Ok, so the writer's block turned out to be flimsier than I thought. Thanks to Sarah for lending the pick ax. More Michael development. Hazzah! Enjoy.
"Magic, magic, do as you will."
God, this stuff is corny, Michael thought, but if this shit works, I'll find and marry this Peter S. Beagle guy. Michael slowly cracked open one gray eye, only to see the stupid soda can sitting in the same exact place. He closed his eye again and growled angrily.
"Dumb can!"
He hurled all the magic he had built up at the can in hopes it would change in some way. Anything form would do right now, even if it just changed from a Coca-Cola logo to a Pepsi logo. His eyes shot open when he heard a loud pop come from the spot where the can was. Or rather, where it had been. All that was there now was a smoldering pile of what Michael could only guess was aluminum.
"Oops," he quietly mumbled to himself.
Well, he was the only one in the cave, which was a good thing. He really did not need Max to give him a lecture on magic right now. Actually, he didn't even want to talk to Max. Max's little one-on-one with Liz obviously did not go well, you didn't need to be a genius or a telepath to know that. Liz had never returned to class and Max was majorly bummed the rest of the period. So, instead of trying to track the holy saint on high down and wring an answer he already knew out of him, Michael had glided straight for the cave. If Max wanted to talk, he'd have to find him first. Michael sighed, got up off the stone slab in the middle of the cave, and went to the corner where they kept the bag of empty coke cans. Michael spent a lot of time in the cave, it was the only link they had found to their past. Four stone tables lined one side of the cave. Each had symbols on the wall over them, but none of them had ever been able to decipher them. The wall opposite the stone tables was empty except for a few niches carved out of the stone, which they used to put candles up. The back wall of the cave was the oddest. Embedded in the reddish stone was a mirror. A genuine mirror made of glass and metal. Michael still had no clue what the mirror's purpose was or who had put it there.
Michael dug a new can out of the plastic bag and trudged back to the round slab in the middle of the cave's dirt floor. He sat in the middle of the black painted pattern on the stone. After much research, they had found that it was a mutated Brigit's shield, with six loops instead of nine. Michael placed the can in front of him and cracked his knuckles.
"Ok," he mumbled. "What did that book say? Sometimes a rhyme or incantation will work."
Michael glared at the can and sighed.
"Well, here goes nothing," he exhaled as he closed his eyes and poised his hands around the can. "Little can made of metal, um, turn into a…a…tea kettle."
He pictured the can morphing easily into a black kettle in his mind. The magic oozed off of his fingers and he smiled. It was actually going to work. He cracked open an eye again and slumped over with a big sigh. The can was gone. It had disappeared.
"Why is it that everything I do either explodes or becomes invisible?" he asked the ceiling. "At least it didn't blow up this time," he muttered as an after thought as he rose to get another can. He paused to throw a rock exceptionally hard at the mirror. The rock bounced off the mirror harmlessly, merely causing soft ripples to echo through the glazed surface. Michael figured that whatever they supposedly found at the "UFO crash site" must be this stuff. The mirror didn't break no matter what was thrown at it. As far as he could tell, it wasn't effected by heat either. After the ripples disappeared into the end of the mirror, Michael gazed at his altered human reflection. The piece of glass was doing it again. In the reflection, big bronze wings extended from Michael's armored shoulders. Which would have been perfectly fine if the rays of morning sunshine weren't peeking through the crevice opening into the underground cave. He flexed his shoulder muscles and watched the mirrored wings unfurl a bit. Where was Max? As much as he didn't want to talk to the saint, he really didn't want to walk all the way home through the desert. It would take two to three hours by foot. As an answer to his pondering, footsteps scrapped and scrambled down the cave's entrance.
"It's about time you came, Maxwell. For a second, I thought I'd have to hitchhike home," he exclaimed as he turned. His breath caught in his throat when he saw Isabel hop down the rest of the way into the cave. "I'm sorry, I thought you were Max."
"It's ok, he is the one that usually picks you up. Been practicing?" she asked at she stumbled over the invisible can.
"So Max actually let you use the jeep?"
"When I told him that you'd need a ride, he mumbled something about needing sleep and a job. About an hour later, I went to his room and he's sitting there moping over this silver bracelet. Then, he had the nerve to slam the door in my face and yelling some shit about minding my own business. Luckily he left the keys to the jeep on kitchen table or you'd be walking home, Mikey."
Michael turned back to the mirror to face his winged double. His brows knit in confusion and worry.
"The mirror's doing it again, isn't it?" a palely robed figure replied from the depths of the murky mirror.
"Yup."
"Well, at least the outfits are cool enough. A little too Greek for my likes, but still super stylish," Isabel mused as she turned slightly to view the back of her double's robe.
"We should get going now, Michael. Mom will be worried and you know that you can't skip another day of school for awhile. You made a promise."
"Ok, ok, but I'm driving," Michael replied as they headed for the crevice. He glanced over his shoulder for a last image of his winged, armored self disappeared into the mirror's dark depths.