CHAPTER TWO: THE STRANGER, PART 1

They left the chapel in single file— a morbid stripe of black suits, black dresses and irrevocable tragedy painted contrastingly against the evergreen lawn of the churchyard.

The casket led the bleak march, producing an eerie hum as it floated ahead of everyone thanks to the deceased's brooding gang of magician friends. There were all manner of spells and enchantments for levitating things. But there were none to mend a broken heart. Certainly not one as shattered to a million pieces as Maeve's.

Her father solemnly held her hand with a firm grip, letting her know that she wasn't alone in this. Mother on the other hand was hysterical! Wailing and screaming and moaning in shrill banshee cries even as they made it into the well-kept graveyard.

"Bring back my boy!" she bellowed, knees to the dirt while the four boys performed their sombre duty of lowering Thami into the ground. "Bring back my beautiful baby boy!"

They all knew, as she cried and cried her now uncomfortably hoarse voice away, that there was no use in comforting her. A mother could never be comforted watching the earth eat up her dead son's body. Somethings just had to be cried out.

Maeve couldn't bear to hear her mother's desperate cries. And so she had earphones in. Instead, Emilio Santiago sang "Brother" to her. The song filled her ears, but not even one of Thami's favourite tunes could drown out the ugly sounds of what was happening here before her.

Naturally, the immediate family were the first to throw in the dirt and the flowers. Maeve thought that even the icy embrace of death couldn't compare to whatever it was called that she was feeling at the moment.

Nothing could. Nothing.

She plucked a rose from the bouquet in her great aunt's hands and, with much hesitation, threw it into the grave where it joined the others and that hauntingly pretty garland.

That sealed the deal, didn't it? She thought. That single moment when the petals sundered against the wooden surface of the box. That meant he was actually gone. That made it all too real.

Her knees gave in as her face contorted in a grim mixture of unfathomable sadness and interminable rage! Her legs trembled, reduced to two brown noodles, but she found that her father had caught her before her bare knees could meet the earth.

She sobbed in his arms and it was painful but good.

Next came the aunts, uncles and cousins and Maeve watched with watery eyes that just wouldn't let the tears escape. She saw Mahogany, trying as usual to come off as brave, tossing in an expensive looking orchid which he'd obviously brought here himself. He banged his chest twice and held a peace sign up in the air before retreating to Maeve's side. There was a hum of quiet, sober laughter.

Then came the friends' turn. One of the four magician boys—the one who Maeve has seen quite a few times around the house with Thami just before the end—stepped up to the open grave where he drew his wand. He snapped it in half and threw the two useless sticks into the hole. The entire gathering watched in ghostly silence.

"What is a magician without his casting stick?" he said in a shaky voice, head down and eyes welling up with tears, "He is a man. But what is a man without his friend? He…is nothing."

The rest of the boys came up to the grave and did the same, honouring their fallen brother, one could only surmise such. Practitioners of the magical arts had a strange and secretive code.

Mahogany tilted his head to the side like a dog, riddled with curiosity as to why these four boys were doing this for someone who hadn't even been one of theirs. He raised one of his perfectly plucked eyebrows. "Was Thami a member of the Masters of Deception?"

Maeve aligned her black lace shielded eyes with his, not surprised by his guts to ask such a bold question. "No!" she answered a bit too harshly than she would've liked to, "he wasn't a part of any coven."

"Wasn't he?" Mr. Moloi asked, a challenging tone in his voice which insisted that he knew more than they did.

Before she knew it, the hole had been filled over with dirt. It was as if Maeve had blinked once and the funeral was already over. She stood next the grave feeling a sudden overflow of nothing. A vast, black, empty and frightening nothingness. She found it to be extremely foreboding. Like the nothingness would eat her up on the inside until she, too, was nothing.

She drew in a breath and let it escape from her lungs in an explosive scream. This caused the remnants of the gathering to halt in their paths and jerk back to look at her. But she didn't care. She just wanted to feel something. Anything.

"I wish you'd just take me with you," she whispered helplessly, emptily, "I can't bear it here without you, Thams. I just wish you'd-" Something stole her attention!

A glow.

A shimmering light like the wispy, delicate tendrils of reflective shine when light bounced off water and onto a wall. Only thing was; this light wasn't bouncing off anything. It traversed swiftly! Almost impossible to notice. Maeve tried to follow it as it spun around her, allowing itself only to be noticed by the girl's peripheral vision.

The ghostly yet enchanting light produced a sharp high pitched whistling tone while it made circles around Maeve. Then, without warning, it scattered and seemed to vanish.

Maeve frowned, and looked around searchingly. It was gon—

No it wasn't. She gasped with a newfound enthusiasm, hoping this light was a manifestation of- of him! It should be! That was the only reasonable explanation. Her brother was dead but not gone!

The Shimmering, as she would come to call it, gathered under a tree and died out there. Her smile faded away as quickly as it had appeared when she saw someone standing there under the old oak. They were hooded in a sprawling dirty brown cloak and seemed darkly suspicious. Nothing about them felt right. Nothing about them felt…ordinary. It felt like she was looking at something she shouldn't be. Like she was breaking an important law.

The cloaked figure reached out and pointed beyond Maeve. She turned and stumbled back in a series of trembling breaths when she saw the person standing in front her. She couldn't believe it.

She refused to believe it!

There, standing in front of Maeve Moloi was…was…Maeve Moloi! Or, at the very least, some sort of animated, sentient reflection of herself. Maeve found that she felt compelled to reach out and touch her mysterious doppelganger and the other Maeve reached out to do the same. But just before contact, she felt something grab her ankle!

Maeve-the real Maeve-looked down to see that a hand had burst out from under the grave and was tugging ferociously at her leg. She yelled out her lungs and fought to free herself of the undead. But that only made it worse! Thami, pale and eyes glassy, erupted from his grave and tackled his sister to the ground. He was covered in dirt and flower petals. Around his neck was that hauntingly pretty garland. "Maeve! Maeve!" he moaned in a breathy, tortured whisper and began to drag her back into the grave with him. Maeve screamed and screamed for help, but everyone had already left. And as the ground began to collapse around and above her, she saw the Shimmering fill her eyes.

Then she remembered: No…no. No! This wasn't how it had happened. This wasn't the funeral she recalled. This was something else. This was a dream. A nightmare!

She came to with a sharp intake of breath and looked around the hospital room, chest pumping up and down to soothe a pounding heart. Then, after a solid minute of trying to get her breaths under control, sighed with relief.

Maeve sat up on the bed and cringed at the sweat stain outline of her body on the sheets. She swallowed hard, now finally reeling from whatever the hell kind of dream that was. She was still on edge, though. She knew this because the creaking of the door had startled her. She ogled it as it opened all the way by itself. Maeve thought nothing of it. Probably just a draft.

She glanced at the windows and realised that none of them were open. Brows puckered questioningly, she pursed her lips.

Weird.

Then, a familiar face appeared under the doorframe.

Maeve smiled. "Dad."

He walked in, trying but failing to hide his worry. "I'm fine," Maeve insisted, "just like I was yesterday and the day before that."

Mr. Moloi helped her back to the bed. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." She rolled her eyes.

"Because the doctors, they- they can't figure out how you survived that explosion. And I can't help but think that maybe at any moment they'll walk through that door and…" He hung his head, unable to bare the very thought of it.

"They won't, Dad. I promise, I feel fine. I feel great. I've just been having headaches that's all." Maeve sighed. "And these weird dreams. Anyway, where's mom?"

That's when a bashful expression creeped its way up his bearded face. And Maeve knew then that she hadn't come along. She probably hadn't even considered it. Why did Maeve keep hoping? Why did she keep doing this to herself? Her mother hadn't shown up on the day of the accident, she hadn't shown up two days ago. And she wouldn't show up today. She didn't care. All her care had left when Thami left.

"She cares; you know?" Mr. Moloi said, as though he'd read her mind. "She just—"

"Cares more about booze than her own daughter?"

He sighed. "That's not true, Maeve. She cares about you a lot. She's just grieving, that's all."

Maeve scoffed and leaned to take the TV remote on the bedside table. "Yeah, well, we're all grieving. Why can't she grieve normally like the rest of us?" She pressed the power button and an old-timey noir film filled the screen of the television on the wall.

"It's different for all of us." He placed his hand on hers. "One day, this'll all be over."

Maeve smiled wryly and switched channels. A commercial was on.

"Ugh!"

She switched to another one and found the same commercial on there, too. She heaved a sigh theatrically and plopped the remote next to her. She hated that commercial! It was basically the only thing on television. It'd been like that since the damn book came out.

"The world is changing," Maeve mocked the lady on the TV, "the world is a magical place. And you can experience that magic and all its wonders with the official Grimoire 2024 Edition. All new spells, enchantments, potion recipes and so much more to discover. Buy your new Grimoire today for only two six ninety-nine."

Her father chuckled. "It hasn't even been four years since the world found out about magic and it's already being capitalised. People sure are quick, huh?"

"Selling a book for Two Thousand, Six Hundred and Ninety-nine Units isn't 'capitalism', it's highway robbery." Maeve chided, changing the channel, this drew a laugh from her father. He stood up and walked to the door. "Where're you going?" she asked.

He turned halfway to the door and smiled. "Doctors want me to sign a few things. Release forms. Once I do, we'll be all set."

Maeve nodded and he disappeared into the hallway. Left with her thoughts, she turned and eyed the crystal on the table. The Wishing Rod. The reason she was here, she supposed. She reached for it and studied it further in her hands. How could one little stick blow up a car like that? How could this small rocky thing cause so much tremendous dam-

"What's that?" a disembodied voice asked out from nowhere and Maeve fell to the side of the bed, screaming. She fidgeted with the Wishing Rod but it slipped from her hands and rolled under the bed. The voice laughed and she screamed some more. She snatched the crystal from under the bed and backed herself against the wall, pointing defensively at the open air in front of her.

"Who said that?!" Maeve demanded.

The faceless voice cackled. "It's me, genius!"

Then Maeve let her guard down. Her hands, which were shaking uncontrollably, fell to the side and she stepped closer. She opened her mouth to speak but hesitated.

No. It couldn't be, could it?

"M-Mahogany?" she stuttered with disbelief.

The tall boy appeared before her. One second he hadn't been there and then he just was. Nothing short of a miracle.

"Yes!" he exclaimed in a beaming smile, exposing that familiar tooth gap of his. His arms were spread out wide open for a hug, but Maeve stumbled back with fright instead of embracing him. Her cousin couldn't contain the laughter. "Surprise!"

Maeve struggled to calm her beating heart. "How di- when did you- wh- how?!" Words failed her.

Mahogany rolled up his sleeve to reveal something that hadn't been there the last time she saw him: A tattoo. And not just any kind…a rune.

Maeve stared at it breathlessly, unable to piece together a proper sentence to utter.

"I got an invisibility rune!" he stated the obvious excitedly. "There's this new tattoo place downtown and they're having this special where they do them for only eighty bucks! They're basically giving them away for free, dude. You have to get one. You could get, like, a form-changer rune. Or, like, a transmutation rune and—"

"Wait a minute," Maeve interrupted, the bell dropping just then, "so when the door opened all by itself just before my dad came in, that was you?"

"Yeah, duh!" Mahogany said, rolling his sleeve back down to cover his Ink-skin marking, lest his uncle walk in and see it. He hadn't yet asked permission from his parents to get a tattoo. "Anyway, enough about me because oh my gosh, home girl! You're totally famous now!"

Maeve rolled her eyes and placed the rod back on the table.

"Seriously, you're all over the news, Maeve! It's amazing!"

"Amazing isn't always good."

"Yesterday at work, some of the guests were totally talking about you and now the hotel is, like, packed and overbooked. Everyone wants to see if the rumours are actually true. News reporters are constantly swarming the parking lot waiting to spot you, I think. Geronimo and I had to hose them down the other day and—"

"What rumours?"

"You know; that you killed those guys."

"Seriously? Does everyone think I killed them?!" Maeve flung her arms to her side in a combination disbelief and annoyance.

"Didn't you, though?"

"Of course not!" she exclaimed, "they tried to kill me! You know, it's pretty crazy that everyone seems to be focusing on the fact that a car exploded when I was in it and not the fact that the guy who was driving it and his friend kidnapped me!"

"It's okay if you did it, dude. You know I'd never snitch on you." Mahogany placed a hand on her shoulder.

Maeve gave him a look, nodding to the side and folding her arms defensively. He unhanded her and raised his hands in mock surrender as he backed away with a giggle. A moment passed before he asked in a more serious tone, "how did you make it out of that explosion alive, anyway?"

Maeve tensed up. The wheels in her head turned, giving her the realisation that no one, not even her best friend, would believe her if she told them what happened. But, then again, stranger things had happened in recent years. Anything was possible now. The world was changing, like the lady in the commercial had said before. It had changed.

"Well?" Mahogany asked.

Maeve opened her mouth to speak but her father walked in, stopping her. He smiled when he saw Mahogany. "I was wondering where you had disappeared off to," he said to the boy and Mahogany smiled knowingly to Maeve. He winked.

"What did the doctors say?" Maeve changed the topic.

"All good news. You're all set to go home."

"I told you I was fine."

"Yes, yes! I know. Forgive me for doing my job as a parent and carrying about my daughter's wellbeing." He joked, hugging her.

"At least one of you does." She said. He drew back from the hug and sighed at the jab.

Then he said, "Come on, go get ready. We should leave before those vultures start swarming with their cameras."

Maeve took the wishing rod and what used to be her phone then left them. She entered the small bathroom she'd been using for these past few days to bathe and relieve herself. She would miss this place. This small part of the world designated to only her during her 'recuperation'. Not much recuperation to be done if you hadn't even been hurt in the first place, she thought.

She'd miss the silence of the room at night. She'd miss having the television all to herself. She might even miss the disgusting hospital food, she thought as she slid on her freshly pressed jeans-courtesy of the nice lady who would pop in to check if she needed anything from time to time-and put the crystal in her pocket.

Most of all, she would miss not having to do anything. Not having to work and worry if she was saving up enough money for college. The only thing Maeve wouldn't miss were the headaches and the strange dreams. But she would definitely miss th—

Her heart skipped a beat suddenly, shattering her train of thought. She thought she had seen something. Something impossible. But she hadn't. She continued to button up her silky black shirt and-

There it was again!

Maeve twisted around and gasped at the sight. There, all around her, in the room was the Shimmering. The ghostly lights pulsated in soft hypnotic motions, its wispy tendrils swaying and snaking like jellyfish on the four walls of the miniature room. Maeve reached to touch the glowing stuff but it whisked itself out the window and she chased after it. She looked down at the street, stories below, where the Shimmering gathered in the middle of a bustling avenue.

She frowned and a chill cascaded her spine when she saw the mysterious stranger from her dream just standing there, harrowingly still, in the middle of the street. The familiar sensation of feeling like she was breaking a rule by looking at the cloaked figure returned to Maeve.

Heavy breaths. Sweaty palms. A racing heart. Maeve was more confused than she'd ever been in her life. The Stranger lifted their arm and pointed at Maeve from below just as they had in the dream. Cars seem to casually pass the hooded person as though they weren't even there.

Maybe she was losing her mind. Maybe the trauma from the explosion and from the untimely demise of her brother was finally catching up to her. Maybe Maeve was—

A knock on the door almost had her out the window. She shifted and looked at the door where her father's muffled voice said, "Maeve, come on. Hurry up in there. We should be on our way by now."

"Y-yeah. I'll be right there." She said in a quivering voice.

She turned for one final forbidden glance at the Stranger…but her mystifying phantom was nowhere to be seen. Gone. Vanished.

Maeve gathered her wits and left, feeling uneasy as she did so.