Ordinary

Chapter 9

I realized as soon as they left that it was two in the morning, and I was alone in Elizabeth's house, her parents sleeping downstairs. On my way out of her bedroom, I noticed my reflection. Even if I didn't have magic, at least I got a cool new outfit from my short adventure in the magical realm. A new outfit that would bring me a lot of attention in this world.

I took a bag from her closet, stuffed the outfit Valeria had given me in it, and changed into a pair of jeans and a grey tee shirt from Elizabeth's drawers.

I noticed a picture of us on her nightstand. It was my twelfth birthday, fairy themed, of course. Even at twelve years old she was beautiful. I wondered if I would ever see her again. An even worse thought entered my head. What if I started to forget her?

I shook the thought from my head and put the picture frame into my bag. I tiptoed out of her room and downstairs into her kitchen, filling my bag with whatever packaged food I could find.

Realizing how exhausted I was, I snuck down to her guest bedroom. No one ever used it, and I was sure I wouldn't be found there. My head barely hit the pillow before I fell into a dreamless sleep.

The next morning, the sun peering through my window woke me. With a groan, I got up, rub the sleep out of my eyes, and left through the back door. I started walking towards town, no real destination in mind.

With nothing to distract me, my mind wandered to the events of the past two days. In less than one day, I found that magic was real and then had it torn away from me. I seemed like a cruel dream. For a moment, I could picture myself as powerful. Good. Someone who could save lives.

But now I was back to ordinary.

I wandered through town, aimlessly. I peered into our local diner and froze when I saw them. My parents.

There was no time to react. My mother turned toward the window and saw me. My heart froze. And then she waved.

I relaxed as I waved back at her. "Mom," I whispered through the window. She gave me a confused look. I turned around and saw one of her friends from book club waving at her. I realized, with a heavy heart, that my mom had forgotten me. In just a month's time. My life felt pointless.

As the woman walked in and greeted my mom, a wave of fury fell over me. Not only had Marcus taken me from my home, introduced me to magic and then took it away from me, my mom had forgotten me in the process.

I stormed away, too angry to cry.

I had tasted magic, and I wasn't going to let it go so easy.

Before I realized what was happening, I was at the public library. Going up to the librarian, I said, "I'd like to see every book you have about magic."

She had a worried expression on her face. "You're not one of those kids from the occult, right?"

I shook my head. "Just trying to do some research." She smiled, went to the back room and returned a few minutes later with a stack of about ten, large, old books. I took them happily, then went to a quiet room to read.

I don't know what I expected to find, but I didn't. Four hours and three coffees into my reading, all I had found were some spells from a Wiccan book (they didn't work, I tried), a long and fruitless history about the Salem witch trials, and some ravings from a guy in an asylum who thought the bunny actually came from the hat.

I was about to go back and get more books when I felt a tap on my shoulder. To tired to react, I turned and saw Elizabeth. "Liz!" I screamed, and the librarian shushed me. "You came back?" I whispered.

She pulled back and smiled at me. "You didn't actually think I'd go on a magical quest without you, right?" I grinned hugely at her.

"How many times do I have to tell you it's not a quest?" I turned to see Amund there also.

"Amund, what are you doing here?" I asked.

He gave Elizabeth an exhausted look and turned back to me. "Turns out, your friend isn't very good at switching between worlds."

I raised an eyebrow at her. "Finally something you're not good at?"

She rolled her eyes. "One accidental trip to Costa Rica, and you never hear the end of it! But yeah, I needed help and Amund said he'd help me find you. Turns out exploring magical worlds without your best friend isn't that much fun."

I laughed. "I'm so glad you came to get me." Turning back to Amund, I asked, "How did you find me?"

He pointed to something glowing in the bag. I pulled out the handkerchief he had given me. "You used this to track me?" He nodded. "And here I was thinking you were just a gentleman."

He laughed. "Turns out I'm resourceful as well. But come on, we're wasting time."

______

It wasn't long until we were back at the castle. As soon as we stepped through the front door, we were greeted by a scowling Marcus.

"You left your training to retrieve the human?" he asked Elizabeth. Wow, that hurt. The human? As if he didn't know my name. As if we hadn't kissed just days before! I tried to act as if it didn't hurt me.

"Yeah," she said with a fierceness I could never display. "She's going to help us, and if you don't like it, you don't have to stay." I smiled as we pushed past him. Amund left us, saying he'd meet us in the training arena in half an hour.

I followed her to her room, which I soon realized was my room just hours before. I changed back into the outfit Valeria had given me, but when I looked in the mirror, I didn't feel strong like I had before. I just felt like a phony.

She sat me down on the bed and asked. "What's wrong?"

I shrugged. "Nothing," I said, but she didn't believe me. "Fine. I'm just upset about Marcus."

"Marcus?" she asked.

"Yeah. The night before we got to the castle, he kissed me, but—"

She squealed. "You had your first kiss!"

Slapping her, I grumbled, "Yes, you don't have to scream it! But yesterday he was acting weird, he would barely even look at me after Arlo broke the news that I'm normal."

"Hmmm," she pondered. "First of all, you're awesome. Remember that. Second, he was probably just taken aback by the news. Maybe he knows you were upset about it and didn't really know how to act?" I wanted her to be right, but my mind kept flashing back to when he said I couldn't help them, and then again to when he called me human, instead of my name, as if human were a nasty word.

"Either way, I'm over it."

"No you're not."

"Well, I'm going to be soon."

"I know something that will cheer you up," she smiled.

"What?" I asked skeptically.

"Training!" she said, and she took my hand, leading me through the maze of hallways until we reached an open field at the back of the castle. There was a place for sparring, but more excitingly, at one end of the long field, there was a row of hundreds of weapons. Bows and arrows, a variety of swords, knives, clubs, and more. At the other end of the field were a line of targets.

Elizabeth nodded toward the weapons. "I know you want to try them."

"Heck yeah," I jogged over to the rack, letting my fingers glide over the many weapons. I grabbed the bow and arrow, easily the most majestic of weapons. Walking over to where I could get a clean shot of the target, I planted my feet firmly in the ground. From the books I had read, I knew the string would be tighter than it looked, so when I pulled back the arrow, I put all of my strength into it. Lining up to the bullseye, I squinted one eye, allowing for better aim. I took a deep breath, hoping the arrow would fly true. Exhaling, I released the arrow and watched it fly towards the row of targets.

It missed everyone of them completely.