“Good morning, my love.” I said, hugging him from behind. He had his long black hair… though his was wavy whereas Angelique's was perfectly straight… tied back for cooking, and it smelled of nightshade and roses against my face.
“Good morning.” he replied with a smile. “Hungry?”
“Famished.” I answered.
“Well, have a seat. Everything should be ready in a few minutes.”
I sat down and pulled my phone out of my pocket. I unlocked the screen, saw that I had no messages, and turned the screen back off. “I found a new lake today.”
“How far did you walk?” he asked, confused.
“Not far.” I replied. “It's on the property.”
“But we don't have any lakes on the property.”
“We do now.”
He just shrugged at that and went back to flipping the eggs. I was going to say more, but then Raina entered the kitchen.
Raina was one of my longest running friendships. We had met in Elementary school and remained close through everything that had happened since: puberty, public school, Raina coming out as gay, and oh yes... my transformation into an uber-magick user. Though Wiccan, she had expanded her own magickal abilities over the past year, mastering Fae magick that few mortals could imagine wielding. That there was someone else as new to things as I was made us even closer.
She was in a great mood that morning. Her face was as bright as the purple of her matching sweat pants and hoodie, though her tight, bright red spiral curls were still messy from her pillow. “Hey fam.” she chirped. “What's for breakfast?”
“A vegan's worst nightmare.” Vincent answered, showing her the bacon on the counter and eggs in the pan.
“You always did know how to make someone grateful for being an omnivore.” Raina plopped herself down next to me at the kitchen table. “So what's new?”
I swear, that woman can wear anything! I thought. There were some colors… especially yellow, orange, and tragically purple… that I thought just didn’t go with my pasty white skin. I wasn’t sure if it was Raina’s mixed Latinix and black Jamaican heritage or her unending confidence, but she looked good in everything.
“Nothing much.” I answered finally. “A new lake appeared on the property overnight.”
“Does it have a beach?” she asked.
"Nah, it's pretty swampy."
“Figures.” She looked around the table. “Do we have any...”
In a flash, cups of coffee and glasses of orange juice appeared before Raina and I. Vincent stood at the stove as if nothing had happened.
Raina smiled. “Gotta love vampire speed.”
I took a sip of my coffee. “So, conjure anything new last night?”
Raina drank some juice. “Nothing at all, why?”
“That lake appeared on the property out of nowhere, remember?”
“Did you see it appear?”
“No, but it appeared directly over one of the trails I use regularly.”
Vincent sat a plate of wheat toast in between us. Raina picked up one of the pre-buttered slices and crunched into it. “Hmm. Strange. Maybe I should talk to Rini about it.”
“And how is our favorite Fae magick teacher doing these days?” I asked, picking up my own piece.
“As instructive as ever.” Raina grinned.
Before I could probe her answer, Jack came sliding into the room. He was wearing the same stained My Chemical Romance t-shirt that he'd been wearing the night before, as well as the same jeans. His dark brown hair was tied tightly back and hung halfway down his back.
“Good morning!” Raina greeted him.
“Ugh, what's so good about mornings?” he asked, sitting down at a chair where coffee and orange juice had also just suddenly appeared.
“I'm surprised to see you up this early.” I said.
“I passed out in my computer chair last night while debugging code.” he said, rubbing his neck. “Damned chair cost more than my car, and it still didn't stop me from getting a stiff neck.”
“That's what you get for doing bong hits while you work.” Raina said stiffly, grabbing another piece of toast.
“Yeah, and that's what makes me do bong hits before walking upstairs.” Jack replied, flicking a crumb at her.
“Well maybe you can turn that massive computer brain loose on doing some research after breakfast.” she replied, tossing a crust at him.
"A good-sized lake appeared in the backwoods in the last couple of days." I informed him.
Jack shrugged. “Sure. Research materializing lakes. Got it.”
Plates of bacon and scrambled eggs appeared in front of us, with Vincent standing nearby. “Bon Appetite!” he said, and the three of us dug in.
* * *
“Hey, kid...”
The voice was insistent, but I tried to ignore it anyway. I needed my sleep.
I found that I took a lot of naps, post-Sorceress-becoming. Raina assured me that her Fae sources told her that this was entirely normal, that my body was channeling more energy than normal humans and needed to rest more. I had even put a daybed into the meditation room I shared with Raina, in case I needed to get some sleep while the rest of the house was noisy.
And now this voice was insisting that I wake up.
I opened my eyes, only I didn't see my meditation room. Instead, I was in a somewhat-familiar stone room. I had only seen this room once, during a meditation that had been hijacked by a couple of spirits. One of them, who I had come to call Penelope, had made contact with me several times since. The other one...
“Hey there, kid.”
The other woman from that meditation was standing in front of me, looking down and smiling. Her olive skin was bathed in firelight, and her long black hair almost shined in the dark.
“It's you.” I said out loud, the surprise evident in my voice.
“Yep.” she answered simply.
