Once Jacinta arrived home, she ached to slip into bed, coil into a ball, and sleep, but she first needed to do necessary tasks. Medicine, feeding Oregon, other medicine, strip, re-dress, wash off (including the blood on her arm), fall into the bed. She sat on the edge, springs squeaking, toes along her shag carpet, gaze on the wall, the art posters—street art, mostly, graffitied and bright and loose. Olivia made a few of them.

  The witch’s dark, tired gaze slid to Olivia’s things. She needed to look for any clues first…no time to rest. Not yet. Never.

  She stood, propped the painting against a table, and set Olivia’s backpack on her lap. Her fingers twitched; she glanced aside at her phone, then forward, unzipping certain sections. The usual—different folders, a textbook, self-care products, handheld mirror, art supplies, makeup, tech items, safety whistle, mal de ojo pendant, and a tumbler with water. She frowned, pulled open the folder, thumbing her way through loose-leaf paper—school notes. Gorgeous doodles written in No. 2 pencil in the margins—eyes, faces, people: scenes of class, drawn in miniature. One-panel comics; professors showing government-mandated videos, propaganda.

  “‘We only teach and speak English in school…as we should.’ a professor says while breaking down the Latin roots of multisyllabic words.” Written below a scene of a professor sitting at a desk, leaning back, laser-pointing at the board.

  Ironic.

  But useless in the moment. Jacinta scowled and continued to flip through the pages. Nothing that’d tell her about the fact that she was gone.

  Dammit.

  Jacinta took the textbook—history—and slid it onto her lap. She wondered what it had to say, or rather, what Olivia had to say on it all. Olivia loved to make protest art; bright, flashy, in-your-face. She was unafraid, and that got her into trouble…

  But Jacinta was proud of her. And scared, of course—so scared.

  Did that get her into trouble? Maybe the art…it was reactionary, sometimes political. And artists disappeared, even human ones, after criticizing those in power. But others were focusing on beauty, aesthetics, media; those were the works she showed in public. Her dissatisfaction was private.

  Jacinta sighed and read, stopping at a notable section: the Swallow.

  The Swallow

“The Swallow,” a catastrophic and strange event that spanned over roughly a hundred years between AD 1400 and 1500, is the mark of inclusion of magic in our world. Occurring shortly after the Renaissance in Europe, it is commonly believed that the “rebirth” and return to classical philosophy, literature, and art, awoke God and let Him call forth magic and chaos, affirming beliefs and spiritualism, as well as humanism. The nova (new) period, coined by Petrarch Some Old Dude That’s Dead Now, is the Modern Era, from then to now.

Some Christian eschatologists believe that the Swallow is the Great Tribulation that precedes the Second Coming (and then the Millennium, and finally, the Last Judgment). Following the introduction of magic and supernaturals were assorted plights, famines, wars, and plagues. Some wonder if the Black Death was because of the Swallow, which potentially began years earlier than first recorded.

“Supernaturals,” beings that were once thought to be limited to myth, legend, and/or religion, also were introduced with the Swallow. They appeared in clustered, undomesticated tribes across the world, yet held some knowledge of the world they had just miraculously entered into. The supernaturals appeared as different ages, genders, and were sometimes sick or wounded, given stratified roles and primitive clothing. They reportedly retained their own cultures and beliefs but had no previous knowledge of where they were before the Swallow. The rate and areas at which they appeared follow no consistent order, other than the first supernaturals appearing in Italy and across Europe. Their numbers remain slim in the 20th century, but their access to magic and irregular abilities leave them far more dangerous and unstable than humans. Supernaturals may appear similar to, but are not humans; some wonder if they are aliens. The mystery of their existence has yet to be solved, and supernaturals themselves seem unwilling confused AF about to investigate into their own histories.

With the introduction of supernaturals and magic, monsters also arrived without warning, from each culture’s variation of dragon to…”

  After the rest of the general overview, the textbook went into the Islamic Gunpowder Empires’ leaders forming new machinery and gunpowder through having djinn; the Scientific Revolution occurring as a countermeasure against magic and “the impossible arts;” European colonialism as an escape from the perils at home, the Wanli Era in China and its struggle when a silver dragon appeared with most of the country’s silver; the Protestant Revolution in part involved with a firmer stance on the anti-supernatural effort; and more. Jacinta snorted. Reviewed the text. Undomesticated. Right. The scribbles weren’t Olivia’s; Jacinta moved on, curling further into herself, propping her head on her hand.

  “Olivia coming over? She’s nice. Gives me extra tuna.” Oregon jumped onto the bed, kneading the sheets beside her. “You smell scared and angry. You doing homework? I can help you, y’know—cats are smarter than we lead on. Nine lives and all.”

  “I’m…good, thanks. Just try to keep all nine lives intact.” she said, not sure what else to tell him. One family member, no chance to mourn—now the other? No.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  She wouldn’t mourn. She wouldn’t need to…Jacinta didn’t want to go through the discussion, so she just scratched under his chin and flipped through the book, the shiny pages, the layers of notes and generations caught in all the white space. They had taught the same curriculum for years—well, aside from history. Twisting it, spitting it back—

  She shut the textbook in annoyance, face in her hand. Dammit.

  A beep made her jump—she looked aside. Text from Gregory. She snatched the phone, about to call—

Hey girlie I’m sorry about being MIA. Currently busy with the Atlas and making BIG strides (my legs hurt the strides are so biiiiig help) and I can’t handle anything else rn but I’ll call soon love you <3 thx for the Oregon photos! I love him sm he’s a good boy

  Jacinta deflated. Shit. She texted him back: Wait Olivia’s missing I need your help

  The message didn’t send. He shut his phone off again. She could go to where he lived, ask him directly. Or send him a message telepathically—no, no, she couldn’t do that…

  Well, at least he was alive. He was a good friend. Usually. He had his needs; she had hers. She’d figure this out on her own. She always had—well, before him, sure.

  She eyed the textbook, then down—the backpack, the mirror.

  Wait.

  The mirror. Mirrors—the passage portal within Doña’s house. Mirrors were great at channeling magic, used as passageways, as ways to see oneself, to study auras, alter appearances, form illusions—

  Or scry.

  Maybe she could scry through it. The mirror was Olivia’s; it was connected to her soul, her being—like how a jacket carried the scent of the person it was worn by. She flipped the mirror open. Her reflection stared back.

  Okay. Scrying. How hard could it be? She’d never done it directly to a person through an item of theirs before, sure—Gregory had opened her up to working with seeing things through a crystal ball; that was fun. He said it was always a great party trick.

  But this was different. Serious. She’d be scrying to get a glimpse into Olivia’s life, existence—wherever the fuck she was.

  “You wanna work with me, grimoire?” She asked the book, glancing at her bedside table. The matchstick unfurled into the book—good. She set it on her lap. “Thanks. Good grimoire. Scrying, please.”

  It opened, flipped—a cloud of dust rose into the air. Jacinta coughed, waved a hand in front of her face, and leaned forward, skimming the page. Diagrams were drawn in with pen, pencil, ink from quills, even; most were showing scrying through bowls of water or through lakes, water’s surfaces—calm water, not the sea, though—or crystal balls. A drop of blood in water would help its effects; that was why it was their method of-choice. Sacrifice.

  Jacinta glanced down at her palm; the gash left in the fervent dig’s wake. A slice right through her lifeline. It was puckered, lined with a thick line of dark blood. It’d heal in a day or two and become a line to trace over, again and again and again, connect-the-dots style. Bridge one point to the other.

  She closed the hand into a fist and tilted her head up. She’d punch and slap the assholes who took Olivia. She’d fight for her.

  “Help me here, Doña.”

  A pause. Stretch. The pain of her nails digging along the crest of the wound, crescent-moons of keratin against the line of mahogany blood.

  She was all alone now. She’d lost—killed, with an asterisk—her grandmother. She had a weird relationship with death; her kind, always full of asterisks beyond the ‘human’ experience—but this could work in her favor. This could fuel her magic, push her forward, let it work, dammit.

  So Jacinta tore a part of the scab off her palm and set it on her tongue, scowling at the iron tang, the mirror in-hand, spell down on the table. Ready.

  She said the spell aloud, then spat on the mirror. Her saliva was swirled with fresh red, as though it’d been shot through with new blood. She felt her vision tingle and dull, electricity in her fingertips, pressure against her temples, sparks on her tongue—

  It worked. The mirror shimmered, the reflective pane wobbling like a stone scattered across water. With each wave, the image of Jacinta’s room shifted, changed—she lifted the mirror closer to her face, her eyes, watching intently. The image was of galactic blooms, magic in the void. It looked like images of galaxies, zooming through them like a plane flying through clouds. Magic. She watched, pressing the mirror closer, closer; its image grew beyond the reach of the plastic circles, expanding, filling Jacinta’s vision, being.

  [Speak a struggle; voice carved cracked crushed and—

You cannot breathe words free. You are an egg pre-crack, but your head has been slammed against the rim of a bowl, against the back of a being, of self. You are as you began. You have forgotten, remembered, recalled, lapsed.

You are the pulse of yourself: an echo, faint. Black box beneath the sea.]

[Blink-eye open. Your wail. Gasp for air. Mother breathes. Holds you. Her hands are soft, her cheeks flushed, new, bright; she you what who

          are

you?]

 [She breathes a new name for you. You remember Olivia. Olivia. Olivia.]

[A castle. Three suns, three moons, constant eclipses. Light on your face. You cry. Your mind is soft and porous. You thrash beneath your mother’s arms. She is not your mother. You’re not [RNAMED]. You try to tell mother your (actual) [NAME].]

[NAME is soft, like mother’s milk. You can understand so much, yet the NAME is like static in your ears. This world has no concept of static, electricity, modern technology. Magic replacement, slash of sword-steel instead of action movie, fairy flights instead of American football. You are panicked but placated, confined by babied instincts, a body bent only on sleeping and drinking milk. Your panic subsides upon lip to teat.

You cry every night though, when you are left alone in the large room fit for a (princess? Royal? Noble?). Window is pointed on the top, walls made of hard stone, paint richly pigmented yet strong-smelling. You cannot know who or what you are; their words are muffled. You think of Snoopy and Charlie Brown, and their adults; womp womp womp. (Not-) Mother only speaks in womps.

Snoopy. Emmy’s dog. You see castle hounds instead, beasts that are dog-like, not dog.

You only know a vague sense of who you were. You cry and thrash; you feel magic along your palms. Feverish, weird, angry magic.

You scream and wail and—]

Wake.