Cloverfield Magic

Chapter 13 - Blue Hair

The future. She was in the future. Or some parallel universe that happened to also be in the future. How it took this long for her to figure it out was beyond her. Maybe it was because everything in Circe's shop was at least several decades outdated. No wonder the world was so strange sometimes.

If there was one good thing that she could wish for, is that maybe Alice had finally escaped him. Hopefully, her contract holder was long dead and gone after nearly sixty years. 

Alice is broken out of her introspection at the sound of Circe's harvesting another bunch of carrots from her garden patch. It's a cloudless blue afternoon, just the way Alice likes it. Issac and Rowen were still at school, so it was just her and Circe today - the both of them elbows deep in garden soil. "Circe, how did you get your scars?" Alice asks. "I just can't imagine someone like you getting hurt."

"I'm flattered you think that way, Alice, but I wasn't always the witch I am today," Circe comments as she wipes some sweat from her brow despite the chilly autumn air. Circe was wearing only some loose overalls and garden boots instead of her usual robes. Circe turns away from Alice and points to the raised stripes of flesh on her bare back. "These are from the people who were trying to correct my behavior." Pulling up the hem of her overalls, Circe revealed the extent of the burn scars that traveled up her legs. "These are from the people who felt like I shouldn't exist. Neighbors, strangers, friends... they tied me up and set me on fire for being a witch. Funnily enough, unlike some of the other poor girls they murdered before me, they were actually right for once. I trusted the wrong person, and paid the price."

"How did you get away?"

"Well luckily for me, in my desperation to be anywhere but there, strapped to that stake with flames burning around me, Magia told me how to knit space together without a door. I disappeared into a remote forest to heal and recover."

Alice listened to the story with a heart overflowing with admiration. It had already been days since the trio's trip to the animal shelter, but Alice was still haunted by the ghosts of her past. In her dreams, her memories would distort until she found herself back in the laboratory, trapped behind cold and unfeeling metal with nothing to look forward to but pain. Sometimes her old Coven members were there with her, screaming for her to save them, to help them, to heal them. To put their broken bodies back together again. Cursing her when she failed. The worst nightmares were when she watched her family get taken apart, one by one, until she was the only rabbit remaining. Then, they would come for her.

Most mornings Alice wakes up screaming. Not at the memory or pain, but at the knowledge that everything she's done, everything she built, everyone she's ever known... was gone. Everything that she had built over the last nine years just slipped through her fingers in an instant. Once again, she had to start from nothing. The Fates were cruel, cruel mistresses.

Circe was amazing. She fought her way out of her own dark place, and Alice wanted so desperately to be like her. To stand at the top, unbothered and unafraid.

Untouchable.

"I've been making progress with my gift, Circe!" Alice reports proudly. "I was able to heal the bruises on Rowen's back in less than a minute yesterday."

Circe looked surprised at this. "Rowen was hurt?"

"Yep. He said he slipped on ice and fell."

"Sounds like Rowen. He always seems to find some strange way to get injured."

"I can change the look of your skin if you want me to, Circe. You don't have to carry around those scars anymore."

"It's fine, Alice. I've had chances to have them removed in the past. I just like keeping them to remember to be careful of who I trust."

"Circe, I'm getting stronger, so can I -"

"Alice, I've told you already. I'm not looking for a familiar."

Again, rejection. While she was still brushing up on all the changes from the years she mysteriously lost, obtaining a familiar still seemed to be a coveted thing? Did Circe deem their magic incompatible for some reason? Being Circe's familiar could give her protection in this strange new future. It would give Alice hope that there would be someone out there in the world, thinking of her well-being.

Before, Circe had promised her "maybe." Now, Circe only ever told her "no."

She misses the early version of Circe that she got to know. She misses her warm smiles, her caring nature, and her sarcastic, unfunny humor. Lately Circe was spending less and less time with her. Even when she did manage to get her attention, Circe always seemed to look through her, at something else far away.

Alice remembers Issac's words from a long time ago, about going crazy by herself in the store. Alice thinks should apologize to him sometime, because he was right. She did feel like she was going crazy. Why else did her mind fixate on the mysterious door to the upstairs room that Circe disappeared to for days on end? It's been eleven days and ten hours. Not that Alice was keeping track or anything.

She's voiced her concern about Circe to Rowen and Issac, but they didn't seem to share the same urgency that she did. So at odd hours of the day when she can't stand to sit behind the bar counter anymore, Alice finds herself sitting in front of the door and studying the energy patterns written into its frame.

Circe was the only one who could create the link, but upon learning the 'key,' any spellcaster could open it in theory. Circe had taught the three of the the "key" to the backroom early on, but she never shared the 'key' to the upstairs with anyone. Unactivated, the door is just a piece of solid oak that opens to a small, dusty bedroom with a twin bed that hasn't been slept in for years. Maybe it was because she was a familiar, but the written language of magic came more naturally to her than Issac and Rowen. After several weeks of tinkering and picking at the magical "lock", Alice finally figures out how to direct and transform the flow of magic through the door.

Alice opens the doorway and walked into a lush forest. A trail of large, flat river stones break up the grassy forest floor and form an abstract pathway through the trees. All along the path, small boxed gardens littler the scenery, and Alice realizes that this is where Circe must cultivate her plants and herbs.

Alice follows the path, taking in Circe's secret little world with wide eyes of amazement.

Eventually, she smells Circe's familiar floral scent through the trees. Following the trail, Alice eventually finds the matriarch's body slumped against a large rectangular box in front of a large, hollowed-out tree. Alice begins to sprint over to her in worry, and the noise rouses Circe who sways a bit from exhaustion and confusion.

"Circe! Are you okay?" Alice calls out.

Circe's face breaks out in wonder and pure, unadulterated joy. "It can't be... you finally...!"

Alice felt exhilarated. Circe was looking at her! She felt like her heart could explode.

Then, Circe looks down at where she was resting, and her wonder-struck face twists in agony.

Covering the box with her body, Circe shouts as Alice approaches closer, "Get out of here, Alice! Leave!"

Instinctively, Alice looks down at what Circe was trying to hide from her, and Alice's whole world shatters. She doesn't understand. What was going on? Inside the box was - 

"I had one rule, you damned rabbit! I told the three of you to never come upstairs. Get out of here, and get out of my shop! I never want to see your face again!"