Free Web NovelChapter 73: Chapter 73: Can you do magic?
The door to his room creaked shut behind him.
Percy crossed to the cupboard immediately and pulled out the diary. He skimmed through page after page, sweat trailing down his face.
He couldn’t read any of it.
"No. No..."
"I’m... I’m Percy?"
"No. That isn’t right. Something is wrong."
He braced himself and slammed his head against the table.
Bamm !!
Downstairs Dana felt the impact through the ceiling. She jolted, hands stilling on the groceries.
"Brother?" She moved toward the stairs. "Is everything alright? Did you fall? Brother?...."
She was about to go up when his voice came down.
"I’m alright, Dana. I was trying to scare off a rat."
Dana stopped on the first step.
"A rat."
She looked slowly around the hallway. Then shivered, went back to the kitchen, and resumed putting things away with slightly more urgency than before.
---
Ronan surfaced.
He looked at Percy from the outside of himself , forehead bruised, bleeding slightly, hunched over the table.
"I’m Ronan."
The name settled firmly into his mind.
"I was too careless. I got too comfortable being Percy. We’re too alike , I couldn’t even notice the drift happening."
Percy stood and moved to the bathroom. Ronan stayed with the thought while Percy soaked a cloth and pressed it to his forehead.
"I can’t keep letting this happen. But I can’t make sudden changes either , people would notice."
The cloth came away red.
"Wait."
"Zara."
He turned it over carefully. She didn’t know who he really was. She only knew Ronan and not Percy, not the life he was living here.
Communicating with her purely as Ronan, keeping that line clean and separate, could work as an anchor. Something to return to.
"And Dana." He could tell her stories from Earth. They would read as imagination or things he had heard from someone else. That was plausible enough. Two anchors then one that nobody here could see, and one hiding in plain sight.
"That should hold me until I find a real solution."
Percy dried his face and returned to the room. He took out the box and moved to wind it.
It didn’t budge.
He tried again.
Nothing.
"Strange" He stopped. "Oh. Tonight she’s the one receiving the message."
---
The wind moved through the treehouse window, brushing against her hair and skin as Zara crouched over her two finds, studying them side by side.
"A magical lemon and a magical box."
She nudged the lemon toward the box experimentally.
Nothing.
She nudged the box toward the lemon.
Still nothing.
She picked the lemon up and pressed it firmly against the side of the box, holding it there for several seconds.
Nothing happened.
She set the lemon aside and sat back, turning her full attention to the box instead.
She didn’t have to wait long.
A click. Then Percy’s voice came through.
He told her he still had no estimate of the distance between them and that he had been occupied with other matters.
Then he explained what her friend had seen , the hazy figure was something called a Haunted. A person capable of using magic. The distortion she had witnessed was simply what they looked like when their abilities were active.
He told her he was one himself.
Then he paused briefly and added that it would be wise to keep any knowledge of Haunted to herself.
They were not something to discuss openly. The wrong person hearing it could make her a target.
The message ended.
Zara sat very still in the treehouse with the wind moving through around her.
" Mr Ronan is the same as that person ?"
Her eyes drifted to the lemon sitting beside the box.
"And so apparently can whoever gave this to Maria’s borther ."
Zara confirmed the message had ended, picked up the box, and wound it carefully.
She inhaled.
"Mr. Ronan." She paused to collect herself. "Are you able to do magic too? Then what kind? Can you make a bunny appear from a hat? Are you able to make flowers bloom?"
Her voice climbed slightly as she continued.
"Wait ... can I be a Haunted? Would I be able to become one too?" She stopped. "Wait, why is it called haunted that sound so ominous. "
"Don’t tell me you have to do bad things to become a Haunted." She gasped. "Do I have to do bad things? Does.. "
She stopped herself.
"Ahem."
A short pause.
"I apologise. I got a little excited there." She straightened her posture. "Well. You see, I have come across a lemon. A friend of mine received it from a person who performed magic using it. So I was wondering , if this is actually a magical lemon? And if so, would you be able to tell me how I might find that out?"
She set the box down and immediately pressed both hands to her cheeks.
The warmth under her palms was considerable.
She had just blabbered at length to a stranger she had never met.
Her gaze drifted back to the box.
"Well." She fanned herself lightly. "Mr. Ronan and I are not really strangers anymore, I think. We did already share a secret. That is what friends do isn’t it ?"
-----
Dana fidgeted across the table, watching Percy eat.
After a few bites he set his chopsticks down and stroked his beardless chin thoughtfully.
"Hmm."
Dana’s fingers twisted together. "So... how is it?"
"I’d say..... it’s pretty darn good."
Dana exhaled and smiled. "Go on then. I made plenty."
Percy happily obliged.
After dinner Dana positioned herself at the bottom of the stairs and pointed up.
"Go rest."
"I can help with the dishes," Percy said. "I have nothing else to do."
"You need to sleep early. You have work tomorrow." fгeewebnovёl.com
Percy frowned. "I told you, I don’t work at the tailor shop anymore."
Dana put her hands on her hips. "The Syndicate then. Aren’t you going in tomorrow?"
She tilted her head. "Judging by how much you spent today I don’t think they pay you for doing nothing. Surely you must be doing something to deserve it."
Percy opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
"Come to think of it , what exactly have I done? I helped Lyro with his Oath once. I don’t think that counts as actual work."
He went upstairs without further argument. Went to his room sat on the edge of his bed.
"When do I actually start? And what am I supposed to be doing?"
He thought about who to ask. "Mr Craig or maybe Mr Charles perhaps."
Lyro crossed his mind, but shook his head.
"Not Lyro"
