Namu was very lucky that Molly was an empty vessel. He had never heard of that before, which irked him a little, but under that irritation, he was relieved.
Somehow, she had survived without expelling her soul from that cocoon.
She was lucky. He was lucky.
He decided he would not let his luck go to waste. Or maybe it wasn’t the chasing of luck that kept him going. Maybe it was the anger he still had at himself for what could have happened.
And the anger he had at his friend.
But he would deal with that later.
First, he was going to try to get rid of that door.
The desk his laptop normally sat on in his room had been hard to get through the hole in the enchanted wall, but he had done it. Somehow, though, the small dresser that normally sat in front of the wall would barely budge when he pulled it. It was as if it had magnets on it that wanted it to fix it in its normal spot near the wall, or as if it had a glue spell that would not let it go over the threshold.
He tried running at it, kicking at it, tipping it, and even pouring some random transformation drinks on it, but nothing worked.
Exhausted and over it, he turned away from it, needing to take a breather and to think of another tactic to try. Maybe a spell to make the floor slick somehow. But when he turned back around, he saw that the desk he had worked to get into the small room was sitting back in his room. How!? And now the wall was back up and the small dresser was where it always sat before, in its rightful place.
Fine. He would destroy his room if it meant keeping other students from harm. He didn’t mind getting kicked out of the school. Not at all. He could guilt-trip Mr. Vero to keep helping him when it came to filling up the missing parts of his soul if he had to. The parts that those creatures had eaten.
But then something stopped him. What if the only way to get those parts of himself back was by getting it directly from those creatures? Was that possible? Was that worth a try? How would he know, though, if he caught those things, what parts were his and what belonged to others? They might have eaten many people’s souls over the years.
No. It wasn’t worth it. He was going to let the room burn. With one single lovely spell he would burn it to the ground. Anything to keep people away from that door; away from the fate he and Molly had been forced to face.
He took the quartz wand he had in his drawer, then began to draw the symbol for “ignite”—a circle with a twisted flame—all over his desk, the ground, and the walls. Then, with a whisper and a rub between his fingers of the salt he kept in a pouch between his fingers, he flicked the grains at each symbol and watched as they flickered to fire. After he lit each one, he left the room, closed the door, then leaned against it, wanting to feel the heat.
But no heat came. And soon he realized no smoke was escaping his room near his feet.
Shoving in his key and ripping open the door, he found no flames and no symbols.
He pulled out his phone and saw he didn’t have time to try anything else. He needed to meet with Molly like he had promised. To train her. It was one small deed to make up for almost taking her life.
***
“Have you been in there before?” Molly asked.
She was clean today, her curls sprung up on all ends and her brown eyes filled with questions. She also had some color to her cheeks. She was asking about the world that he never cared to talk about. But it made sense. She had every right to have questions.
“I was locked in there before, just like you,” Namu answered, as he set up Mr. Vero’s room for the both of them. Today’s lesson would be short. He just needed to become familiar with her soul, just like Mr. Vero had with him during their first few lessons.
“How did you get out?”
“I expelled my entire soul.” He didn’t look at her as he set one of Mr. Vero’s favorite items down on a desk; a black marble slab for Molly to lay her hand on. “I know you said you can’t expel yourself, but can you bring your soul out just a little?”
“I used to—I think I can. I just feel it is not really there since those creatures….” She trailed off.
His heart skipped a beat. He bit the inside of his cheek, trying to erase the thoughts of what those creatures did to her and him from his mind.
“If you didn’t have a soul, I’m not sure you would be alive.” He wasn’t entirely sure that was correct, but it was his best guess. “So, it has to still be in you.”
She only shrugged her freckled shoulders.
“Well, put your hand here, palm up.”
She did. Her skin was very pale compared to his. He almost wanted to put his hand on top of hers to compare, but he didn’t. There was something more important he needed to compare.
“Tell me what you want in life?” he asked.
Since he was a novice when it came to teaching, he needed to know more about her to know how to get his soul to call to hers. He knew there might be little things that would work. Mr. Vero had proven that. Namu had seen him able to pick up things by casual conversation or sometimes even from someone when they had not spoken to him at all, but Namu didn’t work like that. He couldn’t examine people that deeply.
“I don’t know…”
“You have to know.”
“But, I really don’t.”
Maybe it was too deep a question, especially from someone she barely knew. Maybe he was delving too far to get her soul to come out. He had just figured that the deeper the question, the stronger his hold on her soul would be.
“Okay. What’s your favorite color?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“How do you not know your favorite color?”
He felt bad when her fingers flinched at his tone. He just didn’t understand why she was keeping these things from him if she wanted him to help her. The questions weren’t that hard. They were things he thought about every day and night. He knew what he wanted for his life. Didn’t everybody? And didn’t everyone at least have a favorite color?
“I just don’t.”
“Favorite food?”
She shrugged.
“Seriously?”
She pulled her hand away and he let her. The black marble was now bare without her warm flesh. What else could he ask her then? Was there a different approach to this? Was there any way they could connect?
What about her need and want to train? Was it like his?
“Why do you want to learn from me, exactly?”
“I’m sorry. I just don’t know that much about myself. I…”
Oh. She thought he was reprimanding her. Asking why she was even here if she wasn’t answering his questions. “No. I mean, what exactly will you gain from it?”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
She looked at the marble circle that her hand had been on. “I just want to learn how to protect myself… from spirits.”
It wasn’t exactly why he worked with Mr. Vero, so he pressed deeper. “What happens?”
“They see me all the time. They try to touch me when they see me and then I go to this place of purple ice. I then drown. I… almost lose myself.”
That was it. He had it.
Just like him, she knew what it felt like to lose her own essence. She had the fear like him of not knowing if her real self would ever return or if it was even there. At least, he hoped he was right.
“Put your hand back on the marble slab,” he instructed.
This time, he dug into that part of himself; the part he hated looking into. The pieces that were missing. The fact that he would never be whole because he had lost bits of himself along the way on this journey.
With ease, his light blue soul lifted a strand of hers. It took several minutes to bring forth anymore of it. Her breathing hitched as she tried to calm herself, until finally, he extracted half of her soul’s arm.
It was perfect. There was not a single hole. Not a single bite.
He let her soul slip back inside her physical arm and tried to swallow his anger. He knew it was not fair having any anger at her. It wasn’t her fault that she was different. He knew that. But she had been in that world for days and seemed not to have lost a single ounce of her soul. That irked him. It irked him even more that, as much as he had studied spirit magick, he had never heard of an empty vessel before. He would have to do some research on it. Why hadn’t Mr. Vero ever brought that up if it was something that could help him?
Molly took her hand off the marble again and rubbed her arm. “So, all the weapons, when they disappear, they go there? In that world? Is that what that dust is?”
“I don’t know if that’s what the dust is, but yes. And now some of those metals, whatever they call them, are in your veins, your body, and in your magick.” He wondered if she felt it roaming through her like he did. That slow and steady burn that was close to anger.
“It’s called imminent-death-chaos. We learned about it in History and Transformation of the Magick World. But, isn’t that bad? Now you and Mr. Vero have that in you, too.”
“Mr. Vero had it in him before.”
“He had been in the world before?”
He didn’t answer her. He thought it was already obvious. Instead, he went to put the marble slab away. He had learned what he could from her for the day. He would have to figure out how to help her another time. And he would, after he had dealt with what was burning in his pocket and he had researched into what exactly she was.
“What do you do with it? With the chaos in your veins?”
He didn’t face her.
“I live with it.”
The marble slab clanked when he opened the long grey cabinet above one of the long tables on the side of the room.
“Is that why you had to get rid of my phone?”
She had a new phone now. Mr. Vero had put Namu’s number in it. “Yes. It messes up phones when they’re in there, and then the chaos spreads things into this world a little.”
Namu already had to deal with that last year.
He waited, but Molly didn’t say anything else. “I’m going to let you go now. Enjoy the rest of your break. We will keep meeting like this and get to the point where you build a better soul magick foundation.”
“But…we didn’t do much of anything today.”
That was because there was too much on his mind. He had just wanted to know for sure that she was fine before he worked with her. If she hadn’t been, he would have worked on them finding a way to heal themselves, but she didn’t need that; only he did. So now he knew he would have to put himself to the side and figure her out. He would work out how to give her what she needed and how to destroy that door. Those were his two tasks now.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, leaving her in the room.
He went outside to the courtyard. Only half of break had passed, so he had time to confront Lily if he found them.
And there Lily was, observing the students as they were pretending to read a book about gnomes.
They hadn’t talked in days. Lily had tried to approach him, but he had given them the cold shoulder. Lily had apparently approached Mr. Vero when Namu was trying to rescue Molly, but he had told Lily that Namu was sick. Lily had tried to come to his room, too.
He wondered if they had realized that Molly had been gone also.
Lily’s wide shoulders stiffened for a moment as Namu approached. They put their hands behind their back and smiled. “Finally willing to talk to me?”
“You’re lucky. You know that?”
“Why would you say that?” They wore a lopsided smile and tilted their head to the side. He knew it was their defensive position. A position to try to have him let his guard down.
He took the gold bracelet out of his pocket and showed it to Lily. They accidentally let their cool demeanor go for a second as their eyes widened, but then they smiled again. “What’s that?”
“Don’t play with me, Lily. You know exactly what this is. I’ve seen you use it even before we came to this school. You used to brag about it. Why would you give this to Molly?”
Lily looked away. “I see you know her name now. Completely susceptible, is she not?”
“Is that why? She was one of your young and dumb things to play with? For what reason?”
“Is this seriously why you’ve been so angry at me? Is this why you haven’t talked to me in days? Where did you even disappear to?”
If he wasn’t prone to second-guessing himself, he would have said that Lily had tears wanting to form in their eyes when they turned to face him again before they blinked them away. “Before you wouldn’t have cared what I did with that bracelet.”
Except this time, you almost got someone killed, Namu thought.
“I just want to know why.”
“I just—” Lily paused. “I knew she was special and I know—I knew, sorry, that you were hiding something. I just thought that if she could find a way into your room it would prove that. I didn’t think…”
“Didn’t think what?” He wanted to push them. He needed to push them.
“I didn’t think that the two of you would disappear and I would have no clue where either of you went!”
People were looking at them now. Lily took notice and started storming off toward the forest. Namu followed.
“I wouldn’t have had to disappear if you hadn’t done that. If you have to know anything, know that you almost got Molly killed, Lily! You almost killed her! A poor clueless innocent girl.”
One who didn’t even seem to know herself.
“But how? Why? How does sneaking in your room do that? And what did I see in there before when I followed you in there looking for her?”
“Why does that matter?”
“Because it does!”
“No. What matters is you trusting me when I say that I can’t tell you!”
“No! What matters is you telling me everything, Namu! You’ve been there for me through everything. Through my pronoun changes, all through non-magickal school, throughout the bullying, throughout moving and going to bigger and better places, and even through the first half of this school! You’ve always been here. Until now! Until last year! I just don’t understand. I don’t understand why you’re leaving me behind.”
“I’m not leaving you behind.”
“Yes, you are! You know how important it is for me to succeed. You know how important you are to me. And somehow, you’re surpassing me when you never cared before. And while doing that, you’re leaving me behind. Keeping me in the dark. You’re taking both things that are important away from me!”
Lily kept walking, their hair angry threads battling in the breeze, but Namu stopped following. Honestly, with everything that had been going on, he had not known that he was that important to Lily and that keeping something from Lily, even though it was something that could save them from themself, was killing Lily inside. Didn’t they know or realize that he wasn’t surpassing them, that he was drowning, sick, and angry? That he had an emptiness that he was trying to fill? It had nothing to do with them.
But during everything, this whole time, this whole thing, he had only thought of himself. He had thought Lily was okay. That Lily was more than okay. That they were on the right path while he was on the wrong one. When really, they were fighting a never-ending battle. One he should not have missed. They were trying to be as successful as their father.
It was something he should have known they always wanted. They always talked about their dad, and ever since Lily’s life had changed, their perspective on life had changed too. It was then that they began tackling bigger things and had a desperate need to learn and be closer to their father. He remembered the long nights of Lily complaining about how their father was never home, and how Lily only had Namu to keep them company, only had Namu who understood them, only had Namu who they felt the most comfortable around.
And Namu had taken all that comfort away from them to only focus on himself. He had taken himself further and further away from Lily, leaving a giant hole between them.
Lily reached the trees and then spun around. Their eyes were wide and they threw up their arms. “AND NOW YOU WON’T EVEN COME AFTER ME!?”
Namu couldn’t help but laugh, cross his arms, and then stand there and wait for Lily to come back to him. He watched Lily huff and stand still. Finally, after at least five minutes, they came storming back up to him. “What!?”
“It had nothing to do with you, Lily. I’m sorry. I just needed some time for myself to figure something out.”
They shook their head and would not look him in the eyes. “Something you can’t share with me?”
He didn’t grab Lily’s arm. He stayed back and waited for their gaze to come close to his face. He didn’t care if it didn’t meet his eyes. “Lily, it’s private. I will share it if I’m ever ready and if it’s ever the right time. Now is not the right time. You have to trust me. I’m sorry I did not think about us at all while I’ve been trying to figure this thing out. I’m sorry that you’ve been having as hard a time with it as I have and that I did not see it.”
They looked to his lips and would not let their eyes travel up from there. “You’re asking me to level up our friendship?”
“I guess…” If that meant trusting him and letting him keep a few things from them.
They sighed. “I accept that. I’ll try to trust you, although I cannot accept not knowing what you’re talking about. It will continue to eat me up inside. But because I care about you so much, I will let it. For you. It is just not in me to not care about what you’re hiding or to not think about it. Which you know.”
He guessed that was fair. He wrapped one arm around Lily and took the golden bracelet out of his pocket to place it back on their left arm.
“There’s another thing I know you normally don’t do that I need you to. I need you to apologize to Molly and tell her what this was for.”
Lily looked taken back. “Why?”
“For growth.”
He did not say it was for Molly’s growth as much as it was for Lily’s too.