Phone Home, Part 1
Homulilly was getting used to not waking up alone.
She usually fell asleep alone; or at least, being the only person in her bed. She and Gretchen had separate beds, and though they often talked a bit before falling asleep, they still stayed in their own bed afterward. However, it rarely stayed that way.
The morning light shone through the curtains of the small apartment she shared with Gretchen. Homulilly stirred, enjoying a rare gentle awakening as she drifted out of the soft comfort of sleep. As she did, she slowly became aware of the warm body lying nestled in her arms, of the locks of untidy hair tickling her nose, or of the soft hands gripping Homulilly's arms where they were clasped around the other person's waist.
Homulilly blinked, but not out of confusion or surprise. The only thing she wondered was whose bed she was in. Probably her own. Whenever she sought comfort in Gretchen's bed after a bad night, they usually fell back asleep face-to-face. Homulilly wasn't sure exactly why, but she just felt better being able to see that Gretchen was there with her. However, when it was Gretchen that needed Homulilly to comfort her, she preferred to be held in Homulilly's skeletal arms, with Homulilly's body curving protectively around her from behind.
Though it had been a few months since they had first arrived in the bizarre afterlife set aside for people like them, they were both still plagued by bad dreams on most nights. Some were vivid and stayed fresh in their minds like open wounds long after waking, others were muddled and hazy and left behind nothing but the sense of terror, revulsion, horror, and shame. But regardless, after the first few instances, they no longer even asked the other for permission when one snapped awake and trembling in her bed and needed the other just to fall back asleep. Now, more often than not, neither would even remember leaving her bed to crawl into the other's. They would simply wake up alongside the other and assume that a nightmare had been had.
Homulilly slowly cracked one eye open and glanced around. Yup, she was in her bed, with Gretchen pressed up against her as the little spoon. Okay.
She blinked a few times and squinted past Gretchen's head over to the nightstand. 9:21. Only a few more minutes before their alarm would go off. Darn.
Homulilly sighed and let her eye close again. Oh well, that was still a few precious minutes she had to just lie still and enjoy the feeling of Gretchen's soft form nestled against her. She was in no hurry to get up and face the morning, especially with what they had recently learned.
Unfortunately, as her sleepy mind slipped back into that warm in-between place where dreams met waking, just the thought caused her mind to go to a place she did not want to go.
The memory began to crystallize into a dream, one in which she was more aware of what was happening than actually seeing it, where she had a sense of meeting with the other girls in her and Gretchen's class, of sitting on the small couch that she and Gretchen often shared listening to the others talk, though all she saw were hazy blobs of color.
I don't get it, said the dream voice of Gabrielle, the French witch whose head was literally an extravagant hat. We've been here for weeks! And you're saying that back home, it's only been…
Only a few minutes, yes, came the response.
And then Homulilly's head filled with anxious thoughts and feelings as all the dream people began yelling all at once.
As hazy as it might be, the dream was not a random assemblage of sights, sounds, and emotions, but a replay of a recent memory, a memory that had been weighing on her mind all of the previous day, a memory of having yet another strange aspect of their new lives explained to them. Granted, the reaction hadn't been quite as loud as her subconscious's retelling was making it, but there had still been yelling.
It was the memory of that yelling that was being amplified in Homulilly's head, looping and getting louder and louder while she felt smaller and smaller, bowed down by her classmates' shock, fear, and indignation, until it filled her whole head and-
A soft piano melody began to play, one that drowned out the cacophony.
Homulilly blinked her eyes open again, but the piano kept playing. It was the song that she and Gretchen had chosen for their wake-up call, as the default squealing alarm was too much of a shock. Even so, she heard Gretchen let out a small grunt of annoyance, and then slid one of her wire legs out of the blanket to turn the alarm off.
Slowly breathing out, Homulilly gave Gretchen one last squeeze before pulling away. She flopped onto her back and stared up at the ceiling.
Three months. It had taken them Three months to tell them. Why? Why had it taken them so long to divulge this aspect of their new home? Why hide it from them?
Then Homulilly snorted. The ironic thing was that, from a certain point of view, it hadn't taken long at all. How long had it been since their deaths in the world of the living? Less than an hour?
She glanced to one side to see that Gretchen had turned around and was now watching Homulilly with her dark pink gaze.
"Could you sleep any?" Gretchen said.
Homulilly shrugged. "Some. I fell asleep before you crawled in. Bad dream?"
Gretchen slowly nodded. "I dreamed that I found a door back home. That all I had to do was open it and I'd be alive again. I even had normal legs again!"
Homulilly frowned. Dreams about somehow returning to life were something they had both been dealing with, though in those they tended to retain their witch remnants and have their respective families react in horror.
"But in my dream I had been here for…I don't know. I really long time. I was all grown up here, like I remember having a job and we had a house together, and had all these things that I had done. But when I went through the door I was a kid again, and my family had never even noticed that I was ever gone! I kept trying to tell them everything that had happened, that I had died and gone to another world, that I was a grown-up and everything, but they wouldn't listen! They would just nod and say that's nice, but I needed to hurry up and get ready for school!"
"Well, that's not…as bad as the other dreams we've had," Homulilly said after a bit.
"I know! It wasn't scary or anything, it was just frustrating. But it just made me so upset, that I had done all these things and nobody would take me seriously!" Gretchen sighed. "I don't know. It was just confusing."
Homulilly nodded once. "Yeah. I get it."
They lay side-by-side in silence for a time, musing over the new wrinkle in their situation. Breakfast and group therapy was going to be later than usual today, and wasn't mandatory, so they had some time. Which was a good thing. Given how poorly some of the other girls had taken the news, Homulilly was anticipating a volatile situation when they did get together later that day.
"I wonder how the others are taking it," Gretchen said at last, breaking the silence.
Homulilly winced. When their caretakers had sat them all down the day before and explained the situation, the reactions had been…mixed. Some had already figured things out and were unsurprised. Some hadn't but took it relatively well, reasoning that everything was so weird anyway, so what was one more bit of strangeness? Some had been outright shocked and didn't speak for the rest of the meeting.
A few hadn't taken it well at all. Some of them had even been angry, and probably still were. There had been yelling.
As for Homulilly, she didn't know what to think. She didn't know how she felt about this at all. Should she be upset? Angry? Should she be crying? Some of the others had.
But she didn't feel any of those things. Mostly she just felt a little…confused. Uncertain. And more than a little curious. This certainly changed things, but try as she might, she couldn't figure out how or why.
And then Gretchen slowly sat up. She yawned and stretched her arms over her head, easing wakefulness back into her limbs. Then she swung her thicket of legs around and stood up.
"Come on," she said. "We might as well get up."
…
Generally the girls at the Freehaven Integration Bureau were encouraged to interact and bond with those in their class, but they weren't forced. The group meetings were voluntary, at least for the time being, with one-on-one sessions available for those who preferred some privacy when talking about their troubles.
Homulilly had already had several of those private sessions. She much preferred them to sitting in a circle with the others girls. At least when it was just her and Dr. Cynthia, she didn't have to feel like she was constantly on her guard. However, Gretchen liked spending time with the others, so Homulilly endured the group meetings for her sake, though given how upset many of the girls were the day before, she anticipated a low turnout.
To Homulilly's surprise, they weren't the only ones in the room that their group therapy sessions were held in. In fact, almost everyone had come. A few girls were missing, presumably having decided to spend some time to themselves, but there were far more than Homulilly had expected. At least two-thirds, in fact.
The caretakers were there as well. Dr. Alice, the head of the trio, was sitting with Vendel, Jordan, and Carly and speaking to them in hushed tones, while the motorcycle witch Dr. Cynthia was talking to Gabrielle the hat witch and Amirah the button witch, and Dr. Rawinza was speaking privately to the Chinese magical girl Zhao Ming. Judging by the disgruntled looks on most of the girls' faces, they were not at all happy about what had been revealed to them and wanted answers. At least the caretakers were there in person to give them to them.
Homulilly wondered if she ought to go ask some questions as well. Sure, Dr. Cynthia was occupied, but there were a couple other therapists there as well, and one ought to be free sooner or later. However, she just couldn't think of something to ask. How could she have anything cleared up when she herself still didn't know how she felt?
Despite the reduced size of the gathering, the breakfast buffet had still been laid out, same as always. Two other girls were there, talking as they filled their plates. It was Lucy, the short, spunky girl with the removeable head and Lindy, the large, friendly girl that was part spider. Despite not being a Walpurgisnacht like Homulilly and Gretchen, the two had become fast friends and were always seen in each other's company. And while they were a little too…outgoing for Homulilly's comfort, she did like them better than most of the others. At least they never felt like they were looking down on her.
"Hey, girls!" Lindy greeted them as they approached. "Good morning!" Being the big eater that she was, she was holding two plates in her human hands, with the four giant spider limbs protruding from her back deftly using the utensils to pile them high with food. It was sort of strange how normal Homulilly found her now. At first she had been kind of terrifying, but now Homulilly barely noticed the spider thing at all.
"Yo," Lucy said shortly as she scooped scrambled eggs onto her plate. In contrast to her big, boisterous friend, she seemed quite irritable, barely even glancing at Homulilly and Gretchen.
"Good morning, Lindy-chan and Lucy-chan!" Gretchen said. Homulilly gave them a brief nod and quickly averted her eyes.
"So, how you doing?" Lindy said. "I mean, wow. That was a big bomb they dropped."
"Puttin' it mildly," Lucy muttered.
"Oh, we're okay, I guess," Gretchen said. "I suppose it was a big shock, but I guess it's…not that bad?"
Lucy shot her a bit of a nasty look that Homulilly didn't particularly care for. "Yeah?" she said, angrily scooping up fried potatoes. "How do you figure?"
"Well, I guess it is strange, seeing how we can live entire years here and only have a few days go by back…back home," Gretchen said. "But at least it's not the other way around! At least it's not like everyone we knew is getting old really fast in just a few days over here."
"See, that's what I've been saying to this grouch!" Lindy said, smacking Lucy in the back with one of her spider limbs, causing the smaller girl to lurch forward and nearly sending her head rolling off her shoulders. "This is actually a good thing! I mean, sooner or later someone's got to figure out how to get in contact with living people, am I right? So now we know that our families will probably still be alive, even if it takes a couple hundred years!"
"Man, you just don't get it," Lucy grumbled as she adjusted her head to have a tighter fit on her neck.
"Then explain it to me! You know I'll always listen."
Lucy roughly shoved the bigger girl aside. "Oh, like you'd understand, you big, stupid insect!" She grabbed her plate and stomped off without another word.
"Um, I'm actually a mammal!" Lindy called after her. "Human beings are mammals. And I have arachnid features. Insects and arachnids aren't even that closely related. We've talked about this." Then she sighed.
"Are you okay?" Gretchen asked.
"Me? Yeah, I'm fine!" Lindy laughed. "She's just in a bad mood. Hey, it's still pretty crazy, though. I mean, I know we all didn't die at the same time, but to think that, like, less than an hour has passed back home? So weird!"
"I wonder if anyone's noticed that we're gone," Gretchen said in a low voice.
"I guess it really depends! I mean, the four of us are witches, so who knows when or how we changed? Maybe it happened when we were on the job, and we were wandering around as witches before some magical girl hunted us down. Then yeah, someone's probably noticed that we're missing. Maybe we changed while fighting another witch, and we had partners or something that took us out, then they probably know, but our families wouldn't. Or hey, maybe things just got so bad that we changed at home, then oh boy, our families definitely noticed that…" Then Lindy noticed the horrified looks on Gretchen and Homulilly's faces and winced. "…and never mind, we probably all changed far away from anybody else and were set free like immediately after before hurting anybody, and there's no way any of our families and friends know yet, so it's not like they're worried or traumatized, and we definitely didn't eat our families." Still grimacing with embarrassment, she picked up her two plates while grabbing three cups of orange juice with her spider-legs and mumbled, "I'm, uh, just…gonna catch up to Lucy," before hurrying off.
Gretchen made a face. "I hope they're okay," she said as she spooned fresh vegetables onto her plate. "I know this is rough, but Lucy-chan shouldn't insult her friend like that!"
"They'll be fine," Homulilly assured her with a confidence that she didn't actually feel. "Lucy gets upset about dumb things all the time, right? And Lindy never gets offended by anything."
"Yeah, but even so…"
The two made their way to their favorite couch, which had a low, fold-out table set up in front of it, and started eating. As they did, Homulilly shot a glance over to where Lucy and Lindy were sitting. As was her wont, Lucy had removed her head and set it down next to her plate and was spooning her breakfast into her mouth. Normally she looked quite smug while doing so, as she knew that people were weirded out by it, but today she just looked rather moody and was only doing it out of habit. Next to her, Lindy was talking animatedly, no doubt in an attempt to cheer her sulky friend up, to no evident avail.
"Still, Lindy-chan was right," Gretchen said.
"About what?"
"About how the time difference thing might be good! I mean, it's like she said: they're bound to find a way to get in contact with home sooner or later, right? Now they can take all the time they want and our families will still be alive!"
Homulilly decided not to point out how dangerous it would be for them to talk to someone who knew their real names. "Gretchen, how long do you think the afterlife has been around? I mean, they said that girls have been making contracts for about as long as human civilization has existed, right? So the afterlife must have existed almost as long, right?"
Gretchen blinked. "Er, I guess."
"But because time goes so much slower in here, that means that the afterlife is way, way older. Probably…I don't know, millions, billions of years."
"Maybe."
"So if it's been around that long, don't you think that if there is a way to talk to the living that they would have found it by now?"
Gretchen blinked, and for a split second the optimistic cheer slipped from her face, leaving her totally distraught. Homulilly's chest seized up.
"Gretch…" she started to say.
And then Gretchen was smiling again. "Well, just because they haven't found it yet doesn't mean they never will! It took people thousands of years to invent cars, after all!"
Homulilly grimaced and looked away.
In time breakfast was finished and put away, and everyone was seated in a circle. As expected, more than a few of the other girls looked quite upset. Homulilly sank as far back into the cushions as she could and prepared herself for a very uncomfortable discussion.
The three caretakers were spread out through the circle, with Homulilly and Gretchen being closest to Dr. Cynthia and having Dr. Riwanza sitting a few spaces away on their other side. As she was the one who normally led the discussions, all eyes went to Dr. Alice.
"Well, girls," Dr. Alice said. "Yesterday many of you learned one of the strangest aspects of this world we now reside in, and I imagine that many of you have some questions regarding that." She looked around at the group. "So, would anyone like to lead things off?"
All the girls, both witch and magical girl alike, exchanged looks of discomfort. Even the angry ones like Lucy didn't seem to be in a rush to be the first to speak.
Finally, to no one's surprise, the long-necked and perpetually annoyed witch Vendel was the first to step up to the plate. "Ugh, fine!" she said. "I'll do it! Why the heck did you take so long to tell us about this?
Lindy cleared her throat. "Um, they did tell us weeks ago that they're going to take their time telling us everything. I'm not the only one who remembers that, am I?"
"No, but this kind of ought to have been first! Like, okay, time apparently moves so fast here that years can go by for us but only a few days for them? That little detail seems like it ought to be kind of important."
"But why?" said Brittney, the athletic scaled witch. "What difference does it make? It's not we can go back!"
"It totally makes a difference!"
"And hey, can we talk about that first?" snapped Gretchen's friend Marty, the witch made up of paper-clips. "Because I have a real problem with how long it's taking to tell us how our new 'home' is supposed to work!" Here she held up her hands and signed quotation marks while saying the world "home," while at the same time, several paperclips in her arms and shoulders unraveled and raised their ends to make the same gesture.
"Well, if you want to get technical, it's only been, I don't know a few minutes?" Brittney said. "Half-an-hour? Maybe a full hour, tops?"
"That's not the point and you know it!"
"A very good question," Dr. Alice said, disregarding the argument. "I don't suppose anyone has an idea?"
"I don't know, maybe you got some kind of sick thrill from keeping us in the dark?" snapped Marty.
"Oh, come on," said Brittney. "That's not fair."
"Not fair? Not fair? What's not fair is being lied to!"
"Lied? Wait, who lied?" said Carly, the Canadian magical girl. "Just because they took their time telling us-"
"They knew we would want to know this and didn't tell us! That's the same as lying!"
"No, it literally is not! Especially since they told us in advance that there were some things that they're going to wait to tell us."
"Well, that's stupid! We deserve to know!"
"A-hem!"
Everyone turned to Dr. Rizwana, who had been the one to noisily clear her throat.
Smoothing out her lap, Dr. Rizwana said, "We understand why you might assume the worst. But there was a very good reason why we waited until now to tell you, and I haven't heard that reason yet. Now, think, please."
Marty snorted slouched back with her arms folded, but most of the other girls did start to look thoughtful. Frowning, Homulilly couldn't help but wonder as well, though she certainly wasn't going to offer up a suggestion.
And then Claudia sighed, her streetlight eyes switching to yellow. "Because you didn't want us to freak out, I guess."
"Oh, that is stupid!" Marty growled. Several of her paperclips had unraveled enough that her neck and shoulders were bristling with sharp points. "We were going to freak out no matter when they told us!"
"Very true," Dr. Rizwana said with a nod. "But it's all about timing."
"You see, girls, the FIB has been here for a long time," Dr. Alice continued. "Our purpose is to help girls like yourselves come to terms with your new situation."
"Which would be our deaths," Vendel said.
"Yes, it would be," Dr. Alice said. "As well as our own. And I believe we can all agree that for all of us, to one degree or another, dying was…kind of screwed up."
That got a few muted chuckles out of the group, though not from everyone.
"But as bad as that was, being thrust into a world as bizarre as this didn't really help matters. At all." Dr. Alice leaned forward, her hands clasped over her knees. "I still have bad dreams about that time, of being scared of everything and wondering what new horror awaited me each new day. Nothing seemed to make sense, and just when it seemed like I had a handle on things, something new would pop up to throw me for a loop."
Lucy crossed her arms. "So you decide to throw us on the loop-the-loop once you're the one calling the shots. Thanks."
"No, what happened is that in time I came to learn exactly why such knowledge was spaced out, why we were given time to process each new bit of strangeness before learning the rest. After all, finding out that not only were we not alone in the universe but also other lifeforms were now our neighbors completely upended my entire worldview. I'm sure having everything else dumped on me would have cause something of a mental overload."
At this, Gretchen spoke up. "But the aliens are cool! They've all been very nice and kind of pretty."
Vendel snorted. "Yeah. The one we've met, anyway."
It was then that Iris finally spoke up. The music-minded cassette-tape witch was normally very animated during group discussions, so having her remain silent for so long during this one was unusual. "Um, I'm sorry, I have a question!" she said, thrusting her hand onto the air.
Dr. Alice smiled. "Yes, Iris. What is your question?"
"Oh, not for you, for them." Iris looked around at the other girls in the circle. "Did…Did none of you know about this? I mean, I found out weeks ago!"
"Wait, you knew?" Marty sat straight up. "And you didn't say anything?"
"Nobody asked me! Besides, I assumed that you would have figured this out by now."
"And how exactly could we have done that?" Vendel demanded.
"Uh, through the library? I mean, I know we're not allowed on the computers yet, but there are lots and lots of books. I checked out every book I could find on other species, and they were all very candid about it!"
"Well, not all of us are all-"
"Also, I've been talking to a lot of the upperclassmates. You know, we do pass by them all the time! You can go right up to them and ask them anything!"
At this, Dr. Cynthia's chrome eyebrows narrowed. "Perhaps, but perhaps they ought to show just a little more discretion. After all, it's not like they don't know-"
"Did you find anything on how to call back?" Gretchen blurted out.
Everyone then turned to stare at her, and while their eyes weren't on Homulilly specifically, they were close enough to make her shrink back into the cushions, wishing that Gretchen hadn't said anything.
"I'm sorry?" Iris said, tilting her head in confusion. "Call whom back?"
"Our families!" Gretchen said. "The people we knew! Did you find anything on how to talk to them?"
"Oh, no, it's totally impossible," Iris said without hesitation. "Pretty much everyone who's ever done any real research on the boundary between here and the world of the living all agree that it's one-way only."
"Besides, why would you want to?" Vendel said. "Wouldn't that, like, totally screw you up in the head?"
Gretchen said nothing and looked away. Homulilly squeezed her hand.
"That's a desire I understand all too well," Dr. Riwanza softly. "Whether you remember them or not, the desire to get in touch with the families we've left behind still remains. But Vendel is right. It would be very bad for a witch to talk to those that she once knew."
Gretchen frowned. "How do you know if no one's tried it?"
"Because they have. It is a bit rare, but we have had sisters arrive in which one had turned into a witch and the other hadn't. There have even been a few documented cases in which a mother and a daughter had had the same thing happen to them. Not many, mind you, but they do exist. And they all have exhibited the same danger of a witch being called by her dead name, or having specific memories jogged within her. If anything else, the danger is more severe." Dr. Riwanza sighed. "Also, Iris is right. If there is some method to pierce the veil and speak to those we have left, than thus far, no one has found it."
"Oh, but that doesn't mean that one doesn't exist," Iris put in. "It's just that I haven't come across one. Nor has anyone looking into the matter. Or…anyone else, actually."
Homulilly winced. She really wished that Iris hadn't said that. As for Gretchen, she didn't say anything, but Homulilly couldn't help but study her out of the corner of her eye. She did not like the pensive look on Gretchen's face. She did not like it one bit.
…
Though Homulilly really didn't care for leaving the small apartment that she shared with Gretchen, she liked being alone even less. As such, whenever Gretchen wanted to visit one of the FIB's many amenities, Homulilly often found herself tagging along.
Honestly, Homulilly was surprised by the amount of freedom they were afforded. For a place that was adamant about taking its time in easing them into the new world that they inhabited, there wasn't a whole lot to stop them from finding things out on their own. But maybe that was the point. Maybe they figured that some girls adjusted better when finding things out at their own pace.
Unfortunately, it would seem that Gretchen was starting to become one of those. Previously, she had been content to take her time along with Homulilly, letting the caretakers tell her everything at a relaxed pace. But now that the subject of her predecessor's family had been broached, then she couldn't seem to stop thinking about them. As such, when she suggested that she and Homulilly visit the library, Homulilly knew exactly why, and she didn't care for it one bit.
But Gretchen was going to go with or without Homulilly, and Homulilly didn't want to be alone, so after breakfast, when Gretchen said that she wanted to go to the library, Homulilly agreed to go along.
Gretchen immediately started looking through the catalogue for books with very long titles. All of that looked too confusing for Homulilly, so she started browsing the nearby shelves. She had come to discover that she really wasn't that much of a reader, and trying to get invested in a story was more difficult than she had the patience for
However, there was one set of books that she really liked.
It was a series of picture books, though definitely not intended for young children. Rather, each story was often as tragic as it was beautiful, and all of them told entirely through pictures, with no words whatsoever, and each picture being gorgeously illustrated and dynamic, and each one covering two whole pages, with the action of one blending seamlessly into the other if they were laid out side-by-side.
The one she liked the most was honestly rather macabre, about a young girl who loses her parents in a car accident and is sent to live with her aunt and uncle on their farm, only for them to mistreat and use as free labor. She then runs away but has to take shelter from the rain in an abandoned farmhouse. It was then that she discovers that the farmhouse was haunted by the spirit of another girl, one who wore old-fashioned clothing. At first the living girl is frightened, but the ghost is just as scared of her and immediately runs away, leading the girl's curiosity to override her fear. She seeks after the ghost to find her cowering in the ruined house's attic and reaches out to her, leading the ghost to look up and hesitantly extend her own hand, but their fingers pass through one another.
The two then start to form a friendship, as both are in desperate need of some kind of meaningful connection. The girl starts to fix up the farmhouse, cleaning and repairing what she can, while the ghost shows her where various useful tools can be found and where wild vegetables are growing. A garden is planted, various odds and ends are put together by whatever is lying around or stolen from nearby homesteads, and gradually the decrepit farmhouse becomes more lively, transforming from the empty corpse of a house back into a home. Homulilly's favorite part was when the girl is digging through the basement when she finds an iron blocked with a door bar. The ghost is clearly uncomfortable about it, but the girl pushes the door bar aside and opens it to find the long-decayed corpse that the ghost had left behind, still curled up in the fetal position in one corner. The ghost turns away in shame, but the girl isn't disgusted. Instead, she calmly lays the bones onto an old burlap sack and brings them up to give them a proper burial in the garden. And as they're standing over the grave, the two girls' hands again reach for one another, only to be disappointed when they still can't touch one another.
But then tragedy strikes. The girl's cruel uncle shows up in the middle of the night, along with his hunting dogs. He tries to force the girl to come back with him, but she runs from him, with him and the dogs in hot pursuit. The ghost tries to stop him, but he cannot see her, though she does succeed in spooking the dogs, giving the girl time to rush from the house out into the night.
Her uncle continues to give chase, but he realizes too late that he has lost control of his dogs. The girl reaches a road and tries to run across, but the dogs run her down, and her uncle cannot stop them from tearing into her, though he seems more annoyed than distraught. Then, as he sighs in irritation, he looks up to see a police car only a few meters away, with two officers staring out of the windshield in horror.
The horrible uncle is taken away in handcuffs, and the coroners show up to take the girl's body away. All the while, the ghost stands unseen over them, watching them cart away the remains of her only friend. She then returns alone to the farmhouse, walking through all the rooms and looking at the home she helped her friend build, seeing all the various odds and ends that had been brought in to pretty up the place, before returning outside to sit down on the porch, looking out toward her grave.
But as she's sitting alone, another luminous hand reaches out from the air to close tightly around her own, squeezing it tightly.
Homulilly loved that one, even with how morbid it was. Actually, she liked that about it. After all, she was practically a ghost herself. It made sense that she would feel a connection to the characters. And while some might disagree, she considered the ending to be very happy. After all, the two girls got to be together in the end. Wasn't love and companionship so much better than a lonely miserable life?
Then she glanced over to Gretchen.
Gretchen was still hunched over at one of the tables, flipping through the stack of books she had gathered while her legs tangled themselves into knots on the floor around her.
Heaving out a sigh, Homulilly placed the book back and headed over to her side.
"Gretchen-chan," she said. "What's wrong?"
Gretchen leapt a little at the sound of her voice. "Oh, nothing!" she said, a nonchalant smile swiftly thrown over the look of frustration she had been wearing. She hastily slammed the book she had been reading shut and tried to block Homulilly's view of the title. "Just, you know, browsing…"
Homulilly's eyebrows knitted together. Gretchen hadn't hid it quick enough, and she was able to read the title. THE MORTAL COIL; HOW OUR LIVES RELATE TO THE ONE WE LEFT.
"Gretchen-chan," Homulilly said slowly. "Do you really expect to find a way?"
The smile remained fixed on Gretchen's face, though it was starting to waver. "Find a way? I don't know what you're talking about, Lilly-chan! I was just…" Her voice faltered, and her mask of cheer gave way to the despair she was feeling. "…I was…oh."
She slowly slumped forward, one elbow placed on the desk next to the pile of books, hand gripping her forehead, trembling fingers digging into her scalp as she slowly exhaled. "Sorry."
Homulilly laid a gloved hand on her anxious friend's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "You shouldn't get yourself worked up about this," she said softly.
"But I can't help it!" Gretchen said. "I just…There has to be a way to talk to them! They don't even know that I'm dead yet! I need to tell them that I'm okay, that I might be gone and a little different, but things are still good for me! They'll worry otherwise!"
Frankly, Homulilly felt that everything Gretchen would have to explain to her family about her current situation would cause them far more distress than her simple disappearance. "And you think you can just find a way by looking it up?"
"Well, where else can I start? I'm not allowed on the computers yet, so I have to try the books.." Gretchen swung an arm at the whole of the library, indicating the expanse of shelves. "But there's so many! And if I ask one of the grown-ups then I just know that they'll tell me to stop looking!"
"Well, maybe they're right."
"No," Gretchen said with an empathic shake of her head. "No. There's a way. There has to be a way. There has to be something out there. I just need to know where to look, who to talk to, who to-"
Then her voice started to choke up, while wetness glistened at the corners of her eyes. She sniffed and looked away, wiping her eyes with her arms.
"Sorry," she muttered. "But I have to at least try!"
Homulilly grimaced. She didn't care for this new fixation of Gretchen's, in part because it would only end up disappointing her, but also because Homulilly had a feeling that it would also come to get both of them in trouble.
But how could she tell Gretchen that without hurting her? It was clear learning about the time difference had triggered something in Gretchen, something that that was making her preoccupied with her old family. And Homulilly couldn't blame her! She too often found herself wondering what her own host's family had been like, and if they ever missed her. Well, probably not, since the odds were good that no one had noticed that she was even gone yet, but the curiosity was still there.
But unlike Gretchen, Homulilly did not want to contact them at all. She didn't even want to know what their names were. Because she was not their daughter, not their sister, not their friend. She was the one who had stolen their little girl's body and infested her soul. She was a parasite, the one who had taken her away from them. They would have nothing for her but hatred.
Gretchen sat with her head bowed, legs twisting together in agitation, neither willing to be the first to start the argument they both felt forming.
Then Homulilly. "So, um…do you. Want. To take a walk?"
Gretchen hesitated, and then nodded.
…
While Homulilly didn't care to leave the dorm that she shared with Gretchen, there was a list of places outside of their apartment that Homulilly was learning to tolerate, so long as she wasn't alone. The list was short, but the number one spot was undeniably taken by the McNally Gardens.
The FIB's botanical gardens were large, spacious, and varied, recreating a plethora of different environments, from bright and vibrant rainforests to arid deserts. Personally, Homulilly preferred the temperate forests. They just struck her as the most peaceful and mild of the gardens: less wild than a jungle, but not nearly as harsh as a desert. It was a fine middle ground that she found soothing.
Besides, she liked the flowers.
Though there was usually someone else about, they normally left Gretchen and her alone as they walked the paths, wandering between the trees and foliage. That was another reason why Homulilly preferred the forested areas, as the thickness of the trees hid the size of the gardens, making them feel a little more private.
However, no matter how lovely their surroundings, it didn't help ease the tension between them. Gretchen's eyes were faraway, her brow furrowed in troublesome thoughts. Their hands were clasped, but Gretchen's grip was loose, done more out of habit than anything.
Homulilly glanced at her out of the corner of her eye and grimaced. Normally Gretchen would be taking the time to examine the trees and flowers or search for any wild animals, but now her mind seemed to be in another place entirely. Homulilly wracked her mind, trying to think of a way to broach the subject gently.
She couldn't think of one. Fine. She might as well just say it.
"Gretchen-chan," Homulilly said at last. "I don't think that there is a way."
Gretchen blinked. "What are you talking about, Lilly-chan? Of course there is! Just because no one's found it yet doesn't mean it doesn't exist!"
Homulilly's mouth thinned out. On the one hand, she understood where Gretchen was coming from. After all, she had to admit that she often found herself very curious of the life of the girl whose face she now wore. What had been her name? What had she been like? Who was her family? How did they react when she never came home?
But with that curiosity came fear. After all, she was not their child, she was the monster that had stolen their child's life away, and now walked around in a body that she had no right to. No good could ever come from getting in touch with that life.
However, Homulilly knew that Gretchen saw things differently, that she actually was the girl who had become a witch, instead of just the witch itself. And to her, that girl's family was her family.
Homulilly felt her stomach clench up at the thought. If Gretchen did find some way to reach across the border of death and life itself and send a message to her host's family, would that change things? Would she even want to be with Homulilly afterward?
"Gretchen-chan," she said. "I don't think-"
Then she shut her mouth. Another girl was walking the other way on the path, an upperclassmate from the look of her. Fortunately, she seemed to be lost in thoughts of her own, and didn't so much as glance at the two newly dead witches as she passed them by.
Homulilly waited until she had gone out of sight before continuing. "Would that even be a good idea? You know what they said, that if we meet people that we knew and hear our old names, then it could hurt us!"
"But we've already met people that we know!" Gretchen said. "Ophelia-sempai, Oktavia-sempai, Candeloro-sempai, and Charlotte sempai! They were our friends back then, and talking to them didn't hurt us!"
Despite her worry, Homulilly couldn't help but feel a little cheered at the mention of their new (and old) friends. Of all the people they had met since waking, those were the only ones other than Gretchen and maybe Dr. Cynthia that Homulilly didn't feel discomfort in talking to.
Still, that didn't mean that Gretchen wasn't off-base. Shaking her head, Homulilly said, "But they didn't say our old names! And they also lost their memories, so they couldn't say anything dangerous!"
Then, to Homulilly's dismay, Gretchen's eyes had begun to mist over. "But how do they know? How do they know that it's dangerous? If it's never been tried, then there's no way to know!"
Homulilly grimaced. She really hated to dash Gretchen's hopes like this, but it couldn't be helped. "But it has! Magical girls and witches who knew each other have both come here! They've seen what happens to witches who hear their old name! You've seen how careful they are with Lillian and Heather!"
That was true enough. Like Homulilly and Gretchen, their classmates Lillian and Heather had both known each other in their past lives and arrived together, but as Lillian was a witch and Heather was not, Heather had to be very careful not to say anything that might hurt her friend.
"But it's not the same thing!" Gretchen insisted. "Maybe it's only like that between people who became magical girls! Maybe people who didn't make contracts with Incubators are different!"
"Gretchen-chan, listen to me!" Homulilly took both of Gretchen's hands in her own, holding them tight. "If there was a way to talk to living people, don't you think everyone would know about it? And if it was a secret, why would someone as new as us be able to find it with a computer search?"
Gretchen's face was already blotchy with emotion, but now it was twisting up badly. She was clearly fighting back tears. "But…But that doesn't mean-"
It tore out Homulilly's heart to hurt her like this, but wasn't it for the best? Wouldn't letting Gretchen get her hopes up only to have them destroyed later be worse?
Besides, if there really was a way, Homulilly wasn't sure she wanted Gretchen finding it. Because if Gretchen was right, and she did find her family again, would she even need Homulilly anymore?
"Um, excuse me?"
Homulilly couldn't keep from jerking a little in surprise at being suddenly addressed, and even Gretchen let out a small squeak. The pair of witches spun toward the new voice, eyes wide in alarm.
It was the upperclassmate they had passed earlier. She was Japanese like they were, but older and taller, with bright brown eyes and brown hair tied into a long side-tail.
"Oh! I'm sorry I startled you!" the girl said, lifting a placating hand. "But I couldn't help but overhear you talking. It was about trying to talk to people back in the world of the living, right? Like your families?"
Homulilly felt her stomach clench up, but before she could tell the girl to go away, Gretchen immediately brightened. "It was!" she exclaimed. "But they told us that it's impossible!"
"They tell everyone that," the girl said. "They said the same thing to me as well." She looked the two young witches over. "Let's see: I haven't really seen you two around often. Are you new? As if in, just joined us here?"
"We are!" Gretchen said. "We've only been here for a few weeks. It's, uh…" She looked around at the world surrounding them. "Well, it's a lot to get used to."
"I know. I've been here for about a year and a half, and I still get surprised by something new." Then the girl perked up. "But I also have been looking for some way to get in touch with living people, a way to send some kind of message. I mean, just because they think that it's impossible doesn't mean there isn't a way that they just don't know about, right?"
"That's what I was thinking!" Gretchen said. "So much is so strange, and a lot of it feels like it ought to be impossible, but it is! So there's no reason that this shouldn't be possible."
"Exactly! That's what I've been saying all along!"
Homulilly was growing ever more uncomfortable. She didn't like this girl, and really wished that she would go away and stop filling Gretchen's head with dangerous stuff. But how could she express that without coming off like a jerk. "Er, I'm r-really sorry, Miss, but…"
"Oh, that's right! I haven't introduced myself, have it?" The girl then twirled stylishly on her heel and flashed a V-sign with her fingers in front of a wide grin. "I'm your dazzling senior classmate, Tsuruno Yui!"
…
Hey guys, it's been a hot minute, hasn't it?
Actually, we need to talk about it. See, it's been way too long since I've had the chance to work on that story, and the big reason why is that I just took on too many projects all at once. I've got five totally different stories I'm working on, many of which are very long with big updates, plus a plethora of side-projects. Plus, I have a full time job and other hobbies as well. So this is really becoming a problem.
So here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to complete this arc, and then each of the other stories will be updated once more so I can let all my readers know what's happening in the notes, and then I'm going to concentrate on finishing my side stories, one by one, focusing solely on each until they're done. First will be my Touhou story Swiftly Descending Darkness, as that's the closest to being done, and then I'm going to focus solely on this story, and then my book Blood Island, and after that it'll go back to just my two big stories Imperfect Metamorphosis and Resonance Days.
As for this chapter, it was a lot harder to write than I expected. One part is that I wanted it to be kicked off by the girls finding out by the time difference but wasn't sure how to get an actual plot out of that, and the other is that trying to figure out how a facility such as the FIB would actually operate is a lot harder than it sounds. But hopefully the next two installments won't give me as much trouble.
Hopefully.
Until next time, everyone!