Disclaimer: characters belong to Disney.
So Weird-Second Chances
Ep 5: Interlude
Fi dreamed that Aunt Melinda was making troll soup in the kitchen. Carey was confessing that it had always been his ambition to be a cauliflower when she woke up.
Just in time to see something weird. In her sleeping bag on the floor Annie stirred and moaned, dreaming. The panther appeared from nowhere and bowed over her so its whiskers brushed her face. Then it looked up, straight at Fi with its unsettling gold-green eyes. Seeming ok with what it saw, it lay down on the floor and disappeared.
Fi decided it was time to get up. Breakfast sounded like a better option than lazing around with a maybe-there maybe-not maybe-invisible big cat in the room. It was after eight, anyway.
She found Carey sitting at the kitchen table with his music binder open in front of him. "Hey Fi, if you see Annie before I do, tell her this song needs a flute part."
"I'll tell her when she gets up." Fi said from the fridge, "You just wrote that?"
"Yeah. It's called 'the odds of faith' it's about how hard it is to believe in things in this crazy world." Carey shrugged as if to say the world didn't seem so crazy to him.
"Sounds cool."
"I'll let you hear it when it's done. Well, I'll let everyone hear it. You need help over there?"
Fi was pouring milk with her left hand. She said "No." and immediately spilled it. Carey got up to get paper towels.
"I am going crazy from this cast."
"Look on the bright side, at least you can walk now."
"Yeah." At long last Fi got her drink of milk.
"So how was the exhibit opening last night?"
"It was cool. It's about Neanderthals, there's a whole village you can walk through with life size people and animals, and a bunch of skull reproductions and stuff." All this she'd heard from Rebecca. Then she went off into other things. "Did you know Neanderthals had brains even bigger than ours? The skulls are bigger in the back so they had different kinds of intelligence. Some people think they might have been telepathic. Either way they were as human as us but not us. Isn't that cool?"
"Totally. You sound like my anthropology teacher high on something."
"But it is cool."
"I'm not arguing." Carey said, grinning. "Oh! My mom's starting to hint it's time we get back on the road, so you know."
"Ok. I'll try to convince my mom I'm fine so you guys can go. I hope the tour isn't too messed up."
"Not your fault you fell off a mountain. Your mom was really freaked."
"Yeah I know."
"So how's this sound?" Carey asked and sang a few lines of his song.
"I like it."
"Need my guitar..."
They fiddled with the song for a while, then Molly appeared and pitched in. After a while Fi excused herself and went upstairs.
Annie, dressed and with her hair tied up in a towel, was flopped on her sleeping bag reading a book. She turned the cover up so Fi could see it: one of the books about exposing fake mediums. "This is pretty interesting."
"Yeah. I think I might like to do that kind of thing later, like after I graduate." Fi went to her closet. The box she wanted was on the top shelf labeled 'weird stuff' in permanent marker.
"I wouldn't. Too much being around rotten people."
"Can you get this box down for me?"
"Sure." Annie jumped up and pulled the 'weird stuff' box down, almost causing a landslide of cardboard in the process.
"I'll clean the closet someday." Fi said sheepishly.
"You should see mine. I'm going downstairs.'
"Ok. Carey wants to talk music anyway."
Hearing that, Annie left the book behind.
Fi grinned and opened the box. On top was the Roswell-alien-something, and Fi said hello to it. It said "xyugh" back. Under that was a head of wheat from a real crop circle and a plastic bag of gross dried-up ooze from a swimming pool where aliens had landed. There were letters, and printed emails and other souvenirs. On the bottom was the book. It was almost too fat for her to lift one-handed, but she got it out and open on her desk.
She could read the words again. After casting that last spell in Colorado the book had become gibberish, even the Gaelic unrecognizable, but now it was clear. Each spell still had only one word to tell what, exactly, it did. Fi was looking for anything to do with vampires or immortals. There might be something in the book that would give Rebecca an option besides becoming undead.
Some of the spells she passed by looked interesting, like WEALTH and BEAUTY and MUSE. Others made no sense at all. Fi got a third of the way through the book without finding anything useful looking.
Then she found something very intriguing.
REJOIN
I tear wide the doors my ancestors closed
Break the lock forever
With no fear in my heart
Bring the worlds of spirit and flesh
Together once more
Fi read it again. Did it say what she thought it said?
Fi wasn't sure why she hadn't studied the book before, but it probably had to do with being afraid of finding something like this.
How could she find out what the spell really did?
Birdlike shrieks heralded the arrival of her two cousins, just home from school. "Hey Fi, hey Fi!" They ran into the room, collided, and tumbled onto the bed.
"Whoa, Maggie, Miranda, slow down! What's up?"
"We saw fairies!"
"Fairies in the dirt-hills behind the park. They're this tall-" Maggie held her hands a foot apart, "They wear green leaf clothes!"
"But they ran away from us like they were scared, I dunno why, I'd never hurt a fairy!"
"Me neither but I guess they didn't know! But anyway,"
"You got books on fairies? Can we borrow them?"
Fi took a moment to catch up with them. "Sure, raid the bookcase. I think that purple one on the end has stuff about contacting fairies; try it first."
"Ok!"
"Thanks!" They dove for the books.
"Fi? Oh, hi Maggie hi Miranda." Annie appeared in the doorway on hands and knees like she'd just run up the stairs. "Fi, they're having that discussion about going on with the tour, like do we go now, do we go later, maybe you want to be in on it."
"Right. Thanks." Fi shoved The Book under her bed and went downstairs.
From: Rebecat01
To: Rockerbaby
Cc: Anniegirl
Subject: vampires
1 there are more than one kind of vampire.
2 they can't go out in daylight.
3 religious symbols etc. only work if the user has true faith.
4 vampires do not need native earth or coffins, just a protected place.
5 they need blood every day but do not need to kill the donor.
6 they can eat human food but it doesn't give them nourishment.
7 their fangs are retractable
8 becoming a vampire takes several nights of exchanging blood.
9 a stake through the heart will kill a vampire, as will burning or beheading.
10 there is no known way to turn a vampire back into a living person.
And that was all there was to that email. Fi sighed and worried.
Annie puttered around packing. The bus was leaving the next day. Fi would miss them, but getting back to her normal routine would be nice-as much as she could get back into it with one arm in a sling.
There had been no sign of vampires, though Fi had carefully checked around the house for footprints. She supposed it was silly, and if the vampires wanted her they would get her, but she wasn't going without a fight. Maggie and Miranda knew about the vampires and they were perfectly content with the garlic in the windows. If faith drove off vampires, perhaps the girls' faith would help keep them safe.
"See if you can stop Rebecca from going back to visit the vampires!"
"I'll try." Fi promised, "But if she wants to go there's not much I can do."
"I think that one James was kind of all right though. He just had a weird vampire crush on me."
"Very weird."
"Don't worry, I like my guys tall, dark, and living." Annie said with a grin.
"Good taste."
"You see anything else of mine around?"
Fi looked, "Nope. You can borrow that book if you want. It's pretty rare; I got that copy from the author."
Annie turned to the front of the book. Written inside the cover was 'Good luck, Fiona' and a signature. "Are you friends with him?"
"Not friends. Mutual respect I guess."
There was a call from downstairs and Annie hefted her backpack and sleeping bag and they went down to say goodbye.
So Weird-Second Chances
Ep 5: Interlude
Fi dreamed that Aunt Melinda was making troll soup in the kitchen. Carey was confessing that it had always been his ambition to be a cauliflower when she woke up.
Just in time to see something weird. In her sleeping bag on the floor Annie stirred and moaned, dreaming. The panther appeared from nowhere and bowed over her so its whiskers brushed her face. Then it looked up, straight at Fi with its unsettling gold-green eyes. Seeming ok with what it saw, it lay down on the floor and disappeared.
Fi decided it was time to get up. Breakfast sounded like a better option than lazing around with a maybe-there maybe-not maybe-invisible big cat in the room. It was after eight, anyway.
She found Carey sitting at the kitchen table with his music binder open in front of him. "Hey Fi, if you see Annie before I do, tell her this song needs a flute part."
"I'll tell her when she gets up." Fi said from the fridge, "You just wrote that?"
"Yeah. It's called 'the odds of faith' it's about how hard it is to believe in things in this crazy world." Carey shrugged as if to say the world didn't seem so crazy to him.
"Sounds cool."
"I'll let you hear it when it's done. Well, I'll let everyone hear it. You need help over there?"
Fi was pouring milk with her left hand. She said "No." and immediately spilled it. Carey got up to get paper towels.
"I am going crazy from this cast."
"Look on the bright side, at least you can walk now."
"Yeah." At long last Fi got her drink of milk.
"So how was the exhibit opening last night?"
"It was cool. It's about Neanderthals, there's a whole village you can walk through with life size people and animals, and a bunch of skull reproductions and stuff." All this she'd heard from Rebecca. Then she went off into other things. "Did you know Neanderthals had brains even bigger than ours? The skulls are bigger in the back so they had different kinds of intelligence. Some people think they might have been telepathic. Either way they were as human as us but not us. Isn't that cool?"
"Totally. You sound like my anthropology teacher high on something."
"But it is cool."
"I'm not arguing." Carey said, grinning. "Oh! My mom's starting to hint it's time we get back on the road, so you know."
"Ok. I'll try to convince my mom I'm fine so you guys can go. I hope the tour isn't too messed up."
"Not your fault you fell off a mountain. Your mom was really freaked."
"Yeah I know."
"So how's this sound?" Carey asked and sang a few lines of his song.
"I like it."
"Need my guitar..."
They fiddled with the song for a while, then Molly appeared and pitched in. After a while Fi excused herself and went upstairs.
Annie, dressed and with her hair tied up in a towel, was flopped on her sleeping bag reading a book. She turned the cover up so Fi could see it: one of the books about exposing fake mediums. "This is pretty interesting."
"Yeah. I think I might like to do that kind of thing later, like after I graduate." Fi went to her closet. The box she wanted was on the top shelf labeled 'weird stuff' in permanent marker.
"I wouldn't. Too much being around rotten people."
"Can you get this box down for me?"
"Sure." Annie jumped up and pulled the 'weird stuff' box down, almost causing a landslide of cardboard in the process.
"I'll clean the closet someday." Fi said sheepishly.
"You should see mine. I'm going downstairs.'
"Ok. Carey wants to talk music anyway."
Hearing that, Annie left the book behind.
Fi grinned and opened the box. On top was the Roswell-alien-something, and Fi said hello to it. It said "xyugh" back. Under that was a head of wheat from a real crop circle and a plastic bag of gross dried-up ooze from a swimming pool where aliens had landed. There were letters, and printed emails and other souvenirs. On the bottom was the book. It was almost too fat for her to lift one-handed, but she got it out and open on her desk.
She could read the words again. After casting that last spell in Colorado the book had become gibberish, even the Gaelic unrecognizable, but now it was clear. Each spell still had only one word to tell what, exactly, it did. Fi was looking for anything to do with vampires or immortals. There might be something in the book that would give Rebecca an option besides becoming undead.
Some of the spells she passed by looked interesting, like WEALTH and BEAUTY and MUSE. Others made no sense at all. Fi got a third of the way through the book without finding anything useful looking.
Then she found something very intriguing.
REJOIN
I tear wide the doors my ancestors closed
Break the lock forever
With no fear in my heart
Bring the worlds of spirit and flesh
Together once more
Fi read it again. Did it say what she thought it said?
Fi wasn't sure why she hadn't studied the book before, but it probably had to do with being afraid of finding something like this.
How could she find out what the spell really did?
Birdlike shrieks heralded the arrival of her two cousins, just home from school. "Hey Fi, hey Fi!" They ran into the room, collided, and tumbled onto the bed.
"Whoa, Maggie, Miranda, slow down! What's up?"
"We saw fairies!"
"Fairies in the dirt-hills behind the park. They're this tall-" Maggie held her hands a foot apart, "They wear green leaf clothes!"
"But they ran away from us like they were scared, I dunno why, I'd never hurt a fairy!"
"Me neither but I guess they didn't know! But anyway,"
"You got books on fairies? Can we borrow them?"
Fi took a moment to catch up with them. "Sure, raid the bookcase. I think that purple one on the end has stuff about contacting fairies; try it first."
"Ok!"
"Thanks!" They dove for the books.
"Fi? Oh, hi Maggie hi Miranda." Annie appeared in the doorway on hands and knees like she'd just run up the stairs. "Fi, they're having that discussion about going on with the tour, like do we go now, do we go later, maybe you want to be in on it."
"Right. Thanks." Fi shoved The Book under her bed and went downstairs.
From: Rebecat01
To: Rockerbaby
Cc: Anniegirl
Subject: vampires
1 there are more than one kind of vampire.
2 they can't go out in daylight.
3 religious symbols etc. only work if the user has true faith.
4 vampires do not need native earth or coffins, just a protected place.
5 they need blood every day but do not need to kill the donor.
6 they can eat human food but it doesn't give them nourishment.
7 their fangs are retractable
8 becoming a vampire takes several nights of exchanging blood.
9 a stake through the heart will kill a vampire, as will burning or beheading.
10 there is no known way to turn a vampire back into a living person.
And that was all there was to that email. Fi sighed and worried.
Annie puttered around packing. The bus was leaving the next day. Fi would miss them, but getting back to her normal routine would be nice-as much as she could get back into it with one arm in a sling.
There had been no sign of vampires, though Fi had carefully checked around the house for footprints. She supposed it was silly, and if the vampires wanted her they would get her, but she wasn't going without a fight. Maggie and Miranda knew about the vampires and they were perfectly content with the garlic in the windows. If faith drove off vampires, perhaps the girls' faith would help keep them safe.
"See if you can stop Rebecca from going back to visit the vampires!"
"I'll try." Fi promised, "But if she wants to go there's not much I can do."
"I think that one James was kind of all right though. He just had a weird vampire crush on me."
"Very weird."
"Don't worry, I like my guys tall, dark, and living." Annie said with a grin.
"Good taste."
"You see anything else of mine around?"
Fi looked, "Nope. You can borrow that book if you want. It's pretty rare; I got that copy from the author."
Annie turned to the front of the book. Written inside the cover was 'Good luck, Fiona' and a signature. "Are you friends with him?"
"Not friends. Mutual respect I guess."
There was a call from downstairs and Annie hefted her backpack and sleeping bag and they went down to say goodbye.