The Madrona Heroes Register: Echoes of the Past

Chapter 7 - The Suspicious Phone Call

Jay and Julie Jordan would have been hard pressed to remember a time when anything could have gotten both of their eldest children to instantaneously stop yelling at each other in the middle of a heated argument. But neither parent had ever tried disappearing into thin air.

Time had not actually stopped, but it might as well have for Zach and Binny. Their sister had been there one moment, and was gone the next. What had just happened? What had they just seen? WHERE WAS CASSIE? 

It happened so quickly. Zach was just about to launch into a bout of nervous upset laughter and Binny was on the verge of a fresh round of tears, both thinking their sister was gone forever. But at the last possible moment, before her siblings could do anything, Cassie reappeared.

First there was a fuzzy, partly transparent image of a little girl, then shiny white tendrils reappearing, this time shrinking back into her, reversing their previous paths. Then all of a sudden Cassie was there – peering tenuously over the hands she had up to her face as if to gauge her siblings’ reaction.

Zach and Binny’s faces seemed to indicate sheer terror. Their expressions scared Cassie. Badly. She crumpled, sobbing, curled in a ball on the sidewalk. 

Binny was the first to reach out. “Cassie, it’s okay.” Binny crouched down and took her shaking sister in her arms. 

Zach followed quickly. “Don’t worry, it’s all right.” he repeated, trying to soothe Cassie and probably himself a little as well. 

As Cassie started to catch her breath, Zach, who was still crouching, looked at Cassie earnestly and asked the question that was darting around in his mind, “Where did you go?”

Cassie’s eyes got wide for a moment. Then she broke into a toothy grin and laughed, still wiping the tears from her cheeks. “Huh? Nowhere!” Cassie looked at Binny trying to indicate that their brother might be a little crazy.

Binny smiled at her sister sweetly but with a note of concern. “You… you,” Binny didn’t quite know how to phrase this next sentence, “You were gone for a few seconds. And then you were back.”

Cassie’s smile started to fade a little. “No. I was here the whole time since the man was here with his dog until now. I didn’t go anywhere.” Cassie now sounded less scared but more annoyed.

Zach motioned to Binny to let him try again. Binny was annoyed at Zach for waving her off but acquiesced. “We were standing right here,” said Zach, “and all of a sudden we couldn’t see you. And then after a little while, there was this glow and ‘poof’,” Zach smiled as he said “poof” to try and help Cassie relax, “we could see you again.” Did you realize we couldn’t see you?”

“I was hiding.” Cassie responded plainly. “Sometimes I hide.” 

“When you don’t want people to see you.” Zach finished Cassie’s thought for her. “Can you do it again?”

“Zach!” Binny almost yelled.

“What?” Zach said.

“Are you kidding?”

“What? It’s a perfectly reasonable question.”

Binny paused for a moment and turned to Cassie. “Well, can you? Do it again I mean?”

Cassie took her siblings’ interest as an indication that maybe it was okay after all. She responded in a small voice. “I don’t know.”

§

 “It’s magic.”

“It’s not magic. There’s no such thing as magic.”

“Then what is it?”