The blanket lay there, like a perfectly ordinary blanket. It was folded into quarters, longways, so it stretched across the foot of her bed. It lay there, glowing softly blue under her room's low-watt lights. It was lined up right along the edge of her mattress, the way Sarah always folded extra blankets she had out. But she was confident she hadn't folded it.

No, she'd come in, tossed her bag and the blanket down, then embraced her carpet. She hadn't done anything else. Her mom hadn't taken more than a step into her room, and there just wasn't anyone else who could have done it. Sarah kept staring at the blanket, had she gone to the bathroom? Fallen asleep?

No, the blanket should be wadded carelessly with her backpack where she'd left it.

Suddenly the blanket shifted, unfolding itself and slithering up the bed to push against her backpack. It mostly fell motionless again, although one corner kept trying to push itself under her bag.

Sarah yelped a sharp high pitch little scream, blushing as she realized maybe privacy wasn't just important for preventing additional hospital stays. She reached out, grabbed the corner that was ineffectually trying to wedge itself under the backpack, and whipped the blanket off the bed. Nothing was underneath it other than her pale brown comforter. Holding the edge of the blanket, she gave it two sharp shakes. Nothing fell out, other than a few little puffs of dust that Sarah could just barely pick out in the light.

With a more dignified growl, Sarah chucked the blanket into her hamper in the corner of the room. She could see the blue color through gaps in the wicker basket. Standing on the balls of her feet, arms tense, she watched it.

It didn't move.

Had it moved? Yes, she'd thrown it down, it had folded itself and then unfolded to try and go back where she'd left it. And then it stopped.

Sarah kept staring at the basket as it simply did what baskets do. She felt her muscles loosen as her breathing slowed back down but didn't stop watching for any blue shifting in the hamper.

A few dozen shallow breaths later, Sarah closed her eyes. She inhaled deeply, held it for a moment, then exhaled deeply. She opened her eyes, clenched her fists, released them, then touched the little grey desk next to her bed, touched her pillow, and finally picked up her backpack, moving it to the black office chair by the desk. She unzipped it and began pulling out her papers and books, stacking them on her desk. The binders and spiral notebooks got set down in an alternating pattern, keeping the top flat. Two of her novels were stood up on the shelf above the desk, with the third novel that she hadn't finished yet set on the corner of her desk where she could reach it from her bed.

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Loose papers came next, most of them went into the little waste basket under the desk. She saw the worksheet that Alexa had doodled on and filled out, crumpled under everything else she carried. With a pang, she smoothed it out and slid it into the middle of the pile of binders. With a few adjustments, she couldn't see it at all under everything.

Then, before she could do anything with the handful of pens and pencils at the bottom of her bag, she spun around quickly towards her hamper. Nope, it was still exactly where it had been. The blanket hadn't moved at all. Padding over, she looked down into the hamper. The blanket still lay there, the blueness inside the fibers perfectly visible in the shadows of the basket. She reached down and pulled it out.

Running her hands along it, it felt just like any other crappy hospital blanket did. It was cotton, lightweight, with a sort of fuzzy and scratchy texture. She lay it back on her bed. This time catching the air so it spread out flat over the mattress, the corners falling over the sides because it wasn't straight. Sarah took a moment, focusing and memorizing exactly where it lay, then turned around again. From the top drawer of her dresser, she pulled out a faded gray pair of shorts and a ratty black tank top.

Looking at her bed one last time, she finally left her room to take a shower.

The shower felt pretty good, although she had a hard time really enjoying it. She left it lukewarm to start with, hoping the hot water would last long enough to finish, but she still had conditioner in her hair when the water went cold. She could feel the grit and grime of the last couple of days sluicing off her in the soap and water, which did feel lovely despite the cold water.

But her mind kept flashing back, going over everything that had happened. She could pull blue from the air, leaving a yellow mist behind. The blue hurt, and hurt bad, but her blanket didn't seem to mind. Finn had pulled red out of the air, leaving a teal mist behind. It looked like it must have hurt him too. And her blanket moved by itself.

Hadn't it? Sarah had tossed it down, and while she was thinking about how happy she was to be back in her space, it had folded itself up precisely as she would have if she'd taken the time to do it. Then she'd noticed, felt bothered, and tried to go back to where she'd left it. And then it laid perfectly still, exactly as she thought a blanket should.

Getting out of the shower, Sarah swiped a towel over herself briefly and pulled on her pajamas over wet skin. She hustled back to her bedroom, distracted for just a moment by the trail of marks that the water in her hair left as it dripped behind her.

The blanket was still laid out flat on her bed, one corner hanging over the edge and down onto the ground. Sarah told herself that the blanket should instead be straight, and indeed the blanket immediately began shifting itself until it was perfectly aligned. Despite herself, Sarah yelped again. She had expected to have to concentrate, or say some magic word, or wave her hands, or something. Instead, she barely had to consider what she wanted and the blanket moved. "Locomotor!" she giggled to herself as the blanket folded itself into a neat square over her pillow, then rolled up into a tube before unfolding and flopping onto the ground.

Sarah watched as it moved around the room like some sort of animal, smiling as it pulled itself into triangles or twisted spirals. She only frowned once, when she realized that it couldn't lift itself off the ground - it could reposition itself, but it couldn't climb back on to her bed or into her hamper.