"Did you ever own sves?" was Charlie's first question. I stood there in stunned silence for a moment. "Um… absolutely the fuck not?" I replied, more than a little bit shaken. "What on earth would make you think that?" I added. "Well… for some reason there's always a confederate vampire in these sorts of stories" xe expined. "Oh". I burst out ughing.
"I'm literally exactly as old as I look. I said I was a vampire if you squint. I'm not immortal or anything cool like that" I expined. "Oh" said Charlie. "Then why were you drinking human blood?" - "Makeout session with my girlfriend got a bit weird" - "… okay so if you died and aren't a vampire then how are you not… y'know?" - "Notice I said medically died. People get restored to life from medical death all the time, and there's nothing supernatural about that. We call the people who do that “doctors”".
"Ugh… and what's the werewolf? Just a big hairy butch?" Charlie pouted. "Um… no that one's completely literal. Leah here can turn into giant bipedal wolf. Or a quadrupedal one. Dealers choice really" I said. The spark returned to Charlie's eye. "Can I see?" xe asked eagerly. "Not here, not now. A werewolf in New Jersey? You want to cause a mass panic? This isn't New York Charlie" I stated pragmatically. "Oh". Charlie defted again.
"I'll show you when we get back to town" offered Leah. Charlie lit up again. Wow, this kid made Alice look like Yoda. "Can I have a ride?" xe asked eagerly. Leah considered it a moment. "Maybe. The only people I usually give rides to are Rose and Vanessa" she muttered. "PLEASE!" begged Charlie. "Give the girl some space my Dude" I ughed. Charlie defted again. "Sorry".
There was a moment of silence while Victoria served a customer who kept insisting she give him "the other kind of avocados". "Beat it. The only avocados we have are the literal kind" I snapped. His eyebrows creased in annoyance. "You don't get to sell avocados in this neighbourhood unless Embry gets his avocados" said the customer dangerously. "WELL YOU'RE GOING TAKE THESE TEN ONIONS BACK TO EMBRY AND YOU ARE GOING TO EAT THEM ALL ONE BY ONE WHILE MAKING UNBLINKING EYE CONTACT" I smiled. I handed the man ten onions and sent him on his way.
"Was that a spell?" asked Charlie. "No, that was just my power" I expined. "Your power?" xe excimed. "Yeah. I have some influence over the mind. I can do all sorts of stuff. I can force obedience, mess with your perceptions or memories, force you to feel my pain or even straight up stop your heart" I expined. "Have you ever killed someone like that" gasped Charlie. "Leah, Elder Sampson and General Jade von Wasserv?gel" I recited bnkly.
Charlie looked at Leah. "She's still alive" xe noticed. "I can also restart a heart with the same trick" - "Can you really say you killed someone if they got better" - "Yes. Medically speaking they were dead" - "Does that mean everyone you killed got better. That's a bit of a copout" - "Wasserv?gel is still dead hopefully" - "What do you mean hopefully?" - "She was a government sanctioned witch hunter who's grandfather was an actual member of the Nazi party. Some kills keep me up at night. Others, its the thought they might have survived somehow that robs me of my rest".
"Does that mean you've killed innocent people?" Charlie asked nervously. "Depends on your definition of innocent. Is someone innocent if they were just doing their job or just following orders?" - "NO!" - "I mean actually just following orders. Lowest grunt in the pecking order?" - "If the order was evil then they should have refused to carry it out!" - "… If you say so …"
I went silent for a little while. Charlie wasn't wrong. We all knew the implications behind that line. On the other hand, it still felt shitty to take the life of someone who was only doing what they thought was right at the time. Those were the hardest to deal with. The demons you couldn't name as such.
"So the witch town! Is it gay?" asked Charlie. "There's a lesbian living on the edge of town who got banished forever and they call her mad Emily" I noted. "ROWLING'S BALLS!" excimed Charlie. "Yup, its very fucked and I'm going to do my best to clear her name and stuff but… If you're hoping for some sort of gay utopia you'd have better luck in the Republican National Convention"
Charlie went quiet for a little while. "You'd think a bunch of witches would be a bit more enlightened" xe groaned. "Why? Because the government hates us and wants to turn us into super soldiers? Sorry, oppression does not bring enlightenment. If that were the case I can think of like a dozen countries that would have taken over the world by now"
Eventually day turned to night and all the other stalls packed up to go home. Victoria carried the unsold food and tables into the tent, then we took down the tent, and there was no tables or food in the tent. Charlie watched in fascination. "So you have powers then. Yours is mind control… what about Leah" asked Charlie. "She turns into a big wolf" I deadpanned. "Is that her only power?" xe asked. "Shapeshifters heal fast" she noted. "How fast is fast? Can you like get shot and heal so fast the bullets pop out of you?" xe asked morbidly. "She can regrow her entire arm in two minutes" I said.
"METAL! Wait, is that something that happens often?" xe asked. "Beastshifter sports get messy" chuckled Leah. We exited the market and then took a few turns ending in an empty alley. "Is your car computerized?" I asked Charlie. "Huh?" xe responded. "Like is it trackable?" I crified. "I… shit, probably" xe grunted. "Best we leave it behind then. Give me your phone" I stated.
"C-can I at least say goodbye to all my discord friends" xe said. "I mean if you want I guess… Just don't tell them where you're going" I instructed. "But what if they worry?" xe replied. "The safety of the town comes first" I said coldly. The phone was handed over. I powered it down and then handed it back. "Don't turn this back on until you're at least fifty miles from town" I warned.
"Wait, you're not going to break it?" - "… Dude, why would I break a piece of hardware worth several hundred dolrs. Obviously if you no longer needed it I'd sell it to a pawn shop! I'm not wasteful, jeez!" I scoffed. I took out my own phone and flipped its hardware wireless kill switch. Then I took Charlie and Victoria's hands and Leah took Victoria's other hand. "Ready to see a miracle?" I smiled. "Born ready" said Charlie. And then we were in the school gym, where they were busy moving the unsold produce back out to less centralized storage sheds.
"Whoa! Did we just teleport?" gasped Charlie. "VANESSA? WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?" yelled elder Laurent. "This is Charlie. I encountered xir twice across two states hundreds of miles apart. Xe are the purple haired person from the mall. And I'd like to talk to the elders about xir. Xe aren't a conscious threat to the town. I had elder Maggie interrogate xir. Did Victoria not tell you all of this?" I asked.
"I was informed that you needed Maggie's help to interrogate the purple haired mall girl. I was not informed you would be bringing her back" he replied. "Well I did. Can we wait until the rest of the elders get here so I don't have to repeat myself" I asked. He sighed. "Very well" he conceded.
"The first thing I would like to discuss is our profits for the day" I stated. "I would prefer we discuss the blue haired one first" stated elder Laurent. I gnced at each elder in turn and they all gave me a nod to indicate their agreement. "Very well. This is Charlie. I encountered xir in the mall the day I went missing. I have already had elder Maggie interrogate xir to confirm xe were not reted to that incident. I was low on energy at the time so told xir some stuff about the town while I waited for my magic to come back so I could erase xir memory which I subsequently did".
"Wait, you erased my memory" cried Charlie. "That I did. It seemed the wisest course of action at the time. But I promised if I encountered you again I'd tell you everything I knew of magic" I expined. I turned to the elders. "I encountered xir again today in New Jersey which is many hundreds of miles away from where our paths first crossed. Xe were apparently there for no other reason than a gut feeling. I believe magic had something to do with our second and probably first encounter. There's a spell on the town, isn't there? Something to make sure anyone who belongs here can find us? That's why I wound up here instead of somewhere with an accredited highschool like Chicago, isn't it?"
Elder Maggie nodded. "Aye. Siobhan" she stated. I stared at her bnkly. She chuckled. "Oh right, you're not from these parts… Siobhan was one of the town's first elders. A kind and fair leader who only wished for the safety of her people. And that was a big deal because she had one of the rarest and most powerful gifts of all of us: Wishing. Anything she truly desired would come to pass. If she wished the town would stay hidden, it would stay hidden. If she wished that witches would find their way here safe, well that too would come to pass"
"Her final wish was that the protection of her gift would not die with her. When she was nearing the end of her life she sat herself atop a hill and prayed day and night. No food, no sleep. Just prayer. And then she died, like all of us do. But on that hill there sprouted a tree. A special tree, we call it the Siobhan tree. They say if you make a wish and then take a bite of its fruit, if the fruit tastes sweet then your wish will come true and if the fruit tastes bitter well… Anyway, we're pretty sure her power lives on through the tree."
"So yes, you could say there is a spell that guides young witches to our care. Elder Laurent was accidentally teleported here when he tried to pick a raider's pocket at just the wrong time for example" smiled elder Maggie. "So by that logic Charlie couldn't be here if xe wasn't meant to be?" I asked. "No. The Siobhan tree protects us from harm in the long run. Trees are very patient you see. It doesn't stop an outsider wandering in, spending a decade and then wandering off. And we have to be careful. It might stop magic's discovery by an unfortunate accident befalling the outsider. Or an unfortunate accident might befall someone who was pnning to expose magic to the outsider" expined Maggie.
"Does that mean something awful might befall Charlie?" I gasped. "Maybe. Or maybe she's a witch like you say and she'll be fine. Hard to know" noted elder Maggie. I frowned. "I think the coincidence of meeting xir twice is too impusible to be anything but Siobhan's influence" I said carefully. "Why risk her life. You could erase her memory, drop her off in New Jersey and she'd be safe for sure" said Maggie. I turned to Charlie. "Its your decision. How badly do you want to live among magic?" I asked seriously.
"That's not even a question. I've spent my whole life dreaming of finding magic. No way am I backing out now!" Charlie excimed. I smiled. "Then on your head be it. Just don't do anything to expose us or… what happens exactly?" I asked. "Well in 1916 a witch called Connor decided to join the great war and was struck by a meteorite on the way down the mountain" noted Maggie. "Damn! Siobhan does not fuck around!" gasped Charlie. "Still want to risk staying?" - "Definitely. If I am to die at least I die in glory!" said Charlie.
"Great. Now can we move on to the profits?" I asked. The elders all nodded once in sync. "Okay. We operated for 12 hours. We made a sale roughly once every six minutes give or take. For some sales we made as little as fifty cents. But some sales entered triple digits all on their own. According to our log book the aggregate total of all sales was about nine thousand dolrs. Of that I will be taking two hundred for myself to pay for some stuff I need, and an additional two hundred dolrs so I can take my friends to the mall again because st time was fun"
"Now, our most profitable item by far were the giant avocados grown by our good friend Emily. We made over three thousand dolrs on those alone. And I'm putting that portion of the profits in escrow until you apologise for fucking her over on harvest day". My voice broke off like and icicle and I gred at each elder in turn. "Harvest day? Mad Emily? What?" they chorused. "I specifically asked you bastards to make sure she had extra hands to harvest avocados, and not only did you refuse to send any, I was told if I went to aid her myself I would be in trouble for being absent from school. So, 9104.23 minus 200, minus 200, minus 3187.50 leaves 5516.73" I stated. My voice was neutral, but you could have broken a siege with it.
"What are you talking about? She had plenty of hands to harvest. I was there myself with Peter and a dozen other beastshifters" cried elder Sampson. "My foot you were there. I was there myself and I didn't see hide nor hair of you" I grunted. "I thought you said you couldn't go without getting in trouble for skipping school" snapped elder Ange. "I don't make a habit of using my powers to circumvent rules, but this felt like a very justifiable exception" I lilted.
"But I remember being there" muttered elder Sampson. "How many trees" I snapped. "Huh?" he grunted. "How many trees had she managed to grow?" I asked. "Um… I dunno. There were way too many to count" he replied. I turned to elder Nichos. "Would you mind nipping over and counting them for me" I smiled coldly. He vanished and then returned about fifteen seconds ter. "There were fifteen trees" he reported. I turned to elder Sampson. "Uncountable my foot!"
"I remember there being a whole orchard, like we have for the apples" he insisted. "Are you sure you didn't harvest apples by mistake?" I countered. He frowned. "No I…" he trailed off. I counted out 3587.50 dolrs from the money box into an envelope. "I'll return the avocado money when things have been made right with Emily" I spat. "Come on Charlie. Leah's going to give me a lift home because I got shot during the whole prison fiasco and it still kinda hurts. I'm sure she wouldn't object to a second passenger, and you're staying with me for the time being"
A lone tree sat on the hill. A young girl approached it. She picked a fallen fruit off the ground. There was only one, as if it had been waiting for her. "I wish my boobs would grow in already". She took a bite. It tasted sweet, like sugar water.
A lone tree sat on the hill. A young man approached it. He picked a fallen fruit off the ground. There was only one, as if it had been waiting for him. "I wish she'd love me". He took a bite. It tasted foul, like rot fermented in hatred.
A lone tree sat on the hill. A young person approached it. Xe picked a fallen fruit off the ground. There was only one, as if it had been waiting for xir. "I wish I had a power". Xe took a bite. It tasted of nothing at all, like lukewarm steam.
"Dude! STOP IT! PLEASE!" begged Embry. His minion only bit into his ninth onion. He hadn't blinked in almost ten minutes. Only stared right into Embry's soul, eating onions, menacingly.
