Paragons 1.4.7

What exactly is an invisibility flu? Keep reading to find out! This is the seventh chapter of the Paragons episode The Magic Emporium.

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I gaped at the ghost in the girl’s body. “You can still perform that kind of magic? Even now that you’re…”

“Dead?” she inserted with a smile. “No need to be delicate about it. I’ve been dead for a very long time. But back before I was dead, I was a very powerful Dreamweaver. A prodigy! In fact, that was what got me into this situation in the first place. I was experimenting with astral projection, and I got overly ambitious. So one day, while my mind was busily surfing the astral plane, my body fell into the fireplace in my room.”

I gaped at her. “That’s awful.”

Nixi waved away my sympathy. “I didn’t feel a thing. I was out of my body when it happened, remember? Of course, by the time I made my way back to my body, there was no body left to return to. A shame. I died with so many magical projects left unfinished.” She shook herself. “No matter. That was a long time ago. What matters to you is all that magical knowledge still exists inside my mind.” She tapped her head. “I can’t perform it in this girl’s body; she doesn’t have the potential for those kinds of spells. If she did, we’d be done in a jiffy. But don’t worry. You do have the potential, Savannah. I can teach you exactly the spell you need to track Violetta’s sister. And then you can save the missing kids.”

She linked her hands with mine. “Now close your eyes.”

I did as she asked.

“Magic is energy,” she said. “It’s in the air, all around us. Magic is attracted to magic. It wants to connect to you, Savannah. You just have to reach out and touch it. You have to open your senses and let it in. Ok?”

“Ok. I’ll my best,” I replied.

“I want you to concentrate on Violetta’s energy,” she told me. “Feel how it slides over your skin.”

Violetta’s energy was soft and gentle, like a pool of feathers.

“Hear how it sings in your ears.”

Violetta’s energy was a quiet lullaby.

“Now open your eyes, and you will see it.”

It was exactly as she’d said. I saw a river of blue smoke, like the tail of a comet. It pulsed out of Violetta’s body, cutting around the mall, following the exact path we’d taken here.

“I see it,” I whispered, afraid that if I raised my voice, I’d blow the smoke away.

“Good. Now, try to sense a nearly identical trail of energy. The energy that belongs to Violetta’s sister.”

I nodded, keeping my lips firmly pressed together. Then I pushed out my senses—stretching and prodding, poking and seizing—until my own life energy snagged against something very familiar.

“I can feel it,” I said quietly, rising to my feet.

I followed the feeling, and within a few blocks, I could see it too: a trail of blue smoke, slightly lighter and looser than Violetta’s. But it sang the same song.

We chased the trail for a few more blocks after that, until it dead-ended in a small park.

“Do you see her?” the ghost in Violetta’s body asked me.

I looked around, then shook my head. “No. But the energy here…it feels strange.”

“Strange how?”

“Strange like…” I tried to find words for the feeling. “…like the energy is there but not there. Like it’s shifted somehow.” I gasped. “I know what happened to the kids.” I waved my hand through the air in front of me, right where the blue trail ended. My fingers brushed against something. “The kids are invisible.”

I’d felt something very similar the day I’d met the invisible stranger. I hadn’t seen him, but I’d heard him. And I’d felt him too.

“Are you all right?” I called out to the kids.

“Violetta?” said a small voice. “Is that you? Help us! We’re trapped!”

“Trapped how?” the ghost asked.

Another child answered. “Someone cursed us!”

“No, not cursed. Infected,” said a third child. “I was the first one infected. And when I touched the others, it spread to them.”

“Are you saying you kids have been infected with…well, some kind of invisibility flu?” I asked them.

“Yeah!”

“An invisibility flu!”

“Help us!”

And I’d touched one of the kids. I guess that meant I’d been infected now too. If we didn’t figure out a way to fix this, I could spend the rest of my life as ‘the invisible Apprentice’.

I looked at Nixi. “How do we cure this curse?”

“Don’t worry. We can fix this,” she assured me. “I just need to teach you how to navigate the the layers between dimensions.”

“Oh, is that all?” I choked out.

She grabbed my hands again. “You worry too much, Savannah. Now, concentrate. This isn’t all that different from the spell I taught you to sense a person’s energy. Except this time, you need to sense dimensional energy.”

I felt my jaw drop.

“You can do this,” she told me. “Close your eyes and reach out with your senses.”

I shuttered my eyes. And somehow that made this all feel a lot less scary.

At least until the ghost said, “Just be careful. If you push too hard on the veil between dimensions, you could get sucked into Oblivion.”

“Is that like Shadow Fall?” I asked her.

“Yes, except Oblivion is much, much worse. It’s deeper in the dimensional divide.”

“And has anyone ever escaped Oblivion?” I dared to ask.

“It’s best not to think about that,” she said breezily.

Well, when she put it like that, how could I not think about it?

“Ok, Savannah, are you ready?”

Who could ever be ready for this? I didn’t say that. I only nodded.

“Imagine your own energy is like a gigantic hand, and all the dimensions of our universe are the many strings of a magic harp. And now you’re going to strum that hand across those strings, searching for where these kids are trapped. When your energy touches that dimension, you’ll know it.”

I nodded, lifting my hands in front of me.

“Ok, kids, link hands,” the ghost told them. “Savannah is going to get you out of there, but she’s going to need your help. Pick a song, and then all of you sing it. Try to stay in sync. It will help her find you.”

The kids started singing a silly lullaby about a bear who fell in love with a butterfly. And I started strumming my supernatural senses up and down the dimensions of reality.

Now that’s something I never thought I’d say.

“You can do this, Savannah.” Nixi’s words of encouragement melted into the kids’ song.

And then, like a spring bouncing up, her voice and theirs snapped apart, to opposite ends of the dimensional divide. I focused on the kids’ song, trying to block out everything else. I felt my energy rippling from my fingertips, moving across layers of reality. Some dimensions were heavy, others light. Some tasted sweet, others sour. And some didn’t taste like anything at all.

The song continued to echo in my head, sometimes quieter, sometimes louder. Until I found the kids’ dimension. There, the song was blaring like a marching band on full volume. And when I opened my eyes, I saw them standing there, holding hands, smiling at me. I grabbed the hand of the kid on the end, a girl who looked like a younger version of Violetta, and I pulled. I pulled and I pulled and I pulled—until I’d freed every last one of the kids from that dimension.

And we all tumbled back into our own, heaving and smiling and laughing and crying.

Young Taya threw herself at her big sister, hugging her fiercely. And the ghost in Violetta’s body looked as pleased as if she’d truly been Violetta herself.

“This is nice,” Nixi told me. “I’m not sure I can give it up.”

The joy of our victory soured in my stomach. “You promised,” I reminded the ghost.

“Don’t be such a party pooper, Savannah. I was just kidding,” she laughed. “I had a marvelous time having a body again, but I have much more important things to do than pretend to be a teenage girl again. Besides, I’m holding out for a more powerful body.” She winked at me.

I shifted uncomfortably. “I thought I was immune to being possessed by a ghost.”

“Nothing is set in stone,” she said lightly. “And, hey, if you ever want to team up again, come and find me.”

The ghost passed out of Violetta’s body, her transparent form dissolving before my eyes. The real Violetta blinked once in confusion, then squealed in delight to find her sister in her arms.

“Oh, thank you, thank you!” she told me. “I don’t remember a thing, but you did it! You saved my sister! You saved all these kids. You’re a true hero, Savannah Winters.”

The kids shot me a collective grin, then started singing that weird lullaby again. I quickly said my goodbyes and hurried off, clutching my shopping bag. I had an urgent delivery to make, and besides, if I had to listen to one more verse of that song, insanity might just drive me into Oblivion.