SPELLBOUND
〈chapter forty-one〉
Liam was in the boys' locker room putting away equipment, seeing as Coach had given him equipment duty when Mason had come in wanting to talk to him.
"They must have had someone up there. I mean, that's the only logical explanation," Mason tells him.
"Yeah. How do you know?"
"Logic. Also Corey & Ivy have a hunch," Mason tells him.
Liam was a bit surprised to hear that his girlfriend had a hunch and didn't tell him about it. But he let it pass, for now, hoping that she had a good reason for not telling him.
"What? Is that a chameleon thing?" Liam scoffs, clearly expressing his dislike for Corey and avoiding Ivy's involvement. "I thought all they could do was disappear."
"Corey just wants to help," Mason quickly defended.
"Yeah, where was he when we were fighting a nine-foot werewolf to save you? And why was he loyal to Theo for so long?" Liam questioned.
"There was a time where we all trusted Theo, including you."
"I'll trust him when he does something trustworthy. Unlike right now, when I can hear his heart racing from across the room." Liam points to the wall behind Mason. Mason turns around and Corey becomes visible.
"What about Hayden and Ivy? You forgave them, no problem. And yet, Ivy was the most loyal to Theo out of all of us," Corey stated/questioned.
"Hayden almost died that night trying to stop Sebastien. Ivy was under Theo's influence. She wasn't herself at all. All you did was hide."
"What was I supposed to do? You, Ivy, and Hayden have claws and fangs," Corey pointed out.
"Liam, look, it's not like chameleons are the apex predator of the animal kingdom. All Corey can do is disappear," Mason explains but his words managed to sting Corey. Mason noticed what he said and immediately began to regret it. His last sentence didn't really support nor defend his boyfriend like he had originally wanted to.
"Then maybe that's what he should do," Liam answers before exiting the locker room, leaving Mason & Corey behind.
"What?" Corey asks, noticing the look Mason was giving him.
"How is he supposed to trust you if you're hiding in the walls?"
"I already told you. With the expectation of Ivy, your friends aren't my friends. Why can't you just accept that?"
"That might work for you guys, but that doesn't work for me. And I'm sure as hell that Ivy would agree with me."
✯☾✯
Ivy had just gotten out of her meeting with the school's guidance counselor. A meeting she found absolutely unnecessary and completely unplanned.
When Corey, Mason, and herself had gotten back to school from the Sheriff's station, Mason had brought up the idea of catching Liam up on their investigation. And while they had been on their way to find Liam, the school's guidance counselor had approached them and had asked Ivy to go with her for a chat/meeting.
So now with the completely useless meeting being over, Ivy was making her way to the boys' locker room, having a feeling that's where Mason and Liam would be.
And reached the boys' locker room, she did. But she didn't enter, seeing as she overheard her name being mentioned.
She still couldn't believe that Corey and Liam still weren't the biggest fans of one another.
Both boys meant a lot to her and she hated that neither of them got along with one another. She let out a sigh as she saw Liam exiting the locker room.
"Ivy," he said, sounding surprised to see her standing out here.
Ivy shook her head in disappointment. "This little fuel or whatever the hell it is between you and Corey needs to stop."
"Ivy, wait-"
"No, you're listening to me. I'm sick and tired of it, Liam. I swear to god if you or Corey ever make me choose between the two of us. You're both going to be very fucking disappointed. I'm not some bloody pawn, that the two of you can just pick and choose."
And with that Ivy walked away. And to ensure that Liam couldn't follow her, she raised her hand as she transported herself out of the high school.
✯☾✯
Ivy was in her room in the McCall residence, laying on the floor as she stared at the ceiling. She wasn't exactly sure why she was laying on the floor instead of her bed, and she didn't really care.
Her mind was too busy running around in circles for her to care about where she laid. Ivy eventually sat up and the moment she did, she noticed one of her pictures on the floor.
"When did you fall?" Ivy asked no one in particular as she went to go pick up. But the moment she picked the photo up and turned it around to see which of her pictures was the fallen one, something felt off.
The picture was of her inside a car holding a milkshake in her hands. It seemed like a normal picture, but Ivy knew it was anything but that. For one she couldn't recall for the life of it whose car was in this picture. She knew of no one with this type of interior in their car.
And the logo on the milkshake also caught her a bit off guard. The location of that particular milkshake place was on the other side of town. There was no one Ivy could get there without someone having driven her.
Too many questions ran through her head as she continued to stare at the picture in her hand. Instead of putting the picture back up on her wall, she placed it down on her nightstand, before getting into bed, and closing her eyes.
✯☾✯
A cold breeze raced against Ivy's skin causing her to wake. She was certain she had the windows closed, so where was this breeze coming from. It wasn't until Ivy really looked that she realized that she wasn't in her bedroom at the McCall house. Instead, she was laying on the ground in the middle of the woods.
"How in the world?" Ivy spoke to herself as she got off the ground and stood up.
The location of her wakening confused her. Why had she woken in the woods in the exact same location where she had once come last semester to realize an insane amount of magical energy that she had been withholding.
Flashes of that night came crashing in.
Ivy felt her magic coming in through her body faster than the average speed of light.
She couldn't breathe. It was as if her own magic was suffocating her. She was scared. She didn't know what she was capable of doing.
She was running. She ended up at Beacon Hills Preserve.
Her magic continued on growing more powerful. More powerful than she could handle. Tears escaped her eyes.
"Let it out," a voice told her, though she was positive it was her conscious telling her to do so.
She let out a loud and powerful scream as the magic consuming her began to escape her body.
Ivy shook her head as the memory of that night passed by. She went to check her pockets for her phone so that she could call one of her friends to come and pick her up. Because the McCall house was like five miles away from here and she didn't feel like walking or running. She could have used her magic to transport her out of here, but all her magical energy was practically drained from when she transported herself out of high school.
But to her luck, she didn't have her cellphone on her. Just the fallen picture she found in her bedroom. Which was completely strange.
Since she didn't have her phone on her, she decided to do the next best thing. Use her magic to send a message. Luckily this ability didn't require a lot of energy, just a whole bunch of concentration.
"Remember all you have to do is concentrate on your emotional connection with the person you're trying to send a message," Killian's words crossed her mind as she let out a deep breath.
Ivy closed her eyes and began concentrating on her friendship with Hayden. "Hayden."
✯☾✯
Liam met up with Corey outside the school's library.
"I just wanted to tell you..." Corey began. "That I was wrong. I thought we could hate each other and it wouldn't matter. But it does matter. It matters to both Mason and Ivy. And they both matter to the both of us."
"I'm not trying to come between you and Mason. Nor your friendship with Ivy."
"And neither am I. But if we keep up like this, they might feel like they have to choose."
Liam sighed, "Ivy is already starting to feel like that," he confessed. "But do you want me to just act like nothing happened?"
"We could work together. Maybe we could find something together," Corey suggested.
"Yeah, like what?" Liam asked, sounding a bit interested.
"Like a trace of them."
"A Ghost Rider."
Little did Liam know that while he was out looking for a trace of the ghost riders with Corey, that his girlfriend had been out in the woods, completely alone and confused on how she got there in the first place.
✯☾✯
Hayden was in her bedroom, with Brett by her side. The two of them had decided to spend the night in, away from anything supernatural.
They had a movie playing in the background, but neither of them paid any attention to it. They were both currently engrossed with one another.
Brett leaned in to kiss her, and Hayden wasted no second before connecting her own lips with his. Brett's hands laid on her waist, as Hayden climbed on top of him. She wrapped her legs around his waist, practically straddling him. Brett's hands reached underneath Hayden's shirt, touching her skin.
But before the two of them could continue any further, Hayden quickly pulled away.
"What's wrong?" Brett asked her.
"Shh," Hayden silenced him, as she tried to listen to the voice in her head. A voice that sounded exactly like her best friend.
"Hayden. I need your help. Beacon Hills Preserve. You'll know where to find me once you're here. Quickly!"
Hayden climbed off Brett's lap and hopped off the bed.
"Hayden, what's wrong?" Brett asked once more, sounding both confused and concerned.
Hayden grabbed her jacket. "It's Ivy. I think she's in trouble." And with that Brett quickly got off the bed, grabbed his jacket, and followed Hayden out of her bedroom.
✯☾✯
Once Corey and Liam found the blank card, they knew they should tell their finding to both Mason and Ivy. Corey had texted Mason, while Liam texted Ivy.
Mason immediately rushed over to the library, but there had still been no word from Ivy. She wasn't answering any of their texts, and the mere thought caused Liam to worry. Something must have happened.
Liam watched as Corey gave Mason the card. "It's just like in physics. It wasn't there until you saw it. Then it became real. It's Schrodinger's cat. The quantum state of a superposition. To see something is to change its very existence. It changed reality."
"I still don't get it," Corey confessed.
"What do you think it is?" Liam asked.
"It looks like a library card, except it's blank," Corey replied.
Liam noticed the computer card reader nearby and snatched the card from Mason's hand. Liam jumps over the desk and swipes the library card through the card reader, before placing it down on the desk.
The computer screen shows a student, Jake Sullivan.
"Jake Sullivan. He was in the physics lab last night. He was Ivy's extra credit lab partner," Mason mentioned.
"I completely forgot about him," Corey comments.
"Me too. We have Spanish together," Liam states.
The boys look at the library card and realize that it is no longer blank. Liam picks up the library card, as Corey and Mason remember the events of last night.
"They erased him," Mason realizes.
Liam turns to Corey, "Yours and Ivy's hunches were right."
✯☾✯
Brett rode shotgun as Hayden pulled her car up to Beacon Hills Preserve. "How do you even know Ivy is here?" He asked as they exited the car.
"I just know and plus she told me."
"Magic?" Brett asked, figuring that had to be the only explanation when it came to Ivy.
"Magic."
Brett nods, "Well, lead the way babe."
The couple made their way further into Beacon Hills Preserve until they eventually found Ivy.
"Ivy," Hayden let out a sigh of relief as she found her best friend. "What happened? How did you even get out here?"
"I have no idea. One moment I was sound asleep in my bed and then the next I'm waking up out here."
"Why here though?" Brett asked.
Ivy shrugged her shoulders, "Again, no idea. But I think my mind might be trying to tell me something. Because last semester in this exact location, I practically had a little witch meltdown."
Hayden raised her eyebrows in confusion as she realized something. "How did you even get here last semester? It's not like you have a car, and Scott's house is like five miles away from here."
"I don't know, the same question has been running through my mind. I don't even know how I got here today or last semester. But-" Ivy pulls out the picture from her pocket. "I think whoever's car this is might have taken me here last semester."
"I don't recognize the car interior," Hayden confessed.
"Neither do I. But I think someone might have been in this picture with me."
✯☾✯
Ivy asked Hayden & Brett to drop her off at the animal clinic, hoping that Scott might be there and if not she could always speak with Deaton.
Ivy made her way through the Animal Clinic and eventually found herself in the back. Where Deaton, Scott, Malia, & Lydia were all located.
"Ivy, what are you doing here?" Scott asked, being the first one to noticed her presence.
"Uh, I need to talk to you. It's kind of a complicated story, um, what are you guys doing?" Ivy asked, hinting towards the stuff Deaton was setting up.
Scott then began to explain what happened. From him waking up in the middle of the woods. To Malia & Lydia joining him, and trying to help him piece things together. To him figuring out that he had a best friend, and how the three of them were all missing the same person.
"Scott, you woke up in the middle of the woods, today?"
"Yeah," Scott clarified.
"I woke up in the woods today as well. I literally just came from there. I came over here to talk to you or Deaton about it," Ivy pulled a picture out of her pocket. "There's something in my gut telling me that there was another person with me in this photo. And I think that it might be the same person from your photo."
"That's gotta be a coincidence, right?" Malia asked the group.
"More the reason to continue with this," Deaton stated as Ivy watched him hang the shard of glass on a string in front of Lydia, before turning on the flashlight under it.
"Now she just magically writes down all the answers?" Malia asked.
"It's not quite that simple," Deaton stated.
"It never is," Lydia commented.
"In automatic writing, the hand moves outside of any conscious awareness. Now hopefully the silence, the darkness, and the light will allow you to find a more comfortable, relaxed, trance-like state. Lydia, I want you to stare into the light, and let go of all thought."
Deaton signaled for Scott, Malia, & Ivy to follow him, giving Lydia some space for this all to work. They went to the hallway, where they all had a clear view of Lydia.
"I have to warn you. We may not be able to access these memories," Deaton tells them.
"Why not?" Scott & Ivy ask at the same time.
"The legend has always been that the Wild Hunt takes people. But if what you're telling me is right, the truth is much worse. They erase people from reality."
Ivy watched as Lydia writes on the paper in front of her.
"How did we remember someone who has been completely erased from our minds?" Scott asked.
"But what if they're not really erased. What if there is a piece of them still within our minds, just locked in real tight?" Ivy questioned.
"Maybe Ivy's right and maybe he hasn't been," Malia states informing them to look over at Lydia, who was furiously writing away.
"Oh, is she... Should we stop her?" Scott asked Deaton.
"Is she okay?" Ivy asked, clearly worried for her friend.
"Lydia? Lydia? Slow down," Deaton said as he turned the flashlight off.
"Is she okay?" Ivy asked once more, clearly concerned for Lydia.
"Lydia?" Deaton called out.
Ivy watched as Malia grabbed the piece of paper that Lydia was writing on and showed it to her. The word mischief was written over and over.
"What does 'mischief' mean?" The were coyote asked.
Malia handed the paper to Scott, who realized something. "That's not what she wrote." The word Stiles was outlined.
"But why use the word 'mischief' to spell out Stiles?" Ivy asked the group. But nobody had an answered to her question.
Lydia gasped as she pulled out of her trance-like state. "What the hell is a Stiles?"
✯☾✯
Ivy rapidly knocked on Liam's bedroom window trying to catch her boyfriend's attention.
"Ivy," Liam says, relieved to see her and that she's okay. "You weren't answering any of our texts. I got worried, & so I went over to Scott's house but you weren't there."
Ivy sighs as she entered his bedroom. "It's a long story, but before I start, I need you to know that I'm really sorry about earlier. I shouldn't have walked away like that."
"No, don't apologize. I should be the one apologizing. I hate that I made you feel as if you had to choose. I never want you to feel like that. And for that, I'm truly sorry."
Ivy grabbed Liam's hands onto her own before pulling him with her to sit on his bed. Liam noticed a leaf stuck in Ivy's hair and pulled it out. "Why do you have a leaf in your hair?"
"Okay, maybe I should explain why I haven't been answering any of your messages," and with that Ivy began to explain in detail everything that had occured the past couple of hours.
Liam stared at the picture Ivy had handled him. "I don't recognize the car interior," he told her.
"I don't either, and neither did Hayden & Brett. But if the ghost riders really do erase people from reality, then we aren't gonna remember whose car this is."
"Speaking of ghost riders. Your hunch was right."
Ivy raised her eyebrow in confusion, "Huh?"
"The hunch that both you & Corey had about there being someone else in the library with you guys last night. You were both right. Corey & I found proof."
Ivy smiled, "I like hearing that. You & Corey working together, instead of hating one another."
Liam chuckled, "Turning new leaves I suppose," while holding up the leaf that he took out of Ivy's hair a couple of seconds ago.
"So what was this proof that you guys found?"
"A library card."
"A library card?"
"Yeah, it belonged to Jake Sullivan, according to Mason & Corey he was the guy you guys saw in the library. Mason said he was your lab partner for the extra credit lab."
Ivy thought hard for a second before a small glimpse of Jake Sullivan flashed through her mind. "I remember him. The ghost riders were holding him with their whips."
Ivy laid her head down on Liam's bed and stared into the ceiling. "So, the ghost riders can't really erase people from reality entirely. A small part of them will always remain."
Liam joined Ivy in staring at the ceiling, "I suppose so."