Chapter 8: 8. Rambling Returns to Reason

The silence that came after my question was deafening. It felt as if it lasted for hours though I was sure it was likely minutes at most and only seconds in reality. I could feel tears escaping from my eyes as I glanced up at Estus. Their face was a cross of confusion of concern looking down at me. I buried my head in my knees to avoid being able to see the impending rage. I wanted to curl up and just disappear. Not only had I hurt my friend with the crap I spouted, but now I was responsible for her being in the hospital. The anxieties I had been holding back came crashing down on me as I repressed the urge to sob. I had thought I was making so much progress, but I was still just making other people’s lives worse. 

A part of my brain was aware of arms wrapping around me as I continued spiraling. I felt so worthless. I didn’t deserve friends. I didn’t deserve people that actually cared about me. With every thought, I felt my entrenched beliefs rising to combat everything I had learned in the past few years. I could feel the voice that told me to just be a good son that did what he was told grow louder with every moment. Who was I to think I knew better than my parents? Who was I to think I deserved to be happy? Why did I think that I had any right to go off the path laid out for me? How could I so easily lash out at my friends like I had been? They were right to be concerned about me and I should just accept it with a smile. I was going through plenty of shit and they cared enough to notice. I had no right to be angry at the way they went about it, did I? I should just be glad they cared at all. Even that was more than what I deserved.

“Breathe Sophia.” The words cut through my mind like a knife and I realized I hadn’t been breathing. Or maybe I had been hyperventilating without letting the air go anywhere useful. I tried to take a breath but choked on the sensation and collapsed into a coughing fit. “Shit, I knew that might be a bit much.” Estus said as they patted my back and I started breathing properly. “I don’t know what exactly happened, but I can tell you’re spiraling into thinking it’s your fault. I guarantee that it’s not your fault Sophia. I don’t need to know the details to know that much.” They handed me a packet of tissues from their bag. As I took the tissues, I realized that while I was sobbing, they must have lifted me into the chair since I was cradled in it. Estus was patiently sitting on one of the arms with an arm still on my back as I wiped my face and blew my nose. “I’ll admit that I didn’t think you knew about magic and that surprised me. You don’t have the…smell I associate with it, if that makes any sense.” 

I gave them a confused look as I took a shuddering breath. “Smell isn’t technically the right word, but that’s not important right now. I would love to hear about what happened if you can manage it.” I nervously nodded my head, not trusting my voice quite yet. They smiled kindly as they continued. “Take all the time you need. Just whenever you’re ready, you can start, ok? I won’t be angry at you. I won’t blame you. I might not be overjoyed that my sister is casting half-baked spells on her friends apparently, but that’s on her, not you.” I sniffled at their words, trying to gather myself. My mind was still awhirl with anxieties, but my breathing was just about steady and Estus’s calm demeanor was doing a remarkable job calming me down.

I opened my mouth to talk, but the only sound that came out was a pitiful cough. Estus handed me their water bottle, which I immediately upended into my mouth. Luckily, it had some sort of rate-limiter so I didn’t accidentally water-board myself. After a few moments, I felt my throat was saturated enough to speak again. “So um.” I cleared my throat as I was still rasping. “I guess I should start with apologizing for all that. Thank you for dealing with me. Guess this makes two for two awkward interactions now,” I chuckled mirthlessly. “Hopefully I don’t make a habit of crying every time we run into each other. I guess I’ll start with Thursday.” I went on to explain the events since Melissa had tied me to a chair. I tried to avoid getting too sidetracked as I told them how the days following had gone. Telling them about my experience with fainting while venting to Rachael had their eyes darkening, but I continued nonetheless. I wrapped my story up with how I found myself at the water tower. “So yeah. I think that pretty much covers it? Now you know that it’s all my fault. I understand if you don’t wanna be friends…” I trailed off, looking down at my knees. I resisted the urge to bury my head in them again as I anxiously waited to hear what Estus would say.

“I already said you are not to blame Sophia. None of this has an effect on whether or not I want to be your friend.” They insisted. “That is…a lot though. Give me a minute.” They leaned against the bookcase, looking up at the ceiling while they chewed on their bottom lip. With a colossal sigh a few moments later, they knelt down to meet my eyes where I had been staring off into space, fidgeting. “From what you've told me, it doesn't seem like any of this should have caused Mel's current state. The timing is too perfect to be coincidental though. I think you're right about that much at least. Assuming there’s nothing too complex about the spell, we should be able to simply sever the connection between the two of you. You wouldn’t happen to have an eidetic memory, would you? Or otherwise just happen to remember the exact wording Mely used for that spell?” At the dejected shake of my head, they continued. “Didn’t think so. I know this might be a lot to ask, but can I come to your place and look at her room? I’m hoping she might have written it down. Would help a huge amount in —”

“Oh! I think I remember her scribbling on a piece of paper while I was tied up! I don’t know how accurate it was, but I got the impression she was trying out various phrases and putting the spell together!” I blurted excitedly. Maybe I could help after all! I nearly jumped out of my seat before I realized that would probably mean kneeing my new friend in the face. “Wait. Why haven’t you come by already? I would think it would’ve been the first place you looked?” I asked in a rare moment of common sense as I carefully lowered my legs to the floor.

They looked embarrassed as they answered. “We…we don’t actually know where she lives? Her and I tend to hold the rest of the family at arm’s length. Between that and her love of having space, she has kept the rest of the family in the dark. I wouldn’t have known this had it not been for her being in the hospital, but apparently she doesn’t even have a paper trail connecting her to your place. I would never ask for you to make such a decision if it weren’t for these extenuating circumstances. Feel free to say no.”

I thought carefully about my answer. All of my instincts told me to trust Estus. They were Melissa's sibling and had shown themselves to be a wonderful caring person even to a complete stranger. Despite all of that, I couldn't help but worry about why my roommate avoided mentioning them and stopped her family from knowing where she lived. With my mind set, I answered with more questions. “Would it be possible for me to run back home and find it on my own? Do you think I could identify the papers we need?” As they were about to answer, I cut in again “Oh! Or since you probably also know magic, maybe you could cast some sort of spell that ties you to your word to not share the information or something!” Mel couldn’t be too mad at me for wanting to see more magic, right? And taking precautions was smart! After all, it would be helpful for someone in her family to know where she was in the future too.

“I…think it would be easier for you to simply grab the papers yourself.” Estus eased into bursting my bubble. “You may already know about magic, but we are still only one step above strangers and it is supposed to be a secret. It sounds like there are already five more people that know of its existence than there were supposed to be. I don’t like increasing the chances of letting it get out even more.” Their logic made sense, even if it was deeply disappointing. I mean, what sane person wouldn’t jump at every chance to see real life magic after all? “If it makes you feel any better, you’ll get to watch me perform whatever spell I need to deal with the spell currently linking you two,” They added. I immediately brightened at the prospect.

“Really? Can I help you make the spell too? I think I’m pretty good at rhyming! I can even give you a preview! Just give me some verse timing." I couldn't help myself from offering help.

With a sigh, they dropped into the now vacant chair between us. “Firstly, I can’t answer that until I know what exactly the spell is doing. Secondly, it’s called meter, not timing. And thirdly, for someone trying to prove they’re good at making verses that follow the rules, you’re not doing a great job. Unless you want to claim that rhyme was accidental?” At my pout of response, they continued. “That being said, two minds are better than one so if I go that route, I’ll ask for your help. It seems my dear sister already told you enough for that much. No promises though, as it'll probably be easier to go another way, assuming I have the right materials.” As they finished speaking, they facepalmed at the twinkle in my eye.

“The right materials? Wait, What other ways are there? Are you going to have to get a goat to sacrifice? If we’re doing something like that, can I keep my changes? Or maybe I could write something to make my changes permanent without depending on someone else? Would I be able to convince you to cast it if I did?” My mind whirred at the possibilities as I fired questions at the regretful enby.

“Yes, there are other ways. No, we don't need a sacrificial goat.” Estus admitted with a heavy sigh. “Goddess help me. My sister has made a monster by letting you find out about magic, hasn’t she. At this rate, I’m thinking we'll have to do something drastic after we get this all figured out.” I felt my face go pale at the words. “Not like that, Sophia!” They quickly corrected as they dropped their hand from their face and realized how their sentence sounded. “Nobody’s going to hurt you. Well at least not as long as we can keep all this a secret. I can’t promise to shield you from many other people. Mel’s the talent in that area if you end up needing help.  Oh and you’ll likely already keep your current changes. Anyways, we’ll see about getting your other questions answered, but let’s focus on getting Mely’s notes for now, ok?” They smiled patiently as they asked.

Reeling my excitement back in, I nodded in acquiescence. “I guess I can go grab those now then! Should I just meet you back here? Or do I get to know about some sort of fancy secret magic place where you do cast your ritual sacrifices? You said we didn't need a goat, but you didn't say no to sacrifices in general. And you mentioned materials and such, so like —” I rambled as I pictured a grand dungeon hidden below a fake gravestone in a nearby graveyard. In my mind, it was complete with skeletons chained to the wall and a pentagram carved into the floor.

Rolling their eyes with a smirk, Estus once more shot my hopes down. “I know you’ll be sad to hear this but no. There’s no secret hidden door leading to a bloody, corpse filled, chamber on campus. No hidden grove full of magical beasts in the nearby forest. I suppose it might be easier if we met up at my place though. My completely normal place. Well normal by my standards at least. It should be private enough for us to work. Do you have any more classes today?”

“Oh…yeah. Kinda forgot. And I kinda have a test in it today so I can’t skip it,” I scratched the back of my neck. My hair felt silky soft under my fingers. “It’s not until six though, so I still have…” I pulled my phone out of my pocket, “a little over three hours. That should be plenty of time to at least get everything together! Probably enough to get started too!”

“In that case, I’ll stay here for now. We can review Mel's notes when you get back. Hopefully that should take too long and  then for anything else we need to do, we can meet up at my place after your test. Assuming you’re comfortable with that." I nodded my agreement and with that decided, I left my things with them and sprinted back home as fast as I could. I may have gotten honked at once or twice when I crossed a street without paying enough attention to the traffic. I felt guilty for taking my safety so laxly, but I couldn’t help but feel as if I were on a timer. For all I knew, my friend could be on one after all.

My breakneck speed ended up getting me in trouble as I closed in on my destination. I turned the corner onto my block and was sent tumbling to the ground as I collided with something and heard myself yelp. Maybe turning blind corners at full speed wasn’t the best idea in retrospect. I blamed the bushes for being taller than I remembered. Or was it just that I had gotten shorter?  My brain stopped asking questions when I realized something had landed on top of me. Opening my eyes, I was met with a pair of amber eyes staring down at me. It was apparently a someone, not a something that was atop me. As my brain ground to a complete halt, I realized that maybe it wasn’t my own yelp that I had heard.

“We really need to stop meeting’ like this Little Miss Fine Bracelet. This is not the way I like to sweep gals off their feet at all.” Luna giggled as my face burst into flame in recognition. With how close we were, I couldn't help but inhale the sweet scent of her fruity perfume. As I stared blankly, she fluidly rolled off of me and stood up in a singular motion. “Need a hand up?” She asked with a smirk. I laid there in shock for another couple moments before my brain finally caught up.

I grabbed her hand, working my mouth silently as she pulled me up. Today she was wearing a cute galaxy print dress paired with dangling blue earrings that looked to be shaped like Saturn. “This time I’m the one that has to dash to class though. Hopefully next time we run into each other it won’t be quite so literal. And maybe I can get your actual name. After all, I’ve gotta keep track of the people that have called me cute. Especially when they’re cute too. See ya around girly!” As she disappeared back around the corner, I continued simply standing there dumbfounded. 

She called me cute again. She also called me a girl. Why did she think I was a girl? Had I changed more? And why had she called me ‘miss fine bracelet’? She had seen my name when I turned in my test. And what did she mean by my actual name? Did she know I had realized I was a girl? If so, how? More questions kept popping up faster than I could answer them. My mind simply had no method of wrapping itself around what had just occurred. I took a deep breath and wiped the first off my clothes. The entire interaction was going to have to go on the backburner for now. I just did not have the mental capacity to puzzle it out. Not with how many other things were happening right now. I made a mental note of it and continued down my street towards home.

Arriving home, I made a beeline for Melissa’s room. Slipping inside, I flicked her light on and looked around. Her desk looked pretty similar to the last time I had seen it, luckily. As I started rummaging through the pile, I realized I may have been wrong about it being something lucky. Whatever organization she might have had, it either no longer existed or it was beyond my comprehension. I quickly rifled through it, not finding anything that looked like the spell that had been used on me. Going through it a second time, I found that most of the loose papers were class notes unsurprisingly, but maybe one in ten seemed to be poems, complex drawings, or unintelligible symbols of some sort. Or maybe they were just nonsensical scribbles that I was hoping had purpose. Either way, I made my way down the pile, grabbing every note that looked like it wasn’t related to a class. 

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I was about two thirds the way through the stack when my efforts to hold all the papers I had looked through in one hand failed. My grip slipped for a moment as I tried inserting another poem into the smaller grouping of pages and several pages of class notes tumbled out of the other group. In my panic, I attempted to catch them, but all I accomplished was dropping the rest of the papers. Not only that, but my blind flailing from that managed to knock the rest of the stack to the floor as I cursed profusely. As I watched all my work of the past 15 minutes become undone, I noticed that some of the sheets shimmered oddly. It was a subtle effect that I almost missed, but I couldn’t help but see the effect as a paper floated down in the shade of one of the plants. I grabbed the piece of paper after it landed and dropped it again. I saw the same sheen on it as it floated to the ground again. “Great. Not only do I need to sort through this mess but now I have to meticulously watch each of these damn sheets drop. Fuck me.” I allowed myself to collapse to my knees in frustration. This was going to take some time. 

I was just about to get started when I heard a knock at the door. “Hey Mel, you doing okay?” I froze at the sound of Amanda’s voice. At the lack of response, she continued, “I don’t know what’s going on with you but Nate told us what you did last week. He doesn’t want us to be mad but you need to talk to him at the very least. Using honest to God magic on him was going too far, don’t you think?” I couldn’t move. This felt wrong. I felt like I was listening in on a private conversation not meant for my ears. “I can hear you in there Mel, you can’t just pretend you’re not here. I’m not letting you ignore me, so I’m coming in.” I watched with horror as Amanda’s frame appeared on the other side of the opening door. “Nate? What are you doing in here? And why are you surrounded by paper?” 

I worked my mouth a few times before my voice finally came out. “Mel’s not here!” I blurted as if it weren’t obvious. “I mean um, don't be mad. Mel’s not even on campus. She’s at the hospital. In a coma. And I talked to her sibling. And they said it was because of magic. Well technically they didn’t say that. I figured it out and they confirmed it. Which is the same thing so I don’t know why I’m specifying. Oh and I’m in her room looking for a hint about the spell she cast on me. Well I mean technically I have a hint, I’m just hoping she wrote it down. So that I can have more than a hint. And help reverse engineer it. And I’m surrounded by paper because I suck at this? I was trying to sort through her stuff to find it but it all fell everywhere. And it went all over and I collapsed cuz like what the hell am I doing. Like my friend’s in the hospital because of me and I’m looking through her stuff? That’s so suspicious out of context and you probably think —” she strode into the room as I was speaking, and got down on her knees in front of me to cover my mouth.

“Slow down Nate. Nobody's mad. You said Mel’s in the hospital? When did that happen?” She paused, still holding my mouth closed as she worked through the rest of the words I had vomited. I felt my face twitch at the second use of my name. “Ok no, that’s my only question I think. The other stuff sounds too ridiculous to be made up.”

As she removed her hand, I let myself breathe in again slowly. Then out again before I took another and responded. “Um yeah, she’s been there since Sunday night it sounds like. It’s likely that it has to do with my spell since I fainted that night too. Rachael was with me and basically watched me change in front of her. Oh right I’m rambling with unimportant information, sorry.”

“Ok…Well that explains why she hasn’t been responding at the very least. Glad you’re ok from fainting by the way. My sister once fainted into a table and had to go to the hospital, so that’s no joke. How can I help?” I blinked twice at her simple response. I tilted my head and was about to ask how she could be so calm when she answered my unspoken question. “I’m not going to stand here and ask questions that can be answered later. You seem to have some clue of a possible way we can help. That’s all that matters right now. So again, how can I help?”

Sometimes I forgot just how mature she was before that carefree ditzy party girl attitude. “Right um, I guess we need to sort all these papers into three piles. The first should be full of anything that doesn’t look like class notes. The second should be class notes. We’ll need to separate those papers into two piles.” I grabbed the sheet I had dropped a few moments earlier and repeated the movement. “Notice how there was a weird play of the light across that sheet as it fell? We want all those in a pile separate from the other two.”

“Sounds great. Only problem is I have no clue what weird play of light you’re talking about.” she curtly responded.

“Wh-what?” I felt my confidence wavering. “Here let me try it again.” I picked the same piece of paper up again, and turned as I stood up so that we would be seeing it from similar angles. I dropped it again, trying to flatten it as much as I could to make it float down as slowly as it could. I watched portions of it glitter as it fell. “You saw it that time, right?” She shook her head. “Well shit, I guess I’m just going crazy…maybe the bad night is just getting to me.” I hung my head as I spoke.

“Hey, no. I believe you, Nate.” Amanda smiled reassuringly at me, but the constant use of my name was starting to wear on me. I hadn’t ever noticed it before but ever since I had spoken the name Sophia, each time I heard it today, it irked the part of my brain that had spent so long in a dusty corner. Amanda continued, oblivious to my mood. “How about I just focus on finding all the pages that don’t look like class notes and you focus on finding all the sheets that shimmer or however you’d describe it? Maybe it has to do with you being affected by a spell from Mel or something. Hell, maybe I just have the magic equivalent to color blindness.” I stared blankly at her. I guess I should have taken the fact that she was dual majoring in engineering fields more seriously. It was easy to forget how much quicker her brain was than mine. I nodded at her logical conclusion, feeling like an idiot. I was more than a little guilty for underestimating her yet again as well.

We got to work, starting by moving everything into one giant pile between us. We started out grabbing pages off the top, checking whether they were related to classes. If they were, they were placed in front of her; if they weren't they got placed in front of me. With how quick that process was in comparison, once we had about 10 class note pages, I switched to simply dropping pages to check whether they were worth bringing to Estus. I placed each one that shimmered between the other two piles. After around 15 pages, I started coughing up a storm and before I could, Amanda jumped up to grab me some water. I chugged it and she grabbed me another as I went back to the tedious task. 

She finished her portion about 5 minutes after that and sat on Mel’s bed, keeping me company. We talked about classes and eventually she managed to get me talking about my experiences the past week. With my focus on catching the subtle flickers on the papers, it was easy to answer without thinking and I found myself enjoying the interaction a lot more than I expected. I couldn’t remember the last time we had talked so freely with each other. It was honestly wonderful. Especially since she stopped using my name after the second time I fell into a coughing fit.

About halfway through the pile I felt like an idiot when I realized simply spinning the pages in my hand was enough for me to spot the luster on them. Amanda giggled at the look of embarrassed defeat on my face when I confessed the discovery. She even went so far as to pat my head in consolation, which got a grumble of indignation out of me. It didn’t take me too much longer to finish going through the stack, as I could handle two pages at once with my new method. I still couldn’t understand why I had to cough so much since I didn’t think the pages were that dusty though. Eventually I figured I must simply be allergic to a plant in her room. With a neat stack of papers, I poured the rest of my glass of water on some of the plants since I was sure they needed it after a week without their owner.

As we made our way out of the room, Amanda stopped me hesitantly. “Hey, I really wanted to let you know I’m sorry for how last night went. You’re right to be mad at us. We betrayed your trust by trying to make you tell us what was going on. You seem to be in surprisingly good spirits considering everything going on. I don't know what changed between now and then but I'm glad it did. I hope we can talk like this again soon. And hopefully in better circumstances.” She gave me a half smile.

“I…thanks Mandy. Your apology means a lot. And the fact that you haven't pried much in the past hour helps me believe your sincerity, honestly. I’m sorry for yelling at y’all though. I’ve felt out of sorts with everything going on honestly. I can’t say I’m not still mad but none of you deserved that. Or at least you and Richard didn't. What I'm trying to say is that I forgive you. Just please don’t do that sort of thing again. Next time you’re worried, please just talk to me one on one.” I felt some of my anxiety return while I opened up, but pushed through it to communicate my feelings to my friend. She pulled me into a hug after nodding and I froze.

“Sorry, I know you don’t do hugs. This time you’ll just have to accept it though. If you need to, you can consider it a good luck hug for everything it sounds like you’re doing for Mel.” She released me and with a teasing smile added, “It’s a shame Mel doesn’t get to see her handiwork though. I’m sure she’d find that pout on the face she gave you to be totally adorable. It’s so much better than your normal scowl.” I tried to argue with her as my face heated up, but she giggled and disappeared down the hall and into her room before I could get a word out.

Fifteen minutes later, I was back in the library with Estus. “That’s a lot more than one piece of paper. What happened?” They asked as I held out the stack.

“Well I couldn’t find the specific poem so I just grabbed everything that wasn’t simple class notes. I also grabbed all the pieces of paper that looked shiny? I don’t really know if I’m just crazy since Amanda couldn’t see what I was talking about but I figured maybe there was some sort of fancy magic that people used to hide magic? And that would be the reason they might shimmer? And Amanda thought I could see it and not her because I was under the spell or something? I dunno…” I trailed off as I tried describing my thought process, which sounded sillier and sillier the longer I talked.

They gave me a very odd look as they considered my words. “You’re…not wrong.” they eventually said with a sigh. “I mean all that nonsense about why you can see it is wrong, but you’re right that some people hide things with magic.” They pulled a piece of paper off the pile and held it up to the light and rotated it a few times. “And this is indeed enchanted paper, though I have no idea why Mel has so much. I don’t have even half this much. It’s expensive and a pain in the ass to make.” Shaking their head, they put it back on the pile and took the entire stack from me. “As far as you being able to spot the enchantment, that’s a whole other conversation. I have absolutely no clue why you can. You should be in the same boat as your friend. Unless you forgot to mention you’ve been trained in spotting magic already?” At the confused shake of my head, they continued. “Didn’t think so. Yet another thing to figure out. Never a dull moment with you I suppose.”

They grinned as I stuck out my tongue in response. “Anyways, I’ll need to remove the enchantments on these at home, so let’s start with the other papers. Maybe we can find some hints.” I grabbed half the smaller stack, glad that I had kept the two separated. We spent the next half an hour going through our stacks for anything that might be related to gender or curses just to be safe. I found a couple lines that sounded familiar in my stack, which I circled and set aside. After we had each finished with our respective halves, we traded remaining pages and I circled more phrases that sounded familiar, while Estus made sure the ones I had circled had any chance of being helpful.

We had found three most promising leads in the stack. The first was a poem that seemed to be about using one’s own power to offer themselves a boon of studying. The second was another very short poem about increasing one’s confidence. The third was a page of glyphs that Estus explained were sometimes used in rituals. I couldn’t recognize any of them, but they figured they’d be worth checking just in case. We looked through the discarded pages for any enchanted pages, but ironically, it seemed most of them were unimportant enough that Mel must have not found them worth wasting the special paper. 

“Alright missy, that’s pretty much all we can do without my getting home, so go and get food before your test. I’ll get stuff ready back at home.” At the look that crossed my face they continued before I had a chance to argue. “No ifs, ands, or buts. From what little Mel has told me about her roommates, I know you’re all doing well in classes. I don’t want this to be the reason that you end up breaking that cycle. Mel has an excuse for anything she misses, but you won’t.” They were right, of course. I grumbled a bit more about it, but conceded their point. They texted me their address and I headed over to grab food.

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