Chapter Four

Even though Rebecca's revelations overwhelmed her minutes before, Molly only thought of her son on the way to the theater. She remembered seeing Jack in her weird vision tunnel. When she woke up she'd dismissed it, but not after Carey's announcement. Rebecca's power must have pulled him in.

They'd parked about ten blocks away from the theater. Like Carey, they ran as fast as they could. Irene met them at the end of the theater's block and walked back with them. "Hes fine, Mol," she insisted. "We made him lie down in the back room and drink a lot of water." She paused. "Not that there's a protocol for recovering from psychic visions."

"Was he in pain?" Molly asked, her heart still racing. She speed-walked the rest of the block and threw open the side door to the backstage area. "What did he see?"

"We knew he'd have to repeat himself when you two got here, so we didn't push."

They found Jack and Ned in a half-empty prop room. The large space held a variety of second-hand living room and bedroom furniture from past performances. Jack sprawled out on a sunken-in couch, a fresh water bottle in his hand. Ned sat right next to him, his attempt to appear calm failing him. In that instant Molly couldn't be more grateful to have Ned and Irene Bell as her chosen extended family.

Carey arrived a minute later, no longer flushed. He gave Jack his own concerned once-over before pulling up a chair next to his father. "Hey Jack, still got that headache?"

While his face looked a little pale, Jack pushed himself into a sitting position. "Nah, I'm fine."

"Did you faint too?" Fiona asked, sitting on the couch next to her brother. "Mom didn't say anything about a headache though."

The Bells and Jack gave Molly alarmed glances. "'Too'?" Jack exclaimed, his voice an octave higher than usual. "Too? Okay Fi, this is the part where you tell us what the heck is going on. I don't care what Rebecca might have said. We all have a right to know, especially when Mom and I were hurt because of it."

Molly caught the pained expression on her daughter's face, and she understood that Rebecca probably wouldn't be happy about this. But Molly couldn't sidestep the question after everything they'd all experienced that day. She avoided eye contact with Fiona and faced the others.

"Rebecca's immortal," Molly said. Four pairs of eyes widened while she continued. Molly fought back a wave of sudden emotion as she thought of her talk with Rebecca. "Well, technically she ages slowly, but she's hundreds of years old and still looks thirteen. She hasn't changed at all since we were kids...wait..." She froze as the realization sunk in. "Oh, God. My only friend from middle school was over a thousand years older than me. She must've thought I was so immature."

"You and everyone else," Irene pointed out. "Thirty years isn't much of a difference either when you think about it."

Molly groaned, reliving her old embarrassment and insecurity. "God," she muttered. "I'm a child."

"At least it makes you feel young," Ned joked. "I know I do."

Irene gave Molly a reassuring smile. "Hey, Rebecca still hung out with you, didn't she? Out of the hundreds, thousands of people she met during her many years on this earth, she picked you to be her best friend. I'd wonder about that instead if I were you."

Irene's right. Molly couldn't help feeling a little flattered, but also unnerved. Why me? What makes me so special? Is it because of my witch heritage? The uneasiness ebbed and moved on to sadness mixed with longing. I've never been normal, have I?

Meanwhile, stunned Carey turned to Fiona for confirmation. "So that girl from the museum wasn't Rebecca's daughter. She was the Rebecca."

"Yup." Distracted Fiona kept her gaze on Jack. He'd been silent so far and his face betrayed little emotion other than his initial surprise. "Hey, anyone home in there?" she asked her brother, only half-kidding.

His quiet reply shocked them all. "I think I knew Rebecca in a past life."

An hour later the group returned to the bus and compared notes. Fiona even typed them into her computer so she could put them with her first dream, the one that sent them on this adventure. Together they'd help Rebecca. Fiona didn't know how, but she felt it in her gut. They'd find an answer.

Hopefully Rebecca would meet with them again when they did. One problem at a time.

"How's it going over there?" Fiona asked. She'd assigned spell book research to her mother and the Bells. They could mark the pages relevant to immortality/"slow aging" while she combed the Internet.

Of course, the adults cringed at the thought of going through the spell book. Molly and Ned grudgingly stuck with it since they couldn't top Fi's web searching skills. Irene outright said she'd rather work than pretend to be useful in a magical crisis. Before the end of the first chapter she rushed back to the theater under the guise of asking the manager about their practice schedule.

As for Jack and Carey, their big idea was to take a nap. Jack argued that he might have more dreams about his past life. No one minded since he did have a point, not to mention the poor guy literally passed out earlier. Carey just wanted to take a nap after running around Phoenix most of the day.

"Not well," Ned grumbled. "Half of this stuff isn't even in English."

Fiona grinned at him. "That's how I feel when I do my math homework."

"Walked right into that one, didn't I?"

"But half of this is in another language," Molly added. "Some are in English but others are...Gaelic, I guess?" She closed the book over with one hand and massaged her forehead with the other. "I don't think it's as simple as finding the right spell. I mean, if it was, Rebecca and her parents would've asked other witches to cast it for them long before now."

Fiona thought of that too but wanted to be thorough. "We have to cross out one possibility before trying the next, don't we?" she replied. "Especially since I have no clue what 'the next' will be."

"I can't help you there," Molly admitted. She reached for her nearby cell phone. "But we might be able to resolve this possibility with a single phone call. We've both forgotten the best resource on witchcraft we know."

"Grandma! Why didn't we think of her sooner?"

"That's my cue to check on Irene." Ned stood up and headed for the door. "Tell Mrs. McQuinn I said hello, and call me if anything develops."

They both said absentminded goodbyes while Molly dialed her mother's phone number. She held the phone out and turned the volume up so Fiona could listen. "Hi, Ma. I'm here with Fiona. Do you have a minute to answer a witch-related question?"

Kathleen's chipper Irish accent filled the bus common area. "Always, love! Hello to you too, Fiona. How are you both liking the tour so far?"

Fiona and Molly held the phone between them while they tried to chat with Kathleen. They realized the difficulty in holding a three-way conversation on a cell phone with spotty service. Kathleen kept asking them to repeat things until finally she said...

"Oh, this is ridiculous. I'll pop on over. Let me tell Colin I'm leaving."

Fiona and her mother shared alarmed glances. Kathleen lived several states away, so she would be using a teleportation spell. They'd experienced this more than once in the past, and while grateful for her help, Fiona and Molly worried the older witch would start "popping in" whenever she wanted and staying as long as she liked. In that way she'd become a nicer version of Endora from Bewitched.

"Ma, really, that's not necessary - "

"Who said anything about 'necessary'? See you in a moment, Molly."

The call ended. "T minus five minutes?" Fiona joked.

"If that." Molly sighed, closed her phone, then looked around the messy bus. "I'll do what I can out here. Go warn your brother so he has time to freshen up. She'll want to see him."

"Will do."

Fiona tried to rouse her brother, but he mumbled "okay Mom" without opening his eyes and went back to sleep. She didn't push after everything he'd been through. Instead she closed the door to his room, hoping he would sleep through their grandmother's visit. She also hoped that visit would be short. Fiona felt bad enough that Jack and the Bells found out about Rebecca's secret. Her grandmother would be one more person in the know, even if they did need her help.

The common area looked much better when she returned. "Wow," she said, admiring the cleared table and other junk-free surfaces. Her mother stood by the door with a tied-up trash bag in her hand. "That was less than five minutes. Did you find a cleaning spell in the book?"

"Very funny." Molly paused, then glanced at the spell book. It remained on the seat by the window. "Do you think there's an actual cleaning spell?"

"Of course there is, love. Witches would not have gone this long without inventing one."

Fiona had been looking at her mother, so she never saw her grandmother appear behind her near the window. "Hi Grandma," she said, hugging Kathleen while Molly discreetly tossed the bag of trash outside. "I'm glad you're here."

Molly also hugged her mother in greeting. "Hi, Ma. I admit I'm still not used to meeting like this."

"We'll all adjust in time," Kathleen replied. They took seats around the common area. Molly and Fi sat on either side of the table, while Kathleen claimed the window seat. "Goodness, I don't think I've seen your tour bus yet. You three and the Bell family travel together in this tiny space? You must really like each other."

Molly and Fiona laughed. "They're our family too," Molly said, then moved on to business. "So Ma, what do you know about immortality? Or slow aging? Fiona's spell book didn't mention it."

"I don't imagine it would." At their perplexed expressions, Kathleen explained, "A good witch obeys certain laws, and one of those laws is to 'do no harm.' Messing around with life and death inevitably causes harm. Immortality might seem like a blessing but it is a curse in disguise. An immortal being, no matter who they are, suffers centuries of emotional pain without promise of release. There is no hope for them." She noticed her daughter and granddaughter become increasingly heartbroken in response to her speech. "What in the world is going on here?"

Fiona glanced at her mother, who hesitated. She decided to be as vague as possible. "We met someone who's over a thousand years old," Fiona answered. "She ages, but it takes a hundred years for her to get one year older."

"Gracious," Kathleen whispered, her hand covering her heart. "I've heard of people like that, but to be honest, I wasn't sure they existed."

"Says the woman with magical powers," Molly joked.

Fiona's disappointment grew even more. If witches couldn't change immortality, and her grandmother didn't know anything about it, she might not have the ability to "cure" Rebecca after all. "So we won't be able to help Rebecca then."

"Fi!" Molly exclaimed.

"Oops." The name had slipped out. Fiona forgot that Grandma Kathleen would remember Rebecca from when she was friends with Molly.

"Rebecca..." Kathleen trailed off while she tried to place the name. "Oh, goodness. You can't be talking about that Rebecca, it must be a coincidence."

Molly lowered her eyes. "Yes, Ma. That Rebecca. The one who disappeared."

"Yes, how can I forget? You moped around for weeks after she left," Kathleen replied, oblivious to Molly's building annoyance. "We all wondered why they left so suddenly without a word to anyone, but you really took it to heart. Immortality would explain it since we'd have noticed if their daughter never got older. Imagine, a child who's really hundreds of years old!"

"That's where the immortal part comes in," Molly snapped.

Fiona grimaced. While Molly finally knew Rebecca's secret, the past still hurt. Fiona redirected their talk back to the main problem to avoid a full-blown fight. "She hates it, Grandma. It's like you said - she's stuck here without hope. Especially since her parents still treat her like a kid and control her life."

Sympathy replaced the shock in Kathleen's eyes. "How awful. She's so desperate that she wants to become mortal?"

"She said it herself," Molly assured her. "I can't understand it either, but she wants to age like the rest of us. It would probably be better for her if she at least looked like an adult. Then she could live life how she wanted and break away from her parents."

Her mother's words inspired Fiona. She hopped from her seat and paced the aisle between her two surprised family members. "Well, if we can't reverse her immortality," Fi began, the new train of thought reigniting her energy. "What if we just made her look older? Would it be against the rules if we cast a shape-shifting spell?"

"Not technically," Kathleen replied, contemplating the idea. She elaborated when she saw the excitement on her family's faces. "I'm afraid it would be too complex to maintain long-term. It would be one thing if Rebecca stayed the same age, but she will grow on her own after a few hundred years. A permanent shape-shifting spell could damage the natural process." While Fiona and Molly resumed their saddened state, Kathleen continued, "But I like how you think, Fiona. There might be something...in this book, actually."

Her daughter and granddaughter watched intently as she flipped open the big magic book. "It's a common spell," she said. "The person or object doesn't change physically, just their outward appearance. Rebecca would remain herself but appear older. You should enchant a piece of jewelry so she can remove the spell if she chooses." Annoyed when the right page eluded her, Kathleen held her hands over the open book.

The pages turned back and forth on their own. Molly's jaw dropped, and Fiona shook her head in amazement. After a minute the pages settled down to reveal "The Perception Spell." Kathleen raised an eyebrow at them. "What, you're not used to this sort of thing by now?"

"We uh, just didn't expect it," Molly replied.

"Yeah," Fiona agreed. "You make it look so easy."

Kathleen gave them a reassuring smile. "You'll get there, loves."

An opening door and shuffling footsteps sounded from the hallway. The three witches glanced up as Jack stumbled into view, looking disheveled after his nap. He ran a hand through hair that stuck out in odd places. "Hey, Fi?" he called, unaware of their guest. "I had this weird dream that you guys were summoning Grandma again with that teleportation spell thingie..." His face transformed from sleepy to humiliated when he spotted his amused grandmother on the window seat. "Okay, not a dream."

When Molly sent her daughter an exasperated glance, Fiona held up her hands in defense. "He wouldn't wake up so I let him nap. The poor guy clearly needs his beauty sleep."

Another house in another city, another prison she wanted to escape. Rebecca spent most of her long life sneaking away from her parents' watchful eyes. The injustice, the indignity, continuously burned her pride over and over for hundreds of years. Her parents feared exposure so much that they could never trust their child. They would always view her as a threat, an unpredictable element in their shield against the outside world.

Her parents planned to move again. She stood on the other side of the kitchen entrance, listening to them discuss the risk of staying in the same town as Molly Phillips. They'd seen the concert posters and worried Rebecca would reach out to her again. Rebecca denied it at dinner, insisted she'd "learned her lesson" after they caught her talking to Fiona last year. They decided to leave town anyway. Her word meant nothing to them.

Then again, she had lied through her teeth. They brought this on themselves. If they treated her like the ancient being she was, as an equal, she'd respect their wishes in return.

She'd been too afraid to run away before. They were her only family, and she couldn't do much on her own since she looked so young. Staying with them, pretending to be a student, seemed like her best option. Now she might have a better one. After centuries of this limited existence, she could have a chance to break from their control. She might even restart her friendship with Molly in the process.

Running away still scared her, but not enough to stop her. In a few hours, after her parents went to sleep, she would sneak out for the last time.