WHO: Linda Fields & Mav Whittaker WHEN: Late Sunday, January 15 - Early Monday, January 16 WHERE: Mira & Mav's House SUMMARY: Linda ensures that Mav is given a Blast From the Past when he wakes up. STATUS: Complete
It was easy to forget how much energy you once had after years and years of your body slowly decaying because it started giving up on you in your mid twenties. Or, so someone had once claimed. It really hadn’t been until her mid thirties that Linda had started to notice a difference. Still, it was easy now to potion, go to work, party and repeat.
Her brain was perfect kind of tingly. Years of learning how to maintain a buzz had paid off. Now she was just sorting the strands of hair she’d collected through the night. Most had been taken after some discussion of how she wanted to look into it. The samples were growing into a decent amount beyond her own and the other witches.
Her alarm went off at 11:30, just as she was finishing. Because although living like she was in her twenties was a lot of fun, she was sure her brother waking up to see her face would be even better. She’d texted Mira ahead of time, so there were no awkward accidents.
When she arrived at the house she let herself in, tip toeing to where she knew he slept on the weekends. And she waited for midnight, her excitement only getting stronger by the minute.
Maverick’s life had many constants, after a turbulent, nervous childhood.
He was sure, for instance, that he would collapse, without fail, on midnight, Sunday.
He was sure, but less so, that he would wake up, unfailingly (yet), on midnight, Monday.
He was sure how his first breath would feel. Tight and desperate, like a man who had been buried alive, despite the fact that he was laying comfortably on the bed in the guest bedroom.
He was sure his eyes would open and he would feel like he was already at the peak hour of the day, after the coffee had set in and you were in the thick of routine.
But this Monday was already off to an unusual start. Instead of Mira, he saw someone who he would only see in photographs now. The surprise on his face was undeniable as his eyebrows arches and waned and waxed every which way before acceptance set in, accompanied by a deep, rumbly, “Oh, good grief.”
It took all of her effort not to yell, ‘The bitch is back!’ when he woke up. But the following loud laughter allowed her to get out some of the energy she’d worked herself up for. “Welcome back to the land of the living, little-or should I say big brother!”
His hand hit his face before sliding down the length of it as he groaned, pushing his body up without effort, or creak, or pain.
“No, no. No. What’s this?” He held up a finger, signalling for her not to answer that. He knew what this was. He shook his head, and swung his legs off the side of the bed. “Isn’t it a little late?”
“What’s a little visit to my brother at midnight?” Linda waved her hands in the air in way that meant to portray this that casual, cool and fun. “Besides, I left the party early to see your face. And I mean, I could probably go back to the party and people would still be there. This is early for youth like me.”
Unlike Linda, Maverick was old and, on occasion, a little ornery.
Thankfully, this was Monday, and Monday was much more likely to take these things in stride.
“So, what. You look younger, feel younger. Catch me up.” He slipped his feet into Homer Simpson’s mouth, making sure the slippers were nice and snug. Suddenly, casually, “Do you see where Mira wrote on me this time?” as he headed towards a mirror.
“Yes, that’s all correct.” She looked for the usual spots where she thought someone might have enough space to write on a body, but came up with nothing. Linda shook her head back and forth. “No where I can see.”
“But back to your questions related to my youth - everything about my transformation is good. I like the changes. I haven’t found many people that don’t like the changes yet, which I find to be intriguing. The question I can’t answer is why.” Linda spoke quickly as she followed him, over exaggerating her whisper as tipsy people often do, until they were the kitchen, away from the bedrooms. “Why switch everyone’s powers? Ruins the defences of people who have powers they can use to protect themselves. Why make people feel like they need to live out their Tale? Makes evil Tales more likely to commit crimes and imprison and evil character, if you have a grudge. Why make people return to a younger age or become an older age? All of my answers feel flimsy. Aging someone so they die. Or aging someone down so they’re more easy to take advantage of is all I’ve got. But that would require me to know who they are after. When the two previous incidents haven’t seemed very focused on any particular person.”
Maverick remembered the way in which Linda wound herself up and used it to fuel her projects. He remembered the way she buzzed in a way that made the room itself vibrate. He listed, quietly, as he took some Raisin Bran out from the cupboard. He was feeling bacon, but didn’t want to be loud.
“Maybe you’re asking yourself the wrong question, Lin.” He grabbed the milk from the fridge. He thought about her projects, potions-related and otherwise. “Why do you do anything you do?”
Linda cocked her head to the side, her brain going two places at once. A few days ago she would have said, ‘To make the appropriate use of my power and ensure that it is visibly seen how Witches can be the strength and backbone of the community’. It was a little rehearsed, sure, but it didn’t make it any less true. But the truth of someone in her twenties, or someone who had just come into their powers would have been different. It was different. She’d already bought a notebook full of ideas she’d thought of in the past four days that she wanted to be sure to pursue because, “To know how much I’m capable of. To test the limits of myself.” Linda paused for a moment, trying to asses how true she thought that might be in this case. “Was that along the lines of what you were thinking?”
He shrugged his shoulders, leaning plain against the countertop as one hand cradled the bottom of his bowl of cereal.
“I think whatever whoever’s doing, or why, isn’t a straight line. I think it’s worth considering that if the events themselves don’t have a singular purpose, that the reasoning behind them might.” After he took another spoonful of cereal into her mouth, he went to tap the cold metal against his noggin. “For science. For knowledge.”
“Hmm,” she murmured. “It’s for sure worth thinking about.” She frowned looking down at his raisin bran. “Let’s leave a note for Mira saying I’ve kidnapped you and get you a real breakfast at the only diner in town that’s open twenty four hours.”
That was all it took to get him to abandon his bowl of quarter-eaten cereal in the sink.