word count: 2302
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Our host was jittery. She flitted from one corner of the modest kitchen to the other. It took her a good five minutes to realize that there wasn’t any space for us to sit at her little rickety table. It took another minute of frantic pacing (and Theo helping) for her to move a seemingly infinite assortment of potted plants off of the table.
It seemed like she owned some kind of shop. We had walked through a room filled with items on display – some in glass cases, others on simple wooden stands. I barely got a look at them before we had entered the more domestic part of the building. Now our host was making us tea in an ornate, metal teapot. I stared at the hearts and spirals carved into the metal, fingers absentmindedly running over the same exact marks on Temp’s arm.
“I’m so lost right now,” she said, grabbing a glass jar of honey from a cupboard hanging over the sink, “but you must be even more lost than I am. If Romi hadn’t been here, I’d...”
The woman faltered.
Even with her back to us, I could tell that her mood had shifted.
She let out a quiet, heavy sigh and turned back to us with honey in tow. Temp’s glowing blue eyes lingered on the jar as she set it down on the table. I waved a hand in front of the mannequin’s face to see if it reacted; it just kept staring.
I looked at the woman as she went back to the now hissing teapot.
“My name is Liv,” she offered. She grabbed a few teacups from the cabinet. “What are your names?”
Theo gave a smile.
“Theo,” he offered. “My friend is named Van. Thank you for bringing us into your home.”
I shot him a look. Friends? I wouldn’t have even dared to suggest that. I was going to come up with a whole story about us being brothers if she hadn’t revealed that she knew we had just kicked the bucket. But there was a bigger offense that needed addressing: Theo completely ignored Temp.
I loudly cleared my throat.
“The third member of our group is named Temp,” I added. I leaned across the table. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Temp had grabbed the honey off the table and was staring at it with a surprisingly intense look. Neither Theo or I tried to take the honey back. If the mannequin wanted the honey, it was going to get it.
...Even though I wasn’t entirely sure if whatever Temp was could actually eat food.
“So,” I said, resting my elbows on the table’s worn surface, “I’m assuming you brought us inside of your house to give us some kind of explanation.”
I gave her a smile that just barely reached my eyes.
“Not to rush you, of course.”
Liv looked back at us and sighed. Theo gave a sigh of his own, too, for reasons I couldn’t possibly comprehend. When I felt him nudge me under the table with his foot, I started to think that the reason may have been related to my impatience. Apparently, I was the only one here who actually wanted to find out what we had somehow gotten ourselves into.
We waited in silence. Liv finished preparing the tea. She asked – in a quiet, tired voice – if we liked milk in ours. I wasn’t even a big fan of tea to begin with, but I took a leaf out of Theo’s book and gave a polite, restrained nod. Temp was too busy investigating the honey jar to even hear the question.
Liv returned with tea in mismatched china cups. Not quite sure how I was supposed to drink tea, I took a large swig from my cup – and immediately burned my mouth. I slammed my drink down on its little pristine plate, seriously considering stealing the honey from Temp to save me from my pain.
Theo gave me a concerned look; I gave him a strained smile in return.
And then Liv finally cleared her throat. I resisted the urge to give a triumphant cheer.
“You’re on a world called Arium,” she said. She took a cautious sip of her tea. Besides me, Theo did the same. Temp just kept investigating its beloved jar, hands absentmindedly tugging at the lid. “I’m sure you had some expectation of where you would go when you die – and I’m sure this place wasn’t it. We...We haven’t had new people here in a long time, either, so it’s a bit of a shock for me, too.”
I crossed my arms. “So this is the afterlife?”
She shook her head.
“This is a second chance,” she clarified. “Both of you died young. Rew – this world’s god – must have pitied you for it. He sometimes takes some of the deceased from Earth and brings them here. It’s been a long time since he’s taken pity on anyone, though, and certainly not two people at once.”
She glanced at Temp.
“...Or three,” she said. “If Temp is from Earth, too.”
I stared at her. I didn’t bother to say that Temp wasn’t.
There was a clink as Theo put his teacup down on its little plate.
“Is there a way back?” Theo said. I tore my gaze away from Liv and glanced over at Theo. He was leaning against the table, too, hand tightly gripping the teacup’s fragile handle. His fingers were so tightly clenched together that I thought the cup was sure to break. Liv, either sensing the impending shattering of china or wanting a convenient reason to look away, glanced at the broom in the corner.
“I asked that question when I first arrived here, too,” Liv said. “I don't remember much from then, but that's still something that sticks out in my mind.”She let out a quiet sigh.
“I wish I could tell you yes,” she said. “I wish I could give you the comfort I know you’re looking for. Rew often takes pity on those who are alone, but I can see it in your eyes – you left people behind.”
I pushed my cup away.
“I didn’t,” I simply said.
Liv just gave me a sad, pitying look. I ignored the way she frowned and went back to watching Temp instead. The mannequin had paused in its attempts to open the jar, even though it was ironically almost entirely the way there.
Theo shifted beside me.
“You left behind Rose,” he quietly said. “And your ghosts.”
I turned and glared at him. “They already left me.”
Theo opened his mouth to speak, but I turned away. I started helping Temp open the honey jar instead – the mannequin had become increasingly more desperate in its attempt. It had hit a little problem, though, when it tried turning the lid the wrong way. I quickly fixed its problem by unscrewing the lid the right way. With a satisfying pop, the viscous, sweet insides were free for Temp to...
...stare at it even more?
I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t that.
Theo didn’t say anything else. My point had been made.
Liv, on the other hand, hadn’t made all of her points. She was also thoroughly distracted by what Temp was up to. She started to speak – the beginnings of a sentence leaving her lips – but paused when she noticed Temp’s eternal staring contest with the trophy of its misdirected labor.
I cleared my throat.
“What were you going to say?” I asked.
Liv tore her gaze away.
She took a deep breath, held a hand out towards one of the moved potted plants, and touched the very tip of its closed flower. The flower – orange like Temp’s honey – moved a little towards Liv’s hand. It must have been one of those flowers that ate things, though it looked innocent enough. I couldn’t see why else it would suddenly move like it had a mind of its own.
“You might have already discovered this,” she said, “but everyone on this world has a magic of their own.”
She put her hand underneath the flower’s bud.
The room grew just a little warmer. The mysterious heat seemed to be originating from the inconspicuous potted plant. As I shifted in my seat, the flower started to blossom. Its leaves perked up. If that hadn’t been shocking enough, the flower actually grew. Its stalk stretched another few inches, reaching all the way to the table top.
Liv gave us a tiny smile.
“I can control plants,” she said. “My first family ran a greenhouse, so no one was really surprised when I first manipulated a flower.”
She gave a quiet little laugh.
“As my wife always used to say,” she added, “our god has a sense of irony.”
I finally looked back at Theo.
Even without saying anything to each other, I knew that we had the same train of thought. My entire life had been spent toeing the line between life and death. If I was going to get any kind of power, it would be something that I had seen the ghosts do for years. Possession wasn’t common. It was hard to lose sight of who you were as a person and put yourself in the literal shoes of someone else. But it was a thing that had been done; I remembered one time where a graveyard ghost accidentally possessed Rose’s dad as a kid.
Possession had to be my power.
“Are there any limitations?” Theo asked.
Liv studied the two of us.
Then she shook her head.
“No,” she said. “Any ability is possible. As long as it has some kind of connection to you or your family, it’s possible. My wife can – could create coral reefs. It wasn’t the kind of magic you would expect, but it was as possible as my plant magic.”
Images of brown coral reefs blossoming from the water flickered in and out of my mind. I certainly wouldn’t have guessed that was a kind of magic that existed, but I liked the sturdiness of the image in my head. I’d trust someone with magic like that; you could probably do all sorts of things with the reefs as platforms.
“How will we know when we’ve found our magic?” Theo asked.
“You won’t have any doubt,” Liv said. She rested her hand over her chest – almost like she was resting it on her heart, but her hand was on her right instead of her left. “You’ll feel it in your soul. According to the stories, Rew tied our magic right to our souls. Even if we someday died again and were reincarnated, we would still carry our magic with us.”
I looked down at my own chest.
Theo let out a quiet breath and finally let go of his teacup.
I wanted to roll my eyes at what Liv said, but I resisted the urge. I didn’t feel anything special in my soul. I just felt like I had even before I died. Following Theo’s lead of not offending our host, I leaned back in my chair and yawned. I was sure Theo was going to blab about my abilities anyways.
“Would seeing ghosts count as magic?”
...That wasn’t the blabbing I had expected.
I glanced back at Liv.
I had been so used to seeing looks of pity whenever my ability inevitably came up, but Liv’s look was unexpected. She looked scared. Her eyes had widened. Her skin had gone pale. Even the demonstration plant beside her was shaking along with the rest of her body. I was the one with the ability to see the dead, but she looked like she had just seen a ghost.
(Again.)
“You...You can see ghosts?” she whispered.
Theo glanced over at me.
I shot him a look. Nice one, Theo. It was definitely a good idea to look at me to deflect the conversation, even though he was the one who originally brought it up. While I leveled a glare at him, Liv took a deep, shaky breath.
“Oh Rew,” she whispered. “I...I should have realized it before.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Should have realized what?” I asked, playing dumb.
“That one of us was the newest chosen one.”I blinked.
“The newest what?” I said, incredulous.
“The newest chosen one,” Liv repeated. She glanced over at Temp, who now had its left hand stuck in the honey. If I wasn’t so flustered by the whole chosen one thing, I would have suggested that Liv sacrifice her honey to the mannequin. Who knew where that hand had been? “That vessel has his magic. You’re the first people to arrive here in almost two decades. And one of you can see ghosts. Rew...Rew has always favored those that were already connected to the dead.”
I stared at Temp.
Temp couldn’t be that important, right? The thing couldn’t even avoid walking into a tree! If I had been an all powerful god who could apparently defy the rules of death, I would have made my vessels a little more competent.
This was, of course, ignoring the elephant in the room.
I was supposed to be this world’s hero.
I groaned and rested my head on the table.
A second later, I felt a sticky hand rest on the top of my hair. I glanced up to see that Temp was giving me a comforting head pat with a honey-coated hand.
Theo didn’t offer a word of comfort.
I knew that if I looked over at him, he would be giving me that same sad look from the woods.
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