A Rational Magic || ONC2022

Thirty-Three || Terrenfell's Twins

Stepping through the portal is weird. It's like the world's turned upside down... and I don't like it.

Ash and Blake are both already racing up the hill to the path, with Anya following them half-heartedly. I don't bother saying anything, because there's no point.

Matilda is, as any crazy person would be, perched on the edge of the well. But she jumps down when she spots Emily — and it is Emily, because she pulls the younger girl away from me with a grin spreading across her face.

Mercury pretty much rolls into existence, looking just as uncomfortable with the magic as I was. Which makes me realise how weird it must have looked to Anya when the triplets came through.

"You alright?"

"I do not like that," he announces, shaking his head. "God, let's just get out of here. My aunt's gonna go ballistic."

"You're staying with your aunt too?"

"Great aunt, to be specific," he shrugs, giving the hill a strangely appraising look. "You might have met her? Weird cryptic messages about names, definitely had those bags hanging around in her attic, maybe told you to look out for a Rieta?"

I'd forgotten that.

"Oh. Oh my god! There is no way—!"

"Terrenfell is a small town, Lani."

"Guys?" Anya calls down to us. "I think we've found the search party."

Well.

We have been missing for days, haven't we?

Mercury swears, as he's wont to do. "Emily, Matilda! Come on, we'd better make their job a little easier! And someone come up with a plausible story, quick!"

"I'll do the talking," Anya laughs. "Now hurry up!"

~|•

It's Aunt Jessica who meets us first, along with a man who genuinely bursts into tears when he sees Emily clutching my hand like a lifeline.

"Thank you, thank you!" he says over and over, sweeping her into a hug and spinning her around in the air while she laughs and laughs and laughs.

Like a child.

I keep my attention on him rather than Aunt Jessica, because I really don't want to see her face. I don't want... I don't want to have to lie to her.

"What happened?" Emily's dad asks, turning to me, and my mind goes blank.

"They called it a 'mass kidnapping'," Anya says, quickly enough to save me from coming up with a really bad lie. "I'm not sure if it's been done on a much bigger scale than this... maybe nationwide... but this is everyone. This is all of us."

"They saved us!" Emily grins, waving so vaguely at me that it's a miracle her dad doesn't ask if she means the trees.

"Really?"

"We all kinda saved each other," Mercury shrugs. "But the twins did the most."

Anya only looks slightly uncomfortable at the lie.

"Lani?"

"Yes...?"

Aunt Jessica doesn't ask anything — letting Emily's dad handle the questions — when she pulls me into a hug, and all I can make out is several muffled whispers of 'so worried' and 'terrified'.

"Is Soren alright?" I ask, to appear somewhat convincing.

"Yes, yes, he's fine," she says quickly. "When we woke up and found Sara's sleeping pills on the floor, almost all used up, we were all just so... I can't..."

Did Soren drug them or something?

No matter.

"I'm glad they didn't hurt you."

"Have you seen Anya? I'm surprised any of you made it out if she's that injured... though they do look very old, I suppose..."

Well, that's something people are best not questioning.

As more of the search party turns up, including a couple of older kids who recognise Mercury and drag him away without actually stopping to ask what the hell happened, and Matilda's grandmother, Anya explains over and over what happened, with the children constantly repeating the fact that 'we saved them'... even if Anya wasn't involved in our escape from the tower at all.

I suppose, though, that she did help win that fight with Adalia... which probably did save them.

By the time everyone's heard the story, there's whispers. When Ash and Blake are reunited with their parents and sister, she comes up to us both with a curious look on her face.

"Ash says you really are a good witch, Lani," she informs us, making Aunt Jessica give us a funny look. "And he says he's going to tell grandma that the bravest people he's ever met are you two. Thank you."

"You're welcome...?" Anya doesn't even try to hide the confusion at that first statement. "What's your name, then?"

"I'm Charlie!"

"Come on, sweetheart, we have to go home!"

"Coming!"

It's an age before we're left alone — just me and Anya and Aunt Jessica — but when it happens, I'm not so thrilled about it.

"Wonder which of those three was born first," Aunt Jessica remarks, and Anya laughs.

I don't.

~|•

"I never realised rumours could be so exhausting."

"Of course you're the only people anyone's gonna talk about," Soren says, tossing a pair of Anya's shorts at me. "They've not been able to find any of the people you named, and you're therefore the biggest news in town."

"And since we're leaving..." Anya sighs, taking her shorts from me and dropping them into her suitcase, "well, there's no telling, is there?"

"Terrenfell's Twins, though?"

"It is a stupid name. You don't belong to this town... eh. They'll forget about you before you come back."

"You say that as if our parents are ever letting us spend time here again," I laugh. "They're not that irresponsible."

"I guess... but if you can convince them, you will come back?"

"Of course," Anya says. "Terrenfell's pretty interesting, you know."

"There's magic everywhere you look," I add with only the barest hint of a smirk.

"Oh, absolutely!" Soren grins. "One of my friends from school is convinced he saw a mermaid here one time, did I ever tell you about that?"

"No..." Anya doesn't look quite as pleased with the conversation topic now — apparently she can believe that I can do magic because of a potion, and in fairies and elves, but half-fish people?

That's where she draws the line.

"Go on, then. Let's hear it."

"Lani, we're leaving tomorrow, do we have to?"

"Of course!"

"Well, he'd decided to go to the beach in the middle of the night..."