Sunday, January 2, 2022 - Greenwich Village, New York City, United States

They made their way into the apartment and sat down at the table in the “common” area, meaning the part of the studio that had been cordoned off with some cheap Ikea curtains for the kitchen and table.

Jade stared at her and half started with questions multiple times: “What…”. Then a period of silenced, “How…”, interspersed with jags of muffled sobbing. She didn’t look all that together.

Ella started moving around the kitchen. She wet a kitchen towel and began wiping at Jade’s hands, working off the blood that had started to dry there. Eventually she got her to go the sink with a scrubbing brush which did a much better job.

Meanwhile Ella grabbed her phone from the counter and sent out a quick text. Then she started making some chai. The way her mother made it. She grabbed some ground spices from the cabinet, peeled the plastic off of them, and then put them in. She threw the spices into a pot and brought them to a boil in milk, throwing in a couple of Lipton tea bags and pulling it off the heat to steep.

Okay it wasn’t the way her mother made it since she didn’t have the right spices, had used pre-ground, and her mother would have been appalled at her using skim milk.

She transferred the tea bags into two cups and poured the chai over each along with copious sugar and brought them over.

“Drink this.”

Jade stared at the mug and cupped it in both hands. She took a sip. They sat there at their tiny dining table and drank the tea, letting it warm them up. Not saying a thing. Jade kept switching between almost saying something, sniffing and holding back tears, and taking a sip of her tea.

Eventually there was a knock at the door, and Ella got up to let Charlie in.

“I don’t know what is going on downstairs, there are police and they were making everyone go around to the back entry.”

“The blood. It was Ella’s” Jade said quietly. “They shot at us… and Ella… Ella…” She started sobbing. Ella and Charlie both moved towards her, and Ella pulled her into an awkward side hug which turned into Jade bawling into her shoulder.

Eventually Jade settled down. Ella made some more tea, chamomile with honey this time.

She took a deep breath, “Charlie, sit down. I have something to tell you guys. And it will sound absolutely insane.”

Charlie sat down, and Ella started talking. Starting with that night on the subway tracks and the castle. Charlie being passing out while she ahd explored further. Her getting stabbed by a strange creature and waking up the next day with changed eyes. Ella pulled out her contacts then. Next, the party in Harlem and the strange beings she had met there.

She skipped over the truth about Jae-Young as it was his secret.

She described the glowing runes on the dagger when she was stabbed again. Her crown, and she made it appear on her head, her eyes glowing. Halloween and the dragon shedding strange sparkles and the bear. She pulled out the bear tooth and showed it to them and talked about magic. And to prove that she drew some shapes in the air that glowed before falling to glittery dust and fading away.

Finally she came to the events outside the apartment building. She asked Jade to describe what she had seen, trying to draw out something.

Jade continued, “We had just made our way to the door and Ella was about to buzz us in when…” Charlie reached over and squeezed Jade’s hand, “there was a loud sound like a mix between a clap and thunder. And then Ella fell down and there was blood everywhere. The door glass shattered.”

Charlie sat there silently and waited.

“Ella was bleeding all over the place. And then she started talking but it didn’t make much sense.”

“I was kind of woozy, and I think in shock,” Ella interjected.

“And then her hand started glowing like she just showed us. She reached into her shirt onto her shoulder and the bleeding stopped. No. It all vanished. Anything that was touching her anyway.”

“Yeah I healed it but I think I did something else. Not sure but I sort of think I took my shoulder back to before I was shot. Which is pretty impossible.” Ella started muttering under her breath about the arrow of time, wormholes, and negative spatial curvature.

It was Ella’s typical foray into esoteric physics that broke the mood.

Jade smiled fondly at her roommate, “Shut up Ella. So we were hiding behind those concrete planters and we couldn’t see anything, but Ella did something and her eyes started glowing very brightly and that crown appeared and looked almost solid. She pointed her finger and a light that was blinding emerged and shot over towards the shooter. And then the shooter stopped.”

Jade turned to Ella and asked, suddenly frightened again, “Did you kill him?”

“No. I missed.” Ella felt forced to add, “I was trying to though. I just missed.”

“And then we came in and you came over.” Jade gestured to Charlie.

Charlie sat for a moment and looked back and forth between Jade and Ella.

“What the shit Ella! Seriously, what the shit!?”

“I wanted to tell you. But for some reason I felt like if I did, you guys would become part of it. It just kept it from being real!” And with that Ella started crying.

Charlie reached out, her eyes wondrous, and touched her head. “You have that glowing crown on your head.”

“I know. It is the most ridiculous thing. I always wanted to be a princess when I was five. Now I would give anything to get rid of this thing.” Ella hiccuped.

That sat contemplatively, both Jade and Charlie sneaking glances at Ella’s glowing eyes and crown. Eventually it faded.

Ella broke the silence, “So now you know why I have been learning to fight. I’ve been learning to shoot a gun also and even applied for a gun carry permit. I have no idea what to do about this except be ready to defend myself and try and learn whatever I can. I go from preparing to be some sort of fighter, to thinking maybe this thing means I need to know about government, to spending time trying to find out what is going on, to ignoring it all and working on my research. I am so all over the place…”

She looked up at them, “But, I have a lead. Someone, or something, lives here in New York. But someone who may know more. So I need to meet him and find out what is going on.”

Charlie tentatively essayed, “It snowed blood when I was home for Christmas. I said it was a bad trip, but I knew it happened. Literally frozen flakes of blood drifting down. Almost everyone refused to talk about it. The news stations that reported on it were shouted down. But it happened, and it was the scariest thing I have ever seen.” Saying things often made them real and Charlie gained confidence as she said it.

“So what happens next?” Charlie asked

Jade jumped in, “Yeah. Let’s go to the police downstairs. They can find this guy.”

Ella held up her hand, “I think that isn’t a bad idea. But who was shot? What did we see? I can’t say it is my blood out there.” She gestured at her right shoulder where she had been shot.

Jade sat back and looked anxious. Charlie was almost pacing in the tiny amount of space.

“Look, we can just say we were freaked out and hiding if we want to go the police tomorrow.” Ella stood up and bounced up and down on her heels.

“How can you just be so calm about this!”

Their conversation took turns being heated and silent. Jade was freaked out but Charlie became more and more blank.

She eventually realized her phone was gone, and that started her crying in fits and jags.

Eventually Jade fell asleep with Ella holding her. Later, Charlie and Ella sat on her bed and just whispered back and forth.