Katrina stood half way up the staircase, looking down at her brother who was on the computer, and trying to read his mind. Not figuratively but literally. She figured it was an easy test. She wasn’t sure exactly what game he was playing so if she could glean from his mind what the game looked like, then she could confirm that the charm she’d gotten from Ally worked. Initially she’d been meaning to wait for Ally to come visit Lily again but that could take ages and Katrina had grown restless. So this morning she’d tried it out on a bug. But the bug’s mind had been muddled and confused and Katrina didn’t want to waste what magic she had on insects, and so she’d decided to step it up and try her brother. It wasn’t like there was much in his mind anyway, he spent so much time playing computer games. It should be easy.
Gripping the charm tightly she relaxed and focused on what she wanted to do. To see his thoughts. And a moment later she found herself somehow simultaneously still on the stairs while also moving through a forest. She could see the path beneath her feet and the trees all around her, and there appeared to be a sword in her hand. She was so startled that it seemed to have worked that she immediately pulled herself back out. And when that worked too she grinned wildly.
She was about to try it again when she noticed her mother coming in through the front door and toward the stairs. Now here was a much more interesting target. Where had her mother been? Where was she going? And where had she hidden those books she’d confiscated from Katrina just last month?
As Amanda passed her on the stairs Katrina dove right in. Coming from? Going where? And the books? She caught a flicker of something, nothing solid enough to understand and then suddenly her whole mind was filled with images of herself. She pulled back out, quickly. When she turned she found her mother paused on the stairs and giving her a curious look.
Amanda’s eyes narrowed. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing.” Katrina blinked, hoping she looked innocent. How had her mother known? “I was just...” She glanced down at Salem who was still fixated on his video game. When she looked back at her mother the look of suspicion was gone, replaced by a measure of reproach.
“Leave your brother alone.” Amanda gave her daughter a stern look.
Katrina nodded.
Her mother gave her one last studious look before continuing on up the stairs.
Katrina relaxed and then went down to the kitchen for a late breakfast. That had been too close. It was almost like her mother had known what she was doing, but how could she?
Her father was at the sink, cleaning up some dishes. There was a small plate of pancakes left on the dining room table.
Sirius glanced around as she entered the room. “You’re down late. It’s almost time for school.”
“Got distracted working on a project,” Katrina told him. She didn’t mention she’d been trying to mindwalk a beetle followed by her brother.
“You almost missed out on pancakes. Do you want me to cook some more?”
Katrina shook her head. “It’s alright, I’m watching my figure.”
He glanced at her with a frown but didn’t comment.
Katrina ate her pancakes in silence and then she eyed her father. She wondered what he was thinking about. Well, she did have a way to find out.
She held the mindwalking pendant tightly and focused. She saw a glimpse of red hair but not her mother’s. The woman in his thoughts had short hair and sky blue eyes.
“Katrina what are you doing?
“I...” she paused and frowned. How did they all seem to know?
Sirius took a step toward her. He looked quite serious. “What were you doing?”
“I...” She wasn’t sure how to reply. Did she tell him she’d been trying to read his mind. That seemed like some kind of violation now she was thinking about it. She hadn't realised she was holding the pendant in an obvious way until Sirius spoke again.
“What magic is in that pendant?”
She met his eyes and knew she could not lie. “Mindwalking.”
“Where did you get mindwalking?”
She looked up at him, also unsure how to answer that question.
“Does your mother know?” he asked.
Katrina shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
Sirius sighed.
“It’s just for practice, it’s not that different from dreamwalking. Are you going to tell her?”
“No but you should, if she hasn’t noticed already.”
Katrina frowned “How did you know?”
“Mindwalking isn’t subtle and the conscious mind picks up on more things then the sleeping mind. It can be subtle but it’s difficult. It takes practice.”
“Oh.” Katrina thought about that. Practice huh, well she could do that. She just needed to find a better target first. Maybe somebody young, maybe someone who’d already lost their memories and who wouldn’t mind her hunting about in their mind for what was there. Katrina left the kitchen and went in search of Lily.
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But Lily was nowhere to be found. She returned to her room and finished getting her things ready for school but there was still some time. She could try Salem again? But as she was about to leave her room, something else caught her eye, a pretty blue vase, stashed almost out of sight just beside her nightstand. She still hadn’t investigated what that was yet, not really, not with magic. She’d been playing it safe, but given how well the mindwalking had gone, she was feeling somewhat bolder than usual.
Amanda had gone up to the attic to retrieve a book, one she usually kept under lock and key. Then she’d taken it all the way down into the basement under the house. She’d had an idea for a spell, one that she knew Sirius and Wolf would not approve of, but she felt they’d been looking for long enough. It was time to try some novelty methods. She hadn’t completely ignored them. They’d said no time travel, well what she had planned wasn’t quite that but it was close enough. She wasn’t planning on using it on Lily just yet, she needed to do some tests first. Small stuff before the big stuff.
She was in the basement, near the ground high window, gathering ingredients together for the spell when she happened to glance up and notice Lily emerging from out of the forest behind the house. Amanda frowned. What was the girl doing out there? Why was she carrying a rubbish bag? And was that blood on her sleeves? Amanda abandoned her ingredients and books where they were and went upstairs to meet the girl.
Lily thought she’d made it back unseen as she slipped quietly into the door to the large living room at the back of the house but then another door opened and Amanda stepped through.
Looking at Lily with concern she asked, “Lily, what’s happened to your arms?”
Lily tried to hide them behind her back but it was too late. She shrunk back in fear as Amanda crossed the living room towards her.
Sensing the girl’s fear, Amanda hesitated. “Hey, it’s okay.”
But Lily panicked. She dropped her bag of clothes and food and sprinted back out the way she’d come in. She didn’t head for the forest this time. Instead, she took off around the side of the house, in the direction of the barn. She heard Amanda call out her name from somewhere behind her. Lily glanced back briefly to check if she was being followed but Amanda was too slow. Just as Lily was starting to think she’d gotten away she ran right smack into somebody.
“Oh, Lily!” exclaimed a surprised Bobby. “Are you okay?”
Lily scrambled to her feet and tried to run around him but he grabbed her before she got the chance.
“Hey, you’re bleeding!” Bobby remarked with concern as he caught hold of her bloody sleeves.
Lily whimpered and tried to pull away.
“Hang on, let me have a look.” He released her arms but when she twisted and tried to run he grabbed her around the waist instead. “Lily what’s wrong?” a confused Bobby asked, just trying to see where she was hurt.
Lily started crying. “No, I don’t want to be shot.” Despite what Stella had said about everything being okay, having Amanda ask about her arms had brought all of her fears flooding back.
“What?” Bobby asked. “Who’s gonna shoot you? Lily stop struggling so I can have a look at your arms.”
“It’s alright Bobby, let her go.” Amanda had joined them.
Bobby looked up in confusion. “But she’s hurt.”
In a calm voice Amanda replied, “I know.” Then to Lily she said, “Lily we won’t hurt you. We want to help you.”
Lily was full on bawling her eyes out now and as Bobby released her she found herself trapped in another way. Her tears had blurred her vision so thoroughly that she couldn’t even tell which direction she should be running, so instead she just stood there sobbing. She didn’t even object when Amanda reached for her arm and slowly slid up her sleeves to reveal the weeping messy half-decayed flesh.
Upstairs Katrina sat the blue vase on her desk. She studied it in silence awhile but a glance at the clock on her desk told her she didn’t have that much time to spare. She picked it up and studied it all over. It was certainly pretty in a vintage, outdated, kind of way, not like anything her parents would own, not that anything they owned was that new either. Everything in this house was the perfect point between too old and not quite old enough. The vase would have fit right in at Coal’s house though, just like it’s twin, the red vase she’d caught a glimpse of the last time she’d snuck into his house. The swirly patterns matched one another so well that there was no doubt they were a pair.
The vase was a little dusty on the inside but otherwise empty. Katrina had swiped a finger along the inner rim and it had come back greyish in colour, similar to the ash from a fireplace. She hadn’t found any wording or obvious maker’s marks. Normally she would have spent a little longer studying it, maybe try to find it in a book first, but Katrina was impatient this morning and the clock was ticking. She didn’t want to wait until after school and the look of the vase was hardly the most interesting part. It held magic and Katrina was going to find out what sort.
Reading infused items was harder than reading people. It was a skill she hadn’t even developed until her teens and one she was quite a way off mastering. She needed to have full physical contact with the item. That was true for infusing from people too, although she knew it didn’t always have to be that way. Requiring physical contact was something that frustrated her even if it was something that was common for adult infusers. She knew she was capable of so much more.
The other problem with reading items was that she couldn’t always tell what the magic was. Even powers she was familiar with could take her an hour or two, unless it was an item she’d infused herself. Every infuser made their items a little differently even if the same source was used. But all she needed was enough of a read that she could spend the rest of the day thinking about it, trying to find familiarities. It wouldn’t be easy or likely that it would help much but that sort of puzzle was far better than spending the day knowing nothing at all.
Reading items also tended to give her a headache but that could be limited by keeping reads short. Sometimes multiple reads were more effective than singular ones. She turned the vase in her hands, feeling it’s surface and then she let her magic flow into it, poke at it, caress it.
She closed her eyes. She felt it start to warm. Not a normal reaction but not unexpected either. All infused items behaved differently. She pushed her powers deeper, tried to feel the shape of the magic, the temperature, the energy, the frequency, a tune. Magic was a lot like music in some ways. It was a pattern. One that could be felt or played but it required focus. Something gave a tug. It felt off. Katrina opened her eyes.
For a moment she thought her vision was just blurred as her view of her hands on the vase seemed out of focus. But then she realised everything else looked far more solid. Her hands in contrast, looked faded and swirly. She tried to pull back but she found her hands stuck. Her arms were locked in place even though she could now no longer feel the shape of the vase beneath her fingers.
She gave a soft whimper and tried to release her magic as well but something held her in place. She could no longer sense the vase magically either. The end of her fingertips felt numb. A wave of nausea swept over her. She screamed as her fingers disappeared into thin air. The vase remained floating. Something had gone horribly wrong. Her insides went cold and she watched with terror as the fading of her self continued creeping further and further up her arms.