The egg was still in a box underneath Kara’s bed. Julia ripped off her gloves and dug around underneath it until she had it in her hands. It still felt cold and distant, but Julia knew better. Kara was hiding from her.

“You’re going to show me everything,” she growled out. “Right now.”

Everything swirled about her, and Julia was in Kara’s body. She was inside Britney’s house, but it had been decorated for Christmas. Overly so, due to Britney’s mother’s enthusiasm. Everything was choked with shining reds and greens, and potpourri was heavy in the air.

Britney was sitting next to her on the couch, and they were both drinking hot chocolate. “You can’t prove that Mackenzie was murdered. The roads were a mess that day, and she always heads out every Friday night. All she did was follow her schedule, and it’s not like someone summoned in a storm.”

“No, but that wasn’t her schedule,” muttered Kara. She was focusing on the marshmallows in her drink. “Friday was always when Julia, Mio, and her went out, and we changed that. I didn’t know that they were going to all forget about each other.” Her voice was wavering, and there was a hard, painful lump in her throat.

“But do you think he’s going to harass you more?”

“I’ll handle it,” replied Kara.

Britney set down her drink. “I’m not going to let that stuck up, selfish, tiny dick bastard tell you what’s best for you. We’ll take care of him and put him in the ground.”

“But what if he hurts you? Or Mio or Julia are somehow next? All of this is my fault. I suggested him as the third for our ritual, and he’s ruined everything.”

“You were the one that was lied to,” argued Britney. “We’ll sort it out after the new year.” Kara frowned at her, with tears already streaming out of the corners of her eyes. “Stop being a whiny bitch about this. We’re going to fix it. What you have to do is pretend to be Julia and get all of Mackenzie’s scrapbooks. Do it before they forget or they try going through her stuff and passing it off to her friends, okay?”

“And we’ll hide them until we find a way for them to remember again.”

“Pfft.” Britney laughed, clearly amused by the idea. “It’s just like the old fairy tales, right? You want the witch’s curse to go away, you kill her.”

Julia breathed in a sharp gasp of air as she was knocked out of Kara’s past. She set down the egg and went to the closet. Clothes and boxes were tossed aside as she began to dig further and further in. Underneath it all was a plastic tub. This was dragged out and the lid was torn off.

Within were piles of notebooks and scrapbooks. Albums of pictures going years back. Both her and Kara being friends with Mio and Mackenzie going back to elementary school. Years of memories that Julia couldn’t recall.

Julia sat there on the floor and stared blankly at the wall. She couldn’t remember at all. If she tried to, she realized she knew nothing. What did she do during elementary? Or middle school? That’s when her and Kara started to drift apart and hang out with different people, but Julia thought she was alone… Instead, it was a void where she knew something should be.

There was an unfinished scrapbook underneath it all. It was labeled “Junior Year.” Within were memories of summer together, and on the final page, a picture of Mackenzie and Julia in the library. Somehow, that was the one that felt familiar.

Every morning, Kara would drive her to school, and Julia would go to the library. Yet she didn’t remember studying much or reading. She was there with Mackenzie. Because they cared about each other, right? Were they supposed to be in love? Wasn’t it enough that Julia had lost a sister, but also the memories of her girlfriend?

She set the lid back on the box and picked up the egg, shaking it violently. “Show me the ritual. I want to see exactly who was there and what every single one of you asked for.”

Nothing happened, so she began to force it. The bruising along her hands spreading up her arms, and her vision was slowly becoming reddened as she concentrated all the harder. A dull pain began to fill inside her head, and she could make out the shadows of trees all around her.

There was no moon in the sky, and three figures were standing around a flattened cardboard box. Each of them was wearing a robe and hood over their heads. An arcane circle had been drawn out over it in blood, and one of the figures was holding out her hand. She whispered in a low tone, barely audible to the other two.

“Sar resh warhi. Bel tamu.”

Kara took a step back as the box began to rattle. “Holy shit.”

“Stop kicking the box, Britney.”

Britney laughed to herself and also took a step back. “Just a joke. It’s not like this shit would actually work, right?”

The wind picked up around them, sending dead leaves and snow flying in all directions. As the two girls let out a scream, the box flipped over. A column of ash burst out from underneath it, and began to twist together into the shape of Trill. He batted the floating box aside and stared at each of them.

After a heavy silence, the boy of the group pulled back his hood. “You’re the demon, right? The one that grants wishes?” It was Eli. Trill’s head slowly turned towards him, but he didn’t say anything.

“If that’s true, then I want my wish of being popular!” Britney took a step forward. “I want to be popular enough that even people outside of this town know my name. I want to be famous!”

“And I want to be allowed to go to a school on the east coast! In Boston!” Kara was quick to add.

Eli looked between them and Trill. The demon was quietly watching him, waiting to see what he would say. “I want to be able to get in an Ivy League school and be able to afford it. That would mean that I need better grades and scholarships.”

Trill studied them all for a moment before replying. “Granted.” The wind kicked up again, and all of them were forced to shield their faces as ash was blown in every direction.

Britney was the first to lower her arms. “... Was that it?” She patted herself down, got out her phone, and began to fumble with it. “I’m not showing up on Google any more than I was before,” she muttered.

“It wouldn’t have worked right away,” replied Eli in a harsh tone.

“We’ll wait a few days and see if anything happened,” said Kara as she tried to rationalize everything she had just seen. None of it was making sense in her head either.

The memory distorted as it shifted to a different time. Kara was sitting alone in her car. She was staring at her phone as some number called her. The burner number that she was talking to when Austin called her. With a heavy breath, she answered it.

“The answer is no.”

“Have you noticed that people are talking less about you?” It was Eli’s voice on the other side. “I heard it said that no one is going to complain if Britney takes your spot as head cheerleader next year.”

“I don’t care. I don’t need to be the head cheerleader in order to move to Boston.”

“What about your sister? Do you need people to remember your sister?”

Kara took another long breath. “Julia will be fine. She’ll get over it eventually.”

“But she should be able to remember now. Think about it. We can summon him over and over again. There aren’t any rules against it! We can fix everything, but I need you, Kara. You don’t have to stay Austin’s slut or have your sister be miserable.”

“Mackenzie is dead,” snarled back Kara. “And that’s on you.”

“I only wanted people to forget about her so that I would get her scholarship. I didn’t know that she would die.”

“You’re a liar, Eli. I’m not going to help you.”

“No one else is dumb enough to try out a ritual like this with me. I said that I need you, and I mean it.”

Kara hung up the phone and tossed it in the passenger seat. After a moment, Julia got into the car, moving the phone to the cupholder before sitting down. She adjusted her seatbelt and settled her backpack onto her lap, and when nothing happened, she looked over to Kara.

“Something wrong?” Julia frowned when Kara didn’t say anything. “You and Tyler end up in a fight?”

“No… I’m just tired. That’s all,” said Kara as she started the car.

The images blurred as Julia was knocked back to the room. “That’s not all,” she blurted out. She then started to cough into her sleeve, sputtering blood on in the process. “What happened with Eli? Did he kill you? You have to show me the day you died!”

Everything was blurry now, and the taste of blood was filling Julia’s through. Despite it, she continued to concentrate on the egg until she saw what looked like the back of the school. She was there in Kara’s body, standing on top of a ladder and securing a rope to a tree branch.

“I think that’s everything!” She called out to someone but didn’t turn towards them. “They come back here, we make it look like a suicide, and that’s that. They’re just a loner bookworm anyways. No one would say it was out of the ordinary, and then everything will be fixed.”

She started to climb down the ladder, but Julia couldn’t make out what they were saying. Everything was going dark, and that throbbing in her head wasn’t getting any better. Her eyes shut tight against it. Not yet. She needed to concentrate. She needed to see who Kara was with that day, and what happened to cause her death.

When she opened her eyes, she immediately began to gag. There was something lodged down her throat. Beeping noises were everywhere, and shadows were rushing about around her. Everything was pain. Her entire world was pain.

One nurse eased the breathing tube out from her throat while the others began to check her numbers. Someone was gripping tightly to her hand. Julia turned her head and saw her father there. He had a worried look on his face, but… She had no idea how she ended up here in the first place.

After everything was settled, the nurses left as a group. Julia was still confused. She opened her mouth, but her father tightened his grip on her hand. “Don’t talk yet. You’ll hurt yourself.”

A doctor came in and began to speak with him. Julia could barely make it out, but she knew her father didn’t want to be here. He wanted to be anywhere else at the moment. Despite that, he was nodding along with what the doctor was saying without asking many questions.

Then they were alone together. “I found you in your room,” he father began to explain. “They're still debating whether or not you’ve been poisoned, or if it’s some genetic disorder that they haven’t heard about, but… It’s going to be a while before you’ll be leaving here.”

“I can’t stay here though,” replied Julia in a raspy voice. She needed to hunt down Eli and make him pay.

“There’s something wrong with your blood,” he replied. “It’s not staying in your veins right, and your hearts been damaged. They don’t know if it’ll... Y-you nearly died, Julia. I can’t lose you too... So you’re going to stay here until they figure out how to fix it.” Julia looked up at him weakly, which made his expression all the more pained. “We’re not going to stay in Roosevelt, Julia.

Grandma wants us to go stay with her. That seems like a good idea to me, and there’s a good hospital near where she lives. We’re going to start preparing to move to Virginia as soon as you’re out of the hospital. There’s a private school you can go to, and cousins you’ll be able to make friends with.”

“... No,” she said with a whine.

“There isn’t anything here for us except for poison and bad memories. I’ll have help in packing up the house while you’re here, and we’ll start shipping it over. Your school has already been notified as well. All you need to do is concentrate on making yourself better.”

But that didn’t do anything to reassure Julia. All she had to look forward to over the next few days was a quarantine. After they couldn’t figure out if it was poison or not, they figured it might be virological. Julia spent days without seeing anyone other than her father and staff workers. There wasn’t even a surprise visit from Trill to look forward to.

At least she had her phone. Mio texted her on a near daily basis, but it was weird. Was she texting because she was hoping to make a friend, or did some part of her somehow remember that they were once best friends? Julia didn’t want to bring it up, and she also ignored Britney’s texts as well.

Britney, the one who had done the ritual before. If Eli wanted to do it again, why didn’t he pick Britney to harass over Kara? As for Kara… Eli lied when he said Kara wanted to hurt her. Their mother was the one that was insistent that they go to the same college together, and that they stay in Oregon, but that didn’t mean that Kara would’ve hurt her for it.

Nearly a week had passed before she was allowed visitors aside from her father. A knock at the door and the nurse walked in. She told the person in the hall to wait for a moment before she stepped in.

“There’s a boy named Eli here to see you,” she said in an amused tone, as though she were thinking that Eli was some boyfriend and not the man that Julia was going to murder the next chance she got. “Did you want to see him?”

“Yeah,” muttered Julia. “That’s fine.”

Eli flashed the nurse a polite smile as she let him in. It was early Tuesday afternoon, which meant that Eli was skipping school to visit. He likely didn’t want to be noticed by her father or anyone else from school who would’ve wanted to stay nearby. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of his jacket as he looked down at Julia, examining her condition first before saying anything.

“You know, Austin is in the same hospital. You’ve been three rooms down from him this whole time.”

Julia didn’t want to see Austin. Not only because he was an ass, but he probably wasn’t all that pleasant to look at since she had fucked up his face. “I see…”

“They’re on a waiting list to see if he can see a specialist for cosmetic repair,” continued Eli. When Julia didn’t respond, he took a step closer. He put his hand on the bed railing and leaned towards her as he lowered his voice to a whisper. “Did Kara do this to you?”

There was that annoying brightness again. Eli was beaming... For a moment, Julia wished for Trill to appear, just so she could know what that was about. “I don’t know. I was going to see which of her stuff that I could give to Goodwill, then I woke up here.”

“She is going to kill you at this rate,” he quickly replied. “There isn’t a choice but to do the ritual with me. It’s not some made up trick, and it’s the only way that you can save yourself.”

Julia’s eyes flicked between him and the nightstand. There was a pile of homework that she had been doing during her stay at the hospital, and a mechanical pencil sitting on top of it. She sat up and began to reach toward it.

“I would need to take some notes on it first,” she muttered.

“Of course.”

Eli tried to move out of her way, but Julia’s other hand reached up and snatched onto the collar of his jacket. She yanked him towards him while grabbing onto the pencil. With a swift movement, she made an attempt to stab the pencil directly into his temple. He didn’t deserve a quick death, but any death of him was good enough for Julia.