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A high school student finds a grimoire that shows how to make magical disguises. |
Previously: "Team Ella"  Let's talk about it tomorrow, you tell Sydney, and sign off for the night. * * * * * You were very conscious of your new body while prepping for bed, and could hardly keep your eyes off your reflection as you brushed your teeth and brushed out your hair, and your skin tingled all over after changing into flannel pajama bottoms and a t-shirt. In bed, you laid awake curled into a fetal position, fighting the urge to rub your pussy down, as Ella does most every night before falling asleep. It wasn't consideration for the girl that caused you to hold back, though, only prudence. You weren't certain that once you started you'd be able to stop. Fortunately, you quickly fell asleep. Your alarm drags you awake early the next morning, and for a few minutes you snooze in a stupor, until you remember where and who you are now, and the excitement of that wakes you right up. You need to get moving quickly anyway, as the bus comes early, and you also have to get into and out of the bathroom before your mom needs it. You're very business-like about getting ready, taking no more than a shower and drying your hair with a blower, and packing up your toothbrush and other accessories in the little plastic case that Ella takes to school each morning. The forecast calls for cloudy skies and rain, but temperatures in the seventies (it is more like spring than autumn out there), so you compromise on a wardrobe, as Ella did yesterday: jeans and a windbreaker, but a loose and comfortable t-shirt. You take another minute in the bathroom after you are dressed, to admire yourself and smile beguilingly at your reflection. You're a pretty girl, a popular girl, with a social life at the school far different from the furtive and scuttling one you suffered before. You take breakfast in a hurry, and by seven-fifteen are down at the end of the street, waiting for the school bus with half a dozen freshmen and sophomores. Jared Cochrane is the unofficial leader of these: a tall sophomore with a head of thick brown hair and a wide, silly smile. He lives a block and a half down another street, and Ella only ever sees him on the bus. He hung mostly aloof from her during his freshman year (her junior year), but at the end of that year he started getting bolder with her, and now every morning he greets her at the bus stop with a cheery shout, and sidles up close. This morning, as usual, he has a video to share with you on his phone. Usually it is something he found online, but this morning it's him and another guy and two girls, in a driveway, executing some clumsy shuffle-dance moves. He blushes when you look up from it into his face. "That was me and Charles," he says. "We were just goofing around." "Who were the girls?" you ask. "They didn't look like they were goofing around." His blush and his grin both deepen. You ask, "Are you sweet on one of them?" That drives him off. He covers his head with both his arms and retreats to the back of the pack. Jared sits in the back of the bus, but he always sits there, never with Ella, because there's a guy who always does sit with her, and Jared isn't so bold as to try competing. A quarter-hour after you boarded the bus, as it nears its final stop on the route, Cameron McCarthy climbs aboard. Cameron is a senior, like Ella, and he's on the lacrosse team with Nathan Elliot. Like Nathan (and Luke, and a bunch of other burly guys at Westside) he acts as a kind of "big brother" to her. Cameron isn't huge, but the bus bench trembles briefly as he drops onto it with his pack in his lap. "Hey, morning," he greets you. "How far you get in the English reading?" He shares English IV with Ella. "I skipped it. Had enough trouble with the math." "Hey, you know who's good at math? Palendech." "Reece?" "Yeah. We could get a little study group together this week, if you want." You peer sidelong at Cameron, wondering, Him, maybe? Cameron isn't "handsome" in the stereotypical way. His face is rugged and doughy beneath some curly, close-cropped blonde hair, and there is something about his mouth—the way it seems to purse and come to a point in the center—that puts you (well, Ella) in mind of a parrot. But he's good-looking, and he isn't just strong, he's packed all over with tight, hard muscles. If he had a surly disposition, like Gordon Black or Dominic Kleason, or was a strutting asshole, like Steve Patterson or Seth Javits, he could be dangerous. But he's pleasant and amiable, but confident too. It would be easy to imagine him growing up into the kind of man who coaches Little League. A good choice to go with Ella, and also the kind of choice no one would suspect of being into something like devil worship. Aloud, you ask, "Is Reece going with anyone?" Cameron shrugs, as though taken aback, and stammers, "No. I mean, not seriously. I think he— Why?" "It just sounds like you're asking me on a double date." You mean it as a gentle tease, but Cameron winces. "I was just talking about getting you some help with your math," he says. "If you want— Jesus, we can get a dozen of your friends together, if that's the way you—" "I was just—! Forget I said that," you protest. "Sure, you and me and Reece can get together this week. How about Nathan and Jenna too?" "Sure. Tomorrow night?" "Okay. No, wait, I—" You weigh the conflict in your mind. "I'm supposed to go to a concert Wednesday night." "Where? Who's playing?" "At the university. Danielle Davis and— I don't remember who else. I'm going with Christine Coolidge, some other people." Cameron grunts. "Would you be interested in going?" Cameron makes a face. "This is, like, classical music? Yeah, I think I'll pass." "I'm having a hard time finding a date." He seems to freeze, then says, "If you need a date—" "Christine is threatening to set me up with someone if I can't come up with someone on my own." You lean over, brushing your shoulder against his. "If I can't find someone, will you be my emergency date?" "Sure," he mumbles. "If you can't find someone else you'd rather—" "I asked you first, Cameron. You said you didn't want to." He sighs. "Well, I—" he says. And then he sags. "Sure, I'll go." "Be my emergency date, Cameron. I don't want to make you." "I'll go," he says more firmly. And he makes that little parrot mouth with his lips when he looks at you, as he stiffens his courage to the challenge of sitting through an evening of boring-as-hell classical chamber music. * * * * * First thing on arriving at the school, even before stopping at your locker, you go to the girls' restroom in F wing. There's already a small crowd in there—mostly sophomores and juniors—all of whom you know by sight but none of whom you talk to. They know who you are, though, and always vacate the sink in the back so you have a spot of your own to put on your makeup. You've just got started (blushing your cheeks lightly) when you do a double-take at the girl who has barged up behind and dropped her pack next to yours. It's Autumn. "Hi!" you stammer. "Hey. You didn't know I knew you came in here every morning, did you?" she asks with a twinkly-eyed grin. "No." "I know a lot more about you than you think, Ella," she says as she digs open her pack to extract a makeup case of her own. "God," grumbles in a low voice. "If you knew how much I want to be like you. To be you." You dart a quick glance at the girls at the other stations, but they are absorbed in their own work; and Autumn is squeezed between you and the wall, so her voice probably doesn't carry. Still, you shush her. Then you add, "You're gonna have to wait." Autumn fumbles her lipstick in surprise. "Why's that?" "I don't want to rush anything. Just let me hang out, look around. You'd understand if you were in my place, Autumn." She doesn't reply for a solid minute as, her reflection jostling yours in the mirror, she works on her face as you work on yours. Then, in a low murmur, she says, "Is it really that complicated?" "I just don't wanna hurry into anything. There's a lot of possibilities." "I can believe that." "Then don't push me. I—" You're interrupted by the sound of the door slamming backward into the wall. Girls shout and cry out, then are drowned out by a lot guttural roars and chattering yelps. You look over, and over the tops of bobbing heads you see the grinning faces of a pack of football players. Also, the back of the head of someone wearing a sloppy white ball cap. Girls are yelling and guys are shouting, and the sound seems to crack the air of the tiled bathroom into glassy shards. You make a quick guess as to what is happening, and charge through the mess to confront Cole Stanchik, Dalton Douglas, and Nathan Hall, who are squeezed into the doorway, grinning. You ignore Will Prescott, who is standing limply nearby. "Fuck off!" you scream at the football players. "Get the fuck out!" You shove at them as they just grin back at you. "I fucking swear—!" You hack Stanchik savagely in the shin, and he gasps and falls back. The other two hoot and laugh as they jump back as well. You chase them out into the hall, then wheel to seize your duplicate by the arm and throw him out as well. Then you stomp back over to the sink to finish putting on your face. "Jesus, Will," Autumn murmurs at you. Her face is very pale under her Hispanic tan. "What was that about?" "That" was just some light torment inflicted by Blake O'Brien's friends. You haven't told Sydney about any of that. Vote on how to continue the story: "BoM Poll: "Business Before School"" |
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