Screw It, Let's Be Magic

Chapter Four

"I'm 14, and my name's Ocean. It's a bit ironic, but my mum gave it to me before she knew what I was."
"Mine's Jess. I'm thirteen, and have a human mum too."

He looked up at the baggage shelves above us and thought of a question, turning to me when he found one.

"Why are you going to America? We aren't quite wanted there."

We had sat silently in the train car for a while, but everyone else started to leave for food or sleep. Soon the car was nearly empty, and it was safe to talk.

"Umm," I thought. I didn't know whether we should trust him or not. We'd not told anyone else our plans.
"You go first."

He looked a little, but started off.

"Our town got hit hard with the Darkworld magic. It's underwater, so... Well, I guess the magic was amplified or something. Everyone was really scared. So they left. And well..."He looked down, fiddling with the wires on his earbuds, and started up again.
"I've got a sister that's a selkie in human form. She lives in America with my grandfather, because he doesn't want her to figure out what she is. Everyone there, they refuse to accept that the door is right under their noses. I want to get her out. If it was bad where I was, it's gonna be much worse there."

We sat in silence for a few seconds, the only noise the hum of the magnets under our feet.

"Well," he said, breaking the silence. "Why are you guys out here?"

"We want to shut the door. The grown ups are afraid to use magic or something... And we have a few spells. Kaliah- the girl over there in a wheelchair- she knows some darkish magic, and wants to test them out on the door.. I dunno why Adrian decided to come, guess he's just following me. Fennec wants adventure, he's lived in the same flat his whole life. Never really been out of town. And me... I don't really know. I guess I just wanna see the place. I've heard loads of stories from my mum, ones that dad told her before he left. I want to see for myself."

"That's a good enough reason, I guess."

"Yea. I guess."

I looked over at my friends. They had all fallen asleep, leaning on one another.

"What's your sister's name?"

Ocean turned to his bag, and pulled up an old photograph on his phone. It was a school picture of a little girl with long brown hair, glasses, and purple looking eyes.
"Her name is Sam Bennet. She's 13 years old now, in grade 7."

"You want to come with us?"
"Wait, you mean it?"
"Yea. You can't really go alone, and we're going to the same place."

He gave a little laugh.
"Thanks. You're a pretty cool kid, ya know."

It was stupid, but that made me feel kinda special. That's just kinda how it works I guess. The rest of the trip was spent in silence, and eventually I fell asleep leaning on Adrian's shoulder.

I can remember kind of wondering if Ocean fell asleep too, or sat up and worried.

                                                         ~*~

When I woke up, I didn't remember where I was. Then someone underneath me moved.

"GYAAAA!" I jumped straight up, and fell on the ground. Adrian's head hit the chair I had previously occupied, and his book fell on my head. Fennec shot up in his chair, and kaliah's glasses got knocked to the floor.
Adrian scrambled to get off the floor, and turned towards me.

"JESS. WHAT THE ACTUAL HECK."
I could feel myself flush red in embarrassment as the kids from the day before began to laugh and point. Ocean had woken up, and was staring at the group of us tangled on the floor.

"Take a picture, it lasts longer." Grumbled Fennec. One of the kids pulled out a phone and did just that.
"Here," I grabbed Kaliah's glasses, and handed them to her. She had her eyes squinted shut, and relaxed quite a bit once she had them back on.
"Thanks," she muttered, and I helped her to her feet. Fennec had already gotten up and yanked Adrian off his butt.

"What happened?" Asked Kaliah.
"Well," I grabbed the back of my neck and looked down. "I kinda forgot that we were on a train, and got creeped out when somebody under me moved."
"That's dumb. It was just me Jess."
"Seriously, you've got to get used to people. It wasn't that big a deal, he's your brother!"

I looked over to Ocean, who was watching all of this and suppressing giggles.

Fennec rounded on him, and glared. "Why are you laughing. Shut up, you-"
"HEY!"

Everyone in the car turned towards us. I clamped a hand over my mouth, then whispered "we should probably take this to a different car."

We all grabbed our things and shuffled over to the door of a smaller car, one without inhabitants.

"So much for going unnoticed," Kaliah remarked, rolling her eyes.
"So," Adrian cut in. "Who's this moron?"