Chapter Four

The first week felt like a year. On the first day, Amber was introduced to the routine that she would be living through for what might be the rest of her life.

She woke up with the sun, and awaited her turn for the shower. The little temp-home didn’t have a large water heater, so she had the option between a quick hot shower, a longer lukewarm one, or standing under freezing water.

Basically, sharing a tiny bathroom with five others wasn’t great.

Then she had to race off to the community centre in the middle of the camp. The first day was a little confusing, but she was soon sitting in a classroom with a hundred-odd others, watching a canned lecture on a screen and filling out math lessons she’d learned a year ago from a worn textbook. They had a sort of partial-G.E.D. course but faster. Two three-hour lesson blocks, with a half hour lunch break in the middle.

It should have been challenging, but the material was dumbed down. Even someone as unacademic as Amber felt it too... easy. At least they didn’t have homework.

The nights were spent listening to music, caring for her dad, or complaining to the people in the main administrative building about medication.

The camp had two doctors on staff for nearly three thousand people. She needed a prescription verified by one of them to get her dad’s medication, and even then they would only give it to her a few pills at a time to prevent ‘theft and black marketeering.’

She wondered who would want to buy anti-nausea medication.

The days felt long, and yet they passed by in a sort of haze. There was nothing to do but wait. Some people left, others came in. Camp Chet continued to exist.

Amber discovered that if someone had the right kind of skills they could be hired out with a grant and travel to some city somewhere else where they needed plumbers and electricians and construction workers.

The community centre had day-long classes that taught people some basic skills, and there were some people that fought with insurance companies and made enough to leave and go live elsewhere.

Amber didn’t even know where to begin doing something like that. She held out the hope that Hollowpoint would soon be unquarantined and that they’d be allowed to return home.

That hope felt a little weak as the days dragged on.

Her dad’s condition worsened. He was barely able to make it from his bunk to the washroom, and Amber had the impression that some of the medication they got from the camp wasn’t quite as strong.

So she sat next to him, on the edge of his bunk, and listened to his laboured breathing. When he was feeling a little better he’d stare above and tell her stories. He had travelled a lot when he was younger, had been to some of those punk concerts that people always talked about when they mentioned the 80s, and he’d done his share of mischief as a younger man.

He loved telling those stories. She had heard them all before, but she knew when and where to laugh, and what questions to ask to get him to keep going.

When he slept, she listened to the news. For a day Hollowpoint was all they talked about. She even saw her home in passing.

The next day the president said something stupid and all mentions of Hollowpoint disappeared.

On the eight day, Amber woke up, took a rapid shower, went to school, and argued with a new officer about medication. When she returned home, she found Rosa placing a damp cloth over her dad’s head.

“He’s a bit feverish dear,” Rosa said. “I knew those cans were rotten the moment I opened them. I bet it was that.”

“Oh,” Amber said.

A touch to her dad’s forehead confirmed it. He was warm, his breathing raspy and rough.

She hesitated for an hour or two, but when it got worse she finally bit the bullet and called the camp’s hospital. It took half an hour for a van to arrive with an EMT and a nurse.

She was allowed to follow them to the camp hospital with her dad.

The moment they arrived she expected to see nurses rushing and doctors running over, but instead her dad was placed on a gurney and then a bed which was slid into a room and left there. A nurse passed by to check on him, then she left.

Amber waited, standing in a tiny room that only had an end table and a cheap sink over white tiles. She paced, she sat on the edge of the bed, and most of all, she looked at her phone every few minutes.

Those minutes turned to an hour long before a doctor showed up. “Sorry,” he said. He was a young man, tired looking though, and with a hunch to his back. “We’re swamped. What’s the problem here?” He asked while flipping through a chart.

“My dad, he has a fever.”

The doctor looked up. “Anyone else around him have similar symptoms?”

“No,” Amber said. “Just him. His lungs are bad. He had cancer. Um, his last operation was in November, last year.”

“Medication?” the doctor asked.

She rattled off the list of strange, complicated names and the doctor took notes as she spoke. “Some of those won’t be available here,” he said.

“But we’ve been getting them for days,” Amber said.

The doctor frowned. “Do you have them still?”

“Some,” she said while reaching into her purse.

The doctor took the pills, then left. He didn’t return for half an hour, and when he did he didn’t look to be in any better of a mood. Finally, he looked at her dad and started poking and prodding as doctors did while a nurse stood by his side. She looked even more tired than the doctor.

“Can you help him?” Amber said.

The doctor didn’t even pretend to smile. “No, not here, not with what we have. I’ll put in a call to transfer him. That might take a day or two. We’ll do what we can in that time.”

“Oh,” Amber said.

“Do you have insurance?” the nurse asked.

Amber shrugged. “I don’t know? Maybe?”

The look they gave each other wasn’t reassuring.

The doctor left, but the nurse stayed for a bit. “We have a few extra beds, and some blankets. You can stay here.”

“Thanks,” Amber muttered.

She sat on the edge of the bed and wallowed in helplessness. She didn’t know what to do.

No, there’s one thing I can do.

Amber didn’t want to though. Still, she licked her lips, then choked on nothing. An hour passed, then another. Her dad’s breathing grew more ragged, even after a nurse came and administered something to him.

Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore.

“Seelie, Seelie, Seelie,” she muttered.

Nothing happened.

In that little white room, with the white walls and poor lighting, with her dad on a bed looking nearly dead, Amber laughed.

It’s not funny, she thought between sobbing giggles.

“That is a uniquely strange reaction to bleak circumstances.”

Amber looked towards the entrance and noticed the plush white figure of the Seeli sitting there, tails swaying behind it and too-big blue eyes staring up at her. “Hey,” she said.

The Seelie walked in, then hopped onto the bed with all the grace of a cat. “We greet you, Amber. We didn’t know if you would call us.”

“I didn’t intend to,” Amber said, her voice low and whispery. “Can Magical Girls heal?”

The Seelie tilted its head to the side, ears twitching. “They can. Mostly themselves. But most learn to heal others with some practice. It’s a common application of magic, especially around humans. Some have gifts that focus more on healing, of course.”

“Gifts? That’s like unique powers, right?” Amber asked.

The Seelie spun around and sat. It didn’t leave so much as a dimple on the blankets. “We find that an adequate explanation.”

“I can become one, right?” she asked.

The Seelie nodded. “Yes. And it will forever change you. You will be destined to fight the monsters of Agartha until your dying day. And in exchange, power and prestige and the snapping of your mortal chains. Magic and more will be opened to you.”

“You make it sound enticing, don’t you?” she asked.

The Seelie hummed, the sound almost a purr. “We do. It is a dangerous path, and we wouldn’t hide that. It isn’t in our nature to do so.”

“And what will I owe you if I become a magical girl?” Amber asked.

“Nothing. Nor would we owe you anything. It is an equivalent exchange.”

“It doesn’t sound equivalent,” Amber said.

The little creature smiled. “It is.”

Amber tapped her feet on the ground, a steady, if rapid tap-tap-tap beat that raced along with her heart. “Will I be able to help my dad?”

“And all of humanity besides,” the Seelie said. “You will want instruction. Magic isn’t a fool’s tool.”

“Yeah,” Amber said. She licked her lips. “Will it hurt?”

“Not in a way you’re familiar with. It will burn, but you will be left without scars, it will twist you, but you will find yourself unbowed in the end.”

“That’s not a straight answer,” Amber said.

The Seelie laughed, a giggle that came from everywhere. “Forgive us. No, it won’t hurt you physically. Nor will it hurt you mentally. It will change the nature of your existence though, and some find that uncomfortable.”

The tapping of her feet played counterpoint to her dad’s laboured breathing.

“I’ll do it.”

The Seelie’s strange smile grew wider. “Wonderful,” it said before bouncing forwards and landing on Amber’s thigh. She leaned back as the cat-like creature climbed over her, it’s little paws digging into her sternum as if it weighed more than a man.

She locked eyes with it, and found herself unable to look away.

“This is not a contract, Amber Green, daughter of Melanie and child of the mother Lilith. This is an agreement. Our enemies are now yours. And in so sharing, we share with you your own potential.”

Amber started to breathe hard. The world started to contract around her.

“Greet Time, Amber, for in its fleeting way, it has recognized you already.”

Her chest burned, her skin warmed up, she felt tears spring into her eyes even as her vision went blurry. Her grip on the edge of the bed faltered.

She didn’t feel her knees crashing into the floor, but she did see the blurry ground inches away from her nose as she gasped for air and clawed at her throat.

Everything went cold, and the burning that had taken her a moment before was replaced by a freezing that was far worse. Her hands trembled, and even as she choked for air her entire body shivered.

And then, like a snap, it was gone and she felt something, some part of her she had never grasped before, twisting as if it were caught in a vice. Oh, oh god.

The world snapped.

Amber woke up with a cough on the floor next to a pile of vomit. There were beans in it, she noted idly. Her vision was... acute. Sharper than it had ever been.

She heard someone running over, then a gasp from the doorway.

A look up revealed a nurse, hand over her mouth. “Oh! Wait! Wait I need,” the woman said before running off.

Amber climbed to her feet. She felt... fine. A little shaky. It was the wobbliness of her legs after a hard run, but all over. It was fading fast.

Her clothes were gone, replaced by a dark coat and... and pantaloons. She didn’t question it, not the knives strapped to a belt around her waist. Even the hat perched lightly on her head didn’t matter.

“Dad,” she muttered.

“He’s here,” came the Seelie’s voice. “Your powers are interesting,” it said. “I think they would serve in healing quite well.”

She stumbled over to her father, hands grabbing at the gown over his chest. “How?” she asked.

“The magic is yours. Use it.”

The Seelie sat across her father on the bed.

“But beware using too much.”

Amber... knew what he was talking about, somehow.

Her hands glowed, and an awareness of... time, clicked into place. She could see her father’s life, a thread clipped short. Not now but soon. She tugged it back, and before her eyes her father’s face smoothed out, hair shifted, his weight decreased.

“Careful,” the Seelie warned.

She knew that even now he was still sick.

Something strained in her gut, but she pulled harder, and harder and--

The world snapped, and Amber found herself gripped around the heart.

The last thing she saw was the Seelie, on the bed’s edge.

“We told you to be cautious. How very careless.”

***