My radio blared tinny upbeat music which dragged me out of a deep, restful slumber. After quickly slapping the snooze button, I achieved a wonderful full-body stretch without my feet falling off the end of the bed. Three weeks prior this would have been impossible. As I slowly sat up, I decided to make a quick appraisal of my arcane reserves. My awareness prodded the weird spot within my brain which previously had been brimming with energy and found a complete lack of anything. As I prodded around in this conceptual space, I was plunged into darkness. I only barely registered my head falling the short distance back to the bed.
Suddenly, my radio was playing music again and I was distantly aware that it was a different, slower song. My departure from the waking world had left my body awkwardly splayed out on top of the sheets. I blearily lifted my head once more and reached back over to the radio. This time I made sure I hit the off button.
"It is a good thing I was not standing up," I muttered frustratedly to the empty room.
My excessive energy expenditure this weekend must have finally caught up with me. I doubted that my magic was entirely gone, but prodding at that spot seemed like a terrible idea if it was going to make me pass out. Even if I was running dry in terms of arcana, I still felt fine physically. If I had somehow destroyed my connection to magic, I expected that would have felt much worse. I was not even sure it was possible to lose my sense of magic and Aurora's memories only seemed to warn about passing out when your limits were hit. Misjudging how much power I was able to throw around was a serious problem if we had to keep fighting other magic users. Chromos and Corona still hanging around meant even our recent victory had not solved whatever problem they were summoned to resolve. There was nothing left to do to fix my arcane connection other than to wait for my stores to refill so I forced myself to stop dwelling on it.
As I rubbed my eyes, I reran myself through yesterday's events, slowly coming the conclusion that today was Monday and meant that I had to get ready for school. Griping silently to myself about needing to get up so early, I collected an outfit comprised of the newer items in my wardrobe I had purchased with Sarah and threw them on. When I slung the backpack over my shoulder, I heard the clicks and clacks of the marbles we had collected from last night. Considering that I had no idea what they did, taking those to school would be a terrible idea.
After we fled from the skin stitcher at the witch's house, I did my best to explain what it was that attacked us to the group. I barely had any information to give other than what it was called. Sarah remembered that there had been one on the table in the basement, but it was gone when we returned. After the group calmed down, Dan and I transferred the magically charged spheres into my backpack at my insistence. "You really should not leave magic artifacts mixed in with your father's tools." I had said. He gave me a look I could not place so I smiled broadly and responded, "No magic, remember?"
"And you have a better idea?" Dan had asked.
"I will throw them in my mom's magic supplies safe when I get home!" I had said excitedly. What followed was the two of us sitting on the tailgate of Dan's truck in Chris's driveway while we carefully had picked out the marbles from among the tools. The marbles now sat in the front pouch on my backpack. While we had worked we went over the scraps of information we had found in our search trying to determine our next move.
The witch that had kidnapped Chris had been living in Thread Creek for a while and had likely created the shade army. We had no idea how many shades there were total, but over the last week and a half we had to be approaching a count of forty. Dan relayed from his guardian that the room covered in magic circles was some sort of summoning tool for shades, but the area downstairs had a different purpose. Later, with a review of the pictures that Chris had taken, we confirmed that the circles did not match.
"I was reading through my mom's notes from about twenty years ago," I had said to Dan. "She saw a bunch of shades at the river, but the entry did not mention fighting them. I think she planned to, but I have not read much of it yet. There was something at the river she was checking on. I cannot remember the word she used."
"Sounds like before we check out that address we found, you should read more of that diary," Dan had said with a laugh. "We need to know what we're walking into, Laura."
"Hmm, I am not sure about that. This woman, Kimberly Ashford, was not here twenty years ago. Or at least she did not own this house then," I had responded.
"But what about this 'Ann' character? Maybe that's who your mom was dealing with back then?"
"Oh, maybe," I muttered. "Okay, I will read more when I get a chance. Maybe she wrote down a name."
I was supposed to put the marbles in the safe last night and grab the notes, but I was completely exhausted when I got home. I figured it was fine to just dump them out of my backpack and leave them in my room to deal with them later. To quickly solve my current problem, I roughly upended my backpack and let the marbles roll out onto the hardwood floor next to my bed. As they began to quickly roll in every direction away from me, I sighed and slapped my head. Of course they were going to do that. Why did I just dump them out like that?
It was far too early in the morning to crawl around my room and under my bed to collect all of the scattered orbs, so I left that task for tonight. I grabbed most of the marbles that had not rolled away and shoved them into the drawer of my bed's side table. As I closed the drawer, I checked the radio on top of the table for the time. Thankfully, I still had plenty of time to eat breakfast before the bus arrived. I walked out of my bedroom with my now lightened backpack in tow, stepping carefully to avoid any stray, round magical artifacts. As I approached the door, I was reminded of the mirror I had shattered on Wednesday. The bits of glass had been vacuumed up, but the remains of the mirror still hung on the door.
"I really am making a mess of this place, huh?" I muttered as I removed the mirror from its hook on the door. A quick trip through the house's back door allowed me to deposit the broken mirror in the garbage bin before I proceeded to the kitchen.
"Be careful if you go into my room because I dropped a bag of marbles in there," I said as I rounded the corner and saw my father.
"Resorting to setting traps in your room already?" my father said as he scraped at a frying pan full of cooking eggs.
"It was not exactly on purpose. I will take care of it after school."
"Well, I can't really think of a reason why I would go in your room anyway. Don't worry about it, Laura. Do you want eggs?"
"Yes, please," I said as I placed two fresh pieces of bread into the toaster and put my dad's toast onto a plate for him.
"I was thinking about your mother this morning and—" my father began. His words paused slightly, but continued, "Well, anyway it was more about magic itself. It's basically an open secret at this point. Around twenty years ago someone tried to make a huge circle in the sky over St. Louis using blimps or planes or something. I think they even tried doing cloud seeding. It wasn't just a ring, but had a bunch of details, other shapes. It was in the news and on TV, but people wrote it off as some sort of skywriting stunt. Your mom said there were some rogue magic users trying to do something to the city. It was a recurring topic of speculation in the magazines she read every month."
My father's storytelling felt a bit scattered, but I listened intently as he scooped out the eggs in the pan and placed them onto his toast. After a stretch of silence, I prompted him to continue, "So there was some sort of mailing list for wizards and witches that you signed up for?"
"Something like that," my father said with a laugh. "Those magazines were nothing fancy, just bundles of paper, really, self-published, a bit thrown together," he said as he popped my toast onto a plate and placed the remaining eggs on top.
"I will grab forks," I offered. We met at the table and began eating.
"How is school going?"
"Good, mostly. I do have mid-terms this week. I feel fine about most of them except history."
"Not math? Wasn't that the subject giving you trouble?"
"Yeah, it just seems to... click now, somehow," I said tapping the fork idly on the plate and moving around a stray chunk of egg. "No idea why."
"Good luck with your tests. I found they always stressed me out. Studying helped, mostly."
"Do you have any of those magazines still?" I asked, looking over towards the understairs storage where I knew the safe was.
"If we had any they would have been in the safe I think," he said with a shrug. His expression was distant.
"What about since then? Have things been quiet for twenty years?" I asked.
"Well, we stopped getting the magazines years ago. Around when your mother died. I think they pulled us off the list. Your mother asked me to not get involved with magic so I didn't pursue it. I wouldn't even know how to get in touch with whoever ran it," he said as he forced a smile.
"Thanks for telling me this stuff, Dad," I said showing a smile of my own. "I know it is hard to talk about."
"It's nice actually. It's good to not just hold it all in."
My father continued to prod me about school, but my thoughts drifted to the safe and the items inside. The necklace jumped to mind and I was momentarily stunned. I had totally forgotten about it. I was wearing it on Friday when we found the silk eggs at the river, but on Saturday I had completely forgotten about it. I had not been expecting a fight, and I was just going to Chris's house to study. Maybe I should start wearing it all the time just in case? It was a good idea, especially if we started running into more magic wielding kidnappers who used people as ingredients for spells. Then again, I was not quite sure what the necklace did, if it did anything at all. I only knew it was magical so it must be doing something, right? After I finished breakfast, I resolved to retrieve it and wear it as much as I could.
-*-
"Hey Laura," Sarah said as she took the seat next to me on the bus. Her voice had called me out of a hazy near-sleeping state.
"Oh uh," I stammered, blinking for a few seconds. "Hi Sarah."
"Still a big ol' sleepyhead?" Sarah said with a giggle.
"Yeah, well, some things do not change," I said.
"I saw you and Dan talking last night. Are, you two uh—" she paused briefly. "Are things better now?"
"Yup. I think so. We had a long talk. It seemed more relaxed, like old times. Maybe a bit different still, but better compared to his more recent standoffish weirdness," I said.
"There is actually something that has been bothering me since Saturday," I said, dropping my voice.
"Hmm?" Sarah turned to look at me with a hint of worry flashing across her face.
"It was too easy. I know there were three of us, but still. She had the drop on me," I nearly whispered.
"When that first bolt hit you, it was also reflected back at her because of Dan's ward. And it happened downstairs too, with Chris. I guess she wasn't prepared for that," Sarah explained in a quiet voice. Her face brightened and she continued without whispering, "So, ready for test week?"
"Mostly," I said, shrugging. "I am going to fail history, but the rest should be fine. My plans to study over the weekend got replaced."
"And we didn't even get paid for saving the town," Sarah said with a smirk.
"Not with money," I said, raising my hand between us palm up. Attempting to form a small sphere of ice in my hand, I gently pulled on my magic. My head suddenly stung, my vision swam, and a pit opened in my stomach. The place I had reached to pull on my arcane energy was instead pulling on me.
"Laura!" Sarah's voice reached me, and her hand was on my shoulder propping my head up. "What just happened?" I was dimly aware that I had lost some time.
"Oh," I mumbled, glancing around. "I tried for a small ice sphere, but even that was too much for me. This weekend really took it out of me." I had no real excuse for this mistake since I had tried magic already once this morning and failed. Putting on my mother's necklace did not seem like it helped, but that was not very surprising—I was still unsure what it even did.
"You tried to use magic, here?" Sarah hissed in my ear. "What were you thinking? And on top of that you're out of magic? You're going to get hurt doing that! Didn't you say Aurora told you to be careful?" Why was showing off my magic some sort of reflex to me?
"Huh? When did you...?" I asked, trailing off as I registered the frustration in her face.
"I heard when you were talking to Dan about it," Sarah explained. "Try not to create some sort of spectacle, okay?"
"Sorry, it was a weird reflex. I did not really think about it," I shrugged.
"Have you done this before? Where?"
"At home, I guess," I muttered. I decided that telling Sarah about the gym incident or when I brandished an ice blade at Dan in the school hallway was not a good way to start my morning.
"Laura, come on. I get that you're sleepy and stressed about midterms, but you really need to think about what you're doing a bit more."
I took several deep breaths to calm myself after Sarah's chiding and closed my eyes. After a few moments an unrelated question came to me. A perfect opportunity to change the subject away from me. "So, have you told your parents? I know Dan has not."
"Nope." Her response was quick, almost sharp.
"Oh," I sighed. "Are you sure that is a good idea? This could go on for months."
"Telling them is for sure not good idea," Sarah said with a huff.
"Why?" I pressed.
"It's a long story, but I know how they would react," Sarah said. "That's that."
Her head turned away from me and towards the front of the bus. She had no interest in explaining and the abrupt change in her demeanor bothered me.
Would she have told Lucas what was bothering her?
It did not matter.
I could not start just second guessing my friends' behaviors just because I was different now. It was not helpful and it would only stress me out.
We sat in silence and I stared out the window brooding over tomorrow's history test I was dreading. My eyes barely registered the changing sights beyond the glass as the bus continued its route.
"Hey girls," Dan said as he sat down across the aisle from us.
"Hi Dan," I said brightly.
His smile in response was a welcome change from his usual dull expression he gave me the entire first full week of my life. It was still so strange to think I had stolen Lucas's life just nine days ago.
No. These unconstructive intrusive thoughts were not helping.
I needed to stop thinking about how I had not even existed two weeks ago. What did it matter if I was whatever was left over after Aurora and Lucas were gone? It was done. Dwelling on it would not help to rid those spirits from my friends' heads. And one of my friends in particular was starting to get sick of his new head squatter. I was a full third of—
"How many tests do you have today, Dan?" Sarah asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.
"None!" Dan said. "I do have three tomorrow, though. So, that'll be rough."
"I have two today," I said.
"Only one for me! Physics," Sarah said. "It'll be fine even though it's not really my thing. I've studied."
"Are we doing our normal after-exams party this Thursday? Sarah, do you have a movie already picked out?" Dan asked.
"I was planning on it, yeah. And I've got just the thing: It Came from the Bog!" Sarah said excitedly.
"I am guessing that is not a new film, right?" I asked.
"I bet it's one of those old B movie monster horror movies Sarah gushes over," Dan said to me.
"You're both right. It'll be great, especially with pizza and popcorn. A nice way to unwind after dumping out our brains of all this stuff we've memorized," Sarah beamed.
"Don't you get bored of old monster movies?" Dan asked with a laugh.
"Maybe it is a good idea considering what we are dealing with?" I said with a shrug.
"Laura, I highly doubt that these movies will help us at all, they're only fun!" Sarah chortled.
"Well, if you want to do research for us while you're working at the Video Zone feel free," Dan said.
"That would be the place to look, though I don't know their collection very well. I tend to buy rather than rent," Sarah said.
"It generally gets quiet at the end of my shift, so maybe I will start the hunt then? For now, I think I will start studying more," I said as I started to pick through my backpack. I pulled out my notes that I had made over the last week of studying with Chris in homeroom and began trying to recite the summaries in my head as the bus continued to the school. Dan and Sarah kept talking but I was able to tune them out and focus on history.
-*-
After a short history study session in homeroom with Chris, I was thrown directly into the fire of back-to-back tests in my biology and English classes. The biology test was more difficult than I had expected, especially with so much of my time devoted to history. I still was pretty sure that I landed a score close to what Lucas would have received so I pushed it out of my mind and headed to English. The English midterm was a reading section followed by a timed analysis essay which I felt was extremely easy. It helped that the new book we just started on was not on the test. Blasting through that was nice change of pace from the oncoming dread of the history test. With both of my tests for the day completed, I was able to finally breathe a sigh of relief. Even Mr. Eckhart's trigonometry class could not knock me out of my pleasant mood and when it ended I was excited for my lunch break.
My pleasant mood only grew as I realized I had reached the cafeteria in record time. After grabbing my food from the short line, I sat down at our usual table. A few minutes later I was joined by Chris and Sarah, but a glance around the room revealed Dan was nowhere to be found.
"I didn't see Dan when I was in line. Do you think he skipped lunch?" Chris said as he watched me scanning the tables.
"There's no way. He's here. I'll be right back," Sarah stood up and darted across the cafeteria.
I sighed and gave my lunch an uneasy look. A terrible feeling that I would not have much of an appetite after Dan came back overcame me. He was acting more like could trust me yesterday, what had changed? I watched with dread as I saw Sarah's shock of red hair darting between the rows and finally returning to our table.
"Sit," she ordered Dan as she tugged him by the arm and pointed at the table. "I know it's awkward, do it anyway." Dan could have easily resisted Sarah, but for some reason he was allowing himself to be forced back to our table. He gave me a guarded look before actually taking a seat at the table.
"Apologize to her," Sarah said softly. "I'm sick of this hanging over our group."
"Sarah, we're cool now. She knows," Dan said motioning at me, nearly begging me to agree. "I was dealing with something before heading over here, I swear."
"Just apologize," Sarah repeated.
What am I supposed to say?" Dan asked. There was a slight unease in his voice, but his words also somehow seemed genuine.
"You know exactly what you're supposed to say. You've been tormenting our friend. She's your friend too, you know!" Sarah's normally animated cheery voice was replaced by one that was hard and stern. "I was there too, you know. We spent an entire weekend with her. She's our friend we've always known and she's still our friend."
"Before the guardians everything was so different. She was different! Now everything is so fucked." Dan suddenly looked deflated. He looked down at the table with a grimace.
"I am not excited for us having to stand in as the town's magical militia either." I sighed. Dan gave me a confused look as if he was expecting me to say something else.
"Dan, she showed me how to do magic. I don't think anyone would share something so important with just anyone. That's totally a friend thing," Chris said. "You've known her for years. She's the same person." Chris meant well and I wanted so badly for him to be right, but I feared he was dead wrong.
"Some of her, maybe," Dan said warily. "I just don’t want what happened to her to happen to either of you." His voice dropped even quieter before he continued, "Or anyone else."
"Dan, I don't even have a guardian," Chris said with a laugh.
"You are using magic and we have no idea how any of this stuff actually works," he shot back.
"I'm pretty sure it saved my life," Chris said with a note of pride and a big smile.
"If it makes you feel any better Dan, this has been a lot for me, too. You make one little mistake with magic then suddenly your entire life is different," I said, letting the frustration pour out of me. I really was still their friend in all the ways that actually mattered. At least all the ways I felt mattered. That should be enough. That was enough. "I do not want anything like that to happen to my friends. I swear."
"You mentioned being 'both of them' or something," Dan said uneasily. I worried he was about to blow up at me again. What had Sarah said to him? "Do you know how it happened?"
"As best I understand it, on that day I was transformed Lucas got really frustrated by it. He dropped all his mental defenses and directed all his energy towards destroying the bond. He thought without the bond he would turn back. He directed the energy inward, towards himself. In a way he actually ended up succeeding in removing the bond, but in the worst way. Lucas and Aurora merged. The result was me. That is what I have worked out based on what is left of their memories."
I glanced around the table as I spoke expecting the others to cut in, but no one interrupted. If I was reading their expressions correctly, it seemed like they were urging me to continue. Even Dan finally seemed willing to listen.
"So, for just this conversation you are allowed to call the past parts of me Lucas and Aurora, okay? It is less confusing that way," I said. "But after this please just refer to me, present or past, as Laura. Repeatedly hearing the names of who I used to be have started to really bother me."
I paused for a moment and again no one spoke up. Having full control of the conversation felt a bit daunting.
"So, two nights ago I had a dream about when Lucas transformed and what happened after. It really got to me. I have all their memories. Or what is left of their memories. I am both of them and both of them are me. But please just call me Laura. It is my life now. I have told my dad and now I have told all three of you. I think that is all I need to do. It is done. I just want to live as normally as I can. I feel like I am repeating myself from Saturday and just rambling," I said, trailing off.
"Laura, I'm sorry I treated you like that," Dan said. "But I didn't want it to happen to me or my friends." His words sped up as he talked and he blurted, "And now I know it won't. I know you're not my enemy."
"Thanks Dan," I said, forcing a smile onto my face. "What made you change your mind?"
"You helping rescue Chris. If you weren't our friend you would have just left. It's not like we could have forced you to help us. When he was gone all this dumb magic shit suddenly became real to me," he said. His shoulders were hunched and he looked deeply uncomfortable. The silence stretched for a moment longer and he took a deep breath. He sat up straighter and looked directly at me and said, "We need all the help we can get and that means I should not throw away my friends. I'm sorry."
"And Sarah put you up to this?" I said derisively.
"Laura, I know I've been a bit of a jerk—" he began, but I cut him off.
"You and your asshole football teammates," I spat.
"Just because they're my teammates doesn't mean they're all my friends. Nothing I did was anything as bad as what Tommy did or wanted to do," he said. "Oh, and he's back today so, uh, be careful."
"Oh, thanks for the warning," I said as I deflated.
"Also, let me know if Tommy bothers you again. I hope he won't do anything stupid," Dan said evenly. "And I still don't trust Chromos, but you, Laura? I trust you. You've done nothing but help us."
"Thanks Dan," I repeated. Tears were starting to form in my eyes as my frustration ebbed away. "You are friends with at least some of your teammates, right?" Was that why he still sat with Lucas—well, me now—Sarah, and Chris? Did he not have any actual friends on the football team?
"Yeah," Dan began mid-chew before swallowing the food and continuing, "A few of them are cool, but I get enough of them in the locker room. They're a bit too deep into meathead land for me sometimes." Sarah could not restrain a burst of giggles.
"Too deep even for you?" she said with a wide smile.
I looked down at my untouched food and slowly began to pick at it while I fretted about the upcoming history test tomorrow. Worries preoccupied my thoughts as I ate while the conversation between my friends moved on to lighter topics.