Thank you all for reading!

By the time she was on her way through the school, Willow no longer felt quite so angry, and she was sad about that. Because when she'd been angry, she hadn't felt quite so … invisible. Good grades. Always good grades. Did no one find her interesting for anything other than that?

Then, behind her, someone called her name. She turned and saw that new girl, Anya. Last time she'd seen her, Anya had been hanging around with Cordelia. Willow braced herself for the inevitable insults. "Uh … hi."

"Anya. I'm … sort of new here. Um, I know Cordelia?" She left it as something of a question, and Willow tried to think of something nice to say. Because that was what she did, get good grades and say nice things about people.

"Oh. Fun," she managed at last.

From Anya's blank face, it was clear that her voice hadn't conveyed a sense of fun. Fortunately, Anya moved quickly on from the topic of Cordelia. "Yeah. Um, listen … I have this little project I'm working on, and I heard you were the person to ask if—"

"Yeah, that's me," Willow said, sighing. "Reliable dog geyser person. What do you need?" She hoped the question conveyed a sense of not actually wanting to know.

"Oh, it's nothing big, just a little … spell I'm working on."

A spell? Well, that put a new wheel on the wagon. "A spell?" Willow moved a couple of steps down toward Anya. "Oh! I like the black arts."

Dropping her voice a little, Anya explained, "I just need a secondary to create a temporal fold. I heard you were a pretty powerful wicca, so …" She shrugged, leaving the rest of the sentence hanging.

"You heard right, mister!" Willow told her enthusiastically. Such a relief to be needed for her skills in magic, for once, something she had actually worked at. "I'm always ready to work some dark mojo. So, tell me—is it dangerous?" she asked, hoping it would be. She could use a little danger after her day worth of drudgery.

"Oh, no," Anya responded immediately, and Willow tried to hold back her disappointment. She didn't have much luck.

"Well … can we pretend it is?" she asked.

Anya frowned. "I suppose."

They separated long enough to grab some supplies from their lockers. Anya had a free period, and Willow was more than happy to skip math for the sake of magic. She'd already finished the textbook, anyway.

Anya brought a plate with the picture of a necklace drawn on it, placing it down in the middle of an empty classroom. As they arranged the rest of the supplies, she explained, "The necklace was a family heirloom, passed down for generations. It was stolen from my mom's apartment."

"How does the spell work?"

Kneeling down by the plate, Anya explained, "Well, we both call on Arashon, the Endless One, offer up the standard supplication, and there's a teensy temporal fold. We hope. Um … then I pour the sacred sand on the representation of the necklace, and Arashon brings it forth from the time and place it was lost."

"Cool." Willow could imagine so many uses for this spell, if it went well, and it was so nice to meet someone else who understood magic. Well, besides Giles, but he went out of his way to avoid encouraging Willow to take up mystical studies. She knew he was trying to protect her—and she wished he wouldn't.

"Are we ready?"

Willow nodded. "I think so."

Anya stretched out her right hand, palm up, above the plate, and began the spell. "Arashon kashala me-an."

Placing her left hand, also palm up, so that the fingertips brushed Anya's, Willow continued, "Duprecht dotanila nu Arashon."

"Child to the mother," Anya said, picking up the bottle of sacred sand with her left hand.

Willow reached for the bottle with her right. "The river to the sea."

"Arashon, hear my prayer." Visibly excited by how well the spell was going, Anya closed her eyes in supplication.

Closing her eyes as well, Willow waited. It only took a few moments, and then a bright light was shining on her face, a wind swirling around them. Her eyes opened, but instead of the classroom she was seeing visions. A vision of Giles, in his apartment, being shoved back against the wall by … a demon? A flash of two people who looked like herself and Xander, in a lot of leather. A flash of the necklace, and then Buffy staking a vampire … who looked like Xander? That couldn't be right. Willow again, in the leather outfit, and Buffy walking away from the dusting vamp. A green flash as something was smashed; Buffy striking the girl who looked like Willow. Then the images were moving too fast for Willow to focus on. She thought she saw the Master, long since ground to dust, and Oz, looking panicked.

The sand poured out of the bottle through their hands.

Another vision, people pouring out of a cage, herself fighting them, Oz running to her—

And then they were gone, and so was the wind and the light and the sand. Willow sat stunned, unable to understand what she had seen. A temporal fold? That looked like … the future? The past? Something that could have happened but didn't? Why had she been in leather? Why had it seemed like Xander was a vampire? Was Xander going to be killed, was that what she had seen?

"That was—w-what was that?" she asked Anya, but the other girl wasn't listening. She was searching for her necklace, muttering to herself.

"It's not here!" she shouted in frustration.

Willow got up, stepping away from the scene of the spell. "Okay," she said, "that's a little blacker than I like my arts."

"Oh, don't be such a wimp," Anya said in exasperation.

"That-that-that wasn't just some temporal fold, that was … some weird hell place. I don't think you're telling me everything."

Anya snapped, "I swear, I am just trying to find my necklace."

"Well, did you try looking inside the sofa in hell?"

"Look, we'll just … try it again," Anya said hopefully, forcing a smile.

Willow wasn't having any. "No! I think emphatically not."

"I can't do it by myself!"

"That's a relief." Willow began gathering her things. Maybe homework wasn't such a bad thing, she thought. Better than … whatever it was she had just seen, which she would very much like to forget. "I'm outta here."

"Fine! Go. Idiot child," Anya muttered.

Willow bent to retrieve her chicken feet, shaking them in Anya's face. "I believe these chicken feet are mine." Anya glared at her, and Willow said, "Look, magic is dangerous, Anya, it's not to be toyed with. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have someone else's homework to do."

She turned and left the room, suddenly not so unhappy to be valued for her more prosaic skills.