Chapter Thirty Nine
A Familiar Place

 

“So you can just switch back and forth now?” Emily asked. She was curled up on Jenna’s lap with her tail tucked under her chin. They were sitting on the comfortable sofas in the Unfamiliar House living room, and it was… strange. It was Familiar, of course, she’d stayed here for a while before going to Threewees, but things were different now. 

Simon sat next to Benjamin, and he was clearly the taller of the two, and clearly more than a little cocky about it. His arms splayed over the back of the couch, the other boy a little awkwardly leaning against him. “Yup,” Simon said with a grin. “C’mon, you know you’re a little jelly.”

“Am not,” Sarah said. She was a ball of fluff next to Jenna, who had one hand on each of their heads. Leah was helping Charlie setting up some of the unused rooms for kids that were going to be coming in. “I like being a fox, thank you very much.” To emphasise, she gently nudged Emily’s nose with her own, and Emily happily nudged back.

Simon let his arm slip off the couch around Ben’s shoulder, who blushed like a ripe tomato. “Nah,” he said. “Jelly.” The room was cosy, with the curtains only a little open to show the darkening sky. Emily suspected it might snow soon. Maybe in a few weeks at most, with how cold it had been getting.

“So how did that happen?” Jenna asked. “I mean, I trust Emily completely, and I like to think that goes both ways. Both of us being… you know…”

“Girls?” Benjamin offered.

“Trans, Ben,” Jenna said, sticking out her tongue. “But yeah, like, what’s different?”

“I have a theory,” Ben said. His staff leaned against the back of the couch. Unwieldy as it was, he was never far away from it. “I think there’s an element of… extreme danger, I think?” He clearly didn’t like thinking of how badly Simon had gotten hurt, but the taller boy pulled him a little closer. “Or desperation.”

“We’ll get there,” Emily said to Jenna, who scratched her behind the ears. 

“And then we’ll go shopping for dresses,” Jenna replied resolutely. This was, very clearly, not up for debate. “You need good dresses.” Emily realised she was purring, the idea really appealed that much. She’d never really had that kind of girl’s day, after all. She’d never had boy’s days with her dad either, but she didn’t mind that one. “Sarah can come too.”

“So can Jacob,” Emily said with a grin in her voice. “I’m sure he’d be more than happy to see you look pretty in all kinds of different outfits.”

“I’m sure he’s got better things to do,” Jenna said, but her voice betrayed her. 

“I’m sure he doesn’t,” Simon said. “Where is he, anyway?”

“Dennis is showing him around. Jacob didn’t stay at the Unfamiliar House before, so now he has to see all the cool places, right away,” Sarah said with a chuckle. “It’s adorable.”

“Do they not have something like the Unfamiliar House elsewhere?” Emily asked. “Wherever Jacob’s from, I mean.”

“I’m sure they do,” Sarah said, “but Dennis doesn’t know that, and nobody better tell him.” She shot everyone a warning glance, and got affirmative nods. “He’s the closest we have to pure and innocent, he must be protected.”

That was a little melodramatic, Emily thought. Sure, they’d had to fight for their lives several times in the past few months, which was still way more than anyone their age should have to do, but that didn’t mean that they’d lost their innocence. And she probably knew how to fling a brick hard enough at a wall to make either — or both — shatter. And Jenna or Benjamin had some really strong magic in their back pocket. And then there was Leah…

Okay, so they had been trained to be fighters, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still kids. And now they’d get a chance to be, she thought. Magic was going to exist everywhere, all at once, and it wasn’t their problem anymore. Lord Mangrove had apparently already contacted people in levels of government to warn them of the upcoming social upheaval once more and more people realised they had access to a well of power they’d never had before, as well as the looming threat of Spirits coming through. 

“So what’s next, do you think?” Sarah asked. “Like, the school is gone. Waxing Weather is a thing of the past forever. Lalonde hasn’t been seen for days, and not even her old Familiar Yaz has any idea where she could be.”

“And Cunning is also still out there somewhere, doing who knows what. I guess we just have to keep each other safe?” Simon said. Benjamin cuddled up just a little bit closer against him, and they both blushed. 

“More to it than that, though,” Jenna said. “I… I lived there. Threewees was home. Where do we go now? I don’t think Miss Ferman is going to kick us out any time soon, but we can’t stay here forever, can we? And what about our education?”

“You’re not going anywhere for a while,” Charlie said as she walked in, Leah right behind her, staring at her phone. “You’re staying right here until everything’s figured out. Mangrove is getting things sorted, explaining magic and so on to the important regular folk piecemeal, but until everything’s straightened out, most of you officially don’t exist.” She chewed her lip for a moment. “Those of you who want to see your parents will, of course, be allowed to. No reason to keep any secrets any more, after all, though I would like to sit with you and talk about how you want to approach it in that case.”

“I’m good, thanks,” Jenna said with a little chuckle, and Emily mirrored the sentiment. As far as she was concerned, her family was already in the room with her. “Besides, they wouldn’t even recognise me.” She put a thoughtful finger on her chin. “That could be worth it though.”

Charlie chuckled. “Well, again, if you do, just let me know. You’re all still underage, which means I’m not letting you run around the country on your own. I have my responsibility to you and I’m still sticking to it, thank you very much.” 

Jacob and Dennis also came into the room, and immediately Emily felt Jenna practically jump in place. The only reason the Witch wasn’t immediately standing upright is because she would’ve fired Emily off like a cannonball, and the two were definitely in sync enough to keep that from happening. She hopped off of her Witch’s lap onto the floor. 

“I’ll give you two some room to talk,”  she messaged mentally to Jenna, who only squeaked in response. “Hey, Sarah, do you want to walk with me for a bit?”

“Sure!” Sarah said, not entirely unaware of the tension that had just entered the room. Charlie, equally savvy, reached down and picked Dennis up like a stuffed animal. 

“Dennis.”

“Miss Charlie!” Dennis yipped excitedly.

“Have you eaten?”

“No!”

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“Are you hungry?”

“Yes!”

“Then go shower,” Charlie said. The whine coming out of the backpack-sized fluffball was the saddest and most pathetic ‘awoo’ any of them had ever heard, and it wasn’t long before everyone was laughing.

Emily and Sarah were out of the door before they could be ordered to do any chores. Presumably, the others would also either have the emotional intelligence to leave the room and give Jacob and Jenna some space to blush at each other, or Charlie would be carrying them out by the scruff of their necks. 

It was nice to walk down the halls of the Unfamiliar House, up and down its little corridors and hallways, its tiny stairs and hidden doorways, always ending up exactly as lost as they wanted to be. 

“You know,” Emily said as they rounded a corner to a flight of stairs that led to the back yard, “I never stayed here very long, but this does feel like home.”

“Duh,” Sarah said. “You are home.”

“Aww, tha—

“You’re our home,” she said, and nudged a stammering Emily off her feet. In her discombobulation, she took a misstep, and bounced her way down the stairs, in a state of confusion and relief. On the one hand, the world was spinning around her like atop. On the other, she was a cat, and this didn’t hurt nearly as much as if she’d been in her human form. 

Which was why it was extremely disorienting and slightly unpleasant to hit the last step in girl mode, landing on her butt. “Whah,” she said, and realised again that the Unfamiliar House was much larger than they gave it credit for, and that they were, apparently, far enough away from Jenna and Leah to be in their very human shapes again. 

Rubbing her back, she let Sarah help her to her feet, and they stepped onto the back yard. It was cold, and they both blew puffs of hot air, pretending to be dragons for the briefest of moments, before standing a little closer to each other. 

It was cold, after all. Fingers needed to be warm. Emily and Sarah’s hands found each other, and they took turns gently and awkwardly nudging their noses into each other’s cheeks for a clumsy kiss. They giggled. 

“Hey Sarah?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for letting me be your girlfriend.”

“Thank you for being my girlfriend,” Sarah replied with a happy little smile.

“As long as you’ll have me,” Emily replied. 

“As long as you like.”

Cold as it was, neither of them wanted that moment to end. The world was going to change very, very drastically soon. Presumably, Spirits were going to be dealt with by the army or something. Ordinary people would start being able to do magic. 

“I’m curious,” Emily said, “will there be more Familiars? Like, that was part of the old process, right?” Sarah cocked her head and looked at her, chewing her tongue. 

“I don’t know. Maybe that’s a thing that developed over time? Maybe it used to be different? We’ll have to ask Charlie about it,” she said. Neither of them made any kind of move to go back inside. They had more time, of course. The next few days, they knew, would likely be filled with hot chocolate and board games and books and lots of cuddling. But for now, with the cold air prickling their skin and the wind making their eyes sting just little enough not to be a real bother, they wanted to stretch this moment out into infinity. 

Infinity, of course, wasn’t going to let them. 

There was a rumbling sound. A terrible sound. A horrible, horrifying sound. The sound of reality being torn like wet paper and snapping wood. The sound of something desperately and angrily trying to get out of something it should never get out of. Wailing. Roaring. Rage. Pain. 

Before their very eyes, long black fingers, hands the size of dinner tables, rent the air in front of them to pieces, opening a hole in the world behind which lay a swirling miasma of everything and nothing all at once. A face, the kind they’d seen all too much of, pushed itself through, all teeth and eyes and fury. 

Its entire body pushed through. A heavy upper body supported by two pairs of long spindly arms and small, weak hind legs turned to face them. Emily stood frozen in place. She knew she had to run. She couldn’t stay here. But if she ran, the Unfamiliar House might be destroyed. Should she fight it? Could she even fight it in human form? Maybe she could evade it until the others got close. Maybe if she told Sarah to run she could buy her enough time t—

The Spirit lowered its face to her, and opened its maw. Rows of jagged teeth hovered in front of her, promising a grizzly, grinding future. The voice out of its mouth was inhuman, otherworldly. But what it said was so, so much worse.

 

“Ehhhhh”

 

“Mahhhh”

“Leeeeeeeee…”