Young Writers Society

Wilson's guess was correct - Blake was absolutely terrified about having been discovered. He scooted over to where Wilson was standing and stared at him with wide eyes. He tried to regain his composure (he was a magician, after all, and that was what he was supposed to do) but he couldn't help it. How was he ever supposed to have a calm reaction to a situation like this? Hearing his father's surprisingly accurate declaration made him feel very, very small.

His dad straightened back up.

He turned to Wilson, that twinkle still in his eyes. "A little bird called Li Ming told me," he said. Blake looked between his father and Wilson, not sure who Li Ming was. From the way he was talking, Wilson was supposed to know who that person was - but he couldn't even begin to guess what the connection would be.

Wilson stared at Blake's dad for a second. Had she really forgotten? She laughed.

"Wait, wait, wait - Darryl?" she asked. "Are you serious? Oh my gosh, wow, you've aged."

A grin began to spread across his dad's face.

"In the flesh!" he confirmed. "Although I'm going by Rory now, if Blake hasn't already told you."

Blake continued to look wildly between his dad and his friend, trying to figure out how they could have possibly known it each other. It was while doing it for the tenth time that it finally clicked.

Wilson must have shown up in front of his dad one day and given him the same offer that she had given Blake. And, from the way that Wilson didn't remember him or expect to see him, he was starting to suspect that his dad wasn't really in his twenties - spirits, after all, had completely different lifespans than humans. But his dad must have had a good memory, and recognized the girl standing on his footstep. Once he put the pieces together, he had realized that the only person that Blake could possibly be was his son.

But then who was that Arthur that he had mentioned?

"Well this is wonderful!" Wilson said, turning to Blake. "Turns out I know your father! I took him to see a movie one time."

Blake stared at her. "You went on a date with my dad?" he questioned, admittedly a bit childishly disgusted at the idea. It was just a weird thing to think about. Wilson, looking so young, and his dad, looking so mature - it just didn't feel right, even though he knew that his dad had to be way younger at the time at that Wilson was the physical embodiment of time so-

"Well, it wasn't exactly a date," his father corrected. "Li Ming showed up and asked me if I wanted to see the past in a new light. When I realized she meant time travel, I asked her to bring me back in time so I could see the premier of a movie that I hadn't been able to watch when it came out."

Wilson laughed, slapping Blake lightly on the back. "Ohhh, Blake, it was just a movie! We had popcorn. It was chill!"

"That sounds like the definition of a movie date-" Blake started to hiss back, only to fall silent when he saw that his dad was watching him with an amused expression on his face.

His dad only grinned even more when he noticed that Blake had seen what he was doing. "So," he asked, once again leaning up against the door. "How old are you, Blake? This time's Blake just turned a year old last week."

"I-I'm sixteen," he managed to get out. He hadn't expected to be asked a question like that when he had imagined meeting his parents, but it was one that he could easily answer.

Wilson turned to Rory, deciding to hop in on the conversation about age. "What about you, Dar-RORY? How old are you? And don't bother asking about me. Ya'll both know I'm timeless."

Both Blake and his dad laughed at the pun, only to look at each other and laugh even more when they realized that the pun had suddenly made things far less awkward.

When the laughter finally died down, his dad adopted a contemplative look.

"Well," he started, "I've been using the name Rory for quite some time, but I've been around good old Romulus - he was my first summoner, actually. That would put me at around 2,755 years old."

Blake's jaw dropped.

His dad was ancient.

Wilson gave Rory a pat on the shoulder. "Aye. Still a wee baby in my book."

"Well, yeah," his dad replied, giving her a confident pat on the shoulder in return. "I don't think I could ever compare with the physical embodiment of time."

Wilson looked over to Rory with a slow-growing smile that eventually spread across her face. She never told Rory who or what she was. She'd dropped many hints of course, but never said it outright. She was pleased he figured it out.

"Oho, well, naturally. No one can compete with me."

He ran his fingers through his hair as his dad and Wilson joked around. He really needed to sit down. Everything about this day was just so overwhelming - the realization that his parents weren't as normal as he thought, the sudden understanding that demons were as horrible as he thought, and his demonic dad being buddies with Wilson.

He went to go find a place to sit down, and started to head a little farther down the small hallway that the entrance was in. But just as he started to walk over to a nice little chair pushed up against the wall, he walked right into someone who was suddenly turning around the corner.

"I'm sorry-" he started to apologize, only to look up and see who he had bumped into.

He had bumped into his mom.

Wilson's laughter slowly died down as she saw Blake wander down the hall, and eventually bump into a woman who he assumed was his mom.

"Oh! Are you - uh -" she looked over at Rory. "Do we need to fill her in?"

His dad dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand. "Nah, she's good."

Blake took a large step back from his mom, growing all the more flustered as he realized how differently this first meeting with his parents was going than he had expected.

"I won, by the way," his dad added, turning to his wife. "It was Blake."

She frowned. "I was so certain he was Arthur."

"Nope, definitely Blake. He's even confirmed it himself!" His dad gave a triumphant grin as he turned back to Wilson. "We bet on which one of the twins Blake was. I'm obviously the winner, so it looks like I'll be picking what we watch tonight."

Blake's mouth went dry.

"T-Twins?" he repeated.