Young Writers Society

“It’s going to be alright, Mia,” he whispered to her. “Everything is going to be alright.” The words left a bad taste in his mouth. It felt like a lie, a terrible promise of something that couldn’t possibly come true. He wished that it would anway. Mia’s mouth opened, just a bit, and Finnley imagined that she might speak to him. But her mouth closed and the moment passed. He took his hand out of hers and slowly backed towards the door. It was still Mia, his brave, beautiful friend, but a light had gone out of her. She was different, and it was hard for Finnley to look at her. It was hard for him to look away.

He closed the door softly and turned once again to Mia’s family. They were watching him almost expectantly, and their stares made Finnley squirm. What what he supposed to do? Wake Mia? Make things better? He didn’t think that they knew either. The way they sat around the table in the kitchen seemed almost fake, as if some outsider had just propped them all up there. The table had a fourth seat, but no one offered it to Finnley, so he just stayed standing.

Mr. Hart cleared his throat again. “When we told the police about Mia’s disappearance, we explained the dreams, that she hadn’t been sleeping. She only ever mentioned fire when she spoke about them, so we assumed it was the demon which burned down our house. We told the police that it was probably because of that event.”

After all they’d seen, Finnley had assumed that it was the demon as well. Until he placed the spell on Mia’s pillow, until he felt that mysterious force pushing up against it. Then the flaming horse she’d been having nightmares about was truly real… Finnley hadn’t been in the magical world for long, but there was something about the situation that didn’t seem to be the same as the monster hunting of the Harts’ past.

“Right, that explains the dreams then,” Finnley agreed. It was good — it would be an explanation the police could accept. Nothing supernatural in it whatsoever. But it felt so wrong to Finnley to be carefully covering up this situation. Trying to minimize something that screamed for attention. “What about the rest of it? Finding her in the forest…”

“You and your mom went in to find her,” Uncle Fred finally said. His voice was flat, and he stared down into a cup of coffee. His eyes flicked up for a moment and met Finnley’s gaze. He quickly looked away; seeing Fred like this was unnerving. “She was wandering the woods, she was confused. Didn’t know what she was doing. Then she fainted, and you left her with your mom and ran down to get help. I went back into the forest, found them, and carried her out. She’s been sleeping for the most part ever since.”

Goodness gracious, it sounded so rehearsed. All of it — venturing in, finding Mia standing up to a fiery nightmare horse, the terrifying, wild flight through the forest on motorcycle, the fear of waiting for his mom and Mia to make it out — crunched into a few short sentences, devoid of care. It felt like there had to be something more. There had to be.

“Is that all?” he asked, trying to keep a tremor from his voice. He didn’t know what he was upset about, and that scared him. Fred didn’t answer, but Mrs. Hart managed a small smile and nodded her head. No one said anything else, so he left the odd, silent table and let himself out. The strange tension in the air evaporated as soon as Finnley shut the apartment door behind him, and he let out a breath. He frowned as his eye caught the time on his watch; it had only been a few minutes. It had felt like an eternity.

The trip had been terribly unsatisfying, and he was left with the tingling sensation that he needed to do something, anything. He couldn’t just stay at home and waste the day away while Mia was lying there in bed, with her family all silent in the next room. While Monica had vanished again, and his mom had told him not to go back to Mr. Vaughn’s yet.

He tried going to the library, but it held no books on magic or monsters other than classic fantasy books. Everything was orderly; there were no dark sections of old dusty books to tell him what to do. When it was clear that nothing here would help him, and the librarian started eying him like she was just about to ask if he needed help finding anything, Finnley left the building.

Outside, the sun shone a pale light onto the streets, making everything seem the same bland color. Finnley could feel the stares of the others on the sidewalk, as if word had already gotten around about his part in Mia’s story. His stomach churned at the thought that the whole affair could be so public, and he watched his feet scuffing through the fall leaves instead of looking up.

He went back home, defeated, and crawled into bed with his magic books and his rabbit. He read through every possible spell, but found nothing like disenchantment or spell reversals for spells other than the magician’s own. Mr. Vaughn had mentioned magical history, but Finnley only had The Book of Basic Spells for Beginners, an accompanying workbook, and Tips and Tricks: Helping with Magical Theory. There was nothing, nothing, nothing. Nothing like what he might be facing. His fingers itched to text Mia his frustration, see if she had some sort of crafty plan in mind for figuring things out. He flipped his phone upside down so he wouldn’t have to think about it anymore.

It turned out that he didn’t have to distract himself for much longer. A loud, authoritative knock sounded on his front door. Finnley peered out the edge of his window and saw a police car in his driveway. Simple, he reminded himself, our story is simple. It’s almost the truth. But it wasn’t. It hardly touched the real thing. Trying to compose himself, he descended the stairs to open the door. It’s alright.