Sable sighed and handed mom the portal crystal sample to inspect.
“Portal crystal is just what we call it colloquially around here, since we’ve got a big chunk of it that forms a portal to Alfheim.”
That was the first time I’d heard her refer to Ambar with a term less slapdash than “elf land”. I was vaguely aware the word had some connection to some kind of Norse interpretation of elves, and I found myself wondering if the old Norse cosmology was actually real, or if this was just a name that Earth witches agreed on. Most of them probably didn’t know the Elven word for it, I guessed.
”However, the technical name we’ve been using is ‘planar quartz’. It’s a crystal growth that doesn’t just repeat its pattern in its spatial structure, but also in its planar structure. The chunk of it in our cave and the chunk of it in Alfheim that form the endpoints of our portal aren’t just two similar chunks, they’re the same chunk, grown across worlds.”
This was apparently a bunch of new information for Mom, as she took a minute to process it. “You’ve got a stable portal to Alfheim in your backyard made out of this stuff. And it exists across planes. So, any chunk of this crystal is…”
Sable nodded, confirming her thoughts. “Yeah, it connects elsewhere to here. The sensor network picked something up just now when the PRISM started sparking. It was the same reading as when the manticore incursion started.”
We all looked at the PRISM like it was a live hand grenade. Mom spoke up first. “Sable, could I trouble you for a containment device of some kind? I think I need to take this into the lab ASAP and do some forensic analysis.”
That seemed like the logical course of action, and the sooner the better. Sable ran off to find something and said she’d meet us outside, so I escorted Mom out. She picked up her industrial push broom from where it was propped outside and brought out a sigil to cast on it. I eyed the broom. “Alright, this has been bugging me. Why are you using that as your broomstick?”
Mom smirked as the broom began hovering a few feet off the ground, then patted its wide head. “Different brooms handle differently. Having a ton of short bristles gives you better top speed at the cost of maneuverability compared to a standard broom.”
I frowned. “That’s just the same third-tier Broomstick spell everyone uses, right? It doesn’t say anything about that in the book.”
She smirked. “Looked it up, huh? You won’t find that tidbit in most books, but study the sigil carefully and it should become clear why, at least once you’ve got some mana theory down. Morgan, I think you’ll be really good at that kind of thing, with your background. Better than your sister, probably. I’ve really done you a disservice, haven’t I? I’m so sorry…”
I was kind of floored to get an unprompted apology from her, even if it wasn’t a particularly good one. She smiled nervously, saying “We have a lot of things to talk about, when you’re ready. I know it must have felt like I was raising you as a second-class child, and though I didn’t mean to, I probably… no, I definitely was. You deserved better. Promise me you’ll visit when you can, and we can talk more about… everything?”
I didn’t really know what to say to all that, but I definitely had some things I wanted to talk out with her and get off my chest. While the thoughts I had in my dragon form about mom were maybe not things I would consciously think under normal circumstances, I had to assume they were based on real feelings, feelings I wanted to get resolution on.
“Alright mom. I’ll visit. And we can talk. And the coven, they… weren’t just there as convenient babysitters to foist me off with during those girls’ nights, were they?”
She shook her head. “No, honey. We couldn’t, or at least we didn’t think we could tell you back then, but they each thought of you as their son, they all wanted to spend time with you. I thought giving you plenty of time with all of your family would be good for everyone, but I guess I relied on them too much. I got complacent. Last summer was particularly bad, wasn’t it? It was the end of Sabrina’s formal magic training. I thought I needed to cram as much magical theory into her over summer break as I could before she went off to college herself and she started self-study.”
That’s right. Sabrina was only a year behind me, so she’d gone to college herself after that summer. Knowing what I know now, I had to wonder what my summer break would have looked like if I’d just gone home. Would it have been more of the same? Would Sabrina’s self-directed studies have given Mom and me more time? Would I have gotten a shiny new beta PRISM and started my own delayed magical training? Would it have spawned a manticore in my house? Hypotheticals that were hard to answer now.
As I pondered those alternate timelines, Sable came out of the house, holding something that looked suspiciously like a purple Crown Royal bag. She presented it to Mom. It was… a Crown Royal bag. We both looked at her skeptically.
“What? I drew a containment sigil on it. Just be sure to tie off the drawstrings.”
Mom popped the malfunctioning PRISM into the bag and tied it off, looking at the bag with disdain. “Alright, I need to get this home. I’ll let you know if I learn anything about it,” she said and shoved it into her satchel. While she was in there, she pulled the metal wand out. “Morgan, take this, you need it more than I do right now.”
“That’s what you were using to shoot lightning bolts, isn’t it? Did you convert a wizard spell?” I asked.
“No, this is a normal wizard’s wand,” she said. I could guess from context that a wand must just be a spell sigil baked into something a bit sturdier than paper so that it could be used multiple times without burning up.
Sable titled her head at this. “Wait, then how were you using it?”
Mom pulled a ring off her finger. I recalled seeing her wearing it often, but I’d never really taken a close look at it. “This has been in the family a long time. It converts between mana expressions, so you can activate wizard sigils like this wand. You’ll probably have more use for these than I do if you’re tangling with monsters from Alfheim.”
She passed me the ring and the wand, and I couldn’t help to be a bit entranced at being handed some kind of magical artifact and a wand that literally shot lightning bolts. Looking over the ring closely, it had an intricate sigil, or at least a rune pattern of some sort, etched into its surface. They were tiny, but with my enhanced senses I could see it had a combination of witch and wizard runes. “This is… you can use both types of runes in a sigil?”
“It’s a bit advanced, but yes. I used this as a basis for a lot of SAT’s products, since it’s more convenient if you can sell the same devices to men and women. You still won’t be able to sense male mana, so what you can achieve with that ring has its limits, but activating a wizard sigil should be doable with practice. It’s kind of like being a hedge wizard.”
“Neat,” I said, though something about this was tugging at a particular heart string. I let Sable look the ring over, apparently dying with curiosity herself.
I looked over the wand. A proper ranged attack spell would be useful for fighting incursion monsters. But… she was always doing this. Giving me things she thought I needed. Things to make up for not being there. These things were pretty cool, and admittedly, I might actually need them, but still. From her expression it looked like she knew what I was thinking. She could see my expression darkening.
“Don’t… don’t just leave me and give me things!” I shouted, emotions suddenly roiling. I knew rationally there was a good reason she was leaving right now, but it didn’t matter. She’d hit a landmine I didn’t realize was there. It must have been armed when I learned she’d spent all that time working on PRISM to fix me instead of just being honest with me, or just being with me. Yes, I knew rationally she probably only worked on that during business hours for the most part, but it felt like an excuse, a cop out, a way she could justify keeping things from me.
Mom looked ashamed, and seemed to shrink into herself. “It’s… not meant to make up for anything. Not this time. I know I can’t do that anymore. I just want to make sure you’re properly equipped if you’re going to be fighting monsters. Nobody in the family has hunted monsters in generations…”
We stood there, suddenly at a bit of an awkward impasse yet again, my face twisting with emotions I didn’t fully understand. Part of me wanted this whole thing to have gone smoothly, and wanted me to shove that outburst back in the bottle it came from. I internally debated making her take back the items. She stood there, allowing me to judge her, eyes averted presumably from the knowledge that she’d fucked things up with good intentions again.
After a few tense moments, Sable put a hand on my shoulder and stepped partially between us. “Ms. Owens, if I’m not mistaken, SAT uses the same benefits provider as Ward Pharma, right?”
Mom blinked and looked up at that. “Uh… yes, I think so?”
“Then magic-aware family counseling and individual therapy services are covered by both of your benefits,” she said in her professional persona voice.
There was a pause as we processed her forced smile and upbeat tone. Despite the corporate nature of her interjection, I knew it came from a place of love, and I laughed, my tension suddenly defused for the moment. Maybe she had a point. Mom wasn’t equipped to dig herself out of the hole she’d dug over a lifetime, and I wasn’t sure what kind of resolution I really wanted either. Maybe I wanted to spend some time chewing her out? Maybe I just wanted to spend time with her. Maybe I wanted some promises or action items, but if so, I didn’t know what. But I knew I wouldn’t feel so strongly about this if I didn’t love her, and she… well, for all her misguided bullshit, she’d flown across the country on a broom ready to kill a bitch with lightning for me. I knew she loved me even if she sucked at expressing it.
I took a deep breath and blew it out to calm myself down. “Yeah. Maybe we could use some therapy,” I admitted.
Mom looked at me sheepishly, but I saw hope there. “I’ll do it. Therapy, counseling. Whatever it takes. I can’t undo what I’ve done, but I don’t want things to go on like this.”
I nodded curtly. “And no more leaving me out of family secrets,” I added.
Mom seemed taken aback and speechless for a moment, which seemed odd, but she gathered herself and nodded. “Okay. You’ll get the family secrets. All of them. You and Sabrina both,” she said, blinking back tears.
I could accept that. We’d do therapy, and we could talk later. I could visit, or even just… call her on the phone, I guess. With all the secrets that had been kept from me because of my gender, I couldn’t just make blanket assumptions about things I thought I knew about my life growing up, and I wanted to know everything. And even if things were handled poorly, that didn’t mean we couldn’t move forward. I gave her a hug, and she seemed tense at first, but gripped me back tightly, like it was the first time we’d hugged in years. It might have been the first time we’d really connected properly in years, anyway. I may or may not have cried a little.
After we parted, we looked at each other, not speaking for a bit, when the Crown Royal bag she’d shoved in her bag started making noise like the PRISM was malfunctioning again. It calmed down shortly thereafter, seeming to prove the containment sigil worked, at least for now. We all looked at it with growing concern.
“I need to go, but… I love you, Morgan. Can I call you later?” she asked as she zipped her bag closed and got on her broom.
“...love you too, Mom. Yeah. Maybe… maybe not tonight,” I managed, trying to contain my uncertain emotions.
She nodded and glanced at Sable, giving her a polite smile. Her broom’s bristles seemed to glow brightly with mana for a few moments, and Mom braced herself low against the broomstick before she suddenly shot off into the sky, and was gone.
Sable waited a few respectful moments as she flew off before speaking. “You probably don’t realize the significance of this yet, but she just agreed to break a major mage tradition for you.”
I wiped the errant moisture from my face before turning to look at her. “What do you mean?”
“Mage families have had a long-standing rule. The family secrets only get passed down to the heir. The only way siblings get it is if something happens to the heir apparent. Even in families that produce multiple mages in a generation.”
No wonder she’d looked so surprised at my demand. But she’d agreed. “Why is that a rule?”
“Mostly another relic of a bygone era, where rivalries between mage families were life and death affairs, and you couldn’t risk a jealous sibling holding the keys to your line’s undoing. That’s also largely why magic is kept secret from null kids, by the way. Too many families turned over to the Inquisition or equivalent. I… won’t pretend breaking those traditions isn’t risky even today, but I like that she’s willing to try something different for you.”
I watched the sky where Mom had been for several seconds, processing what had happened today, but my practical side crept back in. “Sable? Is it okay that she’s just… flying through the air in broad daylight like that?”
“Probably. I assume she’s got a mana mask.”
“A what now?”
“Right, so have you seen Doctor Who, or read Hitchhiker’s Guide?”
“Yeah, a while back.”
“Think of it like a ‘Perception Filter’ or the ‘Somebody Else’s Problem Field’ from those.”
It felt weird to me that Sable was trying to explain magical concepts in terms of sci-fi pop culture references, but whatever worked, I guess. I vaguely recalled those concepts from those properties. While the fictional mechanics were a bit different in each, the outcome was largely the same: an object protected by one of these plot devices wasn’t technically invisible, but it caused viewers to disregard it, or at least perceive it as something innocuous.
“Uh, right, got it.”
“A mana mask makes it so people who don’t have meaningful amounts of mana probably can’t notice that she’s doing something unusual unless they’ve already become directly aware of magic. Even works through photos or videos, digital or analog, weirdly enough. Comes in different strengths. The big barrier has a fairly major one on it, by the way, so mundanes outside don’t notice anything going on inside.”
“That… sounds awfully convenient,” I said, thinking back to how nobody understood contract magic.
“Yeah, it does. And if that bothers you, maybe you’ll join my research team some day and help me clear up some of the bullshit. But anyway, if you want to see mana masks in action, go hunt for some YouTube videos about UFO sightings. I need to handle a few things, but then I’d like to talk to you about what happened earlier. Uh, with the dragon and the manticore, I mean.”
Intrigued by this suggestion and eager to take my mind of family stuff for a bit, I went back inside to get my tablet and found Lyris sitting on the couch already watching a video of her own.
“...if you liked this video and would like to see more like it, please subscribe, and as always, have a nice day. Thank you.”
“Still watching that channel, huh? How’s your writing coming, by the way?”
“Poorly. I discarded my first few attempts. It is hard to think of scenarios that are appealing to write about, but not true. I am mostly reading other works of fiction for examples. Do you have any ideas for a story?”
I could feel a sort of creeping curiosity and concern from her that had been there for a while. She’d obviously felt my emotional outburst earlier. I didn’t know whether she’d seen or heard any of that exchange, but it seemed like my desire not to talk about it right now had come across.
But as to her question, I wasn’t really sure how to answer. I wasn’t a writer by any means, so this was uncharted territory for me as well. “Alright, maybe try telling something that’s… like truth. You’ve had a… rough life, I’m guessing. Maybe write a story that mirrors your own, but where things go in a different direction, the life you would like to have led, if this isn’t it. Or how you’d like your life to go in the future, maybe.”
I had no idea if this was good advice, but maybe giving her something close to her heart to write about would give her some sort of inspiration. Maybe some time I’d try writing how I wanted things to have gone differently. Maybe my therapist would find that useful.
“That is… interesting. I will consider it,” she said.
“Oh, right. I wanted to look something up…”
Pulling up some UFO videos to cast to the TV, I was kind of surprised to see that while many of them still looked like grainy videos of a distant light moving oddly, several of them actually showed what appeared to be people riding on broomsticks or occasionally other objects. One of them even had a guy in a speedo riding on a surfboard, probably on his way to the beach if I had to guess.
Well, okay then. I guess the mana mask really does work. We watched more of these for a while before falling down a YouTube hole about writing advice for beginners, until Sable eventually came to collect me.
“Alright, Morgan. Let’s go back to the barn and meet this manticore.”