Chapter 6 continues...

Raz watched Fen’s back as the big man lumbered off. She blew hot air on her fingers, slipped them in the pockets of her now dry jacket, and strolled along the empty spell-light lit streets. Nightly wind clapped the protective webbing overhead. 

Nobody was up late at Castleyard. Everyone was either a student, worked long days, or was retired. There wasn’t any crime to speak of either, nor any dangerous spirits. Really, for all its faults, the town was blessedly safe. 

Not a bad place to live, for her and the sibs. Even if it meant she would have to give up her dreams.

Bitterness of that decision was slowly draining. She had friends here, and once sibs were her, everyone she loved would be in Castleyard. Then, she could finally relax a little. Then, she could maybe finally stop wishing and have a bit of actual control over her life.

Raz felt the phone in her pocket and checked it.

Joram had sent a long winded letter.

She read it. Her frown mellowed. 

He wanted to help with Faham’s birthday and apologize properly for his earlier behavior. It hadn’t been all his fault. 

Raz sighed and started typing a reply.

The phone slipped.

“Whoops?”

It bounced off of the road and backflipped and flew into a downward sloping alley with no lights, disappearing amongst trash in complete blackness.

Raz frowned, stepped in, and picked it back up. She continued typing the reply for a moment, before a weird thought paused her.

Hold up. How did I find the phone?

Raz stared at the cracked screen of the blocky wooden phone from five years ago. It weighed about a hundred grams and just barely fit in her jacket pocket. It was catching three bars of arcnet and had thirty-three percent battery left. 

The screen was locked and black.

She unlocked it and found the percent an exact match. Could be a fluke. Test it.

Raz crouched and placed the phone on the street behind her. She closed her eyes, echoed the voice of NeWiz in her head, and breathed slowly.

And it was there.

A faint but undeniable presence sat behind her, its shape resembling the vague outline of a phone.

She opened her eyes and felt it still, though the sense grew hazier.

Raz dragged a hand over her mouth, blubbering nonsense. “Phone resonance. I resonated phone. Resonance… A natural resonance.”

It could happen. If your surroundings happened to qualify as a wonderchamber at the right moment, you could resonate, though it wouldn’t be anywhere nearly as strong as in a proper wonderchamber. 

Her heartbeat quickened. She let out a scream, then realized it was night and muffled the second scream into her sleeve. Bouncing around the nightly streets in a confused craze, Raz felt the phone slowly slip from her mind.

She let out another more urgent scream and ran towards the communal wonderchamber.