Māra rubs at her chest to alleviate the pressure and pulls down her hood. Is this normal for girls? It’s painful, hot, unpleasant, and everything is sore like she’d just lifted a hundred pounds. How does anyone put up with this?
“Māracita!” Itzel drops down to the bench and throws an arm around Māra’s shoulders. “You got the goods?”
“Hell yeah!” Māra pushes the pain aside to give a sharp smirk before opening her bag to show Itzel what’s inside. “Sea salt caramel for you, butter pecan for me.”
“Yum! We keep this a secret from Papa. You know how he is when he gets into one of those fad diets.”
“No problema.”
They take their respective ice cream cups and begin chowing down on their contraband treats. It tastes all the more sweeter considering how desserts have been banned from their house for a while. Diets are all well and good, but dammit, a girl needs her ice cream and their father is being unreasonable with the “absolutely no sugar in the house” policy! Itzel can’t even have sugar in her morning coffee.
Itzel glances over to Māra, seeing her beaded awen hair clip askew and puts aside her now empty cup. “Hold still.” She moves Māra’s head around so that she could remove the clip and finger-comb her dark brunette hair.
Māra suffers through this, simply munching on her ice cream while her older sister babies her like she’s still seven and not fourteen. She’s suddenly reminded of their mother, who would sing them Irish folk songs or tell them stories about her adventures studying different cultures throughout the world. Itzel being a near spitting image of her makes her chest hurt more, but she tries stamping it down with another spoonful of ice cream.
Itzel finishes putting the clip back in Māra’s typical half-up style and brings her into a hug. “There!” she exclaims. “All neat and tidy!”
Māra smiles, finishes the last of her ice cream, and looks up. “Hey, you wanna see what I did for my quarterly assignment?” Itzel replies in the affirmative so Māra digs into her bag again to take out her folder. She flips it open, leafing through the sketches and concepts, but doesn’t see her latest drawing. Māra knits her eyebrows together when she reaches the back of the folder and there’s still no sign of the drawing. “I can’t find it.”
“Could you have left it at school yesterday?”
“I took it with me because I wanted your feedback. It was here this morning.” Māra practically dumps the books and pencils onto the sidewalk before horror dawns on her face. “I couldn’t have dropped it, could I?”
With a sympathetic grimace, Itzel asks, “Can’t you just draw it again?”
“It took me weeks to draw this one!” This is bad. If Māra lost this piece, then she’d have to rush to do it all over again and risk a lower grade. If she had dropped it, then the only place it could be would be in front of the ice cream store. “I’ll go back and look for it.”
“Wait! Māra!”
She doesn’t listen to Itzel’s shouting to get back and instead dashes over to the street where the ice cream shop is. The first place Māra scans is the sidewalk. Nope. The tables? Nope. She asks the man behind the counter if anyone had turned in a drawing. Nope.
“Dammit Māra!” Itzel finally catches up, nearly keeling over while huffing and puffing before fixing Māra with her with her signature “mom stare”. It has the desired effect of causing a shiver to run up her spine. “Don’t just run off like that! What if you get hurt and I’m not there?”
‘You’d get here quicker if you’d get out from behind your computer and exercise more.’ Māra would never say it out loud though. “Sorry. I just need to find the drawing.”
Itzel huffs again and crosses her arms, Māra’s bag hanging from one of her elbows. “Well? Was the drawing here?”
“…No.”
With a nod, Itzel swings her arm around Māra’s shoulders again. “Alright. Let’s go home.”
Māra allows Itzel to lead her away from the street. She drags behind just a little, and looks back. That pain in her chest comes back to mind. Didn’t she start feeling it as soon as she saw the girl that had collapsed getting examined at one of the tables?
‘Should I tell Itzel?’ That pain that was hot, yet familiar. Painful, but sweet. As if it’s trying to tell her something important. ‘No. Something tells me I should keep this to myself.’
“Lyceum Station! Lyceum Station!”
Elen, Salacia, and Áine disembark the train with several other passengers, stepping aside to make room for others to climb on. They wade through the crowd until they stick themselves to the side of one of the staircases so as to keep out of everyone’s way.
“Are the cards still glowing?”
Elen takes out the cards from her bag at Salacia’s question. The triple moon card has a green gem in the center and the other depicts a green cube with rolling hills in the background. They’e still glowing like when they pulled into the station, and aren’t stopping even as the train leaves, so she has to be close by.
Elen fully leans against the wall. She doesn’t want to do this. Doesn’t want to drag Māra into this battle. Why is she doing Fredrick and his friends’ bidding anyway? Past life or not, duty or not, it’s not as if they’re her masters. They didn’t cast some charm on her, did they?
‘Wouldn’t put it past them. They seem like the type of people who would do whatever they have to to get us to cooperate.’
She scans the crowd that’s starting to thin as more people leave the station. Several trains later and there are a few students that come around from their after-school activities. Some wait for their trains by playing card games or on their phones, others do their homework on their tablets or laptops.
Exactly how long are they going to have to loiter here? For all they know, Māra could be staying in the dorms and won’t be taking the train at all.
Just as Elen opens her mouth to suggest they walk topside, the cards start glowing more intensely. Áine and Salacia notice, and the three look towards the staircases to see who’s coming down. From the top of the stairs they’d plastered themselves to, they see a tiny figure in a light green summer hoodie descending in the station Elen recognizes.
Elen can’t tell if this person is male or female. They seem smaller than others their age, with narrowed brown eyes and medium-length brown hair pulled back in a half-up style. As they step on to the platform, she can see that it’s held with a rainbow-colored hair clip with an awen design. The person settles down on a bench, pulls out a sketchbook from their bag, and removes a pencil from behind their ear.
Áine leans close to Elen. “Are you sure that’s the one?” Elen nods. “So how are we going to approach her?”
“Not sure. It’s not as if we can just waltz up to them and explain everything without sounding insane.”
“Comic book logic says that we’re going to be attacked again.”
Elen closes her eyes before slipping the cards in her pocket and groaning. Salacia hasn’t been wrong about this yet. She cracks an eye open to see about twenty people still on the platform and more trains on the way. If there’s an attack, they might become collateral damage. They were able to keep injuries low back at Hestia because they’d evacuated everyone, but if any of the structures were to collapse then there might even be casualties.
She glances at Māra who is still drawing in her sketchbook. The art piece said they’re in their third year, so they’re probably thirteen or fourteen. Elen rubs her left wrist, suddenly feeling the sensation of the handcuff.
Her eyes widen. ‘That’s right! The art piece! I’d nearly forgotten because of that drama with Jessie.’ Elen digs through her bag and pulls open one of her folders to see that, yes, she’d remembered to bring it. Good. That can be her opening.
Elen’s stomach rolls as she doubles over. ‘Shit! Not now!’ she thinks, grasping at her back as it spasms more painful than anything before.
“Elen!” Salacia shouts. “Are you okay?”
She dares not answer, fearing that she might scream or vomit. She gasps, grits her teeth, and falls to her knees.
‘Why are they watching me?’
Those three high schoolers stick out like sore thumbs, whispering amongst themselves while giving furtive glances in Māra’s direction. Do they really think they’re being subtle? If they do, she could almost say it’s cute.
Māra takes out her colored pencils to shade in the blonde girl who’s wearing what looks to be a TPAHS uniform. Her skin tone, unlike her two friends, is very light as if she hardly gets any sun, and her hair has some brown undertones. The one next to her looks as if she’s mixed race like herself due to a combination of her darker skin and reddish hair with a healthy amount of roundness around her middle. The third one is quite lithe with very toned legs and arms like an athlete’s. Her uniform appears to be Alexandria High’s, so it makes sense.
She looks up again when she detects movement. The blonde girl is rummaging through her bag but doesn’t take out anything and looks like she has no intention of setting it down. Māra’s rubs at her chest, feeling the same kind of pressure she’d felt this past weekend. Only it feels stronger this time. It almost feels like déjà vu, as if she’d felt this long, long ago.
The blonde girl abruptly falls to the ground while clutching and clawing at her back. Her two friends shout before kneeling, panicking so much that they don’t seem to think about calling anyone.
Māra stuffs her sketchbook and pencils back into her bag as she springs to her feet to rush to the three. “Are you alright?” she asks, dropping to one knee. “Do you need to go to the hospital?”
The girl shakes her head as sweat drips from her forehead, but Māra still takes out her AIDCard just in case to open the emergency services app. She’s stopped when someone pushes her down to the ground just as the ceiling collapses.
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