Catastrophic

Chapter Seventeen

The voice that resonates through the bathroom is a low, male voice. I’ve heard it in my dreams, and I’ve heard it in close proximity. Ryan.

    It takes almost all my willpower to not jump up and slap him or kiss him. I have conflicting feelings when it comes to Ryan Pipper, and I’m still trying to sort them out in the midst of all my heroic deeds.

    I can tell he’s tired, because 1)he’s moving at a snail’s pace and 2)he talks to himself between exasperated breaths. “This....is….so….ti….ring...why….could….n’t….she….do….this? Girls….are….so….confus….ing,” he pants and I smirk to myself. Wenona and Emilia are in fact plotting as we speak, and right now, I need to figure out how to get there without being caught. My options are becoming limited at the moment as Ryan places his boxes on the Throne and starts to strap them in. It’ll be only a matter of seconds before he whisks the Throne away, and that’ll mean me going with it in hopes of not being caught by Ryan. On the other hand, I don’t want to repeat the tea party incident, even if I get another beautiful dress.  

    Out of the corner of my eye, I see his hand reach out to press the button to send me to my doom. In a panicked state, I step back away from the Throne and fumble with my center. Immediately, magic flows through me and does its job, even if I don’t know what it did. I’m realizing that now that I’ve let magic into my life, it’s something I can lean on, like a safeguard. The only problem is that I don’t know what I’m doing to myself in the spur of the moment.

    The Throne whisks out of existence, and I’m left facing Ryan. He’s looking right at me, and I cringe as I await his astonishment. It doesn’t come after five seconds, and I look into his eyes once more. While his sight is focused on the area I’m hosting, there isn’t any recognition in his eyes, only misery. He turns on his heels and mumbles that a transportation device and some coffee would be nice as he exits the bathroom, and I sprint out of the handicap bathroom. It’ll take some time for Ryan to haul more boxes from Wenona’s evil lair to here, so I’ll be able to figure out a way to listen in on Emilia and Wenona’s conversation.

    I look up in the mirror to see if my hair is still in its bun when I stop in my tracks. A figure should be in the mirror, except it’s not. There is no green dress, no perfectly styled fiery hair, no transformed face. I’m not there, and yet I can feel my skin on my body and my heart beating. I look down at my hands and feet, only to discover that they’re invisible, yet when I move my fingers, I can feel them moving. A prideful and unbelieving scoff echoes in the bathroom as I pat myself on the back for accomplishing a superhero power.

    With newfound excitement, I crack open the door slightly and look out. While I may be invisible, I’m still a walking person and an effectful person. If anyone were to look at the door now, they’d see it opening by itself with no body to accompany it. I don’t want to raise any unneeded attention, so I slip out of the bathroom and silently leap through the halls. I know the way by now, but I’m still extra careful as to not bump into Ryan. I take the outer edges of the staircase, and when I meet no troubles, I head to the left side of the long hall just as Ryan huffs and puffs out the right side of the wall, where the entrance is. Now here’s the tricky part. While I may be able to fool Ryan, who doesn’t contain any magic, I cannot easily fool these two. They’ve been training in magic for much longer than I have, and considering what happened last time through a mirror, I’m not going to risk being caught by Wenona in her full form. The only thing that Emilia and Wenona couldn’t detect was the wall trick, so I decide to give it a second time to shine. I sink into the wall just as their conversation takes on a different spin.

    “Now that you’ve understood the concept of sacrificing for your own good, I’ll allow you to know the second, more important part of the plan to rid the world of the Storm Society,” Wenona tells Emilia.