Chương 145: Interlude 31 – Serendipity

=::= Cass's PoV =::=

The end-of-school party at the wolfgirls' place went pretty late, it was around one in the morning before anyone finally decided to call it a night. Brooke and Paige left in the tall blonde's car, while Melody drove the rest of us home since we all lived in roughly the same direction. Kaylee took the passenger seat while me and Nina and Willow all squeezed into the back of the shape-shifter's compact car.

Sunday was a super-lazy day, my little sister and I both slept in till noon then neither of us bothered to get dressed. We ended up spending most of the day playing video games in our nightgowns and slippers.

Things were quiet again Monday too, but at least we actually got dressed incase we decided to go out or something. That never happened, and by the afternoon I found myself chilling out in my bedroom thinking about Socha again.

I knew because of my demonic body I was bound to the Earth, but as far as I knew that didn't mean I couldn't go visit other realms. Like fae were bound to their own realm but they could visit Earth if they wanted. So I was pretty sure I should be able to visit the heavens, even if I couldn't stay there.

On the other hand I had no idea how to actually travel to other realms, I'd never really thought about it before. And my parents never talked about back when they worked as angels, I'd never heard them say anything about how to get to the heavens. Or what it was even like there. Still, it seemed like I ought to be able to get there myself considering I was supposed to be half goddess and I'd inherited Socha's power and title and stuff. So I closed my eyes and sort of concentrated as I tried to imagine how it might work.

It didn't take long before I felt something like instinct take over. I pushed myself outwards in a direction I had no words for, something that couldn't really be described in mortal terms. It took some effort, but after a few seconds I felt it happen. Like I'd squeezed through a tiny doorway that wasn't quite big enough for me, and once I was through I felt a constant low-level tug trying to pull me back the way I came.

As soon as I was there I opened my eyes, then frowned as my shoulders slumped. I had no idea what to expect, but what I actually saw was a pretty big let-down.

I found myself in what seemed to be like an endless space filled with dark clouds or smoke, or maybe it was fog. It sort of undulated and billowed, but it was impossible to tell if it was close or far away. Every now and then I saw distant lights through the mist, but nothing I could identify.

That was all I could see in any direction, including above and below. And looking down was weird since the billowing mist wasn't at my feet, but some unknowable distance beneath me. When I crouched down to examine what I was standing on it felt cold and hard and perfectly smooth.

The strange environment had a sort of dream-like quality to it, and the experience probably should have left me feeling a bit scared or anxious. Except I didn't feel any of those things. Maybe it was something about the place, despite looking bland and dull I seemed to know there was nothing threatening there. I'd almost call it familiar, but I was positive I'd never been there before.

As I looked around I commented quietly, "If this is what heaven's supposed to be like then I'm not surprised gods would rather hang out on Earth. This is boring."

"This isn't heaven," an indistinct voice responded.

I turned around and found the source behind me. It was a fuzzy shadowy figure that seemed to be made of the same smoke or mist as the rest of my surroundings.

"If this isn't heaven then where am I?" I asked warily.

The figure responded, "It's not 'heaven' per se, but it used to be my heavenly realm. It was once much more interesting, much more lively."

Then its head tilted slightly to the side as it asked, "Have you come to take this from me as well? Are you here to finish what you started?"

That made me frown, "I came to find Socha. Is that you?"

"I was," they replied. "But a hundred years of isolation, without access to followers or worship or faith, has left me to fade away. Then you stole what little power I had left, along with my title. Now I am but a shadow of my former self."

I grimaced, "I'm pretty sure most of that stuff is your own fault. Anyways I just came here to meet you, I'd like to talk with you. Is there anything I can do to help you?"

The shadow hesitated briefly before asking, "Why would you want to help me?"

I shrugged, "Like I said, I want to get to know the real you. So far all I know is what other people have told me. The fragment you left inside me was kind of unpleasant, but I think that's because she was focused on completing the mission you gave her."

After another pause the figure reached out towards me and asked, "Please give back a little of the power you took from me? That will allow me to stabilize myself."

I hesitated as I watched them, and sort of tried to get a feel for them. I couldn't feel any malice or evil from the figure, all I got from them was some sadness and regret.

"Ok," I agreed after thinking it over.

I reached out and tried to take their hand in mine, but it really was like trying to touch fog. Their shape didn't even have fingers, it was just a blurry blob of dark mist.

While I held my hand in the cloud that was them I let a tiny fraction of the divine power flow out of my core, down my arm and through my hand then into the figure before me. A moment later she solidified, and I found myself face to face with a familiar-looking girl about the same age as me.

She appeared to be eighteen or nineteen, and stood only a couple inches taller than myself. She was wearing a sleeveless white summer dress that looked sort of old fashioned but elegant. She had a pretty face, and her eyes were a stunning bright sapphire blue. She had the same messy frizzy hair as May Hawthorne, except where Miss Hawthorne's hair was jet black Socha's was pure white. Her hand was still in mine, and her skin felt soft and warm, her fingers were delicate. Her arms were slim and her skin seemed fair and flawless.

My eyebrows crept up as I realized she could actually pass as May's younger sister.

She looked back at me in mild surprise, "I didn't think you'd actually do that."

Her voice was soft and pleasant, and she even sounded a little like May as well. Except she spoke with an accent that I thought was vaguely British, but I didn't know enough to place it any more accurately than that.

"Hello," I responded with a smile. "Are you Socha?"

She nodded, "I am. I know you're the one who stole my power and status, but I don't know your name or anything else about you."

That made me grimace, "I'm Cass. Or, Cassandra, but everyone calls me Cass. And like I said, I really didn't mean to replace you. I just wanted to live in peace and not have to worry about your shard killing me and stuff."

We were still holding hands which was starting to feel a little awkward, but I used that physical connection to try and show her some of the details of who I was and how I ended up taking her place. That was another instinctive thing, I didn't really know how I was doing it but it worked like I hoped.

I held her hand a little tighter as I shared with her several memories from the last two years. I started a few months before I encountered Club Luna, so she got a chance to see who and what I was before, back when I thought I was a quiet shy awkward boy. I didn't have friends back then, I kept to myself and mostly just read books and stuff.

Then she saw how I wandered into that very first club meeting and accidentally unlocked my demonic body, and how that led to me joining Club Luna. And how I suddenly found myself surrounded with friends, people who liked me and wanted to get to know me and stuff.

You are reading story Club Luna at novel35.com

In fact thinking back on it as I shared that stuff with Socha, I realized it was sort of like my life didn't really begin until that transformation. Prior to that I was just going through the motions, but I never really connected with anyone. I existed, but I wasn't truly alive before that moment.

I shared more details with Socha after that, like how I became a witch with the rest of the club, then how we found out about the runes and her soul shard in my chest. And finally I showed her how I saved myself when Brian completed the ritual, but accidentally ended up with her power and title and everything.

By the time I was finished Socha looked shocked and maybe a little upset, but she also seemed strangely happy.

A wide smile soon settled on her face as she exclaimed, "This is incredible! I didn't create you, nothing in my preparations or the rituals I tasked Ninaya to perform were meant to actually create life. The small piece of myself I left in the shard was sentient, it was meant to occupy and prepare the body until it was time for me to take over. And it certainly didn't have the capacity to create a new separate person."

She frowned for a second or two before her smile returned even wider than before, "I think maybe you spontaneously came into existence all on your own? True chaos! Brilliant!"

"Uh," I frowned as I tried to figure out how to respond to any of that. In the end I shook my head and asked, "So I'm not a part of you?"

"Oh I'm sure there's some of me in you," she replied as she stared at me in fascination. "And there's certainly some of Ninaya in you as well. And you've undoubtedly been shaped by your adoptive parents as you grew up. But I didn't create you. You are completely unexpected, a true child of chaos. Serendipity!"

I still wasn't really sure how to respond to her, so instead I tried to push the conversation back towards the reason I came to see her in the first place.

"So um, like I was saying? I kind of wanted to get to know the real you," I reminded her. "Instead of other people's interpretation of you."

Socha nodded, "Of course Cassandra. Let's do this the easy way."

We were still awkwardly holding hands, and she used that connection to do the same thing I did a few seconds earlier. A bunch of new information, knowledge, and memories appeared in my mind. And sure enough I started to see her in a very different light.

She wasn't callous or careless like May suggested, she wasn't looking to tear down human society for her own amusement or entertainment. She definitely wasn't perfect though, and she didn't try to hide that from me. She didn't just share the good stuff, she let me see her mistakes as well.

Mostly though, what I saw was a young headstrong idealistic goddess, who believed that the status quo was causing more harm than good. She didn't like how those who perpetuated it treated the marginalized or disadvantaged, and she didn't like the direction they seemed to be taking humanity. She also saw what it did to her mother, and other gods like her. So she wanted to stop it, to tear it down, and she decided the way to do that was by bringing magic and equality to the world.

I learned that Socha's exile came in nineteen twenty-one, and in the years leading up to that she witnessed first-hand the ravages of mechanized killing in the 'War To End All Wars', followed by even more widespread suffering and loss of life during the Spanish Flu pandemic. And prior to that she'd witnessed how colonizers treated the original stewards of the lands they stole, and how missionaries sought to erase other cultures and eliminate other gods as they spread the status quo to all corners of the globe.

And all of those things came on the heels of the stories she'd heard from her own mother, of how a once revered and honoured goddess of magic and witchcraft had been all but forgotten after her faith was outlawed and her followers persecuted and murdered. All in the name of those whom the status quo served, by the people who benefitted from it most.

She didn't want to tear down human society, not directly. Mainly she wanted to destroy the status quo and those who fed it and spread it around the world. She wanted to use magic to achieve her goal because that was the tool she was most familiar with, and because bringing magic to the masses would make her mother relevant again.

The bottom line was she really just wanted to help her mom, and that was something I could definitely empathize with. If someone was threatening my parents I'd want to do whatever I could to protect them too.

Socha knew that she couldn't fight the status quo as long as she was vulnerable to it, so the first step in her plan was to try and make herself immune to it. So that's where she started, and that's where her plan ended.

I wasn't smart or wise or experienced enough to know if her ideas would have worked, and I could tell she was like the divine equivalent of a teenager so she was just as inexperienced as me. I could see she was clever and talented and idealistic, but she was also a little naive.

And as far as I could see, her biggest problem came from being raised by May Hawthorne. May taught Socha to be secretive and distrustful, and as a result she didn't tell either Brian or Nina enough of her plans or her reasons for either of them to really know what she was up to. That secrecy led to Nina dragging her feet, and eighty years passed before she even started to put Socha's plan into action.

And whatever random or chaotic event led to my existence was the final wrench in Socha's plot. Her plan failed, her banishment was complete and she'd lost what was left of her power along with her title. She was like a ghost of a goddess.

All that stuff went through my head in a matter of seconds, then it took me a few more seconds to process it and understand it and everything. And in the end I actually felt sorry for her.

She was just another teen like myself, with a bunch of power but not a lot of experience. She saw some horrible things happening in the world, and she wanted to make it better. And she wanted to help her mom.

If I was in her place I might have done the same thing. I also found myself agreeing with her ideals. I had different experiences and context, but I'd seen some nasty stuff in the news and online. And I knew what it could be like for anyone who was different.

On the other hand I wasn't convinced the solution was to just give magic to the whole world all at once. I had a feeling there were better ways of attacking the status quo, without breaking everything else at the same time.

In fact I realized those enchanted plushies were maybe a first step in the process. In a way that was getting magic out into the hands of some people. It was probably way too small and happening way too slowly to make a dent in anything, but it was a start.

"You're right," I finally said. I looked at Socha and smiled, then gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "The status quo needs to be broken. I'm not convinced your way is the right approach, but we need to do something about it. First step though, we have to get you back to Earth."

"How?" she frowned. "You have my power and title, and you have the body I designed for myself. You may be immune to the status quo, but I am not. In my current state I'm nothing, a shadow."

I asked, "Your plan was to use a demonic body right? That would bind you to Earth. What if we could get you one?"

Socha sighed as she shook her head, "That was my original plan, but you've got the body I designed for myself. And I already know you wouldn't sacrifice anyone, human or demon, for my benefit."

"What if we could just make it from scratch though?" I asked. "Like out of magic? Conjure a demonic body from nothing and put you in it?"

She gave me a sad look, "If that were possible Cassandra then I'd have done it myself a century ago. I didn't have the power, and I'm sure you have even fewer worshipers now than I did then."

I almost had to hold back my grin as I told her, "There are thousands of believers today, and dozens of worshipers regularly perform our rites. I'm pretty sure I have the power to create a new body for you. We just need to figure out the details."

The young goddess's eyes widened in amazement, as a smile settled on her lips.

"But," I added as my tone and expression became serious, "There's something important you need to do first, the minute we get you back there."