Friday, 7:00, route 31
Lazy windshield wipers crush the unlucky, translucent crystals drifting against the front window as a mountain of teenagers cram onto the bus, tiny white snowflakes dotting locks of hair and knitted hats. A set of rather rash boys in t-shirts and basketball shorts hop onboard last, rubbing their bare arms and grinning at each other’s red noses.
As they shuffle further in, Divinity rolls her eyes and shakes out her newspaper. “Boys,” she groans.
Next to her, Marie titters, bringing up a gloved hand to cover her mouth. “Boys,” she agrees. She leans over to peer at Divinity’s newspaper, eyes wide in joyous curiosity. “What is the news?” she asks.
“Nothing much,” Divinity says. She licks her thumb before turning the page. “Mostly, the paper is just milking the Talisman story. Conspiracy theories and whatnot. Everyone in town seems to have come to the conclusion that the Talisman estate has something to do with the reappearance of powerful creatures.”
Marie quirks an eyebrow. “Well, it is not like they are completely wrong, no? We decided this yesterday morning when you said the Talismans bought their estate at about the same time that powerful creatures stopped showing up in Franklin City.”
“Alas, correlation does not equal causation.” Divinity grimaces and stretches her neck to reread a dense block of text. “Hey, are any of your neighbors being haunted by ghosts right now? I know there aren’t any on my floor, but this article lists the apartments as one of the sighting locations.”
“Ghosts are considered creatures? I was not aware of that.” Nonetheless, Marie closes her eyes in thought and pulls on one of her blonde curls. “As for hauntings, I have not heard of any, but my host father wrote paper spells for everyone in case something were to happen.”
Divinity squints at the paper and pulls it closer to her face. “I didn’t know Mr. Morey was a warlock. Oh, it looks like Lucky Catkill Street had some powerful creature sightings too, and theirs are more like what we saw yesterday.”
“Mr. Morey is an earth warlock, yes. He gave teleportation spells to almost everyone on our floor so they will be able to get home without fail. By the way, what exactly was that bird we saw yesterday?”
Looking up from her newspaper, Divinity frowns and scrunches her eyebrows. “It was an egret, I know that much, but how it survived is a little beyond me. The Americas are scattered with remnant spirits from before colonization, but I’ve never heard any major legends about egrets, and like with European beliefs, only the most widespread legends keep their power for so long.”
“You are forgetting something. Is not a major rule of the belief theory is that legends about specific individuals cannot carry into life. Rather than look at legends, perhaps it would be wise to consider how the Native Americans of this area interpreted nature.”
Divinity rolls the newspaper into a tube and thwacks her forehead, leaving a slight smudge of black ink between her eyebrows. “Ugh, I can’t believe I forgot about that! And I’m pretty sure spirits have different concepts of predation than we do, so I’ll have to research that too.”
Plucking the newspaper from Divinity’s fist, Marie giggles and points at her forehead. “You have some ink about here,” she says, and as Divinity rubs out the spot, Marie delves into musings about why magic took such different forms across the globe.
“How did so many ideas come about? We all look at the same stars and water.”
“Probably has something to do with ownership versus coexistence,” Divinity says. She wrinkles her nose and glares at the black ink stains on her hands, sure that she’s only made the spot on her head worse. “Cultures which believe in ownership of nature tend to have humanoid powerful folk, while cultures believing in coexistence have more powerful creatures.”
Marie blinks a few times and bites her lip. “I suppose that makes sense, though it does paint Europeans as somewhat pompous and greedy. Where did you learn all of this?”
It is Divinity’s turn to blink in surprise. She pauses in her forehead-rubbing and lowers her hand as though she’s holding a mug of hot cocoa and doesn’t want to spill. Inhaling, she opens her mouth to speak, but she freezes there, stuck in her search for an answer.
Eventually, after much staring from Marie, Divinity snaps her jaws shut, wincing at the clack of her teeth. She laces her fingers together evil genius-style and starts counting the number of white peels curling from her dry knuckles before pasting on a grin and scattering sly sparkles in her eyes.
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just that good.”
Though Marie catches the surprise, she pretends she didn’t and smiles back, sweet as iced tea. “I suppose you are. Either that or you learn though—what was it I heard the students in biology say?—ah, osmosis?”
Divinity shrugs with false wistfulness. “If only,” she jokes, but in the back of her mind, she hears the click of a gear in place. Marie’s jest is not far off.
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Notes
Divinity getting the ink on her forehead seems a bit unlikely. Usually (and don't take my word for this, since I barely read newspapers), that'd only happen if you rub it. If someone were to touch the newspaper for such a short time, even if it was a hard impact, would ink really smudge on? It just seems far-fetched. Unless the newspapers you get really are like that. Then never mind this magazine-reader.
The fourth/third-to-last paragraphs hould be together. It's still Divinity's turn and there's no reason for her dialogue to be isolated.
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Thoughts
1. Like Astral mentioned below, Marie has an interesting, stiff way of speaking. It's a nice contrast to clever, dramatic Divinity, especially in a chapter where the focus is just on the two of them.
2. Divinity, why are you so secretive? She's either destined to be that normal person caught up in all this supernatural occurences and who makes it all her personal business, or a not-so-normal person who has a secret that puts her on the level of the magical folk. Of course, I may always be proven wrong with a third option.
3. "Lucky Catkill Street". Pffft. Should've expected this from a world of spirits and magic. Then we compare it to the aforementioned "Franklin City", which makes it all the more glorious.
Haha! I worked on the school newspaper last year, and believe me, that ink gets around. I'll fix the dialogue thing when I'm not dying from stress, and sorry for never replying to your review on 2.07!
Thanks a ton!
I thought something was missing! Your previous chapter is missing the day, time, and route at the beginning. No wonder I couldn't remember what it was.
Notes
1. In Divinity's comment on Lucky Jefferson Street, you used the past simple tense instead of past perfect.
2. In Marie's answer to Divinity's question about the belief theory, you can omit the second "that". In fact, my former language teacher prefers to use it as infrequently as possible.
Impressions
1. Your first sentence employs a unique way of describing raindrops. I wouldn't call them "unlucky", since that would indicate- Oh, whatever. It's well-written imagery and I'm not going to dissect this one.
2. The moment I read Marie's dialogue after she quirked her eyebrow, I knew something was up. I then skipped to her next turn to speak (crude, Google Translate - I'm sure there's a literary term for it), and sure enough, I noticed it again: Marie uses no contractions. I'm not sure whether she is formal or simply pretentious (I'd wager the latter), but the only time I use contractions is when speaking/writing formally or after having done so for long enough - at that point, it becomes automatic. I compared her dialogue to Divinity's, and it seems more like a conscious effort, since Divinity does use contractions.
3. “How did so many ideas come about? We all look at the same stars and water.”
~ And don't forget thunder and lightning!
4. Divinity and I share the same suspicion concerning that ink spot. In fact, she stated my thought seconds after I had it. Her answer is remarkably useful, though. And as for Marie's question, of course Europeans were pompous and greedy! The only reason they advanced in technology so quickly was because they constantly had to find more effective ways of killing each other. Like Pocahontas sang, "You can own the earth and still, all you'll own is earth until you can-" appreciate the beauty and sanctity of nature (nobody knows what she means by painting with all the colours of the wind).
5. If Divinity is secretly a powerful person as well, you can expect a great sigh of exasperation from me.
This has been a rather enlightening chapter. There wasn't as much characterisation as in others, but sometimes, all you have to do is provide the readers with enough information so that they'll stop pestering you about it.
Ugh... I can't believe I made all those gross mistakes. Thanks for catching them!
They are minor, but I glad I was of assistance to you.