Chapter 79 - Curfew is a suggestion II (Patreon)

Vivian laid flopped over on her bed, idly paging through the latest edition of Teen Witch. Wixen’s Wicked Weightloss! Ten Tips to Trimming Tummies! Eclair’s Latest Fashion Line Takes London by Storm! She paged through it, before pausing at the description of a spell.

Give your hair a glow with Glinda’s Gorgeous Glowing Glamor! Your hair will subtly shine with a halo-like glow that matches your hair color for six hours! Four wand movements, first circle. 49 denarii. Contact Madam Glinda for a copy of the spell.

Vivian grabbed her trusty and well-worn scissors, and snipped the ad out of the magazine. She then headed over to her desk, and went over her color-coded binders. ‘Hair’ was an entire row on its own, and Vivian idly brushed over the scrapbooks overflowing with other cut advertisements before pausing on the ‘special effects’ binder. She flipped it open, paged through two dozen other charms that she’d be interested in getting, one day, and added it to the end with a quick note to herself.

Vivian briefly debated if she wanted to go over her binders and organize them. Remove potential spells that had a better replacement, or that she didn’t like the look of anymore. 

Ugh, no. Too much effort right now.

She flopped down on her bed, and stared at her ceiling, trying not to cry.

She was supposed to be there! She was supposed to be with Alex! She’d gotten all the ingredients prepared and everything! Now what were they all going to do? Find some random person to join their coven? Hopefully it’d be Hazel, but it sucked! It was supposed to be her! She wanted to be in the coven! She wanted to be with them! And now they were all going to bind together, Vivian would have to get together with a bunch of other random people to form her coven - and the people without a coven right now were not appealing, so that left going up and trying to form a coven with people who didn’t make one last year, or try again next year. The whole time, Alex’s coven would be off, having fun, without her. They’d drift apart and Vivian would lose her best friend.

It sucked! It wasn’t fair! Her parents were utterly RUINING HER LIFE!

Vivian slapped her cheeks and sat up in her bed.

Enough moping! Tomorrow, she was going to have tea with Amelia and Celine, and they were going to compare notes! See what they had all been getting up to! Catch up with her friends! Tomorrow was a new day! When one door closed, three doors opened, and Vivian would stride through them all with grace and aplomb!

So what if it was going to be hard sticking with her best friend? That just meant Vivian would need to work twice as hard! So what if she needed to find a new coven? That just meant an opportunity to make new friends, make new connections! Vivian knew everyone, and already had a few ideas of people who were going coven-less. Barring any surprising shuffles, she could cross-reference her notes with Erik’s and get a good idea of her options! Get gossip from the other side of school and the social ladder, and be the big fish in the small pond, instead of the small fish in the huge ocean! It wasn’t her original plan, but by Hera she was going to make it work!

That was when a rock flew through her window with a loud crash of breaking glass.

The surreality of the situation, her parents being heavy sleepers, and seeing way too much of Alexandria’s nonsense had completely immunized Vivian. She went over to her window and looked out, unsurprised to see a very sheepish looking Alexandria. The ginger mouthed some words that, when combined with the look on her face, Vivian interpreted as ‘sorry!’.

Alex then gestured for Vivian to come out. The blonde rolled her eyes, shot Alex a thumbs up, and quickly navigated through the dark and quiet house. She unlocked the back door and slipped out.

“What are you doing!?” She hissed at her best friend, glancing up to her parents' window. It was still dark. “Why did you throw a rock through my window instead of coming in!?”

Alexandria flushed.

“I’m sorry!” She hissed back. “It was supposed to gently knock on your window, like a tap! I didn’t think it’d go through your window!”

“That’s because you used a bloody rock!” Vivian yelled. Alexandria frantically gestured for her to keep her voice down.

“That’s because you used a rock!” Vivian hissed, not willing to let it go.

“I’m sorry!”

“Why didn’t you use a pebble!?” Vivian asked.

“I wasn’t thinking!” Alex protested.

“Clearly!” Vivian huffed and crossed her arms, glaring up at Alex and her meek face. Then she sighed.

“Fine. What’s important enough that you’re throwing rocks through my window at midnight, hmm?” Vivian gasped as she thought of a few things. “Did Erik do something?”

“What? No!” Alex protested.

“Was his dad a dick?”

“No, we-”

“Did you run away from there? Was something wrong?” Vivian started to fuss over Alex, brushing her robes clean with her hands. “Your hair’s a mess, I’ve got a brush, come on in, let’s get you a cup and you can tell me all about what’s going on. It’ll be alright.”

Alexandria exploded.

“It’s not me!” She hissed. “It’s you! We want you to run away from home and do the ritual with us!”

Vivian tilted her head and scrunched up her eyebrows.

“Why would I run away from home?” She asked. “I like it here.”

Alexandria slapped her forehead and grumbled to herself. She searched through the pockets of her robe, and pulled out a piece of paper, then smoothed it out. She mouthed the words, crumbled it back up, and unceremoniously jammed it back into her pocket.

“Right. Let me try this again. Do you want to sneak out of your home to meet a boy, like a lot of noonie teenagers do? You’ll sneak over to Dublin with us, form a coven, then be home just in time to get yelled at by your parents, but it’ll be done. You’ll be in our coven. Get a bit of adventure and rebellion in.” Alex glanced up at Vivian’s parents’ window, thought to herself, then nodded once. “Yeah. That’s it. You in? I need my best friend.”

Vivian huffed and crossed her arms.

“Well. When you put it like that…” She thought it over.

“I have to write a note though. My parents will be worried sick if I don’t. They will kill me when I get back. I don’t want them to dabble in necromancy, reanimate me, then kill me a second time.” Vivian said.

Alexandria gulped as she looked up at the broken window of Vivian’s room.

“Your mom’s going to kill me.” She whispered.

“Only if my dad doesn’t get to you first, yeah.” Vivian agreed.

Alexandria punched her friend in the arm.

“I don’t have nearly enough allowance to cover this.” She was starting to look more than a little green. Then she shook her head.

“Nevermind that! Are you coming? Please?” 

Vivian hesitated. She’d never been one to break the rules, not something this big. Could she do it? What would happen? Wha-

“You’re telling me the great boy-obsessed Vivian, can’t sneak out of her home for an illicit midnight meeting?”

“Ugh! Fine!” Vivian threw her hands up in the air. “But you’re helping me pack.”

“Pack?” Alex asked.

“Yes, pack. The equinox is the day after tomorrow. I need three daytime outfits, two pajamas, a ritual outfit, two sets of evening robes, swimwear, the ritual ingredients, my toiletries, books, homework, my makeup kit, my magazines, enough shoes for every situation I might find myself in, and oh, Alex, we have to hurry! I don’t have enough time to pack all this!” Vivian’s voice was getting almost hysterical at the end.

Vivian grabbed Alex’s hand and dragged her back into her house. The two snuck through the dark house. Alexandria’s heart beat wildly as her hands went clammy. It was suddenly real. Mr. and Mrs. Merryweather had shown her nothing but kindness. How would they react to finding Alex sneaking through their house like a thief in the night? Almost literally.

The two girls expertly skipped over the creaky step on the staircase, and were in Vivian’s room a moment later.

“Shhh!” Vivian said unnecessarily. Nevermind that her parents had slept through her complaining earlier. And the window shattering. “Alright, here.”

Most of Vivian’s school supplies were still in her trunk, having been neatly put back after she was done with them. The two girls started off picking up all the glass off Vivian’s floor, then sweeping.

“I’ve got nothing for the window.” Alex whispered, staring at the curtains flapping in the breeze.

“Well… I’ll write them a letter. You’ll get some gold to pay, yeah?” Vivian asked.

Alex swallowed a hard lump in her throat and nodded.

“Yeah.”

After Vivian wrote her letters, the two girls quickly and quietly packed, only freezing once when Mr. Merryweather briefly mumbled in his sleep, loud enough to be heard through a door.

“Can you levitate my trunk?” Vivian whispered.

“With my luck, I’ll drop it halfway down the stairs.” Alex whispered, looking at the shattered window.

Vivian winced but said nothing.

“Alright, help me lift.” She said.

“You know, when most people run away from home to visit a boy, they don’t bring an entire school trunk with them.” Alexandria grumbled as she took her spot on the other side.

“Oh, hush you. If I had time to properly plan this I could maybe skip a few things. Now, lift!”

The two girls did their utter best to be quiet as they navigated Vivian’s trunk through the hallway.

“Shhh!” Vivian whispered.

“I am shh!” Alexandria hissed back.

“That was the wall we hit!”

“I know! And if we argue about it, we will get caught!”

The two froze as a groan came from the master bedroom. They stood there for a long minute, before regaining their courage.

“Move!” Alexandria hissed, and the two girls navigated the trunk down the stairs.

“How do my parents make this look so easy?” Vivian panted.

Alexandria was about to answer when her foot landed firmly on the squeaky step. The two of them looked at each other in wide-eyed panic.

“Move move move!” Alexandria whispered, and the two finished the rest of the stairs in record time. The two bumbled their way out of the door, then Vivian turned back.

“What are you doing?” Alexandria hissed.

“Locking the door!” Vivian hissed back.

Alex grumbled something about this being ‘so much harder than it needed to be’, but let it go.

Three minutes later, the two girls were laughing as they walked down the street, dragging Vivian’s trunk behind them.

“I can’t believe we just did that!” Vivian shrieked.

“I can’t either.” Alexandria was looking distinctly green again. 

“Sooo…” Vivian asked, with a sly look in her eye. “What’s Dublin like? How’s Erik in his natural environment? Did you get to meet his dad?”

Alex chewed over the questions for a moment.

“Dublin’s… like Paris, but with more people.” Alexandria finally said.

“Really?” Vivian asked. “I thought Paris had more people.”

“It does, on paper. I think it’s where the people are though. They’re more close together in Dublin. Or maybe that’s just where I’m living.”

Vivian squeed.

“In a castle! Right! Do you have a room in a tower? Are there knights? What’s the…”

Vivian was an endless font of questions until the two of them made it to the grand argo. The porter eyed them doubtfully.

“And what are you two girls doing, trying to use an argo at this time of night?” He asked. It was about three in the morning.

“Ummm…” Vivian stalled.

“She’s sneaking out to see her boyfriend and do a coven ritual.” Alexandria replied. Vivian’s cheeks went flaming red.

The man chuckled and shrugged.

“Well, makes sense to me. What’s your name, and where are you going, so when the Praetorians come sniffing around I’ve got something to give them?”

“We wrote my parents a letter?” Vivian ventured.

The porter crossed his arms and tapped his thumb to his ring, obviously his conduit.

“Vivian Merryweather, Dublin.” Alexandria answered with a soft whisper, only audible because the city was practically silent at this time of night. His eyebrows went up.

“Dublin. Oh, I remember you, you came from there earlier.” He said.

“Yup. Just picking up my friend and going back.” She said.

“Well, that makes this easier. 20 denarii each, yes, thank you. Through you go, come back home as soon as you can. Your parents will be worried sick.” He said.

Vivian entered, and she took a deep breath as she submerged herself into the silvery liquid.