Jonathan stood in the hallway, tapping the flashlight against his opposite hand. He'd become so used to Mr. Geiller hanging around the place since Abigail had run into trouble that he'd forgotten the old man had gotten all pissy when Jonathan last dared to set foot on his property. If he wanted a good response from the old codger, he'd probably need to wait.

Which meant he was stuck doing dishes, darn it.

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Mr. Geiller showed up around noon, and the first Jonathan noticed was when the old man shouted, "Abigail!" from the front entryway.

Jonathan came out of the dining room where he'd been setting things up for lunch to find Mr. Geiller scowling just inside the door and Chris and Yanni peering down curiously at him from midway up the stairs.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Geiller," said Jonathan.

"Where's Abigail?" grumbled Mr. Geiller. "I've been expecting her for her magic lesson, but she hasn't shown up."

"Oh, I bet she forgot after all the upheaval we've had the last few days." Jonathan glanced around. "Chris, Yanni? Have either of you seen Abigail?"

Chris didn't respond, but Yanni said, "I think she and Sandra were in the attic."

"Again?" said Jonathan in surprise. Why was Abigail constantly heading up there? "Okay, I'll go fetch them. Can you two gather the rest of the kids? I want to introduce you all to Mr. Geiller."

"You don't—" started Mr. Geiller, but Jonathan had already run up the stairs and he pretended he didn't hear him. When he reached the ladder into the attic, he called up, "Abigail? You up there?"

"Yes," he heard faintly, and after a few seconds of thumps and sliding sounds, her head poked over the edge of the hole. "What do you need?"

"Mr. Geiller is looking for you. He was expecting you for your magic lesson."

"Oh. Right. I forgot about that. It's after noon already?"

Jonathan wiggled a hand back and forth. "Probably? I haven't conjured a watch for myself yet, so I'm not actually sure what time it is. For now, can you come down? Oh, and bring whoever is up there with you, I want to introduce the kids to Mr. Geiller."

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Soon, Jonathan had successfully gathered all eight children into the front room and had snagged the flashlight on his way through the kitchen while looking for Ethan and Bethany.

"Alright, everyone, this is Mr. Geiller. He's our neighbor. Mr. Geiller, these are the kids who will be living here for the foreseeable future. There on the end is—"

"Yeah, yeah, don't care." Mr. Geiller gave the kids his trademark glare. "You kids stay off my property, and we're good. Oh, and don't mess with anything in the front room there! Come on, Abigail, times a-wasting."

Jonathan grimaced and turned to the other kids. "You guys can go get ready for lunch. I need to say something to Mr. Geiller, then I'll be right in." The seven filtered out of the entryway, most of them sending Mr. Geiller distrustful or angry looks on the way.

Jonathan turned back to Mr. Geiller. "Mr. Geiller, before you go! I have a couple questions." Boy, he really wanted to ream the man for being so rude to the kids, but held it in.

Mr. Geiller turned back from where he'd been about to lead Abigail out the front door. "Make it quick."

Did he wake on the wrong side of the bed this morning or what? "Now that we've done those tests, is it alright if I come by your house? I shouldn't need to intrude often, but if something urgent comes up—"

"Not yet, I haven't had a chance to fix up my wards."

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"Uh…right. Then is there some way I can get ahold of you?"

"Just send Abigail."

Jonathan shrugged. He supposed that would work short-term. "Alright. Fine. Second thing I was wondering is when you think we should take down the array above Abigail's bed."

"I'll evaluate her today, and let you know when I think it's safe. Is that all?"

"Almost. I wanted to have you take a look at this." Jonathan held out the flashlight.

"What is it?"

"It's a flashlight I conjured last night. Point this end at the ground and press that button."

Mr. Geiller did so and looked surprised when the flashlight lit up. "You conjured a long-lasting magic tool? How by Anthrax did you—"

"No, it's not magic. It's just something normal from my world."

"Not magic? Well, that explains things better, but I've never seen anything quite like this. What does it use for energy? Clearly not a catalyst, since you conjured it."

"It uses electricity stored in batteries inside the tube. Turn it off and unscrew the base to see them."

"Huh. Not sure how you would go about storing electricity in a safe fashion, but it's intriguing that you were able to conjure a non-magical tool based on your old reality."

"It doesn't store electricity, I think it generates it from some sort of chemical reaction or something. I'm not really clear on how batteries work, honestly."

Mr. Geiller shrugged. "That's reflexive magic for you. You understand it close enough, and then just pour in magic to make up the difference." He handed Jonathan back the flashlight. "I'll be interested to see what else you conjure up. Come on, Abigail."

As Mr. Geiller stomped out of the building with Abigail in tow, Jonathan sighed. Well, that was a bust.

He turned around and jolted back a half step. Yanni was standing right behind him. "Are you done with the flashlight, Jonathan?"

"Uh, yeah. Here you go, kid. Be careful with it, though; it's heavy, and if you hit someone with it, they could be really hurt."

Yanni accepted the flashlight with a giant grin, gave Jonathan a little half-bow, and ran off back to the dining room.

Oh, right, lunch.

Jonathan followed after him. "Who likes soup around here? Any favorites?"

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When Jonathan was almost finished cleaning up from lunch, Yanni had come crying because Bethany had allegedly hit him. Jonathan had interrupted what he was doing to go deal with that, then on the way back to the kitchen been accosted by a bored Kylus and Sandra. In a flash of inspiration, he'd conjured a soccer ball, described the basic idea behind the game, and sent them outside.

Just as he finished putting the dishes away, Jamilah came running to tell him that Chris had kicked the soccer ball into the woods beyond the fence, so he, Jamilah, Kylus, Sandra, and Chris spent the next twenty minutes searching for it.

After using a few pieces of fallen wood he'd stumbled over while searching for the soccer ball in the woods to outline a miniature soccer field on the opposite side of the yard from the woods, he was intercepted on his way back in by Bethany and Yanni who wanted to play, too. The older kids weren't interested in having such young kids part of their game, though, so Jonathan conjured yet another ball for the younger pair to play with together.

As he walked into the orphanage, Abigail came in the front door and wanted to know what everyone was up to, so Jonathan led her back out and introduced her to the idea of soccer. That made the teams uneven, though, so the kids cajoled Jonathan into joining the game.

By the time he made it back to the house, Ethan came stalking up to him to complain that they were out of toilet paper, and demanding that Jonathan deal with the issue, so it was off to the bathroom to conjure a supply of that.

And so it went through the rest of the day, and when Jonathan had finally shooed the kids all off to their beds he'd accomplished absolutely nothing that he'd been planning on aside from keeping the dishes clean.

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"You alright, Jonathan?" asked Abigail from where she was lying under Mr. Geiller's array. Apparently, the old man wanted to have her keep using it for a couple of days, just to be on the safe side.

"Yeah, I suppose," said Jonathan tiredly from where he was sitting up against the headboard of his own bed. He'd been forced to conjure two more flashlights, and the exhaustion from the magic still hadn't faded. Those things really took it out of him. "Just…didn't get quite what I was planning done today. This sudden increase in kids…I really need some help, and I just can't think of anything that I can do to entice Mr. Geiller to offer even part of what I need."

"He's—probably not going to be interested in spending any time with the other kids," said Abigail.

"Yeah, I gathered that when he refused to even learn their names," Jonathan grumbled. "Honestly, one moment he's spending all this time helping us out, and the next he's back to being an old ass—uh, his old nasty self."

"He's always been like that, as long as I've lived here," said Abigail. "He wouldn't even talk to the headmistress, though, so at least you've got that going for you."

"Lucky me. Thing is, if not Mr. Geiller, then who? I can't exactly hire anyone from Eldridge, because I can't pay them. I suppose I could try to form a contract with someone who's desperate for a place to stay, but that was risky enough with a bunch of kids. I really don't want to do that with some random stranger unless I have absolutely no choice."

"Well, why not summon a demon?"

"…I can do that?"