Reality Check

The Possibility Effect

Sweet Disposition (By The Temper Trap)

"Just stay there, 'cause I'll be coming over. While our blood's still young . . ."

___

"How much longer until your location spell finally does it's job?" Charm demanded.

"Soon!" Kiel called back, without turning around. He was marching ahead of them all, his arms swinging at his sides.

"We've been walking for twenty minutes already. How much longer is soon?"

"Not sure," the boy magician said. "The location spell has never taken this long to find a person. You'd think they wouldn't have walked so far."

"It's a big forest!" Kara said, tilting her head up towards the trees. "They must've had to walk for a while just to get to the pure possibility."

Charm sighed deeply. "Right." She looked at Kara. "You sure that bracelet of yours doesn't work?"

"Yep." Kara dug her hand inside her pocket, showing them the smashed up pieces of her time bracelet. Owen winced at the sight. "Sadly, it's still very, very broken. If I had the time or equipment to fix it, I would." She stuffed it back in her pocket. "Stupid mummy."

"Yeah, I hate mummies." Kiel flashed her a wink.

"Me too." She grinned. "I'm never watching a mummy movie again after that."

"Wait a minute . . . there are movies about mummies?" Kiel stopped in his tracks, giving Owen a betrayed look. "I didn't know that."

"That's because we only showed you the good ones," Owen explained. "Like Moana and Newsies, but you fell asleep during those."

The boy magician scrunched his eyebrows together. "What is . . . 'New . . . sees'?"

Owen opened his mouth to answer, ready to put his much-too-extensive knowledge to use and get to do something he'd never been able to do: explain the plot of a musical. He'd never had a reason to do it until now. Not even with Bethany, because she only knew a select few musicals and didn't spend as much time on them as he did.

Just like that, he found himself getting excited. "Newsies is—"

"Keep moving! We don't have time to stand around and talk about pointless things." Charm huffed, giving them all little shoves.

They weren't so little though, because Owen nearly fell directly into Kara from the impact. He quickly straightened himself out. Maybe if he was taller, or had a lot of muscle, he wouldn't lose his balance every time Charm shoved him. Granted, she'd shoved him a lot in the time that he'd known her. Even if she wasn't half-robotic, Owen had a feeling she'd still have more muscle than he ever would.

"Not pointless," Owen whispered, trying very hard not to feel insulted by Charm's comment. He sped up his pace, deciding he'd tell Kiel another time. "So do you guys even see the pure possibility? 'Cause all I'm seeing is trees." He glanced at his friends for confirmation, and their expressions gave him enough of an answer.

And it was a lot of trees, more than Owen had ever seen in one place. Maybe hundreds lined the horizon. He and Bethany often walked through the woods as a shortcut to get to the library, but the amount of trees there were nothing compared to the amount and size of the trees in this book.

"You'd better be right," Charm said, as each of them stepped over a fallen log. "I'm starting to think we're going the wrong way."

Owen shook his head. "We saw them go this way."