia placed her two hands across the table and smiled at Beth.

Beth slowly placed her right hand into Cynthia’s awaiting palms. Cynthia wrapped her hands gently around Beth’s and closed her eyes. After about ten seconds, there was a spark, and Cynthia yanked her hands back, staring at a fresh burn on her palm.

Beth was startled and immediately started spurting apologies. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened. I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.” She was nearly in tears as she continued apologizing.

Cynthia reached into her purse, pulled out a small vial, and squirted some of its clear contents onto her hand. “Interesting, very interesting,” she muttered quietly before realizing that Beth was pouring her soul out onto the table in an attempt to right some wrong that exclusively existed in her head.

“Oh honey, I know you didn’t do anything. What’s weird is that I can’t sense you at all. If I look past you, I can weakly recognize your edges, and they smell of him.” She pointed at me with her eyes while she continued, “Of course, I can see you physically and hold your hand and interact in all the mundane ways, but when I try to find your heart magically, it’s like you’ve been completely obfuscated. I tried to poke the edge of the void to see if I could find you in there, and it poked back. It’s hard to explain with what you know.” She settled back into her seat, pulled out a tablet I thought was too large to fit in her purse, and looked at me while tapping on it. “Okay, James, it’s time for you to tell me everything you know about yourself. We’ve gotta figure out what you are.”

What I am? A confused computer science student in a very strange diner with two women who insist that magic is real. “What do you mean, ‘what you are’?”

“You know, half-elf, were-beast, impling, banshee, gargoyle, naiad, centaur, treant. Stuff like that. You’re not just a human — humans usually find their spark around 10, when the first hints of puberty start — so I believe you’re some mythic creature that has had your merge prevented. Hopefully. So, tell me everything you’ve ever felt so we can start eliminating possibilities.”

I laughed a bit at the scale of what she was asking. “Everything, cool. Where do I even start that? I’m studying computer science here. I swam competitively in high school and worked as a lifeguard during the summers and as a substitute here at school. Was in Scouts as a kid, and I enjoyed the camping trips. I like lifting weights. I have a cat at my parent’s house. This is incredibly uncomfortable for me. Could you perhaps ask some questions and guide this? I have no idea what you want to know.” I felt like Beth looked. Well, perhaps not quite that bothered.

Sam interrupted, “You said this started last night, and you were in a fight, yeah? Walk us through that.”

We spent the next half an hour discussing everything between leaving Kyle’s and falling asleep at my apartment with Beth on my chest. They were interested in my aches and pains, my willingness to investigate something that wasn’t my problem, and the thing that had inserted itself in my mind.

When I mentioned that it had spoken to me, I could smell fear radiating off Sam. Cynthia asked several pointed questions about my interactions with it, and eventually, the smell faded behind the diner’s food and cleaning supplies. When the redheads seemed satisfied with my answers, I talked about being able to smell some emotions.

Cynthia then asked several precise questions that made it seem like she knew significantly more than she had let on. Was I more comfortable in the water when I swam than on land? Did I have barely any body hair? Were the aches in my bones instead of at my joints or in my muscles? Had I gotten sick at all recently? Had I ever been on an airplane, and how comfortable was I with flying?

As I gave the answers, she kept tapping away at her tablet. Eventually, she pursed her lips and softly said, “I’m going to ask you to think about yourself in several scenarios here. I want you to know that it’s all hypothetical; my suggestions will not happen in reality. No matter what I say, can you remain calm for me?”

“I guess I can give it a go. You seem to know a lot more about me than you suggested.”

Cynthia nodded and then continued, “Alright. Close your eyes and focus on your breathing. Find the entity you spoke to last night and feel him. Don’t coax him forward; just brush up against him and get an idea of how he responds to what I’m saying. Let me know when you’re ready.”

I did what she said, located the foreign being in my mind, and reached out a metaphorical hand to hold onto it. It twitched at my touch but didn’t respond like I was intruding. It felt welcoming to the contact — encouraging and anticipating more. I nodded my head, hoping Cynthia was watching.

She spoke, “A couple of simple things just to get started with a baseline. Imagine you’re back and swimming competitively. You have a big race against another top school coming up. Their best swimmer does the same events as you. If you win, your team should win the meet. If you don’t, it will be hard to get enough points, and your teammates will likely have to overperform. How does it feel?”

I let the information flow into me and started describing it to the women. “He feels confident. That’s an understatement, actually. He feels like I was already good enough to win alone and that together, we could crush some of the records if we wanted to. Too many would make others investigate us, but we deserve to have a pool record or two.”

Cynthia continued, “And, on a scale of one to ten, how strong is the feeling you’re getting? Don’t worry about being precisely accurate now; you’ll get a better sense of this as we continue.”

“I guess a six? Oh, he disagrees. Lower. A four? Seems alright there.”

Cynthia continued like this with several more quick situations. I was taking an exam I hadn’t studied for — it wasn’t an issue, as he knew I typically read ahead on the materials and did well enough in my classes that a single lousy exam grade wouldn’t sink me. My girlfriend had just canceled our plans for the second time in a row — He wasn’t concerned either. If she had a plausible reason, we would accept it, and if she didn’t, we would ask her to consider how serious she was taking our relationship and if she wanted to continue it. We were a king among peasants; if she wasn’t interested, we would find one worthy of our time. The self-assured confidence and absolute conviction in our high value were alien to me. Cynthia continued like this for another half hour. While many of the answers didn’t feel exactly right to me, none garnered an extreme reaction from the entity. A question about being overcharged at a restaurant got a genuine six response — the strongest reaction so far.

Cynthia eventually warned me, “I only have two more questions. The first will probably cause an answer that will be hard for you to understand. The final question will probably upset both you and it. Are you okay to continue?” I nodded my affirmation.

She asked, “How do you feel about leaving this town, your friends and family, and this life behind?”

The response I got back internally was confusing to me. I slowly began to convey the feelings to Cynthia, “He feels remorseful. He knows we have to do that because of him. He knows I can’t continue my current life with him, and he knows no one from it would accept us for how we are now. He feels guilty that this will cause me pain. But he knows it must be done, and to do it now would be better than to watch everything I loved grow old and die while we are still young and full of life. He’s telling me this question wasn’t hypothetical and that you are warning me of what we have to do. Probably a six again.”

Cynthia sighed and then said, “It’s almost certainly correct. Okay. Are you still relaxed? If you’re agitated, I don’t want to ask the next question — that could incite problems.”

“I’m not happy, but I feel more withdrawn and grief-struck than agitated. I think you’re alright to ask.”

I heard some shuffling around on the other side of the table, and then Cynthia spoke softly and calmly, “I need you to imagine you’re coming home from classes one day. You get to your apartment building and see smoke coming from windows on your floor. The air smells like burning plastics. You rush inside, and the building is full of smoke — it’s hard to see and even harder to breathe. You eventually reach your apartment itself and force the door to open. The inside is on fire, and the heat is intense. Your kitchen is destroyed. The fire is spreading and growing.”

I could feel the beast inside my mind growing uncomfortable. Why would we have gone inside at all? What value was there in my shitty apartment? My possessions were all replaceable. Cynthia had said this would be upsetting, but it was just irritating for the moment.

Cynthia continued, “Today, Beth and Sam were hanging out — having a bit of a girl’s day out. They would’ve been waiting for you to come home so that you could have a nice dinner out to cap off their day. They are both in the apartment still. You also have recently been investing in gold and other precious metals. You are no longer confident in fiat currency and find having a physical backup reassuring. In your closet, there is a duffel bag filled with your reserves. A large portion of your savings are in that bag. Beth and Sam are in your room as well. They’re both passed out from smoke inhalation. The fire is spreading fast. You think you can only save one. You need to make a decision. What do you do?”

The beast inside my head SCREAMED in vitriol and rancor at the situation. Initially, it wanted to grab the duffel bag and get out. The girls, it reasoned, were already too incapacitated to be resuscitated. Take the money and get out of here.

I argued with it. It was exerting its will on me, trying to get me to say that we would take the gold and evacuate. I was so focused on arguing with him that I didn’t realize when I spoke my side out loud.

“Absolutely not, you heartless bastard. The bag can burn. Most of it will be salvageable. If we leave the girls here, they will die. Even if it’s not salvageable, it’s insured and replaceable.”

He argued with me. The girls were already dead; their bodies were just catching up. We couldn’t heal their insides before they succumbed to the damage. Insurance wouldn’t cover all of the destroyed valuables. We would need our hoard to rebuild, but another mate could always be found. Why did I care about Sam at all? She wasn’t even bound to us.

“She’s my friend, you absolute bastard. We aren’t picking a chunk of metal over them. Pick one of them.”

The being insisted that I made no sense and was acting irrationally. Mortal mates would die, anyway. The witch eventually would, too, so we needed to take the valuable option and replace them by keeping our hoard intact.

I was fed up with this. I forced out, “I take the girl closer to me and pray that there will be enough time to come back for the other.” The effort of giving my response to Cynthia was absolute — I simply had nothing remaining beyond what it had taken to eke out my assertion.

The beast roared again inside my head. It raged against the hand I was connected to it with. If I was going to throw away all that money on sentimentality and emotions, I needed to save Beth. She was our mate and bound to us, while Sam was an irrelevant distraction and a plant for the question. I needed to ignore her.

“No, I made my decision.” It insisted I was fundamentally sabotaging ourselves, but acquiesced and withdrew further. It told me that was the last question and that it was done playing games. It was displeased with me and wanted to be in a stronger host with a more reasonable mentality. I was too feeble and suggestable and sentimental. I didn’t deserve it. It released my hand to sulk in the depths of my mind, disconnected from my consciousness.

I opened my eyes and realized that the redheads were watching me in cautious fascination. Beth was still clinging to me. I was coated in a sheen of sweat, and my jaw ached from where I had been clenching it. The tablet was set up on a stand with the camera directed at me, and I figured she had recorded that question if not all of them. Cynthia took the tablet down and slipped out of the booth to make a phone call.

Sam hadn’t blinked yet, and her fear permeated the room. She spoke, “Holy shit, J. I hope one day you understand what you just did, if my mom is right. That question is specifically designed to get you, the human, to accept something about the thing we think is sharing your head, like the previous one did. Get it upset a bit, sure, but it’s really for you. I was so sure she was right, but now I’m fucking confused. We crossed everything else off the list, though.” She sat back on the bench and sighed. “Either the stories are wrong, you’re unique, we’re completely wrong about what you are, or some combination. None of those are great looks. Honestly, I hope we’re just wrong about what you are.”

Cynthia returned to us, “I’m still confident. I have a hypothesis.” She turned her focus to me. “We need to make a little road trip. How do you feel about visiting Philadelphia? I know it’s on short notice.”

I looked at Beth, who was just staring back at me. Surprising me, what was in her eyes didn’t seem to be fear or apprehension. The bloodshot that had plagued her earlier seemed to have finally retreated, and she looked at peace with whatever decision I made. I didn’t smell any fear on her, just an emotion I couldn’t quite place. Adoration or longing, perhaps?

“Cynthia, I’m inclined to tell you to go to hell because all of this is insane. That’s a six-hour drive. We won’t be back today, and I have no idea why we’re going. I’m figuring I don’t have a choice, though, do I?”

She smiled painfully at me. “You do have a choice. You are the only one with a choice here, unfortunately. I am bound by procedure, my daughter as well, and I’d wager my life Beth is bound to you. She has to come, too. I would encourage you to listen to me because I can advise you well enough, but I am slightly biased.” Her smile became genuine as she amused herself with the joke. “You can refuse, but someone more forceful might come along after us, and they won’t be as polite. Your kind doesn’t have a great reputation. I’ll answer any questions you might have on the way.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured.” Beth was still leaning into me and staring at me when I looked at her. “Is this acceptable to you?”

She quietly responded, “I don’t have anywhere to be or go. No one’s going to miss me here.” Her hand held onto my arm and gave no indication of relenting anytime soon.

That certainly wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear. This girl I had barely talked to was fine being dragged across the country by three strangers because no one here wanted her. What a mess.

Turning back to Cynthia, I asked, “Do we need anything?”

“An ID would be useful.”

Beth nodded when my questioning gaze fell on her. She probably had her wallet on her. “Then I’m ready to go now. No time to lose.”

Cynthia took care of the bill, and I found myself again in Sam’s car. A few moments later, we were parked in front of what I assumed was where she lived, and I found myself promptly shuffled into another vehicle, sitting in the back with a doting Beth wrapped against me while Sam took the passenger seat. As Cynthia started our journey, we were quiet. She had promised to answer any question I had but hadn’t exactly prompted me to start asking. We had a long ride ahead of us, more than long enough to answer my questions. She seemed momentarily focused on navigating the car. Eventually, we made our way to the highway. Cynthia caught my eye in the rearview mirror as we snaked away from the city, through the suburbs, and into the wilderness beyond.

“James, I have my suspicions you might be a dragon.”