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To her credit, Meryl did bring Elliot coffee. She was dressed for the late October morning, a nice coat that would have looked at home in a modest sci-fi movie, gray and stylish, with a symbol on the left breast pocket she didn’t recognize, and some reliable looking jeans. She grinned at Elliot, who had barely managed into her jeans and hoodie, and her hoodie slumped off one of her shoulders. Meryl handed her the coffee.
“Oh thank god,” Elliot said.
“I didn’t know if you liked cream or-”
Elliot took a long, desperate drink.
“Okay, cool,” Meryl said. She waited for Elliot to collect herself, and said, “Are you ready to learn how to fuck shit up?”
Elliot nodded.
Meryl explained her plan as they went. A couple of bus rides later, they boarded a ferry to Vashon. They’d be able to have space there to do whatever they wanted, and they’d swing by Gimble’s for lunch. And while they went, Meryl showed Elliot pictures of the costumes she had made for various comic conventions.
“I wanted to do a couple’s costume with Ty but she’s so not into it,” Meryl said. “She puts up a wall sometimes, but I think she’s actually shy about it. Like she doesn’t want the attention.”
“I get it,” Elliot said.
“Yeah, your whole thing is not being seen, huh?”
Elliot hesitated. “So what costume did you want to do?” She asked, deflecting.
“Oh, Mulder and Scully for sure,” Meryl said. “I’d be the hot red head, and she could be the FBI agent.”
“That seems easy.” Elliot said.
“Yeah,” Meryl said. “And she’d look so hot in a suit too. But that’s okay.”
They caught a bus at the ferry terminal on Vashon and got off at a stop on the edge of a forest. Elliot looked around, her ears perked. She tried to reckon where they were compared to Gimble’s. Meryl started forward into the woods. Elliot trotted to keep up.
The path Meryl followed wound up a hill, the trees around them growing thicker and darker. Elliot stuck close, hoping that she didn’t catch anything in the corners of her vision. Meryl kept moving forward, as sunny and bright as ever.
Elliot stopped cold. In the distance, just above her head height, was a figure made out of sticks and vines. It was vaguely shaped like a person, and it twisted gently in the breeze. There was another a stone’s throw away, just up the path, and in a quick sweep of their surrounding Elliot spotted half a dozen more.
“Uhm…” She said. She felt her tail slip between her legs. She didn’t dare move forward. Meryl spun around?
“You okay?” She returned to Elliot.
Elliot pointed a shaky finger at the figures in the trees.
“Oh! Those,” Meryl said. “I made those.”
“Why??” Elliot asked, her voice cracking.
“Keeps the kids away,” Meryl said. She turned and walked into a clearing. “Come on! I’ll show you my practice tree.”
Meryl pointed to a tree that was stripped of bark, pocked with impacts, scars that glowed faintly when Elliot really looked at them.
“What’d this tree do to you?” Elliot asked.
“Fuck that tree in particular!” Meryl said, and laughed. “What if I told you sometimes thing have evil spirits inside them?”
“Is that tree possessed?” Elliot asked, taking a step back. Her tail poofed out a little.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Meryl said. “It’s just something I’ve wondered. Anyway, this tree is good for target practice.”
Elliot nodded. She set her bag down against a tree. “So how… how does this work?”
Meryl took of her jacket. She stretched, loosening her shoulders and arms. “So everything is about intention, right?”
“Like flying,” Elliot said. She wondered if she should be stretching too. She tried to mimic Meryl, but felt silly.
“Yeah! Just like that.” Meryl wiggled her fingers. “Except not? I guess. Instead of intending to fly, you’re intending to do damage. So what I do is I feel for magic.”
“You feel for it?” Elliot squinted, and then her ears perked. “Oh…”
“It’s there,” Meryl said. “Like there’s a thaumic layer around everything if you know what to feel for. So I feel for it…” she held out her hand. Slowly, a little bead formed in her palm, like an iridescent pearl. Before Elliot’s eyes, the pearl grew until it was the size of a billiard ball. “And when I feel like I have enough…” She drew her arm back and flung it underhanded like a softball pitcher. It hit the tree, sending an echoing crack through the forest.
Elliot watched, her eyes wide. There was a fresh pock mark on the tree, and it smoked slightly.
“Ah,” Elliot said. She looked down at her hands. Could she do that? She thought about all the times she snuck into her room, flicking the jimmy bar away from the door. “Uhm… So I just…?”
Meryl turned to her. “Yeah! So just hold your hand out…” She took Elliot’s hand and positioned it at the level of her chest. “Here is a good place to start. Hold it like this and feel for the layer.”
Elliot felt for the layer. She thought about slamming the door on her old roommate, about flipping the fridge door open from a floor away. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Her fingers brushed against magic, and like the broom she flew with, she felt her fingers tingle. She pushed, pushed against the thaumic layer, and magic flowed into her hand. She opened her eyes, wide, her breath growing ragged. The little pearl collected in her palm, growing slowly. Unlike Meryl’s ball, it wobbled and fluctuated.
“Okay okay okay,” Meryl said, her eyes bright. “Now throw it!”
Elliot flung the ball of magic at the tree. It arced too high and broke apart, little pebbles hitting the wood. They fell to the ground and disappeared with an ethereal hiss.
Elliot fell backwards, collapsing to the ground, catching her breath. She touched magic.
“That’s a good start!” Meryl said. She held her hand out for Elliot.
“I didn’t do it though…” Elliot said. She thought about getting up for a good hard moment and decided against it. She sat up, content to sit on the dead leaves of the forest floor.
Meryl sat down next to her. “Practice,” she said. She punched Elliot in the arm.
Elliot nodded. She looked at the wisps of magic rising from the forest floor, barely visible now. In the place of the little pebbles of collected magic, little white mushrooms grew from the forest floor. Elliot’s ears twitched in thought.
“You doing okay, buddy?” Meryl asked.
“Uhm…” Elliot hadn’t expected that. She thought about what to say, and Meryl didn’t say anything, watching tree branches sway in the wind. “I don’t know?”
“You seem… I dunno, detached, I guess.”
Elliot dropped her eyes away, her ears flattening against her head. “I’m having trouble feeling anything. Like, everything is so different and my world is different and the life I had a month ago is now just so strange and alien and like… it doesn’t feel like anything now.” She bit her lip in thought. “I feel like I’m floating.”
“It’s all new still,” Meryl said. “I think you’re in shock. When I started doing magic seriously, I felt like I was floating too.”
Elliot hugged her knees. “Did you get better?”
Meryl didn’t speak right away. She grew distant, staring off at the clouds as the rolled through the sky. And then her eyes brightened. “I got a purpose. I think that helps. Gimble has her practice, Cassie has the shop, Ty gets to be a mechanic.”
“And you have the whole medical examiner thing.”
“Oh yeah,” Meryl said. “I guess there’s that too.” She idly summoned a little ball of leaves. It swirled in her hands, and then she waved it away and the leaves fluttered to the ground. “I bet if you find a purpose it’ll help.”
Elliot considered this. She held out her hand, feeling again for the magic she felt before, and watched it collect in her palm. She threw it, and it hit the tree with a splash. Her ears perked. Better.
“So you use this to defend yourself?” She asked.
Meryl nodded. “I have before.” She stood and brushed herself off.
“I’m not really good at throwing stuff…” Elliot said.
Meryl turned back to Elliot, beaming. “Once you can summon them, I’ll teach you how to put them on target like Megan Rapinoe.” She offered Elliot her hand. Elliot accepted.
“But can these like… Can this actually hurt someone?”
Meryl summoned another energy ball. “It’s all about intention, right?” She whipped the ball at the tree. A chunk broke off the tree and fell to the ground. She turned back to Elliot, as if to say, now you try.
Elliot held out her hand again, pushing against the thaumic layer and she felt it again, like she had before. She pushed, and magic pushed back. It caressed her hand, spreading into her veins, opened her eyes. Magic pushed back, and it was intoxicating. She thought about the bully, the one that harassed her every day of her short college career. She thought about pushing him down the stairs from behind her dorm room door. She thought about setting him on fire.
Elliot threw the ball of magic.
A shower of splinters exploded from the tree. Elliot and Meryl shield themselves, shouting, drowned out by the crack of the tree trunk shattering. The tree hung in the air a moment, as if it didn’t believe what had just happened. And when reality set back in the tree fell, slamming into its own stump, and falling towards Meryl and Elliot. Meryl shrieked, and she pushed Elliot out of the way. The tree fell between them, barely missing Meryl.
Elliot gasped on the ground. She looked back at Meryl, who stood wide eyed, the tree laying at her feet. She looked at Elliot.
Elliot scrambled to her feet. “Meryl-!”
“OH MY GOD, THAT WAS GREAT!” Meryl said. She jumped over the tree and hugged Elliot, nearly knocking her over again.
“Erk!” Elliot said. “Ah! Wait, are you okay?!”
Meryl laughed. “You’re a quick study!”
“I almost killed you though!”
“Yeah, but you missed.” She reached up to her face, and drew her hand back, a splotch of blood on her fingers. “Okay, so you mostly missed.”
Elliot staggered backwards. She reached up to her face too, feeling the blood that flowed from her nose. “I think… I think we should be done? We should be done.”
“Oh, right right right,” Meryl said. “Yeah, I think lesson learned, right? We’ll do more later.”
“Uhm…” Elliot said. “Okay.” She looked at the tree. The end of it was still smoking. It didn’t smell like any smoke Elliot had had smelled before. It made her want to hide under her covers and never come out.
Meryl looped her arm around Elliot’s. “Come on, I bet Gimble has pizza left over.”
“Oh shit,” Elliot said. And like that, the clouds around her went away.
“Yeah, dude,” Meryl said. They left the forest behind.