Everyone at the table stared at Goldie's upturned palm, and the swirling mystical lights within.
"Goldie!" Evan blurted out.
"I'm sorry I couldn't take it!" Goldie said. "I could see it now, weeks and weeks of us tiptoing around, pretending magic doesn't exist, acting all weird, and what if we turned out to be really good friends with her? Now she's feeling dejected and left out because we're not telling her things and leaving her out, and it's depressing and frustrating and I just saw it going on forever and I couldn't take so here! Look! Magic!"
She waved the magical lights in Abby's face.
"Like...magic magic?" Abby said. The others exchanged looks.
"Yeah. Like magic magic," Kyle said. "Like wizards and everything. Man, Tanya is going to kill us."
"She has a point though," Jenny said. Keeping magic a secret is hard. It probably would have been like she said."
"Or we'd have had to start a sex cult," Kyle smirked.
"That's still on the table!" Evan grinned.
"No. It isn't," Goldie glared.
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"Okay we'll get beds."
"EVAN!"
"Uhm....can I get actual explanations?" Abby said, eyes still locked on the swirling magical lights.
"Long story short? And still keeping a couple of secrets for the moment, we're all kind of amateur wizards etc. Tanya comes from a long line of wizards, not really our secret to tell but it's kind of out. She's been teaching us."
"Uhuh," Abby said. "So magic is real?"
"That's kind of implied," Evan said.
"And I literally said it."
"And Goldie said it."
"But this makes so much sense!" Abby said. "So much weird stuff has been happening around here lately! Uhm, this is a secret right? Maybe you should put that away."
"Oh yeah." Goldie killed the magical light show and closed here hand. "I just wanted to give you time to internalize everything."
"No it makes sense," Abby said. "I've seen...some things. Nothing that was proof, but maybe I'm more ready to believe than a lot of people."
"Well that was relatively painless," Kyle said, leaning back in his chair. "Yeah, I'm surprised too. Seems like our little circle just keeps growing."
"Who were you responding too?" Evan asked.
"Valerie. The invisible woman none of you can perceive and will forget I mentioned once I finish this sentence."
The entire table stared at him, blinking slowly.
"Yeah that was painless," Evan said.
"Yeesh," Jenny grimaced. "Your curse is really freaky. But we'll sort it out!"
Everyone at the table ignored her.
"Listen," Abby said. "Can I....hire you guys?"
"Hire us?" Kyle said.
"Is that what you call it? I just...there's something very, very weird going on at my house. I could really use someone to look into it, and it's all just so strange...magic could be a real explanation. And now I know some magic people!"
"I mean we should help," Kyle said. "What? We should!"
"To do that we have to explain all this to Tanya," Evan said. "And you just volunteered."
"But Goldie gave up the secret!" Kyle sputtered.
"Too late, you volunteered."
"Don't worry honey," Jenny wrapped her arms around Kyle's neck. "Goldie gets to explain things to the person we REALLY need to be afraid of."
"Who's that?" Kyle asked, but before Jenny could answer a shadow fell over the table. Betty was holding a tray of food.
"Hello. What are we talking about?" Jenny asked.
"Starting a sex cult!" Jenny said.
Betty placed the tray down on the table.
"Do we have logistics? Schedules? Meeting times? Do we need a place to purchase equipment? Free for all orgies or are we discussing switching partners? I can't participate unless Trevor is alright with it, of course, but either way I intend to record everything."
Jenny fell off the chair, laughing again.