Sentinel Green 2.5

Wisteria 2.5

    “Oh--” I say, snapping to at her statement. “It’s pretty easy, but I think you have to be touching me for it to work.”

    I take a moment to snag my car keys, leaving the dead phone behind. “This is how I got you in here, I mean… it’s sort of a magic thing, but really… what here isn’t?” It’s getting a little easier to accept this otherworldly stuff the longer this new chapter of my life stretches on.

    Maeve is just watching me, I realize, her expression thoughtful and a little bit brighter. I can’t tell if listening to me yammer is amusing to her or if she just feels better now that we’ve decided to actually do something. Shelving a little curl of nerves, I make my way back over to Maeve, ready with what meager possessions now hold any value to me. It’s time to travel, but as I reach out my hand for her shoulder I stop short. That seems… weird. Do people do that? Randomly grab each other’s shoulders? My hand travels lower, hovering around her elbow for a second, but that just seems even more unspeakably bizarre. Before I can think better of it I reach out and clumsily take her hand in mine.

    Well, this is simultaneously better and not better. Even from Kindergarten hand-holding is built up to be this magically intimate, special thing, and I feel like a complete tool just standing here holding hands with her like we’re about to go strolling down the block for a movie date. Clearing my throat, I barrel on.

    “I pretty much close my eyes and picture where I want to go--in this case, we’re heading back to where we came from. And in about ten seconds or so… we go.”

    I close my eyes, picture the stretch of road where my beaten up little blue car is parked... and sure enough, I can feel the apartment slip away from me, but not my new room mate. She stays put while we travel through wherever we’re traveling.

    I wonder for a split second what I’d see if I kept my eyes open through the whole process. Some black, swirling void? An explosion of colors and lights? A magical taxi meter logging my travel distance? Either way, I can tell when it’s over. I open my eyes and focus on the early morning light that comes streaking in from the east, illuminating the stretch of highway in front of us. I’d at least had the good sense to teleport us a ways away from the road so no passersby would see two people suddenly appear out of nowhere, but I’m beginning to think that humans just don’t see things the way we do now.

    Maeve speaks up from beside me. “For reference,” she begins, and I turn to face her. “You can put your hand on my shoulder.”

    I’m sure I make some kind of weird face, like a smile and a cringe birthed a brand new expression. “Ah, noted,” I murmur, glancing around the area. “So… any idea where to start looking for your friends?” I ask, dropping my hand back to my side and glancing around. My car should be around here, unless it was towed--

    But it wasn’t. Oh, damn. How could I have not noticed the shape it was in before we left? The answer to that question comes to me quickly, though. Of course I wasn’t dwelling over my car--I had a bleeding-to-death stranger on my hands at the time.

    Maeve fixes her eyes on the wrecked passenger side as she circles around my car. I feel a pang of sympathy for my poor, battered vehicle. It’s always been reliable, if a little eccentric, and I repay its steadfast loyalty by totalling it. I groan slightly and walk over to inspect it closer, pulling the battered driver’s side door open and poking my head into the vehicle to tentatively turn the engine over.

    Try. Tentatively try to turn the engine over. I know that sound well enough to know it’s just not going to happen. “She’s dead, Jim,” I say with a sigh in my voice. I pull myself back out through the wrecked door and stand up straight. “So much for that.”

    “Sorry, man,” Maeve says, sounding genuinely sorry about the fate of my car. “I’m not a mechanic, but you’re probably right. I think we’re gonna have to walk.” I turn to face her as she scans the horizon. “Thankfully, it shouldn’t be too far--we were parked at the top of the hill. If the Jeep’s still there, well... bad news for my friends.” My stomach drops a little at the thought. “If it’s gone, then they probably made it out.” It's a morbid thought, but a realistic one.

    Maeve pauses for a second, then sighs. After the beating she’s taken, plus being new to this whole Magical Girl thing like I am, she’s got to be mentally, if not physically exhausted. I feel a pang of sympathy for her. “I’m not sure if them surviving and not searching for me or them dying would hurt more, but I suppose I can’t say much for people you’ve only known a day.” She pauses for another moment, then glances up at me. “Ah, no offense.”

    That comment makes me smile a little. "Alright," I say, walking over to meet her and heading up the hill. My calves and thighs don’t even remotely burn from the change in incline, and I focus on that with some interest. My old body wasn’t, per se, out of shape, but I was no athlete, either. This one takes everything in stride, and I marvel slightly at the noticeable ease with which I execute every movement.

    I find myself glancing over at Maeve frequently as we walk. I hope it isn't obvious, but, knowing me... She seems so strong, so put together, but I can't help feeling like she's hurting more than she outwardly shows. It's a weird insight--a kind of a hunch, for lack of a better word, but I don't put much stock into it for now.

    We walk in relative silence for a time. I am tense, but quiet--on the lookout for gaping maws or slashing claws. It's quiet, though... the jumpy kid in me asks, 'too quiet?'

    When we make it up to the top of the hill there's no car. "Good sign?" I whisper.

    “I hope so,” Maeve answers, her amber-colored eyes ever scanning our surroundings. “I mean, it could have just been towed. But I think they made it back and drove off. It’s Monday… isn’t it?” She glances my way and I nod.

    “Monday, right.”

    Maeve goes on. “If they made it out they’re probably in school. We’ll have to wait until they’re done to make contact.” A cringe of sorts passes across her face, and I don’t know why until she elaborates. “Fuck, that’ll be weird.”

    It seems weird to me--the idea of being a high-schooler by day and a magical girl by night, but I guess if we’re sticking with the Sailor Moon trope that’s par for the course. I check my pockets for my phone to check the time, but of course it’s both dead and not on me at the moment. I sigh. Though I’m not the best at telling the time by the sun, I know we’ve got a few hours to kill before we can go down to the high school.

    It doesn’t take long for us to determine that de-transforming is the best thing to do for now, especially since the area seems to be flesh-rending monster free. If anyone comes across us we’ll at least look passingly normal. After that we initially pass the time largely with silence, small talk every so often, and not straying too far from my busted vehicle. I make a half-hearted attempt to look under the hood, but I don’t know why I bother. I don’t know anything about cars, but even the little I do know tells me it’s undriveable. It depresses me more than it should… that car was the last asset I had to me, the last thing that still sort of worked from my old life. I can try to snag a phone charger and get my cell up and running, but what would the point be? All I’d get would be painful messages from family members.

    Pretty soon we take to reclining under a tree, though the only thing of note in our line of sight is my ruined car. I find it alternately easy and difficult to talk to her, sometimes babbling on about how my nose is a comfort to me--it sort of looks like my old one, pretty much the only feature on my body that does. Other times it’s simpler, and the questions and answers flow easily. I’m not really surprised to hear that she got the Puchuu Makeover too, but I refrain from telling her that I used to be a girl. I don’t know why, but a small slice of me wonders if that would be too weird, as laughable an idea as that is.

    I’m not sure how I can tell, but the quality of Maeve’s silence shifts a little later on in the day. I’ve always tried my best to pay close attention to the vibes people give off, to see if I can help alleviate a bad mood or adjust my own actions so as not to misstep. But that usually only works around people I know already. She’s still a stranger, but something tips me off that there’s something wrong with her. Before I can say or do anything, though, my stomach starts to complain. I glance down at it, then over at Maeve, who doesn’t seem to be bothered by hunger yet.

    “I’m kind of famished again,” I admit. We haven’t been doing much of anything but breakfast was meager and the nerves are probably making me hungrier than normal. Well, that and a brand new body that might require more food than my old one.

    We sort of silently agree to head back to the apartment, pick ourselves off the ground, and this time I at least don’t fumble before reaching out to rest my hand on her shoulder and teleport us back.

    Even as a girl I was never particularly shy about my appetite around people--there didn’t seem to be any cause for it, so I don’t bother hiding how hungry I am when we revisit ramen. I pause, though, when Maeve offers me the rest of hers. I’m not about to turn it down, but my brow furrows a little in worry.

    “You feeling alright?” I ask, concerned that maybe her body is still out of whack from the considerable beating she took the other day. It’s possible she’s just upset and isn’t in the mood to eat, I suppose.

    She only shrugs. “I feel okay,” she says, and I know it’s not a lie. She’s alright, physically, anyway. “I know I ought to be hungry, it’s been hours and ramen isn’t really filling long term. But I’m just not hungry, and you clearly are. Eat up.”

    I’m unconvinced but don’t pry. She does give me a small smile, which I automatically mirror back at her. I accept the little styrofoam cup and finish off her noodles as well before tossing the containers and rinsing off our chopsticks. There’s… no real cause to head back to our world yet, so I putter around in the kitchen, actually washing and drying said chopsticks and putting them back in the drawer, just to have something to do… which takes me all of five minutes even going very, very slowly.

    Next on our painstakingly slow-going agenda is staring out the window. It’s interesting, for sure--I don’t see a single creature or person out there that looks familiar, it’s all new faces. But beyond that, it’s unsettling, too, and I’m not sure I like the idea of spending much more time doing this.

    Maeve abruptly speaks up from beside me, though. “Riley, let’s head back. We can go to the library. It’s right across the street from the school, there’s books to read and computers to use, and they’ll have a clock there. There’s nothing to do here and if we’re there we’ll be able to tell time so we know when to head over.”

    It’s brilliant and I breathe a sigh of relief. “That--yes, that,” I say, punctuating my second “that” with a pointed finger. “I concur.” I turn towards Maeve, put a hand to her shoulder again, and think of… well. I sort of vaguely know where the school and library might be, and the rest of humanity seems to gloss over magic, but it still gives me pause. I don’t want to just appear in front of the doors out of nowhere, so I take us to a less-traveled side-street a little closer to our destination and a little farther from the banged-up car. This’ll have to do.

    When we reappear on “Earth” or whatever term is appropriate for our home realm, we set off on foot, as is our only option. I find myself blindingly grateful that my Magical Guy outfit isn’t some kind of permanent fixture, or doesn’t randomly appear when I don’t want it to. We look halfway normal as we walk, if woefully mismatched in height, and for the first time in days I don’t feel too conspicuous.

    Maeve and I walk in silence for a while, and while I’m enjoying the sun and peering up at the occasional bird that flits by above, I’m also grateful when she speaks up. “Riley, maybe it’s too soon, and it hasn’t got the attachment to your old life, but have you considered that you have something better than a car now?”

    It takes me a second to understand what she means, but then my face brightens and I grin up at her. “I do, huh? I mean, I have no idea the range, I’ve probably only used that to travel what… within the same group of a few square miles, but… yeah. Pretty nifty. Small perks to this whole thing.” She grins back at me and for a second I’m punch-drunk on the expression, delighted that I was able to help make it appear. I’m a people-pleaser down to my core, but there’s something extra special about Maeve’s smile, no doubt because she’s literally my only point of human contact left in the world, now.

    The library is blessedly air-conditioned and I breathe in a deep lungful of that book glue and old paper smell--it’s beyond comforting. I exchange a quick glance with Maeve before we branch off, not feeling the need to stay glued to each other’s sides here. We’ll be spending a lot of time together in the future… so we might as well pursue our own interests now.

    I head over to the computer and type in a few bogus searches, checking to see if they have any Animorph books I can shamelessly read in the children’s section. After a wash on that, though, my searches start to edge towards the paranormal and supernatural.

    It can’t hurt to read up. Even if all the information I find here is pointless or a hoax, it’ll give me some insight into what other humans will be looking for, what they might think they see. Things that people like Mina might have dreamt up.

    That’s entirely too raw right now, so I chase thoughts of her away. Instead I hunker down in the supernatural section and leaf into books about magic and spells, Wicca, changelings, and even UFOs just for the hell of it.

    There’s a nudge against my leg an undetermined amount of time later. I glance up as Maeve finds me in my supernatural section. “Time to go?” I murmur softly. She nods, and I stand up and feel a quick pop in my ankle. I’d been sitting cross-legged for too long, apparently. We make our way out of the library and into the mid-afternoon humidity and sun.

    Our walk is a short one. There will soon be more traffic directly outside of the school across the street, with parents queueing up to get their kids.

    “So, they drive a Jeep?” I ask for clarification.

    “Yeah,” she says, already distracted and scanning the lot.

    I keep my eyes peeled for one such vehicle, hoping that it’ll be present. If it’s not… well. I don’t want to think of the implications of that. “One like that?” I ask, pointing at a black Jeep mashed between two enormous pickup trucks.

    Maeve spins to look at it, but I can tell from her expression that’s not it. “Oh… no. I forgot to describe it to you beyond a ‘Jeep,’ didn’t I? We’re looking for a dark blue Jeep, bunch of dirt caked on it. Ragtop, so we should be able to sit inside and wait if we find it early.”

    I nod, and redouble my efforts. We split up for a bit, but I always keep Maeve in my line of sight, and when I do lose sight of her I whip around to lock eyes on her again. I’m jumpier than I need to be, I know, especially in a place so populated, but I can’t help it.

    We finally spot it a few moments later, and head over. Something pops in my head as we approach it, though.

    “So,” I ask, stopping mid-stride. “We’re just gonna… walk over and stand next to it, and… wait for them?” It seems a little stalkerish, but they do have some of Maeve’s things, and it’s only logical to want to get them back.

    She frowns a little. “Well, the idea is to check and see if they left anything of mine in the car first. But that is pretty much the plan unless you have a better idea. It’s a little… threatening, maybe. But I don’t have a better plan other than turning up at her house, which is arguably worse. At least this is a public place. She’s got a point there, and I nod as she steps up on the footrest and peers into the vehicle. While she does this I glance around to make sure no one is watching us, but we’re alone. After a moment, she says, “Don’t see my stuff, so I guess we’re waiting.”

    I nod again, even though her back is turned to me, and I glance over at the school. Just then the bell rings, and I know we’ve got perhaps ten seconds before students start flooding out of those buildings.

    Maeve speaks up again. “So the two girls we’re looking for are blonde white girls walking together, one tallish, one short. Not real tan, should stand out here. I’ll call out if I spot them first, hopefully keep them from freaking out too much.”

    I keep my eyes peeled for the girls, scanning over the faces of the kids exiting school. God, when had I ever been so small and young? Granted, I look like one of them now, but I don’t feel as young as my body is.

    We’re quiet for a while as we watch for the owners of the Jeep, and I stand up on my toes to try to peer over a car--I think I see them. “Maeve,” I murmur, pointing up and over it. “Two blondes, two o’clock. That them?”

    Maeve joins me, then nods. “Yeah. The taller one with the pixie cut is Hannah, shorter one with long hair is Amy.” I keep my gaze fixed on them, but they don’t seem to have spotted us yet. Unless I’m mistaken, they seem worried. They aren’t engaging in lively banter or turning their faces up to the sun like the rest of their classmates.

    Maeve stands up on the Jeep’s foot ledge and shouts out to them, her voice carrying. “YO! Hannah, Amy!” I panic for a second, wondering if I should wave too, or just keep quiet and stare. Doesn’t matter either way, though--they spot Maeve and freeze in their tracks. For a second I think that’s it, but then their eyes track over to me… and it’s obvious that red flags have popped up in their minds from the looks on their faces. They exchange a quick look, and then start striding over to us. I try not to fidget. I fail.

    “We thought you were dead!”

    “What happened?”

    My jaw drops slightly as the girls start to squabble and demand answers of Maeve. I glance to her, not sure if I should speak or not--and for now I elect to remain quiet. The smaller one casts a glance to me, looking troubled and uncertain, and I offer her a lopsided, hopefully comforting smile in return, though it’s ruined somewhat by the frown on the upper half of my face.

    She narrows her eyes slightly and bites her lip before blurting out, “Who are you?”

    “Uhm, Riley,” I say. “I’m sort of… new… to this situation, too.” I hope that “this situation” is clearly demarcated as being “magical stuff.”

    “Hey,” Maeve interjects, but before she can do anything else Hannah--I think it’s Hannah--yanks her arm. I stare off after Maeve, a protest dying in my throat as she is dragged away. Feeling alone and adrift now, I turn back to the smaller girl and wonder what comes next.

    She goes back to gnawing on her lip and focuses on me intently, like she’s trying to see the outline of my bones through my body. X-ray vision? I wonder weakly, a crappy joke.

    “So you’re… like us, then?” she asks, still staring at me intently.

    “Yeah,” I say, mirroring her movements and gnawing on the inside of my cheek, still frowning. “Brand spanking new.”

    “Where are you from?” Amy questions.

    “Here,” I say. “Well, not here here, but… here.” It is a fumbling, lame answer and I grimace. “Sorry, just… this is all kind of a lot to take in, in only a few days.”

    “A few days?” she asks. “So you’re about as new as Maeve is, then… what the hell is going on? Why are so many of us being recruited at once?”

    I don’t know if that’s a question she expects me to answer, but I do it honestly. “I don’t know.”

    She seems to snap back into focus. “Did you see the creature?”

    “The one that tried to turn Maeve into a blood smear?” I ask, blandly. “No, I didn’t. She got knocked into my car while I was driving down the highway and I patched her up the best I could. But she didn’t actually really end up needing much of my help. We’re… sort of sticking together, now.”

    Amy stares at me hard, and for a good, long while, too. But eventually she seems to decide I’m probably not lying to her--how she knows this, I’m not sure… and then a flush crawls across her cheeks. “Sorry,” she mumbles. “It’s just been… a really intense past few days.”

    I bark out a laugh. “Oh boy, are you telling me. It’s okay, really,” I say, going for soothing, if I can swing it. “I understand. You don’t want anything bad to happen to you or your friend. It pays to be cautious.”

    That flush on her face moves down to her neck now and she looks intently at the ground. “Yeah,” she mumbles, then looks past me to where Hannah and Maeve are still talking. I catch a snip of a phrase -- fucking Wolverine -- and smile. I think I know what she was talking about there.

    Amy and I exchange a brief look as Hannah and Maeve’s conversation seems to wrap up. Our two groups slowly shift back together and there is a brief little standoff where Hannah is eying me, clearly not as trusting of me as Amy now is.

    I hear something about “whammy” as they draw nearer, but I can’t make out much else. Maeve is giving me a look, but I can’t interpret it. Meanwhile Amy gives Hannah a long, complicated stare, and Hannah seems to read into it something that I can’t. She narrows her eyes for a moment, but then nods briefly.

    “Alright,” she says, crossing her arms. “Maeve here tells me you have a place you patched her up in. That right?”

    “Yeah,” I say, at once. I want this girl to trust me, and something tells me short, to-the-point answers with little to no frill will do the trick. “It’s a magical apartment. Came with my transformation.”

    “Okay,” she says, nodding. “So that was one of the perks Puchuu gave you. I see. Where is this place?”

    That… was harder to explain. “It’s… I have no idea, actually. I access it by thinking about going there, and then poof. We get transported.” I pause, and another little nudge of insight leads me to offer, “You can come see it, if you want…”

    “Not just yet,” Hannah says. “But thanks. You might’ve done Maeve a solid but we won’t be skipping off to your place so soon.”

    “Going to your house again then?” Maeve interjects. The rest of us turn to face her. “Because last time around your mother looked relieved I wasn’t a boy. Now we have one.” She jabs her thumb at me and I feel that hot spotlight snap down on me. I swallow hard. “Think she’ll be just as cool with heading out and leaving you with pizza money?”

    There is general silence. Hannah doesn’t look happy, but she doesn’t say anything, either. Meeting no outward resistance, Maeve goes on. “C’mon, we’ll park your car at the mall, we’ll head to his place, and we can talk in peace.”

    Hannah doesn’t look sold, but Amy nods, looking a little meek, but calmer. Hannah gives her a sidelong look and sighs. “Okay, Maeve. We’ll do this. But only because I’m getting the push from you AND Amy.”

    I let out a small sigh. That was touch-and-go there for a minute.

    Maeve eyes the Jeep and calls shotgun, and a moment later we’re cramming in as best as we can.