Who: Reagan and Zania When: Morning, Sunday November 19th Where: On the phone Status: Complete
Something weird was afoot. Reagan could feel it in the air when she woke, groggy and slightly hungover from the amount of wine she and Zania had consumed. Being that she lived in Point Pleasant, weirdness was not unusual. But the air felt different around her, simmering with magic that felt vaguely familiar. She ignored her phone as she slipped out of bed and padded into the bathroom where she popped several Advil, brushed her teeth and then undressed to take a long, hot shower.
Reagan felt a bit more human after the fact, but still needed coffee to get rid of the lingering headache. She got dressed and grabbed her phone before heading downstairs to the kitchen. She had a couple missed calls from Lana, the woman who had paid for the love spell, and one from Zania. That was odd. Reagan vaguely remembered exchanging phone numbers with the other woman, but seeing Zania’s name in her cell phone was a bit jarring. Amazing how one night of wine and magic could seemingly mend a broken fence.
Starting the coffee, Reagan called Zania first, deciding she ought to see what the other woman needed before returning Lana’s calls.
Zania answered immediately, though it was clear she was distracted from the start, the phone away from her ear as she yelled at her brother. “Nic! Nicky! Nicodemus Athan, get your ass back here!” She snapped, stomping after him until he was out the door, at which point she stopped. It was freezing outside, the cold wind nipping at her bare skin through the open door. Exasperated, she sighed and shut the door. “We fucked up,” Zania said, bringing the phone to her ear. “I don’t know how, but something is seriously wrong.”
Reagan grimaced and held the phone away from her own ear for a moment as Zania yelled at Nic The scent of coffee was wafting around her and Reagan mentally urged the Keurig to quicken the pace. Zan's voice, much lower now, came through the phone again and Reagan brought it back to her ear, confusion settling in through the sleepiness. "What do you mean? You and Nic fucked up? What happened?" It didn't occur to her for a second that we referred to Reagan and Zania. Fuck ups were rare, a damn near oddity, when it came to Reagan. She did everything in her life meticulously and carefully.
“No,” Zania clarified. “We did. Or Nic has lost his mind. That’s entirely possible. But my living room looks like botanical garden there’s so many fucking roses in there and he’s about to go profess his undying love to Lem, which, okay, maybe he does love her, but this isn’t him. He’s on the verge of spouting poetry and it’s seriously creeping me out. And if it creeps me out? She’s gonna think he’s insane.” She knew she was rambling, but the feeling that something was not right was too strong to ignore. Nic shouldn’t have been touched by the love spell, but it was the only thing she could think of, short of one of those weird city-wide attacks they liked to blame on things like the water or drugged candy.
That was a lot to digest and Reagan lifted her free hand to her face, her fingertips pressed against her closed eyes for a moment as she tried to work through what was happening. Nic was professing his undying love for a girl? Poetry didn’t sound so bad, and flowers. It sounded like Valentine’s Day had come early in the Castell household. “Are you sure? I mean, did you try to talk to him about it? Love makes idiots of people, Zania, maybe Nic is just an idiot now.” She said it with as much affection as she could muster, given she liked Nic.
“No, no, this is different,” Zania argued, unable to believe that this was just how Nic was when he was absolutely smitten with someone. There had been no reasoning with him, no logic, no good explanation for why he suddenly couldn’t live without Lem. He’d had hearts in his eyes and was behaving like a loon. If it wasn’t the love spell, then it was something-- a spell gone wrong or some kind of drug. “It wasn’t natural. I know you don’t know him like I do, but he doesn’t-- I’ve never heard him say he loves someone, Reagan. This is out of the blue, and it’s so over the top and--” Zania stopped as someone knocked at her door, silent for just a second as she moved towards it. When she saw who it was, what it was, she froze. “There’s a fucking deer at the door,” she muttered into the phone.
Even if it was unnatural for Nic, Reagan still couldn't see how it factored into what they had done. The spell had been designed for one specific person, and it would have been far too coincidental for the spell to have reached Nic as well. She was trying to figure out what the problem could be, beyond this Lem person paying another witch for a similar spell to cast on Nic, when Zania mentioned a deer. "A what?" Confused, Reagan grabbed her coffee cup. She needed it black today. "A deer. So... I mean... in your yard?" Reagan saw deer often in town, given they were more or less surrounded by miles of forest. A deer in the yard was nothing unusual.
Zania heard Reagan’s voice on the other end, asking if the deer was in the yard, and she shook her head, momentarily forgetting that Reagan couldn’t see her before she spoke. “No, on my porch. It brought me a gift,” she said, watching at the doe laid the greenery at her feet. She bent to pick it up and things started to click together, thoughts that only solidified as additional animals began to show up. “There’s squirrels now. And birds. Oh god,” she said, her voice pitching higher as one landed on her. “I have a fucking bird on my shoulder. You need to fix this,” she hissed into the phone.
Reagan shut her eyes, her face contorted in confusion. "What? What do animals have to do with...." Her eyes snapped open and Reagan had to set the coffee cup on her island to keep from dropping it. "Wait. The Earth witch who can communicate with animals. Are you two involved?" It was finally starting to click together. Nic, the animals, Lana's phone calls. Reagan turned towards the kitchen window, as if she would be able to physically see what her love spell the night before had done. It just didn't seem possible that this was her fault. Reagan was careful and meticulous when it came to performing magic. Although she usually didn't drink so much wine beforehand. Or during.
Zania’s knee-jerk reaction was that it was to tell Reagan that it was none of her damn business, but that wouldn’t be helpful and she needed Reagan to believe her. She didn’t know what to call what she and Gabriel had other than ‘new’; they’d flirted and kissed in the cemetery, but she wasn’t at all sure what to make of all the animals showing up. Then even more joined the crowd and the birds started singing and she laughed lightly, before sighing. “Yeah, you could say that. But this is… Just fix it, okay? I’ve gotta go before he finds me a bear.”
Fix it. How was she supposed to fix anything without knowing exactly what went wrong, if anything. This could just be another treat from whatever forces controlled this town. Sighing, Reagan rubbed her temple before nodding. "I'll call you later," she said before abruptly hanging up and dialing Lana Caldwell. The woman answered immediately, frantic and shrieking about John Buford stalking her outside her house, covered in blood and desperately declaring his love for her. The phone call was really all Reagan needed to know about what had happened and she demanded Lana call the police before hanging up and heading directly to her workroom. Something had gone wrong with the spell the night before. It was affecting the town itself, it seemed, and not entirely in an innocent, puppy love sort of way. Reagan had to figure out her mistake and fix it before everyone ended up going crazy. Again.