The Quiet Ever After

Fourth String - 3

When Axel and Nina had friends visit, scant though those opportunities were, they often remarked that the neighborhood was something of a labyrinth. There was only one entrance, and though it all technically looped in on itself, the various turns and shortcuts were overwhelming for a first-timer. That first stop sign was, to a resident, nothing.

Nina's drive home was propelled less by direction and more by instinct. She could do it with her eyes closed, given the roads were clear and the lights were green. The sights rarely changed, the turning of the wheel remained the same. She never had to question where she was going.

So, Nina thought, why did she remember the first stop sign coming at a full intersection rather than just a left and right turn? She had to go straight, then take a left turn, then follow that loop home. Easy.

Directly ahead of her was a house, and a full one at that. Pool, nice garage, a tree with a tire swing. The works. Nina gripped the steering wheel, motioning to turn. But no. That wasn't correct. There wasn't a house there. There'd never been a house there.

A car approached from behind. She had seconds to decide. Go straight toward the house? Nina bit her lip. The car came closer. Left? Right? Either way, she would get home but it wasn't her way home. It—.

She pulled up to buy herself some time, reaching the edge of the curb across the way. Her car didn't stop at the gutter, though, nor roll into any grass. It simply kept going, driving on solid pavement through the yard, over the pool itself, and then back on the street.

Nina pulled over when she was back in the regular neighborhood and turned around. There was one hundred feet of street between her and the intersection. No house. She exhaled.

"You cannot be serious," she muttered.

An illusion?

What was an illusion doing in the neighborhood? Who—oh. Of course. The thing haunting the league. The thing coming after the shop.

Nina's little ghost.

She kept on going, careful not to look at her phone, though she was tempted to at least send Axel a voice message warning him of some strange things he'd no doubt encounter. Axel was sharp of mind and had a keen sense for magic, but this, somehow, even slipped by her. Perhaps because her guard was down. It was just the neighborhood, after all. What did she have to fear?

If something attacked them, she'd take up the Sword of Kureon and cut them down with ease. Or, she could just fend it off on her own.

That didn't mean they were entirely blockaded from an attack, like something as meager and harmless as a minor illusion.

She came to her left turn but was presented solely with the option to turn right. Nina pursed her lips. No. With a swiftness at the wheel, she whipped around, cutting straight through the illusion.

That thing made it personal by attacking the shop. That thing made itself dangerous threatening her friends. That thing made itself, worst of all, annoying by trying to play pranks on Nina.

Nina pulled into the garage and swung the door closed, taking a single step closer to the house itself when she stopped, frozen in place as something, some presence, made itself known from within the house.

It was difficult to identify if they were friendly or not. It had a murkiness to it, a certain musk if it were to bear a scent. Like walking into the attic of your childhood home—you knew that it was a safe place, but, it'd been so long that you didn't know what the shadows may reveal that you never saw before.

The presence, she sensed, was somewhere near the kitchen. Nina placed a silencing spell over the door and on her feet and eased into the house. A quick search informed her Axel wasn't there—or, his magical energy was somehow being blocked. Wouldn't he have noticed whatever was in the house, though, and done something about it?