🐦 Magpie Bridge 🐦

17

“Look at me.”

I didn’t look.

“Look at me.”

I muttered “Oh, hold on.” and gently took his hand off of my arm.

Cory stared at his hand for a moment, then let out a deep sigh.

He shifted his fingers as he looked at me, still in my weird state. Then, he made me hover midair. I stopped thinking at the sudden change of gravity and opened my eyes wide.

Then, he proceeded to wrap his blanket around me. The blanket was larger than I thought, and it wrapped around me from head to toe like a mummy. The blanket, wrapped around me and even covering my face, smelled like candy.

I floated in midair as a strawberry mummy. When I asked him what he was doing, he didn’t respond. My body just floated there, still mummified with the blanket. I couldn’t see what was going on because the blanket was blocking my vision.

I heard Cory put down his book and come closer.

“Heave ho.”

It felt like he had undone his magic. My body slowly floated down into someone’s arms. Cory was holding me. Cory slowly patted my back and walked over to the sofa. After hearing him mutter, ‘I didn’t see you like that, but you’re heavy…’ I wriggled around to get out, but he was stronger than expected and didn’t let me go.

He continued to pat my back with a steady beat as he laid me down on the sofa.

The cushion that had been on the floor just a moment ago was already on the sofa. The sofa was incredibly soft.

“You should sleep for until club activities are over.”

Then, Cory put my magic notebook into his bag. I couldn’t see very well, but I could see his back through the small slit between the blanket.

He sat down on my chair and began to work on what I had been working on just before.

“Calm yourself down.”

His tone, which was nonchalant yet consoling, made me feel like a child. Everything had happened so long ago, but the sadness kept on coming back.

I could feel a lump in my throat when I thought about how old my mental age was and how much this was affecting me now. The blanket covered my face and it felt like tears would spring up. But I didn’t cry. I didn’t make a sound.

As the days passed, I began to dream about my past more often. And because of that, I felt that my memories of my past life were becoming stronger. I was still living in past memories. It was still incredibly vivid, as if everything had just happened yesterday.

I could feel my emotions as I had died. I had tried to grasp onto my consciousness as hard as I could to not die, but in the end, I couldn’t take responsibility for everybody. I tried as hard as I could, but I couldn’t accomplish anything. I could only close my eyes without any compensation for my difficult life, leaving behind my younger siblings.

Whenever I missed my past life I always stayed sad for the entire day, but I had never shed tears.

I closed my eyes, annoyed at myself for being comforted by a kid who was younger than my current and past life combined.

And just as Cory had said, after sleeping my shaky emotions were all organized, and I could return to normal.

***

These days, Cory was an incredibly helpful member of the magic circle manipulation club. I decided to make him another product to thank him. It wasn’t much: just a piercing that would make it easier to work with magic.