Sage loved cryptid documentaries, so she'd watched the Jersey Devil one the night it aired. And, despite being pulled from the channel, it would live forever on the Internet.
The reporter on TV leaned forward. "Dr. Silverton, you and your fiancé were in Greece during the solar blackout. Did you see or hear anything out of the ordinary?"
When Dr. Silverton looked like she wanted to roll her eyes, Sage felt a kinship to the woman. Her facial expressions were amazing. And she was a ginger too, like her. Of course, Sage had been dying her hair purple for several months now, having decided she liked it. She couldn't do anything about the freckles, but she loved the darker hair color.
"You are aware that Greece isn't a tiny island, right?" Dr. Silverton said dryly. "I wasn't anywhere near Olympic State Park, but if I was, the only danger would have been from the meteor shower that night."
"Yes," the reporter agreed. "The meteorites did a lot of damage, but most landed in the water and were small. Sadly, there were twenty-two deaths in Greece and the surrounding islands, and even more injuries caused by meteorites."
Dr. Silverton nodded solemnly. "A huge loss. And it makes it even more important not to sully their deaths with conspiracies and fairy tales." She held up a hand when the reporter tried to interrupt her. "No, you brought me here to say my piece because of the lawsuit against Bach Industries. I'm not a cryptozoologist, which I told Mr. Bach before he hired me, and again after I quit and didn't finish filming. He continued to make the film without my knowledge and used our footage anyway. As for Greece, you are more interested in snakes, meteorites, and giants because all that occurred at Mount Olympus than you are with finding out what happened to the sun. I implore you: seek the answers to what matters to our survival, not imaginary monsters."
"Damn," Darcy said. "She has a point. I like her. I think I'm a fan."
"Yeah. Too bad she probably won't do any more documentaries like the Jersey Devil one." Sage clicked off the television and yawned. The clock on the wall read seven-fifteen. "I need to get ready." She could feel Darcy's disapproval washing over her without looking.
"Seriously?" Her roommate crossed her arms and pouted, stepping into her line of sight. "We were supposed to carve pumpkins and watch old scary movies."
"We can do that tomorrow. It's a Saturday."
"I don't like you going out into the middle of nowhere alone." Darcy's blue eyes sparked with concern. "Anything could happen."
"Exactly." Sage stood and stretched her arms over her head until she felt her spine pop in a satisfying way. "And now that I'm a witch, I want to test my capabilities. I found a spell online, and it sounds so ridiculous that I really want to try it." The only way she could learn what she could do was through trial and error.
Darcy hadn't seen Sage's powers in action, and so while she humored her, disbelief ran evident in her tone when it was brought up. "Sage..."
"Nope." She pointed the half-eaten strawberry licorice stick at her. "I'm an adult, and if I want to conjure a sexy mystical lover in the middle of the forest, I damned well will." She barely held in her laughter at Darcy's open-mouthed shock. She'd expected nothing less. The two of them were complete opposites of each other. Sage left a slew of broken hearts behind wherever she went, and Darcy, well, she was pretty sure Darcy was still a virgin at twenty-three. One day she'd find a man she'd throw caution in the wind for. Sage hoped it was soon so she eased up on being such a prude.
"You meet new guys all the time. Why conjure one?" her roommate finally managed to say and then stuck her hands in her jeans pockets, an intense frown still on her face.
Sage couldn't not mess with Darcy when she was like this. It was too easy. "Are you calling me a slut?"
"W-what?" Darcy stammered, cheeks turning pink. The girl was polite to a fault and rarely said a cruel thing to anyone. "That's not what I meant, and you know it."
Don't laugh. Don't laugh. "Do I?" She leapt to her feet, abandoning her candy on top of her notebook, then ambled to the window and leaned against the wall, looking down at the parking lot. "There's a guy over there taking out his trash. Maybe I'll go bang him behind the dumpster. I'll tell him you send your blessing because he's safer than summoning a forest spirit."
"That is absolutely ridiculous." Annoyance added an edge to Darcy's voice as the joke became clearer.
Sage couldn't hold it in; she laughed. If it wasn't so easy to get under Darcy's skin, she wouldn't. Nah, I still would.
Darcy threw a pillow that hit Sage lightly in the chin as she turned around to face her. "I wish you wouldn't tease me like that. I'm seriously worried about you being alone in the woods at night. I know you think you have these magic abilities and stuff, and they may help you escape a bad situation, but wouldn't it be easier to just…not go looking for trouble?"
Getting into trouble was half the fun, but the trouble she sought was of a different sort. And that was part of the reason Sage needed to go experiment with her powers—she hadn't been able to show Darcy anything yet.
"I have pepper spray and a Taser, and I know the ancient art of kicking a man in the balls. I
