In this chapter, Marcy gets to see some magic. You probably could have inferred that, but I'm really llame about finding things to say at the beginning of posts. Why don't I just shut up and let you read the chapter? :^)
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CHAPTER 8
Marcy waited with baited breath to see her mother’s house. The door swung open. She peered inside.
To her disappointment, the inside wasn’t very different from the outside. The color scheme was virtually the same as Jenny’s house on Earth. She walked inside, carefully looking around for anything magical. “Don’t worry,” her mother laughed. “Just watch.” She motioned to the door and it closed behind them. Marcy gave a small gasp. “Oh, and you might have to get used to magic. I have a feeling that now that you know about it, it’ll be hard to escape it.”
Unsure of what to say, Marcy settled on “Yeah.” Trying to change the subject, she glanced into a side room with a glass door and gasped. “Woah! Is that a greenhouse room?”
“Yep.” Jenny opened the door and hot, damp air wafted out. “One thing you must know in the spaces is that a witch is a person, typically a woman but occasionally a man, who may have only a small talent for magic. Usually they work with herbs and remedies for the commonfolk. A wizard is a person with a large affinity to magic. That’s why I’m a wizard, and not a witch.” She gestured to the greenroom. “But that doesn’t stop me from growing my own food and herbs. Besides, contrary to the rumor, there are some things that magic just can’t fix.”
“Cool,” Marcy whispered. “But hey, I thought witches were super powerful too?”
“In the beginning of the world, yes.” Jenny nodded. “Over time, ‘witch’ lost its definition as a powerful female magic user and became redefined as a wise woman, a healer, who had a little magic affinity.” She shrugged. “Now there are female wizards and male witches.”
“Interesting.”
“Very,” agreed her mother. “Come on, I need to find you a room. I’ve got a few, so you can pick which one you want.”
“But…you don’t have any other children, right?” asked Marcy. “So why do you have bedrooms?”
“Well, because of the lovely scenery and the isolation, my house is a prime spot for the Annual Wizard’s Convention. We get together every two months. Also there’s enough room for tents and what I call ‘wizard tents’ in the field.”
“What are wizard tents?”
“Just a kind of a portable house. They fold up into a briefcase or purse. All the wizards try to outdo each other and it’s quite funny.” Jenny paused to open a door. “One October we had a guy who brought a haunted house, complete with spider webs, tombstones, and glowing ghosts floating around in the front. Here’s one bedroom, by the way.”
Marcy peeked in. It was dark and kind of dismal. “Um, is there any more?”
“Of course. I think I know what you’ll like.” She moved down a few more doors and opened another. The sunlight streamed through a window that was nearly identical to Marcy’s room at her home. Dust particles caught the light while floating in the sunbeams. “This’ll be good,” she said quickly.
“Wonderful,” Jenny said. “I’ll just teleport your stuff here and you can stay while I’m here. I will be here for a while, you know,” she explained. “There’s a Wizard Convention tomorrow, and I have to get ready. Also I don’t want Matt to come and crash the party.”
“Good plan. Wait, teleport? How do you do that?”
“It’s a difficult process to explain. I’ll tell you later. For now, just let me get your things and then we’ll figure out what you can do.” Jenny sat down on the bed, which was covered in a pink and purple diamond pattern. “I know you’ll have questions but just shush for a minute, okay?”
“Alright.” Marcy sat down on a chair in the corner, slightly miffed that Jenny was ordering her around.
Jenny’s face became blank as she closed her eyes and folded her hands in her lap. Her brow wrinkled. A portal suddenly opened in front of them with a pop that made Marcy jump. Her clenched her hands in concentration, then relaxed them. A trunk flew out of the portal, followed by another. Then came her pillow and all of the clothes she had put away in the closet and dresser. Finally, the rest of her luggage tumbled out and the portal disappeared. Opening her eyes, Jenny stretched and hopped off the bed as if nothing had happened. “Well that was a bit difficult. I often forget that my house has shields placed on it which makes it a bit harder than usual to teleport things. And then I had to get all of the things out of the drawers--oh my, I hope Seth wasn’t in the room or he would have been a bit frightened!”
“Yeah, I guess I would too. And I don’t even know what happens!” said Marcy. They laughed together, and she suddenly felt awkward.
“Well, I’ll leave you to put away your things--again,” Jenny chuckled. “Hopefully it will be for a while this time, and then maybe we can get you some more clothes. Which reminds me…” She tapped a finger on her chin. “You’ll need a different outfit while you’re here. As you’ve already figured out, having cute and nice clothes doesn’t work out when you’re traveling. What’s your favorite color?”
“Um, pink,” Marcy answered vaguely. But I like my clothes! I don’t want new ones! And they’ll probably be all itchy and ugly and old fashioned looking too.
“I can make a pretty cool outfit with my magic.” Jenny adopted a knowing look. “It’ll be functional, cute, pink, and seamless. It’s a pretty cool process. And since it’s seamless, there’s no itch factor.”
“Oh…cool. Okay. Neat.” Marcy didn’t quite know what to say.
“I’ll go now. You get settled and then come find me.” She left the room and Marcy was alone with her thoughts again.
Does she think I want to stay? she thought to herself. I don’t necessarily want to stay…it’s weird here, with all the magic and stuff…it is kind of…well, interesting, but I’m not sure I’d want to live here. I’d rather be at home with Olivia, planning out the most awesome summer ever. She tried not to think about Olivia. The dragon is pretty neat. He talks funny. She gazed around the room. Guess I’d better put away my stuff…again.
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After she had hung up, put away, and set down all her belongings in their correct places, Marcy wandered out of the room around the house. It had an open feel to it and a color scheme similar to that of Jenny’s house on Earth. Wow, it’s going to take a while to think of Earth as just another planet. Or space. Or whatever it is. She unconsciously shook her head. This is so crazy. I feel like I’m in a movie or something.
It took a while, but she eventually found her mother ferociously scrubbing a bathroom sink with a sponge. She was wearing purple rubber gloves and had a large spray bottle in her hand.
“Can’t you just use magic to clean?” asked Marcy.
“Oh of course.” Jenny placed the sponge on the counter and picked up a toothbrush, shrugging. “Having magic is pretty cool, but sometimes I just want to clean things with my hands. Also, I don’t have everlasting magic. Magic is just like any other thing--do it too much and you get tired.” She began to scrub around the faucet with the toothbrush. “I wouldn’t want to waste my energy on washing the sink if a potentially dangerous creature was to teleport accidentally in the bathroom.”
“I guess so.” Marcy leaned against the doorframe awkwardly. “Um…want any help?”
“No, I’m almost done,” Jenny answered. “Are you hungry?”
“A little bit.” Her stomach growled. “I haven’t eaten since lunch.”
“Awesome! You get to have some new food!” Marcy’s mother took off the gloves and wiped her forehead. “The food in every space is different, so whenever I go somewhere, I grab a sample, recipe, or bag of seeds. I have a magnificent garden of all kinds of foods. You wouldn’t believe it--out in the back, I practically have an entire orchard of apples. I love apples. I make my own applesauce, too. Actually I make pretty much all I eat. I even have this tree that grows pickles. It’s super cool…”
Marcy quietly let Jenny ramble on about her garden and food as they walked to the kitchen. It was quite similar to the one in her house on Earth–as she supposed the entire house was.
“So, what do you want to eat?” asked her mother, interrupting her thoughts.
“Uh…I don’t know. I’m not very picky.”
“Okay. I’ll decide then.” Jenny tapped a finger on her chin. She does that a lot. “How about some of those pickles, and cheese, and crackers, and”--she snapped her fingers--“some dessert vegetables.”
“Dessert vegetables?” questioned Marcy as she sat down at the bar. “What in the world are those?”
Her mother gave a small squeal. “Oh my goodness they are so good. They look like vegetables--zucchini and cucumbers and eggplants--but they taste like sugar and toasted marshmallows and cake. And there isn’t a particular flavor for each one, so you never know what you’re going to get when you bite into one. They’re delicious.” She pulled items out of cabinets as she spoke, occasionally glancing at Marcy. “I got them from this strange space that was inhabited by only dinosaurs.”
“Wait, dinosaurs?”
“Yep.” Placing several plates on the bar, she reached into the refrigerator and grabbed some cheese. “I think that’s where they all went when they mysteriously left Earth. I guess someone just put them there a long time ago. They’d have to be really powerful, though.” Waving her hand at a knife, she picked up a box of crackers and opened it. The knife levitated and began to slice the cheese of its own accord. Marcy’s jaw dropped. She closed it quickly and stared at the knife. Jenny winked. “I mean, you’d have to first be able to build a portal that’s large enough for all the dinosaurs on Earth, and then you’d have to find a way to get them into the portal.” She shook the crackers onto another plate. The knife stopped cutting the cheese and floated over to the sink, where it dropped with a clatter. “Whoops! Sorry, that happens sometimes when I multitask,” Jenny apologized.
“No biggie,” said Marcy with a swallow. Just don’t do it when the knife is anywhere near me.
“I went to this space once where everybody’s shadows were actually the spirits of their ancestors,” her mother continued. “And the cool thing is, they always point in the direction of the person’s soulmate.” She waved her hand at another knife and it began to slice a purple fruit that looked a little like an eggplant. Its inside was a creamy white color, and appeared to have no seeds. “Wait, do you even know what a space is?” asked Jenny suddenly.
“What? Oh, yeah, a space. Yeah, Alex told me about what they are.” For some reason, Marcy felt her neck grow hot. She quickly blanked her face before her mother could notice it.
“Alex…” Jenny shook her head. “He must be new to Matt. I’ve never seen him before. The strange thing is, I didn’t sense any strong magical affinity in him.” She leaned on the counter and looked into her daughter’s eyes thoughtfully. “Matt is the kind of guy who only wants people for what they can give him. So why does he want Alex?”
“How do you know he wants him?” asked Marcy. “I mean, he could just be a helper, right?”
“He could, I suppose.” Her mother grabbed two glasses out of the cabinets and filled them with water. “But that’s not like him. He must know something that I don’t…” She stood in the kitchen, looking off into space. “I wonder…” Shaking out of her trance, she set the now full glasses on the bar and pushed the plates toward Marcy. “Just use your fingers. I’ll get some salami.”
“Eww!” she exclaimed in disgust. “You like that stuff?”
“Well of course!” replied Jenny. “You don’t?
“No way!” Marcy retorted. “How could you? Don’t you know what it’s made of?”
“Yeah. So what?” Her mother shrugged her shoulders and pulled the package out of the fridge. “It’s delicious.”
“Well you can enjoy it by yourself,” stated Marcy as she placed a piece of cheese on top of a cracker.
“More for me.” Jenny gleefully opened the package and deliberately took a long and satisfying sniff of the contents. “Mmmm,” she sighed with her eyes closed in mock bliss. Rolling her eyes, Marcy took a bite of the cheese and cracker. It was delicious. Well at least not everything in this world--whoops, spaces--is weird.
“So.” Her mother stacked cheese and salami onto a cracker and popped it into her mouth.
“So.”
“Well, since you are my daughter, I’d like to get to know you a little more.” Jenny made another cracker stack and ate it.
“Yeah. Right.” I had a feeling this was coming. “Um…so what do you want to know about me?”
“I know a bit more than you think, but there are some things that I’d like cleared up.” Jenny looked her in the eyes. “For instance, will your boyfriend be worried about you while you’re with me?”
“H--How do you know that I have a boyfriend?” stuttered Marcy. “Are you stalking me?”
Jenny blushed. “In a way, I guess. I follow you with a fake account for most of your social medias. I just use them to keep an eye on you. So it isn’t really stalking.”
“That’s creepy. And I didn’t even know! Which one was you?” That’s so weird and…disturbing, she thought.
“I used the name ‘Zoey Jenga.’ I’ve always liked the name Zoey. It’s a nice name.”
“Oh so that was you!” Marcy exclaimed. “And that’s why you were always inactive too.”
“Yep.” Pointedly looking at her daughter, Jenny grabbed several slices of salami and munched on them. Marcy made an expression of disgust. Jenny laughed.
“So, will your boyfriend want to know where you are?” she asked.
It was Marcy’s turn to blush. “We broke up.”
Her mother looked surprised. “Really? Why?”
“He was…I don’t know. It just didn’t feel right to both of us after a while.”
“Ah. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be.” The words came out harsher than she wanted. An awkward silence fell. Jenny nibbled on another cracker sandwich thoughtfully. Embarrassed, Marcy absentmindedly grabbed a piece of the white dessert fruit off of the plate and placed it in her mouth. Instantly the flavor exploded on her tongue. It tasted like a s’more--marshmallow was the most prominent taste, with a hint of milk chocolate and graham cracker. She stared at the slice she held in wonder. About to comment on the strange fruit, she was suddenly cut off from doing so by her mother.
“Well, like I said earlier, there’s a Wizard Convention tomorrow. So you’ll get to meet all my friends!” Jenny’s face brightened, then she said hurriedly, “Of course, you can stay in your room if you’d like.”
What? Ugh, even more weird people, thought Marcy dismally. I wish I had never come here. Out loud, she responded, “Yeah that would probably be best.”
“Right.” Her mother messed with a piece of salami and there was silence once more. “Well, I’d better get back to cleaning,” she said resolutely. “There’s going to be a lot of people here and this house won’t clean itself! I’ll leave the food here on the counter if you want to have a snack later. For now, you can do whatever you want.”
“Okay. I might go outside.”
“That’s fine with me. If you need me, just wander around till you find me. I’m sure I’ll turn up sometime.” Jenny winked at her daughter, made one more cracker sandwich, ate it in one bite, and strode away. Marcy watched her go. She ate another of the dessert fruit slices, this one tasting like key lime pie, then filled a napkin with the strange fruit to take with her. I’m going to go find that dragon.
:] u like? :]
Cyronix is one of my favorites.
Also, the Wizard Convention is important. Just so you know.
See you soon!
~~Zoë Wingfeather
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