"What do we do? Oh my god, Seersh, what do we do?" Camry exclaimed, her fists pressing hard enough to leave bruises on her bony sternum. "The witches-- why would they take him--? We need to rescue him! We have to find where they're hiding a-and get him back!"
"I know, I know!" Saoirse answered, a grimace evident in her expression. "Ugh-- hold on, I feel sick." The sight of their best friend exploding into vapors had undoubtedly taken a toll on her, well, constitution.
"Are you okay?" Camry asked quickly as she put a concerned hand on her girlfriend's shoulder.
Saoirse waved a hand flippantly, though she was looking a little worse for wear. "Y-Yeah, don't-- don't worry about me. We need to hurry and find Dude."
~~
When he woke up after only four or five hours of sleep, Dude was already geared up and raring to get back to work. The speed at which he was learning spells and incantations was borderline greedy, though his enthusiasm certainly imbued the entire house with a similar energy of "Go go go!" Kordelle, as tired as he was, was over the moon with his friend being so eager to get his hands on their shared heritage.
Allie's lessons on botany and herbology in potions was the first thing he jumped into after rising from the couch a little before noon. Because he had absorbed information from a few potion texts the night before, he wanted to put his new knowledge into action. Kordelle took the opportunity to lock himself in his room for a while to nap and avoid the stenches wafting up from the kitchen. As much as he wanted to personally guide Dude's learning, he also didn't want to be stuck with a migraine for the rest of the day, so it was a necessary sacrifice.
Allie's lesson ran for a number of hours as potion-making can be a rather tedious and lengthy process, which left Kordelle with plenty of time to buckle down with his own collection of magical tomes. However, as he was perusing a few of the old annotations he had made to a book on brain anatomy and holding a bandana over his mouth and nose, Kordelle heard a faint buzzing coming from somewhere in his room. His heart skipped a beat before his better judgment could assure him that it just sounded like a cell phone.
However, when he looked to his left he saw that his phone was charging where it always did on the night stand, dormant as per the usual. Whose phone was doing that, then?
'Oh' he realized, and with barely a hesitant thought he lurched forward off of his bed and started peering around the stacks of books that Dude had left like mines in a minefield all around his room the night before. Kordelle finally found it nestled in between two pages of a book on spatial matter spells-- a rather advanced discipline of magic, he noted with praise-- and saw that Dude had just missed a call from a contact labeled as "Camcorder" with the jack-o'-lantern and dancing lady emojis next to it.
'Is this Camry?' Kordelle wondered with a pensive frown. Then he saw the time displayed on the phone's lock screen-- it was well after school was supposed to be over, so it would make at least a little bit of sense for her to be calling at this time of day.
But what reason would she have to call? Had they made plans that Dude never showed up for? 'No, I told him to cut off contact with them' he reasoned. 'Though I wouldn't put it past him to forget about any sort of plans he may have made, especially after everything that happened last night.'
'But the body double should have taken care of their suspicions. It's foolproof! Unless...' Kordelle stood up straighter and began to pace back and forth across the room, subconsciously maneuvering around the stalagtites of books peppering his floor space. 'They could just be suspicious because he hasn't been talking to them. Maybe they just wanted to hang out today after school. It could just be a perfectly innocent thing.
'Or maybe the spell faltered somehow. How could it, though? Corporeal illusions are one of my specialties! The only thing that would make sense is if something interfered with it, got in the way of my magic. But what at the school could--?'
Oh. Oh, there it was. Of course-- how did he not see it right away? A spell that is remotely powered like a body double would be susceptible to ghostly energy, especially if it came into direct contact with the source itself. The spell would fail and dissipate almost immediately without its caster there to personally sustain it.
"Great," Kordelle grumbled under his breath. "They're onto me..."
He had to throw Camry off of his trail. If she started to suspect the truth behind Dude's 'disappearance,' it would cause problems for Dude's learning as well as Kordelle's plans for her. She wouldn't know about Dude being a witch, though, right? No, that didn't seem likely. What could have clued her in on that? Kordelle quickly thought back on all of their past encounters and scanned his memories for any sort of indication he might have accidentally given that could have given away his identity.
No, he felt safe in that regard. He couldn't have said or done anything obvious enough to give himself or Dude away.
'Hold on. I'm getting ahead of myself' Kordelle chastised himself. 'This could just be an invitation to hang out. It doesn't have to mean anything serious.'
He was just beginning to wind down his train of thought and relax back into reading when the phone buzzed again in his hands, this time showing a different contact: "Selkie" with the piano and blue butterfly emojis. Before he really had time to think it over, his left hand's second and third fingers touched his adam's apple and he whispered a spell before accepting the call.
"Hello?" he answered in a perfect mimicry of Dude's voice.
"Dude!" Saoirse's exhausted but relieved voice exclaimed a little too loudly into the receiver. "Dude, are you alright? Where are you right now?"
"I had to get home kinda early," Kordelle lied, easily coming up with the fib. "Mamá hasn't really been feeling very well lately."
"Oh, no," Saoirse sympathized in a soft tone. "I-- Hang on, Cam, he's fine. No nonono--!"
"Dude, what the heck just happened?" Camry suddenly cut in with a shout. "You-- I don't even know-- you just vanished! Poof! Out of existence!"
"Cam, give me my arm back," Kordelle just barely heard Saoirse groan from a little ways off. Then she was back at regular volume, as if she had put the phone back up to her ear. "Dude, can you meet us at Delta Pin? We really need to talk to you about something kinda important."
"And we wanna make sure you're okay!" Camry added. Maybe they were sharing the phone between themselves now. "We're skipping etiquette lessons today, so just meet us where we usually sit A.S.A.P., okay?"
Kordelle couldn't help swallowing down a huge glop of spit; it did little to wet his parched throat. This mimicry spell took quite a toll on the user's vocal chords. "A-Are you sure? I kinda-- keff-- ugh, kinda feel like maybe I'm catching what Mamá is getting."
"It'll be fine," Saoirse assured him. "We won't try to touch you or breathe your germs."
'At least there's that promise' he had to admit. 'A body double should be safer to use in circumstances like that.'
"Please say you'll come, Dude," Camry all but begged woefully. "It's really important! And," she added as an aside, "it really sucks that we haven't been able to hang out more."
So it was confirmed that they had seen the body double dissipate. That meant that they at least knew magic was involved with Dude. If he didn't alleviate their fears, Kordelle knew they would start to suspect Dude's true heritage, which could then possibly be traced back to Kordelle himself and the rest of the coven. If a ghost-- not to mention a possibly parasitic ghost with the power to fully disguise itself inside of a human host-- found out where the coven was and who its members were, it would spell devastation for their secret world.
Not to mention that he was bound to get some excellent insider knowledge if he went himself.
"... Okay, I'll be there. Gimme half an hour, 'kay?"
"Perfect," Saoirse confirmed, obviously pleased with his compliance. "See you there."
"Bye!" Camry called a second before the call ended.
Out on the sidewalk in front of the high school, Saoirse and Camry immediately exhaled huge twin sighs of complete relief. Dude was alright! He was even talking to them, sort of! "Oh, man, I was so scared for a while there," Camry admitted.
"I know. You were talking so fast that I could barely understand you," Saoirse said, a somewhat mirthful smile sitting serenely on her lips. It didn't take a rocket scientist to see that Camry and Dude were close-- almost strangely close, considering Camry's lack of attraction to men and Dude's lack of attraction to her. Then again, it wasn't as if their relationship had to be romantic for them to care so much for each other.
Camry smiled a bit awkwardly at that. "Yeah... I mean, I'm still so freaked out by everything that's going on, y'know? If Dude got tangled up in all of it, too, I wouldn't know what to think anymore."
"Isn't he kinda already tangled up in it, though?" Saoirse pointed out as they started the walk to the nearest L-tram station. If they wanted to make it to the Delta Pin Shopping Center in time to meet Dude there, they would need to stop dawdling and get a move on. "As our friend, I mean-- a member of the team and all that."
"True, but, like, I mean if the witches have him hostage or something," Camry clarified in a low voice. "That would be seriously bad."
"No kidding," Saoirse agreed, her tone somber. With that horrifying thought weighing down like tons of cement on their brains, neither girl spoke much throughout the whole trip to Delta Pin.
In his room, Kordelle shut the pilfered phone off and returned it to roughly where he thought he had found it. 'Okay, okay,' he thought rapidly, his index and middle fingers finding his temples to rub them meditatively. 'This is fine. This is great. I've been meaning to practice more illusions anyway. I've even given myself an excuse for the vocal fry.
'I just have to go there, talk to the two of them while pretending to be Dude, and figure out what I can about Camry and her ghost. This'll reassure them that everything's fine and buy me plenty of time to finish learning the ghost mind control spell. Then, I'll get the whole story and decide what to do with 'Relle Phantom' once and for all.'
Yeah, this was a good plan that would definitely work.
~
Sitting on the far edge of the food court in Delta Pin, Saoirse and Camry itched and fidgeted in their seats. Where was Dude? He was taking a little longer than they expected to arrive.
Knowing that the imminent talk they were about to have with him was most likely only minutes away, both girls had chosen to abstain from eating anything. Still, a cup of bubble tea sat in front of each of them; they were mostly full as neither really felt the urge to do much more than weakly nurse the drinks. As she chewed a lump slowly, paying attention to each time she bit down, Camry vowed to maintain as calm a facade as possible.
That vow was chucked out the window the second she saw Dude's floppy green hair come into view around a corner. As he approached their table, she got out of her chair and made to hug him. "Dude, there you are!"
Dude shrank back before she could make contact. "I'm getting sick!" he reminded her quickly, and Camry wrenched her hands back and held them up in an "I surrender" type of pose.
"Sorry!" she yelped, and then sheepishly added, "I forgot... Are you okay?"
"Yeah, except for my voice," he answered with a gesture to his throat. Now that he mentioned it, he was starting to sound a little on the gravelly side.
Camry perked up with determination at the sound of that. "I'll go get you some bubble tea! Do you want matcha or mint?"
"Uh, mint's great. Thanks," he replied, and she sped off to hop into line, her wallet already in hand.
As soon as she was firmly in place in the queue, Camry slapped her forehead and groaned. "Great. Now I'm just stalling. I knew I would do this..."
Saoirse had remained behind, mostly in order to keep their table from being taken by any of the other teens and families in the mall after school on a Friday afternoon. She smiled with relief evident in her eyes when Dude took his seat across from her. "You have no idea how happy I am to see you're okay."
"What're you guys talking about, though?" he asked, raising a confused eyebrow. "Why wouldn't I be okay? And what was Cam talking about with me going 'poof?'" He jabbed a thumb back over his shoulder in the general direction of the bubble tea line for added effect.
"Well..." she hemmed, as if deliberating whether or not she should start without Camry there as well. A quick glance at the line told her that her girlfriend was at the counter already, so it wasn't as if they were going to have to wait that long. "It's kinda weird, but what else is new?"
"Right?" he agreed with a soft chuckle that devolved into a short fit of coughing. Saoirse reached a concerned hand out but quickly drew it back when she remembered that he didn't want to be touched.
"She'll be back with that tea in a minute," Saoirse assured him. "Are you gonna be okay?"
"Probably," he managed to say between hacks. 'Yikes, this vocal fry is more intense than I expected.'
His coughing was over by the time Cam returned with a tall, green drink in hand and set it down in front of him. The red straw had already been punched through the plastic lid. "Hopefully this helps at least a little."
"Thanks," he said, accepting it and eagerly taking a long draw of it through the straw. A few bulbs were sucked up as well, and he chewed them quickly while trying to suppress his gag reflex. The tea itself was fine, but he had always hated the texture of the tapioca pearls. "Man, I needed this."
"Did you already tell him, or...?" Cam asked Saoirse at such a low volume that Dude almost didn't hear it over the din of the food court.
"No, I was waiting for you to get back," Saoirse answered.
"Oh, okay. So, hey, Dude," Camry started rather quickly, almost as if she was trying to rush through what she wanted to say. "We're really sorry we haven't been able to hang out much lately."
"It's okay," he said immediately. "I know you're both really busy with this cotillion stuff."
"Yeah, but we kinda... learned about some things in the last few days, and we feel bad for not telling you sooner," Saoirse added before taking a long sip of her own tea. "So we're gonna tell you now."
"Okay?" he prompted. Inside, Kordelle was practically over the moon with excitement; this conversation was beginning to sound like everything he wanted to hear!
"So..." Camry leaned in and down, keeping her voice quiet and conspiratorial. "Apparently there are people out there who are witches."
She paused to let that sink in; hopefully the look of dumb shock on his face would be taken for a blown mind rather than impending dread. "Yeah, I know, right? They can do magic-- really powerful stuff-- and have this thing against ghosts. Or, so I've heard."
"Yeah, and today we thought you weren't at school," Saoirse jumped in urgently. "But when we saw you leaving the campus we tried to talk to you and you just..."
"Poof," Camry whispered, using both hands to simulate a tiny explosion.
"You were just gone," Saoirse reiterated. "So, we're worried that maybe these witches are, I dunno, after you or something."
"It's so weird, and it doesn't even add up all that well," Cam said. "You don't know anything about this, right?"
Dude shook his head resolutely, maintaining a mildly stunned expression. "I-- no, no, this is the first I'm hearing about witches at all."
They each blew out a loud sigh of relief. "Oh, thank goodness," Saoirse even whispered into her straw.
"Why? What's 'thank goodness?'" Dude pressed.
"Well-- and you're gonna laugh at this," Saoirse said, "but the ghosts in the Zone actually told Cam that you were a witch, too."
"Isn't that weird?" Camry giggled. She sucked down a mouthful of tea and chewed the tapioca orbs rapidly. Throughout their conversation, he had been taking note of how she refrained from touching her cold drink itself and was minimizing contact with its body even now. Was she afraid of heating it up by accident with her volcanic ghost powers? "Like, why would they think that?"
"Pffft," Dude snorted, then clapped a hand over his mouth and nose as if he was about to spray his tea because of his laughing. "C'mon, that's crazy! I've never-- ahem-- heard of anything like this before today. Honest."
"That's what we figured," Saoirse said.
"But here's the other thing," Cam interjected seriously. "It kinda seems like they have it out for me right now. I keep getting attacked every time I go out to... y'know. Last time, I had to go to the Zone to escape, and it felt like my brain was getting crushed from all sides..." She looked down through the top of her transparent lid and saw the ice melting inside of her cup. Her hands were clasped around it, unintentionally liquefying the frozen water, while her iolite eyes darkened with a haunting memory. "I barely even remember most of it."
"Are you okay, though?" Dude piped up, his eyebrows drawing together with unease.
"Oh, yeah, I think I'm alright," she answered with a weak facsimile of a reassuring smile. "It was just really scary, and I'm worried about what the witch might've seen in my head... If that's what they were doing, I mean. I don't really know anything about these witches."
"What do you know, exactly?" he asked curiously.
Saoirse and Camry exchanged a quick glance. "Just that they can do magic, they're really powerful, their magic is specifically designed to get rid of ghosts, and that they have something called 'opalescence,' or something like that," Camry listed, ticking each item off on her fingertips. "Y'know, if they weren't so hell-bent on getting rid of ghosts, like Shasta and the others were saying, we'd probably make a really good team."
"I doubt that," Dude couldn't help himself as he murmured that. Both girls looked at him with confusion on their faces before he quickly explained himself. "I mean, 'cuz it sounds like they really don't like ghosts, and they would probably just go after you... right?"
"I mean, maybe," she conceded pensively, one hand cupping her chin. "But, like, they would probably make an exception for me if they knew the truth, y'know?"
"Right, the truth," he repeated, then closed his lips around the straw of his drink. 'Why don't you just come out and tell me the truth, dammit?'
It seemed as though they wanted to say more, but a jingle from Saoirse's pocket derailed their trains of thought. Camry's phone started going off a half second later, and she answered the call with obvious trepidation. Saoirse was busy talking to someone who sounded like her mother, judging by the way Saoirse kept trying to explain and kept getting cut off. They exchanged promises to come home immediately and said their goodbyes before hanging up in near-perfect unison.
"Busted," Cam sighed mournfully.
"'Cuz of the cotillion thing?" Dude asked. "How much trouble are you in for skipping?"
"I was already in trouble, so this is just gonna be icing on the cake," Camry groaned. "Stupid Batron, stupid Shasta, stupid witches..."
He tried not to take offense to that. "When even if this cotillion? It sounds like you're being asked to put in a lot of work for it."
"No kidding," Camry grumbled.
"It's the Friday a week from now, at the country club," Saoirse answered. "Did we not tell you before? Sorry."
"'Sfine," he said. Another round of sudden coughing had him thumping his chest with a fist, and when Camry rose to pat his back he waved her away. "No, no, I'm good. Don't get sick and miss your cotillion. All this work for nothing?"
"True," she admitted. "Well, we'd better go. Text you later, Dude."
"And feel better, okay?" Saoirse added as she, too, stood and shouldered her backpack. Wow, so they had really just rushed directly from school to the mall to meet him. Even by proxy, Kordelle couldn't help but feel a little bit touched.
"I will. ¡Adios!" he called hoarsely with a wave at their retreating figures. They waved back as well and clasped hands as they moved in single file around a large crowd of teenagers, which ultimately kept them out of sight until they were too far away to be seen.
As soon as he was sure they were gone, Kordelle used his second and third fingers to tap his neck and release the vocal mimicry spell. He gasped in his own voice and sucked down the rest of his tea, letting the cold drink soothe his roughened throat. 'Wow, that was so much harder than I thought it would be' he commented once he was down to tearing open the plastic lid and chewing on the ice. The shocking chill felt amazing going down.
Thinking back on their conversation, Kordelle frowned at how little he had learned. 'Well, that isn't entirely true' he reprimanded himself. 'Now I know they're pretty much in the dark about witches, and they don't suspect Dude is a witch, either. Plus, they're not going to worry about him anymore and probably even leave him alone so he can 'get better.' The coven is safe.'
Mission accomplished.
As he got up to leave, tossing his empty cup out along the way, another thought occurred to him and made him snicker despite himself. 'Work with Relle? "Make a good team?" That's hilarious. As if.'
~
"Do you have the seeds?"
Endellion produced all twenty-one rattling around in a paper packet that he dangled triumphantly from between his pointer finger and thumb. "Allie had some. They're asphodel flowers. That doesn't matter, does it?"
Fan Liu shook her head. "No, not at all. Just as long as they haven't sprouted yet.
"You're going to have to whisper a spell into each knot that you tie into the white rope. After you say each one, 'plant' a seed inside and finish the knot, sealing in the seed in the process. That way, when you have your ghost trapped with no way out, you can weaken its powers as well as its mind until you can take over."
"And then you'll teach me the spell for mind control?" he asked with a twinge more eagerness than he meant to express.
Fan Liu smiled and nodded. "Finish your rope first, and then we move on to the mind control. Do you have a plan for when you're capturing your ghost?"
Endellion grinned. "Next Friday, one week from now. It'll be distracted by other things, so it's perfect to find an opportunity to catch it."
"Good. Then let's get to work."
-------------------------------------------
Are you on the edge of your seat yet? >:)c
As for the picture up at the top, that's a commission I ordered from solkorra on tumblr :3 Isn't it awesome?? The scene is from Kiki's Delivery Service~ (How fitting, am I right? XD)
Please leave a comment down below and a vote while you're here! It always means so much to me :D See you in the next chapter!