Chapter 10: Magic – Part 1

Ian looks over his bedroom. It has been his sanctuary since the age of twelve when his parent's moved from the small townhouse in Malden to this big colonial in Framingham. Through all of high school and most of middle school he couldn't wait to leave it and get out on his own, but now with this wish a few slim days away, he is no longer sure.

Everything in here is his and reflects who he is. The walls are lined with promo and movie posters. The oldest are for The Two Towers and a genuine Goblet of Fire poster that hung in the theater during the US premier. His dad bought it on eBay and gave it to him for a long ago birthday. The newer ones were for the Netflix shows The Witcher and Shadow and Bone. He's even clipped out pictures of Alina Starkov from fan magazines and pictures printed off of the internet—he loves the way the character looks. It's not what he pictured when he read the books, but somehow the actress does a better job with the role than his imagination ever did. Still, he's a bit embarrassed for having done this. It's the sort of thing that no one questioned when he was fourteen or fifteen. But now at eighteen, if his classmates saw it, it would only cement his position as The Ultimate Nerd and lifelong virgin.

Although who was he kidding. That status had been cemented pretty much since the first day of high school.

And besides, he only had one friend who ever visited him.

His book case looks sad with so many volumes removed. They fill three cardboard boxes. He just can't bare to leave his favorite fantasy series behind when he goes to college. They're not the only boxes in his room though. Five more are slowly being filled with the things he might need in his new dorm room. Between all these cartons and his open suitcase, there's barely any floor space left.

Soon, it'll all be gone. Transported to the school in New Jersey. And the room will be empty of them. And him.

There's a knock on his door, and June pokes her head in. "You decent?"

"Kind of late to ask that?" But of course he's decent. And June knew this before she knocked. She texted five minutes ago to ask if it was okay to come over.

The two of them have been friends ever since Ian moved down the block from her. Together they played role playing games, traded books, watched thousands of hours of the same movies and series over and over. Neither one fit in at school, but found their exact flavor of weird reflected back in each other. They've both had other minor friends, but nothing remotely as long lasting or as close as the friendship they had with each other.

Neither has had any romances to speak of. Part of this is due to their pathetic reputations at school. And part of it is because both hold secrets that make it challenging. These challenges are what has likely kept them from ever considering the other as dating material.

But outwardly, people guess it's because she has no interest in the scrawny mop-haired boy who barely reaches her shoulders. And they think, he has no interest in the myopic girl who lets a curtain of red hair cover her face and hasn't developed a mature feminine figure at her age despite her towering height of 6'1".

In less than a week, they'll part. Each to their own institute of higher education. June goes to follow a hobby that falls somewhat short of her passion. Ian goes because it's expected of him. Both worry what it might do to their friendship. But they worry more about growing up and making their way in a cruel mundane world where they're dreams and desires are bound to be supplanted by the pursuit of money and status.

June enters now with a bundle of Amazon boxes and bags. "You're mom asked me to bring these up to you."

"Thanks." He signals for her to dump them on the bed next to him. "Been ordering things I might need," he explains.

June sits on the edge of the bed were there's still a bit of room. "You must be excited."

To avoid looking at her, he starts tearing through the boxes. Pens, notebooks, highlighters, fall clothes, along with shampoo and body wash spill out. "Yeah. I guess."

"You don't sound very excited. What's wrong?"

He sighs as more supplies tumble from their boxes. He tells her the honest truth, the way he's always been able to with June, and June alone. "A little scared I suppose. I've never been on my own before. Not to mention, I was planning on really experimenting with my freshman courses. You know, taking art classes like painting and sculpting, literature, philosophy. Really try to figure out what I want to do. But when it came time to registered, mom and dad got on my case about being more practical. They want me to go into commerce. Now, I'm signed up for a bunch of math classes and stuff. It's going to be so boring."

"You shouldn't let them push you around like that. It's your life."

"But it's their money. Sure, I got into my first pick school, but it isn't cheap. So, they're kind of calling the shots. And I don't blame them. I mean, I understand they're trying to do what's best for me."

June let out a noisy breath. She couldn't push too hard. He'll never outright defy his parents, she knows this. So, if she pushes him toward a confrontation, he'll just feel more guilty for backing down when he does. She says, "Still, you should take some classes you like." She can't help feeling bad for him. At least she enjoys music and playing the cello. She doesn't know what she'll be doing when she graduates, but until then she won't be forced into doing subjects she has no interest in. She just wishes he'd follow his dreams. But he never will because he has too many of them, and they're all unrealistic.

"What the hell is that?" June asks as a chunky black box lands painfully on Ian's lap.

"I didn't order this."

"What if?" June says reading the lit up display.

Ian turns it over in his hands examining it. "Holy hell! This thing can take you to different realities."

"What are you talking about?

"It says right here that it has the ability to take you to any of the infinite possible lives you're living in all the infinite possible universes that exists!"

"Whoa! Don't get carried away there. Looks more like a silly toy. Never mind that what your talking about is impossible."

Ian stands. He means to make a grand gesture and pace around the room while explaining himself, but there's too little space to walk. So he stands in front of June, and says, "Don't you get it! This is just like one of those stories. Here I am wishing for other possibilities and poof! This shows up. I'm telling you, this is my ticket to all I ever wanted. Can't you tell by looking at it? This is really bizarre. Have you ever seen anything like it before?"

June smiles to herself and clears some room on the bed to lounge back. "No. I've never seen anything like it, but it still looks more like a kids' toy than a magical object."

Ian turns the box over in his hands inspecting it. "No. This isn't magical, it's technological. But! But, that's it! Magic! We ask for magic."

"What are you talking about?"

He speaks fast, the way he does when excited, "We need to ask for something, don't you see? Like what if Hitler was never. Shit! It's working!"

"What?" June gets up and notices more writing on the device than before. And the box is vibrating, shaking in Ian's hands. A thrum fills the air, and it makes her skin crawl and her ears feel as if they're blocked.

"No! No! Cancel! Abort! Abort! Stop!" Ian screams waving the device around. Most of the writing vanishes, leaving only the original "What if...?" The thrumming and shaking stop. He sighs. "That was close. I didn't realize it was voice activated."

"You mean you almost cancelled Hitler? Why would that been so bad?"

"For one, we have no idea what the ramifications might mean. What if in the alternate timeline there was a nuclear war or something? Two, we don't know how much juice this has. It might only be able to take us to a limited number of realities. So, we don't want to waste it accidentally misspeaking. And three, as selfish as it might sound, changing history will not fix my current dilemma. However, in my defense, I believe this came to me now because I willed it, so having it serve my needs is what it's meant for." Then, after a pause, he says, "Hey! Does this mean you believe in it?"

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June shrugs. "I wouldn't say that. But it was doing something pretty freaky, so who knows?"

"Okay." He puts it down on his cluttered nightstand and steps back. Scratching his head, he says. "We have to be smart about this. And neither one of us can say the W.I. words until we're ready, got it?" He stares at her, until she seems to understand what he means by W.I. "Here's what I'm thinking: I ask for a world where magic is real and where I have the ability to use it."

"Where we have the ability use it!"

A big grin fills his face at the realization that June was on board for this. "You want to come too?"

"Of course, you dumb geek. If this actually works I don't want you going of to some magical realm all by yourself. Besides, you'd only get yourself into trouble without me."

"Okay, let's do this! Now, we have to think it through. We can't just tell it 'magic' because we might end up the next David Blaine or something. We have to make sure it knows we're talking about real magic."

June says, "And we should say something about not getting persecuted for using it. It would really suck if we got magic only to be hunted down by religious zealots."

"Smart!"

"I know. And say our names so it's not like everyone in the town or the world is using magic, and it's just some boring thing that people use to wash their clothes and junk."

Ian puts his hand to his forehead. "Oh! Oh! I know. We should make it so that in the reality we travel to, we're going off to a magic school like Hogwarts or Brakebills instead of lame colleges."

"Yeah. That would be cool." Then after a beat, June asks, "Do you really think that an alternate reality like that exists? I mean it's awfully specific, and it would mean a whole lot of things would have to change throughout history."

"Only one way to find out." Ian picks the device up and thrust it toward her. "Take hold of it. I don't know how it works. It could be only the people are touching get transported or are aware of the changes."

June leans forward on the bed and touches it gingerly, the same way she once did to a planchet while using a Ouija board. Now she's getting nervous about this. What if it did work?

Ian clears his voice and declares loudly, "What if magic—real magic, where spells and incantations can conjure things into exists or alter the forces of nature—existed, and the people who used magic weren't only accepted but held in admiration by the general public, and we, Ian Larkin and June Baron, had the capability to wield this magic. And instead of going off to college, we were going off to study magic."

The machine begins to hum again. This time June feels it in her hands. The doubt about the devices authenticity begins to fade into nonexistence. There's a sense of such immense power emanating from the plastic box that fear blossoms within her. It only intensifies when she realizes she can't pull her fingers from it even if she wanted to. The maniacal energy seems to glue her to it.

The screen is flickering through graphics of stars and nebulas at an incredible speed. A code seems to correspond to these images. It starts with "A72" but blurs with new numbers. They're almost impossible to make out, but they seem to be incrementing. The sequence goes higher and the number of digits grows longer as seconds pass. The seconds extend into minutes.

The whole room seems to be shaking, but maybe it's just the two of them. There's a rumble in the box now as if the mechanics are grinding with effort. Ian almost expects to see smoke coming out of it. There certainly seems to be a lot of heat building within the box.

"Is this safe? I think we should stop this!" June yells over the noise filling her head.

"Just give it a little more—" But before Ian can finish, the box begins to quiet, landing on the code: "XLYQ432017" Then, the world is being torn away atom by atom.

Ian moans. June shrieks. They're freefalling through the eye of tornado. Spinning. Falling. Everything around them being ripped away into a void, shredded by a storm that erases their reality. They fall and fall until they're engulfed in blackness.

---

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June wakes first. She's lying on Ian's bed. A cold sheen of sweat covers her, and she feels as if she'd just gotten over a long illness. Slowly, she rises to a sitting position. Ian is lying flat out on the bedroom floor. She calls to him, and he stirs.

"Ugh," he says, lifting himself up on one elbow. He looks like he might throw up. "That sucked!"

"God, I hope that wasn't radioactive. If it was, we definitely have cancer now. Did it do anything other than...whatever the hell that was?" she says, looking around the same room as before.

"I don't know."

The door suddenly opens, and Ian's mother pops her head in. "Is everything okay? I thought I heard a noise. Sounded like a body hitting the ground."

Ian quickly says, "Everything's fine. We were just talking and goofing around." He doesn't normally lie to his mom, but the truth is he's embarrassed. He doesn't want to tell her they found a strange toy, and it made him pass out. After all, it must have been a toy or something because this reality doesn't seem any different than before.

Mrs. Larkin turns to June, "I forgot to congratulate you. You're parents must be so proud. And you must be so excited. New Orleans will be such a fun place to study."

June smiles and nods. Ever since she got her scholarship to Tulane, she's received comments like this. "I'm looking forward to it, Mrs. Larkin."

"But you're parents must be upset that you're going so far. I'm just lucky my little one here is only going to Salem. We can run up the coast anytime we want for a visit."

Ian and June stare wide eyed at each other. Salem?!? He'd been accepted to Princeton. What the hell college was in Salem?

Had it actually worked?

Maybe it had. The posters are different. The boxes are gone. So, are all the Amazon packages. And the machine!

Neither of them had noticed these things at first, still being disoriented, but the room has shifted ever so slightly and all of Ian's packing is undone.

"I really can't believe how things worked out. This must be the luckiest person in the world," Ian's mother says pointing to him. "To be accepted to apprentice at one of the top covens in the world. It's almost unheard of. Especially considering...well, you know."

June struggles to say something. "We're all really proud of him. I'm sure he's going to make a great...ahh...witch." She can't help but add an inflection that makes it sound like a question.

"My son, a witch!" The woman seems stunned and overwhelmed by the concept. "I just wish I could be there when they perform the ceremony. But of course, that's not allowed."

Ian looks to June with a mix of fear and astonishment in his eyes. June is torn between the desire to nod and get Mrs. Larkin out of there as fast as possible so they can talk about what was going on in private and digging for more information. She digs. "Which ceremony do you mean, Mrs. Larkin?"

"Are there more the one? The big one, of course. I just feel like I should be by his side when they turn him into a witch." She glances tenderly at Ian. "He puts on a good front, but I'm sure he'll want someone to comfort him after he's transformed into a woman."

 

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