Should she tell her mother? She didn’t even have a number to call, not when Mom was at work. Her mother would certainly want to know if she was hallucinating detailed and ridiculous conversations with her teddy bear. Or, for that matter, if she had contracted to become a puella potentia. Was she remembering that right? Why would a hallucination know better Latin than she did?

No. That had certainly been real. Bentley Q Bultitude (this being his full and correct name, whatever that meant exactly), was just being a jerk and falling asleep on her. She flicked his plush nose. “Hey, you. We’re not done talking yet.”

No response. Lame, she thought, projecting the word with her mind until it echoed. Boring! She practically shouted. Bentley, you square – are you okay? Because it was also possible that whatever was after her had gotten him instead. The air did feel quite still, in a way that it never would normally…

Except before a storm.

She grabbed Bentley by the arm, scooping him up and holding him close to her body, much like a football, except if the running back needed a big hug. She wasn’t scared. She’d nearly put three people in the hospital last year. But if her dreams were real – then her terrors were real –

“I hope you realize you picked on someone your own size, you bastard. Because this means war.” She gritted her teeth. She needed information, and there was no way to get that without having information! Augh! It was maddening, and she was not dumb. She was smarter than anyone in her class, which is why she’d been attacked to begin with. It wasn’t fair, you see, having an absent mother and still being pretty and smart and capable.

Well, it wasn’t. She really didn’t like it, a lot of the time. That just made her punch harder. And fight less fair.

She took a deep breath and shook Mr Bultitude again. “Wake up. I need help, stupid!” But an idea came to her. She was like any other teenage girl – she had a really quite unhealthy interest in acid freak type stuff. Horoscopes, ouija boards, tarot cards, all fell under that category and went into her dresser’s bottom drawer, along with a shirt she was positively forbidden from wearing when Mom was home. It was a low-cut, almost sleeveless little thing, very revealing and age-inappropriate, her mother claimed. But the real point of objection was the text upon its black surface, in a lime green font that glowed in the dark. You may live, it read, to see horrors beyond your comprehension. She set Bentley Q on top of the dresser, and busied herself with changing into this shirt.

“It’s me,” she said, admiring the neon figure of the planet Saturn on the back and pulling it on. “I’m horrors.”

With that, and a determined grin on her face, she turned over three tarot cards. The air crackled with tension. She shook her head and blinked, jaw dropping as she looked at the cards again. Were you supposed to get three trumps? But she’d shuffled perfectly. She’d even thbbppped the cards together, you know, like you were supposed to. Fanning their edges carefully. It had been textbook. So here she had three trumps. There was no denying it.

They were, in order: Death, The Wheel, Justice. Was that good? Or was it bad? She knew Death was often not death, but “change”, and even if you wanted to be soft about it and avoid the word written on the card, change was still hell to go through, as she knew all too well.

Bentley had, in addition, given her much to think about regarding Death. She was only fourteen, and was not quite ready to face her own death yet, or even think about it, and yet –

What kind of world would she make? This brought to mind the next card. The wheel of fortune was a cyclical idea, just like Bentley had mentioned, but it was also random, capricious. It either spun in good order or it spun randomly –

She hadn’t asked a question. Damn it. The most basic rule of divination, no matter what you were using, was to have a question you were trying to answer. Otherwise you just got junk data, and your mind filled in the blanks. Which was incredibly easy to do with these cards, except for

Justice. Which could mean anything. Balance, maybe, or that an error had been corrected, or punishment for a crime, or a reward…

She knew nothing. These cards hadn’t helped. But she’d gotten three trumps, and that was what Mom and rocket scientists called Statistically Significant. She took out a notebook and wrote this down, along with the date and time and a brief description of the situation, including the fact that she had not asked a question. Then she numbered the entry. It was her two hundred and thirty seventh since starting the notebook.

This had been her mother’s idea, and a requirement if she was to “dabble in the occult”: that she approach it the way a scientist would, with careful record-keeping and attention to detail. She was grateful for her mother’s lessons and encouragement – she felt more capable every time one of them paid off. This experiment hadn’t worked, that was all. She just needed to try another one.

This would be her two hundred and thirty eighth experiment with the occult, and it was beginning to feel as if her safety depended on it. She unfolded the ouija board, set up the planchette, and got down on her haunches. Then she thought better of this, stood up, grabbed Bentley roughly by the neck (he was faking being merely stuffed, so he wouldn’t feel anything, right?) and set him down next to the board, with one paw on the planchette. She crossed her legs and breathed deeply, trying to meditate. Images flashed – a velociraptor, Apollo 4 floating in space, an angry girl fighting three other students of varying genders and winning. She shook her head. She’d never been great at meditation, but she was relaxed and could feel her thinking clear and her pulse slow.

“What is the nature of my enemy?” She didn’t call out to any spirits. This was foolhardy, she felt. They didn’t exist, and if they did, why would you trust some stupid ghost when your hand was doing all the work? This would just give her the information she needed, or a path to it. That was how it had been explained to her, at any rate.

She opened an eye, carefully, and saw that the planchette was resting on the letter C.

“Talk to me, baby.” She breathed in, and let the planchette drift forward. It came to rest upon F. “Communist Finks? Huh?” She scrunched her brow, then giggled. Obviously it had nothing to do with Communists, and she was avoiding the obvious. Those were her initials.

“What can I do about my problem?” She pushed the planchette forward, leaning but not applying any particular directional pressure. Doing this, she fancied herself an astronaut pushing a translation thruster controller.

R

Okay, R. Was that a word? An initial? She wasn’t getting much out of this. Bentley wasn’t awake, and he was her only real source of information. If psychic powers or magic or something actually existed, in a way she could use –

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

THey did. She’d been to Carcosa in her dreams. Bentley was lying to her, or leaving something out, or otherwise not being helpful. She shook her head, teeth gritted with frustration, and smacked the useless planchette and sent it spinning across the useless board, where it landed on

C

Damn right. You know what? Fuck it. She absolutely could go for an RC Cola right now, whatever else RC might mean. This exercise was getting her nowhere.

Next to her, there was a soft rustling. A sleepy voice growled, “Take me with you?”

She screamed with frustration and tossed Bentley into the wall. “Where the hell were you?!”

He bounced twice or thrice, stuffed as he was, and seemed unharmed, but rubbed his head all the same. “Ow,” he said. “Something came up. There’s a lot you don’t understand. It’ll all make sense in time, but I am getting very tired of explaining myself.”

“I’m getting very tired of you not explaining yourself,” she said. “Something’s gotta give, little bear.”

“For now, presume I was keeping you safe. That’s the most likely explanation.”

“So you spent what, fourteen years keeping me safe and only now had time to talk?”

Bentley shrugged. “If you like. Or, more likely, I just had nothing to say, so I was quiet.”

“So was that why you were ignoring me? I was frantic. Look at this. It says RC and all I could think of was a cold drink. Or like, maybe I should become Roman Catholic? How did Joan square that with being a magical girl?”

Bentley ignored the question. “Or maybe it means Robin Conley? What was the question?”

“Conley? Her last name is Conley? She can help me deal with the presence I keep feeling, the reason I can’t sleep? Is that what it meant? Are you sure?”

“Why of course her last name is Conley. I have a comprehensive database of all contracted girls. You just didn’t ask.”

“God damn it Mr B! What is your problem? Do I have to do everything?”

“Actually,” he said. “I was going to mention: when you go to town, please carry me? I can move under my own power, but most people find it rather disturbing, as I’m sure you’ve guessed.”

Charlie facepalmed. “That’s a yes, basically.”

Bentley nodded. “I am not the hero of this story.” Then he cocked his head...impishly? He was worryingly easy to read. “It’s called The Charlie Foxtrot Files, after all.”

She shook her head, ignoring that last aside as Too Nutty To Contemplate. “This is insane. This is nuts. This is annoying as hell. I’m this close to snapping, Mr B. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I haven’t been feeling good lately, and this is not helping.”

“I understand,” he said. “But yes. Robin will help with your problems. I can open a portal to her location?”

She shook her head. “Not now. Thanks for the straight answer.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“No, no, I’ll mention it. I’ll hold it over you as the one time you were useful. I will, watch me.”

“I know you will. But Charlie, listen. I have done this before. I am not bad at my job. If I’m doing it, it’s probably how it’s supposed to be done. If that doesn’t work for you, what works better? Throwing a fit, or asking me to change?”

She hissed, but then relaxed. He sort of had a point. “Mr B,” she said carefully, so as not to accidentally shout or strangle him or something. “Please volunteer if there’s something I have no way of asking and need to know.”

“Will do,” said the small bear, clambering up the dresser toward her shoulder. Then he climbed aboard and held onto her neck. “Now, about that cola…”

She boggled, but patted the bear as he sat on her shoulder. “You drink?”

“Socially,” he said. “With difficulty. You’ll see.”

She didn’t know what to say.

“You do want to see, right?”

She nodded. “Fine then. Down the street to the corner store. Hopefully Mom will be home by the time we get back. It’s not like her to leave like this.”

“We often contract,” Bentley said, “during periods of heightened novelty relative to the baseline. It might be best to prepare for a new normal.”

“Gee, good to know.” She headed down the stairs and out the door, still wearing her favorite shirt. The sun was setting, and the fall air was cool on her bare arms. It was a very pretty evening. “By the way, you left some things out about magic. Clearly if you can open portals, and Carcosa can exist at all, then magic exists and can be used without me dying.”

A car passed by. The driver wasn’t paying attention, and he had his windows up, so she probably didn’t look either extraordinary or insane? The shirt stood out, though. Bentley, probably realizing all this, leaned into her ear and spoke sotto voce. “ Did I leave that out, or were you able to figure it out from context and your own observations?”

She thought about that for a moment. “The latter, I think.”

“Quite so.” Bentley was quiet, as they passed a woman walking her dog.

“Cute bear,” the woman said. “Never lose touch with your teddy bears, dear.”

That was not embarrassing or weird at all. They were, and she’d never tell Bentley this – only on speaking terms because he could talk – she was almost old enough to drive, for Pete’s sake! But it gave Bentley a convenient cover, if he was out in public with her. Or if she was a magical girl in danger of being shot at…no, no, other girls would know, somehow.

Bentley continued, now that they were clear of distractions. “See, most people think of magical girls as having elaborate transformations into a kind of battle form, then they can use flashy powers. Lightning bolts, the Moon, even elaborate time stopping guns and so on. It’s not like that at all.”

“Um,” she said. “People don’t think of magical girls at all, because those are not a thing most people even know about.”

“Ah, right. They will. I keep forgetting.”

She rolled her eyes.

He continued. “Anyway,” he said. “These ideas that people don’t have, because they don’t think of magical girls at all, think of the power as something inherent to the magic, not to the girl. The girl becomes magical. She is not herself per se magical, understand?”

“A little,” she said, quite truthfully.

“You never see a magical girl just learning to use magic, painstakingly, through trial and error, the way you’ve been doing. She’s born with it. Or maybe it’s Madoka.” He giggled.

“Don’t you mean Maybelline?”

“Oh, right. Forgive me.” He sighed. “No one appreciates my humor. Anyway, the point is, your power is you. It isn’t magical lightning bolts. But you can learn some things. Most girls just use guns, and we will at some point have to see about getting you a good one.”

“Because they’re easier.”

He nodded. “You need things that are efficient and accessible. You’ll find that magic is really…not. We may return to Carcosa under better circumstances, and try the library there. They often have good books for beginners.”

“Exciting. Is that dangerous?”

“Only a little,” Bentley said, which was quite reassuring. “Ah. Here’s Woolworth’s.” He flopped over on her shoulder, merely stuffed again, and she tucked him into a pocket. Then, safe, alone, but armed with much more knowledge, she went inside.